Persuading Spring: A Sexy New Zealand Romance (The Four Seasons Book 4) (23 page)

“My only problem is that it’s your time
with Mateo. I don’t want to intrude on that. It’s his special time with you,
and I don’t want Nita to think I’m pushing in on it.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll still stay
with him on Friday and Saturday night. But I thought—if you’re up for it—we
could occasionally all go out to the movies or something on Saturday, or maybe
meet up for breakfast on Sunday morning. And then I thought that whereas I
usually fly back on Sunday evening, I could spend the night with you and take
an early flight up on Monday.”

She couldn’t stop her smile of joy. “Okay.
And maybe on the weekends that you stay up here, I can sometimes fly up to
spend a few nights with you?”

“I’d like that.” He twirled a strand of her
hair around his finger. “As long as it means lots of sex.”

“Oh, lots and lots of sex.”

“Lots and lots and lots…” He pulled her
toward him and kissed her again.

When she eventually moved back, she felt
like caramel inside, all sweet and warm and gooey. She leaned against him, and
he put his arm around her. “It doesn’t solve the ultimate problem that we live
over five hundred miles apart,” she added.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Is it stupid to set out on a journey
without knowing if we stand a chance of reaching the destination?”

He kissed the top of her head. “That’s part
of the adventure, isn’t it? If what we have is strong enough to stand the test
of time and distance, then we’ll be able to work it out. We don’t know what
will happen over the next few months or years. There are all kinds of
unforeseen events in store for us, some good, some bad. Hopefully we’ll work
together to overcome them. I’m excited to try, and it feels good to be excited
about life again.”

“Can I say I love you back, then, if we
accept that it can’t be love, but that we can’t think of a name for whatever
we’re feeling?”

He chuckled. “Go ahead.”

“I love you, Aaron.”

He lowered his lips to hers, and she lifted
her arms around his neck and returned the kiss with all her heart.

Mal Wilkinson was halfway through his third
pint.

Usually, he didn’t get to the bar until
around eight o’clock on Sunday evening because invariably he was at Bridget’s
for dinner and had trouble getting away, but with her off God-knew-where it had
left him at a loose end around that time for the last few weeks. Consequently,
it had only just gone seven, so he’d drunk too much too early, but he didn’t
really care. The uncomfortable feeling he’d had in his stomach since the day of
their wedding only went away when he was plastered, so he’d been plastered a
lot lately.

“Mal?”

He turned his head at the sound of the
woman’s voice, and for a moment he just stared, thinking he’d somehow conjured
her up by dreaming about her. Then he blinked—no, it really was her, standing
before him. His jaw dropped. She’d always been beautiful, but tonight she
looked stunning, he wasn’t sure why. It could have been the bright blue top she
wore that matched her eyes—a new item he hadn’t seen before. Maybe it was
because he hadn’t seen her for a while, and when they were apart, he always
forgot how beautiful she was. Or perhaps it was the look on her face—she had a
sparkle in her eyes and a defiant lift to her chin he didn’t remember having
seen before.

“Birdie!”

This was the longest they’d gone on a
break, and after his phone call to her that had ended so abruptly, he’d started
to wonder how long she was going to carry it on. But she’d come back to him.
Thank Christ. He surprised himself with the strength of the relief that rushed
through him.

He rose to take her in his arms, but to his
surprise she stepped back and held up a hand. “No,” she said. “Sit down, Mal.”

He blinked a few times, then lowered his
butt to the seat. This was new. Usually, whenever they got back together she
was tearful and thankful that the argument was all over. Usually, she threw her
arms around him and told him she never wanted it to happen again.

“What’s up?” he said. He shouldn’t have
started drinking so early. His brain felt a bit muddled.

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?” she
repeated. A corner of her mouth curved up.

He went to ask her what was so funny, but
the words trailed off as she took her hand out of the pocket of her jacket and
placed something on the table. He looked down—it was her engagement ring.

“Aw,” he said, impatience flooding him.
“Come on, Birdie. Don’t go all dramatic on me. I know I fucked up with the
wedding, but do we have to go through all this? I shouldn’t have done it. I’ve
taken my punishment, haven’t I? We’ve had the break, I’ve learned my lesson…
Come on, babe. Let’s put it behind us and move on.”

Her brows drew together. “I really don’t
know what I ever saw in you.”

“What?”

She glanced around the relatively quiet
bar. “I didn’t want to do this here—I went around to your house, but when you
weren’t there, I figured you were at the bar. Well, I’m not waiting, so we’ll
have to do it here. I’m not making up with you, Mal. I wanted to give you the
ring back, and I wanted to see you one last time to…” She pressed her lips
together.

“To what?”

“To prove to myself that I’m over you.” Her
gaze slid down him, and there was no light in her eyes, no fire. “And I am.”

“Don’t say that.” He was tired of playing
games. “Come on, sweetheart…”

“I’m not your sweetheart, not any longer.
I’ve met someone else.”

He stared at her. An icy coldness filtered
through his veins. “You’ve been cheating on me?”

“You can only cheat on someone if you’re in
a relationship. You ended our relationship the day you didn’t turn up for our
wedding.”

“I panicked about getting married,” he
said, “that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

“It’s always about what you want. Have you given
any thought to how I felt that morning? The moment when I knew you weren’t at
the registry office?”

He met her gaze, then lowered his to the
floor. The truth was that he hadn’t, not really. He’d been so caught up in his
own panic that all he’d been able to think about was how he could get out of it
with the least hassle possible. He’d told his best man on the morning that he
wasn’t going through with it. Lee had been angry, but he’d backed him up, and
the only thing Mal had been forced to do was talk to Hitch, because Lee had
refused to do that. Hitch had been angry, of course, but they’d always gotten
on well, and Mal had hoped that he’d eventually calm down and they could be
mates again when he and Bridget got back together.

He’d assumed they would. They always did.
This was their life—making love, fighting, breaking up, getting back together.
He loved it, loved being with her. Sometimes she got on his nerves when she
kept on about spending more time with him, but he always got his own way in the
end.

His heart raced, and his stomach churned
uneasily. “I know it must have been awful, and I am sorry.”

Her face clouded. “We weren’t perfect, but
right up until that moment I was prepared to marry you. I was going to promise
to love you and look after you for the rest of my life, and you threw that in
my face.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he protested. “That
wasn’t what it was about at all.”

“Yes, it was. And it makes me incredibly
sad that you can’t see that.”

He swallowed hard. She was really leaving
him? “Who have you met?” he wanted to know. “It’s only been a fucking week.”

“It’s been two weeks, but that’s
irrelevant. He’s just a friend, but I’m hoping it might be more.”

He’d never cheated on her, and she’d never
cheated on him before, as far as he knew. “I can’t believe you’d do that to
me.”

He’d hoped to rile her up, to provoke her
into an outburst, but she just surveyed him with a cool gaze. “I’m not doing
anything to you. Two weeks ago, you dumped me. Now, I’m free. I came here to
say goodbye properly. I hope you find someone else. And when you do, make sure
you treat her right, eh?”

She really was leaving him. Fury blasted
through him. How dare she! “I don’t need you,” he said, his hand tightening to
a fist on the bar. “I’ve never needed you. I’m always turning girls away. I’ll
have another one in seconds, and at least she won’t nag me all the time and
make my life a fucking misery.”

“Goodbye, Mal.” She turned and walked away.

“You’ll regret it,” he yelled. “You’ll be
begging me to take you back—you always do.”

But she’d slipped through the door, and he
wasn’t sure if she’d even heard him.

He covered his face with his hands. She
wasn’t coming back—he knew that in his heart. He’d lost her. He’d really lost
her. And he only had himself to blame.

It was the beer, of course—he’d drunk too
much. That was why he couldn’t stop the tears coursing down his face.

Cole stood in front of the mirror by the
front door and admired his reflection. The day before, he’d had his brown hair
shaved above each ear and around the back of his head, and the middle had been
dyed a bright blond. Normally, he couldn’t have gotten away with such an
extreme hairstyle, but he’d just been suspended from school—for pushing a
little shit of a kid around, of all things. The principal could go fuck
himself, he thought vehemently, and so could the kid—he’d told the brat that
he’d get him for snitching. He’d find him on a dark night and break a bone or
two. That would teach him.

He smirked as he let himself out the front
door and strolled down the path to the main road.

They thought suspension was a punishment—how
stupid was that? Now he got into trouble if he
went
to school! He hoped
they’d expel him. He didn’t care if they sent him to another school—he’d get
expelled from that one too. It would be a challenge he would be happy to take
on.

He pulled out an expensive smartphone, swiped
his finger across the screen, and began to play a game, walking toward the city
center as he did so. He’d spend the afternoon in the shops, he decided, and
maybe get himself a new pair of trainers, if the assistant was looking the
wrong way.

He’d been walking about ten minutes when he
had a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. He stopped and looked over
his shoulder, certain someone was following him, but there was nobody there.
Frowning, he walked on, then stopped again, getting the same eerie feeling.
Again, he saw nobody, and he shrugged and turned to continue walking on.

And bumped straight into someone. He
stopped with a gasp and automatically stepped back. He continued to retreat as
he looked up to see a man towering over him.

He stopped when his back met a wall, and
stared up at the guy, his heart hammering. “Who the fuck are you?” he snapped,
attempting bravado.

The guy tilted his head to the side and
surveyed him. He was dressed in jeans and a smart shirt, and he looked as if he
could have been a lawyer or a police officer, but something in his steel-gray
eyes made Cole shiver.

“Have you heard of the blue-ringed
octopus?” he asked.

Cole blinked. “What?”

“It’s the size of a golf ball.” The man
held up a hand with the tip of his thumb touching the tip of his middle finger
to illustrate the size. “It carries enough poison to kill twenty-six adults
within minutes, and there’s no antidote. It’s one of the world’s most venomous
animals.”

Cole stared at him. Normally, when fronted
up by kids of his own age or younger, he used his height and weight to
overpower them and push them around, and he wasn’t afraid of a fight. He’d
never fought a grown-up, though, and he’d never met any guy like this, whose
words somehow dripped with menace, even though he sounded like his biology
teacher.

Cole’s tongue had stuck to the roof of his
mouth as all his saliva disappeared. He disengaged it, cleared his throat, and
tried to speak. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He meant to sound
rebellious, but it came out as a squeak.

“The venom has several violent effects,”
the man said. “Nausea, respiratory arrest, heart failure, paralysis, and
blindness, to name a few.”

Cole shook his head, wanting the man to
stop, wanting to flee, but his feet wouldn’t move. Had the guy injected him
with this venom? Was that why he felt paralyzed?

“If artificial respiration is started in
time, it’s possible to survive it.” The man leaned closer as if telling Cole a
secret. “However—and this is just a rumor, by the way—it’s said that it turns
your dick purple and shrinks it to the size of a walnut. It’s agony,
apparently, and it never looks normal again.”

Cole felt himself shrivel at the thought.
He couldn’t believe his ears. He’d been threatened before, by kids bigger and
older than him, but he’d never felt this scared.

“Apparently it’s tasteless, too,” the man
said. “If it was in a burger, or a piece of fried chicken, or a pizza topping,
you’d never know about it until it was too late.” His voice was calm—he could
have been reading the rugby results—but his slate-gray eyes were hard.

“Who are you?” Cole whispered.

The man straightened. “You can call me Mr.
Reed.”

Reed… wait, wasn’t that the surname of the
little shit who’d had him suspended?

His heart shuddered to a stop as he
realized this must be the boy’s father. Cole’s own dad was currently lying on
their sofa, drunk at two-thirty in the afternoon. For a brief moment, he felt a
swell of envy that Mateo had someone like this looking out for him.

He swallowed hard. “You… c-can’t threaten
m-me!”

The man raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t, have
I?” He pushed off the wall, turned, and walked away.

“I’ll tell someone!” Cole screamed. “I’ll go
to the police!”

The man’s laughter echoed up the road
before he disappeared around a corner. Only then did Cole realize that the man
was right—he hadn’t touched him—hadn’t really threatened him at all. If he were
to repeat their conversation, it would sound as if the guy had merely given him
a nature lesson.

For some reason, though, his legs had
turned to jelly, and he slid slowly down the wall onto his butt, where he was
to stay for a long, long time.