Red-Hot Renegade

First love.

The man she’d once given her body to and with it her heart and her soul.

Jacob, with his back turned towards her.

Current husband, a dozen years estranged.

They didn’t know, no one knew, how hard it was to put one foot in front of the other and enter that room with her composure in place. Timid rabbits had no place in a room full of watchful waiting tigers. Not if they wanted to survive.

I’m not a rabbit. Not a rabbit. Jianne closed her eyes and let the silent litany wash through her before opening her eyes again and pasting a smile on her face as her aunt and uncle moved to her side and Madeline came forward to greet them. Madeline welcomed Jianne’s aunt and uncle first, hierarchy understood and respect given, before turning to Jianne and drawing her into a perfumed embrace.

‘You look stunning,’ said Madeline approvingly.

‘Thank you.’ The strapless floor-length ivory and blood-red gown, made from the finest silk, was a gown meant for extroverts, not wallflowers. The saleswoman had assured her that the wearing of such a gown would give Jianne all the confidence she needed and more, no matter how awkward the social encounter. The saleswoman had been dead wrong. ‘I shouldn’t have come,’ murmured Jianne. ‘This wasn’t a good idea.’

‘Stay,’ coaxed Madeline softly. ‘I happen to think it’s a very good idea. Come, I’ll introduce you to the newest Bennett warrior. The Bennett uncles are still in shock.’ Smiles came easily to Madeline these days, and Jianne made an effort to respond in kind. ‘It’s a girl.’

Baby Layla was a tiny darling with sapphire-blue eyes, alabaster skin, and a shock of auburn hair. Hard to stay distant when a baby smiled a toothless smile and promptly filled her mouth with her fist.

‘Layla, this is your auntie Jianne,’ said Hallie with a courtesy Jianne hadn’t expected. And to Ji, ‘Would you like to hold her?’

‘Me?’ Jianne blinked. ‘Yes! I mean, no! I mean…what if she cries? That wouldn’t be good.’ A vision of her cradling a wailing Layla while all around her wrathful Bennett uncles closed in on them was not an image she wanted to make reality. ‘Your brothers would descend.’

‘They wouldn’t dare,’ said Hallie, shooting at least two of them a warning glare. ‘They promised me their best behaviour this evening and there are wives enough here to ensure it.’

The notion that those wild-edged Bennett boys had finally allowed themselves to be tamed held a great deal of appeal for Jianne, but as she glanced away from baby Layla and scanned the room she figured Hallie’s statement for optimism rather than reality.

Tristan watched her coolly from his position by the window. Pete stood beside Jacob, his expression grim. As for Jake…Jacob wasn’t looking her way at all, and because of it Jianne allowed her gaze to linger.

Jacob’s suit clung to broad shoulders, powerful legs, and a lean and elegant torso—a testament to the glories of dedicating oneself to the martial arts. His hair was still thick and black and cropped shorter than ever. The lines and planes of his profile had grown sharper but it was still a face to put angels to shame.

From him came an almost visible aura of raw power kept on an incredibly tight leash. Undiluted power had always been an intrinsic part of Jacob’s make-up.

The leash was new.

She looked away, just for a moment, just to regroup, and when she looked back Jacob’s gaze clashed with hers, those vivid blue eyes of his coldly dismissive and his face set and stern. Jianne stilled, a rabbit caught in a hunter’s crosshairs. She wasn’t wanted here. She didn’t belong here. She’d been wrong to come.

‘Stay.’ A broad-shouldered man stepped in front of her and broke her eye contact with Jacob. Luke Bennett, Madeline’s intended, those golden eyes of his warmly encouraging as he handed her a glass of champagne. ‘Please.’

‘Please,’ echoed Hallie anxiously. ‘Jake needs to see you again. He does. He just…he doesn’t quite know it yet.’

‘Perhaps you could give me a call when he does,’ said Jianne with a strained smile. ‘I really don’t see what a forced meeting will achieve. Not harmony.’

‘Harmony’s overrated,’ said Luke. ‘Occasionally it’s best just to step back and let it all explode.’

‘Luke defuses bombs,’ said Hallie by way of explanation. ‘Or not.’

‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing,’ Jianne told Luke politely. ‘Just as I’m sure you know what happens to those at the centre of such explosions.’

‘We can protect you,’ said Luke.

‘I don’t doubt it.’ Certainty enveloped her and firmed her footing. Here at last in this place that glowed with new life and promise was old familiar ground. ‘But you won’t.’ They’d act instinctively to shield the one they loved. They’d shield Jacob. And Jianne would bleed.

‘Trust us,’ said Luke.

But Jianne was no longer the hopeful young bride who’d once thought she could shower love on a wild and broken family and receive love in return. ‘Trust must be earned,’ she countered quietly.

‘All right, don’t trust us.’ Grim determination replaced Luke’s earlier encouragement. ‘But stay, and watch us do everything we can to make you feel welcome here this evening.’

Jianne stayed, and before half an hour had passed Tristan had greeted her and introduced her to his wife, Pete had done the same, and the small Chinese youth in the smart western suit, who seemed to be being passed around from Bennett to Bennett, had found his way to her side.

‘Hello,’ she offered warily.

After careful appraisal the boy decided to speak. ‘I’m Po. The sensei’s apprentice,’ he said in flawless Cantonese. When she didn’t reply at once he repeated his introduction in Mandarin.

‘Which sensei would that be?’ Jianne chose English as her language of reply and the boy did not disappoint.

‘Sensei Jake.’ And when again she didn’t reply immediately, ‘Bennett.’

‘And does Sensei Jake Bennett also teach you English?’

‘I know it already,’ said Po. ‘And Tamul. And some Malay.’

‘I’m impressed. How do you come to be fluent in so many languages?’

Just like that the boy’s openness disappeared. ‘I just do.’

‘Well, then.’ She offered up a smile. ‘Hello, Po. I’m Jianne.’

‘Hello.’ Fathomless black eyes regarded her steadily. ‘You’re prettier than your picture.’

‘Thank you.’ Coherent thought followed the automatic reply. ‘What picture?’

The light from a nearby lamp dimmed as someone moved into place beside her. Jianne knew before she looked up that Jacob had joined them, a silent brooding presence bringing new tension to her already overloaded senses.

‘Hello, Jacob,’ she offered, and if her voice shook, and her insides trembled, well, it was only to be expected. He always had been able to unnerve her. ‘I’ve been making the acquaintance of your apprentice.’

‘So I see.’ Jacob turned his gaze on the boy. ‘What picture?’ he echoed grimly.

Po hesitated as if caught between devil and demon. Jake’s gaze hardened. ‘Po?’

‘The one in your wallet.’

‘You’ve been in my wallet?’

‘I didn’t steal anything,’ the boy said hurriedly. ‘It was ages ago. The day I came to the dojo. I—’ The boy stuttered his way to silence beneath the weight of his sensei’s glacial glare. ‘I wanted to know more. About you. Wallets are good for that.’

Boy and man stared at one another in fraught silence.