Trouble on Her Doorstep (12 page)

He wanted her.

He wanted her badly.

And the huge red switch marked ‘danger’ that had been buried under a lifetime of disappointment and making do with second-hand love suddenly and instantly flicked up and turned green.

She wanted him right back. On her single bed. And wearing Lottie’s posh frock. Forget slow, she wanted fast. She wanted it all and she wanted it now.

It was almost a relief to turn in the circle of his arms so that she could not feel the burning heat of his intense gaze scorching her face.

But that was nothing compared to what she saw when she opened her eyes fully.

She was standing in front of her full-length bedroom mirror on the wardrobe door with Sean standing behind her.

Instinctively she lifted both hands and pressed them to her chest as Sean slid Lottie’s black dress away from her shoulders on each side. He had unzipped it as she enjoyed him. Now it was free and all that was holding it up, and protecting her modesty, were her two hands.

Dee stared at the girl in the mirror. Her hair was messed up, her eyes and skin glowing, and there was a handsome man with tight curled brown hair kissing her naked neck and, oh lord, her shoulders.

It was getting very hard to breathe but she could not look away, dared not look away, from the view in the mirror.

Sean was looking at the back of her neck as though it was the most beautiful and fascinating thing that he had ever seen, his fingertips stroking her skin from the innermost curve of her neck and along her collarbone. She could feel the heat from his touch, and the sensation of those fingertips was almost too much for her to tolerate.

A shiver of delicious excitement ran across her back and she saw Sean smile back at her in the mirror.

Lottie Rosemount had a lot to answer for. The mocha lace bra and shorts-style pants she was wearing had been a Christmas present from her, but not even the lovely Lottie could have anticipated that they would be on display in this way when Dee had slipped into them straight out of the shower only an hour earlier.

Slowly Sean brought his hands to the front, laid them over hers and whispered in her right ear in a voice that she could have spread on hot crumpets.

‘I want you to see yourself the way I see you. You don’t need the dress.’

Dee smiled back at the man in the mirror as he slowly unfurled one finger at a time until only her palms were holding the couture dress against her bra.

‘Do you trust me, Dee?’

Speech was impossible but she hesitated. This was it. If she wanted a way out, this was the time to say something or do something to take back control. Instead of which her head lifted and fell in a simple yes, and she was rewarded by a truly filthy grin.

And just like that she grinned back and pulled her hands away so that the dress fell to the floor in a heap around her feet.

She would have bent down to pick it up but that would have meant bending down while Sean was still holding her tight around the waist.

Bad idea! Such a bad idea!

So instead she swallowed down a sea of doubt and looked back at the mirror and the girl who was standing there in her underwear, with Sean’s arms around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder.

‘Tell me what you see,’ he whispered.

Her head dropped back and she half-closed her eyes, surrendering her entire body to his hands as they moved in firm and gentle circles in a delicious blissful movement.

Dee dared to open her eyes and watch the scene in the mirror.

Sean stroked and caressed her breasts through the flimsy fabric of her bra, lifting up her left breast then the right. He was slow and gentle, as though he was not in the slightest rush and they had all night to explore one another’s bodies.

She felt Sean unclip her bra but did nothing to stop him and leaned back against him, feeling her bare skin on the crisp, white dinner shirt and not caring that she was probably creasing it.

The window was still slightly open and the chilly breeze wafted in, making her nipples stand proud inside her bra, pushing against the lace.

Sean noticed. She could see his reaction, feel the rise and fall of his chest and the pressure against her back from his trousers.

But instead of going for her nipples the pads of his soft fingertips expertly stroked down from her collarbone down over the top of her cleavage, as though he knew instinctively that was the most sensitive part of her neck.

Then her breasts. Exposed to the air, the dark skin around her nipples was already raised and ready. His fingers stroked all along the length of the side of her breast, moving into a more circular pressure, but then he looked up into the mirror.

But then his fingers paused, and every inch of her skin screamed out for release as he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder so that they were both staring into the mirror at the same time.

‘We need to be somewhere. And I need to get some air. Cold air.’

He pressed his lips to her throat and grinned. ‘The sacrifices I make for my family. Oh yes...’ And with one last, long, shuddering sigh he slipped back, picked up his jacket and walked slowly out of the bedroom.

TEN

Tea, glorious tea. A celebration of teas from around the world.

Tea is a natural product, hand-picked and completely free from artificial colours and preservatives, but rich in minerals and antioxidants. And best of all? Calorie-free.

Perfect for when you need to slip into that little black dress.

From
Flynn’s Phantasmagoria of Tea

Friday

Sean sauntered casually
into the white marble reception area of the most prestigious Beresford hotel in London, the flashguns lighting up his back.

He might be the youngest director in the family firm but this was the one time a year he was willing to put his Armani tux on show for the press and wear his family pride on his sleeve.

Glancing around the room, he gave a quick wave to the management training team who were already lining up the latest graduates to chat to his father, who was greeting the hundred or so specially invited guests in person, same as always.

Tom Beresford. Straight-backed, tall, dark and impressive. The poster boy for every self-made multi-millionaire who had learnt his trade the hard way. The company PR machine loved to repeat the story about the boy who had started work at fourteen, washing dishes in the kitchens where his mother was the head chef, his father serving in the army overseas. His wages had been a hot meal every day and enough cash to pay his bus fare to school.

The weird thing was, it was all true. Except for one thing: he had been thirteen when he’d started, and barely tall enough to stand at the sinks, but had told the hotel he was older to get the work.

By eighteen he’d been working for the hotel and studying at college and at twenty-one had his first job as deputy manager. The rest was history.

Of course, the PR experts did not go into quite so much detail when it came to his father’s complicated personal life, which was way more tabloid fodder than inspirational reading for young managers. He had certainly enjoyed female company as a single man—and when he was not so single.

Not that he could get away with that now. His lovely third wife Ava had been by his side night after night for the past eighteen years, just as she was greeting the guests tonight, and Sean knew that his father adored her.

He was still the man who had read him bedtime stories every night all dressed up in his dinner suit before heading to the hotel to work.

‘Hey, handsome. Feeling lonely?’

Sean laughed out loud as his teenage half-sister Annika hooked her arm around his elbow and leant closer to give him a hug.

He replied by lifting the back of her hand to his lips then glancing up and down her gorgeous aqua cocktail dress. ‘Why look at you, pretty girl. All grown up and everything.’

He was rewarded with a soft kiss on the cheek.

‘Charmer! But you scrub up nicely. New suit?’

‘Had it for months. All ready for the Paris job. New dress?’

‘Had it a day.’ She sniffed and looked around. ‘What have you done with Dee? I noticed that fabulous sari she was wearing when she came in with Rob and then she seemed to disappear. You were very brave, letting him escort your lady friend. Rob is a scamp.’

Then Annika’s voice faded away and she gave a small cough. ‘Oh my. I think I think you’d better go to the rescue. Don’t you? See you later.’ And with that she released his hand to move to the cluster of new arrivals who had packed the reception area behind him.

Sean followed the direction of Annika’s gaze and stood there, chuckling.

Judging by the number of people clustered around the buffet table, there was obviously something exciting going on. Sean could see Rob’s head in the crowd but Dee had emerged from the tea rooms wearing far more practical flat gold sandals. Practical, but it also meant that in a room of tall men she was the orchid shaded by the tall trees.

Except that this was one girl who would always stand out in a crowd.

Especially when she was wearing a gold silk sari, gold jewellery and an azure-and-gold bodice which revealed a tantalizing band of the same taut skin he had admired back in the bedroom.

She took his breath away.

This was no clone. This was a real woman showing that she could act the part when she needed to, and revealing yet another side to her personality that he could never have imagined existed.

He had spent the week learning about one side of Dee Flynn. The woman who had taken a risk with her friend and transformed a simple patisserie into something spectacular. Doing what she loved to do, capitalizing on her passion. On her own terms.

When had he last met a woman like that? Not often. Maybe never. Oh, he had met plenty of glossy-haired girls with high IQs who had claimed they were doing what they truly loved, but so few people knew what they wanted in their twenties that it was astonishingly rare.

He had known precisely what he wanted from the first day he’d walked into his dad’s hotel. His career path had been as clear as a printed map. He was going to do exactly what his father had done, start at the bottom and work his way up, even if he was the son of the owner of the hotel chain.

Dee Flynn had done the same.

Maybe that was why he connected with the tiny woman he was looking at now.

They were different from other people.

Different and special.

He was in awe, and ready to admit that to anyone.

Sean stood in silence as the chatting, smiling men and women in business suits who worked for his family filled the space that separated them. But his gaze was locked on one person. And it was not Rob, who seemed to be holding court.

He could hear his brother’s familiar roar of laughter warm the room, but Sean’s ears were tuned only to Dee’s sweet laugh which was like a hot shower.

His senses were razor-sharp. And, as the cluster broke up, he caught sight of her.

She was looking around the room. Looking for him.

She winked at him with a wry smile, shrugged her shoulders and then turned to laugh at
something Rob said before they were swallowed up by the trainees and older managers enjoying the delicious food and drink, only too happy to meet the celebrity chef Rob Beresford in person.

The last thing he saw was the slight tilt of her head and a flash of gold silk as she sashayed elegantly away from him.

Dervla Flynn was turning out to be one of the most remarkable women he had ever met in his life, and the last ten minutes had only served to increase his admiration.

He was totally in awe.

Then she slipped out of view as Rob and the whole entourage joined his father in the dining area, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Strange that he was even now reliving that moment when her body had been pressed against his arm.

Strange how he was still standing in the same spot five minutes later, watching the space where she had last stood. Waiting. Just in case he could catch a glimpse of her again, the most beautiful woman in the room.

For that he was prepared to wait a very long time.

* * *

It seemed like ten minutes had gone by, but when the sitar music sang out from the mobile phone in her embroidered bag Dee was shocked to see that she had been swept up with Rob and his dad, talking food and drink, for over an hour.

There was a text message on the screen:

Ready to escape the noise and crush and get some air? Meet you at the elevator in five minutes. Sean

Sean! She had been so engrossed that she had only spent ten minutes with her date the whole evening. Quickly gathering up her skirts, Dee excused herself and skipped up the steps, and instantly caught sight of Sean, who was beckoning to her.

In a moment he had drawn her into the lift and pressed a card into a slot on the lift button before giving her a quick hug.

‘Do you remember that penthouse suite I was trying to talk you into? Well, I seem to recall that this hotel has a private penthouse worth seeing. If you are willing to risk it?’

‘Risk it?’

‘It’s the eighteenth floor, which means a quick trip inside a lift,’ he whispered, and grinned at her shocked reaction. ‘But it does have a balcony.’

And what a balcony!

Dee stepped out onto a long, tiled terrace, and what she saw in front of her took her breath away.

The rain had cleared to leave a star-kissed, cool evening. And stretched out, in every direction, was London. Her city. Dressed and lit, bright, shiny and sparking with street lamps, advertisements and the lights from homes and offices.

It was like something from a movie or a wonderful painting. A moment so special that Dee knew instinctively that she would never forget it.

She grasped hold of the railing and looked out over London, her heart soaring, all doubt forgotten in the exuberant joy of the view.

It was almost a shock to feel a warm arm wrap a coat around her shoulders and she turned sideways to face Sean with a grin, clutching onto his sleeve.

‘Have you seen this? It’s astonishing. I love it.’ Dee breathed.

‘I know. I can see it on your face.’

Then he moved closer to her on the balcony, his left hand just touching the outstretched fingers of her right hand.

But Sean was looking up at the stars.

‘Last February it was snowy and cloudy for the whole of the three weeks that I was back in London. But tonight? Tonight is perfect.’

‘This is amazing. I had no idea that you could see skies like this in London. I thought the light pollution would block out the stars.’

And she followed his gaze just in time to see a shooting star streak across the sky directly above their heads, and then another, smaller this time, then another.

‘
A meteor shower.
Sean! Look!’

‘What is it, Dee?’ he asked, his mouth somewhere in the vicinity of her hair. ‘Have you made a wish on a shooting star? What does your heart yearn to do that you haven’t done yet?’

‘Me? Oh, I had such great plans when I was a teenager and the whole world seemed to be an open door to whatever I wanted. My parents loved their work, and I was so happy for them when they decided to retire and run their own tea gardens. Warmth. Sunshine. They could not have been happier.’

She wrapped her arms tight around her body. ‘But then the hard reality of running a business in a recession where tea prices are falling hit. And they lost it. They lost everything they had dreamt of. And it was so hard to see them in pain, Sean. So very hard.’

‘But they stayed. Didn’t they?’

She nodded. ‘They won’t come back unless they have to and if they did... It would break them. And that is what scares me.’

She lifted her head and rested it on Sean’s chest. ‘I know that I am in a different place in my life, and there are lots more opportunities out there for me, but do you know what? I am not so very different from my folks. I want my own business so badly and I don’t know how I could cope if my dream fell apart. Six months ago I was working for a big tea importer and going to night school to study business most evenings and weekends. But Lottie changed that when she asked me to join her in the tea rooms. The time seemed so right. I have volunteered to run the festival and I felt ready to do anything.’

‘You are ready. I know it.’

She looked up into his smiling face but stayed inside the warm circle of his arms.

‘How do you know what your limits are?’

‘You don’t. The only way to find out is by testing yourself. You would be astounded at what you are capable of. And if you don’t succeed you learn from your mistakes and do what you have to do to get back up and try again until you can prove to yourself that you can do it. And then you keep on doing that over and over again.’

‘No matter how many times you fall down and hurt yourself?’

‘That’s right. You’ve got it.’

Dee turned slightly away from Sean and looked out towards the horizon, suddenly needing to get some distance, some air between them. What he was describing was so hard, so difficult and so familiar. He could never know how many times she had forced herself to smile after someone had let her down, or when she had been ridiculed or humiliated.

Dee blinked back tears and pulled the collar of his jacket up around her ears while she fought to gain control of her voice. ‘Some of us lesser mortals have been knocked down so many times that it is hard to bounce back up again, Sean. Very hard. Can you understand that?’

Sean replied by wrapping his long arms around her body in a warm embrace so tender that Dee surrendered to a moment of joy and pressed her head against his chest, inhaling his delicious scent as her body shared his warmth.

His hands made lazy circles on her back in silence for a few minutes until he spoke, the words reverberating inside his chest into her head. ‘Better than you think. Working in the family business is not all fun. I have been in these hotels all my life one way or another. And I still have a lot to learn.’

Dee shuffled back from him, laughed in a choked voice and then pressed both hands against his chest as she replied with a broken smile.

‘So that makes two of us who are stuck in the family trade. Am I right?’

‘Absolutely. How about a suggestion instead? I know a couple of venture-capital guys who have money to invest in new business ideas. All I have to do is make a few phone calls and... What? What now?’

‘I don’t want to carry any debt. No maxed-out credit cards; no business loans; no venture capital investment. That’s how my dad got into so much trouble and there is no way that I am going there. So thank you, but no. I might be hard up, but I have made some rules for myself. I have already maxed out my credit on my share of the tea shop. I can’t handle any more debt.’

Sean inhaled very slowly and watched Dee struggle with her thoughts, her dilemma played out in the tension on her face.

She was as proud as anyone he had ever met. Including himself. Which was quite something.

And just like that the connection he had sensed between them from the moment he had laid eyes on her in the tea rooms kicked up a couple of notches.

And every warning bell in his body started screaming ‘danger!’ so loudly that in the end he could not ignore it any longer. And he pulled away from her.