Dominic's Child

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As he did so, something slid out from between the folds of fabric and slipped to the floor despite Sophie’s attempt to catch it. It was the tooled-leather picture frame that, for the first few days of the holiday, had sat on the bedside table next to Barbara’s bed. Hinged in the middle, it contained two photographs, one of Dominic and one of Barbara.

Stooping, Sophie retrieved it and passed it to him. He sank to the edge of Barbara’s bed and for the longest time stared at the image of his dead fiancée.

Not a trace of emotion showed on his face. The seconds slowed, tightening the already-tense atmosphere so painfully that Sophie wished she’d ignored her scruples and simply taken charge of packing Barbara’s things herself.

At last, Dominic slapped the frame closed the way a man does a book that, regretfully, he’s finished reading for all that he never wanted it to end. But instead of completing packing Barbara’s things, he remained where he was, hands idle, with the photograph frame clasped between them.

Yet another goodbye, Sophie thought, sympathy welling within her. He must wonder if they’ll ever end.

Covering the small distance that separated them, she perched next to him and gently removed the frame from his hands. Unwillingly, he looked at her, the expression in his eyes veiled by the thick fringe of his lashes.

He did not want her to see his grieving, as though there was something shameful in allowing himself to succumb to it. She knew because her brother, Paul, was just the same.

What was it about men that what they accepted as healthy and normal in a woman they saw as weakness in themselves? Didn’t they know the healing took longer if it was denied? That only by accepting it and dealing with it could they validate eventual recovery from it?

Seeing Dominic closing in on himself and refusing to let go, Sophie could only suppose they didn’t, and so she offered comfort exactly as she’d have extended it to anyone, man, woman or child, in the same state of grief. With one hand she reached up and brought his head down to her shoulder, and with the other raised his fingertips to her mouth and kissed them.

For an instant, he resisted. She felt his opposition in the sudden rigidity of his arm, heard it in the hissing intake of his breath. And then, like a house of cards caught in a sudden draft of air, he collapsed against her, the weight of him catching her off guard and pushing her backward on the bed. He followed, his face buried at her neck, his hands tangling in her hair, his legs entwined with hers.

He smelled of soap and clear blue skies and sundrenched ocean, all bound together by lemon blossoms. His skin, more bronzed than ever, scalded where it touched, the heat of him a strange elixir that penetrated her pores to coil within her bloodstream.

At least, she thought it did—as much as she was capable of thought. Because what had begun as a reaching out in commiseration changed course dramatically, though exactly how and when escaped her. One minute she and Dominic were behaving with the decorum of two people sitting side by side in church, and the next they were rolling around on the brightly patterned bedspread with the hungry abandon of lovers.

Somehow, his mouth found hers and fastened to it, seeking comfort wherever it was to be found. How could she have known the shape it would take, how have avoided what happened next?

Without volition, her lips opened. She felt the heat of his breath, the moisture of his tongue accepting the invitation so flagrantly offered. There was no use pretending it was an accidental and utterly chaste collision of two mouths intent on other things, because it was not. It was a wrong and unprincipled and utterly, irresistibly erotic prelude to even greater sin.

Without warning, the cool and distant Dominic Winter she’d known metamorphosed into a lover as swiftly as night fell on St. Julian.

Of course, he could be excused. He was not himself. He was ripped apart with anguish, lost, lonely... oh, there was any number of reasons for him to behave irrationally. But what was her justification? Why did she wind her arms around his neck as if she never wanted to let him go, then kiss him back and let him touch her near naked body in its pitifully brief little bikini that she’d never have countenanced wearing in public?

Why, when he pushed aside the spaghetti straps holding up the bra, did she shift to accommodate him? And when he stroked her breasts, then lowered his head to kiss them, why did she arch toward him with about as much restraint as a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline? How could she explain the rush of damp heat between her thighs or the aching drumroll of desire building within her womb?

She knew why. This wasn’t some sudden tropical fever robbing her of propriety or decency; it was a slow-growing affliction that had begun months ago. That day in the Wexlers’ garden, it had been the impact of his cool green inspection, and not her rapid descent from the tree, that had sent her practically sprawling at his feet. He’d stood there like some beautiful avenging angel, and despite the disapproval manifest in his gaze and in his voice, something inside her had responded to him in a very primal way. He’d ignited a spark that had been waiting for a chance to burst into flame.

She’d tried to ignore it, heaven knew. It had been the only sane course to follow, given that, in addition to his overt disaffection for her, he was also engaged to marry Barbara. A woman would have to be blind as well as stupid to think for a moment that a man—any man—would look twice at ordinary Sophie Casson if fascinating Barbara Wexler was his for the taking.

But that was then and this was now. Barbara had gone, and for whatever reason, Dominic had turned to her, Sophie. Even in the midst of passion, she knew he was trying to lose himself, to forget, if only for a little while, his pain. And if it was shameful to welcome the chance to assuage his need, then she was guilty. Because wild dogs would not have deterred her at that moment.

He stripped away her bikini bottom, fumbled with the belt at his waist, and she helped him, her fingers nimble at the buttoned fly of his khaki shorts. He rolled to one side, shrugged himself free of the confinement of clothing, and then he was covering her again. Covering her, and entering her, hot, frenzied, reckless.

She took him into herself. Absorbed his pain, his loss, and made it hers. Did whatever she had to do, gave everything he silently begged of her, to make things more bearable for him. If it had been within her power, she’d have brought Barbara back, even though doing so would have made her own loneliness more acute.

And why? Never mind why. The reason wasn’t to be entertained. To allow it even momentary lodging in her mind would be to invite misery into her heart as a permanent guest. Instead, she shut out her own needs and catered to his.

He drove himself as if the hounds of hell were in pursuit and he was desperate to outrace them. Willingly, Sophie raced with him, her peripheral awareness shrinking as a great roaring flood gathered inside her. There was not a force in this world or any other that could have stopped either of them.

And then it was over as suddenly as it had begun and there was nothing but the sound of sudden rain splashing on the tropical shrubs outside and dimpling the surface of the pool. As if the sun couldn’t bear to witness such wanton conduct and had ordered the rain to wash away the shame of it all.

Looking anywhere but at her, Dominic rolled into a sitting position, reached for his clothes and climbed into them even more speedily than he’d shed them. She thought he’d simply walk out of the room and that would be that, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood at the open balcony doors and stared out.

Unable to bear his silence a moment longer, Sophie slid to her feet, wrapping herself in the flowered bedspread as she did so, and went to stand beside him. “Say something, Dominic,” she begged.

His shoulders rose in a great sigh. An unguarded sorrow formed in the curve of his mouth, then in his eyes as they focused on the distance beyond the windows. As if he was watching a ship bearing a loved one disappear over the horizon. “What in God’s name can I say?”

A slow trembling began inside her, gathering force as it spread until she shook from head to foot. She was the one who’d started everything when she’d reached out and touched him. It was all her fault.

“Tell me that you don’t hate me for what I allowed to happen,” she whispered. “That you don’t think it was something I planned. I feel guilty enough without that.”

He swung his head toward her and she thought she had never looked into such emptiness as she found in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was raw with...what? Rage, pain, regret?

“Right now,” he said, “I don’t give a rat’s rear how you’re feeling. I’m too busy despising myself.”

Once again, he reduced her to such shock that her knees almost buckled beneath her as the blood rushed from her face. But he didn’t notice, nor would he probably have cared. Snatching up Barbara’s suitcase, he rammed it shut. Then he stalked across the room to the door, opened it, stepped through and closed it quietly behind him. And just to add salt to Sophie’s wounds, the rain passed as suddenly as it had begun and the sun came out again.

She did not go down for dinner that night. She took a long, too-hot bath and tried to scrub away the shame and the hurt. And then, while people laughed and danced on the patio below, she lay in her bed and tried to ignore its twin standing empty only a few feet away.

But even though the night was moonless, the hurricane lamps in the garden flung up enough of a glow for her to see the other bed’s outline quite clearly. Its pillows sat not quite straight and one corner of the flowered cover trailed on the floor. As though whoever had thrown it back in place had done so carelessly. Or furtively, because its disarray had been caused by people who had no business lying on it in the first place, let alone making unseemly imitation love there.

Shame flowed over Sophie again, more invasive even than Dominic’s hands, licking over every inch of her skin, into every secret curve and fold until she burned from its onslaught. How could she have allowed herself?

If only Elaine hadn’t fallen victim to the chicken pox. If only she hadn’t agreed to let Barbara take Elaine’s place! Why had she when, of all people, Barbara Wexler was a woman with whom she shared nothing in common?

She knew why. For the sadistic pleasure of listening to Barbara talk about her fiancé. For vicarious thrills. Because, from the outset, Sophie had wanted him.

Well, now she’d had him, however briefly. And she felt like the lowest form of life ever to slither across the face of the earth.

CHAPTER THREE

IN THE hours following, Sophie learned that it didn’t take sleep for a person to find herself trapped in a nightmare. Much though she would have liked to divert them, disturbing questions raced through her mind. Had he known to whom he’d just made such desperate love? Was it Sophie Casson with her conscience, like her mind, clouded by a raging hunger, who’d filled him with passion—or Barbara’s ghost taking up temporary residence for one last farewell?

Worn out with anguish, Sophie fell asleep just before dawn and awoke a short time later to a day luminous with sun and that special clarity of light indigenous to the Caribbean. Her immediate reaction was to bury her head under the pillows and remain there well into the next century, but a thump on her door put an end to such wishful thinking.

Probably the maid, she thought drearily. But it was Dominic, the very last person in the world she wanted to face with her hair standing on end and her eyes red ringed from hours of on-again, off-again crying.

He stared at her, the turmoil he was suffering plain to see. From the beginning of their association, he’d struck her as a man of many layers, all of them designed to keep her at a distance. He wore pride over arrogance, distaste over reserve, hauteur over grief, drawing each one around himself like a cloak. And now, on top of them all, his raging disgust for having allowed her to glimpse that vulnerable side of himself that she suspected he seldom acknowledged even to himself.

Without invitation, he stepped into the room and shouldered the door closed. Too dismayed to ask what he thought he was doing barging in on her like that, she backed away from him, cringing inwardly at the bars of sunlight slanting through the louvered windows to reveal her in all her disheveled glory.

“I expected you’d be awake already,” he said, following her.

She tugged furtively on the hem of her nightshirt, which came only midway down her thighs. “I am—now.”

His beautiful brows shot upward as though he thought only the most dissolute of creatures would still be in bed at such an hour, but at least he had the good grace not to voice the opinion aloud. “I just came back from a meeting with Inspector Montand. All the red tape’s taken care of finally, so I’m free to leave. I’ll be on my way within a couple of hours.”

That’s all he knew! “There isn’t another flight out until tomorrow afternoon,” Sophie informed him, a certain malicious satisfaction at being one step ahead of him for a change coloring her tone.

His gaze slewed past her as if he found the sight of her singularly offensive. “For other people, perhaps, but I’m not prepared to wait that long, so I’ve chartered a private jet. If you care to, you’re welcome to come with me. I can’t imagine you’re still in a holiday mood after everything that’s happened.”

He was right. More than anything, she wanted to escape from this island and all its painful memories. But the thought of spending ten or more hours in the undiluted company of a man who clearly viewed her with a combination of embarrassment and disgust was even less appealing. “Thanks anyway, but I think I should stick to my original travel plans.”

His gaze flickered to Barbara’s bed and away again. “Yes,” he conceded. “Perhaps that would be best.”

His attitude, and the way he abruptly turned and left, reminded her of another time earlier that fall. Sophie had started work at the Wexlers’ about nine on a morning so damp and dreary that Mrs. Wexler had insisted she come in out of the cold and have lunch with them.

She hadn’t found it a particularly relaxed meal. The Wexlers were kind and called her “Sophie” and “dear”. Barbara, who seemed compelled to abbreviate everyone’s name but her own, called her “Sophe”. But Dominic had steadfastly stuck to “Ms. Casson”—on those few occasions that he called her anything at all.

“So you’re still here, Ms. Casson,” he’d said when he came upon her still hard at it later that afternoon. “Does that mean you’ll be joining us for dinner, too?”

From his tone, one would have thought she made a habit of cadging free meals! “No,” she’d assured him, aware as always of the undeclared currents of war flowing between them. “I’m an employee, not a friend of the family, and hardly belong at the dinner table.”

“It might be a good idea for us all to remember that,” he’d replied enigmatically, then stalked away, just as he did now, without bothering to say goodbye. An adversarial, uncivil man, she’d decided at the time, his exquisitely tailored suits and elegant black Jaguar with its pale gray leather upholstery notwithstanding.

Well, the war had been waged at last, and Barbara’s bed had been the battlefield. The question was, had anyone emerged a winner?

She didn’t see him again. By the time she came downstairs he’d already left, and her last day on St. Julian was uneventful. The next afternoon, she left, too, and slept that night in her own bed, comforted by the knowledge that once she’d sent flowers and a note of condolence to the Wexlers, it would be over, all of it.

But it wasn’t. The following week, she got a call from Barbara’s mother. “I wonder, my dear, if you’d come to see us and tell us, if you will, what you know... ?” Gail Wexler’s voice broke, and a stifled sob punctuated the brief silence before she was able to continue. “Please, will you come, Sophie? You were the last person to see our daughter alive, and if we could talk to you, it might help us to... accept what’s happened.”

It required a colder heart than Sophie possessed to refuse. Nothing would be over for any of them, she realized then, until all the rituals of grieving had been observed. “When would you like to see me?”

They settled on the following evening at eight o’clock. When Sophie pulled up in her car, she found Dominic’s Jaguar already parked in the driveway outside the house. She’d half expected he’d be in attendance, too, since the Wexlers clearly regarded him as a son, and she had thought herself prepared to cope with the eventuality. Still, when he opened the mansion’s front door to her, the sight of his unsmiling face unsettled her badly.

I let him make love to me, she thought, appalled all over again. I shared the ultimate intimacy with a man whom I knew to be in love with someone else at the time.

Something of her dismay must have showed on her face because as soon as she’d greeted the Wexlers in the drawing room, Dominic took her by the elbow and steered her to a side table where a silver coffee service waited.

Under the pretext of filling a cup for her, he said in a low tone, “Please try to hide your aversion to being here. It isn’t pleasant for any of us, but you don’t have to make it any harder on the Wexlers than it already is.”

“I’m fully aware of that,” she said softly, annoyance at his choosing once again to interpret her actions in the most unfavorable light diminished by her shock at the change in Barbara’s parents. They had aged dreadfully over the past few weeks and seemed terribly fragile.

But Dominic wasn’t done harassing her. “Furthermore,” he decreed in that bossy way of his, “although I gathered from Montand that you pretty well agreed with him when he intimated that Barbara asked for trouble down on St. Julian, her parents don’t need to be told that.”

It was the verbal slap in the face needed to restore Sophie. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she muttered indignantly. “What sort of person do you take me for?”

“You don’t want to know,” he shot back, lowering his lashes to hide the scorn flaring in his eyes.

Mrs. Wexler patted the cushion beside her on the brocade sofa. “Bring your cup and sit here with me, Sophie. We’re so grateful to you for coming tonight and I know we’ll both feel better for your visit. Won’t we, John?”

If anything, Barbara’s father looked even frailer than his wife. “She was only twenty-four,” he murmured plaintively. “I don’t understand how someone so young and full of life could be snuffed out like that. Why did it happen?”

“I think perhaps because she was so full of life, just as you say, Mr. Wexler,” Sophie suggested, trying hard to tread the fine path between honesty and tact. “She was impatient...”

Apparently, she hadn’t tried hard enough. From his post at the corner of the fireplace, Dominic frowned a caution. “‘Eager’ might be a better word, Ms. Casson.”

So might “rebellious”, Sophie thought, not to mention “selfish” and “willful” and “downright cheap”. But of course, he didn’t want to hear that sort of thing, any more than the Wexlers did, and who was she to belittle anyone else’s morals in light of her own fall from grace?

“But was she having fun... until... ?”

The pathetic hope in Mrs Wexler’s next question broke Sophie’s heart. It was a relief to be able to say quite truthfully that, until the accident, Barbara had been busy having a wonderful time on St. Julian. Fortunately, neither parent asked Sophie to elaborate on the remark.

“There’ll be a service next week in the Palmerstown Memorial Chapel, and a plaque placed in the gardens,” Dominic informed her when he saw her out. “The Wexlers would appreciate your being there.”