Australia: In Bed with a Bachelor: The Costarella Conquest / The Hot-Blooded Groom / Inherited: One Nanny

He hadn’t been using her.

They’d both chosen to give themselves the pleasure of mutual desire and it had been good. The more Laura reasoned it out, the more she believed the journey they’d taken together was completely separate from the road Jake had been travelling to put her father out of business.

She remembered the intensity of his love-making on Saturday night, the long passionate kiss before they left the hotel room, the flat darkness—no…light—of his eyes as he touched her cheek in the taxi.

Maybe he hadn’t wanted to say goodbye.

Maybe he loved her as deeply as she loved him.

Maybe he just couldn’t see a future for them, given what he was about to do.

That might be true…or it might not.

It depended on how much he felt for her.

She had to see him, talk to him, find out the truth.

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#u88344777-0a29-5978-86f6-4112556745ea)

LAURA wished she could have borrowed Eddie’s car to tour the streets of Woollahra, looking for the houses that were being renovated, noting them down for further investigation. It would have been the most time efficient way of searching for Jake’s current home, but she knew her brother would not have been sympathetic to her quest. Better not to ask. Better to go on foot, however long it took.

When she’d broken the news to Eddie, he’d leapt to the same interpretation of Jake’s interest in her as her father, being quite smug about having been right that Laura should never have gone there, right about Jake having a mission, too. The latter was impossible to deny, but Laura could not set aside the need to go there again.

At least Eddie had taken their mother out today, giving her a break from the wretched tensions at home. It left Laura enough free time to cover a fair bit of ground in her search, though it was now Sunday—no tradesmen’s trucks around to mark possibilities. After three hours of walking one street after another, and feeling somewhat dispirited at her lack of success, she decided to take a break for lunch and give her feet a rest.

Heading up another street that led to a public park where she could sit and eat her home-made sandwiches, Laura could hardly believe her eyes when she actually spotted Jake. He was on the upstairs balcony of a terrace house, painting the iron-lace railings—the same shade of green as the front door and the window frames. It was a rich forest green that looked really good against the old red bricks of the house.

He looked good, too, a fact her heart was registering by thumping painfully. She stood still, staring up at him, wracked by a terrible uncertainty now that the moment of truth was at hand. Was she being an utter fool, coming to him like this? So what if she was, she fiercely argued to herself. A sharp dose of humiliation wouldn’t kill her. And she wasn’t about to die wondering, either.

His head lifted, his gaze suddenly swinging to her as though some invisible force had drawn it. ‘Laura!’ He spoke her name in a tone of angst, jerking up from his crouched position on the balcony, frowning down at her. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you,’ she blurted out.

He shook his head. ‘It won’t do you any good.’ His gaze shot to a van parked on the other side of the street. ‘That’s been here since Wednesday. I’d say your father has me under surveillance and he won’t like getting a report of your coming to me. Just keep walking and maybe nothing will come of it.’

Her father’s threat jangled through her mind—you’ll pay for it.

Right now Laura didn’t care. Jake had just proved his caring for her. That was more important than anything else. Or was he just trying to get her out of his life again as fast as possible?

‘I have to know,’ she said with immovable determination. ‘I won’t go until you lay out the truth to me.’

A pained grimace twisted his mouth as his hand waved in a sharp, dismissive gesture. ‘You already know it had to come to an end. Remember it for what it was and move on.’

‘What was it, Jake?’

‘You know that, too,’ he shot back at her.

‘No, I don’t. You kept me in the dark about what meant most to you. I don’t know if it gave you a thrill to have me while plotting to bring my father down, if I was some kind of sweet icing on the cake for you. I want to know that before I move on.’

Jake stared at the woman he should never have touched, his mind torn by the deep hurt emanating from her. She was still the most beautiful, most desirable woman he’d ever known, quite possibly would ever know, and he hated having to part from her. It had to be done, but did it have to be done with her mind poisoned against what they’d shared?

He wanted her to have a good memory of him, not a bitter one. Yet how was he to soothe the hurt and protect her from her father’s wrath at the same time? The surveillance man was surely watching, taking note of this encounter. The longer it went on, the worse it would be for Laura at home.

‘There’s a public park at the end of this street,’ he said, pointing the direction as though she had asked for it.

‘I know!’ she cried in exasperation. ‘Can’t you just answer me?’

He shot a warning look at the van. ‘I’ll meet you there when I’ve finished this painting. Go, Laura. Go now.’

He turned his attention to the work in hand, bending down to the tin of paint again, hoping the intense urgency in his voice would spur her into moving away from him. After a few moments’ hesitation that tied his gut into knots, she did walk on, hopefully proving there was nothing in this meeting worth reporting.

He maintained a steady pace with the brushwork, exhibiting no haste to finish the job. It gave him time to think, time to reason out he should keep his answers to Laura short, avoid the tempting impulse to take her in his arms and prove his passion for her had been real, was still real. The ache in his groin had to be ignored. This meeting had to be limited to setting her straight, then letting her go. Anything else could not be sustained in the climate of her father’s venomous animosity.

The narrow alley that ran along the back of this row of terraces allowed him to leave his house unobserved. He would return the same way. A last meeting. No more.

He does care for me. He does.

It was like a chant of joy in Laura’s mind, making every step towards the park a light one for her tired feet. Jake would have no reason at all to give himself the trouble of meeting with her if she meant nothing to him. If she’d been part of his vendetta against her father, he would have shamed her in the street. He had certainly not been amused by her coming to him nor titillated by his power to draw her. He’d been pained by her presence, reminding him of what they’d shared, what he’d been trying to shut out as finished.

Except it wasn’t.

Not for her and not for him.

The connection was too strong to obliterate.

Laura was sure of it.

She found a park bench under a tree and sat down to wait, not bothering to unpack the sandwiches in her handbag. Her heart was too full of other needs for eating to be a priority anymore. Jake would come to her soon—Jake, whom she loved…whom she would always love. Did he feel the same way about her? Was it only the situation with her father that had driven him to break it off with her?

She had no idea how long she waited. Her mind was obsessed with finding some way to continue their relationship—safe places to meet, secret places, whatever it took for their journey not to end. When she spotted him approaching her at a fast stride she leapt to her feet, barely quelling the urge to run to him and fling her arms around his neck. Talking had to come first, she told herself, though if he wrapped her in his embrace…

He didn’t. There was no smile on his face, no joy at seeing her, no sexy twinkle in his eyes. When he reached her he took hold of her hands, squeezing them as though to prevent any other touching. ‘I never meant you to be hurt, Laura,’ he said gruffly. ‘I thought we could simply satisfy ourselves with the pleasures we could give each other. None of that had anything to do with your father. It was all about you, the woman I wanted to be with, not whose daughter you are.’

His thumbs were dragging across the skin on the back of her hands, wanting his words to sink in, go deep, expel the nastiness of the motivation that her father had given him. The earnest sincerity in his voice, the blaze of need to convince her in his eyes… Laura believed he spoke the truth. She wanted to believe.

‘You should have told me what you were about to do, Jake,’ she blurted out. ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad if you’d told me.’

His mouth twisted into a rueful grimace. ‘I didn’t want to spoil our last night together, bringing your father into it, bringing my family background into it. And telling you wasn’t going to change anything.’

‘It would have prepared me.’

‘Yes. I see that now. I’m sorry. I thought you’d understand. What we had was time out of time, Laura.’ He squeezed her hands hard. ‘You must let it go and move on.’

‘I don’t want to, Jake. It was too good to let go. You must feel that, too,’ she pleaded.

He jerked his head in a sharp negative. ‘There’s no way. Your father will see to that and bucking him would make things much worse for both you and your mother. You told me she needs you. And you still have to get your uni degree for the career you want. Any association with me will cost you too much.’

If he was under surveillance… Yes, it would be too risky. The tensions at home were volatile enough already. Yet letting this connection she felt with Jake go… Everything inside her railed against giving it up.