Who Needs Mr Willoughby? (23 page)

“You tell me.” She made her way to the counter, and the bottle of wine he’d left by the sink. “What kind of music do you like? What do you do when you’re not working? What do you like on your pizza?”

As Marianne poured another measure of wine into her glass, she knew the alcohol had loosened her tongue. She could feel the warmth buzzing through her veins already.

Careful
, she warned herself as she sat across from him at the table.
This man is your boss, not one of your mates.

But she couldn’t deny that she found Matthew Brandon interesting. Attractive, even, with his sleeves pushed up, exposing strong forearms, lean and muscled but not overly so, and his eyes, impenetrable and yet so…bold.

Of course, no one could ever compare with Kit. A wave of despair washed over her, sudden and strong, and tears stung her eyes.

“You don’t care about any of that.” Matthew spoke quietly. “We’re not here to talk about me, anyway. We’re here to talk about you. And I’ve got all night.” He leaned forward. “So why don’t you tell me, Marianne, from the start. What happened? When did you get engaged to Kit Willoughby? Why haven’t you told anyone? And why’s he left you and gone to London?”

Chapter 35

Marianne briefly recounted the story she’d told at the dinner party of how Willoughby had rescued her from the rain storm. “He drove me back to the cottage and carried me inside.”

“Let me guess,” Matthew said, and sipped his tea. “He came back the very next day to visit you, and brought you flowers, and made sure you were all right.”

She stared at him with wide eyes. “Yes, he did. But – how did you know?”

“It’s not like Willoughby to miss a chance to further his acquaintance with a pretty girl…especially not one who practically fell from the sky into his lap.”

Marianne flushed slightly. She filed the ‘pretty girl’ comment away to ponder later and said evenly, “He was very considerate. He wanted to make sure I was all right.” She hated the defensiveness in her voice.

“Considerate?” Matthew took another sip of tea. “Oh, aye – is that what they call it now? When a man hits on a woman he barely knows, saving her like the handsome prince who rescues the damsel in distress – that’d be you – and brings her home?”

“He didn’t hit on me,” she snapped. “And he didn’t bring me home. At least, not to
his
home. He carried me back to the car, and drove me to Barton Park, and in the middle of a thunderstorm, too,” she couldn’t help adding. “It was wonderful.” Her eyes welled once again with tears. “
He
was wonderful.”

“If he’s so wonderful,” he pointed out, “then why are you sat in my kitchen, crying?”

It was a fair question. But she didn’t much like it, all the same.

“I thought Kit…loved me,” she admitted in a low voice. “I
know
he did. He even asked me…” her words trailed away.

“To marry you,” he prompted.

She nodded miserably. “Yes. But something happened, something awful, and he had to go away, back to London. He wouldn’t say what, or why.” Marianne looked up at him, and her expression was bleak. “And he’s not c-coming back.”

Matthew set his cup down abruptly and stood up. “Let’s go sit in the lounge, if you don’t mind. If I have to listen to you cry and tell me how wonderful Willoughby is all night, then at the very least, I need to sit somewhere that doesn’t hurt my arse like these chairs do.”

She sniffled and held her glass out. “Could I have a bit more wine, please?”

He sighed but grabbed her glass and took it into the kitchen to top it off. “I think you’ve had enough. No more after this, or you’ll be hating yourself in the morning.”

“I couldn’t possibly hate myself any more than I do right now.”

“Why?” he asked sharply as he carried her glass and preceded her into the lounge. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I must’ve done something,” Marianne said, her words mournful as she sat cross-legged at one end of the sofa and accepted the glass from him. “I obviously said or did something that put him right off me.”

She began to cry.

“Don’t be watering down the wine, lass,” Matthew mock-scolded as he took the glass from her hand and set it aside. “I’m sure it already tastes bad enough.”

As she continued to weep and swipe at her nose with the back of her hand, he sighed and went into the bathroom to fetch a box of tissues and plunked them down on her lap. Then he sat down next to her.

“Th-thanks,” she sobbed, and grabbed up a tissue to blow her nose. “You’re actually v-very kind. You’re n-not an arse, at all.”

“Oh, aye,” he nodded, amused. “I do have my moments. And that’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Despite herself, Marianne managed a little snort of laughter.

“Ah, now that’s what I like to see,” Matthew said, and grinned. “Your smile.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at him and away again, and picked up her glass to take another, longer sip. “This wine’s really not bad,” she added, feeling the warm redness of it flowing through her like lifeblood. “It’s actually quite good.”

“Now I
know
you’re drunk.” He stood and took the glass from her and set it down on the coffee table. “Come on, let’s get you back home.”

“I’m not drunk,” she protested, though she feared that she probably was, at least a little. “I feel spec…spectacular.” She stood on unsteady legs before him and slid her arms around his neck.

Matthew’s eyes, she noted through the warm fug of alcohol clouding her brain, were the exact dark grey of a storm-tossed sea – inky, nearly black, and impossible to read. And, she noticed with surprise, faintly disapproving, too…

“What’s wrong?” she demanded as she drew back.

“I think you’ve had enough.” He took her by the wrists – gently – and removed her arms from around his neck. “You won’t feel at all spectacular come tomorrow morning, I promise you.”

But she wriggled free of his grasp and put her arms once again around his neck, pressing herself against him. “Kiss me,” she said. “I want you to kiss me.” She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, and waited to feel his lips on hers.

Nothing happened.

She opened her eyes. “Why aren’t you kissing me?”

“Because you’re tipsy,” he said, his words patient but firm, “and you work for me, and I won’t bollocks things up between us with…” He stopped.

“With sex? Why not? I like you, Matthew. Don’t you – don’t you like me?”

He didn’t answer.

She sighed. “You don’t, do you? You don’t like me. Why? Why won’t you at least kiss me?” Hurt washed over her. “Is the thought of kissing me so revolting?”

“Of course not.” His eyes darkened. “How can you even say such a daft thing? You’re…any man would jump at the chance to – to be with you.”

“Any man. But not you.” Marianne felt her throat close. “Why?”

“Well, let’s start with the fact that you’re still reeling from the pain – however misplaced it might be – of losing Willoughby. Added to which, I’m your employer. We have a working relationship, and a good one. I’m not about to screw it up with –” He stopped and removed her arms from his neck once again. “With this.”

“Okay, then, don’t kiss me.” She shrugged. “Take me to bed instead. You can be my first.”
Make me forget, just for tonight, about Kit
, she longed to say, but didn’t.

“No.” He set his jaw in a hard, unyielding line. His words gentled as he added, “You never forget your first time, Marianne. It should be about more than just sex, or getting back at someone. It should be…special.”

“But I want
you
to be my first,” she said again, mournfully, and hiccupped.

He shook his head. “Sorry. I won’t be that guy.”

“What guy?”

“Your first,” he snapped.

“Why not?” Hurt skimmed over her face. “Someone has to do the job…why not you?”

“Because you should have feelings for the other person. You shouldn’t use someone to slake your grief, or scratch an itch, or make you forget someone else.”

“But I
do
have feelings for you. I like you, a lot. You make me laugh, and you’re interesting, and…and different.”

“I’m also reasonably intelligent.” He reached for his keys with a grim expression. “Which is why I’m doing the right thing and taking you back. You’re a responsibility I don’t want, or need. Now let’s get you home.”

Chapter 36

Marianne opened her mouth to protest, but her stomach suddenly lurched, and rumbled ominously.

“I think…oh, shit, I don’t feel so good,” she muttered, and staggered off to the bathroom to throw up. Her face felt hot and the tiled bathroom spun around her as she leaned her head against the cool porcelain of the loo.

She wanted to die.

“Are you all right?” Matthew asked from the doorway. “I hope that wine didn’t poison you. You look a bit bilious.”

She threw up again.

“Come on.” When the worst of the nausea had passed, and she was reduced to nothing more than dry heaves, Matthew helped her to her feet and steadied her as he lowered the loo seat lid. “Sit down and let’s clean you up, there’s a good girl.”

Still feeling decidedly wobbly, she sank down onto the loo as he washed her face with a damp cloth and handed her a toothbrush.

She eyed it in suspicion. “Whose is this?”

“It’s a spare,” he retorted. “Brand new. No former girlfriend’s germs to worry about. Now, brush your teeth.”

Marianne did as he told her, and felt marginally better as she laid the toothbrush aside.

“You can sleep on the sofa.” He took her hand and led her back to the lounge and settled her on the sofa as he went to get a pillow and a blanket down from the airing cupboard.

“Does your mum know where you are?” he asked as he returned, and frowned. “I don’t want her worrying or thinking I’ve kidnapped you or something.”

“She knows,” she assured him, and felt her eyes grow heavy as he drew the blanket up over her. “I left her a note on the kitchen table.”

“Good.”

She didn’t add that she hadn’t told her mum
where
she was, precisely, only that she’d gone out. “What about work tomorrow?” she mumbled as the desire to sleep pulled at her.

“I’ll close the clinic to anything but emergencies. Aidan and I’ll manage. Get some rest.”

She looked up at him in surprise. “You’d do that for me?”

“I’ll do it for myself,” he retorted. “I need sleep too, you know. Goodnight, Miss Holland.”

And he switched off the lamp before she could answer, and went upstairs to bed.

***

The sun slanting into her eyes woke Marianne just after eight the next morning. She sat up, panicked. Where was she? As dizziness hit her, along with a flood of unwelcome memories from the night before – oh God, had she really
kissed
Dr Brandon –? – she groaned and lay back down.

How many glasses of wine had she drunk? She’d lost count after the third…

Had she really kissed Matthew? She blushed in mortification. She remembered his firm, unyielding lips, and the taste of tea and cheap Valpolicella. She remembered the scent of his aftershave, something barely discernible but masculine, and the soft roughness of his shirt under her fingers.

“Oh, God,” she groaned again, and held her head in her hands.

“Are you awake, Miss Holland?” Matthew asked cheerily as he came into the lounge. “Still feeling a bit green?” He thumped a tray of food down on the coffee table. “What you need is a nice big fry-up.”

“Don’t. Mention. Food,” Marianne gasped, and closed her eyes. “Or I’ll be back in the bathroom again.”

“And we don’t want that,” he agreed. “Well, eat up or not, as you please. I’m off to the clinic. I’ve a couple of appointments I can’t ignore. I can drop you home on the way, or you can stay here.”

“Stay here,” she mumbled, and opened one eye. The sight of bacon and eggs and fried tomatoes made her close it again.

“Suit yourself. I’ll leave a jug of water and a glass here on the coffee table. Hydration,” he added. “That’s what you want.”

She nodded but didn’t answer.

A few minutes later she heard the front door slam, and the Land Rover started up, and silence descended as he drove away.

She fell into a fitful sleep, and dreamt of men on horseback, and lightning, and Valpolicella and broken hearts. When she woke she felt well enough to sit up.

Reassured when the room remained stable and didn’t spin wildly around her, she caught sight of the breakfast tray. Although it was cold now, she was touched that Matthew had troubled himself to cook for her. Despite her less than stellar behaviour of the night before, he’d fried up bacon, and toasted bread, and poached her a couple of eggs. He’d even poured orange juice into one of his ubiquitous jelly glasses.

She took a tentative sip. It was lukewarm, but good, and seemed inclined to stay put in her stomach. Taking that as a good sign, she picked up the tray and made her way into the kitchen to microwave the eggs and bacon.

Major Tom, still curled on the rocking chair cushion, ignored her.

Marianne re-heated her breakfast and thrust two slices of bread into the toaster. When they popped up, she took her plate and sat at the table and ate.

Of course the eggs were now a bit rubbery and the over-crisped bacon shattered in her mouth; but it still tasted better than anything in recent memory.

As she slathered a slice of toast with butter, her eyes wandered over the fireplace mantel in search of clues.

Who
was
Matthew Brandon, really? Was he the curt, businesslike veterinarian? Or the sarcastic, rude know-it-all who’d driven her home after her car was stolen? Or was he, perhaps, the skilled, caring man whose actions had saved a newborn lamb from sure death?

She suspected he was a bit of all three.

As her gaze wandered to the far end of the mantel, a collection of picture frames caught her attention. Curious, Marianne stood up and padded over, barefoot, to study them.

The largest was a photograph of Matthew, looking much younger. He was laughing and had his arm slung around an older woman’s shoulders. Her face was careworn but kind, and she was looking over at him and laughing, too.