In the Market for Love

by Blake, Nina

  “Rachel,” he said. “Come on in.”

  She strode up the broad driveway towards him. “Big house.”

  “Yep. Too big.”

  He steered her towards the side of the house, away from the imposing double front door surrounded by ornate glasswork and the grand foyer which was no doubt behind it.

  “What’s wrong with the front door?” she asked.

  “Connor and I never use that door. We spend most of our time at the back of the house.”

  Jake led her down a narrow path with overgrown creeper cascading over the fence on one side and a wall of climbing roses on the other. It opened onto a pretty courtyard with limestone paving and a wooden table with four whicker chairs. The garden seemed small for a house this size.

  They stepped into the house through French doors. Two large Chesterfield leather sofas covered in cushions dominated the room. Children’s books and a couple of toy cars were piled at one end of the coffee table, leaving room for a platter of crackers and creamy camembert at the other.

  She stepped over to a low cabinet covered in family photos and scanned them, only to find Bianca conspicuously missing from the pictures. Had he hidden her photos before she arrived?

  Rachel searched for clues of a feminine presence but could find none.

  “Take a seat,” he said. “Would you like a glass of wine? I had a glass of white with dinner. Or I can open a bottle of red for you.”

  She could think of nothing she wanted less than to finish a bottle of wine with Jake. She didn’t plan on getting that comfortable with him. “No thanks. Just a coffee.”

  She was amazed at her own reserve. It was like the calm in the eye of the cyclone, only this time she was the storm. And she would demolish everything in her path.

  “Help yourself to some cheese.” Jake pointed to the platter on the coffee table and left to go to the kitchen.

  What lay beneath his polite words? Did he think they were going to have pleasant conversation and refreshments?

  Footsteps shuffled on the floor and Rachel turned to see a small child in racing car pyjamas.

  She softened as soon as she saw him, a wave of warmth washing over her. It was amazing. He had the pale hair, soft translucent skin and rounded cheeks of a small child but with Jake’s deep, serious eyes.

  The boy fiddled with a button. “Where’s Daddy?”

  “He’s fixing the coffee,” Rachel said. “Connor, honey, aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

  He nodded. “I can’t get to sleep. I want Daddy to scratch my back for me. To help me sleep.”

  “I’ll help you, sweetie.” Rachel placed her hand on his shoulder and nudged him gently back in the direction from which he’d come. “I’m not very good at back scratching but I can help you get back into bed.”

  In the boy’s room, she straightened the sheets and doona and tucked him back into bed. She wondered if Jake had painted the fluffy white clouds on the ceiling himself.

  It seemed there were two sides to the man. Father and philanderer.

  She slipped quietly out of the room and watched from her darkened position in the doorway as Jake entered the living room. He put two coffee mugs on the table, and shifted his gaze to the French door, then to her burgundy suede handbag sitting at the foot of one of the Chesterfields.

  Did he think she’d disappeared?

  “I’m still here.” Rachel’s heels clicked on the floorboards as she made her way back to the sofa.

  “Is everything alright?” Jake asked.

  “Fine. Connor said he needed his back scratched so he could fall asleep.” Rachel smiled. She couldn’t help it. “He seems like a nice kid.”

  “I thought you didn’t like children.”

  “Shows how little you know,” she said. “I adore kids. I have two beautiful nieces.”

  “I’m surprised he let you into his room, let alone allowed you to scratch his back.”

  “I didn’t scratch his back. I tucked him back into bed. Anyway, kids have good instincts about these things. They’re good at judging who to trust.”

  Somewhere along the line, she seemed to have lost those skills.

  Jake sat down on the sofa not too close to her. “I’m glad you came around this evening.”

  “Really? It sounded like you didn’t want me coming around. To your house, that is.”

  Perched on the edge of the leather sofa, she leaned forward to sip her coffee before leaning back.

  “You seem tense,” he said.

  “I don’t usually visit strange men at night.”

  Jake inched closer. “I’m not strange.”

  “We might work together but I don’t really know you very well.”

  “That’s just it. I’d like to get to know you better too. And there was something I wanted to talk about.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to get to know you better.”

  He held her gaze. Didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t like playing games,” she said.

  “Neither do I.”

  She pressed her hair back behind her ears.

  “So why did you lie to me?”

  Chapter nine

  Rachel glared at Jake. He stared back at her, his eyes softened by something. Tenderness perhaps, or guilt.

  “I didn’t lie to you,” he said.

  “I thought you didn’t like playing games.” She leaned back into the sofa. “You’re married.”

  “I’m not.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I am and I’m not. I only wish it were so simple I could explain it one way or the other but life isn’t always black and white.”

  “Then let me explain it to you. Married is when you have a marriage certificate but you don’t have divorce papers. Separated is when you live in a different house from your wife and you’re waiting on your divorce to come through.”

  For a moment, she thought he might take her into his arms and hold her, tell her she’d misunderstood and she was wrong. He wasn’t married. He was completely innocent.

  Instead he stood, his hands on his lean hips, before turning to face her.

  “When you put it that way, I am married. But surely you must understand that sometimes life is complex and it can’t be answered with a yes or a no.”

  She thought about her relationship with Nick and how she’d underestimated its complexity, never seeing it wasn’t pure and happy until after he died.

  Jake was right but she refused to give an inch. He didn’t deserve her understanding.

  “So tell me about it,” she said. “Tell me what’s so damn complex. You don’t love her any more. She doesn’t understand you. Anything else?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Rachel.”

  “Should I care?”

  He dropped back down on the sofa. “I am married but we’ve been separated for about four years. The only reason I still see her is because of Connor. I don’t want him to grow up with only one parent like I did. I want him to have something at least vaguely resembling a family. He deserves that. A family. Especially since he’s an only child.”

  “You didn’t think to provide him with a little brother or sister?”

  She disagreed with Jake. Tonight sarcasm suited her

  “I would have loved another child,” he said. “But that wasn’t on the cards. From very early on, our marriage didn’t work. After a while, I worked out that what she loved most about me was my money.”

  “Bianca, you mean?”

  “You know her name?”

  “Of course. So you’ve been separated for a few years? That’s a long time to wait for a divorce.”

  “You’re right. And I hadn’t been planning on getting one. I live like this to make sure Connor has the one thing I didn’t have. A family. With two parents. But recently, well, I have been thinking of a divorce.”

  Rachel had nothing to lose. She was determined to drive the knife in deeper.

  “Don’t bother with your smooth talk,” she said. “Your wife lives in this hou
se, doesn’t she?”

  “She lives here but not with me. You’ve seen the size of this place. It’s huge. She lives in the main part of the house while Connor and I are in this side wing.”

  “Don’t stop there,” she said.

  “It’s true. That’s why we didn’t go in through the front door. I always come down the side path to my part of the house. The rest is hers. I’ve never liked it. It’s her taste. Big and ostentatious. But this way the three of us can be in the same house. Even if I’m not living with Bianca, for Connor it feels like we’re a family.”

  “That’s some story.”

  Hot tears burnt at the back of her eyes but she refused to show any emotion. Her face was a rock, her eyes fixed on a single point on the coffee table. She would give him no clue to the molten feelings surging inside her. The slightest movement on her part would crack her cool surface and her seething rage would burst through.

  “It’s the truth,” Jake said.

  “She’s your wife, for heaven’s sake.”

  “She’s my wife and we’re separated. I don’t have feelings for her any more. But she is the mother of my child.”

  “Sounds like you’re a married man.”

  “Only on paper. Only for Connor.”

  “Married men don’t leave their wives. You think I haven’t worked that out by now? I’ve seen it before. They may sleep with other women and have affairs but they never leave their wives.”

  “I’m not a married man. Not in the way you think. I haven’t been her husband for years. All we’ve got in common is Connor.”

  “That’s very convenient,” she said.

  “Convenient? You think this is convenient?” He stood and shook his head in disgust. “It’s bloody hard work. Every day is a trial but I do it for Connor. I can’t let him down the way my father let me down.”

  “You’ve got an excuse for everything. What’s your father got to do with it?”

  “It’s not an excuse. I’m human you know. My life isn’t perfect and my father certainly wasn’t. He left my mother with two small kids. He couldn’t have been less interested in us. He called himself a businessman. He did what he wanted and thought he could buy us with his money. We barely saw him for years.”

  “We’ve all got our problems,” she said. “What makes yours so special?”

  “You don’t get it do you? In some ways I’m a lot like my father. He was so damn ambitious and I’ve got that in me too. But I don’t want to be like him. I want what’s best for Connor. I want him to have a better start in life than I did.”

  Rachel didn’t dare look up at Jake. She didn’t know what to believe.

  She only knew she didn’t want to put herself at risk again. Being hurt was part of everyday life and being devastated, as she’d been before, was another.

  They were talking about infidelity. She couldn’t possibly give herself to a man who was married.

  “Marcus told you, didn’t he?” Jake asked. “Today. At the office. I don’t think he meant it to happen that way.”

  “It doesn’t matter who told me. I worked it out.”

  He looked her in the eye. “I didn’t tell you the complete truth right away but I didn’t lie. I tried to tell you lots of times. I was about to tell you at the Ebony Bar and then that drunk guy came along and you ran out on me. I did try. I tried again today.”

  “Not hard enough.”

  She didn’t care for his excuses. She’d already worked out he’d tried to tell her in his office today but that wasn’t good enough.

  “I’m sure you have your secrets too,” he said.

  Though she pressed her eyes shut, she felt his gaze fixed on her.

  “You’re a woman,” he said. “You’ve lived. I know you’ve been hurt. Things have happened that you don’t want to talk about but that doesn’t mean you’re lying. I know something happened, something that’s stopping you from trusting yourself. And me.”

  It wasn’t possible he could know her marriage to Nick wasn’t as happy as she’d so naively thought. No one knew. All those years ago she’d tried to explain it to the people closest to her but everyone assumed she had the perfect marriage. How could he guess when her closest friends and relatives couldn’t understand even after she’d tried to tell them?

  She gazed up at Jake. Even when he was angry, he looked strong, alluring, handsome.

  She still wanted him.

  And she had to get out of there.

  She reached for her bag and stood. “I think that’s enough for one night, don’t you?”

  It was only a few steps to the French doors but she didn’t make it. Jake’s manly hands fell upon her shoulders.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, her words weak, her voice a whisper.

  His hands slipped down over her upper arms, sending a sizzle up her spine, a charge that shouldn’t be there. She had to fight this.

  She turned, flung his hands off and cleared her throat to make sure the words came out right.

  “Don’t do this.”

  Years of anger and resentment boiled inside her, the molten mass bubbling over read to explode.

  Nick’s infidelity. His all encompassing confidence when he was cheating on her. Finding the photos. Seeing the evidence. And the overwhelming feeling that she got what she deserved. It all came tumbling back to her.

  Jake’s lips parted as he reached for her. She couldn’t let him touch her. Too dangerous. He took a step back.

  How had it come to this?

  “Goodbye, Jake.”

  She raced out of the door and down the side path. He caught up with her at the foot of the driveway and grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t drive in this state,” he said.

  She spun around to face him. “What state?”

  “Let me drive you home. Or I’ll call a cab for you.”

  “No, I’ve calmed down. I’ll drive myself.”

  Amazingly enough, she even sounded calm.

  Jake looked into her eyes. Could he see her fear and hesitation? Did he know how desperately she wanted him to take her into his arms? Because despite her doubts, despite everything, that was what she wanted.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders, pulled her closer and pressed his mouth against hers.

  Her lips tingled and a current of feminine desire surged through her body. All logic and rational thought disappeared.

  She wanted him with a vengeance and she didn’t want him. Never before had she been so unsure of her desires.

  Her voice was little more than a whisper. “You promised you wouldn’t kiss me.”

  He slid his hands off her shoulders. “And I kept that promise.”

  “You just broke it.”

  “It was never meant to be a life long promise.”

  She stepped back and found herself leaning against her car, one hand groping against the car as if to check it was solid enough to take her weight.

  No longer in control, her legs trembled as she rested against the vehicle. There was nothing left to hold her back.

  Jake was like a shadow stepping in sync with her, following her retreating form, his face hovering above hers, his eyes glued to her parted lips. His mouth brushed hers in a kiss so gentle it was barely there.

  She should resist. She should push his away. She didn’t.

  He peppered her neck with little kisses, and wound his arms more tightly around her waist, lifting her off the ground. She snaked her arms up over his shoulders and around the back of his neck.

  The delicate kisses on her throat became more effusive, more vigorous. She gasped for air through her open mouth. His breath was hot and moist as he trailed little kisses up her neck to her waiting lips.

  He covered her mouth with his and rolled his tongue against hers. He was relentless. This wasn’t a kiss. It was an assault. A deep moan stuck in her throat but he continued, ravishing her mouth with his, sliding his tongue against hers.

  He dipped his head lower and showered her neckline with little
kisses while his hand inched upwards over the little ridges of her ribcage. He cupped her breast and massaged the soft flesh.

  A current of electricity shot up her spine. Heat pooled low in her belly. His mouth found hers and he kissed her again, more deeply this time.

  There was nothing else. Only their kiss, his hand still on her breast.

  After a while, he pulled back.

  “You don’t have to say anything,“ he said.

  She shook her head. “I have to go.”

  * * *

  Jake watched as she walked around the car, slid into the driver’s seat and drove away without looking back.

  He didn’t like watching her leave.

  The tail lights of her car disappeared into the distance and around a corner. She wasn’t coming back.

  He slumped down onto the curb, his long legs bent, his head in his hands. He’d pleaded with her, tried to make her believe him. He’d wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. He’d have got down on his knees if he believed for a moment it would have made any difference.

  She had tremendous resolve and strength of will. He’d met men in the business world who had the same cut-throat determination as her but never before a woman. Whereas men used this indomitableness to amass a fortune or a power base, Rachel used it to protect herself.

  He would call and text her this weekend though he was sure she wouldn’t answer. He doubted she’d speak to him about anything other than the campaign from now on. She’d make sure it was business only.

  He had to make her listen to him, make her believe he was telling her the truth. If she was determined then, damn it, so was he.

  She would never believe he was separated.

  Not coming from him.

  She had to hear it from someone else. She had to be exposed to people who knew him. People she would believe.

  He stood and walked back to the house.

  If there was one thing he knew well, it was the advertising business and now he had his own campaign to promote. She needed to hear about him from other people. He had to put her in a position where she’d mix with his staff and clients and others who knew him. He had to give her the opportunity to learn more about him.

  Now he had a new campaign to run.