There was no point in arguing—it wasn't the manager he was mad at. Taking a seat in the lounge, he suffered the attentions of a stony-faced waitress. He drank tea, which he loathed, and got the distinct impression from the cold looks slanted his way by the members of staff who passed by that they actively disliked the guests. Or perhaps it was just him in particular. Well, he had had enough. Slapping the paper he had been trying to read down on the table, Jake rose to his feet and strode towards the double doors leading to the garden and beyond.
Three teenagers were running towards him, laughing and shouting, and he quickly stepped up onto the terrace that fronted the hotel. Where the hell was Charlotte? he wondered, gazing out over the glorious gardens to the lake beyond, and then he saw her.
Clad in the briefest of white shorts and a cropped top, she looked incredibly beautiful. Her long blonde hair, glinting with platinum streaks in the evening sun, tumbled around her shoulders and her long legs moved with lithe grace as she ran towards him.
A brilliant smile of pure masculine satisfaction cut across Jake's strong face. She still adored him. He forgot he was furious. Five long weeks he had been without her—he must have been mad to wait so long. But not any more and a charge of testosterone fired up his body with incredible excitement. Then she stopped.
In the next second Jake realised he could swing from euphoria to a fury that threatened to explode as the truth hit him like a blow to the solar plexus. She was not running towards him, she had not even seen him, and she was not alone. From his vantage point, with his grip white-knuckled on the terrace balustrade, he watched Charlotte laugh happily up into the face of the older man who had stopped beside her, and, with an ease born of long practice, slipped an arm around her bare waist.
Jake jerked his proud head back, and drew in a sharp lungful of air. No man touched his woman, not ever. Outraged and furious beyond belief he vaulted over the balustrade and strode towards her.
Charlie, in blissful ignorance of the impending confrontation, was happily regaling Dave with details of her trip around Kew Gardens when Dave interrupted her, his arm falling from her.
'Don't look now, but a very large, very dark and very angry man has just leapt off the terrace and is heading our way.'
Charlie's head spun to the front. Jake! It was Jake in the flesh, and a quivering excitement lanced through her, quickly followed by a shiver of something very like fear. She could feel the anger, the fury sizzling from him at twenty paces.
'Charlotta. At last,' he drawled, his black molten gaze capturing hers as he closed the distance between them, hauled her into his arms, and crushed her against his broad chest. 'I came at your call, cara.' His deep accented voice resounded in her ear, and for a split second she remained frozen. Then she trembled helplessly, the familiar wild excitement rushing through her veins as he angled his head and took her slightly parted lips, probing straight between them with a savage, possessive passion that left her breathless and weak at the knees when he finally ended the kiss.
Heavy-lidded black eyes gleamed steadily down at her flushed face and slightly swollen mouth. 'You missed me...yes?' he prompted.
Charlie nodded her head. Jake was here, and he still wanted her.
'Good. Then perhaps you would care to introduce me to your companion.' He recognised the man from the photograph, but Jake had a point to make.
'My companion?' Charlie was not thinking straight; in fact she was having trouble thinking at all. She lifted puzzled eyes to his face, and was taken aback to discover he was looking coolly over her head. Only then did she remember Dave. She turned brick-red and tried to ease out of Jake's hold, but he was having none of it. Instead he simply spun her around, one strong arm curved across her bare waist trapping her back against his chest.
His free hand he offered towards Dave, his blatantly possessive masculine stance saying clearer than words that she was his woman. 'Jake d'Amato, and you are?'
Cool and calm, Dave took the extended hand. 'Dave Watts, A very old friend of the family and a kind of honorary dad to Charlie since the death of her parents.'
'Really. I trust not of the sugar variety.'
'Definitely not,' Dave said bluntly. 'But I can see why you would be worried. She is very sweet.'
Charlie was shocked at Jake's outrageous comment and she felt the sudden tension in his body. Twisting her head, she glanced up at him. His dark eyes were narrowed with piercing intensity on Dave, and, twisting back, she saw Dave was equally intense. They resembled nothing so much as two great predatory beasts meeting head to head before fighting to the death.
Then it struck her. Jake's passionate kiss had been arrogant macho posturing at the sight of Dave. Jake didn't love her, but his massive ego would not allow him to entertain the thought she might have another man. Simmering with resentment, she watched in silence as the two men eyeballed each other. Then suddenly Dave laughed out loud.