After Innocence (27 page)

Suzanne called for her carriage, thinking about Lisa while she waited, trying not to think about Sofie and her obvious unhappiness. After all, in time, it would become tolerable. Suzanne knew that firsthand.

Suzanne was having a wonderful time. The opera hardly interested her. but she was well aware that she was the focus of much attention, and that did interest her very much. Gentlemen in other boxes periodically turned to look at her, some daring to try to catch her eye and smile. Of course, her reputation was now spotless, and had been that way for years. After the horror of being a living scandal, she had no desire to ever repeat the event. The men might admire her from afar, but only from afar. She had been faithful to Benjamin for their entire marriage, no matter how she might yearn for something more. She was wise enough now, after
the follies committed in her youth, to know that sex was not as important as respectability.

But she did crave the male attention she received, almost desperately, perhaps because Benjamin so rarely seemed to notice her as a woman. Suzanne pretended to ignore two keen admirers, but as she turned away, a strangely familiar figure was exiting a full box, a blond woman at his side. Suzanne’s heart lurched.

When it began to pound again, now erratically, she was staring dry-mouthed and breathless after a tall, broad-shouldered man with thick, sun-streaked hair that brushed the collar of his tuxedo. She was mesmerized, helpless to look away.

No—she was going mad! It could not be Jake!

Jake was dead. He had died in 1890 in a horrible fire after escaping prison. He was dead and buried ignominiously in a London cemetery, a grave she had never yet visited, but one day would.

Suzanne calmed somewhat. Jake
was
dead, and although she knew that for a fact, having glimpsed a man so physically like him, even from behind, was terribly painful. Suzanne touched her hand briefly to her chest, but could not still her fluttering heart. Would the heartbreak of loss and disillusionment never fade? He had reminded her so of Jake.

Abruptly Suzanne stood. She was uneasy. She felt compelled, but to do what? Chase down this stranger and demand to see his face? And then what? Even if he resembled her dead husband, she was bound to be bitterly disappointed.

She bent and whispered to one of the women she knew that she would be right back, and slipped from the box.

Jake lengthened his strides. It had been a mistake. Coming tonight had been a big mistake.

But he was sick to death of remaining so anonymous that he never set foot out of his Riverside mansion. He worked there, he slept there. He took his meals there, had his mistress there. Lou Anne had become vocal in her complaints. She wanted to go out, wanted to have fun. Jake had not been insulted; she was still very young, and
sex was just not enough of a substitute—not for anyone.

Not even for him.

“What are you afraid of?” she had asked.

Lou Anne certainly wasn’t astute enough to guess the truth. But her innocent remark was accurate enough. Jake could not tell her that he was afraid that someone would recognize him again, in another act of sheer coincidence.

He could not tell her that he was more than afraid of being caught and sent back to prison.

He could not tell her that he was terrified.

He would die before ever being sent back.

So he hadn’t answered her, had finally agreed to take her to the opera. And it had happened.

Of all the people to stumble across there at the crowded opera tonight, he had stumbled across his own wife. Thank God she hadn’t seen him.

He hadn’t been prepared for her. either. Hadn’t been prepared for the surge of shock, followed swiftly by a flood of powerful and competing emotions, not least of which was anger and hatred.

Suzanne hurried down to the spacious, columned lobby where many operagoers mingled, sipping refreshments and chatting animatedly. She paused, scanning the crowd, clutching her beaded reticule. And she froze.

The man she was following stood with the blond woman, his back still to Suzanne. But she was closer to him now, and she would swear she was looking at Jake—or at his ghost.

The couple appeared to be arguing. Suzanne swallowed and stared at the man’s broad back. He was leaning close, murmuring something in the woman’s ear.

His posture was so familiar—she could almost hear his husky, seductive voice. Something rushed over Suzanne from her head to her toes. Something far headier and far more thrilling than anything she had felt in years. Every fiber of her being tightened.

It could not be Jake, but he was so like Jake—and Suzanne wanted him. She told herself that, because he was not Jake, she would be disappointed. And she reminded
herself that she dared not sacrifice the reputation she had guarded so zealously for so many years.

The woman moved away, angry and sulking. She headed back in the direction of the opera seats, and as she passed Suzanne, Suzanne saw that she was not just very beautiful but very young—perhaps eighteen or nineteen. Her glance jerked back to the man. He had paused and turned to gaze after his lady friend, and their gazes met.

Suzanne cried out in shock and genuine disbelief. Then she realized the man was turning, rushing away out the heavy center doors and into the night.

She came to life. That
was
Jake! Jake
was
alive! Without stopping to wonder how that could be, Suzanne began to run in the direction he had taken. She was running after him, unaware that she was parting the crowd or that people were staring after her.

Suzanne rushed through the doors where he had just disappeared, panting wildly. She paused on the sidewalk beneath an electric streetlamp. The early fall air was warm and pleasant, but she did not notice. Where was Jake? She hadn’t lost him, had she? She could not! She could feel hot tears coursing down her face.

Then she saw him striding down the block towards Sixth Avenue, nearly lost in shadows. “Jake!” Suzanne cried, lifting her skirts and running after him.

The man slowed and finally froze. He turned reluctantly and stared. His mouth curved into a hard, grim line. She came to a breathless stop in front of him.
He wasn’t dead. He really wasn’t dead.

Ignoring everyone around them, Suzanne flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his shoulders, kissing his jaw feverishly—the only place she could reach. Instantly Jake jerked her off him.

Suzanne stumbled, standing a few feet away from him now. “You’re not dead!” Some of the shock was beginning to wear off. It was beginning to sink in. All of these years she had grieved and mourned, missing him, thinking him dead.

“Really? And just think, I thought this
was
hell,” Jake drawled, as insolent as ever.

“I could kill you myself!” Suzanne cried.

“If that was a murder attempt, I just learned something new.” His gaze moved over her breasts and down her hips, lingering where her sex pulsed so strongly between her legs, with no small amount of contempt.

It clicked then. Fully. He wasn’t dead—and for eleven years, she had suffered in anguish, in guilt, believing him dead. “You bastard!” she screamed, lifting her hand and swinging it with the force of a madwoman.

Jake caught her arm, staggered slightly, and then twisted hard once to subdue her. Suzanne obeyed, knowing the harder she pushed, the harder he would respond. For a moment her body was pressed against his, thigh to thigh and groin to groin, her arm pinned painfully against her back, and the blood rushed red-hot to her loins, pumping and swelling them immediately.

Jake eased the pressure on her arm. Suzanne looked up at him. His face was more weathered now, and there were crow’s-feet around his eyes, but he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen. Suzanne inhaled, trembling with the lust that had seized her. and the love that had never died. “They said you died in a fire!”

“Apparently not.” He moved away from her, regarding her impassively.

“You selfish bastard! All these years …” She broke off, choking on the old grief, the new anger, and the intense, frightening elation.

“All these years what?” Jake mocked. “Don’t tell me that you’ve missed me?”

“I have!”

Jake laughed then, loudly. Suddenly he reached out, but lazily, caught her elbow, and reeled her slowly in. When she was in his arms, her throbbing sex pressed to his thigh, nearly riding him, he bent over her. “You didn’t miss me. You missed this.” He rotated his hips—and his huge erection—against her.

Suzanne felt a thrill go through her. It had been years since she had reached shattering ecstasy with a man without the aid of fantasies—fantasies in which Jake had starred. Jake was still the most devastating man she had ever seen,
his body was still hard and strong, still utterly virile.

“Yes, Jake,” Suzanne whispered, threading her fingers through the hair at his nape, “I missed this.”

He was no longer smiling. Very coldly, he pushed her away. “And you’re going to keep on missing it, darting wife of mine. Because that is dead and buried just like Jake O’Neil.”

Suzanne froze.

“Oh, excuse me, how could I forget! You’re not my wife—you’re Ralston’s now!” He was laughing at her.

Suzanne began to shake. “Oh, God.”

“What’s wrong—darling?”

“You know what’s wrong! Oh, God! You’re not dead—I’m married to two men!”

Jake laughed once, briefly, then his tone turned ugly. “Maybe you should have waited before you remarried. Or was there a reason for your haste at the time?”

Suzanne was filled with comprehension of her dilemma, and could not respond.

Jake stood over her now, his fury obvious. “When did you meet him, Suzanne? How soon after I was extradited were you in
his
bed?”

Suzanne jerked to attention. “I did not sleep with Benjamin until our wedding night.”

Jake threw back his head and laughed loudly in absolute disbelief.

“It’s true!”

He crossed his arms and stared at her, mouth turned down. “I was going to send for you.”

“
What?
”

“I was going to send for you and Sofie. Have you meet me in Australia. But somehow the idea lost its appeal when you remarried. I never liked sharing, Suzanne.”

Suzanne felt faint. “I thought you were dead! They said you were dead! There was evidence—”

He shoved his face close to hers. His breath was warm, clean. “You didn’t even mourn my passing, you little bitch.”

And Suzanne remembered now why she hated him. “I did! I’ve been mourning you for years!” She shook with her own fury—and her own fear. “Don’t you dare blame
me for this! This is all your fault! I remarried for Sofie’s sake as much as for mine! You left us!”

“I was extradited, baby.”

“You asked me for a divorce before that!”

“That’s right.” He stared at her, a bitter twist to his lips. “I guess prison does funny things to a man’s mind. Makes a man think about family, makes him want to find the good and forget the bad. Makes him dream like a barnyard fool.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his black tuxedo trousers.

Suzanne inhaled. “I didn’t know. I would have come.”

“No, my dear. You would not have come to Australia to live like a pioneer with me. But I was too insane with loneliness at the time to realize it.”

Although Suzanne could not imagine herself in a drab cotton dress, hanging laundry on a line stretched between trees out in the yard behind some wooden cabin somewhere out in the Australian wilderness, she could imagine having been with him these past fourteen years, as his wife, as the mother of his child. “I would have come,” she insisted, even though she knew that the young, wild girl she had been would have refused him point-blank. Or would she?

Suzanne began to cry. Her tears were real, but she also remembered that, once upon a time, Jake could be seduced with tears when all else had failed. She cried harder. “I don’t want to fight. You’re alive, Jake. And I’m married to two men!” She didn’t dare tell him, just yet, that in her mind she was first and foremost his wife, that she loved him, that she would leave Benjamin the moment he gave the word. And he would give the word—wouldn’t he?

“Suzanne,” Jake said, his voice heavy with warning, “Jake O’Neil is dead. Legally dead. You have one husband, not two. Benjamin Ralston.”

She sucked in her breath. “You are not dead! We both know you’re alive! Are you crazy, Jake? Is this some kind of mad scheme on your part? If so, why?”

“Why do you think I’d come back after all these years, risking my freedom?”

Suzanne froze. There was only one possible reason. No matter what he said, no matter how he acted, nothing had
changed—not between them. Even when they had fought violently and viciously years ago, even when their marriage had been in dire jeopardy, the passion had been there, even stronger than when they had first met. For them, each and every crisis had resulted in an even greater eruption of desire. And hadn’t the past fourteen years of separation been the greatest crisis of all? “To see me,” she whispered, exhilarated. “You’ve come back to see me. You couldn’t stay away. You never could.”

Jake’s expression changed. “No, Suzanne. I’ve come back because I could not stay away from Sofie.”

Suzanne became utterly still. “Sofie?”

“Yes, Sofie. My daughter. How is she?” His voice was thick.

Suzanne reeled with hurt, even though she told herself that of course he would want to see Sofie, and that he was lying, too proud to admit how much he still wanted her. “Sofie is fine.” She would not bother with the details of their daughter’s life, not now.

“Why isn’t she married?” Jake asked, more thickly than before. “When I last saw her, she was seventeen. I thought by now she would be wed.”

Suzanne blinked. “You’ve been here before?”

“Yes.”

“How many times before?”

“Many times. Every few years. I first came back in ninety-one.”

Suzanne screamed and launched herself at him, trying to pummel his face, trying to kill him. Jake caught her wrists and held her while she struggled like a wild animal, both crying and cursing him. “I’d forgotten how much I really hate you!”