A Weekend To Remember. Miranda Lee
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has come as a big shock to you. Frankly, it came as a big shock to me too. One minute you were just my boss, then something happened, and suddenly I just…we just…’
Hannah wanted to groan her dismay. This was her taking control? Lord, why hadn’t she thought out a believable story to tell him? There again, was there a believable story to tell him?
‘We became physically involved with each other?’ he prompted.
The lack of surprise in his voice sent her eyes jerking round to blink at him.
‘That’s not the part I can’t believe, Hannah,’ he said drily. ‘I always did fancy you.’
Hannah swung her stunned eyes back on the road ahead, before she really ran into the truck in front of them.
‘It was our getting engaged that shocked me,’ Jack went on. ‘Or, more to the point, your agreeing to marry me. You’ve told me more than once you’d never get married again. Frankly, I always believed you wanted nothing more to do with men—in that way or any way at all! So what happened to change that?’
She struggled to find her voice, but her mind was still reeling from Jack’s bald announcement that he’d always fancied her. She found it hard to believe—but why would he lie?
This highly unexpected revelation gave a totally different meaning to the way he’d looked her over sometimes in the office. She’d always imagined he’d been mentally criticising her fashion senseas Dwight had done ad nauseam. Now she saw him undressing her with his eyes, and suddenly she was all hot and bothered.
‘Hannah?’ Jack persisted. ‘Tell me straight. How did this affair of ours start?’
‘I…I don’t know. I mean…Oh, God, I don’t know what I mean.’ She felt totally flustered now, yet she couldn’t pull back. The die was cast and she had to roll with it. ‘It…it happened the day my divorce papers came through,’ she invented shakily. ‘We…we…worked back late together that night. At one point I became upset. You comforted me and…and one thing just led to another…’
‘Are you saying I seduced you at a weak moment?’ he demanded disbelievingly. ‘Hell, I didn’t make you pregnant, did I? Is that why we’re getting married? Because you’re expecting my child?’
Her face flamed as she blurted out, ‘No!’ in a panicky voice. This was becoming awful!
Jack frowned across at her. ‘I presume by that you mean, no, you’re not pregnant.’
‘No, I’m not pregnant. And, no, you didn’t seduce me either. I…I wanted you to make love to me,’ she insisted, appalled at herself for letting Jack think that he’d acted dishonourably, then more appalled at the corner she’d backed herself into.
‘And once we went from friends to lovers, we actually fell in love?’ he suggested. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Not exactly.’ God, this was going from bad to worse!
‘Mmm. You mean it’s more a matter of compatibility and convenience than runaway romance and passion?’
‘I think it’s more a matter of stupidity,’ she muttered. ‘Look, Jack, I think our engagement was rather a rash decision, and I won’t hold you to any of it. We haven’t even bought a ring yet, so our engagement’s easily called off.’
‘But I don’t want to call it off,’ he said, astounding her all the more. ‘As I said before, I’ve always been attracted to you. And I like you more than any woman I’ve ever known. It was only your attitude to men and marriage that held me back from trying to deepen our relationship.’
Hannah gave him a startled look before wrenching her eyes back on to the road, her heart racing madly. Dear heaven, where would this all end? It was becoming more crazy by the moment!
‘Frankly, my own attitude to marriage has been changing for quite a while,’ he went on thoughtfully. ‘I’d already come to the conclusion that one steady woman in my life would be much preferable to a series of semi-casual relationships. I don’t really have the time to romance one woman after another, and the type who’ll go to bed with you without romance was beginning to lose attraction for me.’
Hannah refrained from rolling her eyes, thinking to herself that she doubted Felicia had needed much romancing before she’d jumped into bed with Jack. Still, she must be superdooper in bed, since he had not only asked her to marry him very quickly, but had even taken the whole of last weekend off work to be with her. Unheard of for Jack to do that!
‘I must admit it is strange, though,’ he added, frowning, ‘not being able to remember anything about this new intimacy of ours. Damned annoying, actually. I wish I could remember our first time together. I feel I’ve missed out on something really special.’
Hannah could feel his eyes moving over her, and she blushed fiercely.
‘Yes, I’m sure it was very special,’ he said slowly, the ‘very’ seeming to slide down her spine, making her skin break out in goosebumps under her clothes.
Hannah was stunned. She had honestly never considered Jack thinking of her in a sexual context before, and the knowledge that he did was sending her into a spin. She hadn’t thought of him in that context either, but suddenly she was very aware of him sitting in the car beside her. His size. His strength. His maleness.
She felt flustered and flattered at the same time.
It had been so long since any man had paid this kind of attention to her—so long since she’d thought of herself as a desirable woman. Dwight had eroded her confidence in her sexuality over the years. Whereas Jack, with his repeated assertions tonight about fancying her, and his hot gaze now roving over her, was very definitely revitalising her self-esteem in that regard.
A startling train of thought jumped into Hannah’s mind and she sucked in a sharp breath. Jack believes you’re his fiancee. He believes you’re already lovers. Maybe he’ll expect you to go to bed with him tonight as a matter of course?
Dear heavens, she hadn’t thought of that!
There she’d been, imagining that she would only have to tuck him into bed, bring hot cocoa and generally play nursemaid till his memory came back. She had never contemplated having to fend off a very virile male who already believed he’d been to bed with her and was wanting to relive what he thought he’d missed.
Hannah had to nip this potential complication in the bud, so to speak, before it blossomed into a full-blown problem.
‘If you don’t mind, Jack,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Till you get your memory back, I’d prefer us to resume the relationship we used to have as just secretary and boss. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with anything else just now—what with your not remembering anything about our…er…new intimacy.’
‘Really? Well, I guess I can understand that, but I sure hope I get my memory back soon,’ he muttered testily.
Amen to that, Hannah prayed.
‘The doctor said your memory could come back at any time,’ she said soothingly.
‘The sooner the better,’ he grumbled.
A silence descended in the car, which suited Hannah. She was approaching the turn-off, and had to concentrate. Was it around this corner or the next? She wished it would stop raining. It was hard enough to spot in the daytime in fine weather.
The car rounded the corner and, yes, there was the turn-off. Relieved to have done with the highway, Hannah still had to slow appreciably as she turned on to the narrow and bumpy dirt track which led down to the cottage.
The headlights tunnelled through the sleety darkness, showing puddle-filled potholes plus the closeness of the encroaching bushland. They picked up a pair of glassy eyes up in a tree as the road turned. A possum, probably, Hannah thought. Not a koala. Koalas weren’t at all nocturnal.
‘What