Читать книгу Forgotten Sins - Robyn Donald - Страница 6

JAKE saw Aline Connor the moment he walked into the drawing-room. Heat and desire hit him like a blow, bringing his body alive and nearly overpowering his confident self-possession.

How the hell, he thought with savage self-mockery, did she do that to him? Witchcraft?

He’d had a pig of a week, culminating in a delayed, turbulent flight from Canada to New Zealand the previous night, yet one glance and he knew he’d have travelled ten times as far to see her.

‘Ah, there’s the guest of honour,’ cooed Lauren Penn, who’d pulled up outside the old Victorian villa at the same time as Jake, and strolled in with him. ‘She’s such a little darling, isn’t she? Wasn’t she good in the church—not a murmur as the vicar splashed her forehead! I think she’s inherited Keir’s massive self-assurance, lucky little girl.’

An undercurrent in her voice caught Jake’s attention. Meeting his swift scrutiny with a sideways glance and a challenging smile, she used the doorway as an excuse to brush against him. Perfume, overtly erotic, rose in a clinging, cloying cloud; neither it nor the swift friction of skin against skin when she touched his hand affected Jake.

He’d grown cynical since he’d begun to appear in the eligible bachelor lists; certain women—those whose main aim in life was to fascinate a rich man into marriage—had targeted him. Although some had inspired casual desire, it had been nothing like the violent, elemental hunger he felt whenever he looked at Aline—or whenever he thought of her, or heard her, or touched her…

It had to be witchcraft, a spell spun by a black-haired, blue-eyed witch with a voice like cool music and skin so silkily transparent he wondered whether it would show bruises after making love.

His mouth curled sardonically. In spite of her aloofness and reserve, he’d sensed a reluctant, involuntary response, but it clear as hell irked her, and it certainly wasn’t anything as strong as the basic need that clawed through him.

Not that Aline’s aloofness was personal; she didn’t target anyone. Lauren Penn displayed more overt welcome in one smile than Aline showed in her whole graceful, elegant body. Yet from the moment he’d seen her he’d wanted her with a raw, consuming hunger that had nothing to do with logic or intelligence. Until then always able to control his passions, it angered and astonished him that he couldn’t do it now.

Lauren sent him another melting glance and murmured, ‘They look such a happy group, don’t they? Aline cuddling baby Emma while Hope sits proudly by. Hope strikes me as the possessive sort, so all those rumours about Aline being Keir’s lover can’t be true.’

It wasn’t the first time Jake had heard that particular suggestion, although usually as innuendo. It had angered him previously; it enraged him now. He liked Lauren, and if he hadn’t heard a feverish note buried in her brittle words he wouldn’t have bothered to silence his cutting response.

Something was clearly going on. It concerned Aline—and that meant it concerned him.

Lauren’s gaze was fixed on Aline. Without waiting for an answer she drawled, ‘Aline’s cold-blooded enough to swap passion for friendship if it worked to her advantage, but I don’t think Hope would welcome her husband’s discarded lover as a friend.’

One of the reasons Jake hated the insinuation was that he suspected it had some basis; he’d sensed a certain tension between Keir Carmichael and his tall, exquisite executive, but he knew men—whatever had happened in the past, Keir wasn’t interested in Aline now. Although his face made granite look expressive, he couldn’t hide the way he felt about his wife.

Just as well, Jake thought with cold purposefulness. If he’d wanted Aline, Carmichael would have had a fight on his hands.

‘Champagne, madam? Sir?’ a waiter offered smoothly.

‘Oh, lovely—perfect for such a glorious day,’ Lauren accepted eagerly, her hand shaking as she took the glass. She raised it to Jake. ‘I love spring—all those new beginnings make you glad to be alive, don’t they?’

Every sense alert, Jake took a glass too, listening with half an ear as she delivered a rapid, amusing commentary on several other guests, infuriated when he caught himself glancing above her head at the woman who haunted him.

Poised, slender body disposed on a big sofa, patrician face alight, Aline Connor smiled at the baby in her lap. For the past two months she’d been negotiating with him on behalf of Keir Carmichael’s merchant bank, displaying an intelligence sharp enough to keep Jake on his toes, disciplined enough to almost convince him of her indifference. Almost…

Beside her, Keir Carmichael’s glowing wife, the mother of the baby, said something that set both women laughing. Laughing with them, the baby reached out chubby fingers to pat Aline’s cheek. She caught the little hand and kissed it.

A shaft of pure sensation stabbed Jake with ferocious impact.

From beside him Lauren said with brittle intensity, ‘I’m surprised to see Emma so happy in Aline’s lap. I know Aline doesn’t like children—she refused to have any when she was married to Mike, and he really wanted them.’

Jake had good instincts, and by now they were on full alert.

He lifted an intimidating eyebrow and glanced down at the woman beside him. She held her glass to her mouth like a shield; above the rim, her eyes were shiny and opaque.

Neutrally he said, ‘I hadn’t realised you knew them both so well.’

Her shoulders sketched a shrug. ‘Aline was in my class at school.’ Deepening her voice to add emphasis to her next words, she went on, ‘She was the classic nerd—a skinny, conceited kid who never forgot to do her homework and scored top marks year after year until she took them for granted. I was the class clown and she despised me.’ Lauren directed a wry look upwards, making clever use of long curling lashes. ‘Not that I blame her—children are cruel, and we were awful to her.’ She sipped more champagne before saying with a slow smile, ‘Mind you, that was over twenty years ago and we were only kids.’

The implication being that Aline never forgot grudges, no matter how old and insignificant?

Negligently Jake observed, ‘Did you go to school with her husband too?’

A fugitive emotion flashed over her exquisitely made-up face; Lauren took another, longer sip of champagne and shook her head. ‘No, he was three years older than me, and went to a different school. His death was such a tragedy. We were all shattered.’ Her glance stabbed across the room. ‘I admired Aline enormously; she didn’t cry at the funeral even though it must have been hell for her.’

The implication being that Aline hadn’t cared much about her husband…?

Grimly aware that he’d have cut this conversation off before it had started if he hadn’t been obsessed by its subject, Jake said, ‘I’d heard it was a great romance.’

Lauren’s face froze. For a second he saw malice and a dreadful bitterness in the wide eyes before they were hidden by those curling lashes.

‘So everyone says,’ she agreed tonelessly. ‘Which is why I find it so difficult to believe that she was sleeping with Keir within a year of Mike’s death.’

Her blind smile setting off more alarm signals, she continued brightly, ‘It doesn’t fit into the grieving widow scenario at all, does it? And then, of course, Mike…’

‘Mike?’ Jake probed, trying to keep his voice mildly interested, and failing. A faint rasp to his words betrayed his interest.

After a swift, furtive glance, Lauren veiled her eyes and stretched her mouth into a dazzling smile. ‘Nothing important. But most men find being married to a snow queen pretty depressing. Oh, there’s someone I have to say hello to! I’ll see you later, Jake.’ And, waving to an elderly man on the verandah, she set off across the room fast enough to suggest her departure was a definite escape.

Frowning, he watched as she embraced her quarry—Tony Hudson, a famous athlete of forty years previously, esteemed now for his work with at-risk children. Because of that Michael Connor had appointed him one of the trustees of his charitable trust, set up before his death and hugely supported by New Zealanders, one of whom was Jake’s personal assistant.

His frown deepening, Jake drank some of the excellent champagne without tasting it. Lauren had looked off balance enough to cause a scene.

That hadn’t worried him too much; his deliberate probing did. He didn’t normally pump women—especially not social butterflies with bigger hair than brains—but he was becoming absurdly sensitive about Aline Connor.

And not because she refused to allow herself to be susceptible to him. His mouth tightened, then relaxed into a smile as his host came towards him. He didn’t want a woman who was impressed by his wealth and power, but, with the ruthless, unsparing honesty that had made him more enemies than friends, he acknowledged that he wouldn’t object in the least if Aline succumbed to this inconvenient attraction smouldering between them.

For all her wary reserve, she felt something; he could see her now, taking such care not to look across the room that her awareness of him pulsed around her like an aura. Well, they’d signed the deal a week ago. From now on they met as man and woman, not as business associates.

Keir said, ‘Good that you could make it, Jake.’

Smiling, Jake shook hands. ‘Your daughter is the most accomplished flirt I know; I wasn’t going to miss her christening.’

Even before she saw him come in the door, Aline knew when Jake Howard arrived. His presence charged the atmosphere, sending out vibrations that homed in on her nerve-ends and caused swift chaos. Although she tried not to react, she stole a glance towards the door just in time to see him coming in with Lauren Penn.

Dark jealousy shafted through her. Shocked and startled by its force and depth, Aline tightened her grip around the baby in her lap, wishing that for once she’d left her hair loose so that she could hide behind it.

Emma squirmed. ‘It’s all right,’ Aline soothed, releasing her. ‘There, see, you’re fine.’

The baby smiled forgivingly at her, revealing what looked like a tiny grain of rice on her lower gum.

‘Sweetheart!’ Aline exclaimed. ‘You’re getting a tooth! Aren’t you too young?’

From across the room, Jake’s scrutiny sent a familiar surge of anticipation and apprehension through her.

Hope said, ‘Most babies start to teethe around six months, so she’s right on target.’

‘I don’t know much about babies,’ Aline said regretfully.

‘You’re doing very well with that one,’ Hope said with a quick grin. ‘Emma adores you.’

Emma chose that moment to give an elaborate yawn, and both women laughed. The baby smiled up at Aline and reached up to pat her cheek; Aline’s heart melted. She kissed the chubby starfish hand. ‘And I adore her.’ Something compelled her to add, ‘And not because she looks like Keir. That was a crazy stupidity I’ve recovered from.’

‘I know.’ Hope looked at her with warm empathy. ‘Don’t keep apologising, Aline. We’ve agreed to let it lie in the past where it belongs.’

Aline touched the baby’s fine hair, cupping her hand protectively around the nape of her neck. ‘I just wish it had never happened,’ she said, sombre and intense. Driven and desperately unhappy, Aline had acted totally out of character by trying to break Hope’s engagement. ‘It didn’t mean a thing to either of us. And I so wish I hadn’t told you.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Hope said firmly.

A glance at her face revealed that she was being completely truthful. Hope was so confident of her husband’s love that a one-night stand before he met her again meant nothing.

She finished by saying, ‘Forget it. I have.’

‘You haven’t, but you’ve certainly forgiven.’ Pale and severe, Aline said, ‘Which I don’t deserve.’

‘It’s time you forgave yourself,’ Hope said sternly. ‘That’s your problem, you know—you’re a perfectionist, and you expect impossibly high standards from yourself. It’s probably what makes you such an asset to Keir’s bank, but it must be hell for you to live with.’

Aline said, ‘It’s the way I am.’ She glanced from beneath her lashes across the room. Jake and Keir were talking, their combined masculinity overpowering.

Following her gaze, Hope observed with dry amusement, ‘They should wear labels—“Caution, Dangerous Male”. All we need is for Leo Dacre to join them, and every woman in the room would faint.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘What do you think of Jake?’

Aline almost surrendered to her instincts and uttered the explosive character analysis that hovered on her tongue. Instead, perhaps she could ease some of the guilt she still felt at trying to prevent Hope and Keir’s marriage.

With a smile she tried to purge of irony, she said, ‘He’s really something, isn’t he?’

Hope said, ‘He’s gorgeous.’

But her eyes lingered on her husband, not on Jake. For Hope no other man existed but Keir. Once Aline had felt like that too, but Michael was dead.

She stirred, transferring her gaze to Emma, who was solemnly watching the crowd assembled in her honour. If Michael hadn’t wanted to wait for children, Aline might be holding her own child…

Banishing the painful thought, she said crisply, ‘Got it in one. Jake Howard is gorgeous.’

Her hostess gave a snort of laughter. ‘Actually, that’s the wrong word. “Gorgeous” makes me think of sleek, pouting male models, all biceps and bravado. Jake’s got classic features.’ Her glance switched to Aline. ‘Like you, in fact. And, like you, he has a formidable brain.’

When Aline pulled a face, Hope went on quietly, ‘Though I know you’ve had to fight for the right to be taken seriously—life’s not fair for clever women, especially when they’re beautiful.’

‘At least I’m not blonde—they find it even more difficult,’ Aline said.

Ironic that she’d happily, swiftly, surrender her cool, lifeless, regular features for a tenth of the warmth and fire and individuality that blazed from Hope.

Hope said thoughtfully, ‘I wonder if Jake’s wonderful face means that the strength and intelligence behind it was overlooked when he started building his empire? I bet lots of people dismissed him as just a handsome lightweight.’

‘I’m sure he’d have turned it to his advantage. By the time they realised he’s about as lightweight as Mount Ruapehu he’d probably taken them over,’ Aline pointed out, reluctantly recalling her first impression of Jake Howard.

Well-briefed, she’d known that he’d used his brilliant degree to set up as a forestry consultant straight out of university. Within ten years he’d built a huge organisation with global interests, and a reputation for fairness and honesty—and ruthlessness when he was attacked. She’d read about his takeovers, and the way he’d cut ethnic minorities in as stakeholders in his projects.

Yet when she’d first met him it had been his sheer physical presence and his potent, lethal sexuality that had slammed through her barriers.

Hope said cheerfully, ‘Keir says he’s got discipline and daring, and enough focus and determination to take over the world if he wants to.’ She laughed again. ‘And he’s good with babies too. Emma bats her lashes and coos at him. He should get married and raise a dynasty.’

‘All he’d have to do is wave a wedding ring,’ Aline snapped, adding lamely, ‘Anyway, he might have girls instead of sons.’

Hope’s brows lifted. ‘So? You’re living proof that women can make it in the world of business.’

‘Ah, but I was my father’s son,’ Aline told her, her mouth twisting.

‘He must have been proud of you.’

Relaxing her rigid shoulders, Aline pinned on a smile. ‘I hope so,’ she said, glancing surreptitiously past the baby to where Jake and Keir had been joined by Lauren, all flicking hair and sultry seduction.

Jake looked up. For long, timeless seconds their eyes clashed, duelling across the room.

He radiated energy—a formidable, hypnotic power that sent shivery chills up her spine. Nothing like Michael, who’d been big-hearted and gallant and joyous—and who’d died. Why did death take the best?

Deliberately she broke contact, only to meet Lauren’s gaze; the woman lifted a glass of champagne to her, her smile glittering. Aline forced her lips into an answering curve, grateful when Emma leapt excitedly in her arms, almost overbalancing. Hauling her back to safety, she said crisply, ‘Emma’s not the only one who flirts with Jake.’

‘No.’ Hope’s voice was troubled. ‘Something’s been hounding Lauren for years, but it looks as though she’s getting really close to the edge. Her father’s so worried about her.’

With the confidence of a child who has known nothing but love, Emma raised a commanding hand, worked her mouth earnestly, and eventually produced a sound so close to boo that both women laughed, and Aline forgot Lauren’s hostility.

In a few minutes she allowed herself another glance across the room to see Lauren flirting with another young man, Keir charming a pleasant middle-aged woman, and Jake talking—no, listening—to an earnest Tony Hudson, one of the trustees of Michael’s charitable trust.

Making a mental note to contact Tony again this week and try again to persuade him it was time the trust gave some of its millions of dollars to the young people it was set up to help, Aline relaxed.

But when the hair on the back of her neck stood up in primitive recognition of danger, she knew without raising her eyes who’d joined them. Right in front of her she saw long legs and narrow hips, a man’s confident, almost aggressive stance.

Thank heavens Jake’s negotiations with the bank were over; from now on others would deal with him and his business. She’d no longer wake each morning haunted by the challenge in his dark face, the special note in his voice that reached right down inside her, taunting her with her hidden weakness.

Keeping her head down, she dropped a kiss on the baby’s satin cheek.

Beside her Hope said, ‘Jake! How lovely to see you!’

‘How do you manage to glow like that?’ The practised compliment came easily, but there was no doubt about the pure male appreciation in his voice.

Emma bounced and launched herself forwards, holding out chubby arms with a smile that almost split her face.

‘Well, button, is that a tooth I see?’ Jake’s voice came closer as he dropped onto his haunches and touched the baby’s cheek.

Startled, Aline looked into tawny-gold eyes—eagle’s eyes, she’d thought at their first meeting, piercing and merciless. Subsequent meetings hadn’t changed her mind.

He smiled crookedly at her. ‘Hello, Aline.’

A flutter of pulse at the base of her throat drew his gaze; weighed down by the laughing baby, Aline couldn’t drag her eyes from his face. He was so close she could see the small laughter lines fanning out from the corners of those relentless eyes, the thick black lashes, and the chiselled, beautiful lines of his mouth with its thinner upper lip and disturbingly curved lower.

Always before she’d avoided his scrutiny by focusing just past him; now, her head spinning, her senses afire, she drowned in gold. Something had altered. She sensed a difference in Jake, a deeply dominant shift in attitude.

With an effort of will that took all her strength, she deliberately shut down her treacherous awareness, withdrawing into the guarded fastness only Michael had been able to enter.

Jake’s mouth curved in mocking recognition of her silent rejection. He got to his feet with a lithe grace that proclaimed power and control. ‘Here, give the heroine of the day to me,’ he said, reaching out confident arms.

Transferring a chuckling baby meant that Aline had to get much closer, had to touch him for the first time except when they’d shaken hands—something she’d tried to limit, only to have him force the gesture every time they’d met and parted.

Her heart thudded painfully; without looking at him she settled Emma into his iron embrace and stepped back, ambushed by the heat radiating from him, and his hard, tensile masculinity.

All right, she told herself as the conversation was taken over efficiently by the others, admit it. You are—you’re aware of him.

The last honest part of her brain sniggered and drawled, To put it bluntly, you want him. Even more bluntly, you want to go to bed with him.

Well, why not? It was merely a ruthlessly physical ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ response, carefully formulated by Mother Nature to perpetuate the species. He was all alpha male, while she was a woman in her late twenties with her biological clock beginning to tick.

She hated being so vulnerable to Jake Howard’s intense magnetism, his elemental strength and determination. Her weakness betrayed everything she’d felt for her husband because not even Michael had delivered such a blazing punch of erotic excitement.

But she’d shared much more with Michael; he’d valued her for many other things besides her femaleness.

Every time Jake looked at her she saw recognition of her as a sexual being in those eagle’s eyes, in the way he spoke and responded to her. Even when they’d been negotiating hard and forcefully he’d made sure she knew he liked what he saw.

And his tactics had worked. Now her skin tightened whenever he came into a room, his presence invading her guarded detachment.

Hope laughed as he tossed Emma into the air. ‘You can do that all day and she’ll still want more—she has a cast-iron stomach. You’re very experienced with children.’

‘I like them,’ he said simply. ‘Nice basic things, kids. You know exactly where you are with them—if they don’t like you they howl and struggle; if they decide you’re a fit person to hold them they smile and coo.’ His glinting eyes moved to Aline’s face. ‘There’s no wasting time with children; they won’t allow it.’

Hope’s brows shot up, but she returned a remark that made him laugh, and then Keir arrived, and for five minutes or so they chatted with relaxed ease.

Too soon, but inevitably, Hope and Keir moved on, taking Emma with them. With her usual store of small talk evaporating fast, Aline cast around for something innocuous to say before escaping.

Jake watched her from beneath his lashes, an unnerving glint of mockery lighting his eyes.

Edgily she summoned a cool smile. ‘I didn’t realise you were going to be here,’ she said, hoping the observation didn’t sound as inane to him as it did to her.

Her hope was dashed immediately. ‘You mean you assumed I wouldn’t be. Do you want me to go?’

‘No!’ She inhaled quickly, sharply, to settle her racing pulses. ‘Of course not,’ she said, encouraged when her voice revealed nothing more than polite interest.

She lifted her eyes, only to find them captured by his. Dazedly, she felt as though she’d fallen into frozen fire, lost all individuality, all reason, all control…

Forcing another tight smile, she went on, ‘I thought you were in Vancouver,’ and wrenched her gaze free of the forbidden imprisonment of his, fixing her eyes on his mouth.

Only to discover that it was as dangerous to her peace of mind as his tawny-gold eyes. Sex, she reminded herself sturdily, that’s all it is. Yes, it was humiliating to be attracted to a man like Jake, a man so unlike Michael they had almost nothing in common except their gender, but she’d get over it now she didn’t have to see him so often.

‘Jets leave Canada every day for New Zealand. I plan to be seeing quite a bit of Keir and his wife in the future.’

‘They’re a lovely family,’ Aline said tautly.

Silence stretched between them, buzzing with hidden significance. He waited, but when she refused to break it he said with smooth insolence, ‘And I plan to be seeing more of you.’

She gave him a small, meaningless smile. ‘I don’t imagine we’ll need to meet again now that we’ve stitched up the deal—’

‘This has nothing to do with the deal.’ He paused before saying in a voice underpinned by steel, ‘This is about us, Aline. You and me.’

The drawing-room was large and filled with people, all at that pleasant state of talkativeness engendered by a glass of excellent champagne. More people had spilled out of the open French doors onto the wide Victorian verandah beyond. It bore the hallmarks of an excellent party, yet Aline sat alone, imprisoned by his inflexible will.

Hands clenched by her sides, she said, ‘No,’ the word a stone dropped into echoing silence.

Strong fingers closed around her wrist, shackling it. ‘I can feel your heartbeat against my fingertips,’ Jake said thoughtfully. ‘It’s going twice the normal speed.’

Before she tried to twist free he released her. ‘No,’ she said again, the meaningless word splintering into the tension between them. ‘And don’t ever do that again. I don’t like being manhandled.’

From behind came a sly voice, soft, heavy with innuendo. ‘She’s never liked being touched. Except by her husband, of course,’ Lauren Penn said. Her smile bubbled into laughter, low and mocking. ‘And you know, that’s a joke. Just the biggest joke in the world.’

‘Lauren…’ Aline’s glance swerved to the half-empty glass of champagne in the other woman’s hand.

Lauren swallowed the rest of the wine, setting the empty glass down with exaggerated care on a table. ‘Lauren,’ she mimicked. ‘Lauren, shut up. Lauren, go away. Lauren, stop making a scene. You know, I’m so sick of you. Ever since he died you’ve worn your grief for your darling lost Michael like a bloody crown. Other people grieved too, but that never occurred to you, did it?’ Her glance darted to Jake’s angular face.

As though encouraged by his dispassionate regard, she purred, ‘You see, Jake, poor Aline has a little problem. She really doesn’t like being touched—and that’s straight from the horse’s mouth. Mike said she was like turquoise, cold and smooth and shallow—nothing but surface colour. He called her the Untouchable—sometimes the Snow Queen. He said that when they had sex it was like worshipping at some shrine instead of loving a flesh-and-blood woman—’

‘That’s more than enough.’ Jake’s voice held such crackling menace that Lauren went white. Her eyes moved from Jake’s grim face to Aline, locked in a hideous stasis.

Jake said softly, ‘Get out of here.’

Lauren whispered, ‘It’s time she knew. She’s eating her heart out for a lie. I loved Mike and he loved me. We’d been lovers for a year when he died.’ Her eyes glazed with tears and her mouth trembled. ‘He wanted to come away with me, but he didn’t want to hurt her. We were going to get married.’

Unable to hold back, Aline retorted in a shaking voice, ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Because you don’t want to.’ Open antagonism sharpened her words. ‘Do you know what happened when he died? I lost our baby.’

Her anguished glance across the room to Emma, smiling in her father’s arms, struck both Jake and Aline mute.

Bitterly she went on, ‘If you hadn’t clung so hard he’d have left you, and then he and my baby would still be alive. I wouldn’t have let him fly across the sea looking for some idiot solo yachtsman who’d got himself lost. You killed Mike—and you killed my baby because you wouldn’t let go!’

That was when Aline knew she was telling the truth.