The Wedding Date (19 page)

He pulled back just enough to see into her eyes. ‘Shall I leave the two of you alone?’

‘Too late. He’s married with four kids.’ She
leant her head against his chest and hummed blissfully, almost standing on his foot every few steps.

‘To think,’ he said, pulling her hand into his shoulder, ‘that could have been you.’

‘Doubtful. He runs his dad’s hardware store. He was never going anywhere. After Dad died I just never fit in here.’ With a flick of her thumb towards the door she said, ‘I was outta here the minute I had enough money saved.’

‘Looking for adventure?’

Her fingers slid deeper into his hair and stayed there. Her voice was soft when she said, ‘Looking for something.’

Like that, they swayed for a good long while. Lost in their own thoughts while caught up together in a familiar, inescapable swirl of sexual tension that only grew as they pressed closer, found ways to tuck more tightly into one another and caress each other till it ached.

Bradley couldn’t take it any longer. ‘Can we get the hell out of here?’

She raised her heavy head from his chest, her eyes dark and drowsy, as she said, ‘I just have one last maid of honour job to do, then I’m off duty. You know what? It’s one that you could help with.’

‘Having seen inside your “just in case” suitcase, I’m understandably nervous about saying
yes before I know what I’m getting myself into.’

She grinned. ‘It involves masses of rose petals, bubble bath, champagne and condoms.’

‘Then, hell, yeah.’

Moonlight shone through the unadorned bedroom window, leaving the room bathed in an eerie silver light.

Bradley wasn’t sure how long he’d been awake, a pillow cradled behind his head as he watched Hannah sleep. Her skin was baby-soft, her cheeks pink from the heat of the still flickering fire he’d lit after the first time they’d made love. A slight frown puckered her brow, and her hair splayed out over the snow-white pillowcase.

And all he could think was that tomorrow things would be back to the way they’d been.

With one undeniable difference.

She wasn’t like other women he’d been with. She wasn’t cynical and nonchalant and insanely independent. She was sweet, sincere, loyal, and clearly not the type to indulge in a holiday fling.

He’d known that before he’d started this thing with her. He’d known it before he’d set foot on Tasmanian soil. Hell, he’d known it the minute Sonja had suggested the idea at that café in faraway Melbourne.

Yet he’d still let it happen.

He could blame the ridiculously decadent suite. He could blame the rugged beauty and unbelievably fresh air of Tasmania. Or he could blame Venus and Mars.

He could blame the lightness inside her, the ready laughter and easy joy that contrasted so blatantly with the darkness of his own experiences. He could blame the fact that she gave him balance. Balance he’d never before had. Balance he secretly savoured.

But the truth was her mother had been right. He was a player, not a stayer. Worse, he was a rotten no-good bastard who didn’t deserve to be defended the way this woman had leapt to his defence.

He had nobody to blame but himself.

She muttered something in her sleep, and then finished off with a husky laugh. He hated himself even as the sound of her laughter made him grow hard for her again.

He slid the back of a finger beneath a swathe of dark hair on her forehead, and then let his finger trail down her cheek, behind her ear, to that sensitive spot in the dent at her shoulder.

She stirred, stretching bent arms over her head, legs to the foot of the bed, collecting the sheet with them and revealing her naked torso. Her gently rounded breasts. Her soft, smooth nipples.

The ache in his gut was so convoluted, so heavy, so deep, he had no desire to spend any time discerning what it meant. Instead he leaned over and took one warm rose-pink peak into his mouth.

She groaned. Awake in an instant. Her hands clamping into his hair.

She tasted like caramel and sunshine. It was nothing less than cruel that a woman could taste so good. He closed his eyes as his tongue continued to circle her nipple until she was all but crying out, while holding his head to the spot as if she never wanted him to stop.

He rolled until he was on top of her, using the strength in his arms to stop himself crushing her, while his tongue delved into the shadow at the base of her other breast, then licked slowly and thoroughly upwards without touching her nipple.

As she writhed beneath him, pressing her warm flesh against him, he felt such an urge to plunge himself into her, again and again, until all rational thought was lost to the red mist of pleasure.

It took every ounce of strength he had to keep himself propped on his shaking arms. He’d done nothing to deserve giving in to his raging desires. He deserved to be punished.

He slid to her side. She groaned in protest, her back arching, a hand sliding down his arm,
across his chest, scraping through the arrow of hair leading to his …

He closed his eyes. If this was punishment, send him to hell.

He grabbed her hand and restrained it over her head. Using a heavy leg, he pinned her writhing body to the bed.

Breathing heavily, eyes closed, she stopped moving, clearly doing her best to stay put, as though she knew it would be worth it to do as she was told. She was one clever girl.

The pale skin of her breast was shining from his ministrations, and slowly, achingly slowly, he lowered his head until he took her dry, peaked nipple into his mouth.

He worked his way down the sweetest spots of her body until he couldn’t stand it any longer. There was no way he could last another minute without enjoying that mouth.

Look at me,
he demanded inside his head. He wanted her to know who was kissing her. He needed her to know. To remember.

She opened slumberous eyes and looked right into the dark depths of his soul. Then, as if she knew just what he needed she pulled his head to hers and kissed him.

The sun was just starting to send its pink glow through the floor-to-ceiling windows when Hannah quietly threw on jeans, T-shirt, poncho
and boots, scrunched her hair back in a ponytail and quickly washed her face before tiptoeing out of the suite.

She needed a walk. A walk and a think. And clearly she didn’t do her best thinking when Bradley was lying sprawled out naked in her bed.

The
bing
of the lift was overly loud in the pre-dawn quiet. She glanced back at the door leading to their suite, but it stayed closed.

Once downstairs, she padded across the empty reception area and straight out through the front doors. The whip of cold slapped her across the face so sharply she almost stumbled. But that morning it was just what she needed.

Outside the sky was silvery grey, the trees stark and brown, the ground a winter wonderland. The air was still, the birds asleep, the only sound the soft fall of snow from overladen trees.

It was like a dream.

She stood there, trying her very best to compartmentalise the whole weekend that way—to believe it was all a lovely dream and to understand that when she woke up the next morning she would be well and truly back in the real world.

Real life suddenly felt so foreign. So far away. And more than a little scary. All she had to do to fix that was convince Bradley that they should stay. For ever. Eating Room Service,
having someone else wash the sheets, making love. Easy!

No. She couldn’t tell him. How could she? When he’d made it clear again and again that he was not the settling kind of man? His past might have sown the seeds for that behaviour, but he’d cultivated it heartily ever since.

She couldn’t tell him and have it thrown back in her face. There was nothing worse than having love with nowhere to put it. When her dad had died it had hurt like nothing else. Had broken things inside her. She’d wandered like a lost kitten for months. Years, even. Until she’d found her feet, her place, her
self
in Melbourne.

No matter which way she looked, neither of them had the stamina or the history to support anything long-term.

She sighed, and her breath puffed white. She rubbed a finger beneath her cold nose, wrapped her poncho tighter around her, and headed back into the blissful warmth.

Reception was no longer empty. A woman in a tight skirt, patterned tights, high boots and a mulberry wrap and matching beret was standing at the desk. She turned at the sound of the front doors swinging.

‘Hannah.’

‘Mum.’ The endearment popped out before she had time to even think ‘Virginia’, but her mother seemed not to notice, so she didn’t
edit herself. Instead she slowly headed over her way.

Virginia glanced at the colossal clock suspended above her. ‘What are you doing up so early?’

‘Just taking a walk. Needed some fresh air. You?’

‘Heading home.’

‘Oh. But didn’t they tell you that your room’s paid up for one more day?’

‘They did. But I don’t think Elyse needs to come downstairs the morning after her wedding night to find her mother at breakfast, do you?’

‘No,’ she blurted. ‘I don’t. That’s really thoughtful of you.’

Virginia laughed. ‘To make myself scarce? Isn’t it?’

A man returned to Reception with some paperwork which he slid to Virginia. She thanked him with a smile that made the guy blush to the roots of his hair.

Filling out her paperwork, Virginia said, ‘And where’s your plus one?’

Figuring there was no point denying they’d been … whatever they were, she said, ‘Asleep.’

Virginia laughed. ‘If I were you I’d make it my mission in life to be there when he wakes up.’

Hannah swallowed hard. If the choice was hers alone she’d want nothing more for
evermore. She felt an unexpected urge to confide in her mum. But history clamped her mouth shut on the subject.

Instead she assembled a grin and said, ‘Never fear, I’m heading back that way now.’

‘You always were a smart girl. And as it turns out one heck of a wedding-planner. The weekend was simply divine.’

‘Wasn’t it?’ Hannah said with a smile.

‘Sophisticated, fun, and a party that’ll go down in local folklore. All thanks to you.’

Hannah blinked, trying to find a path inside her woolly, chilly, early-morning brain that could make sense of receiving such praise from her mother. In the end she simply said, ‘Thanks.’

Virginia brushed it off with an elegant shrug. ‘I’ve a half dozen names and numbers of young local brides-to-be and mothers-of already clamouring for your services if you have it in mind to have a sea change. To come home.’

Hannah managed a half-hearted laugh. Until she realised Virginia appeared to be serious. Expectant. Hopeful, even. That she might
stay?

Stay. Home. Near Elyse. Near where she grew up. Where people cared for her. Where she could work for someone who didn’t work her crazy hard, or make her fall madly in love with him.

The temptation was so strong in that moment
it was almost overwhelming. But a moment was all it was. If she stayed she’d be running away. Again. But since the first time she’d run and not looked back she’d grown up and made a life for herself. Not a perfect life, but it was all hers.

‘Thanks, Mum, but I’m happy where I am.’

Virginia’s hopeful smile disappeared, and was replaced by a grin. ‘Good for you.’ Then, ‘I so worried about you when you were a kid. Head in the clouds, nose in a book, trailing around after your dad like a puppy.’ She placed the pen on the desk and turned. ‘I wanted to see the world so badly when I was young. To live in the city and work in the arts. To be somebody. Don’t get me wrong—I loved your dad, and never regretted a single decision I made when it came to choosing him. But I didn’t want you girls to be stuck in a small town without having found the rare reason to stay that I had. All I ever wanted for you was to find that something special that made you stand out from the crowd so you had chances I never took.’

She reached out, her hand stopping an inch from tucking Hannah’s hair behind her ear, before turning to the desk, grabbing a pen and signing her name on the hotel bill with a flourish. ‘I’m so proud that you made it happen for yourself. That you’re happy.’

As she stood there in the big deserted foyer, her mother’s niceties spinning in her head,
Hannah’s limbs felt numb—and it had nothing to do with the cold. It was as though that weekend her whole life had been tipped on its head.

Worried she’d never again know which way was up, or which way right, she knew she had to set things straight. Right then.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘Can I ask you something … difficult?’

Virginia turned, a devilish grin in her eyes. ‘Have you ever met a more difficult woman than me?’

Well. No.

‘Okay. Here goes. When you married those … other guys, was it because you thought you loved them the way you’d loved Dad? Did you only find out later you were wrong?’

‘No,’ her mother answered without hesitation. ‘Not even for a second.’

‘Then why?’

Virginia took a breath, tapping a manicured finger against her bottom lip. Then she looked Hannah in the eye. Crow’s feet fanned out from her beautiful eyes. Too much make-up covering what was still lovely skin.

‘The truth is I miss what it feels like to be that loved. And if I can only get that in fits and spurts for the rest of my life, then that’s what I’m willing to accept.’

That was what her beautiful, vibrant mother
had to resort to? The scraps of love’s leftovers? The very idea was reprehensible.

Hannah reached out and took her mother by the arm. ‘You’re worth more than that.’

Virginia looked at Hannah’s hand.

‘I mean it. No more settling. Find someone you love. Someone who loves you. And do whatever it takes not to let him go. Okay?’

Virginia smiled, but made no promises. Instead she leaned in and gave Hannah a kiss on the cheek. And fast on its heels came a hug. An honest to goodness hug.

‘See you at the next wedding, kid. Even I half hope it will be yours.’

And then, with a wink, Virginia was gone, flouncing through the revolving doors in a swirl of energy and colour. And the sorrow of missing her first true love.