She grabbed it and speed-walked upstairs to the sick room. No one was using it now, so Caitlyn flipped on the lights and sat on the cot staring at the envelope in her hands.
She’d never opened one. After the earth-shattering experience she’d shared with Spencer in the witching hours of this morning, she felt strength and courage she’d never had. She could face all her fears head-on.
Her fingers trembled as she slid them under the flap and drew the letter out of the envelope. Just the sight of that ghastly familiar handwriting was enough to bring back floods of memory—the lists of chores he’d hand her on Saturday mornings, notes telling her he was running errands and would return soon, the card he wrote saying how proud he was at her high school graduation. The last time she’d seen this handwriting, other than the scrawled return addresses on dozens of letters, was on the confession San Francisco’s prosecutor had shown her seven years earlier.
That was enough for her. She couldn’t look any further. Shoving the letter back into the envelope without letting any of its words jump out to grab her attention, she wondered why she’d done it in the first place. Had she hoped for some sort of reason from the unreasonable? A justification for his vileness?
No. She wanted to understand why any human would need to exert absolute control over another. She wanted to know what drove someone to throw a lasso around the person he professed to love, and to draw that rope ever tighter until her life was so circumscribed, so focused only on him that one could no longer say she even had a life outside him.
Most of all, she wanted to know if she would crave that control over someone if she allowed herself to fall in love.
Or would she be more like her mother, and allow herself to be reined in?
Chapter Nine
January the 1st
,
1941
...
The Luftwaffe dropped God knows how many
incendiary bombs on London this week.
They aimed for St.
Paul’s
,
but through God’s grace
and German incompetence they didn’t hit it.
Fires have burned through the city ever since.
I
feel so ill-equipped to help
...
Spencer tucked Caitlyn’s arm through his as they
strolled through St. Paul’s Cathedral. The soft underside of her forearm brushed
the back of his, and he squeezed her closer. Her ribs, breast and hip rubbed
against him as they walked, filling him with thoughts he shouldn’t have in a
church.
Her innocent kiss a week before had set him alight. The
not-so-innocent ones they’d shared almost every night since had left him
suffering a near-constant erection. He felt bowlegged as an American cowboy.
Letting her take the reins and explore him at her own pace was
the best and worst decision he’d ever made. If he’d stayed in charge, they’d be
in an expensive hotel room showering each other with champagne and licking up
every drop.
Instead he was in a bloody
church
escorting her around like a damned fop and taking pictures for his granddad.
“Fifteen quid entry fee, my arse,” he muttered.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” Whoever heard of charging entry to a church? He
could’ve bought a damn lot of body chocolate for fifteen quid. Caitlyn would
love body chocolate. She could spread it on the bits of him she was most curious
about, her pink tongue lapping it up—
Spencer picked up the pace and led them to the center of the
building, tilting his head back to take in the ornate dome nearly a hundred
meters above their heads.
“Can you imagine if they’d had to rebuild this?” she
whispered.
“They wouldn’t have. They’d have built a shopping center
instead. Who needs a church when you can have commerce?” He paused. “Oh, wait.
They have both.”
She made the sexiest sound of amusement deep in her throat, a
purring chuckle that made even his ears tingle.
Tingle? God, he really would have to get her into bed soon. He
was starting to sound like a girl.
“Cute,” she whispered.
He looked down at her in shock. “I’m not cute.” Wait—she
couldn’t have heard him think the word
tingle.
Not
unless he’d accidentally muttered it out loud.
She smiled up at him. “I know you’re not. Cute would be the
last word I’d use to describe you.”
“Which begs the question—”
“The boy over there. He has a red rose embroidered on his
shirt. It’s cute that a boy his age would feel comfortable wearing such a girlie
shirt.”
That wasn’t the question Spencer had begged for—he’d wanted to
know how she would describe him.
Hard
,
tough
,
virile.
These
would’ve been acceptable, certainly preferable to
cute.
But mention of a familiar-sounding shirt had him scanning the
crowded cathedral. A benefit of his height: he could see over most heads, and
today one particular head caught his eye. One particular head sporting a silver
pompadour. “What the hell?” he muttered.
“Are you staring at the boy? Don’t stare at the boy. He’ll know
we’re talking about him.” Caitlyn gripped his arm and drew his gaze back to her
scowling upturned face.
Talk about
cute.
“Stare at what boy? I haven’t even seen him. And what did you
mean by ‘girlie shirt’?”
“It’s white with an embroidered red rose on the chest. I can’t
think of many boys who’d wear something like that.”
He scanned the crowd again, sure he’d seen his granddad—the
very granddad who’d claimed to be too ill to make this outing. Then the
implication of Caitlyn’s description hit him, and he rolled his eyes as he
defended the masculinity of such a shirt. “That’s because you probably don’t
know many boys who’re rugby fans, Yankee Doodle. It’s the official shirt of the
England rugby team. The rose is symbolic of England.”
She blinked up at him in obvious confusion. His hand itched to
cup her cheek, keep her head tilted at just that angle so he could dip down and
taste her parted lips. His body thrummed with the urge to tuck her against his
chest, his hips, let their bodies rediscover the natural fit they’d explored
every night this week as they’d held and kissed each other.
Then she broke the spell. “What do you call a pretty English
girl?”
“Fit.”
Fit as fuck
, really, but he
couldn’t say that in a church.
She shook her head. “An English rose. I’ve heard people call
pretty girls English roses.”
He laughed. “Do you spend a lot of time with people Granddad’s
age?”
Ignoring him, she pressed on. “But you’re telling me the rose
is a symbol of a buncha hulking bruisers?”
Well. That answered his earlier question about how she’d
describe him.
Hulking bruiser
wasn’t in the same
league as
fit as fuck
, which is how he would
describe her. But he could live with that description.
Fairly accurate, anyway.
“Roses are delicate, Spencer. Look at you. I don’t know what
your teammates look like, but there’s nothing delicate about you.”
His heartbeat kicked up at the compliment. Unhooking his arm
from hers, he settled his hand on one of the bits of her he liked best—the curve
of her waist which flared so enticingly into breasts above and hips below. “I
didn’t choose it as our symbol.”
“What would you have chosen?”
How could she keep coming up with questions as his fingertips
made little circles against her tummy, mere inches below her breasts? His brain
fumbled words when all he wanted was her, naked and spread out on the nearest
surface.
Didn’t even have to be a flat surface. He could work with
whatever he was given.
A tug at his shirt had him breaking eye contact with the woman
he desperately needed to get naked soon, and looking down into a young face that
beamed with adoration.
The boy with the England rugby shirt had found him. Spencer
dropped his hand from Caitlyn’s waist—he couldn’t keep touching her while
talking to a ten-year-old boy; it just felt wrong.
“You’re Spencer Bailey.” The boy sounded like he’d bolted
across the cathedral, breathless with excitement.
“I am. What’s your name?”
“Connor. Connor Hawking. Sir.” He glanced back at a man who
looked like an older version of him, if he spent the next thirty years drinking
lager and eating chips. “And this is my dad.”
The two men shook hands. Spencer grew uncomfortably aware of
Caitlyn standing at his side like an ignored appendage. He couldn’t bring
himself to introduce her, even as the older Hawking shot a curious glance in her
direction. Rugby wives and girlfriends usually stayed out of the scandal
rags—Spencer liked to think because his fellow players chose women who were
interested in more than drinking, shopping and making moronic comments to the
press.
But rugby fans loved their online discussion boards, and all it
would take for interest in his personal scandal to flare up would be for Mr.
Hawking to make a comment about Spencer being cozy with a woman. He’d been
working his arse off to prove his patience and trustworthiness to
Caitlyn—especially after learning about her father. Nothing would blow her trust
faster than the phrase
arrested on statutory rape
charges.
“What position do you play, Connor?”
“Inside center.”
“Like me,” Spencer said, and the boy’s grin stretched nearly to
his ears.
“Yeah!” Connor chattered away, sharing his opinions on
Spencer’s most brilliant moments on the pitch, which players were even better
than Spencer, and how he planned to represent England himself one day. Spencer
interjected with appropriate encouragement whenever the boy took a breath, but
half of his attention remained with Caitlyn, who watched the exchange as if she
were a stranger who happened to be standing nearby. She’d shoved her fists into
the pockets of her khaki combat trousers and stared awkwardly at the dome
above.
Shite.
Looked like he’d screwed the
pooch this time.
* * *
Caitlyn’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket, and she
could’ve kissed whoever called. She’d been searching for an excuse to break away
from Spencer’s growing group of fans, but as time stretched on she’d realized
she couldn’t just walk away and find a pew without looking pathetic.
But the group surrounding him spoke a sports language she
didn’t understand, and he’d clearly decided not to include her in their
conversation.
She drew the phone from her pocket, saw the call was from Emma
and wandered away, tilting her head down to cover the phone with her hair. She
spoke softly as she made her way to the exit, since she wasn’t supposed to have
her phone on inside the cathedral.
“Hey, Em. What’s up?”
“I just heard from a journo in Zimbabwe who’s visited a couple
of cholera clinics and said they’re filthy. His station wants someone who can
comment for a piece they’re running this evening.”
Finally making it to the cathedral’s huge doors, Caitlyn
stepped out into the bright Saturday sunshine. “But we don’t run clinics. We’re
improving sanitation and training women in safe hygiene.”
“I know, but we’ve been searching for any way of getting our
story out to a wider audience. This is it. Obviously you can’t comment on the
clinics themselves, but people wouldn’t have to go to them in the first place if
we had more money for water and sanitation projects.”
“Tonight?” Spencer’s way-early birthday party was tonight. He
hadn’t mentioned anything about spending this afternoon together. As far as she
knew, once they’d finished walking around the cathedral he planned to go home
and help Philip prepare. Still, she felt bad about ditching part of his
party.
“It’s a pre-record. You won’t be on live. You’ll be back in
time for your mate’s party. Can you meet me in twenty minutes? There’s a café
near the studio. I can prep you for their questions.”
“If you think it’ll help. Of course. I’ll be there.”
She hung up and flashed her ticket as she entered the building
again. If Spencer weren’t so tall, he would’ve disappeared in the crowd of
children and parents whose T-shirts and cathedral brochures he signed.
She could send him a text.
Stop being a coward.
She strode
across the cavernous building until she stood on the edge of his admirers. He
glanced up, his gaze catching hers when he realized who she was.
“Something’s come up at work. I have to go, but I’ll be there
tonight.”
“Oh. Right.” His smile froze a little. A dozen pairs of young
eyes swung toward her, the grown-ups watching with obvious interest. She grew
uncomfortable with their stares. Maybe Spencer would break away from them so he
could walk out with her, give her a goodbye kiss.
Nope.
“See you later,” he said as he turned back to his adoring
public.
His words when they’d made their deal splashed over her like
ice water. He would drop her like a fumbled ball as soon as rugby season
started.
She’d better remember that that was exactly what she
wanted.
Chapter Ten
Arse.
Arse
,
arse and arse again.
Spencer dragged his razor down his cheek, tilting to the side to tighten the skin over his jawbone.
He’d really fucked up. How could he have let Caitlyn go with barely a goodbye? His stomach dropped as he remembered her shuttered expression when he’d all but dismissed her at St. Paul’s earlier.
Nothing says
trust me
like completely ignoring the woman you’re intent on getting into bed.
What could he have done, though?
Excused yourself and walked out with her
,
you massive cock.
Sure, there was that. He winced, the razor slicing a chunk off his chin.
Arse.
He jabbed pieces of toilet paper against his cuts and reminded himself of the lesson he’d learned when he was fourteen: never shave while horny.
Which, admittedly, would leave him very hairy indeed.
Thanks to a urination incident this morning—the dog, not his granddad, thank God—he hadn’t had time to shave before meeting Caitlyn at her flat and walking to St. Paul’s together. He’d shown up feeling rough, irritable and short-tempered. One sweet smile from her melted all that away. As she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him for a hello kiss, he’d transformed into a god among men.
Her open, curious reactions amazed him, especially considering the tiny bits of her past she’d shared with him. Her father sounded like a grade-A prick, but to Caitlyn’s credit she hadn’t turned into a bitter man-hater. She’d unconsciously sabotaged her own opportunities to get close to men, but she hadn’t written them off as subhuman, the way some women he’d met had.
She’d said she would be here tonight. He hoped to God the few hours they’d been apart hadn’t given her room to rethink their arrangement. His need for her grew more agonizing by the day—not just his desperate need to get her naked, sweaty, wet and in his bed but his desire to be around her. Just hearing her laugh did funny things to his whole body, making him feel light and...
Damn it,
tingly
was the only word he could think of to describe the sensation. If he didn’t get inside her soon, he was in danger of giggling and throwing around words like
tinkle
and
glitter.
Worse, they only had two weeks left to explore each other. God, the thought of not having her at all shriveled his nuts.
The bell operated by the porter downstairs rang, alerting him to the arrival of his first guests. Philip’s voice carried through the flat as he answered the porter’s call. Spencer whipped the towel from around his waist, tossing it over the heated towel rail before walking naked into his bedroom. He tugged on his pants and black trousers, then shrugged into a long-sleeved button-down shirt.
Let it be Caitlyn.
He could really do with a few moments alone with her to apologize and explain about earlier. After slapping on some deodorant and tucking himself in, he wandered down the hall. His granddad called Minnie into the guest room that would be her prison for the next few hours, hopefully saving his guests from going home urine-doused. Granddad had been hiding out in the guest room since Spencer returned; before the old man could disappear again, Spencer called out, “Enjoy your day out?”
Granddad froze in the doorway, then slowly turned around. “What do you mean?”
“Caitlyn and I went to St. Paul’s today.”
Granddad’s eyes narrowed.
“Your hair’s somewhat distinctive, Granddad. I thought you were too ill to visit these places with me. Why did you lie?”
The old chap glared. “You’d really rather spend your free time staring at my wrinkles than her...lovely green eyes?” He shook his head mockingly. “You really have taken too many knocks to the head. She’s perfect for you. Don’t cock it up.”
Then Granddad shooed Minnie into the guest room and shut the door behind them.
Damn. Just the thought of Caitlyn lit a happy spark inside him. Granddad was right—not that he’d ever admit it. What a novelty, getting to know a woman before jumping into bed with her. He hadn’t even touched, much less seen, most of her body, yet his own reacted with hyper eagerness to be around her.
He opened the door just as a light hand knocked against it.
Aw
,
shite.
Speaking of bitter and man-hating... “Hello, Megan.”
The sleek, dark-haired woman gave him a feline smile that was at once predatory and self-satisfied. “Hello, Spencer. Happy birthday.”
She presented her cheek for a kiss, and he dutifully forced himself to touch his lips against the smooth makeup covering her face. He yanked his head back before she could turn the kiss into a lip-lock. A promise of retribution lit her narrowed eyes as she stepped into his flat.
“Where’s Liam?” It was the most politely subtle way he could come up with to remind her she was only here because she was sleeping with one of his best mates.
“At the shop. I got hungry on the way here, and I knew you wouldn’t have anything decent to eat.”
Hungry his arse. He’d watched her exert control over Liam for months, twisting his life around and sending him on ridiculous errands to fulfill her slightest whim. “I don’t know how you can say that, Megan. I always try to cater for your very special needs.”
She gave him a death glare and thrust a wrapped box into his hands. He handled it gingerly. Would he look like a dick if he held it to his ear to listen for ticking?
“It’s nothing special,” she said. “Just jokey stuff. You know how he is.” She waved a dismissive hand, engulfing herself in an air of long-suffering partner to a wealthy man. Her gaze flicked to his side, and Spencer turned to see Caitlyn standing in the open doorway, two huge presents balanced precariously in her arms. They were so big they covered half her face. He quickly settled Liam’s gift onto the hall table and grabbed them from her.
She sighed in relief and circled her shoulders. She’d changed her clothes since he’d seen her. She now wore a soft-looking black skirt that swished around her knees and a loose green top that nearly slipped off her shoulders as she stretched them. Fingers itching to rub the stress away, he put the boxes on the floor and reached out to hold her bandaged hand in his. “You okay?”
He hoped his eyes conveyed everything he couldn’t say in front of Megan.
Did I hurt your feelings earlier?
You didn’t pull your stitches carrying these boxes
,
did you?
Please keep moving your shoulders like that;
it does amazing things to your breasts.
“Yeah, fine.” Her smile struck him as tentative, as if her real answer was
I’m not sure.
Wishing he could give her a kiss that would banish all her doubts, he settled for a peck on the cheek instead. Her brows drew together in confusion, but when he pulled back she seemed to notice Megan for the first time. She held out her left hand, since the right was damaged. “Hi. I’m Caitlyn.”
Megan gave her an assessing glance before taking her hand in a grip that looked weak and halfhearted. She said nothing to acknowledge Caitlyn, turning to Spencer instead with a too-innocent voice. “A bit old for you, isn’t she, Spence?”
Chills raked his body. Every muscle froze, leaving him taut with the need to do violence. She couldn’t...wouldn’t...surely. He’d never wanted to hurt someone so badly, and he let her see it in his face. She dropped Caitlyn’s hand as if it were poisonous, leaving Caitlyn glancing between them.
“Caitlyn, my dear!” His granddad squeezed into the entryway. “But what are you all doing in the hall? Please, come in.” Granddad ushered them all into the living room and kissed both of Caitlyn’s cheeks. Spencer’s mood lightened as he watched genuine pleasure steal over her.
Megan slipped her suede coat off her shoulders and tossed it to his granddad, nearly knocking the old man over. “Please be careful with that, darling.”
Spencer grabbed the coat, mostly to give his hands something to do other than shake some decorum into her, and hung it next to the door. “Megan, I don’t believe you’ve ever met my grandfather, Philip,” he said, regretfully drawing the witch’s attention to his grandfather. “He’s not the hired help, so I expect you to be your usual charming self toward him.”
Spencer ushered them all into his living room just as the doorbell buzzed and he gratefully turned toward the door.
“No! Let me,” Philip said.
“That’s all right—I’ve got it, Granddad.” The two men rushed to escape the tension in the living room and grinned sheepishly at each other when they reached the door.
“If your granny were here, she would’ve eaten that one alive,” Philip muttered. “What is Liam thinking? Such a nice boy.”
Spencer had a pretty good idea why Liam stayed with Cruella, but he didn’t want to shock his grandfather.
“She must be a tigress in bed,” Philip whispered conspiratorially. “How long have they been together?”
“About eight months now, I’d guess. Or nearly that. They met at John and Amanthi’s New Year’s party.”
“Eight months,” Philip clucked, shaking his head. “It’ll start to get old soon and then he’ll wake up.”
They opened the door and Spencer was relieved to see two people he actually cared about on the other side.
A few minutes later, after performing some introductions and taking drink orders, he stepped into the sanctuary of his kitchen and found Caitlyn reaching into the fridge for a bottle of chardonnay. She pulled it out with her good hand and hip-checked the fridge door closed. “I’m sorry, I had to find an excuse to escape. Oh. My. God,” she said, searching his drawers until she found a corkscrew. “I didn’t know your building hid a portal to hell.”
“She’s incredible, isn’t she?”
“What’s her problem?”
“How long you got?”
“She told me she’s vegan, but I swear to God that was a suede coat she was wearing. Vegan my fat ass.”
With an invitation like that, how could he resist checking her out? “Not fat,” he said, shaking his head. “Soft and round.”
She looked up in surprise and caught him staring. “Well, it’s not muscle that makes it soft and round.” She turned so her butt pressed against the counter, effectively blocking his view. She wedged the bottle between her knees and twisted the corkscrew into place with the back of her bandaged right hand.
“Let me do that.” He reached for the bottle, a move that felt a little like making a grab for her crotch, but she moved her shoulder to block him.
“I got it.” She bent over to give herself leverage, giving him a great view down her shirt at the same time. She pulled left-handed on the corkscrew with all her might while hugging the bottle between her knees and the crook of her right arm. The cork didn’t budge. “And that wasn’t my point. What a hypocrite.”
She pulled again. Her arms shook and her face turned pink. He winced, visions of the corkscrew suddenly coming loose hitting his imagination. “Aarrgh!” she gasped. “I can’t get it. Why don’t you have one of those handy corkscrews with the levers on the side that pop it out nice and easy?”
“I do.” He dragged his eyes away from her heaving cleavage. “It’s in the other drawer. Here, let me. I can’t watch you stab your eyeball out with a corkscrew just so you can prove something.” The cork was really stuck, but he managed to hide from her how much effort it took for him to pull it from the bottle. “Easy peasy.” He handed it back to her and turned away to rub his hand where the corkscrew had dug into it.
“Maybe for the hulk,” she muttered.
“She didn’t say anything nasty to you, did she?”
She poured the wine into a couple of glasses and avoided his eyes. “Not really.”
His gut clenched. “Caitlyn? What did she say?”
Sighing, she turned and raised her pretty brows. “I don’t even want to tell you. She was just being rude, and it’s not worth repeating.”
He might need CPR in a minute. Pain shot through his tight chest. “Please. I need to know.”
She shook her head. “She told me to make you double up on condoms because I had no idea where you’ve been. I told her I wasn’t interested in her opinion, and then I escaped.”
He groaned and rubbed his chest, right where his panicked heart tried to beat a hole through it. “Oh, God.”
“Don’t worry. She’s a vegan who wears suede, and I’d lay money on her eating veal, too. She doesn’t exactly scream
trust me.
Besides, you already told me you don’t sleep around during rugby season, so I don’t think you’re a man whore.”
“Ah, if only my granny were around to hear her little boy receive such praise!”
She laughed.
“And just to clarify, I don’t sleep around during the off-season, either.”
She raised an incredulous brow.
“Okay, maybe a little,” he muttered. “Actually, I think that’s part of Megan’s problem. She propositioned me once and I turned her down.”
“Does your friend know that?”
“Liam? Yeah, he was standing right there at the time.”
Caitlyn stared at him, mute.
“How long do you think we can reasonably hide out in here?” he asked, not wanting her to delve too deeply into his sleazy days.
“I was just wondering the same thing. Maybe we should pull Philip in here so he’s safe, too.” She glanced at the wineglasses. “Is she nicer when she’s drunk? Because I could fill hers to the brim and make sure it’s always full.”
“I’ve never seen any discernible difference in her, except when she’s eaten a bit. But she usually disappears to the toilet soon after she’s eaten. I think she lives in a state of perpetual hunger.”
“That explains the body then.” Caitlyn glanced down at her own tummy. “Except for the fake boobs, she’d make a garden rake feel plump.”
Spencer took the wineglasses from her and set them on the counter. He pulled her close, pressing her hands against his hips, being careful not to put too much pressure on the injured hand. Stroking up and down her upper arms, he said, “Curves are good. Rakes are bad.”
She closed her eyes and smiled. Her body shivered under his touch—in a good way. A man could only grow bolder with encouragement like that. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her even closer. Maybe things between them were still okay, despite his behavior this afternoon. “Caitlyn?”