Fortune in the Stars (22 page)

'Dominic, there isn't anything I wouldn't be prepared to
believe you capable of—nothing!' she informed him with a
savage bitterness, then added with a sudden weariness. 'But quite
frankly I'm not interested; it doesn't really matter, does it?'

'
What
doesn't really matter?' he
parried in his usual infuriating manner as he rammed his hands into his
coat-pockets and threw himself down heavily on the armchair behind him.

'All right—you came here to apologise. You've
done so and I accept it,' she chanted expressionlessly, terrified by
the fact that he showed every sign of staying, and even more terrified
by the conflict of love and hate in her which was undermining her
ability to think.

'And now I can go—is that it, Penny?' he drawled
sarcastically, his long, dark-suited legs stretched out before him as
he tilted himself further back in the chair.

Penny closed her eyes for fear of the hunger she felt must
blaze in them as they openly devoured every inch of him.

'Yes,' she muttered faintly.

'It's funny,' he mused, 'that the one thing I honestly
felt you were lying about turned out to be the truth.'

'Dominic, please—'

'There again, until it actually happens to you it's
impossible to imagine just how bad it can really be. It's just as well
you didn't tell me that you'd come to the villa with a broken
heart…I'd never have understood.'

Penny's eyes flew open in startled bewilderment, then she
gave a small shrug of resignation.

'Why the shrug, Penny?' he asked.

'Half the conversations we've ever had seem to have been
conducted at cross-purposes,' she replied, her mind carrying her back
to those days when they had first met. 'At the beginning I was
convinced you were slightly mad.'

'And now?'

'Nothing's changed,' she stated abruptly, stamping out the
wistfulness that had crept into her previous words. She rose, mentally
crossing her fingers in the hope that her legs wouldn't let her down.
'I'm afraid I've quite a few things to do.'

'And I shan't keep you from them,' he stated, rising also,
then walking over to her. 'By the way, what are you doing for
clothing?' he asked, halting scant inches from her.

Totally unnerved by his sudden closeness, Penny gazed up
at him, an edge of desperation in her expression as she frantically
willed herself not to react.

'Your clothes—most of them are at Lexy's place,'
he expanded, his eyes narrowing slightly.

'Yes… I know,' she stammered, deducing that if
she took the step back her mind was shrieking out for her to take she
would probably fall backwards on to the sofa. 'I've been meaning to get
them.'

'Why not come round with me now?' he suggested, his words
almost coaxing.

She shook her head, that familiar tone, added to his
almost suffocating nearness making lucid thought an impossibility.

'No…and I suppose a goodbye kiss, for old
times, is a non-starter too,' he stated in that familiar biting drawl.

'You once claimed you believed in ending this sort of
thing cleanly,' she lashed out at him in a sudden, searing rage. 'Fair,
I believe, was the actual word you used to describe your methods. But
you forgot to mention the touch of sadistic humour with which you
garnish your so-called fairness, didn't you, Dominic?'

'You're wrong about the cross-purposes,' he hurled back at
her, paling with anger. 'You and I converse in different languages! I
might once have joked about being on the receiving end of what you're
now dishing out to me…' He broke off, visibly striving for
control. 'But then I could only judge by my own
reactions…you see, I've never regarded a woman's declaring a
love I couldn't return as a cause for hating her.' He paused again,
then threw her completely by reaching out and brushing his fingers
gently against her cheek. 'Whereas your reaction is obviously quite the
reverse.
Adios
, Penny.'

He had almost reached the door by the time her mind had
started to digest the implications of those words, and her tentative
interpretation of them left her reeling with anger and disbelief.

'To think I actually gave you the benefit of the doubt
when you claimed to have come here to apologise!' she accused harshly.
'But all you wanted was to have the last word, wasn't it, Dominic? And
you don't care a jot how low you have to stoop in order to have it,
either!'

'That's right—I'm just a regular bastard,' he
retorted angrily. 'And, now that we're both agreed, I'll be
off— and naturally I shall be kicking aside any unfortunate
cat I happen to encounter on my way back to Lexy's place. And on my
arrival there I shall no doubt reduce the poor girl to a quivering
wreck when I inform her what a load of bull I find her precious
astrological predictions!'

'That just shows how little you know—Lexy
doesn't make predictions.'

'Oh, no? Well, the drivel I was subjected to about Leos
and Librans and love everlasting sounded as near as damn it to
predictions to me. And as you're no more likely to fall in love with me
than I am with Dracula's grandmother—'

'That's just where you're wrong!' she raged, leaping to
her feet as her temper deserted her altogether. 'And as for you and
Dracula's grandmother—it sounds like the ideal match to me!'

He was back at her side in a couple of angry strides.

'Have you just said that you love me?' he demanded, his
tone implying he considered her guilty of the most heinous crime
imaginable.

'I'd have thought you'd be thrilled to hear it,' she
retaliated savagely, the rage in her making consideration of what she
was saying impossible. 'You've always taken such delight in telling me
how stupid I am—and what could be more stupid than falling in
love with someone like you?'

'That makes me and loverboy that I know of,' he stated,
his words dripping scorn. 'How many others do you imagine yourself to
be in love with?'

'I don't
imagine
anything!' she
almost shrieked at him. 'And I only thought I was in love with Rupert
because I didn't know any better! I…' She broke off, the
sickening realisation dawning on her of exactly what her ranting words
were proclaiming.

'Well,' he said, his expression slightly dazed as he took
a step nearer to her. 'If you love me and I love you—'

'You? Love me?' she shrieked, trying to take a step away
and almost falling back across the sofa. 'I may be stupid, but I'm not
deranged! No man could treat a woman he claims to love the way you
treated me!'

He reached out and grasped her by the shoulders, the
expression on his face throwing her with its sudden and inexplicable
lack of anger.

'So how is a man supposed to behave when he falls in love
for the first time in his life—with a woman so apparently
self-centred and shallow that the name of the man responsible for the
death of one of her closest friends barely registers with her? With a
woman whose reaction to dire crisis appears to be to take off on a
shopping-spree? With a woman who blabs crucial information
to—?'

'But I'm not like that,' she protested hoarsely, all that
was fair in her telling her that this terrible picture his words
painted of her was the only one he could possibly have seen during that
terrible period.

'Penny, I know you're not,' he declared with a sudden
weariness. 'I was just trying to get you to understand what governed my
behaviour…even though there's no way it could ever be
excused.'

'But I do understand,' she insisted weakly, the peculiar
constricting sensation in her throat distorting her words. 'And I
loathed the person I managed to sound like so much I'd probably have
treated her even worse than you did.'

'Penny, I—' Dominic broke off, his hands
tightening compulsively. 'Hell, I've made such a mess of everything I
hardly dare open my mouth for fear of making things even worse!' he
exclaimed exasperatedly, suddenly hugging her fiercely to him. 'Penny,
I love you, damn it! I love you so much I've been little more than a
zombie these past few weeks!'

'That makes things a lot better as far as I'm concerned,'
she croaked breathlessly, convinced she was about to be suffocated by
this overwhelming surge of happiness before she was allowed any chance
to savour it.

'It makes you feel better to hear I've been reduced to a
zombie?' he demanded huskily, easing his hold to tilt her back in his
arms, and looking down at her with an expression that only exacerbated
her conviction that she would suffocate from this sudden surfeit of
happiness.

'No, I… Dominic, my mind's just gone on
strike!' she protested disjointedly, the ability to express anything
even remotely descriptive of what she was feeling deserting her
completely.

'Well, I suggest you start negotiations with your mind
right away,' he teased with the tender, smiling softness of the love
she held wholly responsible for this disconcerting inability she was
experiencing. 'Because this zombie is in dire need of being convinced
his love is reciprocated.'

'Of course I love you!' she exclaimed with breathless
indignation. 'Oh, Dominic, how could you ever have imagined I didn't
love you?'

'Keep talking,' he chuckled softly, toppling back on to
the sofa and carrying her with him on to his lap. 'A lot more of the
same and I might begin to be convinced—almost.'

But it was the impatient, impassioned search of his lips
on hers that made it impossible for her to comply with his request. And
it was the equally impassioned response his lips received that seemed
to make him forget ever having made the request.

'I thought I was supposed to be convincing you of how much
I love you,' she gasped through a delirious haze of joy when they at
last were forced to take breath.

'Ah…well, yes—I've been thinking
about that,' he muttered, catching his breath. 'And as all this has
been such a traumatic experience for me it's going to take a lifetime
to undo the terrible damage done.'

'A lifetime?' she echoed faintly.

'A lifetime of my loving you and you saving me from
zombiedom.'

'Zombiedom?' She wasn't even sure if such a word existed,
but she knew she was having considerable difficulty in saying it,
because of a peculiar lack of cooperation between her mind and her body
affecting her speech.

'Or—to put it another way—the only
cure is for you to marry me. Will you, my darling?'

It was at that point both her body and mind seemed to
seize up on her completely.

'If you'd like me to get down on one knee, just ask,' he
said, his lips teasing against hers as though willing them to reply.

'Dominic, I… I knew all this was too good to be
true,' Penny cried, the words spilling from her in a mad rush. 'I told
you other lies! I'm not rich—I've hardly two pennies to rub
together!'

'Practically penniless Penny,' he chuckled. 'I know all
about that.'

'How can you? You're just saying it! How would you know I
wasn't just marrying you for your money?'

'The first I know because I had my darling sister hurling
verbal abuse at me for driving you jobless, homeless and probably
penniless on to the streets,' he laughed. 'As for the second, if it
takes my money to get you to marry me, I'll transfer all I possess to
you the instant we're hitched—OK?'

'How can you say that?' she exclaimed, horrified. 'I'd
love you even if you were a million pounds in debt! Even if—' She broke off with an exclamation of
indignation as her body began experiencing secondhand the laughter
racking his. 'Dominic Raphael, you are the most infuriating man I've
ever met,' she informed him primly.

'But the one you'll marry,' he insisted through laughter.

It was the thought of a life without him that silenced her
with its vision of an unbearable bleakness.

'Penny?'

'Yes… I'll marry you,' she whispered unsteadily.

'You don't sound terribly enthusiastic,' he complained,
his expression becoming alarmed as he drew back and gazed down at her
suddenly withdrawn face.

'I know,' she choked, still reeling from the effect of
that thought. 'I've a terrible feeling…that I could wake up
and find that this was all a dream.'

He gave a soft laugh of relief as he gathered her to him.

'Perhaps a word with your future sister-in-law will
convince you,' he teased. 'And I suppose I'll have to stop referring to
them as "horrorscopes"—because the one she's concocted for us
appears to indicate a blissfully love-filled life for the pair of us.'

'So you're converted to astrology, are you?' she murmured,
contentment nudging aside the bleak shadows.

'Oh, no—I didn't say that,' he protested. 'The
fact that I'll go on loving you for the rest of my life merely shows
that I'm blessed with enough sense to recognise that the lady who
sidled up to me and stole my heart from under my partially unsuspecting
nose just happens to be perfect for me.'

'But I'm not perfect—'

'No—you're full of the most infuriating
imperfections,' he chuckled softly, 'all of which add up to making you
utterly perfect for me.'

As she blissfully savoured those words his lips embarked
on a path of exploration that sent ripples of a familiar need shivering
through her.

'I suppose we ought to do the decent thing and put our
poor astrologer out of her misery,' he murmured distractedly, his hands
straying purposefully.

'The decent thing,' she repeated guiltily, attempting to
still his hands before it was too late. 'I'm supposed to be her friend,
and I haven't even got around to finding out the whole story of her
ordeal! And what about Niall?'

'Far be it for me to spoil her telling you the story of
her so-called ordeal, which gets daily more fanciful,' Dominic
muttered, his hand determined to escape hers. 'And as for Niall, we've
remained in touch since I went back to Paris—he'll end up as
our brother-in-law for sure when he relents!'