by Penny Jordan
He seemed to stiffen, thick black lashes masking his expression from her.
‘No,’ he agreed expressionlessly. ‘However, I didn’t realise I’d been quite so obvious.’ There was a curious pause, as though he was searching for the right words, a hesitation about him that made him seem oddly vulnerable, and for some reason the mere fact that he should be vulnerable—and show it—over Beverley Travers increased her bitterness and resentment tenfold.
‘You needn’t think I’m going to help you,’ she told him aggressively, ‘far from it. I think what you’re trying to do is despicable!’
‘Do you now?’
It was several seconds before Kirsty realised that the strangely flat words masked an anger far greater than any Drew had ever exhibited before, and when she did, fear trembled through her, making her rush on into incautious speech.
‘Yes, I do—and to try and use a trumped-up engagement as a lever is even worse!’
‘You’d have preferred me to make a laughing stock of myself and a tramp out of you by letting Beverley’s comment stand—is that it? You’re very naïve, Kirsty, if you honestly believe that doing so wouldn’t have had repercussions—for both of us. How long do you suppose it would be before your reputation as an actress is tainted by rumours and whispers that you don’t confine your ambition to appearances on stage! And me—how much longer do you suppose I would be taken seriously as a critic if it became common knowledge that I shared my bed with every little aspiring actress who climbed into it?’ There was no mercy in his eyes for her pale face and stunned expression. ‘Think about it,’ he told her hardily, ‘and you’ll soon realise I’m not motivated by any quixotic impulse—our careers could be on the line here—both of them, and it’s a risk I’m not prepared to take even if you are. You do realise that if you hadn’t pulled that idiotic stunt in the first place none of this would have happened, and if it weren’t for the fact that.… Oh, what the hell!’ he exploded suddenly, pushing irritated fingers into his hair. ‘We could argue about this all night and get nowhere. Our engagement stands, Kirsty. Any attempts by you to break it off, or to reveal the truth, and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born—and if you’re thinking I couldn’t, think again. I grew up in a pretty hard school, and I could make you very sorry you crossed me.’
An inner voice warned her that it would be folly to press him any harder, but warring with it was a furious determination not to give in to what was tantamount to bullying.
‘How?’ she was tempted to demand, but the word trembled unspoken on her lips. However, Drew was obviously well aware of the train of her thoughts, because anger glittered and smouldered in his eyes as they searched her flushed and mutely defiant features.
‘Oh, there are any number of ways,’ he drawled coolly, ‘in answer to that question so obviously burning on your tongue. At the moment the most pleasurable, as far as I’m concerned, would be to take you to my bed here and now, and teach you a lesson I’d make sure you were a long time forgetting!’
His cynicism stunned her. With one breath he was more or less admitting that he loved Beverley and would do anything to get her back, and yet with another he was coldbloodedly talking about making love to her! No, not ‘making love’, Kirsty amended, shuddering, but punishing, and her tender flesh quivered at the thought of Drew’s hard male lips tormenting her vulnerable body, imposing on her a surrender that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
‘You couldn’t! The fateful words were spoken with a depth of confidence she was far from feeling, but pride insisted that she say them. To resist would be a tacit admission of defeat, an acceptance of his contention that he could bend her to his will.
He moved with a speed that frightened her into ignominiously turning on her heel to flee. It was a repeat of those moments in his suite all over again, and if she had had the slightest atom of sense she would have hesitated before throwing down that challenge, but it had always been her way to act first and then worry about the consequences later. That was the whole trouble, she thought feverishly as Drew’s fingers tightened into the soft flesh of her upper arm.
‘You can’t do this,’ she moaned softly, not even trying to hide her fear. For a moment she thought he meant to ignore her, but then his hands fell away, his expression uncompromisingly harsh as he walked her back to the settee and pushed her down into it, taking a seat adjacent to her, but leaving a comfortable distance between them.
‘Perhaps now you’ll realise it isn’t always wise to challenge a man to prove he’s exactly that,’ he told her bluntly, ‘but despite that over-excited imagination of yours, Kirsty, the reason I brought you here was simply to talk through wh, t happened tonight. Our engagement stands. I hadn’t realised you knew how I felt.’ His mouth compressed. ‘I must admit it makes things harder—for both of us, especially since I’ve promised to take over directing Much Ado from Simon—he wants to be able to spend a little more time with Helen and Nicky. He also wants to take them on holiday this year, so you and I are going to have to work together—another reason for announcing our engagement, if you really need another. With that fertile imagination of yours, you shouldn’t have much trouble accepting that if I hadn’t, Much Ado would have come a poor second to the attention and speculation given to our relationship—and after what Beverley said it’s no use insisting that there isn’t one—you wouldn’t convince a single soul.’
‘But you had no need to compound matters by saying we were engaged,’ Kirsty flung at him. ‘It’s so outdated!’ she shrugged petulantly. ‘People don’t bother with such formalities these days.’
The flash of anger in his eyes surprised her into silence.
‘Meaning exactly what?’ he asked coldly, ‘that you’d have preferred me to announce that we were live-in lovers? It wouldn’t work, Kirsty, and it would have meant you coming to live here with me, to be convincing. At least the conventionality of an engagement offers us both some measure of protection. Besides,’ he added curtly, ‘as a disciple of modern morals you don’t put forward a very convincing case—you’re still a virgin,’ he reminded her, ‘and something tells me that when you fall in love you’re going to want permanency and commitment from your lover. What’s the matter?’ he goaded her when she fell silent. ‘Lost for words for once?’
It wasn’t that, it was simply that she was acknowledging that he was right; she would want both those things, and love as well, but what had astounded her was that Drew had known. And what was that he had said about taking over from Simon? She stared at him, her heart thudding uncomfortably.
‘You’re not really taking over from Simon, are you?’ she asked him huskily.‘Because if you are.…’
‘You’ll break your contract? No dice, Kirsty. Surely you haven’t forgotten the effect leaving here now would have on your career, even if it was possible—which it isn’t. Two flops behind you,’ he reminded her cruelly, ‘and then you turn down Hero? No company worth bothering with would look at you.’
Kirsty knew it was all too painfully true.
‘If you really want to make it as an actress you’ll put aside personal dislikes and pride, and concentrate simply on getting the most you can from the role. I still believe you can bring an important freshness to Hero, and Simon agrees with me.’
‘I don’t know if I can work with you,’ Kirsty told him honestly, appalled by the sudden explosion of anger in his eyes.
‘Do you think it will be easy for me?’ he blazed at her. ‘God, what a child you are! And let’s not pretend that I couldn’t undermine those defences of yours very easily, Kirsty—very easily indeed. And don’t start telling me again that I’d have to force you. It wouldn’t take much. This, for instance.…’
He moved before she could stop him, crossing the space that divided them, his body pressing her back against the soft cushions, his tongue trailing enticingly along the vulnerable curve of her throat. Weakness invaded her, the terrible shattering knowledge that he was right, and that her body responded pas
sionately to him, no matter how much she willed it not to, something she could no longer deny.
‘You see?’ Drew mocked softly. His hands cupped her shoulders, warm fingers probing the narrow straps of her dress as he bent his head again, intent on further destruction of her willpower. Kirsty quivered tensely beneath the expert assault of his mouth, moving lazily over skin that seemed to possess a thousand receptive nerve endings, each one relaying to her brain the delirious pleasure his touch invoked. His teeth caught her earlobe, teasing it gently. It was like drowning, Kirsty thought numbly; like going down for the third time and not caring about anything except the sensually fatal embrace of a danger that whispered seductively of pleasure to come, blotting out reason and logic. Her shoulders were now bared to the seeking ***warth of his touch, but she no longer cared. The tormenting movement of his lips against her skin driving her to a shivering insanity that demanded the hard pressure of his mouth against hers, plunging her into the hot, sweet vortex of desire he had shown her before, his touch a siren song that deafened her to everything else.
As though he read her wayward thoughts, Drew explored the shape of her lips, teasing them with the tip of his tongue, until her mouth parted like the petals of a flower, embracing the bee that sought its sweetness.
Drew’s hands moved downwards, taking her dress with them, but Kirsty no longer cared as the hard, lean fingers covered the lacy cups of her bra, their heat burning through the thin fabric to her skin as Drew moved in restless urgency against her, his mouth bruising hers and drawing from her a response that shocked and scorched her, but which was too powerful for her to resist the compulsive urge to let her fingers slide between the pearl buttons of his shirt to stroke feverishly against the warmth of his chest.
Drew groaned, moving so that both of them were lying on the settee, wrenching open the buttons on his shirt with swift impatience and lifting his mouth from Kirsty’s long enough to demand thickly that she touch him.
She needed no second bidding. There was a dark heady pleasure in simply allowing her hands to move over the heated male flesh, exploring the texture and feel of it.
‘Kirsty!’
She trembled as Drew released her lips, his mouth seeking out the swelling curves of her breasts, highlighted by the lamp’s glow, which lent her skin a soft honey sheen, the taut thrust of her breasts heightened by the lacy structure of her bra. A thrill of wanton desire flooded through her as Kirsty glanced down and saw the darkness of Drew’s hair against her flesh. Her breasts throbbed with an aching tension that half frightened her. Drew’s voice thickened unsteadily as he muttered something against her skin, reaching for the fastening, and Kirsty felt her breath stifle in her throat as he freed her aroused nipples from the constraining lace.
All at once her body seemed alien to her. No man had ever evoked this reaction from her before, and she moaned softly with a need deeply desired, but unknown, until Drew’s thumbs rubbed gently over the swollen peaks, his mouth moving slowly over her creamy skin until it finally possessed the aching fullness.
The whole world seemed to explode in a dizzying mass of sensation, as Kirsty arched instinctively beneath him, hands clinging to the breadth of his shoulders as she sobbed his name and pressed tiny half demented kisses against the musky dampness of his skin.
Excitement and anticipation spiralled up inside her, and it came as a shock to realise that Drew was releasing her, that his heartbeat which had pounded erratically against her was slowing and steadying while hers still raced.
At last when she could bear the silence with which he searched his face no longer, she burst out in a voice that shook with mingled shame and despair.
‘I suppose you think that proves something, but any experienced man could have had the same effect. Any experienced man.’
He was quiet for so long her nerves coiled into hard knots of tension.
‘If that’s true,’ he said at last, sitting up and reaching for his shirt, ‘then I feel very sorry for you.’
It stunned and completely deflated her. She had expected furious disbelief; argument, anything but that quiet contempt. For a moment she was almost tempted to withdraw the words; to admit that.… That what? she asked herself in dawning shock. That he was the only man who could make her feel like that? But that would mean… that would mean.… She struggled heroically and then at the last minute lost her courage and told herself that all it meant was that she was extraordinarily susceptible to him, that was all. The other—that awful and tenuous suspicion that she might actually have fallen in love with him, was not to be borne, so she dismissed it, clinging hard to reason and logic, both of which assured her that it was completely impossible to fall in love with a man one disliked as much as she disliked Drew.
‘What are you waiting for?’ The cruel voice goaded her into awareness. ‘Me to dress you?’
Kirsty’s face coloured, her fingers clumsy as she reached for her clothes. He made no attempt to look away as she struggled, and to her consternation Kirsty felt her breasts flower into awareness of his gaze, the nipples firm and hard, her breasts swelling slightly.
‘Allow me.’ Drew’s touch was completely impersonal. It was all different for men, Kirsty thought, choking back weak tears. They could easily make love to one woman while really loving another. Physical desire for them had nothing to do with any nobler emotion. What would Drew do if she threatened to tell Beverley Travers about this? Nothing, probably, she admitted. In fact he would probably feel that it would only advance his cause and increase Beverley Travers’ jealousy. For the other woman had been jealous, Kirsty acknowledged that, and no doubt Drew hoped that by flaunting his mock engagement to her, he would get her back.
Why on earth should that thought cause her so much pain? Once he had succeeded she would be free to leave; she would never have to see him again, which was surely what she wanted.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ Drew announced abruptly, adding huskily, ‘I take it what happened just now hasn’t changed your mind?’
Kirsty went red and white with the cruelty of it. He must be completely insensitive if he could make love to her with one breath and ask her to help him get Beverley back in the next. And yet she had thought him a man of acute perception. Perhaps it was true that love blinded people to the feelings of others.
‘Nothing you could either say or do could make me do that,’ she threw at him through gritted teeth. ‘Nothing!’
For a moment his face seemed to be carved out of granite, masklike and taut, and she had the strangest feeling that it was concealing almost unbearable pain, containing it only with the greatest effort of will, but the moment was gone before she could question it. Drew was on his feet, pulling on his coat and handing her hers, opening the door so that she could precede him through it, and she told herself the regret and loneliness she felt as he closed it after them, shutting out its warmth and intimacy, was merely an illusion and had nothing to be with the fact that the closing of the door was symbolic of the fact that he was shutting her out of his life.
CHAPTER FIVE
A PRE-REHEARSAL meeting had been called by Drew for Sunday afternoon, and Kirsty had been up early, too nervous to settle down and read through the play again as she had planned. Instead she rang her parents, answering her mother’s anxious queries absently, wondering what Mrs Stannard would say if she were to tell her the truth. How could she have let Drew force her into a fictitious engagement? At the very first opportunity she fully intended to break it. But how? An idea took shape in her mind, causing her to abandon her chair by the window and the thumbed copy of Much Ado she had been studying.
Drew was a fiercely proud man; his attitude towards Beverley Travers had proved that. He had forced Kirsty into their ‘engagement’ solely to punish the other girl, she was sure of this, but what if she, Kirsty, turned the tables on him and made it impossible for him to continue their ‘engagement’ and still retain his pride? But how? One simple solution presented itself to her, and although she quailed a
little from it, the memory of the emotions she had experienced in Drew’s arms, compared with his very evident lack of them, compelled her. What she had in mind was a flirtation with someone else, and to make it obvious enough to force Drew into bringing their ‘engagement’ to an end. But would it work? She didn’t know, but felt that it was a chance she must take; anything to free herself from playing the false and unacceptable role of Drew’s loving fiancée.
Firmly ignoring the small inner voice that whispered that she found the role all the more onerous for being false, she concentrated on laying her plans.
Cherry had already pointed Clive out to her as being the company’s recognised flirt. Kirsty had seen the way he had looked at her, and recognised in him a certain devil-may-care attitude which would probably incline him towards a flirtation with a girl supposedly attached to another man; especially a man such as Drew, she thought intuitively. Clive was slightly jealous of Drew. She had seen it in his eyes, and had noticed the slight pique with which he had heard the announcement of their engagement.
And there would be no need to be particularly subtle. Clive wouldn’t need much encouragement, and she could not see Drew accepting his supposed fiancée’s flirtation with another man with any great degree of complacency whether that fiancée was real or not. The best thing, she mused, would be if she could provoke Drew into a public quarrel, one where she could trap him into giving her the sort of ultimatum she could react to with tears and a very definite breaking off of their supposed relationship.
It gave her a few uncomfortable moments to know that her plans would shock and distress her parents, but Drew scarcely merited any tender consideration of his finer feelings after the way he had treated her. He was using her, and would have no grounds for objection if she turned the tables on him! She would do anything to be free of the odium of their engagement—anything! She couldn’t endure another scene like the one she had undergone last night. Her skin still felt scorched by his touch, her body almost frighteningly alien to her. It had alarmed her how easily he had aroused her, and how callously. It must be his greater experience—she refused to allow herself to even contemplate any other explanation for her response.