Not Jonathan! He wasn't allowing that smooth-talking charmer, with his blatant good looks, anywhere near Abbie. He would forgo any interest he might have in Sutherland Hotels rather than do that. He would end up killing Jonathan if he so much as—
Good God, he was jealous!
Jonathan and Abbie hadn't even met each other, and he was having murderous thoughts about his own brother!
He and Jonathan had never clashed over a woman, had made it a rule never to allow any woman to interfere in their family or working relationship. And so far that had never happened. But Abbie was different...
'We'll see,' he returned enigmatically, his mouth twisting wryly. 'I won't thank you for dinner—because my stomach is telling me quite strongly that it hasn't eaten its fill!' Which was actually a lie; he very rarely felt hunger, had no real interest in food except as a fuel to get him through the day, and usually even then Jonathan or Jordan had to remind him to eat! 'I'll see myself out,' he suggested.
She nodded, not even looking at him.
'Take care, Abbie,' he said softly and, receiving no reply, he let himself out.
Tim was no more friendly on the drive back to the hotel than he had been on the journey here, and, aware mat his own evening had been far from successful, Jarrett wasn't in any mood for idle conversation either!
But neither was he in the mood of anticipation he had been in earlier. The evening hadn't gone at all as he had planned it would, either personally or on a business level, and so by the time he arrived back at the hotel he was scowling darkly, going straight through to the bar to order himself a large whisky. After the frustrating end to the evening he had just had, two or three more would make up for not eating a complete dinner!
'Drowning your sorrows?' queried an amused voice when Jarrett was halfway down his second double.
He turned to face Stephen, still scowling as the other man grinned at him. 'What makes you think that?' Jarrett returned guardedly; surely Abbie hadn't already been on the telephone to Alison? No, he somehow didn't think so...
Stephen gave a pointed look at his watch. 'Dinner seven-thirty for eight, and it's still only nine-thirty?' He raised his brows pointedly. 'Cinders is home extremely early!'
'How the hell do you know I went out to dinner at all, let alone what time?' He certainly hadn't mentioned it when he'd seen Stephen this afternoon!
'Alison had a chat with Abbie earlier.' Stephen made himself comfortable on the bar stool next to Jarrett's, at the same time indicating for the barman to provide them with two more double whiskies. 'She happened to mention it'
Further proof that Abbie hadn't forgotten his expected arrival this evening at all! Abbie had been playing games with him—but he had the distinct feeling neither of them had won! In fact, he knew damn well they hadn't!
'Actually—' Stephen seemed to speak with deliberate casualness ‘—Abbie is the reason I'm here.'
Jarrett's mouth twisted ruefully. 'And I thought it was my scintillating company you wanted!'
Stephen gave him a reproving look. 'Save the cynicism for the ladies, Jarrett,' he said quietly. 'I've known you too long to be impressed by it. Or convinced.'
Jarrett sat more upright to look at the other man. 'It's a little late in the evening to warn me off Abbie,' he pointed out dryly. 'And why aren't you with Alison? This is the last night of your honeymoon. Don't tell me the two of you have argued this early in your marriage?'
'I told you to cut the cynicism, Jarrett,' Stephen bit out curtly. 'Alison and I haven't argued, and she knows exactly where I am. And who I'm with. I asked Reception to call me when you returned to the hotel,' he explained.
Jarrett looked surprised. 'Did you, indeed? Might I ask why?'
'Because I want to talk to you, of course,' Stephen told him impatiently.
'About Abbie?' he said slowly. This was a bit of a turnaround after Stephen's previous reticence...!
'Yes...' his friend confirmed. 'Alison and I talked it over, and decided you should at least be aware of some of the problems Abbie has encountered in the last couple of years. The reason she—as you put it last night—hasn't even stay at her own hotels.' Stephen looked
Jarrett eyed him guardedly. 'Yes?'
Your meeting with Abbie didn't go well this evening?' The other man still looked serious.
'What do you think? No, it didn't go well, Stephen,' Jarrett bit out caustically as his friend looked at him reprovingly. 'In fact, I have the distinct impression Abbie never wants to set eyes on me again!'
'Hmm,' Stephen said consideringly. "Then perhaps we don't need to have this conversation at all—'
'You and Alison have "talked it over", remember. I said Abbie doesn't want to see me again—but I very much want to see her! And maybe if I knew a bit more about what makes her tick I wouldn't keep walking in there like a bull in a china shop!'
'Maybe,' Stephen agreed with obvious scepticism. 'It's your style, Jarrett,' he explained at Jarrett's narrow-eyed look. 'I—Abbie had a rough time of it after her husband died.'
At least he was beginning to understand! Jarrett inwardly sighed his relief. Anything he could learn about the elusive Abbie had to be helpful.
'Being widowed at—what, twenty-five?—can't have been easy,' he prompted quietly.
Stephen nodded. 'Even less so, surprisingly, when you're the widow of a man like Daniel Sutherland. He— wasn't an easy man, by any stretch of the imagination.' Stephen grimaced. 'But one thing in his favour—he did dote on Charlie.'
'Which is why, presumably, he left her the lion's share of Sutherland's,' Jarrett concluded.
'You know about that?' Stephen watched as Jarrett nodded in confirmation. 'Well, then, perhaps mat makes this all the easier to tell. That old saying "where there's a will there's a relative" was all too true in this case. In fact, there were two relatives,' he explained grimly.
'Catherine. And Daniel junior,' Jarrett acknowledged carefully, not wanting anything he said, or did, to stop Stephen now that he had started talking.
Stephen gave him a thoughtful look. 'You know about them, too?'
Jarrett shrugged. 'This was business, Stephen; of course I know of all the parties involved.' But he said nothing of those tedious dinners he'd had with Cathy Sutherland, or the couple of occasions when he had met her brother—and felt like punching the spoilt little wimp on the nose! Danny Sutherland was too busy whigning about what he hadn't got to be content with the privileged lifestyle that had been handed to him on a plate. He and his sister Cathy were everything that Jarrett despised; they had so much, but they still wanted more.
'Do you also know of the wrangle that went on between Abbie, as Charlie's mother and guardian, and Daniel Sutherland's older children from his first marriage, after the old man had died?' Stephen's expression betrayed his distaste.
Cathy hadn't mentioned anything like that... 'What sort of wrangle?' Jarrett prompted. 'As far as I'm aware, Daniel Sutherland was completely sane when he died, so what was their problem? No doubt the two older children were a bit put out that Charlie was favoured in the way she was, but Daniel Sutherland didn't have to leave them anything at all if he chose not to.' Considering what pampered brats the two older Sutherland children were, Jarrett knew exactly what he would have done in Daniel Sutherland's shoes!
Stephen eyed him steadily. 'What I'm about to tell you is that they tried to take her daughter away from her’
Jarrett had seen yesterday how much Abbie loved her daughter, and how much Charlie loved her mother, couldn't believe Cathy and Danny had tried to take Charlie from her. But he understood now exactly why Abbie had reacted the way she had when her two stepchildren had entered their conversation earlier tonight.
He felt rage building up inside him. Those two useless bits of humanity had thought they could take Abbie's daughter away from her—!
He had met those two useless bits of humanity, had dinner several times with Cathy...!
And he had told Abbie he didn't know them...
What the hell was she going to think—of him—if she ever found out how economical he had been with me truth...?
Hell!
CHAPTER SEVEN
'I think it's time for bed for both of us, don't you, Charlie?' Abbie prompted her fractious daughter, relieved when Charlie allowed herself to be put to bed without too much of a fight. After the day Abbie had just had she wasn't sure she could have coped with Charlie being difficult now!
No matter how comfortable the plane, it had still been a long flight back from Canada to England, made all the more difficult because Charlie was upset at having her skiing holiday cut short. Usually the most amenable of children, Charlie had proved uncharacteristically uncooperative during the whole journey. Abbie, her nerves already strung out to breaking point, had found it all just too much on top of everything else.
Her decision to leave Whistler had been a sudden one—made about ten minutes after Jarrett Hunter had left the ski-lodge!
He had unnerved her.
The last two years had been far from easy, but with the help of trustworthy people like Tony she had pretty well managed to safeguard Charlie and also her own privacy. A single lapse in that guard—her dinner with Alison and Stephen—-had brought Jarrett Hunter into her life. And he was trouble with a capital T!
And he had kissed her...
That was the real reason, if she were honest with herself, why she had left Whistler so abruptly. Usually, she was honest with herself...
She had put off thinking about any of this, had concentrated first on making travel arrangements at such short notice, and then just getting through the long flight. Charlie's irritability had helped her to do that; there was no time to think of anything else when she was trying to keep her four-year-old daughter amused!
But now, with Charlie safely tucked up in bed, left to her own thoughts, she knew there was no way she could stop those disturbing thoughts of Jarrett Hunter intruding.
She sank down into an armchair with a weary groan, burying her face in her hands. She had realised last night, when Jarrett Hunter had taken her into his arms, just how starved of affection and physical warmth she really was. Far from being repulsed, as she had fully expected to be, she had hungered for more! She had been stunned by the realisation. And then she'd panicked. Jarrett, like every other man she had ever met, wanted something from her, which didn't involve him giving her anything...
He was what they called a shark in the business world, watching and waiting for a company that was in trouble, before moving in for the kill!
How had he found out that Sutherland Hotels were in trouble, that the luxurious accommodation they supplied was fast becoming a millstone about the neck of Sutherland's, and consequently a noose around Abbie's neck too? She had no idea how he had found out that information, or how he had known she was rushing all over the world visiting the various hotels while she tried to come up with a solution to the problem. A solution she hadn't yet found. All she seemed able to do at the moment was hang onto them, for Charlie's sake.
But none of this changed the fact that Jarrett Hunter had kissed her...!
He was everything she despised in a man—cynical, hard, in her opinion a confirmed misogynist—and last night she had just wanted to crawl into his arms and be made love to until she couldn't think straight.
She couldn't have been thinking straight to have wanted that in the first place!
She looked up frowningly as Tony entered the room. He had flown back with her, must be as tired as she was, and yet he had insisted on checking her mail and telephone answering service as soon as they got in, didn't look in the least as if he had just been on a plane for ten hours. Sometimes Abbie felt she was years older than him, felt weighed down by her responsibilities, and yet she knew they were of a similar age.
'Problems?' she prompted with effort, sincerely hoping there weren't any—she just wanted to go to sleep for twelve hours!
He shrugged, looking down at the piece of paper he held in his hand. 'That depends. Jarrett Hunter rang here an hour ago,' he told her stiffly.
She instantly understood Tony's concern; the address of her London home wasn't public knowledge, and the telephone number was unlisted!
'What did he want?' she asked through unsteady lips, too weary to react any further than that. She wasn't even totally surprised; a man like Jarrett could find out anything he chose to—by fair means or foul, but probably foul!
'For you to return his call on this number as soon as you got in.' Tony handed her the piece of paper with a message and telephone number written on it.
His expression was bland, but he was obviously as curious about their sudden departure from Canada as Charlie was upset. And this telephone call from Jarrett was just adding to his curiosity.
Abbie couldn't meet that curiosity, looking down at the piece of paper, frowning as she did so. It was a London telephone number. How on earth—? Jarrett couldn't be back in London yet; she had only just arrived herself; there was no way he could have got back before her.
The caller had been J. Hunter... But then, as Jarrett had told her, he wasn't the only J. Hunter in his family; both his brothers had that initial too! But she couldn't think why one of Jarrett's brothers would be calling her, either.
Perhaps Jarrett had been involved in an accident? But even if he had been, why would a member of his family be telling her about it? In fact, how had Jarrett known she was back in London at all?
‘I’ll deal with this,' she told Tony abruptly, crumpling the piece of paper in her hand. 'Anything else of relevance?'
'Nothing urgent.' He shook his head.
She nodded, standing up. 'In that case, I'm going to join Charlie, and go to bed!'
She showered, put on a nightshirt, brushed her hair, drank a cup of tea from the pot that had been brought to her bedroom, but all the time she did these things that piece of crumpled paper seemed to taunt her from where she had put it down on the dressing-table.
What if Jarrett had been hurt in some way? It was still nothing to do with her, of course, but by the same token she knew, for all she was exhausted, that she wasn't going to sleep until she had solved the mystery of the telephone call!
'Jordan Hunter speaking,' came the brisk response when the receiver was picked up at the other end.
Not Jonathan, the 'good-looking one in the family'...
'My name is Sabrina Sutherland,' she returned as briskly. 'I believe you called me a short time ago?'
'Abbie!' His voice softened warmly. 'I'm Jarrett's—'
'I know exactly who you are, Mr Hunter,' she cut in coolly. Abbie, indeed! If nothing else, he had at least spoken to Jarrett! 'What was the purpose of your call?'
'Uh-oh,' Jordan Hunter murmured ruefully. 'Jarrett didn't tell me you were mad at him.'
If Jonathan Hunter was the good-looking one, then Jordan Hunter was the one who showed warm good humour, his voice seductive. But if these two men had the looks and the humour, where did that leave Jarrett...?
'I'm not mad at anyone, Mr Hunter—'
'Call me Jordan,' he instantly invited. 'Mr Hunter sounds like Jarrett—and, fond of him as I am, I certainly don't want to be him!'
Jordan had warmth and humour in abundance, Abbie decided as she smiled to herself. 'I suppose that's something in your favour,' she said dryly. 'But that still doesn't tell me why you telephoned me earlier...?'
'You really are that Sabina Sutherland, aren't you?' Jordan said admiringly.
She wasn't quite sure what he meant by that... 'As you already seem to know, most people call me Abbie.' She couldn't help responding to his warmth, or wondering if he looked at all like Jarrett—instantly deciding that even if he did he didn't sound as world-weary and cynical as his older brother! 'How did you get this telephone number, Mr Hunter?' she added firmly, deliberately ignoring his invitation to call him Jordan; she wanted as little to do with this family as possible.
'Jarrett gave it to me,' Jord
an supplied unhelpfully.
She sighed her impatience. 'Mr Hunter, I'm tired from my long journey, totally mystified as to your reason for calling me—'
'Jarrett wants to see you,' he put in quickly, seeming to sense she had been about to put an end to the call.
'Jarrett wants to—!' She looked down incredulously at the receiver in her hand, as if it were the instrument itself which offended her, instead of the arrogant Jarrett Hunter. 'In that case, surely it would have been more appropriate if Jarrett had made this call himself?' she returned crossly.
'You are mad at him,' Jordan realised with obvious enjoyment. 'Forgive me, Abbie,' he added hastily. 'It's just a novel experience for a woman to be angry with Jarrett; we usually have to beat them away from his door with a stick!'
So Jarrett did have something! Of course he had something, she instantly berated herself. She had felt that something herself last night. And what he had was so much more lethal than good looks or warm good humour!
To Woo A Wife Page 9