Desire Never Changes

Thanking her Somer rang off. Andrew had promised that he would take a few days’ holiday while she was staying at the hotel and that they could be alone together to talk over their plans. Suddenly Somer longed for him to be with her; to take her into his arms and kiss away all her doubts and fears, to obliterate completely the face of the mocking stranger who made her feel so aware of her inadequacies.

When her luggage arrived she unpacked carefully, selecting a pale lemon wrap-round skirt in cool cotton and a toning tee-shirt, which she changed into as soon as she had showered. Feeling more in keeping with the other guests she debated whether to remain in her room and wait for Andrew, or to walk through the gardens. In the event the decision was made for her. She was just finishing her second cup of tea when she heard a rap on her door.

‘It’s me, darling,’ Andrew’s familiar voice called. ‘Open the door.’

‘Andrew!’ Her cheeks pink with excitement Somer flung herself bodily into his arms, her face raised for his kiss.

‘Let me get inside.’ Andrew laughed, but there was faint uneasiness in his eyes as he glanced down the empty corridor. ‘I am supposed to be on duty you know.’

‘I was hoping you would meet me at the airport.’ They were inside the room now, but Andrew had made no move to take her back in his arms.

‘Oh come on, darling, don’t sulk.’ Impatience edged his voice, normally so warm and loving. Tears suddenly, and appallingly, threatened, despite her efforts to blink them away. She was behaving like a child, what was wrong with her? Andrew saw the betraying sheen and was instantly apologetic.

‘Darling, I’m a miserable brute, but it’s just that I’m so tired. I’ve had to put in extra time to make sure I could take a few days off while you’re here. Forgive me for not being there, but I did send Judith, so at least you were met by a familiar face.’

Suppressing the desire to tell him that she would have been far happier with a completely strange one Somer moved back towards him. His hands cupped her shoulders, and he bent, kissing the corner of her mouth lightly, but despite the caress he was still holding her away from him and she had to suppress a feeling of disappointment. Of course he was tired, and probably the last thing he felt like was making love to her. Traitorous as a serpent the thought slithered into her mind that the stranger in the lift would never been too tired to make love, would never hold the woman he loved at arm’s length when she could be moulded against his body, matching the heavy thud of his heartbeat. Quelling the thought she smiled up at Andrew, reminded herself of her recent proud boast to her father that she was grown up and adult.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ she said softly, ‘I do understand. We can talk at dinner tonight.’

His arms dropped to his sides, and he turned slightly away from her, fiddling with the lamp on the dressing-table. Her room was elegantly furnished with pretty cane furniture, its colour-scheme soft blues and greys, a soft, thick pile carpet in soft blue echoing the same colour.

‘Somer, I’m sorry, I can’t have dinner with you tonight. I’ve got a meeting on with the Manager—something I just can’t get out of. Look, why don’t you have something sent up to your room and get an early night. Tomorrow we can talk, make plans…You must be tired anyway after your journey.’

Somer forbode to point out that a flight of little over an hour was hardly an exhausting ordeal, meekly acceding to his suggestion and wishing the tiny nagging pain inside her would go away instead of flaring into life.

With a brief peck on her cheek Andrew left her. Feeling completely deflated, not knowing what to do with herself after the anti-climax of their reunion. Somer stared blindly out across the gardens and then glanced at her watch. It was six o’clock and the evening stretched emptily in front of her, the thought of a solitary meal in her room somehow unappealing.

Crushing the disloyal thought that suggested that Andrew might have made some time to spend with her on her very first evening, as being that of a child, not the adult she had proclaimed so vehemently to her father that she was, Somer decided that a walk through the gardens might help banish the fit of miseries that hovered threateningly.

She found that she had them almost completely to herself when she walked through the foyer and out into the open air, the pool now almost deserted, only one lone figure distorting the smooth blue water as he cleaved it with the sure overarm motions of a strong crawl. The dark head lifted just long enough for Somer to recognise the unmistakable features of the stranger from the lift, and she faltered just long enough to recognise herself and be dismayed by her own reluctance to cross the pool area in case she excited his attention for a second time in one day.

Her thoughts, as she made her way through the gardens, were all of her unsatisfactory reunion with Andrew. Her body ached with that same indefinable torment she had experienced at Easter, and she could only wonder at Andrew’s greater self-control. She wanted to be married to him now, she thought rebelliously, not in nine months’ time. It was all very well for her father to say that they would have the rest of their lives to spend together, but right now the nine months he had said they must wait seemed like a lifetime. After this holiday she wouldn’t see Andrew again until Christmas. He had a month off then and was going to spend it in Aberdeen with Somer and her father. It would be the first time the two most important men in her life met, and she was desperately anxious for them to like one another.

Andrew was already predisposed to like her father, she knew. Even when Sir Duncan had insisted that they must wait before marrying Andrew had not lost his temper or protested. He could understand her father’s point of view, he had admitted, and in fact he had been the one to assure her that her father was only acting out of concern for her, Somer remembered, thinking back to that occasion. Unfortunately she couldn’t entirely escape the conviction that her father was not equally responsive towards Andrew. Nothing specific had been said, but she had sensed a certain lack of enthusiasm which was not entirely connected with her age, a certain tension in her father’s voice whenever she mentioned Andrew’s name.

It was over an hour before she returned from her walk, noticing as she did so that dusk was already crowding the vividly beautiful sunset from the sky, reminding her of how much further south Jersey was than Aberdeen where the light nights continued well into the autumn.

Judith was back on duty on reception when Somer walked in. She was talking to the stranger from the lift, now dressed semi-formally in an open-throated soft white shirt that emphasised the tanned column of his throat and tapering black trousers which drew Somer’s bemused gaze to the leanly muscled power of his thighs. He moved slightly as though aware of her scrutiny, even though he couldn’t possibly have seen her where she stood in the shadows of the doorway, flexing his body slightly like a large muscular cat taking pleasure in the fluid response of bone and sinew. Judith followed the brief movement with admiring eyes, leaning slightly forward across the desk so that her blouse tightened revealingly across her breasts. The dark head inclined and although Somer could not see his expression, she guessed that there was an unmistakable sensual appreciation in the jade eyes as they studied the curvaceous outline of Judith’s breasts.

He moved away at last, his business obviously concluded, and Somer almost shrank back into the shadows as he headed for the open main doors and out into the dusk beyond.

‘Now that’s what I call a man,’ Judith smirked as Somer approached the desk and requested her key. ‘Not that you would know what I mean. A man like that would make you run a mile wouldn’t he, little scaredy-cat?’

The mocking taunt stung, and Somer grabbed for her key, colour high in her cheeks. To hide her agitation she asked huskily, ‘Is he a guest here?’

‘You could say that. He’s Chase Lorimer, the photographer. He’s been here for three weeks—working. If you can call taking pictures of bikini-clad models working.’ Judith gave a softly sensual laugh. ‘I must say if he was photographing me it wouldn’t take him long to coax me out of my clothes and into his arms. He’s all man,’ she said it admiringly, ‘and an extremely experienced one at that, if the gossip’s anything to go by. Why the interest?’ she asked, adding tauntingly, ‘Surely you aren’t entertaining hopes in that direction yourself? You wouldn’t stand a chance, he’s been besieged by beautiful women ever since he got here, and even now that his current girlfriend’s gone back to London with the rest of the models, he hasn’t shown any interest in anyone else. And he’d certainly never show any in a frightened little innocent like you,’ she finished derisively, glancing up and down Somer’s slender body. ‘You just haven’t got what it takes, Somer, and I doubt you ever will have. No girl who’s hung on to her virginity as long as you have will ever make a man a satisfactory bed partner.’

‘Andrew wants me.’

Later Somer was to ask herself what had prompted her into such a rash speech. Surely it wasn’t a desire to score off on Judith; to turn the tables and make her pride sting a little.

‘Does he?’ Judith’s smile taunted her. ‘Are you sure about that, Somer? Couldn’t he wait to take you in his arms the moment you got here? Are you spending tonight in his bed? Does he want you so much that he can’t hide his desire for you every time he sees you. Is that how it is between the two of you?’

Her contemptuous laughter followed Somer as she fled towards the lift, each cruel word a barb biting deep into her heart. How could Judith so easily unearth her own secret fears and doubts; how could she have known of her own disquiet that Andrew had not appeared more eager to be with her; to touch her and kiss her as she was longing for him to do? Andrew respected her innocence and inexperience, she told herself, trying to calm her uneasy nerves as she headed for her room. Of course his self-control must put a strain on him; that same strain she had sensed when he walked into her room. Of course the reason he hadn’t kissed her as she had wanted him to do was that he was concerned that their lovemaking might get out of control. Andrew was only acting out of concern for her, and it was both foolish and childish of her to wish that he would sweep her off her feet and into his bed and that he would tell her that it was impossible for him to resist the enticement of her body; that his love and desire for her were so great that he must possess her.

Thoroughly confused by her own feelings Somer opened the door of her room, locking it firmly behind her before going on to her small balcony, trying to will away the self-pitying loneliness that swept her. In Aberdeen her father would be dining with business associates as he so often did during the week. At the weekend he was going to stay with an old friend. They would spend it fishing, her father’s favourite sport. She sighed, half wishing that her father would marry again. She would have enjoyed having brothers and sisters, and her father would be lonely once she was married, but when she had broached the subject he had told her that he had loved her mother too much to contemplate putting someone else in her place. She hadn’t doubted that he spoke the truth, and she flushed a little remembering her impassioned cry after she had first met Andrew, that her father didn’t understand how she felt.

‘I understand all too well, lassie,’ he had told her grimly. ‘I can remember what it feels like to fall in love, and how impetuous girls of eighteen can be. Your mother was that age when I first met her, and although you were born ten months after our marriage, you could easily have arrived very much earlier. Some things never change,’ he had concluded wryly, ‘and human desire is one of them. You may think because I’m your father that I don’t understand how you feel. It’s because I do that I’m so worried for you, but I doubt that you’ll heed me any more than Catriona and I heeded her father, although these days, things being what they are, I suppose I needn’t concern myself too much with the possibility of an unexpected grandchild.’

That assumption on her father’s part as well as driving the rich colour to her face had brought a stumbled protest to her lips that Somer realised with the benefit of hindsight, had been half surprised. Had her father really believed that she and Andrew were already lovers? From his frank statements to her about his relationship with her mother it seemed plain that they had not waited for marriage before consummating their love.

Thoroughly dissatisfied with the train of her thoughts Somer decided impulsively that she had to speak to Andrew. Not now tonight when she knew he was in conference with the hotel management, but first thing tomorrow morning before his working day started. She knew where his room was, and although staff quarters were forbidden to the guests, she knew she could find her way there unnoticed. Half hidden by the clutter of thoughts milling in her brain was the hope that by taking such action she might precipitate the intimacy Andrew had previously been at pains to avoid and that seeing her in his room might urge him to forget caution and only remember their love. Her blood heated to fever pitch at the thought, her body eagerly yearning for the close proximity of his, sensations as yet only half understood coursing through her veins.

Andrew! His name was on her lips when sleep finally claimed her, but inexplicably her dreams held not Andrew’s fair attractiveness, but the dark compulsion of a far different man. A man who shared Judith’s contempt of her, who laughed at her and called her a silly child, even while his green eyes told her that he found nothing childish in the soft curves of her body and if he wished it he could easily take her beyond childhood and into womanhood. ‘No…’ She moaned the denial in her sleep, moving restlessly beneath the light quilt, trying to escape from her dreams and the threat they seemed to hold.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE was awake in plenty of time to put the previous night’s plan into action. From past experience she knew that Andrew would be on duty at seven, stopping to have breakfast later in the staff dining-room, once his working day had swung into action. It was just after quarter to six when she left her room, using the stairs in preference to the lift, knowing that there were unlikely to be any other guests using them at this time of the morning and also that if she went through the fire door on the third floor it led on to the stairs to the staff bedrooms.

As she had hoped she met no one en route to Andrew’s room, and even better his door was slightly ajar, a used tray of tea outside, suggesting that he had put it there and then forgotten to close his door.

Pushing it open gently, Somer tiptoed inside. Although much less attractively furnished than her own room, Andrew’s room was pleasantly large and as she knew, doubled as a bedroom-cum-sitting room, one wall covered in units that held his books and stereo system, as well as the pull-down desk-top he used to work on, and a small portable television.

Privately she had always considered the room rather bleak, lacking a woman’s touch, but as she hovered in the small hallway, her presence concealed by the door to the small bathroom, she became aware that Andrew was not alone. Her body froze as she recognised Judith’s voice, husky and faintly lazy as though she were still half asleep, the small protesting sound that accompanied it quite unmistakably coming from the springs of Andrew’s bed, her drawled, ‘Umm, darling that was lovely,’ leaving Somer in no doubt as to the intimacy she had interrupted. But worse was to come. While she hesitated like a wooden puppet, still trying to absorb the enormity of what was happening, Somer heard Judith say, ‘Will you think about me while you’re making love to little miss goody two-shoes?’

‘Hardly.’ She barely recognised Andrew’s voice rich with self-satisfaction, replete with sexual pleasure, far different from the voice in which he spoke to her. ‘If anything I’ll think of daddy’s money and the future it’s going to buy for you and me one day. That’s always supposing I can bring myself to make love to her.’

‘Well, I think you’re going to have to take the plunge pretty soon, my darling, otherwise she’s going to get pretty suspicious. Virgin she might be, but she isn’t so innocent that she doesn’t know what she’s missing.’

There was a brief rustling movement and then Andrew groaned, his voice strangely hoarse as he gasped out, ‘Dear God, Jude, I don’t know if I can make love to her. She turns me off completely. She hasn’t got the faintest idea what to do to attract a man. If I hadn’t known about daddy’s money I’d never even have looked at her. It’s no wonder she’s still a virgin. I can’t imagine any real man ever wanting her…’

The scornful words dug into Somer’s heart like poison-tipped darts, unimaginable pain searing through her. She wanted to cry out her agony, to rush into the room and tear and claw at both of them. To…So no real man would want her, would he? If it was possible, knowing that Andrew thought that about her, hurt even more than the knowledge that he had only wanted her for her father’s money—that she had been the victim of a cruel and greedy plot.

‘Just wait until I’m married to her, then we can make plans. First a hotel in Barbados or somewhere else in the Caribbean, financed by daddy’s money, and then once she realises I don’t want her it shouldn’t be hard to persuade her to get a divorce. The hotel will be in my name of course, and just in case daddy proves difficult there’s always the threat of revealing just how inadequate his darling daughter is, if he doesn’t play ball. I can just see it now, can’t you? “Oil magnate’s daughter unable to arouse her husband.” No, we won’t have any trouble getting rid of her when the time comes. I like a woman who’s all woman, who knows how to please a man. A taste I share with our friend Lorimer, unless I’m mistaken,’ Andrew added, jealousy edging under his voice, sending fresh waves of agony searing through her body.

She ought to leave before they realised that she was listening, Somer thought emptily, but the MacDonald pride would not let her, and her Celtic heritage urged her to stay and hear all that there was to hear, to endure everything there was to endure, and so she stayed where she was, opening herself to the torrent of pain sweeping over her, bowing her head beneath it with Celtic stoic acceptance of the inevitability of pain, only her fiery MacDonald pride keeping her from crying it out loud.

‘Jealous,’ Judith teased huskily. ‘He was just chatting to me…’

‘Chatting to you? Are you trying to tell me he didn’t ask you out?’

‘Not this time.’

‘And if he did?’ The jealousy in Andrew’s voice increased.

‘Of come on darling, you can’t expect me to spend all my spare time alone while you’re wining and dining Miss Oil Wells. Like you just said I’m all woman, and I have my…needs…’

Feeling physically sick Somer stepped back blindly searching for the door. She couldn’t endure any more. She wouldn’t endure any more and she would prove to them both that they were both wrong about her; that she could attract a man physically; that she was just as desirable as Judith, every bit as much a woman, and for starters…

Barely giving herself time to think she gathered up all her courage and walked into the room, tugging off the small diamond solitaire and tossing it bitterly on to the bed, standing in full view of both startled occupants. Judith didn’t look quite as glamorous in the dawn light as she did in her full make-up, and in another half-dozen years she would begin to look blowsy, Somer decided with savage satisfaction, but it wasn’t the future that concerned her now, it was the present.

‘Somer!’ Andrew’s voice was startled and urgent, but Somer ignored it.

‘Don’t say a word,’ she warned him bitterly, ‘I’ve already heard enough. If I were you I’d concentrate on satisfying your…’ her lip curled derisively, ‘friend’s “needs”, that is if she still wants you now that I’m not going to provide the pair of you with a meal ticket for life. You’d got it all planned, hadn’t you, but you made one vital miscalculation. I’m obviously not as frigid as you assumed, Andrew, although it’s just as well I discovered the truth the way I did. I imagine it would have been very embarrassing for us both if I’d found you alone this morning. I came here hoping you would make love to me.’ God how it hurt to drag out that admission, but she was going to make herself face up to just how pitiful and contemptible she had been. ‘But it seems you have other prefer-ences…’ She let her eyes slide dismissively over Judith’s naked shoulders, watching the rage simmer in the other woman’s eyes. ‘I just hope you don’t find them too expensive,’ she added softly with a final flourish as she turned towards the door.

Andrew had gone a sickly pale colour while she spoke, but Judith was on the point of exploding with barely concealed anger. No doubt she had looked forward to a lifetime of luxury at her expense, Somer decided. She herself must be growing up quickly because it was easy to see that knowing she was cheating Somer must have added a decided fillip to her affair with Andrew. Now that fillip was gone, Judith just might turn her eyes in other directions; she even found herself hoping that she might, and that Andrew, who was plainly besotted with her, would suffer as she was now suffering.

Somer thought she would die with the mortification of it. Was there something wrong with her? Some vital element lacking? something that made her less feminine than other women, some deep female core that was simply missing from her make up. ‘No!’ The denial was torn from her throat and prompted her headlong flight from the scene of her humiliation. All her fierce MacDonald pride rose up inside her, a look in her eyes that her father would have recognised, her wild untamed Highland blood crying out for vengeance, for balm to soothe her aching pride. She had loved and tasted the bitter dregs of betrayal, she would never touch either again. But first she had to make good her initial promise to herself.

Not stopping to analyse her reaction to the scene she had just experienced Somer hurried on, knowing only that to remain still was to open herself to the same pain which had overwhelmed her in Andrew’s bedroom. Her first instinct to flee, to simply leave the hotel and go home, was lost beneath the tidal swell of a need to prove Andrew and Judith’s cruel comments wrong. She would find a man who wanted her and she would find him before her holiday was over.

Down in the foyer she saw that Judith was just about to take over the reception desk. Another girl, a stranger to Somer, was talking to one of the hotel guests, his broad shoulders bent towards her. Somer felt her heartbeat accelerate as she recognised the male outline of him. A real man, Judith had called Chase Lorimer; a very sensual man Somer would have called him; a man who would not think twice about taking what he wanted from life, a man who would teach her in one lesson far more about the game of love than a thousand fumbling encounters with boys as inexperienced as she was herself. Half a dozen steps away from the desk Somer halted. She could hear him asking the way to a small little-known local cove. The girl behind the reception desk frowned.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Lorimer,’ Somer heard her apologise, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where it is, but if you’ll just bear with me for a moment I’ll try to find out.’ She glanced round to Judith who was deep in conversation with Andrew and Somer reacted blindly, urged on by the same fierce MacDonald pride which had buoyed her up earlier.

A little to her own surprise she heard herself saying coolly, ‘I know where the cove is.’ She saw Andrew’s head jerk up in recognition of her voice. ‘In fact…’ Chase Lorimer had turned round and was surveying her with that same lazy scrutiny she recognised from the previous day. ‘In fact I was planning to go there myself today. Perhaps we could travel there together? Do you have a car?’