by Sami Lee
And now he was gone. So maybe sleeping in until the sun was well and truly up was a no-no as far as one night stands went.
One night stands. Yesterday she’d assured him that was all she wanted and at the time she’d believed it. She had no desire to complicate his life, wouldn’t hurt Phillipa for the world. She wasn’t going to go all fatal attraction on him and insist he give her more than what she’d asked for — for him to be her first lover. For one night, only one night, of his loving.
Yet the post-coital reality wasn’t as simple as that. With a groan, Meg sat up in bed, her stomach pitching. For a second she thought she might throw up but thankfully the urge passed. They’d had a little wine with dinner last night, but she knew that wasn’t the cause of her physical distress.
Meg recalled the way Bryce fed her morsels of ravioli from the Italian feast he’d had delivered once their rumbling stomachs had forced them out of bed. She’d fed him mouthfuls of her veal scallopini in return and in between feedings they’d shared slow, indulgent kisses until Bryce had swept her into his arms and carried her back to bed. It had been very Rhett Butler of him and it made Meg positively gooey inside to remember it.
‘That there is your problem, Meg,’ she muttered. She had shown Bryce parts of herself she’d never shown anyone and now, the morning after, she was even more in love with him than she’d been yesterday. Fool that she was, she’d given him not only her body but her heart. How could she carry on now as though nothing had changed when the entire world looked different to her?
You just do, Meg. That’s all there is to it.
Slipping out of bed, Meg located the business shirt Bryce had let her borrow last night after she’d showered. Her paint-spattered clothes were in the laundry but she’d never quite made it downstairs to collect anything else to wear. Buttoning up the business shirt and loving the way it felt against her skin, Meg left the bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs.
There was no sign of Bryce in the living room. Perhaps he’d gone out altogether, a thought that made her stomach roll again. Did he regret last night so much he hoped not to see her at all today? Tears stung her eyes as she reached the top of the stairs to the lower level and her own bedroom.
‘Where are you sneaking off to?’
Meg squealed in surprise and spun around to see Bryce standing there holding a tray laden with food. He wore a pair of clean jeans, a blue polo shirt and a mystified expression. She grabbed the bannister for support and pushed her other hand against her pounding heart. ‘You scared me!’
‘Perhaps because you were slinking through the house like a cat burglar. Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, it’s fine. I was just…’ she waved a hand in the general direction of downstairs, ‘going to get dressed.’
His gaze trailed over her, lingering on the length of thigh left bare by his shirt. ‘What you’re wearing looks fine to me.’
The husky rumble of his voice sent heat flushing through Meg. She clung tighter to the bannister as her knees threatened to give out. ‘I didn’t think you meant to give me your shirt permanently.’ Because nothing about this situation is permanent, right?
‘It looks better on you than it ever did on me.’
‘Gawd! I don’t believe that.’
His lips twitched at her clumsily issued compliment. His faint smile threatened to turn her into a giant puddle of melted goo. ‘Are you hungry?’ he proffered the tray. ‘I made breakfast.’
Meg stared at the arrangement of food on the tray. Toast, tea, a bowl of yoghurt with blueberries piled on top and a glass of juice. ‘That’s for me?’
His lips twitched again and his eyes turned warm. ‘Who else?’
‘I thought…when I woke up and you were gone I thought you were avoiding me. So I figured I’d come downstairs and get dressed and behave like nothing out of the ordinary happened.’
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ The endearment seeped into her. Bryce set the tray down on the coffee table. Then he walked toward her, his gaze so soft and kind Meg could hardly bear it. Her eyes watered as he took her into his arms and settled her face into the curve of his neck. His voice was a raspy murmur against her temple. ‘What happened last night was very extraordinary, and I can’t pretend otherwise. I hope you know how honoured I am that you let me make love to you. I’ll cherish the memory of that. Always.’
A sob burst out of her, uncontrollable and mortifying. She was not a weepy female who needed comforting at the slightest emotional upset. Yet she didn’t have the strength to draw out of Bryce’s arms, not when he was cradling her so close, stroking her hair and whispering that everything was going to be all right.
‘I’m sorry,’ she eventually said, forcing herself to pull back a little. She wiped at her eyes, then gazed up at Bryce. ‘I’m feeling strangely emotional.’
He touched her cheek, wiping a tear she’d missed with his thumb. ‘That’s all right.’
‘And I’m not sure how I’m supposed to act. So I’m making a big mess of it.’
‘You’re not making a mess of anything. And I don’t want you to act at all. I want you to be you — my straight-talking, ingenuous, exuberant Meg Lacy.’
Meg’s heart seized although she was quite sure he hadn’t meant anything by referring to her as ‘his’ Meg. ‘Oh. Well, Meg Lacy I can be.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ His smile was amused, indulgent. ‘So what does Meg Lacy want to do?’
Go back to bed with you and stay there all day. Then I want to marry you and have four of your babies. Meg bit down on the admissions. She was quite sure Bryce didn’t want her to talk that straight. The thought even scared her a little. After all the years of rejecting the idea of marriage and kids, here she was embracing the concept with the last man who’d ever want it. She cleared her throat and forced herself to say something innocuous instead. ‘I want to eat. I’m starved.’
‘I thought you might be. Come on.’
They sat side by side, picking food off the tray Bryce had prepared and talking quietly about neutral things — like the dining-room furniture and what to do with it. The table and chairs had an antique look about them but Bryce told her his mother had bought them new sometime in the 1980s. ‘I have no sentimental attachment to the furniture. I don’t know why I’ve resisted replacing it all this time.’
‘Bryce, it’s the furniture that was here when your parents were. Of course it’s sentimental for you.’ She touched a hand to his leg, her heart going soft because he was so adorably clueless at times. ‘If you want to keep it, you should.’
He covered her hand with his. ‘No. It’s about time I made this place my own. For the last ten years it’s been nothing more than a shrine to the life my parents built. They’re gone, but I’m here.’ His expression lightened as he made his decision. He smiled at her. ‘Do you want to pick out furniture with me today?’
‘Do I ever!’ He laughed at her enthusiasm, appearing more relaxed and happy than she’d ever seen him. Meg liked to think that was at least in part her doing, and she knew she was glowing as she finished off her triangle of toast and washed it down with some juice. ‘When do you want to get started?’
‘I have no idea what time department stores open on a Sunday.’
‘Usually at ten.’ She ought to know, she used to work in one. It was little more than a month ago but it seemed like a lifetime to Meg now.
‘Hmm. Not for at least an hour then.’
There was something in his voice that made hot tingles chase themselves all over Meg’s skin. She turned to find him gazing at her with that hungry look in his eyes she recognised from last night. ‘Not for at least an hour.’ She blushed furiously at her own audacity. ‘Was there something you wanted to do while we wait?’
His response wasn’t in English — it was more like the growl of an untamed animal. Meg shivered in delight as Bryce pulled her in for a hot, ardent kiss. He coaxed her lips open and possessed her mouth, his desires clear in the act. Meg’s body responded with enthusi
asm and she clutched a handful of his shirt in her hand to steady herself.
When he pulled back his breathing was laboured and so was Meg’s. But there was concern, caution, in his voice. ‘If it’s too much for you, I don’t —’
Meg silenced him with another kiss, surprising herself with her own boldness as she slipped her tongue along the line of his lower lip. Bryce groaned and eased her back onto the couch, covering her with his body, infusing her with his passion as the kiss went on and on and Meg writhed and arched in blatant response.
Well, he’d said he wanted her exuberant. You ask, you get Bryce Carlton. Because I’m head over heels for you, you know that?
Meg kept the thoughts to herself, closing her eyes on the pleasure as Bryce began unbuttoning her shirt, trailing kisses along her sensitive flesh, inflaming it.
They didn’t get to the nearest department store until after eleven, as it turned out.
***
It hit Bryce what a disaster he’d created somewhere around the homewares department.
He was looking at table runners, wearing a stupid grin he was sure no man had ever worn before, not while shopping for dining accessories, when it occurred to him that he’d fallen in love with Meg. The kind of love that hit you over the head with the concussive force of an iron skillet. Bryce fancied he could see cartoon stars in his peripheral vision, circling his head, along with a flock of madly chirping birds that mocked him over how cuckoo he’d become.
‘What do you think of this combination?’ Meg asked, holding up a deep maroon table runner and some napkins the colour of milky coffee.
Bryce struggled to form an opinion about napkins when his heart was racing to complete the four-minute mile and every sense he possessed was distracted by the light floral scent Meg wore. It brought back memories of how her lithe body had squirmed excitedly beneath his this morning, driving him wild, activating his primal instinct to claim.
This morning. Not last night, during the dark hours that constituted their agreement about one solitary night to indulge their passions, but in the bright morning hours after he was supposed to have sated himself. He had planned to bring Meg breakfast in bed, have a mature, sensible chat about how they could never sleep together again and then spend the rest of the day as far away from her as possible so he wouldn’t be tempted to initiate a repeat performance.
Then he’d caught her trying to sneak away, had witnessed her tears, and every resolve he’d formed had crumbled beneath the weight of her distress. He’d held her, feeling guilty that he was the cause of her upset, but instead of fixing the mess he’d made he compounded it by ravishing her body again.
He couldn’t keep his hands off her, it seemed. It was bad enough before, but now that he knew the heaven of being with her he didn’t know how he was going to stay away.
‘Bryce?’
‘Pardon?’
Meg lifted the items in her hand so he could see them better. ‘The colour combination. What do you think?’
Bryce forced himself to focus on the items in Meg’s hand. ‘It’s nice.’
‘I think the runner will go well with the blonde wood of the new table and I saw some curtains with this exact same café au lait hue as a base a little while ago.’ She looked at him with wide, hopeful eyes. ‘Can we get them?’
With those eyes, she could ask him for a gold-plated Porsche and he’d find a way to get it for her. ‘Of course.’
‘Yay!’ She clapped her hands and bounced on her feet, the picture of happiness.
Bryce felt about ten feet tall, just because he’d made her happy. Yep, you’re in love with her, you idiot.
Dragging his attention from Meg with effort, he signalled to the sales clerk who’d been not-so-subtly trailing them through the store. The young man had sensed a huge commission the second Bryce had walked in and had been suitably attentive for the past two hours. It was clear the clerk assumed Bryce and Meg were a couple, and Bryce didn’t disabuse him of the notion simply because explaining the real situation would have been awkward in the extreme.
And maybe because it was a nice fantasy he couldn’t resist playing along with.
That’s all it is Bryce, a deluded fantasy. And if you’re fantasising perhaps she is too. You have to stop this.
‘Okay, back to curtains and then I swear that’s it for today. You don’t want me to buy out the whole store.’
‘My credit card can handle it, Meg. If you want to keep looking, let’s do it.’
‘No, we’ll get the curtains and go home. Phillipa will be back this evening.’
The mention of his daughter settled over them like a storm cloud, raining reality upon them. Whatever this was — this aberration, this stolen weekend — it was over the instant Phillipa returned and Meg once again morphed into the nanny, his employee. She never stopped being your employee, Bryce, but you slept with her anyway. You took advantage. You took her virginity.
You are scum.
Meg located the curtains she wanted and the sales clerk once again wrote the items down on the long list of things that would be delivered to the house tomorrow. The man’s eyes lit up when Bryce produced his platinum card. The hefty transaction was completed in little more than five minutes.
Once in the car park, Bryce couldn’t resist taking Meg’s hand. He loved the way it fit so perfectly inside his, the way her slender fingers curled around him. Unable to squelch the urge, he stopped in the middle of the garage to pull her in for a kiss, a slow, aching kiss that he stole because he knew it would have to be the last. He would have to let her go, once and for all.
He didn’t have it in him to give Meg the kind of relationship she deserved — romance, love, marriage, a true happy ever after. He couldn’t, not after Isabelle. That experience had left him jaded and soul weary, when what Meg deserved was someone with the same kind of optimism and sense of fun she possessed. She needed someone who would love her unreservedly instead of holding back because he was afraid of being hurt again.
She needed someone — anyone — other than him.
And he really needed to get her out of his house so he wouldn’t be tempted to ask her to settle for whatever facsimile of a relationship he could give her.
***
It wasn’t as difficult as Meg imagined it would be to slip back into the role of Phillipa’s nanny when she returned around dinnertime that Sunday. The girl was full of interesting news about her mother’s trip and the many lavish gifts she’d brought back for her, and her chatter kept Meg and Bryce distracted during the simple dinner of chicken, potatoes and peas that Meg prepared. Afterwards, Phillipa wanted help with her hair and a Butterfly Meadow story read to her because she insisted she was much too tired to do the reading herself. Meg braided Phillipa’s hair, but Bryce offered to read the book.
Something in Meg’s chest tightened when Phillipa’s eyes lit up at the thought of her father reading to her, and she had to sneak out of the room with a huskily issued goodnight before father or daughter saw tears swimming in her eyes.
See, Meg? It’s super easy to go back to being just the nanny…tears and erratic pulse rates aside.
Meg disappeared to her quarters, showering and changing into her pyjamas although it wasn’t yet nine o’clock. She thought it best not to emerge from her room again, so she read in bed for hours, willing sleep to come. At midnight she was still awake, nonsensically wounded that Bryce hadn’t come to her room after Phillipa was asleep, when she’d never thought for a minute he would. A sordid, stolen encounter while his daughter slept upstairs? That was not Bryce’s style. It wasn’t hers either, and she would have thought less of him had he suggested it.
So it made no sense at all that she missed Bryce like crazy as she lay alone in her bed. Her heart felt compressed by a vise and her body was cold without the heat of Bryce’s touch. The tears she’d managed to keep at bay all evening finally slipped out of her as she drifted into a fitful, yearning sleep.
The following morning she awoke early and at
tended to Phillipa’s breakfast. In the kitchen she found a note from Bryce, explaining that he had an early meeting and had already left for the office. He occasionally had early meetings, but for the last couple of weeks he’d been making more of an effort to share his breakfast with Phillipa and, by extension, Meg. His absence felt like a snub.
What did you expect, Meg? You slept with your boss! Things were bound to get awkward.
More and more she was realising how idiotic she’d been to believe she could share Bryce’s bed and then have things go back to the way they had been. She got Phillipa off to school, her heart in her throat as she said goodbye to the girl she’d grown so fond of. Being Phillipa’s nanny had always been a temporary position, but somewhere along the way Meg had gotten attached — to father and daughter. In some fantastical corner of her mind she must have begun to dream the situation would become permanent, that by some miracle of circumstance she’d never have to leave the tri-level house in Rose Bay.
Some miracle like Bryce falling in love with her and asking her to stay forever.
Idiot! You’re no better than those other nannies who hoped for the same thing.
She was going to have to quit before her heart shattered completely.
Her resolution put her in a sombre mood for the rest of the day, and not even the delivery of the new furniture and decorations for the dining room could pull her out of it. She’d give two weeks’ notice, at least, so she had time to explain her leaving to Phillipa. She couldn’t tell her the real reason, of course, but she’d think of something to soften the blow. She owed her that much.
Phillipa came home from school and there was a flurry of activity to keep Meg distracted once more. Bryce stayed late at the office, calling Phillipa to say goodnight because he wouldn’t be home until after her bed time. Exhausted and heartsick, Meg crawled into bed that night feeling worse than she had the night before.
