by Penny Jordan
Back at the house she followed Joel into a large sitting room attractively furnished in soft blues and yellows. Polished floral cottons covered the settees and chair, the wool carpet soft underfoot. Whoever had furnished the house had good taste and a feel for atmosphere, but the overall impression that Cassie gained was one of sad neglect; as though the house knew of Joel’s lack of interest in it and mourned it.
As Cassie sat down she heard Joel pouring himself a drink; a large one by the sound of it, she reflected, marvelling about the power of hearing when it had to take over from sight.
‘Would you like a drink?’
She refused his curt offer, staring blindly into the distance, apprehension curling along her spine. They were married. That much had been accomplished. What next?
‘I’m returning to London tonight,’ Joel told her, answering the most pressing of her questions. ‘I can’t stop you from carrying out your threat to go to the Press, but think carefully about what you’re doing, Cassie. In the long run it would harm us both. Our marriage is a fait accompli now.’
‘You said you were returning to London,’ Cassie responded, marvelling at the calmness of her voice. ‘Do I take it that means I’m to remain here?’ She wasn’t going to tell him yet of her decision to stand by their marriage, although she suspected he had already guessed.
‘Yes,’ he said curtly. ‘There seems little point in your coming back with me to be beseiged by reporters.’
‘Yes, I might say the wrong thing mightn’t I?’ she agreed with fine irony. ‘It might have escaped your notice, but I need clothes, Joel, and my spare pair of glasses. After all I can hardly work on the new game if I can’t see what I’m doing. I’ll also need my small computer,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘and…’
‘Write out a list. I’ll collect your stuff and bring it down with me when I come back.’
So he was planning to come back, Cassie thought wryly. She wasn’t to live in total isolation.
A portrait above the fire caught her eye. She could just about make it out, the face familiar enough for her to say, ‘Is that you? When…’
‘Not me,’ Joel told her shortly. ‘My brother Andrew.’
For a moment Cassie’s heart seemed to stop beating. Joel’s tone of voice warned her against intruding but she ignored it to say slowly, ‘I see… You must have been very alike.’
To her surprise Joel laughed harshly, ‘In looks yes, in temperament no. Andrew was always a sucker for a sob-story… That’s what killed him. You want to hear all about it?’ He rounded on her and even in spite of her shortsightedness Cassie could clearly see the bitter rage in his eyes. ‘All right I’ll tell you. He died going after our mother and her lover in an attempt to persuade her to come back to our father. God, I could have told him he was wasting his time. Ten years the affair had been going on. I found out about it when I was at university. I came home unexpectedly one week-end and caught them in bed together; the same bed she had shared with my father…but her lover was married too and rather than give up this house and the prestige of being married to my father she kept up the pretence of her marriage and her lover until his wife died and they were able to marry.’
Cassie was left without words. The savagery with which Joel had told his story left her in no doubt as to his bitterness. He must have loved his mother very much at one time, to be so hurt by her defection, she thought sadly. So much about his attitude towards women was now explained.
‘Andrew followed them to Italy and was killed in a road accident,’ he told her bleakly. ‘My father never recovered from that blow. He and Andrew were particularly close.’
Just as Joel and his mother had once been, Cassie thought involuntarily.
‘Is your mother…’
‘I haven’t seen her since she left,’ Joel told her harshly, ‘and nor do I want to see her.
‘I’d better take you upstairs before I leave, I don’t want you falling over and breaking your neck.’
‘Why not?’ she quipped wryly. ‘That way you’d get to keep Cassietronics without the burden of having me for a wife…’
Across the width of the room, he looked at her. ‘What do you want me to say, Cassie?’ he asked her expressionlessly. ‘That you’re not a burden? That I do want you?’
Her face flamed at the insolence of his tone. She knew quite well without him having to put it into words that he did not want her.
‘You were the one who instigated this marriage, not me, Joel,’ she reminded him, chin tilted proudly. ‘It might be better if you wrote the list—my handwriting isn’t very clear. These are the things I’d like you to bring with you.’
She listed them carefully while he wrote them down and then accepted his silent escort to the room she had changed in.
She was sitting on the bed when she heard him drive away and a feeling of intense anticlimax washed over her in a wave of depression. What had she expected, she derided herself? That Joel would suddenly succumb to a passionate need of her?
She tried not to think about him as he prepared slowly for bed. She had no night things, and only the underwear which she was wearing which she would have to rinse out to wear tomorrow. She shrugged fatalistically. What did it matter what she wore or didn’t wear; she was still totally undesirable.
Towelling herself dry after a quick shower, she automatically avoided her misty reflection in the full length mirror. She hated looking at her body, her skin was too pale, her shape unappealingly slender, her breasts slightly too full to complement the narrowness of her waist and hips. Where was Joel now? Back in London? She must stop thinking about him she told herself shakily. This morning all he had been was a vaguely threatening presence on the outer perimeters of her life; someone from whom she had fled instinctively, fearing his too male aura. Now he was her husband and she was coming closer to understanding her instinctive retreat from him. It humiliated her to admit the desire she felt for him; a desire which was pathetic and undignified and which could never, ever be returned.
The bed felt cold as she slipped into it. Someone must have made it up for her. Joel? Did he expect her to take charge of the house, to run it as she would do were she really his wife? He had mentioned that she was working on a new game to the Jensens; was he hoping to claim the rights to that game and ultimately to use the profits it generated for his own companies. Although he had forced her into marriage he had said nothing about taking over Cassietronics and nor would she let him, Cassie decided. The very fact that they were married should be sufficient to secure him the financial stability and resources that he needed to complete his own work. She would need something to cling to when their marriage was over, instinct told her that, just as it told her that no matter how much she denied it emotionally she was desperately vulnerable to Joel.
It seemed to be a long time before sleep claimed her, and when it did she slept only fitfully, waking periodically, to wonder where she was and to remember before drifting off again.
‘Cassie?’
The coolly commanding tone of the male voice intruding on her dreams was familiar. Reluctantly Cassie opened her eyes, blinking at the strong sunlight filling the room. She was lying on her stomach, her face buried in her pillow. The voice came from behind her and she rolled over automatically turning towards it, disturbing her covers as she did so. It wasn’t until she felt the cool, fresh air from the open window slide over her skin that she remembered her nudity and by then it was too late to prevent Joel’s thorough scrutiny of her bare shoulders and breasts.
Thankful that she couldn’t see his expression, Cassie reached shakily for the sheet, recoiling as though she had been burned when his fingers brushed against hers.
‘Such modesty,’ he drawled softly, watching the colour stain her skin. He retained his grip of the sheet, and Cassie was burningly aware of his fingers resting against the upper swell of her breast.
‘Who would have thought you were so femininely shaped beneath those drab garments you seem to favour?’
Cassie couldn’t bear to look at him as she heard his mocking taunt. He seemed to enjoy hurting her. She knew quite well how he must view her body when he compared it to those of his other women.
‘Don’t…’ the protest was uttered before she could silence it, her voice thick with anguish and shame. She thought his eyebrows drew together frowningly as she struggled to make out his expression, longing for the protection of her clothes.
‘Don’t what?’ he demanded softly, and it seemed to Cassie that he was watching her quite intently. ‘Don’t tell you that you have an attractive body?’
Her moan of protest was completely instinctive, but it seemed to have an odd effect on Joel. Instead of laughing at her, he said tautly, ‘What is it, Cassie? Aren’t I allowed to comment on my wife’s sexuality? Is that privilege reserved for Williams? Is that it?’
Cassie fought to understand what he was saying, her forehead furrowing.
‘Nothing to say?’
The fingers that had been resting against her skin curled round the sheet, yanking it down to her waist before she could stop him. She reacted instinctively, reaching blindly for it and trying to pull it up again.
‘Stop!’ Joel’s curt command stilled her frantic movements. ‘You’re my wife. Surely I can look at you if I wish?’
Cassie felt the bed depress under his weight as he sat down on it. His hand seemed to burn into the skin of her waist as he held the sheet against her there. He was close enough to her for her just to be able to make out his features. His eyes seemed a darker, deeper blue than she remembered, his facial bones tighter, his mouth surprisingly, not hard, but curved into a line of sensual warmth.
‘Please leave me alone and go away.’ Cassie blurted out the plea, as she tried to control the tremors invading her body.
‘In a minute. Right now I feel more like kissing my new wife.’
‘No.’ The word exploded into the air between them.
‘Why not?’ His voice was deceptively causal. ‘Last night you were only too eager to be kissed; to compare me with Peter Williams.’
He was leaning towards her and Cassie felt the breath stifle in her throat. He had not the slightest desire to kiss her really she knew that, but beneath the suave smile he was giving her she sensed a deep vein of burning anger; a force too great to be contained, demanding expression in an explosion of violence and for some reason he was directing that violence towards her. Tears stung the back of her throat. Why was he tormenting her like this? Did he really loathe her so much?
Numbly she watched his hands move, slowly cupping her breasts, his thumbs stroking their tender crests. His touch was light and gentle but Cassie still shivered beneath it, her tremors increasing as she gradually became aware of the feelings his touch was arousing inside her. Part of her wanted to melt; to dissolve beneath the sweet torment of his touch; to yield herself completely in a way that was entirely instinctive, but her mind urged caution warning her that she was being used; that Joel was playing some demoniacal game of his own and that she could only be hurt if she joined in it.
With a tremendous effort of will Cassie averted her eyes from the sight of Joel’s hands on her body, fighting to control her racing heart and deny the prickles of awareness sensitising her skin.
‘Have you seen the Press?’
Her voice seemed to come from far away, weak and thickly husky.
‘Yes.’ The cool emotionless affirmative was uttered without him ceasing stroking her skin. Beneath the delicate caresses Cassie could feel her nipples hardening, burgeoning like delicate flowers opening to the sun.
‘So you are female after all.’
The mocking words cut into her skin like lashes, burning her with pain. She wanted to struggle but sensed dimly that for some reason Joel wanted her to do just that.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked him numbly, unable to choke back the pain-filled demand.
‘You’re my wife, and since my girlfriend tells me that she is not prepared to share my bed as long as I remain married to you it seems only fair that you should take her place, wouldn’t you say?’
Several facts struck Cassie at the same time. Firstly, and somehow most painfully, he must have gone straight from her to the blonde woman she had seen him with in the restaurant. Secondly, he was furiously, bitterly angry at his girlfriend’s defection, and Cassie no longer wondered about the source of the chained violence she had sensed in him the moment he touched her.
‘This wasn’t part of our agreement,’ she told him quietly, ‘and I don’t want this from you, Joel.’
For a moment he seemed surprised; then she saw the speculation darken his eyes as she forced herself to meet them.
‘I could make you want it,’ he threatened softly. The pads of his thumbs lingered on the hard nubs of her breasts and for one crazy moment Cassie was tempted to encourage him, to push him in to making good his threat. After all she was human wasn’t she? Just as capable of experiencing desire and need as any more attractive woman. Just because she was plain it didn’t mean she couldn’t feel…what? Desire? A need to be convinced that she was desirable? Capable of arousing a man? Brought abruptly down to earth Cassie shuddered deeply. What was she thinking of? Joel didn’t desire her. He was motivated purely by a need to punish her sex. The narrowness of her escape shocked her. She had been within a heartbeat of begging him to make love to her. The humiliation of this admission made her skin sting with hot colour, the heat that had previously infiltrated her veins, heating her body into languorous desire, draining away and leaving in its place a sick self-disgust.
‘You mean you could make my body want it,’ she told Joel dully, ‘but I won’t be used to assuage your need for another woman, Joel.’ She faced him squarely, forcing herself to overcome her embarrassment at her nudity. Now that she looked at him properly she could see tiredness and disillusionment clearly outlined on his face. His glance glittered briefly over her body and then returned to meet hers.
‘Very well, my cold little virgin wife,’ he taunted curtly, ‘but first perhaps you ought to have a little taste of what you’re refusing.’
He had pinned her back against the bed before she could move, the faintly rough fabric of his casual wool shirt rubbing against her breasts, the full weight of his body hard against hers, as his fingers curled into her hair and tightened almost painfully, forcing her to lie unmoving, unable to turn her head to avoid the downward descent of his head. She watched his mouth coming nearer, her heart thudding heavily, her breathing constricted. Without her being aware of it her lips parted and quivered tensely. A dark flush stained Joel’s cheekbones, his eyes glittering febrilely.
This time there was no lightly persuasive strokes of his lips and tongue against her mouth, just a hungry, angry pressure as it slanted across hers, enveloping her in a fiercely sexual tide of mingled rage and need.
When she refused to open her mouth his teeth nipped painfully at her bottom lip, his tongue savouring the small drop of blood that welled from the wound the moment after her inarticulate cry of pain forced her lips to part.
Cassie fought the domination of his kiss instinctively and fiercely, arching her back in an attempt to dislodge his weight from her body, but all he did was tangle his fingers more painfully into her hair, holding her head rigid as he released one hand and used it to grip her waist as she arched, forcing her against the hard length of his body.
Only when he had finally subdued her, did the fierce pressure of his mouth relent a little, his tongue caressing the swollen soreness of her bottom lip, his hands leaving her hair to stroke slowly down her body.
During their struggles several buttons of his shirt had come undone and Cassie flinched back automatically from the rough contact of his body hair against the tender peaks of her breasts.
‘For such a slim little thing you have a surprisingly voluptuous body.’
The husky words made her tense, her eyes opening to meet what she felt would be the taunting mockery of Joel’s. Instead hi
s eyes were a deeply dense blue, his mouth hovering over hers as he breathed the words into her.
‘Your breasts fit perfectly into my hands,’ he told her, demonstrating the truth of his words.
Cassie shuddered, feeling her body’s instant response, knowing she was quivering in reaction to the slow circles Joel was drawing round her nipples and unable to do a thing about it. He was teaching her body patterns of response it would remember until she drew her last breath, she thought achingly. He moved and she felt the rough abrasion of the dark hairs covering his chest scrape arousingly against her skin. It was an effort to draw breath into her taut lungs and when Joel bent his head towards the soft swell of her breast Cassie could only watch him torn between longing and despair.
She made a sound in her throat a soft groan that seemed to drain the tension out of Joel. He looked at her and smiled, a cold, mocking smile that made her want to cry out in acute pain.
‘There,’ he said softly, as he released her. ‘That’s something for you to think about the next time you start comparing me with Peter Williams.’
She turned her head away as he left her room, she was overcome with a mixture of humiliation and self-contempt. What was he doing to her? Shaking her head Cassie pulled back the bedcovers and ran into her bathroom, quickly locking the door and turning on the shower, wanting to punish her body with the sting of cold water, for its betrayal.
Joel wasn’t by nature a sadistic man; instinct told her that, and yet he was showing towards her a streak of cruelty that seemed to have no logic to it. He had chosen to marry her of his own free will. She had known he didn’t desire her as a proper wife without him having to reinforce that lesson. Had his behaviour sprung entirely from his quarrel with his girlfriend? Could frustration drive a man to the point where he could behave as Joel had behaved towards her this morning? He was an attractive virile man, and an extremely wealthy one, Cassie couldn’t imagine that he would have the slightest trouble in finding a replacement for his blonde playmate. He couldn’t have been in love with her. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did know it. Joel Howard would never allow himself to be vulnerable enough to any woman to fall in love. He hated and despised her sex Cassie thought as she towelled herself dry, punishing them all perhaps for his mother’s failings?