The Pleasures of Summer (49 page)
After the photographs had been taken, she followed the wedding party up the Royal Mile and into the dim interior of the Witchery. She had never eaten there, but knew of its reputation for sumptuous gothic interiors and fabulous food. It would have been the perfect place for a bout of glorious make-up sex with Flynn. In her fantasies, they would have stayed in one of the suites for a week and not gotten out of bed the whole time. Now she felt foolish and uncomfortable.
Lorna sent her a few dagger glances during the drinks reception. Apart from Morag, the only ones who spoke to her were two pimply youths with questionable taste in neckties and no tolerance for alcohol.
At last they were shown to their tables. She guessed there had been a last-minute re-shuffle of the place settings when Flynn failed to arrive. She shared a table with a few of David’s bachelor friends and an elderly uncle
from the Orkneys who was deaf as a post. Judging by the amount of time he spent staring at her cleavage, there was nothing wrong with his eyesight.
‘So you’re Flynn’s wee girl?’ his voice could be heard on the other side of the room and she saw Lorna’s head shoot up.
‘Not exactly,’ Summer murmured as she took a mouthful of her starter.
‘Have ye plans for a wedding yourselves?’
Summer caught a sympathetic smile from a middle-aged woman at the next table. She had been hoping to have a quick dinner and return to London. Now, she was proving to be the evening’s entertainment. She gave her interrogator a polite smile. ‘Not at the moment. No.’
The grey-haired man sitting on his other side tried to distract him. She overheard the words ‘broken up’ and cringed. He turned to Summer again. ‘That’s a shame. Still, I suppose he must have had his reasons.’
And now my evening is complete.
There was no way in hell that she was going to sit there and be pitied by Flynn’s relatives. ‘Actually, we broke up because I’m moving to South America.’
Her statement provoked more attention from the top table and she pressed on. ‘I just came to say goodbye to Morag and David. I’m leaving for Argentina at the end of the month.’
Summer left quietly as soon as dinner was over. At reception, she scribbled a quick note on the front of an envelope addressed to David containing a voucher for two tickets to a destination of their choice, courtesy of O’Sullivan Airlines.
The following morning, the London house seemed bleaker than before. Yesterday she had a tiny sliver of hope that she would see Flynn again. Today was the first day of the rest of her life, and what an aimless, stupid life it was turning out to be.
The unopened designer shopping bags that littered the bedroom floor mocked her. The last month had proven that she couldn’t be Summer O’Sullivan any longer. That airhead heiress had been lost somewhere in the Highlands and she wouldn’t be returning. Flynn had seen to that. How could one man have changed her life so much and then just walk away? She couldn’t spend the rest of her days wishing for something that she couldn’t have. Maybe South America wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Her father greeted her news with the same enthusiasm he had for the announcement of fog at Heathrow airport on a Friday evening. ‘South America! Are you out of your feckin mind?’
Summer laughed when she saw the expression on his face. ‘No, Daddy. I think it’s the first time I’ve been sane in years.’
‘Sane, me arse. Stop mooning over that Grant chap and get on with your life. You didn’t see me moping about the place after your mother died.’
She couldn’t listen to his lecture again. How he had
thrown himself into his work a week after the funeral and never stopped since. ‘Well, maybe you should have. If you had taken time to grieve for Mum you wouldn’t have been such a miserable git for the past fifteen years.’
A wash of scarlet rose from his neck and covered his cheeks. ‘Don’t you speak to me like that about your mother.’
That was the problem. They never spoke about her mother, or about the years that Summer had cried herself to sleep at one school after another while she missed both of them. Her dad thought that money could cure everything. But it had caused a rift with Flynn and nothing could ease the pain of that.
For the first time in her life, Summer wished that she was ordinary. ‘I will speak about her. Why did we leave everything behind when we moved here? We don’t have a single thing from the old house. Why don’t we have photographs of her?’
She gestured to the gilded portraits that had come with the mansion. ‘Do you know who any of these people are? Name one of them.’
The dark flush had now reached the tips of her father’s ears. ‘You ungrateful little bitch. I work a seventy-hour week to give you this. Who do you think pays for the cars and the credit cards and all the other stuff you spend your life buying?’
Tears prickled behind Summer’s eyelids, but she wouldn’t cry in front of him. Her father hated tears. ‘I don’t want
stuff
. I need something else. I’m leaving, Dad and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’
‘If you step outside that door, I’ll cut you off without a
penny. How long do you think you can arse around Brazil without your credit cards and your five-star hotels?’
He gave her the look he used when he was at a board meeting and was determined to get his own way. If she worked for him, she would have been quaking in her Jimmy Choos by now, but she wasn’t going to back down.
‘It’s Argentina, Dad, and this time I’m leaving the credit cards at home.’
Summer stepped away from the check-in desk and put her passport and boarding card into her small rucksack. She had two hours to kill before departure. Time enough for coffee and some last-minute phone calls. The envelope containing her precious letter from
Los Medicos Voladores
peeked up at her.
She wasn’t useless after all. Some places in the world still jumped at the chance of a volunteer worker with language skills and aircraft logistics experience. The money in her savings account would be enough to rent a place to live until she had wages coming in.
In the duty-free shop, she picked up a bottle of Baileys. Maybe some day when the memories of their time together at the croft didn’t hurt so much, she would crack it open, play her favourite Melody Gardot songs and remember Flynn without wanting to cry.
‘I wouldn’t recommend drinking that alone.’
Flynn’s voice. She was going crazy. Summer blinked and turned in the direction of the sound. He was taller than she remembered, or maybe it was because she was wearing flat pumps instead of her usual heels. The top buttons of his shirt were undone and she caught a glimpse
of tanned flesh. Flynn had been travelling again, on some secret mission he would never speak about.
Summer clutched the bottle, wondering if she should replace it on the shelf or put it in her basket. It wasn’t his business what she drank. If she put it back she would look as if she cared what he thought. She put the bottle in her basket and added a bar of chocolate for good measure before she managed a half smile. ‘You look good.’
His eyes roamed her face. She was aware that all the sleepless nights of the past seven weeks showed. ‘It’s more than I can say for you. What have you been doing to yourself?’
Missing you, more than you can imagine
. That would be too humiliating to admit. He had walked out on her; she didn’t owe him a thing. She shrugged, trying to play it cool. ‘Nothing special.’
His mouth tightened. ‘Moving to South America is nothing special? What were you going to do, send me a postcard when you got there?’
‘If I knew your address and didn’t think you were a complete bastard, I might think about it. And you can tell my father that I don’t need a bodyguard.’ She tried to pass him, only to have him catch her arm in an inescapable grip.
‘Your father didn’t send me. I haven’t spoken to him since I left.’
Summer rounded on him. ‘So why are you here? Do you think you can just drop in and out of my life whenever you feel like it? Stop torturing me, Flynn.’
He released her arm. Standing this close to him she could see the gold flecks in his eyes, catch his familiar
scent. ‘Summer, don’t. I tried to stay away, but I just can’t stop thinking about you. Nothing works, not even C4.’
She laughed at the thought of him blowing up stuff to get over her but then heard the announcement that her flight would be boarding shortly. ‘That’s me,’ she said.
Summer picked up her basket and paid for her purchases. She would get to say goodbye to him after all. The thought made her stomach flip. How could he do this to her? A few minutes in his company and already she was beginning to melt.
Memories of the croft flooded her. Flynn laughing. Flynn holding her. Flynn making love to her. It shouldn’t hurt this much just to see him again. ‘I have to go. Why don’t you walk me to the gate?’
He slid his arms around her waist and it was as if the past few weeks had never happened, that they had never been apart. ‘What if I don’t want you to go? A woman like you can’t travel around South America on her own. God knows what kind of trouble you’d get into.’ Flynn bent his head and whispered in her ear, ‘What if I wanted to go with you?’
Summer closed her eyes as he nibbled his way down her neck, not caring about the amused glances they were attracting. The thought of them being apart again was more than she could bear. But Flynn had already turned her down once. She couldn’t take that chance again. ‘I thought you didn’t want to be Mr Summer O’Sullivan?’
The kisses stopped. Flynn captured her ear lobe between his teeth and nipped. The pleasure-pain shock sent a jolt through her, setting her pulse racing as she waited for his answer.
‘I don’t. I was hoping that you might want to be Mrs Flynn Grant.’
Only Flynn would wait until the very last minute to show his hand. Bloody international man of mystery. She tilted her head back and stared at him, but there wasn’t a hint of amusement in his face. If anything, he looked unsure.
‘What makes you think that I’ll say yes?’
The lines around his eyes creased with laughter. ‘Because I’m crazy about you. And I’m hoping you might feel the same way. I’ll give you until we get to the gate to think about it.’
‘You arrogant. Scottish –’
‘Half-Irish,’ he corrected her.
He was serious about this. They were in the middle of a busy airport. All around them people were racing in every direction, while Flynn acted as if he didn’t have a care in the world. What way was that to propose to anyone? If he thought for one minute that he could treat her like that when they were married, he was sadly mistaken. ‘Ask me in six months’ time and I’ll think about it.’
‘That’s good enough for now. Come along, Mrs Grant, we have a flight to catch. I just need to make a quick phone call first.’
He punched a speed dial code into his phone. ‘Niall, man, I need a favour. Summer and I are on the Heathrow to Buenos Aires flight departing in thirty minutes. Any chance you can upgrade us to first class?’
Flynn strolled up the jacaranda-lined street and into the cool interior of the former biscuit factory which was now their home. Under his arm, he carried a brown paper bag containing steaks and salads. Ignoring the lift, he took the stairs two at a time until he reached the top floor. His knee was finally back to normal and he was glad to be working again.
O’Sullivan was still having a conniption that his precious daughter was roughing it in a loft in La Boca, instead of a fancy apartment in a better neighbourhood. Rumours had been circulating that
‘El Teflon’
Tim O’Sullivan was considering expanding his intercontinental routes to include several South American cities. Summer rolled her eyes every time it was mentioned. No one associated the Irish señorita with the international airline magnate, and that was just how she liked it.
He laid the table, placed a single white orchid in a tiny glass vase, and put the Baileys in the fridge to chill. Summer had surprised him. He hadn’t expected her to last a month out here, but she had taken to her new job like a duck to water, planning, begging and bargaining with suppliers for the best deal they could offer. She was shameless about using her connections to raise money for the medical charity, and thanks to her, they now had the use of
two more light aircraft and a warehouse. Sometimes he wondered if she wasn’t more like her father than she realized.
He hadn’t asked her to marry him again since the day at the airport. She had asked him to wait six months. Tonight, whether she was ready or not, he was going to ask her again. It was six months to the day since the first time they had met on the stairs of her father’s house. There hadn’t been a day since then that he hadn’t wanted her or loved her. He was through waiting.
Flynn wandered into the bedroom and changed the bed linen. It wasn’t every evening that he got to seduce his wife-to-be, but tonight had to be perfect. He took a shower, shaved and pulled on her favourite shirt. It was dark cotton and fitted him like a glove. Unfortunately there was nowhere to hide a weapon so it mostly hung in the wardrobe. Summer had bought it for him the day after they had gone to their first tango show.
She had plagued him to take tango classes with her after that, but he had refused. Irishmen didn’t dance. Full stop. Period. Unless they were Michael Flatley. He might be willing to negotiate on a lot of things, but dancing wasn’t one of them. He would wear the shirt to please her and they could tango all she wanted in bed.
Flynn opened the doors to the tiny balcony and let the warm air drift into the room. It was nothing like Scotland. At this time of the year, he and David would have been sealing off the croft in preparation for the winter. Sometimes he had a hankering for the old place, for the bed beneath the eaves, for the sweet scent of the air there.
Buenos Aires was a different place entirely and it was only his home because Summer was here.
He heard voices on the stairs and her cheerful words as she exchanged greetings with Maria Elena, their elderly neighbour. Even when she spoke Spanish, Summer’s Irish lilt was something which she couldn’t disguise. Just as he heard her key turning in the lock, he turned on the music.
Coming home to Flynn always made her smile. Her whole life had changed since they moved here. The city was a vibrant, sensual place and she had learned to live her life as she wanted. But best of all was Flynn. He still took jobs which he didn’t speak about. Short, dangerous episodes, when he was gone for several nights and she kept her phone beneath her pillow with Niall’s number on speed dial, just in case.
One thing she had come to know was that Flynn never took chances. What they had together was too precious. She had learned to relax about it – almost.
Summer tucked her bag under her arm as she turned the key in the lock. She couldn’t wait to tell Flynn about the text from Molly – she had finally got over Robert and met a kinky Cork man called Gabriel.
She forgot all about it when she noticed the table was laid for a special dinner and that her favourite tango music was playing. Then Flynn was moving towards her with the slow, deliberate stride of a dancer who was intent on taking the lead.
Without speaking, he took the bag from her and put it on the table. She loved it when he was like this, when she could simply surrender. Summer took a step back. The game had begun.
Flynn took her hands in his and raised them above her head, before pressing her back against the door. He insinuated his thigh between hers and, almost without thinking, she raised her leg and slid it along his hip. He lowered his head, seeking her throat and she gave a little whimper as his mouth fastened on her skin. Hot and insistent, he kissed her neck, releasing her wrists only long enough to pull the straps of her dress down over her shoulders. Then he captured them again.
‘I do believe I’ve missed you, Mrs Grant.’ His voice rumbled just below her ear lobe, sending a delicious shiver through her. ‘It’s been almost ten hours.’
‘You have?’ Her voice shook as she tried to concentrate on what he was saying. Flynn had managed to unzip her dress and he was busy exploring her bare skin. Her breasts were now bared to him and with slow, deliberate focus he blew a breath on one erect nipple. She almost came on the spot.
Flynn bit down, sending a thrill of pleasure-pain through her. ‘Naughty, Mrs Grant. You don’t get to come until I say so and you know what happens to bad girls. Now, keep your hands above your head.’
With both hands now free, Flynn pulled her dress down to her waist. He cupped her breasts in his hands, rubbing his thumbs back and forth against her nipples, driving the sensitive peaks to distraction. She was ready to plead with him to stop, when he released them.
Flynn tugged her zipper down fully, and her dress slid to the floor and pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it and kicked it away, standing before Flynn in nothing but two triangles of pink silk held together with ribbon.
‘I see you’ve been shopping,’ he murmured as he dropped to his knees and planted a kiss on her silk-covered mons, ‘but I don’t think we’ll be needing these.’ He tugged on the ribbons, leaving her bare, and he pocketed the scraps of silk.
‘If you behave, you can have them back later,’ he said in a tone that made her heart race. Sometimes he tortured her by taking her to one of the fancy hotels and demanding that she go to the ladies room, remove her panties and then give them to him. Then they would sit and sip a cocktail while Flynn spoke to her in a low voice, telling her in explicit detail what he was going to do to her when they got home.
The sensuous music rose to a crescendo as a plaintive Spanish voice begged her errant lover to return. Summer closed her eyes, dragging her fingers through his hair as Flynn used his mouth and tongue on her to bring her to the point of orgasm. Nothing else existed. The planet spun on its axis. She was so close. There was nothing but his mouth, his hands holding her thighs firmly apart and the tiny pulses of pleasure that were racing out of control.
‘Oh god, Flynn. Oh yes, yes. Just like that.’ She twisted her hands in his hair, panting his name over and over in an incoherent litany. Then everything stopped.
Summer opened her eyes and stared down at him. His mouth was wet from tasting her; his smile was heavy lidded with passion. ‘Why have you … ?’
‘Stopped? Well, it just so happens that I have you in the perfect position for what I have in mind. Wet, needy and just at the point where you’d agree to anything I want.’
She trembled with excitement at the thought of what he might have in mind. One evening, he had taken her from behind on the balcony, knowing that he was hidden from view, but that she couldn’t make a sound because the balcony door of the next apartment was open. There was a part of Flynn that would always court danger.
Summer gave a throaty laugh. ‘What did you have in mind?’
Flynn reached into his pocket and produced a ring box. ‘Marry me?’
The music drifted away, leaving the room in silence. But for the support of the door against her back, Summer would have keeled over. His affectionate teasing, calling her Mrs Grant, had become a joke between them. Now, there was nothing but Flynn and her. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of the city that had become home to both of them. She wouldn’t change a minute of their lives here or contemplate a time that they wouldn’t be together. Flynn was forever.
With one hand, he flipped the box open. Nestled in the black velvet Cartier box was a ring shaped like an orchid. Its intricate diamond petals cradled a larger pink diamond at the centre. Her favourite flower and colour.
‘I didn’t think you’d want something traditional, but I can take it back, if you don’t like it.’
‘Like it? Oh Flynn, it’s beautiful. It’s the most perfect ring I’ve ever seen.’ She stretched out her left hand eagerly.
Relief and joy mingled on his face, and then his mouth
curved in a wicked smile. ‘Ah ah, who’s doing the driving, Mrs Grant? You haven’t answered my question.’
She flung herself at him, sending them both tumbling to the floor. ‘Stupid man,’ she said as she kissed him soundly. There was only one answer she could give. ‘It’s yes. Yes. Yes.’