what do you like, I wonder?’ he demanded grimly. ‘Oh, Rachel, why me? Why not Carl—or that handsome wine waiter—or practically anyone, for that matter!’
Rachel took an involuntary step forward. ‘You do—like me?’
His lips twisted. ‘Yes,’ he muttered, ‘I like you.’
Turning away, he pulled his keys out of his coat pocket and inserted them in the door to his suite. As he did so, two elderly women came along the corridor towards them, their curiosity sharpening as they recognised Rachel. A quick exchange of glances indicated the direction of their thoughts, and their reproving: ‘Good evening, Miss Lesley!’ brought the hot colour to her cheeks.
Jake ignored them, pushing open his door and switching on the light just inside. Then he turned, leaned against the frame, waiting until Rachel looked at him again.
‘Well?’ he said, as her eyes followed the two women’s progress to the lift. ‘Wouldn’t you like to go with them?’
Rachel hesitated only a moment, and then shook her head, walking determinedly towards him, and preceding him into a luxuriously furnished lounge. The door closed behind her, and only then did she feel relief from the disapproving eyes she had felt boring into her back.
AT least her surroundings were reassuring. This had to be the best suite in the hotel, she thought. Della’s rooms were not like this, and the green and gold pattern of the carpet was reflected in the long curtains and matching cushions. A self-coloured hide suite looked soft, and squashily comfortable. There were several small tables, as well as a television, as big as the one downstairs, and the dining table, in the window embrasure, commanded a magnificent view over the lights of the harbour.
While she looked around, assuming an interest in the concealed lighting above the ceiling moulding, Jake took off his overcoat and slung it carelessly over a chair near the door. Then he moved to stand before the huge marble fireplace, obsolete now, since the introduction of central heating. Against its veined beauty his profile had a dark, forbidding quality, and a momentary sense of panic gripped her.
‘Regretting it already?’ he inquired dryly, and she looked up at him defensively.
‘No.’
‘Who were those women?’
‘Acquaintances of Mrs Faulkner-Stewart,’ replied Rachel offhandedly. ‘You have a wonderful view——’
‘Will they tell her where you are?’
Rachel sighed frustratedly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re not worried?’
‘No!’
He moved his shoulders in a gesture of dismissal, and her eyes were irresistibly drawn to the lean muscularity beneath the fine material. ‘If you insist …’ he commented carelessly. Then: ‘Tell me about Mrs Faulkner-Stewart? Is she some relation of yours?’
‘I’ve told you. She’s my employer,’ replied Rachel stiffly.
‘Only that?’ He seemed surprised. ‘An unusual occupation for a girl of your age.’ He paused. ‘And generation.’
Rachel sighed. ‘She was a close friend of my mother’s. When—when my parents died within a few weeks of one another, Della looked after me.’
‘But surely that wasn’t what you intended doing with your life,’ he probed. ‘A girl like you. Had you no ambitions of—an academic nature?’
Rachel nodded. ‘As a matter of fact, I was planning to go to university. But—what with Daddy and Mummy dying … Della said it was better to give myself time to get over it.’
‘And in so doing provide her with a ready-made companion.’
‘It wasn’t as callous as that,’ she protested. ‘Who knows? I might have failed the exams.’
‘Do you intend to try again? Next year, for example?’
‘Perhaps. If I have enough money.’
‘Money.’ His echoing of her word was almost a sneer. ‘Ah, yes. Everything revolves around money, doesn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she declared indignantly.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re a romantic, on top of all else,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘What a novelty!’
Rachel bent her head. ‘Do you want rid of me?’
The expletive he uttered made her flinch. ‘Such a remark does not deserve an answer!’ he snapped. ‘Come off it, Rachel. You’re not dealing with some callow youth who needs that kind of immature invitation!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean—coyness doesn’t suit you!’ he retorted coldly, lifting one suede-booted foot to rest on the iron fender surrounding the hearth. ‘Like I said before—I must be out of my tiny mind!’
‘If—if that’s the way you feel …’
Rachel turned abruptly away, her nerves unable to stand any more of this biting double-talk. She had started this; it was up to her to finish it.
But before she had taken a couple of steps, he moved with surprising agility, interposing himself between her and the door, his fingers closing painfully round the soft flesh of her upper arm. She tried to pull away from him, alarmed by the smouldering look in his eyes, but he jerked her back against him, and she felt the hard length of his body against hers. His arms went round her, sliding across her flat stomach, propelling her closer, so that for the first time in her life Rachel could feel the throbbing heat of his desire.
‘You have no conception of how I feel,’ he protested roughly, bending his head to brush her neck with his tongue.
Rachel’s panic began to subside. ‘I—I thought you were angry with me,’ she stammered.
‘I am,’ he retorted unsteadily. ‘I shouldn’t be holding you like this, and you shouldn’t be letting me.’
‘Why not?’ Her mouth was dry, and she moistened her lips as his hands slid up over her rib-cage to cup her breasts.
But she knew. She had read books, and her instincts warned her that she was playing with fire. Yet she couldn’t help herself. She wanted him to hold her, and the thin material of her chemise was no barrier to the way her breasts responded to his touch, swelling and hardening beneath his experienced fingers.
‘Oh, Jake …’ she breathed chokingly, using his name without thinking, and with a muffled oath, he twisted her round in his arms and covered her mouth with his.
A thousand stars seemed to explode in her head at the touch of his lips, and she
