Her Favorite Temptation (16 page)

She dragged her gaze away, lengthening her stride to catch up with Will.

“My room. Your bathroom. Your room,” Will said as they passed a series of doorways, pausing only at the last one.

He ushered her into a well-lit room painted a soft mossy-green. The trim was white, as was the duvet and all the furniture. A vase of oversize peach roses stood on the chest of drawers in the corner, their perfume filling the room.

“Plenty of towels in the bathroom, and extra blankets in the closet if you need them. It can get cold down here at night but there’s an electric blanket on the bed.”

“It’s gorgeous, Will.”

He shrugged a shoulder as if say it was no big deal. But someone had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to make her feel welcome. She desperately wanted to believe that that someone was Will and not his mother. A good indicator of where her head was at.

“Make yourself at home, unpack, whatever you need to do. I’ll put the kettle on,” he said.

She pressed her hands to her cheeks once she was alone, aware that she was a little flushed and that her heart was racing out of control. Because Will was nearby, and would be for the foreseeable future.

She was such a sad case.

Then she thought about the way Will had stood so close to her on the driveway, looking into her eyes, and gave herself a free pass. He was beautiful, sexy, enormously talented, and she figured she’d have to be made of wood to not be affected by him.

She unzipped her bag and unpacked a few things into the chest of drawers, then realized that she’d much rather be talking to Will than organizing her underwear.

Abandoning the task, she made her way to the living room. Will was filling a kettle at the sink when she entered the kitchen.

“My God, this is huge,” she said, blinking in amazement.

An enormous island unit with polished-concrete counters sat front and center, its doors made from grooved white-painted timber. A vast six-burner stainless steel stove and giant double sink ran along the wall, along with yet more cupboards.

“I didn’t realize you cooked.”

“I don’t.”

She laughed at his sheepish expression.

“I think I’d feel honor bound to learn how to cook if I owned this kitchen,” she said, smoothing a hand over the island countertop appreciatively.

“Feel free,” he said, a cheeky glint in his eye.

She gave him a look. “I said if
I
owned it. Which puts the onus squarely on you, I believe.”

“I have a few little tricks up my sleeve, don’t you worry.” He pulled open the drawer nearest the sink and she saw it was full of take-out menus.

She laughed, shaking her head at his proud, shameless grin. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his hips against the counter, and all of a sudden the old Will was back, staring at her out of too-blue eyes, mischief and challenge radiating from every pore.

“You look good,” she said impulsively.

“So do you.”

She blushed. Couldn’t help herself. “I meant you look well. How have you been feeling?”

They’d spoken several times via text and phone since he’d left the hospital, but she’d made a point of not badgering him with questions about his health, figuring he probably got enough of that from his family.

“Good. Better now the staples are gone. Been sleeping better, too.”

“No headaches? How’s your balance?”

“Any second now you’re going to ask me to strip and get up on your table, aren’t you?” he asked.

“No.” She blinked to dispel the too-vivid image his words conjured in her mind’s eye.

He didn’t say anything, and she crossed her arms, mimicking his posture.

“Are you going to give me a hard time?” she asked.

“That depends.”

“On?”

“On whether you want me to.”

She stared at him. Then she huffed out a laugh and let her hands drop to her sides.

“Okay, you win. As always, I cannot out-flirt you.”

“Is that what we were doing?”

“It’s what
you
were doing. I never mastered the art of flirting,” she said ruefully.

It was good to play with him like this, to see his face light up with laughter. There might be new lines around his eyes and mouth, but he was still Will, and that was a precious, precious thing.

“How was your dinner with your sister?” he asked.

She probably shouldn’t be surprised that he’d remembered she’d caught up with Audrey again—he’d always been good at remembering the small details of her life—but she was.

“Really good. We went to the local pub and shared a bottle of horrible wine and ate food that would make my old boss disown me.”

“And are you doing it again?”

“We are. As soon as I’m back in the city.”

“Good to hear.”

“Yeah. Amazing as it seems, I think we actually like each other. Despite everything.” Leah still felt a warm glow when she remembered how
easy
it had been talking to her sister over greasy chicken schnitzel and chips.

“No surprises there. You’re very likable, Dr. Mathews.”

She never knew quite what to do when he said things like that and she made a big deal about checking out the rest of the room.

“How many people does that table sit?” she said, eyeing the long expanse of weathered wood.

“As many as we can wedge in. Which varies—”

“Will. Can you come help me, please? I’ve got about a million bags here,” a voice called over the sound of the front door slamming.

Seconds later, a woman Leah recognized as one of Will’s sisters bustled into the room, a collection of grocery bags in each hand. She dumped them on the counter before pushing streaky blond hair out of eyes that were the same bright blue as Will’s and smiling at Leah.

“I’m Izzy. The nice sister,” she said. “And you’re Leah.”

“
Nice
being a relative term,” Will said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Leah said.

“You—car, groceries,” Izzy told her brother, jerking a thumb toward the front of the house.

Will’s mouth twisted into a wry smile as he headed for the door.

Izzy waited until he was out of the room before shooting Leah a concerned look. “He can lift stuff, right? That won’t hurt him?”

Instantly Leah understood that Will’s sister was doing her damnedest to normalize things for him post-surgery.

“A few groceries are fine. He probably doesn’t want to help someone move house or dig a ditch in the next few months, but light activity is great for him,” Leah said.

“Good.” Izzy pretended to mop her brow with the back of her hand. “Phew. It’s tough being a good sister sometimes.”

She was so much like Will that Leah could only laugh. “You seem to have a pretty good grip on it.”

Izzy started unpacking groceries into the pantry. “So. You lived next door to Will in Melbourne. And you’re a doctor.”

The look she threw Leah was so unashamedly curious Leah laughed again.

“Yes on both counts. What else do you want to know?”

“Dangerous question to ask either of my sisters,” Will said as he reentered the room. He carried the bulk of the groceries with his left hand, but he’d hooked a couple onto his right and was carrying them in the crook of his elbow. Refusing to be defeated.

“Are you married? If not, why not?” Izzy asked, not bothering to even glance Will’s way.

“See?” Will said.

“Not married. Mostly because no one has ever asked me,” Leah said lightly.

Izzy pulled a disbelieving face. “Are the men in Melbourne
blind?
” she said. “You’re
hot.
If all doctors looked like you, my boyfriend would be at the local clinic every second day, begging for a prostate exam or something equally perverted.”

“Well, thanks. I think,” Leah said.

Will sat at the dining table, using his leg to hook out another chair before propping his feet on it. “Let me interpret for you. That was definitely a compliment.”

The banter continued between brother and sister as Izzy finished unpacking, but it was only when Will’s sister started peeling potatoes that Leah learned that his family and a few close friends were coming for dinner to meet her and officially welcome him home.

“We’ve been taking it easy on him, but Mum wants to cook him a roast dinner. It’s her thing, and she won’t be happy until she’s filled him to the brim with baked animal parts,” Izzy explained.

Leah had barely gotten her head around this announcement before Denise arrived, closely followed by Vanessa, who turned out to be the taller, rounder of the two women she’d seen in the waiting room at the hospital and not nearly as scary as Leah had imagined.

Over the next hour, the three Jones women prepared what looked like a feast for the hordes, shooing Leah away every time she offered to pitch in.

“You’re the guest. If you have to do something, open a bottle of wine,” Vanessa told her.

“Come outside and I’ll show you my studio,” Will said after Leah’s fourth offer to help had been rebuffed.

She was aware of a volley of significant looks being exchanged between Will’s sisters and mother as he led her onto a wide, broad deck.

“They’re pretty funny,” she said as they descended a couple of shallow stairs, heading for a freestanding building at the rear of the yard.

“Oh, yeah, they’re a riot.” He shot her an assessing look. “Sorry if this is a bit full-on. I tried to put them off but it’s like trying to stop a turbocharged Hummer.”

“I can imagine.”

“Let me know if it’s too much and I’ll slip them some of my antiseizure medication.”

He gave her a quick tour of his studio, and she used the time to gird her loins for the evening. She hadn’t anticipated sitting down to dinner with Will’s family and friends on her first night. It felt...daunting. But also really nice to be able to finally put faces to names. Mark and Narelle, Vanessa and Izzy... These were the people most important to Will, the people who made up his life.

Probably a good time to remember that you’re essentially the help in this scenario
,
Brainstein.
If Will didn’t need therapy
,
and you hadn’t shoved yourself down his throat
,
you wouldn’t even be here
.
So don’t go getting too carried away
.

A sobering thought. And definitely a good one to hang on to as the evening—and the next two weeks—unfolded.

It didn’t stop her from excusing herself and disappearing to check on her hair and makeup before everyone arrived, though.

Her heart, it appeared, was a very stubborn, deluded organ.

CHAPTER TWELVE

W
ILL
HAD
FORGOTTEN
how
loud
his family could be when they were all gathered under one roof. Neither his sisters nor his mother were shrinking violets, and with Narelle thrown into the mix there was no stopping them. Add in Mark, with his no-holds-barred guffaw, and the decibels really started to rise.

He was a little worried for Leah initially, but she soon proved she could hold her own, throwing quips Mark’s way and countering his sister’s questions with questions of her own—a masterful distraction technique, it turned out, since both Izzy and Vanessa were always more than happy to talk about themselves.

Slowly Will relaxed as it became clear that Leah was having a good time. Watching her laugh with Mark, he couldn’t help remembering the moment of visceral recognition he’d experienced when she arrived this afternoon.

He’d been on edge for over an hour, waiting for the sound of her car, then suddenly her white SUV pulled into the driveway and she climbed out, pushing her sunglasses onto her head. He’d walked out onto the porch and their eyes had met....

He had no words to explain the sense of
rightness
he’d felt in that moment. As though a part of himself that he hadn’t even known was missing had been returned to him.

Then she’d smiled, and he’d wondered how he’d ever doubted for a second that he was in love with her.

He hadn’t fallen in love with Leah
because
of his situation, he’d fallen in love with her
despite
it. That was how special she was, how amazing.

Funny how that was suddenly so abundantly, painfully clear to him now. And how being sure of his feelings only made things worse, not better.

“What do you think, Will?” Narelle called from the other end of the table, drawing him out of his thoughts. “Should I let Mark get that stupid drum kit or not?”

Will spread his hands wide. “Hey, far be it from me to get between a man, his drum kit and his wife. I say you settle it the old-fashioned way, with a jelly wrestling competition.”

“Fantastic idea,” Vanessa chimed in. “Naked jelly wrestling.” She winked at Narelle. “You’ll romp it in.”

“Hang on a minute, don’t I get a say in this? I think clothing should be mandatory,” Mark said, doing his best to look both scared and outraged at the same time.

Narelle threw her shoulders back, accentuating her already very impressive bosom. “Do you now?”

Everyone laughed, but he noticed Leah was particularly tickled. He caught her eye as she struggled to catch her breath.

“Sorry. I keep picturing all the little packets of jelly you’d need to make enough jelly to wrestle in,” she gasped.

That set everyone off again, including Will, and the conversation continued to bounce in weird and wonderful directions.

He hit a solid wall of tiredness around the time that Izzy and Leah stood to clear the table. Once minute he was okay, treading water nicely, the next he could barely keep his eyes open, fatigue dragging him down like a weight.

He frowned, ducking his head and opening and shutting his eyes in a vain attempt to rouse himself long enough to survive dessert.

“Don’t look now, but I’m about to put my doctor hat on,” a soft voice said near his ear. Leah leaned over him, one hand resting on his shoulder. “You need to go to bed, Will.”

He didn’t even bother trying to argue the toss, he was too damned exhausted. “Okay.”

He pushed back his chair and forced a smile as heads turned his way. “Gang, it’s been awesome. But apparently I have the stamina of an anemic gnat at the moment. Bless you one and all, but I’m going to bed. Good night.”

He blew the room a collective kiss, then concentrated on leaving with a semblance of dignity.

He managed to make it halfway down the hall before he stumbled and bumped his bad arm into the wall. Instantly Leah was there, guiding him, releasing him only once he’d reached his bedroom.

“Do you need help with anything?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“I can manage.” As he’d learned only too well over the past few weeks, everything took longer when you were doing it one-handed, but the alternative—letting people help him dress and undress, among other things—was not an option.

“Okay. Good night, Will.”

“Good night.”

She hovered in the doorway for a beat before stepping into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her.

He stared at the closed door, marveling at the fact that she was here, and that she’d remain so for fourteen whole days and nights.

What a truly exquisite form of torment that promised to be.

He fumbled more than usual getting toothpaste onto his toothbrush, and it seemed to take a hell of a long time to drag his jeans down his legs, but eventually he made it into bed.

He lay in the dark, listening to the muted roar from the kitchen, thinking about Leah. For the first time he admitted to himself that he was almost afraid of what the next few weeks might bring. Not only because he knew the therapy would slice away what remained of his pride and dignity where she was concerned, but also because he wasn’t entirely sure that he trusted himself not to do something inappropriate. Like kiss her.

And he really didn’t want to put her in that position.

A light tap at the door brought his eyes open.

“Will? Can I come in?” his mother called.

“Sure.”

He stretched out his good arm to turn on the bedside lamp.

“No, don’t. I’ll only be a second. I wanted to make sure you were all right. We haven’t worn you out, have we?” She was a shadow in the darkness as she approached the bed.

“It was great to see everyone,” he said diplomatically.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Well, we won’t do it again, and now we’ve all had our Will fix for a while you can get on with your treatment without us bombarding you with visits and distracting you.”

“I had a nice time, Mum,” he said.

“I think Leah was a little overwhelmed. But she’ll get used to us.”

“It’s only for two weeks.”

He sensed his mother’s hesitation, then the bed dipped as she sat on the edge of the mattress. “Have you told her how you feel, Will?”

He tensed, then her hand came to rest on his knee and he knew it was pointless to pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“No. And I’m not going to.”

“Because of your hand?”

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to.

“You really think it would make a difference if she loved you, Will? People don’t fall in love with body parts. They fall in love with spirits. And you still have a beautiful spirit, baby. No matter what happens with your therapy.”

He bit back the harsh response that rose to his lips. It was all very well for his mother to talk in warm and fuzzy abstracts, but the reality was that he was about to spend the next fourteen days making a fool of himself in front a woman he’d once carried to bed and undressed with indecent, feverish haste. A woman who was brilliant and beautiful and accomplished. A woman he admired—loved—deeply.

He was now a man who took twenty minutes to wrestle himself into his clothes every morning, a man who couldn’t even cut his own meat. A man who had no idea what his future looked like. At all.

It was nice that his mother thought that none of those things mattered, but he knew better. He would not offer Leah the worst version of himself. Not in a million years. No matter how much he loved her, or how much it would kill him to let her walk away when his therapy was over.

The bed dipped again as his mother stood. “I’ll let you sleep.” He felt her hand on his shoulder, then the brush of her lips on his cheek.

Even though he was bone-tired, it took him a long time to fall asleep after she’d gone.

* * *

W
ILL
’
S
GUESTS
INSISTED
on cleaning the kitchen after dinner, and Leah did her best to keep up with the insults, challenges and in-jokes as they all worked together to put the room to rights. As clever and entertaining as they all were, she felt a little as though she’d spent a few hours in a wind tunnel by the time they headed for the door. She saw them off, feeling strange to be playing host in Will’s house.

Afterward, she returned to the kitchen and tidied a few last items before flicking off the lights.

She was making her way through the living room to bed when she caught sight of a photograph on the bookcase. She paused to inspect it and discovered a photo of a much younger Will standing bare-chested on the beach, a surfboard under his arm, Mark standing beside him in a similar pose. Will’s hair was cropped short and sun streaked, his face and body tanned nut-brown. She guessed he must be about seventeen or eighteen, his smile broad and carefree. His whole life ahead of him.

Her gaze shifted to the photo on the next shelf, this one a family gathering, all the Joneses crowded around a table strewn with empty plates and Christmas decorations. They raised their glasses in a toast, clearly enjoying themselves and each other.

The last picture was a shot of a sprawling city skyline. She guessed it was New York, but couldn’t be sure. She wondered what the story was behind it, why Will had chosen to display it in his home.

There were so many things she wanted to know about him. What he’d been like as a kid, how he’d navigated his high school years—superbly, was her guess, but you never could tell, and there was a thread of sensitivity and perception in his songs that suggested he hadn’t been the average teen—if he’d ever considered any career other than music, when he and Mark had caught their big break, when he’d had his first kiss, when he’d first fallen in love...

Too many things, really. A lifetime’s worth.

She set the photo in its place, then left the room, turning the lights off as she went. She was tired after the drive and the big dinner, but instead of going straight to sleep she took a few minutes to review the material for tomorrow’s therapy session as she sat up in bed.

She wanted to make sure she got it right, that she gave Will the best chance to recover fully. She wanted to feel confident tomorrow so that Will, in turn, could feel confident, because she knew that he had to be scared. She would be if she was in his shoes.

He’d had nearly three weeks to acquaint himself with what his life could look like if the therapy proved unsuccessful, and even though he was doing his damnedest to present a calm, accepting face, there had been a handful of small moments throughout the afternoon and evening that had given him away.

His expression when his mother handed him his meal with all the food cut into fork-size portions. The way his shoulders had squared when Vanessa’s husband, Brian, had offered to mow the lawn again on the weekend, and Will had assured him he could manage it himself. The way he’d changed the subject when Mark started talking about the last gig they’d performed.

Will wasn’t a prideful man—witness his very modest house, and the way he’d chosen to retain his anonymity when they first met rather than trumpet his success—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in possession of a healthy ego. There were so many things he’d once taken for granted that were now barred to him. He was in free fall at the moment, grappling with new limitations, struggling to let go of old expectations.

How she wished she could give him some certainty. God, how she wished she could look him in the eye and tell him he would play his guitar again, that he wouldn’t have to treat walking to bed as an obstacle course for the rest of his life.

She couldn’t do that, though, because she didn’t know. The research for C.I.M.T. was strong, but every case had its own variables. All she could do was offer Will her best efforts and hope.

She set the papers on the floor and turned off the lamp. As always when she thought about Will, about what he was facing and how much she wanted to help him, her chest ached, and she rested her hand over her heart in a vain attempt to soothe it.

People talked about heartache all the time, but as a doctor she knew that hearts didn’t really ache. Not unless something was drastically, terribly medically wrong. The sensation she felt was most likely the result of her vagus nerve being overstimulated by her anterior cingulate cortex—a fancy way of saying that her emotional state was impacting her physiology.

Knowing what was happening inside her body didn’t make it any easier to bear. She loved Will, and she couldn’t have him. At least, she was almost certain she couldn’t, and she wasn’t about to put her theory to the test now. Not while his life was in upheaval. Not when he had so many other demands on his time and energy.

Her role for the foreseeable future was to love him as discreetly, as privately, as secretively as she possibly could while continuing to be his friend.

That was the most generous gift she could give him.

Turning onto her side, she closed her eyes. Tomorrow was a big day, and she needed her sleep.

* * *

W
ILL
WOKE
TO
the sound of running water in the main bathroom.

Leah. In his home.

He stared at the ceiling, indulging himself for a few precious seconds, imagining her naked beneath the shower. Water slicking over breasts, tracing the curve of her hips, the lean length of her legs. He’d washed her the night they’d slept together, smoothing soap-slicked hands over her body, exploring and teasing and shaping. He’d mapped every inch of her, savored her, worshipped her.

And she was about to sit beside him for six hours a day watching him struggle to do something as fundamentally basic as undo a button.

The thought made his gut churn.

Jesus
,
I
don’t know if I can do this.

Probably not the best time to be visited with this particular realization. Leah had spent days familiarizing herself with the program created for Will. She’d abandoned her life in Melbourne to live with him, was even now preparing to face their first day together. Will wouldn’t know how to even begin to tell her that he didn’t want to proceed after all her hard work. Nothing less than the truth would do, and the thought of admitting his gut-clenching self-consciousness to her was every bit as daunting as the prospect of actually doing the program.