The Trouble With Choices Read online

  ‘Nice,’ he managed to force past the lump, knowing that he needed to get out of there. He’d seen more than enough.

  ‘You see! So now, tell me this suite is not worth the money.’

  He fingered the bottle of champagne, taking a closer look at the neck. Of course it was French. She’d really gone for broke, all right. ‘Did he know you had this room booked?’

  ‘Who?’

  He turned around, saw her testing out the mattress, bouncing up and down and grinning like a kid who’d been let loose in a toy store. ‘The guy you planned all this for. Mr No-Show.’

  ‘Jason?’ She stood up, her delight falling from her face as she turned and smoothed the bed where she’d sat. ‘No. He had no idea.’

  ‘It was supposed to be a surprise, huh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What a loser.’

  She laughed a little at that, a fractured laugh. Before she cut it off with a swallow and blinked too quickly. ‘Yeah. You said it. A real loser.’

  Suddenly, her excitement and delight at exploring every nook and cranny of her accommodation was gone.

  ‘Sophie,’ he said, the change in her tugging at him as he realised it had all been an act, and the fragile, brittle facade of joy she’d carried with her into the hotel had cracked and shattered to fall and scatter like the rose petals that littered her bed.

  ‘You should go, Nick,’ she said, looking at the floor, her hands clutching her arms, her fingers biting into her skin.

  He’d been on the cusp of leaving. He’d been that close to stepping back into that private lobby and out the door. Now, he had a choice to make. He took a step towards her.

  ‘No!’ she said, putting up one hand. ‘I’m warning you, it’s going to get messy in here any second and you really don’t want to be around to witness that. Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you round.’

  She spun away from him and turned her head to the ceiling, clearly waiting for him to go. He heard her drag in a shuddering breath, practically willing him to walk away, and he didn’t know what to do except he knew he had no choice, and that he couldn’t leave her, not like this. Not when it had been his words that had tipped her over the edge.

  It was instinct that propelled his feet and took him to her, pure instinct that saw his hands on her shoulders to turn her. ‘Sophie,’ he said, as her keening sob tore apart what was left of her composure.

  ‘I thought he loved me,’ she said, collapsing against his shoulder. ‘I wanted him to love me.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, rocking her gently as he held her close to him, while she cried great heaving sobs. One hand stroked her hair as hot tears soaked into his shirt. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

  ‘It’s not okay. Jason said—’

  ‘Forget Jason. He’s a loser.’

  ‘No,’ she said, sniffing. ‘I’m the loser. I’m pathetic.’ She dissolved into a fresh round of tears, clinging to him, crying her heart out, while he rocked her from side to side to the sounds of his namesake, Nick Cave wondering about the existence of angels.

  This Nick didn’t know much about angels, and he also wasn’t sure when comforting someone in distress had moved to something more carnal, but he did know a real woman when he felt one, and Sophie Faraday was all woman. He’d been carting an erection around most of the night that had her name written on it and it was all he could do not to press her sweet body hard against it.

  ‘You’re not pathetic,’ he told her. ‘So you made a mistake. You’re human. It’s allowed.’

  ‘I drove him away. I’m hopeless.’

  ‘You’re beautiful.’

  Her shuddering stopped. She snuffled against his chest. ‘What did you just say?’

  He hesitated. He was standing on the edge of a precipice and whether he was pushed or he jumped was up to Sophie. Either way, it was a long way to fall, but there was no going back. ‘I said you’re beautiful.’

  Tentatively, slowly, she peeled her head from his sodden shirt, blinking up at him through red, puffy eyes and her hair stuck to the side of her tear-ravaged face, and still she was gorgeous. ‘Are you crazy?’

  He smiled a little at that, because she was right, but not because he was wrong. ‘I think I must be.’ And he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers. Nothing more than a press, a meeting of his lips with hers, a shared breath between them, and she tasted sweet and salty, warm and achingly real.

  It took every bit of restraint he owned not to push harder. She was hurting and it would be wrong to take advantage of her, especially when she’d made it more than plain that he wasn’t her type. She’d probably slap his face for that and he’d deserve every bit of it, but all he knew was that he couldn’t not kiss her.

  Her eyes were wide and confused when he lifted his mouth away. ‘You really are crazy.’ She sounded slightly breathless, her voice low and husky, and the sound of it stroked his senses. Because she hadn’t pulled away, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she wasn’t about to sling him out in disgust. But he had to know for sure, before he made more of a fool of himself than he already had.

  ‘Tell me to go again, and I will.’

  ‘Don’t you dare go anywhere,’ she said. ‘At least, not before you kiss me one more time.’

  He growled as he pulled her closer, the sound reverberating down through her bones to her toes and up again before lodging deep in the pit of her belly. Then his mouth was on hers and she felt a rush of heat as his lips moved over hers, and thankfully they weren’t gentle this time, but urgent. Heated. Insistent.

  Hungrily, she parted her lips and he accepted her invitation, and she felt the sweep of his tongue and tasted him in her mouth, reminded of dark chocolate and coffee beans, rich and decadent and masculine.

  He tasted all man.

  He felt all man, his lips softer than you would ever guess, his whiskered skin rough against hers, the sensations contrasting and melding in their heated breath and making her dizzy with desire, a desire further fuelled by the feel of his muscled flesh shifting under her seeking hands.

  Oh God, Nick Pasquale was kissing her and she was burning up.

  Nick Pasquale!

  How was this even happening?

  Breathless and disbelieving, she drew herself back from his kiss, and slowly, as if reluctantly, he let her go, his breathing as ragged as her own, his blue eyes looking as perplexed as she felt.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, panting for air as she licked lips that felt full and more sensitive than she could remember. ‘This is you. You’ve always treated me like I was your little sister.’

  He laughed slightly through his own choppy breathing, before pressing his lips to her forehead. ‘Is that what you thought? I can promise you I’m not thinking big-brotherly thoughts about you right now.’

  Heat flared deep in her belly. She swallowed. ‘Tell me. What kind of thoughts are you having?’

  ‘Dangerous thoughts. Reckless thoughts.’ He ran his hands down the length of her spine, cupping her behind, squeezing and pressing her against his hardness. ‘Thoughts I’ll no doubt be ashamed of come daylight.’

  His words fed into her need, the press of him an intoxication headier than any wine. In answer, she ground her hips against him. ‘In that case, you better show me while it’s still dark.’

  A sound tore from his throat, half agony, half victory, before he pulled her closer, his hot mouth finding her throat this time, burning trails of fire under her skin that merged and raged into a firestorm between her thighs, before he swung her into his arms and tumbled them onto the rose-petal-strewn bed.

  It was some time later before Sophie had a coherent thought in her head, still panting as the smouldering ashes of her body pieced themselves back together. She blinked. God, she’d needed that. But who would have guessed it would be Nick Pasquale who would make it happen?

  Then again, the plans for this night had been so perfected and polished, she’d been well and truly primed to go off tonight, all she’d needed was a
willing partner. She stretched and smiled luxuriously at that. She probably could have taken the Abominable Snowman to bed and still gone off like a firecracker.

  Take that, Jason!

  Hmm.

  She settled back into her pillows. That was interesting. Funny how she could think of him now without pain lancing through her, when he’d caused her so much pain before. ‘I don’t think I really loved him.’

  The man she’d thought slumbering next to her stiffened. ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, not realising she’d spoken out loud. ‘Jason, I mean, I couldn’t have loved him, surely? Not if I can turn around and have sex with somebody else ten minutes after he dumps me and not feel bad or guilty about it. Maybe I didn’t love him at all. That’s mental.’

  There was a pause. A sigh. ‘I don’t know,’ he offered, his voice little more than a sleepy murmur. ‘Maybe you’re just in love with the idea of being in love.’

  She blinked. ‘You think?’ But it was a question directed more at herself than at him, which would have been pointless anyway, because already she’d felt his body heavying next to hers, his muscles relaxing, his breathing slowing in rhythm with the hush of the valley around them.

  And he felt warm and all kinds of wonderful beside her, but it was to his simple, if sleepy assessment that her thoughts turned—that she was in love with being in love. He was wrong of course. He was a man. What would he know?

  Still, she turned the concept over and over in her head, prodding it, testing it, examining it from all angles, before discarding it again as nonsense.

  It was laughable, really. All she wanted was what Lucy and Dan had. The real deal. True love. And who could judge her harshly for wanting that? Nobody, that’s who.

  Whereas, if she was merely in love with being in love, then surely she’d be dreaming of her perfect wedding and her perfect married, loving life and simply trying to find someone to slot into that picture? Someone who’d put her on a pedestal and laugh at her jokes and treat her like a princess?

  She wasn’t that shallow.

  She wasn’t that needy.

  She swallowed, blinking into the dark.

  Or was she?

  Jason’s charges against her rushed back in a tide that carried with it all the flotsam and jetsam of her demands and hopes and expectations that this one night together be their most magical yet. And none of it was because she loved him. She’d wanted to love him, just as she’d wanted him to love her, sure. But she didn’t, and that had been made blindingly obvious the moment Nick had flushed all thoughts of Jason from her mind.

  And it had all been because she’d wanted Jason to fit the fairytale picture she’d spun out of gilt thread around herself. She sighed, the gilt thread, the evidence of her naivety, figuratively unravelled and littered around her. God, she’d been so stupid.

  The man beside her sighed in his sleep and rolled over. She smiled across at his darkened form. And it had taken Nick Pasquale to make her wake up to herself. There was a turn-up.

  Nick woke to a feeling of supreme satisfaction cocooned in the unbeatable cushion of body heat, all of which lasted about a millisecond. His heart skipped a beat, thinking he must be imagining it. Thinking he must be crazy.

  Bloody hell!

  Because he realised he wasn’t just crazy. He was stark raving bonkers.

  For alongside him the reason for his satisfaction and warmth slumbered on, her back to him, her brown hair splayed across the pillow, and her gorgeous behind nestled into his thighs. Dangerous, he thought, as he twitched, already tensed for action. And then the light of day registered and he frowned as he reached for his watch. He hadn’t meant to fall sleep.

  ‘Bollocks!’ he said, bolting from the bed, thrusting his legs into his underwear.

  ‘Hmm?’ Sophie murmured, pushing the hair from her face as she rolled over. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s seven-thirty. Minnie gets dropped back at eight. I have to go.’

  ‘Oh.’ She pushed herself to sitting while he dragged on his trousers, coyly pulling the sheets up over her breasts like he hadn’t spent the best part of the night getting up close and personal with them.

  ‘Will you be okay getting home?’

  ‘I’ll catch a cab.’ She tucked her knees up under the sheet as she watched him scrabbling for his clothes. ‘I guess this saves us any awkward post-coital conversations, huh?’

  He stopped, his hands on his belt. ‘Sophie, I don’t …’

  ‘No. Don’t worry, I don’t want any awkward post-coital conversation, either. In fact, I actually had an epiphany last night.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Only one? I counted at least two,’ and was inexplicably delighted to be rewarded with her blush.

  ‘I’m serious here! I had an epiphany, right after you fell asleep. I was thinking about what you said, about how maybe I’m in love with the idea of being in love, and then I got to thinking about Jason. You know, the night he dumped me he told me the reason was that I was too needy and demanding, but not only that, he couldn’t even be bothered turning up the last time he had time off—he made some lame excuse instead, too gutless to tell me the truth. Anyway, I put the two together, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised you were right.’

  ‘Sophie,’ he said, ‘don’t go taking my word for anything. I’ve got a failed marriage behind me. I’m hardly qualified to give anyone advice, least of all about relationships.’

  ‘No, you were right. I saw Dan and Lucy so in love and I wanted that for me. I wanted someone to look at me the way Dan looks at Lucy. I wanted someone I could look at that way. I wanted to be in love like that, too.’

  He shrugged his shirt up over his shoulders, did up a couple of buttons and tucked the tails into his pants. ‘There’s nothing unusual in that. Most of us are looking for someone.’ He thought about that for a second as he dived for his socks, before qualifying it with, ‘At least, at some stage or other.’ At least until it ended up going pear-shaped.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, the waves in her hair bobbing wild and untamed around her face, as uninhibited as she’d been last night. He wished he was an artist in that moment, so that he could capture the contrast between her untamed hair against the creamy perfection of her skin with something more than memory.

  ‘Even at the wedding,’ she continued, ‘when you told me I should stop acting like a baby—’

  He dragged his attention away from how she looked and sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. ‘God, can you forget I said that?’

  ‘I deserved it. I was acting like a baby. I was angry and miserable and so stupid.’

  ‘You had just suffered a major bust-up.’

  ‘That’s no excuse and you know it. I was so selfish. All I was thinking about was me and wanting to wallow in my misery, and I could have ruined Dan and Lucy’s wedding in the process.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No thanks to me. Anyway, last night while I was lying here awake, I worked it out. I need to grow up.’

  He thought about her breasts and her hips and how she’d felt all around him, and found it hard to keep his voice from going rough around the edges. ‘I happen to have it on pretty good authority that you’re already all grown up.’

  ‘You’re really sweet,’ she said, although he knew damned well after last night that he was anything but. ‘But no, not physically, I mean mentally. I have to get out of this mindset that just because I’m the baby of the family, I can go on acting like one forever. And if I’m going to fall in love with someone, it’s going to happen. I have to stop trying to force it and wanting every relationship to be “the one”.’

  He grunted, tying his shoelaces. On the scale of morning-after conversations, this one was turning out to be far closer to comfortable than awkward. ‘Sounds fair.’

  ‘I think so. And meanwhile, I’m going to celebrate being single. I mean, it’s not the end of the world being single, is it? It’s not some illness that
has to be fixed. Beth’s single and she’s okay and so is Hannah, and they’re both twenty-nine. And look at you, you’re single and you don’t look like you’re about to slash your wrists.’

  ‘Hey, I’ve been married once already, remember.’

  ‘Sure, but you don’t look like it bothers you.’

  ‘Well, it’s different. I have Min to think about.’ He glanced at his watch—Min, who will be dropped off in precisely twenty-one minutes. By Penelope, who would just love to catch him wearing last night’s wedding threads.

  ‘So, I’m going to be footloose and fancy free and stop thinking every time a guy so much as looks at me that he wants to marry me and that we’ll both live happily ever after.’

  This was good, he told himself as he dived for his jacket and scanned the room for his phone or his keys or anything he’d missed. At least he didn’t have to worry about Sophie waiting for him to call or thinking that last night actually meant anything, even though he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t mind a replay.

  He looked at her, propped up in the bed with her bare arms around her sheet-covered knees, looking so pleased with herself for coming up with a personal plan of action and looking utterly gorgeous in the process that he was kind of sorry she had, even if it was for the best. ‘I have to go,’ he said, resisting the temptation to walk over and give her a kiss goodbye, because that would completely send the wrong signals. Better just to walk out. If she wanted anything more, she’d have to ask for it, and the way she was talking, that wasn’t on the cards.

  ‘Catch you later,’ she said, which was his cue to leave, no obligation and completely guilt free. He had his hand on the doorhandle when he heard a hesitant, ‘Nick …’

  His breath caught, and he turned his head to see her teeth worrying a bottom lip that already looked like it had gone some hard yards and felt a stab of guilt. He really should have shaved last night. ‘What is it?’

  The confidence she’d woken up with had all but disappeared, and now she looked uncertain. ‘You won’t tell Dan about this, will you?’