Expectant Mistress
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Sara Wood
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HarlequinChapter 1
ADAM was shockingly late for his own engagement party. But worse than that was the reason for his lateness. He was thinking of another woman.
In the middle of dressing, checking the fax and answering the ever-ringing phone, he’d knocked a photograph from his desk. It was in his hand and he was staring at it. His late wife. Stepdaughter Petra...and Trish.
Slowly his tense, irritated expression evaporated. Their last moment together was one he’d never forget. His hand shook a little. The photo was replaced. Heavy gold cuff-links inserted. Then he was still.
The phone and the fax demanded his attention but he was oblivious to them. In the middle of the room, he stood staring into space—and the past.
He saw her turning to him, her face beautiful in its compassion, her lips treacherously parting over pure white teeth A feeling of profound emotion had swept over him, and an awe that he should know such a woman, speak to her, be near her...
He had no idea what had happened, only that her soft cheek lay against his, the perfume of her hair overwhelming him till he had to bury his face in it, kiss her warm scalp and nuzzle his way down to the long, pure column of her neck. And, once he’d touched her, he’d been unable to hold back
He could feel the peachy texture of her skin even now. The pliancy of her young and supple body. Breasts high and generous, pressing against his chest. The way she’d responded like an innocent, with the unleashed passion of a gypsy.
And then he’d come to his senses.
Suddenly his usual dynamic self again, he dealt rapidly with two calls then scanned the faxes and made notes in the margins for his secretary. He strode like a whirlwind through the foyer of the exclusive apartment building, and no one would have guessed from his decisive, assertive manner that he could still feel Trish’s body, warm and yielding against his hands.
In a specially reserved suite in a London hotel, Trish was getting ready for the party. The invitation had been stuffed in her bag, out of sight.
Adam and Louise.
Four outfits were strewn on the bed and her damp palms bore witness to her nerves How did you greet a man who’d kissed you suddenly, without warning, fiercely claiming possession, his kisses bruising and burning and shocking you with their passion?
Weak at the knees, she sank to the bed. She could see him when she closed her eyes. Feel his harsh breath heating her throat, and his mouth, his teeth and his tongue savaging every sensual inch.
She lay back, her arms stretched above her head in glorious remembrance. There had been no preliminaries. No courtship. They hadn’t held hands, exchanged a goodnight kiss or progressed to cuddling on a second date. There hadn’t been any dates. It didn’t matter. That coming together had been instant, primal and inescapable.
Her heart lurched with a sweet, hurting affection as she recalled how frantic and fumbling his normally capable and careful hands had been as they’d attempted to unpick the buttons of her shirt He’d wanted her to distraction. She’d felt giddy with power, thrilled to be the kind of woman who could create such havoc.
Her whole body had been screaming for him, every part of her hot and molten and dominating her mind, a mind hopelessly incapable of any sane thought. Her eyes had pleaded with him to tear the clothes from her body and his so that she could feel his skin against hers, gently fasten her teeth on him, taste him, know what it was like to smell and lick that male flesh, to be totally and utterly abandoned for the first time in her life.
‘Trish,’ he’d groaned, barely audible.
She’d known then that something was wrong. He had tensed throughout his body, every inch of him suddenly rigid. Pain had slashed silver paths across his dark eyes. Her hands had clutched at him.. and he’d pushed her away. Before she’d even been able to speak, croak, plead, he’d been stumbling from the room.
‘You look very nice.’
Trish sat up guiltily as her friend appeared suddenly in the hotel room and shattered all her sinful memories. ‘You might have knocked!’ she complained, coming out of her reverie with reluctance.
‘I did, duckie.’
Trish frowned. ‘I didn’t hear a thing!’
‘You were miles away,’ Petra said. ‘And you ought to lock your door.’
‘I keep forgetting,’ Trish admitted. ‘I’m not used to locking up. We never do, at home. Now you’re here, help me! Do I wear this, or my jeans, or fling myself down the lift shaft?’ she asked earnestly, turning to more immediate dramas.
Petra put an arm around her friend. ‘Wear what you’ve got on. Honest, Trish, you do look nice.’
Nice. What kind of compliment was that? Unfortunately, the mirror told her what Petra must be seeing: a decent, dull, unsophisticated woman. Someone who’d have difficulty even exciting a lecher who’d been marooned alone on a desert island for ten years’ She felt a surge of intense anger.
‘I don’t want nice! I want sensational!’ Trish stopped scowling at her offensively nice and deeply boring dress and eyed Petra balefully instead.
‘Oh, yeah? Why? Thought you never cared about your appearance?’ Petra asked, with a sly grin.
Did Petra know her guilty secret? Trish picked up a pair of nail scissors and tried to even up her zigzag fringe while she dealt with her fears. Then she came to her senses. Petra would never have invited her to her stepfather’s engagement party if she did.
‘I’m having the jitters at the thought of all the stunning women at this party!’ Trish replied, since that was half the truth. Muttering crossly, she put down the scissors in defeat. ‘Women without jagged holes in their fringes!’
‘And one woman in particular.’ Her friend put her head on one side and critically surveyed Trish’s pitch-dark hair, which had been cut by her grandmother into something only vaguely resembling a bob. ‘Adam’s fiancée is perfection itself,’ she offered irritatingly.
Trish resisted the temptation to stamp her foot like a petulant child and wondered instead why she felt so bad-tempered all of a sudden. It dawned on her that she’d hoped Louise would be all teeth, acne and glasses’ She laughed at her idiocy. Of course Adam would marry someone stunning.
‘Exactly!’ Experimentally, she puffed out her chest and sucked in her stomach. She just looked stupid so she let it all go again. ‘Look at me! I need loads of praise, if you please. What’s the use of having a best friend if she’s not going to he through her teeth and swear I’m knockout gorgeous?’ she demanded with a grin.
‘OK.’ Petra assumed the air of a pop fan who had just seen her idol walk m. ‘Wow!’ she gushed, clasping her hands in wonder. ‘I really, really wanna dress like that too! You’ll slay Adam’ He’ll call his engagement off pronto!‘
‘If you’re that thrilled with the sight of searing emerald polyester, I’ll send you the catalogue it came from!’ mut-tered Trish, turning away from the sight of herself in the full-length mirror. Suddenly this wasn’t funny at all.
Here she was in a mail-order frock, hedge-backwards hairstyle and borrowed stilt-walker shoes—why did Petra’s feet have to be a size smaller than hers?—feeling hugely inadequate, nervous, about to meet Petra’s unfairly young stepfather for the first time since...
Trish blanked out the past and haphazardly stuffed things into her handbag. Which didn’t match her dress or the wretchedly crippling shoes. Everything was wrong! Feeling a total mess, she sank dispiritedly onto the bed
Petra accurately read her friend’s body language. ‘If you want sensational, we could sneak off to Adam’s flat, pinch a pair of his shocking pink boxer shorts and twist two silk hankies into the shape of a bra for you to wear,’ she suggested helpfully.
The thought of wearing Adam’s boxer shorts made Trish feel quite peculiar. ‘Adam isn’t the pink sort,’ she said flatly.
‘Purple-spotted? Fluorescent?’ goaded Petra, going too far as usual.
‘No!’ Trish saw Petra’s eyebrows rocket skywards. ‘I mean I don’t know what he wears beneath his pinstripes!’ she cried. And never would! She put on a prim look. ‘Anyway, where’s your respect for your stepfather?’ she asked grumpily.
‘Well...’ Petra was idly trying Trish’s Pale Sunrise lipstick over her own gaudy gash of scarlet. ‘Granted he’s been my dad since I was a three-year-old brat, but he’s sort of grown younger while I’ve grown older. I see him as being more my age. And yours.’ Her eyes slanted to Trish’s, gauging her reaction. ‘Adam’s not exactly an old wrinkly, is he? Bags of energy, lean and toned as a teenager, thanks to his personal trainer,’ she said complacently.
‘Sounds like you’re trying to sell him on a slave market,’ Trish said wryly As if she didn’t know he was a hunk!
‘Well, he’d get a rattling good price,’ said the irrepressible Petra. ‘Active mind, active body. My girlfriends always get jelly-leg syndrome when they see him ’
Trish grinned. She knew the feeling. ‘Sugar-daddy syndrome, you mean ’
But the image of Adam’s fierce vigour made a mockery of her attempt to think of him as approaching middle age. Despite his Jermyn Street handmade suits and well-groomed appearance, he’d always projected a dangerous, tough-guy look Perhaps, she mused, because he enjoyed hair-raising pursuits. Speedboat racing. Off-piste skiing. Risky investments. Sugar-daddy didn’t come anywhere near it Robber baron more like.
Tall Jet-black hair...tousled by her hands... She jammed her teeth together, determined not to start that again. But he stayed in her mind, his near-Roman nose and dark good looks conjuring up an air of menace. This was more than reinforced by the unnerving breadth of his shoulders and the sublime air of authority which swept him through a restaurant to the best table in a matter of seconds.
Her eyes softened to a warm misty blue. His hard, angular jawline had felt as smooth as a baby’s when she’d touched it. Dreamily she recalled the way his mouth didn’t entirely fit his hard, macho look, because it was too soft and curved for ready laughter. Or kissing. And that devastating combination of total masculinity and sensual promise had been her downfall
Trish drew in a quick, sharp breath, physically disturbed by her thoughts. Drat him! Would he never go away?
‘Dear old Adam! It’s nice he’s found someone, at his age,’ she said patronisingly, trying hard to convince herself of that fact.
Petra looked at her curiously. ‘His age? Are you mad? Adam married Mother when he was eighteen. She was ten years older. He’s only fifteen years older than I am. Sixteen more’n you.’
‘Wow! That old!’ Trish exclaimed in assumed horror.
Thirty-eight, to her twenty-two. In his prime.
Trish began emptying her handbag for no reason at all other than aimless occupation. He was too old—and yet too young She thought crossly that if Adam had been the same age as Petra’s late mother, or even years older, she wouldn’t be in this stupid state of nervous anticipation and semi-hysteria. It wouldn’t matter a damn what she looked like. Because they would never have nearly. .nearly ..
‘What are you doing?’ asked Petra mildly.
‘I’m...I’m removing biscuit crumbs from the bottom of my bag,’ she jerked out, hoping her friend wouldn’t notice she was having trouble with her breathing.
‘Uh-uh.’
That was the most significant-sounding ‘uh-uh’ that Trish had ever heard. But what was the big deal about a tidy handbag? Her gaze fell on the invitation. She folded it in half and jammed it into her purse, then resorted to a search for inner calm while she studied her appearance critically.
‘Petra...tell me something. Have I become a total peasant from living like a swineherd?’ she asked, trying to make that sound more like a joke than a desperate bid for reassurance. Her sea-blue gaze lifted to Petra’s amused and affectionate face.
Petra looked wonderful. Expertly made-up and flawless. The natural look had been perfected. Trish had tried some of Petra’s foundation but she’d felt strange with it on her skin so she’d washed it off. Her brows and lashes were dark enough not to need mascara and her lips and cheeks had their own rosy tint, but she did feel that she lacked glamour without artificial aids.
In the elegant surroundings of her hotel room she looked totally out of place. No wonder people had stared at her as she’d crossed London and headed for South Kensington! They must have thought she’d fallen from a tractor and lost her way! She vowed to buy moisturiser and slap it on every night.
‘I look terrible, don’t I?’ she said in despair.
‘Stop fishing for compliments! You’re so lovely, I’m tempted to stick a paper bag over your head. You positively glow with inner health, have a fab tan and legs up to your armpits. You’re a breath of fresh air, you vile woman,’ said Petra warmly, hugging her. ‘Every artificially enhanced female at the party will queue up to scratch your eyes out.’
Trish wasn’t flattered to be called a breath of fresh air. Right now, she’d swap the goose-girl look for a classy outfit, an alabaster skin, false eyelashes and long nails She tucked her work-worn hands beneath her bottom. Too much washing up, hauling boats up slipways and building stone walls! Hand cream was hastily added to her shopping list.
‘Enough lies, I know my place,’ she said ruefully, casting vanity and her dreams into oblivion.
Having given up any hope of looking wonderful, she let her entire face relax. Petra was treated to one of Trish’s dazzling grins, her teeth gleaming white in the darkness of her bronze-gold complexion.
‘I’ll be the one who makes everyone else look elegant and sophisticated,’ Trish decided. ‘I’ll do my bumpkin act and Adam’s intended will adore me because I’m such a cute, folksy character.’
Petra gave her an odd look. ‘Don’t think so, oh, wizened old peasant. It’s my guess that Louise is cheesed off with hearing about the sainted Trish. I bet she’s tried on a million outfits and is, at this moment, agonising over her appearance, just like you. Ready?’
Stunned into silence by that remark, Trish let Petra lead her to the lift. Adam couldn’t have been talking about her ..could he? A smirk of pleasure tilted the corners of her wish-softened mouth before she ruthlessly subdued it.
Too late. He’d made his choice. A beautiful, talented and witty partner who knew how to eat and pronounce taglia-telle without hurling it into her lap while she did so. Someone close to his age and on his wavelength, who could program computers, like him, and organise a dinner party for seventy Japanese businessmen while checking the stock market and painting her perfect toenails. Trish groaned at the paragon she was inventing and wished she hadn’t let Petra browbeat her into coming.
After her friend’s tireless and unrelenting bombardment of letters and phone calls, she had reluctantly agreed to travel up to London and join the family celebration. She was, so her friend had said, virtually family, after lodging with them for two years. And so she had to wish Adam and his fiancée, Louise, all the happiness in the world.
Gloom descended on Trish as she mentally practised her opening remarks. Hi, Adam! Wonderful party. Congrats. Is this Louise? Mwa, mwa. Love your dress. ‘Scuse me, promised two panting tigers over there I’d hurry back before they—
No. Stupid. Too chirpy and revealing—Adam would see through her pretence of throwaway confidence immediately. He’d look her deep in the eyes with that intense, melted-toffee gaze...
She found herself trembling, and hurriedly put her mind to the problem in hand. Hell, what was she going to say?
Petra chattered engagingly as they walked along the damask-walled corridor towards a pair of imposing mahogany doors and the Garden Suite beyond. It was a luxurious hotel with ankle-wrecking carpets, impressive oil paintings and antique furniture. All far too beautiful for Trish to dare sit on or risk touching with her sticky fingers. And the silver cutlery looked so heavy that she feared she’d get repetitive strain injury if she tried to wade through the entire five courses for dinner.
As they swept past vast urns and baroque marble hall tables groaning under the weight of stiff floral displays, Trish barely heard a word her friend was saying.
She was too busy keeping her nerves under control and rattling around the pathetically sparse contents of her brain, searching for something casual and witty for her opening lines. Increasingly she longed to turn tail and run like a frightened rabbit back to her burrow.
Apart from worrying about the effort of keeping a bright, see-how-I’ve-forgotten expression on her face the whole evening, she felt stranded, like a fish out of water. London had reduced her to wide-eyed silence. It was horribly noisy and unfriendly—terrifying, even. She’d made a hash of using the underground, and hadn’t a clue about tipping taxi drivers or doormen. Judging by their open-mouthed amazement, she’d funded their children’s private education for life.
City life was all about speed. People spoke faster, their movements were quick and frantic, as if there wasn’t enough time in the day to get things done. After just two days, she felt edgy and stressed.
But this was Adam Foster’s preferred environment. He’d relocated his computer software business from Truro to London four years ago and become a powerful mover and shaker in this alien world. He must love the hectic pace. Perhaps he was hooked on exhaust fumes. A diesel junkie.
Trish bit her lip, encountering the unfamiliar taste of lipstick. She and Adam were from two different planets. Chalk and cheese. Right now, she wanted to be back home where she belonged.
Yet stubborn curiosity kept her heading for the party. She wanted to see him gazing adoringly at Louise. Needed to, for her own peace of mind. Then she’d be able to shrug off the lurking feeling of something unfinished and life-changing. Once this party was over, she’d feel capable of making a commitment to her ever-patient boyfriend.
Time would have changed Adam and she’d probably find that he wasn’t a patch on the man she’d once idolised. He might be more Cardigan Man than Danger Man. More socks than sex. She’d changed too. After all, she’d been an impressionable eighteen when she’d last seen him.
Seen Touched, scoured with her tongue, felt her body dissolve during that long, heart-stopping moment when he’d looked at her and murmured her name... Every detail of their coming together was still fresh and hot in her mind, etched like acid on silver.
Only much later, after she’d fled home in agonies of self-recrimination, had she realised that he’d lost control for one reason only. Adam’s grief over the loss of his wife two months earlier had made him reach out blindly for someone to hold. She should have realised that.
Darling Christine’s death, after five years of battling with cancer of the spine, hadn’t been unexpected. But Adam had been too upset even to attend the funeral. Trish sighed. When he’d looked at her longingly, spoken her name and stretched out his hand, the poor man could never have anticipated that she would react as if he’d made a wholehearted invitation of love!
Never in the whole of her life had she behaved so badly or felt so ill from guilt and shame. Even now, she stumbled on the teetery shoes, knowing she’d never forgive herself.
They had reached the double doors. She was about to come face to face with him.
‘Smile!’ hissed Petra. ‘You’ll strip paint off the skirting boards!’
‘Cheaper than turps,’ she quipped
But she obeyed because Adam must be happy now, his wife’s death merely a sad memory—and he had a loving woman by his side, in his arms... Trish’s smile became a little desperate.
Petra flung open the double doors.
Trish had an impression of raised voices, synthetic perfume and sleek heads. A general air of wealth, confidence and nervous energy emanated from everyone in the banqueting room. Ribbons and roses seemed to be everywhere—nothing jolly, like balloons, she noted wryly. Stiff and awkward, she was horribly aware that she stood out in this high-powered crowd because she looked so ordinary.
‘Don’t leave me!’ she said quickly, turning to Petra. But her friend had been swept into the welcoming crowd, casting helpless, backward ‘sorry!’ looks at her.
As she stood in the doorway, her eyes skittered about, searching for someone a head and shoulders above the rest and who dominated the room with the sheer strength of his personality But he was nowhere to be seen. Her shoulders tensed. The ordeal was to be prolonged, then.
All around, Trish could hear snatches of conversation, none of which made sense because people were tossing words such as ‘gigabytes’ and disk formatting failure’ at each other. She felt like an alien.
‘Hello! What a fabulous tan! Have you been skiing?’
A sentence she could interpret! Trish smiled gratefully at the tall and staggeringly beautiful redhead who’d appeared in front of her. She gave an envious glance at the perfectly cut shoulder-length bob and the fashionably asymmetrical cream dress that hugged her languid body like liquid, and said politely, ‘No. I live on Scilly—’
‘Italy!’ exclaimed the vision coolly, her green eyes narrowing inexplicably as she scrutinised Trish’s face. ‘I adore Italy. How fascinating. What part?’
‘The Scilly Isles, not Sicily,’ corrected a low, well-loved voice from the doorway behind her. ‘They’re in the Atlantic, twenty-eight miles to the south-west of Land’s End in Cornwall. Five inhabited, if I remember aright, the other one hundred and forty islands being left entirely to Nature.’ There was a brief, silken pause. ‘Rather like the inhabitants.’
Adam’s hand rested on Trish’s shoulder. He and the redhead were exchanging words but she didn’t hear them. His power, his warmth flooded through her entire body, releasing her tense muscles immediately and turning them into fluid. Trish pretended not to recognise his voice. She was dealing with a sudden fizz of activity inside her head, and wanted to be perfectly composed when she faced him.
Thanks, Adam, she thought sourly. She was Miss Nature in person, was she? Hiding her irritation, she forced a smile, remembering her decision to be a peasant with straw in her hair and jolly well like it.
‘So!’ exclaimed the vision. ‘This is Trish, then!’ There was a flash of white as Adam moved to the woman’s side. Trish kept her gaze fixed doggedly ahead, a plastic grin on her face, as the woman added lightly, ‘And all this time I thought she was Italian! You look foreign.’
Louise, for that was clearly who it had to be from the way she hung onto Adam’s tuxedo sleeve, was eyeing Trish’s dark colouring as if it were an inferior brand of face cream. Trish felt crushed by her cool assessment. Clearly Louise had been expecting an Italian temptress on the lines of Sophia Loren, not a badly put-together female with macraméd hair.
Hating the little spurts of jealousy which were shooting up her body, Trish adjusted her smile to a decent wattage and said, ‘I can’t oblige you by producing some Italian genes, but some of the time my Spanish blood comes out. When I’m excited, for instance...’ She went pink and hastened to make her meaning clear. ‘When someone annoys me.’
‘Any other time your Spanish blood comes out?’ enquired Adam in a wickedly teasing drawl
She still wouldn’t look at him. Her heart was pumping too hard and he sounded far too amused by her discomfort. OK, so amuse him Go for humour; prove you don’t give a damn, a little voice was telling her.
‘Yes. If I get careless chopping carrots,’ she said sweetly.
He laughed. It was lovely to hear him—and astonishing to see Louise’s reaction Her eyebrows were disappearing into her hairline.
‘That’s not a sound I’ve heard for a long time,’ Louise said, as if she disapproved of frivolity in a mature man. She pointed a sharp, bare shoulder at Adam in accusation.
‘I’d forgotten how. Life’s been a bit fraught, hasn’t it?’ Adam murmured. ‘Not much time for fun.’ Any fool could have heard the irritation lacing his voice.
Aware of a slight tension building between the two, Trish blundered on. ‘Gran says I have quite a few Spanish smugglers and shipwrecked Spanish seamen lurking in my genes. My female ancestors made the most of their opportunities.’ She wondered if her eye-to-eye stare with Louise was becoming unnatural, bordering on the manic. Nerves made her gibber unthinkingly. ‘When you live on an island the size of a dinner plate, you have to grab all the available talent there is.’
Louise’s eyes narrowed even more. Too late, Trish realised she’d now suggested that she was out hunting a man, any man, to take back to her lair. Damn! She wasn’t any good at this small talk stuff. How crass she was!
‘Hello, Trish,’ Adam said, laughter enriching his voice. ‘Good to see you again.’
With a properly convivial smile, she began to unwind one of her rehearsed greetings, speaking to his shirtfront which was so close it came over as a white blur.
‘Such a long tune, isn’t It? How we’ve aged—!’
‘Age be damned!’ he protested.
Startlingly, she found herself in his masterful arms, the sound of her name filling her head like sweet music, the smell of him heightening her senses and driving the breath from her body. She wanted them to stay like that for ever.
Her eyes closed, all the better to imagine that situation. His lush mouth pressed warmly into each cheek It seemed his lips lingered a fraction longer than was socially acceptable but she’d mislaid her brain cells so she was probably wrong. Because when he released her he was smiling—not at her, but at Louise
Her stomach felt as if it had been subjected to a fast descent in a lift. She decided to be stern with herself. What had she been expecting? A dramatic, ‘My God! Trish! I claim you as the woman of my dreams’ Goodbye, Louise, all is over!’?
It seemed that subconsciously, that was precisely what she had been hoping for. His indifference to their clinch really hurt. And she wondered why she kept on wounding herself with so many impossible and downright immoral desires where he was concerned.
She hadn’t come to snatch him away, but to beat it firmly into her dim brain that Adam was far too handsome and talented for the likes of her. For heaven’s sake, how could she compete with a red-headed goddess who’d been given Adam’s seal of approval?
‘I’m a little late with the introductions, but as you gathered, Louise—’ he said easily ‘—this is Trish. Trish, Louise, my fiancée.’
‘Welcome to our Engagement Party.’
Louise made sure Trish knew that the occasion merited capital letters. A little tenser than before, the woman leant forward and kissed Trish coolly, as if embracing a stranger’s child With the emphasis firmly on child.
Trish kept her carefree smile pinned in place. Louise was far more gorgeous than she’d imagined, even if she didn’t know the difference between the Scilly Isles and the island of Sicily But then, brainy people often lacked common sense and everyday knowledge.
‘I’m still puzzled,’ Louise cooed, detached from Adam suddenly as four worshipping blondes surrounded him with cries of adoration.
Casting a furtive glance at him, Trish saw them cover him in lipstick in seconds. Surprisingly, Louise seemed impervious to this. Trish itched to drag the women off and berate him for smiling at them. Instead, she made herself pay attention to Louise, suppressing the brief impression she’d had of Adam. He hadn’t changed one iota. Still very dark, very handsome, fiercely male. Damn.
‘Why are you puzzled?’ she asked Louise, trying to care.
‘A tan! In England, in early April?’ She peered at Trish’s skin ‘Sunlamp or fake tan?’ she suggested with suspicious innocence.
‘Neither! Just sun and wind and rain. Adam said the inhabitants of the Scilly Isles are all children of Nature, remember?’ she said, smarting a little from the description. It had taken her an hour to get ready—longer than she’d ever spent on herself before! ‘I lead an outdoor life—’
‘You run a guesthouse! That’s indoors!’ Louise stated knowledgeably.
Lord! thought Trish. What had Adam told her? ‘Yes, but on my island we don’t have transport—there aren’t any made-up roads,’ she explained patiently. ‘We travel by boat. Bryher is only a mile wide and a mile and a half long—’
‘Good grief! Some people have gardens larger than that! And did you say no roads?’ Louise shuddered elegantly and waved her left hand about, so that Trish could be dazzled by the flashing diamond the size of an elderly broad bean on her ring finger. ‘Sounds hell! Don’t you get horribly muddy going out to dinner and the theatre? Or to the shops?’
‘We don’t have restaurants apart from the one in the hotel. There are a couple of cafés.’ She grinned. ‘No theatres at all. We get the odd liner going aground, and container ships flinging their cargo at us when they’re shipwrecked. Other than that there’s no entertainment—unless you count the activities of the seabirds and tourists and the odd sing-song in somebody’s house.’ Apparently Louise didn’t. Trish giggled at the woman’s appalled expression and didn’t spare her. ‘There aren’t any shops, but we have a really nice post office,’ she said in proud yokel style.
‘No...shops!’ gasped Louise, clearly incapable of imagining life without them.
On the periphery of her vision, Trish could see that Adam was looking at her over the heads of the chattering blondes—and that he was vastly amused. It felt like old times for a moment. They’d enjoyed many a laugh together Trish’s heart started an uncomfortable tattoo against her ribs.
Knowing she had to get used to Adam’s future wife, she tried hard to remain just a hick guest who wished them both well. ‘Bryher has no space for that kind of thing, Louise. It can’t even support a doctor or a pub or a school. We grow our own food or get it from the main island—St Mary’s—or have it shipped in from the mainland, so we need to be highly organised. We go in for mail order a lot—’
‘Yes. So I see.’ There was a meaningful pause while Louise scanned Trish’s clearly undesirable dress which shrieked its catalogue origins. ‘It sounds like the back of beyond! Adam and I eat out every night. We’d die of boredom on your island! You’d loathe it, wouldn’t you, darling?’ she said, appealing to the newly released Adam, who was deftly removing lipstick smears with a handkerchief from his hard-cut jaw and, Trish noted indignantly, across his mouth! ‘It’s such a primitive place, where Trish lives!’
Trish felt flattened, her whole way of life summarily dismissed by the woman Adam loved. While Louise began to scrub Adam’s cheeks fussily, Trish struggled with a nagging little voice inside her head which was questioning the wisdom of his choice of partner. He was a sophisticated city man, she reminded herself, a dominant male who was passionately involved in computer technology. He too would hate her simple life.
Miserably, she stared at her crippling shoes, phrases about megabytes and function keys being flung about over her head and adding to her sense of alienation. She should never have come.
‘Island life has its attractions for certain people,’ Adam said, being polite. There was a hard edge of irritation in his voice, though. He was probably longing to chat about gigabytes instead, she thought forlornly.
Louise reclaimed her prize, slipping an elegant, creamy bare arm around Adam’s waist in almost a defensively possessive gesture. As if, mused Trish, she was marking her territory. Trish went pale beneath her tan. Had Adam indulged in pillow confessions with his fiancée, listing all the women who’d made a pass at him?
‘I know so much about you,’ confided Louise in a pussycat purr.
Trish’s eyes were as round as they could be. She felt Adam’s hot-chocolate gaze melting into her flesh. Combined with the guilt, the heat and the noise, it made her head swim
‘Five-nine, eight stone ten, twenty-two, passion for tea bread, chicken-rearing and weepy films?’ she hazarded, playing the careless, guileless cookie.
‘No!’ replied Louise gaily, relaxing as she was meant to. ‘How you two met. Something about your leaving school at sixteen and staying at Adam’s house in Cornwall, because he and his first wife let out rooms to students.’ The silk-tongued Louise looked expectant and Trish realised she ought to say something.
‘I stayed two years,’ was all she could come up with. Then she felt her cheeks go pink because she’d reminded Adam of the reason she’d left. She was aware that he had stiffened and the pall of silence hung between them accusingly.
Louise seemed impervious to the strained atmosphere and was smugly playing with Adam’s signet ring, turning It this way and that to admire the plain gold band and entwined initials. ‘I forget what you were studying,’ she said. ‘Which university did you go to?’
‘I didn’t mention university—’ Adam began irritably, stuffing his hand in his pocket.
‘Nothing so grand!’ Trish could fight her own battles. In her own way. ‘I don’t have your brains.’ She was pleased at Louise’s satisfied little smile.
‘I’m sure I told you. Trish came to the mainland for a hotel and catering course in Truro,’ Adam said curtly.
Louise smiled at Trish, somehow managing not to disturb the serenity of her face. ‘You and Petra must be virtually the same age.’
‘She’s a year older than me,’ Trish agreed. ‘We found we had the same sense of humour and we’ve been friends ever since.’ Trish looked about wildly for Petra to rescue her. A friend in need was a friend right here!
‘That makes you only a teeny bit older than Adam and Christine’s son,’ Louise said meaningfully.
Trish knew what she was doing. The pussycat was unsheathing her claws. Louise suspected a take-over bid and was making sure they all knew the situation Adam’s son Stephen was nineteen. The message was clear: Keep off this man of mine. Adam is almost twice your age
It amazed her that Louise bothered to get her claws out at all A polyester mouse from a remote island with nowhere to buy sushi or Ralph Lauren was hardly going to turn Adam’s head!
Demurely, she nodded. In the absence of such a possibility, she could at least turn the conversation instead. ‘Is Stephen here?’ she asked politely.
Even he, her old adversary and Prince Pain in the Neck, would be a welcome sight at this moment. She needed an excuse to get away from this ego-destroying conversation.
‘Leeds University. Studying medicine,’ said Adam shortly.
‘Brainy.’ Trish looked suitably impressed.
‘You nursed, didn’t you—in the hospice where Adam’s wife was?’ Louise persisted.
Adam’s tension increased but Trish giggled at the unlikely scenario. ‘Me? No! I earned money evenings and weekends working in the kitchens as a skivvy, dropping pans of spaghetti, knocking the chef’s hat into the cream of mushroom soup—’
‘And kept my wife and everyone else in the hospice in gales of laughter, recounting your mishaps,’ Adam said softly. ‘You made the last months of Christine’s life there bearable.’
There was a deep gratitude in his tone. Louise’s green eyes became strangely washed out. Trish realised that Petra was right; Adam’s fiancée had heard too much too often about Trish Pearce
‘Nice to have a cheerful little friend of Petra’s around,’ said Louise patronisingly. Her voice wobbled, reducing the impact of the cutting remark.
Trish shifted uncomfortably, wobbled too, on Petra’s diabolical heels, and found herself lurching sideways. Adam grabbed her. Their eyes met. Blazed. Lit fires.
Glittering ebony. Searing sapphire.
No, she thought desperately, wishing the world would level itself out again. She was reading his message incorrectly. He was probably warning her not to rock any boats, not to mention what had happened between them.
‘Nearly became intimate with the carpet then!’ she cried merrily. ‘I’ve got to take these shoes off before I break an ankle or get a nosebleed from the altitude!’
Reaching down, she yanked off the stilted shoes and straightened up again with them in her hands.
Louise looked startled at such wanton behaviour as Trish waved them in triumph ‘You can’t go barefoot here!’ she cried in horror, as if it were a social sacrilege.
‘I can. I am!’ Trish said with a grin. ‘My toes were folded underneath my feet like a Japanese geisha’s. Another ten minutes and I’d have been launching into a chorus of Madame Butterfly’
‘Why?’ Louise was frowning, trying to make the connection. Her tone hardened to an icy slash. ‘You’re not being abandoned by your lover because you’re unsuitable, are you?’
Trish’s mouth dropped open at the bitchy little dig.
‘It was a joke,’ Adam said tightly, his eyes glinting. ‘Trish makes them all the time Don’t read any more into it.’
The two women studied his closed face thoughtfully Then Louise turned back to Trish.
‘Adam thinks a lot of you,’ she said, as if explaining Adam’s rebuke. ‘You.. got him through a bad time.’ She seemed unable to leave the subject and was plainly jealous of Trish’s involvement with Adam.
‘She was incredible,’ he replied, before Trish could speak. ‘She fussed over me when I came out of my study after a fourteen-hour day—that was when I was trying to build up the business—and had me laughing and relaxed before I even had a drink in my hand.’
‘I’m a clown,’ Trish said hastily, wondering how Adam could be so insensitive—and Louise so beautiful yet insecure.
‘Optimist,’ corrected Adam ‘And a wonderful cook. She even coaxed Christine to eat, by presenting food appealingly ’ He smiled. ‘Or in an amusing way. Do you remember those ridiculous hippo-shaped fish steaks?’
Trish laughed. ‘Ridiculous or not, you ate four!’ she teased, jabbing him in the chest. Then she felt the frosts of Alaska descending on her from Louise’s direction and eased off her sudden familiarity with Adam. ‘Sad times bring you together,’ she excused hastily. ‘Don’t imagine I’m Wonder Woman. Far from it! I had more disasters on my catering course than anyone. I’d trot into the ward, tell anyone who’d listen about my latest howler and they’d all laugh. My boyfriend,’ she said, deliberately lowering her voice to a loving husk and looking gooey, as though her knees went weak at the thought of him, ‘says that’s my second-best asset.’
‘The first being?’ clipped out Adam, with a distinct lack of amusement.
‘None of your business,’ she retorted spiritedly, without glancing at him. She gave Louise a conspiratorial grin. ‘That’s between him and me I’ve known Tim since we were knee-high to a pair of sea boots,’ she explained.
‘How quaint. Are you getting married soon?’ asked Louise, warming to Trish by the second.
‘We thought November, when the visitor season is over,’ lied Trish, crossing her bare legs since her fingers were otherwise occupied with Petra’s shoes. ‘And you?’ she managed, determined not to be dog in the manger.
There was a moment’s silence. ‘Oh, you know how it is. Pressure of work and so on. We’ll fix a date when we can,’ Louise said with an unconvincing attempt at being offhand. ‘We’re up over our heads in work. Fall-out from the millennium time bomb, you know. Lord knows when we’ll find a nanosecond to organise the wedding, let alone a honeymoon.’
Bombs? Trish didn’t know what Louise was talking about. ‘It sounds very stressful,’ she said sympathetically, thinking wistfully of her island, the slow pace of life, and the endless skies and dancing turquoise seas, so clear that the seabed could be seen through fathoms of water.
Her face had become dreamy, its lush sensuality knife-jacking Adam back to the past. He had kissed those smoke-dark lids, felt the flicker of her thick black lashes beneath his lips, held that strong and work-lean body in his arms and marvelled at the sexual energy trapped there poised, waiting eagerly for him to unleash it.
A surge of passion ripped through his body, startling him with its intensity. He all but shook from the effort of not grabbing her, throwing her over his shoulder, storming up to his room and making mad, reckless love to her till he’d got her out of his system.
Shocked by the unexpectedness of his arousal, he invented a polite excuse and latched onto the party organiser, close by. It took several minutes of boring chit-chat about canapés and staff problems before his desire receded. Finally he felt able to walk again.
With a practised ease, he ended the chat and strode purposefully away, not stopping until he had left the party and was safe in the cool darkness of the walled Victorian garden. Leaning back against the smooth bark of a plane tree, he lifted his head to the night sky, his eyes dark and brooding as guilt and fury possessed him in equal measures.
Louise had been rude. unnecessarily cutting and superior. It was a side of her he’d never seen before. And Trish had dealt with it in her usual generous, tolerant way. Just as well. He would have sprung to her defence otherwise
So it wasn’t finished, then. He frowned.
There were no stars in the vast, velvet canopy. The city lights cast too strong a glow. But he knew they were up there. Seeing Trish again—radiant and beautiful, with that appealing inner sweetness and the humour which made him glad to be alive—had wiped away the veils which had obscured his vision. She’d sparkled like a star in that room. Unique, dazzling, soul-liftmg.
But he had no business to be thinking of her. This occasion was his public commitment to Louise. He was acting like a barbarian with his brains in his trousers’ Hell, he despised himself!
He needed to take some action. Drag Louise off to bed, maybe? His wry grin eased his tension slightly. Louise would be appalled if she couldn’t take off her make-up beforehand. Whereas Trish...
His eyes narrowed. From the moment he’d woken that terrible morning four years ago, and found she’d gone without saying goodbye, he’d put her out of his mind. It was the way he dealt with strong emotions. In his youth he’d perfected that useful technique. Unknown to him, however, Trish had found a little space in his mind in which to nestle.
And now she was back, filling his every thought with a vengeance because he knew what an incredible woman she was. Adam felt the hunger for her, the admiration, filling every part of his heart.
The hardness of his mouth softened and his whole body stilled. Trish had played a large part in easing Christine’s last moments. Happy, and smiling at something Trish had said, his wife had whispered, ‘My love to Stephen... Goodbye, Petra, sweetheart.’ Then her voice had faded and he’d just caught her final words: ‘Darling!’ and ‘Love’ and ‘Trish’. Then she’d slipped quietly away and he’d known that Christine had found peace at last.
At the time he’d wanted to hold Trish in his arms, to thank her with a heartfelt hug. But he’d never dared. Because he’d known very well that there might be more in his regard for her. He had recognised what she could mean to him one day Besides, she was young, and deserved someone of her own age It wasn’t impossible to keep the lid on his need—or so he’d thought, till that moment when he’d almost made love to her.
Adam scowled, hating himself for his momentary lapse. Turning, he raised his hand to slam it into the tree hard enough to hurt. At the last minute he controlled his anger and placed his palm carefully on the patterned bark, as if testing his ability to override his feelings by sheer willpower.
He’d had no right to paw her. She was naturally kind and compassionate. He’d read more into her actions than he should have done. She had a good and loving heart which encompassed everyone in her path Petra, himself, Christine, all the inhabitants of the hospice—And what had he done? Overstepped the mark and scared her off. Clumsy, arrogant fool!
He leant his, forehead against the trunk, needing to think, to calm his emotions and to regain his equilibrium. But he didn’t have the time. Every second of his life was spoken for. He and Louise had built the company up and now their responsibilities were overwhelming them both. They’d spent so long in the office together that it had made sense to extend their partnership to their non-existent personal lives.
At least with Louise he wouldn’t ever be vulnerable. She would never be able to hurt him and he would never lose control of himself. Without warning, his long-buried teenage memories surfaced and pain tightened his mouth. Ruthlessly he overcame it by crushing his car keys in his hand till he all but cried out. He was damned if he’d let his emotions be tested to destruction again!
A footfall sounded, soft and barely discernible. Looking up, he saw the barefooted Trish making her way thoughtfully down the silvered path between shrubs gleaming in the moonlight. His heart leapt and sank in quick succession. Carefully he commanded his racing pulses to subside. And they did.
‘Escaping my party?’ he accused laconically.
Trish jumped in surprise, looked embarrassed, and then tossed her gloriously shaggy black hair in an appealing gesture of freedom which caught so brutally at his heart.
“Fraid so! They’re all talking a foreign language in there!’ she declared. She remained—to his relief—a safe yard or so from him ‘Cell merge, bullets, and hyper-link... I wanted to scream!’
Adam chuckled. There it was again. Laughter. He felt less hassled already. ‘It’s a narrow little world,’ he admitted, reining himself in ruthlessly.
‘Like mine,’ she conceded, inspecting her perfect honey-coloured toes. ‘We really are living on different planets, aren’t we?’
He thought at first that she didn’t sound too happy about that. But she was smiling brightly, dazzling the darkness with her lovely laughing mouth, so he knew he’d been deluding himself.
Determined, however reckless that might be, to prolong this brief interlude alone with her, he said wryly, ‘My planet’s hurtling into chaos.’
She nodded. ‘That bomb?’ she asked uncertainly, widening her beautiful sapphire eyes. ‘I know you’ll think I’m stupid, but I didn’t understand the reference. You haven’t joined the bomb-disposal squad in your spare time, have you?’
Adam wondered if he could—should—spin out the explanation, or cut it short and get back to the party. No contest. Here there was a peace of sorts. And Trish. What the hell?
‘I don’t have spare tune,’ he reminded her. ‘No, the millennium time bomb is to do with the way some older computers were programmed, especially the large mainframe ones used by councils and corporations.’
He hesitated, disconcerted by her intentness. It was as though she was mesmerised, her huge eyes, beneath that ludicrous fringe, framed by spiky black lashes. Incredibly lovely, he thought, a little lurch of his heart warning him that he must be staring. But he longed to touch each faint laughter line around her sparkling eyes and work out how many laughs it had taken to produce each one.
‘Go on,’ she said, into the soft night.
To keep his hands from reaching out, he folded his arms firmly across his chest. Her gaze slowly passed over its curve, her lashes fluttering, her mouth emitting a faint sigh. An electric current switched on every nerve in his body. He wanted to kiss those drowsy, parted lips. Run exploratory fingers up the inside curve of her fabulous bare legs. It would take for ever—but it would be a journey worth making.
He sucked in his breath sharply, aware from the straining of his body that he wanted more than that. Appalled, he frowned and tried to drive out all lustful thoughts.
‘The date system,’ he said briskly, ‘was set up on the assumption that it would always be nineteen-something—1959, 1990, and so on. Suddenly everyone realised the millennium was due and panicked.’
He stopped, running out of breath. Because all he could think about was her lithe, shapely body writhing beneath his hands—
Trish took a few steps closer, her brow furrowed. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Yes. Why was he carrying a torch for his stepdaughter’s friend? he asked himself savagely. He had Louise. Stunning, clever, computer literate... His heart could remain untouched. What more could he want?
‘Why did they panic?’ she asked, some illusion making her voice sound throaty and infinitely appealing.
‘Because,’ said Adam curtly, finding it almost impossible to concentrate, ‘the systems only pay attention to the last two digits of a date. So to the computer the year 2000 means zero-zero. In other words, back to 1900 again.’
She gurgled with delighted laughter, her eyes twinkling with fun. ‘We’ll all have to leap into hansom cabs and celebrate the relief of Mafeking! How lovely! Technical experts thrown into a muddle! Oh. Sorry, Adam. That includes you, doesn’t it?’
‘Certainly does! And I’ve been trying to sort out the mess. It would be funny,’ he agreed with a crooked smile, ‘if it hadn’t meant that some people’s pensions weren’t going to be paid out—because according to the computer they wouldn’t have been born!’
‘Oh, dear! What a muddle!’ she said with a frown, as if she really cared about people she’d never met. But that was Trish all over.
An urge to kiss her open mouth and plunder its depths forced him to stare vaguely over her head. ‘Megabyte size,’ he agreed. ‘My company’s been flat out re-programming for the past few years. Our priority has been ensuring the smooth running of airlines and railways and other essential services. Without re-programming, they would have ground to a halt.’ Shaking from sexual tension, he passed a hand through his hair, dislodging the cow-lick, which was normally severely repressed. ‘It’s been a race against time itself. We’ve been working sixteen-hour days for as long as I can remember and we’re still picking up the pieces’
She sighed. ‘You look like you need a holiday.’ ‘Is that an offer?’ he asked quietly, before he could stop himself.
There was a pause, as if he’d confused her and she couldn’t think of a polite answer. Her cheeks looked pinker beneath the tan and he realised that she was thinking of a polite way to discourage him. She’d already fled once from his unwelcome advances.
‘On my island? In my guesthouse? Louise was right. You’d hate it,’ she said, her expression distinctly ice-packed. ‘It’s very small. Two doubles, one single. No, I see you in some vast, swanky hotel in the Seychelles—’
‘Lounging on a beach?’ he asked incredulously, his eyes hard and cynical as he dealt with her rejection.
‘No. Not you’ Her neat teeth briefly pulled at her plush lower lip ‘Louise will be sunbathing in a fabulous bikini and you’ll be making everyone furiously envious of your water-skring technique. Or paragliding. Or snorkeling.’
He frowned, taken aback by her perception. She had described the brief working holiday they’d had in Florida a few months ago. It had been something of a disaster.
What would he and Louise do in their leisure hours together? They’d never had any real free time, so it hadn’t occurred to him before how they’d fill it. She occasionally dashed out shopping for clothes; they ate hastily in the best restaurants and fell into bed—separately. They both fitted in their personal training sessions before breakfast and he couldn’t remember when they’d last indulged in a spontaneous passionate clinch.
Honour made him fight to hold onto the promises he’d made to his fiancée
‘I thought honeymoons were for non-stop sex,’ he said shortly, giving himself a point from which there was no return.
Trish winced, as if his directness was in bad taste. Which it was. But he needed to convince himself that he was doing the right thing this time. Her arms came protectively around her body as though she needed to defend herself from his coarseness.
Whereas she was more in danger of being kissed till neither of them could breathe. The moonlight gleamed on the proud Spanish bone structure of her face and shimmered alluringly along her shapely arms. Her defensive gesture had lifted her breasts and they were thrusting against the smooth emerald material. She must be cold, he thought dazedly, because her nipples had hardened into tempting peaks. There was something soft and vulnerable about her expression and he had never wanted anyone more.
God help him! He was sick in his mind. Perverted in his body. Louise was the woman he wanted, had pursued... No. She had pursued him. Made herself indispensable. Become part of his life, apart from his bed.
Maybe that was it. He was sex-starved. Relieved, he gave Trish a slightly sardonic smile and she wilted before him, then rallied.
‘Not non-stop,’ she said earnestly. ‘I agree that honeymoons are traditionally supposed to be the month after your marriage when you drink nothing but mead and—’
‘Do what?’ he asked, startled.
‘Mead. Honey. Where do you think “honeymoon” came from? Mead’s an aphrodisiac—’
‘I wouldn’t need it,’ he said with deliberate cruelty.
Her mouth thinned. ‘I’m sure.’ There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then she sucked in a breath and launched into speech as if she felt driven by compulsion. ‘There’s more to it than that, though! Honeymoons are for getting to know the person beneath the skin!’ she added vehemently. ‘Enjoying being in the same room. Finding pleasure in doing little things for each other—’
‘Trish!’
In his attempt to control his voice, he’d sounded harsh and angry. Amazed by her almost incoherent outburst, he stared at her. Longing to drink mead with her for the rest of his life. Adoring her passion and envying her uninhibited surrender to her emotions. Duty and responsibility holding him fast.
‘Sorry. I got carried away. I’ve no idea why. Champagne in my veins instead of blood, I suppose! I—I’m sure you love Louise in all those ways,’ she said huskily.
All he could think of was a sudden linking in his mind of Christine’s words ‘Love...Trish.’ But he kept his inner thoughts masked by a cold and unfriendly expression.
‘Louise and I are perfectly suited,’ he said with conviction.
‘That’s lovely.’
With her slender jaw set in hard lines, she gave a little grimace of a smile, turned and walked out of his life.
