like telling it how it is,’ he commented at length. ‘Still, you were always the most honest of the bunch… So no hard feelings?’
He approached her, hand outstretched.
Esme stared at this token of—of friendship, reconciliation, what exactly? She shrank from him in obvious distaste.
Unused to this reaction from women, Jack was more puzzled than anything else. She was treating him like a pariah but nothing he remembered in their past relationship warranted that. Sure, she’d been young—too young perhaps—when they’d made love that time, but she’d been willing. Very, as he recalled now.
He dropped his hand away. ‘Isn’t it rather late to treat me as untouchable?’ he drawled with slight overtones of the American accent he’d picked up from years spent in California.
‘Better late than never,’ Esme retorted rather tritely and, almost hemmed into a corner, tried to brush past him.
He caught her bare arm, detaining her. ‘If it’s an apology you want, then you can have one. I was sorry, I am sorry, for the way I treated you.’
He sounded sincere and Esme was slightly disarmed by the fact. Easiest to reply in kind but she couldn’t. Her stomach was clenching and unclenching at the touch of his hand on her skin. She put it down to revulsion and wondered when love had turned to hate. Some time over the last ten years? Or just today, when reality had caught up with her?
‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she stated scornfully, ‘so if you let my arm go, I’ll show you out.’
Jack’s eyes narrowed on her, analytical in their intent. She’d dismissed his apology and discounted their brief liaison as a moment of drunkenness, yet she was so angry her body was shaking with it.
‘Let me go!’ An order this time as she tried to wrest her arm away.
Jack held her fast. ‘Not yet. Explain first.’
‘Explain?’ she echoed.
‘Ten years ago,’ he recalled, ‘we parted on a more intimate note. OK, possibly assisted by some rather potent whisky. In the interim we have had no communication apart from one unanswered letter yet somehow I’ve become beneath contempt in your eyes… Well, call me slow, but I feel I’ve missed something.’
So had Esme. What unanswered letter?
‘Or is it just the old class thing,’ he continued at her silence, ‘and us stable boys are fine for a quick session in the hayloft but not welcome up at the big house?’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Esme found the voice to protest at this absurdity. She hadn’t been a snob at sixteen and she wasn’t one now.
‘Is it?’ he challenged.
‘Yes!’ she almost spat back. ‘For a start you were never a stable boy. All right, you mucked out occasionally to earn some pocket money but as often as not you got me to do it. Shovelling horse manure was far too menial for Mr Brainbox Doyle.’
‘OK, maybe I wasn’t in the literal sense,’ he conceded, ‘but I was low enough on the social ladder for you to look down your nose.’
‘I didn’t!’ she could claim with angry conviction. ‘In fact, if anything, you condescended to me. Poor, stupid, plain Midge, let’s pat her on the head once in a while, be kind to her—that’s when we’re not treating her as invisible, of course.’
‘I don’t remember it being like that.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
Jack was surprised to find himself now on the defensive. ‘I certainly never suggested you were plain or stupid.’
‘You didn’t have to,’ she accused, ‘it was bloody obvious. And, anyway, maybe I was plain and stupid!’
‘No, you weren’t.’ Jack gave her a concerned look, as if now doubting her stability. ‘You were pretty and funny and—’
‘Don’t!’ Esme cut short this list of her qualities. ‘You’re patting me on the head again and I don’t need it. I’m quite happy with myself and my life now. I am simply pointing out that any reluctance to be pawed by you at this precise moment in time has no connection with the social class into which we were born.’
‘Pawed?’ Clearly oscillating between amusement and annoyance, he lifted her arm by the wrist. ‘This comes under the category of pawing?’
‘I… Don’t change the subject!’ Esme snapped back.
‘I’m afraid I’ve kind of lost it,’ he admitted, ‘but if this is what you consider pawing, you must have one pretty tame private life. Now if I’d done this—’ an arm curved round her waist to draw her closer ‘—or this,’ the other rose so a hand could briefly cup her cheek before turning to gently trail his knuckles down the long, elegant nape of her neck, ‘Then I think you might be justified.’
He’d moved in on her so suddenly, Esme was too startled to react. By the time she did, the brief embrace was over and he’d actually let her go.
She was left with a heart racing like a train and a rage inside her that she could barely contain.
In fact, she didn’t contain it, didn’t even try. She let her hand come up, open-palmed, and slapped him as hard as she could. Slapped him so hard his head jerked backwards and her palm stung.
Esme watched as his cheek reddened, initial exhilaration giving way to horror. She’d never slapped anyone before, never felt the urge to. It was basic and primitive. Like sex.
Like his reaction. Shock quickly followed by retaliation as he grabbed her arms and, pushing them behind her back, trapped her against the kitchen cupboards. Then a hand was thrust in her hair, pulling her head back, leaving her just time to spit out a swear word before he covered her mouth with his.
It was an assault of lips and teeth that robbed her of breath but not the will to fight. She clutched at his jacket, trying to push him off, feeling fury not fear as she recognised this subjugation for what it was.
Only he was stronger and fury was dangerously akin to passion as the kiss went relentlessly on, demanding a response, forcing long-dormant feelings to the surface. There was no exact point when things changed and the hands digging into his chest began to uncurl and flatten and spread upwards to his shoulders. No dividing line between the hateful bruising of his mouth on hers and the sweet, sensual invasion that followed.
All she knew was that what she started off repudiating, she ended up silently begging for, as she slid her hands round his neck and held his mouth to hers, shifting in his arms until she could feel his heart beating against the softness of her breasts, and she moaned aloud as the hand circling her waist slipped lower, half lifting her body to his, already hard with arousal.
When he finally broke off, it was to catch breath and ask, with his deep silent gaze, for what he might merely have taken.
For a moment Esme hovered between madness and sanity, dizzy with desire yet shaken by the very force of it. So easily she could have let herself be swept away but somehow, through fear of drowning, she clawed her way back to the bank.
She didn’t hit him again or play the outraged virgin or even pretend distaste. Half-ashamed, wholly disturbed, she said simply, ‘I can’t. I just can’t. Please leave me alone.’
Quiet words, but shot with desperation, and more effective than any shouting, it seemed.
‘Very well,’ was all he muttered back as, releasing her completely, he pushed a distracted hand through his hair.
No argument. No pleading. She could have seen it as insulting how quickly he retreated, making for the hallway, his footsteps an echo on the marble, then gone, the front door closed quietly behind him.
But she saw nothing because her eyes were filling with tears at the raw, ragged pain from the scarred-over