Читать книгу Maid For The Untamed Billionaire - Miranda Lee - Страница 14

‘YOU HANDLED THAT WELL,’ Jake growled as he pulled a bottle of red at random out of his wine rack. ‘I love the way you kept her at a distance.’

Still, what could he do when she started crying like that? Common sense demanded he do nothing. But common decency insisted that he comfort her.

Big mistake.

The moment he’d taken her in his arms, all those good intentions of his dissolved in the face of a desire so strong it took every ounce of willpower not to pull her even closer than he had. He didn’t want to pat her damned back. Or utter soothing words. He wanted to tip up her chin and kiss the tears from her lovely face.

Thank God he hadn’t given in to that desire. Because she would not have surrendered to him as she did in his darkest dreams. She would have slapped him, then resigned as his housekeeper.

Abby didn’t particularly like him. That, he knew.

Which should have been a relief, given his resolve never to act on his secret desire for her. Instead he felt peeved by her indifference. And jealous of her obvious affection for Craig. Which was all perverse, given his own decision not to have anything to do with her on a personal level, a decision which fate—courtesy of his uncle—had now blown out of the water. Next Saturday morning he would be personally escorting Abby to Craig’s graveside, then afterwards he would be personally buying her a car.

That was all pretty personal, in his opinion.

But there was no way out, Jake accepted bleakly as he gazed down at the label of the bottle he’d pulled out and saw it was one of his favourites. A Shiraz from the Clare Valley. Good. Because he needed to get drunk. And he might as well do so on a favourite tipple rather than rubbish.

Not that he ever bought rubbish, he admitted as he poured himself his first glass. Long gone were the days when he drank rough red from casks. Hell, he hadn’t done that since his university days. And yet they had been good days. Happy days. Carefree days.

Nothing like today, Jake thought ruefully as he lifted the glass to his lips for a deep swallow. Today would not go down as good. Or happy. Or carefree. Today was…what?

He wasn’t sure how to describe it.

Dangerous came to mind. And not in a good way. Jake had enjoyed danger in his life at times. But this was a different kind of danger. This wasn’t physical danger. This involved his emotions. Intense, uncontrollable emotions.

Jake didn’t like intense, uncontrollable emotions. They made you do things which never ended well.

Jake carried the glass and the bottle out to his courtyard, where he placed the bottle on the small circular glass table he liked best then sat down in the chair next to it.

When his phone rang, he saw that it was Olivia.

He didn’t want to talk to Olivia just now. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. So he just turned off the phone and went back to drinking his wine.