Pregnancy of Revenge (10 page)

Her eyes must have given her away as he muttered something thickly in Italian, and reached for her. The doors slid open and he swore, and walked her across the hall and into his suite with unseemly haste.

'You are an incredible woman. You never cease to surprise me,' Jake husked, and he captured her mouth with his own in a deeply passionate kiss.

She could feel the heavy thud of his heart beneath the palms of her hands resting against his chest... Both his arms were around her, pressing her against him, and she felt his body hardening, merging with hers. She trembled as his lips feathered brief, tormenting kisses against her temples and down to the vulnerable curve of her neck.

'Dio,
I want you,' Jake murmured against her ear, and, sweeping her up in his arms, he carried her into the bedroom.

They spent the rest of Sunday in bed, and all night. By the time Charlie surfaced on Monday morning she was a different woman. No woman ever had a more ardent lover, she was sure, and she had told Jake so, over and over again, fascinated by his big, hard-muscled body as he taught her with skill and eroticism how responsive her own could be.

She stretched languorously on the bed, and watched Jake, who had ten minutes earlier deserted her for the shower, stroll back into the bedroom wearing only a towel slung low on his hips. He had a magnificent body, all golden skin and rippling muscle, and after last night Charlie was no longer too shy to look.

She followed his progress around the room, saw him
withdraw a smart grey suit and white shirt from the wardrobe, and smiled at the intimacy of seeing him dress.
First the white boxers, then the white shirt and elegant hip- hugging trousers.
'Going somewhere?' she asked, dragging herself up on an elbow and shaking back the tumbled mass of her ash blonde hair from her face. 'That doesn't look the kind of garb for sightseeing.'

Jake turned from the chest of drawers, a rueful smile on his handsome face and a pair of black socks in his hand, and crossed to sit down on the bed beside her. 'I have a meeting this morning. I did warn you,
cara
,
I am here on business.' He smiled wryly when he saw the pout of her love-swollen lips, and, lifting his hand, he ran his fingers through her hair. 'And, no, I am not going to kiss you, otherwise I will never make my meeting.'

His deep, dark eyes gleamed down into hers as he added softly, 'after the last eighteen hours maybe you could use a rest—or to do your own tourist thing today. But I want you back here by six. I'll be waiting.' He pressed a brief kiss on the tip of her nose, before bending down to slip on his socks. A moment later he had donned his shoes, jacket and tie, and turned back to look at her.

'You're amazingly quiet, Charlotte.'

'I was just wondering if I should unpack my clothes in the other bedroom,' she teased. She was too happy to be angry with him and anyway he had said originally it would depend on his business obligations, but she wasn't letting him slope off totally scot-free.

'Ah, I might have lied about that,' Jake returned smoothly, his dark eyes lit with amusement smiling down into hers. 'The second bedroom was converted into an office for the duration of my stay, so unless you want to sleep on the desk...' He paused. 'Then again, a desk has distinct possibilities,' he suggested, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes.

Charlie picked up a pillow and threw it at him. 'Shame on you,' she cried and burst out laughing at the bemused expression on his striking face.

'I'll get you for that later.' Placing the pillow on the foot of the bed, he added, 'And that is a promise, so feel afraid,
woman
.' He sent her a quick blinding smile that took her breath away. Then he was striding out of the room, with the wave of a hand and
a,
'Ciao, cara.
'

Charlie didn't go sightseeing; instead she hit the shops, and blew her clothes allowance for the next year because she wanted to look good for Jake. When she returned slightly after six, he was waiting.

'Typical woman: late and couldn't resist shopping,' he said mockingly as she walked in with a handful of carriers.

'But not from the hotel's overpriced boutique, and paid for by me,' she mocked back.

Without a single word of warning strong hands curved under her arms and hauled her hard against a taut male body, a dark head descended and she was kissed senseless. The carriers fell unnoticed to the ground as she linked her arms around his neck. A few hours later they called room service.

And so it continued for the next few days. Pressure of business meant Jake never accompanied her during the day as she roamed around London, visiting all the places of interest that appealed to her, but she didn't mind because she knew she would see him later. But the nights in the privacy of the suite were the best. He had only to look at her in a certain way, and her whole body heated in instant response.

CHAPTER SIX

FRIDAY
showed all the signs of being a beautiful spring day, and as she sat dressed in only a bathrobe Charlie wondered what her chances were of getting Jake to share it with her. She looked across the table at him, noting the magnificent broad shoulders clad in a perfectly tailored dark jacket, the white shirt enhancing the bronzed skin of his almost indecently attractive face. She could look at him for ever. He had finished his breakfast and was filling his cup with coffee for the third time. That was something else she had noted about him: he always drank three cups of coffee.

'You drink too much coffee, Jake,' she declared, her eyes sparkling as she held his faintly brooding gaze. 'And you work too hard. If you're not at a meeting you're on the phone or attached to that computer. You need to relax more. Spend the day with me?'

'If
I relaxed any more with you,
cara,
I would be in danger of having a heart attack,' he mocked gently, his dark gaze sliding down to where the soft swell of her breasts was exposed by the lapels of her robe, and back to her face.

'I didn't mean that.' Charlie blushed and Jake laughed. 'For your information,' she said firmly, 'I'm going to Kew Gardens to meander around the tropical plants and pretend I'm on a tropical island somewhere.'

'Now, that I can envisage: you on a paradise island wearing only a grass skirt,' he said. 'We'll do that for real when I have time. But, unfortunately, I can't join you today.
I
do have a huge corporation to run, and thousands of people who depend on me for their livelihood.'

'Very laudable.'
His casual remark suggesting they had a future had made her heart sing. 'But you should remember the old adage: "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy",' she teased with a smile that faded as she saw his dark brows draw together in a frown.

'I was just joking,' she said.

Jake was not amused, mainly because he knew there was some truth in her words. His gaze focused on her features, noting the sudden faint wariness in her eyes, and he felt bad. She gave him everything in bed and out; her enthusiasm for her ridiculous sightseeing tours, and the pleasure she took in explaining them to him, amused him, and he gave little back.

'I know you were,
cara
,'
Jake hastened to reassure her. Charlotte had surprised him this last week. He could count on one hand the women he had actually allowed to share his life for more than a weekend. He preferred to wine, dine, and make love to the woman in his life and return to his own bed to sleep.

Charlotte was the exception, probably because she was the least demanding woman he had ever met. She was nothing like the greedy, selfish bitch he had first believed her to be. He hadn't spent a penny on her, and guiltily he
realised
he had never actually taken her out all week.

He wasn't the type of man who explained his actions, but Charlotte deserved some explanation. 'Before I met you, I had spent the past three months confined to my home in Italy, because my foster-parents were in poor health and needed my constant support. This trip to London is the first of many overdue visits, and in the next few months I must visit America and the Pacific Rim countries, so if I have appeared a little preoccupied with work, that's why. But all that is about to change.'

Charlie almost gasped out loud at the warmth of the smile
he bestowed upon her as, rising to his feet, he crossed to where she sat and turned her around in her chair, and, bending slightly, tipped her chin up with one long finger.

'Be back from your jungle adventure early. We have tickets for the theatre tonight and the curtain rises at seven- thirty.' He lied: he had not got tickets, but he would. 'And tomorrow I am completely at your disposal. You can take me where you want.' Straightening up, he added, 'Though I do have a property to check out in the morning. Perhaps we can combine the two.'

His information about his parents, work and the difficulties he'd had in the past few months was a first, and Charlie was delighted. At last Jake was beginning to confide in her. Hugging him around his hips, she tilted back her head, her blue eyes dancing. 'Careful or you might spoil me,' she chided him, and Jake laughed.

'And you
be
careful where you hug a man.' He took her hands from around his hips and shot her a mocking glance. 'You could give him the wrong idea.'

She was late. It was almost seven, and she was so looking forward to the theatre. Dashing out of the lift, she opened the door to their suite and stopped.

'Where the hell have you been? We're due at the theatre in thirty minutes.' Jake was standing in the middle of the room, immaculate in a dark evening suit, but with a face like thunder.

'I know, I know,' she wailed. 'But the tube was delayed and I got stuck in the rush hour.'

'The tube?
You travelled on the tube? Are you crazy?'

'Not so you would notice, I hope.' She moved towards him and opened her shoulder-bag at the same time,
it's
okay, I'll be ready in fifteen minutes.'

It is not okay.' She was made aware of the tension in
his tall, commanding figure as he grasped her arm. 'The tube is dangerous for a woman
on her own
. Have you no sense?' Jake demanded, studying her in angry challenge.

'Oh, Jake, come down from your rarefied planet. It's perfectly safe. I've been using it all week, and no one has leapt on me yet.'

'You...all week!'
Hooded eyes, glinting strangely, clashed with blue. 'No more tubes, Charlotte. There will be a car and driver at your disposal from now on. It will be a great deal more convenient and, whatever you say, I am not having you exposed to any danger, however slight.'

'Gosh, I never knew you cared,' she remarked with a grin, and saw the shutters fall across his dark eyes as his hand fell from her arm.

'I care for any person in my charge,' he said stiltedly. 'Hurry and dress. We will be late.'

Delving in her shoulder-bag, she lifted out a box. 'Here, this is for you. I got it in the gift shop at Kew Gardens. When I saw it I thought of you.' She placed it in his hand, and caught his look of astonishment as she turned and headed for the bedroom.

Jake looked at the box in his hand as if it were about to explode. Slowly he opened the box. He withdrew the glass globe, and blinked at the beauty of the delicate exotic flower within. He could not remember the last time anyone had given him a gift for no apparent reason, let alone such an exquisitely simple gift, and he was totally humbled.

A quick shower and Charlie
was
back in the bedroom in a matter of minutes. Slipping on white lace briefs, she withdrew from the wardrobe the dress she had bought on Monday. It had looked glamorous in the shop, pale pink with a bustier bodice and short straight skirt, but now it looked a little too daring to her mind, and she wondered if Jake would like it. She slipped it over her head anyway.

Wondering about Jake had become a full-time occupation, and she now wondered if he liked her present as she sat down at the dressing-table and began to apply a light
moisturiser
to her face.

It was a black orchid petrified in glass as a paperweight, and now she
realised
why it reminded her of Jake. He was dark and beautiful, like the orchid, and like it, his true feelings were buried deep in a protective layer. But in his case the glass was probably bulletproof. When she had teased him earlier about caring, the familiar shuttered expression had appeared. But was that so surprising, she mused, given his early life? He had lost his mother young, and been on his own for two years, and that must have affected him. And later, when he had thought he had found love, his
fiancée
had walked out on him. No wonder he had concentrated all his attention on building up a business empire, and put his feelings in cold storage.