Chapter Eight #2
The words were on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t say them.
She forced her mouth into an effigy of a smile, but inside she was quaking with fear.
Fear of exposure, fear of some sort of payback from Maxwell Wilde for not abiding by the non-disclosure agreement he had insisted she sign.
But she comforted herself with the knowledge that she had at least told Jago her primary reason for taking the money Maxwell had given her: to help her brother.
That was one less secret to keep hidden.
Jago leaned closer to plant a soft kiss on her lips. ‘Now, where was I?’
‘You were about to make love to me, but I think I killed the mood,’ Mollie said with a rueful grimace.
Jago took one of her hands and placed it on his swollen length. ‘I’m always in the mood when it comes to you.’ And he brought his mouth back down to hers to prove it.
After they both showered and changed, Jago took Mollie’s hand in his to go to join his grandmother for afternoon tea.
His body was still tingling from making love to Mollie both on the bed and again in the shower.
He had to forcibly remind himself they were only pretending to be engaged.
None of this was real, and yet he couldn’t get enough of her.
But asking her to consider taking this beyond the weekend was tricky.
For one thing, there was the press attention their reunion would attract.
He had enough trouble as it was trying to escape the intrusion of the tabloids.
Secondly, if his grandmother made a full recovery, she would find out he had lied to her.
Gran had spent years putting up with her husband’s lies, and Jago hated to resemble his grandfather in any way, but what else could he do?
He wanted what might well be his grandmother’s last birthday to be happy, surrounded by her family.
He wanted her to believe he was settling down at last. It would comfort her to know at least one of her three playboy grandsons was getting married.
It was a pity Jonas couldn’t be here to join the celebrations, but that was his brother’s choice, and he had to accept it, even if it stirred a niggling worry that Jonas was not usually this long away on a mission.
Jago opened the door to the Green Room to find his grandmother sitting on a recliner near the window overlooking the garden. The tea tray hadn’t yet been brought in, but he wanted his grandmother to see Mollie before the staff came in with the afternoon tea.
‘Hey, Gran,’ he said, leading Mollie into the room. ‘Mollie is here to celebrate your birthday with you.’
Gran looked up and smiled, her eyes lighting up when her gaze rested on Mollie’s beautiful face. She clasped her hands together like a young girl and exclaimed, ‘Mollie, darling. How wonderful to see you. Come closer so I can kiss you. I’m afraid I’m not very mobile at present.’
Mollie came over and bent down to give his gran a gentle hug and a sweet kiss on both of her wrinkled cheeks. It made Jago’s heart swell to see the enthusiasm and joy in his gran’s face. And to witness what looked like the genuine affection Mollie exhibited for his grandmother.
‘It’s so lovely to see you too,’ Mollie said, still holding on to one of the old lady’s hands. ‘How is your arm?’
Gran gave her arm in a cast a rolled-eye glance.
‘It doesn’t hurt now, but it’s inconvenient, even though I’m out of the sling.
I can’t do the things I want to do. I feel like a doddering old fool for tripping over in the garden.
Or at least that’s what I’ve been told I did.
I don’t remember a thing about it. All I remember is going out to get some daffodils for the breakfast room. I love this time of year, don’t you?’
‘I certainly do, and daffodils are one of my favourite flowers,’ Mollie said and sat on the window seat close to Elsie’s chair.
The filtered sunlight coming in made Mollie’s hair look like spun silk, and a frisson passed over Jago’s flesh as he thought of how her hair had felt as he ran his fingers through it only half an hour before.
‘I love them too,’ Elsie said. ‘Yellow is such a bright and positive colour.’
‘I’m so sorry you hurt yourself, especially so close to your birthday,’ Mollie said.
The woman smiled, her eyes sparkling. ‘To tell you the truth, Mollie, I’m quite enjoying being waited on hand and foot. Now, tell me about you. How are the wedding plans going?’
A panicked look crossed Mollie’s face for a nanosecond, and then she glanced at Jago. Help me , her eyes seemed to say.
Jago came and sat beside her on the window seat, taking her hand in both of his. ‘They’re going well, Gran. We’re just waiting for Jonas to get back from the States. Do you remember he’s over there working on a big top-secret naval project?’
Gran screwed up her face as if trying to put pieces of a complicated puzzle together in her mind.
She put a hand to her right temple and then shook her head in a self-disparaging way.
‘I have such gaps in my memory these days…’ She lowered her hand to her lap and smiled indulgently again at them both.
‘You two look very much in love. I’m so looking forward to seeing you married.
’ She aimed her gaze at Mollie and added, ‘I always knew Jago would only ever settle for someone who loved him as he deserves to be loved.’ Her expression became wistful, and she continued.
‘His father was madly in love with his mother, some would say too much so, but I don’t agree. How can you love someone too much?’
‘I guess it’s better than not loving at all,’ Mollie said without glancing Jago’s way, but he suspected her comment was a dig at him for not being in love with her when he had proposed to her.
But marriage had seemed the right way to go.
He’d wanted her, he’d enjoyed her company, and he had pictured a mostly satisfying life together.
Unromantic of him, sure, but he didn’t have it in him to say those three little words out loud.
Maybe he was incapable of romantic love.
He had avoided it for his entire adult life, settling for casual flings rather than anything permanent.
Until Mollie. But his feelings about her were difficult to define.
He put his attraction to her down to lust, and while that still pulsed and throbbed between them, there was a new quality to it now.
An intense quality that made him feel a deeper connection to her as if their lovemaking had shifted to another level of intimacy.
‘So true…’ Elsie looked into the distance as if recalling her early years with Jago’s grandfather.
His grandparents had been married a long time, but he wasn’t sure his grandfather was even capable of the love Elsie had shown him.
Her loyalty and faithfulness, for one thing, had not been returned in equal measure, and Maxwell had controlled every aspect of her life to the point where she hadn’t even been allowed to properly grieve her son and daughter-in-law.
There were no photos of Jago’s father around the manor; they had been locked away soon after the accident.
Harriet brought in the tea tray at that point, and Jago rose from the window seat to help his grandmother by placing her cup of tea and a piece of her favourite cake close to where she was sitting.
‘Thank you, dear,’ Elsie said, smiling up at him.
Jago handed Mollie a cup of tea, and she took it from him with a smile that faltered around the edges. ‘Piece of cake? Scone?’ he asked, indicating the luscious spread Harriet had prepared.
‘Just the tea, thank you.’ The cup rattled against the saucer in Mollie’s hand, and he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder to reassure her.
It was a big ask to pretend to be madly in love with him when there was so much murky water under the bridge between them, but this weekend was important, and Jago was determined to see it through.
It wasn’t hard to pretend to be in love with her, especially after their lovemaking earlier.
Are you pretending?
His conscience gave him a mocking nudge, but he wasn’t prepared to examine his feelings too closely.
He had planned this weekend on the pretext of making his grandmother happy, but he knew deep down it hadn’t been his sole motivation.
He had wanted to see Mollie again. That was what he had wanted for the last two painful years—to see her, to ask her what had motivated her to jilt him.
To prove to himself he could move on without her in his life.
But the thought of not seeing her again after this weekend was beginning to torture him.
He shied away from it, tried not to imagine how lonely he would be without her in his life.
‘Is my grandfather joining us?’ Jago asked Harriet as she prepared to leave the room.
‘No, he will see you at dinner,’ Harriet said. ‘He had his physical therapist here this morning so he’s feeling tired.’
‘Your grandfather isn’t one for socialising these days,’ Elsie said to Jago with a rueful grimace.
‘How has he been?’ Jago asked, absently stirring his sugarless cup of tea for something to do with his hands.
Sitting so close to Mollie was making him distracted like a horny teenager.
All he wanted to do was touch her. His blood was still thrumming with the excitement of possessing her earlier.
He had to drag his eyes away from her every time she took a sip of her tea, those luscious lips around the rim of her china cup sending his pulse sky-high.
‘Oh, you know your grandfather, dear,’ Gran said with a sad shake of her head. ‘He’s finding his limitations so terribly frustrating.’
‘You have limitations too, but you don’t grumble about them,’ Jago pointed out.