‘Look, I’m sorry if I upset your girlfriend—’ She was not going to let anything spoil her party.
‘She is not my girlfriend.’ Jake cut her off, his handsome face harsh in the artificial light. ‘She works for me, nothing more, though not for much longer, I think.’ And, sliding an arm around Lexi’s waist, he led her towards the dance-floor. ‘I’m beginning to wonder...’
‘Wonder what?’ Lexi asked, secretly delighted at the suggestion that Jake and Lorraine might part company.
Jake, in a quick about-face, spun her around; his eyes, gleaming with devili
sh amusement, gazed down into hers as he swept her into his arms, and said, ‘Wonder if I should serenade you.’ And he burst into song.
She knew he had deliberately changed the subject, but she didn’t care, and, entering into the mood, she began to giggle as he whirled her around and around. ‘You’re a terrible singer.’
‘I know, but I do do something well...’ he drawled sexily, one hand sliding down to her buttocks, he held her firmly against him. The band started to play a Latin love song, and slowly they circled the floor, touching from shoulder to knee, their bodies moving lazily as one. Jake nuzzled her ear and she melted in his arms.
CHAPTER TEN
AT LAST the crowd was thinning. Lexi breathed a sigh of contentment. It had been a lovely party, and, wriggling out of Jake’s arms, she whispered, ‘I need the powder-room.’ But as she crossed the foyer Anna called out,
‘Lexi, do you want to collect your tapes now?’
‘Yes, sure.’ Lexi had left her favourite tapes in Anna’s room when she had been sharing it with her for a week. Quickly, she followed Anna around Reception and down the corridor to her room at the rear of the hotel.
Ten minutes later with the box of tapes tucked under her arm, Lexi slowly walked back to the foyer. She was sad at leaving her friends; she had had some good times at the Piccolo Paradiso she mused, but she nursed a secret feeling of hope that the best was yet to come. Jake wanted to talk, and she knew in her heart that this time it would be all right. She wasn’t sure she was pregnant, but had taken care to drink only two glasses of champagne all evening. In any case, she hadn’t needed the stimulus. An attractive, caring Jake was stimulus enough for her.
She stopped, her eyes widening in shocked disbelief; her hand went to her heart, pressing at her breast in a futile attempt to stop it breaking. At the end of the corridor, silhouetted by the stronger light of Reception, stood a couple wrapped in each others’ arms; the man had his back to her but there was no mistaking it was Jake, and Lorraine. As she watched, his dark head bent. Lexi turned and ran back along the hall, her eyes blinded by tears.
She leaned against the wall and gulped in the warm night air, her heart pounding; the box of tapes fell unnoticed to the ground as she rubbed her knuckles in her eyes, trying to stem the tears. Taking a shaky breath she straightened, and gazed dazedly at her surroundings. She was in the staff car park at the back of the hotel.
She was shivering and yet it was a hot summer night. She looked up at the sky; a million stars glittered and sparkled in the midnight blue of the moonlit vastness. But the beauty of the scene was lost on her. It had happened again. Once more she had allowed herself to trust, to love, had wished for the moon! And for a while she had thought it was within her grasp. What a fool! Her hopes and dreams were shattered like a burst balloon.
Lexi had no notion how long she stood there; an icy chill pervaded the very marrow of her bones until finally she moved, stiffly like a robot, one foot in front of the other, but with no idea where she was going; she only knew she had to get away. Then she noticed it. Her little car was parked next to the car park exit. It looked abandoned, much the way she felt herself, she thought sadly. Automatically she tried the door and it opened; she slid into the driver’s seat, her hand finding the ignition. The key had been left in place...
She turned on the engine, her foot pressing on the clutch and slipped it into first gear. But suddenly the door was wrenched open, a long hand reached over and cut off the ignition, another arm pressed across her chest as a strong hand hauled on the handbrake.
‘No, you don’t.’ Lexi turned her tear-stained face at the harsh command, and saw Jake’s towering form blocking the door. His eyes flashed with rage and a muscle jerked in his cheek. ‘Get out of that car,’ he snarled.
‘Leave me alone,’ she said, her voice breaking on a sob as she tried to prise his arm off her breast.
‘Running to your Arab friend, were you?’ Jake’s face was murderous. ‘You bitch.’ His lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl of animal fury.
How like him to blame her! Lexi thought and, in a mercurial change of mood, anger overtaking her former despair, she beat at his arm, trying to break free. ‘Let me go, don’t touch me, I hate you...’ she cried, all her hurt and anger bubbling to the surface; she thrashed around in the seat trying to dislodge his aggressive hold. ‘You great brute. Let me go...’ she screamed almost hysterically.
‘Never,’ he ground out through clenched teeth.
With a frightened animal’s instinct for escape Lexi changed tactics and scrambled the other way. But with the speed of light Jake was in the car and flinging her back against the passenger seat.
His face was inches from her own, his eyes leaping with rage, his breathing harsh. ‘You go anywhere near that Arab again,’ he rasped menacingly, his strong hand sliding up her neck to encircle her throat, ‘I’ll kill you.’ His rugged face was tight with demoniac anger, the muscle in his cheek jerking as he tried to control his fury and in that moment Lexi believed him.
‘I wasn’t running to Ali, I was running away from you,’ she cried scathingly.
Jake stared down at her, his hand gradually relaxing its grip on her throat. ‘So what’s new?’ he grated. She watched his massive chest heave as he took slow, deep gulps of air, fighting to regain his control until finally he moved back into the driving seat and, with one withering glance at Lexi’s huddled form, he started the car.
She bit her lip. ‘What do you think you’re doing? This is my car. Your limousine will be waiting for you out front,’ she snapped sarcastically.
‘And take the chance of you disappearing again? No way, Lexi.’
She cast a venomous glance at his harsh profile; his face was taut, his hands gripping the steering-wheel as if his life depended on it. She opened her mouth to speak but the car squealed on two wheels out of the car park and Lexi was flung against Jake.
She straightened back in her seat, she had felt the rigid tension in his arm in his whole body as they had touched, and the same tension filled the intimate confines of the tiny car. She turned her head and looked out of the side window and realised they were bombing along Amalfi Drive at a speed she was sure the car had never been built to achieve. Her heart in her mouth, she stayed silent, frozen with fear.