Katy's glance finally settled on the man seated opposite her. 'Jake,' she demanded urgently, 'how did we get here? How did they know we were coming?' She didn't understand what was going on. They had left the apartment in London, supposedly to part for good. Jake's throaty laugh burst into her troubled thoughts. 'It isn't funny.'
'To answer your question, a car telephone; but food first, Katy, and then we will talk, hmm... ?'
The dining-room door opened and any reply Katy might have made was stopped in her throat. The elderly gentleman in typical butler's garb entered, pushing a trolley loaded with silver dishes. She glanced down at her worn jeans and old sweater. She should have changed for dinner. The occupants of the house would not be impressed by her rather too casual attire. 'Jake, I must get changed. What-----?'
'Relax, Katy, and enjoy your food; there won't be anyone else joining us, I can assure you.'
How did he walk into her mind like that? she wondered for the thousandth time. Then for the next half-hour Katy munched her way through iced melon, followed by a delicious fresh salmon steak in a thick creamy sauce, and a massive slice of chocolate fudge cake with fresh cream, and to Katy it all tasted like sawdust. When the old man arrived with the cheese and biscuits she was ready to knock Jake's head off.
All through the meal he had flatly refused to answer any of her questions. If he said 'later' one more time she would kick him. She was bursting with curiosity and Jake was smiling like the cat that caught the canary but refusing to enlighten her.
'Come along, Katy; I can see the suspense is killing you.' Rising, he walked around the table and helped her to her feet.
'What the hell is going on?' she demanded.
Jake smiled down into her flushed face, his dark eyes gleaming. 'Patience.' And, flinging an arm casually around her shoulder, he ushered her out into the hall and across into what she remembered as the drawing-room.-.
She should have shaken off his arm, she told herself, but was reluctant to part with the- comfort he offered. Her mind was in a spin and her legs felt none too steady. Meekly she allowed him to pull her down beside him on a large over-stuffed sofa, her eyes darting around the room in wonder and delight.
This room, she recalled, had been very formal with stiff high-backed leather chairs, and hard leather chesterfields. Now it was a symphony in pinks and greens, with matching fabrics and drapes, the ceiling a dreamy pink with the deep cornices and mouldings picked out in a rosy white. From the picture rail hung a delightful collection of water-colours, all depicting the Cornish countryside. Over the elegant marble fireplace a larger portrait of a young girl had pride of place.
Katy's mouth fell open in shock. It was herself at thirteen. She remembered her father insisting she have her portrait painted as a birthday present for him. When she had thought about it at all she had assumed her father still owned it.
'Now are you beginning to understand?' Jake's voice asked softly in her ear.
She jumped at the intrusion into her troubled thoughts. 'No, I am not,' she responded flatly, and, turning wary eyes to his, she searched his face for some glimmer of enlightenment.
Jake took her two hands in his and held them on his thigh, his dark head bent to mask his expression from her. 'The house is mine, Katy.'
Jake's! She couldn't believe it. Katy made to pull her hands free, but his fingers only clasped her small hands tighter. Sitting so close to him, his shoulder brushing hers, their knees touching, was having an unsettling effect on her overwrought nerves.
'Do you remember when and why your father sold it?' he asked in an oddly unsure tone.
'How could I forget?' she said bitterly. It still hurt even now. 'Darling Monica hated the country, had no intention of being stuck in the middle of Cornwall for the rest of her life. I can't see why you need to ask, Jake; if you remember you were there at the time. I was fifteen and you told me I should accept my father's wishes, and everything would be OK. Another lie!' She snorted inelegantly.
'Exactly, Katy: you were fifteen, I had known you for one year, and I bought this house from your father. Think about it. If, as you imagined, I was having a red-hot affair with Monica why would I spend a fortune on a house she hated?'
She stared at Jake dumbly, unable to speak. His dark brown eyes watched her with a strange intensity as if he was willing her to reach some conclusion. She frowned. 'I did wonder if your flat in town was your only home.' She spoke her thoughts out loud. 'It is nice, but with your wealth-----'
'I sold my boyhood home when Father died and kept this one; surely that tells you something?'
What was he trying to say? Katy puzzled. He had bought her old home, certainly not for Monica. He fancied it, she thought, and with a shrug of her shoulders she told him so.
'True, I like the house, but as I'm a bachelor it's far too large for me. I bought it with one particular person in mind.'
'One particular person,' she parroted.
'Yes.' His lips curved in a lazy smile and quite deliberately he raised his eyes to the portrait over the mantelpiece.
Deep down inside a tiny flicker of hope unfurled. Was Jake trying to say he'd bought it for her? Could it be possible... ? Could she have been wrong about him and Monica? A snippet of conversation popped unheralded into her head. He had told her last week he had broken his leg not once but twice while skiing. His story about the hotel could be true...
'You broke your leg twice.' She had not meant to say it out loud.
'Yes, Katy.' His dark eyes returned to her flushed face, his strong tanned hands gently lifted hers to his lips, and in a curiously reverent gesture he pressed a kiss to each palm.
'Now do you understand?' he queried smoothly.
Katy had spent too long mistrusting him, hating him, to immediately believe him. Her sea-green eyes, wide and wary, searched his handsome features, looking for some sign that would convince her. If she believed he had bought the house for her, then that meant... his marriage proposal and everything had been genuine... She wanted to believe him, oh, how she wanted to, but he had hurt her too much...
Jake sighed and dropped her hands. 'You aren't going to make this easy for me.' He stood up and walked across to the mantelpiece, his back towards her. 'But then, why should you? I've treated you abominably, and I have no excuse. Jealousy is an unenviable emotion, and can be no justification for the way I've behaved.'
'Jealousy,' she parroted again. Jake jealous of her... somehow the thought made the flicker of hope in her heart burn a little brighter. He turned around, leaning one elbow on the mantelpiece in apparent ease, but she noted his brown eyes flickered over her and fixed on some point on the opposite wall, almost as though he was afraid to look1 at her.
'Hard to believe, Katy? Well, I can assure you it is true. But perhaps I should start at the beginning. Do you want a drink? Because I certainly do.'
His quick change of subject threw Katy, and she mumbled a refusal and waited with building impatience as he strode to the drinks cabinet and, picking up a bottle, poured a very large whisky into a crystal tumbler. Her fascinated gaze watched the muscles of his strong throat as he gulped most of it down at one go. 'The beginning,' she reminded him softly.
Jake still refused to look at her; instead his gaze was fixed on the portrait. 'I bought the painting along with the house, though David took some persuading to part with it. It is a very good likeness. It reminded me of the first day we met. I waited in the headmistress's study, expecting to have to tell a young schoolgirl the sad news of her mother's death, and escort her to her home. I only agreed to do it because I had promised my grandmother to look up your family and make sure Meldenton was all right. Latins take a debt of honour very seriously.'
Jake half smiled. 'Anyway, when you walked into the room I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach. You had just come from the tennis court. Your glorious hair was floating like a cloud of gold almost down to your waist. You were wearing a white knit sports shirt, and a tiny pleated skirt that barely covered y
our behind, and your legs...'
Katy leaned forward on the sofa the better to hear. Jake was talking so low—virtually to himself. He must have heard her move, as he turned and gave her a wry smile.
'You were fully developed at fourteen and I had never seen anyone as beautiful in my life. Even now I don't know how I managed to keep my hands off you. I could not believe what had happened to me. I was a mature adult male, a staid banker, and I had the hots for a schoolgirl. I tried to hide it, and I tried to comfort and support you until after the funeral, but it was agony for me. I felt so damned guilty.'
'Guilty? But you were the model of decorum.' Katy grinned; suddenly her heart felt lighter, and the flame of hope burnt even brighter.
'Only because for the next twelve months I stayed away from you.'
'The postcards,' she murmured; he had kept in touch.
'Yes. God, I felt as guilty as hell, but I couldn't break all contact.' He paused. 'I kept thinking, this can't be happening to me, obsessed by a schoolgirl. It was my grandmother who made me see sense. I confessed my feelings to her, and she laughed; she reminded me I was half-Italian, and convinced me. For an Italian the age-gap between you and me would seem unimportant in a few years. So I began to pay more attention to Meldenton and I became a friend of your father, but my real motive was always to be with you.'
Katy stared at him, wide-eyed. Was this the man who had been telling her to get out of his life just hours earlier?
'All of which proves, from the moment I met you,' a slightly shamed smile twisted his lips, 'I was fascinated, intrigued, besotted with you. To be honest I was also thoroughly ashamed and, looking back, I can see it was my own guilt that got in the way of our relationship.'
Katy tried to speak, but Jake crossed the room and, catching her hands, pulled her to her feet. His hands stroked up to her shoulders, and held her firmly only inches away from his hard, tense body.
'But Monica was never an issue between you and me. That much you have to believe, Katy.'
'You told me to try and get along-----' He stopped her.
'Only because I wanted to protect you, look after you, and I thought it better that your father was married, rather than running free.'
'Chasing everything in skirts,' Katy supplied for him with an ironic smile.
'Anyway, that is the only reason I advised you to try and get on with your stepmother. God knows, I hardly knew Monica; our bank had always handled her family's business, but she was an acquaintance... no more, I swear.'
The wheels of Katy's mind spun furiously. 'Your bank still handles her business.'
'Yes, unfortunately, but that will change when I go back to town, I promise.'
So that was how Jake had been able to vote Monica's shares at the board meeting, Katy thought. But remembering the board meeting brought Jake's blackmailing to her mind. She could not put her thoughts into words. She was too confused.
Jake waited for a while, absently fiddling with the scarf holding back her hair, until accidentally it came free, and with a gentle gesture he smoothed her heavy golden locks down over her shoulders. Then he looked straight into her eyes and said seriously, 'Katy, I have never loved any woman in my life the way I love you. You have to believe me. I bought this house from your father for you, sure that one day it would be our home.'
Katy's mouth trembled and she tried to speak, but once again the words would not come. He had said he loved her. As for Monica, she believed his explanation—well, most of it, she qualified silently. The picture in her mind of Jake with his arms around that woman still rankled. But if there was to be any hope of a relationship between Jake and herself she was going to have to take some things on trust.
'I believe you------' She was about to continue cautiously 'about the house', but Jake never gave her the chance.
'Katy! God, Katy!' He hauled her hard against him, his arms wrapped around her so tight that she could feel the heavy beating of his heart against her own. Then his mouth covered hers. He kissed her with a wild savage hunger that lit an answering response in Katy.
Somehow they were on the sofa, Jake's long body over hers; his hands were at her sweater, and he would have pulled it off, when suddenly he stopped.
'No, Katy...' Jake breathed unsteadily. He rolled to one side and curved his arms firmly around her so they were lying side by side. Gently he brushed back a lock of unruly hair from her brow, and stared at her, the banked-down passion in his black eyes fiercely controlled.
'Why, Jake?' She did not understand what had stopped him.
'Because, my love, for weeks we have made love, and instead of resolving our differences it has driven us further apart. In my conceit I thought, once I got you in my bed and made love to you again, you would forget about any other men and soon learn to love me. Now I see I was totally wrong.'
'Not totally wrong...' Katy murmured; she was not quite prepared to admit she loved him, but she couldn't let him think she didn't care. Jake's dark eyes flared with... was it hope?
'Ah, Katy, you can't imagine how good it makes me feel to hear you say that. This afternoon I thought I had blown my last chance with you.'
'You told me to get out,' she reminded him.
'My unreasonable jealousy,' he confessed. 'The odd thing is, when you first left me to go to Paris I was hurt, angry, but not jealous. I think I accepted your excuse that you wanted to see the world so easily because in my heart of hearts I knew I had rushed you into an adult relationship, and felt terribly guilty. I told myself I had to give you time to grow up, go to college, and when I received your letter saying you had met a young man I was hurt and madly jealous, but consoled myself with the fact that you were very young, and as long as I hung in there, kept in touch, eventually I would get you back. I carried on sending you cards, flowers, praying you wouldn't forget me.'
Katy smiled; it had puzzled her why he had bothered,
'When I saw the first pictures of you modelling, and the rumours in the Press about you, I was angry, but oddly pleased; obviously the young man had not lasted. I decided it was time I went to Paris and renewed my claim on you. Two years was long enough, and if the gossip was true you had had quite enough of a fling. It was time I married you. When I met you with Anna and her husband and saw how you behaved with Claude I was livid.' His arms tightened around her. 'I had worried about the age-difference between us, and there you were with a man old enough to be your father. I called you some terrible names.'
Katy shivered slightly as she remembered that particular meeting. It was the first time she had seen Jake really angry. 'Anna had just married Alain, Claude's son, and there was never anything between Claude and me,' she explained. 'I behaved the way I did because I did not want to admit I knew about Monica.'
'There was nothing to know about Monica.' Jake shook his head ruefully. 'And I'm beginning to realise I have been a complete fool about Claude. Anna's father-in-law, you say?'
'Yes.' In a rush of words she told him about Claude and her god-daughter Caterina. Suddenly it seemed very important to Katy that he should know the truth.
'Oh, God, Katy, can you ever forgive me?' Jake groaned. 'When I think what I've said and done in the past few weeks I cringe; my only excuse is I didn't know if I was on my head or my heels with you. You were marvellous in my bed but so uncaring the rest of the time, and I intended everything to be so different.'
'What exactly did you intend?' Katy asked softly. 'I could never understand why a man like you, who dislikes publicity, would pay so much money to take me out on a charity date.'
Jake chuckled, his dark eyes lit with laughter. 'You're never going to believe me, but I owe you the truth. I decided after four celibate years without you to make one last attempt to capture you. I thought long and hard about our previous relationship, and I realised, although we had spent a lot of time together, it was always at your home. I very rarely took you out. I think it was because you were so young, and in a way I was ashamed of my feelings for you. I reached the conclusion
that I had deprived you of a proper courtship.'
'A courtship!' she exclaimed with a smile. 'What a very old-fashioned word, and a bit late, considering you had already had your evil way with me,' she joked while her mind registered 'celibate'.
'Do you want to hear this or not?' Jake demanded hardily, but the quirk of his lips belied his serious tone.
'Yes, please.' She snuggled closer and allowed her hand to stroke teasingly over his hip and thigh. 'But will it take much longer?' The flicker of hope had exploded in to a full-blown flame. Jake had freely admitted there had been no one else for him in all the years they had been apart, and instinctively she believed him.
'Anyway, I decided to wine and dine you, but first I had to persuade you to go out with me. The charity date was like a gift from heaven. I told myself I did not care about your other men or whether the stories in the Press about you were true. I could control my jealousy. I was your first lover and I was determined to be your last... But I blew it on our date.' He tapped the end of Katy's nose with an admonishing finger. 'And you, my dear Katy, didn't help. You let me think the worst of you— even encouraged me, too.'
'It was my defence,' she whispered. 'Otherwise we would have made love and it would have confirmed your low opinion of me.'
Jake's finger dropped to her lips and gently outlined the contours of her mouth. 'Are you confessing you wanted me, Katy?' he asked throatily.
'What do you think?' She captured his finger between pearly teeth and bit it. 'Why else would I agree to your dishonourable proposal to be your mistress? The family firm is important to me, but anyone but you and I would never have accepted. You were my first and only lover,' she confessed.
'Only lover...' he repeated wonderingly, reading the truth in her huge green eyes, and for a long moment silence reigned as their lips met and clung. Jake's large muscular body stirred restlessly against her, igniting the flames of passion with every movement.
'I'm sorry, Katy, so sorry,' he rasped against her mouth, and, putting some space between them, continued, 'I never intended to make you my mistress.' His black eyes burnt into hers, intent and oddly vulnerable. 'I would never have asked that of you, Katy. I admit I planned to coerce you into my life, but I wanted to marry you. If you remember that day in the boardroom, you never gave me the chance. You got in first, telling me you would rather die than marry me.'
Dishonourable Proposal Page 16
