‘Good. Then it’s achieved what I wanted.’ His eyes held hers, very steady, very calm. ‘And I don’t intend to apologise for it.’
She stared at him, taken aback. She knew he could be as hard as nails when he had to be but he’d never been that way with her. Now, though, there was an uncompromising note in his voice, his tone reminiscent of her mother’s when she was using her ‘you have to be cruel to be kind’ argument. Raising her chin slightly, Miriam said, ‘I wouldn’t expect you to, not the great Jay Carter, who’s never wrong.’
He looked at her, one eyebrow rising in a way that made Miriam feel like a petulant child. ‘I can make mistakes like the next person,’ he said quietly. ‘I made one of the biggest ten months ago. I should have come and fetched you home that first night and made love to you until you knew without a shadow of a doubt that you’re the only woman in my life.’
A warmth spread through her and she licked suddenly dry lips. ‘The car that’s waiting is getting impatient,’ she said in an attempt to change the conversation.
‘Let it.’ His eyes gently mocked her.
She felt hot with a mixture of embarrassment and something else, something she didn’t want to put a name to. Thankfully Jay didn’t prolong the moment too long, turning from her and starting the car. ‘You’re one of the few women I know who can still blush,’ he said lazily as they left the pub and turned onto the road beyond the car park. ‘It’s incredibly sexy.’
‘Turning lobster-red? I don’t think so.’ Miriam forced a laugh.
‘But then I find everything about you incredibly sexy,’ he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Your soft skin, the way your freckles pepper that skin like delicious ginger spice…’
‘Jay, please—’
‘Finding each freckle with my mouth, my tongue…Do you remember?’ he asked softly. ‘Do you dream about us making love in our big bed till dawn? Pleasing each other, drunk with the intoxication that comes from being loved and loving in return? Do you think of those times, Miriam?’
‘No,’ she lied. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘I do. All the time, especially at night. And cold showers don’t help at all, do you know that? Nothing does.’ He took one of her hands, his finger sliding against her curved palm and tracing up a crease to her wrist.
Miriam fought against showing how his touch affected her but as tingles shot up her arm she pulled her hand away. ‘Don’t,’ she said sharply. ‘Not when you’re driving.’
His gaze hadn’t moved from the road ahead and it didn’t now, a thread of laughter in his voice when he said, ‘And when I’m not driving? What then? No, don’t answer that. I can look but not touch, right?’
‘I didn’t set that rule.’ She regretted the words as soon as they were voiced. They said far too much.
‘No, you’re right, you didn’t,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘Why was that, I wonder? Could it be you want me as much as I want you?’
She stiffened. ‘In your dreams,’ she bit out fiercely.
‘Oh, now, if we’re going on to our dreams that’s a whole new ball game.’ His voice was very dry. ‘My dreams are definitely of the X-rated variety where you’re concerned. How about yours?’
Hers had caused her to blush in the cold light of day and taught her she didn’t know herself as well as she had thought.
‘I rarely dream anything worth remembering,’ she said crisply.
‘I can always tell when you’re lying.’
‘Your list of accomplishments is amazing,’ she said with heavy sarcasm, ‘but in this case wishful thinking.’
Jay shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think so.’
She dragged her eyes away from the handsome face, staring out of the windscreen like Jay. Her heart felt like a tight ball in her chest. ‘You don’t know me at all or you’d have known I wouldn’t tolerate another person in our marriage.’
‘Miriam, there’s always been a third person in our marriage.’ Darkness was falling quickly, lights gleaming in the windows of houses they were passing. Somehow the cosy quality to the scene outside the car made her feel ten times worse.
She glanced at him again. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘The spectre of your father has been there from the word go; I was just too dim to realise before.’
She reared up as though she’d been stung. ‘My father has absolutely nothing to do with us. He was dead long before I met you.’
?
?He was handsome and charming but quite ruthless, wasn’t he?’ Jay went on. ‘I’ve had a couple of interesting chats with your mother about him recently. She showed me a photograph she’d kept of him. He had a weak mouth.’