Echoes of the Heart

by Alyssa J. Montgomery

  ‘I will please you,’ he said, determination etched in every feature of his handsome face, ‘just the way I always pleased you.’

  ‘That kiss was a huge mistake. I don’t know —’

  ‘You do know,’ he cut across her speech with impatience. ‘What do you hope to achieve by denying it?’ He reached out and caught her hair firmly in his hand, threading the blonde strands through his fingers.

  ‘I’m not thinking straight. I’m in shock. I’ve been under enormous strain.’

  He ignored her excuses. ‘I remember your little sighs of delight as I made love to you on the beach. They haunt me,’ he said raggedly. ‘I haven’t forgotten how beautiful you were, lying naked for me, your body bathed in the moonlight.’

  She shivered—part in apprehension and part in longing. Appalled by the extent of her craving for him, she fought to stop her body from leaning toward his.

  ‘No matter how many lovers you’ve had, Amanda, your body remembers my possession.’

  ‘Jake —’

  ‘I don’t like you, Amanda. I certainly don’t like my desire for you, but I’m honest enough to admit that I need to make love to you over and over again until my passion burns itself out. We’ll both be better off once we extinguish our need for each other.’

  Her heart filled with fresh disillusionment. Jake didn’t even like her. Hastily she reminded herself that the feeling was mutual. She didn’t like the way he’d used her. While he still wanted her physically, he was only offering a short-term affair until he’d satisfied his desire. It proved she’d never been good enough to be anything more to him than a casual fling and that hadn’t changed.

  Mistress material. The words haunted her.

  Pulling her head back she winced as her abrupt action caused her hair to jerk out of his hand. ‘As a come-on line, it’s not one of your best,’ she scoffed, summoning up anger as a defence against her own arousal.

  ‘Think about it, Amanda,’ he urged.

  She didn’t need to. His warmth still lingered on her skin and she knew she’d responded with unashamed abandon.

  Wanton.

  The word echoed around in her head as fear gripped her and tightened her chest. When she’d been growing up she’d heard the word used repeatedly by her aunt’s neighbours in reference to her mother. Is that what she was?

  No! She refused to indulge in a meaningless affair with Jake. No matter how fantastic it felt, she didn’t want just sex with Jake. She’d never wanted or even had just sex with Jake. Every time she’d been in his arms, she’d made love to him. Realising it hadn’t been the same for him had crushed her and left her soul bereft. If she ever slept with Jake again, her battered heart would never recover.

  She needed Jake to make love to her. For a while, she’d believed that Jake had fallen in love with her but now she knew that was pure fantasy. She’d realised too late that love had never even entered Jake’s mind. He’d wanted sex and she’d been more than willing to give it to him.

  She took a deep breath, and battled to obliterate empty dreams with no future. ‘Your ego is incredible! After all this time you think you can have me so easily?’

  ‘I think we’ve just established that fact.’

  Blood rushed to her cheeks once more as she struggled for a different line of defence. ‘You caught me at a vulnerable moment. I’ve just buried my…my husband.’

  His shoulders stiffened. ‘You expect me to believe you cared for Bennett?’ The derision in his voice lanced through her. ‘From what I’ve heard, there was nothing about him anybody could like and very little to respect.’

  She averted her gaze, afraid he’d see the truth. She couldn’t claim to care for Lloyd. She’d suffered so much at his hands she was glad to be free of him.

  ‘But, I’m forgetting,’ Jake continued without mercy. ‘You found something about him to like, didn’t you?’

  Her head shot up, and she stared at him. The voice she heard was barely recognisable—completely wrecked with bitterness. She glimpsed a twist of hurt in his expression but thought she’d imagined it when she saw his jaw harden. The implacable mask he wore dropped back into place. This man was so different from the carefree Jake she’d fallen in love with. What had happened to make him this way? Had Sophie hurt him during their brief marriage?

  He leaned forward threateningly, invading her personal space. ‘You didn’t love your husband, but you definitely loved his money.’

  She flinched as though he’d struck her. She’d been called a gold-digger before, but somehow the whip cut deeper when Jake judged her with such contempt. But she couldn’t say he was wrong. Lloyd had made sure of her continued silence. If she spoke of the true circumstances of her marriage, it would be her aunt who paid the price.

  ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she told him, half-turning away.

  ‘There’s no need to play the grieving widow. I’m far wealthier than Bennett. I’m prepared to pay you well for the duration of our affair.’

  Pay her? Affair?

  She swung back. ‘You bastard!’ Anger swelled in every blood vessel until she thought she’d erupt with the force of her rage. ‘Don’t you dare treat me like some common prostitute.’

  ‘Common?’ His laughter was mirthless. ‘I wouldn’t say there was anything common about you. I’d say your marriage to Bennett put you much more in the league of high-class hooker.’

  Her jaw slackened. That the man she’d believed herself to be in love with could deliver such a crushing insult was the final trauma. Had she been so young and blinded by love that she’d overlooked this hurtful streak in him? She shook her head and looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. People could only hurt you if you let them and she was through with being a victim.

  Shooting him what she hoped was a look of utter disdain, she said, ‘The journalists you employ obviously get their work ethic from you. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.’

  ‘Look at me and tell me you didn’t marry Bennett for his money,’ he demanded.

  Amanda could offer no denial to Jake’s cold, judicial words. She had married Lloyd for his money and his influence, but Jake was twisting the situation. The money wasn’t for her. It had never been for her.

  ‘You can’t deny it, can you?’ The hard edge to Jake’s voice made her cringe.

  ‘That wasn’t how it was...’ She swallowed the angry words of denial that threatened to escape through her lips. At the time of her marriage she’d been backed into a corner. She had no financial choice but to agree to Lloyd’s marriage proposal, and no emotional will to resist because Jake had already crushed her heart and she was sure she would never love again.

  ‘Explain it to me then.’

  She warred with herself. A large part of her wanted to make Jake understand the truth but she couldn’t. Not when her aunt’s well-being was dependent on her silence. She tore her eyes away from his. Damn it all, he should never have come to the funeral. He should never have re-entered her life like this.

  ‘I…I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You can’t because there is no other explanation,’ he said.

  Did it matter that he believed the worst of her? After his appalling treatment of her there was no need to vindicate herself in his eyes. The relationship they’d shared was ancient history.

  She inhaled a jagged breath. ‘I didn’t ask you to come here. My marriage to Lloyd is none of your business.’

  ‘You don’t deny you sold yourself to Bennett. The way I see it, you’re on the market again and you won’t find a higher bidder than me.’

  She swayed in shock. ‘I’m not interested in your money.’

  ‘I’ve got more to offer you than Hugh Middleton.’

  Her stomach lurched with nausea. She hated Lloyd for trapping her in the fiction of his vicious lies, but right now she hated Jake even more for believing the lies.

  How dare Jake judge her? He was nothing but an over-sexed, two-timing bastard! In the short
time they’d been together he’d broken her heart, shattered all her romantic illusions, and had been planning to leave her without a backward glance. Jake’s behaviour had been a powerful catalyst in changing the course of her life. She’d thrown aside youthful romantic notions of love and happily-ever-after. That, and her desperate wish to help her aunt, had been her sole motivation for agreeing to Lloyd’s proposal of marriage.

  ‘Despite what you believe, I’m not for sale,’ she said stiffly, turning to push past him and walk away.

  His hand shot out, catching her wrist and swinging her back to face him. ‘You will be my lover again, and there’ll be no more running away. This time you’ll stay until I’m finished with you.’

  ‘Is this about bruised pride?’ She let out a small, metallic laugh. ‘Am I the only woman who walked away from you without an explanation?’

  ‘It’s about lust.’ Determination blazed from his eyes. ‘It’s about feeding that chemical mix between us.’

  ‘I failed chemistry at school,’ she replied in a flat tone.

  For a few moments he merely stood and considered her. ‘Let’s say a month of your life,’ he said.

  ‘A month?’ she echoed in disbelief.

  ‘That should do it.’ He nodded. ‘I assure you, you’ll be richly compensated—both financially and physically.’

  A month! Her hands clenched. Two years since they’d met and the wounds he’d inflicted still hadn’t healed, yet he thought he could dismiss her after a month?

  ‘No compensation would be worth spending any amount of time with you.’ She let frost coat every word.

  ‘Mrs Bennett, are you there?’

  Relief flooded through her when she recognised the priest’s voice. Her absence at the wake must have been noted and the priest was searching for her.

  ‘I’m coming, Father,’ she called.

  With a pointed glance, she looked at where Jake continued to manacle her wrist with his hand. ‘Do you want to explain to the priest why you’re detaining me?’

  Before he released her he reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. ‘Call me,’ he told her, slipping the card into the pocket of her jacket. ‘Lloyd may have left you a rich widow, but I’m sure no amount of wealth is ever enough for a woman like you.’

  Eager to escape further confrontation, she didn’t waste time handing the card back or ripping it to pieces in front of him. ‘Goodbye, Jake.’

  ‘I’m letting you go for now, Amanda, but it isn’t over between us. You will be back in my bed and you’ll stay there until I’m ready for you to leave.’

  Chapter 4

  Amanda Bennett is waiting in your outer office.

  Jake froze as he read the note handed to him by his personal assistant. After Bennett’s funeral, he’d instructed her to notify him as soon as Amanda made contact. But he’d been expecting a telephone call, not a personal visit.

  He was sitting in a meeting at a critical stage of negotiations that could seal the acquisition of a national television network into his media empire—common sense demanded he keep Amanda waiting. But his usual ironclad control deserted him and he couldn’t focus on the meeting any longer.

  Amanda was here.

  Each of his senses surged into an acute state of alert.

  ‘Jake, are you okay?’ his ex-wife asked him quietly. The other people in the room were too caught up in a troublesome clause to notice the exchange. Sophie was sitting in on this meeting as a representative of the Board of Directors. Upon their marriage, she’d taken her grandfather’s seat on the board.

  He looked at her with regret. Sophie was a stunningly-attractive redhead. She was smart, sexy, talented, loyal and kind—everything a man could want in a woman. He wished with all his heart he could have felt the same degree of attraction to her as he did for Amanda.

  ‘Jake?’ Sophie pressed.

  He passed her the message he’d received. The instant she read it, she turned troubled green eyes to his and shook her head. ‘You’re not going to see her are you?’

  ‘I asked her to come.’

  It had been a month since Bennett’s funeral. In that time, he’d telephoned the Bennett household only to find the number was disconnected. He’d driven to the Bennett estate a couple of times but nobody answered when he buzzed for admission. Short of scaling the high, wrought-iron front gates and contending with the two Dobermans that stood growling at him from the other side, there was nothing he could do except bide his time and wait for Amanda to come to him.

  He’d been sure she would. The passion burning between them was too hard to ignore. Hell! He’d tried and failed dismally. Amanda had been a thorn in his side—a lover he’d never been able to forget, or to forgive.

  ‘Jake, what in God’s name are you thinking?’ Sophie demanded quietly with a frown of concern.

  ‘Mr Formosa?’

  All the men and women seated at the long conference table looked at him, waiting for him to respond to whatever it was that had been suggested. It was impossible for him to keep his mind on business proceedings. He had to go to Amanda.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me. An urgent matter requires my immediate attention.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’ll resume our negotiations after lunch.’

  A peripheral part of his brain registered the surprised reactions of a few of his executives and a ripple of irritation from the representatives of the television corporation, but he didn’t care. Amanda was waiting for him. That was all that mattered. Finally she was here, ready to acknowledge their mutual attraction. Ready to become his lover again.

  As he rose from his seat at the head of the table, urgency gripped him, making his heart pump harder. Barely able to contain his anticipation, it was hard to restrain himself from sprinting out of the conference room to meet her.

  It was Sophie’s hand on his arm that made him pause.

  ‘No. Don’t do this to yourself,’ she pleaded in hushed tones as she waved away hovering employees who would have approached him.

  ‘I have to,’ Jake said.

  She grabbed his hand, steered him into a small soundproof room off the conference area and closed the door. ‘Just what do you hope to achieve, Jake?’

  ‘You know as well as I do that I haven’t been able to get on with my life. I can’t move on until I finish this on my terms.’

  Sophie let go of his hand and paced the length of the room, one hand at her narrow waist and the other running through her stunning red hair in agitation. ‘It’s a fatal attraction. She’s ripped you up before and I saw how destructive it was. Don’t let her do it to you again.’

  ‘She won’t. I don’t have blinkers on anymore where she’s concerned. I’ll get closure on this and I’ll do it my way.’

  It seemed he’d been waiting for Amanda for an eternity. Seeing her again—no, he corrected himself—eradicating his feelings for her, was more vital than closing a multimillion-dollar takeover deal.

  ‘You should never have gone to Bennett’s funeral. To publicly align yourself to a woman whose deplorable actions have earned her public loathing...It was sheer insanity.’

  ‘I’d hoped, once I saw her again, I’d discover she didn’t affect me as profoundly as I remembered.’ He’d been wrong. He’d been aggravated that both her physical and emotional impact upon him was as strong as ever. He was still surprised at the overwhelming surge of protectiveness he’d felt for her as Fiona Bennett had attacked her. His vulnerability to Amanda annoyed the hell out of him.

  ‘But she did.’ Sophie sighed as she looked at him closely and her lips twisted in frustrated resignation. ‘We’re both as hopeless as each other when it comes to falling in love with the wrong people.’

  ‘No. My heart isn’t involved in this anymore. This is just about ending it.’

  Sophie merely shook her head and grimaced. ‘This is me you’re talking to. Sometimes I think I know you better than you know yourself.’ She put her hands on his arms. ‘Don’t forget this
was the woman who held that heart in the palm of her hand and didn’t think twice about squeezing the life out of it. She’s a faithless woman whose affairs drove her husband to suicide.’

  Jake closed his eyes briefly. The pain of Amanda’s betrayal was still there.

  ‘I’m afraid she still affects me like no other woman has. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

  It was his vulnerability to Amanda that had made him lash out at her with harsh words. He admitted he’d been pretty brutal in the things that he’d said to her, but the wounds she’d inflicted upon him when she’d left him to marry Bennett were still open and bleeding.

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe the only reason you still feel this way is lack of closure. She never did provide you with any good reason for having left and I know that’s tortured you.’

  It felt good to have Sophie put into words what had been plaguing him. He was still angry and hurt to think that Amanda had left his bed and immediately fallen pregnant with Bennett’s baby. To know that the tenderness and passion he’d felt when making love to Amanda hadn’t been reciprocated was a savage blow to his confidence and to his ego.

  ‘At the cemetery when I demanded an explanation, she sounded bitter when she mentioned your name. She claimed she thought I was involved with you when I was with her. I wanted to believe she left me because of some stupid misunderstanding. I lost sight of the fact that Amanda is a woman from a background of poverty whose primary goal was to snare a wealthy husband.’

  ‘Don’t forget she was the one who left you,’ Sophie said. ‘You would never have proposed marriage to me if she hadn’t.’

  ‘And you would never have accepted if you hadn’t been such an emotional mess at the time.’ He gave Sophie a quick hug and peck on the cheek. ‘You’re one in a million, Sophie. God knows I wish things could have been different between us.’

  ‘Me too,’ she told him lightly, pulling a face.