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The attractive male voice was achingly familiar, and, in spite of all the warnings she’d given herself these past weeks, Isobel’s heart leapt automatically at the sound. She knew it so well; knew every tone, every nuance, every sensual inflection. Which was why she had to get away, she thought, even though the knowledge pained her. There was no way she could avoid him if she continued to live at the apartment. Or in the area, she acknowledged wryly, even if a future without him in it looked abysmally black at this moment.
‘I’m here,’ she said, shedding her jacket onto the counter and emerging from the kitchen as Jared Kendall came strolling along the narrow hall. She forced herself to offer him a cool smile, even though she desperately wanted to run away from the temptation he represented. But she had to convince him that their relationship was over, and only by a show of total uninterest could she hope to arouse a similar response.
But God, it was hard, so hard, to disguise the fact that her feelings hadn’t changed. Just looking at him, knowing what they had once shared, turned every bone in her body to water. She didn’t want to care about him; she shouldn’t care about him; but she did. And it was that as much as anything that made her resent his coming here.
After the row they’d had two nights ago—the row she’d engineered—she’d been sure it would be several days before he’d attempt to see her again. If he ever did, she’d acknowledged honestly. There was just so much a man—any man—would take.
Yet now here he was, walking towards her with that loose-limbed gait that had always reminded her of the predator he represented. Tall, dark; if it wasn’t for the metal-framed spectacles riding on his nose, he’d be every woman’s fantasy, and even they only added to his appeal.
Though, to give him credit, he would have hated to think that that was so. Broad shoulders, lean hips, the muscles moving powerfully beneath his tanned skin, he had a toughness that didn’t just come from working a good part of his life outdoors. Not handsome, she conceded. His features were too strongly sculpted to fit that image, and one of the first things that had drawn Isobel to him was his total lack of vanity.
But now was not the time to be categorising all his good points, she thought impatiently. Somehow, however painful it might be, she had to make him see that what they’d had was over, finished; before he destroyed them both…
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, wrapping her arms about her midriff in an unknowingly defensive gesture, and Jared arched a sardonic brow.
‘Guess,’ he said drily, coming to a halt and regarding her with faint resignation. ‘If you start with the premise that I wanted to see you, you might come close.’
‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘Okay.’ Jared pushed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. ‘How about if I say I’m sorry?’
‘You’re sorry?’ Isobel was caught off guard. ‘What are you sorry for?’
Jared blew out a breath. ‘How the hell do I know?’ he exclaimed, revealing he wasn’t quite as controlled as he’d like to appear. ‘Anything, everything; whatever I’ve done to make you be like this.’
‘Like this?’ Isobel latched onto the words. ‘Like what? What am I like?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Jared turned sideways and rested his shoulders back against the wall. ‘You know what I mean. Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Oh, right.’ He turned his head and gave her a disparaging look. ‘So why are we having this argument? Answer me that.’
Isobel was quivering inside, but she had to go on. ‘I can’t help it if you don’t like the things I say,’ she declared coolly. ‘Just because you can’t accept that I might be getting bored with our relationship—’
‘That’s not true!’ He straightened away from the wall, his voice swollen now with anger. ‘Our relationship may be many things, not all of them good, I’ll grant you, but it’s never been boring!’
‘So you say.’
‘So I know,’ he corrected her harshly. He glared angrily at her, his dark eyes smouldering hotly behind the curved lenses of his glasses. ‘What is this, Belle? What’s happening? Who’s been getting at you, for God’s sake? Is it your sister? Has she said something to upset you?’
‘Why should you think I’d need any encouragement?’ Isobel managed to inject exactly the right amount of contempt into her voice. ‘Just because you can’t accept it, doesn’t mean it isn’t so.’
Jared wrenched off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. Then, taking a deep breath, he composed himself. ‘So—what are you saying? That you don’t think we should see one another again?’
Isobel felt as if her insides were being rent apart. ‘Um—well, yes,’ she said tightly. ‘I think it would be best for—for both of us. Our relationship isn’t going anywhere. And—and I’m not prepared to spend the rest of my life waiting for something that may never happen.’
Jared’s face was dark with anguish when she’d finished. Without his glasses, which were still dangling from his hand, he had a vulnerability that wasn’t evident when the lenses he wore to correct his short-sightedness were in place. It tore her heart just to look at him, and she wondered what malign fate had decreed that she and Jared should meet.
Which was why she had to go…
‘You knew,’ he began, his voice thickening with emotion as he spoke, ‘you knew I was married when we first began seeing one another. I—never made any secret of the fact.’
‘I know—’
‘So why are you so impatient now?’
Why, indeed?
Isobel had to steel herself against the almost overwhelming urge she had to go to him then, to comfort him, to tell him that, far from wanting to split them up, she needed him more now than ever. She loved him; she’d known that from the minute she’d backed into his car.
She remembered that day on the supermarket car park now, how he’d uncoiled himself from behind the wheel of the huge Mercedes and come around to see what damage her small Ford had done. She’d expected many things, but not amusement, and his lazy smile had robbed the moment of any sting. She’d been hooked by that smile and by the easy assurance of his manner. The fact that he was also the sexiest man she’d ever seen was just the icing on the cake.
‘Perhaps I’ve changed my mind,’ she blurted now. Anything to distract herself from her thoughts. ‘It was fun at first—’
‘Fun!’
‘But I’m not getting any younger. I’ve decided I—I want a normal life; a normal relationship. I want to get married. Have you thought of that?’
‘I think of it all the time,’ he retorted bitterly. ‘But I’m not free, am I? I thought you understood.’
‘I do.’
‘It doesn’t sound like it.’
‘Well, it wasn’t meant to sound like that,’ she mumbled unhappily. Her heart ached, and she gripped herself tighter. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, I bet you are.’
He shoved his glasses back onto his nose and thrust savage hands through his hair. His hair needed cutting again, Isobel noticed with unwilling tenderness, and there were streaks of grey among its silky dark strands. Were there more now than when she’d first met him? She hoped not, but there was no denying that their affair had taken its toll on both of them.
‘So…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Who is he? Do I know him? Please don’t tell me you’ve been seeing him behind my back.’
Isobel’s jaw dropped. ‘Who?’
Jared closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Belle…’ he said, and she could hear the edge of violence in his voice. ‘Don’t do this to me. You know perfectly well who I mean. This man—this paragon—the one who can give you everything I can’t.’
‘There is no one else.’
The words were out before Isobel could give any thought to what she was saying. Her denial had been instinctive, and she saw Jared’s eyes open again and focus on her with piercing intensity.
‘Do you mean that?’ He gripped the back of his neck with a bruising hand. ‘Or is this what they mean by letting me down lightly?’
Isobel shook her head. Despite the fact that it would be so much easier to pretend that there was someone else, she couldn’t do that to him. ‘It’s the truth,’ she said huskily, and then, unable to go on looking at him without revealing what she was trying so hard to hide, she turned back into the kitchen behind her.
Had she known he would follow her? She hardly knew any more. After the morning she had had, she was in no fit state to make any reasoned assessment about anything. Besides, if she was honest she would admit that she had never needed his strength and his commitment more than she did right now. Only he hadn’t offered her any commitment, she reminded herself painfully, and she was a fool if she thought he ever would.
She sensed he was behind her even before he touched her. Where he was concerned she had always had a sixth sense, a sensory perception, that she’d used to tell herself proved that their relationship was meant to be. It was as if some energy arced between them, an electrical spark, that was as much spiritual as it was physical, so that when his hands cupped her neck she couldn’t prevent the little moan of despair that escaped her. And when his tongue found the pulse that was racing behind her ear, she could only tip her head to one side to facilitate her own destruction.
‘God, Belle,’ he groaned, his breath cool against her hot skin, and the passion in his voice stroked her flesh with sensual fingers. ‘Don’t do this to me.’
At that moment it was beyond her capacity to do anything more than stand there, feeling the heat of him at her back, and trying like mad not to lean into him. But it was too much. His teeth had fastened on the skin of her neck now, skin that was the colour of thick cream, and which he had always insisted was just as rich and smooth, tugging the soft flesh into his mouth. There’d be a mark there now, she knew it, but she would willingly have stripped all the skin from her bones if it would have pleased him. She loved him. Ah, God, she was crazy about him. He had no idea what it was costing her to leave him.
His hands slid down her arms to her hands, linking their fingers together. Then, with just the slightest pressure, he urged her slim body to mould itself to his, his legs parting so that she was instantly aware of his arousal against her bottom. She was a tall girl herself, and Jared had always said they fitted one another perfectly.
She trembled then, and, sensing her weakening state, Jared uttered a muffled oath as he turned her towards him. Cradling her face between his palms, he stroked the faint shadows that had only recently appeared beneath her eyes with his thumbs, before tilting her head to his.
‘I need you,’ he said unsteadily, and she believed him. Their relationship would never have survived as long as it had without the friendship that had flowered between them. This past year had been the happiest time of her life, and if that damned her soul for all eternity, given the chance she’d do it all again.
He bent to kiss her, their mingled breaths causing the lenses of his glasses to film over, and Isobel lifted her hand to remove them. Her lips parted under the increasing pressure of his mouth, and when his tongue plunged deeply into that moist void, she clutched his glasses as if they were the only stable thing in a wildly unstable world.
Jared’s hands moved down her back to her hips, bringing her more fully against him, the thrust of his erection nudging the junction of her thighs. His fingers shaped the rounded swell of her buttocks, finding the cleft that divided them easily through her thin leggings, and causing Isobel to arch helplessly against his insistent strength.
‘I want you,’ he told her thickly, his words barely audible as his mouth returned to hers with more urgency, and although she knew she was playing with fire, she wound her arms around his neck.
‘Not here,’ she got out jerkily, as her only concession to her departing sanity, but Jared seemed intent on proving to her that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her.
‘Why not?’ he demanded, his fingers slipping beneath the hem of her man-size tee shirt to find the softness of her bare flesh. He stroked her midriff with caressing hands, before seeking the unfettered freedom of her small breasts. ‘It’s what I want; it’s what we both want.’
‘No—’
‘Yes.’ He teased the sensitive nipples that swelled against his palms, and then peeled her tee shirt upward, exposing the rosy areolae to his possessive gaze. ‘God, Belle, you can’t stop me now!’
One hand curved along her thigh, bringing her leg up around his hips and lifting her off her feet. Realising what he intended to do, Isobel wrapped her other leg about his waist. It brought the sensitive place between her legs even closer to the taut seam of his trousers, and she was hardly aware that he’d carried her into the kitchen until he set her on the lip of the counter. Then, while she put his glasses aside and rested back on her hands, he peeled the close-fitting leggings down to her ankles.
When he spread her thighs and moved between them, she was more than ready for him, and her breathing quickened when the thickness of his erection probed her moist core.
But, just as she was giving herself over to the treacherous delight of feeling him a part of her again, he swore softly and drew back. ‘Damn, I don’t have anything with me,’ he muttered. He groaned. ‘I don’t normally go to work with a pocket full of—well, you know what I mean.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Isobel’s words were frantic, revealing how hopelessly eager she was, and Jared stared at her with dark, tormented eyes. ‘Do you mean that?’ he asked unsteadily. ‘Is it the right time of the month or something?’
‘Or something,’ she agreed weakly, remembering another occasion when she had assured him that it was safe to take the risk. Of course it hadn’t been so, which was why…
But she didn’t want to think about that now, and, reaching down, she guided him towards her aching flesh. ‘Just do it,’ she said, and as she’d expected—as she’d known— Jared was not immune to such flagrant provocation, and he sighed with pleasure as he surged into her wet sheath.
‘God, Belle,’ he moaned, as her muscles tightened around him, and because she was no longer in control of herself, or her emotions, Isobel cupped his face in her hands and brought his open mouth to hers.
She thought she might have been content then just to know he was there, buried deep inside her, but as soon as he began to move she knew that being there wasn’t enough. She wanted more, she wanted him, she wanted all of him, and his breathing grew hoarse and laboured as the irresistible demands of the flesh drove him to take them both to a glorious climax.
They came together, and Isobel felt the exquisite heat of Jared spilling his seed inside her. There was nothing to touch it. She sighed. The blissful union of male meeting female, skin to skin, flesh to flesh. The ripples of their lovemaking left them both shuddering in the aftermath, and Isobel would have liked nothing better than to spend the rest of the afternoon here or at her apartment, with Jared, repeating their closeness again and again.
But a chilling sense of reality returned when Jared bestowed one last lingering kiss at the corner of her mouth, and then drew away from her. While he fastened his trousers, she shuffled awkwardly off the edge of the counter, and bent to haul her leggings, and the bikini briefs he’d pulled down with them, up her legs.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked huskily, watching her, and she was warmed by the look in his eyes which told her he had been as reluctant to break their embrace as she was.
But that didn’t alter the situation, and, making the excuse of needing to use the bathroom, she slipped into the cloakroom next door.
A glance at her reflection didn’t help either. No one looking at her flushed face and swollen lips could be in any doubt as to what had been going on, and she wished she’d brought her make-up with her. Her hair, lustrous chestnut hair, which she usually wore short these days in an effort to quell its urge to curl, was a tousled mass about her creamy features. She looked—wanton, she thought unhappily. Which was not the image she’d wanted to convey.
She stayed in the cloakroom as long as she dared, and when she emerged she found Jared waiting for her in the kitchen. His hips were propped against the counter, where he had just made such passionate love with her, his arms folded across his broad chest, his glasses back in place.
The suitcase containing the letters she had been examining earlier—and which she had almost forgotten in the heat of their mating—was lying on the counter at his back, and he tipped his head towards it in obvious enquiry.
‘Whose is this?’
Recognising the tension in his casual query, Isobel wondered if he thought it was hers. A hysterical sob rose in her throat at the unknowing irony of that suspicion, but she managed to fight it back, and, sliding her long fingers into the sides of her hair, she lifted her shoulders in a dismissing gesture.
‘It was my mother’s.’
Jared’s dark brows drew together. ‘Your mother’s?’ he echoed. ‘I thought you’d got rid of all your mother’s stuff.’
‘I thought so, too.’ Isobel took a deep breath. ‘That was before I looked in the loft.’
‘The loft? Here?’ Jared glanced towards the ceiling. His eyes darkened. ‘You haven’t been crawling around in the loft on your own?’
Isobel gave him a retiring look. ‘Someone has to do it,’ she said drily.
‘Not on your own,’ retorted Jared, evidently disliking the proposition. He flicked back his cuff and looked at the plain gold watch on his wrist. ‘Dammit, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting with Howard and Ross Cameron at half-past one.’
‘And it wouldn’t do to keep your father-in-law waiting, would it?’
Isobel couldn’t resist the mocking comment, and she saw the look of real pain that crossed his face. ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ he conceded flatly. ‘Particularly as he can probably smell you on me,’ he said, straightening away from the bench, and Isobel felt instantly ashamed.
‘Um—you could take a quick shower,’ she offered, gesturing towards the stairs. ‘I think there’s an old towel still up there—’
‘Did I say I cared?’ Jared demanded, coming to slide caressing hands over her shoulders. He angled his head to rest his forehead against hers. ‘Dammit, Belle, I don’t want to go.’
She didn’t want him to go either, but even thinking such a thought was breaking every promise she’d made to herself, and she knew she had to stop wishing for miracles. They didn’t happen, and somehow she had to get over it—get over him—and move on.
Move on…
God, how cold that sounded. Isobel felt the prick of unshed tears burning behind her eyes and she knew she had to make him go before he started suspecting that something was seriously wrong.
‘I’ll see you tonight, right?’ he murmured, kissing her again, but Isobel shook her head.
‘Not tonight,’ she said, through dry lips. ‘I—I’ve got too much to do. I’ve got to finish here, and then I’ve got some marking—’
‘You’re not going into that loft again,’ said Jared harshly. He tipped her face up to his. ‘Promise me you won’t go up there unless someone else—preferably me—is with you.’
Isobel expelled an unsteady breath. ‘I—all right,’ she agreed, deciding that, whatever else was left up there, Marion’s husband would have to move it. She forced a smile. ‘You’d better go.’
‘Okay.’ Jared released her without further protest and started towards the door. ‘I’ll ring you,’ he said, pausing at the end of the hall, and then, with an irrepressible grin, he let himself out of the door.
She cried after he’d gone. She told herself her hormones were responsible, that ever since she’d found out what was wrong with her she’d been in a state of emotional turmoil, but she knew she was just fooling herself. She wasn’t crying because she was pregnant. She was crying because he’d never know.
Then, as she went to the sink to bathe her eyes with cool water, her gaze alighted on the suitcase again. And suddenly she knew what she was going to do. She’d planned on leaving Newcastle, but until now she’d had no clear idea of where she was going to go. The little money she’d saved and her share from the sale of the house would support her until she found a regular job, and she considered herself lucky to have an occupation that was not confined to any one area. Oddly enough, she’d thought of moving south and west, and now she knew her destination. She was going to Cornwall, to a town not too far distant from Polgarron, wherever that was. And she was going to do her best to find out what kind of man her father was—or had been…
