sure everyone must think she was a woman of easy virtue. Jake had howled with laughter and called her old-fashioned.
‘The first thing I’m going to do when we get back is change my passport,’ Lexi said with a chuckle. Later she was to be glad she didn’t...
Jake gathered her into his arms, and with a husky growl declared, ‘At last you are mine, and mine alone for always, my beautiful, gorgeous girl. My wife.’ She knew no document could bind her more surely to her husband than the love she felt for him.
With gentle hands he removed the turquoise silk dress she wore, sliding it down over her hips to pool in a pale cloud at her feet, all the while pressing tiny kisses to her eyes, her face, her throat.
Sighing, she wrapped her slender arms around his broad shoulders, quivers of sensation darting through her body as she melted helplessly in his hold. He was her husband, her love, and she wanted him with every fibre of her being.
Tenderly, he swung her into his arms and carried her from the sitting-room to the bedroom and carefully laid her down on the huge, old-fashioned four-poster bed. She stared up at him, her love and longing highlighting the pure beauty of her fine features.
Jake, his blue eyes darkened to almost black, reverently bent over her and removed the slight wisps of lace that passed as her underwear and she felt her whole body blush, suddenly overcome with shyness and an unexpected, virginal fear.
‘You’re my wife, my love; I will never hurt you, I promise,’ Jake said throatily, while he quickly divested himself of his clothes.
A gasp of sheer female appreciation escaped Lexi’s softly parted lips. Jake was magnificent; she couldn’t help staring. His broad shoulders gleamed like polished mahogany in the dim light of the bedside lamp, the musculature of his chest was somehow exaggerated by the downy covering of black hair that arrowed down over his flat stomach to brush out at the apex of his thighs. Her blush deepened as she realised he was fully aroused. She closed her eyes, and felt his lips brush across her mouth.
‘Don’t be afraid.’ He kissed her long and slow. ‘Trust me, my darling.’ And she did, as his long body covered hers.
When he finally took possession of her pulsating form with one quick thrust, a brief pain was swiftly overtaken by sheer ecstasy. ‘Jake.’ She cried his name, and her love for him, as they reached the pinnacle together as one. Afterwards, Jake murmured husky rasping avowals of love as he buried his face in her throat...
* * *
Slowly, she opened her eyes, a soft sensuous smile curving her lips ‘Jake.’ Her violet eyes, the lingering traces of sensuality clearly visible, fastened on the dark face looming above her. She stretched up a small hand, and then blinked. He was wearing a sweater... She closed her eyes for a second and it all came flooding back. Jake was sitting on the side of her bed. She was in hospital. The smile vanished from her face. Her baby gone...
‘Lexi, are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I was asleep,’ she murmured and, pulling herself up the bed, she sat up.
‘Lorraine sends her apologies,’ Jake said abruptly. ‘Apparently she took the message last night when Stewart and I were in the study. She forgot to tell me afterwards with the pressure of discussing some—’ he hesitated, his mouth twisting grimly ‘—slight alterations Mr Stewart suggested. I know I should fire her for it, and I will if you say so. But I feel it was partly my fault. The discussion became quite heated, and Lorraine isn’t like other women. She would never forget a business message, but anything else she doesn’t see as important.’
‘Don’t fire her for my sake, Jake,’ Lexi responded quietly. She knew Lorraine did not like her, hadn’t from the beginning when she’d tried to convince Jake that Lexi was only after his money and that he was making a mistake in marrying her. ‘Tell her I accept her apology.’ She looked up and saw Jake was looking somewhere over her left shoulder, his expression oddly evasive, and she wondered, not for the first time, just what relationship Jake had with his PA.
‘You’re very generous, Lexi. I’ve done some investigating today and I should have asked about the baby last night, when I phoned, but I assumed it was all right, while the young nurse I spoke to assumed I already knew you had lost it.’
‘It.’ He called their baby ‘it’. How could he be so insensitive? ‘It doesn’t matter, as long as your business was successful, all is not lost,’ she said with a biting sarcasm that was wasted as Jake glanced down, and leaning forward, kissed her lightly on the lips.
‘Thank you, Lexi, you’re very forgiving. I want you to get better and come home. I miss you.’ His dark eyes searched her still pale face. ‘Everything will be fine, I promise.’ And, lifting one long finger, trailed it down her cheek. ‘How about a smile, hmm?’
‘I’ll be coming home tomorrow,’ she offered with a pitiful attempt at a smile.
‘Good, and perhaps now you can return to London and college, if you like.’
Lexi felt like screaming. When they were first married they had lived in London and Jake had suggested she stay at home, saying she had no need for a degree in languages, he would give her a degree in love instead. Many a lunchtime he dashed back to the apartment and they spent hours in bed. Or they drove up to Yorkshire to oversee the renovations on the manor. Then, when the hotel had been completed by the Easter, they moved permanently to Yorkshire, Jake saying he could work as easily from his study in the apartment. Lorraine could look after the London office. The new apartment was a delight, and Lexi had quite happily spent the past months helping out in the hotel reception.
But had she been happy, she suddenly questioned, or had the feeling of resentment towards Jake started long before she lost the baby? When only weeks after having her pregnancy confirmed Jake suddenly, because of ‘pressure of business’ he had said, took to spending all week in London, returning to Yorkshire only at the weekends, while insisting she stay in the country; it was better for her, he had said, as a mum-to-be.
Now Jake was calmly suggesting she go back to London and college as though nothing had happened.
She hid her anger and resentment as he arranged to collect her the next day and kissed her goodbye. But after he had left it hit her. Jake had avoided telling her whether his deal of the previous night was successful or not. But then he had been very evasive the last few weeks about his business; no doubt Lorraine would know!
Lexi wondered yet again how close her husband and Lorraine were. On their honeymoon Lexi had asked Jake if he had ever had an affair with his PA and Jake had said ‘Good God, no!’ and burst out laughing, but Lexi had never been able to see the joke...
CHAPTER TWO
LEXI, dressed in the same blue jeans and soft T-shirt she had worn on Friday before her accident, was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed waiting for her husband. The necessary discharge papers had been signed an hour ago. She glanced out of the window for the hundredth time; the sun was rising high in the sky, embracing the utilitarian lines of the hospital building in a rosy glow, but its warmth could not pierce the coldness in Lexi’s heart.
Jake entered the room in a rush, full of apologies for the delay. ‘Sorry, darling, Lorraine and I were tied up on a conference call. You would not believe the inefficiency of the telecommunications here. We were disconnected half a dozen times.’ He frowned. ‘In today’s climate of recession, speed
