The Couple Behind the Headlines (17 page)

‘I’ll just be a minute. Make yourself at home.’ Extricating herself from his arms, she backed away. Straight into the wall. She jumped and winced, then shrugged and flashed him a self-deprecating ‘ignore me, I’m an idiot’ kind of grin before disappearing through the door.

The chicken was fine. Imogen, who was taking a wine glass from a cupboard and shaking her head in frustrated bewilderment, however, was not.

She was twenty-eight, for heaven’s sake. She wasn’t naïve. Or inexperienced. So why did she have to be so gauche? Why did she have to rattle away like that in his vicinity? She’d always thought she’d got over that particular habit years ago, but she clearly hadn’t.

And what exactly was it about Jack that reduced her to such a tangled bundle of nerves anyway? It wasn’t as if she didn’t know him, was it? And it wasn’t as if she had to worry about whether he was going to stay for more than just supper. The hungry way he’d been looking at her and the hot fierceness with which he’d kissed her moments ago gave her the impression
that she only had to give him the nod and she’d be on the floor on her back and naked within seconds.

Obviously his unexpected appearance at her door had thrown her more than she’d thought. When she’d first spotted him through her spyhole she’d been overwhelmed by a wave of delight, then relief at the realisation that she’d been presented with a solution to the problem she’d been mulling over without any success whatsoever.

But when she’d seen him prowling round her sitting room, her haven, his large body taking up such a great chunk of space and his presence wiping out all the air, her brain had kind of short-circuited. And then gone into complete meltdown when he’d told her he thought she looked gorgeous.

Imogen felt a reluctant grin tug at her mouth as she ran her wrists under the cold tap and took a series of deep, steadying breaths. He must be completely shattered if he thought that, because without a scrap of make-up on and her oldest clothes she was not looking her best.

She poured Jack a glass of wine, pleased to note her hands were no longer trembling, then pulled her shoulders back and headed into the sitting room. He was holding one of the many photos that sat on her shelves and staring down at it, the expression on his face so unfathomable that she instantly longed to know the reason for it.

Her hours browsing the Internet, which hadn’t revealed as many in-depth personal details as she’d expected, had whetted her appetite and she wanted to know more. She shouldn’t, yet she did, so there’d be no giving of any nod and no tumbling to the floor and getting naked just yet.

‘How did the babysitting go?’ Imogen asked lightly, as if the mortifying previous ten minutes had never happened.

Jack turned and looked up, then took the glass she held out. ‘Thank you. It was knackering,’ he said, regarding her thoughtfully. ‘But then you knew all along it would be, didn’t you?’

Imogen hid a smile. ‘I did have an inkling.’

‘Because of these two?’

She glanced down at the photo he was holding and nodded. ‘My nephew and niece. They’re five and three respectively. Gorgeous but tyrannical.’

‘You could have warned me,’ he murmured, putting the photo back.

‘And spoiled all your fun?’

She sat at the end of one sofa while Jack settled himself into the armchair and grimaced. ‘It wasn’t fun. It was hell.’

‘Really?’ She frowned. He couldn’t mean that.

‘No, not really.’ He sighed, the grimace slowly morphing into a smile. ‘It was fine, but you are still a wicked wicked woman.’

‘Thank you,’ she said demurely. ‘I do my best.’

‘You have a close family,’ he said, flicking a glance at the dozens of photos on the shelves.

Imogen nodded. ‘Yes. It’s not that big, but we are close.’

She thought she saw something flicker in the depths of his eyes, something that in anyone else she’d have suspected was envy, but couldn’t possibly be that in Jack. He seemed to value his solitariness highly—thrived on it even—so there was no way he’d ever want a noisy, messy family, the kind hers was.

Or would he?

Imogen blinked as the thought ricocheted round her head, and immediately warned herself not to go there. She was
not
going to try and inveigle her way into his psyche. She wouldn’t be welcome and she didn’t need to know his feelings about marriage or family or anything, in fact, other than whether he’d be up for a fling.

‘So what did you and Daisy get up to?’

Jack rubbed a hand over his face and smiled, the shadows thankfully disappearing. ‘What didn’t we get up to? I thought I had a fairly short attention span but it’s not a patch on Daisy’s. We went to Regent’s Park, then the zoo and had an
ice cream. And that was just the first hour.’ He shuddered. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again.’

Imogen laughed. ‘She ran rings round you.’

‘She did.’

And he didn’t sound entirely happy about the fact. ‘So I take it you’re not tempted to join the ranks of fatherhood just yet?’

Jack’s hand froze mid rub, his gaze jerked to hers and he tensed. ‘No way.’

At the vehemence in his voice curiosity spun through her hard and fast and made a complete mockery of her determination to stay away from his psyche.

‘What, never?’

‘Not planning to,’ he muttered, relaxing his shoulders, she thought, with rather more effort than was natural.

Now she really was intrigued. ‘Why not?’

‘Why would I?’ he said, taking a sip of wine, then sitting back, to all appearances the epitome of indifference. ‘You’ve seen my mother.’

‘Well, yes, but she’s not exactly typical, is she?’

‘Perhaps not, but she didn’t make for an idyllic childhood. Certainly not one I’d want to inflict on anyone else.’

‘Do you think you would?’

Jack shrugged, and she had the feeling that this wasn’t the first time he’d had this conversation. ‘I work hard. I travel a lot. It could happen.’

‘But presumably there’d be another party involved.’ The hypothetical child’s mother, for instance, not that she particularly wanted to think about anyone else enjoying Jack’s considerable charms.

‘They could be worse, and I’m not prepared to take the risk.’

No, well, she could see how having a mother like his might make a man wary of parenthood. At the memory of Jessica’s flamboyant behaviour on Friday evening, Imogen inwardly
winced. While Jessica looked like fun, she couldn’t honestly admit she’d like her as a mother. And imagine having a
grandmother
like that.

‘I must say your mother didn’t look particularly maternal,’ Imogen murmured.

‘She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body,’ Jack said, and she wondered if he was aware of the bitterness that laced his voice. ‘The minute I was born she handed me over to her parents and carried on partying. She’s barely stopped since.’

‘So you were brought up by your grandparents?’ She’d read something about that on the Internet, but the details had been sketchy.

He nodded, but his jaw was tight. ‘And a string of au pairs.’

‘What was that like?’

Jack shrugged and she could see shutters slamming down over his eyes, instantly masking anything of importance. ‘My grandparents did their best.’

‘And the au pairs?’

‘Marginally better.’

Imogen frowned. ‘What about your father?’

‘What about him?’

‘Do you know who he was?’

His mouth twisted into a humourless smile. ‘Oh, yes. He was a fellow pupil at my mother’s very expensive but surprisingly lax boarding school. He was shipped off to the States the minute the pregnancy became apparent, and stayed there.’

‘Do you see anything of him?’

‘No.’

That seemed a shame. Her father and brother got on brilliantly and, she knew, deeply valued their relationship. ‘Why not?’

‘Why would I? I’m the product of an accident. A reckless mistake.’ He shrugged as if it was all neither here nor there. ‘Anyway, he married years ago and has his own family now.’

And that was quite enough of that, thought Jack, not liking the note of resentment that tinged his voice one little bit.

He might not have a crystal-clear idea of why he’d dropped by this evening, but it definitely hadn’t been for a discussion about his childhood. Never mind that it was remarkably easy to talk to Imogen. Careless talk could cost him an emotional fortune and he had the deeply uneasy feeling that all she’d have to do was probe a bit further and he’d end up horizontal on the sofa spilling it all out while she made sympathetic noises and took notes on an imaginary clipboard.

Which meant it was time to change the subject, he thought, stifling a shudder at the image, because he had no intention of spilling anything out. There was no way in hell he was going to elaborate on the trauma of the years of maternal neglect that had been inflicted on him when he’d been young. The aching loneliness. The constant awareness that he didn’t matter. That his mother was more interested in the social scene than her son and that somehow the blame for her indifference must lie with him. That he simply hadn’t been good enough.

No, he had no desire to dwell on the past. No desire to go into the strict and critical attitude of his grandparents, who’d been terrified that, if they weren’t, genes would out and that he’d grow up to be as flighty and irresponsible as his parents.

And he certainly had no desire to let in all the old feelings of inadequacy and hurt and confusion that had coloured his childhood and were now banging at the door of his conscience.

So he did the only thing he could under the circumstances and went in search of distraction.

He let his gaze run over Imogen, and as his body tightened with need, Jack leaned forwards and set his glass down on a pile of magazines on the coffee table. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about families,’ he murmured, shooting her a smouldering smile and not taking his eyes off her for one second.

Imogen swallowed and her breath caught. ‘No?’ she said
with a huskiness that scraped across his nerve endings. ‘Then why did you come?’

In one fluid move, Jack was on his feet and came down on the sofa right next to her. Her mouth dropped open with a little O of surprise and the banked flames in her eyes flared to life.

‘I came for this,’ he muttered, pulling her into his arms and reaching for the zip of her top as his mouth captured hers.

As his hands slid over her body, his heat and strength wrapped around her and his mouth devoured hers, Imogen closed her eyes. Part of her thought she ought to be outraged at the admission that he’d only popped by on the off chance of a booty call. Another, far greater part, was so pleased he’d decided to put a stop to her interrogation that she didn’t care.

Because her heart had started twisting and aching for the lonely confused boy he must have been and she didn’t want it to. She didn’t want to want to seek out his mother and shake her by the shoulders until she acknowledged what a wonderful man her son was. She didn’t want to envy her brother or think about marriage and family or Jack in that context. All she wanted was more of this. More of the incredible way he made her feel and spectacular sex.

So she shut it all off and gave herself up to sensation. To the hands roaming over her skin and deftly removing her clothing. To the weight of his body pressing her back into the sofa and the feel of his muscles beneath her hands. To the heat of his mouth on her throat, her breasts and then blissfully lower. To the sound of his harsh breathing and the thundering of her heart. And then to the glorious feel of him sliding into her and casting her into a fierce whirlpool of pleasure.

The following morning, as dawn filtered through the curtains, Imogen watched Jack pull on his clothes and considered her dilemma. After the long, hot night they’d just had, she was convinced more than ever that a fling was what she wanted. The problem she had was that time was fast running
out and she didn’t have a clue how to go about asking if he was up for one.

‘Well, that was fun,’ she said lightly, wondering how on earth to broach the subject.

‘It was.’ Jack snapped on his watch and prowled around her bedroom in search of his belt.

‘I think it’s on the floor by the sofa.’

‘Thanks,’ he muttered and disappeared into the sitting room.

From where he could well yell a goodbye and go.

Letting out a deep sigh, she flopped back, nibbled on her lip and wished she had the guts to just come out and say it. Because frankly, why shouldn’t she? The worst he could do was say no, and what did she have to lose? A potential fling, and what was such a big deal about that anyway?

Oh, sod it, she thought, sitting up suddenly and leaping to her feet. Since when was she such a wimp? She’d go in there, tell him what she wanted and do her damnedest to ensure that he couldn’t say no.