Or was she angry with Caroline Stowe for having taken her in, and Kincaid merely happened to be the nearest available target?
Perhaps it was just the waste of it all that made her feel like chucking something.
Sid uncurled himself from his nest on the sofa, stretching, and came to her. He elongated his sleek body as he rubbed around her ankles and butted his head against her legs. She bent to scratch him in the soft spot under his chin, and his throat began to vibrate under her fingertips. “Hullo, Sid. You’ve got the right idea tonight—warm and dry. We should all be so lucky.”
She looked around the familiar and comfortable room. Light from the lamps Kincaid had switched on spilled out in warm pools, illuminating his collection of brightly colored London transport posters. The coffee table held a haphazard pile of books and an empty mug, and the sofa a crumpled afghan rug. Gemma felt a sudden pang of longing. She wanted to feel at home here, wanted to feel safe.
“I didn’t know about underthings,” said Kincaid, returning from the bedroom carrying a stack of folded clothes with a big fluffy towel on the top. “I suppose you’ll have to make do.” He deposited the jeans and sweatshirt on the sofa and draped the towel around her shoulders. “Oh, and socks. I forgot socks.”
Wiping her face with one end of the towel, Gemma began fumbling with her sodden braid. Her fingers were too numb with cold to work properly, and she felt tears of frustration smart behind her eyelids.
“Let me help,” he said gently. He turned her around and deftly worked loose the braid, combing her hair out with his fingers. “Now.” Rotating her until she faced him again, he began rubbing her head with the towel. His hair stood on end where he had scrubbed at it, and his skin smelled warm and damp.
The weight of his hands against her head seemed to physically crumble her defenses, and she felt her legs go limp and boneless, as if they could no longer support her weight. She closed her eyes against the faintness, thinking
He stopped his toweling of her hair, looking at her with concern. “Sorry,” he said. “Did I get carried away?”
When she managed to shake her head, he let the towel slide to her shoulders and began gently rubbing her neck and the back of her head. She thought disjointedly of Rob—he had never looked after her like this. No one had. And nowhere in her calculations had she reckoned with the power of tenderness, irresistible as gravity.
The pressure of his hand on the back of her head brought her a stumbling step forward, against him, and she gasped with shock as his weight pressed her icy clothes to her skin. She turned her face up, and of its own volition her hand reached for him, cupping the back of his damp head, pulling his mouth down to meet hers.
Drowsily, Gemma raised herself on one elbow and looked at him, realizing she’d never seen him asleep. His relaxed face seemed younger, softer, and the fan of his eyelashes made dark shadows on his cheeks. His eyelids fluttered for an instant, as if he were dreaming, and the corners of his mouth turned up in the hint of a smile.
She reached out to smooth the unruly chestnut hair from his brow and froze. Suddenly, in that small act of intimacy, she saw the enormity, the absurdity, of what she had done.
She drew her hand back as if stung. Oh dear God, what had she been thinking of? What on earth had possessed her? How could she face him at work in the morning, say, “Yes, guv, no, guv, right-oh, guv,” as if nothing had happened between them?
Her heart racing, she slid carefully from the bed. They’d left a trail of wet clothes across the bedroom, and as she disentangled hers from the jumble she felt tears fill her eyes. She swore under her breath.
She had done what she’d sworn she’d never do. As hard as she’d worked to earn her position, to be considered an equal, a colleague, she’d shown herself no better than any tart who slept her way up the ladder. A wave of dizziness swept over her as she stepped into her skirt and she swayed.
What could she do now? Ask for a transfer? Everyone would know why—she might as well wear a sign and save them speculating. Resign? Give up her dreams, let all her hard work turn to dust in her fingers? How could she bear it? Oh, she would have sympathy and a plausible excuse—too hard a life for a single mum, a need to spend more time with her son—but she would know how badly she had failed.
Kincaid stirred and turned, freeing an arm from the covers. Staring at him, she tried to memorize the curve of his shoulder, the angle of his cheek, and her heart contracted with longing and desire. She turned away, afraid of her own weakness.
In the sitting room she squelched her bare feet into her shoes and gathered up her coat and bag. The dry jeans and sweater he’d brought her still lay neatly folded on the sofa, and the towel he’d used to dry her hair lay crumpled on the floor. She picked it up and held its soft nap against her cheek, imagining that it smelled faintly of shaving soap. With exaggerated care she folded it and placed it beside the clothes, then let herself quietly out of the flat.
When Gemma reached the street door, she found the rain still coming down in relentless sheets, a solid wall of water. She stood for a moment, watching it. In her traitorous mind she imagined running back up the stairs and into the flat, shedding her clothes and climbing back into bed beside his sleeping form.
She pushed open the door, stepped slowly out into the rain and crossed the road, making no effort to shield herself. The dim outline of the Escort was familiar, comforting even. Scrabbling for the handle like one blind, she wrenched the door open and half fell into the driver’s seat. She wiped her streaming face with her hands and started the engine.
The radio blared into life and instead of hitting the off switch, she reflexively jammed a tape into the player. Caroline Stowe’s voice filled the car as Violetta sang her last aria, begging for life, for love, for the physical strength to match her courageous will.
Gemma put her head down against the steering wheel and wept.
After a moment she mopped her face with some tissues and put the car into gear, and when the music finished the only sound was the drumming of the rain against the roof.
The soft click of a door penetrated Kincaid’s consciousness. He struggled toward the surface of sleep, but it clung to him tenaciously, dragging him down again into its cotton-wool depths. His body felt boneless, warmly lethargic, and his eyelids seemed to have acquired surplus weight. Rousing himself enough to tuck his exposed arm under the covers, he felt the sheet cool and empty beside him. He blinked. Gemma. She must have gone to the
