by Daphne Clair
She recognized the quick jut of his jaw, the “don’t push me” look in his eyes. But then he loosened his hold, dropping his hand from her tingling fingers although he still retained his grip on her waist, and allowed her to turn to her parents. Looking at them, he said politely, “How are you Mrs. Camden…Mr. Camden?”
Henry Camden nodded stiffly. Margaret said crisply, “We’re well, Jager, and Paige…as you can see, she’s fine.” She paused, giving her daughter a covertly anxious glance before turning to him again. “We didn’t expect to see you here.”
“It was kind of a last-minute invitation.”
“Really?” The chilly reply didn’t encourage elaboration and he didn’t offer it.
Henry’s mature male rumble was directed at Jager. “I hear you’ve been doing very well for yourself.”
Margaret looked at her husband in surprise. It was evidently the first she’d heard of it.
Jager said, “You do?”
“A bit of a highflier these days.”
“I get by.”
Henry gave a bark of reluctant laughter. “More than that, I’d say.”
“Would you?”
Margaret demanded, “What are you talking about, Henry?”
Instead of explaining, Henry looked around them and said, “We’re holding up the traffic here. If we’re going to talk, we should move.”
But the music stopped then, and other couples began walking off the floor.
Margaret shifted her gaze to Jager and said pointedly, “Paige has certain duties as her sister’s attendant.”
Jager inclined his head, and lifted both hands away from Paige. “I haven’t balled and chained her.” His eyes challenged her. His voice low, he asked, “Do you want to leave me, Paige?”
Echoes of the past rose, hauntingly. Had he meant to arouse them? “I do have things to do.” She hated the apologetic note in her voice. Trying to sound more assertive she said, “It’s been nice seeing you again, Jager.”
Her mother looked relieved and approving. Jager merely lifted one dark brow a fraction and grinned at Paige. A tight, feral grin that both teased and promised, telling her she couldn’t dismiss him so easily and it amused him that she’d even tried.
A shiver of apprehension spiraled about her spine. Jager had changed in the intervening years. Formidably self-assured instead of cocky and defensive, he carried a distinctly unsettling aura of sexual potency that had little to do with the height and good looks bequeathed by his unknown ancestors, and everything to do with how he saw himself as a man. The raw, brash, quicksilver sexuality had been replaced by tempered steel under the polished surface of a new sophistication. Which made him all the more dangerous if, as she suspected, he had learned to use it as a weapon.
Well, she had changed too, Paige told herself as she left his side to hunt down either her sister or the best man. She was no longer in thrall to teenage hormones and romantic fantasies. There was more to love than the seductive siren call of sex, more to life than falling head over heels into lust and expecting it to overcome all obstacles.
Paige no longer trusted feelings alone in her relationships. Having learned her lesson the hard way, she had determined a long time back that for the rest of her life her head would be the ruler of her heart.
She spied Maddie’s veil enveloping blond curls, and joined her sister, smiling at the people who had engaged the bridal couple in talk. Maddie slid a glance at her and gracefully extricated them both, heading for the room set aside for the newlyweds to change in later.
Closing the door, Maddie turned. “Are you all right? I’m sorry, Peg.” The childhood nickname slipped out. “I had no idea Jager would turn up. It’s the most incredible coincidence—you wouldn’t believe it!”
“Coincidence? Wasn’t he invited?”
“Glen invited him. He didn’t know…well, I’ve never mentioned Jager’s actual name to him, so how could he? The thing is, Jager’s kind of a long-lost relation.”
“Of Glen’s?”
Maddie nodded. “They’re half brothers.”
Paige’s mouth fell open. Her thoughts whirled, and the one dazzling, golden one that surfaced and burst out into words was, “Jager found his family!”
Maddie was giving her a peculiar look.
Slowly the implications sank in. Paige gulped, swallowed and made a connection. “Glen’s mother…?”
Her sister’s white-veiled head shook vehemently. “His father…and some girl he knew before he got engaged to Glen’s mother. Mrs. Provost doesn’t know yet…with the wedding and everything it’s not a good time for extra family stress. Mr. Provost asked the boys to keep it quiet until he gets around to telling her, but Glen wanted his new brother here for his wedding day. They’ve only met once or twice but they hit it off from the start, he said.”
Glen was an only child; Paige could imagine he’d have been intrigued at the advent of an unknown sibling. “How long ago?” It must be recent.
“A few weeks, I think. Glen only told me today. I had no idea until then, and I couldn’t get you alone before…I still haven’t said anything to him about you and Jager.” Maddie twisted her hands together. “Has it ruined the day for you?”
“Of course not!” It had been a stressful occasion anyway, fraught with old pain and regrets, but she’d weathered it for Maddie’s sake, and she would weather this too. No guilt and worry about Paige should be allowed to cloud Maddie’s happy day. “Both of us have put our youthful indiscretion far, far behind us. It’s quite fun,” she lied gaily, “seeing him again, catching up on things.”
His phrase, she realized, as Maddie looked doubtful, then relieved. “I guess it was all over years ago,” Maddie said hopefully. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
There wasn’t much she—or anyone—could do about it. “I’m fine, stop worrying, Mad. Hadn’t we better get back? Your husband will think you’ve left him already.”
“Never!” Maddie turned to the mirrored dressing table and the makeup container sitting on it. “My husband,” she repeated dreamily, fishing in the miniature hatbox and bringing out a lipstick. “Fancy me being an old married woman!” She began expertly applying the lipstick.
“Hardly old,” Paige argued. Maddie was twenty-five to her own twenty-nine. “But old enough to know what you’re doing, I guess. Which is more than I can say for my first venture into matrimony.”
In the mirror, Maddie threw her a sympathetic look, shook out a tissue and blotted her lips. Gorgeous lips, Paige noted abstractly. Pink perfection. Glen was a lucky man. Her sister was as sweet as she was pretty, without a malicious bone in her body.
Scrunching the tissue, Maddie said, “It wasn’t even a proper wedding, was it? I mean, it hardly counts, really.”
“No.” Paige’s voice was perfectly steady. “It doesn’t count at all.”
CHAPTER TWO
JAGER didn’t approach her again, but while Paige dutifully danced with the best man and then others, she was continually aware of him, leaning against a wall with arms folded or prowling the periphery of the room, exchanging a few words here and there with other guests, and for several minutes talking with Glen and Maddie.
When the bride and groom left, Paige kept her hands at her sides as Maddie tossed her bouquet into the crowd of well-wishers, allowing an excited young girl to catch it.
She was looking forward to slipping away now her duties were over. She couldn’t have turned down Maddie’s tentative request to attend her, hedged about with anxious assurances that Maddie would understand if she didn’t want to. But now she felt drained and tired, with an incipient headache beating at her temples.
She sought out her mother and said quietly, “Do you mind if I go on home now? I’m not needed anymore.”
“Of course, dear.” Margaret searched her face. “Your father and I have to stay until everyone’s gone, but I’m sure Blake would drive you…” Margaret looked around for the best man.
“No, give me my purse and I’l
l call a taxi. There’s a phone in the lobby.”
“Well…if you’re sure.”
“Yes. I’ll see you in the morning.” Paige leaned down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “It was a lovely wedding.”
“Yes, wasn’t it?” Margaret glowed. At least this time she’d launched a daughter into matrimony in style.
In the lobby Paige found a card pinned above the phone with the number of a taxi company printed on it, and was dialing the final digit when a lean, strong hand came over her shoulder and pressed down the bar, leaving the dial tone humming in her ear.
“You don’t need them,” Jager’s voice said. “I’ll take you home.”
Her hand tightened on the receiver. She didn’t turn. “Thank you,” she said, “but I’d prefer a cab.”
“Why? My car’s right outside.”
Why? She couldn’t think of an answer that didn’t sound either unnecessarily rude or like an overreaction.
He lifted his hand and gently removed the receiver from her grasp, replacing it in the cradle. Belatedly she said, “I wouldn’t want to take you out of your way…”
He didn’t even bother to reply to that, already steering her toward the doors that swished open at their approach. “Where are you staying?”
“With my parents.” She waited for some caustic remark, but all he said was, “The car’s over here.”
It was long and shiny, a dark navy-blue, she guessed, though it was difficult to tell at night.
The interior was spacious and the upholstery was real, soft leather.
Unless he was living beyond his means Jager had come up in the world. Her father had said something about him apparently doing well.
He slid into the seat beside her and buckled up his safety belt. When he turned the key in the ignition she scarcely heard the engine start, but they were soon gliding out of the car park.
“So,” he said, “you came home for your sister’s wedding. Last I heard you were living in New York.”
“Yes.” Paige shifted uneasily in the leather seat. “And you…? What are you doing now?”
He spared her a glance. “I run a telecommunications business, providing systems for industry.”
“Is it a big business?”
“Big enough.” He shrugged. “We’re expanding all the time, increasing staff numbers.”
“It sounds…interesting.”
“It’s challenging. New technologies are being invented and refined all the time. We have to stay a jump ahead, deciding which innovations are a flash in the pan and which will become industry standards.”
“It sounds risky?”
“I’ve built a solid enough base that we can afford the odd risk. So far I haven’t been wrong.”
“You must be proud of yourself.”
He seemed to ponder that. “Pride is what goes before a fall, isn’t it?”
“Are you afraid of falling?”
He laughed, with that new, somehow disturbing male confidence. “Not anymore. Are you?”
She looked away from him, not answering.
He gave her a second or two, then said quite soberly, “I learned a long time ago, no matter how hard the fall, I can survive. And I never make the same mistake twice.”
“It seems like a sound philosophy.” She’d survived too. And she had no intention of scaling any heights again with him.
He said, “I heard you got married in America.”
“Yes.”
“Did your parents approve?”
“Yes, actually.” They had come to the wedding, given their blessing.
“But you’re alone now.”
She didn’t want his sympathy. Even less did she want to bare her feelings to him, of all people. To take the conversation away from herself she asked, “Are you married?”
The first question that had come to mind, but immediately she regretted asking. It could lead to a minefield.
“Like I said,” he replied, “I never make the same mistake twice.”
“Marriage isn’t always a mistake,” she said.
It left him an opening, she realized, and was thankful that he didn’t take it. He gunned the motor and the car leaped forward before he lifted his foot slightly and the engine settled back into its subdued growl. When he spoke again his voice was remote and cool. “I suppose you can’t wait to get back to…America.”
Evasively she answered, “I’ll be spending some time with my family.”
“How much time…days, weeks?” He paused. “Months?”
“I’m not sure.”
He flashed a glance at her. “He must be pretty accommodating…your husband.”
Her thoughts skittering, she realized Jager didn’t know…
Why should he? Her mouth dried, and her throat ached. She stared through the windscreen with wide-open eyes until they stung and she had to blink. “My husband—”
She didn’t see the other car until it was right in front of them—it seemed to have come from nowhere, the headlights blinding, so close that her voice broke off in a choked scream and she raised her arms before her face, knowing that despite Jager’s frantic wrench at the wheel, accompanied by a sharp, shocking expletive, there was no way he could avoid a collision.
A horrified sense of inevitability mixed with cold, stark terror, and the awareness that maybe this was how—and when—she was going to die.
With Jager, said a clear inner voice, and the thought carried with it both tearing grief and a strange, fleeting sensation of gladness.
The heavy thump and screech of metal on metal filled her ears and the impact jolted her against the seat belt. She was vaguely aware of the windscreen, glimpsed between her shielding arms, going white and opaque, then it disappeared and the two cars, locked together, slid across the road in a slow, agonizing waltz until they came to a jarring halt against a building.
Daring to lower her arms, Paige heard Jager’s voice, seemingly somewhere in the far distance. “Paige—Paige! Are you all right?”
His hand gripped her shoulder, and by the light of a street lamp she saw his face, a deathly color, with dark thin trickles of moisture running from his forehead, his cheeks and his eyes blazing.
“You’re bleeding,” she said, raising an unsteady hand to touch one of the small rivulets, wanting suddenly to cry. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being disfigured.
“Never mind that,” he said impatiently. “Are you hurt?” His hands slid from her shoulders down her arms, and he swore vehemently. “You’re bleeding too.”
She was, from several tiny glass nicks on her bare forearms. “It’s nothing.” She moved her legs, found them whole and unhurt. “I’m all right. Are you?”
“Nothing broken.”
In the background someone was yelling. Car doors slammed and then a face peered into the space left by the broken windscreen. “The police and ambulance are on their way,” said a male voice. “Anyone hurt in there?”
“We’re okay,” Jager answered. “Can you get the passenger door open? My side’s too badly damaged.”
Ambulance staff checked them both and told them they were lucky, but to contact an emergency medical service if they experienced delayed symptoms.
The other driver, miraculously walking, though groggy and with a broken arm, was taken to hospital. While the police were noncommittal when they breath-tested Jager and took statements from both him and Paige, it was fairly obvious the injured man had been drinking.
Within half an hour the cars had been dragged away and the police offered to take Paige and Jager home.
Jager gave them Paige’s parents’ address and climbed into the car beside her. He handed her purse to her and she realized he’d retrieved it from the wreckage.
When the car drew up outside the house he got out and helped her to the pavement, and said to the driver, “Thanks a lot. We appreciate the lift.”
He had his arm around her and was urging her to the gateway as the police car pulled away from the kerb.
&nb
sp; “Don’t you want them to take you home?” she said. “You don’t need to come in with me.”
“It doesn’t look like your parents are in yet. I’m not leaving you alone.”
The garden lights were on—they were on an automatic timer—but the house was in darkness.
When she drew out the key Jager took it from her and opened the door, closing it behind them as he accompanied her into the wide entryway. He found the light switch and she said, “The burglar alarm. You have to press that yellow button on the key-tag.”
He found it and then handed the key on its electronic tag back to her. She felt a trickle of moisture on her forehead and lifted a hand to find the source, wincing as her fingers encountered something sharp. She stared at the tiny droplet of blood on her finger. “I’ve got glass in my hair.”
Jager had regained some of his normal color, but his eyes were darkened in the center, the irises now more gray than green, his mouth tight as he surveyed her. “We need a bathroom,” he said, “to clean up.”
There was one off her room, shared with the bedroom that had been her sister’s when they both lived at home. “Come upstairs,” she offered. It was the least she could do.
Jager’s face was streaked with blood too, and there were red spots on his shirt. His hair was ruffled out of its sleek styling, speckled with sparkling fragments of glass.
He followed her up the wide marble staircase, carpeted in the middle so that their footsteps were silent.
The door to her room was open. Paige swiftly crossed to the bathroom, switching on the light. White and merciless, it shone on shiny decorative tiles and a glass-enclosed shower, bold gold-plated taps and big fluffy towels.
She took a towel and facecloth from a pile on a shelf, handing a set to Jager. “You’d better wash your face.”
While he did so she opened one of the mirrored cupboards, grimacing at her pale reflection, with a smear of blood across the forehead.
As Jager dried himself she turned with a comb in her hand, holding it out to him. “Wait. I’ll get something to catch the glass.” If they used one of the towels the slivers would be caught in the pile.