“He called this morning to say he’d probably come next weekend,” she answered, trying to sound matter-of-fact and feeling awkward about not sharing.
It was too new, she argued to herself. And it might have already ended for Jack. If he did come next weekend, and he left her still feeling like this about him, she would tell her sister then and deal with the gush of concern.
“Is it okay if I come to visit, too?” Jane asked. “I’d like to meet him on home ground.”
Sally’s chest instantly tightened. She didn’t want Jane watching over her with Jack. It would be inhibiting. Besides, there was Jack’s embargo on Jane’s visits, as well.
“You can be with me as often as you like, but he doesn’t want you here when he is, Jane,” she stated flatly. “He said so from the start. Maybe he’ll soften on that point as time goes on, but I think it’s too soon to try changing the conditions he laid down.”
A short, tense silence.
Sally felt miserably guilty for shutting Jane out, yet she didn’t want family issues intruding on what was a very private and personal new experience for her.
“Does he think I sided with Mum at the solicitor’s office?”
“I don’t know,” she answered quickly, too uncomfortable with the situation to discuss it. “I’ll talk to him about it when the right opportunity arises. Okay?”
“I don’t want to make trouble for you,” came the typically anxious reply.
Sally sighed. “You won’t, Jane. You never do. Just be happy doing your nursing course. I’ll take care of everything at this end.”
The assurance was enough to settle the problem. Temporarily. Sally knew she’d have to deal with it eventually, but having time alone with Jack was a far more pressing need.
The week passed in a flurry of activity, each day raising the hope that everything was still all right between them because there’d been no cancellation of the changes to the master suite.
On Monday the new carpet was laid. It was a deep jade green—deeper than the shades of green on the cupboard doors in the dressing-room—and so plush it felt like velvet underfoot.
The bedroom furniture arrived on Tuesday. The style was French Provincial, mostly ivory with decorative scrolls picked out in gold—a king-size bed, two bedside tables, a very elegant coffee table accompanied by two armchairs upholstered in a diamond pattern of dark jade, a much paler green and ivory in silk brocade with gold braiding around the edges.
Wednesday brought a plasma television, which was installed on the wall to the right of the door leading to the ensuite rooms, taking the place where her mother’s dressing table had previously stood. Jack would have no use for a dressing-table, Sally thought, and the television suggested that he planned to visit frequently.
The rest of the furnishings came on Thursday: beautiful gold and ivory table lamps; bedlinen in dark-jade-green Egyptian cotton; a glorious bedspread in the same silk brocade used on the armchairs; a pile of rich cushions to decorate the bed. Dressing up the double glass doors that opened onto the pergola area outside were silk side curtains in the dark and light green, looped into a graceful drape with gold cord and tassles, an expanse of ivory organza in between, all hanging on a long gold rod with elaborate scrolls at both ends.
The whole effect was beautiful, but it was crowned by the magnificent painting that was carried in and positioned on the other side of the wall to the television set. Sally could hardly believe it was a real Monet—one of the great artist’s paintings of waterlilies—but it was. It really was. Had to be worth millions of dollars, and Jack had chosen to have it hung here!
This couldn’t be such a temporary thing for him. No-one would cart a Monet around frivolously. It complemented the furnishings perfectly, a wonderful highlight, but such a valuable painting had to mean he cared a great deal about wanting this to be a place that would give him a lot of pleasure, so surely he had to intend spending a lot of time at the property. With her.
He called that evening. “I’ll be flying in at six o’clock tomorrow,” he said without preamble.
“And I’ll be waiting to greet you with a glass of champagne,” she trilled back at him, overflowing with a bubbling excitement she couldn’t contain.
“Champagne?” he queried in an amused tone.
“Well, you don’t want a martini, and I think the newly decorated master suite deserves to be christened with champagne.”
“You like it?”
“I love it! They’ve done a wonderful job. And Jack…the Monet painting…it’s so beautiful I have to keep going in to look at it.”
He laughed. “One of my more extravagant investments. I’m glad you like it. I wanted you to enjoy it with me.”
Sharing…caring…for a moment Sally was lost in those blissful thoughts. Then she realised Jack was probably thinking of enjoying the painting with her from the bed in the master suite. Was expecting to do so. Why not, after last Saturday night? It was a reasonable expectation.
Yet somehow—maybe it was the incredibly valuable Monet painting—the feeling of Jack having deliberately set out to make the master suite a temptingly seductive place to be, sent a chill through her mind. Was he using all he was capable of giving to ensure having what he wanted—keeping her captivated for as long as he was enjoying the experience of her? And having given so much, did that remove any guilt he might have about leaving her and moving on when he’d had enough?
She didn’t really know how his mind worked. Except when he set a course of action, he followed it through with ruthless efficiency, doing whatever had to be done for the desired result. Easier not to care, he’d said, but there had to be caring behind the sheer drive of the man. Dark angel. Dark caring. Blackjack Maguire, taking over what his father had owned, what his father had put ahead of him…like her, the adopted daughter.
“Sally?”
“Yes?”
“What was that silence about?”
Boring straight in on her doubts, intent on stopping any retreat from him. It was too late to retreat anyway, Sally told herself, willing away the sense of being ruthlessly manipulated. “I was thinking…I’ve only been in your company for a few days.”
“Time has nothing to do with the connection we have, Sally,” he asserted confidently.
The connection…
He did feel it.
A dark burden lifted from her soul.
No matter what was hidden in the dark recesses of Jack’s mind, the connection between them was real. And there could be no going back to maintaining a distance from him. Besides, she wanted to go forward, regardless of what happened further down the track.