'Scraped your back?' Jake's arms eased slightly, and he stared down at her, his black eyes leaping with violence. 'My God, woman, you're lucky you didn't break your neck! Are you stark staring mad?' His anger washed over her in ever-rising waves. 'What possessed you? You're pregnant, for God's sake. Have you got a death wish or something?*
'Or something,' Charlie snapped back. 'Common human decency, something you know nothing about.' He could not have made it plainer it was only the baby he was worried about.
Jake reeled as if he had been struck, all the anger draining out of him. His passionate, beautiful Charlotte was looking at him with contempt in her magnificent blue eyes, and he deserved it. He had been yelling at her like a madman when what he should be doing was comforting her—loving her. Finally he recognised what in his arrogance and conceit he had tried to deny. He loved Charlotte. He opened his mouth to tell her so, but the moment was lost as chaos reigned.
Marta swept Aldo into her arms, crying her eyes out, and berating him at the same time, then, grabbing Charlie's hand, she kissed it and thanked her over and over again.
Charlie murmured something appropriate, embarrassed by all the fuss. Police and firemen crowded around her with congratulations coming from all sides, and all the time Jake was at her back, his hand resting lightly on her waist, his dark presence towering over her.
All the people, the heat, the noise were making her head spin. A camera flashed right in her face and Jake dived past her to grip the hapless photographer and tear the camera from his hands.
Charlie's legs wobbled and for the first time in her life she fainted.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SLOWLY Charlie opened her eyes, and realised she was lying on the bed in the master bedroom. Jake was leaning over her, his handsome face grey and drawn, his eyes burning like black coals beneath hooded lids.
'You're awake, thank God. How do you feel? Where does it hurt?' he demanded in a voice that was not quite steady, and grasped her hand as if his life depended on it. 'Are you all right?'
'Oh, please,' she sighed, trying to sit up, but Jake gently pushed her back down. 'I'm fine.' And surprisingly, she realised she was.
The fog that seemed to have numbed her brain for the past few days was gone. Climbing the cliff, doing what she knew she was good at, while taking all her energy and skill had paradoxically restored her strength—her belief in herself. She didn't need Jake's concern—she didn't need him— and she glanced up at him, for once unmoved. 'How is Aldo? Is he all right?'
'Aldo is fine, hardly a mark on him, and confined to his room for life if I had my way. It is you I am worried about.'
'No need, I'm okay, but what are you doing here?'
'I could ask you the same question,' Jake said curtly. 'Unconscious in bed and why? Because you decided to scale a cliff to rescue that little devil instead of waiting for the emergency services.' A muscle jerked at the side of his mouth. ' Dio —when I saw you climbing up alongside Aldo...' He shook his head in disbelief. 'If I live to be a hundred I will never forget that image. I nearly went out of my mind. I was sure you were going to fall in a crumpled heap at my feet.'
'You wish,' she mocked, and pulled her hand from his. His concern was too little and too late, as far as she was concerned.
'This is not a game, not something to joke about,' he grated, the tension in every line of his body evident as he added, 'You are my wife, you are carrying my child, and you could have killed the pair of you.'
She would never do anything to harm her child, and she had been as careful as she could. But it wasn't in her nature when any child's life was threatened to stand by and do nothing when she knew she could help. That Jake could think otherwise showed exactly how little he knew her. She might have told him so, but Marta appeared with Dr Bruno and a nurse in tow, and Charlie was grateful for the interruption. She didn't want to see Jake, didn't want to argue with him.
She did her best to ignore Jake's brooding presence as Dr Bruno conducted a thorough examination and pronounced the baby fine, and allowed the nurse to treat her cuts and bruises. Then they congratulated her on her act of heroism, and, horrified, she learned she had appeared on the television news.
'But how?' she asked, sitting up in bed. 'I saw you grab the man's camera.' She addressed her comment to Jake but avoided looking at him directly.
'The police cars have video cameras, as does the fire service; they film all their rescues,' Jake informed her, scowling. 'You are now the lead story on the local news station. And given you're a very beautiful and wealthy woman and you climbed a cliff to rescue a young boy, you will probably be splattered all over the national news, if not international.'
Charlie went pale. 'Oh, my God, in fact, they'll probably dig up your life history, and the house will be besieged by paparazzi—'