I sometimes wonder if something else happened that night.’
‘Like what?’
‘She’d been drinking and was obviously upset after leaving your room,’ Julius said. ‘Not a good combination in a teenage girl.’
Jake hung up a short time later once they’d switched topics but he couldn’t get rid of the seed of unease Julius had planted in his mind. Had something happened that night after Jasmine had left his room? Was that why she had been so protective of young Emma, making sure she got home safely with an adult at the other end to meet her? The rest of that night was a bit of blur for him. Most of his parents’ parties ended up that way. Even some of his parties were a little full-on too. There was always a lot of alcohol, loud music blaring and people coming and going. He had been feeling too pleased with himself for solving the Jasmine problem to give much thought to where she’d gone after leaving his room. At twenty-six what he had done had seemed the perfect solution. The only solution.
Now, at thirty-three, he wasn’t quite so sure.
* * *
Jaz was making herself a nightcap in the kitchen when Jake strolled in. ‘Finding it hard to sleep without a playgirl bunny or three in your bed to keep you warm?’
‘What happened after you left my room that night?’
Jaz lowered her gaze to her chocolate drink rather than meet his piercing blue eyes. The chocolate swirled as she stirred it with the teaspoon, creating a whirlpool not unlike the one she could feel in the pit of her stomach. She never thought about that night. That night had happened to another person. It had happened to a foolish, gauche kid who’d had too much to drink and had been too emotionally unstable to know what she was doing or what she was getting into.
‘Jasmine. Answer me.’
Jaz lifted her gaze to his and frowned. ‘Why do you always call me Jasmine instead of Jaz? You’re the only one in your family who insists on doing that. Why?’
‘It’s your name.’
‘So? Yours is Jacques but you don’t like being called that,’ Jaz pointed out. ‘Maybe I’ll start to.’
‘Julius knows.’
Her heart gave a little stumble. ‘Knows what?’
‘About us,’ he said. ‘About this not being real.’
Jaz took a moment to get her head sorted. She’d thought he meant Julius knew about that night... But how could he? He would have said something if he did. He was the sort of man who would have got her to press charges. He wouldn’t have stood by and let someone get away with it. ‘Oh...right; well, I guess he’s your twin and all.’
‘He won’t tell anyone apart from Holly.’
‘Good,’ Jaz said. ‘The less people who know, the better.’
Jake pulled out a kitchen stool and sat opposite her at the island bench. ‘You want to make me one of those?’
She lifted her chin. ‘Make it yourself.’
A slow smile came to his mouth. ‘I guess I’d better in case you put cyanide in it.’
Jaz forced her gaze away from the tempting curve of his mouth. It wasn’t fair that one man had so much darn sex appeal. It came off him in waves. She felt it brush against her skin, making her body tingle at the thought of him touching her for real. Ever since his arm had brushed against hers, ever since he’d slung his arm around her shoulders and leaned in against her, she had longed for him to do it again. It was like every nerve under her skin was sitting bolt upright and wide awake, waiting with bated breath for him to touch her again.
She was aware of him in other parts of her body. The secret parts. Her breasts and inner core tingled from the moment he’d stepped into the same room. It was like he could turn a switch in her body simply by being present. She watched covertly as he moved about the kitchen, fetching a cup and the tin of chocolate powder and stirring it into the milk before he turned to put it in the microwave.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his back and shoulders. He was wearing a cotton T-shirt that showcased every sculpted muscle on his frame. How would it feel to slide her hands down his tautly muscled back? To slip one of her hands past the waistband of his jeans and cup his trim buttocks, or what was on the other side of his testosterone-rich groin?
Jaz gave herself a mental shake. She was on a mission to win back Myles. Getting involved with Jake was out of the question. Not that he would ever want her. He loathed her just as much as she loathed him. But men could separate their emotions from sex. She of all people knew that. Maybe he would want to make the most of their situation—a little fling to pass the time until he could get back to his simpering starlets and Hollywood hopefuls. Her mind started to drift... What would it feel like to have Jake make love to her? To have his hands stroke every inch of her flesh, to have his mouth plunder hers?
Jake turned from the microwave. ‘Is something wrong?’
Jaz blinked to reset her vision. ‘That was weird. I thought I saw you actually lift a finger in the kitchen. I must be hallucinating.’
He laughed and pulled out one of the stools opposite hers at the kitchen bench. ‘I can find my way around a kitchen when I need to.’
Jaz’s top lip lifted in a cynical arc. ‘Like when no slavishly devoted woman is there to cater to your every whim?’
His eyes held hers in a penetrating lock. She felt the power of it go through her like a current of electricity. ‘How much did you have to drink that night?’ he asked.
She pushed her untouched chocolate away and slipped off the stool. ‘Clean up your mess when you’re done in here. Eggles won’t be back till Sunday night.’
Jaz almost got to the door, but then Jake’s hand came out of nowhere and turned her to face him. His warm, strong fingers curling around her arm sent a shockwave through her body, making her feel as if someone inside her stomach had shuffled a deck of cards. Quickly. Vegas-quick. She moistened her lips with her tongue as she brought her gaze to his dark-blue one. His ink-black lashes were at half-mast, giving him a sexily hooded look. She looked at his mouth and felt that shuffle in her heart valves this time. She could look at his twin’s mouth any time without this crazy reaction. What was it about Jake’s mouth that turned her into a quivering mess of female hormones? Was it because, try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about how it would feel pressed to hers? ‘I don’t remember giving you permission to touch me,’ she said.
Instead of releasing her he slid his fingers down to the bones of her wrist and encircled it like a pair of gentle handcuffs. ‘Talk to me,’ he said in a deep, gravel-rough voice that made the entire length of her spine soften like candle wax in a steam room.
Jaz tested his hold but all it did was take him with her to the doorframe, which was just an inch or so behind her. She pressed her back against it for stability because right then her legs weren’t doing such a great job of holding her upright. He was now so close she could see the individual pinpricks of stubble along his jaw and around his nose and mouth. She could feel their breath intermingling. His muscle-packed thighs were within a hair’s breadth of hers, his booted feet toe-to-toe with her bare ones. ‘Wh-what are you doing?’ she said in a voice she barely recognised as her own.
His eyes went to her mouth, lingering there for endless, heart-stopping seconds. ‘Ever wondered what would happen if we kissed?’
Like just about every day for the last seven years. ‘You’d get your face slapped, that’s what.’
A smile hitched up one side of his mouth. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’
Jaz felt like her heart rate was trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records. She could smell those lime and lemongrass notes of his aftershave and something else that was one part musk and three parts male. ‘But you’re not going to do it, right?’
He moved