Paradise Wild (21 page)

She felt the bed move again, and sensed that he was looking down at her. She kept her eyes closed and held her breath.

“I’m sorry, Kolina,” he breathed softly and then moved back to the far side of the bed.

Sorry for what? But she knew that he had assumed she was sleeping. He believed she hadn’t heard him, or he would never have spoken. Would she ever know what he was sorry for? Sorry that he had ever met her? Tears welled fiercely in her eyes and she didn’t know why.

Corinne woke to find Jared’s chest against her back, with one arm slung over her possessively. Her first impulse was to scramble from the bed, but she realized that would wake him and might even draw his anger. She lay still, revelling in the feel of him pressed to her.

She became unnerved by his closeness, feeling his warm breath on her neck, the weight of his arm over her, his hand slack against her breast. She could feel the excitement building in her like a live thing. Daringly, she pressed even closer to him and her eyes widened when she felt the soft bulge of him against her buttocks. She had forgotten that he was completely naked. Her own gown was bunched up about her waist.

The thrilling feel of him was almost more than she could bear. She forgot everything that had ever passed between them, everything—except his lovemaking on their wedding night, the night that he had inflamed her passion. She wanted that again, she wanted to stir his desire and make him take her again. But could she do that? Would he forget his hate long enough to satisfy his needs—and hers? Yes, she admitted that she needed Jared.

Corinne’s passionate quandary was all for naught, for
at that moment the bedroom door opened and a young, very attractive Hawaiian girl with light golden skin burst in on them.

“Ialeka! I see your carriage and—”

The girl stopped, her dark eyes widening as she took in the scene on the bed. Jared had awakened instantly and Corinne could feel the tightening of his body before he pulled away from her with a muttered curse.

The girl raced back out of the room with a strangled cry before Jared bellowed, “Naneki!”

Corinne watched with shock and disbelief as Jared yanked on his trousers and, without looking once in her direction, ran out after the girl. She stared at the empty doorway and felt her face grow hot with the rage that suddenly took hold of her. The girl was Jared’s mistress! Nothing else could explain her familiarity with his room or her reaction to Corinne’s presence.

“Damn him!”

Corinne grabbed her robe and went after them. Jared had caught up with the girl in the back yard, just outside the patio. Corinne stood bristling on the top step that led down to the sunken patio. She could see them clearly through the screened door, Jared holding onto the girl’s arm, making her listen to him even though she tried to pull away.

The dining room was beside her, enclosed with latticed shelves that held all manner of colored crystal and china vases. The kitchen was directly across from this and Akela appeared at the door there.

“Leave alone, Kolina.”

Corinne turned flashing emerald eyes on her. “He’s
my
husband!”

Akela nodded. “But I no have chance tell Naneki you here. She hurt. Let Ialeka explain.”

“What is she even doing here?” Corinne demanded, her fists clenched in anger.

“She live here, work here. She away yesterday, come back just now. Naneki my adopted
keiki
,” Akela explained.

“She
lives
here? And he brought me—”

Corinne couldn’t finish she was so choked with rage. She ignored Akela’s staying hand and moved down the steps and across the room. But she stopped before opening the door to the patio and revealing her presence.

“Why you bring her here?” Naneki was crying. “How you can forgive her for what she did to you?”

“I haven’t forgiven her for anything, Naneki,” Jared said impatiently. “And I brought her here to put a stop to her whoring.”

“But you sleep with her!”

“Only sleep, confound it! Nothing else.”

“Well, I no stay here with her,” Naneki said defiantly. “I share you with Dayna, but not with this
haole!
”

Who was this Dayna? Corinne wondered. Another of Jared’s mistresses? Corinne started to turn around, but her attention was caught by a little Hawaiian girl who came running around the side of the house toward Jared.

“Papa!” the little girl cried and flew into Jared’s outstretched arms.

Corinne gasped, watching Jared hug the child. But Naneki grabbed her angrily from his arms.

“Come, Noelani,” she said roughly. “We go back Aunty’s house.”

Corinne opened the door. “You don’t have to leave on my account,” she purred smoothly, wondering how she managed such control.

Naneki looked at Corinne with loathing before she walked away stiffly, little Noelani waving good-bye in
nocently over her shoulder. The little girl with dark hair and eyes and golden skin was the image of her mother. But Jared also had those dark good looks. Was this really his daughter?

“So you have a daughter, Jared.” She smiled. “How nice for you. I wonder why you never mentioned her before.”

“Because Noelani is not mine, Corinne,” he said flatly and started to walk back into the house.

“But Naneki
is
your mistress, isn’t she?” she said to him, her voice rising.

Jared turned on her and said icily, “She was my mistress before I married you. But I’m afraid I haven’t found any time for her since I got back from the mainland.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Jealous?” he said sarcastically.

“Of course not!”

“Good, because you shouldn’t be. You can’t begrudge me one mistress,” he said in a cruel tone. “Not when you give yourself to any man who comes along.”

She gasped and instantly raised her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist and held it firmly. His eyes were cold gray slits as he looked down on her.

“Does the truth hurt, my dear?” he asked unmercifully, his grip tightening. “Whores have to get used to insults, it comes with the trade. You really should have thought of that.”

“I would gladly
give it
to anyone rather than you!” she spat, wanting furiously to hurt him in return.

He paled, and shoving her away from him, marched back into the house.

Corinne turned away, fighting to control the tears. Why did they
always
have to hurt each other? She would rather he had struck her than say what he had
with such venom in his voice. For an instant she was ready to tell him the truth, all of it. But she reasoned that he would only laugh at her, scorning her once more.

She had done too good a job of creating the illusion that she was a whore. No one would ever believe otherwise now—except her so-called lovers. They knew, but they would never tell! It was all so absurd.

Dismally, Corinne picked a gardenia from the shrubs that grew along the three-foot lava rock wall of the patio. She breathed deeply of the velvety white flower, then placed it behind her ear and slowly started walking through the back yard towards the beach. The yard was long and not nearly so heavily cultivated as the garden out front. There were banana trees, guava, lichee, lemon and lime trees, and two huge mango trees which cast abundant shade over lush grass. The giant mango tree on the left had a bench swing attached to it and Corinne stopped there instead of going on to the beach.

The sound of the waves beating against the shore was soothing. She couldn’t see the deep blue of the ocean, for the beach slanted downward beyond the yard, but she knew it was very close. It was so peaceful here. It would be heavenly to sit in this swing and watch the sunset, to have someone she loved beside her, drawing her near, sharing the beauty and wonder of nature and the love of one another.

She suddenly felt so lonely and confused. Why had Jared’s scathing remarks hurt her so much? She shouldn’t care what he thought of her. He had admitted that Naneki was his mistress and, for some reason that hurt, too. And the little girl who had called him Papa. Corinne didn’t believe for one minute that she wasn’t Jared’s child. Jared should have married Naneki, if only for the sake of his daughter. But instead he had come
to the mainland and married her, for revenge against her father.

She was weary of it all. She was tired of fighting with him, of trying to understand what had happened to their one loving night. She just wanted to go home. She wouldn’t even try to get back the money Jared had taken from her. Let him keep it all, she didn’t need it.

A door slamming at the front of the house drew Corinne’s attention. She turned in the swing just in time to see Jared cross from the house to the wall of pines and go toward the stable. A few minutes later she heard a horse canter away. So he was gone. And without even a good-bye. Instead of relief, she felt the tears begin again.

Corinne sat alone at the kitchen table, sipping the Chinese tea Akela had made earlier. It was the first of November, three weeks to the day since Jared had returned to the city. Her efforts to get back to Honolulu herself had been frustrated over and over again.

She had found out quickly enough that the stable was off-limits to her.
Kapu
, the big Hawaiian who tended the few horses had shouted at her the day she went there. Jared had left orders that she wasn’t to use the carriage, nor could she have a horse. And each time she had sneaked into the stable to try and get a horse anyway, she was discovered by the big Hawaiian and had another exchange of shouts that neither of them understood, for he hardly spoke a word of English, and she understood only a few Hawaiian words.

Corinne had had only one other opportunity for getting away, when the iceman stopped to deliver ice, as he did periodically. She had quickly asked him to give her a ride to the nearest town, shoving what little cash she had into his hands. But Akela had overheard, and warned him that Jared would come after him with a club if he took his
wahine male
anywhere. The poor
man’s eyes had bulged. He couldn’t get away fast enough.

“Kolina no leave,” Akela had said to her afterwards. “Ialeka say so.”

Corinne had been furious with her, but the huge woman only clucked her tongue and walked away. That had been more than a week ago. Corinne couldn’t bribe Akela. She’d been with Jared since he was a baby. Akela would never sell her loyalty.

“Why did you marry Jared?”

Corinne caught her breath at the sudden intrusion into her thoughts. She looked up to see Malia standing across the table from her. It was the first time the girl had spoken to her in three weeks, in fact, the first time she had even come near her. She had always left a room whenever Corinne entered, and she took all her meals in her own room, avoiding Corinne.

“Well?”

Corinne couldn’t blame the girl for her hatred. “There were several reasons why Jared and I married,” she answered, hoping the girl wouldn’t press her.

“Did you love him?”

“No.”

“Did he love you?”

“No, he certainly didn’t.” Corinne heard the bitterness creeping into her own voice.

“Then why?”

Corinne felt as if she were being backed into a corner. “It really isn’t any of your business.”

Malia rested her hands on the back of a chair and leaned forward. “He is my brother,” she said, nearly pleading. “I asked him why he married you, but he said the same thing you just did. I am asking you now to help me understand.”

Corinne lowered her eyes from the beseeching look
on Malia’s face. She tried to put herself in this young girl’s place and realized how terribly bewildered she must be.

“Your brother promised to give me what I wanted out of a marriage—no husband.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was not to interfere in anything I did. We were to lead separate lives.”

“If you didn’t want to live with him, then why did you come here?”

“I don’t think you would really care to know the answer to that,” Corinne said in a hard tone. “It does not say much for your brother.”

“My brother has done nothing wrong, except to choose you for his wife!” Malia came to Jared’s defense, quickly hostile again.

Corinne matched Malia’s anger with her own. “Jared is not the paragon of virtue you think he is, my dear. He lied about his reason for marrying me. He claimed it was a matter of honor. You see, your dear brother had raped me. He offered to save my reputation through marriage.”

“You lie!”

“Ask him and see if he can deny it. That was his excuse for marrying me, Malia. But it
was
only an excuse, for your brother has no conscience. The real reason he married me was this; he thought that as my husband, he could control the stock I owned in my father’s shipyard. He wanted to ruin my father. He found out too late that he couldn’t control my stock at all. It must have been a terrible blow.”

“Your father is…” Malia couldn’t finish.

“Did Jared explain to you about my father? Or did he only tell you his side of the story?”

“He—he said my mother died—that my mother
killed herself because she couldn’t live without Samuel Barrows,” Malia said brokenly.

“Yes, she loved my father and he loved her. She wasn’t strong enough to go on without him. But my father never knew how badly their separation affected her. All these years, he had thought she was alive and happy with her life. He was crushed when Jared told him what had happened, for he still loved her. Remember, she originally sent my father away from here.”

“But Jared said he was to blame!”

“No one can be held responsible for the weakness of another.” Corinne replied. “Jared never saw it that way, though. That’s why he went to the mainland, and that’s why he married me, all for revenge. He used me, Malia, when I had never done anything to him to cause such treatment.”

“Is this why you came here then?” Malia asked. “You wanted revenge too?”

“You sound as though you don’t think I was justified, Malia,” Corinne said quietly.

“You were not! You got what you wanted. Jared came home—he left you to lead the separate life you wanted.”

“Yes, he left me, but there’s more to it than that. You see, he deserted me publicly, Malia, the very day after we were married and he learned that he couldn’t use me to ruin my father. He ruined me instead, with a formal announcement in all the newspapers that his wife had proved unsatisfactory and he was deserting her. It was not true. Your brother found no fault with me. He meant only to hurt me. And if you think you have been humiliated by what I did, think about how I felt after the public announcement.”

“I don’t believe you! You say all this only because
Jared is not here to deny it! And nothing could excuse what you did—nothing!”

Corinne lost all patience with the girl. “I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. I created a scandal, but it was all an act.”

“What are you saying?” Malia demanded. “Everyone knows you’ve slept with a great many men!”

“Everyone thinks I have!” Corinne replied furiously, not caring anymore what she revealed. “I entertained men in my hotel suite, but not in my bedroom. It wasn’t necessary to go that far to humiliate Jared, not when people jump so easily to the worst conclusion. It was all a farce, Malia. The only man who has ever touched me is your brother!”

Malia drew herself up. “I should never have come to you for the truth.”

Corinne stood up, her eyes reflecting exasperation. “And I should have known better than to tell you the truth. It’s easier to think I’m a whore, isn’t it? You can go on thinking that, because I don’t give a damn what you believe.”

“You—you’re horrible!” Malia cried. She ran from the room in tears.

Corinne slumped back in her chair. She had hurt the girl again. Why the devil couldn’t she keep her temper? She had told Malia that her brother was a cad, and had tried to make herself appear blameless, when she knew she wasn’t.

Corinne glanced out the windows at the storm clouds gathering. The sky was as dark as her mood.