by Miranda Lee
And to think she’d actually been here, in Sydney, last night, staying at the Star City hotel! This revelation had frustrated the hell out of him. If he’d known, he could have persuaded her to at least have dinner with him.
And she would have come. She’d virtually admitted to him over the phone this morning that she’d decided to give Alex the brush-off in favour of him.
Unfortunately, she’d also made it clear that he was still on probation. One day at a time, she’d said. He could not afford to rest on his laurels just yet. Or presume that she would say yes to more than a meal or two today.
Never in the last ten years had Jake had to be this patient with a woman. And never had he felt less patient.
His body was on fire, aching to be with her in the most basic way.
As his eyes roved over the silky dress she was wearing, his loins stirred alarmingly. He shifted away from the wall he was leaning against, taking several deep breaths and willing his flesh back to a semblance of control, and decency.
Suddenly, Angelina’s eyes started to search the crowd as though she was looking for someone. Despite it only being ten to twelve, Jake instinctively knew she was looking for him. With rather anxious eyes, he thought. Perhaps because that Wayne fellow was being a pest. Ever since Jake had taken up his vantage point five minutes earlier, the sales rep had been chatting away to Angelina, his slimy dark eyes all over her.
When the sleazebag actually had the temerity to reach out and lay a hand on Angelina’s bare arm, Jake decided that waiting till noon was not on. He forged forward, amazed at the wave of fierce emotion which had consumed him.
Not jealousy. He didn’t think for a moment Angelina fancied the guy. Jake had read her body language. He just couldn’t bear for any man to touch her like that. Or to undress her with his eyes the way that guy had been doing.
The thought that he’d been doing some undressing with his own eyes was a sobering one. Though Jake quickly dismissed any guilt with the added thought that it was different with him. He cared about Angelina. It wasn’t just a question of lust.
Her eyes lit up at the sight of him, making him feel almost ten feet tall.
‘Ready to go, darling?’ he said, firmly staking his claim.
Fortunately, Angelina didn’t give him one of those don’t-go-getting-carried-away-with-yourself looks she’d bestowed upon him last Saturday.
‘I just have to get my handbag,’ she replied eagerly.
Within thirty seconds, he was shepherding her away through the crowd, his hand resting possessively in the small of her back. Once they were out of sight of the booth, he rather expected her to tell him to keep his hands to himself.
But she didn’t.
Angelina knew she was being foolish. But ooh…the touch of Jake’s hand on her body was electric. His palm was like a hot iron, burning its way through her dress to her skin beneath. Heat radiated through her, making her feel as if she was glowing all over.
‘Thank you for rescuing me from that creep,’ she said as he steered her through the throng towards the exit.
‘My pleasure.’
‘I can’t stand touchy-feely men.’
‘Oops!’ His hand promptly lifted away.
‘Not you,’ she hastily assured him with an upwards glance. ‘I didn’t mean you.’
Their eyes met and Angelina knew she’d just crossed a line, that line which she had taken such pains to draw earlier, but which was now in danger of disintegrating entirely.
Her eyes ran over him, and she thought how utterly gorgeous he was looking in his trendy city clothes. No jeans for him this time. But not a suit, either. His trousers were a bone colour, not dissimilar to the cream in her dress. Very expensive by the look of their cut, and the lack of creases. His shirt was made in black silk, worn open-necked, with its long sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Casual, yet sophisticated and suave, the epitome of the man about town, such a far cry from the Jake whom she’d ogled just as shamelessly sixteen years ago.
Only his eyes were the same. Still that same hard, icy blue, and still with the same intent. To get her into bed.
‘That’s a relief,’ he said, and his hand settled right back where it had been.
A shiver ran down Angelina’s spine. How would it feel if she had no clothes on at all? If she was lying with him, naked, in a bed, and he was sliding his hand down her back whilst the other was…?
She gulped the great lump which had formed in her throat and tried to find reasons for why his making love to her should never be allowed to happen. But none came to mind at that moment.
‘Did that guy say or do anything really offensive?’ Jake asked as he guided her out onto the wharf and into the sunshine. ‘Do you want to me go back and sort him out?’
Angelina drew in some blessedly fresh air and tried to get herself back on to an even keel. ‘Lord, no. No, that’s not necessary. Wayne’s harmless, really. Just too full of himself. And it’s not as though I have to see him again.’ Too late, she realised she’d made another blunder.
Jake pounced on it immediately. ‘You don’t have to go back to the booth today?’
‘Not if I don’t want to.’
‘And do you want to?’
‘Hardly.’ Silly to say that she did. ‘I thought I might do some shopping after our lunch,’ she added, hoping to retrieve lost ground.
‘Shopping for what?’
‘Clothes.’
His gaze travelled slowly up and down her body. ‘More clothes to drive men wild with lust?’
She flushed. ‘That’s not my intent when I buy a dress.’
‘It might not be your intent,’ he said drily. ‘But the result’s the same. I have to confess I do understand where poor Wayne was coming from. You’d tempt a saint, looking as you do today. And not many men are saints. But I doubt you’ll have much time for shopping after our luncheon cruise. The one I’ve booked takes three hours. Most shops close at four on a Saturday. Besides, I was hoping you’d agree to come back to my place for a while. I live over in that direction there on MacMahon’s Point,’ he said, pointing straight across the expanse of sparkling blue water at the distant skyline of high-rise, harbour-hugging apartment blocks. ‘I’ve already organised for the boat’s captain to put in at the wharf there and let us off afterwards.’
‘That was presumptuous of you, Jake,’ came her surprisingly cool-sounding remark. Inside, she felt far from cool.
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind. I thought you might like to see where I live. I’m happy to drive you back to the hotel later in the afternoon. If you want to change for dinner, that is. But you look perfectly fine to go out with me exactly as you are.’
She laughed. ‘You have today all planned out, don’t you?’
‘Being a lawyer has taught me that it’s always wise to have a plan.’
‘And do things always go according to your plans?’
‘On the whole. But there are exceptions, of which I suspect you might be one,’ he finished with a rueful sigh.
She smiled, gratified that he thought she had more will-power and character than she actually possessed at that moment.
‘You said one day at a time,’ he reminded her. ‘This is just one day, Angelina.’
He was right. It was. But she knew how Jake aimed for this day to end. All she could hope was that, when the time came, she had the courage to say no to him.
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU hear people saying how spectacular Sydney Harbour is,’ Angelina said as they leant against the deck railing of the cruiser. ‘I’ve admired it from afar many times. In movies and on television and from hotel-room windows. But it’s not till you’re on the water itself that you appreciate its beauty, and its size. Thank you so much for this experience, Jake.’
‘I thought you might enjoy it.’
She truly had. Every bit of it. The views. The food. But especially the company.
Jake had to be one of the most intelligent and interesting men she’d eve
r talked to. Even if he wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous and she hadn’t been madly attracted to him, she’d have enjoyed his company these past three hours. They’d chatted about so many different topics, getting to know each other as the adults they’d become, not the teenagers they’d once been. She’d discovered they had similar tastes in books and movies, thrillers being their entertainment of choice. After agreeing to disagree on what kind of music was best, they’d argued happily about politics, discussed the world’s leaders failing with peace and the environment, and in general had a great time, solving everything themselves with sweeping words of wisdom.
None of this would have been possible, Angelina realised, but for the other people on the cruise. Mostly tourists, with cameras which were whipped up at every opportunity to snap pictures of the bridge, the opera house and the shoreline. Their constant presence had allowed her to drop her defences and be more relaxed with Jake than she had been since he’d walked back into her life. It had been good to forget the threat of being seduced for a while and just enjoy Jake, the person, and not Jake, the sexual predator.
She was even beginning to reassess that judgement of him. Maybe she’d been harsh in thinking he was that shallow when it came to relationships. Just because he didn’t want marriage and children didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of caring, in a fashion. Of course, his track record with women wasn’t great. Even he’d admitted to that. But even men like Jake could change, couldn’t they? Maybe he was getting to that age when he was ready for commitment.
But was he ready for a ready-made son, complete with mother attached?
Angelina felt that was too large a leap of faith.
No. Jake, the man, would still not be pleased when she finally told him the truth. Which was perhaps why she couldn’t tell him yet. For one thing, she didn’t want to spoil today. Surely she deserved one day of being totally selfish, of just being Angelina, the woman, not Angelina, the mother? It was so nice to be squired around by Jake, to have him lavish attention on her, to feel desired and wanted.
Of course, it was risky. But it was worth the risk to feel what she was feeling at the moment. Not in sixteen years had she experienced anything like it. This fizz of excitement dancing along her veins and through her head. Her very light head, she suddenly realised.
Her laugh sounded rather girlish, even to her own ears. ‘I think I’ve had too much to drink.’ The white wines served up with the buffet lunch had been excellent, and so easy to swallow.
‘I’ll make you some coffee when we get up to my place,’ Jake offered. ‘It’s just a short walk from the wharf. Come on, this is where we get off.’
He hadn’t lied about the shortness of the walk. But it was still far too long with her hand warmly encased within Jake’s. By the time they’d strolled up the hill to his apartment block, and ridden up in the lift—alone together—to the fifteenth floor, Angelina was desperate to put some physical distance between them. She was glad when he dropped her hand to unlock and open his front door. But that was only a short respite. She needed longer.
‘I—er—have to use your bathroom,’ she said as soon as Jake shut the door behind them.
He gave her a sharp look, as though he knew exactly what she was doing. And why.
‘This way,’ he said crisply.
Her five-minute stay in the bathroom helped, although not the sight of the bathroom. How many people had bathrooms which had black marble right to the ceiling, not to mention real gold taps and corner spa baths big enough for two?
Angelina recalled that the living room—which she’d followed Jake across on her way to the bathroom—also had black marble tiles on the floor, not to mention thick white rugs, red leather furniture, sexy steel lamps and a television as big as a movie screen. Then there was the far wall, which was all glass, beyond which was a wide terrace and a view to die for.
The place had ‘seduction palace’ written all over it! ‘This is a very expensive apartment, Jake,’ she said when she finally joined him in the kitchen. It, too, had the same black marble on the bench-tops, and the latest in stainless-steel appliances. Above the double sinks was a wide window that overlooked the terrace and caught some more of the brilliant view of the harbour, and the bridge.
‘It was all Edward’s doing,’ he said as he spooned the coffee into attractive stoneware mugs. ‘He insisted I buy a flashy harbourside apartment with some of my inheritance.’
‘Well…this is flashy all right.’
He looked up from his coffee-making, his expression disappointed. ‘You don’t like it.’
‘No, no, I do. What’s not to like? It’s just…well…it does have “bachelor pad” written all over it.’
‘True. But then that’s what I am, Angelina. A bachelor. I thought that was one of the things you liked about me. I fitted in with your priorities in life.’
She looked away before he glimpsed the truth on her face, walking over to slide open one of the glass doors that led out onto the balcony. ‘Could we have our coffee outside?’ she threw back at him, deliberately directing the conversation away from her priorities in life.
Jake shrugged. ‘Whatever you fancy.’
Leading words, and one which Angelina struggled to ignore. If only he realised how much she fancied him. So far, she’d done a good job of keeping her desires hidden, but the fact she was even here, with him, alone, had to be telling.
She was standing against the glass security panels that bounded the terrace, her hands curled tightly over the top railing, when he joined her with the two steaming mugs.
‘I remembered how you liked your coffee from last Saturday,’ he said. ‘I hope I got it right. Black, with one sugar?’
‘Perfect,’ she said, and went to take it from him. Stupidly, not with the handle. On contact with the red-hot stoneware, her hand automatically jerked back. At the same moment, Jake let the mug go and it crashed to the terrace, splintering apart on the terracotta tiles, some of the near-boiling black coffee splashing onto her stockinged legs.
Her cry of pain was real, Jake’s reactions swift. Shoving his own mug onto a nearby table, he scooped Angelina up in his arms, and carried her with long strides back inside and over to the kitchen. There, he sat her on the marble counter, stripped off her shoes and swivelled her round to put her stockinged feet into the larger of the two sinks. Turning on the tap, he directed the cold water over her scalded legs.
‘That water’s freezing!’ she cried out, and stamped her feet up and down in the sink.
‘That’s the idea,’ he replied. ‘It’ll take the heat out of your skin and stop it from burning. Now, stop being such a baby.’ And he kept swivelling the tap back and forth across her lower legs.
‘You’re getting my dress all wet,’ she complained.
‘I have a drier. Besides, there’s coffee on that very pretty skirt, anyway. You’ll have to take the dress off and soak it, if you don’t want the whole thing to be ruined.’
Take her dress off! If she did that, then she’d be a goner for sure.
‘Was this part of your plan for today? Spill hot coffee all over me so you could play knight the rescue and get my dress off at the same time?’
His blue eyes glittered with amusement. ‘I’d love to say that I thought of it. In fact, I might put it away in my mental cupboard of plans for seducing difficult old flames. But given you dropped the mug, Angelina, might I ask you the same thing? Was this your plan,’ he countered, his voice dropping to a low, sexy timbre, ‘to spill coffee all over yourself so you could take off your dress in order to seduce me?’
If only he hadn’t been so close, or his hands hadn’t been on her legs as well, or his eyes hadn’t been searching hers.
‘Could be,’ she heard herself say in a faraway voice, her head whirling. But not with the wine this time. With desire. For him. ‘Has it worked?’ she murmured, her eyes drowning in his.
His hands stilled on her legs. Then slowly but surely, he turned off the tap and scooped her back up into his arm
s.
‘Absolutely,’ he said.
Jake’s heart pounded as he carried her down the hallway towards the master bedroom.
This was the moment he’d been waiting and hoping for. There was no stopping him now.
Yet her eyes slightly bothered him. They seemed kind of dazed. Was she still tipsy from the wine she’d drunk over lunch? Surely not. She’d hadn’t consumed that much.
He angled her through the bedroom door and carried her across the expanse of white shag carpet towards the king-sized bed with its gold satin quilt and matching pillows. Her calling the apartment flashy popped back into his mind. If she’d thought the rest of his place flashy, he wondered what she’d make of this room.
But she wasn’t looking at the room. She was just looking at him. With those huge, liquid brown eyes of hers. Still dazed, they were. But also adoring.
Had there ever been a woman look at him quite like the way she was looking at him?
Only her, all those years ago, when she’d been just a girl. His heart flipped over at this realisation. Dear God, let him do this right this time, he thought, and laid her gently down across the bed.
She sucked in sharply when his hands slid up under the damp hem of her dress.
‘Just taking your wet stockings off,’ he explained softly, and made no attempt to do anything else as he peeled them off her and draped them over a nearby chair. Despite his own intense need, Jake knew instinctively not to go too fast. Or to do anything even remotely crude. Or aggressive.
Angelina was not like any other woman he’d known. She was different. Special. Fragile, she’d called herself this morning. He’d laughed at the time but he could see that she was right. She was fragile.
‘Do you want me to take your dress off?’ he asked. ‘Or do you want to do that yourself?’
She just stared up at him for a few moments before rolling over and presenting her back to him.
The naivete behind this trusting gesture touched him, and reaffirmed his new assessment of her. His very first instinct about Angelina had been right after all. She might talk tough, but she wasn’t tough. Or all that experienced, either. He suspected she hadn’t had as many lovers as she’d implied. How could she have, with that eagle-eyed father of hers?
