CHAPTER FIVE
ROMY bit her lip. ‘Lex, he’s very ill. Making him admit that he was wrong won’t make you feel any better.’
‘It’s not about feeling,’ said Lex angrily. ‘It’s about doing what’s best for the company. And signing this deal with Grant is the best thing for Gibson & Grieve.’
‘So…?’ Romy’s dark eyes were wary.
‘So let’s not disillusion him.’ Lex made up his mind so abruptly that he couldn’t believe that he had been hesitating. Surely it had been obvious?
He pulled the curtain back across the window and came to join Romy and Freya at the table.
‘You’ve told me it makes a difference to Willie if we’re together or not, and if that’s the case I’m not prepared to risk him changing his mind. If we start bleating on about separate rooms and not really being a couple, it’ll just be embarrassing for everybody.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Romy.
‘What does it matter if Willie thinks we’re a couple?’ Lex, talking himself into the whole idea, made the mistake of looking at Freya, who smiled at him through a mouthful of banana. He averted his eyes quickly. ‘It’ll only be for a night. How hard can that be?’
‘As long as he doesn’t ask too many personal questions.’ Romy thought she should inject a note of caution, but Lex was committed now.
‘We’re going to talk business tonight,’ he said. ‘If Willie is really concerned about getting the best deal for Grant’s Supersavers, he’ll have more important questions to ask.’
How hard could it be? Lex had asked, and at the time it had seemed all quite straightforward. The deal was within his grasp. He and Romy would have dinner with Willie Grant. They would discuss the arrangements and come to a gentleman’s agreement, and the deal would be done. The next day, he and Romy would return to London. Romy would go back to Acquisitions, Freya would go to the crèche that he had had no idea existed, and he could tell his father that he had succeeded where he never could.
Simple.
Only he hadn’t counted on the intimacy of sharing a room with Romy. Lex flipped open his computer to check the markets, while Romy had a bath with Freya, but it was impossible to concentrate with the squeals and splashes and laughter coming out of the bathroom. Romy’s vividly coloured outfit hung on the wardrobe door, and her perfume lingered distractingly in the air, coiling around his mind and making the Dow Jones Index dance in front of his eyes.
Worse was to come. The door opened, and Romy came out, carrying Freya. ‘I found this behind the door,’ she said, gesturing down at the towelling robe. ‘I hope no one will mind if I use it.’
‘I’m sure they won’t.’ Lex’s voice came out as a humiliating rasp, and he cleared his throat and scowled at the screen. Much good it did him. There might as well have been a photo of Romy there instead, her skin glowing, her hair damp to her shoulders, her face alight with joy in her daughter….
Romy threw a towel on the floor and laid Freya on it. ‘There’s not much room in the bathroom,’ she explained over her shoulder, ‘so I thought it would be easier to dry her out here. It’s all yours.’
Of course, what he should have done was get up straight away and have a shower, but instead Lex sat on at the computer, pretending to himself that he was working, forcing his eyes back to the screen whenever they drifted over to where Romy was kissing Freya’s toes and blowing raspberries on her tummy while Freya shrieked with delighted laughter and clutched at her mother’s hair.
Lex knew exactly how silky it would feel in Freya’s fingers. He knew how it felt tickling his skin, and memory hit him like a blow to his diaphragm: the hitch in his chest at Romy’s pliant warmth in his arms, her soft laughter in his ear, her kisses drifting down his throat, down, down, down… All at once he lost track of his breathing. It got all muddled up with the twist of his guts and the vice around his chest and he had to force his lungs back to order.
Inflate, deflate. In, out. In, out. Slow, steady.
No problem. There was no need to panic. There was plenty of oxygen.
Lex switched off the computer. There was little point in sitting there staring at nothing.
‘I’ll go and have a shower then.’ Even to his own ears his voice sounded unfamiliar.
Romy looked up briefly. ‘Good idea. I’m going to take Freya down to the kitchen and warm some milk for her.’
She wasn’t bothered by the intimacy of the situation at all, Lex realised, chagrined. She was too absorbed in her baby to think about him.
To remember Paris.
To wonder about that four poster bed or where he would sleep.
Frankly, it was a relief when Romy and Freya had gone. Lex showered and shaved and reminded himself what they were doing there. This was business. The deal was what mattered, and it was almost within his grasp. This was not the time to get distracted by silky hair or bare feet or joyous laughter.
By the time Romy came back with a sleepy Freya, Lex had himself back under control. He was buttoning a dark blue shirt when she knocked lightly and opened the door.
‘Don’t worry, I’m decent,’ he said with a sardonic look. ‘Although I’m not sure there’d be much point in being shy even if I wasn’t. It’s not as if we haven’t seen each other’s bodies before.’
That was better, Lex told himself. He sounded indifferent, as if he hadn’t even noticed that she had been naked beneath that towelling robe earlier. As if it would never occur to him to think about touching her, tasting her.
Romy had set the cot up in a corner. She laid Freya down and switched off the lamps nearby, glad of the excuse to dim the light and hide the colour staining her cheeks.
‘That was a long time ago,’ she reminded him uncomfortably. ‘We’re different people now.’
She just wished she felt different. It had been bad enough when Lex was sitting there at his computer, but now he was tucking his shirt into his trousers, doing up his cuffs, slinging a tie around his neck, as if they were a real couple getting ready to go out for the evening.
But if they were a real couple, she could go over to Lex and slide her arms around his waist. She could kiss his newly shaved jaw and run her fingers through his damp hair.
She could tug the shirt out of his trousers once more and slide her hands over his bare chest.
Make him smile, feel his arms close around her.
Whisper that there was time before they had to leave. Time to hold each other. Time to touch. Time to make love.
Romy swallowed hard. There was no time now. That time was past.
‘I’d better change.’
Wincing at the huskiness in her voice, she took her outfit into the bathroom. She saw immediately that Lex had tidied up. The bath mat had been hung up, the towels neatly folded and drying on the rail. The top was back on the shampoo and the toothbrushes were standing to attention in a glass.
Romy sighed. She would have tidied the bathroom herself if he had left it. Growing up, she had often heard Phin mock Lex for his nit-picking ways, and the chief executive’s insistence on precision and neatness was something of a joke in the office, but it didn’t seem quite so funny now. It just underlined the fact that a man with Lex’s obsessive need for order would never be able to cope with the chaos of living with children.
And why would that be a problem? Romy asked her reflection.
It wouldn’t, because Lex would never have to live with a child. He would never want to. Tonight was the closest he would get to family life, and Romy was quite sure it would be enough for him.
And that wasn’t a problem for her, either.
Was it?
Freya was asleep. Romy left one of the bedside lamps on and closed the door softly behind her. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.
They made their way back to the library together. ‘This place is enormous,’ said Lex as they turned the corner to find themselves in yet another picture-lined corridor. ‘Why does Willie stay here on his own?’
‘Duncardie reminds him of his wife. She loved it here, apparently, so don’t go telling him he’d be better off back in the city.’
‘I’m not completely insensitive,’ Lex said huffily.
He was hummingly aware of Romy next to him. She had emerged from the bathroom wearing silk trousers and a camisole, with some kind of loose silk jacket. Lex wasn’t very good on fashion, but the colours and the print made him think of heat and spices and coconut palms swaying in the breeze.
He could hear the faint swish of the slippery fabric as she walked, could picture it slithering over her skin, and he swallowed painfully. Her hair was piled up in a way that managed to look elegant and messy at the same time, and, with her bracelets and dangly earrings, she came across as vivid, interesting, and all too touchable. Next to her, Lex knew, he seemed stiff and conventional in his suit.
Willie was waiting for them in the library. He was standing in front of the fire, Magnus at his feet, and in an expansive mood. ‘We’ll talk details over dinner,’ he said when he had welcomed them in and complimented Romy on her outfit, ‘but I’m happy to agree in principle to a merger of Grant’s Supersavers with Gibson & Grieve.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful news!’ Getting into her role, Romy smiled and hugged Lex, whose arm went round her quite instinctively.
She was warm and soft and slender, and his hand rested on the curve of her hip. He breathed in the scent of her hair and felt silk slip a little under his palm, a sharp, erotic shock that made his heart clench.
Head reeling, incapable of saying anything, Lex gave himself up to the pleasure of holding her for the first time in twelve years, until Romy widened her eyes meaningfully at him. ‘Isn’t it, darling?’ she prompted him as she disengaged herself.
‘Wonderful,’ he managed.
It was barely more than a croak, but Willie wouldn’t notice. He was too busy being kissed by Romy. It was Willie’s turn to have that smooth cheek against his own, to feel that vibrant warmth pressed against him. To be enveloped in her glow.
Lex wanted to kill him.
Now Willie was returning Romy’s hug. Patting her shoulder. Smiling at her. Good God, why didn’t he stick a tongue down her throat and be done with it? Lex thought savagely, just as Willie looked over Romy’s shoulder. The expression on Lex’s face made the shaggy white brows lift in surprise, and then amused understanding.
‘I think we should celebrate, don’t you?’ he said as he let Romy go.
The deal of his career, and Lex had never felt less like celebrating. What was the matter with him? he thought, appalled at his own behaviour. This was the moment he had been waiting for, the deal within his grasp at last, and all he could do was think about how smooth and warm Romy’s skin would be beneath that silk top.
He rearranged his face into a stiff smile. ‘Excellent.’
‘I’ve got something really special to mark the occasion.’ Willie beamed at them both.
‘Champagne?’
‘Oh, much more special than that,’ he promised, turning away to a tray behind him. Reverently, he poured what looked like rich liquid gold into plain crystal tumblers.
Romy buried her nose in the glass when he handed one to her. ‘Whisky,’ she said, surprised, and Willie tutted as he passed a glass to Lex.
‘This is no ordinary whisky. This is a fifty year old single malt. A thousand pounds a bottle,’ he added just as Romy took her first sip.
‘What?’
She choked, coughing and spluttering while Lex patted her on the back. Well, what else could he do? Lex asked himself. He was supposed to be a concerned lover. Of course he would pat her on the back. It wasn’t just an excuse to touch her.
He was just playing his part. He wasn’t thinking about how little fabric there was between his hand and her skin or how easy it would be to let the jacket slither off her shoulders. He wasn’t thinking about how inviting the nape of her neck looked. How easy it would be to press his lips to it. To pull the clips from her hair and let it tumble down.
Without his being aware of it, his patting had turned into a slow rub. Romy, her eyes still watering, moved unobtrusively out of his reach.
‘Thanks,’ she managed, and Lex’s hand fell to his side where it hung, feeling hot and heavy and uncomfortable. Not sure what to do with it now, Lex stroked Magnus’s head instead.
‘Better?’ Willie smiled and lifted his glass when she nodded. ‘In that case…Slainthe!’
‘Slainthe!’ echoed Lex and took a sip.
‘Well?’ Willie eyed him expectantly. ‘What do you think?’
‘Unforgettable.’
It was true. Lex was gripped by a strange sense of unreality, shot through with an intense immediacy, as if he had shifted into a parallel universe where all his senses were on high alert. He was would never forget anything about this evening: the castle in the snow, the great dog beside him, the taste of this extraordinary whisky on his tongue.
The deal of his life.
And Romy, in the firelight.
Pleased with his response, Willie waved them to the leather sofa where they had sat before. ‘Sit down and tell me all about yourselves,’ he invited. Or perhaps it was a command.
So much for him not asking personal questions. Romy couldn’t resist a glance at Lex, who ran a finger around his collar and didn’t quite meet her eye.
‘What would you like to know?’ he asked Willie stiffly after a moment.
‘Call me a nosy old man, but I like to know who I’m doing business with,’ said Willie, settling himself comfortably into his chair. ‘I’m interested in how somebody with your reputation turns out be so different when you meet him face to face. I was expecting a soulless businessman, and I get a man capable of building a relationship with a beautiful woman, her baby and even my dog!’
His bright blue eyes fixed on Lex’s face. ‘Why do you keep Romy here a secret? I was so proud of Moira, I used to show her off whenever I could, so that everyone could see what a lucky man I was.’
Romy saw Lex’s jaw clench with frustrated irritation and she slid over the sofa and put her hand on his taut thigh before he could snap back that it was none of Willie’s business. Willie might have said that the deal would go ahead, but it wasn’t signed yet.
‘That’s not Lex’s fault,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m the one who wants to keep things a secret for now. It still feels very…new.’
That was true enough, Romy thought. By her reckoning they had been a ‘couple’ for all of two hours.
‘Lex is technically my boss,’ she went on. ‘I didn’t want my colleagues to think that I’d got the job because of him. I want to prove myself first.’
Willie chuckled. ‘So all this time we’ve been talking about the deal, you’ve known more about Lex than anyone?’
Also probably true. Faint colour tinged Romy’s cheeks.
‘We don’t normally work together,’ she said. ‘It’s just that Tim couldn’t come, and I couldn’t leave Freya…so we all came together.’
‘And I’m glad you did,’ said Willie. ‘I’m surprised to hear that this is a new thing. I got the impression that you’ve known each other a long time somehow.’
‘We have.’ To Romy’s relief, Lex managed to unlock his jaw, and she took her hand from his thigh before it started feeling too comfortable there. ‘Our mothers have been friends since they were at school,’ he said. ‘I’ve known Romy since she was born.’
That went down very well with Willie. ‘Ah…childhood sweethearts? Just like Moira and I.’
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly, would you, Lex?’ Romy decided it was better to stick to the truth as far as possible, or they would get hopelessly muddled. ‘Lex was older,’ she confided to Willie. ‘The truth is, he was hardly aware I existed before I was eighteen!’
‘Of course I knew you existed,’ said Lex with a touch of irritation, and he yanked at his tie as if it felt too tight. He looked cross and more than a little ruffled, Romy thought. Not at all like a man who was madly in love with her.
Funny, that.
She plastered on an adoring smile and leaned into his shoulder. Winsome wasn’t a look she did well, but it looked as if she was going to have to do the work for both of them.
‘It’s not as if it was love at first sight, though,’ she pointed out.
‘It felt like it.’
Much to Romy’s surprise, Lex appeared to have come to the same conclusion, or at least to have realised that he wasn’t giving a very good impression of a man who had found the love of his life.
‘I hadn’t seen Romy for three or four years.’ He turned to tell Willie the story. ‘You know what it’s like when you first leave home. I’d lost track of family occasions once I was at university. I remembered a gangly, unruly girl of fourteen or so, but then I called in to see my parents one weekend and Romy was there, and suddenly she was all grown up.’
And then before Romy realised quite what he was doing, he had taken her hand. His fingers closed around hers, warm and strong, and her heart began to bump against her ribs. She remembered that day so well.
‘I just stood and stared,’ Lex said, looking into Romy’s eyes, and it was almost as if he had forgotten Willie entirely. ‘Until then, I thought falling in love was just an expression,’ he said, his voice very deep. ‘But falling was just how it felt.’
He could still remember that moment, the lurch of his heart, the tumbling sensation as if he had slipped over the side of a cliff, the terror and exhilaration of falling, falling, out of control.
The pain of crashing into reality.
Lex took a gulp of his whisky. It burned down his throat, steadied him. Maybe thousand-pound bottles of whisky would have helped twelve years ago. Belatedly realising that he was still holding Romy’s hand, he let it go.
‘Eighteen?’ Willie was evidently doing some calculations in his head. ‘You’ve been together a long time, then.’
Romy glanced at Lex, and then away. ‘No. That time, the first time, we just had a week. We ran off to Paris together. It was very romantic. We had the most…’ She made a helpless gesture, unable to describe to Willie what that week had been like. ‘It was like stumbling into a different world, but we both knew then it couldn’t last.’
‘I thought it could,’ Lex contradicted her. ‘I asked her to marry me,’ he told Willie, ‘and she said no.’
‘I was only eighteen!’ Romy cried. ‘I was much too young to think about getting married. You agreed that it would have been crazy—’
She stopped, realising that Lex had agreed that morning. He hadn’t thought it was a crazy idea in Paris. But this wasn’t something they should be discussing in front of Willie. They were supposed to be in love, not two people still wrangling about the past.
She pinned on a smile. ‘Anyway, the upshot was that we went our separate ways,’ she told Willie. ‘I stayed in France for that year, and then I came home to go to university, but when I graduated I still had itchy feet. I spent the next few years working my way around the world. I ended up in Indonesia.’
Sensing Lex growing restless, Romy decided to speed the story up a bit. ‘That’s where I got pregnant. I came home to have the baby, but I didn’t see Lex again until his brother’s wedding last summer.’
No need to tell Willie that Lex hadn’t come near her all day.
‘Meanwhile, I’d been at Gibson & Grieve, doing what I’d always done,’ said Lex. ‘Then last summer, Phin got married, and Romy was there…’
‘And you fell in love with her all over again?’
Lex drew a breath, then let it out slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said.
When he looked at Romy, her eyes were dark and wary. ‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘I’d never forgotten her—how could I? I think I’d spent all those years just waiting for her to come home. I’d try going out with other women, but none of them made me feel the way Romy did. I was Phin’s best man. I remember standing by his side, and turning to watch the bride, and seeing Romy sitting a few pews behind.’
Willie seemed to be enjoying the story. ‘And that was that?’
‘That was that,’ agreed Lex.
There was a pause. Romy couldn’t believe how convincing he sounded. Beside him on the sofa, she studied him under her lashes. He was so lean and solid and restrained in his suit. What must it be costing him to come out with all this rubbish about being in love with her still? Only that morning, on the plane, he had reminded her that any feelings he’d once had were long dead.
We’ve both moved on, he had said.
He was a much better actor than she had expected him to be. Romy was sure he must be hating the need to pretend, to talk about feelings, but then, he had an incentive. He would do whatever it took to get Willie’s agreement.
‘Well, you’ve done a good job of keeping all this a secret,’ Willie was saying admiringly. ‘I’ve been trying to find out everything I can about you and there’s been no hint of it. I don’t mind telling you, it made all the difference to me that you were happy to get involved with a baby as well as Romy,’ he said to Lex. ‘That told me that you’re a man I can trust with Grant’s Supersavers, that you’re a man who understands what’s really important in life.’
‘I do,’ said Lex. He smiled at Romy, who did her best to conceal her amazement at how whole-heartedly he was entering into the pretence, and took her hand once more. ‘I thought I’d never find her again, and now that I have, I’m not going to let her go again. Freya’s part of the package.’
Romy’s eyes widened as he lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. ‘I’ve waited a long time for Romy to agree to marry me, and now she has. Between that and a deal to secure Grant’s Supersavers, I’ve got everything I ever wanted.’
Willie was delighted. ‘That deserves another toast!’
He hauled himself out of his chair to find the malt, thus missing the look Romy was giving Lex, who looked blandly back at her. She tried to tug her hand away, but he kept a firm hold of it as Willie splashed more of the precious whisky into their glasses.
‘Congratulations,’ said Willie, lifting his glass towards them both. ‘Here’s to love lost and found!’
‘Here’s to love,’ Lex and Romy agreed, smiling hard, but not meeting each other’s eyes.
‘What on earth did you say that for?’ Romy demanded as the bedroom door closed behind them at the end of that memorable evening.
‘Say what?’ said Lex, tugging his tie loose.
‘You know what! About getting married!’
Romy would have liked to have shouted, but Freya was asleep in the corner, so she was restricted to a furious whisper, which didn’t improve her temper.
Lex just shrugged and pulled the tie from his neck, undoing the top button of his shirt with a sigh of relief. ‘If we’re going to pretend, we might as well do it properly. And you’ve got to admit, it did the trick. Willie was delighted.’
‘He was delighted before. You didn’t need to complicate it with marriage.’ Romy sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off her shoes bad-temperedly.
‘People of that generation feel more comfortable with marriage. How else could I convince him that I was going to do right by you and Freya?’
‘Everyone knows that I’m never going to get married,’ she said, unable to explain just how uneasy the very idea made her.
‘People change.’
‘Not me!’
‘No,’ Lex agreed with a sardonic look, ‘I know not you. Fortunately, Willie doesn’t have any idea how stubborn you are.’
‘It’s not about stubbornness,’ said Romy.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. It’s about being realistic, not stubborn.’
Lex shook his head. ‘No, it’s not. It’s about being afraid. You’re afraid of marriage because you think it might end up badly like your parents’ marriage did, and you’ll be hurt again. Fair enough. I understand that. But I don’t quite see what the problem is here. We’re not getting married. It’s just a pretence.’
‘I know.’ Romy sighed, and twisted her bracelets fretfully. ‘I know you’re right. I just wish Willie wasn’t quite so thrilled. I don’t like lying to him.’
‘It’s a bit late to worry about that now,’ said Lex, exasperated. ‘This was all your idea in the first place!’ His voice had risen, until Romy pointed at Freya’s cot and laid a finger over her lips. ‘And you were the one who started on the “darlings”,’ he added more quietly.
‘I thought it would make us look more convincing,’ she said. ‘Little did I know that, once you got going, you would turn in an Oscar-winning performance! You nearly had me convinced!’
‘Look, what’s the problem?’ Lex had started on his buttons now. ‘We’ve done it. Willie’s agreed to the sale.’
As promised, they had discussed it over an excellent dinner, and come to what Willie called a ‘gentleman’s agreement’. The lawyers would draw up a detailed contract. He and Willie would sign it and the deal would be done.
‘We’ve done exactly what we set out to do,’ he reminded Romy. ‘We can go home tomorrow, and no one else will ever know that you once pretended for five seconds that you would consider the possibility of marriage.’
Romy wished he would stop unbuttoning his shirt. It was distracting her. Averting her eyes, she began to pull off her bangles one by one.
‘What if Willie finds out that we’re not really engaged?’
‘You said yourself he never leaves Duncardie now,’ Lex pointed out. ‘And we’ve already told him why we’re keeping it a secret for now.’
‘I suppose so.’
Romy wasn’t sure why the whole question had made her so twitchy. It was something to do with sitting next to Lex all evening. With the feel of his fingers warm around hers, his palm strong and steady on her back, his thigh beneath her hand.
She had been desperately aware of him. Ever since she had walked into the bathroom and seen him looking harassed at the prospect of changing Freya’s nappy there had been a persistent thumping low in her belly. A jittery, fluttery, frantic feeling just beneath her skin that was part nervousness, part excitement.
How was it possible to be furious with someone and still want to wrap yourself round him? To kiss your way along his jaw and press against the lovely lean hardness of his body?
At least the argument about the stupid marriage thing had got them over the awkwardness of being alone. Having divested herself of bracelets and earrings, Romy stomped into the bathroom to get undressed. Lex might be happy to start stripping off in front of her, but she didn’t have his cool.
She didn’t possess a nightdress. She hadn’t been expecting to share a room, so all she had with her was an old sarong. Romy eyed it dubiously as she wrapped it tightly under her arms. It was hardly the most seductive of garments, but she couldn’t help wishing it were a little more substantial.
If she had had time to think about her packing, she might have considered that a castle in the Highlands in the middle of winter might not be the most appropriate place for a sarong, and then she would have been prepared with a sensible winceyette nightie that would have kept her warm and, more importantly under the current circumstances, covered. Not that Lex had shown any sign of preparing to pounce, but, still, it was unnerving to contemplate the prospect of sharing a bed with nothing but a skimpy strip of material for modesty.
Well, it would just have to do.
When Romy went back into the bedroom, holding her clothes protectively in front of her, Lex was peering in the wardrobe. He had stripped off his shirt, but still wore his trousers, to her relief. The sight of his broad, bare, smooth back was enough to dry her mouth and set her heart thudding against her ribs as it was. God only knew what state she’d be in if he’d taken off any more clothes!
‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for an extra blanket,’ he said without turning round. ‘I’ll sleep on the floor.’
‘Lex, it’s snowing outside! You’ll freeze to death, even on the carpet.’ Romy dumped her clothes on top of her overnight case and checked that Freya was still sound asleep. Having been stomach-twistingly anxious about the prospect of sleeping with him, she was now perversely determined to prove to Lex that it didn’t bother her at all.
‘It’s an absolutely huge bed—and it’s not as if we’ve never shared a bed before, is it?’
‘No,’ he said, turning to face her, ‘but as you said before, that was twelve years ago and we’re different people now.’
‘We’re twelve years older and twelve years more grown up,’ said Romy firmly, hoping to convince herself as much as Lex. ‘We’ve got over all that.’ She saw Lex’s brows rise and flushed. ‘You know what I mean. And even if we hadn’t, how could I possibly sleep knowing that you were on the floor? There’s room for ten in there,’ she said, gesturing at the bed.
An exaggeration, perhaps, but it was certainly a very large bed. They would easily be able to avoid rolling into each other.
She hoped.
CHAPTER SIX
PULLING back the heavy cover, Romy climbed up into the bed and made a big show of making herself comfortable. ‘It’s up to you, of course,’ she said, ‘but if you’re worried about me making a fuss about sharing a bed, then don’t. I really don’t see why it needs to be a big deal.’
‘Well, if you’re sure…’
Lex splashed water over his face and brushed his teeth. He knew Romy was right. It was only sensible. The floor would be uncomfortable, not to mention cold, and there was no convenient sofa.
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.
Lust, plain and simple. She wanted to run her hands over him and press her mouth to his throat. She wanted to push her fingers through his thick hair and lick his skin. To taste him, touch him, kiss his lashes, his mouth, his mouth, and, oh, God, in spite of the cold, Romy could feel heat flooding her, burning in her cheeks and pooling deep inside her.
Desperate to distract herself, she bent and grabbed a handful of snow. Packing it into a ball, she threw it at Lex, who was stamping along beside her, absorbed in his own thoughts. The snowball glanced off his arm, and he turned, startled to see Romy eyeing him with a mixture of guilt and wariness as she stooped to try again.
Something flared in Lex’s pale eyes. ‘Right, you asked for it!’ he said, scooping up his own snowball. His aim was much better than Romy’s and, although she turned quickly away, it hit her right on her hat.
Her attempt missed him completely, of course, but she was already backing away, laughing as she tried to collect more ammunition. Lex’s next snowball caught her on the shoulder and she fell back For the next few minutes, they hurled snow at each other like a couple of kids, until Romy stumbled in the deep snow. She would have fallen if Lex hadn’t grabbed her arm and held her up with one hand. In his other, he held a huge snowball that he lifted, ready to stuff it down her neck.
‘No, no, please!’ Romy was laughing and shrieking at the same time. She was covered in snow by then, but the thought of it down her neck… Ugh! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun.
‘Do you give in?’
‘I give in! I give in! You win!’
‘All right, then.’ Lex let the snowball fall, but he didn’t let go of her arm. They had both been laughing, but all at once their smiles faded and their eyes locked with an almost audible click as the glittering landscape shrank to a bubble where there were just the two of them, staring at each other.
‘Do you think Willie is still watching?’ he asked softly.
‘I…don’t know,’ said Romy with difficulty.
‘If we were really engaged, I’d probably kiss you now, wouldn’t I?’
‘You might.’ Romy’s throat was so tight, it came out as an embarrassing squeak.
‘And would you kiss me back? If we were really engaged?’
‘Probably,’ she managed.
Lex brought his gloved hands up to cup her face, and Romy trembled with a terrible anticipation.
‘Then let’s show Willie just how in love we are,’ he said, and bent his mouth to hers.
His lips were warm, so warm in contrast to the stinging cold of the air, and so sure. They sent Romy plummeting through twelve long years, and she clutched at Lex’s jacket, gripped by a dizzying mixture of excitement and fear and utter peace. Her senses whirled as she swung wildly between extremes, between heat and cold, between then and now. Between stillness and rush. Between the sense of coming home and the sense of standing on the edge of a dizzying drop.
When Lex pulled her closer and deepened the kiss, Romy wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back harder, breathless at the rightness of it. It felt so good to taste him again, to hold him again. Every cell in her body was sighing—no, was singing—’ At last! At last!’ The sunlight glinting on the snow was inside her, sparkling and flickering and shimmering along her veins in a glittery rush.
They broke for breath, kissed again before they could realise just what they were doing. Or that was how it felt to Romy, who had abandoned any attempt to think and was desperate to hold onto this moment, pressed against Lex’s hard body, kissing him, being kissed, and the dazzling light all around them.
And then, out of nowhere, there was a huge bump, like a ship knocking into them, and they both lurched to one side.
‘What the—?’
Magnus, bored, was looking for attention, and was rubbing his great rump against Lex, who drew a long and not entirely steady breath and let Romy go.
‘I think maybe I needed that, Magnus,’ he said.
Romy swallowed. She felt jarred, as if she had been on a spinning roundabout that had suddenly stopped, and it was all she could do not to throw herself back into Lex’s arms.
But that would be a very, very bad idea, she remembered. Because they weren’t in Paris now. They were in Scotland, and it was twelve years later and very cold, and they were just pretending. It had just been a kiss for show, in case Willie was watching.
Hadn’t it?
She moistened her lips. ‘We’d better go in,’ she said, barely registering the dog gambolling beside them. ‘Freya might be awake.’
‘Yes,’ said Lex, ‘perhaps we better had.’
What chance had he had of working after that? Lex switched off the light and climbed into bed beside Romy. It had been madness to kiss her out there in the snow, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. She had been so close, so perfect, and it had felt so right. The feel of her, the taste of her had set tremors going in his heart. He could almost hear it cracking.
It had been his own fault. He should have stayed inside and worked, the way he had intended to do. But when they came back to the house, and Romy went off to find Freya, instead of sitting down at his computer and emailing Summer, Lex had wandered around, eventually finding himself in a room that was empty of all but a few chairs and a piano.
And not just any piano. A Bösendorfer, no less. Lex had a grand in his penthouse apartment, but it wasn’t as big as this one. To Lex, it seemed to exert a pull that drew him across the room, to run his hand over its gleaming mahogany top and then lift the lid to press a key, then another and another. Without quite knowing how it had happened, Lex found himself sitting on the stool and letting his fingers run over the keys and then he was playing.
He played out the tumult of feeling inside him that had gripped him ever since Romy had ducked her head and stepped into the cabin. He played out the memory of her touch, the way she made him feel, and then, so gradually he hardly noticed that he was doing it, he started to play the strange feeling of liberation that morning, that sense of being dropped into a different world, isolated by the snow, where all the usual rules were suspended.
And after a while, the tune changed again, to echo old Scottish folk songs that he had once learnt, and to play out the glittering morning and the air and the hills and the water, and Romy, laughing in the snow.
Lex played on, absorbed in the music, unaware of anyone else until a movement from doorway made him look up. Willie was there, listening, and the grief in his eyes made Lex’s fingers still.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have asked if I could use the piano.’
Willie waved the apology aside. ‘I’m glad you did. I haven’t heard it since Moira died, but I can’t bring myself to get rid it.’
He asked if Lex would play again that evening, and Lex was glad to. He didn’t normally like performing for an audience, but playing was better than sitting next to Romy and feeling his hands itch with the need to touch her. Better than having to pretend to her that he didn’t want her, while pretending to Willie that he did.
He found some music in the piano stool, and played the most battered scores, which he guessed would have been Moira Grant’s favourites. Romy sat next to Willie and held his hand while the tears rolled down his face.
‘Thank you,’ he said simply when Lex had finished. ‘I’m glad you came. I’m glad my store’s going to be run by a man who can play like that.’
The thaw had set in already. By lunchtime, the glittering morning had vanished beneath the cloud cover, and the temperature had risen with remarkable speed. Tomorrow, it was clear, they would be able to leave. Lex lay in the dark and listened to the steady drip, drip, drip of melting snow outside the window.
Get through tonight, he told himself. That’s all you have to do.
Beside him, Romy was concentrating on breathing very quietly. The curtains hanging round the bed smelt musty, but the sheets were clean and faintly scented. The mattress was comfortable. It was dark. She had hardly slept the night before and now she was very tired.
There was no reason why she shouldn’t be able to sleep.
Except the memory of that kiss that had been thrumming beneath her skin all day. And then Lex’s playing had stirred up emotions Romy had rather left buried. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off his hands while he was playing, hadn’t been able to stop remembering those long, dextrous fingers smoothing and stroking, exploring her, unlocking her.
Stop thinking about it, she told herself. Get through tonight. That’s all you have to do.
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