The Billionaire Bodyguard(28)

'Do you take me for a complete fool, Keri?'

She was taken aback by the depth of his venom. 'How did you guess?'

'How  did I guess?' he exploded. 'That you'd sent your twin to try to do  your  dirty work for you? Do you think I'm completely lacking in   comprehension?'

'But we're identical!' she blurted out.

'No,  you look nearly the same,' he corrected grimly. 'But you are not   identical. No two human beings are-nor ever could be. For a start you're   a model, and you have a way of moving which is both studied and   natural-your sister doesn't. She talks differently. She clearly thinks   differently too. I've never seen a woman look more uncomfortable-tell   me, did you have to twist her arm to get her to agree?'

Keri  turned and began walking away, but Jay followed her, and once they  had  reached the sitting room there was no escape left to her. He  caught her,  turned her round to face him, the grey-green eyes blazing.

'Did you?'

'Yes,' she admitted, in a whisper.

'Why,  Keri? Just tell me why! If you want it to be over, then why the  hell  didn't you tell me so yourself? You're a strong woman-an  independent  woman-surely you must have had to say that to men plenty of  times during  your life?'

She bit her lip. In this he was wrong. She wasn't  strong-not around  him. She was all open and raw and hurting, weak and  wounded from the  pain of wanting him.

'Don't make me say it, Jay!'

'Say  what? That you've had enough? That your rough-tough man was good  for a  while but now he's shown you that you're a normal woman who can   experience pleasure it's time to move on to someone more suited to a   high-class model?'

The way he said high-class made it sound like something else altogether.

'Don't be so dense!' she snapped. 'It isn't like that, and you bloody well know it!'

Jay  expelled a breath. His heart was pounding like a piston and he  wanted  to shake her and kiss her all at the same time. What the hell  was she  doing to him? 'Then tell me what it is like, Keri?' he demanded  silkily.

'You're  the one who just upped and went off without even telling me you  were  going! You're the cautious, wary man who goes on about your  independence  and the way you like your flat to look. As if I'm trying  to ensnare you  and get you to march me down the aisle!'

'This is all to do with the fact that I went away on business without first asking your permission?'

'That's got nothing to do with it! You were running away!'

He froze and stared at her incredulously. 'I was what? And just what, pray, was I running away from?'

'From me! From the relationship! Just the way you always do. Andy told me.'

'Oh,  did he?' he questioned dangerously. 'Well, I'll just have to have a   word with Andy-he works with me, for God's sake, he's not my damned   analyst!'

'Oh, don't shoot the messenger!' she declared  furiously. 'I didn't  actually need Andy to tell me, if you must know.  I'd worked it out for  myself and he just confirmed it. Well, I've made  it easy for you. I'm  giving you the let-out clause. It's over! That's  what you want, isn't  it?'

There was silence for a moment, and when he looked at her his eyes were bright and piercing. 'Is that what you want?'                       
       
           



       

Of course it wasn't what she wanted! She glared at him. 'I asked first!'

He felt a pain so fierce he couldn't believe that it wasn't physical. 'Oh, Keri,' he groaned. 'Of course it isn't what I want.'

She  didn't care if it scared him away; she just knew that she could not   exist in this curious half-life of not knowing. 'Then just what do you   want, Jay?' she asked pointedly.

He knew he owed her this, but it  was difficult to find the words to  describe the way he felt-he'd never  had to do it before. Not even to  himself. Yet he looked into her dark  eyes and knew he had to. No, he  wanted to. He just wasn't sure he knew  how.

Just when had this all happened? he asked himself dazedly.  This  connection to another person which seemed to have reached out and   captured him? In his time he had triumphed in hostage rescue and   guerrilla warfare, but this was completely unknown territory.

'I want you,' he said at last.

There  should have been joy, but all she felt was suspicion. And  feelings  which she had been flattening down, as you would a sandcastle,  suddenly  erupted out in a storm.

'Sure you do, Jay-that's why you ran  away. Because I had the temerity  to turn up uninvited at your apartment  and end up staying the night  with you! My God, you couldn't have given  me a clearer message if you'd  tried!'

He sighed. 'I know.'

It  was the first chink she had ever seen in his armour. A fleeting  moment  of something which, if it were any other man than Jay, might  almost be  described as vulnerability. And all her anger left her. She  felt as  cautious as someone trying to offer food to a wild, starving  animal.

Her voice softened. 'So why? What's changed?'

'I  have,' he said slowly. 'I've changed-or, rather, you've made me want  to  change. I've never wanted to settle down before, and I always ran  away  from commitment because … '

He could blame a lot of things; that  was what people did. His parents'  divorce and the subsequent  transatlantic ping-pong. Or his choice of a  male-dominated career and  his need for the emotional detachment which  that career demanded.

Or he could say it how it was. Incredibly and unbelievably how it was. So simple, really, like all the very best things in life.

He  looked at her, and she had never seen his eyes look so bright.  'Because  I never found the right woman before, and now I have.'

For a  moment she didn't believe him. Didn't dare to for fear that she  was  dreaming it and in a moment she would wake up to the bleak reality  of a  life without Jay. But the message burning from his eyes told her  that he  spoke the truth, plain and simple. He cared for her. Deeply.  Deeper  than deep. He hadn't yet used the conventional vocabulary for  saying so,  but then Jay was not a conventional man. And love didn't  always have to  be spoken out loud.

Some women might have wanted more than that,  but she took the words at  more than their face value. He was breaking  what for him was a taboo.  He had started searching beneath what was  happening on the surface of  his life, and for a man like Jay that was  something pretty big.

Those other words might follow, but she  wanted to savour this-the look  in his eyes which was reaching out to  her, telling her that this  strong, experienced man could be vulnerable  too.

Come to think of it, she felt a bit that way herself. As if  she was  standing on the brink of a great big sea, and was about to  dabble her  toe in and get it wet.

'Oh, Jay,' she whispered.

Some  day he would tell her about the bitter transatlantic custody  battle  which had dominated his growing up. And of the fear of making  any place  too permanent, knowing that the courts could snatch him away  at any  time. Through all his childhood he had never trusted in the word  'home'.

He  held his arms out and she went into them, as if she had found her  safe  harbour too, and they stood there together for a long, long time.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN




THE  light had that bright, almost bleached quality which was particular  to  the Caribbean. Huge, fleshy palm trees fringed the dancing  aquamarine of  the sea and provided welcome shade from the dazzling sun  overhead.

The  photo-shoot was finished, and the other models and stylists and   photographers were paying serious attention to the cocktails on offer at   the beach bar, but Keri felt light-headed after one and a half   Cosmopolitans. It was really too hot to drink alcohol, and she wished   she could just find herself on a plane heading back to England.


And Jay.

'Think I'll head back to the hotel.' She yawned. 'Maybe have a sleep and then go for a swim.'                       
       
           



       

No  one could persuade her to change her mind, and she didn't think  they'd  miss her much. Something happened to a woman when she was in  love and  the object of her affections was several thousand miles away.  It meant  she was there only in body and not in spirit, no matter how  much she  tried.

Over the months something had changed in her too, because  time changed  everything. Her feelings for Jay had grown deeper and  stronger-the tiny  pebble on which their relationship had started had  become a firm  bedrock. They lived their lives in parallel harmony-each  with their  successful career, spending nights and weekends together in  his flat or  hers.