Up All Night (11 page)

“The way I see it is you’re in love
with a woman and start banging her, only to find she’s in love with your best
friend. When said best friend tells you it’s finished because he’s in love with
her too, you have to bow out gracefully. Am I close?”

“No.”

She clasped her bag tighter. When it
was clear she wasn’t about to respond, Marco rubbed his fingers across her
tight knuckles. “I wasn’t in love with her.”

Her hands relaxed a little, but
still she said nothing.

“Not only wasn’t I in love with her,
but I knew before I started fucking her that Ethan was.”

He saw her throat contract as she
swallowed. The rain was a steady flow now and he wasn’t about to start spilling
his guts all over a public thoroughfare. Besides which, a taxi had turned into
the rank and Beth was starting to stand.

Panic and irritation joined forces
and tightened his chest. He curled his fingers around her arm as she moved
toward the taxi. “We haven’t finished our conversation.”

As the cab pulled up, Marco turned
to the driver who had rolled down his window. “Sorry. You’re no longer needed.”

Beth tried to pull out of his hold,
but Marco held tight.

“Everything okay, lady?”

“She’s fine.” Marco kept his gaze on
Beth’s as the driver hovered with the engine running.

“Perhaps she’d better tell me that
herself, mate.”

Beth glared at Marco, but he saw the
flicker of indecision beneath the anger in her eyes. “Tell him,
bella
,” Marco said gently. “I want to
talk to you, to explain.”

She hesitated for so long, Marco
held his breath. Then she turned to the driver. “Thank you. I’m okay. I’m sorry
if I’ve inconvenienced you.”

The driver hovered for another
moment as he looked from Beth to Marco, then nodded, wound up his window, and
drove off.

Beth didn’t speak as they walked to
where Marco’s car was parked, and the beep of his remote sounded like gunfire
in the quiet space. He ushered Beth into the passenger seat and leaned in.
“Buckle up.”

When she didn’t move, he leaned
across and fixed her belt himself. As he walked around the car to the driver’s
seat, he pulled out his cell. No doubt Amber had already given Ethan a heads up
about what had happened in the ladies’ room, so he’d simply tell Ethan that he
and Beth were leaving. Ethan would draw his own conclusions as to the reasons
why.

The call made, he closed his cell
and shoved it in his pocket. That was the easy part done, but now came the hard
part. He had to steel himself for the explanation he owed Beth. He didn’t know
how she’d take it, how she’d react. Maybe their month together was about to
come to a premature and abrupt halt when she ended it between them. Maybe it
was even for the good. It saved him the trouble of ending things himself in a
few short weeks’ time.

But as he opened his door he
couldn’t shake the feeling that gnawed in his stomach at the thought of her walking
out on him. And why he should care so much when she did.

Chapter Nine

Beth suspected Marco had pretty much
played every field in the vicinity. He was certainly no saint. So why had she
been such an idiot and let his affair with Amber rankle her so much? Why did it
matter that Marco and Amber had once been lovers? Everyone had a past. Even
her. Why couldn’t she just let it stay where it belonged?

While he poured them a drink, Beth
sat on Marco’s sofa, shivering as the warmth of Marco’s apartment seeped into
her dampened flesh. It was impossible to shake the feeling that she’d been
cheated on all over again. Which was ridiculous, especially considering that
she and Marco hadn’t even met each other when he’d slept with Amber.

But the real problem was that this
whole thing with Amber had highlighted how susceptible she was to Marco, how
her feelings for him had sprung to life so rapidly and continued to grow every
second she was with him.

That made him dangerous. It made her
vulnerable. And God, she’d promised herself that would never happen again.
Maybe this was the time to end it.

Beth looked up as Marco stood in
front of her and offered her a glass of brandy. She took a sip from cold lips,
welcoming the fire in her throat as she swallowed. But no amount of alcohol
would warm the chill that had settled around her heart.

Marco sat beside her and sipped from
his own glass before placing it on the small table beside the sofa. He turned
to Beth. “The whole deal with Amber was different to anything else.”

Beth clutched her glass like a
lifeline in a turbulent sea. Even though she’d decided things could never work
between them, it was hard having to sit next to him and hear how he loved
Amber. Maybe that the woman was the love of his damn life.

“Marco, you don’t have to explain.”
Beth made herself look at him and watched as he pushed his fingers through his
long, damp hair. She ignored the lurch in her stomach at the memory of how that
black silk felt as it slipped through her own fingers. “I’m just happy that you
and Ethan have managed to get past the whole thing and remain friends.”

“Ethan set the whole thing up.”

If Marco had sprouted horns right
then, Beth didn’t think she could have been more shocked. She gaped at him.
“Ethan set it up?”

Again, his long fingers scored
through his hair. “Shit. I’m not sure I should be telling you this.”

Beth hardly dared move. No way was
she going anywhere after Marco dropped a bombshell like that. “Ethan asked you
to screw his girlfriend?”

“Shit,” Marco said again. “This is
Amber and Ethan’s business.”

“Yours too, apparently.”

“Yeah.” He took in a breath and blew
it out through his mouth, like a man about to embark on a grueling challenge.
“When Ethan hooked up with Amber, she had some stuff going on. Bottom line was
her confidence wasn’t too hot and Ethan wanted to do something about that.”

When he fell silent, Beth tried to
connect the dots. “And he thought his best friend having sex with her would
help?”

“Pretty much.”

“How exactly?”

“She had this thing in her head that
she wasn’t any good in the sack, so Ethan thought if I came into the mix it
would help.”

“Weren’t things between her and
Ethan any good in that area?”

He laughed, but it didn’t reach his
eyes. “They were heating up the sheets okay.”

“Then what was your role? I don’t
see it.”

He sat back, leaned forward again.
“She found out something and told Ethan she thought it was pretty hot. Said it
was most women’s fantasy, but that it didn’t happen to women like her because
she wasn’t sexy. Her ex pulled out all the stops to make her believe that.”

Beth looked down at her clasped
hands, feeling a tug of camaraderie with the woman. It seemed both of them had
suffered at the hands of their exes. Those dots were starting to connect. “What
was it she found out?”

“That Ethan and I were once hot for
the same woman. We couldn’t decide which one of us would make a play for her,
and the woman said we didn’t have to make the choice.”

“So you both slept with her?”

His eyes flickered before his gaze
fell to her hands. “Yeah.”

A fresh wave of resentful heat
pushed through Beth’s bloodstream. “Amber wanted to sleep with both you and
Ethan?”

Discomfort was evident in Marco’s
shrug. “Like I said, Ethan set it up.”

His steady gaze held hers until heat
surged into her cheeks. She hated the whip of jealousy, the blast of resentment
that powered through her at the thought of Marco and Amber together. But
beneath all that, she felt a certain admiration for the woman who, having
decided what she wanted, had the guts to demand it for herself. “Amber doesn’t
like to do things by halves, does she?”

Marco leaned forward and angled
himself to face her. “Beth, there’s nothing between Amber and me.”

Looking into Marco’s steady gaze,
Beth acknowledged his attempt to reassure her. Had she overreacted to the whole
thing? Had the bitterness she felt for James and Deena crept into her
relationship with Marco? Was it possible she could set it all aside and just
enjoy a boatload of fun with a gorgeous guy who set her heart, and hormones,
racing?

Oh hell, she so badly wanted to let
it all go. To close a door on the past and enjoy what she had. All she had to
focus on was keeping their relationship in perspective, then she could continue
to savor Marco and his many talents. “Beth?”

Knowing her smile was tremulous,
Beth turned to Marco. “I feel like some virgin teenager who’d just found out
her boyfriend had once shagged the prom queen and decided to throw a tantrum.”

He ran the back of his fingers down
her arm. “I don’t want this to ruin what we could have,
bella
.”

“I’ve just been thinking that I
don’t want that either.” Since she’d harped on about him being honest with her,
she decided that he deserved the same privilege. “It’s just that for some
reason knowing you’ve been with Amber makes me crazy.”
 

He settled back against the sofa,
wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “Tell me why.”

His voice was so soft, so gentle,
that Beth let out a long breath. “Probably because you didn’t tell me. When I
asked you that time if you still had a thing for her, you said no. You could
have told me that you’d slept with her. Instead you made me believe that there
was never anything sexual between you.”

“Telling a woman you’ve just met
that you had a thing for another woman isn’t exactly the best topic of
conversation.”

“I know, but—” Beth sat back into
his arms and closed her eyes. “Damn, I hate feeling like this.”

“Like what?”

She opened her eyes and looked
straight into his. “Suspicious. Reading things into situations that probably
aren’t there. It’s the whole trust thing.”

His back went ramrod straight and
the hard set of his jaw could have chiseled steel. “You wonder if you can trust
me because I didn’t tell you about a woman I slept with months before I even
met you?”

She shook her head with some
emphasis. “It’s not that simple.”

“Then why don’t you fucking explain
it to me, because I’m damned if I can see why this—” He frowned. “Shit. Your
ex.”

She released some of the tension
she’d been holding on a long sigh. “Things were never especially good in the
sack between us, but when James couldn’t even get an erection I started to
wonder if something was really wrong. At first I urged him to go see a doctor,
but then he started becoming evasive and lied about where he was supposed to
be. When I confronted him about having an affair, he admitted it but said it
hadn’t meant anything and it was over. I wanted to believe him, wanted to get
our lives back on track, but the suspicion was there.”

The way his eyes softened as he
looked at her made her heart jump into her throat and gave her the confidence
to continue. “I came home early from an exercise class because of a headache
and Deena, my sister, was there with James. She was all flustered and said
she’d called round to see me, not realising it was my exercise class night, and
had decided to wait. A couple of days after that I found panties underneath the
sofa. Panties that were part of a set I’d bought Deena for her birthday. Ironic
isn’t it? I bought my baby sister sexy underwear to wear for my husband.”

“Fucking hell. That stinks.”

His expression added weight to his
bitten out words and somehow lightened the gravity of recalling that
heartbreaking time. “Even after that I somehow thought I’d gotten the wrong end
of it. Had Deena dropped those panties when she’d collected her laundry from my
house? Had I imagined her flushed face and tousled hair? Had James been in the
process of changing when Deena called round, and that was the reason his shirt
was halfway unbuttoned? But I saw the way they looked at each other. The secret
smiles, the playful flirting. It was when I saw James grab Deena’s ass that I
finally woke up to the truth.”

“I’d have cut the balls off the son
of a bitch.”

Despite the pain of recalling what
happened, Beth couldn’t help smiling at his grated words. “I wanted to, believe
me. Instead, I ordered him to pack his bags and told Deena to get out of my
sight.” Beth took a sip of her brandy, still hating the estrangement from her
sibling and the loss of her baby sister from her life. When she lowered the
glass to her lap, she clasped the crystal between tight fingers. “I blamed
James for what had happened. Deena was only eighteen and I felt he’d somehow
coerced her into sleeping with him. An older man’s attention is pretty potent
to a young, impressionable girl. But Deena admitted that she loved him and had
wanted him since she’d first met him. They’d been sleeping together for six
months before I found out.”

“Hell, Beth.” Marco scrubbed a hand
across his jaw. “I don’t know what to say.”