by Liz Fielding
There was an awkward pause that lasted seemingly endless seconds. Then India finally found her voice. ‘Maureen, may I introduce Jordan Farraday? The last time you met he couldn’t have been more than eight years old—’ Then, ‘Will you excuse me? The catering manager is trying to attract my attention.’ And, leaving Jordan snared by the woman’s reminiscences about his boyhood scrapes, she made her escape. Hoping that he’d follow.
Having dealt with a minor query, she circulated, talking to staff, trying not to think about this being the last time they’d all be together. Telling herself that it was not the end, but a new start. Trying to prevent her gaze from drifting towards Jordan, his tall figure dominating the room, to force herself to concentrate, respond coherently to endless questions about her father’s health.
She must have succeeded pretty well, because she nearly jumped out of her skin as he put his hand on her shoulder—skin on skin—and leaned across her to shake hands with someone and introduce himself.
It had been a self-protective device—not a particularly successful one—trying to convince herself that he wouldn’t come. She’d conceded the store, asked for little in return. But he didn’t have to give it to her. Claibourne was a trademarked name… As from today, it was his trademark. And if he was as cynical as Sally had suggested, why would he waste his valuable time on a retirement party?
He moved her on, his hand on her shoulder. ‘How was your day?’
‘Peaceful without you,’ she said, a throwaway line that would have elicited a disbelieving grunt from her secretary. ‘How was yours?’
He turned to block out the room. ‘Empty. I missed you.’ It was a small, still moment before someone demanded her attention. He moved on, easy in company, smiling without strain, chatting easily with anyone and everyone as if nothing had happened. And nothing had. She mustn’t read too much into his words. Yet his hand never left her shoulder. His arm remained possessively across her back as they worked the room. And he politely but firmly ejected the store manager from the seat at her side when they sat down to supper.
Their meal was slow and leisurely. It was punctuated with anecdotes about Maureen, short speeches from colleagues and from India. She was eating, she was talking, but she was performing on automatic pilot.
He’d missed her?
‘How soon before we can get away?’ he asked, as people began to drift out to the terrace.
We? ‘If you leave before the dance you’ve made such a fuss about,’ she said, taking nothing for granted, ‘Sally will lynch you.’
‘Why? Is she planning to take photographs and sell them to Celebrity?’
‘There’s no need. They’ve sent a staff photographer to cover the event. And you shall have your dance. But not the first dance. Noblesse oblige, Jordan. Your first duty tonight is to Maureen.’
‘Of course it is. But make no mistake. The last dance is mine.’ He didn’t wait for her answer, but took Maureen by the hand. Soon everyone had joined in. India danced with Maureen’s husband, with long-serving employees, with shy juniors. Jordan needed no bidding to do the same.
Then she lost sight of him for a moment, turned round in a moment of panic and found herself in his arms, his hand at her back, her hand caught between them, pressed against his chest as he held her close, his cheek against her hair. They didn’t so much move as sway in time to the music. ‘You were right,’ he said, after a moment.
‘Right? What’s this? Flattery?’ Laughter gurgled from her throat. ‘I warn you, sir, I’m not used to it. It will go straight to my head.’
‘If I’d danced with you first I’d never have been able to let you go.’ He stopped and she looked up.
‘We can’t—’
‘This is the last dance, India. We go now, or I kiss you right here—and Celebrity magazine will have a lot more than a retirement party to report on.’
CHAPTER TEN
INDIA didn’t argue. Neither of them spoke until they were in his car, heading west. As they joined the motorway she turned to him. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Home.’
His home. She smiled. ‘Would that be the Berkshire manor house with its own cricket pitch and a heated pool?’ She’d done a little background checking of her own.
‘I can’t wait until the weekend,’ he said, smiling back, not denying it. ‘And I’m damn sure I don’t want to share you with two randy cricket teams. I want you all to myself.’
He glanced at her, offering her the opportunity to object.
India didn’t say a word, and after a while he slowed to turn between the tall brick pillars. The paved drive ran for half a mile or so between an avenue of ancient trees until they turned into the courtyard of a spreading Tudor manor house, with narrow rose-coloured bricks and centuries-old timbering, that lay beneath the moonlight, still and perfect.
‘When, exactly, were you going to tell me that this is your house?’
‘Technically it’s not. My mother inherited it from her father. In reality she’s rarely here these days and I take care of everything.’
‘I don’t suppose she’s here now,’ she said, and heard her voice catch in her throat.
‘She wasn’t here this afternoon when I left for London,’ he admitted. ‘In fact I’m not sure where she is right now. Her last e-mail was from the Afghan border, where she was trying to cross with an aid team.’ He almost smiled. ‘You did ask what she did…after.’
Charity work. Not the garden party and gala ball fund-raising kind, but hands-on, at the hurting end. ‘You must worry about her.’
‘Yes, but I try not to let it show too much. It makes her irritable.’
‘I’d like to meet her.’
‘You will,’ he promised.
‘And we have twenty-four hours before the cricket teams descend en masse?’
‘Actually…they’re not coming. The weather forecast was for rain, so I postponed it until next month.’ She said nothing, just looked up wordlessly at the cloudless sky. ‘It’s unseasonably warm. I guarantee there’ll be thunder by Saturday.’
‘It will serve you right if it pours with rain in July,’ she said, releasing the seat belt, pushing open the car door and swinging her feet onto the ancient brick paving before standing and, making a big effort not to smile, turning to face him.
He got out of the low sports car, but kept it between them. ‘If you’re here, I don’t care.’ His voice was soft as cobweb; his eyes were on fire. Oh, God, he could melt her with a look like that. When she didn’t answer, he took his jacket from the back of the car, hooked it over his shoulder and rounded the car to take her hand. ‘Come on, this way.’ And he turned his back on the house, led the way down a wide brick path, softly illuminated at ground level.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To take a little walk—clear our heads before bedtime.’
‘I’m not sure I want my head that clear.’ She’d done her thinking, cleared the decks. Now all she wanted was to be in his arms—wanted everything that his eyes were promising.
‘We have to talk. About what’s going to happen to the store. About the past.’
‘We have no past, Jordan.’ Maybe, if they were wiser than their forebears, they might have a future. ‘The lawyers have my proposal. Leave it to them to thrash out the fine print,’ she said as they descended a series of wide, shallow steps. ‘As for tonight.’ She stopped, looked up at him. ‘Tonight, I absolutely forbid shop talk.’ Then, as their movement triggered lights in a huge weeping willow, she saw the river, a pretty two-storey boathouse and a wooden jetty. ‘I hadn’t realised we were so close to the river,’ she said, and, retrieving her hand, pulled off her shoes before walking to the end of the jetty, where she sat down, her toes hanging over the edge. ‘Oh, swizz, they don’t reach the water,’ she said, peering down at the inky depths.
‘It’s been a dry spring.’ He draped his jacket over her shoulders and sat beside her.
‘Okay, we’ve done cricket and we’ve done the weather—�
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‘India—’
But she didn’t want to talk. Talking got them into all kinds of trouble. They hadn’t come to this beautiful place to talk. She’d wiped away the past. Was going to build her own future. She hoped that Jordan would be there too, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Not right at this minute. And as she turned to look at him she gave a little gasp. ‘Stop!’ she whispered fiercely.
‘What?’
She reached up, laid her hand on his cheek. ‘Keep very still—’ With her other hand she captured his neck. ‘Can you feel it?’ she whispered. The feeling that was racing through her, taking control, old as time…
‘India…’ he warned. ‘Wait—’
‘I’ve been waiting for you all my life,’ she said, and this time she didn’t wait for him to kiss her, but took the initiative, touching his lips with her own. Tempting him softly, tenderly with her tongue. ‘Do you feel it, Jordan?’ she whispered into his mouth. And she kept him her willing captive as she lay back against the timber jetty, his jacket warm beneath her. For a moment everything was still as he looked down at her, touched her face, her throat, as his fingers outlined the contour of her shoulder.
Then his fingers found the zip at the side of her dress and there was a rush of cool air against her breasts.
Jordan was lost. All his life he’d been the one in control, but India Claibourne could render him helpless with a look, a touch. Somewhere, reason was urging him to stop this now. Tell her everything.
But reason didn’t stand a chance, and he pushed down the heavy silk of her dress, lost in wonder as she lay back against the jetty, offering herself to him. Lost in awe as he covered her left breast with the palm of his hand and felt her heart beating, felt her tremble with a desire that echoed his own urgent need.
‘I feel it,’ he whispered. ‘I felt it the first moment I saw you. It was like being plugged into an electric socket. Switched on.’ And his mouth brushed against her temple, teased softly against her cheek, the corner of her mouth.
‘Exciting…’ she murmured as his mouth sought out the tender spot beneath her ear, teased against her temple, her cheek. ‘But terrifying…’
‘Like stepping off a cliff…’ He heard a sound, a groan, as he kissed her throat, the satin skin of her shoulders, taking the slow, sweet journey that his mind had promised him as they’d sat in the concert hall. He realised that the sound came from somewhere deep inside him.
He’d intended to make things right, to explain what he’d done, before things ever got this far. That was why he’d stayed outside, in the open air, fighting the desperate longing to take her inside, get her into his bed and hang the consequences. It had been the only way he could think of to delay the conflagration until he’d told her the truth. To place the envelope burning a hole in his pocket into her hands before baring his soul. Offering her the only explanation there was, before allowing her to open it. Only afterwards, when he’d seen her reaction, would he have known.
He was wrong about that.
He knew. And for some things there was a perfect moment. While he’d been torturing himself with a conscience as black as sin, India had gone with her instincts. She’d seized that moment. And now he was out of time.
But, as lost to reason as he was, he still wasn’t about to make love to her on a floodlit jetty. She complained as he tore himself away. ‘We can’t stay here, Indie…’
‘It’s nice out here.’
‘We’re disturbing the ducks.’
‘Oh, hardly. Have you seen the way ducks behave?’ She began to unbutton his shirt. ‘And in Royal parks, too…’
‘Disgraceful,’ he agreed, but he captured her busy hands and as he stood up pulled her to her feet. Her dress slithered to the floor, leaving her wearing nothing but a scrap of lace about her hips, the gold at her throat and wrists. And for once in his life he was utterly lost for words. He just wanted to fall to his knees, offer her his life…
India woke to a perfect gold and blue dawn filtering through the tiny leaded panes of the bedroom window and smiled. She was happy. It was an extraordinary feeling. For months her life had seemed to hover on the brink of disaster. And then, when disaster had finally happened, when she’d surrendered everything, lost everything—she’d discovered that she’d won far more.
She turned to Jordan’s supine body and for a while just took pleasure from watching the slow rise and fall of his breathing. Imprinting for ever on her mind the pattern of dark hair that spattered his chest, the sinewy muscles of his arms, the smooth, tempting plane of his stomach. She propped herself on her elbow, leaned over and kissed the hollow beneath his ribs. Nothing happened, but she persisted, curling her tongue round his navel, trailing moist kisses into the hollows of his pelvis.
The response was promising. Encouraged, she continued. Long after it was obvious that Jordan David Farraday was wide awake.
‘Are you just going to lie there?’ she said after a while, lifting her head to look up at him. ‘Leave me to do all the work?’
He folded his arms behind his head and grinned down at her. ‘I thought you wanted to be in control.’
She nipped him gently with her teeth and he growled with pleasure. ‘What I want is a bit of equality around here.’
He sat up in one fluid movement and caught her arms, drawing her up against him. ‘You’ve got it, Indie.’ He looked down into her face. ‘All the equality you can handle.’
The mood had shifted, altered to something deeper. ‘Show me,’ she whispered.
A long time afterwards, with their hair damp from the shower and wrapped only in toweling robes, they went in search of breakfast. But at the top of the stairs Jordan came to a halt and turned to India, taking her hands in his. ‘Indie, there’s some stuff I have to tell you. Explain. I’d intended to get it all out of the way last night, before—’
‘Before I got impatient and jumped you?’ Her expression was deadpan.
‘Yeah, right,’ he said. He could do deadpan. ‘I should have listened to my secretary. She warned me about you, India Claibourne. She was sure you were going to use your seductive powers to lure me up the aisle in order keep Claibourne & Farraday all to yourself.’
‘I’d have had to be pretty stupid to think I could get away with that.’ She lifted one exquisite brow. ‘Unless you wanted to be seduced?’ He couldn’t deny it. He hadn’t put up much of a fight… ‘After what happened to Niall and Bram you would surely have been on your guard.’
‘It wouldn’t have helped, apparently. She believes you’re all witches.’ He took a damp strand of hair that was clinging to her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. ‘I’m inclined to agree with her.’
‘Oh, charming,’ she said. ‘Let me tell you, if we were witches we wouldn’t have had to seduce you out of anything. We could have turned you all into frogs—’ she clicked her fingers ‘—just like that.’ And, taking hold of the lapels of his robe, she pulled herself up onto her toes and kissed him, hard and sweet. ‘Better be careful, Mr Farraday. I still might.’ She laughed, her face lighting up, making the National Grid redundant. ‘Heavens, you can’t know how wonderful I feel.’
‘Well, thank you, ma’am. It’s good to know one’s efforts are truly appreciated—’
She lifted her hand to his cheek. ‘Your efforts, my love, were life-altering. Nothing will ever be the same.’
‘No, nothing will ever be the same.’ For a moment they just stood there and as he looked down into her lovely face he knew she was right: his life had been altered immeasurably and for ever, simply by loving her. She’d washed the anger out of his heart. He’d stopped looking backwards.
‘I feel as if some great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The past has gone and the future is a bright new page waiting for us to write on it.’ Then she turned away quickly, as if she’d given away more of her feelings than she’d meant to show, and started walking down the stairs. ‘Can we talk about my proposal soon?’ she said. ‘I’ve got so many plans—�
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‘Proposal?’ What proposal? Hadn’t she said something about that last night, before she’d stopped talking and started acting? The recollection generated a grin that would have lit up a fair-sized town. Then, ‘What plans?’
She glanced up at him, as if to speak, then as they reached the half-landing, she stopped abruptly, seeing the main entrance hall laid out below them. The linen-fold panelling, black and white marble chequered floor, an open fire laid with logs in case the weather turned cold. ‘Did we come through here last night?’
‘You didn’t notice?’ he asked, teasing her, but she wasn’t paying attention.
‘This is so…so…’
‘Impossible to heat?’ he offered. ‘A ridiculous extravagance for one man? A total anachronism in this day and age?’
‘So incredibly beautiful. Untouched.’
‘It was certainly that way when my grandfather bought it. The house had been in the same family for over four hundred years, and the only concession to the second Elizabethan age was electricity and a single bathroom.’
As she descended to the ground floor she ran her hand over panelling hand-cut by a craftsman centuries before, feeling for the marks of his chisel. ‘How could anyone bear to part with this?’
‘You can part with anything if the incentive is great enough.’
She turned and looked back up at him, frowning. ‘There speaks the hard-headed businessman.’
‘Not in this instance.’ He followed her down, took her hand, stopping her. ‘What proposal, India? What…?’ The words died on his lips as a movement behind her caught his attention, and he looked over her head and straight into the eyes of Peter Claibourne.
‘Haven’t you heard from your lawyers?’ she asked. ‘I faxed my proposal to my lot yesterday—’ She suddenly realised that he wasn’t paying attention, that he was more interested in something behind her, and she turned.
‘Daddy!’ India hadn’t called him that in years, but seeing him there made her realise just how worried she’d been. How pleased she was to see him. She crossed to him, gave him a hug. ‘Have you any idea how worried I’ve been? What on earth were you doing in Pakistan?’