Dark Obsession

by Valerie Marsh

  He walked towards her, and Fran felt a sick excitement as she read his intention in his eyes. She backed away from him wordlessly, then turned and ran out of the room, realising her mistake when he caught her before she could slam the bedroom door against him.

  Hauling her towards him, he pinned her arms to her sides and said, 'I agree—it's more comfortable in bed,' and brought his mouth down on hers, forcing her lips savagely apart.

  At first she fought him. It was an instinctive reaction against being physically overpowered, but then she wondered why she was doing it. She loved him, and in refusing him she could destroy her one hold on him. His desire for her was the only thing she could be certain of, the only thing which might keep him with her long enough to learn he was wrong about her. As her resistance ceased, the pressure of his lips softened and became coaxing, insidiously compelling a response from her, and she sighed when he drew away.

  His eyes narrowed in a smile, he studied her flushed face, and murmured, 'What a good job, darling, that you're as much of a sensualist as I am,' and smothered her resentment with his mouth again, while his hand slid beneath her sweater to find her breast. He was an expert, and completely attuned to her by now, teasing and tormenting her to unashamed arousal as he removed her clothes and then his own. By the time he lowered her to the bed she was ready for him, her body inviting him with its own silent language, and her arms closed round him hungrily as he took slow possession of her.

  But immediately she realised it was not his intention to bring her to a swift release. His leisured movements kept her on the edge but would take her no further, and his own mouth rigid with the strain of self-control, he watched the agony of frustration twist her expression, slowing his pace still more and giving her a glittering smile when she began to whimper and plead with him to end it.

  Shaking his head he said, 'No,' and brought his mouth down until she could feel the warmth of his breath on her ear. 'No, darling, not yet,' he repeated with soft vehemence. 'I'm going to make this something you'll never forget.'

  There was a kind of menace in the muted assertion, but she was so far gone under his erotic mastery that nothing could reverse the fevered advance of her body's responses. She twisted and moved against him frenziedly in an effort to overcome his restraint, then began to rail at him because he knew the torture he was inflicting with his denial and his smile showed he rejoiced in it. Enraged, she sank her teeth into his arm and heard his grunt of pain and half-muffled obscenity as he grabbed her hair, wrenching at it to force her to let go.

  Either her attack caused him to relax his control or he was persuaded she could endure no more, but at last he brought her fiercely to the conclusion she so desperately craved. It was so intense when it came that her body remained locked, and for endless moments she was frozen into a blackness like death, unable to draw air into her starved lungs. Then her muscles relaxed and she took a long, gasping breath, aware now of Grant pressing her down by her shoulders, murmuring to her and soothing.

  Dazed, she turned her head to look at him, then closed her eyes against the unhidden triumph in his expression. He had achieved what he set out to do and he was exultant. By an act of total, physical domination he had brought her to a pitch of sensation which could never be surpassed, but she knew with sudden clarity that she never wanted to experience it again. Not in the same way. He had reduced it to a purely sexual act—a matter only of electrified nerves and unbearably stimulated senses. Without tenderness and human warmth it was joyless.

  He had done it to avenge himself. After reducing her to abject pleading, and proving to her that he would always hold the control, he had deliberately set out to erase the memories he thought she carried from her past, raising her to such a height that he knew nothing could compare with it. And doubtless, if there had been anything to compare, he would have succeeded. His pride and his male jealousy were now appeased, but she wondered wistfully what he would say if she told him that now it was over it meant nothing—that she would gladly surrender all the heights if he would only look at her with the same expression in his eyes as in that smiling photograph with Julia.

  He continued to hold her until her hips were strained and her body ached from his weight; not with the languid pleasure of former times, but as though he was reminding her of his ownership. The discomfort eventually became too much and she pushed at his shoulders with her hands. At once he withdrew from her and rolled away, reaching over to switch off the lights. As she pulled the quilt up round her, he said, 'We're going home at the weekend,' and a cold fear settled on her, but this time she dared make no protest.

  It wasn't until she opened her bag for a handkerchief the following day that she recalled the letter she had picked up. The contents sent her flying to ring Sacha, but there was no reply, and in panic she went to see Seth.

  His face was a study when she pushed open his office door. For a split second he regarded her with stupefied disbelief, then he exploded out of his chair, scattering papers from the desk.

  'For God's sake, have you got a death wish?' he demanded incredulously. He slammed the door behind her, breathing heavily. 'You're out of your mind coming here!'

  Disjointedly, she said, 'I'm sorry but I had to. Seth, I'm in trouble.'

  'Darling, I've got troubles of my own.' Seth put both hands up to his eyes, rubbing them wearily before he collapsed behind his desk again. 'I had a question and answers session with Libby that went on half the night, and the last thing I need on top of it is for your husband to try to spread me over the walls. He carries more weight than I do, and he might just possibly succeed. Stay away, Fran—stick to the phone, and preferably not your own even then. Now for both our sakes, get going before he finds you here.'

  She shook her head. 'He wouldn't think I'd come.'

  'I wouldn't have done either, which proves something,' Seth muttered. 'Darling, he's coming here! He wanted the negatives of those photographs and he's collecting them in an hour.'

  Fran made an instinctive movement towards the door, then checked as her mind began to function again. 'I'll be gone in five minutes. Seth, I've got to have a hundred pounds at once. Can you lend it to me?'

  Amazement blending with suspicion in his voice, he said, 'Your husband's not short of a hundred quid. What in hell's name do you want it for that you can't ask him?'

  'Oh God, Seth, I couldn't ask him for anything at the moment.' She sank down on to the chair opposite him, fighting to hold back tears. 'I'm overdrawn at the bank. It's from before we were married—I must have added up wrongly or something when I was out shopping and I've only just found out. I forgot to give the bank my new name and address so the mail went to Sacha's and she's been away.'

  Seth was staring at her, nonplussed, and in agony she went on, 'I can't let him find out, Seth, not after last night and with what he thinks already!'

  'What's happened to your brains?' Seth enquired. 'You used to be quite a bright girl. Darling, the bank isn't going to dun Mrs Grant Mercier for a paltry hundred quid. Relax. Pay them back out of your housekeeping. They'll wait.'

  Only half-convinced, she said, 'But Grant uses the same bank. Are you sure there's no way he could find out?'

  'They're separate accounts,' he said patiently. 'Just don't leave your statements lying around, that's all.'

  'Yes. Yes, of course. I've never been overdrawn before and I'm not thinking very clearly this morning. Coming on top of those photographs…'

  Morosely, he said, 'Yeah, I put my foot in it all round, but how was I to know you'd never said anything about them? If it's any comfort to you, Libby's giving me hell. I told her I'd forgotten to chuck them out of the files but she doesn't believe me either. She thinks I still lust after you.' He sent her a crooked smile. 'True, of course.'

  'But you never really…' she began, then stopped short as she met his eyes.

  'No,' he agreed. 'Not much point, was there, when it was so obvious I didn't turn you on.'

  Acutely uncomfortable, Fran stared at
him, not knowing what to reply. It came to her suddenly that he was the one man she might have responded to if she had known he was serious. She wished she hadn't realised it. In some curious way it made her feel guilty, and any attempt now to make Grant believe he was no more than a friend would be robbed of its conviction.

  She said finally, 'I wish you hadn't told me,' and he shrugged.

  'If I didn't do anything about it before I'm not going to now.'

  'No.' Embarrassed and anxious to be away, she picked up her bag from the desk, then asked, 'What did Grant say when you came down here last night?'

  'Didn't he tell you?'

  When she shook her head he gave her an odd look and said lightly, 'We didn't talk a lot. He offered to break my neck for me, which I thought was overreacting a bit, but it didn't seem the moment to argue about it. There wasn't much else apart from the business of getting the negatives back.'

  Hesitantly, Fran said, 'Then you haven't told him what you said at the hospital that time… well, that it was all rubbish.'

  He looked at her with pure astonishment. 'I didn't think I needed to. After what you said, I rather assumed he'd have found it out for himself by now.'

  'Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, the evidence isn't always indisputable.' She flushed slightly. 'I did a lot of riding when I was younger which probably accounts for it.'

  With a groan, Seth buried his head in his hands, then looked back at her and said grimly, 'I suppose I should be grateful that he only offered to break it. Darling, there's a thing called verbal communication which you don't seem to have heard of, but if I were you I should try it.'

  'He's not likely to believe anything I say after last night.' She fiddled with the clasp on her bag, feeling tears come to her eyes again, and said stonily, 'He thinks I married him because I had to give up modelling and I was broke. That's why I panicked when I found out about the hundred pounds.'

  Regarding her helplessly, Seth said, 'If you don't get out of here soon it isn't going to matter what he thinks.'

  The reminder brought her to her feet with a resurgence of fright, and his expression wry, he said, 'Do me a favour, darling—don't come back again. Your husband's bigger and fitter than I am, and I've already got enough on my hands with Libby. Her hormones are all to hell at the moment.'

  As she left, Fran was filled with remorse for having involved him. It had seemed a harmless enough deception when she asked him to do it for her, but it had proved to have unforeseen consequences for both of them. Making her way to the bank she was haunted by the phrase about tangled webs. She should take more notice of the warnings in some of the old adages.

  When she arrived at the bank she found Seth had been right in his assessment. They were completely unconcerned, and if only she'd had the sense to ring up and explain she would have saved herself a traumatic couple of hours. She paid in twenty pounds, then went home, nervously hoping Grant would still be out so that she needn't think up excuses for where she had been.

  He was waiting for her, and she knew at once that excuses were useless. As she registered the unconcealed rage in his face he said harshly, 'I told you to keep away from him!'

  Poised by the door she could feel his anger vibrating over her. Her stomach lurched with fear, but she made herself advance slowly into the room. 'I just wanted to find what had been said last night, that's all.' Half-pleadingly, she added, 'Seth didn't know I was going.'

  'Fortunately for him, I realised that.' He paused, surveying her grimly. 'If he'd known about your visit he'd have had the sense to warn his receptionist to keep her mouth shut in advance. As it was, I got to her before he could.' Miraculously his anger seemed to dissipate, and with weary contempt, he said, 'Leave the poor bastard alone, Fran. Give his wife a chance at least, even if you haven't got any pity for him.'

  Stung, Fran flared, 'I only went to see him for a few minutes in his office. That hardly amounts to seducing him away from Libby!'

  'For God's sake, haven't you got any imagination?' he demanded, anger rising again. 'They might have married because she was pregnant but the poor kid loves him—that's obvious! How do you think she must feel knowing he was forced into it and it's you he really wants? You don't need to actually sleep with him to wreck that set-up.'

  For a while Fran was held silent by the undeniable truth of his assertion. Her voice muffled, she said at last, 'They'll be all right. Perhaps Seth doesn't love her in the same way, but he's very fond of her. He wouldn't do anything to hurt her.'

  'And you honestly believe that is enough? That a marriage can still be happy even though all the love is only on one side?'

  Shocked by the raw bitterness in his voice, Fran's eyes flew to his face he swung away from her.

  'It isn't enough, believe me!' With sudden, violent intensity, he declared, 'It's a recipe for heartbreak and regret!'

  His words seemed to beat non-stop into Fran's brain as she went about the preparations for their departure. She suspected they even wove themselves into her dreams, oppressing her before the moment of waking, enveloping her in a grey blanket of foreboding. Grant hadn't been referring to their marriage at the time—his bitter statement has sprung from his own past experience, but it applied equally well to them. It wasn't enough for only one to love.

  After his outbreak of rage he was distant, spending most of his time in his study, but he still reached for her in the night, and once, encouraged by the dark and physical closeness, she tried to explain to him how she had never mentioned her failure in modelling because she hadn't realised it could ever have any significance— that it had seemed unimportant, irrelevant, and her mind was too concentrated on the future.

  When she had finished, Grant said, 'But you must have realised I was under the impression that you had a successful career.'

  'It didn't even occur to me. We got married so quickly that there wasn't much time for talking. Afterwards we never discussed the past.' She turned her head towards him and reminded with a trace of challenge, 'You've never discussed the past either.'

  'No,' he admitted after a pause.

  'Do you believe me?'

  He moved restlessly, silent with his thoughts, and said eventually, 'If you want me to give you a definite yes or no, I can't. It isn't as clear-cut and straightforward as that. Until now I've judged on events and in the light of how they appeared to me. I have to say that it still seems the only logical way to reach a conclusion and I shall go on doing it. So—it's up to you.'

  It was a small hope—half a hope. At least he hadn't given her an outright no. She said quietly, 'There's one thing which I can never prove to you, so I'll just have to ask you to accept it as the truth. I'd already decided before my operation not to go in for nude modelling.'

  'Why, if it was likely to be so lucrative?'

  There was a hard edge to his voice again, and she grimaced, even though he couldn't see her. 'I'm afraid it wasn't for the only reason you would consider valid. When you've been in the business for a few years, taking your clothes off for a photographer doesn't bother you provided he's a genuine professional, and Seth wouldn't have sent me out to anyone who wasn't. It was just that I was never keen on the job in the first place. It's insecure and boring, and I was sick of fending off men who'd got the wrong idea. It was beyond a joke already, and I knew it was bound to get worse.'

  His voice totally without expression, he commented, 'You didn't do much fending off where I was concerned.'

  Fran felt a rush of heat rise up her neck and face. 'I didn't actually need to call a halt with you,' she pointed out constrictedly.

  'You mean you'd have applied the brakes before we reached the ultimate? A dangerous game to play when a man's in a state of high sexual arousal. As I'm sure you must have known.'

  'Not from personal experience.'

  She felt his head turn swiftly in her direction, and in a low voice, went on, 'No one had made love to me to that extent before.'

  He tensed beside her, then said flatly, 'The evidence
is against you, darling. I'm well aware that the signs aren't always present, but if you had been a virgin you wouldn't have waited until now to tell me.' Almost indifferently, he added, 'I wasn't expecting to find one anyway.'

  In other words, why waste my time trying to convince you, Fran thought wearily. Concentrate on the claims I have a better chance of proving.

  But her faint hope of succeeding gradually died as the weekend drew nearer. On Saturday they were going home. Back to the house Grant had shared with Julia, where all her own shortcomings and inadequacies would be magnified—where his disillusionment would finally be complete and he would be compelled to acknowledge to himself that he had acquired an inferior imitation. Like an art reproduction, pleasing enough in a suburban living room, she would seem shoddy in the setting which had once housed the original.

  It was overcast and cold when they arrived. Grant drove the car close up to the front door to unload the luggage, then took it round to the garage at the back. For a while Fran waited for him on the steps, reluctant to greet Mrs Matthews on her own, then decided she was being craven and went into the hall.

  Aggressive barking startled her, and two Jack Russells skidded round a corner to confront her. They were both strange to her, young and smooth-haired, but in their wake, slow and stiff-legged, came the one she remembered. With a wary eye on the other two Fran bent down and called her, and Ruff advanced unwillingly, her elderly face suspicious and unfriendly. She sniffed Fran's outstretched hand for a moment, then turned away, uninterested, and quick tears blurred Fran's gaze. Ruff didn't remember her.

  She stood up again and wished she had waited for Grant when she saw Mrs Matthews watching her from the far end of the hall, her manner as unfriendly as Ruff's had been. Uncomfortable and uncertain how to address her, Fran waited, hoping the other woman would speak, then said, 'Hello, Mrs Matthews.'

  After a short pause, the housekeeper said deliberately, 'Hello, Fran.'