So Now You're Back (32 page)

She stood at the counter, her back to him, her damp hair tied up in its habitual knot, drying strands hanging down to touch flushed cheeks, as she beat something in a mixing bowl to within an inch of its life. Skintight jeans, bare feet and a summery minidress added to the effect of sexy, relaxed domesticity.

The reaction in his crotch was swift and predictable. The fist that wrapped around his heart and sucker-punched him in the gut … not so much.

‘L
uke!' The wooden spoon stopped in mid wallop as a familiar forearm roped with muscles banded around Halle's midriff.

‘Morning. What are you cooking?'

His chest butted her back as he lifted her hair out of the way to bury his face in her neck. The nuzzling kiss triggered a riot of sensations—surprise, arousal and panic.

‘Blueberry pancakes. I finally took Monroe up on his offer and raided the restaurant kitchen. The blueberries were picked fresh this morning.'

‘Mmmm.' His teeth tugged at her earlobe. ‘Watching you cook is such a turn-on.' His palm settled on her belly, sending the riot of sensations south. ‘Always has been, always will be.'

She put the bowl on the countertop to turn in his arms, her pulse flapping against her neck like the wings of a trapped albatross.

He looked and smelled delicious. All fresh and groomed and damp from his shower. His cheekbones were even more pronounced without the two-day scruff, and the well-worn Festival de Cannes T-shirt was doing not a lot to disguise the
defined pectoral muscles she'd gotten far too well acquainted with during the night.

Always has been, always will.

He cupped her cheeks, his lips lowering to kiss her.

She shifted away, her bum hitting the counter. ‘Why don't I get these on the go, then we can eat.'

‘Eat?' His lips quirked in a wary smile as his hands dropped. ‘Really? I was kind of hoping all my bakery porn fantasies were about to come true.'

She puffed out a strained laugh. ‘So now I know why you watched my show.'

The assured smile had her breath backing up in her lungs, as he settled his hands on her hips. ‘It's not my fault you look so hot icing cupcakes. What can I say, you inspire me.'

‘I can only imagine.' Given how inspired Luke had been last night, she could imagine quite a lot. ‘But I think we should eat first, before we deal with your cupcake fantasies.'

His hands dropped away. ‘Fine, but I plan to hold you to that. Do you need anything?'

A backbone would be good,
she thought miserably. She was doing the right thing. The safe thing, not just for the kids, but for herself as well.

Tell him, no wimping out allowed.

‘Could you hunt up a frying pan?' she said, totally wimping out.

‘OK, but be aware you're only going to be fuelling my fantasies while you do that.'

Fabulous, just what I needed to know.

A large heavy-based pan plopped onto the stove as she rinsed the blueberries.

‘Anything else that needs doing?'

Apart from me, you mean.

‘Could you make some coffee?' Maybe if he wasn't
hovering right beside her elbow, exuding those drive-Halle-crazy pheromones, it would help with her focus.

‘All right, you're the boss.'

Was she? She didn't think so, as she watched him get the coffee under way. His competence with the coffee machine reminding her of how competent he was with so much else.

The luxurious sizzle of melting butter filled the kitchen as she dropped the first dollop of batter onto the hot pan. She inhaled the aroma and watched the edges crisp—determined to get her mind out of her knickers.

It didn't take long to get in the zone. Cooking had once been her great escape from the chaos of life in a two-room council flat in a Hackney high-rise with a young child and no money. Creating something delicious within the exacting confines of science and her stringent budget had helped her to focus during the biggest challenges of her life. While blueberry pancakes hardly tested her abilities and she had no budget now, the simplicity of the process, and the comforting aroma of fried fruit and batter that filled the kitchen, helped her to focus again now, and get her priorities straight.

This time with Luke had been an adventure. An adventure she never would have expected. It had healed stuff she hadn't even realised was still broken. But it wasn't her real life.

Her real life was with her children. Who needed her now.

Luke worked alongside her, setting the table, frothing some milk for her latte with that infernal machine and digging the maple syrup out of the box of supplies she'd brought back from the restaurant kitchen.

She flipped the last of the pancakes onto the plate she had warming, decorated the stack with the remaining blueberries and carried the plate to the table.

He placed a steaming latte by her elbow and sat opposite
her. Forking one of the pancakes off the stack, he poured a generous dollop of syrup over it.

She watched him take his first bite, the nerves finally settling in the pit of her stomach, when he gave a rumbling hum of approval.

‘Incredible. They taste better than the resort's ones. What did you do?'

‘I added a splash of vanilla essence, to lift the flavour of the blueberries. And used buttermilk and melted butter in the batter.'

‘Genius.' He quartered the rest of the pancake. As he set about demolishing it in a few bites, it occurred to her how much she had always adored feeding him.

‘Listen, Luke, I wanted to let you know how glad I am you blackmailed me into this.' She poured syrup over her own pancake. ‘Everything that's happened in the past ten days has been a … well, “surprise” is way too mild a word. I've been stubborn and resistant to change and I should never have shut you out for so long, for Lizzie's sake. And I regret that now. I've also discovered I can survive white-water kayaking, which is pretty phenomenal, too.'

His next forkful of pancake stopped in mid-air. ‘Why am I getting a sense there's a “but” coming?'

Luke had always been smart.

‘The but is, I'm afraid I'll have to head home sooner than expected. I've booked a cab to take me back to Atlanta tonight.'

He put his fork down slowly, carefully. ‘Why?'

‘I had a Skype call with Lizzie and Aldo about an hour ago, and something's not right at home.' It was the absolute truth; her mother's intuition was never wrong about this stuff. Well, apart from Lizzie's anorexia that wasn't, but she'd been under a lot of stress then.

Luke's eyebrows rose up his forehead. She'd expected surprise, even irritation; they'd had an agreement, after all. An agreement that she was being forced to break. What she hadn't expected was for him to look so stunned.

A tiny piece of her heart broke off inside her chest. She steeled herself against it. How easy would it be to fall for the man, the way she had once fallen for the boy? This was exactly why she needed to cut and run. Not that she was cutting and running; she had a perfectly good explanation for leaving early.

‘What's wrong, exactly?' he asked.

‘It's, well …' She scrambled around for a way to make her case convincingly. ‘It's nothing specific. I just have a feeling that something's not right. Lizzie was much perkier than usual. She asked me questions about the book tour. Which is not like her at all. She never shows an interest in my career.'

‘You told her you were on a book tour?'

Was that accusation she detected in his tone? ‘I had to think of something to explain a two-week trip. I told you why I couldn't tell her the truth.' Even if those reasons seemed a tiny bit spurious and self-serving now.

And, obviously, she should have come up with a much better cover story. But she wasn't a fricking journalist. And she hadn't expected Lizzie to suddenly become curious about her career after six long years of sulky apathy and seething resentment.

‘OK, what else?' he said.

‘What else, what?'

‘What else is making you uneasy? Because I'm not seeing Lizzie being inquisitive about your career as a major problem here. Or not one that requires you to go hightailing it back to the UK four days ahead of schedule and break our agreement.'

‘Haven't you got enough now for your article?' she countered, struggling to suppress the sharp pain under her breastbone at his pragmatic response.

What had she expected? That he would beg her to stay? Of course the article was his main concern now. He'd got the only other thing he had wanted already—her agreement to let him contact her directly about Lizzie. Everything else—the hot sex, the candid conversations about their past, the growing sense of companionship and intimacy—had probably just been added extras to him, and not something that he obviously considered a top priority.

Luke had never been the hopeless romantic in their relationship. That had always been her … Which was exactly why she wasn't going to be spending another night in his arms and risk losing her grip on reality.

‘We had an agreement,' he said, his expression strained. ‘You want to duck out of it, that's fine, if there's a problem at home. But I'd like a bit more clarity on what exactly the problem is.'

Temper flickered under the hollow feeling of hurt. ‘Aldo was behaving weirdly, too. The two of them were suspiciously pally. And I didn't get to speak to Trey.'

‘Who's Trey?'

‘Aldo's au pair. He's twenty-one. Aldo adores him. And he's very responsible and conscientious. I check in with him every time I ring or Skype them. Just to make sure there's nothing wrong. But Lizzie cut me off before I could speak to him. I don't even know if he was in the house.'

‘What did Lizzie say?'

‘Nothing, I didn't get a chance to ask her about Trey. And when I rang his mobile, it went straight to voicemail.'

‘No, I mean, didn't you ask Lizzie if everything was OK?'

‘Of course I did, and she said everything was great and so did Aldo. But that's not the point …'

‘Then what is the point?'

‘You're making me sound paranoid,' she countered. He was doing that journalist interrogation thing again. Flustering her and making her sound stupid. ‘I'm not paranoid. I know when something is off with my kids.'

He covered the fist she had clenched on the table. ‘I'm not saying you're paranoid. But is it possible you're overreacting?' She could almost hear him thinking about the anorexia-that-wasn't-anorexia panic attack. ‘Lizzie's eighteen, Hal. She's a bright kid and she's mature and sensible when she wants to be. Why do you think she and Aldo would be lying about everything being fine?'

She tugged her hand out from under his. Feeling badgered. And defensive. And patronised. She knew she'd made mistakes with her kids. Maybe she hadn't always trusted Lizzie enough. And maybe she hadn't always been one hundred per cent as honest with them both as she should have—certain phantom US book tours being a case in point. But she'd spent a lot more time with Luke's daughter than he had. And he'd never even met Aldo.

‘You've never seen Lizzie and Aldo together,' she said. ‘Lizzie may tell you how much she loves her little brother, but what I've seen in the past six years is a lot closer to
Alien vs Predator
than
The Care Bears Movie.
The two of them suddenly being best buddies would be fabulous if it were true. But I want to go home and check out what's going on for myself.'

Even if I'm starting to sound totally paranoid to myself now, too. Thanks so much, Carl Bernstein.

‘And I don't need your permission to do it,' she added. ‘So I'm not even sure why we're having this conversation.'

‘We're having this conversation because we agreed that we'd start parenting Lizzie together,' he said with aggravating patience. ‘If you say there's a problem, I'm not going to argue about that.'

‘Thanks a lot,' she said, not hiding the bite of sarcasm.

So what exactly had he been doing for the past five minutes?

‘What time's your flight?'

‘Ten. I'm getting a connecting flight through Chicago.' She glanced at the clock on the wall, swallowing down the lump of regret at the realisation she had less than an hour left with him before the cab was due to arrive.

They wouldn't even have time to check out Luke's bakery porn fantasies. She dispelled the thought with an effort as her thighs went all quivery.

It was for the best—she already had enough addiction issues where this man was concerned.

‘The cab's arriving at three,' she replied.

He stacked their plates, the remains of the pancakes that their conversation had interrupted congealing on the plate. And she suddenly had a silly wistful moment about that, too. Not realising until that precise second how much she'd wanted to cook a meal for him one last time.

‘Cancel the cab. I'll drive us to the airport.'

Her heart rate began to trot at the generous offer. God, she really did have it quite bad. She'd got out just in time.

‘That's sweet of you, but not necessary. It's a six-hour round trip.'

He glanced up from the dishwasher. ‘Don't be daft, Hal. I'm not coming back here. I'm coming with you.'

Her heart rate shot straight to a gallop. ‘But you'll have to change your flight. And what about the article?'
And my grand plan to make a clean getaway?

He dumped the frying pan into the dishwasher and slammed it closed. ‘I've got enough for the article. And changing my flight's not a problem. I'll do it when we get to the airport.'

He took her hands in his and her sweaty palms started to tremble.

‘I was going to wait until we left on Saturday to have this discussion. But we might as well have it now.'

‘What discussion?' She tried to tug her hands loose, but he held on tight.

‘We need to do this together.'

‘Do what together?'

‘Go back to your place together. Speak to Lizzie together. Tell her what's been going on.'

‘What?' She yanked her hands free, her pulse ready to jump right out of her wrist. ‘But we can't. It'll only confuse her.'

And me. It'll confuse me. Even more than I'm already confused.