HE WANTED TO help her rediscover her passion, but she was suddenly and terribly afraid that they’d simply discover—rediscover—that he was her passion. What would they do then?
You could offer to have a family with him.
No! She didn’t want to live with a man who placed conditions on his love. She’d had enough of that growing up with her father. Why couldn’t she be enough?
Oh, stop whining!
Jack stared at her, as if waiting for her to say something, but she was saved from having to answer when a little girl moved close to their table, her face crumpling up as is she were about to cry.
Caro reached out and touched the little girl’s shoulder. ‘Hello, sweetie, have you lost your mummy?’
The little girl nodded, her eyes swelling with tears.
‘Well, I’ll admit that’s frightfully easy to do,’ Caro continued in her usual voice—she hated the way adults put on fake voices where children were concerned, ‘but shall I let you into a secret?’
The child nodded.
‘Mummies are very good at finding their little girls.’
‘You think Mummy will find me?’
‘Oh, yes, I know she will.’
Caro was aware of Jack’s gaze—the heaviness in it, the heat...his shock.
‘The trick, though, is to just stay put and wait.’ She glanced at the food on the table. ‘Would you like a piece of garlic bread while you wait? My friend here—’ she gestured to Jack ‘—thought I was hungry and ordered a lot of food, but...’ She started to laugh. ‘I had cake for breakfast, so I’m not really hungry at all.’
The little girl’s eyes went wide. ‘You ate cake for breakfast?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Is it your birthday?’
‘Nope—it’s just one of the good things about being a grown-up.’
In no time at all the little girl—Amy—was perched on Caro’s lap, munching a piece of garlic bread. Caro didn’t want to meet Jack’s eyes, so she looked to the left of him, and then to his right.
‘You might want to keep an eye out for a frantic-looking woman.’
‘Right.’
She turned her attention back to the little girl. It was easier to look at her than at the yearning she knew would be stretching through Jack’s eyes.
* * *
The sight of Caro holding that little girl, her absolute ease with the child, burned through Jack. A dark throb pulsed through him. They could have had this—him and Caro. They could have had a little girl to love and care for. If only Caro hadn’t been afraid.
If only I’d been patient.
The thought slid into him, making his heart pound. She’d asked him for time but he’d thought she was putting him off, making excuses. So he hadn’t given her time. In hindsight he hadn’t given her much of anything.
Unable to deal with his thoughts, he stood and scanned the crowd, doing as Caro had suggested and trying to locate a worried mother in the crowd. It took less than a minute for a likely candidate to appear. He waved to get the woman’s attention, and in no time flat—with a multitude of grateful thank-yous—the pair were reunited.
He sat.
Caro reached for her mineral water. ‘Stop looking at me like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Just because I don’t know if I want children of my own it doesn’t mean I don’t like them.’
‘Right...’
She glared at him then, before skewering a prawn on the end of her fork. For some reason, though, he was the one who felt skewered.
‘Why on earth did you—do you,’ she amended, ‘want children so much?’
He shrugged, but his chest tightened, clenching in a cramp, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.
Eventually he leant back. ‘I’ve always wanted children...for as long as I can remember.’
‘Well, now, there’s a strong argument to convince a woman to change her entire life to fit children into it.’
With that sally, she popped the prawn into her mouth and set to picking through what was left of her pasta, obviously in search of more prawns.
A scowl built through him. ‘Can’t a person just want kids?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe. My next question, though, would be... Do you want children because you believe you can give them a good life and help them to grow up to be useful members of society? Or...?’
‘Or...?’
‘Or do you want children because you’ve never had a proper family of your own, have always felt lonely, and feel that children will fill that lack in your life?’
He stared at her, breathing hard. ‘That’s a mean-spirited thing to do, Caro—to use my background against me.’
Her forehead crinkled. ‘I’m not trying to use it against you. I’m truly sorry you had such a difficult childhood. I sincerely wish that hadn’t been the case. But at the same time I don’t believe children should be used to fill gaps in people’s lives. That’s not what children are meant for.’
‘Why didn’t you ask me any of this five years ago?’
She set her fork to the side. ‘I doubt I could’ve verbalised it five years ago. Your craving for children made me uneasy, but I could never pinpoint why.’
Jack wanted to get up and walk away—which, it appeared, was his default position where this woman was concerned.
‘And, you see,’ she continued, staring down at her plate rather than at him, ‘back then it played into all of my insecurities.’
Her what?
‘And that made me withdraw into myself. I realise now I should’ve tried to talk to you about this more, but I felt that in your eyes I wasn’t measuring up.’
Her words punched through him. ‘Just as you feel you never measured up in your father’s eyes?’ He let out a breath, seeing it a little more clearly now. ‘If I’d had a little more wisdom... But your withdrawal fed into all of my insecurities.’
Her forehead crinkled in that adorable way again. Don’t notice.
‘Insecurities? You, Jack? Back then I thought you the most confident man I’d ever met.’
When he’d been sure of her love he’d felt like the most invincible man on earth.
‘I saw your refusal to have children with me as a sign that I...’ He pulled in a breath and then forced the words out. ‘That I wasn’t good enough for you to have children with.’ He dragged a hand back through his hair. ‘I thought that as a brash colonial from the wrong side of the tracks I was only good enough to marry so you could thumb your nose at Daddy...’
She straightened. ‘I’ll have you know that I’ve never thumbed my nose at anyone in my life!’
‘I thought I wasn’t the right pedigree for you.’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, Jack, I was never a snob.’
He nodded. ‘I can see that now.’
Her shoulders slumped further. ‘I’m sorry you felt that way. If I’d known...’
‘If you’d known you’d have set me straight. Just like I’d have set you straight if I’d known I was making you feel like you weren’t measuring up.’
She pulled in a breath and lifted her chin. ‘It’s pointless wallowing in regrets. We live and learn. We’ll know better than to make the same mistakes in the future...with the people who come into our lives.’
He understood what she was telling him. That there was no future for them regardless of whatever acknowledgments and apologies they made for the past now.
Beneath the collar of his shirt his skin prickled. Of course the two of them had no future. She didn’t need to remind him!
She pushed away from the table a little. ‘It’s been a lovely lunch, Jack, but—’
‘We were talking about boats.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t need a boat. I don’t want a boat.’
‘When did you become so risk-averse? Everyone needs a boat, Caro—a figurative one—even you. You had passions once.’
Her cheeks flushed a warm pink. His skin tightened. He hadn’t been referring to that kind of passion, but he couldn’t deny that as lovers they’d had that kind of passion in spades. The one place where they hadn’t had any problems had been in the bedroom. She’d been everything he’d ever dreamed of...and everything he hadn’t known to dream of.
He wanted her now with the same fierceness and intensity with which he’d wanted her five years ago. The way her eyes glittered told him she wanted him too. They could go back to her flat and spend the afternoon making wild, passionate love. That would help her rediscover her passion for life.
For how long, though? Until he left and returned to Australia?
A knot tightened in his stomach. They couldn’t do it. It would only make matters worse.
Caro glanced away and he knew that regardless of how much he might want it to, she’d never let it happen.
Which was just as well. His hands clenched. This time when he left he wanted to leave her better off than when he’d found her. They might still want different things out of life, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help her rediscover her joy again.
He set his shoulders. ‘You said you’d give me to the end of the week.’
‘To find my snuffbox!’
‘We need people to believe we’re reuniting...we don’t want them suspecting that I’m working for you.’
That was a lowdown dirty trick, but he could see that it had worked.
She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘To the end of the week,’ she growled.
He had to hook his right ankle around his chair-leg in order to remain seated rather than shoot to his feet, reach across the table and kiss her.
The fingers of her right hand drummed against her left arm. ‘What I’d like to know, though, is what precisely does this entail?’
‘That you be ready when I come to collect you at six o’clock this evening.’
He shot to his feet. He needed to breathe in air that didn’t smell of Caro. He needed to clear his head before he did something stupid.
She blinked. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘What should I wear?’
He’d started to turn away. Gritting his teeth, he turned back and tried to give her a cursory once-over. But his hormones said To hell with cursory and he found himself taking his time. Her heightened colour told him she wasn’t as averse to his gaze as she no doubt wished she were.
‘What you’re wearing now will do nicely.’
With a half-muttered expletive, he bent down and pressed his lips to hers, refusing to resist temptation a moment longer. The kiss lasted no longer than two beats of his heart—a brief press and a slight parting of his lips to shape his mouth to hers, a silent silky slide—and then he stepped away.
Stunned caramel eyes stared back at him.
‘Please excuse me if I don’t walk you home.’
Walking her home would be asking for trouble.
He turned and left before he could say another word—before he did something dangerous like drag her to her feet and kiss her properly. One touch of his lips to hers hadn’t eased the need inside him. It had turned it into a raging, roaring monster. Her scent and her softness had made him hungrier than he’d ever been in his life before. He needed to get himself back under control before their date tonight.
* * *
Caro changed from her earlier outfit of jeans and a peasant-style top into a pair of white linen trousers, and then flipped through her selection of blouses.
The blue silk, perhaps?
No, Jack had always loved her in blue. She didn’t want him thinking she was dressing to please him.
The red?
Good Lord, no! She swished that along the rack. Red and sex were too closely aligned, and that wasn’t the signal she wanted to send.
The black?
Low neckline—not a chance!
What about the grey?
She pulled it out, but shoved it back into the closet almost immediately. It showed too much midriff. She needed something asexual. She didn’t want Jack kissing her again.
Liar.
Even if that lunchtime kiss had only been for show...in case anyone had been watching.
Don’t be an idiot.
He’d kissed her because he’d wanted to. End of story.
A breath shuddered out of her, her fingers reaching up to trace her lips. Lips that remembered the touch and taste of him as if it had been only yesterday since she’d last kissed him. Lips that throbbed and burned with a violence she’d thought she’d managed to quell. That was bad news. Very bad news. She had to make sure he didn’t kiss her again.
Or if he tried to she had to take evasive measures—not just sit there like a landed duck, waiting and hoping for it to happen.
Now choose a blouse!
In the end she decided on a soft pink button-down with a Peter Pan collar. As it wasn’t fitted, no one could possibly accuse it of being sexy. With a sigh, she tugged it on. And not a moment too soon either, as Jack’s knock sounded on the door while she was still buttoning it up.
How do you know it’s Jack? It could be anyone.
She shook her head, slipping the strap of her purse over her shoulder. It would be Jack, all right. Nobody else knocked with quite the same authority. Besides, he was bang on time. He’d always had a thing for punctuality.
She took a deep breath and then opened the door, immediately stepping outside and pulling the door closed behind her. She did not want Jack in her tiny flat again, with its temptation of a bedroom a mere door away. The less privacy Jack and she had, the better.
‘Hello, Jack.’ She prevented herself from adding a snippy again to her greeting.
‘Caro.’
The heat from his body beat at her. He wore an unfamiliar aftershave, but it had the same invigorating effect as dark-roasted coffee beans. She breathed in deeply, her nose wrinkling in appreciation.
He gave her a flattering once-over. ‘You changed.’
‘Just freshened up.’
‘You look nice.’
She went to say thank you, but he reached out to flick one of her buttons—the second button down...the one right between her breasts.
‘These are kinda cute.’
She glanced down and then groaned. The buttons were bright red plastic cherries! ‘If you knew the lengths I went to tonight to choose an appropriate shirt you’d laugh your head off.’
‘Appropriate? You’d best share. I enjoy a good laugh.’
She moved them towards the elevator. ‘I wanted to choose a shirt that was...demure.’ She jabbed the elevator button and the door slid open.
‘So I wouldn’t kiss you again?’ he said, ushering her inside and pushing the button for the ground floor.
She couldn’t look at him. She moved her handbag from her right shoulder to her left. ‘Something like that.’
‘You hated it that much?’
‘Can...can we continue this conversation once we’re outside, please?’
They travelled the rest of the short distance in thin-lipped silence. At least, his lips were thin.
‘You hated it that much?’ he repeated, once they stood outside on the footpath.
She pulled in a breath of warm evening air. It didn’t do much to clear her mind. ‘No, Jack, the problem is that I liked it too much.’
He swung to stare at her, his lips going from thin-lipped sternness to erotic sensuality with a speed that had her tripping over her own feet. He reached out to steady her, but she held both hands up to ward him off. Although he didn’t actually turn around and stare back the way they’d come, she could practically feel his mind moving back to her fifth-floor flat.
‘Not going to happen,’ she said, wishing her voice had emerged with a little more resolution.
‘We still generate heat, kiddo.’
‘What good did heat do us five years ago?’
A slow grin spread across his face, turning him into a rakish pirate and her insides to molten honey. ‘If I have to explain that to you then—’
‘Hey, mister!’ a taxicab driver shouted from the kerb. ‘Do you want the cab or not?’
Caro gestured. ‘Is that for us?’
Jack nodded.
She set off towards it at a half-trot. ‘He wants it,’ she called back to the driver, trying not to run. But she wanted to be away from her flat now.
Jack followed, a scowl darkening his features. He gave the driver directions, closed the dividing window and settled on the seat beside her.
‘We’re five years older and wiser, Caro.’
Older, maybe—but wiser? She wasn’t so sure about that. ‘What good do you think it would do us? We generate heat. So what? It’s the kind that burns, and you know it.’
He stared down at his hands for a moment. ‘Maybe this time we could make it work.’
Their marriage? She wanted to cover her ears. He had to be joking! She gave a hard shake of her head. ‘No.’
His eyes flashed. ‘You won’t even think about it?’
She told herself that thin-lipped and forbidding was better than steamy sex-on-legs pirate. Not that she managed to convince herself about that.
She shook the thought away. ‘Do you really believe I’ve been able to think of anything else since I saw you five days ago?’
She recognised the quickening in his eyes but she shook her head again, awash with a sorrow that had her wanting to curl up into a ball.
‘Hell, Caro,’ he ground out. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’
She dragged her gaze back to the front, not wanting to make him feel bad. She’d never wanted him to feel bad.
‘Even though you told me you wanted a divorce, I haven’t been able to stop wondering—what if we came to understand each other properly this time around? Could we make a go of it? Could this be the second chance I craved and fantasised about in those first few months after you left?’
Her throat closed over. Beside her, waves of tension rolled off Jack in a silent storm of turmoil. She passed a hand across her eyes and swallowed.
‘The thing is, Jack, I keep circling back to the same conclusion. I don’t believe I have what it takes to make you happy.’
‘I—’
She held up a hand to cut him off. She met his gaze. ‘And with you I would always be wondering... Is he only with me because I agreed to have children?’
He slumped back, pain tearing across his features, and she ached to hold him, to wipe that pain away and tell him that they could work it out—but if she did she feared she’d only hurt him worse later, and that would be unforgivable.
She forced herself to continue. ‘I can’t see things between us working out any better if you were the one to make the big sacrifice either. If we didn’t have the children you want so much I’d be riddled with guilt.’
She clenched her purse in a death grip on her lap.
‘I don’t believe love and marriage should be all about self-sacrifice. It should be about two people making compromises, so they can both be happy.’
She didn’t think that was possible in her and Jack’s case.
‘It’s about both people being equally important.’
She tried, unsuccessfully, to unclench her hands from around her purse.
‘I can’t help feeling that in either scenario the things that drew you to me, the things you loved about me, would fade...and in the end you’d leave me anyway.’ She stared at her hands. ‘I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m saying it because this time I want to be completely honest with you.’
She finally turned to look at him. His eyes were alternately as soft as a kiss and as hard as adamantine.
His lips finally twisted with self-mockery. ‘You really have thought about it, haven’t you?’
She wanted to cry. When he’d come searching for closure had he pictured this?
He turned to gaze out of the window. ‘No amount of mind-blowing sex can compete with that.’
A chasm opened up inside her. ‘I wish I could have that great sex without paying the price.’
‘But that wouldn’t be the case. Not for either one of us.’
It helped a little to hear him admit it too. ‘Some people subscribe to the view that the loving is worth the losing, but I don’t believe that. It took me too long to get over you the last time, Jack. And I know now it was just as hard for you.’
‘You don’t want to risk it again?’
Did he? He couldn’t! She shook her head. ‘The odds are just too high.’
He took her hand, pressed it between both his own before lifting it to his lips and placing a kiss to her palm. Her blood danced and burned.
‘I’m so sorry, Caro. For everything.’
The backs of her eyes stung. ‘Me too.’
He laid her hand back in her lap with a gentleness that had her biting her lip. How could she still want to throw herself at him with such fierceness after the conversation they’d just had?
‘I swear I won’t kiss you again.’
She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. ‘Thank you.’
‘I only want to make things easier for you. Better. It was all I ever wanted.’
She couldn’t speak. She could only nod. She knew that too. It was why she’d fallen so hard for him in the first place.
The taxi stopped. Caro glanced at her watch. It felt as if a whole lifetime had passed, but in reality it had been only ten minutes. She slid out from the door Jack held open for her and waited as he paid the cab driver, pulling in deep breaths to try and calm the storm raging through her.
She’d hoped such a frank conversation would ease the storm. That wasn’t going to be the case, evidently. She was at a loss as to what else to try.
She glanced around, searching for distraction. She’d paid next to no mind to where they’d been going, but their location looked vaguely familiar.
Jack moved up beside her. ‘Do you know where we are?’
The taxi pulled away and drove off into the warm summer evening. She had no right to feel abandoned.
Huffing back a sigh, she pointed to a sign. ‘That says this is Red Lion Square. So...we’re in Holborn?’
He nodded. ‘We’re heading for a building on the other side of the park—and then my dastardly plan will be revealed.’
He smiled, but she saw the effort it cost him. Reaching out, she pulled him to a halt. His warmth immediately flooded her, daring her to foolishness, and she reefed her hand back.
‘Are...are you sure you still want to do this?’ She wouldn’t blame him if he wanted a time out. It wasn’t his job to help her find happiness again, her relish for life.
‘Of course I still want to do this.’ He stared at her for a long moment before shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘I have no desire, though, to force you into something you don’t want to do. If you want to leave, Caro, just say the word.’
She didn’t even know what this was yet, but that wasn’t really what he was referring to anyway. He wanted to see her smile and have fun again. She wanted the same for him. And she sensed that by helping her he’d be helping himself.
From somewhere she dug out a smile. ‘I’m game if you are.’ The force of his smile was her reward. She turned away, blinking. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’
He led her into the headquarters of one of London’s premier Scrabble clubs. Her jaw dropped as she took in the sight of the boards and players set up around various tables.
A young man brimming over with energy came bustling up. ‘You must be Caro Fielding. I’m Garry.’ He turned to Jack. ‘You’re—?’
‘A friend,’ he supplied, with a wink at Caro. ‘I rang yesterday.’
‘I remember. You said Caro might be interested in joining our club.’
He had, had he? ‘I—’
‘She’s a brilliant player,’ Jack inserted.
Good grief! ‘I haven’t played in an age. And he exaggerates.’ She elbowed Jack in the ribs but he just grinned down at her, utterly unrepentant.
‘Well, why don’t we set you up with Yvonne? She’s pretty new to the club too.’
Before Caro knew it she found herself deep in a fierce game of Scrabble. She’d loved the game once. She and Jack used to play it—though he’d never really been a match for her. He’d only ever played to humour her. But when had she stopped playing?
When Jack had left.
Her heart thudded.
At the end of the game she sat back and stared at the neat rows of tiles. ‘You just wiped the board with me.’ A thread of competitiveness squirmed its way to the surface. ‘Again?’ She wanted a chance to redeem herself.
They started another game. Caro was vaguely aware of Jack strolling around the room, watching the other games, but she had to block him out to concentrate on the game in front of her.
‘You might be rusty,’ her opponent said, ‘but you’re picking it up again at a fast rate of knots.’
Caro lost the second game as well—but not by a margin that made her wince. An old fire she’d forgotten kindled to life in her belly. ‘Best of five?’
Yvonne simply grinned and started selecting a new set of tiles.
Caro was amazed to find that three hours had passed when a bell sounded and they were instructed to finish up their games. Where had the time gone?
She glanced about, searching for Jack. When she found him, leaning back in a chair at a neighbouring table, he grinned at her, making her heart pitter-patter.
‘Ready?’ he said, standing and ambling over to her.
‘Just about. I have to hand in my registration form and pay my club dues.’
He started to laugh. ‘You don’t want to think about it for a bit, then?’
‘Heavens, no.’
For some reason that only made his grin widen.
‘Do you know they hold competitions—and there’s a Scrabble league? Did you know there are world championships?’
‘You have your eye on the main prize?’
‘Not this year.’ She tossed her head, a little fizz of excitement spiralling through her. ‘But next year could be a possibility.’
‘C’mon.’ Throwing an arm across her shoulders, he led her outside. ‘Let me buy you a burger.’
‘Ooh, yes, please! I’m starved!’
‘And I owe you a meal.’ He grimaced down at her in apology. ‘I didn’t realise until much later that I’d left you holding the bill for lunch today.’
They both remembered the reason why Jack had left so abruptly.
He removed his arm from her shoulders and she edged away from him a fraction. She cleared her throat and tried to grab hold of the camaraderie that had wrapped itself around them so warmly just a few short moments ago.
‘It’s a small price to pay for this.’ She gestured back behind her to indicate the Scrabble club. ‘I had a great time tonight. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed Scrabble. It was an inspired idea, Jack. Thank you.’
* * *
The burgers were delicious, but while they both did their best to make small talk the easy camaraderie had fled.
‘Where are you staying?’ she asked him afterwards.
He named a hotel in Covent Garden. ‘Oh, Jack, you could walk there from here. Please—you don’t need to see me home.’
‘But—’
‘Truly! I’d prefer it if you didn’t.’ She wanted to avoid any fraught goodnight moments on her doorstep. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d flag me down a cab.’
‘You insist?’ he asked quietly.
She gave a quick nod. He looked far from happy, but he didn’t argue. He hailed a cab and insisted on paying for it.
As he helped her inside he said, ‘Tomorrow. Six p.m.’
A ripple of anticipation squirrelled through her. ‘Again?’
‘Wear a dress and heels. Small heels—not stilettos.’
She did everything she could to prevent her breath from hitching. ‘Will we be cabbing it again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll wait downstairs for you. Goodnight, Jack.’
With that she sat back, before she did something daft...like kiss him.