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  The aghast expression on her father’s face, and the tight squeeze of her hand, told her she was right. She covered his hand with hers and offered him a look of reassurance though her insides were scrabbling like a duck’s legs beneath the water.

  “I never blamed your sister for what happened,” he said on a voice that was now thick and slurred. Izzy blinked back threatening tears. “Had I realized that you knew, I would have explained that to you as well.” He swallowed hard. “Instead, you were the one holding us together.” Izzy opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted her. “You did. How did you find out? Did Ellie or Jack tell you?”

  Jack knew?

  “No, Dad. I was hiding and I saw what happened. It wasn’t until years later when I worked it out. And Jack knew?”

  “Ah, Jack. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  His searching look became her undoing. When his gaze dropped to her mouth it wobbled, when it lifted to her eyes the floodgates lifted open, releasing the hot tears that spilled down her cheeks in a scalding trail.

  There was no weakness in her father’s hug. Wrapped in his strong arms, Izzy buried her head into his shoulder and sobbed.

  “How did you know?” she asked in between dragging breaths

  “He came to see me before your trip. He told me everything. About Ellie, and about his plan. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you. That’s why I haven’t been to see you recently. I knew you would guess something was wrong.”

  “It’s part of my job description to worry about you girls. I’m your dad. You should come to me when you’re in trouble. You should have told me about my debts.”

  Izzy stiffened. Jeez, Jack hadn’t held back, had he? She wondered just how much he had told her father. “Stress is the last thing you need for your recovery. I thought I could get us out of trouble myself. Is that the reason you want to sell the house? Because of debt?”

  “No. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now. What Jack told me gave me the courage to do it.”

  “Is this because of Joyce?”

  “No. Joyce is only part of the reason. Does...does my friendship with Joyce bother you?”

  “No...yes. I never imagined you with anyone but Mum. I thought you loved each other too much to find someone else.”

  His chest rose with a deep breath. “I loved your mother dearly, and I always will. But you know things weren’t always as perfect as your mother had you and Ellie believe.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t fix everything, Izzy.” His words iced her veins. Jack had said those words too. “Not everything in life is meant to be perfect or it’s not worth fighting for.”

  Izzy frowned as her damp cheek rested against the softness of his sweater. “Is that what I’m really like? Do I have high expectations?”

  “Yes, you do. But for other people. You want everyone to be happy but to the detriment of yourself. You need to be happy too.”

  “I am happy.”

  “So why do you look so sad?”

  And then her words tumbled out in a rush as she shared the whole story, minus the one-to-one details of course.

  “It’s true he did leave after I had spoken to him. It wasn’t my intention and I deeply regret it, but I caught him climbing down the drain pipe and I knew you had been in that bedroom. I was worried about Ellie, she was pushing herself too hard with her career at such a young age and I knew the attention was overwhelming her. And then you, with your doe-eyed looks aimed at Jack...I knew you were heading for heartbreak. I suspected he wouldn’t stick around for long, as soon as he’d finished his studies and had enough money to leave. I didn’t want you to pin your hopes on someone who could only hurt you.”

  “Wasn’t that my decision?”

  “Yes, I know. I’m afraid when I saw Jack that night I took my fears and frustrations out on him. I warned him to stay away from both of you. That he wasn’t welcome anymore.”

  Izzy gasped. “But you knew how bad things were for him at home!”

  “I know. I hated myself afterward, and I intended to apologize, but it was too late—he’d already gone.”

  Her heart ached as she thought of the pain of rejection Jack must have felt.

  “I was wrong. Very wrong. I should have let you make your own decisions whether they were right or wrong. He was a good boy and he’s a good man. Maybe the two of you...”

  “No, it’s not like that, Dad. He didn’t want me then and he doesn’t want me now.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes.” Was she?

  “Hmm. It seems he went to a lot of trouble coming here to talk to me. About a lot of things—but mainly you. Does that sound like he doesn’t want you?”

  “It doesn’t matter now anyway. It would never work between us.”

  “Why? You can’t pin your hopes on your knight in shining armor to come and sweep you off your feet. Nothing is ever perfect. Sometimes the things that aren’t perfect are the things worth fighting for.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You found your perfect and married her.”

  He gave a deep laugh. “You and your mother are so alike. She was a dreamer. We never had a perfect marriage. There is a story behind every one of those photographs. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight either. It took a hell of a lot of persuasion to get her to go on a date with me. And we had some stinkers of fights.” He chuckled. “But never around you girls, though. Boy, your mother had a set of lungs on her! She would yell at me in my workshop and then plant a big, beaming smile on her face and play dress-up with you girls. But there was never a dull moment, and it kept us on our toes and made us work damn hard to keep it together.”

  “How did I ever miss that?”

  “Because you were young and only saw what we wanted you to see. If you have feelings for Jack, then maybe you should go get him.”

  “No, I don’t have those kind of feelings for him.”

  “No? Then why do you look like you’ve just had your heart trampled on?”

  Because...because she had! God, it was never about sex. It was about wanting him and loving him. Sure, it was all wrapped up in a bundle of sexual need, but deep in the middle of those wrappings were her true feelings.

  “But what if he can’t love me back?”

  “Honey, maybe he needs to be shown what love is.”

  For the first time, a little shimmer of hope rose to the surface and she clung to it.

  Chapter 10

  Jack dropped down the receiver and threw away all hope with it. His plan was doomed. Why the hell had he thought it would be so easy?

  He dragged a hand through his hair and cursed. He leaned back, shoulders sagging into the leather chair, and squeezed his eyes closed. Of course it wouldn’t be so simple that he could announce his surprise wedding, meet with Daleford to show him the wedding photographs, and then he would be signing on the dotted line. Oh no, he had announced his surprise wedding then Daleford had torn the virtual contract up by inviting him and his new wife to dinner. At his home. The house Jack wanted to buy.

  Not going to happen.

  No way would he ask Izzy to do that. No way would she. She loathed lies and to pretend she was Ellie would be impossible. And he wouldn’t want her to be anyone but herself. No. He would call him back and withdraw from the sale. It was over.

  “Tell him we’ll be there.”

  He whipped his head around in the direction of the gloriously sweet voice he thought he’d imagined.

  But there she was, standing in the doorway of his office, her arms folded around the box she clutched at her chest, with a soft smile on her face. His groin sprang to attention before his mind did.

  It had been a week since he’d seen her, and damn, she looked good with her hair loose around her shoulders and a vintage style dress that should have been modest and yet clung to every damn curve he wanted to touch.

  His chasing-away tactics sucked and his body see
med glad. Some sensation in his chest told him he was glad. He needed to squash that sensation flat.

  “No, we won’t.”

  “Yes, we will. This is what you want, Jack.”

  Was it? Somehow his plan seemed insignificant in comparison to the woman standing in front of him. Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

  He had begun to question his senses that night after he’d wanted to have her in the treehouse. Without thinking he’d dashed to see Izzy’s father and told him he wanted out of their agreement. His no-touching agreement was now impossible. He’d told him his plan to take Izzy to Italy with a warning that there was an attraction he was at risk of acting on. David had studied him for a long while before nodding and giving him a warm hug that bought tightness to his throat.

  “It would mean you have to pretend to be Ellie. I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “Yes, you can. It’s about time you realized that you have people in your corner who care about you.”

  He did?

  “And I’m one of them. I can even get my pom-poms and show you my cheerleading skills if you like?”

  “You were never a cheerleader,” he said as he fought a smile.

  “Well, no. But I am a fast learner,” she said, with a gleam sparkling in her eyes that gave him no doubt her thoughts were just as wicked as the ones he was having picturing her in a cheerleader uniform, or only wearing pom-poms and a smile.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. She should be looking at him with hate, or at the very least annoyance. Instead she was looking at him like if he said ‘lift up your dress and take off your knickers’ her reply would be ‘how hard and fast do you want to go’. His answer would be ‘very’.

  Walking over to the desk, she reached forward, offering him a tantalizing peek at the lacy edge of her bra. He worked his jaw muscles . She plucked up the phone and held it out to him, exposing her inner arm. Before he went with his instinct to run his tongue over her delicate skin he took it from her, pausing as their fingers brushed, sending that too familiar shot of awareness through his veins.

  “You can’t lie.”

  “So I’ll give my good-girl side a day off.” She shrugged.

  Damn her good-girl side was just as dangerous as her bad-girl side.

  “Call him,” she prompted as she rested a hand on her hip and sent a pout his way he was sure was intended to be stern but just looked a whole lot of sexy.

  Stubborn little temptress. If he dragged her onto his lap and unzipped his trousers he could...

  With a ragged sigh of forced restraint, he pounded on each button.

  A grin curved her lush lips as she listened in on his conversation. Strangely, talking to the person he should hate didn’t seem quite so difficult with Izzy there. He didn’t have that sick churning feeling in his gut. The moment he ended the conversation Izzy was sliding the ivory box onto his desk with a satisfied smile. As he thought to act on his earlier idea to tug her onto his lap, she turned and walked away.

  “I’ll see you on Friday,” she called, and then she tossed him a cheeky wink over her shoulder. “Oh, and your photography is great by the way. Something for your private album though I suggest.”

  She left him staring at the now empty space she’d occupied. Then he lowered his gaze and blinked at the box in confusion. He rested his hand on the box, hesitating before lifting it open. Nothing could have prepared him for what was inside.

  He stared at the photographs with his heart pulsing like the beat of a hummingbird’s wing. His mouth dried, making him swallow the tight knot in his throat.

  It wasn’t simply that the images were stunning. It was that they were so natural and free. Sure, he’d seen lots of images of himself during his modeling career—but these? Izzy looked stunning, her face radiant and brimming with laughter. The sun had picked out every highlight in her hair and made them golden. Her lips shone a dusky pink as they raised up to meet his. He flipped over the page. The fountain. How had he forgotten that they were being photographed? The images answered his question.

  Izzy twirling with her skirts whirling around her legs as he stood by and laughed. One where he held her in his arms tightly. Ones of Izzy dancing around the fountain with the water cascading like diamonds in the background. But no diamond shone as brightly as Izzy. She was lustrous. And there was the one he remembered most of all—catching her in his arms.

  With every blink each image flashed in his mind like the time frame Izzy had created. The look of wonder on her face as petals showered down on them made him absently rub at the invisible ache in his chest.

  He gave a soft smile at the cutting-the-cake image. Only their hands were visible as they clutched the silver knife together. Only they would know that if the camera were positioned a little more to the left, they were butt naked at that point, and there was a huge chunk missing out of the cake and remnants of fingermarks in the frosting.

  He flipped to the last page, his fingers brushing against some loose photographs. He picked them up slowly. They were the ones he had taken of Izzy. He had tried to delete them but her camera was more complicated than he realized and he couldn’t risk losing the images they already had.

  It showed Izzy lying naked on the bed, deep in the throes of exhausted sleep. Spent from their hours of lovemaking...no, sex, he corrected himself with a frown. Izzy had said he was a good photographer, but it wasn’t his photography skills that made it wonderful—it was the subject.

  A sheet protected her modesty, resting over her lush bottom as she lay on her front, exposing only the sides of her breasts. Her legs looked long and slender, and her naked back begged to have every dip and rise touched. The disheveled caramel curls of her hair spilled over her shoulders and fell against her creamy cheekbones. But the smile on her face was plain to see.

  Jack closed the album and sank back in his chair. It wasn’t that each image was spectacular that had his heart sinking to the region of his feet—it was that each image told the same story. Each image painted a thousand unspoken words, as clear as the bright blue sky pictured above their heads. In every photograph Izzy was looking at him with warmth in her eyes and trust. The look of stark adoration was plain to see. The kicker was—he was looking right back at her in the same way.

  So what was he going to do about it?

  * * * *

  She had him rattled.

  It took roughly an hour for Jack to drive them to Hampshire. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with conversation. He seemed edgier than she had ever seen him and totally distracted, so all the way down she kept chatting even though in his presence it felt like he was in control of her pulse and he’d just switched it to overdrive.

  Why was she doing this crazy thing?

  In short—because she loved him. The longer explanation was she suspected he had feelings for her too, but he just didn’t know it yet.

  Her father’s words had made her consider this but when she’d gone home and flicked through her images her heart had melted. The time frame was spectacular. There was something there worth fighting for. She was sure of it. Those surprise images of her as she slept had sucked the air from her lungs.

  The crunch of gravel beneath the tires had her surveying her surroundings. She took in the long driveway lined with tall, leafy oaks offering protection with their branches sweeping over to each other like a friend’s embrace.

  She held in her sigh. No friendly embraces going on in here.

  As they reached the end of the driveway Izzy couldn’t hide her frown of surprise. He’d gone to all of this trouble for...this?

  Sure, it was a beautiful house. A country manor surrounded by green fields. Probably with many acres but in the fading light it was difficult to see just how vast the property was.

  But Jack here?

  She couldn’t imagine it at all. But there must be some reason...

  As she turned to probe to finally get some answers she stilled. Jack’s inky dark head was focused on the wide door and he gripped
the steering wheel as though he were cast out at sea with the last float.

  Yeah, there was definitely a reason. There was more to this house than a grand entrance and a trail of roses.

  One thing for sure was that it was expensive. Did he have a heap of money tied into this place? She’d noticed during their trip to Italy he had a keen interest in property, she hoped she was wrong but she wondered now if the value of this deal was tied up in the land.

  “Hey.” She placed a hand over one of his, surprised to find it cool to the touch. “You okay?”

  He lowered his head to glance at their hands touching as if the contact had dragged him from somewhere Izzy couldn’t reach.

  “Yeah, of course.” Turning off the engine, he got out and strode around the car to open the door for her.

  Izzy stood, her heels sinking into the gravel as she took her first step. She pitched forward, bumping into a solid wall of muscle. Jack grasped her upper arms, steadying her as her breasts flattened against the softness of his dark sweater.

  “Now I’m all better,” he drawled.

  Izzy tilted her head, liking the sound of his deep tone laced with a hint of promise, pleased to see the hint of a smile she’d been hoping for. She tilted her head a fraction more, hoping to tempt him into further progress.

  Instead he stared at her for a moment just short of her reacting by tasting his lips.

  At the sound of the door opening, they broke apart as golden light from the hallway splashed over their bodies.

  Damn, so close.

  She smiled, the curve of her lips lifting higher than mere politeness. Her plan to remind him of what he was denying himself had halted in its tracks, but she had yet to remove her coat.

  She bit her lip to prevent her laughter as Jack took the photograph album and an expensive bottle of wine from the car. She took the bottle out of his hand, leaving Jack with the album. He frowned as he held it, only gripping the corners with his fingertips. Was he afraid it was going to burn him in some way?