by Penny Jordan
‘Not much,’ Matt said self-deprecatingly. ‘Some small articles, and a text-book. Nothing like this.’
Although he was speaking to her uncle, he was still looking at her. Why? Why deliberately try to make her feel uncomfortable? Unless, like her, he was physically incapable of looking away. Unless, like her… Her heart gave a tremendous jump, she felt both sick and excited at the same time. Stop it, she told herself sternly. Stop imagining things that don’t exist. You know what kind of man he really is. You know what he really wants from you.
It was like suddenly coming down to earth after floating with the clouds—a jolting, sickening sensation that caused real physical pain to grip her stomach. She found as she managed to drag her gaze away from him that she was actually shaking with nervous strain. When he didn’t move away from the door until she was almost abreast of it, her stomach lurched betrayingly.
‘I’ll come and help you with the tea,’ he offered courteously.
It was impossible for her to speak. She simply shook her head and almost ran past him into the kitchen, closing the door behind her and leaning on it for several seconds until she felt able to walk slowly and carefully over to the kettle.
She heard the sound of a second car arriving while she was making the tea, and then the sound of firm decisive footsteps crossing the hall. Matt had obviously heard the car as well and had gone to let the publisher in.
She would give the men a few minutes to introduce themselves and get settled, she decided, but only seconds had actually passed when the kitchen door opened and Matt came in.
‘He’s arrived,’ he told her.
‘Yes, I know.’ She gave him a tight, strained smile as she turned round. ‘I’ll bring the tea in in a second,’ she added dismissively—but he refused to be dismissed, staying where he was, watching her intently.
‘What a creature of disguises you are,’ he said softly at last. ‘The night we met, you were the epitome of the modern, free-thinking woman who makes her own rules for the way she lives her life. Then last night, so demure, all neutral, disguising colours; and now today yet another Emily. No need to ask whose benefit this one is for,’ he added acidly. ‘I’m sure he’ll be impressed by you, Emily. He looks the kind who likes his women ladylike but not too demure. The way you’ve got your hair soft and free like that should really turn him on…make him wonder what it would be like to slide his fingers through it and use its soft delicacy to hold you captive under his mouth. And I’m sure he’s going to enjoy the way that deceptively prim and proper sweater you’re wearing hints so cleverly at the femininity of the body it conceals. There’s something about the soft thrust of a woman’s breasts beneath a slightly oversized fine wool sweater that’s covertly erotic… But then, I don’t need to tell you that, do I?’ he added smoothly. ‘I’m sure your fiancé has already told you as much and far more.’
He was angry with her, Emily recognised as her stunned brain tried to make sense of the patently ridiculous accusations he was throwing at her.
‘What is it exactly that you want from my sex, Emily?’ he grated, immobilising her with apprehension as he took a step towards her and then another. Heavens—he was so large, so tall and masculinely threatening in a way that made her stomach go weak with a sensation which shamingly wasn’t entirely fear.
‘You’re engaged, and yet you gave yourself to me when—’ Matt broke off abruptly, fighting to control the emotions rioting inside him.
What on earth was the matter with him? Just because he had discovered that he was a woman’s first lover, that was no reason for him to develop this crazy, almost possessive attitude towards her. She was engaged to someone else, for heaven’s sake. But it had been to him she had turned for physical intimacy, for passion. To him!
His silence enabled Emily to break out of the trance he seemed to have put her in, and reach for the tea-tray. Inwardly she was still shaking with tension and reaction, but she wasn’t going to let him see how much his anger had affected her.
Head held high, she carried the tray towards the open door, ignoring Matt’s muttered, ‘I’ll carry that for you.’
Out in the hallway, unable to resist the impulse to glance at herself in the mirror, she saw that her colour was unusually high and, shockingly, that the yellow jumper did, as Matt had described, somehow give subtle emphasis to the gentle swell of her breasts in a way that might just perhaps be described as provocative.
Provocative. She had never done anything remotely needing that description in her life. She had not even bought the jumper, she wanted to tell him, never mind put it on for the reasons he had so humiliatingly described. It had never, ever occurred to her to wear anything to deliberately draw attention to her body; she had never thought it particularly worthy of drawing attention to. And yet Matt had noticed it—had noticed and cruelly and inaccurately accused her of deliberate wantonness.
The teapot and hot-water jug chinked noisily as her hands trembled. Somehow or other Matt had reached the study door ahead of her, and, when he opened it for her, either by accident or design he held it open in such a way that her body had to brush dangerously close to his as she passed through the opening. Immediately her flesh broke out in a rash of goosebumps, a frisson of sensation making her shiver visibly, so that both Matt, and the man standing next to her uncle apparently deep in conversation with him, both focused on her.
The quick, assessing male interest that sparkled momentarily in the publisher’s eyes startled her so much that Emily simply stared back at him. What on earth had happened to her? What had changed her from being a woman she could have sworn that no man glanced at with any degree of sexual interest, into someone who merited those discreet but very definitely interested male appraisals that both Matt and the publisher had given her?
It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that she and Matt had made love, could it? Automatically she gnawed anxiously on her bottom lip, telling herself that she was being an idiot; that, to put it bluntly, the fact that she was no longer a virgin was hardly something discernible to the naked eye. No, the difference must spring from her—be caused by something within her…her hands shook as she put down the tray. She didn’t like the idea that her body might be indiscreetly and flagrantly inviting men to find it sexually interesting without the knowledge of her mind.
As she put down the tray, Matt came forward to help her, but the publisher beat him to it, smiling warmly at her as he introduced himself.
‘Your uncle has been telling me how hard you’ve been working on his book, and that you’ll be able to tell me far more about its progress than he can himself. What I liked particularly about it was the human aspect of its characters. When it first arrived, I was expecting the traditional kind of learned work-form we expect to receive from a man of your uncle’s erudition. To find something so refreshing and readable came as a complete surprise. We’re very keen to publish.’
Emily was blushing. She couldn’t help it. She wondered if Peter Cavendish had guessed that she was responsible for the humanising of her uncle’s work. She listened guiltily as her uncle and Peter talked, discussing various aspects of the book, with Matt putting in one or two pertinent comments now and again.
Emily busied herself pouring and handing round cups of tea and the small delicate sandwiches her great-uncle liked.
‘I understand that you have a degree yourself,’ Peter Cavendish commented to her. ‘Are you in between career moves at the moment, or…?’
Here it was again, that assumption that she couldn’t possibly find satisfaction in the work she was doing, the life she was living—that she must want to be out among the other frantic go-getters, pursuing commercial success.
‘I’m not particularly career-orientated,’ she said quietly and with dignity. She had no intention of pretending to be something she wasn’t, not even with this very charming man who was looking at her in a way that made her wonder if her mother had actually known the effect the yellow jumper was likely to have before she
had bought it.
‘Maybe not, but you’ve certainly made an excellent job of interpreting your uncle’s work. You’ve obviously got a gift for this kind of thing, and if you’re ever looking for fresh work please get in touch with me and let me know. You’d be a godsend to some of our writers.’
He went on to make several other flattering comments about the standard of her work, leaving Emily feeling surprised and pleased, and when, after his discussions with her uncle had come to an end, he accompanied her back to her own office to talk to her in more detail about the extent of her own contribution to the manuscript, Emily discovered that she had been right in guessing that he had realised that she was responsible for humanising the work.
‘I’ll be frank with you, if I may,’ Peter Cavendish told her, quietly closing the door so that they couldn’t be overheard. ‘Your uncle is obviously a very learned man, but learned men do not always have the knack of making their pet subjects interesting and therefore readable. This book of your uncle’s is different. You’re responsible for that, although I suspect your uncle doesn’t actually realise it. Does he ever read what you’ve typed?’ he asked her humorously.
Emily flushed. ‘Yes, of course he does,’ she said defensively.
‘Mm… Well, we’d like him to complete the manuscript as quickly as he can. I realise that he does have other commitments, that he is only semi-retired, but do you think that, say, six months would be long enough to complete a first draft?’
Mentally calculating how much work was yet to be done, Emily was concentrating so hard on checking through how much work she actually had in hand and how much still had to be done that she bumped into a large pile of reference books perched on the edge of her desk. As they fell off, Peter Cavendish darted forward, quickly grabbing hold of her and pulling her out of the way of the heavy tomes.
Emily was just thanking him gratefully, conscious of how painful it would have been if the full weight of the books had fallen on to her, when the office door opened abruptly and Matt walked in.
Peter had his arm around her shoulders, his other hand resting lightly on her waist. He had been about to say something to her, and she had turned her face up towards his. There was nothing really intimate about his touch; she might have been any woman he had rescued, but she saw immediately from Matt’s face that he had totally misconstrued their closeness.
Immediately she flushed guiltily and pulled away from Peter, even though she knew she had no reason to feel as though she had done anything wrong. And even if Peter had been about to kiss her, as Matt so obviously suspected, it was really no business of his, she told herself indignantly.
‘John wanted to go over one or two points again with you,’ Matt was saying flatly to Peter, ignoring her completely, Emily recognised.
Inwardly seething, she pretended that she was too busy to go back to the study with them. In reality she wanted some time by herself to try to get a grip on her runaway emotions.
Twenty minutes later Peter popped his head around the office door to tell her that he was leaving. ‘And remember,’ he added, ‘if you ever feel like a change of scene, I can think of half a dozen writers who’d jump at the chance of employing you. It can’t be much fun for you living and working here with your uncle.’
Wondering what he would say if she told him that she had chosen to work for her uncle, Emily thanked him and said goodbye. She glanced at her watch. It was almost time for her to start the preparations for dinner.
Her uncle and presumably Matt as well had gone outside to see Peter off. While the study was empty she removed the tea trolley and wheeled it into the kitchen, to stack the china in the dishwasher. She was engrossed in this task when the door opened and Matt walked in.
He looked furiously angry, she realised, her heart suddenly plummeting. It was no use telling herself that he had no right to be angry; her body refused to recognise the logic of her mind.
‘What is it with you?’ he demanded without preamble. ‘Does it give you some kind of thrill to pick up strangers and make love with them? Some kind of sexual excitement that you don’t get with your fiancé? First me, and now Cavendish.’
Emily had been staring at him in disbelief, unable to comprehend what he was saying to her, unable to understand the accusations he was making, protected from the bitter anger she could hear in his voice by some kind of invisible bubble. But the moment he stopped speaking and reached towards her as though he was going to physically shake her, the bubble broke, exposing her to the most acute physical pain she had ever experienced in her life.
Without stopping to ask herself why it should hurt so much, why it should matter so much what Matt thought of her, she tore past him, ignoring his demand that she stop, racing upstairs and not stopping until she had reached the sanctuary of her bedroom.
As she sank down on her bed, she discovered that she was crying—agonised, painful sobs that wrenched from her chest and tore at her throat.
‘Emily…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’
Matt was standing just inside her bedroom, quietly closing the door, watching her, and immediately she was conscious of the picture she must present. She could feel the wetness of her tears streaking her face and glared angrily at him. She wasn’t going to wipe them away in front of him. He had no right to follow her into her room. No right to have said the things to her that he had said. No right.
A gleam of sunlight shone through her bedroom window, picking out the tears clinging to her eyelashes. She heard Matt breathe in deeply, and focused automatically on the sharp lifting of his chest. The silence between them was stretched taut with tension. Emily felt as though she needed to gasp for air, as though suddenly it was almost impossible for her to breathe. Her heart was racing far too quickly. Matt’s features seemed to dissolve and reshape themselves as she tried to blink away the remainder of her tears. And surely he was much closer to her now than he had been.
She drew in a shaky breath and then another as he came closer to her bed. She had an overpowering desire to back away from him, but she wouldn’t let herself give in to it. ‘You have no right to be in here,’ she told him instead.
‘According to you, I have no rights at all where you’re concerned, and yet I’ve been your lover. I’ve touched your skin, caressed and tasted it; I’ve felt your body move under mine…I’ve held you naked in my arms and felt you glory in that nakedness. I’ve loved you, Emily, and that—’
‘Loved me. You mean, you’ve had sex with me,’ she said shrilly. What on earth was he trying to do to her? Why was he saying these things? Why was he tormenting her like this? She knew that all he wanted from her was a resumption of the intimacy they had so briefly shared—but not out of love. She wasn’t that much of a fool.
She saw his face change, something hardening in his eyes, but his voice was calm and even as he said quietly, ‘Very well then, I’ve had sex with you…and now I want—’
‘And now you want to use me as a sexual convenience,’ Emily interrupted him bitterly. ‘Well, I won’t be used in that way, Matt. I may stupidly have once allowed you—’
‘Allowed me? You asked me…begged me,’ he told her savagely. ‘You wanted it as much as I did, you—’
‘No… No… No…’ Emily moaned covering her ears and shaking her head from side to side, her control broken as the words hit her like physical blows.
‘Yes,’ Matt insisted, striding over to the bed and taking hold of her wrists to wrench her hands away from her ears. ‘Yes,’ he repeated with soft emphasis. ‘Emily, I—’
He broke off, suddenly silent, the way he was looking at her oddly mesmeric, like the slow caress of his fingers against the fast pulse of her inner wrists. Something was happening to her, something familiar and dangerous—something that only Matt seemed to be able to set in motion.
Once before he had made her feel like this. Once before. But even though her brain shrieked danger, her body refused to listen. Her lips parted, her eyes becoming slumberous and shadowed with
memories. The pulse in her wrist hammered wildly beneath his stroking touch.
The soft, almost inaudible murmur Matt made deep in his throat was interpreted faultlessly by her body, so that immediately it softened and yielded, yearning eagerly towards him.
She felt his hands in her hair, moulding the shape of her head, holding her still, his fingers softly caressing as he bent towards her. She knew that he was going to kiss her—knew and did nothing to avoid the fierce male pressure of his mouth. Somehow or other, her arms were already around him, her fingers tracing the hard bones of his shoulders, her eyes closing in eager anticipation of the pleasure to come.
The sound of her uncle’s voice calling her name outside her door shocked her back to reality, making her pull back abruptly at the same moment as Matt released her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, to endure the humiliation of the triumph she knew must be in his eyes.
‘Coming, Uncle John,’ she called out shakily, sliding off the bed and walking stiffly past Matt without even glancing at him, knowing that, if her uncle hadn’t appeared, if they had not been interrupted, she would willingly and wantonly have allowed Matt to press her down against the covers of her bed and make love to her as he had done once before, and that, not only would she have done nothing to stop him, but that she would actively and eagerly have aided and abetted him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
QUITE apart from her own very personal and private reasons for not wanting Matt’s presence in her great-uncle’s house, his arrival had had an extremely adverse effect on Uncle John’s progress with his book, Emily reflected irritably, glaring at her empty desk and pristine-neat study.
Matt had been here for almost two weeks, and during that time her great-uncle had spent far more time either with Matt or at the university than he had done at home.
She couldn’t deny that Matt’s presence seemed to have given Uncle John a new lease of life and a renewed enthusiasm and zest, but only yesterday Peter Cavendish had telephoned her to check on the progress of the manuscript and she had had to fob him off with a tactful fib.