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He kept his hand still, waiting for her to agree, to surrender as he knew she would.
After a moment her legs, taut with tension, relaxed, and she parted for him, letting his hand slide under her briefs to the very core of her, gasping as he stroked her with clever, knowing fingers.
‘Cormac…’ She moved, writhed, a stranger to the exquisite sensation she was feeling…he was feeling, watching her. It pleased him to pleasure her.
It was a new feeling.
Somewhere someone laughed, and he realised that even in this secluded cove there were people nearby. So did Lizzie, by the way her body stiffened and her eyes widened.
They stared at each other for a moment, Lizzie wide-eyed and searching, before the moment was broken, the wonderment lost.
Cormac rolled off her, his back on the hard sand, breathing heavily.
Lizzie was fumbling with her bikini strings, trying to make herself decent.
Around a tumble of rocks, two figures emerged. From a distance, Cormac saw it was Wendy and Dan.
Dammit.
‘Hey, you two!’ Wendy called out cheerfully. She glanced at their appearances, still rumpled, both of them stretched out on the sand, and blushed. ‘Did we interrupt some private time?’
‘Wendy,’ Dan admonished. He grinned. ‘They’re newly-weds, remember?’
‘Oh, of course. This could practically count as your honeymoon!’
Cormac chuckled dryly, ran his fingers through his sandy hair and smiled. ‘We’re planning a honeymoon eventually,’ he said, ‘but in the meantime, this will do.’
He glanced at Lizzie, saw her face was white and blank, and mentally cursed. The seduction he’d so carefully planned was shot to pieces. Now he had no idea how she might react.
‘How do you feel the weekend’s going, Cormac?’ Dan asked. ‘From what I can tell, Hassell has his eye mostly on you.’
‘It’s anyone’s game still,’ Cormac replied neutrally. He wanted them gone, wanted to take Lizzie back into his arms and make her believe in him again.
He wanted to repair the damage.
‘Let the best man win, right?’ Dan said with a wry smile. ‘The best architect.’
‘Exactly,’ Cormac agreed with a small smile.
Dan glanced at Lizzie, who hadn’t spoken yet. She was still sitting there, one hand fiddling with her bikini string, her eyes wide and dark.
‘You look like you’ve had a bit too much sun, Elizabeth,’ he ventured. ‘Are you two heading back? I convinced Wendy to try snorkeling—I think we’ll swim back to the beach. Everyone will be returning to the villa soon.’
Cormac paused. There was no point picking up where they’d left off—Lizzie was too shocked. Too embarrassed. He’d have to wait till tonight, in their room. More comfortable anyway, he decided as he brushed some sand from his shoulders. Then there would be no interruptions, nothing to keep them from each other.
Nothing to keep him from gaining her trust, her love, and enjoying it. Using it.
‘Yes, we’ll go back with you,’ he said.
Nodding, Dan and Wendy waded into the shallows. Cormac turned to Lizzie.
‘Come on, sweetheart,’ he said, keeping his voice gentle. ‘You do look like you’ve had too much sun.’
She gave him an odd look. ‘You think so?’ He held out his hand to help her up and she shrugged it aside. ‘I’ll stay here.’
Cormac bit back his impatience. ‘You heard Dan. Everyone’s getting ready to go back to the villa.’
She looked at him, a new coldness in her eyes. ‘I’ll walk.’
‘Lizzie…’ he warned, and she shook her head.
‘No, Cormac, don’t. Don’t control me. Not now.’ She stood up, brushed the sand from her legs. ‘I’ll see you back at the beach.’
Without waiting for his response, she headed down the stretch of empty sand, her pace resolute, her shoulders thrown back.
Cormac cursed aloud. He should follow her, he supposed, make sure she didn’t do something stupid like get lost or burst into tears.
Still, he didn’t want to create a scene. He had no idea how she would react now, what she might do because she was hurt, furious or just plain frustrated.
This could, he realised savagely, cost him the commission.
But he was still going to seduce her. Tonight.
The sun was low in the sky, casting a golden sheen on the calm surface of the sea, when Lizzie finally found her way back to the makeshift camp. She hadn’t realised how jagged the coastline was; walking had taken far longer than swimming would have.
She’d kept her mind blank, filled with the white noise around her, the soothing rush of waves on to sand, the call of seabirds, the rustling of the palm trees that fringed the beach.
It was easier to concentrate on those sounds than the memories which jangled and clamoured within her, desperate to be heard.
The memory of Cormac’s lips on hers, his hands on her…
No. Her hands went up to her face and, despite her best intentions, the memories came anyway, rushed over her in an endless tide of regret and wonder.
She couldn’t believe…
No.
Cormac. With Cormac.
She’d expected to feel desire, lust. But she’d felt tenderness, emotion, need.
And he hadn’t felt anything.
Why couldn’t it be uncomplicated? Why couldn’t she be uncomplicated?
Why couldn’t she give Cormac her body while keeping her heart?
She knew there was no feeling on his side. No matter how much she hoped or wondered. If he felt anything for her, it was casual, careless affection. Fleeting and fuelled by lust.
That was all it was.
Could it be enough? For her?
Was she willing to accept so little, simply because it was more than she’d ever had?
Lizzie shook her head. No. She wanted more, wanted what she’d told Cormac. Love. Respect. Marriage, even.
Nothing he was prepared to give her. Nothing she should want from him.
And yet…
She wanted him.
She didn’t trust him. And she didn’t trust herself.
Yet the want, the need, the hunger was still there, even as she knew that an affair with Cormac would lead only to more hunger, more need that could not be satisfied. Not by Cormac.
He wasn’t interested in loving her. He didn’t even respect her. And marriage was out of the question.
So where did that leave her? Nowhere, Lizzie realised with a grim smile, except exactly where Cormac wanted her…in the palm of his hand. Literally.
Cormac saw her as she approached the camp, and there was a look of thunderous fury on his face as he strode towards her, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a little shake before he kissed her hard on the mouth.
‘Where were you? We’ve all been half mad with worry, thinking you were lost or dead—’
‘I told you I would walk,’ Lizzie said stiffly, her mouth bruised from his kiss. ‘I didn’t think you’d care.’
‘I didn’t think it would take you so long,’ he retorted. ‘I had visions of you trying to swim back, being caught in the undertow.’ He sounded both accusing and anguished, and over his shoulder Lizzie saw Hilda smiling in concern, Jan looking worried.
Of course. This was part of Cormac’s charade. He’d given her her cue, and was undoubtedly waiting for her response.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said, and he relaxed a bit. ‘I didn’t realise you’d worry so much.’ Or at all. ‘Forgive me?’
‘You’ll just have to make it up to me later.’ He gave her a wolfish smile and, taking her hand, led her towards the waiting vehicles.
Lizzie closed her eyes and let him lead her. For a moment she’d thought he hadn’t been acting. For a moment it had felt real.
Never. Never.
The ride back to the villa was quiet save for the chattering and whirring of birds and bugs as twilight gave way to a cloak of velvety darkness.
By the time they arrived, everyone was tired from a day in the sun, and Hilda arranged for trays to be brought privately to the rooms.
She patted Lizzie’s cheek in farewell. ‘We’ll see you at breakfast. All couples have their quarrels, no?’ Behind Hilda, Lizzie saw Jan frown at Cormac.
The afternoon had cost him, she supposed, in credibility. God knew it had cost her something, too.
Lizzie managed to smile rather weakly at Hilda. She was not looking forward to enforced quarters with Cormac all evening.
Back in the room, he said tersely, ‘Do you realise how dangerous that stunt you pulled was? Jan kept making remarks about how easily I’d managed to lose my wife, and Stears jumped in, saying maybe I’d never had her in the first place.’
Lizzie shrugged. ‘You obviously made up for it with that little display of husbandly concern. Jan and Hilda looked thrilled.’
He paused. ‘Yes, that was rather good, wasn’t it?’ He ran a hand through his hair and gestured towards the bathroom. ‘You can have the shower first.’ He paused again and Lizzie glanced at him, saw him frowning. ‘Then we should talk.’
She nodded, surprised and a bit wary, before gathering her things and heading for the blessed oblivion of a hot shower.
Standing under a jet of scalding water, she wondered what Cormac wanted to talk about. No doubt he was afraid she’d read something into the afternoon, something that obviously wasn’t there. She understood the afternoon had been about lust, and lust only. She didn’t need a lecture.
Yet the realisation hurt. It was stupid, because she’d known all along and yet it still hurt. She hurt.
What would have happened, she wondered, if Wendy and Dan hadn’t disturbed them? Would Cormac have taken her right there, on the hard sand?
Would she have let him?
Would she have been able to resist?
After her shower, she put on a simple shift dress in loose cotton. She exited the bathroom, combing her fingers through her damp hair, and Cormac didn’t say a word as he moved past her to take his own shower.
There was a light knock on the door and a member of staff from the kitchen brought in a tray of food.
‘Thank you,’ Lizzie murmured, and glanced down at the makings of a delicious meal—a chicken dish fragrant with cloves and banana, cornflour pancakes and a fresh fruit salad. For dessert there was coconut cream pie.
She decided to wait for Cormac to eat, even though she dreaded seeing him, talking to him. She could still hear the sounds of the shower and suddenly the room seemed too small, too hot and confined.
Lizzie threw open the shutters and gulped in a breath of fresh sea air, tangy with salt and heavy with the fragrance of frangipani and orchids.
The windows of their room looked directly out onto the beach and, without even thinking about what she was doing, Lizzie swung her legs over the low sill, landed in a flower bed and took the few short steps to the sand.
She felt better out there, under a cool night sky, the air as soft and heavy as velvet. She heard the rustle of palms in the breeze, the lap of the waves and the sound of laughter from another bedroom.
She sat down on the sand, cool and hard in the darkness, and drew her knees up to her chest, her chin resting on top.
She didn’t know how long she sat like that, her mind blessedly blank, but eventually she heard the creak of the shutters and then the sound of Cormac swinging himself over and walking across the sand.
‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Being by myself,’ she replied, and heard him sigh.
‘Chandler…’
‘People might be able to hear,’ she warned him in a low, terse voice.
‘Lizzie.’ Somehow her name on his tongue sounded so intimate. He sat down next to her, his arms resting on his knees. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Lizzie turned and looked at him, surprised and wary. She couldn’t see much of him in the moonlight, no more than the gleam of his eyes and teeth.
‘What for?’
