The Millionaire Falls Hard (11 page)

Whilst he was being served, Jake studied Carrie. She was giving a good performance of being in control and he couldn't fault the professional way her make up had been applied, but she looked pale and on close inspection he could see dark shadows under her eyes. She wore a tailored linen suit with a v-neck blouse that accentuated the swell of her breasts.

'So, what was going on last night?' Jake didn't see any reason not to get straight to the point. He had an inkling that Carrie intended to renege on her offer to tell him what had caused such an upset. She was doing a good job of pretending that everything was back to normal. Only they weren't quite normal because there is no way she would have invited him to share her breakfast if she hadn't been so emotionally charged the night before.

Carrie put down the cup of tea she'd been about to drink from.

'I'm sorry about last night, it was kind of you to stay with me.'

'Carrie.' The tone of Jake's voice warned her that he wouldn't accept anything less than being told the truth.

'You strike me as a woman who is normally in complete control of her emotions. Don't try and fob me off that the raw outpouring of emotion I heard and witnessed last night was nothing.'

For a moment Jake saw the same look of fear he'd witnessed last night, before she quickly masked it again. This woman was good at drawing a veil over weakness and he wondered again what horrors she had experienced in her life to make her so good.

'I'm not used to explaining my emotional responses, particularly to someone I don't know very well. Please accept that everything is now fine, and I'm truly sorry to have put you to any bother last night.'

At that moment Alan returned to the suite and sat down at the table.

'If everything is fine, why do you have protection, at your door and in here?' Jake asked, inclining his head towards Alan.

Carrie followed Jake's gaze and looked at Alan. The grim set of his mouth alerted her that something was wrong.

'It's not finished Carrie, I'm sorry. You need a friend right now and I think Jake is someone you can trust. I can't always be there. Tell him Carrie. I've still got things to arrange, I'll be back in a while.'

As Alan left the room, Carrie sat reeling from his comment. She was so sure that the news last night would have ended the threats. The fear deep inside her started to rise again but she was determined this time not to give in to it.

Jake watched the play of emotions cross her face and had to admire the look of steely determination that settled there.

'Where do I start!' Carrie pondered as she picked up a teaspoon and started to fiddle with it. Her gaze intently focused on the spoon, she took a deep breath.

'My ex-husband, Pip Hastings, once famous American rock DJ, committed suicide yesterday and left a letter blaming me for his death. He accused me of infidelity and of driving him to a life of drink and drugs.'

There were other things in the note accusing her of being cold and unresponsive in bed and that he'd had to turn to other women just to satisfy his natural male need. She couldn't bring herself to mention that part, but the pain was clear to see on her face. She had nothing to compare their sex life with, so maybe its failure had been her fault.

She let out her breath when she felt she had nothing more to say. She was silently pleased that Jake hadn't spoken, or questioned her or voiced any sympathy. She felt raw again and so very alone. She looked up then and saw such compassion and understanding in his eyes that she had to fight hard to hold back the tears.

Jake didn't know what to say. He couldn't believe that what she had said could have stirred up so much emotion, unless she'd really been in love with the guy. There were so many questions he wanted to ask but felt he'd be tramping all over her if he asked just now. All he wanted was to take her in his arms, but he wasn't sure if that was what she needed either. He decided to stay quiet and see what more she offered.

'You must be wondering why that had such a devastating effect on me,' Carrie continued.

'Well, there was more but I can't… I just can't speak of it. Alan is trying to get a press embargo on the contents. It's all lies, but it just makes me feel so dirty.' She shuddered, instinctively wrapping her arms around herself as if she could protect herself from the past.

'It puts me right back there in Miami, in my late teens, early twenties, wondering where the charmer went who swept me off my feet. We weren't married twenty four hours before he started to show his true colours. I couldn't face the 'I told you so' from my mother and my friends so I hid what it was like. The emotional blackmail; the wild parties; the prostitutes, the …. other stuff.'

Carrie stumbled, not able to talk about the physical abuse and rough, demanding sex.

'Over the years, so much of his behaviour was played out in public and reported in the press.' She pursed her lips. 'He seemed to relish the attention.'

Carrie had such a look of loss, of pain on her face.

She sighed.

'Murdering a prostitute was the last straw.' She looked back down and fiddled with the teaspoon again.

'That could so easily have been me. Just hours before, he'd been at home. He'd…. he'd ra….' She still couldn't bring herself to say what he'd done to her the last time she'd been in his presence. She still felt dirty. She still felt she'd been reduced to no more than one of the prostitutes he'd enjoyed so much.

Carrie looked again at Jake. Her eyes clouded with the tears she was fighting to hold back.

'I fled to Scotland, built my home and my life, and divorced him.'

With a slight smile playing on her lips, she said, 'Charlie is the only good thing to have come out of such a rotten relationship, and even then he was conceived in hate and spite.' That much she was able to admit.

Jake was trying hard not to show any signs of shock or dismay at what he was hearing. Still he sat, and just listened. Any thought of eating his breakfast completely forgotten. He smiled too when she mentioned Charlie, he was indeed a great kid.

Having started to talk, it seemed Carrie couldn't stop.

'You're probably wondering why I reacted the way I did last night. Surely I should be glad that he's got what he deserved. It would be news for a few days and then be chip wrapping. I've handled the shame and headlines before, I could handle them again.' Carrie paused, reached for her cup and took a sip of her tea. She pulled a face as the cold tea swirled in her mouth. That seemed to rally her slightly and she gave him a half-hearted smile.

'The truth is, I'm not sure why I reacted the way I did.'

Carrie took a deep breath as she launched into the rest of her story.

'I've been receiving threats over the last couple of months and they'd begun to get more threatening, more sinister. Part of me thought that Pip was somehow behind them. That he was wanting to get me back for my success and for having a son that he's never seen. I couldn't even bring myself to put his name on Charlie's birth certificate.'

'Everything has just been so difficult these last few months, trying to carry on as normal, keeping the danger from Charlie. I think the news last night was just too much and I broke down under the strain of everything.'

Jake finally spoke. 'What did Alan mean by 'it's not over'?'

'I don't know.' Carrie's voice finally broke on a sob.

Jake could hold back no longer. He went to Carrie's side and pulled her into his arms. Carrie clung to him and just cried her heart out, feeling emotionally wrung out. Jake pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to her.

He held her close, rocking her to and fro while he gently stroked her hair.

Jake was fighting his own demons while he comforted her. He hated himself for thinking the worst of her when she'd clearly been through hell since he'd known her.

He couldn't fathom out why he wanted to comfort her. This was a new feeling for him where a woman was concerned. He wanted to protect her and tell her everything would be alright, but he didn't know that. He felt completely at a loss for the first time in his adult life and he didn't like it.

He felt Carrie quieten in his arms and looked down into her face. He took the now soaking handkerchief and wiped the remaining tears from her face. Her beautiful green eyes looked so lost and unsure and yet so full of trust, Jake found himself moving closer to kiss her, unable to prevent the inevitable.

Yet again, Carrie felt safe and comforted in his arms. She liked the feeling and yet it was alien to her, when she'd had to stand on her own two feet since the day she'd married Pip.

Jake's lips felt so good as they danced across hers. She could smell the spice of his aftershave as his mouth continued to caress her face. He dropped light kisses on her mouth, moved to the tip of her nose before he then caressed first one eyelid and then the other. He returned to her mouth and she gave herself up to the kiss with an intensity that scared her.

Jake didn't know how long they stayed like that, matching each other, kiss for kiss, their tongues plunging deeper and deeper into the other's mouth. He didn't know how he managed to maintain control, he wanted to rip her clothes from her and take her right there at the dining table. But a small voice from the recesses of his mind reminded him that the timing was still wrong and reluctantly he finally pulled away. He continued to hold Carrie tight in his arms. As she returned to earth and realised that the explosion of his mouth on hers had ended, she looked up at him.

'Thank you,' she whispered.

Jake raised an eyebrow, questioningly. 'For being there, for not judging and for not demanding anything from me.'

'Cold showers have a wonderful effect,' Jake said as he smiled, lightening the mood.

He lowered his voice and murmured in her ear 'I have a lot of humble pie to eat where you're concerned. Please, for now, accept my apology for my crass behaviour at times.'

Jake tucked a wayward curl behind Carrie's ear. He placed his index finger under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him again. He gave her a final, delicate kiss on her lips, a promise for the future.

'When this is over, we will explore this attraction between us. I promise you that.'

Carrie felt a shudder of excitement jolt her and wasn't sure whether she welcomed that news or not.

*

Carrie sat round the table with the project team and Jake. She'd been surprised when she'd found out that Jake was also visiting the project. Whether that was a pleasant surprise or not only time would tell.

They heard a lot about the successes and challenges faced by the project. The team were very open to sharing what had worked and what had gone wrong. Some of the teenagers being helped by the project were there as well and provided an invaluable insight into how to reach out to the youngsters.

They made a move to go outside and walk to some of the external activities that the teenagers had been working on for the last few months. This put Alan, who had been sitting at the edge of the room, on alert.

When he'd rejoined Carrie and Jake at breakfast he'd had to inform her that a threat had been received at the hotel the previous evening. This confirmed the harasser knew her movements and the threat was being taken very seriously indeed. It warned that something would happen to Carrie today.

Whilst she'd been shocked and scared, she'd refused to change her plans and be a prisoner to the lunatic. Alan had predicted that response and in addition to the bodyguard had set up additional support from Scotland Yard.

Jake had agreed to walk on the outside of Carrie, whilst Alan would walk in front with two other guys just behind. The project team hadn't batted an eyelid when they'd been told there would be bodyguards.

The project leader walked on the inside of Carrie and they set off to view the good work being physically undertaken.

Carrie listened intently to what she was being told, trying hard to concentrate and not consider what might happen. She had to trust that Alan had done his job.

Jake, however, was struggling to focus on what he was hearing. He was on full alert for anything that might happen.

Carrie's firm stand this morning had earned his respect, but a part of him wished she'd agreed not to do this walk about. He was concerned for her safety. At least Alan had succeeded in securing the press embargo on her ex-husband. Hopefully she'd be back in the security of the Estate before that hit the headlines.

Jake had made arrangements for a private jet to fly them back to Scotland this afternoon and a chauffeured car to pick them up from here in just under an hour. They were nearly through this.

Before anyone had time to blink Carrie was powerfully pushed out of the way by a figure on skates who'd blasted towards them. He'd come from nowhere. Although she'd half expected something, it still came as a shock and she screamed as her body smashed violently into a lamppost. She bounced off it, swung round and lost her balance crashing into the wall opposite. Pandemonium broke out as the bodyguard and policemen went after the perpetrator, leaving Jake to see to Carrie.