‘How dare you?’
‘It’s a bit late for false modesty.’ He put a hand up to her burning cheek, running his finger along its length and down her neck, halting teasingly as he came to the soft naked mounds of her breasts. ‘My, you have caught the sun, haven’t you? Perhaps you should have let me oil your front.’
Angrily brushing past him, she fled for the safety of her room. But there was no haven to be found there: the bed seemed to mock her, forcing an instant recall of another place, another time, their tumbling bodies replaying in her mind like some erotic foreign movie stumbled upon by accident, their limbs locked in tremulous unison more erotic than any fantasy.
‘Only business, huh?’ He strode over to her, one finger flicking her nipple, giving a knowing, mocking smile as it swelled at the merest touch. His other hand was expertly untangling the tie of her bikini bottom. ‘All just an act, huh?’
She should have run—slapped him, kicked him—but she stood there rigid, every muscle, every taut nerve shivering with shameful desire.
‘I can have you any time I want,’ he repeated.
He was poisonous, arrogant and loathsome; but he was right, damn him. He was so right, and there was nothing she could say otherwise.
‘You want me, Tabitha.’ He spat her name.
‘I don’t.’ Her voice was a mere croak. He had freed one strap and now ran a teasing finger through the damp Titian mound of down as he plied the other strap, his breath hot and hard on her warm oiled body. The towel slinked around his hips slithered down without a sound, and she started in excitement at the angry swelling that baited her, that summoned her body just by its presence. ‘I don’t.’
She was naked now, exposed. He threw the saffron garment aside, parting her legs with his hand. He slid his fingers into her warmth as her throat constricted against a gasp of protest.
‘I don’t remember oiling you here.’
Her breathing matched his now, gasping, uneven, and she felt herself contract around his fingers, felt her body arching towards his.
‘Tell me to stop and I will.’ His thumb was massaging her swollen nub as his fingers snaked inside her slippery warmth. ‘Tell me to stop,’ he ordered, pushing her back onto the bed, parting her legs further with his muscular thigh.
His erection teased her at the entrance to her Nirvana, a tiny thrust that took her to the edge. She was pushing against him now, urging him to come deeper, but still he held back, the swell of him awaiting the formal invitation that she was loath yet desperate to give.
‘Tell me to stop.’
She shook her head, Titian curls splaying over the pillows. ‘No!’
‘No, you don’t want me, or no, don’t stop?’
His restraint was agony, his manhood swelling at her entrance as her legs wrapped like a vice around him.
‘No, don’t stop,’ she gasped.
Still he made her wait, inching his way just a fraction deeper as she writhed beneath him.
‘Say you want me,’ he ordered, and though it repulsed her to beg she was beyond reason, her need for him so urgent nothing else mattered.
‘I want you!’ She was nearly screaming, her legs coiling around him as he plunged into her, swelling the instant he entered her, their bodies exploding in unison, contracting, tightening as the world rushed around them. With a moan he collapsed on her, groaning, the last shuddering spasms of their union pulsing together as they lay in the moistened sheen of their skins. And as she lay there, listening to his breathing even out, one arm wrapped around her, the lazy hand softly cupping her bottom, his maleness filling the air she breathed, tears sprang from her eyes.
Surely she could tell him now? Surely, deep down, he must already know?
It took a second to register that the telephone was ringing, but her anger at the intrusion paled as she heard the thin, thready voice of her grandmother.
He watched her as she took the call, watched the rosy glow of her cheeks fade as she held the telephone, her knuckles white around the receiver, her lips taut as she mumbled into the phone.
‘Was that your bookie?’
His attempt at a joke didn’t even raise a smile, and with a start he watched the tears form in Tabitha’s eyes, her lashes crushing the moisture as she screwed her eyes shut and fought for control.
‘What’s happened?’ His voice was clipped, formal, even as he snapped into the businessman that he was: ready to deal at a second’s notice with whatever was thrown at him.
‘My grandmother,’ Tabitha started, ‘she’s sold the house.’
‘To pay off her debt?’
Tabitha shrugged; pulling the sheet around her, she covered her breasts. ‘I’d already taken care of that.’ She looked up. ‘Or rather you had.’ Her fingers were pleating the sheet; she was chewing her bottom lip as she dealt with the bombshell that had just exploded. ‘She’s sold up and is moving into a retirement village with a man she’s apparently fallen head over heels in love with. She’s going to pay me back—that was why she rang. She wanted to tell me before the wedding.’
‘So you wouldn’t have to go through with it?’ His voice was strained, hoarse, his austere façade disintegrating with every word. ‘Did you tell her our marriage was all a sham?’
‘No.’ Tears were streaming now, his apt description the salt in the wound. ‘She thought it would make things easier for us—you know, a young couple starting out and all that…’
‘We’re hardly teenagers.’
‘I told her that,’ Tabitha agreed, wiping her cheeks with the edge of the sheet. ‘And I told her she didn’t have to rush—after all, we wouldn’t exactly have starved.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s not as if you need the money…’
‘I meant why the sudden past tense, Tabitha? What’s with the “we wouldn’t have”? Shouldn’t you be saying “we won’t”?’
‘I can pay you back the money I owe you,’ she sobbed, looking at his perplexed face. ‘She’s sold her house, I tell you. His name’s Bruce…’
‘I don’t give a damn what his name is.’ Realisation was dawning for both of them, with aching clarity, and he ran a hand through his tousled hair, the muscle jumping in his cheek the only sign he was anything other than completely calm. ‘I could still make you go through with it,’ he hissed. ‘The contract covered everything.’
Not quite. Tabitha fiddled with the stone on her finger. Not once did it mention love. She could feel the moisture of their lovemaking between her legs, slipping away from her as surely as Zavier was. ‘You can’t force me, Zavier, you’ve no hold over me now. I can back out if I want to.’
He stood up, walking over to the window and staring broodingly outside, his nakedness mocking her now, a teasing taste of what she could have had—for six months at least.
‘But I won’t.’ His back was to her. She saw the set of his shoulders, the quilted muscles beneath the olive skin, and she ached to reach out for him. ‘I still want to marry you.’
She watched him stiffen more, if that was possible.
‘Why?’
Still his back was to her; still he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Tabitha was grateful for the reprieve. This was hard enough without being humiliated further, seeing the scorn, the triumph in his eyes when she told him she loved him.
‘Because…’ The words were there but her mouth simply wouldn’t obey her. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Do I have to spell it out?’
He turned then. The scorn she had predicted was there in his eyes, but there wasn’t even a trace of triumph, just a sneering look of distaste.
‘Money?’ His lips twisted around the word. ‘God, you’re even more desperate for it than I thought.’
She could have put him right then, pleaded her case and told him the truth, but what purpose would it have served? He was as damaged as Aiden; sure, he didn’t drown himself in alcohol, but his problems ran just as deep, his soul was just as damaged. Not once had it even entered his head that he
r reason for sleeping with him, for agreeing to this charade, for marrying him, might be love.
‘Do you know why I despise you so much, Tabitha?’
She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear his scathing comments, but some sadistic streak made her answer. Running a tongue over her dry lips, she heard her voice come out in a coarse whisper. ‘Why?’
‘Because beneath that smile, beneath that trusting little face and that easygoing laugh, you’re as hard as nails.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘This time tomorrow you’ll be Mrs Tabitha Chambers—if a bolt of lightning doesn’t strike you down first.’ Slamming out of the adjoining door into his own room, he left her there, on the bed, shocked and reeling at his outburst.
She ached to go after him, to somehow explain that money had nothing to do with this—but what was the point?
She felt sorry for him.
Sorry that his life had left him so scarred, so untrusting that he simply didn’t believe in love.
Six months.
Six months of holding him at night, waking to him each morning. The mental abacus was starting again. One hundred and eighty days to shower love on him, to show him that life could be so much sweeter, so much easier with love on your side.
This time tomorrow she would be wearing his ring, would be blessed with the saving grace of time.
This time tomorrow she would tell him she loved him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘YOU look beautiful.’
Tabitha smiled at Aiden’s reflection in the mirror as he slipped into the room.
‘She’d look even better if she stayed still for five minutes,’ Carla the hairdresser grumbled as she pierced Tabitha’s scalp with yet another pin. Checking the tiara was firmly secured, she almost asphyxiated her client with yet another waft of hairspray before standing back to admire her handiwork. ‘He’s right; you do look beautiful.’
Even Tabitha agreed. The sophisticated woman staring demurely back at her from the mirror was nothing like the dizzy redhead she knew so well. The wild Titian curls were sleek and straight, caught at the back of her neck in an elegant chignon, her fringe was smooth and silken, falling seductively over one eye, and though she felt as if she were wearing a ton of make-up her complexion looked clear and smooth, with a dusting of rose on her cheeks and her eyeshadow a smudgy brown, accentuating the jade eyes. Only her lips were heavy, the dusky red tones making her mouth look wide and sensual.
‘Thought this might help,’ Aiden said once Carla had gone. Holding two glasses up, he pulled a bottle of champagne from under his jacket. ‘I swiped it from one of the tables.’ Expertly popping the cork, he handed her a glass before proposing a toast.
‘To my dear friend Tabitha, who after today will also be my sister-in-law. The sisterly advice will still be freely available, I hope?’ he asked in a jokey voice after draining his glass in one.
‘Of course.’
‘And this is still all about business?’ The jokey edge had gone, his voice cautious, his eyes concerned.
Tabitha hesitated, but only for a second. Confiding in Aiden was practically second nature, after all, but this was one thing Zavier definitely deserved to hear first. ‘Absolutely.’
‘You know, despite my earlier reservations, this wedding isn’t turning out to be such a bad thing after all. My father’s so delighted with the whole caboodle he seems to have forgotten to be angry with me. I took him for a walk this morning. We couldn’t go on the beach, obviously, what with his chair, but I pushed him along the pier and we spoke.’
‘How was it?’
Aiden shrugged. ‘Better than it has been. He even made a few noises about going to look at my paintings. Apparently Zavier’s been to see them and persuaded Dad to take a look.’
‘Zavier went to see them?’
‘Yep. He’s a dark horse, isn’t he? After the way he’s criticised my painting, never in a million years did I think he’d actually be the one sticking up for me, and to Dad of all people. You just can’t imagine how much that meant to me. Dad still managed a few barbs, though, about how I needed to face up to life, grow up and all that, but on the whole it was great.’
After putting on her dress, Tabitha lifted the sheer, simple veil as Aiden pulled up her zip. ‘Maybe he’s worried about your drinking,’ she ventured nervously, slipping on her mules so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
‘Not you as well,’ Aiden groaned. ‘Darling, you’re even starting to sound like an old married woman.’
‘I care about you, Aiden, and…’ Her voice trailed off. She was scared of pushing, yet scared to say nothing when it was so obviously needed.
‘Go on,’ Aiden offered, with a slight edge to his voice. ‘Don’t stop now.’
‘You do drink too much.’
‘Said the gambler to the alcoholic.’
Tabitha smiled. ‘And you’re starting to sound like your brother; he used the same line on me a while back.’ Her hand touched his arm. It wasn’t the time, it wasn’t the place, but Aiden was her friend and some things just had to be said.
Perhaps it was a day for the truth.
‘You’re drinking every day, Aiden, and for the best part of it too. I’m allowed to be worried.’
‘Not today you’re not. Today you just have to worry about looking beautiful.’ He stood back and stared at her slowly as she looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror.
‘Which you do; if I didn’t know otherwise I’d say you look every bit the blushing bride. You know, Tab, if I wasn’t gay you’d be the woman of my dreams.’
She gave a small laugh. The simple lilac velvet dress hugged her curves, slipping over the hollows of her stomach. The gentle gathering at the bust accentuated her full soft breasts, the thin straps not detracting from her delicate collarbone where her one and only heirloom glittered—a diamond necklace her father had once given to her mother. She fingered the stone, overcome with sadness for what she had lost so young, for the family cruelly torn apart and for what her parents had lost: the dream of seeing their daughter walking down the aisle.
Aiden was right, she looked every bit the blushing bride, but despite the lies, despite the circumstances, the guilt was gone.
All of it.
When the music played, when she walked on Aiden’s arm to join her future husband, she would be doing it with a clear conscience and with her parents’ blessing; she just knew that deep down. As she spoke her vows her voice would be steady, for she would be speaking the truth.
Because she loved him.
‘I got you this.’ Digging in his pocket, Aiden pulled out a diamond bracelet. He had to hold her shaking hand steady as he clipped it on.
‘It’s beautiful. But, Aiden, I thought you said you weren’t getting any presents.’
He shook his head. ‘This isn’t a wedding present; it’s a friendship bracelet. Even when you’re an old divorcee and moaning about Zavier we’re still going to be best friends. Hey,’ he said, alarmed as tears welled in her eyes. ‘You’ll ruin your make-up.’
‘I’m sorry.’ His crack about divorce hadn’t exactly helped, but given the emotion of the moment Aiden let it pass without too much inspection and gently wiped a stray tear away. ‘Thanks for doing this today, Aiden. I’m glad you’re here with me.’
‘I wouldn’t be anywhere else.’ Glancing at his watch, he offered his arm. ‘Come on, you, let’s get this over with. I’m dying for a Scotch.’ A tiny wink creased his left eye as Tabitha’s lips pursed. ‘I know I need help, Tab, and I really am going to do something about it. I just need to get used to the idea for a while. A lifetime of abstinence doesn’t really sound my forte.’
He stood there smiling and she took his arm, her dearest friend holding her as they walked through the house and across the lawn.
An arch of roses was the only barrier between Tabitha and her vows, and she listened as the orchestra paused and the congregation stilled.
‘You’re sure about this?’ Aiden offered for the very last
time.
Her heels were sinking in the grass, butterflies jumping in her stomach as she listened to the delicious sound of Wagner trickling through the hazy afternoon air. Stepping on to the carpet, she fiddled with her dress before taking Aiden’s arm.
‘I’m sure,’ she said softly.
‘Then let’s go.’
Every eye turned as she stepped through the arch. She heard the gasps for a fleeting moment, saw the congregation—her friends, her grandmother with her partner, Marjory, grinning widely, Jeremy pale and proud beside her—and then her eyes were on Zavier.
He swallowed as she entered, his eyes meeting hers, his hands clenched by his sides as his chin jutted upwards. She knew he was nervous, and so was she, but her confidence in this unison, her utter love for him, was enough for them both.
They walked slowly, Aiden steadying her, beaming faces welcoming her as she walked to the man she loved.
And though in the days that followed Tabitha would rewind and replay the scene like a perpetual video in her mind, she would never be quite sure how it actually happened. Whether Marjory’s piercing scream or the loud crash came first.
Her first ridiculous thought was that the bolt of lightning Zavier had darkly predicted had somehow come to fruition, but just as she discarded that notion, as she watched the gaze of the crowd frantically turn to the front, she registered that Jeremy was lying on the floor, his grey face darkening, blue around the lips, his body limp, spread-eagled where he had collapsed to the floor.
It was Tabitha who moved first. Everyone else stood frozen to the spot, the video stuck on freeze-frame. With her heart in her mouth Tabitha raced over. Already breathless from the emotion of seeing Zavier, she had to force herself to slow down, to calmly and methodically assess the situation and do what little she could.
‘Jeremy!’ She called his name loudly, once maybe twice, as her trembling hand reached for Jeremy’s neck, her long fingers searching for a pulse. Her eyes moved to his chest, looking for a movement, the tiniest indication that he was breathing. She could feel every eye on her. An eerie silence had descended and there was no need to call for quiet as she placed an ear to the lifeless chest, listening for a heartbeat, listening for the breath of life, frantically trying to remember what she should do, to recall the information she had learnt on a long-ago first aid course.
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