Bittersweet Passion

by Lynne Graham

  He wasn’t her husband. She didn’t feel married any more than he did. She felt violated. He had torn all her privacy from her and left her naked and vulnerable. How had it happened? Like someone emerging from a fevered dream she looked back miserably on the past hours. She just couldn’t begin to understand how Dane could rouse her to a state of such abject and mindless passion. Max was the man she loved. Max, with his all-on-the-surface personality and old-fashioned principles. Dane was as treacherously beautiful as a glacier and, like ice, he burned. Surely her love for Max ought to have conferred immunity upon her?

  She wasn’t an animal. Animals mated without emotion. Horribly confused by what she had become in his arms, she lay there. There was no get-out clause. Seduced was a great word but it scarcely supplied excuse for her behaviour when she loved Max. Her very loyalty should have made her freeze. Instead she had wanted him, wanted him so fiercely that in the end nothing else had mattered but the assuagement of her desire.

  She would have to tell Max. Her stomach turned over at the humiliating, shameful prospect. She had never really done anything wrong before. She had never been tempted and the temptation had come just like Eve’s serpent proffering an outwardly innocent bait. And right now she couldn’t even begin to sum up what the end result would be.

  She crawled out of bed, lingering to make it although she had no doubt Thompson was well aware where they had been. Under the shower she scrubbed herself raw, washing away the scent and the touch of him in an orgy of bitter self-reproach. If she could as easily wipe the memory away, how much more simple facing him again would be and, had she not had a hideous vision of being forcibly yanked back should she try to leave, she would have been packing again.

  On the threshold of her bedroom she froze, tucking her towel more carefully about her. A tall redhead in a superb sable coat spun round to view her with equal incredulity.

  ‘My God!’ the stranger evinced, moving forward. ‘What did he see in you? You’re little and—’ the heavily mascaraed eyes roamed over her ‘—skinny. Are you pregnant? Not that I think he’d be so easily caught, but one never can tell, even … well, especially with Dane because one never quite knows what he’s thinking. He’s not exactly in a bridal mood either, is he?’ she mocked.

  Claire was having trouble getting and keeping oxygen in her lungs after that monologue. ‘Will you get out of here?’

  ‘You can’t blame me for being curious,’ she replied coolly, turning on her heel. ‘By the way I’m Zelda, Zelda Carlotti. I’m married to Dane’s cousin, Matt.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DANE was in the lounge, and a stockily built, middle-aged male with improbably dark hair was accepting a drink from him. The Mouth, as Claire had christened Zelda, was nowhere to be seen. Probably freshening up her tongue on a kitchen knife. Dane strolled gracefully up the steps to meet her. ‘You could try a smile,’ he reproved softly.

  ‘If you keep that harpie out of my hair,’ she whispered, avoiding his eyes.

  ‘I happen to like Zelda.’

  ‘Like to like,’ she hissed.

  ‘Very vocal in company, aren’t you?’ he noted in a lion’s purr. ‘Come and meet Matt. Zelda’s very friendly with a gossip columnist. That’s how she found out so fast about our wedding.’

  Matt chortled, his aspect that of a man who had already had a few drinks. ‘And she rushed here to pull your bride to pieces. Or was it to dig out the details her friend Wilma didn’t have? She’s raving mad because she had to hear about it from a third party.’ He laughed again. ‘Say, this is good Scotch, Dane. Why don’t you throw us out? It seems a gloomy location for a wedding night, but with us thrown in, it becomes gruesome.’

  Dane pressed her down on a leather settee and he walked away from her again, talking about his last trip to Jamaica. Not a phrase did she absorb.

  The room was starkly modern, yards of pale carpet merging into walls, a colour scheme that did not detract from the effect of sparse, expensive furniture. She clutched the sherry Dane deposited in her nerveless fingers and pretended to sip when she glanced up accidentally once and clashed with his narrowed, assessing stare.

  What was he waiting for? A scene of hysterical recriminations, regardless of the company they now had? He had chosen the punishment wisely and cruelly. Having betrayed her vulnerability to him as a lover, he had destroyed her pride and, until that moment of truth, Claire had never realised just how proud she was deep down inside. How did he feel? Satisfied? Against her volition a heady blush swept her skin. She could feel his eyes on her, seeking to probe, and she willed herself not to meet his gaze. Did he feel revenged? Or, more probably, was he regretting the loss of control that had swept them both into an intimacy that went far beyond the bounds of their relationship?

  He couldn’t have desired her as a woman. Somehow that made it that much more agonising. That he could take her and forget her again. That he could be calm now, when she seethed inside. That he had demolished the one barrier that enabled her to meet him on an equal level.

  ‘He’s smirking!’ Zelda’s shrill voice carolled, the tap, tap of stilettos sounding on the open-tread steps. ‘That man is down in that kitchen smirking like his horse has won the Derby and he’s serving dinner now, he tells me. Why, it’s barely half-six!’

  ‘Perhaps they’re looking forward to an early night,’ her husband remarked drily.

  ‘Oh, don’t be vulgar, Matt!’ she snapped. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Dane? Why all this heavy secrecy? And why does she look like … well, she doesn’t look happy, does she? You’d expect her to be crowing.’

  Claire gave her a brittle smile. ‘About what?’ she inserted into the flood.

  Zelda looked at her in astonishment.

  ‘I believe I’m the one who’s supposed to be crowing,’ Dane countered gently. ‘And we’re having dinner early because we skipped lunch, and “she” is the cat’s mother. Zelda. Anything else?’

  ‘Plenty!’ Now shorn of her coat, Zelda sat down, crossing long, shapely legs. Her smiling, attractive features were marred only by the hardness of her eyes. ‘Where did you meet?’

  Dane was already calmly pouring her a drink. ‘Yorkshire,’ he said amiably. ‘Claire was ten. She had plaits and a stammer in those days.’

  Zelda was still staring at Claire, her eyes skimming over the elegantly simple blue dress and her fragile features. ‘You never had a taste for little girls that I knew of, and what’s in Yorkshire? What were you doing there?’ Her brow furrowed. ‘Good God, she’s not one of those grasping Fletchers, is she? I never associated the name … Claire. She’s your cousin, Dane. That’s practically incestuous.’

  Claire’s lips firmed. ‘I was adopted. There’s no blood tie.’

  In the same moment, Thompson announced dinner and they all filed out to the dining-room.

  ‘So you met when she was ten,’ Zelda resumed at the table. ‘How did you arrive at today, when I happen to know that not three days ago you …’ She suddenly let out a yelp of pain.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, honey?’ Matt enquired with a benevolent beam. Claire registered that that alcoholic bonhomie was very deceptive, though it had come too late to deny her the knowledge that there had been another female in Dane’s bed in the very recent past. A tide of fury passed through her, so strong that she quivered.

  ‘Adam wouldn’t have me in the house,’ Dane drawled, his eyes coldly fixed on Zelda over the top of Claire’s downbent head.

  ‘That old miser would have put a red carpet down for you if you’d so much as shown a hint of interest. You’ll have to do better than that,’ Zelda challenged.

  ‘I married her for her money?’ Dane laughed. ‘No, that doesn’t wash either. To be brutally frank, Zelda, my marriage is none of your business.’

  A chilly little silence fell. Claire, still reeling from that conscienceless laugh, caught the pain in Zelda’s dark eyes, a depth of pain and anger that had only one source. She looked away, too raw herself to experience any relish in ack
nowledging that she had let herself be hurt by the ravings of a very jealous woman.

  Dinner was a culinary triumph. Thompson alone was set on celebration and it was obvious. There was a faint, revealing quirk to his normally bland mouth. He broke out champagne and Zelda talked, talked, talked, incessantly, like a tap without a washer, contriving often to be amusing while she name-dropped and listed snob resorts and pretended surprise that Claire had never travelled.

  Dane never once betrayed the tension that lay between them. She recognised that he wouldn’t let anyone shoot her down even though he had no compunction about hurting her himself. It was an odd little twist in him that had always been there.

  ‘I think it’s time we left,’ Zelda said rather abruptly over the coffee cups and immediately stood up. ‘I left my coat in your room, Claire.’

  She picked up her fur slowly. ‘You don’t bitch back, do you? He would like that. I suppose I ought to apologise but it was a shock to hear he’d got married. I had an affair with Dane before he introduced me to Matt,’ she elucidated almost defiantly. ‘I’m not envious now, because he doesn’t love you. He’s also constitutionally incapable of fidelity for any length of time, and I don’t envy you the competition out there. I’ll even give you a piece of advice for free. Don’t ever crowd him. He hates that.’ Raising the collar of her coat she gave Claire a cool smile. ‘You see, I’ve saved you asking any awkward questions.’

  Strain showed in her tightened mouth and Claire, rather taken aback by that depth of brazen honesty, just followed her out to the hall where Zelda’s farewell to them both was a masterpiece of mocking amusment.

  ‘How long have they been married?’ The question got her up the stairs and back into a seat as distant from his tall, lean figure and her covert physical awareness of him now, as she could decently get.

  ‘About a decade. They don’t exactly improve one’s view of happily ever after, do they? Still, that’s their business,’ Dane retorted carelessly. ‘What are you planning to say to me, Claire? Where do we go from here? No place but where we are now. When I want a separation, I’ll tell you. Meanwhile, you stay.’

  She interlaced her cold fingers. ‘I can’t live like that.’

  ‘You’ve already begun. I’d remind you that I didn’t invite you into my life. What you find there, and whether or not it’s to your taste is immaterial to me,’ he drawled flatteningly. ‘You were right. You’re not a child but I much preferred the child you were to the woman you’ve become.’

  His words fell on her like separate blows. A terrible hollowness seemed to be opening up inside her as she grasped his implacability. She left her seat, her hands making a sudden desperate and silent gesture. ‘I didn’t know. What do I have to do to convince you?’

  ‘I’m going out for a while.’ He just walked away from her, and she wondered abstractedly if there could come a time when his ability to walk away would hurt. Dear God, it already hurt. Their old ease of communication was gone. Nothing she could say would penetrate Dane’s ingrained cynicism and, once he had vented his anger, it seemed that for him the slate was washed clean again. Damn him, how could he be so cool? Didn’t he know what he had done?

  ‘By the way—–’ he paused at the top of the steps, the long graceful sweep of his body momentarily captured beneath the arc of a light : he was golden and untouchable and she glimpsed that cold beauty with an apprehension she could not conceal, danger signals sparking in the air like warning flares because he was so still ‘—I told Thompson to shift your clothes into my room. You’ll sleep there from now on.’

  Between the vibrant wings of her hair the pale triangle of her face froze. ‘No!’

  ‘I didn’t ask a question, and if you’re not there when I come home I’ll put you there. A scene in the middle of the night isn’t likely to leave you much dignity. One scene a day exhausts my patience.’

  ‘You … bastard,’ she whispered furiously.

  He viewed her with hard mockery. ‘Was it worth it? Was it like your fantasy or was it too real? I don’t deal in illusions so don’t expect me to apologise for smashing yours.’

  She wanted to look on Dane as unemotionally as he looked on her. But it wasn’t in her not to feel, and his lovemaking had forged ties within her that she didn’t want to examine but couldn’t suppress. Even though her mind told her she owed him nothing, something much more female and old as time was currently bound up in wondering where he was heading and who he might be going to and did he really need to humiliate her any further by disappearing tonight of all nights?

  She relived Zelda’s bitter response to Dane’s marriage and shuddered. All these years and she still wasn’t clear of him. She must have been crazy about Dane once and had he even known, had he even cared? His affairs never lasted very long. He bored very easily, very quickly. So how long could this marriage he couldn’t quickly repudiate last? A week, two weeks? How long would it take him to admit that he was bored? But this wasn’t an affair, it was an act of revenge. To keep her here when he didn’t want her, when that elemental, purely physical oblivion had been nothing to him but a retaliation for the trickery he believed her capable of. If she had ever dreamt of Dane making love to her, it had not been the entire menu in one raw, indescribable sitting …

  And the terrible irony was that he thought he had given her what she wanted. His last words had made it so humiliatingly clear that he believed she loved him. Now that he had calmed down he had selected the most obvious explanation. He knew her too well to continue to suspect that she had deceived him for financical gain. After all, she had been obsessed by him as a teenager, and so many women had fallen in love with Dane. Why should he think it odd that a female he considered repressed, naïve and introverted could still be in love with him at twenty-three? The answer was that he didn’t. And if he had thought love a likely motive before he took her to bed, her response there must surely have confirmed the suspicion. She raised cool fingers to burning cheeks.

  It tore her pride—what remained of it—to ribbons to understand what Dane must now be thinking. No wonder his temper had cooled! A mercenary motive he could never have forgiven, but undying love had a certain pathos, even if it hadn’t eased his contempt.

  It was true, she had taken a long time to get over that infatuation. But hardly surprising when she had been marooned at Ranbury, denied both a social life and an opportunity to fix her fantasies on a more available quarry. Pride and common sense had finally forced her to rationalise her own emotions and Dane hadn’t known her in the past three years. He was still mixing her up with silly little Claire who used to blush like a beetroot every time he spoke to her and do stupid things like rush out of the front door to greet him whenever he arrived, pitifully innocent of her own transparency to a male of Dane’s experience. No wonder he’d always been so kind to her. He must have felt incredibly sorry for her!

  Thompson was bustling about her room, stripping the bed. He gave her a small smile when he saw her in the doorway. ‘Will there be anything else, madam?’

  Like a lamb to the slaughter she continued on down to Dane’s room at the foot of the corridor. A négligé lay like a statement on the bed. She yanked open a cupboard door and stilled, a hand reaching out in surprise at the rainbow colours of female apparel that most certainly didn’t belong to her. Tight-mouthed, she slammed it shut again. Well, the last occupant really had left in a hurry! It must have been some size of a cheque she took with her. The bathroom had a jacuzzi and a lot of mirrors. Her toothbrush was already installed. After switching out the lights she crept into bed.

  It rolled and lurched. A water bed … well, what did you expect? People don’t have fun on a bed of nails. Tears seeped out from beneath her lowered lashes. Damn … damn … damn, what earthly use was it to think of Max now? It was too late for regrets. Max had expected to be her first lover and somewhere deep in her muddled head she could just hear Dane saying cynically. ‘Why, are you going to be his?’ She closed off that thought train angrily. What
was she trying to do? Ease her own laden conscience? Max was going to be so very angry and hurt, and he wasn’t within reach any more. There was a vast difference between explaining about Dane in absentia when the deed was done and her present position when the newspapers had published the marriage and she now lay in Dane’s bed. Her hands curled into impotent fists and the wretched bed quivered beneath her.

  The only option she had was to find a job and start trying to pay back the money she owed Dane. He couldn’t taunt her if she was self-sufficient and out of his precious private life.

  ‘And when Thompson’s gone to such trouble, too,’ Dane gibed as she pushed her plate away practically untouched.

  Claire studied the rosewood table surface. He had actually had the audacity to wake her up when he strolled home in the early hours and … well, it wasn’t any wonder that even her healthy appetite was dissipated. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ she muttered tautly. ‘Do you hear me, Dane? As long as I live, I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done to me.’

  He rested back in his chair, remarkably alert and vital for someone who had had barely any sleep. ‘There’s an astonishing amount of spirit beneath that prim little surface of yours,’ he murmured. ‘I like it. Except when it leads you to droop over the coffee cups on the brink of tears. When I think of the times I’ve longed for a breakfast partner who doesn’t chatter incessantly …’

  ‘Shut up!’ Something fierce and positively primal flared through her at his reminder of the other women who had graced this same table.

  ‘I didn’t rape you.’ He raised a satiric brow, demolishing her with a tide of X-rated imagery. It flashed across her mind that if he had, she could have lived with being a martyr. It was with being an active partner that she could not live. And that weakness shamed her too. In the space of twenty-four hours she had made a wealth of new and unwelcome discoveries about herself. That Dane had both forced and witnessed those with her redoubled her mortification. Last night he had told her he had gone for a long drive. He had been away long enough to get to Lands End and back! He must think she was stupid. She didn’t believe him and wouldn’t have lowered herself to the admission in case it added fuel to his egotistical conviction that she loved him.