‘A moment that, even when we’re old and grey, will still put a smile on our faces whenever we remember it.’
His knuckles brushed across her cheek, firing her every nerve ending with heat and lust. His smile, when it came, made her thighs tremble. ‘Then we’d better make it memorable.’
Her pulse started to gallop. She did what she could to get it under control—at least a little—because she didn’t want to rush this moment. She wanted to savour it and imprint it on her mind for all time.
Which sounded crazy and overly dramatic, but she didn’t care. She was following her gut all the way on this one.
Lifting her hands to touch his face, she revelled in the feel of his day-old growth as it scraped across her palms. He held still, waiting. ‘What?’ he eventually whispered, and she realised she’d been staring.
‘There’s something else that makes this moment incredibly romantic.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You,’ she murmured. She couldn’t believe that she was touching him; that she was going to get to kiss him. ‘You’re beautiful, Jasper.’ She could’ve chosen any number of words. Gorgeous. Hot. Sexy. They all fitted. But the one she’d uttered felt perfect. ‘Beautiful inside and out.’
His lips parted as if in shock. His eyes had grown soft. ‘Imogen...’
But she was done with talking. She slid her hands around his neck and pulled his head down to hers, reaching up on tiptoe to touch her lips to his.
The spark that ran through her made her tremble, but his hands at her waist held her steady. It gave her the security, and the boldness, to lean farther into him and move her lips across his more firmly. He was an intoxicating mixture of softness and strength, and kissing him was as invigorating as swimming in wild surf. It electrified her. And it must’ve electrified him too because it was as if their blood started racing at the same speed and to the same beat; their mouths opened at the same time and their tongues tangled as they tried to devour each other.
Wind roared in her ears, blocking out the sound of the surf. One of his hands pressed against the small of her back, urging her closer. The other flattened between her shoulder blades, hauling her against him. Every inch of her from the hips up could feel all of him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to get even closer. The kiss went beyond anything she’d ever experienced. As if together they’d become the sea, sand and sun. As if crashing against each other, washing against each other, and heating each other up was what they were designed for.
She wrapped one leg around his waist to angle her pelvis more firmly against his. One large hand splayed beneath her thigh to hold it in place, and with a guttural groan he thrust against her. She threw her head back with a cry of pure need, arching into him.
She didn’t know who stilled first. The way it felt—as if the moon had cast some spell on them and had cosmically attuned them to each other—they might’ve stopped at exactly the same moment. They stared into each other’s stunned eyes. At least, she expected she must look as shell-shocked as him. She felt as if she were in a snow globe and someone had just shaken it—and the landscape of her life would never settle into the exact same contours again.
He let go of her leg. She lowered it to the ground.
He unwrapped his arm from her waist. She removed her hands from his shoulders.
She touched her fingers to her lips. He swallowed. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but...wow.’ Heat continued to spark across her skin like a tropical storm. ‘I mean...wow!’
He nodded.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I mean a real wow.’
‘Imogen—’
‘I really wasn’t expecting that.’ She knew she was babbling but couldn’t stop. ‘I thought it was going to be some really sweet kiss that...’ She shook her head at his pulsing, dark-eyed silence. ‘But that wasn’t sweet. I was ready to tear your clothes off and do things to you and with you that I’ve never—’
He reached out and pressed his fingers to her mouth with a low curse that made her close her eyes. Eventually she managed a nod. ‘Sorry. Too much information.’
‘For the record, I wasn’t expecting things to get so intense so quickly either.’ His hands clenched. ‘I’ve been on this island too damn long.’
She gulped in air. ‘Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not taking all the credit for that. It had just as much to do with me as it did with you. And I don’t care what stupid excuses you want to make, but together we...rock.’
Bracing his hands on his knees, he huffed out a laugh. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’ He straightened and met her gaze. ‘But we both know it can’t go beyond that, right?’
‘I know.’ She scratched both hands back through her hair and then frowned. She bit her lip and stuck out a hip. ‘Why not?’
Her question slipped out without her meaning it to. Maybe the kiss had short-circuited her thought processes. His face grew grim and for a moment she thought he might revert to the wounded bear she’d met when she’d first arrived here, that he’d turn around and stalk off without another word. But then his face gentled again and he almost smiled. ‘Because you’re not romantically impulsive?’
And neither was he?
‘You don’t do flings.’
And he wasn’t offering anything more.
Got it.
‘You’re only in Tesoura for a short time. You have big plans for your life. Exciting plans.’
She did. And she’d never be so foolish as to sacrifice those plans for a love affair. ‘That’s right.’ She slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘I remember now.’ She eyed him carefully. ‘And you have no plans to leave Tesoura?’
‘None. This is my home now.’
She pulled in a breath. ‘You’re right. This can’t go beyond that kiss. Sorry—’ she shot him what she really hoped was a smile ‘—the oxygen is finally reaching my brain again.’
He laughed, and she wished she couldn’t feel its rumble all the way to the centre of her being.
‘There are other reasons too, Imogen. Many reasons. I’m going to tell you a story so you can understand what I mean.’
A story?
He pointed at the moon, and she turned to look. ‘It still looks amazing,’ he said.
But not as amazing as it had a moment ago. As it had moved farther into the sky, it had diminished in both size and colour. It looked neither as big nor as vividly yellow, as if it had lost some of its heat and energy.
Jasper surprised her when he moved behind and wrapped an arm about her shoulders and drew her back against him. She didn’t resist, just let his warmth surround her. It was a protective gesture, a gesture of camaraderie, and it was kind. He didn’t want her to feel alone, and he didn’t want her to feel rejected.
The moon blurred and her throat ached.
‘Do you remember asking what had happened to me?’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘I think if I tell you that story, you’ll understand—and agree—that it’s better for me to be on my own.’
She frowned out at the dark water, lifting a hand to squeeze his forearm in a show of silent support. She couldn’t see how she was ever going to agree that he should be on his own. Not forever. She got the fact that he might not want to be with her, but this self-imposed exile? He deserved better than that.
‘I’ve already told you my father was physically abusive. He had a big leather belt that he wielded with great...authority. When he wasn’t using his fists.’
She flinched, and his arm tightened about her.
‘My mother copped most of his anger, though she’s spent her entire life trying to placate him. I stepped in when I could...when doors weren’t locked.’
She closed her eyes, but the image of the young boy he must’ve been was burned onto the insides of her eyel
ids. She forced her eyes open again. ‘And then you copped it.’ He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. ‘Emily?’
‘Mum and I did our best to protect her. She’s a couple of years older than me, but she’s always been a tiny little thing.’
Her heart burned.
‘They say history never repeats, but they’re wrong. In Emily’s case it did. I never really liked Aaron all that much—thought him kind of smarmy—but I figured Emily was better off with him than at home where Dad was liable to lash out without warning. I’m guessing that’s what she thought too.’
If Emily had never had a strong female role model like Imogen, then...then she’d have never really stood a chance.
‘I dropped in on Em and Aaron unexpectedly one evening. I could hear raised voices upstairs, so I let myself in and followed the ruckus to its source. Where I saw Aaron backhand my sister. I saw red.’
‘What happened?’
‘I punched him, but evidently not hard enough because he got up and came at me. Emily was screaming at us to stop.’ He paused. ‘He charged. I sidestepped. Don’t get me wrong, I had every intention of beating the living daylights out of him, but not in front of Emily. She’d been traumatised enough.’
He went so still she started to worry. She wrapped both her hands around his forearm and held on tight, pressed back against him, wanting him to know that he wasn’t alone.
A breath shuddered out of him. ‘His momentum sent him crashing across the landing and down the stairs.’
She gave a slow nod. It evidently hadn’t killed the guy as he was still making Emily’s life a misery... ‘I’m finding it hard to feel any sympathy for him.’
A low chuckle broke from his throat, disturbing the hair near her ear and making her break out in gooseflesh. ‘I can’t say I felt too much of that at the time either. He broke his leg badly in two places. He walks with a limp and still needs a stick to get around. He’s lucky to not be in a wheelchair apparently.’
She had a feeling he was lucky Jasper hadn’t managed to get his hands on him good and proper.
‘He accused me of assault. I was charged and a trial date was set.’
All Aunt Katherine had told her earlier came back now. She spun in his arms. ‘But it didn’t go to court.’
He stepped away and she immediately missed his warmth. His laugh held a bitter edge. ‘He knew his charges would never stick. His fall down the stairs was an accident of his own making, not mine.’
So he’d dropped them, but... ‘Why didn’t Emily break free of him when she had the chance?’
This time his laugh held even more bitterness. ‘Believe me, I wish I knew. I tried to get her to leave him.’
Her heart pounded so hard her chest hurt. ‘But?’
‘She told me she still loved him. She said he’d only forgotten himself that once, had only hit her that one time, and that it had been her fault for goading him into it.’
Imogen covered her face with her hands.
‘She told me her relationship with Aaron was none of my business, that she hated me for what I’d done.’
She pulled her hands away to stare at him in disbelief. She felt suddenly and utterly exhausted. He must feel at least a hundred times worse.
‘She said she’d never forgive me for hurting Aaron, and that she never wanted to see me again.’
And he’d not heard from her until last week? ‘Your parents?’
‘They took Aaron’s side. My father and Aaron were always as thick as thieves, and my father had been looking for an excuse to sever all ties with me for years. He seized this one when it came along, lost no time in telling the tabloids my temper had always been a problem.’
‘What an absolute pig of a man!’
‘He forbade my mother from having any contact with me.’
It wasn’t her place, she knew that, but she was angry with his mother too—livid. She pressed her lips together as hard as she could for a moment before releasing them. ‘Do you miss them?’
‘I don’t miss my father.’ He glanced at her with shadowed eyes. ‘I have no love left in me for him. He destroyed that a long time ago. But my mother and sister...’
He missed them. She could see it. He’d banished himself to this island in despair because he hadn’t been able to save them.
‘I call my mother twice a year. I ask her the same questions. Can I come and get you? Is there anything I can do to help you get away from him?’
He was keeping the lines of communication open. Letting her know she had an escape route if she needed it. Imogen wanted to hug him.
‘She refuses every single time. She tells me she likes her life.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘I made her memorise my phone number in case she ever needs to call.’ He shook his head. ‘Emily still refuses to speak to me.’
For the last two years he’d been on his own, with no one to talk to about any of this. It had to have been festering away inside him like poison. She wanted to cry for him. ‘Jasper, I’m so sorry.’
He nodded. With what looked like a concerted effort, he pushed his shoulders back and smiled. The sadness in his eyes, though, pierced her soul. ‘So you can see why I think it best that I remain on my own.’
She didn’t bother fighting her frown. ‘Actually, I’m afraid I don’t.’
His jaw went slack. ‘Imogen—’ he leaned towards her ‘—my family is complicated...ugly.’
‘So what? It’s not who you are. If a woman cared about you, she wouldn’t give two hoots about your complicated family. She’d care about you—that’s what would matter. I’m sorry, Jasper, but I don’t get that reasoning at all.’
* * *
Jasper pinched the bridge of his nose, tried to ignore the way his heart leapt at her words. ‘I missed out one important thread in my story.’
He called it a story because he desperately wanted to put some distance between it and him. But it didn’t seem to be working.
Imogen pressed her hands to her abdomen as if she were fighting nausea. ‘There’s more?’
‘I had a fiancée.’ He forced himself to straighten. ‘It wasn’t public knowledge—we hadn’t announced it yet. Bronwyn was, and still is, a cellist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. My father threatened her career—told her he’d have her dismissed from the orchestra—if she didn’t break things off with me.’
Bronwyn’s betrayal was still a raw ugly wound, though he’d never blamed her for her decision to walk away from him—not in the least. His father had threatened her career, her livelihood...her dream. ‘He told her he’d see to it that she’d never play again.’
‘So...she broke up with you?’
‘I don’t hold her responsible for that.’
Her eyes filled and his throat thickened. ‘I can see that. Though, I’m not sure I’d have been so forgiving in your place.’
Imogen thought she’d act differently, but she didn’t know Keith Coleman. She didn’t understand how dangerous he could be. And Jasper had no intention of her ever finding out.
‘That’s why I need to be on my own, Imogen. That’s why I can’t have any ties. My father will go after the woman I love and do whatever he can to destroy her.’
‘So you’re not even prepared to risk it? Even if this hypothetical woman you love—and who loves you—not only has her own resources to rely on, but yours as well?’ She leaned towards him. ‘You’re a wealthy man. That gives you a measure of power and protection.’
‘It’s not worth the risk. We’re not just talking about someone’s livelihood here, but their dreams—things they’ve been working towards their entire lives.’ He could never ask a woman to give that up for him. ‘My father has political power. His connections include key industry and business figures. He wields his influence with about as much care—and as much gusto—as George does his toy train. I will never put a woman in a
position where she could be hurt by him.’
‘Then your father has won. You’re letting him win.’
Her words had a resonance that sounded through him. Maybe she was right, but at least he could prevent his father from hurting another woman.
‘No woman needs that hassle in her life. It’s not a war she should be forced to fight. It wouldn’t be fair. I refuse to be the catalyst for that kind of damage. It wouldn’t be fair,’ he repeated, before drawing himself up. ‘Have you heard the mantra “do no harm”?’
She stared out at the water for three beats and then turned back with a nod.
He slapped a hand to his chest and met her gaze. She pulled in a breath as if she understood everything he was trying to say. For some reason that only made his heart burn harder.
‘Life isn’t fair, Jasper. No matter what you do, life isn’t fair. It’s not fair that you have such a father. It’s not fair that a jerk of an ex-boyfriend of mine calls me stupid. It’s not fair that my mother—’
He jerked to attention. ‘Your mother?’
She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t fair that she and my aunt had to watch my grandmother die from breast cancer.’
Some sixth sense told him it wasn’t what she’d originally meant to say. She turned on him, though, before he could challenge her. ‘The thing is, whatever you do—you’re not going to be able to protect everyone from everything. And you don’t know what unforeseen consequences your attempts to keep everyone safe—your attempts to do no harm—could have either.’
‘What are you talking about?’ The decision he’d made was the right one, damn it.
‘The day after you’d broken up with her, Bronwyn could’ve just as easily tripped and fractured a wrist. Hey presto, she can no longer play in the orchestra. That stuff happens all the time. But if you’d still been together and you’d been walking beside her, you might’ve caught her. And hey presto, no broken wrist.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You’re being ridiculous. You’re creating imaginary scenarios that may or may not happen and—’
‘So are you!’
The Maid, the Millionaire and the Baby Page 11
