Read Online Far From Perfect by Portia Da Costa - Free Book Online
Authors: Portia Da Costa
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perfectly happy, even if everyone around him was in turmoil.
Rising, Anna reached for her dressing gown, but paused as she caught a glimpse of herself in her pier glass. Something like a cross between a raving red-eyed freak and a repressed maiden aunt stared back at her. She pulled a face at the oversized, rather utilitarian nightshirt she’d chosen.
Even though there was still a chill in the spring night air, conditions weren’t all that Arctic. There was only one reason she’d bundled herself up from throat to ankle like this. It was psychological armor.
And guess who I’m protecting myself from?
She glowered at the wall, beyond which, a couple of doors down the hall her nemesis was no doubt sleeping the sleep of the totally untroubled. He’d had his overnight bag sent round from the Savoy at the behest of her father, and she didn’t like to think about what Clive was probably subconsciously hoping would happen.
The main sleep-dispelling problem was that knowing Nick was just down the hall was playing havoc with her imagination.
To her eternal cost, she knew that he always slept naked, and images of his gleaming muscular limbs, his powerful torso—and more—flooded into her mind and unleashed a riptide of alarming sensations. Gritting her teeth, she cinched the belt of her velour robe so tightly it almost choked her breathing, then with a sigh, she loosened it again.
A cup of tea. That’s what she needed. The perennial English answer to stress and trauma, both of which she’d been experiencing more or less continuously since she’d first opened the front door and set eyes on Nick.
And doors, that was another thing.
Frowning, she turned the key in the lock of her bedroom door as quietly as she could. Since when had she ever locked herself in her room at night? Not once, even when she’d been going through a brief adolescent rebellion phase. Yet tonight the need for security had been instinctive, even if unnecessary. For all his wild reputation as a player, Nick also adhered to a strict Italian code of chivalry towards the female sex. He’d certainly never come to a woman’s bedroom uninvited.
Which was more than she could say when the boot was on the other foot.
The familiar mix of embarrassment and anguish washed through her, the cocktail she’d lived with for four years. Surprise midnight visits were her prerogative.
“Never again,” she muttered, unlocking the door, but wishing she could lock up the past, and its resonances, and start afresh.
For about the hundredth time since Nick’s re-entry into her life had stunned her, she commanded herself to get a grip, then padded out onto the landing, her slipper-clad feet silent on the carpet. Going downstairs to the kitchen was questionable logic, to say the least, but if she lay brooding and tossing in the darkness much longer she’d probably go completely and utterly barking mad.
In the basement passage leading to Mrs. Brewster’s cozy kitchen domain, Anna came to a silent, breathless halt.
Faint sounds came from beyond the door.
The same sense of ominous pre-knowledge gripped her that she’d experienced earlier at the party. Cheerfully dismissive of energy bills and global warming, Mrs. B always left a light burning in the kitchen when she left, in case either Anna or her father wanted a hot drink in the night. Now it sounded as if somebody was in there, for just that purpose.
It’s Dad , Anna instructed herself firmly, dismissing the idea of a burglar or other intruder because of their efficient security system.
Her gut, however, had other ideas. It, and her heart and her nerves and every molecule in her body, all knew exactly who was in the kitchen. And the urge to turn around and flee to her bedroom sent urgent messages to her feet.
Yet, irrationally, a more powerful force drove her onwards.
Fate? Curiosity? Rabid, destructive emotional death-wish? Whatever it was, Anna hovered just outside the partially open door, peering in from
Rising, Anna reached for her dressing gown, but paused as she caught a glimpse of herself in her pier glass. Something like a cross between a raving red-eyed freak and a repressed maiden aunt stared back at her. She pulled a face at the oversized, rather utilitarian nightshirt she’d chosen.
Even though there was still a chill in the spring night air, conditions weren’t all that Arctic. There was only one reason she’d bundled herself up from throat to ankle like this. It was psychological armor.
And guess who I’m protecting myself from?
She glowered at the wall, beyond which, a couple of doors down the hall her nemesis was no doubt sleeping the sleep of the totally untroubled. He’d had his overnight bag sent round from the Savoy at the behest of her father, and she didn’t like to think about what Clive was probably subconsciously hoping would happen.
The main sleep-dispelling problem was that knowing Nick was just down the hall was playing havoc with her imagination.
To her eternal cost, she knew that he always slept naked, and images of his gleaming muscular limbs, his powerful torso—and more—flooded into her mind and unleashed a riptide of alarming sensations. Gritting her teeth, she cinched the belt of her velour robe so tightly it almost choked her breathing, then with a sigh, she loosened it again.
A cup of tea. That’s what she needed. The perennial English answer to stress and trauma, both of which she’d been experiencing more or less continuously since she’d first opened the front door and set eyes on Nick.
And doors, that was another thing.
Frowning, she turned the key in the lock of her bedroom door as quietly as she could. Since when had she ever locked herself in her room at night? Not once, even when she’d been going through a brief adolescent rebellion phase. Yet tonight the need for security had been instinctive, even if unnecessary. For all his wild reputation as a player, Nick also adhered to a strict Italian code of chivalry towards the female sex. He’d certainly never come to a woman’s bedroom uninvited.
Which was more than she could say when the boot was on the other foot.
The familiar mix of embarrassment and anguish washed through her, the cocktail she’d lived with for four years. Surprise midnight visits were her prerogative.
“Never again,” she muttered, unlocking the door, but wishing she could lock up the past, and its resonances, and start afresh.
For about the hundredth time since Nick’s re-entry into her life had stunned her, she commanded herself to get a grip, then padded out onto the landing, her slipper-clad feet silent on the carpet. Going downstairs to the kitchen was questionable logic, to say the least, but if she lay brooding and tossing in the darkness much longer she’d probably go completely and utterly barking mad.
In the basement passage leading to Mrs. Brewster’s cozy kitchen domain, Anna came to a silent, breathless halt.
Faint sounds came from beyond the door.
The same sense of ominous pre-knowledge gripped her that she’d experienced earlier at the party. Cheerfully dismissive of energy bills and global warming, Mrs. B always left a light burning in the kitchen when she left, in case either Anna or her father wanted a hot drink in the night. Now it sounded as if somebody was in there, for just that purpose.
It’s Dad , Anna instructed herself firmly, dismissing the idea of a burglar or other intruder because of their efficient security system.
Her gut, however, had other ideas. It, and her heart and her nerves and every molecule in her body, all knew exactly who was in the kitchen. And the urge to turn around and flee to her bedroom sent urgent messages to her feet.
Yet, irrationally, a more powerful force drove her onwards.
Fate? Curiosity? Rabid, destructive emotional death-wish? Whatever it was, Anna hovered just outside the partially open door, peering in from
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