Fiona Harper - Best of Fiona Harper

He stepped towards me. Adam had never made me feel even the slightest bit nervous before, but this time I took half a step back even as my heart began to thump in anticipation.

‘I thought you were past playing games, Coreen, but if that’s the way you want it…’ His eyes glittered and my heart-rate accelerated, race-car-style. ‘Let’s make sure he gets a real eyeful.’

There was no tender touching of my face this time, no gentle breath on my cheek. While the last kiss had been soft and soul-churning this one was angry and potent and—oh, my goodness—hot!

I didn’t even have time to react as Adam yanked me back into his arms. For a few seconds my arms hung limp by my sides, my brain too overloaded with the information coming from my lips to bother to send signals to something as mundane as my arms and hands. But when the initial onslaught of sensation was over I decided those hands and arms could come in pretty useful. I grabbed Adam either side of his neck, let one hand slide up into his hair, pressed myself against him and gave as good as I was getting.

He made a ragged groaning sound and it tipped me over the edge. I had no idea who was in control, and normally that would have bothered me, but if I’d been at a disadvantage at the beginning of this kiss, I now had a hunch we were both as lost as each other.

Eventually, though, the mist cleared. Right about the time I sensed a change in Adam. Right about the time he stiffened and wrenched himself out of my grasp.

I’d never seen him like this before. Where was my smiling, twinkling, comfortable and safe Adam? I didn’t know if I wanted to swap him for one who could set my toes on fire with his kisses and yet look at me with such disgust. This one didn’t seem safe at all.

He ran a hand through his slicked-down hair, returning it to its more familiar messiness, and shook his head. ‘I’m such an idiot! Even after all these years…’ He took a few steps backwards, his expression hardening further. ‘That was quite a performance, Miss Fraser. You must really be desperate for this guy.’ And then he pivoted round and strode away from me, along the terrace and round the corner of the house.

I ran after him. ‘Adam? Adam!’

He stopped as I almost caught up with him and stood with his back to me, just breathing. No discreet floodlights here. Just Adam and me in the dark. I could only just see his outline against the blackness of the country night.

Slowly, he turned and faced me. ‘What?’ he asked, his voice low and weary.

My heart was thumping hard as I stepped towards him. I didn’t have a plan, and I always had a plan when it came to men. It’s impossible to train or manipulate or manage them without one. I was going on instinct again—something I wasn’t entirely comfortable with when it came to the opposite sex—but my instincts seemed to be primed and ready, as I didn’t even have to think before I lifted my hand to his face, mirroring his earlier gesture.

This was all new and I needed to explore him, to discover him.

I couldn’t see his face, but I think he closed his eyes, and he made a noise as if he might be in pain. A few moments later his hand shot up and stilled my roving fingers. ‘Coreen? Please…don’t.’

I shushed him and turned his face fully towards mine, using my hand against his cheek as leverage. Then I pinned him up against the rough brick wall and kissed him back. There was no one else to impress. There never had been.

I lay in the dark in my peach silk pyjamas trimmed with lace. Yes, they weren’t very Constance, but I’d reasoned if I couldn’t be my glamorous self during the day I might as well make up for it in the privacy of my room at night.

I was alone, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. Now, that was a scary thought.

Adam and me? Taking our relationship to that level? The thought made me shiver—in a good way and in a bad way.

He was my best friend. My Best Bud. Could that translate into something else? And what if it couldn’t? Would we lose everything we’d built up over the years? If Adam’s reaction when he thought I’d kissed him for Nicholas’s benefit was anything to go by, I’d guess we just might. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to take that risk.

But after this evening I also wasn’t sure I could bear not to.

If I’d known Adam could kiss like that I might have done something about it years ago.

I rolled over and punched my pillow—more because my thoughts weren’t letting me keep still rather than because the bed was uncomfortable. Far from it.

But you did know….

A memory hit me hard. Sharon Everidge’s eighteenth birthday party. Her parents had hired a hall. I’d set my sights on Tom Morrison, the coolest boy in school, but he’d pretended not to notice me. I’d made him pay for that later, of course. But at the time I’d grabbed the one prop I had to hand—Adam. I’d kissed him. Kissed him the way I’d been wanting to kiss Tom, hoping it would show the other boy just what he was missing out on. But before long I’d forgotten all about Tom, and Sharon, and every other hormone-laced teenager at the party, because I’d been too busy kissing Adam.

It had worked. Tom had sidled up and asked me to dance with him not long after Adam had stormed out. I blushed with shame as I remembered that I’d gone, telling myself Adam would understand, that he was my friend and would want me to be happy. And, after all…it was only a kiss.

I’d been such a coward.

I had known.

I had known that Adam could make my ears tingle just by looking at me, that our friendship had the potential to blossom into much, much more. But I’d ignored that fact. Put my little polka-dot blinkers on and pretended nothing had changed, that nothing ever would or could change. And I’d been so convincing I’d even believed it myself. How stupid could a girl get?

That moment when I’d sashayed away with spotty old Tom Morrison had been a defining point in my relationship with Adam. I could see that now. Whatever might have been…or should have been…I’d put the brakes on it—too cowardly to admit what had been right under my nose all along.

In some subconscious area of my brain I’d thought walking that path would be far too dangerous, so I’d clouded all of those warm feelings with friendship, insulated them, kept them safely at bay, and then I’d walked away from that idea. Heaven help me, I’d walked away.

And Adam had let me.

Body and Soul

Coreen’s Confessions

No. 9—Nan says there’s none so blind as them that don’t want to see. Why she keeps harping on about it to me, I’ll never know.

QUESTIONS were still churning in my mind when I woke, bleary-eyed and grumpy, the next morning. I reached over and bashed my travel alarm clock so hard it bounced off the bedside table and landed on the floor. The battery popped out of the back and rolled under the bed.

Back then, had Adam realised what a mistake it would be for us to get involved with each other? Had he walked away from the idea too? And if that had been his decision then would he make the same one again today? Was history about to repeat itself, with the shoe on the other foot? His foot instead of mine?

The breakfast gong sounded and I realised I didn’t have time to stress about that now. I needed to get dressed, to make myself presentable. I launched myself out of bed and dived for the shapeless beige floral dress and baggy cardigan that were Constance’s ‘back-up’ attire. I didn’t even mourn the lack of four-inch heels, or—heaven help me—any kind of dart or tuck in the dress’s bodice. I just forgot. And I didn’t even remember to put on lipgloss before I headed downstairs to see what the fresh summer morning—and fate—had brought me.

I’ve never been good with delayed gratification, so breakfast almost killed me. I’d shot myself in the foot by delivering that lecture the evening before on embracing the fun of the weekend and staying in character. Adam was supposed to be my brother, and the minute I laid eyes on him I had decidedly unsisterly feelings for him.

From the look in his eyes I could see he was struggling too, but, Adam being Adam, he managed to talk and smile and eat his way through it. Me? I just pouted and crossed my arms. When Marcus leaned over and told me my attitude that morning was somewhat unchristian, I was tempted to ram a sausage up his nose.

Bizarrely enough, my glowing mood only seemed to make Adam smile harder—the mongrel. I swear he was actually enjoying my discomfort.

The next hour or so was torture. Izzi decreed we were to scout Inglewood Manor for any remaining clues, as a few still hadn’t been uncovered. In the process, we managed to rule poor Ruby and the gold-digging fiancée out as suspects, but had added an over-protective mother who might have killed her philandering husband before he changed his will, leaving her two boys with nothing, and a college graduate who was in love with his best friend’s fiancée and might just have stabbed the wrong back when the lights went out.

I hardly got to see Adam at all, with Izzi marching around giving us all orders and sending us to different parts of the house. Whenever I was within thirty feet of him he drew my gaze like a magnet, and without fail he was already looking at me by the time I locked on to him. When we did get the chance to converse we had to do so as Constance and Harry, which meant keeping on topic, but hands off each other—which was all very trying.

‘Come on!’ shouted Izzi, rather like a general marshalling her troops. ‘The will we found was a fake and the real one is hidden in the house somewhere. I suggest we look in the conservatory.’

Jos, who was standing beside me, sighed. ‘Yes, because that’s the obvious place to keep important paperwork,’ she muttered, and trailed off after a striding Izzi.

I straightened my shoulders and followed her. After all, the quicker we solved this case, the quicker I’d have a chance to talk to Adam, or even have a few seconds to think about whether talking it over with Adam was a good idea.

The whole group trailed along behind its hostess as she led us through the entrance hall, through the library, and down a passageway past the kitchen that led to the football-field-sized conservatory. I would have followed her all the way, but a strong hand closed around my wrist, tugged me backwards, and suddenly everything went dark.

No, I hadn’t fainted. Really, do I come across as the fainting kind?

There were a series of little storerooms along the passageway and I was inside one of them, a narrow shelf digging into my behind and my foot held captive by what I thought might be a string bag. No lights. Hardly any space. Pressed up against someone who was warm and breathing.

‘Adam?’ I whispered. ‘Is that you?’

Dear Lord, I hoped it was Adam.

Mercifully, the pair of lips that found their way to my neck and worked their way upwards to my chin were heartstoppingly familiar. I grabbed hold of his lapels, threw myself at him, and unleashed the whole force of the fantasies that had been running round my head since we’d parted the night before.

It was quite some time before I recovered enough to think as well as kiss. The first wave of desire retreated, readying itself for a second surge, and I took advantage of the moment of lucidity to pull apart from him, breathing unevenly, and rest my forehead on his shoulder.

I kept on whispering, even though the rest of our party was long gone. ‘What are we doing, Adam?’ I needed to know. Were we risking our friendship just to mess around and have a fling?