Two-Timing Love

‘Forget it!’ he snarled, rising to his feet. ‘We’ll just tell Clare the truth and let her sort it out for herself!’

‘This is little short of emotional blackmail,’ accused Jenny angrily, though even as she uttered the words she was conscious of her anger being directed more at herself than at the man towering over her and gazing down at her from chillingly impersonal eyes. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake—this is ridiculous,’ she groaned. ‘Jamie, of course I’ll do everything in my power to ensure Clare and Graham can get on with their work with complete peace of mind over Jonathan.’

‘If that’s the case, how is it you’re so reluctant to hear what I have to suggest?’ he demanded.

Jenny gazed up at him, tempted to ask him to sit down again, not because looking up at his well over six feet of height was giving her a crick in her neck—which it was—but for other, less specific, in fact, barely definable reasons. Towering over her was the man who, from the first instant she had become aware of the opposite sex, she had unquestioningly regarded as the embodiment of male physical perfection. Yet at some point during the past few years she had unconsciously become convinced that her previous perception of his looks had had far more to do with her juvenile obsession than with any fact. And now she wasn’t in the least sure. For a reason she was unable to fathom, the sight of him standing there with one strong, darkly tanned arm supporting the baby against a broad shoulder seemed only to accentuate the extraordinary quality of his looks and the powerful, aggressively masculine magnetism he had always exuded.

‘It’s not that I’m reluctant to hear what you have to say,’ she sighed, lowering her eyes as she fought to rid herself of those deeply unsettling thoughts. ‘It’s just that for a number of purely practical reasons this couldn’t have happened at a worse time for me.’

To her relief he sat down again and began bouncing the baby on his lap.

‘Shouldn’t you try putting him in his cot?’ she suggested uncomfortably, the complete unexpectedness of his actions triggering off the thought in her once more that none of this was really happening to her.

‘He likes a bit of company after he’s eaten,’ he replied tersely, lifting the baby under the arms and letting him stand on his lap. ‘Could you be a bit more explicit about these practical difficulties you’re experiencing?’ he added in that same tone. ‘Clare will be ringing soon.’

‘My main problem is that I have nowhere to live,’ replied Jenny. ‘I told you about the flat I missed out on. Actually, I was staying with Lizzie Street until I found somewhere—you remember Lizzie, don’t you?’

He nodded impatiently, motioning her to continue.

‘It was very kind of her to offer to put me up, but I can’t possibly impose Jonathan on her as well.’

‘You wouldn’t have to—the most convenient solution for everyone is for you to stay at my place.’

He laughed as she started visibly.

‘What’s wrong, Jenny? Didn’t you know I had a place in London…or is it the idea of sharing it with me that’s the problem?’

‘My only problem is that I know you far too well, Jamie Castile,’ retorted Jenny, annoyed by the sensation of hot colour liberally washing her cheeks in response to the teasing mockery of his words.

‘I doubt if you know me nearly as well as you believe; though, to be fair, my innate nobility of spirit can hardly have escaped you,’ he murmured in drawling tones of mockery.

‘Your innate nobility of spirit?’ she drawled back, rolling her eyes heavenwards.

‘Jenny, there can’t be many healthily functioning males around into whose beds you’ve crept—nubile and devastatingly tempting—and left as pure as when you entered—’

‘That’s it!’ raged Jenny, leaping angrily to her feet. ‘I’ve had enough of you and your snide remarks—’

The two of them froze as the phone rang, the sound sending Jenny slumping back on to the seat from which she had just leapt.

‘I suggest you answer it,’ remarked Jamie coldly. ‘After all, you’re the one calling all the shots.’

Jenny levelled pleading eyes at him as the phone rang relentlessly on. His response was a dismissive shrug after which he turned his attention exclusively towards the baby trampling happily against his thighs.

Jenny snatched up the phone on the bedside table with no idea what she could possibly say.

‘Hello—Clare?’

‘Jenny! What a relief it is to hear your voice—I had visions of Jamie trying to cope on his own with Jonathan until he got him to England,’ exclaimed her sister-in-law.

‘I’m sure he’d have managed,’ said Jenny. ‘How are things going where you are?’ she added, the sound of Clare’s voice making her suddenly acutely aware of the terrible devastation by which both she and Graham must be surrounded.

‘I suppose we should all be thanking God that relatively so few were killed,’ replied Clare, exhaustion tingeing her words. ‘But one of the things for which Graham and I are specifically trained is to help the survivors cope with the horrific psychological trauma of it all. Jenny, you can’t begin to imagine what it’s like for these poor people. There are areas where entire villages have completely disappeared, some with virtually no loss of life…but it’s almost akin to experiencing death for the inhabitants…they’re huddled together, loath to leave the places where the majority of them have spent their entire lives, yet as they look around themselves they search in vain for a single landmark that can be recognised.’

‘Clare, you sound utterly exhausted!’ exclaimed Jenny anxiously.

‘That’s my own stupid fault,’ claimed Clare. ‘I’m afraid that what little opportunity I’ve had to sleep I’ve squandered worrying about Jonathan.’

‘You probably won’t like hearing this,’ chuckled Jenny, ‘but he doesn’t appear to be missing either of you in the least.’

‘That’s why I realise how stupid I’m being,’ admitted Clare sheepishly. ‘Fortunately he’s at the age where he’ll go to anyone without a qualm…it’s just that Jamie looked about as comfortable with him as a man with a time-bomb glued to his hands when they left.’

‘Is that so?’ laughed Jenny. ‘Because right at this very moment your brother is sprawled across the bed and your son is bouncing with vigorous abandonment on him. Listen carefully and you might just be able to catch the racket accompanying each bounce.’

She held out the receiver just in time to catch a particularly piercing shriek of delight from the baby, to which his uncle responded with a theatrical groan.

‘Your brat’s just pulverised several of my ribs!’ he bellowed accusingly in the direction of the receiver.

‘I take it you heard all that,’ murmured Jenny.

‘All of it—loud and clear,’ replied Clare, relieved laughter distorting her words. ‘It’s not that I even thought for one second he wouldn’t be all right with Jamie—I think I got myself into a bit of a panic when I couldn’t get through to your mother. How did she react to the news? I’m sure she’s thrilled to bits at the idea of having him to herself for a while.’

Jenny’s heart sank. ‘She’s going to be cursing fate when she finds out,’ she began, forcing a humorous brightness into her tone. ‘You see, she and Dad decided to take off for New Zealand slightly earlier than originally planned…so it’s Auntie and Uncle who’ll be having Jonathan all to themselves!’

‘Oh God!’ groaned Clare. ‘This is terrible!’

‘Terrible? Thanks a million!’ exclaimed Jenny, with all the teasing indignation she could muster. ‘Are you implying that Jamie and I aren’t fit to look after him?’

Jamie sat up at those words, silently motioning her to bring the telephone to the bed.

‘Jenny, this isn’t a joking matter,’ protested Clare as Jenny transferred herself and the telephone to the bed. ‘You both have demanding jobs!’

‘And we’re both perfectly capable of organising our work schedules to accommodate our nephew,’ stated Jenny easily, starting slightly as Jamie pressed his face hard against hers in an attempt to hear what his sister was saying.

‘I know that!’ exclaimed Clare uncertainly. ‘But it’s far too much to ask of you both.’

‘Clare, you and Graham are needed desperately right where you are,’ said Jenny quietly. ‘Of course it’s not too much to ask of us. For heaven’s sake, it’s the least we can do!’

‘And as for putting ourselves out,’ butted in Jamie against the mouthpiece, while clasping the now dozing baby to him with one arm and slipping the other round Jenny for balance, ‘on Monday we plan on setting about getting him a nanny who can take care of him during the day. How do you feel about that? I mean, we’ll get someone highly qualified and vet her as no nanny has ever been vetted before.’

‘Idiot,’ laughed Clare. ‘I know you would and I can’t fault the excellence of your idea, but he’d disrupt your lives entirely—’

‘Want to bet?’ cut in Jamie with a chuckle. ‘He’s going to have to fit around us—starting from Monday, when the three of us are going disco dancing. Then on Tuesday—’

Jenny yanked the receiver closer to her own mouth. ‘I’ve a feeling Jamie’s trying to dispel your doubts,’ she teased.

‘Jenny, I haven’t any doubts, but—’

‘No buts, Clare,’ stated Jenny firmly. ‘Not only are you where you’re most needed, but Jamie and I would probably never speak to you again if you turned our offer down.’

‘OK, OK, he’s all yours!’ protested Clare with a groaned laugh. ‘But if there’s any chance of my taking a break and getting over to England, I’ll grab it—just to check up that the pair of you aren’t turning my son into a spoiled brat!’

‘That’s typical of my sister,’ growled Jamie loudly in Jenny’s ear. ‘Doesn’t the wretched woman realise we’ll be the making of this child?’

‘Of course she does,’ chuckled Clare. ‘But listen, folks, I’ll have to go now—there’s a queue forming for use of this telephone. Either Graham or I will ring you at Jamie’s as soon as one of us can…and thanks a million, I really mean that and I hope you both appreciate how much.’

Jenny leaned over and replaced the receiver, the weight of Jamie’s body—not to mention her sudden acute consciousness of it—rendering her movements awkward.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ she demanded sharply as the increasing pressure of his arm on her shoulders threatened to send her toppling.

‘I’m trying to keep my balance,’ he muttered in a strained voice. ‘For heaven’s sake, grab the baby, will you? My arm’s completely asleep!’

Jenny eased the sleeping baby from him and placed him in the cot.

‘Shouldn’t we have changed his nappy?’ she asked uncertainly as she straightened, a groan of laughter swiftly following her words.

‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded, plainly not in the least amused as he rose, still rubbing his arm vigorously.

‘You have to admit that there is something rather incongruous in the idea of anyone consulting you concerning a baby’s welfare,’ replied Jenny, more than a little nonplussed by the hostile look to which she was being subjected.

He shrugged, then made his way to the door, obviously not about to admit anything.

‘He’d have soon let you know had he wanted his nappy changed,’ he informed her brusquely, disappearing into the sitting-room. ‘I’ll get them to send up some coffee,’ he called out. ‘We might as well get all this thrashed out tonight, as I’ll have to leave fairly early in the morning.’

Jenny followed him into the room, closing the bedroom door behind her. As he picked up the telephone extension and began ordering the coffee, Jenny spotted her overnight case, still sitting where the porter had left it. She frowned thoughtfully, wondering whether or not to offer to sleep in with Jonathan in the light of Jamie’s proposed early start.

‘You’d better sleep in with the kid,’ he informed her as he replaced the receiver, his words managing to sound more like an order than a request. ‘I’d like a night’s sleep for a change.’

‘There are a few things I’d like to make absolutely clear,’ she stated coldly, almost beside herself with anger. ‘I’ve agreed to get involved in this solely for Graham’s and Clare’s sakes. The give and take that will be necessary for this to work will in no way consist of my giving and your taking.’

As she spoke he began walking towards her, still flexing his left arm right up until the moment he drew to a halt scant inches from her.

‘It really does still rankle, doesn’t it, Jenny?’ he taunted softly. ‘The fact that you once offered me your all and I refused to take it.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about!’ she spat, lashing out wildly at him and suddenly finding herself trapped in the circle of his arms.

‘Liar,’ he whispered, his head lowering to hers. ‘I didn’t even kiss you, did I, Jenny?’ he murmured, his lips now hovering so close to hers that his every word seemed spoken on a shared breath. ‘In fact, I’ve never kissed you…until now.’

It was a kiss that triggered off a half-remembered ache that swelled to painful sharpness within her beneath the hot incitement of the lips possessing hers. And, as the search of his mouth deepened in instant response to the hungry welcome of hers, her senses began leaping in tense expectancy, her body accepting with an uncharacteristically unquestioning fatalism its blatantly erotic response to every nuance of his. When she lifted her arms to encircle his neck it was almost as if she had felt compelled to move them in order to accommodate the hands that moved in seductive exploration to caress against her breasts. It was the alien sounds of her own soft moans of pleasure, wrung from her by the nerve-tingling search of those hands, that began resurrecting long-suppressed memories within her. It had been that inexplicable ache within her that had led her to this man’s bed four long years ago; then blindly seeking a response from the lean masculine body which now was burning against hers with a blatancy of desire that was transforming the aching softness within her to an explosively demanding need.

But it was the ghostly echo of his taunting laughter that then drifted back to her across the years, reminding her of the implacable brutality with which he had once spurned her and returning her senses to her with a sharp cry of horror.

‘It’s all right—I’ll get it,’ he muttered hoarsely, confusing her completely with those inexplicable words as he released her and strode towards the door.

Her confusion lessened fractionally as she saw a waiter enter and move to the centre of the room to place a tray on a low oblong table.

She hadn’t even heard the waiter’s knock, she realised, watching the man retrace his steps while she remained as though transfixed to the spot. Yet Jamie had, and was obviously under the impression that it was the waiter’s interruption that had elicited her cry of horror.

For several seconds after the door had closed behind the man, she remained where she was, striving to bring order to the erratic distortion of her breathing while at the same time bracing herself against the almost paralysing wave of humiliation flooding through her.

Then she turned, the pride he had once so brutally damaged rallying to her support in a sudden surge.

‘Right, it’s getting late—we’d better get down to business.’ She moved swiftly towards a chair and sat down on it, willing herself not to give in to an almost ungovernable temptation to look around to find out exactly who it was who had uttered those briskly casual words.

Acutely conscious of his eyes on her, she trained her own on the hands clenched tightly on her lap, silently urging them to unclench. And even though she felt those eyes drilling into her, issuing their silent demands to be faced, her gaze remained locked on her hands.

‘Jenny, you can avoid looking at me for as long as you like,’ he taunted coldly. ‘But it won’t alter anything.’

‘Really, Jamie, all we did was exchange a kiss,’ she chided, inwardly stunned by the precise degree of disparaging amusement she had managed to inject into the words. ‘And now that I’ve satisfied my curiosity, we really should get down to discussing Jonathan.’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean—now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity?’ he demanded, his voice soft with barely suppressed rage.

‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Jamie!’ she exclaimed lightly, part of her recoiling in horror, as she spoke, from this cool stranger now taking possession of her. ‘I know I’m a big girl now, but I really couldn’t resist a sample kiss from the man on whom I’d had such a colossal crush in my teenage years!’

Her head rose in involuntary response to his sudden movement, catching the chillingly murderous gleam in his eyes as his hand reached out for the silver coffee-pot on the tray. For one instant of stark fear she was convinced he was about to pick it up and hurl it at her.

‘Coffee?’ he asked with an urbane detachment that threw her completely, then began pouring without awaiting her reply.

It was when he passed her a cup that their eyes met, the mocking challenge in his sending a premonitory shiver of fear winging through her. It was as though those shrewd grey-green eyes of his had the power to pierce the veneer of hatred marring the wide-spaced blue of the gaze they examined and to lay bare the helpless uncertainty now gnawing within her.

CHAPTER TWO

AT ELEVEN o’clock on the following Monday night, Jenny dragged open the front door of Jamie Castile’s luxury London flat in response to the sharp ring of the doorbell.

‘My, what an unexpected surprise!’ she hurled savagely at the visibly wilting figure of the man before her. ‘What made you rush back like this? Don’t tell me your precious boat sank on you!’

Flashing her a look of scowling dismissal, Jamie strode past her and into the parqueted hallway. Still not having offered her so much as a word of acknowledgement, he strode on and into the living-room—a huge, high-ceilinged room, sparsely yet exquisitely furnished in colours of the softest pastels.

Almost beside herself with outraged disbelief, Jenny flew in after him, the pressure of the fury building up in her since the early hours of the morning now barely containable as he silently flung his leather holdall on to an armchair and his tall, lean body face downwards and at full stretch on to the sofa.

‘Six o’clock this morning—that’s when you said your flight would touch down!’ she almost screamed at his prone form as the travesty of her day flashed through her mind and demolished any remnant of control left in her. ‘You haven’t changed, have you? You’re as thoroughly selfish and manipulative as you’ve always been!’ she accused bitterly. ‘I told you how much this job means to me. Heaven knows, I created a bad enough impression asking for time off before the start of an important campaign and after barely two weeks with the company, so you can imagine how they must have felt when I swanned in an hour late this morning and with a baby in my shopping basket!’

His head rose from the cushion against which it had been buried.

‘You had the baby in a shopping basket?’ he croaked, his words as dazed as the expression on his face.

‘What was I supposed to put him in?’ she snarled. ‘There aren’t any pram shops on the way to where I work; if there had been I’d have bought one…all I could get was a large shopping basket.’

The breath she paused to take, on which she had intended to continue giving vent to her long-pent-up anger, deteriorated into a gasp of fury as he began laughing softly.

‘How dare you—?’

‘Give it a rest, for God’s sake, Jenny,’ he snapped, all trace of laughter disappearing from him as he dragged himself upright and began shrugging off his jacket.

‘That’s great—coming from you!’ she shrieked, striding threateningly towards him, then halting, her eyes widening in total confusion as he cast aside the jacket and then began removing the silk shirt that had every appearance of having been slept in. ‘You’ve always used others without any shred of compunction. Even as a child, you had all the other kids in the village organised into your own personal Mafia!’ She broke off, frowning. ‘What’s that smell?’ She leaned towards him and sniffed. ‘My God—you smell like a brewery!’ she exclaimed in disgust.

‘It’s brandy,’ he muttered, flinging his shirt aside then leaning back and gazing up mockingly at her, the gleaming bronze of his naked torso rendered even darker by the contrasting paleness of the upholstery.

Feeling somewhat overwhelmed—though uncertain whether it was caused by his casual admission or the disconcerting leap of her senses at the sight of such splendid near-nakedness—Jenny hesitated. Uncomfortably conscious of the suddenly loaded silence, she forced herself to look at him objectively. The last time she had seen him he had looked pretty exhausted—now he looked a positive wreck.

‘My, my, Jenny—nothing to say?’ he drawled.

‘You’re drunk!’ she lashed out wildly, desperately trying to revive the momentum of her disconcertingly dying anger. Of course he was drunk, she told herself; a sober Jamie would at least have tried to charm his way into her good books, and doubtless given her a string of unconvincing excuses for his lateness…that was his way.

His eyes narrowed to dark slits as his broad shoulders rose and fell in a barely perceptible shrug. It was that slight movement that drew her attention to the ugly bruise staining down his right shoulder and disappearing into the dark profusion of hairs on his chest. And it was his raising of a hand to rub irritably against the dark stubble on his chin that brought a gasp from her. The knuckles of the hand, in fact, the entire back of it, was bruised and lacerated.

‘You’ve been in a fight,’ she accused in disgust.

He gazed down at his hand, then up at her, the smile creeping to his lips doing nothing to soften the brittle coldness glittering in his eyes.

‘You know me so well, don’t you, Jenny?’ he murmured. ‘In fact, there’s no need for me to bother telling you what I’ve been up to—you’ve already worked it all out for yourself. Let’s just check how far you’ve got. I’m drunk; I’ve been brawling—needless to say, over a woman—’

‘Jamie, please! I…I—’

‘You what, Jenny? Don’t start going all coy on me. After all, it’s common knowledge that I have an insatiable appetite for women.’ As he uttered those ominously quiet words his eyes began travelling slowly down her body, openly stripping her. ‘Talking of which,’ he added softly, ‘you’re not the only one with a curiosity to be satisfied. Perhaps you’d care to continue where we left off a few years ago…only this time your presence in my bed will be greeted with unbridled enthusiasm—that I can guarantee.’

‘You are completely despicable,’ croaked Jenny, disconcerted to find herself fighting an urge to lash out at him physically.

‘You sound almost surprised,’ he murmured blandly. ‘Which is odd, considering I still appear to be the selfish, manipulative tearaway you claim to know so well. Though there is one thing that puzzles me, Jenny,’ he added innocently. ‘With so little going for me—how is it that you managed to develop such an almighty crush on me?’

‘What might have appealed to an adolescent is no longer material,’ she informed him frigidly.

‘Adolescent is the last word any sane person would have used to describe you the night I found you in my bed,’ he retorted.

Wondering just how many more times he intended dragging up that ghastly incident, Jenny wisely bit back any retort; instead, she marched over to the armchair nearest her, removed his holdall from it and flung herself down.

‘Tomorrow, when I return from work,’ she announced tonelessly, ‘I expect to find that you’ve arranged for suitable nannies to be interviewed. You’d also better get Jonathan a pram and a cot.’

‘Where’s he sleeping now?’

‘He and I are in the spare room with the double bed,’ she replied, her muscles aching in reminiscence of the struggle she had had dragging the heavy bed flush with a wall.

‘Why didn’t you take the room with the twin beds?’ he asked. ‘Hell, he’s so tiny…aren’t you scared of rolling over and squashing him?’