“I don’t love you, Jake.”
He stiffened. A muscle in his cheek contracted. It was as though she’d hit him physically and Amy had the strangest feeling—a strong, unshakable feeling—that she’d hurt him. Hurt him badly. Which rattled her. She hadn’t considered Jake would be hurt by her rejection. Frustrated at not getting his own way, but not hurt.
She stared at him in wretched confusion and was caught by the changing expression in his eyes, the sharpening of his focus on her, the gathering of an intensity that felt like a powerful concentration of his will and energy, burning a challenge straight into her brain...a challenge that denied the knowledge she thought she had of him, denied even her knowledge of herself.
For a few riveting moments he seemed like a total stranger to her...or he took on dimensions she had not been aware of before. It gave her the scary feeling she was dealing with much more than she had anticipated, and she was suddenly riven with uncertainties. She almost jumped when he spoke.
“There is such a thing as a marriage of convenience, Amy. I believe it could work very well,” he said quietly.
One certainty instantly exploded from all the thinking she’d done and because he’d unsettled her so deeply, she answered with fierce emphasis. “I will not be a convenient wife to you. That might suit you, Jake, out and about your life, but I don’t see myself as the little woman at home, subservient to your needs.”
“Subservient! Since when haven’t I considered your needs?” His tone was harsher, edged with angry disbelief. “I’ve spent most of my time with you, putting your needs above my own. Can we have a bit of fairmindedness here, Amy?”
She flushed, unable to pluck out one pertinent example of inconsideration on his part, and he’d been especially sensitive to her needs since Steve had dumped her. The long shadow of her parents’ marriage crossed her mind...her mother serving her tyrannical father like a slave...but there was nothing tyrannical about Jake. He was more like a free-wheeling buccaneer, happy to lead anyone into adventurous fun.
“I want a marriage of sharing, Amy,” he pressed. “We happen to do that well.”
“Am I supposed to share you with all the women you fancy?” she flared, fighting her way out of being in the wrong.
“That’s enough!”
He slammed his hand down on the counter, the angry frustration he’d repressed erupting with such force, Amy shrank back against the door. Then was angry at herself for being intimidated.
“Don’t like the truth, Jake?” she challenged, her chin lifting into fighting mode.
“You want the truth?” he flung back at her, too incensed to back down this time. “I’ll give it to you. The high turnover of women in my life can be placed entirely at your door.”
“Mine?” she retorted incredulously.
“Yours!” He stabbed a finger at her. “So try swallowing that for a change instead of spitting out slurs on my lack of staying power.”
“And just how can it be my fault?”
“Because what we sparked off each other—and don’t you deny it, Amy—was stronger than anything I felt with the women I tried to relate to. Tried, because you made yourself inaccessible to me and it seemed pointless to wait for something that might never happen.”
The sheer passion in his voice rocked her into silence.
His eyes flashed with savage mockery. “Oh, you did your best to block it out...the natural connection that was always there between us. With two long years of blocking it out, it’s become a habit, hasn’t it? Keep Jake at a distance. Don’t let him close because something big might slip out of your control.”
A fierce pride hardened his features. “Which it did. The night we made a baby was bigger than anything I’ve felt in my life. And I’ll bet my life it was for you, too.”
His mouth twisted into a bitter grimace. “Two years wasted while I was fool enough to respect your commitment to a guy who ended up cheating on you. Two years...and now you want to waste the lot, clinging to some prejudicial rubbish.”
His eyes glittered derision at her. “Give her more time, I told myself. She’s still getting over that bastard. You’ll win her in the end, Jake.”
He shook his head. “You’re not even prepared to give me a chance for the sake of our child.”
The indictment he was delivering was so devastating, Amy could do nothing but listen, absorbing shock after shock as he forced her to recognise and acknowledge a different perception from what she had allowed herself. And the worst of it was, there was ample evidence to back up all he was saying.
She had used Steve as a barrier between them, no denying it if she was truly honest.
Once the barrier was gone...
She remembered Jake rattling on to baby Joshua after he’d learnt Steve was out of her life... We’ve got Amy Taylor right where we want her... well, not precisely.
Then later when she’d said she was on her own, Jake reminding her...I was here for you. When your scumbag of a lover let you down, I was here for you.
You do have me to count on.
Ruth’s attitude to her...the Wonderwoman in Jake’s life ever since she’d begun working for him. Even his mother saying Jake had talked so much about her... And they’d all told her she was the only woman he’d ever wanted to share his family Christmas.
The night of their mating flooded back into her mind... Jake asking her not to forget it, a special memory... uniquely special...and it truly had been...but she’d twisted it all to fit a different picture to the real truth...the truth he’d just forced her to see...the truth that damned everything she’d said and thought.
She saw the anger drain out of him, saw the passion give way to sadness, and had the sinking feeling she had dug her own grave and there was no way out of it.
“One day you’ll have to explain to our child why you wouldn’t marry me,” he put to her, his eyes dull and opaque, blocking her out of his heart. “If you have to keep lying to yourself...well, I guess that’s your choice. But don’t lie to my child about me, Amy. I don’t deserve that.”
Her heart felt like stone. She had done him so many terrible injustices. And for what? To ensure she was protected against her own natural impulses, her own instincts? Jake was twice the man Steve was. More. She’d always known it. Of course she had. And told herself he was too much to handle, too risky to take on. He was too handsome, too attractive, and there was too much competition for him. She wasn’t good enough to hold him.