The Notting Hill Diaries: Ripped / Burned

Another ten emails pinged into my inbox. We were in the middle of this huge project at work and it wasn’t going away just because most of London had shut down for the holidays.

Half of me was hoping one of those emails was from Nico. I didn’t need to tell you which half but let’s put it this way—I was wondering if it was too late to ask Santa for a new vibrator. Was there one called The Niccolò? That was the one I wanted.

Idly I typed ‘vibrator—the Niccolò’ into the search engine. ‘I have to send the jacket back.’

‘You can’t do it today—he won’t be in the office. It’s Christmas Eve and it’s snowing.’ Rosie grabbed her coat. ‘Come with me. Better than moping.’

‘I’m not moping.’

‘You’re moping. And dreaming in Italian.’

I closed the lid of my laptop so she couldn’t see what I’d just typed. I had some secrets. ‘If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have had to dream. I would have had reality. I would have put my New Year’s resolution of emotionless sex into practice.’

‘It would have been a waste to rush something so good with a man that hot.’

‘So instead I didn’t get to do it at all? How is that better?’ I ducked as she threw me my coat. ‘I’m not going out. I still haven’t recovered from being naked in church. Someone might recognize me.’

‘The advantage of being naked from the waist up is that no one was looking at your face.’ Rosie threw my scarf. ‘Unless what you’re working on is an emergency, you’re coming.’

I wished she hadn’t used those exact words.

I wasn’t coming. That was the point. And yes, it was close to an emergency. At this rate I’d need resuscitation. Mouth-to-mouth. And mouth to— Well, you get the point. All I could think of was sex, which wasn’t good when there was no immediate hope for a satisfactory resolution.

Maybe freezing cold and snow would reduce the need for a vibrator.

It didn’t, but I had to admit there was something uplifting about walking through Notting Hill on Christmas Eve. Shop windows sparkled with lights and decorations and everyone was smiling, which didn’t make sense when you thought about the number of people who found this a miserable time of year or didn’t celebrate, but maybe they’d all stayed indoors.

A family strolled past, dragging an enormous tree. They were all holding hands. A mother, father and two very excited children with pink cheeks and shiny expressions. Something twisted inside me. I didn’t understand how I could envy that when it wasn’t what I wanted.

I caught Rosie’s eye and she shrugged, reading my mind.

That was one of the things I loved about my sister. Not only did she know what I was thinking without me saying it, but the past was the past. If something was messed up, then she was going to make sure she did it differently in the future. She was all about moving forward.

Snow was falling on her hair and I thought how pretty she was. Dancer-slim with amazing green eyes and blonde hair that licked around her face and fell to her shoulders. Long, slim limbs that could knock you out with one kick. It was her superpower.

Everyone else was thinking about Christmas, but I was thinking about the wedding. ‘Do you think I ruined their big day?’

‘No, but it would serve them right if you did. It was mean of them to insist you be a bridesmaid. Not that he was right for you, but they never should have put you in that position.’

She was my sister. It was her job to try and make me feel better, but I really wanted to believe her. It was Christmas Eve and no one wanted to feel bad about themselves on Christmas Eve.

‘It’s kind of ironic that I went because of my pride, and ended up half-naked in public and then kissing a man who hates me.’

Rosie made a snorting sound. ‘He doesn’t hate you. The two of you have chemistry. You always have. You two have always been much better suited than you and Charlie.’

I stopped dead and gaped at her. ‘How can you say that?’ I analyzed the evidence. ‘Nico Rossi has barely ever spoken to me. Whenever we’re in the same room, he ignores me. He doesn’t like me.’ Which made the whole thing all the more confusing. How could I possibly have had such a hot encounter with a man who didn’t like me?

‘He arranged for a car to drive us home from the wedding so you didn’t have to face the guests. That must have cost him a fortune.’

And I’d already tucked the money into the pocket of his Tom Ford. I didn’t want to be in debt to Nico. ‘He did it because he wanted to get us out of there. I’d already ruined the wedding.’

‘He rescued you when everyone else stood around gawping.’ My sister had stopped, too. Snow settled on her blonde hair. ‘He gave you his jacket. He didn’t have to do that.’

I frowned. ‘He didn’t want me naked in a church.’

My sister bent gracefully and scooped up a handful of snow, forming it into a snowball. ‘Who gave you a lift home the night you invited a load of us to celebrate your new job and Charlie proceeded to ignore you and get wasted?’

‘Nico.’ That evening had been the beginning of the end for Charlie and me. He’d proposed the day after, as an alternative to taking the job. I’d thought he was still drunk and kidding. Turned out he was sober and dead serious. He saw marriage to him as a preferable career option. ‘Nico, but he was driving past my house anyway.’

I waited for her to say ‘yes, you’re right’, but instead she watched me steadily and suddenly I wondered what explanation Nico had given his sister. Maybe he’d told her it hadn’t been his fault, that he’d been assaulted by my bare breasts and had merely been defending himself. He was a lawyer. I was pretty sure he could plead self-defense better than anyone.

On the other hand he didn’t strike me as the sort of man who made excuses.

Take him or leave him.

I’d tried to take him and look where that had got me.

I slid my arm through Rosie’s and resolved to stop thinking about him. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’ I’d never spent so long thinking about a man I wasn’t even in a relationship with. ‘So far my resolution to have emotionless sex isn’t turning out so well. Maybe I should have just gone for something more traditional like losing weight and getting fit.’

‘You’re already fit, and you’re not supposed to start your resolution until the New Year. Perhaps you’ll meet someone cute tomorrow.’ Something in the way she said it made me turn my head suspiciously.

‘Who have you invited? Please don’t tell me it’s that journalist guy.’

‘Just all our usual friends and a few others.’ She was studying a gingerbread house in the window of our favorite bakery. ‘Should we buy that?’

‘If you buy any more food there won’t be room for the guests. Rosie, who exactly is coming tomorrow?’

‘I never know until they knock on the door. You know what it’s like—not everyone confirms.’ She didn’t look at me. The year before she’d invited an entire class from her gym. They were all kicking in our living room.

We wandered on, staring in windows. I thought how much I loved London. We lived in a great area, with shops, markets and lively restaurants on our doorsteps. Our apartment was on the top floor of a beautiful red-brick Victorian house in the trendy part of Notting Hill. The streets were really pretty here and we were round the corner from Portobello market and an easy walk from Kensington Gardens. Loads of our friends lived nearby.

I wondered where Nico lived. Had he gone home to Italy for Christmas?

I hoped he didn’t need his jacket.

‘Hey, wake up. It’s been snowing all night.’

I burrowed under the covers, resenting my sister’s energy levels. ‘It’s too early.’

‘It’s Christmas. We have to open our stockings and there’s loads to do.’

‘Only because you insist on inviting half the world to lunch.’ I emerged from under the covers and looked out of my attic window.

London was covered in another deep coating of sparkling snow. It almost was a fairy tale, except I had to get up and cook Christmas lunch for a bunch of people I’d probably never met before when all I wanted to do was lie in a heap, watch back-to-back TV and try to forget about the disastrous wedding.

Rosie sprang onto the bed and crossed her legs, her daisy pajamas a cheerful, springlike rebellion against the winter weather. ‘Do you mind? Would you rather I didn’t do this?’

I was about to confess that one year it might be nice to just eat turkey sandwiches and flop in front of the TV when I saw the look of excitement in her eyes and knew I would never, ever, stop her doing this. And anyway, I understood why she did it. We couldn’t have a proper ‘family Christmas’ so she had a ‘friend Christmas’ instead.

Rosie was determined to create the life she wanted to live and I admired that.

‘I think it’s great.’ And I did. Because of my sister, no one we knew spent Christmas on their own. Everyone with nowhere to go was invited, which meant that some years our apartment was pretty crowded, but I didn’t really have a problem with that.

‘Are you sure?’ She dragged the stockings onto the bed. ‘I wondered whether you wouldn’t rather just have a quiet day.’

‘Not in a million years.’

Don’t get me wrong—my sister and I fought, but it was always over the small things. When it was anything to do with our past, we were a united front.

We opened the ‘stockings’ we’d laid out the night before (she filled mine and I filled hers. Last year we’d bumped heads stuffing stockings at the same time). Each was full of funny low-priced gifts. Thanks to the stress of the wedding, I’d bought all mine on the internet. I had no idea when Rosie had done her shopping. Soon my bed was covered in ripped paper and in amongst chocolates, a notebook, an exceptionally cute stuffed llama, and a festive bra and panty set in red with white faux fur trim, there was a packet of condoms with ‘not to be used until the New Year’ on them.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t remember mentioning those when I wrote to Santa.’

‘He knows you’ve been a good girl this year but he also knows you’re going to be a bad girl very soon.’ She winked at me. ‘And he wants you to be prepared.’

Rosie was as subtle as a kick in the stomach from a reindeer.

I was pretty pleased with the presents I’d chosen for her, and as well as the small things I gave her my main gift—a leather handbag in a soft shade of cappuccino she’d admired in the market back in November.

‘I love it.’ She cooed over it and then threw me an enigmatic look. ‘Your big present is coming later.’

I wondered how my present could be coming later when there were no deliveries on Christmas Day, but I had no time to dwell on it because we were expecting a load of people and we had to produce food.

Surrendering to the inevitable cooking marathon, I showered quickly and teamed my favorite skinny jeans with thigh-length boots and a cute shirt with shell buttons. Underneath I was wearing my new festive underwear (including the bra, in case you were wondering. Never let it be said I don’t learn from my mistakes).

I reported for duty in the kitchen just as Rosie staggered through the door carrying the turkey. It had spent the night in our hallway, apparently reaching ‘room temperature’.

‘This needs a bit of attention. Can you do that while I make the stuffing?’

I looked at it doubtfully because I wasn’t much of a cook. ‘What sort of attention?’

‘There are some stray feathers. Pluck them out.’

She wanted me to pluck the turkey?

‘Poultry hair removal isn’t exactly my specialty,’ I began, but I was talking to myself. Rosie had already left the room, whirling through the flat singing Christmas carols. I wouldn’t have minded, but my sister was a much better dancer than she was a singer.

I stared gloomily at the turkey. It had dark stubble on one leg. Clearly the person who had prepared this turkey for the oven had been anxious to leave work early. I looked at the stubby ends poking out of the plump pale skin and sympathized. It wasn’t easy keeping yourself smooth. What the hell was I supposed to do?

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked my texts and emails but there was still nothing from Nico. Not that I was expecting ‘Merry Christmas’, but I thought he might at least have demanded his jacket back.

‘Stop looking at your phone.’ Rosie was back in the kitchen, squeezing orange juice into a bowl of cranberries. ‘He isn’t going to call you.’

‘I have no idea what you mean. I was checking my work emails.’

‘On Christmas Day?’

I wondered why she was so sure he wouldn’t call me. I had his jacket. It was Tom Ford. If nothing else, he should want it back. A guy like him was bound to be going to lots of smart dinners over the holidays. ‘This project is important. And you’ll be busy once Christmas is over.’ Rosie’s phone never stopped ringing with people wanting her to help them get into shape. Usually I didn’t see her until February when everyone went back to being inactive slobs.

The doorbell rang. We were nowhere near ready for guests and I looked at her in horror but Rosie smiled, which I thought was a very odd reaction. Given the hairy turkey and the state of our kitchen I would have anticipated screaming.

She vanished to answer the door and I decided life was too short to pluck a turkey. And anyway, I needed rapid results.

I formulated a plan, congratulating myself on my ingenuity. Behind me I could hear our apartment slowly filling up with people and it was quite a few minutes before Rosie came back into our pretty country-style kitchen. ‘Hayley, you need to—’ She broke off and stared at me in disbelief. ‘You’re waxing the turkey?’

‘You told me to remove the stray feathers.’ I ripped the strip, removing feathers and most of the skin. ‘Oops. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to turn out.’

‘You were supposed to pluck it!’

‘There was no time to pluck each feather individually.’ We both stared at the skinless leg of the turkey, me with morbid fascination and Rosie with horror.

‘I can’t believe you waxed our turkey! You’ve ruined it.’

I felt a stab of guilt. ‘Just one leg. And leg meat is often dry.’

‘I’m never letting you near my kitchen again.’ Rosie shoved me aside and it was only then I remembered she’d come in to tell me something.

‘You were telling me I needed to do something. What?’ I turned my head and almost passed out because Nico was standing there, his broad shoulders blocking my view of the living room and the other guests.

I’d thought about nothing but him for the past few days. Sometimes when you fantasized about a guy and then you saw him again, you realized you’d built him up in your head. Not Nico. He was truly spectacular. And imposing. He filled the doorway of our kitchen and he glanced from me to the turkey and lifted an eyebrow.

Seriously unbalanced by his unexpected appearance, I gave what I hoped passed for a casual shrug. ‘Not everyone likes leg.’

‘True.’ Those dark eyes met mine with sardonic humour. Not a smile, but definitely humour. ‘I’m more of a breast man myself.’

Oh, God, why did he have to say that?

Immediately I was back in that room at the wedding, with him showing me just how much of a breast man he was. I wondered what the hell he was doing here.

Presumably he needed his jacket for some Christmas gathering or other, but this seemed like an odd time to show up on our doorstep.

I turned to look at Rosie, but she was in a panic over the waxed turkey.

My sister had no sense of priorities.

I was about to fetch Nico’s jacket and send him on his way when I realised he wasn’t alone.

Kiara stood in the doorway, groomed and polished as ever. She gave me an awkward smile, which I returned. At a guess I’d say mine was more awkward than hers. I felt more naked than the turkey (although without being vain, I’d say my legs were looking a hell of a lot better).

Nico was leaning casually against the doorframe watching me from under those thick lashes, the way he had when we’d kissed. He might as well have been touching me because I could feel his gaze right through me. The sensation started as a tingling on the surface of my skin and then it was a warmth through my veins, and then the warmth turned to heat. The heat pooled low in my pelvis and I didn’t think it had anything to do with my fur-trimmed panties. It exasperated me that I could feel like this. And what was even more exasperating was the fact he knew I was feeling like this. Not that he looked smug or anything. Oh, no. If I’d had to describe his expression I would have said ‘watchful’.

He kept looking at me. Unflinching. Unembarrassed. As if he’d asked himself a question and was now looking at the answer.

Then he glanced from me to the woman standing quietly next to him.

‘You haven’t been formally introduced, have you?’

Oh, great. He was going to ram home the fact that his sister had only ever seen me half-naked. ‘No.’ I spoke between my teeth. ‘We haven’t.’

‘This is Kiara. Kiara, this is Hayley. You saw her briefly at the wedding.’

All right, enough!

It might have been brief, but I had a feeling it had been fairly comprehensive.

What was the guy playing at? One more comment like that and I’d give him one of my own kicks, which might not have been as impressive or elegant as my sister’s, but would still have threatened his ability to father children.

‘Hi, Kiara. Lovely to meet you.’

I tried not to look at him even though I could feel him looking at me. He hadn’t stopped looking at me since he’d walked into the kitchen. Being on the receiving end of that smoldering, intense gaze made my legs turn from a solid to a liquid. I was about to reach for the fire blanket Rosie kept in the kitchen and throw it over myself.

‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ Kiara said earnestly. ‘I know you’re an engineer. I’m in awe. I’m hopeless at Math and Physics. Nico used to tear his hair out helping me with homework.’

He’d helped her with homework?

I blinked.

I tried to imagine this smooth, sophisticated guy sitting patiently by his sister, helping her with algebra.

‘Well that’s, er, lovely.’ And honestly I did think it was lovely. Except that I was confused by the contradictions. ‘You came here for your jacket, so I ought to get that for you—’

Nico was still watching me. I wondered if part of his job involved interrogation because his gaze was like a laser. If I’d had a mirror I would have checked there wasn’t a red dot on my forehead.

There was a long, pulsing silence and he continued to look at me as if something I’d said had answered a question lingering in his head.

‘I’m not here for the jacket. We’re here because Rosie invited us to join you for Christmas.’

Chapter Five

She what?

My sister had invited him without telling me.

I didn’t know whether to kill her or kiss her.

Kiara was looking anxious. ‘It was kind of you to invite us both. Are you sure it’s all right?’

No, it wasn’t all right.

Why hadn’t she told me?

Coward.

I turned my head to look accusingly at Rosie. I felt like yelling ‘chicken’ but then realized it would confuse people as she currently had her head buried in a turkey.

I produced what I hoped was a smile, but felt closer to the face I pulled when I was on the receiving end of the wax. ‘You’re welcome.’

‘The food is going to be a while,’ Rosie said brightly, ‘so why don’t you just go into the living room and get to know each other better. Chill out and play some games.’

Chill? I was boiling hot. And as for games—there were already enough games going on in this kitchen. Unfortunately no one had told me the rules.

One look at Rosie’s face told me she not only thought she’d already played the first game, she was the winner.

She wafted past me and murmured under her breath, ‘Happy Christmas. Enjoy your present.’

Nico was my present?

That was what she’d meant when she’d said it would be arriving later?

I wondered if she’d told him he was my gift. I sincerely hoped not, but knowing my sister she probably had.

I followed her into the living room, avoiding his gaze. Not that I was particularly shy or anything, but I’d been thinking about nothing but sex with him for the past four days. I wasn’t confident that my eyes wouldn’t light up like slot machines.

Thank goodness he couldn’t read my mind.

He sat down on the sofa, nudging my laptop to one side. He’d abandoned Tom Ford, presumably because I was now in possession of half of it, and was wearing a pair of black jeans. They molded themselves to his long, powerful legs as if there was nowhere they’d rather be than snuggled against those hard thighs. I didn’t blame them. In fact I envied those jeans. Through the gap in the neck of his shirt I could see a hint of dark hair against bronzed flesh.

I was just pondering the etiquette of accepting a gift who didn’t know he was your gift, when he reached idly for my laptop.

‘I don’t normally work on Christmas day, but do you mind if I just check something?’

I opened my mouth to tell him to help himself when I remembered that not only had I not shut my laptop down the night before, but that the last search had been ‘vibrator—the Niccolò’.

I flung myself across the room but it was too late. He’d already opened it and I stood, marinating slowly in embarrassment for the second time in less than four days. It seemed I was destined to humiliate myself around this man. First he’d seen the outer me stripped bare, and now he was seeing the inner me similarly naked.

I was doomed.

‘Nico can’t stop himself checking the court cases.’ Kiara walked across the room balancing the bowls of nuts and crisps my sister had given her. ‘Normally he does it on his phone, but I unplugged his charger last night, so I’m in trouble.’

Nowhere near as much trouble as I was in.

Shit, shit, shit.

I waited for him to skewer me with one of his severe, disapproving looks, but he didn’t. Instead he tapped the keyboard with those strong, clever fingers that knew exactly how to drive a woman crazy and checked whatever it was he wanted to check.

His expression didn’t flicker. He was the most inscrutable man I’d ever met. In fact he was so calm and controlled, I wondered if maybe my memory was failing me. Maybe I had closed that page down. I must have done, or he would have said something or at least given me one of his looks.

The doorbell rang again and other people started streaming into our apartment, leaving me no opportunity to dwell on it.

It was a good job Rosie had bought those extra presents because pretty soon we were up to twelve people. I knew about eight of them, but it didn’t really make any difference because I wasn’t looking at them anyway. They might as well have not been there for all the impact they made on me. For me there was only one man in the room.

We popped bottles of bubbly, opened presents, then helped Rosie carry the food to the table. And all the time I was aware of Nico. Kiara had suddenly become the life and soul of the party, but he’d barely opened his mouth. I knew that, because I kept looking at it. I loved the shape of his lips and kept remembering how they’d felt as they’d moved over mine.

‘I should give you your jacket.’ I blurted the words out, wishing I had a tenth of his control.

‘No hurry.’

That was all he was going to say?

The atmosphere was so tense that by the time my sister placed the turkey in the centre of the table I was hotter than any of the food.

Because our table was designed to seat eight at the most, twelve was a squash. I sat down at the end, because at least then I’d be up close and personal with just one other person.

Nico sat down next to me.

My heart bumped. I tried to work out if this was accident or design and decided he wasn’t a man who did anything by accident. He didn’t look at me and as usual there was nothing in his expression that gave me any clues as to what he was thinking. His arm brushed against mine. We were jammed together like atoms in a molecule. Anyone looking at us would probably have assumed it was lack of space that necessitated the closeness, but I knew differently.