Bound To Love (14 page)

‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she mouthed, disappearing into the kitchen.

He phoned Smith and briefed him, then quickly phoned his mother to tell her a security detail was on its way to protect her. Vivienne was nervous enough without more strangers turning up. Tension rolled off him in waves as he pulled on his clothes.

Tempest sat at the kitchen table, silently nursing a cup of coffee.

‘They’ve assigned a security detail on my mother and are sending a cop out to babysit us.’

He pouring himself coffee, then slammed down the jug roughly before pulling up a chair and reaching out to clasp her hand.
If Paul knew what Tempest meant to him…

‘You have to stop being so reckless. Paul could have snatched you. He knew I was here, he could be watching the place.’

He squeezed her hand tightly. If Paul
was
watching, he could have grabbed her on the way in. The thought of Paul running his hands over her, unfastening her coat to find her lingerie wrapped body… It didn’t bear thinking about but he couldn’t stop. His inner beast bayed for his former friend’s blood, with a savagery that was barely under control.

‘You’re hurting me.’ Tempest pulled her hand away, rubbing it. A frown creased her brow, and her blue eyes blazed with hurt. ‘You were happy enough to see me last night.’

He glared at her. ‘What can I say? I was carried away in the moment.’

He hadn’t even thought of the peril she was putting herself into. Once she’d stripped off her coat, all thoughts had burned away in an inferno of lust.

‘Don’t get me wrong, last night was great, but you planned it all out and you didn’t even consider the danger. You dressed up in your sexy lingerie…’ His eyes flashed, as control melted away under the blowtorch of anger. ‘What the hell would have happened if Paul had been waiting outside the building? How fast could you run in those?’

He pointed at her high heels dismissively. She wouldn’t have stood a chance, dressed only in her light silk coat, trying to run from a determined and lethal Paul.

‘The world’s a dangerous place, don’t you understand that?’

‘Don’t patronize me, Jake. I know damn well how dangerous the world is.’ Tempest pulled herself up to her full height and glared. ‘I came over here because I wanted to see you, and I knew you wanted to see me, but the way you’re behaving now…’

She snatched up her bag and strode towards the door.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I would have thought that was pretty obvious.’ She stared at him coldly. ‘I’m going home.’

‘You’re not going anywhere.’ He crossed the room quickly to her, so close he could smell the lemony shampoo from her tumbling riot of red curls. He gripped her upper arms. Her fury was evident in the tight steel of her muscles.
Tough
, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. Not while Paul was at large. ‘You’re staying here with me.’

‘Let me go, Jake.’

‘The police are sending someone to guard us. We have to stay together.’

‘Fine.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘We’ll stay together until Paul’s been caught. But after that, we go our separate ways.’

She looked up into his eyes coldly. Jake released her as the doorbell rang, and she walked into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

****

‘You clean up nicely, Smith.’

The policeman had changed into a tuxedo and was waiting on a chair in the sitting room for Jake and Tempest to be ready. Jake crossed the room and poured himself a whiskey, tossing it down in one economical movement.

‘We’ve got the bugging devices set up on your phone. If he phones again we can trace it,’ Smith said.

‘With any luck this party will bring him out of the shadows.’

They’d decided to go to the party that evening, Tempest was due to meet her family there who would be worried if she didn’t appear, and Jake and his mother were due to attend. The door opened, and Tempest strode in.

Her hair was twisted up with just a couple of tendrils hanging down, and the silky Chinese dress hugged every curve. Jake swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry as his eyes swept her from head to toe. She was so hot, he was burning up from across the room.

‘You look great.’

She looked a hell of a lot better than just great, but that was just about all he could force out through his constricted throat.

‘You look good too,’ she said.

For the first time in hours she smiled, not one of her beaming grins, sure, but a cautious, wobbly smile, which hinted that maybe she would forgive him for being so brutal earlier after all. He meant what he said, she was too reckless for her own good. But a huge gap had opened up inside when she turned all that warm attention away from him and shut him out. Leaving him wasn’t an option. Not one he was willing to accept without a fight.

‘It’s all clear. Let’s go.’

Smith’s words having broken the thread that had spun so tenuously between them, the officer ushered them downstairs to a waiting car.

****

They passed through the columns and into the Grand Court of the British Museum, the glittering glass diamonds of its modernistic dome revealing the velvety softness of the black night, studded with jewel-like stars above. Tempest drew in a breath as the vibrant colours of the Egyptian exhibition and the jewel-toned dresses of the hundred or so invited guests added to the museum’s stunning ambiance and flooded her senses. It was perfect. Waiters dressed as ancient Egyptians circled the room, serving champagne, and music wafted from the discreet jazz band on the balcony of the reading room. With a smile, she accepted a flute of champagne from one of the waiters, and looked around for Skye and Daniel. In the crush it was impossible to spot them.

‘There’s my mother.’

Jake grasped her elbow, and led her to a waving Vivienne, who was standing with Ayman.

‘Come, see!’ Vivienne exclaimed. She pulled them to the large glass case containing the Rameses Bracelets.

‘Yours?’ Jake was staring at the beautiful artefacts in awe.

‘No, those are the originals,’ Tempest replied. ‘The exhibition will be running for a month in the museum, and when it leaves, my replicas will be here on permanent display.’

There was no pride or excitement in her words. Her creations were about to take centre stage in the British Museum, yet the prospect didn’t thrill. Her eyes scanned the museum with permanent watchfulness, waiting for an attack. She felt sick to her stomach.

‘What about the tracking devices?’ Jake asked his mother.

‘We’ve decided to leave them. The bracelets are perfect, it would be an unnecessary sin to take them apart to remove the tracking devices, and anyway they will add another layer of security, one that has already proved itself,
n’est pas
?’

****

Tempest drained her glass of champagne as she saw her sister approaching.

‘Excuse me for a moment, won’t you?’

She replaced her empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter and made eye contact with her sister, wordlessly indicating an unoccupied gilt sofa out of the bustle of the party. Skye got there first and sank down on it gratefully, casting a poisonous glance at her high heels.

‘They seemed a good idea at the time,’ she mumbled to Tempest. ‘I don’t know how you manage them.’

‘Practice. When you’re five foot two, you either learn to walk in high heels or resign yourself to looking at everyone’s chest all the time.’

An image of Jake’s perfect chest immediately came to mind and she blinked, banishing it.

‘So, tell me all!’ Skye hissed as she multitasked, swapping her empty glass for a full one and snagging another for her sister from a passing waiter. ‘How did the big seduction scene go? Was he happy to see you?’

‘Yeah. Right up until he got a phone call from Paul.’

Skye’s face paled. ‘Paul?’

‘You’d think that with his plan in ruins, Paul would give up. But he was vowing vengeance. Jake got all holier than thou and called me reckless for coming to see him.’

Tempest still felt bruised from his response. Jake had been happy to see her. She’d spent the hours alone in her bedroom running over it in her head again and again. A small niggling voice whispered that she’d acted recklessly, once again had been too impulsive. Jake’s response had dented her confidence, made her question herself. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

‘Well, you are reckless sometimes, Tee.’ Somehow hearing it from Skye didn’t hurt at all. ‘You know you are.’

Tempest nodded. ‘But that’s just the way I am, Skye, and I can’t change it.’

That flat feeling in her chest was back again. Was it only yesterday she had been so happy? Now all she felt was the dull ache of her heart breaking.

‘What exactly did Jake say?’ Skye asked.

She was all matter of fact as usual, her expression revealing what her words did not, that she was determined to sort things out, to get her sister’s relationship back on track.

‘He told me I didn’t realize the world is a dangerous place, and asked me what would have happened if Paul had caught me. He went all macho. It bugged the hell out of me.’ Tempest frowned. ‘He was such a hypocrite, Skye.’

She scowled across the room at his back in the expensive tuxedo, trying not to appreciate the broad shoulders that filled it out to perfection.

‘I pointed out he was happy enough when I arrived, and he said I should have had more sense.’

She crossed her legs, irritated all over again at his arrogant attitude.

Skye’s tone was pitched to soothe. ‘It sounds as though he was worried about you. I think you need to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. How has he acted since?’

‘Charming.’ Tempest murmured.

Across the room, Jake was talking to Vivienne. He stilled, then turned to meet her gaze, and a familiar jolt of electricity shot through her. He smiled, and something deep inside twisted and started to melt. Tempest crossed her arms. It wasn’t going to be that easy. She scowled back. Maybe Skye was right; after all, they were in this high stress situation with Paul lurking around somewhere. Nerves prickled. The room was crowded, Paul could even be here, lurking somewhere in the shadows. She didn’t even know what he looked like. He could be right in front of her and she wouldn’t know it.

‘Tee.’

Skye’s hand on her bare arm brought her back to the present and forced thoughts of Paul from her mind.

‘What was the surprise?’

‘I don’t know, we didn’t get that far.’

‘Maybe you’ll find out now.’ Jake, Daniel and another man were coming their way. ‘Here they come.’

Tempest reluctantly got to her feet.

‘Tempest, Skye, this is Carter.’

The dishevelled software engineer must have arrived early. He was totally drunk. ‘Charmed, ladies.’ He swayed visibly, and Jake quickly and discreetly grabbed the man and manoeuvred him onto the sofa.

‘Whoops. There you go, Carter, just take it easy there for a minute.’ Jake turned to Tempest, a strange look in his eyes. ‘He’s not used to champagne.’

He waved over a waiter and asked for a cup of black coffee.

‘Did I see you scowling at me?’ Jake asked under his breath, charm oozing from every pore.

Oh, he was good all right. Her heart was melting into a puddle inside. How was she supposed to fight him when he was trying so hard to make things right?

‘Maybe. I’m pretty sure I saw you smiling at me.’

From the corner of her eye, Tempest saw Skye and Daniel wander away.

‘I
was
smiling at you. I don’t want to fight.’ Jake grasped her hand tightly. ‘I’d like to go back to where we were before that phone call.’

‘Back to when you were going to tell me what the surprise was?’

‘Yes. Back to then.’ He leant down and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘Would you like to know?’

‘Either you tell me, or I’ll have to hurt you,’ she replied, her voice deadpan, and he held his hands up in protest.

‘I give up. I want you to come to Paris with me. I’ve got the contract to put an alarm into the Louvre and I have to go over for preliminary talks. I thought I could show you where I grew up. There’s nothing like seeing Paris with a native.’

‘When?’

‘Day after tomorrow.’

‘For how long?’

‘Four days.’

‘Is there time to get tickets?’

He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘That’s the surprise, I bought them already.’

‘Wow that is a surprise.’ Tempest raised her eyebrows. ‘One might even call it impulsive.’ She stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. ‘Watch it Jake, it might be rubbing off.’

He laughed aloud, startling Carter, who was nodding off on the sofa.

‘How quickly can we ditch this party?’

She put on her stern voice. ‘We only just got here.’

Her heart soared at the thought of four days in Paris with this infuriating man who had her alternating between delight and misery.

‘Keep an eye on Carter for a minute.’ He kissed her quickly on the cheek. ‘I’m going to track down his coffee.’

Jake disappeared through the crowd. Walked away just as he’d done the first time she’d seen him, in this very museum.

‘Tempest MacKenzie.’

Carter’s eyes looked bleary, and he swiped at them with an unsteady hand. Even sitting down he was swaying like a tree in a heavy wind. If he’d been standing he’d have hit the deck for sure. ‘You’re not as I expected. You’re a lot more glamorous.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

The back handed compliment stung. Someone had obviously told him she was plain. Tempest shrugged it off, knowing better than to be perturbed by the ranting of a man who’d had too much to drink. She searched for Jake in the crowd, wishing she could just up and leave but knowing she should wait. Carter didn’t notice her discomfort. He was long past noticing anything.

‘The report made you sound pretty boring actually, living with your sister, working away making jewellery…’

Cold fingers clutched around her heart. What was he talking about? She pulled in a deep breath, steeling herself for the worst.

‘What report?’

‘The report that I drew up after running the security check on you and your family.’

Shock ricocheted through Tempest, tearing through her as surely as a bullet.