by Penny Jordan
It had been quite easy to discover an evening when Dominic would be at home alone. Every fortnight her own parents and his met up to play bridge, and she only had to wait until the venue for this fortnightly get-together was her own home.
‘Wear something sexy,’ had been Helen’s first instruction. Easy enough to say, but there was nothing in her wardrobe that remotely deserved such a description.
In the end, feeling more uncomfortable and embarrassed than sexy, she had taken off her bra, and unfastened her cotton shirt to show the taut upper swell of her breasts, before tugging it into her habitual jeans.
A cardigan hid the evidence of her bra-less state from her parents as she said her goodbyes, guilt and desire mingling in almost equal quantities as she got on her bike and sped down the drive.
It had been a hot summer, and the French windows of the Savages’ house stood open as she cycled down the drive and round to the back door.
Since their parents were close friends, it was not unusual for her to visit the house, but as she got off her bike she was filled with an awareness that she was trespassing, not just against the Savages’ friendship but also against her parents’ trust.
She would have turned back then if it hadn’t been for the fact that she would have to face Helen in the morning, and so, quelling her feelings, she went round to the French windows and knocked briefly before walking in.
The sitting-room was empty; her heart thudding, she walked through into the hall, and then stood there transfixed as she saw Dominic coming towards her down the stairs, pulling on a white shirt.
His hair was damp, his skin tanned and firm against the powerful male muscles. Something seemed to expand and flower inside her, a deep pulsating excitement that brought a delicate flush of colour to her skin and deepened her eyes to dark jade.
‘Christy, is everything all right?’
The sharpness in his voice brought her back to reality. ‘Yes.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’ He was frowning at her as he buttoned his shirt, and because he had never before spoken to her in anything other than a teasingly indulgent voice, Christy could only stare at him. ‘I asked you what you came here for.’
He was at the bottom of the stairs now, frowning at her, and even though she was tall she had to tilt back her head to look at him. She had taken off her cardigan as she stepped back from him, the dying rays of the evening sun falling across the thin cotton of her blouse, revealing the uncovered peaks of her breasts.
She heard Dominic catch his breath on what sounded like an impatient sigh, and said hurriedly, ‘I…I came to see you…’
‘Me?’ He was frowning even more now. ‘What about?’
Panic flared inside her. This wasn’t going the way it should. By now he shouldn’t be questioning her; he should be looking at her…wanting her. It wasn’t going to be as easy as Helen had said. Confusion flooded through her, and she turned puzzled, worried eyes up to him, betraying more than she knew.
‘I…I just wanted to talk to you,’ she said lamely, flushing a brilliant shade of red as he suddenly said harshly, ‘Christy, what’s this all about? You aren’t in some…some kind of trouble, are you?’
Her eyes widened, and went brilliant with shock as she absorbed his meaning. There was only one kind of trouble he could mean, and she jerked back from him indignantly.
‘No…no, of course not! How could you think anything like that…?’ She was shocked and hurt that he could think that she would give herself to anyone other than him, barely taking in his curt, ‘All too easily, especially when you parade yourself around dressed like that.’ A flick of his hand indicated that he was aware of her near-nudity, and she flushed again. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to react. Helen had said…
She bit her lip and moved closer to him, her voice shaking as she implored huskily, ‘Dominic, please don’t be angry with me…’ Tears weren’t very far away; she could feel them clogging up the back of her throat.
She heard him sigh, and then rapturously felt his arms go round her; she was being cradled against him, her head resting on his shoulder, the bare heat of his chest against her thinly covered breasts.
She quivered with nerves and excitement, aching to reach out and touch him, but scarcely able to even draw breath, never mind do anything else.
Helen was right, and it had worked! Her legs shook and threatened to give way beneath her. Her heart seemed to have lodged somewhere in her throat and was threatening to suffocate her. Could Dominic feel it beating? She could feel the steady, even thud of his. Instinctively she moved her hand to touch the place where she could feel that strong beat.
Her fingertips trembled against his skin and then, shockingly, almost frighteningly, her wrist was seized in an iron grip and she was forcefully pushed away from him.
Angry grey eyes glared down into the bemused jade of hers. ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
The shock of his sudden withdrawal was too much for her to cope with. She was still lost in the rapturous dream of her own intense desire and love, and without comprehending his anger she burst out eagerly, ‘Dominic, make love to me. Please…I know you want to.’
For a moment it was as though they were frozen in time: she gazing pleadingly up at him, her mouth soft and trembling, her body, supple and eager for his touch; he, tense and angry, the grey eyes darkened almost to black, his mouth drawn in a tight hard line, his body tense as though he was too furious even to draw breath.
And then the spell was broken, and the reality of his anger crashed through her physical arousal as he breathed harshly, ‘My God, I don’t believe I’m hearing this. Is this why you came here dressed like…like…like a modern-day Lolita? To ask me to make love to you? And you’re so damned blatant about it, as well!’
He saw the shock and pain on her face, and although she wasn’t aware of it, his voice softened slightly. ‘Christy, I can’t make love to you…you know that.’
‘Because you don’t want me?’ She made herself face him, and saw his face grow cold and shuttered.
‘Among other things,’ he agreed evenly, adding, ‘it is customary for the woman to wait to be asked, you know. Who put you up to this? Come on, Christy, no lies. I know you; you’d never have thought of doing this for yourself.’
She had been too distraught and humiliated to keep back the truth, and he had kept on and on at her until she had told him everything. She had had to sit there answering his questions and seeing the look of contemptuous disgust darken his eyes, until he had moved away from her as though even to look at her had contaminated him.
‘Well, now it’s my turn to tell you something,’ he had said at last, when she was finished. ‘Contrary to what your friend informed you, it isn’t that easy to make a man desire you.’
She had flushed with shame and pain then, but he hadn’t let her look away, holding her chin with hard, hurting fingers as he said cruelly, ‘Look at me, Christy. Go on…take a good look…your friend has told you what to look for. Do I look as though I want you physically?’
She had wanted to get up and run away then, but shock and pain had held her rigidly where she stood, shivering like a rabbit before a hawk, totally unable to do anything other than stare blindly back into his savagely dark eyes.
When she couldn’t turn her eyes in the direction of his body, he taunted with soft menace, ‘If you won’t look at me, perhaps you’d like to touch me instead. Just so that you know I’m not lying to you…’
She had shuddered deeply then, knowing that he had just destroyed her childish illusions, exposing her as what she was, and how she had hated the image of herself that he had held up to her gaze! She had turned away from him then, struggling to subdue the sob of terror and anguish that rose up in her throat.
He hadn’t let her go, though; there had been more for her to endure. A lecture about the physical dangers she was courting: about the health risk of promiscuity, about the danger of rape and worse, and a reminder of h
ow much her parents loved and trusted her and how shocked they would be if they knew what she had done. Worse still, he hadn’t let her ride home on her bike, but had sent her upstairs to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her hair, and once she had done that he had waited until she had buttoned herself into her concealing cardigan and then had driven her home.
There was only eight years between them, but he had been as stern and forbidding as any Victorian parent, and when he had let her out of the car at the end of her parents’ drive she had known that she would hate and loathe him for the rest of her life.
But not as much as she would hate herself, she reflected bitterly as she emerged from the past and came back to the present.
She had avoided Helen after that and had asked her parents if, instead of going back to school, she could attend college instead. They had agreed and found her comfortable digs in Newcastle, where in addition to her secretarial skills she had learned how to begin living with herself again.
It was as though those hectic weeks when Helen had been her friend had been some sort of sickness from which she had emerged with a revulsion for all that she had been and done. The very thought of meeting Dominic in those early days had been enough to make her feel physically ill, and if her parents thought it was curious that she never mentioned him, they kept it to themselves.
She sighed faintly. The snow was coming down more heavily now. It was time for her to return home. She glanced at her watch. Ten past three. Good, by the time she got back Dominic should have left. She knew she couldn’t spend her entire life avoiding him, but discovering that he was back had been such a shock. She hadn’t been ready for it. Now, having endured the catharsis of making herself relive the past, she should be stronger, more able to judge her teenage actions with tolerance and compassion. But she couldn’t. That was the problem: she couldn’t get over the feelings of shame and self-disgust that Dominic had given her; they still haunted and tainted her life like a disease that, although dormant, still possessed the power to return.
She hated Dominic because of the picture he had drawn of her and made her face. She hated the fact that he had witnessed her shame and humiliation. She hated him because he made her hate herself.
Sighing, she pulled the hood of her anorak up against the snow and started for home.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE almost made it. She was just treading down the lane, head bowed against the snow, when she heard the car, and instinctively began to move out of the middle of the lane, but the snow had made it treacherous and she slipped and lost her balance, going down with a bump that robbed her of breath and jarred her body.
Christy was distantly aware of the car stopping and a door slamming, but it wasn’t until he came and lifted her out of the snow that she realised who her rescuer was.
‘Dominic!’
Her body froze in instant recognition and panic. Eight years hadn’t changed him at all, except to make him seem more formidable. That aura of leashed power that had once so excited and intrigued her was still there; the black hair was still as thick and dark as ever, the grey eyes as alert. He even had the same deep tan, while she…
As he hauled her to her feet, she grimaced inwardly, bitterly aware of her soaked jeans and ancient anorak. Why on earth hadn’t she taken the trouble to put on some make-up and do her hair? She could feel it tangling untidily round her head, and surely she might have had the sense to put on one of the stunning skisuits she had bought for last winter’s skiing holiday with David and his family.
Oh God, if she had to face Dominic, why on earth couldn’t it have been with all the armour she had learned to adopt in the last eight years instead of this, looking much as she had done as a teenager, instead of the sophisticated woman she had learned to become?
‘Christy, are you OK?’
Incredibly, he sounded concerned as he brushed the snow off her face and, even more astounding, he was smiling at her, a smile she recognised from before those traumatic days when she had tried to turn the casual affection of an adult male towards the young daughter of his parents’ friends into something more personal. As she looked into his concerned eyes it was almost as though that dreadful summer had never been. She caught her breath at the shock of it. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten…
No, of course he hadn’t, but perhaps he judged it more politic to pretend he had. She stiffened and pushed him away, her brusque, ‘I’m fine, no thanks to you,’ causing his smile to change to a frown. ‘Do you always drive about without any thought for the safety of others?’ she demanded tartly. ‘Hardly the sort of behaviour one would expect in a member of the medical profession.’
His smile had faded completely now, to be replaced by a sharp-eyed scrutiny of her pale, set face.
‘I was driving slowly enough to be able to stop, and hardly anyone ever uses this lane,’ he pointed out calmly.
Christy knew that she was over-reacting, but it was the only way she could hold at bay her shock at seeing him. She had thought she had managed to avoid him, and it struck her now that she would have much preferred to face him again in the familiarity of her own home rather than out here like this, when she was at such a disadvantage. Again she cursed her own folly in being stupid enough to try and avoid him. Far better if she had stayed at home and greeted him in one of the elegantly expensive outfits she wore for work—outfits that said quite unmistakably that she was an adult.
His eyes monitored her pale face and shaky limbs, his forehead furrowing in a deep frown.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ He reached out to help her, and instinctively she recoiled.
‘Get in the car,’ he told her, still watching her. ‘I’ll run you home. It won’t take me a minute, and as your family doctor, I…’
‘You’re not my doctor!’
The passionate denial was out before she could silence it, leaving them staring at one another, her, tense with shock, and Dominic narrow-eyed with an expression she could not interpret.
‘Christy.’
His voice was clipped now, his dark eyebrows drawn together over those clear grey eyes, the dark head inclined towards her at an achingly familiar angle. ‘Look, it’s pointless us standing here arguing. It’s a good half-mile to the house. Even if nothing’s damaged, a fall like that can be quite a shock.’
Christy knew that it was pointless and childish trying to argue with him, especially with her nerve ends jumping like discordant wires and her heart beating so fast she could hardly draw breath. He was right, she was suffering from shock, but not because of her fall. With a brief shrug she moved towards his car—a brand new BMW, she noticed wryly, staring at the glossy paintwork. He moved towards her, his body brushing against hers as he opened the door. Instantly she stiffened and drew away.
‘What’s wrong?’
Did he really honestly need to ask?
‘Nothing. I just don’t like being touched, that’s all.’
Too late she registered his expression. What she had said was quite true, and it was an excuse she had used so often that she was barely aware of the import of it any more, but as she brushed the snow off her anorak she was suddenly aware of Dominic studying her with a curiously fixed intensity.
Suddenly his mouth twisted, giving him a faintly satanic air, and she coloured hotly, knowing what he must be thinking, but knowing equally that there was no way she could refute his thoughts, or stop him from remembering a time when she had wanted far more than just his touch.
Feeling sick with reaction, she pulled back from the car. ‘I don’t want a lift, Dominic,’ she told him huskily. ‘I’d much rather walk,’ and before he could stop her, she set off down the lane at a brisk pace, not daring to turn round in case she saw him following her.
It was an unnerving sensation, and one that turned her legs to rubber, but at last she made it to the garden gate, and it was only once she was inside that she heard the sound of Dominic’s car engine firing, and realised that he must have watched her walk the whole
way.
Well, of course, as a doctor, he could hardly have it said that he had neglected any of his responsibilities. Her mouth curled bitterly as she limped towards the front door.
As she closed it behind her her father called out, ‘Christy, is that you?’ His study door opened and his eyebrows rose as he studied her wet clothes. ‘You’ve just missed Dominic. What on earth happened to you? You look as though you had a fight with a snowdrift and came off worst!’
‘You’re almost right.’
She saw him frown. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes…I fell over in the lane. Fortunately nothing’s damaged apart from my pride. How’s Mum?’
‘She’s coming along very nicely, so Dominic says, but you’ll be able to ask him for yourself tonight. He’s coming for supper.’ He looked guiltily at her. ‘Your mother invited him. She worries about him, living all alone in the Vicarage. You know what a fusser she is.’
So it was Dominic who had bought the Vicarage. Christy’s heart sank as she registered her father’s words. She could hardly fabricate an excuse to absent herself tonight.
‘You needn’t worry about what to cook. Your mother said to tell you that the freezer’s full. We miss Dominic’s parents. The four of us used to have some good times together…’
Guiltily Christy chastised herself for her selfishness. Dominic’s father had died four years ago, and then his mother had gone to live with her widowed sister in Berkshire. They had been her parents’ closest friends, but until now all she had been conscious of was her own relief that their absence meant that there was no longer any reason for Dominic to return to Setondale. But he had returned…
‘Is Mum awake? I thought I’d go up and see her.’
‘Yes, do. She’s complaining already that she’s getting bored, but Dominic has told her that she has to stay in bed at least another week.’
Her mother was sitting propped up against her pillows when Christy walked into her parents’ bedroom. Sarah Marsden was a striking-looking woman, with her daughter’s green eyes and the high cheekbones of the Celtic Scots. She smiled warmly as she saw Christy, and patted the bed. ‘There you are, darling. Come and sit down and talk to me. I’m bored out of my mind lying here, but Dominic insists.’ She watched her daughter carefully as she added, ‘You know, of course, that he’s back?’