Snowbound Seduction

‘You OK?’ Zac shifted in the doorway.

Too late she realised her always too-expressive face had given her away. ‘Fine,’ she said with a careless shrug, hoping he’d take himself back to the sitting room. ‘I’ll come and join you in a minute,’ she added pointedly, turning to the dirty breakfast dishes in the sink and filling the washing-up bowl with hot, soapy water. ‘The others should be back soon.’

To her horror he had joined her in the next moment, tea towel in hand. The kitchen wasn’t large as it was, but with his height and breadth dwarfing her it had suddenly got a whole lot smaller. ‘No.’ It came out too sharply, and she modified her tone when she said, ‘You’re a guest. I wouldn’t dream of letting you dry up,’ hoping she didn’t sound as flustered as she felt, although she knew it was a vain hope.

Looking relaxed and slightly amused, he murmured, ‘I’ve no problem with working for my supper.’

‘No, really, I mean it.’ She stood guard over the dishes.

‘So do I.’ He smiled easily but his tone was cooler.

Rachel jutted out her chin like a teenager. This was ridiculous. It was her kitchen. ‘This is too small a room, only one person at a time works in here. We’ve got a rota…’ That sounded silly. ‘And,’ she said truculently, ‘I’ve got my own way of doing things.’

‘How difficult is it to get it wrong when you dry dishes?’

‘I’ll bring you a glass of wine through in a minute,’ she said, purposely not answering him, ‘and Jennie will be home any moment. She’ll expect you to be sitting watching TV.’

‘I think she’d survive the shock nonetheless.’

It was useless arguing with him but neither was she going to give in. She was blowed if she was going to let another Giles tell her what to do. She stood, straight and stiff and without glancing at him until she heard him leave the kitchen. Then she let her body sag. Damn, damn, damn. Now she felt awful. She was never intentionally rude and he was Jennie’s cousin after all, but why couldn’t he take a hint? Irritating, awkward man.

Without considering what she was going to say, she marched through to the sitting room. He was standing with his back to the room looking out of the window into the dark, stormy night.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said without any preamble. ‘I sounded rude and I didn’t mean to be. It’s just that—’

‘You don’t like me for some reason,’ he finished for her, turning round and pinning her with the golden gaze. ‘Right?’

Lost for words, Rachel shook her head helplessly. ‘I don’t know you,’ she prevaricated at last.

‘No, you’re right, you don’t,’ he said softly, but with an iron edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘If you did know me and you’d still come to that conclusion, it wouldn’t matter.’ He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘As it is, I guess it still doesn’t matter, but I’d appreciate you trying to be civil this evening for Jennie’s sake, if nothing else.’

Her temper rising, she stared at him. ‘Of course I’ll be civil. I told you, I didn’t mean to be rude.’ Her words were clipped, frosty. How dared he tell her what to do in her own home?

She thought she saw the hard mouth twitch for a moment. ‘That’s very reassuring.’

He was laughing at her again. How dared he? But the hot words quivering on her tongue fortunately never got said. Jennie chose that moment to open the front door of the flat, calling out, ‘Zac? Are you here?’ as she entered the hall.

Rachel saw her friend’s eyes widen when they took in the tall handsome man her cousin had become, and then, in true Jennie style, she’d flung herself into Zac’s arms and planted a smacking kiss on his mouth before he had a chance to object.

Not that he would have objected, Rachel told herself as she left them to it, murmuring something about opening a bottle of wine. Jennie was gorgeous with her black hair and dark brown eyes and the sort of Marilyn Monroe figure that turned men on from schoolboys to geriatrics. And she was between men at the moment, having just dumped her latest boyfriend. They never lasted long with Jennie, she bored easily.

When she re-entered the sitting room Jennie had drawn Zac down beside her on the sofa and was asking about the family, one hand resting on his arm as she gazed up into his face. Rachel knew that look. And when Jennie set her sights on a man they didn’t stand a chance. It normally amused her when Jennie went into her femme fatale role. Tonight, though, she felt rattled and disturbed. She was careful to give no sign of her feelings when she poured the wine, filling the fourth glass on the tray when Susan’s key sounded in the lock.

Susan joined them, slender, beautiful Susan with her white blonde hair and the face of an angel, smiling charmingly and saying all the right things as Jennie introduced her to Zac. And Zac was as charming back. He’d stood up when Susan had entered the room and now displayed the most perfect manners, his conversation witty and amusing as they sipped at their wine.

Rachel sat watching the other three and said little, she didn’t need to. Jennie and Susan and Zac were getting on like a house on fire. She felt a growing sense of déjà vu but she didn’t have to search her mind long for the cause. How often in the past, before she’d escaped the family home for university, had she sat and watched her two older sisters be the life and soul of the proceedings while she’d sat dumbly by? Dozens of times. Hundreds probably. And yet every time had hurt just as much.

After two sweet, girly, blonde little girls, her mother had decided her third child would be a boy to complete their perfect family, and her mother always got what she wanted. Except she’d had another girl. And this girl had been long and skinny with straight brown hair when she’d finally grown hair at the embarrassingly late age of eighteen months. Embarrassing for her mother, that was, Rachel thought grimly. She had been brought up on stories of how mortified her mother had been in producing such an ugly duckling. Or perhaps cuckoo in the nest was a better description. Lisa and Claire, her sisters, with only fifteen months between them, had always been inseparable, and she’d grown up feeling the odd one out in more ways than one. It wasn’t until she’d met Jennie and Susan in the first week of university that she’d come to understand the meaning of true friendship and support from members of her own sex. The three of them had gelled instantly; it was her misfortune the other two were quite stunning.

Her forehead creased as she sipped at her wine, her gaze now inward looking. What would Freud say about her choice of friends? That she was unconsciously trying to right the wrongs of her childhood or that she’d been programmed to purposely seek out friends who would overshadow her? She mentally shook her head at the path her thoughts had taken, suddenly annoyed with herself and the self-psychoanalysis.

She and Jennie and Susan were genuine, rock-solid friends and had been from the first—it was as simple as that.

‘I’d better see to the dinner.’ Jennie jumped up in the next moment, flashing Rachel a smile as she added, ‘Thanks for putting it on, Cinders.’

‘Cinders?’ Zac’s eyes shot to Rachel’s face. ‘Why Cinders?’

As Zac immediately homed in on the nickname, Rachel could have kicked Jennie, who’d already sailed out of the room. It was Susan who said, a little uncomfortably, having seen Rachel’s glare, ‘It’s just a pet name, that’s all.’

‘But Cinders?’ There was a note in his voice that told Rachel he wasn’t going to let this drop.

Silently calling Jennie every name under the sun, Rachel sighed before saying resignedly, ‘I’ve two older sisters, that’s all.’

‘And you don’t get on with them? Or are they ugly?’

Rachel stared hard at Zac and he stared back. She could tell he was trying to keep a straight face in view of her antagonism. ‘I get on with them just fine and they are far from ugly.’ The understatement of the year, she thought wryly. She had been foolish enough to follow her sisters to the same university and within days some wit had dubbed her Cinders, a tongue-in-cheek play on the fairy-tale. Somehow the nickname had stuck and within a couple of weeks everyone had forgotten her real name. Even Jennie and Susan had adopted it, but she knew with them it was said with warm affection. And she didn’t mind. Normally.

The handsome brow wrinkled. ‘Then why—?’

She shrugged as she rose to her feet. ‘Lisa and Claire are outstandingly beautiful; I suppose someone thought it was clever. I’ll just give Jennie a hand with the dinner.’

She left before he could make a comment.

Chapter Two

RACHEL found dinner a trying affair. But not Jennie and Susan. They positively sparkled. In fact, Susan seemed to have completely forgotten she was on the verge of becoming engaged to her long-standing—and extremely patient—boyfriend, Henry. Rachel liked Henry and she didn’t think he’d appreciate Susan’s fluttering eyelashes as she gazed at Zac.

Still, it was none of her business.

She told herself this during Jennie’s delicious shepherd’s pie—that was another thing about Jennie, she was a fabulous cook—and also during dessert, which was equally fabulous. By the coffee and mints stage of the meal, her eyes felt gritty and her head ached. She had never felt so tense in the whole of her life. The trouble was, she was aware of Zac Lawson in a way she hadn’t experienced before. Even when her eyes weren’t directly on him—and she’d taken care that was the case for most of the time—she found herself registering every slight movement, every turn of his head or quirk of his lips. It was annoying and irritating but her nerves seemed sensitised to a humiliating degree in his presence. And for the life of her she didn’t know why.

She had said very little throughout the meal but the other three had more than made up for her lack of conversation. She didn’t think anyone had noticed her quietness, so it came as a shock when Zac turned to her, coffee cup in hand, and said softly, ‘So, Rachel, I know Jennie’s a fashion buyer and Susan works in a lab—what do you do?’

She tried to get beyond the fact that she felt the golden gaze was drawing her in and answer coherently. ‘I’m in marketing.’

He nodded. ‘Enjoy it?’

‘Very much.’ Her voice emerged in a husky croak and she quickly cleared her throat. ‘I wouldn’t want to do anything else.’ Of course, she might have to if Jeff sacked her and wouldn’t give her a reference after today’s fiasco.

‘What sort of thing are you involved in?’ he asked, as though he really wanted to know and wasn’t just being polite. Then again, he’d been equally interested in Jennie and Susan. He was clearly a man who could make the woman he was with—or in this case talking to—feel she was the only one who mattered. Giles had been the same. That type mostly were, she supposed.

She gave a brief—very brief—outline of her job and then rose to her feet before he could pursue the conversation. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve got a headache,’ she said, her gaze sweeping the three of them, ‘and I think I’ll turn in. It was nice meeting you, Zac.’ She allowed her eyes to rest on him for the merest moment but it was enough to cause a quiver inside as the handsome face surveyed her. ‘I hope your business here goes well and the trip is successful,’ she added politely.

‘Thank you, Rachel.’ His voice was velvet smooth, but his eyes declared he was fully aware of the real reason she was retiring to her room and found it faintly amusing.

Well, he could laugh at her all he wanted but she did have a headache and she was blowed if she was going to sit there and endure another minute of his company. Her back stiff, hackles rising, she gave him an arctic smile and left the room as Jennie leaned forward and lightly touched his arm, bringing his attention back to her. ‘You must come to dinner again tomorrow if you’re free, Zac. You could come every night while you’re here, as far as we’re concerned. Isn’t that right, Susan?’

She didn’t wait to hear his reply, shutting the door on their tiny dining room-cum-study and standing in the hall for a moment as indignation swamped her. If that man was coming here every night, then she’d be eating out for the next three weeks. And this was her home as much as Jennie’s—her friend should have consulted her before making such a sweeping statement.

Rachel was feeling ashamed of herself even before she reached the bedroom and her penance was to lie tossing and turning and straining her ears. She heard the others leave the dining room and go into the sitting room then some music filtered through, along with the low buzz of conversation and laughter. Giggly, we’re-hanging-on-your-every-word laughter from Jennie and Susan, and a deep, rumbly male laugh now and again that made every nerve and sinew in her body stretch.

It was the longest two hours of her life before she heard the front door open and close, and then a few minutes later Jennie tiptoed into their room. A little while later, Jennie’s steady regular breathing told Rachel her friend was fast asleep; likewise Susan, as the muted snores through the wall proclaimed. Not for the first time she wondered how someone as ethereal and beautifully delicate as Susan could produce such a sound.

She must have drifted off to sleep eventually because she awoke at six o’clock, an hour before the alarm, after disturbing dreams she couldn’t remember but which left her with an uneasy, unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was still dark when she made her way to the bathroom, deciding to have a long hot bath to soak away the stresses of the day before. She filled the tub and added plenty of her favourite bath oil. If ever there was a morning to pamper herself, this was it. She didn’t know what she was going to face at work today, she told herself, and that was the reason—the only reason—for the butterflies in her stomach and the feeling that her world was out of kilter.

By seven o’clock she was dressed and made up and sitting at the table laid for three with a full coffee pot and a stacked plate of waffles, Jennie’s favourite breakfast. Her atonement for the night before. Not that the others would have minded her leaving, they’d probably hardly noticed, the way they’d been focusing on Zac, but this made her feel better.

‘Ooh, waffles, lovely.’ Jennie padded into the dining room and plonked herself down at the table, reaching for the pot of honey and liberally dousing her first waffle. ‘Why the treat? We normally only do this at weekends. Weekdays are toast and instant coffee. Not that I’m complaining, of course, far from it.’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Rachel said airily, smiling at Susan who had just appeared and whose response to the waffles was a carbon copy of Jennie’s. ‘So I thought I’d spoil us all.’

Both her friends were in their pyjamas and still-tousled haired without a scrap of make-up, and both looked gorgeous. Rachel sighed unconsciously.

‘What?’ Susan glanced at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

She thought about prevaricating and then said honestly, ‘I’d give my eye teeth to look like you two in the morning. Have either of you ever had blotchy morning skin or sticky-out hair or a spot that wasn’t there the night before?’

‘Loads of times.’ Susan grinned at her and reached for a waffle. ‘Sometimes I look like the wicked witch of the west.’

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

‘Anyway, it was you Zac was asking about last night,’ Susan continued casually, ‘in spite of Jennie doing her best to persuade him they were kissing cousins.’

Rachel’s heart stopped and then kick-started. She had to wait for a moment before she could control her voice enough to say, ‘Asking what exactly?’ in a faintly bored tone.

‘The normal things. These waffles are gorgeous, by the way.’

The normal things? What on earth were the normal things? ‘Like…?’ Rachel prompted carefully.

‘If there was a boyfriend around,’ Jennie put in. ‘Of course, he could just have been being friendly. We’d sort of filled him in about us.’

‘Yes, I think it took Jennie all of a few seconds to make the point I was seeing Henry and she was fancy-free,’ Susan said a touch acidly. ‘Along with how she’s just dying to see that new play at the Grecian theatre.’

Jennie grinned good-naturedly. ‘A girl has to do what a girl has to do, and you must admit he’s some sort of hunk. I don’t remember him being so drop-dead gorgeous when we were children.’

‘Probably because the last time you saw him you were a kid with pigtails and braces and more interested in horses than boys.’ Susan was petrified of horses and had been frankly incredulous when Jennie had told them one day she had ridden all the time as a child and had had her own pony called Primrose.

‘True.’ Jennie started on her third waffle. ‘But I’m very interested now and I haven’t given up on Zac yet. I mean, as family it’s my duty to show him around while he’s here and look after him.’ She tried an innocent smile that didn’t fool anyone.

Susan spluttered half her waffle onto her plate. ‘And we all know how you want to look after him,’ she said lewdly, rolling her eyes. ‘And cooking dinner for him is the tip of the iceberg.’

Jennie didn’t deny it. ‘I bet he’s great in bed,’ she said dreamily. ‘Sexy, experienced but considerate, you know?’

Rachel found she couldn’t sit and listen any longer. Abruptly, she said as she stood up, ‘I had a disaster at work yesterday and I need to be in early. I’m not at all sure I’ll still have a job soon, to be honest.’

‘Oh, no.’ Both girls were instantly all concern and comfort, and as she detailed what had happened they said the right things in the right places and were suitably scathing about the sales team. It helped how she was feeling. A bit.

As she left them, Rachel said offhandedly, ‘Is Zac having dinner with us again tonight?’ and hoped the jitters that had assailed her all morning since waking weren’t evident in her voice.

‘Nope, he’s busy.’ Jennie’s voice brightened as she added, ‘But I’ve got his number and I’ll try later for tomorrow. I might suggest treating him to dinner at Alfredo’s and then taking him to a nightspot. What do you think? Somewhere where the dance floor is small and cosy so we can get in the mood.’

‘I take it you mean a nightspot followed by his hotel room?’ Susan winked at Rachel, who had paused in the doorway.

‘Absolutely,’ Jennie agreed cheerfully. ‘Or just his hotel room.’

‘Jennie, you’re such an out-and-out tart.’

‘I know. Tarts have all the fun.’

Rachel left the other two amiably chaffing each other but she wasn’t smiling as she fetched her coat and handbag from her room. Jennie had never made any secret of the fact she slept with all her boyfriends and enjoyed sex, and although Susan was a little more choosy, she’d had a few partners too.

Here again she was the odd one out. She stared at her reflection in the long mirror on the bedroom wall. Jennie and Susan had thought it hilarious in their university days when she had said she was waiting for Mr Right before sleeping with a boy, but back then she had imagined he would come along before too long. And the truth of it was she had never met anyone who had made her pulse flutter and tempted her before Giles, so it hadn’t been too difficult to hang onto the dream. She’d had lots of boyfriends before him and had enjoyed kissing and cuddling and a bit of petting, but whenever they’d pressed for more she had known she would regret it the next morning. It was just the way she was made. She’d long ago come to terms with the fact that she was an oddity in her group of friends.

Rachel frowned at the brown-haired girl in the mirror. She wanted it to be special with the man she fell in love with, a forever thing, something that meant more than words could explain, but after Giles she was wondering if love as she saw it even existed. And she didn’t want to die an old maid.

What had kept her from sleeping with Giles? He’d certainly pestered her enough in the last couple of months before he had proposed, and she had imagined herself in love with him, hadn’t she? Her frown deepened. Hadn’t she?

Yes, she had thought she loved him but something hadn’t been quite…right. Even then some sixth sense must have been telling her he wasn’t what he seemed, that he had been projecting an image he’d thought she’d wanted him to be.

She shut her eyes tightly, biting on her lip. Jennie was right and she was wrong. She should have slept with every Tom, Dick and Harry and had fun; sex was just a pleasant pastime between a man and a woman and didn’t have to be an emotional forever thing. It didn’t have to lead to marriage and babies.

Her eyes opened. But it would need to for her. She simply couldn’t imagine opening her life and her body to a man and then cheerfully waving goodbye to him whenever the relationship ended. Jennie could. She couldn’t. End of story. She didn’t want to go through life alone but if she had to, she would. Loads of women concentrated on their career these days and chose autonomy and had rich and fulfilling lives. She just hadn’t imagined that was the way her life would go when she had been younger.

She took a deep breath. She could hear Jennie singing a pop song in the bathroom and smiled wryly to herself. The world did indeed ‘rain down men’ on Jennie; no sooner had her friend disposed of one man than another took his place. She envied her. Oh, how she envied her. No heart-searching, no agonising, no emotional baggage. Jennie ate when she was hungry, drank when she was thirsty and slept with a man when she wanted sex. And Jennie never felt that she was a failure and had missed the boat in a hundred and one ways.

At the end of the day Rachel still had a job, so she supposed she could count it a success. She’d gone for lunch with a group of girls from the office but although she had joined in the conversation and acted naturally, part of her—annoyingly—had kept repeating a post-mortem of the night before.

If she analysed it, she couldn’t quite understand why Zac Lawson had got under her skin the way he had. It hadn’t been so much what he’d said or done as the way he’d said and done it, she told herself. A certain inflexion, a tone of voice, a look, and perfectly mundane words could have a whole different meaning. Even simple words like ‘Thank you’ could change according to the way someone spoke or the expression on their face—it could be grateful or sarcastic or wry or a whole host of things. But however much she tried to wriggle out of it, she had to admit she’d been uncharacteristically belligerent from the second she’d set eyes on Jennie’s cousin. And she didn’t like herself for it.

She sighed as she pulled on her coat at the end of the day, after switching off her computer and tidying her desk. If she saw Zac again she’d be politely friendly, she determined, for Jennie’s sake. She didn’t like him—in fact, she’d never met a man she liked less—but that couldn’t be helped and Jennie needn’t know. And it wasn’t as if he would be around for long anyway; she could force herself to be civil to the poor man for the short time he was in the country if their paths crossed.

It was raining again when she walked down the steps of the office building and her umbrella was safely propped up in the hallstand at the flat. In the couple of years since she’d bought it, she’d only used it a handful of times, she reflected ruefully.

She had reached the pavement before she saw him, leaning nonchalantly against the wall of the building next door.

‘No umbrella again?’ The velvet voice with its faintest of Canadian undertones mocked her wide-eyed surprise. As he reached her, he sheltered her under his own black monster of an umbrella. ‘Do you actually like getting wet through?’

He’d slipped a casual arm round her waist as he’d drawn her out of the rain and she was aware of feeling very feminine against his broad-shouldered bulk. Then the dumbness brought about by shock faded and she found her voice. Carefully pulling back so there was a couple of inches between them, she said tightly, ‘What are you doing here?’