29

FIFTEEN MONTHS LATER

THE SPRIGHTLY, JUBILANT sound of church bells jangled out over the Wiltshire village. Confetti snowed over the gathering as women in flowered hats with matching shoes and handbags jostled for position around the bride and groom, like the autumn leaves fluttering to the roots of the trees. Men in sober grey morning suits, paisley waistcoats and mint green cravats hovered awkwardly on the periphery waiting to be told what to do. Overhead the sun dazzled its way through the clouds, peering between them like the beaming faces of villagers peering from their curtains. Everyone loved a wedding, especially one like this that was flowing with happiness and ringing with laughter.

In fact it wasn’t a wedding, it was a blessing, for Sarah and Morandi had married two days earlier at a registry office in London. They’d spent that honeymoon at Lucknam Park, a few miles away, the next they were spending in slightly more exotic climes. At least Sarah assumed they were, Morandi was in charge of that and she couldn’t imagine he’d let her down. Well, she could, but she wasn’t going to dwell on that.

She was as radiant as any bride could be, all decked out in creamy lace frills and oozing bubbles of joy as big as her new six-year-old stepson could blow them. Morandi’s expression ranged from bewildered to forlorn to furious depending on who he was looking at the time. Right now he was at the upper end of the scale as he clapped a hand over his son’s face and the bubblegum popped in a fine, pink splodge over a pair of cheery, freckled cheeks. Morandi looked at his hand in dismay. His first wife, Dolly, passed him a handkerchief as his second wife, Tina, cuffed her son round the ear.

‘It was the only way I could get him to wear a suit,’ she responded through her teeth to Morandi’s glare.

Laughing, Sarah scooped little Nigel up in her arms and planted a kiss on his nose. The cameras went crazy and Nigel gleefully poked out his tongue.

Sarah’s sisters were arranging the bridesmaids, all eight of them, since they included all nieces and all daughters and stepdaughters, while her bemused and slightly tipsy father tried to work out exactly how many grandchildren he now had. The total was so awesome he reached into his pocket for his shiny, new flask – a gift from Sarah that morning.

Group photographs over, it was time now for the bride and groom, chief bridesmaid and best man. Morandi treated his fifteen-year-old son, the best man, to a murderous glare. In return Gregory grinned at his old man and winked. Sarah gave a splutter of laughter, smothering it quickly as Morandi turned his unamused eyes on her. The boy had dyed his hair green! There was nothing funny about that. On today of all days, the wretched monster had dyed his hair the colour of his grandmother’s hat and then spiked it towards the heavens like he’d just plugged himself in. When he’d walked jauntily into the church earlier, swaggering up the aisle and making bows to his appreciative siblings, it had been all Morandi could do not to sock him one. And Sarah, typically, thought it was great! Still, at least his daughters hadn’t let him down, that was providing he was prepared to overlook the ripping fart the youngest had trumpeted at the end of the first hymn. Sarah had almost gone to pieces and for a moment there Morandi had thought the vicar was going to lose it too. What a family!

Louisa was on the footpath leading down to the gate, standing with Sarah’s relatives and watching Erik position the main players. Her sides were aching she had laughed so much. Morandi and his family were the best entertainment she’d seen in ages and Morandi’s dolorous expression combined with his efforts to disguise his son’s hair by resting an elbow on a low hanging branch thereby drooping the foliage over Mark’s head like a wig was causing tears to run down her cheeks.

At last it was time to depart for the reception. Louisa helped Erik stow his cameras back in their cases then waited while he signed a few autographs. He gave a quick few words to the local paper who’d turned out more because of the astonishing tip off that Erik Svensson was photographing the wedding than for the wedding itself, then they climbed into his car and drove off to the local country club.

There was even more hilarity to come and as the day wore on and the champagne flowed as freely as the laughter, Sarah’s excitement coupled with her wicked and lively sense of humour finally worked its magic on Morandi and he eventually, though grudgingly, relaxed. The speeches were shot through with innuendo and ribaldry and a touching amount of affection for both newly-weds. Morandi could only stare in open-mouthed amazement that his appalling, green-haired son could be so articulate, never mind witty. Actually he knew he was a wit, his hair proved that, but that he could string two sentences together that didn’t contain either the word tosser or wanker was such a pleasing revelation to Morandi that he decided he might relent and let him come and live with them after all. Sarah was all for it, of course, if she had her way the entire brood would be living with them, but so far Morandi had put his foot down. He wanted her all to himself and vying for her attention amongst his boisterous flock made him feel almost as ridiculous as he did when he danced.

However, the champagne had oiled up his limbs nicely and his wife seemed so impressed by his writhings and jivings, even if his children didn’t, that he threw himself into it body and soul. He wished, when he came to see the video later, that he hadn’t, but at the time it had felt like sweet revenge on a family who had dished out more than their fair share of embarrassment.

Louisa, he told her, as he attempted to emulate her fantastically supple rendition of the twist, looked ravishing. So did Erik. In fact Erik looked so delicious with his recently acquired tan Morandi decided to kiss him. The two of them then proceeded to rock and bop with such astonishing vigour and expertize that they drew a hand-clapping, foot-stomping crowd around them that burst into uproarious laughter as their heads collided whilst taking a bow.

The revelries continued long after Sarah and Morandi had departed for their secret honeymoon destination. Both families knew how to have a good time and everyone agreed, even Morandi’s previous two wives, that they’d never enjoyed a wedding so much. But by midnight it was time to be getting back to their various homes and hotels, the children were tired, three of them had been sick and Sarah’s grandmother was about to get started on her ‘When I was a girl in the war’ stories.

When Louisa and Erik returned to their hotel Erik stayed in the bar for a nightcap with Danny’s parents, while Louisa went on to bed. It had surprised everyone that Danny’s parents had come, Sarah had thought they’d back out at the last minute. But they seemed to have enjoyed themselves, even though just to look at them it was plain to see that they were no closer now to getting over Danny’s death than they had been a year ago. They had tried in a rather awkward and embarrassing way to draw Louisa into their family, but Louisa had gently resisted, knowing that she could no more fill the gap in their lives than they could in hers.

Throwing her hat and her bag on the bed she went to sit in front of the mirror and resting her chin in her hands stared back at her reflection. She’d drunk a lot more than she’d realized and now that it was beginning to wear off she could feel herself becoming maudlin. Another reason not to have stayed downstairs with Danny’s parents. It had been a wonderful day, too wonderful to spoil with painful memories and tears. Which, she realized, suddenly springing up from the chair, she was about to do because her mind was so full of Jake that her heart just couldn’t stand it.

Of course she’d known that she couldn’t get through the day without thinking about him, that would have been too much to expect, especially when she didn’t get through any day without doing that, but today had been even more difficult than she’d expected. In its way, it had frightened her, or was it just the alcohol that was making her afraid that this awful, unbearable waiting for something that just might never happen was going to go on for ever?

It wasn’t that her life had stood still this past year, or that she had spent her time living in the blind, self-deluding hope that one day the phone would ring and it would be him, for that had already happened. The first time he’d called had been last October, a year ago yesterday. They’d only spoken for a few minutes, just long enough for him to tell her that he was sorry he hadn’t stayed around to say goodbye and that he hoped she was recovering OK. When she’d asked him how he was his answers were vague and she’d got the impression that someone else was in the room with him. He’d rung off then saying he’d call her again in a couple of weeks, but he hadn’t, not until the new year, by which time she had managed to convince herself that she would never hear from him again.

The second call had come early one morning as she was preparing to sit down and write. It would have been midnight in San Diego and though there was no slur in his voice to suggest it, she couldn’t help wondering if he’d been drinking. He’d sounded much more positive than he had the last time and to her amazement he had actually talked about Martina. He knew now, through the confessions of her kidnappers, that Martina had never suffered physically during her three years of imprisonment. She had been moved from one luxurious hacienda to another and given everything she wanted, except of course her freedom. Jake now had in his possession the journals that had been in the attic where Louisa was held hostage, so he knew that Consuela hadn’t actually been Martina’s mother, but it was something he’d never made public. He’d gone on to ask how things were going with her and had sounded pleased to hear she was getting her life back together. Perversely this had upset her, mainly because she’d sensed that once she’d got her new series off the ground, the one she’d started in France, he could disappear quietly from her life and stop feeling guilty about the mayhem and madness he had dragged her into.

By the time his third call came Morandi had put her back in touch with Gaston Olivier, the Parisian film financier she had met at the Colombe d’Or, who was already a fair way down the road towards getting together a group of European producers to back her series. Jake had sounded impressed, had wanted to know all about it and had even offered a few words of advice in dealing with the Germans, something, as it turned out, he had considerable experience of.

His calls had continued to come, on and off, ever since, but instead of making her feel closer to him, they somehow seemed to make him more distant. She put it down to the time difference, to the thousands of miles that separated them, but in her heart she knew that it was because he rarely talked about himself or his daughter. That part of his life was completely closed to her and there were times when she felt she was talking to a stranger. A few months ago there had been hazy, badly focused pictures of him and Antonia in one of the Sunday supplements. Obviously the photographer hadn’t been invited into the grounds of the Mallory ranch, but what he had managed to capture was enough to tell the tale. A little girl trotting around a paddock on a pony, her father holding the reins, then swinging her up in his arms and laughing and shaking her. Then the same little girl on her father’s shoulders, clutching his hair as he jogged her around the garden and obviously shrieking with delight. The two of them rolling in the grass, or walking hand in hand, or gazing earnestly into each other’s eyes as they talked. A sleepy Antonia with a thumb in her mouth and her head on Jake’s shoulder as he carried her towards the house. And then a few weeks later, the one that had torn at Louisa’s heart, the picture of Jake and Antonia Mallory sitting at the helm of a yacht, both with patches over their left eye.

She’d told him the next time he’d called that she’d seen the pictures, but he hadn’t wanted to discuss it and afterwards he hadn’t contacted her again for over a month. She realized it was because she had intruded further into his life than he was prepared to allow, but she hadn’t known what she could do to repair it. She couldn’t be blamed for what she saw in the press and Erik had tried to comfort her by telling her how hard Jake was finding it to deal with his conflicting emotions. His love for Martina had by no means died with her and his grief, his sense of failure and guilt combined with his feelings for Louisa were tearing him apart. To love another woman after what his wife had been through, to have loved that woman while Martina was still alive, was, to him, unforgivable. And now he was punishing himself by denying himself something he desperately wanted while devoting his life to his and Martina’s daughter. Louisa understood all this, but there were times, like now, when the need to hold him, to comfort him and show him that it wasn’t wrong for him to love her was so urgent she could hardly bear it. And of course there were other times, usually when she was tired or hadn’t heard from him in a while, when the hope that they would eventually make it was eroded by the fear that he was never going to allow it.

Sarah had been to California. She and Morandi had gone to see her photographs hanging in the Mallory yacht clubs along the coast and to carry out the commissions she had received as a result. That had been three weeks of pure agony for Louisa, as she’d lived in dread of what Sarah might say if she saw Jake. And her worst nightmares had come to fruition when she’d next spoken to Jake and he’d asked if she was serious about any of the men she’d been seeing. It was true, in her less optimistic moments she had tried dating other men, but it hadn’t worked. She’d even tried sleeping with one of them, and that had been a disaster. It all felt so wrong, so disloyal and out of sync with the truth. It was like looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing someone else’s face. It didn’t belong, just like these other men didn’t belong in her life. Of course Sarah had told him in the hope of jolting him into some sort of action, but if she’d consulted Louisa first Louisa could have told her that she was wasting her time. To lose Louisa to another man now was exactly what Jake felt he deserved, but like it or not, she’d told him angrily, he wasn’t going to get it. There had been a long, excruciating silence before he’d said that she had to make up her own mind what she did with her life, that it had nothing to do with him.

To her surprise and relief he had called again after that, just over three weeks ago now and probably because it was that time of the month and she was feeling tense anyway, she had told him she was fed up, miserable and whether he wanted to hear it or not she still loved him and she was sorry if it offended him, but there didn’t seem to be any signs that she was going to stop. It hadn’t been what he wanted to hear and his answer was something she wished to God she had never heard.

‘I told you a long time ago there would never be a future for us,’ he’d said, ‘and now I’m telling you again. Get on with your life and stop kidding yourself there’s ever going to be anything between us.’

Tears were streaming down her face and her heart was so filled with pain she could barely speak. ‘Then why do you keep calling me, Jake?’ she said. ‘Why are you doing this to me if you don’t feel the same way any more?’

‘Look, things are good for you now, Louisa,’ he said. ‘You’ve got it together, Olivier will open doors for you …’

‘Jake, please. Can’t we talk about this? Can’t we at least see each other and try to …’

‘Don’t make this any harder, Louisa,’ he interrupted. ‘Us getting together would be a mistake, you know that. It’ll only hurt you more and I can’t handle any more guilt right now.’

‘It’s all about you and how you feel, isn’t it Jake?’ she cried. ‘Well I’m sorry about Martina, really really sorry, but can’t you see the way you’re messing up my life, letting me think that there might be some hope, that the next time you call you might just say something that will show me you’re getting over all this. You’re keeping me hanging on, calling me, asking me how things are going, saying you’re interested in my life, when the truth is you don’t really give a damn, do you? All you want is one less person to feel guilty about.’

There was a long and terrible silence before he said, ‘Louisa, it’s going to be easier on you if you try to come to terms with the fact that I don’t love you. I’m not sure now that I ever did …’

‘Oh Jake, please, don’t say that …’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and the line went dead.

She hadn’t heard from him since and this time she knew beyond any doubt that she wasn’t going to. It didn’t stop her hoping of course, but she knew she was a fool to do so. The trouble was he seemed to be filling her mind even more now than ever. She felt like a shell sitting in London or Paris while her thoughts and her heart were in San Diego – a city she didn’t even know. She spent hours writing him letters that she knew before she started she’d never send. Her eyes were always straying to the clock, calculating the time difference and wondering what he might be doing now. She even rang the airlines to find out flight times to San Diego whilst knowing she would never go. Everything she did seemed such a pointless exercise and she hated the way he had stolen the purpose from her life.

Gritting her teeth in anger she kicked her shoes into the corner of the room. What was happening to her, for Christ’s sake? She was so eaten up with self-pity she could hardly think beyond it. Maybe Sarah was right, she should fight for him, she should get herself over there and make him tell her to her face that it really was over. Would he have the courage for that? Perhaps more to the point, would she? Besides, did she really need telling to her face? It had been bad enough on the phone, but at least then she had been in the privacy of her own home. And what was the point in making a fool of herself, of putting them both through such horrible embarrassment when he’d made himself perfectly plain – there was no future for them, he didn’t love her and maybe never had. So wasn’t it about time she started making herself believe that? Wasn’t it time now to put it all behind her and accept that as much as she liked to tell herself otherwise, he wasn’t coming back. He still belonged to Martina and as far as she could see he always would.

The following morning Erik drove them both to the airport where he was getting a plane back to Rio to continue with the shoot he had interrupted. Louisa took his car on into London, spent twenty minutes trying to park it, then ran through the rain with her luggage back to her flat.

There were four messages on her answer phone and as usual her heart tightened with the hope that one of them might be from Jake. The thought made her want to smash the machine against the wall. If just once she could look at that damned thing without thinking of him then there probably would be a message. As it was, her ridiculous, infuriating hope felt like a jinx. Deciding to ignore it she went to unpack her wedding outfit, made a cup of coffee and opened the mail. It was only when the phone rang an hour or so later that she remembered the messages.

The first was from Sarah, ringing from the airport, with a message for Erik. Sarah was having her first major show when she returned from honeymoon and Erik was handling the publicity. The second was from Jean-Claude asking how the wedding had gone and apologizing once again for not being able to make it over. The third and fourth were from friends inviting her for dinner and to see a movie. Of course none of them had been from Jake, she knew he wasn’t going to call, so why, Goddammit, did she keep doing this to herself?

‘I hope that husband of yours has told you how fantastic you look tonight,’ Erik said, coming up behind Sarah and whisking her glass from her mouth to kiss her.

‘Erik!’ she cried, throwing her arms around him. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t going to make it.’

‘As if,’ he laughed. ‘Anyway, seems like you’re doing pretty well without me,’ he added, casting an approving eye around the crowded gallery. ‘And a few red stickers, I see. My God, what’s that!’ he suddenly cried, spotting one of Morandi’s little chef d’œuvres nestling shyly between two towering framed pictures of the Esterel.

‘Sssh,’ Sarah giggled, ‘he’ll hear you,’ and taking Erik’s arm she turned him to one side to explain. ‘I said he could hang a few because he looked so down in the dumps that no one was showing any interest in his work.’ She started to laugh. ‘You know what Michael, the thirteen-year-old said? “You’re not going to let the old tosspot put his rubbish up, are you?” Erik, if you’d seen Morandi’s face! I’m not sure whether it was the tosspot, old or rubbish that did it, but he looked so devastated I couldn’t back out then. And besides, look, four of them have sold.’

Erik was grinning and seeing the way Sarah’s eyes were sparkling he had no problem working out who Morandi’s mysterious, never mind misguided, benefactors were – in fact, even as they spoke Sarah’s father, under an assumed name of course, was making his bewildering purchase.

‘So where’s Louisa?’ Erik said, scanning the crowd again and waving to a group of his trendy staff over in one corner. ‘It’s a great turnout,’ he remarked, ‘better even than I expected.’

‘That’s because your name was attached to it,’ Sarah reminded him. ‘Anyway, Louisa’s not coming.’

‘What! You’re joking!’

‘Erik!’ Morandi cried, slapping him on the back. ‘When did you get here? I didn’t see you come in.’

‘About five minutes ago,’ Erik said, ‘and Sarah’s just told me Louisa’s not coming. I was really hoping to see her tonight …’

‘Has Sarah told you why she’s not coming?’ Morandi asked, gazing adoringly into his wife’s eyes.

‘Come on you two, the honeymoon’s over,’ Erik laughed as Sarah gazed back at Morandi.

‘That’s what you think,’ Sarah murmured. ‘Anyway, prepare yourself for this … Louisa’s not coming because …’ and pulling Erik’s ear down to her mouth she began to whisper.

‘I don’t believe it!’ Erik cried when she’d finished. ‘I just don’t believe it. I never thought she’d do it.’

‘Well she has,’ Sarah told him, glancing around and hoping that none of the press had overheard what she’d just said. They didn’t seem to have and as her eyes returned to Erik’s he started to laugh and shake his head as though he was still having a problem believing it.

Someone who was having even more of a problem believing it was Louisa herself, for never would she have dreamt she’d do something like this. But it was only now, as she stood there on the tarmac at Los Angeles airport waiting in line to board the small plane to San Diego that the enormity of what she was about to do seemed to be reaching her. Right up until the moment the 747 had touched down at LAX she had been convinced she was doing the right thing. She’d talked it over with Sarah for days before booking the flight and once it was done it had seemed to strengthen her resolve even further. She knew he was never going to call her, knew that nothing so romantic and sixpenny novelish as him turning up on her doorstep was going to happen, so she’d taken destiny into her own hands and flown over six thousand miles to … To what? What was she going to do, apart from make a complete fool of herself? She took a deep breath. She was going to call him from the hotel and tell him where she was. Then she was going to say that if he still didn’t want to see her she would just turn around and go home.

‘There’s not a whole lot of room on board, ma’am,’ one of the ground staff shouted over the noise of the engines, making her jump as he broke into her thoughts. ‘Would you like to store your hand baggage in the hold?’

Louisa looked at the man in his bulky headphones and leather jacket and wanted desperately to say no, she would rather turn right around and go back into the airport. ‘Thank you,’ she said, handing it over. Then turning to look at the great blazing orange ball of the sun as it sank down over the Pacific she said, ‘Do you have a lot of sunsets like this?’

‘We sure do, ma’am,’ the man answered. ‘Would you like to step aboard now.’

It seemed only minutes later that the aircraft was taxiing down the runway, soaring outwards and upwards as though to shave the curved edge from the dazzling, melting crescent of the sun and carrying her relentlessly, inexorably towards a city she now never wanted to see.

This all felt so horribly wrong that she wished she could wake up and find out it was all just a nightmare. What on earth was he going to think? That she was insane was probably the best she could hope for. Whatever, he obviously wasn’t going to be pleased because if he’d wanted to see her he’d have told her. In fact, what he’d told her was that he didn’t want to see her. So what was the matter with her? Did she really have to have it spelled out this way?

The grinding nerves in her stomach intensified as she reminded herself that she had to give this a try, if only because she had to satisfy herself that she had done everything in her power to give them a chance. And if he turned her away then at least she would know that she really was wasting her time to go on hoping. And she must stop asking herself what kind of self-respecting woman went chasing after a man this way, because she knew that it was a woman who felt the man was worth fighting for. The maddening thing was that it had all seemed so easy when she was just talking about it, doing it was another thing altogether.

Her brown eyes were wide and anxious as she stared out at the darkening night sky. Each passing mile seemed to be draining her confidence, dissipating it, shredding it like the propellers breaking up the meandering drifts of cloud. She fought hard to keep it locked firmly inside her, but there were so many doubts, so much misgiving and apprehension that by the time the plane swooped down over San Diego she knew her nerve had failed her completely. She felt pathetic and angry as she pressed her way through the crowds in the arrival hall, thankful only for the fact that no one could see her shame. She collected her luggage and made her way to the exit, thankful for one other thing – that in this country that suddenly felt so foreign at least everything was in English. Catching a quick glimpse of her reflection she almost wanted to laugh. Her tawny hair fell softly over one cheek, the fine bones of her face, her slender neck, the black sweater and leggings she’d chosen for comfort, all gave out an elegance and poise that she was so very far from feeling. Then pushing hurriedly out through the big glass doors she discarded the faint hope that Sarah might have called him to tell him she was on her way. If Sarah had, he hadn’t responded.

In less than half an hour a taxi delivered her to the hotel in La Jolla, a district of San Diego that appeared as resplendent in bright white Spanish style buildings, glittering lights and gently swaying palms as it did in wealth. Though she didn’t know where exactly La Jolla was in relation to Rancho Santa Fe where Jake lived Sarah had told her that it wasn’t far. But it didn’t matter how far it was, she was quite resolved now that she was going to save them both the embarrassment of calling him.

Before getting into bed she picked up the phone and dialled Sarah’s number. Maybe Sarah would say something to help pull her out of this jungle of indecision and misgiving.

‘Hi, where are you?’ Sarah said.

‘At the hotel in La Jolla.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Louisa frowned. For some reason Sarah sounded disturbed by that.

‘Have you called him yet?’ Sarah asked.

‘No. I don’t think I’m going to.’

‘Oh,’ Sarah said.

Louisa’s heart turned over at the flatness of Sarah’s tone. She’d felt sure that Sarah was going to encourage her to call, but it seemed that Sarah had undergone a change of heart too.

‘When did you get there?’ Sarah said.

‘About an hour ago. Sarah, I really wish I hadn’t done this now. It feels all wrong. But I just can’t reconcile myself to coming all the way home again without calling. Tell me what I should do. For God’s sake tell me what I should do!’

‘Oh shit,’ Sarah groaned. ‘I wish I was there with you.’

‘I wish you were too.’

Sarah took a breath, then very gently she said, ‘Louisa, I have to tell you this … He knows you’re there.’

Louisa’s eyes closed as her heart folded around the cruel rejection Sarah’s words had conjured. ‘What do you mean?’ she whispered. ‘How does he know?’

‘I called him just after you left in the hope he might come to meet you at the airport.’

‘I see,’ Louisa said, her eyes moving sightlessly over the heavy, brocaded curtains. This couldn’t be happening. Sarah hadn’t done that. He couldn’t know she was there, please God, he couldn’t. ‘Well, I guess I know now what I came to find out,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said miserably. ‘I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, but Morandi thought it might go better for you if Jake had some warning that you were coming. Oh God, Louisa, I’ve ruined it for you now and you’re such a long way away …’

‘No, you haven’t ruined it,’ Louisa told her, wanting so desperately to see him now that it was consuming every part of her. He knew she was there and he hadn’t come! ‘What you’ve done is given him the choice of whether or not he wants to see me.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Book myself on the first flight out tomorrow.’

There was a pause before Sarah spoke again. ‘Maybe you should try calling him anyway,’ she said. ‘He might feel differently once he hears your voice.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Louisa answered. ‘I’m going to ring off now, I’ll call you again with my flight details. Can you pick me up from Heathrow?’

‘Of course.’

After calling the front desk to reserve her flights Louisa lay down on the bed, hugging herself and trying to contain the crying ache inside her. It felt so much worse now that they were in the same city, so much more vital now that she knew it wasn’t possible. It was so bad she could hardly bear it. She could sense his anger at what she had done as though it were there in the room, stealing through her as unrelentingly as the pain of the rejection. She felt such a fool, such an intruder in a city that was his. It was where he belonged with Antonia and his father – and his memories of Martina. What they had shared in France belonged to that one isolated summer and she had no right to trespass beyond it. He had told her so many times that there was no future for them and she’d sworn, even to herself, that she believed him. But of course, she hadn’t, if she had she wouldn’t be here now, putting herself through such unnecessary pain and humiliation.

The night passed in a blur of misery and fury at her own stupidity, all she wanted was to be on a plane back to London, to be as far away from him as she could get.

Her breakfast was served on the wrought-iron balcony overlooking the incredible blue Pacific. She had no appetite so leaning her elbows on the balustrade she cupped her face in her hands and stared out at the faint grey smudge of pollution on the horizon. The gentle ocean breeze carried the flowery scent of the gardens below and the distant sound of traffic. She could hardly bear any of it as the need to know what he was doing, where he was in this city she would never see, lapped over her heart like the waves lapping the shore.

An hour later she called down to reception for someone to come and collect her bags. When they’d gone she stood staring at the phone. Its silence throughout the night had told her all she needed to know, but still she was asking herself if she could really have come all this way just to turn around and go back? It seemed insane, more insane than having come here in the first place. And quite suddenly, without giving herself time to think, she took his number from her bag and dialled it. A man’s voice, not Jake’s, answered after the second ring.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Could I speak to Jake Mallory please?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ the voice answered, ‘he’s not at home right now. Can I give him a message?’

‘No, no message,’ she said and with her heart pounding through her ears she hung up. She guessed that he was probably there, that he had told whoever answered the phone to say he wasn’t at home. For one terrible moment she wanted to scream, to lash out at him and tell him how much she hated him for making her behave like this. Seeing his number in her diary she picked up a pen and scored thick black lines across it. If only it were so easy to blot him from her life. But she would, she’d have to now – and, feeling a bitter resistance to the comfort she tried to draw from the fact that there could no longer be any wasted hours of hope or futile dreams of reunion, she picked up her bag and turned towards the door. Now all she wanted was for the hours to melt into minutes, the distance to contract into nothing and to find herself back in London where she could perhaps pretend that she had never embarked on this fool’s mission.

Pulling the door open she checked in her bag for the key. Then as she looked up her eyes dilated in shock. She tried to speak but no sound came out as she felt herself faltering in the dark intensity of his eyes. His shoulders were resting against the opposite wall, his hands were in his pockets and as he shrugged himself away from the wall for one panicked moment she almost turned and ran back into the room. But the compelling anger and pain in his expression stopped her.

As he gazed down into her frightened yet defiant eyes and saw how tired and torn apart she looked, his mouth hardened even as he raised a hand to stop her closing the door.

‘Why have you done this?’ he growled.

Her mouth trembled as she answered. ‘Why do you think?’ she answered, pain edging her voice with anger.

He turned and stared off down the corridor, his hand still resting on the door above her head. He was so close, so unbearably and overwhelmingly close, yet there was a barrier between them that was holding her away, pushing her back with the same force as his magnetism drew her.

She looked at the bandanna knotted untidily at his throat, the brilliance of his white shirt that made his hair and his skin seem so dark, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the hard set of his jaw as he turned his haunted eyes back to hers. The telltale signs of grief were etched deeply at the sides of his mouth, the ageing shadows of sleepless nights ringed his eyes.

‘Why didn’t you call last night?’ he said gruffly.

‘Because I knew when I got here what a mistake it had been to come.’

He nodded. ‘So?’

‘So I’m going home,’ she said angrily.

He dropped his head, wiping a hand over the inky black stubble on his chin. Despite the distance he was holding her at, despite the resolute hardness in his heart, he could feel her moving into him the way she so often did at night, the way she had in those hours before Martina died. The thought was like oil on the flame of his anger. She had no place in his life, so why had he come here? Why didn’t he just let her go? Her vulnerability was stealing into him, filling him with the crying ache to hold her, to crush her in his arms and forget everything that had gone before. But the guilt of loving her more than he had loved Martina was so heavy within him he couldn’t find a way past it.

He raised his eyes back to hers and the delicacy of her face, the fullness of her lips and the troubled depths of her luminous eyes closed around his heart like an excruciating, comforting pain. He harboured no fool’s dream that they could pick up where they’d left off, it just wasn’t possible. But to go on hurting her this way was no answer; to assuage his guilt by denying her his love, by shutting her out and blinding himself to what existed between them was only going to cripple him further. The words came almost of their own accord. ‘We should talk,’ he said.

She looked long into his eyes before slowly shaking her head. ‘No. You’re not ready and I …’

‘We need to talk,’ he interrupted harshly.

‘How can we,’ she cried, ‘when you’re in this kind of mood and …’

‘You took that risk by coming here,’ he snapped.

‘And I was a damned fool to have done it, so I don’t need you coming here and making me feel even worse than I already do.’

His jaw tightened, but as he rolled his eyes and a ghost of the irony she remembered so well stole into them she felt tears start to swim in her own.

‘Jake, please,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do either, but I’ve booked my flight home now and …’

‘Cancel it,’ he said.

‘I can’t,’ she whispered, lowering her eyes.

‘Why?’

As she shook her head she could feel the emotion tightening her throat, choking off her answer. It was so hard to be sure if he really wanted her to stay or if he was only saying it because …

‘Why?’ he repeated, putting his fingers under her chin and lifting her face. The surprising gentleness of his touch, the probing tenderness in his eyes sank deeply and painfully into her heart.

‘Because I don’t think you really want me to.’

‘I want you to,’ he said, fighting against the words even as he spoke them. But they were true, he wanted her to stay. He wanted … His eyes dropped to her mouth, then with a humourless laugh he closed them and let his hand fall away. How could he be thinking of making love to her now, of holding her exquisite, slender body against his own, when he was so damned mixed up, so unsure of what he really wanted, it was driving him crazy.

She could sense the dilemma in him as acutely as she could sense her own fear. But he needed her, she felt so sure of it, but still she was afraid. Slowly, tentatively and hardly daring to breathe, she reached out to touch him, resting her hand lightly on his chest as she watched his eyes open and gaze into hers.

‘Will you cancel it?’ he said.

She nodded.

His eyes were burning into hers as covering her hand with his he drew her into the circle of his arm and brought his mouth harshly down on hers. The taste of him, the smell of him and the feel of him was like a slow burning power spreading its heat through her veins. But it wasn’t right, his passion felt like a punishment. She tried to push him away, but he held her firmly, letting go of her mouth and wrapping her in his arms as he buried his face in her neck. ‘Don’t go,’ he whispered.

‘I won’t,’ she said, holding him tightly. ‘But stop hating me. Please, stop hating me.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ he said, pulling her back to look into her face.

‘Then what is it?’

His eyes looked searchingly, almost desperately into hers. Didn’t she have any idea how much he had suffered for loving her? But no, she didn’t, how could she, he’d never told her. He’d shut her out and made her suffer too.

‘It’s a whole lot of things,’ he said, holding her against him. Then a light of incredulous laughter flickered in his eyes as he added, ‘You took one hell of a gamble coming here and I’ve got to tell you I was pretty damned mad when Sarah called to tell me you were on your way. But then, when you didn’t call last night was when I realized … Well, I guess I realized that I couldn’t let you go without seeing you.’

‘And now?’

His eyes held hers. It wasn’t the moment to tell her that he still didn’t know if he could forgive himself for loving her while Martina was still alive, that was something they would have to deal with in the days, maybe the months, to come. What mattered now was that he took the uncertainty from her eyes by letting her know that whatever was waiting for them in the future, good or bad, he wanted to be there for her the way she was here for him now. And the only way he could start was by letting the love show in his eyes as he gazed down into hers and offered her the single most precious thing in the world to him, ‘Now,’ he said, ‘there’s a little girl not too far away from here who I think is going to be happy to meet you.’