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His voice was deadly quiet in the stillness.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_5c5223f5-1fc9-5952-a55b-6235c655d88b)
ANNE’S legs were trembling, her whole body starting to shake with reaction. This wasn’t the way she had wanted him to find out!
‘I was going to tell you—tonight. That’s why I asked you here, but——’
‘Just tell me something—if we hadn’t been thrown together like this, would you ever have told me?’
She looked away, unable to bear the anger and condemnation in his eyes.
‘It isn’t that simple, Jake——’
‘Of course it is!’ he growled. ‘How much more bloody simple can it get? “You have a daughter”. Four words. Is that really so hard?’
‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Yes, it is that hard! And what would you have done about it anyway? We were friends, Jake, just simply friends. That night was a fluke, a one-off. How could I hold you responsible? You made your feelings pretty clear, anyway. Your last words to me were, “This needn’t make any difference to us, Annie. You’re going to marry Duncan and I’m going to finish sowing my wild oats and see the world——” ‘
‘But I said——’
‘I know what you said. I know exactly what you said. We were who we were, Jake. It would never have worked.’
‘You weren’t even prepared to give it a try! Damn it, Annie, if I’d known she was mine——’
‘What? What would you have done? For God’s sake, Hunter, you were a playboy, a womanising, hell-raising, over-sexed, overgrown adolescent! You weren’t ready for the responsibility of parenthood, and I wasn’t ready to risk my daughter’s happiness—or mine—on a feckless, footloose itinerant!’
He snorted in disgust. ‘Come on, Annie, that’s a gross exaggeration——’
‘No, it isn’t! You were appalling—you had the morals of an alley-cat, Jacob Hunter! Every night there was a different victim——’
‘Rubbish! You’ve forgotten——’
‘Bull! I’ve forgotten nothing, Jake. Not one single, solitary damn second of that last year have I forgotten, and I certainly haven’t forgotten the number of nights you never even made it home——!’
She broke off, appalled that she had revealed so much.
‘Did you lie awake and wait for me, Annie?’ he asked, and beneath the softly voiced sarcasm she thought she detected a certain wistfulness.
‘Of course not,’ she denied hotly. ‘Why should I have lost sleep over you?’
He stared at her in silence for a moment, then looked away, his breath leaving his body in a sharp sigh. ‘You think a lot of me, don’t you?’
She slumped into a chair. ‘I think a hell of a lot of you, Jake. I always have done, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever let it cloud my judgement. You were a good friend, the best, but you would have made a rotten husband and father seven years ago.’
‘And now?’
‘Now what?’
‘What kind of a husband and father would I make now, Annie? Because you can be sure of one thing—I’m not letting her go. I don’t want carefully measured visitation rights, or joint custody or some other legal arrangement. I want to be her father, in every sense of the word. I want a say in her upbringing and education, and I’m not convinced I want you out at work leaving her with a stranger for the weekend while you’re on call!’
‘Huh! And how the hell am I supposed to provide for her if I don’t go out to work?’
‘I’ll provide for her—for both of you——’
‘Over my dead body! And anyway, Jenny’s a registered childminder, not a stranger——’
‘She is to me. How do I know if I can trust her with my daughter?’
Anne glared at him. ‘She’s not your daughter, she’s my daughter. I carried her, I gave birth to her, I’ve brought her up and cared for her and made all the decisions for her while you were off seeing the world and getting married——’
‘You could have married me.’
‘Oh, yes—we’ve been through all that. You weren’t ready, Jake. Look what happened when you did get married.’
‘There was no child involved.’
‘Would it have made any difference?’
He met her eyes briefly, then looked away. ‘Probably not.’
‘You see? Just one more example of your feckless attitude to life, but Beth’s one toy you’re not going to pick up and drop—damn it, Jake, I nearly died giving birth to her! She’s mine, and I’m not going to let you have her!’
Her emotions strung to fever pitch, she turned away to hide the sudden rush of tears that cascaded down her flushed cheeks.
Jake’s hand, gentle on her shoulder, was nearly her undoing.
‘I don’t want to take her from you, Annie. I want to share her, get to know her. I want to love her, Annie, and I want her to love me, too. Don’t shut me out. I’ve lost so much of her life already—let me share her with you. Please? Marry me now, Annie—make me part of your lives.’
Her breath caught in her throat. His touch was warm, undemanding, but she knew it could change like quicksilver to become sensual and erotic, giving and yet taking, demanding, searching … Dear God, what was she thinking? She was letting herself be swayed by the soft pleading in his voice, but she could never feel like that for Jake again, could never trust him——
‘Marry you? Jake, are you mad? I wouldn’t marry you if you Were the last man on earth!’
He recoiled as if she’d struck him, walking swiftly away from her to stand broodingly at the patio doors, staring out at the dark, snow-covered garden. His hands were rammed in his pockets, his shoulder hunched defensively.
Immediately Anne regretted her impulsive outburst, but not the emotion that had triggered it. Yes, Jake was Beth’s father, but that gave him no rights over her.
‘You didn’t feel that way about me once,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes, once and only once, and look where it got me!’
He turned and met her eyes challengingly. ‘You could have had an abortion.’
‘No!’ She felt the heat drain out of her at his words. ‘Oh, no. Jake, I loved you. You were the best friend I’d ever had. How could I have killed your child?’
As she watched, the challenging anger faded from his eyes and they glazed with tears. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Annie? I’ve missed so much …’
He bowed his head, and she watched in horror as a heavy tear slid down his cheek and splashed on to his sweatshirt, all the more shocking for being so unexpected.
She didn’t even stop to think. Her arms were round him, his head against hers, offering him wordless comfort while he struggled against the roiling tumult of his emotions.
After a while he lifted his head and tilted her chin, staring down searchingly into her eyes. His lashes, impossibly long, were spiked with tears, but his eyes were clear now, his emotions firmly back in control although his voice was gruff.
Thank you—for having her, for taking care of her, for not taking the easy way out.’
She shook her head. This was the easy way out—but not only that, for me it was the only way. Don’t thank me. I didn’t do it for you.’
‘I’m thanking you for my daughter,’ he reminded her softly, and then with a sigh he pulled her close again. ‘You said you nearly died …’
She nodded. ‘It was awful. Really she’s lucky to be alive. She was an awkward presentation, and I just didn’t have the pelvic capacity to cope with it.’
Jake led her to the sofa and sat, his arm still round her, while she told him about the fight to bring his daughter into the world.
‘Why didn’t they do a section?’ he asked in bewilderment. ‘Surely they could see you’re too tiny to deliver anything but a straightforward presentation?’
She shrugged. ‘It was a young doctor, and he kept saying she’d turn any minute. I knew he was wrong, I’d done my obstetrics, but you’re very vulnerable lying there, and you don’t feel like arguing. In the end I was too weak to argue, and then he called the consultant and they got her out in the nick of time. It’s a miracle she isn’t brain-damaged.’
‘Don’t,’ he groaned, and hugged her hard against his side. ‘Oh, Annie, love, I’m sorry. I should have been there.’
She laughed, a little shakily. ‘I’m glad you weren’t—you would have killed him!’
Jake chuckled. ‘Probably.’ He tipped her chin up with his fingers, and looked searchingly into her eyes. ‘Poor darling,’ he murmured, and then his mouth found hers, his lips soft and undemanding, his kiss a gift of devastating tenderness that brought a sigh to her lips.
Her body felt like liquid, melting against him as he deepened the kiss. She had missed him—oh, how she had missed him, but it had never been like this. Apart from that one wild, unforgettable night there had been only hugs and kisses of friendship, but this—there was something so right about it that it didn’t occur to Anne to stop him.
Gradually the pressure increased as the kiss became more demanding, and Jake eased her down until she was stretched out on the sofa, his body pressing against hers so she could feel the hard imprint of his desire.
With a moan of frustration she arched against him, and he lifted his head and stared down at her, his eyes almost black with passion.
‘What about Beth?’ he asked, his voice roughened with need.
‘What about her?’ Annie asked absently, her eyes locked with his, drowning in the deep, peaty pools that mirrored her own desire.
He laughed softly. ‘I’d hate her to come down and catch us—is there a lock on your bedroom door?’
‘Bedroom?’ she echoed stupidly, then suddenly reality came crashing back and she pushed ineffectually at Jake’s solid chest.
‘Dear God, what are we doing? Jake, let me up.’
He stared at her in disbelief for a second, and then with an untidy sigh he eased away from her and let her go.
She sprang off the sofa, her arms hugged around her waist, her whole body trembling. Dear heaven, what on earth was she thinking about to let things get so out of hand? And it wasn’t as if she could avoid him—he’d made it perfectly clear he was going to be part of her life as long as Beth was at home. That meant ten or fifteen years of his constant presence, countless hours of discussion over Beth’s upbringing and the direction of her life, and there was no way she could cope with that and an affair with Jake into the bargain.
Because that was all it would be. She knew him well enough to know that he was never satisfied for long with a woman, and that as soon as one had succumbed to his undoubted charm another would take her place.
No, life would be untidy enough without her own emotions torn to shreds by his devil-may-care attitude to sexual relationships.
‘Come and sit down, Annie. I won’t bite you.’
She laughed shakily. “It’s not your teeth I’m afraid of, Jake.’
‘What is it, then? I won’t hurt you, darling. Come here—I only want to talk.’
She hugged herself tighter and stared out of the window. ‘You weren’t talking just now.’
She could see him reflected in the glass, stretched out full length on the sofa, one arm bent, propping his head. He looked lazy and relaxed, like a big cat, and like a cat he was watching her steadily.
He came to his feet in one easy, graceful movement and came to stand behind her, his eyes never leaving the reflection of hers.
‘What’s the matter, Annie?’
She closed her eyes as he laid his hands on her shoulders and eased her back against him. ‘Jake, we mustn’t …’
‘Why?’ His voice was softly persuasive, his breath warm against her cheek. ‘What harm can it do? I meant what I said, Annie. I want to marry you, and adopt my daughter, and look after you both.’
‘No!’ She pulled away from the warm haven of his arms and crossed the room, turning to face him like a cornered animal at bay. ‘Jake, I meant what I said, too. I won’t marry you——’
‘You said you love me.’
‘Loved—a long time ago, when I was just a foolish girl, but that girl’s long gone, Jake. I’m a woman now, and I know what I want and need, and it isn’t you.’
His brows quirked. ‘Are you sure? That’s not the message I was getting a few minutes ago.’
‘Well, it’s the message you’re getting now, and that’s the message you’re going to continue to get.’
He laughed softly. ‘Is that a challenge?’
‘Challenge?’ she scoffed. ‘Jake, I live a celibate life. I wouldn’t be much of a challenge to a man of your undoubted sexual prowess——’
‘You’re exaggerating again—flattering though it is, I ought to draw your attention to the fact that there have been precious few women in my life in recent years.’
She laughed. ‘I’m sure it’s like riding a bicycle, Jake, and let’s face it, you devoted the majority of your youth to honing your skills in that department.’
‘You’re wrong, Annie, but I can’t be bothered to argue.’
‘Well, there’s a relief!’ She sat down in a chair and curled her feet defensively under her bottom. ‘Look, I don’t want to fight with you. We have to find some way of being together peaceably so that you can get to know Beth——’
‘So you at least agree I should?’
She was shocked. ‘Of course! I’d always intended to tell you about her, but somehow it never seemed the right time.’
He gave a soft grunt of laughter, and dropped back on to the sofa, sprawling out across it with one leg flung up on the cushions, one arm bent, head propped on his fist. His jeans, as always almost indecently tight, were stretched lovingly over his thighs, accentuating the power of his legs and blatantly outlining his masculinity.
She looked away.
‘So where do we go from here, Annie?’ he asked quietly. ‘You seem to want to make the rules. What do you suggest?’
She shrugged, unsure of how to proceed. ‘Play it by ear? You’ll be living next door, so you should be able to have lots of casual chats with her and gradually make friends. Drop in for tea, invite us round for coffee, perhaps the odd walk at the weekend? She wants you to help her build the snowman, too.’
