Fiona McArthur Read online

  'This is a great room.' Fergus tried to hide the sudden swirls of desire that were hitting him like the waves Ailee had just talked about.

  Unfortunately, the colonial surroundings didn't prove as distracting as Fergus had hoped, but, then, he didn't think any location would drown out what he wanted to do.

  'Isn't it?' Ailee glanced around and then sighed back into the chair. 'I love this place.'

  Fergus needed to hold Ailee close in his arms, and maybe run his fingers down her amazing cheekbones and circle her beautiful mouth with his fingertip, before doing what he needed to do—kiss her.

  'I said, aren't you going to have any food?' Ailee was smiling at him and he blinked and came back to the present.

  The waiter stood resplendent in his uniform beside their table. Importantly, the man presided over a silver- handled trolley festooned with tiny delicate cakes and slices, and waited for a decision.

  Fergus wasn't that kind of hungry.

  'I think you need your bed,' Ailee said as she accepted a miniature butterfly cake onto her plate.

  'I think I do, too.' His voice came out softer and deeper than he'd intended and there was no doubt what he meant. He watched the blush run up her cheeks.

  Fergus cleared his throat. 'I'm sorry. I must be tired. I've gone absent-minded on you.' He chose a chocolate slice he didn't want and forced himself to swallow past his dry throat.

  This woman had him in a state he hadn't been in since he'd been a raw youth. It was almost amusing.

  'Perhaps we could meet for dinner after we've both had a few hours' sleep,' Fergus suggested.

  'I'd like that,' she said.

  *

  Half an hour later the trip back to their hotel was accomplished in silence but the tension simmered between them even after the limousine door was opened by the doorman.

  Things had changed since afternoon tea. Ailee had felt it at the table. The ease she'd felt with Fergus was now overlaid with an awareness that both of them were trying to hide.

  Maybe it had been the discussion of families or maybe it had just grown during the time they'd spent together. Ailee wasn't sure but there was no denying they were very aware of each other.

  When Fergus cupped her elbow as they stood together and waited for the lift, Ailee felt the warmth of his hand as if she'd brought a bubble of the Singapore heat from outside into the air-conditioned coolness of the hotel.

  The lift bell sang its chime and the golden doors opened in front of them. Fergus stretched one hand out and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  'Ten,' Ailee said softly, and he pressed her floor button along with his own. Half of her sighed with relief and the other chewed her lip with indecision.

  If she said something she knew he would come to her room, but she couldn't do it. She didn't know him that well. They had met barely twenty-four hours ago. So why did she feel she knew this man on a level she'd never known any man?

  Fergus squeezed her elbow and slid his hand down her arm as he turned her to face him. She felt the heat slice through her.

  'Thank you for your company,' he said as the lift stopped at her floor and he leaned across to kiss her.

  The moment his lips touched hers, the restraint they'd both held seemed to disappear into thin air. All thoughts of leaving the lift were lost and she stepped closer. Then his arms came around her and all the dancing around the attraction that flared between them was a waste of precious time, because this was where she wanted to be.

  Fergus's hip pressed into hers and there was no doubt the feeling was fiercely mutual.

  The automatic doors chimed as they closed on the tenth floor and the lift carried them swiftly to the top floor of the building.

  Ailee didn't know how they passed through the penthouse door but obviously Fergus had found his key and inserted the card successfully, because when she opened her eyes she was being carried across the room in his strong arms.

  Ailee sank her head back against his gorgeous chest. She'd always had a weakness for muscular chests. No one had actually carried her for many years—not since she'd grazed her knees as a skinny five-year-old—and Fergus carried her as if she were still as tiny as a child.

  She savoured being whisked through the rooms in this man's arms and she could almost believe she was one of those petite women she'd always admired.

  He settled her at the edge of his bed and traced her brow with his finger as if she were the most fragile of Dresden china.

  'You captured me the first time I saw you. Do you know that?' His quiet words lifted the hairs on her arms and she smiled at the way this man could make her feel more sensations and emotions than any man from her past.

  Her mouth was dry again from nerves. 'When I sat next to you on the plane?' She remembered that moment. She'd thought she'd been the only one who'd been aware of attraction.

  He traced her cheeks and lips and pressed a soft, fleeting kiss on her mouth before going on. 'Before that. In the terminal, across a crowded room, like in all the best movies, you shone like a star.'

  There was nothing she could do against the power he held over her. He was kind and funny and the sweeping conversations they'd had exposed the ferocity of his intellect. She felt as if she'd found someone who understood her.

  When he drew her into his arms there was no real world, only Fergus to be lost in.

  He kissed her again and she was swept into a storm of sensation as the taste and feel of him surrounded her.

  His strength and gentleness created havoc as he slipped her dress straps down her arms and exposed her body to the air-conditioned coolness in the room.

  Her fingers flew as she unbuttoned his shirt and slipped her hands beneath the fabric to run them over the hard planes of his chest. She needed to feel his skin under her hands and against her own skin.

  She felt tiny and captured and fiercely desired by this golden man above her, and she reached up and stroked his strong neck and shoulders as he lowered his face to kiss her.

  There was nothing she could do against the power he held over her. The rights and wrongs of this craziness, her fading nervousness and knowing she couldn't follow up their encounter in Sydney were all swept aside as her body responded to the feel of him against her.

  The shrill sound of the room telephone finally penetrated the fog that surrounded them both.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Fergus groaned and reached with one hand to lift the phone. With the other he reached for Ailee's fingers to stop her distancing herself from him. But his caller did that.

  'Sophie! How are you? What do you mean, not good?' Fergus let go of Ailee's hand and turned his shoulder to face away from her. His voice dropped in volume and Ailee looked away.

  What was she doing here? She pulled the top of her dress up and slid to the edge of the bed.

  Sophie had already lost her mother and she didn't need her father worrying about another woman. Let alone one who was going into surgery for an operation that was anything but minor.

  Maybe she could search him out when all this was over, if she was well and had something to offer him.

  If he was interested. She looked around the room and reluctantly thanked Fergus's daughter for the phone call.

  Ailee's loyalties lay in a different direction for the next few months and she couldn't divide herself at this point.

  He put the phone down and gave her a whimsical smile. 'Where were we?'

  'I was about to leave.'

  'Because my daughter rang?' he said. '

  'Because this isn't the right time for this.'

  Fergus raised his eyebrows. 'What else have you got planned that makes this timing so bad?'

  She nearly told him then but what if he said that didn't matter when she knew it did? What if he tried to talk her out of the operation—not that he could—but it would create more dilemmas that she couldn't face. Better to leave the whole subject alone.

  She said, 'It's a family thing.'

  His face twisted into a cy
nical smile. 'What if this is our one chance?'

  She lifted her eyes to his and acknowledged that the concept was possible but there was nothing she could do about that. Look where it had got her. Sitting on a bed with a stranger. 'That would be sad but I can't do this now.'

  'I think it would be more like a tragedy. This could be the start of something special, Ailee. Do you feel that?'

  She nodded but her heart told her she really should go.

  'Let's slow the whole thing down. We could do something really radical like sleep together without sex. Platonic but companionable. Come and lie back down beside me. We could both rest, even sleep. I've been awake all night, and when we wake up you could have dinner with me.'

  He patted the bed. 'I'll put my shirt back on. Just lie beside me and we can talk.' Fergus smiled at her and any resistance she'd had melted like snow in Singapore. 'And I could hold your hand.'

  If any other man had promised her bed with no seduction she would have doubted his assurance. But somehow when Fergus said it she could believe him. If she didn't make love with him, then she hadn't lied and hadn't led him on too much, and she wouldn't burn in hell. It was so darned attractive an idea.

  'I won't sleep.' She dithered.

  'Then just rest.' He patted the bed again. 'We'll eat here later if we feel like it so we don't have to get changed. It's much more fun here than in your lonely room.'

  That was true and the bed was soft and the cushions indulgent feather. His hand slid into hers and she lay back down beside him. He didn't try anything, and his hand held hers warmly but not with too much pressure. Slowly she relaxed. After some desultory conversation, to her surprise, her eyes grew heavy.

  When Ailee woke up she was less sure she was doing the right thing by Fergus.

  The room was dark and Fergus breathed deeply beside her. She gazed at the ceiling and thought of what lay ahead of her. She hadn't forgotten, just been submerged under the powerful forces of the man lying asleep beside her.

  Ailee contemplated her impending operation and the undeniable risks attached to only having one kidney, not huge risks statistically but risks nevertheless.

  There were physical restrictions for the first few months and changes in body image she would have to come to terms with, like a scar and tenderness.

  Her brother's ill health had to be considered and her commitment to stay on standby until the timing was medically perfect for him to be a recipient.

  Then Fergus had mentioned how difficult his relationship with his daughter had become, let alone the risk of bringing back all Sophie's memories of her mother's death after surgery.

  Ailee couldn't do it to them and in reality he wouldn't want her to. No matter how much she could dream at this moment—she knew she would have reservations later on, and so would he. Fergus would probably have reservations as soon as he woke up.

  The words he'd spoken had fitted so well with what had gone between them and what she'd most wanted to hear but in the cold light of day she couldn't allow herself to listen to him or acknowledge his power over her.

  It was better to stop now and see what the future held, if anything, when her family commitments had been met.

  Ailee looked across at the sleeping man, his face gentle in repose.

  She couldn't tell her family about Fergus either.

  Her mother and brother would say that they couldn't risk her early relationship with Fergus and call off the whole thing again.

  It had taken her so long to get through to her family that she didn't consider donating her kidney a sacrifice. It was a privilege to be able to so vastly improve her brother's quality of life at such little personal cost.

  'Fergus, I'm sorry,' she whispered, and swallowed the tears in her throat.

  Ailee rose, dressed and scribbled briefly on the embossed hotel notepad beside the bed. Shivering, she let herself out.

  It felt surreal to come from a stranger's hotel room, dressed in her day clothes, her lips still swollen from his kisses and the scent of him still on her clothes. How could this have happened?

  After a scalding shower that didn't warm her, Ailee lay and stared at the ceiling. She half expected him to ring her or knock at her door. She wasn't hungry.

  She booked her reminder call for the flight and fell asleep, waiting. She told herself she'd known he hadn't meant that he wanted to see her again.

  It was six a.m. and Sydney airport wasn't crowded when Ailee's flight docked at Terminal One.

  With no heavy luggage, Ailee passed quickly through customs and she came ou{ into the arrivals hall to see her mother waiting for her.

  Helen Green looked like a slightly older version of her daughter and Ailee hugged her mother for comfort and was hugged strongly back.

  It was so good to see her.

  'Where's William?'

  Her mother met her concerned look with one of her own. 'In hospital, I'll tell you in the car.'

  Ailee's heart sank even further. 'Let's get out of here, then.' She didn't want to look around to see if anyone was meeting Fergus.

  Helen paused and turned to study her daughter searchingly. 'Are you OK?'

  'Fine.' Ailee glanced down at her luggage. 'Just tired.' She didn't want to see the concerned look from her mother. 'William would have enjoyed the bustle of the airport,' she said to divert attention away from herself. She remembered the souvenirs, different coloured singing bagpipes that would drive her mother mad, and smiled.

  'Come on, Mum. I need a cup of your tea and I've presents to distribute.'

  When Fergus heard the click of the door his hand slid across and found the warmth of the sheets next to him instead of the warmth of Ailee's body. He shuddered at the sense of loss that swept over him.

  'Ailee?' He looked towards the bathroom but the door was open and there were no sounds in the penthouse. She'd gone. Just like that. After the day they'd shared. As if it were nothing. He shook his head, unable to believe she'd slipped away without telling him.

  He hadn't picked that in her but maybe he'd pushed too fast.

  He still couldn't believe she'd gone until he sat on the edge of the bed and his glance fell on the note she'd written.

  'Thank you for the day. Ailee.' That was it. Nothing else.

  At least she hadn't left him money. He feared she'd pierced the shell he'd sworn to keep intact—and he wasn't sure the wound would heal at all well.

  Obviously she'd not been mutually affected. So much for her agreement they should meet in Sydney. He remembered the way she'd first ignored him in the plane and he wished, bitterly, that she hadn't turned to him a few minutes later. How could such a short encounter affect him so much?

  When he landed at Sydney airport Fergus handed the trolley over to his driver and scanned the arrivals hall until he caught a glimpse of Ailee as she left with another woman.

  Disappointment made him catch his breath. Apart from a glimpse of her up ahead when they'd boarded at Singapore, Fergus hadn't seen Ailee since before she'd left his room the evening before.

  Ailee had travelled the last leg in business class and he guessed that was lucky because if he'd had to sit and watch her for the flight to Sydney he would have weakened and suggested they meet at least one more time. He hated weakness—especially in himself.

  Fergus sighed and followed his driver. It was better to suffer a little now because if watching her leave was this bad after an international flight and a day in Singapore then long-term exposure to the woman could be fatal.

  A sudden uneasy thought made him wonder if there was another reason she hadn't stayed, that she was ill, awaiting medical results—heaven forbid, terminal— but then he shook his head. He'd never seen anyone healthier or more physically fit than the woman he had lain beside last night. His groin clenched and he gritted his teeth.

  It was incredible that their time together hadn't been as special for her as it had been for him. Maybe he was too much of a gentleman for her. Maybe he should have pushed his advantage when he'd had
it, but he'd seen something more precious than a one-night stand in Ailee. Obviously he'd been mistaken.

  He lacked practice since Stella had died but he'd have sworn he'd touched Ailee during their time together. He was a fool and a besotted one at that. No wonder he'd shied away from new relationships—obviously times had changed.

  He and Sophie made a good team. He might check with his daughter again to find out if the boarding- school thing was working though.

  In her mother's car, Ailee cast one final look towards the terminal and then she faced the front.

  'So how is William?'

  Her mother's voice was heavy with concern. 'He's had a bad week. His creatine level is sky high and his electrolytes are all over the place.'

  Ailee knew the strain this worry put on her mother.

  Helen went on. 'He's so weak he can only take two hours of dialysis for the next few days. Hopefully he'll be able to build up his tolerance and extend the length to gain strength for the operation.'

  Ailee pressed her hand on her mother's shoulder in comfort.

  'He'll pull through, Mum. He's a fighter.'

  'It's been so terrible, watching him. He's so young for this.' Ailee could hear the tremor in her mother's voice as she listened.

  Ailee needed to hear. 'Tell me.'

  'The convulsions and the body rash have been the worst but he's so tired and nauseous. I think they'll decide on your transplant in the next few weeks if he can get well enough to undergo the operation.'

  'That's a good thing.' Ailee's voice was firm with conviction. She wanted to do this and see her brother well and her mother's greatest fears put aside.

  'I can't wait for it all to be over and William to get his life back. To see energy and colour in his face will be worth everything. He's eighteen, for heaven's sake. He should be out chasing girls.'

  As she said it a sudden vision of Fergus's face above hers made her wince, and she was glad that her mother was driving and couldn't hear her tiny sigh for what might have been, but the thought was fleeting. William was the important one.