healthy to drown your sorrows alone,’ he drawled softly.
She arched a brow. ‘I do unhealthy things all the time. They’re usually the most fun.’
He loosed his breath audibly. ‘Heaven sounds pretty painful at this time of night, Kitty. Does Maxwell know where you are?’
‘He knew I was heading north.’
‘I assume that you have split up with him.’
She let sherry moisten her throat. ‘You’re free to assume whatever you like. Grant and I have this unbreakable rule. We don’t discuss each other with anybody. That’s one of the reasons why there’s so much rubbish in the papers. What can’t be got through a legitimate interview is invented.’
‘You don’t say. Was the extraordinary revelation of the separate bedrooms made up?’ Jake prompted silkily. ‘Taking out the obvious exaggerations—I mean, I can’t believe that you entertained his women, but I can believe that you bought his ties—well, in short it’s obvious that the affair’s been dead on his side for a very long time. So why were you still in residence?’
She stroked a forefinger over the open-weave blanket she was sitting on. ‘So you read the papers. I suppose it was too much to hope that you wouldn’t try to satisfy your curiosity at source.’
‘Fascination would be a more apt tag for my feelings. Some of the bits relating to Maxwell were quite hilariously entertaining. But there were other parts next door to tragic,’ he murmured bleakly. ‘If he’s finally chucked you out the door, he’s done you a favour.’
‘What would you know about it?’ she exploded. ‘You know nothing about my life with Grant. Nothing!’
He stared steadily back at her. ‘You can’t tell me that you’ve been happy with a man who’s been running round with other women ever since you met him.’
Her delicate profile tensed. She gazed into the fire. All over again she was hearing Grant’s raging and bitter accusations of ingratitude. She had turned down the surprise part he had offered her in his film, reiterating her ambition to become a writer. His fury had been perfectly understandable. He had taught her, encouraged her, pushed her hard when she would have dropped back. Everything she was today, she owed to him.
But Grant had still failed to give her the one thing that she really wanted from him. And that wasn’t the adrenalin thrill of public recognition, the use of his luxurious homes or even the thousand and one costly gifts he continually pressed on her. It was a father’s love she had wanted, not what that same father could give her in material terms.
Suddenly tears flooded her shadowed eyes. Perhaps it wasn’t her father’s fault, perhaps it was hers. There had to be some element lacking in her. The people she loved never loved her back. Grant had pulled the same rug from under her feet all over again.
‘Kitty—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, go away and leave me alone!’ she gasped, despising her self-pitying mood. ‘You’ve had your superior little say and now you can get out!’
With a sound of impatience he folded forward, settling down on the edge of the mattress to slant an arm round her hunched-up figure. ‘I didn’t intend to sound superior—’
‘Didn’t you?’ she interrupted accusingly.
He sighed. ‘God knows I don’t receive any satisfaction from seeing you like this. I just don’t think you should be on your own right now.’
The weight and warmth of his arm had shocked her into defensive rigidity, but as he plucked her glass away her overbright eyes flamed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I believe you’ve had enough.’ Long fingers speedily enclosed her wrist, preventing her from retrieving the glass. ‘Booze will only make you more depressed.’
At his peremptory bidding her hand had automatically withdrawn again. It infuriated her to appreciate that the habit of doing as Jake told her could have survived the years to exercise that influence. ‘Two small glasses of sherry isn’t boozing and I’m not depressed,’ she rebutted stridently.
‘No?’ he queried.
‘No! I’ve just had a rough couple of days.’
As he belatedly released her wrist he balanced his other hand on her shoulder. His touch remained, branding her sensitive skin. Bemusedly stilled by his disturbing nearness, she felt her breath tickle in her throat, her mind a sluggish mass of half-formed thoughts. As she glanced up, dimly wondering what was the matter with her, she connected with black-lashed golden eyes and a sliding sensation pulled at the pit of her stomach. Silence buzzed, broken only by the crackle of the fire. The pink tip of her tongue delved out to moisten the dryness of her lower lip.
Jake groaned, muttered something ferocious under his breath. His dark, hard features clenched, his glittering gaze burning over her upturned face. Something stronger and older and infinitely more powerful than she was held her utterly still as long fingers twined into her hair and his dark head bent.
His hand settled impatiently on her spine, tipping her back. His mouth parted hers with a hot, hard urgency that sent sensation coursing through her in wild, primitive response. His tongue thrust a demanding passage between her lips and her head spun. He was above her and then he lowered his long, hard-boned frame, his unmistakable maleness as he shuddered against her yielding curves, making her blood race and throb through her veins in delight. Suddenly her arms were closing round him in collusion and acceptance.
As he slid on to his side, he carried her with him. He continued to hungrily probe her mouth, his hand curving over her breast to invoke an electrifying excitement that dragged a sharp little cry unawares from her throat.
The old mantel clock high above wheezed and rang out a tinny stroke of one. Instantly both of them froze. Jake lifted away without warning, sinking back on his heels, his breathing thick and fast as he studied her with smouldering charcoal eyes.
Sitting up, Kitty gave herself a faint shake, smoothing down the rumpled shirt, abysmally conscious of the betraying peaks of her breasts and the shocking unsteadiness of her hands. Yet, even flushed and tumbled, she managed to look like an exotic little cat, grooming herself with controlled cool.
‘The line you’re looking for is, “God, what have I done?”’ Never had Kitty’s ready tongue come more welcomely to her rescue than in that intense, lacerating silence.
‘Why the hell did you have to come back?’ he demanded with a raw, unexpected violence that made her flinch, flat savagery in his eyes.
An antipathy as potent as the passion they had shared had sprung up with equal suddenness.
‘I should keep this from Paula. Women are notoriously unforgiving creatures,’ Kitty hissed back at him.
Colour seared his blunt cheekbones, accentuating eyes still brilliant with unsettled emotions. ‘I was actually worried about you,’ he derided with a curled lip.
‘And just think, you don’t even have a teeny glass of sherry to use as an excuse for your lapse.’ She ignored the arrow of pain that that stinging taunt drove into her own heart.
He went white. ‘You poisonous little bitch,’ he bit out. ‘If you think that I’ve
