Holiday with a Stranger (15 page)

Her head spun. What was going on here? Had Connor really materialised in the middle of Maddie’s awards ceremony to tell her he’d changed his mind? Or was her under-rested, overstressed brain playing tricks on her?

She needed a minute to pull herself together.

‘Let’s move somewhere a bit more private,’ she said, nodding towards a quiet corner where they could meld into the shadows more easily. There was no way she was having this conversation in full public view—not if she was going to end up in pieces on the floor.

* * *

Connor’s stomach clenched in fear as he realised Josie wasn’t responding quite the way he’d hoped. She seemed to be miles away, her eyes unfocused, as if she was thinking about something else entirely. Maybe that was her way of coping with being around him again. Or perhaps she was over him already?

The thought made his chest constrict and a slow flood of dread seeped through his veins.

No. Not possible. Not if she felt anything like the way he did.

He was quiet as he searched her face for any kind of emotion. Her eyes flickered under his scrutiny, as if she was trying to hide something from him. The silence was clearly making her nervous.

‘Josie?’ Connor looked at her intently, his brow furrowed. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind about us, because I don’t believe it.’

She crossed her arms against her chest and paused for a beat, seeming to gather her thoughts. Finally she looked up at him, her gaze steady. ‘After I left I did some serious thinking,’ she said. ‘You were right. I would have had a nervous breakdown if I’d carried on the way I was going. You helped me get some perspective on life. Thank you for that.’

‘Well, I’m happy to have helped.’ A steady and severe pulse throbbed in his head; panic was rising in his belly. This time the potential of an attack played at the edge of his consciousness in response to the paralysing terror that she was about to tell him where he could stick his apology.

‘I’m glad I met you. I needed a wake-up call,’ she said.

He wasn’t sure where she was going with this. His hands shook at his sides and he put them behind his back so she wouldn’t see. If she was about to give him the brush-off he wanted to get out of there with as much dignity as he could muster.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ He hated how breezy his voice sounded. If only she knew how he was burning up inside maybe she wouldn’t prolong the agony she was putting him through.

‘I’m going to slow things down a bit. Get some semblance of a life back. Talk some things through with a counsellor. Whatever I do, I’m not going to allow my work to take over my life again.’

‘Okay.’

Josie looked at him steadily. ‘I have to admit I was furious with you for sticking your nose into my business at first, but I realise you were only trying to help in your strange, lopsided way.’

He snorted gently. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been trying to save the world for so long I don’t know when to stop.’

‘I thought you were going to India?’

The off-subject question brought him up short. ‘I did, but I handed the project to someone else to manage this time.’

It was now or never. He took a step closer to her, putting a hand on her arm in the hope that he could connect with her.

‘I had to come back and see you. I never should have let you leave. I was an idiot to say no to you—to a relationship with you.’ He ran a hand through his hair in agitation. ‘I thought it would be best for us both to move on and forget each other, but to be honest I’ve been miserable without you. You’re what I want. What I’ve been looking for for so many years. I was just too stupid to realise it.’

Josie froze, staring down at the ground. He waited for her response, trapped breath burning his lungs until he thought he couldn’t stand it any longer.

‘Me too,’ she said finally, looking up directly into his eyes, her expression a mixture of pain and hope. ‘Life’s no fun without you.’

Relief flooded through him and he let out a long, low sigh. ‘Thank God for that.’ He moved towards her, his eyes not leaving hers, until their bodies were merely millimetres apart.

She put a hand against his chest. ‘I’m not the easiest person to live with.’

‘That’s okay. I like difficult women,’ he said, tucking a curl of hair around her ear, desperate now to feel her soft lips against his, but knowing there was more to say before that could happen.

‘How are we going to make it work?’ she asked, her anxiety obvious in the quaver of her voice.

‘I could base myself in London...for you.’

‘Really? You’d do that?’

‘I’d still need to be away a lot. We’re going to need determination and tenacity to keep this relationship on track.’

‘I have those qualities in abundance.’

‘How are you at phone sex?’

He grinned and she smirked back.

‘I suck at it. But practice makes perfect.’

‘And we’ll have a lot of holidays away. And I mean a
lot
.’

‘Okay.’

‘You have to meet me halfway, Josie. I can’t go through this if you’re not fully with me.’

‘We can make this work, I know we can.’

Finally he brought his mouth down hard on hers, his hands cupping her face. Relief surged through him. He had a flash of what lay before them: a strong, equal partnership, one that would be challenging but totally worth the effort.

She kissed him back fiercely, her fingers winding into his hair, until they were both breathless and panting.

‘So you trust me not to turn back into the work-focused shrew I once was?’ she said as they finally pulled apart.

He laughed. ‘I trust you.’

‘And you don’t mind taking on the black sheep of my family?’

‘I can’t believe they love someone as amazing as you any less, Josie, but, no, I don’t care what your family thinks.’

She gave him a sad smile. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to accept that none of us will ever change and make peace with that.’

‘Very sensible.’

‘Speaking of family and sensible,’ she said, looking at him coyly, ‘and not meaning to break the mood or anything, but I spend a lot of time with your sister and she’s a very good friend of mine. You can’t keep pretending she doesn’t exist.’

He rubbed a hand over his forehead, smoothing away the uneasy frown. ‘I know. When I spoke to her yesterday I arranged to meet her for a drink and talk things through. You’re right—it’s time to move on from the past. Something I laughably thought I
had
been doing, but was actually failing miserably at.’

She smiled, and a satisfied warmth spread through him. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Kudos to you, by the way, for getting through my thick skull. I didn’t realise how much you’d influenced me until I was picking up the phone and talking to Abi.’

She grinned. ‘So the drip-drip approach worked.’

‘Yeah, smarty-pants. You got me.’

‘Well, you never would have made that decision if I’d nagged you to do it. You’re too damn stubborn.’ She slapped him gently on the arm. ‘Control freak.’

‘Workaholic!’

‘Dromomaniac!’

He gave her a puzzled frown.

‘It means you have a mania for travel.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m not so maniacal about it now. Not when I have such a good reason to stay put,’ he said, dropping his mouth to hers and savouring the sweetly familiar softness of her lips.

* * *

There was a commotion at the entrance to the bar and Josie reluctantly pulled away from the kiss to see a large group of people walking in, with Maddie at its epicentre.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, not wanting to have to introduce Connor to her family tonight. Nor her family to Connor, for that matter. Not until she’d had time to get her head around everything. And she really didn’t want this moment to be overshadowed by her sister’s overwhelming presence.

‘Why don’t you want me to meet Maddie?’

She sighed. How could she have thought Connor wouldn’t call her on it?

There was no point in lying—not after she’d resolved to stop hiding from her fears.

‘Because I’m afraid that when you look at me afterwards all you’ll see is a watered-down version of her.’

He frowned. ‘You think I’m going to drop you and run off with your sister?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s happened in the past.’

He barely had time to flash her a look of concern before Maddie caught sight of them both and swept gracefully over, her eyes zeroing in on Connor as if he were a magnet and she were a beautiful, beguiling, sister-surpassing iron missile.

‘Josie, who’s
this
? I didn’t know you were bringing a date tonight.’

Josie’s shoulders drooped, despite her determination not to let her sister’s overwhelming presence intrude on her newfound and apparently rather shaky confidence. ‘This is Connor. Connor—my sister, Maddie.’

Maddie gave him one of the devastating smiles that had made her such a hit with the TV-viewing public and Josie’s stomach crashed to the ground.
Please, please don’t let Maddie make a play for him. Not tonight. Not when things are so fresh and raw and precariously balanced.

Connor gave her a steady smile. ‘I just want to tell you what a huge fan I am.’

Maddie’s grin widened, then faltered as he put his arm around Josie’s shoulder.

‘Of your sister,’ he said, drawing Josie close to his body. ‘She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met and you should be proud to have her as part of your family.’

Maddie opened and shut her mouth in surprise, before pulling herself together—ever the consummate professional. ‘I am.’

Josie could barely stop herself from laughing. Her sister’s face was a picture. She’d never seen her so rattled.

Maddie stepped forward, blocking Connor with her back and leaning in to Josie as if giving her a sisterly hug.

‘My God, he’s a bit bloody gorgeous. Where have you been hiding him?’ she whispered against her ear.

Drawing back, she waggled her eyebrows and smirked over at Connor. He gave her one of his indifferent smiles back.

Maddie looked ruffled at his cool response to her, but brushed it off quickly, looking over her shoulder for someone else to talk to. ‘Thanks for coming to support me, Josie. I’m really pleased you’re here,’ she said evenly, giving her an extra hard squeeze on the arm, then gliding away to her admirers and being swallowed back into the crowd.

‘Well, that was my sister,’ she said, giving a small shrug of her shoulder and rocking back on her heels, testing his response.

Connor nodded thoughtfully. ‘I can see why you have such an issue being related to her.’

Josie’s heart plummeted. So he had been impressed by Maddie after all; he’d just done a bang-up job of disguising it.

Connor frowned at her less than enthusiastic response to his statement and pulled her in close, wrapping his arm tightly around her middle so she could feel the hardness of his muscles against her belly.

‘I can honestly say you have absolutely no need to worry about me running off with your sister.’

She met his eyes and saw the sincerity in his gaze. Leaning forward, she planted a firm kiss on his mouth, attempting to convey through the osmosis of her touch that she really, truly believed him. When she drew away he was smiling at her. Apparently she’d been successful.

‘It would never work with me and Maddie, anyway,’ he said, leaning in to nuzzle the flashpoint on her neck that, when kissed, always made her lose her mind.

‘What makes you say that?’ She struggled to get the words out.

‘Because if my ego and her ego ever got together I think the world would probably implode.’

She giggled in response, happiness making her light-headed.

Pulling back, he kissed first her cheeks, then her nose, his breath feathering over her skin.

‘You know I wouldn’t change a thing about you,’ he said, firmly kissing one side of her mouth and then the other. ‘You’re one of a kind and I love that.’

At that moment she felt it. Unique. After all those years of peeking out from under her sister’s shadow, of wishing and hoping that there was something special about her, finally here was that feeling. And it was from a totally different source than the one she’d expected. A better source. An infinitely more important one.

‘So what happens now?’ she asked, looking him dead in the eye.

‘Game of chess?’ he asked, smiling seductively.

‘I can think of something much more fun than that,’ she said, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

‘Fun sounds good,’ he said, and before she had time to react he pulled her tight against his body, locking his arms around her back. ‘What the lady wants, the lady gets,’ he said, kissing her hard. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he whispered against her mouth.

‘Take me to bed and I’ll show you,’ she said, kissing him back.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from THE PLUS-ONE AGREEMENT by Charlotte Phillips.

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin KISS story.

You think of flirting as an art form!
Harlequin KISS
stories are all about the delirium of a potential new romance—where fun-loving heroines and irresistible heroes just can’t get enough of each other.

Enjoy four new stories from Harlequin Kiss every month!

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com