had lived here so briefly, but she had never shared any of them with a lover. And somehow she didn’t think walking on a moonlit beach with bare feet had ever occurred to Jordan!
She nodded coolly. ‘If that’s what you would like to do. I’ll be several minutes,’ she warned. ‘I always read Dani a story last thing at night.’
‘Aren’t you overdoing the devoted mother act?’ Jordan drawled in a bored voice.
‘I am a devoted mother,’ she bit out. ‘Dani and I both look forward to this special time of night.’
‘I’m surprised a busy lady like you can spare the time,’ he derided.
‘Jordan——’
‘I’m sorry,’ he drawled without any real regret. ‘Be as long as you want with Dani; I’m not going anywhere but outside.’
Willow turned and walked away from him, deeply resenting his implication that Dani came anywhere but first in her life. She did work hard, she admitted that, this latest shop of her exclusive designs appealing to both the wealthy residents and visitors on this charming little island and proving more successful than she had ever envisaged. But her career in fashion designing hadn’t succeeded at Dani’s loss; she spent every available moment she could with her daughter. And if Jordan St James had known anything about her other than the black and white reports he obviously received on her he would have known that. But he didn’t really know her, or about the things that had happened in her life to make her a woman of strength and character, a woman who at only twenty-three was one of England’s most successful fashion designers while still managing to be what she loved best of all, an attentive and loving mother to Dani.
‘Feeling better now?’ she asked Barbara after letting herself into the suite.
‘Much,’ the other woman nodded. ‘Jordan St James?’ she sympathised as Willow still looked pale from her encounter with the man.
‘Yes,’ she grimaced, putting her bag down on a table. ‘Dani in bed?’
The other woman nodded; a quiet capable woman of thirty-five, she had helped care for Dani the last three years. ‘She’s tired out,’ she said indulgently, ‘but she’s determined to hear her story.’
Willow smiled at that, knowing from experience that no matter how tired her daughter was she wouldn’t surrender to sleep until she had heard one of her favourite stories, and it was no good trying to cut the story short so that she got to sleep quicker; Dani knew them all word for word! Not that Willow minded; it was a time of day they both treasured, a few minutes of peace and tranquillity after the events of the day.
Dani sat up in bed as soon as Willow entered the bedroom. She was small for her age but the fragility of her appearance was not matched by the exuberant way she approached life, her eyes permanently agleam with mischief.
Willow sat on the side of the bed to hug her, laughing as the small arms clung about her neck, Dani collapsing in a fit of giggles as Willow tickled her to attain freedom. It was a game they played every night, but neither of them ceased to be amused by it.
Dani sobered as she settled back against the pillows. ‘That man downstairs——’
‘Uncle Jordan,’ Willow put in quietly, having no idea if he would welcome or disapprove of the title when he wasn’t really an uncle but a second cousin.
‘Mm,’ her daughter nodded. ‘Did I know him when I was a baby?’
Dani was going through the stage of being fascinated by the fact that she had once been as small as the babies she saw in their prams when they took walks in the park near their home. ‘A little,’ Willow confirmed with a frown. ‘Although I don’t think Uncle Jordan is all that comfortable with little babies.’ She knew she was being kind, that Jordan had barely glanced at Dani until she was a year old and had been able to trample over his feet to get where she wanted to go!
‘He seems to like me now,’ Dani said consideringly. ‘Does he live with Grandma and Grandad?’
Willow shook her head. ‘He has his own villa a short distance away from theirs.’
‘But——’
‘Story-time, young lady,’ Willow put in firmly as Dani’s lids drooped tiredly in spite of her interest in her newly realised uncle. ‘We can talk about Uncle Jordan again tomorrow.’
The expected protest was quickly forthcoming, but Willow soon calmed Dani down as she began to read her favourite story about a rather naughty bear. Unusually for Dani, she fell asleep halfway through the book, and Willow instantly felt a prick of guilt for having to keep her up so late after travelling today too. But Dani had napped at lunchtime before their flight, another unusual occurence for her, and so Willow had allowed the indulgence of the late night. And been soundly criticised for doing so! But criticism from Russell’s family was nothing new.
‘Still think it was a good idea to choose Jersey for your third shop?’ Barbara looked at her concernedly as she returned to the lounge.
She grimaced. When the time came for a third outlet for her designs the natural choice had been Paris, but after careful consideration she had decided it was too obvious, and the feasibility report she had received on Jersey had been much more promising: a lot of wealthy residents, and yet only fourteen miles from France itself. She had decided it was time to bury her ghosts, but she hadn’t realised at the time how difficult that was going to be!
‘I’m a businesswoman,’ she stated firmly. ‘Jersey was the perfect choice.’
‘The Stewarts seem to think so to,’ the other woman drawled pointedly.
Barbara was as much of a friend to her as she was to Dani, had been told from the first of her connection with the wealthy and influential Stewart family. ‘Then I’ll just have to disabuse them of that fact, won’t I?’ Willow said determinedly, once again picking up her bag. She smiled faintly. ‘I don’t have to ask you to listen out for Dani…?’
‘No,’ Barbara smiled; the two women were in perfect accord concerning Dani’s welfare.
Willow paused after stepping from the hotel to watch Jordan unobserved for several moments. Several tables and chairs had been placed in front of the hotel to overlook the bay, but Jordan had forgone the comfort of them to stand by the wall that fronted the hotel, his eyes narrowed as he stared out to sea, ocassionally sipping from the glass he held in his hand, his expression grim. He looked even more forbidding in the moonlight, big and dark, and infinitely powerful.
He slowly began to turn, as if sensing her gaze on him, and Willow instantly moved forward lightly, unwilling to be caught staring at him.
‘Too?’ he prompted abruptly.
She frowned her puzzlement, accepting the dry Martini and lemonade the waitress brought out to her, obviously at Jordan’s request; it was her usual after-dinner drink. She was surprised he had remembered so unimportant a thing.
‘Sorry?’ She prompted an explanation to his question as soon as they were alone again.
‘Dani asked earlier if you were ill too,’ he reminded her grimly. ‘Is she ill?’
Her brow cleared. ‘Barbara had a migraine from the flight,’ she explained. ‘I thought
