Reclaimed by the Ruthless Tycoon Page 6

‘I was passing by and I came to see how you were,’ Jake addressed the comment to Kate, ignoring Rita, who was still clinging to his arm, looking furious.

  ‘Fine,’ Kate assured him brittly. ‘And you?’

  ‘I think I’ll survive—I’ve endured worse in the past,’ and for some reason the sardonic remark made Kate think, not of the mist and their danger, but of danger of another kind, the sort she had experienced in his arms, and her cheeks grew hot as she wondered if he had deliberately steered her thoughts in that direction.

  ‘Personally I can’t think what you were doing out on the fells,’ Rita interrupted, eyeing Kate angrily.

  She wasn’t going to be drawn into an argument with the other woman, Kate decided, counting ten mentally as she held back the words clamouring for utterance. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see that Jake was watching her curiously. Three years ago when they had first met, someone like Rita would have terrorised her, but the intervening months had brought a measure of maturity and self-confidence that enabled her to cope with Rita’s jealous insinuations.

  ‘Phew! What brought that on?’ Meg enquired when Jake and Rita had left. ‘I heard it all from the storeroom.’

  ‘Rita seems to think—quite erroneously—that I’m out to snatch Jake from under her nose.’

  ‘Umm, I wouldn’t blame you for trying,’ Meg grinned. ‘There’s a man who’s definitely all male,’ she added appreciatively, ‘but definitely not the type to let anyone else make his decisions for him. Has she got reason to be jealous?’ she asked cautiously. ‘I mean, he did come to see how you were?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m concerned,’ Kate responded coolly. ‘Like I’ve already said, he’s not my type.’

  ‘Yes, I know you’ve said it,’ Meg agreed. ‘That’s what’s worrying me!’ She raised her eyebrows teasingly, and continued, ‘Kate, he’s every woman’s secret type, and well you know it.’

  ‘I’ll tell Matt,’ Kate threatened, but inwardly she was aching with pain. Meg was right, Jake had sex appeal that few women could resist. During their brief marriage she had nearly been driven insane by jealousy every time another woman looked at him, which was almost continually. They had had bitter rows about it, although she had always masked the true cause of her anger, which was her fear that he might turn away from her to one of these other women. Right from the start she had doubted her own ability to hold him. Even though she had loved him with an intensity that shook her to the heart, she had never told him. He had married her on some whim because he thought she was vulnerable and because he disapproved of Lyla’s influence over her; he had told her she was so sexually responsive to him that their marriage couldn’t help but be a success, but he had said it with an undertone of cynicism, she recognised now, and he had never said that he loved her, never once. He had wanted her, he had desired her physically and in those first early months had seemed to derive a savage satisfaction from making her respond just as ardently to him, but love had been a word neither of them had ever uttered.

  So their marriage had been a mistake, Kate thought angrily as she started to tidy up the shelves. So what was new? She had known that within six months of marrying him, although she had tried to make it work.

  Jake had been the one who left, the one who threw out that taunting, ‘Come and find me when you’re finally grown up.’

  By mid-afternoon she felt so restless that she knew she would have to escape the confines of the shop and expel some of her nervous action in physical activity. Leaving Meg alone, she set off in the direction of Little Cottage.

  It was another cold day and the east wind knifed through her wool jacket as she hurried through the village. Sarah welcomed her warmly, opening the door almost before she knocked. ‘I saw you coming down the street,’ she beamed. ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea?’

  As she bustled about her small kitchen Kate watched her affectionately. She was talking over her shoulder to Kate about the power station, explaining that one of her nieces had just got a job there. ‘Aye, I know you’re against it, Kate,’ she agreed when she had poured them both a cup of tea, ‘but there’s a lot of folk round here grateful for the jobs it gives them.’ She frowned suddenly and went pale as someone knocked on the door.

  ‘I’ll get it for you, shall I?’ Kate offered, as she was nearest. For a moment Sarah had looked quite ill, and Kate frowned. Her friend was well into her seventies and although she always looked fit and healthy perhaps she was more frail than Kate had imagined. As she opened the door, she was forced to take a step back as the youth who stood there pushed open the door, lounging there in a manner that was somehow threatening, although he couldn’t have been more than fifteen.

  ‘See you’ve got a visitor,’ he commented laconically to Sarah, who was standing behind Kate. ‘I’ll call round later, then.’

  ‘He’s a nephew of Mrs James’s,’ Sarah explained when he had gone. ‘He comes round sometimes to run errands and do little jobs…’ Her voice sounded unusually breathless and Kate could have sworn she saw fear in the older woman’s eyes for a moment, but she changed the subject so swiftly that Kate felt it would be impolite to pry. By the time she got up to leave she had managed to convince herself that she must have imagined that brief flash of fear in the faded blue eyes when they rested on Mrs James’s nephew, but even so she turned impulsively at the door to hug the old lady. ‘You know you can always come to me if…if…you need someone to talk to, don’t you?’

  ‘You’re a fine lassie,’ Sarah told her warmly. ‘I’ll have yon jumper finished by the end of the month. Mind how you go now, that wind’s bitter cold.’

  Kate was halfway down the street when an imperative hoot on a car horn sounded behind her, making her turn automatically just in time to see Jake pulling alongside her in a gleaming black BMW.

  ‘Get in,’ he instructed curtly. ‘I’ll give you a lift—you look frozen. Don’t waste time arguing, Kate,’ he continued when she hesitated, ‘get in.’

  For some reason she couldn’t later define, Kate did as he instructed, dismayed to discover how much she quivered inwardly as she fastened her seat-belt and tried to relax. It was only a matter of a quarter of a mile or so to the shop, but over every yard of it she was intensely conscious of Jake at her side, his hands lean and sure as he manoeuvred the powerful car, the fabric of his business suit stretched tautly across his thighs as he drove and the intimacy of the car which seemed to enfold her in a web of tension.

  ‘No after-effects from the other night?’

  Kate darted a glance at him, moistening dry lips with her tongue as she probed the words carefully for a hidden meaning. ‘None at all,’ she assured him coolly, ‘but then when one keeps a cool head and acts logically instead of giving in to panic, there seldom is.’

  Now let him ponder on her words! ‘We’re here,’ she added calmly. ‘Thank you for the lift.’ She was reaching for the handle as he stopped, but his fingers on her sleeve stopped her. ‘Don’t forget to save me a dance at the Hunt Ball,’ he told her softly, watching her shiver under the faint threat laced through the words. ‘We’ve got a lot of news to catch up on, and…’

  ‘I won’t be used by you to make Rita jealous, Jake,’ Kate told him emphatically, ‘and the only thing I want from you is my divorce. Our marriage was a farce, and…’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ The curt, clipped tones silenced her for a moment, and she blinked uncertainly at him as he leaned forward and across her, releasing the catch on the door. As he made to withdraw Kate moved forward, the brief movement bringing her breasts in contact with the hard warmth of his arm, her skin tingling beneath her clothes, her lungs tortured with lack of oxygen as she held her breath stunned by the tumult of her senses. Memories long dormant flared to life, her body intensely aware of the man seated beside her, feelings and desires she had relentlessly subdued since she left him bursting through the barriers she had erected against them. When she got out of the car she wasn’t surprised to discover that her legs could
barely support her. It had been like this when she first knew him. He only had to look at her and she melted. But that was then. Now she ought to be immune to the traitorous surge of her senses. She ought to be, but she wasn’t, Kate admitted grimly when she had closed the door behind her, leaning against it while she tried to gather her distracted thoughts. What she was suffering from was plain old-fashioned frustration, she told herself bluntly. Since Jake there had been no one, unless she counted the almost brotherly kisses she had shared with Kevin, and perhaps it was only natural that seeing him should reawaken all those feelings she had thought dead.

  * * *

  ‘MEG, what do you think?’ Anxiously Kate peered in the mirror, examining her reflection. The Hunt Ball was the highlight of the local social calendar and the dress she had bought for it was one that she would not normally have worn. The time she had spent with Lyla had reinforced her own natural good taste, and now with the business so successful she had the money to indulge herself in the odd luxury, which this gown—there was surely no other word to describe it—most certainly was.

  It was a copy of a Dior model and she had bought it in Paris. Made of purest cream silk crêpe, it clung softly to her body, the padded shoulders and dolman sleeves emphasising the slenderness of her waist and hips. Throat high at the front, at the back it bared her body to her waist, before falling in a straight swathe to her feet. For once her hair was piled up on top of her head in a cluster of soft curls, pearl and diamond drop earrings and matching choker being the only jewellery she was wearing.

  ‘Meg?’ She glanced anxiously at her friend when there was no response. ‘It’s all wrong, isn’t it?’ she agonised. ‘I ought to have bought something in taffeta with a huge skirt and…’

  ‘Wrong? It’s stunning!’ Meg told her breathlessly. ‘Oh Kate, you look…fantastic! Like an ice princess, remote and beautiful in an ivory tower. It must have cost the earth.’

  ‘It did,’ Kate agreed ruefully. ‘Nearly all my bonus and Lyla’s birthday cheque.’

  ‘Then you must want to impress someone,’ Meg slipped in slyly, ‘and something tells me it’s going to be wasted on Kevin!’

  ‘Perhaps I just want to prove that being anti-nuclear weapons doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with jeans and austerity,’ Kate responded, knowing nevertheless that she had coloured faintly. She had bought the dress long before Jake had appeared in the village, but she was too honest with herself to deny that his presence had contributed to her decision to wear it. And why not? Why shouldn’t she show him the woman she had become? Especially when he continually flaunted Rita in front of her eyes—or rather Rita flaunted him. She had made it plain that she had laid claim to Jake in no uncertain terms, and there was already gossip in the village about the possibility of their marriage. Rita obviously didn’t know about her, Kate reflected wryly as she slipped on her fox jacket and picked up her satin purse. Kevin had promised to collect her and drive her to the ball, which was being held in a large country house ten miles outside the village, which was owned by the National Trust and which the Hunt Ball Committee always rented for the occasion.

  When Kevin didn’t arrive at the appointed time, Kate glanced hesitantly at the phone. He had probably been called out somewhere, which meant she would have to go by taxi. ‘Don’t panic,’ Meg called out from her bedroom. ‘I hear a car.’ Her pronouncement was followed in seconds by a ring on the bell and Kate hurried to open the door. ‘Kevin! I was just beginning to think you’d been called out.’

  ‘Come on in, Kevin,’ Meg called out behind her. ‘Wait until you see Kate’s finery—she looks stunning!’ Both of them fell silent as they realised their mistake. It wasn’t Kevin who stood outside the door but Jake, his mouth quirking in wry amusement when he saw their expressions.

  ‘You really know how to boost a man’s ego, don’t you?’ he mocked, but it was on Kate that his eyes lingered, the cold, bitter message in their grey depths making her shiver deep inside.

  ‘Oh, Jake, we were expecting Kevin,’ Meg explained unnecessarily. ‘Has…’

  ‘You were right first time,’ Jake drawled, walking into the room, his words for Meg, but his eyes on Kate, examining the slender length of her until she felt as though her skin burned under the lash of his gaze. ‘Kevin has been called out—he’ll be delayed, and he asked me to pick you up, Kate.’

  ‘But I thought you were dining with Rita and her parents beforehand?’

  ‘I couldn’t make it.’ His tone forbade any further questions. ‘If you’re ready?’

  Suppressing a cowardly inclination to refuse to go with him, Kate said her goodbyes to Meg, and preceded Jake through the door. They walked in silence to the car. Jake opened the door for her, settling her comfortably inside before he closed it, and then walked round to the driver’s side. The car was set in motion before he glanced at her again, and Kate hoped that none of the churning emotions inside her were visible in her face. What was wrong with her? she wondered. After all, she had travelled with him like this before. No, never, quite like this she admitted darting a glance at his impassive face, acknowledging that formal clothes suited him. They hadn’t gone out much together during their marriage. Oh, they had been invited out often enough—friends and colleagues of Jake’s, but she had always refused to go; to collaborate with the enemy, she remembered once terming a dinner party they had been invited to. A faint sigh escaped softly parted lips. Had she really been so childish? She had learned a good deal in three years, including tolerance. Since coming to Woolerton she had met the ex-head of the station and his wife on several occasions socially and had found them a pleasant couple, although that had not detracted one iota from her dislike of what he stood for.

  ‘Quite like old times…’ Jake drawled, and then corrected himself mockingly, ‘Oh, no—I forgot, you always refused to go to affairs like this with me, didn’t you? You claimed you detested the people I worked with—not that you actually ever met any of them. My boss once asked me if you were a semi-invalid, I remember.’

  In the darkness of the car Kate felt safe enough to stare at him, realising for the first time how embarrassing her behaviour must have been to him.

  ‘What did you tell him?’ she asked curiously, furious with herself the moment the words were uttered.

  ‘That you suffered from an over-acute social conscience,’ Jake told her dryly. ‘Oh, you weren’t on your own. It was quite fashionable at the time, if I remember rightly, for the younger wives to be anti their husbands’ jobs.’

  ‘It must have been embarrassing for you.’ She was doing no more than speak her thoughts aloud, but in the darkness she felt Jake drop the speed of the car to turn and glance at her.

  ‘Wasn’t that the whole object of the exercise?’ he asked sardonically, ‘to cause me as much embarrassment as possible—so much that I’d give up the job I’d worked ten years to get?’

  Kate was honestly perplexed. She had wanted him to give up his job, of course, and had, on more than one occasion, begged him to do so, but she had never thought of using her own behaviour to force him to do so. ‘No.’ Her answer was instantaneous.

  ‘Oh? Then what was the purpose of it?’

  She bit her lip. How could she admit that she hadn’t even thought before her own bitter hatred of what he was doing; her own code of ethics and morals which had told her that socialising with Jake’s colleagues would be betraying her cause.

  ‘Well, it worked in the end, anyway,’ Jake told her laconically. ‘A man can only stand being made to feel guilty for everything he does for so long. Every time I so much as touched you your eyes reproached me. In the end I felt as though I were making you break some sacred vow every time I came near you, but I’ve never given in to blackmail, Kate, and I wasn’t about to start with you, much as I…’ He bit off whatever he had been about to say and added cruelly, ‘I’d seen the results of giving in to female caprice in my father. Lyla destroyed him as a man and then when she was bored with him she divorced him. I swore that w
ould never happen to me. You wanted me to give up my job, and you used every trick in the book to make me.’

  ‘No!’ Kate recognised the pain in her denial, and bit her lip in the darkness, hoping Jake hadn’t heard it too. ‘Well, like you I have my pride,’ Jake told her smoothly, ‘and like I said, I wasn’t going to give in to blackmail.’

  Was that why he hadn’t dined with Rita and her parents? Kate wondered thoughtfully. It was obvious to Kate that Rita was the one setting the pace of their relationship, and Jake would resent that. ‘Does Rita know we’re married?’ she asked him curiously. Again she felt the car decrease in speed as he turned towards her.

  ‘No. Why should she?’

  ‘She was very unpleasant about that night we spent in the shepherd’s hut. She seemed to think I’d engineered it deliberately, she warned me that she had a prior claim on you.’ Kate didn’t know why she was pursuing his relationship with Rita. She wasn’t a fool, Rita wouldn’t have been the only woman in his life during the time they had been apart and she had never given either them or him a thought. Of course it was one thing to know that it was happening, it was quite another to be forced to watch it.

  ‘You could always tell her the truth,’ Kate almost gasped her astonishment aloud, as Jake slashed a mocking glance in her direction, watching her reaction.

  So her solicitor had been right, Jake was using their marriage as a form of protection. ‘What truth?’ Kate asked, managing to keep her voice level. ‘That we were married and that our marriage is now over? Why won’t you agree to a divorce, Jake? You don’t want me, I don’t want you.’

  ‘It isn’t something we can talk about right now.’

  ‘But we can discuss it.’

  ‘Yes.’ His voice sounded terse. ‘I’ve rented a house just outside Woolerton.’ He described it to her and Kate recognised it as belonging to a couple who had gone out for two years to the Middle East where the husband had a job. ‘I’m free on Saturday, why don’t you come round then and we can discuss it?’