A Weekend To Remember

‘This weekend we’re just good friends,’ she stated stiffly. ‘Nothing more.’

‘We’ll see, Hannah,’ he muttered, his hand dropping away from her cheek. ‘We’ll see.’

‘I mean it, Jack,’ she said, her voice hardening further. ‘Till you get your memory back, our relationship is strictly platonic.’

‘And what if I said I’ve already got my memory back?’ he tossed back, watching her face all the while.

Hannah was only shaken for a split-second. ‘You’d be lying,’ she said, quite confidently.

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I just can.’

‘Hmm. Now, I wonder why that is, Hannah, love? What else has happened during the last six weeks to make you sure I’m still in the dark? No, don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know. Not tonight. The morning will be soon enough to find out the awful truth. Tonight I think I’d best remain in blessed oblivion.’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_04ea9e41-6096-5319-905b-3b7d129223e1)

BLESSED oblivion…

I could do with some of that, Hannah thought ruefully as she bent to put another log on the fire.

She stayed on her haunches, staring blankly into the flames, wishing she had never started any of this. It had been a crazy idea. She should have just told Jack the truth right away—all of it-and let him handle the situation with Felicia as he saw fit. He didn’t need a mother to hold his hand. He was a grown man.

It had been a mistake in judgement to embark on this ridiculous deception—a silly, impulsive reaction which she hadn’t thought through at all properly.

But it was not too late to tell Jack the truth. By morning it might be, however. By then he might well have regained his memory, and he would be furious with her. Not only furious, but suspicious of her motives in doing such a thing. He might even harbour doubts over her story about Felicia and Gerald Boynton, which was the last thing she wanted.

Hannah smothered an exasperated sigh. ‘O what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!’

‘You make a good fire.’

Hannah flinched, then threw a rather stiff smile over her shoulder. Jack was sprawled along one of the two overstuffed sofas which flanked the living-room fireplace, his normally macho-clad frame distractingly clothed in the sleek navy silk pyjamas she’d found in his drawers. He was propped up on one elbow, his hands cupped around a mug of hot chocolate. His feet were bare but not his chin. It was sporting the beginnings of more than a five o’clock shadow.

This was hardly new for Jack. He often didn’t shave, sometimes letting two or three days go by before he bothered. Clearly he hadn’t bothered this morning. Hannah had always found such inattention to personal grooming unappealing. Dwight had been so meticulous in such matters.

Tonight, however, she found it disturbingly attractive. It seemed to highlight Jack’s almost animal-like maleness, the silk pyjamas not really disguising a body more suited to caveman times than the nineties.

All thoughts of telling her boss the truth fled from her mind for a few moments, replaced by memories of how it had felt when he’d kissed her back in the car. She’d tried not to think about that in the hour since they’d arrived, during which time she’d busied herself with all sorts of household chores: lighting both fires, unpacking Jack’s clothes, running him a hot bath, making them both some food and drink, showering and changing herself.

Now, all of a sudden, she couldn’t stop thinking about her response to Jack’s kisses, and what it might feel like to go to bed with him. The realisation that she was undressing him with her eyes and wondering if he was as well-built downstairs as he was everywhere else, really shocked her.

Wrenching her eyes away from him, she busied herself pushing the log right in, then closing and securing the glass door. ‘I’ve had plenty of practice at firemaking,’ she said, disguising her inner turmoil under a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Not to mention wood-chopping and mowing. Dwight wasn’t what you’d call the handyman type.’

Neither had he been a complimenter. It came to Hannah then that Jack was always praising her. She loved that about him.

But she didn’t love him. The only man she’d ever loved was Dwight, her husband and the father of her children. No doubt, underneath her hurt and her anger, she was still in love with the rotter!

So why, dammit, couldn’t she stop thinking about making love with Jack?

Hannah almost groaned in total exasperation at herself. There was no doubt about it now. She had to tell him the truth. And she had to tell him before things got any further out of hand.

But how? It wasn’t going to be easy.

Frowning, she rose from her haunches, wiping her hands down the legs of her jeans before pulling down her jumper from where it had ridden up over her hips.

‘I like you dressed like that.’

Hannah’s eyes snapped up, blinking her surprise and automatic scepticism. Around the time she had turned thirty Dwight had started saying that her derriere was too big to wear jeans, so she’d left all her jeans up here, to wear when Dwight wasn’t with her. Admittedly she’d lost weight in the time she’d worked for Jack, but she still found it hard to believe that any man would genuinely fancy her in jeans.

It wasn’t her derrière Jack was staring at, however, but the thrust of her full breasts against the soft wool of the pink jumper. They tingled beneath his scrutiny, swelling and peaking hard within her bra.

Her body’s response both shamed and excited Hannah. God, but it was an eternity since such a thing had happened to her like that—so automatically, so wantonly.

‘I like women in casual clothes,’ Jack said. ‘It makes them look approachable. You’ve no idea how much more approachable you look in those jeans than the tailored suits you usually wear to work. Mmm, I think I might make jeans your uniform,’ he added, then chuckled drily. ‘Perhaps not. I’d never get any work done.’ Swinging his bare feet on to the floor, he sat up and patted the sofa next to him with his spare hand. ‘Come over and sit down. You haven’t stopped working since we arrived. It’s time you put up your feet.’

Hannah’s heart lurched. She stared at him for a few terrifyingly electric moments before panic at the feelings spiralling through her sent her scurrying towards the other sofa. ‘I’ll just sit over here, I think,’ she babbled. ‘There’s not much room next to you and you might spill your drink.’

‘No, I won’t,’ he said, sliding down to the far corner and depositing the mug on the side-table right next to his elbow. ‘Now there’s room,’ he said, patting the sofa again, his blue eyes glittering with desire as they raked over her breasts once more.

Her panic flared anew. And she must have shown it.

His frown was swift and dark. ‘What is it, Hannah?’ he asked. ‘What’s troubling you?’

‘Nothing,’ she lied, sitting there with her knees clenched together and her hands nervously massaging her thighs. ‘Nothing.’

‘You can’t honestly expect me to believe that. Your face is an open book, if one wants to take the time to read it. Something’s definitely wrong,’ he insisted, his penetrating blue eyes giving her no mercy.

He moved forward to perch on the edge of the sofa, his hands on his knees. ‘Look, Hannah, I know I said I didn’t want you to tell me any nasties till the morning, but I can see neither of us will sleep properly if the air isn’t cleared. So out with it,’ he commanded in his most effective ‘boss’ voice. ‘What else has happened during the last six weeks which has you all tied up in knots?’

She grimaced, knowing that this was the chance she’d been looking for—the opportune moment to unburden her conscience. All she had to do was open her mouth and let the truth spill out.

But it just wasn’t that easy. Not at all. Her head whirled and her tongue felt thick. She couldn’t seem to find the right words. Or any words at all!

Her stricken expression brought an answering anxiety to his face.

‘My God, it’s not the business, is it?’ he burst out, his head snapping up, his knuckles going white as his large hands gripped his knees. ‘I haven’t somehow stuffed it up, have I? I could bear just about anything, but not that. I’ve worked too long and too hard to start at the bottom of the heap again.’

Hannah’s heart went out to him. She’d heard the stories about his childhood in a state institution for orphans, how he’d left to strike out on his own at fourteen, a boy with the body of a man, how he’d worked as a builder’s labourer and learnt his trade by trial and error. He’d started small, buying a single block of land, building a house on it and selling it as a package, then using the profit to buy two blocks of land, repeating the process till he’d become one of the biggest home-builders in New South Wales.

Hannah could appreciate Jack’s panic. In his shoes, she’d have felt exactly the same.

His obvious distress had the effect of her finding her voice. To a degree.

‘Nothing bad’s happened to the business, Jack,’ she insisted fiercely. ‘Truly. If you must know, I…I…’ Once again her voice dried up, her courage failing her anew.

‘What?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘For God’s sakes what, Hannah?’

It was no use. She just couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet. Not tonight.