British Bachelors: Delicious & Dangerous

CHAPTER NINE

HAL STARED AT Kit in disbelief. Did she really think to draw a line under what they had just shared as if it had never happened? It looked as if she did. She was already getting out of bed and turning her back on him, her hands tugging down her pretty silk chemise as if to hide herself—almost as if she was ashamed of succumbing to their passionate union. He couldn’t bear the thought that the only reason she’d agreed to stay was to fulfil her contract with the agency, not because of any personal regard for him...

Manoeuvring himself upright, he ground out, ‘Did I delude myself that what we just shared meant something to you, Kit? I mean, other than just fulfilling a very basic need?’

She turned her head at that, and her oval face was as pale as a winter moon even in the dimmed light that streamed in from the corridor.

‘I’m not saying it didn’t mean anything. I’m just saying that it can’t happen again. You must know it can’t. I’m a realist, if nothing else, and this impetuous turning in the road that we’ve suddenly taken can only lead to a dead-end. When you’re back on your feet again you’ll realise that and be glad that we didn’t take it any further.’

‘Will I? You know that for a fact, do you?’

Her eyes were downcast for a moment. Then, as if garnering more determination to stick to her decision, Kit lifted her head. ‘Now, tell me—do you need anything before I go back to my room? I can help you into the bathroom, if you’d like?’

‘So you intend to play the coolly professional nurse from now on rather than my lover?’ Hal found it hard to prevent the anger and resentment that seeped into his tone. ‘I know which one I prefer, and it isn’t the nurse.’

Her lovely blue eyes reflected her anguish at his stinging remark.

‘My intention is to fulfil my obligation to both you and the agency.’ Her restless twisting hands confirmed that his words had hurt her. ‘I won’t say any more than that. I’d better let you rest. I’m very tired and I need to get some sleep. You must be tired too, so I’ll say goodnight.’

She stooped to collect the scrunched-up underwear she’d disposed of earlier, when Hal had enticed her into bed, and as he watched her Hal’s resentment curdled like bitter aloes in the pit of his stomach. He was so sick of being abandoned. It was becoming a soul-destroying pattern in his life. It had started with his mother, and then his father, who—no matter what Hal achieved or did—would never be proud of him. He hadn’t even been able to put his cynical judgement of his son aside to visit him in the hospital when he’d been injured. And now Kit—the woman he found himself more attracted to than any other—was turning her back on him...

Gritting his teeth and shoving his hair back from his forehead, he said scathingly, ‘I’ll be sure to call on you if I need anything. I’d keep your door open, if I were you...just in case you don’t hear me should I call out your name. It wouldn’t bode well for your exemplary record at the agency if I were to fall out of bed again and injure myself, would it?’

Her cheeks reddening, Kit said quietly, ‘I would never let anything like that happen to you. You have my word on that. And it’s not just about protecting my record with the agency. I—I care about what happens to you.’

‘Do you really?’

‘Yes, I do. Anyway, I’ll make sure to keep my door ajar so I can hear you, should you need me.’

‘I need you now, but you don’t seem to care about that. If you did then you’d stay the night with me as I asked.’

Hal caught a glimpse of what looked like regret in her bewitching blue eyes and for a moment his heart leapt with hope that she might change her mind. But instead she gracefully moved across to the door and went out, making sure to leave it slightly ajar instead of shutting it completely.

‘Damn and blast it all to hell!’ Dropping back down against his pillows, he freely gave vent to his anger and frustration...

* * *

He’d had the most diabolical night’s sleep—perhaps an hour or two at most. So when he wheeled himself into the kitchen the next morning in search of Kit and a cup of much-needed coffee Hal wasn’t exactly predisposed to be either amenable or pleasant.

Nor was he easily going to forgive her for not accepting his invitation to spend the night with him—even though he’d reflected afterwards that it was probably a good thing that she hadn’t. After all, his romantic interludes had always been on his terms, not his lover’s, and that was the way he liked it. Certainly he had never invited any of his partners to spend the night with him before. It shouldn’t be any different with Kit—no matter how much he desired her. Nor should he behave as if it remotely disturbed him that she’d refused his invitation to stay the night. If she intuited that he needed her more than he let on then that would make him vulnerable, and that was the one thing he wanted to avoid...

Usually when something was troubling him Hal’s habit was to take some exercise—either to jog, run or take a bike-ride—so that he could think what to do. Because all of those outlets were denied him right now the sensation that the walls of his surroundings were pressing in on him added to the already considerable stress he was under. He longed to get out—to fill his lungs with some fresh air and breathe freely again.

Kit was standing by the worktop waiting for the kettle to boil when he entered. Her beautiful red hair had been curtailed into two neat plaits, and dressed in jeans and a tunic-style white shirt—wearing no make-up as far as he could tell—she looked just like a schoolgirl. Despite his irritability, Hal’s heart missed a beat. He might be mad at her for running out on him last night, but it didn’t make him want her any less. The blood in his veins was already simmering at the mere sight of her, and the thought that he might never again have her in his bed soured his already dark mood even more.

‘Morning,’ he muttered, deliberately averting his gaze and wheeling himself across to the table.

‘I was just about to bring you in some coffee and toast and help you to get dressed.’ She stopped speaking and sighed, and Hal couldn’t resist lifting his head to check out her expression. ‘But I see you’ve managed it without me,’ she finished.

‘I’m not entirely helpless,’ he returned gruffly. To his astonishment, her lips curved in an amused smile—which wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. ‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded, privately furious that she might be mocking him.

The smile vanished. ‘You’ve put your sweater on back to front.’

Glancing downwards, Hal saw that she was right. The grey cashmere V-neck was indeed back to front. Hardly welcoming the fact being pointed out to him, he muttered a curse and then impatiently pulled it up over his head. Bare-chested, it didn’t help to maintain his dignity when he got into a tussle with one of the sleeves in an attempt to turn the sweater the right way round so he that could put it back on again.

Kit instantly reacted. ‘Let me help you.’

Presenting herself in front of him, she carefully relieved Hal of the cashmere, sorted it out so he could put it back on, and gently pulled the jumper down over his head. By the time she’d completed the task, tugging it gently but firmly down to his hard lean waist as though he were a child, his heart was thudding fit to burst. It didn’t help matters that he found it almost unbearable to be so close to her and not be able to spontaneously reach out, pull her down onto his lap and embrace her.

‘For God’s sake, stop fussing, woman! How old do you think I am? Three? If you want something useful to do you can go and see to my coffee and toast.’

‘I intend to do just that,’ she answered primly, her hands crossed over her chest. ‘But a simple thank you for helping you out wouldn’t go amiss. My mother may not have been an educated woman, or have been able to afford for me to stay on at school, but the one thing she absolutely insisted on when she raised me was my having good manners. I think manners can tell you a lot about a person.’

The revealing comment stopped Hal from coming back at her with a cutting or flippant rejoinder. He frowned. ‘Does it bother you that you had to leave school early and didn’t get a better education?’

At first she turned away from him. But she turned back again almost immediately, her hands on her hips and her cheeks flushed. ‘It depends what you mean by “a better education”. I may not have been to college or university, or studied for a profession, but I’m not stupid. I’ve learned a lot on my way to becoming a fully-fledged adult—including the wisdom to know what’s best for me and the importance of making good decisions. I’ve learned that you suffer if you don’t. There are a lot of important facts about life that even a privileged or expensive education can’t buy, you know.’

‘Are you perhaps suggesting that my own education was privileged and expensive?’

The rosy tint on Kit’s alabaster cheeks grew even pinker. ‘It’s pretty well documented that it was. Are you saying that’s not true?’

‘It’s true. I did indeed have a privileged and expensive education. I also grew up with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth. But does that make me a bad person? A person you wouldn’t think it worthwhile getting to know? I may have had most of the material advantages that a lot of people aspire to having, but that doesn’t protect a person from experiencing the challenges we all have to face as humans and nor should it.’

To his surprise Hal’s heart was racing as he came to the end of his little speech, and he realised just how much resentment and hurt he’d harboured over the years at being perceived as ‘having it all’—meaning he couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to go without anything and therefore his opinion shouldn’t count. That just wasn’t true. He did know what it was like to go without. The most fundamental thing a human being needed in life was to know that he was loved, Hal believed. But aside from the love of his sister Sam that was the commodity that he had been bereft of most of all.

‘You said—you said that you’d tell me more about your mother leaving. Was that one of the challenges you meant?’

It was extraordinary how Kit seemed to have the unerring ability to get straight to the heart of something, he thought. Rubbing his hand round his jaw, Hal shook his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about that. Maybe if you’d consented to spending the night with me I might have told you. But all I want right now is my breakfast, and after that I just want to get out of here for a while.’

‘I’m sorry that you no longer want to tell me about your past...about your mother I mean. But I understand why you don’t. You think that I let you down by not agreeing to stay with you last night. Maybe you even think it was easy for me to make the decision. I assure you it wasn’t. I was only trying to do what was best for both of us. Anyway, you said you wanted to get out. Any idea where you want to go?’

Not missing the fact that there was a telling break in her voice—as if she was striving to put on a brave face and show she didn’t care that he’d refused to tell her about his mother’s desertion—Hal lifted his shoulders in a shrug even as his heart ached to tell her everything.

‘I don’t care. Anywhere that’s not here would be a good start. If I was mobile I’d go for a run, or even a walk. I can’t do that so I’ll leave it up to you to come up with an idea of what to do. I just hate being cooped up like this.’

Flipping one of her burnished copper plaits over her shoulder, Kit surprised him with a smile. The sight was like a welcome glimpse of the sun coming out on a day that was cloudy and grey, and it didn’t fail to warm Hal’s heart.

‘Well, there’s no need to stay here feeling like you’re a prisoner in your own home,’ she announced. ‘We should get out and get some fresh air. Leave it to me. I’ll mull over where we can go while I get you your breakfast.’

* * *

Kit’s resolution to distance herself emotionally and physically from Hal was severely tested that morning. She’d been able to tell the instant he’d come into the kitchen that he hadn’t had much sleep. And it wasn’t just because he hadn’t had a shave. His lean, carved features looked almost haggard, and she couldn’t help feeling guilty that her decision not to spend the rest of the night with him was the cause. She hadn’t had a lot of sleep herself for the same reason.

And when he’d struggled to put his sweater back on, after inadvertently donning it back to front, the sight of his broad tanned shoulders and heavenly chest had made her insides flip at the memory of how incredible it had felt to make love with him. Without a doubt she knew that the act of passion they’d shared had been not just irresistible but necessary too.

Not that Kit had needed reminding. Her body still ached and tingled from Hal’s ardent attentions and she longed to be able to share with him how he’d made her feel. She’d never felt particularly attractive or sensual, but he had helped her feel both of those things last night. Now she was torn between following her heart and her finely honed instinct for self-preservation, and therein lay the dilemma.

Not wanting to dwell on her own inner turmoil above seeing to Hal’s desire to get out of the apartment for a while, she had an idea. As he finished his breakfast at the table she said brightly, ‘I’ve thought of where we can go.’

‘Have you?’

Throwing down his napkin with a weary air, he didn’t sound remotely interested or impressed, and she could tell that a bit of downheartedness and despair had crept in. It made her all the more determined to lift his spirits and proceed with the plan she’d come up with.

‘Yes, I have. I just want to clear away the breakfast things and then we can go. I think we’re going to need our jackets and scarves because it looks quite cold and blustery out there this morning.’ She glanced out of the window at the overcast skies and at the windblown leaves that were occasionally flying past, plastering themselves to the panes of glass. ‘Would you like to read the newspaper while I stack the dishwasher? I found it on the mat this morning.’

‘I may as well.’

Clearly resigned, Hal didn’t let his returning glance linger for too long, Kit noticed—as if he’d resolved not to be quite so friendly. The mere thought cut her to the quick. The sooner they were out in the open the better. It would give them both a chance to clear their heads and it would be good to blow the cobwebs away—especially as neither of them had had much sleep last night.

The household tasks completed, Kit moved across the kitchen to where Hal still sat perusing the newspaper. Without asking his permission, she plucked it out of his hands.

‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’ His expression was furious.

‘You said you wanted to go out, remember? You can read the newspaper when we get back.’

Deftly folding the broadsheet, she dropped it down onto the table. Then, taking a firm hold of the wheelchair’s handles, she turned it forthrightly towards the door.

Still seething, Hal remarked sardonically, ‘I was in the middle of reading an interesting article about the number of people losing their jobs...particularly women. Apparently it’s a real problem.’

‘Is it really? I don’t expect it will be a problem for very long. Not with women’s ingenuity and resourcefulness at finding replacement situations. We’re very good at rising to a challenge and getting ourselves out of a tough spot...it comes from centuries of having to take care of not so ingenious and resourceful men!’

‘You should be a comedian. Anyone ever tell you that?’

Helplessly, Kit’s lips twitched in amusement. ‘No. They haven’t. But I’ll bear it in mind should I ever find myself without a job. I can turn my hand to most things if I have to.’

‘Hmm...’

His shoulders had stiffened. It definitely irked him whenever she got the better of him, she noticed.

‘Presumably we’re travelling to our destination by car?’ he asked, swiftly changing the subject.

‘No, we’re not. I’m going to push you in your chair.’

‘I don’t think so.’ He twisted round with a belligerent glare that might have intimidated her if she hadn’t known better. ‘If we’re not going in the car then I’ll take my crutches and walk,’ he declared.

‘Not today you won’t, sunshine.’

They were travelling down the spacious hallway with its gleaming parquet flooring, and when she reached the coatstand at the end Kit reached up for Hal’s chocolate-coloured suede jacket and briskly handed it to him.

‘I want you to get out into the fresh air, but we’re going too far for you to use crutches. By the way, have you got a scarf? I don’t want you getting cold.’