Ryan shrugged as he put their cups in the sink. ‘Once Mel gets an idea into her head it’s difficult to dislodge it. She’s very big on family togetherness. For a long time I was the father figure in her life, and even after Mum married Steve I was the one to whom Mel looked for primary advice and guidance—consequently she’s rather possessive of me.’
He gave Jane a sly, sidelong look. ‘As soon as she found out I was here with you she came hotfoot to check the situation for herself. For some reason she seems to think I need protecting from your wicked wiles.’
‘Maybe the reason being that you told her I was a lying, scheming bitch,’ said Jane acidly.
‘Ah, well...’ He spr
ead his hands ruefully. ‘Perhaps she did overhear me say a few uncomplimentary things about you in the past.’
‘How did she find out where I was? How many other people know you’re here?’ she asked jerkily, feeling the world she had escaped threatening to close in on her again.
‘Just Carl, Irene—my secretary—Graham Frey...and my mother, of course. As far as everyone else is concerned I’m having a break from deadly office routine at the family holiday home—’
But Jane’s brain had frozen. ‘Your mother?’
He looked at her gravely. ‘There are no secrets in my family, Jane. We’ve always been frank with each other. Mothers tend to worry if they don’t know where their children are, even when they’re adults.’
Oh, God... ‘What did you tell them? How much does Melissa know about me?’
‘Everything.’
‘Everything?’ Jane was appalled; her hands rose to her hot cheeks.
Gently Ryan shackled her wrists and pulled her arms down, preventing her from hiding her devastated expression. ‘I don’t mean the intimate details—that I tried to treat you like a prostitute and you tried to treat me like a one-night stand. I don’t involve my sister in my sex life,’ he said, ruthlessly excising her shame. ‘But she certainly knows the rest—what your father did to ours was always openly discussed in our house, and she knew I was obsessed with getting revenge on him, and then on you...’
She couldn’t look at him. ‘So she knows that it was me—at the wedding—’
‘Of course. My family believed in me, even if others were quick to condemn—they deserved to know their faith was justified. They didn’t agree with my decision to protect Ava by refusing to make a scandal out of your lies, but because they loved me they accepted it and supported me with their silence—even though it strained some of their own friendships.’
‘Oh, God...’ She shivered. No wonder Melissa had looked at her with hatred and contempt.
Ryan’s hands ran up and down the back of her goose-pimpled arms, warming the chill from her skin, pulling her against the solid column of his body. Their height difference was accentuated by her lack of shoes, and Jane’s nipples tightened treacherously against the lace of her bra as her belly nudged his denim-clad hips.
‘You were cold then, too... Your voice had that emotional frigidity you assume whenever you’re most frightened,’ he murmured against her forehead. ‘You were so damnably convincing in your humiliated dignity that for one nightmarish moment I nearly believed it myself. Why won’t you talk about it with me? Is it anything to do with Ava—why she was so quick to forgive you? Help me to understand.’
She had stiffened within the circle of his arms at his shattering admission, now she pushed at his chest with panicky elbows.
Ava! His voice always softened on her name. Perhaps speaking to her on the telephone had reawakened some of his old feelings, and if he was still carrying a torch for her then to discover how thoroughly she had betrayed his love and trust would be even more deeply humiliating now than a quick, cruel dose of the bitter truth would have been three years ago. Who wanted to be told they had spent years cherishing a shining memory that was in reality a pitiful lie? He might feel justified in lashing out with another destructive orgy of vengeance.
Either way, Jane would once again be caught in the middle. She had already revealed too much about herself to him over the last few days—being misunderstood was the last line of defence for her wary heart! ‘I thought you’d already decided that it was the jealous spite of an old maid.’
There was wry humour in his voice as he let her go and tilted her chin with his fist. ‘You may be old now but you were only twenty-three at the time. Oh, I can still accept the jealousy part, but not the spite. You’re a fighter, but unlike your father—and me—you haven’t proved to be very good at nursing a grudge. By all rights you should hate me with a passion, but instead, well...’ He trailed off, his eyes moving down over the full breasts pushing against the soft T-shirt...down to delicately tanned legs revealed by her linen shorts.
‘I do hate you,’ she said quickly. Too quickly. His eyes gleamed and he dropped a kiss on her mouth, the kind of casual salute he had perfected purely to drive her mad.
‘One day you’re going to trust me enough to tell me what I want to know...’
And then he would walk away. ‘Is that what all this pretence of caring is about? Persuading me to talk about the good old days?’ she managed sarcastically.
He didn’t even bother to argue that it wasn’t a pretence. He merely gave her the bold, confident smile of a seasoned hunter. ‘That...and seducing you back into my bed!’
Maybe there might be an advantage to having a hostile nineteen-year-old chaperon hanging around after all! Jane thought feverishly.
She was wrong.
Melissa arrived back as threatened, her small boot stuffed with a clutch of bags that necessitated Ryan shifting boxes from the third bedroom into the garage. She lavished her brother with laughing attention and hissed baleful insults at Jane whenever the two women were alone. She complained about anything and everything, especially the fact that Jane was being waited on hand and foot while she, Melissa, had to take on her share of the chores. At lunch she changed into another outfit designed to make Jane feel like a slattern for arriving at the table in the same T-shirt and shorts, and entertained Ryan with non-stop stories about people that Jane didn’t know and cared less about.
In the afternoon she got a measure of her own back by going for a brisk walk along one of the bush tracks that linked up with other walking trails through the western Waitakeres. But her usual enjoyment of the hushed beauty of the native forest was compromised by the sound of Melissa panting and whining in her wake, constantly begging Ryan to slow down, or rest, or help her get the stones out of her sneakers, or identify some piece of flora or fauna—anything to prise him away from Jane’s side.