Playing With Fire

Maybe she shouldn’t even be trying. ‘You’re the one who insisted on barging back into my life,’ she grumbled, pulling her hand from his. ‘If you don’t like what you’ve found, you know what you can do.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t like it. And I won’t let you push me away. I’ve only just got you back. I’m not going anywhere.’

He sounded as sure and confident as ever, and that really grated because she knew it wasn’t the truth. He was going somewhere; that’s what had scared her off him in the first place. She called bullshit on the barefaced lie. ‘That’s not true, is it? You’re going back to Ireland.’

* * *

The accusation – which, from the tone of Annabel’s delivery, was undeniably what it was – caught Aidan by surprise. In the context of their current discussion, the reference to Ireland had been the last thing he’d expected.

They’d spoken a bit about his restoration of the Tulaí estate and distillery over coffee earlier in the evening. It had been a childhood dream of his to renovate the derelict manor house that sat perched on a clifftop overlooking the little coastal village of Carriglea in County Cork where he’d grown up. A dream that had been all but forgotten when the path to adulthood had led him to a successful financial career in the City of London. It hadn’t been until he’d found himself back in his parents’ house, on the long road to recovery from the stroke caused by the pressures of that high-flying career, that he’d started to think on it again; started wondering whether the silly City money he’d made could be used to turn the dream into a reality. Rather than give in to the frustration and self-pity brought on by his painfully slow rehabilitation and restricted physical abilities, he’d begun pursuing the idea from his sickbed, giving himself something other than despair to aim for.

In the end, the process had turned out to be every bit as difficult as his recovery. With a longstanding family feud hanging over the property, the purchase negotiations had been drawn out and fragile, under constant threat of collapse. It wasn’t until after his health had recovered and he’d returned to London and met Annabel that he’d learned of his success in acquiring the estate. She’d discovered his plans before he’d had a chance to tell her himself, and that had been the catalyst that had sent her running away from him.

Earlier this evening, he’d taken care to explain to her that the project was still largely in the planning stages, that it would be a couple of years before the house was up and running as an exclusive hotel and required him to be there full-time. The fact that she was throwing it up as an issue now told him a lot about the undercurrents swirling beneath her display of bravado.

It also gave him hope. Because, if the thought of him leaving bothered her that much, it meant she cared, too – even though she was currently doing her damnedest to protect herself by pretending she didn’t.

It took a herculean effort not to grin like a madman.

Not that he didn’t have a sackful of his own concerns. He couldn’t deny that the timing was truly awful. Even at her easiest, Annabel Frost was more trouble than he’d come across before in his life, and the scale of the commitment he was already having to put into making the hotel venture work was immense. Splitting his attention successfully between two such demanding, high-intensity tasks was going to be no mean feat. Especially when, for the sake of his continuing good health, he needed to keep his life as stress-free as possible, ease back up to his pre-stroke speed. How he was going to manage that when he was already screeching away from the starting line with his foot on the floor he had no idea, but he’d find a way. He’d have to. Because choosing one or the other wasn’t an option; he wanted both things equally badly, and he intended doing whatever it took to ensure he got to have both …

Starting right now with convincing the complex and complicated Ms Frost that despite her fears she wanted him every bit as badly. And, rather than waste a moment more getting nowhere with this current war of words, he could think of a much more satisfying way for them to express their feelings.

‘Eventually,’ he said, reaching out to remove the spoon from her fingers and setting it on the worktop before retaking her hand. ‘But not tonight.’

He saw her eyes widen a fraction as they registered the new intent in his. Before she could even think about retreating, he used the hand he held to pull her to him and slid his other arm around her waist.

She was resistant, raising her free hand between them to press her palm against his chest. ‘I think you should go home.’

‘I’m not leaving you like this.’ And by that he meant he doubted he could physically force himself to do so. Not with her cries of her distress still ringing in his ears. The sounds she made in her sleep had been heart-wrenching, spine-chilling. ‘Don’t ask me to.’

‘Why not?’ she huffed. ‘I’ve managed on my own for the past six weeks.’

It was a fair comment only because she had no idea how hard it had been for him to let her go when she’d run out on him. How hard he’d had to fight himself to let her have the time and space to calm down, in the hope she’d regret her actions, come to her senses.

But now all the regret lay with him. If he’d had any idea that her nights had been hijacked by such terrible dreams, had any inkling that she’d been too stubborn to get the assistance she needed to help her heal and move on, he’d have come after her like a shot.

God, the memory of what had happened that day was still enough to turn his bowels to liquid. He’d never forget the moment he stormed in to find Annabel on the floor, bloody and barely conscious, fighting for her life while Tony Maplin, in a drunken rage, straddled her, one hand clenched around her throat, the other clutching a gin bottle aloft ready to smash it down into her face.

If Aidan had been haunted by that horrific scene replaying in his head countless times, gripped by the fear of what would have happened if he’d been even a split second later, how much worse must it be for her?

And she’d been trying to tough things out without any support? He would never have believed it, not even of the obstinate Ms Frost, but now that the knowledge sat like a sickening weight in his gut there was no way he was going to leave her to face her nightmares alone. Not tonight.

‘Six weeks neither of us wants to go through again.’ He ducked his head and pressed his lips gently to the hard line of her mouth. ‘Forget the coffee and the TV and come back to bed. Seeing as we’re both awake, I’ve got a better idea how we can pass the time.’

Chapter Four

Standing in the chilly afternoon shadows that stretched over the Soho pavement, Aidan watched through the glass pane of Cluny’s front door as Tim, the assistant manager, came towards him. Chewing a mouthful of food and grinning, the fair-haired Australian threw the lock.

‘G’day, mate!’ he cried in his distinctive twang as he swung the door open. ‘Good to see ya.’

‘You, too,’ Aidan said, stepping into the welcoming, aroma-infused warmth of the restaurant. With a classic décor of polished wood and shiny fittings, Cluny’s was a successful, well-respected London establishment. It was also owned by his uncle, and it had been through that family connection that Aidan had found himself temporarily working there six months earlier. Bored by his long recovery from the stroke and eager to feel useful and self-sufficient again, he’d jumped at the chance to fill the shoes of the head barman who’d walked out without notice. Even though he’d been there a relatively short time before the breakup with Annabel had precipitated the end of his stand-in role, the timeless elegance of the European-style interior felt instantly familiar.

He dropped his overnight bag by the coat-rack and shook Tim’s hand as a hail of greetings came from deeper inside. Seated around several tables that had been pushed together, an assembled group of employees were tucking into their staff meal ahead of the upcoming evening service.

Following Tim across the room, Aidan spied Annabel seated at one end of the table, her expression a mask of stiff silence amid a sea of smiles as she stared back at him. He’d been fully expecting this unscheduled visit to catch her unawares, but he’d bet her surprise was no match for his own at seeing her sitting there. From what he’d learned from his time working for her, Ms Frost had never joined in with the daily staff meal. She’d preferred to keep a professional distance by eating alone in her office, and, with her fearsome reputation as an ice queen, the staff had been only too happy not to have her spoiling their appetites.

Although he wouldn’t go so far as to say the scene in front of him now painted a picture of perfect, cosy contentment, things had obviously started to change since she’d returned to work after the attack. Maybe, with both sides showing a bit more understanding and compassion for the other, Annabel’s frosty outer layers were starting to thaw.

Approaching the table, Aidan said hello to old faces including sweet-natured Donna, the waitress, Jon, the junior barman, and Stu, who’d been taken on as Aidan’s permanent replacement.

‘How come you’ve been such a stranger?’ Tim asked with a theatrical pout as he retook his seat and swiped a hunk of crusty bread around his bowl to collect the last of the thick dark sauce clinging to the sides. ‘You haven’t been in to see us once since you left. Have you moved back to Ireland already and become Lord of the Pile, or do you just not love us any more?’

In his peripheral vision, Aidan could see Annabel still sitting as if frozen. From the moment they’d first met, she’d made it clear that one of her rules was never to mix her business and personal life. What’s more, she’d particularly disapproved of workplace attachments. As a gambling man, he’d found the challenge of trying to make her break her own rules irresistibly attractive, of course, and had relished every moment of the campaign he’d undertaken to make it happen. Some of the tactics he’d employed had been far from fair, he’d be the first to admit, but, no matter how dirty he’d been prepared to play in private, he’d always respected her need for professional discretion. Was their relationship still her guilty little secret, he wondered, even though their circumstances had now changed?

‘Lord of the Rubble Pile, maybe,’ he said. ‘And no, I haven’t moved back yet, but I’ve not been in London much either. Getting this renovation project off the ground hasn’t left me with much time for anything but filling out forms and jumping through planning hoops.’

‘Then sit with us for a moment, mon ami,’ Anton Dubois, Cluny’s award-winning head chef, invited in his thick French accent. He reached to take the lid off a large casserole dish in the centre of the table with a flourish. ‘Have some bourguignon and tell us all your news.’

Aidan shook his head in regret. ‘As delicious as it looks and smells, no, thanks. I’m actually on my way to catch a flight back to Cork now. I had to stop by to see Annabel about something.’ They didn’t need to know that the something was, in fact, nothing; that, rather than heading straight to the airport as he’d intended, he’d given in to a compulsion to come by for no other reason than to see her before taking off for Ireland.

Annabel all but leaped to her feet. ‘Why don’t you come through to the office?’ she said, looking eager to hustle him out of there.

Leaving the rest of the staff to finish their meal, he followed as she took off towards the kitchens as fast as the narrow fit of her pencil skirt would allow. It had been a week since their reconciliation, and during those seven days they’d managed to meet a few times, though not nearly as often as he’d have liked. Trying to work a social life around the long shifts typical of the restaurant trade was bad enough, but with someone as driven as Annabel – who worked over and above what was expected in order to keep up with her own exacting standards – it was harder yet. Still, determined as he was to stick to his promise of dating her properly, he’d managed to pin her down one morning for an early brunch, taken her to a movie on her night off and, as a chance to grab some precious time together before he had to head back to Ireland today, he’d met her for a nightcap at the end of her shift last night.

What they hadn’t managed to do at any point in the week was spend another entire night together. Following the nightmare incident at her place, Annabel had thrown out all sorts of excuses as a way of ensuring they’d both ended up sleeping alone each night in their respective beds. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was actively avoiding the situation for fear of risking a repeat performance.

Ahead of him, she pushed through the doors into the kitchens without breaking her stride. Once he was through, leaving the doors to swing to behind him, Aidan closed the distance between them and reached out to rest his hand at the small of her back as he fell into step beside her.

Annabel sprang away from the touch as though jabbed with a hot poker.

‘Not here,’ she muttered, casting a look back over her shoulder. ‘What if someone sees?’

Well, there was his answer to the question of guilty secrets, then. He tried not to take it personally. ‘Ashamed of me?’ he teased.

‘No.’ Annabel cast him a flustered look. ‘It’s … it doesn’t feel comfortable.’

It was hard to keep remembering that even relatively casual gestures of affection were alien to her. While Annabel was no stranger to sexual encounters, she’d never been in a romantic relationship with a man. It felt good to know he’d get to be her first.

Her only, a growling echo emanated from the man-cave set in the deep recesses of his brain. He quickly blocked, in case any further club-swinging, chest-beating thoughts tried to escape.

‘It doesn’t feel comfortable because you’re not used to it.’ Which was something he intended to rectify. Starting now. He caught her hand and tightened his grip when her automatic reaction was to pull away.

Finding that she was unable to wrench herself free, Annabel settled for picking up speed and towing him across the kitchen instead. ‘Maybe. But I don’t think this is the place for it. Not at work. Not in front of the staff.’

‘Why not? Why shouldn’t they know you’re a normal human being?’ Aidan asked as she rushed him with small, scissoring steps through the rear doorway into the hallway leading to the staff room and her office. ‘I have nothing to do with the place any more, so there’s no threat to your authority, no reason not to have a relationship outside your business life.’

Before she could continue to find points to argue, he decided to nip the issue in the bud. Using his superior strength he pulled her to a stop and swung her to face him. ‘The bottom line is, I like touching you, Annabel. I like it very much. So you’re going to have to find a way to get used to it.’

He meant to reinforce his words with appropriate action right there and then, but before he could gather her close she dodged out of his reach and employed some strength of her own to tug him from the hallway and into the office. She rounded on him then. ‘There’s a time and place for it – preferably private on both counts.’

Private? Now that they were in this room he had the perfect solution to that. ‘How about we go down into the cellar?’ He inclined his head towards the locked door set in the wall behind her desk. ‘Just you and me and your tights. You are wearing tights, I presume?’ When he went to close the distance between them, she stepped backwards. Keeping hold of her hand, he began stalking her retreat across the room. ‘We already know it’s private enough down there that I could do anything I wanted to you.’ Annabel gave ground to his advance until she was backed up against her desk, trapped. He kept moving until there was not so much as an inch of space separating them. Then he released her hand, grasped her by the upper arms and held her firm. ‘Would you like that?’

He saw her wet her lips and swallow before she answered. ‘No,’ she said, but the denial was rendered unconvincing by the sudden husky quality of her voice.

‘You sure?’ Noting the flush blossoming over her fair skin, the sudden shortness of her breath, he’d bet her mind was full of the same x-rated images as were currently filling his own. He felt a self-satisfied smile tug at his lips. ‘Maybe I’ll just carry you down there anyway. Kidnap you and keep you naked to use as my sex slave.’

That earned him a flash from her eyes. ‘That wouldn’t end well for you.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t doubt it. But it’s a risk I’d willingly take. Besides, I could make use of those tights to tie you up.’

‘I’d scream. People would hear.’

‘Not if I gagged you,’ he threatened. ‘Oh, yes, I’m liking this idea more and more. Gagged. Bound. Naked …’ His words fell away in the face of the image they conjured in his mind. He wondered how long he’d be able to make himself last, taking her to the brink of pleasure again and again, until she was delirious with it. Begging him with those green eyes. Good God. Focusing his gaze on hers, he lost himself in the depths. ‘You’d have me totally at your mercy,’ he murmured.

She blinked at him. ‘I think you mean that the other way round.’

He shook his head slowly. She hadn’t the first inkling of the power she’d wield through such an act of submission. No idea of how completely she could bring him to his knees. Own him. ‘No. I meant exactly what I said.’

A clatter and a shout as something was dropped in the nearby kitchen broke the spell. Shaking off the sensual haze, Annabel slipped sideways from his hold and cleared her throat.

‘What did you want to see me about?’

He watched her hasty retreat to the other side of the desk. ‘Chicken,’ he ribbed with amusement, not the least deterred from his intention to have all that strong-willed woman freely submit to him one day. He pulled his phone from his hip pocket. ‘Can we take a look at the upcoming shift roster? I want to make a note of what days you have free.’

‘Why?’ she questioned, voice laced with enough suspicion to suggest he’d asked her to divulge state secrets.

‘So I can plan how best to split my time between here and Carriglea.’ He rounded the desk himself as she lowered herself into her chair. If the Tulaí project seemed full-on now in the early planning stages, he could only imagine how much more demanding things would become once construction started. ‘I’m going to be a busy boy. I need a schedule to work to.’

Annabel obviously approved of his sense of organisation, because without further ado she logged into the computer and called up the staff roster. Looking over her shoulder, he began plugging the relevant information into the diary app on his phone.

‘Also, can you block yourself out for the second weekend in June? We’ve an invite to Monaco for Damien Harcourt’s thirtieth birthday.’ One of the lasting legacies from Aidan’s time in the City was his friendship with the enigmatic entrepreneur. Once one of his major clients, Damien had turned out to share Aidan’s passion for gambling and equalled his skill at the poker table. With a family fortune worth billions, he also inhabited a very different world from most mere mortals – a rarefied world of glamour and fame which Annabel had had a small taste of when they’d been his guests at a spectacular, star-studded New Year’s Day ball in Vienna.

She looked up at him, her eyebrows raised. ‘We?’

‘Yes, we. As a couple.’

He watched her turn away and return her attention to the computer screen, leaving him to wonder what she thought about others rating them officially as a pair. ‘And before you look for excuses to say you can’t go – that’s plenty of notice to work out cover here, and it’s all expenses paid by Damien. He sends his regards, by the way.’

‘But,’ she said, sounding cornered, ‘I don’t really know him.’

He couldn’t help liking it when ballsy Ms Frost showed her nerves. ‘All the more reason to come along. Because that’s generally how you do get to know people, Annabel, by spending time with them.’ Something she was obviously out of practice with. ‘Note it in the diary for now and think about it later.’

Once he had all her days off for the next couple of months logged onto his calendar, Aidan put the phone back in his pocket. ‘Done.’

Annabel turned to look him in the eye again. ‘You didn’t have to come in to do this, you know. You could have asked me about it any time. Or phoned.’

He grinned and nodded, delighted that she’d caught him out, seen the ruse for what it was. ‘I could have easily done that, yes.’

The frank confession made her smile, too. A rare, spontaneous smile that lit up her face and left him feeling ridiculously proud to know his actions had pleased her.

‘So.’ All too quickly, Annabel slid her mask of cool control back on. She logged out of the computer and rose to her feet. ‘Have you got everything you wanted?’

‘Not quite.’ He scooped her against him and kissed her. A long, slow melding of mouths. A kiss to carry him through until his return to London the following week.

They were both a little breathy, a little dazed, by the time he pulled back.

Looking into her eyes as he stroked a thumb over her cheek, he asked, ‘Would you do me one favour while I’m gone, a mhuirnín?’

‘Maybe,’ she said, guarded even though her gaze was still a soft-focus green.

‘Think about getting some help for the nightmares. A counsellor, or Victim Support or even your GP. Anything you choose.’

She instantly stiffened under his touch. A single blink and her gaze was once again clear and sharp. But instead of biting his head off she simply muttered, ‘OK, I’ll think about it,’ without any fight at all.

As if he’d been born yesterday and couldn’t recognise a bluff when he saw one. She’d literally keep to her word and ‘think’ about it, but nothing more. If she thought he’d let her get away with that, she had another thing coming.

‘You do that.’ He grasped her lightly by the chin to ensure he had her attention. ‘And just so you know, as well as working on the touching in public thing when I get back, we’re going to be getting you a whole lot better acquainted with the use of the word “yes”.’ He shifted his fingers to cover her lips as they parted. ‘Because I have to admit, all this denial and prevarication is becoming a bit predictable.’

Replacing his fingers with his lips, he pressed one last swift, hard kiss to her gaping mouth.

‘Have a good week. See you next Monday,’ he said, and strode out of her office before she had time to stick him with a pencil.

Chapter Five

The following Sunday night, Annabel trudged up the stairs to her flat. Although a quiet dinner service at Cluny’s meant it was only 10.30, she felt beyond shattered. With her mother now home from the hospital, she’d been relegated to sleeping on the sofa and, as she’d predicted, her already disturbed nights had got worse. Much worse. Her entire body ached to the point that she’d started to wonder whether it would be more comfortable to bed down on the floor.

Which was why she’d been glad when Aidan had phoned earlier to tell her he was back in London and invited her to spend the night at his place. For a moment she’d considered insisting that they stick to their original plan of meeting up tomorrow on her day off, even though she was sure she was too tired even to dream tonight. But if the idea of a warm, sexy Irishman hadn’t been enough of an incentive to lure her into accepting his offer, the prospect of a night in his big comfy bed had proved irresistible.

All she had to do now was stay awake long enough to collect some clothes and grab a cab over to East London.

She turned her key in the lock and pushed open her front door. Over the noise of the TV coming from inside she was surprised to hear a familiar deep, Irish-accented voice. Sure enough, when she made her way to her sitting room she found Aidan, standing with her mother by the bookcase, the two of them absorbed in conversation.