One Season And Dynasties Collection

He didn’t have much time to dwell on his stepbrother’s words as the next hour was a flurry of activity, first meeting up with Hunter’s father and the two friends the groom had invited to this small, intimate celebration, and then they had to make their way to Central Park and the little lakeside glade where Hunter and Faith would be making their vows. Hunter didn’t seem at all nervous, laughing and joking with his friends and patiently listening to all his father’s last-minute advice—and who knew? Maybe Hunter’s father did know what he was talking about because not only had he stayed good friends with Misty but he had clocked up fifteen years with his current wife, a record amongst all the parental figures in Hunter’s and Gael’s lives.

In no time at all they were at the lake, which had been made ready according to Hope’s detailed instructions; a few chairs had been arranged in a semicircle either side of the little rustic shelter under which Hunter and Faith would make their vows. White flowers were entwined in the shelter and yellow and white rose petals were scattered on the floor. All against Central Park’s stringent regulations but the Carlyle name had persuaded the officials that an exception could be made.

Gael looked up at the cloudless sky and smiled; somehow Hope had even persuaded the weather to comply and the rain and wind which sometimes heralded the beginning of September had stayed away. Hunter’s father and friends took their places while Gael stood beside his brother at the entrance to the pavilion, making polite conversation with the official who was conducting the short service. But what he said he hardly knew. In just a few minutes he would see her—and the spell her absence had cast would be broken. She’d walked away before he had decided it was time. That was all this sense something was amiss was. Nothing more.

He turned as he heard feminine voices, his heart giving a sudden lurch, but it wasn’t Hope, merely a group of hot-looking women dressed in bright, formal clothes, fanning themselves and giggling as they took their seats. They were accompanied by one harried-looking elderly gentleman who breathed a sigh of relief as he took in the other men. Hope’s uncle must have felt fairly overwhelmed by all the womenfolk he had spent the last three days escorting around the city.

He took a brief headcount as Misty wafted in, looking as elegant and cool as ever. The five men in Hunter’s party, Misty, the bride’s uncle and aunt and four young women who must be her two cousins and two friends. They were all here except for the bride herself—and her bridesmaid. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. It had been a brief fling, that was all. He bumped into old flames all the time and didn’t usually turn a hair. There should be nothing different this time.

Shouldn’t be and yet there was.

And then the string quartet, placed just out of sight around the curve in the path, struck up and the small congregation rose to their feet and turned as one. Every mouth smiled, every eye widened, many dampening as Faith floated towards them in the ethereal designer dress Hope had chosen for her beloved sister. Her hair was twisted into loose knots with curls falling onto her shoulders, she carried a small posy of yellow and white roses and her eyes were fixed adoringly on her groom. But Gael barely took any of it in, all his attention on the shorter woman by her side. Faith had asked her sister, the person who had raised her, to walk her down the aisle both today and for the blessing in two days’ time.

Gael was the only person there who knew how much this gesture cost Hope. How touched she was but also how full of grief that their father wasn’t there to do it—and that she would be symbolically relinquishing the last of her immediate family to someone else. That the moment she stepped back she truly would be alone.

His chest swelled with empathic grief because although her full mouth was curved in a proud smile and her carriage straight her eyes were full of tears and the hand holding a matching posy was shaking slightly.

Hope’s hair was also tied up in a loose knot with a cream ribbon looped around, contrasting with the darkness of the silky tresses. She wore a knee-length twenties-style dress in a slightly darker shade than her sister’s soft golden cream; she was utterly beautiful, utterly desirable. Damn. That wasn’t the reaction he had been hoping for at all.

Hope looked up as if she could feel the weight of his gaze. Her lips quivered before her eyelashes fell again. Look at me, Gael urged her silently. Let me work out what’s happening here. But his silent plea fell flat and although she smiled around at the gathered audience she didn’t look at him directly again, not once.

The day was at once eternal and yet it passed in a flash. One moment Hope was kissing her sister’s cheek, knowing that this was the last time she would be her next of kin, her first confidante, her rock, the next she was listening as Hunter promised to take care of Faith for ever.

She believed him. They were absurdly young but there was a determination and clearness amidst the starry-eyed infatuation that made her think that maybe they had a shot at making it work. Faith had grown up so much it was impossible to take in that the sisters had only been apart for three and a half months.

They moved seamlessly from ceremony to drinks, from drinks to the boat, which dreamily sailed around Manhattan in a gentle ripple of sparkling waters and blue skies before the cars took them to the now shut Met for a VIP tour followed by dinner. Now, at the end of the day, they were back at the speakeasy, reserved exclusively for the wedding party until midnight; there had been a last-minute panic when Hope realised that Faith’s age meant she would be unable to enter the premises if it was open to the public. The bar didn’t usually do private parties but a quiet word from Gael had ensured their cooperation; she wouldn’t have been able to organise half of the day without him. He knew exactly who to speak to, how to get the kind of favours Hope McKenzie from Stoke Newington wouldn’t have had a cat in hell’s chance of landing. She should say thank you.

She should say something. They had been in the same small group of people for ten hours and somehow avoided exchanging even one word. She should tell him that he was wrong about her, that when it mattered she would always stand up for herself; she should tell him that, uncomfortable as his painting made her, she still recognised what a privilege it was to be immortalised that way. She should thank him for all his help with the wedding. She should tell him that two weeks with him had changed her life.

But she didn’t know where to begin. She was just so aware of him. They could blindfold her and she would still reach unerringly for him. She knew how he tasted, she knew how his skin felt against hers. She knew what it felt like to have every iota of his concentration focussed on her. How did people do it? Carry this intimate knowledge of another human being around with them? She hadn’t expected this bond, not without love.

Because of course she didn’t love him. That would be foolish and Hope McKenzie didn’t do foolishness. She wasn’t like her sister; she couldn’t just entrust her heart and happiness to somebody else. Especially somebody who didn’t want either and wouldn’t know what to do with them even if he did.

The sound of a spoon tapping on a glass recalled her thoughts to the here and now and, as the room hushed, she looked up to see Faith balancing precariously on a chair, her cheeks flushed.

‘Attention,’ her sister called as the group clapped and whistled. ‘Bride speaking.’

Hope slid her glance over to Gael and, as she met his eyes, quickly looked away, her chest constricting with the burden of just that brief contact.

‘I know we’re doing speeches on Saturday,’ Faith said when she had managed to quieten the room. ‘So you’ll be glad to hear this isn’t a speech. Not a long one anyway. I just wanted to say thank you to my big sister.’

Hope started as everyone turned their attention from Faith to her. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, cursing her sister as she met the many smiles with a forced one of her own. Faith knew how much she hated attention.

‘There are so many thank-yous I owe her that I could keep you here all night and not finish. Most of you know that Hope raised me after our parents died. You might not know that she gave up her place at university to do it, that she planned to study archaeology and travel the world, instead she became a PA and worried about bills and balanced meals and cooking cakes for the PTA bake sale. She refused to touch the money our parents left us, raising me on her salary—and I never did without. It was only recently that I realised that while I didn’t go without, Hope often did. But she never made me feel like a burden. She always made me feel loved and secure and like I could be or do anything.’ Faith’s voice broke as she finished that sentence and Hope felt an answering lump in her own throat, a telltale heat burning in her eyes.

She heard a gulp of a sob from her aunt and a murmur from Misty but her eyes were fixed on her sister. The two of them against the world one last time.

‘She gave me this amazing day, the best wedding day a girl could have asked for, with only two weeks’ notice. She has always, always put me first. Now it’s time she put herself first and I am so happy that she’s decided to quit her job and go travelling.’

‘What?’ Hope wasn’t sure if anyone else heard Gael’s muffled exclamation as the room erupted into applause. ‘I know she can afford to do it by herself but, Hope, I hope you will accept this from Hunter and me.’ Faith held out an envelope. ‘It’s a round-the-world ticket and an account with a concierge who will organise all the visas and accommodation you need. It doesn’t even begin to pay you back for all you’ve done and all you are but I just want you to know how much I love you—and when Hunter and I start a family I just hope I can be half the mother you were to me.’ Faith was clambering off the chair as she spoke and the next minute the two girls were in each other’s arms, tears mingling as they held each other as if they would never let each other go. Only Hope knew as she kissed her sister’s hair that this was them letting go, this was where they truly moved on.

‘Thank you,’ she said as she reluctantly and finally moved back. ‘You absolutely didn’t have to...’

‘I wanted to. So did Hunter. It gives you three months to explore the US and South America before taking you to Australia, then New Zealand and from there to Japan and across Asia. You choose when and where—as long as you turn up in Sydney in three months’ time because that’s when we’ll be there and I hope you’ll join us for that leg.’

‘You can count on it.’ She knew this was the right thing for her to do, to start living some of the dreams she’d relinquished all those years ago. The world might seem larger, scarier—lonelier—than it had back then, but she was a big girl now. She’d cope. But as she glanced over at Gael’s profile a sense of something missing, something precious and lost shivered through her. She couldn’t leave without making sure things were mended between them. It wouldn’t be the same, not after the things they had said, but she wasn’t sure she would have had the courage to move on without him. He should know that. Because she knew he was broken too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT. A car was waiting outside to whisk Hunter and Faith back to the Waldorf Astoria where they had a luxury suite booked for two nights. Hope would see Faith in less than forty-eight hours at the blessing and party in Long Island but as she hugged her new brother-in-law and kissed her sister goodbye it was as if she was saying goodbye to a whole portion of her life.

The bride and groom departed in a flurry of kisses and congratulations and the party began to disperse as the bar staff efficiently began to set the room back up ready to reopen to the public. Hope’s aunt and uncle were taking their daughters and Faith’s friends back to the apartment Hope had booked for them, a day of non-wedding-related sightseeing waiting for them the next day. Hope had excused herself from joining them with the excuse that she still had some arrangements to finish for the Saturday—but in reality all she wanted to do was lie in her apartment and work out the rest of her life. She fingered the envelope her sister had given her. She had a year’s hiatus at least.

‘Congratulations on the travel plans. It seems a little sudden though.’ She shivered as Gael came up beside her, not touching and yet so close she could feel every line of his body as if they were joined by an invisible thread. Her body ached for him; she wanted to step back and lean into him and let him absorb her. Typical, first time she tried for a light-hearted fling and she was having to go full cold turkey, knowing one touch would drag her back in.

Okay, deep breath and light chit-chat. She could do this. ‘Sudden or really overdue. I was always going to go travelling after university. I had my route planned out. Lots and lots of ruins. Machu Picchu, the Bandelier national monument, Angkor Wat...’ Her voice trailed off as she imagined setting foot in the ancient places she had dreamed about studying.

‘What about Brenda, the job you wanted so much?’

‘I phoned her yesterday and handed in my notice. I know it seems that I’m just jumping into it but I’m not. It turns out there’s plenty of time to think at a spa day. I lay there on a massage table covered in God knows what, baking like a Christmas turkey, and your words echoed round and round.’

He caught her wrist and pulled her round to face him. The nerves in her wrist jumped to attention, shooting excited signals up her arm.

‘I was out of line.’

‘You were right,’ she said flatly. ‘I let life happen to me—I only did the job swap because Kit told me to apply. If he hadn’t I would still be in Stoke Newington, missing Faith, wearing baggy tunics with my hair four inches too long because regular haircuts feel like an extravagance, getting the same bus to work, eating the same sandwich on the same bench every lunchtime and not even allowing myself to dream of anything better. Thinking I didn’t deserve anything better.’

They moved aside with a muttered apology as a waiter pulled another table into place and a waitress pulled chairs across the floor, their legs screeching as they dragged on the wood. Gael winced. ‘Let’s get out of here. We’re going the same way, at least let’s share a cab.’

A cab pulled up almost the second they hit the pavement and Gael opened the door. ‘Will you come back to mine?’ he asked as she climbed in. ‘I have a bottle of white in the fridge. I would really like to clear the air before the party. We’re almost related now, after all.’

He’d bought a bottle of white wine. It was too little too late but it was something. ‘Okay.’ They did need to clear the air. The last thing she wanted was for Faith to know that they had been involved; it was all too messy.

They didn’t speak again until they reached his studio. It was only three days since she had last walked through the lobby, greeted the night porter and taken the exclusive lift that led up to Gael’s penthouse studio but she felt as if she had been away for months, suddenly unsure of her place in this world.

‘Wine?’ Gael asked as they stepped into the studio and Hope nodded. He’d bought it for her after all, a peace offering, it would be rude to say no.

She kicked off the pretty, vintage-style Mary Jane shoes, uttering a sigh of relief as her feet were freed from the straps and three-inch heels. She looked around, unsure where to sit. The chaise held too many memories, there was no way she was heading up the winding staircase to the small mezzanine, which contained a bed and very little else—and there was no other furniture in the place. Hope placed her shoes on the floor and followed Gael through to the kitchen instead, perching herself on one of the high stools as he poured wine from a bottle with an obscure—and expensive-looking—label.

‘To new adventures,’ she said, taking the glass he slid over to her and raising it in a toast. ‘My travels, your exhibition.’

‘When are you off? A month’s time?’

Hope took a sip of the wine. Oh, yes. Definitely expensive. You wouldn’t get a bottle of this in a price promotion in her local corner shop. ‘No. Next week.’

‘Next week?’ He set his glass down with an audible clink. ‘Didn’t you have to work out your notice?’

‘No, thanks to you signing the contract I was so far in Brenda’s good books that she’s offered me a year’s sabbatical. I don’t know if I’ll take it. Who knows what I’ll want to do or where I’ll want to be in a year’s time but there is a job with DL Media if I need it, which is reassuring.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s not easy being spontaneous all at once. Baby steps.’

‘But next week! Don’t you have to plan and pack and sort out an itinerary?’

Hope pulled the envelope Faith had given her out of her bag. ‘No, thanks to Faith. These people will sort it all out. I tell them where I want to go and they make sure I do. They’re already looking at converting my work visa here to a tourist one and sorting out everything I need for South America. I’ll spend a couple of days shipping some things home and sorting out what I need and then I’ll be ready to go. It’s working out really well actually. Maddison is coming to New York to clear the rest of her things out of the studio. If I leave she can cancel her rent. I don’t think she’s planning on coming back to the city.’

It would be interesting to meet her life-swap partner, the woman who captured Kit Buchanan’s heart. Funny how a six-month change of locations could alter things irrevocably. Maddison was engaged, moving countries, her whole world changing. Hope might be more alone than ever but at least she was no longer staying still.

‘You have it all organised, as always.’ There was a bleak tone in Gael’s voice she didn’t recognise but when she glanced at him his expression was bland.

‘The plane ticket is first class as well. I can’t believe they did this.’

‘I can. Your sister loves you, Hope.’

‘For the first time in nine years I feel unburdened. Free. I’ll always miss my parents and I’ll always regret the person I was but I’m ready to forgive myself.’ She forced herself to hold his steady, steely gaze. ‘Thanks to you, Gael. I’ll always be grateful.’

‘You won’t be here for the opening night of the exhibition.’

‘No.’ She blinked, surprised at the sudden change of subject. ‘I’m not sure I could have faced it anyway. People looking at me and then at the painting. It’d be a little like the nightmare when I’m walking down the street naked. Only it would be real.’

‘That’s a shame. I wanted you there.’ He paused while Hope gaped at him, floored by the unexpected words. He wanted her at his big night? As a model—or to support him? ‘Look. I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided not to show it, your painting.’

Time seemed to stand still, the blood rushing to her ears as she tried to take in his words. ‘But, you need it. The centrepiece. It’s less than three weeks away.’

‘I have nineteen pictures I am proud of. Nobody else knows I planned a larger twentieth. I’m not sure that I’ll ever paint a better picture than the one I did of you but I don’t need to show it. I’d rather not, knowing it makes you so uncomfortable.’

He was willing not to show the picture? After everything he had done to persuade her to pose? Even though he thought it was the best he had done? Hope had no idea how to respond, what to say. This graciousness and understanding was more than she had ever expected from anyone. She slid off the stool and walked to the door, pausing for a second as she took in the easel with the large canvas balanced perfectly on it dominating the empty space and then, with a fortifying breath, she went over to take a second look.

It wasn’t such a shock this time. Her skin was as white, her body as nude, she still wished she’d done daily sit-ups so that her stomach was concave rather than curved but, she conceded, her breasts looked rather nice. Biting her lip until she tasted blood, Hope forced herself to step in and examine her scars, remembering the pain and the secrecy and the self-hatred that went into every one of the silvery lines.

She pulled her gaze away from her torso and looked into her own eyes. Sad, wary, lonely. That was who she was; there was no getting away from it, no hiding. She shouldn’t blame Gael for painting what he saw. She could only blame herself. Well, no more.

‘Show it,’ she said. ‘I want you to. It’s real. Maybe one day you can paint me again and I’ll be a different person, a happier one.’

‘You can count on it.’ He was leaning against the door, watching her, hunger in his eyes. She recognised the hunger because she felt it too. Had felt it all day, this yearning to touch him, for him to touch her. For the world to fall away, to know nothing but him and the way he could make her feel; sexy, adored, powerful. Wanted.

She was leaving in less than a week. What harm could it do, one last time?

‘On Saturday we’re the best man and the bridesmaid once more. We have busy, sensible roles to play.’

The hunger in his eyes didn’t lessen; if anything it intensified. ‘I know.’

‘Sunday I’m helping Faith get ready to go off on her travels and then I need to spend a couple of days preparing for mine.’

Gael pushed away from the door frame and stalked a couple of steps closer. ‘Hope, what are you saying?’

Deep breath. She could do this. ‘I’m saying that this is the last time we can be ourselves, Hope and Gael. Painter and model. Carousel riders. Storytellers.’ She moistened her lips nervously. ‘Lovers.’

‘Last time?’

She nodded.

He smiled then, the wolfish smile that sent jolts of heat into every atom in her body, the smile that made her toes curl, her knees tremble and her whole body become one yearning mass. ‘Then we better make the most of it, hadn’t we?’

The morning sun streamed in through the huge windows, bathing the bed in a warm, rosy glow. Gael had barely slept and now he rolled over to watch Hope slumber, the dawn light tinging her skin a light pink, picking out auburn lights in her dark hair.

He felt complete, that all was right in his world. Probably, he decided sleepily, because Hope and he had tidied up their brief relationship, ending it in a mutually agreeable and agreed manner. No more messy arguments or avoiding each other, no more hurt emotions or dramas. Instead a civilised discussion and one last night together before they went their separate ways. Neat, tidy and emotionless. Just how he liked it.

It was a shame she wouldn’t be there for the opening night though; he would have liked to have seen her reaction when all the pictures were displayed together for the first time with her at the very heart of the show.

He trailed his finger over her shoulder, enjoying the silky feeling of her skin. She was right. Tomorrow they had their roles to play and those roles didn’t involve making out on the dance floor. Probably for the best that they had agreed last night was to be the final time.

But right now, in dawn’s early light, was in between times, neither last night nor today. They were out of time, which meant there were no rules if they didn’t want there to be. And that meant he could press his lips here, and here, and here...

‘Mmm...’ Hope rolled over, smiling the sleepy yet sated smile he had come to know and enjoy. ‘What time is it?’

‘Early, very early, so there’s no need to think about getting up yet,’ he assured her, dropping a brief kiss onto her full mouth, shifting so his weight was over her. ‘Can you think of any way to spend the time as we’re awake?’