The Friendship Barrier
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘STEPH, you’re late. It’s gone seven. You’re normally back by six. What happened?’ Annette asked roguishly. ‘Did that gorgeous boss of yours want you to work late?’

‘Can’t stop to chat now,’ Stephanie apologised to her flatmate as she hurried through the small sitting room. ‘Jake’s picking me up in half an hour.’

‘Jake?’ Annette’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Do you call him that at work? Catch me daring to call my boss anything other than Mr James.’

Stephanie was too used to Annette’s curiosity about her relationship with Jake to make any comment. Initially, when she arrived in London, she had lived alone, but after… but Jake had suggested when she started appearing heavy-eyed and exhausted in the office after her nightmare broken nights that she get a flatmate.

Annette was pleasant enough in her way; a secretary like herself, working for the chairman of a large insurance company. She had a fiancé who was in the army and whom she saw at irregular intervals. Yes, Annette would have been the ideal flatmate if it wasn’t for her constant curiosity about Jake.

‘Where’s he taking you tonight, then?’

Sighing, as she stripped off her neat office suit and blouse, Stephanie responded through her half-closed bedroom door, ‘The première of the new Blaize Dartford film.’

‘Wow! That should be really something. The love scenes are supposed to be…’

Almost automatically, Stephanie shut her ears against the end of Annette’s comment, dismayed but not surprised to see that her hands were shaking as she finished undressing.

In their small bathroom she showered quickly, automatically avoiding any confrontation with her own naked reflection. Back in her room, she opened her wardrobe and selected the cocktail suit she planned to wear for the evening. The matt black fabric with the velvet detailed embroidery on it was the perfect foil for her pale skin. Her hair cascaded past her shoulders in deep rich chestnut waves. For work she always wore it in a neat coil. Her wardrobe held few clothes but what there was was good. Working as Jake’s secretary-cum-personal assistant, she felt she owed it to him to dress the part. As the senior partner in a very prestigious London firm of estate agents, he came in daily contact with the wealthy, and, as Stephanie had soon learned, looks and appearance did count. During the two years she had worked for him she had cultivated an air of cool remoteness which put off those male clients who were, initially, too familiar. She was well aware of the nickname they had given her in the outer office. The ‘Ice Maiden’ they called her, but she didn’t care. They were not to know that she had deliberately chosen to encase herself in an unthawable protective shell. Only Jake knew that, and why. Jake… She glanced at her watch. Twenty-past seven, and Jake was always on time.

Her suit looked dressy, and yet formal, her long slim legs encased in pale tights, the delicacy of her ankle bones enhanced by the slender-heeled shoes she was wearing.

Deftly applying her make-up, she stood back critically to study her handiwork. Her eyes were a deep rich hazel that sometimes turned emerald, her face a delicate oval with high cheek bones and a small straight nose.

It was too late to do anything with her hair other than let it curl loosely on to her shoulders. Perfume was something Stephanie never wore, just as she never applied more than a bare trace of soft, pink lipstick to the ripely full curves of her mouth.

‘Umm. I wish I was tall and leggy,’ Annette complained when Stephanie emerged into their sitting room. ‘What is it with you and Jake?’ she enquired curiously. ‘You work for him, he takes you out, you seem very close, and yet he dates other women… glamorous ones, too.’

‘Jake is my friend and my employer,’ Stephanie cut in sharply. As always, when Annette questioned her like this, she could feel the self-defensive antennae prickling warningly. It was true though. Jake was her friend, and her employer… and so much more that could never be said… she was tied to him with bonds that no one who had not shared her experience could understand. Jake knew more about her than another living soul. He had been there when… He had been the one who had helped her to build up her life again. He knew and understood…

‘And not your lover…?’ the disbelieving comment penetrated Stephanie’s thoughts.

‘No… not my lover.’ She made the denial instinctively, her whole body registering a cold shudder she couldn’t hide.

Annette frowned. ‘Steph, what’s the matter? You obviously like him, you must do, and he’s one hell of an attractive man. You wouldn’t see me turning him down, and yet when I suggest there might be something physical about your relationship, you look as sick as though I’d suggested something obscene.’

The abrupt buzz of the door bell saved her from the need to respond. Even though she knew it would be Jake, Stephanie kept the chain hooked on the door as she eased it open until she could see his tall, dinner-suited figure.

‘Ready?’

As she opened the door, Jake stepped to one side to let her precede him. He was the only man of her acquaintance who understood her need to keep a physical distance between them, but then of course Jake knew the reason why. Was it really only two years since they had first met?

She had gone to his office to be interviewed for the position of his secretary and they had hit it off straight away. She had been quite new to London then. An orphan who had been brought up by elderly grandparents, she had been on her own since she was seventeen, and, because of that, at twenty-one she had developed a poise and self-confidence that made her seem older.

Jake had been thirty then, a tall, dark man, who was pleasant on the surface but to whom she suspected there were uncharted and potentially dangerous depths, a man who always kept something of himself back, and she had liked that reticence, just as she had liked the way his cool, grey eyes had acknowledged her physical attractiveness and then dismissed it as he interviewed and assessed her on her qualifications and mental qualities alone.

They had worked well together that first month, each allowing the other to preserve a certain distance. Stephanie had learned quite early in life that she was attractive to the male sex, and she had also learned the price she was supposed to pay for being attractive. She had lost count of the number of men who had propositioned her and been in turn angry and contemptuous when she had turned them down. They seemed to expect, because she was a reasonably pretty girl, that she would gladly pay for their compliments and admiration by sharing their beds. Perhaps, because of the slightly old-fashioned atmosphere in which she had been brought up, Stephanie had a different set of values. Marriage, or even finding the right man wasn’t particularly to the forefront of her mind. She had a good job which she enjoyed and Jake had told her that it would involve a certain amount of foreign travel, especially to Florida where his firm was involved in certain timesharing holiday schemes, and she was quite happy where she was. Although she got on well enough with the other girls in the office, she didn’t have any intimate female friends. Her position as Jake’s secretary and PA meant that she was much higher up in the office hierarchy than the other secretaries, who tended to treat her rather cautiously. This she didn’t mind. She had learned to cope with loneliness as a child, and had grown to almost prefer a certain amount of solitude. For instance, then she would never have dreamed of sharing her flat with anyone… but all that had changed, and now there were nights when she woke up in fevered sweats, longing to scream out but knowing she could not. Nights when the knowledge that Annette was only on the other side of a thin partition wall was the only thing that kept her sane.

Sane… As Jake opened the passenger door of his XJ6, she repressed a bitter grimace. At first, she had pleaded with Jake to set her free from their contract. She couldn’t work for him any more, she had told him, but he had refused. He had endured her tears and her depressions… almost her hatred at times, and they had both emerged with a different view of one another. Their friendship was perhaps the most important single thing in her life, Stephanie admitted. She loved her job, but she could always find another one, she could never find another friend like Jake.

And yet there were areas of Jake’s life that were closed to her. Closed to her because that was the way she wanted it. She knew he had other women friends… women who, unlike her, did share his bed. Jake had never made any secret of the fact that he was a fully functioning sexual being—unlike her.

She knew that he had once been engaged. He had told her that during one of her bad times, sharing with her the grief he had felt when his fiancée had been killed in a car accident. He had been very young at the time, barely twenty-three, and, as far as she knew, he now had no plans to marry. Why should he? He owned a lovely old Manor House in the Cotswolds; a superb London flat; and was a frequent visitor at the best hotels in Florida. He enjoyed the freedom of his bachelor life. But, if he did marry… She shuddered, not wanting to think about such a possibility.

‘Something wrong?’

As always, he was acutely perceptive to her mood. At work they never touched on personal subjects, but now they weren’t at the office.

‘Nothing.’

‘Umm… Not very communicative tonight, are you?’ He sounded more amused than annoyed, and, as always, Stephanie was aware of how much self-control he had. As she stared out of the car window the disturbing thought came to her that Jake would never allow anyone to see something of himself that he did not want them to, and that included her. She knew from the office gossip and from what she read in the papers that Jake dated several very beautiful women; women who were known to be choosy, not just about the wealth and looks of their lovers, but also about their sexual prowess, and yet, when he was with her, Jake projected an image so totally devoid of any sexual connotation that she found it hard to imagine that other side of him.

But it did exist… She shivered, not realising that Jake had noticed until he frowned. ‘Cold? I’ll turn the booster on. Autumn seems to have come early this year.’

It was only September, but it had been a particularly good summer. Even Stephanie’s fair skin had tanned, although, unlike the other girls in the office, her tan only extended as far as her arms and legs. The flat did possess a small private garden, but not even there had she been able to bring herself to put on even a swimsuit. She knew that her reluctance in that direction had caused raised eyebrows the last time she had gone with Jake to Florida. The wives of his business associates had hardly been able to believe that she didn’t want to take advantage of their hot sun. As always, Jake had been the one to come to her rescue.

‘Stephanie burns easily,’ he had said casually, and the matter had been dropped. Only they knew the reason she was so reluctant to expose any more of her body in public than she needed to. Physical pain, and even terror, could fade in time, but mental shame, that was something that never died. Jake had initially suggested a psychiatrist, but she had been so vehemently opposed to his suggestion that he had let it drop. What could talking to someone else tell her that she didn’t know already? That she had nothing to feel ashamed about? That she wasn’t to blame? That she wasn’t the only person to be sexually attacked? Quite unconsciously, she gave a small moan. Jake braked, and, despite the darkness of the car, Stephanie was conscious of him turning towards her.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine…’ Her voice was rawly husky, and she knew he had picked up on the hesitancy in it.

‘This wouldn’t be a ploy to get out of this première, would it?’ As always, he sounded lazily amused rather than annoyed… ‘You know that James Tavener expects us to be there.’

James Tavener was one of their wealthiest clients. He had engaged Jake’s firm to help him find a London apartment, and the American film producer had also invited Jake and herself to be his guests at tonight’s première.

‘Of course not. I’m quite looking forward to it.’

In the darkness of the car, she felt Jake tense, and wondered what on earth she had done to prompt such a reaction. The last time he had tensed like that had been… she frowned, remembering the incident. It had been when she had been reaching into a tall filing cabinet and had almost lost her balance. Jake had reached out to steady her, and she had gripped his arm instinctively, until, quite suddenly, the warm male smell of him and the physical reality of his masculinity had overwhelmed her in drowning waves of panic, and she had recoiled from him, shiveringly. But that had been six months ago, and Jake had been careful not to touch her since. She hadn’t needed to explain to him as she might have done to someone else. Jake knew exactly how she felt and why…

‘Have you read the advance press releases?’

‘No.’

‘Umm…’

They had to park some little distance away from the cinema. Jake, courteous as always, walked alongside her on the outer edge of the pavement. London was quite busy, and there were other première-goers heading in the same direction as them. A gang of youths walking towards them accidentally jostled Stephanie on the crowded pavement. A sensation not unlike that she had experienced when first learning to swim overtook her. She felt as though she were gasping for breath, fighting to stay alive, as waves of panic seized her, and then Jake’s voice, even and calm, subdued the waves, and the nightmare was gone.

‘All right?’ His voice sounded faintly tight as he looked into her pale face.

‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘Where are we meeting the Taveners?’

‘We’re to go straight up to their box. There’s going to be a VIP line-up which James will be part of. Apparently, we can go in this way,’ he added, indicating a small back door to the theatre.

Having shown the pass James Tavener had given him, they were shown up to a sumptuous box, with an excellent vew of the screen. Half an hour later they were joined by their hosts. The curtain went up.

‘Watch this boy,’ James Tavener instructed them, ‘he’s going places. He’s going to make Gere look very much yesterday’s man. We had a tussle getting some of the scenes past the censor… nothing smutty or vulgar in them—but…’

‘But they make your toes curl up and your insides melt,’ Livy Tavener laughed, smiling across at Stephanie. ‘At least, they do mine, for all that he’s at least twenty years my junior…’

The Taveners were laughing. Jake was smiling that cool, imperturbable smile he used whenever he didn’t want anyone to know what he was feeling, and Stephanie tried to smile in response, only her mouth felt stiff, refusing to respond to the commands of her brain. Fortunately, the lights had gone down, so no one else could see her expression, but Jake… As she forced herself to concentrate on the screen, Stephanie wondered if he had known the content of the film beforehand.

What on earth was the matter with her? Sex scenes were common nowadays; she could hardly switch on the television without seeing someone parading about in the nude. But she could always switch the television set off again, whereas here… She realised that James Tavener was talking to her and tried to concentrate.

‘We had a lot of problems with the rape scene…’ he told her. ‘I mean we wanted something realistic, but only to get across the girl’s anguish, so that the audience could appreciate what comes later with Blaize. You see, this girl avoids all contact with men, and then she meets this guy, and…’

‘Let her watch it for herself, James,’ Livy Tavener interrupted. ‘Honestly, this film’s his baby, and he’s crazy about it,’ she told Stephanie. ‘He’s hoping it will get an “Oscar”. It certainly deserves one. Laura Howard and Blaize play their parts so realistically. The emotion between them almost reaches out to enfold you…’

Stephanie tried to stand up. She had to get away. She couldn’t sit here and watch this film. Panic dashed over her in waves, her body alternately hot and then cold. Dimly, she was aware of Jake’s fingers curling round her wrist, lean and firm, imparting a steadying warmth to her frozen skin.

‘Sit down…’ The quiet command helped to steady her.

‘Jake, I can’t watch this…’ she pleaded huskily, ‘You know…’

‘Yes, I know,’ he broke in softly, ‘but you can’t keep on running for ever, Steph. Some time, you’re going to have to stop and turn round and confront your fears. Tonight might be as good a time as any.’

‘You brought me here deliberately,’ she whispered agonisedly. ‘You knew…’

‘Yes, I knew,’ he agreed emotionlessly. ‘Now sit down again unless you want the Taveners to get curious. I’m sure James would be thrilled to discover that he’s got the best critic of Laura Howard’s performance he could ever have sitting right next to him.’

Stephanie drew in a sharply painful breath at the cruelty of his comment. Never once before had Jake exhibited anything other than patience and consideration. Not since that night when he had taken her home to his flat, when he had washed her lacerated skin and talked to her in that soft comforting voice that had calmed her panic and fears, coaxing her to give him all the details of her attack, had he talked about what had happened to her. Oh, he had tried on several occasions, less frequently now, because on each occasion she had shied away from the subject, reacting with such emotional pain and distress that he had let it drop.

‘Jake, please, I can’t sit here and watch this…’ she pleaded in anguish. ‘Please…’

‘Stephanie, it’s been close on two years,’ he said quietly, ‘and it’s not getting any better If anything, it’s getting worse.’

‘No!’

‘No? Then tell me how many men you’ve dated in the last two years, and how many of them have you allowed to kiss or touch you? I can tell you how many,’ he said quietly when she sat frozen, unable to respond, ‘None. Don’t you think I know, Steph? I’ve only got to watch the way you recoil from me if I so much as brush against you accidentally. I practically have to chart a course across my office so that I keep out of your prescribed boundaries. Look, I know what happened to you…’

‘Nothing happened to me,’ she bit out the words sharply. On her lap her hands were folded into small fists, her nails biting into her palms. That Jake of all people should turn on her like this, and so unexpectedly. She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t endure the pain ripping through her, pain like none she had ever known.

‘You were almost raped,’ Jake reminded her, ‘violated in the most brutal and unforgivable way by a gang of youths who had deliberately lain in wait for you, and attacked you and you would have been raped if I hadn’t happened to hear you scream.’ He broke off when she covered her ears, her voice strained and almost unrecognisable as her tortured throat managed to admit a husky, ‘No… no, you promised we would never have to talk about it… Jake…’

‘Hey you two, aren’t you interested in the film?’ James Tavener’s voice interrupted them, and Stephanie sank back into her seat, refusing to turn her face in Jake’s direction, her whole body trembling with reaction. Even now, she couldn’t believe what had happened. That Jake… She tried to keep her attention on the screen, but in her emotional state that was even worse. With morbid fascination, she watched Laura Howard enact what was almost a replay of what had happened to her, only her attackers had been a group of youths who caught the same bus home as her at night. Most evenings, they made comments as they waited for the bus, called out remarks, and generally tormented Stephanie with their presence, which was always faintly sexually threatening. And then, one night, she had worked late, and when she had emerged into the alleyway at the back of the office, they had been waiting for her. It had been December, and bitterly cold. She had been wearing boots and a thick coat which, she thought later, had helped to save her. How they had found out where she worked, she had never discovered, although Jake suspected that they must have followed her.

She had barely had time to do anything more than scream once before they attacked her. Even now, she had nightmares about those moments before Jake had arrived, alerted by her single scream. If he hadn’t been on the way downstairs… if she hadn’t screamed right at that moment… Their hands had seemed to be everywhere, tearing at her clothes, their obscene words and laughter almost as bad as their physical violation.

Jake’s unexpected appearance had given him an advantage over them, and he had soon dispersed them, but not before Stephanie had been almost stunned by a vicious slap across her face, her blouse and bra ripped in huge rents which revealed her breasts, long vicious weals along her arm where she had fought to prevent them pulling off her coat. But the worst of it had been her own memories vividly replayed over and over again as Jake bundled her into his car and drove her to his apartment. She had been almost incoherent with shock and fright, retreating like a terrified animal when he tried to come near her. In the end she had fainted through sheer terror, unable to recognise friend from foe, only knowing that the hands that touched her were male and that the scent reaching her nostrils was masculine and therefore to be feared.

When she came round, she was in Jake’s bathroom. She had never been in his apartment before and was in no condition to appreciate the masculine decor of marble and gold, and she had shuddered convulsively away from the touch of Jake’s fingers, only to discover that he had removed her torn clothes and she was wearing only her bra and panties.

‘Stephanie, you’re quite safe. I just want to clean those cuts. Then I’m going to give you a glass of brandy, and put you to bed in my spare bedroom. If you like, I’ll call a doctor for you… and tomorrow we can call the police.’

‘No… No police,’ she had made the plea in abject terror. There had been so much adverse publicity about the police’s handling of rape cases that she felt she couldn’t endure the humiliation she had read of other women’s suffering.

‘Stephanie…’

‘No… please…’

In the end, he had given way, and she had remained in his flat not for one night but for three, terrified by every single alien sound, her nervous system totally destroyed. Jake stayed with her, and on the third day he had made her talk; had made her re-live the trauma of her attack. She had cried and protested, hating him for what he was doing to her, and he had held her in his arms, soothing her, stroking her like a child… Stephanie frowned. This was the first time she had allowed herself to think back to the time of her attack, and she had forgotten that Jake had held her and touched her, and that she had welcomed his touch. Because it had been paternal, she told herself, because she had been so distraught that she had needed the comfort of physical contact more than she feared it.

Gradually she had recovered, or at least outwardly she had seemed to do so. Only she and Jake knew that, inwardly… inwardly she would never recover. When she dreamed, it was of hard male hands tearing at her clothes, her screams of panic suppressed until she felt she was suffocating on them. Only with Jake did she feel safe and that was because she knew he had no sexual interest in her whatsoever. Jake knew and understood about what had happened to her, but not even Jake knew about the guilt buried deep inside her soul; the hateful, destructive feeling that whispered treacherously that somehow she had been to blame; that somehow she had given them the impression that… that what? That she had wanted to be raped? She shuddered sickly. Ever since she had taken care that no one could ever accuse her of encouraging any man, however tenuously.

She knew that Annette was curious about her relationship with Jake, who she admitted she found sexually attractive. Stephanie also knew that Annette did not believe her when she said their relationship was strictly platonic, but she was immune to any sensation of physical attraction now. The thought of any man touching her made her feel acutely ill.

‘Now… just watch this scene…’

Stephanie came to at the sound of James Tavener’s voice to realise the film had progressed considerably. Her body froze as she realised that this was the ‘sex scene’ James had been discussing earlier. She didn’t want to watch, but her eyes seemed to be riveted to the screen against her will. Blaize Dartford was as dark as Jake and a similar age, his eyes blue where Jake’s were grey. Even his voice seemed to have the same husky timbre, and it seemed to Stephanie in her highly charged emotional state that it was Jake up there on the screen, that it was his hands, and mouth, his body that made slow and deliberately sensuous love to the girl on the bed with him. Stephanie wanted to deny the illusion, but it wouldn’t be denied, and her body burned hot and cold as she tried to shut out the images on the screen. Laura Howard had researched her part well, and no one watching could not be convinced of her anguish and uncertainty, although, unlike her, Laura wanted to make love, Stephanie thought. Laura wanted to overcome her fears, whereas she was revolted and terrified about the thought of physical intimacy with anyone. At last, she managed to close her eyes and blot out the final few moments of the film.

The Taveners insisted on them joining them for supper and, while they waited for their meal to be served, James turned to Jake and asked with a grin, ‘I’ll bet there wasn’t a woman in the cinema tonight who wasn’t mentally imagining herself in Laura’s place…’

‘Well, Stephanie,’ Jake challenged, ‘Do you agree with that statement?’

What could she say? To agree meant agreeing that she had wanted to be Laura; that she had wanted to be made love to… not by Blaize, but by Jake, because it was his face she had seen on the screen, his hands she had witnessed caressing the soft, female flesh of his partner…

‘Stephanie’s probably one of the few women at the première tonight who wasn’t bowled over by Blaize,’ Livy Tavener interrupted with a grin in Stephanie’s direction. ‘If anything, Jake’s even more attractive.’

‘Why, I thank you, ma’am…’ Jake drawled, not in the least embarrassed.

‘Jake and I are friends… nothing more,’ Stephanie put in hurriedly, her face scarlet with embarrassment as she read the speculation in James Tavener’s eyes. ‘Isn’t that so, Jake…?’

‘I never contradict a lady,’ Jake drawled. He was watching her with hard grey eyes, and it came to Stephanie with a shock that he had never looked at her like that before—almost as though he actively disliked her. A gulf seemed to yawn open at her feet, ground which she had thought of as safe and familiar suddenly very treacherous. What had happened between them? Why had Jake chosen tonight to bring up the past? Intuitively she knew it was not simply because of the similarity between her own attack and the film, and then she remembered Jake asking her if she had read the advance press releases. He must have known she had not because, if she had, she would never have agreed to attend, and yet he obviously had known what to expect and he had not warned her. What was she to read into that? Was he tired of their friendship? Tired of her emotional dependence on him, her need to use him as a barrier behind which she hid from all other men? Suddenly, she was desperately afraid; afraid of being alone… of losing Jake’s friendship, and most of all of the cold condemnation she had read in his eyes.

CHAPTER TWO

SUPPER seemed to drag on, with Stephanie feeling increasingly miserable. The Taveners were both in good spirits, and James Tavener beamed at her, telling her that he always enjoyed having supper at the Ritz. ‘Kind-a finishes the evening off properly,’ he told her, as he ordered a second bottle of champagne.

‘No?’ he exclaimed, lifting his eyebrows when she refused a second glass. ‘Jake, why don’t you two go and dance?’

Jake had been engaged in conversation with Livy Tavener, but he glanced across at Stephanie with a querying lift of his eyebrows.

‘No, really, I’d rather not,’ she started to protest, shivering as she saw the chill contempt invade Jake’s eyes. What had she done to merit that look? He knew how much she abhorred physical contact, and indeed, one of the things she most appreciated in his treatment of her was the fact that he was always so meticulously careful about avoiding touching her.

It seemed to Stephanie that it was hours before the others were ready to leave. She did not have to work in the morning and there was no reason why she should not have a late night. She wasn’t sleepy, if anything, she was too keyed up and awake, but she was longing for the privacy of her flat, to the extent that she desperately wished that Annette wasn’t going to be there.

At last, they were saying their goodbyes. She walked with Jake to where he had left the car in total silence. There had been silences between them before—comfortable, comforting silences when the depth of their friendship had made social chit-chat unnecessary, but this was a different silence, as deep and cold as a Siberian winter, and Stephanie quailed inwardly. What was happening between them? There had been no indication of what was to come when Jake returned from the States earlier in the week. He had been gone for ten days; this time, she had not accompanied him because she had picked up a tummy bug which had kept her off work, and he had seemed all right when she had met him at the airport. But there had been that incident when she had moved forward to help him with his hand luggage, and their fingers had brushed accidentally. Jake had recoiled as though he had been stung, she remembered. At the time, she had simply thought he had been withdrawing out of concern for her, but his withdrawal had been sharper than one that sprang from mere concern. He had looked… yes, almost pale, she remembered now, his eyes unusually bleak, and he had been curt and off-hand with her in the car, but, because she had been concentrating on driving the large XJ6, she had not paid too much attention, simply thinking that he was suffering from jet lag. Gnawing her lip, Stephanie suddenly remembered the venomous comments one of his ex-girlfriends had made to her last Christmas. Susy Waldron had been dating Jake for about six weeks at the time, and Stephanie had never expected the confrontation that came late one afternoon when Jake had cancelled a date with Susy because he had to go out of town on business.

She had arrived in the office, slightly tipsy, demanding to see him, and when Stephanie calmly explained that he wasn’t available, Susy had refused to leave. ‘I know all about you, you know,’ she had commented tipsily, making Stephanie almost faint with shock, ‘all about your “friendship” with Jake… but it won’t last for ever,’ she hissed viciously, ‘Jake isn’t the sort of man who could ever be content with a platonic relationship with a woman—even a woman as dull as you. For some reason you now interest him—but one day he’ll grow bored with you. Like I just said, Jake is a very sexy man, even if you don’t have enough feminine hormones in your body to recognise it.’

Eventually, Stephanie had persuaded her to leave. At the time, she hadn’t paid much attention to her comments. How could a woman like her understand the very special relationship she had with Jake? She had been almost contemptuous of the other woman, she realised now… just as she had tended to be slightly contemptuous of all Jake’s womanfriends; glamorous, greedy predators, without a single thought in their heads that did not concern the appeasement of their appetites, but what she had never done before was question why Jake always chose women of that type. From the little he had told her about his dead fiancée, Stephanie had gained the impression that she had been both attractive and intelligent, but, like her, Jake had been hurt too much to commit himself to any permanent relationship since. He had lost the woman he loved; she had lost her trust in his sex and her ability to respond to it sexually, and she had thought that their friendship had been built on rock so steady that nothing could ever shake its foundations. Had she been wrong? In the darkness of the car, she darted a glance at his impassive profile, noticing, with something approaching shock, the deeply bitter lines grooving alongside his mouth. How long had those been there? And that cold withdrawal she sensed increasingly tonight, when had that been born? Icy fingers of alarm touched her spine. Had Jake perhaps at last found someone who could be both lover and friend…? Was that why…? What if he had, she asked herself, appalled by the intensity of feeling her own thoughts stirred up. Surely she wasn’t so criminally possessive and insecure that she didn’t want Jake to find happiness with another woman? She was his friend, for Heaven’s sake, and, as his friend… as his friend… She dragged her thoughts away from the tortuous paths they were treading as she realised that they were not heading for her flat but for Jake’s apartment.

‘Not more work tonight, surely?’ she mock groaned. It wasn’t unknown for Jake to ask her to work late, or even to telephone her at home during the weekend to ask her to come over to help him out with something he was working on. These impromptu work sessions normally ended with a comfortable meal à deux in his apartment and a quiet evening spent together listening to his record collection. She treasured them as tranquilly enjoyable oases of peace and pleasure in the anguished pain that she sometimes felt her life had become.

Jake didn’t answer, and Stephanie felt her earlier anxiety return as he turned his car into the underground car park to his block of flats. A highly efficient lift, activated by Jake’s personal key, bore them upwards to his apartment.

Whenever she visited it, Stephanie was always reminded of her first visit, of coming round to find herself in Jake’s bathroom, his hands clinically sexless as they removed her clothes and dealt with her lacerated arms.

A pleasant foyer gave way to the generously proportioned living room with its comfortably upholstered furniture and rich Persian rugs. Stephanie loved the ambience of Jake’s apartment. Despite the fact that he lived here alone, apart from the visits of his daily cleaner, it had a ‘lived in’ quality of which she was always acutely conscious.

‘Drink?’

When she shook her head, she saw Jake walk across to the cocktail cabinet set into the bank of rosewood cabinets, and she was surprised to see him pour a large measure of spirits for himself. He rarely drank, and tonight there had been wine with their supper, plus champagne, as well as liqueurs after the meal.

‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ he told her curtly, ‘I’m not about to rape you.’

As always, she flinched away from the word, immeasurably hurt and shocked that he should use it when he knew how much it distressed her.

‘Why wouldn’t you dance with me?’ he demanded abruptly, walking towards her, almost spilling his drink as he put his glass down forcefully on a gleaming table. ‘Why, Stephanie’ Just what is it you think my touch will do to you, contaminate you?’

Contaminate her? Inwardly, she shivered. If anyone was doing any contaminating it would surely be her… she was the one whose body had been violated; she was the one who would never be able to cleanse her mind of the scars it bore.

‘Two damned years, and you’re as terrified of being touched now as you were that night when I brought you back here.’

‘That’s not true,’ somehow she managed to force out the hurt denial, turning away so that he wouldn’t see the betraying shimmer of tears in her eyes.

‘Isn’t it?’ His fingers tightening round her wrist wrenched her round to face him. Why had she never noticed before how intensely masculine he was… how dangerously sexual as he towered over her, his eyes a hard, cold grey.

‘Oh, you may not scream with terror whenever I come near you, but inwardly you’re still screaming, Stephanie. Inwardly, I hear you screaming whenever I get that little bit too close.’

‘No… no. You’re wrong.’ He wasn’t, but somehow she felt impelled to deny his accusations.

‘Am I?’

His other hand caught her free wrist, holding it behind her back as he used his superior strength to propel her towards him. Centimetres from his body, Stephanie tensed her muscles, inwardly shrinking back, but the hard pressure of his arm against her waist and lower back forced her forward, until there was only the minutest gap between them.

She wanted to beg him to release her, to scream and cry for freedom, but something stronger than these instincts forced her to remain still.

‘Oh, you’re putting up a very good impression of not loathing touching me, but we both know the truth, don’t we?’

Stephanie had to lift her head to look at him. His eyes were as cold as slate, his mouth twisting in a bitter grimace she had never seen before.

‘Jake… please, why are you doing this?’ she whispered from a painfully constricted throat. ‘What have I done…?’

‘Nothing, Stephanie,’ he said sardonically, ‘nothing at all. That’s just it,’ he added under his breath, ‘you haven’t done a damn thing to try to rejoin the human race. What would I need to threaten to get you to touch me of your own free will, I wonder?’ he asked bitterly.

He saw the response in her eyes without her needing to voice it. ‘Two years we’ve known one another… two years, when I haven’t so much as laid a finger on you, and yet, even now, you shrink from me, as though I were some damned rapist.’

‘Jake, please…’

‘Jake, please…’ he mimicked savagely back. ‘Please what? Please don’t touch me? Please don’t let your body come anywhere near mine?’

‘Jake, why are you like this?’

‘Why don’t you ask yourself instead why you are the way you are?’ he said softly. ‘Why, you recoil from me if I so much as do this.’ His free hand stroked lightly down her spine, but the effect on Stephanie was electrifying. She tried to move away from the light caress, her frantic attempts to escape bringing her up against the hard leanness of Jake’s body. Beneath the palm she had thrust out to push him away, she could feel the heavy beat of his heart. The sensation was so unexpected and strange that, for a moment, she simply stood there, too confused even to think.

‘What’s the matter, Steph?’ Jake goaded. ‘Surprised to find out that, unlike you, I’m not made of stone?’

‘Jake, why are you being like this? I thought we were friends.’

‘Friends…’ he released her and raked angry fingers through his dark hair. ‘Yes, but only on your terms, isn’t that it? Tell me this, Stephanie, what kind of friendship is it that exists without trust?’

‘I do trust you!’

‘Do you?’ He gave her a hard, enigmatic stare. ‘Then prove it to me,’ he said softly. ‘Come over here, and kiss me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Then I’ll just have to kiss you, won’t I?’ he said calmly, coming towards her. ‘Remember, Stephanie,’ he said as his fingers gripped her shoulders, ‘you said you trusted me.’

Stephanie made a sound deep in her throat, barely aware of the animal terror in it, as Jake slid his hands over her back, drawing her body against his. She could have broken away; some part of her was aware of that, just as it was aware that Jake wasn’t using any physical pressure to bring her body close to his, but his eyes seemed to hypnotise her, draining her of the will to resist. She stood within the circle of his arms like a plastic doll, rigid and tense with the enormity of what was happening. Never once, in the two years since her attack, had Jake behaved like this, and part of her couldn’t believe what he was doing now. The glitter in his eyes was that of a man starved too long of something he hungered desperately for—dimly she recognised that fact and then repudiated it, Jake was no sex-starved adolescent. So why was he doing this to her?

His hand spread out against her spine, anchoring her against his lean frame, making it impossible for her to recoil from the intimate contact he was forcing upon her. She could smell the sharp tangy scent of his aftershave, her flesh acutely conscious of the warmth of his beneath the formality of his evening clothes. Without wanting to, she became aware of him in a way she never had before, her heart thudding in a mixture of apprehension and shock. His free hand slid up her spine to tangle in the chestnut thickness of her hair. Her eyes, shocked and hurt, widened as Jake forced her to meet his.

‘Your eyes are the colour of emeralds,’ he murmured, ‘they always go green when you’re emotionally aroused.’

Stephanie jerked against the constraining pressure of his hand in her hair in objection to his choice of words, and then closed her eyes, tensing her whole body, willing him to kiss her if that was what he intended, and end her torment. Unwittingly, she had tensed her hands into small fists, and dark colour surged up under her pale skin as Jake whispered sardonically against her ear, ‘You’re supposed to reciprocate, not clench your fingers in anticipation of some dreadful ordeal. Relax. All I’m going to do is kiss you, Stephanie…’

‘I can’t.’

The husky admission was torn from her aching throat. She badly wanted to cry, not so much from terror now, but from shock and hurt. Why was Jake, the only person she had thought understood and appreciated how she felt, behaving like this? She could hardly equate the cold, mocking stranger he had turned into with the man she had called her friend.

‘Then I’ll just have to help you, won’t I?’ His dark head bent towards her and Stephanie closed her eyes, tensing herself to receive his kiss, her lips dry and stiff… She could feel the heat of Jake’s hand spread against the back of her skull and she jumped nervously when his thumb brushed softly against the delicate area behind her ear. Shivers of reaction spread through her body from that brief point of contact, detonating a trembling response she couldn’t conceal.

‘Jake, please don’t do this…’ The request was stammered and hoarse, her lips almost too stiff to form the words.

‘Open your mouth, Steph, so I can kiss you properly.’ That was his only response, and one that Stephanie knew nothing could make her obey. Strangely enough, her fear that being in Jake’s arms would bring back all her nightmare memories of her attack was unfounded. She was frightened, almost terrified out of her wits, but her fear had more to do with the fact that she found the sudden change in Jake totally incomprehensible than any confusion of his embrace with those she had endured at the hands of her attackers, and her biggest fear of all was that, once Jake kissed her, she would lose him as her friend. Why on earth should he want to kiss her in the first place? Even before her attack, she had been rather withdrawn with men, and never in a million years could she hope to compete with the sexual experience of the women Jake normally dated.

Her lips pressed tightly together to stop them trembling she almost gasped out loud as Jake’s tongue tip brushed seductively over their tense outlines. Quivers of sensation like light, electric shocks rippled through her sensitive skin. Like an arid desert, bursting into full bloom after an unexpected shower of rain, she could feel the tension retreating and her lips softening into compliance beneath the warmth of Jake’s tongue as it stroked them into bemused acceptance of his unspoken commands. Without her even giving it conscious thought, her lips parted, her dark lashes fluttered upwards for a stunned, disbelieving second as she looked into the molten greyness of Jake’s eyes and knew that this was actually happening; that her body was actually quivering heatedly in response to the light play of Jake’s thumb against the tender flesh of her nape; that her mouth was actually moist and warm against his, allowing him to kiss her with an intimacy she couldn’t remember sharing with anyone before.

All at once, it was as though all her senses came truly alive, and she was acutely aware of everything about him; from the hard tension of his body against hers, the muscle and bone so different from her own yielding softness; to the musky, male scent of him that somehow excited and yet frightened at the same time.

She must have made some small protest because, suddenly and totally unexpectedly, she was free and Jake was three feet away from her regarding her with a look of mingled contempt and anger. Fear and misery poured through her making her ache in every nerve ending. It was almost as though she had been anaesthetised against pain and feeling, and had suddenly come tinglingly and painfully to life. She wasn’t sure that she liked the sensation. Her self-confidence had been totally undermined, and she was aware, not for the first time, just how emotionally dependent she was on Jake. If he turned away from her…

‘Come on, I’d better take you home,’ Jake’s brusque words cut through her anguished thoughts.

‘Jake…’ she began hesitantly, but he cut through what she was about to say, silencing her with a curt, ‘Look, let’s not have an inquest right now. If you’re looking for an explanation, let’s just say it was an experiment that went wrong.’

Too numb and exhausted by the violence of her own emotions, Stephanie stayed silent as he drove her home. Normally, after a late night, she stayed at the apartment with him, but tonight he had made no such suggestion. Was he growing tired of her as Susy had predicted he would? All the old insecurities she had suffered after the attack resurfaced, and she was glad to escape Jake’s silent presence when he eventually left her at her flat door.

After a night of disturbed and uneasy rest, she finally fell properly asleep in the early hours and woke up heavy-eyed and headachey well after ten o’clock.

‘Well, well, that must have been some night last night,’ Annette commented when she finally got up. ‘It isn’t like you to sleep in.’

‘I was tired,’ Stephanie lied briefly. A glance in her mirror before she walked into the kitchen had shown her an unfamiliarly wan face and pain-haunted eyes.

Somehow she got through the weekend, busying herself with unnecessary chores, and surveying her previous winter’s wardrobe. Her job called for her to be smartly and well-dressed, but as she looked at the sensible suits and severely cut blouses she had bought the previous winter, she knew a vague but definite dissatisfaction. Annette, who had nothing on for the weekend, came into her room to watch.

‘Heavens,’ she exclaimed breezily, examining the growing pile of garments, ‘these are almost like a uniform. If I had a figure like yours you’d never catch me wearing anything so dull. Why don’t you go mad for once and get yourself something really sexy? I would if I had your figure.’

‘Such as?’ Stephanie enquired drily. Annette favoured flamboyant, sometimes frankly gaudy clothes that Stephanie simply could not see herself in at all. Perhaps her clothes were a little on the dull side, but at least when she was wearing them no one could accuse her of trying to attract male attention. Her appearance never presented a sexual come-on or challenge.

‘Like this, for instance,’ Annette pounced triumphantly, flourishing a magazine she had been reading. ‘We’ve still got a couple of hours before the shops close. All the new season’s stock should be in by now, and don’t tell me you can’t afford it… with the salary I suspect Jake pays you…’

Stephanie wasn’t listening. She was staring transfixed at the photograph Annette was holding out to her. Numbly, she read the caption, ‘Susy Waldron, modelling the new Galman autumn range at the home of wealthy Florida businessman, Dale Mather. Another house guest was Susy’s escort, Jake Lorrimer. When asked about their romance, Susy refused to comment, but the couple were seen strolling arm in arm through Dale Mather’s justifiably famous gardens almost every evening of their visit.’

‘Stephanie, what’s wrong with you?’ Annette demanded. ‘What do you think of the dress? I can just see you in it.’

The dress in question was in soft, black angora, cut on deceptively demure lines, but Stephanie paid it scant attention. Jake and Susy together. Was that why he had kissed her? Because he and Susy were apart… because he knew that Susy did not like her. Jake was a man in whom the sensual currents ran strong and deep, and if she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now. Deep enough for him to sacrifice their friendship to his desire for Susy? Had Susy perhaps demanded as the price of her love, Stephanie’s own eviction from Jake’s personal life?

They were questions that Stephanie could not answer. She felt as though life had suddenly cast her adrift on unfamiliar and treacherous waters with nothing to cling to for support.

More to keep her mind occupied with other thoughts than for any other reason, she allowed Annette to persuade her to go shopping. They visited the exclusive Knightsbridge store that stocked the clothes featured in the magazine and at Annette’s insistence Stephanie tried on the black angora dress.

‘Stunning,’ was her verdict once it was on. ‘It looks even better on you than it did on the model. The colour brings out the red lights in your hair,’ she said critically. ‘Black suits you. And what about this?’ she brandished a glove-soft leather skirt in a softly muted olive-cum-khaki colour with a toning mohair jumper.

Stephanie stared at her, aghast. ‘Annette, I never wear anything like that,’ she told her distastefully, ‘Leather…’

‘Leather skirts are “in” this year,’ Annette argued firmly. ‘Try it on, at least. This jumper is gorgeous. If we weren’t saving so hard to get married, I might indulge in one myself.’

The jumper was lovely, Stephanie admitted when she had it on. The soft mohair caressed her skin with a sensuous warmth that made her unexpectedly aware of her own body, and, for a few seconds, she wasn’t sure if she liked the sensation. Appreciation of her own sensuality wasn’t something she was familiar with—that side of her nature had been suppressed, partially during her teens when she had only had her grandmother as an example, and then completely following the attack, when she had developed a morbid fear of anyone reading any hint of sexual compliance in her attitude. The satin-winged dragon motif appliqued to the front of the sweater felt unfamiliar beneath her finger tips and she had a sudden and very disturbing notion that Jake’s skin would feel very much the same. Smooth, yet strong. She snatched her fingers away from the satin as though they had been stung, blushing in the privacy of her changing room at the intimacy of her thoughts. What was happening to her? She had never even thought about touching Jake before, even in the most casual of fashions, never mind imagining his nude body, and yet, now… It must be the small enclosed space she was in that was making her feel so hot, she decided, quickly unfastening the studded side fastening of the leather skirt.

Perhaps it was because she was trying to come to terms with her unfamiliar feelings that she allowed Annette to persuade her into buying not only the leather skirt and the sweater, but also a matching silk shirt and the black angora dress, plus an evening suit cut to reveal the soft curves of her body, with a tiny, nipped-in waist and a low, revealing back, although when she was going to wear such a potentially provocative garment she wasn’t quite sure. Even the colour—a rich sapphire blue—wasn’t one she would normally have chosen.

‘You’ll wear it when you go out on these business dinners with Jake, of course,’ Annette chastised her when she voiced her doubts as they headed for the escalator. ‘Come on,’ she added. ‘I’m really getting into the swing of this fairy godmother thing now. I’m not letting you go back to the flat until you’ve bought some new underwear and you’ll need new shoes…’

‘Underwear? But…’

‘You’ll need something to wear under that suit,’ Annette reminded her. ‘It’s practically backless, remember—unless, of course, you’re planning to dispense with your bra?’

There was a wicked twinkle in her eyes as she added this last. Although slightly above medium height with a narrow waist and slender hips, Stephanie had very rounded and full breasts—a fact which she abhorred and did all she could to disguise, always wearing formal blouses and neat jackets.

‘What on earth are you looking like that for?’ Annette grinned. ‘What I’d give to swop my 32A for your 34C! You don’t know how lucky you are. Pity slinky sweaters aren’t in fashion this year. I’d just love to see your Jake’s face if you turned up at the office in one.’ She laughed again at Stephanie’s expression, and took advantage of her momentary lack of concentration to herd her into the lingerie department.

As before, Annette took charge before Stephanie could open her mouth, quickly explaining what was needed.

‘How about this?’ A soft pale grey silk satin camiknicker with a very low-cut back was produced for their inspection.

‘Oh, it’s mouthwatering, Steph, isn’t it?’ Annette drooled. ‘And just look at this!’ She held up the garment so that Stephanie could see the delicate lacy panels that comprised the top of the camiknicker. ‘Go and try it on,’ she urged. ‘Take the suit with you to make sure the back’s low enough.’ The suit was produced for the saleslady’s inspection, who agreed that the stock of low-backed bras they had in would not be low enough to wear under it, and, as Stephanie walked past her, Annette murmured wickedly, ‘You’re going to cause quite a stir the next time you go to an official dinner with your boss. I can’t see much business getting done—the men will be too busy wondering whether you are or aren’t and if you, are, what—it would send their temperatures rocketing if they ever found out,’ she added mischievously.

The camiknickers fitted perfectly, the delicate lace cups moulding the full curves of her breasts so that her skin glowed mother of pearl through them, her nipples a deep rosy pink. The sensation of the lace and satin so close to her skin was infinitely disturbing. The garment was far too erotic for her simple tastes, Stephanie decided, but it did fit very neatly and discreetly beneath her new suit, and, in the end, she allowed Annette to badger her into buying it.

On the way home, Annette oozed self-satisfaction. ‘I’ve been dying to get you out of all those dull correct clothes you favour for months,’ she admitted cheerfully, as they prepared their evening meal, ‘and those camiknickers!’ She rolled her eyes and grinned. ‘Personally, I’ve always been something of an underwear freak—nothing gaudy, or openly sexy; it’s just that I adore the sensation of silks and satins next to my skin. It makes me feel good, and yet rather naughty at the same time, if you know what I mean. It’s my only extravagance that Roger approves of.’ She spluttered with laughter when she saw Stephanie’s expression, shaking her head a little over her reserve, and Stephanie wondered a little bleakly if Susy Waldron wore silks and satins next to her skin and if Jake enjoyed touching them before he touched her.

It was alarming and extremely disturbing to find she had come so far down a road she hadn’t even been aware of setting out on. Somehow her life had taken an unexpected turning, and she wasn’t sure yet herself just what it was leading to; all she did know was that she feared the changes heralded, and that if she could she would have gone back to the security of a friendship with Jake which had no overtones of sexuality. How had they come to be there in the first place? It was a question she just couldn’t answer.

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