Crystal Jake: The Complete EDEN Series Box Set

Shane arrives at seven sharp wearing a white dress shirt with ruffles at the front and a black, single-breas

ted suit. He is a sight for sore eyes. In the daylight I see that his eyes are the brightest blue this side of heaven. Genuine admiration glimmers in the beautiful depths. He purses his lips and whistles.

I twirl around for him.

‘Wow,’ he says appreciatively.

I look at the huge bunch of flowers and the obviously expensive box of handmade chocolates he is hugging. ‘For me?’ I ask.

He holds them out.

‘Thank you,’ I say and relieve him of them. Truth is I was fourteen the last time a guy brought me anything. Andrew Manning bought me a bar of Aero, my favorite chocolate back then, and put it in his back pocket. I can still remember his red face when he fished the melted, shapeless thing out.

‘You look rather dashing yourself,’ I murmur, letting my eyes travel over his fine clothes.

‘I bet you say that to all the boys,’ he jokes in a low, throaty voice.

It could have been silly, but I had to listen to my father bringing the house down with Meatloaf while I was growing up, so it works for me. Suddenly it is as if I have known him for years. I know he’s going to be my ally. A friend I can count on. He waits while I put the flowers in a vase and then we leave the apartment together. The weather is unseasonably warm and still, so I don’t bother with a jacket. There is a gleaming black Maserati Ghibli parked outside. Shane unlocks it and settles me into the passenger seat before going around to his side. I have never been in such an expensive car before. It is the byword in luxury and it smells heavenly.

‘So where is your brother’s house?’

‘The party is in Essex. About an hour and a half away.’

The conversation is easy and fun.

We leave the highway and hit narrow country roads surrounded by lush forests and finally arrive at electric iron gates. There are paparazzi with long lens cameras hanging around outside. They start immediately snapping their cameras on the off chance that we are famous.

‘Why are the paparazzi here?’

‘They’re expecting a Hollywood Alister.’

‘Who?’

‘Leonardo Dicaprio.’

‘Really?’

The gates open and we drive through. The road leads up to a fabulous purple-lit mansion with six tall Roman style columns at its entrance.

‘Wow!’ I cry. ‘This belongs to your brother!’

‘Nice, huh?’

‘What does one have to do to afford a pile like this?’

‘This and that,’ he says easily, but evasively.

I turn to look at him. ‘Is it a secret?’

He glances briefly at me. ‘No, but some things are better left alone.’

Well, that is some warning. I clear my throat. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

He grins, the sparkle returning to his eyes. ‘It’s OK, babe. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Jake’s not the baddest thing in town,’ he says, pulling up to the front of the large courtyard, and finding a parking space among all the other highly strung boy’s toys. Shane holds open my door and I get out of the low-slung seat as elegantly as my short dress will allow.

I look up at the magnificent house and the first flutter of nerves hits me.

‘You look beautiful,’ Shane whispers in my ear.

I look gratefully up at him. We walk up to the house and climb the flight of stone steps and two Josh lookalikes in black outfits stand at the tall doors.

Inside, the party is well underway. There are beautiful people everywhere I care to look. We cross the black and white antique marble floor polished to a high sheen and enter a large room full of beautiful furnishings. The music is loud and the room is full of glamour-soaked people.

A statuesque, deeply tanned blonde approaches us with a silver tray of champagne flutes.

‘Good evening,’ she greets. ‘Would you like a drink?’

Shane gets two glasses and putting one in my hand says, ‘Come. Let me introduce you to Leo.’

So I meet Leo—as charming and urbane as he was in the Great Gatsby but a bit rounder than I expected—and his escort, a very tall South American beauty. A lot of people seem to know Shane. I say hello to various characters—a TV celebrity, a news anchor woman, and a couple of Shane’s cousins, a few decidedly shady. But neither Dominic nor Jake seems to be around. I discreetly glance at my watch. It has just gone ten.

It is only when Shane excuses himself to go to the toilet and I wander over to the open French doors to gaze out at the long, immaculately manicured lawn and surrounding gardens that I hear a man’s rich and distinctively husky voice that seems to leap above the music and make my blood throb and rush to my clit.

‘Hello, Jewel.’

FOUR

For a couple of seconds I do nothing. Just stand there, a gentle breeze lifting my hair from my neck, savoring the sensation of unfolding drama and the reckless abandonment his voice has brought into my being. I know when I turn around the world will be different.

I prepare myself and face him slowly. Even so the breath catches in my throat. I blink and stare at him.

He towers over me in an emerald suit. Sexual energy glimmers off him like the wavy heat effect in a desert. His eyes—green marbled with violet or black, beautiful at any rate—glow with desire. Every fiber in my body contracts and buzzes as if he is a great dynamo and I am some dumb equipment that is absorbing too much energy. And the worse part: he knows it.

‘Or is it Lily?’ His sinful lips caress my name like a kiss.

Heat prickles up my arms. ‘It’s whatever you want it to be.’

He lets his wicked, smoldering gaze drift over my body. ‘I want it to be Lily.’

I shrug. ‘OK,’ I say carelessly.

He takes a drink from a passing tray and hands it to me. Our fingers brush and I shiver. Visibly. His eyebrows lift, but his eyes remain inscrutable. My cheeks flame with sexual tension. I grip the glass tightly. Shit. What the hell is this? Christ in heaven. Get a fucking grip, Lily. I can’t believe how affected I am by this man. I need time to sort myself out.

I force a smile onto my lips. ‘Thank you,’ I say politely, and make to move away. His hand shoots out and touches my bare arm. This time my reaction is clear. I jerk my hand away.

‘We don’t have a no touch policy in this house,’ he observes quietly.

‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. Who are you?’

Green sparks of amusement dance in his eyes. He knows I know exactly who he is. ‘Who do you want me to be, Lily?’ His voice is lazy like a deadly snake coiled in the sun. One wrong move…

An unfamiliar warmth shivers and fizzles through my veins. ‘My lover’s brother.’

The amusement vanishes from his eyes—the reptile has been rudely awakened—replaced by a bolt of blazing fury.

My heart stops. I resist the instinctive reaction to back off. For a few moments, or it could have been thousands of years, we stare at each other and then he turns on his heels and strides away, his back ramrod straight.

I grip the champagne glass tightly and watch his tall figure cut through the human crush. He stands out the way a hawk stands out in a crowd of canaries. A woman in a sophisticated ivory velvet evening gown lays a manicured hand on his sleeve. He stops and bends his head to her. She says something. Her laugh is tinkling. I feel a furious tightening in my belly. I am jealous. I am sickeningly jealous of the horny bitch.

‘Did you miss me?’ Shane asks in my ear.

At the sound of his easy voice, relief floods me. It’s like having a stiff drink on a cold day. The warm waves radiate out from the middle of your belly. I turn toward him. ‘Desperately.’

‘How desperately?’ His teeth flash.

‘You don’t want to know.’

He laughs. ‘Come on. I want you to meet my brother.’ Before I can protest he puts his hand on my elbow and steers me along toward his brother and the beauty in the ivory dress. She has coffee-colored hair and empty silver eyes.

‘Jake, I want you to meet Lily.’

/>   Jake turns stiffly toward me. ‘We’ve already met,’ he says dryly.

‘Oh! When?’

‘Moments ago.’ He seems cold and uninterested.

Shane looks at me quizzically.

‘You didn’t give me a chance to tell you,’ I say weakly.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, darling?’ the woman says adoringly, as she slides her hand up his black shirt. Her hand dislodges his jacket and I see its pale blue lining. Jealousy shoots like quicksilver into my blood, scorching it. I look up and meet his eyes. They are dark and carefully veiled.

‘Andrea Mornington, Lily Hart,’ he says curtly, then very deliberately curls his arm around her waist.

‘Hello, Lily,’ Andrea says, turning her empty eyes toward me, except they are no longer empty but precise and direct, like a key turning in a lock. She perfectly understands what has not been spoken.

I force a smile. ‘Please excuse me, I need to find a washroom.’ As I turn away, Shane’s hand falls on my wrist. ‘Are you OK?’

I look into his eyes. Already I can see the weight of responsibility he has taken for my well-being. It warms and saddens me. ‘Yes. I’ll be back soon.’

I don’t have to look at his brother to know he is watching me. I feel it like a dagger in my back or an act of fate.

I don’t find the washroom. Instead I drift inconspicuously into an adjoining room. It seems to be a salon of some kind. As with everything else in the house it is beautiful. There is nobody in there. I close the door and lean against it.

The attraction is so inconvenient, so absurd that I had never even considered the possibility. And yet here it is. I want him so bad it is like an ache. I push away from the door, put my glass of champagne on a low table, and walk to a tall window. I stare out of it into the dark and see only my ghostly reflection.

A dozen thoughts come and go. I know I should be going back to Shane, but the part of me that loathes to see them together is the stronger. My thoughts are interrupted by a sound at the door.

I whirl around in surprise.