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Involuntarily Phoebe stiffened in the chair. Jed’s hair was slicked back, still damp from the shower. He’d shaved and dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, white shirt and sombre tie, but he no longer looked so tired. In fact he looked gorgeous, and she stared helplessly at him, trying to still her racing pulse but frighteningly conscious of the superb powerful male physique beneath the conservative attire. She fought to resist the effect of his potent masculinity on her vulnerable senses so much that it hurt to tear her gaze away.
She had tried to tell herself she was over him and despised him—had done for years. But since he had seduced her the other night, with a tender passion that had cut through her every defense with humiliating ease, she was forced to admit she was lying to herself. She would never be over Jed. It was as if her body was wired only to respond to his, and she doubted she would ever meet another man to take his place…
Jed strolled forward, his dark gaze skimming over Phoebe. She had changed into a dress that clung to her full firm breasts. Trying to ignore the gnawing frustration he felt, he lifted his eyes to her face. In the bright light of the room she looked pale, and he saw the flickering shadows in the wary blue eyes that met his. He sensed tension and something more as she clasped her hands in her lap and looked down.
For a moment his conscience worried him, and then he looked at Ben.
‘I thought I’d find you here, Ben.’ He pushed aside any niggling doubt at his tactics. Phoebe had deceived him five years ago, and again at the embassy ball. She didn’t deserve any sympathy—not from him. ‘I have to go out, son.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘And as I will not be back before your bedtime I’ll say goodnight now. Sleep well.’
He ruffled the dark hair, and with a nod to Phoebe he left.
Chapter Eleven
PHOEBE walked down the grand staircase. The house was quiet—eerily so. Ben was fast asleep—she had checked on him twice already. She glanced at her wristwatch. Tenthirty, but she was too on edge to go to bed. She remembered seeing a television in the family room downstairs—surely there must be some channel she could watch? Trouble was she could not remember exactly which door it was. She opened one—the dining room—and closed it, then moved to the next one and opened it. A window lamp was the only illumination and she stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the dim light, and realised it was the study.
‘Come in and join me in a drink,’ a deep voice slurred, and she saw Jed sprawled on a large black leather sofa, a glass in his hand. ‘I could use the company.’
‘No. I’ll…Are you all right?’ she asked, concerned that he sounded drunk,
‘I don’t know. Tomorrow will tell.’
Phoebe felt dreadful. She had been so concerned with her own worries, protecting her own feelings, she had never considered how worried Jed must be, given the first forty-eight hours were crucial to his father’s recovery and half of that time had already gone. He had said Damn the man when they’d left the hospital, but she had seen the gentle way he cared for him, and had realized Jed was not the emotionless zombie she had thought—at least not where his father was concerned. Maybe he was too emotionally repressed to tell his father how he felt.
Her tender heart went out to him, and tentatively she moved towards him. ‘I did not know you were back,’ she murmured, stopping in front of him. His pin-striped jacket was draped on the arm of the sofa, he had pulled his tie free, and his shirt lay open at the neck, revealing the strong line of his throat. He was all arrogant, sexy male—and yet he looked so alone…
She sat down beside him. ‘Jed?’ He lifted his head to look at her. ‘I know how you feel, but drinking will not help you.’
‘You could not possibly know how I feel,’ he said, draining the glass of whisky in his hand. Placing the glass on the side table, he lounged back on the sofa.
‘But I do.’ She laid a consoling hand on his forearm. ‘When my parents had the car accident my mother died instantly, and I never got the chance to tell her I loved her. But my father lived for a week, and though it was heart-wrenching to see him fading it gave me the chance to tell him how much I appreciated him and loved him, and to say goodbye. With luck your father might have years left, but if not he is still
here now. I know you care for him, so instead of damning him you should tell him you love him. Trust me—it will make you feel a whole lot better.’
‘Ah, Phoebe!’ Jed drawled softly, and slid his arm around her shoulders to draw her close. She was so soft-hearted, so typically female—all for revealing emotions. He almost felt sorry for what he was about to do.
‘I’m grateful for your concern, but it is not necessary.’ Her big blue eyes were staring up at him, and he reached and ran a finger down the her cheek, letting his hand rest on her breastbone. He saw her catch her breath and fought the temptation to cover her mouth with his own and take what he knew was his to take. But he had done that on Friday and it had sent her running. He could not take the chance. Everything was in place, and time was of the essence. He could wait another day…
‘My damning comment was an expression of admiration for my father, not a condemnation,’ he continued. ‘He knows exactly how I feel about him. We made up any differences we had after he divorced his fourth wife. He explained to me why he’d married so often—it was because he loved my mother, worshipped and adored her. She was his soul mate. But when she knew she was terminally ill she made him promise he would marry again, and not become the kind of man who had no respect for woman and slept around. Probably because that was what he was like before he met her,’ he said dryly. ‘My father kept the promise, the silly old fool, and the only women he has had sex with since her death he has married.’
This was a Jed Phoebe had never heard before, confiding intimate details about his family. ‘That is not silly but quite romantic—keeping his promise. He must be a wonderful old man,’ Phoebe said. ‘Not a cynic like you.’ She dared to tease him.
‘Romantic, yes. The jury is still out on cynic,’ Jed drawled, and tightened his arm over her shoulder in case she tried to bolt. ‘But will you still think he is a wonderful old man tomorrow, when we get married?’
‘What?’ Phoebe spluttered, lifting her stunned gaze to his. He had to be joking…His dark eyes stared back, humourless and hard, and there was a determination about his handsome features that told her he was not.
‘You heard, Phoebe…My father wants to see us married—he told you so—and he told me to arrange the ceremony while you were standing there. I agreed in order to placate him. If it makes it easier for you, I never had sex with Sophia. We have been friends for years, and I considered marrying her because our fathers are great friends. It seemed sensible—a marriage of convenience much the same as we will have.’
The fact he had never slept with Sophia pleased her, though she was loath to admit it. As for the rest—his emotionless approach to a marriage to placate his father enraged her.
‘You agreed? Are you out of your mind?’
‘No. I simply took you at your word this afternoon when you said you did not lie and unlike me you had a heart and would never, ever turn down a seriously ill old man’s request because that would be unconscionable. So, Phoebe, my father has requested we marry…Are you a woman of your word?’ Jed looked at her, his smile filled with arrogant amusement. ‘Or, like most females, are you going to try and wriggle out of it?’
She felt as if she had been doused in a bucket of cold water. All her tender feelings vanished. She had said all that, and meant it, but it had never entered her head that Jed would try and use her emotional outburst to suit himself. She should have remembered Jed was a man who always got what he wanted. He had lulled her into a false sense of security and then dropped his bombshell.
She tilted her head back, the light of battle in her gaze. ‘That is the most disingenuous take on what I said. Only you would have the gall to come up with it.’
‘No worse than you turning my offer to take care of you when you were pregnant into a demand for termination, or denying me and my father precious years with Ben,’ he said grimly. ‘Now you can make some recompense. The wedding is arranged for tomorrow at the hospital. All you have to do is turn up and sign when you’re told.’
