He was so tall he made the room seem smaller than ever, his silver-blond hair brushing against the ceiling, the width of his shoulders completely blocking her view of the painting that stood over the fireplace behind him. Green eyes narrowed as he looked at her coldly, his nostrils flared, his mouth tight. And it was still the most handsome face Sarah had ever seen, powerful and magnetic, his muscled body exuding the same power in the black shirt and black fitted denims.
As he silently continued to look at her Sarah began to shift uncomfortably. Her knee-length cotton robe matched the blue pyjamas she wore beneath it, her hair was soft and silky after its nightly brushing. She felt sixteen again, and she knew she probably looked it!
‘As instructed,’ he finally bit out. ‘I’ve come for my son.’
Like icy fragments his voice cut into her. She drew herself up to her full height of five feet two inches. ‘Jason is asleep upstairs,’ she informed him haughtily. ‘Maybe if you had arrived at a respectable time instead of—–’
‘I had to fly down from Scotland before coming the rest of the way by car,’ he rasped.
‘Oh yes,’ she taunted. ‘You left Jason alone in London while you went away on business.’
Garrett’s gaze didn’t falter, not a muscle moved in his face, and yet the anger emanating from him now seemed more intense. ‘Jason wasn’t alone,’ he told her coldly.
‘Oh no, of course he wasn’t, he had Dennis with him,’ she scorned. ‘He must be a delightful companion for a fifteen-year-old boy!’
‘Jason is hardly a boy any longer,’ Garrett bit out stiffly. ‘And Dennis isn’t supposed to be his companion!’
Looking at him now, Sarah could easily see how Amanda had initially fallen in love with this man. It also wasn’t difficult to see why he had made Amanda so unhappy after their marriage; he had the surface attraction to entice any woman, it was only on the inside that he was cold and empty, unable to love.
‘Nevertheless, you left Jason alone with him in a hotel in London—–’
‘Not that I have to explain my actions to you,’ Garrett looked at her coldly, ‘but I asked Jason to go up to Scotland with me, and he declined in favour of sightseeing in London.’
Sarah gave a perplexed frown. She doubted Garrett felt the need to lie about his motives to her, which meant that Jason had—–But no, he hadn’t actually said his father had left him in London either, only that he was sick of sitting in a hotel room; she had just assumed—–Maybe in future, with her dislike of Garrett so intense, it would be better if she didn’t assume anything about him.
‘I must have misunderstood him,’ she avoided awkwardly. ‘But that still doesn’t excuse the fact that you left him with that—–’
‘I left him with his bodyguard,’ Garrett cut in arrogantly. ‘As I always do when I’m unable to be with him myself.’
‘Bodyguard?’ Sarah repeated shakily, suddenly pale. ‘Why on earth would Jason need a bodyguard?’
Garrett’s mouth twisted. ‘Because he comes from a rich family—–’
‘A rich and powerful family,’ she amended flatly.
‘And powerful,’ he acknowledged with an inclination of his head. ‘And because kidnapping the children of the rich and powerful for ransom seems to be in fashion in the States at the moment.’
Sarah swallowed hard. ‘Then when I telephoned earlier Dennis must have thought, you must all have thought—–’
‘That Jason had been kidnapped and you were telephoning with the ransom demand, yes,’ Garrett confirmed grimly. ‘It was all I could do to prevent Dennis from coming here with me once he had relayed your message to me and I told him I knew where Jason was; he thought you were trying to lure me into a trap,’ he derided.
The thought of some six-and-a-half-foot muscle-man demanding entrance to her home made her feel ill.
‘But I assured him you were only my sister-in-law,’ Garrett taunted at her sickly pallor. ‘And that Jason had decided to pay you an unscheduled visit.’
Her eyes flashed angrily, a flush to her cheeks now. ‘How could a visit to us from Jason be anything but unscheduled?’
His mouth thinned. ‘Jason has never shown the slightest inclination before to visit you and your father.’
‘Well, obviously he now feels differently about that,’ she snapped, unable to subdue the antagonism she always felt around this man.
‘Without asking my permission,’ his father rasped harshly.
‘Does he have to ask your permission for everything he does?’ she challenged.
Green eyes ripped into her coldly. ‘Jason is still only fifteen years old, and I think taking off on a whim is a little more serious than asking to go to the damned bathroom!’
He was right, of course he was right, Jason should never have just left the way he had and worried everyone. But it was the way Garrett called Jason visiting her father and her a ‘whim’ that rankled! ‘I realise he shouldn’t have done this quite the way that he did, but I also—–’
‘How magnanimous of you,’ Garrett drawled.
She flashed him a look of intense dislike. ‘But maybe if he felt close enough to you to be able to talk to you he could have told you how curious he felt about us!’ she snapped.
Garrett drew in a harsh breath, his expression contemptuous. ‘On the basis of a few hours’ acquaintance with Jason you have decided that I’m a totally unfit father who at best ignores him, and at worst browbeats him?’
‘No, of course not—–’
‘It certainly sounds like it to me!’
‘It wasn’t just that—–’
‘No, I forgot,’ he rasped. ‘There’s also the fact that you already disliked me intensely and would gladly believe anything anyone said against me!’
It had never been difficult to hate this man, it was true, to hate the way he had preferred Amanda not to visit her family after they were married, the pain he had caused Amanda during their marriage, until it became so impossible for her to live with a man who didn’t love her that she had finally left him and come home, only to be killed in a motorway pile-up the day after her arrival back in England. Garrett Kingham had arrived in time for Amanda’s funeral, and after the service he had told them he was taking Jason back to the States with him. The five-year-old boy was all they had left of Amanda, and Sarah could see how it was breaking her father’s heart to part with him too. But Garrett was immune to their pleadings, until finally, impatiently, Sarah had flown at him, screaming and kicking as she told him how much she hated him.
She had been sixteen then, her body mature but her emotions still those of a child, and all she had been able to think of was that he had hurt her sister and that he was taking Jason away from them too. She was a woman now, but she still hated him.
She looked at him coldly. ‘Maybe that’s because it’s always so easy to believe!’
He sighed. ‘Sarah, it’s late, I’ve had a long journey to get here, and I’m in no mood to argue with you.’
She stood firm in spite of the lines of tiredness she could now see beside his eyes and mouth. She didn’t want to think of this man as vulnerable, because that would make him human, and she knew that was something he wasn’t. ‘I told you, Jason is asleep, and, unlike the last time you dragged Jason out of his bed and away from us, I am now all grown-up and more than capable of handling you without resorting to violence!’
She wished she had never issued the challenge as his narrowed gaze moved over her insolently in a totally male assessment, making her instantly aware of her own