Substitute Lover

‘But the Fastnet …’ she protested weakly. ‘Gray … What … what does Carla think about it?’

The words were out before she could stop them. A curious expression, half-pain, half-pride, crossed Gray’s face.

‘She knows that it’s something I have to do,’ he told her quietly, and she was pierced with a poignant sense of loss, so totally did his voice and expression exclude her.

In those few words Gray had condemned her to the periphery of his life; had shown her that there was someone else in his life far more important to him than she could ever be.

She swallowed hard against the pain.

‘You love her a great deal.’ Her voice trembled and she saw Gray’s brief smile.

‘Can one quantify love? I don’t think so.’

‘Did you know the moment you met her that …?’

‘That I had found the woman I was going to love for the rest of my life?’ he submitted for her.

Something quivered and hurt inside her, some deep-lodged pain that, like a tiny splinter buried deep in one’s flesh, festered and irritated. Why had she never known before how possessive she felt about Gray? Why had it taken another woman to open her eyes to how desirable a man he was?

‘You’re looking very pale. What’s wrong?’

‘I just don’t like the thought of you entering the Fastnet.’ It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the entire truth either. It was the thought of losing him to Carla that had driven the blood from her face, just as much as the thought of losing him to the sea had frozen her heart in ice.

‘Come and have a look at the plans, I’ve got them here in my study.’

Something in the firm purposefulness of his voice calmed her a little. Gray knew the sea … he did not take risks … he never had. She remembered how thrilled she had been on the rare occasions she had sailed with him. Even then he had been fascinated by the problems of designing safe racing craft. His uncle had called it time-wasting. He preferred the more mundane side of the business. He had wanted to sell off part of the boat-yard to form a huge marina, but Gray and the local council had opposed him, and rightly so. It would have completely spoiled the atmosphere of the small village.

Somehow she found herself being guided into the study and sitting down alongside Gray while he unrolled plans for the hull of the new racing craft.

Soon he was lost in enthusiasm for what he was doing, pointing out to her how the design could be modified to fit into a family market; how the utilitarian interior of the prototype racing craft could be turned into comfortably luxurious accommodation for a small family.

At the moment, Stephanie was working on the book cover for a novel set in the Caribbean, and in her mind’s eye she saw Gray’s sleek new craft swinging gently at anchor in the background.

For ten years she had turned her back completely on sailing but now, poring over the plans Gray had spread out on the large partners’ desk in the study, she felt all the old enthusiasm and excitement of her teenage years come rushing back. A single glance had been enough to show her the grace and potential of Gray’s new boat. Without even having to strain her imagination to the slightest degree, she could already see the boat’s sleek lines as she sped over the water; she could almost feel the old thrill of racing against other small craft, the salt-laden breeze stinging her skin and lifting her hair. Those had been good days … happy, carefree days, before …

‘These new compounds mean that we can make the hull lighter than ever before, and these sails—–’ Gray’s finger indicated one of the sketches, and Stephanie pushed aside the past to concentrate on what he was showing her.

Unlike many of the entrants in the Fastnet Race, Gray’s yacht would only be sailed by him. Apparently, the fact that it could be handled by one man alone was one of its potential selling points in its racier form.

‘The sails will certainly give it plenty of speed,’ Stephanie remarked.

Her fear must have shown in her voice, because Gray said lightly, ‘Yes, and the special buoyancy tanks we’ve fitted will make it virtually unsinkable. The beauty of this design is that it can be fitted out as anything from a racing yacht to a sea-going cruiser, depending on what the customer wants. More and more people are sailing these days, and they’re demanding a wider and better equipped range of craft at the right price. I need that business, Stephanie, and I’m determined to get it.’ He rolled up the plans. ‘So far we’re very pleased with the way she’s tested out. I’m hoping to do the final sea trials in the next couple of weeks.’

She shivered slightly, unaware of the way the light from the lamp highlighted the rich copper tone of her hair. In the last ten years she had changed from a pretty girl into a beautiful, although somewhat haunted woman, Gray thought, watching her. He had a momentary impulse to reach out and watch her hair glide through his fingers, to see if it felt as warm and vibrant as it looked. Her mouth curved as she smiled uncertainly at him, and he got up abruptly.

‘You stay there, I’ll go and make us both some coffee.’

The clipped way he spoke broke the mood of relaxed friendship between them. It was almost as though he didn’t want her company …

Stephanie turned her head to one side automatically, hiding her expression from him. It was idiotic to feel hurt, but they had been getting on so well, and then for no reason at all, or so it seemed, Gray had suddenly retreated from her.

After he had gone into the kitchen for their coffee, Stephanie hunched her arms round her knees. The light from the lamp illuminated the haunting pensiveness of her face. Gray was right, it was time she learned to come to terms with the past, but every time she thought about Paul, every time she remembered his cruel words, every time she remembered how quickly their love had died, pain engulfed her.

It was safer to love a man the way she loved Gray, as a brother, rather than to love one the way she had loved Paul. And yet … She frowned, and chewed anxiously on her bottom lip. There was something different about Gray. She was aware of a tension within him that she had never noticed before. Gray was always so calm and controlled. She had rarely seen him lose his temper, never heard him raise his voice. He was a man of infinite resource and capability, adept at concealing his thoughts and his feelings, and yet today she had sensed that that control was slipping. Was it just because he was worried about the boat-yard?

She was still puzzling over a change in him when he came back with their coffee. A quick look at his face revealed that he was smiling at her, and Stephanie expelled a faint sigh of relief, without really knowing why she should do so. All she could think was that she didn’t want to be at odds with Gray, whatever the reason, and yet in the past they had quarrelled mightily over various issues on which they had taken opposing stances without it damaging their relationship in the slightest. So why was she so afraid now? Was it perhaps because of Carla? Did she fear that she might lose his friendship? That somehow his relationship with Carla threatened his relationship with her? But surely that was silly; she and Gray were friends, Carla and Gray were lovers.

‘Penny for them?’

Instinctively she bent her head so that a silky swathe of hair hid her expression from him. It was the first time she had ever felt the need to be defensive with Gray, and part of her mourned the fact that this should be so.

‘They aren’t worth it.’ She smiled up at him and wondered if her smile looked as forced as it felt. ‘I think I’ll go up to bed, if you don’t mind, Gray. I’m tired—it must be the hot weather.’

She had to avoid looking at him as she gave voice to the small lie. She never went to bed early on the first night of her visits. She and Gray normally stayed up until the early hours of the morning, catching up on one another’s news, teasing each other, talking … But tonight, for some reason, she was conscious of an air of constraint between them, and almost every time she looked at Gray, she couldn’t help mentally picturing him with Carla, his body as magnificently nude as it had been earlier, its muscled hardness covering the blonde’s more delicately female shape.

Gray didn’t say a word about her unusual decision to go to bed early, but as he walked her to the door and opened it for her, Stephanie glanced up at him and saw that his dark eyebrows were drawn together in a heavy frown.

Instinctively, without thinking what she was doing, she raised herself up on tiptoe, and pressed her fingertips to the frown lines, tenderly smoothing them away. Her gesture was completely unselfconscious, born of her desire to restore their relationship to its normal footing, but from the way Gray reacted her touch might have burned his skin like acid.

Lean fingers clamped round her wrist, his head jerking back as though he loathed the physical contact between their skins.

The pain of his bone-crunching grip was nothing to compare with the anguish of rejection which Stephanie suffered, when she saw the look of revulsion in his eyes.

‘Gray!’ Shock rounded her eyes to deep violet pools of pain, humiliation sending a burning wave of scarlet across her skin. Her arm throbbed from the tightness of his grip, and a terrible feeling of nausea churned in her stomach. What was it she had done?

Blue eyes narrowed sharply on her face, a hard burn of colour darkening the taut thrust of Gray’s cheekbones. More than ever he reminded her of a beast of prey, a dangerous jungle cat, waiting to pounce on its victim.

‘What did I do wrong?’

The words whispered past lips trembling slightly with the aftermath of shock.

Stephanie saw Gray’s lips twist. ‘Twenty-eight years old and you have to ask me that? You haven’t done the male sex any favours by living like a nun since Paul’s death, Steph.’

The violet eyes betrayed bewilderment and he made a sound of self-derision deep in his throat, caught midway between anger and amusement.

‘For God’s sake, do you want me to spell it out for you?’

Something dangerous had been let loose in the room: Stephanie could sense it and yet she didn’t know where the danger came from. She touched the tip of her tongue to her trembling lips, moistening them, in an acutely nervous gesture, blinking a little as she saw the flat hardness compressing Gray’s mouth as he watched her movements like a hawk.

Her voice in a husky whisper she protested, ‘Gray, I only touched you. I’ve touched you before.’

‘Now it’s different.’ His voice was flat, metallic almost, as though he’d deliberately forced every iota of emotion out of it. ‘Then I wasn’t suffering from the frustration that’s eating into me now.’

The shock of it tensed her muscles. Gray had never spoken to her like this before, never mentioned his physical desires, or the women he shared them with.

She wet her lips again, conscious of a strange heat burning through her veins. She didn’t want to hear about Gray’s sex life, but for some reason she heard herself saying slowly, ‘Carla …?’

‘Carla’s married, Steph.’

Numb with shock, Stephanie heard him swear. For some reason her heart was racing, her nerve-endings pulsingly conscious of Gray’s tension. She saw him move and stiffened with shock as his fingers bit into the tender flesh of her upper arms.

‘You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?’ His voice was thick and unfamiliar, and for the first time since she had known him, his movements were less than perfectly controlled. She could actually hear the fierce thud of his heart as he closed the distance between them, so loud that it drowned her instinctive gasp of shock.

‘This is what it’s all about, Stephanie. This, and this.’ He pulled her so close to his body that she could feel its heat; so close that, shockingly, she was aware of his physical arousal. If just the thought of Carla could affect him like this … Icy cold with shock, she shuddered. Instantly Gray released her, an expression of cold withdrawal icing over his eyes.

‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was curt. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

He turned his back to her, and part of her ached to reach out and comfort him. Instead she said shakily. ‘It’s all right, Gray. I … I … understand. At least, I think I do.’

‘Do you?’ He turned to look at her, searching her face with hard eyes. Stephanie made herself hold that searching gaze.

‘I think so. You love Carla, but she’s married to someone else. You love someone who’s out of reach.’

‘I certainly do.’ The look he gave her was wryly sardonic. ‘Go to bed, Stephanie,’ he told her tiredly. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in discussing things any further.’

Despite her original claim that she was tired, Stephanie couldn’t sleep. It had come as a shock to learn that Gray was in love with Carla, and it hadn’t been a pleasant shock. In fact, she was stunned to discover just how resentful and unhappy she felt. She loved him as a friend, as a brother—so why did she feel like this?

Of course, it was because Carla was married. That was the explanation! Poor Gray, what a terrible situation for him. She knew how devastating jealousy could be, and he must be jealous of Carla’s husband—jealous and frustrated. Her face burned as she remembered the way he had demonstrated that frustration to her. She had never known Gray behave with anything other than calm, brotherly affection; had never before seen him like this, driven, and almost aggressive towards her. She hated the thought of their relationship changing; of another woman coming between them.

She told herself she was being unrealistic, selfish even, but it didn’t help.

‘I’m sorry about last night—things got a little out of control.’ Gray grimaced faintly as he handed Stephanie her breakfast. ‘I don’t normally let go like that.’

He was watching her covertly, as though expecting … expecting what? Despite her own complicated feelings last night, Stephanie had made a vow that she would give Gray all the emotional support she could to sustain him during what she knew from her own experience would be a very traumatic time.

‘Carla’s husband and I are financial partners in the boat I’m sailing for the Fastnet—that’s how I met her.’

Stephanie knew that her disquiet must have shown in her eyes, because Gray’s mouth twisted. ‘We can’t all love to order,’ he told her, curtly turning away from her. ‘We’ll leave for London this afternoon to collect your stuff. We’ll stay at your place overnight.’

‘You’ll have to sleep on the settee,’ she warned him.

‘It won’t matter for one night, and besides, I’d never get an hotel room at this time of year.’

‘No. London is packed with tourists. Have you much business to do?’

Gray shook his head, pouring them both a second cup of coffee. ‘No, I should be through it by lunchtime, and then we can head back here in the afternoon. By the way, you’ll need a room to work in while you’re here. There’s an empty office down at the yard, will that do? I could show you it later.’

This was more like the Gray she knew, and although it hurt her that he didn’t want to discuss Carla with her, part of her was glad. She was growing to hate the sound of the other woman’s name.

She thought she’d been successful in keeping her thoughts hidden from him until he said softly, ‘What is it, Steph?’

‘I’m worried about you—about your involvement with Carla.’

For some reason her admission alarmed her, and she looked down at her plate, missing the look of brooding pain he gave her.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I know you’re not the sort of man who’d really want to be involved with a woman who’s married to someone else,’ she offered lamely. ‘You’re always so honest in everything you do, Gray.’

‘Think you know me well, don’t you? Well, don’t be too sure, love. The pain of an almost unendurable physical desire that you know can never really be satisfied makes a man do irrational things. Remember that, Steph.’

What was he trying to tell her? A faint shiver of apprehension held her in a cold grip. Instinctively she reached out to cover his hand with her own. His hands were large and well shaped with long fingers, clever hands … caring hands.

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