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‘I’ve spent the last five days reorganising my working life. Delegating. Someone else can do the legwork. It’s done. Sorted. My time will be spent with you and our family. If you still want my children.’
For the very first time she saw him unsure of himself, and she hated it. He shouldn’t have to beg for what she freely wanted to give him. That he should subjugate his own needs, relinquish the cut and thrust of business, was a measure of his love for her.
She had only ever wanted his love, his trust. Everything else was irrelevant.
Happiness gushed through her like a wave breaking on rocks, and pure energy ran through her veins as she shot to her feet and covered the distance between them in jaunty strides.
‘Now you listen.’ She sounded breathless. ‘It’s my turn to come out with a few home truths.’ She saw him flinch, every muscle tightening as if to prepare himself for a body blow, and couldn’t bear it. Her hands went up to cup his beloved face, and she saw the vital spark of hope light up his eyes as she said throatily, ‘Jake, I love you. Only you.’
She recognised the glow of intent deep in his eyes, and knew that in a moment she’d be held in his arms and there wouldn’t be time for words, or any coherent thought left in her head. So she said with simple sincerity, ‘I’m glad you sorted things out in your head and learned to trust me. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. But, to put the record straight, whatever you’ve heard about my relationship with Guy isn’t true. Just sly gossip, spread by people with nothing better to do.
‘I’ve already explained how he looked out for me, and he was and is my friend. And, yes, his marriage did go through a rough patch, largely to do with Ruth’s apparent inability to conceive. But he desperately wanted it to work because he’d been married before and it broke up. I don’t know why; he didn’t tell me.
‘And, yes, we were seen around together. In my job there were a lot of functions and parties and stuff I had to attend. I had no one to escort me. I’d only had one man-friend, and that relationship turned out to be a disaster.’
He had taken her hands in his, his dark head bent as he pressed tiny, lingering kisses into her palms. She dragged in a helpful breath and gabbled on, not sure how much time she had left to get everything said before her mind blanked out beneath this sensual onslaught.
‘He was a photographer who, I found out, thought bedding his female subjects one of the perks of his trade. If I thought very hard I might be able to remember his name! So Guy escorted me, and we ignored the gossip, and Ruth knew it wasn’t true. And, tonight, he was trying to persuade me to take it up again—modelling. I told him no.’
He surely wasn’t hearing a thing she said! His mouth had found the pulse points of the tender insides of her wrists. She didn’t know how long she could hang onto her shaky control.
She dragged her hands away. ‘Listen to me!’ She backed away, putting the tenuous safety of a small distance between them. ‘You walked in that night and found me in Guy’s arms. And, yes, I guess it did look suspicious,’ she agreed, seeing his body go tense again, his eyes take on that watchful, assessing look that told her he was weighing every word.
‘He was comforting me. Being a friend. I’d been crying my eyes out over you, and he was telling me you’d have a good reason for being delayed.’
The watchful look had intensified. It made her bones shiver. But she’d allowed his lack of trust to ruin what had been left of their marriage before; she wouldn’t let it happen again. Besides, hadn’t he said he trusted her now?
To escape his eyes she turned and picked up her coffee, drained her cup. Her hands were completely steady now. She was, she decided, inhabiting the calm eye at the centre of the storm.
‘You were to be home that Christmas Eve. I’d planned to make it special. You’d promised to be there, and, talking to you on the phone, I had the feeling that you wanted to get everything right again as much as I did. We both knew something was going wrong. But you
didn’t come. The meal had been prepared for hours. I’d put my glad rags on. My ears were sticking out on stalks listening for the sound of your key in the door. The phone rang—I thought it had to be you, telling me you’d been delayed, were on your way.’
She shivered, the memory of what had happened fraying her. ‘It was Guy, phoning to wish us happy Christmas and spread his good news. Ruth had had her pregnancy confirmed. They were expecting twins. I wasn’t listening,’ she confessed tightly. ‘I was bursting into sobs of disappointment because it wasn’t you. And Guy and Ruth, like the good friends they are, came straight on round. Ruth was in the kitchen making fresh coffee and Guy was still trying to comfort me when you walked in, called me a vile name and walked out again. And didn’t come back.
‘I should have told you all this, waited around until you did decide to show up,’ she-whispered miserably. ‘Got Guy and Ruth in to confirm it, if you couldn’t believe me. But pride got in the way. You didn’t trust me, and at the time I couldn’t live with that. I didn’t know then that you’d heard the old gossip about me and Guy, let alone believed it.’
She felt his arms go around her waist, and leant back against the strength of his body. Her voice was shaky as she told him, ‘I want you to believe me now—not for my sake, but for yours. I don’t want you to be hurt by doubt.’
‘Sweetheart!’ His voice was rough with emotion. He turned her in his arms. ‘I hate myself for ever doubting you, for taking a later flight than I’d originally intended. But mistakes don’t matter if we both learn from them. And I have learned, I promise.’ His mouth claimed hers as he breathed, ‘Oh, God, how I love you!’
She would treasure those words for the rest of her life, do her utmost to deserve them.
For the second time that evening he scooped her into his arms, but this time those black eyes were glittering with another emotion entirely, his intended destination far removed from the back of a cab. He dropped her on the big double bed and joined her, their limbs tangling instinctively, inevitably, no parting conceivable, not in their lifetime.
Bella awoke to a gentle rapping on the bedroom door. She yawned drowsily, delicately, like a cat, her body sated from passion.
She peered up at Jake through a tangle of black lashes. Sitting upright, propped against the pillows, his naked body gleamed like dull satin in the half-light of a winter’s morning. His wide mouth was soft, tender, his eyes loving as he stroked the tumbled hair from her eyes then called ‘Come.’ His eyes held hers as he told her, ‘Breakfast Something special to mark a new beginning.’ He got up and took the loaded tray from the room service waiter.
Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. Bella forked up delicious mouthfuls as Jake poured champagne. He rejoined her amongst the wickedly rumpled sheets, holding his glass to hers, holding her eyes with his.
‘Happy New Year, sweetheart.’ His eyes glittered with sinful intent. ‘Shall we start it as we mean to go on?’
Her heart quickened with immediate response. But there was something she really had to say. ‘About your giving up work—you made it sound as if you were taking a very early retirement.’ She couldn’t ask that of him, let alone expect it. It was too much for him to sacrifice.
‘I did some thinking,’ she explained, idly running a fingertip across the rangy breadth of his chest. ‘I could take a secretarial course and help you out on trips abroad. That way we’d be doing things together. I know how much work means to you. I can’t see you staying put and twiddling your thumbs.’
‘I have no intention of twiddling anything—well, certainly not my thumbs.’ He grinned, planting a light kiss on the end of her nose. ‘I grew up with an obsession about security. When I was a kid we seemed to have it all—a good home, everything any of us wanted, within reason. Dad owned a successful highstreet hardware store, but he lost it, lost the house—everything. He found gambling on the stock market more exciting than selling screws and buckets.
