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He returned her riveted gaze with a slow, brooding appraisal, black eyes indolently skimming every line of her tautly held body as if he were stripping away the unlikely, elegant garments to the warm, suddenly trembling flesh beneath. And the air in the cosy little room became wildly over-heated, sizzling with churning sexual awareness.
Until he spoke, his cool, sardonic tone cutting through the atmosphere, one dark brow lifting upwards. ‘I see you brought your designer labels
along. Perfect choice for a winter break in the wilds of Wales.’
His sarcasm chilled her. ‘Evie made a furtive last-minute substitution.’ He wouldn’t believe her. He wouldn’t believe her if she said roses had thorns. And the twist of his long mouth told her she was correct in that assumption.
‘You’re slipping, Bella.’ Glittering black eyes taunted her cruelly. ‘You used to be such a good liar. Through three years of marriage you had me believing you were a faithful wife.’
Now, surely, was the time to put that right, to tell him that the fault was his, that she would never have left him if he had given her what she most needed, to explain exactly what that was.
‘We need to discuss this,’ she told him, her black-lashed, water-clear eyes huge with entreaty.
But he shook his head, frowning sharply. ‘There’s nothing to discuss—except how we’re going to get through the next few days. It is Christmas, remember?’
He bent to tend the fledgling fire, and Bella swallowed the lump in her throat. Nothing to discuss. Their past, present and future relationship was too unimportant to waste breath on.
And of course she knew it was Christmas; she didn’t need reminding.
It had become such a very special time of year for her, more than ordinarily so. Their whirlwind romance, followed by a Christmas Eve wedding. The first few days of their rapturous honeymoon spent in a quiet, rambling sixteenth-century inn tucked away in the Cotswolds. All the festive trimmings—roaring log fires, red-berried holly, even a light flurry of snow. Carol-singers, young voices crystal-clear in the frosty air, sparkly days and long nights filled with love and laughter. And talking.
Oh, how she’d talked, spilling out hopes she had never shared with anyone before. Hopes that had never been fulfilled.
‘Yes, I remember,’ she answered him, her voice flat. Over the past year anguish had been a constant companion. She’d thought she had learned to live with it, learned to cope. Clearly, she hadn’t. ‘I’ll go and pour us some of that coffee.’
It was suddenly an effort to speak. The pain of disappointment hit her. She had so hoped, expected—yes, actually and foolishly expected...
‘I’ll do it. Stay here, get warm.’ He was out of the room before she could argue. Not that she had the energy to argue about anything.
Slowly she moved to the fire and held her hands out to the warmth of the flames.
Reaction to this morning’s hare-brained escapade was setting in. That was why she had been air-headed enough to imagine, for one single moment, that somehow they could work things out, that he did still care for her a little.
She didn’t realise she’d been swaying on her feet until Jake thrust the tray he’d carried through down on a side table, put long-fingered hands on her shoulders and pressured her down onto the fireside chair.
Not that he needed to exert much pressure. Her legs felt as if they were made of water. He reached for the tray and placed it on her knees.
‘Eat. Drink. I don’t want you collapsing on me. I’ve no way of summoning medical aid, don’t forget.’
Barely focusing, her eyes registered a china beaker of steaming coffee and a plate of lavishly buttered hot toast. His cool command made sense. Always the practical one, always able to find reasons why he couldn’t give her what she craved.
She drank the coffee and forced down some of the toast, and managed a dull little, ‘Thank you. I needed that.’
Jake removed the tray and said tersely, ‘Too right, you did. You’ve actually got some colour back in your face that hasn’t come out of a pot.’
Her cheeks, smooth as a rose petal, had a touch of pink beneath the translucent surface, and her lips had lost that worrying bluish tinge—formerly apparent in the whiteness around the coral lipstick she had so carefully painted on. He took up an unknowingly dominant stance in front of the hearth, breathed deeply and tried to make himself relax.
They were stuck out here, and there was no way he was going to spend Christmas in an ill-tempered, explosive atmosphere.
‘I’ve a suggestion to make.’ A stab of something fierce and hot knifed through him as her eyes winged up and locked with his. She had piled the silky mass of her black hair elegantly on the top of her head. The purity of the line from the crown of her head to the angle of her jaw, to the slender length of her neck, was sheer poetry. It made him ache.
He clenched his hands in the pockets of his jeans. And tried again. ‘I suggest we try to make the best of the situation.’ Suddenly it was vitally important to him that she agree to a truce. He cleared his throat and continued with a careful lack of inflection. ‘We’re stuck here. Whether we like it or not. In my opinion, it wouldn’t make a whole heap of sense to spend Christmas glowering at each other from opposite ends of the room.’
The clear luminosity of her eyes cut to his soul. She looked as though she was hanging on every word, like a child who was waiting to hear the details of a long-awaited treat. Despite the veneer of elegant sophistication those expressive eyes made her look so trusting, so innocent.
Yet she was light years away from innocence, he reminded himself with a brutality he suddenly felt was very necessary.
‘So why don’t we forget the past for a couple of days, call a truce and behave like rational adults?’
