by Jessica Hart
She clearly wasn’t bothered at the prospect, so he could hardly say that it bothered him. Romy might think that there was room for ten in the bed, but Lex was pretty sure that it wouldn’t feel like that when he was lying beside her. It wouldn’t take much to roll over and find himself next to her, and then what would happen? How would he be able to stop himself reaching for her?
No big deal, she thought.
Hah.
But there was nothing for it.
He didn’t even have any pyjamas with him. Normally he slept in the buff and he hadn’t expected tonight to be any different. He would definitely have to keep boxers on, Lex realised. It was going to be difficult enough without adding naked bodies into the equation, and he didn’t care what Romy said about being twelve years older. Some things didn’t change that much.
Remembering how cool Romy had been about the whole business, Lex took his time folding his trousers and hanging them up before he crossed over to bed. To his relief Romy had snuggled down under the cover so that only her nose and eyes were showing. That was good. It meant he couldn’t see her bare shoulders, or her bare arms, or her bare legs.
But he knew they were there. Oh, yes.
The dark eyes watched with a certain wariness as he pulled back the cover on his side of the bed, switched off the light and lay down.
They weren’t touching at all, but Lex was aware of her with every fibre of his being. His right side was tingling with her nearness. It would take so little to touch her.
Big enough for ten people? Lex didn’t think so.
He stared up at the canopy through the dark. He should be jubilant. The deal was done. Willie Grant had agreed to sell and Gibson & Grieve would have the foothold in Scotland they had wanted for so long. He could go back to his father and show him what he had been able to do. He had everything he’d wanted.
But all he could think about was Romy, lying beside him in the darkness. He’d been aware of her all evening, and it had been a struggle to concentrate on the conversation when his mind kept swooping between memories and noticing the pure line of her throat, how her hair gleamed in the candlelight. Her face had been bright as she leaned across the table to talk to Willie, and her earrings had swung whenever she threw back her head and laughed.
Lex’s throat had been so tight it was an effort to talk.
Twelve years, he had been trying to forget.
Her hair, dark and silky. The way it had swung forward as she leant over him, how soft it had felt twined around his fingers. Breathing in the scent of it as he lay with his face pressed into it, how it had made him think of long summer evenings.
Her eyes, those luminous eyes, so dark and rich and warm that brown was laughably inadequate to describe their colour. Looking into them was like falling into a different world, where nothing mattered but the feel of her, the taste of her, the need that squeezed his heart and left him dizzy and breathless.
Her mouth, too wide, too sweet. The way she turned her head and smiled sometimes.
The quicksilver feel of her, warm and vibrant and elusive. The harder he’d held onto her, the faster she’d slipped away.
The swell of his heart, the feel of it beating, when she lay quietly in his arms.
The aching emptiness when she had gone.
And now she was lying only inches away. It was a wide bed, as she had said, but it wouldn’t take much to slide across the gap between them. If he rolled over, if she did, they could meet.
But Romy wasn’t moving. Lex was fairly sure that she wasn’t sleeping either. She was too still, her breathing too shallow.
She wasn’t going to roll over, and neither was he. It was the last thing he should do, Lex knew. It had taken him a long time to gather up the wild emotions that had been flailing around inside him, but at last he had managed to press them together into a tight lump that had been settled, cold and hard, in the pit of his belly ever since. He couldn’t risk dislodging it and letting all that feeling loose again.
Besides, Romy had made it very clear that she wasn’t interested in resuming a relationship-look at the fuss she had made about even pretending to be engaged!-and, even if she had been, he didn’t have room in his life for a lover, let alone a baby. It was too late for that now.
Twelve years too late.
There was a muffled quality to the atmosphere when Romy woke the next morning, a strangeness about the light that was filtering through the heavy curtains on her right.
At first, puzzled by the musty fabric above her, she wondered if she was still dreaming, but a moment later memories from the day before came skidding and sliding in a rush through her mind.
Freya, sucking Lex’s shoelace.
The long drive through the snow.
Willie Grant’s monstrous dog.
Lex’s hand on her spine.
Lex. The sag of the bed as he climbed in beside her. Knowing that he was there, near enough for her to simply reach over and…
Romy jerked upright, realising belatedly that she was alone in the four-poster. From the cot in the corner came a cooing. Freya, it seemed, was also awake, but where was Lex?
The thought had barely crossed her mind before the door was shouldered open and Lex came in carrying two mugs. He was looking positively relaxed in his suit trousers with a shirt open at the collar and the sleeves rolled above his wrists, but he still managed to exude a forcefulness that seemed to suck some of the oxygen out of the room, and Romy found herself sucking in a breath.
‘Good morning,’ she said, feeling ridiculously shy.
‘Good morning.’ Lex offered her one of the mugs. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, so I helped myself to some tea. I thought you might like some.’
‘Thank you.’ Romy pulled herself further up the pillows and took a sip of the tea. It was black and sweet, just as she liked it. She lifted her eyes to Lex. ‘You remember how I take my tea!’
His gaze slid away from hers. ‘I’ve got a good memory.’
Romy wished her own memory weren’t quite so good. It might have made it easier to lie next to him all night.
But now it was morning, and Freya was singing happily to herself. Romy threw off the cover, only just remembering to secure her sarong in time, and went over to the cot.
‘Hello, my gorgeous girl. How are you this morning?’
It was impossible to feel awkward or cross or anything but joyful when Freya smiled like that. Romy picked her up and cuddled her, loving her warm, sweet smell and compact body, and Freya bumped her head into her mother’s neck and grabbed fistfuls of her hair as she babbled with pleasure.
Lex looked away from their glowing faces. ‘How did you sleep?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Fine,’ said Romy, and then wondered why she was lying. ‘Actually, if I hadn’t just woken up, I could have sworn I didn’t sleep a wink,’ she confessed.
She had been too conscious of Lex, of the lean, muscled length of his body on the other side of the bed.
After so long, it had been hard to believe that he was actually there, close enough to touch, but utterly untouchable. How many times over those years had she found herself remembering that week? Remembering the feel of his body, how solid and safe he had felt, remembering how sure his hands had been, how warm his mouth, marvelling at the passion he kept bottled up beneath the austere surface.
‘I didn’t sleep much either,’ Lex admitted.
‘Looks like we’ll both have to catch up tonight,’ said Romy lightly.
‘I’ve got a nasty feeling we’ll be spending another night here.’ He pulled back the curtains. ‘It’s stopped snowing, but I doubt we’ll be going anywhere today.’
She looked at him in dismay. ‘We’re snowed in?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Carrying Freya, Romy went to join him by the window, and caught her breath at the scene.
Outside, it was a monochrome world. Bare black trees, rimed in white. A black loch. Over everything else, a blanket of white that
blurred the features of the landscape, so that it all looked oddly blank and two dimensional. Above that, a sky washed of colour, except for the faintest hint of pink staining the horizon. It was going to be a beautiful day.
But not for travelling. There were no roads visible, not even a track.
‘Ah,’ said Romy.
‘Quite.’ Lex’s voice was as crisp as the snow piled high on the window sill.
Romy took Freya over to the bed and let her clamber around on the pillows while she drank her tea. ‘What shall we do?’
‘There’s not much we can do. It looks as if we’re stuck.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Summer should be in the office soon. I’ll ring her in a few minutes. She’ll have to reschedule tomorrow’s appointments, and she can let Acquisitions know why you’re not in.’
‘And meanwhile, we’ll have to be engaged another day?’ said Romy, who thought there were more important issues to be dealt with than Lex’s meetings.
‘Yes,’ said Lex after a beat. ‘One more day. Do you think you can manage that?’
She looked back at him over the rim of her mug, her eyes dark and cautious. ‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’
Lex fully intended to spend the day working as normal. He had the technology. Between his iPhone and his laptop, there was plenty he could do. But breakfast turned into an extended affair, with Romy chatting easily to Willie while Freya ate porridge with her fingers, and then, when Freya had a nap, Romy was determined to go outside and enjoy the snow.
‘There’s masses of old boots and coats in the utility room,’ said Willie when Lex pointed out that she had nothing suitable to wear. ‘Help yourself.’
Lex thought he might slope off to a quiet room and get on with some work then, but Romy was unimpressed. ‘You’re supposed to be madly in love with me,’ she said when he suggested it. ‘What’s Willie going to think if you let me wander off into the snow on my own while you huddle over your laptop?’
Which was how Lex came to be wearing a pair of old wellies and a faded oilskin jacket over a jumper he’d borrowed from Willie, who’d raised his brows when Lex had appeared at breakfast in a suit and tie.
Romy had never seen him in anything so shabby before, and she laughed that deep, husky laugh of hers at his expression. She was swathed in a similar jacket that had to be about six sizes too big for her, and the boots were nearly as big. A woolly hat was pulled down over her ears and a scarlet scarf wrapped jauntily around her throat. Her eyes were dark and bright. She looked, Lex thought, rather like a robin.
‘I don’t know what you think we’re going to do out there,’ he said grouchily as he pulled on a pair of gloves. ‘The snow’s far too deep to walk anywhere.’
‘It’ll be fun,’ said Romy, opening the door to a glittering world. ‘Just look how beautiful it is!’
Lex had been right about the snow making walking difficult. It came almost up to Romy’s knees, but she refused to give up and insisted on trudging down to the lochside.
It was so cold that her teeth ached with every breath, but she was conscious of exhilaration bubbling along her veins. The light was dazzling. Every twig, every leaf bending under the weight of a pristine mound of snow, seemed to jump out at her, and when they turned to look back at Duncardie it rose out of the snow like something out of a fairy tale, with its battlements and turrets and the backdrop of the mountains.
‘It looks like a stage set, doesn’t it?’ said Romy. ‘You could almost believe a princess was sleeping in one of those towers. Perhaps we’ve stumbled into a magical kingdom without realising it!’ She sniffed happily at the crystalline air. ‘There’s something unreal about today.’
‘That would certainly explain why we’re freezing our butts off out here when we could be warm and dry inside,’ said Lex, slapping the arms of his waxed jacket for warmth.
‘Come on, Lex, you’ve got to admit it’s beautiful.’ Romy turned and headed along the edge of the loch. It was hard going. She had to lift her feet high and stamp down through the snow, and she was soon puffing, but at least the exercise kept her warm.
‘It looked beautiful from inside,’ Lex grumbled, but he fell into step beside her.
‘Look, there’s Willie,’ Romy said, spotting the portly figure watching them from one of the windows. She waved, and Willie waved back.
‘I notice he’s staying tucked up nice and warm. He’s got more sense. Probably there shaking his head at crazy Sassenachs. ‘
Romy rolled her eyes and pushed him. ‘Oh, stop being such a crosspatch! I know you hate being unlashed from the office, but it’ll do you good to get outside like this. You’re getting some exercise, breathing in all this clean air…’
‘Getting frostbite,’ Lex put in.
‘Can you put a hand on your heart and tell me that no part of you finds this exciting?’
Lex stopped and, surprised, she stopped too. She was smiling. Her skin glowed, and her eyes were brilliant. The light was so crisp that he could see her in heart-stopping detail-the few strands of hair escaping from beneath the hat, her brows, the crooked front tooth-and he felt something shift and crumple inside him.
He hoped it wasn’t his heart.
He opened his mouth to answer. Afterwards, Lex often wondered what he would have said, and if it would have been the truth, but before he could decide Romy caught sight of something behind him and terror rinsed the smile from her face. Sucking in a sharp breath, she stumbled towards him, grabbed him by the waist and buried her head in his chest.
Instinctively, Lex closed his arms around her, and looked over his shoulder. Magnus, the Irish wolfhound, was bounding towards them, snapping at the snow with his great jaws. His muzzle was encrusted with white and as he got close he barked with exuberance and shook joyously, spraying snow everywhere.
Romy made a tiny sound deep in her throat and burrowed closer, as if she were trying to get inside his jacket.
‘He’s playing,’ said Lex calmly. ‘He won’t hurt you.’ Then, to the dog, ‘Magnus, sit!’
Surprised at the sudden command, Magnus skidded to a halt and sat, tongue lolling.
‘Let him sniff your hand.’
In response, Romy held tighter, but Lex was stronger and had already taken her hand in its glove and was stretching it towards the dog, who sniffed curiously.
‘Now stroke his head.’
‘I can’t,’ muttered Romy, shrinking as far from the dog as she could get without letting go of Lex.
‘You can.’ Lex moved her hand to the wiry head. Heart pounding, Romy let her glove rest there for a second before she whipped it back.
Lex clicked his tongue. ‘That’s not a stroke. Do it again.’
‘He’ll bite me.’
‘Romy, look into his eyes.’
Romy was stuck. She didn’t dare let go of Lex and walk away past the dog, but if she stayed where she was she would have to touch the dog again.
Resentfully, she turned her head against Lex’s chest and made herself look into the dog’s eyes. They weren’t a rabid red, as she had imagined, but a warm, liquid brown and their expression, she realised once she had got past the dog’s monstrous size and those fearsome teeth, was calm and alert and not in the least aggressive.
Very, very cautiously, Romy let go of Lex and laid her hand on the dog’s head once more. Her heart jerked as Magnus butted his nose upwards, and she would have snatched her hand away if she hadn’t been afraid that Lex would think her a coward or, worse, make her stroke him again.
‘See?’ said Lex. ‘He likes that.’
And Magnus didn’t bite her hand off. He just sat there, watching her with intelligent brown eyes as she patted him. Romy let out a shaky breath. She was stroking a dog! She felt quite giddy with it.
‘Well done,’ said Lex, and added to the dog, ‘Good dog. Go on, off you go now.’
With that, Magnus took off, scattering snow as he went.
Romy laughed unsteadily. ‘I can’t believe it! I stroked that huge dog!’ She watched him
running in wide, exuberant circles, a faint, puzzled frown between her brows. ‘I feel…liberated,’ she realised after a moment.
‘That’s because you confronted your fear,’ said Lex. ‘It’s a hard thing to do.’
‘I bet you’ve never had to do it.’
Romy set off again through the snow. She was remembering how she had clutched at him and wincing inwardly. For someone so determined to look after herself, it had only taken the sight of a big dog for her to throw herself into Lex’s arms, acting entirely on instinct. And the worst thing was how safe she had felt there. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.
‘I can’t imagine you ever being afraid of anything,’ she said.
There was a tiny pause. When she glanced at Lex, she found him watching her, but as their eyes met he looked away. ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said.
‘What are you afraid of?’ she asked, her expression rife with disbelief, but he shook his head.
‘I’m too scared to tell you.’
Romy laughed. She was suddenly very happy. She wasn’t sure if it was the snow, creaking and squeaking beneath their boots, the sunshine or the purity of the air.
Or the man beside her.
When she glanced at him under her lashes, his austere profile was etched in startling detail against the sky. She could see the texture of his skin, every hair in the dark brows, the touch of grey at his temples that made her feel oddly wistful. He had a big nose that suited his strong face, and something about the line of his jaw made Romy ache with longing and memory.
She could remember how it felt to trail her lips along that jaw. She remembered the smell of him, the taste of him, the roughness of his skin where a faint stubble pricked.
She wanted to do it again. Lex was so big, so solid. She wanted to throw her arms about him and hold onto all that hardness and all that strength, not because she was scared of the dog, but because she could.
Which was pathetic, she knew. And wrong. Because she didn’t need anyone else to be strong. She could be strong on her own. She had to be.
Anyway, it wasn’t his strength that appealed, Romy told herself as that sudden wash of happiness was sucked away like a wave and something darker and more primitive crashed through her in its place.
