One Man, One Love
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Natalie Fox
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CHAPTER ONE
‘EXCUSE me, but would you mind turning that down?’
Christie was aware she was being spoken to, but stared stoically ahead at the headrest in front of her. Placido Domingo was coming nicely through her personal stereo and he was all she needed for a travelling companion.
Concorde was whisking her down to Barbados from Miami and she had enough on her mind without getting involved in trivial conversation. Her emotions were so muddled, torn between two people she loved very much: Paul and her beautiful cousin Michelle…
Suddenly her earphones were plucked from her head and a dark head jutted so close to her face that she would have reeled back if she’d had the room to.
That was the trouble with flying, Christie thought ruefully, you were a captive audience to whomsoever you were seated next to. There were no avenues of escape when a bore insisted on striking up a conversation when it wasn’t asked for.
‘I’ve already asked you politely to turn that contraption down, now I’ll impolitely ask you to shut it!’
His voice was like hot gravel and his eyes murderously black. Christie stiffened rebelliously and snapped off the stereo.
‘Thank you,’ he grated in a suffering tone.
With a sigh of relief the bore sat back in his seat and carried on tapping out on his laptop computer. Christie was annoyed, so annoyed that she broke her vow of silence.
‘You know, there was a time when supersonic travel promised a better class of flight passenger—’ she started bitingly, ready to give him a helping of vitriol for having the nerve to ask her to turn her stereo down when he was clattering away on his computer, but he interrupted her before she had a chance to add any more.
‘Yes, life is full of disappointments,’ he drawled meanly, not removing his eyes from that little grey screen on his lap. ‘And the very idea that a personal stereo is personal is another of life’s bitter disappointments.’
Now his eyes were up and across to her, dark, penetrating and quite, quite cold. A challenging look, though. Christie took it up with eyes just as dark and penetrating.
‘You couldn’t possibly have overheard—’
‘Domingo.’
Christie swallowed, but held on to that gaze of his. Her lips turned up at the corners. He thought he was so smart.
‘Clever guess,’ she snorted, averting her eyes away from his to stare at the headrest again, a far more interesting subject. ‘But I’m totally unconvinced.’
He let out a weary sigh. ‘I thought you might be. Precision you want, precision you’ll get, and then maybe I can have some peace to get on with my work. Verdi’s Aida, “Se quel guerrier io fossi”…Celeste Aida, Act One.’
He was smart!
‘Really,’ Christie drawled sarcastically. ‘You missed, “Accompanied by the New Philharmonic Orchestra”.’
‘I missed nothing because it was the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala,’ he told her in a low voice loaded with what-do-you-know?
Christie mentally squirmed in her seat, not giving him the satisfaction of the real thing. Not only was he a bore, but an opera buff to boot. She shut her eyes, because that was the only way out. So he had scored—bully for him. Let that be the end of it. Except she heard him mutter under his breath, ‘And not even a smile from the lady.’
Christie didn’t smile for airline bores. Her lips tightened even more and she heard a low laugh and then the tap, tap of his keyboard again.
The trouble was that now he had started it she was made to feel acutely aware of him seated next to her. Before he had been a nonentity; now he was someone with long, strong thighs, impeccable taste in designer wear, and a man who knew how to smell good. Something out of the Givenchy house, wasn’t it? Just her luck to be seated next to the best-looking bore on the flight…Heavens, had she really noticed he wasn’t bad-looking? She, who, after her disastrous relationship with Paul, had vowed she wouldn’t allow herself to get into such an emotional mess ever again. Oh, no, she didn’t want a man in her life, didn’t need one, and she wasn’t going to have one!
She felt a soft tap on her shoulder and opened her eyes to the BA stewardess smiling down on her. ‘Champagne, Miss Vaughan?’
‘I’m sure Miss Vaughan would be happy to join me in a toast,’ came the voice next to her. He had the audacity to reach across her and take two glasses from the stewardess, so speeding her departure to the next traveller. He handed one to Christie with a very slight smile, baring a glimpse of white teeth that hadn’t been manufactured in Florida, though the deep tan and the designer outfit screamed that they were.
She took the drink, because she needed it. ‘And what are we toasting, your knowledge of Verdi’s arias?’ she suggested drily.
‘You can toast what you like; I’m saying a thankful prayer for safe deliverance from a lingering death by boredom. Thank you for making my trip so silently rewarding. It’s almost a pleasure to meet a woman who doesn’t drone on indefinitely about everything that is a million miles from a man’s heart.’
Christie tightened her already whitened fingers around her glass. Chauvinist creep. She wondered why some erstwhile female hadn’t knocked out those home-grown teeth, because they were certainly a tempting proposition, especially after a wearisome trip from England when body and brain were flagging badly.
‘The trick,’ she murmured meaningfully, ‘is never to start a conversation in the first place.’ She hoped he’d take the hint that, now they were talking, it wasn’t the green light to anything more.
‘I know that trick too and usually adhere to it, but when you have a stereo blaster erupting in your left ear it’s hard to stay mute for long.’
She afforded him a sidelong glance. He was gazing out of the window, and she was at the very least glad of that, but then he turned his dark head and met her deep brown eyes full on. Christie looked away. He was extremely attractive, Christie acknowledged. So there was life after Paul after all, she supposed; the fact that she could recognise an attractive man when she saw one proved that at least. But it would end with that recognition, because she certainly wasn’t going to let it go any further than that.
‘Barbados?’ he queried, though not out of interest, Christie was sure. They had started and really there was nowhere else to go but onwards. They were nearly there anyway, and besides, she was going on from Barbados and it was extremely unlikely that he was too. He looked the sort of successful whatever who commuted down from Miami to Barbados on business every week. Probably a soft drinks salesman… No…that tropical suit was pure Armani…Maybe a Mafia man…? Hell, what did she care what or who he was?
‘If not I’m on the wrong flight,’ she clipped icily, then added, after a moment’s flash of brilliance to end this before it went any further, ‘I’m going to a wedding.’
She was used to being chatted up; Michelle said it was inevitable, with the Vaughan good looks inherited from their shared grandparents. Michelle thrived on it, which was peculiar in the circumstances of her impending marriage, and one of the reasons Christie balked at the thought of her marrying Paul. Michelle wasn’t right for him; Christie was…or rather had thought she was.
‘A wedding, eh?’ came the now interested murmur next to her.
Christie sipped her champagne and lifted her chin. It was working. Lead with the hook and then slam in with the knee-buckler. She really didn’t want to take this conversation any further. She settled back in her seat and, cradling the glass in her small fists, she closed her eyes once again.
‘Yes, a wedding. A perfectly romantic wedding in paradise,’ she murmured languidly. Now this should really shut him up for good. ‘My own,’ she added meaningfully.
Nothing from him, no comment, none whatsoever, which was what she expected and had hoped for, but her conscience rankled and spat and spluttered for the lie she had told. But a lie could be useful at times such as these, to get rid of an airline bore who had the audacity to tell her to turn her personal stereo down. She’d never see him again, so what was the harm? No one was going to get hurt by a little white lie. She was going to a wedding, one in paradise. That bit was true and the bit about it being her own should be true but agonisingly wasn’t.
Pain…She was beyond the threshold of it after six months of soul-searching, and was now in a state of anguished limbo, wondering if Paul was truly, truly happy with her beautiful, flighty, happy-go-lucky cousin, who had so little to offer but her bubbly personality. She, Christie Vaughan, had had so much more to offer him. She had a successful career in broadcasting and a brain that wasn’t swayed by…what was a million miles from a man’s heart.
It had been hard coming to terms with it: the fact that Paul had thrown her over for Michelle. It was more than pride taking a jolt. She had honestly believed she and Paul had been right for each other, and to discover that she had entirely misinterpreted his feelings for her had shaken her so deeply that she wasn’t over it yet.
That was love for you—blinding, incapacitating and most of the time a pain in the butt. At least she’d had a stab at it, though, which she supposed was something, but to lose him to her cousin, dear Michelle, whom she loved dearly, was a double hurt. She couldn’t be allowed a satisfying stab of hate for the woman who had taken him from her. She had just stood aside and watched as their attraction to each other had blossomed into love, and now they were going to be married…and life was nothing but a bowl of rotting cherries.
She was on her feet and gathering up her magazines and stereo to ram into her shoulder-bag after they landed at Grantley Adams airport when he spoke again, her travelling companion.
‘I wish you every happiness in your new life.’
She faced him, surprised at the low softness of his voice. She supposed he was quite a nice guy at heart, certainly a looker, and she almost wished she hadn’t judged him so harshly. Only almost, though; he had a chill about him, almost a ruthlessness in those chiselled designer features and those piercing dark eyes. The comparison to Paul with his sun-bleached blond hair and ravishing, sporty open good looks was inevitable, she supposed. Her life seemed to be one of comparisons now that she had lost out on love. Paul and this man were exact opposites, absolutely exact, like black and white, Verdi and Duke Ellington, raw silk and comfortable fresh cotton. Paul was comfortable, this man tricky silk. Christie gave him a cool look.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured tightly.
He reached into the breast pocket of his not so raw silk shirt, took out a gold-edged card, and handed it to her.
‘My card,’ he offered with a hint of a smile hovering at the corners of his well defined lips.
Christie took it, because it was the only thing to do. She glanced at it with little interest, because that was the only thing to do too.
‘Victor Lascelles,’ she read out aloud, ‘Attorney of Law.’ She looked at him, raised a cool, dark brow, and handed it back to him. ‘Fascinating, I’m sure,’ she murmured with obvious boredom and uninterest.
He took the card and the smile widened, and with a slow, languorous movement he slipped it down into her cleavage as she bent to pick up her bag from the seat. His fingers were warm on that intimate part of her flesh and just for a split second they seemed to linger there as if in temptation, and then suddenly the touch was over and she wasn’t sure it had happened, and yet the soft tingling it left was proof that it had.
Shocked, Christie straightened herself up and glared hotly at him, too shocked to extricate the card from where it now burned against her golden skin.
His smile was ever widening, ever mocking the outraged expression on her beautiful face. ‘Always at your service, Miss Vaughan. Give me a call some time.’
Christie could hardly speak, and when she did her voice came out more like a screech than the dulcet tones she used so expertly on her broadcasting interviews.
‘I doubt I’ll ever have need of your services, Mr Lascelles, though if this flight had lasted a second longer I might have committed murder, but then again you would hardly be of any help, being dead yourself!’
A dark brow raised mockingly to match that mocking smile. ‘I don’t specialise in defending murderers, Miss Vaughan…’
‘What do you specialise in, then? Parking offences?’ she insulted bitingly.
‘I specialise in what you might need in the future, Miss Vaughan—divorce.’
‘Divorce!’ Christie spat contemptuously, her hand gripping her bag so tightly that her fingers went quite numb.
‘Yes, divorce. Quick, painless divorce. I do believe I’m facing a prospective client at this very minute.’
Burning with rage, Christie grazed back, ‘I’m not even married yet!’
‘But about to be, and I see trouble ahead for the pair of you. You, Miss Vaughan, are hardly brimming over with pre-marital anticipation. In fact I’d go as far as to say this proposed marriage of yours is on the rocks before it has even set sail.’
Christie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘How dare you?’
No smile now; that was breezed away with the hot air that swept in from the open doors of the aircraft. ‘I’m just trying to be helpful,’ he offered sincerely. ‘It’s my job—’
‘It’s your job to put marriage down, is it?’ she interjected angrily. ‘Before…before it has even happened?’
‘I put broken marriages to bed, sweetheart. All tucked up neatly with the covers turned down…’ Even as he spoke his eyes darted up and down her narrow frame as if he might enjoy tucking her up in bed. They came to rest on her widened dark brown eyes. ‘But prevention is always better than a cure. If I were you I’d think very carefully about this forthcoming wedding of yours. With my expert knowledge on marital matters, I’d say you weren’t ready for such a deep commitment, so take my advice and let the poor man off the hook before it’s too late for both of you.’
Wider and wider grew Christie’s eyes, hotter and hotter grew the rage inside her. This raw-silk man was a chauvinist pig to the nth degree.
‘You truly are a smart-mouthed litigating leech, aren’t you? Well, let me tell you something: you know nothing!’
The very narrowing of his eyes challenged that statement. ‘I know what I know—that a beautiful woman has sat next to me on this flight with more bound-up tension inside that perfumed cleavage than a scud missile, more biting sarcasm inside that sexy mouth than is good for her, and a white-hot rage that Vesuvius would challenge her for.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t tell me it’s repressed sexual anticipation for the nuptials, because you look worldly enough to have sampled them already.’
Christie’s face went scarlet with outrage. On a sharp intake of breath she blurted hotly, ‘You…you bastard!’ Never but never in her life had she been spoken to like this.
His smile was on the increase. ‘I can afford to be,’ he drawled as his hand came up to tilt her chin, which was tilted far enough anyway in hot defiance of this man. ‘Good luck conveyances to your hapless intended. He needs it more than you do, I suspect.’ His thumb smoothed across her chin as if testing the quality of her skin, and then his hand dropped away.
He brushed past her for the exit and Christie stiffened and raged inside and pouted like a child. Furiously she snatched at the card still nestling in her breast and tore it to shreds. What an insufferable, hateful, disgusting man!
But life had its compensations, she supposed as she made her way to the hospitality suite to wait for her connecting LIAT flight to the island of Grenada, still shaken by the whole episode, still smarting from his mean frankness. The chance of seeing that deplorable man again in her life was as remote as the burning tropical sun dropping out of the sky to sizzle in the blue, blue Caribbean sea.
‘Oh, God, I’m melting,’ Christie puffed exhaustedly as Michelle hugged her tightly at Grenada airport. ‘Some private jet got clearance before we did at Barbados and we missed our slot and then I’m sure the pilot defected to the beach for a leisurely swim and a lobster snack before take-off. There was I thinking Concorde would shorten the journey.’
‘The buck stops at the Caribbean, Christie,’ Michelle laughed happily as she led her towards a dusty white taxi. ‘You’ll have to wind down now and get used to the leisurely pace of life here. No one rushes anywhere; the tempo is so laid-back it nearly stops altogether. Now relax, you’re here and that’s all that matters.’
‘Yes, I’m here,’ Christie mumbled wearily as she sat back in the air-conditioned taxi, scooping her damp dark brown—once lush—hair from her hot brow. And she tried to relax, but Michelle’s bubbly good humour was almost too much to bear.
‘How was Miami? And New York? I don’t know how you do it, Christie. Oh, the hotel is out of this world, just the most perfectly romantic setting for a wedding. Wait till you see what Paul has arranged. We’re going to be married on the beach, under the palms at sunset, and we are going to party every night—’
‘Where is Paul?’ Christie interrupted, easing her damp silk shirt away from tense shoulders. The humidity was getting to her, and the thought that Paul hadn’t bothered to accompany Michelle to the airport to meet her. It really hurt. She knew she shouldn’t have expected it, but they were all so close that she had. The whole idea of this paradise wedding and honeymoon was for Michelle and Paul to surround themselves with all the people they loved for a wedding of a lifetime. Yes, Paul loved her, not in the way she wanted, but more his way—a just-good-friends love. But it hadn’t been that way in the beginning, though on reflection she was able to see that the relationship had been pretty one-sided. But at the time Paul had appeared to be the attentive escort. Man meets woman, instant attraction, candlelit dinners leading to a weekend down at the Vaughan family home, Shorden Manor, in Dorset. Man meets her cousin Michelle, woman in love steps back, and retires graciously with a very stunned, bruised heart.
‘Sunfish-sailing or snorkelling or rum-punching,’ Michelle gabbled. ‘All the other guests have arrived, so there is some merry-making going on, I can tell you.’
Christie closed her eyes, hardly able to comprehend that people had the strength for merry-making in this humidity.
How much easier it would have been to bear if Paul had fallen for a stranger. They would never have reason to see each other again. But Paul was marrying into the family and she and Michelle were close, almost like the sisters they didn’t have because they were both only children. Though thank goodness, for pride’s sake, they hadn’t been so close that Christie had confided in Michelle how deeply she had felt for Paul. Michelle would never know, and this was going to be the most difficult assignment of Christie’s life. She was going to have to put on a brave face, to smile when she wanted to cry, for she was going to be standing next to her dear cousin dressed as a maid of honour instead of in the bridal gown she ought to be wearing. And how would she feel when Paul slipped that platinum band on her cousin’s finger? It would all be over then, truly over, a love lost forever.
‘Hey, are you all right?’
Christie blinked open her eyes and managed a weak smile. They were pulling into the drive of the hotel, and Christie couldn’t fully appreciate the luxurious beauty of the place. Her eyes felt gritty, her head was pounding with travel fatigue, and she ached for a cool shower.
‘I just want to sleep forever,’ she told her cousin as they stepped out of the taxi, Christie crumpled and travel-worn, Michelle exuberant, tanned and bouncy in flowing saffron silk, her red-gold hair dancing with shimmering highlights reflected from the sun. God, she looked so golden and happy, how a bride-to-be should look. Would Christie be looking like that if the roles were reversed? A stab of truth hit her at that weary point. Christie Vaughan wouldn’t be here if she were marrying Paul. They would be married in her local church down in Dorset, a traditional wedding with a handful of close friends and family, and not this alien razzmatazz, exotic though it was. It was quite a sobering thought.
‘No chance of that,’ Michelle bubbled. ‘I’ll give you five minutes to swoop into a bikini and then it’s go, go, go.’
‘I’m afraid it’s going to be no, no, no, Micky, dear,’ Christie told her firmly as the two girls linked arms and padded across the marble foyer of the hotel to Reception. ‘I absolutely insist on a recovery period. While you’ve been busy satisfying the residency period leading up to your nuptials I’ve been working my way halfway round the world to get here. I’ll be fit for nothing if I don’t get some well earned rest.’
Michelle smiled understandingly. ‘Yes, you’re right and I’m being selfish…’ She stopped and turned to Christie and hugged her impulsively. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Christie. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here, marrying Paul. You know we both love you for bringing us together.’
Christie clung to her and closed her eyes in sufferance. The worst day’s work of her life had been taking Paul down to Shorden.
‘Get your rest,’ Michelle told her as she released her, but her green eyes were twinkling mischievously. ‘But you’d better be rested enough for the party tonight—steel band on the beach and lashings of seafood and champagne to start the celebrations. Everyone, but everyone will be there, and if you’re not there’ll be trouble, I warn you.’
Christie watched as she floated across the marble foyer to the terrace which led directly on to the white, white sands of a palm-fringed beach. Christie could swear she was six inches off the ground in her elation.
‘Buck up, Christie Vaughan,’ she told herself. ‘You could turn out to be the party pooper if you’re not careful.’
A maid showed her to her private whirlpool suite, which was set apart from the main hotel. There was a group of them, facing the white beach and backed by lush, heavily scented tropical gardens with palms swishing in the hot wind. Each had a double bedroom, en-suite bathroom and spacious sitting-room leading on to a shaded patio area with steps down to another small terrace and the whirlpool. It was all very secluded and private, a perfect honeymoon suite, with the bright blue Caribbean sea and a cloudless sky beyond.
After the maid left, telling her to call Room Service if she needed anything, Christie stood by the open patio doors and breathed the fragrant air that wafted in from the gardens. The secluded whirlpool beckoned invitingly and Christie concentrated her thoughts on pure self-indulgence, because that was less painful than anything else. She stripped off her clinging silk shirt and her crumpled linen trousers, showered away the travel grime, and, still naked, walked through the suite, out to the pool, and plunged in. Five minutes later she emerged, five minutes after that she had downed a weak gin and tonic, and five minutes after that she was sound asleep on the huge double bed.
When Christie awoke later the sun was going down, filling the room with a burnt orange hue. It was humid and hot. She stretched lazily, like a sleek cat, and lay in the stillness, gathering her thoughts together. The scent of frangipani was in the room, and chirruping tree frogs suddenly broke the enveloping stillness. In the far distance the evocative sounds of a steel band hung in the air, and beyond that the swish of water on the shore. The sounds were blissfully exotic till a wild shriek of gaiety cut over them all and brought Christie back to earth. She stirred restlessly, rolled over on to her stomach, and clawed at the pillow. She didn’t want to be here, damn it, she just didn’t. Not like this, feeling the way she did, all knotted up inside and aching to the marrow with loss.
She forced those miserable feelings of self-pity out of the way, because if she dwelt on them for too long she would lose the nerve to step outside this suite and face life. Hunching into a thin cotton robe, she stood by the open patio doors and watched the sun go down. It was huge and fiery and plunged into the Caribbean sea, where it seemed to sizzle for a few seconds and then was gone to brighten someone else’s day.
The tropical darkness came quickly and Christie moved about the room, switching on lamps. She poured herself a cold drink at the courtesy bar, added a slice of lime for zest, and sipped it as she brushed out her long dark hair and wondered what to wear. The maid had unpacked for her while she slept and she skimmed through the rail, chewing on the lime as she wondered. The white Indian cotton with the thin shoulder-straps was all she had the strength to wear. It was light and frothy and cool and she slipped it on and, barefoot, went out of the suite into the gardens and found a path which circled the other suites. The path branched into two. The one on the left was signposted to the hotel, but she took the right one, which led directly to the shore.
She stood on the warm beach, the longest stretch of moon-silvered sands she had ever seen in her life, and she had seen some on her travels. To the left of her the party on the beach was in full swing. The steel band was playing ‘Island in the Sun’ while a crowd of wedding guests were hysterically negotiating the limbo bar. Christie turned her eyes to the right and saw a long figure silhouetted on the shoreline, a man, kicking his feet in the sand and looking positively pensive. For a moment her heart leapt, thinking it was Paul with his hands plunged deep into his pockets, but it wasn’t a stance Paul was familiar with; he never stood still long enough.
Christie wanted to be on that part of the beach, isolated and away from the madding crowd, but the spot was already taken by someone who looked as if he felt as she did. For a moment she felt twinned to him, united in a thoughtful, pensive mood, at one with the sea and the velvety Caribbean sky, very much alone. With a small intake of breath she squared her shoulders and swallowed the lump in her throat and headed towards the wedding revellers.
Paul was the first to sight her as she came across the sands. With a whoop he swept her into his arms and nearly crushed her to death.
‘Darling, at last. We thought you’d never rise before the sun.’
He set her down on her feet, clasped her face in his hands, and kissed her full on the mouth. It was the sort of contact she didn’t need, for need it was that rose desperately inside her. Even knowing she couldn’t have him, she still yearned for him; even knowing the kiss was probably born out of a surfeit of champagne, she still allowed herself the bittersweet pleasure of enjoying it. But her pain and pleasure were cut short as her dear cousin leapt on them both, hugging them both together, the two people Michelle loved most in the world.
Together, the two people Christie loved most in the world whirled her into the gathering of revellers swarming on the beach like an army of inebriate ants. Most she knew; a smattering of American friends of Paul’s she didn’t. But, as was the way of Americans, she was their bosom friend in minutes. Their warmth and charm and their ease with people made her feel a lot better and she was soon clutching a brimming glass of champagne in one hand and a stuffed crab back in another. This was going to be a heavy, but heavy, week of celebrations, Christie thought wryly as she swigged her champagne in a desperate attempt to catch up on some of the exuberance.
‘Where the hell is that mean cousin of mine?’ Paul yelled to no one in particular. ‘Some wretched best man he’s turning out to be.’ To Christie he directed, ‘He’s probably skulked off somewhere. My apologies, Christie, darling, the man is Mr unsociability personified.’
‘Why apologise?’ Christie laughed, thinking the man probably had good sense and taste to match her own.
‘Because the best man and the maid of honour are supposed to get it together; that’s traditional.’
Christie’s heart floundered for a second. This she didn’t need—to be matchmade at what was going to be a painful enough occasion as it was.
‘There he is.’
Christie followed his gaze to the lone, pensive figure on the shore, who was now, slowly, coming towards them. He was barefoot and his hands were still plunged deeply into his pockets, his head bowed reverently as if the sand beneath his feet held the world’s secrets. He was still in silhouette, a ghostly figure against the backdrop of a fiery sky.
Christie knew then, by a strange, intuitive feeling that drizzled down her spine like a lazy waterfall. Later she was to ask herself how she knew, but it was one of life’s little mysteries, never to be solved, like the sight of the hot tropical sun dropping down into the Caribbean sea and seeming to sizzle in its own death throes.
‘Victor!’ Paul yelled at the top of his voice.
Christie went hot and cold all over, almost shivery and feverish, as she told herself she deserved this, and how she deserved it. It was a cruel punishment for a harmless little lie.
Life’s bowl of rotting cherries was going for rapid fermentation, she thought dismally as she braced herself to meet the attorney of law who was going to be Paul’s best man—the best man of the man Christie had loved and lost—at this perfectly romantic wedding in paradise. The wedding she had claimed as her own. Oh, misery, misery.
