Fire in the Wind (41 page)

"Is this the best you can do for your men?" Jake teased. He was tying the worn belt as they moved to the kitchen, and she sent him a flicker from her eyes.

"Nobody's ever objected," she said, and he caught her by the shoulders and kissed her.

"Witch," he said.

Vanessa filled the kettle and plugged it in. "Did you know that Americans in general don't use electric kettles?" she asked. "Do you think that's a market worth tapping?"

Jake sat at the kitchen table, reaching for a peach from the bowl of fruit in the centre. He raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?" he asked. He bit into the flesh of the peach. The juice sprayed his mouth as he looked at her, and her stomach turned over, because she knew he was thinking of how his mouth had tasted her in the night. "I like your business head. If you ever decide to give up design you can come and work with me at Concorp."

She smiled, pouring boiling water over the coffee in two white mugs. The scent of it filled the air, and she wanted to laugh in her delight at the morning. "I'm not giving up Number 24," she said, shaking her head. "I promised to make you a profit, and I'm going to."

Jake finished off the peach and spooned sugar into his coffee. "Not much doubt of that," he said. He smiled and leaned back into his chair, and he was as relaxed here in her home as she had always imagined him. Already, she could see, this was more comfortable to him than the penthouse suite.

"You know," he said, as though her thought had communicated to him, "the lease on the apartment downstairs is up for renewal next year." He looked around appreciatively. "Would you like to renovate the place, turn it back into a single-family home?"

"And live here?" Vanessa breathed. "I'd love it, Jake. I want to make a home for you that's really home....I could do it, here."

He looked at her for a long silent moment, taking it in.

"Yes," he said. "Yes."

"When I told you why I married Larry," she asked later, over breakfast, "did that change anything for you?"

"I was angry enough to kill," Jake answered. "I don't know why. Angry at everybody—the Standishes, Larry, you, myself.... "

"I waited for you all that weekend," she remembered with a pang. "I was so sure you would come back, but—That's when I started to realize the danger I was in. I knew I had to protect myself—from whatever was in that file. And then I discovered how much you really hated me."

Jake leaned across the table to lift her chin and kissed her lightly. "No."

"You wouldn't have sent me to prison, would you?" she whispered.

"There never was any question that I could. Nothing that you were doing was illegal, and I never even thought of it. But the idea seemed to scare you more than the threat of bad publicity."

She closed her eyes. "It did that."

"It did more than that—it killed your love." he said. "It wasn't till I'd finally succeeded in what I set out to do that I realized it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want you hating me, I wanted you to love me." He lifted a lock of her hair and bent to kiss it where it lay across his palm.

"I wanted you to want my touch the way you had before... I had to make you say my lovemaking wasn't repulsive to you. Afterwards, lying there, I finally accepted that I loved you, that I'd never stopped loving you—when it was too late."

Vanessa sucked in her breath. "Was that when?"

"That's when," he said, his eyes going dark. "I was lying there absorbing the truth about my feelings, and then suddenly you were up collecting all those papers you'd torn up. And I thought, that's fair, I'm learning I love her just when I've finally turned whatever love she had for me into hate."

"No," was all she could say, thinking of how she had screamed at him, while he had been coming to the understanding she had been waiting for. "Not hate," she whispered softly. "I never hated you."

He laced his fingers through her hair again. "Yes, you did," he said calmly.

Tears spangled her lashes. How much more easily he could accept hate than love. "But you came back," she reminded him. "After all that, you came back."

"I wanted to tell you I was giving up, that I wasn't going to use any of the control I had over you and Number 24. I wanted to tell you I loved you—but you... it was already too late. And I heard myself threatening you with arrest to make you listen—and that's when I knew how hopeless it was. I was so obsessed with you I couldn't act rationally. I hadn't from day one. I'd lost you again, this time by my own hand."

A tear fell on his hand and he jerked in surprise. "Are you crying?" he asked, a note of pain in his voice. "Oh, my God, my darling, don't cry." He stood then and pulled her in to his warm broad chest. "I'm sorry I hurt you, don't cry...."

She said, "I'm not crying for me, Jake, I'm crying for you."

His chest heaved in a shaken laugh that might have been almost a sob. "For me? My darling, why are you crying for me?" as though he could never need anyone's tears.

"Because you've been so hurt," she said gently, her arms going around him, her face burying itself in his neck, and for an unguarded moment he went still. "But I'll make it all right," she promised in a shaky voice. "I love you. I'll never hurt you again. I'll love you forever."

His arms enclosed her in warmth. "No," he said. "I'll love you forever. You'll love me for as long or as short a time as you can, my love. It doesn't matter. Don't shed any tears for me, Vanessa. I'm happier than I know what to do with if I only have this for a month."

Vanessa drew a shaky breath, understanding for the first time the nature of the decision he had come to out there in the cold rain. She pushed back against his arms and looked her love up into his eyes.

"You have me forever," she said tenderly. "I'll spend my life proving that, but you may as well begin believing it now. I love you, and I'll love you forever, and I'll still be loving you when you're telling me to stop."

Jake's hold on her tightened and he lifted a gentle hand to her chin. His slow crooked smile spread over his face, the look in his eyes making her heart beat faster.

"I'll never tell you to stop loving me," he said, and bent to give her the promise with his lips.

Epilogue

It was snowing in New York, a softly whirling snow that disappeared as soon as it touched the pavement. Vanessa snuggled down into the warmth of the wild mink coat that Jake had insisted on because it matched her hair. She was clinging to his arm, laughing up into his face, as he stopped and reached to open a famous door.

"Is this where we're going?" she asked, her voice climbing in surprise. "Cartier's?"

"This is where we're going," said Jake. And suddenly she remembered that ten-year-old promise, and she laughed delightedly up into his face.

"Hello," she smiled winningly at the impeccably dressed man who approached them.

"Good afternoon,
madame.
Good afternoon, Mr. Conrad. May I wish you a Merry Christmas?" he said. "Is there something we can show you?"

They wished him a Merry Christmas, and Jake said, "We're looking for something very special to mark ten years."

Expressing his congratulations, the man led them to a counter where a salesman was carefully adjusting a display of glittering jewellery.

"Ten years," repeated the salesman when he had been informed of their errand. "Not all marriages last so long these days, do they? You must feel very fortunate."

Jake was smiling down into her eyes. "Very fortunate," he said.

The man laid a tray on the counter in front of them, an array of the most beautiful rings she had ever seen.

"They're all too beautiful!" Vanessa said. "You choose, Jake!"

"Take off your gloves, darling." He lifted a ring on which a rich dark emerald was clustered with fiery diamonds.

Her left hand already sparkled with the diamond and warm gold of her six-week-old engagement and wedding rings. Jake caught her hand in his as she pulled off her glove, and dropped a kiss on her fingers. "These were for the first ten years," he reminded her softly, then picked up her right hand and slipped the emerald ring down over her knuckle. "This one is for forever."

"Forever," she echoed, smiling up into the dark eyes that held no trace of remembered pain; and she knew that he believed it as she did, and happiness exploded in her heart and sang through her blood in a deafening triumphant chorus.

Forever.

The End

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SEASON OF STORM

Excerpt from

Season of Storm

by

Alexandra Sellers

Prologue