A Reason For Marriage

And now tomorrow he was coming here—with his new girlfriend. Did she have the strength to face him? Did she have any choice? If she left now Beth was bound to speculate, and she had after all nothing to fear. No one in the family knew of that brief month of ecstasy he had given her before the lies and deceit caught up with him. No, only she and Jake knew about those evenings in his flat when she had lain in his arms and felt his hands against her skin, when he had told her that he had been waiting for her to grow up, waiting for her to see him as a man and not simply as a stepbrother.

It was dark now. How long had she been standing staring into space? She glanced at her watch. Almost an hour. Beth would be wondering what on earth she was doing.

At least she had been granted a few hours to prepare herself. She looked at the case she had dropped on the bed and went over to it, unsnapping the locks. She had come straight to Bristol after nothing more than a brief stop at her London flat, giving herself time only to shower and re-pack.

In New York she had had enough free time to do some shopping. With this visit in mind she had bought a sweater for Beth and a beautifully dressed rag-doll for her goddaughter.

She unpacked automatically, her movements deft with experience. In her case was the new Calvin Klein she had bought in New York. She had packed it on impulse, a handful of dark lavender silk jersey that looked nothing on the hanger but which moulded her body and picked out the unusual colour of her eyes. It was a sophisticated dress that only just fell short of meriting the description ‘sexy’. She would wear it tomorrow night, she decided grimly. Whatever her private feelings might be, she wanted Jake to be in no doubt at all that the old Jamie had gone. As she hung the dress up she thanked God for the experience that had taught her over the years exactly how to conduct a light-hearted flirtation without involving herself in anything more. If she knew her cousin, Beth would be providing her with a dinner partner; normally she would have been cool and distant with him, letting him know that she was not in the market for a one-night stand or anything else, but tomorrow…

She heard her cousin’s voice calling to her outside her bedroom door, and composing her face into an expression of cool serenity she went to open it.

‘Sarah’s awake now,’ Beth told her, holding up the blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby for Jamie’s closer inspection.

‘Heavens, she’s grown so much.’

After a few seconds’ solemn inspection the little girl deigned to smile.

‘It’s bath-time,’ Beth explained, glancing ruefully at her cousin’s immaculate skirt and cashmere jumper. ‘I’m sorry to be such a poor hostess. If you want to go downstairs…’

‘What I want to do,’ Jamie told her firmly, ‘is to help you give my goddaughter her bath. After all,’ she said more softly, touching her fingertips to the baby’s soft skin, ‘I am her godmother; which reminds me. I’ve brought a small present for her from New York.’

Firmly dismissing Jake from her mind Jamie held out her arms to take Sarah from her mother.

‘Come on,’ she said firmly to the little girl. ‘It’s time you and I got to know one another, young lady.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘JAMIE, you’re an angel,’ Beth said breathlessly, standing back to admire the bowl of flowers Jamie had just placed on the dining-room table.

The long velvet curtains had been closed against the dark; Jamie pursed her lips slightly as she studied her arrangement.

‘With Sarah to look after I never get time for all the small details like flowers,’ Beth told her wryly. ‘Richard’s going to get quite a shock when he finds out what we’re having to eat. I’m afraid all I ever seem to manage is something simple. I really am grateful to you for everything you’ve done. But I feel terribly guilty. You’re supposed to be here to rest.’

‘I enjoyed it,’ Jamie told her truthfully. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been let loose in a kitchen.’

‘Of course, I was forgetting that your mother taught you to cook. It’s no wonder you’re so good.’

‘Adequate but not inspired,’ Jamie told her, shrugging off the compliment.

The dining-room of Beth and Richard’s new house was a pleasant size but the previous owners had been less than adventurous in their choice of decor. The walls and ceiling were painted cream, taking no advantage of the lovely high ceiling and the attractive cornice.

‘This room’s dreadfully dull,’ Beth commented critically, wrinkling her nose. ‘The whole house needs redecorating, but I just don’t know where to start.’

‘We’ll sit down tomorrow and talk about it together,’ Jamie promised.

‘There’s Richard,’ Beth exclaimed as they heard the front door open and shut.

‘I’d better go upstairs and get ready,’ Jamie told her, giving her cousin’s husband a warm smile as he came into the room. Rather like a cuddly round teddy bear to look at, she liked Richard, who she knew was a shrewd businessman who adored his wife and little girl.

Leaving them alone together she hurried upstairs. In an hour and a half Jake would be here. Already her heart was pounding unevenly. Her fingers shook as she opened her bedroom door. She wasn’t going to let seeing him affect her. She was going to be cool and indifferent to him. She had to be.

‘WOW, WHAT A stunning dress!’ Beth’s eyes opened wide as she studied her cousin’s appearance, enviously admiring the way the silk jersey clung to Jamie’s supple body. ‘How on earth do you manage to stay so slim?’ she complained ruefully. ‘I’m at least half a stone overweight.’

‘If you are that’s how I like you,’ Richard told his wife, coming into the kitchen behind Jamie, and going over to give Beth a quick kiss.

‘Mmm, something smells good.’

‘Well, you can thank Jamie. She’s taken charge of tonight’s meal,’ Beth told him.

Jamie knew there would be eight of them altogether: Jake and his girlfriend, the local doctor and his wife, and her brother, who was apparently staying with them following a road accident, Jamie herself and Beth and Richard.

Beth had been only vaguely informative on the subject of Ian Parsons, explaining that he was a geologist who worked abroad, who had been involved in a road accident which had killed his wife.

‘Ian was very badly injured, but he’s on his feet again now. The accident happened over eighteen months ago, and he’s been staying with Sue and Chris ever since. He’s rather quiet and withdrawn,’ she warned Jamie. ‘Sue says he blames himself for his wife’s death. They were on the verge of splitting up when it happened, and he thinks if they hadn’t been arguing, his wife would never have crashed the car.’

Jamie was in the kitchen checking on the seafood crêpes she had prepared for their first course when she heard the doorbell ring.

The kitchen door was open and she heard Beth opening the door, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickling atavistically as she recognised the deep male drawl that answered her cousin’s warm greeting. Jake had arrived!

She was glad that being in the kitchen meant that she didn’t need to go out and greet them. But then wasn’t that why she had offered to make the meal? She might be able to deceive others, but she couldn’t deceive herself.

‘Something smells good,’ she heard Jake say, unconsciously repeating Richard’s comment. She had forgotten that velvet, teasing quality his voice could take on. Her body was a mass of pain and she had an intense desire to open the back door and run.

Almost as though Beth had sensed it, the kitchen door was pushed open and her muscles tensed, knowing she had only seconds to prepare her defences.

All four of them walked into the room. She had her back to them as she pretended all her concentration was on what she was cooking, but in reality all she was aware of was Jake. She could almost smell the faint scent of his body, she thought feverishly, knowing by some sixth sense that he was the one standing closest to her. She had to turn round and face him.

‘Jake.’ Her smile was the perfect social widening of lips that signified politeness rather than pleasure. ‘I thought I recognised your voice.’

She didn’t hold her hand out to him, but gripped the spoon she was using.

He was like a force field, she thought achingly as she willed herself to meet the cool cynicism of his eyes; drawing all the energy and resistance out of her. The last time she had seen him had been at Sarah’s christening, but then she made only a lightning appearance, leaving before the party afterwards with the excuse that she was due to fly to the States. Then she had had weeks to prepare herself, weeks to teach her senses to register his presence and then ignore it.

All at once she felt terribly hot and shaky. The green eyes narrowed, his glance moving slowly and thoughtfully over the silky fabric that clung to her breasts and hips.

‘Doesn’t Jamie look lovely?’

Even Beth seemed to be affected by the tension invading the kitchen, her voice high and slightly breathless.

Without taking his eyes off her Jake said coolly, ‘She’s too thin.’

He was talking about her as though she were completely incapable of emotions and feelings, and it hurt so badly she felt as though she were being ripped apart.

She mustn’t let him get to her like this. Jake had always enjoyed dominating and dictating to her, she knew that, and he would enjoy doing it again, simply for the pleasure of humiliating her. She couldn’t let it happen. She took a deep breath, reminding herself wryly that she was now a sophisticated businesswoman, not a mutely adoring child, and putting down the spoon she turned towards the pretty blonde girl hovering uncertainly between Jake and Beth.

‘No one seems to be going to introduce us,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m Jamie, and I know you must be Amanda.’

The girl, and that was exactly what she was, Jamie thought noting the clear skin and childishly rounded face, smiled back guilelessly.