So Now You're Back (21 page)

But she needed to be careful and protect herself before she had that discussion.

As they trudged back along the trail towards their pick-up point, she comforted herself with how much better able she was to hear the truth now than she had been sixteen years ago.

She wasn't that reckless girl any more, increasingly scared and anxious, beaten down by the responsibility of a child and terrified of losing the man she loved. Whatever Luke had to say on the subject, if she could shoehorn it out of him, she certainly wasn't scared of hearing it any more. Her need to know now was mere curiosity.

Maybe it was time to get in his face, instead of staying out of his way. Why shouldn't this communication thing, the communication thing he'd started by getting her here, work two ways?

Obviously, she'd be a fool not to acknowledge the sexual tension. But she could handle it. She was a mature woman who didn't have sex for the sake of it any more. Especially not with men whom she already knew weren't good for her.

Holding back a branch of laurel that hung across the path, Luke beckoned her to precede him. As she stepped close to him, she inhaled his scent. Lake water and laundry soap and fresh sweat, overlaid with the cinnamon smell of the gum he was chewing. The sinew in his forearm stretched, making the muscles in his shoulder bunch. She caught his gaze on her before it flicked away. The look in his eyes was both wary and intense.

Moisture collected as her naked and unprotected vulva rubbed against the rough linen seam of her hiking shorts.

Awareness snapped in the humid air between them, until his gaze connected with hers again. His jaw moved, working the gum.

‘Take out the gum.'

He looked puzzled, but he obeyed, licking his fingers to extract the wad. ‘Why?'

She placed her hands on either side of his face, letting the rough stubble abrade her palms.

His jaw tensed. ‘Hal, what are you doing?'

He sounded concerned. No wonder. With one arm occupied stopping the branch from whacking them both in the face and the other hand busy holding the gum, he was entirely at her mercy. She took a moment to appreciate the rush of power and to consider her purpose.

Because she had something vitally important to prove.

She might be a smidgeon sex-starved. And far too aware of those intoxicating pheromones that had always hovered around Luke in a cloud, prompting women to do stupid things. But she wasn't afraid of the siren call of her own senses any more. She'd already come a cropper on those rocks once. She wasn't about to go sailing that way again. She was in command of her libido now, and she was immune to Luke's charms. Or immune enough. And here was her chance to prove it.

Then she stopped thinking and let instinct take over. Rising on tiptoes, her chest brushing his, she heard his sharp intake of breath before her lips settled over his.

His mouth pursed into a tight line as she pressed against it. So she licked along the seam of his lips. They opened at last on a tremulous sigh, which brought with it the taste of cinnamon and need. Their tongues tangled briefly. Tip
to tip. Cautious, gentle, coaxing, at first. But then the need turned to exploration, and exploitation, their tongues duelling as he delved deeper. Demanded more.

And a part of her wanted to give in to the demand. To lose herself forever in the kiss.

The part of her that had been romantic and foolish at sixteen, and stupid enough not to have an ounce of forethought or self-preservation. The same part of her that in moments of extreme stress even now wanted to devour Luke because he was a man, a man she desired and had always desired. And who had always tasted so good.

OK, stop tasting him. You're going under.

She wrenched herself away, stepped back and released his cheeks—the tiny tremors racking her body like a heroin addict going cold turkey.

‘What was that about?' he asked, the pale blue of his irises vanished behind the dilated pupils.

That was to prove a very important point.

‘That was an apology,' she said, grabbing hold of the first viable excuse. ‘For slapping you so hard.' She patted his cheek, which appeared to be thankfully unbruised.

He scowled. ‘Then thanks, I guess … Although I thought we agreed I deserved that slap.'

‘You deserved it sixteen years ago,' she corrected. ‘I'm not so sure you deserve it now.'

She shot off down the trail ahead of him, running the tip of her tongue over her lips and gathering the lingering taste of cinnamon.

Hearing his footfalls behind her, matching time with her thundering pulse, she increased her pace. She needed to walk off all the excess energy powering through her system, and hopefully stop her clit from humming as if a thousand
bees had set up an extremely industrious hive in her pants. At least she'd found a cure for her jet lag.

But what was my point again, exactly?

W
hat was the point of having a crush on the live-in au pair if he was never where he was supposed to be?

Lizzie jogged across the low bridge in the Kyoto Garden in Holland Park. The Japanese waterfall glimmered in the sunshine while Rihanna's ‘Rude Boy' got it on in her headphones.

Piss off, peace and tranquility.

She marked time as a mum with a double buggy pushed past her on the brick path, then headed into the cool forested section of the park. Puffing now—a hangover from last night's pizza blowout—she accelerated on the secluded track leading through the untamed grove of elms and weeping willows the half mile to the exit. The park had been quiet this morning, except for the odd nanny-and-toddler combo. School wasn't out yet for the summer, but luckily she had no more college classes, having handed in her final assessment yesterday.

Any excitement at the prospect of having Trey all to herself during the daytime had been quashed in the past few days, though. The man had made himself noticeably scarce, disappearing after the school drop-off each day, only to reappear
at four p.m. with Aldo in tow like the ultimate gooseberry. The burning curiosity to ask him where he'd gone was nothing compared to her irritation that he'd managed to avoid her. For three whole days.

She ran on the spot, waiting for the lights to change at Holland Park Avenue. Jogging across the road, she darted into Ladbroke Mews, running past the exclusive pastel-coloured cottages, her trainers hitting the cobblestones to the rhythm of Beyoncé's ‘Single Ladies'. An oldie but a goodie when it came to girl-power mission statements.

Bolting out of the mews, her laboured breath sawing in her lungs, she ran past the palatial houses that stood in a row of Georgian grandeur around Ladbroke Square. She slowed as she approached their four-storey house, its grand portico matching the others in the terrace, as a tall, easily identifiable figure came down the street from the opposite direction. Her heartbeat galloped into her throat, and not just from the exertion of her morning jog.

Trey was back. She slowed to a walk, sucking in air so she wouldn't be huffing and puffing like a hippopotamus when he spotted her.

It was four days now since their day out at the Serps, and either she was becoming paranoid or Trey had been avoiding her every day since. She hadn't pushed it at first; he obviously had a job to do with Aldo—and as much as she might want to hang out with Trey, she hadn't sunk so low as to want to play football in the park.

Unfortunately, she'd managed to miss him and Aldo before they left for school each morning. So she'd set her alarm last night, determined to catch him for morning coffee if it killed her. Pressing the snooze button had been a mistake, though, because she'd managed to snooze until nine o'clock.

But the jog had revitalised her and given her time to
think. Either she was paranoid or Trey had been avoiding her. She tugged out her earbuds and turned off her iPod as she drew closer.

He had his head down as he opened the gate leading to the house's basement entrance.

‘Hi, you get Aldo to school OK?' she asked, wincing at the inane question.

His head popped up, and she tried to deduce whether his expression said surprise or irritation, before it became carefully masked.

His gaze flicked down and she winced some more at the thought of what a state she must look, in her oldest sweatpants and jogging bra. Sweat dripped down the side of her face, and she brushed it off with the sweatband on her wrist.

‘Not quite.' He held the gate open for her, preoccupied. ‘Aldo went into a tailspin when he realised it was his class's bake sale this afternoon.' He followed her down the cellar stairs into the kitchen.

‘Mum usually does something amazing with him for that,' she replied, trying not to let the bubble of resentment surface.

Her mum had always found time to bake with Aldo on the Wednesday evening each term before his class had their sale to raise funds for their end-of-year trip. But she never had time to bake with Lizzie any more. Then again, Lizzie realised, she had never asked. But it was the thought, or rather the lack of it, that counted. Right?

‘He told me that.' Trey sounded suitably daunted. ‘He's going to have to downgrade his expectations for what I can rustle up to bring in this afternoon.'

She took a moment to appreciate the width of Trey's shoulders as he closed the kitchen door behind them both.

‘I could give you a hand.' The opportunity presented itself
like manna from heaven. ‘I am my mother's daughter, after all.' Even if they hadn't baked together in years.

He lifted the plastic bag in his hand. ‘I've got it covered. I picked something up at the corner shop.'

The comment sounded neutral, friendly even. But Lizzie knew a cold shoulder when she saw one—and she refused to be put off by it—however broad it might be.

This was not paranoia. Trey Carson was definitely avoiding being alone with her. He'd been distant ever since Sunday—distant and unfailingly polite. In other words, he was back to business as usual—humour Lizzie and ignore her. As if the Serps had never happened. As if she hadn't had that tantalising glimpse of the hot enigmatic guy beneath the dodgy polo shirt. Or the tattoo he had inked on his butt.

Well, he could forget that. She planned to seize this opportunity—and get all up in his face now—because passive wasn't working.

He dumped the bag on the kitchen counter and unloaded the contents, obviously expecting her to toddle off to the bathroom without bothering him. Wrong. She wasn't playing that game any more.

She hoisted the ready-to-bake Spider-Man cupcake mix he'd placed on the counter. ‘You're not seriously planning to darken my mum's kitchen with this crap, are you? If she finds out, she'll have us both shot at dawn.'

His brow crinkled in a fetchingly puzzled frown. ‘I wasn't planning to tell her.'

‘Do you have any idea how many E-numbers are in this stuff?' She started reading from the ingredients panel. ‘And not just E-numbers. We also have edible gum, non-milk solids, artificial colouring …' She tapped her fingernail on the box. ‘Oh, and, the pièce de résistance, guaranteed to give
all ten-year-olds a sugar rush that will blow their heads off, fructose syrup and glucose emulsifiers. Yummy.'

He grabbed the box and placed it back on the counter. ‘Apologies to your mum, but this'll have to do.' He lifted one of her mum's stainless steel mixing bowls from the cabinet. ‘I need to get these done in an hour. I don't have time for fancy.'

‘Why have you only got an hour?' Was he deserting her again for the day? Because it was starting to give her a complex.

He tore off the box's lid. ‘I've got somewhere I've got to be.'

Lizzie frowned.
So far, so completely uncommunicative.

There were about a billion questions she wanted to ask him, but she recognised the stubborn expression on his face. Aldo had worn the exact same one when she'd quizzed him about the full pack of Jammie Dodgers that had been in the biscuit tin last week and had mysteriously vanished without trace a day later.

Boys, or men, with that expression on their face fessed up only if you got sneaky.

He ripped open the package holding the cupcake mix. But as he headed for the fridge to pull out some eggs, she picked the packet up and dumped it head first into the trash.

‘Hey, what the hell did you do that for?' Well, at least she'd managed to bypass unfailingly polite.

‘I told you.' She slapped her hands together, ignoring the horrified look. ‘We're not going to Aldo's bake sale with plastic cupcakes. That much is non-negotiable. This family has a baking reputation to protect.'

‘But I don't have time to figure out an alternative.' He trailed off, clearly speechless, the crinkle on his forehead becoming a furrow. ‘I didn't want to buy ready-made cakes. And Aldo will flip if I show up with nothing at all.'

‘Not a problem. Bring the eggs over here and then get the self-rising flour, the caster sugar and the vanilla essence from the larder.' She swung round the counter and pulled one of the wooden spoons out of the huge earthenware jug her mum kept by the eight-ring hob.

He hesitated, his frown dipping, in two minds about whether to obey her order.

‘Get a move on, Trey, we only have fifty minutes now.'

He cursed under his breath and stalked off to the larder. She took the moment alone to wash her hands and repair her ponytail. Catching her reflection in the window glass above the sink, she withheld a shudder.

She just hoped Trey appreciated his women au naturel, because she was sporting full no-make-up selfie chic. She fetched the butter, scooped half of the tub into the bowl and began softening it up with the spoon.

The items she'd requested were unceremoniously dumped at her elbow. ‘What are we making?'

‘Spider-Man cupcakes, of course.' She sprinkled a generous amount of caster sugar onto the butter.

‘Oh, yeah, of course,' he said, still pissed off. ‘Because that makes perfect sense now you've chucked the mixture into the bin.'

‘They probably have some themed casings in the box,' she said, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘Arrange them on a baking tray, then turn the oven on to gas mark five.'

He huffed with indignation but followed her instructions. She took surreptitious glances at him as he fiddled with the casings, hurrying to arrange them in straight rows on the baking tray.

Wherever he was going, he did not want to be late.

The wooden spoon faltered. Did he have a girlfriend? A guy as fit as him with the work ethic of a Trojan would be a
catch, no question, even if he couldn't make cupcakes from scratch. And wore straight-leg jeans.

‘Ready,' he said. ‘What next?'

She cracked two eggs into the bowl one-handed, comfortable with the familiar routine. ‘Grab the flour sieve.' She battered the cake mixture into a smooth consistency while imagining it was his imaginary girlfriend's head.

‘Where is it?'

‘Up there.' She nodded at the utensils that her mum had hanging from bars over the counter for easy access. He reached up to grab the sieve, and the hem of his T-shirt lifted over the waistband of his jeans. The faded red and black of his tattoo hovered over the well of his spine, inching past the black cotton of his boxers. The T-shirt dropped back into place, and she found herself staring at the faded denim cupping his tight, perfectly defined buns.

Her lips dried to parchment as she imagined running her fingertip over the delicate lines of the drawing—and then dipping it beneath the waistband of his pants.

‘What do I do with it?' he asked, wielding the sieve.

‘Sift some flour over this mixture.'

He lifted the flour tin and stepped closer. His forearm brushed hers, weighing down the hot brick in her stomach. ‘How much?'

She could smell him, the hints of his lemony shower gel above the scent of sugar and vanilla. ‘About five hundred grams. I'll tell you when to stop.'

She could hear the steady murmur of his breathing, feel the tension in his arm, above the phlop-phlop-phlop of the spoon, and her own racketing heartbeat. He held the sieve over her bowl and sprinkled the flour with the care and precision of a bomb-disposal expert handling nitroglycerine.

‘What's your tattoo supposed to be?'

Flour puffed over the edge of the sieve as the tin jerked and tapped the edge of the bowl.

She carried on mixing, the phlop-phlop-phlop the only sound as the silence stretched. ‘Keep sifting,' she prompted, because he seemed to be frozen in place. ‘We're not at five hundred grams yet.'

He tipped the tin too steeply and a wedge of flour flopped into the sieve, sending a mushroom cloud of dust into the air.

‘That's probably enough now.'

He drew the sieve away. ‘Sorry.'

‘Is it a bird?' she continued to probe, all innocence. ‘The tattoo, I mean.'

‘It's supposed to be a phoenix. The artist was pretty low-rent.' He placed the tin of flour onto the counter, resealed the lid, still handling nitro. She'd definitely struck a nerve—which was all the more reason to keep on swinging.

She folded the flour into the mixture. ‘Get a spoon out and we can put this in the casings now.'

‘How much?'

‘About that much.' She ladled a dollop into the bottom of one casing. ‘Don't go mad or the sponge will spill over when it rises in the oven.'

‘OK.'

They began filling the casings together, side by side. ‘When did you get the tattoo?'

His spoon paused in mid-air, before he resumed filling his casing. ‘Couple of years back.'

‘Why?'

He scraped some more batter out of the bowl, used his finger to plop it into the casings. ‘Why are you so interested in it?'

Yup. She had definitely hit a nerve. She liked it. Getting a reaction out of him was better than not getting a reaction.
Especially when those chocolate-brown eyes narrowed on her face. His expression intent. He was seeing her now. No doubt about that. She ignored the pleasant sensations fluttering under her breastbone. Being the focus of Trey Carson's attention was addictive. But she mustn't get distracted.

‘It just seems totally out of character for you.'

‘Why, because I'm Mr Perfecto?' He sounded prickly, and much more irritated about the nickname than when he'd first told her he knew about it. ‘You don't know anything about me. Or my life.'

The pleasant fluttering became discordant and jarring. It was a familiar sensation. One she'd felt often when Carly accused her of being a drama queen, or her mum gave her that weary, harassed look that seemed to say:
Why can't you be the sweet child you once were?
But, this time, she refused to take it personally, to let the implied criticism deflect her from her goal.