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His eyebrows rose. In surprise because she didn’t simply jump at the offer?
His gaze held hers and the intensity of it made her shiver. It wasn’t the look of a lover. What she saw, or thought she saw before he shuttered his expression and pulled himself up to sit beside her, was the intense focus Jack always brought to bear on his work. Focus and calculation.
A tiny shiver tracked down her spine.
‘I want you to come back to Paris. Come back to me.’ He paused, his voice dropping low to a note that spoke of authenticity and emotion.
Yet his expression remained guarded so she couldn’t read his feelings.
Because he was so adept at concealing them that it had become second nature?
Or because there were no deeper feelings to conceal?
That possibility froze her mid-breath and she had to focus on dragging in oxygen when her head began to spin.
But the idea shouldn’t shock her. After all, that was why she’d fled him in the first place—because the emotional connection had been all on her side, not his.
‘You want to continue our affair?’
She didn’t imagine the emotion in his expression this time. His frown was real. ‘It’s not an affair, it’s amarriage. Doesn’t this week prove it’s not over? Don’t you want more?’ He paused. ‘I do.’
Bess pressed her hand to her chest as hope and excitement rose so fast her heart galloped.
Of course she wanted more.
She wanted Jack in her bed and in her life. Because despite her best efforts, he was still in her heart.
Could their relationship be mended? Could it be that he’d discovered he had deeper feelings for her?
Jack smiled, that slow, intimate smile that never failed to curl her toes and weaken her resolve.
Instinctively she leaned towards him, drawn by the warmth in his eyes and his admission that he wanted her enough to invite her back into his life. For if she joined him in Paris their reunion would no longer be private.
Shock jolted through Bess as she realised the implications. His invitation proved he wanted to make their relationship work long-term.
Bess knew the world he inhabited. Their separation had ignited endless gossip and press speculation. Her return would spark a similar flurry. Even a man as confident and successful as Jack wouldn’t invite that merely for short-term sexual satisfaction.
He was a proud man and the negative press wouldn’t have been easy for him, yet in the past five days he hadn’t berated her about that. She hadn’t let herself read too much into that. Now she couldn’t suppress the burgeoning excitement inside.
‘I want youas my wife. I want you back.’
His smouldering look ignited a fire of longing.
Jack had always been able to make her feel special when they made love. But they weren’t making love now. His expression, the husky emotion in his voice and the tension in his body, as if he barely held himself back from sweeping her to him, made Bess feel that nothing mattered to him at this moment but her. That she was his first and only priority.
It was heady for a woman who’d forced herself long ago to accept that her husband didn’t love her.
She snapped her mouth shut against the eager words forming on her tongue. How easy to say yes. But this was too important to rush.
Instead she sat back against the pillows, noticing his brows twitch at that tiny withdrawal. ‘You think a week of great sex is enough to mend our marriage? You know I want to settle down eventually and have children one day. And there are other things we haven’t sorted out. Important things.’
Like the imbalance of love and power between them.
That twitch became a scowl, swiftly gone. But then he’d never been eager to have kids. It was a subject he preferred not to discuss. ‘Great sex is a starting point. It proves that there’s still a spark between us, something we can build on. And Ididapologise.’
Bess nodded. He’d apologised for what he’d said on that dreadful night but his words were still branded on her brain.
He’d instructed her not to see Lara. As if she were an employee who’d crossed a corporate line. Normally amenable, Bess had refused and for the first time ever, they’d argued. That was when he’d blurted out that he hadn’t married her to attract negative publicity. That he’d married her, among other things, for her pristine reputation. Hanging around with Lara Cartwright would cast an unsavoury shadow over her and by extension him.
