‘He kissed me once!’ Leila snapped. ‘And, if you really must know, I was just stopping him when you horned in .'
‘Is that why you were wrapping yourself round him like a besotted boa-constrictor?’
‘I’m not staying out here to be ranted at, Blaize. You can go to hell.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he said with dangerous smoothness, blocking her path as she tried to get past.
‘I asked you to show a little diplomacy this weekend. What the hell is this? Your idea of keeping my blood pressure down?’
‘You do not own me,’ she told him, her voice shaking with anger. ‘You invited me to this party, Mr. Oliver. In my folly, I assumed I’d be able to enjoy myself for once—which, I might tell you, is a damned rare thing in this house! I didn’t count on the Doomsday Factor blowing up around my ears. The megalomania of a man who thinks he owns every woman in sight!’
‘And I didn’t count on your making an unerring beeline for the richest bachelor in the room,’ he retorted with insulting contempt.
‘I don’t know a thing about Jason’s financial circumstances,’ she said, her voice rising at the implication. ‘He was just being kind and friendly to me. If that’s a crime—’
‘When 1kiss you,’ Blaize cut in harshly, ‘you kick and struggle as though I were some kind of leper. When that overgrown public schoolboy kisses you, you melt into his arms like a meringue on a hotplate. What’s the explanation? ‘
The irony of it was so painful that she almost laughed.
If only he knew that it hadn’t been Jason Tennant kissing her out there, but his own ghost! But wild horses wouldn’t have dragged that truth out of her. ‘This is all a little primitive, isn’t it?’ she said with deliberate coldness, rubbing her arm. ‘I’m going to have one hell of a bruise tomorrow, thanks to your delicacy of touch.’
‘Will you stop swearing at me?’
‘If you’ll stop shouting at me.’
‘You haven’t answered my question!’ he snapped, his temperature obviously rising as hers cooled.
‘There is no explanation,’ she replied, trying to move round the other side of him. ‘Maybe it’s just that I prefer his company to yours!’
‘Or that you’re as false as water.’ He leaned against the wall of the house, his outstretched arm blocking her escape. His face was taut with anger. ‘Know what I think?’
‘No, and I don’t want to know!’
‘I think you’re about as genuine as a three-pound note,’ he said grimly. ‘I think you’re out for the main chance, baby blue eyes, and you don’t care what means you use to get it. Only you’ve picked the wrong target. Jason Tennant isn’t half the man I am. Shall 1prove it?’
‘No!’
But he was pulling her towards him with force, crushing her lips in a kiss that was both a punishment and a caress. She struggled against him in outrage, but he was so strong. She gasped as he pressed his lips to the delicate bones of her temples, his mouth almost brutal as it roamed over her throat, his teeth grazing the soft flesh of her neck.
‘You little bitch,’ he whispered, his voice unsteady with emotion. ‘How could you let him kiss you like that? Hell, you drive me crazy!’
Treacherous weakness undermined her resistance. She didn’t know whether her own moan was of desire or despair as his hand cupped her breast, then, impatient of the covering of her dress, lifted to slide her shoulder-strap down.
The skin of her breasts was warm and silky in his palm.
‘See how you want me?’ he said roughly as the fierce pangs of pleasure made her press against him, whimpering.
‘You can’t help it. You were born to be mine, Leila. I need you, I want you…’
He bent to take her nipple in his mouth, the sharp tip of his teeth a torment that was instantly assuaged by the moist caress of his lips and tongue.
Her emotions exploded in a turmoil, making her arch to him, her arms reaching for him.
‘You’re hurting me,’ she whimpered as he crushed her in his arms.
‘And you,’ he said huskily, ‘do you want to now what you do to me?’ He took her hand, drawing it down his body to lay her palm against the hard outline of his desire.
An electric shock seemed to surge from him into her as she touched him, desire igniting like a glass of brandy thrown into a fire.
‘you’ve already forgotten him, haven’t you?’ he demanded huskily. ‘One man is as good as another to you. There’s a name for the kind of girl you are. Want to hear it?’
Leila moved first, her hurt and anger lifting her hand in a slap that cracked across his cheek before her mind had even got round to forming the intention.
Before he could recover his balance, she darted past him, pulling her dress straight, and flew up the stairs back on to the terrace. If Blaize got his hands on her before his temper had time to cool—
She almost collided with the tall, elegant figure of Katherine Henessey. She stared at Leila. ‘Is Blaize with you?’ she asked sharply. ‘I saw him walk off the terrace in your company just now.’
‘No. I mean, yes.’ She was out of breath, and heaven alone knew what she looked like, her emotions torn by desire, pain and anger.
‘What do you mean?’ Katherine demanded icily.
Leila took a quivering breath. ‘I mean, yes, I did leave with him, and no, he’s not with me now. I left him in the garden.’
‘Why are you panting?’ The pupils of Katherine’s eyes, Leila noticed suddenly, were ringed with an icy green line, arctic centres to the warm hazel corneas. ‘What’s been going on here?’
Before she could answer, a deep voice came from behind her. ‘Nothing’s been going on.’
Blaize materialised out of the night behind her. His left cheek, Leila noticed with a mingled thrill of alarm and satisfaction, was reddened. He looked, if anything, even angrier than he’d done before they’d left the dancefloor.
His smile was humourless. ‘Shall we all get back to the party?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Katherine said, moving to him. ‘That’s why I came to find you, darling. I don’t want you losing yourself in obscure little corners.’
‘Obscure little corners is so right,’ he said bleakly. ‘I lost my way for a moment.’
Ignoring Leila completely, he took Katherine in his arms and planted a warm, passionate kiss right on her mouth.
Leila felt sick as she saw Katherine’s eyes close in a moment of sheer pleasure, the force of Blaize’s embrace bending her lithe waist backwards. She had no option but to watch helplessly as Blaize’s hand moved hungrily down the other woman’s flank, smoothing the shapely figure beneath the black silk, as though she were naked to his touch.
She felt hurt enough to bleed. He was paying her back for that slap, and he’d found a way of wounding her that was far ‘more effective than any sting she’d been able to deliver him.
A fourth figure emerged from the crowd to join the group―Tracey, in a pretty red trouser-suit, with her hair tied up in a loose chignon. She looked very adult―a lot more like the girl who’d met her at the airport than the teenager Leila had left playing draughts on Terry’s bed. Her eyes took in the scene, but she said nothing.
‘You offered to help an hour or two ago,’ Katherine reminded Leila pointedly. Her eyes were bright with triumphant malice. ‘I think you’re needed in the diningroom now, if you don’t mind, my dear.’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ Leila said numbly. All her anger and excitement had collapsed into dull depression.
‘Good.’ Katherine had linked her arm very possessively through Blaize’s. Her even white teeth glinted in another smile. ‘If you could just help people to fill their plates, I’d be so grateful. Make sure everyone gets a bit of the trifle, OK? And make sure there are no dirty plates left lying around. It makes the place look so untidy. You can just drop them off in the kitchen. Quite sure you don’t mind?’
‘Quite,’ Leila gritted, feeling her skin flush crimson with anger.
She heard Blaize’s husky, intimate laugh as he moved off with Katherine. He still hadn’t so much as glanced at Leila again, though he touched Tracey’s cheek as he left.
Leila stood perfectly still, counting to twenty. A social worker had once taught her to do that, when her emotions started getting out of control.
Some party. Some bloody party.
At the end of the twenty, the anger was fading but the hurt wasn’t. She met Tracey’s eyes. The teenager had probably witnessed that flaming kiss between her father and Katherine, She had certainly witnessed Leila’s humiliation at Katherine’s hands.
But, for a girl whose wishes were all coming true she didn’t look triumphant. In fact, she looked strangely uncomfortable. And as Leila pushed past her without a word, she caught a distinct whiff of a familiar perfume on Tracey’s skin.
Poison.
CHAPTER SIX
LEILA awoke the next morning heavy-eyed and irritable.
She preferred not to think back to the events of last night, but a few salient memories would not be repressed.
Like the blazing desire that had grown out of their mutual anger. Like the hefty slap she’d landed on her employer’s cheek.
Like the next three hours spent dully dishing out food and ferrying dirty plates to the kitchen from the diningroom.
And the amusing spectacle of Blaize allover Katherine for the rest of the evening. Not to mention Jason Tennant dancing very pointedly with someone else, a very pretty girl who’d caught her eye earlier in the evening.
And at one o’clock in the morning, just when the party was reaching its height, the way Katherine had sent her to bed with effusive thanks for being ‘such a helpful pet’.
The only bright point had come in Terry’s bedroom.
Despite everything, she hadn’t forgotten her promise to him, and the way he had snuggled into her arms when she kissed him goodnight had gone some way towards assuaging the indignities and affronts of the evening.
She washed, listening to the silence of the house.
Everyone would no doubt be sleeping very late this morning. Blaize, to her certain knowledge, had drunk half a bottle of Glen Grant last night. As if he was the one who’d been wounded!
Sunday. Her day off. She would have liked nothing better than to get a hundred miles away from this house and its occupants today. But she didn’t have any kind of transport.
At least the pool would be free at this time of the morning. Maybe a good long swim would help chase away the headache and the depression.
She put on her costume, pulled a robe over herself, and went out.
It was a slightly muggy, sultry day. The sky was hazy, rather than overcast, and there was hardly a breath of wind. Not a soul appeared to be stirring, though the sprinkler system was already working, showering its diamonds over the lush lawns.
Someone had made strenuous efforts to tidy up at some stage last night; empty bottles had been gathered in huge wicker baskets, and litter had been collected in black plastic bags. The amount of food and drink consumed was astronomical. This little thrash must have cost Blaize a fortune. She kicked a very expensive-looking pair of scarlet panties aside with distaste. Some party.
The water was cool and delicious. Clearing her mind of everything, she swam a few lengths, and started feeling better. She’d been a good swimmer at school, and had held the record for underwater swimming.
Hanging on to the edge, she eyed the distance across the pool. It was a big pool, and a long way. Once she could have made it underwater, at a stretch. But now, after six or seven years of a sedentary existence behind desks?
She decided to try, and took several deep breaths before sinking under the blue water, and kicking out hard for the opposite side.
Her lungs started to burst two-thirds of the way there, and she had a moment of despair. Then the memory of last night’s indignities flashed into her mind, and anger fuelled her veins with the necessary energy.
She felt a moment of joy as her fingertips touched the other side, and she exploded out of the water,whooping for breath.
‘I was just wondering whether to jump in and pull you out.’
She looked up, spluttering and gasping, to see Blaize sitting on the diving-board, watching her. He was wearing cream denims and a dark blue shirt, and he looked wearily ironic.
‘It’s been-a long time-since I did that,’ she panted, clinging to the edge. ‘You’re up early. I expected you to be-dead to the world.’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Guilty conscience?’ she suggested innocently.
‘No,’ he growled. ‘Little men with little pneumatic hammers, working away inside my skull.’
‘You drank far too much whisky. I saw you.’
‘Sharp-eyed little minx.’
‘The water’s lovely. I felt the way you look before I jumped in.’
‘No, thanks. I took a long time to work up this hangover; and I’m going to enjoy it. Besides, in my present state, I’d probably drown. And I don’t trust you to pull me out.’
‘After last night’s behaviour? You’d be lucky if I threw you a water-wing.’ He evidently wasn’t going to offer any kind of apology. Well, she’d been silly to expect one.
‘What time did you all get to bed?’ Leila asked, drifting away and treading water.
‘I can’t speak for the rest of them,’ he said, ‘but I crawled off around five this morning.’
Probably into Katherine’s arms, she added mentally, and winced unhappily at the thought.
‘Go on,’ he commanded, ‘swim, swim. I’ll be all right, as long as you don’t splash too loudly.’
Leila swam another couple of lengths before pulling herself out and drying herself on her towel. Blaize’s tiger’s eyes couldn’t resist assessing her slender, athletic body with a rather wry air. She pulled on her robe, and sat down next to him on the diving-board.
‘I know a sovereign remedy for hangovers,’ she suggested.
‘Does it work for viper bites?’ he enquired drily.
‘You can’t blame me for your excesses, either alcoholic or any other kind,’ Leila reproved. ‘You behaved like some awful old sea-lion last night.’
He arched one dark eyebrow. ‘Awful old what?’
‘Haven’t you ever seen those animals on nature programmes? The males are awesome great beasts, with huge teeth and bad tempers. They collect harems of females around themselves—’
‘I get the picture,’ Blaize interrupted. ‘But I was just defending your honour against that smooth-talking young whelp, Jason.’
‘My honour wasn’t in any danger,’ she said primly.
‘And Jason hit the nail on the head when he said that you think you own every woman in sight.’
‘Haven’t we got this the wrong way round?’ he rasped, baleful green eyes piercing hers. ‘Shouldn’t I be the one getting all moral, and shouldn’t you be the one making the apology?’
‘Certainly not,’ she retorted, and towelled her hair briskly. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘I know what I should do,’ he rumbled, ‘but I don’t think I’m strong enough yet.’
She brushed her damp hair into some kind of order while he watched.
‘You should let your hair grow,’ he decided, inconsequentially.
‘It’s too pretty to keep so short.’
‘I’ve just cut it all off,’ she informed him.
‘Trust you to do something as daft. Your judgement is seriously impaired, Miss Thomas. Sure you weren’t dropped as a baby?’
‘Only as far as the orphanage.’
The wry remark made them both smile briefly. ‘Well,’ Blaize said, rising, ‘I have a flying lesson lined up this morning, after which I have to ferry some of my eager friends up to France, for a gourmet meal. The duties of being a host seem to
get heavier every year.’
‘My heart bleeds.’
He stared into her eyes between narrowed lashes.
‘You’re not going to apologise, and I’m not going to apologise, so I guess we’ll have to settle for this.’
She had opened her unsuspecting mouth to say something when Blaize took her cool face in his hands, and kissed her parted lips.
His kiss was hard, warm, and intimately possessive.
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