Paradise Found (10 page)

Matt didn't miss that very revealing gesture. The question left his eyes to be replaced by an unattractive smile of arrogance and contempt
that
mocked her self-denial. Arrogance because he knew how severely tempted she had been, how much she hadn't wanted the incident to end with merely a kiss, and the contempt possibly for the same reason. He didn't look as though he was suffering. It hurt as much as anything that he didn't seem all that bothered that he wouldn't be coming in with her.

‘Pity about the pendant. I shouldn't lose any sleep over it if I were you. I'm sure it will turn up,' he scoffed.

‘I'm sure it will,' she retorted. ‘Most likely in the garden, where I said I'd lost it.'

‘Are you quite certain you were wearing it this evening?'

‘Of course I am. I distinctly remember putting it on.'

‘I suppose you know best. The odd thing is, I can't recall seeing it round your neck.'

‘Well, it was there, I assure you. I know what you're getting at, but you're way off the mark. I didn't make up the story of losing my pendant as an excuse to join you. I
have
lost it.' She opened her door, meaning to fling herself haughtily through it and slam it in his grinning face. Only a glint of gold and a flash of sapphire held her motionless.

Matt walked past her, crossed over to the dressing table where the pendant lay, and picked it up.

‘How did it get there?' Zoe gasped
incredulously.
‘I put it on. I know I did,' she said in angry exasperation.

‘Perhaps you lost it before you came down. Obviously it couldn't have jumped from the floor, where it must have fallen, to the dressing table. So, say Yvette came in—to turn down the bed or something or other—and saw it lying on the floor; naturally she would pick it up and put it on the dressing table for you to find.'

‘Yes, that's what must have happened,' Zoe said, grasping eagerly at the explanation.

‘To make that fit, the clasp would have to be loose, wouldn't you agree?'

‘I agree,' she said savagely, hating the way he was testing her. ‘Look at it for yourself.'

‘Thank you. It would have been ungallant to do so without your permission. Mm, let me see.' It was a spring clasp and from where Zoe stood, when he snapped it shut it seemed to be secure. ‘No . . .' The hateful mockery was back in his eyes. ‘It seems to be okay. It is pretty. I must say, I do have good taste.' But as he spoke he wasn't looking at the pendant. His eyes scintillated over her face.

He handed it back to her, and she examined the clasp for herself. It was perfectly all right. When she'd put it on her thoughts had gone naturally to Matt because he had given it to her, and she'd been agitated because of that. She couldn't have been attentive enough to what she was doing and so she hadn't fastened
it
properly, but nothing would convince Matt that she hadn't told him a lie to explain why she joined him in the garden.

‘Think what you like,' she said aggressively, ‘only just get out.'

He took hold of her jaw. His thumb lay in the indentation between her chin and lower lip before stroking along its softly curving fullness. ‘You don't need an excuse, Zoe. Whatever the time, wherever I am, if the urge takes you, just come.'

With that he sauntered out, leaving Zoe choking on anger, humiliation, shame, and frustration.

CHAPTER FIVE

How could she have stayed out with Matt, let him kiss and caress her the way he had? She felt ashamed that she had succumbed to something that was purely physical, nothing more than lust. Something that couldn't last. She had been hurt once; now she was leaving herself wide open to be hurt all over again. She believed Matt when he said he'd tried to look her up but had failed because she'd changed her job and moved to a new address. But the excuse lost all its value when she recalled that she'd been at her old job and former home for three years after he'd walked out before she'd
decided
to make a change. For heaven's sake, he'd had three years to come back to her! That was how interested he'd been.

His interest had only really perked up when he discovered that she was going to marry Tony; then he'd jumped in quickly to stake his claim and try to break them up. It was terrible to think that he only wanted her because someone else did, but she couldn't come up with anything better.

In letting Matt get close to her again, it wasn't only a second dose of hurt she was inviting; there was something else. Could she honestly contemplate letting a decent man like Tony go, a solid man who would give her a good and durable marriage, in favor of some short-term sparkle? It was true that Tony was still Matt's paler reflection, lacking his strength of character, but he was young yet, only a year older than she was herself. In another ten years, who knew but that he wouldn't match up to Matt in every way.

Her thoughts ran back to the accusation that Matt had flung at her, about playing with fire when she got involved with Tony, saying that she had only been drawn to Tony because she had hoped Tony would lead her back to him. She had denied that emphatically, but had she been right to do so?

She might have been attracted to Tony because he looked a lot like Matt, but that was another matter entirely and totally acceptable.
People
did tend to go for the same kind of looks and coloring in their search for a partner. Women were said to have a preference for men who resembled their fathers. Her father had been dark-haired, like Matt and Tony. And fair-haired men had never appealed to her much.

She found herself harping again on Matt's debasing allegation that she had only encouraged Tony because she'd thought the relationship would bring her in contact with Matt again. She couldn't shrug it off; she wasn't going to have any peace of mind until she'd worried it through to the end. It was as distasteful to her as thinking that Matt only wanted her now because Tony did, yet she couldn't say there was no truth in it, even if only at a subconscious level. It cast her in a most unfavorable light; she wouldn't have thought herself capable of such underhanded dealing. But that apart, was it something to bother about? Even if Matt
had
been on her mind when she had first encountered Tony, she had come to like and love Tony for himself, and surely that was all that mattered.

Love was gentle and caring. Infatuation could outshine it every time. She had to be strong about this. She couldn't let the feelings she experienced with Matt dazzle her out of her senses, blind her to something precious and lasting. Nature could be very cruel. In the same way that the brightest and most
attractive
berries were often poisonous, it wasn't fair that something so beautiful, that gave her life a special sparkle, should be a sham.

* * *

The next morning Zoe woke up to another beautiful day. She pulled on her lightweight cotton robe, flung open the door leading out onto the long balcony, and stepped outside, as had been her custom since her arrival.

There wasn't a cloud in the burning blue sky. This early in the morning she would have been shivering back home, even on England's hottest day. This air was blissfully warm, clear, and light, with a strange luminosity that Zoe was only just getting used to and that brought the colors more vividly to life. It was like taking off smoky glasses and seeing a richness of foliage that she had never imagined. She could never have believed that there were so many shades of green or that red could be so red. The sun-saturated stone of the buildings ranged from glaring white to a glowing, living gold and hurt eyes that were unaccustomed to it.

She was lucky enough to be enjoying a holiday on the French Riviera. She had a wonderful hostess and a kind and compatible fiancé. Was she going to let all this be spoiled for her by the dark intrusion of a figure from
her
past who had no place at all in her current well-ordered life?

The unmistakable fragrance of coffee hit her a second before Matt's deep voice announced, ‘Good morning, Zoe. I knew instinctively that you would be an early riser, and I had the forethought to instruct Yvette to bring a spare cup. Come and have breakfast with me.'

Zoe choked on her despair. The past she was so valiantly trying to deny was too forcefully in the present for her liking. A memory was easier to stamp out than a living, mocking reminder. She had forgotten that, as Matt had a room farther along the passage from hers, he would also be sharing the balcony. Monique and Pierre were also on their level, so it wasn't as if they were completely isolated, but the old couple's quarters were at the back of the house. Sharing a balcony with Matt was an intimacy she could have done without.

‘I haven't brushed my teeth yet,' she said.

A dark eyebrow arched in cruel amusement at the flimsiness of that excuse for not sharing his table. ‘Then run along and brush your teeth, if you must. But hurry, or the coffee will get cold.'

She nodded mutely but remained rooted to the spot. Her leaden feet somehow wouldn't obey the command of her brain. She didn't so much want to run along and do his bidding as
run
away. But running away had never solved anything. It would be unrealistic to go ahead and marry Tony while there was the tiniest suspicion of Matt's dark shadow lurking in her heart. She must face up to him and somehow push him out, not let him affect her in this way. She didn't feel very proud of herself. It was shallow to let Matt move her as he did.

He was already dressed in the second-skin jeans he'd been wearing the morning she'd called to see Tony. Standing there, unable to move, devouring him with her eyes and not being able to do a thing about it, she felt skinned, her jumping nerve ends, the warmth of her feelings for him, exposed for his cruel observation. To complement the jeans he wore a sky blue shirt that flapped open and showed off that tantalizing V of tightly curling hair. Her fingertips still prickled as she wondered if it would be coarse or silky to the touch.

His smile slashed deeper and more mockingly, as if he had intercepted that thought, and that gave her the impetus to move.

She brushed her teeth and rinsed her face. She combed her hair but decided to remain in the cotton robe, which gave adequate, demure coverage and allowed her to be back in a minimum of time. She didn't want him to think that she was nervous at returning to be in his company, or that she was taking her time to doll up for him.

As
well as the coffee, there were orange juice, croissants, and a cherry preserve that Zoe pronounced as delicious on taking the first bite.

After demolishing his roll Matt reached out to the flat basket where the hot croissants were piled on a snow-white napkin, transferring one to his plate and covering it with a large portion of the preserve. This task done, he inquired lazily, ‘What were you thinking about earlier to put that look on your face?'

‘What look?' she asked carefully, feeling a painful prickling in her cheeks.

‘Before I made my presence known you were lost to the world—just staring as if you'd never seen a blade of grass, a tree, or a flower before.'

She smiled, softening toward him. For a moment she'd thought he was referring to the way she had looked at him. There must have been some kindness in him that he had mentioned one and not the other. ‘It's as if I never have seen any of those things before, at least not in their true perspective. I don't quite know how to put. this, but a kind of wonder hit me, as if . . .' Her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Perhaps this sounds crazy. I've never been in a hospital and had a serious operation, the kind you don't know if you're going to come out of in one piece or not. But every morning when I wake up I have to rush out and stand on this balcony. The feeling I
get
is as though I've just come out of a deep anesthetic which I went into not knowing if I would ever see this lovely world clearly again, and when I come out I appreciate it more than ever, and it's better than ever. I rub the blur of sleep from my eyes and I can't believe the clarity of things, the brilliance of the colors and the sharpness of the focus. Can you understand at all what I'm getting at?'

She couldn't understand why it was important for him to know what she meant any more than she understood why the silence before he answered was like a cold finger touching her heart. There were many kinds of silences. Thinking silences. Golden sharing silences. Silences that hummed as sweetly as a song. And ominous silences that carried some deep dread warning. And no silence she had ever encountered before had been as ominous as this one.

‘Yes, I do.' The warmth on his face was replaced by bitter understanding. For a moment, a moment so brief that she could have imagined it and probably had, because she couldn't think what she had said to put him out, his face was a carved mask, except for the living pain in his eyes. His heavy lids dropped. When they lifted he was wearing another mask, one that was all too familiar. He had on the mocking, taunting look which she had come to hate and wanted to scratch away with her long fingernails. Scratch it to the bone
and
never have to see it again. ‘What are you considering doing today? Or haven't you got any plans except to sit and hold your fiancé's hand?'

‘I happen to find Tony's company enchanting; I like to be with him. But I've never been to this part of the world before, so it's natural that I should want to do some exploring. And that's what I'm going to do today. Tony is very unselfish about it. He can't accompany me, but he doesn't stop me from going out.'

‘I take the hint. Unfortunately, I've got other things to do today. Sorry about that,' he drawled.

‘I didn't mean—' She frowned, biting heavily on her lip. He had read something in her words which she had never intended. She didn't want his company. She would rather dance all day with a snake than spend five minutes alone with him! Yet what had she meant, if she hadn't been angling for Matt to take her somewhere?