by Margaret Way
Of course, that explained it. A man who looked and talked like that just had to be somebody, a real big wheel. Ian couldn't figure what lots of money did, but it did. For the first time he began to pay attention to the girl he had come with, who wasn't tearfully sad anyway.
With the arrival of Quinn, and the consequent introductions, the reception gained a valuable new impetus. He was stared up and down, devoured by the women, and suffered it all with great charm, never once passing his hands in front of his eyes as Jaime did on more than one occasion. With a harsh stab of reality and no sense of resentment, she was made to stand back and observe the immense sexual attraction he held for other women. There was no question of anyone going home now unless Hugo, who owned and ran the gallery, turned out the lights, and he obviously didn't want to. Contacts were important and 'good old Derry' had an heiress for a daughter and a friend in Quinn Sterling of Hunter Sterling, who had kissed the tips of Gayle's fingers the moment he arrived, making that new bride swim with pleasure. It had to be some Gallic blood in his background, Hugo reasoned. He's never seen another man do it quite like that, except maybe Charles Boyer in those old movies.
Shortly after midnight, Gayle and Derrick decided to leave and after that they all got away fairly swiftly. With the newlyweds staying overnight at the best hotel on the Coast, Jaime was free to go back to the beach house. With Quinn so very much in demand, she had scarcely spoken two consecutive words to him. Indeed, although his brilliant eyes strayed over her frequently, he had seemed another person, considering her memories of their last meeting. It was impossible to read what went on behind those pitch-black eyes, and now with all her confidence abating she wasn't even going to try. She might have looked her very best and made all that effort mostly for him, yet he looked extraordinarily unmoved, quite relaxed, with no more than an ordinary passing interest in her appearance. He was scarcely to be borne unless he was a split personality.
Over the short distance home in the hire car she didn't even look at him, or turn her head. He had explained his delay, of course. His position gave him any number of excellent alibis. Who could be certain if he saw the Minister or not? If he did, it was very good of him to come anyway, and if he didn't, he had only just made it. Her mood of rejection and despondency had set in accompanied by the moral post-wedding-reception blues. Marriage wasn't always the answer. She only hoped Gayle would bring an illuminating quality to hers. Her father wasn't an easy man to know, and that summing up wasn't only limited to her father. She was just thinking Quinn was a stranger.
'Are you going to invite me in?' he asked smoothly, the moment they arrived.
'Are you certain you want to?' she said coolly. 'I thought this was a mercy mission.'
He ignored her. 'I'd like some black coffee, thank you, Jaime. Maybe a sandwich. I missed lunch and dinner, you know, all on your account.'
'Did you really?'
'Is there absolutely anything you'll believe of me? To the good, that is!'
She fumbled with the front door key and his hand shot out and took it from her, inserted it into the lock and turned the spring. Jaime swept ahead of him, switching on the lights. There was a wild carnation tint over her delicate cheekbones, not just a blusher, but quickening blood. In a few days with the glorious wash of sun, her skin had turned to a gleaming gold again, and the devastating excitement she was feeling coloured her eyes almost purple. It was vastly foolish the way she let Quinn agitate and upset her.
She put her evening purse and her floating chiffon stole down and went to the sliding glass doors that led on to the balcony and provided an incomparable view of the ocean. A moment more and the lovely sea breeze came into the room, with the fresh tang of salt fluttering the curtains. She glanced back at Quinn almost defiantly and caught him regarding her with a certain amount of dark arrogance.
T learned a lot tonight,' he said in an attacking voice. 'You're fairly provocative with everyone.'
'You're mad!' she responded. 'I'd have to try desperately to remember one face!'
'How about that chap—Gibson, wasn't it? The one who had you pinned to the wall when I arrived.'
Jaime's delicate nostrils flared and her eyebrows shot up. 'I should be able to remember him, but I can't.'
'I'm surprised to hear that. You were certainly staring up at him very agreeably.'
'You couldn't be jealous?'
'No,' he said contemptuously with the cool arrogance that exasperated her and threw a corresponding switch in her.
'Do you really want that coffee or a fight?' she demanded.
'You're very aggressive,' he said narrowly, his black eyes glinting.
'I waited all evening for you!' she burst out, surprising herself. She hadn't meant to say that.
'I told you!' he said impatiently. 'It was impossible to make the early flight. Swinging a big business venture doesn't go hand in hand with pleasing oneself!'
Jaime shook her head as if she didn't want to discuss it any more. 'I'll make the coffee. We've chicken and ham. Which?'
'As a matter of fact, both. There was very little left of that buffet.'
'Yes, I know, and it cost the earth!' Jaime said, suddenly distressed on his account. In fact a wave of remarkable, inexplicable desolation came over her. She dashed her hands in front of her eyes and turned away. She felt she had to. There was no denying it. Quinn unsettled her so badly that just being alone with him gave her a bad time.
'What damn game are you playing now?' he demanded, covering the distance between them with devastating speed. He swung her about and stared down into her face.
'I'm not used to being manhandled!' she said shortly.
'Then there's no time like the present. Forget the blasted coffee. I'm not in the mood anyway.'
'Why are you so angry?' she challenged him, her blue eyes blazing.
'Aren't you?'
'Yes, I am, and I don't know why. I hope Derry's going to be happy. You scarcely said two words to me all night.'
'You're very demanding, aren't you?'
'Quite possibly. I thought you enjoyed my company?'
'If so I'm not the only one.'
'You're jealous!' she accused.
His lean fingers bit into her shoulders. 'If it were only that simple! There's a considerable difference between being jealous and wanting to turn you over my knee. You need taking in hand, Jaime. You're too beautiful for your own good, and you're so vital that you really affect people. You're going to need a strong hand and a man a lot older than you. No ordinary run-of-the-mill young man would do. You'd lead him a sorry dance!'
'And you're the man with a difference, I suppose?'
'Careful, I'm not playing.'
'As a matter of fact neither am I,' she retorted. 'You're pretty remarkable at that. To think I was in the odd position this afternoon of longing for you to arrive ! Now you're here you just want to snarl at me.'
'I'll show you what I want to do!' He lifted her clean off the floor and walked backwards with her to the couch, pinning her body.
'What's got into you?' she asked faintly, thinking it advisable to retreat.
He dismissed the violet alarm of her eyes, threading his hand through her hair experimentally, whether to pull it or what, Jaime couldn't tell. 'You're untamed, aren't you?' he asked abruptly.
'I prefer to be,' she said clearly.
'Since it's not going to happen for very much longer, make the most of it.'
'How's the family?' she flashed at him. 'Leigh and Sue-Ellen?'
'Coming right out of it. I saw Leigh briefly yesterday. She looked a picture. She was in to see her father.'
'I'm sure she continued down the corridor to you.'
'As a matter of fact she did.'
'Well done, then!'
'I'm not used to young women like you,' said Quinn, his eyes sliding down the length of her, the slender young body, the exquisite long legs outlined by the tautened chiffon.
'Then you should be glad of a little variety!' she said
shakily.
'I wasn't looking for trouble.'
'Neither was I.'
'You've got it!' He looked hard and reckless, though she was seeing his face through a shimmering haze.
'It's fairly obvious I bring out the barbarian in you,' she blurted.
'What little there is. But yes, I agree. There's something about you that makes me want to hurt you. Move your hand away from your face. What is it, some kind of protection?'
'I won't!' she said firmly.
'You have noticed I'm stronger than you.'
'You're a bully as well!'
'Now and again. You'll only get hurt struggling, so stop it. I haven't time for it anyway. Argue as you will, you love me!'
'No.'
'No? That sort of an answer needs proving. Such an exquisite dress. What a pity to crush it!'
'You're perfectly well aware it's uncrushable.'
'Is that an invitation? Well then!'
'Don't you dare touch me!' she said wildly, safe if she kept talking.
'Face it, Jaime. I'll do anything I have to to get you!'
'Aren't my feelings important?'
For answer he took hold of her in a hard practised manner. 'There's got to be one boss, and we're going to settle this, my poor frightened baby. It's unfair to take advantage of you, but I have to. I can't even understand myself these days!'
'You'd better!' she warned with her very last breath of resistance. Her blood was on fire, answering the violence of emotion in him.
He grasped the back of her head very deliberately. 'Let me look at you. Just who are you anyway?'
'I'm Jaime!' she said passionately, to establish her identity once and for all. 'Just Jaime, and I don't mean any blasted label!'
'You're mine!' he said with no trace of ardency but implacably, twisting her head back and kissing her mouth violently.
She began to struggle, slipping sideways on the couch so that Quinn was half leaning over her. 'Go on, deny it. If you want to, you'd better do it now!'
A volcanic hard recklessness was upon him, a queer tautness in his expression. 'No, I don't want to!' she whispered visibly relenting. There could be no other way for her. So deeply in love, she was now trying to subdue the antagonisms she had invited. She was unaware of the radiant tenderness that invaded her eyes, the soft natural yielding of her body. It came so suddenly, this surrender, that it completely flooded her being.
Quinn didn't move for a second, his black eyes anything but tranquil. There was a devil in him and she had aroused it. Now she was looking shatteringly submissive, a contrary little enchantress, as fragile as a flower, as brilliant as a jewel. He didn't trust her, but the compulsion to make love to her was taking control of him.
Jaime drew in her breath, lifted her arms and linked them around Quinn's neck, forestalling his anger. 'Don't look at me like that. You frighten me.'
'Do I?' The glittery look eased just a fraction. 'I'm sorry. Quite easily I could strangle you and I would, only I've wanted you from the very beginning.'
'You'd better have me, then,' she said gently. 'Don't you think so?'
'Who'd want to marry you off so soon?'
'It was bound to happen. Predictable.' All the while she was lifting her mouth to his, overcome by a sweet and piercing exultation. It was wondrous to take the initiative, but it wasn't for long. One moment he held back, then he forced her head back against his shoulder; kissing her with a driving need he didn't bother to hide. It was scarcely endurable, the soft searing sensations speeding through her, the beautiful, terrible rhythm of it all. The mysterious knowable, unknowable world of Quinn.
She was lost and any other consideration never even surfaced. When he freed her mouth briefly, she murmured broken little endearments, indulging herself endlessly, telling him in every way possible that she loved him. She was so ravishingly helpless, yet so flamelike, that soon there was nothing else for Quinn to do but pull away with the kind of steely strength that marked him.
'I think it's time for me to go back to the hotel,' he said, grasping her hair.
'Darling, you're here with me.'
He drew away from her treacherous sweetness, sat up and pushed her filmy skirt aside.
'Oh God, I don't know what to do about you!' Jaime moaned.
'You won't have to for long. We'll see Gayle and your father off tomorrow, then we'll go home.'
She leaned over, burrowing her head against his side. 'That's a tumultuous back-to-front proposal. You told me you want to marry me, but you haven't said you loved me.'
'Yes, I know.'
'Are you going to?'
'I'd never get back to the hotel,' he said dryly, not nearly so calm as he appeared.
'Who cares?' she said, and flung her arms around him, hugging his taut frame, feeling the indecision in him then the final rejection.
Quinn stood up, turning away from her, straightening his tie as if he were about to go into a Board meeting. It was time to gather himself. She was startled at the way he could turn such powerful emotions on and off when she could hardly stand because she was trembling so violently.
At the door he relaxed, sliding an arm around her and dropping a brief parting kiss on her head. 'My beautiful Jaime. You must be tired and I've kept you up too long.'
'And you didn't get your coffee.'
'Judging by your earlier reactions you might have thrown it at me.' He held the door, looking out at the sparkling stars. 'What a beautiful night!'
She slipped herself under his shoulder. 'I feel as though you've pulled down a star for me.'
'You deserve another kiss for that,' he said tautly. 'I'm not earthbound myself.'
'Out of the question when you want someone so badly!'
'Jaime?' he said against her mouth.
'Yes?'
'I love you. You're what I've wanted all my life.'
'That sounds sweeter to me than the lovely music of the sea.'
'Just one thing. You'll never escape me. That I swear!'
'Who said I'll ever want to?' she whispered, shocked.
'It pays to know what you're getting into. I'm the man in possession, remember that.'
'And don't think I'm going to wait long,' she murmured.
‘You won’t have to. Whatever life holds for us, we’re ready. What happens to you, happens to me. A partnership no one is going to dissolve! ’
Beyond them the white sandhills were lit to a radiance. The surf rolled in, unstoppable; rushing up on to the sand like long bolts of silk. So inevitable the tide. So perfectly ordained Jaime’s destiny.