He was hurting—hiding it well perhaps—but he had to be wracked by demons all the same. She vowed to try and be kinder to him, even though he made it so strangely difficult.
One minute he pushed her away. The next he stood far too close. He had no business being so near, just as she had no right to enjoy his company so much.
She sighed with vexation after the song had finished and the applause had faded. Surely they could manage to strike some sort of happy medium? She was good with people...couldn’t do her job without that all-important skill. But Christian baffled her, wrong-footing her at every turn.
They started home again an hour or so later. This time she pushed the stroller with a sleeping Nicky. Christian had insisted on slinging an arm around her shoulders to warm her against the cooling evening air. He seemed to have drunk a little too much, presumably to soothe away his memories of Jan’s death. With that in mind, Fiona didn’t feel she could complain and prize him off.
She suffered the tantalizing sensation of his velvety upper arm rubbing over her skin as they negotiated the narrow pavement again. Their flesh chafed gently together, feeding private fantasies for them both.
Christian had run his fingers through the feathery hair on her newly-exposed neck before his hand had snaked around her, pulling her close. He’d gathered her into the crook of his arm, and his fingers wrapped around her bicep so her breast joggled against his hand.
Her imaginings from the hair salon now sprang vividly to life again. The slide of his flesh across hers as they enjoyed each other in a huge bed in a softly lit room. Her hands clasping his shoulders, his thigh parting hers, the warmth and strength of her sister’s husband poised above her, the musky scent of sex saturating the air...
She wished he’d remove his arm, but she wished even more strongly that he’d pull her close in a full-body embrace.
They entered Nicky’s bedroom together. Fiona laid her sleepy niece down, smoothed the cover over her small drowsy body, and straightened. Christian stepped close and dropped a tipsy kiss onto the top of her head.
“I like the hair now I’m used to it,” he said.
He sent her a sizzling grin and ambled from the room.
Fiona stayed frozen, not trusting herself to move in case it was straight into his arms. She breathed in his faint residual scent—freshly washed cotton, barbecue smoke, and the same soap-or-shampoo tang she’d noticed that morning. And temptation. He smelled like temptation.
She was still sniffing the air where he’d stood when a shattering explosion tore the quiet night into shreds. In the peculiar silence that followed there were yells from at least two male voices and the thrilling throaty note of the engine of a powerful, sharply accelerating car.
Christian raced through to the garage that housed his prized collection of vintage vehicles.
A pool of wine snaked its slow sticky way across the floor in the moonlight; many of the bottles in the wine cellar had been shattered. Broken glass crunched everywhere underneath his feet. He scrabbled in the dark for the torch from the recharging unit over his workbench, fumbled the switch on, and shone the beam around.
Fiona dashed through.
“Stop for God’s sake!” he yelled. “Get some proper shoes on. Your feet’ll be cut to ribbons.” Relief shot through him when she skidded to a halt in time.
The huge garage door was bent and buckled. Part of it remained, hanging askew, creaking in the slight breeze. Suddenly it, too, fell with a squealing metallic thump. Dust and concrete fragments flew everywhere in a blinding cloud. Christian cursed foully, and Fiona buried her face in her arms to protect her eyes.
“Bastards took the Jag,” he snapped. “Call the cops for me, eh?”
There was no sign now of him being anything but totally alert.
She wondered about that as she pulled out her phone, dialed the emergency number, and relayed the details she was sure about.
“Just a moment,” she said, handing the phone over to Christian.
She checked on Nicky who was half-awake but so drowsy she was easily soothed. Then she hurried into her own bedroom and rummaged through her shoes. She laced on a pair of white trainers, hoping their thick soles would be protection enough from all the glass.
Christian talked on, giving the registration number and other details of his beloved E-type.
“Thank God I keep the Rolls way at the back,” he said as he disconnected. “The garage lights have blown. I can’t see what the damage really is. That explosion will have flung shards of metal and concrete all over the place. The other cars could be mincemeat.”
Neighbors started to appear— curious, startled, and concerned. Fiona picked her way to the entrance and peered upwards. The pressed-steel garage door lay buckled and crumpled on the forecourt like a couple of huge dead animals. A handful of concrete chips pattered down beside her.