I’ll go and get a towel for you to dry your hair.’
‘Don’t bother about that. Just answer the question I asked you outside and I won’t take up any more of your valuable time.’
There was a hurt, resentful edge to her tone, and Jarrett wrestled with the sense of injustice it provoked inside him. It beggared belief that she was acting so aggrieved when it was her that had played him for a fool.
‘All right I’ll tell you why you didn’t see me. Although as a matter of fact I did call round.’ Feeling the talons of what he believed was justifiable anger dig into him at the expression of surprise on her face, he slowly crossed his arms over his chest, praying that she wouldn’t try and maintain her innocence to the point of embarrassing herself when she realised he knew the truth. ‘I was about to open the gate when I saw you step outside the house with a man,’ he said, low-voiced. ‘A tall, fair-haired chap. Is he your lover, Sophia? Or perhaps he’s the husband you told me had died?’
‘What?’ Her face had turned the colour of parchment. ‘You say you called and saw me come out of the house with a man?’
‘Yes, I did. I was about to open the gate when I saw him. Who was he? I don’t want any lies. Just tell me the truth.’
Sophia’s limbs were almost too weak to keep her upright for another second. The cold, damp material of her raincoat clung to her, making her shiver hard. She’d left the house in a hurry, unable to stand for a moment longer the torment of not knowing why Jarrett hadn’t called round last Sunday. But it was the bitter disappointment and fury now reflected in his crystal blue gaze that made her tremble even more.
‘For your information, I didn’t consider telling you anything but the truth,’ she insisted, and saw a muscle in the side of his strongly defined cheekbone flinch, as if denoting that he didn’t believe her. ‘The man who you saw me with is not my lover. He’s my brother.’
Her companion’s lightly tanned skin actually blanched, and she saw him swallow hard. ‘Your brother?’
An icy drip of water slid down the back of her neck from her sodden coat collar, but her blood was pumping so hard through her veins that the heat it poured into her body right then meant that she barely even registered it. ‘Yes, he’s my brother. And if you’d had the guts and good manners to open the gate and walk in, instead of skulking outside and jumping to the worst possible conclusions, then I would have introduced you to him.’
‘My God.’
‘Now you know the truth, there’s no need for me to hang around any longer.’
‘Please wait. Look, I’m truly sorry. You can’t know how much I mean that. I made a terrible mistake.’
‘That’s all that you can say? I thought you were a good man … a fair man. But then you go and shatter my illusions by behaving just like everybody else in this godforsaken place, with their small minds and unfair suspicions. I would have told you everything if you’d stayed. I see now what a bad error of judgement that would have been. Anyway, I am going to leave now, and I think it’s best if we don’t see each other again.’
Even as the words left her lips Sophia knew she didn’t mean them. Having not set eyes on Jarrett for almost a week, she’d yearned to see him so badly that the image of his handsome face had seared itself onto her brain practically to the exclusion of all else. But she also knew it was unlikely she’d be able to trust him again, after he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about David.
‘Don’t go.’ He stepped towards her and stilled her escape by catching her hand and holding it. His expression mirrored his distress. ‘At least give me the chance to make amends. You’re right. I was a small-minded idiot not to give you the chance to explain who he was. But I was so intent on seeing you that I reacted like a jealous fool when I saw you with someone I thought must be a rival.’
‘That’s still no excuse for staying away without even contacting me to tell me why.’
‘You’re right. It isn’t.’ As he lifted one broad shoulder and dropped it again in a shrug a rivulet of rain slid down his sculpted cheekbone from his still wet hair. ‘I suppose I thought the longer I stayed away, the longer I could delay hearing you tell me that there was someone else in your life after all.’
The tenor in his voice conveyed genuine regret, and in spite of her reservations Sophia sensed some of her anger and tension subside. Hearing Jarrett tell her that he’d acted like a jealous fool made her realise how much it must have meant to him to see her again that Sunday, and how shocked and disappointed he must have been when he’d believed she was seeing someone else.
He still hadn’t released her hand, and it was as though an electrical current was shooting through it simply because his big palm enfolded it. ‘There’s nobody else.’ She lifted her head, intensifying her gaze to emphasise the point. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m looking for a relationship either.’
His lips split into a disarming grin. ‘You know it’s going to be my mission to make you change your mind about that?’
‘By all means try. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you fail.’
Letting go of her hand, he drove his fingers through his damp ebony hair. ‘Will you still share what you were going to tell me before I made such a colossal fool of myself on Sunday? I honestly want to hear your story, Sophia. And before you say anything else, I’ll make you a cast-iron promise that I won’t share the content of what you tell me with another living soul.’
‘Not even your sister?’
‘Not even her.’
She saw from his unwavering stare that he meant it.
‘By the way, where’s Charlie?’ he asked.
She gave him a brief smile. ‘With my brother and his family. They’ve invited him to stay with them in Suffolk for a short break before he starts school. David has a son just a couple of years older than Charlie, and they haven’t seen each other for a long time. I’m glad that he wanted to go, but I’m going to miss him like crazy.’
Just the thought of being without her precious child for even a day made Sophia feel tearful. They’d always had the strongest bond, but they’d become even closer since the shadow of Tom had no longer loomed over them.
Jarrett’s glance was warmly reassuring. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he told her. ‘I know you’ll miss the little man, but you could probably do with a bit of a break too.’
‘I suppose it’s a good opportunity to get on with doing some work … both my photographic assignments and the house.’
The man in front of her looked thoughtful. Then with another warm smile he said, ‘Why don’t you let me hang up your coat? Then we’ll go into the kitchen and have a hot drink.’
With fingers still icy-cold from the rain that had drenched her, Sophia slowly started to unbutton her damp raincoat.
THE hot mug of tea helped to dispel the chill that seemed to have seeped right through to her marrow.
Not
