Her father had rejected her. There. She’d admitted it. It wasn’t a matter of simple disinterest. He didn’t want to know her.
Stupid to pretend it didn’t hurt—of course it did. But at least Nate had warned her last night and she’d had the chance to prepare herself. She’d lain awake in his arms, hoping against hope that Sam would choose to stay.
So much for hope.
She moved on to clearing the kitchen table, discarding yesterday’s paper, culling a black banana from the fruit bowl, returning the salt and paper shakers to the cupboard. Her gaze fell on the pile of Nate’s unopened mail and she drew the magazine rack toward herself and began to pile the envelopes together. Even if Nate was never going to open them there was no need for them to remain an eyesore.
He entered the kitchen as she finished stacking the envelopes into two neat piles.
“Hi. Where do you want these?” she asked, lifting her hair off the back of her neck. It was heading toward the hottest part of the day and the house was stuffy and warm.
Nate glanced at the envelopes. “They’re fine where they are.”
“I could help you go through them, if you like? Just in case there’s anything you need to worry about.”
“There isn’t.”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded. “All right.”
She grabbed the first stack and knelt beside the magazine rack.
“Wait. Give them to me. I’ll toss them,” Nate said suddenly.
She looked up at him, surprised, but he was already scooping up the pile from the table. Wordlessly she handed over the remainder and watched as he walked out the back door.
She glanced at the empty magazine rack, feeling uneasy. Perhaps she should have left that particular sleeping dog lie. It was so hard to know what to do. She understood that Nate had worked out a strategy for himself over the past four months. He had his routines, his coping mechanisms. Who was she to push or pull him in another direction? Given what had happened to him, how it haunted him, it seemed to her that he was entitled to whatever peace he could find.
But she was also aware that it wasn’t a long-term solution. She wanted more for him than this circumscribed life.
She sighed heavily and pushed herself to her feet. If he wanted to throw away his Smartsell paperwork, then it was up to him. She only hoped that one day, one of the letters would arrive and he’d feel an itch to open it.
It wasn’t going to work. Jarvie was going to have to live with things the way they were. Nate was now a silent partner. It was better for everyone that way.
Because he knew it had been a crappy day for Elizabeth, Nate rang her English friends, Lexie and Ross, and the four of them went out for dinner. He listened to her talk and laugh, watched the play of light over her face and the way she tilted her head when she was listening to something that engaged her.
Sam was a jerk for bailing on her.
It hit him during dessert that there was nothing holding Elizabeth in Australia anymore. With Sam gone, there was no reason for her to stay. Christmas was a few days away—it only made sense for her to return home to spend it with her grandparents and her friends.
He twisted his wineglass on the table.
He didn’t want her to go.
He didn’t want to contemplate what his life would be without her. Couldn’t even imagine trying to get through the night without her in his arms. But his need was not even close to being enough of a reason to ask Elizabeth to stay. He’d chosen to live this way—she had not. She had a life in London. A career as a teacher. Grandparents and friends.
Despite his best intentions, ways and means to bind her to his side raced through his mind. They could move into the main house. They could renovate, in whatever style or way Elizabeth dictated. Money wasn’t an issue, after all. She wouldn’t have to work if she didn’t want to. He could give her anything—anything—that her heart desired.
He swallowed the last of his wine.
He wasn’t going to do any of those things. No matter how much he wanted to.
He loved her too much to trap her.
He allowed the knowledge to wash over him. Of course he loved Lizzy. She was smart and kind and generous. She drove him wild in bed. She amused him endlessly. She made him wish he could turn back time. Six months ago, he would have pursued her and made her his. He would have done whatever it took to make her happy.
But he wasn’t that man anymore. He couldn’t drive. Until recently he couldn’t get through the night without waking at least once, bathed in sweat, Olivia’s screams in his head. He was no good to anyone. Fine for a holiday fling, but a liability in the long term.
The knowledge sat like a rock on his chest for the rest of the evening.
“You know, I don’t think I even knew what summer was until I came here,” Elizabeth said as they walked home along the beach. The wind blew her hair across her face and she caught the length of it in her hand and draped it over one shoulder. “It’s hard to believe that it’s probably snowing back home.”
They turned onto the track to his street and he waited for her to toe on her sandals before they walked the short distance to his house.
Elizabeth flicked a glance at the steel-and-glass showpiece next door and shuddered theatrically.
“Promise me you won’t ever build one of those,” she said.
He looked at her, her hair silver, her eyes a very dark blue in the moonlight. “I promise.”
“You want to lie on the blanket and watch the stars?”
“No.”
A slow smile curled her mouth. “Really. What did you have in mind?”
He showed her, leading her to the studio and peeling her clothes off slowly. Kissing the tan lines on her shoulders and breasts. Pushing her back onto the bed and taking her nipple into his mouth. She moaned her pleasure and spread her legs languorously. He licked and sucked and nibbled his way down her belly, smiling when her breath caught as she understood where he was going.
He loved the way she responded to his touch. So openly, so unashamedly. Despite her very proper accent and her perfect manners and her very practical nature, in bed she was a willing, greedy wanton and he loved it.
He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her panties and tugged them down. She drove her fingers into his hair and lifted her hips as he lowered his head and inhaled the good, clean scent of her.
He parted her with his fingers, then tasted her. She shivered, her thighs tightening against his shoulders. He explored her soft folds, teasing, flicking, stroking until she was panting and arching her back, on the verge of climax. He shed his T-shirt and shorts in record time and surged into her.
He closed his eyes, deliberately fixing this moment, this sensation in his mind. If he had to have all the bad stuff, all the horror, he should be able to have this, too. And maybe some nights when she was gone he’d dream of her and of being with her instead of the other.
She pulled him down on top of her. They kissed as he stroked in and out of her. He knew she was close and he ran his hands over her breasts and belly and thighs. She called his name, her fingers clenching into his backside. And then she was coming, her head thrown back, her breasts lifting. He drove deep inside her and held her close as his own climax hit him.
He started to roll away from her but she held him still.
“Not yet.”
“I’m too heavy.”
“No, you’re not.”
She wrapped her arms around him and he lay on top of her, breathing to her rhythm, feeling her heart beat against his chest. After a while she pressed her face into his neck and inhaled deeply.
“Okay,” she sighed.
He smiled faintly as he rolled to one side. “We can do it again if you give me twenty minutes to recover.”
“Okay. But the clock is on, Mr. Jones.”
She fell asleep after the second time and he lay beside her listening to the sound of her breathing for a long time before he fell asleep.
By the time dawn was turning the sky apricot he’d opened four months’ worth of financial reports, marketing strategies and client account summaries. He knew the business was doing okay. Not brilliantly, but okay. Something to be expected in these tough economic times, perhaps, but Smartsell had been on a huge growth curve six months ago and there was still plenty of juice left in the market. Their point of sale and stock keeping program had blown the existing players out of the water when they’d launched four years ago. Their competitors’ systems were older, based on inflexible, outdated platforms. Smartsell was cheaper, faster, more efficient and more user-friendly. By rights, the company should still be converting retailers by the bucket load.
Looking over the marketing reports, Nate could see that Jarvie had pulled back on advertising and other promotional activity. Operations and development had always been Nate’s responsibility, marketing and roll-out Jarvie’s. But it was clear that with Nate’s absence from the business, Jarvie was letting marketing flounder in order to keep operations ticking over.
It wasn’t a dire picture, by any means. Smartsell was in no danger of folding. But it wasn’t the way it should be. Not by a long shot.
He was jotting down notes when the bead curtain rattled and Elizabeth entered the kitchen.
“You’re up early,” she said. Her gaze took in the discarded envelopes and piles of paper. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He sat back and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Then he looked at her.
“How do you feel about a trip to the city?”
Maybe time was working its magic. Maybe his mind was slowly coming to terms with that horrible night and the loss of his sister.
He started giving her directions when they hit one of the main highways into the city, and soon she was pulling up out the front of a high-rise building on a wide, tree-lined boulevard that Nate told her was called St. Kilda Road.
She glanced up at the building, assuming it was Smartsell’s headquarters. It was pretty damn impressive. Clearly, Nate and his business partner had done well for themselves.
“I’m probably going to be a while. There’s good shopping in the city center, and two art galleries,” Nate said as he gathered his papers and jacket.
“Don’t worry. If there’s a shoe shop, I’ll be right for hours.”
“There are lots of shoe shops.”
He already had her phone number and they agreed he’d call her when he was ready to be collected. She put a hand on his arm when he was about to slide out of the car. “Good luck.”
He smiled tightly and exited the car. It was busy, nearly eleven o’clock, and there were lots of cars speeding past and a steady flow of people in and out of the building. She watched Nate glance around, clearly ill at ease.
She
was finding all the rush and noise and urgency a little overwhelming after only a few weeks on the island. She could only imagine what a culture shock it was for him to be in the thick of commerce again.
He glanced back at her and caught her watching. He forced a smile, then he turned and walked into the building. She stared after him, wishing she could go with him. But Nate would hardly want to have her playing shotgun while he reimmersed himself in his business.
She found parking under one of the big buildings in the city center and made her way into a large department store. Christmas decorations hung from the ceilings and display ends. She hadn’t given much thought to Christmas—since meeting Nate the world had devolved to just the two of them.
She spent the next hour searching for suitable gifts for her family. She found a pair of leather gloves for her grandfather and a cashmere shawl in her grandmother’s favorite periwinkle-blue. She spotted a set of frilly, silly pajamas that absolutely screamed Violet and added them to her haul.
What to buy Nate presented a bigger problem. The one thing she wished for him in all the world—peace of mind—was not hers to give. Everything else seemed incredibly frivolous by comparison. She settled for buying him a new wallet, since she’d noticed the corner was frayed on his, as well as a bottle of the aftershave she knew he liked.
She waited in line to have her presents wrapped, then she waited in line at the post office to put the bulk of them in the mail. With a bit of luck they’d make it home by Christmas.
She’d had enough of fighting her way through crowds of shoppers by then and she took herself on a tour of the city. She had wandered inside the stately Parliament House and was admiring the Victorian columns and high-arching ceilings when her eye fell on a sign advertising the government departments housed in the building. She paused as she saw that the Department of Education was located on the next level.
Twenty minutes later, she was reading over the sheaf of papers she’d been handed when she asked about applying to work as a teacher in Australia. It seemed a fairly straightforward process, especially since she could now claim an Australian as her parent. She smiled a little grimly to herself. Perhaps Sam Blackwell might be of some use to her, after all.
She was having a coffee in the State Library when Nate called.
“Hi. Are you ready to go?” she asked. She checked her watch and blinked when she saw that it was a quarter to four.
Which meant Nate had been at Smartsell for nearly five hours. That had to be good news.
She wanted to ask how he was doing, how he was feeling, but she knew better than to come right out with it.
“All done. Want to come pick me up?”
“I’m in the city,” she said. “I’m not sure how long it will take me, but I’m leaving now.”
She gathered the application forms she’d been going over and stuffed them into her handbag, then she walked to the car. Rush hour was starting and it took her nearly half an hour to make her way back to St. Kilda Road where she’d left Nate.
He was standing at the front, a folder of papers in hand, and he walked to the car and got in the moment she pulled over.
“I’m so sorry. I think maybe I came the worst possible way,” she said.
“No worries. I figured it’d be pretty busy out there. How was the shopping?”
“Competitive. I nearly had to wrestle a woman to the ground over a cashmere shawl for my grandmother.”
He seemed more relaxed than when they’d arrived and she wondered if she should even raise the thought that had occurred to her on the drive over: the fact that with traffic the way it was, there was no way they’d be able to reach the island before nightfall.
“Nate, it’s pretty late. If we head off now…”
His face tightened. “Yeah.”
She waited in silence as he mulled the situation over.
“How do you feel about a night in town?” he finally asked.
He didn’t look at her. He was embarrassed. Probably ashamed, too, knowing Nate. It wasn’t enough that he had to deal with the repercussions of the accident, he had to give himself a hard time for being human, too.
“Great. Then we can drive back first thing in the morning,” she said.
“We could do a hotel, or we can go to my place. Your choice.”
Nate’s place. Useless to pretend she didn’t want to see where he lived. But she couldn’t help but notice the flat tone in his voice, and the fact that he’d given her a choice.
“Which would you prefer?” she asked.
“I’m not a child, Lizzy. Pick whatever suits you. I don’t need to be coddled every step of the goddamned way.”
She flinched at the sharp tone in his voice. There was a taut moment of silence in the car, then he sighed heavily. “Sorry.”
He didn’t say anything else but he reached across the console and took her hand. She looked at their joined hands, his skin still so much browner than hers.
“I picked up some forms from the education department today,” she said in a rush. “The woman at the desk said I’d have no problem having my qualification recognized and registering for work if I wanted to teach in Australia.”
She glanced across at him, trying to read his reaction. He was very still, his face expressionless.
“What about your grandparents? Your life back in London?”
“I’ll miss them, of course. But London doesn’t have you, Nate.”
She held her breath, waiting for his response. It wasn’t long in coming.
“Bloody hell, Lizzy,” he said.
Suddenly she was in his arms, being held so tightly she could hardly breathe.
A slow smile crept across her face.
He wanted her to stay. He was glad she wasn’t going home.
“I guess that answers my question, then,” she said.
Nate’s grip eased and he pulled back so he could look into her face. He lifted a hand and touched the angle of her jaw, then he smoothed a finger along one of her eyebrows. “Lizzy.”
He kissed her, an almost violent, needy, urgent kiss that left her gasping when he finally broke away.
“Hotel or my place?” he asked as they grudgingly let each other go.
She glanced at the hard ridge in his jeans. “Which is closer?”
“My place.”
She started the car and looked at him expectantly.
“Take the first left,” he said.
She didn’t need to be told twice.