Kissed by Moonlight (18 page)

“Calm down,” he ordered, hardly helping matters by grinding the words out at her icily, his anger held back to a dangerous degree. “Don't ever try to bar me from your room – or your bed – ever again.”

His pallor beneath his tan, scared her breath into a frightening lump that she seemed unable to swallow round. In the temporary absence of coherent speech her eyes drove into his, twin missiles of smoky brown-violet condemnation, the gold irises, nature's precious and most eloquent gift, glittering in temper. “You ... are ... despicable.”

“And you aren't making sense.” His body towered over her, tense and savage, and there was something in his expression that seemed to be trying to understand.

He must have the hide of a rhinoceros, be totally lacking in finer feelings and the first elements of common decency, for not understanding, for looking at her as though she wasn't behaving in a perfectly reasonable manner.

“You've got a nerve,” she screamed at him, “bringing me to this place.”

“May the heavens grant me patience. I thought you'd like it here. I thought it would meet with your approval. I'm sorry it doesn't.” '

His mockery, his strained politeness, gave her the stamina to go on. “I approve of the place. It's enchanting. I love the house – its secluded position – the bay – everything! It's the human association I disapprove of – and that's putting it mildly – the human association that I hate. Now do you understand what I'm saying?”

“Oh, yes, now I understand. I apologize for being so slow. It must have been very trying for you.” Below the arrogance of his eyes, his mouth was clamped in an expression of bitter acrimony through which his voice emerged, each syllable dropping like an icy spike into her brain. “It's finally made it through to me – you do hate me.”

“Hate you?”

What did he mean? Being under the surveillance of his eyes, blue, with the sheen of ice chilling into her soul, was not designed to promote lucid thought. It was some moments before his words sank in, and it took longer to make sense of them. When she said it was not the house she hated but its human association, how could he think she meant him? She meant Justine, who was associated with the house through her husband's ownership of it.

Her thoughts split, so that while she was still basing most of her calculations on the belief that Geoffrey Hyland was the main power on the island and that the house belonged to him, an offshoot of thought brought to mind the suitcase David had brought with him, a suitcase which wasn't much larger than her own vanity case. He wouldn't need to bring much if he kept spares at the house, as he would if he owned it. It would also explain his ease of entry. He had walked in as though he were coming home ... which was exactly what he had been doing. This was David's house.

How stupid of her not to have found the fault in her reasoning sooner. How could she have believed for one moment that someone of Geoffrey Hyland's evil character could possess the sensitive eye that had searched out this perfect spot, creating a sanctuary, a retreat of unsurpassed beauty and absolute tranquillity.

“Work on it,” he cut in, his voice trailing sarcasm with every bitter note. “You're almost there.”

Of course! The full implication hit her. If Geoffrey Hyland didn't own the house, it meant that he wasn't the brain behind the violation of her father's cherished dream.

Of their own compulsion, with no direction from her, the words exploded from her mouth. “You are the top man!” Every syllable rang with the long-stored hate she felt for the man behind the takeover venture, the man whose schemes had supplanted her father's own ambitions for Chimera.

“I knew you'd get there eventually. Yes, I am the major shareholder, the opportunist, the ruthless profiteer. You've hung so many titles around my neck that I don't know which one you prefer. Not that it matters – it all amounts to the same thing. I am the man – I've just thought of another title, one you openly regret – the man you vilify for cashing in on your father's dream is none other than your own beloved husband.”

Even with his hair wildly undisciplined and glistening with droplets of water from his recent shower, and without clothes save for the bath sheet secured around his middle, he still had not divested himself of his mantle of authority. He would always stand like a king among men. Proud, tall, no hint of apology or self-recrimination touching the perfect symmetry of his features, the strong chin, the noble and contemptuous curves of his mouth.

It was written in his expression that he had no intention of justifying his reasons for not telling her, and he was still actively censuring her attitude. His eyes reproved her for clinging to the dream and not accepting the reality. She'd lived with this way of thinking for too long to be able to drop it in an instant. It was unreasonable of him to expect it. And – she couldn't lose sight of this fact – it was her father's back he had climbed on. How could he stand before her so superior and scathing? Did he expect her to praise him for his achievement?

“Husband, yes. Leave out the beloved,” she spat at him venomously.

At least, the words came from her lips, but they seemed to be speaking themselves. Her mind was stumbling through corridors of numbness, opening doors, seeking what? That streak of fairness that was not entirely dormant within her? She knew, although she didn't want to, had never wanted to, that there was much to praise in what he'd achieved. The people weren't exploited as she had first thought; they were sharing in the new prosperity. With the extra money in their pockets they were able to buy new, labor-saving devices to work their land. The expanding hotel complex – and others, some on the drawing board and some already in the advanced stages of construction on various parts of the island – provided a ready market for all they could produce, and at a fair price. Duplicates of the shawl David had given her this evening, its exquisite and distinctive pattern branding it the work of a Chimeran woman, could be seen in the local shops. The women were more eager to get out their crocheting hooks now that their sole outlet wasn't some unscrupulous exporter who was only prepared to give them a pittance for their hours of painstaking work.

She knew all this. She knew that the young people who had left the island and had been attracted back would stay. The old people would see their grandchildren grow up. Why couldn't she admit to him that her father's limited plan wouldn't have had such a widespread and beneficial effect?

His hard voice cut into her softening thoughts. “You're just like your father, clinging to an illusion.”

That's why she couldn't unbend. Because of his superior attitude. It stuck in her throat and she refused to climb down. “Why didn't you tell me?” she demanded brokenly.

“Surely that's obvious?”

She stubbornly refused to admit to her bigoted attitude. “Not to me. You knew I thought you were carrying out someone else's orders.”

“Yes, I knew.”

“Why did you deceive me?”

“Ah, that's something I'm not guilty of.”

His smile was cruel. Good. It hardened her own determination. “You're guilty by omission.”

“That I cannot contradict. I was thinking of you there, believe it or not. I didn't think you were up to knowing. I thought that by the time you found out you would be better able to cope.” His tone was touched with irony and he shrugged as though he should have known better. “I never deliberately set out to conceal the truth. If that had been my intention I would have brought you straight here. Instead, I took you to the hotel where the evidence was all around for you to see. I don't know why you didn't. It crossed my mind that this could be in my favor. I thought that by the time it did eventually click, you would have assessed things for yourself and I might not seem the villain you thought I was.”

“You have an answer for everything, haven't you?”

He had been so unbelievably cool, setting the facts before her with amazing self-control, that the sudden heat in his voice took her by surprise. “Why don't you open your tight little mind for once? If I hadn't cashed in on your father's dream, as you've so often accused me of doing, what do you think would have happened to him?”

Refusing to be intimidated, she said, “You enjoy being cruel, so I know you're going to tell me.”

“It isn't something you don't already know. Your father's position was critical. His financial affairs were in such a mess he would have gone to jail.”

“Thank you for reminding me. I might have forgotten.”

“Be fair, Petrina. I'm not trying to deny the fact that I've capitalized on his ideas, even those that failed.”

“That's magnanimous of you.”

“Will you close your prejudiced mouth and listen? Without Benjamin Nightingale, all this wouldn't have come about. The people here would still be breaking their hearts and their backs trying to earn a living, because all I did was expand on the original idea. There was good in what your father set out to do, and if he'd leveled down to practicalities instead of building on a dream he would have succeeded. I saw the potential. If I hadn't stepped in someone else would have, and your father might not have had the fair deal I gave him.”

“You'll be saying next that you did it all for my father and that lining your own pocket was a bonus!”

“I'd advise you not to strain my patience too far, Petrina.”

The look on his face told her that it was good advice to take; her inner turmoil made it difficult to follow. She refrained from answering back, but not without effort.

Taking up from where he left off, he said, “Three years ago, at the time of your father's first financial crisis, I vowed to do three things. One was to pick Chimera up again, exploit your father's idea and
not
the people,” he said pointedly.

Again she resisted the urge to speak.

“The second task I set myself was to recompense all the small investors who had lost their savings. I'm in the process of doing that now.”

“You mean people my father cheated,” she was stung to retort, unable to hold her silence a moment longer. “Why don't you say it? After all, it's what you're thinking.”

“If you say so.”

She sent him a withering look.

He combated it with a smile that had the distinction of curling his mouth up at the corners without the merit of warmth. “You have no cause to look affronted. You brought it on yourself. You goad me to say things I don't want to.”

“
I
goad
you
!” she spluttered.

“At last we agree on something.”

“We agree on nothing! If I were to listen to you, you'd have me believe that your motives throughout were based on totally unselfish reasons.”

“You haven't let me finish, Pet,” he said, deliberately sliding her name off his tongue in that cold mocking way that was such sensuous torture. “I haven't told you the third thing I vowed to do three years ago. That was strictly for me, and not even I can make it sound anything other than self-indulgent.”

It didn't take much intelligence on her part to know the nature of his self-indulgence, not with the sensuous tone of his voice correlating with the sensuously assessing look in his eye to guide her. She returned his look with one of loathing.

He knew that what happened between them three years ago was something she would rather forget. No woman likes to be reminded of the time she threw herself at a man, blatantly letting him know that any thoughts he might have in her direction would not be repulsed – only to be repulsed herself. And that was what she had done. She had told David that she loved him and he had rebuffed her.

“I'm referring, of course, to that matter of unfinished business between us. I knew it couldn't be left like that and I promised myself that one day I'd come back and finish what you had started. I was tempted, you know, to finish it there and then.”

Her head was flung back. “No, I didn't know.”

“You were a provocative little peach. How I resisted tasting the fruit that was offered to me, I'll never know. Perhaps it was because I knew if I bit into it I would find that it was still green, better left on the tree to ripen.”

She winced. “My father still needed me then, but you weren't thinking of him. You thought I'd be a pain in your stomach.”

“Perhaps. I knew that one day I would come back for you.”

All the time he'd stood aloof from her, mocking her, was it running through his mind to come back for her? Oh, no! She wasn't stupid enough to believe that. This was only another of his taunts.

“But why are we wasting time talking about it?” he said, a slight huskiness entering his voice. “This, after all, is the proper beginning of our honeymoon.”

“You're not suggesting –” she began aghast.

His eyes narrowed. “I'm not suggesting anything. I'm telling you that this isn't going to be a repeat of the fiasco of our wedding night.”

“No!” He couldn't be so cruel to her, demoralizing her in argument one moment and expecting to make love to her the next.

“Yes,” he insisted with deadly emphasis.

“You once said you would never take an unwilling woman to bed.”

“That still holds true. If it sounds like a reprieve, think again. It just means I'm going to have a lot of fun – and I promise that you will enjoy it too – in making you willing. This is the one area of our life that's right, and it's going to stay that way. We'll just have to argue out the other issues until you see reason.”

His unbeatable arrogance, his audacity were unbelievable. She would never see his so-called reason. Agreed, their only common meeting ground was physical, but even that meeting was not achieved without conflict in her heart. Never once had he said “I love you.” It would have made all the difference. He didn't love her, only her body. He only cherished it, lavished attention upon it to obtain for himself the utmost gratification. How degrading to know that his selfish caresses also gave her pleasure.
Had
given her pleasure, she amended silently. Now that she knew who he was, the major role he'd played in commercializing on her father's dream, she felt so cold toward him that she didn't think she would ever respond to him again.