Alix felt her throat close over, and a shiver chased its way down her spine. It didn’t help to know that she had brought this situation on herself. All thought of apologising was gone with the wind. Her chin came up as she prepared to do battle. ‘You’ll have a long wait.’
He laughed tonelessly. ‘I’m prepared for that—but I don’t think it will be as long as you imagine,’ he amended, and after one more all-encompassing look walked away into the villa.
Alix caught her breath as that last statement hit home. How dared he suggest she’d come running after him? He wasn’t as irresistible as he imagined! But wasn’t he? a small voice jeered at her, and she winced. Well, maybe he was, but she had done without him all these years, and she could keep on the same way. For one thing was certain—she would never beg him, never. There would be no truce between them now, just a battle she couldn’t afford to lose.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALIX listened to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom with a heavy heart. Her head turned, allowing her to see the indentation in the next pillow where Pierce’s head had rested last night. The fact of his presence in the bed had produced their first skirmish, and she had lost it. When she had walked into the bedroom the evening before, Pierce had already been in the bed. She had come to an abrupt halt when she had seen him propped up against the headboard, bare to the waist, and, if she knew anything about him, bare to his toes too. He had been reading, but he had looked up at her entry.
‘Let me know if the light bothers you,’ he had advised coolly, as if their sharing a bed were an everyday occurrence, and Alix had bristled.
‘As I have no intention of sharing so much as a room with you, let alone a bed, it hardly matters,’ she had snapped, disgusted with herself for having to tear her eyes away from the wide expanse of tanned male flesh on view. Damn him, she knew he had done it on purpose!
‘On the contrary, darling, you won’t be sleeping anywhere else,’ he had countered mildly, albeit with a steely glint in his eye.
Whereupon she had crossed her arms in a belligerent pose. Nothing on this earth would get her to agree. ‘You can hardly stop me simply turning and walking out.’
His teeth had flashed as he grinned. ‘True, but that will only make me have to come and get you—something I’m prepared to do, however many times it takes. This is our bed, and here you sleep.’
Alix had stared at him in impotent fury, knowing he would be as good as his word. He’d carry her kicking and screaming if he had to.
‘What’s the matter, Alix? Are you afraid to sleep with me? Are you afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me?’ he had taunted next, and she had risen instantly to the bait, as he had known she would.
She hadn’t said a word, just collected her nightdress and gone to change in the bathroom. The ultimate indignity had been to find that he had turned out the light and already had his back to her when she returned. He hadn’t doubted for a minute that she would do as she was told! Of course, it had been impossible to sleep, especially when she could hear Pierce’s rhythmic breathing, telling her that he had had no such problem. She had tossed and turned for hours, only falling asleep as the sky had begun to lighten.
Now she stared at his pillow, and something stronger than her will-power had her rolling over, pressing her head into the hollow, breathing in the lingering scent of him. A soft groan left her lips. Last night had been a refinement of torture. She had been excruciatingly aware of him, made worse by the knowledge that all she had had to do was reach across the space dividing them and touch him, and he would have turned to her, accepting her surrender to the inevitable. She had been sorely tempted, and knew that it would only get worse, not better.
With another groan, this time of self-disgust at her maudlin behaviour, she sat up. How on earth could she even consider giving in? She had her pride, didn’t she? But that was cold comfort, as she had known for a long time. Pride didn’t hold you close during the long hours of night, or bring the most indescribable, yet exquisite pleasure of loving.
The shower stopped, and she tensed instantly. Not wishing to be caught still in bed, Alix reached for her silk robe which lay on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, and froze. For on it rested one perfect pink rosebud. Her heart contracted, then raced madly as she tentatively picked it up. The scent was heady, sending all manner of wild thoughts through her mind. Where had it come from...and why was it here, on her robe?
‘A rose for a rose.’
The unexpected sound of Pierce’s voice caused Alix to jump violently, jabbing her thumb on a thorn. She winced as her head jerked round, as much startled by his noiseless approach as the husky note of sincerity in his voice. As she doubted her hearing, he came towards her, a towel slung low about his hips, the slicked-back blue-black hair gleaming wetly. Before she could stop him, he had taken hold of her hand, examining the small welling of blood.
‘It was supposed to please you, not hurt you,’ he declared gruffly, and raised her hand to his lips, licking the blood away.
Alix’s senses swam dizzily for a moment or two, swamped by the caring tone and the sensual caress of his tongue. This was not the man she had come to know, to her cost. He was more like the lover she had known in the beginning, five years ago. Since then, she had learned that he did nothing without a reason. That cleared her mind wonderfully. Her suspicion sharpened. What was he up to now?
With a sharp intake of breath, she pulled her hand away from that tantalising touch. ‘Roses, Pierce?’ she queried sardonically. ‘What did I do to deserve this...token of your esteem?’ She managed to instil a healthy dose of scorn into the words, acknowledging as she did so that they were as much for her benefit as his—a reminder that she must not fall into the same trap as before.
Her husband didn’t rise to her bait. ‘Nothing. Perhaps I decided to lay my heart at your feet for you to walk over this time.’
Her lips parted on a silent gasp. He couldn’t really be saying he cared for her, could he? That he was offering her her revenge? The answer came back violently; no. Not Pierce Martineau. He was just toying with her again, probing for a way through to her. And she knew only one reason for that—to undermine her resolve to resist him. Her face pinched up, and she crossed swiftly to the waste basket, tossing the flower into it. Yet not without a twinge of compunction for the damage to such a perfect bloom. Whenever she and Pierce came together, something beautiful was destroyed.
She turned her back on it, raising her chin to him. ‘In order to do that, you’d first have to have a heart.’ Pierce’s chest expanded magnificently as he took a deep breath, and it wasn’t lost on her, though she pretended otherwise. The last thing she needed was to be side-tracked.
‘You think I don’t have one?’ Pierce asked as he moved to the patio doors, leaning back against the frame so that the sunlight set off the play of muscles under his skin.
Alix was drawn to the sight as if by a magnet; it should have pleased but didn’t. ‘I know you don’t. I have a very good memory.’ There had been another morning, the only one when she had faced him like this, and he had taunted her with the reason he had married her. Pain darkened her eyes, and Pierce’s eyes narrowed on her, before he, too, tensed.
‘Nothing like that is going to happen this time, Alix,’ he promised her in that same husky tone, and her nerves skittered in violent reaction.
‘I wouldn’t let it. I’ll never be foolish enough to make myself that vulnerable to you ever again, Pierce,’ she declared, with a bravado only she was aware of. Because she was vulnerable, terrifyingly so.
Pierce eyed her broodingly. ‘We have to talk about the past some time.’
A proposition which had her shaking her head. ‘There’s nothing to say. I was there. I know all I need to know.’
His mouth curved wryly. ‘And perhaps you saw only what I wanted you to see. Did that ever occur to you, Alix?’ he queried, pushing himself upright and moving a step or two closer, causing her to breathe in sharply.
‘When someone has used a steamroller on you, you don’t look to see if they’ve stabbed you too! The result was the same. You committed murder. If you’re suddenly looking for absolution, Pierce, go to a priest, don’t come to me!’ Alix railed at him from the midst of her never-to-be-forgotten pain.
She knew she had scored a hit when his face closed up. ‘Absolution? Perhaps that is what I want, but not from you. I discovered it’s easier to forgive others than to forgive yourself.’
Alix laughed, but it was a painful effort from a tight throat. ‘Could this really be compunction from the mighty Pierce Martineau? Are you trying to convince me you regret what you did?’
There was a brief jerk of a muscle in his jaw. ‘Is it not allowed?’
She stared into eyes that suddenly seemed clouded by something she didn’t understand. It might have been sadness, and she might even have softened but for the fact of remembering just how good an actor he was. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, it’s unbelievable! You’re just as hard and conniving as you ever were, Pierce, and you’ll never get me to think otherwise.’
His eyes cleared miraculously, and were refilled by a mixture of irritation and mockery, upholding her view that what she had seen hadn’t been real. ‘If that was so, why did you spend the night curled up in my arms?’ he challenged, taking her breath away.
‘I never did!’ she spluttered. ‘I was on my own side of the bed when I woke.’
One eyebrow drifted skywards. ‘Only because I put you there. Only because you finally allowed me to. When I tried to do the same in the small hours, you refused to let me go. You were as soft as a kitten but as clinging as a vine. Although I was tempted to wake you up and investigate the turn of events, I thought you’d rather wake up on your own.’
Oh, God, why did the statement have the ring of truth about it? Aghast, hot colour flooded her cheeks. ‘You’re lying!’
‘Not about this. It seems your subconscious knows where you want to be; it’s only your stubborn pride that’s stopping you admitting it openly.’
Forced to accept the truth, she writhed inwardly. ‘So that you can gloat about your victory?’
Pierce emitted a long-suffering sigh. ‘I seem to remember telling you this time it would be different. You don’t have much faith, darling.’
‘You cured me of my naïveté a long time ago. Do you wonder that my faith in your word was shattered too? Like Humpty Dumpty, there are some things you can never put back together again.’ The words left her lips with their bitterness intact. She might still love him, but she doubted if she would ever fully trust him again.
Pierce remained quite still for a moment as they stared at each other, then he reached out to trace one finger down the curve of her cheek. ‘We reap only what we sow,’ he murmured obliquely, then shrugged and moved towards his dressing-room. ‘Get dressed, Alix. I’ve arranged for us to take the yacht out after breakfast.’
The command irritated her, so much so that she responded childishly, ‘Perhaps I don’t want to go on a yacht.’
Halfway through the door, he turned to her with a mocking smile. ‘You once told me you loved sailing. Do you intend to cut off your nose to spite your face?’
He had her over a barrel, but the thought of sticking to her guns, and so missing out on sailing those crystal-clear waters, was too depressing. ‘No,’ she admitted reluctantly, and his smile softened.
‘Then wear something protective. The sun can be hot here, and I wouldn’t want you to get ill on the first day of our honeymoon,’ he cautioned as he disappeared.
Alix was left with the uncomfortable feeling that she had been outmanoeuvred in more ways than one. Pierce had changed tack overnight, and she would have to be very much on her guard. Yet even that could not dampen her enthusiasm for the proposed outing, and it was with a strangely light heart that she went to shower and dress.
* * *
It was the sort of day that lingered in the memory. Pierce, in cut-off denim shorts and nothing else, steered the amazingly modest vessel out to sea, with Alix, in fashionable twill shorts and baggy cotton top over a royal blue swimsuit, a willing deckhand. It was impossible to sail a boat and remain in a bad mood, and before long they were both relaxed and laughing. It could have been the warmth of the sun, or the sound of water beneath the bows, or just the glorious feeling of the breeze whipping through her hair, but Alix suddenly realised that, for the first time for as long as she could remember, she was happy.
Her guard dropped.
With the sails set, Alix had the opportunity to sit back and watch Pierce as he stood at the helm, long straight legs braced, the fluid lines of his body rippling and flexing as he made the minute adjustments to keep them on the course he had chosen. He looked at one with the environment, more at home in scruffy shorts than handmade suits. It was impossible not to look at him and feel her heart swell. There was no adequate word to describe his kind of male perfection; she only knew he was beautiful to her eyes.
It brought a wistful expression to her eyes, a longing for things to be different, yet knowing they never could be. Then, because it was too beautiful a day for such maudlin thoughts, she shrugged them off, and when, only moments later, Pierce turned to smile at her, she could only smile back.
‘Want a go?’ he asked, indicating the wheel, and she didn’t hesitate to take the challenge.
It was a heady sensation of power to feel the boat responding to her smallest command, but nothing like the shivering heat of response to Pierce’s body as he stood behind her. For once they were at peace, at one with each other, and she threw back her head with a laugh of pure joy.
‘I take it you’re glad you came?’ Pierce commented, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
Alix tipped her head back, eyes sparkling up at him. ‘I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed this,’ she admitted. There had been little time for such pastimes lately.
Blue eyes softened as they roamed her features, then he dropped a swift kiss on her lips. ‘Hmm, I thought it would please you,’ he agreed, before reaching out to steady the wheel which had slipped through her fingers. ‘Watch your course.’
Heart thumping, Alix forced herself to concentrate on what she was doing, but it proved difficult. That brief kiss had shot through her system like a powerful jolt of electricity. But it was his words which brought the faint frown to her brow.
‘Is that why we’re here, to please me?’ she queried huskily.
‘Can you think of a better idea?’ he countered smoothly.
Alix responded with a shiver to the warmth of his tone. ‘To please you,’ she offered, unable to raise the defences that a small voice of caution was advising her to do.
‘Pleasing you pleases me, Alix,’ Pierce replied easily, bringing his head down beside hers, using his arm to point ahead of them. ‘Do you see that island? I thought we’d anchor there for lunch. We can swim too. Sound good?’
Alix had the crazy feeling that she didn’t know if she was on her head or her heels. ‘Very,’ she admitted edgily, then simply had to ask, ‘Pierce, why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?’
‘Don’t you think you deserve being nice to?’ he returned casually.
‘It’s not what I expect from you. There has to be some ulterior motive.’
‘There is.’
That admittance turned her heart to ice, seeming to confirm everything she had already decided. ‘So that you can get me into your bed without a fight,’ she declared, tasting the bitterness of gall on her tongue.
‘I could have done that any time, and you know it,’ came the even reply.
It was a truth she didn’t bother to deny. He possessed an irresistible magic for her that she could never conquer—and in all honesty didn’t want to. But where did that leave her now? ‘Then what is it you want?’
Pierce looked down at her then, his blue eyes revealing a surprising depth of self-mockery. ‘A miracle, and there aren’t too many of the
m around these days. What do you think the chances are?’
Alix caught her breath. He seemed to be probing her, searching for his answer deep in her soul. He almost seemed unsure, hesitant, and because that was so unlike him her reply sounded shaken. ‘Slim.’
He laughed at that. ‘You and I are tending to agree on more and more things every day. Here, you’d better let me take her in. Why don’t you go down into the cabin and see what Katina has prepared for us?’
She did as he suggested only because she needed time to think. This morning she had thought she knew what he was after; now she wasn’t so sure. A miracle, he had said, but he hadn’t specified what kind. It implied there was something he wanted but wasn’t sure he could have, and for Pierce that was unbelievable. She knew from experience that when he wanted something he went all out until he got it. Hadn’t he used her to get the shipping line, and hadn’t he used her loyalty and love for her father to get her as his wife again?
This uncertainty just didn’t make sense, any more than the change in him since the moment they were married. There had been times when he had been almost lover-like. Things done to please her, to make her happy, as if he wanted the marriage to be a real one, and not the contract it surely was. Why did she feel as if she was hovering on the brink of making a fantastic discovery?
‘Are you OK down there?’ Pierce’s disembodied voice interrupted her, and her head shot up as she belatedly realised they were now stationary.
‘Just coming!’ she called out, hastily looking for the food, and finding a coolbox tucked away under the table. Grabbing it, she was about to go up on deck when a pair of long legs appeared on the stairs and Pierce reached down to take the box from her. Their fingers touched briefly, and her eyes flew to his, to meet and flounder in the warmth they found there.
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