Ignoring the water sheeting off her body and Carl’s laughingly ineffective remonstrances, Ryan carried her in through the open French doors and across the wide hall.
‘Ryan, I’m dripping all over the carpet!’ she protested in vain as they reached the library and she was set down with a jolt.
‘Don’t think you’re going to use Carl to make me jealous!’ Ryan growled, his hands remaining where they were, firmly compressing the sides of her breasts, his dark blue trousers and shirt showing the wet imprint of her body.
His anger was like the flick of a velvet whip. ‘For goodness’ sake!’
‘I hired him, I can fire him,’ he snarled. ‘Bear it in mind that the next time you feel like flirting with him you could be costing him his career!’
‘You wouldn’t fire an employee for flirting with me, especially not Carl!’ Jane scoffed, with an absolute conviction that sparked a small flame of appreciation in his angry eyes.
He dropped his hands but remained standing between Jane and the door. ‘No, I wouldn’t—because I’m not the cruel bastard you like to pretend to yourself that I am. And I didn’t say he was flirting with you; I said you were flirting with him.’
‘I was just being friendly—’
‘Semi-nude over a couple of glasses of wine? A man could get the wrong idea about a woman that way.’
She wanted to dispute the semi-nudity, but suddenly realised that it would be a mistake to attract his attention to her treacherous body.
‘Are you accusing me of being drunk?’ she demanded belligerently. He knew full well that she had been in no danger of Carl misinterpreting her friendliness, but he was still furious. There was only one explanation for his unreasonable attitude: he was jealous!
Jane’s burst of triumph was swiftly followed by a deep resentment. He had even less right than reason to feel jealous!
Ryan had planted his hands on his hips, his legs astride. ‘No, just stupid—if you think I’m going to let you get away with it! This is between you and me, Jane. I won’t let you hide behind another man, no matter how innocent the situation. If you want to flirt, why don’t you flirt with the man you really want to hop in the sack with?’
Her resentment was goaded into temper. ‘Why, you arrogant—’
‘That’s right, sweetheart, get mad,’ he interrupted, running his gaze insolently down her body, allowing it to linger on her hard nipples, clearly visible against the thin nylon. ‘I like it when you get hot and bothered over me.’ She trembled and a wicked smile softened his angry expression. ‘Hard to fight the memories, isn’t it, Jane?’
Something inside her snapped. ‘You should know!’ she flung at him. ‘You’re the one who can’t let go of the past!’
His dark head went up, as if catching a scent on the wind. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Ava!’
The name shimmered accusingly on the air between them.
‘What about Ava?’ he said, with a careful casualness that didn’t fool her for a moment.
‘Well, she’s still your ideal woman, isn’t she?’ sneered Jane, wrapping her arms around her rapidly cooling body, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she whipped herself up into a jealous rage. It was as if Ryan’s irrational burst of jealousy had given permission for hers to exist, and finally she was free to allow the old, corrosive envy that she had tried so hard to hide from her best friend to bubble to the surface.
‘She’s the oh-so-fragile flower of feminine perfection that all others are measured by, the woman you loved and lost, your soul mate, the one whom you knew instantly on meeting was the woman for you—only, hey, guess what? It turns out that she isn’t!’ she said with sweet vitriol. ‘She ends up marrying someone else so I guess you must have been mistaken. But you can’t accept that. You can’t let the memory rest in peace—you’re still so hung up about her you’re always asking me questions about what she did and why—’
‘Hardly always. That must be your guilty conscience working overtime, Jane,’ he ground out. ‘It’s not her actions—the what and why of what she did that I’m hung up on—it’s making sense out of your involvement.’
But Jane was beyond making sense. Having set her jealousy free, she could no longer control the words spilling off her bitter tongue. ‘Did talking to her again bring all your old feelings flooding back? Are you wondering whether you might get a second chance at your first love? If you’re hoping that she isn’t happy, forget it! She and Conrad have a good marriage.’
He uttered a black curse. ‘I’m not the type to waste my life pining for a lost cause, and that’s what Ava became the moment she got married—only three months after she left me!’
‘Oh? Then why were you so disappointed that I hadn’t told her we’d slept together? Did you hope I might tell her what a fantastic lover you were so that she’d finally realise what she’d been missing? Maybe, in the twisted logic of your revenge having sex with me is the next best thing to bedding my unattainable best friend,’ she spat unforgivably, and when he lunged towards her in raw outrage ducked under his arm and ran—out into the hall and up the stairs, fleet of foot, unencumbered by clothing, splattering drops of water against the walls as she dashed around the landings, conscious of his pounding pursuit gaining on her at every stride.
She’d had enough of a head start to get to her room just in front of him, tears blurring her eyes as her fingers fumbled to shoot the lock a split second before the full force of his pursuing weight hit the door. She leaned back against it, gasping for breath, feeling the vibration of his pounding fists down the length of her spine.
‘Go away!’ she shouted desperately.
‘Jane—open this door!’ He punctuated his angry demand with a hefty kick.
Why? So he could punish her with his contempt for her ridiculous accusations? Or poke and probe with that horribly relentless, incisive mind into the painful reasons for her ignominious loss of control? She’d thought love was supposed to be an enriching, spiritually uplifting experience, not this cheap fairground ride of thrilling euphoria followed by sickening plunges into terrifying despair.