Innocent Cinderella. Julia James
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other room, no movement, or cough to remind her of Jake’s presence. Yet she was as conscious of him as if the barrier between them had been made from thin glass.
Aware of the beguiling touch of his lips so fleetingly against hers only a few moments ago.
Oh, calm down, she adjured herself impatiently. Think of something else. Like the new job. But instead she found herself musing about Ginny, in love, and maybe preparing to sacrifice everything dear and familiar for the sake of her man.
Her thoughts travelled seamlessly on to Lynne, her clear eyes dreaming as she planned her home and her marriage, safe and secure in the certainty of Mike’s devotion.
Whereas I, she told herself, swallowing, have never been even marginally in love, although now I seem to be falling in lust. And I don’t know how to deal with it.
She sighed, leaning her forehead against the warm windowpane.
I should have been like Lynne, she thought, who saw the danger and made a conscious decision to stay immune.
Only I didn’t—or perhaps I couldn’t, which is even worse.
So the very last thing I should be doing is spending this weekend pretending that he’s my lover and that all I want is to be alone with him, doing all the things that lovers do.
About which I know so much, of course, she added with bitter self-mockery.
‘Self-indulgence,’ Jake had said when he’d kissed her just now. But she couldn’t afford that kind of luxury. Not when she knew how easily and fatally that could turn into self-betrayal.
She sighed again and wriggled off the seat. You’re tired, she told herself. You haven’t slept properly one night for the whole of the past week, and maybe you should rest now, because you’re going to need all your wits about for the next forty-eight hours.
She kicked off her shoes and folded the chintz bedcover back to the foot of the bed before stretching out on the blue quilt beneath it and closing her eyes, letting her mind drift.
She was right on the edge of sleep when suddenly the communicating door was thrown open and she propped herself on an elbow, dazed and startled, as Jake strode in barefoot and minus his shirt.
Before Marin could move or utter a protest, he was on the bed with her, his body pinning her to the mattress, his hand sliding under her top to bare her midriff as his mouth came down hard on hers.
Marin found herself lifting her hands to his shoulders, feeling the strength of bone and muscle under her fingertips as her whole body clenched in response.
But at the same moment, in some corner of her reeling mind, she heard a brisk tap on her door followed immediately by the faint squeak of a hinge as it opened, and realised they were no longer alone.
‘Well, well,’ said Diana Halsay.
She stood, smiling, while Jake reluctantly rolled away from Marin, dropping a kiss on her exposed skin before sitting up, pushing his dishevelled hair back from his face.
‘I came to welcome my newest guest and make sure she had everything she wanted,’ she went on. ‘But I see you’ve forestalled me, Jake, darling.
‘I never realised before that you were into a little afternoon delight, but one lives and learns.
‘So, all I can say is please accept my abject apologies for this unwarranted intrusion. I shall have to be more careful in future.’
She turned back to the door, adding over her shoulder, ‘If you can tear yourselves apart for long enough, tea is being served on the lawn.’
The bedroom door closed softly behind her, leaving them alone.
Marin drew a deep, shaky breath. ‘You knew she was due to arrive?’
‘I was about to go into the bathroom when I heard her speaking to someone at the end of the passage,’ Jake said, his mouth twisting. ‘I guessed she’d be on her way. It seemed a wise move to let her find us very much together.’
Did it? thought Marin, trying to find somewhere to look that did not involve bare, tanned skin. Trying to forget the swift brush of his lips on her body, as well as her own grave error in touching him, holding him. As if—as if…
‘So,’ he went on after a pause, ‘Are you up for tea on the lawn?’ He reached down and smoothed a strand of hair back from her flushed face, his fingers lingering. ‘Or do you have any alternative suggestion, perhaps?’
‘No,’ she said, too quickly, flurried by the openly teasing note in his voice. ‘Oh, no.’ She swallowed. ‘Tea would be—nice.’
And infinitely safer than the kind of forbidden fruit he represented. Because it would be so terribly easy to put out a hand and touch his skin, or the dark, curling hair on his chest, or run a fingertip along his mouth. To feel once more the warm weight of him pressing her down into the mattress…
‘Then we’ll make a joint and virtuous appearance in the garden in about thirty minutes,’ Jake said, lifting himself lithely off the bed. ‘This house is a bit of a labyrinth, so I’ll knock on the door when I’ve showered and changed.’ The smile he sent her was casual, friendly. Unambiguous. ‘After all, I wouldn’t want you to get lost.’
‘But it’s too late for that,’ she wanted to cry after him as he walked back into his own room. ‘Because I’m lost already, and frightened that I won’t find my way back to the girl I used to be when all this is over.’
And knew that was something else she would have to keep hidden over this nightmare of a weekend—whatever the cost.
TEA ON THE lawn had such a wonderfully cosy sound, thought Marin as she dressed for dinner that evening. It spoke of sunlight, cucumber sandwiches and daisies twinkling in the grass.
Whereas the reality hadn’t been nearly as inviting.
As she’d descended the terrace steps at Jake’s side, and looked across the immaculately shorn grass to the cluster of parasol-shaded wicker chairs where Diana presided over a table set with an opulent silver tea-service, she’d known an ignominious desire to turn and run.
‘All right?’ Jake had asked softly, his fingers tightening momentarily round hers, and she’d nodded jerkily.
There were three other couples: Sylvia Bannister, a smart brunette, with her husband, Robert, a tall, red-faced man with an emphatic way of speaking; Chaz and Fiona Stratton, who ran their own antiques business; and the Dawsons, who were clearly older than the others, and probably friends of Graham rather than his wife.
After Diana’s fairly perfunctory introductions, Marin took the first empty chair she saw and sank into it.
Jake dropped to the grass beside her chair, leaning back and resting his arm casually across her knees, a gesture of possession that she realised would not be lost on anyone present, as he undoubtedly intended.
It was like a little war, she thought, with herself caught in the middle. Maybe it was time she definitely established just whose side she was on.
It was apparent, for instance, that he’d washed his hair while he was showering and it shone, thick and glossy in the sunlight, only inches from her hand, offering her an irresistible opportunity for an intimate gesture of her own.
He’s paying me, she told herself. Maybe I should start earning my money.
She let her hand drift down almost casually, stroking her fingers through the dark, silky strands, breathing as she bent towards him the beguiling scent of warm, clean skin, soap and the faint citrus aroma of some expensive shampoo. Everything, she thought, that she would forever associate with him. And as she did so she could have sworn she felt him tense.
Her hand slipped down to touch the damp tendrils at