‘Regretting it already, César?’ she drawled.
He stopped. ‘Maybe,’ he said grimly without turning around. ‘Maybe I am regretting the whole damned thing!’
So, what did you expect? she mocked herself starkly as he shut himself away. Protests? Reassurance? Avowals of undying love? Tears spread across her vision but she blinked them angrily away.
You’re beginning to believe your own press, she told herself angrily. Annie Lacey gets married so therefore she must be in love.
But you’re not in love with him, are you? Are you?
And he is certainly not in love with you!
They had another row before leaving the bungalow, this particular one ending up with them both shouting because this time Annie was determined to win—no matter how scathing he became.
‘Will you take them back?’ she insisted, thrusting the velvet case into the rigid wall of his chest. They were both safely in the case—the necklace and the beautiful sapphire ring. ‘I don’t want them!’
‘Well, neither do I,’ he countered, refusing to take hold of it. ‘They’re yours. I gave them to you, and if there was an ounce of good manners in you you would accept them graciously as most women would do!’
‘I am not most women,’ she snapped, taking offence at even that basically innocent remark. ‘I do not accept ridiculously expensive gifts—even from the man who was my first lover!’ she flashed at him before he could flash the remark at her, and she was sure that he would have done—she could see the threat of it glinting in his angry green eyes. ‘Or because he happens to be my first husband, come to that,’ she added for good measure.
‘And your last if you don’t stop this!’ he countered impatiently.
‘But why do you want me to have them?’ she cried in honest, angry bewilderment. ‘Why—why—why?’
To her absolute surprise dark colour spread across his high cheeks, a sudden discomfited look forcing him to hood his eyes. ‘I made them for you,’ he muttered, so gruffly that she barely caught the words.
‘What?’ she prompted doubtfully. ‘What did you say? You made them—for me? Is that what you said?’
‘Yes,’ he hissed, as though the confirmation were wrenched forcibly from him. ‘They were designed for you—made—made exclusively for you, OK?’
For the first time he sounded truly American. Usually he sounded a rather attractive mix of two cultures, but that forced admission, with its accompanying flail of one angry, defensive, very threatening hand that was warning her not to push the subject further, had been pure American bullishness all the way through.
She blinked, silenced. And with a harsh sigh he thrust his fists into the pockets of his casual camel-coloured trousers. ‘If you don’t want them,’ he gritted, ‘then sell them, chuck them—give them away. But don’t try giving them back to me because I just don’t want them.’
‘But this is crazy!’ she whispered when eventually she found her voice again, unable to leave the subject even with the threat he had issued still pulsing in the air between them. ‘Why should you design something as beautiful as these for someone like me?’
Another sigh. His shoulders hunched, and for a long, tense moment Annie thought that he was going to refuse to answer. ‘They match the colour of your eyes,’ he said at last, in a tight dismissive tone that was supposed to make her say, Oh! That’s why! with relief, when he had to know that that excuse had to be the most laughable he could have offered. These beautiful pieces had been conceived and made long before he’d ever met her, at a time when he’d despised her for everything she was.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It isn’t enough that the sapphires happen to match my eyes. Half the world’s population has blue eyes! So you’re either trying to fob me off with just about the weakest excuse you’ve come up with for anything to date or this is what I suspected it to be from the beginning—a gift of conscience. And, as such, I refuse to accept it—unequivocally.’
Their eyes locked on each other’s, hers in challenge, his in a kind of defiance that she found strangely exhilarating. But as they continued to stand there warring silently other elements began to join in the battle. Her senses began to stir, tiny muscles deep down inside her beginning to pump to a rhythm that set her whole body pulsing.
He had to be feeling it too, because she watched his green eyes darken, his mouth slacken from angry tension into a heart-contracting sensuality.
No. She denied it as the air around them seemed to grow hot and heavy, the ability to breathe it in more difficult with each shallow breath. No. But she couldn’t seem to find the will to break the disturbing contact.
Sex—she named it contemptuously as the whole cacophony of sensation grew into a pounding throb. He wants me, and, God help me, I’m responding! Fingers tingled with the need to touch; breasts stung with a need to feel his mouth closed around them. Warmth flooded the sweet, burning liquid of desire into her shaking limbs.
No. She denied it again. No! And in an act of sheer desperation she broke the mood by stretching out an arm and with a defiant sideways flick sent the velvet case slewing onto a nearby table.
It landed with a thud and a slither. César did not so much as bat an eyelid, but at least the hunger died out of his eyes.
He turned abruptly, placing his tense back with its ridiculous pony-tail towards her, and—damn it—she suddenly wanted to grab hold of that lock of hair, wrench at it, hurt him, launch herself at him and beat her fists against the ungiving wall of his back in an effort to relieve this—this crazy sense of bitter frustration throbbing in her blood!
Sexual frustration! she told herself angrily. And it’s all his fault! He’s done this to me! Made me aware, know, want—desire!
‘Shall we go, then?’ he said, and moved arrogantly off towards the door.
Instantly the feelings running rife inside her flipped over to become something else entirely, her gaze flicking to the discarded jewel-case then back to him again.
He didn’t mean it, she told herself nervously. He was calling her bluff. No man just walked away and left what amounted to a five-million-dollar tip for the maid!
He was standing by the bungalow door with his hand curled around the handle, waiting for her to join him. Mutinously Annie walked forward, cold sweat beginning to trickle down her spine the closer she got to him, and still he made no move to retrieve the case. Unable to stop herself, she glanced back at it, black velvet askew on a polished tabletop. Her mouth was dry, her fingers twitching at her sides as she turned back to him.
‘Don’t,’ she pleaded.
‘Your choice,’ he returned with ruthless indifference. And he calmly opened the door and stepped through it.
Annie hovered between a stubborn desire to defy him to the last and a real horror of what it would mean if neither gave in. Then with a growl of angry defeat she darted back to pick up the case.
Her eyes were hard as she walked back to him. To be fair, César made no remark whatsoever—either by word or gesture. He simply waited until she was out of the room then drew the door shut, his manner grimly aloof as he led the way back through the garden to the waiting helicopter.
It did not augur well for the journey back to his island. Annie was too busy drowning in a sea of her own resentment, and he seemed to have drawn himself behind a wall of impenetrable calm.
Still clutching the case, the moment they were back at the villa she made a bid for escape, stalking off towards the stairs with her spine and shoulders stiff.
‘Annie.’
Her spine stiffened even more. For some unknown reason he had suddenly taken to calling her Annie, instead of Angelica in that crisp, tight way he used to use. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like what it did to her. It hinted at care and affection—an intimacy that touched tender places inside.
‘What?’ she bit out ungraciously, pausing but refusing to turn. If he had something to say then she was determined that he was going to say it to her back!
‘Come swimming with m
e.’
Of all the things she might have expected him to say at that point that had never been in the running! The invitation stunned her—and the way he’d said it, with such wary uncertainty, shook her poise enough to make her spin around.
He was standing framed by sunlight in the open door, filling it, consuming the light so that she could not see his face. She slid her fingers absently over the velvet case while she tried to search out the catch in the invitation. He remained silent, watching her, waiting, tense—she could sense his tension even with the full length of the huge hall between them.
‘Why?’ she demanded finally.
‘The bay has some wondrous sights to offer,’ he answered quietly. ‘I think you would enjoy discovering them with me.’
‘I could make those discoveries just as pleasurably on my own,’ she pointed out churlishly. ‘Especially when you think I have two whole weeks to do little else but explore the bay.’
‘But to do it with someone who knows it well will be much more rewarding,’ he pointed out. ‘And I would—enjoy sharing the experience with you.’
She was tempted; despite all the animosity darting around them she had to admit that she was tempted. It was hot, and she was fed-up, restless, eager to be using up some of the energy pounding like a frustrated rubber ball inside her. But swim with him? Display yet another climb-down from frosty aloofness to him?
‘All right,’ she heard herself say reluctantly, yet felt better for saying it, some of the tension easing out of her achingly taut frame. Then with a flash of inspiration she added slyly, ‘I’ll come if you’ll relieve me of these.’ Challengingly she held out the velvet case. ‘I’ll never get a moment’s rest worrying about them otherwise. Lock them away in a safe or something—I presume you do have a safe here, considering who and what you are?’
Surprisingly he nodded, moving into action, that lean, muscled body sheer poetry in motion as he covered the distance between them. Without a word he took the case from her. With his face in the same shade she occupied she could now read his expression. Ruefully conceding seemed to describe it best.
He was giving her back what she had just given him—a climb-down. It helped to warm her frozen feelings a little.
‘I will promise to guard them well for you.’
Not so big a climb-down, Annie acknowledged. But now she’d relaxed she couldn’t seem to find the strength to start battling once again.
‘Ten minutes?’ he asked, seeming suddenly vitally alive as he walked off towards a door to the right of the vast hallway. ‘On the beach,’ he added. ‘I’ll bring the snorkelling gear.’
He was already waiting for her when she walked down from the house towards the small, sandy beach. He was dressed in nothing more than a pair of black swimming shorts, and her eyes flickered reluctantly over his long, tanned legs with their coating of crisp, dark hair that curled all the way up to the bulging apex at his thighs.
She swallowed, feeling that warm rush of awareness explode inside her. For a few dragging moments it held her helpless and distraught. Then she managed to close her eyes, shut out the pulsing cry of her awakened body, shut out the sight of the man who had incited it all to life.
‘Ready?’
He sounded strange, as though something was constricting his throat. Glancing at him again, she felt a fine sweat break out on her skin at the expression on his dark, chiselled features as his eyes ran over her skimpy sugar-pink one-piece then came burning back to her face.
He knew. He knew why she had stopped walking and what was happening to her. He knew because she could see that the same thing was happening to him.
And it’s getting worse, she accepted starkly. Stronger.
He looked away with a sharp, jerky gesture of denial, his solid jaw tightening, his big chest heaving, his hands clenching into two tight fists at his sides. Then he seemed to get a hold of himself. ‘I thought we would borrow Pedro’s boat,’ he said. ‘He keeps it in the next bay.’ A hand lifted to indicate across the headland covered in lush tropical undergrowth. ‘We can take it out and anchor it over the reef. That way we will see more.’
He didn’t wait for an answer but bent to snatch up the snorkelling gear piled by his feet and strode off, back rigid, that black silky tail of hair covering the tension in his spine.
Her own inclination was to turn and run in the opposite direction. But, shaken and disturbed as she was by the power of need he had awoken inside her, she was also tensely aware that his needs were just as strong, and she had a horrible suspicion that if she did turn and run he would follow, and, as sure as hell, the eruption she could feel building steadily between them would happen. She could feel its threat to her bubbling fretfully beneath the thin surface of her self-control.
So she began to follow him, reluctant but aware that at least this way they both had time to pull themselves together.
She was right—well, half right—she noted wryly several tense minutes later as they emerged from a narrow pathway that led over the top of the rocky headland and through the lush undergrowth to a tiny circle of sand, where she could see a small boat with an outboard motor lying lopsidedly just above the tide line.
They were fine so long as they did not make eye contact with each other. And the fact that César was of the same mind made it easier to remain calm as he threw the snorkelling gear into the bottom of the boat then began dragging it, his muscles rippling in the sunlight, into the water before inviting her to get in.
‘Pedro uses this for fishing,’ he explained, once the motor had sprung into life and they were moving slowly across the top of the clear, calm sea. ‘He catches something fresh and different every day.’
‘They live very quietly here,’ Annie remarked, her eyes fixed on the cut and swell of water around the boat. ‘Don’t they get lonely with no other company than their own?’
‘They visit their family on the mainland quite often,’ he told her. ‘I have a launch anchored at Union Island. It is at their disposal whenever they feel the need to make use of it.’
‘But no phone.’ Annie frowned. ‘How do they let anyone know what they want without some line of communication?’
‘Been searching for a way to cry for help, Angelica?’ he drawled.
Her cheeks flushed, because that was exactly what she had done yesterday after he’d left her alone. She’d wanted to ring Lissa—not Todd but Lissa—and beg her to find a way out of this mess without involving Todd.
Todd. Even white teeth buried themselves anxiously into her lower lip. If Todd found out what had been going on here there would be hell to pay. She was sure of it.
‘There is a radio,’ César inserted smoothly, ‘linked directly with my head office in Caracas. But, other than that, they are, I assure you, content with their lot or they would not stay.’
‘What kind of office?’ she asked him, reluctantly curious about this man she had married. ‘I mean,’ she continued mockingly, ‘what do you do when you’re not being Adamas?’
He smiled at the way she had put that last bit. ‘Actually, my fascination for precious stones and metal is really just a hobby.’ He shrugged, as though a billion-dollar hobby was peanuts to him.
‘But as DeSanquez—’ wryly he used that mockery she’d used on himself ‘—I head the DeSanquez Organisation—oil, a couple of diamond and gold mines, a beef ranch or two, several other business interests which bring in a good revenue. All this I inherited from my father,’ he informed her. ‘But my mother was the family artist. From her I learned to develop my skill with precious metal and stones. From my father I learned to succeed in big business.’
The double persona. Annie had always known it was there in him. ‘And the hair?’ she asked, because it was the hair that first had made her suspect that he was two people. ‘Do you wear it so long because of some DeSanquez tradition? Or—?’
His laughter was warm and resonant, and it shimmered through Annie like a heatwave. ‘Nothing so—romantic,’ he replied, still smili
ng. ‘I simply—like it this way. Call it the artist in me, if you like, needing to make a stand against the businessman.’ he cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her. ‘Does it bother you?’ he asked curiously. ‘Would you rather I had my hair cut in a more conventional style?’
‘No!’ she denied impulsively, then flushed as his green eyes began to gleam. ‘It—it doesn’t bother me one way or the other,’ she said offhandedly.
‘Doesn’t it?’ he murmured softly. And she had to look away from those dark, knowing eyes, wishing that she hadn’t mentioned his ridiculous hair!
She went quiet after that. And César turned his attention to guiding the little boat out of the shelter of the tiny cove and towards the mouth of Hook-nose Bay, where he stopped the engine and tossed the small anchor out onto the reef.
‘Have you snorkelled before?’ he asked.
Annie nodded and so did he. ‘Good. So you know what to do with these.’ He handed her a pair of flippers and a snorkelling mask. ‘Give me a minute to get into the water and I’ll help you out of the boat.’
Surprisingly it turned out to be an enjoyable hour. With César leading the way they snorkelled over the tip of and between narrow canyons of coral, treading water regularly when one or the other saw something interesting beneath them.
They saw brightly coloured cardinals and butterfly fish and spotted drums. Pretty blue parrot-fish swam in and out of the coral, and a couple of big groupers hurried away when they saw them coming. At one point César grabbed urgently at her hand, demanding her attention then pointing over to a deeper point on the coral where she could see a long, sleek silver fish with a pike-like face. Barracuda! she recognised instantly, and tried to turn and swim back to the boat.
But César stopped her, holding onto her arm and grinning at her through his mask. Firmly he pulled her off in the other direction, where they found an octopus sitting on a rock, his bulbous body swaying to and fro in the lazy current.
Then a dark brown moray eel slid its ugly face out from between two rocks and Annie decided with a shudder that she’d had enough. She turned swiftly before César could stop her and swam quickly back to the boat.
The Morning After Page 12