by Robyn Donald
‘Of course. Will you be all right?’ He frowned, his eyes travelling from Aline’s shuttered face to Jake’s.
With an effort Jake could only imagine, she managed a faint curve of her lips.
‘Of course I will. You don’t die from disillusion. And I’ve got this week off—I’ll be fine once I’ve had a chance to get used to the idea of—of…’ She choked and caught herself up.
Harshly, Jake said, ‘I’ll look after her.’
He and Keir exchanged a look, golden eyes clashing with ice-grey. Jake said softly, ‘This has nothing to do with you.’
Keir didn’t like that, but after several taut seconds he nodded.
Once safely in Jake’s car, Aline sat back into the seat and stared at the window, trying desperately to summon a blankness that would blot out her thoughts.
It was useless. All her mind could register was the stark, inescapable fact that Michael had betrayed her.
Eventually she blurted, ‘I’m surprised she waited so long to tell me.’ The words burst from some secret part of her, rooted in a miserable mixture of anguish and furious humiliation.
‘Why would she want to tell you?’ Jake asked, backing the car skilfully between two badly parked others.
‘For years she hasn’t said a word! Why now, I wonder?’ And to her astonishment Aline heard herself say, ‘I’m so sorry for her; to love someone and not be able to grieve openly for him must be the worst kind of hell. And then to lose her baby…’ Her voice trailed off as she remembered that Michael had refused her a child. Stumbling, she said, ‘Perhaps she wanted to forewarn me—’
‘The baby,’ Jake told her with ruthless frankness. ‘That’s what she saw when she came in the door—you laughing with Emma.’
Aline looked down at her hands, realising they’d taken on a life of their own and were writhing together in her lap in the classic gesture of helpless indecision. Revulsion and sheer force of will subdued them into stillness.
‘I see.’ She straightened her fingers and stared at the wedding ring she’d worn with such pride ever since Michael had put it on five years previously. It weighed heavy, as crushing as treachery.
Clenching and unclenching her hands, she said thinly, ‘I feel a total idiot. Grieving nearly three years for someone who told his lover what pet names he called me!’
‘You’re not the first person to have your trust betrayed.’ Jake’s voice was infuriatingly calm, close to off-hand. ‘It happens to everyone.’
‘To you?’ she demanded.
He shrugged. ‘Of course.’
Suddenly aflame with reviving anger, she said intensely, ‘I’m not going to put myself in such a position again. Never!’
Jake glanced across and saw the savage, almost wild determination on her face as she wrenched off the wedding ring and wound down the window. He didn’t stop her when she flung the ring through the window. Fresh air whipped around them, carrying the scent of grass and manuka balsam and the faint, salty tang of the sea.
‘There,’ she said intensely. ‘It’s over. All I want to do now is forget.’
Brows slightly raised, Jake drove on.
A few miles down the road she said, ‘Turn right at the next turn-off. I live—’
‘I know where you live—in a townhouse beside the harbour on Whangaparoa Peninsula,’ he told her curtly.
Later she might wonder how he knew her address, but at the moment she couldn’t summon up the energy.
But he wouldn’t let her sink into the stupor she craved. Coolly persistent, he asked, ‘What are your plans?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said dully. She looked around as though in an unknown landscape. ‘Stay at home, I suppose. Regroup…’
‘Did you live there with him?’
‘Who? Oh, Michael. Yes.’ Stupid—she’d been so stupid! ‘I don’t want to go back there,’ she admitted with painful honesty.
‘You could come with me,’ he suggested casually. ‘I own a beach house not too far away—it’s completely isolated. I’m going there tonight for a few days before I leave New Zealand. You can come if you want to.’
She made a jerky movement, then clamped her hands together in her lap. ‘I couldn’t impose,’ she said in her stiffest tone.
His laughter was low and cynical. ‘You mean, you think I might try to seduce you. Naturally, after you’ve had such a huge shock, that’s exactly what I’d do. You don’t have much of an opinion of me, but, for the record, you won’t have to sleep with me.’
Scarlet-faced, she muttered, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’
Her head drooped sideways. Racked by an exhaustion of the spirit, by waves of tiredness that slowed her brain and made her unable to think sensibly, she muttered, ‘I’ll be fine. It was kind of you to offer, though. Thank you.’
But when the car drew to a halt outside her house a pleasant and determined young woman, with cameraman and sound recorder in tow, was waiting for her in the street. One or two neighbours were already outside, watching.
Strong face angry, Jake swore beneath his breath. ‘Do you want to turn around and get out of here?’
‘Where would I go?’ she asked, her voice so thin and apprehensive it horrified her. She dragged in a breath and said between her teeth, ‘No, I will not run away.’
‘Good,’ he responded smoothly, pulling in behind the television company van. ‘Give them that arrogant stare and walk right over the top of them. Wait in the car until I let you out, and from then on I’ll be just behind you.’
Clinging to that promise, Aline straightened her shoulders and disciplined her face as she got out of the car.
‘Mrs Connor?’ the journalist asked after a rapid, appreciative glance at Jake. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you—?’
‘No, thank you,’ Aline said, appalled by the cold reptilian scud of fear down her spine. She saw the camera focus and had to hide an impulse to scuttle inside to safety.
‘It won’t take a moment—it’s about Stuart Freely’s biography of your husband.’ The woman gave a persuasive smile. ‘We thought you might like to make some comments.’
‘You heard Ms Connor,’ Jake said briefly. ‘She doesn’t want to comment.’
Smirched and sickened by the determined interest she saw in the woman’s face, Aline unlocked the door and walked inside.
‘It must be a quiet weekend for news,’ she said bitterly as Jake closed the door behind him.
‘Change your mind and come with me. The uproar will die down in a week or so—the media will soon find something else to feed on.’
‘You’re very kind,’ she said, fear mingling with a restless longing, ‘but it would be cowardly—’
‘Cowardly? To stop them putting you in a pillory to entertain an audience?’ Each scornful word cut through the armour of aloofness she’d erected. ‘Come up with a better excuse than that, Aline.’
Aline looked around the sitting room she and Michael had furnished with so much care, so much pleasure. Black anger and despair gripped her. The thought of spending one more moment in this shrine to a lie was beyond bearing.
At least in Jake’s abrasive company she wouldn’t wallow in self-pity, imagining Michael and Lauren in each other’s arms, hearing him whisper his love to another woman…
‘All right, I’ll come,’ she said, weakly surrendering.
‘Get some clothes,’ Jake commanded. He took a mobile phone from his pocket and began to punch in numbers. She watched as he held it to his mouth, his keen raptor’s eyes fixed on her. ‘Sally?’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of jobs for you, both urgent—’
Aline ran up the stairs and flung clothes from her wardrobe into a weekend bag. Feverishly but automatically, she stuffed cosmetics and toiletries on top, grabbed a pair of shoes, and changed from her silk suit into black trousers and a polo-necked T-shirt the same colour. After pushing the long sleeves up to her elbows, she slung a black linen shirt around her shoulders in case it got cold on the boat.
A
bruptly her energy drained away; she stood for a long moment, staring blankly around. Michael smiled at her from the dressing table. Eyes filling with tears at the loss of a lovely dream, she walked over and put the photograph face down in the drawer. One day perhaps she would accept that to have loved him was worth it; all she could feel now was outrage and humiliation—and an angry, unexpected sympathy for Lauren, because Michael had betrayed them both.
‘Have you finished up there?’
‘Yes,’ she said promptly, and came out of the room. Behind her, jerked by her ungentle hand, the door closed with a small crash.
Six foot three of virile, compelling male, Jake waited at the foot of the stairs, the autocratic angles of his bronze profile gilded by the late-afternoon sun. Tawny lights glimmered in his black hair and a cynical smile hardened his mouth.
He was the ultimate challenge, she thought, stabbed by an urgent, primitive response—a challenge she wasn’t up to.
‘Do you need help with that bag?’ he asked briskly.
Heat burned along her cheekbones. ‘No, thank you,’ she said, lifting it and walking down the stairs. Instinct warned her that by going with Jake she was setting out on an unknown journey into perilous seas, a journey with no map and no compass. And she was a very weary wayfarer.
Perhaps her mental and emotional exhaustion showed in her face, for Jake took the bag from her and asked in a different voice, ‘Do you have a back door?’
‘Through there.’ She indicated the direction. ‘It leads into the garage, and then into an access alley.’
‘Good.’ His smile twisted as he glanced at her. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you when you haven’t been dressed in perfect taste. Those are ideal clothes for a fast getaway. Can you walk half a kilometre or so up to the golf course?’
‘Of course I can—but why?’
‘Because that’s where the helicopter will be.’
‘The helicopter?’ Her voice sounded flat, without inflection, but she didn’t care; she struggled to reach that shroud of grey nothingness that shielded her from pain and shock. She’d come to know it well after Michael’s death, but it was no longer there for her and she knew why; Jake’s raw masculinity had blown it into wispy shreds, leaving her quivering and exposed.
Patiently he said, ‘The chopper was to have picked me up in Auckland, but it’s on its way here now.’
‘What about your car?’
‘Someone will drive it back to town,’ he told her.
Because it seemed reasonable, Aline nodded and followed him through the back door, docilely handed him the keys and waited while he locked up behind them.
‘I’ll go ahead,’ he said.
But nobody ambushed them in the alley behind the townhouses.
‘Most people never think to check the back,’ Jake said, locking the gate behind Aline and pocketing the keys. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Sometimes, she thought, donning sunglasses as they strode away from the house she’d shared with Michael, it was easier and simpler to give in to an irresistible force. And if that was just another way to say she was a coward—well, so be it.
They had almost reached the golf course when they heard the helicopter coming across the ocean, descending rapidly.
‘Walk faster,’ Jake said calmly as the whump-whump-whump of its engine began to echo. ‘No, don’t run—we don’t want to attract any attention.’
But no one took any notice; people living around this superb golf course were accustomed to the arrival and departure of helicopters. The street was still empty when they turned into the gate and headed for the concrete pad where the chopper was settling with cumbersome accuracy.
The pilot lifted a hand. The door slid open and another man leapt down, crouching as he ran towards them. Jake dropped something into his palm, then grabbed Aline’s hand.
‘Keep your head down,’ he commanded, and towed her up to the open door.
The blast of turbulent air whipped long strands of black hair from the neat coil at the back of her head, tossing it around her cold face. Jake dumped the cases, and in spite of her protests lifted Aline into the machine.
The way her eager flesh reacted to his impersonal grip finally robbed her of any chance of reaching that barren, emotionless refuge she longed for. She might have been able to put the swimming in her head down to the thud of the rotors, but what set her heartbeat pummelling her breastbone was Jake’s touch, the faint salty fragrance of his skin, and his effortless strength.
She pushed the tangled locks from her face with shaking fingers.
By then in the front, Jake turned. ‘Seatbelt,’ he mouthed, pointing to the belt with one imperative hand.
Biting her lip, she nodded and groped for the straps. After watching until she’d buckled them across her waist, Jake pushed the door closed before reaching for a pair of headphones. Beneath the fine material of his shirt his body flexed with spare masculine grace.
Aline watched his lips move as he said something to the pilot. Was she being incredibly stupid to go with him?
Well, if she was, who cared? She closed her eyes. Michael, she thought drearily, oh, Michael…
Yet deep in her innermost heart she’d always known she wasn’t enough of a woman to keep Michael satisfied. Lauren’s ripe femininity was what men wanted.
A howling increase in the blast of the engines was followed by a sudden lurch and then lift-off. Aline settled back and let her eyelids drift up. With bent head, Jake was checking something in his lap. The westering sun painted a wash of gold over his face, emphasising its bold stamp of authority, its stark, forceful command.
Heat seared through her, smashing past the layers of weary grief. She shivered with muted apprehension as they flew away from the sunset over water the colour of wine, heading over peninsulas and bays and islands. How on earth had she let herself be hijacked like this?
Cowardice, she decided, and Jake’s uncompromising will. She should have seen it coming; she’d soon learned to respect his intelligence and his grasp of business. He’d known exactly what he wanted from his association with the bank, and he’d used his clout and a certain amount of ruthless power in negotiation, although the final deal satisfied both partners.
Yet beneath the civilised—if aggressive—businessman, she thought with an odd primitive thrill, lurked a warrior, a man with hunting instincts as keenly honed as those marauders who’d swept periodically out of the desert or the forest, or from frozen wastes to plunder and loot and enslave. In spite of his mask of civilised discipline, Jake Howard radiated a primal intensity that slashed through her misery and humiliation, homing in on the basic need of a woman for a man.
When he caught her watching him the arrogantly handsome face didn’t change expression, but his unreadable eyes narrowed when he mouthed, ‘OK?’
Bitterly angry at the betraying tug of sensation deep in the pit of her stomach, she nodded and glanced away. How odd that she should be torn between grief at the shattering of her memories and this heated awareness of another man.
From their first meeting she’d reluctantly responded to Jake’s sexual energy, the supercharged physicality that his expensive tailoring didn’t hide, but she’d done her best to ignore it, seeing her unwilling response as treachery to the memory of the man she’d loved with all her heart.
And if that thought didn’t hurt so much she’d be laughing at her own naïve foolishness.
Once more she closed her eyes and tried to sink into nothingness. It didn’t work.
Angry and tense because Jake’s presence kept jerking her back into the real world, she peered sideways, picking out places she recognised—various islands and the intertwined arms of sea and land. The helicopter rode through a sunlit canopy while darkness overtook the land, and in its wake sprang scatterings of golden pinpricks. Trying to keep her mind from fixing obsessively on the man in front, Aline named every cluster and string of lights.
At last it was too dark to see, and she closed her eyes aga
in, only opening them when the helicopter banked.
They landed in a purple and indigo night that bloomed with stars. Jake pushed the door back and swung long legs down; turning, he beckoned Aline.
She fumbled with the seatbelt; once free she hunched her shoulders and eased herself across to the door. Jake didn’t move, and when she looked into his face he gave a sudden humourless smile and lifted her down. Frustrated by her involuntary response she stiffened, knocking her temple against the side of the opening.
It hurt, and she said, ‘Ouch,’ putting up a hand to the slight contusion as he carried her easily across the grass, setting her down well away from the helicopter.
‘What happened?’ he demanded, running his fingers through her hair to discover the small bump. Frowning, he traced its contours gently.
Shaken by his nearness and his unexpected gentleness, Aline stepped back and shook her head.
‘Stay there,’ he commanded, and strode back to collect two bags, hers and one that must have been waiting for him on the chopper.
‘Thank you,’ she said bleakly when he dumped them at her feet.
She picked them up and turned towards the dark bulk of a house. After two or three steps she realised he wasn’t with her. A swift glance over her shoulder revealed him unloading a couple of cartons from the helicopter.
Food, of course; he’d have organised it while she’d packed. No, he’d planned this holiday before he’d gone to Emma’s christening, so supplies would already have been seen to.
She dropped the bags and started to go back to help unload, but Jake, his rangy body outlined in light from the helicopter, had almost reached her. As he put the cartons down the helicopter rose like a squat, noisy beetle, its lights blinking steadily while it banked above them and then soared away.
Jake straightened up. ‘How’s your head?’ he asked abruptly. ‘No headache?’
‘No, it was just a small bump.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Welcome to my bach,’ he said, and took her hand.
Automatically Aline pulled back, but the warm, strong fingers didn’t release her. ‘The grass is uneven,’ he explained, scooping up the bags and urging her towards the house.
