They’d played together. Sometimes he and George had ganged up and played tricks. Other times the team would change and it’d be him and Louis against George and Jack. Looking back now he knew Louis had hero worshipped him a bit. Had been closer to him than the others.
‘We were spoilt. We had everything. We were expected to be able to do everything. But sometimes kids don’t make sensible decisions.’ He let the waves wash over his feet. ‘I thought I was invincible.’
She walked near him, her feet splashing softly. But she said nothing.
‘We’d gone on a holiday to the Caribbean. A real “holiday” as opposed to serious “travelling”. I was sixteen, living the life with all the toys. Yachts, jet skis...’ It had been a playground for the rich and powerful and he’d been such an idiot. ‘I told Louis I could handle it. I made him come out with me. Even though he didn’t really want to. But I was filled with it—showing off. All arrogance.’ He bent his head. ‘I lost control of the jet ski, we flipped. Pete came out to help us. But he drowned saving the both of us.’ James would never forget that horror as long as he lived. ‘Louis lost his father and it was my fault.’
‘What happened to Louis?’
‘He’d lost his father.’ James looked down. ‘And he lost his way. Over the next few years it got worse and worse. He went off the rails, right into a fast, dangerous lifestyle.’ The bright-eyed kid with the wide smile had become a pale, pimpled wreck of a youth with vapid eyes and the shakes. James’ parents had tried. They’d all tried. But no amount of intervention was able to stop that downward spiral. ‘In the end he died of an overdose.’
‘Oh, James.’
‘They said it was accidental.’ He pressed his lips together.
James’ guilt had grown. He’d gone the opposite way to Louis—pouring himself into his studies. Being perfect. Keeping himself so buried in textbooks and training there was no room for any other mistakes of that kind. He sobered up. Straightened out. Taking nothing for granted again. He’d made little time for fun. Yes he’d done the travel thing—the component required of all Wolves—but he’d done it tougher and with purpose. He’d chosen to study abroad and in his study, his work, he’d found salvation.
But at the end of the day, he’d been the cause of not one, but two people’s deaths. Responsible for the devastation of a family. ‘Pete had been a hero. He’d rescued us. I have to make something more of my life. He gave his life up for us. And then seeing Louis fall like that?’
‘Louis might have gone off the rails even if the accident hadn’t happened,’ Caitlin said quietly. ‘Even if his father had been around, it still might have happened. It happens in other families.’
James frowned. ‘No. You should have seen how it hurt him.’ He bent his head. ‘I owe them. And I owe it to myself to make something more of my life.’
‘That’s fair enough. I can understand that.’ She stopped walking. ‘But not at the cost of your own happiness.’
‘I’m not unhappy,’ he denied, looking sharply at her. ‘I love my work.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But you’ve cut yourself off from your family.’
‘I haven’t.’ Only a very little.
‘No?’ She grasped his arm when he went to turn away. ‘You have limited interaction with them. With all relationships. You only have a woman when you can get it on a “firm boundaries” basis. And then you work. You put yourself at risk for others—for strangers—all of the rest of the time.’
‘I like being busy.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘I know I made mistakes in the past. I can’t ever change what happened. But I accept what I did and I’ve moved on.’ He sighed. ‘The only problem now is that my mother cries when I leave. I think it’s easier on her not to visit.’
Caitlin vehemently shook her head. ‘She’s your mother. That’s the way it’s going to be. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she saw you more often. You can’t stop your family loving you. Any more than you can stop loving them.’ She stared up at him. ‘Don’t deny them the pleasure of having your company. Don’t deny yourself. You still deserve to have a nice time, James. It’s okay to take a holiday.’
‘You care about me having a nice time?’ he asked quietly.
Her alarm bells rang at the searching quality in his eyes. Because she did care—too much to be able to admit to herself, let alone to him. So she stepped back, hiding in the tease talk. ‘Yeah, well, I find you perform better in bed when you’re in a good mood.’
He burst out laughing. ‘Shoot me down, why don’t you, right when I’ve poured out my soul.’
It was because he had poured out his soul that she’d joked again. Because she knew he didn’t like feeling vulnerable. And nor did she. Because she knew this thing between them couldn’t go any further than it had already. ‘I aim to please.’
‘Actually—’ he traced a finger down her jaw ‘—I think you do.’ He added, ‘I don’t think you’re all that bad at all.’
‘Just misunderstood?’ she drawled softly, trying to keep up the carelessness of her banter.
‘Yes,’ he answered, quite seriously. ‘Misunderstood. Lonely. Lovely.’
She shook her head, tried to turn the conversation back on him. ‘How come this never came up in any of those articles about you?’
‘It was kept quiet.’ His lips twisted and he cupped her face with a gentle hand. ‘Ironic, isn’t it, that you’re accused of all kinds of things in the press that aren’t true, while the truth about what an idiot I was has never been reported. It doesn’t seem fair.’
‘Life isn’t fair.’ Caitlin tilted her chin free of his hold. ‘We all know that.’
She turned and walked back along the edge of the water. ‘So where’s Aimee now?’
‘She set up her own bakery. She’s an amazing cook.’
‘And it’s doing well?’
He nodded.
‘Good for her,’ Caitlin said softly.
‘Yeah.’
Three hours later Caitlin was still mulling over what he’d told her. They’d spent the afternoon in a mini badminton tournament. She’d never played badminton before and had no idea she was so crap at it. But all the Wolfe boys were brilliant—and gallantly took turns teaming up with her, all still determined to beat their brothers despite having her handicap them. They’d made her laugh. Made her feel welcome.
Made her feel liked.
George flirted with her incessantly, Jack more intermittently. But it was the look in James’ eyes that brought the colour to her cheeks. It wasn’t lust.
She didn’t know what it was.
* * *
‘Come on, Caitlin.’ George stood after the dinner plates had been cleared. ‘Jack, James and I will show you some local nightlife.’
‘We will?’ Jack glanced up.
Irene laughed. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Um.’ Caitlin avoided looking at James. She was sure he wouldn’t want to. She sensed the restless energy in him. ‘I really don’t—’
‘Yes, you do. Let’s go.’ James turned a brilliant smile on her.
Now she really wasn’t sure this was a good idea. Because that smile had an edge. For all the intimacy they’d had earlier—the part of his history he’d shared—he seemed in a more mercurial mood than ever. More edgy and unsatisfied.
The second they got to the lively bar James left his brothers to order drinks and gripped Caitlin’s hand, leading her to the middle of the dance floor and pulling her indecently close.
‘What happened to no PDA?’ Caitlin gasped, breathless at the predatory expression in his eye.
‘Hmm?’ James answered vaguely, too busy staring at her cleavage.
She tugged at the top of her dress. ‘Stop it. Your thoughts are written all over your face.’
‘They are?’ He looked up, his eyes almost b
lack. ‘Read them.’
He still thought he could win a dare with her?
She thought of the most explicit, crudest thing she could. Then found the courage to whisper it aloud in his ear.
His jaw dropped. Then he laughed. ‘Damn, you’re a vixen.’
She lifted her brows. ‘You can be as naughty as you like with me. As bad as you get.’
His eyes glinted. ‘That’s what you really want?’
‘It always has been.’
He tugged a swathe of her hair, so she tilted her head back. His words brushed over her lips. ‘You act all sexy, demanding siren. But the thing is...’ he leaned close ‘...that I know you’d let me do that and more. You might have been provoking, but there’s a part of you that wants exactly that. You like it when I can’t control myself.’
Well, that was true.