Page 28 of Marriage Bargain with His Innocent
She barely looked up from her work the following day. True to his word, Matias had disappeared, but his absence—perversely—did nothing to quell the tumult of her thoughts, and she was keyed up when, at a little after six, he appeared in the doorway of her studio without warning.
She was ready to go and had done away with any girly dress code. There was too much heavy humidity in the air, and the strenuous walk up to Melissa’s house would be impossible in something frothy and frivolous.
He, likewise, was in practical gear. Faded jeans, a dark grey short-sleeved polo shirt and walking boots. For a few seconds she lost herself in just looking at him, because he was drop-dead gorgeous, but then she gathered herself and began collecting everything she had to take with her, stuffing tablet, portfolio and camera in a weatherproof rucksack which he promptly took from her.
‘I’ll carry it,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’
He grinned and she reluctantly smiled back, relieved that a truce appeared to have been called. She’d spent a lifetime bickering with him, so how was it that she now felt at odds with herself, unable to function properly, at the thought of him withdrawing from her?
He obediently followed her to her old car, and immediately turned to her once he was inside. ‘Tell me about your friend Melissa.’
The sexy teasing was gone, replaced by a genuinely friendly interest—and Georgina hated it. A Pandora’s box had been opened but now everything was changing back. How was she going to deal with it? She missed the way those dark, lazy eyes had made her feel like a woman. She missed the way his husky drawl had made her melt and feel restless, as though there was an itch deep inside her that needed to be scratched.
She asked him about his day, returning polite interest with polite interest, but once they’d parked the car and begun trekking up the hill to Melissa’s house conversation flagged because it was just too unbearably hot and still to talk.
For once, Georgina felt too puffed to appreciate the undisturbed countryside around her. The winding trek up was usually something to be done slowly, but this time she was relieved when it was over—when the front door was opened and the cool of the house greeted them.
Melissa suited her surroundings. It was something Georgina clearly scarcely registered, but as introductions were made Matias was startled to realise that as little as two months ago he would have had no time for the chef’s wildly eccentric dress code. It would have been a little too reminiscent of what he had grown up with, and what he associated with the sort of carefree irresponsibility that never got anyone anywhere.
Now he had to concede that a lot had changed on that front. He’d switched off from the small details of his mother’s life, accepting the limitations between them as just the way it was. The further he’d travelled away from his past, the greater the chasm between them had grown. He didn’t know when that journey away from his parents had begun. He just knew that it was a journey from which there had been no turning back.
That was life.
Until now, when everything he’d learned to accept had been turned on its head. He and his mother were daily groping their way towards a deeper connection, and that involved him hearing the ins and outs of her life—the small things he had missed from the bigger picture. He could understand now how and why Georgina had taken it upon herself to tell the little lie that had led them to the place they were now, and he wasn’t sorry about any of it.
* * *
Caught up in the business of cropping images and discussing final layouts, Georgina only noticed the passing of time when Matias appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
‘I think you two might want to come out here and have a look,’ he said.
Georgina looked up and blinked. It took her a few seconds to register, but she didn’t have to go out to see what was happening and neither did Melissa. They were both accustomed to the swift weather changes in this part of the world and she looked at her friend with dismay.
‘I knew it!’ Melissa stood up, stretched, and gathered up her long brown hair into an unruly ponytail. ‘I spoke to my brother on the phone this afternoon and Itoldhim that it was getting way too hot and way too humid for comfort!’ She laughed and began moving towards the kitchen door. ‘Stay put, you two. I’m going to head upstairs and make sure that all the windows in the house are shut!’
‘Melissa...’ Georgina sprang upright. ‘We need to get going...’
There was the sudden whiteness of lightning and then, a few seconds later, a crack of thunder loud enough to make her jump. She moved to where Matias was hurriedly shutting the kitchen door and closing the window against the pounding of rain that was as sudden as it was fierce.
She raced to the window and peered out. The rain was a sheet of water driving across the horizon. The sky, which had been so bright and blue for weeks, was an angry black. The wind was gathering momentum and howling. There was no way they were going to be able to walk back down that hill to her car.
‘There’s no point worrying about the weather,’ Matias said from behind her.
Their eyes met, reflected in the window pane with the stormy evening an unfolding drama outside. A frisson of apprehension rippled through her and for a few fraught seconds she couldn’t break the connection as they both stared at one another in the glass pane.
‘Matias, you don’t understand...’ She edged away, got past him, and then turned round to look at him.
‘So it’s raining?’ He shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten how fast this kind of thing happens down here.’
‘This is a disaster...’ Her voice was barely audible over the pounding of the rain on the roof and against the windows.
Flash flooding.
Matias might stand there looking as though he didn’t have a care in the world, but he never came to Cornwall and, despite what he’d just said, he wouldn’t remember how brutal these downpours could become. He lived his charmed life in the city, where the weather was a lot more polite.
‘You need to revisit your definition of disaster.’ Matias dumped his glass in the sink and then turned to her, leaning against the counter just as the kitchen door flew open and Melissa made a dramatic entrance.
‘Windows all shut!’ she cried gaily, with the joyful satisfaction of someone announcing the winning raffle ticket number. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before! I should have guessed, though! The heat we’ve been having over the last couple of weeks... Well, everyone’s been saying we’re due for a storm!’
‘“Storm” is a bit of an understatement, isn’t it, Melissa?’ Georgina smiled weakly and followed her friend to the fridge, to give her hand getting stuff out for a meal.
‘It’s wild out there!’ Melissa peered past Georgina to where Matias was still lounging against the counter. ‘But no matter!’ She winked at him. ‘You city gents need to experience a little of what this part of the world is all about! Now, scoot—both of you! I shall fix you a gourmet meal and then you can get cosy in the bedroom I’ve prepared!’
