Partners by Contract (20 page)

The items inside were neatly arranged. Phoebe, her heart thudding heavily in her tight chest, began to take them out one by one...

The hand-painted silk scarf she’d bought Pen one Christmas, only to discover an identical one in her own
parcel. The book filled with pressed flowers Penny had begun collecting when they were seven, each one neatly labelled with a sentence in Penny’s childish script explaining where and when the specimen had been discovered. Penny’s first and last awful attempt at a novel scribbled in an old exercise book. Each item Phoebe discovered was equally precious and carried with it a special memory she and Penny had shared.

Though the tears ran unheeded down her cheeks, Phoebe hadn’t felt this close to her sister since her death. She pressed the scarf to her face and inhaled. It smelt of Penny. The back of her neck prickled. It was almost as if her sister were there with her—not in a scary way but in a warm, soothing way.

For a long time Phoebe sat on the bed, going through each individual item slowly, smiling sometimes and other times laughing.

She almost missed the sealed envelope where it lay hidden underneath the teddy bear. Ted, with his one missing ear, brought a smile to her lips. His one-eared condition was due to a vicious retaliatory action she had taken after Penny had shaved the hair off her favourite doll. ‘It’ll grow back, Phoebs,’ Penny had said when Phoebe had waved her bald doll accusingly under her twin’s nose.

For a while she turned the envelope over and over in her hands. Discovering a letter addressed to yourself, written in your dead twin’s hand, was uncannily like hearing voices from the grave. There was a stamp so presumably Penny had meant her to read it.

Phoebe slid her finger under the seal and, knees drawn up to her chin, began to read. Her sister’s bold handwriting almost leapt off the page.

Dear Phoebs,

This is the most difficult thing I have ever written. I don’t actually know yet whether I’ll post this letter or wait until I see you on Saturday, but either way I think writing it down will help me say everything I want to. The best place to start...?

She was halfway down the first page before she realised just what she was reading. By the time she finished the pages were crumpled and tearstained. She lost count of how many times she reread it. Penny was giving her permission to be happy.

‘Isn’t that just like her?’ she sobbed.

‘Phoebe?’

Phoebe dashed a hand over her wet face. John was standing uncertainly in the doorway. ‘John, sorry, did I disturb you?’

‘Are you all right?’ He came further into the room.

‘Despite appearances,’ she announced with a watery smile and a catch in her voice, ‘I’m better than I have been in a long time.’ In her head she could hear Penny’s voice as if she were there in the same room.

You and Con were meant to be together, Phoebe, I always knew that. Didn’t you ever wonder why I insisted on getting married with such indecent haste? I had the poor man dazzled and dazed to the altar before he knew what was happening. Truth told, I was scared stiff you’d admit what you were feeling—yes, Phoebe I knew how much it hurt you seeing us together, which makes me the worst sister ever (you know I think there’s a lot more of Magda in me than I like to admit!).

But it was always you with Con. I tried to be you for him and he tried his best, ’cos basically he’s a good
guy, to love me, but it didn’t work, it couldn’t. Go to him, Phoebs, with my blessing. God, that sounds so altruistic, but the truth is he was never mine to give away. If you two don’t get together I’ll never have a moment of contentment.

I just hope that none of this will spoil what we have so please try and forgive your man-stealing sister.

John watched his employer’s very attractive daughter blink rapidly to clear the suspicious mistiness in her wide-spaced amber eyes. ‘A lot better,’ she added huskily.

‘If you say so. How about a nice cup of tea, and maybe something to eat?’

‘That’s very nice of you,’ Phoebe replied, recognising her stomach pangs for the hunger pains they were. ‘But weren’t you about to go for a run?’ A run was the only reasonable excuse for such a brief and revealing outfit. ‘Isn’t it a bit late for running?’

‘I’m a night owl, but any excuse not to exercise is gratefully seized upon,’ he lied gallantly. ‘Have you tasted my scrambled eggs and smoked salmon?’

Phoebe shook her head and felt her mouth water.

‘You’ll be impressed,’ he predicted cockily.

Phoebe discovered his confidence was fully justified.

‘That was delicious,’ she felt obliged to say a short time later, even if there was a danger of his swagger getting even more pronounced. ‘If I leave Magda a note, will you make sure she gets it?’

‘You going somewhere tonight?’

A beatific smile spread across her face. ‘Home,’ she explained simply. Now that she knew what she was going to do, she didn’t want to wait another minute.

‘Sit there,’ John insisted seconds later when the entry-phone
buzzed. ‘I’ll get it.’ He popped his head around the door a couple of seconds later. ‘Does a Connor Carlyle ring any bells?’

Phoebe rose from her chair impetuously enough to send her cutlery flying across the room. ‘Connor, here? Now?’ she gasped in the breathless girlie sort of way she would have been the first to despise. She pressed her hands to her burning cheeks. It was enough to make an impressionable girl believe in telepathy.

‘I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?’

Phoebe let this impertinence pass.

‘Is he friend or foe? Shall I pull up the drawbridge or pull the fatted calf out the deep freeze?’

‘Friend—definitely friend,’ Phoebe responded, wafting her hands pretty pointlessly. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she wailed, clutching her stomach.

‘Not a good move romance-wise,’ the youthful expert remarked. ‘Take some deep breaths.’

‘I’m the doctor.’ She was also a woman—a woman in love. She decided to follow John’s sound advice, and it did help. The waves of nausea slowly receded.

‘Shall I let him up?’

‘Yes! No. Yes!’ She closed her eyes. ‘What should I do?’ she fretted.

‘Wash your face in some cold water.’ He thought about adding, Play it cool—don’t act too eager. But decided that such advice would fall on deaf ears.

‘Wash my face... Good idea...’ She must look a total wreck!

Grinning to himself, John left her wandering aimlessly around the expensively appointed kitchen.

Connor had spent his time in the lift trying to put a face to the youngish male voice on the entry-phone. When the
door opened, not only could he put a face to it—he could put a body, too!

He didn’t see much point in hiding his hostility when the muscle-bound freak in front of him wasn’t trying to hide much at all in those ridiculous minuscule running shorts and matching singlet! A classic case of narcissism, he decided, getting pretty hot under the collar trying to figure out what the guy’s relationship was to Phoebe. Distant, he hoped.

John took in the bristling hostility and the size and calibre of their midnight caller and thought it wise in the interests of harmony, not to mention self-preservation, to establish his identity without delay.

‘You’ve come to see Phoebe. I’m John, Magda’s housekeeper.’

Sure you are, mate, Connor thought, stepping into the hallway. He didn’t much care if Magda kept ten toy boys so long as this specimen had no designs on Phoebe.

‘She’s in the kitchen, the door down at the end. I’m off for a run.’

Connor wasn’t listening. He was limping slightly as he strode purposefully towards the door. Without ceremony he pushed it open and stepped inside. The amount of glittery chrome took him unawares and it took his eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to the glare of shiny surfaces before he located the slim figure hugging a teatowel to her chest.

Their gazes fused as seconds ticked away. Pregnant pause turned to awkward silence, and still it went on.

‘Connor!’

‘Who were you expecting? Pretty boy?’

It took a few seconds for his meaning to click. ‘John! Oh, no, he has a key.’

‘How convenient.’

‘He’s an actor.’ She was confused by the hostility he was displaying.

‘Not the housekeeper?’ he rapped out, as though he’d just caught her out in a lie.

‘Oh, he’s that, too.’ Could Connor be jealous? Having never though of the handsome young man in that way, this thought was startling.

‘A man of many talents,’ he jeered belligerently.

Biting her lip, Phoebe lowered her eyes nervously from the gruelling intensity of his fixed, unblinking stare. ‘What brings you here?’ She cringed inwardly to hear the same inflection she might have used when unexpectedly bumping into an acquaintance in the street.

Her eyes were drawn back to his taut features as inevitably as night followed day. Her covert scrutiny revealed that he looked large, angry and dangerous. It didn’t even cross Phoebe’s mind to be apprehensive.

It wasn’t pride that kept her from begging him right there and then to take her home...or maybe just take her, full stop. It was the fact that lust and longing hadn’t just weakened her limbs to an alarming degree, they had paralysed her vocal cords! So many times over the past weeks she’d picture him and now he was standing there.

‘I was just passing.’ Connor was shocked by her fragile appearance. What an idiot he’d been to agree to her coming to stay with Magda. The woman was so self-absorbed that a person could literally fade away before her eyes and she wouldn’t even notice.

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic!’ Being looked at in the same way she’d looked at her scrambled eggs just before she’d devoured them made her reprimand eventually emerge tremulously breathless after two creaky false starts.

Connor raked a hand through his thick corn-coloured hair. ‘I know I said I’d give you time to think.’ His jaw
tightened aggressively, deepening fractionally the slight indentation in his square chin. ‘But I’ve changed my mind,’ he explained in a tone that dared her to make something of it. ‘Besides, we never decided how long long was to be. You
must
see...’

Phoebe could hear the underlying ache of loneliness in his heated voice. How well she recognised it! She unconsciously straightened her shoulders.

‘So have I.’ He froze. ‘Changed my mind, that is.’

Deep furrows of suspicion appeared on his forehead. Wariness warred with hope in his eyes. ‘About what?’

‘Just about everything,’ she confessed with a tremulous sigh.

Connor wiped the beads of sweat off his upper lip and smiled grimly. ‘Could you be more specific?’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘Sorry,’ she said, looking at him with glowing eyes.

Connor saw the glow and with a muttered imprecation started impulsively forward, only to come to an abrupt halt barely a foot from her. He stood there, breathing hard, his eyes like two impossibly brilliant gems fixed hungrily on her face.

Phoebe knew that what she was about to say would make him take that all-important last step. Where did you start?

‘I love you, Connor,’ she confided in a breathless rush. That seemed as good place as any.

‘I know.’ Loving him hadn’t stopped her running away, he brooded darkly.

‘Will you shut up and listen?’ she exclaimed, serving up an exasperated look. How was a girl meant to offer herself up on a platter if she wasn’t allowed to get a word in edgewise? ‘I’ve been as miserable as hell without you.’

‘It was your choice.’ he responded unsympathetically.

‘Do you
want
to hear what I’ve got to say?’ she demanded.

‘To be frank, I’m a bit nervous. The last time you talked I ended up almost letting you convince me we weren’t meant to be together. I think it’s about time you stopped using Pen as an excuse because you’re afraid to let yourself be happy,’ he announced, hot colour deepening his complexion by several shades. ‘What have you got to say about that?’

Phoebe could have said that up until a short time ago his analysis was bang on, but she didn’t want to stop him in fascinating full flow so she shook her head noncommittally.

‘We could have a great life together and you know it. And let me tell you, Phoebe, if Pen was here now she wouldn’t be pleased to see you putting us both through all this unnecessary misery through a sense of misplaced loyalty. She’d say—’

‘Get on with your life!’ Phoebe nodded confidently, getting a kick from his expression. ‘Yes, I know she would,’ she admitted serenely.

‘You do?’ His expression seemed locked in neutral.

‘I’m also pretty sure she’d say we were meant to be together. I agree.’

Emotion, hot and potent, flared in his eyes. ‘You’d better mean that,’ he warned.

‘And if I don’t...?’ she queried, making shameless use of her eyelashes as she fluttered and flirted like crazy.

‘I’ll make you eat every word.’

Phoebe ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. Her insides melted. ‘I’d prefer to eat you,’ she told him honestly.

A startled low rumble of throaty laughter was torn from Connor’s throat. The sexy sound teased her nerve endings into immediate tingling life.

‘That, too, could be arranged,’ he promised huskily.

‘Sooner rather than later would suit me.’

With a groan Connor lunged forward and gathered her in his arms, lifting her up until their eyes were level. Holding her burnished gaze, he looked at her lips, making her tremble quite violently in anticipation.

‘My love!’ he cried triumphantly, before finally sealing their mouths.

The kiss went on and on and, just when Phoebe thought it had ended, on some more.

‘I never thought this would happen,’ she admitted, enjoying the texture of his skin as she stroked a finger down the firm line of his strong jaw. A shadow crossed her face as it struck her how close she’d come to rejecting this, her one and only chance at true happiness.

‘It was only a matter of time before I changed your mind,’ he asserted firmly.

‘You sound pretty confident...some might say arrogant,’ she teased.

‘Actually,’ he confessed with a quick tense grin, ‘the last few months have been a roller-coaster. One minute you were freezing me out, the next you were loving me. One minute I had you, the next you were slipping away. I just knew that I couldn’t let you go...not this time. Take you out of my life and fine wine becomes water, beautiful things become commonplace, success meaningless. Without you I’m not a whole person. You add the vitality, the vigour...’ The throbbing note in his voice snagged and she watched the muscles in his throat work overtime. ‘Well, I expect you get the picture,’ he added gruffly.