by Liz Fielding
‘What are you doing?’
She looked up with what she hoped was nonchalance. ‘Just indentifying the films with my account number.’ She forced her lips to offer a smile. A very little smile. ‘I can hardly expect you to pay for the processing.’
His eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at the bag. ‘Leave it now. If you’re not tired you might as well come out on to the terrace and have some fresh air.’
She hesitated for just a second before dropping the film back in the bag. If she protested, he would become suspicious. ‘That would be…lovely.’
He opened the tall French windows and warm, moist air, laden with the scent of the sea, rushed to meet them. She took a deep breath and devoured the panorama spread before her. The little island of Comino was almost close enough to touch, and beyond that the light-strewn shape of Gozo, where the enchantress Calypso imprisoned Odysseus for seven long years, glittered in the dark sweep of the sea. ‘Lord, but this is a beautiful spot,’ she murmured.
‘I thought you disapproved.’
‘Disapproved? Why should I do that?’ She glanced at him. ‘This is a retreat. A place to go when you want to get away from everything.’ She turned back to the sea. ‘Not a place to live, though, unless you’re a lotuseater.’
‘And is that what you think I am?’
No, she didn’t think that. She didn’t think that Chay Buchanan was idle, or even particularly happy in his island paradise. But she didn’t say so. ‘I can see the temptation,’ she said, with apparent sympathy. ‘The danger is that, like poor old Odysseus, you won’t be able to escape. It’s too easy just to stay put.’ She turned to him. ‘Why did you stop writing, Chay? What are you hiding from?’
His eyes flashed a warning. ‘Surely your commissioning editor gave you the smallest hint?’
Commissioning editor? She wanted to laugh at the idea. Or cry. Nigel was nothing more than a hack freelance journalist. But she wasn’t about to tell Chay that. ‘Why don’t you give me your side of the story?’ she suggested.
‘Nice try, Sophie, but, despite the fact that for the moment I choose not to be published, I write every day of my life, and if I were hiding I promise you would never have found me. So you’ll just have to make it up as you go along. That’s the usual method, so it shouldn’t be difficult.’
‘I wouldn’t know; I don’t make up anything. I just take the pictures.’ Damn! That had come out all wrong. As if she spent her life hiding in corners and taking photographs of reluctant celebrities. ‘I just take pictures,’ she corrected herself.
His cynical smile suggested that he was not convinced. ‘Would you like a drink? A small brandy, perhaps?’
‘Thank you,’ she said quickly, glad of any change of subject.
‘Sit over there and I’ll fetch it.’
He pointed her in the direction of the kind of swinging garden seat that had featured heavily in American romantic comedy movies in the late fifties and early sixties. The sort where a tremulous virgin, trying to prove how sophisticated she was, came perilously close to being seduced by a wicked older man, usually with the assistance of a large glass of brandy, only to be rescued by the hero in the nick of time.
Chay bent over her and offered a beautiful crystal goblet in which a small amount of amber liquid reposed. She stared at it for a moment, then glanced up at him, trying to read his expression in the dim light. Who would rescue her, she wondered, if Chay Buchanan decided to take advantage of the weakness she had already betrayed?
She took the glass, jumping nervously as her fingers brushed his, and he stretched himself alongside her, his arm along her shoulders, and began to rock the chair, very slowly. ‘Who are you working for, Sophie?’
‘What?’ His question had been so far from her own disturbing train of thought that she jumped.
‘It was a perfectly simple question.’
‘Yes, of course it was.’ She took a ragged breath.
‘Island Holidays. I did the Canaries for them during the winter. Apparently they were pleased enough with the result to give me Sicily and Malta this year.’
‘That’s very interesting. Now perhaps you would be kind enough to answer my question.’
‘But—’
‘Sophie!’ he warned.
‘I’m not employed by anyone,’ she said, abruptly conceding defeat.
‘You were simply doing a little freelancing on your own account?’
What could she say? She glanced at him. Could he possibly understand why she had been driven to such desperate measures.? She shivered a little. Of course not. What could a man like him know of such things? But if she lied, said she was doing it for herself, for what she could get, it would confirm his view that she was someone who robbed people of their privacy for money. She discovered that she didn’t want him to think that badly of her.
‘A friend asked me to try and get a picture of you while I was in Malta. I told you, he’s writing an article about you. It was simply a…favour. I won’t be paid.’
‘And how far would you have gone,’ he drawled, ‘for a favour?’
‘How far?’
His fingers trailed beneath the collar of her shirt and began to stroke the nape of her neck. She tensed and tried to move, to escape, but he was too quick, capturing her throat with his free hand, cupping it in his palm, tilting her head back until she was staring up into his eyes. ‘All the way?’ His thumb brushed lightly across her lips.
‘No!’ She pushed him away.
He laughed softly but made no attempt to hold her. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’
Something snapped. ‘I don’t care whether you believe it or not.’ She put the glass on a small table and tried to stand up, but the treacherous swing of the chair caught her off-balance and she was thrown back against him. He caught her round the waist, pulling her down on to his lap, his eyes dark as he searched her face.
‘He must be a very special friend, if you’re prepared to risk so much–even your life–to please him.’
‘I didn’t…’ she protested, then, catching his tormenting eye, she lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug. ‘I didn’t mean to.’ He raised a disconcerting brow and she blushed furiously as she realised that her denial fitted both scenarios. But maybe she should emphasise her friendship with Nigel. Although heaven knew that nothing could have been further from the truth, it might be wise to suggest that there was someone out there to worry about her. ‘Yes, if you must know. Nigel is very special. Now, will you let me go?’ She tried to pull free.
‘Your lover?’ he persisted.
‘How dare you?’
His grip at her waist tightened warningly. ‘The prisoner must expect a certain amount of interrogation. Tell me about him,’ he insisted.
But she didn’t want to talk about Nigel. She thrust her hands towards him. ‘Here. If you want my secrets, you’ll have to use thumb-screws. I’m sure you must have a pair tucked away in your dungeon.’
If she had hoped to make him angry, she failed. He took one of her hands in his, turned it over. ‘I think not. Your hands have suffered quite enough.’ He lifted it to his lips and kissed the pad of her thumb. The warmth of his mouth sent a dangerous charge of longing surging crazily through her body, and she snatched her hand away as if stung. He grinned, quite suddenly, taking her quite by surprise. ‘And I don’t really think I’d need to employ torture if I wanted to learn your secrets, Sophie. Do you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she protested, making a further unsuccessful effort to pull free of his grasp, the infuriating swing of the chair simply rocking her back against his chest.
‘Of course you do, Sophie,’ he murmured. ‘Or you wouldn’t be quite so anxious to escape.’
‘Can’t you stop this thing?’ she demanded.
‘Whenever I want. But I’m perfectly happy for the moment.’ He shifted slightly, so that her head somehow became cradled in the hollow of his shoulder and there was nothing to struggle against. Instead she held h
erself as rigid as she could.
But the gentle rocking of the seat, the warmth of the brandy inside her, the steady thud of his heartbeat beneath her cheek was a bewitching combination. She could well understand any ingénue succumbing without a struggle to such an assault on her senses. The wonder of it was that she should be grateful to be rescued by some priggish young man.
She started. What on earth was she thinking? What was she doing, lying back in the arms of the enemy?
She cleared her throat. ‘I seem to be falling asleep. Perhaps I’d better go to bed after all.’ She tried to move, but his arm pinioned her against his chest.
‘Just one thing before you go, Sophie.’
‘Yes?’ she queried, suspicious of the velvet-smooth drawl to his voice.
Tell me what happened to the films you took in Sicily.’
She opened her eyes wide and stared at him. ‘Sicily?’ she repeated as her mind clicked into overdrive, playing for time in which to think.
‘You were commissioned to take photographs in Sicily for Island Holidays. Didn’t you say so?’
‘Did I?’ she asked. Would he believe her if she said she was on her way there next? A small ray of hope offered the possibility of escape. If she could convince him that she was expected there tomorrow…that if she didn’t arrive people would worry and raise the alarm, search for her… Then she met a pair of hard eyes, gleaming in the darkness, and hope died. Of course not. He had her airline ticket. He knew perfectly well that she had already been there.
‘Well?’
‘I sent them to Paris before I left Palermo.’
‘I see. And what happens to them after that?’ She had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew very well what happened to them. That all the time he had been playing with her.
‘They’re sent back, of course.’
‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘But not to Sicily.’
She gave a small laugh. ‘Well, no.’
‘Well, no,’ he repeated, and offered a nasty little parody of her laugh. But he wasn’t amused. And when he spoke again his voice had lost its velvet caress. It struck at her like flint against steel. ‘They get returned in accordance with your standing instructions, don’t they? Straight back to base.’ He stood up abruptly and dumped her on her feet. ‘Your little labels have been bothering me, Sophie. But now I see the point. Very clever. Too clever by half. I think I’d better take you up to your room right now, before I change my mind about the dungeon.’
‘Frankly, Mr Buchanan,’ she declared furiously, ‘I’d prefer the dungeon. At least then we could forget this pretence of civilised behaviour!’
‘You don’t know what the word means,’ he growled. ‘In the circumstances I’ve behaved with wholly admirable restraint!’
‘Admirable restraint?’ she gasped. ‘Words fail me.’
‘Now that would make a pleasant change,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think I’ll hold my breath.’
‘You are truly the rudest, most infuriating and downright obnoxious man it has ever been my misfortune to meet,’ she declared fervently, close to tears but determined that he shouldn’t see.
‘Am I? Well, it’s a misfortune you brought entirely upon yourself. And I think you’ve pushed your luck quite far enough for one day.’
‘Oh? Have I, indeed? And what about you? Aren’t you just a little bit afraid that I’ll tell everyone exactly what you’ve done, when you do eventually let me go?’ She brushed aside his attempt to interrupt. ‘And I don’t mean the police,’ she rushed on, ‘I’m talking about the newspapers.’
‘You don’t come out of the encounter exactly covered with roses,’ he retaliated harshly.
‘No?’ She scowled at him. ‘Well, if I were the sort of person you seem to think I am, Chay Buchanan, would I actually care?’ She made a gesture with her hands, indicating a banner. ‘“Bestselling author held me captive”.’ She paused briefly, then repeated the gesture. ‘“I was Chay Buchanan’s slave”. Or, what about—’ She raised her hands once more, but this time he caught her wrists in awice-like grip.
‘Enough!’
‘You’d be famous enough then,’ she advised him recklessly. ‘Your precious privacy wouldn’t stand a chance…’
Her voice trailed away as angry eyes compelled her to silence. ‘That was a mistake, Sophie,’ he said, his voice like chips of ice in her veins. ‘A very big mistake. I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay here for rather longer than I had anticipated.’
‘What do you mean longer…? You can’t—’
‘Can’t I? Who’s to stop me?’ She swallowed nervously as his ransacking glance pinned her helpless to the spot and, releasing her wrists, he grasped a handful of her long fair hair to twist about his fist. ‘I could keep you prisoner at the top of my tower for so long that, like Rapunzel, you’d have to let down your long hair and hope that some passing sailor would be tempted to climb it and set you free.’
Her mouth dried. ‘You’re crazy!’
‘Am I?’ He tightened his grip and began to lead her, using her hair as a halter, towards the tower, and she had little choice other than to follow him like an obedient spaniel as he tugged sharply at her scalp.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ she demanded, still defiant despite the quiver of anxiety which told her that she had, indeed, gone too far. Much too far.
His glance raked her. ‘We made a deal, Sophie Nash, but you never intended to keep your end of the bargain.’ He shook her. ‘Did you?’ She bit her lip rather than cry out as pain shot through her scalp, filling her eyes with tears, but something must have shown on her face because he released her hair, transferring his grip to her arm before she even registered the possibility of escape. ‘Did you?’ he demanded.
She glared at him, her eyes huge, overbright, as she angrily refused to let the tears fall. ‘Why should I? You’ve no right to keep me here. You’ve no right to destroy my work. You would have done the same in my shoes!’
‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t. I would never have taken the damn things in the first place,’ he said savagely.
That was too much. She wrenched herself free of his grasp, flinging her fists against her hips as she launched her own attack. ‘Oh, lordy!’ she declared. ‘You are far too shy, Mr Buchanan. The world must learn that hidden away in this remote corner of Malta lives one of the last of that endangered species, the noble male.’ She raised her eyes skyward in ironic appeal. ‘Heaven help me if I fall for that one.’
‘Perhaps you should improve the quality of the men you…associate with.’
‘Associate with?’ she repeated in disbelief. ‘Well, there’s a fine, high-sounding euphemism for what you really mean.’ And finally she was unable to prevent eyes brim-full of tears from overflowing, but she was too angry to care any more. She dashed her sleeve against her cheek. ‘Just who do you think you are, Chay Buchanan? You lounge around here, having made enough money to retire at the advanced age of thirty—’ she almost exploded ‘–something—’
‘If you believe that, Sophie Nash, you must be mad,’ he retaliated.
She was too far gone in rage to register this outburst, her pulse racketing like an express train, huge eyes sparkling darkly. ‘What would you know about having to earn a living?’ she charged on. ‘The day-after-day grind of it? It’s not all spent taking pictures in holiday islands, you know! My next booking is in Liverpool for a mail-order catalogue. Vacuum cleaners and computer games and knickers—’
She never had a chance to finish. His mouth cut off the words as it swooped to obliterate them with a kiss that owed nothing to finesse. This was no gentle caress to disarm or please her. It was the fierce stamp of authority that demanded she obey. Submit to his will. Useless to struggle, useless to fight, she knew, even as her fists pummelled at his shoulders.
Too late she sensed the subtle change, the easing of the hard grip of his hands at her waist until his long fingers were gently cradling her ribcage, the heel of his hand nudging the soft swell of her br
east. By the time she realised that his mouth was no longer punishing her, was caressing her with a fierce passion that was sending her heart spiralling to the stars, it no longer mattered. Her fists had ceased their battery, had become long, slender fingers that slid up to his shoulders and clasped firmly about his neck, and her lips had parted in welcome. It was a long time before he finally raised his head to stare down at her.
‘Why did you do that?’ she finally whispered.
For a moment he didn’t say anything. He just continued to stare at her. Then, abruptly, he turned away, ran his fingers through his dark hair, pushing it back from his forehead. ‘You were getting hysterical,’ he said sharply. ‘I had to shut you up somehow. It was a choice between slapping you or kissing you.’
‘Oh!’ She took an instinctive step back, her hand flying to her mouth, as if to wipe away the taste of him. He might as well have slapped her. His words had had much the same effect. An abrupt reminder that she was in danger of making an utter fool of herself. ‘Then I suppose I should be grateful.’
‘Grateful?’
She lifted her shoulders slightly. ‘That you chose the slightly less violent alternative. I already have enough aches and pains. Although…’ She touched her finger to her bruised and swollen lip.
His eyes followed the gesture. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘I’ll recover,’ she said woodenly. ‘It was no worse than a slap.’
‘I doubt you’d have enjoyed a slap quite so thoroughly,’ he retaliated sharply.
She bit back the angry retort that flew to her tongue. He spoke no more than the truth, after all. It was time to put an end to this charade. Before she said, or did, something so unbelievably rash that she might never recover from the consequences.
The almost electric effect that Chay Buchanan had triggered from the moment she had first set eyes upon him was making her say and do things light-years away from the cool self-possession she so prided herself on. Things so wildly out of character that people she had known all her life would scarcely recognise her. Chay had seen it, had thought she was brazenly flirting to get what she wanted from him. He couldn’t know that she didn’t know how to flirt, that this reaction was as unwelcome to her as it was to him. But she was certain now that she had to get away before one of them exploded, because, whichever one of them it was, she was the one who would be hurt by the resulting fallout.