CHAPTER THREE
KATIEPERCHEDONthe armchair opposite her uninvited guest and watched him devour his third brownie.
How could Jack Wolfe still look hot wearing her grandmother’s dressing gown? Even the lurid pink trim hadn’t dimmed his forceful masculinity one bit. Perhaps because too much of his magnificent chest was now visible in the deep V of the robe’s flounced neckline.
‘That’s a hundred and fifty pounds you owe me,’ she said, just in case he’d forgotten the agreed price. Instead of looking outraged, he smiled. Or was it a smile? It was hard to tell, the sensual curve as cynical as it was amused. She remembered what Bea had said about him being impossible to read. Her sister had not been wrong. The man was about as transparent as a brick.
‘And worth every penny,’ he murmured, licking the last of the caramel crumble off his fingertips.
Her heartbeat, which was now beating time with the torrential rain outside, sunk deeper into her abdomen. If he was trying to intimidate her with that sexy glint in his eyes, it was definitely working.
‘So, what are you doing in Snowdonia, Mr Wolfe?’ she asked, struggling to keep her voice firm—which required every acting skill she’d ever acquired. ‘Assuming, of course, it’s not an unlucky coincidence you turned up on my doorstep?’
She’d gone over all the possible motives for his appearance—from the bad to the absolutely catastrophic—while waiting for him to emerge from her bathroom and she couldn’t think of a single one that might be benign.
Bea had rung her to thank her, the day after the night of the dream clinch, and said Jack had agreed to release her from the obligation without changing the terms of their father’s loan.
Lord Medford had still been angry, but at least he hadn’t freaked out completely. Knowing what their father was capable of when his plans were thwarted, Katie had been grateful, and also surprised Wolfe had been so amenable. But now she knew why. Obviously, he’d been planning to get payback on the messenger instead: her.
‘No, it wasn’t a coincidence,’ he said, his intent gaze causing her goose bumps to get goose bumps. He placed his plate on the table beside the sofa. The pink trim on the robe caressed his pecs. ‘I hired a detective to find you.’
She might have been relieved Bea hadn’t ratted her out after all if she wasn’t shocked at how determined he had been to locate her. Had she really injured his dignity that much? Because, as she recalled, it had been pretty robust.
His gaze skated over her, setting off more bonfires. ‘I never would have guessed you and Beatrice were sisters.’
She bristled. She couldn’t help it. She loved Bea to pieces, but she knew perfectly well that when men met her baby sister—tall, willowy, serene and dazzlingly beautiful Bea—they didn’t notice Katie or spot the family resemblance. Unlike Bea, Katie was short, had insane hair and was, well, not exactly slender. She’d learned over the years to embrace her curves—and her chocolate addiction. She’d never be slim or elegant—she’d failed at a ton of yo-yo diets to prove it—but she was happy with who she was now and she was healthy and fit.
‘Well, we are sisters,’ she said. ‘As much as I would love not to share any genetic code with my father, he insisted on a paternity test when we were both born to make sure we were his. Because that’s the kind of trusting, charming guy he is.’
The muscle in Wolfe’s cheek hardened. ‘You don’t get on with your father?’
‘“Don’t get on” is a bit of an understatement,’ she said, proud her father’s scorn no longer had the power to hurt her. ‘We don’t have a relationship. As a teenager, I wanted to be an actress. He had planned for me to marry one of his business associates. So he kicked me out of the house. It was tough for a while, and the actress thing didn’t pan out because I didn’t have the right “look”,’ she added, doing air quotes. ‘But I’ve never missed being under his thumb.’
‘How old were you when he kicked you out?’
She shrugged. ‘Seventeen.’ Perhaps he thought she was a fool to have walked away from all that privilege. From what she’d read about Wolfe in the business press, he’d never had any of the advantages she’d been born into. But she didn’t care about his opinion. No one got to judge her life choices any more. That was the point.
‘That’s very young to be on your own,’ he said, surprising her when the fierce look on his face became almost sympathetic.
Katie dismissed the giddy blip in her heart rate. She didn’t need his pity. ‘I wasn’t totally alone,’ she said. ‘My nain was still alive then, so she helped me out.’
‘Your nine? What is that?’ he asked, pronouncing the word in English.
‘It’s Welsh for grandmother.’ She glanced around the cottage. ‘Cariad was her home. She left it to me five years ago, when she died,’ she added, then wondered why she was giving him so much unsolicited information. ‘And seventeen’s not that young. I was older than you were when you ended up on the street.’
He stiffened, the frown returning.
Touché, Jack. Two can play the interrogation game.
‘How did you find out I was once homeless?’ he asked, his tone deceptively soft but with steel beneath. She remembered what Bea had said about how guarded he was with personal information. Apparently that hadn’t changed.
‘I did an Internet search on you after... After that night.’
The frown deepened. ‘I didn’t know that information was on the Internet.’
‘It’s not in the UK press, but I found an article written three years ago for a celebrity website in Mexico. They mentioned the rumours about your background while saying how much money you’d donated to a charity for street kids while you were there.’ She’d wondered, when she’d read it, if the story had been planted to make him look good. Apparently not, from the way his jaw clenched.
‘I see,’ he said, then pulled his smart phone from the pocket of the robe and began tapping with lightning-fast thumbs.
She would hazard a guess that when his phone service returned Estilo magazine was going to be forced to take down the article.
‘So it’s true,’ she murmured.
His gaze met hers as he pocketed the phone, the guarded look making the blip in her heart rate pulse.
‘What is?’ he asked evasively.
‘That you were homeless as a child,’ she continued, refusing to be deflected by the ‘back off’ vibes.
Shadows crossed his expression and the pulse of sympathy echoed in her chest. Moments ago it would have been impossible to imagine Jack Wolfe had ever been vulnerable and afraid and at the mercy of people more powerful than himself—and even harder to believe she could have anything in common with him. But, as she watched him debate whether to admit the truth or stonewall her, it became less hard.
‘I wasn’t a child,’ he said at last.
‘How old were you?’ she probed, because the article hadn’t been that specific. She’d simply assumed his ‘early teens’ had to be younger than seventeen.
Again she saw him debating whether to answer her, then he shrugged. ‘Thirteen.’
‘That makes you a child, Jack,’ she said, stunned he could believe otherwise.
‘Believe me, I’d seen enough and done enough—more than enough—at that age to qualify as a man.’ He rubbed the scar on his cheek and the pulse in her chest bounced.
I wonder who gave him that scar?