by Penny Jordan
Was it possible that somehow Alex Andrews had the power to convert her raw anger and dislike, her suspicion of him, into something else, a very different kind of emotion, just as the heat the furnaces used on the raw ingredients of the silica sand could turn it into the molten liquid which ultimately could be converted into the most beautiful crystal glass? But of course it wasn’t. How could the negative, self-defensive emotions she felt towards Alex ever be converted into something else, especially since she herself didn’t want them to be? So then why was she melting so into his arms, into his body; why was her body becoming molten liquid with the white heat of her own desire?
‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’ Alex asked hoarsely against her lips. His hands were cupping her face, his thumbs gently stroking the hot flesh of her flushed cheeks.
‘Oh, yes,’ Beth sighed mistily.
Hadn’t it always been one of her most cherished private dreams that one day she would meet a man, the man, and from the very first second of setting eyes on him, she would just know that he was the one?
But of course that was a silly, almost adolescent fantasy, a daydream that, now she was a grown woman, life and reality had forced her to abandon.
The mistiness in her eyes gave way to a grave sadness that told Alex far more than her silence and the abrupt, fierce denial which followed it.
‘No. No, of course I don’t. Love at first sight, it’s a fiction, a fantasy,’ Beth objected angrily. ‘It’s...it’s impossible.’
‘No, not impossible,’ Alex corrected her gently. ‘Incomprehensible from a logical point of view, perhaps, but not impossible. Ask any poet...’
‘Oh, poets,’ Beth denounced dismissively, but the sharp tone of her voice was still at odds with the betraying expression in her eyes.
Someone, somewhere in her past, had hurt her—and badly, Alex recognised. Someone at some time had robbed her of her faith and her trust, had forced her to retreat into the prickly thicket she had built around her emotions, but he could see what lay beyond that thicket; he could see in her eyes the woman that she actually was—a tender, loving, lovable woman, a woman who—‘Oh, no...look over there,’ Beth commanded, her voice suddenly as filled with emotion as her eyes as she pointed in the direction where a cat was stalking an unaware bird.
‘Oh, no. No. It’s going to catch it...’
As he heard the urgency and the anxiety in her voice Alex reacted instinctively, clapping his hands loudly together to distract the cat and alert its potential victim.
As the bird flew away, and the cat gave him a baleful glare, Beth turned to him, her eyes shining with relief.
‘Oh, that was good,’ she praised him involuntarily. ‘I’m glad you didn’t hurt the cat, like some people might have done...I wouldn’t have wanted it to be hurt. After all, it’s only obeying nature...’
Such a soft, tender heart, Alex marvelled, but apparently there was no softness or tenderness in it for him...apparently... When he had kissed her her kisses had been honey-sweet, but the words she spoke to him were vinegar-sharp and they were not, he felt sure, the words of her heart.
How long was she going to be here in Prague?
Somehow he would find a way of persuading her to drop her guard and allow him into her life...her heart...her love... Somehow.
Seeing the look in his eyes, Beth went cold with the icy sweat of misery that swamped her. What was it about her that gave Alex the idea that she was so desperate to be loved, so vulnerable to his patently false flattery that she would be deceived by him? Did she really come across as so needy, so...so...helpless? How many times before had Alex used the same ploy on other gullible female tourists? Beth’s teeth started to chatter, the icy cold shivers racking her nothing to do with the cool mountain air. In Prague it had been a warm, sunny day when they had left, but here it was much cooler, the sun obscured by mist.
‘You’re cold,’ Alex was telling her. ‘Here, take this...’
Before she could stop him he was removing his own jacket and wrapping it around her.
She wanted to refuse. The jacket smelled tormentingly of him, a subtle, sensually male scent that she could have sworn she would not normally have noticed, but which for some reason she suddenly seemed to have become acutely responsive to—far too acutely—if the heat that was now flooding her body was anything to go by.
Quickly she moved away from Alex and deliberately removed the notebook she had brought with her from her handbag. According to the details she had been given at home, the factory they were about to visit produced an extensive range of modestly priced goods.
What she was looking for, in addition to the kind of crystal she could sell in the shop, were some artistic and unusual little pieces that would make an eye-catching window display and tempt people in to buy, something along the lines of the pretty, delicately tinted glass sweets she had seen displayed to good effect in an exclusive shop she had once visited in the Cotswolds.
With one eye on the Christmas market, Beth was thinking in terms of some pretty and delicate glass Christmas tree ornaments, or even possibly some novelty, but still attractive, glass swizzle sticks.
However, once they had presented themselves in the factory’s main office, and she had introduced herself to the factory manager, Beth’s heart started to sink as he proceeded to show her some samples of the type of article they made.
The manager’s English was good enough for her not to have needed the services of an interpreter, which, when she realised that all Alex’s warnings about the unsuitability of the factory’s goods for her market had been more than justified, made her chagrin increase.
The things she was being shown were simply not of the high standard required by her customers, and far too mass market for her one-off select gift shop. With a heavy heart Beth wondered how on earth she was going to get out of accepting the offer of a tour of the factory which the manager was enthusiastically offering her. She had no wish to hurt his feelings, but...
Behind her she could hear Alex saying something to the factory manager in Czech. Enquiringly she looked at him.
‘I was just explaining to him that since you have other factories to visit there won’t be time for you to accept his very kind offer,’ Alex told her smoothly.
Illogically, instead of feeling grateful to him for his timely rescue, Beth discovered as they headed back to the car that what she was actually experiencing was a seething, impotent, smouldering, resentful anger.
‘Is something wrong?’ Alex asked her in what she knew had to be pseudo-concern as he unlocked the passenger door of the car for her.
‘You could say that,’ Beth snapped acidly back at him in response. ‘In future, I’d prefer it if you allowed me to make my own decisions instead of making them for me.’
As she spoke she wrenched impatiently at the car door handle, and then gave a small, involuntary yelp of frustrated anger when it refused to yield.
Imperturbably Alex reached past her and opened it for her.
‘And will you please stop treating me as though I’m totally incapable of doing anything for myself?’ Beth told him sharply.
‘I’m sorry if I’m offending you, but I was brought up in the old-fashioned way—where good manners were important and where it was expected that a man should exhibit them.’
‘Yes, I can see that. I suppose your mother stayed at home and obeyed your father’s every whim...’
Beth knew even as she spoke that what she was saying was unforgivably rude. No matter what her personal opinion was of men who treated women as second-class citizens, she still had no right to criticise Alex’s home life. Alex, though, far from being offended, was actually throwing back his head and laughing, a warm, unfettered sound of obvious amusement which strangely, instead of reassuring her, made her feel even more angry than before.
‘I’m sorry,’
he apologised. ‘I shouldn’t laugh, but if you knew my mother—when you get to know my mother,’ he amended with a very meaningful look, ‘you’ll understand why I did. My mother is a highly qualified senior consultant, specialising in heart disorders. She worked all through my childhood and still continues to do so. The old-fashioned influence in my life actually came from my grandfather, who lived with us.’
Immediately Beth felt remorseful and ashamed. Her own grandparents, who lived in the same small Cornish village as her parents, were similarly old-fashioned and insistent on the necessity of good manners.
‘I apologise if you thought I was trying to patronise you,’ Alex added once they were both in the car. ‘That certainly wasn’t my intention.’ He paused and looked straight at her, and then told her softly, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have the most sexily kissable mouth? Especially when you’re trying hard not to smile...’
Beth gave him a frosty look.
‘I’d really prefer it if you didn’t try to flirt with me,’ she told him primly.
She tried to look away, but discovered that she couldn’t; there was something dangerously and powerfully mesmeric about the intent look in Alex’s eyes.
‘What makes you think I’m flirting?’ he challenged her silkily. ‘And don’t try to pretend to me that you aren’t just as aware of what’s happening between us as I am...I felt it in the way you reacted when I kissed you...’
Reduced to a mortified, tongue-tied silence, Beth could only manage to turn away from him and drag her gaze from his.
He was certainly persistent; she had to give him that. Personally, she didn’t know why he was bothering. She must have made it plain to him by now that she was no push-over, and that his dubious talents could be put to far more profitable use on another and more gullible female tourist.
It was tempting to tell him just why she was so immune to his practised flattery, but to do so would undoubtedly involve her in some more of the kind of dialogue at which, she was beginning to discover, he was more adept than she—and there was no way she was going to allow him to get the upper hand in their ‘relationship’ again.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘HAVE YOU MADE any plans for this evening?’
Beth tensed as she listened to Alex’s question. They had just walked into the hotel foyer, following their abortive visit to the factory. The journey had left her feeling tired and a little stiff, and she was looking forward to having a hot bath and an early night—on her own.
‘I’ve got some paperwork I need to deal with,’ she answered quickly, and not entirely untruthfully. Well, she did have some postcards she could write, and then she wanted to make a few notes on the factory she had visited and to read up on those she still had to see.
‘I would have asked you to join me for dinner,’ Alex continued, ‘only I’m already committed this evening—a family celebration; we’re going to the opera and—’
‘I hope you enjoy it,’ Beth told him politely, wondering why, when by rights she ought to have been both relieved and pleased to learn that she was not going to be pressured into spending the evening with him, what she actually felt was an uncomfortable and indigestible sense of abandonment and disappointment.
‘Do you?’ Alex challenged her gently, stepping forward as he did so.
Panicking that he might be going to kiss her again, Beth immediately stepped back from him, and then saw from the amused twinkle in his eyes that he had realised what she was thinking.
‘You’re safe here,’ he told her teasingly. ‘It’s far, far too public for what I’ve got in mind.’
The lift doors opened, disgorging half a dozen hotel guests, and Alex nodded towards them, telling her softly, ‘Now, had we been in there it might have been a different thing. There’s something very, very erotic about the thought of making love, wanting one another so much that it’s impossible to wait until one reaches the security of one’s room—of needing one another so immediately that one’s prepared to take the risk of being discovered, of having one’s passionate surge towards fulfilment interrupted...’
Beth stared at him, her face starting to flush, her body hot with reaction to the soft sensuality of his slowly spoken words and to the mental images he was conjuring up in her own suddenly fevered imagination.
‘I wouldn’t know. I do not have those kind of thoughts,’ she told him distancingly and defensively.
For the second time that day Alex threw back his head and laughed.
‘Somehow I don’t believe you,’ he told her wickedly. ‘I think that in secret, in private, you are a very sexy, very sensual woman indeed. But you prefer to keep the secret, the sweetness of that sensuality hidden from all but your chosen lover. And who can blame you for that? Or him for wanting to explore that private sweetness and possess it...possess you...?’
Beth didn’t know what to say or do. The way he was behaving—the things he was saying, the intimacy he was creating between them—was so totally outside her own experience that she simply didn’t know how to deal with it.
‘What time do you want me?’ Alex was asking her huskily. Beth stared at him, involuntarily licking her suddenly dry lips. ‘After breakfast...about nine?’ he was adding.
He meant what time did she want him to meet her in the morning, Beth realised. For one moment she had actually thought...
After Beth had left him Alex did not leave the hotel straight away. Instead he walked over to the gift shop, thoughtfully studying the lustres that Beth had admired.
In some ways the glass reminded him of Beth. Like her it was delicate, and yet surprisingly resilient. Like her its purity and beauty made one catch one’s breath, inspired and moved the human soul. Beth certainly inspired and moved his soul, not to mention certain far less ethereal parts of his body, he reflected ruefully. He had never known himself to be so dangerously at the mercy of his own emotions.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he was in Prague. Perhaps being here released a hitherto unsuspected and very deeply emotional part of his personality, enabled him, empowered him to react instinctively and immediately to those emotions instead of behaving with caution and logic as he would have done at home. Classic symptoms of a holiday romance? Alex grimaced to himself. In many ways he wished that were the case, but he knew himself too well to accept such a definition of his feelings.
Love at first sight.
How did you account for the unexpectedness of such feelings? How did you evaluate or analyse them? You couldn’t...you simply had to acknowledge that they were too strong, too powerful, too overwhelming for mere mortal logic to deal with.
Beth.
Bethany...
Alex closed his eyes, trying to blot out how the sound of her name as it left his lips would make a possessive male litany of love and desire against her skin as he held and caressed her. In the morning light her skin would be as flawless and perfect as the crystal teardrops on the lustres.
No. This was no mere holiday romance, no mere giving in to the mood and magic of the city, even if Prague was a city that was a part of his heritage and his blood. Perhaps the intensity, the impetuosity driving him on now was a previously unfamiliar part of the British side of his personality.
Perhaps if he was honest he was a little bemused by what was happening to him. Bemused, but still instinctively and automatically convinced that his love was the love of his lifetime, a love that would last a lifetime.
Convincing Beth, though, he suspected, was not going to be easy. She was suspicious of him, and perhaps rightly so, and he could see, oh, so clearly, how much her outward antagonism towards him, her animosity, masked an inner fragility and fear. Somehow he would find a way to show her that she had no need of those protective barriers against him. Somehow he would find a way...
* * *
After Alex had gone—une
xpectedly without asking her to pay him for the day—Beth went upstairs to her room, intending to spend the rest of the evening there. But once she had bathed and eaten she suddenly got an unexpected surge of energy. From her bedroom window she had an excellent view of the river. The sky had cleared and was now washed with a tempting evening palette of colours; soft blue, pale yellow and a heavenly indescribable silvery pink.
Down below her in the square she could see people strolling around, or sitting at the pavement cafés.
She was, she reminded herself, here to enjoy herself, and to explore Prague and its historical beauty, as well as on a buying trip.
Before she could change her mind she dressed in comfortably casual chinos and a soft shirt and, picking up her jacket and bag, made her way down to the hotel foyer.
Her guidebook had an excellent street map; she could hardly get lost. Wenceslas Square was her ultimate destination. It featured largely in all the articles she had read about the city and, to judge from the photographs, with good reason.
As she walked in the Square’s direction her attention was distracted by the plethora of shops selling crystal and china. At each one she stopped to examine the contents of their windows. All of the goods displayed were breathtakingly good value, but, to her disappointment, none of them had on show the same quality of glass she had seen in the hotel gift shop. She was just re-examining the display in one window when a young man approached her.
Only eighteen or so, he gave her a winning smile and introduced himself in broken English, asking her if she would like a guide to show her the city.
Firmly Beth refused, relieved when he immediately accepted her refusal and walked away. The Square was only a few yards away now, right at the end of the street she was on, but even though she had seen the photographs, and read the enthusiastic descriptive guide to it, she was still not totally prepared for its magnificence, nor for the sense of stepping back into history that walking into it gave her.