Читать книгу Two-Timing Love - Kate Proctor - Страница 6

‘I WAS beginning to think you’d never turn up—have you brought the documents?’

Jennifer Page froze at the sound of that voice, the warm, creamy tones of her normally vibrantly attractive features dulling to pallor as she resisted the urge to drag her fingers through the gleaming auburn of her short, almost boyishly cropped hair—a habit she knew to be triggered off by feelings of stress. And stress was decidedly what she was experiencing now, even as she hoped against hope that her imagination was in the throes of playing the nastiest trick it possibly could on her. But it was a pale imitation of her normally sunny smile that she bestowed on the hotel porter as he deposited her overnight case on the floor beside her.

Her movements almost robotic, Jenny turned to face the tall, powerfully built figure of the man who had addressed her, myriad sensations bombarding her and precious few of them in the least pleasant.

‘I haven’t any Austrian money—would you mind tipping the porter?’ she muttered stiltedly, one part of her strenuously denying that this was happening to her while the rest responded with nerve-jangling awareness to the familiar, larger-than-life figure of Jamie Castile.

She had almost forgotten how disgustingly attractive he was, she thought, weak with disbelief; but not the aura of danger emanating so powerfully from that faultlessly built masculine body now taking oddly tentative steps towards her.

She frowned in puzzlement as he halted before the porter, conscious that his movements lacked their customary languid grace as he fumbled awkwardly in his pocket and then handed the man some money. It was as he turned slightly towards her that Jenny let out a soft groan of disbelief and leaned heavily against the wall for support.

Perhaps the dimness of the room’s lighting accounted for her having missed it—that swaddled mound nestling against one broad shoulder and so obviously hampering the flow of his movements.

‘Well?’ demanded Jamie, his grey-green eyes offering no hint of welcome as the porter closed the door of the suite behind him. ‘Did you bring all the papers?’

‘Yes,’ replied Jenny, attempting to clear her mind of the shock and disbelief threatening to paralyse it. ‘Where are Clare and Graham?’

‘They’re still in Czechoslovakia with the other doctors—trying to do what they can for the earthquake victims.’

‘But…I…’ Jenny threw up her hands in exasperation with herself as the words refused to come. ‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on?’ she exclaimed, an edge of desperation in her tone.

Jamie Castile gave an impatient shrug, a gesture he plainly regretted the instant he had made it as the bundle against his shoulder stirred and let out a wail of protest that brought a look of weary sufferance to his handsome features.

‘For God’s sake, take it, will you?’ he groaned, gingerly removing the baby from against him and holding it out to her.

Jenny took an involuntary step back from the now vociferously protesting bundle that was their four-month-old nephew.

‘I…I’m not used to babies,’ she stammered.

‘For God’s sake, try something, can’t you?’ exploded Jamie. ‘Once it decides to start screeching like this there’s nothing I can do with it.’

‘Stop calling him it!’ hissed Jenny, taking the proffered bundle awkwardly into her arms and gazing down at it with a mixture of awe and trepidation. ‘Hello, little Jonathan Page,’ she whispered, her tentative smile accentuating the delicate beauty of her features as the infant quietened and fixed her with a wide-eyed gaze. ‘It’s late—shouldn’t he be in his bed and asleep?’ she demanded accusingly of his uncle.

‘I’m sure he should,’ drawled Jamie, flinging his tall frame heavily on to one of the perilously dainty chairs dotted around the room. ‘But actually achieving that requires skills I obviously don’t possess.’

Though ones he clearly expected her to have in abundance, simply because she was female, thought Jenny exasperatedly, then cuddled the baby to her with a small pang of guilt as he let out an ear-piercing wail. It wasn’t his fault his little life had suddenly been turned upside-down and it certainly wasn’t going to make him feel secure hearing his uncle and aunt indulging in a slanging match.

‘Which room is he in?’ she asked briskly.

Jamie’s reply was to nod in the general direction of one of the doors leading off the room.

The cot, next to an outsized double bed, looked slightly incongruous in contrast to the opulence of the room, as did too the jumble of disposable nappies and baby clothes strewn over the bed.

Jenny unwrapped the shawl from around her tiny nephew, whom she had last seen at his christening over a month ago—after which his parents had taken him back to Brussels, where they were part of an international medical team.

‘It’s lovely to see you again, even though it’s all a bit of a shock,’ she crooned as she placed him gently in the cot and tucked the covers around him. She winced as he let out another of those ear-piercing yells, then began patting him soothingly on his tiny back. ‘Be a good boy and go to sleep,’ she pleaded, her hand still patting gently.

After ten minutes, she crept out of the room, unconsciously holding her breath.

Jamie was still sprawled on the chair, an expression of scowling exhaustion on his face as his gaze met hers.

‘I wouldn’t bother sitting down, if I were you,’ he informed her as she made to do precisely that. ‘It’ll start bellowing any second now.’

‘His name is Jonathan!’ snapped Jenny, confusion and her own exhaustion adding aggression to her tone.

She sat down, her wide-spaced blue eyes meeting his in open defiance as she silently prayed the baby wouldn’t waken.

‘Jamie, would you mind explaining what’s going on?’

He raised a hand to his head and began running his fingers absent-mindedly through the dark thickness of his hair. It was a gesture suddenly so achingly familiar to her that Jenny found herself dropping her gaze to escape it.

‘I left messages all over the place for you,’ he accused inconsequentially. ‘Jenny, where the hell have you been—and where are your parents?’

‘I work in London now and my parents are in New Zealand—they left last week,’ she replied, determined to keep calm. She was a fully fledged adult now, she reminded herself sharply, and there was no way she would ever let Jamie Castile get under her skin again—ever! ‘And as for your leaving me messages all over the place—I was under the impression they came from Clare and Graham.’

There was mocking amusement in the glance he gave her.

‘The implication being that you’d have ignored any message emanating from me, is that it, Jenny?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie, be serious!’ she exclaimed, mortified to feel the hot colour flooding her cheeks. ‘When I got a message asking that I bring copies of Graham’s and Clare’s birth and marriage certificates here I assumed they’d lost their passports in the earthquake…I was worried!’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ drawled Jamie. ‘The medical conference they were attending was in Bratislava, which experienced no more than the mild rumbles registered here in Vienna.’

‘So why do they need all those documents?’ demanded Jenny exasperatedly. ‘I was under the impression they were stranded in Czechoslovakia!’

‘It’s more a case of the baby being stranded,’ replied Jamie. ‘Though why the hell they insist on carting a child that young around with them is beyond me.’

‘I think it’s wonderful that they can do it,’ retorted Jenny. ‘Obviously the best place for him is with his parents.’

‘And obviously that’s precisely where he can’t be right now,’ pointed out Jamie infuriatingly. ‘Getting him out of Czechoslovakia and into Austria didn’t present too many problems—I collected him from Clare the day before yesterday.’

Jenny bit back a comment on how Clare must have felt—having to hand her infant son into the care of a brother few would describe as either predictable or dependable.

‘The authorities at the British Embassy here in Vienna have agreed to issue temporary travel documents for the child—on production of the papers you’ve brought with you,’ he continued. ‘So you won’t have any problems getting him into England.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ croaked Jenny.

‘Clare seemed to think your parents would look after him till she and Graham felt free to leave…obviously they weren’t aware they’d taken off for New Zealand.’

‘They weren’t going till the New Year, but then they decided…Jamie, all this is beside the point!’ she exclaimed frustratedly. ‘There’s no one to look after him in England…unless your mother—’

‘I believe my mother’s off on one of her jaunts,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘And besides, you know how vague she can be—which is why Clare didn’t even bother trying to contact her and got on to me instead.’

‘Precisely—she left him with you,’ observed Jenny decisively. ‘And now that I’ve brought you the necessary documents you’ll have no problem getting him back to England.’

‘I’m not going back to England,’ he informed her icily. ‘I was just about to catch a flight for Brazil when your brother rang—right at this very moment I’m supposed to be doing trial runs on a new boat I’ve entered in an important race—’

‘And you’d rather play with your boats than see to your nephew’s well-being—’

‘You know damned well I don’t play with boats—I design and race them,’ he informed her coldly. ‘And a lot of skilled men depend on my designing and racing abilities for their living.’

‘And I suppose that I, being a mere woman, couldn’t possibly have a job of any importance!’ exclaimed Jenny, perilously close to losing her temper. ‘Well, it so happens that I have. I only started it a couple of weeks ago and I’ve already put it in jeopardy by dashing off here at a moment’s notice. And I’ve lost the flat I was hoping to move into—thanks to having to chase all over the place getting those papers—so if you think—’

‘Give it a rest, will you, Jenny?’ drawled Jamie dismissively, getting to his feet. ‘Because, after two nights without a wink of sleep, I’m not in the least receptive to any sob-story you choose to come up with.’

‘Choose to come up with?’ shrieked Jenny, beside herself with rage as she too leapt to her feet. ‘Jamie Castile, just who the hell do you think you—?’

The two of them froze as the baby’s piercing cries reached their ears.

‘You’re the one who woke it with your histrionics,’ muttered Jamie, striding towards the second of the doors leading off the room, ‘so you can damned well deal with it.’

‘My God, you’re all gentleman, aren’t you?’ she flung after him.

He turned as he reached the door.

‘And you, my dear Jennifer, are one woman supremely qualified to vouch for that fact,’ he murmured mockingly.

Her face burning with humiliation, Jenny turned on her heel and marched into the room containing her protesting nephew. Trust him to throw that up at her, she fumed to herself, under no illusion as to what his taunt had referred, then forcefully hurled all thought of the subject from her mind.

‘Poor little man,’ she whispered, her face softening as she picked up the distraught baby and cradled him to her. ‘Are you missing your mummy and daddy?’

He quietened miraculously in her arms and remained silent as she laid him on the bed and made an attempt to inspect his nappy.

‘Why—you little rascal!’ she laughed, as his face broke into a lop-sided smile and he began gurgling with contentment. ‘You just wanted some attention, didn’t you?’

Tiny feet began pummelling at her ribcage, dislodging the nappy she was clumsily trying secure around him.

‘Jonathan, you’ll have to co-operate,’ she protested with a chuckle. ‘This is my first encounter with the mysteries of nappy-changing!’

The instant she tried returning him to his cot, he protested deafeningly. In the end she gave up trying and lay down on the bed with her nephew lying in angelic peacefulness against her.

She closed her eyes, a feeling of total mental and physical exhaustion wafting through her. She had gone to work early that morning and had worked flat out to clear what she could from her desk—just in case she didn’t make it back to London at a reasonable hour tomorrow.

She gave a soft groan of dismay as she remembered the icy response with which her unorthodox request for a day off—possibly two—had been met. She was still at the stage of waking each morning unable to believe she actually had landed the job of her dreams with Wardale’s, one of the most dynamic and prestigious advertising companies around…and now, in her first month and in the vital preliminary period of an important campaign in which she had to prove herself, she was taking time off!

A rueful grin crept over her face as she found herself switching her thoughts towards Jamie. Never in her entire twenty-three years had she thought the day would come when she would regard concentrating her thoughts on Jamie as the lesser of two evils!

For the best part of four years she had just about managed to erase him from her mind, she reminded herself with drowsy detachment. And it had probably taken the best part of that time to cure her of her obsession with him, she admitted with reluctance. As a child she had openly hero-worshipped him, dazzled by the recklessly adventurous spirit of the godlike creature who was almost eight years her senior and her older brother’s closest friend. Child and man, Jamie Castile was one who regarded life as something to be lived to the hilt—and live it to the hilt he had done with a total disregard to either convention or his own personal safety.

‘That Castile boy’s been allowed to run wild for far too long—he’ll come to no good,’ had been the oft-voiced opinion in the small Sussex village in which they had both been born…yet there had always been a note of grudging admiration—pride almost—behind the words.

And Jamie, with his strange background of opulence and poverty, had turned their dire predictions upside-down. Never one to compromise, he had thrown himself heart and soul into what he loved most, racing and designing yachts. The fact that he had made a considerable fortune from what he so loved had probably been of scant consequence to him initially, although, judging by his earlier remarks, he now seemed fully aware of his responsibilities towards those deriving their livelihoods from the fortune his skills had brought him.

It was around the time she was fifteen that she had stopped bemoaning the fact she hadn’t been born a boy and that her heart had begun doing strange things whenever Jamie was around. At sixteen, finding herself plotting painfully lingering deaths for any female who caught his attention—a veritable army, for Jamie’s eye roved far and wide—she had finally faced up to the fact that the hero-worship of her earlier years had matured to love. And with a maturity far beyond her years she had bided her time, the woman’s heart within her adolescent body vacillating between despair and relief as a daunting procession of rivals caught and then lost the attention of his restlessly roving eye.

Three years later, on the night of her brother’s wedding to Jamie’s sister, she had decided, at nineteen, that even Jamie could no longer regard her as a child. That night—a full four years ago—the brutal totality with which he had rejected her naïvely explicit advances had devastated her; and today had been the first time she had so much as laid eyes on him since. She was cured of her obsessive love of him, but the savage wound he had inflicted on her pride had left a scar that she now realised would always be with her.

‘Jenny?’

As her eyes flew open they found Jamie standing in the doorway, a small circular tray balanced on one hand.

‘He kept crying each time I tried to put him in his cot,’ she explained defensively, thrown by the flash of pure hatred the sight of him had sent searing through her. She struggled upright, the soundly sleeping baby clasped to her.

‘He’s just about due for another feed,’ stated Jamie, approaching the bed, then sitting down on it.

‘Did you make it up for him?’ asked Jenny, forcing her mind back to the present as she glanced down at the two bottles on the tray he had placed on the bed—one filled with milk, the other apparently containing water.

The darkly defined curves of his eyebrows rose in pained disbelief. ‘Mercifully, it’s a service the hotel provides. Clare gave me a few tins of the formula and sheets of instructions—which you’ll no doubt need.’

Jenny’s sharp exclamation of impatience brought a whimper of protest from the bundle in her arms—a whimper that fast developed into a full-blooded yell.

‘I think you’d better feed him now,’ she said, placing the bellowing infant in his arms and jumping to her feet as he showed signs of wanting to pass him back. ‘And, at the risk of sounding repetitive,’ she stated firmly, ‘Jamie, I really do have to be back at work by tomorrow, if possible.’

‘Surely they can give you a bit of time off, in the circumstances,’ he exclaimed, deftly transferring the baby to the crook of his arm and testing the temperature of the milk in the bottle before proceeding with the feed with a casual air of expertise that took Jenny’s breath away. ‘After all, it is your brother’s baby—’

‘And your sister’s!’ she cut in exasperatedly, drawing up a chair and sitting down. ‘Which is all beside the point. Jamie, I’ve only been in this job for a couple of weeks…it’s one in a million, as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t want to jeopardise it.’

He glanced up from the baby and pulled a wry face.

‘One in a million, eh?’

Jenny nodded. ‘And I’m on an initial three months’ trial.’

‘It seems as though we have a bit of a problem on our hands,’ he muttered, then suddenly removed the bottle from the baby and hoisted him up on his shoulder, pummelling him vigorously on the back.

‘Jamie, don’t you think you’re being a bit rough with him?’ she gasped.

‘Stop trying to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs,’ he retorted with a grin that became a chuckle when the baby obligingly burped with gusto. ‘He’s a tough little tyke,’ he laughed, transferring the baby back into his arms and resuming the feed.

Jenny raised her hand to her mouth in an attempt to hide the disbelieving laughter mounting within her—she would have given anything for a camera, preferably a cine.

‘And you can stop smirking, clever clogs,’ he warned, ‘because it isn’t nearly as simple as it looks. The first two feeds were sheer hell, until I got the knack…as you’ll soon find out.’

‘Jamie, how many times do I have to tell you?’ she exclaimed in exasperation, all trace of laughter gone. ‘I can’t look after him!’

His heavily lashed grey-green eyes lifted to hers, holding them for a brief moment before returning to the baby lying in abandoned contentment in his arms.

‘The point is, Jenny, that we’re going to have to come up with something,’ he said quietly. ‘When it comes to the crunch, no matter how successful you or I may be at the work we do, we’re neither of us indispensable—whereas, right now, your brother and my sister are…wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Of course I would,’ she muttered uncomfortably.

‘Their being part of a team geared to deal with precisely the type of catastrophe that’s just happened in Czechoslovakia and being virtually on the spot is pretty miraculous…which is why Clare regards the fact that she’s technically on a year’s maternity leave as being neither here nor there.’

‘Which is only natural—someone of her training finding herself in the middle of something as ghastly as that,’ exclaimed Jenny with a decided twinge of guilt. ‘Especially when she feels secure in the knowledge that my mother would be taking care of Jonathan. Jamie, what are we going to do?’

‘I suppose we could tell Clare the truth…Graham would obviously stay on, but there would be nothing to stop her coming back—’

‘How can you possibly say that?’ exclaimed Jenny, aghast. ‘It’s specialists like Clare and Graham that the other doctors will be turning to for advice!’

‘Well, she’s ringing here in about half an hour,’ he told her, returning the empty bottle to the tray and subjecting the baby to another bout of pummelling, ‘so we’d better think up something to tell her.’

‘Think up something?’ repeated Jenny, her heart sinking somewhat. ‘You make it sound as though you plan telling her a pack of lies!’

‘Only a fool would try that,’ he snapped with a flash of impatience that was a sharp reminder of how quick a temper he had. ‘Right now, Graham and Clare are where they’re most needed—desperately needed—and the last thing they deserve is worry over who’s looking after their baby.’

‘They’re bound to worry when they realise Mum and Dad aren’t around to do it,’ protested Jenny.

‘Why should they—there are the two of us, aren’t there? Just let me finish, for heaven’s sake!’ he barked impatiently as Jenny shook her head vehemently. ‘If I can be on the morning flight to Rio I could get back in time for you to be at work on time on Monday—Jenny, will you shut up and let me finish?’ he roared as she began protesting volubly. ‘And you can shut up too,’ he growled softly to the baby at his shoulder who, far from being disturbed by his raised voice, was gurgling with delight. ‘Jenny, all it necessitates is your having tomorrow off—on Monday you’ll be back to work as usual.’

‘Oh yes?’ demanded Jenny furiously. ‘How can you possibly get through trial runs in time to—?’

‘I shan’t be conducting the trials,’ he cut in sharply. ‘The rest of the team can handle those. The reason I have to get there by the weekend is that I’ve contracts to sign in connection with another boat, which are of great importance to my business. It’s something I should have had tied up a couple of days ago and which I can’t delay any longer, simply because those concerned only agreed to the signing taking place in Brazil in order to fit in with my schedule.’

‘And what about the race you’re entered in?’ demanded Jenny heatedly. ‘Presumably you intend returning to Brazil to participate in it—or can you navigate this new boat of yours by remote control?’

‘If you’d let me finish,’ he stated with steely softness, ‘you’d hear that on Monday, when I get back, I intend lining up some trained nannies for us to interview—’

‘Us?’

‘Damn it, I can hardly interview them on my own!’ he exploded. ‘I’ve no idea what constitutes a good nanny.’

‘And, being female, I have—is that it?’

‘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.