In Bed With...Collection

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.

‘What about when this is all over, Jake. Could we pick up again then?’

He shook his head but there was a pained expression on his face as he answered, ‘The process of indicting your father for corruption may go on for years, Laura.’

‘Is he guilty?’

‘Without a doubt.’

‘Will he go to jail?’

‘He’ll be ousted from the industry. It’s unlikely that any further action will be taken.’

No relief for her mother. No escape unless…

‘Once I get my degree and hopefully a well-paid position, I’ll be independent. And perhaps I can persuade my mother to come and live with me. We’ll be free and clear of my father.’

‘Perhaps…’ he repeated, but there was no belief in his eyes.

Her hope for at least some distant future with him was being crushed. It begged for a chance to survive. ‘Do you really want this to be goodbye, Jake?’

‘No. But I can’t honestly see any good way forward,’ he said flatly.

‘You have my mobile phone number. You could call me from time to time, check on how things are going,’ she suggested, trying to keep a note of desperation out of her voice.

He wrenched his gaze from the plea in hers and stared down at their linked hands. Again his thumbs worked over her skin. After a long nerve-tearing silence, he muttered, ‘You should close the door on me, Laura. You’ll meet someone else with no history to make your life difficult.’

‘I won’t meet anyone else like you,’ she said fiercely, every instinct fighting for a love she might never feel with any other man.

He expelled a long breath with the whisper, ‘Nor I, you.’ Then he visibly gathered himself, head lifting, meeting her gaze squarely again. ‘I won’t call you from time to time. I won’t keep any hold on you. When I’m done with your father—however long that takes—I’ll catch up with you to see where you are in your life and how we feel about each other then.’

She knew there was no fighting the hard decision in his eyes, in his voice. ‘Promise me you’ll do that, Jake. Whatever happens between now and then, promise me we’ll meet again.’

‘I promise.’ He leaned forward to press a soft warm kiss on her forehead. ‘Stay strong, Laura,’ he murmured.

Before she could say or do anything, he’d backed off, released her hands and was walking away. She stared at his retreating figure, feeling the distance growing between them with each step he took, hating it yet resigned to the inevitability of this parting.

He’d promised her they’d meet again.

It might be years away but she didn’t believe any length of time would make a difference to how she felt with him.

And she did have things to achieve—her qualifications, building a career and hopefully persuading her mother that there was another life to be led, free of abuse and oppression.

It would not be time wasted.

She would be better equipped to continue a journey with Jake Freedman when they met again—older, stronger, more his equal in everything. She could wait for that.

CHAPTER TWELVE (#ud535c0fb-8216-5cc4-a273-7d8e9771b73f)

STAY STRONG…

Laura repeated those words to herself many times as she tried to minimise her father’s savagery over the next few weeks, protecting her mother from it as best she could. She had half expected a vicious blow-up about her visit to Jake’s house, but that didn’t eventuate. Either there hadn’t been a surveillance man at all, or he hadn’t reported the incident, not seeing anything significant in it.

Strangely enough her mind was more at peace with Jake’s promise. She didn’t fret over his absence from her life. It was easier to concentrate on her landscape projects than when she was seeing him each week. Knowing what he was doing, knowing why, helped a lot, as did good memories when she went to bed at night. Besides, there was hope for a future with him, which she kept to herself, not confiding it to her mother or Eddie, both of whom would probably see it as an unhealthy obsession with the man.

She spent as much time with her mother as her uni studies and part-time receptionist work would allow. Nick Jeffries seemed to be finding a lot of maintenance jobs that had to be done, coming to the house two or three times a week. Laura wondered if he knowingly provided a buffer between her parents, giving her mother an excuse to be outside with him, supervising the work. He was a cheerful man, good to have around, in sharp contrast to her father, who was never anything but nasty now.

One evening she was in the kitchen with her mother, helping to prepare dinner, when he arrived home bellowing, ‘Laura!’ from the hallway, the tone alone warning he was bent on taking a piece out of her.

Her heart jumped. What had she done wrong? Nothing she could think of. ‘I’m in the kitchen, Dad!’ she called out, refusing to go running to him or show any fear of his mean temper.

Stay strong…