Best of Fiona Harper

Thankfully, he saved himself with his next words. ‘A woman with pizzazz and sparkle.’

Ah, despite the show of loyalty to his sister he was still talking about the minx, and she certainly had all of that. Problem was…I wasn’t sure that girl existed in her pure, undiluted state any more. She seemed to have been watered down with some truly awful qualities—like compassion and bravery and honesty. Really, what was I going to do with her?

‘So how about it?’ Right now Nicholas looked the least stuffy and laced-up I’d ever seen him. He nodded towards the clothing rail. ‘You, me, the red dress and a table for two next Saturday?’

There was an awkward silence, and he must have read the confusion on my face—I’m really going to have to do something about that—because he gave a resigned smile.

‘I’m too late, aren’t I?’

I bit my lip and picked up the next item of clothing, but I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t quite ready to face what I felt for Adam yet, let alone admit it to anyone else. It didn’t matter, however. I think my traitorous face had said it for me. Nicholas cocked his head, the way an old-fashioned gent would have done when he doffed his hat to a lady, and then retraced his steps to the door.

‘Ring me if you ever change your mind…’

I just smiled weakly at him, clutching what I now realised was Adam’s dinner jacket to my chest. He gave me one last smile and closed the door, leaving me marvelling that, despite the horrendous timing, my minx-like attempt at less was the more Nicholas Chatterton-Jones wanted.

Pity the minx had left the building.

You know that elephant that everyone always says is standing in the middle of the room? Well, it hitched a ride home with us on Sunday evening. Adam was all calmness and civility on the outside, but his dimples had ironed out and his driving was even more atrocious than usual. I didn’t say anything. Because of the elephant, of course.

He stopped at Coreen’s Closet and helped me unload everything into the back room, then he drove me to my flat and helped me carry my suitcase up the stairs to my front door.

As he was leaving he said, ‘I’m going to Malaysia on Thursday, to do the finishing touches on the hotel project.’

I blinked and smiled. ‘How long will you be away?’

‘Two weeks.’

I nodded. Not because I was agreeing to anything but because I needed to do something. ‘How nice,’ I added, after I’d bobbed my head far too many times to look sane.

Nellie must have decided to stay in the car, because he gave me a long, searching look and then said, ‘Come with me.’

‘What happened to no pressure? To giving me time to think?’ I snapped.

The sparkle in his eyes was dim now. He looked tired. ‘Maybe some time alone together is just what we both need?’

It all seemed so reasonable. So reasonable, in fact, that it made my skin itch. I gripped the edge of the door. ‘That’s not quite right, though, is it? You don’t need any more time to figure it out.’

He was silent for a few seconds, and then he confirmed all my worst fears. ‘I want you in my future, Coreen.’

A future. Long, endless days stretching into the greyness ahead of us. An infinity in which we would grow old, tire of each other. I didn’t ever want to get tired of Adam, and while we’d been friends I never had.

I arranged my features into a neutral, serene expression. ‘I’ll always be in your future, Adam. No matter what happens between us.’

His jaw jutted forward just a millimetre and he licked his lips. I knew he could read the words ‘brush-off’ in my tone and body language. I was counting on it, in fact. I didn’t want to spell it out in words.

The horrible thing was, I knew he would take it slowly if I asked him to. He would put my wishes—my needs—above his own. Unfortunately, I was scared, and it turned out I just wasn’t that big a person.

‘What are you saying?’ he asked slowly. ‘Are you trying to tell me you don’t see anything changing between us?’

I threw my hands in the air. ‘Yesterday we were just good friends. Now everything’s been turned on its head. I don’t want to be rushed. I have to be free to make my own decisions.’

‘What you mean is that you have to be in control.’

‘No! That’s not true.’

‘Yes, it is.’ He stepped forward into the flat and I spun around and marched into the living room ahead of him. If we were going to have a good old ding-dong we might as well do it in private. My downstairs neighbour thought I was strange enough as it was.

Adam followed me. ‘Yes, control. That’s why you make all those poor saps who follow you around dance on their hind legs. As long as you’re in control, you’re safe. But love isn’t like that, Coreen. Love means giving a piece of yourself away, trusting someone else with it.’

I folded my arms across my chest and hugged my elbows. ‘You’re talking about love, but I think you’re forgetting I haven’t worked out how I feel about you yet.’

‘Haven’t you?’

So we were back to this game, were we? We both knew how we felt about each other, and we both knew that we knew… It wasn’t just tiring any more. It was dangerous.

I had already worked out that Adam wasn’t above playing dirty, and now he blew my carefully constructed denial to smithereens. He was suddenly across the room, his arms around me, his mouth only a whisper away from mine.

‘Tell me to stop if you don’t want this,’ he said softly.

I closed my eyes, trying to think of the words to do just that, but anything as simple as no or stop had exited my vocabulary by the back door, and the only things left were unintelligible sounds and lengthy explanations I sadly didn’t have time for.

I didn’t do anything as his lips began to move on mine. Okay, well maybe I did something. But how is a girl supposed to stop herself from wrapping her arms around a man when he’s kissing her like that? I’d defy any one of you to do better. I had to kiss him back. To do otherwise would have been rude. Maybe I took it too far by running my tongue along the edge of his lip, but I’ve always had a problem with that.

The problem with a kiss like that one was that I wasn’t stage-managing it. Usually I set the pace. I controlled how much and how hot. I played the part of vintage minx to the max, in other words. But with Adam I wasn’t playing anything. I didn’t even have my usual costume of red heels and even redder lips. Adam wasn’t kissing the minx; he was kissing me. I felt the shockwaves right down in my soul. They lapped at the shore of my identity, eroding it, rearranging it, as the surf does the pebbles. And I could sense a tidal wave on the horizon—one that would overwhelm and devastate.

I untangled myself and stumbled back. Adam reached out a hand to steady me, but he didn’t override my decision to stop. Neither of us said anything, but as the seconds dragged on his expression grew both softer and darker. I was transparent again, I could tell.

‘You can trust me,’ he said quietly, emphatically.

Oh, I knew I could trust Adam. Adam was practically manufactured from the stuff. Despite the fact I’d been dazzled by a sexier, more dangerous side to him in the last few days, I knew that if you sliced him open, like sugary seaside rock, he would say ‘loyal and true’ right to the core. It was me I couldn’t trust.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘What you’re afraid of. But love isn’t total surrender. It isn’t one person sacrificing themselves totally for another.’ He glanced at the black-and-white picture of my mum on the mantelpiece. ‘Real love isn’t like that. It’s a two-way street.’

I looked at the photo of Mum. She’d been about twenty when it had been taken and she looked so jaunty and happy, strolling down the road with her cute little mini-dress and her big sunglasses pushed up on her head. Before she’d met my dad. Before he’d sucked the life out of her. I’d bet she thought love was a safe pastime too.

When I turned my attention back to Adam I had a shock. He looked so like the boy who’d used to promise me he’d always look out for me with that grim sense of earnestness that only youth can provide. My lips trembled and my insides churned. I wanted so much to believe him, but there were things he hadn’t thought of…

When you gave that little piece of yourself to someone else for safekeeping, how did you know when to stop? How did you know if you’d given too much of yourself away? Once it was gone, there was no getting it back. And I knew just how destructive that kind of imbalance in a relationship could be. Had seen it first-hand.

I took a step back—mentally, at least—and let out a dry laugh, causing Adam to frown.

This was me we were talking about, wasn’t it? The girl who manipulated people, situations, just about anything, to get what she wanted. The girl who knew everything about taking and nothing about giving. I was just Scrooge in a circle skirt and eyeliner. Surely if anyone was safe from my mother’s fate it was me?

But that left me with another problem.

I walked over to my retro, cherry-red fake leather sofa and sat down with a bump. ‘Why on earth do you want me, anyway, Adam?’ I kicked off my shoes and dug my toes into the shaggy rug. ‘I play games, I’m demanding and selfish…’ For the first time that evening I looked him straight in the eye. ‘The truth is, I don’t know if I’m even capable of the kind of love you’re talking about.’

He came and sat beside me, took my hands in his and made me look at him. ‘It’s the girl who disguises herself in the vintage clothes who does all of those things. The girl who practises her walk. The girl who is never seen without her trademark crimson…’ He dragged the pad of his thumb across my bare lips. ‘But I’m not in love with that girl. You don’t need to be that girl with me.’

A tear slid down my face. And then another, and another. He really meant it. He loved me that much, and I didn’t deserve it. A space inside myself that I hadn’t even realised was achingly empty started to fill up. And with the fullness came more tears.

I don’t know how long I cried, but Adam just held me, whispered soft words into my ear: he believed in me, he knew what I was capable of, and it was much more than I gave myself credit for. Eventually, worn out, I hiccupped to a halt. Still Adam didn’t move. I was so exhausted I started to drift in and out of a leaden sleep. I was only vaguely aware of him moving away and fetching the duvet from my bed, of him draping it over me and kissing me tenderly on the head. I fumbled for his hand and found his trouser leg instead. I didn’t care; I held on with all the strength I had left.

‘Don’t go,’ I mumbled. ‘Stay. I need you.’

There. The first time I’d ever said those words to another human being. I’d never admitted to needing anyone before. Ever. Not even my mother. Especially not my mother.

Adam didn’t hesitate. He just squidged down next to me on the sofa, pulled a corner of the duvet over himself and wrapped me up inside him. I wanted to touch as much of him as possible, to imprint his warmth on as much of my surface area as I could, and as sleep began to fog my mind once again I reached for his fingers and tangled mine with his.

And then I drifted off to sleep. Holding Adam’s hand.

Warmth. Touch. Those were the first blissful sensations I was aware of early the following morning. Adam’s fingers still loosely entwined in mine. His breath, warm and even, at the back of my neck as he lay spooned behind me. I tightened my fingers round his, lifted both our hands towards my face and softly kissed his knuckle.

He must have stayed awake long after I’d succumbed to dreams, because he was sleeping heavily now and I slid out of his hold fairly easily. There was a slight snuffle and a twitch as I stood up, but I tucked the duvet back around his neck and he drifted off again.

I didn’t leave the room straight away, but stayed there, watching him. Why that prickling at the top of my nose was back, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I felt as if I wanted to empty myself of everything I was, everything I ever would be, and pour it into him. The urge was so strong it was a physical sensation, welling up inside me, threatening to burst through the very pores of my skin.

I’d been wrong about not being able to love Adam the way he wanted me to. As I stood, unable to tear my eyes from him in the lemony dawn light, I knew I was my mother’s daughter.

Just before I tiptoed out of the living room, feeling raw and vulnerable, I grabbed Mum’s photo off the mantelpiece and hugged it to my chest. I took it with me and laid it on my bed before heading for the bathroom. After all that luxury I was desperate for the comfort of my own surroundings, my own temperamental shower that I knew just how to get the best out of, my haphazard and kitsch decorating style, with scarves over lampshades and classic movie posters on the wall.

When I came out of the shower, wrapped in a fluffy red towel, I paused and picked up the photo I’d left on the bed. The image of my mother, smiling and carefree, blurred. I hadn’t known her like that. Of course I’d seen her smile and heard her laugh, but I’d been too young to remember much of the time my parents had been together. After my dad had left, even if her face had been making all the right adjustments to portray happiness, it hadn’t rung true. There had always been that moment when she finished laughing, a pause when the sadness would seep back in, a moment when she returned to her default state.

I wish you were here, Mum. I wish you could tell me what to do.

But she wasn’t here. And the desire to have her with me was just yet another fantasy. While she’d been alive she’d only been half present in my life, both physically and emotionally. I kissed the tip of my finger and pressed it onto her smile.

I love you, Mum, but I can’t be like you. Sorry.

I placed the frame on my bedside table and got dressed, choosing my favourite black pencil skirt and a hot-pink wing-collared blouse, finished off with raspberry suede heels with roses on the toes. I twisted my hair into a French pleat, but left my blunt fringe loose, so it hung above my eyebrows like a curtain. The jet-black liner went on with little flicks of my wrists to create wings, and with each sweep of rich and luxurious lipstick across my lips I felt my power returning.

When I’d finished I walked into the hall to check my reflection in the full-length mirror. I looked like me again. But not the frivolous, carefree version of myself I had expected to see. The glimmer of fun in this Coreen’s eyes had hardened into iron.

I picked up my patent black handbag and took one last look around the living room before I left. It was far too early to open up the shop, but I needed a walk, some time to clear my head. Adam was still unconscious, but this time as I looked at him the welling sensation didn’t return.

I blew the sleeping Adam a kiss, ending with a little finger wave, and then walked out of the room and left my flat, my shiny black handbag swinging from my finger in synchronisation with my hips.

I turned the sign on the door of Coreen’s Closet to ‘Closed’ and sighed. I was very tempted to rest my head against the cool glass and let it soothe my aching brow, but Alice was watching me. She’d been watching me all day.

She was standing behind the counter, checking the till. I turned back to face her and gave her a wide Crimson Minx smile.

‘Out with it,’ was all she said.

I rolled my eyes.

Despite the swirling pregnancy hormones, my business partner was still able to pin me down with a look. ‘I mean it. How did the weekend go?’

I blinked innocently. ‘I’ve already told you all about it.’

Alice made a dismissive noise. ‘You told me about the fashion. Now I want you to tell me about the weekend.’

‘Oh,’ I said airily as I walked jauntily back to the cash desk. ‘Nicholas Chatterton-Jones only asked me to dinner, that’s all.’

Instead of squealing and dancing round the shop with me, Alice folded her arms. ‘And…?’

I shrugged. ‘And I’m thinking about it.’

‘Now I know there really is something wrong.’

I sagged against the counter, resting my well-padded behind on its edge, and blew out a long breath. It made me look like a horse, but I was past caring. Alice started packing things into her handbag, but I knew appearances were deceptive. She wasn’t going anywhere until I spilled my guts. Sometimes my willowy red-headed business partner was decidedly unbendable.

I crossed my ankles and fixed my gaze on a sequinned silver jacket that Gladys, our one-eyed shop dummy, was wearing. ‘I think I might be in love.’

‘With Nicholas?’

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

How could I make my feelings concrete with words when I knew I was about to behave despicably? Alice waited in silence, and I was just on the verge of screaming when someone gave the locked shop door a hefty shove.

Adam.

He was peering over the top of the ‘Closed’ sign, the afternoon sun tinting the tips of his messy-but-sexy hair gold. I held my breath to stop myself from running over to the door, yanking it open, flinging my arms around him and burying my fingers in that shaggy mop. I didn’t. My butt was frozen to the counter and I let Alice waddle over to the door and unlock it instead. She had steel in her eyes when she turned back. Steel and knowledge.

Oh, heck. I was rumbled.

‘Well, I’m off, then,’ she said breezily, grabbing her bag and swinging it over her shoulder. She kissed Adam on the cheek as he entered the shop, and then waddled out of the door, pausing briefly to turn back, smile meaningfully at me and let me have her parting shot.

‘Be good.’

I smiled weakly back, not promising anything, because I knew I wasn’t about to be anything but very, very bad.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cry Me A River

Coreen’s Confessions

No more confessions. There’s nothing left to tell—except for how the story ends…

ALICE disappeared, and the compact and cluttered shop floor of Coreen’s Closet fell silent. I didn’t know what to say to him. However, Adam proved just how much he could say without pesky things like words getting in his way. The twinkle in his eyes—my twinkle—blazed out at me. Pretty soon it spread to the corners of his eyes, causing them to crease, and then it worked its way down to engulf his mouth. I was tempted to dive into that smile and lose myself in it.

‘Hi,’ he said, his voice low and warm. I reminded myself this was a Monday afternoon. I had no business thinking about Sunday mornings.

‘Hi,’ I said back.

We looked across the shop at each other.

‘Do you want to grab something to eat?’ he asked.

I sucked a mouthful of air in and held it in my lungs. ‘Maybe later.’ I glanced back at the open door to the office. ‘I’ve got some things I need to catch up on. After the weekend…’

It made me feel worse that he believed me.

‘Hold that thought!’ he said, his smile widening further. Then he walked over to me, dropped one sweet, intoxicating kiss on my lips and strolled out of the door.

After locking the door behind him, I went immediately to the washroom and reapplied my lipstick, and then I decided I ought to find something to do.

I found a couple of boxes to unload and reload, rooted around in my desk drawer for a lost stapler, and then rearranged my costume jewellery in its wood and glass display case. I was just about to turn my attention to the hatpin display when the door rattled. I didn’t have to look round to know who it was, and I didn’t need to ask what it was in the carrier bag he was holding—I could smell the delicious waft as soon as he entered the shop.

He plopped the bag down on the counter and headed straight through to the back office, flung his keys down on the desk and fetched the pink picnic hamper. I coughed before he unbuckled it, and he looked up.

‘Fish and chips?’ I asked, wrinkling my nose slightly.

The smile dropped from Adam’s face. ‘You don’t want fish and chips?’

I shook my head and clasped my hands low behind my back. ‘Actually, I have a hankering for Thai.’

He looked at the tightly wrapped paper bundles in the carrier bag. ‘But it’s hot, and I asked for onion vinegar especially for you.’ He started to unwrap the paper and a delicious acidic waft hit the back of my nose. Saliva pooled underneath my tongue.

I gave him my big-eyed ‘little girl’ look. ‘I really fancy Thai,’ I said, the lie sliding effortlessly through my evenly spaced teeth.

‘You’re sure about this?’ Adam gave the hot bundle of fish and chips a longing look. I nodded and blew him a kiss.

There was no eager yip, as one of my ‘puppies’ might have given, but he sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. I knew he was going to do it for me—not because I’d pushed him into a corner, but because his innate sense of chivalry had kicked in. ‘Okay, Thai it is.’ He shrugged. ‘At least it’s only a few doors down.’

I bit my lip.

On purpose.

‘What?’ he said, his voice heavy.

‘I don’t like that restaurant any more.’ I lowered my head a little and looked at him through my lashes. ‘I like the Blue Dragon.’

‘But that’s the other end of town!’

I did my coquettish little one-shouldered shrug. ‘You did say you’d get it for me…’

He gave me a long, hard stare, and then he picked up the hamper and disappeared into the back office again. While he was gone, I pinched a couple of chips from one of the parcels, stuffed them into my mouth and then quickly rearranged the packet so it looked as if none were missing.

My, those chips were good. Heavenly, in fact. I closed my eyes and licked the salt off my lips.

I had to swallow quickly when I heard Adam returning, minus hamper but in possession of his car keys. Something inside me sank. This was what I’d wanted, but a part of me hadn’t wanted it to be this easy, hadn’t wanted Adam to be predictable like all the others.

I was leaning against the cash desk, arms bracing me, and he peeled one of my hands off the shiny surface, turned its palm upwards. ‘I don’t play games and you know that,’ he said as he dropped the keys into my waiting palm. ‘If you want curry from the Blue Dragon, you’re going to have to get it yourself.’

My skin began to prickle. Damn it. I liked this new Adam with the menacing edge to his voice too much.

Okay, he might not have been as predictable as I’d both feared and hoped he would be, but that didn’t mean I was going to let him outmanoeuvre me. I pushed the keys against his chest and let go. He caught them on a reflex.

‘I’m not driving that hulking machine of yours ’round these narrow streets,’ I said, glaring at him and stood up. ‘Fine. I’ll get my dinner myself.’

‘Fine,’ he said, glaring back at me.

I didn’t really want to, but what choice did I have? I picked up my purse and stalked out of the shop and up the road to the Spice Heaven. Ten minutes later I was back, with a curry I didn’t really want.

Adam had moved into the back room, but his chivalry thing had decreed he wait for me. A parcel of fish and chips was waiting unopened on his lap. As soon as he saw me he dived in. I set to work opening my plastic tubs and dishing rice and curry onto a pink plate.

Adam wasn’t ‘twinkling’ so much now. He stared at his fish and chips in silence. It didn’t look appetising. But then cold fish and chips never do.

I ate a bit of my food, and then resorted to pushing it around my plate and taking the odd nibble when I felt Adam’s eyes on me—which was more often than not, unfortunately. Coconut milk and onion vinegar definitely did not make a good taste combination. This was no comfortable silence we were enjoying. I knew he was thinking hard, trying to work out what his next move would be.