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Anyway, if she was honest, wasn’t it altogether too late for flight? A case of locking the stable door long after the horse’s departure?
And wouldn’t it also send Roan all the wrong messages, implying that she was scared? When what she needed to do was convince him that nothing that had happened between them made the slightest difference to her. That he didn’t feature, even marginally, in her general scheme of things.
That he never had, and he never would.
However, she might also need to convince herself, she thought with a sudden thud of the heart, her teeth grazing the swollen fullness of her lower lip. And what kind of admission was that?
Oh, God, she thought, what a hideous mess I’ve made of everything.
When Roan came back into the bedroom, he was wearing a towel draped round his hips, and using another to dry his hair. A faint aroma of her favourite carnation soap accompanied him.
She said glacially, ‘Don’t hesitate to make yourself quite at home.’
‘Thank you, agapi mou.’ His tone held faint amusement as he glanced round him. ‘But, somehow, I don’t think it will ever be that.’ He paused. ‘I have run a bath for you.’
She stared up at him. ‘Why?’
Roan shrugged. ‘You did not join me in the shower, as I had hoped, and I thought you might appreciate it—after your exertions.’ He slanted a smile at her. ‘Warm water is soothing—for the temper as well as the body, Harriet mou. But the choice is yours.’
‘It’s a little late for that,’ she said, ignoring his reference to the shower. ‘As you made sure.’
‘Not all the time—if you remember.’ The dark eyes challenged her to argue, knowing, of course, that she couldn’t do so—damn him. ‘Don’t let the water get cold,’ he added softly, and wandered into the living room.
Harriet sent a furious look after him, but couldn’t think of a single reason not to take his advice. She eased herself out from the concealing sheet, keeping a wary eye open for his possible return, and almost scampered into the bathroom.
Not just water waiting for her either, she realised, as she sank, sighing, through the thick layer of scented bubbles produced by her most expensive bath oil, and rested her head against the little quilted pillow fixed to the back of the tub.
She wasn’t accustomed to such pampering, and it annoyed her, because it was soporific too. And she needed to think—and fast—what to do next. How she could possibly face him in view of the appalling weakness she’d displayed—what she could say in her own defence. But for the moment it was easier simply to drift.
‘Will you drink some champagne with me?’
Her eyes flew open, and she sat up with a start, aware with vexation that she hadn’t heard his approach. She wrapped an arm across her breasts, watching with hostility as he sat down on the rim of the tub, holding out one of the flutes of pale, sparkling wine he was carrying.
‘Where did this come from?’ She knew there was none in the flat.
‘I brought it,’ he said, adding softly, ‘I regret it is not properly chilled, but perhaps you could glare at it.’
She scowled at him instead. ‘You think we actually have something to celebrate?’ she asked scornfully.
‘Why, yes,’ he said. ‘I do.’ He looked pointedly down at his shoulder, and she saw, mortified, that her nails had left faint red marks on the smooth skin. ‘Now, take your wine.’ He observed her reluctant compliance with amusement. ‘What shall we drink to? The future, perhaps?’
‘To going our separate ways,’ Harriet said curtly. ‘That’s the only aspect of the future that appeals to me.’
‘In spite of all that we have just been to each other?’ Roan asked mockingly. ‘You grieve me. But let it be as you wish.’ He touched his glass to hers, and drank, and she unwillingly followed suit, feeling the wine burst like sunlight in her dry mouth. A good vintage, she thought, surprised, and deserving of a better occasion.
‘Thank you.’ With a defiant flourish, she tipped the rest of the wine into the water, and handed him the empty glass. ‘I presume you have no other toasts to propose.’
‘I can think of none that would be appropriate.’ His voice was quiet.
‘So, perhaps now this—ritual humiliation is complete, you’ll go, and leave me in peace.’
‘I came here to spend the night, Harriet mou. And it is not over yet.’
‘But you—got what you wanted.’ She stumbled over the words. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘And why are you so ashamed of being a woman?’
It wasn’t the reply Harriet had expected, and she lifted her chin. ‘I’m not. It’s the shame of letting myself become involved with you that I can’t handle. I should have realised that, with you, poor doesn’t necessarily mean honest. That you’re just a manipulative, womanising swine, and I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself after—after what you’ve done to me.’
There was a brief tingling silence, then he said quietly, ‘Then I have nothing to lose.’ He drank the rest of his wine, set both glasses down, and stood up.
Before she knew what was happening, his hands were under her armpits, lifting her bodily out of the water. He reached for one of the bath sheets on the warm rail, and enveloped her in it, muffling her indignant protest.
‘Dry yourself,’ he instructed curtly. ‘Then come back to bed. It is time your sexual education was resumed.’
Her heart was pounding unevenly. She said chokingly, ‘You mean you’re determined to find other ways to degrade me.’
His smile was jeering. ‘Why, yes, my innocent. Believe me, the possibilities are endless, and I look forward to exploring them with you.’ He unfastened the towel he was wearing and casually dropped it into the linen basket. ‘So, do not keep me waiting too long,’ he added, as he left her.
Slowly, Harriet blotted the moisture from her skin, staring at herself in the mirror, trying to recognise the girl who’d swung out of the flat that morning on her way to finalise a simple business arrangement. Who’d believed the situation was under her control, and that she’d emerge a winner. And that she was—untouchable.
Well, she knew better now. The image looking back at her had eyes the colour of smoke, and the outline of her mouth was blurred from kissing.
This is not me, she thought. He’s turned me into someone I don’t know, and never wanted to be. And crazily, impossibly, I—let it happen. But how—and why? He called this our wedding night, but it could never be that. Because he’s the last person wanting to be a husband, and I have no intention of being a wife.
So, it’s just a one-night stand. Payback time because I made him look foolish in front of witnesses. After all, he pretty much admitted it.
And, if not for revenge, why else would he want—this? Me?
She dropped the damp towel, and studied her nude reflection dispassionately. It couldn’t be for her looks—or her figure. She was moderately attractive, no more, and reed-slender. And it certainly wasn’t for the sweetness of her disposition, she told herself wryly.
She supposed a virgin in her mid-twenties had a certain novelty value in twenty-first-century London, but why would he bother when there were so many more exciting—and willing—women around?
Except she had been—willing. Eventually. And that was the open wound she would take with her from this encounter. The bitter knowledge that she hadn’t fought tooth and nail against the ultimate surrender. That the marks she’d inflicted on his body were the result of passion, not self-defence.
She hadn’t even managed the frozen submission she’d planned as her last line of retreat. And now it was much too late.
She took a last glance at herself, and turned away, knowing that she couldn’t simply walk back naked into the bedroom. Without mental or emotional connection between them, his dark scrutiny would be a stinging embarrassment, she thought, as she trod over to the fitted unit beside the basin, and opened the bottom drawer.
The neatly folded cotton housecoat that lay there was quite the oldest garment she possessed. High-necked and demure, it had been at school with her, and its pattern of tiny rosebuds had almost faded away with repeated launderings over the years. Hanging on to it was sheer sentiment, but it had the virtue of being opaque—a veil for her to hide behind as she went to him.
He was lying on his back, arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as she walked towards the bed, and she noticed that he’d tidied the pillows, and drawn the sheet up to waist level. He turned to look at her, and she saw his eyes widen, and braced herself for some numbing piece of sarcasm.
But when he spoke his voice was almost reflective. ‘So now I know how you looked when you were a little girl, Harriet mou.’
She gave him a quick, startled glance, then turned her back while she removed the soft folds, then slid under the covering sheet. And waited, nerves jangling, for him to reach for her.
‘Expecting another seduction, matia mou?’ He broke the silence at last, just as her inner tension was nearing screaming point. ‘Because it is not going to happen.’ And as she twisted round to stare at him he added, ‘This time, I wish you to make love to me.’
‘Oh, God, no—no …’
She only realised she’d spoken the thought aloud when she saw his mouth twist in a wry smile.
He shook his head. ‘Why, Harriet?’ He made her name sound like a caress. ‘Don’t you like being in bed with me—just a little?’
There was no need to answer. And no point in trying to lie either. The sudden blaze of colour warming her face was betrayal enough. And the helpless clench of desire deep inside her.
‘I enjoyed having you touch me,’ he went on softly. ‘It’s a pleasure I wish to be repeated. And you seemed to like it too, my shy bride, so why don’t you come much—much closer, and kiss me?’
She obeyed slowly, helplessly, moving across the space that divided them, until she felt the warmth of him against her, and the tingling thrill of response in her own skin.
She swallowed, her heart thudding, then leaned over him, her hair spilling around him in a fragrant cloud, as she let the rosy peaks of her breasts brush his chest, deliberately tantalising the flat male nipples. She heard him catch his breath.
He said huskily, ‘Harriet, my sweet one—agapi mou.’
And she paused, her mouth a fraction from his.
‘But I don’t love you,’ she whispered fiercely back to him. ‘And I never will.’
Harriet awoke slowly, pushing herself up through the layers of sleep like a swimmer surfacing from the dark depths of a timeless sea, and finding sunlight. She waited for the usual stress to kick in, but it was strangely absent. Instead, she felt totally relaxed, her whole body toned—suffused with unaccustomed well-being.
Realising, as she forced open her weighted eyelids, that she was actually smiling.
And then she remembered …
She shot upright, gasping, clutching the sheet to her breasts, staring dazedly down at the empty bed beside her, heart hammering. Wondering for an instant if her imagination had been playing tricks on her—if she’d simply dreamt it—all of it.
But the voluptuous tenderness between her thighs soon disabused her of that notion. She had to face the fact that she’d spent most of the previous night having sex, with an increasing hunger and lack of inhibition that made her quail as she recalled it now in daylight.
Unable, it seemed, to get enough of him, she thought, turning over to bury her burning face in her pillow. Or to give enough either …
I wish you to make love to me.
And she’d done so, following instincts she barely understood, hesitant, even gauche at first, but learning quickly, guided by Roan’s glance, his whispered word, even an indrawn breath. Discovering intimacies she could never have imagined she’d permit, let alone enjoy.
Until, at the last, she’d found herself astride him, absorbing him with exquisite totality, her body bent in an arc of pleasure as she pursued, with him, yet another release that was as savage as it was mutual.
They’d finally fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion, still entwined. Harriet could remember waking around dawn, and finding she was sprawled across him, imprisoned by his arm, her cheek pressed against the heavy beat of his heart. And when she’d tried gingerly to move to a more decorous distance, Roan had muttered something sleepily in his own language, his grasp tightening around her. So she’d stayed, and slept again.
Yet he’d had no problem extricating himself, it seemed. And she’d been too dead to the world to notice. Had expected to find him there, holding her, when she woke. Had wanted him to be there …
Now, there was an admission.
She sat up again, pushing back her tumble of hair, listening for the sound of the shower, trying to detect a hint of coffee in the air— any indication that he was still around. Somewhere. But there was only silence, and the sunlight pressing against the blinds far more brightly than it should have done.
Biting her lip, Harriet glanced at the bedside clock and stifled a yelp. He’d gone, and so had half the morning, which meant that for the first time she was going to be horrifyingly late for work.
She stood under the shower, letting the water stream over her body, touching every part of her that his hands—his mouth—had caressed. Rinsing away the carnation-scented lather, remembering its fragrance on his skin, and now she’d breathed it—licked at it. Remembering altogether too much, she thought breathlessly, bracing a hand against the tiled wall for support because her legs were shaking under her again. And these memories had to be dealt with—barred—if she was ever to know any peace again.
As she went to discard her used towel in the linen basket, she saw a glimmer of peach satin, and realised he’d collected her pyjamas from the floor, as if he knew she only wore things once before laundering. Although, in this case, she’d hardly had the chance to wear them at all.
She hunted discontentedly along the rail in her wardrobe, wishing there was something else to choose apart from black, black and yet more black. ‘Those shapeless garments,’ he’d called them, and much good they’d done her.
Now there seemed little point in persevering with her camouflage, and it would have been nice to wear something light and bright—something that floated—on this glorious sunlit morning.
Then paused, her lips twisting in self-derision. ‘And what does that make you, my dear?’ she wondered aloud. ‘A butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, or the same dreary moth with delusions? Get back to square one where you belong.’
It occurred to her, as she scraped her hair back into its usual style, that she was ravenous. No point in being late on an empty stomach, she thought, as she dashed into her smart galley kitchen, slipping bread into the toaster, and switching on the kettle.
There was no sign of Roan having breakfasted. Not so much as a cup of coffee, she noticed, but perhaps he felt he’d helped himself to quite enough already. And if that was intended as a joke, it hadn’t worked, she told herself with a pang.
She ladled honey on to her toast, eating and drinking standing up, before grabbing her bag and racing to the door.
At first sight, the living room was in its usual pristine condition, with no trace of him there either. And then she saw the piece of paper lying on her ash table, a sheet torn at random, it seemed, from a sketch block, the edges ragged. And in the middle of it, a small circle of gold.
The wedding ring, she thought, that she’d handed back to him yesterday with such insouciance. And scrawled across the paper in thick black letters the single word, ‘Souvenir.’
So it had been revenge, she thought, feeling suddenly numb. Amongst all the disastrous mistakes she’d made last night, she’d been right about that, at least.
I couldn’t have made it easier for him if I’d tried, she thought. Or sweeter.
And somehow I have to learn to live with that.
By the time Harriet reached the office, the weekly round-up meeting had already begun.
‘Nice of you to join us, Miss Flint,’ Tony commented acidly.
‘I’m sorry.’ Harriet sat down, needled by the sight of Jon Audley exchanging complicit grins with Anthea. ‘My alarm didn’t go off.’ Largely because I forgot to set it, having so many other things to think about at the time. Most of which I don’t want to contemplate.
And her inner turmoil had been further compounded by an encounter with George, the concierge, as he sorted the mail in the foyer. His beaming smile, and the faint archness of his, ‘Good morning, Mrs Zandros,’ had totally stymied any rebuke she’d been considering over the matter of the key, and she’d simply mumbled a flushed response and fled.
‘How brave of it,’ said Tony, recalling her sharply to the here and now. ‘How did things go yesterday, by the way?’
For a moment she stared at him, totally thrown once again. ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was a croak.
‘At Hayford House.’ He held out his hand. ‘I presume you’ve already written up your report with your usual blazing efficiency.’
She took a deep steadying breath. Think! ‘Actually, no,’ she returned calmly. ‘As nothing has changed diametrically since the last report was produced, I thought it would be simpler to work from that.’ She looked at Jonathan. ‘I presume you still have a copy on file.’
There was a silence, then he said curtly, ‘I didn’t write one. I simply got on to our maintenance people and—requested a visit.’
‘And made a follow-up call to ensure it had been carried out?’
‘I didn’t suppose it was necessary.’ Jon’s look spoke daggers. ‘They’re pretty reliable, and God knows there weren’t any major issues.’
‘No,’ Harriet said reflectively. ‘And the tenants appreciated how busy you are.’ She allowed another awkward silence to establish itself, then glanced back at Tony’s annoyed face. ‘I’ll get on to it as soon as the meeting is over.’ But will that be before or after I call Isobel …?
At any other time she’d have been jubilant having scored a minor triumph over the obnoxious Audley, but, set against everything else going on in her life, it barely registered, and she was aware she was frankly sleep-walking her way through the rest of the meeting.
