She breathed the words, ‘Please, Jack.’
He knew it was a plea for him to stop, as he moved his hand to her hair, pushing under its blonde weight. ‘Why are you so sure I’ll hurt you? That’s what you think, isn’t it?’
Because you’ve done it before and didn’t even realise.
She shut her eyes against the intensity of his gaze. She didn’t want him to see down into her soul.
He put his mouth to her ear and whispered, ‘I couldn’t hurt you, not the way I feel.’
His voice sent a shiver through her, desire threading every word. She felt the same. The trouble was: she felt so much more. Finally acknowledged.
‘I can’t do this,’ she groaned back, only they were already doing it.
Mouths seeking, blindly finding, his arms chains around her, hers sliding upwards, fingers burying into his hair, holding his head, his lips to hers, hard and warm. Desire translated swiftly into passion with the clash of teeth and tongues, bruising, tasting, mating. And hearts racing like trains, each breath feeling like the last as their bodies strained to be one.
‘J.D., are you...in here?’ A different voice, owner talking loudly as she entered the room, fading as she saw.
Sanity returned with Esme tearing her mouth from his. She would have torn free of his arms, too, only he held her fast as he acknowledged the American woman.
‘Was there something you wanted, Rebecca?’ he asked, totally unfazed.
Rebecca took her cue from him and smiled. ‘Yes, but I think it’ll keep.’
She started to back towards the door and Esme cried out, ‘No, Rebecca, don’t go!’ before her lifebuoy disappeared.
Receiving mixed messages, Rebecca glanced from one to the other.
With an effort Esme struggled out of his arms and gathered her work together in demented haste.
‘It’s all right, Es,’ Jack reassured, wanting to calm her down.
But she was already heading for the door when her higgledy-piggledy collection of sketches and samples and paint charts began to slide out of her arms. She tried to save the first couple, then gave up and dropped the rest on the floor, abandoning any attempt to restore dignity.
‘Esme!’ Concern, reprimand or just plain surprise from Jack?
Esme didn’t hang around to analyse but made for the door and, ignoring Rebecca’s startled look, fled for the hills. Or more precisely the sanctuary of her cottage.
Of course she regretted running almost immediately. It was hardly the grown-up thing to do.
So Rebecca had caught them? Big deal. Neither of them was married. They were both old enough. And Rebecca wasn’t likely to find it earth-shattering news that yet another silly girl had fallen for Jack Doyle.
Esme backtracked on her thoughts and pressed still on the phrase she’d used. Fallen for? Who’d said anything about falling for?
Just because she behaved like a push-over every time he so much as touched her it didn’t have to mean anything. It was as Harry’s bully had said. She was a posh tart. Not the nicest of accolades but how else could she explain her behaviour of late?
You love him.
No, I don’t!
Yes, you do.
Rubbish.
Always have, always will.
Just shut up.
‘Yes, shut up!’ Esme repeated aloud as she caught herself having another conversation in her head.
The doorbell rang. For a moment she considered hiding away, then thought, No, let’s get it over with. Tell him what he could do with his job now he’d broken all the rules.
‘I’ll disappear if you like,’ Rebecca offered as Esme opened the door with a rather fierce expression.
But Esme shook her head. The fierce look had been for Jack. Rebecca came almost as a relief.
‘I won’t feel any less foolish,’ Esme countered, and led the way inside.
‘Because I saw you and Jack were kissing?’ Rebecca said, smiling. ‘That’s no reason to feel foolish... I don’t even know why I was surprised at it.’
‘Probably because you think: Now, here’s my precious J.D., handsome, smart and mega rich,’ Esme suggested with an edge, ‘and here’s this English girl, average-looking, not so smart, and with a ten-year-old child as baggage.’
‘He was your Jack before he was ever mine,’ Rebecca pointed out drily, ‘and as for your being average, I would die to be as average as you, Esme Hamilton.’
Esme recognised the compliment but nevertheless pulled a face, ‘I notice there’s no objection to my “not so smart” comment.’
‘All right, you’re Einstein,’ Rebecca said, tongue-in-cheek. ‘Whatever, don’t run yourself down. Just accept it. The guy’s nuts about you.’
Esme didn’t know how Rebecca had come to that conclusion but she scotched it with a disbelieving snort.
‘Who do you think sent me out here?’ Rebecca pursued. Esme answered with a shrug.
‘He thinks he’s blown it,’ Rebecca continued, ‘and you’re about to disappear into the sunset.’
‘I see.’ Esme was sure she did now. ‘So he’s worried that he’s going to have a half-finished house.’
Rebecca gave a loud sigh. ‘You really don’t know J.D. if you believe that.’
‘Don’t I?’ Esme resented the suggestion. ‘You’re forgetting. He was my Jack Doyle, long before you ever met him, and I learned the hard way just how detached he can be.’
She finished on a bitter note, betraying more, much more than she intended. Old wounds never quite healed.
And Rebecca slowly made the connection. ‘He was the first, wasn’t he? The one you talked about.’
Esme cursed her new friend’s astuteness, then reminded herself whose old friend Rebecca was. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not following.’
‘That day in the car,’ Rebecca warmed to her idea, ‘we were going to view a house. I was saying that everybody should have experience before settling down and you said—’
‘Nothing very important, I imagine,’ Esme cut in, ‘considering I can’t remember it... Now, if you’ve finished saying your piece—or his piece, to be precise—I’ll say mine, so take notes... Much as I’d like to sail off into the sunset, I need this job. I need the money and I need the experience. However, if Mr Doyle continues to harass me—’
‘Harass?’ Rebecca’s eyes rounded in disbelief. ‘Come on, you don’t expect me to say this to him, do you?’
‘What would you call it?’ Esme demanded testily.
‘Well, from where I was standing, honey,’ Rebecca drawled back, ‘you sure seemed to be enjoying this harassment.’
Esme coloured darkly. Whose side was Rebecca on? His, of course, she reminded herself.
‘He is currently my employer,’ Esme intoned primly. ‘What would you have me do—slap his face?’
‘So you just had to grin and bear it?’ Rebecca gave a mock-pout. ‘Poor little Esme.’
‘All right.’ Esme conceded the point. ‘I wasn’t altogether unwilling. He’s an attractive man and he knows how to kiss. But that doesn’t mean I want to be used as...a sexual diversion any time he feels like it.’
‘But if he was actually serious about you?’ Rebecca countered immediately.
‘He isn’t.’ Esme wasn’t a fool.
‘But say he was.’ Rebecca wouldn’t give it up.
‘Then fine,’ Esme retorted. ‘He can get down on one knee, ask me to marry him, and we’ll live happily ever after.’
It was pure sarcasm, picked up by Rebecca although she was deadpan as she enquired, ‘Do you want me to relay all that?’
‘Do you want me to kill you?’ Esme threw back.
Rebecca grinned in response. ‘OK, so what do I say? No more hanky-panky or you’re out of here?’
‘Essentially,’ Esme confirmed, ‘although if you could find a more subtle way of putting it I’d be grateful.’
‘No problem,’ Rebecca claimed. ‘Subtlety is my middle name.’
‘Thanks.’ Esme’s
gratitude was genuine, although she rather doubted how discreet Rebecca was capable of being.
Still, it did the trick. While she half expected Jack to come charging down in person, to call her either a liar or a coward, the rest of the day went quietly.
And the next. In fact, if Jack was about, she didn’t see him.
It was Rebecca who collared her, waiting until Harry had disappeared with Eliot, to convey a message.
‘J.D. says he’s sorry that he behaved with impropriety,’ she quoted, ‘and he will endeavour to act with restraint from here on in.’
Esme supposed that was reassuring. ‘If you could tell him I accept his apology and will continue in his employment until I’ve fulfilled my obligation.’
‘Right.’ Behind her serious nod, Rebecca looked suspiciously close to laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘I feel like a go-between in some Victorian melodrama,’ Rebecca tittered. ‘Never mind, I will apprise Mr Rochester— sorry—Doyle of your intentions. Though, if you want my opinion—’ she drawled on.
‘Thanks all the same, but no,’ Esme cut in sharply.
Rebecca shook her head, implying it was her loss. ‘Funnily enough, neither did J.D. I guess there’s some people you just can’t help.’
Rebecca shrugged, then smiled again, and Esme finally smiled back, having no quarrel with Rebecca.
In fact, in the weeks that followed Rebecca was to prove a good friend when it came to Harry’s schooling.
Knowing Esme had yet to find an alternative state school, it was Rebecca who convinced her to try the prep school her son Eliot was destined to attend and who asked its headmaster to consider a late applicant.
Ingrained notions of modesty would never have allowed Esme to declare her son exceptionally gifted, but Rebecca had no hesitation and, days later, Hairy was sitting an entrance test, confirming just how high an IQ he had. When Esme admitted the school fees would be a struggle, an impressed headteacher predicted that next year Harry would be likely to win one of the scholarships on entry to the senior school.
All she had to find were this year’s fees, and that problem was solved overnight as Jack released another advance in her fees. No coincidence, she realised, but he made it painless for her to accept the money, sending a cheque in an envelope via Harry.
In fact, they had little face-to-face communication any more. He was either abroad or up in London or closeted in his offices in the attic. Instead she’d send him e-mails—a skill she’d finally picked up from Harry—asking for his approval on whatever, and wait for an e-mail in return.
On the occasions they did meet they were assiduously polite. Just as Rebecca had said: more like characters from a bygone novel than real people. But for Esme it was purely a veneer. She told herself she preferred this cool, remote Jack Doyle even as part of her longed for him to reach out and pull her back into his arms and take the ache inside her away.
Nothing in his manner suggested he felt the same way. While her heart kicked up a beat just at the sight of him, his face was so impassive it could have been carved in stone. So what better proof did she need to know she’d done the right thing by rejecting his transitory interest?
None really, but she got it all the same: a final nail in the coffin.
The dining and drawing rooms were all but finished, when he asked her to come up with some ideas for the bedrooms. ‘I’m assuming you want the work?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘I’ll await your estimate.’
She nodded and concluded she’d been dismissed. She was halfway to the door when he detained her.
‘Before I forget—’ he waited till she turned ‘—your sister called.’
‘Sister?’ she echoed in surprise.
‘Arabella,’ he reminded her.
Unnecessary, of course. She had only one sister.
‘It seems she’s back in England,’ he ran on.
‘Yes.’
‘You never said.’
Why should she have? she almost retorted. But she knew in her heart she’d avoided telling him.
‘Anyway,’ he resumed at her silence, ‘she’d like to come down some time this week.’
‘Right.’ Her tone was leaden.
He looked puzzled and she wondered what he expected— her to burst into song at the notion of Arabella coming to Highfield as his house guest?
‘If accommodation is a problem,’ he offered, ‘I’ll put up Harry while she’s here.’
‘What?’ Esme had suddenly lost the plot.
‘The cottage is a little cramped,’ he added in comment.
Esme caught up slowly. ‘You mean so Arabella can stay in his room.’
‘That was the idea, yes.’ He gave her another quizzical look.
‘Fine.’ She nodded, feeling more than a little foolish.
‘He can share with Eliot, maybe,’ proposed Jack, ‘in the guest quarters.’
Esme nodded again, then finally remembered her manners. ‘That’s kind of you.’
‘Not really,’ he dismissed, ‘I like having Harry around.’
And Harry liked being around him. She wondered if she’d have felt less guilty if the two had hated each other.
‘Anyway, I said you’d ring back,’ he continued, ‘to confirm. Apparently she’s lost your number.’
So? Esme pondered to herself. Her mother had it. More like Arabella had engineered things to talk to Jack.
Esme said none of this to Jack, however.
Or to Arabella, for that matter, when her sister rang two days later, launching into an immediate, ‘You were meant to call me. Didn’t Jack give you my message?’
‘Sorry, it completely slipped my mind,’ Esme said in reply.
‘God, you don’t change, do you?’ Arabella sighed loudly. ‘Still a head like a sieve. Never mind, I’m coming down tomorrow. I trust you’ll find me space in that Wendy house of yours.’
Arabella laughed as if it was a joke but Esme found she had a sense-of-humour failure. She often did around Arabella.
‘Jack’s letting Harry stay at the house,’ she revealed flatly.
‘Lucky old Harry,’ Arabella murmured back. ‘Ask him if he wants to swap.’
‘You’re assuming Jack would want you as his guest.’ Esme’s tone claimed that was highly unlikely. Forget the fact she’d assumed as much herself.
‘Who knows?’ Arabella trilled back. ‘Remember, Jack and
I were an item once. So what’s he like now, our stable-boy -turned-dot.com-millionaire? Still dishy?’
Esme couldn’t resist a reply of, if you like fat, bald men with glasses.’
‘Really? I don’t believe it!’ said Arabella, but from her groan of disappointment she clearly did.
Esme smiled to herself, not caring that she seemed to be turning into a compulsive liar.
‘Well, at least he’s rich,’ Arabella consoled herself.
‘But not stupid,’ Esme tried to console herself in return.
It didn’t work, however. Jack hadn’t been stupid in his younger years but he’d fallen for Arabella all the same.
‘Meaning?’ Arabella snapped in response.
‘Nothing.’ Esme reminded herself that Arabella was her sister. ‘When should I expect you?’
Arabella let the argument drop, too. ‘Afternoon, I imagine. I’m going to a party tonight, so I won’t surface till late.’
‘I’ll see you soon, then.’
She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘look forward to it’ and Arabella didn’t bother with pleasantries either, abruptly ringing off.
I can’t face this, Esme thought as she put the receiver back on its hook.
Yet she was going to have to. Just as she had that summer over ten years ago, when she’d watched her beautiful older sister vamp the boy she’d been crazy about for as long as she remembered. And she could do nothing about it.
Unless it was to hope for some miracle. That Jack would suddenly be too fastidi
ous to go with one sister when lately he’d been trying to talk the other into bed? History said not. Or maybe watching the two of them together would have a kill or cure effect? As opposed to a desire to crumple into a pathetic little ball.
No, her best and brightest hope was that Arabella herself had gone fat or bald, preferably both, in the two years since she’d seen her.
And somehow that didn’t seem very likely, now, did it?
CHAPTER NINE
No, Arabella hadn’t changed, Esme concluded when her sister finally appeared late in the evening, dressed head to foot in designer casual and with two suitcases undoubtedly full of other such outfits.
Well, not quite the same. The hair was lighter—lighter even than Esme’s, and she had always been the blonder. And there was something different about the face, though it was hard to pinpoint. But the biggest difference was hard to miss.
Esme found herself staring when Arabella cast off her jacket to reveal an impossibly large bosom in an impossibly tight sleeveless T-shirt. Now, that was new.
‘Is there a problem?’ Arabella dared her to comment.
Esme gathered from that she was meant to ignore her sister’s burgeoning cleavage. Hard one.
‘No, everything’s fine,’ Esme rejoined. ‘You just might find it a little cold in the cottage. I don’t turn the heating on in the summer.’
‘I’ll tell you if I do.’ Arabella cast her eyes round the living room. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll be staying very long, anyway.’
The accommodation had obviously been found wanting. Esme could have cheered. When she’d seen her sister’s two large cases, she’d honestly wondered if she was moving in.
‘I’d like a bath,’ Arabella announced next. ‘You do have one, I suppose.’
‘Well, there’s the tin one,’ Esme couldn’t resist saying. ‘I could put it in front of the fire.’
Arabella looked absolutely horrified.
‘Joke,’ Esme felt she should add. ‘The bathroom’s along the corridor off the hall.’
‘Very funny.’ Arabella didn’t like jokes unless she was making them. ‘Really, I would have thought you’d have grown up by now, Midge. You always did have the strangest humour.’
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