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She was going to have a baby.
She’d always wanted to have children one day. She’d been prepared to wait because Jack hadn’t been ready and besides, she’d wanted to pursue the career she loved. But some things came in their own time. She’d have to find a way to work her career around the baby. But other women did it, so why shouldn’t she?
Bess turned and headed towards the Tube station. She had a lot of thinking and planning to do.
Jack was in a foul mood.
Nothing had gone right since his return to Paris.
A major deal that had been months in the making looked like falling through and he couldn’t gather the energy to mount an aggressive campaign to save it.
He had energy to burn, spending long hours in the private gym of the presidential suite, pounding the pavements of Paris in the dawn light or doing a little sparring practice at a nearby boxing gym. But somehow he couldn’t translate that energy into productive work.
Meetings were a trial, concentration was difficult and it took all his self-control not to snap at staff who were used to following his lead rather than coming up with innovative solutions to problems themselves.
It was his own fault. He employed the best but in the past he’d insisted on the final say in every major negotiation, every new direction. In the eight weeks since he’d been back in Paris he’d learned the hard way that his approach to business, effective as it had been until now, was too reliant on him taking an active role. He needed to delegate more.Wasdelegating more, and some of his staff, while excellent at following orders, struggled to come up to the mark.
He needed to find time for mentoring, training and extra recruitment. He needed to focus on his plans for the move to Berlin that he’d delayed again but couldn’t put off much longer. He needed to find a solution to the problems that looked like sending his newest scheme into mothballs.
Instead he found himself thinking about Elisabeth. Again.
He couldn’t get the woman out of his mind. The sleek softness of her skin, the gentle sound of her breathing in the night as she snuggled against him, the fire in her amber eyes when they found heaven together.
He shot to his feet and stalked the length of his office, noticing for the first time that he really wasn’t fond of the ornate antique desk or the gilt-edged sideboard. Or the too-formal arrangement of flowers on the low table between the priceless sofas. It was one of the downsides of staying in a hotel, even one of this superb calibre, that he lived with someone else’s decorative choices.
Jack frowned. In the past he’d barely noticed the furnishings. His staff in Paris worked from a permanent office but he mainly worked remotely from his hotel.
It was just that he’d been here too long. He’d meant to leave Paris much earlier.
Since Elisabeth left he hadn’t been able to move on.
He sucked in a sharp breath, feeling that dagger-sharp slice through his gut again.
Twice now she’d done that, once here and once in the Caribbean, and still the pain hadn’t eased. He’d told himself it was wounded pride he felt but he wasn’t that naïve. It was far, far more. Far more even than fury.
His wife had damaged him in a way he still found difficult to believe. Especially since he’d assumed, after she fell so eagerly into his bed again, that she’d realised her mistake in leaving and would come back once he’d apologised. He’d planned to make things up to her, schedule more time with her, not just at work-related events. Make sure she knew how he valued her. Make her feel special.
But he hadn’t had her measure at all.
He’d been stunned when she’d left again. Stunned, angry and gutted. The message she’d left had made it clear she never wanted to see him. Since then he hadn’t been able to reach her and his pride had stopped him setting an investigator to find her. He wasn’t going to run after her, begging for attention.
Elisabeth’s defection brought back memories he’d spent his life suppressing. Of his parents’ lack of interest. Their total absorption in their passionate, poisonous, on-again-off-again relationship to the exclusion of all else, including their only child.
He was lucky his grandmother had intervened to raise him. She’d had little choice after he’d turned up on her door after midnight, barefoot and in his pyjamas, shivering with distress. It was either her or foster care.
Jack stalked to the too-ornate sideboard and chose a Baccarat crystal brandy balloon. He was reaching for the cognac when one of those ancient memories stopped him.
He flinched, remembering the sound of splintering glass. His father’s rage as he surveyed the glittering shards from the glass that had been thrown at him, and the stain of spreading liquor on polished floorboards. The fury in his eyes as he’d stalked over to Jack’s mother, who wore black satin and a challenging pout.
Jack couldn’t recall what the disagreement had been about that time. His mother’s spending or his father’s long hours at work? Or had one found out the other in an affair? They were both serially unfaithful but could never finally break the bond between them, always returning to their tempestuous marriage.
For the longest time it looked like there’d be violence that night. His father’s hands hadn’t been gentle but nor had his mother’s. Jack, who’d come to the lounge room to say goodnight before going to bed, had stood aghast, his bedraggled toy lion pressed against his puny chest as he watched his father’s big hands wrap around his mother’s delicate neck. He’d tilted up her chin, growling deep from the back of his throat and making every hair on Jack’s body stand on end.
Jack had been gathering the courage to call out and try to stop them when his father jerked her close and kissed her with a ferocity that terrified a child of six. He’d been frightened too by the sound of tearing fabric, until his mother laughed that husky, taunting laugh she saved only for his father and dragged her long nails slowly and deliberately down his neck.
Jack blinked and put down the glass. He didn’t want alcohol. He preferred to be in full possession of his faculties.
He didn’t like anything that made him weak or threatened his control. After his early experiences he’d made it his mission to control whatever situation he found himself in. Not to be buffeted by unruly emotions or unwanted surprises. He worked out what he wanted, assessed how to get it, planned meticulously and acted decisively.
