In the Australian's Bed: The Passion Price / The Australian's Convenient Bride / The Australian's Marriage Demand

‘I thought you might enjoy it.’

She truly had. Every bit of it. The views. The food. But especially the company.

Jake had to be one of the most intelligent and interesting men she’d ever talked to. Even if he wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous and she hadn’t been madly attracted to him, she’d have enjoyed his company these past three hours. They’d chatted about so many different topics, getting to know each other as the adults they’d become, not the teenagers they’d once been. She’d discovered they had similar tastes in books and movies, thrillers being their entertainment of choice. After agreeing to disagree on what kind of music was best, they’d argued happily about politics, discussed the world’s leaders failing with peace and the environment, and in general had a great time, solving everything themselves with sweeping words of wisdom.

None of this would have been possible, Angelina realised, but for the other people on the cruise. Mostly tourists, with cameras which were whipped up at every opportunity to snap pictures of the bridge, the opera house and the shoreline. Their constant presence had allowed her to drop her defences and be more relaxed with Jake than she had been since he’d walked back into her life. It had been good to forget the threat of being seduced for a while and just enjoy Jake, the person, and not Jake, the sexual predator.

She was even beginning to reassess that judgement of him. Maybe she’d been harsh in thinking he was that shallow when it came to relationships. Just because he didn’t want marriage and children didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of caring, in a fashion. Of course, his track record with women wasn’t great. Even he’d admitted to that. But even men like Jake could change, couldn’t they? Maybe he was getting to that age when he was ready for commitment.

But was he ready for a ready-made son, complete with mother attached?

Angelina felt that was too large a leap of faith.

No. Jake, the man, would still not be pleased when she finally told him the truth. Which was perhaps why she couldn’t tell him yet. For one thing, she didn’t want to spoil today. Surely she deserved one day of being totally selfish, of just being Angelina, the woman, not Angelina, the mother? It was so nice to be squired around by Jake, to have him lavish attention on her, to feel desired and wanted.

Of course, it was risky. But it was worth the risk to feel what she was feeling at the moment. Not in sixteen years had she experienced anything like it. This fizz of excitement dancing along her veins and through her head. Her very light head, she suddenly realised.

Her laugh sounded rather girlish, even to her own ears. ‘I think I’ve had too much to drink.’ The white wines served up with the buffet lunch had been excellent, and so easy to swallow.

‘I’ll make you some coffee when we get up to my place,’ Jake offered. ‘It’s just a short walk from the wharf. Come on, this is where we get off.’

He hadn’t lied about the shortness of the walk. But it was still far too long with her hand warmly encased within Jake’s. By the time they’d strolled up the hill to his apartment block, and ridden up in the lift—alone together—to the fifteenth floor, Angelina was desperate to put some physical distance between them. She was glad when he dropped her hand to unlock and open his front door. But that was only a short respite. She needed longer.

‘I—er—have to use your bathroom,’ she said as soon as Jake shut the door behind them.

He gave her a sharp look, as though he knew exactly what she was doing. And why.

‘This way,’ he said crisply.

Her five-minute stay in the bathroom helped, although not the sight of the bathroom. How many people had bathrooms which had black marble right to the ceiling, not to mention real gold taps and corner spa baths big enough for two?

Angelina recalled that the living room—which she’d followed Jake across on her way to the bathroom—also had black marble tiles on the floor, not to mention thick white rugs, red leather furniture, sexy steel lamps and a television as big as a movie screen. Then there was the far wall, which was all glass, beyond which was a wide terrace and a view to die for.

The place had ‘seduction palace’ written all over it!

‘This is a very expensive apartment, Jake,’ she said when she finally joined him in the kitchen. It, too, had the same black marble on the bench-tops, and the latest in stainless-steel appliances. Above the double sinks was a wide window that overlooked the terrace and caught some more of the brilliant view of the harbour, and the bridge.

‘It was all Edward’s doing,’ he said as he spooned the coffee into attractive stoneware mugs. ‘He insisted I buy a flashy harbourside apartment with some of my inheritance.’

‘Well…this is flashy all right.’

He looked up from his coffee-making, his expression disappointed. ‘You don’t like it.’

‘No, no, I do. What’s not to like? It’s just…well…it does have “bachelor pad” written all over it.’

‘True. But then that’s what I am, Angelina. A bachelor. I thought that was one of the things you liked about me. I fitted in with your priorities in life.’

She looked away before he glimpsed the truth on her face, walking over to slide open one of the glass doors that led out onto the balcony. ‘Could we have our coffee outside?’ she threw back at him, deliberately directing the conversation away from her priorities in life.

Jake shrugged. ‘Whatever you fancy.’

Leading words, and one which Angelina struggled to ignore. If only he realised how much she fancied him. So far, she’d done a good job of keeping her desires hidden, but the fact she was even here, with him, alone, had to be telling.

She was standing against the glass security panels that bounded the terrace, her hands curled tightly over the top railing, when he joined her with the two steaming mugs.

‘I remembered how you liked your coffee from last Saturday,’ he said. ‘I hope I got it right. Black, with one sugar?’

‘Perfect,’ she said, and went to take it from him. Stupidly, not with the handle. On contact with the red-hot stoneware, her hand automatically jerked back. At the same moment, Jake let the mug go and it crashed to the terrace, splintering apart on the terracotta tiles, some of the near-boiling black coffee splashing onto her stockinged legs.

Her cry of pain was real, Jake’s reactions swift. Shoving his own mug onto a nearby table, he scooped Angelina up in his arms, and carried her with long strides back inside and over to the kitchen. There, he sat her on the marble counter, stripped off her shoes and swivelled her round to put her stockinged feet into the larger of the two sinks. Turning on the tap, he directed the cold water over her scalded legs.

‘That water’s freezing!’ she cried out, and stamped her feet up and down in the sink.

‘That’s the idea,’ he replied. ‘It’ll take the heat out of your skin and stop it from burning. Now, stop being such a baby.’ And he kept swivelling the tap back and forth across her lower legs.

‘You’re getting my dress all wet,’ she complained.

‘I have a drier. Besides, there’s coffee on that very pretty skirt, anyway. You’ll have to take the dress off and soak it, if you don’t want the whole thing to be ruined.’

Take her dress off! If she did that, then she’d be a goner for sure.

‘Was this part of your plan for today? Spill hot coffee all over me so you could play knight the rescue and get my dress off at the same time?’

His blue eyes glittered with amusement. ‘I’d love to say that I thought of it. In fact, I might put it away in my mental cupboard of plans for seducing difficult old flames. But given you dropped the mug, Angelina, might I ask you the same thing? Was this your plan,’ he countered, his voice dropping to a low, sexy timbre, ‘to spill coffee all over yourself so you could take off your dress in order to seduce me?’

If only he hadn’t been so close, or his hands hadn’t been on her legs as well, or his eyes hadn’t been searching hers.

‘Could be,’ she heard herself say in a faraway voice, her head whirling. But not with the wine this time. With desire. For him. ‘Has it worked?’ she murmured, her eyes drowning in his.

His hands stilled on her legs. Then slowly but surely, he turned off the tap and scooped her back up into his arms.

‘Absolutely,’ he said.

Jake’s heart pounded as he carried her down the hallway towards the master bedroom.

This was the moment he’d been waiting and hoping for. There was no stopping him now.

Yet her eyes slightly bothered him. They seemed kind of dazed. Was she still tipsy from the wine she’d drunk over lunch? Surely not. She’d hadn’t consumed that much.

He angled her through the bedroom door and carried her across the expanse of white shag carpet towards the king-sized bed with its gold satin quilt and matching pillows. Her calling the apartment flashy popped back into his mind. If she’d thought the rest of his place flashy, he wondered what she’d make of this room.

But she wasn’t looking at the room. She was just looking at him. With those huge, liquid brown eyes of hers. Still dazed, they were. But also adoring.

Had there ever been a woman look at him quite like the way she was looking at him?

Only her, all those years ago, when she’d been just a girl. His heart flipped over at this realisation. Dear God, let him do this right this time, he thought, and laid her gently down across the bed.

She sucked in sharply when his hands slid up under the damp hem of her dress.