A Proposal to Secure His Vengeance

by Kate Walker

‘But what, Imogen?’ Raoul challenged with that singular, individual pronunciation of her name that only he used. The one that brought back the memories, the long, warm days of Corsica, the hot passion of the nights in his bed.

  ‘But nothing more...’

  She broke off in shock and disbelief as he shook his head so fiercely that the tiny diamond-like water droplets still lingering on his hair from his rapid face-wash scattered over her, sprinkling her face with moisture.

  ‘How can you say nothing more? How dare you say there was nothing else between us?’

  ‘Oh, yes, there was sex!’

  High and tight, she flung the word in his shuttered face, knowing a sense of despair as she saw that there was no flicker of reaction, not even a blink of those basilisk eyes.

  ‘And that was all.’

  ‘All?’ To her horror, it was almost laughter, the word shaking on the edge of dark amusement. ‘You call that all?’

  She wished she could convince herself that there had been nothing more but, watching the way his mouth moved on the words, scorched by his smile, she knew that even to describe them as old flames wouldn’t come anywhere near it.

  Old flames still burned and she could feel the heat searing the room, recognised the smouldering embers in Raoul’s deep-set eyes.

  ‘All...’ she tried but the word was just a croak in her throat.

  Raoul smiled that dark smile. Lifting one hand, he crooked a long finger, beckoning her towards him.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, unexpectedly softly.

  ‘No.’

  She wanted to shake her head in rough denial of the command but her neck seemed to have stiffened so that all she could manage was a slight tilt backwards, her chin coming up in defiance. That smile grew worryingly.

  ‘Scared?’ It was even softer, tightening the knot in her stomach.

  ‘Scared? Never!’

  Oh, but she was. And not of him. It was herself she was scared of. The fizz of electricity along her nerves, the burn of fire in her veins, made her feel as if her body was not her own. Once again the puppet master was pulling her strings and she had no choice but to dance to his tune.

  He was going to kiss her, no matter what. She saw it in the darkness of his eyes, the way the black pupils had almost obliterated any trace of colour. She could see the curve at the corner of those sensual lips, the way they were slightly parted over his white teeth. She could almost taste him on her own mouth already, the memory of years ago so vivid that she expected to feel the warmth of the sun on her back, the shift of soft sand between her toes.

  He was going to kiss her and she could read the thought in his face. He believed that all he had to do was move forward, take her face in his hands, lift her mouth towards his...and she would either melt into his embrace—or twist away from him and run for the door. Either one of those reactions would show him just too much of what she was feeling, however hard she tried to hide it.

  That was what he expected. But there was one way she could take the initiative, knock him off-balance. He wasn’t getting all his own way on this; and, right now, that one way fitted so much with what she wanted anyway.

  ‘Not scared!’ she declared and, high on the excitement of wrong-footing him, dodging the hand that was reaching for her, she almost danced towards him, taking him by surprise as she came close enough to drop a fleeting butterfly kiss on that warm, sensual mouth.

  There, and away again...or at least that was how it was supposed to be. That was the way she’d seen it in her mind before she’d embarked on this. The kiss she’d wanted since the first moment she’d seen him again in the church, and she was allowing herself to take just this one kiss—and then she would be gone... Everything going her way, at last, nothing his.

  But in the moment her lips touched his—when the taste she had recalled became real, the warmth of his skin brushing against hers, his breath mingling with her own uncontrolled gasp—she knew that she’d overplayed her hand. That she’d lost. All thought of holding back vanished in a heartbeat. One kiss was not enough, would never be enough. She couldn’t just sip from that glass. Once she had tasted, she needed to drink deeply.

  ‘Raoul...’

  The sigh escaped her in the same moment that his mouth formed her own name. Then he had moved, taken her arms, held her just where he wanted her. His dark head bent, his mouth closing over hers.

  It was the gentleness that shocked her. There was no lust or demand in his kiss, nor was he holding back. Oh, dear Lord, but he was not holding back. His mouth took hers with a caress that seemed to draw out her soul and place it right in his hands. She had lost all sense of herself except where she ended and he began. It was as if they were just one person, two combined into one, perfectly aligned, perfectly absorbed.

  Her bones seemed to melt as she leaned into him, feeling the warmth and the scent of his flesh enclose her, her breasts pressed close against his skin, which was exposed where his shirt hung open. It was like coming home, and yet it was the slow burn of a dormant ember, one that was being fanned back into life with every breath she took, every caress, every new pressure of his mouth. The slow, seductive slide of his tongue along the seam of her lips enticed her to open to him, taking in that taste, the warmth that was more intoxicating than any potent spirit sending her blood racing.

  Had she kissed other men in the time they had been apart? She had to have done—there had been other guys who had tried to win her round from the pit of loneliness and darkness she’d fallen into when she had finally come home from London. There had even been Adnan...

  But right now, Adnan was just a name to her. She couldn’t even conjure up the image of his face, his presence. Least of all, his kisses. It was as if he had been a dream and this—this was reality. The only reality she knew. The only reality she wanted.

  ‘Imogen...’

  It was a murmur against her mouth as he adjusted his position slightly, just enough to ensure that every inch of her was pressed against him. There was still no pressure; he was so careful, so measured. That restraint was already fretting at her own control, fraying it at the edges, making her struggle with impatience, with the need for more.

  His hands had curved over her shoulders, the heat of his palms burning through the fine scarlet silk and seeming to brand her skin, to mark her out as his. As they slid slowly down her back, smoothing along her spine, she couldn’t hold back the murmur of response that slipped from her as she lost all sense of control. With a little shimmy of her hips she moved closer still, feeling the hard heat of him pressed against her pelvis, noting the way his breath caught in his throat as he reacted to her enticement.

  ‘Want...’

  It was all she could manage, all she could think. She was so far gone that she didn’t recognise the danger she had put herself into until she heard the faint sound of his soft laughter, felt him nod his head in dark agreement.

  ‘I know, ma belle. Je sais... And this will make it so much better—easier.’

  Easier? The word exploded in Imogen’s thoughts. How could this be easier? Suddenly, the rush of realisation became a sense of shock and horror, despair flooding through her as she realised what she was doing, the depth of the trap into which she had fallen all over again.

  She thought she’d come to terms with the gentle friendship she had for Adnan. Had told herself she could live with that and be happy. It was safer, kinder, than what she had known before with Raoul. But now there was no Adnan, there was only Raoul, and he had opened the door she had thought so firmly locked against her memories. Those memories were dragging her in and down into the same danger that she had known before.

  This was how he had made her feel all those years ago, in Corsica. This was how he had swept her up into a heated world of fantasy and sensuality that had stopped her from thinking, destroyed her ability to reason. She had fallen head over heels, believing that what she felt was love—a love that he shared. Now she knew so much better. She knew all he had felt for her was the bur
n of lust, the stab of the most basic, primitive hunger a man feels for a woman.

  It had flamed hard and hot and hungry—but only for a short time before it had burned itself out. She had still been riding high on the waves of her first encounter, with the passionate feelings that a grown woman could know, when he had tired of the whole thing and had let her drop from a very great height. She had landed so hard and so violently she had never fully recovered.

  Now he had stirred up all those unwanted and unwelcome feelings all over again, making a mockery of her belief—her hope—that she was over them for good.

  ‘Easier!’

  How could this ever make anything easier between them? It just twisted things, making them infinitely more complicated than they had been in the moments before their lips had met.

  That kiss had opened up her long-locked, hidden Pandora’s box of sensuality and feelings and there was no way she was ever going to be able to close it again. But if Raoul thought that that made her easy...

  She wrenched her mouth from his. She pulled away so she could stare into his face, seeing the burn of sensuality under the heavy lids, the moisture that glistened on his mouth from her foolish, unthinking kisses.

  ‘If that’s what you think then you had better start thinking again! There’s no way that anything between you and me could be any sort of easy. I wish I’d never seen you in the first place—and I so wish that you’d never turned up here again. If I never see you again in my life, it will be way too soon.’

  The laughter that shook his powerful form had little real amusement in it. Instead it was filled with a hateful triumph that scalded her mind just to hear it.

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t believe you, ma belle,’ he drawled softly. ‘You can claim the words—but that’s not what your kisses say.’

  ‘My kisses?’

  Imogen laid her hands flat against his shoulders, pushed with all the strength she could gather up and was happy to find that she must have caught him off-balance, or so sure of himself that he hadn’t braced against any possible response she might make. With one sharp push she had him taking an unwary step backwards, and then another, freeing her to twist away from his grip and move partway across the room.

  ‘You believe in my kisses Raoul?’ she tossed at him, enjoying seeing the momentary blink of confusion that flittered across his face before he caught it back and froze into immobility.

  ‘Well, more fool you. Because kisses can deceive every bit as much as words, in fact. And I should know.’

  She was almost at the door now, fingers on the handle. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but she had one last riposte to fling at him, tossing the words into his now dark, shuttered face.

  ‘You see, I learned how to lie with a kiss from the very best. I learned it from you.’

  And that was as good an exit line as she was going to get, she told herself as she pulled the door open and dodged through it as fast as she could. She didn’t dare look into the black, opaque sheen of his eyes. The way every muscle in his face tightened in anger was more than enough warning that she’d stretched what little patience he had left to its absolute limit.

  ‘You’re a great teacher, Raoul,’ she tossed over her shoulder as the door began to close behind her. ‘You must be if I convinced you!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE CHURCH LOOKED every bit as beautiful as she had hoped. But the lovely arrangements of flowers, the huge, beeswax candles, were all destined to go to waste. The wooden pews would remain empty, the candles unlit, the aisle silent throughout a day that should have been filled with the bustle and murmur of invited guests, family and friends.

  No one was coming to the wedding. Not even the groom, it seemed, though she’d hoped and prayed for a reprieve. Adnan was determined to stay away and have nothing to do with what was supposed to have been their wedding day, and who could blame him? As a result, she was here alone, at this time when she should have been preparing for the big event, getting ready to put on the beautiful, elegant wedding dress that had been hanging in her wardrobe for the past few days.

  She would never wear that dress now. Not even for the sort of marriage of convenience that she and Adnan had agreed on, eyes wide open, knowing that what they planned would suit them both—and help everyone else involved.

  Now she couldn’t even get in touch with her ex-fiancé. She didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. She had tried to ring him again and again through the night and had only ever got voicemail.

  ‘Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’

  He hadn’t, of course. Her own phone had remained stubbornly silent, except the one time when it had rung and it had been a call from Ciara.

  Imogen shook her head as she recalled the stilted, difficult conversation with her sister. It had been like going back a couple of years to the time of their very first conversation, when her sister hadn’t been too sure she wanted to meet up, to reconnect with the family she knew so little about. Imogen had thought—hoped—that they’d got past that and were on their way to creating a real family relationship. But last night had changed everything. Ciara wouldn’t be here to support her through the misery of cancelling everything involved with the day. Wherever Adnan was, her sister was there with him, but the younger girl had refused to tell her where they could be found.

  ‘He doesn’t want to talk to you,’ she’d said, her voice sounding strange and alien, the unusual echoes around it making it almost eerie, and totally unlike her sister’s usual warm tones.

  ‘But I have to explain to him. I’ll come to the manor.’

  A long pause. She could hear Ciara’s breath at the other end of the line, and the silence had worried her.

  ‘We—he’s not at the manor and he won’t be for some time. He’s not coming back, Immi—and really, after what happened, you shouldn’t expect him to.’

  And then the phone had been switched off, confusing her even more. She’d assumed that Ciara had gone after Adnan last night to try to make him see reason and obviously that had failed. But...

  Just what did that ‘we’ mean? Why was Ciara still with Adnan? And where were they?

  The truth was that that last comment had had a clear note of reproof in it. A note that made Imogen realise that, even though they’d made great strides in getting to know each other after the distance their parents’ split had put between them, there were still areas of her sister’s life where she didn’t really know Ciara at all.

  ‘I knew I’d find you here.’

  It could only be one person’s voice. Only one man had those deep, slightly husky tones, that sexy, lilting accent. Immediately her spine stiffened, tension taking over every muscle.

  ‘I came here because I wanted to be alone,’ she managed from between lips that felt like wood.

  ‘And I knew you’d say that,’ he added, the tiny hint of amusement setting her teeth on edge.

  ‘Then will you please do me a favour and leave me alone?’

  ‘No.’

  It was almost pleasant, but it was still the most determined, adamant refusal she had ever heard.

  ‘Raoul!’

  She turned to scowl at him, adopting the most determined look she could manage. But somehow it didn’t work, that glare bouncing off his expressionless face with no effect. It was impossible not to think that she had hoped to face him today looking her very best, with her hair and make-up done, wearing that beautiful silk dress and her grandmother’s Brussels lace veil. Instead, her worn jeans and a plain blue tee-shirt had been the only things she could think to pull on this morning, knowing most of the day was going to have to be spent cancelling things, apologising...

  ‘Ma belle.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Her hands came up in front of her face. ‘I’m not your—your anything. Certainly not your...’

  ‘Ah, but there you are wrong. You are beautiful—I’ve always thought that.’

  Beautiful on the outside at least. Raoul had to fight with himself to
keep his face from showing how the memories of the day he’d found out about her visit to the London clinic still burned in his mind. He’d been on a wild seesaw ride ever since he’d been told about it, even more since he had seen her again for the first time in years.

  Here, in this little village church, where she had been supposed to marry Adnan today. That was why, when he hadn’t been able to find her back at the house, and everyone had told him that she was nowhere to be found, he had known exactly where to come. Exactly where he’d find her.

  ‘Spare me the flattery!’ Imogen protested now and he couldn’t help but smile at her vehemence.

  But what was hiding behind that determination? It could be the effect of the shadows in the church, the pitiful light of the hazy sun shining through the stained glass windows, but she looked pale and drawn, as if she hadn’t slept at all well. That was inevitable, he would have thought, after the way they had parted last night, the way her life had exploded in her face in the midnight confrontation in his room.

  It was what he had aimed for; the reason he had come here in the first place—so why did it leave him with a raw sense of dissatisfaction rather than the ultimate triumph he had looked for?

  ‘No flattery—honestly,’ he reassured her. ‘I never speak anything less than the truth.’

  ‘The truth, huh?’ Her chin had come up, her luscious mouth tightening in defiance. ‘Then tell me the truth about why you’ve followed me here today. What part of “if I never see you again in my life, it will be way too soon” did you not understand? Why are you still in Ireland and not on your way back to Corsica?’

  It was a question he’d been asking himself ever since he’d woken—after probably as bad a night’s sleep as she’d had.

  He’d intended to go. He’d planned on packing his bag as soon as he’d woken and clear out of the house, out of her life. But it was as he’d headed for the bathroom that the second and third thoughts had started to hit him.

  The first was the result of seeing the belt lying on the floor on the far side of the room, close to the door. A long, thin strip of scarlet silk, it was the belt from the robe that she had tugged so tightly round her. It had obviously slipped free as she had stalked out of the door, tossing what she had clearly intended to be the last words she’d ever speak to him over her shoulder as she went.