His Emergency Fiancée by Kate Hardy Page A

really been just sex for him, too. No way was he going to start considering that.
    * * *
    Kirsty turned the shower onto its coldest setting. Even the jolt of the icy water didn’t seem to work. Instead of feeling relieved that she wasn’t losing him, she felt…bereft.
    But what else could she have done? Clung to Ben and told him she loved him? She knew he wouldn’t have pushed her away—he had too much innate kindness to reject her like that. He’d have been gentle with her, then gradually distanced himself again. Because he didn’t do commitment, all the women in his life were temporary. She was only a permanent fixture in his life because she was his best mate—he didn’t even think of her as female.
    Except he had last night.
    And he’d shown her just how very female she was.
    She turned the shower back to warm and scrubbed her skin harder. No. She wasn’t—absolutely wasn’t—going to think about sex and Ben at the same time.
    Or love.
    She stopped scrubbing. Love? She’d thought herself in love with Luke. Now she knew it hadn’t even been infatuation—it had been very pathetic gratitude at an attractive male actually asking her dumpy eighteen-year-old self out. The kick in the teeth had come later, when she’d found out why Luke had really asked her out, and that it had had nothing to do with her attractiveness—more like her lack of it.
    But this…How did she feel about Ben? Half the time, they didn’t have to say anything because they knew exactly how each other thought. But that was from years and years of knowing each other, talking and sharing their lives. Friendship, that was all. Except now she had to add lust. And friendship plus lust was a completely different equation.
    Love.
    She loved Ben?
    But he didn’t love her. At least, not in that way. Because she knew her algebra: if friendship plus lust equalled love, love minus lust equalled friendship. And Ben didn’t lust after her. Last night had just been comfort, that was all.
    Could he ever grow to love her? Right now, she couldn’t answer that. She knew how she felt about him—but how could it ever work out? Ben didn’t trust anyone enough for commitment. Someone had hurt him very badly in the past—it was something they’d never discussed but she instinctively knew that. It had to be why he was too scared to trust. But would he let her teach him how to trust?
    No. Of course not. He saw her as a friend, and after what she’d told him this morning he thought she felt the same way. So best friends it’d have to be. Until he was ready for something more—if ever.
    By the time Kirsty returned to their room, dressed but with a towel wrapped turban-style round her wet hair, Ben was up, clad in faded jeans and an old rugby shirt, and was in the middle of packing. ‘Gran’s at church, but she’s left a casserole in the oven.’
    Kirsty frowned. ‘We should have gone, too.’
    ‘No one expects it, Kirst. We were at the hospital until late last night, remember?’
    And then…Her face heated. No wonder they’d slept in so late this morning. ‘Yes.’ Embarrassed, she turned to her packing.
    ‘I’ll go and make us some coffee,’ Ben said.
    ‘Thanks.’
    She finished packing, combed her damp hair, then stripped the bedding ready for washing. When she went downstairs, Ben had put two mugs of strong coffee on the table and was steadily munching through a pile of warmed rolls with heather honey as he read the sports section of the Sunday paper.
    Relieved he was letting her take the coward’s way out of facing him, Kirsty sat down at the table, buttered herself a roll and took the news section. She glanced at him covertly a couple of times over top of the newspaper. Why had she never noticed how gorgeous his hands were? Well shaped, with long, strong fingers that felt…
    Stop right there, she told herself crossly. You’re not supposed to be thinking about what he did with those hands last night. Annoyed with herself, she tried to