Such Sweet Poison/Blind Passion

by Anne Mather

  Helen tried to regulate the intake of air to her lungs, but with him standing barely an arm’s length away, it wasn’t easy. If it wouldn’t have appeared rude, or childish, or both, she would have liked to keep a safe distance between them. But with the sea behind her, and her only route back blocked by his lean, muscular figure, she felt out of her depth, and helpless.

  Realising the most sensible course was to behave naturally, she shook her head now and glanced about her. ‘Um—surely you don’t have to work all the time,’ she said rather breathily, as if that were the only topic on her mind. ‘My—my boss says, you have to learn to delegate.’

  ‘Oh, I do delegate.’ Reed turned his head to look at her, and she wished she had kept her mouth shut. ‘But I spend a lot of time travelling to the various branches of the bank. And I guess I use my work as compensation.’

  As compensation!

  Helen swallowed. ‘I see.’ It was safer not to make the obvious rejoinder. Their situation was unreal enough as it was.

  Reed’s expression altered then, and, watching the way his teeth came to draw his lower lip between them, Helen was not reassured. It seemed obvious that he was not deceived by her attempt at evasion, and she looked down at her feet to avoid his knowing eyes.

  ‘Are you in love with Jon?’

  Helen caught her breath. The question was so unexpected that for a moment she could only stare at him. Then, gathering her wits, she said unsteadily, ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘I know it’s not.’ Reed scuffed the toe of his shoe against the rocks. ‘But I’d like to know anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  Helen needed some time to regain her composure, but unless she could defuse this situation there didn’t seem much prospect of that.

  ‘Why do you think?’ he asked now, and she couldn’t prevent her disbelieving gaze from seeking his yet again.

  ‘I—don’t know,’ she said, rubbing her moist palms against her thighs. ‘Because—because you’re his father, I suppose.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Reed’s lips twisted. ‘What other reason could there be?’ he observed, but it was not a question. ‘Perhaps you think I’m having second thoughts, about approving of your relationship.’

  Helen hesitated. ‘Are you?’

  Reed looked at her wryly for a moment, and then ran long brown fingers through his hair. ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot.’

  Helen moved her head quickly from side to side. ‘Well—so have I, as it happens,’ she admitted honestly. ‘And you don’t have to worry. I know what I have to do.’

  ‘Do you?’ Reed regarded her firmly now. ‘I wish to hell I did. I wish my situation were as simple as yours.’

  Helen swallowed. ‘As simple as mine,’ she echoed. ‘What makes you think—?’

  ‘I did go back,’ he said abruptly, and Helen’s jaw sagged as he drew a harsh breath. ‘To the wine bar,’ he added, as if she needed any elucidation. ‘I went back. But you weren’t there.’

  Helen gulped. ‘You’re not serious!’ She could feel a wave of hysteria rising inside her. ‘Oh, God! Do you expect me to believe you? You didn’t go back to the wine bar, and I despise you for pretending you did.’

  ‘I’m not pretending.’

  ‘Oh, please—’

  Helen turned away then, her arms pressed across her midriff as if to quell the sense of nausea she was feeling. That he should tell such bare-faced lies, she thought sickly. That he would even think he could make her believe he had cared enough to come back.

  He was lying. He had to be lying. Despite Bryan Korda’s threats about reporting her, she had continued to work for Clive for almost six weeks after the night she had spent with Reed. And he had never come back. Dear God, hadn’t she looked for him in every face that came into the bar? Hadn’t she cried herself to sleep for weeks, when he hadn’t appeared? Eventually, of course, she had had to accept that she had been a fool. That a man like him took his pleasure where he found it, with no thought for the consequences. But that hadn’t stopped her wanting to see him again, and she had gone through hell in those weeks, before she’d lost all hope.

  Then, when she’d found out she was going to have his baby, her puerile fantasies had given way to raw panic. She’d been young, and she’d been unmarried, and the feelings she had been nurturing for Reed had no longer seemed so romantic. That was when her parents had proved to be such a tower of strength. And, even though they had been hurt by her refusal to tell them who the baby’s father was, they had helped and supported her through those difficult days.

  Of course, years later, she had told them the truth. When Alexa had reached school age, and Helen had been old enough to forbid her father to do anything about it. And then it had all seemed like such a hackneyed story. The pathetic confession of someone who should have known better. But they had never reproached her for it, even though they must have wondered where they, themselves, as parents, had gone wrong…

  ‘Helen—’

  His use of her name caused a tiny draught of air to fan the nape of her neck, and she realised that, while she had been remembering the past, he had closed the space between them. He was standing right behind her now, and even as she became aware of it his hands curved lightly over the shrinking flesh of her upper arms.

  ‘Please—’

  It seemed to be the only word she could articulate, and, although she would have liked to use some stronger expletive to get him to release her, her brain seemed frozen.

  ‘Relax,’ he said softly. ‘For God’s sake, don’t be afraid of me! I only want to talk to you. To set the record straight.’

  ‘There is no record to set straight,’ said Helen stiffly, moving her arms to evade his hands, and with a weary sigh he let her go. But he didn’t move away.

  ‘I did go back to the wine bar, but—’ as she began to protest again ‘—we won’t go into that now. Nevertheless, it’s relevant to what I’m saying. However unlikely that may seem.’

  Helen closed her eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about this—’

  ‘Well, I do.’ She heard his harsh intake of breath. ‘Lord, what did you expect? You can’t believe something like this can happen, without there being repercussions. Since—well, since we spoke on the yacht, I’ve thought of nothing else.’

  ‘Really?’

  Somehow, despite her agitation, Helen managed to put some sarcasm into her tone, and as if her attitude had angered him Reed shifted impatiently.

  ‘Yes, really,’ he muttered, and she could sense the tension in his taut body. ‘And, whether you believe me or not, you’re going to listen to my side of the story.’

  Helen’s hands clenched at her sides. Damn him, she thought, she didn’t want to listen to anything he had to say. He was too damn plausible, that was the trouble. Even after all these years, there was still a part of her that wanted to believe him. And that was what frightened her most.

  But she couldn’t let him know that, and adopting an indifferent stance she lifted one slim shoulder. ‘Well,’ she said, gazing out across the Sound, as if anything he had to say were of little interest to her, ‘you have had three days to think of an explanation.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Reed swore then, and it was obvious from the words he used that he had no trouble in thinking of expletives. ‘You just don’t want to understand, do you? My God, did you honestly expect me to remember every detail of what happened ten years ago in the space of a few minutes?’

  ‘I—don’t—care,’ said Helen carefully, but Reed was not prepared to believe her now.

  ‘Don’t you?’ he snapped, and when his hands gripped her arms again and jerked her back against him, she was left in no doubt that this time he was not going to be ignored. ‘Well, that’s too bad. Because you are going to hear what I have to say.’

  Helen thought of struggling with him, but she had had experience of his strength, and she had no intention of making this situation any more humiliating than it already was. Instead
, she bore the discomfort of his fingers digging into her soft flesh, and tried to ignore the pressure of his pelvis against her buttocks.

  ‘I—think you’d better let me go,’ she said, with as much conviction as she could muster. Her hand brushed his thigh, and she jerked it away automatically. ‘I mean it,’ she added evenly. ‘This is—silly. Someone—someone might see us.’

  Reed’s breathing was heavy in her ear. ‘Who?’ he countered harshly. ‘Jon?’ He paused. ‘Does that bother you?’

  Helen took a trembling breath. ‘It—it should—bother you. And—and there’s Victoria.’

  Reed bent his head then, and as he did so his hair brushed the side of her neck. With her hair drawn into its usual braid, she had no protection from him, and the feel of his hair against her skin was unbearably disturbing. ‘What—what if I say I don’t care?’ he enquired, and she couldn’t be sure, but she thought his lips touched the delicate contours of her ear.

  ‘You do care,’ she protested, but it was a desperate response at best. The longer he held her, the less she wanted him to let her go, and it was almost impossible to prevent her head from tipping towards his tempting mouth.

  ‘Shut up, and listen,’ he ordered grimly, though his hands on her arms were no longer hurting her. ‘When I went back to England, you were not still working in that wine bar.’

  Helen shivered. ‘Wh-when you went back to England,’ she echoed painfully. ‘You mean, you had a conscience about me?’

  ‘A conscience about you?’ For a moment, Reed sounded as if he didn’t understand her, but then comprehension seemed to dawn. ‘No,’ he told her abrasively. ‘At least, not in the way you mean. I didn’t go back because I’d had second thoughts. I went back because I wanted to tell you why I’d gone away.’

  ‘I—don’t—want to hear,’ she moaned, twisting her head back, and then wishing she hadn’t when she encountered the unyielding expanse of his chest. And, because his head was still bent towards her, her soft cheek grazed the rougher skin of his jawline. ‘Please, I want you to let me go. I don’t want to hear any more lies.’

  ‘They’re not lies, damn you. It’s the truth,’ grated Reed savagely. ‘The morning after—the morning after we were—together, my lawyer called me from Bermuda.’ He took a steadying breath, and then continued, ‘You know now that Diana and I were separated. Well, he called to tell me that Diana had come over in my absence, and taken Jon back to the States.’

  Helen blinked. ‘Jon?’

  ‘Yes, Jon.’ Reed breathed unevenly. ‘And, be lieve it or not, at that time my son’s happiness meant more to me than anything else.’

  Helen moistened her lips. ‘But—if he went with her—’

  ‘He was eleven years old,’ said Reed harshly. ‘He didn’t have a lot of choice.’

  Helen absorbed what he had said. ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’ Reed twisted her round to face him then, and she was alarmed at the greyness of his expression. ‘Do you really? Or are you just saying that?’

  Helen swallowed. ‘If it’s true—’

  ‘It is.’ Reed’s mouth thinned. ‘It took me almost two months to get him back again.’

  Helen nodded. ‘All right.’

  Reed expelled his breath wearily. ‘You believe me?’

  Helen nodded again. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘If I say so?’ Reed stared at her, his eyes dark with frustration. ‘Helen, as God’s my witness, it’s the truth. At least tell me you believe me!’

  Helen didn’t know what to believe. As she had half expected, his story had been perfectly plausible, but she was afraid to consider its implications. If Reed was telling the truth, if he had gone back to Bermuda to fight his ex-wife for his son, where did that leave her? And how could she blame him now for not being there when she needed him?

  ‘Helen!’

  He shook her gently now, his hands sliding from her shoulders to her throat. But not aggressively, like that day on the yacht. This time, his touch was sensitive, sensuous, his thumbs probing the hollows behind her ears, his eyes narrow and intent.

  ‘Now, tell me,’ he said huskily, ‘are you in love with my son?’

  Helen found herself shaking her head almost involuntarily.

  ‘I’m glad.’ His lips twisted, almost with a trace of self-mockery. ‘I know what I did was wrong, but I don’t know if I could bear to live with the knowledge that you were Jon’s wife.’

  Helen’s throat felt tight. ‘You—won’t—have—to.’

  ‘No.’ Reed’s eyes dropped to her mouth. ‘Only with what might have been, hmm? I’m sorry I hurt you. That wasn’t how it was meant to be.’

  Helen’s control snapped. ‘You didn’t hurt me,’ she choked out, putting up her hands to wrench his hands from her neck, only it didn’t work that way. Instead her hands closed round his wrists and clung, and when she turned tear-filled eyes up to his face Reed’s own restraint crumbled.

  ‘You said—’ he began, in a strangled voice, and then could go no further.

  ‘I lied,’ she told him, knowing he deserved the truth. And, aware she had gone too far to back off now, she added, ‘People do that to defend themselves. Why do you think I didn’t believe you?’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  Reed’s groan was anguished as he tipped her face up to his. His hands threaded into her hair, loosening her braid, and causing the fiery curls to catch the sun. Then, with a feeling of inevitability, she saw him bend his head towards her, and his lips found hers in a tentative caress.

  Helen’s limbs melted, and her hands clutched his waist in a desperate effort to support herself. His shirt parted from his shorts as she dug her nails into the cloth, and the warm skin of his midriff was like silk beneath her fingers.

  Reed sucked in his breath then, as if he found the sensation of her hands on his flesh as disturbing as she did. And when her arms slipped round his waist, and her palms spread against the moist hollow of his spine, he made a ragged sound of protest.

  But he didn’t let her go. And his lips, which moments before had been tasting her lips with infinite gentleness, hardened perceptibly as she burrowed closer. She was against him now, her breasts crushed against his chest, her stomach and thighs intensely conscious of the solid muscles supporting her.

  His tongue thrust between her teeth, brooking no denial, and her lips parted instinctively. Hot, and wet, and sensual, it took possession of her mouth as surely as he had once taken possession of her body, and she was no more capable of resisting him now than she had been then.

  His hands moved from her hair to her arms, sliding beneath the wide sleeves of the jumpsuit and massaging the yielding flesh. Every inch of her body seemed sensitised to his touch, and when the buttons at the neckline of the suit parted she didn’t attempt to prevent them. But, because she wasn’t wearing a bra on this occasion, her breasts were unprotected, and Reed’s hands found their swollen peaks with evident satisfaction.

  He was kissing her unrestrainedly now, his mouth hungry and disruptive, and burningly intent. He was kissing her as if doing so had been all he had thought about for the last ten years, and Helen could feel her senses slipping far beyond her control. She could feel his arousal too, a hard tumescent pressure against her stomach that his thin clothing could barely contain. And she knew a mindless need to touch him that was carrying her over the brink…

  She never knew what alerted her to the fact that they were no longer alone. It was one of those odd coincidences that she should open her eyes just as Jon was striding back along the path, away from them. He didn’t realise she had seen him. The way he was moving it was a miracle that she had. Or perhaps a miracle was not the way to describe it. A disaster seemed closer to the truth.

  With a little moan she dragged herself away from Reed then, and it was only because he was still dazed by his emotions that he let her. He protested, of course, and he would have jerked her back into his arms, but somehow she evaded him, and pulled the bodice of her suit across her breasts.r />
  ‘Jon,’ she said, in a little choked voice, the sensitive tips of her breasts feeling sore against the soft fabric. ‘Jon—was here,’ she added, as Reed stared at her uncomprehendingly. ‘He—he saw us. But he didn’t say anything. He—went back up to the house.’

  ‘Hell!’

  Reed’s response was succinct and instantaneous, and Helen’s retreat from reality was halted. As he closed his eyes, and raked his scalp with hard, abrasive fingers, she made a shuddering return to her senses. What had she done? she asked herself unbelievingly. How had she allowed herself to participate in what had been, for him, merely a means of demonstrating his domination? He had wanted to prove a point, and he had succeeded. And because of that, she had to explain to Jon something she had hoped never to have to explain.

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Reed abruptly, but Helen didn’t want that. If Reed told his son they had once been lovers, heaven knew what interpretation Jon might make. She had Alexa to consider, and for Alexa’s sake she had to be careful.

  ‘No,’ she said now, buttoning her suit and turning away, but Reed was not allowing that.

  ‘No?’ he echoed harshly. ‘Why the hell not? He has to know sooner or later. And I’m the one to tell him.’

  ‘No,’ said Helen again, stepping round him carefully, so that Reed was left in no doubt that she didn’t want him to touch her. ‘I—I’ll speak to Jon. I got us into this mess, and—and I’ll get us out of it.’

  Reed’s mouth tightened. ‘Is that how you see this? As—a mess?’

  ‘What else?’ said Helen tautly. ‘Oh, let’s not pretend it meant—anything. To—to either of us. As—as you said on the yacht, we—we are attracted to one another. But that’s all it is. A physical attraction.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘BUT WHY DID you really not stay for the whole two weeks, Mum?’ Alexa was sitting cross-legged on the end of her mother’s bed, while Helen drank the cup of tea Mrs Caldwell had just brought up to her. ‘You never did tell us properly,’ her daughter persisted. ‘Did you and Jon have a row or something? Is that why he hasn’t been to see us, since you got back?’