Nancy Warren - British Bad Boys

“I always believed that I’d meet a girl one day, and I’d know. Pow. There’d be some cosmic bang, sparks would shower the air, and I’d know that she was the one.”

“You mean you’re a total romantic?” She was horrified. She felt she’d been led astray somehow, lied to in the most basic way, but of course he’d never lied. She’d merely assumed that his lengthy bachelordom meant one thing when, in fact, it meant another.

He grimaced. “It sounds a bit soft when you put it that way, but yes, I suppose I am. In the last couple of years, I admit, I began to feel that it wouldn’t happen after all.”

She almost dreaded what would come next, but still had to ask. “And?”

His smile was tender, and uncomfortably intimate. “And then I met you.”

“I don’t recall seeing sparks flying, or a cosmic shake-up when we met.”

“If you’d had a potato hit you in the balls, believe me you’d have felt a cosmic shake-up, and seen stars.”

She grinned, as he’d meant her to, and the atmosphere lightened a little. But she also felt utterly confused and vaguely wronged. “I don’t know what to say.”

He turned his head, regarding her. “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, can I ask if you felt anything at all?”

“When we first met?”

“Mmm.”

She thought back to the first moments when he’d come across her, irritable and twitchy in the kitchen. The sense she’d had of instant attraction. Not more. Surely not more. “I felt attracted to you,” she admitted.

He flopped back onto the bed so he was staring up at the ceiling. “You never think, when you read about meeting the one person who was meant for you, that it might be a one-sided affair. Nobody ever warns you that you might feel love at first sight while the other person thinks, ‘What a wally.’”

“Since I don’t know what a wally is, I certainly never thought of you that way. Like I said, I was…attracted.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“I wasn’t. At the time. Very inconvenient. I felt like I’d been kicked around by life, and then Maxine had manipulated me into coming to England to work on, of all things, a wedding. I admit I was pretty down, and Max is a relentless do-gooder when she thinks she knows best for a person. Which is far too often.”

“So your sister encouraged you to have it off with me?”

“No. She hated the idea. She thought I’d be too vulnerable, that I might end up hurt again.”

“And you knew different?”

Did she? Had she? It was so difficult now to look back to a week ago and recognize anything she’d felt. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I thought or felt except that you made me feel excited about something and a holiday affair seemed uncomplicated. Easy.”

“Easy because you could walk away at the end of it with a few good memories?”

“Don’t make it sound so…I don’t know, so…”

“Cynical?”

“But I’m not cynical. I’m practical.”

“You, my dear, are terrified of love.”

“Oh, just get over it.”

“I hope I don’t have to. I believe that you and I may have found that rare and amazing thing. True love, the kind that lasts.”

She scratched her leg. Maybe the hives weren’t visible, but she could feel them, beneath the skin. Emotional hives. Great. She’d invented a new mental illness.

“Can we please talk about something else?”

He should have kept his mouth shut. He’d known she wasn’t ready. Now all he could think about was that he loved her and she either didn’t love him back or couldn’t admit to loving him.

For a number of reasons, he hoped the latter was true.

He could conquer her fear, he was certain. Indifference was impossible to contemplate. Surely, after all this time, he ought to be able to tell when a woman really cared?

Or was he projecting his own feelings onto her?

He had so little personal experience of being in love that he was out of his depth. All he knew was that instead of having Rachel throw herself onto his chest and whisper those magic words of love back to him, as he’d more than half hoped she would, she was lying beside him, stiff as a board, staring up at the ceiling, in the same posture he was in.

“I met you a week ago,” she said, sounding aggrieved.

“Look, I don’t say it makes sense. Only that it is.”

“I thought this would be easy, uncomplicated.”

“Do you want easy and uncomplicated?”

“Yes!”

“I’m sorry I offended you. I didn’t mean to. But I think you’re going to have to begin thinking of this in a new light.”

“They warned me that you were the love ’em and leave ’ em type. Which happens to be exactly what I’m looking for right now.”

“If you pass up what we have, you’re more of a coward than I believed.”

“Okay, I can’t do this right now. I simply cannot do this.” She rolled out of bed and unzipped her overnight case, dragging out the jeans and sweater she’d brought.

He leapt off the bed and followed her. “Look, forget I said that. You’re not a coward. I’m a complete and total git. Where are you going?”

“Home.” Irritation sluiced through her system. “No. Not home. Back to the castle where I will stay in my kitchen hiding behind the ashes whenever any Prince Charming comes near.”

“But you’ve barely seen Notting Hill. And I want to take you for afternoon tea at the Ritz. You’ll love it.”

He was stalking up to her, naked, when she reminded him, “Chloe is here. She needs you.”

“Rachel.”

“Let me go now. I’ll call you.”

For a long time he stared at her, his eyes full of concern. “All right. I’ll get dressed and drive you back to Hart House.”

“No. I’ll take a cab to the station and get a train.”

She was so panicked she barely knew herself. She knew she wasn’t being rational, or fair, or remotely mature, but the urge to flee was so strong she couldn’t resist it.

She was dressed in seconds and within five minutes had brushed her teeth, dragged a brush through her hair and stuffed the tangle of curls into a clip, swiped lip gloss over her passion-swollen mouth, and flicked the mascara brush over her lashes.

When she returned to the bedroom, he wasn’t there.

She packed her dress and Maxine’s pashmina into her case and left the room.

She found Jack in the kitchen with his sister. Chloe wore the most gorgeous silk robe and looked like a movie star from the twenties. Rachel almost expected her to light up a cigarette on a long holder.

Jack wore a look on his face that tore at her heart. And that made her furious. They’d only known each other a week. This was ridiculous, unfair, manipulative. She was a recently divorced, unemployed mess. She didn’t have the mental or physical energy for a complicated love life.

“Have some coffee,” Chloe said. She was messing around with a French press and it was obvious that somebody else usually made her coffee.

“No. Thank you.” She looked at Jack. “If you could just call me a cab?”

“I’ll drive you to the station.”

“You should spend some time with your sister.” She paused, feeling like a total, miserable bitch. “All right. Maybe you could drive me to the station.”

They were no sooner pulling out of his parking garage than he said, “Rachel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you off.”

“No. It’s me who is sorry. I didn’t expect, I didn’t know…” She heaved a sigh and tried again. “I would really like for you not to think I am a total loser.”

He sent her a wry grin. “I’d like you not to think the same about me.”

She laughed. “Agreed.”