Her Singapore Fling Read Online Free PDF Page B

need of a haven. He, on the other hand, was wearing black track sweats, a ratty grey T-shirt, and he wasn’t wearing shoes. Where the hell were a bunch of pickaxe-toting dwarves when you needed them?
    â€˜Come with me,’ he muttered and led her up a narrow staircase to one side of the training floor, and opened the door to his crib.
    It was spacious. Space he had in spades, which was something of a luxury in Singapore. A huge expanse of polished wooden floorboard covering an area the same size as the training hall below. A bed made up with white sheets, a navy-coloured coverlet and a couple of pillows graced the far corner. He’d had a shower and toilet plumbed into the opposite corner, with a half-wall and a makeshift screen providing some semblance of privacy. A highset band of slatted warehouse windows ran the length of both longways walls. He’d covered one of those walls with a row of silk tapestries depicting a battle scene, heavy on the death and destruction. A reading chair, a reading lamp, and a not-quite-straight bookshelf crammed with books completed the tableau. Narrow storage space behind the far wall hid his belongings and his clothes.
    â€˜It’s still not much but it’s better than what’s on offer downstairs,’ he said curtly.
    â€˜But…’ Jianne gazed around her in silence and he gritted his teeth at how sparsely furnished his home no doubt looked to her eyes. ‘This is your space.’
    â€˜I’ll clear out. I can stay downstairs.’
    â€˜No! There’s no need to turn you out of your bed. I never meant to do that. Have me stay downstairs. Whatever’s there, it’ll do.’
    â€˜This is what I’m offering, Jianne. It’s the only offer you’ll get from me when it comes to accommodation. You, up here, out of the way.’
    She hesitated.
    â€˜Take it or leave it.’ On this he would not bend.
    â€˜Okay.’ She took a deep breath, as if shoring up her resolve. ‘I’ll take it. I’ll pay rent, of course,’ she added hurriedly, and named a weekly rate that would have kept her in six star luxury, not a warehouse bedsit atop a downtown dojo.
    â€˜Keep your money,’ he grated. ‘I don’t want it.’
    Jianne recoiled as if he’d struck her.
    Jake gritted his teeth and prayed for mercy. ‘Must you flinch every time I look at you?’
    â€˜Must you glare every time I open my mouth?’ she replied in kind. ‘People pay rent when they live in a place that’s not their own. Why is my offering to do so such an insult to you? Is your pride such an enormous thing that there can be no room for mine?’
    Money had been a sore point between them from the moment Jianne had revealed exactly how much of the stuff she had. Tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions by now. A tiny detail she’d waited until six months into their marriage to let slip, when she’d offered to payfor a housekeeper to come in each day and help clean the Bennett family house and prepare healthy meals for a hungry family.
    She’d been drowning in household chores she had no idea how to cope with and all Jake had seen was the blow to his pride. The housekeeper hadn’t eventuated. Jianne’s drowning had continued.
    Not the Bennett family’s finest moment.
    â€˜Fine,’ he amended. ‘Contribute something to the running of the place if it makes you feel better. A cleaner comes in daily—I can have him do up here too, that’s not a problem. But a couple of hundred Sing a week will cover your stay. If you still don’t think that’s enough, I’ll give you an account you can put some money into. It’s one I’ve set up for Po. Put however much you want in there.’
    He thought it a fair compromise, the accepting of her money on Po’s behalf. Never let it be said that Jacob Bennett didn’t learn from his mistakes.
    She sent him a long,