through the anger, turning his voice rough. “There is a picnic blanket in the back seat.” He was aware that the cadence of his speech was changing, as his long-dormant instincts awoke. It was a habit that betrayed too much, and he made a concerted effort to rein it in.
He heard her move. “It’s still in the plastic wrap.”
“It was part of a gift. I threw it back there months ago.” Rain pounded the windscreen as he drove out into a particularly unsheltered part of the road. “You still live in New Lynn?” He named a suburb about thirty minutes out of New Zealand’s biggest city, under normal circumstances.
“Uh-huh.” Her voice was muffled.
When he chanced a quick glance, he saw that only her bright little face remained uncovered by the woolen blanket. With long black hair beginning to curl in the heat, and thickly lashed blue eyes smudged with tiredness, she looked like a bedraggled and bad-tempered kitten.
And he wanted to scoop her up into his lap and kiss and cuddle her until she melted for him.
His reaction to Taylor went against all of the vows he’d made after he’d found out the terrible revenge Bonnie had taken on him for leaving her. Standing over his estranged wife’s grave, he’d sworn to never again let a woman close enough to wound him so terribly. At that moment, while his heart felt like it had been ripped from his chest to lie torn and bleeding on the crying earth, such a vow had been easy to make.
However, around Taylor, that pain-fueled promise held about as much weight as air. She’d affected him in an inescapable way since the minute he’d first seen her standing in his office doorway. Married at the time, he’d convinced himself that he liked Taylor because she was a good kid and a hard worker. Now, there was no Bonnie, and he’d seen Taylor with her blouse stuck to breasts that were definitely those of a woman.
“Where’s your brother?” He tried to lead his mind down less inflammatory paths, but all the while he was thinking that maybe it was time he gave his instincts what they’d always craved. A long, slow taste of sweet little Taylor.
“Nick’s on a wilderness camp with his class, in Riverhead forest, just out of the city.”
That explained why she was out so late, as she organized her life around Nick’s needs. He’d only met her brother twice, once during a barbeque for employees’ families and again when he’d unexpectedly needed Taylor to come into work on a Saturday and she hadn’t been able to find a sitter. However, Taylor’s daily reports—glowing updates more like a mother would give of her firstborn, than a sister of her brother—had made him feel like he knew the boy intimately.
“You’re still temping with the same agency?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve asked for you when I needed a temp.” Each time, the hapless replacement had had to bear the brunt of his unreasonable temper at her absence.
“Oh.” She turned a little toward him. “I didn’t know.” A pause. “I don’t work in the film industry anymore.”
“Why not film?” Had she been avoiding him, he thought with a flare of anger that was rooted in possessiveness that he’d never consciously acknowledged. Until now.
“It’s not the kind of environment I want to be in.”
Stopping at a red light, he faced her. “Environment?”
She shrugged, her cheeks a little pink. “Excess, glamour, money, money, money.”
He’d always known that she’d fight against coming into his world. “What about art?”
“What about it?” she scoffed.
He smiled and accelerated with care when the light turned green. “Poor Taylor. Disillusioned so young.”
“Don’t patronize me.” The order was sharp.
She’d been the only one of his secretaries who’d given him backchat. He’d offered her a permanent position after her contract ended, but she’d been adamant in her desire to leave. He’d wanted her more than he’d craved anything in his life, but honor had forced him to let her go, before he stole both her youth and her innocence. Yet, he’d kept waiting for her to walk back through the door. The memory made his voice curt. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? For a kid, you’re very cynical.” At thirty-two, he was only eight years her senior, but in his heart, he was decades too old.
Taylor’s temper started to simmer. Why did Jackson always treat her like a child? “I’m not a kid!” Her feelings around him were definitely those of an adult.
His big body tended to do things to her insides that scared her, because she had no idea what to do to feed those wild, hot feelings. With her history, she could never, ever allow herself to love a man, but the minute she’d met Jackson Santorini, she’d learned that she couldn’t stop herself from lusting after this particular male.
A deep chuckle heated both her cheeks and her temper. “Next to me, you’re a baby.”
“Crap.” She was so furious that she could barely get the single word out.
“Crap?” He was laughing at her again, in that superior masculine way of his that made her want to scream.
“Age makes no difference to the person you become once you’re an adult.” She needed him to accept her as a woman, though she shied away from the implications of that need.
“Of course it does.” His response was infuriatingly calm. “More experience, more life lived.”
“More years doesn’t necessarily mean more experience!”
His sardonic look dared her to prove it.
She did, goaded beyond endurance. “I’m bringing up a child. Can you say the same?”
“No.” His response was so cold that the inside of the car suddenly felt like a freezer.
It was clear that she’d offended him deeply with her careless words. Not for the first time, she wondered if his childless marriage had been his choice. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s true.” An emotionless response.
She bit her lip, debating whether to continue. “Yes. But so soon after Bonnie’s death…I shouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t thinking.”
It was her own emotional anguish over the possibility of losing custody of Nick to her stepfather, Lance, that had made her so reckless. Even tonight’s desperate attempt to forget her fears for a few hours had ended in a nightmare. Except for being picked up by Jackson, her day had been sheer hell. And now, she’d made him angry. Somehow, that was the worst feeling of all.
“It’s been twelve months since Bonnie overdosed.” Jackson knew his voice was hard, but so had been surviving the losses a year ago. “You know our marriage was finished long before then. Hell, the whole world knew.”
They’d been married,
