He knotted his dark brows as the plane taxied slowly towards the hut that passed as an airport terminal, uncomfortable at the rarity of finding he was making excuses for himself.
Besides, there was the other unpalatable aspect. Her relationship with Harold.
When his stepfather had first accused her of throwing herself at him he had dismissed it out of hand. He’d known for years what Harold was like. In any case, it had become a very secondary consideration after he’d learned of her abortion.
To begin with he’d been too angry over the ending of the life that he’d helped to create to trust himself to tackle her about what she’d done, and by the time he’d got his head together it had been too late. Because he’d heard, through Vivienne, that she’d blithely swanned off to the States without, apparently, a single regret, and after that he’d worked hard to put her out of his thoughts.
And had succeeded, until she’d returned to England and Harold had told him of those lunch dates. So what, precisely, had she done to persuade him to leave his entire fortune to her? After seeing this new, sophisticated Georgia, a woman who obviously knew her way around, a woman who positively radiated sex-appeal—and knowing Harold of old—he didn’t imagine for a second that there was an innocent explanation.
He unclipped his seat belt and stood up, his mouth grim. He didn’t give a damn for Harold’s wealth, only the motivation behind his decision. He had come here for one purpose only: to find the truth. The truth about her reasons for the abortion and her real relationship with Harold. Once that was achieved he could lock her away in the past again. And leave her there.
The moment Georgia saw the boat slip round the headland and chug into the bay she let the louvres drop back into place and turned her back on her bedroom window.
She was as ready as she would ever be to face her uninvited, unwanted guest. Across the room she saw herself reflected in the long pier glass. Her slender figure was monotone: narrow oyster-coloured cotton trousers topped by a long-sleeved matching collarless skinny shirt, her mane of hair tamed into a single braid. A deliberate understatement. The only primary colour was the scarlet she’d painted on her mouth. And that was deliberate, too. A single flag of defiance.
She left the room quickly, before Blossom could holler for her to show her face and behave like a proper hostess, her bare feet silent on the cool marble floors. She crossed the main hall area, then moved slowly through the open double doors to stand waiting in the shade of the veranda.
So far and no further.
Once upon a time the merest hint of Jason’s arrival in her vicinity would have had her bounding out to meet him, all adoring eyes and a smile wide enough to meet round the back of her head.
Not any more. Never again.
Taking a deep breath of the warm air, heavily perfumed by the flowering vine which coiled exuberantly from one of the glazed earthenware planters, she eased the rigidity from her spine. She had no intention of looking stiffly defensive, as if she had something to hide or be ashamed of. Cool, uninterested should do it.
But when she saw him mount the steps that led up from the natural harbour her stomach twisted over, then tied itself in knots.
He had no right to do this to her, she thought angrily, surreptitiously wiping her suddenly damp palms down the sides of her cotton trousers. She felt nothing for him now, nothing but contempt. She set her teeth, willing her knotted muscles to relax.
Contempt shouldn’t make her heart flutter, her mouth go dry.
He was walking with all the remembered loose-limbed grace that she’d never seen in any other man, and the ice-green shirt he wore above stylish, beautifully cut fawn chinos did nothing to disguise the strength of the man. And the casual way he hooked the lightweight suit jacket over one shoulder, carrying what appeared to be an overnight bag in his free hand, didn’t fool her. There was nothing casual about the cold appraisal of his eyes when he reached her.
She barely registered Elijah’s cheery, ‘Good mornin’, Miss Georgie,’ as he carried the cool box full of goodies from San Antonio market round to the back of the building and the kitchen quarters. Registered nothing but a searing sense of intrusion as Jason deliberately held her eyes, invaded her space.
Her nerves had tensed so much she found it impossible to speak. It was up to him to explain his unwanted presence. She jerked her chin up, refusing to let him see that he could affect her in any way at all, except, perhaps, to give her an acute case of terminal boredom!
He regarded her stony expression for long, achingly silent seconds before one dark brow tilted upwards and he condescended to speak. ‘Settled in, have you?’
The hint of slightly scornful patronage behind the drawled words loosened her taut vocal cords, but she chose her words carefully, matching his cool drawl.
‘Perfectly. Though I won’t say I’m pleased to see you. Perhaps you could pander to my curiosity and tell me why you’re here.’
To check up on her, quite probably, to make sure she hadn’t thrown Blossom and Elijah out on their venerable necks, hadn’t invited all her friends along for a monster rave-up. Or merely to make certain, just by his being here, that she didn’t enjoy a further second of her time on her island.
A muscle jerked along the hard jawline, the smoke of his eyes turning to slate as he told her heavily, ‘To settle the unfinished business between us. It’s past time.’ Long past time, if he were ever to be allowed to get on with the rest of his life in peace.
Her heart jolted at the implication. She silently, sternly denied it. There was no unfinished business. The slight shrug she gave him was as coolly dismissive as she could make it. ‘As far as I’m concerned, any business between us—’ she emphasised the echo of his words with the sharp touch of ice ‘—was well and truly finished many years ago.’
But she would never know how he might have countered that statement, because, behind her, Blossom boomed ecstatically, ‘Mr Jason! My, you’ve grown into something mighty special!’
‘Blossom!’ Overnight bag and jacket discarded, Jason stepped on to the veranda and folded the stout, elderly islander in a bear hug. ‘As I was saying to Elijah, it’s been a long time.’
‘Too long! Why, when your step-daddy first bought this place for your mother—God rest her dear soul—you came two, three times each year. I watched you grow from a young thing—all long skinny arms and legs and enough daredevil mischief to turn my head grey! And now here you is—handsome as the devil himself. How come you don’t have a wife and six kids? You tell me that! Now stop squeezing the breath out of my old body and come along in.’
She made a swoop for his discarded belongings, clucking her tongue. ‘What’s come into you? You were never heedless of your possessions before; that I do vouch for.’ She shook the jacket violently, as if to rid it of careless contamination, still smiling besottedly as she led the way into the house. ‘Do you still have a taste for old Blossom’s chocolate cookies and fresh-made lemonade?’
Jason grinned broadly, responding lightly, ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’ll settle for a large G and T with plenty—and I do mean plenty—of ice.’
Still grinning, he followed the housekeeper into the cool recesses of the marbled hall, and forgotten, disregarded, Georgia sagged back against one of the supporting columns and folded her lower lip between her teeth. She bit down as hard as she could without actually drawing blood.
She could take being overlooked, left behind like yesterday’s newspaper. No problem.
What she couldn’t take was the fierce stab of jealousy that had rooted her to the decking when Jason had folded his strong arms around Blossom and greeted her with genuine affection.
She surely hadn’t wanted him to greet her that way! If he so much as touched her she would scream with revulsion, she reminded herself.
So why the primeval stab of jealousy?
CHAPTER SIX
IT WASN’T like Georgia to sulk, Jason thought as he stood on the low cliffs and scanned the empty white
sands of the sheltered bay. Unless, of course, her character had changed as much as her outward appearance. Which, from his recent encounter with her around Harold’s funeral, seemed highly possible.
He’d evaded as many of Blossom’s questions—largely to do with his unmarried state—as he decently could, taken his gin and tonic to his room, tossed the meagre contents of his grip into a drawer and gone to look for Georgia.
She’d taken off. He didn’t flatter himself that it was because her guilty conscience wouldn’t let her face him. This new Georgia acted as if she could outface the Archangel Gabriel if she had to. She’d taken off in a fit of the sulks because his unexpected arrival on the island had given him the upper hand. She would hate that, just about as much as she hated him.
So why was he bothering? he asked himself as he turned towards the thickly treed hills and spurs that formed the interior of the small island. She’d have to put in an appearance some time, and he could have done himself a favour, stayed back at the house, relaxing in the shade, recovering from the journey out that had at times seemed interminable, waiting until she eventually showed her face.
The short answer was that he didn’t know. Where she was concerned he felt driven by something beyond sense or reason, beyond control. He was used to being in control and felt edgy, as now, when he wasn’t.
A rough path skirted the base of the hills, winding through the suddenly dark green silence of creeper-clad trees. He remembered it well. It led him into the memories of the distant past when Harold, having acquired his second million, had bought the island, a couple of years after Jason’s mother had married him. It had been paradise to a boy who had been too young to have lost either innocence or trust.
It also led to the other side of the island, where the woodland almost touched the shore, the trees sheltering swampy ground and the quiet pools where the pond turtles lived.
And she was there, as—instinctively, inexplicably—he had known she would be. He paused, his chest suddenly expanding, as if to accommodate the near painful surge of his heartbeats.
She had her back half turned to him, her bare feet planted in the deep, springy moss as she stared down into the cool depths of one of the larger pools. The plait she’d made of her hair hung forward over one of her slight shoulders, exposing the tender nape of her neck.
A tight ache took his heart and squeezed it. Suddenly, she looked vulnerable again, and very much alone, calling forth the old urge to protect and cherish that had formed the basis of his relationship with her—until that fateful night when, half stupefied by alcohol and fever, stunned by the raw explosion of desire that he had never equated with their relationship before, it had become, without him being fully aware of it, something else entirely.
He didn’t want it. He didn’t need the painful tug at his heart, the urgent need to hold her in the comfort and safety of his arms. But it held him, despite his mental repudiation, drawing him silently on through the last of the trees to where she stood, lost in thoughts he could only guess at, because for all the entwined strands of the past he had never known her, not truly.
His footfalls had been silenced by the moss, but she showed no surprise when he lightly touched her shoulder, just lifted her head and looked at him, her golden eyes hazed, as if she’d been looking deep into the past, or far into the future—who could tell?
‘I think this must be one of the most peaceful spots on earth,’ he said quietly, noting the pallor of her skin beneath the recently acquired tan—skin that had the softness and smoothness of rose petals. The vibrant colour of her mouth magnetised his attention, keeping it on the full, sensual curve of her lips.
Just looking at her mouth made him ache right through to his soul. He wanted to take it with his own, feel her lips part for him, inviting him into paradise. She, he was discovering, had the unsettling ability to turn him on more than any other woman.
The knowledge bewildered him, must have fuddled his brain, because he found his hand moving, his fingers untwisting her braided hair, and his bemusement deepened when she didn’t object, simply tilted her head slightly towards him, as if to make the task easier.
‘I wonder if that’s what brought us both here? Because we both felt the need for peace,’ she responded thoughtfully, as if the slightly trite remark had struck a chord within her mind.
‘It’s a fairly elusive commodity,’ he concurred softly, his fingers freeing her hair, sensually sliding through the silky strands as if they had taken on an independent life of their own.
He saw her lips part on a gentle sigh, felt the soft flutter of her breath on the triangle of exposed chest where he’d opened his shirt before setting out to look for her, and felt himself slipping into uncharted territory, as if his mind had become utterly divorced from reality.
Weakly, Georgia lowered her eyes and gazed down into the dark, translucent depths of pool. Unable to follow the other two, to listen to Blossom’s endless chatter, she’d walked away from the house like a robot, her feet unwittingly bringing her to this secluded, tranquil spot. Where she’d waited. Because some deep, primeval instinct had told her he would come. Because it was fated.
What had he said? Unfinished business.
In some strange way the inevitability of it had relaxed her, so that by the time he had come to her she was in a state of what she could only muzzily assume was trance. And the closeness of his hard male body, the musky, slightly sharp scent of him, the intimate haze of his body heat and the stroke and slide of his fingers through her hair released the last vestige of tightness in her mind, freed her to submerge herself in every insidious sensation.
Sternly forbidden for so long, it all came back in swamping waves of hedonistic pleasure. The melt-down of her bones, the headlong rush of fire through her veins, the pooling of liquid heat deep inside her. So long forgotten, yet so easily remembered.
She swayed towards him, languid, lost, her legs buckling beneath her, and his arms folded around her as he eased them both to the cool, mossy ground.
‘This heat,’ he muttered thickly. ‘You’re not used to it.’
‘And you are?’ She was teasing, gently mocking his unconscious male superiority, but her voice came thickly, the words spaced out and slow, as if she were drugged. She felt drugged. She sought his eyes. They were smoky with what seemed to be happening here, his brow slightly furrowed as if he, too, were grasping for the reality that was endlessly receding.
‘I can take it.’ His lids lowered heavily, his lashes thick dark crescents against the olive tones of his moisture-slicked skin, his eyes lingering on her mouth, at last to move on to slide down the fragile length of her neck, down to the uncompromising armour of her long-sleeved shirt, to swing up again and lock with the bemused golden light of hers.
‘So buttoned up. No wonder the heat’s getting to you.’ It was an excuse, and he knew it, and wondered if she knew it, too. An excuse to allow the tips of his fingers to ease the rigid row of buttons from their fastenings. An excuse to devour her body with his eyes, to touch the inviting creamy flesh.
When the last button was free of its moorings he eased her on to her back, met no resistance, felt the powerful surge of his manhood with a stab of wild, head-spinning elation, knew without doubt that she was his.
As she had been his on that one earth-shattering night, when his perceptions of himself, of her, had changed beyond recognition.
And his life had changed thereafter, that strand of bitterness had been introduced into his heart and soul, the voice of sanity reminded him. A voice that was lost when her lips parted on a husky whimper of helpless capitulation and she wound her arms around his neck, urged his head down to the pouting globes of her naked breasts.
He needed no further invitation to turn the tortured dreams of the last seven years into ecstatic reality. Hungrily, he took each erect peak in turn as her body arched and writhed beneath him.
His hands found the zip at the front of her trousers and dragged it down, and the blood pounded hotl
y through his veins, throbbing wildly at his temples, as she lifted her hips to allow him to slide the light fabric down, to allow him access to the warm, softly furred mound of her femininity.
The sensuality of her movements blew his mind, and he fought the primitive instinct to simply take her. He had to cool it, find control, make this slow and perfect for her. For both of them. Make it as it should be.
He shuddered, and saw her soft mouth tremble, saw the glitter of gold beneath her lowered eyelids and bent his head again, to trail tender kisses down to her navel, then back again, to the temptation of her creamy breasts, slowing it down, fighting back the urgency, easing her now wild and glorious hair to cover the pert globes, kissing them through the soft, silky veil.
Against his intentions, the gentle teasing appeared to drive her wild, inciting her to wind those slenderly elegant legs tightly around his body, opening for him, her voice raw with passion, thick and heady with it as she cried out his name.
His voice shaky with the effort of holding back, he said, ‘Such beautiful hair—it always was soft and silky, now it’s so long, and full of glorious light. Whatever you do to it, it’s inspired.’
She’d been lost, drugged by sensation, entrapped by memories of loving him, the yearning and passion that had blossomed for him, and only him. Lost in it all. But not now. Now she found herself—the woman she had become, not the simple girl she had been, the girl who had been so betrayed.
Memories changed abruptly. A crystal-clear flash-back of Sue, dragging her off to a top New York stylist, telling her it was past time she took some interest in her appearance. It had been six months since she’d lost her baby. She had to start living again.
The stylist had transformed the long, unkempt mass, not losing the length, but cleverly shaping and layering it to give style and life, brightening the mousy-brown with what had seemed like a trillion fine blonde highlights.
The new, flattering hairstyle, coupled with her weight loss, had marked the beginning of her new attitude. Become part of her persona, her life. As Jason wasn’t, and never could be.
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