In the Market for Love - By Nina Blake Page 0,29
back into bed. She wondered if Jake had painted the fluffy white clouds on the ceiling himself.
It seemed there were two sides to the man. Father and philanderer.
She slipped quietly out of the room and watched from her darkened position in the doorway as Jake entered the living room. He put two coffee mugs on the table, and shifted his gaze to the French door, then to her burgundy suede handbag sitting at the foot of one of the Chesterfields.
Did he think she’d disappeared?
“I’m still here.” Rachel’s heels clicked on the floorboards as she made her way back to the sofa.
“Is everything alright?” Jake asked.
“Fine. Connor said he needed his back scratched so he could fall asleep.” Rachel smiled. She couldn’t help it. “He seems like a nice kid.”
“I thought you didn’t like children.”
“Shows how little you know,” she said. “I adore kids. I have two beautiful nieces.”
“I’m surprised he let you into his room, let alone allowed you to scratch his back.”
“I didn’t scratch his back. I tucked him back into bed. Anyway, kids have good instincts about these things. They’re good at judging who to trust.”
Somewhere along the line, she seemed to have lost those skills.
Jake sat down on the sofa not too close to her. “I’m glad you came around this evening.”
“Really? It sounded like you didn’t want me coming around. To your house, that is.”
Perched on the edge of the leather sofa, she leaned forward to sip her coffee before leaning back.
“You seem tense,” he said.
“I don’t usually visit strange men at night.”
Jake inched closer. “I’m not strange.”
“We might work together but I don’t really know you very well.”
“That’s just it. I’d like to get to know you better too. And there was something I wanted to talk about.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to get to know you better.”
He held her gaze. Didn’t say anything.
“I don’t like playing games,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
She pressed her hair back behind her ears.
“So why did you lie to me?”
Chapter nine
Rachel glared at Jake. He stared back at her, his eyes softened by something. Tenderness perhaps, or guilt.
“I didn’t lie to you,” he said.
“I thought you didn’t like playing games.” She leaned back into the sofa. “You’re married.”
“I’m not.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I am and I’m not. I only wish it were so simple I could explain it one way or the other but life isn’t always black and white.”
“Then let me explain it to you. Married is when you have a marriage certificate but you don’t have divorce papers. Separated is when you live in a different house from your wife and you’re waiting on your divorce to come through.”
For a moment, she thought he might take her into his arms and hold her, tell her she’d misunderstood and she was wrong. He wasn’t married. He was completely innocent.
Instead he stood, his hands on his lean hips, before turning to face her.
“When you put it that way, I am married. But surely you must understand that sometimes life is complex and it can’t be answered with a yes or a no.”
She thought about her relationship with Nick and how she’d underestimated its complexity, never seeing it wasn’t pure and happy until after he died.
Jake was right but she refused to give an inch. He didn’t deserve her understanding.
“So tell me about it,” she said. “Tell me what’s so damn complex. You don’t love her any more. She doesn’t understand you. Anything else?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Rachel.”
“Should I care?”
He dropped back down on the sofa. “I am married but we’ve been separated for about four years. The only reason I still see her is because of Connor. I don’t want him to grow up with only one parent like I did. I want him to have something at least vaguely resembling a family. He deserves that. A family. Especially since he’s an only child.”
“You didn’t think to provide him with a little brother or sister?”
She disagreed with Jake. Tonight sarcasm suited her
“I would have loved another child,” he said. “But that wasn’t on the cards. From very early on, our marriage didn’t work. After a while, I worked out that what she loved most about me was my money.”
“Bianca, you mean?”
“You know her name?”
“Of course. So you’ve been separated for a few years? That’s a long time to wait for a divorce.”
“You’re right. And I hadn’t been planning on getting one. I live like this to make sure Connor has the one thing I didn’t have.