Chapter 7
What had he been thinking?
Oliver Dawson found himself fumbling uselessly with his gold cufflinks. He hadn’t been thinking, pure and simple.
For the first time in his life, he’d been carried away by the moment. By something as base as physical desire. Even now, when he had come to his senses and realised how incredibly stupid he’d been, his body was betraying him with a stab of remembered pleasure. Of longing.
The knowledge that he wanted more.
It was about more than sex, he realised. That sense of freedom he’d experienced giving in to the temptation to do something because it was what he wanted for himself had been irresistible.
Intoxicating.
The worst thing about it was that he had been perfectly well aware of exactly how much of a risk he was taking. It was, without doubt, the first real risk with potentially catastrophic consequences that he’d ever taken in his life.
It was certainly the first time he’d ever had unprotected sex.
Oh… God… He groaned aloud, following the sound with a muttered oath as he jerked his dinner suit off the clothes hanger.
He had to walk past the gymnasium as he left his bedroom suite, but it felt like only minutes since he’d been in there with Bella.
Good grief, it had only been a matter of minutes.
At least the alarm sounding on his watch to remind him of his obligations elsewhere had been an excuse to escape having to deal with the aftermath of what he’d done.
He couldn’t just leave things like that, though, could he? Bella might think it had been the start of… something. She might say something, even, in front of his mother.
Was she still in there? As he’d rushed off to have a shower and get changed, she’d said something about having a quick swim before going back to check on Lady Dorothy.
Yes. Wrapped in a towel, Bella seemed to be lying on the floor of the gymnasium, her limbs jerking in a fashion that made alarm bells ring for Oliver. He was beside her in seconds.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘N-nothing…’ Bella wriggled, pulling her arm out from beneath the treadmill. She scrambled to her feet, the movement loosening the towel and giving Oliver an unwanted glimpse of her still naked body.
And he’d thought that shaft of renewed desire he’d had moments earlier was as much as he’d have to resist from now on?
He’d been dreaming. This was going to be torture. Oliver sucked in a steadying breath. He had to gain control here. Better late than never.
‘That…’ He had to stop and try to find the right word, but how could he describe something when he’d never experienced anything like it before in his life? He cleared his throat. ‘What happened here… it shouldn’t have happened, Bella.’
She was eyeing his dinner suit, and Oliver suddenly felt ridiculously overdressed in his Armani suit and velvet bowtie.
‘You’re employed by my mother,’ he continued.
It was a good enough reason to excuse himself from the almost palpable awareness that what had happened here might possibly happen again. No, make that probably happen again. And again.
He simply couldn’t let that happen.
Not after a lifetime of doing the right thing.
Doing what he was supposed to do. Oliver wasn’t about to fall off the rails on a regular basis.
Tasting the freedom of pleasing only himself was intoxicating enough but the lure of doing it again was dangerous.
Self-indulgence could only undermine what his life had been about for as long as he could remember.
It could turn him into the kind of person his father had been.
He had made his own rules and learned how to earn self-respect, if nothing else.
‘It can’t happen again,’ he heard himself say, his voice curiously raw. ‘It’s just not… appropriate.’
‘No… I guess not.’ Bella’s smile was crooked. She gave his suit another glance and then looked over her shoulder, taking in their surroundings. ‘Bit like shagging one of the servants, really, wasn’t it?’
Oliver’s jaw dropped. ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to suggest.’
‘Is it?’ Bella fiddled with the towel again, tucking it more firmly around her body. As she did so, something came loose from her hand.
‘What’s that?’
The query came out as a snap because Oliver realised he was angry at her inference that he’d taken advantage as someone in a more powerful position than she was. Or that she was in some way socially inferior.
That wasn’t the reason it was inappropriate at all.
It was because she was his mother’s nurse.
Or maybe that wasn’t the real reason either.
Bella was so totally the opposite of anyone he’d ever been remotely attracted to.
So carefree and full of life and… well, just…
Bella. The way she was right now, with her face lighting up with a smile.
She personified rebellion, that’s what it was. And while the attraction was undeniable, could there be a space in his life for something like that on a regular basis?
Oliver could feel a hard, grim band curling around inside his gut and it tightened with a painful jerk. Of course there wasn’t.
Bella held out her hand to show him the object, and Oliver recognised the necklace he’d given his mother so many years ago.
‘It was under the treadmill,’ Bella told him delightedly. ‘I spotted it when I was… when we were… Anyway, I kind of forgot but then remembered when I was swimming.’
Oliver could feel his eyebrows rising. She’d been distracted by the glint of jewellery in the middle of the most mind-blowing sex he’d ever experienced?
Bella seemed to be watching him carefully. ‘Afterwards,’ she said softly. ‘Not during…’ Her smile widened. ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to suggest.’
* * *
She’d made him laugh.
Funnily enough, it had been that genuinely amused, appreciative sound that provided the tipping point for Bella.
You’d think it was the raw power that came from a man with his kind of intelligence and status that would have done it.
Or the sheer physical beauty, not only of his body but in the way he made love.
But no. It was a chuckle. A moment of connection that touched something so different in Bella’s soul, she knew she was lost.
Head over heels in love with Oliver Dawson.
Or should that be hopelessly in love?
Yep. That was the one because nothing could ever come of it. Bella was doomed to live with the agony of unrequited passion.
That became painfully obvious the next morning, after a sleepless night of vacillating between the pleasure of reliving every moment beside the pool to the pain of seeing Oliver looking so impossibly gorgeous in that dinner suit, heading off to spend the rest of his evening in the company of appropriate people. Appropriate women. Like that Monique.
He came into Lady Dorothy’s suite to say goodbye and wish his mother a good day – the way he did most mornings.
Bella was helping Lady Dorothy to apply the minimum of make-up that she deemed necessary even for a day when they wouldn’t be leaving the house. Thank goodness she was putting the lid back on the lipstick and not applying it to Lady Dorothy’s face when her hand shook that little bit.
He did speak to her as he left.
‘Have a good day, Bella,’ he had said.
The eye contact had been brief enough that the knowledge that Oliver was deliberately avoiding any kind of connection was unmistakable. Bella had primed herself to be ready for it but it was still crushing.
Unbearable.
Or was it?
Maybe she deserved the rejection because she’d done the most irresponsible thing ever.
Told the biggest lie ever. Maybe Oliver knew instinctively that she wasn’t trustworthy.
She could hardly reassure him now and tell him that she’d taken that morning-after pill.
She hadn’t been that reassured herself when she’d noticed how far it was past its expiry date, but hey…
they built in a huge safety margin, didn’t they?
Bella went on with the routine of the day in an uncharacteristically subdued manner.
She checked Lady Dorothy’s blood sugar levels and administered her insulin, quickly followed by a robust breakfast of scrambled eggs and parsley on toast. She made sure that she recorded everything in the notes she was keeping on her patient, adding in a few extras as well, like blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rate measurements.
A neatly written paragraph about the progress Lady Dorothy was making filled up the whole page of the big diary for that day.
A diary she knew that Oliver would be checking more carefully after yesterday’s hypoglycaemic episode.
A large part of the afternoon was taken up with examining a catalogue from a medical supplies firm and discussing the merits of various assistive devices with Lady Dorothy.
‘I think the easy-grip cutlery would be worth a try. And the high-lipped plates.’
‘Baby stuff.’ Lady Dorothy sniffed. ‘I’m getting better at feeding myself, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, but with that high edge on the plate you could chase your food until you caught it. You wouldn’t need me to put it on the spoon.
And, you never know, that dinky little knife might mean you could cut things up yourself, too.
You wouldn’t need me to do anything. Independence isn’t babyish.
’ Bella threw in a trump card. ‘Nana would have loved these. She hated being fed.’
‘We could give them a try, I suppose,’ Lady Dorothy conceded. ‘And maybe you’re right about that shower chair. I’d like to be able to do that by myself too.’
‘At the rate you’re going, they’ll probably be temporary aids. Think of them like using crutches for a broken ankle or something.’
‘Hmm. In that case, let’s have another look at that modified keyboard thing. I’m missing doing my emails.’
Bella was already filling in an order form. ‘If I ring the supplier, they might be able to deliver it all by tomorrow. Later today even.’
‘Don’t forget we’re doing the spa pool again later.’