Page 10 of His Best Mistake

When it came to the opposite sex and romance, feelings were her trouble, she reflected, watching Jack as he abruptly turned round to head downhill thereby dashing her pretty limp hopes of a reprieve. Or rather, the lack of deep feelings. She fell in love too quickly. Ever an optimist, in constant search of what she so desperately wanted, she tended to wipe bad past experiences from her memory. Every man she met was possible husband material. Every new relationship had the potential to be It, even though the evidence was rarely there to back it up.

Well, that would change from now on, she thought darkly. Each relationship she embarked on failed because thanks to the emotional neglect she’d been told she’d suffered as a child she just didn’t have the depth of feeling or the requisite skills to keep it going. So for the time being she was done with it all. She could fancy Jack all she liked; nothing would ever have come of it even if he hadn’t been Cora’s brother who hated her.

She’d just have to put the whole kiss-that-wasn’t-a-kiss thing firmly out of her mind. Denial was the thing. This evening needn’t be awkward. She would be the host with the most. Resilience and sheer bloody-mindedness would get her through the hours of stilted conversation that loomed until the weather improved and Jack could leave. And really, how hard could it be?

*

Any good the icy cold might have done in dousing the heat and desire rocketing around inside him evaporated the minute Jack stomped through the door and laid eyes on Stella again.

The fire had been lit. Candles adorned virtually every available surface. A bowl of crisps sat on the coffee table, a bottle of wine and two glasses next to it. Stella herself was sitting on a sofa, flicking through a magazine, looking as relaxed and unfazed by earlier events as he wasn’t.

Which was excellent. He was all for denial. Anything to get through this sojourn in the Highlands unscathed. Which he would, of course, because his success at work depended on unassailable self-discipline, and his was legendary. Usually. Whatever. He’d deliver his apology and as long as Stella stayed away from that sodding kitchen counter, from him, he wouldn’t think about kissing her and everything would be absolutely fine.

“Power cut?” he asked, frowning slightly as he tried and failed not to notice that she’d taken her sweater off, which left her wearing a white T-shirt top thing that was tight and low-cut and clung to her curves.

“The house is off-grid,” she said, idly turning another page. “There’s a petrol generator but I generally only turn it on to run the washing machine.”

“That must be frustrating.” He certainly found it so. The flickering candlelight and the glowing fire, not to mention the drinks and nibbles, lent the room a cosiness and intimacy that his irritatingly shaky self-control really did not need.

“Depends on your point of view. No internet access has been a bonus. How was your walk?”

“Revelatory.”

She glanced up from her magazine, finally, and her eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”

Jack shoved his hands first through his hair, then into his pockets and cleared his throat. He wasn’t often in the wrong. It was an unnerving place to be. “I’d like to apologise.”

“For what exactly?”

“Jumping to conclusions.”

“I see,” she said with a slight nod.

“Upon reflection I realise I’ve misjudged you. I’ve considered what you said and I now believe that you didn’t know Brad was engaged. That you were an innocent party in everything that happened.”

The silence that followed that seemed to throb and as he kept his gaze fixed to hers he felt the tension inside him wind a fraction tighter.

“Why?”

Jack frowned and sat down in the faded armchair opposite her. “What do you mean, why?”

“Why the volte-face? What made you change your mind?”

“You may have had some valid points.”

“May have had?”

“Did have.”

“That’s better.”

“It also occurred to me that the logic does seem pretty bloody irrefutable.”

“I see,” she said. “A shame you didn’t find it quite so bloody irrefutable before barging in here and tossing around wholly inaccurate and extremely unfair accusations.”

“I am aware of that,” said Jack, shifting a bit to ease the stab of shame. “I should have considered both sides to the story.”

“Why didn’t you?” It was a good question. And one which there was no way in hell he was going to answer with the truth. Not the whole truth, at any rate. He wasn’t even sure he knew what the whole truth was. “My only excuse,” he said instead, deciding to go with what he did know, “is that I care about my sister and was perhaps too quick to rush to her defence.”

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