by Anne Mather
‘Yes,’ she ventured carefully. ‘Your mother—did tell me you’d had a fall—–’
‘Really?’
The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable, but Laura refused to be deterred. ‘Yes,’ she said again, smoothing her damp palms down the seams of the cotton tunic. ‘She—also said you were unconscious when they found you.’
‘All right.’ Jake’s fists balled in the pockets of his dressing-gown. ‘So, I knocked myself out, when I fell. Basta cosi!’
Laura pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘How—how far did you fall? The Contessa said you were found near the foot of—of the ravine.’
Jake’s mouth hardened. ‘Does it matter? As you can see, I am quite recovered.’
Laura trembled. ‘I—don’t think so.’
‘What? You don’t think it matters? My sentiments exactly.’
Laura tensed, but his derisive words did not deter her. ‘No,’ she said steadily, ‘that’s not what I meant, and you know it. I—I don’t think you have recovered. And—and nor does your mother.’
‘Ah.’ Jake’s lips twisted, and, leaving the door, he walked heavily across to where the tray of drinks was waiting. For a moment, Laura half thought he was coming towards her, and her pulse faltered in its mad tattoo. But then, as his real destination was revealed, her heart picked itself up again, battering away at her chest, as if it were some imprisoned creature, desperate to escape. ‘Now, we come to the crux of the matter, do we not?’ he remarked, pouring himself a generous measure of the spirit that had caused Laura so much discomfort earlier. ‘My mother’s opinion is of the essence, no? The only opinion worthy of any value.’
‘What do you mean?’
Laura was troubled, not least by the way he was swallowing the whisky. Should someone in his condition be drinking alcohol? she wondered. But then, she chided herself, she didn’t really know what condition that was.
‘I mean,’ he responded, after pouring himself another measure, ‘were it not for my mother, you would not be here.’ He studied the contents of the glass with bitter intensity. ‘Still, that is not entirely your fault. I know how persuasive my Mama can be. Were it not for her silver tongue, I would never have attended the charity function in Rome, where I met your most estimable daughter. Ergo, we would never have met.’ He raised his glass in mock salute. ‘Like me, I expect you are wishing now we never had.’
‘No!’
Laura’s response was vehement. She could never wish that. Even though there had been times when she had wished for the ignorance of not knowing the torment Jake had brought her, deep inside her she knew it was a torment she would willingly face again, if it was a choice between her and Jake’s happiness.
‘No?’ he echoed now, and, although the word was innocent enough, its enunciation wasn’t. ‘No, don’t tell me. You’ve suddenly realised I’m the single most important thing in your life, and you were just waiting for my mother’s call to fly here and tell me so!’
Laura hesitated, and then, realising he deserved nothing less than the truth, she nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Dio!’ The expletive that followed his curse was every bit as contemptuous as she had expected. ‘I thought better of you, Laura. Bene, you have come here—at my mother’s request, you have virtually admitted as much—and now, because you find my parents are not here, you think you can stand there and tell me you came because I needed you!’ He swore again. ‘What is going on? Are they paying you to say these things to me?’
Laura was appalled at the depths of his cynicism. Dear God, had she done this to him, as his mother had implied? Was she to blame for the bitter, world-weary lines that scored his face? He had lost weight. She had noticed that at once. But now she noticed how his bones bulged from the shoulders of his dressing-gown; how thin and angular were the hands that gripped his glass. The Contessa had not been exaggerating, she saw. Whatever the reason for Jake’s malaise, something was tearing him to pieces from the inside out, and she knew she couldn’t leave here without discovering what it was.
‘No one’s paying me,’ she said now, bringing her hands together, and slotting her fingers. ‘I admit it—I did come because your mother asked me to. But—but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to come anyway. I—I did. I just didn’t know how.’
‘Liar!’
‘I’m not lying.’ Moistening her lips with a nervous tongue, Laura moved a step nearer to him. ‘I—I did want to see you again—–’
‘To see me.’
‘Yes, I did. But—how could I?’
‘Is that supposed to be a serious question?’
‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘You forget—I don’t know where you live either in Rome or—or that place near Viareggio you spoke about. I don’t even have your telephone number.’
‘Julie would have told you.’
Jake was dispassionate, but Laura was glad he had mentioned her daughter’s name. It gave her the opportunity to tell him what had happened. She doubted he knew. His mother had said he had refused to take any calls.
‘I—didn’t want to ask Julie,’ she said, and, although it was the truth, its connotations were ambiguous, to say the least, and Jake knew it.
‘No,’ he conceded, agreeing with her when she least wanted him to. He swallowed the remainder of the whisky in his glass, and, to her dismay, poured himself another. ‘We must not upset Julie, must we? Never let it be said that her happiness should take anything but prime position in your life. To hell with everyone else’s happiness—even your own. So long as we ensure that dear little Julie gets everything she wants.’
‘It’s not like that!’ Laura caught her breath despairingly. ‘Please—–’ as he gave her a scornful look ‘—it’s not! I—didn’t understand before. Now, I do.’
‘Do you?’ Jake gave her a weary look. ‘Or has Julie told you she is giving up her modelling career, in favour of an acting one, and you no longer feel the need to worry about her?’
Laura stared at him. ‘Yes. No.’ She blinked. ‘How did you know about—about—–?’
‘Her acting career?’ Jake’s lips twisted. ‘Didn’t she tell you I introduced her to David Conti?’
Laura tried to absorb what he was saying. ‘You mean—it was because of you, that—that—–?’
‘That he offered her a screen test?’ Jake put down his glass, and wedged his hips against the edge of the table. Folding his arms across the parting lapels of his dressing-gown, he regarded her pityingly. ‘You didn’t honestly believe that a man like Conti would fly her out to Los Angeles, just to have a screen test, without some incentive!’ He shook his head. ‘She could have been tested equally well in London. And besides, the odds against someone like Julie, with no acting experience, and fairly average looks, attracting the attention of a well-known film producer, must be astronomical!’
Laura stiffened. ‘Julie is a beautiful girl!’ she exclaimed defensively, but Jake’s mouth only took on an even deeper curl of derision.
‘David knows hundreds of beautiful women,’ he assured her flatly. ‘Los Angeles—California—is full of them!’
‘But—she says—he—likes her.’
‘He does.’ Jake shrugged. ‘For some reason, best known to himself, he is attracted to her. But do not go imagining that gold rings and orange blossom are on the horizon. They are not.’
‘As I did with you, you mean?’ Laura countered quickly, and Jake’s mouth hardened.
‘There was never any question of my association with your daughter ending in marriage,’ he told her harshly. ‘If she told you there was, she lied.’
‘Yes.’ Laura’s head dipped up and down. ‘Yes, I know that now.’
‘Because she told you so?’ Jake regarded her coldly. ‘So—you believe her, but not me.’
‘I wanted to believe you—–’
‘But you did not,’ retorted Jake, his lean face contorted with emotion. ‘What kind of man did you think I was? Did you really believe I could sleep with Julie one week, and her mothe
r the next?’
Laura shifted unhappily. ‘I—I didn’t know what to think.’
‘Oh, no!’ Jake wouldn’t have that. ‘I will not accept that even you were that naïve!’
Laura bent her head. ‘And if I was?’
‘It’s not relevant.’
‘It is relevant.’ She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes seeking some minute trace of weakening in his contemptuous face. ‘You—you have to understand, my—my sexual experience began and ended when I was sixteen. Oh, I know it sounds incredible, but it’s true. Keith—that was Julie’s father’s name—he—he taught me everything I knew. And that was precious little, as—as you must have realised for yourself. You see, sex—sex with him was something—furtive; a forbidden experience, that I imagined would be—romantic. Only, of course, it wasn’t. It—it only happened one time. As soon as he discovered I was a—that I had never been with a man before, he ended the relationship. By the time I realised I was pregnant, he had left town. I never saw him again.’
Jake’s face was expressionless, and when he didn’t say anything Laura hurried on, before her courage abandoned her completely.
‘He was married, you see,’ she added, biting her lips. ‘I didn’t know that, of course. And I don’t think he ever intended his association with me to go as far as it did. It—it was my fault, for assuming—for assuming—well, for thinking he meant the things—the things he said.’
There was silence after she had finished. Jake still said nothing, and, had it not been for the fact that he had watched her intently throughout her fumbled explanations, Laura thought she would not have been unjustified in wondering whether he had actually heard a word she said. Or perhaps he had heard, but he still didn’t believe her, she conceded wretchedly. And why should he, after all? It was a pathetic admission to make.
‘So—so you see,’ she appended at last, when the unnatural stillness was beginning to shred her already screaming nerves, ‘you—you have to make allowances for my—my ignorance. I—I’m not like—not like the women you’re used to—to dealing with.’ A faintly hysterical laugh escaped her. ‘I think—I think even you have—have to admit that.’
Jake moved then, and Laura jumped, but he only lifted his hand to massage the muscles at the back of his neck. She stood there numbly, while his fingers kneaded the taut flesh, and the lapels of his robe pulled apart and came together again in unison.
The action was magnetic. Laura tried to look away, but her eyes were drawn to that tantalising opening. All of a sudden, she was remembering the feel of his satin-smooth skin against her cheek. She was recalling how it had felt, when he had rubbed himself against her, and when she caught a glimpse of the disc of dark flesh that surrounded his nipple, she wanted to go to him, and take it into her mouth…
Her head spun, and, realising that if she stayed here any longer she was likely to do exactly as she was fantasising, Laura forced herself to look elsewhere. Her hands provided a satisfactory alternative, the knuckles white, as she dug her nails into her palms. She had to get out of here, she thought. She had to make a dignified exit. But how did one make any kind of exit in circumstances like these?
‘Do you want to go to bed with me?’
The dispassionately spoken invitation stilled the madly churning turmoil of her thoughts, and Laura’s eyes jerked to his in horrified comprehension.
‘I—what did you say?’
‘I said—do you want to go to bed with me?’ Jake repeated, with a callous lack of delicacy, and Laura’s control shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.
‘You—you—how dare you?’ she got out at last, all thoughts of humouring him swept away on the tide of humiliation that poured over her. ‘What—what do you think I am?’
‘That is what you came for, is it not?’ he taunted, not a whit daunted by her feeble surge of indignation. ‘Perche? Did you find you liked it, after all? Or did your current partner not come up to your expectations?’
‘I—I don’t have a—a current partner,’ Laura protested in a choked voice, and then, realising what she was doing, she said no more. She had no need to justify herself to him, she thought painfully. He had no right to say these things to her. Just because his mother had asked her to come here, and she had done so, did not give him licence to treat her like some kind of high-priced whore. It was sickening. It was obscene. And she had no intention of pandering to his perversions.
The door was still open, and she headed towards it. The Contessa was wrong, she thought, blinking back tears. Jake didn’t care about her. He only wanted to destroy her. And she had given him the weapons to do it quite successfully…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LAURA was pushing her belongings back into her suitcase, without much regard for their well-being, when someone knocked at her sitting-room door.
She was tempted to ignore it. It was probably one of the servants, she thought, come to see if she wanted anything to eat, but even the possibility that it might be Jake did not arouse any feelings of anticipation inside her. If it was him, he had probably come to finish what he had started downstairs, she thought bitterly, and she knew she wasn’t strong enough to take any more of his accusations. Besides, he was right. If she was totally honest with herself, she would admit that she had come here to go to bed with him. But what he didn’t know, and what he had completely failed to understand, was why.
The knock came again, and, although she was reluctant to waste any more time, courtesy demanded that she answer it. Crossing the floor, she paused to school her features into a mask of politeness, and then pulled open the door.
It was Jake, and even though none of her feelings showed in her face Laura realised she had known it all along. She was so deeply attuned to his mind that she had sensed that, however painful it might be, their involvement with one another was not over yet. But what she had not been prepared for was the fact that he had taken the time to put on a shirt and a pair of black trousers, and although his feet were still bare he looked more civilised.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply, and, because it was the very last thing she had expected him to say, Laura was briefly speechless.
Then, because something was obviously expected of her, she managed to shake her head. ‘Are you?’ she asked, in a tight, brittle, little voice. ‘For what?’
‘For this,’ said Jake softly, putting out his hand, and wiping an errant tear from her cheek. ‘For everything. Will you forgive me?’
Laura stared at him, her eyes burning with tears as yet unshed. ‘I’m—I’m packing,’ she blurted, glancing behind her at the clothes tumbling from the suitcase, clearly visible on the bed in the adjoining room.
‘Then unpack,’ Jake advised her huskily, stepping forward, so that she was obliged to move aside. ‘I’ll help you.’
Laura didn’t know what to do. She glanced from him to the open door, and back again, and then, pressing her palms on top of one another over her midriff, she said unsteadily, ‘I—I won’t go to bed with you. Whatever you say, I—I won’t be—used.’
‘Who’s using whom?’ murmured Jake drily, and there was a wealth of self-derision in his tone. Then, as if losing patience with this stilted little conversation, he reached for her, his hands at the nape of her neck leaving no room for deviation. With grim determination, his mouth found hers, and the hungry urgency of his kiss drove all sane thoughts from her head.
He kissed her as if he was desperate to assuage all the pain and torment he had inflicted by his cold indifference. The heat and anguish of the words he muttered as he devoured her lips ignited a warming flame inside her, and the invading possession of his tongue incited an answering hunger.
Abandoning all hope of retaining any self-restraint with him, Laura wrapped her arms around his narrow waist, and pressed herself against him. This was what she wanted, she acknowledged raggedly. This was where she wanted to be. If he was only using her, then so be it. If he was taking advantage of the feelings only he could arouse inside her, then that was
the way it had to be. She couldn’t hold out any longer. Dear God, she loved him!
The intensity of the emotions they had unleashed made any kind of withdrawal impossible. With their mouths still melded together, Jake swung her up in his arms, and carried her to the bed, carelessly overturning her suitcase on to the floor, before collapsing on the mattress with her.
Then, holding her on his knee, he covered her face with kisses, murmuring to her in his own language, as he nibbled at her ear, deposited light caresses on her eyes, bit the quivering fullness of her lower lip. His hands cradled her cheeks, explored the sensitive hollows behind her ears, invading the scooped-out neckline of her tunic.
And while he brought every nerve and sinew of her body to shuddering awareness, he encouraged her to do the same. And she needed no second invitation. Already, her fingers were deep in the thick, silky hair that he had neglected, just like the rest of him. Her nails had grazed his scalp, before exploring the shape of his head, the size of his ears, the vulnerable curve of his neck.
The zip of her tunic was quickly dealt with, and she obediently withdrew her arms when Jake pressed it down to her waist. Her bra proved even less of a hazard, and then he was burying his face in the hollow between her breasts, and she could feel the heat of his tongue tasting her flesh.
For her part, she contented herself with unbuttoning his shirt, and as she eased its folds from his shoulders she caught her breath at the taut skin she had exposed. There was not an ounce of flesh on his shoulders, and if nothing else, it convinced her that she must have played some part in his breakdown.
Jake’s mouth sought hers again, and his exploration of her body reached her knees, suddenly clamped tight together in his lap. With painstaking insistence, he massaged the taut bones that blocked his further invasion, and then, as the limbs weakened beneath his patient ministrations, he slid his hand along her thigh, to the throbbing junction of her legs.