‘Is that the same sort of promise you made earlier? The fifteen-minute one?’
Jay clapped a hand to his heart. ‘You know how to wound.’ When she continued to eye him severely, his grin widened. It was terribly sexy. ‘Look, I met Bill and Stephanie when I helped Jayne and Guy move—they had us round for a meal the first night. I swear I’ve got permission, OK? And it’s a hell of a drive on a night like this only to sit out in the cold.’
‘I don’t know…’
‘Well, I do.’ He slid out of the car and came round to open the passenger door, extending his hand. ‘Come on.’
This was crazy. What on earth was she doing miles from home on a cold, frosty night when she’d got to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow?
Strong hands persuaded her out of the car and once she was standing he held her hand as he led her up the steps to the front door. It wasn’t a big deal, it wasn’t even particularly intimate, but the feel of his fingers holding hers caused Miriam to be overwhelmed by a flood of mixed emotions. She didn’t understand where this was going but suddenly the feeling she’d experienced in the car returned. She was with Jay and he wouldn’t hurt her.
He opened the door and then stood aside for her to enter the house first after turning on the light and punching a number into the alarm located on the wall. The action was reassuring. She didn’t feel so much of an intruder now.
The large hall was beautiful, the natural wood floor relieved by a couple of handsome rugs and the light walls and ceiling in perfect harmony with the mellow wood. Jay led her into a vast kitchen first, then a smaller utility room that was still bigger than her bedsit. A breakfast room, dining room, enormous sitting room and second reception room along with a very adequate study made up the ground floor, but when Miriam entered the main sitting room she stopped dead. Jay had left this room till last and when she looked at the enormous log
fire crackling in the walk-in fireplace and the nine-foot Christmas tree—a vision of gold and red—in a corner with gaily wrapped parcels beneath it, she felt panic hit. ‘Jay, someone’s here. They must be back.’
‘Relax, Bill and Stephanie aren’t back until well into the New Year but someone is staying here over Christmas. Us.’
‘Us?’ she repeated vacantly.
‘Us. You and me. The two of us.’ He pulled her into him, encircling her waist and drawing her close. ‘And I promise it’s with their blessing.’
She had gone rigid in his arms. ‘I can’t stay here.’
‘You can,’ he soothed. ‘It’s all arranged. This is a trial run to see if you like the place. The family’s moving to America next year and they want to sell.’
She stared at him wildly. ‘I’m going on holiday with Clara tomorrow.’
‘You were going on holiday with Clara tomorrow,’ he corrected very gently. ‘But now Brian’s going instead. And your suitcases and all the things Clara thought you might need are in one of the bedrooms upstairs.’
‘Clara?’ She couldn’t take it in. ‘Clara wouldn’t do this to me.’ She jerked herself free and he let her go, watching her with inscrutable eyes. ‘She’s my friend.’
‘Which is precisely why she did do it. She wants the best for you and that’s me,’ he said with a complete lack of modesty. ‘Everyone thinks so, including your mother.’
Part of her couldn’t believe this was happening. The other part acknowledged it had the Carter stamp all over it. ‘You’re mad,’ she said faintly.
‘Probably, where you’re concerned. Madly in love and always will be, but we weren’t getting anywhere with the softly-softly approach.’
‘But you don’t like Clara and she doesn’t like you.’ It was probably a silly thing to say in the circumstances but Jay only smiled.
‘When I called her on my return from Germany we had a very interesting chat,’ he said calmly. ‘I had to revise my opinion of her and I think she did the same with me. Certainly she’s been very helpful over the last week or two with all the arrangements and so on. As has your mother, of course. Lovely woman, your mother, and there are not too many men who can say that and mean it about their mother-in-law. I took them both out for a meal one night—’
‘Clara and my mother? You took Clara and my mother out?’
‘And we pooled notes. The result was very interesting. We decided my plan was perfect,’ he continued serenely as though she hadn’t spoken.
‘You charmed them.’ She could see it all. But she had thought Clara was made of sterner stuff.
‘They love you,’ he said, suddenly very serious. ‘And without any prompting from me they both agreed you need me. Not as much as I need you probably, but then that would be impossible. And living apart wasn’t helping you to come to terms with anything. I agree it would be difficult for us to both live in your bedsit, and there was no way you were coming back to the apartment—I’ve got that up for sale, incidentally—and a hotel room over Christmas wasn’t my idea of togetherness. And so I had a word with Bill and Stephanie and they were delighted to think their home would be of use. Whether we buy it or not is incidental. I haven’t even suggested that to them as yet.’
‘You’re selling the apartment?’ She hadn’t heard past that. The apartment was the prize that proclaimed how far he had come, his jewel in the crown, his triumph. ‘But you love it.’
‘It’s an apartment, Miriam.’ His eyes were very steady as they held hers. ‘That’s all. And one thing I’ve learned over the last twelve months is that home is where you are. It’s that simple.’
As she stared at him she became aware for the first time that he wasn’t as cool and composed as he would like her to believe. A small muscle in his jaw gave away the iron control in which he was holding himself. He wasn’t sure how she was going to react, she realised with a start of surprise. He was nervous. It melted her more than anything else could have done.
All she had done for the last year was push him away. Even when she had come to believe that the affair with Belinda was just a product of the other woman’s thwarted desire, she had still pushed him away.