Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan's fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon's most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan's characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women's fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

A Reason for Marriage
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘JAMIE, it’s great to have you here. We were so pleased that you could come. I hardly ever get to see you these days. You’re looking tired though, Uncle Mark says you work very hard.’

A brief smile curled Jamie’s lip-glossed mouth as her cousin mentioned her stepfather. She had been lucky there, she acknowledged mentally; more than lucky when she listened to other people’s stories of their parents’ second marriages.

Of course the fact that her own father had died before she was two probably had something to do with the fact that she had accepted Mark so readily; that and the fact that he had been as ready to love her as his daughter as she had him as her father.

‘He exaggerates, Beth,’ Jamie told her cousin, lifting her eyes from the second coat of lacquer she was applying to her nails.

Her cousin’s invitation to spend the weekend with her and her husband in their Bristol home had coincided with a gap in her work schedules. But now that she was here… She stifled the sense of unease that had been growing in her ever since her arrival just after lunch.

‘Tell me about my goddaughter,’ she instructed her cousin. ‘It’s been almost six months since I last saw her.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ Beth challenged indignantly ‘We went to Queensmeade for Christmas. Why weren’t you there, Jamie? Your mother was bitterly disappointed.’

Guilt momentarily chased the warning coolness from her eyes as Jamie raised her head to look at her cousin.

‘Business, I’m afraid. I had hoped to be there, but I was offered a contract in New York I just couldn’t pass up.’

Listening to the sound of her own voice, distant and faintly aloof, Jamie had a momentary desire to break into hysterical laughter at the falsity of the image she was deliberately projecting, but she had hidden behind it for so long now that it was almost part of her.

There wasn’t one member of the family now who didn’t look at her and see the successful polished businesswoman she had made herself become. Glancing down at her long lacquered nails, she checked a faint sigh as she looked back to the tomboy she had once been, running wild in the large grounds of Queensmeade. But it was over ten years now since she had been that girl, and between her and the woman she now was there was a chasm that nothing could bridge—and that was the way she wanted it.

‘You can become re-acquainted with my daughter tomorrow,’ Beth told her firmly, refusing to be sidetracked. ‘I want to hear about you. Uncle Mark is terribly proud of you, Jamie; more proud than he is of Jake, I sometimes think. I read that article about you in Homes and Gardens the other week, the photographs of the rooms you’d done were fantastic.’

The feature in question had been a good one and had resulted in a small avalanche of extra business for her small decorating business, Jamie reflected.

The old paint finishes and manner of decorating were becoming more and more popular, and she had never been sorry that she had decided to switch from the more traditional interior-designer career she had planned for herself to what she considered the exciting challenge of learning and improving on the traditional techniques of marbling, graining, dragging and all the other styles of paint decor which were now so fashionable.

‘Whilst you’re here I think I shall have to pick your brains about this place,’ Beth continued wryly. ‘We were full of plans when we moved in, but Richard’s been so busy that we haven’t been able to do so much as buy a roll of wallpaper.’

Richard, Beth’s solidly placid husband, had recently decided to break from his company and set up in business on his own, and knowing the problems that could be involved Jamie could well understand that decorating would be the last item on his list of priorities.

‘We’ll go through the house together tomorrow,’ she promised her cousin, smiling when she saw her pleased expression.

‘I envy you,’ the younger girl said with a faint sigh. ‘You always look so glamorous.’

Shrugging fine-boned shoulders Jamie told her carelessly, ‘It’s just a façade, Beth, that’s all; a necessary part of my business to project a glossy, expensive image, but I haven’t changed, you know.’

Lifting blue eyes to her cousin’s darker, almost violet ones, Beth said seriously,

‘No, I know you haven’t, Jamie. It’s a long time since you’ve been to Queensmeade, isn’t it?’

Catching the faint note of censure in her cousin’s voice, Jamie carefully blanked out every emotion from her voice.

‘The Yorkshire Dales are a long way from London.’ She saw the faint flicker of something in Beth’s eyes, and suddenly alarm clutched her heart-muscles. ‘What is it, Beth?’ she demanded huskily. ‘Is something wrong at home? My mother, Mark?’

When had she started calling her stepfather Mark? To strangers it might seem that she used his Christian name to hold him at a distance, to differentiate between her stepfather and her natural father, but that wasn’t the case. She had picked the habit up from Jake of course, probably almost before she realised what she was doing.

Jake had been her god in those days; a magnificent and awe-inspiring creature whom she was privileged to call ‘brother’…her mouth twisted a little bitterly. It seemed incredible that she had ever been that naïve.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Beth told her guiltily. ‘It’s Mark, Jamie. He’s been suffering from chest pains for some time and the doctor’s diagnosed a heart condition—at the moment it’s not too serious, but he’s been told he has to take things more easily—not to worry so much. Your mother’s persuading him to retire, to hand control of the company over completely to Jake.’

It was no use pretending that it did not hurt to receive this information second-hand from her cousin, but she had no one to blame for that pain other than herself. She was, after all, the one who had deliberately distanced herself from her home, who had intentionally set out to carve herself a career that would take her as far away as possible. But she rang home regularly to speak to her mother.

‘Your mother didn’t want to worry you,’ Beth told her sympathetically, seeing the pain in her eyes. ‘She knows how close you are to Uncle Mark.’

‘Umm. I don’t know how on earth she’s going to get him to slow down.’

Beth’s expression lightened. ‘Jake said exactly the same thing. Funny how the two of you invariably come up with the same reactions at the same time, and yet put you together and you can’t agree on a single thing. I remember at our wedding, I thought you were about to come to blows.’

Jamie looked away from her, studying her nails thoughtfully before reaching for the lacquer bottle to apply a final coat.

‘Yes,’ she said carefully, her attention all for her nails, ‘It’s always been like that.’

‘No, it hasn’t.’

Her heart lurched at the quiet challenge in Beth’s voice.

‘Why don’t the two of you get on any more, Jamie?’ Beth pressed. ‘It hurts your mother and Uncle Mark dreadfully. They both love both of you so much. Whenever there’s a family gathering it’s noticeable that either you or Jake will be there—but never both of you. It’s almost as though it’s pre-planned.’

‘Well, it isn’t,’ Jamie told her harshly, apologising with a wry smile when she saw her cousin’s faintly hurt expression. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit on edge. I hate flying, especially across the Atlantic. I think I’m still suffering from jet-lag.’

Jet-lag? Anguish and humiliation was closer to the mark but those emotions belonged to a Jamie long dead and buried, whom she was not going to disinter for anyone.

Observing the silken gleam of her cousin’s straight fall of dark red hair as she bent over her nails, Beth tactfully changed the subject, asking enviously, ‘How on earth do you get your nail-polish like that?’

‘It isn’t hard. It just takes a good eye and a practised hand,’ Jamie told her, grinning as she deftly applied the last stroke and studied the finished effect. ‘Besides, who’s going to employ me as a decorator if they see I can’t even paint my nails?’

‘But I can’t even get mine that long, never mind anything else.’

‘Ah well, you know what a sybaritic life I lead,’ Jamie mocked, lifting one eyebrow slightly.

It wasn’t fair that one person should be given so much, Beth thought, sighing for the waste of all her cousin’s feminine attributes on someone who declared openly and coolly that she had no intention of marrying and that she did not believe in love.

Maybe Jamie wasn’t beautiful in the accepted sense of the word, but she had something more than mere beauty. Looking at her was like looking into a pool of deep, very still water; so still that you found yourself holding your breath and waiting for the faintest ripple across its smooth surface. Jamie carried with her an aura of calm and quietude, but she hadn’t always been like that. Beth could remember the tomboy teenager she had been, climbing trees, running races, always covered in bruises and cuts. In those days the violet eyes had laughed, the full mouth had been mobile, her movements quicksilver.

At ten she had been desperately envious of her fourteen-year-old cousin and the closeness she shared with her stepbrother. Even though he was at university Jake had still spent a large part of his free time with his young stepsister. They had been close in a way that she as an only child had longed to imitate, but somewhere along the way something had happened to that closeness, and now…what? Now, whenever she mentioned Jake in Jamie’s presence, she could almost feel her cousin closing up on her, and when she mentioned Jamie to Jake his mouth would curl in that cynical way of his, his eyes as hard as chips of ice.

‘Sybaritic?’ Beth questioned, trying not to let Jamie see what she was thinking. ‘Since when? Oh, I know you like to give that impression, Jamie, but you work hard. Too hard, Uncle Mark thinks.’

‘Mark’s a darling, but he’s a bit old-fashioned when it comes to women. He thinks we should all be like my mother and crave only a husband, home and family.’

As she looked away from her cousin, Jamie hid her expression with long lashes that fanned her high cheekbones, giving her, although she did not know it, a look of vulnerability. Once she too had craved those things, had wanted nothing more from life than to love and be loved in return.

‘Try calcium tablets.’ She turned to face Beth, smiling lightly, as she firmly dismissed the past from her mind.

‘Calcium tablets?’ Beth looked thoroughly confused.

‘For your nails,’ Jamie told her, gently mockingly.

‘I haven’t made any plans for the weekend,’ Beth told her, changing the subject. ‘I thought you might fancy an early night tonight, and then tomorrow some friends of ours are coming round to dinner—I’m longing to show off my clever cousin…and Jake, of course,’ Beth added absently. ‘I didn’t tell you, did I, that his latest girlfriend’s family live only a short distance away.

‘She’s a nice girl—but young for Jake, though, I would have thought. Very pretty and quite ambitious.’

Thank God she had been looking the other way, Jamie thought, as she tried to still the frantic thudding of her heart. Jake…coming here…her first impulse was to leave, immediately, but she was trapped, she knew that. If she left now Beth would guess. It was one thing for the family to know that she and Jake disliked each other, but…

‘Jamie, are you all right? You’ve gone dreadfully pale.’

‘Redheads are supposed to be,’ Jamie told her wryly, slipping defensively behind her sophisticated mask. ‘If Mark’s ill, I’m surprised that Jake can spare the time to spend a weekend away.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose it’s partly business, Amanda’s father’s company is merging with Brierton Plastics, apparently. That’s how Jake and Amanda met. It’s no secret that her parents are hoping they’ll get married, but personally I think Amanda’s too young—she’s only nineteen, and a nice child, but somehow not what I thought Jake would choose, if you know what I mean.’ She wrinkled her nose slightly and added, ‘Of course, Uncle Mark would love to see him married. He and your mother complain every time I see them that you don’t seem to be going to provide them with grandchildren.’

‘It does seem unlikely,’ Jamie agreed levelly, praying that Beth wouldn’t see past her defences to what lay behind. Jake married… Pain exploded inside her, tearing her apart, making a mockery of the barriers it had taken her six years to perfect. What was the matter with her? She had known this day must come. Six years ago she had known that Jake intended to marry. He wanted a son to follow him into the business his own father had so successfully built up. Jake was both ambitious and determined. She knew that. And cruel, very, very cruel, but she was over the pain of that now. The Jake she had known and loved had never existed. That had simply been a façade which he had hidden behind.

As she had told herself too many times over the intervening years, she told herself again that at least she had discovered the truth before it was too late, before she had been the one trapped in a marriage of ambition and greed.

She was not naïve now as she had been at eighteen, and she knew enough of the world to realise that Jake was not alone in wanting to marry for reasons advantageous to himself, but his deliberate cruelty in deceiving her into believing…

‘Oh, heavens, there’s the phone. Stay here and rest for a little while, I’ll bring you a cup of tea.’

Alone in the guest-room Beth had given her Jamie walked over to the window and stared out across the countryside, without seeing any of its beauty. Did this girl, this Amanda, know what Jake was really like, or like her had she been deceived? That lazily mocking smile, those cool green eyes that suddenly could turn to fire, that mouth that could…

Closing her eyes to blank out her thoughts, she clung dizzily to the window ledge. Dear God, she was over this, over it. She was a different person now from the innocent trusting fool Jake had so cruelly deceived. He no longer had the power to affect her in any way at all.

So why was her heart pounding so heavily? Why was she remembering with such devastating clarity the feel of his mouth against her own?

Her only salvation when she realised the truth had been the knowledge that at least no one else knew what a fool she had been. No one else knew that they had been lovers; that Jake had whispered words of love to her and then promised to marry her, only for her to discover from his mistress that he was actually marrying her because he knew that his father was splitting his estate between the two of them; that she would have as many shares in the company as Jake himself. At first she hadn’t wanted to believe Wanda’s allegations, had indeed thought that the other woman was simply jealously maligning Jake; but when she had come round to his flat to tell him what had happened, the first thing she had seen as she walked in through the unlocked door had been Jake and Wanda in each other’s arms.

Of course Jake had seen her, had called out to her, but she hadn’t stopped, running frantically back to her car, and driving from York to Queensmeade as though the devil himself were at her heels.

Mark and her mother had been on holiday at the time—a month’s holiday in Bermuda—which was why she and Jake had not said anything to anyone about their plans, wanting to save the surprise until their parents returned. She had been working on a part-time basis for a York-based firm of interior designers, but too humiliated and hurt to face Jake she had changed her mind on reaching home, knowing that he would come after her, and instead had turned her car in the direction of the southbound motorway.

Her job didn’t pay well, but she had an allowance from Mark, and enough money in her bank account to pay for a room in an inexpensive hotel for long enough for her to sort out her life.

An unaddressed letter to her employers explained to them that she wanted to work in London, and a longer, more detailed one to her parents outlined to them her plans for the future, and a third told Jake that she had made a mistake, that she wasn’t ready to settle down, that she wanted her freedom and a career. She was too proud and hurt to mention Wanda.

By the time her mother and stepfather had returned from Bermuda three weeks later she had enrolled herself at classes to learn the painting techniques she now based her business on; had found herself a third-share in a flat from the notice board at the college; had had her long hair cut to shoulder length; and had totally re-vamped her wardrobe, putting away for ever the carefree coltish image of her youth, and emerging in three short weeks as the coolly sophisticated woman she was determined she was going to be.

Her parents had been a little surprised, but she had explained away the suddenness of her departure by saying that she had been torn over what to do for several months but had only finally made the decision while they were away.

They were upset at first; Mark in particular had wanted her to stay close to home. There was no need after all for her to earn her own living, and although there were many times in those early months when she would have given anything to go back, the thought of facing Jake stopped her. She had made herself a vow the evening she left his flat after discovering him with someone else that when she saw him again she would feel absolutely nothing for him—nothing at all.

The intervening six years had been busy ones. At college she had become very friendly with another student, Ralph Howard, and Ralph was now her business partner. They got on very well together, their relationship an easy undemanding one. Several of their friends thought they were or had been lovers, but that was not the case. Ralph was the brother she had never had, her relationship with him quite different from the worshipping adoration she had had for Jake.

Their hard work had paid off and now they were very successful with very busy social lives. Many of the parties they attended were business functions to which they went together. They made a striking couple, Jamie knew. Ralph was tall and blond with a year-round tan and laughing blue eyes. He looked more like a rugby player than anything else, muscular and large-boned. It always amused him to see other men treating Jamie like a fragile piece of china. At five-four with small bones and tiny narrow feet she looked far more frail than she was.

She never discouraged anyone from thinking they were lovers. It was a good way of keeping unwanted males at bay without causing offence. She knew that Ralph was curious about her sex life—or lack of it—but he respected her privacy. He knew nothing about what lay in the past. She never mentioned Jake to him, although he knew about her family background; about the marriage of her mother to her employer, then a widower with an eleven-year-old son. Beth and Richard had met Ralph. He had come to Sarah’s christening with her. Jake had been godfather, but apart from one brief moment when he had held the baby and then passed her over to Jamie they had kept resolutely apart.

Her mouth curling a little, Jamie reflected that it must be rather galling to be revealed in one’s true colours as Jake had been. Galling or not, it had not stopped him looking at her with cool mockery, she remembered now. Really, his arrogance was unbelievable! Had he ever thought what could have happened if she had gone to Mark and told him that his son had deliberately seduced her, deliberately allowed her to believe that he loved and wanted her, when all he wanted was her share of his father’s wealth?

But she hadn’t been able to do that. Both her mother and Mark adored Jake, and it would have broken Mark’s heart to learn the truth. Above all else Mark was a truly honourable man, and to discover that his son was not would hurt him unbearably. So she had kept quiet, forcing herself to make for herself a new life, to give herself new motivation, to tell herself and make herself believe that what she really wanted from life was a career and success.

The late autumn dusk was fast closing to evening, reminding her how advanced the year was. The familiar pain thinking of the past always brought her was deepened by a feeling of sombre despair. It was six years ago, for God’s sake, and still it was no better, all she had achieved was the ability to close herself off from the pain and pretend to the rest of the world that it simply didn’t exist.

Other girls of her age endured similar traumas and recovered; went on to meet other men, make other relationships; why was it that she had never found anyone who could displace Jake from her heart?

Perhaps it was because for her the sense of betrayal had been so much greater, heightened by the fact that Jake was not only her first love and lover, but also the person closest to her in every other emotional way, so that his treachery had robbed her not only of a lover but of a brother, a friend and a secure rock to cling to all in one go.

What made it worse was the fact that she had loved him so crazily, believed in him so implicitly that she had never for one moment placed the slightest credence on Wanda’s revelations. After all, she knew there had been other girls in his life before her; he was eight years older than her; he had been away at university, and above and beyond that he was a man who possessed such a powerful aura of sexual magnetism that living the life of a celibate would be practically impossible for him.

Pity the poor girl who did marry him, she thought acidly. He wouldn’t remain faithful for very long, especially not to a naïve nineteen-year-old.

Although she had not seen it when they made love, looking back now she recognised that there had always been an edge of constraint in the way he touched her, a faint holding back, which she suspected now came from the fact that he had doubtless found her inexperience something of a trial. At the time she had not been aware of this, giving herself to him with a blissful joy that recognised nothing other than the unbelievable fact that he loved her. The merest touch of his fingers against her skin had been enough to set her alight with pleasure and happiness, and in her innocence she had thought it was the same for him, that the reason he had made love to her was that like her, he simply couldn’t wait to consummate their love.

He had been very patient with her, very careful and gentle, but then why should he not have been, she thought bitterly now. It wouldn’t have served his purpose at all for him to have frightened her away, and of course, he had always had women like Wanda to turn to for the satisfaction she didn’t give him.

With a sudden shiver, she turned away from the window, achingly aware that her thoughts were careering off down a very dangerous path. She had put the past behind her, and that was where it was going to stay. Although in Jake’s arms, she had quivered with pleasure and ached for his touch, none of the men she had casually dated in the years that had intervened had aroused the slightest sexual interest in her. It was as though that part of her was frozen—or simply no longer existed, she thought wryly—but then what was sex after all other than simply another appetite? Did anyone waste time bemoaning the fact that they didn’t long for food? Just as some people could get along with merely a couple of hours’ sleep a night, while others needed eight hours, so she could live without sex. It was as simple and basic as that.

Maybe, a small inner voice criticised, but what about love? Love? Her mouth trembled and then firmed. What was love after all? That delirious, dangerous emotion Jake had aroused in her? If so she was better off without it. But she wasn’t without it, she reminded herself; even the mere sound of Jake’s name on someone else’s lips was enough to make her muscles cramp and her pulses race. The reason she had avoided him so assiduously since she had run away was not that she loathed and hated him, but that she was terrified of betraying to his too-knowing gaze that she was still acutely vulnerable to him. Whilst he didn’t know how she felt about him she felt in some indefinable way safer, although why she didn’t know. After all, what difference would her feelings make to him? He had never attempted to get in touch with her, never tried to explain.

There had been a letter from him, arriving soon after he had received her note, but she had torn it up unread. Had he guessed then that she had lied when she claimed that she felt she was too young to marry and settle down? It had been little more than a sop to her pride, and she had no doubt that he had seen straight through it, but the very fact that he had made no attempt to see her or justify himself to her was surely proof of how right Wanda’s allegations had been.

And now tomorrow he was coming here—with his new girlfriend. Did she have the strength to face him? Did she have any choice? If she left now Beth was bound to speculate, and she had after all nothing to fear. No one in the family knew of that brief month of ecstasy he had given her before the lies and deceit caught up with him. No, only she and Jake knew about those evenings in his flat when she had lain in his arms and felt his hands against her skin, when he had told her that he had been waiting for her to grow up, waiting for her to see him as a man and not simply as a stepbrother.

It was dark now. How long had she been standing staring into space? She glanced at her watch. Almost an hour. Beth would be wondering what on earth she was doing.

At least she had been granted a few hours to prepare herself. She looked at the case she had dropped on the bed and went over to it, unsnapping the locks. She had come straight to Bristol after nothing more than a brief stop at her London flat, giving herself time only to shower and re-pack.

In New York she had had enough free time to do some shopping. With this visit in mind she had bought a sweater for Beth and a beautifully dressed rag-doll for her goddaughter.

She unpacked automatically, her movements deft with experience. In her case was the new Calvin Klein she had bought in New York. She had packed it on impulse, a handful of dark lavender silk jersey that looked nothing on the hanger but which moulded her body and picked out the unusual colour of her eyes. It was a sophisticated dress that only just fell short of meriting the description ‘sexy’. She would wear it tomorrow night, she decided grimly. Whatever her private feelings might be, she wanted Jake to be in no doubt at all that the old Jamie had gone. As she hung the dress up she thanked God for the experience that had taught her over the years exactly how to conduct a light-hearted flirtation without involving herself in anything more. If she knew her cousin, Beth would be providing her with a dinner partner; normally she would have been cool and distant with him, letting him know that she was not in the market for a one-night stand or anything else, but tomorrow…

She heard her cousin’s voice calling to her outside her bedroom door, and composing her face into an expression of cool serenity she went to open it.

‘Sarah’s awake now,’ Beth told her, holding up the blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby for Jamie’s closer inspection.

‘Heavens, she’s grown so much.’

After a few seconds’ solemn inspection the little girl deigned to smile.

‘It’s bath-time,’ Beth explained, glancing ruefully at her cousin’s immaculate skirt and cashmere jumper. ‘I’m sorry to be such a poor hostess. If you want to go downstairs…’

‘What I want to do,’ Jamie told her firmly, ‘is to help you give my goddaughter her bath. After all,’ she said more softly, touching her fingertips to the baby’s soft skin, ‘I am her godmother; which reminds me. I’ve brought a small present for her from New York.’

Firmly dismissing Jake from her mind Jamie held out her arms to take Sarah from her mother.

‘Come on,’ she said firmly to the little girl. ‘It’s time you and I got to know one another, young lady.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘JAMIE, you’re an angel,’ Beth said breathlessly, standing back to admire the bowl of flowers Jamie had just placed on the dining-room table.

The long velvet curtains had been closed against the dark; Jamie pursed her lips slightly as she studied her arrangement.

‘With Sarah to look after I never get time for all the small details like flowers,’ Beth told her wryly. ‘Richard’s going to get quite a shock when he finds out what we’re having to eat. I’m afraid all I ever seem to manage is something simple. I really am grateful to you for everything you’ve done. But I feel terribly guilty. You’re supposed to be here to rest.’

‘I enjoyed it,’ Jamie told her truthfully. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been let loose in a kitchen.’

‘Of course, I was forgetting that your mother taught you to cook. It’s no wonder you’re so good.’

‘Adequate but not inspired,’ Jamie told her, shrugging off the compliment.

The dining-room of Beth and Richard’s new house was a pleasant size but the previous owners had been less than adventurous in their choice of decor. The walls and ceiling were painted cream, taking no advantage of the lovely high ceiling and the attractive cornice.

‘This room’s dreadfully dull,’ Beth commented critically, wrinkling her nose. ‘The whole house needs redecorating, but I just don’t know where to start.’

‘We’ll sit down tomorrow and talk about it together,’ Jamie promised.

‘There’s Richard,’ Beth exclaimed as they heard the front door open and shut.

‘I’d better go upstairs and get ready,’ Jamie told her, giving her cousin’s husband a warm smile as he came into the room. Rather like a cuddly round teddy bear to look at, she liked Richard, who she knew was a shrewd businessman who adored his wife and little girl.

Leaving them alone together she hurried upstairs. In an hour and a half Jake would be here. Already her heart was pounding unevenly. Her fingers shook as she opened her bedroom door. She wasn’t going to let seeing him affect her. She was going to be cool and indifferent to him. She had to be.

‘WOW, WHAT A stunning dress!’ Beth’s eyes opened wide as she studied her cousin’s appearance, enviously admiring the way the silk jersey clung to Jamie’s supple body. ‘How on earth do you manage to stay so slim?’ she complained ruefully. ‘I’m at least half a stone overweight.’

‘If you are that’s how I like you,’ Richard told his wife, coming into the kitchen behind Jamie, and going over to give Beth a quick kiss.

‘Mmm, something smells good.’

‘Well, you can thank Jamie. She’s taken charge of tonight’s meal,’ Beth told him.

Jamie knew there would be eight of them altogether: Jake and his girlfriend, the local doctor and his wife, and her brother, who was apparently staying with them following a road accident, Jamie herself and Beth and Richard.

Beth had been only vaguely informative on the subject of Ian Parsons, explaining that he was a geologist who worked abroad, who had been involved in a road accident which had killed his wife.

‘Ian was very badly injured, but he’s on his feet again now. The accident happened over eighteen months ago, and he’s been staying with Sue and Chris ever since. He’s rather quiet and withdrawn,’ she warned Jamie. ‘Sue says he blames himself for his wife’s death. They were on the verge of splitting up when it happened, and he thinks if they hadn’t been arguing, his wife would never have crashed the car.’

Jamie was in the kitchen checking on the seafood crêpes she had prepared for their first course when she heard the doorbell ring.

The kitchen door was open and she heard Beth opening the door, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickling atavistically as she recognised the deep male drawl that answered her cousin’s warm greeting. Jake had arrived!

She was glad that being in the kitchen meant that she didn’t need to go out and greet them. But then wasn’t that why she had offered to make the meal? She might be able to deceive others, but she couldn’t deceive herself.

‘Something smells good,’ she heard Jake say, unconsciously repeating Richard’s comment. She had forgotten that velvet, teasing quality his voice could take on. Her body was a mass of pain and she had an intense desire to open the back door and run.

Almost as though Beth had sensed it, the kitchen door was pushed open and her muscles tensed, knowing she had only seconds to prepare her defences.

All four of them walked into the room. She had her back to them as she pretended all her concentration was on what she was cooking, but in reality all she was aware of was Jake. She could almost smell the faint scent of his body, she thought feverishly, knowing by some sixth sense that he was the one standing closest to her. She had to turn round and face him.

‘Jake.’ Her smile was the perfect social widening of lips that signified politeness rather than pleasure. ‘I thought I recognised your voice.’

She didn’t hold her hand out to him, but gripped the spoon she was using.

He was like a force field, she thought achingly as she willed herself to meet the cool cynicism of his eyes; drawing all the energy and resistance out of her. The last time she had seen him had been at Sarah’s christening, but then she made only a lightning appearance, leaving before the party afterwards with the excuse that she was due to fly to the States. Then she had had weeks to prepare herself, weeks to teach her senses to register his presence and then ignore it.

All at once she felt terribly hot and shaky. The green eyes narrowed, his glance moving slowly and thoughtfully over the silky fabric that clung to her breasts and hips.

‘Doesn’t Jamie look lovely?’

Even Beth seemed to be affected by the tension invading the kitchen, her voice high and slightly breathless.

Without taking his eyes off her Jake said coolly, ‘She’s too thin.’

He was talking about her as though she were completely incapable of emotions and feelings, and it hurt so badly she felt as though she were being ripped apart.

She mustn’t let him get to her like this. Jake had always enjoyed dominating and dictating to her, she knew that, and he would enjoy doing it again, simply for the pleasure of humiliating her. She couldn’t let it happen. She took a deep breath, reminding herself wryly that she was now a sophisticated businesswoman, not a mutely adoring child, and putting down the spoon she turned towards the pretty blonde girl hovering uncertainly between Jake and Beth.

‘No one seems to be going to introduce us,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m Jamie, and I know you must be Amanda.’

The girl, and that was exactly what she was, Jamie thought noting the clear skin and childishly rounded face, smiled back guilelessly.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, I’ve heard such a lot about you from your mother and Jake’s father.’

Pain, unexpected and devastating, gripped Jamie. When Beth had talked about Jake settling down she had not really believed her, but it was obvious that Jake must have taken Amanda with him to Queensmeade.

‘They’re both so proud of you,’ the slightly breathless voice continued, strengthening a little as she added, ‘I envy you. I’d love to do something as exciting as you do.’ She made a small moue. ‘My father wouldn’t even let me go to university. He said it was taking a place from someone else, and that I would never need to work.’ Amanda sighed, her blue eyes faintly shadowed, and against her will Jamie felt drawn to her.

The doorbell rang again, and Jamie turned back to the cooker, as Beth shepherded everyone back into the hall.

It was over and she had survived, but she couldn’t relax. Her nerves were coiled into tight knots of pain.

She heard the kitchen door open again and said shakily, ‘Beth, I’m afraid I have the most awful headache, would you watch the veg for me, while I run upstairs for a codeine?’

‘Beth’s busily organising everyone with drinks.’ The laconic careless words weren’t important. What was, was that Jake was here in the kitchen with her. For a moment she stood like a petrified creature, knowing that danger lurked, but too wrought up to know in what direction it might come.

‘She sent me in to ask what you wanted.’

A faint grimness underlined the words.

Oh, Beth, Jamie thought unhappily. You’re meddling in something you don’t understand.

‘I think she feels that since we’re both Sarah’s godparents, we ought to be able to get on better together.’

Thank God she had the excuse of watching the dinner to prevent her from turning round to look at him.

He ignored her comment and said flatly instead, ‘Mark’s worried about you. You know he’s not well?’

‘Yes.’ Thank goodness she had the excuse of her worry for her stepfather to excuse the tremor in her voice. ‘Beth told me last night. How serious is it, Jake?’

She had to turn round to face him now, but almost flinched back as she saw the anger and contempt icing his eyes.

‘Much you care,’ he told her cuttingly. ‘How long is it since you’ve been to see them, Jamie? A year, eighteen months?’

‘I’ve been busy, I…’

‘Rubbish!’ His fingers bit into her arms as he grabbed hold of her, catching her off guard. ‘You haven’t come home because you can’t bear to see me, isn’t that closer to the truth?’

She felt she was going to choke on the pain, at the humiliation of his knowing how she felt about him, but as she looked into his eyes, it was anger she saw there and not mocking contempt.

She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves.

‘You’re being ridiculous, Jake,’ she told him evenly.

‘Am I? Prove it,’ he challenged harshly. ‘Come home for Christmas.’

The refusal rose to her lips but could not be uttered. It was six years since she had spent a Christmas at home. Six years. How she had loved their family Christmases.

‘For once in your life stop being so damned selfish and put someone else first,’ Jake demanded harshly. ‘My father’s a sick man, Jamie, he misses you.’

Blankly she looked into his face. His mouth was hard and compressed, his eyes shadowed. His hair, thick and densely black, looked as though it needed cutting. He looked tired, she recognised, momentarily stepping outside the magnetism that always held her so much in thrall and seeing him simply as another vulnerable human being. He had released her now and impulsively she wanted to reach out and touch him, to smooth away the frown creasing his forehead, and then bitterness overtook compassion. It was easy for him to condemn and criticise her. He would not have to endure the torture that would be hers if she went home, if she spent Christmas in the same house with him.

‘I…’

‘If it’s me you’re worried about,’ he told her with cold scorn, ‘then you needn’t be. Mandy will be there, so you needn’t worry that you might have to spend any time with me.’

‘I…’

‘Be there, Jamie,’ he warned her. ‘It isn’t me you’re punishing by staying away, you know.’ His eyes darkened with anger and contempt. ‘You might look the part of the sophisticated businesswoman,’ he told her curtly, ‘but inside you’re still a spoiled petulant child.’

She watched as he left the kitchen, her throat raw with suppressed tears. How dare he speak to her like that, accuse her? Dismiss the sheer cruelty of what he had done to her as though it were nothing? He knew why she had stayed away, why she could not endure to go back to the place where she had once been so deliriously happy, but he behaved as though she were acting on nothing more than a childish whim. Punish him? Nothing she could do could do that. Did he think she didn’t know it?

IT WAS AFTER they had finished dinner and the other guests had gone that Jake announced casually,

‘By the way, has Jamie told you that she’ll be coming with us to Queensmeade for Christmas this year?’

Across the space that divided them his eyes warned her against contradicting his statement. Beth was looking flushed and excited as she looked at them.

‘Aunt Margaret will be so pleased. Oh, Jamie, she has missed you so much. We’ll be going too, of course. You can always drive up with us if you don’t fancy taking your car. I know it’s two months away yet, but…’

‘Jamie will travel with me. I have to come down to London to pick Mandy up anyway.’

In other words she wasn’t going to get the opportunity to make any last-minute bid for escape, Jamie thought bitterly, avoiding looking at him.

Mandy was sitting next to her and a pleased smile curved her mouth as she listened to Jake.

‘I’m so pleased you’ll be coming too,’ she whispered to Jamie. ‘Jake can be so severe at times.’ She pulled a slight face, and then coloured as she saw Jamie’s surprised expression. ‘My father’s a very wealthy man, he doesn’t consider that women can handle their financial affairs—he’s old-fashioned like that. He wants me to get married and he seems to have picked on Jake as the ideal candidate. I don’t suppose I should be telling you this.’

Jamie saw the slightly nervous glance she gave towards Jake who was talking to Richard.

‘I like Jake, but he’s very formidable, isn’t he? Sometimes I feel as though he doesn’t even know I’m there. And he doesn’t love me.’

‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’ Jamie said bracingly. She felt as though she had strayed into some macabre form of sick joke. Why on earth had Mandy chosen her to confide in? She looked into the younger girl’s face and saw that she still looked uncertain.

‘Jake wants to get married, he wants a son, a grandchild for his father, I think, and… Well, it’s just that he’s so very hard to argue with, isn’t he?’

Oh yes, he was that all right, Jamie acknowledged to herself. Jake could be bitterly determined and stubborn when someone opposed him, and she could see how easily this young and rather diffident girl could be overwhelmed by him, especially if the marriage was something her parents approved of as well.

‘I don’t feel I’m mature enough to get married yet,’ she confided to Jamie. ‘I want to do something with my life, I don’t know what yet, but I know it isn’t marriage. Of course at first I was flattered when Jake showed an interest in me, but he doesn’t want me really.

‘I’m going to London Christmas shopping with Mummy next week. Could I come and see you? I don’t have anyone I can talk to, and you are Jake’s stepsister. You must know him very well.’

Well enough to know that this child wouldn’t be able to withstand Jake if he turned the full force of his will and personality against her. Her common sense told her not to get involved, that it would only lead to further heartache for her. She had no wish to hear Mandy’s girlish confidences but as she looked into the girl’s agonised blue eyes she felt herself waver, and the next second she was writing down her address and telephone number, whilst at the same time wondering what on earth she was doing.

‘YOU AND MANDY seemed to be getting on very well. What do you think of her?’

Jamie hadn’t needed to look over her shoulder to know that Jake was standing just behind her. That delicate personal radar that worked every time he came anywhere near her had already warned her.

She glanced across the room to where Mandy was talking to Beth before replying.

‘I think she’s charming,’ she said shortly at last.

‘The inference being far too charming for me, I take it.’

She could tell without looking at him that his mouth had twisted slightly just as she could hear the mocking amusement in his voice.

‘Too charming. Too innocent, and far, far too vulnerable, Jake,’ she said as coldly as she could. ‘But then I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you any of that. What does worry me a little is that she’s also intelligent. What will you do when she discovers it, I wonder?’

‘Bitch.’ The insult was laconic, without heat or emotion. ‘Still living alone, are you?’

The question was careless and uncaring, flicking her on the raw as it underlined the solitariness of her life.

‘That’s the way I prefer it,’ she told him coldly.

‘Still the ambitious career-woman. I thought it might have palled by now. Strange how I never realised all the time you were growing up that you had such a strong streak of ambition.’

‘Why should you? I certainly never recognised a good many very obvious traits in you.’

He moved in front of her, frowning at the biting contempt in her voice.

‘Such as?’ he invited softly.

It was too much. She had already endured enough tonight, her head was pounding violently. He knew exactly what he’d done to her, so why make her say it? Did he enjoy tormenting her?

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She got up too quickly, his proximity to her suddenly claustrophobic. In her panic she tried to push past him and found that his body blocked the way. Closing her eyes against the onslaught of pain in her head she swayed dangerously and put out a hand to save herself. Everything was whirling madly out of control, the only point of reality in her disordered world the sure, firm sound of Jake’s voice, and she clung to it like a drowning man to a life-raft, willingly letting herself sag against his body as she felt his arms go round her and her mind abandon her completely.

Dimly she was conscious of being picked up, of being carried, of Jake’s suddenly increased heartbeat. She could hear Beth asking anxious questions, and Jake’s reassuringly measured reply.

‘Don’t worry, she always did push herself too hard. It’s probably just jet-lag catching up on her. Which is her room Beth?’

And then as she closed her eyes and surrendered to the luxury of being in his arms she heard him saying, ‘No, it’s okay, you stay down here, I don’t think she’s actually fainted. More of a dizzy spell really. She’ll be okay.’

They were going upstairs, Jake moving swiftly. He had carried her like this once before, the first time he had made love to her. All at once her stomach clenched on a fierce burst of pain. She didn’t want to remember that time now. How thrilled and yet frightened she had been, how gentle and tender Jake’s lovemaking. But it was pointless remembering it, it had all only been an illusion, something deliberately created to deceive, and neither her pride nor her self-respect had ever recovered from the fact that it had deceived, very successfully.

Indeed if it hadn’t been for Wanda she would never have found out, would now have been married to Jake for five years, would probably be the mother of his children. So why didn’t she feel relief instead of dull misery? Would she really have preferred not to know, to have married him anyway? Angered by her own weakness, she tried to push the memories away. They were inside her bedroom now. She opened her eyes cautiously, hurriedly closing them again as she felt the room sway. It was her own fault, she thought guiltily, she had eaten next to nothing on the flight from New York, and very little since. No wonder she had no strength, no resistance.

Past and present started to merge dizzily together, loosening her hold on reality, confusing her to the point where she wasn’t sure of anything other than the fact that she was in Jake’s arms. She felt him lower her on to the bed, and opened her eyes, blinking as she was caught in the cool green beam of his.

‘Jake.’

Her whole body trembled with the effort of speaking his name, weak tears almost blinding her as she saw that she had been unsuccessful in banishing the hard coldness from his eyes. She was eighteen again and desperately in love. She reached out, imploring, her breath ejected from her lungs in a shocked whimper as Jake drew back, holding her away so savagely she thought he might crush her fragile bones.

‘What is it you want from me, Jamie?’

His voice had an unfamiliar raggedness to it, a harsh echo of an old pain that disturbed and confused her. Her tongue touched the dry contours of her mouth, her stomach cramping in nervous protest. She felt lightheaded and dizzy, unable to formulate any words that would make any sense. Somewhere at the back of her mind trembled a warning that she was doing something incredibly foolish, but she was not prepared to listen to it. All she could think of was how much she ached and yearned for this man sitting beside her, and looking at her as though for some reason he wanted to strangle her.

Confusion hazed her mind, trapping her back in the past, her eyes unknowingly eloquent and pleading as she looked at him.

‘Jamie, for God’s sake.’ His fingers snapped back from her wrists as though her skin burned. ‘What in hell’s name are you playing at now?’

He was moving away from her and she didn’t want him to go. Panic and pain tore at her with knife-sharp claws, a whirling black emptiness was engulfing her, through which she cried out his name in sharp anguish.

Momentarily the darkness parted and she felt the heat of Jake’s body against her own, his mouth on hers, swiftly answering the plea in her voice. Mindlessly, voluptuously she gave herself up to the pleasure of touching and kissing him, her tongue feverishly tracing the well remembered shape of his lips, her heart thudding frantically against her ribs.

‘JAMIE?’

The sound of Beth’s hesitant voice brought her abruptly awake. Confused, she glanced around, stunned to discover that it was daylight. ‘How are you feeling?’ Beth approached the bed anxiously. ‘I wanted to call the doctor last night, but Jake said it wasn’t necessary. He says you had a bout of these fainting attacks during your teens.’

‘Yes, I did,’ she responded almost absently, her mind struggling to assimilate the bewildering confusion of images and half-memories surging through her. Jake had carried her upstairs last night, he had been angry with her, they had argued; her face flamed hotly as she had a sudden, too-vivid memory of something else. Her mind must be playing tricks on her. She couldn’t have really kissed him… She closed her eyes, shuddering slightly.

‘Jamie.’

‘I’m fine, just a little weak…’

‘Jake said you were asleep when he left you. He told me not to disturb you last night. It’s just as well he was here. I had no idea you were subject to these attacks.’

Jamie wanted to tell her that she wasn’t, that her faintness had been brought on by a headache and the acute tension engendered by Jake’s presence, but wisely she said nothing. Her heart was still pounding fiercely, her thoughts tormented by that hazy memory of Jake’s mouth against her own as she used all the skill he had taught her to soften its hard outline. Dear God, surely she could not have done such a thing? It must surely be her imagination playing tricks on her. How on earth was she ever going to face Jake again if…

Other memories began to surface. Jake had tricked her into agreeing to go home at Christmas. But why? He could want her company as little as she wanted his. He had claimed that Mark and her mother missed her. Her mouth tightened. Was that why he wanted her there, or was it simply so that he could torment her further?

‘What did you think of Amanda?’ Beth asked eagerly, sitting down on the edge of the bed, as Jamie struggled to sit up. ‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’

‘Far too nice for Jake,’ Jamie replied promptly, wishing she hadn’t been so curt when she saw Beth’s surprised expression. ‘She was telling me last night that she isn’t at all keen on the idea of getting married yet, to anyone,’ she told Beth by way of explanation. ‘I get the impression she’s scared stiff that between them her father and Jake will force her into it.’

‘Oh no, surely not? Jake would never do anything like that. Why, if he wants to get married he could find any number of women who’d jump at the chance.’

‘Ex-mistresses, you mean?’ Jamie said sarcastically. ‘Jake’s too proud for that, Beth. He’ll want a wife he can mould and dominate. An innocent, untainted by any other man sexually or mentally. I’m sure in his eyes Amanda would make him an excellent wife. She’s an only child and her father is a very wealthy man.’

‘I know you and Jake don’t get on, but surely that isn’t really how you see him, is it?’ Beth was plainly troubled. “I know he can be strong-willed and arrogant, but…’

‘No buts, Beth,’ Jamie told her wearily. ‘Jake’s cool-headed enough to decide what he wants out of life and then to go out and get it without bothering himself over trivial little details like emotions and feelings.’

Plainly perplexed by her cousin’s bitterness, Beth stood up. ‘I just came to see if you were awake. I’ll go and make you a cup of tea now. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

Nodding her head, Jamie turned her face into the pillow. All right was the last thing she felt. No amount of determination had protected her from the savage reality of seeing Jake. It was the same every time and it got worse, not better. She shuddered as she tried to eject from her mind the tormentingly hazy memory of being in his arms; of wantonly pressing herself up against his body, of betraying herself to him in the most humiliating way possible. Sweat broke out on her forehead, sickness cramping through her stomach. Please God, let it not be true, let that mocking elusive memory belong to the more distant past, or better still her imagination. She could not, would not endure the torment of Jake knowing that her years of cool indifference towards him were nothing more than a brittle barrier behind which she hid her love.

CHAPTER THREE

ANOTHER day over—thank God. Sighing faintly, Jamie locked the door of the office behind her and hurried out into the cold early November darkness.

They had been busy recently, but that was not the reason for the lines of tension creasing her forehead and the overstrained look in her eyes. Even Ralph, her partner, had commented that she was not her normal cool, calm self. She had Jake to thank for that, she thought angrily, her soft mouth twisting.

Only last week she had received an ecstatic letter from her mother telling her how thrilled she and Mark were that she was going to be able to get home for Christmas—Jake had told them, apparently.

Trust him. He was tying her up in knots, making it impossible for her to find an excuse for not going home. How ill was Mark? A deeper frown touched her forehead. Whenever she asked her mother about her stepfather the replies she received were reassuring but evasive. Very mild angina was how her mother had described Mark’s condition, but what if it were more than that, what if… Panic and dread clutched her heart at the thought of anything happening to her stepfather, if he was more seriously ill than she was being told and something should happen to him. She knew that she would never forgive herself if Mark died without her having seen him.

Even so the situation was an impossible one. If only Jake did not live so close to Queensmeade. Because he had taken over the running of the factory he was constantly in and out of Queensmeade discussing business with his father, and unless she knew specifically that he was going to be away she had purposely not gone home, unable to bear the thought of facing him in the place where she had once known such foolish joy.

How typical it was of Jake’s arrogance that he should expect her to put the past calmly behind her and behave as though nothing had happened. If Wanda hadn’t opened her eyes to the truth she would have been married to him and it would have been too late. They had planned to tell Mark and her mother how they felt about one another on their return from holiday. Jake had been talking about a Christmas wedding. How naïve she had been to think he actually loved her, and how clever he had been to keep her in the dark as to his real feelings.

What hurt her most was not that she had loved him, but that she had trusted him as well, had looked up to him and adored him all through their childhood—and been too bedazzled by the wonder of this demigod, whom she had worshipped all her life, actually loving her, to have the wit to question the reality of an experienced and very male man in his mid-twenties falling passionately in love with an inexperienced teenager he had known all his life.

But if Wanda had not told her would she have been any better off? she wondered cynically, dodging down into the underground. She enjoyed her work—when she was working—but the PR side of the business, so necessary to keep commissions rolling in, was something she preferred to leave to Ralph. Wouldn’t she have been equally content to run the business as a small and probably only marginally profitable sideline, occupying most of her time as Jake’s wife and the mother of his children?

She was not ambitious and never had been, which did not mean that she thought of herself as in any way inferior or subservient to any man. Her mother had shown her that it was possible for a woman to be all those things that were ‘feminine’ and yet to retain her independence and self-worth at the same time. She had seen for herself that for all his wealth and power Mark was as dependent on her mother as she was on him, perhaps more so. Any emotions one felt for another human being to some extent made one vulnerable, dependent. Some of her female acquaintances would have a field-day if they could read her mind, she thought wryly, as she stepped off the train and joined the surge of fellow commuters pressing up the escalators.

The wind had picked up since she had left the office and it whipped icily at her exposed ankles as she hurried towards her small Victorian house. She had bought it with the small amount of money her father had left her, when it had been in a dilapidated and very run-down state. Now five years later it was an undeniable advertisement for the company’s work.

She let herself into the small hall and snapped on the lights. The plain French-blue carpet soothed her eyes, the soft butter-yellow dragged walls banishing the cold dampness of the November night.

Because the house was small she had opted for the same colour-scheme throughout, taking advantage of her knowledge of all the different paint finishes to achieve contrasting effects in each room.

As always, the first thing she did when she got home was to go upstairs to her bedroom, to shed the formality of her coolly efficient business suit.

Like the rest of the house the room was decorated in yellows, and French-blues, but in this room the yellow was toned down to buttermilk, the creamy glazed cotton fabric that covered the bed and windows sprigged with small flowers. Draped curtains hung from a circlet in the ceiling to frame the bedhead, both curtains and bedspread edged in a plain blue fabric that matched the carpet exactly. Jamie had spent weeks hunting for that particular shade of blue, and she was very pleased with the effect, although she knew her bedroom hinted at a more frivolous and feminine personality than most people thought she had.

On one wall, fitted wardrobes were cleverly concealed by panels covered in the floral fabric, the wall-lights casting a warm golden glow on the room.

The house only had two bedrooms but each had its own bathroom. Jamie had opted for plain golds and yellows in hers to tone in with her bedroom, while the guestroom had a rather more ambitious traditional Victorian brass and mahogany decor that suited the high-ceilinged room.

Her evening ritual was always the same, and it struck her as she took off her clothes and quickly showered that she was becoming set in her ways, old-maidish almost. Shrugging the thought aside—she had no desire to marry—she dried herself and dressed again in a bright green tracksuit.

Downstairs in the kitchen she prepared herself a snack of scrambled eggs and a mug of coffee, taking it on a tray into the small study-cum-sitting-room at the back of the house.

Curling up into a comfortable easy chair, she ate her supper, absently watching television.

It was only here in her own domain that she was able to relax, but even here she didn’t feel as safe as she once had. Safe? The thought made her frown. What on earth was she frightened of? Jake? There was no need, surely. All right, so he was forcing her to go home for Christmas, but not for his benefit. Jake had no desire for her company. She had nothing to fear from him in either the emotional or the sexual sense because she already knew he didn’t want her.

No, what she had to fear was herself, she acknowledged wryly. That and her dread that she would not be able to keep her feelings for him to herself if she was forced into his company too often. That was the real reason she could not go home, it had nothing to do with resentment or dislike, and everything to do with the fact that no matter how much she tried, she simply could not dislodge him from her heart.

She was just on the point of deciding she would have an early night when the front doorbell rang.

Since she was not expecting anyone she frowned, a mental image of Jake flashing through her brain, as though somehow by thinking about him she had conjured him up outside her door.

Only it wasn’t Jake who faced her when she opened the door. It was Amanda, and she barely had time to recognise her sharp disappointment before the younger girl erupted into a frantic plea to be allowed to come in.

As she automatically stepped back, Jamie’s eyes widened as she took in the girl’s soaking jeans and jacket. Her blonde hair was plastered to her skull. Remembering her suggestion that she come and visit her while she and her mother were shopping, for a moment Jamie was nonplussed by the younger girl’s appearance. From what she had learned of Amanda’s parents, she didn’t think her mother was the sort of woman who would take her daughter out shopping dressed in faded jeans and an old anorak.

‘I had to come. There wasn’t anywhere else.’ A shiver interrupted the frantic high-pitched words, and Jamie felt her initial astonishment harden into sharp unease. Now that she looked more closely she saw that Amanda was close to hysteria, alternately shivering and crying.

Gently she led her into the study, sitting her down by the fire while she went upstairs to get clean warm towels.

‘Dry your hair and get out of those wet things,’ she instructed calmly, handing her a towelling robe and the towels. ‘I’ll go and make us both a cup of coffee.’

By the time she came back with the two mugs, Amanda was huddled in front of the fire in the robe. As she handed her her coffee Jamie saw how her fingers trembled. She had lost weight too, she thought, studying her, and there was a tension in her blue eyes that hadn’t been there before.

‘I take it that you aren’t in London shopping with your mother,’ she said wryly, sitting down opposite her.

Amanda shot her a look of guilty despair before shaking her head. ‘No. I’ve…I’ve left home.’

Left home! Why on earth should she be so surprised? Jamie wondered ironically. She ought to have guessed the moment she opened the door to her.

‘I see.’ She was thinking quickly. ‘Do your parents know where you are?’

Again Amanda shook her head. ‘No. And I don’t want them to know, otherwise they’ll come for me and my father will make me marry Jake.’

More tears fell, while Jamie tried to assimilate this last bombshell.

‘Make you…’

‘Yes. We had the most terrible argument about it last week. I like Jake, Jamie, but I don’t want to marry him. I don’t want to marry anyone yet, I want to be free, to travel, to make something of myself. My father just can’t see that I don’t want to be a pampered, cushioned doll like my mother. I’m not that sort, I want to be independent.’

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