Excerpt
I stood at the gates and stared at the 9-bedroom
detached house in front of me for a long time, my bags containing everything I
own on the ground at my feet. And when I
say ‘everything I own’ I mean just that.
My entire life and possessions fit into one bag. I’d learnt not to get too attached to
anything at the age of seven when my mother and I had run from my father before
dawn one morning with nothing except the clothes on our backs. I’d had to leave the precious, beautiful
dolls my beloved maternal grandmother had passed down to me. It was a tough lesson, but it taught me to never
get attached or hold on to anything that could be lost, stolen, taken away or
left behind.
I continued to stare at the ridiculously large house, as if my intense stare could somehow make it shrink or disappear. I’d lived in the small, comfortable 2-bedroom adjoining staff house from the ages of seven to nineteen, but now the sprawling main house was my home.
All of it.
I didn’t own it, but I was free to do pretty much what I wanted to do in it.
I could sit on the plush chairs in the grand living room.
I could walk into the kitchen and take whatever I wanted. Or better still, call down and have a maid bring it up to me.
I could start the day with a leisurely swim in the Olympic-sized pool or work out in the state-of-the-art gym and have a sauna afterwards.
I could go for long walks in the extensive gardens.
I could drive any of the 10 classic cars in the garage.
I could watch the latest blockbuster in the cinema room.
I could do all of the above.
But all I wanted to do was turn around and run as far away as possible.
I heard the purr of an approaching car.
Too late!
Shit!
I listened as the engine was killed and the car door slammed, before I slowly turned around to face him.
Jake Bickerstaff.
Still the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on. He’d inherited his father’s amber eyes, but while his father’s were smiling, dreamy artist’s eyes, Jake’s were sharp like an eagle’s. Except for when we’d made love. His dark hair could have come from either side of his family tree, but I suspected that it was from his mother’s. The glossy strands hinted at her distant Indian ancestry. Four years ago it had been boyishly long and those strands had softly caressed my naked body when he had kissed me all over. His mouth…oh God, his mouth…looked angelic, the only part of him that did, but it was deliciously wicked. I still blush when I think of the things he could do with his sinful tongue.
And from the first time he kissed me I knew that there would be no one else for me.
That’s why he was still my first and only lover.
Still my heartbreaker.
“What the hell are you playing at?” He was spitting nails as he came to stand and glare down at me. “I drove up to get you only to be told that you’d left already.”
“I didn’t know that you’d planned to come and get me.”
Even if I had known, it wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend a whole hour and a half in a car alone with him all the way from Oxford to Hampstead.
“I was worried sick.” He took hold of my upper arms as though to convince himself that I wasn’t a mirage and then he gave me a little shake. “Why didn’t you answer your mobile?”
“I didn’t hear it ringing.” I’d deliberately muted it, knowing that he might call and offer me a ride.
“Get in,” he ordered, letting me go and grabbing my bags.
I watched as he threw them unceremoniously onto the back seat of the convertible Rolls Royce Phantom.
“I can walk from here,” I said and turned back to the gate.
The space in the car wasn’t as confined as his Lamborghini’s and with the top down I had nothing to fear, but it was still closer to him than I wanted to be.
“Get in!”
He was bastard enough to throw me in bodily and Security was probably watching the cameras, wondering what was going on between us.
I reluctantly got it.
He slammed my door closed, went back around to the driver’s side and jumped in agilely without opening his.
Was that to remind me how virile you are? You needn’t have bothered!
“Why were you standing outside the gates?” he demanded as he started the car and drove smoothly through them as they opened.
“I was thinking that I would rather be anywhere but here,” I replied.
He stopped the car and I watched out of the corner of my eyes as his body tensed, every muscle contracting for a brief moment before he forced himself to relax. If I hadn’t seen him do the same thing dozens of times before when confronted by his belligerent grandfather, I would have thought that my words had no effect on him.
“You don’t have to worry, dear stepsister.” His lips curled into a sneer as he uttered the last word. “I don’t plan on having my wicked way with you.”
