Sally,” he asserted confidently.
The connection.
He did feel it.
A dark burden lifted from her soul.
No matter what was hidden in the dark recesses of Jack’s mind, the connection between them was real. And there could be no going back to maintaining a distance from him. Besides, she wanted to go forward, regardless of what happened further down the track.
“Six o’clock,” she said, reminding him there was physical time involved.
He laughed as though that had no real relevance.
“I’ll bring a bottle of French champagne and we can toast the Monet together.”
“I’ll have the flute glasses ready. And an ice bucket.”
On the coffee table in the master suite. Her heartbeat instantly accelerated at the thought. Was that too bold of her? No. What was the use of pretending she didn’t want to spend every minute with him, anywhere, any time?
“I’ll be living for the moment.” His voice purred contentedly in her ear. “Good night, Sally.”
“Good night to you, too,” she answered, knowing she’d be living for the moment, as well.
Maybe this pleasure in each other wouldn’t last, but as long as it did, she wasn’t about to turn away from it.
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS different, flying into the valley property this time. As the lush green pastures and the pristine white fences came into view, Jack felt a far more personal connection to the place. The sense of being an outsider, just coming in to take what he’d paid for, was no longer in play.
He didn’t belong at this property but it belonged to him. He’d walked all over it, been accepted by the staff, and he was now well entrenched in the world that had once been his father’s private domain. Mine now, he thought with satisfaction. And so was Sally—the daughter his father had prized far more than his son.
It had been a bad moment last week when he’d realised he’d forgotten to use a condom. He’d had one in his wallet and it had been recklessly stupid of him not to keep control of what he was doing. Still, Sally was not a conniving bitch like her mother, and her being on the pill had saved him from a costly accident. Lady Ellen had been right about a pregnancy. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—walk away from his own child. Just as well Sally was as keen as he to avoid that consequence.
He smiled over her delight in the selections he’d made for the master bedroom suite. The re-styling had been for her—his vision of her occupying it with him—but the Monet definitely made it his. Every time she looked at it, he would possess a piece of her mind.
His smile took on a twist of irony over the strong streak of possessiveness she had tapped in him. No other woman had got to him so deeply. Was it a psychological thing, rising out of the fact she’d had what he’d wanted all these years with his father, so having her balanced the ledger in some primal fashion?
Whatever … she certainly stirred something that was pushing him beyond the normal pattern of his experience with women. She wasn’t simply a peripheral pleasure to be enjoyed when he had the time and inclination. It was difficult to banish her from his mind, even when he was doing business.
He hoped she was thinking of him just as much. The idea of her having a more powerful pull on him than he had on her was unacceptable. Holding the controlling hand and capitalising on it had made him the man he was, and he wasn’t about to lose his grip on how he ran his world.
This current obsession with Sally Maguire would ease as time went on. It was tied in with what he’d never had with his father. She embodied the need that had never been answered—couldn’t ever be answered now. But it felt good to have her. He just had to keep a reasonable perspective on the situation.
Though reason was swallowed up by a surge of desire when he saw her emerge from the house to meet and greet him. Her head was tilted towards the incoming helicopter, her hair a glorious riot of red-gold curls, lit by the setting sun. She wore a snug black top, outlining the lush thrust of her beautiful breasts, and a white skirt with a deep black border. The wind from the whirling blades wrapped the fabric around her long, shapely legs—legs that had wrapped themselves around him in uninhibited passion.
The muscles around his groin tightened. He grabbed the cooler bag containing the bottle of Veuve Clicquot, ready to alight from the helicopter as soon as it landed. He couldn’t wait a second later than he had to, the need to feel her body against his again racing through his veins.
She was smiling—not the polite smile she’d put on for his first visit. This was a smile of joyous welcome, a champagne smile that shot bubbles of exhilaration through Jack’s brain and put a huge grin on his face as he leapt from his seat and strode towards her.
He was so vibrantly handsome. Sally felt her whole body tingling from the rush of pleasure at seeing him again, thrilling to the eagerness in his step which surely telegraphed his desire to be with her, the smile on his face leaving no doubt as to his pleasure in seeing her, too, the bright sparkling blue of his eyes, no darkness at all because she was bringing sunshine into his life—a wild giddy thought that made her feel wonderful.
“Hi!” he said, holding up the cooler bag he carried. “I trust you have the glasses ready.”
She laughed with sheer happiness at the togetherness they were about to share. “And the ice bucket,” she assured him.
“Good girl!” His free arm swung around her waist and scooped her along with him as he headed for the house. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment all day.”
“So have I.” The words tripped straight off her tongue. Impossible to pretend anything else. He was hugging her close to his side, the warmth of his body lighting a glow in hers, the brush of his thighs shooting quivers of excitement right down to her toes. She loved the female feel of being physically linked to this man.
He rubbed his cheek against her hair. If she’d been a cat she would have purred. As it was, it felt as though her heart was beating in her throat. She put her arm around his waist, snuggling closer, gloatingly glad now that she’d had the foresight to ask Jeanette to prepare a dinner that could be simply heated up when they were ready for it, giving the housekeeper and her husband the evening off in their own cottage. However embarrassingly obvious it had been that she wanted to be alone with Jack no longer mattered, not with this glorious sense of anticipation buzzing through her body.
“What about your bag?” she asked, suddenly remembering Graham wasn’t here to collect it from the helicopter and they had already stepped into the foyer.
“Bill will drop it off here. We’ll leave the door open for him. He’ll close it as he goes,” came the quick reply.
Jack didn’t so much as pause in his step. Neither did she, content to be swept across the foyer, down the hall to the master suite, shutting out the outside world, sharing his urgency, revelling in it. She’d left the door to it open so he could see all the marvellous changes to the bedroom straightaway, but he made no immediate comment on the redecorating.
“Ah! Glasses on the table,” he said with satisfaction, as though the rest of the room rated no attention at all, taking Sally with him as he made
