Trust In Tomorrow

‘Tell me,’ he instructed abruptly.

‘Do you mind if I take my coat off first?’ The heat in the apartment was making her feel dizzy.

‘Go ahead,’ he invited, his eyes narrowed.

Chelsea shrugged out of the sheepskin jacket, feeling warm for the first time in days, too warm considering she was only wearing a thin black sweater under the jacket, Lucas taking the jacket from her as she looked around for somewhere to put it. ‘Thanks,’ she murmured gratefully, sitting down in one of the black leather armchairs without being invited to do so, her legs feeling too weak to support her any longer.

‘Chelsea?’ Lucas prompted impatiently, throwing the jacket down on another chair with his own, the three-piece suit he wore a charcoal grey colour, tailored to his magnificent physique, the waistcoat taut against his flat stomach, his shirt snowy white against his darker skin.

She took all this in about him without really being aware that she was doing so, her mind as numb as her emotions. How could she tell this man, this complete stranger, her reason for being here?

Lucas seemed to guess at her dilemma. ‘Is it Jace?’ His voice had gentled a little.

She shook her head. Jace was always the same, a handsome rogue of a man who succeeded in charming millions of viewers to his chat-show every week, one of the highest paid and well-liked men in television. No, Jace was indestructible.

‘Gloria, then?’ Lucas prompted again.

Her mother, an older more sophisticated version of herself, the silver-blonde hair kept in a shorter feathered style, faint lines about her blue eyes and vividly painted mouth disputing the mistake people often made of them being sisters. Gloria wasn’t as strong and forceful as Jace, possessed a fragility of character and body.

‘She’s dead,’ Chelsea stated flatly.

Lucas looked taken aback, almost disbelieving, as if he suspected her of lying.

And why shouldn’t he, women of thirty-nine didn’t just die, especially ones as beautiful as her mother had been. ‘It’s true,’ she told him without emotion, her pale face pinched with sorrow now, dark shadows of pain in her eyes.

‘Is that why Jace sent you here?’ Lucas probed.

‘Yes. He—I—The publicity. He didn’t want me involved in that.’ She moistened lips that suddenly seemed devoid of all feeling, having trouble articulating. ‘He said he would contact you,’ she repeated faintly.

‘Maybe he did,’ Lucas nodded grimly. ‘I’ve been unreachable the last few days.’

She had guessed that from the overnight bag and the amount of mail waiting for him. ‘Did you go anywhere nice?’ she asked numbly.

‘Chelsea——’

‘Sorry,’ she grimaced, the heat of the room suddenly overwhelming her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured vaguely just before she fainted.

She had no idea how much time had passed before she awoke to the feel of a hand gently tapping against her cheek, fighting back the blackness to find Lucas bending over her as she now lay full-length on the leather sofa, Lucas obviously having carried her here. He sat back as her eyes flickered open completely, a mask of polite concern making everything but his eyes seem emotionless, a depth of feeling in the brown eyes that he couldn’t control or hide.

‘I really am sorry.’ She pushed her hair back from her face as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. ‘I’ve never fainted before.’

‘Your——’ He broke off, his mouth firming in self-condemnation.

‘My mother never died before,’ Chelsea finished dryly. ‘No, as far as I know I only had the one.’

‘Chelsea!’

His anger had little effect on her, too much having happened to her the last few days for anything to have much effect, aware only that her mother was dead.

‘I’ve made some coffee.’ Lucas stood up to pour two cupfuls from the pot that stood on the silver tray on the low table in front of the sofa.

‘Was I out that long?’ Chelsea frowned.

‘Long enough,’ he nodded abruptly. ‘Cream and sugar?’

‘Milk if you have it, no sugar,’ she told him in a preoccupied voice, barely aware of his leaving the room to come back with the jug of milk, although her shocked senses did register that the strong brew had sugar in despite her request. She grimaced. ‘I said——’

‘I heard you,’ he confirmed shortly, lowering his long length into the chair opposite her. ‘I think you need the glucose. When did you last have anything to eat?’ His eyes were narrowed disapprovingly.

She knew she was pale, she had been since Saturday. ‘Certainly not today,’ she frowned in concentration. ‘And not yesterday either.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember when I last ate,’ she gave up even thinking about it, her head beginning to pound with the effort.

‘Jace should have made sure that you did,’ came the censorious reply.

Her mouth tightened. ‘I think he may have had other things on his mind.’

Lucas didn’t even blink an eyelid at the rebuke, his gaze steady. ‘When did your mother die?’

She gulped down some of the coffee, not even noticing as it burnt her throat. ‘Two days ago—no, it would be three now,’ she belatedly remembered the time difference. ‘We buried her this—yesterday, morning.’

‘Had she been ill?’ he probed. ‘Your father didn’t let me know——’

‘How could he, if you’ve been unavailable?’ she pointed out logically, guessing from the way he had avoided meeting her gaze earlier when he told her he had been away, that he had been with a woman. ‘Jace couldn’t have let you know, anyway,’ she added dully. ‘It was very sudden. The doctor diagnosed heart-failure.’

‘At only thirty-nine?’

‘It can happen at any age,’ she shrugged. ‘And she was never strong. Jace said there was nothing they could do.’

‘I’ve never got used to the way you call your father Jace,’ he shook his head.

‘Why not, it’s his name.’ She had never seen anything strange about calling the handsome giant of a man who was her father by his first name; she had been doing it ever since she could remember. A young American on holiday in London he had met and married her mother in a matter of months, and she had entered the happy world of their marriage after only eighteen months together, both she and her mother moving back to America with Jace permanently when she was twelve years old. It seemed to have been the beginning of the decay of a previously happy marriage. ‘What did you call your father?’ she asked Lucas now to shake off the memory of past unhappiness.

‘Sir, mostly,’ he answered derisively, something like humour in the dark brown eyes, although it quickly faded. ‘Look, I’d like to check on my post,’ he frowned. ‘Help yourself to more coffee; I shouldn’t be long.’

Chelsea made no effort to stop him striding from the room, needing the next few minutes alone to gather her shaken senses together. She had thought he would have received Jace’s cable, hadn’t envisaged having to tell him of her mother’s death herself. She had withstood the shock of finding her mother unconscious in her bedroom, hours spent at the hospital with Jace before a doctor finally came out to tell them her mother was dead, the friends and well-wishers calling at the house to pay their respects, the funeral, and then finally Jace bundling her on the first available plane to England, little dreaming that the man he had sent her to wouldn’t be here to receive her. The last few minutes of explaining things to Lucas had shaken her badly.

She hadn’t even wanted to come here, had been too numb to protest her feelings when Jace had insisted she made herself scarce for when the news of her mother’s death hit the media. But she wasn’t numb now, and the thought of Lucas McAdams having her here on sufference, because of a friendship that, as far as she knew, hadn’t been nurtured for the last seven years, filled her with dismay.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

She turned guiltily, in the act of picking up her suitcase in preparation to leave, finding Lucas watching her from the doorway of the room he had disappeared into minutes earlier. ‘I thought I’d go back to the airport,’ she told him truthfully. ‘And get the next flight home.’

His expression was darkly forbidding as he came back into the lounge. ‘When you know Jace wants you to stay here?’

Her eyes widened. ‘He did contact you?’

‘Yes,’ Lucas nodded, adding nothing to the confirmation.

‘What did he say?’ she prompted impatiently.