had had a wife, a child and now he was back inside another relationship. Where were his scars? They didn’t exist. Her head bent, silk-fine hair shimmering forward to hide her pinched profile. Dear heaven, why hadn’t she felt physically ill when he had touched her?
‘Go away,’ she whispered.
‘That is an invitation I don’t need.’ The door thudded on his exit.
She didn’t hear a car start up. But then she hadn’t heard one arriving. He must have walked up from the road, planning to take the intruder by surprise. Last of the macho heroes! Her bitter humour was short-lived. How could she respond to Jake when she couldn’t respond to other men? Admittedly the latter situation had risen very rarely to be tested. Jake had burnt her so badly that she had shrunk from putting her hand in the fire again. Was that why she had stayed with Grant for so long? Had she been sheltering her own inadequacy? Was it really fair of her to have accused her father of using her?
When she had moved into the town house, it had never occurred to her that the world would assume she was Grant’s mistress. She had honestly believed that, once she was presentable, Grant would be prepared to acknowledge their relationship openly. But Grant would never own up to fatherhood. He was extremely sensitive about his age, even more self-aware of his pin-up status. That he was closer to the half-century mark than forty was almost as big a secret as his possession of a twenty-five-year-old daughter.
And Kitty had become his defensive shield against persistent women. Kitty, though he had vehemently denied the accusation, was his excuse when one of his light-hearted affairs became too heavy. For so long all her energy had gone into her career. If she had been in no hurry to test herself out as an unattached woman, a large part of it had been lack of interest and the suspicion that she was frigid.
Frigid, she echoed dismally, shamed heat slinking through her in waves. Neither repulsion nor inhibition had attacked her in Jake’s arms. Was she some kind of masochist? Where had that absolutely terrifying response come from? In all this time she had never forgotten the humiliation and shame that Jake’s rejection had once taught her, forever afterwards making her repress her sexuality. She had feared an involvement with another man. She had to face that truth now.
Feeling intensely vulnerable, she curled up in a tight ball. Jake had hurt her savagely and those wounds were still raw. Drowsiness was overcoming her heavily. He was right, she allowed on her last coherent thought, I am depressed.
* * *
The aroma of coffee was in the air when she awakened. China rattled and she came bolt upright, clutching a quilt she didn’t remember bringing downstairs. Her mattress had moved during the night as well. It was now several feet away from the fire. But what made those puzzling developments absolutely unimportant was the sight of Jake emerging from the scullery bearing two cups.
‘What on earth…?’ she began incredulously.
‘I was worried about you. I came back.’ He set one of the cups down beside her on the floor and straightened lithely again to carry his own to his hard-set mouth.
Dark stubble shadowed his strong jawline. A half-unbuttoned shirt revealed a strip of tawny skin and a crisp sprinkling of black chest hair. Never had she been more achingly, agonisingly conscious of his disruptive sexuality. Some natural barrier had tumbled down since last night. Her pulses were racing in an atmosphere that suddenly felt unbearably claustrophobic.
‘What time is it?’ Disorientated, she had to say it twice to get it out and she studied the quilt, not even sure what day of the week it was.
‘Half-eight.’
She pushed a hand through her hair. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You were sleeping like the dead when I came back,’ he asserted abrasively.
‘Is there something wrong with sleeping in the middle of the night?’ she muttered, seeking the cup with a blind hand. Her mouth was dry as a bone.
He released his breath in a sudden hiss. ‘You should have woken up when I came back. You didn’t. You obviously carried on drinking after I left.’
That did penetrate her mental fog. Her head flew up. ‘I what?’
‘You heard me. You were dead to the world.’ Fierce anger laced each harsh syllable.
‘Why don’t you take your assumptions somewhere where they’ll be less offensive?’ she snapped, equally angry. ‘I didn’t have anything more to drink!’
A dubious dark brow elevated. ‘No?’
She flung him an infuriated stare. ‘No!’ she repeated. ‘Do you have any idea how long it is since I had a decent night’s sleep? I was exhausted last night. I fell asleep within minutes of your departure.’
Dark eyes aimed a derisive and renewed challenge. ‘You can still be grateful that I did come back. You left the candles burning. Didn’t you realise that the electricity was only switched off at the meter? You didn’t even put a guard up on that fire,’ he informed her grimly. ‘This house has wood partition walls. You’re fortunate it wasn’t your funeral pyre last night!’
Pale now, she hunched under the quilt, her hands cupped round the coffee. ‘I’m not normally so careless, but if you’re looking for gratitude, you’re in the wrong place. Nobody asked you to interfere. How long have you been here?’
‘Since about three,’ he admitted shortly. ‘I didn’t like to leave you again until I was sure you were all right.’
Pinned to her mattress, sluggish and dishevelled, she felt grossly disadvantaged. ‘Have you turned nocturnal?’ she enquired. ‘Won’t someone have missed you?’
‘Sophie’s used to my being out at night.’
Really? He stayed overnight with Paula, did he? Times must have changed in Mirsby. You’d have been a scarlet woman the length and the breadth of the neighbourhood if you had behaved like that when Kitty had lived here. Hating him, she let coffee scald her tongue. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? Yesterday had been a truly ghastly day and Jake had clogged up far too much of it.
‘Throw on some clothes. I’ll take you home for breakfast. A neighbourly act,’ he specified drily.
She nearly choked on her coffee. ‘Breakfast?’
Abruptly he dropped down on a level with her. ‘I’ve had enough drama in the last twenty-four hours to last me into the next century,’ he warned abrasively. ‘I also have a suggestion I want to put to you.’
‘Keep it. Keep breakfast as well,’ she advised, bending her head to evade a collision with rich, dark eyes far too close for comfort.
‘Is it so hard for you even to be civil to me?’ he raked, low and rough.
Her eyes closed. Every minute she spent in his radius heightened her inner turmoil. It would not be long before he questioned the depth of her bitter sensitivity to an episode he had firmly set behind him under the forgivable heading of misspent youth. She was terrified of exposing her vulnerability to that extent. But she would never be able to forgive him for the impossible choice he had once laid before her. How could she forget the agony of losing her baby?
Her eyelids smarted with sudden stinging moisture. That was a period of her life that she
