by Penny Jordan
Her mouth had gone dry, and she wanted desperately to bring their conversation to an end.
'Had?' Ricardo questioned, as she had known he would.
'Yes. She... Fenella died a...a few months ago,' she told him reluctantly.
Ricardo could almost feel her resistance to his questions as he registered her words and felt the shock of them, plus his own shock that she should be so composed.
'I'm sorry. That must have been dreadful for you.' Carly looked at him.
'Fenella and I weren't really related. I...her parents adopted me when I was very young. They adored her, and they were naturally devastated by her death,' she told him in a guarded voice.
'But you weren't?' Ricardo guessed.
'We were very different. Fenella naturally was al ways the favored child. Adoption doesn't always work out the way people hope it will.'
Carly looked away from him. It was obvious that she was withholding something from him, withdrawing her self from him, in fact—as though she didn't want to let him into the personal side of her life. To his own astonishment he discovered that he didn't like the fact that she was reluctant to talk openly about herself to him. What was it about her that caused him to have this compulsion to learn more? And was it more, or was it everything there was to learn?
His curiosity was merely that of a potential employer, he assured himself.
'What do you mean, adoption doesn't always work? Didn't it work for you? Weren't you happy with your adoptive parents?'
'Why are you asking me so many questions?'
Ricardo could almost feel her anxiety and panic.
'Perhaps because I want to know more about you.'
On the face of it he already knew all he needed to know. But it was what was beneath the surface that was arousing his curiosity. She was concealing something from him, something that changed her from a self-confident woman into someone who was far more vulnerable—and also very determined to deny that vulnerability. He had a fiercely honed instinct about such things, and he knew he wasn't wrong. So what was it? He intended to find out. But what would it take to break down her barriers?
He looked at her and watched in satisfaction as, under his deliberate scrutiny, the color seeped up under her skin.
'You haven't answered my question,' he reminded her.
'No, I wasn't happy.' The terseness in her voice warned him that she didn't like his probing.
'What about your natural parents?'
Ricardo could see immediately that his question had had a very dramatic effect on her. Her face lost its color and he could hear her audibly indrawn breath. He expected her to refuse to answer, but instead she spoke fiercely.
'My mother was probably a drug addict, who died in a house fire along with two other young women. No one knew who my father might have been. I was left to die amongst the rubbish outside a hospital. A tramp found me. I was only a few weeks old. I was ten years old and in foster care when Fenella's parents decided they wanted to adopt a sister for her, because they were concerned that she might be lonely.'
Ricardo was frowning.
'They adopted you for their daughter?'
'Yes. I imagine they felt I'd be easier to house-train than a puppy and less expensive to keep than a pony,' Carly told him lightly. 'Unfortunately, though, it didn't work out. Fenella, quite naturally, hated having to share her parents and her toys with an unwanted sibling, and demanded that her parents send me back. I think they wanted to, but of course it was too late. I wasn't allowed to touch anything of Fenella's, or even to eat in the same room with her at first. But then we were both sent to boarding school. That's when I met Jules and Lucy. Somehow or other my...my history, and the fact that I wasn't really Fenella's sister, became public knowledge.'
'You mean she told everyone?' Ricardo asked bluntly.
'She was a year older than me, so she'd already made her own circle of friends at the school before I went there. She was a very popular girl—she could be charming when she wanted to be—and I very quickly became ostracized.'
'You were bullied, you mean?'
'I was different and I didn't fit in,' Carly continued without answering him. 'But luckily for me, Jules and Lucy came to my rescue and gave me their friendship. Without that and them... ' The shadows in her eyes caused Ricardo to experience a sudden fierce surge of protectiveness towards her, and anger towards those who had so obviously tormented her.
'What happened to Fenella?'
Carly shook her head. It disturbed her to realize how much she had told him about herself.
She wasn't going to tell him any more, Ricardo recognized, as he watched her turn away from him to focus on her laptop.
Carly frowned as she tried to study the figures on the company's bank statements on her screen. Answering Ricardo's questions had brought back so many painful memories.
She had truly believed when she had been adopted that she was going to be loved by her new parents and sister, and she had given them her own love unstintingly. It had confused her at first when she had been rebuffed, but then she had seen her adoptive mother hugging Fenella, fussing over her, and she had begun to realize that there was a huge difference between the way Fenella was given her parents' love and approval, and the way she was refused it.
She had tried to make herself as like Fenella as possible, mirroring the other girl's behavior as closely as she could, assuming that this would gain her adoptive parents' approval. Instead it had simply made Fenella hate her even more. Now, as an adult, she could not entirely blame them. Fenella had been their child, after all. But her experience with her adoptive parents had taught her the danger of giving her love to anyone.
The figures in front of her blurred, and she had to blink fiercely in order to be able to concentrate on them.
Suddenly, when she saw them properly, she frowned, firmly putting her own problems to one side as she stared in shocked anxiety at the unfamiliarly large cheques that had gone through the account, almost completely emptying it of cash.
It was unthinkable that this should have happened. She prided herself on keeping a mental running total of what was going in and out of the account, and according to her own mental reckoning they should have been several hundred thousand pounds in credit. In fact, they needed to be several hundred thousand pounds in credit to meet the bills their suppliers would be presenting at the end of the month, and to leave sufficient working capital to carry them until they received payment from other clients.
So what were these cheques for? She couldn't re member signing them. A cold trickle of anxiety mixed with instinct iced down her spine. Her heart started to beat uncomfortably heavily. She needed to see those cheques.
Carly had quickly become totally engrossed in her work. Too quickly, Ricardo thought. Did she use it to block out emotional issues she found it difficult to handle? She had not said so, but he imagined that she must have suffered severe emotional trauma during her child hood.
That he should even have such a concern, never mind actively feel protective of her because of it, was such alien emotional territory to him that it took several seconds to recognize his own danger. Once he had done so he reminded himself firmly that that had been then and this was now, and now he wanted her in his bed.
Carly ordered photocopies of the cheques. Until they came she wouldn't be able to do anything else.
'Carly!'
She acknowledged Ricardo with a wary look. 'I hope you ached as much for me last night as I did for you.'
She could feel her face starting to burn.
'I'd really rather not talk about it. I've already said that I don't want to...to go there.'
Her voice was calm, but he could see that her hand was trembling.
He gave a small shrug.
'Why not? Why should we deny ourselves something it's obvious we both want? Sexually there's a chemistry between us that maybe neither of us would have wanted, given free choice, but I don't see any point in trying to pretend that it doesn't ex
ist. And, given that it does exist, perhaps it would be better for both of us if we enjoyed it instead of trying to ignore or reject it.
That way at least we could get our sexual hunger for one another out of our systems.'
Our sexual hunger. Three simple words. But they had the power to change her life forever. Had Adam felt what she was feeling now when Eve had handed him the apple and announced, 'Here, take a bite?' Had he thought then, just as she was thinking now, of all that he would be denying himself if he refused? If she had sex with Ricardo it wouldn't change the world, but it would change her. Was she brave enough to accept that? Or would she rather spend the rest of her life wishing and wondering?
'I don't want to have an affair with you,' she answered him. An affair would involve falling in love, putting herself in a situation where ultimately she would be rejected in favor of someone else. Every emotional experience she'd ever had had taught her that. In her foster homes, with her adoptive parents, and then at school. Even with her closest friends, Lucy and Jules, she was aware that they shared an extra special bond of birth and upbringing which excluded her.
'But you do want to have sex with me,' Ricardo guessed.
Her face was burning, but she managed to hold his gaze. think so.'
The look he gave her was pure male power.
'Are you asking me to make the decision for you?'
'What would be the point? I'm sure a man with your experience could find someone else who wouldn't need to have a decision made for them.'
'I'm sure I could,' Ricardo agreed dryly. 'However, they would not be you, and it is you I want. But, since we're on the subject of relationships, how many relationships have there been for you?'
He had caught her unprepared, slipping the question under her guard.
'Er... I don't... I can't really remember,' she told him untruthfully. 'And besides, it isn't really any of your business, is it?'
'It would be if we slept together,' Ricardo told her.
How could she tell him the truth?
How could she say that he was different—special— that she had never felt the way she did about him with anyone else, and that that alone was enough to make her feel threatened and afraid? And if she couldn't tell him that, then how could she tell him that she had never done with anyone else what she so much wanted to do with him?
'What time do you think we will arrive at the Hamptons?' she asked instead.
The look he gave her made her feel as though he had set a match to her will power and it was curling up into nothing inside her.
'We'll be there in plenty of time. We'll stay over in my New York apartment tonight and fly out tomorrow.'
'Wouldn't it make more sense to go straight there?'
'Not really. You're looking and sounding very agitated, Carly. Why?'
'No reason. I mean, I'm not. Why should I be?' 'Perhaps you don't feel you can trust yourself to be alone with me?' Ricardo suggested softly. Carly had had enough.
'It isn't a matter of that! I just don't think we should put ourselves in a position where—'
'Where what? Where you might be tempted to offer yourself to me and I might accept? Is that what you mean?'
'No! At least... ' That was exactly what she had meant, she admitted to herself. Only in her mental scenario it had been Ricardo offering himself to her, not the other way around.
Something about the way he had phrased his statement touched a raw nerve. 'I don't like what you're implying,' she told him frankly. 'I appreciate that lots of women probably come on to you because... '
'Because I'm very rich?' he suggested smoothly, picking up her dropped sentence.
His voice might sound smooth, but beneath it he was angry, Carly recognized. He might not feel concerned about her sensitivities, but he obviously did not like her treading on his own!
'I wasn't going to say that.'
'Liar!' Ricardo told her, adding coolly,
'Besides, there are always several components to sexual desire, surely? For instance there are those which relate to our senses—sight, scent, taste...touch...'
Carly could feel herself beginning to respond to each word that rolled off his tongue.
Yes, the sight of him aroused her, and his scent certainly did, and as for his taste... She pulled in her stomach muscles to try and control the ache spreading through her. And touch... She pulled them in tighter, but it was already too late to halt what she was feeling. And, yes, the sound of his voice as well...
'And then there are those that relate to personality, status...lifestyle. For instance—' He broke off as the steward emerged from the crew's quarters and came towards them.
Carly could feel herself shaking slightly inside—the sensual effect on her body from just listening to him.
'We'll be landing in half an hour. Would you like another drink before we do? Or something to eat?'
Carly shook her head, unable to trust herself to speak. Ricardo had dragged from her confidences and admissions she would normally never have made to anyone, and right now emotional reaction was beginning to set in—much the same way as physical reaction would have set in if she had just had a tooth pulled without anesthetic. She felt slightly sick, more than slightly shaky, and very much in shock.
Perhaps Ricardo was right, and the only way to over come her physical ache for him was to satisfy it instead of trying to avoid it.
Ricardo watched her, shielding his scrutiny with a pretended concentration on his own papers. Over and over again she broke out of the stereotyped image he wanted to impose on her. No other woman had shown him—given him—shared with him—such an intensity of sexual desire. And no other woman had ever aroused him to such a point of compelling compulsive hunger either.
They were coming in to land, the jet descending through the thin cloud-cover.
Carly packed away her papers and fastened her seat belt. She had always been the sort of person who took every precaution she could to protect herself. But she had not been able to protect herself from what was happening to her now—and wasn't it true that a part of her didn't want to be protected from it?
'Ah, Rafael, there you are...this is Ms Carlisle.' The young Mexican gave Carly a grave smile.
'Carly, please,' she corrected Ricardo as she shook Rafael's hand.
'Rafael and his wife Dolores run my New York apartment. How is Dolores, Rafael?'
'She is very well, and she said to tell you that she is making a special meal for you tonight. It is Italian. She also said to tell you that the orphanage is very happy and the children think you should be called Saint Salvatore.'
Saint Salvatore? Carly questioned mentally, watching the way Ricardo frowned.
'You want me to fly the chopper to the apartment block?' Rafael asked.
Ricardo shook his head.
'No, I'll fly it myself.'
Ricardo had a pilot's license? Carly tried not to look either awed or impressed as Rafael urged her to climb on board the golf-buggy-type vehicle he had waiting for them.
She'd never flown in a helicopter before, and she acknowledged that she felt slightly daunted at the prospect of doing so. But she had no intention of saying so to Ricardo.
'I'll go and fetch the luggage,' Rafael announced, once he had helped Carly out of the buggy.
'We'll use the chopper tomorrow to get to the Hamptons,' Ricardo said as he guided Carly towards it. 'It will be much quicker and easier. You will have an excellent overview of New York City if you sit beside me. Technically Rafael should take that seat, since he is my co-pilot, but—'
'Oh, then he must sit there,' Carly insisted quickly.
'You sound apprehensive. Don't you trust me?'
'I... '
'I can assure you, I take a keen interest in my own continued existence!'
Ricardo had been right about the view of New York, Carly acknowledged, and she held her breath instinctively as he flew them between two huge tower blocks.
Via the headphones she was wearing she could hear
his running commentary on the city below them—the straight lines of the modern streets, and then the curve in Broadway where the new merged with the old.
'That's Wall Street down there,' Ricardo told her, and she looked, bemused to see how quaintly narrow and small it seemed. He turned the helicopter and announced, 'We'll be lying over Central Park soon. My apartment's way up on the east side.'
The streets on either side of the park were lined with what looked like nineteenth-century buildings, and Carly held her breath as Ricardo headed for one of them, not releasing it until she saw the helicopter landing area marked out on its roof.
'You don't leave the helicopter here, do you?' Carly asked once he had helped her out.
Ricardo shook his head. 'No. Rafael will fly it back to the airport and then drive back. I dare say he will take Dolores with him, and they will call on their family on the way back.'
He was obviously a fair and well-liked employer, Carly reflected as he guided her towards the building and in through a doorway to a small foyer and lift. Once they were inside Ricardo punched a code into the panel and the doors closed, enclosing them in what—for Carly—was a far too intimate bubble of seclusion. Immediately the thought filled her mind that if he should turn to her now and take her in his arms she would not want to resist him.
'Don't look at me like that,' Ricardo warned her softly, so easily and immediately reading her thoughts that she could only gape at him. 'I can't—not in here. That's a camera up there,' he told her, pointing upwards towards the ceiling.
The lift stopped silently and smoothly and the doors opened onto another foyer. It was a large, coolly spacious one this time, with only one door opening off it, its walls painted a lat matt cream to highlight the paintings hanging on them.
'Lucien Freud?' Carly questioned, recognizing the style immediately.
'Yes. His work has a raw feel to it that I like.'
The posed nudes were compelling, Carly admitted.
The foyer's single door opened and Ricardo stood back to allow her to precede him.
He had excellent manners, and they seemed to be a natural part of him rather than something carefully learned. But from the brief description she'd had of his early life she doubted if standing back to allow others to precede him was something he'd learned on the streets of Naples.