They were noble thoughts, but in the soft, cold darkness of an English night, they didn’t warm her as Luke’s arms had warmed her. Many sleepless, troubled hours passed before Robin told herself not to be such a fool. If Luke saw how affected she was by all that had happened, he’d still have won. He’d see that she was a vulnerable woman, as susceptible as any of them to his charms, whether she gave in to them or not. And she was too spirited to let that happen, too much a survivor to let him think he had that much power over her. Gradually her determination not to let him see how deeply hurt she had been by his attentions to Carlotta after her own near-seduction overcame Robin’s distress. At last she fell into an exhausted sleep.
The next day at the office, Robin was disgusted to find that Maureen and Sonia had put quite a different interpretation on her trip with Luke.
“Where did he take you, Robin?” Maureen said at once. “Somewhere exotic, I bet. The Algarve in Portugal or the complex in Capri? And was it fabulous, you lucky thing? What I’d give if Luke Burgess would take me off for a romantic couple of days, but I don’t think I’m his type.”
She sighed with mock envy, patting her ample curves. Robin put her right at once, her green eyes flashing out warnings that the other two had better believe her.
“It wasn’t a romantic trip, I assure you! It was business.”
Sonia hooted disbelievingly.
“Tell that to the Marines, Robin. With your looks and style, our Luke would have had only one thing in mind!”
Robin gave her a freezing look that would have silenced anybody else but the thick-skinned Sonia.
“Well, you can just forget it, all right? Nothing happened — not the way you mean, anyway. We went to Ibiza, and it was very nice, and I went to see the complex, that’s all. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
She marched into her office and began riffling papers about angrily. She was more upset than she let on, because what they surmised had not only nearly happened, she had wanted it to happen, very much, before Carlotta’s untimely arrival, saving her from a fate worse than death, she thought cynically. She knew that if she relaxed her guard for a second, her wayward dreaming could take her right back to that moonlit room where Luke’s powerful body had sought to possess hers, and she had wanted to give it to him with no thought to tomorrow.
And now it was tomorrow, and the warmth of Ibiza was only a memory in the cold English drizzle of a late October day. There was work to be done, and Robin plunged herself into it gladly. It was preferable to thinking and dreaming. She was so thankful that Luke was away for a few days, but she needn’t have worried, because when he did return to Bristol he hardly came near the office, phoning in any messages. When he finally appeared his face was cold and remote.
There was an obstacle in his way on the northern deal, and Luke Burgess was a man who was determined to overcome all obstacles. As his secretary, of course, Robin was kept aware of what was happening. As the woman who loved him, she ached to take the strain out of his face when the deal threatened to fall through. But that was something she wouldn’t dare to do at the present time.
Besides, she had her own worries. She felt increasingly unwell all that week, refusing to give in to the feeling, although Maureen told her how peaky she looked, Robin could have told her that her heavy-eyed look had less to do with the aching limbs and streaming cold that came on strong by the end of the week than a more basic anguish. But finally she gave in and went back to the flat at lunchtime on Friday. It wasn’t fair to the others to remain in the office. Luke was still battling with his northern client, and Robin intended to hibernate in her flat for the weekend, dosing herself up with aspirins and hot lemonade and coddling herself with hot-water bottles and a cocoon of blankets.
She was miserable, aching in every part of her, staggering out of bed now and then to make a hot drink or a bowl of soup or a sandwich. She didn’t feel like eating anything, and only did so out of habit and to keep up what little strength she still had. She didn’t want somebody coming in there and finding a wasted corpse in the bed, she thought weakly. And she had to be well by Monday. She had every intention of going into the office. She’d agreed to work for Luke until the Cornish complex was finished, and she wouldn’t go back on her word, no matter what it cost her to continue seeing him.
She drifted in and out of sleep the entire weekend, sometimes waking up in a drenched tangle of bed-clothes from a nightmare, other times floating sweetly into Luke’s arms, dreaming that he loved her, that all the bitterness between them was over and only a golden future was before them. Sometimes the dreams were shamefully erotic, and always it was Luke’s hands that held and caressed her, Luke’s mouth that kissed her and roused her to heights of ecstacy, Luke who whispered against her mouth the words of love she had never heard from him.
Always, when she awoke after such a dream, tears would be filling her eyes. Maybe she would drown in her own tears, she thought vaguely. Maybe she was going crazy. There were other voices in her head now, low and deep, unrecognisable, except one of them.
“She’s waking up now,” Luke said, his voice tight with anxiety. Robin turned her head a fraction of an inch as the swirling mists cleared a little. Luke was kneeling by the bed, and a strange man was holding her wrist.
“How long has she been like this?” the stranger said.
“I found her only this morning when I came to take her to the office. I phoned to tell my receptionist I wouldn’t be in and was told that Robin had gone home sick on Friday. I assume she’s been here all weekend.”
It was like watching a play: No one was asking her, even though she was the principal character. Her throat felt so swollen that she doubted if she could have answered them anyway, but she managed to nod at Luke’s words. She felt the sting of a needle in her arm as the doctor gave her an injection. She felt as useless as a rag doll.
“Influenza with a touch of pneumonia,” she heard the doctor say. “I should have been sent for sooner. She shouldn’t be here by herself.”
“My house is across the green,” Luke said at once. “If she’s well wrapped, can I drive her there? My housekeeper and I will look after her.”
The doctor nodded. “Good. She’ll need watching for at least two weeks. She’s got no resistance, from the look of her. I’ll give you a prescription and I’ll look in on her tonight at your house, Mr. Burgess. I’ll see her into your car before I go.”
She had no say in it. She wanted to protest, to argue, to say she couldn’t possibly stay at Luke’s house, giving him and Mrs. Somerton so much trouble, but the words wouldn’t come. After the doctor’s injection she was starting to float again, retreating into that other world that usually ended in black oblivion. The last thing she remembered was being wrapped in blankets and being held close to Luke’s chest. His arms were strong, and hers were so weak, so weak ...
The days passed in a haze. Robin knew she was in an unfamiliar bed in unfamiliar surroundings. Faces came and went, vaguely registered in her mind: the doctor, Mrs. Somerton and Luke. So many times when she threshed about in her fever there were strong hands to hold her, hands that gave her strength, that smoothed the tangled hair from her hot forehead, that cooled her cheeks with cologne-scented cloths and the occasional kiss. Luke ... Luke ... always there.
On her first really lucid day she awoke alone, trying to piece together the fragments of disjointed sentences — trying to decide whether she had really heard him talk her through her fever, badgering her to get well — not in any antagonistic way, but anxiously, calling her his darling, his love.
Her bedroom door opened and he came in, dressed for the office. Robin’s cheeks flushed, knowing she had been on the brink of fantasising once more, and this Luke was the same as ever, the slightly mocking look in his eyes tempered by relief.
“Well, it looks as if you’ve finally come back to us, Robin,” he said easily, with no hint of emotion, no inflexion in his voice that indicated she was special to him. Nothing.
She swallowed thickly.
“How long have I been here?” she asked, her voice still husky with sleep. There was a gnawing emptiness in her stomach, and she had no idea whether she had eaten in hours or days. It felt like an eternity.
“A week,” Luke said abruptly. “And you’ll stay here another week on doctor’s orders.”
“I — I can’t.” She struggled to sit up, feeling the room swim, and sinking back on the pillows. “I’m being too much trouble, Luke.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you think I’d let you go back to your own flat in that weakened state? I owe it to your father to look after you, since it was my idea to bring you here. I feel responsible for you.”
And that was all! The sharp way he spoke made Robin bite her trembling lips. She was nothing to him, other than the daughter of his business partner. All that sweet seduction in the villa in Ibiza had been no more than his natural reaction to being alone with an attractive woman. He’d made no secret of his desire, but there was nothing more. The pain of it was searing.
“Does my father know I’ve been ill?” She had to think of other things before she fell apart in front of him. She didn’t know this tall, dark stranger who looked down at her so remotely. Had she imagined all the tenderness the week before? Had it all been a hallucination after all? Robin could have wept at the thought.
“I phoned James as soon as I’d brought you here,” he told her, still brusque. “He would have come to see you, but we had the doctor’s assurance that the worst was probably over, so I’ve been giving James nightly bulletins on your condition. There’s a phone by your bed. Please use it to call him as soon as you feel able.”
The rough consideration made her swallow tightly again.
“Luke, I want to thank you —”
“Then do it by getting well and doing as you’re told. Mrs. Somerton will be glad to see that your eyes are clear at last and back to their usual ferocity.” This time his face relaxed into a brief smile. “All those invalid foods she’s been concocting to tempt you have been wasted!”
“I don’t remember any of them,” Robin confessed, and then she made a face. “Anyway, they won’t be wasted today, but invalid foods sound ghastly. I feel as if I could eat a horse, I’m so ravenous!”
He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek, his voice filled with laughter.
“That’s my girl! Though I’m sure Mrs. Somerton will dream up something more palatable than that. I have to go now, but I’ll see you tonight. If you think you can stop being so lazy, maybe you can come downstairs to dinner. I’ve got quite tired of carrying you about.”
He breezed out of the room, and Robin felt her cheeks flame. Just how much of a liability had she been in the past week? She didn’t want to dwell on it, and minutes later Mrs. Somerton came into the room with a loaded breakfast tray, smiling with relief to see her charge looking more like her old self.
They were so kind, both of them, Robin thought, with a rush of gratitude. The motives didn’t matter; the concern was there. This was confirmed an hour later when she dialled her home number and heard her father’s well-loved voice at the other end. Once the preliminaries were over and he was assured that she was recovering, his words were more revealing than Luke’s.
“I’ve never heard anyone so worried, darling,” James said. “He covered it well for my benefit, of course, and although I thought I should be there, he insisted there was no danger and only loving care was needed, and you were getting the best of that.”
“Mrs. Somerton has been wonderful,” Robin said.
“I’m not talking about Mrs. Somerton. Don’t underestimate Luke’s part in all this, Robin. He blames himself for some reason, though the doctor says it was a combination of many things that caused the complications. Luke told him something about you, and the diagnosis was that you were in a weakened nervous state after Mrs. Fowler’s death and hadn’t fully got over that before you were plunged into the new crisis down here. I hadn’t realised just how deeply you resented it all, darling, until Luke explained it.”
“Don’t go blaming yourself, Dad. And I’ve never thought of myself as a weak, nervous person. For heaven’s sake! It was more likely to be coming back to rainy old England after those two lovely days on Ibiza that did it. It was only flu.”
James laughed. “It wasn’t only flu, and you know it by now. But I can hear that you’re back in form, so I’ll stop worrying about you. Why don’t you come down here to convalesce?”
“I don’t think so, Dad. I’d rather get back to work as soon as I can. I shall really feel like an invalid if I need to convalesce.”
“Then promise me you’ll have at least a week down here at Christmas, Robin. Luke can spare you for that time, and it wouldn’t be Christmas if we weren’t together.”
“All right, Dad,” she said softly before she hung up.
Later that day she sat up in a chair while Mrs. Somerton changed her sheets. She was told that on the other times this had happened, Luke had carried her to the chair and held her there until her bed was ready again.
“You’ve both been so kind,” she said, her breath catching a little. “I’d never have expected Luke to be so patient with illness.”
“He had a lot of practise when his mother was ill, dear,” Mrs. Somerton told her. “She was a lovely person, and Luke was devoted to her. He spent many hours reading to her in her last weeks. He has far more patience than people give him credit for. It stands him in good stead in his business dealings too. He’ll chip away at something he wants until he gets it.”
For the first time in days Robin felt a renewed suspicion of Luke. Guiltily so, because he had been more than generous in looking after her and putting his house at her disposal, but all the same she decided there was no way she would be carried down to dinner that evening. She would be dressed and downstairs long before he was due home. The instinct for self-preservation was already back, and Robin knew she was on the mend.
She stayed at Luke’s house another week, but it was a relief to go back to her own place. Often, Luke had to go out after dinner, and on two nights he hadn’t come home for dinner at all, saying he had business to attend to. Robin had too much pride to ask what that business was. Why should he want to spend any more of his time with his secretary, anyway, when he probably had far more agreeable companions with whom to spend his time? She tormented herself by imagining it, but she forced herself to face reality. It was futile to pine over what might have been.
Naturally he looked in to see her in her own flat quite often before she was declared fit enough to return to the office, nearly three weeks later. During that time, Mrs. Somerton had popped in to do the cleaning and some of the cooking, until Robin felt she had been pampered long enough.
“It’s got to stop, Luke,” she protested when he came to the flat one night with an armful of flowers exquisitely wrapped in florist’s paper. “They’re beautiful, but I don’t deserve this treatment!”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he said dryly. “Anyway, these aren’t from me. They’re from the staff. Take a look at the card if you don’t believe me.”
Robin flushed with pleasure as she saw that it was true, though she suspected that Luke had put a substantial amount to the collection himself to account for the lovely arrangement.
“It’s wonderful of them, and I’m touched that they care about me enough to bother. Everyone has been wonderful, and if you don’t get out of here, I’m going to get all emotional again and I absolutely refuse to cry one more tear!” She gave a forced laugh, and Luke saw the determined little tilt to her chin. She saw the familiar male arrogance come into his blue eyes. She had forgotten just how blue they were. They reminded her of the sea beneath the villa in Ibiza, and were ridiculously beautiful for a man, the lashes fringing them long and straight, but in no way effeminate. That was one word that could never be applied to Luke Burgess. Robin tore her gaze away from him.
“You get more like your old self every d
ay, darling,” he taunted lightly. “The spikes are already appearing.”
“You’ll know you’d better keep your distance then, won’t you?” Robin retorted, glad to be sparring with him again, because it was easier on her nerves that way. As if to prove to her that he could still dominate her, he was suddenly at her side and pulling her into his arms.
She was more slender now after her illness, fitting snugly into his embrace. She had no time to protest before his mouth sought the sweetness of hers in a kiss that was tender and lingering. It took her so much by surprise after Luke’s more passionate assaults on her senses that for endless moments she could only register the warm, pleasurable sensations the contact gave her, all resistance gone.
Then he removed his mouth from hers, still keeping her in the circle of his arms. Robin’s eyes slowly opened, and the eyes looking into hers were amused.
“Don’t tempt me, Robin,” he said softly. “Maybe you don’t remember how many times you clung to me when you were ill, or how often it was only my voice that seemed to calm you or my touch you needed. You’re not always so averse to my presence.”
She thrust herself away from him, her eyes blazing with fury. He was beneath contempt to throw that up at her now, and the knowledge that it hadn’t all been a dream, that he had been there whenever she needed him, filled her with nothing but humiliation at that moment.
“You’re absolutely loathsome, Luke.” She spat out the words, her voice low and controlled. “To take advantage of me when I was half delirious is just about the most despicable thing I can imagine.”
“I didn’t take advantage of you, as you so quaintly put it, you little idiot,” Luke said angrily, all softness gone. His arms dropped from around her and she stepped back, as if she couldn’t be far enough from him. “What do you think would have happened to you if I hadn’t come and found you that morning?”
Partners in Love Page 12