Rather than draw attention to what she’d said, he slipped under the duvet beside her, tugging it to get her to release enough to actually cover all of him. The bed was an excruciatingly tight fit, and the duvet far too small for two grown adults anyway. Jasper shifted self-consciously to try and get comfortable while still maintaining an acceptable distance between them, forcing himself not to think about the last time he’d been this close to Tori Edwards.
He’d been younger then. Stupider. Lost and unsettled and in need of something real, something grounding. Like Tori.
And she’d been...beautiful. Soft to touch and melting in his arms, under his kisses and—He really needed to not be thinking about this. If she got the slightest hint that he was—and his body was more than ready to give that to her if he let it—then he’d be on the floor faster than an avalanche, even if his father did fire her for letting him freeze to death.
Which he was pretty sure he wouldn’t. He got the impression that, these days, Tori and Felix were more his father’s children than he was. Not that he cared.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Suddenly, Tori twisted under the duvet, reaching around to grab his hand and pull him close against her back, curved around her body like a question mark.
Jasper took a lot of deep, calming breaths.
‘Trust me, there is no other way for two people to get any sleep in this bed together,’ she said, her words muffled against the single pillow.
‘Speaking from experience?’ He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Tori in this bed with another guy, even if she wasn’t really there with him now.
‘I wasn’t always eight,’ she said, caustically. ‘I was eighteen when I left this place.’
Why? The question battered at the inside of Jasper’s skull, desperate to get out. But he knew Tori better than that—even if he was realising by the moment that he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought. She’d never tell him, and it would only make the whole situation more awkward.
But maybe she’d tell him something else.
‘What made you move in here with your aunt and uncle in the first place?’ Maybe she’d be more comfortable talking about those long-ago, and hopefully happier, times.
‘They’re not really my aunt and uncle,’ Tori said, her voice blurry with encroaching sleep. ‘Liz was my mum’s best friend since primary school. When my dad left us... Mum brought us here and Liz and Henry took us in without questions. Mum worked the bar, or the kitchens, whatever they needed. And she baked cakes and things for the local mums’ groups in the village who started meeting here for coffees on weekday mornings. She ran a book club, a babysitting circle...she really made this place home.’
It sounded idyllic. But something in Tori’s exhausted voice told him the ending wouldn’t be quite so happy.
‘When she died, Liz and Henry kept me anyway. It was that or foster care, and Liz wouldn’t let that happen.’
‘How old were you?’ His heart hurt at the pain in her voice. He knew she wouldn’t be telling him any of this if it weren’t for the situation and the lateness—it was always easier to talk in the dark, and this snow-buffeted, muffled night was darker than most.
But he couldn’t help but be grateful for this glimpse behind the barricade.
‘Fourteen,’ Tori said. ‘It was a long time ago now. Nearly half my life.’
But Jasper would bet money she still thought about it every day. That it still caused her pain, all the time.
‘When was the last time you were here?’
‘Eight years ago. Before I came to Flaxstone.’ Her voice was slurring, sleep overtaking her. He was almost certain she wouldn’t have given him such an easy, honest answer otherwise. She was speaking on autopilot now.
He was about to ask something else, to really push his luck and the power of the moment, but then Tori’s breathing changed, and when he peered over in the thin light coming under the door from the corridor outside, he could see her eyes were closed, her mouth a little open as she slept.
The moment was gone. And it was probably just as well. He didn’t want her regretting tonight in the morning—the way she obviously regretted the last night they’d spent together, albeit for different reasons. Even if, at the time, she’d been a more than enthusiastic participant.
He slumped back against the mattress, keeping his careful position around Tori’s body, and closed his eyes. He should sleep too. It had been a long day, and who knew how tomorrow would pan out?
But he couldn’t stop wondering what could have been so awful it had driven Tori away from the home and the people who had taken her in and loved her when she had no one else.
* * *
Tori awoke with her nose and cheeks freezing and the rest of her...pleasantly warm. Cosy, even. Cocooned in blankets and—wait.
Her muscles tensing, she slowly turned her head to look behind her. She’d just pat around with her hands but, if her memory was right, she didn’t want to risk finding out what parts of a person her fingers might accidentally come into contact with...
Jasper’s aristocratic profile was irritatingly perfect in the blurry, morning light. The sun must still be on its way up over the horizon outside, but the whiteness of the world after the snowstorm made the early light brighter than it would otherwise have been. The whole world felt muted, muffled, as if they were protected away in a cotton-wool landscape where nothing could ever hurt them.
Except she was in her room at the Moorside, in bed with Jasper, so clearly that couldn’t possibly be true.
He breathed in, deep and sudden, and Tori realised she was staring. But really, who could blame her? She’d never get away with studying him like this while he was awake. He’d tease her for all eternity about it—or read more into it than there was. He was an attractive man. Those long, dark lashes against his cheek. The fall of his black hair against his forehead. His neck, sloping to meet strong shoulders somewhere under the blanket...not to mention everything else that was covered out of sight, but that she could still feel pressed up against her sleep-heavy body. She was, you know, human. She noticed these things.
Which didn’t mean she was going to do anything about it. This time.
Besides, while she was studying him, she wasn’t remembering all the secrets she’d given up to this man in the anonymous dark the night before. Wasn’t worrying about how he might use those secrets, either.
At least she hadn’t told him everything. So, he knew about her mother. Knew about her father, too.
He didn’t know about Tyler. That was the important thing.
The only people in the world who knew about Tyler were Aunt Liz, Uncle Henry and herself—and even they didn’t know all of it. The most awful, terrible parts. And Tori knew she needed to keep it that way.
She couldn’t bear the guilt, otherwise.
Beside her, Jasper stirred, and she quickly snapped back into position facing away from him, before he caught her staring. Now she wasn’t focussing on his face, she could hear the inn coming to life below them. She supposed that no one would have slept particularly well, however exhausted they were after a difficult day. Everyone was waiting to move on—for the roads to open, the snow to clear. To return to their real lives.
Just like her. Because none of this—not this place, not her family, and definitely not sharing a bed with Jasper—felt at all like the Tori she’d become since she walked away from the Moorside and never looked back.
Conscious of Jasper starting to move behind her, Tori slipped out from under the duvet and winced as her bare feet hit the cold floor. Still, frostbite was still less alarming than actually waking up in bed with him again.
Last time that had happened, she’d run before he’d woken up at all. And they’d been in her bed. Finding herself outside, barely dressed and without her phone, purse or keys had been awkward—as had climbing back in through her bathroom window late
r that day—but still less awkward than sharing a morning after with Viscount Darlton.
Tori wasn’t sure what it was exactly about Jasper that rubbed her up the wrong way—or the right way, her mind added unhelpfully—but she thought it might have something to do with his eyebrows. The way they twitched up in a quizzical manner whenever she spoke, as if he was trying to find the truth behind her words. As if he was trying to understand her.
Only one person had ever really understood Tori, and he hadn’t liked what he’d discovered, in the end. She had zero reason to think Jasper would be any different from Tyler, in that regard. And given how badly it had gone last time...being understood was not a phenomenon she wished to repeat in a hurry. Or ever.
Liz and Henry already saw too deep, too much. They knew her, and maybe even what she was capable of. She had no idea how much Tyler had told them, while she was gone. Maybe they already knew everything, after all. Another reason she wasn’t exactly keen to extend the family reunion. She liked her secrets hidden at best, or at least unspoken.
Time to go.