‘Ginny.’
A note of apology in his voice, perhaps? If so it was too late. Anger flared through her—how dared he pursue her like this? He must realise...
She gave no answer to his greeting, simply allowed the firmness of her mouth and her flashing eyes to pass a message to him before she turned a more composed face to the senior partner, who was speaking again. ‘I’ve just been hearing from Mr Vanbrugh that you and he are old friends.’
‘Yes.’ In a way she supposed that could be true.
‘Well, he has come for some advice, Ginny, and it seems to me you’re the best person to give it, since you are friends. Mr Vanbrugh is about to be married, and...’
A cloud descended on her, and she lost the thread of what her employer was saying. For some reason her mind was back at the country club where Jake had taken her, Bonnie White’s face swimming clearly into view...
‘So, if you’d care to take Mr Vanbrugh along to your rooms, Ginny...’ She saw the two men shake hands. ‘You’ll find Miss Browne will be able to provide an answer to whatever problems you might have...’
And then they were walking along the corridor to her office at the front of the building—not nearly as prestigious as the one they had just left, but equally as solid and professional. She waved her client to a seat then sat herself behind the large desk.
‘I like your hairdo.’
His admiring comment was unwelcome, an attempt to undermine her resolve—and doomed to failure. But in spite of herself she felt a faint smile curve her lips, and tried to conceal it by opening a drawer and rummaging for a few seconds.
When she spoke her voice hardly wobbled. She must stick to her decision to let all of this pass her by—her emotions would not be involved. ‘Rather a surprise, seeing you this morning, Jake.’
It was difficult to look directly at him so she made a great play of straightening a pile of papers, then sat with pen poised over her notebook, making it clear that she was ready to write down whatever details were necessary.
‘I thought you would have been on your way home by now.’
‘No.’ He spoke coolly, leaning back in the heavy leather chair. ‘No, I had no intention of going back to the States until I had the chance to speak to you on your own.’
That made her raise her eyes from the desk and stare across at him with a feeling of apprehension. If he were to mount a determined assault on her emotions then she had no idea where she would find the strength to resist. It was hard enough for her to sit here calmly, with five feet of solid wood between them, when her every instinct and longing...
‘Well.’ She wrenched her eyes away from his. ‘I’m flattered that you have such faith in my professional skills. But I’m sure any competent lawyer... Anyway, I’d better take some notes.’ And, making a start on that, she wrote his name at the top of the sheet. ‘Oh, by the way—’ a firm line was drawn under what she had written. ‘How is Bonnie?’
‘Bonnie?’ For a moment he looked blank, then the blue eyes sparked with what looked very much like amusement. ‘Oh, Bonnie is... very well.’
‘Good. Now, if you would just explain what sort of advice you feel you need, Jake.’
‘Well, the problem is...’ He screwed up his face a little. Ginny had the feeling there was something slightly bogus about the situation—why should an American about to marry another American come to London in search of advice?
‘My family circumstances are not exactly straightforward,’ he said at last, and watched while she scribbled a few words. As she raised her head questioningly he continued. ‘You see, my parents... Oh—’ He broke off with a sudden recollection. ‘By the way, I mustn’t forget to give you their love.’
‘Oh, thank you. You’ve heard from them, then?’
‘No, but I saw them...’
‘They’re not home, are they?’
‘No, I met them in Singapore. They’re still on their trip...’
‘I—I didn’t know you had planned that.’ Why she should know anything about his plans was difficult to explain—the way she had bailed out must surely mean she had forfeited any rights.
‘It was spur of the moment rather than something planned.’
‘I see. Well...’ Adjusting her notepad, she frowned. ‘Perhaps we’d better get on with this... You were saying about your complex family?’ She threw him a faint professional smile. ‘That is certainly not how it appears to outsiders, but of course it is impossible to judge without knowing all the details.’
He was watching her with a most peculiar expression, one impossible to identify but which was making her nervy and vulnerable. Hardly appropriate in someone supposed to be giving advice.
‘Yes.’ It was a moment before he continued. Ginny felt a relief to be required to concentrate on her job. ‘My parents,’ Jake went on, then stopped again for so long that she glanced up in mild exasperation. And now he spoke with such precise deliberation it was impossible for her to wrench her eyes away. ‘Or rather, I should say, my adoptive parents...’
Whether he added anything to these words she could never afterwards have said—she was deafened by a loud noise in her head and her hand trembled so much that the pen dropped from her fingers. A large blot began to spread over the paper.
‘You mean...?’ Her voice was coming from a different time zone, echoing through space. She frowned with the effort of trying to assimilate such an unexpected piece of information. ‘You mean Marion and...and Hugo...that they are not your natural parents?’ Luminous brown eyes searched his desperately.
‘That, Ginny, is exactly what I am saying.’
For an age they sat there staring at each other before he spoke again. And then in that tender, beguiling voice which had always had such a powerful effect—which from the very beginning she’d been obliged to struggle against—he continued. ‘Ginny, why don’t you let me—? Oh...’ he grinned light-heartedly ‘...and I have cleared this with Mr Welsh, so excuses involving the company will be totally disregarded! Why don’t you let me take you out to lunch, Ginny? I’m sure you must be hungry—I know I am. And I can tell you all about it. My trip to Singapore, I mean.’
‘Yes.’ She heard her voice, mild in tone, as if there had never been a wild flight from New York. No rejection of a similar invitation just the evening before. ‘All right.’
And as she slipped into the pink coat in the cloakroom, taking trouble to adjust the black polo neck of her jumper and adding a smear of dark shadow to her eyelids, she wondered at such a very abject surrender.
It was all too easy to feel utterly punch-drunk at this piece of information he had so casually tossed in her direction. But she must on no account forget that before she appeared back in the office he had been confiding in Mr Welsh about details of his marriage plans.
Dispassionately she smeared some colour on her lips. It was utterly pointless, this sudden feeling of euphoria, the sense of freedom she had experienced when he’d explained... And it was just as well she had not learned the two pieces of information in reverse order—then there would have been still more anguish.
No. The more she thought of it—and she was pleased to find she was thinking so rationally—the more idiotic she would be in risking further involvement It wouldn’t be too difficult to bow out, to tell Mr Welsh that a previous client required urgent help and advice. It was a moment for discretion and self-interest, a time to cut and run with even more urgency than she had shown that evening in New York.
Opening the door of the cloakroom, she found him on the landing, talking with Mr Welsh, and she could see it was not the most appropriate moment to back out. So she smiled sweetly when they were ushered off with his good wishes and an additional instruction that there was no need for her to hurry back that afternoon.
She forced herself to succumb to the possessive hand on her elbow and then, when they reached street-level, to the insidious throbbing response as his fingers slid down her inner arm and linked with hers. For the moment that touch was the onl
y thing in the world that mattered.
CHAPTER NINE
INSTEAD of the discreet restaurant she had anticipated during the cab ride, Ginny found herself invited into a flat in one of the capital’s most prestigious blocks. The kind of place where entrance was obtained by means of a plastic card and a series of punched numbers. Where a burly guard appeared behind plate glass to perform a final inspection before they were whisked skywards in the lift.
She ought not to have given in so easily. Despite an apparently cool exterior, she felt she was leaving all her common sense on the ground floor with not the least idea of how she could extricate herself without appearing unutterably gauche.
As she might have expected the apartment was, if not as spacious as the penthouse in New York, quietly luxurious and elegant, even down to the arrangements of fresh flowers in the hallway and in the sitting room.
Ginny made no attempt to conceal her cynicism. She raised her chin and summoned what she hoped was a challenging expression. ‘Do you have a series of these luxury pads throughout the world?’
‘Not exactly.’ A level look from those startling eyes caused a tremor to rack her, made her wrench her gaze from his, searching the room rather aimlessly till she absorbed the significance of a small round table set in a window alcove. Two places were set, with a bowl of pink roses in the centre and, to one side, chilling in an ice bucket, a gold-topped bottle.
It was a relief to find such an apparent excuse for her sarcasm, but still she was unable to control the faint wobble in her voice. ‘You must have felt pretty sure of me.’ Her eyes glittered with easy tears, and when there was no reply she was compelled to look at him again, forcing a response.
He pushed the door behind him—closing her avenue of escape? and lay back, arms folded, eyes slightly narrowed, as if he were trying to gauge her mood. ‘I was never less sure of anything in my life.’
By all the rules of an exacting training, she ought to have been able to make something of that statement, uttered in such mellow, melting tones. But the insecurity of the words was a distraction. And he added to that as he pushed himself upright with a sigh. ‘At least...after last night.’ He crossed the carpet towards her while she could only watch, too weak to move.
‘Last...last night?’ What... what had happened? She couldn’t think. Not while she was looking up into the eyes which had fascinated her from the first, from which she would never be free. Aware of his hand being raised, she waited for the touch, and stopped breathing as she felt it drift gently over her hair. Realising what she was allowing to happen, she decided it was time to take control of what was happening to her.
‘Jake, I...’ Meaning to step away, she found instead that his hand slipped and settled at the nape of her neck, a finger moving idly against the delicate skin. Then she heard her own voice again, this time with a note of desperation. ‘Last night? Was that what you said?’
‘Mmm.’ A detached observer might have thought he was enjoying the situation. ‘I was thinking of you and...Nick. That was his name, wasn’t it?’
‘You know perfectly well that was his name.’
One dark arched eyebrow made a silent comment on the sharpness of her tone. ‘Well, his name, as they say, is irrelevant, but since you told me you were in some kind of relationship...’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Then, more quietly, ‘Not exactly.’
‘Ah?’ Clearly further elucidation was expected.
‘I share my flat with a friend. Nick is Kate’s brother and occasionally he inflicts himself on us for a few days.’
‘Ah! But if not Nick...?’ Then, after waiting for an answer which didn’t come, he spoke more insistently. ‘Ginny!’
Shrugging, she coloured slightly, then looked him straight in the eye, wondering as she did so why she’d ever denied herself such pleasure. She shook her head slightly, mouth curving into a smile that was close to being beatific.
‘No one.’ Her sense of relief was overwhelming as the full truth of the situation finally dawned on him. ‘There is no one.’ Luminous brown eyes gleamed with something approaching satisfaction as she made her confession. Now, at last, the truth was obvious. Now there was no reason whatever for fabricating relationships... at least not from her point of view.
‘So...’ She sensed he was choosing his words with great care. ‘So, Nick being with you, in what could be described as suspicious circumstances, was—’
‘Suspicious only if that is how your mind works.’
‘Was simple coincidence,’ he finished, ignoring her interruption.
‘A lucky coincidence from my point of view.’
‘Oh?’ His hands slid from her shoulders to beneath her coat, where she felt them link about her waist. ‘How so?’
‘Well...’ She shrugged, enjoying the sensation, revelling in the sense of power which suddenly swept over her. ‘It did, after all, go some way towards confirming... what I wanted you to think.’ But why? If only he did not ask that particular question. It was one which would give her great difficulty since she had not the faintest idea what he knew of her relationship with Hugo. So it was with relief that she heard him change the subject completely.
‘I love this pink coat you’re wearing, but...do you think you could take it off?’ As he spoke he was pushing it from her shoulders.
She held out her arms to ease its passage to the floor, allowed herself to be gathered against him, felt the faintest rasp of his cheek against hers. His voice was not entirely steady. ‘I’ve been frustrated for so long, and for so many reasons, but I’m damned if I’m going to allow a coat to come between us.’
‘Jake.’ It was a shaky, tremulous murmur as she turned her face, her mouth seeking his in an explosion of excitement. Frustration! As if she didn’t know... ‘Jake.’ Her hands were tangling in his hair, lips parting on a note of lingering surrender.
Dark violet eyes blazed with something like accusation. ‘I’ve wanted you...been crazy for you...since the first moment—the instant I set eyes on you.’
Triumph was such an ignoble reaction, but it seared through her with a power she made no effort to resist. Vaguely she recognised that her emotions were out of control; all restraints and hindrances had in some mysterious way been swept aside. There was just a tiny niggle...something about marriage plans...but that had nothing to do with her.
All she remembered was that she was free—free to love him, which she did. Free to adore him, which she did, and free, for heaven’s sake, to make love with him.
The wonder of such an idea made her catch her breath. And, even if it were to prove a brief interlude, she knew that if he continued to make the right moves, if he were to drift kisses the length of her throat as he was doing now, nothing, nothing in the world would stop her...
Then they were in the bedroom—and she with no very clear idea of how they had got there. But her top had parted from the waistband of her skirt and his hand caressed, slipped seductively over the black satin underskirt she had chosen, by sheer joyful chance, to wear today for the first time. And now she determined he must see it. And admire.
Casually, as if she were used to such situations, she detached herself, released the catch on her skirt and allowed it to spill onto the floor. He was watching with a half-smile which she rewarded by leaning forward, putting her mouth to his and parting her lips provocatively, before straightening up.
One smooth elegant move and she had pulled the polo over her head—making, of course, a complete mess of her hair, but that mattered to neither of them, since his attention was focused entirely on her face. Like hers, his breathing was excited—more so when he took in the brief, low-cut black lace, the barely covered expanse of creamy skin. His hand came out to trace the soft, feminine curve; her shudder caused a strap to slip from her shoulder.
‘Jake, I...’ Suddenly she was nervous, overcome with self-doubt. How could she have imagined that she, inexperienced, would be able to please such a man? But even as that thought registered her hands were
reaching out and she was pulling at his tie, sweeping the jacket from his shoulders.
And he was offering his wrists, silently but with a dash of mocking laughter, inviting her assistance with the heavy gold cufflinks. At last her shaking fingers dealt with the task and she leaned forward, eyes closed, to press her cheek to the warm, silky skin.
Opening her lips to taste, to kiss, it was sheer delight to hear him groan and to hear—and ignore, as she knew she was meant to—his meaningless protests. She allowed herself to be pulled onto the bed...
When she woke the sun was casting long shadows, gilding the dark shape of the man who lay beside her, his breathing now settled to a quiet, even rhythm. Her mouth curved into a smile of recollection. She had an urge to lean over, to touch her lips to his so the whole delirious sequence could begin again, those long languorous moments ending in such a wild explosion of sensation...
An unwelcome thought intruded which made her expression grow more sober. By all the rules of her own standards she ought to be suffering the uncomfortable pangs of guilt and remorse, having knowingly made love to a man who was about to be married to someone else. But she couldn’t whip up any such feelings, not when she had been so mad for the man since that very first sight.
That, she assured herself seriously, was what had made her fall in a heap at his feet. Not the lack of food or the long flight, not even the excitement of the occasion. It had had nothing to do with any of those. It had been the sight of the man she would love to the end of her life, except...
A tiny cold hand clutched at her heart...
The man lying beside her stirred, sighed. She held her breath. She was trying to force herself to make a move, for if she waited here much longer then there was little doubt...
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