Just One Kiss by
Jessica Hart Chapter One There he was. The man she was going to marry. She wished. Caro hesitated by t...
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Just One Kiss by
Jessica Hart Chapter One There he was. The man she was going to marry. She wished. Caro hesitated by the entrance to the playground, hardly able to believe that Anthony — could that really be his name? — was exactly where he had been the day before. Yesterday he had been over by the swings, today he was helping his little boy up the steps to the slide, but apart from that he was exactly the same. Same jacket, same child, same rugged good looks. Same gorgeous body. Same smile that made her go weak at the knees. "Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Kate, who had come with Bella to see if Caro really would go through with it. "You said that all you needed was a child and you could get to know him easily," Bella reminded Caro of her confident assertion the day before. "He's a single father, you said. According to you, parks are classic meeting places for people with children, and it ought to be easy to take advantage of that if only you had the right props." "It's true," insisted Caro. "Apparently they all get to bond over shared stories of parenthood. We were talking about doing an article about it in Glitz the other day. Ten Top Tips on Where to Find a Man…you know the kind of thing. The journalist reckoned that going into a playground with a child was like walking a dog — you've got something in common right from the start." "I've heard that about dog walking before," said Kate gloomily. "It never worked for me. I only ever meet old men with Jack Russells." Bella waved Kate's experiences aside. "Well, now you've got your child," she said to Caro, nodding down at the pushchair. "Didn't your sister mind you taking Jake off for the afternoon?" "Are you kidding? She practically pushed us out of the door when I offered her a couple of hours to herself!" Wriggling her skirt around, Caro smoothed it down. "Do I look like a mummy?" Bella looked at her friend. There was something vivid about Caro, with her bright face and her glossy, nut-colored hair and her sparkling brown eyes. In a blatant attempt to attract the unknown Anthony's
interest, she wore a short red skirt that showed off her legs, and fabulous shoes with kitten heels and pointed toes and irresistible bows on the front. "Not in those shoes," she said. Caro was momentarily downcast, but she shrugged and took a firm grip of the pushchair. "Well, it's too late to change them now. Right, this is it. I'm off to meet my destiny." Shimmying her bottom, she grinned cockily over her shoulder as she headed for the entrance to the playground. "And to win my bet!" Pushing Jake in what she hoped was a casual manner over toward the swings, Caro kept an eye on Anthony and his son. Tom, Phoebe had said the little boy's name was. She had been sent into the playground yesterday after the lighthearted bet they had made to see whether the man of Caro's dreams was wearing a wedding ring or not. "No ring," she had reported when she came back. "And he's called Anthony." "Anthony?" Caro had echoed in disappointment. With those rugged looks and the dark rumpled hair and that smile guaranteed to set a female heart doing hand springs, he ought by rights to be called something heroic. Max, perhaps. Jack. Nick. A hard, masculine, macho name. How could her destiny be called Anthony? "Are you sure?" "Well, that's what the little boy called him," Phoebe said. "He's obviously one of those trendy fathers who don't like being called Daddy. Sweet little boy, too. Tom, his name is. He looks just like him. There's no mistaking the relationship." There wasn't. Caro could see it for herself now that she was closer. Tom was a miniature version of his father. He looked about three to her inexpert eye, and he was clambering self-importantly up the slide, while Anthony — how could someone so totally gorgeous be called something so bland? — kept a watchful eye on him. Of course, it was good that he was such a devoted parent, but if he was that absorbed in his child, how was he going to notice her? Fortunately, it wasn't long before Tom was off to clamber over the wooden train, and Anthony sat down on a nearby bench. Caro took her opportunity. Maneuvering the pushchair smartly into place before anyone else had the same idea, she dug around in the bag her sister had slung over the back of the pushchair and located Jake's mug. "Do you mind if we sit here?" she asked Anthony, would-be careless, as if she had only just noticed that he was there. He looked up at her briefly and she was struck by how blue his eyes were. The deep, dark blue of the ocean, and dark hair. Ooh, gorgeous. "Not at all," he said. And a lovely deep rich voice, with just a hint of something Celtic — Scottish? Irish? — to it. By rights he should have an unpronounceable name with lots of "b"s and "h"s and accents in odd places. Perhaps Phoebe had been wrong about Anthony, she thought hopefully.
She studied Anthony under her lashes as she offered Jake his drink. Anthony was sitting with his jacket hunched up around his shoulders against the chill wind, long legs stretched out in front of him. Close up, he wasn't quite as good-looking as he had seemed from a distance, but he had a humorous, intelligent face with a lot of laughter lines fanning the edges of his eyes. Caro had always had a weakness for those. It was a lived-in kind of face, she decided approvingly. He had dark brows, a big nose, and just a hint of stubble along the strong jaw that with those gorgeous blue eyes gave him a faintly piratical look.… Caro had to bite back a sigh of sheer pleasure. He might have been designed for her! "I bet you anything I can get him to ask me out on a date," she had claimed grandly to her three housemates as she gazed longingly at him from the other side of the fence. But a date hadn't been enough of a challenge for Phoebe, Kate and Bella. If Caro really wanted to show them what she could do, they had decided, she had to kiss him as well. "And no mealy-mouthed peck on the cheek!" Kate had warned. "It's got to be a proper kiss." Laughing, Caro had taken the bet. It had been a joke at first, as they capped each other's outrageous suggestions, but when the penalty for coming away with no date and no kiss had been set at cleaning the kitchen for the next month, she had all the incentive she needed. And now here she was, sitting only inches away from him, and he was so solid and so real and so bone-meltingly attractive that the mere thought of kissing him dried the breath in her throat. Just one kiss… That was the bet. Could she do it?
Chapter Two How was Caro going to get Anthony to kiss her? She stole another look at him. There was a faint smile hovering around his mouth as he watched his son holding his ground in the face of attempts by several other children to drive the train, and the thought of touching those lips with her own sent a little shiver down her spine. She could hardly launch herself along the bench at him, appealing as that thought might be, so somehow she was going to have to attract his attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Kate and Bella on the other side of the playground fence making "get on with it" gestures. Caro glared at them. Why didn't they try something more subtle, like holding up a flashing neon sign saying "Anthony, my friend fancies you!"? Although, come to think of it, the direct approach had its attractions. Really, life had been much easier for Victorian spinsters, she reflected glumly. They could just drop a handkerchief strategically and the
gentleman in question would pick it up with the perfect excuse to start a conversation. They hadn't had to borrow nephews to strike up an acquaintance with a handsome stranger. Still, she wouldn't fancy Anthony in muttonchop whiskers, so perhaps she was better off in the twenty-first century after all. It was time to pull herself together. The man of her dreams was mere inches away, and she would never have a better chance of getting noticed by him. All she had to do was think of something witty and original to say to get him interested. "Umm…lovely day," she said, cringing inwardly at the banality of it. Surely she ought to be able to do better than that? She was supposed the ultimate party girl. Caro's such fun, they always said. Caro's such a laugh. At least he was looking at her. "Cold, though, isn't it?" she went on quickly before he had a chance to look away. That was it; astound him with her sparkling conversational skills. Caro sighed to herself. How was he going to be able to resist banter like that? But, wait! He wasn't turning away with a yawn of boredom. The navy blue eyes were traveling down to her legs. "I imagine it's pretty chilly in that skirt, anyway," he said, and there was an undercurrent of amusement in his voice and a gleam in his eyes as they came back to her face that sent Caro's internal heating soaring. Suddenly she wasn't cold at all. A faint frown was creasing Anthony's brow as he studied her. "Do you come here often?" he asked and then stopped with an embarrassed laugh. "Sorry, that sounds like the worst pick-up line in the world, doesn't it?" It was fine by Caro. He could say what he wanted as long as he kept on smiling like that. "It's just that you look vaguely familiar," he said. "I'm wondering where I've seen you before." Probably ogling him over the fence yesterday. Not that she wanted him making that connection. "Perhaps we've passed each other before," she said vaguely, but at least it gave her an opening to be nosy. "Do you live round here?" He nodded. "Just over there." He pointed casually toward a part of town the estate agents always described as much sought-after. It was an area Caro and the others frequently fantasized about moving to, but as these fantasies inevitably involved finding a man whose emotional stability and financial security matched his hunky body and lack of beard/overlong sideburns/morbid fear of commitment, none of them had got any closer than Tooting. "What about you?" he asked. "Oh, the other side," said Caro with an airy wave that managed to suggest that Phoebe's house practically opened onto the park, as opposed to being a good half-hour's walk away and in a very much less exclusive part of town.
Anthony had turned his attention to Jake. "How old is he?" Caro had a moment of frantic calculation. Jake had been one not that long ago. She had bought him a pair of supercool sunglasses and a hat that had made her sister roll her eyes. "Er…fourteen months," she said, aware that a real mother would probably have known his age to the day. "It's a nice age, isn't it?" "Oh, yes," said Caro, who had no idea. "Lovely." "I know it's not very macho," Anthony confessed, "but I really like babies." Really, he was too good to be true. It was almost spooky. And the feeling wasn't going away. Physically he might be everything that sent her "bloke awareness" register off the scale, but he seemed so nice, too. "You must be very proud of him," he was saying as Jake threw his mug onto the ground. "Oh, I am, I am." Caro beamed at her nephew as she retrieved the mug, mentally promising him an extra-big Christmas present. This was all going suspiciously well. They were chatting away nicely now. Jake had played his part perfectly in establishing contact. Now all she needed to do was let Anthony know that she was unattached. There was no point to this if he assumed that she had a doting husband plus immaculate house, four-wheel drive and dishwasher to go home to. Some men might find the thought gave piquancy to a little flirting, but she got the feeling that Anthony wasn't one of them. So she let out a tiny sigh, with just a hint of martyrdom. "Of course, it isn't easy bringing up a child on your own." "I know," said Anthony with such sympathy that Caro felt a bit guilty for lying. Presumably he did know what it was like. "Are you a single parent, too?" she asked. "I saw you with your little boy." There was a fractional pause before he answered. "Yes, that's Tom. He's three now." "Are you and his mother separated?" There was a lot to be said for this bonding over children thing, Caro reflected. You could ask the most personal questions straight out. Usually when you met a man you had to navigate a minefield of innuendo and evasiveness to establish his relationship history. "We haven't lived together for a long time," he said after a pause that made Caro wonder if she'd got personal a bit too quickly after all. But no, he was responding. "What about you?" This was a tricky one. Why hadn't she thought about this before? She couldn't have him thinking there
was some other man complicating matters. For a moment, Caro was tempted to hint at a tragic past, but decided that might all get too intense. On the other hand, she didn't want him to think of her as a sad singleton. If Caro wanted to win that bet, she was going to have to create just the right image — alluring and independent, yet strangely vulnerable and clearly available. Or to put it another way, she was going to have to lie. "It's always just been me and Jake," she told him, and Anthony's brows rose in surprise. "You don't have any contact with his father at all?" "No, he doesn't know about Jake." Too late Caro realized that he might think that she didn't actually know who Jake's father was. That would give quite the wrong impression. No, what she needed was a suggestion of glamour and mystery.… "He's…er…he's got a public profile," she told him, suddenly inspired. "I work for a magazine, and we were over in California doing a lifestyle piece. That's when I met…well, I'd better not say who he is," she said coyly. "I suppose I was swept off my feet." Caro could see it now. There she had been, a naive English girl, bowled over by a superstar, seduced by the sheer glamour of it all. "I didn't discover I was pregnant until I got home, and I didn't want to contact him in case he thought I was just trying it on to get maintenance," she finished, rather pleased with herself for this neat ending. Anthony was frowning. "Wouldn't he want to know if he had a child?" He seemed to be serious, Caro thought incredulously. Did he really believe that she was capable of provoking a rush of passion in a film star used to the most beautiful women in the world? "It was my choice to keep Jake," she said, half expecting him to burst out laughing. "I think he'll be better off if I bring him up on my own. I don't want him exposed to that Hollywood lifestyle and too much money," she added virtuously, although personally she would have loved to have had the opportunity of being exposed to it herself. "Jake will want to know who his father is sometime, surely?" Incredibly, Anthony still seemed to be taking the whole issue of Jake's father seriously. "I'll explain when he's old enough to understand," said Caro firmly, anxious to get him off the subject before it all got too complicated. "In the meantime, we just enjoy being together, don't we, Jake?" To her dismay, Jake's face crumpled in response and he began to cry. "What is it?" she asked him, picking him up and joggling him hopefully on her knee. Don't let me down now, she pleaded with him silently. "Perhaps he's bored," suggested Anthony.
Great. Just when things were going so well, too! So much for her attempts to look like a serene, competent mother. "Maybe he'd like to feed the ducks," he went on. "I didn't bring any bread with me." More black marks. Everyone knew you took crusts to feed the ducks when you went to the park with a child. "We've got plenty. You can share ours." Caro's plunging spirits did an abrupt wheelie. She could practically hear the screaming skid as the brakes slammed on and they spun round to roar back upward again. "That would be so kind," she said gratefully, as Anthony called Tom over. "Maybe we could buy you and Tom a cup of tea at the café in return?" Not quite cocktails and dinner at Claridges, but it was a start, she supposed. He smiled down at her. "That sounds nice. Ducks first, then tea." Would a cup of tea count as a date? Caro wondered as she watched Anthony and the two little boys throwing crusts at the ducks. And even if it did, she still had the problem of persuading him to kiss her. The boys had been very useful for initiating contact, but there was no denying that now they were decidedly in the way. Clearly another date — minus children — was called for.
*** "Perhaps we should introduce ourselves," Anthony suggested when they were sitting at a table outside the café. In spite of the cold, sitting outside seemed a better idea, given that both boys were eating ice creams extremely messily. Caro cupped her hands around her mug of tea to keep warm and averted her eyes from Jake's face. "I'm Anthony," he said, and Caro only just stopped herself from saying "I know" in time. "Anthony Gilchrist." "Caroline Taylor — but all my friends call me Caro." She was desperately aware of him as he sat opposite her, one arm slung casually over the back of a chair, the other holding his mug of tea. She tried not to stare, of course, but her eyes kept sliding back toward him, to the quirky line of his mouth, to those fascinating crinkles around his eyes, to the crease in his cheek that deepened when he smiled. In the meantime, she had better stick to her role as single mother. She watched Tom finish his ice cream with gusto. "He's a nice little boy," she said. It was the kind of comment that always went down well with parents. "How often do you see him?" "Most weekends at the moment," Anthony told her, taking a cloth to Tom's face, much to Caro's relief.
"Sue — his mother — is trying to finish her thesis at the moment. She started her Ph.D. soon after Tom was born, and it's been really difficult for her to cope with that and a small child, but she's made it this far and only has a few more weeks to go. I take Tom as often as I can to give her a chance to do some work on the weekends." He sounded really proud, Caro noted a touch huffily. Don't say he was one of those men who never really got over their previous relationships, and were always comparing you to their ex. Her heart sank at the thought. She wouldn't last long if he started comparing her with Superbrain Sue. Mind you, if he had a taste for intellectuals, she wouldn't get a chance to last at all. Not much chance of him asking her out if he guessed that her most challenging intellectual activity was an in-depth analysis of the appeal of ER versus, say, CSI: Miami, usually based on the comparative attractiveness of the leading actors. Not that it didn't lead to some extremely stimulating discussions in Phoebe's house. "She must be very clever," said Caro. Rule number one, never show you're jealous of his ex. Especially when you have every reason to be. "Oh, she is." There was an odd undercurrent of laughter in Anthony's voice. "Sue's always been bright. She's not at all practical, though. The house is always a complete tip." Uh-oh. Surely he wasn't obsessed with cleanliness and order as well as his ex? That really would be bad news for Caro. His eyes were very blue as he smiled at her. "What about you?" he asked. "What do you do? You said something about working for a magazine. Are you a journalist?" A journalist might compare well to his clever ex, but on the other hand, she might not be able to carry it off for long.
Chapter Four It was time to tell the truth, Caro decided. A version of it, anyway. "I'm the fashion editor for a magazine called Glitz," she said. She did work for Glitz; she had just promoted herself a bit. If Anthony was used to living with a Ph.D. student, she wasn't going to admit that she was just an acting fashion assistant, aka dogsbody. "Ah." The dark blue eyes gleamed. "That explains the shoes!" Delighted that he had noticed, Caro stretched out one foot to admire their full glory. "Most men wouldn't have noticed my shoes." "It's hard to miss those. They're not the kind of shoes you see for walking in the park every day." There was a twitch to his mouth that made her suspect that he was teasing her. Well, two could play at that game. She put up her chin.
"One has to keep up certain standards," she said loftily. "I can see that you do," said Anthony in a grave voice, but his mouth was still quivering suspiciously. "It must be hard holding down a high-powered job like yours and coping with a baby. How do you manage?" "I've got a marvellous nanny…Kate." Caro chose the first name that came into her head. "And Jo is an excellent assistant," she added, co-opting her best friend at work who was marginally senior and shared her office. "That really helps." Really, why bother with boring old reality when a little economy with the truth was so much more effective? Far from slamming down his mug of tea and accusing her of bare-faced lies, Anthony seemed to have accepted her glamorous past and demanding career without question. It must have been her shoes that convinced him, Caro thought with a smug glance downward. They chatted a bit more about the difficulties of single parenthood, which was a bit trickier, but she brushed through it pretty well, she thought. So well, in fact, that by the time Jake started to grizzle, and she had to reluctantly finish her tea and go, Anthony had suggested a drink sometime. Jubilant, Caro brandished the business card Anthony had given her in front of her housemates when she got home. "Don't buy me that mop yet," she said buoyantly. "There was a definite spark there — that kiss is just a matter of time! He's going to email me." Bella took the card from her and studied it. "An architect? Hmm, not bad. Makes a change from your usual wasters, anyway. And you've got a telephone number here in case he doesn't contact you." "Of course he's going to contact me!" Caro bristled. "I wrote my email address on a napkin specially." For once she was positively eager to get into work the next day so that she could check her in-box and fill Jo in on Anthony and the bet that she had made with her housemates, but there was no message from him on Monday. Or Tuesday. Every time her computer pinged to announce a new message, Caro's heart leapt, only to plummet a second later when there was nothing from a.gilchrist@can'twaittocontacther.com. "That's it!" she sighed on Wednesday, having checked her messages for the umpteenth time that morning. "I'm giving up on men. Anthony was perfect, and if he can't be bothered to get in touch, there's no hope for any of us!" "Well, why don't you ring him?" said Jo. "You've got his number." "I can't do that! He'll think I'm desperate!" "You are." Jo shrugged. "You want to win that bet, don't you?" Caro chewed her thumb and studied Anthony's business card, now creased from overhandling. "I don't see why I have to do all the work," she grumbled. "I've engineered the meeting and started the conversation and given him the opportunity to ask me out. I don't think a little email in return is asking too much!"
"It looks like you'll be cleaning that kitchen after all, in that case," said Jo, not without a touch of malice. She had heard quite enough about how perfect Anthony was over the past two days. The phone rang just then, and Caro glared at her as she picked it up. "Fashion," she snapped. "I'll put you through," Caro managed in a strangled voice, and put him on hold. "It's him!" she hissed to Jo. "Quick, you've got to be me! Remember, I'm fashion editor, and you're my assistant." "What's it worth?" "Doughnuts all week," Caro promised. Jo was perfect. "Caroline Taylor's assistant," she said in her breathiest voice. "Who's calling? …a personal call? …well, she's extremely busy at the moment, but let me just see if she's got a moment…" She grinned at Caro as she put him back on hold. "We'll let him sweat for a bit. After all, he's waited until now to call you, and we don't want you to look too keen." "We don't want him to give up, either," said Caro nervously. "No chance of that." Jo went back to Anthony. "Just putting you through," she said sweetly, and Caro's phone rang. Taking a deep breath, Caro picked it up. "Hello!" she said, dropping her voice an octave in case he recognized her from before. "Is that Caro?" he asked, sounding puzzled. "Yes," she said. The huskiness was hard to keep up, but it sounded suitably sexy, she hoped. "You sound a bit strange. Are you all right?" So much for sexy. Caro cleared her throat. "Just a frog in my throat," she said more normally. "Oh. Well, this is Anthony Gilchrist. We met in the park on Sunday." Yes, and I've been waiting for you to contact me ever since. "I remember," said Caro, supercool instead. "And you gave me your email address on a paper napkin?" "Oh…yes," she said slowly, quite as if she hadn't spent the last two days checking her inbox. "I'm afraid I lost it," said Anthony. "Lost it?" Shouldn't he have been carrying it next to his heart? "Yes, er… Tom had to blow his nose on the way home, and the napkin was all we had." He sounded torn between embarrassment and laughter. "By the time I realized that it had your address on it, it was too late."
Chapter Five Anthony had let her son blow his nose on her contact details! Flirting with the idea of pretending to be offended, Caro gave up and laughed instead. "You know, I've always suspected that's what men did with my telephone number and email address whenever I've given them out in the past," she told him in mock confidential tones, "but you're the first to admit it openly!" He was obviously relieved to hear her laugh. "It was only later that I worked out what had happened," he apologized. "We've had problems with our computers, so I thought the easiest thing in the end would be to ring Glitz and ask for the fashion editor." Thank God he had come through to her! Caro glanced through the glass to where Martha, her boss, was on the phone in her office. She was a great person to work for, but she might not have been that amused to find out that Caro had awarded herself her job overnight. "I know how busy you are," Anthony went on. "I was just wondering if you'd like to have that drink…or I don't suppose you'd be free for dinner one night this week?" "Dinner…?" Caro thrust up her clenched fist in a silent victory gesture. "That sounds nice. Let me just have look at my diary.…" She leafed noisily through the pages, um-ing and ah-ing as if searching for a gap in a frantic social schedule. "What about Friday?" she asked at last. Jo rolled her eyes when Caro eventually put down the phone with a smug smile. "Free on a Friday night? That's a dead giveaway!" "I'm a single mother, remember?" said Caro virtuously. "I'm not supposed to be out clubbing every night." "Well, if he's picking you up, you'd better make the house look as if a baby lives there and not four sad singletons who don't go clubbing every night, either!" "Oh God, you're right.… I'd better borrow some stuff." By Friday evening the kitchen was transformed. "What do you think?" Caro asked anxiously, setting a high chair at the big pine table. "If you ask me, it's all a bit tidy," decided Bella, casting a critical look around. Caro's old teddy was perched on the sofa, a plastic drinking mug and bowl with rabbits running round the edge had been left oh-so-casually on the draining board, and an assortment of toys were stacked in a corner. Some of Jake's earliest artistic efforts decorated the fridge, and Kate had even bought a packet of nappies to leave on a chair as a finishing touch. "He'll think you're an anal repressive."
"Do you really think so?" Caro chewed her thumb, a bad habit of hers when she was feeling twitch. "I don't want him to get the wrong idea." "No," agreed Phoebe with a grin. "Not like him getting the idea that you're a fashion editor when you're not, or that you've got a baby when you don't…" "That you had an affair with a film star when you didn't," Bella chimed in. "I can't believe he really fell for that one!" "Yes, or that I'm a nanny when I'm not," Kate grumbled. "I don't see why it has to be me." They gave Caro a stiff V&T to steady her nerves, but she was twitching away for England, and the moment the doorbell went, she jumped so badly that the last of the vodka spilt over her dress. "I'll go and let him in," said Phoebe as Bella mopped her up. Caro could hear the deep rumble of Anthony's voice as he squeezed past the borrowed pushchair in the hall, and then, suddenly, he was in front of her, filling the kitchen with his presence. "Hi." Embarrassingly, it came out as little more than a squeak. She had forgotten quite how attractive he was. The sight of him seemed to suck the air from her lungs. He was so tall, so solid, so at ease with himself. Anthony looked around him with interest, unfazed by the intensely interested gazes of the other three girls or the fact that Caro seemed incapable of doing more than standing and staring at him. "This is very nice," he said. "How do you keep it so tidy? Sue's house is always a complete mess." This less-than-tactful reference to his ex at least had the effect of making Caro pull herself together. "I couldn't manage without Jake's nanny," she said with a gracious smile in Kate's direction. "Kate's a marvel." Ignoring the splutters from Phoebe and Bella, Kate cast down her eyes and smiled modestly. "I'll just go and check on Jake," she said, and went out, only to come tiptoeing back in a few minutes later. "He's sound asleep," she told Caro earnestly. "Now, don't worry about a thing. I'll keep an eye on him." "Er…right…thanks," said Caro, a little unnerved by the verve with which Kate was throwing herself into her role as devoted retainer. She'd be wearing a uniform and a cap and referring to "Master Jake" any minute now. "Shall we go?" she said quickly to Anthony. Things picked up as soon as they were out of danger from overacting housemates. Anthony took her to Brewer's, a restaurant that was always getting rave reviews. It was the kind of place Caro would normally never get closer to than pressing her nose against the window. Her spirits soared. Why had she been so nervous? Here she was in this fantastic restaurant with the most gorgeous man sitting across the table and smiling at her with his slightly crooked smile and his blue, blue eyes, and if she wasn't mistaken, the air was crackling already with sparks between them. Anthony was so easy to talk to, too. When they had ordered from the mouth-watering menu, he told her about the flat he had converted from the roof of a disused warehouse, and about the house he was going
to build from scratch one day. "I know exactly what it's like," he said. "I've designed it in my head so many times while I've been bored out of my mind dealing with planning applications, which is all that most people want me for!" His face lit up as he talked, and watching him, Caro felt something stir inside her. She could think of better reasons to want him than his ability to get her planning permission for a conservatory. Most of the men she knew either made a point of appearing world-weary and cynical or couldn't resist boasting about their jobs and their bonuses and how flashy their cars were. There was something very appealing about Anthony's self-deprecating humor. "I hope it's going to be suitably pretentious," she teased him. "Lots of steel and glass and nowhere comfortable to slob out!" "Lots of space and light," he corrected her with a grin, "but don't worry, there'll be a big, squashy sofa, too!" "It sounds lovely," said Caro a little wistfully, wishing that she had as clear an idea of what she wanted from life. And wondering whether he was planning to sit in his light, spacious house on his own. He shrugged, almost shame-faced. "It's just a dream at the moment, but you know what they say, 'If you don't have a dream…'" he sang, so excruciatingly off-key that Caro winced. "I'm glad your dream doesn't involve singing!" Anthony smiled at her as he sat forward. "Go on," he said, "I've told you my dream. What's yours?" You.
Chapter Six "What's your dream?" Anthony had asked, and the answer had come to her without thinking. You are. For one heart-stopping moment Caro was afraid that she had said it out loud. But it was true. She couldn't think of anything she wanted more in life than for him to reach over and touch her. To take her hand and pull her to her feet. To tell the waiter that they had decided not to eat after all, that he needed to take her home and make love to her right now. She swallowed. "Oh…you know…" "No," said Anthony, unhelpfully. "Well…I suppose I just dream about the usual things. A husband, a family, a home. Feeling safe. Feeling loved." Her eyes slid away from his. "Boring, isn't it?"
"Not if that's what you really want." Caro smiled a bit sadly and crumbled her roll. "Don't you think a dream should be more exciting somehow? More of a risk?" "You can't take a bigger risk than marriage," he said wryly. "Were you and Sue married?" An odd sort of smile twitched the corners of his mouth. "No." "Why not?" He seemed to be picking his words with care. "It was a mutual thing. Neither of us wanted to." Caro went back to her roll. "Does that mean that you don't believe in marriage?" The dark blue eyes looked directly into hers. "No, it means that I'm waiting until I'm absolutely sure that I've found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with." Her fingers stilled as she found herself held by the expression in his eyes and the breath seemed to leak slowly out of her lungs "You're a romantic," she said with difficulty. "I know." Anthony's eyes crinkled disarmingly as he smiled. "Do you mind?" "No," she managed unevenly after a charged moment. "I don't mind." She didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed when he looked away. "At least you've made a start on your dream," he pointed out. Caro looked at him stupidly. "I have?" "You've got Jake," he reminded her. "Oh…yes…of course." She smiled weakly. She kept forgetting Jake, supposed center of her existence. Some fantasy mother she was! "I'd like more children, though. I've always wanted a big family." Well, she had. It just felt odd when the truth snuck in amongst all the fibs. "How will your job fit in with all those children?" Anthony was asking. "Oh, well, it's just a job, isn't it?" said Caro unguardedly. "I'm not that ambitious. I'd rather have a good time and get paid for it than put my heart and soul into a job." Anthony's brows rose. "I'd have assumed that you had to be very ambitious to get to be fashion editor at your age!" he commented. That's right, Caro. Remember you told him you were a fashion editor along with all those other lies? Like being a single mother and having had an affair with a movie star.
And all just to get him to kiss her. Wouldn't it have been easier just to have grabbed him on that bench after all instead of remembering what she had and hadn't told him? Still, it was too late now. "I do enjoy my job," she told him, "but it's not the center of my existence. Jake's my priority." Having been reminded of her mythical son, she had better give him another mention. "It wouldn't be the end of the world for me if I had to give it up." If, just for instance, he wanted to invite her to live in that lovely, light house by the sea.… "That's refreshingly honest," said Anthony. He paused. "You know, it's one of the things I like most about you." "What is?" asked Caro, puzzled, but perfectly willing to bask in his approval. "Your honesty." If it hadn't been so ironic, she would have laughed. As it was, all she could do was gape at him. "You seem such a genuine person," he was going on seriously. "That means a lot to me. You know, I was beginning to think that I would never find anyone I could trust. Every time I got close to a woman, it would turn out that she wasn't quite what she said she was, and that our whole relationship was based on a pretense. After I split up with my last girlfriend, I vowed that I'd never get involved again with someone who wasn't able to just be herself." Now he told her! Caro felt quite cross with him. That was it, wait until she had told him a whole farrago of lies and then announce that honesty was the one quality he was looking for in a woman! She wasn't surprised that he had a thing — all men had a thing about something — but why did it have to be that one? Why couldn't he hate extravagant women, say? Not that that would have been ideal, either. She scrubbed that idea hastily, remembering how much she had spent on her latest pair of shoes. Why not have a thing about…ooh…cleverness, for instance? It would be perfectly understandable if Anthony had a deep distrust of intellectual women after his experience with Tom's mother. Or what about efficiency, practicality, frugality, bossiness…really, when you thought about it there were loads of qualities that she would never possess that he could quite legitimately resent. Why out of all of them had he had to choose dishonesty? How could she tell him now that she had been just the teensiest bit economical with the truth, not to mention lying through her teeth? She would never get him to kiss her if she did that. And the more she thought about that kiss, the more she wanted it. Caro picked at her salad, conscious of a shadow over the evening now. It was her own fault for lying in first place and then not taking opportunity to confess. He had given her the perfect opening, after all. "Well, actually Anthony," was all she would have needed to have said, "I haven't been entirely straight with you.…" She could have turned the whole bet thing into a joke and made him laugh and got brownie points for owning up.
But she hadn't been able to bear risk of his face changing, of seeing the disappointment in his eyes and hearing him make an excuse to end the evening early. She would tell him the truth, Caro promised herself. Of course she would. Just not yet. Not before he had kissed her, anyway.
Chapter Seven If only Anthony hadn't told her how important he thought honesty was! It wasn't that she disagreed with him, of course. Honesty was an admirable quality, and under normal circumstances Caro was all for it. It just wasn't what you wanted to think about when you had been telling whopping great lies and had the sudden sinking feeling that you were going to have a bit of a problem extricating yourself from them. At what point, for example, was Caro going to slip into the conversation the trifling little fact that she didn't, in fact, have a baby? Or a glamorous job. Or even a halfway decent one. Still, she mustn't let it spoil their evening, not when everything else was so perfect. Caro gave herself a mental shake. The bet was almost won. She had her date with Anthony — and not even Bella could claim that being taken out to dinner at Brewer's wasn't a full-blown date with bells on. Now all she had to do was to get him to kiss her, and Caro had the feeling that that wasn't going to be a problem. Those delicious sparks that had given a frisson of awareness to the evening earlier were burning away merrily now, and they were exchanging so many eye-meets it was impossible to concentrate on the food. Caro just hoped Anthony wasn't any good at reading body language. She wanted to be subtle and alluring, to intrigue and enchant, not to carry on as if she were working her way through Cosmo's top ten tips to tell him you want him. She cringed inwardly as if able to see herself from a distance, leaning forward, opening her eyes wide, running her tongue over her lips, and even caressing the candle in such a suggestive fashion that she might as well have ripped off her clothes there and then and cried, "Take me; I'm yours!" "Would you like a pudding?" Anthony asked, but Caro was so obsessed by then that she even turned down the sinfully rich-looking chocolate mousse that was to have been the highlight of her meal. She didn't want to think what she would do with a spoonful of mousse in her current state. It was a crying shame. How many times had she fantasized about being taken out to dinner at Brewer's, and now all she could do was long for the time to leave! Surely he would kiss her then? But she hadn't counted on the chatty cab driver who talked all the way home and then kept Anthony for hours talking about England's abysmal cricket score instead of handing over his change and leaving them alone. At least it gave Caro time to prepare a casual invitation to come in for coffee in the kitchen, where there was a very convenient sofa on which he could, if he so cared, devour her with kisses. Not that she would put it quite like that, but he would get the point, surely? "Would you like a coffee?" she said in a coolly alluring way.
Or tried to. What actually came out was a high-pitched croak, of which only one syllable was remotely intelligible. "-fee?" "I don't think I will, thanks," said Anthony, politely ignoring the fact that she had suddenly started talking gibberish. Unless she had been talking gibberish all evening. "I'm going to walk home and clear my head." He produced a wry smile. "I need it." "Oh…okay." Caro struggled to hide her disappointment at the thought of that sofa going to waste. Still, all was not lost, she told herself. He could still kiss her. She was standing on the doorstep, which gave her a couple of extra inches, so he wouldn't have to bend his head too far. All he had to do was to come a step closer.… She smiled invitingly, but all Anthony said was: "Have you got any plans for tomorrow?" To hell with being cool and playing hard to get. "Nothing special." "I was going to take Tom to Hampstead Heath. I wondered if you and Jake would like to come, too. We could take a picnic." Caro imagined getting into a long explanation about Jake, and decided against it. That would have to wait. Right now, she just wanted that kiss. "That sounds lovely," she said. Then Anthony started talking about when and where he would pick them up, while Caro nodded in a fever of impatience. She would agree to whatever he wanted if he would just stop talking and kiss her! "So, I'll see you tomorrow," he said at last. "Yes." It came out as little more than a gasp. Every single nerve ending in Caro's body was quivering with anticipation, including the one in charge of breathing, whose mind was definitely not on the job. "Thank you for a lovely evening," she managed with some difficulty. "I really enjoyed it." Now kiss me! "I enjoyed it, too," said Anthony with a smile that set her heart hammering, and then at last — at last! — he stepped toward her. All it would take would be the tiniest touch and she would spontaneously combust. And if that touch wasn't forthcoming, she would spontaneously combust anyway out of sheer frustration. Either way, it looked as if there was going to be a nasty mess on Phoebe's doorstep. "Goodnight, Caro."
As he bent his head, Caro closed her eyes in exquisite relief and tilted up her face, waiting for his mouth to come down on hers. Any second now… His lips just grazed the corner of her mouth. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said softly, and ran the back of his finger lightly down her cheek. And then he turned and walked away, leaving Caro alone, her eyes squeezed shut, and one hand to her face where the skin still felt as if it had been seared by his touch.
*** "He must think I'm desperate!" Caro wailed, humiliated, the next morning. Whenever she thought about the way she had swayed invitingly toward him, all puckered up for the kiss that never happened, she cringed inwardly. "I'm not sure I can face him," she said. "I think I'll ring him and tell him I've changed my mind about the picnic." "Don't be silly," said Kate, removing the phone firmly from Caro's grasp. "Of course you're going. You've still got that bet to win, haven't you?" Right. The bet. Think of that.
*** Only Caro couldn't think about it when Anthony was stretched out beside her on the grass, utterly relaxed after the picnic. All she could think about was what it would be like to be able to lean over and kiss him. What it would be like if he smiled and pulled her down to kiss her back. What it would be like if she could tell him that she loved him. Because she did.
Chapter Eight She loved him. Gazing down at Anthony, Caro knew it with an utter certainty that she had never felt about anything before. She loved him and she had lied to him. She was going to have to tell him the truth, but what if that meant he never wanted to see her again? How would she bear it?
*** Caro was very quiet on the way home from their picnic. Anthony made no comment, but he asked her to
supper that night. "There's something I have to tell you," he said. "Will Kate be able to baby-sit Jake again?" She couldn't face explaining the truth about Jake right then. Tonight would be soon enough, she told herself. "Let him kiss you first," advised Kate in an attempt to cheer her up. "At least that way you'll win the bet." But Caro didn't care about the bet any more. She just cared about Anthony, and what he was going to say when he found out that she was just as dishonest as the other women who had disappointed him so much in his previous relationships. "Worse, probably," she said gloomily to Kate. "I bet none of his other women invented entirely fictitious lives for themselves. I'm going to have to tell him." "Wear your kitten heels. That'll make you feel better."
*** They didn't, but at least Anthony noticed them. "I'm glad to see that you're keeping up your standards on the shoe front," he said as he led Caro out onto a roof terrace awash with evening sunshine. "I'd be very disappointed now if you turned up in a pair of Hush Puppies." Caro smiled wanly. "My mother's always telling me I'm going to ruin my feet." "I like the way you wear frivolous shoes," he told her, and his voice was very deep with that subtle undercurrent of laughter and something else. "It was one of the first things I noticed about you. You see other mothers in the park, and they all look very practical, but you…you were different." He could say that again. "Your shoes said that you were stylish, a bit quirky," Anthony went on. "They said, here's someone who knows how to have fun, someone who'll make you feel better and brighter just by the way she walks into the room, someone…" He trailed off, searching for the right word. "…someone enchanting," he finished at last. Caro swallowed. "Nobody's ever said anything like that to me before." "What, not even that movie star who seduced you?" This was it. "There was no movie star," she said, turning to face him. "I just made that up to try to impress you." A twitch at the corner of Anthony's mouth told her that he wasn't exactly astounded. "I hoped you did," he said. She took a deep breath. "I'm not a fashion editor, and I'm not a mother. Jake isn't my baby; he's my nephew," she gabbled. "Kate is just a friend, not a nanny. And I don't own that house; Phoebe does." There, she had said it! Phew.
"Jake's not yours?" said Anthony, as if latching on to the only thing that mattered. "No. I just said that he was so that I would have an excuse to talk to you. It was a bet," she explained when he looked staggered. "I saw you in the park with Tom. We were talking about how hard it is to meet men, and I said to the others that I was sure that if I just had a baby, I could get to know you. So I borrowed Jake for the afternoon to prove my point." "So any man would have done really?" There was a tell-tale quiver around Anthony's mouth. "No." A hint of color stained Caro's cheeks. "I thought you looked nice," she muttered. Anthony assimilated that in silence for a moment. "So you won your bet?" he said at last. "Not exactly." She might as well tell him everything. "I had to get you to ask me on a date and…and to kiss me," she finished in a rush. "What happens if I don't?" he said, an undercurrent of laughter in his voice, and Caro swallowed. "I'll have to clean the kitchen for a month." Anthony smiled. "We can't have that," he said, and put his hands at her waist, pulling her toward him so that he could drop a gentle kiss on her lips. "Will that do?" "Not really," said Caro huskily. "It had to be a proper kiss," she said, strumming from the touch of his hands and the feel of his mouth and the smile in his eyes. "Then we'd better try again." And this time it really was a proper kiss. It was the kind of kiss Caro had dreamed about, a kiss you could sink into, a long, sweet, blissful kiss that went on and on until you were boneless and breathless with happiness, and then you kissed some more. Much, much later, she rested her face against his throat with a sigh of contentment. "Are you sure you don't mind about all those lies I told?" Anthony's chest vibrated with silent laughter. "Well, I never believed that about Jake's father being a Hollywood celebrity, to tell you the truth, and you did seem a bit young to be a fashion editor, so I can't say I was that surprised to hear that you'd been telling porkies about that. But I did think that Jake was yours, I must admit. I really liked it that you were such a relaxed mother compared to Sue — she's much more tense with Tom." "At least she really is a mother. I always thought she sounded perfect," Caro admitted. "I was a bit jealous. You always sound so fond of her." "Ah, well, that might have a bit to do with the fact that Sue's my sister." "What!" Caro sat bolt upright. "She really is a single mother," he said, laughing. "The Ph.D. has been a struggle, especially now that she's trying to finish it off, so I try to give her a hand with Tom as often as I can. That's why I was in the park
with him that day." "Why didn't you tell me?" "I thought you looked nice.'" Anthony quoted her words back at her. "You just assumed that I was Tom's father, and I thought it would make you feel more comfortable if you thought that I understood about children, so I played along." "After all you had to say about honesty, too!" Caro pretended to sound aggrieved, and he held her face between his hands and looked deep into her eyes. "I'm being honest now," he said with a smile that made her heart soar. "I love you, Caro. I always will. Do you think you could ever love me that way?" Caro made a show of thinking. "Honestly?" "Honestly." "The honest truth is that I fell in love the moment I saw you," she said, and kissed him. "At least you'll be able to tell your housemates that won your bet," he teased her a long time later. "I certainly did!" She kissed the pulse below his ear. "Several times over in fact. I just needed one kiss to win." "Just one?" Anthony tsk-tsked as he tipped her off his lap and led her inside. "Since we're being honest now, I've got to tell you, Caro, that one kiss is just not going to be enough.…"
The End