The Tempestuous Flame

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Thanks!’ André growled, obviously not pleased by the other man’s attitude. But then he didn’t know he was her father; once he knew that he would understand his feelings better.

  She gave a wan smile to her father before she was literally dragged away. A quick thank-you to Babs and they left her house, André tersely requesting her address as he slammed the car into gear. The way that he drove she could only hope that all his anger would have been exhausted on the car before they reached her apartment, otherwise she was in for a very rough time of it.

  She let them into the apartment with her own key; Maggie would have gone to bed hours ago. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ She put her evening bag down on the glass-topped table.

  He was looking about him appreciatively. ‘Nice place you have here,’ he remarked. ‘Paid for by Matt, no doubt,’ he stated.

  Caroline moved forward. ‘André, about Matt, I—’

  He frowned darkly. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about Matt.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it, Caroline!’

  So it was back to Caroline now! ‘It’s important. He—’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ he swore angrily. ‘Don’t you know when to leave a subject alone? Your relationship with Matt isn’t something I care to discuss.’

  ‘But it’s our relationship that’s so important,’ she said desperately. ‘Matt isn’t—’

  ‘Will you shut up, girl!’ He pulled her against him, making her fully aware of his arousal. ‘I want to make love to you, not listen to what Matt is or isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, please, André,’ she cried. ‘Just let me explain.’

  ‘No.’ His mouth tightened. ‘The only thing I want you to do right now is kiss me. Kiss me as if your life depended on it,’ he ordered. ‘Because I think mine just may do.’

  His dark head bent and his lips claimed hers, forcing her mouth open to receive him. He devoured her with his mouth, making her forget all her carefully rehearsed explanations, all her excuses for her unforgivable lies, and think only of him and the way his hands caressed her body and his lips evoked pleasure almost too much to bear.

  He moved his head slightly to look down at her with passion-filled eyes, her body soft and pliant in his hands. ‘I’m hungry for you, Caro,’ he groaned, his voice husky with emotion. ‘Just hungry for you!’

  Her body moved against him of its own volition and she felt him quiver against her. She fitted against him as if they were made to join together, and her hands ran lovingly through his thick vibrant hair.

  Those tantalising lips ran down the side of her neck and across her bare shoulders. She groaned against him as his mouth fired her senses aflame, feeling herself lowered gently on to the sofa, her eyes pleading for his return as he moved across the room to turn off the lights, their only illumination now coming from the not too bright moon.

  André returned to her side, his jacket tossed carelessly aside, his shirt completely unbuttoned. He laid his long length beside her, his bare chest inciting her to more fevered caresses as their lips met and clung once more.

  ‘God, you’re beautiful!’ he moaned, his face buried in her long blonde hair. ‘I’ve thought of no one but you since you left the cottage, thought of nothing but the last time I held you in my arms. And I’ve cursed Sylvia a thousand times for her interruption. If she hadn’t called me at that moment then all this could have been mine.’ His lips travelled across the creamy expanse of skin visible above her strapless dress, his hands moving across her back to the zip with an expertise she hardly recognised.

  She felt the slight coolness of the zip travelling down and began to squirm in his arm. ‘Please, André, don’t do that.’

  He ignored her half-hearted plea, ravaging the nakedness of her breasts until she forgot her protests and gave herself up to the heated emotions of her own body, emotions that only his full possession of her would assauge.

  ‘You shouldn’t have left me,’ came his husky mutterings. ‘We could have stayed together at the cottage for days, weeks, as long as it pleased us to. You knew this was inevitable, that I would have to possess you in the end, so why make us wait, why make us both suffer this torment?’

  ‘I didn’t, André.’ Her eyes were violet with passion. ‘You frightened me, and you rushed me.’

  He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘And what do you think I’m doing now if I’m not rushing you? This time I’m not taking no for an answer.’

  She looked at him below lowered lids. ‘Who said I was going to say no?’ she asked softly.

  Again he chuckled. ‘And I said you had nothing to offer a man! You can give me all—’

  The sound of another key entering the lock stopped him in mid-sentence, and guessing it was her father she hastily pulled her gown back up, attempting to do up the zip and failing miserably in her panic. The two of them blinked painfully as the lights blazed on.

  Shock was written all over her father’s face as he looked at them, and Caroline could only imagine the sight they must look. ‘Good God!’ he muttered indistinctly. ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’ he looked at the other man questioningly.

  André stood up and she saw the chaos her caressing hands had wrought to his styled hair, making him more rakishly attractive than ever. ‘What are you doing here, Matt?’ he asked coldly, calmly buttoning his shirt and tucking it back in the waistband of his trousers.

  ‘I live here,’ Matt informed him just as coolly.

  ‘You what?’ The question was directed at Matt, but he was looking at Caroline.

  ‘I live here.’ Matt strolled further into the room. ‘This is my apartment.’ He was only making the situation worse in his anger.

  Green eyes blazed down at her. ‘You little bitch!’ André picked up his jacket and marched to the door. ‘My God!’ he muttered. ‘You first class little bitch!’ he repeated, the door slamming on his exit.

  ‘Oh, Daddy!’ She looked at him through tear-washed eyes, her face blanching as she saw him slowly sink to the floor.

  * * *

  Her face was pale as she sat in the waiting-room of this highly clinical hospital. She felt so useless sitting here, felt as if she should be doing something, anything but just waiting here.

  Her father had been rushed to hospital over an hour ago, Caroline managing in her complete panic to realise that an ambulance had to be called and expert medical treatment given to her father if he were to live.

  She could tell by his rasping breathing and the blueness about his lips that this was no ordinary faint. Something was seriously wrong, so wrong that she hadn’t been able to wake him. He was completely unconscious, and on getting him to the emergency department of this busy hospital the numerous staff had rushed about trying to see what could be done for him.

  So here she still sat, an hour later, feeling as if an axe were hovering above her head. Would her father live or die?—it was that serious, she knew that. No one seemed prepared to tell her anything at the moment, probably because there was nothing they could tell her yet.

  She looked up hopefully as another nurse walked past the door, but slumped down again in her chair as she went straight past. Why didn’t they tell her something, anything? She felt sick and faint at the same time, her fear for her father deep-rooted. He had to live, he just had to!

  She could hear someone walking down that long white corridor towards her, her face suddenly white, her eyes deeply violet. Would it be good news or—or bad? Her heart leapt as the door swung open and a man entered.

  ‘Uncle David!’ She sprang to her feet, tears of relief at seeing a familiar face streaming down her cheeks. She ran into his arms. ‘Oh, Uncle David,’ she choked, her body racked by deep sobs now.

  He let her cry for several minutes longer, a man in his mid-fifties, his iron-grey hair brushed back from his lined face. Tall and distinguished-looking in his dark grey suit, David Clarke had been a family friend throughout the whole of her childhood. He had been the heart specialist cal
led in during her mother’s illness.

  She looked up at him sharply. He was a heart specialist! ‘Uncle David?’ her voice quivered. ‘Daddy?’ she squeaked.

  His hands tightened on her arms, shaking her gently at the hysteria in her voice. ‘I’ve just been in to see him. He’s had a heart attack, but he’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’ She collapsed against him. ‘Oh, thank God!’ she cried silently now.

  ‘He’s going to be fine,’ he repeated. ‘But it’s going to be a long struggle. Nothing will ever be the same again.’

  Caroline smiled up at him brightly. ‘As long as he’s all right I don’t care what we have to do.’

  ‘When I say nothing will ever be the same, that’s exactly what I mean,’ he frowned. ‘Your father needs complete rest, away from any worries whatsoever.’

  ‘And he’ll have one,’ she promised. ‘Can I see him now?’ she asked anxiously.

  David pushed her firmly down into a chair. ‘Now just sit there and listen to me for a moment. Your father is sleeping right now anyway, so a couple of minutes more won’t make any difference to him. I want you to understand the seriousness of the situation. Matt—’

  ‘I understand how serious it is,’ she told him brokenly. ‘I was with him when it happened, remember?’

  ‘I know.’ He sat down beside her, gently holding her hand. ‘And I realise it must have been distressing for you. But it could have happened at any time. I warned Matt time and time again that he had to take things easy, but he always had too much to do, too many people to see. And now he’s flat on his back in a hospital bed, like I warned him he would be.’

  Her eyes opened wide. ‘You—you warned him?’

  ‘Numerous times during the last couple of years,’ he sighed. ‘But he didn’t even have the time to listen to me.’ He shook his head.

  Caroline felt a cold chill run up her spine, looking dazedly at her hand held in his. ‘Are you—’ her voice cracked. ‘Are you telling me that Daddy knew he had a heart condition?’

  David’s look could only be described as sympathetic. ‘He knew, Caroline,’ he told her gently. ‘He knew that if he didn’t slow down or hand over the reins of Rayner Enterprises to someone else, then this was going to happen sooner or later. He took a gamble on it being later—and lost.’

  Her shock at what David was telling her was almost too much to bear. Her father had known of his illness, and yet he had carried on as normal, had not even told her! ‘I—I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Believe it, Caroline. And believe me when I say I’m sorry it had to be like this. Matt will have no choice now, the firm will have to go. There’s no way he can go back to living under that pressure almost a hundred per cent of the time.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to work, he doesn’t need the money, he already has more than he knows what to do with.’

  ‘It isn’t the money, that isn’t why he wanted to carry on working. The firm is him, he couldn’t bear to see it sold to someone who perhaps wouldn’t see things his way, or who would break up the company into smaller subsidiaries. Can you imagine what it would do to him to see his company, his life’s work, fall about him in ruins? Because that’s what will happen if he doesn’t get somebody competent to take over.’

  ‘But he has his assistant John Buck, he could take over under Daddy’s guidance.’

  He shook his head. ‘That could only ever be a temporary measure, not a long-term one. It all comes back to the fact that Matt just can’t carry on as he has been.’ He straightened. ‘I think that’s enough about that now. I’m sure you’re anxious to see him.’

  The shock of her father’s serious illness and the fact that he had kept it from her for the last two years stayed with Caroline over the next few weeks. He had been gravely ill for several days, only being removed from the intensive care unit to a private room after several days of specialised nursing, when at times his life had hung in the balance.

  There had been as little publicity about his illness as possible, at his own request, the worldwide knowledge of his collapse possibly causing a recession to his company shares, which he didn’t want. Nevertheless, several of his really close business colleagues were informed, and André was one of them.

  It had been an added shock when opening the telegrams they had received to find one from him. It had been sent from America, but the good wishes for her father’s recovery were obviously sincerely meant, and she had felt tearful after reading it.

  She had thought of him as little as possible during the last few weeks, trying in vain to force out of her memory thoughts of their last meeting together. Her father’s interruption had perhaps stopped her doing something she would later have regretted, but she also had to face the fact that the situation her father had come in on had been the cause of his collapse. Uncle David had insisted that no one thing had set it off, but a coming together of several worries over the last few months, but this didn’t really help ease her conscience.

  ‘Caroline!’ Her father’s voice rang out sharply now and she turned to look at him. How dear to her he was, lying there propped up by several pillows, his face having slowly lost that greyness she had found so frightening.

  She smiled at him now, and moved to his side. ‘Yes, Daddy?’ she asked softly. The strain of the last few weeks had taken their toll on her too, leaving her thin and pale, and the nervous movements of her hands were almost second nature.

  He patted the bed for her to sit down beside him. ‘I think it’s time we talked, Caroline,’ he said seriously.

  ‘Talk?’ She evaded his eyes. ‘But we’ve done nothing else during the last few weeks! This is your first day home, surely we can think of something better to do than talk.’

  Matt looked wryly at the neatly made-up bed around him. ‘I can’t do much else at the moment except talk, and although we talked a lot while I was in hospital we didn’t really discuss the subject most on both our minds.’

  Caroline attempted a light laugh. ‘I can’t imagine what you mean, Daddy. We seem to have covered every conceivable subject.’

  He patted her hand. ‘I know that, you’ve been very good, visiting me at the hospital a couple of hours each day. Don’t think I haven’t appreciated it.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly!’ She looked scandalised. ‘You’re my father, where else would I be but at your side? Besides,’ she added teasingly, ‘I had nothing else to do.’

  ‘Thanks!’ he laughed. ‘But that isn’t strictly true. I’m sure Esther has been plaguing you to go out to different places with her during your stay there.’

  Esther and John had insisted she move in with them during her father’s illness, and although she had refused at first, they had persisted with their invitation until her father had joined in the argument for her to stay with them. As he wasn’t to be distressed in any way she had agreed in the end, and she had to admit that it had been the wisest thing to do. Esther and John had not intruded on her worry for her father, but they had always been there when she felt like company.

  She smiled. ‘Only because you told her to,’ she answered him. ‘I’m perfectly well aware that you telephoned Esther and told her to take me out.’

  He sighed. ‘You’re too damned clever for your own good. Yes, I asked her to get you out. You’re so pale, Caroline. You don’t look well. Some of the times you visited me you looked as if you should have been the one in the bed. So how about that talk now?’

  Caroline got up and moved away to look out of the huge window that overlooked the river. ‘What do you want to talk about?’ She couldn’t look at him.

  ‘I think André would be as good a thing as any,’ he suggested gently.

  ‘André?’ she questioned sharply. ‘The name is Greg.’

  ‘His name is André,’ he said equally firmly. ‘And from now on that’s exactly what I intend to call him.’

  She turned on him fiercely. ‘When you accuse us both of causing your attack?’ She shook her head. ‘You have no
need to do that, Daddy. I know who was to blame for that, and I—’

  ‘You will kindly shut up while I put you right on several points,’ he interrupted shortly. ‘Firstly, you did nothing to bring on my attack. I managed that quite well on my own, thank you. I’ve been overworking, and I suppose the fact that I knew about the weak ticker didn’t really help me. Secondly, I want you to know that it was only concern for your future that made me keep introducing you to eligible bachelors. It was in the hope that one of them might be the one for you and would look after you if anything happened to me.’

  ‘Oh, Daddy!’

  ‘Don’t look like that, poppet. I’m not invincible, this illness has proved that, and I wanted to be sure of your happiness in the event of that happening.’

  ‘And André?’

  Now it was her father’s turn to look away. ‘Yes—André. Now in his case I wasn’t being strictly unselfish.’

  ‘I thought not,’ she said dryly.

  He cleared his throat noisily. ‘I may be your father, Caroline, but I’m also the owner of a large and prosperous firm. André happens to be the shrewdest business man I know, and if “Rayner Enterprises belonged to him he would run it as it should be run.’

  ‘Rayner Enterprises isn’t for sale,’ she said primly.

  ‘True,’ he agreed. ‘But I wouldn’t have minded making a gift of it to my daughter and son-in-law.’

  ‘So that’s what it was all about!’ Her mouth tightened angrily. ‘No wonder you didn’t come and get me from the cottage! We played right into your hands by both insisting on staying there. How you must have enjoyed yourself!’

  ‘It was convenient, that was all. As you may have already gathered, André was no more interested in marriage than you were. He didn’t want to meet you either, he used going to the cottage to rest as an excuse for not coming here for that weekend. But I hoped that once you had met you would be attracted to each other. After all, you’re both handsome specimens.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily induce attraction.’

  ‘I realise that. But in this case it did. You were attracted from the first—admit it.’ He looked at her hopefully.