With This Fling... (15 page)

‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘I accept your offer to base myself and my operations at the Double Bay house with you, under one condition.’

‘What’s the condition?’

‘Marry me. Tie up your money and your possessions so I can’t get to them if that’s what you’re worried about, but marry me.’

‘No.’ He wasn’t the only one around here with a stubborn streak the size of the pyramids. ‘Not without love.’

‘What makes you think you won’t get that too?’ Greyson at his most formidable, but the chill in his eyes was at odds with his words and a perfect example of what she
didn’t
want their relationship to be.

‘You won’t love me if I trap you into a life you loathe, Greyson. You’ll hate me.’

He was back to scowling at her. Back to brooding.

‘Three months,’ she bargained desperately. ‘Give us three months, and during that time we live together in the house on the hill and we sort out our work and we try and make space in our lives for this baby and for each other. Surely you can see the sense in that?’

But he shook his head. ‘Half measures don’t
suit me, Charlotte. They never have, and truth be told I don’t see much sense in postponing our marriage at all. But …’ his beautiful mouth twisted into a mockery of a smile ‘… in the spirit of compromise, I’ll give you these next three months free of matrimony. With one caveat.’

‘Which is?’ she asked warily.

‘That if we live together, we give it our best shot. No holding back. No behaving like polite strangers. And no separate bedrooms.’

‘That’s three caveats.’

‘No, it’s not.’ His knuckles were white as he reached for his beer. Charlotte wasn’t the only one around here so tense she could snap. ‘It’s just three different ways of saying the same thing.’

Charlotte’s food intake was abysmal but Grey coaxed and connived and eventually she cleared her plate. He put his mind to amiable conversation. He stayed away from topics like parenthood and work commitments because, frankly, he was still processing their earlier conversation about those. He paid for their meal and insisted on walking Charlotte home. He bought her a gelato along the way and Charlotte rolled her eyes and protested that she was too full for ice cream, but she ate nearly half of it and Grey finished off the rest.

He took a fair stab at pretending that the world beneath his feet hadn’t just irrevocably shifted out of his reach.

He kept his hands to himself until he got to Charlotte’s apartment door, and when she unlocked it, and asked where he was parked and whether he wanted to come in, he shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. He’d bargained hard for this very concession: no holding back, no distance between them. He hadn’t bargained on being afraid to take advantage of it.

‘When do you want me to move into the house?’ he asked gruffly. ‘I figure I can get the cat there in a couple of days, weather willing.’

‘I can be there from tomorrow onwards.’ She looked so beautiful standing there in the doorway to her apartment. Hard to believe that such a small frame could contain a will that more than matched his own. ‘I’ll get removalists in at the weekend to pack up and shift all this stuff across.’

‘You won’t keep your apartment as a bolt hole?’

‘No. You wanted all in, remember? If I keep this place I
would
be tempted to retreat here when the going got tough.’

Charlotte looked nervous. He far preferred
her not. ‘Pessimist,’ he murmured. ‘It might not even
get
tough.’

She sent him a disbelieving glance. He countered with a slow smile. ‘There are benefits to having a man around the house that you haven’t even dreamed of yet,’ he said.

‘Oh, really?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘We’ll see.’ She leaned against the door, more relaxed than he’d seen her all evening. ‘Do you cook?’

‘Not often, but I hunt and I can gather.’

‘Do you clean?’

‘No, but I do appreciate a tidy house.’

‘Do you iron?’

‘That’s what laundry services are for.’

‘Do you mow?’ she asked silkily.

‘What? And do a groundsman out of his job?’

‘Greyson, you’ve spent the last dozen or so years living out of a suitcase, eating hotel food and answering to no one. You’re not even housebroken. I’d go easy on the promises of domestic bliss if I were you.’

‘If you say so, dear,’ he murmured. ‘Little phrase I picked up from my father. Like it?’

‘Yes, but it’s a little early in the relationship for weary resignation, don’t you think? You need to keep that in reserve.’

‘Noted.’

‘Are you coming in?’ she asked again, so Greyson stepped inside and she closed the door behind him, and he stood there.

All in.

Same priceless painting on the wall. Same wickedly expensive furnishings.

Totally different situation.

‘Coffee?’ she offered.

‘No.’

‘Cognac? Liqueur? Scotch?’

He remembered the Scotch from last time, and the raw and desperate lovemaking that had followed. ‘Absolutely not!’ He needed no encouragement in the raw and desperate department. He was there already. ‘And none for you either.’

Charlotte’s sandals came off. Her eyes had narrowed. ‘Someone’s having a panic attack around here,’ she murmured. ‘And it’s not me.’

‘I’m not panicking.’ It was more of a cold sweat and it had nothing to do with the enormity of the changes he was about to make to his life. No, he was far too busy sweating the small stuff. Like that for all his expertise in the area of biological interactions, he didn’t know the first thing about making love to a pregnant woman.

‘Are you going to sit down?’ she murmured.

‘Probably not.’ Not the lounge. Probably best to avoid the lounge. God, his nerves were shot. He crossed to the window and stared out at the view.

Charlotte crossed to the sidebar and poured a hefty belt of Scotch into a glass and brought it over to him, and placed it in his hand. ‘Drink,’ she said gently. ‘You don’t want to ruin all your fine and heroic rhetoric by going into shock.’

Greyson grimaced, but he put the glass to his lips and drank it down in one long swallow.

‘Oh, the
envy,’
she murmured, and he smiled a little at that but his eyes remained guarded. A woman looking for joy in their depths would be disappointed. A woman looking to Greyson to hold her and make everything feel all right—if only for a little while—was disappointed too.

‘Are you scared?’ he asked gruffly.

Such a simple question from a deeply complex man.

‘Terrified,’ she whispered, and exposed her soul and all its flaws completely. ‘Absolutely terrified.’

And then his arms came around her, strong and infinitely gentle. His lips were gentle too, and his taste was one she’d tried hard to forget. ‘It’s okay,’ he murmured, as he slid his hands
through her hair and cradled her head to his chest. ‘It’s going to be okay. I promise.’

Charlotte wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that her baby would have a father to look to, and that she wasn’t alone in this. She wanted badly to believe that Greyson was here for her now and here he would stay. That he would domesticate easily and be content. That she would find the home and the family she’d been searching for all her life.

She desperately wanted to believe all those things.

But she could not.

Two days later, Greyson moored his cat at Charlotte’s jetty in Sydney Harbour. His view of the Bridge, Circular Quay, and the Opera House was one to make angels weep. The turmoil Charlotte’s steadfast refusal to marry him had instilled in him would have made Satan crow.

Grey
knew
the value of family. Of marriage, solid and binding. Hell, Charlotte only had to look to herself to see how insecure not being part of a family unit made a child feel. So why wouldn’t she just do the right thing and
marry
him?

So what if he hadn’t lived a regular life for a while? He’d grown up in a house, gone to
school in the suburbs, he knew how it worked. He knew how to mow lawns and unpack groceries and take out the garbage. He knew how to peg out washing and clean a bathroom—his mother had seen to that, bless her iron-willed soul.

He could do this.

And then there were the things Grey didn’t know how to do, he admitted reluctantly.

Like how to convince a stubborn woman that marriage was the only option for him and that love would come easier to
both
of them once a commitment had been made.

And how to make love to a woman with his baby in her belly, which was something he hadn’t done yet but would, soon, just as soon as he got over his fear of doing something wrong.

By bedtime that night, Greyson was a mess and Charlotte was no better. They sat in the informal living room, watching the late-night weather together in silence. Charlotte, sitting on the couch with her legs tucked up beneath her, Greyson commanding one of the man-sized single chairs. Greyson cloaked his nervousness in stillness. Charlotte tried to do the same but her eyes followed his every movement, watchful and wary, and she jumped at every unexpected sound. Damn near drove him nuts with her
quick smile and panicked eyes. Terrified—just like him—of what they’d begun.

‘I might have to bed down on the catamaran tonight,’ he said after the weather report had finished and he’d got to his feet. ‘I really should make sure of the mooring this first night. Wouldn’t want her to drift away on the tide.’

‘No. No, of course not,’ said Charlotte quickly, and stood as well. ‘That would be bad.’

Charlotte nodded. Greyson nodded too. A festival of nodding, followed by a long and excrutiating silence.

‘Can I get you any bedding?’ Charlotte’s words came out rushed and nervous. ‘Blankets. Pillows. Stuff like that?’

‘No. No, I have everything I need.’

‘Of course.’

More silence. Pregnant woman nodding.

‘So … goodnight?’ said Charlotte finally. Did she look relieved that they wouldn’t be sharing a bed? Hard to tell beneath the panic.

‘Yeah, I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll come up before you go to work. We can do newspapers. Or breakfast. Something.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Charlotte. ‘So … goodnight?’

‘Night,’ he muttered, and cursed himself for his fears and his awkwardness as he turned on his heel and fled.

Maybe Charlotte was right. Maybe these new living arrangements
would
take some getting used to. Maybe Charlotte’s notion of easing their way into each other’s lives hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

On day two of Greyson’s incarceration at the mansion, he banished the crow on his shoulder to the farthest tree and started taking stock of the house and where he might fit in it. He needed an office, spacious and light filled, and he didn’t think the second-floor sewing room would mind. The day came and went as treasures were found and ruthlessly vacuum sealed and boxed for storage. Greyson worked solidly and made hardly a dint when it came to the contents of that room. He was sorting and bagging yet another monstrous pile of brightly coloured cottons when Charlotte walked into the room, looking tired and not altogether pleased to see him. Or maybe it was just the chaos he’d created that offended her.

‘Busy day?’ she said from the doorway.

‘No.’

‘Don’t you have papers to write?’ she asked next.

‘Yes.’

‘But you’ve decided to take up patchwork quilting instead?’

‘No, I’m stealing office space and banishing your godmother from the premises. I’m sure she was a wonderful woman, not to mention all the way eccentric and richer than Croesus, but I can’t live with her. And while we’re on topic, I’m not sure I can live with being a kept man, either. Somewhere along the line I expect to contribute towards this household’s upkeep. I don’t know how but it’s something we need to talk about.’

Charlotte leaned against the doorway, and crossed her arms in front of her, all neat and tidy, as if she’d stepped straight out of
Businesswoman’s Vogue.
It didn’t escape Grey’s notice that she looked completely at home in the luxurious surroundings. He really didn’t know if such surrounds were ever going to suit him.

‘You know, somewhere among all those dreamed-of benefits of having a man about the house was a dream where he greeted me cordially when I came home from work, asked me how my day had gone,
listened
when I told him, and maybe even poured me an icy cold hand-squeezed apple juice and soda with a dash of lime,’ said Charlotte sweetly.

‘What was he wearing?’ asked Greyson.

‘Not a lot.’

Grey peeled off his T-shirt and dropped it
to the sofa, perfectly willing to oblige. ‘That better?’

‘Well, it’s a start.’

Grey looked around at the chaos he’d created with his emptying of cupboards and drawers. All that storage space, and every inch of it crammed full. ‘It’s a work in progress. And I’m guessing you probably had a bad day at the office. You’ve got that look.’

‘I either got fired or I resigned,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Depends who you ask.’

‘You don’t need them anyway.’ Grey abandoned the cottons in favour of closing the gap between them. ‘And I guarantee they’re going to regret losing you.’

‘I’m beginning to appreciate your appeal,’ she said with a smile that was way too small for her.

‘Wait till you try my hand-squeezed apple juice with soda and lime.’ He drew closer, and, gathering courage, traced his fingers down her arm until he reached her hand. Such a fine and delicate hand, and he was careful as he threaded his fingers through hers, stepped past her and tugged her gently towards the hallway. Touching Charlotte settled him in a way that he hadn’t been settled all day.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Charlotte, but she followed willingly in his wake, and her
fingers had curled around his, and that was something.

‘Kitchen to get you a drink and something to eat.’

‘You mean milk and cookies?’

‘Do we have milk and cookies?’ he asked, glancing back at her. He’d rummaged around in the commercial-sized kitchen at lunchtime. The cupboards had been mostly bare.

‘No,’ she said with the hint of a smile.

Something to do tomorrow, then. Shop.