Кэрол Мортимер – Presents, Passion and Proposals: The Billionaire's Christmas Gift / One Christmas Night in Venice / Snowbound with the Millionaire (страница 8)

‘I can’t, Nick!’ She wrenched herself out of his arms.

He reached for her. ‘Beth—’

‘I said no!’ Beth fumbled as she opened the passenger door, the instant blast of icy cold wind from outside sobering her, bringing her to her senses as nothing else could have done. She climbed hastily out of the car before turning back to look at him. ‘Please tell Bekka that I’m really sorry I can’t join her for the bowling tomorrow, or her birthday on Christmas Day.’ Beth didn’t wait for Nick to answer before slamming the door closed and turning sharply on her heel to hurry inside her apartment building.

‘Beth?’ came the tersely impatient query down the telephone line as soon as she answered the call.

A terse voice that was all too familiar! ‘Nick—Mr Steele…?’ she corrected firmly even as her fingers tightened about her mobile.

It had been four cold and icy days since the two of them had parted so ignominiously. Four long and lonely days and nights for Beth. Days and nights of self-doubt and self-recrimination for the way she had responded to Nick so completely.

Days and nights when Beth hadn’t been able to stop thinking of him. Of the way he had kissed her. Of the way she had wanted him to go on kissing her—and more!

‘Nick will do,’ he rasped. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you, and I wouldn’t have done so, except—I find myself in something of a dilemma.’

Nick was in a dilemma?

This man had turned Beth’s whole calm and ordered world upside down four days ago when he’d kissed her. Had evoked a heated response in her that still made her tremble just to think about it. Just the sound of his voice over the telephone now was enough to make her hands shake and her heart pound…!

‘What sort of dilemma?’ she asked warily.

Nick stood in his study at home, staring sightlessly out of the window into the back garden. ‘Bekka’s had your cold for the last three days—’

‘I’m really sorry about that, but you were the one who insisted I come out to dinner with the two of you,’ Beth reminded him indignantly.

‘Bekka’s cold isn’t the problem. Well…only indirectly.’ Nick grimaced. ‘My housekeeper was out shopping earlier today and slipped over on the ice. Luckily someone called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital. I received a call from there a few minutes ago. Apparently Mrs Bennett has broken her ankle pretty badly.’

‘Yes…?’

His mouth tightened as he heard the increased wariness in Beth’s tone. Rightly so, probably, after the strained way the two of them had parted on Friday evening.

He should never have kissed her. Certainly never have suggested she invite him up to her apartment when she was obviously so vulnerable, when he knew how dangerous that vulnerability was!

In the same way he knew he shouldn’t have allowed his thoughts to dwell on her so often in the past four days…

His mouth hardened. ‘It seems, because it’s a bad break and Mrs Bennett is in her sixties, that they’ve decided it might be better to keep her in overnight.’

‘Yes…?’

He grimaced his impatience at Beth’s continued guarded response. ‘Obviously I need to go in and see her, but once I had explained about Bekka’s cold the hospital made it obvious they would prefer it if she didn’t take her germs into the ward. Normally I could have asked my parents to come and sit with Bekka while I go to the hospital, but unfortunately they flew to the States a few days ago to spend Christmas with my sister and her family—’

‘Surely there must be someone else you can ask to sit with Bekka?’ There was a slight note of desperation in Beth’s voice now as she realised the reason for Nick’s call. ‘An agency, perhaps?’

‘It’s only a few days before Christmas—not a good time to be hiring a nanny…’ Nick replied.

‘In other words, I’m your very last resort…?’

Nick scowled. ‘If Bekka hadn’t caught your damned cold I could have taken her with me.’

‘You’re being unfair now!’ Beth cut in indignantly. She was sitting down in an armchair by this time—her knees were shaking so badly just from speaking to Nick again that she’d had to sit or risk falling down instead!

‘I apologise if it sounded that way,’ Nick muttered stiffly. ‘It’s just that all Mrs Bennett’s close family live in Scotland, and—Oh, just forget it. I’ll send her things over by taxi and just hope she’ll understand why I couldn’t go in and visit her personally!’

Beth relented slightly. ‘All you want me to do is sit with Bekka for a couple of hours while you go to the hospital…?’

There was a brief, telling silence. ‘What else could I want…?’ Nick finally enquired.

It wasn’t a question of what Nick wanted, it was a question of Beth’s complete inability to resist him…!

Much as Beth hated to admit it, Nick had become a danger to the calm and uneventful life she had been leading since her move to London a year ago. She was very aware that since their first meeting her emotions had been seesawing all over the place. Feverish and out of her control whenever she was in his company. Flat and uninteresting—boring, in fact—when she wasn’t.

So much so that the quiet Christmas Beth had planned for herself now seemed utterly unappealing.

She looked down at the baggy thigh-length blue jumper she was wearing over faded denims and calf-high black boots. Did she have time to put on some make-up and change before she went to Nick’s house—?

No!

If Nick wanted her help that badly, then he could take her as he found her. ‘I’ll get in a taxi now and be there in fifteen minutes,’ she assured him abruptly.

‘Are you sure…?’

No, of course Beth wasn’t sure!

It was completely hazardous to her hard-won peace of mind to be anywhere near the disturbing Nick Steele…

‘As I said, I’ll try and be there in fifteen minutes,’ she said stiffly.

‘I’ll reimburse you for the taxi fare when you get here.’

‘I’m quite capable of paying my own taxi fare, thank you.’

‘You’re doing this as a favour to me—’

‘I’m doing it for Mrs Bennett and Bekka,’ she corrected him firmly.

‘We’ll argue that point later,’ Nick dismissed briskly, before ringing off.

Beth didn’t intend doing anything with him later!

Even if she had been wanting—aching!—to see him again, be with him again, for the past four days…

Chapter Six

‘I REALLY appreciate you doing this for me,’ Nick said as he opened the front door before stepping back to invite Beth inside the house.

‘I’m doing it for Mrs Bennett and Bekka, remember?’ Not quite meeting his gaze, she turned away to slip off her duffle coat before handing it to him, knowing she would be warm enough in the centrally heated house.

She didn’t need to look at Nick to know how devastatingly male he looked in another one of those tailored dark business suits. Or to see the dark sheen of his hair to know that it was silky soft. Or to look into the chiselled perfection of his face to be aware of how her pulse was racing just being near him again…

‘Beth…?’

She stared at the perfectly knotted tie at his throat. ‘Yes?’

Nick didn’t at all like the way Beth was once again avoiding even looking at him. ‘Damn it, despite my telling you not to, you’ve been wallowing in guilt for the past four days!’

Irritation was evident in those dark blue eyes as Beth’s gaze flickered briefly up to his face and then away again. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Nick,’ she snapped scathingly.

Was he? Was Nick mistaken in thinking that he and the kiss the two of them had shared the other evening were the reasons for those dark circles under Beth’s eyes and the paleness of her cheeks?

He frowned darkly. ‘Do you still intend to spend Christmas Day on your own?’

‘I don’t see what that has to do with you…’

Neither did Nick. Except he hated the very idea of Beth—anyone—being alone during the holiday period. But especially Beth…‘What about your parents?’

‘They were killed in the same car crash as Ben,’ she said abruptly.

God…!

Nick had become cynical about love and relationships in general after his marriage to Janet had failed so abysmally. Learning that Janet had cancer, and had been diagnosed as terminal, had at least allowed the two of them time to heal their differences and say goodbye to each other before she died.

Not that Nick believed there had been any rifts between Beth and her husband before he died, or between her and her parents, but sudden death made no allowances for goodbyes, and Christmas was a time that must surely bring that home to her…

He grimaced. ‘We’ll talk again when I get back.’

Beth looked fully into his face for the first time. And then wished she hadn’t as she saw the concern that darkened those grey eyes. Her smile was tight. ‘The subject is at an end as far as I’m concerned.’