The driveway up to his house in Port Douglas had never seemed so steep as that morning when he had trudged back up it after waving Eliza off on the shuttle bus. He’d pushed open his door to quiet and emptiness and a sudden, piercing regret. Her laughter had seemed to dance still on the air of the house.
No matter how much he’d told himself he was cool about the way his time had gone with her, he hadn’t been able to help but think that by protecting himself he had talked himself out of something that might have been special. Cheated himself of the chance to be with a woman who might only come along once in a lifetime.
He’d had no contact with her at all since that morning, even though Party Queens were organising this evening’s launch party. Dominic had done all the liaising with the party planners. Of course he had—he was married to the Design Director.
By the time he reached Dominic’s house, Jake was decidedly on edge. He sensed Eliza’s presence as soon as he was ushered through the door of Dominic’s impressive mansion in the waterfront suburb of Vaucluse. Was it her scent? Or was it that his instincts were so attuned to Eliza they homed in on her even within a crowd? He heard the soft chime of her laughter even before he saw her. Excitement and anticipation stirred. Just seeing Eliza from a distance was enough to set his heart racing.
He stood at a distance after he’d found her, deep in conversation with a female journalist he recognised. This particular journalist had been the one to label Dominic—one of the most generous men Jake had ever known—with the title of ‘Millionaire Miser’.
Andie and Party Queens had organised a party on Christmas Day two years ago that had dispelled that reputation. Planning that party was how Andie had met Dominic. And a week after Christmas Dominic had arranged a surprise wedding for Andie. Jake had flown down from Brisbane to be best man, and that wedding was where he’d met Eliza for the first time.
Jake looked through the wall of French doors that opened out from the ballroom of Dominic’s grand Art Deco house to the lit-up garden and swimming pool beyond. He remembered his first sight of Eliza, exquisite in a flowing pale blue bridesmaid’s dress, white flowers twisted through her dark hair. She had laughed up at him as they’d shared in the conspiracy of it all: the bride had had no idea of her own upcoming nuptials.
Jake had been mesmerised by Eliza’s extraordinary blue eyes, captivated by her personality. They had chatted the whole way through the reception. He’d been separated from Fern at that stage, but still trying to revive something that had been long dead. Not wanting to admit defeat. Eliza had helped him see how pointless that was—helped him to see hope for a new future just by being Eliza.
Now she wasn’t aware that he was there, and he watched her as she chatted to the journalist, her face animated, her smile at the ready. She was so lovely—and not just in looks. He couldn’t think of another person whose company he enjoyed more than Eliza’s. Why had he let her go?
He couldn’t bear it if he didn’t get some kind of second chance with her. He’d tried to rid himself of the notion that he was a one-woman man. After all, a billionaire bachelor was spoiled for choice. He didn’t have to hunt around to find available woman—they found him. Theoretically, he could date a string of them—live up to his media reputation. Since Port Douglas he’d gone out with a few women, both in Australia and on his business travels. Not one had captured his interest. None had come anywhere near Eliza.
Tonight she looked every inch the professional, but with a quirky touch to the way she was dressed that was perfectly appropriate to her career as a party planner. She wore a full-skirted black dress, with long, tight, sheer sleeves, and high-heeled black stilettos. Her hair was twisted up behind her head and finished with a flat black velvet bow. What had she called her style? Retro-inspired? He would call the way she dressed ‘ladylike’. But she was as smart and as business-savvy as any guy in a suit and necktie.
Did she feel the intensity of his gaze on her? She turned around, caught his eye. Jake smiled and nodded a greeting, not wanting to interrupt her conversation. He was shocked by her reaction. Initially a flash of delight lightened her face, only to be quickly replaced by wariness and then a conscious schooling of her features into polite indifference.
Jake felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. Why? They’d parted on good terms. He’d even thought he’d seen a hint of tears glistening in her eyes as she’d boarded the shuttle bus in Port Douglas. They’d both been aware that having mutual friends would mean they’d bump into each other at some stage. She must have known he would be here tonight—he was part of the proceedings.
He strode towards her, determined to find out what was going on. Dismissing him, she turned back to face the journalist. Jake paused mid-stride, astounded at her abruptness. Then it twigged. Eliza didn’t want this particular newshound sniffing around for an exclusive featuring the billionaire bachelor and the party planner.
Jake changed direction to head over to the bar.
He kept a subtle eye on Eliza. As soon as she was free he headed towards her, wanting to get her attention before anyone else beat him to it.
‘Hello,’ he said, for all the world as if they weren’t anything other than acquaintances with mutual friends. He dropped a kiss on her cool, politely offered cheek.
‘Jake,’ Eliza said.
This was Eliza the Business Director of Party Queens speaking. Not Eliza the lover, who had been so wonderfully responsive in his arms. Not Eliza his golfing buddy from Port Douglas, nor Eliza his bikini-clad companion frolicking in the pool.
‘So good that you could make it down from Brisbane,’ the Business Director said. ‘This is a momentous occasion.’
‘Indeed,’ he said.
Momentous because it was the first time they’d seen each other after their four-day fling? More likely she meant it was momentous because it was to mark the occasion not only of the first major deal of Dominic’s joint venture with the American billionaire philanthropist Walter Burton, but also the setting up the Sydney branch of Dominic’s charity, The Underground Help Centre, for homeless young people.
‘Walter Burton is here from Minnesota,’ Eliza said. ‘I believe you visited with him recently.’
‘He flew in this morning,’ he said.
Jake had every right to be talking to Eliza. He was one of the principals of the deal they were celebrating tonight. Party Queens was actually in his employ.
However, when that pushy journalist’s eyes narrowed with interest and her steps slowed as she walked by him and Eliza, Jake remembered she’d been in Montovia to report on the royal wedding. As best man and bridesmaid, he and Eliza had featured in a number of photo shoots and articles. If it was rumoured they’d had an affair—and that was all it had been—it would be big tabloid news.
He gritted his teeth. There was something odd here. Something else. Eliza’s reticence could not be put down just to the journalist’s presence.
Jake leaned down to murmur in her ear, breathed in her now familiar scent, sweet and intoxicating. ‘It’s good to see you. I’d like to catch up while I’m in Sydney.’
Eliza took a step back from him. ‘Sorry—not possible,’ she said. She gave an ineffectual wave to indicate the room, now starting to fill up with people. The action seemed extraordinarily lacking in Eliza’s usual energy. ‘This party is one of several that are taking up all my time.’
So what had changed? Work had always seemed to come first with Eliza. Whereas he was beginning to see it shouldn’t. That there should be a better balance to life.
‘I understand,’ he said. But he didn’t. ‘What about after the party? Catch up for coffee at my apartment at the wharf?’ He owned a penthouse apartment in a prestigious warehouse conversion right on the harbour in inner eastern Sydney.
Eliza’s lashes fluttered and she couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I... I’m n
ot in the mood for company.’
Jake was too flabbergasted to say anything. He eventually found the words. ‘You mean not in the mood for me?’
She lifted her chin, looked up at him. For once he couldn’t read the expression in those incredible blue eyes. Defiance? Regret? Fear? It both puzzled and worried him.
‘Jake, we agreed to four days only.’
The sentence sounded disconcertingly well-rehearsed. A shard of pain stabbed him at her tone.
‘We left open an option to meet again, did we not?’ He asked the question, but he thought he could predict the answer.
She put her hand on her heart and then indicated him in an open-palmed gesture that would normally have indicated togetherness. ‘Me. You. We tried it. It...it didn’t work.’
The slight stumble on her words alerted him to a shadow of what looked like despair flitting across her face. What was going on?
‘I don’t get it.’ Jake was noted for his perseverance. He wouldn’t give up on Eliza easily.
A spark of the feisty Eliza he knew—or thought he knew—flashed through.
‘Do I have to analyse it? Isn’t it enough that I just don’t want to be with you again?’
He didn’t believe her. Not when he remembered her unguarded expression when she’d first noticed him this evening.
There was something not right here.
Or was he being arrogant in his disbelief that Eliza simply didn’t want him in her life? That the four days had proved he wasn’t what she wanted? Was he falling back into his old ways? Unable to accept that a woman he wanted no longer wanted him? That wanting to persevere with Eliza was the same kind of blind stubbornness that had made him hang on to a marriage in its death throes—to the ultimate misery of both him and his ex-wife? Not to mention the plummeting profit margins of his company—thankfully now restored.
‘Is there someone else?’ he asked.
A quick flash of something in her eyes made him pay close attention to her answer.
‘Someone else? No. Not really.’
‘What do you mean “not really”?’
‘Bad choice of words. There’s no other man.’
He scrutinised her face. Noticed how pale she looked, with dark shadows under her eyes and a new gauntness to her cheekbones. Her lipstick was a red slash against her pallor. More colour seemed to leach from her face as she spoke.
‘Jake. There’s no point in going over this. It’s over between us. Thank you for understanding.’ She suddenly snatched her hand to her mouth. ‘I’m afraid I have to go.’
Without another word she rushed away, heading out of the ballroom and towards the double arching stairway that was a feature of the house.
Jake was left staring after her. Dumbfounded. Stricken with a sudden aching sense of loss.
He knew he had to pull himself together as he saw Walter Burton heading for him. He pasted a smile on his face. Extended his hand in greeting.
The older man, with his silver hair and perceptive pale eyes, pumped his hand vigorously. ‘Good to see you, Jake. I’m having fun here, listening to people complain that it’s cold for June. Winter in Sydney is a joke. I’m telling them they don’t know what winter is until they visit Minnesota in February.’
‘Of course,’ Jake said.
He was trying to give Walter his full attention, but half his mind was on Eliza as he looked over the heads of the people who now surrounded him, nodded vaguely at guests he recognised. Where had she gone?
Walter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Lady trouble?’ he observed.
‘Not really,’ Jake said. He didn’t try to deny that Eliza was his lady. Dominic and Andie had had to stage a fake engagement because of this older man’s moral stance. He found himself wishing Eliza really was his lady, with an intensity that hurt so much he nearly doubled over.
‘Don’t worry, son, it’ll pass over,’ Walter said. ‘They get that way in the first months. You know...a bit erratic. It gets better.’
Jake stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘When a woman’s expecting she—’
Jake put up his hand. ‘Whoa. I don’t know where you’re going with this, Walter. Expecting? Not Eliza. She...she can’t have children.’ And Eliza certainly didn’t look pregnant in that gorgeous black dress.
‘Consider me wrong, then. But I’ve had six kids and twice as many grandkids.’ Walter patted his rather large nose with his index finger. ‘I’ve got an instinct for when a woman’s expecting. Sometimes I’ve known before she was even aware herself. I’d put money on it that your little lady is in the family way. I’m sorry for jumping the gun if she hasn’t told you yet.’
Reeling, Jake managed to change the subject. But Walter’s words kept dripping through his mind like the most corrosive of acids.
Had she tricked him? His fists clenched by his sides. Eliza? A scheming gold-digger? Trying to trap him with the oldest trick in the book? She had sounded so convincing when she’d told him about the burst appendix and her subsequent infertility. Was it all a lie? If so, what else had she lied about?
He felt as if everything he’d believed in was falling away from him.
Then he was hit by another, equally distressing thought. If she wasn’t pregnant, was she ill?
One thing was for sure—she was hiding something from him. And he wouldn’t be flying back to Brisbane until he found out what it was.
CHAPTER TEN
JAKE USUALLY NEVER had trouble sleeping. But late on the night of the launch party, back in his waterfront apartment, he tossed and turned. The place was luxurious, but lonely. He’d had high hopes of bringing Eliza back here this evening. To talk, to try and come to some arrangement so he could see more of her. If they’d ended up in bed that would have been good too. He hadn’t been with anyone else since her. Had recoiled from kissing the women he’d dated.
Thoughts of his disastrous encounter with her kept him awake for what seemed like most of the night. And then there was Walter’s observation to nag at him. Finally, at dawn, he gave up on sleep and went for a run. Vigorous physical activity helped his thought processes, he’d always found.
In the chill of early morning he ran up past the imposing Victorian buildings of the New South Wales Art Gallery and through the public green space of The Domain.
He paused to do some stretches at the end of the peninsula at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair—a bench cut into a sandstone slab where it was reputed a homesick early governor’s wife had used to sit and watch for sailing ships coming from Great Britain. The peaceful spot gave a panoramic view of Sydney Harbour: the ‘coat hanger’ bridge and the white sails of the Opera House. Stray clouds drifting around the buildings were tinted pink from the rising sun.
Jake liked Sydney and thought he could happily live in this city. Brisbane seemed all about the past. In fact he was thinking about moving his company’s headquarters here. He had wanted to talk to Eliza about that, to put forward the idea that such a move would mean he’d be able to see more of her if they started things up between them again. Not much point now.
The pragmatic businessman side of Jake told him to wipe his hands of her and walk away. Eliza had made it very clear she didn’t want him around. A man who had graduated from a dating after divorce workshop would know to take it on the chin, cut his losses and move on. After all, they’d only been together for four days, three months ago.
But the more creative, intuitive side of him, which had guided him through decisions that had made him multiple millions, wouldn’t let him off that easily. Even if she’d lied to him, tricked him, deceived him—and that was only a suspicion at this stage—he had a strong feeling that she needed him. And he needed to find out what was going on.
He’d never got a chance to chat with her again at the party—she had evaded him and he’d had official du
ties to perform. But he’d cancelled his flight back to Brisbane, determined to confront her today.
Jake ran back home, showered, changed, ate breakfast. Predictably, Eliza didn’t reply to his text and her phone went to voicemail. He called the Party Queens headquarters to be told Eliza was working at home today. Okay, so he would visit her at home—and soon.
He hadn’t been to Eliza’s house before, but he knew where it was. Investment-wise, she’d been canny. She’d bought a worker’s terraced cottage in an industrial area of the inner city just before a major push to its gentrification. The little house, attached on both sides, looked immaculately restored and maintained. Exactly what he’d expect from Eliza.
It sat on one level, with a dormer window in the roof, indicating that she had probably converted the attic. External walls were painted the colour of natural sandstone, with windows and woodwork picked out in white and shades of grey. The tiny front garden was closed off from the sidewalk by a black wrought-iron fence and a low, perfectly clipped hedge.
Jake pushed open the shiny black gate and followed the black-and-white-tiled path. He smiled at the sight of the front door, painted a bold glossy red to match the large red planter containing a spiky-leaved plant. Using the quaint pewter knocker shaped like a dragonfly, he rapped on the door.
He heard footsteps he recognised as Eliza’s approaching the door. They paused while, he assumed, she checked out her visitor through the peephole. Good. He was glad she was cautious about opening her door to strangers.
The pause went on for rather too long. Was she going to ignore him? He would stay here all day if he had to. He went to rap again but, with his hand still on its knocker, the door opened and she was there.
Jake didn’t often find himself disconcerted to the point of speechlessness. But he was too shocked to greet her.
This was an Eliza he hadn’t seen before: hair dishevelled, face pale and strained with smudges of last night’s make-up under her eyes. But what shocked him most was her body. Dark grey yoga pants and a snug pale grey top did nothing to disguise the small but definite baby bump. Her belly was swollen and rounded.
The Bridesmaid's Baby Bump Page 9