Sexy as Hell Box Set (69 page)

I stared into the pale blue eyes of the woman in front of me. Fuck, had she just proposed?

She had.

My first instinct was to run for the hills, or the lake, or the vineyard or something, anywhere. Shit, even into a Taliban hideout would suit me right now.

She couldn’t be serious.

She bloody well was.

“Catherine?” I said.

“No, don’t speak.” She pressed three fingers over my mouth. “Just think about it, Victor. We look good together, more than good—everyone has been telling us what a handsome couple we are. We’re compatible conversationally, share the same interests and the love of good food and fine wine.”

I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t as fond of alcohol as she was, that what she’d said wasn’t enough, but she rammed those fingers harder to my lips, bashing them up against my teeth in a way that would create a bruise.

“I tick all of the boxes for you, Victor. I would be the perfect wife, the perfect hostess for your guests… The perfect mother to your children.”

Children, shit, that wasn’t on my radar for years, if ever, and then not with Catherine. I took her hand away from my mouth, threaded my fingers with hers and shook my head. “No, it’s not enough. I need love.”

As I’d said the word
love
a movement by the open kitchen door caught my attention. It was Zara, standing in the shadows holding a tall, slim glass. Her expression was one of fascination; she’d clearly been listening to our whole conversation. I hoped she was all right. She was delicate today, which wasn’t her usual state by a long shot. I didn’t want anything else shaking her, not until we could have some quality time together anyway.

There was so much more to Zara than I’d ever imagined. Her reaction to nearly getting raped and me saving her had shown me that, plus Ollie’s words, his perceptions of her. And what she meant to me had opened my eyes, I just needed to—

“Oh, you and that L word.” Catherine touched my cheek, drawing my gaze back to her. “I told you, we can work on that, love will happen for us eventually, and let’s face it…”

I swallowed. It felt like I had a big ball of cotton wool in my throat. I hated doing this to Catherine, finishing it here, especially after what we’d done this week in bed and the fact that she had big plans for our future.

But I’d known that. I’d known from the word go that I was husband material for Catherine. An eligible bachelor her and her aunt both wanted in their lives. Trouble was, they didn’t really know me. I wasn’t quite the catch they thought, not since Zara had shown me new ways to be that fitted me like a pair of well-worn jeans once I’d had the courage to try them on. They’d become my preferred clothing now, those denims that were faded, marked and torn in all the right places.

“Let’s face what?” I asked.

“Let’s face it, all that stuff I just mentioned, that we’ve done. It’s sexy and really I want more—I can learn more if you teach me. I know I can.”

“No, that’s not the point.”

She untangled her fingers from mine; her eyes were a little misty. Automatically, I tapped my breast pocket, made sure I had a handkerchief there. I did but I hoped I wouldn’t need it.

“So what
is
the point, Victor?” she said, “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t marry you, Catherine, even though I agree with everything you’ve just said about us being compatible.”

“Why not?” She sniffed.

I didn’t think that was a good sign. Tears were imminent. Yet I had no choice but to tell the truth. My heart belonged to another, and that was the real reason Catherine couldn’t have it.

Zara might not want it either. Heaven knew it was a bit of a dodgy ticker, limped along at times and couldn’t cope without a daily dose of cardiac drugs, but still, it was what I had, all I could offer.

I took a deep breath, steadied my voice. “Because when I’m alone, Catherine, when I’m quiet, only one person plays on my mind and only one person can fill the empty space beside me. Whether I’m walking along the street, eating in a restaurant or lying in bed. Someone else, who drives me crazy by the way, is already in my heart.” I shook my head. “There’s no room for you, and it hurts me to say that to you, Catherine, more than you’ll ever know.”

Catherine stepped backwards with a gasp. She rushed her hand to her mouth. “You’re two-timing me?”

I followed her, arms outstretched. “No. No I’m not.” Well, apart from one quick fuck against a tree, but I wouldn’t count that, not for now. “Before you I had a really intense relationship with someone and it ended badly. I needed a fresh start, to get back to being me, but I’ve realised now that will never happen. This person has got under my skin, into my blood, and I don’t think I can go on without them.”

“You keep saying person,” Catherine spoke quietly, “are you trying to tell me…?”

“What?”

“That…that you’re gay?”

What the fuck? “No, not at all. It’s a girl, a woman, a beautiful, sexy woman who drives me bloody insane half of the time. She can be a damn serious risk to my health and sanity but still manages to keep me one hundred
percent in love with her.” I’d spoken with a weight of decisiveness. Unafraid to throw my feelings out there for once. It was liberating, freeing. I should do it more often.

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped and she looked at her feet.

I took the opportunity to glance at Zara. She was starting straight at me, lips parted, eyes wide, the glass she was holding at an odd angle, as though she’d forgotten she had it in her hand.

I watched then, in slow motion, as that glass slid, dropped through the air, the angle of it tilting ever more as it neared the stone floor. Finally it hit, bounced once, upending itself and then struck again, splintering, scattering into hundreds of pieces.

“What the…?” Catherine spun, her arms swinging outwards, her hair just blocking my view as the wind caught it. “Zara?”

Zara was still staring at me. The glass must have caught her legs, her feet.

Shit. She had bare feet.

I rushed past Catherine, took the steps two at a time and within seconds was inside and had Zara in my arms, lifting her away from the mean slivers of broken glass. If she stood on them, got splinters in her feet, it would hurt like a bitch.

I set her down, by the oven.

She looked up at me.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She shook her head, just a little, and then was gone, flying from the room and turning the corner towards the staircase.

“Oh, what a state. We’ll have to replace that glass,” Catherine said, tugging a broom from the cupboard.

“Yes,” I said, staring at the way the sunshine glinted, quite prettily, on the broken fragments. Odd that something so wrecked could be so beautiful.

“Catherine, I’ll do that,” I said.

“No.” She straightened and tightened her hold on the broom, her knuckles paling. “I can manage, please and…”

“What?”

“Perhaps you would just go. Like you said to begin with. I don’t want to face anyone, not for a few days. London doesn’t feel like the right place for me to be.”

“I’m so sorry, and yes, of course I’ll go.”

“And Zara and Ollie?’

“Yes, I’ll tell them you need some alone time. They’ll understand.” I walked up to her, cupped her cheeks in my hands. “I really am sorry for doing this to you, for making you think we could work.”

She shrugged, but it was stiffly, she was being brave. “We were trying each other on for size. We didn’t fit.”

In that moment I saw more backbone in Catherine than I ever thought I would. It was actually quite refreshing, and it was a shame that we hadn’t got together in another time and place, without those tangled weeds growing around us. Maybe it could have worked.

But those weeds were there, and what, after all, was a weed but an unloved flower.

I packed quickly, called the station and booked two train tickets for that evening, late, to Venice.

Venice had sprung into my mind quite suddenly. I loved it there. The maze of canals, the secret alleyways, the decadence of St Mark’s Square and the Basilica, not to mention the divine hotels and the exquisite service at The Baglioni. I’d booked there, too, for a long weekend.

It would do me good, wandering the ancient streets, eating great food and sampling rare Italian wine. What would do me even more good was if Zara was there with me. That would be like a balm to my soul and, I suspected, hers too. She might not know what she needed, but I did. I could see it clearly now.

She needed quiet time, somewhere beautiful and with no one around she had to act for. Where she could just be herself and without the need to wear any masks.

I needed to see
that
Zara, more of that Zara. She barely ever came out to play, the vulnerable woman who kept so much buried she’d probably forgotten herself where the bones of her pain were hidden.

But I could help her, I was sure I could. Ollie was certain I could, too, and him having said that had given me the courage to end it with Catherine and fight for what I wanted—Zara.

I’d told Ollie that, when he’d come back from his walk. What my intentions were. He’d slapped me on the back, said he was leaving for Rome in the morning. I was both surprised and not. His Marie had gone to live there, after she’d left him. That had hurt more than he’d ever let on. The great Ollie, have his heart broken? Though he had once, in a melancholy moment, told me that for him she would always be the ‘one that got away’. I wondered if he, too, had been entertained by soul-searching as he’d walked around the lake and decided to finally open his eyes and fight for what his soul needed. Perhaps Zara’s punishments and pleasures had lifted a fog for him, cleared an overgrown path in his mind and made it possible to walk down.

Looking up at the ivy-coated balcony outside Zara’s room, I could see that the French doors were flung open. The orange chiffon curtains were catching in the breeze, the golden glow of the sunset making them look like flames licking from the room.

“Zara,” I called. I was sure she was there. She wasn’t anywhere else in the house. “Zara, come out and talk to me.”

I glanced left and right, hoping Catherine wouldn’t appear back from her swim. She’d only left a few minutes ago with her towel beneath her arm and her flip-flops clacking across the lawn.

“Victor?”

I looked up, straining my neck. Zara was leaning over the balcony, her hair hanging in long strands either side of her face, the ends dancing in the wind.

“What are you doing, Victor?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“What about?” Her lips tightened. She was obviously not in a talking mood.

“Everything. Everything that’s happened. But not here.”

She gripped the stone edge of the balcony. “I don’t need to talk about it.”

“I disagree.” I folded my arms.

“Tough shit.”

I sighed, unfolded my arms. “Don’t be stubborn, I want to help—I
can
help. Please, come away with me.”

“Where the hell to?” She frowned.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does, Victor. I can’t just let you whisk me away without knowing where I’m going.”

Of course she couldn’t. She always had to be in control. But maybe just this once… “I’ve booked us tickets.”

“Us? That’s presumptive.”

Shit. I didn’t have the time or the energy for this. “It’s not presumptive, it’s natural, it’s how it is. Please, pack you bags, meet me out the front in ten minutes.” I picked my case up, showed it to her. “Come with me to Venice.”

“Venice.” She laughed, a high-pitched titter that floated towards the swathe of clouds turning pink in the sunset. “You really think a girl like me would fit in somewhere like that? Don’t you know I own a sex dungeon, I’m a
Domme, I hit people, hurt people. Venice is a city, so I hear, of sophistication and beauty and a place for romantic crap.”

“Which makes it the perfect place for me to take you. Because you, Zara, are beautiful and sophisticated when you want to be, and as for romantic—”

“Not my scene. Don’t you know anything about me?”

“How do you know it’s not your scene if you’ve never tried it?”

“What are you talking about now, Victor?” Her voice had been steely before she’d said that but had quieted just then.

Maybe I could throw her a line and she’d take the bait. “I’m talking about romance. If you’ve never had someone sweep you off your feet, whisper sweet nothings to you in the darkness and been made love to as if there’s no one else in the world, how do you know it’s not for you?”

She stood perfectly still, staring down at me.

“Please,” I said, knowing I was begging but too far gone to care. “Come with me, let me show you
my
world, let me show you love, Zara. Maybe, just maybe it will fit you.”

Her mouth opened. I waited for the no, the fuck off and leave me alone. But instead she said, “I’ll give you one weekend.”