FLISS SCREWED CLOSED the lid of her new mascara bottle with shaking hands as she checked her reflection in the mirror with a hesitant smile and tried to quell the rolling in her lower abdomen. An orchestra of crickets might as well have decamped in there. She rarely wore make-up, certainly never at work, but she’d found a few perfect supplies at the local market—not too much, but enough to enhance her sun-kissed glow—and couldn’t help wondering if Ash would like what he saw.
Logically, it shouldn’t matter; she’d learned a long time ago not to care what anyone thought. But nothing about Ash was what she was used to. Logic seemed to fly out of the window when he was around, as did practicality. She should have refused the moment he’d raised the idea of seeing the carnival. After the last couple of emotional weeks, it threatened to unearth things best left forgotten. Instead, she’d let Ash talk her into it.
She was acting on pure lust and complete gut instinct. It was absurd and it was terrifying.
And it was also intoxicating.
She couldn’t even remember when she’d last been excited about going on a date, let alone excited about getting ready to go on a date. She’d heard girls giggling about it over the years, but she’d never understood it. Until now. It was why she’d actually enjoyed spending a portion of her afternoon, when she would otherwise have preferred to be sleeping, going down to the local tourist market and uncovering unexpected treasures like the tiny pot of powder and brush, the subtly sparkling lipgloss and the wand of mascara. She’d even managed to squeeze in an appointment at the hotel’s hair salon. Elle would never have recognised her, but she could hear her friend’s approving voice in her ear, urging Fliss to just have fun for once.
Well, she definitely intended to do that.
Satisfied, she reached for her keycard and new clutch bag and then for the door handle.
It was ten to seven and she was going to be early—dating rules probably dictated that she shouldn’t be, but Fliss couldn’t help that. Punctuality was ingrained in her. She couldn’t change that now.
Taking every last ounce of confidence in her hands, she stepped out of the door and made her way to the lift. The last person she expected to see standing there was Ash, a crisp shirt doing little to conceal those broad shoulders or honed physique which had already marked him out as an eligible male within a contingent of the females down here. Somehow he managed to appear even more powerful and commanding than he did in his military uniform.
A hint of possessiveness shot through her, mingled with a pinch of smugness that she was the woman he was waiting for. But then her heart plummeted; he didn’t exactly look pleased to see her hurrying straight over to his corner.
Served her right for her hubris.
‘You’re early too.’ She nervously smoothed down her black jersey trousers to hide her unease.
The trousers might have been old but they were also comfy, flowing prettily around her legs. The perfect foil to her new, uncharacteristically sexy, cleavage-revealing halter-top, which she was suddenly thinking might be a little too nightclub for her.
‘Felicity—’ he looked genuinely thrown ‘—you look…incredible.’
With a start, Fliss realised that he hadn’t immediately recognised her, but now he had he treated her to a full, very heated appraisal, darkened eyes taking in the visual of head to toe, and everything in between.
Her confidence bounced back a little. He clearly liked what he saw but, when he hadn’t appreciated it was her, he hadn’t been about to flirt with the stranger heading in his direction. The crackle of crickets leapt around Fliss even more madly.
‘Your hair,’ he managed.
Self-consciously, she flicked at the cascade of gold, expertly volumised so that she felt like some kind of glamorous shampoo model.
‘New clothes?’
Her confidence rose a little higher again. He was having a hard time lifting his eyes from her cleavage. But, rather than feeling self-conscious, or condemning Ash for his primal reaction, an unexpected sliver of sensual power rippled through her. She felt bold and sexy, and proudly feminine. She chose not to answer the question.
‘Shall we see if the taxi is here?’
He stepped close to her by way of response, sliding a strong palm to the dip of her back as they moved through the foyer. It was such a small but intimate gesture, he might as well have seared its impression into her skin.
‘Are you hungry?’ he murmured into her hair.
Stay calm.
‘Famished.’
‘Good.’ He guided her out of the doors and to the waiting taxi. ‘Then let’s go.’
* * *
The drive was fortunately short—being so close to Ash on the back seat was having a woeful effect on her ability to breathe, let alone to construct coherent sentences. She tried to move her thigh from his, the solid, muscular length playing havoc on her senses, but he simply closed the gap again and all she could think about was what was going to happen later that evening back in the hotel room.
Arriving at their destination was both a relief and a disappointment and Fliss tried to concentrate on the carnival sounds to distract herself. The evening had barely started and she was already hung up on what was to come. She was beginning to be grateful to Ash for starting the evening far away from the hotel.
The driver had already warned them that the main town was closed to traffic for the parade so they would have to continue the rest of the way on foot. They trailed along cobbled streets with old buildings built with yellow and cream stone and red-tiled roofs. Flowers and streamers hung from windows of various homes and shops.
Yet, even as they got closer to the central square, and the sounds of music and laughter grew louder, Fliss still wasn’t prepared for turning the corner into the main parade street.
It swept her away in an instant.
More flowers, flags, streamers and lanterns adorned the wide road in their hundreds—as far as the eye could see. Laughing couples and families thronged the place, and live music played as people danced in the street. Now and then, incredible cooking smells wafted to her nostrils, making her stomach rumble in appreciation.
Ash turned his head to look at her and she grinned, unabashed. Then, his arm firmly around her shoulders and her body melded to his, he led her into the crowds.
‘Where are we heading?’ she said, laughing.
He smiled, shaking his head to indicate he hadn’t heard her over the bustling street.
‘Say again?’
‘Where are we heading?’
‘Anywhere we want.’ Ash placed his lips to her ear, so close his breath tickled her. ‘Stop me if you see anywhere which takes your fancy.’
She didn’t want to draw comparisons. What good would it do? Still, it felt heady to be so impromptu. Dates in previous relationships had been so planned, so rigid—everything she’d thought she wanted. She was beginning to realise that predictability could be dull and uninspiring.
Except this wasn’t really a date and it certainly wasn’t the start of a relationship. She needed to remember that.
‘Here.’ She stopped Ash abruptly.
A small but pretty restaurant had caught her eye. Unlike some of the other places, with tables spilling out into the road and smiling servers running around a multitude of tourists, this place looked smaller, more family-run. And there looked to be several locals enjoying a meal, which was always a good sign in Fliss’s book.
‘Good choice,’ Ash agreed, threading his way to a table for two and holding her chair out for her to sit down, before seating himself at ninety degrees.
It was nicer than sitting opposite him, Fliss thought with surprise, and it allowed them both to watch the festival without the pressure to make conversation. He was making everything so easy; if only she could convince her over-excited body to agree.
With a concerted effort, Fliss pushed her nerves about the later part of the evening to the back of her mind and focused on the carnival around them. The bands had taken a break and the dancing had stopped but she could still hear plenty of buzz, and music in the distance. Craning her neck eagerly, she realised that the parade had begun and the first troubadours and baton-twirlers were moving energetically down the streets, leading the most breathtaking floats Fliss had ever seen.
She clapped her hands along with the crowd, their appreciation evident. This wasn’t going to be such a tense evening, after all.
* * *
It was an hour before the last of the floats passed by, the music slowly drifting away, the lanterns now casting a warm glow over the darkening sky. Ash watched as Fliss turned back, her whole body more relaxed than he’d seen all evening. Possibly ever.
She glanced at her empty place setting.
‘The meal’s gone?’
‘You finished it.’ He chuckled softly. ‘You don’t remember?’
She offered a rueful smile. ‘I know I’m full, and I know the food was beautiful.’ She glanced at the bottle of red wine. ‘Ah, well, that isn’t why I’m feeling so chilled out; it’s only half empty.’
He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was their second bottle and she’d drank two-thirds of that one.
They fell into an easy silence, the street scene still offering plenty of entertainment.
‘So you enjoyed the parade?’ Ash asked, once the waiter had brought them a round of coffees.
‘I loved it.’ She nodded, her eyes sparkling happily. ‘It was almost magical. And now all the lanterns are so pretty; it’s like being in a fairy tale.’
‘I’m glad you had fun.’ He was careful to keep his tone upbeat. ‘I still can’t believe you’ve never been to a festival.’
He watched Fliss’s mind ticking over, wondering how best to respond. But then the server chose that moment to clear the dishes from their table and by the time they were alone again Ash feared she might have composed herself enough to brush him off. He was surprised when she answered hesitantly.
‘It wasn’t somewhere my uncle wanted to take me.’
‘He didn’t want to, or you didn’t want to?’
She slowly stirred her coffee, her eyes trained on the mini-vortex.
‘A bit of both, probably.’
He waited quietly in the hope she would offer more of her own volition, but she didn’t, and that ate away at Ash. He wanted to know her better, to understand her, but she was shutting him out. He couldn’t explain why that bothered him so much.
Then again, she wasn’t shooting him down either. It could mean part of her wanted to talk, if he could just coax it out of her without scaring her off.
‘You said your uncle raised you?’
She paused, then nodded. ‘From the age of eight.’
‘You mentioned your mother wasn’t kind to you.’
Perhaps by reminding her of things she’d already told him, it would help her to feel she’d already trusted him once. At least partially.
A brittle sound escaped her. ‘I represented the end of all her dreams. And she never let me forget it.’
He’d seen that often enough, with other kids in care.
‘She was an aspiring ballerina.’ Fliss bunched her shoulders.
Ah. Not that it excused it, but it gave him a better understanding of what Fliss had dealt with.
‘Would she have made it?’
‘I honestly don’t think she would.’ Fliss met his gaze, not spiteful but factual. ‘My uncle said she was good, but there are thousands of good ballerinas. She wasn’t great, certainly not stand-out. But she could never accept that. She always had to have someone to blame. Never herself. Before I came along she blamed her parents for not supporting her enough. Then when she fell pregnant and neither of my two potential fathers wanted to know, that was their fault. And finally, when I came along, I was the excuse she needed to explain why she’d given up dancing altogether. She could be…cruel.’
‘Is that why you’re so responsible? So rule-abiding? Except for when you’re leaping off helicopters to save injured soldiers, that is.’
‘I don’t know.’ Fliss looked surprised. ‘I’ve never really thought about it, I guess. I just know I vowed to myself I’d never be like my mother.’
‘And yet your uncle, the General, he’s one of the most responsible, straight-down-the-line men I know.’
‘Yes.’ A fond smile leapt to her lips. ‘He was the typically duty-bound older brother. He had a younger brother who died as a baby—cot death, I think. When my mother came along within the year—another new baby and a girl to boot—I think my grandparents were overly protective.’
‘So, as she grew up, your mother got away with a lot?’
‘If you listen to her then no; her father was a military man too, and she bemoans the fact they were suffocating in their strictness. But if you ask my uncle, he’ll say she was given a lot of leeway. Yet the more she got, the more she demanded. She became known as a bit of a whinger, whilst my uncle was always expected to be the big brother and pick up the slack. He carried that with him when he followed in my grandfather’s footsteps into the Army. It’s what’s made him the General, I suppose.’
‘And you’re like him. Always striving to do the right thing,’ Ash mused.
He was certainly beginning to understand her better. He and Fliss had more in common than he would have believed.
‘But it doesn’t make you boring, or dull.’
‘I just think I was looking for someone I could trust. A man with the same qualities I see in my uncle. But I couldn’t love them the way they deserved to be loved. That isn’t me. I confused solid and reliable with boring and disconnected.’
‘Why? Why are you so afraid to let go, Fliss?’
She offered a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t want to be like my mother. She only thought about herself, about what she wanted. Did I tell you that we didn’t start off alone? That she only dragged me away from my grandparents’ house when I was four? And that was because she wanted to push me into all the dancing lessons she wished that she had taken, but her parents hadn’t allowed her to?’
Ash shook his head. ‘Did you like dancing?’
‘I hated dancing. But she said I was being selfish. That I owed her that much. I’d taken away her dream of dancing, so the least I could do was try to be half the dancer she felt she had been. It took my uncle four years to track us down. We were squatting in a house with about twenty others. We had no heating, no food because all the money she had went on sparkling new dresses so she could push me onto the circuit.’
He’d seen and heard a little about pageants over the years.
‘They can be quite cut-throat, can’t they.’
‘That’s an understatement.’
He could virtually see the nausea, the fear rising in her.
‘So you loathed it,’ he confirmed.
She bounced her head, unable to answer him for a moment. ‘Every single second of the humiliation. My mother would scream and bawl at me for missing a pivot or split. I was five, Ash. Five. I should have been playing on the swings, or being taught how to ride a bike. Having fun, laughing. Being loved.’
His throat constricted. He knew exactly how that felt. The loneliness, the despair, the rejection.
‘My uncle found us backstage after one of those competitions. I was on the floor, sobbing over something or other, when he walked in and I thought he looked like the biggest, bravest, most heroic man I’d ever seen.’
‘That was when he gave her the ultimatum.’ Ash drew his lips into a thin line.
She stopped abruptly, dropping her eyes from his, but he could see that, even now, her pain was still as intense.
‘Fliss?’
‘When my mother refused to leave with him—’ her voice dropped to a whisper ‘—she told him I was useless anyway and that she was better off without me. Then she dragged me off the floor and threw me across the room to him. She told him if he wanted to look after a worthless baby like me, then he could have me. Finally she walked out.’
Anger rushed up inside of Ash, along with something else. A fierce protectiveness. A need to ensure that no one hurt her or made her feel so worthless ever again.
He knew it wasn’t his place to feel that way but he couldn’t curb it; it refused to be pushed aside.
‘Ash, I don’t want to talk about this any more.’
Nodding grimly, Ash pulled his wallet out and thrust a generous pile of notes at the delighted server and pulled Fliss gently from her chair. Right now, she needed to be reminded of the better side of life. And he was determined to be the one to do that for her.
‘Come on, Fliss. Time to get out of here.’