by Andrews, Amy
Nathan glared at her, ignoring the truth behind her words. ‘I’m exactly where I want to be,’ he said, walking away from her and her unsettling gaze.
‘And yet you feel empty,’ she said calmly to his retreating back. ‘Isn’t that what you told me in Sydney?’
‘Not empty,’ he denied, shrugging into his jacket. ‘I said something was missing.’ He turned to face her, sitting on the edge of his desk, his photo collage framing her nicely.
She pointed backwards at the pictures. ‘Well, look no further. I think those snaps say it all, really.’
Nathan rolled his eyes. ‘I’d defy anybody to not look happy when they’ve just helped a new life into the world, Jacqui. Witnessing other people’s emotions, sharing such an intimate moment, is bound to bring out the grinning idiot in anyone. This has nothing to do with that. I think I’m old enough to know what I want, Jacqui. Old enough to know what makes me happy.’
Jacqui sighed. How could such an intelligent, successful man be so blind to the basics? ‘And you really think a fully listed company on the stock exchange is going to do it? You can’t rely on external stuff to bring you the inner contentment you seek. That has to come from inside — from being totally and completely comfortable with who you are.’
Nate rubbed his eyes. ‘I am.’
Jacqui raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Come on, Nate. Be honest with yourself.’
Nathan gripped the edge of the desk and felt the angle of his jaw tighten involuntarily. He pushed himself off and strode towards her, holding her gaze. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’
Jacqui felt a wave of goose bumps march across her skin both at his nearness and at the sinister gravelly quality of his voice. But it was no time to back down. ‘A little too close to the bone?’
God, he’d forgotten how stubborn she could be. How dogged. Never letting up, never letting him hide from anything. He shook his head. ‘You’re like a cracked record. I command a billion-dollar company. What else should I want?’
‘I remember when just being a doctor was enough.’
‘No, Jacq. No. It was never enough.’ Nathan placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘And if you were honest with yourself, you’d admit being a doctor was never enough for me. I always wanted more.’
Jacqueline searched his face, looking for a crack, a weakness, a sign of doubt. But there was none. His strong features were unflinchingly sure. And she had to at least concede that point to him. He’d always been driven, ambitious. She’d just fallen into the trap so many women fell into — hoping love could change a man.
‘And now you have more has it made you happy, Nate? It’s okay to reassess, you know. To say, Hey, I was much happier when I was eating cold spaghetti out of a tin and doing something I really loved, that really fulfilled me.’
Nathan gave her a grudging smile. He picked up a spiral lock and rubbed it across his fingertips. ‘I hate cold spaghetti.’
Jacqui covered his hand with hers, stilling the sweet torture of his fingers brushing her neck. ‘It’s a metaphor.’
He was looking at her with such conviction. Utterly confident that all was well in his world. And it was so tempting to melt into his arms and leave him to his delusion. After all, she was only back in his life for a few more weeks and then she need never see him again.
And maybe if she hadn’t seen those photos, or witnessed the magic of him with Sonya, she’d be able to do just that. But nothing he said would persuade her that he wasn’t setting himself up for a fall.
‘Oh, Nate,’ she sighed. He was close, and his hands in her hair and on her shoulders were so tempting. She wanted to lay her head on his chest and leave it alone. But would he thank her for leaving him to his illusion? ‘You’re wrong.’
Nathan dropped his arms. This was getting them precisely nowhere. They were never going to agree on this. They were polar opposites.
Really, they always had been.
‘We have to go,’ he said, turning away, striding to the door.
Jacqui felt a hundred more arguments bubble to the surface. But he was once again all business. The warm, smiling doctor who had calmed a frightened patient was gone and the cold, austere businessman was once again standing before her.
‘Fine,’ she murmured, and followed him out.
Later in bed that night their lovemaking bordered on punishing. Nathan had been thinking all day about what she’d said, unable to erase it from his mind. He’d had a million things he should have been doing, should have been thinking about concerning the float, but instead he’d found himself looking deep inside, examining his motives.
And he hated all that psychological claptrap. He remembered it vividly from the counselling he’d had after his father’s suicide.
By the time he’d crawled into bed at one a.m. he’d been tired and irritable. Worse than that, Jacqui had been naked, the sheet half kicked off, and, despite his wanting to shake her, his body had betrayed what he really wanted to do.
Still, it had not been his intention to act on it. He was an adult, capable of restraint. But as he’d lain beside her, her female aroma filling his senses, he’d itched to touch her. And when she’d rolled away from him he’d followed her on to her side, spooning her back.
Normally he woke her leisurely — stroking her hair, tracing the graceful arc of her spine, kissing her neck. But tonight he’d been in no mood for pleasantries. He’d reached for her breast and given a guttural grunt of satisfaction as the nipple had budded in his palm. He’d already been hard, and he’d nestled his erection against her cheeks.
Jacqui had come instantly awake — Nathan’s aftershave and the other scent that made him exclusively Nate combining to lance her womb with hot, savage lust. She’d turned her head awkwardly, her hand snaking into the back of his hair, pulling his lips towards her, finding his mouth, meeting his hard kiss stroke for stroke.
She’d known on some base level that he was still angry with her, and hated that she wanted him so much his approach just didn’t matter. And then his hand had moved from her breast to the heat between her legs, and it really hadn’t mattered.
Nathan wasn’t sure how long they lay panting in the dark afterwards, staring at the ceiling. All he knew was that it seemed like an age and yet his heart still hammered madly.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said today.’
Jacqui’s pulse, which had been tripping along, suddenly slowed, coming perilously close to stopping. ‘Really?’
Nathan nodded. ‘You were right.’
Jacqui shifted slightly so she could look at his face —not that she could see it properly in the night shadows, just the strong outline of his jaw. ‘Really?’
‘I am missing something.’
‘Okay.’ Jacqui lay silently, waiting for the qualifier.
‘I’ve worked my butt off for years. And I haven’t taken my eyes off the prize. Not once. Not even to acknowledge that a part of me wasn’t that thrilled with it all. That there was something missing from my life. Let’s face it, I hardly do any real medicine these days. I go to work at my corporate office and I spend all day trying to make my company the best it can be — pushing papers around, talking with accountants and lawyers, stock market analysts and pharmaceutical directors, government ministers. I chair executive meetings and network my butt off, but deep down -’ He rubbed his jaw. ‘I don’t feel...fulfilled.’
And suddenly he knew what it was he’d been missing from his life these past few years. The source of the nagging sense of disquiet.
It was Jacqui.
‘It’s you. I’m missing you.’
Everything careened to a stop around her. Her breathing, her pulse, her vision. Even the air currents ground to halt mid-swirl. Jacqui wondered if this was what it felt like to have a stroke. She gave a hesitant laugh.
‘I’m serious.’ And he was. It had taken him a while to figure it out, but now he had he didn’t want to waste any more time. He didn’t know the logistics of it all — he just knew he didn’t want to see her wa
lk away in a few weeks. ‘What do you think?’
What did she think? Oh, God! She must have really rattled him today. ‘I think you’re letting great sex sweep you away into nostalgia land.’
He rolled up onto his elbow. ‘It isn’t about the sex.’
‘And,’ she continued, ignoring him, hoping that she sounded calm above a pulse that was thrumming so loudly through her ears she couldn’t even hear herself speak, ‘when you feel you’re missing something it’s only natural to want to reclaim something that worked for so long.’
‘It can work again. We just need to commit.’
Jacqui rolled her eyes. Typical Y-chromosome, can-do attitude. Some things just didn’t work—no matter how much you wanted them to. ‘You can’t give me what I want.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I can.’
Jacqui looked up into his face, shadowed by the night, softening the arrogance of his statement. She raised her hand to gently cup his jaw. ‘Nate, you don’t even know what I want.’
She wasn’t sure she knew any more.
‘Yes, I do.’
Jacqui’s heart was banging madly in her chest. ‘Really? What is it, Nate? What do I want?’
‘The same thing you’ve always wanted, Jacq. A baby. I can give you a baby.’
Jacqui drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as her hire car ate up the miles to Serendipity the next morning. She was so angry with Nathan it sat like a molten shard of hot metal in her chest, burning like acid, cutting like diamond.
She hadn’t even been able to lie with him after his preposterous announcement — had fled to the guestroom, visions of a beach baby with pudgy arms and a strawberry-blonde fringe snapping at her heels.
I can give you a baby.
Just like that. As if he could walk into his lab and engineer one for her. Which was exactly, of course, what he could do. But how dared he use a baby as a commodity? A bargaining chip. Waggling it in front of her nose like a carrot.
Yes, discovering her infertility, knowing she’d never hold her own baby, had been one of her greatest laments, but she wasn’t about to let him manipulate her or the life of an innocent child for his own advantage. To plug some hole in his barren billionaire existence!
But, as angry as she was with Nathan, she was angrier with herself. Because driving in the opposite direction, driving away from him, hurt more. More than the insult of last night. It was time to face facts.
She’d fallen for him all over again.
Banging her fist against the horn a few times in sheer frustration she muttered, ‘Stupid! Stupid! Stupid.’
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes and she bit her lip to beat them away. She would not shed tears over the stupidest thing she’d ever done. She deserved to be miserable for getting herself into this predicament again.
Although, if she was going for total honesty, she had to admit that she’d never really stopped loving him in the first place.
She’d wanted to.
Wanted to so much she’d convinced herself it was so.
Oh, sure, if anyone had asked her if she still loved him she would have told them yes. But in that genteel, familiar way one might reserve for a comfy old jumper or a childhood teddy bear. Not this vibrant, alive, hell-this-is-going-to-hurt kind of way.
But spending time with him, falling prey to the same old chemistry, catching glimpses of the uni student she’d fallen in love with, had freed the full-throttle version from the vault she’d triple-locked it in all those years ago.
She groaned out loud. How could she? Not only fall for her ex, but fall for the grown-up version who was even further removed from her and what she wanted and needed and believed in than he’d been the first time round.
A man who had offered her a baby in exchange for her... company. No words of love or family. Just a cut-and-dried deal for a commodity he’d suddenly decided only she could provide.
Goddamn it! She should never have invited him in to her house that night. Should have slammed the door in his face and gone back to bed. Should have known he’d be trouble.
With a capital T.
Shep greeted her at the door with as much exuberance as a twelve-year-old golden retriever with ageing hips could muster. She dropped to her knees, buried her face in his long white coat and promptly burst into tears.
‘Oh, Shep, I’ve done something totally idiotic,’ she murmured.
Shep whined and licked her face and Jacqui hugged him closer. ‘Come on, boy,’ she said after a few minutes, pulling herself out of the mire of self-pity. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
Shep wagged his tail and gave an enthusiastic bark, and Jacqui laughed, ruffling his head.
They spent a lot of time together over the next two days. In fact, Jacqui had a great time catching up with everyone. Word soon got out, and people from all around the district called in to the practice for a yarn — sick animal or not.
There was something soothing about being surrounded by people who loved her and work that fulfilled her. The ache in her chest was still there, but she was laughing. Living.
During the day, anyway.
But there was nothing to distract her during the long hours of the night. Not even her fury at Nathan helped with the acute loneliness. It had only been a few weeks, but she’d quickly grown used to sleeping with him again. Waking next to him. Being roused in the middle of the night by his touch at her hip, his lips on her neck.
Their years apart had lulled her into complacency over the potency of the feelings Nathan could arouse. And it was a wake-up call she wished she’d never had.
Lightning cracked across the sky late Saturday afternoon, and the roiling surf pounded angry fingers against the beach as Jacqueline made sure all the windows were closed. She could see the gnarled old trees along the shoreline bending like mere saplings. They were in for a hell of a storm.
The weather had been crazy for months now, and the ground was still boggy and the creeks and rivers still swollen from the deluge the weekend Nathan had forced his way back into her life. Roads and bridges had been washed away, property damaged, stock lost. Another soaking now would add to the area’s woes.
When the storm finally hit, it didn’t disappoint. It unleashed its fury in a swirling, seething, growling maelstrom. Heavy rain pelted down and Jacqui, for one, was pleased to be curled up in her lounge room with a cup of tea, a good book, and Shep warming her feet.
When the knock came half an hour later she went to investigate with an eerie sense of déjà-vu. Shep barked from the top of the stairs, wagging his tail as she opened the door.
To a grim-faced Nathan.
Jacqui’s heart gave a huge kerthump! Nathan was here. He looked a little haggard, but at least he was dry this time, despite the deluge.
‘What is it with the weather around here? If it keeps this up the bridge’s going to go under again.’
Jacqui’s grip tightened on the doorknob. He’d come to chat about the weather? ‘What do you want, Nathan?’
‘You’ve been avoiding my calls.’
The urge to hurl herself into his arms warred with the desire to slap his face. ‘I told you in my note I’d be back tomorrow.’
‘I came to make sure.’ She was wearing her red cotton gown and, Nathan doubted, not much underneath it, and the desire to touch her, to pull her close, was strong. But he had erred badly the other night, and she was glaring at him as if he was the enemy. Or at least as if she was going to slam the door in his face.
‘There was no need.’
He took a step forward into the house, forcing her to take a step back. ‘Humour me,’ he said dryly.
Shep barked, and Nathan pushed past her, bounding up the stairs to greet the dog.
‘Do come in,’ Jacqui muttered.
He leaned forward to receive a sloppy smooch from Shep, and his faded blue jeans pulled interestingly across his butt. Her heart contracted. She followed him up the stairs, torn between devouring him with her gaze and beating her head against the wal
l. She really had it bad.
‘Cup of tea?’ Jacqui asked, sailing past him as he made himself at home on the very couch where he had lain naked a handful of weeks ago. Shep climbed up on the chair with his old master, and placed his head along Nathan’s thigh.
Jacqui glared at him. Bloody traitor. He left us. But the truth was they’d left each other.
Nathan grimaced. ‘Got anything stronger?’ He had things to say that required a beverage with a little more kick.
She escaped to the kitchen, pleased at the respite. What the hell was he doing here? Her brain turned the question over and over as she fixed herself another cup of tea and grabbed a beer from the fridge left over from some dinner party months before. She took a deep breath before heading back.
Nathan looked up from petting Shep as Jacqui re-entered. She passed him the beer and he cracked the top, taking a long, deep swallow. He watched as she settled herself on the chair opposite, then shut his eyes briefly. The thin cotton covering her didn’t immunise him against what lay beneath.
She looked as good as the cool beer sliding down his throat felt. But her toffee gaze was turbulent with emotion. She looked confused, wary, and mad as hell.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Jacq.’
Jacqui gave a disgusted half laugh. ‘Like you’ve lost your mind?’
Nathan guessed he deserved that. ‘I owe you an explanation.’
Jacqui’s eyebrows just about hit her hairline. ‘You think?’
He sighed. ‘You’re angry.’
‘Damn right I’m angry, Nathan. I mean, who do you think you are? Got a few billion dollars and you think you can buy anyone? Well, I’m not for sale, Nate.’
Nathan shook his head vehemently. ‘No. It wasn’t like that. The last few weeks have been great. Really, really great, and I was lying there with you and I suddenly realised that I missed you. Really missed you.’
Jacqueline slammed the mug down. ‘So you offered me a baby?’ she practically shrieked.
‘Okay, yes,’ he agreed, holding out his hands in a placatory gesture. ‘I handled that badly. I spoke without really thinking it through. I just couldn’t bear the thought of you leaving in a couple of weeks, so I guess I wanted to offer you a deal you couldn’t say no to. But I have thought about it since. A lot.’