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An appalled horror descended on her. She was a nonviolent person. Words, not fists, had always been her creed. Ever since she had entered this hotel, things had started swinging out of normality.
Was it Alice who had stepped through the looking glass and into another world?
Kristy was beginning to feel the same thing had happened to her. She took a deep breath and tried to regain some sanity. How could there be any sense of intimacy between this stranger and herself? She had to be imagining it. His talk of love and lovemaking must be triggering wild offshoots from the need to belong to someone, somewhere.
Yet, as though they were somehow acutely attuned to each other, she sensed a similar withdrawal from him, the automatic reaction to shock and disbelief, needing time to pause and take stock, to reassess. His face tightened. His mouth thinned into a grim line. The dark eyes narrowed to gleaming slits.
Kristy thought about apologising, but since this whole scene had erupted from her initial apology, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, he had been as much in the wrong as she was. Pride insisted she concede no fault in what she had done, but explanations were certainly due.
“Monsieur . . .” she started again.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped angrily.
Whatever I say seems to get me into trouble, Kristy thought. “Very well,” she agreed, wondering what else she could call him. “There is an explanation....”
“I shall be interested to hear it,” he snapped again. “I shall be fascinated to hear how you explain yourself,” he went on, his voice gathering a stinging contempt. “Every word will be a priceless pearl to my ears. I shall assess it with intense appreciation for its worth.”
Which set Kristy back on her heels because her explanation didn’t make much sense to her, and she doubted it would make sense to him either. However, the truth was the truth. “I have this key....” she began slowly. “The manager gave it to me....”
That was as far as she got.
He took hold of her shoulders and shook her in furious impatience. “You are incredible! Totally incredible!” he seethed.
Kristy realised that what he was saying was true. Her explanation was totally incredible. But this man was teetering on the edge of being totally out of control and she didn’t know what to say or do. “Please...” She couldn’t call him monsieur. “. . . take your hands off me,” she begged.
He laughed with arrogant disdain, but he released her and dropped his hands to his sides. “You think I cannot do that?” he taunted, his eyes flashing bitter derision. “You think I have to touch you? That I cannot help myself?” He bared his teeth in a scornful sneer. “I can do it. See for yourself!”
“Thank you,” Kristy breathed in deep relief.
Violence did breed violence, she thought. She shouldn’t have slapped him. Strictly words from now on, she promised herself.
As though he had come to the same civilized conclusion, he stepped back from her in haughty rejection, a cold pride stamped on his face. His aristocratic bearing was very pronounced as he strode around the room, releasing his inner turbulence in sharp angry gestures and bursts of scorn.
“You are nothing,” he hurled at her. “Nothing at all! Not a speck of dirt. Utterly insignificant. Meaningless.”
Kristy steeled herself to remain cool, no matter how hotly this man stirred her blood. In actual fact, what he said was a fairly accurate description. To the world at large, she was a nobody. There was no-one left who cared whether she existed or not. Besides, agreeing with people’s ideas was a better way of placating them than disagreeing with them.
“I realise that,” she said calmly.
Her answer brought him to an abrupt halt. His brow creased in puzzlement. The dark eyes stabbed at her in suspicious re-assessment “You realise that?” he said slowly, watching intently for some telltale reaction from her.
“Certainly,” Kristy said with assurance. Why should she mean anything to this man? They were complete strangers.
He sauntered towards her, ruthless purpose stamped on his face. “I’ll prove how worthless you are.”
“You don’t have to prove anything of the kind,” Kristy cried in alarm. She didn’t want him to shake her again.
“Where have you been for the last two years?” he bit out savagely. “What have you been doing? Why did you move out of my life without so much as a word of warning or excuse?”
Understanding began to dawn in Kristy’s mind. For some reason this man thought she was someone else. Enlightenment grew in rippling waves. The hotel staff, from the doorman to the manager, had thought she was someone else. It was the only explanation that fitted the facts; all the odd reactions she had been getting from the staff which she had set down to snobbery, the accident in the lobby that had happened because this man had caught sight of her, the bellboy’s proclaiming it un scandale terrible, the manager with his strange manoeuvrings and talk of discretion.
This certainly loomed as a very delicate situation!
The tantalising question was...who was she supposed to be? Who did they all think she was? And why couldn’t they see she wasn’t who they thought she was?
“Answer me!”
He was towering over her again, commanding her attention. Kristy pulled her mind out of its whirling flurry of activity and concentrated on what was most immediate. Somewhere, sometime, there had to be an explanation of what was happening. In the meantime, Kristy thought, it was imperative to answer this man’s question truthfully and with a calm composure. Her heart gave a nervous little flutter as she looked up into the darkly demanding eyes.
“I was in San Francisco most of the time....”
“So! You did go with the American!” he threw at her. “Yes...I can hear it in your voice. Damn you for the conniving cheat you are!”
“I’m not a cheat!” she hurled back at him in fierce resentment.
“You think you can get to me again? After what you’ve done?”
She hadn’t done anything! Except use the key that had brought her into this room. However, before she could expostulate, his hand lifted and curled around her cheek. Kristy flinched away from the touch but it was an ineffectual movement. He tilted her chin up, bent his head, and his mouth crashed onto hers.
The shock of it left her momentarily defenceless. His hand slid into her hair entangling itself in the thick tresses and binding her to him as forcefully as the arm that scooped her body hard against his. Then an explosion of sensation robbed her of any thought of resistance.
His mouth possessed hers in a frenzy of passion, igniting a response that rushed into being, spreading through her like wildfire, an uncontrollable force, taking her over, thrumming to a beat of its own. Heat pulsed from him, suffusing her entire body, exciting an almost excruciating awareness of hard flesh and muscle imprinting themselves on her. His kiss plundered and destroyed her previous knowledge of what a kiss could be, arousing a compulsive need to cast all limits aside and plummet into more and more enticing levels of melding together.
The break came as swiftly and as shockingly as the enforced connection. He tore his mouth from hers. His hands encircled her upper arms, holding her away from him as he stepped back. Dazed by the abrupt withdrawal and still helplessly churning with the sensations he’d stirred, Kristy looked at him in blank incomprehension.
His dark eyes glittered with malevolent triumph. “You see?” he said, removing his grasp, lifting his hands away as though the touch of her was distasteful to him. “I feel nothing for you. Absolutely nothing.”
It was a barefaced lie.
He was not unaffected by her, nor what had passed between them. His breathing was visibly faster and even as he swung on his heel and turned his back to her, Kristy was recalling all too acutely the burgeoning of his erection, proving he had been physically moved. Besides, how could such passion be generated out of nothing?
Though that raised the thorny question of how could she have been so deeply affected when ostensibly there was nothing between them but a misunderstanding. Worse, a case of mistaken identity! A painful flush scorched up her neck and burnt her cheeks. He had been abusing another woman, while here she was, deeply shaken by a vulnerability she couldn’t explain.
Nevertheless, explanations were in order. In very fast order, too, given the volatile nature of feelings running riot here. She had to correct his conviction she was someone he had known before. That was at the heart of this whole wretched mix-up.
“The reason there is nothing is because there was nothing in the first place,” Kristy said shakily.
He whirled around, his face contorted with furious resentment. His eyes stabbed black daggers at her. “Don’t make a fool of yourself by stating the obvious.”
Still hopelessly unsettled by the turbulence he’d aroused, Kristy couldn’t stop her own temper from flaring. “You’re deliberately trying to provoke me!”
He did not deny it. He made no reply at all but his eyes kept accusing her of dark, nameless crimes.
Kristy struggled to get herself under control. “What has happened is quite simple,” she stated once again, determined to make him listen, no matter what he said. “You see...”
“I know what has happened,” he cut in emphatically.
Kristy let the interruption fly past her. “...you’re making a mistake about me. You think I’m someone else....”
He gave a cynical laugh.
“I’m not the same woman who...”
“No. Most decidedly not. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been dead for the last two years. I wish you were. It would be better if you were dead.”
Kristy almost stamped her foot in frustration at his refusal to listen. “Will you give me one chance...”
“Absolutely not,” he bit out with venom. “No more chances. You don’t deserve any chances.”
They were talking at cross-purposes. Trying to explain the true situation was obviously a futile exercise. His mind was set on one idea and he wasn’t in the mood to listen to her.
“Fine,” Kristy agreed with some asperity. Since he was not open to reason, it was best for her to give up and walk away. “Please excuse me. I’m going back to my room.”
He waved a disdainful dismissal. “Do that.”
“And locking the door.” So he couldn’t storm after her.
“Good!” He looked satisfied.
“I’m leaving Paris tomorrow.” That gave him a deadline if he could calm down enough to hear her side of this crazy business.
“Excellent!”
Kristy burned over his intransigence. “I’m never coming back,” she declared.
That should finish it for him, she thought. He could consider her dead forever. For some reason, that hurt deep down inside her, but she steadfastly buried the hurt. If it was what he wanted, this meeting with him definitely had no future. Best for her to forget it had ever happened.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously, as though he didn’t believe her. “What do you want from me?” he demanded.
Kristy’s chin lifted in proud rejection of him and all that might have come of this encounter if he could have accepted that things were different to what he thought they were. “Nothing!” she declared in snapping defiance of his suspicions about her. “Absolutely nothing!”
Having delivered the most affirmative exit line she could think of, she swung on her heel and strode for the interconnecting door. She had her hand on the knob, ready to sweep the door shut behind her when his voice cracked out again in harsh command.
“wait!”
She’d had enough. She’d done her best. He wouldn’t listen. He was only upsetting her further and further. So she did not wait. She did not so much as glance back at him. With her head held high, she marched into the suite she had been given and swiftly shut the door on him. One firm twist of the treacherous key and the lock clicked into place.
And that, thought Kristy, was that!
CHAPTER FOUR
KRISTY steamed up and down the luxurious sitting room, totally unaware and unappreciative of her rich and elegant surroundings. Her mind was in a ferment. What an aggravating man! What a positively infuriating man! Interfering with her life just because he thought she was someone else, turning her inside out with his confusing words and actions, making her feel things she had never felt before!
It wasn’t fair!
He wasn’t fair!
None of what had happened since she had arrived here in this damnable hotel was fair!
Kristy felt like picking up things and throwing them. Her gaze balefully targeted the vase of roses. But he would not have ordered them. He hated the woman he thought she was. No, the vase of red roses was the hotel management’s idea to help the resolution of a delicate situation. Except it wasn’t delicate! It was downright hopeless!
Why did they all think she was someone else?
Why?
Kristy marched into the marble bathroom and examined her reflection in the mirror there. It was a most uncomfortable feeling to think there was someone else who looked exactly like her. Was there such a thing as a perfect double? She had heard of movie stars who had look-alike stand-ins, but they weren’t perfect doubles. Surely a man who had been her double’s lover would see some differences if there were any, even though it had been two years since he had been with her. A close resemblance might fool hotel staff, but a lover of intimate acquaintance?
Kristy stared at her reflection in bitter frustration.
Who are you there on the other side of the mirror?
Why did you walk out on him without a word?
I would not have done that.
I’m different from you. I’d never do such a heartless thing to someone who loved me. Or was it wounded pride on his part, losing a possession he’d believed was his. Either way, you must have been a callous creature to dump him like that. But why can’t he see I’m different?
Her hand lifted to trace her features. Was every line exactly the same? The shape of her face, her mouth, her nose, her eyes? And what about colouring? Were her eyes exactly the same clear blue? The blue of cornflowers? Was her hair precisely the same unusual shade of apricot gold? How could it be so? Surely it was impossible. Yet...how else could he make such a mistake?
Kristy shook her head in pained bewilderment. The whole thing was a nightmare. She wrenched her gaze off her reflection in the mirror and left the bathroom. She paused in the dressing-room, eyeing her canvas carryall.
She should pick it up and get out of here. It was the sensible thing to do. Get out of this suite, out of this hotel, right out of this nightmarish situation. Then she would be just herself again, on her way to Geneva, precisely as she had planned before letting herself be sidetracked by a sentimental impulse.
On her way to Geneva . . .
Kristy’s heart stopped dead as her mind performed a double loop. Her mission was to search the Red Cross records for some trace of the family she had lost twenty-five years ago. What if she hadn’t been the only survivor of the earthquake? What if she had a sister—an identical twin sister!—who’d also survived? Or who hadn’t even been in the same place at the same time?
Family—real family!
Her stilled heart burst into rapid pumping.
The answers she wanted might be right here. With the man in the suite next door. Having a twin made more sense out of everyone’s conviction she was someone else. If it was true.
Her mind whirled, struck by the set of eene coincidences... the man who knew staying in this hotel, being actually in the lobby when she had entered for the first and probably the last time in her life... Betty and John bringing her here after their deaths...an impulse... guided by feelings for the very people who might have inadvertently separated her from a twin sister.
Kristy rubbed at her forehead. It ached, as did her heart, carrying the burden of too many thoughts and too many feelings. There was only one way to sort them out. She had to talk to the man again, whether he wanted it or not. Besides, he probably needed a resolution as much as she did.
Too agitated to wait for a longer cooling-off period for him, Kristy headed for the dangerous door again. Nothing was going to put her off her purpose this time, not insults, not threats, not even physical abuse, though she didn’t believe he’d try that again.
She knocked to give him warning, then twisted the key in the lock and thrust the door open. “Monsieur . . .” she called commandingly, determined not to be deterred from asking the questions that had to be asked and answered.
No reply.
She stepped into his sitting room and called again, shooting her gaze around as much as she could see of his suite. It appeared as empty as when she’d first entered and there was no response to her call. She waited, riven by dreadful tension. Perhaps he was in the bathroom. She listened hard. No sound. There was an empty feel to the place, not even a remote sense of his strong presence.
Kristy stood blankly for several minutes, robbed of her purpose and at a total loss what to do next. He wasn’t here. She didn’t know his name. The hotel management was so hung up on discretion, it was most unlikely they’d just give it to her. Apart from which, since the mix-up was still in force, they’d probably think such an inquiry was another little joke on her part.
Her best course, she finally decided, was to wait a few hours and see if he came back. It was midafternoon now. If he was occupying this suite, he’d probably return to it to change for dinner. On the other hand, he might have washed his hands of her and gone off with the beautiful brunette.
