In Bed With...Collection. Emma Darcy
Читать онлайн книгу.
Yet letting this connection she felt with Jake go… Everything inside her railed against giving it up.
‘What about when this is all over, Jake. Could we pick up again then?’
He shook his head but there was a pained expression on his face as he answered, ‘The process of indicting your father for corruption may go on for years, Laura.’
‘Is he guilty?’
‘Without a doubt.’
‘Will he go to jail?’
‘He’ll be ousted from the industry. It’s unlikely that any further action will be taken.’
No relief for her mother. No escape unless…
‘Once I get my degree and hopefully a well-paid position, I’ll be independent. And perhaps I can persuade my mother to come and live with me. We’ll be free and clear of my father.’
‘Perhaps…’ he repeated, but there was no belief in his eyes.
Her hope for at least some distant future with him was being crushed. It begged for a chance to survive. ‘Do you really want this to be goodbye, Jake?’
‘No. But I can’t honestly see any good way forward,’ he said flatly.
‘You have my mobile phone number. You could call me from time to time, check on how things are going,’ she suggested, trying to keep a note of desperation out of her voice.
He wrenched his gaze from the plea in hers and stared down at their linked hands. Again his thumbs worked over her skin. After a long nerve-tearing silence, he muttered, ‘You should close the door on me, Laura. You’ll meet someone else with no history to make your life difficult.’
‘I won’t meet anyone else like you,’ she said fiercely, every instinct fighting for a love she might never feel with any other man.
He expelled a long breath with the whisper, ‘Nor I, you.’ Then he visibly gathered himself, head lifting, meeting her gaze squarely again. ‘I won’t call you from time to time. I won’t keep any hold on you. When I’m done with your father—however long that takes—I’ll catch up with you to see where you are in your life and how we feel about each other then.’
She knew there was no fighting the hard decision in his eyes, in his voice. ‘Promise me you’ll do that, Jake. Whatever happens between now and then, promise me we’ll meet again.’
‘I promise.’ He leaned forward to press a soft warm kiss on her forehead. ‘Stay strong, Laura,’ he murmured.
Before she could say or do anything, he’d backed off, released her hands and was walking away. She stared at his retreating figure, feeling the distance growing between them with each step he took, hating it yet resigned to the inevitability of this parting.
He’d promised her they’d meet again.
It might be years away but she didn’t believe any length of time would make a difference to how she felt with him.
And she did have things to achieve—her qualifications, building a career and hopefully persuading her mother that there was another life to be led, free of abuse and oppression.
It would not be time wasted.
She would be better equipped to continue a journey with Jake Freedman when they met again—older, stronger, more his equal in everything. She could wait for that.
STAY STRONG…
Laura repeated those words to herself many times as she tried to minimise her father’s savagery over the next few weeks, protecting her mother from it as best she could. She had half expected a vicious blow-up about her visit to Jake’s house, but that didn’t eventuate. Either there hadn’t been a surveillance man at all, or he hadn’t reported the incident, not seeing anything significant in it.
Strangely enough her mind was more at peace with Jake’s promise. She didn’t fret over his absence from her life. It was easier to concentrate on her landscape projects than when she was seeing him each week. Knowing what he was doing, knowing why, helped a lot, as did good memories when she went to bed at night. Besides, there was hope for a future with him, which she kept to herself, not confiding it to her mother or Eddie, both of whom would probably see it as an unhealthy obsession with the man.
She spent as much time with her mother as her uni studies and part-time receptionist work would allow. Nick Jeffries seemed to be finding a lot of maintenance jobs that had to be done, coming to the house two or three times a week. Laura wondered if he knowingly provided a buffer between her parents, giving her mother an excuse to be outside with him, supervising the work. He was a cheerful man, good to have around, in sharp contrast to her father, who was never anything but nasty now.
One evening she was in the kitchen with her mother, helping to prepare dinner, when he arrived home bellowing, ‘Laura!’ from the hallway, the tone alone warning he was bent on taking a piece out of her.
Her heart jumped. What had she done wrong? Nothing she could think of. ‘I’m in the kitchen, Dad!’ she called out, refusing to go running to him or show any fear of his mean temper.
Stay strong…
She kept cutting up the carrots, only looking up when he announced his entry by snidely commenting, ‘Good sharp knife! You might want to stick it into someone, Laura.’
Like him? He had a smug smile on his face, in no doubt whatsoever that she wouldn’t attack him physically. He was the one who had the power to hurt and that knowledge glittered in his eyes. He stood there, gloating over whatever he had in mind to do. Laura waited, saying nothing, aware that her mother had also stopped working and was tensely waiting for whatever was coming next.
‘I’ve had Jake Freedman under surveillance,’ he announced.
The visit to Jake’s house! But that was so long ago. It didn’t make sense that her father would keep such a tasty titbit until now.
He waved a large envelope at her. ‘Hard evidence of what a slime he is.’ He strolled forward, opening the envelope and removing what looked like large photographs, and laid them down on the island bench in front of her.
‘Thought you’d like to see Jake Freedman’s steady screw, Laura,’ he said mockingly, pointing to a curvy blonde in a skimpy, skin-tight aerobic outfit, her arms locked around Jake’s neck, her body pressed up against his, as was her face for a kiss.
It was like a kick in the gut, seeing him with another woman.
‘Meets her at the gym three times a week.’
Every word was like a drop of acid eating into her heart.
The pointing finger moved to the next photograph. ‘Goes back to her place for extra exercise.’
There was the blonde again, the pony-tail for the gym released so that her shiny hair fell around her face and shoulders in soft waves. It was a very pretty face. She was opening the door of a house, smiling back invitingly at Jake, who was paused at the foot of the steps leading up to the front porch.
‘Woman works at a club on Saturday nights,’ her father went on. ‘Very handy. Left him free to have his delectable little encounters with you. Shows what a two-faced bastard he is in every respect.’
She didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. Sickening waves of shock were rolling through her. It was a huge relief that her father didn’t wait for some comment from her.
‘Need a drink to drown the scumbag out,’ he muttered and headed off to make his usual inroads into a bottle of whisky, leaving the damning photographs behind to blast any faith she might have in Jake’s love for her.
Laura stared at them. It was only a month since her meeting