Dangerous Nights. Rosalie Ash
was never your strong point, I recall,’ he murmured, unforgivably.
‘If the only reason you’ve barged your way up here is to criticise my tidiness…!’ With a degree of defiance she dragged off her jacket and hat and threw them to land on top of the clothes pile. She stood, breathing rather raggedly, a petite, willowy figure in the floppy white sweatshirt and black leggings.
Jed ignored her. He’d crossed to the window, twitched back the heavy red velvet curtains. Impatiently, she marched over to stand beside him.
‘It overlooks the church,’ she pointed out unnecessarily, suppressing her temper with difficulty. ‘Jed, will you please go?’
There was a long silence. She couldn’t read his eyes. She couldn’t tune in to his thoughts. She’d never felt more at sea, more bewildered, in her life.
‘Do you want me to go?’ The question was softly abrupt. The steady gaze had locked with hers. When he let his eyes slide smoothly to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, the nipples visible as tight little points through the soft fabric of her top, a deep, disturbing confusion began rippling, like invisible waves, right through her.
‘What sort of question is that supposed to be?’ she shot at him angrily. ‘I don’t believe this! I should admire your nerve, I suppose. Do you honestly think that because I was…panting for you to take my virginity four years ago you can just stroll back into my life and haul me into bed with you? After one glass of white wine and half an hour of your famous non-conversation?’
‘Maybe we don’t always know what we want,’ he hazarded quietly.
The blatant arrogance took her breath away. ‘Oh, no!’ she breathed furiously. ‘You’re the one who didn’t know what he wanted, as I recall—!’
A door slammed. Voices on the stairs heralded the return of the others. The tension between Jed and herself was so taut, she felt herself sag with relief.
‘Ana? Ana? Are you back?’ her friend’s voice called along the landing, footsteps coming closer. ‘Who was that dishy male you were with in the pub…?’ Camilla froze on the threshold of the bedroom, and had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.
Exchanging an agitated glance with Jed, Ana gestured weakly at her uninvited guest.
‘This is Jed Steele. An old…acquaintance. Jed, this is Camilla Browning, one of my house-mates.’
Camilla’s blue eyes shone like sapphires in the pale beauty of her face. She tossed back her black curly hair and treated Jed to one of her most the-atrical smiles.
‘Enchantée, darling!’
‘Hi.’ Jed’s handshake was coolly polite. He turned back to Ana, with a half-smile which contained a decidedly mocking gleam. ‘Goodnight, Ana. I’ll buy you two glasses of wine tomorrow. We’ll take it from there.’
Colour surged into her face.
‘Like hell we will,’ she spat, through clenched teeth. ‘Goodnight, Jed.’
‘Don’t forget to keep your door locked,’ he advised smoothly. Without a wave, he loped athletically downstairs. There was a decisive click of the latch as he let himself out.
‘Come on, Ana, darling, tell!’ Camilla was settling down on Ana’s bed for a delicious gossip session. ‘Who is he, what’s the story?’
Ana found she was weak at the knees. Shakily she sat down on the pile of clothes, and glared bleakly at her friend.
‘He’s—he’s—well, I suppose he’s an old…friend,’ she managed finally. ‘A—a friend of my father’s, you could say…’
‘You don’t sound very sure,’ Camilla remarked, tucking her legs up beneath her and winding a black curl thoughtfully round her index finger. ‘Either he is or he isn’t!’
Ana gazed at her blankly. The confusion she’d felt with Jed’s powerful presence dominating her emotions had been bad enough. But this acute agitation now he’d gone was guaranteed to keep her awake half the night…
Tomorrow was Sunday. She had no performances at the theatre as an excuse to hide away from him. Maybe she could get up at the crack of dawn and catch a bus somewhere, anywhere?
‘He’s an ex-friend,’ she heard herself saying dismissively. ‘It didn’t work out, and it never will. He’s not my type at all…’
To underline the statement, she stood up and stretched, loosening the strained muscles of her neck and shoulders. To hide her eyes from her friend’s eagle gaze, she dropped her chin to her chest, rolled her head from one shoulder to the other, then lowered her upper half towards the floor, hanging there in the classic relaxation position. Her hair fell in a thick blonde curtain around her head.
‘You mean, if I took a liking to him, you wouldn’t mind?’ Camilla purred.
‘Go ahead,’ Ana said in a muffled voice. Slowly straightening up, she attempted a smile which felt more like a grimace. ‘Be my guest. Lord, I’m tired, Camilla. Do you mind if I throw you out and get to bed?’
‘No. I’m going.’ Camilla paused at the door, and flashed a teasing grin before she disappeared. ‘But that wasn’t one of your most convincing performances. From where I was standing, Jed Steele looked very much your type, darling! ‘Night!’
Alone, Ana gazed distantly around the room, then automatically began to shrug off her clothes and get ready for bed. Camilla was too perceptive. And she was right. Jed Steele had been, all too briefly, the one man Ana had ever met who filled every one of her dreams, made her feel excited and special, and floating, and deliciously feminine, and…
And he’d hurt her more than any other man. Led her on, urged her up to a dizzy, ecstatic height of wanting, and then ruthlessly dropped her, walked away. She paused in the act of scrubbing her teeth, catching sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. Wide brown eyes gazed back, startlingly dark against the natural blonde of her hair. She took after her father. He was grey now, but he had the same dark eyes, and his hair had been the same shade of blond…
After a quick shower, and with the battered teddy propped on the chair with the discarded clothes, she climbed into bed in her white, pintucked cotton chambray nightshirt, and made a mental note to tidy her room tomorrow. It was her Sunday job. Sunday was the only day she had any free time to do anything in. The sooner she got to sleep, the sooner she could wipe Jed Steele from her mind…
But as she lay there in the darkness Jed Steele filled her mind. His reappearance had robbed her of any peace. She could do nothing to stop the memories from rolling back and crushing her…
IT WAS early when Ana finally woke up. Unforgivably early for a Sunday morning. Her duvet and pillow had somehow parted company with the bed during her stormy, restless night. They lay haphazardly on the floor beside her. Feeling shivery and unrefreshed, she carefully remade the bed as a determined start to her Sunday domesticity. Then she pushed her feet into padded crimson towelling slippers, hugged her matching dressing-gown round herself, and went blearily downstairs to make a cup of tea.
The house was silent, as she’d expected it to be. If Camilla, Pru or David, her fellow residents, heard her moving around at half-past eight they’d doubtless think they were dreaming, pull their covers over their heads and burrow back to sleep again.
In the small, pine-panelled kitchen, she sat as close to the radiator as she could, sipped the steaming mug of strong tea, and gazed out of the window at the misty autumn sunshine breathing life into the patio-style back garden. Last night she’d dreamed almost non-stop, about Jed. Squeezing her eyes shut, she saw pictures from those dreams, vivid and fragmented, but indelible. However hard she tried, she couldn’t shut them out. She didn’t