by Penny Jordan
And then, before she could guess what he intended to do, he had dropped the hold-all he was carrying and pinned her back against the wall, his hands hard and strong on her body as he held her arms, his body so close to her own that she could feel its fierce male heat engulfing her.
Once, being held like this by him would have thrilled and excited her, her awareness of the danger he was inciting only heightening her intense desire for him. The sex between them had been so passionately explosive that for years after he had gone she had still dreamed about it...and about him, waking up drenched in perspiration, longing for him, aching for him; and now, like a faint reflection of those feelings, she could feel her body starting to shudder and her nipples starting to harden beneath the practical protection of her jumper.
‘Cashmere... Do you know how many Third World people the cost of this would feed...?’ she heard Hugo murmuring contemptuously as his fingers touched the soft fabric of her sleeve. His mouth was only centimetres from her own, and Dee knew that merely to breathe would bring it even closer, but she still couldn’t resist the urge to verbally defend herself. After all, it wasn’t as if he was any less expensively dressed.
‘It was a present,’ she told him angrily. ‘From a friend.’
‘A friend...’ Hugo’s eyebrows rose. ‘A friend, and not your husband?’
‘I don’t have a husband,’ Dee gritted furiously.
‘No husband!’
Something hot and dangerous flared in his eyes and Dee started to panic, but it was too late. The damage had already been done, the tinder lit.
‘No husband,’ Hugo repeated thickly. ‘What did he do, Dee? Refuse to play the game your way...just like I did...?’
‘No. I—’
Dee gave a gasp and then made a small shocked sound as the pressure of Hugo’s mouth on her own prevented her from saying anything else.
It had been so long since she had been kissed like this. So long since she had been kissed at all. So long since she had felt... Hungrily her mouth opened under Hugo’s, and equally hungrily her hands reached for him.
She was reacting to him as though she was starving for him...dying for him, Dee recognised as she fought to control the primeval flood of her own desire. Her reaction to him must be something to do with all her dredging up of the past, she decided dizzily. It couldn’t be because she still wanted him, not after all these years... Years when she had been willingly and easily celibate...years when the last thing she had ever imagined herself doing was something like this. He was kissing her properly now, releasing her arms to cup her face.
Dee gave a gasping moan beneath her breath as his tongue traced the shape of her lips. If he kept on kissing her like this... Beneath her sweater she could feel the taut ache in her breasts—an ache that was already spreading wantonly even deeper through her body.
Against her mouth Hugo was saying tauntingly, ‘No husband, you say. Well, it certainly shows.’
Immediately Dee came to her senses. Angrily she pushed him away, managing to lever herself off the wall as she did so.
‘I’ve heard the rumours about women of a certain age, with their biological clocks ticking away, but...’
‘But you prefer them slightly younger...around Dr Jane’s age, no doubt,’ was the only reply that Dee’s shaking lips could frame.
She was totally stunned by her own behaviour, her own reaction, her own feelings. What on earth had she thought she was doing? She felt as though she had been subjected to a whirlwind which had sprung up out of nowhere, leaving her...devastated.
‘What I prefer is...my business,’ he told her quietly, and then, whilst she was still trying to pull herself together, he demanded curtly, ‘How long have you been divorced?’
‘Divorced!’ Dee stared at him. ‘I’m not divorced,’ she told him weakly. She saw the look on his face and then added angrily, ‘I’m not divorced because I have never been married.’
‘Not married? But I was told... I heard...’ He was frowning at her. ‘I heard that you’d married your cousin and that you had a daughter...’
Dee thought quickly. Two of her cousins had married, and they did have a daughter of nine now, but she didn’t tell Hugo so, simply shrugging instead, and informing him dismissively, ‘Well, I’m afraid you heard wrong. That’s what listening to gossip does for you,’ she added pointedly. ‘I’m not married, I don’t have a daughter, and I’m most certainly not a victim of my biological clock.’ Two truths—one fib. But she was determined that Hugo wasn’t going to know that!
‘You wanted children so much. I can remember that that was one of the things we used to argue about. I wanted us to wait until we’d had a few years together before we started a family, but you were insistent that you wanted a baby almost straight away, just as soon as we were married.’
As he spoke automatically Dee reached for the bare place on her ring finger which had once carried his special ring—a family heirloom he had given her to mark their commitment to one another.
‘So that’s two things we still have in common,’ she said. ‘Neither of us is married and neither of us has children.’
‘Three things, in fact, when you count...’ He was looking at her mouth, Dee recognised, and beneath her sweater the ache in her breasts became an open yearning pulse.
‘Three...?’ she managed to question croakily, ignoring the savage tug of her own newly awakened sexuality.
‘Mmm...both of us are involved in fundraising for charitable organisations. I’d better go up and see Peter,’ he added calmly.
‘Er, yes...I...’ She was behaving as foolishly as though she were still the teenage girl he had knocked off her bicycle as he’d come flying round the corner on his way to one of Peter’s meetings—a meeting he had never actually attended. By the time he had picked her up and carefully checked her over for bruises or any other damage, and then insisted on taking her for a restorative cup of coffee, Peter’s meeting had been over—but their love affair had just been beginning.
* * *
Half an hour later Dee had said goodbye to Peter and was on her way back home. The dazzling sun shining through her windscreen was making her head start to ache—or was her headache being caused by something far more personal?
She still couldn’t believe she had reacted the way she had to Hugo’s kiss. It was just so totally foreign to her nature to allow herself to get so out of control, never mind to exhibit such naked sexual hunger... How Hugo must have been laughing at her, enjoying her self-inflicted humiliation, enjoying her eager desire for him...her need...
Groaning under her breath, Dee suddenly realised that she was almost in danger of overtaking a car which was in the outside lane of the motorway whilst she was on the inside one, and quickly she took her foot off the accelerator.
She shouldn’t be thinking about Hugo. By rights what she ought to be concentrating on was the problems Peter’s continuing ill health could cause her professionally. Perhaps now was the time to tactfully find a way of persuading him to relinquish his role on the committee, but there was no way she would want to broach such a subject with him if it was going to adversely affect his health. Just exactly what was wrong with him she would have to find out, but she suspected that the only way she was going to be able to do that was through Hugo.
It galled her pride to even think of having to ask for Hugo’s assistance, but the work of the charity was far too important for her to let her own pride stand in its way—for her father’s sake.
Her father. Dee could feel her eyes start to sting with tears, hot and acid, too painful to be allowed to fall.
‘Oh, Dad,’ she whispered under her breath.
‘Accidental death,’ the coroner had pronounced gravely at the inquest, and even then Dee had not cried. She had wanted to...needed to...but she had been too afraid to do so, afraid that even now someone
might still stand up and say the word she had so dreaded to hear—‘suicide.’ No one had said it openly to her, or even hinted at it in her presence, but she had heard it nonetheless in her nightmares, whispered malevolently on the fetid breath of envy that could so easily have destroyed her father’s reputation and everything he had worked so proudly for.
Suicide. The taking of his own life because he had been too afraid...too ashamed...
Suicide. But it had not been. He had not taken his own life...he had not destroyed his own reputation even if Julian Cox had. Julian Cox...
The floodgates were open now, and the memories could not be held back any longer. Impatiently Dee drove up the slip road and off the motorway, anxious to be safely at home before she was swept under in their powerful undertow.
Julian Cox, her father, and most of all Hugo; those were the ghosts who inhabited her past, the ghosts she had fought so strenuously to hold at bay. Julian Cox, her father, Hugo...and the saddest and most forlorn ghost of them all: the ghost of the love she and Hugo had once shared.
She could feel her tears now, as sharp and painful as splintered shards of glass, burning her eyes, but she must not let them fall yet, not until she was safely in the privacy of her own home.
Hugo... Hugo... Why...why had he come back...?
The sun was still shining, its evening rays casting a warm mellow golden glow over her driveway and home as Dee brought her car to a halt in front of the house where she had been brought up. But she was oblivious to the tranquil serenity of her surroundings as she got out of the car and headed for the house.
Once inside, she hurried into the elegant drawing room which she only really used when she was entertaining, tugging open the doors to the drinks cabinet and searching inside it for something—anything—that would help to blot out the emotional pain she was feeling. Something—anything—that would act as a protective buffer between her and the thoughts she did not want, the feelings she did not want, the past she didn’t want.
Her fingers curled round the cool glass of a bottle. Whisky. It had been her father’s favourite but very rare bedtime treat.
Through the tears still blurring her eyes Dee looked at the bottle, and then very carefully and very slowly she replaced it in the cabinet and closed the doors. Squaring her shoulders, she walked firmly out of the room and headed for the kitchen.
As she shrugged off her coat and reached for the kettle she closed her eyes. Her father had been a man of such strong principles and such great pride, and in no area of his life had he had more pride than in his love for his daughter. He had been a quiet, gentle man, reserved in many ways, but Dee had never, ever doubted that he loved her.
After the death of her mother, when she had been so very young, he had brought her up on his own, declining to take the advice of his many female relatives and either hire someone to look after her or, once she was old enough, send her away to boarding-school. Perhaps the way he had brought her up had been a little old fashioned, perhaps she had, as one of her aunts had once criticised, become a small adult whilst she was still a child, perhaps she had, through her father, developed too strong a sense of duty and too weak a capacity to have fun, but she had been a happy child, a much loved child; she had never doubted that.
Yes, there had been times when she had longed almost passionately for her mother, when she had wondered, especially as she had matured, just how different she might have been had she had the benefit of a maternal womanly influence. And, yes, there had perhaps been times when she had felt that her father’s standards were almost impossibly high, when she had felt that he was a little too remote, when she had longed a little rebelliously for her life to possess more fun and less responsibility, less duty.
The kettle was boiling. Dee made herself a cup of coffee, carrying the mug with her as she walked from the kitchen into her study.
On her desk were the notes she had made on the scheme she was hoping to persuade Peter to lend his support to. It was ambitious; she knew that. Foolhardy, she knew others might say, although she preferred to use the words ‘innovative’ and ‘adventurous.’
Whilst, technically, she and Peter had charge of the finances of the foundation her father had established before his death, morally she felt obliged to take into account the views of the other committee members, especially since part of the charity’s income came from public donations.
What Dee really wanted to do with the money was to establish workshops where local youngsters could learn a proper trade. She couldn’t lay claim to her idea being original. Anna’s husband, the millionaire philanthropist Ward Hunter, had already done something similar in the northern town where he had been brought up.
There had been a time when Ward and Dee had been at loggerheads, due to a misunderstanding between them, but now they got on extremely well together, respecting one another’s financial acumen and moral strengths.
Ward had already promised to give Dee all the help she needed in setting up her workshops, but, of course, Ward could not convince the foundation’s committee to support her.
She had already found an almost perfect site for her venture: a large, empty late-Victorian villa on the outskirts of the town, with plenty of land and, even better, a large range of outbuildings.
Ward’s apprentices learned their trades in a similar environment, but Dee, her maternal streak coming to the fore, also wanted to convert rooms in the main house into small bedsits for her young trainees.
It was, she knew, a very ambitious scheme, and to show her own belief in it she had decided that she would make a large—a very large—private financial contribution towards it.
Once it was finished it would bear her father’s name—a further tribute to him—a personal tribute from her to him.
Only the previous week, when she and Anna had been talking about Anna’s coming baby, Anna had asked her gently if she had ever thought of marrying and having a family herself. Anna, gentle, kind, compassionate, was not the sort to pry, but Dee had been able to guess what she was thinking. They had been looking at the beautiful delicate layette, the little hand-embroidered items which Anna had bought for her baby, and Dee knew that her own envy had shown as she’d gently touched the tiny little garments.
She had smiled painfully, shaken her head and told Anna wryly that she was far too bossy and set in her ways for any man to want to put up with her. Of course Anna had demurred, but she had seen that Dee hadn’t wanted to pursue the subject.
How could she have? How could she have said to Anna that deep within her own tender, vulnerable heart she knew
that there was no way she could marry a man she did not love totally? No way she could marry a man she could not commit herself to utterly and completely, no way she could marry a man she could not trust utterly and completely. Only a man to whom she could tell her most secret hopes—and her most secret fears—and to whom she could reveal her inner self totally. And such a man, quite simply, did not exist.
There was no one, could be no one, to whom Dee could ever tell her deepest, darkest fears, to whom she could ever reveal her deepest and darkest secret. How could she, when the secret was not really her own, when to reveal the fear that had haunted her for so long would mean a potential betrayal of the man to whom she owed the deepest bond of loyalty there was—her father?
Once she had told someone else, anyone else, about the fear that lay over her life like a dark bruising shadow, once she had shared her fear, her doubt with someone else, it would be like opening Pandora’s box. It would be like... Dee started to shiver.
‘Sometimes I think you love your father more than you love me,’ Hugo had once told her almost accusingly, when she had explained to him that she had to go home for the weekend to see her father.
‘Not more,’ she had reassured him. ‘He’s my father,’ she had tried to explain.
Hugo had a different relat
ionship with his parents than she’d had with her father. For a start he had two of them, a father and a mother, and he had siblings, an older brother and two sisters. And, in the tradition of the British upper classes, he had been sent away to boarding-school, and so, to him, the closeness which had existed between Dee and her father—their mutual dependence on one another, the loyalty and love she’d felt for him—had been hard for him to comprehend.
Hugo...
Dee wrapped her hands defensively around her coffee mug, giving up any attempt now to pretend that she was going to work. It had been such a shock to see him again, but nothing like as much of a shock as it had been when he had kissed her. And yet Hugo and kisses were linked inescapably together in her mind, her memories. The one impossible to detach from the other.
Hugo and kisses...
Dee sat back in her chair and let her mind drift...
CHAPTER FOUR
‘MMM... Just imagine what it would be like to be kissed by that...’ Dee’s companion murmured appreciatively as she rolled her eyes and cast a slumberously eager glance in Hugo’s direction.
‘Don’t you mean him?’ Dee corrected her primly, affecting not to be impressed by the picture of stunning male sensuality that Hugo made, taut muscles rippling down his back and arms as he pulled powerfully on the oars of the boat he was helping to crew.
‘Mmm...what I wouldn’t give for an hour on my own with him,’ her fellow student breathed excitedly, ignoring Dee’s disapproving shake of her head.
‘Oh, come on,’ she protested when Dee refused to relent. ‘You can’t pretend that you can’t see how scrumptiously sexy he is.’
‘He’s very good-looking,’ Dee conceded sedately.
‘Good-looking! He’s a hundred, million, zillion times more than just good-looking,’ Mandy breathed blissfully. ‘He’s just a living, breathing, walking, talking hunk. He’s... Oh, no, he’s looking at us. He’s looking at us,’ she whispered frantically to Dee. ‘Dee, he’s looking at us...’