by Anne Mather
‘Will Daddy be staying for supper?’
Emily was nothing if not persistent, and despite everything Isobel was tempted to smile. ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘Just fetch the tea, sweetheart. Then you can go and start running your bath.’
‘Oh, must I?’
‘Do as your mother says,’ said Jake harshly, and Emily’s expression changed from mild disappointment to cold fury.
‘Don’t you tell me what to do, you—you womaniser!’ she exclaimed angrily, and Isobel didn’t know which of them was the most astounded at her outburst.
After the way Emily had behaved when she’d got home Isobel had hoped that she and Jake had come to some sort of compromise. She should have known better.
Predictably, Jake recovered first. ‘You little bitch!’ he snapped. ‘How dare you call me a womaniser?’
‘Because it’s what you are,’ declared Emily, unwilling to back down, and Jake snorted.
‘I bet you got that from your grandmother, didn’t you?’ he demanded. ‘That old—’
‘I heard it at school, actually,’ Emily contradicted him, her voice breaking a little now. ‘It’s what the older girls say about you. They laugh about it. They say you’ve had loads of girlfriends and that you don’t care about Mummy and me at all.’
Isobel didn’t know where to look. It was obvious that the child’s words had shocked her husband, but she knew she couldn’t allow Emily to get away with insolence, whatever the justification.
‘I think you owe your father an apology, Emily,’ she said quietly, uncaring what Jake thought of her words. But his response overrode hers.
‘I don’t care what people say,’ he retorted grimly, but Isobel could tell from his tone that that wasn’t entirely true. Jake was not without feelings, after all, and Emily’s accusations had the ring of truth. ‘Your mother knows I would never allow her—or you—to suffer from my actions.’
‘But we do,’ muttered Emily tearfully. ‘Why can’t we be a proper family? Why can’t you live with us, like any proper father would?’
‘Emily—’
Isobel was desperate to stop this from going any further, but Jake had had enough.
‘Because I’m not your father,’ he snapped savagely, and Isobel closed her eyes as Emily’s face whitened and the tears began to fall in earnest.
‘You are,’ she protested, in spite of her distress, and although Isobel got to her feet and started towards her it was too late. ‘I know you are,’ she persisted. ‘Mummy says so. And Mummy doesn’t tell lies.
‘And nor do I,’ said Jake, driven to his feet also. ‘For pity’s sake, Emily—’
‘I don’t want to listen to you.’ Emily put both hands over her ears and stared at him through tear-drenched lashes. ‘I am your daughter. You know I am.’ She turned despairingly towards Isobel. ‘Tell him, Mummy. Tell him that’s who I am. He has to believe you. Especially today.’
Isobel managed to get an arm about her daughter’s shoulders, but Jake wasn’t finished. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Why especially today?’
‘Because of the game,’ said Emily tremulously. ‘Because of Black Knights. You said it yourself. You said I was like you. I played to win.’
It was at least forty minutes before Isobel returned to find Jake pacing about the living room like a caged lion. His eyes turned instantly to her as soon as she appeared in the doorway, and she could tell from the stark lines that etched his mouth that he had been fighting his own demons since she’d led the weeping child away.
‘How is she?’ he demanded, pausing on the hearth, and because he was back-lit by the orange flames of the fire his face was partly in shadow.
‘How do you think?’ Isobel wasn’t inclined to reassure him, even if it wasn’t all his fault that Emily had got so upset. Then, reluctantly, she added, ‘She’s gone to sleep. Finally. She was exhausted.’ She paused. ‘I’m surprised you’re still here.’
Jake’s jaw tightened. ‘Where else would I be?’
‘Oh, right.’ Isobel’s nostrils flared in sudden comprehension. ‘We never did finish our conversation, did we?’
Jake bit off an oath. ‘That’s not why I stayed.’
‘No?’ Isobel felt too weary to cope with anything just now. She glanced at her watch and was astonished to find it was after half-past-eight. ‘Goodness, is that the time?’
‘You didn’t even get that cup of tea,’ remarked Jake wryly. ‘I could do with a drink myself. How do you feel about me making us both one?’
‘I can do it.’ The last thing Isobel wanted was for Jake to feel he had to look after her. It would be far too ironic. ‘I assume you’d prefer something stronger than tea? All I’ve got is sherry, I’m afraid.’
‘No beer?’
‘I don’t like beer,’ said Isobel stiffly. ‘And I can’t aff— I mean, we have no use for spirits.’
Jake’s mouth tightened, and she guessed he knew exactly what she had been going to say. But, although she prepared herself for an argument, all he said was, ‘How about cola? Surely Emily drinks that?’
‘Diet cola,’ agreed Isobel, starting towards the kitchen. ‘I think we’ve got some in the fridge.’
Jake followed her, his hands pushed into his hip pockets, his hair rumpled, as if he had spent some of the time he’d been waiting running his fingers through it. Yet he still looked as attractive as ever, and Isobel thought how unfair it was that one man should continue to have such power over her.
But it was dangerous thinking about that now, and she busied herself taking a can of cola from the fridge, setting it and a glass on the counter nearest to him. Then, switching on the kettle, she emptied the pot of tea Emily had made earlier.
Jake didn’t touch the glass. He simply flipped the tab and drank straight from the can, his head tipped back, the muscles in his throat moving rhythmically as he swallowed the chilled liquid.
Isobel found herself watching him and quickly looked away. But in her mind’s eye she could still see the smooth column of his throat and the brown skin that disappeared into the neckline of his tee shirt.
He seemed darker-skinned than usual, and she wondered where he had spent his winter break this year. Then she remembered. There had been an article in one of the tabloids about how ex-Page Three model Marcie Duncan had been seen holidaying with her latest conquest, computer millionaire Jake McCabe, in the Seychelles.
There had been pictures, too, but Isobel hadn’t looked at those. She wouldn’t have seen the article at all if Lady Hannah hadn’t saved it for her. She winced. Sometimes she couldn’t make up her mind whether her mother truly had her best interests at heart or if she got some perverted kind of pleasure out of proving that she had been right all along.
‘Thanks.’
While she had been wool-gathering Jake had finished the can, and now he crushed it in his fist before dropping it into the swing bin beside the sink.
Isobel forced herself to concentrate on what she was doing. ‘Do you want another?’ she asked, grateful that the kettle had boiled and she could make her tea. Her legs felt decidedly wobbly and she would be glad when she could sit down.
‘Not right now.’ Jake shifted restlessly as she put milk into a mug and filled it from the pot. Then, in a low voice, ‘I guess I should apologise.’
Isobel tried not to show her surprise. Flicking him an uncertain glance, she moved past him into the living room again. ‘If you mean it,’ she said at last, resuming the seat she’d occupied earlier on the sofa. She sipped her tea. ‘Mmm, I was ready for this.’
She was aware that Jake was still standing in the doorway behind her, and she wished she could see his face. Or perhaps not, she amended. She had never been able to hide her feelings from him.
When her nerves felt as if they’d been stretched to breaking point he moved into the room, but instead of sitting in the armchair, as before, he joined her on the couch.
‘I mean it,’ he said, his weight depressing the cushion beside h
er. ‘I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. But, dammit, Belle, I thought she knew.’
Isobel steeled herself to look at him. ‘Knew what?’ she asked, though she knew exactly what he meant.
Jake blew out a breath. ‘That I’m not her father,’ he declared harshly. ‘If you insist on having me say it yet again.’
Isobel’s dark brows ascended. ‘But you are her father,’ she said, as she had said so many times before. ‘You just don’t want to believe it.’
‘Damn right.’ He sounded angry. ‘For God’s sake, Isobel, how long are you going to persist with this—this fabrication?’
Isobel put her mug down on the table beside her. ‘As long as it takes, I suppose,’ she replied, amazed that she could sound so cool when inside she was burning up. Then, realising that she couldn’t delay the moment any longer, she lifted her shoulders in a wary gesture. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you wanted to see me?’
Jake stared at her, his eyes as vivid as jade in his dark face. ‘Do you think it’s fair on Emily to give her unreal expectations?’ he demanded, without answering her, and Isobel sighed.
‘You mean because her father refuses to acknowledge her?’ she asked tersely. ‘I don’t think so.’
Jake’s jaw hardened. ‘Dammit, she’s not my child!’
‘She is.’
‘How can you say that? When you and Piers Mallory were having an affair at the time?’
Isobel pursed her lips. ‘We were not having an affair!’
‘You slept with him.’
‘I was in bed with him,’ she said, annoyed to find her voice was shaking. ‘But not through choice.’
Jake snorted. ‘Oh, right. Are you saying he raped you now?’
‘No.’ Isobel picked up her tea again, endeavouring to warm her frozen hands on the mug. ‘But I’d been drinking. I don’t remember anything about it.’
With an oath Jake got up from the sofa and paced grimly across the rug. His powerful frame cast a long shadow across the hearth and she turned to stare into the flames of the gas fire rather than look at him. But the temptation to do so was almost irresistible, and only the fact that the hot liquid was burning her palms caused her to turn her attention to putting the mug down again.
‘He was my friend,’ said Jake, speaking through his teeth, and Isobel felt the familiar frustration building inside her.
‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘That was the trouble, wasn’t it? You couldn’t believe your friend could do something so—so—’
‘Unlikely?’ suggested Jake scornfully, but Isobel shook her head.
‘So despicable,’ she corrected, looking up at him with accusing eyes. ‘And on that basis you decided that Emily couldn’t possibly be your daughter. That she was his.’
Jake blew out a breath. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘For God’s sake, Belle, be honest for once in your life!’ Jake came to stand in front of her and she averted her eyes from the impressive bulge of his manhood. ‘We’d been married for three years, dammit, and you hadn’t got pregnant. Are you telling me we suddenly got lucky? I don’t think so.’
‘We’d been trying to avoid me getting pregnant,’ cried Isobel fiercely. ‘You know that.’
‘But accidents happen. That’s what you said, isn’t it?’
Isobel groaned. ‘Well, what are you saying?’ she demanded, putting out a hand as if to ward him off. ‘That Piers Mallory is so—so macho that one night with him was enough?’
‘If it was just one night,’ retorted Jake harshly. ‘And I only have your word for that.’
Isobel couldn’t sit still any longer. Trembling violently, she got to her feet, pushing him aside and stumbling away from the sofa. Of course he only had her word for it. Piers was never going to admit what he’d done.
‘In any case, your getting pregnant was just adding insult to injury,’ said Jake heavily, and there was a trace of bitterness in his voice now. ‘How could you do it, Belle? How could you have an affair with my best friend? God, you knew how I’d feel about it. Piers and I had been friends since we started college.’
Isobel gripped the back of a chair for support, her nails digging into the fabric as she struggled to regain control. ‘Piers was never your friend, Jake,’ she said, ignoring his immediate growl of derision. ‘He wasn’t. He was jealous of you, of our life together. He’d have done anything to split us up.’
‘That’s crap and you know it.’ Jake was scathing. ‘I don’t know why you keep repeating the same old story, the same old lies. It’s not as if I haven’t heard it all before.’
Isobel held up her head. ‘I suppose I’m hoping that one day you’ll come to your senses and believe me,’ she replied huskily. ‘That you’ll at least consider that Emily might be your daughter.’
‘She’s not,’ said Jake flatly. ‘She’s nothing like me.’
‘She’s nothing like Piers Mallory either,’ retorted Isabel, feeling the familiar wave of despair creeping over her. ‘For pity’s sake, Jake, when have I ever lied to you?’
‘When you told me that you and Piers had never slept together,’ Jake responded at once. ‘You were pretty convincing then.’
‘Because it’s true.’
‘But you’re not denying he was making love to you when I found you?’
Isobel’s shoulders sagged. ‘He was trying to, yes.’
‘Right.’ Jake regarded her contemptuously. ‘So why do you persist in saying you never had sex with him?’
Isobel shook her head. ‘I don’t believe I did. In any case, I was—afraid.’
‘Afraid of me?’
‘Afraid of what would happen if you believed I’d been unfaithful to you,’ she moaned miserably. ‘I knew how you’d react.’
‘You weren’t wrong.’ Jake gave a weary shake of his head. ‘And you told me you didn’t even like him.’
‘I didn’t.’
But Isobel knew she was fighting a losing battle. It was a battle she’d been fighting and losing for the past eleven years, and nothing she said or did was going to change Jake’s mind now.
‘It’s getting late,’ he said abruptly. ‘And you look exhausted, never mind Emily. I’d better go.’
Isobel stared at him. ‘But we haven’t talked.’
‘No.’ he was sardonic. ‘Well, not about anything that matters anyway.’ He paused. ‘I’ll come back another day. When I’ve got more time and you’re not dead beat.’
Isobel’s lips twisted. ‘You certainly know how to flatter a girl, Jake. I’d forgotten how charming you can be.’
‘You don’t need me to flatter you, Isobel.’ Jake swung his jacket off the chair and shouldered his way into it. Then, almost reluctantly, he added, ‘You know how bloody attractive you are. You always have. I guess that was why I found it so hard to trust you. I knew it was only a matter of time before you found some other mug to add a little excitement to our marriage.’
CHAPTER THREE
JAKE was at his desk by eight o’clock the next morning.
He could have been there much earlier. He hadn’t been to bed. He’d spent most of the night switching channels on the too-large digital TV Marcie had insisted he should install in his bedroom, and which he’d actually set up in the den, trying not to think about the row they’d had at her apartment when she’d got back from dining with the Allens—alone.
But then, that was what happened when you allowed your soon-to-be-ex-wife to ruin what should have been a very pleasant evening, he reflected ruefully. Frank Allen and his wife were old friends of his, and he knew Marcie had been relying on him to persuade the media tycoon to back her bid for network stardom.
She’d already done some TV work, appearing on chat shows, celebrity quizzes and the like, but she wanted to be taken seriously. She wanted to bury her bimbette image once and for all, and make her name with her own daytime talk show.
It had been a long shot at best. Jake knew that. Frank Allen hadn’t been
in the business for more than forty years without being able to spot an amateur when he saw one. Marcie looked good on panel shows, when her contribution meant less to the producers than her appearance, but she simply didn’t have what it took to take centre stage.
Jake had suggested she ought to consider acting lessons, but Marcie had quickly vetoed that idea. She hadn’t become the most successful photographic model of the decade by admitting she didn’t have what it took to further her career. She didn’t want to hear that she needed more than good looks to make it in the very competitive world of television. Because other people had done it, she confidently believed that she could do it, too.
She had taken the fact that Jake hadn’t turned up at the restaurant as a personal slight. Even though he’d sent a message to both Marcie and Frank Allen—in Marcie’s case enclosed with an enormous bouquet of red roses, which he’d had the devil’s own job to acquire at half-past nine at night—explaining that he’d been inadvertently held up and apologising for letting them down, she’d still been furious.
Finding him waiting for her at her apartment when she’d returned home had not placated her. She’d virtually thrown the bouquet at him, declaring that he’d deliberately ruined the evening, that he cared more for his estranged wife and her snotty-nosed brat than he did about her.
There had been no reasoning with her, and Jake had eventually scooped up the bouquet and left the apartment. He’d deposited the roses in the nearest wastebin. He’d been angry, too, but whether it had been with himself or her he hadn’t cared to speculate.
Which was why he was at his desk before the rest of the staff turned in, scowling at his computer screen, wishing last night had never happened. And not just because of the row with Marcie. They’d had rows before, and no doubt would again. That was a given in their relationship. But because last night for the first time he’d learned that Isobel’s daughter had a wit and a personality all her own.
Until then he’d hardly spoken to the child. His dealings with her mother had been brief at best, and his memories of Emily were of a shy toddler, hiding behind Isobel’s skirts, or a sulky pre-teen, who’d resented his presence.