A Reason For Marriage. Penny Jordan

Jake,’ she told him evenly.

      ‘Am I? Prove it,’ he challenged harshly. ‘Come home for Christmas.’

      The refusal rose to her lips but could not be uttered. It was six years since she had spent a Christmas at home. Six years. How she had loved their family Christmases.

      ‘For once in your life stop being so damned selfish and put someone else first,’ Jake demanded harshly. ‘My father’s a sick man, Jamie, he misses you.’

      Blankly she looked into his face. His mouth was hard and compressed, his eyes shadowed. His hair, thick and densely black, looked as though it needed cutting. He looked tired, she recognised, momentarily stepping outside the magnetism that always held her so much in thrall and seeing him simply as another vulnerable human being. He had released her now and impulsively she wanted to reach out and touch him, to smooth away the frown creasing his forehead, and then bitterness overtook compassion. It was easy for him to condemn and criticise her. He would not have to endure the torture that would be hers if she went home, if she spent Christmas in the same house with him.

      ‘I…’

      ‘If it’s me you’re worried about,’ he told her with cold scorn, ‘then you needn’t be. Mandy will be there, so you needn’t worry that you might have to spend any time with me.’

      ‘I…’

      ‘Be there, Jamie,’ he warned her. ‘It isn’t me you’re punishing by staying away, you know.’ His eyes darkened with anger and contempt. ‘You might look the part of the sophisticated businesswoman,’ he told her curtly, ‘but inside you’re still a spoiled petulant child.’

      She watched as he left the kitchen, her throat raw with suppressed tears. How dare he speak to her like that, accuse her? Dismiss the sheer cruelty of what he had done to her as though it were nothing? He knew why she had stayed away, why she could not endure to go back to the place where she had once been so deliriously happy, but he behaved as though she were acting on nothing more than a childish whim. Punish him? Nothing she could do could do that. Did he think she didn’t know it?

      IT WAS AFTER they had finished dinner and the other guests had gone that Jake announced casually,

      ‘By the way, has Jamie told you that she’ll be coming with us to Queensmeade for Christmas this year?’

      Across the space that divided them his eyes warned her against contradicting his statement. Beth was looking flushed and excited as she looked at them.

      ‘Aunt Margaret will be so pleased. Oh, Jamie, she has missed you so much. We’ll be going too, of course. You can always drive up with us if you don’t fancy taking your car. I know it’s two months away yet, but…’

      ‘Jamie will travel with me. I have to come down to London to pick Mandy up anyway.’

      In other words she wasn’t going to get the opportunity to make any last-minute bid for escape, Jamie thought bitterly, avoiding looking at him.

      Mandy was sitting next to her and a pleased smile curved her mouth as she listened to Jake.

      ‘I’m so pleased you’ll be coming too,’ she whispered to Jamie. ‘Jake can be so severe at times.’ She pulled a slight face, and then coloured as she saw Jamie’s surprised expression. ‘My father’s a very wealthy man, he doesn’t consider that women can handle their financial affairs—he’s old-fashioned like that. He wants me to get married and he seems to have picked on Jake as the ideal candidate. I don’t suppose I should be telling you this.’

      Jamie saw the slightly nervous glance she gave towards Jake who was talking to Richard.

      ‘I like Jake, but he’s very formidable, isn’t he? Sometimes I feel as though he doesn’t even know I’m there. And he doesn’t love me.’

      ‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’ Jamie said bracingly. She felt as though she had strayed into some macabre form of sick joke. Why on earth had Mandy chosen her to confide in? She looked into the younger girl’s face and saw that she still looked uncertain.

      ‘Jake wants to get married, he wants a son, a grandchild for his father, I think, and… Well, it’s just that he’s so very hard to argue with, isn’t he?’

      Oh yes, he was that all right, Jamie acknowledged to herself. Jake could be bitterly determined and stubborn when someone opposed him, and she could see how easily this young and rather diffident girl could be overwhelmed by him, especially if the marriage was something her parents approved of as well.

      ‘I don’t feel I’m mature enough to get married yet,’ she confided to Jamie. ‘I want to do something with my life, I don’t know what yet, but I know it isn’t marriage. Of course at first I was flattered when Jake showed an interest in me, but he doesn’t want me really.

      ‘I’m going to London Christmas shopping with Mummy next week. Could I come and see you? I don’t have anyone I can talk to, and you are Jake’s stepsister. You must know him very well.’

      Well enough to know that this child wouldn’t be able to withstand Jake if he turned the full force of his will and personality against her. Her common sense told her not to get involved, that it would only lead to further heartache for her. She had no wish to hear Mandy’s girlish confidences but as she looked into the girl’s agonised blue eyes she felt herself waver, and the next second she was writing down her address and telephone number, whilst at the same time wondering what on earth she was doing.

      ‘YOU AND MANDY seemed to be getting on very well. What do you think of her?’

      Jamie hadn’t needed to look over her shoulder to know that Jake was standing just behind her. That delicate personal radar that worked every time he came anywhere near her had already warned her.

      She glanced across the room to where Mandy was talking to Beth before replying.

      ‘I think she’s charming,’ she said shortly at last.

      ‘The inference being far too charming for me, I take it.’

      She could tell without looking at him that his mouth had twisted slightly just as she could hear the mocking amusement in his voice.

      ‘Too charming. Too innocent, and far, far too vulnerable, Jake,’ she said as coldly as she could. ‘But then I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you any of that. What does worry me a little is that she’s also intelligent. What will you do when she discovers it, I wonder?’

      ‘Bitch.’ The insult was laconic, without heat or emotion. ‘Still living alone, are you?’

      The question was careless and uncaring, flicking her on the raw as it underlined the solitariness of her life.

      ‘That’s the way I prefer it,’ she told him coldly.

      ‘Still the ambitious career-woman. I thought it might have palled by now. Strange how I never realised all the time you were growing up that you had such a strong streak of ambition.’

      ‘Why should you? I certainly never recognised a good many very obvious traits in you.’

      He moved in front of her, frowning at the biting contempt in her voice.

      ‘Such as?’ he invited softly.

      It was too much. She had already endured enough tonight, her head was pounding violently. He knew exactly what he’d done to her, so why make her say it? Did he enjoy tormenting her?

      ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She got up too quickly, his proximity to her suddenly claustrophobic. In her panic she tried to push past him and found that his body blocked the way. Closing her eyes against the onslaught of pain in her head she swayed dangerously and put out a hand to save herself. Everything was whirling madly out of control, the only point of reality in her disordered world the sure, firm sound of Jake’s voice, and she clung to it like a drowning man to a life-raft, willingly letting herself sag against his body as she felt his arms go round her and her mind