by Maggie Cox
Without really meaning to, she found herself touching the slightly raised area on her lip where Jack had kissed her so bitterly and yet with such undeniable need earlier today, and was taken aback by the inescapable rush of pleasure that suddenly throbbed like molten lava through her veins. Immediately Caroline dropped her hand, silently scolding herself for dwelling on the memory of his lustfully hot kiss instead of that cruel question he’d asked, which had wounded her almost too deeply for tears.
‘I—I know how much you loved Meg…how much she meant to you. How can I be anything but tremendously flattered that you would even consider asking me to get engaged to you, Nicholas?’
Hugging her arms across her chest, Caroline knew her awkward smile was concerned, but regretful. She didn’t want to hurt Nicholas, or make him feel bad in any way, and she certainly didn’t want to lose his very dear and valuable friendship but she had to make him see that a more personal relationship, was definitely not on the agenda.
‘But the truth is,’ she continued, ‘I’d much rather keep our friendship than potentially spoil what we have by trying to turn our relationship into something it isn’t.’
This time Nicholas did get to his feet. Putting his wine aside, he captured the ends of Caroline’s fingers in his own and brushed over them with the pads of his thumbs. It was true that there was tenderness in his expression as he gazed at her, but against the fiery, electrically-charged glances that Jack cast her it was like comparing ice-cubes to burning hot coals…
‘Why assume our getting engaged and then married would spoil our friendship…hmm?’ Releasing one of her hands, he brushed aside a radiant curl of shining gold that had glanced against her smooth forehead. ‘The strongest unions are always the ones that start out with friendship. It was certainly that way for Meg and me. We have a great bond, Caroline. I admire you and like you more than I could begin to say. I can’t think of anyone I would like more to be my wife than you. At least think about it, will you? I wasn’t expecting a decision straight away…’
‘I’m sorry, Nicholas, but I don’t really need any time to think about it. I know it can’t have been easy for you to broach the subject…and it’s a terrific compliment to be asked…but I’m afraid my answer has to be no.’
Not liking the sudden sense of intimacy he was forcing upon her that was so at odds with all these years of steady platonic friendship, Caroline drew away from his near embrace and moved across the room to the door that stood ajar.
‘I think I’m going to make a cup of tea…would you like one?’
Genuinely perplexed, Nicholas shook his head. ‘No, thank you. I don’t think I would like a cup of tea right now. If I’ve offended you in any way, Caroline, let me be the first to assure you that I—’
Suddenly wishing that he would go, Caroline felt as though she might explode with the tension that had gathered force inside her. So many emotions were charging through her all at once that she scarcely knew what to do with them. She didn’t want to marry Nicholas—her father’s closest friend. She didn’t want to sacrifice herself for any man—no matter what the reason—ever again. And she certainly didn’t want to spend another seventeen years heartsore and racked with too much guilt over a man who barely even accorded her the right to possess hurt feelings because he was so certain that he was the one who had been so cruelly wronged. She would not be pushed into a corner again by anybody!
‘You haven’t offended me at all, Nicholas, but I really don’t want to discuss this any further. I just—I’m sorry, but I really need to be by myself right now. Please try and understand.’
Straightening the cuffs on his shirtsleeves beneath his very conservative tweed sports jacket, Nicholas patted down his pockets distractedly as he walked towards her, clearly both embarrassed and confused by Caroline’s rejection of his proposal—a response he obviously had not been expecting.
‘I certainly wouldn’t dream of outstaying my welcome, Caroline. We’d best just leave things as they stand for a day or two, under the circumstances, and then I’ll ring you. That all right with you?’
Unable to bring herself to look at him directly, Caroline nodded mutely.
Feeling the need to escape for a while, Jack had driven to London, booked into a small chic hotel in Chelsea owned by an American friend, then called up that same friend’s sister, whom he’d briefly dated before meeting Anna and who was now based in the UK, working for an insurance company in the city.
Amanda Morton was a woman of the world—she’d understand that Jack wasn’t calling her to renew their relationship but was simply looking for a little female company while he was in town. They’d parted on amicable terms, remained friends, and Jack was merely fulfilling a promise that if he was ever in London he’d look her up.
Now, as he sat next to her in the low-lit bar area in the luxurious lounge of a famous hotel, her slender thigh pressed up close to his as she regaled him with gossip from her office as though any higher concerns—such as life, death and the universe—never even entered her brain, Jack remembered why his relationship with Amanda had not progressed much beyond two or three dates. Certainly her looks couldn’t be faulted, with her elegantly styled blonde hair, slender figure and sparkly blue eyes, but Jack couldn’t help thinking of another blonde—one with delectable brown eyes—who he’d last seen wearing an expression of inconsolable sadness and hurt…put there by him.
About to take a deep slug of the bourbon on the rocks that he had ordered, Jack shifted in his seat, put down his glass, and came to a decision that surprised even himself.
Amanda immediately stopped talking and cast him a highly flirtatious glance from beneath her heavily mascaraed lashes.
‘What’s up, sweetie? Don’t you like it here? We can go someplace else if you’d like?’
‘I’m sorry, Amanda, but I have to go.’
‘Go?’
She blinked up at him in bewilderment as he rose to his full six feet two inches. His handsome face was preoccupied and his mouth drawn—immediately alerting even the oblivious Amanda to the fact that his mind had not been as attentive to her conversation as she might have liked.
‘What do you mean, you have to go? We’ve barely just got here!’ she declared in dismay. ‘I know you’re not interested in seeing me on a regular basis, Jack, but I’d at least hoped we’d wind up in bed together before the night was through!’
Why had he done it? Jack asked himself. Why had he called up a woman he’d barely been able to muster the most fleeting interest in when he’d first stupidly dated her and expected her to help distract him from the unpalatable turmoil that had assailed him since he’d left Caroline back home with that stricken look in her eyes? All he knew right then was that his need to see the girl the youthful Jack Fitzgerald had fallen in love with was impossible to ignore, and his thoughts and feelings would give him no peace—even if he jumped on a plane to Alaska to escape them—if he didn’t drive straight back to her right now. It didn’t matter that his inexplicable desire had no rhyme or reason, or that the outcome of it would probably result in even more, unwelcome turmoil than he was enduring already, he simply had to go back and see her.
‘I’m sorry, Amanda.’
Employing full mercenary use of his undoubted charisma, Jack tipped up Amanda’s chin and smiled beguilingly into her eyes as she stood up and seductively leaned towards him. Her perfume was a little on the overpowering side, and Jack fleetingly wondered why some women never understood the power of subtlety, no matter if they came from money or not. Money couldn’t buy class, and that was a fact.
The thought immediately made Jack think of Caroline, and he couldn’t help but silently admit that she had always had that commodity in abundance…even when she was only seventeen. And it wasn’t just social class he was thinking about either. Her grace, beauty and innocence had made Jack feel like a much better man than he knew himself to be whenever he’d been around her.
‘I don’t mean any insult, but it was wrong of me to call you when I had o
ther things on my mind that need taking care of. Things that I now realise I simply can’t leave unattended. Can you forgive me?’
‘It depends what “other things” are on your mind, Jack,’ Amanda crooned softly, winding his silk tie round her fingers and tugging on it a little. ‘If it’s work…well, being ambitious for my own career, I can totally understand such a preoccupation. But on the other hand…if it’s another woman that’s been distracting your mind…then I might, just might, be a teensy-weensy bit upset about that.’
Feeling his patience getting a little strained, Jack abruptly rescued his tie and kissed the pouting Amanda as briefly as possible on her forehead. Pressing some notes from his wallet into her hand, he smiled. ‘Get yourself a cab home. I won’t forget I owe you dinner,’ he declared as he turned to walk across the hotel lounge.
And tomorrow he would send her the biggest bouquet he could order from the florists to make up for the disappointment of his desertion tonight. But even as he ventured one last glance round, as he reached the twin doors that led into the lobby, he smiled wryly to himself as he saw Amanda walk confidently up to the bar and start avidly chatting to the young, good-looking Spanish bartender behind it…
Caroline had driven to the beach after Nicholas had left, and walked the length of the sandy cove with the rain and wind lashing at her clothing and stinging her face. She’d cried, secure in the knowledge that nobody else would witness her descent into misery, that only someone desperate of spirit would be out walking along a deserted beach in the dark with the rain bucketing down as though God was emptying out a heavenly reservoir upon her head.
She’d desperately needed the release of tears, and after Nicholas’s unexpected and, it had to be said, unwelcome proposal she knew the tide of change that was rolling towards her was both inevitable and unstoppable. After this, she could rely on nothing to stay the same. Even her good memories of Jack would be tainted by his reappearance, and the churning-up of emotions that his presence had cruelly revisited upon her. Caroline had sobbed desperately for the predicament she found herself in—for the unimaginably traumatic sense of loss and grief that she had suffered through having the abortion and then being shunned by her baby’s father, the man she had loved beyond imagining, the man who was never, ever going to either understand or forgive her for what she had done…
By the time she got back to the house she was thoroughly drenched, and shivering with cold, and she immediately went upstairs, stripped off, donned her warm dressing-gown and ran a hot bath. Half an hour later, once again ensconced in the old-fashioned comfort of her dressing-gown, her feet up on her armchair’s matching footstool as she sipped a mug of hot cinnamon-flavoured milk in front of the fire, Caroline silently and thankfully acknowledged that her misery had ebbed a little and the heat and comfort of her home were helping subdue some of the tremendous hurt that had deluged her.
The only way forward, she concluded, thinking hard as she stared into the flames flickering in the grate, was to somehow learn to forgive herself for what she’d done…and also forgive Jack for blaming her. That was the only way she could really put the past behind her and look forward to a happier future. Maybe she should re-examine the possibility of earning her living as an artist? It wasn’t too late. And she could still teach part-time, as she was doing, and give encouragement and the benefit of her experience to young girls like Sadie Martin. Change shouldn’t be feared.
If Nicholas couldn’t remain the friend he’d always been she still had other friends she could count on…and she would make new ones too. But at the same time she couldn’t keep looking outside for the source of her happiness…it simply had to come from within, or else she’d for ever be at the mercy of external forces. When she next saw Jack…if she saw him again…and her pulse raced a little at the idea she might not…Caroline was determined to tell him about the decision she had reached. He could continue to blame her for as long as he liked, but he would have to understand that she was no longer going to be a willing victim of that blame. She was steering the ship of her own life and would not let anyone knock her off course again, no matter who they were.
Having finished her drink, Caroline put down her mug and snuggled up into the chair with her feet drawn up beneath her. Continuing to stare into the hypnotic flames that danced across the coals in the grate, before she knew it sleep had seductively beckoned.
Into her dreams intruded the incongruous chimes of the doorbell. Jolting upright with shock, Caroline opened her eyes wide and glanced frantically up at the clock on the mantel. It was almost half-past one in the morning…hardly a sensible time for callers of any description…so who could it be?
Uncurling her legs from beneath her, and rising anxiously, she yelped in pain when the arch of her foot almost bent double with cramp. Falling back into the chair, she quickly rubbed at the offending area, praying that the doorbell would not chime again—hoping that whoever it was who had rung it had mistakenly stopped outside the wrong door and had now realised his or her mistake and moved on. No such luck. As the echo of the ringing chimes demonstrated her caller’s persistence, Caroline got slowly to her feet, her cramp now gone and her skin clammily cold with fright.
Glancing at the iron poker in the brass stand beside the grate, she did seriously wonder about taking it with her—but then an obstinate refusal to believe that she wasn’t safe in her own home suddenly collared her fear by the throat and sent her striding confidently out to the front door…without the poker.
When she saw the definite shadow of a man’s figure outside the stained glass panels in the door, Caroline almost breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it must be Nicholas. He’d probably been called out to see a patient and, driving home again, had seen some of her house lights on because she had fallen asleep in the chair and hadn’t turned them out yet. Hoping that he didn’t hold a grudge against her because she’d earlier refused his request to get engaged, Caroline undid the locks and pulled open the door.
‘Jack!’
Her legs trembled hard at the sight of her ex-lover. Grasping the fleece lapels of her robe together in her hand across her chest, Caroline simply stared at him as he shrugged inside his raincoat, his dark hair sheened by the rain and the starkly defined planes and angles of his amazing face disturbingly highlighted by the illumination from inside the house.
‘What is it? Has something happened?’
She had the most unnatural feeling that she was speaking in slow motion. But, even though Jack’s appearance was a total mystery and a shock to her, something inside Caroline couldn’t help but foolishly grasp at the most impossible hope.
‘I needed to see you. I realise it’s very late, but can I come in?’
As logic briefly superseded her impossible hope, she wanted to say no. This man was like a broken arrow embedded in her heart. Inviting him over her threshold would be like inviting him to deepen that wound even more. Already her throat was constricting with anguish at the sight of him.
In the end, because words simply deserted her, Caroline just watched with a mounting sense of unreality as Jack came inside, shucked off his raincoat, hung it on the coatstand, then came back to her—his ardent gaze studying her in a way that made her bones turn to liquid silk. Without saying a word he cupped the side of her face with his hand, the startling touch of his cool skin acquainting her with the chill of the rainy night outside. He kept his palm there with a gentleness that ripped the breath from Caroline’s lungs. As her wary and captivated gaze examined the arresting features and sharply drawn jawline before her—that jawline denoted he was wilful as well as meeting life on his own terms, with little regard for anyone else’s modus operandi—she found herself wondering if they would still be together now if she hadn’t fallen pregnant and her father hadn’t made her have a termination. God knew she’d been crazy about him…crazy enough to jump ship and elope with him to the States or anywhere else he suggested if he had but asked. He never had.
She knew this was dangerous thin
king. What Jack was doing here in the middle of the night she had no idea, but one thing Caroline was certain of—she wasn’t going to let him make her feel bad about herself ever again.
She broke free of his touch, unconsciously pursing her dry lips to moisten them as he watched her, his brooding gaze still cleaving to her face as though he couldn’t bear to look anywhere else but at her.
‘What do you want, Jack?’
‘Isn’t that obvious?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t—’
‘You,’ he came back, before she’d even finished the sentence, his lips unsmiling and for once without mockery.
A high-voltage charge of heat bolted through Caroline’s middle, making her hips soft and the rest of her body feel as if she could climb out of her very skin with the seductive promise his disturbing reply created.
‘That’s a very bad joke, under the circumstances,’ she returned huskily, feeling as if she really was losing her hold on reality. ‘I think you’d better just go.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’ Jack asked, moving purposefully towards her even as he registered the distress on her face. ‘What if…deep down…you don’t want me to go either, Caroline?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘YOU must be delusional!’ Her dark eyes flashed her indignant denial even as, terrifyingly, she registered his hand sliding expertly behind her neck beneath the soft tousled fall of her hair, and his mouth moving threateningly closer to hers. ‘I don’t want you to stay…I want you to go! Do you think I enjoy being hurt by you? When I saw you last you left me under no illusion as to what you thought of me and your words cut me in two! What we had was finished a long time ago, Jack. Why not just accept that and walk away now? Just forget me and go!’
Jack was struck by the ragged truth of Caroline’s impassioned words. He should just walk away and forget her, as she’d advised, and spare them both further agony. But even as his lips stilled, scant inches from hers, he knew that trying to curtail his increasing desire for her was like hoping to douse an inferno with a mere thimbleful of water. His senses were held in thrall by her.