by Penny Jordan
Here, surrounded by the stall holders displaying their wares, it was almost possible to feel that she had stepped back into the medieval age... A juggler juggling brightly painted balls winked at her as she walked past him; in the centre of the Square a quartet were vigorously playing classical music. A little boy clung nervously to his mother as a fire-eater leant backwards to swallow the licking flames of fire he was holding. A few feet away acrobats tumbled, reminding Beth that the Czech Republic was famed for its highly skilled circus acts.
But it was the stalls that gripped her real attention, taking her back to her childhood and the wonder of visiting antiques fairs with her grandparents. Here it was once again possible to capture that age-old magic. At one stall a man was actually making sets of armour as his customers waited. At another a dark gypsy woman was displaying hand-made jewellery. But it was the stalls selling glassware that predictably drew Beth like a magnet.
Slowly she wandered from one to another, trying not to feel too desperately disappointed when she realised that there was nothing for her to buy.
‘You are looking for something special?’ one stall holder asked her encouragingly. ‘A gift, perhaps...?’
Beth shook her head.
‘No. No, not a gift,’ she told her. ‘Actually, I’m here on business. I have a shop at home in England and I want...’
She paused, not sure just why she was confiding in this dark-eyed gypsy woman with her insistent manner.
‘I have seen a piece of glass in the gift shop of my hotel—very Venetian...baroque, crimson, painted...gilded...
‘Ah, yes, I know just what you mean,’ the woman told her enthusiastically. ‘We do not sell such pieces here, but I know where to get them. If you would be interested in seeing some I could get some for you to look at, say for this time tomorrow...’
Beth stared at her, hardly daring to believe her luck.
‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same thing?’ she began doubtfully. ‘All the glass I have seen so far...’
‘Is like this. No...’ The woman finished for her, rummaging in a large box and triumphantly producing a book which she handed to Beth.
Beth stared at the photograph the woman was showing her, scarcely able to contain her excitement. The goblets depicted in it were exactly what she was looking for: heavy, antique, made in richly coloured glass.
‘Yes...yes, that’s exactly what I want,’ she agreed.
But Beth was no fool.
‘But these here in this photograph are genuine antiques,’ she felt bound to point out.
‘These are, yes,’ the woman agreed after a small pause. ‘However, there is a factory where they specialise in making such glass—but only to special orders, you understand.’
Special orders. Beth looked doubtfully at her, remembering the price she had been quoted for the lustre in the gift shop.
‘But surely that means they will be very expensive...’
‘Maybe...maybe not,’ the woman replied mysteriously. ‘It all depends on the size of the order, no? I shall bring some for you to see,’ she announced, closing the book. ‘If you will be here at this time tomorrow evening I shall show you what a good bargain we can make...’
Half an hour later, as she hurried back to the hotel, Beth asked herself what she had to lose by returning to the stall tomorrow evening.
Nothing...
After all, she hadn’t made any kind of commitment to buy anything. She was simply going to look, that was all.
Caught up in her excitement, she suddenly realised that she had lost her way a little, and that she was now in a part of the city that was unfamiliar to her. There was an imposing building in front of her which she was sure must feature in her guidebook. All she had to do was to check the name of the square she was now in and redirect herself to her hotel.
As she delved into her bag for her guidebook a large crowd of people suddenly started to emerge from the building she had been studying, all of them dressed in evening clothes. Idly watching them, Beth suddenly froze as she recognised Alex Andrews amongst them. If he had looked toughly masculine earlier in the day, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, that was nothing to the way he looked now, wearing a dinner suit. Taller than most of the other men in the crowd, he would have stood out even without his strikingly handsome good looks, simply on account of the way he held himself, Beth recognised.
As Beth watched him she suddenly realised that not only was he not alone but that the woman who was with him was the same soignée, elegant older woman she had seen him talking with in the hotel foyer the previous day.
Alex was patently oblivious to her presence, and as Beth observed them from the shadows she saw him put a very protective arm around the older woman whilst she, in turn, moved closer to him, lifting her face towards his with such a luminous look of love in her expression that Beth felt her throat start to close up and she was swamped by a mixture of contempt and anger. So much for his comments to her. It was quite plain that his companion believed that she had a very special and intimate relationship with him. Beth only had to witness the way he lifted her hand to his face, gently touching his cheek, to see that.
Her stomach churned with nauseating disgust. Not for the older woman, who plainly believed that Alex returned the feelings Beth could see so clearly revealed on her face, but for Alex, who quite obviously had no compunction whatsoever about what he was doing.
So much for the family gathering he had told her he was attending. But why was she so shocked—and so upset? Surely what she had just witnessed only confirmed what she already knew—that, quite simply, he was not to be trusted. Instead of feeling this helpless, anguished sense of loss and betrayal, she ought to be feeling pleased that her suspicions were vindicated.
She was pleased that they had been vindicated, Beth assured herself doggedly. She was more than pleased—she was delighted. Delighted.
* * *
‘Have you seen the Charles Bridge yet?’
Beth shook her head, not wanting to allow Alex to engage her in any unnecessary conversation. After what she had seen last night she had made herself a vow that she would make it plain to him that there was no way she was going to fall for his cynical manipulation of her feelings.
In fact just as soon as she had had her breakfast she had approached the hotel manager to ask if there was any chance that another interpreter might now be free, but once again she had met with the same response. The conventions taking place in the city meant that it was impossible for them to provide her with this service.
Tempted though Beth had been to tell Alex that she simply no longer required his help, common sense had forced her to acknowledge that this would be cutting off her nose to spite her face. Although it was true that most Czechs could either speak or understand English, Beth needed to be very sure of exactly what was being said if she should decide to give any of the factories an order, and she also needed someone to help her negotiate the best possible price she could for whatever she might decide to order, and that meant having someone with her who had a proper grasp of the Czech language.
However, there was one thing she could do, and that was make sure that she spent as little time as possible with Alex Andrews, and to that end Beth had decided that today, instead of only visiting two factories, she would insist that they manage to visit three, which meant that would leave her with only another half a dozen on her list.
‘No? Then I shall take you to see it,’ Alex was announcing, ignoring Beth’s steely silence. ‘I expect you already know that it was the first permanent bridge to be built in Northern Europe and—’
‘Yes, I have read the guidebooks,’ Beth interrupted him shortly. ‘But as for seeing it...’ She shook her head and told him briskly, ‘I’m here on business, and that has to take priority over everything else...’
As she spoke she coul
dn’t resist looking towards the gift shop. The lustres were still there, tantalisingly.
She gave a sigh.
‘I have been thinking,’ Alex told her quietly. ‘If good-quality reproduction Venetian baroque crystal is what you are looking for then my cousins’ factory is most definitely somewhere you should visit. If you should wish to visit I’m sure I could arrange something.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you could,’ Beth agreed sarcastically. Just how stupid did he think she was?
‘Is your cousins’ factory mentioned on my list?’ she asked him, already knowing what the answer would be.
As she had known he would, Alex shook his head as she held her list out to him.
‘These factories were originally state-owned, and though they are now back in private hands they do not... My cousins’ factory is not like them. It does not cater to the mass market. Until the Revolution they mainly supplied the Russian hierarchy.’
‘Fascinating though the history of your family undoubtedly is—to you,’ she told him coolly, ‘I’m afraid that I simply don’t have time to listen to it.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘There are three factories I want to see today, so I suggest that we make a start...’
She could see that Alex was starting to frown.
‘Beth,’ he began, reaching out to catch hold of her arm. Unable to move in time to prevent him, Beth went rigid as she felt his fingers circle her wrist.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ he asked her huskily. His thumb was resting on the pulse in her wrist and she could feel it starting to hammer frantically against his touch. He could obviously feel it as well, because his thumb started to move against her skin in a rhythmic, circular stroking movement that should have been soothing but for some reason had quite the opposite effect on her hypersensitive nervous system.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she lied jerkily, willing herself not to allow the deep tremor she could feel beginning deep within her body like some subterranean force to manifest itself in open shivers and shudders of reaction.
And then, to her own self-contempt, she heard herself asking him sharply, ‘Did you enjoy yourself last night—with your family?’
The appraising look he gave her made her wish she had kept silent.
‘Yes, I did,’ he agreed calmly, ‘but nowhere near so much as I would have had you been with us, and certainly nowhere near so much as I would had we been alone...’
Beth’s gasp was, she assured herself, one of furious female outrage. How dared he have the barefaced cheek to stand there and say such a thing to her when she knew, when she had seen with her own eyes, just how he had spent his evening and with whom?
‘Tonight, I want you to have dinner with me,’ he was continuing. ‘Tonight, I want you,’ he added, underlining the sensuality of his message and his desire.
But that desire was faked, flawed, a lie, and Beth knew it.
‘I can’t. I’ve already made arrangements for this evening,’ she told him coolly.
Ridiculous to feel that she was at fault just because of the way he managed to fake those dark shadows in his eyes and that male look of hurt withdrawal in the tightness of his mouth. She was the one who was being badly treated, not him.
* * *
‘You’re not going to find what you’re looking for at any of the factories on your list,’ Alex informed Beth as they left the third factory.
‘No. I’m coming to realise that,’ Beth said testily. She felt both tired and disappointed, but that was not the real cause of her defensive anger and she knew it. Five hours of being cooped up in a small car with Alex was beginning to have its effect on her equilibrium—and her emotions.
She had done everything she could to hold him at a distance, but to her chagrin, instead of recognising that she had guessed what he was up to, he’d seemed to think that she wasn’t very well, anxiously asking her in some concern several times if she was suffering from a headache or feeling unwell. Only her own cautious nature had prevented her from telling him that if she was suffering from any kind of malaise then he was its cause. But there was more to what she was experiencing than that, she was forced to acknowledge honestly.
Had she simply been able to feel for him the contempt and disdain she knew he deserved then there would have been no need for her defensive and protective anger. But against all logic, and certainly against any cerebral desire on her part, she was unable to deny her body’s physical reaction, her body’s physical response to him; that was why she was getting so uptight and angry.
Every time he made some comment about wanting her, every time he alluded to how much he desired her, she could feel herself starting to react to him. And she had even, at one morale-lowering point, found herself wishing that he would put his softly suggestive comment about longing to silence her sharp tongue with his mouth into action.
‘You’re so prickly that a man can’t help but feel tempted to wonder what it would take to make you purr,’ he’d informed her outrageously when she had refused his suggestion that they find somewhere to have lunch.
‘You’re right,’ he had agreed, when she had told him shortly that she didn’t want to eat, his eyes suddenly dark and hot. ‘My appetite isn’t for food either. What I really want to taste is the sweet softness of your flesh. Its juices will be like nectar, honey to my lips, whilst—’
‘Stop it,’ Beth had demanded frantically, unable to screen out the mental images his erotic words had provoked for her. How could she dislike him so much, distrust him so much, and yet, at the same time, want him so much?
It was just sex, she told herself fiercely. That was all. For some reason he had aroused within her a hitherto unexperienced need, a desire she had never suspected herself capable of feeling. The hesitant and awkward experiments of her teenage years had simply not prepared her for what she was feeling now—and that was all it was, a quirky build-up of the sexual desire she should perhaps have felt at a younger age but which, for some reason, she had not, and which was now manifesting itself in this totally unacceptable reaction to Alex Andrews.
Yes, that was what it was, she decided in relief. It was just sex...just an itch that needed scratching... Shocked by the unfamiliar directness of her own thoughts, Beth tried to concentrate on the countryside they were driving through. Just because she now knew the cause of her disturbing reaction to Alex, that didn’t mean she had to give in to it, she warned herself. And at least it meant she no longer had to worry about it, she told herself in relief.
‘Look...I’m sorry if I seem to be crowding you or rushing you,’ Alex was saying gruffly at her side. ‘All this is new territory for me, you know. I’ve never actually felt like this before, experienced anything like this before. I always knew that one day I would fall in love just as passionately and permanently as my grandfather fell in love with my grandmother, but I have to confess I didn’t expect it to be so...’
Heavens, but he was quick, clever... Beth acknowledged as she forced herself to be detached and step outside her own feelings to admire the adroit way he was handling not just the situation but her as well.
First the advance, now the back-off. No doubt he expected her to feel chagrin and to start pursuing him. And as for that schmaltzy comment about his grandparents...!
CHAPTER FIVE
‘I’M SORRY THAT none of the factories we visited today came up to your expectations.’ Alex joined her in the hotel’s gift shop and looked at his watch. ‘It’s too late for me to organise anything now, but why don’t I give my cousins a ring and arrange for you to visit their factory? We could...’
They moved back into the hotel foyer, which was very busy with business-suited people who Beth assumed must be attending one of the conferences in the hotel the manager had told her about. She felt tired and disappointed, but those feelings weren’t the real cause of the desire she felt to snap sharply at Alex.
>
Why, when she knew exactly what kind of man he was and exactly what he was after, was she experiencing this sense of new panic and fear that her self-control might not prove strong enough for her to hold him at bay? What was the matter with her? Surely she had enough intelligence to know that once one had been struck by lightning a first time one did not return to the same tree in a thunderstorm and stand there waiting for it to happen again. Not unless one was a very peculiar sort of person who thrived on suffering pain.
Was she that kind of person, the kind of person who only attracted the sort of relationship, the sort of man who would hurt and humiliate her? Beth knew from the strength of her own inner abhorrence that she wasn’t.
So why, then, did she feel the way she did?
She felt the way she did because she was sexually attracted to Alex, she told herself brutally; she was chemically and hormonally responsive to him. That was all... It crossed her mind as the movement of the crowd pushed her up against him and he reached out automatically to hold her that it might almost be worthwhile actually giving in to what she was feeling, what she was wanting, and simply having sex with him. Perhaps once she had done so, once he had realised that she was able to separate her feelings of sexual desire for him from her emotions, that just because she went to bed with him it didn’t mean she was going to allow him to persuade her to give his cousins her business or him her money, he might stop trying to pressurise her. After all, she already knew that the only real interest he had in her was a financial one, despite the attention he was paying her and the compliments he was giving her.
‘It’s too crowded in here. We could talk more easily in your room.’
Alex’s words, whispered so temptingly against her ear, mirroring so closely the intimate sensuality of her own thoughts, threw Beth into feminine panic.
‘No. No...’ she denied quickly, frantically trying to make some space between them. Could Alex feel the tumultuous, uneven thudding of her heartbeat as clearly as she could feel the deep male pounding of his? And, if he could, was it having the same intense effect upon his senses as his was upon hers? Beth closed her eyes, struggling to break free of the tide of hungry need she could feel welling up inside her. All day long she had been fighting against this; all day long she had been struggling to hold both Alex and her own unfamiliar responsiveness to him at bay.