by Penny Jordan
‘Can you?’ His cynical disbelief hurt her almost as much as it infuriated her.
‘I’m fully qualified…I have my degree…’
His mouth was still twisted in that bitterly cynical way that always sparked off her temper, implying as it did that he had a greater and more powerful knowledge of something to which she was excluded.
‘I’m not questioning your qualifications, or your skill. But jobs of the type you’re qualified for aren’t exactly thick on the ground round here, are they? Think about it, Heather, what are you trying to say? That you want to leave here and go and try your luck in London? Perhaps if you’re lucky, landing yourself a job as the most junior member of a store window-dressing team, forced to carry out the instructions and ideas of others, always competing with younger and more enthusiastic graduates than yourself.’
The picture he was painting was grim enough to make her close her eyes and shudder. She hated the thought of working and living in London; she always had. She was not ambitious as such, but she loved her work; he was right, she would hate working under someone else’s direction. She was used to her father giving her a completely free hand and, if she was honest with herself, she enjoyed the responsibility.
A sudden thought struck her, the words almost sticking in her throat as she demanded huskily, ‘This is my father’s idea, isn’t it? He made you offer me this job…he asked you…’
‘Think what you like, Heather. I’m not prepared to discuss the whys and wherefores of a job offer with a potential employee. It isn’t my normal practice.’
Only just in time she stopped herself from bursting into a furious tirade. She looked suspiciously at him, wondering if he was trying deliberately to goad her into taking a stand.
‘I don’t want the job,’ she told him flatly.
‘You don’t? You’re a very lucky woman to be able to make such a decision,’ he marvelled cynically. ‘How are you going to support yourself without a job, Heather, or are you going to leave that small matter to your parents?’
And indirectly to him, Heather realised on a sudden mortified flood of realisation. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. Pride had forced her to reject his job offer because she suspected he was simply making a position for her because of her father, and yet if she didn’t take it, if she had no job at all…
‘Poor Heather…caught up in a no-win situation, aren’t you?’
‘And how you’re enjoying it!’ she retaliated sharply, her eyes narrowing as she glared at him.
To her chagrin, he laughed. ‘You remind me of a spitting wildcat when you narrow your eyes like that. You look for all the world as though there’s nothing you’d like more than to pounce on me and claw the flesh from my throat.’
To her horror, Heather felt a betraying heat spread through her body, not at the violence of his suggestion, but at the sexuality he had so cleverly cloaked beneath it.
She stared at him, nonplussed by her own reaction. His face was unreadable, so unreadable, in fact, that she had trouble in deciding whether or not she had actually heard that sexuality or imagined it.
‘If you don’t take the job I’ll have to find someone else to fill it. From what I’ve seen of your work, you’ve got the skills the operation will need.’
He was beginning to sound bored, and Heather caught the indifference edging up under his voice.
‘I don’t want charity, Kyle,’ she told him fiercely.
He looked at her. ‘You won’t be getting it. Now, do you want the job or not?’
She wavered between refusing it as her pride demanded and a far more commonsense approach. Her parents would be pleased and relieved if she accepted it; they would see it not as just a job, but as a sign that she had finally accepted Kyle.
‘I…I want it,’ she said huskily, bending her head so that he wouldn’t see the defeat in her eyes.
‘Good…I’ll see that you get an employment contract as soon as I get back from the States.’
It confused her to see him like this, very much in control, and all brisk and businesslike. It was hard to accept that this was the same person she had traded insults with for most of her growing years. The same teenager she had bitten in the leg in a fit of fury because he wouldn’t let her ride his bicycle! A rogue smile tugged at the corners of her mouth at that memory.
‘Why the smile? Not planning my early demise, I hope?’
She frowned. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘I don’t know…possibly something to do with a painting I once saw of Lucretia Borgia,’ Kyle told her drily.
‘Well, you’re quite wrong. I was just thinking about that time I bit you in the leg because you wouldn’t let me ride your bike.’
His eyebrows shot up, and for a moment Heather thought he didn’t remember. And then he smiled, and there was something in the mocking smile that turned her insides upside-down.
‘Oh, yes…I ought to thank you for that.’ He saw her wary expression and laughed. ‘You see, it left a scar.’ He touched his thigh reflectively. ‘Most interestingly positioned, and the cause of much feminine speculation and—er—concern.’
Heather glared at him, hating him for deliberately making her so aware of his sexuality.
‘I told them I had been bitten by a rabid dog,’ he added reflectively, another smile tugging at his mouth.
‘Of the female variety, of course,’ Heather responded.
He caught her drift and his eyebrows lifted.
‘You’re underestimating yourself,’ he told her mockingly. ‘If I had to compare you to any member of the animal kingdom it would be to a wild she-cat: all claws, snarls and lashing tail.’
His eyes dropped to her hands, and to her consternation Heather discovered, as she followed his gaze downwards, that her fingers were curled as though ready to strike out at her prey.
He laughed, a soft, satisfied sound that made her skin tingle and raised a rash of goosebumps under it. ‘I’ve often wondered if you’ve ever fulfilled that promise of passion that was so much a part of those early teenage years.’
‘That’s something you’re never going to know.’
The hoarse intensity of her voice shocked her. What was she doing, allowing him to inveigle her into this kind of confrontation; a type of confrontation she could only retreat from in disorder?
She knew nothing of the sexual pleasure he was hinting at, and as for passion…!
‘Don’t tell me you really prefer your lovers tame and timid, like the poor specimen you had with you the other night? Or was it a case of needs must?’
He showed her his teeth in a savage grin. Her breath seemed to have leaked away somewhere deep inside her chest, and her lungs heaved as she tried desperately to breathe.
What was happening to her? What was he doing to her? Certainly he was showing her a side of himself he had always previously kept discreetly camouflaged. But she had always known it was there, had always known that he was an intensely sensual human being. How had she known that? She shivered again, tormented by the shocking intimacy of her thoughts.
A thousand excuses for her immediate departure clamoured for utterance, but to give voice to them would be cowardly, and more, it would betray to him just how disturbing she found their conversation. She had to play him at his own game, to show him how adult she was. He was just trying to get under her skin, he was tormenting her as he had tormented her so often in the past, but now he was using far more sophisticated weapons. He couldn’t know that her total sexual experience was limited to a few fumbled caresses and unedifying kisses. He couldn’t know how weak and shivery he made her feel, just by talking to her the way he was.
‘I think it’s time we had lunch.’
The abrupt return to normality overwhelmed her. She suspected that he was doing everything he could to keep her on edge, and she was determined that she wouldn’t let him see that he had got through to her. She had always known how clever he was; how cunning and determined to have his own way. He might profess to
want a better relationship between them, but she was under no illusions; deep down inside, he still resented her, just as she still resented him.
All right, in her case that resentment was tinged with guilt and touched by a compassion she could not help feeling for the child he had once been, rejected and unloved. She was mature enough, yes, and woman enough to feel that, but he still made her feel as prickly and defensive as a threatened animal; he still made her walk warily and watch carefully.
‘Everything’s ready. We’ll be eating in the dining-room. It’s this way.’
The dining-room was furnished with the same simplicity as the rooms Heather had already seen, very much in keeping with the age of the house, the dark-panelled walls glistening softly in the firelight.
‘You realise, don’t you, that there are going to have to be some changes?’ Kyle told her abruptly, once he had served their meal.
She should not have been surprised at his skill, her mother had, after all, insisted on teaching both of them how to look after themselves, just as her father had taught them both to drive and to carry out small household maintenance tasks. There was no sexual bigotry in her parents’ household, apart, of course, from the fact that they had always wanted a son.
She put down her knife and fork, ignoring the delicious chicken casserole, her thoughts winging back to the past.
‘Heather, did you hear me?’
She frowned and looked down the length of the polished oak table.
‘Yes, you said something about things changing.’
‘Mmm…the house, for instance. After his operation, those stairs will be too much for your father. Your mother was talking about buying a small villa in Portugal. Apparently they’ve always liked the country. Then they could spend their winters there…’
He was going too fast for her, covering ground she had not even yet had time to consider. She knew what he said was correct, but the thought of losing the house that had been home to her for so long, the thought of her parents actually taking the decision to sell…
‘With a bit of luck, your father should be out of hospital before Christmas, and then he and your mother will fly straight to my villa in Portugal and stay there until he’s fully recovered. Have you made any plans for Christmas?’ he asked her, apparently unaware of her sudden lack of appetite, as he ate his own meal with gusto.
Christmas! She had not even got as far as thinking about how she would spend it. Normally, it was a big event, with her parents’ friends descending on the house. Her mother loved it, and so had her father. But this year…
‘A few,’ she lied carelessly, not wanting him to know that, with her parents away, her Christmas would be very bleak indeed. She didn’t want him to accuse her of being selfish again, of putting her own feelings before those of her mother and father.
‘A pity. You’ll have to cancel them.’
‘Cancel?’ Heather stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve promised your parents that I’ll make sure that you spend Christmas here with me. Apparently they’re concerned about you staying in the house on your own, and I must say I can see why.’
‘For goodness’ sake, I’m twenty-three years old, and perfectly capable of taking care of myself! I’m not likely to try and commit suicide just because I’m spending Christmas alone,’ she threw at him bitterly.
‘No one suggested that you might, but that house is rather remote, and your father says the central heating’s on the blink. He’s also concerned about the van. He says it isn’t very reliable or safe. OK, so you and I know you’d be perfectly safe and certainly much happier on your own than you’re likely to be here, but for their sake can I suggest that you give in quietly?’
‘Is that what you did?’
The silence stretched for too long for her to deceive herself that she was wrong. Kyle wanted her staying with him as little as she wanted to be there.
‘All right,’ she gave in wearily. ‘And I promise I’ll do my best to keep out of your way…’
‘I’ll give you a spare key before you go. You could move your stuff in while I’m away in the States. There’s a guest suite upstairs, you can use that. When I get back I’ll show you the plans for the new shopping arcade, and you can tell me what you think.’
He tossed the comment to her as casually as an adult throwing a child a sweet, and without her being aware of it her eyes flashed dangerously.
‘All that wasted passion,’ he mocked her. ‘There’s only one way you’re ever going to get to dig those sharp claws of yours into my skin, and it’s not by losing your temper with me.’ He laughed at her flushed, shocked face. ‘Perish the thought, eh?’ he taunted softly. ‘Don’t worry. I doubt I’ll ever be that desperate.’
‘It wouldn’t matter if you were,’ Heather retaliated when she had got her breath back. ‘There’s no way I’d ever let you…’
‘Take you to bed? Don’t tempt fate,’ he advised her, and for a moment she was almost tempted to believe that he was actually contemplating what he was threatening, and then she remembered that he had always had a Machiavellian sense of humour, and decided instantly that if he thought he was going to get to exercise it now at her expense he could think again.
‘Why not?’ she retorted carelessly, giving a dazzling and very manufactured smile. ‘I doubt that even you could teach me anything I don’t already know. I’m not seventeen any more now, Kyle. A macho display of sexuality is hardly likely to send me into a flutter of confusion these days.’
‘So it seems, but just let’s get one thing clear, shall we? In private, I’m prepared to take just as many insults as you care to dish out, but in public…’
‘Your image is that fragile?’ She smiled with sweet malice.
‘No, but your father’s health is,’ he reminded her brutally. ‘And, for his sake, I suggest that you at least try to pretend you can be in my company for over five minutes without wanting to shred the skin from my back.’
Heather stood up, shrugging. ‘That’s fine by me, but I don’t like being goaded, Kyle. Kick me and I kick back.’
‘Does the same thing apply in reverse? Are you as responsive to kisses as you are to “kicks” I wonder?’
‘That’s…’ They were back where they had started, and she checked the words, holding them back. Instead, she said acidly, ‘That’s for me to know…’
‘And me to find out?’ Kyle murmured suggestively. ‘Well, well. I never thought that…’
‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ Heather protested, flustered. ‘You know it wasn’t. Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she groaned, capitulating. ‘Will you please stop confusing me with all this innuendo? All right, maybe we can never be true friends, but surely we can do better than this?’
The plea came from her heart, her defences going down as she realised how ill equipped she was to deal with a man of his calibre.
‘Please, Kyle, help me,’ she pleaded despairingly. ‘You’re right, it will hurt my parents dreadfully if they see us quarrelling, but all this is new territory for me.’
She held her breath, dreading hearing him make the kind of sardonic response that would show that he was not taking her plea seriously, or, worse, that he was amused.
His reply was a long time in coming and when it did, it made her body tense with shock, and yes, pleasure, too, she recognised later, when she tried to analyse the multiplicity of sensations she had experienced.
‘I take back all the insulting things I ever said about you,’ he told her quietly. ‘You’ve grown up to become one hell of a woman, Heather: female enough to resent being verbally attacked, and yet big enough to put aside those feelings and lower your defences. I don’t know if you scare me the most when you look at me as though you’d like to see me burst into flames in front of your eyes, or when you look at me the way you’re doing right now. Friends?’ He shook his head and said softly, ‘No, maybe we’ll never be that, but for what it’s worth you have my respect.’
It was
worth more than she could ever tell him; with those few words he had wiped out a raw wound so old and so deep that she had forgotten it was there. It was only the sudden cessation of its ache that reminded her. Ever since the folly of her attempted suicide, part of her had despised herself for her weakness, for using such cruel emotional blackmail on those who had loved her. She had lost her own self-respect, and for Kyle to say that she had his was like being given back a part of herself. She felt a tremendous inner softening toward him, an urge to go up to him and touch him, a need to almost physically embrace him, as though they were indeed brother and sister. But as she reached for him he side-stepped, widening the gap between them, his face suddenly taut and harsh.
‘Let’s just leave it there, shall we? You’d better start making tracks, that sky doesn’t look too promising.’
He had rejected her, had rejected her physical overture of…of regret and affection, and she felt so cold inside that her muscles ached and hurt the way her flesh did when she was physically cold.
It was on her mind all the way home. Why had he done that to her? Why had he almost pushed her off, as though he loathed the very idea of her touch?
Why not? part of herself argued hardily. Up until that particular moment in time, if asked, she would have said that she loathed the thought of being touched by him.
They could have shared so much, if only she hadn’t been so determined to shut him out of her life. They could have…but it was pointless mourning now the brother he could have been. It was too late to turn back the clock. She could only go on, and hope that one day she would break through the barrier he had thrown up between them and convince him that…
That what? Heather didn’t know. She only knew that she was conscious of a tremendous loss; of a great sadness and heaviness of heart; of a sensation of having stupidly deprived herself of something she would mourn for the rest of her life.