Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 1 of 2(232)
The memories had the power to lance his guts.
His mind drifted back to those—literally—dark days, when they’d been so poor his parents could only afford to heat his bedroom. That had been when Marat’s disdain for his younger, adopted brother had turned ugly. How clearly he recalled Marat whispering to him when their parents had been out of earshot, ‘Why don’t you just die and save us all this trouble, Cuckoo?’ Pascha might have been only seven years old but he’d known his brother meant it.
‘Cuckoo’: Marat’s secret nickname for him.
He looked down at his empty bowl.
To hell with it.
He could allow himself one night of sweetness.
He stuck his spoon into the tub and ate straight from it.
Something flickered in Emily’s eyes as she did the same, their spoons clashing as they dived into the tub a second time.
The flickering darkened and swirled, their eyes locked.
She really was incredibly beautiful. And incredibly easy to talk to.
With a stab, he realised he’d shared more of his past with her this evening than he had ever done with anyone. His childhood illness was history, not something he talked about.
He looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour.’
A groove he was starting to recognise formed on her brow. ‘Half an hour...?’
‘That’s how long it’s taken us to finish this tub of ice-cream. You said ten minutes.’
‘Too much talking, not enough eating. And it’s not finished.’ She yanked the tub up and peered into it. ‘There’s at least a spoonful left.’
‘You finish it.’
‘How very magnanimous.’
He watched as she seemingly scraped out every last drop of the by now melted remnants.
His blood thickened at witnessing her pink tongue dart out to lick the spoon.
Mentally taking a deep breath, he got to his feet. Tonight he was also going to say to hell with his strict diet and limited alcohol consumption. ‘How about we open another bottle of wine?’
‘Why not?’ she agreed, pushing the tub away from her. ‘It’s more exciting than milk.’ She placed a hand on her middle. ‘Do you think it’s any good for stomach-ache?’
Why did that action automatically make him think of a pregnant woman rubbing her swollen bump?
He blinked the image away, unsettled at the imagery.
‘Has someone eaten too much ice-cream?’
‘Mmm...maybe,’ she said, elongating the first syllable.
‘I hate to say I told you so...’
She pulled a face. ‘I know, I know, too much ice-cream is unhealthy. That didn’t stop you from eating half of it.’
‘Not quite half,’ he said with a wry smile, pushing his chair back. He’d eaten more ice-cream in one sitting than he’d consumed in the past decade.
Emily was right. It made bitterness much easier to swallow.
Or was it that she was such a good listener that it made it easier to spill the secrets of his past?
When he sat back down with the bottle and two clean glasses, she leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. ‘Being stuck in here with me must be a nightmare for you. First the engine of the yacht breaking, then the storm... It must be driving you mad, all these things occurring that are out of your control.’
He laughed. ‘I’m coping.’ To his surprise, he realised, he was coping remarkably well.
Under normal circumstances, an event like this would elicit a vigorous amount of pacing the room, waiting for the danger of the storm to pass. But instead he was content to sit back, relax and just...talk.
When had he ever taken the time just to talk?
No wonder he wasn’t going mad when he had Emily to distract him, something she managed to do effortlessly.
He gripped the stem of his glass, fighting a sudden compulsion to reach over and touch her hair. She’d left it loose. Her curls had dried since her shower, a mass of long ebony ringlets springing here, there and everywhere.
What did that gorgeous hair smell of? he wondered. What, he wondered, would she do if he were to capture one of the locks and wind it around his finger?
Every sinew in his body tightened.
He took a large swallow of his wine, watching as she reached for her glass and did likewise, running a finger over the flesh of her bottom lip to wipe a drop away.
He took another swallow and forced a smile at her questioning look.
He wished there was another tub of ice-cream in the freezer. Maybe he could spoon it straight onto his lap and kill the heat simmering in him.
* * *
Emily sat curled up in the armchair she’d dragged over to the wall so she could peer out of the porthole-like window. Only the dim glow from the outside lights enabled her to see the trees bending under the assault of the wind. Rain lashed down like a sheet, more powerful than anything she’d ever witnessed.