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He held the door open in the manner of someone totally accustomed to having his every instruction obeyed instantly, and the flustered nurse retrieved the chart and hurried across the room, casting a final hungry look at Jago’s profile before slipping outside.
Suddenly the room seemed too small.
Jago closed the door and stood with his back to it, his long, powerful legs spread apart, his expression unsmiling. Dominant, confident and unapologetically male, not by the slightest flicker of those sinfully dark lashes did he acknowledge that they’d ever been more than casual acquaintances.
‘Hello, princess.’ He spoke in a deep, masculine drawl that made Katy’s pulse race. ‘Running again?’
Katy’s soft lips parted and she struggled to sit up. She was in total shock. The subject of all her dreams and nightmares was suddenly confronting her. Jago, whom she’d thought about every waking minute for the last eleven years.
Jago, whom she’d never expected to see again.
Somehow he was standing in her hospital room, frighteningly imposing and super-handsome, displaying not the slightest discomfort at seeing her. Nothing in his body language suggested that he felt the smallest hint of guilt or remorse for the way he’d walked away from her without a word of explanation, leaving her so badly hurt that for a while she’d thought she’d never recover.
She could see that he was waiting for her to speak but she was totally unable to think coherently.
Over time she’d managed to convince herself that her starry-eyed view of him had been coloured by a hormonally driven teenage imagination. She’d decided that he couldn’t have been as gorgeous as she remembered.
She’d been wrong.
Jago Rodriguez was strikingly good-looking. He wore his glossy dark hair so short that in any other man it would have accentuated the faults in his facial features. But Jago didn’t have any faults. He possessed a bone structure that made artists drool and a physique that would have driven athletes to a state of mindless envy. He was impossibly, staggeringly handsome.
And to set him apart from the average man still further, he wore an exquisitely tailored suit that skimmed his wide shoulders and just shrieked of designer label.
In a strange moment of distraction Katy found herself wondering what happened if a patient was sick on it.
Growing hotter and hotter under his steady scrutiny, she lifted a hand to her aching head.
‘Wh-what are you—?’ She broke off, totally unable to believe his presence by her hospital bed. ‘I-I didn’t know you were a doctor,’ she croaked, and a dark eyebrow swept upwards.
‘Why should you?’
Why indeed?
After all, he’d chosen to walk out of her life without a backward glance or giving a forwarding address. To him the relationship had been over and he’d moved on. Unfortunately it hadn’t been so easy for her.
She dug her nails in her palms. ‘I assumed you were still in banking.’
‘I lost my taste for banking,’ he said smoothly, his dark eyes fixed on her pale face. ‘I changed career.’
So that was why her feeble, childish attempts to track him down had failed. She’d used all her contacts at the various banks but with no success. It had never occurred to her that he might have changed profession.
Katy blinked as she did the calculation in her head. If he was a consultant now then he must have started training immediately after he’d left her father’s company and he must have progressed fast. But, then, that didn’t surprise her. Jago had always been frighteningly clever.
‘Why medicine?’
And why this hospital, where she was going to see him every day?
She fought the rush of panic that threatened to swamp her and focused on his tie. Silk. Designer. Sufficiently muted not to induce a headache in a patient with a head injury.
‘I like the adrenaline rush. When you’re dealing with lives, the stakes are higher than in the money markets.’
He gave a careless shrug and she found her gaze drifting upwards to his powerful shoulders. If anything, he was even more spectacular than he’d been eleven years before. Jago Rodriguez was sex in the raw, so overwhelmingly masculine that just looking at him was enough to punch the breath from her body.
Appalled by her own thoughts and the traitorous stab of awareness that she felt low in her stomach, she looked away from him.
What was the matter with her? He’d been in the room for less than five minutes and already her insides were turning somersaults. Did she have absolutely no sense of self-preservation?
It depressed her that she could still react to him, knowing just how badly he’d hurt her. Weren’t doctors supposed to be warm and caring?
For a short, blissful interlude she’d thought that Jago possessed those qualities, but experience had shown that he was capable of being every bit as ruthless, ambitious and macho as her father.
Jago didn’t have a compassionate bone in his body and she certainly couldn’t imagine him as a doctor.
As far as she was concerned, he wasn’t doctor material. She started to shiver.
Why now? Why did she have to bump into Jago now, when she’d finally managed to rebuild an emotionally comfortable life for herself?
She was marrying Freddie and she was never again going to feel that breathless, stomach-churning excitement that she’d experienced with Jago.
Those slumberous eyes, as dark as obsidian, reflected not a hint of warmth or tenderness. Nothing that reflected the intense emotions which had characterised their relationship. The tension in the room sucked the breath from her body but he surveyed her with an almost indifferent coolness that made it blatantly clear he had no positive feelings for her whatsoever.
It was almost as if the very sight of her offended him, which was utterly ridiculous. After all, he’d been the one who’d walked away from her without the smallest explanation.
And maybe that shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. She’d been well aware of his reputation when she’d become involved with him. In fact, his reputation had been part of the fascination, at least to begin with, and he’d always warned her that he didn’t do commitment.
So why had she been so devastated when he’d ended it? And did she really expect him to be harbouring romantic memories about her? Just remembering all her innocent fantasies about him filled her with mortification.
She’d been so naïve.
She suddenly felt horribly vulnerable in her NHS nightie that was open all the way down the back.
If she had to face Jago she would have chosen to be wearing armour.
‘I heard your voice when the paramedics brought me in.’ Her voice was a croak. ‘Was it you who—?’
‘Who sorted you out? Yes, it was. I seem to make a habit of it, don’t I? And it’s always on the same date.’ He strolled forward and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Tell me, Katy. What were you running from this time?’
‘Nothing.’
Her memories.
‘You could have been killed. It took them an hour to cut you out of the car.’ His tone was matter-of-fact. ‘Do you think I’ve forgotten the significance of today, Katy? It’s the tenth of July. Your birthday. So the question is, what are those unspeakable parents of yours trying to force you to do this time?’
Their eyes clashed and she knew that he was remembering her eighteenth birthday eleven years previously. Another occasion when she’d been running and he’d rescued her …
‘I’m going to be a doctor.’
Katy faced her father, her heart beating so fast that she felt faint. There wasn’t going to be a row. There couldn’t be. They were surrounded by influential people. She’d chosen to confront him in the middle of their birthday party, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to do much.
Her father looked at her impatiently. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Katherine. You’re going to do this cordon bleu cookery course in Switzerland. I’ve paid the fees.’
Katy took several gulps of air and realised that her father was so dismissive of her that he didn’t even listen to her any more.
‘But I don’t want to cook, and I don’t want to model,’ she said hesitantly, refusing to let the subject drop, digging her fingers into her damp palms as she faced her father. ‘I’m going to be a doctor.’
She’d applied for a place and had been accepted subject to her exam results. Telling her father was the last step to achieving her dream.
Her father’s expression became ugly, his stance suddenly menacing. ‘You’re not. It’s bad enough that Alex has chosen to be a doctor when he’s got the brains to join me and make a fortune in the City, without you doing the same thing.’
Katy refrained from telling him that it had been glancing through Alex’s prospectuses from medical school that had helped her finally make up her mind. She’d already wasted enough time modelling.
Now she was going to study medicine.
‘You have the looks to be a highly successful model,’ her mother added nervously, lifting a hand to wave at one of the guests and pinning a false smile on her face. ‘Thanks to your father, you’re wealthy enough not to have to work. Have some fun until you meet someone suitable and then get married.’
‘But I want to work,’ Katy blurted out, forgetting that they were surrounded by people. ‘I want to earn a living. I want a career.’
‘Lower your voice, Katherine!’ Her mother’s tone was a soft mutter and she glanced round self-consciously. ‘Your father has important guests here. We don’t want everyone gossiping.’
Katy gritted her teeth. She didn’t care about gossip. She just wanted him to listen to her for once. For once she wanted him to respect her opinion on something.
‘Please Dad, I—’
‘The subject is closed, Katherine.’ Her father’s face was cold and unsmiling. ‘On the first of October you’re going off to your cookery course and that’s the end of it. Don’t mention it again or you’ll make me angry.’
And Katy knew exactly what that meant.
Her heart started to beat faster and she dug her nails deeper into her palms. It was the threat of her father’s fury that had prevented her from saying something before now. She’d sneaked off to interviews, accepted Alex’s help in finding accommodation and the only thing left to do now was to tell her parents.
And she was going to tell them.
‘Dad—’
‘I don’t want the subject mentioned again.’ With that her father strode off across the lawn to talk to the guests, leaving Katy with a desire to scream with frustration.
How was she ever going to get her father to accept her plans?
Suddenly it was all too much.
Tears springing into her eyes, she spun round and ran across the lawn, ignoring the astonished looks she received from the guests, ignoring her mother’s frosty glare.
She didn’t slow her pace until she reached the stables. There was only one thing that would ease her tension and that was a ride. She needed to get away from her own party.
Brushing the tears from her cheeks, she grabbed a bridle from the tack room, relieved that the grooms were obviously busy elsewhere. Then she hurried back across the yard and slid into one of the stables.
‘Hi, sweetheart.’ She stroked her favourite mare on the neck and slipped the reins over the horse’s head and the bit into her mouth, fastening the bridle quickly. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
She led the mare out into the yard, slipped off her high heels and vaulted easily onto the horse’s back, clattering out of the yard before anyone spotted her.
The moment she reached the fields she kicked the horse into a gallop and sped along the track at a breakneck pace.
Part of her knew it wasn’t safe. She was wearing a loose summer dress and no riding hat and she was crying so hard she couldn’t see where she was going, but she just had to get away.
She headed for the barn at the far end of her father’s estate. The place she always escaped to when she didn’t want anyone to find her.
As she approached the barn the horse suddenly veered to the left to avoid a ditch. Katy lost her balance and slid off the animal’s back, landing awkwardly in the long grass.
She lay still for a moment, staring at the sky, wondering which part of her she’d hurt most.
‘Well, that was dramatic.’ The low masculine drawl came from beside her and she struggled to sit up, her eyes widening as she recognised the man staring down at her.
Jago Rodriguez.
He worked for her father in the bank and everyone knew who he was. Especially the women. He’d clawed his way up from what could only be described as an underprivileged background. But if nature had deprived him of material wealth, it had more than compensated by giving Jago sensational good looks, a ruthless ambition to succeed and a brain as sharp as the business end of a razor. It was those qualities that had brought him to the attention of her father and had made him a millionaire several times over by the time he was in his early twenties.
He was a frequent visitor to the manor and Libby often sat on the stairs, hoping for a glimpse of him. Katy wasn’t so bold. She hid in the shadows and watched in mute admiration as Jago coolly ignored her father’s moodiness and childish displays of temper. He was one of the few people who remained completely undisturbed by Charles Westerling’s thoroughly abrasive business manner and bully-boy tactics.
‘The boy’s brilliant,’ her father would grunt as they ate dinner in the formal dining room after Jago had left. Of course, he was never invited to join them. ‘Has an instinctive feel for what will work and goes with it. He’s making a fortune for himself and the bank at the moment.’
Their mother looked pained. ‘I just wish you didn’t have to invite him to events here. He has absolutely no respect for English social convention.’
‘Hallelujah,’ Libby muttered, and Katy stared at her plate, wishing that she had just one small portion of Jago Rodriguez’s courage.
What must it be like to have such self-confidence that you didn’t care what people thought?
‘I think he’s gorgeous,’ Libby piped up, and then subsided as she met her father’s glare.
‘I know he’s got a dreadful reputation with women, but I bet he’s a brilliant kisser,’ Libby said later as they got ready for bed, both of them lost in their own fantasies about Jago. ‘I wonder if he’d kiss me just once so that I could find out what it feels like to do it properly.’
Lying in a tumbled heap and staring into his wicked, masculine face, Katy remembered her sister’s comment and felt her heart miss a beat.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Escaping,’ he said dryly, glancing in the direction of the manor house where the party was still in full swing. ‘Just as you are, presumably.’
He was expecting an answer but suddenly she found herself horribly tongue-tied and totally unable to speak.
He hunkered down next to her, lifting a dark eyebrow as she shrank away from him. ‘Ah—the shy sister who always avoids me. You know, you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’ He sounded mildly amused. ‘I don’t seduce children.’
She blushed hotly, mortified that he’d read her mind and self-conscious about her appearance. ‘I’m not a child.’ She brushed her tangled blonde hair away from her face and looked at him shyly. ‘It’s my eighteenth birthday today.’
She was supposed to be a woman.
‘I know that. I was invited to the party. If party is the right word.’ His voice was soft and his gaze assessing as it slid over her body with a thoroughness that left her gasping for air. ‘So why are you galloping across the fields wearing a party dress and not much else? Why aren’t you mingling with your guests?’
‘They’re mostly my parents’ friends and colleagues. Contacts.’ She stared into those lazy dark eyes and fought the temptation to blurt out all her problems. What was the point? A man like Jago wouldn’t begin to understand what it was like to have someone dictating your life. He never let anyone dictate to him. ‘I needed to get away.’
‘Hardly surprising. If someone gave me an eighteenth birthday party like that I’d want to get away, too.’ His gaze moved down her bare legs and rested on her feet. ‘What happened to your shoes, Cinderella?’
