by Liz Fielding
‘Sore? Well, I’ve brought you some painkillers for your ankle.’
‘Ankle?’ She glanced down at her feet; one of them had been expertly strapped. That wasn’t pain. Not real pain.
‘I was afraid you’d broken it, but it’s just a sprain. Come on, I’ll help you up.’ Without waiting for her agreement, he hooked his arm under hers and lifted her into a sitting position, propping the pillows behind her. He held out a couple of tablets and a glass of water.
‘Civilisation as we know it.’ But two tablets could do nothing for the pain of treachery so deep that she knew she would rather have been lying on the beach than face the truth.
‘Since you fainted on my doorstep, it was easier to bring you here than return you to the beach.’
‘The dragon’s lair?’ She challenged him, but then stared down at herself, at the unfamiliar bathrobe. ‘I was wearing a swimsuit when I fell.’
‘A wet, somewhat muddy swimsuit,’ he said, with a degree of matter-of-factness for which she knew she should be grateful, but wasn’t. ‘Would you like something to eat?’
‘No. Thank you. I’ve quite gone off fish.’
His expression warned her that she was pushing her luck. ‘What about a cup of tea and a lightly boiled egg?’
It sounded like bliss, but she refused to be so easily tempted. ‘China tea?’ she enquired, with just a hint of acid. ‘Are the eggs free-range?’
His eyes sparked in the soft, cool light of the room. ‘For a minute back there, Maddy Rufus, I almost thought you were human.’
For a minute back there, Griff-will-do, I almost believed it myself, Maddy thought, but said nothing.
‘Whilst I am in fact a callous, gold-digging little brat who needs a serious lesson in manners?’ she enquired. ‘I mean why else would we be camping on the beach when you’ve got a perfectly... adequate... house?’
‘Why else?’
‘Well, you’ve made your point, Dragon Man. Had your fun. Lesson learned. Now, will you get on the radio and call up someone to take me home, or will I?’
His jaw tightened ominously. ‘I can’t do that.’ She was almost convinced by that regretful little shrug. ‘I’ve never bothered to install one. I’ve always used the one on the plane or—’
‘Or the yacht?’ she demanded. How much more was she going to have to bear? ‘Where is it?’
‘On charter for the next month. It’s not a toy; it has to earn its keep. Sorry.’
‘You’re not in the least bit sorry,’ she stormed. ‘You’re enjoying yourself. Just wait until I tell Zoë—’
His face darkened. ‘The bathroom’s through there, so if you don’t need my help…?’
‘I’m sure I can manage.’ She stood up to demonstrate that she needed nothing from him. Absolutely nothing. ‘My ankle isn’t that bad.’
‘Ah, well, you see, I did a first-aid course once. You never know when it might come in useful.’ He shut the door with a snap as he left the room.
Maddy blinked as tears stung at her lids. It would be ridiculous to cry. She never cried. At least, for years and years. She stared determinedly about her, trying very hard not to think about him undressing her. She was in an enormous room, the stark whiteness of the walls broken only by two very beautiful, primitive paintings, the brilliant colours of which vibrated against the dark masculine furniture.
The bathroom was enormous, with simple blue and white tiles and dark mahogany fittings. There was a shower, a bath big enough for two and a pile of dark blue plush towels exactly like the one he had used on the beach.
Not Zoë’s, then.
Had he come and collected it so that she would be more comfortable lying on the sand?
‘Oh, Maddy, wake up, girl. It wasn’t meant for you. You were meant to lie on the sand and suffer,’ she told herself. If she hadn’t had hysterics, she would undoubtedly have done just that instead of spending the night wrapped in the safety of his arms.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her tan had darkened a shade or two, her hair was, if anything even brighter after a couple of days spent outside, but nothing else had changed. Not on the outside.
She removed the robe and sponged herself all over with warm water and was drying herself when she heard the bedroom door open. Wrapping the towel around her like a sarong, she hopped to the bathroom door. ‘Is this accommodation temporary,’ she demanded, ‘or can I have my bags?’
‘Say please and anything’s possible.’
‘I’d rather sleep—’
‘Say and it’s a fact!’ he warned.
‘In my own nightdress,’ she said, rapidly retreating from her threat, certain that he wasn’t bluffing. ‘I also need a toothbrush.’
‘They’ll wait. Come and have something to eat.’
‘Dressed like this?’
‘I promise you, Maddy, no one is about to call.’ He held the bedroom door wide, inviting her out onto the terrace.
She threw the end of the towel over her shoulder and made to sweep by him, for the moment forgetting her ankle. He caught her as the pain took her unawares, and picked her up.
‘Keep your hands off me,’ she demanded, trying to shake free of him.
‘This is my house, Maddy Osborne, and I’m the only one who gives orders here.’
‘You are nothing but a... a...’
‘Lost for words?’ he enquired.
‘I’m too much of a lady to utter them.’
‘I know what I am, Maddy Rufus,’ he told her. ‘The jury’s still out on you.’ Before she could reply, he carried her to the table, sitting her on one of the high-backed chairs before which had been laid the promised eggs, a pile of fresh toast and a pot of tea. Despite the fact that the sun was already turning the sky pink and it was hours since she had eaten, she ignored them, fixing her gaze instead upon the table. It was cut from a single cross-section of some richly dappled gold and brown timber and supported on crossed legs of a much darker wood.
‘You have excellent taste in furniture,’ she said, studiously ignoring the eggs. ‘Did some local craftsman make this for you?’
‘I made it and when you’ve got a spare month I’ll tell you about it. Right now, I want you to eat.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said, regarding him with the stubborn expression that had once made teachers quake. Griff was unmoved.
He caught her wrist and put a spoon into her hand. ‘Force yourself,’ he said with quiet authority, and sank to his haunches so that his eyes were on a level with hers.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she insisted, trying to keep her own voice on the same even keel as his, but she knew that another minute of the tantalising smell of fresh toast would drive her stomach to noisy reproach. She tugged at her wrist but although his grasp was light, it was not to be moved. Besides, his eyes were inescapable; they pinned her to the chair like a butterfly to a card.
‘Now,’ he continued in the same quiet voice, ‘I’m going to fetch your bag from the plane. But just so you don’t misunderstand my determination, I’m going to tell you what I will do if you defy me.’ Apprehension cartwheeled beneath her ribs. There was something very ominous about his insistence.
‘What?’ Her voice caught in her throat, but she lifted her chin a little. ‘What will you do?’
He lifted the towel where it was draped over her naked shoulder and ran the edge of his thumb along her collar-bone. She shivered convulsively and he nodded as if satisfied. ‘If, when I return, you haven’t eaten every scrap, I shall remove this very fetching sarong and make love to you, Maddy. Right here.’ There was no emotion, no threatening gesture. The words were completely matter-of-fact. He might just as easily have said, I’ll have a cup of tea and a biscuit. Yet she believed him. It was frightening how easy he was to believe. More terrifying still was the way her body kindled to his threat.
‘On the dining table?’
‘Whatever turns you on.’
‘But that would be—’
‘No!’ He released her wr
ist and raised his hand to her face. The pad of his thumb grazed the hot flare of colour on her cheekbones and a little shock wave rippled beneath her skin, fanning out from the epicentre of his touch until her body felt consumed, her mind unravelling in her desire for him. He offered a sympathetic smile as if he understood. ‘It would be much worse than that. We both know that you’d be begging for more.’ With that, he uncurled in one graceful movement and walked away.
Fear, so raw that she could taste it, rippled through her and she looked at the spoon still clasped in her hand. She wanted to smash the egg with it. Instead, she began to tap the egg, very gently, removing the shell in the slow, meticulous manner that she had once used to drive her mother to fury and that, in some subtle way, defied him. But nevertheless, she ate it all, and every crumb of toast, although it practically stuck in her throat. Because, no matter how much she denied it to herself, she knew she was in no position to call his bluff.
How could such a thing have happened? How could she have fallen in love with him when she believed him to be her worst nightmare?
There was still the cheque.
He had not returned by the time she finished and, refusing to sit like a child waiting for permission to leave the table, she gathered the dishes and hobbled painfully to the kitchen with them.
The kitchen was decorated in an earthy mixture of pale terracotta, soft creams and rich dark wood. Perfect, like the rest of the house. But she didn’t want to think about the house, because that meant thinking about the way he had deceived her. She quickly filled the sink with warm water and washed up, leaning against the edge of the unit to take the weight of her foot. It didn’t take long.
She made her way slowly back to the terrace, determined to put her foot up on one of the sofas, but then it occurred to her that she would never have a better opportunity to look around. Despite his casual denial of a radio, it seemed unlikely that a man in Griff’s position would be so cavalier about communications. He would surely have some backup? She grasped the handle of a tantalisingly closed door and began to turn it. Then she stopped. He’d had his fun at her expense. It was over. Why on earth would he pretend?
‘Griff?’
She found him contemplating the inlet a few yards from the little seaplane. It was the first time she had voluntarily spoken to him for three days — three long days during which there had been no sign of a search for them by air or sea and Maddy’s nerves had been stretched to breaking-point by the almost unbearable intimacy of sharing a house with him.
‘Maddy?’ he replied with a laconic lift of a brow, and she almost winced.
She had known it would not be easy, but she couldn’t let things drift on like this. She had screwed herself to the sticking-point to face his amusement that she had finally been forced to beg. But it was as clear as day that Griff was content to continue as they were — swimming in the calm water of the inlet and idling their time away. It was as if he was waiting for something. This was, after all, his home. He was doing precisely what he’d intended to do — fish a little, read, explore the reef with a snorkel. She had watched, wanting to accept his casual invitations to join him, but unwilling to risk the flare of damped-down passion that she was so intensely aware was just beneath the surface.
‘We can’t go on like this.’
‘I can,’ he assured her, but as her eyes pleaded with him to understand he relented and patted the sand beside him. ‘Sit down. Tell me what’s on your mind.’
‘You know what’s on my mind,’ she said, ignoring his invitation to sit. ‘I want to get off this island and go home.’
‘Really? I thought it was imperative that you stay with Zoë?’
‘That was Father’s idea. He thought...’ It didn’t matter what he thought. Whatever Zoë’s cheque was for, it clearly wasn’t to support the Dragon Man in idleness. ‘Once I’m off this island, I’m getting the first available flight back to London. My father will be going frantic, not having heard from me.’
He looked up at her, shading his eyes from the sun. ‘You do know, then, that people worry about you?’
She frowned slightly. ‘Of course.’
‘I didn’t mean the fact that you are long overdue on your visit to Zoë’s.’
‘Didn’t you?’ What else could he mean? Then she brushed his interruption away with an irritable little twitch of her hand. ‘Anyway, Zoë clearly hasn’t been all that bothered...’ She went suddenly cold as a shiver ran down her spine. ‘Unless...’ She looked at him. ‘Unless they think we crashed into the sea. That we’re...’ She covered her hand with her mouth and sank onto the sand beside him, forgetting her anger with him in her anguish. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why the authorities aren’t looking for us. They think we’re dead.’ She stuffed her fist into her mouth. ‘Dad will have to go to Paris to tell my mother...’ He wouldn’t telephone and despite everything, he still loved her too much to let anyone else do it. She felt tears of pity for them both well up in her eyes. ‘Oh, Griff. This is awful.’
He swore softly and put his arm around her, thumbing away the tears that had unaccountably welled onto her cheeks. ‘Oh, come on; it isn’t that bad.’
She looked up at him. Why wouldn’t he understand? ‘Griff, this is serious...’
‘If anyone thought we were in trouble, they’d be out looking for wreckage, Maddy. Zoë probably thinks I’ve tempted you to my lair and is being terribly discreet.’
‘She would never think that!’
His brows rose sharply at her indignant denial. ‘My mistake.’ Then he frowned. ‘I thought you said you didn’t have a mother.’
Maddy remembered with painful clarity exactly what she had said to him: I no longer have a mother. She had thought it for so long that she hadn’t realised how heartless, how cruel it was until this moment when she pictured her mother grieving for her. She had blamed her for so much...
‘My mother left, years ago.’
‘Another man?’
She shook her head. ‘No. She has her faults, but faithlessness isn’t one of them.’
‘Then what?’
‘Money.’
‘Ah, the Osborne family failing.’
‘My mother certainly thought so. When she discovered that Dad had mortgaged the house for the fifth time to finance his latest venture, she just walked out. She couldn’t take the fear any more, I suppose. Dad had come close to disaster before and she’d lost her home when everything had had to be sold to pay men’s wages and the creditors.’
‘But you didn’t go with her?’
‘Someone had to stay and look after Dad. Perhaps daughters are less critical than wives.’
‘But you blamed her?’ He saw everything so clearly, so black and white. But he was right. She did blame her mother that she had been left to cook and clean and answer the telephone and be her father’s unpaid secretary when she should have been working for her A levels.
She had scraped through her exams with the bare minimum, and instead of accomplishing her dream of reading English at Oxford, she had ended up doing a year at a local college.
Maddy discovered that she was smiling at the irony of it. An English degree might just have got her a job in a publishing house. Business studies had given her the foundation to run a successful company of her own. Life had its own pattern. One door closed and another opened.
‘Maddy?’ She realised that he was waiting for an answer.
‘Living with him must have been a nightmare for someone like my mother, who loves order and security. The pity of it was that after all those years of worrying whether she was going to be able to pay the electricity bill, he had made his first million within a year of her leaving.’
‘I’m surprised she didn’t come back. Or perhaps she felt guilty about leaving you?’
Maddy hadn’t thought about it clearly for a long time. Now she shook her head. ‘If you only knew half the things she had to put up with...’
‘Perhaps you should tell her how you feel.’
>
She looked at him then. ‘Perhaps I should.’ It was like a door opening in her heart and she smiled. ‘When I open the Paris branch I’ll be able to spend a lot more time with her.’
‘The Paris branch?’ The irony was back.
She gave an apologetic little shrug. ‘Like father, like daughter. I shall have to raise the money on my flat if I decide to go ahead. It must run in the blood.’
‘Unless you can catch a rich husband in the meantime?’
Maddy met Griff’s eye and gave a little shiver. ‘That will do it every time,’ she conceded sarcastically. Considering that she wasn’t supposed to be talking to the man, it occurred to Maddy that this conversation seemed to have gotten rather out of hand. She had rehearsed what she was going to say to him. The bare minimum. How had they ever got so far off the subject? She disengaged herself from the comforting curve of his arm. ‘But to snare the prize I have to get off this island.’
‘You want me to build a raft?’ he offered.
She remembered the table. ‘Could you do that?’
‘It would take a while,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Have you ever tried to saw up palm wood with your teeth?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said, leaping to her feet, cross with herself for falling so easily for his teasing. ‘I should have known better.’
‘You have something more practical in mind? A message in a bottle, perhaps?’
She glared at him. ‘I’m not prepared to sit here any longer and do nothing.’
He linked his fingers behind his head, lay back on the sand and closed his eyes. ‘You should try it, Maddy. You might enjoy it.’
She allowed her eyes to make a lingering journey down the strong column of his neck, across a pair of well-muscled shoulders and the deep chest with its scattering of body hair that arrowed to a fine dark line across his taut hips. He had confounded her theory that he lacked a bathing suit, but the black slip that hugged his hips did very little to disguise his manhood and the skin across her high cheekbones darkened.
Oh, she could enjoy it.
Despite her frantic attempts to keep busy with sketching, taking photographs, teaching Jack some new words — anything to occupy her mind — she knew that if things had been different between them, she would have been more than happy to lie back and... She jerked her gaze away to find that he had opened his eyes and was watching her.