She was reeling under the full onslaught of his kiss. This had come right out of the blue. She loved it when it was like this. A sudden roar of desire like the opening of a furnace. A girl could get burnt to death very pleasurably in the blast. Even now his hard hands were getting harder—so was the rest of his body. It was so hot and so unexpected that it knocked her off her feet.
‘I need you!’ he bit out thickly against her mouth.
She didn’t get a chance to reply. He picked her up, carried her across the living room and kicked open the bedroom door, not stopping except to kick it shut again before striding to the bed in darkness and putting her on it.
‘I need this!’ His eyes blazed like hot coals as he fell on her with an urgency that made her dizzy.
His hands were moving up her thighs before she could gasp in excited response. He spread them with those hard hands, very hard indeed as they stroked the soft flesh above her stockings. She could feel the rough hairs on the back of his hands. He was masterful, possessive, and he was busy removing her clothes as he kissed her mouth and whispered wicked things to her.
‘Oh, Jared!’ Her voice sounded as though it was melting with shocked pleasure, just as her body was, wet with excitement as his hand found her, stroked her without preamble before pulling her briefs down while she writhed in anticipation of those determined hands returning. Her moans filled the dark bedroom. His breathing was coarse and heavy. He knelt up suddenly to tear off his shirt and throw it to the floor, and the sight of his gorgeous chest made her moan even louder and whisper his name, encouraging him to carry on.
Her words inflamed him. Falling hungrily on her, he removed the last scraps of her clothing. Naked, she twisted wantonly against him, but he was in control, dominating instead of teasing her, stroking her soft nudity with firm expertise. Then his hands suddenly left her. He pushed his trousers off, his shorts, too, and Clara was more than ready when he moved to take her, pushing her thighs wide with his powerful knees.
‘Lovely…’ he growled with the first thrust, ‘you’re so lovely…’
It was fast and hot and quick.
Later, they lay exhausted in each other’s arms. Her head was on his chest. His arm was around her. Love enveloped them in dreamy relaxation. She played with the hairs on his tanned skin and listened to the rain hurling itself against the windows and felt safe.
‘I love you…’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘I love you, too.’ Then he laughed softly, his hand curling trustingly on her naked waist beneath the duvet. ‘I wish I could think of a better way of saying that. Never can, though. Maybe one day I’ll come up with the perfect phrase.’
‘We could have that inscribed in Latin for our motto,’ she said with a smile. “‘Maybe one day.” I wonder how you say “Maybe one day” in Latin?’
He went very still. And very silent. Unsmiling, he looked down into her eyes in the darkness.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered on his chest, looking up. ‘I’ll always love you. Secrets shared or no secrets shared.’
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Of course. Love is love. There’s no price tag on it. And no way out of it. It’s like the elements, Jared. Uncontrollable and unstoppable.’
Tenderness lit his eyes. ‘I wish we were at home. We could sneak downstairs and have a midnight snack!’
‘Excellent plan!’ she laughed. ‘Why don’t we see if they’ve got any room service? I’m famished!’
‘I think it shuts at eleven or something equally inconvenient.’ A smile touched his arrogant mouth. ‘But I could always make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.’
‘Well, if you do,’ she said, coming to a snap decision, ‘I fancy steak and chips!’
He stared. ‘Chips?’
‘Oh, pooh!’ she groaned, burying her face in his warm hairy chest. ‘I can’t take the pressure any more! Give me food and lots of it!’
‘Fried onions? Mushrooms?’ He laughed as he reached for the phone. ‘Extra chips and mayonnaise? How about a double chocolate milkshake?’
‘And six double-decker club sandwiches!’ she cried. ‘Yippee!’
Jared punched out the number for room service and proceeded to play the charming and eccentric multimillionaire for all he was worth. Clara lay on his chest, smiling up at him with love and pride.
Everything would be all right.
So long as they could get from day to day without losing their sense of humour and their love for each other. So long as Susie pulled through. So long as Jared’s secret did not blow up in their faces.
But would all of that really happen for them? Or was it asking too much of life? Everyone got hit by tragedy once in a while…
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE next three days were a strain on both of them. They spent most of their time at the hospital, coming back to the hotel to fall asleep in each other’s arms.
In an effort to take as much pressure off both of them as possible, Jared told Reception to screen all calls. He gave them the names of his international aides, associates, personal assistants and major business colleagues. Only those calls were allowed to be put through to their suite. Everyone else had to leave a message.
‘Including Mitch,’ Jared had told her with a sharp lift to his brows.
The only bright light on the horizon was that Owain Llewellyn had treated Jared’s wishes with respect.
‘About time, too!’ Jared had said tersely when he found out. ‘My life is difficult enough without bumping into him at the hospital, too.’
But there was no danger of that. Owain had arranged to visit only during the night shift, which Gareth had insisted on taking. Clara and Jared took the day shift, but Gareth spent some time there during the day, too, unable to leave Susie when he was awake.
So they were at the hospital from nine in the morning until midnight, keeping a vigil on Susie—their lives seemed to revolve around her. She lay like Sleeping Beauty, her face soft while her hair blazed Celtic red against the white pillows. Three times a day, a male physiotherapist came in and exercised her muscles for her—those that were not in plaster. While he worked on her, Clara and Jared went to the waiting room for a much-needed break of coffee and sandwiches.
Meanwhile, Jared’s presence in Rhossana was causing excitable behaviour among the villagers. Almost every member of hospital staff appeared to have known him since he was born, and word had spread rapidly that he was in town. Not just in town, but sitting at the bedside of the tragic young Mrs Llewellyn with his famous girlfriend at his side. Staff from all over the hospital would walk slowly past the glass room in Intensive Care. They didn’t disturb the quiet, disciplined atmosphere. They never spoke, never interfered, never entered the room. They just peered in at Jared with blatant fascination.
‘Dai Williams,’ Jared muttered as a man his own age in a doctor’s white coat walked past and stared in. ‘The vicar’s son.’
And later his gaze lifted to a fresh-faced country girl in a nurse’s uniform who gave Jared what Clara thought was a rather seductive smile as she walked past.
‘Gwyneth Jones. She kissed me in the playground and told her friends she was going to marry me.’
Clara laughed. ‘Well, at least she brings back good memories.’
‘Kind of,’ he drawled with a cynical smile. ‘She changed her mind when I was eight and drew horrible pictures of my parents and Owain Llewellyn on the blackboard. But she was only a child, and you know how cruel children can be.’
‘Your father too?’ she asked with a frown, not quite understanding what the picture on the blackboard would have looked like. ‘Why would she include him in the pictures?’
He hesitated and tensed, aware he had given something away. After a moment, he said evasively, ‘Oh, I don’t know. It was just a stupid picture.’
‘I thought you said your father died when—’
‘Forget it,’ he clipped out curtly. ‘I don’t want to discuss it. Not now. Not in front of Susie
.’
Late on Friday afternoon, the doctor stopped in on his rounds to see Susie and was pleased to note an improvement in her condition.
‘We’re getting far more signals from the brain than before,’ he told Clara and Jared. ‘No eye movement yet, and she’s obviously still in the coma itself, but I anticipate a possible awakening within the next forty-eight hours.’
Clara and Jared were beside themselves with excitement. When Gareth arrived a few minutes later, the doctor was still there and told him the news too.
‘You mean she could wake up any moment?’ Gareth sank breathlessly down beside Susie and took her hand.
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ The doctor frowned. ‘If this brain-wave response is what I think it is, I’d say it’ll be another two days before we know for sure. Rapid eye movement is usually the last signal before they wake. According to Mr Blackheath and Miss Maye, there’s no evidence of that whatsoever. And they should know—they’ve been sitting here all day.’
‘Yes…’ Gareth turned to them. ‘It’s just after six. You’ve been here for ten hours. As there’s been a marked improvement in her condition, why don’t you both take a rest?’
‘Oh, I don’t want to leave her if she’s likely to wake up any minute,’ said Clara without hesitation.
‘The doctor just told you she won’t wake up for a couple of days yet, if then,’ Gareth said. ‘And you can leave her safely with me. I’ll let you know if I see any sign of eye movement, or anything else to indicate she’s coming round. I promise.’
With reluctance, Clara and Jared eventually agreed to leave Susie in Gareth’s capable hands. Clara prayed Gareth would keep his word and let them know immediately there was a change.
Bright evening sunlight blazed down over the limousine as they drove out of the hospital car park. A handful of people stood by the grey slate gates, watching them as they had every night since they arrived.
‘I wonder why nobody’s told the press you’re here?’ Clara wondered aloud.
‘Yes, I wondered that. You’d think someone would want to tell and sell. It is a good story, after all.’ He frowned as they sped away down the main road, cross-town to the hotel. Shops were closed, car parks were deserted and only the lights in The King’s Head showed signs of life. ‘In fact, I’ve spent most of my adult life waiting for the story to appear. I wonder why it never has?’
He was the strongest man she’d ever known, yet this town was his Achilles’ heel. Everybody had one. But Clara had never suspected that a small seaside town could have such an effect on a powerful man.
‘You’d think in a whole town,’ said Jared with a frown, as though feeling the attack on his Achilles’ tendon, ‘there’d be one person willing to betray me for money.’
‘That’s the cynic in you talking.’ She smiled wryly. ‘You’ve always believed that every man has his price. But it’s not true, Jared. There are some things that can’t be bought.’
He laughed sardonically. ‘If a reporter came down here with an open cheque someone would spill the beans.’
‘Ah, but no reporter is aware that a story even exists here. And that tells me something very important.’
‘Go on. Shatter me. What does it tell you?’
‘That these people feel a great deal of loyalty to you. If not to you, then to your family or the Llewellyns.’
‘Loyalty!’ He looked at her cynically. ‘Do me a favour!’
‘I don’t know precisely what happened here,’ she continued. ‘But it clearly rocked this little town on its heels the way the Profumo scandal rocked England. And you were at the centre of it.’
He looked at her through heavy eyelids and said nothing.
‘It can’t just have been your mother going to live with Owain. It must have been something more. Jared, I’m not brain-dead. Even I can see that something huge happened here. People file past constantly, stare and whisper, talk about you behind your back—’
‘They always did,’ he said quietly. ‘That in itself is nothing new.’
‘No. Okay. But if what happened is so very shocking, why has no one talked? It must be loyalty, Jared. There’s simply no other feasible explanation.’
He looked out of the window in thoughtful silence. Clara wondered if he was considering the possibility. She hoped so. It would make such a difference to his feelings about the village if he was able to recognise the extraordinary loyalty they’d all shown him.
When they walked into the living room of the suite, Clara kicked her shoes off and sank with a sigh onto the couch. He joined her, stretching his shoulder muscles, but stopped halfway through with a groan as he saw the red light on the ivory telephone.
‘Not more messages! I’m really not in the mood for business.’
‘Take them after dinner,’ she suggested.
‘Good plan.’ His legendary discipline was lapsing under the strain of all this. ‘Speaking of which—where shall we eat?’
‘I don’t mind. Wherever you like.’
‘I think we’d be best advised to eat here, actually. It’s expensive, out of town and formal. Much less chance of bumping into any of the villagers, I think.’
After he had booked the table, Clara stretched out on the couch, purring, ‘Oh, bliss! One whole hour with absolutely nothing to do…’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he murmured, moving closer. ‘I could think of something to keep us occupied…’
They took a shower together. The smoked glass cubicle steamed up as he slowly soaped her naked body inch by delicious inch, and their breathing grew as steamy as the doors until he pinned her against the wall and took her to seventh heaven.
In warm, loving silence they dressed together. Clara adjusted his tie, fastened his cufflinks. He zipped up the back of her long sexy red dress.
‘You look stunning,’ he murmured.
‘So do you.’
‘I almost wish we could bump into someone I once knew,’ he drawled as they walked arm in arm to the lifts. ‘Then I could show you off.’
‘I tell you what—you show me off to your home town, and I’ll take you to my old orphanage one day so I can show you off to Matron. How’s that?’
‘Just say the word, baby.’
She was smiling as she stepped into the lift with him. He’d been more than generous to her old orphanage. Every Christmas, crateloads of teddy bears arrived from Jared. He also sent them a handsome cheque every April. But there was little point in paying a visit to the place. Matron had long since retired, and so had everybody else she’d once known there.
But the villagers of Rhossana were all still here. The restaurant was packed with familiar faces, all waiting for Jared Blackheath and his famous girlfriend to make their entrance. Unfortunately, when he had rung down and booked a table for two, Jared had made a fatal error. The restaurant manager had immediately alerted the whole town, because there they were, sitting at every table, eyes glued to the door.
‘Do you want to leave?’ Clara asked quietly.
‘No.’ His face set with steely determination. ‘If they want a show, I’ll give them one to make their eyes drop out of their gossipy heads.’ He beckoned the head waiter.
‘Mr Blackheath, sir!’ The head waiter practically fell over himself to bow. ‘I never thought we’d greet you back at Rhossana, but—’
‘Thank you,’ Jared cut in coolly. ‘But I’m in need of a stiff drink and some good food. I’d like to go straight to my table.’
‘Of course, sir! The best table in the house…’
Everyone stared as they walked through the crowded restaurant to sit down, as they should have been able to predict, right at the back of the room where everyone could see them.
Jared was furious. But he seated Clara with cool self-assurance, took the seat opposite with an aura of charismatic power that made Clara smile admiringly, and looked about as unrattled as a sleepy panther.
‘Bring me a double whisky on the rocks,’ he ordered the head waiter.
&nb
sp; ‘I’ll have a gin and Slimline, please,’ Clara said, looking forward to the first alcoholic drink she’d had since the wedding.
The head waiter departed.
‘Forgive me if I don’t lean towards you, darling,’ Jared drawled when they were alone. ‘But I have no intention of looking anything other than completely in control of everything, from the wine list to my sexy girlfriend.’
‘That’s okay. I’m not proud. I’ll do the leaning.’
He laughed softly as she did so. ‘Please do. The view is scintillating.’
Shivering with excitement, she felt his hot gaze drop to probe the dusky hollow between her breasts. She felt her nipples erect. It was only an hour since they’d made love in the shower. Clearly they were both aroused again. Pressure, she thought. It stimulates us both in more ways than one.
‘It brings out the fighter in you, doesn’t it?’ she observed. ‘To be cornered like this by so many people.’
‘How do you think I got my scar? And you’re no different, are you, Clara? You feel the determination to win just as much as I do tonight.’
‘It’s not really my fight.’
‘Isn’t it?’ He studied her with shrewd certainty. ‘You stand to lose a lot if this little trip to Wales goes wrong. There are an awful lot of emotional bombs lying around waiting to be either defused or to be blown up in our faces.’
‘Oh, I think I can handle unexploded bombs. Why do you think I fell for you?’
He laughed under his breath and his eyes glittered vivid blue.
Their drinks arrived. They ordered. Clara chose grilled sole with a baked potato and green salad without dressing.
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