Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night
Auteur
Melanie Milburne
Lezers
15,3K
Hoofdstukken
12
CHAPTER ONE
AERIN SAW HIM before he saw her. Drake Cawthorn was standing on the corner of the street opposite her, checking something on his phone while he waited for the ‘walk’ signal at the busy London intersection near his office. She took a moment to study him in secret and a little frisson danced down her spine. Drake was head and shoulders over everyone else in the crowd, with hair as black and sleek as a raven’s wing and a strong nose that looked like it might once have been broken. He was wearing a dark blue suit teamed with a crisp white business shirt that emphasised his olive-toned skin. His tie was a checked blue, but it was loosened at his neck, as if he had tugged at it impatiently at one point during the day and not bothered to readjust it. He would have ticked number one on her soulmate checklist for ‘tall, dark and handsome’ perfectly if it weren’t for his bent nose and the jagged scar that interrupted his left eyebrow.
The pedestrian signal beeped and Drake lifted his head from his phone and his eyes met Aerin’s. Even though she was several metres away, as soon as that bottomless dark brown gaze meshed with hers it was like being struck by a bolt of lightning.
Every. Single. Time.
Which was why she didn’t cross paths with him unless there was absolutely no choice. He was the celebrity lawyer who specialised in iron-clad prenuptial agreements she and her wedding business partners recommended to clients from time to time. But Aerin wasn’t standing outside his suite of rooms hoping to see him about a business matter—she preferred to email or send a text to inform him of a client’s wish to see him. This visit was personal. Embarrassingly, skin-crawlingly personal. Aerin hadn’t seen him face to face in months, and normally, she liked it that way. She had turned keeping her distance from him into quite a consummate skill. She found his arrant masculinity a little too...unsettling. His hardwired cynicism too jarring to a hopeless romantic as herself. And his sardonic smile and those dark chocolate eyes a little too mocking.
Drake strode across the intersection in long easy strides, carving his way through the bustle of people until he came to her side of the street. Her feet were suddenly glued to the footpath, her heart doing a complicated gymnastics routine in her chest and her cheeks feeling hot enough to buckle the bitumen.
‘Hi there, Goldilocks. Were you on your way to see me?’ His tone was as gently teasing as his smile.
Aerin could hardly deny it was him she had come to see when she was standing outside his office building, but she would have dearly liked to. She had done a walk-by or two to summon up the courage to see him, oscillating whether she should go ahead or melt back in the crowd before she made a complete and utter fool of herself. But she only had five days to find a stand-in date for her high school reunion. If she didn’t find a date to accompany her she would have to suffer the embarrassment of being the last of her school friends to find a partner.
Every year that passed, she was becoming more and more of a pariah to her friends. The only singleton. The only virgin. The pitying looks from her school friends were worse each year, she was sure she wasn’t imagining it. The covert whispers, the speculation about her single status, the pointed questions and glances at her ringless left hand, when each of her friends had such gorgeous sparklers winking on their ring fingers you could practically see them from outer space. It was making her wonder if her dream of finding her own Mr Perfect was a little...well, out of touch with reality. It was quite hard to meet people these days and she wasn’t going to download the social media app unless things got desperate. Well, even more desperate than they already were with her nearly thirty and never been kissed.
But she believed in true love.
It was her goal, her lifelong hope.
Her Mr Perfect Soulmate had to be out there. All she had to do was find him.
Aerin gave Drake a mock glower. ‘I wish you’d stop calling me that.’
His wide grin made his eyes dance and fine lines crinkle at the corners. ‘I’ve been calling you that since you had braces on your teeth and pimples on your chin. I must say, you’ve improved greatly with age.’
As her older brother’s friend from university, Drake had been a regular visitor to her family home in years past. For years he had simply been Tom’s friend, Drake Cawthorn, barely worthy of her notice. But once she hit late puberty, she became increasingly aware of him as any young woman did over a handsome and charming man. Fortunately, she had never embarrassed herself by communicating any interest in him. Not that a worldly playboy like him would ever be interested in someone as homespun and conservative as her.
‘Please don’t remind me I’m turning thirty in January.’
Drake widened his eyes as if in stunned surprise. ‘No way. Got anything planned? A big party to celebrate?’
Aerin could feel a blush stealing over her cheeks hot enough to contribute to global warming. What was there to celebrate about turning thirty when she didn’t have a partner, had never had a partner and had not even been kissed? Argh. Her dream of finding Mr Perfect before she turned the big Three O was becoming a nightmare and her biological clock was ticking loud enough to wake up an entire cemetery of bodies. She shifted her gaze from his and gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe.’
He jerked his head in the direction of his suite of rooms. ‘Did you want to see me about a client? I’ve got just under an hour before I’m due in court.’
Aerin shifted her weight from foot to foot and readjusted her tote-bag strap over her left shoulder, conscious of his steady gaze. ‘Erm... I don’t want to bother you when you’re busy...’
‘I’ve always got time for you. Besides, you send a lot of business my way.’ His eyes twinkled again, and he added, ‘I heard your other business partner, Harper, got herself engaged to Jack Livingstone. Are they going to come and see me about a prenup?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Pity. With Jack’s sort of wealth, it could be a messy divorce without one.’
Aerin gave a stiff smile to cover her annoyance at his cynicism. ‘I don’t think they’re ever going to divorce. They’re too much in love and besides, they have baby Marli to consider.’
Drake shrugged one impossibly broad shoulder. ‘Everyone is in love until they aren’t.’
‘Have you ever been in love?’ The question popped out of her mouth before she could slam the emergency brakes on her tongue.
‘No. How about you?’
Her cheeks warmed up again and she couldn’t hold his gaze. A relationships cynic like Drake would mock her quest to find the love of her life. But it was no secret she was waiting not just for Mr Right but Mr Perfect. ‘No, but I’d like to one day.’
There was a short but weighted silence, even the sounds of rushing pedestrians and busy traffic seeming to fade into the background.
‘What did you want to see me about?’ Drake asked, looking down at her with a small frown between his eyebrows.
Aerin chewed at one side of her lower lip. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She began to step away, but he reached out and placed his broad-spanned and tanned hand on her forearm. Her cashmere coat wasn’t enough of a barrier to block the electric heat of his touch. She could not think of a time when he had ever touched her before—or at least not since he had teasingly ruffled her hair when she was a kid. Her gaze connected to his and another fizz of awareness shot through her.
His hand fell away from her arm as if he too had felt the same current of energy, his frown deepening above his dark brown eyes. ‘Is everything all right?’ His voice was pitched low, a deep rough burr of sound that sent another delicate shiver along her spine.
Aerin swallowed thickly and gave him a strained smile. ‘Can we take this somewhere a little more private?’
‘Sure.’
He led the way to the front of his office building and Aerin followed, wondering if she was being a fool for even contemplating asking him to be a stand-in date for her reunion. But who else could she ask? She didn’t want to take a stranger or someone off a dating app. She needed someone who could act convincingly as her love interest for the weekend meet-up in Scotland. Drake was the most experienced man she knew and, even better, he had known her for years. He was perfect...well, not exactly perfect according to her soulmate checklist but good enough to get her over the line. She could not suffer the embarrassment of being the only single person at her school reunion weekend—their last reunion before one of the girls emigrated to Australia with her husband. If Aerin didn’t show up, they would assume it was because of her feelings about still being alone. She had to go and she had to take a stand-in partner. That was the plan.
‘My office is on the top floor,’ Drake said, walking past the four lifts situated on one side of the marble-floored foyer.
Aerin gave him a sideways glance of horror. ‘You’re not expecting me to walk up fifty flights of stairs?’
His mouth tilted in one of his wry smiles that never failed to make her stomach flip-flop. ‘I have my own private lift back here.’ He shouldered open a door and indicated for her to come through while he held it open for her. She moved past him in the doorway, catching an alluring waft of his lemon-and-lime-based aftershave on her way past his tall and lean athletic frame. The door closed behind him with a solid thump, and he led her to a lift marked Private. Drake took out a security tag from his trouser pocket and used it against the sensor and the doors swished open. He held one muscular arm against the lift door and said, ‘After you.’
Aerin stepped inside the lift and he followed her in, the doors closing on a whisper behind him. The sensation of being enclosed in a small space alone with Drake Cawthorn sent her heart rate soaring. The lift was mirrored on three sides, and she caught a glimpse of her flushed features and inwardly cringed. Why did she always have to act like an awkward teenage girl around him? Was it because he was the epitome of sophisticated man about town? A self-made billionaire playboy who had women from all over the globe flocking after him? She was a successful businesswoman, not a gauche teenager.
Well...a single-and-hating-it successful businesswoman. She loved the success, not the singledom.
There was a pinging sound when the lift arrived at Drake’s floor. ‘This way,’ he said, and she followed him down a wide plushily carpeted corridor, past a reception area where a middle-aged woman was typing on a computer. Aerin was fairly certain it was the same woman she had spoken to on a couple of occasions when she’d called to book an appointment for clients.
‘Hold my calls, please, Cathleen,’ Drake said.
Cathleen’s smile of greeting was friendly towards her but Aerin wasn’t sure if it was one of recognition or not. ‘Will do.’
Drake led Aerin to a door marked with his name on a simple plaque. He opened the door and gave a brief on-off smile to indicate for her to go in. She stepped over the threshold and glanced around at the neat but understated décor. Drake’s qualifications were framed on one wall to the left of his large wooden desk. She suspected they were only there to display to his clients he was more than qualified to act for them rather than out of any sense of pride in his own achievements. She knew that Drake had graduated with First Class Honours and taken out the university prize, but she had heard that from her brother, not Drake. There was a selection of artwork on the other walls—nothing too over the top but tasteful landscapes in an old-world style—and the windows afforded a spectacular view over the River Thames and Tower Bridge.
‘Take a seat. Can I get Cathleen to bring you a coffee or tea?’ Drake asked, shrugging off his coat and hanging it inside a cupboard near his desk.
‘No, thanks. I had one not long ago.’ Actually, she’d had three, which was probably why her pulse was racing so fast. Caffeine courage instead of Dutch courage was never a good idea. Her heart was palpitating from the stimulant...or was it because the thought of asking Drake Cawthorn this favour was sending her heart rhythm way out of whack?
Aerin sat, knowing he was too polite to take his own seat until she had taken hers. She placed her tote bag on her lap and laid her hands on top to keep it from slipping to the floor.
Drake sat in his office chair and rolled it closer to his desk, his forearms resting on the polished surface, his fingers loosely interlaced. Aerin’s gaze drifted to those long, tanned fingers and she wondered what it would feel like to have them glide along her skin. She tried to disguise a little shiver, tried but failed. Why was she suddenly thinking about his hands touching her? He was not the type of man she could ever build a future with. He was too worldly, too cynical.
‘Are you cold? I can turn up the heating if you like.’
‘No, I’m fine...’ She licked her lips and forced a smile, conscious of the glowing warmth in her cheeks and the nerves eating at the lining of her stomach like piranha teeth. ‘I have a...a favour to ask.’
He lifted his scar-interrupted eyebrow in an arc, his sharply intelligent gaze unwavering on hers. ‘Go on.’
Aerin gripped her tote bag a little more firmly. Her heart beat out a syncopated rhythm in her chest. Boom-pitty-boom...pitty-pitty-boom-boom.
‘I have a high school reunion this weekend. It’s a drinks and dinner catch-up in a remote village an hour out of Edinburgh, close to our old boarding school, and I... I have no one to take me.’
Drake lifted his arms off his desk and leaned back in his chair, his expression unreadable. ‘Why can’t you go on your own?’
Another wave of heat exploded in her cheeks. ‘For the last twelve years I’ve met up with my school friends once a year just before Christmas and I’ve always gone alone. It wasn’t so bad in the early years because some of the girls were single or between partners. But I’m now the only one without a partner. I can’t face yet another year without producing a date. It’s so mortifying to be the last singleton. I’ll never hear the end of it. They teased me so much last time I thought I would die of embarrassment.’
‘Then why go if they’re only going to give you a hard time?’
Aerin absently fiddled with the silver buckle on her tote bag. His gaze flicked to her busy fingers and she forced herself to stop their restive movements. She got the sense he was reading her, analysing her, observing every nuance of her expression and it made her feel exposed and terribly unsophisticated. He was only seven years older than her but in terms of experience it was more like a century. An aeon.
‘We have a perfect track record of meeting up. Twelve years and not one of us has failed to show up. I don’t want to be the one to break it. But if I were not to show up, everyone is going to assume I’m embarrassed about still being single, so I have to show up with someone—I can’t win either way. I was talking to Harper and she suggested I ask you, since you’ve known me a long time. It’s either that or hire a male escort.’
Drake shot out of his chair, his features set in frowning lines. ‘You will not do that.’ The stern note of authority in his tone would have annoyed her on any other occasion but for some strange reason, this time, it did not.
She looked up at him hopefully. ‘So, does that mean you’ll be my date for the night?’
Drake ran a hand over his face and then loosened his tie even further. His frown was more of a scowl and his mouth was set in a firm line. ‘I thought you said it was a weekend thing?’
‘It is but I would only need you to be there for the drinks and dinner thing on the Friday night. I’ll tell them you had to fly back for work or something.’
He continued to hold her gaze with unwavering intensity. ‘So, what’s the story you’re going to spin to them about our...relationship?’
‘I’ll tell them we’ve fallen madly in love and—’
He held up his right hand like a stop sign and his features screwed up in distaste. ‘Whoa there, Goldilocks. No offence but I’m not the type of guy to fall head over heels in love. Why can’t we say we’re having a fling?’
Aerin shifted her lips from side to side. ‘Because I’m not the type of girl to have a fling.’
‘You must have had plenty of flings, you’re almost thirty.’
There was a silence so intense Aerin could hear the creak of her chair when she shifted position. She slowly lifted her gaze to his and saw the dawning shock and surprise.
‘Are you telling me you’re a virgin?’
The word seemed to bounce off the four walls of the room. Did he have to make it sound so...so shocking? Plenty of people were celibate for various reasons. Aerin let her bag slip to the floor as she stood. ‘I know it’s a little unusual but that’s why I need a date this weekend. I’ve been teased about my virginal status for years.’
‘Is there some reason you haven’t...?’
‘Done the deed?’ Aerin sighed. ‘Yes. I’m waiting for my soulmate to show up. I don’t want to waste myself on someone who doesn’t get the importance of what this means to me. I want everything about my first time to be perfect.’
Drake walked over to the windows of his office, and, placing his hands on his lean hips, looked out at the view below. She hadn’t noticed before how broad his back and shoulders were from behind. They tapered down to trim hips and a taut bottom and long lean legs. Her mind began to undress him and her heart rate picked up again. She could imagine he would look wonderfully sexy in nothing but his olive-toned skin. What would it feel like to run her hands over his naked flesh? She was shocked at her wayward thoughts, wondering why they were entering her mind now. She was only interested in him as a stand-in date, not as a real date.
It was a moment or two before Drake turned around to look at her, his hands going back down by his sides. The afternoon sun coming in from behind him cast his features into shadow, giving him an even more rakish look.
‘Look, I’m flattered you asked me, but—’
‘Please don’t say no, Drake. I’m desperate. I can’t go alone, not this year because it’s the last year we will all be together because one of the girls is moving to Australia with her husband.’ Aerin didn’t care that she was at the begging stage. ‘We don’t have to mention it to anyone. Even Tom doesn’t have to know or my parents. In fact, it’s probably best if they don’t hear about it.’
Drake moved back behind his desk but didn’t sit in his chair. He stood grasping the back of it instead, his fingers white-knuckled against the leather. ‘Will the press be there?’
‘No, it’s a private event.’
‘But no doubt you and your friends will post photos on social media.’
Aerin tried not to think of how many followers some of her so-called influencer friends had. At last count it was in the hundreds of thousands. ‘I’ll tell them not to post any photos of us. I’ll tell them we’re keeping our relationship a secret from my family for a little while longer. I’m sure they’ll go along with it. They know how full-on my dad can be.’
Drake let out a long sigh and removed his hands from the back of his chair. ‘I’m not sure I’m the right guy for the job.’ He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe she had asked him. ‘It’s got all sorts of wrong about it.’
Disappointment swept through her and she caught her lip between her teeth. ‘It’s just one night. You don’t have to do anything but pretend to be my partner. I’m not asking you to actually be my partner.’
‘I’m not planning on being anyone’s partner.’
Drake resumed his seat but didn’t roll the chair close to the desk, sitting with one leg casually crossed over his other knee, the fingers of his right hand lightly drumming against his thigh. His eyes didn’t leave hers and she fought against the desire to squirm in her seat. He had his lawyer face on, the stillness of his features revealing nothing of the razor-sharp inner workings of his mind.
‘Because you’re afraid to love someone in case they hurt you?’ she ventured.
His fingers stopped drumming against his leg and there was a sudden movement in the back of his gaze—a movement as quick as a camera shutter click. But then his lips twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘People can hurt you whether you love them or not.’
‘I guess...’
He uncrossed his leg and rolled the chair back to the desk. ‘Okay. I’ll do it. But only because I don’t want you to get in over your head with someone who might do the wrong thing by you.’
Aerin breathed out a gusty sigh of relief. ‘Oh, thank you so much. I was working myself into such a state at the thought of hiring someone or taking a stranger and having to share a room with them.’
There was a long beat of silence.
‘Will you be comfortable sharing a room with me?’ His tone was mildly teasing, the glint in his eyes even more so.
Aerin tried to ignore the tiny feather-duster flutter along the floor of her belly. Tried to ignore the sudden leap of her pulse and the hitch of her breath in her throat. ‘I’m sure you’ll be a perfect gentleman.’
His scarred eyebrow came up again in a cynical arc. ‘Me? Perfect?’ He gave a deep chuckle of wry amusement and added, ‘I hardly think so.’ His hooded gaze dipped to her mouth for an infinitesimal moment, the atmosphere in the office charged with a nerve-tingling energy. His gaze came back to hers, and she let out a breath she had forgotten she was holding. That was surely why she was a little light-headed, right? Not just because he looked at her with those intensely dark eyes.
‘I—I’d better get going...’ Aerin scooped up her bag off the floor and slung its strap over her shoulder. ‘I’ll book the flights and get back to you with the details. The dress for the dinner is formal. I know that seems a little over the top, but we’ve always done it that way.’ She turned for the door, more flustered than she cared to admit in his alluring presence. She had never been alone with him for such a long period before. How was she going to manage the weekend?
‘Aerin.’ His deep voice stopped her in her tracks. He had called her Goldilocks for years; she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard her name on his lips.
She turned to look at him, clutching her tote bag close to her side. ‘Yes?’
His dark eyes held hers for a heart-stopping moment, his expression unusually sombre. ‘You’ll be safe with me. You have my word.’
‘Thank you.’ She gave him a quick smile and turned again for the door.
‘Another thing—I’ll book the flights.’
‘But I don’t expect you to pay—’
‘It’s not a problem.’
Aerin knew it would be pointless arguing with him. ‘Okay, that’s kind of you, thank you.’
‘Wait. I’ll come down with you.’ He picked up a folder of papers off his desk and slid them into a leather briefcase, then closed the lid and locked it. He took his jacket out of the cupboard and shrugged himself back into it. Then he lifted his hand to his tie and tightened it back in place close to his neck. The actions were things she had seen her brother and father do hundreds if not thousands of times and yet, when Drake did them, there was something so...so arrantly masculine and so darn sexy about it.
They travelled down in the private lift in a silence that throbbed with something Aerin had not been aware of before. She cast covert glances at him, but his features were set in inscrutable lines. The lift doors whooshed open on the ground floor and she stepped out. She was aware of his tall frame only a step or two behind her, aware of the citrus scent of his aftershave, and aware of her body’s secret reaction to him.
Aerin turned to say goodbye. ‘Thank you again. I hope you didn’t have anything important planned for this weekend?’
His smile was lopsided and didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Nothing I couldn’t cancel at short notice.’
‘Erm... I didn’t think to ask but are you currently seeing anyone? I mean, that could make things rather awkward, and I would hate to complicate things for—’
‘No.’ His answer was unmistakably definitive.
‘Oh, I thought you nearly always had someone on the go.’
‘Not this close to Christmas.’
Aerin frowned. ‘But Christmas is a month away. I thought you changed partners just about every week.’
A shutter came down over his face. ‘I’ve got to rush. I have a mediation meeting at court in ten minutes. See you Friday.’ He turned to leave.
‘Drake?’
He stopped moving to look down at her. ‘Yes?’
Aerin gave him a tremulous smile. ‘You won’t suddenly change your mind and leave me to face the violins alone?’
He gave a quizzical frown. ‘The violins?’
‘It’s a saying Harper used. It refers to the pity symphony I get every year from my school friends for still being single.’
His frown faded and his mouth tilted in a half-smile. ‘I won’t change my mind.’
Change his mind? That was exactly what Drake knew he should do and yet he couldn’t bring himself to let Aerin down. But what the freaking hell was he doing agreeing to partner his best friend’s kid sister to a reunion in Scotland? A weekend pretending to be someone he was not. He was not Prince Charming or Mr Perfect or Mr Right or Mr Soulmate. But how could he let innocent and naïve Aerin take anyone else? She was as trusting and idealistic as he was cynical and jaded. Her confession about still being a virgin had shocked him to the backbone and beyond. He knew she was conservative but not to the point that she had left it so long to experience sex.
Of course he had to agree to take her to the reunion. What other option was there? How could he be sure some other less principled guy wouldn’t jump at the chance to take her virginity as some sort of prize? The most Drake had ever done with her was ruffle her golden hair as a kid. But placing his hand on her arm earlier had sounded a warning in his body. A warning that she was not a gangly teenager any more. She was an adult woman with gentle feminine curves and a soft pillowy mouth he could barely take his eyes off. A mouth he could not stop thinking about tasting to see if it was as sweet and delicious as it looked.
He had never really noticed her before other than as his friend’s younger sister. But sitting opposite her in his office, watching her drum up the courage to ask him to help her, had shifted something in their relationship. A subtle shift that made him aware of her in ways he had not been before—or at least not consciously. Aerin was not supermodel-gorgeous, but she had a girl-next-door natural beauty that was equally breath-snatching. Her golden hair was straight and fell past her shoulders to the middle of her back in a silken skein. Her body was as slim and finely boned as a ballerina’s, her eyes a smoky grey-blue. Her ski-slope nose was—unlike his—perfectly aligned above a full-lipped Cupid’s bow mouth. A mouth that promised sweetness and sensuality in its plump curves. A mouth that was forbidden territory for someone like him.
He could look but not touch and not taste. That would be crossing a line he had sworn he would never cross. He wasn’t interested in complicating his life with a young woman who had fairy dust in her eyes. Aerin was after perfection in a partner, she believed in for ever love and had waited this long to find it. Thirty years old and still a virgin? How could that be possible in this day and age?
He had lost his virginity the month after losing his family. Back then, sex had been a mind-numbing escape from pain and in a way it still was. He never allowed himself to get close to anyone other than physically. His relationships were transactional and brief. No promises, no strings, no emotions other than lust, which wasn’t an emotion in his opinion but a physical drive. He dealt with it efficiently and, of course, respectfully and always consensually but that was as far as it ever went. He had sworn off ever falling in love and did everything in his power to keep the armour around his heart in place. Armour so thick and strong and such a part of him now, he was barely aware of it being there.
But sweet untouched and innocent Aerin with her heart-shaped face and kissable mouth was a threat because he already had a relationship with her of sorts. A hard to define relationship but it was long-lasting, and he didn’t want to compromise it or his relationship with her brother, Tom, and his parents, who he also considered friends. Too many people would get hurt if he didn’t keep the boundary lines in place. And the last thing he wanted was to hurt anyone, especially people he cared about. He had paid a high price for relaxing his guard when he was fifteen.
He would not do it again.
Aerin Drysdale was off limits to him in every way. Too sweet, too innocent, too good for a man who had such dark secrets in his past.
