Phantom Lover

by Susan Napier

  The warm, charming and sensitive man was sitting behind her desk rifling through the drawers. His concern had been merely a ploy to get her out of the room, she realised with an acute sense of betrayal.

  ‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing?’

  He ignored her, bending in the chair to pull out another drawer, and tip out its contents on the floor. Realising that she had no hope of physically stopping him, Honor tried to use sweet reason.

  ‘Mr—Adam, if you want those letters back I’ll be happy to give them to you. I know you’re angry but truly, I had no idea that you thought you were writing to my sister—how could I? You wrote to this address and I’m the only H. Sheldon who lives here. I didn’t even know that you and Helen had met—I thought you just must have seen me at the ball and...and...’

  His head lifted, his eyes chilly with contemptuous disbelief. ‘Found you so instantly and devastatingly attractive that I couldn’t forget you?’ Honor blushed painfully as her foolish fantasies were stripped to their unlikely origins. ‘Yes, I can see how often that must happen to you.’ His sarcasm was as glacial as his stare.

  ‘Perhaps that’s how you get your kicks—by enticing strange men to write to you under false pretences. Do you advertise in the personal columns, too, and send your gullible prospects a photograph of your beautiful sister to stimulate their interest? Are you so jealous of her that in some sick and twisted way you try to be her—?’

  ‘I’m perfectly happy being myself! You seem to be forgetting that you’re the one who made the approach to me,’ Honor flung at him, mortified by his interpretation of her character. ‘All I did was innocently answer a card that I received—’

  ‘You have an interesting interpretation of innocence,’ Adam rapped out. ‘The police tell a different version...the one about how you thought it was great fun to lead me on until you decided I was becoming too persistent, an embarrassing annoyance, and thought it was time to front up and deliver the punch line in person.’

  Oh, damn! She knew that somehow her lies would return to haunt her.

  ‘I only said that because I was trying to keep Helen out of it. I didn’t want the police involving her in any awkward publicity—’ she protested.

  ‘But she is involved, isn’t she, right up to her beautiful neck?’ he cut in savagely. Honor could practically see his wounded male pride throbbing. ‘I suppose she was in on the joke, too?’

  ‘There wasn’t any joke.’ Honor stared him straight in the eye, willing him to believe her. ‘I didn’t realise what had been going on myself until I was reading one of your letters this morning and...well, of course I showed them to Helen straight away and she told me about what you did for her at the ball, and then I knew...’

  ‘You showed her?’ Adam’s voice rose sharply in conjunction with his powerful body as he came sweeping to his feet. ‘Helen’s here?’

  The flare of anticipation that glowed momentarily in his eyes said it all. The beauteous Helen would be forgiven her transgressions whereas her plain, unprepossessing sister would not. Honor felt a little kick of malicious temper. If he could be insensitive so could she.

  ‘Not now, no. She was staying with me for a few days, but she flew to Sydney this afternoon. When I told her about the mix-up she wasn’t really interested. She doesn’t answer fan letters, you see, so she probably would never have written to you even if you had sent your letters to the right address in New York.’

  Instead of flinching Adam fixed her with a drilling look. ‘Something else you lied to the detective inspector about? You told him your sister was in New York—’

  ‘I didn’t lie, I said she lives in New York, not that she was there right at this moment—’

  ‘A lie by implication is no less a lie,’ said Adam grimly. ‘You seem to make a habit of taking advantage of other people’s mistakes, don’t you, Honor? Quite the little opportunist, in fact. I wonder what else you’re hiding...?’

  With that he sat back down and continued his search, his careless violation of her tidy drawers a deliberate goad to which Honor instinctively responded. She marched around the desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. She took out the stack of letters that the detective had put back in meticulous order and dumped them in front of him.

  ‘There! Satisfied?’

  He was shuffling impatiently through them. ‘Not nearly. I don’t care about these. Where are the others?’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘You know very well. The ones I didn’t send.’

  Honor stared at his gritty profile, wondering whether the blow from Monty’s claws could have caused a mild concussion in so hard a head. Now she looked more closely she could see the fine tension lines radiating out around his mouth and eyes, signs of powerful emotions kept in rigid check. He looked like a man at the very edge of his control. What anger he had released so far was merely the tip of the iceberg.

  ‘They’re all there,’ she said warily, feeling like a passenger on the Titanic. ‘Except for the one that the detective took with him, of course...’

  ‘And you can thank God that he handed it back to me instead of filing it as evidence,’ he growled, and suddenly she thought she understood. He wanted reassurance that she hadn’t showed the most revealing letters to anyone else.

  ‘Look—’ She reached for the envelopes and yelped as her hand was slapped down on to the desk under a savage paw. ‘I was only going to show you,’ she said reproachfully. ‘If you’re talking about the last few letters they’re right here, at the back. See?’ She showed him with her free hand.

  ‘Matching envelopes,’ he said cryptically as he checked the contents. ‘Hide them in plain sight. Clever.’

  The press of his encompassing palm loosened over hers but just as she slid her flattened fingers gratefully free he curled his hand around her wrist and jerked her closer. Sitting down he was still almost as tall as she was standing. His voice was silky with cold menace. ‘Now, be a good girl and show where you’ve hidden the others. If you give them to me we’ll call it quits—after you’ve answered one or two pressing questions...’

  She didn’t like the sound of that. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about; there are no others.’ She strained away from him while trying not to let the extent of her panic show. Maybe Adam Blake had a split personality; maybe his letters had been dictated by a separate persona that he wasn’t consciously aware existed.

  ‘If that’s the way you want to play it.’ The smile he gave her sent a chill up her spine. It was almost as if he relished her resistance.

  ‘I’m not playing.’ But he was...playing her straining body like a fish on a line, reeling her slowly in between his splayed knees with a gradually increasing pressure of her captured wrist.

  ‘However many letters you might have posted, those are all that arrived here,’ she told him, her normally rich, warm voice reedy with rising hysteria. How did you reason with a madman? ‘Why don’t you let me go and we can have a drink and talk about this sensibly?’ Maybe alcohol was a bad idea. It might feed his paranoia. ‘Or a cup of tea. That scratch is probably throbbing by now. Why don’t you let me clean it for you and—? Oh!’ With a slight flick of his wrist he brought her down on her knees, his thighs levering shut on either side of her torso. She gasped at the ruthless compression of her ribs, her hands pushing helplessly against the thick muscles bunching under the dark trousers.

  He watched her twist and struggle in silence for a moment or two and then he leaned forward and cupped her pale face in his big hands with a tenderness that terrified her far more than his anger.

  ‘Forget the tea and sympathy—I want something much more valuable. Would you like me to hurt you, Honor?’ His thumbs stroked behind her ears, his fingers threading up under her hair, cradling her skull, making her aware of its mortal fragility.

  ‘Is that the only way I can make you tell the truth? The things about yourself you told me in your letters—I don’t suppose all of them were lies. I remember you telling me once
that you have a low pain threshold...’ The slightly calloused edge of the outside of his palm lifted her jaw, stretching her soft throat uncomfortably taut. ‘Shall we test the veracity of that statement first...?’

  ‘Adam, please—’

  His thumbs shifted to press across her trembling mouth. ‘Don’t beg yet, I haven’t started.’ His fingers massaged her scalp gently and suddenly black dots were dancing in front of Honor’s eyes that had nothing to do with pain. After a shattering day this emotional overload was just too much.

  ‘You’re being totally unreasonable,’ she whispered.

  ‘And you don’t think I have a right to be? I don’t give in to blackmail. Not ever. I don’t know how you got hold of those damned letters but if you thought you could use them against me you made a bad mistake—’

  ‘But you know how I got them...you sent them to me!’ The black dots had become red and Honor could hear the blood pounding in her ears. If he leaned any closer he would be kissing her. Or, more likely, biting...

  ‘Did you think you’d get money for them? From me? Or are you more ambitious? Did you think you could use them to advance your journalistic career by flogging them off to the highest bidder? Maybe it was just malice. You wanted to make me pay for the sin of having wanted your sister instead of you. There are plenty of motives to choose from, aren’t there?’

  His breath was hot against her face. ‘I—I’m not that kind of reporter,’ she said weakly.

  ‘You admitted you work for a newspaper.’

  God, he was persistent. He somehow must have gained access to the record of her interview. How wonderful to have influence!

  ‘Only part-time. I help produce the small local bi-weekly give-away. All very innocuous—flower shows, pony club meets, advertising supplements, that sort of thing. I do the layout on my computer. I have a desk-top publishing programme...’

  Except for the shrunken omelette, she hadn’t eaten anything but a breakfast slice of toast and now her blood sugar plummeted to her toes. What little colour there was left in her face drained away. Her eyes drifted defensively closed and she sagged as a wave of faintness passed over her.

  She was barely aware of his hands sliding down to replace the pressure of his thighs against her waist, holding her limp body upright as he demanded insistently, ‘And that’s how you support yourself? Pay for this house, your car, your living expenses, clothes? By working part-time?’

  He made it sound as if she lived high on the hog, instead of quietly and, for the most part, frugally. ‘I—I do other things sometimes—voice commercials, for radio and television, leaflet layouts for people...’ If she stopped fighting and answered his ridiculous questions maybe he would go back where he came from. Right now, that was all she wanted: to be left alone to crawl into bed and escape the bitter disillusionments of the day. ‘The house was a gift from Helen. The car is six years old. I buy my clothes at sales. OK?’

  ‘And you’re an ardent conservationist?’

  This new tangent bewildered her more than ever. Reluctantly Honor opened her heavy eyelids. Funny how secure she felt in his hold when only a few moments before it had been a merciless threat. ‘I think whales are worth saving. Why? Don’t you?’

  ‘Not at the expense of human life,’ he said, watching some of the colour slowly returning to her face as she frowned, the stern tilt of her thick straight eyebrows cancelling out the slightly dazed softness of her grey-green eyes.

  Sullen-faced she had the look of a boy, all freckles and bony angles, but they were fine bones and the voice that came out of that neat, narrow mouth was anything but boyish. It was smooth and soft as velvet, as unexpectedly sensuous as the extravagant curves of her breasts and hips. He tightened his grip on her waist, unable to encircle the soft indentation even with his long fingers fully extended to the limit of their generous reach. It was a timely reminder that he liked his women tall and athletic like himself, narrow-hipped, supple and slender. And, more importantly, trustworthy.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of whales harpooning fishermen,’ Honor said, disliking the brooding shift of his expression.

  ‘No, but there are radicals who would like to make their point just as graphically: vandalism, car bombs, threats to spike the products of companies they say exploit animals for profits with poison...’

  Something in the way he said it made Honor stiffen. ‘Is that what the police are investigating?’ Her heart went out to him, until she realised what he was thinking. It was like a reviving dash of cold water in her face. ‘My God, you can’t think that I would have anything to do with it? For goodness’ sake, you know me better than that!’

  ‘On the contrary, I don’t know you at all,’ he corrected her coldly.

  ‘Yes, you do. You have all my letters,’ Honor insisted.

  ‘And you have mine.’

  She sighed. ‘We’re just going around in circles here. Look, I’m a pacifist, I have nothing but contempt for people who use violence to promote their point of view. I’m sorry you’re having problems but they’re nothing to do with me. I don’t know what more I can say to convince you. Can’t we talk about this tomorrow? I’m very tired. I’ve been man-handled, interrogated, frightened and insulted. Don’t you think that’s enough for one day?’ Self-pity overwhelmed her as she catalogued her woes. And she hadn’t even mentioned the worst shock of all: the defection of the romantic hero of her imagination!

  ‘So am I. Tired of deception and evasion.’ Adam stood, towering over her kneeling figure for a moment before making a rough sound of impatience and reaching down to lift her into the chair he had just vacated. ‘But by all means let’s talk about it tomorrow. In fact, now I think of it, that’s an excellent idea. Why don’t you just sit here and rest while I get your things?’

  ‘My things?’ She was talking to his back as he strode out of the room. ‘What do you mean, get my things? Hey, where do you think you’re going?’

  Everywhere, it seemed. ‘Getting her things’ translated as conducting a rapid search of the rest of her house, ignoring Honor as she trailed furiously in his wake, protesting every step of the way.

  ‘If this is the way you carry on, no wonder someone’s threatening you!’ she threw at him as he inspected the contents of the chest of drawers in her bedroom. ‘It’s a wonder no one brained you before now. And put that down! How dare you put your grubby paws on my underwear? If you don’t get out of here right this minute I’m calling the police!’

  It was an empty threat. The last thing she wanted after today was another run-in with authority, and Adam seemed to know it. He merely turned, a pair of plain white cotton panties strung from his tanned fingers.

  ‘If you wear underwear like this I doubt you have to worry about it being pawed. Queen Victoria would definitely approve.’

  Sarcastic beast! She whipped out some sarcasm of her own.

  ‘What are you, an expert? I suppose you’ll be raiding women’s clothes-lines next. Why should we dress like tarts just to pander to your sleazy male fantasies? And what I wear under my clothes is none of your business, thank you very much!’

  Thank God he had skipped the top right-hand drawer.

  Unfortunately, even as she sent up the grateful prayer, he remedied the omission. He stilled, staring down at the contents, then lifted his head to cast a taunting glance at her fiery face as he deliberately, slowly, stirred the frothy, multi-coloured confection of lace until a violet satin suspender spilled over the edge and dangled provocatively into space, swinging like a brazen pendulum measuring out each long second of her embarrassment. She lifted her chin and set her mouth, her hands clenching at her sides.

  He didn’t say anything as he tucked it back. He didn’t have to. His smirking expression said it all. First he made slighting remarks about her everyday underwear just because it was practical, and now he made her feel as if possession of a few feminine fripperies were a criminal offence! Oh, why had she made that smart remark about sleazy fantasies? She might hav
e known the wretched man wouldn’t overlook anything. Didn’t the fact that he dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’ in his letters tell her anything?

  ‘At the moment everything about you is my business,’ he continued as if the silent interchange hadn’t occurred. He opened her wardrobe and hauled out a soft suitcase he found on the top shelf, and began tossing in random pieces of clothing from hangers and drawers. ‘By the time I’ve finished with you I’m going to know you better than you know yourself.’

  ‘What are you doing? Stop that!’ For a big man he was very quick on his feet, keeping his broad back to her and side-stepping each time she tried to move around him. He even raked a collection of cosmetics off her dressing-table into the gaping bag. ‘Adam, I’m warning you—’ She squeaked as he grabbed a blind handful from the top right-hand drawer and stuffed it into the bag. ‘If you don’t stop right now I’ll—I’ll—’

  He zipped up the suitcase and turned so swiftly that she staggered back. ‘You’ll what?’

  She frowned as she tried to think of a threat big enough to scare him. ‘I’ll call my lawyer.’

  Some threat. Perhaps he guessed that she didn’t have a lawyer.

  ‘Fine. Call him from my phone,’ he said coolly, taking her elbow in a light but numbing grip that had all her nerve-ends screaming to obey him. ‘It’s tapped but then no doubt, in view of your claim of complete innocence, you won’t mind the police listening in.’

  His phone? At last Honor forced herself to concede that he was not just trying to frighten her. He was succeeding!

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’ Her feet contradicted her feeble protest as she trotted helplessly alongside him, steered by that implacably gentle, fingertip control.

  She remembered now that he had mentioned in one of his letters that he had studied some obscure oriental form of self-defence in his teens and twenties. He probably knew pressure holds that would turn a six-foot body-builder into an obedient wimp, let alone a five-foot-three female of doubtful fitness. And she had fondly imagined he had engaged in the sport to compensate for an inferior physique, to bolster his self-confidence as a man. This man had self-confidence oozing out of every pore!