CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MERLINA watched Jake accompany her father out of the kitchen, stunned that he had just reinforced their engagement by focussing her family’s attention on the ring, which was being volubly admired even as she struggled to understand his action.
Why had he done it?
She knew Danny and Joe had rubbed him up the wrong way with their comments on his business, belittling it, then carrying on about their own. She’d sensed his irritation, his mental withdrawal, though he’d been polite enough to cover it up, smoothly inquiring about the wine-making process, pretending to be impressed bytheir export figures.
Being swamped by the children hadn’t seemed to bother him. The idea of the soccer game tradition had definitely twigged amusement, but she’d almost died on the spot when her father had charged in about havingbambinos . While there could be no escaping the subject—she did want to be a mother—to have it shoved point-blank in Jake’s face…she’d imagined the idea of marriage with her moving straight into a death spiral.
Then his shoulders had stiffened as her mother enveloped him in one of her compelling hugs, invading his personal space like a runaway train. Just prior to that he’d been looking around the women in the kitchen, probably comparing them negatively to the sleek sophisticated women he was used to. She could almost hear the questions in his mind—
Would Merlina blow out to super size in a few years’ time?
Is this what happened when Italian women had children?
Of course, everyone had to get in on the hug/kiss act and Jake had managed to take the poker out of his spine. For a man who’d always preferred skinny women, he had stuck in there accepting the embraces of the plumper variety with a fair show of appreciating their generous welcome, for which Merlina was extremely grateful. Indeed, he hadn’t put a foot wrong, despite being plunged into alien territory.
But what hethought was something else entirely and Merlina acutely felt the strain of wondering what was going on in his mind. And heart. Especially when Gina had put him in the position of having to admire her new son. Coming on top of thebambino comment from her father, Jake’s head must have been spinning with the obligations and responsibilities attached to marrying into the Rossi family.
It was probably the first time in his life he’d wanted to escape from a roomful of women, though being with the men en masse would undoubtedly present other awkward moments. Had he ever been expected to help cook a barbecue in his entire playboy life? To Merlina’s mind it was a case of jumping out of the frying pan, straight into the fire.
And it wasn’t so good for her in the frying pan area, either, having to smile happily while showing off the ruby and diamond ring and field a plethora of questions about Jake and their engagement. She couldn’t feel comfortable about it. Everything had happened too fast, and she suspected Jake had leapt onto this marriage merry-go-round without seeing it as a serious step to take.
In the midst of this emotional turmoil, Sylvana suggested she help her arrange the platters of antipasta, obviously wanting to have her own personal curiosity satisfied. The laser treatment on her eyes had been successful. She wasn’t wearing glasses any more. Which made the inquisitive interest beamed at Merlina far too bright for comfort.
‘Now I know why you cut your hair and wore such revealing clothes,’ she archly remarked.
‘That went with the job, Sylvana.’
Which reminded her that looking for a new job had gone right out of her head and some decisions about her future had to be made very soon.
‘Oh, come on!’ Sylvana chided. ‘A gorgeous man like that! I bet you fell in love with him on the spot and would have done anything to please him.’
She was about to say,It wasn’t like that, then swallowed the words, realising there was more than a grain of truth in them. ‘Perhaps you’re right. I was attracted to him from the start.’
‘Who wouldn’t be? And having the job as his personal assistant certainly gave you anin . Nothing like constant proximity for catching a guy’s interest,’ Sylvana said smugly.
It was more her departure from the job that had triggered Jake’s pursuit of her. Plus his furious frustration over her subsequent attachment to his grandfather. He’d been goaded into chasing after her, and she’d done the goading out of her own frustration with him. They’d both wanted to win, but they should both take a long hard look at what winning meant in case the end result was a terrible mistake.
‘When are you going to get married?’ Sylvana pressed.
‘I don’t know. We haven’t talked about dates yet.’
‘Mamma will want to know. You can’t not have the wedding here.’
Irritated by her sister’s pushiness, Merlina burst out, ‘Stop laying down the law to me. I won’t be boxed in, Sylvana. This is my life. And Jake’s. We’ll marry wherever we want to.’
Shock ran around the kitchen. Everyone stopped doing what they were doing to stare at her—the rebel who had left the nest, rather than fit in like the rest of them.
‘Merlina…’ her mother started, looking apprehensively at her wayward daughter.
‘Mamma, I’m not even sure I do want to marry him,’ she cried, giving vent to her bottled up anxiety.
Her mother frowned. ‘But you love him, don’t you?’
‘That’s not the point!’
‘You have been a career woman too long, Merlina. You are nervous about being a wife.’
She clutched at that straw, feeling she was drowning in this whole situation. ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
Her mother nodded knowingly. ‘This is why Jake was concerned about your keeping his ring.’
‘I just don’t know, Mamma. He…he surprised me with it.’
‘He is a good man, Merlina. Your father likes him. Give it time. We will not rush you into planning.’
Relief poured through her. ‘Thanks, Mamma. I’m not ready for planning.’
‘Always you think too much, Merlina. With Jake you should go with your heart.’
There was a chorus of fervent agreement around the kitchen. Merlina was inundated with the joys of being a wife and mother, the comfort of having a partner to share everything with, etc etc etc. It was a constant eulogy to marriage, which only stopped when all the prepared food was taken out to the long tressle table on the back veranda and there was nothing more to do until the meat was cooked.
Merlina tried to take her mother’s advice about not thinking too much. However, she did not regret her outburst in the kitchen. At least the family was now warned that the engagement might not last, and Jake would not be subjected to a whole lot of plans about the wedding. Indeed her mother must have had a private word to her father about their unmarried daughter’snerves .
He was relatively subdued over dinner, and when it came time for the toasts to the new baby and the newly engaged couple with prized wine from a very good vintage year, he did not rave on about looking forward to morebambinos , nor did he break into grandiose suggestions for setting out marquees on the soccer field for the wedding reception.
Jake was favoured with much kindly attention.
Merlina was treated warily.
Apparently her father did not want his runaway daughter to become a runaway bride.
To his credit, Jake had settled into a good-humoured groove; smiling, laughing, happily joining in general conversations, listening attentively to whatever her family had to say. Underneath the table his thigh pressed against hers, silently communicating the desire for more intimacy with her. She ached for more intimacy with him and knew she didn’t want to give it up, but if a proper marriage was not to his taste, then she really should break up with him.
After dinner, Rosa and Genarro picked their soccer teams, and off they all trotted to occupy the field and get the game under way. The score was three all in the second half when Jake trapped the ball on the wing and passed it to Rosa who was waiting hopefully in a striking position near the other team’s goal. Two of the boys raced to take it off her but Jake intercepted both of them, hoisting them up against his shoulders as they struggled to get away.
It gaveRosa time to dribble the ball forward and kick it past the oncoming goalie into the corner of the net. In her absolute glee at scoring, she pulled her T-shirt up over her head, held her arms high and ran screaming around the sideline as though she’d just won The World Cup. Everyone collapsed in laughter and the game was abandoned, the decision being made that nothing could top that. Jake,Rosa ’s hero, carried her off the field, triumphantly seated on his shoulders.
‘I’m always going to have you on my team, Jake,’Rosa declared.
Alwayswas another big word, Merlina thought.
‘I’ll try to be here for you, Rosa, but I might not get to every family barbecue,’ Jake replied. ‘Sydneyis a long way away.’
A whole world away.
And Jake had to be as conscious of it as Merlina was, but he grinned at her and said, ‘That was fun,’ as though he really meant it.
She desperately wanted to get him to herself for a while, time alone together so he would not have to keep up the appearance of enjoying himself with her family. If this was simply a game he was playing, she needed to know. She couldn’t bear the confusion much longer. Dealing with the truth would be infinitely better, even if it was a painful truth.
Since it was a school day tomorrow, the party broke up relatively early so the children could still get a good night’s sleep. The long summer’s day was over, twilight darkening the sky to purple. Everyone pitched in to get the cleaning up done before they left. Farewells were not lingered over though no one neglected to express pleasure in meeting Jake and wishing him and Merlina much happiness together. Her face grew stiff from the effort of holding a smile. She wondered if Jake was wishing them gone as much as she was.
Ironically enough, her mother decided to play Cupid. ‘Why don’t you take Jake for a stroll down the wisteria walk to the orchard while there’s still light enough to see, Merlina?’ she said as they stood on the front veranda, waving off the last car to leave.
Surprisingly her father promoted the idea. ‘The wisteria is no longer in bloom,’ he informed Jake. ‘But it’s still a pretty walk. You won’t have a chance in the morning. Have to be at the airport half an hour before your six-forty-five flight.’
Jake hooked her arm around his. ‘Let’s go,’ he said eagerly, his eyes lighting up at the opportunity to do more than stroll.
‘We won’t wait up for you, Merlina,’ her mother hastened to say. ‘Jake, you know where your room is?’
‘Yes, thank you. Danny showed me earlier.’
‘Then sleep well, both of you.’
‘Thanks, Mamma,’ Merlina chimed in quickly. ‘Good night. You, too, Papa.’
‘Oh, to be young again, eh, Maria?’ her father said, hugging her mother as they headed back into the house.
‘You think you are still young, Angelo,’ she tossed back with arch meaning.
Jake chuckled over this sexual allusion as she steered him around the veranda to the south side which faced the orchard. ‘How oldis your father?’ he asked, still amused by the exchange between her parents.
‘Sixty-four.’
Another little laugh. ‘Pop thinks he’s still young at eighty.’
The mention of his grandfather stirred a hornet’s nest in Merlina’s brain and she was instantly stung into saying, ‘There’s one big difference. Papa is devoted to my mother. He’d never leave her for another woman.’ She took a deep breath and spelled out her need. ‘I want my husband to feel the same way about me, Jake.’
‘I can understand that,’ he said easily, as though it didn’t personally relate to him.
They walked down the south veranda steps and onto the path leading to the long pergola, which was covered by wisteria. Merlina silently stewed over Jake’s offhand reply until she could not hold her tongue any longer.
‘I don’t want to get married with the escape clause of divorce hanging over my head,’ she stated vehemently.
‘I understand that, too,’ came the tormenting reply.
It said nothing positive to her and she despaired over continuing any kind of relationship with him. It would inevitably tear her apart because in the end she wanted what her parents and brothers and sisters had, and Jake was not about to commit himself to that path.
‘So it’s best that we stop this right now,’ she forced herself to say, her heart breaking at the need to say it.
‘Stop what?’
Her feet stamped to a halt at his infuriating lack of sensitivity to her stated position. She tore her arm from his and swung to face him. Although it was still twilight beyond the pergola, the overhanging wisteria created a darkness that made it difficult to read his expression.
‘You’ve met my family. You know what they’re like and I’m one of them. So don’t pretend you still want to marry me,’ she threw at him.
He stood straight and tall and seemed to be regarding her seriously. ‘Why do you think I’m pretending?’ he asked quietly.
‘Because you haven’t finished winning what you want yet,’ she cried, gesticulating wildly as she drew the picture that made sense of his persistence. ‘You want to keep having sex with me. Maybe get me back to working with you. Arrange your life how you like it.’
‘Is that what you think of me?’ His tone was pained, which upset her even more.
‘It’s my fault. I know it’s my fault. I brought this upon myself, playing that stupid game with your grandfather. And I’m sorry I did it. Sorry I started this whole ball rolling. I should have just walked away instead of…’
‘Instead of coming out of the cake to thumb your nose at me and my playboy style of conducting my life,’ he supplied matter-of-factly.
‘Yes,’ she admitted, relieved that he took that at face value, not digging deeply enough to uncover her other motive—the mad wish to make him desire her and make him regret not having found her desirable until it was too late to keep her in his life.
‘And your decision to marry my grandfather? Was that to spite me, too, Merlina?’
She shook her head in anguished contrition for her sins. ‘I was never going to marry Byron. Your…your reactions to my denial of any further involvement with you amused him and he wanted to continue the fun to see if you’d respond to it. It was obvious there were…issues…between us, and…’
‘And you fell in with his plan because…?’
‘Because I wanted…’ She couldn’t say it. Some instinctive pride stopped her from confessing she’d loved him for so long, she’d yearned for him to realise he loved her, too. But it wasn’t so. Lust had nothing to do with a forever love. She wildly snatched at the words he’d used. ‘Yes, it was to spite you. I tricked you, deceived you, made a fool of you…so you see, you have every reason to want to walk away from me. Let’s end it now. Please?’
‘Little liar!’ he muttered, stepping closer and scooping her body hard against his. ‘You wanted me to care. To come to you. You wanted this!’ His mouth crashed down on hers, plundering it with an angry passion, wanting to dominate, to drive her into surrendering to him, body and soul.
Her own anger surged into a fierce response, her mind screaming it wasn’t right—wasn’t fair—that he could stir such powerful feelings and not be the man who would bond with her for the rest of their lives. The savage urge tomake him feel as she did had her hands thrusting into his hair, wanting to claw into his brain and change his thinking patterns. It plastered her body to his, seeking to merge so completely he could never be a separate entity from her.
He kissed her until her head was spinning and the primitive fever had melted into a river of desire that turned her bones to water. ‘You can’t deny this, Merlina,’ he murmured against her lips.
No, she couldn’t, but she desperately wanted to hear other things from him. With a heavy sigh, she dropped her head onto his shoulder, hiding her face against his neck, breathing in the scent of him, wishing they belonged together in every sense.
‘As for your engagement to my grandfather…’ he went on in a wry tone, rubbing his cheek over her hair. ‘I realised that had to be a scam soon after I met your family this afternoon. No way would you have introduced Pop to them as your husband-to-be. I am a far more acceptable son-in law.’
‘Only because you worked at it,’ she mocked. ‘You’re not in tune with my family. In the long run—’ she lifted her head, steeling herself to look him straight in the eye and lay the challenge on the line ‘—but you don’t have a long run in mind, do you? All you’ve done since arriving at your grandfather’s home the other night…it’s about coming out on top. Winning the game. Except this game shouldn’t be pushed as far as marriage because that wouldn’t be playing fair. Not with me, Jake. And that’s why it has to stop.’
He did not rush into a reply. Merlina sensed he was assessing her argument, keeping his gaze locked on hers in a tense determination to reach past her judgement of him and find more vulnerable ground for him to attack. He lifted a hand and gently stroked her fringe back from her forehead as though wanting to feel his way intoher mind.
‘I like your family, Merlina,’ he said quietly. ‘I like the way it works. It’s good. Why did you separate yourself from it, going toSydney to work?’
The question surprised her. ‘I wanted to live my life my way,’ she answered without having to think about it. ‘What was here seemed very narrow. Too fixed. I found it stultifying when I was in my teens.’
‘You wanted to fly on your own wings.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’ve flown the full circle, Merlina, and what it comes down to is you want what they have—the strong family ties, the belonging to each other, the caring and sharing, the security of knowing they’re always going to be there to come to in times of joy or sorrow.’
‘They’re the good things,’ she acknowledged, relieved that he did understand her position, though he wasn’t linking himself to it.
‘I’ve never had the experience of a family like yours,’ he went on. ‘How could I be in tune with it on first meeting, Merlina?’
She’d known it would be impossible. He wasn’t Italian, and his family life had been fractured, probably fostering a lack of trust in any attachment, not believing it would last. She guessed that somewhere along the line he’d instinctively shied away from any deep involvement with anyone.
After all, emotions weren’t torn apart if he stuck to freewheeling so better they were kept contained, controlled, while playboy sex answered any physical need. Being hit with her very demonstrative and veryinvolved family, it was a wonder he had fit in as well as he had.
‘I’d have to say you rose to the challenge at every sticky moment. And I’m grateful to you for…for keeping the evening a happy one, Jake,’ she said sincerely. ‘I know it was a strain at times.’
‘Only at the beginning, Merlina. It took a little while to appreciate the solidity of where you’ve come from. And I can now appreciate where you want to go.’
‘But it’s not your way, is it?’
The words spilled out of a well of sadness. Tears pricked her eyes and she tore her gaze from his, not wanting him to see the sheen of moisture or the despair behind it. She looked back at the house that represented the kind of home she wanted to make with Jake, and her heart was thudding like a funeral drum.
‘I’m here with you,’ he said softly. ‘It’s where I want to be.’
For now,she thought.
‘And I don’t want what we have together to end.’
Not yet. The sex was still red-hot.
‘Neither do you, Merlina.’
She was too choked up to speak.
He curled his hand around her chin and gently turned her face back to his. Merlina quickly lowered her lashes, knowing he would see the truth in her eyes, the yearning for it never to end. He reinforcedhis truth with a kiss that felt like love, so seductive in its soft caring, any resistance to it was impossible.
She didn’t care if it was part of a game-plan in Jake’s mind, the intention being to keep her tied to him for at least the immediate future. She wanted to wallow in the feeling he generated…loving her, wanting her. It wasn’t too wrong to allow herself this much of him for one more night. Tomorrow, when they were back inSydney , she would make the break.
Tomorrow…when she could think clearly again.
11-10-07, 07:30 AM
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