‘I spoke to Tania,’ she told him, in a colourless voice. ‘Or rather—she spoke to me.’
He sipped his drink. The grey eyes were as cool as a glacier. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded bright. ‘She told me— well, lots of things, really.’
‘Care to let me in on a few of them?’
‘Just that she wanted you. And that we didn’t look married. And then I remembered what you said about me not condemning you to a life of celibacy, and I knew what I had to do.’
Some light died in his eyes, leaving them forbiddingly cold. ‘You mean—seduce me? In order to stop Tania getting her hooks into me? That was very territorial of you, Kimberley.’
She turned towards him, exasperated now—and confused. ‘Well, that was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’
His mouth was unsmiling as he rose to his feet with seductive intent written all over his face and moved towards her. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, a new note to his voice—and she wasn’t sure that she liked it very much at all. ‘That’s what I wanted.’
She stared up at him in bewilderment as he took the glass from her hand and put it down, then swept her up into his arms, as if he’d been auditioning for a remake of Gone with the Wind and carried her up the staircase and into her bedroom.
It was as though he was reasserting his authority and dominance after what had happened earlier— for if she had held the power in their earlier encounter then he certainly had it now, as he slowly but ruthlessly stripped the clothes from her body.
It seemed to be a deliberate demonstration of how he could bring her trembling to the brink, time and time again, until she was half weeping with desperation, and she opened her eyes to see him pulling the black bow-tie off with impatient disregard.
And while he undressed he still touched her, stroked her, every single inch of her, as he efficiently removed the rest of the clothes from his body, keeping her at such an incredible fever-pitch of excitement that by the time he entered her with such magnificent power she climaxed immediately, and tears slid down her cheeks as her body contracted sweetly and helplessly around him.
He must have tasted her tears, for he stopped that delectable thrusting and gathered her in his arms, soothing her and comforting her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said into her hair.
She felt an unbearable sorrow scoring jagged fingers over her; she didn’t know why—she didn’t think she wanted to. ‘What for?’ she whispered.
‘For always wanting to punish you,’ he said, a strangely sad note in his own voice, too, and Kimberley’s heart cried out for the love which eluded them, and she put her arms tightly around him.
‘I can think of a lot worse kinds of punishment,’ she whispered as he began to move again, taking her with him on another incredible but unbearably poignant journey into paradise.
Afterwards, he heard her sigh against his shoulder.
‘What is it?’
‘You make me feel——’
‘What?’
She knew that she could only hint at the depths of the feelings he evoked in her. ‘So—helpless, when you make love to me.’
‘Do you think that I don’t know?’ he demanded, and his voice was savage. ‘That it isn’t the same for me, too?’
They slept then, exhausted, and when she awoke, some time in the night, Harrison had gone.
Things were very different between them after that. Better, but not perfect.
To the outside world they must have presented a united family front. When Harrison came home from work he played with the baby. Then, after she’d been bathed and fed, he and Kimberley would eat dinner together. At weekends, if it was fine, they took her to zoos and parks, even though she was much too young to appreciate it. On wet days they explored museums.
And at night Harrison made exquisite love to Kimberley in her big double bed. But he was never beside her in the morning.
And he remained an enigma to her; still she had no idea how that razor-sharp mind of his worked. She had imagined—foolishly, perhaps—that the intimacies they shared every night might have brought them closer together, but the tenderness she unaskingly sought still eluded her.
In fact, she thought bitterly, waking one morning to find the rumpled sheets and her tender, bruised breasts and lips the only indication that Harrison had been there last night, making love with him seemed to have had the opposite effect from the one she’d wanted. If anything, Harrison seemed as distant as ever he’d been. If anyone had told her, years ago, that she would have been able to tolerate such a marriage she would have laughed in their faces.
But, amazingly, it was enough for her, and she counted her blessings rather than focus on the fact that what she wanted from Harrison was impossible, that he would never love her as she loved him.
But she had Georgia—she was blissfully happy in her role of mother. And if she couldn’t have as much of Harrison as she wanted, well, she would just enjoy what she did have.
Until one night, when her world threatened to come crashing around her ears.
Harrison had just returned from Paris after a few days, and Kimberley had missed him unbearably.
Both picked without appetite at their supper, and when they went to bed—much earlier than usualshe was so eager and so hungry for him that she almost tore the clothes from his body, and he seemed to catch alight from her passionate fire immediately. They had never made love like it before. It surpassed every other time—and Kimberley hadn’t thought that was possible.
Afterwards, she was reluctant to let him go. Often he made love to her again, straight away, and then he would leave—go back to his own room, leaving her alone and bereft. She’d never asked him why, because she didn’t want to hear his answer; deep in her heart she suspected that Harrison was one of those men who considered sleeping together all too intimate, too constricting.
But this time, as he made to pull himself out of her arms, she shook her head.
‘Stay,’ she murmured sleepily, her voice still slurred with pleasure.
She had wanted the closeness of falling asleep in each other’s arms, but to her consternation he had obviously thought she’d meant one thing and one thing only, and he started to make love to her again.
Quickly her doubts were vanquished as the familiar feeling began to seep its way into her body. His hands worked their usual magic, and his kisses elicited a soft trembling which shivered down her body.
Then, just before he entered her, he said the most extraordinary thing. ‘Pretend something for me, Kimberley.’
He was an imaginative lover, and she naturally assumed that he wanted her to enact some fantasy for him. ‘Anything,’ she murmured, her lips at his neck, revelling in the sweet taste of him. ‘Anything you want.’
There was a pause. Then, in the oddest voice, he said, ‘Pretend that you love me, just for tonight.’
Kimberley stiffened in horror.
What kind of game was he playing with her? Had he guessed? And was he going to torment her with the knowledge that he had known all along of the humiliating inequality in their relationship?
He released her from his embrace contemptuously, and, even though she could see that he was still helplessly aroused, he moved away from her, sat on the side of the bed and began pulling his jeans back on.
‘I want a divorce,’ he said abruptly, and Kimberley almost fainted. She had known that her love for him would be treated with scorn, but she hadn’t dreamed that it would provoke such utter revulsion.
‘What?’ she whispered, in a hollow voice.
‘You heard me. I want a divorce.’ He turned and saw her frowning face. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be extremely generous.’
Kimberley felt her heart lurch. So Tania had been right all the time. She had said he would go back to her. What was it? Something about possession being nine-tenths of the law, and that he would fight for Georgia. ‘But what about the baby?’ she asked quickly. She saw his non-comprehending frown. ‘Are you going to fight me for her?’<
br />
His eyes hardened in response. ‘Oh, don’t worry—I won’t contest custody of Georgia. I won’t try and take her away from you. I never meant to, anyway—that was all an elaborate ploy.’
Now he wasn’t making sense. What elaborate ploy?
‘But I will want reasonable access,’ he continued.
Kimberley nodded like an automaton. ‘Of course,’ she said stiffly, as though her heart weren’t shattering into a million tiny pieces. She had to know. ‘Is there someone else?’ she asked, amazed that she could sound so cool at a moment like this.
‘What?’
‘That you want—to—to marry?’ Not quite so cool now.
He made an impatient little noise. ‘No, Kimberley, there’s no one else.’
‘Then——’ She swallowed as he frowned. ‘Would you mind telling me why?’
He stared at her as though she had just done something as fundamentally stupid as putting her hand in a fire. ‘Twisting the knife, are you?’ he enquired sardonically, and then he shook his head in resignation, spoke almost as if to himself. ‘Oh, why not? Perhaps you deserve your moment of triumph.’
Moment of triumph? What on earth was he going on about? Kimberley was now even more confused, and in a way she was grateful for it, because her churned and puzzled thoughts were preventing her from taking in the unthinkable. That Harrison wanted a divorce.
‘I want a divorce,’ he said slowly, as if recognising some great truth, ‘because I can no longer tolerate living in this kind of marriage.’
Kimberley stared at him, her eyes blank. Of course. ‘Oh. I see.’
‘I thought that it would work. I hoped…Oh, what the hell! There isn’t any use in raking it all up again.’
She tried to be adult—brave. To retain what little dignity she had left. ‘I do understand—honestly, I do. I think…’ She hesitated painfully. ‘That there has to be love for it to really work.’
He gave her a cold, empty smile. ‘Exactly.’ And he walked out of the room.
She lay in miserable silence for a time, almost relieved when she heard Georgia cry; at least feeding the baby would take her mind off things.
She fed the baby and changed her, and was just going back to her bedroom when she heard the sound of drawers being opened and slammed closed in Harrison’s room. She pushed the door open and looked in, to find that he was throwing clothes haphazardly into a suitcase.
She met his hot, dark look of rage.
‘Get out!’ he snarled.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What does it look like?’
‘Where are you going? You’ve only just got back.’
‘I’m going,’ he ground out, ‘to a hotel. If you’d leave me in peace to do my packing.’
‘You don’t have to go to a hotel.’
‘Yes, damn you—I do!’
‘But I can take Georgia back to my house tomorrow——’ she began, then stopped when she saw the look of black fury on his face.
‘And doesn’t it occur to you, you heartless little bitch, that it might be traumatic for me to live here once you’ve gone?’
He meant, of course, without Georgia. ‘You’ll have to get used to it,’ she said, but it hit her hard to think how much he’d miss the baby he adored.
‘Skip the patronising!’ he gritted. ‘And get out! If I want to stay in a hotel I don’t need your permission to do it!’
And every adult and reasonable feeling she’d had died a sudden death as white-hot jealousy hit her like a sledgehammer. ‘Why?’ she taunted. ‘So that you can meet Tania there? Tonight?’
His face, angry before, became positively murderous. ‘Do you really think that I’m just going to leap straight from your bed and into Tania’s arms?’ he demanded.
‘Well, you certainly couldn’t wait to leap out of my bed night after night, that’s for sure!’ she said. ‘So why shouldn’t I think that?’
‘Because I’m not interested in Tania—I never have been!’
‘That’s not what she thinks!’
‘Tania’s muddled thought-processes are really not my concern,’ he said, in a bored, tired tone. ‘Or yours. So why don’t you do us all a favour, Kimberley, and go back to your own room?’
‘You arrogant, horrible, hateful bastard!’ she screamed at him. She flew at him, grabbing him by the arms, shocked at how hard and unforgiving the clenched muscles felt beneath her hands.
He didn’t move, or react, just stood there with a contemptuous look all over his beautiful, arrogantly handsome face. ‘I thought we’d agreed about being honest with one another? If it’s sex you’re after, Kimberley, then you only have to ask——’
And she burst into floods of tears, ran out and down the corridor, flinging herself on the bed and soaking her pillow within seconds.
‘I’m sorry,’ came a heavy voice from the doorway.
‘Go away!’
‘I seem to spend my whole time being foul to you…’
‘So—so why do you do it?’ she sobbed helplessly.
‘You know why.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Because we always hurt the ones we love,’ he said bitterly, and Kimberley’s tear-drenched eyes snapped open and she sat up, staring at him scornfully.
‘Don’t ever say that to me, Harrison,’ she said quietly. ‘Insult me if you have to, or hurt me—but never tell me lies. Not about that.’
He gave an ironic laugh. ‘Oh, how I wish it were a lie, Kimberley. How uncomplicated my life would have been if I’d never had the misfortune to fall in love with you.’
Her eyes widened to kitten-like proportions. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said, in a strangled whisper.
‘I was doomed,’ he said, his mouth twisting with the memory, ‘the moment I saw you.’ A strange, frightening light flared from the depths of the cold grey eyes. ‘How do you think it felt for a man to look on the woman his brother was going to marry and to want her for his own?’
‘What?’
‘Oh, I tried to fight it,’ he said bitterly. ‘And I managed for about ten seconds. And then I kissed you.’
Colour flooded her pale cheeks as she remembered the passion and the fervour, still so vivid, even after all this time.
‘When you responded the way you did, an ugly, jealous and possessive streak sprang to life in me. I couldn’t bear to think of you kissing other men like that—my brother like that.’
The torment on his face was indescribable. ‘But I never kissed anyone like that,’ she said. ‘Except you.’
He nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I realise that now. The trouble is that it has taken some time for me to understand and accept that what happens between us physically, while being very rare and quite amazing, has nothing to do with love—at least, not on your part.’
This really was fascinating. And very promising. Kimberley held her breath, surreptitiously pinched her wrist. Still there.
‘I couldn’t let you marry him. When I offered you the money and you accepted it, I felt both defeated and elated. My worst fears were realised— the woman I’d fallen in love with was nothing but a mercenary little tramp—but oh, some day, some day I would make her mine.’
Charming! She thought that he looked as though he was about to stop talking. ‘Go on,’ she urged.
He gave a humourless laugh. ‘Why not? As I said earlier, perhaps you deserve to hear the truth. Where was I?’
‘You were——’ she found the glorious words ridiculously difficult to say, ‘—-going to make me yours.’
‘Yes.’ Then he spoilt it completely by adding, ‘Oh, I convinced myself that it was just your body I was after.’
Great!
‘And I couldn’t have you until Duncan had found someone of his own, of course. I didn’t want to hurt my brother any more than I could. And I was right about that, as I’d known all along that I would be—Caroline is far more suited to him than you ever would have been.
‘I’d planned to come to London to find y
ou, after I’d been to Woolton, when fate played right into my hands with your mother’s injured ankle. And then I saw you again, incongruously scrubbing a floor at Brockbank, that black hair spilling all the way down your back, those blue eyes lit with ice-fire, and I knew then that I’d been deceiving myself all along. That I wanted so much more than just your body. I wanted everything.
‘The engagement party was my idea. Duncan and Caroline agreed, and it seemed the only way I could entice you anywhere near a social function that I would be attending. I’d planned to woo you, to court you. I certainly hadn’t planned to take you to straight off to bed…’ His voice tailed off in self-recrimination. ‘But when I did I thought that I’d found paradise—only to wake up to find you getting dressed, about to creep away without a word, with a look of such distaste on your face that seemed to sum up exactly how you felt about what had happened.’
Kimberley blinked. Had the dream not come true—but been reality all along?
‘Harrison,’ she said softly.
He glared. ‘What?’
‘I love you.’
He froze, his eyes unmoving as they stared into hers.
‘The reason I had such a look of disgust on my face after our night together was that I felt slightly appalled that in my virginal state I had enjoyed having my clothes literally torn off me. I wasn’t sure that you’d respect me for that.’
His eyebrows disappeared completely into the thick abundance of his dark hair. ‘Not respect you?’ he murmured. ‘You were every damned fantasy I’d ever had, come startlingly true.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Will you please repeat what I thought you said a moment ago?’
She smiled, the happiness beginning to well up inside her. ‘I love you, you stupid man—I’ve always loved you! And I’d have told you a darned sight sooner if you hadn’t given such a good impression of seeming to loathe me.’
Was it something in her eyes, or in her voice, or in what she said which really convinced him? She never found out. But she knew the exact moment that he believed her, because he gave a slow, slow smile. ‘Loathe you?’ he echoed, on a groan. ‘Loathe you? Oh, my darling, darling Kimberley.’
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