She stood up quickly, brushing the sand from her denims before turning to leave, walking straight into the solid wall of a man’s chest.
‘Did I startle you?’ the man queried softly.
Kate stiffened at the similarity to another conversation that had taken place here four months ago. ‘I—’
‘I didn’t think you could startle pixies,’ he drawled mockingly as she looked ready for flight.
A terrible sense of déjà vu washed over her. ‘Please—leave me alone,’ she gasped.
‘No.’
‘I want to go back to the hotel—’
‘Why?’
‘I just do.’ She wrenched out of his arms. ‘Leave me alone. Let me go!’
‘No,’ he repeated abruptly.
‘I shall scream—’ God, even she was doing it now—this sounded like the re-run of an old tape!
‘Who would hear you?’ he taunted.
This was all like the repeat of some horrendous nightmare, and she wasn’t at all sure she wasn’t going to scream after all!
‘Your answer is “I didn’t come alone”,’ Jared reminded her softly. “‘I came with a friend”.’
‘But I didn’t!’ She faced him across the sand, her stance defensive.
‘You would have done if you had told me where you were going,’ he told her grimly. ‘I would have come with you.’
‘I don’t think of you as a friend,’ she scorned bitterly.
‘How do you think of me?’ he queried softly.
‘As a rich man who likes to play games—hurtful games.’ She looked at him coldly. ‘Excuse me.’ She turned and began walking up the sand towards the hotel.—
Jared fell into step beside her. ‘I’ll walk with you.’
‘We’ve just played this game,’ she bit out tautly.
‘Then you remember how it ends.’
Kate turned to glare at him, still walking, hurrying her pace a little. ‘Anything we had ended just over two weeks ago.’
‘Not to me,’ he bit out. ‘Do you realise the hell you’ve put me through since you left like that?’ he groaned. ‘I’ve looked for you everywhere I could think of. I even flew to Gibraltar to see your parents—’
‘You did what?’ That stopped her in her tracks, breathing deeply as she stood illuminated in the lights streaming from the hotel windows. ‘Why on earth did you have to worry them?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘I’m twenty-four years old, the last thing I would do is run crying to my parents!’
‘I knew that after the first five minutes of being with them; they obviously had no idea you’d disappeared from London.’
‘They didn’t,’ she corrected pointedly.
‘They still don’t,’ Jared shook his head. ‘I told them I was a friend of yours, that I was over there on business and had promised you I’d look them up.’
‘And they believed you?’ she scorned.
He shrugged. ‘I can be very convincing.’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ Kate derided coldly. ‘Well, you’ve seen me now, Mr Melford, so I would appreciate it if you would just leave again.’
‘I can’t do that, Miss Collins,’ he deliberately stressed the false surname she had given him when they were here last time.
She flushed. ‘My deception was nowhere near as cruel as yours was.’
‘It was worse,’ he told her curtly. ‘You deliberately lied to me, I just automatically gave a name I’d answered to for almost thirty years—’
‘Before you took the name Melford and threw your grandfather out of his own business!’
His mouth twisted. ‘My grandfather is alive today for the simple reason that he was ordered by his doctor not to return to work. He’s still going strong at seventy-six, he jogs every day, swims, travels—but he doesn’t involve himself in the company that almost killed him.’
‘Richard said—’
‘Richard said a lot of things, by all accounts,’ he nodded grimly. ‘And not all of them were entirely accurate. But a man who has just been told by you that you don’t intend marrying him is allowed a little poetic licence in his jealousy.’ He looked at the bareness of her left hand in challenge.
‘None of this excuses the fact that you made no effort to correct the mistake about your name, that you let me think you were some out-of-work, out-of-date hippie!’
His mouth was tight. ‘I didn’t correct the former assumption because I could see you really believed the latter. And you made it pretty clear you wouldn’t even think of marrying a man like Jared Rourke,’ he reminded her tautly.
Again Kate flushed at the rebuke. ‘I don’t want to. hear any more of this. And if you won’t leave the hotel then I’ll have to.’
‘Why?’ he grated.
‘Because after the lies you told me, what you put me through, I don’t ever want to see you again!’
‘I love you.’
His quietly spoken words halted her for only a second, her stride all the more determined as she entered the hotel and went up to her room. Did Jared really think he could make a fool out of her again?
As the lift doors opened on to her floor she stepped forward, only to come to a stop in the corridor. Jared was there before her, leaning against the door-frame to her room—and looking for all the world as if he had been doing it for some time.
Kate stiffened her shoulders, taking the key to her room out of her hip pocket, her hair very red against the dark green tee-shirt she wore, her bared breasts clearly visible beneath the clinging material. ‘So you’ve just proved how fit you are,’ she mocked as she unlocked the door.
‘Four flights of stairs in ten seconds,’ he nodded, not even breathing hard. ‘Not bad at all.’ He followed her into the hotel room. ‘I suppose all these rooms must look the same,’ he shrugged. This room was almost identical to the one they had shared four months ago.
‘I’m sure you have one of the suites up on the top floor,’ Kate said with sarcasm. ‘As you did last time.’ The last was stated as a question.
Jared nodded. ‘I did the last time I was here,’ he conceded. ‘Although I didn’t use it much. I don’t happen to be booked in this time.’
‘Then it will be easier for you to leave, won’t it?’
‘I’m not going anywhere without you,’ he told her tautly.
‘And I’m not going anywhere with you,’ she snapped. ‘We both know exactly who each other is now—and quite frankly I preferred Jared Rourke!’
‘I realised that when Richard told me you’d given him back his ring even after he’d taunted you about my never marrying you.’
‘Jared Melford,’ she corrected with some bitterness.
‘Jared Rourke and Jared Melford are one and the same man,’ he rasped. ‘And we both love you and want to marry you.’
She clasped her hands together to stop them shaking. ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t want to believe you. You made a fool of me once, Jared, I’m not about to repeat the experience. I don’t know why you followed me—What’s that?’ While he had been talking he had pulled out his wallet and taken out a slip of paper.
‘Read it.’ He thrust it at her, putting his wallet away again as she slowly unfolded the sheet of paper.
She read it quickly, moistening suddenly dry lips. ‘It’s a marriage licence,’ she croaked.
‘What date does it have on it?’ he prompted.
She scanned the sheet. It was dated for March, only three days after she had left the hotel so abruptly last time. She looked up at him dazedly. ‘You were that confident—’
‘I was that sure, of my love for you.’ Jared made no effort to touch her, to come closer to her. ‘But you were just recovering from an unhappy love affair, I didn’t want to be the man you fell for on the rebound.’
‘Like Richard …’
He nodded. ‘At that time I had no idea you’d actually been hurt as much as you had, although the indentation on your ring finger seemed to indicate a serious relationship. But two engagements, obviously to two
completely wrong men—’
‘That’s conceited!’ Her anger was beginning to fade, although there was still a lot to be explained before she even dared think of letting her love for him flower once more.
‘—made me hope that a third man could be the right one,’ he finished as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘But not Jared Melford, it had to be Jared Rourke. You’d made a decision to marry a man who could give you the power and success Brian had left you and married Coral for. I couldn’t be married for those reasons, Kate,’ he shook his head. ‘I believed that last weekend that you loved me, and yet a doubt lingered. What if my being Jared Melford meant more to you than just loving me? I couldn’t accept that,’ he said raggedly. ‘Hence the pretence right to the end. Then that evening you were going to see Richard to tell him about us you chose me, Jared Rourke, over both him and your career. I tried to tell you the truth then, but—’
‘I was in too much of a hurry to listen,’ she finished softly, remembering well how he had even followed her out to the lift in his effort to tell her something he thought important. If only she had stopped to listen, none of this would have happened—or would it? Hadn’t he still deceived her, lied to her, taken all she had to give and left her with nothing, not even her pride?
‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘And then you called me from Richard’s—or I thought it was Richard’s,’ he gave her a reproving frown, ‘and told me you’d decided on a successful career and a rich husband after all. If you did that I’d been going to use the only card I had left to play,’ he said heavily. ‘The contract with Melfords.’ He met her gaze steadily.
‘You were prepared to offer me that contract just to keep me as your mistress?’ she gasped.
Jared’s mouth tightened. ‘Not quite,’ he bit out. ‘I told Harkness to hold off on signing the contract in the event that if you did change your mind and decide to marry Richard I could offer you the contract in exchange for becoming my wife. By that time my pride had gone out of the window! But before I had the chance to do that you told me you were spending the night with Richard. That was too much,’ he told her grimly. ‘But after I’d stormed through the flat packing my things, some of my frustrated anger had evaporated, and I could see things more clearly. I had to try once more with you, even if it meant you still said no. I telephoned Richard’s flat and asked to talk to you. That was when he told me he had no idea where you were, and that he didn’t particularly care either. I threw my things in my car—’
‘A red Lamborghini,’ Kate said dryly.
‘Yes.’ He looked puzzled by the vehemence of her statement, shrugging it off with a shake of his head. ‘I went to see your ex-fiancé. And as he gloatingly recalled your conversation—man to man,’ he added hardly, ‘I knew exactly why you’d gone. After telling Richard—in no uncertain terms—that he wouldn’t be a guest at the wedding, I left to look for you. I was frantic, searched London for you like a madman. I even went to see Linton,’ he recalled grimly.
‘Brian?’ she gasped. ‘But I would never go to him.’
‘No,’ Jared rasped. ‘I knew that as soon as I walked in on him and Coral having a slanging match. I left when Coral began throwing things at him,’ he grimaced.
Kate could feel no sympathy for the unhappy couple; she knew they had made their own hell with their petty jealousies and vindictive natures. She just thanked her guardian angel for saving her from such a marriage with Richard.
Jared sighed. ‘No one seemed to know where you were, and for the last two weeks I’ve had people checking at airports and ports of call for someone of your description leaving the country. It didn’t even occur to me to look for you here, not until this morning. A telephone call confirmed that you were indeed here. The Lamborghini has never been driven so fast!’
Kate frowned. ‘This hotel doesn’t seem like the sort of place Jared Melford would stay at,’ she mocked. ‘So what were you doing here when we first met—escaping an unhappy love affair of your own?’
‘No,’ he laughed. ‘You remember the conference …?’
‘That was for Melfords?’ she said disbelievingly.
‘I’m afraid so,’ he admitted with another grimace. ‘I got here a few days early, much in need of a rest after a gruelling six months in London. I was glad I had when you arrived, it was love at first sight on my part. And although you didn’t love me in return you did like me, felt more than just physical desire, otherwise you would have left after our first night together,’ he said confidently. ‘But the trip to the States was urgent, I had no choice but to go, and I knew that the mood you were in it was no good trying to tie you down to me before I went; you just weren’t interested. You can imagine my surprise when I tried to call you in London the night you left, only to find there was no Kate Collins. I had some people track you down to Kate Collier, told Harkness to put feelers out to your agency for our advertising contract, and after that it was just a matter of waiting until I got back to England before paying you a surprise visit. I had intended showing you the marriage licence that night and marrying you before the end of the week. But the surprise was on me,’ he bit out. ‘Richard James put his ring on your finger and you made it obvious I wasn’t good enough for you!’
‘Jared—’
He shook his head. ‘Let me finish, Kate. And when I have, if you still want me to go then I will. Colin obeyed instructions about the advertising, and he received a resume from you. Unfortunately he hadn’t taken me seriously, believed I was just bestowing favours on a mistress,’ his mouth twisted. ‘As soon as I got back I made him realise that wasn’t the case.’
‘Then that’s why he suddenly changed his mind about seeing me! Was it you who telephoned while I was there too?’
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘I was upstairs in my office, and I knew Colin resented my interference in a sphere that’s been under his control for too many years to number, that he resented you too. But I’m afraid it was the ring on your finger and the news that you were getting married that really shook him.’
‘He thought I was marrying you!’ Kate gasped in realisation.
‘And aren’t you?’ His blue-eyed gaze held her gold one.
She looked at him wordlessly for several tense seconds. ‘You’ll never believe I married you because I love you,’ she shook her head. ‘You’ll always believe I married Jared Melford,’ she realised sadly. ‘Look how you mistrusted me before, so much so that you thought me totally mercenary.’
‘Past tense, Kate,’ he dismissed. ‘If that was what you wanted, to marry Jared Melford, you would have come back to the flat that night and carried on as if nothing had changed. You ran away from Jared Melfofd, will you run back to Jared Rourke?’ He held out his arms to her.
With a choked cry she ran into them, burying her face against his chest, feeling his arms tighten painfully about her.
‘I love you, my Katharine Mary,’ he groaned.
‘I love you too—whatever your name is.’ She looked up at him tearfully.
His lips claimed hers in a kiss of raging desire that threatened to sweep away all words. But before it did, ‘Will you marry me, Kate?’ He framed her face with his strong hands, his gaze intent.
‘Yes!’ she glowed unhesitantly.
‘And I do mean marry me, as soon as possible,’ he told her firmly. ‘There’s going to be no engagement; I can’t risk your changing your mind.’
‘No third time lucky?’ she teased, breathless with happiness.
‘No,’ he said arrogantly. ‘I’ll buy you an engagement ring after the wedding,’ he promised throatily. ‘And just to show you how much my grandfather resents my taking over Melfords—he wondered if you would do him the honour of wearing my grandmother’s wedding ring.’
Kate’s eyes widened. ‘He knows about—us?’
Jared’s mouth quirked. ‘I should think the whole of London knows,’ he said self-derisively. ‘I haven’t exactly been making a secret of it, raging about like a demented bull. Actually it was my grandfather who made me
think of trying here,’ he revealed with a smile. ‘He reminded me of the fact that women are totally illogical—’
‘He sounds as arrogant as you!’
‘He is,’ Jared grinned.
‘Then I’m sure I shall love him too,’ she smiled.
‘And he’ll love you—especially when you present him with his first great-grandchild,’ Jared teased.
Delicate colour flooded her cheeks. ‘Is that—imminent?’
‘Very,’ he growled. ‘After the hell you’ve put me through I can’t hold back much longer.’
Kate lovingly touched his lips with her fingertips. ‘You have no need to. We can stay here as long as we want to,’ she said dreamily. ‘We never have to leave if we don’t want to.’
Jared grimaced regretfully. ‘I’m afraid we do,’ he told her with some reluctance.
‘Oh, of course,’ she frowned. ‘You can’t leave Melfords without their Chairman.’
‘To hell with Melfords,’ he dismissed carelessly. ‘My grandfather is arranging our wedding for tomorrow.’
‘But—’
‘On my instructions,’ he put in quickly.
Indignation warred with love—and the latter won easily. ‘Arrogant, arrogant man,’ she murmured as she raised her mouth to his.
‘A man who loves you more than life itself,’ he corrected huskily.
‘You are my life, Jared,’ she told him with quiet sincerity. ‘All of it.’
‘And that’s the way it’s going to stay,’ he vowed.
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Michelle Smart’s next book,
BILLIONAIRE’S BRIDE FOR REVENGE
The first book in her Rings of Vengeance trilogy!
Benjamin’s plan for vengeance is to steal and marry his enemy’s fiancée, Freya! It’s meant to be a convenient arrangement. But there’s nothing remotely convenient about the red-hot pleasures of their wedding night…
Sensual Encounter Page 17
