Modern Romance January 2020 Books 5-8. Heidi Rice

and dreamless. She woke as dawn was breaking, the sun stealing into the room, casting the bed in a golden beam of light as direct as a spotlight. She was lying on her side with the warm band of Logan’s arm wrapped around her middle and one of his strong muscular legs flung over hers.

      Sometime during the night, he must have joined her under the bedcovers but she had no clear memory of it. But now she was acutely aware of every part of his body where it was in contact with hers—his hard chest against her back, his strong thighs against her bottom, his arm across her waist. His head was resting on the top of hers, his breathing deep and even, each of his expelled breaths gently feathering her cheek.

      He shifted position slightly, his arm tightening around her middle to draw her closer, his other hand skating over one of her breasts. Even through the light barrier of her silk pyjama top she could feel the outline of his broad male hand. Could feel the erratic leap of her pulse at his intimate touch. Could feel one of his hair-roughened thighs coming between hers, triggering a firestorm in her female flesh.

      He gave a low sleepy murmur. ‘Mmm…you feel nice.’

      Layla knew she should wake him but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. No one had ever held her like this. She had never experienced the warmth and comfort of a lover’s touch. Was it wrong of her to want to break the rules he had laid down? She moved her legs experimentally against his, enjoying the feel of hard muscle and rough masculine hair against her smoother skin. His hand came back to her breast, cradling it with exquisite gentleness, his thumb rolling back and forth across her tightening nipple. Tingling sensations rioted through her body from her breast to her feminine core. Her breathing stalled, her belly swooped, her senses reeled.

      Layla turned in his arms and he opened his eyes and swore not quite under his breath and released her and sat upright.

      ‘Sorry.’ His apology was brief, brusque and bruising to her ego.

      ‘It’s okay, Logan,’ Layla said. ‘You didn’t do anything.’

      He rubbed a hand down his face, the sound of his palm scratching across his morning stubble loud in the echoing silence. ‘You should have woken me.’ His tone was gruff, his eyes haunted with guilt and self-loathing.

      Layla rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. Why are you making such a big deal out of this? I enjoyed sleeping next to you. I enjoyed you holding me.’

      His mouth was set in a taut line. ‘This has to stop.’ He sprang off the bed as if it had just poked him. ‘I have to stop.’ He said it not quite under his breath, as if he was reminding himself, not her.

      Layla pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. ‘Why do you have to stop?’

       Whoa! What did you just say?

      But her conscience wasn’t listening and neither was her traitorous body. It was awake and wanting. Why shouldn’t they explore the chemistry they shared? She could be casual about the time limit on their relationship, couldn’t she? And maybe, just maybe the time limit would become irrelevant…

      ‘You know why.’

      ‘Because you feel you’d be betraying Susannah’s memory?’

      He frowned as if she had started speaking in a foreign language. ‘No. Of course not. It’s not about Susannah.’

      ‘So it’s me then. It’s because it’s me.’ Layla couldn’t quite remove the note of despondency in her tone.

      He speared a hand through his hair and gave a rough sigh. ‘It’s me. Me not wanting to hurt you in the long run. Sex can be casual and God knows I’ve had plenty of it. But it wouldn’t be casual between us. You know it wouldn’t. It couldn’t be. We already have an existing relationship and building sex onto that would make things way more complicated when the year is up on our marriage.’

      Layla straightened her legs, crossed her ankles and folded her arms across her chest. ‘But what if we decided not to end it after a year? We might decide to extend it for a bit long—’

      ‘No.’ His sharply delivered word was as stinging as a slap. ‘We’re not doing that, Layla. The rules are there for a reason.’

      ‘I think the rules are there because deep down you want more than you’d like everyone to believe,’ Layla said. ‘You’re still punishing yourself because of Susannah’s death. It’s understandable—it was a terrible tragedy to lose the love of your life. But you’re entitled to have a life, even though hers has gone. You deserve to have some measure of happiness, even if it won’t be on the same level as before.’

      Logan muttered a thick curse and speared her gaze with his hard and glittering one.

      ‘She wasn’t the love of my life. There, that’s shocked you, hasn’t it? I thought I loved her at the start but then I started to feel less certain. I knew something wasn’t right between us but I put it down to my preoccupation with work. I had a few big projects going on and I travelled a lot, and, to tell you the truth, I enjoyed coming home to someone who always seemed happy to see me. I think because I was away so much it took me longer to realise how unsuited we actually were. But when I finally realised, I should have ended it then and there, but her emotional fragility had started to worry me. I stupidly let our relationship limp along for the rest of the year but, as it turned out, I was right to be worried.’

      Layla couldn’t hope to conceal her shock at his embittered words. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide, her heart heavy for what he’d been through and the guilt that still plagued him. He had told her a few days ago that things hadn’t been as perfect between him and Susanna as she had believed but she had still assumed he had loved his fiancée. Dearly loved her. Layla had always seen them as the ideal couple. They’d looked so good together, they had seemed to treat each other with the utmost respect, they came from the same world of wealth and privilege.

      But had she wanted to see them that way? To fulfil her own girlhood romantic fantasy. Ignoring the subtle clues that things weren’t quite as rosy and romantic as she’d wanted to believe.

      But who knew how any relationship worked from the inside? Hadn’t her childhood more than proved that? Happy Families was a game her father had played and played extremely well. Only those on the inside, behind the door closed to the public, knew what the true dynamics were.

      Layla unfolded her arms and pushed the bedcovers off and got off the bed. It didn’t matter that she was only dressed in cream silk pyjamas that draped her body contours rather too closely. He had seen her in far less in the pool the previous day. All that mattered was going to him, to offer some support and understanding, some compassion. She stood in front of him, never more conscious of their difference in height—she had to tilt her head right back to gain eye contact.

      She touched him lightly on the arm, his masculine hairs tickling her palm, reminding her of yet another difference between them. ‘I don’t know what to say other than I’m so sorry things were so…so difficult…’

      The tense lines around his mouth slackened on a heavily released breath and he took her hand from his arm and held it in his. His thumb moved across the back of her hand in an almost absent fashion, his eyes meshing with hers. ‘The thing that haunts me is—’ he winced, as if recalling the memory pained him ‘—I think she knew I was going to call off our engagement eventually. I was waiting for the right time, when I thought she could handle it better emotionally. But I didn’t know about her eating disorder—apparently, she had it before we met. I still can’t forgive myself for not realising how ill she was. I probably made her illness worse by not being fully present in the relationship for all those months.’

      Layla moved closer without even realising she was doing it. It seemed natural to be standing so close to him, natural to put her arms around him and even more natural to hug him. His arms came around her—warm, strong, male arms that made everything feminine in her body shiver in delight.

      ‘We’re all good at hiding things we’re ashamed of, and unfortunately eating disorders are