Ruthless Passion

by Penny Jordan

  A cold shudder of self-disgust galvanised her body. She stepped forward to ask what he wanted, but he had already turned his back on her and was walking over to his car. Caution warned her to let him go.

  ‘Who the hell was that?’ Giles demanded, watching him drive off.

  Davina shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ She was frowning. What was it that had brought him, a stranger, to her door? Coincidence? Or … or what?

  The desire she had felt earlier had gone. In its place she felt cold with self-disgust and shock. What if it had been Lucy at the door? Lucy was her friend and had every right to expect her loyalty.

  Giles was eyeing her uncertainly, his own expression faintly sheepish.

  ‘I … I think I should make us both another cup of coffee and then I’ll drive you back to the motel to pick up your car,’ she suggested.

  ‘Can I come back here with you?’ Giles asked her.

  Davina shook her head. ‘Oh, Giles. I … Lucy is my friend.’

  ‘She doesn’t want me,’ he told her stubbornly. ‘She said so herself. She wants a divorce. For God’s sake, Davina, I love you.’

  She shook her head again, trying to clear her thoughts. ‘Everything’s happening too quickly, Giles,’ she told him. ‘I can’t—’

  ‘You want me to go home to Lucy … to my wife, is that it?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘To share her bed, when what I really want is to be in yours?’

  Davina winced at the passion in his voice, her guilt increasing. ‘I … I need time to think, Giles,’ she told him.

  ‘All right. I’ll book back into the motel. I’m not going back to Lucy, Davina. I can’t,’ he told her flatly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AS THE clapping died down, Christie walked sedately back to her seat with the other speakers.

  ‘Great speech,’ the man seated next to her told her. ‘You really made them sit and think. And with any luck it will make the dailies. There’s nothing they like more than the combination of a controversial subject and an attractive woman.’

  Christie acknowledged his comment with a half-smile, her attention not on him but on the audience. This wasn’t the main lecture hall, of course; subjects such as hers that seemed to cover all the more outrageous and unscientific elements of fringe and alternative medicine had been relegated to an old mission hall on the outskirts of the city, some distance from the main conference centre, but nevertheless her lecture had been well enough attended.

  It hadn’t been a first for her, speaking to an audience; her subject was very dear to her heart and she was a powerful orator, making up with emotion for what she lacked in manipulation and subtlety.

  She felt the man seated next to her edging his chair slightly closer to her own. The next speaker was now standing at the podium, and as he announced his subject Christie noticed that several people got up to leave. ‘It’s not as hot a topic as yours,’ her companion told her. ‘And he isn’t as attractive.’

  Christie could feel the irritation beginning to edge up under her euphoria. She turned her head, giving him a cool, assessing look that told him quite categorically that he was wasting his time. She knew the type far too well: forty-something, married, full of his own self-importance, thinking himself God’s gift to the female sex and looking for a temporary—very temporary—bit on the side.

  She saw that he wasn’t pleased at her visual rejection, but she didn’t care; her attention was already back on the audience, her eyes scanning the seated figures below her. What was she actually looking for? Confirmation of what she already knew? That he wasn’t here? Her mouth twisted with self-mockery. What had she expected? What had she wanted?

  She had behaved more like a schoolgirl than a woman after their taxi had disgorged them outside their hotel, hanging back deliberately and trying at the same time to pretend that she was not doing so, while she watched him at the reception desk.

  He seemed to be having some trouble with his reservation, or was it simply that the receptionist, an over-made-up brunette with pan-sticked skin and a full, sulky mouth, was deliberately keeping him there? In the end pride had won out over desire; the reception area was full and she was being jostled by the busy crowd. The last thing she really wanted was for him to turn round and see her standing there, too obviously waiting for some sort of recognition or contact with him.

  After all, if he had been interested in her he had had ample opportunity to do something about it on their taxi journey here, she reminded herself as she fought her way through the crowd and headed for the lifts.

  This hotel was rather more expensive than she had wanted, but she had left her booking rather late and had been unable to get in at anything cheaper. Even so … She had wrinkled her nose a little, unimpressed by its bland décor; it was, she’d reflected as she unlocked the door to her room, to the hotel business what fast-food chains were to the food industry.

  The air in her room had been overheated and stale, the windows locked down so that she had to ring through to Maintenance to get someone up to open them, her mind not really on the non-opening windows, nor even on her purpose in attending the conference, but on the man who had shared her taxi journey here to the hotel.

  He had introduced himself to her as Leo, but Leo who? There were heaven alone knew how many hundreds of delegates here in Edinburgh; what were the chances of running into him again, even if they were booked into the same hotel?

  Christie considered herself to be neither naïve nor inexperienced. She had made a decision long, long ago that just because she was a woman she was not going to be forced into the conventional mode of only allowing herself to enjoy sex once she had convinced herself that she was ‘in love’. The human need to enjoy sex was a physical urge, an appetite which, like any other appetite, should be indulged and enjoyed, and which should also be subjected to a certain amount of sensible self-control. She would not, for instance, gorge herself on food she had no real appetite for, which did not really please her, simply because it was there; and it was the same with sex. She was careful, choosy … but that did not mean that she could not and should not enjoy sex simply for what it was.

  She did not want a permanent relationship in her life, a man who might try to curtail her freedom, who would almost certainly expect her to put his own needs before hers, who would demand adjustments and alterations in her lifestyle, who might even seek to change the way she thought and felt. She had seen far too often what happened when women committed themselves to men, and it wasn’t going to happen to her.

  Saul had once pointed out to her that she seemed to have no difficulty in committing herself to Cathy, in putting her needs before her own, but Christie had told him that that was different; Cathy was her child and depended on her, and another dependant in the form of a permanent male partner in her life was something she just did not want, either emotionally or physically.

  It had been a long time, a very long time now since any man had had that kind of physical effect on her—immediate, sharp, hungry, clawing at her flesh, making her ache, making her so aware of him that long before the taxi journey had ended she had been conscious of the betraying softness within her own body, the beginnings of a wetness that had made her fight against the urge to tighten her muscles and cross her legs in rejection of what was happening to her.

  If she had had any corresponding physical effect on him, he had kept it well hidden, she’d admitted wryly.

  The bedroom window was open and the cool fresh air blowing into the room had made her shiver a little.

  The serviceman had glanced admiringly at her as he left. Christie had responded with a cold stare. It always irritated her that men felt that their sex conferred on them the right to express the sexual side of their natures without any kind of thought for whether or not the woman wanted their awareness of her.

  Now, as she surveyed the audience below her, she told herself she was a fool for looking for that certain male face. If he had wanted to make contact with her he could have done so in Recep
tion. It was hardly likely that he was going to turn up here.

  There were only another two speakers to go before the end of the afternoon session. Tomorrow was the really big day, with an important set of speeches being given by various representatives of the drug industry, including a huge multinational concern which less than five years ago had only just managed to buy itself out of a potential scandal by paying out large sums of compensation before any case could ever reach court.

  One of Christie’s patients had been a victim of that particular drug. Its side-effects had caused severe pain and then semi-paralysis of one of her arms. She had been pathetically grateful for the compensation she had received. As a pensioner, she could never have afforded to take Hessler’s to court, she had confided to Christie.

  The drug had been withdrawn from the market, of course … at least officially. Christie suspected that it would be marketed again at some point under a different name, and maybe even via a different company. Too much money would have been spent on its research for its producers completely to write it off.

  Half an hour later as she walked off the stage several people came up to congratulate her on her speech, including a local reporter who wanted to do a piece on her. A local TV crew arrived and she found herself being interviewed by them as well.

  ‘That’s great,’ their reporter told her when she had finished. ‘This natural health thing is really hot at the moment.’ He gave her a cynical smile. ‘Personally I prefer to go for the doctor’s cure every time, but if folk want to believe that drinking herb tea is going to help them, who am I to argue with them?’

  Christie gritted her teeth and gave him a feral smile. ‘You do realise, don’t you,’ she challenged him, ‘that almost every modern synthetic drug has its equivalent in nature, that many of them are simply chemical copies of a drug first derived from nature?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he agreed flippantly. ‘So if Mother Nature’s so hot on curing things, how come they never found anything to cure the plague and that sort of stuff?’

  Christie gave him an exasperated look. ‘They couldn’t cure it because they lacked proper sanitation, proper … And as a matter of fact some of the things they used for smallpox, for instance, like hanging red cloth at the windows, has actually been scientifically proved to be effective.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, me, I’d prefer a good dose of antibiotics every time,’ he told her. ‘Mind you … it could make a good item for the local news round-up. What’s your name again?’

  Grimacing slightly, Christie gave it to him before he turned away to interview someone else.

  She wanted to get back to her room to ring Cathy. She knew that she would be fine with Saul, but already she was missing her.

  She didn’t see the small white envelope someone had slipped under her door until she had finished her phone call. Frowning, she replaced the receiver and then went to pick it up. The front was blank, the envelope sealed down.

  She broke the seal with her nail and withdrew a piece of paper from inside.

  If you are free perhaps we could have dinner together this evening.

  Leo

  P.S. My room number is 11a.

  Her heart was beating far too fast, the sense of letdown and exhaustion that had followed her speech instantly banished, elation and a swift surge of adrenalin taking its place.

  How had he managed to discover her room number? Well, that didn’t matter now, she told herself as she reached for the telephone and punched in the appropriate numbers.

  He answered almost straight away and she had said no more than a slightly hesitant, ‘Leo?’ before he recognised her voice and responded warmly.

  ‘Christie, you got my note. Good. Are you free for dinner this evening, or—?’

  ‘Yes, yes … I …’ She bit her lip, conscious of sounding almost over-eager.

  ‘Perhaps we could meet in the foyer at, say, eight?’ he suggested easily, making her feel less self-conscious.

  ‘Eight would be fine,’ she confirmed.

  It was only when she had replaced the receiver that she discovered that she was actually physically trembling a little, the palm of her hand damp, her pulse-rate far, far too high.

  What was the matter with her? She was acting like an idiot, she warned herself as she went into her bathroom and held her wrists under the cold tap. He was just a man, for God’s sake. A man … a fellow human being … not some Olympian god.

  What would he be like in bed? Her body shuddered, her nipples suddenly peaking under the erotic stimulation of her imagination. Calm down, she warned herself, adding wryly under her breath, ‘Just because he looks good and physically he turns you on it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a good lover. Remember, the proof of the pudding …’ Her mouth curled up at the corners, amusement darkening the colour of her eyes, her heartbeat quickening. Would he be a sensual lover, enjoying touching her, stroking her, kissing her … licking, sucking and biting her skin and inviting her to do the same to him?

  Already she could feel the heady mixture of anticipation and sensual languor taking over her body. That his invitation to dinner was merely a precursor to their spending the night together she had no doubt.

  She went over to the window, breathing in the clear cool air, throwing her head back and laughing as the excitement gripped her, suddenly feeling more alive, more adventurous, more impetuous than she had felt in a long time.

  As honest in the way she felt about her body and her appearance as she was in her attitude towards sex, Christie was not the kind of woman who prepared herself for her lover by dressing herself in the kind of clothes historically thought to appeal to the male sexual appetite. To her that was a form of bondage as outdated as the image of the submissive, obedient, dutiful wife whose one goal in life was to please her mate.

  No, a man must take her as he found her, accept her on equal terms, accept her body as that of another individual and unique human being and not see it only as some kind of cruel caricature of the unfortunate models who posed for the so-called ‘male’ magazines, their flesh lifeless and inert, a receptacle for the physical fruit of man’s lust without either giving or receiving any enjoyment from it.

  * * *

  In his own suite of rooms, Leo continued to hold on to the receiver for several seconds after Christie had hung up.

  It had been difficult to track her down, but not as difficult as getting himself a room here in her hotel. The receptionist had told him huffily that they simply did not have any rooms free, until for the first time in his life he had used the power of the von Hessler name.

  The look on her face when she’d realised that he was willing to forgo the suite that had been booked for him at the city’s top hotel to take an ordinary double room with them had made his mouth twitch a little with amusement. Flushed and uncertain where she had been lofty and all-powerful, she had gone to find the manager.

  A suite had been found for him, and Leo hoped that no one had actually been ejected from it. He had protested that an ordinary room would be fine. In fact, he would have preferred an ordinary room, but the manager had been so shocked at the thought of his occupying anything other than their best suite that he had wryly given way.

  Christie Jardine. He knew quite a lot about her now. His PA, baffled by his non-appearance at the hotel suite originally booked for him, had only just about managed to conceal his curiosity when Leo had casually asked him to find out which room Christie was in.

  One of the few advantages of his power, Leo recognised, was that he did not have to give anyone any reasons or explanations for what he chose to do.

  His PA, for instance, had not been able to ask him either why he had booked into another, less luxurious hotel, nor why he was interested in Christie Jardine. Jürgen was a Hessler man through and through, though, and Leo realised that he had thought he had found the answer to his own curiosity when he’d reported back that Christie was one of that as yet mercifully small band of doctors actually daring to question the morals of t
he huge multinational drug companies.

  Leo had been wryly amused by Jürgen’s obvious disapproval of Christie, gravely thanking him for his report and then feeling a little ashamed of himself for taking advantage of him and his own position. He wondered what his PA would have thought had he known that his interest in Christie was personal and had nothing to do with her antipathy towards corporations such as Hessler’s.

  But would she be similarly able to accept him, or would she reject him because of who he was?

  He frowned as he looked out across the city. From his penthouse eyrie, only the castle on its granite perch overlooked him, a frowning edifice that dominated the city sprawled at its feet.

  How grimly this place must have struck the young spoiled Mary, Queen of Scots, returning here from her cocooned life of soft luxury in France. How cold and dour both it and its people must have appeared to her, judging her, rejecting her.

  As Christie Jardine would reject him if she knew who he was. He turned away from the window, frowning. Sooner or later he would have to tell her. It wasn’t in his nature to enjoy any kind of deception and certainly not the kind that involved deliberately withholding from another person information he knew might be drastically important to them.

  He reached for the telephone receiver, picking it up and punching in the number he had written down on the pad beside the phone. Once again thanks to his PA, he had the name and number of what he had been assured was one of the city’s best restaurants. Best not in the sense of being patronised by a certain ‘in’ crowd, but best in the sense of being somewhere that was richly rewarding on a much more sensory level.

  You could learn a lot about people from the kind of restaurants they favoured and the food they chose to eat. He frowned again, the old habit of self-regulation of his thoughts and actions making him pause to ask himself why he was taking Christie there … as a means of testing her? Or himself?