Jack Nixon rose slowly to his feet. ‘Never get old, Nik,’ he warned ruefully even as he followed the housekeeper back into the house. ‘The man becomes the child again!’
Nik’s gaze was speculative as he watched the other man enter the house. That last comment had been quite an intelligent observation for a man who seemed totally unaware of his surroundings most of the time, let alone anything else.
‘There are the occasional flashes of—of his old self, shall we say?’ Jinx said, obviously having watched Nik watching her father. ‘But unfortunately they don’t usually last for long,’ she added sadly.
Nik frowned; Jinx was too beautiful, too lovely a person, to be sad. Surely something could be done…? ‘Has he seen anyone? A specialist, something like that?’ he asked—and as quickly wished that he hadn’t as Jinx stiffened resentfully.
‘He had several months in a nursing home, after the initial shock,’ she finally answered distantly. ‘But, quite honestly, it did no good. He’s better off at home, anyway.’
Nik nodded. ‘Mrs Holt watches out for him when you have to go out?’
‘Yes. Nik, I really think that you should go now. The reporter and her friend have probably given up by now and gone home—’
‘Doubtful,’ he dismissed from experience. ‘What was the “initial shock”, Jinx?’ he queried astutely, knowing by the way she became even more coldly aloof that he had touched on a subject she would rather not talk about.
But if he were to help either of these people—and he really thought that he must—he had to know what trauma Jackson Nixon had suffered.
The same trauma that had also helped to create the fiercely private woman Jinx was now…?
CHAPTER NINE
JINX stared at him, unsure of what to say in answer to that particular question. On the one hand, the less Nik Prince knew about her or her family, the better she was sure it would be. But if she stood any chance of making him go away—and staying away!—then she knew she had to at least tell him some of what had happened eighteen months ago.
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Come through to my father’s study with me—oh, yes, he has a study,’ she confirmed heavily as Nik raised surprised brows. ‘Not that he’s ever used this one.’ She sighed. ‘But I still brought everything with me when we moved six months ago.’
Just in case, she had been telling herself this last eighteen months. Just in case her father made some sort of miraculous recovery and decided to finish the book on the Jacobite uprising that he had been working on when—When—
‘This way.’ She led the way further down the hallway, opening the door at the end and ushering Nik inside.
‘Study’ was probably rather a complimentary way of describing the room that they entered. The shelved walls, and most of the floor space, were covered in books, both for reading and reference, and the desk was awash with papers and framed photographs.
It was one of the latter that Jinx picked up and handed to Nik, at the same time keeping her gaxe deliberately averted from his.
She knew exactly what he would see in the photograph: a family sitting on a blanket eating a picnic beside a river, all of them smiling happily into the camera.
Her mother. Her father. Her brother. Herself.
Just a normal family snapshot.
Except that it wasn’t the whole picture…
‘Where are your mother and brother now?’ Nik asked with that astuteness Jinx had come to expect of him.
‘They died eighteen months ago,’ she answered flatly. ‘In case you’re interested, my mother’s maiden name was Watson,’ she added dryly.
Nik continued to look at her, his stillness letting her know he expected her to add something to that remark. But what could she say? Her mother and Jamie were both dead. There was nothing else to say.
‘The shock was too much for my father,’ she added abruptly when she couldn’t stand that expectant silence a moment longer. ‘I—he’s been like this—’ she raised her hands helplessly ‘—ever since.’
Nik gave the photograph another long look before replacing it back on the desktop. ‘Wasn’t that just a little selfish of him? After all, it wasn’t just his wife and son who died, but your mother and brother too.’
‘You don’t understand!’ Jinx snapped, deeply resentful of this criticism of her father. ‘You know nothing about the situation at all, Nik, so how dare you come here and presume to sit in judgement—?’
‘Calm down, Jinx,’ Nik soothed. ‘I was only—’
‘I know what you were only,’ she accused. ‘I think it’s time you left now.’ She turned away. ‘Past time!’
She had been stupid to have ever hoped for Nik’s understanding; after all, his only interest in her was the film rights to No Ordinary Boy. Something she kept forgetting!
Because every time she was around him all she could think about was how attracted she was to him. It was there all the time, a thrum of awareness beneath her skin. As for what had happened between them at his hotel earlier…!
‘I want you to leave, Nik,’ she repeated.
‘Do you?’
When had he got so close? At what point in their conversation had he moved so that he was now standing only inches away from her? Causing that thrumming sensation beneath her skin to increase so that every inch of her was tinglingly alive!
She moistened dry lips. ‘Yes. I—’
‘I don’t think so, Jinx,’ he murmured throatily, standing so close now he was actually touching her.
Causing fire to leap and flame through her veins like molten lava, her breathing ragged as she looked up at him.
Grey eyes shimmered like mercury, his gaze intense as it rested on her lips, his own breathing rapid and uneven.
‘No, Nik—’ Jinx only had time to protest achingly as his head lowered and his mouth took possession of hers.
Oh, yes, Nik, her body disagreed as it instinctively curved against the hardness of his. Jinx was the one to initiate the deepening of the kiss as she forgot everything else but the pleasure of being in this man’s arms.
It had only been a few hours since they were last together like this, but even so they were hungry for each other, Nik’s arms like steel bands about her waist, Jinx’s hands moving restlessly up and down the long length of his spine as their lips and tongues explored and possessed, Jinx easily matching the desire that Nik made no effort to hide from her.
Nik was finally the one to pull back, his expression regretful as he looked down at her, his hands still lightly linked at the base of her spine. ‘Much as I’m enjoying this—and, believe me, I am enjoying it,’ he drawled, ‘at this particular moment I believe there may be several other things that need our immediate attention more.’
Jinx looked up at him with passion-drowsy eyes. ‘Such as?’
He grimaced. ‘The fact that there is a reporter and photographer outside—who, no matter what you might hope, aren’t likely to be going anywhere soon. Which means—’
‘Yes?’ She had stiffened warily now, stepping back as she moved out of his arms to self-consciously straighten her hair, embarrassed at the way she kept falling into his arms.
Yes, she was attracted to him. Yes, she wanted him. But he was the last man she should keep responding to in this way.
Nik’s look of regret deepened at her obvious withdrawal. ‘Which means that you and your father will have to be the ones to leave. If only