Trust in Summer Madness

by Carole Mortimer

  He drew in a ragged breath. ‘Me, Sian? Or would any man do?’

  Her pride had taken a terrible beating today, her self-confidence almost nil in another man’s rejection of her, and yet she knew that she wanted no one but Jarrett, that no one else would do.

  ‘I need you, Jarrett,’ she admitted softly.

  He moved forward to take her in his arms, holding her against him, breathing in the perfume of her hair. ‘Now tell me why?’ he urged softly.

  ‘Jarrett—’

  ‘I have to know, Sian,’ he looked down at her with fathomless green eyes. ‘Do you love me?’

  She recoiled from admitting such an emotion; she didn’t want to admit to it ever again. To love meant to be hurt, betrayed, and she wouldn’t let that happen to her again. Wordlessly she shook her head.

  ‘No?’ he bit out grimly.

  ‘I can’t,’ she choked.

  ‘Because of Newman!’ he rasped, putting her away from him.

  ‘Jarrett…!’ She put out her hands to him appealingly.

  ‘No!’ he refused fiercely. ‘I told you, I want you to come to me, to stay with me. I don’t intend making love to you under any other circumstances.’

  ‘Then I’d better go,’ she said dully.

  His eyes were narrowed. ‘How is Bethany?’

  ‘She—Fine,’ she avoided.

  ‘What was wrong with her?—she seemed very upset,’ he frowned.

  Again pride held her back from telling him what had happened in her home only an hour ago. ‘I think it was seeing you that did it,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Not that again,’ he dismissed harshly.

  She shook her head. ‘I believe you didn’t seduce her, Jarrett.’

  ‘Earlier—’

  ‘You misunderstood me,’ she insisted.

  ‘That makes a change,’ he taunted. ‘It’s usually the other way around.’

  ‘You’ve been—perfectly understandable, both now and in the past.’

  ‘Understandable, but misunderstood,’ he corrected.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she shook her head. ‘In the past there was Nina, and now there’s Arlette. Why do you still want me, Jarrett? Can’t you ever be satisfied with one woman?’ she choked on her pain.

  ‘I was, and I am,’ he bit out grimly. ‘I’ve only ever wanted you.’

  ‘And Nina?’

  ‘Has been discussed so many times I’m tired of the subject!’

  ‘As you tired of her,’ Sian scorned. ‘She’s married now, you know.’

  ‘Good for her,’ he said uninterestedly.

  ‘She came back from her trip with you to London with a brand new husband.’ Sian couldn’t resist trying to dent his giant ego, she was in so much pain herself she had to hit out at him somehow. She had needed him so badly just now, needed to feel wanted, and Jarrett had turned her down.

  ‘Why not?’ he shrugged. ‘I’m sure that gave the gossips something else to think about.’

  ‘I think she did it through pride as much as anything else,’ Sian said hardly. ‘It would have been too humiliating for her to have come back here alone after you had abandoned her.’

  Jarrett’s face darkened ominously. ‘After I had what?’

  ‘You took her to London with you, used her, and then left her behind when you went to America,’ Sian accused disgustedly.

  A deep coldness entered his eyes. ‘I took Nina to London with me so that she could escape the scandal you had stirred up.’

  ‘Me?’ she gasped her outrage. ‘You were the one who was having an affair with her; it was your scandal!’

  He shook his head, his mouth tight. ‘It had been over between Nina and me for months, as soon as I met you. You knew damn well it had. It was your own uncertainties, your own lack of trust that caused the scandal. I didn’t want Nina, and you knew it.’

  ‘That isn’t what she said!’ Sian flashed.

  Jarrett’s frown deepened. ‘What Nina said? You actually spoke to her?’

  ‘She spoke to me,’ she recalled bitterly. ‘She came to see me the day after your stag party, and she told me all about the two of you, how you’d continued to see her even though you had proposed to me.’

  ‘Nina told you that?’ he exploded disbelievingly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said dully.

  ‘But it was lies,’ he groaned. ‘All lies! Why would she tell you something like that?’ He hit the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘God, it’s the classic tale, isn’t it, a case of “a woman scorned”,’ he rasped. ‘She lied to you, Sian. Oh yes, she did,’ he insisted as she went to protest. ‘She probably even set up that scene at the stag party. Oh, not that you should walk in and see us, but she probably did expect it to get back to you, might even have come and told you about it herself. We were set up, Sian, and neither of us realised it.’

  ‘You were kissing her.’

  “‘Good luck”, she said,’ he murmured softly, raggedly. ‘She came over to me and asked to give me a good luck kiss. No, I didn’t refuse,’ he said hardly. ‘I was going to be your husband for the rest of our lives, I didn’t think you would begrudge her one little kiss.’

  Sian’s head was spinning, wondering if he could possibly be telling the truth. ‘You took her to London with you…’

  ‘To get away from the scandal, I told you,’ he said impatiently. ‘Everyone was talking about us, Nina came to me and said she couldn’t stand it, she had to get away for a while, and as I had already made arrangements to go to London on the Saturday she begged a ride with me. She didn’t go with me, Sian, I just gave her a lift. We parted company as soon as we reached London.’

  She moistened her suddenly dry lips, completely dazed. ‘Didn’t you realise the—the construction that would be put on the two of you leaving together?’

  ‘It never occurred to me,’ he shook his head. ‘I wasn’t thinking at all that day. I was hurting too damned much!’ he admitted gruffly.

  ‘I’m sure Nina was thinking very clearly,’ Sian said softly. ‘She convinced me utterly, Jarrett. She told me that your affair with her was something neither of you could help, that it would probably continue after we were married.’

  ‘And you believed her!’

  She swallowed hard, knowing she deserved his contempt. Three years, three long lonely years, when they might have been together after all.

  Jarrett watched the pain flicker across her face, groaning low in his throat as he took her into his arms. ‘You were a child then, Sian, you would have seen through Nina’s lies if you had been older, more experienced,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘I wanted you as my wife then, but I think perhaps you needed this time to mature, to grow into the woman I need.’

  ‘Are you—are you asking me to marry you?’ she gasped.

  ‘Of course,’ he sounded puzzled. ‘I’ve been asking you ever since I got back.’

  ‘But I—What about Arlette?’ She drew back to look at him.

  ‘She’s leaving for New York as soon as I can get her booked on to a plane,’ he said grimly.

  ‘And your tie to her?’

  He shrugged. ‘My lawyers are still working on it. If she would just agree it would make it a whole lot easier. But she’s determined to hang on until the bitter end, is sure she’ll get more out of me this way, more money I mean. A bulk settlement doesn’t appear to be what she wants at all.’

  ‘She wants you,’ Sian told him raggedly.

  ‘And I want you—which cancels out any other woman as far as I’m concerned.’ His gaze was intent. ‘Will you marry me, darling?’

  Nina was in the past, and he denied there being anything between them, something she believed. But Arlette was very much in the present, a reminder that he had taken a wife after leaving her, and he had no right to propose to her in the circumstances.

  ‘No!’ She wrenched out of his arms, shaking her head, the tears not far from the surface. ‘No, I won’t marry you,’ she denied strongly.

  ‘What is it you want f
rom me, Sian?’ he demanded harshly. ‘I can’t help your lack of trust in the past, that’s something you’re going to have to live with. I’ve told you I love you, asked you to marry me, what more can I do?’ He watched her with narrowed eyes.

  ‘You already have a wife, how can you possibly ask me to marry you!’ she choked in a pained voice. ‘Or do you expect me to just live with you until you have your divorce?’ she scorned brokenly.

  ‘My—divorce?’ he echoed softly.

  ‘From Arlette,’ she nodded impatiently.

  Jarrett drew in a deep controlling breath, his mouth tight, his eyes glacial. ‘Of course—Arlette,’ he repeated softly. ‘Who else?’ He had withdrawn from her mentally as well as physically, suddenly a cold stranger. ‘I think we’ve said all we have to say, Sian. I wish you happiness with Newman,’ he added distantly.

  She couldn’t understand this cold withdrawal. ‘Jarrett…?’

  He looked at her with cold contempt. ‘What is it now? Some other woman I’m supposed to have lurking in my life?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘Well, I don’t intend explaining myself to you, Sian, not any more. You’ve more than shown me your opinion of me. Give your love to someone like Newman,’ he advised distantly. ‘Someone you can trust.’ He turned and began walking back to the town, a man with golden hair and emeralds for eyes.

  Sian was crying in earnest now. Someone she could trust. How ironic that was!

  CHAPTER TEN

  BETHANY’S wedding to Chris took place four weeks later. It was a beautiful wedding; the bride was ecstatic, the groom deliriously happy, the groom’s mother less so, still confused by the change of bride.

  Sian witnessed her sister’s marriage to her own ex-fiancé with a sense of detachment. She had felt this way since Jarrett left for New York just over three weeks ago.

  When she had got back to the house the day they had last spoken it had been to have her father gently explain that Chris and Bethany had fallen in love, that Chris had discovered his love for her sister only when Bethany had begun to see Jarrett, realising his jealousy wasn’t a brotherly feeling.

  ‘But why didn’t he tell me?’ she cried. ‘Why leave it until now?’

  ‘I think he thought it might only be temporary madness, that it would pass,’ her father sighed.

  ‘Bethany loves him too?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve been up and spoken to her. She tried not to love him, Sian, tried to avoid even seeing him—that’s why she’s been staying in her room so much. But when she saw him at the church today she realised she loved him too,’ he grimaced.

  It all made sense in that moment, Chris’s jealousy of Jarrett hadn’t been because of her but because of Bethany, his working late and bad temper merely ways of avoiding discussing what was really bothering him. She even had a feeling she knew the exact night Chris had told Bethany of his feelings, that Bethany’s shock the evening Jarrett’s wife had arrived hadn’t been because of that but because Chris had just told her he loved her.

  The fact that Chris and Bethany loved each other had been enough for her, and she hadn’t stood in their way after that, had gone upstairs to give a very unhappy Bethany her blessing. It had taken some convincing to get Bethany to believe she really wasn’t being noble, that she had felt uncertain of her own feelings for some time.

  But strangely she had no longer felt uncertain; she knew that if she had to wait for Jarrett until after his divorce then she would do so. She wanted to tell him so, to tell him she loved him, wanted to be with him. A call to the Swan the next day had told her that he had already left for America, that Ida Barlowe wasn’t expecting him back. And of course his wife had gone with him.

  Sian kept thinking he would be back, that he had to come back, because the house was still being built. She knew, she checked on it every day, hoping that one time when she drove down there she would once again see a golden-haired, bare-chested man performing his ‘labour of love’ alongside his men. But Jarrett was never there, and after a month she had resigned herself to the fact that he was never coming back, that he was having the house finished to sell it. And it would sell so easily; it was a truly beautiful house, was almost finished now except for the inside décor.

  ‘Sian,’ a shy Bethany stood in front of her, ready to leave for her honeymoon with Chris. ‘Sian, I want you to have this.’ She held out her bouquet.

  Her expression softened at the anxiety in her sister’s face, bending down to kiss her affectionately on the cheek, hugging her tightly. ‘Thank you,’ she said with quiet sincerity.

  ‘Sian—’

  ‘Be happy,’ she interrupted firmly, wanting nothing to spoil Bethany’s wedding day. After all the unhappiness that had gone before it the bridal couple deserved to be happy today of all days.

  ‘We will,’ Bethany promised tearfully.

  ‘Chris is waiting,’ she prompted as her sister still seemed to hesitate.

  Bethany turned to give her new husband a dazzling smile. ‘Not for much longer,’ she murmured, looking back at Sian. ‘I just wish—’

  ‘Then don’t,’ she chided gently. ‘On her wedding day a bride should already have everything she could ever want or need.’

  Once the bride and groom had left she excused herself, the effort of appearing the doting sister proving to be a strain. Not that she didn’t wish Bethany every happiness; she knew her sister and Chris were very much in love. But it became hard to act and seem happy when the man she loved was thousands of miles away, when she had lost him for ever.

  She sat beside the willow looking up at the house bathed in golden sunlight, the pillars gleaming whitely, the bricks a dark red in contrast. The swimming-pool stood empty at its side with young saplings already planted at its other side. It was all as it should have been for them, and now it would belong to someone else, someone who could have no idea of the dream and love that had gone into its building.

  The tears flowed unheeded down her cheeks as she thought of the life she could have had there with Jarrett, loving and being loved by him. What would it have mattered that they couldn’t be married right away, that Jarrett was legally tied to another woman? What did it matter now that he was married to Arlette, it had been her he wanted, her he loved.

  But not any more! her heart cried. But he had loved her for three years, could he just stop by saying he no longer did—had she? No!

  She got to her feet, galvanised into action, a decision made that could, and she hoped would, change her whole life.

  ‘What the—!’ her father exclaimed as she rushed into the house a few minutes later, having come home to put his feet up now that the reception had ended, watching her as she frantically searched through the telephone book. ‘Sian, what on earth is the matter?’ he frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking up the number for the airline,’ she muttered, sighing her impatience as the right page eluded her.

  ‘So you’re going to him, are you?’ her father nodded slowly.

  She looked up sharply. ‘Him?’

  ‘Jarrett,’ he sighed. ‘You are flying to America, aren’t you?’

  ‘I—’ she chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I thought I might. You see, he—I—I was thinking about it,’ she amended.

  Her father gave an angry sigh. ‘It’s taken you four weeks to think about thinking about going to see him?’ he demanded in exasperation.

  ‘Dad!’ she frowned her consternation at the rebuke in his words.

  ‘Well, has it?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she snapped. ‘I just—It’s a big decision to make. He may just reject me.’ She bit down painfully on her lip at the thought.

  ‘Maybe he will,’ her father nodded. ‘But I very much doubt it. I haven’t told you this before, because I didn’t think it should influence your decision concerning him, but Jarrett telephoned me.’

  ‘He did?’ she gasped, momentarily diverted from looking for the telephone number she wanted. ‘When?’

  ‘A week after he left.’

&n
bsp; ‘So long ago?’ she groaned. ‘Oh, Dad, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because he wanted to speak to me, not you! He explained all the misunderstanding about Nina Marshall, and although I found the evidence against him damning myself then I think I may be inclined to agree with him that you were too young then to take on the responsibility of a love as possessive as his was.’

  ‘Was?’ she echoed tautly.

  ‘Is,’ her father corrected dryly. ‘He still loves you. I think he’s the type of man who can only love once in his life. And for him you’re it, for better, for worse,’ he quoted the marriage ceremony. ‘Sian, the man did everything but grovel at your feet, I think it’s time you did some grovelling of your own. Now he obviously explained himself to me for a reason, and I think we can both guess that easily enough, can’t we.’

  ‘He wants your approval of him,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Most prospective son-in-laws do,’ he derided. ‘Even a man like Jarrett. Now are you going to make that call or aren’t you?’ His eyes were narrowed.

  ‘I—I am,’ she decided firmly.

  ‘Good,’ he nodded his approval. ‘And don’t worry too much about my being at the wedding,’ he sighed tiredly. ‘After this last month I’m off weddings. It’s enough that you’re leaving me to the mercy of Bethany’s cooking once she gets back!’

  ‘Oh, Dad!’ she hugged him tearfully.

  ‘Make the phone call, love,’ he urged gruffly.

  Flying out to New York the following day, Sian suddenly had another attack of the nerves. Jarrett might not even be in New York—she should have checked first! Well, if he wasn’t she would find him. She had found a use for the money from selling her car after all. She would tell Jarrett how much she loved him, and if he rejected her after that she would—she would want to die! She couldn’t bear to think in terms of rejection. Jarrett’s call to her father hadn’t been the act of a man who had fallen out of love.

  But he had made no contact with her; she could even be married to Chris for all he seemed to care.

  But none of that mattered any more, not the thought of rejection, none of it. All that really mattered now was that she should see Jarrett, at least tell him of her love for him. She had to trust in her summer madness of three years ago, had to trust in Jarrett.