by Lynne Graham
Her voice broke and she turned to the window, bracing her trembling hands on the dusty sill. ‘I remember it all,’ she muttered, forcing out the harshened syllables very low, ‘as if it were yesterday.’
The profound silence stretched on and on.
‘Why did you come up here?’
Numbly she fought to recapture her poise. ‘I just wanted…to see it.’
‘Well, now you’ve seen it…’
‘Do you have children?’ As soon as the question left her lips, she could have bitten her tongue out. That dangerous explosion of emotion had left her temporarily out of control.
‘A little girl.’ He hesitated. ‘She’s four years old.’
A sudden ache stirred in Kitty’s breasts, violent, unforgiving. But his admission iced back over her seething emotions. Her voice emerged quietly and cleanly. ‘If you don’t mind, I would like to be on my own now.’
‘No problem. I’ve got a lunch date to keep,’ he said curtly.
Her arrogant assumption that he had intended to invite her gave her a sharp pang. Of course she wouldn’t have gone. You didn’t dive when you were bleeding into a river full of crocodiles. All the same, it would have been nice to have been asked so that she could have refused. ‘Who is she?’ she asked lightly.
At the door he paused, his dark scrutiny hooded. ‘You wouldn’t know her. She wasn’t here in your time.’
‘My goodness, but you’re being coy, Jake,’ she purred, and she was Heaven Rothman to her fingertips, poised, indulgently amused.
Long, supple fingers flexed against the door-frame. ‘Her name’s Paula. She’s the nurse in the local practice.’
She smiled. ‘What does she look like?’
A suffocating tension alive with hostile undertones had thickened the atmosphere. A muscle jerked at the corner of his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Are you going to ask if I’ve slept with her as well?’ he slung at her caustically.
He shocked her into silence. Her startled gaze fled his aggressive stare. She looked away from him. In the interim, he walked out of the house, slammed into his car and drove off. She breathed again. Pain was still stabbing through her and she didn’t understand why. Two hours ago she had believed that Jake was married. Now she knew he was unmarried and involved. What was the difference? She couldn’t possibly be jealous. The very idea was laughable after all these years.
With a sigh she slumped down into an armchair. Hunger was making her dizzy. Common sense told her that she was in no fit state to drive. She would bring in the groceries and make herself a sensible snack before she left to find a hotel as far from here as she could get by evening.
He hadn’t said goodbye. But then they’d never said goodbye to each other. Ever. It seemed that habit remained. And without conscious volition Kitty was swept back to the aftermath of that night she had spent in his arms.
She had felt guilty, but she hadn’t felt ashamed… then. Innocently trusting in that confession he had made, she had believed there was no cause for shame where there was love.
It had taken him twenty-four hours to seek her out—a Jake who was a complete stranger to her. A bitter despair and a distaste that had pierced her to the very centre of her being had shown nakedly in his shadowed eyes before he had looked away.
‘What happened between us was very wrong. I wish to God I could wipe it out, but I can’t.’ His intonation had been low and precise, as if he had rehearsed the entire speech beforehand. ‘Your grandparents trusted me and I’ve broken that trust. I’ve got no excuse. I’m five years older and wiser and I should never have touched you.’
‘If you love me, it—’
‘But that’s just the point. I don’t love you in the way a man loves a woman. I care for you deeply as a friend…as a kid sister, if you like,’ he had forced out in harsh interruption.
‘I love you,’ she had whispered, not even able to absorb what he was telling her. It hadn’t seemed real. Nightmares had that quality.
‘It’s an infatuation and it will die,’ he had overruled fiercely. ‘Last night was a mistake, Kitty. I was drunk. That doesn’t excuse me, but that’s the only reason it happened. It wasn’t your fault, it was mine.’ He had stopped to clear his throat. ‘If there should be consequences…’
‘Consequences?’ she had repeated blankly.
‘If you prove to be pregnant,’ he had grated hoarsely, ‘I’ll stand by you, I’ll deal with your grandparents. But I won’t marry you. A marriage between us wouldn’t work. The risk of pregnancy isn’t that great, but if it should happen I promise you that I’ll look after everything. However, the pregnancy will have to be terminated,’ he had concluded harshly.
Three weeks later he had come to her with haunted eyes and gaunt cheekbones. ‘Thank God,’ he had muttered rawly, let off the hook.
He had married Liz quietly in London, the ceremony unattended by any of his family.
They said hearts didn’t break. Kitty’s had. The news of his marriage had shocked everybody, but it had devastated her. It was one thing to humbly accept that he didn’t love her, another thing entirely to accept that he could love and marry someone else. She had lost so much more than a lover. He had been closer to her than her own family. He had been her only real friend. And he had dropped her like a hot potato, retreating with appalled speed from the trap he had seen opening up in front of him. For him that night really had been a disastrous mistake.
He could have let her down more gently. She was convinced Liz hadn’t been in the background then. His own family had known nothing whatsoever about her. But what embittered Kitty most of all was his refusal to admit that he had ever wanted her. A man didn’t make love to a female firmly fixed in his mind as an extra sister. Then, had he employed any other excuse, she might still have harboured hopes. And Jake had been determined to kill even her hopes stone-dead.
Other later memories intruded and she struggled fiercely to close them out…only it didn’t work. She had lied to him when she had told him that she wasn’t expecting his child. Of course she had lied. He had given her no other choice. And ironically, in the end, that lie hadn’t made any difference. A few months later, she had had a miscarriage. Nature’s way, the doctor had said bracingly. For a long time afterwards she had suspected that, had she enjoyed proper medical attention during those crucial early weeks of pregnancy, the outcome might have been very different. She had grieved deeply for that loss, but she had grieved alone.
Grant had said it was for the best, quite unable to understand how she could possibly have wanted the baby after Jake had married Liz. But she had wanted that baby. She had wanted that baby more than she had ever wanted anything either then or since. Slowly she sank back to the present, raising chilled hands to her tear-wet face. Without realising it, she drifted slowly into sleep.
It was pitch-dark when she awoke, freezing cold and stiff. Stumbling up on woozy legs, she fumbled for the light switch. No light came on. The scullery light was equally unresponsive.
‘You idiot,’ she muttered, realising what the problem was. The electricity was off. Indeed, she hadn’t been thinking clearly when she had impulsively planned her stay here.
Luckily her grandmother had been a very methodical woman. The torch still hung above the fridge. Kitty’s watch told her it was nearly ten. It was too late to drive off in search of a hotel. There was food in the car, probably coal or wood in the fuel shed, and she could bring a mattress downstairs to sleep by the fire. She emptied the car and then parked it in the barn out of sight.
With damp matches, she needed perseverance to light a fire. Once she had a promising glow in the grate, she lit the bottled gas cooker and put a now defrosted dish of lasagne into the oven. That done, she located candles in an upper cupboard and switched on the water below the sink. There she came unexpectedly on an unopened bottle of sherry.
By midnight she was sitting cross-legged on top of her makeshift bed, washing back her lasagne with a glass of sherry. Grant would have cringed in fastidi
ous horror from the sight, she conceded ruefully. Already her anger with him was fading. Grant couldn’t help being self-centred, possessive and manipulative.
Eight years ago she had hurled herself into Grant’s arms in a London hotel suite. A frightened and lost teenager, she had been perilously close to a nervous breakdown. The responsibility must have horrified him, but Grant hadn’t been the star of a dozen box-office hits on the strength of looks alone. He had hidden his feelings well. If Grant had rejected her, she would have thrown herself in the Thames. She had had too many rejections to bear one more.
His greatest pleasure had been the successful stage-management of her career. Grant loved to play God. He had made her over from outside in before sending her to drama school in New York. That first year had been a chaotic whirl of new experiences and some truly terrifying ordeals.
The fire was making her uncomfortably warm. Getting up, she removed a silk nightshirt from her case and undressed, ruefully wondering how long it would take her to get to sleep. Insomnia had been her most pressing problem of late. Ironically, it was also what was responsible for the short story she had written and had published in a magazine the previous year. She had sat up scribbling until exhaustion had taken its toll.
As she poured herself another sherry, she tried to concentrate on the intricate plot of the thriller she was planning. It shouldn’t have been difficult. She had been dreaming about the book for months, impatient to sit down and write without distractions.
A faint noise jerked her head up from her notepad. Her eyes dilated, a stifled gasp of fear fleeing her lips. A large dark shape had filled the scullery doorway.
‘I don’t believe this.’ Jake strode into the flickering shadows of mingled fire and candlelight. He towered over Kitty like a dark avenging angel. ‘I could see the light from the road. I thought someone had broken in.’
Behind her breastbone, her heart was still involved in terrified palpitations. ‘How did you get in? The doors are both bolted!’
‘There probably isn’t a catch on a window in this entire house that’s secure. I climbed in through the scullery window,’ he supplied grimly.
‘You can go out by the front door. I’m feeling even less hospitable than I felt this afternoon,’ she flared. ‘You frightened me out of my wits!’
‘Be glad it was me and not a real intruder. God, you can’t be planning to stay here tonight!’ Taking in the evidence around him, he glowered down at her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Why don’t you go down the road and ask all your other neighbours what they’re doing in their houses after midnight?’ she returned angrily. ‘You’ve got no right to walk in here.’
He bent his dark, arrogant head to avoid the shade on the central light above. ‘I had no idea that you were here,’ he growled. ‘No idea at all.’
‘Well, now that you’ve established that I’m not a gang of bikers in search of a new clubhouse, you are free to go.’ Pointedly she sipped at her drink.
Long fingers coiled round the bottle. He gave it a cursory inspection, his mouth hardening. He straightened, sending her a savage look. ‘You’ve picked up some bad habits since you left home.’
‘You’ll be relieved to know that one of them isn’t inviting strange men to join me for a drink. Now will you get out of here?’ Her voice rose steeply on the demand.
Jake lowered himself smoothly down into the chair at the foot of the mattress and crossed one booted ankle across his knee, stretching back in a relaxed pose that set her teeth on edge.
Incensed she got up on her knees. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
The firelight glistened on the magenta silk shirt that came no lower than her shapely thighs, the thin fabric moulding the tip-tilted swell of her breasts. As she registered where those dark, intent eyes were resting without apology, her face burned. She sat back again, alarm bells ringing in her head.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked again.
A sinuous, silk-clad shoulder shifted. ‘Maybe I’m too lazy to shift to a hotel.’
‘I’d have thought that comfort would have persuaded you to choose more suitable accommodation.’ Cool, shrewd eyes studied her unreadably. ‘What are you planning on doing now that you’re out of The Rothmans?’
‘If I’m out, I’m out by choice,’ she snapped, flicked on the raw by his choice of words.
‘As I understand it, Maxwell told you that if he had anything to do with it you wouldn’t work ever again,’ Jake reminded her with a calm that mocked her own loss of temper.
Her chin came up in a defensive thrust. ‘I wanted some time off. I haven’t had many holidays since you last saw me.’
‘This is a peculiar location for a holiday.’
‘Each to their own.’ It was none of his business that she would be leaving again in the morning.
‘Why the beat-up car?’ he enquired idly.
She gave him a superior glance. ‘It’s camouflage. That’s all.’
‘As camouflage it’s a little excessive.’
‘Maybe I’m broke,’ she parried with sarcastic bite. ‘And this is the only place that I’ve got to go. Bring on the violins.’
The aggressive gleam in her eyes challenged him, letting him see just how much she resented his questions. His level gaze narrowed, faint colour aligning his hard cheekbones. As she had meant to, she had embarrassed him with her nonsensical response. For of course it was ridiculous. She had to resist a cringingly uncouth urge to tell him exactly what she was worth.
He rested his dark head back. ‘It isn’t healthy to drown your sorrows alone,’ he drawled softly.
She arched a brow. ‘I do unhealthy things all the time. They’re usually the most fun.’
He loosed his breath audibly. ‘Heaven sounds pretty painful at this time of night, Kitty. Does Maxwell know where you are?’
‘He knew I was heading north.’
‘I assume that you have split up with him.’
She let sherry moisten her throat. ‘You’re free to assume whatever you like. Grant and I have this unbreakable rule. We don’t discuss each other with anybody. That’s one of the reasons why there’s so much rubbish in the papers. What can’t be got through a legitimate interview is invented.’
‘You don’t say. Was the extraordinary revelation of the separate bedrooms made up?’ Jake prompted silkily. ‘Taking out the obvious exaggerations—I mean, I can’t believe that you entertained his women, but I can believe that you bought his ties—well, in short it’s obvious that the affair’s been dead on his side for a very long time. So why were you still in residence?’
She stroked a forefinger over the open-weave blanket she was sitting on. ‘So you read the papers. I suppose it was too much to hope that you wouldn’t try to satisfy your curiosity at source.’
‘Fascination would be a more apt tag for my feelings. Some of the bits relating to Maxwell were quite hilariously entertaining. But there were other parts next door to tragic,’ he murmured bleakly. ‘If he’s finally chucked you out the door, he’s done you a favour.’
‘What would you know about it?’ she exploded. ‘You know nothing about my life with Grant. Nothing!’
He stared steadily back at her. ‘You can’t tell me that you’ve been happy with a man who’s been running round with other women ever since you met him.’
Her delicate profile tensed. She gazed into the fire. All over again she was hearing Grant’s raging and bitter accusations of ingratitude. She had turned down the surprise part he had offered her in his film, reiterating her ambition to become a writer. His fury had been perfectly understandable. He had taught her, encouraged her, pushed her hard when she would have dropped back. Everything she was today, she owed to him.
But Grant had still failed to give her the one thing that she really wanted from him. And that wasn’t the adrenalin thrill of public recognition, the use of his luxurious homes or even the thousand and one costly gifts he continually pressed on her. It was a father’s love sh
e had wanted, not what that same father could give her in material terms.
Suddenly tears flooded her shadowed eyes. Perhaps it wasn’t her father’s fault, perhaps it was hers. There had to be some element lacking in her. The people she loved never loved her back. Grant had pulled the same rug from under her feet all over again.
‘Kitty—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, go away and leave me alone!’ she gasped, despising her self-pitying mood. ‘You’ve had your superior little say and now you can get out!’
With a sound of impatience he folded forward, settling down on the edge of the mattress to slant an arm round her hunched-up figure. ‘I didn’t intend to sound superior—’
‘Didn’t you?’ she interrupted accusingly.
He sighed. ‘God knows I don’t receive any satisfaction from seeing you like this. I just don’t think you should be on your own right now.’
The weight and warmth of his arm had shocked her into defensive rigidity, but as he plucked her glass away her overbright eyes flamed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I believe you’ve had enough.’ Long fingers speedily enclosed her wrist, preventing her from retrieving the glass. ‘Booze will only make you more depressed.’
At his peremptory bidding her hand had automatically withdrawn again. It infuriated her to appreciate that the habit of doing as Jake told her could have survived the years to exercise that influence. ‘Two small glasses of sherry isn’t boozing and I’m not depressed,’ she rebutted stridently.
‘No?’ he queried.
‘No! I’ve just had a rough couple of days.’
As he belatedly released her wrist he balanced his other hand on her shoulder. His touch remained, branding her sensitive skin. Bemusedly stilled by his disturbing nearness, she felt her breath tickle in her throat, her mind a sluggish mass of half-formed thoughts. As she glanced up, dimly wondering what was the matter with her, she connected with black-lashed golden eyes and a sliding sensation pulled at the pit of her stomach. Silence buzzed, broken only by the crackle of the fire. The pink tip of her tongue delved out to moisten the dryness of her lower lip.