Single Girl Abroad (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases) (8 page)

‘Better for you, though, if Jacob remains your husband on paper,’ said Madeline. ‘At least for now.’

‘Yes,’ said Jianne reluctantly. ‘Better for me.’

‘Tell Jacob that Jianne doesn’t want a divorce,’ Madeline told Luke.

‘If Jacob wants a divorce he can have one,’ said Jianne stubbornly.

‘If Jacob had wanted a divorce he’d have gotten one,’ countered Madeline. ‘Enough with the divorce talk.’ Time to find out exactly how big Jianne’s problem really was. ‘Is this man your father wants you to hook up with a violent man?’

‘He’s obsessed,’ said Jianne quietly. ‘He’s always been obsessed with me.’

‘So you’re scared of him,’ said Madeline.

‘I’m not comfortable around him,’ said Jianne. ‘I go to a great deal of trouble to ensure that I’m never alone with him.’

‘Well, you’re scaring me,’ murmured Madeline.

‘Can’t your family do something about him?’ asked Luke. ‘Like cut him out of your life? I seem to recall your father’s had plenty of experience when it comes to turning away people who want to see you.’

Jianne flinched but made no comment.

Madeline shot Luke a warning glance. ‘Jianne, why does your father support this man’s behaviour?’ she asked more gently.

‘Guanxi,’
said Ji.

‘Guanxi?’
echoed Luke.

‘Indebtedness,’ explained Madeline. ‘Jianne’s father owes this man a favour. Clearly a big one.’

‘A daughter is not a
favour
.’ Luke’s eyes hardened. ‘Ji, have you told this man you’re not interested in him?’

‘Of course I have. In a thousand different ways, including verbally and by letter. Do I look like a mindless puppet to you?’ Jianne’s eyes flashed.

‘Rhetorical question, right?’ murmured Luke.

‘One of the lessons I learned during my time with your family was how to stand up for myself. After standing against Jacob I realised I could stand up to anyone.’

Brave words, but Madeline was still mulling over Jianne’s comments about having to manoeuvre so as to never be alone with the man. ‘What if you asked Jacob along to a couple of events that you knew this man would be at, and then made sure to introduce them, and then left with Jacob, and then maybe stayed the night with Jacob—’

‘Maddy,’ interrupted Luke with a small negative shake of his head.

‘Somewhere big enough that you could have separate rooms—’

‘Maddy.’ Louder this time.

‘So that if this pest followed you he would see that you were well protected and unavailable and go away.’ She turned to Luke. ‘What? Too complicated?’

‘Let’s just say I can see a few problem areas,’ murmured Luke.

‘I see them too,’ added Ji. ‘Thank you. Really. And thank you for joining me for a meal so we could talk. But I’ll be fine.’

Ji set her napkin on the table, retrieved her handbag from beneath her chair, and stood up. ‘Please, don’t get
up,’ she added when Luke went to stand. ‘Stay and enjoy the rest of the meal.’

Luke stood up anyway. Madeline rose too. She liked Jianne Xang. Liked the other woman’s quiet dignity and the way she’d sought to redress the problem and undo her aunt and uncle’s machinations.

‘If you ever do need help,
call
us,’ said Luke. ‘Jake can be elusive when it comes to his feelings for you but if you need his protection you’ll get it. He owes you that much. We all do. All you have to do is ask.’

‘Tiger’s left claw,’ said Jianne with a gentle smile that spoke of deep and abiding affection. ‘It was my name for you, all those years ago. Tristan was the right claw, Hallie was the tiger’s ears, and Peter was the tail—always twitching to break free from the rest of you.’

Luke smiled at the fanciful imagery. ‘What was Jake?’

‘He was the heart.’

M
ADELINE
and Luke continued with the meal once Jianne had gone. One problem had been dealt with but another remained, and Madeline wasn’t at all sure how to address it. Easier, far easier, to talk about something else.

‘We should have forced a meeting between them,’ she said at last. ‘It might have done some good.’

‘Jake’s not ready,’ said Luke.

Madeline raised her eyebrow a fraction and gave the tiniest of shrugs. ‘So? I wasn’t quite ready to see you today either, yet here I am.’

There it was, the opening he needed. ‘What do you want to do, Maddy? About us.’

Madeline regarded him solemnly. ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to decide if I could be your part-time lover. Separate lives, no strings, and no demands. I’m not looking for a husband. I don’t need to be kept. In that regard we would suit each other quite well. I just don’t know if I can keep my emotions out of the mix the way I’ve always managed to do before. Not with you.’

‘It’s okay to care for each other, Maddy. Just not too much.’

‘I see.’ Maddy shot him one of those are-you-of this-planet looks that women occasionally reserved just for men. ‘Define too much.’

‘I defined it last night,’ he said quietly. ‘You can mess with everything but the job.’

That deadly little job.

‘So if I were to say to you that we’re currently sitting in a restaurant in a very nice hotel and that I’d like to see the inside of a room with you next, would that mess with the job?’

‘No, that would mess with my head,’ said Luke. Something this woman did with irritating regularity. ‘A relationship between us doesn’t have to be sordid, Maddy. It just has to be …’ What exactly? He searched for a descriptor that would suit.

‘Casual and carefree?’ she injected dryly. ‘Elevator and hotel-room based? Provided, of course, that you’re in the country.’

‘Fluid,’ he said, glaring at her. ‘As for our lovemaking being elevator and hotel-room based, it’s not as if we’re hiding what we’re doing. There’s no shame in wanting privacy that we can’t find elsewhere. It’s just …’ All he could offer her.

‘Practical?’ she supplied. ‘Neutral territory?’

‘Yes.’

Madeline worried at her lower lip for a time and Luke watched her in silence, knowing his offer for a paltry one. Not knowing what he would do should she refuse it.

‘Okay, warrior,’ she said finally. ‘We’ll try it your way
for a while.’ Her eyes met his, guarded and sombre. ‘And I’ll let you know when I’ve had enough.’

She was giving him exactly what he wanted by way of a relationship. Her decision should have left him well pleased. Satisfied, even.

It didn’t.

A brooding warrior appealed to Madeline almost as much as a reckless one. They left the restaurant and discovered that Jianne had paid for the meal on the way out. They slowed to a halt in the foyer, decision time on what to do with the day and the moment. Madeline looked towards the registration desk. Luke followed her gaze before glancing back towards her as if trying to gauge her thoughts. She let a raised eyebrow speak for her. Luke’s lips began to curve.

‘This isn’t tawdry,’ he said.

‘Of course not,’ she countered. ‘It’s five-star.’

Luke paid for the room on the way in. Madeline figured she’d have to pay the piper for her recklessness eventually, but not today.

They rode the elevator in silence with another couple. Madeline with her gaze firmly fixed on the floor. This elevator had one of those handy little railings too. The hotel room would have a bed. Madeline had a powerful curiosity when it came to finding out what she and Luke could accomplish given a bed.

The other couple exited the elevator two floors before theirs. Madeline’s nerves snapped tight as the lift doors closed. Not here. Don’t look at him. Wait.

The elevator doors opened again. Time to get out and
walk a while along sterile hotel corridors until they found their room. Madeline hung back a step or two while Luke swiped the access card and opened the door. He stepped back to let her through.

A king-size bed and a high-rise view. A bathroom and a sitting area. A cocoon separating them from the outside world. Not Luke’s space or hers. Not the trophy wife and the warrior. Just two people with a need to connect physically for a while. Nothing sordid about it, and if it wasn’t quite what she wanted from this man, well, she was used to half measures and compromises when it came to romantic relationships. William had made the most of what she’d given him and never pushed for more. Surely Madeline could do the same when it came to Luke.

Poetic justice, really. The way things turned full circle.

Apprehension and no small measure of lust kicked in hard as Luke shut the door behind him and came to stand in front of her. She set her handbag on the side bench and watched him, curling her hands over the edge of the bench the better to stop them from reaching for him.

His move this time, and she would follow his lead for she didn’t know how to play this game of casual lust and hotel-room assignations. She didn’t know what to ask for. Didn’t know what liberties to take.

‘Say something,’ he murmured as he slid his hands through her hair, and gently smoothed it away from her face.

‘Like what?’

‘Say this is okay. What we’re doing here. Say you want this.’

‘Okay.’ She
did
want this. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want this.’

Luke’s lips came down on hers, teasing and tasting, deepening and always drugging.

Junkie, whispered a little voice deep inside her.

I can handle it, whispered another as Luke’s shirt went, and then hers, and then he lifted her onto the side bench, and set his arms either side of her as he put his lips to the hollow of her throat. Madeline tangled her hand in his hair and tilted her head back, willing away everything but the moment. This blindingly perfect moment of craving and capitulation.

Surrender and capture, he served up equal measures of both as he gathered her close, so lost in their lovemaking, so willingly, recklessly lost that there was nothing to do but follow his lead and trust him to know what he was doing.

Junkie, said the voice of doubt, even as his kisses made her tremble. This isn’t you. This isn’t what you want.

But it was.

The afternoon passed. Neon crept over the city and slid into the room through the gauzy white under-curtains. Luke’s need to be inside her had abated somewhat. Madeline’s need to have him there had abated somewhat too.

They lay on the sheet-wrecked bed, Luke beside her with one hand on the pillow above his head and his other hand loosely clasping a sheet that rode low on his loins. The tiger was dozing, she thought as she slid across the bed to sit on the edge of it. Magnificent, she thought as she glanced over her shoulder for one more look at him.

Not dozing. Luke’s eyes were upon her, heavy lidded and golden, though the rest of him had yet to move a muscle.

‘It’s getting late,’ she said. If they did this again on a weekday she’d have to remember to schedule enough time. Four hours rather than one. ‘When did you tell Jake you’d be back?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Did you tell him you were lunching with Ji?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’ll be waiting to hear from you.’

‘I texted him while you ran the shower.’ The shower he’d joined her in. Brought her to ecstasy in. Madeline was fast running out of places that didn’t hold the memory of him. ‘I told him Ji was okay.’

Madeline leaned over and kissed him lightly on the mouth. ‘Let me guess, you sent him two words. Four letters. J, I, O, and K. Such compassion.’

‘He can hear the rest later,’ murmured Luke. ‘Ji’s in no immediate danger.’ Luke reached over and touched the tips of his fingers to the curve of her hip. Surely this insatiable need for Madeline Delacourte would abate soon? It had to, because if it didn’t he’d start looking for ways to have more of her. Like basing himself here in Singapore. Like building a life here and making a place for Maddy in it and to hell with his freedom and his wanderlust and his work.

Closing his eyes, Luke shoved those wayward thoughts aside. They weren’t useful thoughts. They weren’t aims a man in his line of work had any right to consider.

Indulging in just one more taste of Madeline right here and now was a far better goal for a man like him.

Keep it casual. No one gets hurt. It was the only way he knew how to play.

‘This going to work for you, Maddy?’ he asked quietly.

‘Do you hear me complaining?’

‘Not what I asked.’

She didn’t seem to have an answer to what he asked. ‘It seems to be working okay at the moment,’ she said with a tiny shrug and a smile that almost reached her eyes.

‘Come back to bed,’ he said as his fingertips trailed along the underside of her arm and down towards her wrist. ‘I’ll make it work better.’

Madeline left the hotel later that evening with Luke at her side, her body well satisfied, and her mind awash with magical, sensuous moments. Luke saw her home, declined an invitation to come in for coffee, and told her he’d call her. He didn’t say when, and Madeline didn’t ask. Keeping it casual, just as he’d asked her to.

She could do this.

Yun had gone to stay overnight with her sister. There were leftovers in the fridge. Madeline ate them in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Normally, she’d have relished the solitude but tonight she felt restless and the elegantly furnished rooms seemed oddly empty.

No Luke, she thought grimly.

It was enough to send a woman in search of chocolate, and alcohol, and a movie to pass the time. She flicked through the television guide to see what was showing. News, sport, and game shows. Bollywood—no, thank
you. Japanese animae was a maybe, with perhaps a little channel surfing and a slice of Hong Kong martial-arts action starring Jet Li on the side.

Hmm. Tough choice. He had a very sweet smile, did Jet Li.

And if warriors were her weakness … and clearly they
were
… why
not
try and substitute one warrior for another?

Ten minutes later, champagne and strawberries at her side, pillows at her back, and the widescreen remote at her fingertips, Madeline settled to the challenge of forgetting about Luke Bennett for a time. The man wanted a casual relationship. The tiger demanded freedom.

Madeline wanted her mind back.

Jet Li just wanted revenge.