Loving

He was waiting for her when she went back downstairs. ‘Okay now?’

She nodded her head. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Fate seems to be smiling on the pair of us recently,’ she added wryly. ‘If you can call losing the roof over your head that.’

‘Well, they say good things go in threes.’

Claire grimaced. ‘I can hardly wait.’

An odd expression that she couldn’t define crossed his face. What was he thinking about? His ex-wife? What business of hers was it if he was?

‘SO YOU DON’T THINK the insurance company will pay up?’

They were sitting in Whitegates’ elegant, but to Claire’s eyes sterile, drawing-room. Lucy and Heather were upstairs in bed, and she and Jay had just gone over her insurance policy.

Her heart sank as he shook his head gravely. ‘I don’t think so, but of course, I’ll get my broker to check.’

Claire shivered, hugging her arms round her slim body. Without any money from the insurance company, how on earth was she going to pay for the damage to be put right?

‘Of course, you know that you and Lucy are welcome to stay here for just as long as is necessary.’

It was a kind offer, but she didn’t feel at all at home in this elegant, sophisticated house. She was terrified that Lucy might break something or leave muddy footprints on the off-white carpet. No wonder Heather was considerably less exuberant than her own daughter!

‘I have to go back to Dallas on Wednesday. I’ll give my broker a ring first thing Monday morning and see what he can sort out.’

Claire immediately felt guilty. ‘You’ve got enough problems of your own without taking on mine as well.’

‘It’s no problem … and I owe you a few favours.’

‘How long will you be away this time?’

‘Only a few days. I’m hoping to get a final signature on a very large contract.’

Claire knew now that Jay’s firm created reproduction Adam-style mouldings and Tudor-style panelled interiors, replicas in every detail of those made by master craftsmen in the past. There was a booming market for his products in America, especially in Texas, where they were enjoying a vogue, but the partner who had left the firm when he married Jay’s ex-wife had been the salesman of the team, and Claire knew that Jay was now looking for someone to take his place—preferably an American with an entrée into the sort of society where the company’s products found their best market.

‘Once that’s organised I can get down to doing some interviewing. I need an American based rep, then I can concentrate on the manufacturing side of the business over here.’

‘Have you thought of setting up a factory in the States?’

‘Yes, but it wouldn’t work as well. The fact that our products are British gives them an added cachet. We’re not just selling Adam-style décor, or Elizabethan libraries, we’re selling something our customers can boast about to their friends.’

It was pleasantly relaxing sitting here with him like this. Claire found him fascinating to listen to and was genuinely interested in the way he had built up his business, so that when he said casually, ‘Claire, I want to talk to you … about … about the man who raped you,’ sh

e was taken completely off guard.

‘No, don’t run away.’ His fingers curled round her wrist, holding her in her chair as she tried to stand up. ‘I’m not prying or asking out of any prurient curiosity. I just think it would help you to talk about it.’

‘Therapy, you mean? Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to talk about it.’ She tried to pull away but did not succeed.

‘Have you ever tried?’

How could she? There had never been anyone to talk to about it. Her parents had been killed; her shock and horror after it had happened had been so great that she had simply gone home and shut herself in her bedroom for days, not eating, not sleeping, not doing anything. And then afterwards, when the reality of it had sunk into her, she had been too … Too what? Ashamed? Yes, there had been a sense of shame and of guilt, although why she had no idea. She had done nothing to encourage the man, nothing at all. He had physically abducted her, raped her and then thrown her out of his car like a used doll.

‘I haven’t pried into your private life, Jay, and I …’

‘I’m not prying. Before you were raped, had you had any sexual experience at all?’

Claire’s shudder gave her away, and this time when she stood up he stood too.

‘I don’t have to stay here and listen to this, Jay.’

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