diagnosed heart-failure.’
‘At only thirty-nine?’
‘It can happen at any age,’ she shrugged. ‘And she was never strong. Jace said there was nothing they could do.’
‘I’ve never got used to the way you call your father Jace,’ he shook his head.
‘Why not, it’s his name.’ She had never seen anything strange about calling the handsome giant of a man who was her father by his first name; she had been doing it ever since she could remember. A young American on holiday in London he had met and married her mother in a matter of months, and she had entered the happy world of their marriage after only eighteen months together, both she and her mother moving back to America with Jace permanently when she was twelve years old. It seemed to have been the beginning of the decay of a previously happy marriage. ‘What did you call your father?’ she asked Lucas now to shake off the memory of past unhappiness.
‘Sir, mostly,’ he answered derisively, something like humour in the dark brown eyes, although it quickly faded. ‘Look, I’d like to check on my post,’ he frowned. ‘Help yourself to more coffee; I shouldn’t be long.’
Chelsea made no effort to stop him striding from the room, needing the next few minutes alone to gather her shaken senses together. She had thought he would have received Jace’s cable, hadn’t envisaged having to tell him of her mother’s death herself. She had withstood the shock of finding her mother unconscious in her bedroom, hours spent at the hospital with Jace before a doctor finally came out to tell them her mother was dead, the friends and well-wishers calling at the house to pay their respects, the funeral, and then finally Jace bundling her on the first available plane to England, little dreaming that the man he had sent her to wouldn’t be here to receive her. The last few minutes of explaining things to Lucas had shaken her badly.
She hadn’t even wanted to come here, had been too numb to protest her feelings when Jace had insisted she made herself scarce for when the news of her mother’s death hit the media. But she wasn’t numb now, and the thought of Lucas McAdams having her here on sufference, because of a friendship that, as far as she knew, hadn’t been nurtured for the last seven years, filled her with dismay.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
She turned guiltily, in the act of picking up her suitcase in preparation to leave, finding Lucas watching her from the doorway of the room he had disappeared into minutes earlier. ‘I thought I’d go back to the airport,’ she told him truthfully. ‘And get the next flight home.’
His expression was darkly forbidding as he came back into the lounge. ‘When you know Jace wants you to stay here?’
Her eyes widened. ‘He did contact you?’
‘Yes,’ Lucas nodded, adding nothing to the confirmation.
‘What did he say?’ she prompted impatiently.
‘Only what you’ve already told me,’ he dismissed. ‘He’s going to telephone me once you’ve arrived. But he’s already told me enough for me to realise this will be the best place for you for the next few weeks, at least,’ he added grimly.
‘I could have handled the publicity if Jace had given me the chance!’
‘He wanted to spare you any unnecessary pain.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t tell you all that in a cable,’ she derided defensively.
‘You’re right, he didn’t,’ Lucas bit out curtly. ‘I know him well enough to be certain he would want to protect you at all costs.’
Chelsea was sure he was right, but she didn’t know how he could make such a claim about a man he hadn’t seen for so many years. ‘Jace may have changed since you last saw him——’
‘He hasn’t.’
‘Seven years is a long time.’
‘I last met Jace in Los Angeles two weeks ago,’ Lucas told her flatly.
Her brows rose as she couldn’t hide her surprise. ‘I didn’t know that …’
Lucas shrugged. ‘You live with your mother, so how could you possibly be aware of all your father’s friends?’
Mainly because Jace had told her about most of them, although the remark Lucas had made about her living with her mother was what cast the shadow over her face. She had lived with her mother, she had no idea where she lived now, although it seemed that for the moment it was here, with this darkly handsome man who was a complete stranger to her!
‘You’re right,’ she acknowledged dully. ‘But that friendship doesn’t extend to me, and I would rather go back home.’
‘You’re wrong, Chelsea.’ He shook his head, a hint of gentleness to the forbidding mouth. ‘Even if I didn’t at first remember you as the silver-haired angel who dogged my footsteps seven years ago I do remember you now, and I insist that you stay here.’
And she doubted many people resisted when this man insisted, and she was too weary to do so herself right now. ‘You thought I was a hooker,’ she reminded softly.
A dull red hue darkened his face beneath the prominent cheekbones. ‘I’m sorry about that——’
‘I’m not,’ She shook her head, smiling wanly at his puzzled frown. ‘Once I’m a little less tired, a little less numb, I’d like to think there’s something we can sit down and laugh about together.’
Lucas looked as if he would rather forget about the whole incident than laugh about it, concentrating on the first thing she had said. ‘The spare room is already made up, if you would like to go and lie down for a while?’
‘You’re sure I’m not going to inconvenience you?’ she still hesitated.
‘I’m sure,’ he nodded.
‘I meant with—a special friend, or someone,’ she lamely tried to explain what she had meant; Lucas didn’t come across as the sort of man that had girlfriends, although she was sure he had spent the past weekend with the current woman in his life. She vaguely wondered how serious the relationship was.
His mouth tightened disapprovingly. ‘With no one,’ he bit out. ‘I’ll show you your bedroom.’
Chelsea followed him with a slight grimace on her face; obviously she had touched on a delicate subject as far as this man was concerned. Maybe he just didn’t like having to admit to the more basic urges and feelings that plagued the lives of other mortals!
Making rash judgments about her host wasn’t going to make her stay here any easier! For all she knew Lucas could be very warm and loving to the woman he favoured with his attentions—She was doing it again! And she was too tired at the moment to make rational judgments about anything, especially this man; Jace had sent her here, so he must trust and like the other man. So would she.
‘Camilla chose the decor in this room herself,’ Lucas told her as he showed her into what was obviously his guest room, the pale lemon and brown colour scheme restful as well as being comfortably feminine; there was nothing Chelsea disliked more than a lot of frills and lace in a bedroom, having been pretty much a tomboy until she left school last year, still preferring to wear denims and tops when she wasn’t at work. ‘As my only female guest to date,’ Lucas added pointedly.
She doubted that any female guest he had, other than family, would sleep in a separate bedroom to him anyway; he was much too old and experienced to settle for a platonic relationship. ‘Camilla always did have good taste.’ She ignored his last remark, although her normally effervescent nature wouldn’t usually have let it go unchallenged. ‘It’s a lovely room.’
He nodded abruptly, putting her suitcase down on top of one of the single beds, uncaring of its dampness on the lemon coverlet. ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable. You have your own bathroom through here.’ He opened a connecting door, the decor in there similar