Escape from Desire

by Penny Jordan

  ‘It was one of the reasons, yes,’ Nigel acknowledged. ‘I’ve let the M.D. read the early chapters and he’s wildly enthusiastic—so enthusiastic in fact that he’s giving Zach the complete kid glove treatment.’

  ‘You mean …’ Tamara’s voice was a husky disbelieving whisper.

  ‘No, you don’t have to go and work for him,’ Nigel assured her quickly. ‘I’ve managed to persuade the Board that I can find Zach a perfectly competent secretary without having to do without my own invaluable assistant.’

  ‘But have you managed to convince Zach?’

  Nigel fiddled with his pen. ‘Not yet,’ he admitted, ‘but I will do—now don’t worry about it.’

  That was easier said than done. Tamara worried all through the oppressive, sultry day, which ended without the promised thunderstorm, the dying sun turning the sky a dull brassy gold.

  The weekend dragged by with no let-up in the weather. Tamara spent Sunday in the park, telling herself that the fresh air would do her good, but she returned to her flat feeling listless and headachy. Ever since she had learned that Zach had tried to force Nigel’s hand she had been wondering whether she ought to give up her job. She had enough money to tide her over well until after the baby’s birth, but her savings wouldn’t last for ever, she reminded herself, and she would be lucky to find another boss as understanding and as flexible as Nigel.

  By Monday she was no closer to a decision. Thunder was forecast again, but there had been so many false alarms, and the sky was such a heavy, intense blue that Tamara disregarded it, choosing to wear a pretty pink and white striped sundress with a matching white belt, a short-sleeved cotton jacket adding a touch of formality in keeping with the office while still enabling her to keep cool.

  Nigel didn’t arrive until ten o’clock and quite plainly had things on his mind. Tamara busied herself with her own work, a tiny thread of apprehension coiling in the pit of her stomach, and tightening slowly but surely as the day wore on.

  At one she went out for her lunch. There was a snack bar not too far from the office which she normally patronised, mainly because it was clean and the service was quick.

  Although her appetite had improved recently, today she felt totally unable to face any food. Instead she ordered a glass of milk, telling herself that it would be good for the baby.

  It was just after a quarter to two when she walked back into the office, her eyes adjusting from the too bright glare outside to the welcome coolness of her office. The door between her office and Nigel’s was open and she could hear voices coming from it. Frowning, she picked up her diary. Nigel didn’t have any appointments. Just as she was wondering which member of staff was in with him Nigel stopped talking and as clearly as though she had been in the room with them she heard Zach saying forcefully:

  ‘Okay then, but just tell me one thing. Is it true that she broke off her engagement with Mellors when she got back from the Caribbean?’

  Tamara moved from her desk to the door on leaden feet, her whole body trembling with reaction. What was Zach doing here asking questions about her? Did he somehow think he could use the information that she was no longer engaged to Malcolm to force her to work for him?

  Before she could close the door and blot out the sound of his voice and its effect on her far too vulnerable senses she heard Nigel saying calmly:

  ‘That, I think, is Tamara’s business.’

  ‘And you aren’t going to let her come and work for me?’

  ‘I’m not going to force her into something she doesn’t want to do,’ Nigel corrected patiently. ‘And before you ask, I have no idea why she doesn’t want to, any more than I know why you appear so adamant that she should.’

  ‘No?’ The word was loaded with contemptuous disbelief. ‘I suppose it would be naïve to ask what you stand to gain by championing her like this?’

  ‘If you mean what I think you mean,’ Tamara heard Nigel say evenly, ‘then it would be presumptuous rather than naïve. Tamara is my secretary, and a very good one. She is also a very attractive young woman, more so now than at any time in the past, especially since she’s managed at last to conquer her own lack of self-esteem and liberate the beautiful girl she’s always kept hidden behind a wall of reserve. But as for either of us wanting an affair, you insult us both. I happen to be very happily married—a state I can readily recommend, by the way,’ he added with a note in his voice which puzzled Tamara. ‘And Tamara … Tamara a girl who still believes in love,’ he said obliquely.

  Tamara didn’t wait to hear any more. Grabbing her bag, she hurried out of the office, unable to endure the prospect of facing Zach and having him browbeat her into returning to the Cotswolds to act as his secretary.

  When she got outside she realised that the afternoon had dulled and that ominous clouds had built up on the horizon. She had told the girl on reception that she was going home because she wasn’t well, and only hoped that Nigel would understand.

  As she hurried through the crowded streets towards her bus stop she could hear the menacing roll of thunder clouds, filling the sky at an almost unbelievable speed. Lightning flared as the afternoon turned dark, huge drops of rain darkening the pavement, and the thunder continued to growl, growing ominously closer.

  Tamara wasn’t frightened of thunderstorms, but she didn’t find them particularly attractive, especially when she was only wearing a thin dress and jacket. By the time she reached the bus stop it was raining in earnest, a heavy downpour that soaked straight through her jacket.

  The bus stop was deserted, and Tamara was just in time to see the bus rolling away from her less than a hundred yards down the road. Defeat rounded her shoulders, and she shivered beneath the damp lash of the rain, wishing for the protection of some sort of shelter, but there was none.

  Within minutes her dress and jacket were soaked, her fingers damp and cold, as she waited in vain for her bus. Too late she remembered the service was less frequent during the day—one of the cuts imposed by councils anxious to cut down on rates, a step which Tamara approved in theory but which was now proving extremely annoying in practice.

  The rain was so heavy that she didn’t see the powerful car approaching until it ground to a halt in front of her, and even then she didn’t realise what it portended until the passenger door was flung open and Zach leaned across to demand threateningly, ‘Are you going to get in voluntarily or do I have to use force? Don’t try running, Tamara,’ he warned her, when she cast an involuntary and frightened look over her shoulder, ‘I’m in no mood to be gentle when I catch you—and I will!’

  It was only the knowledge that he spoke the truth—she couldn’t outrun him—that made Tamara acquiesce and climb reluctantly into the Porsche, her wet clothes dripping damply over the soft cream hide seats and the thick pile carpet.

  ‘What … How did you know where to find me?’ she demanded, already knowing the answer to her original question, which had been, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It wasn’t difficult,’ he told her curtly. ‘The receptionist was so alarmed by the way you went rushing out of the office that she came up to tell Nigel. From there it wasn’t hard to conclude that you must be heading for home like any other frightened animal, eh, Tamara?’

  She didn’t respond to that, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the pavement, a startled protest breaking from her lips as she realised they weren’t heading in the right direction.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded urgently. ‘We’re going the wrong way!’

  ‘And it’s a road we’ve been down too many times already,’ Zach replied grimly. ‘I’m taking you to my flat, Tamara. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘We have nothing to say to one another,’ Tamara replied breathlessly. ‘I’m not going to work for you, even if it means giving up my job.’

  ‘Did I say I wanted you to?’

  The question threw her. If he didn’t want her to work for him what was he doing following her? Unless of course he wanted to taunt her with he
r broken engagement; to challenge her with having overplayed her hand when she ‘deliberately allowed herself to become pregnant’, to paraphrase his own accusation.

  She shivered suddenly, trembling with the onset of cold and fear.

  ‘You’re soaking.’ A frown touched Zach’s eyes briefly as he reached forward to touch a switch and heat began to fill the car. ‘What possessed you to run out like that … Surely it wasn’t fear? Not from a girl who faced possible death so bravely.’

  Don’t hurt me any more, Tamara wanted to plead, but she folded her lips tightly over the words. She had been humiliated enough—more than enough.

  She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t realise they had turned off the main road and were entering an underground car park.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded again, her eyes registering her fear.

  ‘I’ve already told you—somewhere where we can talk without being interrupted,’ Zach replied briefly, switching off the engine and reaching behind her to remove his jacket from the back seat, the brush of his fingers against her wet arm making Tamara flinch and stiffen.

  ‘Well,’ he taunted, ‘are you going to get out of your own free will or do I have to carry you?’

  It had the effect he had known it must. She stumbled out of the car, swaying slightly with shock and apprehension.

  Zach took her arm, propelling her towards a private lift which bore them upwards in a thick silence. An impersonal foyer carpeted in dull gold met Tamara’s eyes as the lift stopped and the doors opened. Only one door faced them and Zach motioned her towards it while he produced a key.

  A small hallway carpeted in the same gold with two excellent Turner reproductions hanging on the walls opened out into a large living room, with a vast expanse of plate glass window overlooking the City.

  The flat was obviously much larger than Tamara’s and she was miserably conscious of her bedraggled appearance, her clothes dripping water on to the immaculate pale grey carpet; chilled by the perfect decor of the room, with its silver grey walls, stark black leather settees, and chrome and smoked glass shelving units. It was the sort of room often featured in glossy magazines, but Tamara found it impersonal and unwelcoming.

  Zach had disappeared in the direction of another room, and she gasped as he suddenly reappeared bearing a thick fluffy towel.

  ‘Get those wet things off,’ he commanded briskly. ‘You’re soaked to the skin. You’ll be lucky if you come out of this with nothing worse than a bad chill!’

  Tamara looked round wildly for the bathroom—anywhere that was private, but Zach was standing over her, his stance subtly threatening, his eyes as alert as a predatory animal’s.

  ‘If you’ll just tell me where the bathroom is,’ Tamara began with chilly dignity.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Zach swore, his expression that of a man driven way beyond the boundaries of his self-control. The towel was flung to the floor, Tamara’s whispered protests ignored as knowledgeable fingers peeled off her soaking jacket. Her dress was next, the small buttons dealt with with a ruthless efficiency that appalled her, all her feeble attempts to restrain him shrugged aside as though they were those of a helpless child.

  Not until he had removed every single scrap of her clothing did Zach reach for the towel, and then he did not hand it to her, and allow her at least some measure of privacy as she had hoped, but instead started to towel her damp body briskly, rubbing fiery life into limbs which had been chilled to the bone.

  Quite when the brisk movements altered and became subtly sensual Tamara couldn’t say. One moment she was standing shivering, hating him bitterly, and the next, or so it seemed, her frozen limbs were responding to his touch in a way which was entirely alien; the blood which had seemed like ice in her veins suddenly beating urgently under her skin, carrying with it an age-old message of desire and need. An aching which began in the pit of her stomach spread hungrily to every corner of her body. It was impossible to hide from Zach how she felt; it was there in every pliant line of her body, in the shimmering heat of her eyes, and the soft promise of her mouth. When the movement of his hands ceased and he stood perfectly still she was no more able to prevent the soft protest forced past her lips than she could stop herself from swaying yearningly towards him.

  ‘Tamara!’ He said her name thickly, his own eyes mirroring her desire. ‘Do you want me?’

  ‘Yes … Yes …’ Her body seemed to have developed a will of its own, completely overriding her mind. She moved towards him, pressing tiny hungry kisses along the line of his jaw and the male warmth of his throat, feeling him swallow and stiffen with feminine triumph as his arms came round her and he swung her up in them.

  His bedroom was decorated in blues and greys, coolly masculine, but Tamara was barely aware of the sleek fitted furniture or the thick shag pile carpet. She could feel the coolness of the navy silk bedspread against her skin, and closed her eyes childishly, not wanting to look at Zach and see contempt in his eyes.

  Why shouldn’t she take what the gods offered? she argued rebelliously with herself. It would be little enough to sustain her through the years.

  ‘Tell me you want me,’ Zach demanded arrogantly as he leaned over her, his eyes studying the creamy perfection of her body. ‘Tell me,’ he insisted when she trembled under the touch of his mouth against her skin, tracing a destructive line from her shoulder to where the curve of her breast began.

  ‘I want you.’ It was a husky, broken admission, but it didn’t seem to satisfy him, because he gripped her wrists, pinioning them together, his eyes darkening to jade as he demanded softly, ‘Don’t just tell me, Tamara, show me.’

  It was then that common sense should have reasserted itself, should have warned her that there was no way she could touch and caress Zach’s body without betraying to him how she felt, but as though her body exulted in playing with fire, her hands lifted to the buttons of his shirt, her lips placing trembling kisses against the flesh she was slowly exposing, her eyes avoiding Zach’s and the brooding watchfulness she knew was in them.

  When she reached the belt of his trousers she stopped uncertainly. ‘Go on,’ Zach urged her thickly. ‘For God’s sake don’t stop now. I want to know your touch on every part of me, Tamara,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘I want you to remember long after we’re apart and other things are forgotten what it felt like to touch me.’

  She might have stopped then, appalled by the cruelty she glimpsed deep in his eyes, but the sweetly insistent pressure of his mouth on hers suppressed natural caution and instead she did as he instructed, her fingers trembling uncertainly over hair-roughed male thighs, Zach’s suddenly fevered groan finding a response within her own body. Her marauding hands were removed and clamped to his shoulders, his lips beginning a sweetly savage exploration of her breasts, fuller since her pregnancy, and as though he sensed their greater sensitivity his possession of their passion-hardened peaks was tender as well as arousing. It was only when his hand explored the subtly altered swell of her stomach that Tamara felt him stiffen, desire no longer hazing his eyes as his fingers stilled on her gently rounded abdomen, a question in his eyes that made her tremble for her own vulnerability.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Mellors about the baby?’ he asked softly.

  ‘I …’ She was lost for words.

  ‘Did you think he wouldn’t marry you? Or did you break off the engagement before you knew? It was just after our return from the Caribbean that you broke it off, wasn’t it? Don’t lie to me, Tamara,’ he insisted, ‘I know the truth. You see, Dot Partington wrote to me and her letter contained some very illuminating facts—such as the ending of your engagement. And yet you allowed me to believe it still existed, and even to suggest that you had deliberately become pregnant to force Mellors’ hand. Why, I wonder?’

  Tamara tried to shrug nonchalantly, a terrible cold fear invading her body. She wanted to get up and run for shelter, but Zach’s superior weight kept her pinned to the bed. Her stomach
clenched and as though he sensed the movement his fingers tightened.

  ‘The baby’s mine, isn’t it?’ he said flatly.

  ‘I didn’t want you to think I held you responsible in any way,’ Tamara told him nervously. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you about breaking my engagement, why I let you believe it was Malcolm’s. I was frightened you’d try to force me to have an abortion,’ she admitted, voicing for the first time one of her most terrifying fears.

  ‘And you didn’t want that?’

  Tears filmed her eyes, suspending words. She shook her head.

  ‘So I completely misunderstood the situation, just as I’ve misunderstood so much. You weren’t holding on to your viginity simply because you thought it was a good bargaining counter at all, were you?’

  ‘Malcolm never … I … I always avoided men who wanted sex,’ Tamara admitted baldly at last. ‘You see, my aunt—she brought me up—she taught me that nice girls don’t like that sort of thing, that …’

  ‘It’s okay, I get the picture,’ Zach interrupted harshly. ‘So, you were quite happy with Malcolm, quite content to wait for your wedding night before fulfilling your duties as a wife, and Mellors, damn him, is the type who wouldn’t expect you to want pleasure, never mind ensuring that you received it.’

  Tamara’s skin coloured at his frankness, but she didn’t deny what he said.

  ‘So where does that leave us?’ he asked at last.

  ‘You mean about the baby?’ Tamara looked nervously at him. ‘There’s no need to worry. I won’t ever tell it that you’re its father, or expect you to do anything for it. I’ve got some money and Nigel has promised that I can keep my job.’

  ‘Very noble of him,’ Zach sneered savagely, ‘but you can tell him to keep his job—I’m perfectly capable of supporting my own child. And besides,’ he added gratingly, ‘I wasn’t referring to the baby—we’ll discuss that later. I’m talking about this.’

  ‘This’ was the way her nerves shivered in mindless pleasure as he kissed her slowly and expertly, drawing from her a response that shocked and frightened with its abandoned sensuality. ‘And this,’ he murmured, his tongue trailing fire along her throat and down to where the soft fullness of her breasts thrust urgently against the male warmth of his chest, aroused almost beyond endurance by their contact with his hair-roughened chest.