On the First Night of Christmas... (19 page)

It was going to be a Happy New Year all right. At least for him.

He didn’t have to let her go. Not just yet.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘S
O CASSIDY
, it’s make your mind up time.’ Jace tugged her into his lap. Securing his arms round her waist to hold her in place, he asked, ‘You want me to book you a ticket to the Big Apple today?’

Cassie’s heart leapt into her throat, the sexy smile and the warm weight of his arms making the high she’d been riding since his offer the night before shoot straight into the stratosphere. She swallowed heavily to control the lump of emotion in her throat, ready at last to bare the feelings she had for him.

He wanted to continue their affair; she could see he cared a great deal for her—the way he’d made love to her last night when they’d arrived home from the New Year’s celebrations, fast and frantic the first time, then slow and tender the next, was yet more proof of his growing feelings. But she couldn’t accept his offer under false pretences. He’d been deliberately casual about how long she would be in New York and about why he wanted her there, she suspected as a defence. He was a man who had never been in love before—not even with the woman he had married—and, from the little she knew of his past and his character, had tried very hard to protect himself from any emotion likely to make him vulnerable.

But if she accepted his offer, she had to let him know that her feelings were not casual. She needed to be honest now, and go with her instinct, that his feelings weren’t as casual as he tried to pretend.

Looping her arms round his neck, she gave him a soft smile, her gaze drifting over his harsh, handsome features. The dimple in his cheek, the confidence in his eyes, the locks of unruly hair still glistening from their morning tryst in the shower. She wanted to memorise every aspect of his expression when she told him she was falling in love.

‘I want to come. More than anything I’ve ever—’

‘Excellent,’ he said, interrupting her. ‘I’ll give my PA the news. We’ll need your passport number.’

He tried to shift her off his lap. She had to cling on. ‘I’m not finished, Jace.’

‘We need to get the ball rolling,’ he said, the flash of impatience in his eye making her hesitate. ‘Tickets have to be booked, bags packed and—’

‘Jace, stop it. I’ve got something I want to tell you.’

His shoulders stiffened slightly under her hands. ‘Okay, but make it quick.’

‘I … If I come to New York … You need to know that I …’ She stumbled, her confidence ebbing away. Why did he look so tense all of a sudden? ‘This means a lot to me. Because …’ She had to force the words out past lips that had dried like parchment. ‘I’m falling in love with you.’

His eyebrows rose a fraction, and for a split second she thought she saw something in his face. But it was masked instantly, leaving the precious words hanging in the air between them, sounding foolish and a little corny instead of heartfelt and genuine.

‘I’m flattered,’ he said, the tone of his voice so condescending she cringed. ‘But we’ve really got to get a move on if we’re not going to miss our flight.’ Taking her weight, he lifted her off his lap.

She folded her arms round her waist, her insides churning as the hope and excitement of moments ago turned to bewilderment.

Placing a quick kiss on her nose, he patted her behind. ‘Now go and get dressed. I’ll drive you round to your place so you can pack after I’ve called my PA to confirm about the ticket.’

‘Jace, wait.’ She grasped his arm as he tried to walk past. ‘Don’t you have anything else to say?’

She’d expected surprise, maybe even shock, had been prepared for him to try to deny her feelings to protect the wall he had kept around his own for so long. What she hadn’t expected, or even considered, was his indifference.

He shrugged. ‘No,’ he said.

She frowned, the tears swelling in her throat making her feel even more foolish. Was she overreacting, being stupidly sentimental? ‘I just told you I’m falling in love with you,’ she said carefully. She bit down on her quivering lip, knowing that tears would only make this situation a billion times more humiliating. ‘Are you sure you don’t have anything else to say about it?’

‘I told you, I’m flattered,’ he said, stressing each syllable. ‘I’m glad you like me so much.’ But he didn’t sound glad, he sounded irritated. She could read him fairly well now, despite the way he always fought to keep his emotions hidden. She could see the slight tension in his jaw, the muscle in his cheek that flexed as he spoke. ‘It’ll make things more fun when we hit New York,’ he finished.

Fun!

The single word sparked something deep inside her. Some thing that she didn’t properly recognise, because she had never let it loose before. Not when her father had left her sitting on the sofa for hours with her best dress on and her hair carefully braided waiting for nothing; not when David had told her in a polite monotone he thought things weren’t working out between them; not even when Lance had leapt up from the sofa, his trousers round his ankles, and demanded to know what she thought she was doing walking into her own flat without knocking.

Jace took her arm, steering her towards the bedroom. ‘We can talk about this later.’

The curt words had the unfamiliar emotion burning up her torso, searing her throat and exploding through the top of her head.

‘Now go and—’ he continued, but the ringing in her ears got so loud it cut off the rest of the sentence.

‘No, we can’t talk about it later.’ She wrenched her arm free, glared at him through the mist of tears she refused to shed. ‘Because I’m not going.’

‘What?’ He stared at her as if she’d grown an extra head. ‘Why not?’

How ironic, she thought as her hope shattered. That she should finally shock him out of his complacency, not with a declaration of love, but by the simple act of finally standing up for herself.

‘Because I don’t want to,’ she said, her voice rising as she let the surge of temper take over to drown the pain. ‘Because I told you I was falling in love with you and you don’t even care enough about me to pretend it matters to you.’ Her throat ached, her head hurt and her heart felt as if it were breaking into a thousand tiny pieces, but she made herself say what she should have said days ago. ‘I didn’t expect you to say it back. I’m not an idiot. We’ve only known each other ten days. But they’ve been the most wonderful ten days of my life … And I thought they meant something to you too.’

‘This is ridiculous, Cassie,’ Jace declared, mortified when his voice shook. ‘You’re overreacting.’

Unfortunately she wasn’t the only one, he realised as panic clawed up his throat at the hopelessness on her face.

‘Maybe from where you’re standing,’ she murmured, the brief magnificent show of temper dying as quickly as it had come. A tear dripped off her lashes, and sliced right through the charade of indifference he used to keep a tight rein on his temper. ‘But from where I’m standing, I can see now I should have been honest with you much sooner.’

He grasped her arm again as she turned to leave. ‘Damn it, Cassie. Can’t you see how ridiculous you’re being? What do you want me to say?’ he said, sickened by the desperation in his voice. ‘That I’m falling for you too? If you want me to say it I will.’

She faced him, the sadness in her gaze so much more painful than the anger. ‘But you’d be lying, wouldn’t you.’ It wasn’t a question. And how could he deny it when she was right? They were only words to him. A means to an end.

Maybe for a split second, when she’d said she was falling in love in that bright, excited tone, her body soft and pliant in his arms and her gaze glowing, he’d felt that strange sense of rightness, of completeness, but then the truth had registered. And he’d recoiled.

All he’d seen was his mother’s face, her lip bleeding, her eyes blackened, her face bruised. And all the guilt and unhappiness, and the crushing feeling of hopelessness had risen up to strangle that ludicrous belief in the impossible.

Cassie grasped his wrist, pulled away from him. ‘I can’t come to New York.’

‘Fine.’ He fisted his fingers and buried them in his robe pockets, determined not to give in to the urge to touch her, to cling onto her, to force her to stay. He’d survive without her. Just as he’d survived before. ‘I guess this is goodbye, then.’

He watched her lip tremble, but no more tears fell. Instead, she straightened, winning the fight for composure.

She disappeared into the bedroom, and he listened to the muted sounds as she got dressed and packed her bag while he clung onto the frigid control. So he could remain still and silent when she came out and said a quiet, ‘Goodbye, Jace.’

But as the front door of the suite closed behind her he marched to the breakfast table, swept up the teacup she had been using and hurled it against the wall. Shattered china bounced on the thick carpet and tea dripped down the silk wallpaper as the old anger and resentment—and a sharp new pain—ripped through his chest.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘H
ERE’S
fine, Dave,’ Jace said tightly as the car slid into a space outside the imposing new glass-and-steel structure that housed Heathrow’s Terminal Five.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to park and help you with your bag, Mr Ryan?’ the chauffeur asked through the partition.

‘I’ve got it.’ Stepping out of the car, he grasped his holdall. ‘Thanks, Dave, you’ve done a great job.’ Pulling five twenty-pound notes out of his wallet, he handed the tip through the window.

The driver smiled and handed Jace a business card. ‘It’s been a pleasure, Mr Ryan. Just give me a call next time you’re in London.’

‘Sure.’ He gave the man a small salute as he drove off, then flicked the card into a nearby bin before walking into the terminal building.

He was never coming back to this godforsaken city again. Not if he could avoid it.

He’d taken a conference call with the buyers he’d chosen an hour ago and set the wheels in motion. Artisan would belong to someone else as soon as the markets opened tomorrow. He’d informed his PA to have his lawyer contact Helen’s solicitors to organise the transfer of funds for her shares. And he’d still have a cool twenty-five mill to invest in his next venture.

He strode through the large, state-of-the-art terminal building, slinging the leather holdall carrying his essential stuff over his shoulder. He’d finally left all those lingering associations from his past behind once and for all. He had no ties to London, no ties to his ex-wife, and no ties to the young, driven and wildly ambitious man who had been so desperate to escape his childhood he’d done things that he’d later been ashamed of.

He was free at last. The last traces of his old life, his old self, were gone. He could start afresh.

The picture of Cassie, her small frame rigid as she walked away from him, flashed into his brain and made his steps falter.

He stopped, shut his eyes, banishing the image for about the five-hundredth time in the last three hours, and ignored the stuttering beat of his heart, and the piercing pain in his chest.

Pull yourself together, Ryan.

She’d done him a favour. He should never have invited her to New York in the first place.

As soon as he got home, he’d be grateful that she wasn’t going to be with him. And he’d done her a favour too. If he’d taken her to stay in his place in the East Village, knowing how she felt—or rather thought she felt—about him, it would have been even tougher to let her down gently when the time came for her to leave.

But even as he scanned the departure hall, spotted the first-class check-in for his flight to JFK and negotiated the snaking queues of suitcase-laden travellers to get to it, the stupid pain refused to go away. He could feel it like a jagged blade, stabbing at his composure again, slicing through his control just as it had done when the door had shut behind her.

Stop it. Stop thinking about her. She was never more than a good lay.

But even as he said the words in his head the pain and panic rose up his throat like bile and called him a liar.

Standing at the desk, he chucked his bag on the conveyor. ‘Hi, my name’s Jacob Ryan, I’m on flight three five three,’ he said to the young check-in girl as he yanked his passport out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket, slapped it down on the desk. ‘My PA, Jeannie Martin, was dealing with the ticket details.’

Just get on the damn plane. Once you’re at fifty thousand feet the pain will be gone.

‘Yes, Mr Ryan,’ the check-in girl said perkily as she tapped his passport number into her computer, scanned it with easy efficiency.

But as hard as he tried to concentrate, on forgetting the memories, ignoring the pain, the sudden crippling sense of sadness, of loss and loneliness that he hadn’t felt since he’d last seen his mother, forced its way past the boulder lodged in his throat, releasing a stream of images that flooded his subconscious in quick succession.

Cassie’s wild hair and indignant pout as she’d hurled herself into his car; the determined frown as she tried to decide on the perfect gift for her best friend; the expectation on her face when she’d handed him the card she’d made—which was tucked in his jacket pocket because he’d been unable to throw it away while he packed; the soft weight of her lush little body curved against his side as they’d left the funfair; the sheen of tears, and the tenderness and understanding in her gaze when he’d told her about his stepfather; and the lilting hope in her voice when she’d announced she was falling in love.

If she’d only ever been a good lay, why wasn’t it the thought of all the really amazing sex he was going to be missing that hurt the most now?

‘I’m sorry, Mr Ryan. But we don’t have your travelling companion’s passport details. And the US Department of Homeland Security requires that—’

‘What travelling companion?’ he croaked, interrupting the stream of information.

‘Ms Cassidy Fitzgerald,’ she said, reading off the screen.

‘But I …’ Just the mention of her name out loud seemed to sharpen the pain unbearably. He swept his hand through his hair, feeling as if bits of him were being hacked off inside. ‘How did you know?’ he said dumbly. Was this some sort of weird alternative reality? Was he cracking up?

‘How did I know what, Mr Ryan?’

‘That she’s meant to be travelling with me?’

The woman sent him a curious smile, then directed her gaze back to the screen. ‘Ms Martin bought her ticket. Online at 1:30 a.m. last night London time. But we did email her to inform her that we would need …’

The woman’s words trailed off as Jace recalled keying in the brief text message to Jeannie the night before, telling her to check availability on today’s flight. And then the memory of the pleasure that had flooded his chest, that feeling of hope, of excitement, of rightness as he slung his mobile on the bedside table and watched Cassie step out of the bathroom. Her face soft and beautiful in the night light, her curves outlined through the wispy silk nightgown as she stood silhouetted in the doorway.

He’d taken her in the lobby as soon as they’d got back from the New Year’s celebration. The passion so hot and raw it had consumed them both. But then she’d rushed off to the bathroom, and he’d waited for her, stretched out on the bed, anticipating how much he was going to enjoy taking her so slowly she begged, now the edge of their hunger had been satisfied.

He’d been so arrogant, so sure, that she was going to say yes to his offer, he’d passed the time by texting Jeannie to let her know he was planning to bring Cassie to New York. And with her usual efficiency his PA had done the rest.

But more than that, he hadn’t for a moment worried about the implications of buying a ticket, because all he’d cared about in that instance was that Cassie would be with him, by his side, when he left.

He swore softly. The panic, the regret, the agony and desperation channelling into one simple conviction. He couldn’t leave. Not without her. Not if he didn’t want to go mad.

Gripping the handle of his holdall, his fingers no longer shaking, he picked the leather bag off the conveyer.

‘Your boarding card, Mr Ryan.’ The attendant handed the oblong strip of card over the counter.

‘Keep it,’ he said, his voice firm for the first time since Cassie had walked out. ‘I don’t need it now.’