Paradise Found

by Dorothy Vernon

  Zoe carefully closed the door behind them, glad to be out of range of Matt’s vision. At the bottom of the stairs she turned. ‘Goodnight again, Tony.’

  ‘Don’t go straight up. Come and look at the stars from my bedroom window.’

  He had already hinted at something like this, but this was the first time he’d come out with the direct suggestion. Odd that he’d waited until Matt’s arrival to do so.

  ‘Have you forgotten that your room happens to be right next to your grandmother’s?’

  ‘No. And neither have I forgotten that we’re engaged.’

  ‘Tony . . . I. . .’

  ‘I know. You’re feeling wretched. That’s obvious just from looking at you. I can tell that you’re not putting it on. I’m being inconsiderate, aren’t I?’

  ‘Well . . . I . . .’ Zoe felt awful about making him feel guilty. The shame was all hers. She was horrified at her glibness in covering up. It wasn’t the ultraviolet rays of the sun that were responsible for the way she felt. She had a great need to unburden herself to Tony—but what could she say? If Matt had been a secret from her past, something that was dead and buried, it would have been difficult to explain but not impossible. What made it virtually impossible was her awareness of Matt now. She couldn’t very well say, ‘I was infatuated with your uncle when I was a silly nineteen-year-old and knew no better—and nothing’s changed, except that I’m five years older, because I’m as madly attracted to him as ever.’

  Surely, when she was safely married to Tony, everything would be all right? She pulled herself up sharply. Safely married to Tony? That sounded as though she was viewing marriage merely as a way to escape from her own weakness.

  ‘If only I hadn’t been so stupid,’ Tony said, the floor receiving an aggressive thump from his crutch.

  In repentance at the thought that skidded across her mind, that in one way she was glad of the enforced postponement of their wedding, Zoe slid her arms round his waist and snuggled close. Tony leaned his second crutch against the newel post to free his hand to go round Zoe and bring her closer still. He was not inexperienced. His kiss was both expert and ardent. When it kindled no answering response in her she told herself fiercely that it was because she wasn’t in the mood. There was a light in his eyes which told her that he was—very much so. He was still hankering for her to go to his room with him.

  Very firmly she said, ‘Goodnight, Tony.’

  She knew she was falling short of what he had a right to expect from his fiancée, and the disappointment on his face made her heart ache slightly.

  He crooked a finger under her chin, and this time his kiss gave warm pleasure and asked nothing of her. ‘Goodnight, Zoe.’

  She turned and went up the stairs. Not until she rounded the curve and was out of his sight did she hear the thud of his crutches as he made his way to his room.

  She sat on the bed meditating for endless moments. It was quite a while before she kicked off her sandals and reached her arms up round her neck to unfasten her pendant—and discovered that she was no longer wearing it. Oh, no! Her distress as she wondered when she could have lost it was acute, and disproportionate. It was no good trying to fool herself that her torment wasn’t because Matt had given it to her.

  She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she’d tried to find it. She slid her feet back into her sandals and retraced her steps downstairs. There was no sign of it anywhere on the stairs, or in the downstairs rooms, which were now also empty of the other occupants. Obviously everyone had decided to follow her lead and go to bed.

  She knew that she had definitely put the pendant on before coming down the first time, but now that she thought about it she couldn’t remember seeing it round her neck when she went up again to retouch her makeup after that encounter with Matt in the garden. Of course! She remembered—rather too vividly for her peace of mind—the way Matt had massaged and manipulated her neck to ease her headache. That’s when it must have come loose.

  She let herself out the door and followed the path she had taken earlier, stopping at the spot where she had stood with Matt.

  ‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this,’ a voice said.

  ‘Matt!’ She swung round, shrieking his name in frustration at the ill fate that had brought about this second confrontation. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Taking a much-needed breath of air. Thinking what a pity it was I wasn’t sharing the moment with a suitable companion . . . and here you are,’ he said with dry mockery.

  ‘I didn’t come in search of you, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I’ve lost my pendant. The one you bought me to wear for the wedding . . . for my wedding to Tony,’ she emphasized. ‘I was wearing it earlier this evening. I thought it might be here, so I came to look.’

  ‘I’d suggest that we look for it together, except that in this light it might be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. Not being a smoker, I carry neither a cigarette lighter nor matches. But I’m forgetting; knowing the mission you were on, you would have come better prepared.’

  ‘No, I . . . I didn’t think,’ she said, dropping to her knees and combing the ground with her fingers, feeling foolish and angry. Foolish because she hadn’t thought to come equipped with a flashlight, and angry with him for what he obviously thought—for his arrogant assumption in thinking that she had seen him leave the house from her bedroom window, which did happen to look out on this part of the garden, and had made up the excuse of losing her pendant so she could follow him.

  He bent to take an elbow in each hand and eased her back up. ‘It’s useless, Zoe. If it’s here, it will come to no harm. I promise to look for it for you first thing in the morning.’

  ‘It is here. At least’—she bit her lip—‘I don’t know that for certain, but it’s possible that it may be.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘Stop humoring me. Why won’t you believe me?’

  ‘I do believe you, Zoe.’

  ‘I’m being honest about this,’ she insisted.

  ‘So am I. Honest in admitting that we’re two of a kind.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘We both like playing with fire.’

  ‘You might. I don’t,’ she denied.

  ‘Come off it. You were playing with fire when you got entangled with Tony.

  ‘What are you talking about? And I’m not entangled with Tony. That sounds insulting. I’m engaged to him.’

  ‘Yes. And I’m wondering why. Why you ever looked at him in the first place. In case you feel coy about enlarging on that, I’ll do it for you. You knew that it would eventually lead you back to me. I don’t believe that Tony’s chief attractions were his good looks and boyish charm. What drew you to him was his relationship to me. Did you get involved with him—I’ll say involved, as you seem ill at ease with the word “entangled”—to get back at me? Or back with me? Which, Zoe? You knew that at some time or another we would be bound to meet again through him—in circumstances much like this.’

  ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life,’ she said, her voice shrill with indignation. ‘I was attracted to Tony for himself from the beginning. The one drawback was his close relationship to you. I thought he might turn out to be as horrid as you are. Thankfully, that fear has so far proved to be groundless. Tony’s manner has always been kind and gracious, his behavior impeccable. I couldn’t wish for a gentler, more considerate, or more understanding fiancé.’

  ‘Kind, gracious, gentle, considerate . . . you make him sound like a milksop. Are those the qualities you really want in a husband? As for understanding, that’s a laugh. You found him so understanding that you couldn’t bring yourself to tell him that his own uncle had very nearly been there first.’

  ‘How crude. Have you thought that I might not have said anything out of consideration for you? Assuming that Tony has some respect for you, perhaps I didn’t want to destroy it
. You’ve had a lot of fun in the past in telling me that you were too much of a man for me. You’ve asked for this, Matt Hunter. Would a man of honor have behaved as you did?’

  ‘You were nineteen. That’s not such a child.’ Despite that, she knew by the tone of his voice that she had got to him, that he didn’t like to think that he’d taken unfair advantage.

  There was a stiffness about his shoulders that told of the fury he was desperately trying to suppress. He half turned, and for a moment she thought he was going to walk away. It was that supposition that held her motionless and made her an easy target for the arms that came round her, bringing her body up close to his. She was too taken by surprise to protest, and then his mouth was on hers, hard and sweet, draining the desire to do so, firing her blood with a contrary craving for the kiss never to end.

  She knew that she didn’t have the physical strength to free herself. If she was to gain her release it had to be by other means. The best her spinning brain could come up with was to be a rag doll in his arms, and so she fought to keep her responses in check. She must not let him know how exquisitely he brought her to life. She played dead, her arms remaining by her sides, her lips tightly compressed to shut him out. She had no control over the fast beating of her heart, the thudding pulse his lips came down on as they moved briefly to her temple before returning to possess her mouth. That hardly mattered. That wildness wasn’t a giveaway; it could easily be taken for anger.

  But it came to her that she was fighting a desperate, losing battle. Because he believed that she had come out on a pretext, that this was what she really wanted, he battered her resistance down degree by subtle degree. When his initial ardent assault failed to achieve its object, the hands binding her to his hips unlocked their steely grip, throwing the emotions pounding beneath the cool façade she was still valiantly trying to preserve into wild disorder. One tangled in her hair; the other drew circles of fire over her shoulder blades before descending along the bumpy column of her spine to her waist. His light, seductive fingerplay teased the entire area of flesh exposed by the low cut of her dress; then his mouth brushed hers, an insouciant feather touch that left her wanting him to show her his former depth of passion. Devious Matt. Because when that passion returned it was greeted with a welcoming moan, a sigh that rose tremulously from a throat that arched of its own volition to accept his kiss.

  She melted against him as his lips turned hers to fire, destroying her last defense. Her arms wound helplessly round his lean waist as the scorching passion burnt through her mouth to her mind, igniting her nerve ends and sending a fierce throb of delight through her body. At the same time the intensity of her own desire made itself known as a physical ache that wouldn’t be evicted until it had been appeased.

  She tasted the salt tears of shame at the back of her throat and recklessly swallowed them back. All that mattered was the pleasure he was giving her as his lips alternately crushed and treasured hers and his hands adored and delighted her receptive flesh. His finger stroked down from her cheek, outlined her jaw, and came down her throat and along her collarbone, pausing to hook under her shoulder strap and bring it down her arm.

  He groaned. ‘The low back of your dress has driven me crazy all evening . . . wondering.’

  ‘And now you know,’ she said, her voice going husky as he traced a delicate line over the upper swell before his hand closed fully over her naked breast.

  Expectation hardened the rosy bud even before it knew the abrasive ecstasy of his gently rotating fingers. She sobbed her love moans into his neck, her teeth nipping his flesh, expressing her joy and inciting a more ardent, less delicate caress. It was inflammatory. Her lashes dropped over her passion-glazed eyes, and she sighed as his lips glided silkily down her throat, covering it with molten fire as he tasted her skin, slowly and methodically, savoring every inch of the tantalizingly slow descent until his mouth took the tingling tip of her breast into custody and the molten fire swept lower as her stomach curled up in intense sexual excitement.

  ‘You’re so warm and desirable.’ His voice shivered against her hairline for a brief moment before her head was driven back by an explosive, exploring kiss that was almost an act of possession in itself.

  The hand low on her back locked them together, but even without that her compulsion to be near to him would have held her there. The rock-hard masculinity of his body, his vigor and his strength were as exciting as they were tantalizing. She had thought that only men fantasized, that lust was strictly a male prerogative, something that was not to be entertained by a nicely brought up woman. A man had to have a woman to fulfill a physical necessity; a woman gave herself out of love. But it wasn’t always so, she realized in that exhilarating moment. She wanted Matt as intensely as she knew that he wanted her. She imagined what it would be like to be this close to him without the barrier of clothes, to lie with him hip to hip and drown in bliss in his arms. Why not? . . .

  With slow precision he brought her shoulder strap back up again. His arm curved round the back of her waist as he walked her out from beneath the canopy of trees. When they moved out of the shade, the stars seemed to her to be particularly luminous. The night was magic. The warm scented air stroked her skin, shivering it with remembered sensations. Every place that Matt’s roving hands had touched was still astir with feeling; all sorts of frenzied activity seemed to be going on just below the surface of her skin.

  Zoe could have reached her bedroom via the outside staircase and long balcony, but she automatically went into the house with Matt, who locked up and put out the lights.

  ‘I’m just down the passage from you,’ he said as they went up the stairs together.

  ‘Oh.’ She had wondered.

  There was a question in his eyes which she didn’t have the answer for. The little, yet so big, ‘Why not?’ haunted her mind, pinched her senses, the backs of her eyes, accelerated her heartbeat, and made breathing a challenge. Then suddenly the pinching feeling at the backs of her eyes became a humiliation of tears. She knew why not. Of all the many becauses, one should have jumped instantly into her mind. In fact, the haunting ‘Why not?’ should never have entered her mind in the first place because of it. She lifted her hand to her face, scraping her ring across her cheek, digging the sharp edge of the diamond cluster into it as punishment. Because she was engaged to Tony.

  Matt didn’t miss that very revealing gesture. The question left his eyes to be replaced by an unattractive smile of arrogance and contempt that mocked her self-denial. Arrogance because he knew how severely tempted she had been, how much she hadn’t wanted the incident to end with merely a kiss, and the contempt possibly for the same reason. He didn’t look as though he was suffering. It hurt as much as anything that he didn’t seem all that bothered that he wouldn’t be coming in with her.

  ‘Pity about the pendant. I shouldn’t lose any sleep over it if I were you. I’m sure it will turn up,’ he scoffed.

  ‘I’m sure it will,’ she retorted. ‘Most likely in the garden, where I said I’d lost it.’

  ‘Are you quite certain you were wearing it this evening?’

  ‘Of course I am. I distinctly remember putting it on.’

  ‘I suppose you know best. The odd thing is, I can’t recall seeing it round your neck.’

  ‘Well, it was there, I assure you. I know what you’re getting at, but you’re way off the mark. I didn’t make up the story of losing my pendant as an excuse to join you. I have lost it.’ She opened her door, meaning to fling herself haughtily through it and slam it in his grinning face. Only a glint of gold and a flash of sapphire held her motionless.

  Matt walked past her, crossed over to the dressing table where the pendant lay, and picked it up.

  ‘How did it get there?’ Zoe gasped incredulously. ‘I put it on. I know I did,’ she said in angry exasperation.

  ‘Perhaps you lost it before you came down. Obviously it couldn’t have jumped from the floor, where it must have fallen, to the dressing table. So
, say Yvette came in—to turn down the bed or something or other—and saw it lying on the floor; naturally she would pick it up and put it on the dressing table for you to find.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what must have happened,’ Zoe said, grasping eagerly at the explanation.

  ‘To make that fit, the clasp would have to be loose, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘I agree,’ she said savagely, hating the way he was testing her. ‘Look at it for yourself.’

  ‘Thank you. It would have been ungallant to do so without your permission. Mm, let me see.’ It was a spring clasp and from where Zoe stood, when he snapped it shut it seemed to be secure. ‘No . . .’ The hateful mockery was back in his eyes. ‘It seems to be okay. It is pretty. I must say, I do have good taste.’ But as he spoke he wasn’t looking at the pendant. His eyes scintillated over her face.

  He handed it back to her, and she examined the clasp for herself. It was perfectly all right. When she’d put it on her thoughts had gone naturally to Matt because he had given it to her, and she’d been agitated because of that. She couldn’t have been attentive enough to what she was doing and so she hadn’t fastened it properly, but nothing would convince Matt that she hadn’t told him a lie to explain why she joined him in the garden.

  ‘Think what you like,’ she said aggressively, ‘only just get out.’

  He took hold of her jaw. His thumb lay in the indentation between her chin and lower lip before stroking along its softly curving fullness. ‘You don’t need an excuse, Zoe. Whatever the time, wherever I am, if the urge takes you, just come.’

  With that he sauntered out, leaving Zoe choking on anger, humiliation, shame, and frustration.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  How could she have stayed out with Matt, let him kiss and caress her the way he had? She felt ashamed that she had succumbed to something that was purely physical, nothing more than lust. Something that couldn’t last. She had been hurt once; now she was leaving herself wide open to be hurt all over again. She believed Matt when he said he’d tried to look her up but had failed because she’d changed her job and moved to a new address. But the excuse lost all its value when she recalled that she’d been at her old job and former home for three years after he’d walked out before she’d decided to make a change. For heaven’s sake, he’d had three years to come back to her! That was how interested he’d been.