* * *
It was barely light when Darius woke, fully aroused—he’d been dreaming about Natasha. One moment she’d been a vision in something floaty, looking and smelling like a summer garden, the next she’d been pressed up against him, naked, soapy wet, her fingers kneading his scalp, her breasts against his back. And when he’d turned round and she’d taken him in her hand...
He closed his eyes, wanting that moment back. Wanting her to be there with him. He’d asked her to stay, but then...
Then he’d done what he always did with any woman who got too close, who he wanted too much; he’d used the first excuse that offered itself to make it impossible for her to stay.
She was so easy to read. Every thought, every idea was right there in her lovely face and she knew it. The fact that she’d buried her face in his chest was enough to warn him that she was hiding something and damn it, of course he was mad that she could think such a thing of him. But why wouldn’t she?
She’d just been betrayed in the worst possible way. Her confidence had to be shaky. And he’d made all kinds of excuses not to wake her because she could read him, too. Would have seen what he could not hide. That it had been a panic run.
What he’d felt, what he’d drawn, had terrified him. He’d had to leave her a note so that she knew about the Land Rover and keys, but it had been bare of emotion. He’d left mixed messages and she’d interpreted them just as he’d hoped she would. Until he’d walked around that truck and his heart had practically leapt out of his chest with joy.
He knew what he felt was senseless. And he’d acted senselessly.
He took a cup of coffee out into the tiny yard he shared with a couple of randy pigeons and a pot of dead daffodils, watching the sun turn the sky from a pale grey to blue, stirring only when there was a long peal on the doorbell.
It was Patsy with a large cardboard envelope. It was addressed to him c/o Patsy and when he turned it over, saw it was from Natasha, he didn’t have to open it to know what it was.
‘I don’t know you...’
Of course she didn’t. He’d never let anyone close enough to know him. He didn’t know himself.
‘Why did she send it to you?’ he asked. ‘How did she know your address?’
‘I don’t keep it a secret,’ she said, looking pointedly at his door. The cottage, like the studio, bore no number. ‘She’s a nice woman, Darius.’
‘No...’ There were a dozen words rushing into his head to describe Natasha, but ‘nice’ wasn’t one of them. Vivid, fun, kind, thoughtful, vulnerable, hot, glorious, spicy sweet... He realised that Patsy was looking at him a little oddly. ‘Sorry, yes, of course you’re right.’
‘I’m going to Hadley Chase as soon as school is out this afternoon. When will you be coming down?’
‘I have to go to the foundry today,’ he said. ‘Take the horse apart so that they can start making the moulds.’ Dozens of intricate parts, every one of which had to be checked for imperfections through each stage of the process.
‘And tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘It’s going to take weeks,’ he said, but she knew that. That wasn’t what she was asking.
She didn’t press it. ‘Any message?’