Vengeful Seduction (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern)

by Williams Cathy

  Lorenzo ignored that. ‘When you married him,’ he muttered, ‘I spent so long going quietly mad at the thought that you would be making love to him.’ His hand moved to cup her breast and he groaned slightly as though surprised and dismayed by an involuntary reflex action over which he had no control.

  Isobel gasped. Her breathing was forced and erratic and she had a terrible feeling that if she closed her eyes she would never resurface back to reality. She kept her eyes wide open and reminded herself that this was a man who felt nothing for her but fury and dislike. The fact that her body was longing to respond to his touch was a temporary heat against which she knew she had to fight because if she gave in to him, even momentarily, she would never be able to live with herself again. It was the wine. She should never have had that fourth glass. He had been right.

  ‘Let me go,’ she said, in as normal a voice as she could muster. ‘I don’t want to talk about him or about my marriage. I don’t want you to touch me.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ he whispered. ‘You want me as much as I want you.’

  ‘No.’ She moved but it was a weak gesture. Her limbs felt like lead. She wanted to move, to run away, but her body was no longer functioning. It had decided to stay put.

  He looked at her, and his finger moved to toy with her nipple until she wanted to scream out in frustrated longing. She clenched her fists into balls and tried to breathe steadily.

  ‘Don’t do that. I don’t want you to do that, Lorenzo. The time for that has long gone.’ Her voice had sunk to a breathless whisper.

  ‘Don’t lie. You’re enjoying this.’ He raised her jumper and exposed her breast, covering the taut nipple with his mouth. She shuddered. She thought dazedly, We’re enemies, but nothing was responding to reason.

  She pressed his head against her and arched back as his mouth suckling against her breast sent volts of electricity through her body, through every nerve-ending.

  ‘Tell me,’ he murmured hoarsely, ‘tell me about him. I need to know. Jeremy is dead and the past can no longer haunt you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ She pulled herself away, mortified at what had just happened as reality reasserted itself, and he drew back with a gesture of angry rejection.

  ‘Damn you, Isobel,’ he bit out, and she sprang off him, taking two steps backwards on shaky legs.

  ‘You don’t care about me, Lorenzo. What makes you think that I would ever confide in you? What makes you think that I would ever tell you about the past four years?’ She laughed bitterly, hating him for arousing her and hating herself for her treacherous body.

  ‘Oh, keep your bloody little secrets!’ he said harshly, standing up, and she took a couple more steps backwards. He looked as though he was about to say more, his eyes like flint, his powerful body tensed with self-imposed control. But whatever more he had to say she didn’t find out, because they both heard Mrs Chandler approaching and, in an automatic reaction, they both turned away from each other.

  Isobel dragged a smile on to her face just as her mother walked through the door, but she still made sure that she didn’t look at Lorenzo.

  She was so overcome that she felt sick. Sick and giddy. As if she were suffering from some dreadful tropical disease that had infiltrated her whole system and left her incapable of coherent thought or action.

  Wine had nothing to do with what had just taken place. It was as if a dam had burst and yearnings which she had spent years denying had surfaced, filling her and taking her over.

  ‘All ready.’ Her mother looked bright and alive. She took Lorenzo’s arm, pressing him to tell her more about America, more about what he had been doing there. Isobel glanced at him from under her lashes and wondered whether his body was still throbbing the way that hers was, or whether his passion had died the minute she had pushed him away, the minute reality had shown him the face of the woman he now hated.

  He said he wanted her and he did, but his hatred was more powerful than his desire. By marrying her he would satisfy both.

  No one would think now, though, that he had anything on his mind other than an evening ahead of pleasant company and invigorating conversation.

  The man, she thought, was an actor of the first order. He had always, even as a teenager, had the ability to conceal deep feeling, and that ability had obviously been honed to perfection over the years.

  Isobel trailed behind them, feeling like a sulky schoolgirl at an adult gathering.

  Her mother had laid the kitchen table, apologising in case Lorenzo thought it too informal, knowing that he would laugh warmly and make the right noises of appreciation. He did, and he really seemed to mean it.

  Mrs Chandler had brought out a bottle of wine from the wine cellar and she handed it to Lorenzo, who opened it quickly and efficiently.

  ‘Isobel hardly drinks at all, do you, darling? Tonight is the first time that I’ve seen her have more than one forced, polite glass of wine,’ her mother said conversationally as he poured them each a glass, and Lorenzo raised his eyes in a question.

  Immediately, and for no reason whatsoever, she felt on the defensive.

  ‘I prefer not to,’ she admitted carefully, sitting down and indulging in another sulky schoolgirl mannerism of toying with the cutlery. This was not like her at all. She had become cool, contained, virtually unflappable over the years. Where, she wondered, was all that now?

  Lorenzo was looking at her; she could feel his eyes boring into her head, waiting for an elaboration on that statement. She had never been a heavy drinker when she knew him, but on the other hand she had not been averse to a glass of wine. In fact, she could think of countless times when they had cracked open a bottle and lain back, talking about nothing and everything, and she was quite certain that he remembered those occasions as well. He seemed to remember everything else.

  ‘Jeremy——’ her mother began, and Isobel cut in sharply.

  ‘Mother!’ He already knew, of course, that her marriage had not been a roaring success, but for some reason she was loath to confirm the depth of its failure. She didn’t think that she could stand his pity as well as his contempt.

  ‘He was fond of the odd glass now and then…?’ Lorenzo pressed as he helped himself to a generous serving of chicken.

  ‘More than the odd glass,’ Mrs Chandler reflected, glancing quickly at her daughter.

  ‘The vegetables,’ Isobel stated in an over-loud voice, ‘are home-grown.’ There was no way that she wanted her mother to launch into the subject of Jeremy and his drinking. She knew that both her parents had been appalled and worried at his habit, which had steadily worsened over the years. At first they had made attempts to discuss it with both of them, then with her, since Jeremy became tight-lipped and defensive the minute it was mentioned as a problem, but she had laughingly joked the matter away, and after a while they had fallen silent on the subject. But she would have to have been blind not to notice their anxious glances at one another whenever she and Jeremy were around. They had found his behaviour distasteful, as she had. They had found him distasteful, but were too polite ever to mention it. But it had been there in their eyes, in glances caught when they thought that their daughter’s attention was elsewhere.

  No doubt her mother now thought that Lorenzo, as an old friend, was entitled to confidences on the subject, but Isobel was not about to fall into any such way of thinking.

  ‘Mum,’ she continued firmly, ‘still maintains the vegetable plot at the back of the garden.’ She concentrated heavily on the chicken on her plate. ‘We have all kinds of herbs, green beans, potatoes. In summer the strawberries are marvellous.’

  ‘In fact——’ her mother was looking at Lorenzo and her face was sheepish but wistful ‘—and, darling, don’t take this the wrong way, but just between the three of us, David and I had always hoped——’ she paused and Isobel stared at her, horrified at some unformulated suspicion of what was to come ‘—had always thought that you two…that you two would perhaps…who knows…? Silly of us, wasn�
��t it?’ She smiled and so did Lorenzo, a smile of triumph meant for Isobel’s eyes only.

  The smile of the victor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE subject was dropped as gracefully as it had arisen, but throughout the light-hearted chat about gardens Isobel could feel her head swimming with the desperate implications of her mother’s remarks.

  She had never, not once, mentioned any such thoughts to her. What on earth had possessed her to mention them now? In front of Lorenzo?

  She looked at him, a sideways look, and wondered whether it was her imagination, or was a smile of satisfaction hovering on his lips?

  She poured herself another glass of wine, throwing him a defiant look which met with an amused curve of his mouth, and only considered it safe to resurface back into the conversation when, inevitably, they began discussing old friends.

  ‘Isobel tells me that Richard Adams is doing rather well,’ Lorenzo murmured casually.

  Probing, Isobel thought sourly. Did he want to find out from another source whether there was anything more to their relationship than she had told him? Did he think that they had carried on a torrid, clandestine affair behind Jeremy’s back? She wouldn’t have put it past him. In fact, there wasn’t much she wouldn’t put past him.

  ‘What a nice young man,’ Mrs Chandler said warmly. She looked at her daughter. ‘You rather enjoy working with him, don’t you, Isobel?’

  ‘Immensely.’ She noticed the slight frown on Lorenzo’s face and smiled. ‘He’s bright, he’s sympathetic, he’s thoughtful.’

  ‘A paragon, in other words,’ Lorenzo said with an edge of coolness in his voice. ‘How odd that he never married.’

  ‘Waiting for the right woman,’ Mrs Chandler said.

  ‘How odd that you never married, Lorenzo,’ Isobel said brightly. She sipped her wine and looked at him over the rim of her glass.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re free, single and, I suppose, quite eligible.’

  ‘You think so?’ he asked in that lazy, charming voice of his. He sat back and gave her the full brunt of his attention.

  ‘I’m sure there are some women who would find you appealing,’ Isobel replied, lowering her eyes. ‘Especially in America. Don’t women outnumber men over there?’

  ‘Do they? I wasn’t aware of that statistic.’ He threw Mrs Chandler a semi-offended smile and said, reverting his attention back to Isobel, ‘I’m not sure I like your back-handed compliment, that I’m only eligible because there’s a surplus of women waiting to trap an unsuspecting man.’

  Mrs Chandler laughed, which she was meant to, but there was a certain gentle calculation in her eyes that Isobel didn’t care for.

  ‘Anyway, I won’t pry into your personal life, Lorenzo,’ Isobel said briskly.

  ‘Feel free. What would you like to know?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I find that difficult to believe. Surely you must be curious about me after four years.’

  Mrs Chandler was watching them closely, with the amused half-smile of an adult watching the antics of two children, but that didn’t fool Isobel. She knew her mother too well to be taken in by that bland, pleasant expression.

  ‘No,’ she said, hastily retreating from the conversation, and he shrugged, willing to let it go for the moment.

  They had managed to proceed through the main course, and her mother now brought dessert to the table. An apple pie which, she felt compelled to admit, was left over from the day before.

  They began chatting about Abigail—lustrous Abigail and her soaring career-—and Isobel gradually relaxed. She was tremendously proud of her friend. She had done some plays on Broadway and Isobel grew voluble on the subject, comparing notes with Lorenzo, who had seen them both, laughing as the wine resumed its effect and they went over old times.

  Talking over old times was safe, just so long as those old times didn’t involve memories of Lorenzo, and they didn’t.

  He could be disarmingly witty and, by the time the apple pie had been consumed, any electricity in the atmosphere had evaporated.

  Her mother began clearing away the dishes, and Lorenzo insisted that she relax in the sitting-room while he and Isobel tidied up the kitchen.

  ‘The chef never washes,’ he informed her, and she bustled away obligingly, leaving them alone in the kitchen.

  ‘I feel as though I’ve drunk a case of wine,’ Isobel said as she began washing. It felt good being here with him, in the warm, mellow kitchen with the blinds down and the chill autumn air blowing outside. Her caution seemed to have vanished.

  ‘It agrees with you,’ he said smoothly. ‘You don’t look as though you’re permanently sharpening your weapons for a fight.’

  ‘I’m not too sure I like that picture of myself,’ she answered, laughing. ‘You make me sound like a battleaxe.’

  ‘Do I?’ he asked softly from next to her. ‘You’re too damned beautiful ever to be described as a battle-axe. Battle-axes have iron-grey hair pinned into buns and enough wrinkles to tell the world just how dissatisfied they are with life.’

  ‘Really?’ She grinned to herself, and thought in a muddled way that she shouldn’t be feeling happy, not here, not with him. ‘I can’t think that you’ve had much to do with grey-haired, wrinkled women who are dissatisfied with life.’

  ‘What sort of women do you think I’ve had to do with?’

  She plunged her hands into the soapy water and thought, at the back of her mind, that there was something dangerously exciting about this conversation.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Oh yes, you have,’ he whispered huskily.

  ‘Good-looking women, I suppose. Women who look stunning when they’re draped on your arm.’

  ‘I’m not interested in women as ornaments. I never have been. You of all people should know that.’

  ‘Should I? Why?’ She was so aware of him that she didn’t dare lift her eyes to his.

  ‘Do you consider yourself ornamental?’

  She laughed nervously.

  ‘This is not a conversation to have when I’m feeling light-headed,’ she said, turning around with her back to the kitchen sink, and he dropped the tea-cloth and faced her, leaning to rest his hands on either side of her.

  ‘What kind of conversation would you like?’ he asked. ‘Shall we talk about horticulture? Politics? The mating habits of the beaver?’

  She stared down at his hands and was aware that quite a bit of her light-headedness was not due to the wine. Her heart was beating fast, so fast that she felt as though she were suffocating.

  She looked at his strong hands, at the fine dark hair curling over the watch-strap. She followed them up, her eyes dwelling on the curve of his neck, the breadth of his shoulders, and by the time they reached his face she found that she was breathing quickly, gasping for air.

  ‘Or shall we talk about something else, Isobel? Shall we talk about Jeremy?’

  ‘No. There’s nothing to talk about. My life,’ she added in a whisper, ‘has been nothing to talk about.’

  Lorenzo didn’t answer. He folded his arms around her and drew her to him. She could hear the steady beat of his heart as she rested her head against his chest and bit back the sudden urge to cry.

  ‘Oh, Isobel,’ he murmured, stroking her hair. ‘Was it dreadful?’

  She liked him stroking her hair like that. She so badly wanted to be comforted.

  ‘I miss my father dreadfully,’ she whispered, inconsequentially, and he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He understood. She knew he did.

  ‘Why won’t you talk to me about it?’ he asked roughly, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She heard him sigh under his breath, but there wasn’t the usual reaction of fury. He just continued stroking her hair. Friends, she thought, for the moment.

  Except…She felt a quiver of real alarm. Except she didn’t want his friendship, did she? It would be an impossible friendship anyway, because two people could never really reach each other
when underneath there was an undercurrent of contempt and mistrust. Right now her defences had been lowered, she recognised that, and so, quite possibly, had his. He had, after all, had a few glasses of wine himself.

  She drew back and looked straight into his face, and the realisation that she was looking at a man whom she still loved, whom she had never stopped loving, rocked her to her foundations.

  She made a weak attempt to herself to rationalise that this stupid reaction was simply something born from unusual circumstances. Jeremy was no longer around, her father was no longer around—her dear father whom she had loved so much—but suddenly Lorenzo was, and nostalgia was playing its part in dictating emotions which, when she sat down and thought about them, didn’t really exist.

  But it was only a weak argument. She closed her eyes and knew that her heart had only ever belonged to one man. She had thrown away her chances with him because of necessity, and now there were no chances left because, at the end of the day, he hated her.

  She took a deep, steadying breath and pushed past him.

  She would have to be doubly careful now, she thought. If Lorenzo wanted to hurt her then he really wouldn’t have to try very hard if he knew how she still felt about him.

  Wouldn’t that be the sweetest of poetic justice? she thought bitterly.

  She fetched three cups from the cupboard, knowing that he was watching her.

  ‘I take it that means that you don’t want to talk to me about your marriage?’

  ‘I told you,’ Isobel mumbled, with her back to him, ‘there’s nothing to talk about.’

  ‘In that case, why the secrecy?’

  ‘Why can’t you forget about what happened?’ she asked. She heard the give-away desperation in her voice and covered it up by making a great fuss with the coffeemachine.

  ‘He had something over you, didn’t he?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You never loved him. No one who knew you seriously expected you to marry him. Abigail thought that for some reason you married him because you had to, you were compelled to——‘