by Helen Brooks
Bewildered, Miriam stared at his shadowed features. The night was bitterly cold, the temperature was dropping by the hour and although her cases were packed she still had a hundred and one last-minute things to do. ‘I can’t.’
He didn’t say anything, he just drew her into his arms again, settling her against the solid bulk of him before kissing her long and deeply. It was a confident kiss, strong and warm, igniting a whole host of emotions she could have done without.
Trying to keep a hold on reality, Miriam said again, ‘Really, I can’t. You don’t understand—’
‘Can’t is not a word that features in the Carter vocabulary, you know that.’ He hadn’t let go of her, his breath a white mist in the freezing air. ‘I’m only asking for a few minutes, Miriam.’ He pressed her closer against him. ‘And it is Christmas after all.’
This was crazy, insane. The warning was loud and powerful. But then, could she feel any worse by spending a little time with him than she’d felt over the last days?
His finger outlined her lips, infinitely gentle. ‘Please, Miriam. What’s ten, fifteen minutes in the overall scheme of things? You’ll be back here before you know it.’
‘You’re sure? Ten minutes?’
‘Fifteen at the most.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I promise, OK?’ Sensing her compliance, he drew her to his car, opening the passenger door for her and helping her in before he walked round the bonnet.
As he slid into the driver’s seat Miriam looked at him, at the solid strength of him. His being here tonight meant he still loved and wanted her, didn’t it? And she loved and wanted him. When they were together the way they’d been in that hotel room nothing else mattered, not where they lived, their lifestyle, nothing. Almost in spite of herself, she said quietly, ‘Why didn’t you call me when you got back from the trip?’
He didn’t say anything at first, starting the engine and pulling out into the road before he replied. And then it wasn’t what she had expected—no ‘you told me not to’ or ‘I thought it was for the best’. Calmly, he said, ‘I’ve been busy.’
Busy? Her hands knotted into fists. Busy? ‘I see.’
‘I doubt it.’ He was driving fast, probably too fast, and he didn’t look at her when he said, ‘Why didn’t you call me, Miriam?’
OK, she deserved that one. Because she couldn’t answer him, she said, ‘Where are we going?’
‘Nicely deflected.’ The mockery was back but more overt now. ‘We’re going somewhere quiet, all right?’
He didn’t say any more and as the miles and minutes sped by the silence was charged with such raw electricity that Miriam couldn’t break it. Eventually, when they had been travelling for a good twenty minutes, she said evenly, ‘You said I would be back within fifteen minutes.’
‘I lied.’
Her eyes shot to meet his gaze but his profile was impassive as he stared ahead. ‘What do you mean, you lied?’
‘I lied. I’m not perfect.’
‘Jay, this isn’t funny.’
‘It isn’t meant to be.’
For the first time panic reared its head. ‘Stop this car; I want to get out.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ he said calmly. ‘And relax. You’re with me and I wouldn’t hurt a hair on your head. It’s just time you stopped running, that’s all.’
‘I order you to stop this car, Jay Carter.’
‘Wrong approach, my love.’
It was the ‘my love’ rather than anything else that stopped her voice, the constriction in her throat painful. It seemed a long time since he had called her that and his use of it now was unbearably poignant.
As the car travelled on in the frosty night, a feeling of unreality took over. Miriam was warm and snug, the icy white world outside the car picturesque and Christmas-card perfect, from the black velvet sky studded with a million twinkling stars to the welcoming lights shining in the windows of the houses they passed. She had ceased to wonder where they were going. She was with Jay. He would keep her safe. She knew that.
When they left the built-up confines of the city for more open territory the powerful car began eating up the miles. It must have been an hour or more from when they’d set off that Jay turned off the country road they had been following for a while. He drove the car between two massive wrought-iron gates which had been secured open, following a wide pebbled drive for a few moments before emerging into a semicircular paved area that led to the steps of a large red-bricked Georgian house.
A tall privet hedge enclosed the front garden, which had been landscaped mainly with dwarf bushes and low shrubbery, but two tall, majestic beech trees stood as sentinels either side of the house. Automatic lights lit up the house and drive, and further illumination came from concealed lighting within the bushes and shrubs.
As Jay came to a halt in front of the house Miriam found her voice. ‘Where are we and who lives here?’
Jay turned off the engine and moved to face her, his eyes glittering. ‘We’re halfway between London and Leamington Spa and a friend of Jayne’s lives here. She and her family are spending Christmas with her husband’s relations in America and Jayne said she’d keep an eye on the place. Jayne and Guy moved into the area a couple of weeks ago. It’s a good place to raise a family.’
Aware she’d asked the wrong questions, Miriam said tightly, ‘What I meant was, why are we here?’
‘I wanted to show you round.’
‘Show me round?’ She stared at him in bewilderment. ‘But this is someone’s house, Jay. You can’t just wander in.’
He extracted some keys from his pocket. ‘Actually I can,’ he said mildly. ‘And this front garden is deceptive—there’s an acre of ground at the back of the house, including a small orchard.’
She didn’t care if there was a full-scale forest, it was someone’s private property and regardless of whether Jay had the keys or not it wasn’t right to invade Jayne’s friend’s privacy. Primly, she said, ‘I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of this friend’s trust in Jayne.’
Jay grinned. ‘I’ve got permission from the owner and her husband, promise.’
‘Is that the same sort of promise you made earlier? The fifteen-minute one?’
Jay clapped a hand to his heart. ‘You know how to wound.’ When she continued to eye him severely, his grin widened. It was terribly sexy. ‘Look, I met Bill and Stephanie when I helped Jayne and Guy move—they had us round for a meal the first night. I swear I’ve got permission, OK? And it’s a hell of a drive on a night like this only to sit out in the cold.’
‘I don’t know…’
‘Well, I do.’ He slid out of the car and came round to open the passenger door, extending his hand. ‘Come on.’
This was crazy. What on earth was she doing miles from home on a cold, frosty night when she’d got to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow?
Strong hands persuaded her out of the car and once she was standing he held her hand as he led her up the steps to the front door. It wasn’t a big deal, it wasn’t even particularly intimate, but the feel of his fingers holding hers caused Miriam to be overwhelmed by a flood of mixed emotions. She didn’t understand where this was going but suddenly the feeling she’d experienced in the car returned. She was with Jay and he wouldn’t hurt her.
He opened the door and then stood aside for her to enter the house first after turning on the light and punching a number into the alarm located on the wall. The action was reassuring. She didn’t feel so much of an intruder now.
The large hall was beautiful, the natural wood floor relieved by a couple of handsome rugs and the light walls and ceiling in perfect harmony with the mellow wood. Jay led her into a vast kitchen first, then a smaller utility room that was still bigger than her bedsit. A breakfast room, dining room, enormous sitting room and second reception room along with a very adequate study made up the ground floor, but when Miriam entered the main sitting room she stopped dead. Jay had left this room till last and when she looked at the enormous log
fire crackling in the walk-in fireplace and the nine-foot Christmas tree—a vision of gold and red—in a corner with gaily wrapped parcels beneath it, she felt panic hit. ‘Jay, someone’s here. They must be back.’
‘Relax, Bill and Stephanie aren’t back until well into the New Year but someone is staying here over Christmas. Us.’
‘Us?’ she repeated vacantly.
‘Us. You and me. The two of us.’ He pulled her into him, encircling her waist and drawing her close. ‘And I promise it’s with their blessing.’
She had gone rigid in his arms. ‘I can’t stay here.’
‘You can,’ he soothed. ‘It’s all arranged. This is a trial run to see if you like the place. The family’s moving to America next year and they want to sell.’
She stared at him wildly. ‘I’m going on holiday with Clara tomorrow.’
‘You were going on holiday with Clara tomorrow,’ he corrected very gently. ‘But now Brian’s going instead. And your suitcases and all the things Clara thought you might need are in one of the bedrooms upstairs.’
‘Clara?’ She couldn’t take it in. ‘Clara wouldn’t do this to me.’ She jerked herself free and he let her go, watching her with inscrutable eyes. ‘She’s my friend.’
‘Which is precisely why she did do it. She wants the best for you and that’s me,’ he said with a complete lack of modesty. ‘Everyone thinks so, including your mother.’
Part of her couldn’t believe this was happening. The other part acknowledged it had the Carter stamp all over it. ‘You’re mad,’ she said faintly.
‘Probably, where you’re concerned. Madly in love and always will be, but we weren’t getting anywhere with the softly-softly approach.’
‘But you don’t like Clara and she doesn’t like you.’ It was probably a silly thing to say in the circumstances but Jay only smiled.
‘When I called her on my return from Germany we had a very interesting chat,’ he said calmly. ‘I had to revise my opinion of her and I think she did the same with me. Certainly she’s been very helpful over the last week or two with all the arrangements and so on. As has your mother, of course. Lovely woman, your mother, and there are not too many men who can say that and mean it about their mother-in-law. I took them both out for a meal one night—’
‘Clara and my mother? You took Clara and my mother out?’
‘And we pooled notes. The result was very interesting. We decided my plan was perfect,’ he continued serenely as though she hadn’t spoken.
‘You charmed them.’ She could see it all. But she had thought Clara was made of sterner stuff.
‘They love you,’ he said, suddenly very serious. ‘And without any prompting from me they both agreed you need me. Not as much as I need you probably, but then that would be impossible. And living apart wasn’t helping you to come to terms with anything. I agree it would be difficult for us to both live in your bedsit, and there was no way you were coming back to the apartment—I’ve got that up for sale, incidentally—and a hotel room over Christmas wasn’t my idea of togetherness. And so I had a word with Bill and Stephanie and they were delighted to think their home would be of use. Whether we buy it or not is incidental. I haven’t even suggested that to them as yet.’
‘You’re selling the apartment?’ She hadn’t heard past that. The apartment was the prize that proclaimed how far he had come, his jewel in the crown, his triumph. ‘But you love it.’
‘It’s an apartment, Miriam.’ His eyes were very steady as they held hers. ‘That’s all. And one thing I’ve learned over the last twelve months is that home is where you are. It’s that simple.’
As she stared at him she became aware for the first time that he wasn’t as cool and composed as he would like her to believe. A small muscle in his jaw gave away the iron control in which he was holding himself. He wasn’t sure how she was going to react, she realised with a start of surprise. He was nervous. It melted her more than anything else could have done.
All she had done for the last year was push him away. Even when she had come to believe that the affair with Belinda was just a product of the other woman’s thwarted desire, she had still pushed him away.
And all he had done was love her.
‘I’m also selling part of the business.’ Again his voice was matter-of-fact. ‘Cutting back on the workload. If I never did another day’s work in my life I’d still have more than enough money to keep us very comfortably off, but I couldn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs all day; I’m not made that way. But I realise there’s a fine line between me driving the business and the business driving me, and I want to make sure I’m around for the things that really matter. So the property side of Carter Enterprises is going.’
‘What are the things that really matter?’ she whispered faintly.
‘You. Us. Our life together. Kids. Building a family home.’
She could barely see him for the tears she couldn’t hold at bay a moment longer. ‘But I’m such a mess,’ she suddenly wailed, surprising them both. ‘And I’d got it all wrong about my mother, she—she told me—’
‘I know, I know.’
Somehow she was in his arms and he was stroking her hair, his voice deep and soft as he soothed her sobs.
‘And I want to trust you, I do, I do, but what if I can’t? You—you’ll grow to hate me—’
‘Never.’
‘And I don’t feel I fit into your world with the dinners and parties and everyone thinking you should have married someone different.’ She hiccuped loudly. ‘And they do. Your friends and business colleagues.’
‘If they do, which I doubt, they’re wrong.’ He mopped her face with a crisp white handkerchief, his touch infinitely gentle. ‘It’s us that matters, only us. Here…’ He undid her coat and slipped it off her shoulders, doing the same with his and flinging them on a sofa. Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her over to a big plumpy armchair close to the fire, settling her on his lap and kissing her.
‘Listen to me,’ he said quietly, brushing the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. ‘We both made mistakes.’
‘No, it was me.’
‘We both made mistakes,’ he repeated firmly. ‘I expected you to slide into my life without giving you credit for the pressures it imposed. My apartment, my friends, my social and work life. I had no idea you felt the way you did about the apartment and at first I blamed you for not telling me, I admit it. But then I asked myself if I’d ever given you the chance. It was all cut and dried, wasn’t it? When two people marry they form a new life together, set up home, establish their own group of friends, but instead I carried on exactly as before but with the addition of a wife.’
‘I—I didn’t mind that.’ She sniffed. ‘Not most of the time anyway, not at first. It was only later, but by then we were—oh, I don’t know. In a pattern, I suppose.’
‘A pattern that needed to be broken.’ He kissed her again, holding her so closely she could feel the steady beat of his heart. ‘We’re going to start again, my love. Build a new foundation and this time we’ll do it right. We’ll work through your insecurities a day at a time but from this minute onwards we bare our souls to each other, nothing kept back. I’m going to spend more time with you and you’re going to talk to me, really talk because I can’t guess what’s gong on in that mind of yours. I’m only a man.’
She whispered something, so softly he bent his head as he said, ‘What’s that?’
‘I’m—I’m frightened you’ll be disappointed with me.’ It was another fear from the past. Her father had been so disappointed with her and her mother that he had walked. She had carried that through her childhood and for a long time afterwards, even when she had come to realise that it was nothing to do with herself and her mother, that her father was a vain, shallow wastrel who would never be much use to any woman.
‘Impossible.’ He brushed his mouth slowly over hers. ‘I love you, Miriam. Everything about you, all the facets of your personality and character that mak
e up the whole. Your softness, your warmth, your sense of humour, your vulnerability—they’re all precious because they add up to the final you. And don’t ask me why you’re so utterly special, why if I can’t have you I’d shrivel up and die inside, because I don’t know except to say that’s what the mystery of true love is all about.’
He lifted his hand to her face, the tawny eyes blazing with such love she knew it was real, for ever, that she was seeing the soul of him. A wonder rose up in her, filling her with indescribable joy.
‘Do you love me?’ he asked very seriously.
Miriam nodded. ‘More than you can imagine,’ she murmured tremulously.
‘And will you live with me in a home we start together, somewhere where children can fill up all the empty corners?’
Her fingers came gently to his mouth, tracing the firm contours of his lips. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and he heaved an unsteady breath.
‘My darling,’ he said huskily, ‘we’re going to have a wonderful Christmas.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN Miriam awoke on Christmas Eve she was aware of being cocooned in a delicious cosy warmth, but it was only when she opened her eyes she realised she wasn’t in her little bedsit. Jay was beside her and she was lying curled into his body with her back to his chest, his muscled, hairy leg entwined intimately with hers and one of his large hands holding the soft mound of her breast. From his steady, deep breathing she knew he was fast asleep.
She didn’t know what time it was but the weak winter sunlight filtering through the partly drawn curtain told her it wasn’t early. Which wasn’t surprising in view of the fact that they hadn’t gone to sleep until dawn.
She shut her eyes again and lay relaxed and still in the comfort of the big bed, her mind reliving the hours of lovemaking they’d indulged in. He had undressed her slowly in front of the roaring fire in the sitting room at first as they had whispered sweet nothings to each other in an orgy of love, divesting himself of his own clothes before drawing her down onto the thick lambswool rug in front of the fire. He had touched and tasted her with sensual tenderness for a long time until she had begun to tremble with frustration, and when he had taken her her body had been fluid, every nerve-ending responding to the satin-hard invader inside her.