by Emma Abbott
She made to get up, to try to impart to him a fraction of the pleasure that he had just given to her, but he pushed her gently back, his eyes heavy with passion.
‘No mi caro,’ he said, the unexpected Spanish endearment making her thrill. ‘I need you too much.’
Then he settled between her legs, propped himself up on his arms, and drove deeply and hungrily into her, the sheer force of him inflaming every nerve ending in her body anew. If she thought she was spent, if she thought he had already taken all she had to give, she saw now that she was hopelessly wrong. Oh how she had longed for this, how she had longed for him, here, like this, plunging into her, robbing her of breath, of her very sanity! Truly she belonged to him. Here, pinned beneath the weight of his unbelievable body, filled with him, she knew it, however much she wanted to deny it. No other man would ever, could ever come close again.
His body began to work faster. She heard his breath begin to come thicker, faster, then catch – then his barely suppressed groan of release. And in instinctual response she girded herself once again for the inevitable, shattering response that was already beginning to work its way through her.
When she awoke, it was light. Instinctively she reached for him – then felt the telling coolness of the sheets, and knew that he was gone. She sat up and reached for her glasses. Propped up on the bedside table was a note.
I’ve had to go away again. I’ve left instructions about the hotel accounts for you at reception. Back in a few days. Jack.
She sat back against the pillows and drew her knees up to her chest, closed her eyes, trying to shut out the new day, the sudden cold emptiness knotting harshly in her stomach, so at odds with the feelings of the night before.
So he was gone. Again. The man she loved. Leaving just a brief, impersonal note, devoid of even the slightest word of endearment. Treating her as precisely what she was: his employee. If she needed any more proof that she was little more than a pleasant little dalliance to him, that provided it.
She stared out of the window, feeling more wretched than she had ever felt in her life, the harbour scene below blurring to uniform greyness as her eyes filled with tears. Then, angrily, she rubbed them away, reached for a tissue and blew her nose. What had she expected? Flowers and violins? Stupid girl.
She lay back down and stared at the ceiling, watching the pattern the gently swaying branches of the oak tree outside made on the plaster. So he had no girlfriend, and no bitter ex-wife – and it was clear that he must have suffered greatly during his childhood as a result of his dreadful stepmother. It all helped paint quite a different picture of him in her mind to the one she had had.
But just because she felt differently about him, just because he was a somewhat better man than she had supposed, it didn’t follow that he felt any differently about her. She was in love with him. But it didn’t mean he was in love with her – or indeed that she meant anything at all to him. He might think her beautiful, might desire her for a night, or two, but that was all.
Perhaps he couldn’t love, she thought bleakly, grey misery pushing coldly through her. Perhaps the death of his mother, then his experiences at the hands of his stepmother had left him unable to care about any woman ever again? What was it he had said about Cassie? Ah yes, that he had seen her briefly for a couple of weeks, then broken it off… Was that how all Jack Ward’s relationships worked: he saw a woman for a couple of weeks, and then dispensed with her, moved onto the next one? How many women had there been over the years?
Most likely a great many.
He claimed he wasn’t a cheater – but that was probably true only because he didn’t keep any woman for long enough. She was, in all likelihood, just another notch on his well-worn bedpost. The events of the night before that had rocked her to the very core were something commonplace to him.
Oh what a mess she was in. What an awful, terrible mess. She was hopelessly in love with a man to whom she was nothing. A man who, although he could be tender in bed, was still arrogant and manipulative. A man who had kept his identity a secret in order to seduce her – and who thought nothing of threatening her with court action if she refused to do his bidding; a man so complacent in his world view that he refused to countenance for a moment that his father might – just might – have done something bad.
Her father’s face flashed suddenly into her mind – and she felt a low kick of recrimination.
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold, feeling oddly degraded, tarnished – foolish. How had she fallen to this? How had she come to be Jack Ward’s latest conquest? Just another in the long line that Nell Fitzpatrick had taunted her with.
She took a deep, steadying breath. She must be strong, resolute. Just another couple of weeks and he would be gone. And for the next few days, thank goodness, he wouldn’t even be around. She would have to find the strength to ride it out, until then.
But oh, it was going to be hard. Suddenly the fragile strand of her resolve snapped, and tears welled up once more. This time she didn’t try to stop them.
* * *
‘Can I bring you a cocktail sir?’
Jack looked up from the papers in front of him with a frown, irritated by the sudden interruption. ‘I don’t want anything. Thank you.’ He dismissed the waiter with a curt nod.
A cocktail. Was it really that time already? He looked at his watch, then out across the smooth stretch of Caribbean in front of his hotel. Yes, the light was quickly draining from the sky, the ocean turning opaque, losing its azure lustre. Soon it would be pitch dark, and the hundreds of tree frogs that lived in the palm trees would start up their strange nighttime serenade. There was never any real twilight in Barbados.
He looked back down at the documents on his knee: a set of extremely important contracts concerning the major chain of luxury hotels he was about to buy, headquartered here in Barbados – among the biggest deals Ward Hotels had signed to date.
They demanded his full, undivided attention. And yet he couldn’t give it, hadn’t been able to, however hard he tried, since he’d arrived. For the first time in his life, his thoughts were dominated by a woman.
Amber Dorey.
Intelligent, feisty, beautiful Amber, who had no qualms whatever about contradicting him – telling him exactly what she thought of him, and exactly where to go. No one else had ever dared speak to him like that. She’d been a true revelation, a shot of adrenaline that he hadn’t known he needed.
He laid the contracts irritably to one side and got up from the comfortable wicker settee in the corner of the terrace bar, where he’d been ensconced for the last few hours. He crossed the floor and went to lean on the marble balcony, staring moodily out across the darkening sea. A local family was taking an evening dip in the sea below: mother, father and two pretty little girls, their hair done up in cornrows. The younger of the two was squealing with delight as her father threw her up in the air.
The breeze rustled through the jasmine growing at his side, breathing its incredible perfume across his face.
What was happening to him? What was happening to his highly prized powers of concentration, to the ruthless, uncompromising single-mindedness which underpinned not only his approach to work, but all aspects of his life? Why was his equilibrium suddenly so devastatingly destroyed? Not to be able to concentrate, to give your full, undivided attention to the task at hand, was a serious character flaw. And he had no use for flaws.
He’d thought that the strange jadedness that had taken him to Guernsey, the sudden, slight lack of focus, had been temporary. But it had got worse. Much worse.
And, if he was brutally honest with himself, he knew why, could date the change exactly, to the precise second. It had occurred on another terrace, at another, much smaller hotel many miles away.
On the balcony of La Vermandée Hotel in Jersey, the best part of a week ago, when he’d seen Amber, her soft, curvaceous body enclosed in another man’s embrace, her soft, pliable mouth upturned for another man’s kiss.
It had been like a gun going off in his head: a bullet ricocheting noisily and painfully through thought, reason, common sense, self-control – all those elements that made up who he thought he indelibly was, leaving only a sudden vacuum of searing, animal rage. In that split second, he had no longer recognised himself. He had wanted to kill him, this man, whoever he was; grab hold of him and squeeze the life out of him, with his bare hands.
It had come as a distinct shock to discover that urbane, self-controlled Jack Ward harboured such a jealous, Neanderthal rage. But not nearly as much of a shock as the discovery that the man concerned had been Amber’s ex-fiancé – that she’d been intimately involved with someone else, had been about to marry him. It had never even occurred to him as a possibility that there was anyone else in her life, although of course, thinking about it logically, there was no reason at all why she shouldn’t have been engaged to someone else: he didn’t own her, and she must obviously have had a life, boyfriends, before they’d met.
It was perfectly understandable. Perfectly. Or at least that was the truth that he had tried to impress upon himself. But it hadn’t made him feel any better. In fact it had made him feel worse: he had discovered he didn’t want to dwell on any scenario, which involved Amber with any other man but him.
It was jealousy – he had to acknowledge it. Jealousy pure and simple, the proverbial green-eyed monster. Aching, gut-wrenching jealousy. And anger, too. Deep, elemental male anger that connected with the Latin part of him, at not only the ex-fiancé, but at the way she had turned on him, her green beautiful eyes sparkling with disdain as she made those ridiculous accusations about Cassie and Penelope.
It had all fused together, firing him, fuelling him with desire, making their lovemaking even more powerful. Sex had never been like that before with anyone else: something that consumed your mind as well as your body, threatening to obliterate something of you. He had always been able to compartmentalise sex before now, keep in it in a box firmly labeled ‘physical pleasures’, where it didn’t interfere with the smooth running of his life.
He closed his eyes, summoned up the image of her naked on the bed in front of him, hair falling softly over her voluptuous, pink-tipped breasts, eyes lazy with pleasure, lips forming into a soft ‘Oh!’ of ecstasy…
It had been cruel to leave that cold note, to leave her sleeping and disappear without a word of goodbye – cruel and, yes, cowardly. But at the time it had seemed necessary. An act of self-preservation almost, a clean break – unkind, but vital to restore some form of equilibrium to his agitated mind.
Except that there was no equilibrium. He couldn’t focus.
All this over a woman, he thought bitterly. Women spelt nothing but trouble. And if he needed any more telling example of that he only need look at what had happened to his father: Penelope had somehow managed to get inside his father’s brain and change who he was, turn him overnight from a highly accomplished businessman into a love struck idiot.
He groaned quietly. Every liaison he’d ever embarked on had ended in his complete indifference to the woman in question. This one would end the same way, he told himself now. So why get himself all worked up over it?
Yes, he thought, staring out at the setting sun. Amber was a distraction he couldn’t afford. He would change his plans, stay away from Guernsey. He couldn’t, he simply mustn’t allow this to get the better of him.
* * *
‘Congratulations, Miss Dorey, the job’s yours.’ The chief executive of Havilland Inns, a small group of local Guernsey pubs and restaurants, took off his glasses and broke into something that vaguely approximated to a smile for the first time during their hour-long interview.
So, she finally had a job. Amber carefully arranged her features into a reciprocal smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘So when can you start?’ David Brehon continued, the smile fading, quickly replaced by what appeared to be an habitual scowl, his face falling into a network of deeply etched lines. ‘We really need someone as soon as possible. The girl we had before walked out and left us in the lurch.’
‘In just over a week’s time,’ said Amber. ‘I’m working out my notice.’
‘Well it’s unfortunate that you can’t start straight away, but I suppose we’ll just have to live with it.’
Then the stern-looking woman to his side, who was Havilland Inns’ head of finance – and set to be Amber’s immediate boss – piped up: ‘There are a few ground rules you ought to be aware of,’ the woman said sourly, looking at Amber like a toad sizing up a fly it was just about to swallow. ‘I don’t tolerate lateness, personal telephone calls, or indolence of any kind.’ She crossed her ample arms. ‘And I don’t hold with anyone coming in here and getting ideas above their station, or trying to change things. Things here are done the way I say.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You might have some fancy qualifications on your CV, Miss Dorey, but you’re pretty young, and I’m sure you don’t know half as much as you think you do.’
Amber groaned inwardly. It was no wonder the previous incumbent had left. ‘I’m sure we’ll get along just fine, Miss Jenkins,’ she said.
‘All right then,’ said David Brehon, getting up. ‘I’ll send a letter confirming all the details. We’ll see you soon.’ He gave her a limp handshake.
‘Don’t forget to bring your documentation,’ said Miss Jenkins. ‘And remember that our day here starts at eight-thirty. Not a second later.’
The woman gave her the briefest of handshakes, her gimlet eyes boring into Amber’s, barely disguising the fact that she regarded her new subordinate as upstart competition: it had emerged during the interview that the woman held no real accountancy qualifications, but had simply worked her way up through the company over the course of many years.
Amber emerged, a minute later, onto St Peter Port’s High Street. It was pouring with much-needed rain, the inscrutable grey sky precisely matching her mood. She put up her umbrella and ran for her car.
How had she managed to end up in this unenviable position? Here she was, about to start a new job that was way beneath her – the position wasn’t actually nearly as senior as Fran had implied – in a company going nowhere, working for a woman who already hated her, and without doubt was going to make her life hell.
Just a month ago it would have seemed impossible – not only impossible, but laughable. But she needed a job. Any job. Even this one… Now more than ever – if her suspicions about unexpected changes in her body were true.
She looked at her watch. It was just before twelve. She’d quickly nip back home and do what she had to do, then go back to work.
She drove back in a kind of semi-daze, and parked the car.
‘Anyone home?’ she called as she unlocked the front door and went in. Sometimes her mother or Jessica came home for lunch.
Complete silence greeted her. So she was alone. Just as well. She retrieved the pregnancy test she’d bought from the chemist’s just before her interview, and which had sat in her bag during the whole horrible half hour. Then she went upstairs to the bathroom and followed the instructions on the packet.
She didn’t even need to wait the allotted three minutes: the second blue line appeared in the plastic window almost immediately.
She stared blankly at the incontrovertible confirmation of what, deep down, she already knew, however much she’d tried to ignore the evidence of her own body – the oddly sore breasts, the faint but unrelenting cramping that had started a few days ago in her abdomen, then finally the missed period. Her period was never late.
She was going to have Jack Ward’s baby. The man she loved – and from whom she’d heard nothing for a full week.
Her back against the cold, tiled bathroom wall she slid slowly down to the floor and sat, looking out the skylight up at the iron sky, where a few rays of sun were half-heartedly trying to break through. It must have happened that very first night after the conference. In her passion, in all her urgency, she hadn
’t given contraception a second thought. What an idiot she was.
Of course she could never tell him, she thought now, bitterly, vehemently. No, she was much too proud for that. He didn’t want her; he had already made that clear. She wasn’t going to try to tie him to her with a baby. That would be pathetic, and there had never been a pathetic bone in her body. Best they go their own separate ways, with him being none the wiser.
She would make her own way in the world, just as she had always done, even if that meant taking a job she didn’t like – after all, if she was going to have a baby, she had to have a job. Of course her new employers wouldn’t be best pleased at the prospect of her maternity leave, but she’d take as little time off as she could, prove that her new son or daughter wouldn’t be a distraction.
New son or daughter! Her eyes widened. Putting a potential gender to the tiny spark of life growing inside her made it all seem so real. Trepidation curled into her – mixed with a germ of pleasure. She was going to have a child. Her beloved father’s grandchild…
Suddenly the door to the bathroom flew open and Jessica breezed in. ‘Whoops! Sorry Amber, I didn’t realise you were home! Mind if I just use the…’ Jess stopped suddenly, mid-sentence. ‘Oh!’
Amber sprang to her feet, panic-stricken – and immediately saw that it was too late. She had left the pregnancy test on the sink… And Jessica had seen it.
‘Oh Amber,’ said Jessica, after an agonising pause, her voice so low it was almost a whisper. ‘You’re pregnant?’
Amber nodded, and sank back down to the ground. So now Jessica knew too. Well, she’d know soon enough anyway. ‘I guess you’re pretty shocked Jess,’ she said. ‘So am I. I never thought I’d end up in a situation like this.’ She gave her sister a weak smile. ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle, truth be told.’