Presents, Passion and Proposals
What had her husband been like? Nick wondered as he escorted Beth and Bekka from the restaurant. Young, presumably. Perhaps her first love? And no doubt the man she had assumed she would spend the rest of her life with, only to have him cruelly taken from her?
Nick couldn’t help wondering how many lovers Beth had had since her husband’s death…
Beth was too nervous, as she waited for Nick Steele to come back down the stairs after putting Bekka to bed, to sit down on the gold brocade sofa in the elegantly furnished sitting room of the three-storey London townhouse. A room dominated by a lavishly decorated Christmas tree with dozens of foil-wrapped parcels beneath that made her own meagre pile beneath the small tree in her apartment look slightly ridiculous.
As ridiculous as the idea of her spending Christmas Day here!
As ridiculous as her being here now.
Not that Nick had given Beth any choice in the matter; he had just driven straight here, Beth’s earlier refusal obviously completely forgotten. Or just ignored.
Most likely the latter, Beth accepted irritably. As she already knew, this man was a law unto himself—a man who refused to take no for an answer. Arrogance personified, in fact.
Well, Beth didn’t appreciate being manipulated in this way, and she would tell Nick so as soon as he returned from putting Bekka to bed.
In the meantime, Beth couldn’t resist walking over to look at the numerous photographs that adorned the top of the shiny black piano standing in the bay window that looked out onto the now moonlit garden. Dozens of photographs. All of them featuring Bekka. From babyhood to now.
Nick was easily recognisable in a lot of the photographs. His hair had been slightly longer when Bekka was a baby, his expression more relaxed then too, not as hard and cynical as it was now.
Several of the photographs also showed a tall and beautiful blonde-haired woman. Obviously Bekka’s mother, Janet Steele—short blonde hair surrounding a face dominated by pale blue eyes, a short, perfect nose, and full and pouting lips above a slightly rounded jaw.
‘I see you’ve discovered the rogues’ gallery,’ Nick rasped behind her.
Beth gave a guilty start as she turned to face him, frowning slightly as she saw the laden silver tray he carried. ‘I told you I don’t drink coffee this late at night.’
‘Which is why I made you tea,’ Nick said as he placed the tray down on a low coffee table in front of the sofa before straightening.
He had removed his jacket and tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, the open neckline revealing the start of the dark hair growing on his chest, Beth noted with some alarm. Just as she noticed the way the pale blue silk shirt was fitted to the muscled width of his shoulders and the flatness of his abdomen and tapered waist.
Dear Lord, this man was gorgeous!
Nick’s dark brows quirked as he saw Beth Morgan’s obvious discomfort. ‘Would you like to be mother…?’
She swallowed hard. ‘I—yes. Just one cup, and then I really have to go,’ she muttered awkwardly. As she moved to sit on the sofa to pour coffee and tea, a beautiful marmalade-coloured cat curled up on the cushion beside her.
‘No cream or sugar for me, thanks,’ Nick dismissed as he eased another cat aside, so that he could drop down into one of the armchairs to study Beth from a distance. ‘And are you? A mother?’ he enquired as she pushed back that silky curtain of auburn hair to look across at him questioningly.
‘I—no.’ She turned away. ‘Ben and I had decided to wait for a while before starting a family, and—No,’ she repeated abruptly as she crossed the room to hand him the cup of coffee.
Nick took the cup. ‘Ben was your husband…?’
‘Yes.’ Her face was slightly pale as she moved to sit back on the sofa, absently stroking the marmalade-coloured cat as it stretched lazily beside her.
‘Just push him away if he’s being a nuisance.’
She looked startled. ‘What…?’
‘The cat,’ Nick replied. ‘Bekka has collected a menagerie of pets in the last ten months. The insane dog is shut in the kitchen.’
Beth shrugged narrow shoulders as she continued to stroke the purring cat. ‘I like animals.’
‘You must have been very young when you married…?’
She frowned as Nick reverted to the previous subject. ‘Twenty-one,’ she acknowledged stiffly.
‘Were you married for long…?’
‘Three years.’
‘When did your husband die?’
‘Two years ago,’ she answered tersely. ‘Look, Mr Steele—’
‘Did you still love him when he died?’
Beth stood up abruptly. ‘What sort of question is that?’
‘A valid one.’ Nick Steele shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Janet and I were married for seven years—by the end of it we could barely stand the sight of each other!’
‘Oh.’ Beth wasn’t quite sure what to say in response to that remark. ‘Bekka seems to have adjusted well since her mother died…’
‘She has, yes,’ Nick acknowledged indulgently. ‘I, on the other hand, am still floundering around in the dark, trying to be both mother and father to her,’ he acknowledged ruefully.
‘Then maybe you should stop trying…?’
‘Sorry?’ Nick gave a perplexed frown.
‘Maybe I’m interfering, but—’
‘Oh, by all means interfere, Beth,’ Nick invited.
She chewed on her bottom lip with small white teeth as she formulated her reply. ‘You can’t actually be both mother and father to Bekka,’ she finally murmured softly. ‘And I’m not sure you should even try…’ She gave a rueful grimace. ‘At the moment Bekka is still a lovely and adorable little girl, but—’
‘But she may not continue to be so if I don’t stop trying so hard?’ Nick finished.
‘Exactly.’ Beth Morgan looked deeply relieved that he had understood what she was trying to say without her actually having to say it.
And what she had to say did have merit, Nick realised. Bekka was becoming more and more demanding, rather than less so, as the days, weeks, months passed. A fact Nick had noted himself only two days ago, and had attributed to Bekka being more like Janet than he had realised, when his young daughter had slammed out of his car when he’d refused to invite her biology teacher to join them for Christmas Day.
He looked across at Beth Morgan in consideration. ‘That’s a very wise observation for one so young…’
‘Sometimes it’s just easier to see something looking in, rather than being involved in it yourself.’
Nick stood up slowly to cross the room and stand only inches away from Beth, his gaze searching as it rested on the fragile beauty of her face. ‘And you don’t get involved, do you…?’ he said slowly.
‘What…?’ Beth felt completely unnerved by Nick Steele’s close proximity, by the warmth in that pale grey gaze as he looked down at her with such intensity.
That nervousness turned to liquid, burning heat as he slowly raised his hand to move his knuckles in a light caress against the heat of her cheek…
Chapter Five
‘I—WHAT do you think you’re doing?’ Beth had wanted to sound indignant, dismissive. Instead her voice was husky. Breathless.
‘I’m sure you already know the answer to that, Beth,’ Nick murmured throatily, looking down at her as she swallowed hard, her cheek hot against the back of his hand.
She moistened her lips with the pink tip of her tongue. A totally sensuous caress that caught and easily held Nick’s attention. He felt the urge, the need, to run his own tongue across those soft and slightly parted lips before kissing her. He wanted to take her in his arms and mould those slender and delicate curves against him.
Beth couldn’t move, held captive by the sudden darkening of Nick’s gaze as he looked down hungrily at her mouth, unable to do more than groan low in her throat as his arms moved about her to draw her slowly towards him.
God, his body was so warm. Hot. And hard. His chest against her breasts feeling like steel encased in velvet, and his thighs—
Beth raised her panicked gaze to his. ‘I don’t think we should be doing this, Nick…!’
His eyes were dark and smouldering. ‘Why not?’
Because Beth could feel herself reacting, responding to the sheer intimacy of having Nick’s body moulded against hers. Her breasts felt full and heavy, the tips ultra-sensitive, and there was a fluid heat between her thighs, a swelling moistening of those delicate tissues.
She didn’t want to feel this way! Didn’t want to have this response to Nick Steele, a man far beyond her reach in physical experience!
‘We both know how ultimately damaging any relationship between the two of us would be!’ she reminded him.
‘But we already have a relationship, Beth…’
Beth stiffened. ‘What…?’
He gave a slow, seductive smile. ‘You’re Bekka’s teacher, and I’m her father.’
‘Exactly!’ Beth managed to push her hands in between them, against that warm and velvet-hard chest. ‘Let me go, Nick!’ she insisted. ‘You have to let me go now.’ Tears stung her eyes as she looked up at him pleadingly.
Nick’s gaze narrowed as he saw the tears on Beth’s lashes. Those tears were a complete contrast to the way her body had melted against his seconds ago. ‘How long has it been for you, Beth…?’ he probed softly.
She stilled. ‘Has what been for me…?’
‘Hell…!’ Nick gave a groan as the truth of this situation suddenly hit him. ‘There’s been no one for you at all since your husband died, has there…?’
She blinked. ‘In what way?’
In any way!
Anyone looking at Beth Morgan could see that she was beautiful, with a body that was ripe for physical arousal. But those tears balancing so precariously on her lashes also told Nick that there had been no other man in her life—or her bed—since the death of her husband two years ago.
He had been utterly faithful to Janet during the years of their marriage, but since their separation and divorce there had been numerous women to briefly share his bed. Contrary to what he might have thought—hoped—the same obviously wasn’t true of Beth!
He gave a firm shake of his head and dropped his arms back to his sides before he stepped away from her. ‘I can’t be that man for you, Beth,’ he rasped harshly.
‘What man?’ She looked slightly dazed.
‘That man,’ he said again pointedly, his expression grim. ‘The man you will want to fall in love with. That you would want to fall in love with you.’ He should have realised sooner—should have known—
‘I didn’t start any of this—’
‘No, I did,’ Nick accepted. ‘And I have nothing to offer any woman except a casual relationship.’
‘Aren’t you being conceited in thinking I would want any sort of relationship with you?’ Beth glared her indignation at him.
Nick searched her face for several seconds, knowing by the flush in her cheek, the slightly wild glitter in her eyes and the hard swell of her breasts, that no matter how Beth might deny it, wish it wasn’t true, she had been as aroused by their closeness just now as he was.
‘I apologise.’ He nodded abruptly. ‘You’re right—it is time I drove you home now.’
It was a relief, now that Beth no longer had Nick’s body pressed so intimately against her own, to be able to breathe again. To think coherently. To realise how close she had come to having Nick Steele kiss her. To allowing him to do so much more than just kiss her…
What was wrong with her? How could she have allowed herself to respond, to feel desire for Nick, when she already knew exactly how wrong he was for her?
Nick was sophisticated, handsome, rich and powerful, and experienced in ways Beth couldn’t even imagine—in ways she didn’t want to imagine. She certainly didn’t want to be the next in the long line of women in Nick Steele’s life. Or his bed!
Then why did her body still tremble from that near-kiss? Why could she still feel the imprint of his hard body pressing against her own? Why did her breasts still ache for the touch, the caress, that hadn’t happened?
She would be an idiot, a fool, if she allowed herself to see Nick as anything more than a governor of the school she worked at and the parent of one of her young students.
‘Ready?’ he prompted, not waiting for Beth’s reply before striding out into the hallway, already holding the front door open for her to leave by the time Beth joined him there only seconds later.
As anxious to be rid of her now as she was to go, Beth thought.
Not surprisingly, the drive to her home was completed in strained silence. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ Beth murmured quietly, once Nick had parked his car outside her apartment building.
‘Very nicely said,’ Nick drawled, and his hand came out to grasp her arm to stop her from getting out of the car. ‘Can I take it you’ve definitely decided not to come bowling with us tomorrow?’
Beth turned back with a frown, her face appearing very pale in the moonlight. ‘Nor will I be joining you and Bekka for Christmas Day.’
Nick’s eyes glittered in the semi-darkness. ‘Or setting eyes on me ever again if you can help it?’ he guessed easily.
Her mouth firmed. ‘No.’
He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘Nothing really happened tonight, Beth, so stop beating yourself up.’
She chewed briefly on her bottom lip. ‘I don’t know what you mean…’
‘Liar,’ he replied as he turned fully in his seat to face her. ‘If I had to guess, I would say you’ve only ever had one lover in your life—’
‘That’s none of your—’
‘A man who died two years ago,’ Nick continued. ‘Two years, Beth!’ he repeated incredulously. ‘Isn’t it time—past time—that you moved on?’
Her chin rose defensively. ‘By having an affair with you, I suppose you mean?’
‘I thought we had already agreed that probably isn’t a good idea.’ Nick gave a hard smile. ‘You did nothing wrong this evening, Beth—nothing you have to feel guilty about.’
‘I don’t feel in the least guilty!’ Beth assured him.
‘I would call you a liar again, but twice in one evening may be once too many!’ he said sceptically.
Her cheeks burned. ‘I’m not lying—’
‘Are you saying you didn’t want me earlier…?’
Beth drew herself up stiffly. ‘You think you know everything, don’t you, Nick? Think that every woman you meet has to fall down adoringly at your feet?’ She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Well, think again! I didn’t want you earlier, and I don’t want you now, either!’
Nick considered her accusations. ‘One—no, I don’t think I know everything. Two—I would prefer that any woman who did feel the need to fall down in front of me adoringly concentrated her attentions on another part of my anatomy entirely. And three…’ his voice lowered huskily ‘…deny it all you want, Beth, but you did want me.’
Her eyes flashed like twin sapphires. ‘You’re a conceited, arrogant—’
Nick silenced her in the easiest and quickest way possible—by claiming her mouth with his own and so cutting off all further conversation.
She tasted as good, as headily erotic, as Nick had imagined she would, her lips soft and delectable against his as she gave a low groan of capitulation, her lips parting invitingly beneath his.
Beth’s senses were assaulted with sensation. The heat of Nick’s lips as they moved hungrily against hers. The hardness of his chest against her aroused breasts. And the heady pleasure of his hands as they moved restlessly down the length of her spine before he pulled her hard against him in crushing need.
His hair felt dark and silky as her fingers became entangled in its thickness at his nape, and his skin was hot to the touch as his lips continued their heady and hungry assault on hers, his teeth gently biting before the hard thrust of his tongue entered the hot cavern of her mouth.
She did want this man, Beth acknowledged achingly. She wanted Nick with a hot fierceness that totally shocked her. Knew that she had felt this physical awareness of him from the very first moment she had looked up two days ago and seen him through the rain and sleet after she had tumbled into the road in front of his car.
Her throat arched as Nick dragged his mouth from hers to move down the length of her throat and then slowly up again, and Beth quivered with pleasure as she felt the rasp of his tongue against her earlobe.
Nick felt Beth arch against him as his teeth gently bit on that sensitive flesh, feeling the hard-tipped thrust of those soft breasts against his chest, and unable to resist the temptation of moving his hands beneath her sweater.
His mouth captured Beth’s again as her skin burned against the coolness of his hands, her back soft and silky, the skin firm over the curve of her ribcage, the thrust of her breasts bare as he cupped her there, the nipple firm as a berry as he ran the soft pad of his thumb rhythmically across it.
Beth groaned, her fingers tightening in his hair, and Nick felt the trembling of her body as she arched into those caresses in silent pleading.
Nick’s body was one pleasurable ache—a hard, pulsing ache that couldn’t be fully satisfied in the close confines of the front seats of his car.
He wrenched his mouth away from hers. ‘Invite me in, Beth!’
‘What…?’ She moved back slightly to look up at him in a daze.
His eyes glittered down at her in the darkness. ‘Invite me up to your apartment,’ he prompted huskily.
She continued to stare at him wordlessly for several long seconds, the enormity of what he was saying, what he was asking, almost overwhelming her. She knew exactly what would happen if she invited Nick into her apartment. What they both wanted to happen next. Making a complete nonsense of their earlier conversation!
‘I can’t, Nick!’ She wrenched herself out of his arms.
He reached for her. ‘Beth—’
‘I said no!’ Beth fumbled as she opened the passenger door, the instant blast of icy cold wind from outside sobering her, bringing her to her senses as nothing else could have done. She climbed hastily out of the car before turning back to look at him. ‘Please tell Bekka that I’m really sorry I can’t join her for the bowling tomorrow, or her birthday on Christmas Day.’ Beth didn’t wait for Nick to answer before slamming the door closed and turning sharply on her heel to hurry inside her apartment building.
‘Beth?’ came the tersely impatient query down the telephone line as soon as she answered the call.
A terse voice that was all too familiar! ‘Nick—Mr Steele…?’ she corrected firmly even as her fingers tightened about her mobile.
It had been four cold and icy days since the two of them had parted so ignominiously. Four long and lonely days and nights for Beth. Days and nights of self-doubt and self-recrimination for the way she had responded to Nick so completely.
Days and nights when Beth hadn’t been able to stop thinking of him. Of the way he had kissed her. Of the way she had wanted him to go on kissing her—and more!
‘Nick will do,’ he rasped. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you, and I wouldn’t have done so, except—I find myself in something of a dilemma.’
Nick was in a dilemma?
This man had turned Beth’s whole calm and ordered world upside down four days ago when he’d kissed her. Had evoked a heated response in her that still made her tremble just to think about it. Just the sound of his voice over the telephone now was enough to make her hands shake and her heart pound…!
‘What sort of dilemma?’ she asked warily.
Nick stood in his study at home, staring sightlessly out of the window into the back garden. ‘Bekka’s had your cold for the last three days—’
‘I’m really sorry about that, but you were the one who insisted I come out to dinner with the two of you,’ Beth reminded him indignantly.
‘Bekka’s cold isn’t the problem. Well…only indirectly.’ Nick grimaced. ‘My housekeeper was out shopping earlier today and slipped over on the ice. Luckily someone called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital. I received a call from there a few minutes ago. Apparently Mrs Bennett has broken her ankle pretty badly.’
‘Yes…?’
His mouth tightened as he heard the increased wariness in Beth’s tone. Rightly so, probably, after the strained way the two of them had parted on Friday evening.
He should never have kissed her. Certainly never have suggested she invite him up to her apartment when she was obviously so vulnerable, when he knew how dangerous that vulnerability was!
In the same way he knew he shouldn’t have allowed his thoughts to dwell on her so often in the past four days…
His mouth hardened. ‘It seems, because it’s a bad break and Mrs Bennett is in her sixties, that they’ve decided it might be better to keep her in overnight.’
‘Yes…?’
He grimaced his impatience at Beth’s continued guarded response. ‘Obviously I need to go in and see her, but once I had explained about Bekka’s cold the hospital made it obvious they would prefer it if she didn’t take her germs into the ward. Normally I could have asked my parents to come and sit with Bekka while I go to the hospital, but unfortunately they flew to the States a few days ago to spend Christmas with my sister and her family—’
‘Surely there must be someone else you can ask to sit with Bekka?’ There was a slight note of desperation in Beth’s voice now as she realised the reason for Nick’s call. ‘An agency, perhaps?’
‘It’s only a few days before Christmas—not a good time to be hiring a nanny…’ Nick replied.
‘In other words, I’m your very last resort…?’
Nick scowled. ‘If Bekka hadn’t caught your damned cold I could have taken her with me.’
‘You’re being unfair now!’ Beth cut in indignantly. She was sitting down in an armchair by this time—her knees were shaking so badly just from speaking to Nick again that she’d had to sit or risk falling down instead!
‘I apologise if it sounded that way,’ Nick muttered stiffly. ‘It’s just that all Mrs Bennett’s close family live in Scotland, and—Oh, just forget it. I’ll send her things over by taxi and just hope she’ll understand why I couldn’t go in and visit her personally!’
Beth relented slightly. ‘All you want me to do is sit with Bekka for a couple of hours while you go to the hospital…?’
There was a brief, telling silence. ‘What else could I want…?’ Nick finally enquired.
It wasn’t a question of what Nick wanted, it was a question of Beth’s complete inability to resist him…!
Much as Beth hated to admit it, Nick had become a danger to the calm and uneventful life she had been leading since her move to London a year ago. She was very aware that since their first meeting her emotions had been seesawing all over the place. Feverish and out of her control whenever she was in his company. Flat and uninteresting—boring, in fact—when she wasn’t.
So much so that the quiet Christmas Beth had planned for herself now seemed utterly unappealing.
She looked down at the baggy thigh-length blue jumper she was wearing over faded denims and calf-high black boots. Did she have time to put on some make-up and change before she went to Nick’s house—?
No!
If Nick wanted her help that badly, then he could take her as he found her. ‘I’ll get in a taxi now and be there in fifteen minutes,’ she assured him abruptly.
‘Are you sure…?’
No, of course Beth wasn’t sure!
It was completely hazardous to her hard-won peace of mind to be anywhere near the disturbing Nick Steele…
‘As I said, I’ll try and be there in fifteen minutes,’ she said stiffly.
‘I’ll reimburse you for the taxi fare when you get here.’
‘I’m quite capable of paying my own taxi fare, thank you.’
‘You’re doing this as a favour to me—’
‘I’m doing it for Mrs Bennett and Bekka,’ she corrected him firmly.
‘We’ll argue that point later,’ Nick dismissed briskly, before ringing off.
Beth didn’t intend doing anything with him later!