Dark Secret (22 page)

As for Chris, she shuddered at the thought of a lifetime with him, although she also knew that there was a part of her, a part only just beginning to emerge, that did take pleasure from some of the things he did. But she didn’t love him, and the knowledge that she did love Lewis made his betrayal all the more terrible.

In Rowena’s bedroom husband and wife sat on either side of the bed. Lewis was staring moodily
out of the window while Rowena sat with her head in her hands.

‘How could it have gone so wrong?’ she complained bitterly.

‘It didn’t go wrong,’ said Lewis shortly. ‘This is what happened. There never was a right or wrong ending.’

‘But what about me?’ she demanded. ‘I’m meant to be the heroine. If you think I’m going to star in a film where I end up losing both men to some naive English girl with long legs you’re making a big mistake.’

‘You wouldn’t be the star,’ he said flatly. ‘Whoever plays Harriet would be the star.’

Enraged, Rowena threw a book at him. It hit him on the back of the head and he turned on her, his eyes dangerously dark. ‘You were the one who started this,’ he said softly. ‘If you remember, you begged me to make this film. “I want to be free of Chris” you wept, and I believed you. But it wasn’t true, was it? You didn’t want to be free of him at all, you wanted to humiliate me. All the way along it was Chris you were going to stay with. That was the ending you had in mind, but Chris has spoilt it by falling for Harriet himself.’

‘I did want to be free of him!’ protested Rowena.

‘You’re a rotten actress and a rotten liar. When I go through the films your face will give you away, but the few times I did see your expression I could tell that it was Chris you were most involved with.’

‘What film?’

‘You don’t think I committed everything to
memory tonight, do you? I filmed it all, and I intend to watch it carefully. Then I’ll send for Mark and give him the ending.’

‘What’s going to happen to us all?’ asked Rowena despairingly.

Lewis shrugged. ‘Right at this moment I honestly don’t care.’

‘Do you really love Harriet?’ asked Rowena incredulously.

Lewis sighed. ‘I suppose I do. I certainly can’t contemplate living without her.’

‘But why? We had a good life together, didn’t we? And we’re in the same business, we talk the same language. Harriet won’t understand what you do. She’ll be jealous of your work.’

‘I was jealous of Chris – it didn’t mean our marriage wasn’t good for a time.’

‘If you were jealous then you must have loved me!’ exclaimed Rowena.

‘No, it was my pride that was hurt. No man likes to think a woman prefers another man’s style of lovemaking, especially when it’s her half-brother.’

‘She isn’t even beautiful!’

‘She’s less obviously beautiful than you,’ admitted Lewis. ‘You’re incredibly sexy-looking, but deep down, Rowena, I don’t think you enjoy sex as much as you say. Not the kind of sex I enjoy anyway.’

‘I only married you because you were handsome and famous,’ said Rowena viciously. ‘And you’re right, your style of lovemaking never did suit me, but as long as I had Chris too I was all right. Now your bloody film’s ruined everything. You say you can’t live without Harriet – well I
can’t live without Chris. I don’t care about acting, I don’t think I ever want to make a film again, but I must have him. I need the charge he gives me, the excitement that you’ve never understood.’

‘I understand it,’ said Lewis. ‘It just isn’t my style. For a change, yes, but not all the time.’

‘Then we’d be well rid of each other. Unfortunately Chris has decided he’d rather have Harriet, and Harriet doesn’t want you.’

‘Harriet did want me, until you decided to tell her the truth,’ said Lewis angrily.

Rowena smiled sweetly. ‘Don’t tell me you’d have started your relationship based on a lie. That would be highly immoral!’

‘Whatever happens you and I are finished,’ said Lewis, getting to his feet.

‘And who will you get to star in your film?’

‘Believe me, once the script is completed I won’t have any trouble with casting. It isn’t as if you were a big draw any more. I was doing you a favour.’

Rowena scowled. ‘As it turns out it was a favour I could have done without.’

‘That’s what’s exciting about a venture of this kind. I have to admit, this isn’t a twist I’d ever have thought up for myself.’

‘Make sure you thank Harriet before she leaves then. I’m sure she’ll appreciate having been such a help to you.’

Lewis slammed out of the room.

Harriet was closing her last case when she heard a tap on her door. Her heart missed a beat as she imagined Lewis standing on the other side. Despite all that had happened she knew that she wanted to see him one final time.

‘Come in,’ she called.

Chris entered. ‘Are you really leaving?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Harriet curtly, almost in tears now that she knew it wasn’t Lewis.

‘I’d like to come and see you, after you’ve gone.’

‘There’s no point. I don’t want to see you.’

He moved closer and his hands gripped her tightly round the shoulders. ‘You know I can excite you. Earlier, beside the pool, you loved it when I used the birch twigs on you. That’s only the beginning. Harriet. There’s so much more I can teach you.’

‘I’m sure there is, but I don’t want to learn it.’

‘Your body does. I can feel your nipples hardening at the thought,’ he murmured, and his hands roamed over her breasts which were covered by the thin cotton material of her tie-blouse.

‘All right, since you seem to need me to spell it out I will,’ said Harriet. ‘Perhaps you’re right, maybe there are things that you do that excite me, but I don’t want
you
to do them.’

‘You want Lewis, don’t you?’

Harriet stayed silent.

‘He won’t ever let you explore your darker side. He wouldn’t do it for Rowena, that’s why she kept turning to me.’

‘No it isn’t!’ shouted Harriet, furious with all of them, but most of all furious with her own body for letting her down at a moment like this. ‘You and Rowena are tied together by far more than that. You’re incapable of living apart. Even if I did love you, which I don’t, you wouldn’t stay faithful to me. You’d keep running back to your
half-sister, because you aren’t two people, you’re two halves of one.

‘I saw that for myself the first time I watched you together. Like it or not, Chris, you and Rowena are inseparable and no one but her will ever understand or appreciate you properly. Why won’t you accept that?’

His light blue eyes stared at her. ‘Perhaps because I’m afraid of what we’ll do to each other,’ he said at last.

‘You both thrive on fear. You need that edge to everything you do. Think about it, Chris. Once you’d taught me all you know, where would we go from there? It’s more than sex, you two are emotionally bonded for life. Your needs and desires are the same – no one will ever be able to satisfy either of you half as well.’

‘You mean you aren’t prepared to be as honest as she is about your sexuality,’ he said contemptuously.

‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘That isn’t what I mean. I think I understand myself very well now, but if you want to think that’s what I’m saying then fine, go ahead and think it. The bottom line is that you and Rowena are meant for each other, and there isn’t any way out. You may not always be happy together, but you’d be far more miserable apart.’

Chris released her. He paused by the door. ‘I thought you were special, but you’re not. You’re pathetically conventional, and you’d have bored me in a few weeks. I only hope Rowena will forgive me.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Harriet, turning her back on him. ‘Rowena knows very well that she can’t live without you. Now please get out of my room.’

‘Just remember this, Harriet,’ said Chris softly. ‘You still haven’t achieved your full sexual potential. If you do stay with Lewis, you’ll have to encourage him to be more adventurous or you’ll end up bored by him.’ With that he closed the door softly behind him.

After he’d gone Harriet sank down on her dressing-table stool and stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t look very different from the day she’d come to the house for her interview, but inside she was a completely different person. If anyone had told her what she’d learn about herself during her time here she’d never have believed them.

Lewis hadn’t only stolen her heart, he’d taken away her innocence as well but she was shocked to realise that she didn’t care. She liked the person she’d become, liked the way her body responded to all stimulation and the new ecstatic pleasures she’d discovered. The trouble was, if she lost Lewis then where would she find another man who understood her body and its needs so well?

Unlike Chris, Lewis didn’t knock on Harriet’s door. Instead he walked straight into her bedroom, and found her gazing at herself in the mirror. She turned to look at him, her eyes expressionless. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve come to apologize.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Isn’t it rather late for that?’

‘I never meant to fall in love with you, Harriet. It just happened. Then, when I admitted to myself how I felt it was too late. I couldn’t tell you the truth or the film would have been ruined. I
had to let events run their course. I was going to explain it all to you afterwards.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d have put it quite as bluntly as Rowena.’

‘No. Because Rowena was angry she tried to hurt you. I never meant that to happen. You must have been able to tell that you were important to me.’

‘I thought I was,’ she said sadly.

Lewis walked up behind her and laid his hand on her shoulder, staring into the mirror at her. ‘You still are,’ he murmured, bending down so that his chin rested in her hair. She felt his hands sliding down over her breasts, and the difference in the sensation compared with when Chris had touched her was vast. This was a caress, an expression of feeling, and she pressed herself against him.

‘Let me love you again,’ he begged, unfastening the tie of the blouse.

‘I don’t think…’

‘I don’t want you to think,’ he said sharply, and then he was lifting her up and carrying her towards the bed. He unfastened her blouse but left it on so that her breasts thrust out through the opening. Looking into his eyes she knew without doubt that she’d been right. He did love her, and he desperately wanted her to love him in return.

Slowly and sensuously he unfastened her Indian cotton skirt and eased it over her hips. She was naked beneath it and he pressed his mouth to her pubic mound while his hands moved upwards along the sides of her body.

Harriet’s breathing quickened and she knew that she was going to respond, to accept his
lovemaking with gratitude because this was what she wanted. However it had started out, she knew that by the time it ended she had emerged the winner.

Lewis stripped off his own clothes and then sat at the top of the bed, his back supported by the headrest. His erection stood up proudly and without taking his eyes from Harriet, he let himself slide down the bed until he was flat on his back with his knees raised.

Once he was still, Harriet climbed on top of him. She positioned her knees on either side of him and lowered herself on to his erection, allowing him to enter her very slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time. Whenever he tried to move she would raise herself so that he slid out of her again.

Lewis quickly realised what he had to do and forced himself to lie still until at last he was fully inside her. ‘Lean back against my legs,’ he whispered. Harriet did, and when Lewis shifted slightly this meant that he was penetrating her as deeply as possible.

‘I’m going to bring myself to a climax,’ she murmured, staring directly into his eyes. ‘You mustn’t come before me.’

‘And what will happen if I do?’ he asked with a smile.

‘I shall leave, like I said before,’ she replied.

The smile faded from his face. ‘Harriet, don’t joke about it.’

‘I’m not joking. You’ve played enough sexual games with me. I thought you might like to experience one for yourself. I’m sure your legendary self-control will come to your assistance.’

Lewis wasn’t so certain. His testicles were
already drawn up tightly against his body and there was a dangerous tingling sensation in his glans which meant that his orgasm was very near.

‘You have to watch me,’ insisted Harriet when he closed his eyes.

Lewis obeyed, and watched as she parted her outer sex-lips, revealing herself fully to him. His mouth went dry when her fingers carefully spread the inner lips apart and then she was running one finger along the shiny delicate pink flesh of her inner channel.

Harriet forgot the man beneath her, forgot how hard he was struggling for control, all she could think about was the rising tide of sexual heat.

Suddenly she held out her hand to Lewis. ‘Lick my finger,’ she said breathlessly. He flicked out his tongue and tasted the delicious tang of her arousal. With a smile she returned the saliva-moistened fingertip between her thighs and let it move in slow circles around her clitoris.

Lewis felt that he would explode at the sight. Her eyelids were heavy, her cheeks flushed, her whole body taut and ready for the climax she was instigating. The tingling in his glans increased and his hips twitched slightly.

‘Not yet,’ whispered Harriet, remembering the times he’d made her wait for satisfaction.

Lewis groaned. He was certain he couldn’t control himself much longer, but now Harriet was moving her free hand behind her and as one hand continued to tease her clitoris and surrounding flesh the other lightly tickled his swollen testicles.

‘Harriet, no!’ he begged.

She smiled to herself at the expression of anguish on his face, and then her clitoris began to
throb and suddenly her own climax took over and her body tightened so that she knew release was only seconds away.

Lewis knew it too and prayed she’d hurry because he’d never been balanced on the edge of gratification for so long before. To his relief her body abruptly bent forward as the first muscular contractions took hold of her and then she was twisting and turning on his erection as she cried out with pleasure and release.