Best Fake Day (20 page)

Dragging in a breath, she walked out of the room just as the hospital staff came to take him. Standing in the corridor, she watched as silent tears fell. Jack being wheeled down the brightly lit corridor. Frank and Sarah holding each other. The horrified look on their faces as their injured grandson was taken past them.

Holding her head high, she walked over to them.

“Your grandson is a wonderful man.”

“You know he left a letter on my desk this morning saying he was dropping out of the sale,” Frank said. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

“Good ones.”

“I made him jump through so many damn hoops to get this deal. Just so I could buy time to find out who he was and to have the chance to get to know him. Damn private investigators only confirmed my suspicions two days ago.”

Sarah turned her watery eyes to Izzy. “We didn’t want to chase him away, you see. We should have just spoken to him. Then maybe none of this—”

“No, don’t blame yourselves. I think you would have chased him away.”

“Thing is I never intended to sell the house to him. As soon as it was confirmed that he is my grandson I was going to give it to him. To make up for all the years we have lost. But old fool that I am I was waiting to see what Jack’s intentions were.”

Izzy tried to swallow away the lump in her throat but the damn thing wouldn’t budge. If Jack had written a letter to end the deal than surely now his intentions were the right ones?

“He never wanted the house. He only ever wanted to belong.”

Maybe now Jack could finally get what he needed—a family to love him.

* * * *

Jack winced as he attempted to stretch out. He knew they’d had knockout sex but surely he shouldn’t ache this much? He was so damn tired he couldn’t seem to open his eyes. Jeez, he felt like he’d been run over by a bus...or maybe another car?

He frowned at the thought but released his brow at the feel of a sharp sting. What the hell? And why was he groaning at the mere intake of breath?

He felt the gentle squeeze of his hand and a soft smile curled his lips. Izzy. Except since when had her skin become so rough? And why didn’t she smell like Izzy he wondered as a slight disinfectant aroma pervaded his senses.

As he fought to pry his eyelids open a hand clutched his free one.
Two Izzys
?

Managing to clear his blurry vision, he suddenly became aware of two things. One—there were definitely not two Izzys, and two—Izzy wasn’t there. He could only guess why he was lying in a hospital bed with his arm in plaster and a fierce pain in his insides. Something very large had wrecked his plan big time.

“Jack,” said a relieved voice at his side. Sarah?

“You gave us a scare there, son,” said the deep, gruff voice belonging to the person squeezing his hand before it was let go.

Frank. Frank and Sarah. His grandparents.

“Izzy,” Jack said, frowning as he heard the croak of his voice that matched the sandpaper quality of the inside of his mouth.

Jack’s gaze, now focused, didn’t miss the hesitation on Frank’s weary looking face. “She stayed until she was sure you were out of the woods. Then she left. She said you needed your family more than her and took off.”

Jack ground his jaw tightly until he realized just how much that hurt.
Not need her?
Like hell!

“You know who I am?”

“Yes,” said Sarah. Her expression made him want to reach out and hold the woman he barely knew. If that was possible. But the wariness he carried told him that was a bad idea.

“I wasn’t sure, of course, but I think I always knew. From the first time you came to take a look around. You recognized your father’s portrait that day, didn’t you?”

Jack could only nod. He remembered the day well. He knew exactly where he was going and why but somehow seeing an image of his father and knowing his parents must have loved him dearly had added extra ice to his veins. They had loved their son but would not acknowledge the existence of a grandchild.

That first time he’d seen Daleford Hall for sale he knew he wanted it. To have some part of a family history he’d been unable to share. But then when he met his grandparents and saw his father’s portrait, all of his resentment roared at him and he aimed it at every brick and wall that he wanted to tear down.

But none of that seemed to matter now. He only wanted Izzy.

“Why did she go? I mean the real reason.”

“I think she blamed herself for your accident. She said it was her fault that you had left,” Sarah said.

She blamed herself? Yeah, it was because of her he was in the car, but it wasn’t her fault that some crazy idiot was taking the bend of a country lane like the circuit at Monaco and he’d ended up getting up close and personal with a centuries-old oak tree. It hadn’t helped that he’d been distracted by the thought of Izzy’s body wrapped around his, and how much he liked it there.

And he wasn’t running away.

For now he would give an explanation to the people standing there and then he was going to get Izzy back!

He turned to Frank. “I’d been to Daleford Hall twice before—with my mother. She took me there one winter’s day. We traveled by bus and then walked what seemed like forever.” But he remembered thinking how lucky he was to be spending time alone with his mother. It made it seem worth the hit he had taken the night before from Peter when Michael had lied and said that it was Jack who had pushed him over and made him tear his trousers. It wasn’t. Michael had tripped over his own feet. That was the first time Peter had shown his anger physically.

“I must have been five or six. It was bitterly cold and it had snowed. We got to the driveway and we just stopped. My mother just stood there staring at the house, not saying a word. I stood there and I thought ‘when I grow up that’s where I want to live’. A car came up the driveway and you drove past, not looking at us, not anything. Then we turned back and trudged home.”

“She never told you where you were or who lived there?”

“No,” he said after Sarah pressed a straw to his lips so he could sip the cool water.

“And the second time?”

Ah, the second time. A few years later. That time his mother had been fuming. Another argument between her and Peter. Again his fault. That time they reached the doors. He felt sure his mother was going to leave him there. But after his mother had pounded on those doors a member of staff had told them the family who lived there was away. He remembered that time feeling there was a reason he should dislike coming there, but not being sure why.

The pained expression on Sarah’s face made him wince. “If we’d have...” She trailed off as she took his hand.

Jack cleared his throat. “It seems we have much to catch up,” he said thickly as his grandparents stood at each side of him. It would have been a warm moment if there wasn’t an icy hole left by the person missing.

Chapter 13

“You tricked me!” Izzy turned, throwing Rafe a look that she hoped penetrated at least a tiny bit of his skin, or made the big guy trip over his humungous feet.

“Thanks, Rafe,” said a deep voice behind her that washed over her body like a caress.

She tried to glare at Rafe that bit longer, intending to ignore the man sitting up in his bed and grinning at her like a loon. A hot loon she quickly amended.

Yep, definitely hot. Had he had the nurses come in and stage his sexiness? The bruising around his cheek and the shadowing of his jaw only added to his ruggedness. Not to mention his mussed-up hair...How was it possible he could make a hospital gown look sexy?

She took calming breaths, trying to resettle the position of her hammering heart from her toes back into her chest. If it could squeeze past the tightness there.

If he was not so injured and she wasn’t so grateful to see that sexy smile on his lips she would...would...would what? Kiss him senseless?

Yep, most likely.

And even though she knew he was very much alive, her heart was still fighting to pump itself out of her body.

“Rafe told me you had deteriorated! That your condition was much worse,” she ground out, still showing her angry face before it slipped.

Because at the moment she’d arrived back at home to see Rafe waiting there for her, fear had pitted in her stomach and turned it into a cavern of dread. At his words she’d numbly climbed in the car, and when they reached the hospital, she’d charged down the corridor like she was wearing running clothes rather than her slim pencil skirt and high heels.

Jack gave a sheepish grin “Technically, that’s true. But not in the life-or-death kind of way. Not exactly.”

“Then what exactly?” she demanded impatiently, giving an exasperated roll of her eyes.

“I have an ache for you that gets worse every day.”

“Really?” she said, giving a pointed look at his groin.

He grinned broadly, showing his pearly white teeth. “Not there,” he said as he followed her gaze. “It hurts somewhere far worse.”

“Where?” she asked, completely breaking her resolve to cut him loose. Cut herself loose from the risk of hurting either of them again.

He raised his hand. “Here,” he said as he placed his flattened palm over the left side of his chest.
Over his heart?

The teasing glint had left his steely eyes, replaced by sincerity and...
fear
?

“Izzy, this is a pain that only you can take away.”

How could she take away his pain when she had caused him so much? She was the one who had made him go to dinner with Frank and Sarah. She was the one goading him into feeling things that just weren’t there. It was because of her that he had been on the road at the same time as a drunk driver.

Izzy sucked in a breath as she cast a glance down his injured body. Granted, after just over a week he had made a rapid recovery. Fortunately, surgery had repaired the bleed and his spleen was fully intact. If he wasn’t so bruised and fractured she could almost say he’d been lucky.

“I gave you all of this pain.”

Jack gave a puzzled frown. “No, you didn’t. How could you think that?”

When heat cascaded down her cheeks she realized it was tears. Jack bolted upright and tried to mask his wince.

“If I hadn’t pushed you, you wouldn’t have left. Then you wouldn’t have been injured.”

He cursed. “Damn, Izzy, I wasn’t leaving. I was on my way back! To you!”

She stepped forward to stop him as he swung his legs out of the bed, but he held his hand up to stop her. His face was wracked in obvious pain and sweat had left a sheen upon his brow.

Wincing and feeling as if she shared his pain, Izzy stepped between his thighs to stop him. Stubborn fool.

“What is it you are trying to do you big...oaf”

“Oaf.” He laughed. “Is that the best you can do?”

Izzy planted her hands on her hips, trying to pretend she was anywhere else but in between the muscles of his thighs. Not to mention he was only wearing a thin cotton gown. At the thought her gaze slid dangerously south only to discover something pointing very much in the direction of north.

His unencumbered hand took her chin and lifted it. “I. Missed. You.”

“So I see,” she whispered in an embarrassingly weak voice.

“All of me missed you.” There was something in his voice, in the stormy sea of his eyes that she had never seen before, that made her heart leap and her insides melt. “I need you to get out my bag of clothes from the locker over there,” he instructed as his eyes remained fixed on hers.

“You’re not planning on escaping, are you?” She eyed him dubiously.

He shook his head slowly.

She turned, her legs wobbly, feeling the effects of Jack, and starting rummaging through the locker. She found the only clothes in there. The ones he had been wearing during the accident. They were splattered with blood and had been cut by the medical team until they resembled expensive rags almost. Spinning on her heel to face Jack with her mouth opened in question her mouth gaped further.

“What are you...”

“Pass the bag over here,” he said from his kneeling position on the floor.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy? Do you want to burst open your wound and—”

“Izzy, pass me the bag,
please
.”

“You do know you have your butt on show?” she said as she dropped the bag at his knees.

Not that it was a problem at all, she thought as her libido drooled.

Slowly he pulled out a small box from his trouser pocket and held it up.

Izzy’s mouth dried as her heart pumped wildly.

“I came back for you, Izzy. For this.”

She watched as he used his one healthy arm to fumble with the box. She couldn’t move to help him, because her whole body had frozen.

The lid popped open at the same time she clamped her hand over her mouth.

“Isabel Latham, I love you with all that I am. Will you marry me?”

She didn’t know how she managed it but somehow within a blink she was on her knees too. Their knees touching as he held out her mother’s ring.

Jack was proposing to her!

“I knew that if I did this I would have to find the perfect ring. Thankfully your father agreed.”

He hadn’t ran away after all. That her father had allowed Jack to have it meant he’d also given his approval.

She threw her arms around him and parted her lips as he kissed her with a tenderness that made her heart and body sing. Only when he emitted a small groan of pain did she remember to let go. She held the box in her hand, gazing at the simple yet beautifully perfect solitaire.

Izzy blushed at Jack’s chuckle. He stroked his finger down her cheek, sending a shiver of awareness through her every nerve ending. She planted a firm kiss on his lips.

“I love you, Jack.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a no.”

Putting the ring down, she quickly cradled his crestfallen face with her palms and took his mouth softly with her lips. She couldn’t believe she’d had the strength to say no either. Hadn’t she always dreamt of this moment? But it seemed the right thing to do. They’d already had a wedding day she would remember forever. It meant everything to her that he’d asked, but the feel of his hot breath against her palm meant so much more.