Dark Paradise

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‘Presently,’ he said. ‘When I’ve said what I came here to say.’

‘There’s no need for any further conversation,’ she began.

‘I don’t agree.’ His tone was smooth but definite, and it seemed to convey a warning. Kate felt herself tense. He glanced round the studio. ‘Is there any coffee going? I’ve had no breakfast.’

‘Too busy looking for me, no doubt,’ she said tautly.

‘Too busy, certainly,’ he said laconically.

She hadn’t the slightest desire to give him coffee, but she knew that any kind of protest would only make her appear mean-minded and foolish, so with a little shrug she led the way across the landing to her bed-sitting room, silently thanking her stars as she did so that in spite of everything, she had still found the time that morning to make her bed and leave the room tidy. She walked over to the worktop and flicked the switch with operated the percolater. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Matt Lincoln looking round appraisingly, lowering the zip on his casual jacket, and her heart sank.

‘Perhaps you’d like to help yourself when it’s ready,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I really do have to get on and …’

‘Not yet.’ His tone was cool but utterly implacable, and he was between her and the door. ‘As I said, we have some talking to do.’ He pulled a chair across and sat down, straddling it, his folded arms resting on its back, grinning sardonically at her expression of dismay.

‘Very well,’ she said, pretending a calmness she certainly didn’t feel. She didn’t like the way he was watching her as she moved about putting milk in a jug, taking two pottery mugs out of her china cupboard. The faded yellow sweatshirt wasn’t particularly revealing, but her jeans clung to her hips and thighs like a second skin, a fact which he was frankly and openly appreciating. Kate gritted her teeth.

The coffee was percolating, sending a beguiling aroma through the room. She wanted to relax—after all, this was her home—but she couldn’t, not with him there. His presence was like an irritant. He seemed to charge up the atmosphere, destroying the workmanlike but peaceful ambience she had been at pains to create for herself.

She poured the coffee into the mugs and handed him one, her face stony. He took it with a brief word of thanks, declining milk and sugar. Kate leaned against the worktop, sipping her own drink, feeling its warmth comfort her and give her heart, while she waited for him to speak.

He said softly at last, ‘I was deeply moved by your eloquence last night.’

‘Oh?’ Her expression was suspicious, her tone antagonistic, and he laughed.

‘You don’t believe me? But you underestimate your own powers of persuasion, darling. If you think it would be such a disaster for Alison to go to the Caribbean with me, then I shall not take her. It’s as simple as that.’

Kate put her mug slowly down on the worktop. ‘I don’t think I understand.’

‘I’m a reformed character. Your impassioned plea has made me see the light. My home-wrecking days are behind me.’

Kate’s lips tightened. ‘This is clearly some kind of weird joke, and I don’t find it very amusing.’

‘I’ve never been more serious.’ The blue eyes glittered oddly as they surveyed her. ‘I am not taking Alison to the Caribbean. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘Why—yes.’ She was taken aback, and growing more and more uneasy.

‘Then you have your wish.’ He paused, then said smoothly, ‘There is, of course, one minor condition.’

‘Oh?’ Kate swallowed. ‘What is it?”

He smiled, his eyes appraising her body again with unconcealed sensuousness. He said gently, ‘On condition that you come with me instead.’

CHAPTER THREE (#u8c4f8b0b-78e4-57bb-9471-f3d846108295)

FOR a long moment, Kate couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Then, at last, she managed, ‘You—really—are joking.’

‘Not in the least.’ He was no longer smiling. The dark face was set and almost cruel. ‘That’s the way it is, darling, I am off to the Caribbean on the fifth of next month, and I haven’t the slightest intention of travelling alone. If you want Alison to stay at home and go on practising the role of the virtuous wife, then you’ll go with me. If you don’t then she will. See how easy it all is?’

‘Easy?’ Her mouth was so dry, she could hardly force the word out. ‘My God!’ Then something snapped inside her, and she picked up her mug of coffee and threw it at him.

He had the reflexes of a cat. As her hand came up he was already moving. The coffee went everywhere, the mug smashed against the opposite wall, and he was unscathed.

Not only unscathed, but grinning in unholy amusement as he looked at the mess she’d made. ‘You’ve got a violent streak, darling. Your parents must have been clairvoyant when they named you after a shrew. What a way to behave when you’ve just been offered the holiday of a lifetime!’

Kate regained her self-control with a superhuman effort, digging her nails painfully into the palms of her hands.

‘I wouldn’t have described your offer in quite those terms. I thought it more of an insult.’ She lifted her chin, speaking coolly.

His brows rose. ‘Obviously you’ve never been insulted. But there’s no need to smash things. All you have to say is “no”, and the offer to Alison will stand. Why complicate matters by breaking the crockery?’

She said huskily, ‘You couldn’t imagine for one moment that I’d agree.’

‘Now there you’re wrong.’ He threw back his head and looked at her, his eyes narrowed. ‘I got the distinct impression last night that you’d do anything in your power to prevent me from ruining your—stepbrother’s marriage. I merely decided to test the depth of your commitment.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not impressed.’

‘I’d do anything within reason, naturally.’ Kate bit her lip. ‘But this suggestion of yours is—sick. It’s twisted!’

Matt burst out laughing. ‘Now how do you make that out?’ he wanted to know.

‘Because you only said it to embarrass me—to punish me,’ she answered in a low voice.

He shrugged. ‘Partly true, perhaps. But certainly not the whole truth.’ He paused. ‘I fancied you at that wedding, as you know perfectly well. And last night’s—admittedly brief—encounter has whetted my appetite as far as you’re concerned.’

‘But not,’ said Kate, ‘mine for you.’

Matt shrugged again. ‘Then the answer’s “No” and Alison goes with me.’ He looked at her meditatively. ‘She won’t be quite so—lively a companion, but at least she’s never tried to deny her own responses.’

‘Are you implying that I do?’ Kate demanded furiously.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When I saw you at that wedding, it was a mutual thing, and you know it.’

‘No,’ Kate said.

‘Oh, but it was.’ His voice was gentle, but there was a steely note underlying it which chilled her. ‘I wasn’t the only one looking, darling, and every sidelong glance I had from you was drawing me across the room like a bloody magnet. I wanted to find out all kinds of things about you, and not merely what you looked like without that silky thing you were swathed in—although that was part of it,’ he added, a self-derisive smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

‘And I, of course, was supposed to be flattered by your attentions,’ Kate said stonily. ‘The famous Matthew Lincoln honouring us all with his presence at a suburban wedding. God, what an ego you must have! Believe me, Mr Lincoln, setting you up was a pleasure.’

‘I believe it.’ Matt’s mouth twisted. ‘But now it seems to be my turn, darling, and I intend to make the most of it.’ He put the mug down on the table. ‘Thank you for the coffee,’ he went on with a mocking glance at the stained wall behind him. ‘And the proposition I’ve made you still stands. You have the next twenty-four hours to decide if this marriage you have such faith in is really worth saving or not. The decision is yours.’ He walked across to the wall-mounted memo pad she kept beside her food cupboard, and wrote a number on it. ‘Call me,’ he said, and left.

Kate sagged back against the worktop, hearing his footsteps receding down the stairs with a feeling which mingled relief and other emotions not so easily definable. She could hardly believe what had happened.

Matt Lincoln didn’t—couldn’t expect that she would agree, she thought desperately. He was merely tormenting her. He had to be.

She filled a bowl with water, took a cloth and some liquid cleanser and began to clear up the mess she’d made. The brilliantly coloured handwoven blankets she’d bought on a trip to Greece the previous year and which she used to disguise her bed as a couch during the day were soaked with coffee, and would need to go to the cleaners, and she bit her lip as she stripped them and folded them.

All she had to do was dial the number he had left, and tell Matt Lincoln to go to hell. Except that wouldn’t be the end of it because of Alison’s involvement.

She groaned. That, of course, was the joker in the pack. The fact that she knew about Alison. That it was in her power to stop her sister-in-law from messing up her life completely, because Kate had no doubt that that was what was at stake.

Matt Lincoln wasn’t a lover from the past, desperate to rekindle an old passion no matter what it cost. She could have understood that, if not condoned it. But it wasn’t any romantic elopement he was planning. Alison had said an assignment, but that, she suspected, was merely to provide an element of respectability.

No, he was off to the Caribbean and he wanted a woman to go with him. It was as simple as that, to use his own phrase. He lived a high-powered life, but now he was in the mood for some relaxation. Sun, sand and sex, Kate thought wryly. Wasn’t that what the travel brochures offered, even if it wasn’t quite as overt as that?

And Alison’s marriage made no difference to his plans, because the fact was that Alison herself didn’t matter. She’d been chosen because she was an available female body, and that was all.

But anyone else would do as well. His insulting offer to herself had made that more than clear. She still could hardly believe it. Did he really imagine for one moment that she would agree, that she’d take a step that would transform their relationship from that of antagonistic strangers to the kind of total intimacy which made her mind reel?

It was impossible. No one would do such a thing, and that was why he’d suggested it, of course.

She rinsed her cloth and wrung it out as if it were Matt Lincoln’s neck.

No doubt the foolish weakness of her capitulation the previous night had prompted him. Probably he thought that her dislike of him, and everything he represented as a man, was only a façade, and that one kiss would transform the Sleeping Beauty into the ideal travelling companion, she thought savagely.

God, he was a bastard, and she wished she’d kicked his shins to splinters!

Yes, she’d been shaken out of her usual cool control, but only by surprise. The last thing she had expected had been for him to kiss her. He had caught her off guard, that was all, she assured herself, and that was why she had behaved so stupidly.

And he had all the experience in the world, a small voice reminded her. That long, sensuous kiss had taught her that Matt Lincoln would be the kind of lover against whom a woman would measure all other men for the rest of her life …

She stopped short, frowning. Those were avenues of thought she definitely did not want to explore, she told herself decisively. She wasn’t interested in him as a human being, let alone a lover.

All she wanted was that he should forget about Alison, and it was too late now to wish that she’d never got involved, to regret with all her being that she had ever sought him out.

What satisfaction his arrogant ego must have derived from her intervention, she thought angrily. He was well revenged for the snub she had administered at the wedding. By revealing her concern for Alison, she’d given him a stick to beat her with, and he hadn’t hesitated to use it.

She’d done no good at all, she thought dolefully. In fact, if she was honest, she’d probably made matters worse.

She sighed and poured the bowl of water away down the sink. She hadn’t made a perfect job of clearing up, but then she hadn’t been entirely concentrating on what she was doing.

She looked at the phone number scrawled on the memo board, and her brows drew together angrily. He knew damned well she would never use it. She must have been mad to allow him to amuse himself at her expense, to pretend that he could really be persuaded to think again about his selfish pleasures.

It would serve him right, she thought, if she was to call his bluff.

She picked up the damp cloth she had been using and went to wipe the board clean, then stopped abruptly, her brain working furiously.

Well, why not? Why shouldn’t she do just that? God only knew he’d asked for it, she assured herself almost feverishly.

She poured herself another mug of coffee, and sat down to think. There was nothing to prevent her from going. Her passport was in order, and she’d been vaguely considering taking some sort of break, although nothing as opulent as a Caribbean island.

Not that she’d be spending very long there, she thought grimly. It would probably only be a matter of hours before Matt Lincoln discovered that she was not the pushover he thought, and that he’d been set up all over again. He wouldn’t be pleased, but there wouldn’t be a great deal he could do about it.

Unless he chose to play rough, a warning voice reminded her, but she dismissed it. She might not like him, but she gave him credit for not having the instincts of a rapist. Oh no, he wouldn’t use force, she thought. He would rely on his own physical attraction, and his undoubted powers of persuasion to get her into his bed, and when he failed, he would be only too glad to see the back of her. And she could then decide whether to continue the holiday on her own, or return home.