Rowan dragged herself up the stairs, hesitated outside Seb’s door. When she saw the sliver of light under the door she gently knocked. She heard his ‘Come in’ and when she entered saw that he was in bed, a computer on his knees. His face was blank when he looked at her.
Rowan put her hands behind her back and gripped the doorframe behind her. ‘Sorry. That was selfish and thoughtless of me.’
Seb’s face remained inscrutable while he closed his computer and placed it on the bedside table. Rowan shifted from foot to foot while she waited for him to say something.
‘Okay. Come here.’
Rowan stepped closer to the bed and wondered what else was coming. When he just looked at her, a small smile on his face, she frowned. ‘That’s it? No more lectures?’
Seb smiled slightly as he pulled the covers back and shifted across the bed. ‘Nope. Hop in.’
Rowan plucked at her T-shirt and shook her head. ‘Seb, I can’t. I smell of beer and booze. I’m exhausted. I’m going to take a shower and head back to my room.’
‘Take a shower and head back here,’ Seb said.
His face and voice were calm. Steady. God, she loved his steady.
His bed...it was tempting. So tempting. But so...
girlfriendy
. ‘I—I shouldn’t.’
‘You really should. Come on, Ro, the world won’t stop if you simply sleep in the same bed as me. Besides, I never got to buy those condoms, so you’re safe from me...tonight.’
Those eyes were dreamy again. That hard body was relaxed, his face sleepy. He was as tired as she was and she knew that it would now take a cattle prod to get her to go back to her room. ‘Okay, I’ll just take a quick shower.’
‘Mmm, okay. Hurry up,’ Seb murmured, his head on the pillow and his eyes closed.
Rowan kept his sleepy face in her mind as she rushed through the shower and brushing her teeth. When she came back into the room, dressed in the T-shirt Seb had been wearing earlier, he was fast asleep. She slid under the covers next to him and felt his arm slide around her waist. She snapped the light off and Seb snuggled closer. She felt his lips in her hair.
‘You scared me, Ro. Don’t do it again, okay?’ he whispered.
‘I’ll try not to,’ Rowan whispered back into the darkness. And she
would
try—but she couldn’t guarantee it.
* * *
Five days later it was early morning and Rowan sat in the cushioned area of Seb’s bay window. She stared over the hedge to the windows of her old bedroom, with Seb’s gentle breathing the soundtrack to her thoughts.
She still hadn’t gone home—still hadn’t managed to slip through the gate and walk around her mum’s prize rose garden, or sit on the bench outside, where her father had always used to read the Sunday papers in the winter sun.
They were due home in less than a week and she still hadn’t wrapped her head around how she was going to approach them, deal with them. Should she e-mail them and tell them that she was home and staying with Seb? Should she just wait and rock up on their doorstep? How would they react? What would they say, feel, want from her?
Would they be able to see her as a grown woman who made her own decisions and lived with the consequences thereof? Would she receive any respect from them for doing that? Any understanding? She no longer required them to be supportive of her, of her lifestyle, but she didn’t want to listen to them nag her about settling down, studying further, about her clothes and her hair and her inability to make good choices...
Seb rolled over in his sleep and Rowan watched him for a moment. How would her parents react when they found out about her and Seb? Because find out they would. They weren’t completely oblivious to everything around them, and she and Seb gave off enough heat to generate a nuclear reaction. They wouldn’t understand the concept of a short-term, mutually satisfying sexual relationship. They’d been childhood sweethearts and hadn’t, as far as she knew—and she probably didn’t, because her parents were about as talkative as clams—dated anyone else.
They’d probably worry more about Seb than they would about her. Seb was a part of their lives, a constant presence, while she was their erratic and eccentric wayward daughter.
‘Ro? You okay?’ Seb asked from his massive double bed, leaning back on his elbows, his hair rumpled from sleep.
Gorgeous man,
Rowan thought.
‘Mmm, just wrapping my head around visiting the old house.’
‘You still haven’t been over?’
Rowan shrugged. ‘I really should. It’s funny—funny ironic, not ha-ha—that I can walk into a slum in Bombay or a yurt in Mongolia but I haven’t managed to screw up the courage to go home. Every time I think about going over I feel like I’m eighteen again. Lost, alone, scared. I don’t like feeling like that, Seb.’
‘Understandable. Want me to go with you?’ Seb asked, sitting up and crossing his legs. ‘And then if you feel like you’re eighteen you can tell me and I’ll kiss you, or touch you, and remind you that you’re all woman.’
‘Generous of you.’ How did he always manage to make her smile when she was feeling blue? Rowan bundled her hair up, held it on top of her head for thirty seconds before allowing it to fall again.
‘Okay, we’ll go over later. Tell me about your travelling.’
Rowan turned to face him, her back to the window. ‘That’s a pretty broad subject. Narrow it down...’
Seb thought for a moment. ‘Tell me what you love about travelling.’
‘The colour, the wonderful local people, their tolerance; the differences that are wonderful, the similarities that are universal. Buildings, bazaars, street food.’
‘And what do you most hate about it?’
‘Practically? Dirty kitchens and cheap hostel dorm rooms. The constant partying all around. The same questions all the time. “Where do you come from?” “How much of the world have you seen?” “How long have you been travelling for?” “Where to next?” Boring conversations, over and over and over again...’ Rowan hesitated.
‘Tell me, Ro.’
Rowan gestured to the bed. ‘This...’
‘This?’ Seb looked puzzled. He looked at the bed and then turned his gaze back to hers. ‘What?’
‘One of the worst things about travelling is relationships: finding them, keeping them, losing them. I have said goodbye far too many times, Seb. Far more than any person should. Ever. I can go for weeks without meeting another traveller, depending on where I’m staying, because I don’t want to...don’t want to get to know them and then have to wave them off.’
‘Are we talking about friendships or lovers?’
‘Either. Both,’ Rowan said. ‘Saying goodbye always hurts.’
And it will hurt so much more when I have to say goodbye to you,
Rowan thought, holding his intense gaze. She knew from talking to other backpackers and from her couple of failed relationships that a relationship limited by time, like hers and Seb’s, was always more passionate than a normal, run-of-the-mill romance in the real world. They both knew that it had to end some time soon, so they had to make every moment count.
It wasn’t real. Or maybe it was too real. It just wasn’t built to last.
It would end with another goodbye. And she already knew that it would be absolutely the hardest goodbye she’d ever have to say.
Seb ran his hand through his very short hair and then over his stubbled jaw. He looked as if he wanted to say something, pursue the subject, but then she saw him retreat. Was he running from the emotion in her voice? From the sentimentality of her words? She knew that he’d never been good at dealing with raw emotion. He preferred to find a rational explanation behind every decision or action. She envied him that ability to be so clear-thinking, so sensible.
She couldn’t be like that... She felt everything. Twice.
‘Oh, hey...I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you want to come with me to a cocktail party tomorrow night? It would be nice to go with someone.’
Rowan blinked at the change of subject, thought for a moment, and then said, ‘I’d love to, but I don’t have anything that could even vaguely pass as a cocktail dress.’ She held up her hand to stop Seb from talking. ‘And, no, you are
not
going to buy me a dress and shoes for one evening! What a waste! So, sorry—no can do.’
‘Oh, come on, Ro. It’s just money.’ Seb rolled out of bed and walked over to her, his sleeping shorts riding low on his hips. He bent down, brushed his lips across hers and pulled her to her feet.
‘It’s money I would have to pay you back. I’m already in debt to you for the airfare from Jo’burg to here, for the airfare when I leave—though maybe I might be able to pay for some of that...’
‘Then get your ass onto a computer and do something about your netsukes,’ Seb complained, his hands loose on her hips. He looked down at her, assessing her. ‘I have a feeling that you don’t want to sell them.’
Rowan wrinkled her nose, thought about denying it and shrugged. ‘I really don’t want to sell the Laughing Buddha. But I have to sell the others. I can’t afford a twelve-thousand-pound indulgence—especially when I owe you money.’
Seb rested his forehead against hers. ‘I can understand why you want to keep it. It’s stunning. As for owing me money...it’s not important.’
Rowan stroked the side of his neck. ‘It’s important to me. I can’t take your money, Seb.’
‘You could give lessons in stubborn to mules, Brat,’ Seb muttered.
‘I know...’ Rowan dug her fingers into the light smattering of his chest hair. ‘Listen, are those massive chests still up in the attic?’
‘As far as I know.’ Seb sat back, looking puzzled at her change of subject. ‘Why?’
‘Callie and I used to play dress-up with your grandmother’s dresses. If I remember right she was quite a socialite in her day.’
Seb—smart guy—immediately made the connection.
‘Ro, you cannot possibly wear a sixty, seventy-year-old dress! Fish moths! Dust!’
‘Dry cleaners! And Yas banished fish moths a hundred years ago. Haven’t you ever heard of vintage dresses? I think there were shoes up there too.’
‘You’re nuts.’
Rowan raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you want me to go with you or not?’
‘Oh, okay. We’ll take a look. If we don’t find anything, then I’ll buy you a dress and no arguments—okay?’
‘Maybe.’
Seb kissed her nose. ‘So, plan of action for the day... Sex, breakfast, a quick visit to the War Room for me, a tour of your old place for both of us and then up to the attic. Then sex again. And then sex later.’
‘And maybe sex for pudding,’ Rowan said dryly.
Seb laughed. ‘You catch on quick.’
Limited time, maximum pleasure, Rowan thought as he swept her into a kiss that had her toes curling. And, yeah, saying goodbye to him was going to sting.
EIGHT
Seb, not finding
Rowan in any of the rooms downstairs, jogged up the stairs to the main floor. Instead of turning left, as he usually did, he took the second flight set of stairs, passing the closed doors to the smaller rooms that hadn’t been used since his grandparents’ day—such a waste of space—and heading for the narrow stairs that led up to the attic.
He wondered when last he’d been up here. Fifteen, twenty years? Callie and Rowan had used to play up here all the time when he’d been glued to his computer.
Some things never changed, he thought sourly. He’d planned to spend most of this day with Ro, but his staff had run into sophisticated firewalls on a site they needed to crack—today—and it had taken all their combined strategy skills to climb over, under and around them. As a result he’d spent most of the day in the War Room and hadn’t seen Ro since breakfast.
He wondered if she’d gone next door, but doubted it.
Seb poked his head into the attic and looked around. Instead of being dark and poky the attic was filled with natural light, courtesy of the skylights in the roof. The usual detritus filled the space directly in front of him—boxes that were labelled ‘Christmas decorations’, old computers, a set of water skis, and a pile of life jackets lay on top of more stacked cardboard boxes.
He really needed to toss some of this rubbish out.
‘Ro?’
‘To your left, Seb,’ Rowan called.
Seb turned and followed her voice, walking around a wooden partition, and blinked in surprise. Thick, old-fashioned oak chests spilled garments over the rough blankets Rowan had placed on the floor, and in the centre of the clothes-spill Rowan stood in front of an antique full-length mirror framed in oak, dressed in a sleek black gown and three-inch heels. Even with her hair in a messy ponytail and a make-up-free face she looked stunning.
‘What do you think?’
‘That’s a hell of a dress. Did you spray paint it on?’
‘Ha-ha. Your gran was slightly skinnier than I am.’
His grandmother... He’d never known her, but he’d like to know how anyone could have so many clothes. He stepped over a pile of coats and looked down at the garments closest to his feet. Jeans, a thigh-length leather jacket, a velvet trenchcoat, a white linen suit.
‘These are too modern to be my grandmother’s clothes.’
‘I think they’re your mum’s—what she left behind. There are a couple of nice dresses... Do you mind?’
Seb felt his throat clench and forced himself to shrug carelessly. ‘Knock yourself out. She left them here, didn’t she?’
Rowan looked at him with sympathetic eyes and he hoped that she wouldn’t say anything. He didn’t discuss his mother—ever. The longest discussion he’d had about her had been with his father a week or so ago.
Rowan ran her hands over her hips and turned back to the mirror. ‘What do you think of this dress?’
Seb looked at her properly, felt the saliva disappearing from his mouth and swallowed several times. Hot, hot,
hot
. He couldn’t find the words...
‘Uh...’ he grunted as his brain shut down.
Rowan looked at her reflection and tipped her head. ‘You’re right. I never liked this shade of black.’
How could she possibly take his silence to mean that he didn’t like the dress? Was she mad? It was figure-hugging, cleavage-revealing, backless and strapless.
It sent every blood corpuscle heading south.
Seb smacked the ball of his hand against his temple to reboot his speech function. ‘I love the dress, And black is black...isn’t it?’
Rowan sent him a pitying look. The kind women reserved for those moments when they thought men had the understanding of a two-year-old. ‘Of course there are shades of black. Obsidian, peppercorn, domino, raven, ebony...’
Seb felt as if he’d fallen into an alternative universe. ‘Peppercorn is a shade of black?’
‘There are many shades of red—fire engine, cherry, scarlet—why can’t there be shades of black?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I really don’t care.’
All I want to do is get you out of that dress
. To distract himself from that thought, he looked around again. ‘Good God, look at these clothes! I never knew there was so much still up here.’
Rowan’s eyes were shining with pleasure. ‘They’re fabulous. I’ve seen six cocktail dresses I want to try on.’
‘I like that one you have on,’ Seb said gruffly. ‘Wear that.’
Rowan shook her head. ‘This is a ballgown—too much for a cocktail party. I just couldn’t resist trying it on.’
‘Aren’t they out of fashion?’ Seb asked, toeing a froth of purple silk.
‘Designer dresses like these are never out of fashion.’ Rowan disappeared behind a screen in the corner. ‘And it seems like your gran’s taste ran to classic, timeless outfits.’
Good for Gran, Seb thought as he walked to the centre of the room and sat on the dusty floor, crossing his legs at the ankles.
‘What do you think?’
Seb glanced up and swallowed his tongue. The dress was red, a shocking slap to the senses, low-cut, and with what seemed like a million tassels falling to just under her backside. ‘It’s red. And short.’
‘It’s raspberry, and I’m decent underneath.’
Rowan twirled, the tassels whirled, and Seb saw the high-cut shorts underneath in the same shade.
‘It’s a heart attack dress,’ Seb said. ‘A bit too much for a corporate do.’
Rowan looked at herself in the mirror. ‘Mmm, maybe you’re right.’
Seb removed his smartphone from the back pocket of his jeans and checked his e-mails while Rowan changed again. Why she had to disappear each time to change was a puzzle for another day. He’d seen—and tasted—every inch of her, quite a few times.
‘Ready for the next one?’ Rowan asked cheerfully.
Seb grinned. ‘Hit me.’
Seb leaned back on his elbow and almost choked at the puffball that sashayed across the wooden floor. It was orange, it was ruffled, and it was hideous. He searched for something to say and decided that no words could describe the awfulness of the dress.
‘That bad, huh?’ Rowan arched an eyebrow, turned to look in the mirror and laughed. ‘Oh,
yuk
! I look like orange icing.’
Seb laughed. ‘I think the proper shade is cosmic carrot. Take it off, please, and we’ll burn it!’
‘Not a bad idea,’ Rowan agreed.
Seb watched as the gown got thrown out towards the chest and imagined her next to naked behind that screen. It took all his will-power to stay where he was, and the front of his jeans was growing tighter by the second.
The next three dresses were all black, sexy and sophisticated. Seb used the orange monstrosity for a pillow and spread out on the floor, lazy in the diffused sunlight that drifted through the skylights. He could think of worse ways to spend a lazy late afternoon than watching a sexy woman model slinky dresses for him.
‘This is it,’ Rowan declared. ‘If this one isn’t suitable, then I give up. I want a glass of wine.’
‘Let’s see it.’
Seb turned his head and his heart bumped in his chest. He slowly sat up and looked at Rowan, who was looking at herself in the mirror. The dress was a colour somewhere between blue and silver, low-cut, and a concoction of lace and fine ruffles. He could see glimpses of her fine skin through the lace and his saliva disappeared.
He remembered that dress—remembered his mother wearing it to a party some time shortly before she’d left for good. She’d grabbed him as she walked out through the door, pulling his reluctant twelve-year-old self into a hug that he’d professed to hate and secretly adored.
Mostly because her hugs had been so rare and infrequent. Laura had not been affectionate or spontaneous, and gestures like those were imprinted on his memory. She’d smelled of vanilla and she’d worn her blonde hair piled up onto her head.
Two weeks after wearing that dress out she’d been gone. For ever.
‘I love this...love the lace...’ Rowan bubbled, turning in front of the mirror.
When he didn’t respond, she turned to look at him. She crouched down in front of him, her cool hands on his face.
‘Seb? What’s wrong?’
Seb tried to shake off his sadness. The hurt that he normally kept so deeply buried was frying his soul. He attempted a smile but knew that it didn’t come close.
‘Please, please talk to me,’ Rowan begged.
Seb reached out and touched the fabric that draped her knees. ‘This was my mum’s.’
‘Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry.’ Rowan rested her head on his. ‘I’ll take it off, find something else to wear.’
‘Actually, it’s a happy memory. I remember her wearing it just before she left. She hugged me, called me her computer geek, said something about...’ He tried to recall her exact words but they were lost in time. ‘Um, how someone like her had managed to produce someone as bright as me. Or something like that.’
‘I remember her vaguely.’
‘So does Callie. You were—what?—seven when she left?’
‘I was seven. Cal was six.’ Rowan pulled the dress above her knees and sat down on the blanket next to Seb.
‘I still feel crap that Callie didn’t have a mother growing up.’
‘Neither did you, Seb. Cal didn’t feel the effects of her leaving as much as you did, sweetie. She had Yas...we both had Yas. My mother was so involved in Peter’s life and his studies and her music that she didn’t have much energy or time left over for me. So when we needed a hug, comfort, or to talk to someone we turned to each other or to Yas. Grumpy, spinsterish, with a tongue that can slice metal. It’s strange without her here in Awelfor.’
Seb ran his hand down her calf, knowing that she was trying to lighten his mood. ‘If she was here you wouldn’t be sleeping in my bed.’
Rowan laughed and quoted one of Yasmeen’s favourite expressions. ‘“You want the milk, buy the cow!”’
Seb grinned, and then his smile faded as he looked at the dress again. He was silent for a long time before stating quietly, ‘She’s in Brazil, in Salvador. Low on funds. She was in the hospital a couple of months ago with a burst appendix.’
Why had he told her that? Why did he want her to know? This wasn’t like him, Seb thought, regretting the words that he’d let fly out of his mouth. He didn’t have this type of conversation with the women he was sleeping with—didn’t have this type of conversation at all.
What was it about Rowan that made him want to open up to her? To let her see behind the steel-plated armour he’d so carefully constructed? Was it because he’d always known her? Because she was Callie’s friend and now his too? Was it those deep black sympathetic eyes that held understanding but no pity?
‘When did you find out where she is?’
‘I’ve always known where she is,’ Seb said, his voice harsh.
‘How?’
Seb lifted his eyebrows at her. ‘What do I do for a living, Ro?’
‘Oh,’ Rowan whispered, connecting the dots.
Seb rubbed the material between his fingers again. ‘I found her when I was about sixteen. She was in Prague. I managed to get hold of an e-mail address and I sent her a couple of letters...angry, vicious letters...demanding to know why she’d left and then, in the next breath, begging that she come home.’
‘Did she ever reply?’
Seb shook his head. ‘She changed her e-mail address and I lost track of her for a while. I’d tell myself that I didn’t give a damn and wouldn’t look for her. Then something would happen and I’d start again. But I never sent her another e-mail. I just need to know...you know...that she’s alive. And okay. Not in trouble...’
‘But you send her money.’
Seb’s eyes flew up to meet hers and Rowan shook her head at him.
‘You do send her money. Oh, Seb, you...’
‘Sucker? Chump? Idiot?’
Rowan placed her fingers over his lips. ‘You’re putting words into my mouth. I was going to say you shouldn’t.’
He felt his cheeks flush. ‘She’s often broke. What can I do? It’s just money. I don’t know why everyone gets all heated up about it. Money is easy...’
Rowan nodded her head. It was. Of course it was. To him. Money was black and white, no shades of grey, clearly defined. It held no emotion, no grudge, didn’t waver or prevaricate. He understood money. People, with all their flaws and craziness and ups and downs, flummoxed him.
‘What am I supposed to do, Ro? Not send her cash? Let her suffer because we suffered?’ he demanded.
Rowan saw the decades of pain buried deep and bit back her protective response—the one that made her want to snap,
Yeah! You should let her climb out of the hole she’s dug herself into!
Instead she bit her tongue and knew that he needed to talk to her, to someone, about his mum. Even tough guys, seemingly unemotional guys, needed to unload occasionally.
Rowan suspected that Seb was long overdue.
‘How many times have you sent money?’ she asked in her most neutral voice.
‘A couple of times a year for the past few years,’ Seb admitted reluctantly. ‘Before that she seemed to be okay for funds.’
‘And, if I know you, you probably sent a lump sum every time?’
‘It was always an anonymous deposit. There is no way she can trace who it came from.’
Rowan sucked in her cheeks and gazed at the floor, literally swallowing the angry words at the back of her throat. His mother was many things, but she wasn’t stupid, and she had to at the very least suspect that it was Seb. How many people would she have met and had a big enough impact on for them to make anonymous, generous ongoing deposits into her bank account? Who else would it be other than her computer genius son? And she’d never sent him an e-mail to say thank you, to acknowledge him...
Oooh, that was rough.
Rowan looked down at her hands, vibrating with tension. Good grief, families were complicated. Parent-child relationships could be crazy. The ways to mess up your children were infinite, she decided.
Seb still held the hem of her dress—his mum’s dress—between his fingers and Rowan looked at his bent head, at the masculine planes of his face, the tiny tick of tension in that single dimple in his cheek. Her tough guy, smart guy, good guy. So strong, so alpha, so damn attractive in his complexity. She’d known him for ever but she felt that she could spend another lifetime discovering all the nuances of his personality; he was that layered, that interesting.