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“How would you know?” Christy was finding his behaviour abominable. “It’s been weeks since I laid eyes on you. Now if you don’t mind I want to leave.”
“When you’re McKinnon’s date?” He challenged her to stop.
“I mean leave this room. You have me bailed up.” She stared at him in disgust, willing him out of the way.
“No one will come in here, Christy,” he said as if to reassure her.
“Oh, please. You’d better hope and pray not Ashe McKinnon. You could wind up dead. He’s very protective of his cousin.”
“I can handle Callista.” He smiled tightly. “I had to talk to you, Christy. I have to see you later.”
“Later?” Her eyes flashed angrily even while her voice rose in sheer disbelief. “Later you’re supposed to be on your honeymoon. Not renewing our relationship.”
“How I wish it was you,” he admitted in a tone of deepest regret.
“Go to hell.” She prised her fingers from his arm. “And I hope you stay there.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” he groaned, his eyes curiously glazed. “I love you. You love me. Nothing can change that.” He reached, as though this time she would surrender and go into his arms.
Instead the tall, powerful figure of Ashe McKinnon appeared in the open doorway. He fairly lunged into the room, looking as daunting as the devil, just as dangerous, and probably just as unlawful.
“This has to be the most stupid thing you’ve ever done, Deakin,” he rasped, eyes like black diamonds. “Get away from him.” He turned on Christy, grinding out the order.
Giving orders was a tendency in dangerous creatures, she thought, instantly obeying.
“Hasn’t it crossed your arrogant mind that’s what I’m trying to do?” The decided edge in her voice matched his own.
“I told you to stay with me,” he reminded her, not taking his eyes off the errant bridegroom who had taken cover of sorts behind an armchair.
“And you really thought I was going to obey? What sort of woman do you think I am?” Christy fired, embarrassed beyond words.
“An idiot to begin with,” he informed her shortly. “Come over here to me.”
She knew better than to rile him further.
“What are we going to do with you, Deakin?” Ashe felt like slamming Callista’s brand-new husband against a wall. “My family is very important to me.” And in all honesty he was seething at the sight of Miss Parker near wrapped in Deakin’s arms.
“It wasn’t what you think.” The panic-stricken Josh assumed a look of deep apology. Tangling with the cattle baron would be like tangling with a charging rhino. “It’s the same old story. You must know it, Ashe.” His mobile features took on a man-to-man expression. “Christy and I had a little fling but when I told her it was over she wouldn’t let go. Women are like that.”
She had never known this man, Christy thought, gazing at him with a mixture of dismay and pain.
“You really think I’m going to swallow that?” Ashe near choked, he was so angry. He couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, relate to this guy. What in the name of God did Callista and this girl, Christy, see in him? He was ninety-five per cent toxic waste.
“It’s true.” Christy picked that moment to be utterly selfless. Not for Josh. Sometime in the future Josh would get his comeuppance. But for Callista. She had no desire to hurt Callista. Callista was just another woman who thought herself deeply in love with a man she couldn’t see clearly. “I came here to tempt him.”
“What rot!” Ashe bridled afresh. “About as good as it gets.” He studied Christy with contemptuous eyes. “You’re trying to save his worthless skin.”
“Your cousin Callista doesn’t deserve this. She’s the innocent party. I owe her something. The question I ask myself now is why did you, astute old you, let her marry him?”
Ashe’s dynamic face mirrored his frustration. “The fact is Callista is nearly thirty years old.” He rounded on Christy, his anger abruptly abating when he saw how pale she was. Her eyes were enormous, a dead give-away she was deeply disturbed.
“Get the hell out of here, Deakin,” Ashe ordered, his voice cracking like a whip. “Your playing around with other women ends today. If I hear one word…!”
“I’m going to be the best husband ever,” Josh proclaimed like a professional con man, looking Ashe in the eyes.
“You’d better be, my man.” Ashe nodded, his expression grim.
“I love Callista,” Josh poured it on while Ashe McKinnon threw back his dark head and roared.
“I have grave misgivings about that. You’re dirt.”
The rest of Josh’s words dried up. Hastily he crossed to the door, pausing a moment from its relative safety. “As far as I’m concerned Christy is the culprit here. Ex-girlfriends aren’t supposed to gatecrash a man’s wedding.”
Ashe swore beneath his breath in a near ecstasy of anger. “Get out of here.” The attitude of his body suggesting a panther about to spring into action.
Josh wasn’t entirely insane. With one last aggrieved look he took to his heels.
“Not his finest hour,” pronounced Ashe in disgust.
When the time came—by now time had no meaning for Christy—for the happy couple to leave on the first leg of their honeymoon—an overnight stay in the honeymoon suite of a leading hotel before jetting off for three weeks in Thailand—the guests had assembled on the grand sweep of front lawn of the McKinnon mansion to wave them off.
Callista, as pretty as a picture in her pink going-away outfit, turned to throw her bouquet. A surprisingly high sweep. Christy, battling with the illusion she was trapped in a dream, made no move to catch it. She felt quite naturally it was inappropriate as well as the fact she had gone off weddings. She didn’t even make a playful gesture of reaching up as all four bridesmaids were doing, but in earnest. The bouquet simply descending gracefully but in a mesmerizing way, twirling and twirling a lovely posy of perfect pink and white roses threaded with traceries of green.
The bridesmaids were running forward, palms up, fingers steepled, each one determined to catch this wonderful forecast. I’m next! Their faces were bright with excitement and anticipatory pleasure.
Me. Me. Let it be me.
But life is full of disappointments and preordained events. Callista’s bouquet fell with a soft fragrant weight into Christy’s nerveless hands.
She saw the muscles along Ashe McKinnon’s clean-cut jaw tighten cynically before two of the women guests grasped her in affectionate camaraderie and kissed her on either cheek.
“Lucky girl!” They batted speculative glances at Ashe. God, wasn’t he a drop-dead hunk!
And why not? Ashe had scarcely left her side. Mercedes had berated him fondly for trying to fool her. Everyone seemed to think she was the new woman in Ashe McKinnon’s life. An irony not lost on either of them.
And so it was that Christy and Ashe McKinnon left the wedding together. Christy heading into very deep waters indeed.
CHAPTER TWO
FROM nowhere a chauffeured limousine appeared. At least there were some pluses to being rich. Christy stepped into the back seat. After a moment Ashe McKinnon joined her.
In the silence that followed, Christy stared out the window, devastated by the whole day.
“Silly me, I’ve forgotten where you live,” he said in an ironic tone.
She surveyed him gravely, her faith in life shattered, yet it was he who had rescued her from a very bad situation.
“Goodness me, and you were thinking of moving in. Number 10 Downing Street.” At least that was a world away.
“My dear girl they’ve changed the locks.” His black gaze fell on her lovely face, desire lapping in his blood.
“Then I suggest you try 121 Shelly Beach Road.”
He lowered the partition window to give instructions to the chauffeur.
“I feel ashamed of myself,” Christy confessed after a few unhappy minutes of studying the stars. “Really ashamed.”
“Perhaps you ought to be put in prison,” he suggested in a mocking voice.
“It wasn’t that serious, was it?” She looked back at him. Why was she with this man?
“You do this for a living, gatecrashing receptions?”
“I couldn’t face seeing Josh marry your cousin. How petite she is! Doll-size.”
“Up until recently I thought she had a woman-sized brain. As for you, you have to get on with your life.” He didn’t want her mourning Deakin. Not for one minute.
“I don’t want to even think about it for at least forty-eight hours. I had maybe one too many glasses of champagne,” she apologised.
“That’s perfectly understandable. It’s also the reason why I hired the limousine. I couldn’t drive you myself. Not only do I not keep a car in the city but I’m well over the limit. Three glasses of anything is surely not enough to celebrate a wedding? Even an insufferable one.”
“I should have known better.” Christy gave a bruised sigh.
“Indeed you should.” His tone used up a lot of censure.
“You’ve never made a mistake in your life I suppose?” Christy pressed back exhaustedly against the plush upholstery.
“I think I hate the way you say that. All my ex-girlfriends speak to me.”
“I bet you gave them a hard time,” Christy answered. He wouldn’t lie to them. If anything he was too much upfront. “I know some women go in for excitement and danger. It must make them feel more alive. It’s my professional judgment that you’re a dangerous man.”
“All it might take is a little getting to know me.” He flung out an arm and drew her close to him. His desire for her was blocking out his usual tight control. And he wanted to comfort her. All of a sudden she seemed very vulnerable.
Christy allowed her head to come to rest against his shoulder. “You know you’re not my keeper.” But he was very masterful.
“I am for this evening.” He brushed a few glinting golden strands of hair from her cheek. “To be honest, I’m concerned you might go after them.”
She came upright in despair. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
“I sincerely hope so.” He didn’t sound impressed. “Your ex-boyfriend and my cousin have only this very evening exchanged their marriage vows.”
“And good luck to them,” Christy exclaimed disjointedly. She felt so overwrought she couldn’t even begin to describe her emotions. “I do know one thing. I wouldn’t want to marry a man like you.” She withdrew the ruffled hem of her short skirt away from his trousered knee.
“I hope you weren’t counting on my asking you?” He didn’t bother to control the mockery. Who the hell did she think she was? A goddess?
“Getting married is the last thing I want to do,” Christy said with the sombre gravity of the betrayed. “Marriages in most cases don’t seem to work out. I know any number of couples who have split up.”
“Not counting you and Josh?” He smiled grimly.
“When I think of you a word comes to mind,” Christy said in exasperation. Didn’t he know she was badly hurt?
“Please don’t say it,” he joked. “I detest hearing rough words on a woman’s tongue. As it happens, I’m not a great one for marriage either. It’s something men have to do to get heirs.”
She felt the shock. “What a rotten thing to say.”
He was silent for a while. “Being betrayed isn’t just a woman’s area. Wives and mothers have been known to abandon the marital home leaving devastation behind them. Women don’t have a great deal of difficulty stamping on a man’s heart.”
Christy was taken aback by the degree of passion in his voice. “You’re beginning to sound like a misogynist.”
“Sometimes I think I am.” He revealed a white twisted smile. “A reflection of my background perhaps. But to get back to you, Christy Parker, you could be a whole lot unhappier as an old maid.”
“Don’t use that term,” she protested. “I’m a feminist, I don’t like it. I’m sick of all the words men have thought up to label women.”
“You don’t think they deserve a lot of them?” he asked with strong sarcasm.
“Women don’t need men,” Christy said, sexual antagonism thick between them. “I suppose they might need them for an occasional bout of sex.”
To her complete surprise given the tension between them, he burst out laughing. It was a very engaging sound. There were some things about him she managed to find wildly attractive. In desperation, not knowing what else to do in the presence of this complex man, Christy closed her eyes. Men of his type were new to her. He was too physically and verbally powerful. She was having such difficulty adjusting to everything that was happening. In a few short hours she’d gone from jilted woman and gatecrasher, to the new woman in Ashe McKinnon the cattle baron’s life.
But then it was only play-acting.
Thank God.
“Wakey, wakey,” a man’s voice breathed seductively in her ear.
“Wh-a-at?” Christy started to say dazedly. “I surely didn’t doze off?” She felt such confusion, disorientation, staring up into his fathomless dark eyes.
“You must have. You didn’t notice when I kissed you.”
“You didn’t kiss me.” She was absolutely certain she would have registered it. On the Richter scale. She understood already, miserable as she was, Ashe McKinnon was that sort of man.
“No, I didn’t,” he drawled. “I imagined I kissed you.”
“Oh…” She was reduced to silence.
Seemingly like magic they were outside her apartment block, the surrounding well-kept gardens giving off the scent of gardenia and frangipani. Above her head the Southern Cross was a dazzling presence. It appeared to be right over the spot where she was standing. A billion stars gleamed. It was a heavenly night, velvety and fragrant. It made her feel very very sad. She even yawned. Ashe McKinnon and the chauffeur, however, had their two heads bent together.
What were they planning? Whatever Ashe said the chauffeur threw back his head and laughed. Men! They bonded in minutes. A moment more and the chauffeur got back behind the wheel, saluted briefly before he pulled away from the kerb, then did a U-turn back in the direction of the city.
“Well which is it?” Ashe joined her, so tall he towered over her. “The penthouse?” He tilted his dark head back, staring up at the twenty floors of the high-rise building.
“Don’t be stupid. I can’t afford the penthouse,” she said feeling a rush of something like panic, “neither do I recall asking you in.”
“But my dear Miss Parker, it’s totally expected under these circumstances. You need someone to look after you.”
“Not you, Mr. McKinnon. I’m in no doubt of that. Most decidedly not you.”
“That’s okay.” He answered casually as if he wanted no part of that agenda either. “As it turns out I have plenty of women fighting over me.”
