Savage Innocence

The attractive male voice was achingly familiar, and, in spite of all the warnings she’d given herself these past weeks, Isobel’s heart leapt automatically at the sound. She knew it so well; knew every tone, every nuance, every sensual inflection. Which was why she had to get away, she thought, even though the knowledge pained her. There was no way she could avoid him if she continued to live at the apartment. Or in the area, she acknowledged wryly, even if a future without him in it looked abysmally black at this moment.

‘I’m here,’ she said, shedding her jacket onto the counter and emerging from the kitchen as Jared Kendall came strolling along the narrow hall. She forced herself to offer him a cool smile, even though she desperately wanted to run away from the temptation he represented. But she had to convince him that their relationship was over, and only by a show of total uninterest could she hope to arouse a similar response.

But God, it was hard, so hard, to disguise the fact that her feelings hadn’t changed. Just looking at him, knowing what they had once shared, turned every bone in her body to water. She didn’t want to care about him; she shouldn’t care about him; but she did. And it was that as much as anything that made her resent his coming here.

After the row they’d had two nights ago—the row she’d engineered—she’d been sure it would be several days before he’d attempt to see her again. If he ever did, she’d acknowledged honestly. There was just so much a man—any man—would take.

Yet now here he was, walking towards her with that loose-limbed gait that had always reminded her of the predator he represented. Tall, dark; if it wasn’t for the metal-framed spectacles riding on his nose, he’d be every woman’s fantasy, and even they only added to his appeal.

Though, to give him credit, he would have hated to think that that was so. Broad shoulders, lean hips, the muscles moving powerfully beneath his tanned skin, he had a toughness that didn’t just come from working a good part of his life outdoors. Not handsome, she conceded. His features were too strongly sculpted to fit that image, and one of the first things that had drawn Isobel to him was his total lack of vanity.

But now was not the time to be categorising all his good points, she thought impatiently. Somehow, however painful it might be, she had to make him see that what they’d had was over, finished; before he destroyed them both…

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, wrapping her arms about her midriff in an unknowingly defensive gesture, and Jared arched a sardonic brow.

‘Guess,’ he said drily, coming to a halt and regarding her with faint resignation. ‘If you start with the premise that I wanted to see you, you might come close.’

‘Don’t make fun of me.’

‘Okay.’ Jared pushed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. ‘How about if I say I’m sorry?’

‘You’re sorry?’ Isobel was caught off guard. ‘What are you sorry for?’

Jared blew out a breath. ‘How the hell do I know?’ he exclaimed, revealing he wasn’t quite as controlled as he’d like to appear. ‘Anything, everything; whatever I’ve done to make you be like this.’

‘Like this?’ Isobel latched onto the words. ‘Like what? What am I like?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Jared turned sideways and rested his shoulders back against the wall. ‘You know what I mean. Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Oh, right.’ He turned his head and gave her a disparaging look. ‘So why are we having this argument? Answer me that.’

Isobel was quivering inside, but she had to go on. ‘I can’t help it if you don’t like the things I say,’ she declared coolly. ‘Just because you can’t accept that I might be getting bored with our relationship—’

‘That’s not true!’ He straightened away from the wall, his voice swollen now with anger. ‘Our relationship may be many things, not all of them good, I’ll grant you, but it’s never been boring!’

‘So you say.’

‘So I know,’ he corrected her harshly. He glared angrily at her, his dark eyes smouldering hotly behind the curved lenses of his glasses. ‘What is this, Belle? What’s happening? Who’s been getting at you, for God’s sake? Is it your sister? Has she said something to upset you?’

‘Why should you think I’d need any encouragement?’ Isobel managed to inject exactly the right amount of contempt into her voice. ‘Just because you can’t accept it, doesn’t mean it isn’t so.’

Jared wrenched off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. Then, taking a deep breath, he composed himself. ‘So—what are you saying? That you don’t think we should see one another again?’

Isobel felt as if her insides were being rent apart. ‘Um—well, yes,’ she said tightly. ‘I think it would be best for—for both of us. Our relationship isn’t going anywhere. And—and I’m not prepared to spend the rest of my life waiting for something that may never happen.’

Jared’s face was dark with anguish when she’d finished. Without his glasses, which were still dangling from his hand, he had a vulnerability that wasn’t evident when the lenses he wore to correct his short-sightedness were in place. It tore her heart just to look at him, and she wondered what malign fate had decreed that she and Jared should meet.

Which was why she had to go…

‘You knew,’ he began, his voice thickening with emotion as he spoke, ‘you knew I was married when we first began seeing one another. I—never made any secret of the fact.’

‘I know—’

‘So why are you so impatient now?’

Why, indeed?

Isobel had to steel herself against the almost overwhelming urge she had to go to him then, to comfort him, to tell him that, far from wanting to split them up, she needed him more now than ever. She loved him; she’d known that from the minute she’d backed into his car.

She remembered that day on the supermarket car park now, how he’d uncoiled himself from behind the wheel of the huge Mercedes and come around to see what damage her small Ford had done. She’d expected many things, but not amusement, and his lazy smile had robbed the moment of any sting. She’d been hooked by that smile and by the easy assurance of his manner. The fact that he was also the sexiest man she’d ever seen was just the icing on the cake.

‘Perhaps I’ve changed my mind,’ she blurted now. Anything to distract herself from her thoughts. ‘It was fun at first—’

‘Fun!’

‘But I’m not getting any younger. I’ve decided I—I want a normal life; a normal relationship. I want to get married. Have you thought of that?’

‘I think of it all the time,’ he retorted bitterly. ‘But I’m not free, am I? I thought you understood.’

‘I do.’

‘It doesn’t sound like it.’

‘Well, it wasn’t meant to sound like that,’ she mumbled unhappily. Her heart ached, and she gripped herself tighter. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah, I bet you are.’

He shoved his glasses back onto his nose and thrust savage hands through his hair. His hair needed cutting again, Isobel noticed with unwilling tenderness, and there were streaks of grey among its silky dark strands. Were there more now than when she’d first met him? She hoped not, but there was no denying that their affair had taken its toll on both of them.

‘So…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Who is he? Do I know him? Please don’t tell me you’ve been seeing him behind my back.’

Isobel’s jaw dropped. ‘Who?’

Jared closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Belle…’ he said, and she could hear the edge of violence in his voice. ‘Don’t do this to me. You know perfectly well who I mean. This man—this paragon—the one who can give you everything I can’t.’

‘There is no one else.’

The words were out before Isobel could give any thought to what she was saying. Her denial had been instinctive, and she saw Jared’s eyes open again and focus on her with piercing intensity.

‘Do you mean that?’ He gripped the back of his neck with a bruising hand. ‘Or is this what they mean by letting me down lightly?’

Isobel shook her head. Despite the fact that it would be so much easier to pretend that there was someone else, she couldn’t do that to him. ‘It’s the truth,’ she said huskily, and then, unable to go on looking at him without revealing what she was trying so hard to hide, she turned back into the kitchen behind her.

Had she known he would follow her? She hardly knew any more. After the morning she had had, she was in no fit state to make any reasoned assessment about anything. Besides, if she was honest she would admit that she had never needed his strength and his commitment more than she did right now. Only he hadn’t offered her any commitment, she reminded herself painfully, and she was a fool if she thought he ever would.

She sensed he was behind her even before he touched her. Where he was concerned she had always had a sixth sense, a sensory perception, that she’d used to tell herself proved that their relationship was meant to be. It was as if some energy arced between them, an electrical spark, that was as much spiritual as it was physical, so that when his hands cupped her neck she couldn’t prevent the little moan of despair that escaped her. And when his tongue found the pulse that was racing behind her ear, she could only tip her head to one side to facilitate her own destruction.