by Penny Jordan
‘Yes.’
‘Well then what are you worrying about? If he knows Rivers’ identity, presumably he knows he’s illegitimate and that Rivers has married and has two other children beside him. Not that he spends much time with them. The boy’s at prep school and the girl has a nanny. And Philippa.’ She was still standing close to him and she recoiled as his fingers slid down her arms, circling her wrists, biting into her slender bones. ‘If you ever dare to threaten me again,’ he said silkily, his breath brushing the soft tendrils of hair at her nape, ‘you’d better be prepared for the consequences.…’
She was just about to demand ‘what consequences’ when she realised what he intended to do. Panic coiled and exploded inside her as he pinned her arms behind her back with one hand, the other sliding up into her hair and tightening into it, pulling her head back, until the slightest movement tugged painfully on her scalp.
He took his time, lowering his head towards her slowly, mercilessly scrutinising her face for the signs of fear she refused to show. ‘Well, well,’ he breathed softly, only inches away, ‘I did make a misjudgement, didn’t I? Perhaps this is what you really liked all along… sex spiced with violence, is that it Philippa? Then you should like this.’
She was given no opportunity to resist, his mouth, hard and unyielding forcing her lips to part, bringing the rusty taste of blood to her mouth as she tried to withstand him and was punished by the grinding pressure of his mouth forcing the tender inner skin of hers back against her teeth. She made a muffled protest, lost against his mouth, hating him with a bitterness that threatened to sweep everything else away, forcing herself to cling to the memories of what he had been, instead of admitting the frightening reality of what he now was. It was a kiss that was a desecration of all that they had shared; of her tender and shy submission to him; of Simon’s conception which had been a sharing and meeting of their souls as well as their flesh; and yet in spite of everything something inside her twisted and took fire, a spark which burned briefly before it was extinguished so that when he eventually lifted his mouth, and she became aware of the rough sledgehammer blows of his heart against her body, she was filled with self-disgust, with aching shame that she should have actually experienced in such a violent and destructive embrace, a fierce tug of sensuality that she had never known in the caresses they had exchanged before.
‘Just remember why you’re here, Philippa,’ he warned her as he left. ‘Don’t try my patience too far. Not unless I’m right and you do enjoy being abused.’
When he had gone she refused to cry. She refused to do anything which would allow her to give way to the emotions he had aroused. Instead, she picked up the phone. Half-an-hour later, feeling decidedly calmer, she decided to go and look for Simon. She had arranged for their clothes and personal belongings to be sent on by her next-door neighbour. The flat would be sublet, Simon’s headmaster had expressed his approval of her plans, and now all she had to do was to convince herself that she had never, not even for a second, felt anything in Scott’s arms other than revulsion and horror.
Her memory of Scott’s degrading embrace faded when she discovered that Simon seemed to be missing. One of the men in the computer room told her that he had gone to look for Scott. ‘Ask Hank Brierly, Scott’s second-in-command, he might know where he is. His office is just down the corridor.’
Hank Brierly proved to be a pleasant American in his late thirties. When she introduced herself as Scott’s new secretary he grinned appreciatively. ‘Well, well, things are looking up.’ His smile faded a little when she asked about Simon. ‘Your kid, you say. No, I haven’t seen him. He could be with Scott, although generally Scott doesn’t have all that much time for kids. Something or someone kinda soured him for the marriage and family bit a long time ago and I guess he’s still suffering from the blight.’
When Philippa approached Scott’s office she heard voices on the other side of the door, but in her anxiety about Simon she didn’t stop to ponder on the wisdom of her actions, simply knocking briefly on the door and going in. A tall slim girl with long dark hair and a pert triangular face was standing beside Scott’s desk whilst Scott himself perched on the end of it. Although she could not be sure Philippa could have sworn that before she came in Scott had been caressing the girl’s hands. She was young, much younger than Philippa, perhaps only eighteen or nineteen, and a white hot tide of emotion swept through her, almost too fast for her to identify it. Jealousy? Why on earth should she be jealous?
Both of them were watching her, the girl angrily, and Scott.… She was hard put to describe the look in Scott’s eyes. It was a combination of watchful scrutiny and a certain amount of gloating satisfaction, but both emotions were masked by the cold hauteur he evinced as she approached the desk.
‘I don’t remember giving you permission to walk in here, Philippa. What do you want?’ His insolent tone brought hot colour stingingly to her cheeks.
‘I’m looking for Simon,’ she said quietly, ‘he seems to be missing, and I thought he might be with you.…’
‘He wanted to look at the Ferrari and I told him he could—look that is, not touch.’ She turned back towards the door, pausing only when he said, ‘Oh, by the way, next time, before you come bursting into my office, just wait until you’ve been given permission will you.…’
It was the softly muted giggle of the girl with him that stung her pride raw as she closed the door behind her. She had been well and truly put in her place, and she was still seething inwardly from the effects of it.
‘Gave you a rough time did he?’ She realised that Hank Brierly was standing by her desk and smiled briefly, ‘My own fault. He had someone with him. I did knock but apparently they didn’t hear me and in future I’m told I have to wait for the “Open Sesame”.’ She made it sound flip but that was something she was far from feeling.
‘Umm. Someone with him, that will be Cara Laine, she’s the daughter of Buck Laine. Scott’s hoping he’s going to buy this new computer we’ve been working on. Scott’s sunk a good deal of capital in it and where Buck Laine leads others always follow, so if he gets this order there should be others, but Buck isn’t totally convinced. I suspect that Scott is trying to perform a public relations job on Cara.’
‘She’s very pretty—and very young.’
‘She’s also very spoilt and far from being the innocent her lack of years might lead you to believe,’ Hank told her dryly. ‘She wants Scott, and unless I’m mistaken he’s going to find that selling computers to her daddy means selling himself to little Cara, but I could be wrong. It has been known to happen. Not often… but.…’
‘You think Scott would do that.…’
‘What? Go to bed with pretty deadly Cara to secure the contract? I don’t know. He’s ruthless enough, but I think he’s also clever enough to know that once Cara gets her hooks into him she isn’t going to want to let go. She wants to marry and she seems to think Scott is ideal husband material.’ His voice held a note of pain that puzzled her.
‘He told me that his mother said he needed a wife.’
‘Umm… but I doubt that Cara is what she had in mind. She was probably thinking of someone who could crack that tough outer shell, and turn him into a human being again.’ He raised his eyebrows and grimaced faintly, ‘I think I should get back to my office. Somehow I don’t think our lord and master would approve if he came out here and caught us talking about him.’
It was said in a friendly fashion, but Philippa’s nerves, still raw from her last two encounters with Scott, flushed. ‘No, you’re right, of course, and I must go and find Simon.’
‘How old is he?’
When she told him he looked flatteringly surprised, ‘Ten, you don’t look old enough.’
‘I was,’ she assured him wryly. Old enough to make love, but not old enough to know how to protect herself from the consequences. Sighing she went to find her son, thinking it was ironic that it was those very qualities and interests he had inherited from his fathe
r which had, in a roundabout fashion, brought both of them here within Scott’s powerful ambit. When would he let them go? When he had finished tormenting her? She remembered the scene she had interrupted in his office. What were his real feelings about Cara Laine? Was he attracted to her, or was he simply using her? Cara wanted to marry him Hank had said. A cold shudder ripped through her body. What did it matter to her who Scott married? It was no business of hers, no business at all!
She didn’t go downstairs for dinner. She went to the kitchen instead and managed to persuade Mrs Robinson, the cook, to let her and Simon share high tea at the kitchen table. Afterwards she took Simon up to his room, where they both stayed watching television until she was sure it was safe to emerge from the sanctuary of Simon’s room and go to her own.
Once inside she checked the lock on the communicating door. It was reassuringly closed, and Scott no doubt was downstairs entertaining his mother and his American guest. Was she staying in one of the guest rooms in the West wing or was she more intimately quartered in the main building, perhaps next door to Scott?
Her room had its own adjoining bathroom, and she was tired enough after she had bathed to want to go straight to bed, without reading as she normally did. The day had been hot with thunder growling faintly in the distance; too hot for her to want the clammy stickyness of her nylon nightshirt next to her overheated skin. Eyeing it distastefully, Philippa dropped it on the chair beside her bed, sliding instead between cool cotton sheets, and stretching sensually, enjoying the cool brush of the fresh fabric against her tense skin. She wasn’t going to remember how she and Scott had made love in this room, in this bed, filling the silence with their whispers and promises. She closed her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep mechanically counting sheep and wondering why it was that there was always one which refused to jump the gate. By the time she had backtracked to include it in her counting she was on the verge of sleep, submitting gratefully to its lure.
She wasn’t sure what woke her; something which left her heart pounding and her mouth dry, her first thought that it must be Simon stilled, as she realised he was too far away from her to have heard him even if he had cried out for her.
‘So you are awake.’ The disembodied voice reached her from the corner of the room, jerking her body into total wakefulness, the sheet falling away as she sat up automatically, turning towards the communicating door which now stood open.
‘Scott?’
‘Who else?’ he taunted. ‘Who did you expect? Hank?’ He rooms in the village!
‘Scott what are you doing in my room? His intrusion had ceased to be funny and she stared impotently at him as he came towards her. The moonlight through her thin curtains revealed the contours of his body, gilded in silver, potently masculine, with very little concealed by the terry robe he was wearing. His hair was damp and she could smell fresh soap and clean skin.
‘Scott, what do you think you are doing?’ she repeated nervously. He was reaching casually for her bedclothes, flicking them back, pausing, his hands on the belt of his robe.
‘I should have thought it was patently obvious, I’m getting into bed with you.…’
‘But you said you wouldn’t.…’
‘Sleep with you?’ She saw the white flash of his teeth but guessed there was no real amusement in his smile, ‘Neither will I, the sort of relationship we shall have precludes the pleasure of sleeping together, but I do have certain needs, and you.…’
‘For God’s sake Scott, you can’t mean this,’ Philippa broke in, horrified.
‘Oh but I do, and you must have expected me,’ he said smoothly, ‘otherwise why would you sleep with nothing to cover your delectable body other than my sheets? You knew what you were accepting when I told you what I would demand. Tonight I need a woman.’
‘Then go to Cara,’ Philippa said furiously, ‘I’m sure she’d be only too glad to… to accommodate you.…’
‘Doubtless she would, if I was prepared to meet her price. Cara wants marriage, whereas you… you aren’t in any position to demand anything in return for my enjoyment of your body, and I will enjoy it Philippa.’
‘I’ll scream!’
He shrugged off his robe and her breath was caught and smothered by the male beauty of his body. ‘Go ahead, no one will hear you. My mother sleeps on the next floor with her companion, as does Simon. In fact I think I might enjoy it more if you did scream although we both know there can only be one outcome. Does it bring back memories for you, lying here in my bed, like the virgin sacrifice you once were?’ He wrenched back the covers before she could stop him and it was his turn to study her body, although there was nothing covert about his inspection of her silver-white limbs.
‘I don’t want to remember,’ Philippa breathed bitterly, ‘You’re desecrating those memories, Scott, you’re destroying them. You.…’
‘No, you can’t destroy what was only an illusion,’ he said roughly. ‘Don’t try and deceive me again, Philippa.’ He was on the bed, and she realised that he meant to make love to her, and moreover that there was no way she could stop him.
‘Is this how you mean to exact your revenge, by using my body…?’
‘This is only the start of it; this is the private side of it; the tip of the iceberg, the rest will come later. You humiliated me publicly, Philippa, I want you to remember that, and besides, what makes you think you won’t enjoy this?’
‘How can I when you’re doing it to hurt me?’
‘Oh, very easily,’ he said softly, ‘You see I intend to make sure that you do. I want you melting in my arms, Philippa, pleading and begging me to take you, and I warn you now I’m not going to be satisfied with anything less.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SCOTT, don’t do this.’
‘That isn’t what you said to me eleven years ago.’ His face loomed darkly over hers as he pushed her down on the bed, the same cold fury burning in his eyes which she had witnessed earlier. Fear raced from nerve ending to nerve ending as Philippa fought against him.
‘You aren’t the man you were eleven years ago.’ The words were whispered between her tortured efforts to breathe. ‘This is rape, Scott.’
‘No.’ His lips were bared in a grin that reminded her of a wolf before it attacked its prey. ‘This is what you owe me, Philippa. Night after night, week after week, month after month I dreamed about you, about how you had been in my arms. For eleven years you’ve haunted me, making it impossible for me to trust any member of your sex, or my own judgement where women are concerned. You and you alone are responsible for the fact that I don’t trust the female race, and now you’re going to pay.’
‘How, by you raping me?’ Somehow she had to make him see what he was doing. She had to reason with him and persuade him to let her go. The Scott she had loved could never have acted like this. Never, and all her instincts urged her to hold fast to her memories. Surely that Scott couldn’t have disappeared completely, taken over by this cold, dangerous man who seemed to have taken his place?
‘I’ve already told you, it won’t be rape. We were lovers once, Philippa? Remember?’
‘But we aren’t the same people we were then.’
‘What are you trying to tell me? That you’re suffering from regret?’ He laughed harshly, the sound thrown back at them echoing faintly round the large room. ‘Oh, no, you won’t escape that way. You owe me this. Did you ever think about me when you were with Rivers? Did you think about me whilst you were conceiving his child? Simon could have been our son.’
Was he really so blind that he couldn’t see the truth? She remembered how she had longed for him to come after her, when she had told him it was over between them, and demand that she stayed. She had hoped against hope that he would refute the lies she had forced herself to tell him; that somehow he would know that she could never give herself to anyone but him, but she hadn’t become bitter when he had believed her; she hadn’t allowed his desertion of her to fester over the years. Instead she had held tight to t
he knowledge that he had loved her, and of course she had had Simon, whereas Scott had had nothing, but the pain of believing himself rejected by her.
Yes, she could see that it was possible that her behaviour could have sown the seeds of distrust of all women for him. He had loved her very intensely; just as she had loved him. It was useless crying over the past, as useless as crying for the moon but nevertheless she felt the tears welling in her eyes, and turned her head, but not quickly enough. The moonlight revealed the damp tracks to Scott’s keen gaze and he laughed softly, the sound chilling her body.
‘Tears? You cried before, the first time I made love to you, do you remember?’
A shudder she couldn’t control ripped through her body and Scott laughed again. ‘Ah yes, of course, a woman always remembers her first lover, even a woman like you. Do you remember what I did then, I wonder?’ He bent his head in a parody of the comfort he had given her over eleven years ago, his mouth brushing her tear-damp cheek, his tongue roughly warm as it brushed away the salt moisture. One hand was cupping her face whilst the other held her down against the bed. ‘You gave yourself to me with such sweet innocence, or so I thought, that I was wracked with guilt afterwards. When you cried I wanted to cry with you. The thought that I had caused you pain. I would have left you then but you wouldn’t let me. You wound your arms round my neck and whispered to me that it could only hurt the once and that you wanted me to make love to you again. I suppose I ought to have guessed then.’
‘Guessed what?’ Phillipa tried to wrench herself away but he was too quick for her, pinning her to the bed with the full weight of his lower body, whilst his fingers pinned her wrists as she fought to escape from him. ‘That because I loved and wanted you I was a raving nymphomaniac?’
‘You said it, and as for love.…’ He laughed harshly, ‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, didn’t I? Had I been a little older and more experienced myself I would have realised that it was cold old-fashioned curiosity that motivated you and nothing more. But I wasn’t enough for you, was I? You didn’t want a lover, you wanted to experiment, only it all came crashing down around you when Rivers ditched you, didn’t it?’