LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      CHAPTER TWO

      IT HURT, Aline realised, to breathe. It even hurt to think. The last time she could remember such pain was when they’d told her Michael was dead. The irony almost knocked her to her knees.

      Lauren said softly, ‘You’re so stubborn and self-centred, so sure you’re always right, but tomorrow you’ll have to believe me. I even lent the author Mike’s letters.’

      Jake’s eyes narrowed. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he asked in a tone that wilted Lauren’s antagonism.

      Defiantly she said, ‘Aline refused to talk to the writer—Stuart someone—when he contacted her about a biography of Mike. But I did. I told him everything about Mike and me because I wanted people to know he loved me. Tomorrow morning everyone in New Zealand will read that Aline gave Mike nothing, and I gave him everything.’

      Locked in a savage agony of rejection and betrayal, Aline closed her eyes, listening to the meaningless words buzz around inside her head. She craved numbness, forgetfulness, with the avid hunger of an addict.

      ‘And that book’s coming out tomorrow?’ Jake demanded so silkily that Aline’s lashes flew up.

      No emotion showed in his face, but his gaze focused on Lauren with the searing lance of a laser. Behind the hard, handsome features Aline saw a

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