Jack alighted from the passenger seat with a broad smile on his face and an eager bounce in his step. Amazing what a lift it had been to see Sally waiting for him on the patio, the fiery halo of her hair blown into a wild sunburst by the incoming helicopter. His mind did take note that she was only doing what he’d asked of her, but the cynical aside in no way reduced his pleasure in seeing her.
“Welcome home, Jack,” she called to him, pausing her approach as he strode towards her, holding out the martini she’d brought to give him.
He laughed, enjoying the black humour of the situation. This home had been bought, as Sally well knew. He had no emotional connection to it. The connection was to her, and she was simply fulfilling the role he had wickedly suggested. Doing it with class, too, looking country-fresh and beautiful in white and green. She belonged here. He had no sense of belonging to anywhere.
Yet as he took the offered drink, and felt desire for her firing through his blood, he was glad he’d come, even though the welcome had been paid for.
“Thank you, Sally,” he said, his eyes keenly sweeping hers for some sign of what she was feeling.
“How was your day?” she asked brightly, as though he’d only left her this morning.
“Busy,” he drawled, amused by the fiction she was keeping up. “Yours?”
“Very busy.” Her own lips twitched in amusement over the trite conversation. She gestured to the grey suit he wore. “You look as though you’ve come straight from a boardroom.”
“I have.” He waved to the helicopter pilot who was already on his way up to the house with Jack’s bag. “Bill has to fly back to Sydney while there’s still daylight, so time was tight. I thought I’d change into more relaxing clothes when I got here.”
“Of course.” Her gaze flickered with some anxious uncertainty. “I’ve had the guest quarters prepared for you, Jack. My … your … father’s personal things are still in the master bedroom suite. I wasn’t sure if you’d want some … some keepsake …”
“No.” He felt himself bristling with rejection of all that had not been freely given him by his father. Nothing had been offered. He would take nothing.
“I’m sorry.” Her hands flew out in apologetic appeal. “I should have asked when you called last night but I didn’t think of it until today, and then I didn’t want to bother you at work.”
“Fair enough,” he clipped out, annoyed that he’d made his anger obvious to her, determined to clamp down on it. “Let’s go inside,” he suggested, adopting a more pleasant tone. “You can show me the master suite on the way to the guest quarters and I’ll decide what’s to be done.”
One thing was certain. He didn’t want anything left in it to remind him of his father or the woman who had supplanted his mother and ensured that her husband’s son was persona non grata in this house. His house now, and he would not be shut out of any room in it. He was not a guest. He was the owner, and own it he would.
These thoughts were marching through his mind as Sally led him inside, her back very stiff and straight, probably thinking she had upset him with her lack of foresight—bad management. He would reassure her later when this issue had been dealt with. He was not about to lay fault on her. It had only been two weeks since the funeral and no doubt she’d had a lot to contend with, handling other changes.
The front door opened to a spacious foyer. Cream tiles on the floor were bordered by a terracotta and dark brown pattern in a distinctly Roman style. Caesar entering his palace, Jack thought sardonically. On one side, opened double cedar doors revealed a rather masculine lounge room—dark brown leather chesterfield sofas, a sandstone fireplace big enough to accommodate burning logs. His father had clearly been lord and master here.
But not in the bedroom.
Having been led down a wide corridor, Jack was ushered into a room that Lady Ellen had obviously decorated to please herself. Everything was sensuously feminine: elegant rosewood furniture, a silk brocade bedspread printed with lush red and deep pink roses, bundles of rich cushions, thick dark red carpet, matching red silk curtains. A room for a bordello queen, he thought cynically. He couldn’t imagine Sally on that bed. The colours were wrong for her. So was the whole style of the room.
She opened another door, waving him on to look at the rest of the suite. A glance to the left revealed a dressing room lined with two long rows of closed cupboards, their panelled doors painted in varying shades of jade green. A ceiling-to-floor mirror was at the end, reflecting his and Sally’s presence. Her back was turned to it, her attention focussed in the opposite direction.
On the right was a bathroom which instantly met his approval—a very spacious shower, easily large enough for two, and an equally luxurious spa bath, encased in marble tiles with a vein of jade green running through them. This part of the suite was fine, once he got rid of the red carpet in the dressing room. And whatever possessions were still housed behind the cupboard doors.
“I will occupy this suite when it’s refurbished,” he said casually. “In the meantime, the guest quarters will be fine, Sally. You made the right decision for me. I’ll have an interior decorator call you next week to make arrangements for seeing what the job will entail. Okay?”
“Yes.” Her inner tension visibly eased into a smile of relief. “What do you want done with Dad’s things?”
“Keep anything you’d like and give the rest to a charity. The Smith Family does good work. Try them.”
She nodded.
“And you can tell Lady Ellen she can have her bedroom furniture and furnishings free of charge,” he added mockingly. “I can see they belong to her.”
A flush of embarrassment blazed across her cheeks. “I’ll let her know.”
“I hear she’s taken up residence with Marion Harley,” he prodded, wanting to know how much contact Sally was having with her mother.
“She left instructions for her mail to be redirected there,” came the flat reply, carefully strained of any emotion. “I don’t know for how long. I guess the furniture could be put in storage … if she wants to keep it.”
Jack gleaned a strong impression of distance. No sense of any closeness. A ruction had definitely taken place. How much that pained Sally he didn’t know but it was abundantly clear she was getting on with her own life without her mother in her ear on any regular basis, and the prospect of calling her about the furniture was causing stress, not pleasure.
“On the other hand, you could just give it away to The Smith Family,” he said carelessly. “It’s irrelevant to me.”
“I’ll call her first,” she said with a flash of determination. “I’d feel wrong about giving it away without … without any consultation.”
Doing the right thing.
Yes, she had a strong sense of rightness, Sally Maguire. Which was undoubtedly at the core of why she had felt sympathetic towards his position in regard to the Maguire family. It also meant he was going to have to make her feel right about going to bed with him.
This realisation made her even more desirable. It would certainly be a novelty, having sex with a woman where the attraction was not bolstered by his wealth. Just an honest mating …because they wanted to. He simply had to bring out the wanting in Sally, overcome whatever reservations she had about giving in to it. Her guard was up at the moment, feeling her way with him.
“Okay. We’ve got that settled,” he said, smiling to put her more at ease. “Let’s move on to the guest quarters.”
She nodded and quickly led him back to the corridor which bisected this wing