The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (5 page)

S
ERENELY
triumphant was the pose she had to sustain as Dragon Lady, having accomplished what Lin Zhiyong had plainly doubted, but Jayne was boiling underneath it.

Dan Drayton had appropriated her as though she was a possession he could pick up and do anything he liked with whenever the whim took him. It was a timely reminder of why she had walked out of their marriage.

The feelings he’d stirred were treacherous. She couldn’t afford to let him mush up her heart with Nina’s baby. And he might be the most com-pellingly attractive man she’d ever met, but if he thought he was going to resume conjugal rights tonight, he had another think coming!

Two years she had spent trying to establish herself as a person in her own right. For him to claim her as his wife and expect to live with her again without so much as an ‘if you please’, showed a total lack of respect for her position and her feelings.

There was no immediate opportunity for private conversation. Lin Zhiyong proved himself a diplomat, smoothly breaking up the awkward impasse for Sheikh Omar El Talik by inviting
them all to take refreshment in the pavilion, which, he pointed out to his foreign guests, was a fine example of traditional Chinese architecture.

Dan deftly relieved Jayne of Baby’s weight with a smug grin that she would have liked to slap off his face. He hoisted the little girl to a perch against his shoulder again—no painful residue from the cramp in his arm—and was fulsome in his admiration of the pavilion’s green-tiled roof with its winged eaves and the red-lacquered pillars and beams that supported it. The designs of flowers painted on the beams drew his particular interest. As an appreciative guest, Dan scored full marks.

Not so Sheikh Omar El Talik. He was sullenly silent, disinterested in any ornamentation that didn’t have Jayne at the centre of it. He still cast hotly meaningful looks at her and was intensely watchful for any sign of disunity between the supposedly reunited couple.

He declined a moon cake, despite the variety of unique fillings Lin Zhiyong listed to tempt his appetite. However, he accepted a small cup of Maotai, one of the most famous Chinese wines, a transparent, potent spirit made from sorghum and guaranteed to take the fire out of his eyes and put it in his mouth and stomach. Lin Zhiyong failed to tell him about this effect. He emptied the warmed cup in one gulp and barely saved himself the indignity of coughing and spluttering.

That was the end of the party as far as Omar El Talik was concerned. He made an abrupt farewell and departed with his men. Jayne was glad to see the back of him. With Lin Zhiyong escorting the trio of Arabs from his garden, there was no one of importance in hearing distance of what she wanted to say to Dan.

He was feeding Baby little pieces of the sweet cake he had selected, much to her gooing approval. Jayne finished the cup of light rice wine she had taken and moved to the railing at one end of the pavilion, ostensibly to admire the reflection of the full moon in the water but practically ensuring a small pocket of privacy.

Predictably Dan followed, taking up position at her side and making an innocuous comment about the pleasing formation of the waterlilies.

Jayne turned on him, not even minimally pacified by the sensual splendour of the view. ‘I do not need you to create diversionary tactics to rescue me from the attentions of other men,’ she steamed.

Dan was not the least bit chastened. ‘You preferred him mauling you?’ he asked, as though miffed at her lack of appreciation for his quick thinking.

‘I was perfectly capable of detaching myself.’

He snorted. ‘You would have had a constant job of it.’

Jayne’s temperature rose. ‘So your judgement’s better than mine, is it?’

‘In this case, yes.’

She exploded with resentment. ‘Thank you for reducing me to the status of second-class citizen, Dan. It reminds me quite forcefully of why I left you. The way you took over and answered for me as though I had no voice of my own showed a truly wonderful contempt for my intelligence and savoir faire.’

‘Not at all. I’m full of admiration for the way you turned the situation to your advantage,’ he drawled, completely unstung by her accusations. ‘A splendid piece of opportunism.’

‘Which you promptly capitalised upon. Or thought you did.’

‘Now there you’ve lost me. You were doing the capitalising for Monty.’

‘I do not sell my body to anyone for anyone, Dan Drayton,’ she hissed, furious that he was ducking the point.

‘Neither you should. I couldn’t agree more.’

She barely stopped herself from yelling at him. With enormous self-discipline she bit out the bottom line. ‘I will not be living with you.’

‘Oh, yes, you will,’ he said decisively. ‘The deal’s off if you don’t.’

‘If you think you can jump into my bed anytime you like, just because you once had that right…’

‘Right? Right?’ His voice rose in a scandalised squawk, drawing unwelcome attention.

‘Shhh…’

He dropped his tone to silky sarcasm. ‘Oh, that’s lovely, that is! Reducing our lovemaking to marital rights. As though you weren’t every bit as passionately involved as I was. Twisting the truth now, are we?’

Jayne flushed. ‘So it was mutual consent then. It isn’t now.’

‘You can say that again!’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Just because Omar had the hots for you, you needn’t think I’m panting to slide between the sheets with you, Jayne Winter. You froze me out for two years and you’d have to chip the frost off me and do a big heating-up program to get me even mildly interested.’

‘Oh!’ Jayne was so deflated she was robbed of speech.

‘It’s obviously going to be a pain in the neck living with Dragon Lady.’

‘What?’

‘That’s the name the Chinese people here have given you. Undoubtedly with good reason. Not exactly suggestive of a comfortable person to live with, is it?’

‘I’m not asking you to live with me. I don’t want you to live with me.’ Jayne heard her voice growing shrill, and swallowed hard, fighting to regain a calm composure.

‘Part of the job unfortunately,’ Dan said with a rueful grimace. ‘Much easier and more efficient
if you’re on hand to assist with Monty’s plans and projections.’

‘We can meet on the job,’ Jayne flung at him. ‘There is no need for us to cohabit.’

‘And what if Omar whisks you off in his private jet to have his way with you? I’d be left having to sort out everything for myself. The deal was for you to stay on the job.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! As if that’s going to happen!’

‘Highly likely if we don’t stay together with every appearance of marital bliss. Omar El Talik is not a man who cares to be thwarted. White slavery was once a popular trade in his country. And very lucrative. He’d have no scruples about taking you, Jayne.’

‘This is absolute nonsense!’ she scoffed.

‘Don’t let the diamonds and sapphires fool you. Even queens are second-class citizens in Omar’s world.’

‘Will you stop this!’ Jayne cried in exasperation. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

‘Well, you might be prepared to chance it. I’m not. You got me into this and now you’re stuck with me. Take it or leave it. Here’s Lin Zhiyong coming back if you want to tell him the deal’s off. Of course, I’m now persona non grata in Morocco after this little altercation with Omar, but Baby and I are quite happy to travel on to Mozambique. We certainly don’t need this aggravation.’

Having neatly established himself on the moral high ground, Dan adopted a lofty air of distancing himself from her decision. It stirred a maelstrom of violent feelings in Jayne. She dearly wanted to kick him. The almost overwhelming urge demonstrated how deeply Dan could still get under her skin.

She looked up at the full moon sailing serenely across the heavens and thought Chang Er probably had herself a good deal. In her lunar isolation she didn’t have to put up with men!

Jayne was acutely aware she was playing with fire having anything more to do with Dan. Yet if she didn’t stand up to him now, what was her much vaunted self-determination worth? If he was prepared to live together on a platonic basis, her pride insisted she could do the same. After all, it would surely be the ultimate testing ground of what they meant to each other.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jayne saw Lin Zhiyong stepping onto the bridge. There was no time left for further consideration. ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘We live together. Monty and I were sharing a two-bedroom apartment. You and Baby can have Monty’s room.’

Dan favoured her with a look of pained resignation. ‘I do hope it’s not too cramped. I wouldn’t want Baby to disturb your sleep.’

It wouldn’t be Baby disturbing her sleep. Knowing Dan was occupying Monty’s bed with only a wall between them was going to stimulate
memories that were guaranteed to keep her awake and restless. His apparent sangfroid over the en-forced proximity did nothing to allay her newly aroused awareness of the husband she had striven so hard to forget. She found it galling, especially since she had been unable to maintain any coolness herself from the moment of seeing him again.

‘If you’d like to suggest some other accom-modation?’ she offered tightly.

‘No. If it suited Monty, I daresay it will suit Baby and me well enough,’ he said reasonably. ‘I was merely considering you, Jayne. But if you’re satisfied, I’m satisfied.’

She stared at him, almost certain she saw malicious devilment dancing in his eyes, but his general demeanour was stand-offish and he swung his gaze away from her as Lin Zhiyong arrived beside them.

‘Is His Excellency travelling straight back to Beijing?’ Dan asked.

‘He did not say,’ Lin Zhiyong replied. ‘I am informed that His Excellency has rooms booked in the same hotel as yourself, Mr. Drayton. In Xi’an.’ He hesitated, looking sharply at Jayne before addressing Dan again. ‘You are not thinking of changing your mind over…?’

‘Most assuredly not,’ Dan replied emphati-cally. ‘However, I am intent on safeguarding my wife from Omar El Talik’s unwelcome attentions. Would it be possible to arrange to have my
luggage collected from my hotel and delivered here so that I can accompany my wife straight to her apartment at the completion of tonight’s festivities?’

‘It is no problem at all. Leave it with me,’ Lin Zhiyong instantly obliged. ‘And may I say, Mr. Drayton, how pleased I am to have your services in resolving our difficult problem.’

‘You owe that outcome to my wife,’ Dan said dryly.

‘Yes,’ Lin Zhiyong agreed, bowing in respect to Jayne. ‘Miss Winter is, indeed, a lady to be counted.’

Dragon Lady.

Jayne felt a bubble of hysteria rise in her throat and hastily swallowed it down. Not only had she
saved face
tonight, she had probably increased it a hundredfold. Only she could taste the bitter irony of what was really going on.

Dan was taking revenge for her desertion of him, forcing her to contemplate at close quarters all she had given up, ramming the price she had paid for independence right down her throat. That was the truth of it.

As she considered the inevitable misery of her immediate fate, another truth rose above the churning emotional mess Dan had reduced her to.

Dan could not be as immune to her as he made himself out to be. It might have been curiosity and a damaged ego that had prompted him to
come at her call, but he had come! And he had acted quite jealously and possessively in the face of Omar El Talik’s zealous homage and extravagant promises.

He had been hurt by her ultimate rejection of all their marriage had meant and it could be pride that prompted his present stand-off with her. Maybe living together would give them the opportunity to air their differences and reach a mutual understanding. If he had suffered long, lonely nights, perhaps some kind of compromise could be reached.

Well, she would soon find out.

The trial by fire had already begun.

I
F DAN
really wanted her as his wife again, he gave no indication of it as he moved his luggage into the apartment, checked the facilities and reorganised the space in Monty’s bedroom to accommodate his and Baby’s needs. He might well have been the stranger Jayne had made of him. There was no attempt to evoke any intimacy between them, nor to engage her in provocative conversation. He simply moved in with militarylike precision.

There was no mistaking the message being telegraphed to Jayne. An invasion of her bedroom tonight was definitely not on Dan’s agenda. She could sleep in lonely peace as far as he was concerned. Yet peace was as far away as the moon.

Loneliness wasn’t.

Jayne lay awake long after all noise in the next bedroom ceased. The loneliness she felt was soul-deep. It went far beyond the separation from Dan, right back to her childhood. The sight of Baby settled in Monty’s double bed, on the other side to where Dan would lie, triggered memories she had suppressed for many years.

If her own parents had shared their bed with her when she was a baby, Jayne didn’t remember
it. She remembered sleeping on floors, armchairs, sofas, car seats, never in a bed of her own in a place she could call home.

Her parents had always been on the move, going wherever the rock band her father played in had a booking. Music had been his life, although the band had never managed to hit the big-time. Hotels, clubs, dance halls comprised most of their venues. The one constant Jayne remembered was the Kombivan stacked with sound equipment and instruments.

Her mother had died from a particularly virulent form of influenza when Jayne was seven. Travelling with the band had stopped then. She was farmed out to friends or relatives of the band members, anyone who was willing to help, having Jayne for a while. Neither of her parents had family for her to go to. They had both been runaways from broken homes and de facto relationships where they no longer ‘fitted’.

Jayne hadn’t ‘fitted’ anywhere, either, although she had tried to be as unobtrusive as possible to those who were kind enough to take her in. Schooling had been erratic, but it did introduce her to the world of books and Jayne had retreated into it at every opportunity. Naturally good at numbers, she had picked up maths easily. None of the multitude of teachers she had in primary school ever seemed to notice any shortcomings in her education.

High school had introduced her to computers. She loved working on them. It was something, albeit a machine, that she could control. Nothing else in her life was controllable. People came and went, including her father, whose haphazard visits usually meant shifting to another place, another school, another set of strangers to put names to.

He had tried to jolly her into being more outgoing, more cheerful to be with. A quiet, introverted bookworm did not win friends. She should try to develop more people skills, join in with whatever was going on. It would make life easier for her. After all, she was a bright spark, he would say, ruffling the red curls she had inherited from him.

Jayne had figured her father didn’t touch down on the real world or didn’t want to examine it too closely. At the schools she attended boys invariably teased her over her tallness and her mop of red hair. Girls had their established cliques. Jayne was an outsider. She didn’t reject whatever overtures of friendship were made to her but she knew in her heart that nothing lasting would eventuate. How could it when next week, next month, next term, she might be somewhere else?

She never did really learn people skills. She responded to those who made the effort to talk to her but didn’t know how to go about drawing a response from them if it wasn’t readily forthcoming. Dan had accused her tonight of being
too self-absorbed to wonder about anyone else. Was that how she came over to others?

Had Nina seen her like that?

Did Monty?

Jayne didn’t think it was true, yet she couldn’t deny the habit of distancing herself from any source of hurt. As she had done with Dan when she had left him. As she had done with her father when he had left her with strangers, although it had taken her a long time to learn that self-containment, shutting down on the misery of feeling hopelessly bereft and alone whenever she waved her father off in the Kombivan filled with amplifiers and instruments but not her.

She hadn’t mourned when her father had died. At the funeral she had felt removed from both his life and his death, which she discovered had resulted from a heroin overdose. It was a relief to know that, in a way. Somehow it excused a lot Jayne hadn’t understood, like how he could leave her as though she was excess baggage he didn’t need and was only in the way.

At the time he died, she was sixteen and no longer dependent on his friends and acquaintances for anything. She had a job with a travel agent and was renting a room in a boarding house. She remembered thinking she didn’t need him. She didn’t need anybody.

Had she been repeating that same pattern with Dan?

Certainly she had been intent on managing without him, and she had managed. The difference was that she had missed Dan. Terribly. She hadn’t missed her father.

With Dan she had learnt what it was like to be close to another person in all the wonderful ways there were to be close. Loneliness came much harder after knowing that. Yet, in the end, being with him, fulfilling the role of his wife, hadn’t compensated for the unanswered needs that had become more and more pressing under the stresses of Dan’s chosen way of life.

Tears welled into her eyes as those needs clawed once more through her heart and mind.

I want a home I can call my own. I want a family growing up in that home, coming back to it, knowing I’ll always be there for them, and they for me. I want to be part of a community where being me means something, where I’m a participant instead of an outsider. I want to contribute something, to feel I’m not just passing through this life as a nothing person.

She was painfully aware that Dan didn’t understand any of this, that his upbringing had conditioned him to the life he led. His father had been an engineer who built bridges; his mother an artist who revelled in going to the far-flung places her husband’s work took them. Dan remembered his childhood as a series of marvellous adventures, the world his playground.

They were two very different people. Dan was happy making transient acquaintances with whom he became quickly involved. It made her a stranger to his life. She knew he would feel the same way if she tried to involve him in hers. He would find settling down in one place boring and too deadly dull to contemplate.

So where did that leave them?

It was the same question Jayne had asked two years ago and despaired of finding any answer that would give either of them any lasting satisfaction. All things considered, she doubted there was an answer now, especially if Dan was deeply embittered by what she had done.

Perhaps he had instinctively acted like a dog with a bone when Omar El Talik expressed his desire for her. It didn’t necessarily mean he wanted her for himself.

Unless she was prepared to heat him up.

To Jayne’s infinite regret, sexual compatibility was not enough on which to base a lifetime together. It simply wasn’t.

She cried herself to sleep, wishing, wanting, needing…and it didn’t help at all that the man she had loved was so close…so close and yet so far away.

She woke sluggishly the next morning. It took several moments to identify the sounds sliding into her woolly consciousness. Happy, bubbly, baby sounds. Nina’s daughter. Jayne wished she had been there to help her friend in her darkest
hour, although Nina’s trust in Dan had not been mislaid.

She listened with sharper concentration. Not a murmur from Dan. Was he up already, armouring himself against spending the day with Dragon Lady, or still fast asleep, oblivious to the situation they were now committed to for the duration of Monty’s contract with the Chinese government?

Jayne rose and dressed quietly, pulling on practical work clothes: jeans, shirt, a denim battle jacket, thick socks and heavy-duty walking shoes. She had no idea if Dan would want to visit the project site today. If so, she was dressed appropriately. If not, he’d have no cause to think she was trying to look seductive. There was nothing to gain by trying to heat Dan. Even if she succeeded, it would inevitably lead to further hurt and frustration.

Whatever he felt about her, Jayne hoped they could find some neutral ground that could make living together reasonably amicable. She didn’t want to hurt him. Lashing out at each other was not going to achieve anything good. Their marriage was two years in the past. It was better for both of them if it stayed there.

She washed and did what she could to tidy her hair. She heard Huang Chunz arrive, fresh from her morning visit to the markets, and hurried out to the kitchen to inform her of the new household arrangements. Chunz had been assigned to cook
and clean for Monty and Jayne. Her eyes widened in surprise and delight at hearing there was now a baby girl to care for.

As with most Chinese families in the cities, Chunz and her husband only had the one child, a boy who was now eleven and doing well at school. Chunz was immensely proud of him, although she had confided wistfully to Jayne that she would have loved to have a daughter, too. Unfortunately, in China it was irresponsible to have more than one child because of the shortage in housing and food.

‘Is the baby still sleeping?’ she asked.

‘No, but I think Mr. Drayton is,’ Jayne answered.

‘She must be hungry by now. We could feed her for Mr. Drayton,’ Chunz suggested eagerly.

Jayne wasn’t sure that was a wise move. Dan might interpret it as interference. There had been a proud belligerence in his assertion that he took care of Baby all by himself.

On the other hand, what harm could a little baby-minding do if it allowed him to sleep on undisturbed? He must be very tired, probably jet-lagged. It was only considerate to let him have as much rest as he needed. He hadn’t had any objection to Jayne holding Baby last night when he was supposedly incapacitated. What objection could he have this morning?

‘I’ll get her,’ Jayne said decisively.

‘I shall put egg in the rice. It will be good for her,’ Chunz declared with a happy clap of her hands.

Knowing Dan’s propensity for trying the local cuisine wherever he was, Jayne had no doubt that Baby’s dietary habits were just as broad as his. She had probably been fed sheep’s eyes in Morocco.

Jayne put her ear to their bedroom door, listening for any hint that Dan was awake. A few gurgles, splutters and excited little squeals indicated that Baby was in fine fettle. There was no discernible sound from Dan. Very quietly Jayne turned the handle and pushed the door open enough for her to slide into the room and unobtrusively check out the situation.

Baby had kicked off the bedclothes on her side. Her legs were up in the air and hanging suspended between her kicking feet and the clutch of her hands on its ears was a soft, toy panda bear, obviously a new and exciting acquisition. She made an absolutely gorgeous picture, snugly clothed in a red jumpsuit and playing with the black and white bear. Jayne wished she had a camera in her hands to take a snapshot.

The soft melting in her heart and the fatuous smile on her face both froze with shock as Baby caught sight of her and the bear went flying, almost smacking into Dan’s nose. Jayne’s feet flew across the floor and she scooped Baby up in her arms to prevent any mishap that might
wake Dan. She flicked him a quick, cursory glance, saw no sign of movement, and with a sense of intense relief, hastened to the door to make a speedy exit.

‘Reduced to kidnapping, Jayne?’

The husky drawl stopped her in her tracks. She spun around, excuses for her action tumbling from her mind but distracted from reaching her tongue by the sight of the bedclothes sliding off Dan’s torso as he hitched himself up from the pillow.

He had a beautiful body, sleekly muscled, firmly fleshed, his olive skin sensually smooth and gleaming with health, compelling an urge to touch, to glide fingers or hands over its warm vitality. Lying naked with him had always been a tactile pleasure. It was impossible to see him like this and not remember. It had been so good…so long ago….

In sheer defence against the stirring response in her own body, Jayne stared at the St. Christopher medal dangling from the fine silver chain around his neck. His mother had given it to him when he was a boy, promising him a safe journey through life. He always wore it. There would be another journey after China, Jayne savagely reminded herself. And another. There was a long way to go before Dan reached Z and Zimbabwe.

‘Answer me, Jayne,’ he commanded harshly.

She dragged her gaze up to his, feeling intensely vulnerable and fighting not to show it. There was not the slightest trace of slumber in his dark eyes. They probed hers with merciless intent.

‘Are you suffering a bout of frustrated maternal instinct?’

‘No…I…’ She recalled the anguish she had felt when she had first seen Dan with the baby. It was gone now. It had gone the moment she had learnt Baby was Nina’s and Mike’s daughter, that she wasn’t part of Dan and some other woman. Nevertheless, it was a warning of how deeply Dan could still touch her. She had to be on her guard against that. ‘I thought Baby might be hungry,’ she explained defensively.

‘She’s had a bottle of formula. I was up earlier.’

‘Oh!’ It flustered Jayne that she hadn’t heard him moving about the apartment. Had he looked in on her, remembering how it had once been between them? She shied away from that thought and rushed back into speech. ‘You seemed to be heavily asleep. I thought you might appreciate some extra rest.’

‘Considerate of you.’ His mouth took on a mocking twist. ‘Or was the urge to hold the baby again irresistible?’

‘I told you…’

‘She’s so soft and warm and cuddly, so sweetly appealing. Makes your stomach curl, doesn’t it?’

‘I…’ Jayne floundered. It was true, yet it was true of all baby things; kittens and puppies and chickens. It didn’t mean she was broody for a baby. ‘It’s only natural to feel caring toward a child this young,’ she said defiantly.