Forgotten Sins

Yet beneath the civilised—if aggressive—businessman, she thought with an odd primitive thrill, lurked a warrior, a man with hunting instincts as keenly honed as those marauders who’d swept periodically out of the desert or the forest, or from frozen wastes to plunder and loot and enslave. In spite of his mask of civilised discipline, Jake Howard radiated a primal intensity that slashed through her misery and humiliation, homing in on the basic need of a woman for a man.

When he caught her watching him the arrogantly handsome face didn’t change expression, but his unreadable eyes narrowed when he mouthed, ‘OK?’

Bitterly angry at the betraying tug of sensation deep in the pit of her stomach, she nodded and glanced away. How odd that she should be torn between grief at the shattering of her memories and this heated awareness of another man.

From their first meeting she’d reluctantly responded to Jake’s sexual energy, the supercharged physicality that his expensive tailoring didn’t hide, but she’d done her best to ignore it, seeing her unwilling response as treachery to the memory of the man she’d loved with all her heart.

And if that thought didn’t hurt so much she’d be laughing at her own naïve foolishness.

Once more she closed her eyes and tried to sink into nothingness. It didn’t work.

Angry and tense because Jake’s presence kept jerking her back into the real world, she peered sideways, picking out places she recognised—various islands and the intertwined arms of sea and land. The helicopter rode through a sunlit canopy while darkness overtook the land, and in its wake sprang scatterings of golden pinpricks. Trying to keep her mind from fixing obsessively on the man in front, Aline named every cluster and string of lights.

At last it was too dark to see, and she closed her eyes again, only opening them when the helicopter banked.

They landed in a purple and indigo night that bloomed with stars. Jake pushed the door back and swung long legs down; turning, he beckoned Aline.

She fumbled with the seatbelt; once free she hunched her shoulders and eased herself across to the door. Jake didn’t move, and when she looked into his face he gave a sudden humourless smile and lifted her down. Frustrated by her involuntary response she stiffened, knocking her temple against the side of the opening.

It hurt, and she said, ‘Ouch,’ putting up a hand to the slight contusion as he carried her easily across the grass, setting her down well away from the helicopter.

‘What happened?’ he demanded, running his fingers through her hair to discover the small bump. Frowning, he traced its contours gently.

Shaken by his nearness and his unexpected gentleness, Aline stepped back and shook her head.

‘Stay there,’ he commanded, and strode back to collect two bags, hers and one that must have been waiting for him on the chopper.

‘Thank you,’ she said bleakly when he dumped them at her feet.

She picked them up and turned towards the dark bulk of a house. After two or three steps she realised he wasn’t with her. A swift glance over her shoulder revealed him unloading a couple of cartons from the helicopter.

Food, of course; he’d have organised it while she’d packed. No, he’d planned this holiday before he’d gone to Emma’s christening, so supplies would already have been seen to.

She dropped the bags and started to go back to help unload, but Jake, his rangy body outlined in light from the helicopter, had almost reached her. As he put the cartons down the helicopter rose like a squat, noisy beetle, its lights blinking steadily while it banked above them and then soared away.

Jake straightened up. ‘How’s your head?’ he asked abruptly. ‘No headache?’

‘No, it was just a small bump.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Welcome to my bach,’ he said, and took her hand.

Automatically Aline pulled back, but the warm, strong fingers didn’t release her. ‘The grass is uneven,’ he explained, scooping up the bags and urging her towards the house.

‘What about the cartons—?’

‘I’ll come back for them. Come on, you’re cold.’

‘I’m not.’

He brought her hand up to his face, pressing it for one tense second against heated skin and the subtle abrasion of his beard. That fleeting contact seared through every quickening cell in her body.

‘Definitely cold,’ he said calmly. ‘Let’s get inside.’

And because she didn’t want to get involved in an undignified tug of war she couldn’t win—not because his clasp was strangely comforting—she let her fingers lie in the warmth of his and walked beside him towards the house.

Behind them the chop-chop-chop of motors faded into silence. Stars pulsated above, far brighter than they ever were in the city. A cool breeze flirted across her face, heavy with the delicious perfume of mown grass. Every sense suddenly and painfully alert, Aline pretended to gaze around.

At the house Jake dropped her hand and unlocked a wide door. Pushing it open, he switched on a light inside the door and glanced down at her, his face oddly rigid in the bright flood of light. ‘Come in, Aline,’ he said with unusual formality.

‘I wouldn’t call this a bach,’ she remarked, hesitating a cowardly second before bracing her shoulders and walking inside. ‘It’s far too big and modern. How many bedrooms does it have?’

‘Four. I didn’t know that baches had to have a certain number of rooms to deserve the name.’ His voice was cool, entirely lacking in any undercurrents, but his eyes scrutinised her face with a perceptiveness that screamed an alarm inside her. ‘It’s built to be easy to look after, suitable for casual holidays, so as far as I’m concerned it’s a bach.’

‘It’s lovely,’ she said quickly, looking around with assumed interest.

Apprehension prickled through her. Jake had seen her desperate and hurting; would he use that pain and desperation against her?

Not that it mattered; later her pride might suffer, but for the moment she didn’t—wouldn’t—let herself care.

She just wished it had been any other man than Jake Howard who’d offered her a refuge.

Perhaps he felt some guilt for that scene with Lauren, but a sideways glance as he strode beside her along the wide, tiled hall dispelled that idea. Why should he? It hadn’t been his fault, and anyway, Jake didn’t look the sort of man who did guilt.

‘Let me see that bump.’

‘It’s perfectly all right,’ she said, voice sharpening. ‘I can’t even feel it now, and it didn’t break the skin.’

But he insisted on parting her black hair with exquisite care so that he could check it. Aline closed her eyes, only to open them swiftly when she found that darkness emphasised his faint male scent—salty and sensual—and the slow fire of his touch on her head. Tensely she bit her lip.

He released her, saying abruptly, ‘It’s going down already. You’re rocking on your feet. I’ll show you to your room and you can rest there if you like.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It was barely a bump.’

The room he showed her was huge; Aline stood staring at the vast bed as Jake opened windows, letting in a great swathe of fresh, salty air. ‘The bathroom’s through that door,’ he said, indicating one in the wall. ‘I’ll bring you something to drink.’

‘I don’t want—’

‘Aline,’ he said very softly, his face hard and watchful, ‘just let go, will you? You’ve been running on adrenalin and will-power ever since that bloody woman spilled her guts. A drink will ease a bit of that tension, and a decent meal will give you something to use for energy. At the moment you look like the princess in the tower—white and drawn and so tightly wound you’ll shatter if a mosquito lands on you.’

Her chin lifted. ‘I don’t need a drink to ease tension. I’m not in the habit of “spilling my guts”—’ her voice infused his phrase with delicate scorn ‘—to perfect strangers, thank you.’

He gave her a thin, unsparing smile. ‘That sounds more like the Aline Connor I know. Not even my mother said I was perfect, but as for being strangers—I don’t think so…’

Something mesmerising in his fierce eyes, in the deep voice, tightened around Aline and imprisoned her in a cage of indecision. Breath clogged her lungs; she heard the distant drumbeat of her pulse, slow and heavy and then faster, faster, as Jake took her face in his hands and tilted it to meet his uncompromising gaze. Two lean forefingers traced the black, winged length of her brows.

Eyes glittering with a crazy mixture of anger and hunger, Aline jerked her head back. ‘Let me go,’ she said, the words hoarse and laboured.

‘We’re not strangers, Aline,’ Jake said, laughing in his throat as he dropped his hands and stepped a pace away from her. ‘Far from it.’