A New Year Marriage Proposal (Harlequin Romance) (5 page)

Well, it had been worth a try. ‘Then in that case a cup of tea would be very nice,’ he said.

She made a pot of tea—and, being Carissa, she had a silver tray to go with the teapot, tea strainer and milk jug—then ushered him into her living room. Just as he’d half suspected, the walls were lined with shelves of leather-bound books. Definitely more than the hundred or so that the average British household was meant to contain, according to a news story he’d seen recently; and he’d also bet that she’d read most of them, too.

‘I’m surprised you don’t have a tree up yet,’ he remarked, as he sat on the pristine leather chesterfield next to her.

‘No, I do that on the first day of December.’

Another of her traditions, he guessed. And he was pretty sure that she’d have a proper tree, not an artificial one.

‘Am I allowed to open my present now?’ she asked, sitting down next to him and indicating the box, which she’d brought in on the tray.

‘That was the idea.’

She untied the ribbon and carefully unwrapped the paper. Once she’d revealed the box, she opened it and took off the layer of sparkly tissue paper to reveal fairy lights in the shape of crystal snowflakes. ‘Oh! How lovely. Thank you.’ She beamed at him. ‘Are these for my tree?’

Not unless she planned to have a pocket-sized tree, and someone who loved Christmas as much as Carissa Wylde would no doubt have something much larger. ‘No. You plug it into the USB port on your laptop.’

‘So these are fairy lights for my laptop?’ she asked, sounding surprised.

Had he got this wrong? He shrugged. ‘I thought it was very you.’

She smiled at him. ‘It is, and it’s so sweet of you to think of me and do something so nice.’ On impulse, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Then she pulled back and looked at him, her blue eyes huge.

He knew that if he rested his hands on her waist and leaned forward, she’d let him kiss her.

Should he?

Would he?

It was so very tempting...

But he wanted some answers first.

‘What’s Project Sparkle?’ he asked softly.

‘I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’

She wasn’t making eye contact with him any more, and she was touching her nose as he spoke, so he knew she wasn’t telling him the truth. But why was she keeping this Project Sparkle stuff such a big secret?

‘Carissa...’

‘Look, I have no idea where you got this thing about Project Sparkle.’

And Quinn wasn’t going to drop her friend in it by telling her.

‘I know you do a lot of top-secret stuff,’ she continued, ‘but it doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world is into subterfuge the whole time, you know.’

‘True,’ he said. ‘Did I ever tell you I worked on some lie-detection software?’

And now she looked really panicky. ‘I expect that was very useful for your client.’

‘It was.’ OK. He’d let her off the hook. For now. But he’d keep asking—because Quinn didn’t like mysteries. He liked solving puzzles, not ignoring them. And Carissa Wylde had just turned into a very big puzzle. She intrigued him, in lots of ways. And he wanted to find out the truth.

CHAPTER FOUR

Q
UINN
STILL
HADN
’
T
worked it out by the time he received Carissa’s text.

Busy tonight?

In meetings until seven, he texted back, guessing that this was going to be another of her Christmas things. He didn’t want her thinking that he was happy to drop everything for her whenever she pleased.

Tomorrow?
she asked.

He was halfway through typing a reply when another text message pinged in.

For MOC proof #2.

Just what he’d half expected. He deleted his half-typed reply and texted instead,
OK. Where do I meet you, and what time?

The entrance to Charing Cross station, 7 p.m.

That was fine by him.
Dress code?

Warm. And definitely gloves.

Quinn opted for one of his less scruffy pairs of jeans, a black cashmere sweater, black suede boots and a long black coat.

‘Perfect,’ Carissa said when she met him at the station.

And for once she wasn’t wearing a suit and killer heels, he noticed. She was wearing jeans—soft, faded jeans that really highlighted her curves—flat boots and a warm coat. And no briefcase, so either she’d finished work early or she’d had a day off today.

‘So where are we going?’ he asked as they headed down the Strand.

‘Somewhere even a descendant of Ebenezer Scrooge like you will enjoy,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘Carissa Wylde, are you calling me mean?’

‘You’re not mean with money,’ she said. ‘And you’re not mean-spirited
exactly
.’

Which made him feel guilty. ‘I haven’t always been that nice to you,’ he admitted.

‘Because I pushed you.’ She shrugged. ‘My fault. Push someone too hard and eventually they’ll push back.’

‘So what did you mean?’

‘That you don’t believe in Christmas. Maybe,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘you need to be visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.’

‘Are you offering to play the ghost?’ he asked. ‘Because I can just see you in a floaty white nightdress...’

Then he froze. Why the hell had he said something so stupid? The last thing he wanted was for Carissa to guess that he was attracted to her. He had no intention of acting on that attraction—a woman like Carissa would want more than he was prepared to give, and no way was he laying open his heart and risking it being trampled on. Been there, done that, and knew better now, thank you very much.

But she’d also frozen, and there was colour staining her cheeks. As if she was thinking about it, too—about a huge four-poster bed, and walking across the bedroom to him wearing a demurely cut white nightdress that was anything but demure because the material was sheer enough to let him see the curves of her body in all their glory...

Oh, help. He needed to get his mind off this track. Right now.

‘It’s far too cold for floaty nightdresses,’ she said, shivering theatrically. ‘Give me fleecy PJs covered in smiling red-nosed reindeer any day.’

He was glad that she’d defused the situation. Though his tongue still felt as if it were stuck to the roof of his mouth. He really hoped she didn’t expect him to have a conversation with her, because right now he simply wasn’t capable of it.

She stopped outside a beautiful eighteenth-century building, all cream stone and columns and balustrades and tall windows. ‘I give you proof of the magic of Christmas, mark two,’ she said. ‘The skating rink at Somerset House.’

The square courtyard outside the house had been turned into a huge ice rink. There was a massive Christmas tree at the front of the house, covered in lights and baubles. Music was playing—Christmas music, Quinn noted wryly, meaning that Carissa’s father’s song was bound to make at least one appearance later—and there were huge white snowflakes projected onto the surface of the ice, their surroundings lit up in different colours.

‘I forgot to ask,’ Carissa said. ‘Do you skate?’

‘I can ski,’ he said. ‘It can’t be too different.’

‘Probably not. It’s just a question of balance.’

‘Don’t tell me you did dancing on ice skates as a child,’ he said.

‘No. But my parents used to take me skating every Christmas when I was small,’ she said. ‘And, yes, I did have ballet lessons.’

Picturing her wearing a tutu was really not a good idea. Especially given that he was a novice skater; he really didn’t need an extra distraction to help him fall flat on his face.

‘“Lay on, Macduff,”’ he said.

She laughed. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. It’s not a duel to the death. It’s Christmas ice-skating. It’s
fun
.’

She took his hand and drew him over to the entrance. And he was glad that they were both wearing gloves. He had a feeling that the touch of her skin against his would do serious damage to his peace of mind.

Being Carissa—organised to military precision—she’d already bought their tickets and their time slot was just coming up.

‘Let me know how much I owe you for my ticket,’ he said as he put his skates on.

‘Buy me a hot chocolate and a cinnamon pretzel, and we’ll call it quits,’ she said.

‘As you wish.’

She tipped her head on one side and regarded him narrowly. ‘Were you just quoting a movie at me, Quinn?’

‘Movie? What movie?’ He didn’t have a clue what she was on about.

‘Hmm. Never mind,’ she said, and skated in circles round him.

Quinn was much less sure of himself. He felt like a wobbly newborn deer, with his legs not quite under control on the ice. He wasn’t sure he could go in a straight line, let alone follow her in those circles. Particularly when she changed direction and skated backwards. ‘You’re showing off,’ he accused.

‘Showing off?
Moi
?’ She laughed, and executed a perfect pirouette, her arms up like a ballerina’s.

People around them actually clapped, and Quinn wanted the ice to open up and let him sink through it. He was just about to make a total fool of himself.

But then she took his hand. ‘Sorry. That was a bit mean. I didn’t intend to make you feel stupid. I just love ice-skating. It’s such fun.’

Again, he saw that childlike joy he’d glimpsed on her face when she’d seen the Christmas lights at Covent Garden. And he envied her that ability to see the wonder in things. He’d never felt that joy as a child; he’d always been too conscious of who he was. The boy who’d been dumped on his aunt and uncle because his mother had been off chasing her dreams and nobody had a clue who his father was. He’d always been so conscious of the need to be visibly grateful for their charity—and to work hard so that he could escape from it—that he hadn’t had time to stop and see things.

He shook himself. Enough of the pity party. The past was the past and he couldn’t change it. But what he could do was make sure that he didn’t put himself in a position where he felt at a disadvantage.

So why had he agreed to go ice-skating, as a novice, with someone who clearly excelled at it?
Idiot
, he castigated himself.

‘Stop frowning, Quinn,’ she said softly. ‘We’re meant to be having fun.’

Fun.

Yeah.

Right
.

She took his hand. ‘If you can ski, that means you have good balance and your core’s strong. So come on. You can do this. Just put one foot in front of the other and glide.’

Glide. ‘Uh-huh.’ He tried a couple of staccato strokes and simply succeeded in sending up a spray of ice shards.

‘Let yourself go,’ she said softly.

That was definitely something he couldn’t do. He’d had too many years of total self-discipline. From not letting himself cry in his childhood, through to not letting anyone stomp on his heart as an adult, after Tabitha.

Doggedly, he continued the staccato strokes and made a total hash of gliding over the ice.

‘Lean on me,’ she said, and slipped her arm round his waist.

Oh, help.

Now he was really aware of Carissa’s scent. Something floral, overlaid with vanilla and underlaid with something that smelled like fresh linen.

Somehow, his arm ended up round her shoulders.

And somehow he wasn’t making those staccato little strokes any more. With her by his side, holding him close, he was gliding. Almost like floating on air. And it felt amazing. He wasn’t sure if he felt more like Peter Pan, or like Jack in
Titanic
while he stood on the bow of the ship with Rose, encouraging her to feel that she was flying—a scene he’d sneered at when he’d been forced to watch the movie with a girlfriend, but now he was seeing it in a completely different light. The only time he’d felt like this before had been when he’d learned to ski and he’d braved the ski jump for the first time—the incredible feeling of weightlessness and the rush of the air round him.

Something clicked. The gliding motion of the skates, the sparkle of the lights, the scent of hot chocolate and pretzels, the sound of sleigh-bells in a jolly Christmas song, the warmth of Carissa’s arm round his waist... This was perfect.

And Quinn was shocked to realise just how much he was enjoying himself.

Carissa had clearly guessed, because she asked softly, ‘So do you admit that it’s magical?’

‘Yes, this is fabulous—but it has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas.’

She coughed. ‘That’s a massive Christmas tree in front of the rink, unless I’m very much mistaken and it’s really an inflatable penguin.’

Quinn just about suppressed a grin. He liked her style of sarcasm. ‘But it doesn’t have to be Christmas for there to be an ice rink,’ he countered.

‘Stop being so stubborn and just admit it,’ she said, drawing him to a halt and spinning round in front of him so she could look into his face.

Carissa’s blue eyes were huge. Her mouth was perfect. And Quinn really, really wanted to kiss her. So much that he couldn’t stop himself dipping his head to brush his mouth against hers.

And it felt as if he’d just died and gone to heaven. Part of him groaned at the cliché, but most of him knew the truth of it. He’d wanted to kiss Carissa Wylde almost since the first day he’d met her.

‘OK. I admit it,’ he said softly. ‘This is magical.’ And he didn’t just mean the skating rink. He meant kissing her.

* * *

It was the first time a man had kissed her in three years.

It should have sent Carissa running straight for cover.

Yet there had been nothing demanding and angry about Quinn’s mouth. His kiss had been gentle and sweet—asking rather than demanding, and soft rather than punishing.

And right now he looked as shocked as she felt.

Swept off her feet.

This is magical.
The words echoed through her head. The way his mouth had made her lips tingle. The Christmas-tree lights and the scent of hot chocolate. The Christmassy music playing.

Yes, this was magical.

Unable to help herself, she reached up to lay the flat of her palm against his cheek.

Her glove was butter-soft leather, incredibly thin and pliant—and it was very much an unwanted barrier between his skin and hers. She wanted to touch him. Needed to touch him. Needed him to kiss her again.

‘Quinn,’ she whispered, and he dipped his head again. Brushed his mouth against hers all over again. And she was shaking so much that she had to hold on to him to stop herself falling over on the ice. She felt as if she were spinning in an endless pirouette, faster and faster and totally out of control.

This had to stop.

And yet she didn’t want it to stop. She wanted him to keep kissing her like this, with his arms wrapped round her—cradling her, cherishing her, keeping her warm and close.

Another skater bumped into them, but somehow Quinn managed to keep them both upright. And, even though Carissa was the more experienced skater of the two of them, it was Quinn who got her back to the edge of the rink, to the area where they could take their skates off.

He didn’t look at her as he removed his skates and changed back into his shoes. And Carissa knew that it was going to be hideously awkward between them now.

What an idiot she’d been.

Why hadn’t she just pulled away? Why had she even made this ridiculous bet with him in the first place? Why couldn’t she just have commissioned him to work on the virtual Santa project and left it at that?

She realised that he was looking at her, as if he’d been speaking and was waiting for her to reply.

‘Sorry, I was miles away—I missed what you said,’ she admitted, avoiding his gaze.

‘I said I believe I owe you a hot chocolate and a cinnamon pretzel.’

Ah. So that was the way he was going to play it. Pretend that the moment on the ice had never happened. OK. That worked for her. Because the alternative right now was way too scary to contemplate.

She put on her brightest smile. ‘That would be lovely. Thank you so much.’

He didn’t say much while they queued for their drink and their food. He waited until they were walking along the Embankment, watching the reflected lights sparkle on the surface of the Thames, before saying, ‘Now tell me about Project Sparkle.’

She almost dropped her hot chocolate. He was still thinking about that?

‘I know it exists, and I know you’re behind it,’ he said. ‘So it’s a bit pointless to keep trying to deny it.’

She couldn’t argue with that. And he clearly wasn’t going to give up until she told him. ‘Can I ask you to keep this as confidential as you keep your other work?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, I can ask you, or, yes, you’ll keep it confidential?’ Being a lawyer, she was aware of the ambiguity. She couldn’t afford any ambiguity right now. Not over this.

‘Both,’ he said.

‘OK.’ She blew out a breath. ‘Project Sparkle... It’s about making a difference.’

‘So you’re not actually a lawyer, then?’

‘I’m a qualified solicitor and I work in a practice specialising in contract law,’ she corrected. ‘But I job-share my role with a colleague who has two young children. It suits us both. She gets to spend time with her kids, and I get time to run Project Sparkle.’

‘That’s what’s behind the virtual Santa?’

She nodded. ‘But not the building of the new ward. That’s all Dad. He started the ball rolling on it years ago, and after he was killed the trustees agreed to make sure his plans were completed.’