In the Australian's Bed: The Passion Price / The Australian's Convenient Bride / The Australian's Marriage Demand

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‘THURSDAY,’ Angelina muttered to herself as she set about making her bed.

Four days since she’d seen Jake. Four long, boring, lonely days. And two more till she saw him again.

Coming round to the other side of her double bed, she picked up the pillow on that side and held it against her cheek. This was where Jake had laid his head the other night.

Could she still smell the scent of him on it?

Angelina imagined she could.

It had been quite late by the time Jake had driven her home last Sunday. She hadn’t thought he would want to come in with her; hadn’t anticipated it. But he’d insisted on walking her to the door, then claimed he needed to come inside to use the bathroom before driving back.

Her panic had been instant, and intense. For how could she let him come in? The place was full of Alex memorabilia. Photos everywhere. Trophies in his bedroom. Stuff on the fridge.

She’d finally managed to stall Jake at the door, saying that the place was a mess and she’d die of embarrassment if he saw it like that.

‘Just give me one minute,’ she’d begged. ‘Please, Jake.’

He’d seemed amused. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not perfect,’ he’d said.

‘Hardly,’ she’d replied. ‘Who is?’

Her dash around the rooms had been like something out of a farce. She’d scooped all the photos on top of the sideboard into the top drawer. The same with the ones on her bedside chests. She almost missed the reminder for Alex’s swimming carnival on the fridge door, shoving it on top, along with the magnet photo of him as a baby. Alex’s bedroom was a lost cause so she just closed that door, then flung open the bathroom door so that Jake wouldn’t walk into his son’s room by mistake.

He hadn’t. But neither had he left after his trip to the bathroom, as she’d expected him to. He’d kissed her again, and soon she was ripping at his shirt and pulling him into her bedroom—the two-hour drive enclosed in that sexy car with Jake had done dreadful things to her resolve to be good—and the last thing Angelina remembered was falling asleep in his arms.

When she’d woken in the morning he was gone.

Mid-morning that Monday, a huge arrangement of red roses had arrived, with a card attached saying, ‘Next weekend can’t come quickly enough. Jake.’

The flowers were still alive and utterly gorgeous, sitting on the sideboard in place of the still absent photos. She didn’t dare put any of them back up yet. In fact, since last Sunday, she’d locked Alex’s bedroom door, and hidden anything else that might give the game away if Jake ever showed up here again. After his phone call last night, Angelina wouldn’t be at all surprised at his driving up tonight. He’d been so excited after winning that case.

And missing her terribly, he’d said.

Angelina sighed. He wasn’t the only one.

Jake sat down on his favourite seat in Hyde Park, placed the banana smoothie on the grass at his feet, then proceeded to unwrap his king-sized roll. This was the first time he’d had the opportunity to eat lunch in the park this week. Not because of the weather. Sydney had continued to be dry and warm. Circumstance had been the guilty party.

Monday, he’d been too wrecked to eat lunch. He’d had to call on every reserve of strength he had to deliver his closing address in court that morning, the weekend finally catching up with him. After the jury had retired to consider their verdict, he’d gone home and just collapsed into bed. Tuesday, he’d been far too agitated to eat. The jury had still been out. Wednesday, he’d been much too elated. At eleven that morning, the jury had found for the plaintiff to the tune of fourteen million dollars.

Now it was Thursday and the bedlam of the last couple of days was hopefully behind him. If another television station showed at his office, wanting another damned interview, he was going to go bush, preferably to the Hunter Valley.

Jake loved being a litigator. Loved having victories over the bad guys. Attention from the media, however, was not one of his loves. He hated having cameras and microphones shoved in his face. Of course, the law firm he worked for didn’t mind one bit. But that kind of publicity was not Jake’s bag, even if it did result in his being offered a partnership.

Strangely, Jake wasn’t sure if he wanted to become a partner in Keats, Marsden and Johnson. Neither did he fancy being pushed into taking on the inevitable rush of perhaps not-so-worthy clients who thought they could make a mint out of suing their bosses over supposedly adverse working conditions. He’d only won this case because his client had a genuine complaint. Copycat cases rarely had the same integrity, or sympathy.

Jake munched into his salmon and salad roll—man, it tasted good—and wondered if now was the right time for him to make a move, start up a practice of his own. He’d be free then to take on only the clients he really wanted to represent. He wouldn’t be influenced by money, which a big law firm invariably was. Of course, this would mean forgoing his six-figure salary plus bonuses, not to mention his generous expense account. It would also mean a lot of work. Starting up your own business involved a lot of red tape.

On the plus side, he would be his own boss. And the temporary loss of salary wouldn’t be any great hardship. He still had a small fortune in cash left over from Edward’s legacy.

Maybe he’d run the idea by Angelina tonight. She was a businesswoman. She would know what was involved. See what she thought.

Aah, Angelina…

Already, he was looking forward to talking to her tonight. Their nightly chat was the highlight of his day, something to look forward to after work. He would ring her a lot more than that, but Angelina had forbidden him to call during the day, claiming she’d never get anything done if he did that.

Possibly true. Once they were on the phone together, they sometimes talked for hours.

Of course, he had broken the rules and called her as soon as the verdict came in on the Wednesday. But that was a special occasion and he hadn’t kept her on the line for long.

The salad and salmon roll duly disposed of, Jake picked up his banana smoothie and started to sip.

How soon, he wondered, could he tell her he loved her and wanted to marry her?

Not too soon, Jake suspected.

A couple of times last weekend, she’d fallen silent on him. Suspiciously silent. You could almost hear the wheels turning away in her brain. Yet she’d been unforthcoming when he’d asked her what was wrong.

In a way, she was secretive. She rarely opened up to him about herself in any depth. And she never talked about her feelings for him.

In the past, he hadn’t been able to stop women telling him their feelings, especially how much they loved him. Angelina never went near the subject of love. She said flattering things about his lovemaking but that wasn’t the same.

Already addicted to having sex with him, she’d said last Sunday.

Jake frowned. He didn’t like the idea that she might be only coming back to see him this weekend for more of the same. There was no doubting she liked sex. After his initially thinking she was pretty inexperienced in bed, she’d turned into a veritable tiger.

Once his mind took that tack, the worry started up that she hadn’t been totally truthful over what she was up to this coming Saturday. To put aside a whole day to tell any man she was breaking up with him seemed excessively kind.

Maybe she’s not going to break up with him at all, a dark voice whispered in his head. Maybe she’s going to spend the whole day at Alex’s place, in Alex’s bed. And then come on to his bed for the rest of the weekend.

The idea revolted him. But it was possible, wasn’t it? She had a very high sex drive. But was she capable of that level of deception?

He wouldn’t have thought so. Still, his buying that huge diamond engagement ring yesterday afternoon now struck him as being ridiculously premature. Amazing the things a man in love would do! Fools did rush in, as the saying went.

The buzzing on Jake’s cellphone had him sitting up abruptly, his banana smoothie slurping back and forth in its cardboard carton. Setting the drink down, he fished his phone out of his trouser pocket, clicked it on and swept it up to his ear.

‘Yes?’

‘Sally here, Jake. Sorry to bother you, but if you’ve finished your lunch perhaps you should get back here. You have a visitor.’

‘A visitor. What kind of visitor?’

‘A young man. Name of Alex.’

Alex! Jake didn’t have any colleagues or acquaintances named Alex, so presumably this had to be the Alex.

Jake frowned over Sally calling him young. Of course, Sally thought anyone under forty was young, but it sounded as though Angelina’s Alex was what was commonly called a ‘younger’ man.

Jake tried to ignore the instant stab of jealousy and focus on what the fool was doing, showing up at his office.

All he could think of was that Angelina had changed her mind and broken up with Alex over the phone, plus told him the identity of the guy she’d thrown him over for.

Jake groaned. As much as he was happy to find that his paranoid thoughts about Angelina two-timing him were just that…paranoid, the last thing he wanted was a confrontation with a furious ex boyfriend.

‘I gather you know who I’m talking about,’ Sally said.

‘Possibly. Does my visitor have a second name?’

‘Mastroianni,’ Sally supplied.

‘Mastroianni!’ he repeated, totally taken aback.

And then the penny dropped. Alex was some kind of relative. Angelina had said he was half-Italian. Maybe that was what she’d meant about her relationship with him being complicated. If he was a cousin or something, she would have to explain things more fully. She couldn’t just dump the guy without giving him a reason.

‘I think you should get back here, Jake. This is something you have to attend to personally, by the look of things.’

‘OK,’ Jake said with a sigh. ‘Tell him I’ll be there shortly.’

The offices of Keats, Marsden and Johnson were spacious and classy, occupying half of the tenth floor of the building Jake had pointed out to Angelina the previous Sunday. Their main reception area was set directly opposite the lift well, behind a solid glass wall and two equally solid glass doors. Sally reigned over the reception desk and the waiting room, and had done so for many years. Although not unattractive for her age—she had turned fifty last month—Sally was the exception to the rule that highly visible Sydney receptionists should be curvy blondes with seductive smiles.