'Are you all right?' Eileen touched Davina's arm. 'You look a bit pale suddenly, dear.'
Davina shook herself slightly. 'Yes, of course, I'm fine, thank you,' and she smiled at the other woman.
'Darling,' it was Toby pulling Eileen forward, 'I don't think you've met Jake Humphries, who works with Mark.'
Davina kept in the background while introductions were made all round, and looked at Jake for the first time since she had run from his flat and his bed. She had forgotten how tall he was, how broad in the shoulders, and how magnificent he looked in evening dress. His face seemed less tanned and the shadows round his eyes looked almost black. She remembered fleetingly his father speaking of insomnia, and wondered if it was worse. His face was set into the grim lines she knew so well. He smiled formally down at the ladies, then looked up unsmilingly straight into her eyes.
'Davina, what a delightful surprise!' It was Mark Foster coming towards her with outstretched hands. 'So you were the lucky one she went to, Toby. You never mentioned it before.' He took both her hands in his and bent to kiss her cheek. 'Beautiful as ever,' he went on, then turned to Jake. 'Aren't you sorry you let her go?' he quizzed.
'How are you, Mr Foster?' she said quietly, as he let go of her and moved away. 'How is Mrs Foster?'
'Very well, thank you, very well.'
Toby laughed. 'Don't think you're going to tempt her back, Jake, will you? Because I won't let her go. I think the place would collapse without her now.'
'Well, this has been nice.' Mark Foster drew back. 'We mustn't keep you.' He turned politely to Mrs Winner. 'I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in London.'
During the ensuing goodbyes, Jake moved towards Davina and she felt an urge to flee. But she controlled herself and stood her ground, giving him a cool smile as he came up.
'You look well, Davina.' His voice was cold and controlled.
'Thank you, Jake. How are you?'
He ignored her question. 'Have you been with Toby Wyndham long?' he asked harshly.
'About two months now.'
'Are you enjoying it?'
'Very much, thank you.'
He smiled sardonically and she said nothing, but started to move away.
'Davina…' He put out a hand towards her and she flinched back instinctively, terrified of his touch. She heard the hiss of his indrawn breath and looked up to see his eyes blaze with anger and something else she couldn't quite identify. A moment later the emotion had gone and his face was shuttered as he looked down at her, his eyes expressionless and curiously dead.
'Jake?' she prompted.
She thought he was about to speak, but just then Bill Winner came up to her and, drawing her arm through his, nodded at Jake in a friendly manner.
'We have to be on our way. It's good to have met you.'
Within minutes they were on the pavement outside, stepping into two cars waiting to take them on for the rest of their evening.
The following day Davina spent in a daze, moving mechanically through her work, apprehensive at each ring of her phone in case it was Jake. But he did not ring, and she found she was wavering between relief and disappointment. She told herself fiercely not to be stupid, and left the office promptly to rush home. Relieved to find a note from Michelle to say she would be away for the night, she changed into her favourite pale pink towelling robe, brushed her hair and settled in front of the fire, her feet drawn up under her on the sofa. She breathed in the scent of the yellow roses that had arrived from Bill Winner and found them strangely comforting.
Well, the first encounter was over, and she hoped it was the worst. It seemed terrible to have to admit that nothing had changed in her feelings for him. Last night she had wanted him to take her away from everyone, she had longed again to be in his arms close to him, and she had wanted him to love her as she still loved him. How much longer could this go on? Perhaps she could throw herself into an affair with someone else. Should she finally accept some of the many invitations she had turned down over the past months, knowing they would all lead to the same inevitable end, an end she had not wanted? Maybe that way lay forgetfulness. Perhaps with someone else she could finally erase the memory of Jake from her mind and heart?
She sighed and got up restlessly. Coffee and some television, she decided, and she was in the kitchen when the doorbell rang.
Damn, she thought, someone for Michelle again. Let them ring! She was in no mood to see anyone. She tiptoed into the living room with her coffee hoping they would go away, but the bell went on ringing. Someone seemed to have their finger on it. She was furious when she finally opened the door.
'Well?' she demanded belligerently. It was Jake.
She stood looking at him, mesmerised, unable to believe her eyes.
'How did you find me?' she asked at last, her voice nervous and high-pitched.
'Through Maddy,' he said calmly, looking her over from her loose hair, down the belted dressing gown to her bare feet.
Her face flamed at his glance, and anger fought with the elation she felt at the sight of him.
'What is it you want, Jake?' she asked woodenly. 'I'm busy.'
'Yes, I can see you are,' he drawled. Can I come in?' Perhaps it was the quickest way to get rid of him she thought. 'Oh, very well, come in. But make it quick, whatever you want.'
He walked past her into the sitting room. 'This is cosy,' he remarked, and shed his leather coat. Flushing, Davina looked away from the muscled thighs clad in tight black trousers, and the wide shoulders under the fine cream sweater that emphasised the crisp blackness of his hair.
'Well,' she said evenly, 'what do you want?'
'Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?' he asked.
'No.'
They stood facing each other. It was Davina who lost her cool.
'If you want me to come back and work for you, the answer's no,' she said heatedly.
'The thought never crossed my mind,' he said mildly, towering over her, making the low room feel hot and close.
'Oh, for God's sake, sit down!' she snapped crossly.
'Thank you,' he said meekly. 'What an irresistible invitation.' His eyes wandered round the room and then he saw the roses. His mouth hardened. 'Ah, roses… the flowers from last night's admirer. For services rendered, I suppose,' he said harshly.
Davina stiffened with anger.
'I'd like you to go now, Jake. Nobody talks to me like that, and I don't have to take it from you!'
He got up, reached for his coat and made for the door. In the tiny hall he turned back.
'Davina,' he said huskily, 'I want to stay—please! I need to talk to you.'
She looked up at him. His eyes seemed to be pleading with her, almost begging her. She didn't understand what this was about, but she couldn't turn him away if he needed her.
'I'll just go and change,' she said.
'No,' he said urgently, 'don't go. Please.'
'Coffee, then?' she asked.
'No, thanks.'
She sat down and waited. Jake walked about the room, finally standing in front of the window, his hands in his pockets, looking out.
Davina swallowed hard. 'How is Anita?' she asked carefully.
'Anita?' he echoed, astonished. 'She's fine.'
The silence resumed. The room was darkening, and she could see only the shape of him at the window, the set of his head, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. She wondered what he was thinking.
'Does it ever seem strange to you, Davina,' he asked, his voice low, 'that we worked together for almost two years, amicably and successfully, and then in one weekend that just went, disappeared.' She sat still, half afraid of what was to come. 'Do you remember that evening in my flat, the night before we went to Cornwall when we talked into the early hours?'
'Yes.'
'It seems so long ago, and yet it's only a tiny slice out of my life, just a few months since that day. And nothing has ever been the same, will ever be the same again. You try so hard to fill your life… w
ork, travel, other women. And all the time you kid yourself, but you go on. You build a front, you believe in it. Maybe it's all going to be all right. And then in one moment it just collapses to dust. Last night there you were, so beautiful, so remote and so familiar and everything I'd built up over the months just crumbled to ashes.'
He put a hand wearily to his head. 'All I could think about was you. All I could see was your face, your body. Every curve of your body is indelibly engraved on my memory. It's all I can see when I try to sleep, when I try in vain to make love to other women. And then that damn Yank at your side,' his voice was suddenly harsh, 'his hands on you, and all I wanted was to throttle him, and take you away somewhere where only I could touch you… Oh, God, it's pathetic, isn't it? Do you know, Davina, there are times when I feel my love for you is a kind of madness and that I'm truly losing my sanity.'
She sat thunderstruck. What was he saying? He loved her? Had done for months? Impossible. He'd married Anita, how could he love someone else? Perhaps this was a joke or some kind of revenge for the day when she ran away.
'How dare you come here and tell me you love me! If that's what you want to talk about, I don't want to hear it. It means nothing to me… nothing!' Her voice was rising, her breathing heavy. 'Go and tell your wife. You don't make love to virgins—well, I don't sleep with married men. If that's what you came for, you're wasting your time. And now get out of here before I say something I'll really regret.'
'What are you talking about?' he thundered at her. 'I know you don't want my love—God knows you've told me often enough. And I know I'm too old for you. That, too, I've been told repeatedly. But don't go off into one of your dreams with me, girl. Wife? What wife? I have no wife. The only woman I want for wife doesn't want me.'
There was a sudden shattering silence in the room. They faced each other now as the tension stretched to breaking point. Jake's hands were tightly clenched at his sides, his mouth drawn into a thin line, his eyes blazing.
'Anita,' whispered Davina. 'Anita… you and she are married. She told me… Jake, I don't understand.'
She swayed and put a hand behind her to find the sofa. Before she could move he was beside her, his hands gripping her arms till she flinched with the pain.
'What are you babbling about, Davina? You thought I was married… to Anita?'
'Yes. I saw her ring… she told me…'
'Anita is married, but not to me,' he growled at her now, and his arms tightened on her painfully. 'I want to know why you thought it was to me.'
She looked at him, unable to grasp what was happening. He loved her. He wasn't married to Anita. Could it be true?
'Answer me, woman, before I do you an injury!' The anger in his face was frightening.
'I don't know, Jake. She showed me the ring and she said I was the one who hadn't a ring and she had… she said she was waiting for you, at the hospital…'
'So you jumped to the conclusion she was married to me.' His eyes glittered and his voice was a sneer. 'I remember that day. Anita told me she'd seen you. And it was just two days after you and I had been together at my flat… in bed. And you think I could make love to you like that if I was married?' He let go of her suddenly and she fell back on to the sofa. 'No wonder you don't love me if that's what you think I am!' He walked away from her. 'It's all hopeless, isn't it? I should never have come.' He picked up his coat. 'Well, this evening has achieved one thing,' he smiled grimly. 'You won't be bothered by me ever again. In future if we meet I'll keep my distance.'
'Jake!' Her cry stopped him. 'Please wait!' She couldn't get the words out through her constricted throat, and he hesitated as he saw her struggle with her emotions.
'I love you,' she said at last in a low voice. 'I have… for months…'
'Spare me, Davina,' he said cuttingly. 'I don't need your pity. I would never settle for that, so you can forget it.'
'Oh, no, Jake, it's true! Oh, God, how am I going to convince you? I love you. That's why I left Foster Pattersons. I couldn't bear to be with you, close to you, in case you guessed.' She stopped and waited.
'Then will you tell me why you refused to marry me? Why you told me there was someone else you loved for whom you turned me down?'
'When you proposed it sounded like a… a sort of arranged marriage of convenience. You talked about entertaining and having children, and the way you described it I thought you just wanted…' Her voice sank to a whisper. 'I couldn't have lived a cold-blooded marriage with you because I loved you too much. I wanted so much more than you offered… and then later, when you asked me, all I said was that there was someone I loved. I didn't say someone else. It was you!'
Jake suddenly stilled, standing motionless, looking down at her. She watched his face, her own wet with fears.
'Cold-blooded? Not love you? Oh, dear God! I'm mad about you, insanely, crazily in love with you…'
Davina watched the tension leave his eyes, and he opened his arms to her. She flew to him and he was kissing her frantically, her eyes, her temples, her hair, holding her close as she wavered between laughter and tears. 'I can't believe it,' he groaned. 'It can't be true.' He kissed her lips, parting them fiercely with his own, moulding her body to his as though he couldn't bear to be separate from her any longer. And she kissed him back, passionately, releasing the pent-up emotions of months without him.
He picked her up and sat down with her on his lap, holding her tight, running his hands through her hair, murmuring her name.
'Oh, Davina, I must have you… and soon. When will you marry me? Please make it soon.'
'As soon as you like,' she breathed, suddenly shy. She lifted her hands to the heavy crisp hair, pulling his head down to hers and giving him her first kiss, long and sweet. Jake gasped his pleasure as she moved her hands down his back and under his sweater, caressing the smooth muscled skin.
'We must be sensible,' he whispered huskily. 'My dearest girl, please!'
'Must we?'
'Definitely,' he said, ruffling her hair and pushing her gently from him, 'but not for long—that I promise you.' He spoke joyously, a new note of possessiveness in his voice. 'I want you for my wife a week from today. Will you, my darling, without fuss or ceremony, in a small church somewhere?'
'Yes, Jake,' she breathed shyly, 'yes, please!' She sat up, suddenly serious. 'Jake, that day at your flat… why did you… leave me?' she asked painfully.
Contrition was in his eyes as he pulled her roughly back into his arms. 'I've been so ashamed about that. I wanted you so desperately, and yet I knew there was a man you loved. You'd told me so, remember? I felt I had to have you, whoever you loved and wherever you went to afterwards. Then, when I discovered I was the first, I knew I couldn't go through with it. I could never have let you go afterwards to anyone else. So I had to pull back. I couldn't have survived losing you if I'd made you mine.' He spoke grimly, holding her so tight, she could barely breathe. 'It was better to let you go to someone else without having you first.' He buried his face in her neck. 'Can you understand that?'
For a while there were no words for either of them.
'When did you know you loved me, Jake?' Davina asked next.
'I was almost sure that evening when you came here and talked to me about yourself. But I'd never felt like that before about anybody, and I wasn't sure. I just didn't want to lose you, to go back to our past relationship, and that's why I suggested…' His voice tailed off as he kissed the tip of her nose.
'Go on,' she demanded.
'I was sure at Carriers. As soon as I saw my ring on your finger, I knew it belonged there, and I wanted you to wear it always. And then over the week-end I suffered the most grinding jealousy. I'd never felt it before, and I just couldn't handle it. Every time you were with Philip or looked at him I imagined you were planning an affair with him after his marriage.' He sat rather grimly, thinking into the past. 'My reason and my knowledge of you just flew out of the window.' He crushed her to him with sudden fierceness. 'Oh, God, I couldn't
go through it again. You won't ever leave me, will you?'
Davina looked at him wonderingly. The great Jake Humphries, begging her not to leave him? And yet she knew exactly how he felt, because she had gone through much the same thing.
'I felt the same about Anita,' she said slowly.
'Anita?' he asked. His voice hardened. 'Did my father talk to you about his favourite fairy story, that Anita and I would get married?'
She looked at him in surprise.
'Oh, yes, I know all about it,' he assured her. 'Anita had a crush on me when she was a schoolgirl, and my father was so desperate to marry me off to anybody he built up this fantasy that I loved her, but was too scared to tie her up while she was so young. Well, none of that was the truth. When I kissed her that day when we arrived… well, I was trying to make you jealous, and I hoped I was putting you through some of the same that I'd been suffering.' He laughed. 'Did it succeed at all?'
'You know it did,' she said, 'only too well. When she showed me her wedding ring, I was completely convinced it was you.'
'No chance. She had no intention of marrying me. She wanted someone who would dance attendance on her, not a man who had to work for his living. And she found it… and good luck to her. But that day she lammed into you I told her a few home truths.'
'Did you hear us… I wasn't sure how much you'd heard,' she said uncertainly.
'Well, neither of you was exactly quiet, you know,' he smiled reminiscently, 'but I wasn't having her talk to you as she did. And when you'd finished with her I told her to stop fantasising about marriage with me, that I was marrying you and she'd better accept it. She was furious.' He kissed her lightly on her eyes. 'But what intrigued me was hearing from the woman I loved what her ideas were on love and marriage. I've remembered that… and I shall certainly hold you to it.'
Wedding in the Family Page 18