‘Louise-’
‘You do see, don’t you?’ she asked, cutting short his attempt to interrupt, to tell her that it didn’t matter. Because it did. ‘You do see how wrong you are? Valentine blood does not flow through my veins. Not one drop of it. The only liquid connecting me to the Valentine family is the ink on the adoption certificate.’
‘Please, Lou.’ He caught her hand, refusing to let her pass him. Escape. ‘Don’t do anything hasty. Bella Lucia needs you.’ Then, almost as if it hurt him to say the words, he finally said what she’d always wanted to hear. ‘I need you.’
His words brought her up short. She might mock his dedication, but Max had always been the one everyone else depended on. The one that everyone else turned to in a crisis. For him to admit that he needed anyone had to be a first. For him to admit that he needed her…
‘Y-you sacked me,’ she said, more to remind herself what he’d done than jog his memory. It had been a scene neither of them was likely to forget. ‘In front of the entire restaurant. You didn’t care that I was family then-’
‘That was the problem, Lou,’ he cut in. Then, more gently, ‘That was always the problem.’
‘I-I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you?’
Of course she did. As a girl she’d worshipped him. She should have grown up, got over it. It hadn’t worked out like that. Quite the contrary. Even now he had the power to reduce her to a gibbering idiot, a mass of exposed hormones. All it took was the touch of his hand to turn her to jelly. If she didn’t get out of here now…
‘Don’t you?’ he insisted. ‘Are you really that stupid?’
‘Thanks for that, Max,’ she said, snatching away her hand. For a moment she’d thought that maybe, just maybe, they could make a fresh start but she’d been fooling herself. ‘You’ve just reminded me why I’d rather starve than work for you.’
As Louise strode towards the door a waiter held out her coat. She didn’t pause to let him help her into it, but grabbed it and as he leapt to open the door walked out into the cold rain.
She glanced up and down the street, hoping to spot a cruising cab, but there wasn’t a sign of one and, without stopping to put on her coat, she began to walk.
‘Not one drop…’
Max was rooted to the spot for long seconds as her words echoed in his head, as the reality of what that meant sank in.
‘Shall I bring the bill, sir?’
The waiter’s voice jerked him out of the moment of revelation and he realised that he was letting Louise walk away, that if he didn’t do something to stop her right now he’d have lost her, or, worse, that she wouldn’t stop walking until she was out of all their lives. Not just lost to him, but to the family who loved her.
Not bothering to reply, he tossed a credit card on the table and headed for the door.
The same waiter, apparently anticipating his reaction, was holding his coat out and the door open so that nothing should impede him.
Louise was walking swiftly along the street, the high heels of her boots ringing against the wet pavement, her coat trailing from her hand. The fact that she was oblivious to the rain now coming down in torrents, soaking her hair, soaking her through to the skin, gave him hope.
She was upset, angry. If she didn’t care, she would be neither.
‘Louise!’ His voice echoed along the empty street, but she neither slowed nor quickened her pace, made no sign that she’d heard him. ‘Wait!’
A cab turned the corner and, ignoring him, she raised a hand to hail it, forcing him to sprint along the pavement to head her off.
‘Here’s a point for you,’ he said breathlessly as he leaned against the door, blocking her escape.
She didn’t protest, just turned away as another cab appeared, but he reached out, caught her hand before she could summon it.
‘Here’s a point for you,’ he repeated more gently as with his free hand he picked a strand of wet hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Held it there. ‘You were adopted.’
‘Hallelujah,’ she said, but she didn’t move, didn’t toss her head to dislodge his hand. ‘For once in your life you were listening.’
Her words were spiky but her voice was ragged, hurting.
She was looking up at him, her eyes leaden in the street lighting, her lashes clumped together by the rain pouring down her cheeks. Or maybe it was tears and for a moment the impulse to kiss her almost overwhelmed him.
Not now…
He’d paid heed to the warning voice in his head all his adult life. Kept his distance even when the only thing in his head had been to stop her anger with his mouth, knowing that she wanted it, too; was goading him, tormenting him, tempting him to do something about the primal response that arc’d between them whenever they were in the same room; urging him to self-destruct. Now there was no impediment, no barrier, only hard-won self-restraint, some instinct warning him that this was not the moment.
‘I was listening,’ he told her, his voice cool, even though every other part of him was burning hot.
‘So?’
So kissing her suddenly seemed the most important thing in the entire world.
This is about the restaurant, not you!
He ignored the voice of common sense. This was important…
‘So you’re not my cousin, Louise.’
‘Give the man a coconut-’
Her skin felt like wet silk beneath his fingers. Her mouth was full and dark and suddenly all the wasted ‘touch not’ years crowded in on him, urging him to taste it, taste her.
‘And if we’re not cousins,’ he continued, a little shakily, ‘we don’t have a problem, do we?’
Not now, idiot! Bella Lucia is more important than scratching a ten year itch.
But…
You’ll blow the whole deal if you kiss her, because it wouldn’t stop at a kiss. She’d come along for the ride, she wouldn’t be able to help herself, but what then? She’d never forgive you…
But she’d come…
‘We don’t?’ she asked, a tiny frown creasing the centre of her forehead. She drew in a breath as if to pursue it further, then shook her head, clearly thinking better of it. ‘You’re taking me for granted, Max,’ she said.
‘No…’
He denied it, but without sufficient conviction to stop her.
‘Yes! You believe that all you have to do is turn up, snap your fingers and I’ll fall in line. I have a career, a successful business, a life of my own-’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. You owe me nothing. But think of Bella Lucia. Think of your father…’
She jerked free of his touch then and he knew that in clumsily mentioning her father, he’d made things worse rather than better. She could have no idea how he’d felt as he’d watched her with her parents. Proper parents who always put her first. Doted on her…
She was hurting too much to listen to him tell her how lucky she was. How lucky she’d been all her life. Right now, he suspected, there was nothing he could say that would help. Maybe he would, after all, have been better served by less thought, more action but he’d missed the moment, allowed her to climb back on her high horse.
‘Enough,’ he said, letting it go. ‘You’re wet through.’ He took her coat, wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘You need to go home, get warm.’ He opened the cab door, saw her safely in and this time resisted the temptation to join her, but instead, on an impulse, said, ‘Would you like some company tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’
Louise couldn’t think straight. They weren’t cousins. Well, she’d understood that. In theory. She just hadn’t thought through what that meant. Hadn’t anticipated exactly how she’d feel in that dangerous moment when, for a heartbeat, she’d been sure Max had been about to kiss her. Finally. At last…
‘When you meet this woman who says she’s your mother,’ he prompted, bringing her back to earth.
‘She is my mother.’
‘Is she? Really? More so than Ivy? I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to get my head around that.’
