Love Play by Rosemary Rogers (43 page)

If she could hear him talking then she must still be alive, at least.
And there wasn't a rush of wind in her face and the purring growl of the
powerful motor in her ears so they must have stopped.

'You okay, baby? I didn't scare you, did I?' Matt remembered her with
belated concern that made Sara furious. If her legs hadn't felt so weak she
would just have gotten out of his damn car that he drove like a lethal weapon
and stalked away from him without a word! - As her eyes came back into focus
Sara took a deep breath, prepared to tell him exactly what she thought about
his driving, but he wasn't even looking at her any longer.

'Oh, Christ, not another big public scene, with the movie not in the can
yet! Mona seems to collect more jealous lovers than ..."

Sara's eyes had followed the direction of his gaze, and she didn't even
hear what else he said. There was quite an interested crowd gathered at the
front of the hotel, all watching avidly while Mona, dressed like a female biker
in black leather pants and boots, clung protectively to Angelo's arm.
Protectively — because the tall man who stood facing them both seemed
definitely the more dangerous looking of the two men. In fact - and Sara's
heart had started to pound madly all over again — in fact he looked positively
menacing, with those scowling dark brows drawn together and his narrowed eyes
negating the coldly polite smile that twisted his lips.

Mona was being magnificently regal in spite of her unsuitable attire,
and Angelo, who still had his bike to contend with, looked thunderstruck.

'Of course I'm not going anywhere with you — I don't even know you! I
happen to be with Angelo, who adores me, don't you, darling?' (What had Matt
said? 'Mona seems to collect more jealous lovers . . .')

Acting almost by sheer primitive instinct Sara reached over Matt and
pressed down on the horn that had sent so many pedestrians jumping for safety.
This time even Matt jumped, before he turned to look at her. 'Hey! What . . .'
Again, Sara didn't really hear him. They were all looking at her now. Angelo,
beginning to grin; her mother, not used to being upstaged; the bystanders; and
. . .

Now that her knees seemed no longer rubbery, Sara yanked the door open
and got out of the car with commendable poise. 'That's not one of Mona's
jealous lovers, you know. He's mine.' Very deliberately, she leaned down to
kiss Matt's nicely shaped, sensual, sexy mouth that could and probably did,
drive most women wild. Most other women, that was! He was quick witted enough
to kiss her back rather thoroughly in spite of the jealous lover; and
experienced enough to tell that the chemistry was missing -for her at least.

There was a speculative look in his grey eyes as Sara pulled away rather
too abruptly. "Thanks for the ride! It was such fun!'

He lifted a careless hand. 'Prego!' But she'd already turned and started
to walk away from him. Purposefully.

Chapter38

It was definitely Sara's scene, with every eye fixed on her as she
walked away from the white Maserati and Matt Baker with a conscious, almost
insolent air of insouciance, and Mona Charles was enough of a professional to
recognise it. Beside her, she heard Angelo say softly, 'Ah! So that's how it
really is! I had a feeling from the very beginning . . .' But Mona, like the
rest of them, was watching the young woman who was her daughter wearing the
oversized sunglasses that effectively masked her expression.

Sara had never been quite as close to her or seemed quite as like her as
Delight, her love child. Until right now, at this very moment when Mona stood
watching her walk with a long naturally, easy stride that reminded her of a
young pantheress stalking her prey. Who looked far too capable of reversing
those roles, actually! Poor Sara! Mona almost shuddered with an unfamiliar
feeling of protectiveness. The man looked perfectly capable of violence, even
of murder, for all that he stood there waiting for her with a deceptively
negligent air.

He was waiting for her, and it was all Sara could do, now that she had
come this far, not to let her steps falter — or take her running back to
safety! Even the familiar glower had disappeared from his dark face now,
leaving it as expressionless as a harshly carved mask with black holes for
eyes. But even if she couldn't see it she could feel, with the quickened rush
of her blood and the nervous hammering of her heart, the cold fury in him -
only barely held in check.

Find something to say quickly, Sara my girl, or they'll boo you off the
stage! her mind warned her grimly, and she managed to smile - a little too
brightly.

'Oh, hi, Marco! I hadn't really expected to run into you again, you
know! Were you looking for me or for - '

'Hadn't you?' His voice sounded almost too smooth, but she, with her
quickened senses could hear the wild-beast growl that underlay it.

She tried for careless insouciance again, trying to ignore the way his
eyes had fixed on the tell-tale pulse that fluttered at her throat.

'Well - no, actually, but since you're here you might as well meet Mona
formally, I suppose! Especially as the oddest coincidence seems to have brought
you here! And did you happen to bring my clothes with you? I just didn't have
time - '

Reaching him where he stood as implacably as Nemesis, she tried to turn
aside to Mona, but he stopped her words and stopped her half-formed movement
with the hand that encircled her wrist to make a prisoner of her again. Looking
into his eyes, Sara had the frightening feeling that he would crush every bone
without compunction if she tried to tug herself away.

'Not exactly coincidence, I'm afraid. I also happen to read the
newspapers. And sometimes I guess correctly. Luckily - wouldn't you say?
Especially since I do happen to have your clothes - and you must be tired of
wearing those decidedly grimy garments by now, I'm sure, knowing how fastidious
you always appeared to be about bathing and changing clothes ..."

She looked back at him and into those dark-coaled eyes and was suddenly
unaware of everything and everyone around them both as a strange feeling of
fatalism overcame her, holding her trapped and immobile and incapable of any of
the brave speeches she had prepared.

With that damnable, detestable arrogance of his that would probably
infuriate her always, he chose to ignore everything but his object - his
victim!

'Shall we have our discussion in public, my little actress -or
 
in private? And I'm sure that even you must
agree we have a great deal to talk about?' The pause he allowed her for a reply
was barely perceptible before he said in the same deadly calrn voice, 'Good,
since you seem to be in a reasonable mood for a change, I suggest we go
inside.' He could actually manage a polite smile! But it was not directed at
her but at Mama-Mona instead. 'Miss Charles, I must offer my apologies for
mistaking you for your daughter -it is Sara I have here, is it not? I hadn't
realised there was such a strong family resemblance, I am afraid, although now
that I have met you it's easy to see who the real beauty is.

The merest tightening of his fingers was enough to stifle Sara's
indignant gasp and allow Mona to move centre stage again.

'So you can be charming, darling! How sweet! And shouldn't we all go
inside together so that this crowd that keeps getting larger and larger can go
away? And then you can take Sara off for your little talk ..."

How could Mona desert her that way? Abandon her seemed even more
appropriate, Sara thought rebelliously, although she let him take her along
without protest, her lips tight and her, head high. She might, in fact, have
been on her way to the guillotine - which actually seemed quicker and more
merciful than what faced her!

Being marched through the lobby and trying to avoid more staring eyes
felt like being in the eye of a hurricane, Sara thought despairingly; and made
her one last tried and true attempt at escape. 'If you don't mind I really do
have to use the loo! Mama, if I can borrow yours? I'm sure I must look an
absolute mess!'

'It won't be necessary for you to go all the way up to the second floor,
cara mia. I have taken a suite here myself, and it is right - here. Miss
Charles, I look forward to meeting you again. Angelo? Ah - it is certain that
you and I will meet each other again soon, is it not?'

Sara had barely time to wonder whether poor Angelo was quailing too
before she found herself ushered with overdone politeness into the room he had
threatened her with; hearing with a sinking heart the ominously sharp click
with which he locked the door.

There was a kind of inevitability to this, she thought almost dazedly
before she turned to face him again, with a last, desperate attempt at
defiance.

'Well? Now that you've dragged me here, why don't you say something?'

He was standing with his back to the door, his booted legs astride and
his arms crossed over his chest. He was dressed for riding, she thought
belatedly and irrelevantly, and was immediately relieved to notice that he
hadn't brought his leather-thonged riding whip with him. Or had he?

Diabolically, he seemed to sense some of her thoughts, for he gave her a
sardonic inclination of his head before he drawled in an unpleasantly sarcastic
voice that seemed to flick across every nerve of her: 'If you're looking around
like a little scared rabbit faced by a wolf for some means of help or escape,
I'm afraid that there is none. And now -since you have no alternative but to
face the wolf himself - is there anything you wish to say first?'

'Damn you!' Sara flung the words at him with all the last-ditch fury he
had goaded her into. 'How dare you stand there like a ... a prosecutor? And
treat me as if I were a criminal, or a ... a runaway slave? Especially when,
everything that happened was your fault, the way you tried to interfere and
manipulate and - how could you have the colossal nerve to think my sister wasn't
good enough to marry your brother? Well - you deserved to be fooled! You - with
your high-and-mighty arrogance and your hypocrisy ... your string of mistresses
that you keep along with your suitable fiancee, who has a terrible complexion
and not too much to say unless she positively screeches . . .'

Sara had stopped to draw in a long, gasping breath when he said
caustically: 'Indeed! Poor Lucia! And I suppose you gave her no provocation
whatsoever to make her decide she did not want to be my fiancee. You had better
be careful with your lies this time, Signorina Sara, no matter how fond you are
of deceit and acting . . .!'

She backed away from his look, fending him off with more angry words.
'And you had better remember, hadn't you, what you are guilty of? I do believe
that kidnapping is still considered a serious crime, even in the wilds of
Sardinia-

and I should warn you that by now my father has probably - '

'I have already been in communication with Sir Eric.' The casual way he
dealt her that particular shock made her gasp again.

'You . . .!'

He went on inexorably in the same expressionless voice as if she hadn't
tried to speak. 'I informed your father, with whom I happen to be acquainted,
that you and I had met in Los Angeles, had developed a mad passion for each
other and - decided to elope. And that is almost the way it happened, is it
not, tesoro?' She kept searching his face incredulously, not quite able to
believe the words she was hearing.

'What...?

'Please let me finish, so that we can get on with what we have to do.
And we have ..." He glanced casually at the gold watch on his wrist before
looking back at her. 'We have about seven hours, I should think, before it's
time to go back. Time enough for shopping for something suitable to wear, unless
you'd rather fly to Paris?'

'Would you mind telling me exactly what you are talking about, for God's
sake?' Sara realised that her voice had risen to become almost shrill, but she
couldn't help it. He was ... he was . . . And then his reply hit her like a bombshell.

'I'm talking about our wedding, of course. What else did you think I had
in mind? And it's only fair, I suppose! Lose one fiancee and gain another -
there's some poetic justice in that, don't you agree with me?'

The room seemed to be revolving around her in a most peculiar fashion.
Surely she wasn't going to faint, for the first time in her life, before she
could tell him exactly what she thought of him, his high-handed actions, his
ducal palazzo, and everything else she hated so about him?

'I don't... I won't..." To her chagrin, Sara found that she had
actually begun to weep — the angry, embarrassingly-noisy sobs she couldn't stop
almost choking her. 'I ... I won't be married in such a ... calculated,
cold-blooded way! I won't be ... be used And manipulated any longer . . . do
you hear me? I won't put up with your... your harem of other women and your - I
don't want to be married just because you . . . know Daddy and you . . . you
know very well what you thought about me and what you called me . . . and

When she had stopped trying to gasp out her almost incoherent protests
Sara realised that she was crying against his chest, and his arms were holding
her against him as if he - as if he actually wanted her there. And of course
she still had enough sense left in her to realise how ridiculous that thought
was! He was only pretending to calm her down so that she would do exactly as he
pleased.

Sara tried to protest this further indignity; to pull away, but his arms
held her like the prison she had tried to run away from just hours earlier.

'Oh, stop! I'm not- Italian men always marry virgins, you . . . you said
so yourself! And I'm not a - '

His voice, coming from somewhere above her, sounded almost unbearably
harsh. 'Ah, yes - Serafina enlightened me on that score, I'm afraid. And my
stepmother as well -on whom, by the way, you have left a decided impression!'