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Clenching her hands at the sides of the soft warm leggings she’d chosen to travel in, Bella’s eyes went wide. She didn’t understand what was happening here, asked herself if the whole world had gone crazy, or if it was only her—or him. Then she met his accusing black stare as he switched his attention back to her.
The black glitter of his eyes was dangerous. Bella tried and signally failed to suppress a shudder. ‘Where is she?’ he demanded. ‘If you and my sister have set this up—’ He left the threat hanging on the air—heavy, implicit.
‘I haven’t seen your sister. Why should I?’ She could answer him now, now the shock was receding, her heartbeat gradually approaching normal. ‘I can’t imagine why you should think Kitty might be here.’
Her water-clear grey eyes glinted coolly, but the small satisfaction of showing an aloofness she was far from feeling, evaporated like a raindrop in the heat of the sun when he remarked icily, ‘Don’t play games with me. I endured them when we lived together. When you walked out on our marriage I no longer had to. I don’t intend to lose that freedom now.’
He strode in out of the dark, snowy evening, closing the door behind him while she flinched with pain.
She had never played games with him. Never. Not in the way he obviously meant. She had never told him lies. And it was he who had first walked out, not she. And although, as he’d stated, his freedom from their relationship was a relief, he was turning the tables, heaping all the blame for what had happened on her head. Did he actually enjoy hurting her? Couldn’t he see that part of the blame was his? That he had driven her to do what she had done?
For a brief, poignantly remembered time he had given her joy. Now he only gave her pain.
Her mouth trembled and her eyes brimmed with tears, turning them to shimmering, transparent silver. Barely giving her white features a glance, Jake strode into the living room, and after a moment she reluctantly followed, only to hear his steps pounding up the narrow wooden stairs that led from the kitchen to the floor above.
She’d told him Kitty wasn’t here and he didn’t believe her. She crossed to the brightly burning fire and wrapped her arms around her body, shivering; the combination of the chill of the hallway and the spiralling nervous tension made her whole body shake.
She could hear him opening and closing doors. For some obscure reason he thought she and his sister had set this meeting up. But why on earth should they do that? It didn’t make sense. Did he think she was angling for a reconciliation—tired of earning her own living, missing his wealth, the hedonistic, self-centred lifestyle that had been hers for the taking?
Whatever, his attitude left little room for believing that he would want any part of such an obviously untenable scenario!
She pressed her fingertips to her suddenly throbbing temples. Where the heck was Evie? What on earth could be keeping her? She should have been back ages ago. With her sister around for moral support she could tell Jake where to go, where to put his nasty suspicions. Evie would back her up. They hadn’t seen Kitty and didn’t expect to.
Hearing him descending the stairs, she resisted the impulse to blindly run and hide and stood straighter, pulling air deep into her lungs, the midnight-jet of her long silky hair heightening her pallor.
But he didn’t seem to see her as he walked straight through and out into the night, and she thought, Thank God, he’s leaving! and collapsed onto a chair and clasped her hands around her knees to stop them shaking. She let the fettered tears fall freely now because he was no longer here to see her weakness.
But he was. Within minutes he was back inside, snowflakes glittering on his thick dark hair. “There’s no sign of her car. Any car. She hasn’t arrived yet.’ His black brows bunched with concern. ‘And how did you get here?’
‘On my broomstick!’ His reappearance, his witnessing the hateful feebleness of her tears—the shock of seeing him here at all—made her tongue acid. But the level look he turned on her had her muttering defensively, ‘I came with Evie. She had to go back to the farm for provisions. We’re spending Christmas here.’
A Christmas break that was meant to take her mind off the traumatic events of a year ago—not bring her face to face with the man who had set those events in train, the husband who now obviously loathed and despised her, considered himself well rid of her!
Where are you, Evie? she agonised. She felt distraught, her sister’s inexplicable lateness adding to her distress. Her mind was painting pictures of the little car stuck on an icy incline, or toppled over one of the precipitous drops that seemed to cluster around each and every one of the hairpin bends that made the mountain tracks so picturesque.
She gritted her teeth. Picturesque she could do without. She wished Evie had never had the bright idea of arranging this holiday—and then her insides churned around. What if Evie had invited Kitty along, too? It was possible, given Jake’s conviction she’d be here.
She, Bella, had always got along well with Jake’s sister, but Kitty and Evie had struck up a firm friendship shortly after the wedding, where they’d met for the first time.
Jake was convinced his sister was due here—had she told him that much? Had he needed to get in touch with her for some vital reason or other and couldn’t, not without coming in person, because there wasn’t a phone?
Had he reluctantly driven up, swallowing his dislike of seeing his estranged wife again, because he had to talk to Kitty for some important reason?
If so, he would be desperately worried over her non-appearance, just as she was worrying over Evie. She took a deep breath and said, ‘Was Kitty supposed to be joining us?’
She would have thought it highly unlikely, given that her own sister had booked this break in order to take Bella’s mind off her broken marriage at this special and, for her at least, traumatic time of year. But, given his unshakable conviction, his very obvious concern...
Jake Fox dragged air deep into his lungs and exhaled it slowly, shudderingly, through gritted teeth.
She’d lost the small amount of weight she’d gained during their marriage, he noted bitterly—it had to be because of her return to her modelling career, he thought. But she was still the beautiful, sensuous woman who had drifted in and out of his dreams so maddeningly over the past twelve months. He could order his long waking hours with almost military precision, but he had found it impossible to regulate his dreams.
However, he was working on it.
He took a step towards where she was sitting, defensively hunched in an armchair that dwarfed her delicate frame, his body moving without direction from his brain.
Something about the hunted look in those crystal eyes, the tremulous droop of the lush mouth that had been responsible for the birth of many a male fantasy, touched him despite himself.
That protective streak rearing its head again, he decided cynically.
‘We need to get the facts out in the open.’ Purposefully, he took the chair opposite hers. His heart was banging about under his ribcage but he’d sounded cool, in control, thank the Lord. He’d give up significantly more than his eye-teeth rather than let her know how she could still affect him and touch his heart.
He gave her a narrow-eyed stare. Her unbelievably long and heavy dark lashes had fallen, hiding her expression. The truth had always been there in her eyes if you looked long and hard enough to find it As he’d found it—had had it forcibly thrust upon him—when he’d walked in on her and that creep, Guy Maclaine.
Abruptly he shifted his mind from that often-replayed scenario, watching her closely.
‘You’re here to spend a quiet Christmas with Evie, and you claim you had no idea Kitty was expected,’ he stated levelly.
That was obviously what she meant him to believe. But he knew differently. Kitty, damn her, had used the ruse of needing to talk her problems over with him to get him here. She had needed peace and quiet, she’d said. Just the two of them. If her troubles had been as dire as she’d intimated she wouldn’t have wanted his estranged wife and her sister around to add to the jollity!
Kitty wouldn’t be turning up. That had never been her intention.
He watched Bella closely. Her confusion was very convincing. But to rise to the dizzy heights of top photographic model, internationally sought-after and universally fêted, she would have had to become a reasonably proficient actress. She could have set this whole thing up, drawing his own sister, and hers, into her web of deceit. Deceit had turned out to be her middle name.
She said nothing, merely nodded after considering his statement, the silky swathes of her hair falling forward, hiding her face.
‘And I’m here because my sister begged me to be. She’s in trouble, or so she said. She needed to talk and a friend had offered her the use of this place.’
The sardonic explanation of his presence brought her head jerking up, her silver eyes locking with his, clouded with more expertly portrayed confusion, her soft lips pouting with almost child-like perplexity. Over-acting, Jake decided, feeling his heart go hard—a not unusual occurrence these days. Her betrayal and subsequent defection had atrophied that particular organ.
‘The three of you set this up.’ A cold statement, spoken with concise deliberation. He could find no other explanation for the way he’d been tricked into coming here. ‘If you’d wanted a meeting you could have made an appointment with my secretary. There was no need to go to such ridiculous lengths.’
He glanced impatiently at his watch. He had no intention of prolonging this farce. She deserved to be left here to stew, but his conscience wouldn’t let him take that road.
He’d seen no sign of a phone when he’d investigated this place, so she couldn’t contact anyone for transport out of here, and the way the weather was looking she could be marooned in the mountains for weeks. He’d drop her off at the first hotel they happened across on his way to Kitty’s home in Chester. He’d rout his sister out of her cosy love-nest and give her the tongue-lashing of her lifetime for her part in this time-wasting piece of lunacy.
Bella pushed the hair off her face with the back of her hand. He was accusing her of conniving with their respective sisters to get him here. There could be only one reason why she would stoop to doing that—couldn’t there just? To ‘persuade’ him to take her back.
‘In your dreams!’ She answered his accusation rawly. As if she would! His conceit was beyond belief!
She snapped to her feet, anger drenching through her. He had always treated her like a mindless doll, with no needs of her own, no thoughts that weren’t his, without direction unless he pulled her strings. Simply a body to be seen on his arm, making him the envy of every red-blooded male around, and a gratifyingly willing body in his bed whenever he decided to remember to come home.
He wouldn’t be able to believe she could exist and prosper without him. Even though he didn’t want her anywhere near him, his conceit would make him believe she couldn’t carry on without him and would go to any lengths to get him back.
He was on his feet, too, and the sheer breadth and height of him swamped her, was in danger of sapping her will. But she wouldn’t let his masculinity intimidate her. She would not! Drawing breath to tell him to get out of here, now, she held it, ears straining as she caught the distant sound of an engine.
‘Evie!’ she breathed, her eyes glowing with vindication. And not before time! She would back her up, tell this arrogant beast that any conspiracy was all in his twisted mind. Why should she want him to take her back when he was unable to give her the one thing she craved?
‘Bravo!’ Black eyes glinted with sardonic applause, even a hint of humour. ‘Nice touch. But we both know your sister won’t be showing her face within a hundred miles of this place, don’t we?’
The story about Evie having popped down the road to pick up the groceries was thin, and that was putting it mildly. And Bella was still hamming it up, making a show of listening intently, so he, too, listened to the resounding silence, then snapped out an order.
‘Get your things together while I rake out what’s left of this fire. We’re leaving. I’ll drop you at a hotel.’
The faint sound of the engine had long since faded. A farmer making his way home along one of those tortuous mountain tracks, she decided tiredly. Disappointment hit her like a charging elephant. And then came the cruelly sharp anxiety. She stared at him, frowning, shaking her head.
‘No. I’m staying here, waiting for Evie.’ Didn’t he care that something must have happened? Her happy-go-lucky, impulsive little sister had set out over two hours ago now, promising to be back within thirty minutes. Despite all his faults, he had never been a heartless man. So why wasn’t he concerned?
Because he doesn’t believe you, a weary little voice inside her head confirmed. He thinks the three of you set this up. She couldn’t imagine why Kitty had been invited to share this break, or why she hadn’t arrived yet. And she couldn’t bother her head with it, not while she was so on edge, worrying herself silly over Evie’s whereabouts, fighting to contain the pain of seeing him again.
She wrapped her arms around her body tightly. It was the only way to hold herself together. ‘I’m staying. You go. Just get out of here.’
Stress made her voice tight and thin. He wasn’t going to help find Evie, that was obvious. He didn’t believe there was a thing to worry about, and was, as usual, too sure of himself and his opinions to be persuaded otherwise. But when he’d gone then maybe, with the trauma of actually seeing him again behind her, she could think of what to do.
He gave her a long, considering look, his jaw tight. Then shrugged the beginnings of misgivings away. They’d probably made adequate contingency plans. None of them were fools. Despite their plotting they must have allowed for the possibility of his abrupt removal from the set-up.
Without any doubt she’d have a mobile phone tucked away in her luggage, hidden amongst the filmy folds of the seductive nightwear she favoured, and as soon as he left she’d be using it to summon one or other of the girls to fetch her out of here.
Her pride wouldn’t let her go with him, and he could understand that. Leaving with him would be tantamount to confessing that the star role in this farcical conspiracy was hers.
Bella watched him stride to the door, then sprang after him urgently, catching him up as he was tugging the outer door open.
‘Phone the local police.’ She couldn’t use his name. ‘The first call box or house you come across. Let them know she’s missing. Promise!’
His heart missed a beat then thundered heavily on. He turned to her with warning reluctance, and for the first time he allowed himself to scan the face that had so relentlessly haunted his dreams over the past year. The lovely lines were taut with strain, the perfect skin white and transparent, terror lurking deep in those spellbinding eyes.
And for the first time very real misgivings flooded icily through him as he met his own fallibility. She’d been telling the truth—as she saw it. She wouldn’t involve the police, set an area search in motion simply to save her pride. And if she had a mobile she wouldn’t be asking him to do the phoning.
‘Tell them I’ll be here. I’ll wait.’ Her voice was ragged.
‘OK,’ he said roughly. He turned, then looked back at her. ‘I’ll contact them. And I’ll be back.’
He saw her sag with relief, tears starting in her eyes, and resisted the violent urge to take her in his arms, hold her for a moment and comfort her. He walked quickly into the darkness, his throat tight, dragging his mind away from her.
Thank God it had at least stopped snowing. Even so, there was a good inch of the treacherous stuff underfoot. Swinging into the Range Rover, he reached for the key he’d left in the ignition then put both hands on the wheel, thinking hard.
The events of the last few minutes told him that Bella was desperately worried over her sister’s non-appearance, that her story was true. She really believed that something dreadful must have happened. The shock of discovering that had driven Kitty’s involvement out of his head, while anxiety over Evie’s fate had never allowed it to enter Bella’s.
In all probability they were both the innocent victims of a cruel conspiracy. He’d get to the nearest phone and contact Kitty before he involved the police. If his gut feeling was right, there would be no need.
There was a torch on the passenger seat and he used it to have a look at the time. A few minutes after six. Too early for Kitty and Harry to have gone out for the evening. Too late for her to be shopping. He should catch her at home.
He turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened.
Bella knew she had to pull herself together. Somehow. She moved briskly round the lamplit room, tweaking curtains, plumping up cushions that didn’t need the attention, hoping the futile activities would settle her mind. A mind that was seething with all that was going on.
The shock of seeing Jake, here of all places. His cynical accusations. His cold admission that her absence from his life was a relief. Add Evie’s disappearance to that little lot and you got a brain that was on the brink of blowing.
Sucking in her breath, she flew to the dying fire and carefully placed a few small logs on the embers. If Evie came back the poor love would be cold—She caught the thought, altered it savagely. Not if—when.
The police would soon be out looking for her, and that was an enormous consolation. She was scatty enough to have run out of petrol. Nothing more disastrous than that. And Jake had promised to come back and report, to wait with her.
The thought was deeply comforting. Yet she didn’t want it to be! She wanted him out of her mind. It was the only way.
She turned from the replenished fire, satisfied that the fresh logs were beginning to flame, and Jake walked back in, his face black with temper.
As before, they faced each other wordlessly, until Bella found her voice and whispered, ‘Did you find a phone?’
He couldn’t have had time, surely? He’d only walked out a matter of minutes ago. She put a hand to her heart as if to still the suddenly violent pounding. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
He looked as if he wanted to shake her to within an inch of her life. His black eyes were ferocious, his jaw clenched, dark with the perpetual five o’clock shadow she had sometimes teased him about in former, happier, long-gone times, knowing he had to shave twice a day if he wasn’t to look like a hooligan with piratical tendencies.
‘Hardly.’ His voice was dry. Coming further into the room, he removed his coat, tossed it over the back of one chair and sprawled down in the other. The hard line of his mouth told her he was controlling his temper, but only just; her head was beginning to ache, and there was an insistent thrumming noise inside her ears.
Both hands flew up to either side of her head, as if to hold it on her shoulders, as she rasped out thinly, ‘What are you doing?’
Sprawled out in a chair while Evie was missing somewhere on the bleak, cold mountainside! Oh, how could he? Long legs in soft dark cords stretched out endlessly, only the tense, hard line of the hunky shoulders beneath the Aran sweater testifying that his pose wasn’t as relaxed as he was trying to pretend it was.
‘You tell me,’ he came back, talking through his teeth. ‘I’m in your hands. You win, for the moment.’ He gave her a thin, completely humourless smile. ‘Remove the distributor cap, take the rotor arm and no one’s going anywhere. Evie’s final chore before she high-tailed it back to civilisation? Neat. But not neat enough. I’m walking out of here at first light. You can do what you damn well like!’
CHAPTER THREE
‘I’LL go with you,’ Bella said in a tight, emphatic voice. She would begin the long walk right now; her need to get away from here, and him, was enormous. But she knew it would be madness. Better and far less hazardous to make the trek in daylight.
A strange calmness filled her. A kind of numbness. Everything began to slot into place, like the pieces of a hitherto exasperating jigsaw puzzle. She didn’t feel any pride in the achievement. On the contrary, she felt used, betrayed. A fool.
‘We’ve both been set up.’ Was he feeling the same way? she wondered with a stab of sympathy. But she would need to develop a far more inventive mind to imagine him feeling foolish. Or used. He was always very much in control. Of everything.
She glanced up at him, but his features told her nothing. Blank. So what was new? Hadn’t he always closed her out, guarding his emotions, keeping them to himself? Except when they’d been making love, she recalled unwillingly, feeling the colour come and go on her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, her voice thick.
She didn’t know why she was apologising. His sister was just as much to blame as hers. She heaved another log onto the fire, for something to do with her hands. She didn’t know where to put herself; the sudden, swamping embarrassment at having been forced into this situation was intense.
He said nothing. Just stared at her. Bella verbalised her thoughts, putting everything in order, hoping that that would help her cope.
‘They’ve been friends ever since we married. But you know that, of course. They obviously hatched the idea of getting us back together.’ She smiled thinly, an acknowledgement of the vain futility of that forlorn hope. ‘Kitty was to get you here, on some pretext or other, while my devious sister drove me down and dumped me. It would have been Evie who hung around until she knew you’d arrived, then spiked your car.’
She saw one dark brow slowly rise at that, but didn’t grasp the significance—not then. She moved, heading for the kitchen. ‘I’ll make tea. But I warn you, there won’t be any milk.’ She was trying to be adult about this—this dreadful situation. They were in it together whether they liked it or not, until the morning anyway, and there was no point in behaving like a pair of squabbling children, sulking and not speaking to each other.
‘Try the fridge,’ he offered drily. He’d followed her through. She wished he hadn’t. It was easier to act normally if there was space between them.
Bella plugged in the kettle she’d filled earlier. It felt more like a hundred years than a couple of hours ago since she’d heard the car arrive and had confidently expected Evie to come in out of the cold, needing a hot cup of tea.
She shook her head slightly at his suggestion, even managing a small, condescending smile. There would be no fresh provisions; she already knew that. But she crossed to the fridge and opened it, simply to humour him.
No one could have crammed another item in, even with a shoehorn. Her wretched sister’s doing! She’d been nothing if not thorough! She’d been out all day yesterday—Christmas shopping, she’d said. When in reality she must have come up here, stocked the fridge, made sure everything was ready.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said thinly.
Jake standing beside her now, murmured, ‘No?’
