Kitabı oxu: «Her Best Laid Plans»

Chapter One

Amanda Gray slipped into the busy New York street, her hand quite unwilling to relinquish its death-grip on a medicinal macchiato. Breathing in its sweet, reassuring aroma she pondered her next move. So much for her New Year’s resolution—she was seriously out of practice at this whole taking-control-of-your-own-destiny caper.

The plan had been to ace the job interview, not babble excessively or give the impression that she couldn’t organise her way out of a paper bag. But big-time nerves, combined with rusty interview skills, had shaken her, rendering her embarrassingly ineffectual, so that now some perfectly qualified and properly experienced personal assistant would get the position at the gallery instead of her.

Jostled from behind, she managed to save both her coffee and her natty new interview suit from an unfortunate coming together. Picking up her pace she fought valiantly against a case of serious pedestrian envy—everyone appeared to know exactly where they were going. She knew where she needed to get to … a job that paid enough for her to move out of the house she shared with her brother Mikey. It was the least that he deserved after he’d worked so hard to win back his independence after the accident. Seeing his progress and his capacity to fearlessly embrace life again had forced Amanda to take a look at her own.

So here she was. Absolutely, totally, one hundred per cent ready to kick-start her life again.

The fire-blanket of butterflies that settled in her stomach was amazingly effective at dousing any melancholy she felt over her interview. Her breath hitched. She was nearly used to the butterflies trumping any feelings of confidence in her ability to make changes in her life. But since coming up with “The Plan” she reminded herself life was now all about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Of course, she could always take the easy option and accept Jared’s job offer. Except she was fairly sure the question she needed to be asking herself was “why” her brother’s best friend had offered her a job. Things between them were—she quaffed back a healthy dose of macchiato to eliminate the lick of heat she felt rush to her cheeks—weird enough as it was. Or not, she hastily corrected. There wasn’t any one thing about her and Jared King that needed to be complicated.

Stepping from the stream of traffic, she rooted around in her bag for her phone. Dragging it to the surface, she clicked on the memo function to bring up ‘The Plan’. She’d written it six weeks ago at brand-spanking-ly-New-Year’s-Day o’clock, boosted by several large cocktails in celebration of her brother’s new job with a firm of lawyers. That Mikey had challenged the hand he’d been dealt, and secured himself a fulfilling future had filled her with pride. But celebrating Mikey’s success as they welcomed in the New Year with all of their friends, it had suddenly dawned on her that if she didn’t make some changes to her own life, she was going to be left behind. While everyone had started counting down the seconds, she’d started thinking.

Mikey had already spent his late teenage years practically raising her. On the cusp of starting his new life, there was no way she wanted to be responsible for holding him back. With alcohol making her brave she’d whipped out her phone and set about typing a three-point plan.

1) Get a better, more challenging, job that could turn into a career.

2) Move out into own place.

3) Do something with your photography.

The next day, faced with a familiar fear of change, she’d gone to delete her fledgling plan, only to thankfully remember that Mikey didn’t deserve to start worrying that his sister was in danger of turning into a bit of a flake.

So, okay, she was a novice at changing the course of her life. And maybe the plan read a bit like a list. But for Amanda it was more of a resolution anyway. A New Year’s resolution to participate in her own life story. Scary as that felt. Unsafe as that felt. Tempting fate as that felt. She had to try.

Now, scanning her eyes over the plan’s contents it was as she’d suspected. Nowhere on her new life plan did it say anything about Jared King. Or acknowledging rushes of heat brought about by Jared King.

Her eyes flicked to the last entry: Do something with your photography. There was a reason it was at the bottom of the list, she conceded, noticing a text had come through whilst she’d been in the interview.

Pacing to keep warm she opened it and read: CODE RED. WHERE R U? J

The clack, clack, clacks of her heels slowed against the sidewalk even as her heart rate sped up. Jared’s SOS text meant he needed help ousting his Latest Limpet back to The Real World, where it was clearly understood her time with the millionaire corporate property investor was up.

She should ignore it. Concentrate on ‘The Plan’ instead and fill out a few more job applications.

Still. He was a friend in need …

Sending a quick response, she hailed a cab. Destination: The Thai Lounge. Jared’s preferred venue for dealing with ‘Code Reds’. Not that there were many. Mostly women knew the score and enjoyed their time with him. for what it was: a mutually enjoyable interlude. It was only occasionally a woman morphed into full-on Limpet mode.

That was where she came in. An arranged ‘chance meeting’ between her and Jared with some subtle flirting was usually enough to leave the impression that he had effectively moved on.

Leaning back against the cab’s fading leather, Amanda admitted to a tiny, miniscule really, loss of perspective where Jared and their sporadic role-playing Limpet-dispensing exercises were concerned. Because for all that was up-front, solid, responsible and in-control about Jared—there was, lurking just beneath the surface, a hint of danger and a dark sensuousness that any woman would be inclined to want to try and entice out to play. Add in the six-feet-two, exquisitely muscled, chiselled cheek-boned, full-lipped, green-eyed, raven-haired wrapping and well …

Amanda squirmed. Darn it, was she going to have to get out “The Plan” again?

She chewed on her bottom lip. Maybe these days the camaraderie between them had been replaced with something far less easy to label—he still needed her help didn’t he?

The light on Jared King’s phone flashed and he shot a glance to his companion before picking it up to read his message.

‘I’ll be there in fifteen. You owe me ;-) Amanda xx’

He breathed out silently, though his shoulders relaxed maybe a millimetre and switched off the device before replacing it on the table. Briefly he lamented not having time to make the text more explicit, but he’d sort it out with her when she arrived.

Glancing back down at the familiar menu before him, he frowned, unable to concentrate. Of their own accord, his eyes glanced at the woman sat opposite him.

Ostensibly, she too was looking at the menu, but every time his eyes lowered he could feel her silently assessing him.

He’d tried telling himself she had to be feeling as shot-to-pieces uncomfortable as he was. But all evidence pointed to the contrary. The long flight and lengthy wait in his office must have given her all the time she needed to compose herself.

He, on the other hand, had returned from a property acquisition meeting to find his PA Janey close to carrying out a discreet security check on his very non-scheduled visitor.

That had been twenty minutes ago.

Normal state of play—twenty minutes was nineteen minutes longer than he needed to bounce back after a shock.

But then he hadn’t planned to be meeting a sister he hadn’t set eyes on for ten years.

He tried unobtrusively to check his watch. Surely fifteen minutes had come and gone. Where was Amanda? He needed her particular brand of easy-flow, relaxed small-talk to soothe his shock and cover the awkward silences while he figured the angles.

Instead, he sat, waiting for his sister, Nora, to speak whilst silently processing a thousand questions and their myriad answers as to why she was here.

‘Aren’t you even going to ask how he is?’ Nora asked with the succinct and confident tone provided by years of the best education money could buy.

Without looking up from the menu, Jared, careful to absent all inflection from his words, asked, ‘How is he?’

She sighed, ‘Do you really want to know or are you just being polite?’

‘I could tell you I really want to know but after ten years in New York maybe I’m no longer as polite.’

‘Wow. I thought it would be easier than this. I must have been mad. I guess I thought when I saw you I’d be able to cut to the chase.’

Jared felt his chest tighten. ‘I’d say getting on a plane, travelling thousands of miles, and coming to my office pretty much equates with cutting to the chase. How’d you know where I worked anyway?’

‘I asked everyone’s faithful friend, Google.’

Her sarcasm slammed into him and he knew he deserved every bit of it. He hadn’t exactly made himself invisible in New York, but he hadn’t made it especially easy to find him either.

But then, never for one moment had he assumed any of them would want to.

He thought back to the last time he’d seen her. It had been her nineteenth birthday party. He had known then that he was leaving; his bag already stowed next to his beloved motorbike at the foot of the sprawling King estate.

Guilt worked its way up from his gut.

For want of a sense of order he did what was expected of one in a restaurant and signalled a waiter.

As soon as the waiter left, Nora leant forward. ‘Look, I’m just going to come right out and say this before I totally lose my nerve. I, that is—’

Jared picked up his imported beer and drank to coat the swirling emotion he now felt in his stomach. The Kings didn’t do hesitation. It was educated out of them. Decide upon what to say. Then say it. Leave no room for misinterpretation.

He watched as Nora swept her hand over her sleek black bob. Her hand was trembling. Damn it, where was Amanda?

And then Nora found her voice and Jared heard only the first sentence before the anger gathered and threatened to spew from his solar plexus like a scene out of Alien.

Locking his jaw, he breathed in, forcing himself to acknowledge the fullness of what she was saying. His eyes dropped to his sister’s delicate hand resting on top of his clenched fist, offering comfort; something he wasn’t entitled to—making it the last thing he wanted.

‘You’re sure of this?’ he ground out.

She nodded and he was left reeling. Until he remembered he was a King. ‘Well I can give you my answer now. It’s a resounding “no”.’

‘And since when has a King ever taken “no” for an answer?’

The question hung in the air, and Jared realised that his little sister had grown up, inheriting a few of the old man’s traits along the way. He breathed out slowly. ‘I don’t care if you take it or not. My answer won’t change.’

He felt himself being assessed once more and wasn’t at all comfortable it was his baby sister doing it.

‘Look, I realise this must have come as a bit of a shock, but aren’t you a bit old to still be cultivating the tortured, bad-boy image?’

Jared withdrew his fist from the table and stretched it out on his thigh. Image? He’d always assumed he’d sealed his reputation when he’d left, without a backwards glance for the sisters who’d once looked up to him, who’d once believed in him.

As the waiter arrived to place piping-hot dishes on the rotating glass plate at the table’s centre Jared kept his expression deliberately blank.

He needed a moment to adjust, that was all.

Shock could do strange things to a person.

Something he knew for a fact when he turned his head slightly to the woman doing the siren-like slow-mo walk through the maze of tables towards him, and briefly imagined that it was Amanda.

Cataloguing sexy high heels, black pencil skirt and form-fitting black sweater, long chestnut hair and flawless creamy skin… all his thoughts lurched to a stop when he zeroed in on the pair of twinkly, button-brown eyes.

Alright. Okay. There had to be a really good explanation as to why Amanda Gray had walked in wearing something so far removed from her usual garb. He couldn’t help but look at her in a thoroughly off-limits way and if he didn’t stop staring in the next ten seconds, all hell was going to break loose.

Nobody blind-sided him twice in one day.

‘On your way somewhere special?’ he asked, inwardly cursing the gravel-like quality to his voice as he rose automatically from his chair to greet her.

She shrugged her shoulders as if it wasn’t important and yet a part of him, the part which had sat up to take notice as soon as she’d entered the room, wanted to beg to differ. Shock had got a hold of him. Simple as that, he cautioned, as displacement therapy played dirty with his mind, telling him it was perfectly okay to respond to the sweet temptation of Amanda leaning into him.

He felt some of his famous constraint shake loose. Felt the devil-may-care attitude he’d stamped so forcefully from his personality ten years before resurface with a thud to beat a rhythm over his consciousness and awaken the Jared of old.

Amanda caught the watchful, sexy glint in Jared’s eye and had a little wobble. From the moment she’d entered the restaurant and seen Jared’s beautiful companion give what could only be described as an impassioned speech she’d suspected this particular Limpet was going to be more difficult than usual. She’d watched, mesmerised, as Jared’s hand had withdrawn from the woman’s and an expression of complete control had fallen across his features blotting out any trace of weakness. It had had her itching to photograph the change in him, itching to capture such a remarkable skill.

She’d seen his mask slip into place only once before, when she’d awoken in the small hospital room to find him bent over her brother’s bed, desolation, guilt, anger and grief etched across his features. She must have made a sound intending to comfort because the moment he’d realised she was there, his face had suddenly turned impassive and emotionless. BAM! The shutters were down!

Now, as she leant into him in greeting and watched him watching her, the words ‘playing with fire’ were practically tattooed onto her brain—which was ridiculous. This was Jared; her friend Jared. This was just a game to get him out of an awkward situation. This was not the time to engage heart over head. But as Jared’s hand snaked out to wrap around her waist and steady her, as she was enveloped in the solid heat of his embrace, his breath fanning against her cheek and raising a thousand skittering goose-bumps over her flesh, Amanda felt compelled to dismiss the wobble, and go with her gut—bypass subtle flirting and head straight to staking a claim.

Eyes welded to his, she rose up on tiptoes and brushed her lips lightly over his.

Any remaining sense of perspective promptly vanished.

Shocked, she withdrew her lips a fraction, her eyes moving uncertainly from the fullness of his lips to check his expression. As she saw that he had closed up, she was driven, if only to salvage a little pride, to revisit his lips with the soft glide of her tongue against his lower lip.

She heard the quick hiss of his indrawn breath and she responded instantly. Every last bit of her melted as his hand plunged deftly into the ponytail at the base of her neck, anchoring her so that he could take control and deepen the kiss. His tongue stroked masterfully over and under her tongue and she clung to him; one hundred per cent complicit in becoming a banquet on which he could greedily feast.

She didn’t think about the fact that she’d gone so far past subtle flirting she was lost somewhere that she’d never visited and possibly would never wanted to leave. She didn’t think about the fact that there would surely be consequences once Jared remembered what he was doing and who he was doing it with. Or, that there was someone sitting at the table beside them, or about the rest of the diners. She didn’t think at all. Not until the moan forming at the back of her throat escaped and she was suddenly, unceremoniously, set free and left teetering on her heels.

Breathing hard, not knowing what to do about the completely new and assessing look in Jared’s eyes, she glanced about her in desperation.

In the absence of any other idea she reached across the table, picked up his chopsticks, dunked some food in sweet chilli dipping sauce and placed the whole lot in her mouth.

As the silence stretched unbearably Amanda frowned at Jared’s Latest Limpet. She’d expected indignant shock at the kiss, not quickly masked confusion and then the same carefully blank expression that Jared was usually so good at. Then, suddenly, Jared did what he was famous for; taking control.

‘Amanda Gray,’ his British accent clipped out, ‘Meet Leonora King—Nora. My sister.’

Amanda couldn’t be sure, but she thought she might just have emitted a thoroughly unladylike snort. But with every synapse short-circuited after the kiss, she could be forgiven, right? His words began to truly register, as she picked up on the tension emanating from Jared and the woman sitting across from him. She became uncomfortably aware of her stupid heart beginning a very definite journey north to her mouth. Swallowing hard, she managed, ‘You’re serious?’ At the woman’s perfectly pleasant smile she sat down at the table with a jolt and turned an accusatory stare to the man sat beside her. ‘You let me think this woman was one of your … ’ She closed her eyes to aid breathing, thinking; functioning. Well, this was bad on so many levels; to have actually kissed Jared in the first place …

To discover it was in front of his sister!

She couldn’t help it, she looked at Nora and then back to Jared and ended up squeaking pathetically, ‘You have family?’

She waited for him to confirm, deny; explain. And when only the snap of his shutters responded, disappointment, an emotion she never thought to associate with him, washed over her.

Her mind raced as she realised that in the few years she’d known him, he’d managed to expertly steer any conversation of family back in the UK firmly in another direction. And because it was Jared, who was always so in control, a person didn’t think to keep pushing. And hadn’t that, she now realised, suited him right down to the ground?

Turning to Nora, she said, ‘Great to meet you. So what’s the big family secret that’s kept this one here from mentioning any of you?’

Jared rose in one swift, fluid motion, ‘Right, time for a little chat. Outside. Excuse us would you sister, dear.’ Manacling Amanda’s wrist, he headed for the door.

As soon as they were outside Amanda tugged on the hand and was immediately set free.

‘Look,’ he ground out, ‘I don’t quite understand what you thought you were doing back there but you can’t just—’

Whirling around to face him, she had no idea why he was so angry. ‘Okay did you, or did you not, send me one of your emergency texts?’

‘I did.’ He folded his arms and adopted his usual intractable stance and she hung onto the fact that she wasn’t obliged to quake in her boots—not when she was more intrigued by what had him so riled.

‘And do they not usually mean ‘Help, I can’t get rid of my girlfriend’?’

‘They do. Usually. But then, usually, you at least wait until I introduce you before you start improvising. What the hell were you thinking?’

‘What was I thinking?’ she repeated, bemused. ‘Given that you sent your usual text and not something more helpful like, oh, maybe, “my sister is in town and I would love it if you could join us for lunch.”’ She took a step closer, all the better to read him. But he was giving nothing away and she felt her own anger start to spiral. ‘How was I supposed to know your text was more of a moral-support code? How was I supposed to know you even had a sister? Next you’ll be telling me you have parents, other siblings—the whole shebang.’ She watched as the muscle in his jaw clicked rigid.

‘It’s complicated.’

Her mouth dropped open. Why did she feel so insulted? And jealous! Just because they shared all those long talks over Mikey’s hospital bed, did she really think that she was finally getting to know him? ‘Well, I guess I wouldn’t know about complicated families, would I?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘It’s not? We’re not talking about the fact that you need to send out for reinforcements to talk to a sister no one even knows you have? What are we talking about then? The kiss?’

‘We’re talking,’ Jared argued, ‘About the fact that you’re going to have to stop breezing through life as if nothing matters, without a plan and with total disregard for how your go-with-the-flow attitude might affect others.’

Amanda could only stare as a strange numbing quality began to take hold. Okay, so her visit hadn’t heralded the outcome he’d hoped for. He was addled; upset—she got that. But to deliberately hurt her!

‘Why are you dressed like that, anyway?’ he blurted out in obvious frustration.

‘I was at an interview, you jerk.’

‘An interview?’ A look of sudden understanding passed over his face, ‘So Mikey finally told you? I guess that’s something at least. Look, I know he and Janey have said they want to get married as soon as possible but you don’t need to move out straight away. You have time to get a job you really want.’

‘Wait, back up,’ Amanda didn’t understand. Mikey and Janey were engaged? Since when? And then, as she stood opposite him, feeling like the only one not in on the joke, what Jared was saying slowly started to sink in, ‘This is why you offered me the job!’ The flush of humiliation was swift and all-encompassing. ‘I couldn’t possibly get a decent enough job to move into a place of my own! You think I need looking after? Like some child? When it’s been me who’s taken care of Mikey for years?’ Amanda had never felt more stupid in all her twenty-four years. That the two of them had so obviously been discussing what to do about her, when, actually she’d been developing her own plans, thank you very much.

Jared closed the distance between them. Looking deep into her eyes, he blew what little cool she had left about her straight out of the water. ‘Amanda, Mikey hasn’t needed looking after for a long time. You know that. You know that’s not why you stay. You stay because you’re too afrai—’

‘Don’t!’ Her voice thick with emotion, her self-preservation had her laying trembling fingertips against his lips. Because if he came right out and said it, if he actually called her a coward, she’d lose it. ‘Seriously, you do not get to call on me for help and then call me out for the manner in which I provide it and follow it up by questioning my motives for sticking by my only family.’

As he opened his mouth to speak she pressed harder against his incredible soft lips. His hand came up to grasp hold of her wrist. His eyes bored into hers and she felt his thumb brush against the sensitive pulse point of her wrist. Electricity zinged through her even as she wondered how it could be that she was standing outside on a bitter cold day arguing with her friend. Her friend. who stood in front of her, so in control, whilst everything about her interaction with him since she’d walked into the restaurant had so clearly and irrevocably got away from her.

Her pulse spiked at the continued stroke of his thumb and as his eyes lowered to concentrate on her lips it went haywire. ‘Jared?’

The broken whisper of his name on her lips brought him out of his trance-like state and immediately he dropped her hand and stepped backwards. ‘You are hereby released from all “Code Red” duty.’

Before she could form words he turned and walked back inside to where Nora was standing centre-stage of the restaurant’s plate-glass window doing a reasonable goldfish impression.

Staring at his retreating back, Amanda swore she could hear those damn shutters of his face slamming shut, and a thousand locks being deployed for good measure.

Confusion coursed through her, giving rise to a whole host of elemental emotions.

Jared had sounded as though he’d made some sort of resolution for removing her from more than “Code Red” duty. Interestingly, with the feel of his lips on hers still lingering, she was tempted to tell him that resolutions were made for breaking.

But what with them being friends, though, and what with her promising herself that this year was all about concentrating on her plan, she definitely shouldn’t do that.

Should she?