In the Australian's Bed: The Passion Price / The Australian's Convenient Bride / The Australian's Marriage Demand. Miranda Lee

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ aside when you feel ready to take on the job of wine-maker.’

      ‘Good. Because I intend to do just that as soon as I finish my higher-school certificate.’

      A prickle ran down Angelina’s spine. He sounded like Jake had today. So strong and so determined.

      ‘I won’t stand in your way, Alex,’ she said. ‘This place is your inheritance, and the job of wine-maker is your right.’

      ‘And I’m going to find my father, too. Not in November. I can’t wait that long. I’m going to start next holidays. At Easter.’

      Angelina grimaced. Easter! That was only a few weeks away. Still, maybe it was for the best. She couldn’t stand the tension of such a long wait herself.

      ‘All right, Alex. You’ll get no further argument from me on that score. Come Easter, we’ll go find your father.’

      ‘Honest?’ Alex sounded amazed. ‘You’re not going to make a fuss?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Cool. You’re the best, Mum.’

      ‘Mmm.’

      ‘Got to go. The dinner bell’s gone. Love ya.’

      ‘Love you, too,’ she replied, but he’d already hung up.

      Tears filled her eyes as she hung up too.

      ‘Lord knows what you’re crying over, Angelina,’ she muttered. ‘Things could be worse, as Arnold said.’

      But she wasn’t entirely convinced.

      CHAPTER SIX

      JAKE paced back and forth across his living room, unable to eat, unable to sit and watch television or work or do any of the other activities that usually filled his alone-time.

      The sleek, round, silver-framed clock on the wall pronounced that it was getting on for half-past eight. He’d dropped Dorothy off at her place in Rose Bay at seven-thirty, an hour earlier. The drive back from the Hunter Valley had taken a lot longer than the drive up. They’d been caught up in the Saturday-night traffic coming into the city, slowing to a crawl near the Harbour Bridge.

      ‘I won’t miss this when I move to the country,’ Dorothy had declared impatiently, which had rather amused Jake at the time. She should see how bad the traffic was in peak hours on a weekday. If there was an accident on the bridge, or in the tunnel, the lines of traffic didn’t crawl. They just stopped.

      But that was city living for you.

      Jake had declined Dorothy’s invitation to come in for a bite to eat, and now here he was, unfed and unable to relax, becoming increasingly agitated and angry. With himself.

      He’d handled Angelina all wrong today. He’d come on to her way too strong, and way too fast. That might work with city babes in wine bars on a Friday night, but not girls like Angelina. Even when she was fifteen, she hadn’t been easy. She’d made him wait, forcing him to make endless small talk that summer before finally agreeing to meet him alone.

      He could see now that her still being attracted to him in a physical sense wasn’t enough for her to drop her current boyfriend and go out with him. She claimed she was a modern woman who’d been around, but he suspected—like Dorothy—that Angelina was not as sophisticated as she thought she was. She had an old-fashioned core.

      She was going to say no when he finally rang her. Nothing was surer in his mind. And the prospect was killing him.

      He had to change his tactics. Hell, he was a smart guy, wasn’t he? A lawyer. Changing tactics midstream came naturally to him.

      Go back to square one, Jake. Chat her up some more. Show her your warm and sensitive side. You have to have one. Edward said you did. Then you might stand a chance of winning, if not her heart, then her body.

      And don’t wait till tomorrow night to call. Do it now. Right now, buddy, whilst she can still remember how it felt today when you touched her hand, and looked deep into her eyes and talked about spending a whole weekend together.

      If it was even remotely what you felt—what you are still feeling—then she has to be tempted.

      Jake’s hand was unsteady as he took out his wallet and extracted the card where she’d written down her telephone numbers. He had it bad all right. It had been a long time since he’d felt this desperate over a woman. Damn it all, he’d never felt this desperate before!

      Except perhaps that summer sixteen years ago. He’d been desperate for Angelina back then too. No wonder he’d been hopeless by the time he’d actually done it with her.

      Jake craved the opportunity to show her he wasn’t a hopeless lover now.

      But first, he had to get her to say yes to seeing him again. Even lunch would do. She’d said she might go to lunch with him. It wasn’t quite what he had in mind but it was a start.

      He dragged in several deep breaths as he walked over to sweep up the receiver of his phone. His hand was only marginally steadier as he punched in her number but he consoled himself with the fact she could not see it shake.

      As long as he sounded calm. And sincere. That was all that mattered.

      Angelina was sitting on the sofa and painting her toenails, her right foot propped up on the glass coffee-table, when the phone rang. The brush immediately zigzagged across her second toe onto her big toe, leaving a long streak of plum nail-polish on her skin.

      The swear-word she uttered was not one she would have used if Alex had been home. Or if her father had been alive.

      By the time she replaced the brush in the bottle, poured some remover on a cotton-wool ball and wiped off the wayward polish, then leant over to snatch up the phone from the nearby side-table, it had been ringing for quite a while.

      ‘Yes?’ she answered sharply. She hoped it wasn’t Wilomena with more advice. She was all adviced out. Besides, she’d already made up her mind what she was going to say to Jake when he finally rang.

      ‘Angelina? It’s Jake. Have I rung at an awkward moment?’

      Jake. It was Jake!

      ‘You weren’t supposed to ring till later in the week,’ she snapped, hating it that just the sound of his voice could make her stomach go all squishy.

      ‘I couldn’t wait till then to apologise,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to sleep tonight.’

      ‘Apologise for what?’ Her voice was still sharp.

      His, however, was soft and seductive.

      ‘I was out of line today.’

      ‘Were you really?’ Now her tone was dry, and sarcastic.

      No way was she going to be all sweetness and light. She was still seriously annoyed with him for turning up in her life at this particular point in time and making her make difficult decisions.

      ‘I was pushy and presumptuous, СКАЧАТЬ