Slowly, she opened her eyes, a soft sensuous smile curving her lips ‘Jake.’ Her violet eyes, the lingering traces of sensuality clearly visible, fastened on the dark face looming above her. She stretched up a small hand, and then blinked. He was wearing a sweater... She closed her eyes for a second and it all came flooding back. Jake was sitting on the side of her bed. She was in hospital. The smile vanished from her face. Her baby gone...
‘Lexi, are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I was asleep,’ she murmured and, pulling herself up the bed, she sat up.
‘Lorraine sends her apologies,’ Jake said abruptly. ‘Apparently she took the message last night when Stewart and I were in the study. She forgot to tell me afterwards with the pressure of discussing some—’ he hesitated, his mouth twisting grimly ‘—slight alterations Mr Stewart suggested. I know I should fire her for it, and I will if you say so. But I feel it was partly my fault. The discussion became quite heated, and Lorraine isn’t like other women. She would never forget a business message, but anything else she doesn’t see as important.’
‘Don’t fire her for my sake, Jake,’ Lexi responded quietly. She knew Lorraine did not like her, hadn’t from the beginning when she’d tried to convince Jake that Lexi was only after his money and that he was making a mistake in marrying her. ‘Tell her I accept her apology.’ She looked up and saw Jake was looking somewhere over her left shoulder, his expression oddly evasive, and she wondered, not for the first time, just what relationship Jake had with his PA.
‘You’re very generous, Lexi. I’ve done some investigating today and I should have asked about the baby last night, when I phoned, but I assumed it was all right, while the young nurse I spoke to assumed I already knew you had lost it.’
‘It.’ He called their baby ‘it’. How could he be so insensitive? ‘It doesn’t matter, as long as your business was successful, all is not lost,’ she said with a biting sarcasm that was wasted as Jake glanced down, and leaning forward, kissed her lightly on the lips.
‘Thank you, Lexi, you’re very forgiving. I want you to get better and come home. I miss you.’ His dark eyes searched her still pale face. ‘Everything will be fine, I promise.’ And, lifting one long finger, trailed it down her cheek. ‘How about a smile, hmm?’
‘I’ll be coming home tomorrow,’ she offered with a pitiful attempt at a smile.
‘Good, and perhaps now you can return to London and college, if you like.’
Lexi felt like screaming. When they were first married they had lived in London and Jake had suggested she stay at home, saying she had no need for a degree in languages, he would give her a degree in love instead. Many a lunchtime he dashed back to the apartment and they spent hours in bed. Or they drove up to Yorkshire to oversee the renovations on the manor. Then, when the hotel had been completed by the Easter, they moved permanently to Yorkshire, Jake saying he could work as easily from his study in the apartment. Lorraine could look after the London office. The new apartment was a delight, and Lexi had quite happily spent the past months helping out in the hotel reception.
But had she been happy, she suddenly questioned, or had the feeling of resentment towards Jake started long before she lost the baby? When only weeks after having her pregnancy confirmed Jake suddenly, because of ‘pressure of business’ he had said, took to spending all week in London, returning to Yorkshire only at the weekends, while insisting she stay in the country; it was better for her, he had said, as a mum-to-be.
Now Jake was calmly suggesting she go back to London and college as though nothing had happened.
She hid her anger and resentment as he arranged to collect her the next day and kissed her goodbye. But after he had left it hit her. Jake had avoided telling her whether his deal of the previous night was successful or not. But then he had been very evasive the last few weeks about his business; no doubt Lorraine would know!
Lexi wondered yet again how close her husband and Lorraine were. On their honeymoon Lexi had asked Jake if he had ever had an affair with his PA and Jake had said ‘Good God, no!’ and burst out laughing, but Lexi had never been able to see the joke...
CHAPTER TWO
LEXI, dressed in the same blue jeans and soft T-shirt she had worn on Friday before her accident, was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed waiting for her husband. The necessary discharge papers had been signed an hour ago. She glanced out of the window for the hundredth time; the sun was rising high in the sky, embracing the utilitarian lines of the hospital building in a rosy glow, but its warmth could not pierce the coldness in Lexi’s heart.
Jake entered the room in a rush, full of apologies for the delay. ‘Sorry, darling, Lorraine and I were tied up on a conference call. You would not believe the inefficiency of the telecommunications here. We were disconnected half a dozen times.’ He frowned. ‘In today’s climate of recession, speed and efficiency are essential to sustain success.’
Did it matter? she wondered bleakly as five minutes later she was comfortably seated in Jake’s car as he eased it out of the hospital gates.
‘Lorraine has arranged for Meg to come in every day for the next week or two.’ He shot her a quick sideways glance. ‘I don’t want you doing anything at all until you are completely recovered.’
Lorraine seemed to be arranging an awful lot in her life lately, Lexi thought bitterly, and was stung into replying, ‘She needn’t have bothered. What is there to recover from? I’ve had a miscarriage, not lost a limb. In fact, the quicker I can get back into Reception and working, the better I’ll like it.’ Lexi knew she was being deliberately antagonistic, but she couldn’t help it. It was either anger or tears, and she had cried enough to last a lifetime.
‘Lexi, please. Lorraine was only trying to help, to make up for forgetting the message the other night. You’re in shock, you need...’
‘Jake,’ she cut in, ‘I know what I need and it is to get back to normal as quickly as possible. So please, just leave me alone.’ And she wished flaming Lorraine would vanish in a puff of smoke...
The car came to an abrupt halt outside the entrance to their private wing. Jake turned towards her, his eyes narrowed faintly as they took in her pale, determined expression. ‘You need a rest.’ And before she could protest he had lifted her from the car and carried her into the house and up to their bedroom, and laid her gently on the bed.
‘The doctor told me to be prepared for rapid mood swings, darling, and you can complain as much as you like but you will do as I say,’ he commanded arrogantly, and then he leant over her and brushed his lips along her brow. ‘Is there anything you want?’
Her baby back...but the words were never said as, wretched, she flopped back against the pillow, listless and lifeless. A faint sigh left her lips. ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll join you downstairs later.’
‘Good girl.’ He straightened, his dark eyes smiling compassionately down at her. ‘We will have other children, Lexi. We have plenty of time.’
She managed a weak smile, but, for the first time since meeting Jake, she was actually relieved to see him leave the room.
Meg, bless her, was all sympathy with Lexi as she woke her with a cup of tea and the information that dinner was almost ready. Lexi smiled weakly at the small, grey-haired woman who had been the daily at Forest Manor as long as she could remember.
‘Nothing ever seems to work right for me in this house, does it, Meg? My mother died here, my father, and now my baby. Maybe if I had stayed in London and never come back here I wouldn’t have lost my baby.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Meg said shortly. ‘Losing a baby has nothing to do with where one lives. You’re just clutching at straws, my girl. Now come on, up, dressed, and down, and look after that husband of yours. We don’t want that black-eyed witch latching on to him, now, do we?’