Lynne Graham - An Insatiable Passion

‘What time is it?’ Disorientated, she had to say it twice to get it out and she studied the quilt, not even sure what day of the week it was.

‘Half-eight.’

She pushed a hand through her hair. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You were sleeping like the dead when I came back,’ he asserted abrasively.

‘Is there something wrong with sleeping in the middle of the night?’ she muttered, seeking the cup with a blind hand. Her mouth was dry as a bone.

He released his breath in a sudden hiss. ‘You should have woken up when I came back. You didn’t. You obviously carried on drinking after I left.’

That did penetrate her mental fog. Her head flew up. ‘I what?’

‘You heard me. You were dead to the world.’ Fierce anger laced each harsh syllable.

‘Why don’t you take your assumptions somewhere where they’ll be less offensive?’ she snapped, equally angry. ‘I didn’t have anything more to drink!’

A dubious dark brow elevated. ‘No?’

She flung him an infuriated stare. ‘No!’ she repeated. ‘Do you have any idea how long it is since I had a decent night’s sleep? I was exhausted last night. I fell asleep within minutes of your departure.’

Dark eyes aimed a derisive and renewed challenge. ‘You can still be grateful that I did come back. You left the candles burning. Didn’t you realise that the electricity was only switched off at the meter? You didn’t even put a guard up on that fire,’ he informed her grimly. ‘This house has wood partition walls. You’re fortunate it wasn’t your funeral pyre last night!’

Pale now, she hunched under the quilt, her hands cupped round the coffee. ‘I’m not normally so careless, but if you’re looking for gratitude, you’re in the wrong place. Nobody asked you to interfere. How long have you been here?’

‘Since about three,’ he admitted shortly. ‘I didn’t like to leave you again until I was sure you were all right.’

Pinned to her mattress, sluggish and dishevelled, she felt grossly disadvantaged. ‘Have you turned nocturnal?’ she enquired. ‘Won’t someone have missed you?’

‘Sophie’s used to my being out at night.’

Really? He stayed overnight with Paula, did he? Times must have changed in Mirsby. You’d have been a scarlet woman the length and the breadth of the neighbourhood if you had behaved like that when Kitty had lived here. Hating him, she let coffee scald her tongue. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? Yesterday had been a truly ghastly day and Jake had clogged up far too much of it.

‘Throw on some clothes. I’ll take you home for breakfast. A neighbourly act,’ he specified drily.

She nearly choked on her coffee. ‘Breakfast?’

Abruptly he dropped down on a level with her. ‘I’ve had enough drama in the last twenty-four hours to last me into the next century,’ he warned abrasively. ‘I also have a suggestion I want to put to you.’

‘Keep it. Keep breakfast as well,’ she advised, bending her head to evade a collision with rich, dark eyes far too close for comfort.

‘Is it so hard for you even to be civil to me?’ he raked, low and rough.

Her eyes closed. Every minute she spent in his radius heightened her inner turmoil. It would not be long before he questioned the depth of her bitter sensitivity to an episode he had firmly set behind him under the forgivable heading of misspent youth. She was terrified of exposing her vulnerability to that extent. But she would never be able to forgive him for the impossible choice he had once laid before her. How could she forget the agony of losing her baby?

Her eyelids smarted with sudden stinging moisture. That was a period of her life that she did not want to recall in his presence. It made her too vulnerable.

Jake expelled his breath, searching the drawn tension of her shielded profile. ‘Look, I can understand that you feel pretty raw right now, but I’m not the enemy.’

With a shaken sound of disagreement, she pushed back the quilt. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

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