Man-Hater

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Yes, yes, I do remember you,’ Kelly told her. Her lips felt like cottonwool, her mouth unpleasantly dry as she tried to form the words without letting her lips tremble. ‘You were…talking to Jake.’

  ‘Yes, he was pouring out his troubles to me,’ she agreed with a grin. ‘Quite a role reversal! Look, have you got time for a cup of tea? I’m Lyn, by the way. I’ve heard all about your visit to Edinburgh from Uncle Richard and I’m dying to know what happened. Oh, I know you must think it frightfully inquisitive of me—but you see, it was me who told Jake not to give up. I was pretty sure you cared for him. A woman can always tell better than a man, can’t she, and I was over the moon when my godfather, Uncle Richard, wrote to say that Jake had persuaded him to get you up there on some pretext or other. Oh…’ She stared uncertainly at Kelly, who was motionless on the pavement, her face totally devoid of colour. ‘Oh dear, have I said something wrong? You see,’ she rushed on, ‘I was so sure you loved Jake, despite what he told me. Oh…’

  ‘I think that cup of tea was a good idea,’ Kelly interrupted firmly, trying to gather her wildly disordered thoughts.

  They found a small café off Bond Street, blessedly quiet after the lunch-time rush, and Kelly ordered for them, wondering as she did so if she was going mad, or had simply stepped into some sort of Looking Glass world.

  ‘Now,’ she said quietly when they had been served, ‘let’s start at the beginning. I saw you in Corfu, with Jake.’

  ‘With Jake? You mean you thought Jake and I… Oh, no wonder you wouldn’t have anything to do with him! Jake is almost an older brother to me. His father is my godfather and Jake has been marvellous, always helping me out of jams, you know… I got heavily involved with someone last year, I won’t go into details, but when it all fell apart Jake was there to help me pick up the pieces. Every time we meet I always tease him, you know, ask him if he’s met “the One” yet. This time he said “yes”.’ Lyn looked at Kelly. ‘He told me how you’d met—all about you thinking he worked for the escort agency—oh, you mustn’t mind, he let something slip by accident and I dragged the rest out of him. What a joke! I told him it was high time he realised how ordinary mortals live. Because his father is so rich a lot of women see him as a good catch, you know. I wanted him to introduce us, but he said he didn’t want to panic you. He told me you didn’t share his feelings.’ She pulled a face and glanced hesitantly at Kelly. ‘I thought differently, and I told him so. I was leaving Corfu in the morning and Jake promised to see me off. I told him then not to give up. He rang me a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him about you then. He told me things hadn’t worked out. He was using that voice that says don’t dare ask anything more, but I told him he was a fool if he let you go so easily. Was I right?’

  Kelly managed a wan smile. ‘Right and wrong,’ she said shakily. ‘Are you sure that…’

  ‘That he loves you?’ Lyn rolled her eyes heavenwards and laughed. ‘Straight from the horse’s mouth,’ she confirmed. ‘You know what Jake’s like, close as the grave when he wants to be, but he did admit that he was worried about your reaction to the discovery that he wasn’t some out-of-work actor and that he’d deliberately deceived you.’ She grinned reminiscently. ‘He actually unbent enough to admit to me that he fell in love with you on sight. He was just about to tell you that the agency had closed down and that he’d taken over the offices when he realised that if he did you would probably walk out of his life. He told me it was the most impulsive thing he’s ever done.’ She gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Poor Jake, you’ve certainly given him a run for his money! Not that it will do him any harm. Much as I love him there’s no doubt about it—so far Jake hasn’t had to try very hard when the feminine sex is concerned. But here I am prattling on without giving you a chance to say a word!

  ‘Everything went well in Edinburgh and Jake got a chance to put his case. When he saw me off at the airport, he was so withdrawn and worried that I didn’t want to ask him if he told you the truth.’

  ‘When he was telling you about the agency,’ Kelly asked her slowly, ‘was anyone else with you?’

  The other girl frowned. ‘No. We were by the pool at the time, people all around us but no one actually with us—why?’

  Perhaps something of her confiding manner had rubbed off on her, Kelly thought wryly, half amused and half alarmed by her own need to admit her doubts.

  ‘It’s just that a friend of mine told me that Jake had told him the truth; had in fact boasted of how he’d deceived me quite deliberately, and how…’ Kelly fought to steady her voice, ‘how amusing it would be to…’

  ‘No! None of that’s true,’ Lyn cut in ruthlessly. ‘I know Jake. He would never do anything like that. I’m not saying he can’t be pretty miffy when the mood takes him, but he’s never cruel or vicious. He’s too male a man for that. But surely Jake himself explained…’

  ‘If left Corfu on the same plane as you,’ Kelly told her levelly.

  ‘Oh, you mean you don’t love Jake? I’ve really gone and put my foot in it, haven’t I?’ Lyn groaned.

  ‘I do love him,’ Kelly admitted huskily, ‘and that was one of the reasons why I left. You see, I thought you and he—and then…’

  ‘But you went to Edinburgh,’ she interrupted.

  ‘Yes,’ Kelly agreed on a sigh. Was this girl right? Did Jake love her? According to the younger girl he had admitted as much to her, and Kelly knew enough of Jeremy to guess that he could have overheard their conversation and twisted it to his own ends. He was bitter and envious enough to have found pleasure in lying to her, but Jake? Why hadn’t he come after her when she left Corfu? Why had he waited so long and gone to such lengths to get her to Edinburgh? And he had been so bitter. There were too many ends that just didn’t tie up, Kelly thought, chewing at her bottom lip, but she already had an idea where she could unravel some of them.

  ‘Look, do you mind if I rush off?’ she asked quickly. ‘There’s someone I have to see.’

  ‘And Jake?’

  ‘Er…’

  ‘He’s due to arrive in London tomorrow. He has an apartment in the new Hartland block—more of a penthouse really. I was going to have dinner with him, but I can’t make it.’

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ Kelly told her, ‘but thanks for telling me…everything.’

  ‘Jake would probably kill me if he knew. I can’t understand why he hasn’t told you himself.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s decided he doesn’t love me after all,’ Kelly suggested in a shaky voice.

  Lyn shook her head vigorously. ‘No way,’ she laughed. ‘He loves you all right and, knowing Jake, it’s a forever kind of love. That’s the way he is.’

  JEREMY’S SECRETARY answered the phone, putting Kelly through within seconds, and Jeremy’s voice oozed satisfaction and self-esteem as he murmured her name.

  ‘Has Sue been in touch?’ he asked her. ‘She’s pregnant again, but this time the doc has told her to take things easy. I’m staying in town during the week to take some of the pressure off her.’

  ‘Bully for you,’ Kelly muttered sardonically under her breath. ‘Look, Jeremy,’ she told him curtly, ‘I have to see you. There’s something I want to ask you.’

  ‘Well, well, and to think I thought you were never going to get round to it!’

  Kelly had to grit her teeth to stop herself from bursting the bubble of self-assurance that surrounded him.

  ‘Your place or mine?’ Jeremy asked her.

  ‘Neither,’ Kelly told him, thinking quickly. ‘What about the Savoy Bar?’

  As she had suspected, Jeremy leapt at the suggestion of meeting her somewhere so prestigious and she managed not to retort when he said smoothly, ‘Oh, of course, I was forgetting, it all goes down to expenses, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Look, Jeremy, do you want to meet me or not?’ Kelly demanded, forcing herself to hold on to her temper.

  ‘I’ll meet you.’

  TEN PAST SEVEN. Kelly glanced impatiently at her watch. Where was Jeremy? Five
minutes later she saw him walk into the bar, stopping to preen in the mirror. As different from Jake as chalk from cheese. Kelly felt a familiar stab of pity for her friend combined with contempt for Jeremy.

  ‘Ah, there you are.’ He bent his head and, guessing that he intended to kiss her, she sidestepped swiftly.

  ‘This isn’t a social occasion, Jeremy,’ she said crisply. ‘At least, not entirely. Cast your mind back to our holiday in Corfu if you will.’

  She watched him frown as the waiter took their order and waited for him to leave before continuing. ‘At that time you told me that you’d discovered that Jake had lied to me, pretending to work for an escort agency, while all the time he was an extremely wealthy man. You intimated that I represented some sort of challenge to him.’

  ‘So?’ Jeremy was watching her sulkily.

  Kelly studied her drink for a few seconds. Her heart was thudding heavily—so much depended now on the gamble she was taking.

  ‘So what, I wonder, did you tell Jake about me?’

  She knew immediately that she had been right to gamble and that Jeremy had indeed said something to Jake.

  ‘Oh, come on, Jeremy,’ she pressed home her advantage. ‘When Jake returned from the airport and found I’d gone he must have asked you where and why.’

  ‘He may have said something,’ Jeremy agreed. ‘I told him we weren’t your keepers. Sue was pretty upset—too upset to talk to him really, what with your rushing off.’

  ‘So what did you say to Jake? Did you tell him I wasn’t interested in him?’ Kelly demanded, making a wild stab in the dark. ‘Did you, Jeremy?’ she demanded fiercely, watching the muscle twitch in his jaw and the nervous tic beneath his eye.

  ‘He was like a madman,’ Jeremy admitted sullenly, ‘demanding to know where you were, what we’d said to you. I told him it was nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Did you tell him what you said to me before I left?’ Kelly asked sweetly.

  Jeremy’s face told her the answer.

  ‘I ought to hate you, Jeremy, but you’re simply not worth the effort. Poor Sue! What on earth has she done to be landed with a contemptible creep like you?’

  ‘Bitch,’ Jeremy muttered thickly. ‘He’s welcome to you!’ He slammed his glass down and got up, shouldering his way through the press at the bar, leaving Kelly alone.

  Jake was welcome to her, he had said, but did Jake still want her? Could she believe what Lyn had told her? Did she have the courage to believe it?

  There was only one way to find out, she decided, getting up. She only hoped that her courage wouldn’t fail her!

  ‘WELL, ANOTHER DAY OVER.’

  Kelly smiled at her assistant. ‘Mmm.’

  Darting Kelly a curious glance, the other girl started to tidy her desk. Kelly had been preoccupied all day, and yet there was an air of suppressed excitement about her, a glow that she hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Going anywhere tonight?’ she asked idly as she headed for the door.

  ‘Er…I may be.’

  WOULD THIS OUTFIT DO? Kelly wondered, staring at herself in her full-length mirror. She had changed twice since getting home, delaying tactics even if they were heavily disguised, and now suddenly the outfit she was wearing, a silk dress in a pretty pastel pink which suited her colouring, over which she was wearing a soft silver silk jacket, seemed too dressy for a casual visit, but it was too late to change again. It was already after eight and if she left it much longer Jake might have gone out.

  It took every ounce of courage she possessed to get in the taxi and give the driver Jake’s address. The huge office block looked cold and unwelcoming, the last batch of cleaners leaving as Kelly walked in.

  A lift took her to the top floor, the doors opening on to a pale grey expanse of carpet and a curt sign reading ‘Penthouse—private.’

  Licking her dry lips, Kelly stepped out, crossing the carpet to ring the bell set into the marble wall.

  An aeon seemed to pass before she heard any sound of movement, and as she heard the door chain rattle she had to fight down an urge to turn and flee. Panic filled her. What if she was wrong? What if Jake didn’t want her? But it was too late now, the door was opening and she had a glimpse of Jake’s towelling-clad back disappearing down a corridor as he called over his shoulder, ‘Late as usual, Lyn! Come on in, then.’

  With a tremendous sense of anticlimax Kelly followed him inside, closing the door behind her. Jake didn’t stop walking until she had followed him into a huge living room, furnished in starkly masculine colours and shapes, greys and blues predominating.

  ‘Sit down, then,’ he commanded. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

  ‘Did you Jake?’

  Her voice arrested his hand on its way to the decanter. He stiffened and straightened slowly, his face dark and inscrutable as he turned to look at her.

  ‘Kelly?’

  ‘I…I ran into Lyn the other day and…’

  Oh heavens, she was making a complete mess of this! Why on earth had she mentioned Lyn? She could see Jake’s face closing on her, his eyes hard and unreadable as he said hardly, ‘I don’t know that misplaced sense of pity brought you here, Kelly, but I don’t need it. You know where the front door is,’ he added curtly. ‘Do us both a favour and use it.’

  She wanted to cry out at the pain his words brought, stabbing a thousand needle-sharp wounds in her heart.

  ‘Jake, please,’ she whispered huskily.

  ‘Jake, please what?’ he mimicked harshly.

  She couldn’t ask him if it was true that he loved her; not in cold blood with him standing opposite her as an enemy. She was turning to leave when a tiny inner voice urged her not to give in, not to be so fainthearted. This was her whole life at risk and the quality of the happiness she would find in it.

  ‘Jake, please answer me one question,’ she managed calmly. ‘Did you intimate at any time to anyone that you saw making love to me as a…a challenge?’

  She could tell that her question wasn’t what he had expected. His eyes narrowed and he watched her thoughtfully.

  ‘Who told you that?’ he asked at length.

  Her mouth was dry with fear and tension. She longed to back down, but too much was at stake. She hadn’t come all this way to take the coward’s way out now.

  ‘The same person who didn’t explain to you why I’d left Corfu,’ she told him evenly. ‘Jeremy told me that he’d overheard you and Lyn talking. He deliberately misled me, allowing me to believe that you and Lyn were lovers.’

  ‘Lovers?’ Jake shook his head disbelievingly. ‘But…’

  ’Jeremy played on my insecurities. He knew where to hurt me,’ she admitted simply, taking a deep breath and holding it as she watched him levelly and said calmly, ‘He knew I loved you.’

  The silence lasted so long she began to despair, to think she had gambled everything and lost, and then Jake spoke, softly at first, and then more harshly as he demanded huskily, ‘You loved me?’

  Kelly nodded her head. ‘And still do,’ she admitted. ‘Surely you could tell by…by the way I responded to you when you…when you made love to me?’

  There was a huge lump in her throat, but she forced the words out, determined that she was not going to lose him this time by default. He might not love her, Lyn might be wrong, but she was still going to tell him the truth.

  ‘That first day,’ Jake said slowly, ‘God—I was so furious with you! You walked into that office and it was like seeing a dream come to life. You were there, everything I’d always wanted, and then you started to talk. You hated men—that came across loud and clear, but you needed a man—an escort, so I jumped in with both feet. I wanted you so badly even then. Time enough later to tell you the truth, when I’d gained your confidence, but everything was so complicated. You’d been married—I thought you must still be deeply in love with your husband; and then there was Jeremy; and you kept throwing my poverty in my face. Ridiculously, I began to want you not just to love me, but to love me as you thoug
ht I was.’

  ‘I did,’ Kelly interrupted softly. ‘Oh, I fought against it, but when we were in Corfu I forced myself to face the truth; that I loved and wanted you. That night I tried to tell you; I woke up wanting to tell you, wanting to admit to you that you mattered more than anything else. I was so happy…’

  ‘That you ran away?’

  ‘Jeremy told me who you really were; he laughed about it and said you had done too. Try to understand, it was more than my shaky self-confidence could take. I ran away. I saw you at the airport with Lyn and that just seemed to confirm everything Jeremy had told me.’

  ‘Oh, Kelly! I ought to beat you for misjudging me so badly. You really love me?’ He cupped her face in his hands, studying each feature.

  ‘So very much,’ Kelly told him softly. ‘I hoped and prayed that you would come after me, explain…make everything all right…’

  ‘Jeremy told me you never wanted to see me again. He said you told him I reminded you of Colin—you can imagine what that did to me. All of a sudden you weren’t making love with me, you were consummating a marriage to someone else. I told myself I hated you, but I was lying. I managed to last out about a month before I gave in and persuaded my father to get you up to Edinburgh. I thought once I got you to myself on the island, we could work things out. I could prove to you that it was me you were responding to, not some shadow.’

  ‘That was why you were so angry! I thought it was me—something I had said or done; I thought you must be laughing at me, knowing how I felt about you, and then I bumped into Lyn in London and she told me you loved me, and I couldn’t believe it. I went to see Jeremy, guessing that if he’d lied to me he could well have lied to you as well. You were never a substitute for Colin,’ she told him huskily. ‘Everything I told you that night was true. I never really loved him, I’ve grown to see that over the years, but the scars he inflicted stopped me from making other relationships, from being able to trust, until I met you and I fell so hard that I couldn’t help myself.’

  ‘That’s a very tempting admission,’ Jake drawled, and Kelly was suddenly aware that all he had on was his robe, and that he was regarding her with a very disturbing glint in his eyes.