'Here, you look as if you could do with one,' he said, without expression, handing her one of the glasses. 'I take it you're having second thoughts.'
'Second? I haven't had time to have first thoughts yet. It seems as if everything's been decided between the lot of you already!'
'I must admit I was surprised to hear Samantha announce that we were back together. I assumed you'd actually understood what I'd been saying this morning and decided to tell everybody.'
'Not a bit of it. Samantha's been talking to Mother. And Mother—well,' Flame scrubbed viciously at the path with the stub of her sandal, 'Mother managed to get hold of the wrong end of the stick this morning. Her ambition to see us together obviously got the better of her understanding.' Stifling her rage in case it got the better of her, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye. 'I really ought to congratulate you, Marlow,' she said without a tremor in her voice. 'You've got them all in the palm of your hand. How on earth do you manage to do it?'
'I don't know what that's supposed to mean.' He sat down beside her.
She was vibrantly conscious of the touch of his thigh against her own, and it brought a sudden sweeping remembrance of the way he had held her earlier. Even the scent of his skin seemed capable of flooding her mind with desire.
It was shattering how the mere brush of his arm against her skin could ignite such feelings, especially when she felt an all-consuming rage at the double game he was playing.
She edged away, but he turned to her, putting out a hand to grip her arm with a possessiveness that made her head swim.
'Six months—that's all. If you still feel you can't stand the sight of me by then—or I of you,' he added cruelly, 'we'll call the whole thing off and you can have your divorce.' He made it sound so eminently reasonable and, coupled with the demands of her mother's welfare and her own insatiable longing to belong to him even for as short a time as six months, Flame was almost swayed.
Then she gave him a swift, pitying look. 'Clever, Marlow. But not clever enough! You know as well as I do that given another six months without cohabiting a divorce would be the easiest thing in the world on grounds of desertion. But if we live together—well, it's going to mean I shall have to start from scratch again. Unless,' she smiled bitterly, 'you obligingly provide me with proof of adultery.'
She felt his grip on her arm tighten. 'What the hell are you suggesting? You don't imagine you'd get me on those grounds, do you?'
'You're far too clever,' she agreed coldly. 'It would always be my word against yours. And blue eyes are so convincing.' She slithered out of his grasp, and, rising to her feet, she said, 'Just because you got away with it all once before please don't imagine it's going to happen a second time. And Marlow,' she added, 'please don't bother to lie to me. It's too late. And besides, I know the real reason you want to remain married to me. Mother has just let it slip.'
'What the hell are you raving about?' rasped Marlow, standing up beside her.
She looked up at him, her eyes probing his for a sign that he was going to change tack and give her the truth, but he stuck to what he'd said.
'I don't fool as easily this time around, as you'll discover.' She glared up at him. 'I should have suspected you were up to something the first time, but I was too young to understand that some people put grabbing what they can above human feelings. I guess love is way down your scale of values.'
She stood looking up at him for a protracted moment, twisting the stem of the wine glass between her fingers and perversely longing for him to defend himself. 'You look so convincing sometimes, I might almost believe you, even now. Maybe you genuinely find it difficult to tell where truth ends and fiction begins,' she mocked. 'But I suspect it's a completely cold-blooded calculation—with me as the pawn yet again.' A scornful laugh was squeezed from her when he didn't defend himself. 'Really, Marlow. I'm amazed you're not rushing in with counter-arguments as usual! Though perhaps even you realise it wouldn't work this time around.'
'I don't—none of this makes sense.' He narrowed his glance. 'What's making you say all this?'
'D'you know something?' she said, ignoring his question as beneath contempt. 'I believe I would almost admire you if you could admit frankly what an utter bastard you are. There would be something almost heroic in such an admission. It's your rank hypocrisy I can't stand!'
With a pain like a hunk of concrete lodged in her throat Flame swung away down the cliff path without bothering to say anything else.
His position was indefensible and he knew it. Even he knew he couldn't hope to brazen his way out of the situation. That was why he was speechless now.
She was nearly at the bottom of the incline when she heard him coming down behind her. She increased her pace. Then he gained on her and she felt a hand bite into her shoulder, jerking her round to face him amid a landslide of stones.
For a moment they outstared each other like two wild animals, the tension of unexpressed rage making Marlow shake on the very edge of losing control. Then something seemed to happen. Instead of saying what he'd obviously intended to say he reached for her With a muffled groan instead, dragging her savagely against the hard-packed muscles of his body, crushing the breath out of her till she had to fight for air.
As she plunged to free herself he rasped, 'God damn you, Flame! You're a destroying creature, and I don't know what your game is, but you're not going to get away with it! Do you hear what I'm saying?'
'Let me go, Marlow! Take your lies elsewhere! I don't have to listen!' she shouted.
Her own body was beginning to tremble from head to foot to match his as she felt his will battle against her own. His voice was a caress as he felt her resistance begin to seep away, and with his familiar seductive power he murmured huskily, 'When I first met you I thought you the most innocent, delectable thing on God's earth.' The blue eyes glinted beneath short black lashes. 'But underneath that angelic exterior you're as hard as nails. It's a side of you I hadn't suspected until you walked out on me. I misjudged you --'
'You're damned right you did!' Flame felt his power flow around her and, despite the energy of her response, she had to shut her eyes to block the image of his face hovering so dangerously near her own in case it made her weaken further.
'What did you want from me, Flame, in those early days?' he murmured beside her mouth. 'I wanted to give you everything I possessed—I thought I'd made that clear enough. What more could I have given you? I laid my name, my wealth, my life, at your feet—wasn't that enough for you?'
'I suppose that was fair exchange for what you wanted in return,' mocked Flame, her heart like a stone.
'What did I want in return?'
'We all know the answer to that one!' She averted her glance. It wasn't worth stating. And naturally Marlow wouldn't understand what she had wanted. How could he when it was beyond his capabilities to imagine it? There had only ever been one thing, and it wasn't money or possessions! It was his love. That was all she had yearned for in those days. The sort of love that went hand in hand with fidelity. It was obviously a foreign concept to a man like Marlow Hudson. Her face felt like marble as she raised it. 'Don't play games with me, Marlow,' she muttered, trying to close her eyes against the laser-bright glance that was remorselessly sweeping her features. 'You know exactly what I mean!'
'I'm not playing games. Far from it,' he countered. 'I've never been more serious in my life. I want answers, Flame. What did you think I wanted?'
'You wanted blood!' she jerked out.
He gave a harsh laugh. 'There's no understanding you! So how do you see the situation now? Do I still want blood, whatever that means?'
'You know the truth as well as I do!' Flame tried to struggle out of his grasp, but he dragged her back with a sudden curse.
'I want what's mine!' he ground out.
'Yours, yours, yours!' she hissed. 'That's all you think about! Well, I'm not going to be one of your things, to be owned, to be catalogued beside all your other pieces of property!
I'm a human being! I have feelings and desires that have nothing to do with you!' His grip tightened, but she twisted, flushed-faced, in his arms, crying,. 'Why should I be filed away with all your other possessions with your name branded all over me?'
'Because I want it!' he ground out. 'You are mine, whatever you say. You gave me your promise—till death. You broke that promise. But you've still got my name. It is my brand, Flame. I gave it to you—Flame Hudson. You're mine, and you'll never be anything else!'
'I'm a Montrose!' she spat. 'And shall be until the day I die! Nothing you can do will ever come between me and my family! Not you, not your pirating of our land, not all your lawyers and your millions! Nothing can come between us! My family are first!'
Marlow's face wore a suddenly haggard look, his lips tightening in some sort of pain, but that fleeting impression of physical hurt was really anger, Flame judged, her eyes meeting his in a mutual razoring, anger that she had the temerity to stand up to him!
'You can do what you like to me,' she gritted, 'but you'll never, never own me!'
'I can and I will!' he ground out in a voice that made her flinch with its tone of menace. 'I've won tougher battles than this. A mere girl like you isn't going to stand between me and what I want!'
'Now we're getting to it,' she managed to croak triumphantly. 'We're getting to the real reason you say you want me back!'
He raised two coal-black eyebrows. 'And?'
'The land, the land—it always comes back to that.'
'Land?' He looked surprised. 'You always come back to that, it seems. I was thinking of rather more intimate desires...'
She didn't have to ask what he meant. The glitter of his eyes as they trailed over the rise and fall of her breasts told her as blatantly as the words that followed. 'How many times do I have to say it? How many different ways do you need to know? I want you—your lips, your skin, your hair, I own it all, and you're going to know it. I want it all back, Flame. I want you back, back where you belong, in my bed, naked, crying out to me in surrender as you once used to. Fight if your pride tells you you must. But in your heart, you know it's as inevitable as sunrise and sunset—you'll be back where I want you. You can't escape.'
The power of his words almost persuaded her to give in at once—he made it seem as if every exit was blocked. But the bitterness of knowing he didn't, maybe couldn't, love her made her fight back. 'You can use your dominance to force me to do some things, Marlow. But you can't force me to submit willingly. I'll never do that! Never!'
Even as she spoke he pulled her hard against him and his fingers began to measure a feverish rhythm, caressing and exploring the long mane of flame-coloured hair that so aptly mirrored her name, and as he dragged her against his ill-concealed arousal she felt her own response, despite her intentions, ignite like an insidious lick of fire deep inside.
'No, Marlow, no!' she protested as she felt her resistance crumble with the increasing intimacy of his touch.
But at the moment when she saw her control hanging by a single thread he began to release her. 'You want me,' he said harshly. 'You always did—that hasn't changed. When all the words have been said it still comes down to this.' He skimmed her peaked breasts with one hand as if to demonstrate what he meant. 'But I'm not a fool. This time the bargaining is going to be equal on both sides. I'm not going to give you the triumph of asserting your sexual dominance—I refuse to give you the satisfaction—until I get something in return.' He paused. 'You know what I want. I want you to give me your word. I want you to give me the next six months. Say it, Flame. Six months—that's all you've got to give.'
CHAPTER FOUR
Flame had walked on after this, so Marlow wasn't going to force her to make love there and then on the cliff top! That was something to be thankful for!
Relief, tinged with another feeling she didn't want to own, mixed in confusion with her sheer anger that he was using her again. And he was so blatant about it! Six months, he had said. She wasn't that stupid. Six months would give the lawyers time to sew up all the details of who owned what—she didn't need telling it was that that was uppermost in his mind when he set a time limit on their marriage!
When she heard him come up behind her she lifted blazing eyes to his, barely able to conceal her contempt. With an effort she managed to force the shakiness out of her voice. 'You're trying to blackmail me by an appeal to my concern for my mother,' she stated flatly.
Marlow shook his head. 'Don't be ridiculous! You're a free agent—nobody's coercing you. All I'm doing is trying to point out the ramifications of pursuing your own selfish course. It's about time you started to think of other people. Your mother needs you. You need to grow up and consider what other people want for a change.'
'That's rich, coming from you!' Flame tossed her head and made off down the cliff path again. Anywhere, she thought blindly as she stumbled on, anywhere to get away from him and his hateful words. But she could hear him coming down behind her in single-minded pursuit no matter how quickly she tried to forge ahead.
If it had been possible she would have taken to her heels, but she knew there was to be no running away this time. As it was, her thoughts flew frantically this way and that in an attempt to escape the net he was tightening around her.
What if she insisted he accept the marriage as it had been over the last eighteen months? she thought frantically. He had said he was going to have more than a marriage in name, but, if he wanted to keep up the charade that it was her mother's health that was the overriding factor, surely he would have to accept whatever terms she offered? They could make things appear normal on the surface, just until her mother's health improved. Could he accept that, she wondered, or would his urge to take what he claimed was his make him refuse to listen?
She stopped abruptly on her downward flight and Marlow put out a hand to stop himself bumping into her. He left it there, resting on her arm, her wound-up senses racing at his touch again so that for a moment she almost forgot what she wanted to put to him. Then she brushed it off and gave him a weighing glance.
'It looks as if I'll have to stay—for Mother's sake. But I'll only stay on one condition...'
His glance raked her upturned face. 'Go on.'
'I'll behave as your ever-loving wife,' she dragged out, 'but... only in public.'
He jerked back as if she had struck him. 'No way!' he snarled. 'I'm calling the shots this time.. .and you'll be in my bed—every night—exactly where you belong!'
'Then that's it!' she gritted. 'I guessed you'd be too damned selfish to consider it! So much for your vaunted concern over Mother's health!'
'You mean you'll go back to England if I don't agree?' he enquired, velvet-voiced and with a cynical tilt of his head.
She hadn't thought it out as far as that, but her silence drew a mocking smile from him. 'Even you aren't as callous as that, Flame. You'll stay,' he said emphatically. 'On any terms I set. You have no choice—I think you realise that.'
When he had said he wanted to possess her the savagery of his declaration had frightened her. Yet what he was now saying seemed irrefutable. Her mother was too ill at present to cope with the trauma of their divorce.
Reluctantly she saw that it was true. She couldn't break her mother's heart, or worse—even if it meant breaking her own. 'I hate you, Marlow. I wish I'd never set eyes on you.' She spoke with such quiet venom it made his head jerk up. 'You know I can't argue with you. I can't leave Mother. You've been counting on that!' She felt tears of anger begin to course down her cheeks as the thought of the months ahead filled her imagination. 'You'll be happy—you'll get what you want,' she said emptily, referring to the consolidation of his hold over Santa Margarita, 'and Mother gets what she wants, so she'll be happy. The only one not happy is me. Well, don't worry!' her voice rose. 'I'll survive—I've had to learn how. I'll survive this, for Mother's sake. It won't be forever. She'll get better. And then—you'd better believe it—you won't see me for dust!'
Then her thought
s flew to Johnny. He was her only avenue of escape. But would he want her after this? To be honest, she didn't really care. She was already back inside her nineteen-year-old self when she had lived and breathed for Marlow. It left no room for anyone else. But this time she could see her involvement for what it was, base sexual attraction. She didn't love Marlow. How could she when she hated him so much?
By the time Marlow allowed her to walk back-up towards the villa the terrace was deserted and the maid had cleared lunch. The long curtains at the bedroom windows were closed, and Flame guessed that everyone would siesta for the next couple of hours.
'Looks as if we've missed lunch. Let's go and raid the larder.' Marlow's voice lacked expression and she knew what she had told him was still on his mind.
'Just deal straight with me!' she exploded as he brushed past her into the kitchen. 'Why do you have to try to con me into believing a lot of hocus-pocus? I know none of it's true! Why can't you be honest with me?' She turned away. 'You know I have to stay if it's best for Mother. I'll do it to please her. She means so much to me. I can't bear to think of her --' her voice choked '—of her being made ill by all this.'
He didn't reply, and when she turned back his face was a wooden mask. Eventually he said, 'You know what marriage entails. I need your full agreement.'
'You're so hard, Marlow. You have no right to force me to—to sleep with you.' Flame blushed violently at the thoughts flooding through her head.
'Sleep is the last thing I'm interested in,' he said contemptuously. He went on, 'I want you, Flame. You're my wife. If I can't have you in my bed, who can I have?'
'I didn't realise marriage was a prerequisite,' she retorted.
He ignored that. 'Six months. She'll be out of danger by then. Is it long?'
'It's forever.' Flame shuddered, closing her eyes as the enormity of what she was conceding hit her. Could she cope with the aftermath of six months of living with a man like Marlow? It was bad enough being forced into an agreement, but her insatiable physical need for him was stronger than ever. How could she cope when he was no longer there?
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