by Robyn Donald
‘I didn’t take the bra off,’ Jake Howard said mockingly, and walked out of the room.
Aline sank back against the pillows, thinking sickly that she’d never wake up again without remembering this sordid humiliation.
Then she clamped her jaw tight and flung the bedclothes back, because memory was the one thing she didn’t have.
The house had been built almost on the beach; to each side there were pohutukawa trees, their dark leaves lightened by bunches of silver buds. Which meant, Aline knew, that it would soon be summer, when New Zealand’s most beautiful flowering tree burst into crimson and scarlet and burgundy tassels, so many that the huge trees shimmered with colour against the sea.
Swiftly she dragged her gaze from the view. Her eyes skidded over a breakfast setting in one of the windows, two finely woven cane chairs and a table—the chairs large enough to comfortably take Jake Howard’s big, graceful body. His very size was intimidating, but the aura of power and forcefulness that clung to him truly worried her. He didn’t look like a man it was wise to cross.
Had he planned to sit opposite her in that window and eat breakfast in some post-coital haze of satiation? Had she agreed?
And was he telling the truth when he said she’d ‘made the moves’?
Cold with shame, Aline dragged the sheet from the bed and wound it around her body. Was that the sort of person she was? Provocative, forward, brassy? Nausea clutched her stomach.
No; he’d said she’d been a devoted widow. But her stiffness told her she’d been well and truly loved the previous night. And unless he’d kidnapped her, which didn’t seem likely, she must have agreed to stay here with him.
Aline hurried across the room to the other door. It opened into a bathroom and a large, walk-in wardrobe. She peered into the wardrobe, sucking in her breath as she saw a casually chic weekend bag stacked against the wall, silent admission that she’d wanted this tryst as much as Jake had.
Slowly, gingerly, she stepped into the wardrobe. Hanging on the racks and stacked neatly on the shelves were clothes entirely suitable to a holiday at the beach—cotton shorts and wraps, T-shirts, a bathing suit in an intense turquoise blue and several sturdier garments in case the weather turned chilly.
Oh, yes, she’d definitely intended to stay here. Urgently she raced across and opened the bag, but it was empty of anything that hinted at her life.
Disappointment slammed into her. Sick with it, she found herself blinking back tears as she closed the case, clicked the catches together and set it against the wall, standing up to stare blankly around the room.
Only then did she notice that there were no men’s clothes in the wardrobe.
So Jake had been telling the truth; he hadn’t planned to share this bedroom.
Humiliation crawling unpleasantly through her, she walked into the bathroom. Her gaze flew to the mirror, her breath sighing out in intense relief when she recognised the face that stared back at her. Until then she hadn’t realised how afraid she’d been that a stranger would stare at her from the mirror.
‘Oh, thank God,’ she muttered, checking out eyes the dense, vivid blue of turquoise, almond-shaped and widely set, transparent skin, black lashes and brows, and hair hanging in a sooty curtain halfway down her back.
Ignoring the frisson of apprehension down her spine, she unwound the sheet and surveyed her body gravely in the full-length mirror. It too held no surprises—she knew her white skin, the long, slender legs and arms, the small, neat breasts above a narrow waist and hips. No children, she decided, checking for stretch marks.
An upwelling sadness caught her totally by surprise. She almost surrendered to it, but only for a moment. Once more her chin came up, though she flushed at evidence of the night before—a slight reddening here and there of her translucent skin—and recalled the scratches on Jake’s back.
If only she could remember!
‘Trying to force it probably won’t help,’ she muttered, turning from the sight of those betraying marks to set the shower going.
But what if her memory never came back? What if she went through the rest of her life like this? Panic shook her; gripping the edge of the bench she bowed over it, shuddering like a tree in a cyclone.
Eventually she fought it back and straightened. She had to get away from Jake Howard and back to real life; the clues to her memory lay there, not in his luxurious house by the sea where she’d apparently enjoyed a night of decadence with him.
Walking into a strong, warm blast of water, she grabbed soap and facecloth and proceeded to scrub every bit of that night off her body.
When she emerged, pink all over, she towelled the water from her body with swift, ungentle hands. She didn’t notice the handbag until she stooped to dry her feet. The same intense blue as her eyes, it lay open on its side behind the door.
Aline froze. ‘Yes!’ she whispered, because this would tell her so much.
With trembling hands she picked it up and shook out the contents.
Not much cash, although the wallet held a couple of gold credit cards and a chequebook. She stared at her signature, blinking away the easy tears when she didn’t recognise it.
Her fingers went automatically to the pocket that held her driving licence; from it stared a solemn photograph in which she looked all of the twenty-eight years she apparently was. She’d been born on the sixteenth of November.
There wasn’t much else—no old letters, nothing that gave her any handle on Aline Connor, not even a shopping list. Apparently she travelled light, and she was tidy. For the second time in a few minutes sick disappointment overwhelmed her with painful, almost physical ferocity.
‘Stop this at once!’ she told herself wearily. No doubt, in whatever home she inhabited, there was an everyday bag that held much more information than this one.
She stood with the bag clutched to her chest. ‘Home,’ she said aloud, tasting the word.
An overwhelming revulsion shocked her. Why? More quick, weak tears glimmered in her eyes; if only she had some slight inkling of her life, of the sort of person Aline Connor was. These sudden, baseless mood swings were probably entirely natural, given the situation, but they exhausted her and stopped her from thinking sensibly.
Setting the bag down on the marble bench, she wiped her eyes and snatched up the bath sheet, draping it around herself like a sarong before heading for the wardrobe.
She dumped the bag onto a shelf and began to dress, filled with determination. Today she’d leave this beach house, and the man who owned it, and go home to find herself again. At home there’d be letters she could read, and books and music and pictures she’d bought, invitations—all the paraphernalia necessary to jump-start her memory.
And what, a coldly logical part of her brain asked, if nothing helps?
The thought smashed the fragile veneer of her confidence. Swallowing to ease the dryness of panic in her mouth and throat, she closed her eyes, but immediately forced them open. If going home didn’t do the trick, she’d try medicine, drugs, hypnosis—anything.
But for now she’d go out in full battle array.
Setting her mouth, she buttoned up a cream cotton shirt over her jeans, rolling up the sleeves to just below her elbows. Back in the bathroom she dried her hair and brushed it. The photograph on her driver’s licence had shown it caught back behind her head, but that seemed too formal for the beach.
‘Oh, no, it’s not,’ she muttered.
Fortunately some memory divorced from her brain and seated in habit told her hands how to do her hair, just as it guided her through the process of making up her face. Both, she discovered, were quite easy to accomplish if she stopped trying to remember how and just let her mind drift.
When she was ready she damped down the fear that lurked at the back of her mind and stared gravely at her reflection. Lips softly coloured, skin sheltering behind a faint translucent film of foundation, eyes tactfully enhanced, she looked good. Not sexy, no—that was the last thing she wanted! It put h
er at too much of a disadvantage when Jake Howard looked at her with those compelling, knowledgeable eyes.
Cool, controlled reserve—that was what she needed to hide her almost overpowering panic.
Knotting a cream and blue scarf around her throat, she walked into the bedroom and hauled the bedclothes back. When she straightened a glimmer of gold on the tiles over by the window table caught her eye. It was a thin gold chain, intricately woven like a silk rope, with a small diamond winking from the clasp.
‘What on earth are you doing on the floor?’ she said out loud.
Embarrassment cracked her composure. Perhaps she’d wrenched it off in her haste to get rid of her bra the night before. Tensely she scooped it up and dropped it over her head, smoothing it into place as she left the room.
Jake was coming along a wide glassed-in corridor that looked out over the beach. He stopped and watched her walk towards him, something in his glance making her skin prickle with apprehension.
But all he said was, ‘I’ve made breakfast.’
Her stomach chose just that second to gurgle embarrassingly. His brows lifted in a taunting glance. ‘Listen to your body,’ he advised, his tone making the subtext clear; he wasn’t referring just to food.
She was totally unprepared for the swift out-thrust of his hand towards her throat. Nevertheless, her reactions were fast—she’d almost jumped out of reach before his other hand closed around her shoulder.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she gasped, held still in a merciless grip. She stared up into a face that shocked her—the predator with his prey fully in his sight, golden eyes darkening in barely suppressed rage.
Strong fingers caught the chain around her neck, flicking it over her head.
‘Leave that alone!’ she commanded fiercely, grabbing at the gold links.
He said between his teeth, ‘What sort of person are you? While you’re in my house, after a night in my bed, you will not wear the chain he gave you.’ He dropped it on the floor with cruel dismissiveness. ‘Not against the skin I’ve kissed, the breasts I’ve caressed and tasted, around the throat that called my name when you climaxed in my arms. Pack him away where he belongs, Aline, in the past.’
Something tightened inside her in response to the inherent sensuality of his words, a sensuality counteracted by the stark anger that sent a frisson of fear spiralling through her.
She had gone along with Jake’s interpretation of this whole situation. But what if he’d kidnapped her? What if he’d drugged her and then packed her bag and brought her here, knowing that the drugs would leave her temporarily disoriented?
Even as she cringed at such feverish fantasies, she told herself that it wouldn’t hurt to be careful.
Hot with angry fear, she stammered, ‘I’m not… I didn’t…’
‘Of course you did,’ he said coolly, releasing her with a contemptuous abruptness. ‘I want you, yes, but not as a substitute for a man you can’t have because he’s dead.’
She swallowed, her eyes held captive by the hard condemnation in his. Trying hard to make her voice steady, she said, ‘Jake, I want to go home.’
The condemnation faded, replaced by what she sensed was unwilling sympathy. He touched her cheek and murmured in a low voice, ‘Don’t look so scared, darling heart.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Didn’t last night show you that you have nothing to be afraid of? If it didn’t, then I’ll just have to prove it over and over until you’re convinced.’
Astonished and appalled by her humiliating desire to be convinced, she hesitated.
Jake gave a slow smile. Perhaps there was a hint of calculation in it, but when she stared gravely at him it vanished. If it had ever been there. ‘Come and have some breakfast.’
Her mind buzzing with indecision and apprehension, she nodded. ‘All right,’ she said meaninglessly, and went with him to the kitchen.
The house had been built with the short passage to her bedroom leading off a large living and dining-room. On the far side of the room another door hinted at other rooms. The stamp of the creative expert who’d furnished her bedroom was also evident here in the same sophisticated casualness and neutral shades of honey and sand and cream.
The soothing, homely bubble of coffee and the scent of toast indicated breakfast.
‘How do you like your eggs?’ Jake asked.
She hesitated, then said quietly, ‘I don’t know.’
Jake thought cynically that for a clever, disciplined woman, who’d fought her way to a position of considerable power, she was making a total hash of pretending to lose her memory. He wasn’t a gambler, but he’d be prepared to bet a considerable amount of money that she’d been just about to tell him exactly how she liked her eggs when that cool, clear brain of hers had warned her it wouldn’t look good.
Turning away, he cracked eggs into the pan and said aloud, ‘Then I’ll do them the same as mine—with the whites set.’
‘Thank you,’ she said in a muted voice.
When had she decided to wipe out the whole evening and return them both to square one?
Probably the instant she’d woken up and seen him in bed beside her. He had to admire her quick wits and her intelligence, even though he wanted to force her into accepting that last night had changed everything.
Frustration rode him; she’d been so bloody elusive, sliding with enigmatic grace past all his lures. He’d diluted his urgent male desire to hunt her down with every ounce of caution he possessed, and last night he’d thought he’d finally won his prize.
At the memory of her in his arms heat clamoured through him, storming the cold logic of his brain.
Yet last night had not been enough to get her out of his system; in spite of her wholesale surrender, he still wanted her with a primitive hunger that ate at his control and his strength. And although he wasn’t going to let her get away with this charade, he’d better remember that she could be dangerous.
‘Over there,’ he said, nodding in its direction, ‘is a toaster. Do you think you could put some bread in it?’
The soft glow of her skin suddenly faded into pallor. She was good; he had to admit it. Had she been acting last night? The thought knotted his gut and rasped in his voice. ‘Give it up, Aline. Be honest—if you don’t want an affair with me say so.’
‘I don’t want an affair with you,’ she returned, almost stumbling over the words to add even more rapidly, ‘I’m sorry if I—if I said that I would. I truly can’t remember.’
Her white, brittle pride infuriated him so much that he wanted to smash it into fragments. No other woman had ever been able to churn his emotions into custard. He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Oh, forget it.’
Anger tightened inside him when he saw the relief she couldn’t hide as she dropped bread into the toaster. What the hell was it about her that so umanned him? She was beautiful, yes, with a disciplined, snow queen loveliness that had caught his eye the first time he’d seen her across a boardroom table.
But he’d made love to other beautiful women without this deep-seated hunger to possess and protect and cherish. And for every one he’d taken he’d rejected another politely. Jake had no illusions; he’d been born with a face that attracted women even before his bank balance had grown enough to cover any sort of physical or temperamental flaw. Women wanted security for all sorts of reasons rooted in humanity’s past, and when they looked at him they saw a good provider.
But Aline Connor had made it obvious right from the start that she wanted neither him nor any security he could offer.
The coffee-maker bubbled in urgent signal. He picked it up and poured the steaming liquid into a couple of mugs. ‘Sugar and milk?’
‘I don’t know how I have it.’
She said it defiantly, but he thought he detected a thread of fear in the words, and again felt that strange compulsion to protect her.
Something about this composed, elusive woman, still in thrall to her dead husband’s memory, shattered his carefully crafted defences. Perhaps he�
�d grown arrogant because he’d never wanted a woman he couldn’t have.
And perhaps, he thought with disciplined assurance as he poured milk into the cup, he was ignoring the one thing he had in his favour. In spite of her implacable resistance, she did want him. She might be the best actor in the world, but her body spoke a language he understood. From the moment they’d met she’d been acutely, anxiously aware of him, and last night she’d gone up in his arms like flames.
So she was regretting it now; well, he didn’t have to make it easy for her to forget.
CHAPTER FIVE
PUSHING a mug across the counter, Jake said, ‘Here, you look as though you could do with this.’
A confused torment of sensation exploded Aline’s surface composure into shards. Assailed by an intense shaft of need, strong and uncontrollable, at the sight of him, she couldn’t have spoken if her life had depended on it.
At least he now had clothes on!
Yet even without clothes he’d projected a formidable authority. A complex man; although he’d been scornful and contemptuous, sure her memory loss was some kind of sick ploy, he hadn’t tried to pressure her. Picking up the mug, she gave him a quick glance from beneath her lashes. She couldn’t imagine him trying to pressure anyone: he wouldn’t need to. Bone-deep mastery of himself and any situation radiated from him.
‘Most women seem to prefer toast or fruit for breakfast,’ he remarked, ‘but I know you like bacon and eggs.’ He slid the eggs onto a dish, reached into the oven for another dish of bacon, and carried both through into the combined living and dining-room, a large open area with comfortable, casually elegant furniture.
Following him, coffee mug in hand, Aline asked warily, ‘Have we eaten breakfast together before?’
‘Not after a night of passion,’ he said with a cool nonchalance that made her blink, walking through bifold doors that opened out onto a wide, wooden deck.