‘I would have thought that was glaringly obvious.’ He spoke drily but there was a frown-line between his eyes now. Was he thinking about what she’d said? Really thinking instead of letting his emotions get in the way of logic?
‘This tortured conversation is getting us nowhere.’ He put his empty glass down on the drainer, and she knew that if she let him go she would have lost this last opportunity to get through to him. He would never again stand still long enough to have a meaningful discussion about anything.
As he walked to the door she said firmly, ‘Sam wasn’t my lover. He was my friend, nothing more. I wanted a child; Sam donated the sperm. A completely clinical happening. Check with the clinic in London if you don’t believe me!’
He went very still, as if her words had frozen him. And then he turned, slowly. Something like ridicule looked out of his eyes. ‘I applaud your inventive imagination. It gets you into the bestseller lists but it won’t get you anywhere with me.’
Although the hope of finally getting through to him had been slender almost to the point of invisibility, it hurt like hell now she’d lost it. She pushed past him, out of the room, before he could see the desolation on her face, went to her room and closed the door.
Sleepless hours later she heard him go into the second guest room, and something hard and dark clawed at her heart. Not even for the look of things where Catherine was concerned could he bring himself to share the air she breathed, let alone this bed.
Finally she’d been able to tell him the truth about her baby’s conception. But he didn’t believe her.
She turned her face to the pillow. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, did it?
CHAPTER SIX
‘CONGRATULATIONS, Elena! What a clever little duck you are!’ Catherine cried as Elena ventured out onto the terrace at ten-thirty the next morning. ‘Jed’s been telling me all about it.’
Elena pushed her hands into the deep pockets of her common or garden cotton skirt and tried to look as if she knew what her mother-in-law was talking about. She’d overslept, woken feeling queasy as usual, and dressed down, dowdily even.
She glanced across the terrace to where Jed was sprawled out on a lounger, yesterday’s newspaper over his face to protect it from the fierce rays of the sun, wearing frayed denim shorts and nothing else.
Elena swallowed a constriction in her throat. He had a beautiful body, tanned all over, a smooth, slick skin, not too hairy, and not bulging with muscles, either, but honed and hard, superbly fit.
Almost as if he’d sensed her eyes on him, Jed explained lazily, ‘I was telling her about the frantic faxes from your agent about the awards ceremony and your latest book being short-listed.’ He plucked the paper from his face and swung his bare feet to the floor, pushing a hand through his hair, making it stick up in soft spikes which invited the touch of her fingers.
Firmly, she pulled her dark glasses from a capacious skirt pocket and put them on. She didn’t dare let him look at her eyes because he’d surely see the starkness of unwilling need there. She wouldn’t let him know that every time she looked at the man who thought she was a deceitful little liar, totally devoid of morals, her body stirred with that desperate, consuming need. She still had her pride, if little else in the way of selfdefence. She’d do her damnedest to hang onto it.
‘And as we’ll have to return to London to attend, I’ve booked us on the same flight back as Ma. Luckily there were spare seats.’
Catherine was saying something about enjoying the flight home so much more if she wasn’t going to be on her own. Elena wasn’t listening properly. She wasn’t in the mood to concentrate on the older woman’s happy chatter.
He was doing it again, mapping her life out for her, telling her what to do and when to do it, regardless of her feelings, not even asking her what she wanted. No doubt he’d decided she didn’t merit that courtesy.
And possibly the worst thing—the almost unbearably frustrating thing—was her complete inability to do anything about it. Not in front of Catherine, anyway.
She swung away, her shoulders tight with tension, walking to the edge of the terrace, feeling the hot Andalucian breeze mould her cotton top to her body, lifting her head to inhale the spiritually healing scent of her garden flowers, the more astringent perfume of mountain herbs.
Life had been so uncomplicated once. She’d had it all—her home in a country she’d come to love for its vibrancy and passion, this spectacular view, a highly successful career. The only thing to mar it had been the growing and savagely compelling need to hold her own child in her arms.