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

At worst, Jake might now be a hardened criminal. At best, Angelina still doubted he’d be the kind of man she’d want her son to spend too much time around. She didn’t agree with her father that Jake had been born bad. But maturity—and motherhood—made her see Jake in a different light these days. He had been from the wrong side of the tracks, a neglected and antisocial young man, something that time rarely fixed.

‘I don’t want to discuss this any further, Alex,’ she stated unequivocally. ‘That’s my decision and I think it’s a fair and sensible one.’

‘No, it’s not,’ he grumbled.

‘Yes, it is. By sixteen, hopefully you’ll be old enough to handle whatever you find out about your father. Trust me. I doubt it will be good news. He’s probably in jail somewhere.’

Silence from the other end.

Angelina hated having to say anything that might hurt her son, but why pretend? Crazy to let him weave some kind of fantasy about his father, only to one day come face to face with a more than sobering reality.

‘You said he was smart,’ Alex pointed out.

‘He was.’ Street-smart.

‘And good-looking.’

‘Yes. Very.’ In that tall, dark and dangerous fashion that silly young girls were invariably attracted to. She’d found everything about Jake wildly exciting back then, especially the symbols of his rebelliousness. He’d had studs in his ears, as well as his nose, a ring through one nipple and a tattoo on each upper arm. Lord knew how many other tattoos he’d have by now.

‘In that case, he’s not in jail,’ Alex pronounced stubbornly. ‘No way.’

Angelina rolled her eyes. ‘That’s to be seen in November, isn’t it? But for now I’d like you to settle down and concentrate on your studies. You’re doing your school certificate this year.’

‘Waste of time,’ Alex growled. ‘I should be at home there with you, helping with the harvest and making this year’s wines. Grandpa always said that it was crazy for people to go to university and do degrees to learn how to make wine. Hands-on experience is the right way. He told me I’d already had the best apprenticeship in the world, and that I was going to be a famous wine-maker one day.’

‘I fully agree with him. And I’d never ask you to go to university and get a degree. I’m just asking you to stay at school till you’re eighteen. At the very school, might I remind you, that your grandfather picked out for you. He was adamant that you should get a good education.’

‘OK,’ he replied grudgingly. ‘I’ll do it for Grandpa. But the moment I finish up here, you’re getting rid of that old fool you’ve hired and I’m going to do the job I was brought up to do.’

‘Arnold is not an old fool,’ Angelina said. ‘Your grandfather said he was once one of the best wine-makers in the valley.’

‘Once, like a hundred years ago?’ her son scoffed.

‘Arnold is only in his sixties.’ Sixty-nine, to be exact.

‘Yeah, well, he looks a hundred. I don’t like him and I don’t like him making our wines,’ Alex stated firmly, and Angelina knew her son’s mind would never be swayed on that opinion. He’d always been like that, voicing his likes and dislikes in unequivocal terms from the time he could talk. If he didn’t like a certain food, he’d simply say, ‘Don’t like it.’ Then close his mouth tightly.

No threat or punishment would make him eat that food.

Stubborn, that was what he was. Her father had used to say he got it from him. But Angelina suspected that trait had come from a different source, as did most of Alex’s physical genes as well. His height, for one.

Alex had been taller than his grandfather at thirteen. At fifteen he was going on six feet, and still growing. And then there were his eyes. An icy blue they were, just like Jake’s. With long lashes framing them. His Roman nose possibly belonged to the Mastroianni side, as well as his olive skin. But his mouth was pure Jake. Wide, with full lips, the bottom lip extra-full.

He’d probably end up a good kisser, just like his father.

‘I have to go, Alex,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’m needed up at the restaurant for lunch. It’s always extra-busy on a Saturday when the weather’s nice.’

‘Yeah. OK. I have to go, too. Practise my batting. Kings School are coming over this afternoon to play cricket. We’re going to whip their butts this time.’

Angelina smiled. For all her son’s saying he wanted to be home at the winery, he really enjoyed life at his city boarding-school. He’d been somewhat lonely as an only child, living on a country property.

Located on Sydney’s lower North Side, St Francis’s College had come highly recommended, with a sensible balance of good, old-fashioned discipline and new-age thinking. Their curriculum included loads of sports and fun activities to keep their male students’ hormones and energy levels under control.

This was Alex’s fourth year there and he was doing very well, both in the classroom and on the sports field. He played cricket in summer and soccer in winter, but swimming was his favourite sport. The shelves in his bedroom were chock-full of swimming trophies.

‘Good luck, then,’ Angelina said. ‘I’ll give you a ring after you’ve whipped their butts. Now I really must go, love. Ciao.’

She hung up, then frowned. Cricket might distract Alex from his quest to find his father for the moment, but she didn’t like her chances of putting her son off till his birthday in November. That was nine long months away.

Nine months…

Angelina’s chest contracted at the thought that it was around this time sixteen years ago that she’d conceived. Late February. Alex’s birthday was the twenty-fourth of November.

Today was the twenty-fourth, she realised with a jolt. And a Saturday as well. The anniversary of what had been the most earth-shattering day of her life.

Angelina shook her head as she sank down on the side of her bed, her thoughts continuing to churn away. She did not regret having Alex. She loved him more than anything in the world. He’d given her great joy.

But there’d been great misery to begin with. Misery and anguish. No one could understand what it had been like for her. She’d felt so alone, without a mother to comfort her, and with a father who’d condemned her.

Antonio Mastroianni hadn’t come round till the day Alex had been born, the day he’d held Angelina’s hand through all the pain of childbirth and finally realised she wasn’t just a daughter who’d disappointed him, but a living, breathing human being who was going through a hell of her own.

After that, things had been better between them, but nothing would change the fact that she’d become a single mother at the tender age of sixteen. By the time Alex had been born, she’d long left school, plus lost all her school friends. When she’d come home from the hospital, there had just been herself in the house all day with a crying, colicky baby and her father, who tried to help, but was pretty useless. Some days she’d wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. Instead, often, she’d just sat down and cried along with Alex.

Meeting Jake Winters that summer sixteen years ago had sure changed her life forever. And the thought of meeting him again scared the living daylights out of her.

Not because she felt in danger of falling in love with him again. Such an idea was ludicrous. But because of the danger of Alex falling under his father’s possibly bad influence. She hadn’t sacrificed her whole life to raise a secure, stable, happy boy, only to surrender him to someone she didn’t really know, and possibly couldn’t trust. Alex needed good male role models now that his grandfather wasn’t around to direct him, not some rebel-without-a-cause type.

Angelina tried to imagine what Jake would be like today. Could he possibly have come good, or had he gone down the road to self-destruction? Was he even alive? Maybe she should start looking for him herself, do a preliminary reconnoitre. She didn’t have to hire anybody, not to begin with. She could ring all the J Winters in the Sydney phone book first.

Yes, that was what she would do. She’d get on to that tomorrow. She would try in the evening. Most people were home on a Sunday evening.

Another thought suddenly popped into her mind.

What if he was married, with a wife and a family?

Angelina knew the answer to that as surely and instinctively as Alex had known that his father was not in jail.

No way!

The Jake who’d chatted her up that summer had been a hater of all things traditional and conservative. Marriage would never be for him. Or family life. Or even falling in love. She’d grown up sufficiently now to see that Jake hadn’t cared about her one bit back then. All their intimate conversations whilst grape-picking together had been nothing but a way for him to get into her pants.

Which he had. But only the once. And even that must have been an anticlimax, for want of a better word.

Looking back, it was ironic that she hadn’t enjoyed the actual event that had ruined her life at the time. She might have borne the memory better if she’d been carried away on the wings of ecstasy to the very end.

Jake’s lovemaking had promised well to begin with. He’d been more than a good kisser, actually. He was a great kisser. His hands had been just as effective, with a built-in road map to all her pleasure zones. Her breasts. Her nipples. And of course the white-hot area between her legs. Soon she’d been all for him going all the way, despite some last-minute panic over getting pregnant. But the sharp pain she experienced when he penetrated her had swiftly brought her back to earth. All she’d felt during the next ten seconds or so was a crushing wave of disappointment.

Even if her father hadn’t watched over her after Jake like a hawk, Angelina had steadfastly refused to become one of those single mums whose son woke up to a different man in his mummy’s bed every other week. She’d made her bed, as her father had often told her, and she’d bravely resolved to lie in it. Alone.

To be honest, however, her opportunities for having even a brief fling hadn’t exactly been thick on the ground to begin with. As the stay-home mother of a young child, she’d rarely been in the company of eligible men. Her weekly shopping trip to the nearby town of Cessnock had been her only regular outing. In fact, Angelina hadn’t been asked out by a single member of the opposite sex till three years ago.

Two things had happened around that time to greatly change her life circumstances. Alex had gone off to boarding school and she’d enrolled in a computer course at the local technical college. She’d known she had to do something to fill the great hole in her life created by her precious son going off to school.

Once she had some computer skills under her belt, Angelina had felt confident enough to try working on the reception desk at the resort. To her surprise, she’d taken to the service industry like a duck to water. Soon, she’d been also escorting groups of guests on tours of the property, serving in the cellar and helping out at the restaurant at lunchtime on the weekends, its busiest time. She just loved talking to people, and they seemed to like talking to her.

Before this, she’d only done behind-the-scenes jobs around the resort such as cooking and cleaning, hardly esteem-building activities. Not that she’d had much self-esteem by then. Her stay-at-home years when Alex had been a baby and a toddler had gradually eroded her confidence and turned her from an outgoing girl into a reserved, almost shy woman.

Now, suddenly, she had blossomed again, thoroughly enjoying the social interaction and yes, the admiration—however meaningless and fleeting—of the opposite sex.

She’d begun taking care with her appearance again, exercising off some of the extra pounds which had crept on over the years and paying more attention to her hair, her clothes and her make-up.

Of course, her father had noticed her transformation, plus the attention of the male tourists and guests. And yes, of course, he’d commented and criticised. But this time she’d put him firmly in his place, telling him she was a grown woman and he was to keep out of her personal and private life.

Not that there’d been one. Despite her father suspecting otherwise, she hadn’t taken up any of the none too subtle offers she’d received from the many men who now asked her out. She didn’t even want to go out with them, let alone go to bed with them. Maybe it was crazy to use her teenage experience with Jake as a basis for comparison, but none of these men had made her feel even a fraction of what she’d felt when she first met Jake.

Of course, Angelina understood that the intensity of her feelings for Jake had largely been because of her age. He’d represented everything that a young, virginal girl found wildly exciting.

Angelina had no doubt that if Jake himself walked back into her life at this moment, she would not feel anything like she had back then. She no longer found long-haired, tattooed males even remotely attractive, for starters. The sight of him might make her heart race, but only with fear, fear of the bad influence he might have on her highly impressionable and very vulnerable son.

Thinking of this reminded her that, sooner or later, she would come face to face with Alex’s father again, possibly sooner rather than later, if she started those phone calls tomorrow evening.

The thought bothered her a great deal.

‘Damn you, Jake,’ she muttered as she stood up and marched across her bedroom towards her en suite bathroom. ‘Sixteen years, and you’re still causing me trouble!’

CHAPTER THREE

THE yellow Ferrari caught Angelina’s eye the moment it turned from the main road into the Ambrosia Estate. She stopped what she was doing—opening a bottle of wine at one of the outdoor tables—and watched the brightly coloured sports car crunch to a halt in the nearby car park, her lips pursing into a silent whistle when a dark-haired hunk in designer jeans, pale blue polo shirt and wraparound sunglasses climbed out from behind the wheel.

What a gorgeous-looking guy!

Angelina’s gaze shifted over to the passenger side. She could see another person sitting in the car but couldn’t make out any details. The sun was shining on the windscreen. But Angelina was willing to bet on it being a pretty blonde. Men like that invariably had pretty blondes on their arms.

The hunk hitched his jeans up onto his hips as hunks often did. Not because his clothes really needed straightening, she’d come to realise during her recent people-watching years. It was a subconscious body-language thing, a ploy to draw female attention to that part of his body.

And it worked. Angelina certainly looked, as did the two middle-aged ladies she was serving. Both widows, their names were Judith and Vivien. They were on holiday together and had been staying at the Ambrosia Estate for a few days.

‘Cocky devil,’ Judith said with a wry smile in her voice when the hunk started striding round the front of the yellow Ferrari in the direction of the passenger side.

‘He has every right to be,’ Vivien remarked. ‘Just look at that car.’

Judith snorted. ‘Don’t you mean, just look at that body?’

Angelina had actually stopped looking at the hunk’s broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, long-legged body and was frowning over his walk. It was a most distinctive walk, somewhere between a strut and a swagger. He moved as if he was bouncing along on the balls of his feet.

‘Jake…’

The word escaped her lips before she could help it, and her two lady customers immediately looked up at her.

‘You know the guy with the yellow sports car?’ Judith asked, grey eyes narrowed. She was the sharper of the two ladies.

‘No,’ Angelina denied, dismissing the crazy notion that the man could possibly be Jake. ‘But his walk reminded me of someone I used to know.’

‘A sexy someone, I’ll bet.’

Angelina had to smile. ‘Very.’ She pulled out the cork on the bottle of chilled Verdelho and poured both ladies a full glass. Each one immediately lifted their glass to their lips. They did like their wine, those two.

The emergence of a grey-haired lady from the passenger seat of the Ferrari surprised the three of them.

‘Good lord!’ Judith exclaimed. ‘Not quite what I was expecting. So what do you reckon, girls? His mother? Or do we cast lover boy in the role of gigolo?’

‘Oh, surely not,’ Vivien said with a delicate little shudder.

‘You’re right,’ Judith went on. ‘She’s much too old to be bothered with that kind of thing. But she’s not his mother, either. Too old for that as well. Possibly a great-aunt. Or a client. He might be her financial adviser. She looks as rich as he does.’

‘I’ll leave you two ladies to speculate,’ Angelina said as she placed the bottle in the portable wine cooler by their table. ‘Wilomena will be over shortly to take your orders. Enjoy your meal.’ And your gossiping, she added silently.

As she made her way back inside, Angelina threw another glimpse over her shoulder at the man and woman who were now walking together along the path that led over the small footbridge, past the outdoor dining area and along to the main door of the restaurant. The hunk was holding the woman’s arm but his head was moving from side to side as though he was looking for something. Or someone.

Angelina found herself hurrying out of his line of sight, tension gripping her insides. Her actions—plus her sudden anxiety—really irritated her. As if it could possibly be Jake! How fanciful could she get?

That’s what you get when you start thinking about ghosts from the past, Angelina. You conjure one up!

She resisted the temptation to watch the hunk’s approach through the picture-glass windows of the restaurant, though she did go straight to the counter where they kept the reservation book, her eyes dropping to run over the names that had been booked for lunch. There was no Winters amongst them.

Of course not. Why would there be? The hunk just walked like Jake, that was all. OK, so he was built a bit like Jake as well. And he had similar-coloured hair.

Dark brown hair, however, was hardly unusual. On top of that, this guy’s hair was cropped very short, almost in a military style. Jake had been proud of his long hair. He would never have it cut like that. Not that the short-all-over look didn’t suit the hunk. It was very…macho.

Jake had been very macho.

It couldn’t be him, could it?

Once he came inside and took off those sunglasses, Angelina reassured herself, there would no longer be any doubt in her mind.

And if he did have eyes like chips of blue ice? came the gut-tightening question. What then? How did you deal with such an appalling coincidence? What sick fate would send him back to her today, of all days?

The restaurant door opened and Angelina forced herself to look up from where she was practically hiding behind the front counter.

The hunk propped the door open with one elbow and ushered his elderly companion in ahead of him. The lady was not so fragile-looking up close, her face unlined and her blue eyes bright with good health. But she had to be seventy, if she was a day.

And the hunk? It was impossible to tell his age till he took those darned sunglasses off. He could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty, although there was an air of self-assurance about him that suggested he’d been around a while.

The grey-haired lady stepped up to the counter first. ‘I made a booking for two for twelve-thirty,’ she said with a sweet smile. ‘The name’s Landsdale. Mrs Landsdale.’

Angelina was highly conscious of the hunk standing at the lady’s shoulder. Was he staring at her from behind those opaque shades? It felt as if he was.

‘Yes, I have your booking here, Mrs Landsdale,’ she replied, proud of herself for sounding so polite and professional in the face of the tension that was building inside her. ‘Would you like to dine inside, or alfresco? It’s really lovely outside today. No wind. Not too hot. And not too many flies.’

The lady’s smile widened. ‘Alfresco sounds wonderful. What do you think, Jake? Shall we sit outside?’

Angelina froze. Had she heard correctly? Had the woman really said that name?

Angelina stared, open-mouthed, as he finally took off his sunglasses, her whole world tipping on its axis.

It was him. Those eyes could not possibly belong to anyone else.

‘Jake,’ she blurted out whilst her head whirled with the incredibility of this scenario.

‘Hello, Angelina,’ he said in the same richly masculine voice he’d already had at seventeen. ‘I’m surprised you recognised me after all these years.’

If it hadn’t been for the eyes, she might not have. He was nothing like the boy she remembered, or the man she’d imagined he might have become. This Jake was smooth and suave and sophisticated. More handsome than ever and obviously no longer underprivileged.

‘Goodness, you mean this is Angelina,’ the grey-haired lady piped up before Angelina could find a suitable reply. ‘Jake, you naughty boy. Why didn’t you say something earlier?’

He lifted his broad shoulders in an elegant shrug. ‘I spotted her through the windows, and decided if she didn’t recognise me back I wouldn’t embarrass her by saying anything.’

Well, at least that meant he hadn’t deliberately come looking for her, Angelina realised with some relief. Still, this was an amazing coincidence, given she’d been thinking about him all morning. She could feel herself trembling inside with shock.

‘I—er—didn’t recognise you till you took off your sunglasses,’ she admitted whilst she struggled to pull herself together. Think, girl.

‘You do have very distinctive eyes, Jake,’ she added, bracing herself to look into them once more. This time she managed without that ridiculous jolt to her heart.

‘Do I?’ he said with a light laugh. ‘They just look blue to me. But now that you have recognised me, I must ask. Is your father around?’ he whispered. ‘Should I put the sunglasses back on, pronto?’

Angelina opened her mouth to tell him that her father was dead. But something stopped her. Some sudden new fear…

This man before her, this grown-up and obviously wealthy Jake might present more of a danger than the loser she’d been picturing barely an hour earlier. This man had the means to take her son away from her, in more ways than one.

She had to be very, very careful.

‘You’re quite safe in here,’ she said, deciding she would tell him absolutely nothing of a personal nature till she’d found out more about him.

But she was extremely curious. What woman—what mother—wouldn’t be?

The questions tumbling round in her head were almost endless, the main one being how on earth had he come to look as if he’d win the bachelor-of-the-year award in every women’s magazine in Australia? And who was this Mrs Landsdale? What did she mean to Jake and how come she knew about her?

Despite—or perhaps because of—all these mysteries, Angelina resolved to keep her wits about her. And to act as naturally as possible.

Picking up a couple of menus, she said ‘this way’ with a bright smile, and showed them to what she’d always thought was the best table outside. It was to the right of the ornamental pond, with a nearby clump of tall gum trees providing natural shade. All the outdoor tables had large umbrellas, where required. But this table never needed one.

‘Oh, yes, this is lovely,’ Mrs Landsdale said as she sat down and glanced around. ‘What a beautiful pond. And a lovely view of the valley beyond too.’

‘Papa chose this spot for the restaurant because of the view. And the trees.’ Too late, she wished she hadn’t brought up her father.

Swiftly she handed them both menus, doing her best not to stare at Jake again. But it was hard not to. Her gaze skimmed over him once more, noting his beautifully tanned skin and the expensive gold watch on his wrist. He had money written all over him. Lots of money.