Red-Hot Lover

by Sarah Holland

  Cuddling up, she whispered, ‘You’ll never have to face life without me, Jared. I’ve never been in love before. Not like this.’

  ‘Neither have I. I just wish there was some way round the whole marriage showcase.’

  ‘Darling, why do you dislike the idea of it so much?’

  ‘I don’t want to be a husband.’

  ‘But why not?’

  ‘I wish I could count the reasons. There are so many. But they all lead to one irrefutable fact: I’ll never be a husband. I’ll never marry.’

  ‘Is this just fear of commitment, Jared?’ she teased.

  ‘If you prefer to think of it as that,’ he drawled, ‘who am I to stop you?’

  But, however much she played it cool, played it light, he wouldn’t change his mind. And all he’d ever say was, ‘I don’t want to be a husband.’

  Clara was worried because what she wanted most in the world was a husband. She’d been content to leave that desire on the back burner while she worked for her career. But now that she’d met and fallen so deeply in love with Jared she knew he was The One. Yet it seemed impossible, because he would not countenance the idea of marriage. How could she leave the man she loved just because he wouldn’t marry her? So she told herself that he might change his mind after a while. He’d never lived with a woman before—perhaps the experience would make him reassess his feelings about marriage.

  So she moved into the white mansion opposite Regent’s Park and found herself living a life she’d only dreamt of or acted before. She had realised the day after they met that he was the world-famous businessman-entrepreneur, but she’d had no real conception of what effect that would have on their lifestyle. She soon found out. It meant private jets, constant international travel, meetings with Heads of State, holidays on private yachts and ceaseless press coverage.

  Thankfully, Jared was a more private man than the rest of the world realised. Clara had him all to herself most of the time. Once the front door was closed they lived in their idyllic lovers’ paradise, locked away from the rest of the world in happy seclusion and free to be themselves. Of course her own career took her away from him sometimes, but never very far. Television work in London rarely demanded that the actors travel much further than the West End. Elstree was about as far as they got apart from that. And, as most of Clara’s work in that first year was in a new and popular sitcom, she fell into a comfortable routine of being driven to and from London studios. It was a light role, but it was work; it kept her in the public eye and it kept her busy—but not too busy. By the time she got in, she always had time to bathe and change before Jared arrived home, so their lives dovetailed beautifully.

  And as they got used to living together so their love deepened, and trust began to really blossom.

  ‘I was brought up in a tiny Welsh village,’ Jared told her after they’d been living together for three months. ‘With no money, no prospects and parents who argued constantly.’

  ‘Is that why you dislike the idea of marriage?’

  ‘Probably. Plus, of course, I was an only child. Both my parents tried to use me to win whatever argument was going on. The house was so small I couldn’t escape. All I heard all day was shouting, shouting and more shouting. I used to go and hide in the coal shed just to escape the noise.’

  Clara let him talk, rarely stopping him with a question. But he always found a way to change the subject if he found himself telling her too much too soon. Information came at a slow pace and she cherished every snippet.

  Then one day he said out of the blue, ‘My mother’s arriving in London next weekend.’

  Clara nearly dropped the cup in her hand. ‘But I thought both your parents were dead!’

  ‘Can’t think why,’ he said, avoiding her eyes.

  Staring, she asked, ‘Have you heard from your mother since I’ve been living here? I don’t remember it at all. Not even a mention. And I’ve been here six months.’

  ‘My father died when I was eight, but my mother’s still very much alive. She lives in a house which I bought for her a few years back.’

  She asked carefully, ‘How did your father die?’

  ‘In a fall.’ His voice was casual yet he turned his back, but not before she had seen the darkness flare in his eyes with a bitter bedrock power that made her instincts buzz.

  ‘And you lived with your mother after that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and changed the subject.

  After that it became clear that his mother always stayed at the Dorchester when she came on her rare visits to London, that although Jared paid all her expenses, took her on fabulous shopping trips and dined out at top restaurants with her, his mother never stayed at the white mansion in Regent’s Park. Never. It was as though he could only tolerate her on neutral ground.

  Clara couldn’t understand it. Lily Blackheath seemed a perfectly nice woman in her late fifties, well-groomed and elegant with once-dazzling blue eyes like her son’s. And they never talked about Wales. In fact, Jared rarely mentioned Wales. He occasionally told her about his school, his adolescent street-fights in Cardiff and his first experience of women…but he rarely mentioned his home life. The subject of his parents was one he shied away from. And she quickly learnt not to pry. He gave monosyllabic answers at best—stony silence at worst.

  But they were in love. They were happy. And Clara was content to let the mysteries he kept from her remain his own private province…

  Or she had been until now, Clara thought, Now, as the limousine pulled up at the gates of their Regent’s Park home, Clara had a strong feeling that all those mysteries were about to open up. Their passionate kiss in the back of the car ended. Sitting back, Jared breathed hard while Clara tidied her hair. They slid up a small tree-lined drive to the white pillars of the front entrance. Although stately, the house had ivy climbing the front redbrick wall and a bright blue front door which seemed to smile in welcome whenever they returned home.

  ‘We’ll go straight up to bed,’ Jared murmured.

  ‘Yes, darling.’ She wasn’t going to argue with that!

  They held hands as they stepped out of the car to walk up the white steps and through the open double doors.

  A magnificent hallway greeted them. Sunlight shone from a glass dome above. It lit up the balustrade staircase to a brilliant white, with the smooth black and white marble floor and the palms which flourished in terracotta pots adding a splash of colour to an otherwise imposing hall.

  Mrs Harrison, the housekeeper, was waiting for them. A small, plump woman with a Somerset accent, she wore her usual floral frock and pinny while her salt-and-pepper hair escaped from an untidy bun.

  ‘Good afternoon sir, madam. Shall I make tea?’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Harrison,’ Jared said with winning charm, ‘but we’ll be going upstairs. I have a headache and Clara is rather tired. That’s why we came home so early. We’ll be going straight upstairs to lie down for a while. If we want anything later, we’ll ring down.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Their hands were linked as they went up the redcarpeted stairs. A chandelier winked at them. They turned onto the upstairs corridor, also carpeted in red.

  ‘I really do have a headache, you know,’ he confided.

  ‘I know the best cure for that…’

  ‘Yes…’ He pushed open the master bedroom door and took her in his arms. ‘Oh, darling, you can’t imagine how much I want you…’

  His kiss was tender. As her fingers slid along his neck and into his dark hair she felt the tension which had built up during the reception and began to massage his neck. He groaned against her mouth. His hands moved to the zip of her dress. He gently pulled it down with a smooth movement and she shivered as it fell in a pool of cream silk luxury around her highheeled shoes.

  Passion flared between them. Breathing hard together, they clung to one another. Jared groaned again as Clara fumbled with his tie, the buttons of his shirt, shaking with desire as she began to undress him an
d he her. He unclipped her silk bra. Her breasts were freed and in his hands, pink nipples springing erect with excitement as he bent his dark head to suck greedily until she was trembling with need, clutching his dark head and whispering his name.

  Suddenly he scooped her into his arms, carried her to the bed and stared down at her with feverish eyes, breathing hard as though he couldn’t wait any longer, his body hard already and pulsing with hot blood as he slid on top of her on the bed.

  ‘I love you!’ she whispered.

  Kissing her deeply, he finished unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt, shrugging them off without taking his mouth from hers, and when he was bare-chested she ran her hands hungrily over his hard-muscled, dark-haired chest. Her long, stockinged thighs slid apart for him. She felt free, wanton. Her tongue slid against his and she moaned as his hands moved up her spread thighs to caress her buttocks tantalisingly before sliding her cream silk briefs slowly down, very slowly down.

  Oh… Her legs slid open again for him and the blood pulsed round her body so fast she could feel it drumming through her skin. She kissed him fiercely. And, though his need was harder, more urgent, he didn’t lose control. His fingers trailed up lightly between her thighs. His heartbeat slammed at his chest yet still he kept her waiting, made her want him more, until she began to fumble with his trousers, sliding the zip down as her skin grew warm with sweat.

  Naked, too, his powerful body slid against hers in the lovemaking dance. Clara moaned so deeply that his breath caught with excitement. Still he kept control, although she could feel the enormity of his excitement, and she begged him now.

  He delighted her with a long harsh cry of need, then kissed her deeper, saying her name over and over as he moved inexorably to take her…

  For a minute or two afterwards they lay in silence, listening to the blood roaring through their joined bodies. Everything gradually returned to normal. Clara stroked his damp head, kissed the pulse that still throbbed in his neck. His whole body was relaxed now. The strain of the day must have been terrible for him. She was glad to have helped him relinquish it. Set his burden down. Get rid of it, if only briefly in her arms.

  Suddenly he raised his head, still breathing hard, and smiled down at her. ‘My God, I needed that!’

  She laughed. ‘So did I! But not, I agree…’ her eyes saddened ‘…as much as you did.’

  He lowered his gaze. ‘Everything was just so difficult today. I did my best to stay cool and collected. But somehow it never really swung into first gear.’

  ‘And you’re normally so completely in control of every situation. That’s why I’d give almost anything to know precisely why you were so ruffled by the Llewellyn family. Most notably, Owain Llewellyn Senior.’

  He was silent and still. Then he shifted, withdrew from her body and slid away, taking his loving warmth with him. She watched him anxiously. He was usually so loving after making love with her. For him to withdraw so silently was not only upsetting but completely out of character.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said, and got off the bed, blundering away to the bathroom as though he couldn’t see properly.

  Clara sat up. The door slammed behind him. Something was very wrong. He was playing for time in there, apart from anything. She could hear him moving about, fiddling with aftershave bottles, washing his hands and generally pretending to have a busy time. He was hoping she’d forget about the very real and important questions burning in her mind. Hoping she’d drop the subject by the time he came out. But she couldn’t do that.

  His secret had always been there, waiting in the wings to make its grand entrance and overturn their happy life together. There was no point in pretending it would go away. Not now. It had been spectacularly ushered to centre stage by the appearance in both their lives of the Llewellyn family. Susie had just married into them and Susie was not going to go away. How, therefore, could the problem of the Llewellyns be resolved?

  Suddenly the bathroom door clicked open. Jared emerged. He had put on his dark red dressing gown. His face was wary. His eyes were very dark as he looked at her.

  ‘Darling,’ she said softly, ‘do come back to bed. I want to talk, and it’s much easier with your arms around me.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘Well…Susie is a Llewellyn now.’

  He walked immediately to the windows. He looked out, hands thrust in the pockets of his robe, and said nothing. He was good at this. Avoiding questions with silence was one of his favourite tactics. Or just giving clever political replies. Or sometimes even plain sidestepping them. All businessmen were good at these things, and Jared was a king among businessmen. He was hardly going to drop his tactics and spill the beans at the first difficult question about the Llewellyns.

  ‘Susie is a Llewellyn now, Jared,’ Clara repeated bluntly. ‘I know you don’t want her to be, but she is.’

  ‘I never said I didn’t want her to be.’ He traced imaginary dust on the window ledge.

  ‘Well, that’s the way it seems to me. And if the Llewellyns can rattle you the way they did today it might present a problem for the future.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Susie wants children.’

  He raked a hand through his hair.

  ‘Lots of them. I promised her years ago, back in the orphanage, that I’d be godmother when she—’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he muttered thickly. ‘I see your point!’

  ‘Do you, darling?’ Her worried eyes scanned his profile. ‘If you really mean that, perhaps you could answer a few questions for me.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘Very well. Get on with it.’

  ‘Well…’ She clasped her arms around her knees, the sheet covering her bare legs. ‘I think I’m right in believing that Owain Llewellyn is the main reason for your behaviour today. I didn’t notice him at the wedding ceremony. I don’t think I even noticed him when the photos were being taken. But I realise in retrospect that his presence is what upset you more than anything else about that wedding.’

  He gave a harsh sigh and said nothing.

  ‘That’s why you started flirting with the brunette, isn’t it? To divert attention from the photos and possibly even to get out of having them taken.’

  ‘I flirted with her because I was on edge,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s that simple. I wanted your attention. I wanted you to come home with me. I wanted to leave.’

  ‘I see…’

  He gave a rough sigh, turned to look at her. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. It’s the first time I’ve ever flirted with another woman since I met you.’

  ‘I know, darling. And of course I forgive you. Now that I realise what kind of strain you were really under, I understand precisely why you did it. But I need to know why you were under that strain in the first place.’

  He was ominously silent.

  ‘Jared, we’ve lived together without ever delving into your past overmuch. But I don’t think we can do that any more. I think fate took it out of our hands the day Susie fell in love with Gareth Llewellyn, and now all we can do is accept it, deal with it and find a way to live with her choice of husband.’

  He turned from her. He rapped long fingers on the windowsill. Early evening sunlight slanted in across his tough face, turning it deep gold where his tan absorbed the light.

  ‘Did you know he’d given them the house in Rhossana Bay?’

  He waited a long time, then said deeply, ‘I wasn’t sure. But I suspected.’

  ‘Would I be wrong in thinking that the house represents something to you? Something connected with Owain Llewellyn? Something that might have a connection with your childhood? Your parents?’

  He placed both hands on the windowsill, leaning against it as though standing at his desk after a difficult business meeting, trying to weigh up the balance and come to a decision which would affect the hundreds of people working for a company he was about to take over…only this wasn’t a company. This was him.


  Slowly, Clara got off the bed. Barefoot, she walked softly to him, scooping up his white shirt on the way and shouldering into it. It hung loose on her petite frame.

  ‘Jared…?’ she asked as gently as she could. ‘Did Owain Llewellyn know your parents in Rhossana Bay?’

  He studied the distant sunlit trees of the park. ‘Yes…yes, we all knew Owain Llewellyn back in those days. Back in Rhossana Bay…’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘HE WAS like the local squire to us. There were fêtes in the grounds of the Manor, charity lunches, cocktail parties and even the occasional ball in the Great Ballroom. What a beautiful old room that was. What a beautiful manor. Everybody knew him. Everybody loved him. Everybody including me and…both my parents.’

  ‘Did something happen to change all this?’

  His dark lashes flickered. ‘My mother had an affair with him.’

  Of all the punchlines in all the world, that was the very last she’d expected to hear. Lily Blackheath and Owain Llewellyn. They moved together in her mind to form the second big picture in the jigsaw puzzle of Jared’s secret. And now that she could see them together it seemed right, somehow, for they made a distinguished couple. The age-gap could only have been about seven or eight years—no greater than that between herself and Jared. They both had strong personalities, and an inexplicable sadness in their eyes.

  ‘I was eight when the affair became public knowledge,’ Jared continued after a pause. ‘I shouldn’t remember that much about it, but I do. I remember every last detail. The way my mother was always finding excuses to go to the Manor. The glib explanations she handed my father whenever gossip filtered through to him. The whispers and stares in the street. And, of course, the way my schoolfriends mocked me. They didn’t dare bully me because I fought back too furiously to make it worth their while. They were scared stiff of me. But there are other ways to kick a boy in the teeth without even moving your foot.’ His smile was cynical, yet somehow accepting. ‘They sniggered and whispered whenever I was around. So did the rest of the village. It was an open secret and I was a sitting duck.’