Elusive as the Unicorn

by Carole Mortimer

  She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘We left the drawing-room over fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘I know exactly how long ago it was,’ he drawled, his gaze softening, becoming sensual. ‘If I had been the one saying goodnight to you, I wouldn’t have left until morning.’

  He said the most outrageous things … But oh, what a picture of heady delight his words evoked.

  Everything about this man exuded sensuality, and his complete confidence in his ability to keep the lady of his choice happy in his arms. Unfortunately, Eve seemed to be that lady at that moment!

  ‘You are the one saying goodnight to me, Mr Gardener,’ she pointed out coldly. ‘And even if you have the wish to remain standing in the hallway all night, I certainly don’t!’ She turned on her heel and began walking up the wide staircase.

  Adam caught up with her after she had taken only a few steps, grasping her arm to turn her to face him. Eve was totally disconcerted as she found herself on eye-level with him as he stood a couple of steps down from her, mesmerised by the gold flecks she could see in the darkness of his eyes as they stood closer than they ever had before.

  ‘I don’t want to stand in a hallway all night, Eve,’ he grated with soft intensity. ‘Elegant as this one is. I want to be with you, make love with you, lie with you until morning comes. I ache with wanting that!’

  Eve felt a quivering heat down her spine at his evocative words.

  ‘But no matter what you think of me,’ he ground out harshly, a nerve pulsing in his cheek, ‘I wouldn’t even attempt to make that longing a fact while you’re still deceiving Paul Lester into thinking you’re going to marry him.’

  Eve gasped, as much at his apparent anger with her as with what he was actually saying. ‘I’m not deceiving Paul,’ she defended breathlessly when she found her voice again.

  ‘You’re deceiving everyone—but most of all yourself.’ Adam shook his head dismissively. ‘You’re in love with love, not Paul. But until you can see that, I can’t do a damned thing to change the situation.’

  There could be no doubting his anger with her now, and Eve bristled indignantly. ‘This so-called morality doesn’t seem to stop you having conversations like this one!’

  His fingers tightened on her arm. ‘It’s my “morality”, as you call it,’ he bit out, ‘that stops me from taking you up those stairs and showing you the truth of what I’m saying!’ His eyes glittered furiously.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your ego, is there?’ she scorned.

  ‘It isn’t my damned ego talking, for heaven’s sake,’ he rasped impatiently.

  ‘Stop swearing.’ She frowned at his vehemence.

  ‘Stop changing the subject,’ Adam returned forcefully.

  ‘I’m not changing the subject, I’m ending it.’ She moved abruptly away from him, looking at him with wide eyes for several seconds before turning and running up the stairs.

  There was only one place for her to go, the one place she had to go, and she ran to her studio as if it were a refuge.

  Tears squeezed between her tightly closed lids as she stood in the centre of the room, feeling totally desolate. Her whole world seemed to have been put into a turmoil. She and Paul had argued, something unheard of before. And, much as she wished it weren’t true, she knew that most of the reason for that had been because parts of her conversations with Adam kept coming into her mind at the most inopportune times, fuelling the tension between Paul and herself.

  She would have to telephone Paul in the morning and apologise, of course—that last outburst of hers had been entirely unwarranted. If she hadn’t told that ridiculous lie about Sophy and Patrick’s dinner guest in the first place, then she probably wouldn’t have been feeling so agitated and retaliated the way she had. She just hadn’t expected that either Paul or herself would ever see Adam Gardener again.

  But it was no good finding excuses; she and Paul were at odds with each other, and it was a feeling that made her feel very uneasy within herself, as if the very foundations of her carefully planned life were being rocked.

  She had loved Paul from a distance ever since she could remember, although he hadn’t really seemed to notice her in return until he had taken over the practice after his father’s death two years ago. But even then he had kept a businesslike distance, and it had only been recently, the last year or so, that they had started to become close.

  Why, oh, why had Adam Gardener had to come into her life now? Another couple of months and she and Paul would have been married. Knowing what a healthy respect Adam had for marriage, she felt sure he wouldn’t have even tried to get close to her then, no matter what his own feelings might have been. As it stood now, with her neither free nor officially out of his reach, he wouldn’t leave her in peace.

  As for the weekend, she still had the rest of that to get through!

  * * *

  It was a strange sensation, not unlike floating, and yet she knew there was no danger of her falling, could feel herself being held and supported as if she were as light as gossamer.

  She liked the feeling, snuggling down more comfortably into that cosy warmth.

  And then she wasn’t floating any more, but lying on soft down, sinking, sinking, cocooned in its fluffy warmth. It was the most wonderful sensation she had ever …

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t, Sleepyhead,’ cajoled an amused voice as the cocoon was gently taken from her. ‘No, Eve.’ A throaty chuckle accompanied this second reproof as she tried to pull back the soft warmth. ‘You can’t go to bed in your dress.’

  Suddenly the return of the cocoon didn’t seem half so important, her eyes opening wide as she became aware of the fact that it had been the duvet on her bed she had been trying to wrap around herself.

  She stared straight up into Adam Gardener’s tenderly amused face.

  ‘I thought that might manage to get your attention,’ he drawled softly, sitting on the side of the bed as he looked down at her with caressing brown eyes.

  She swallowed hard, too wary of his close proximity to risk moving herself. ‘What time is it?’ From the quietness in the house, she knew it had to be late.

  ‘After one,’ Adam confirmed huskily, his face all angles in the golden glow given off from the bedside lamp. ‘You must have been really tired, to have fallen asleep like that. I brought you here and you didn’t even wake!’

  Emotionally exhausted. Arguing with Paul had upset her badly, and she had cried herself to sleep.

  ‘Obviously you weren’t?’ she said questioningly, his dinner jacket and bow-tie having been discarded since Eve had seen him earlier, the snowy white shirt partly unbuttoned down his chest, dark gold hair glinting in that open V; but he gave little appearance of having actually gone to bed as he had said he was earlier.

  He smoothed her hair back from her brow with gentle fingers. ‘We’ll talk about what I was or wasn’t in the morning. Right now, I think we should get you out of your clothes so that you can go back to sleep.’

  ‘I can do it,’ she told him with alarm, instinctively clutching her dress to her.

  Adam gave a rueful smile. ‘I had a feeling you might say that.’ He stood up slowly to look down at her. ‘And I’m sure you can do it—if you don’t fall asleep again first,’ he chided indulgently as her lids began to flutter closed.

  Her eyes weren’t closing because she was tired, but because his being here in her bedroom, his shirt partly unbuttoned to reveal the hard strength of his chest, was having the strangest effect on her.

  But she could still see him, even with her eyes closed, every masculine inch of him.

  ‘I wasn’t going to do this. I promised myself I wouldn’t,’ Eve suddenly heard him groan. ‘But I can’t help myself!’

  She had known what he couldn’t stop himself doing even before his arms gathered her up against him and his mouth claimed hers hardily. It had been inevitable since the moment she’d woken up to look into his tenderly amused face. Something had happened inside her at that moment, something to
o fleeting to define, and yet she couldn’t deny that it had happened, or that it had happened before too.

  Like thirsty travellers in a desert they drank from each other’s lips, sipping, tasting, until passion flared and they were no longer content to sip, drinking deeply, their mouths moving together hungrily.

  Adam’s skin felt firm and hard beneath her touch, his muscles rippling convulsively as she unbuttoned his shirt to know him fully, tempted by that silken flesh, her lips lowering to taste him.

  His gasp of pleasure gave her a heady sense of gladness that she had dared to touch him in this way, and she felt the tension of his body beneath her.

  Heated lips nibbled against her throat, trailing fire, and it was her turn to gasp out loud as those lips moved moistly to capture the tip of her breast through the thin material of her dress.

  She shivered with delight at that gentle tugging on her flesh, her back arched as pleasure flooded warmly through her, her nipple hard and pulsing against him.

  She closed her eyes expectantly as Adam laid her gently back against the pillows, his lips moving in a featherlike touch from her mouth to the tip of her nose, softly kissing her closed lids before standing up.

  Eve was quivering with tension, waiting for him to rejoin her.

  ‘Goodnight, my darling.’ His voice came, not from beside her as she had expected, but from across the room. ‘My elusive Unicorn,’ he added huskily.

  Her lids flew wide open in alarm but, in the brief moment it took her to turn to him, the door was softly closing as he left her bedroom.

  The Unicorn!

  Good lord, why hadn’t she realised long before now that, after finding her in her studio, Adam would now know exactly who The Unicorn was?

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘HE’S ecstatic about the way things have worked out,’ Sophy told her enthusiastically the next morning, after bursting into Eve’s bedroom unannounced shortly after nine o’clock.

  Which was certainly more than Eve was! She had a feeling Adam wasn’t going to give her any peace at all now that he had discovered the true identity of The Unicorn.

  Why did she have to go and fall asleep in her studio? Why did Adam have to come looking for her? And find her!

  She had slept very badly after he’d left her room the night before, wanting to go and tell him right then and there not to get any clever ideas concerning her just because he now knew she was the artist he had been searching for. And that applied to Sophy, too, now that her secret was out!

  Eve continued to brush her hair dry in front of the mirror on her dressing-table, having just washed it beneath the shower’s spray. ‘Things haven’t worked out at all,’ she snapped, her face very pale, her eyes appearing deeply turquoise against that paleness.

  ‘But——’

  ‘Who or what I am doesn’t make the slightest difference to the way I feel about Adam Gardener,’ she firmly cut across Sophy’s protest.

  The other woman’s gaze narrowed on her speculatively. ‘And how do you feel about him?’

  She replaced the brush carefully on the dressing-table in front of her, her hand shaking slightly. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that he’s a very dangerous man.’

  ‘Dangerous?’ Sophy gave a puzzled frown, for once disconcerted. ‘But he isn’t in the least——Or do you mean he’s dangerous to the life you’ve chosen for yourself?’ She brightened at the idea.

  That was exactly what Eve meant. Adam had come along and upset it all.

  ‘I just mean dangerous,’ she repeated flatly. ‘Shall we go downstairs now?’ She stood up with finality. ‘I have a terrible headache, and I would like to take something for it.’

  Sophy made no effort to follow her across the room. ‘You’re in a very strange mood today.’ She was frowning again.

  ‘I told you,’ Eve shrugged dismissively, ‘I have a headache.’

  ‘It isn’t only that.’ Sophy shook her head, her gaze searching the closed expression on Eve’s face. ‘You seem somehow—different.’

  Different. Was it really that obvious for anyone to see just by looking at her?

  ‘I’m not different,’ she said dully.

  ‘Eve——’

  ‘I’m late for breakfast already,’ she concluded abruptly, leaving the room, as Sophy was making no effort to do so.

  ‘Eve, if I’ve been too pushy——’ Sophy broke off at Eve’s side as she rounded on her with incredulous eyes. ‘OK,’ she shrugged with a pained grimace, ‘I know I’ve been pushy. But——’

  ‘It’s for my own good—right?’ Eve finished with bitterness. ‘The fact that Paul isn’t always cooperative with the plans you outline has nothing whatsoever to do with it?’

  The other woman frowned at the scornful outburst. ‘Eve …?’

  She gave a harsh laugh, shaking her head. ‘ “The worm has turned"?’

  ‘That term hardly applies to you,’ Sophy said in an injured voice, the two of them clattering down the stairs in high heels.

  ‘I’m not a child who needs her life organised for her, either!’ Her face was flushed with anger.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to——Well, perhaps I was,’ Sophy conceded at her reproving look. ‘But Adam is a fascinating man, and …’

  ‘And you knew right from the beginning of your machinations that I was going to marry Paul,’ she bit out tautly. ‘Oh, never mind, Sophy,’ she dismissed impatiently at the other woman’s hurt expression. ‘Let’s just forget the whole subject.’

  Was going to marry Paul; the words kept reverberating around in her mind, although Sophy didn’t seem to have noticed that past tense in her statement. Because that was what it was for now. She couldn’t, in all honesty, marry Paul at a time when Adam Gardener seemed able to take her in his arms and elicit a response from her any time he chose to do so. Paul deserved more from her than that.

  That had been the reason she was unable to sleep after Adam had left her; she had been trying to decide what to do, knowing there was really only one thing she could do. And that was to tell Paul she couldn’t go through with the wedding until she was over this madness. If he still wanted her then …

  * * *

  ‘What?’

  She could understand Paul’s anger and pain at what she had had to tell him, she knew the same emotions herself. But what else could she do?

  ‘It’s just for now, Paul,’ she attempted to placate him.

  ‘You want to call off our wedding plans because of some juvenile interest you feel for a man who is completely unsuitable——’

  ‘If it were a juvenile interest, Paul, then it wouldn’t be of any importance.’ The way she reacted to Adam was far from juvenile. That was what frightened her.

  She had excused herself from the breakfast table after drinking a hurried cup of coffee, leaving a puzzled Sophy watching her departure; she had been anxious to get away from Ashton House before she had to see Adam, Mrs Hodges having informed her when she arrived downstairs that he and Patrick had gone out riding.

  On the drive over to Paul’s apartment she had gone over and over again in her mind what she had to say to him, and not once had it got any easier.

  His reaction had been expected, and just as distressing as she had known it would be.

  She had told him everything, sparing herself nothing, even telling him about the dinner party he had been unable to attend when Adam had been the other guest there, and not the female friend of Sophy and Patrick’s that she had claimed it to be. Paul had been dumbfounded at her deception, but even so, none of it seemed to have prepared him for the announcement she had just made about not being able to marry him with her emotions as confused as they were.

  ‘You’re over-reacting——’

  ‘But surely you can see,’ she looked at him pleadingly, tears balanced on her lashes, ‘that it wouldn’t be fair to you to go through with the wedding when another man can cause such a response in me?’ Her cheeks were fiery red at the admission, still slightly shocked herself at that response.<
br />
  Paul’s face darkened with anger. ‘I can see that you’re allowing your pre-wedding nerves to let you imagine this physical attraction—which is all it can possibly be,’ he dismissed scathingly, ‘is more important than years of knowing each other, caring for each other. Gardener is nothing but a phony sun-tan and a smooth charm!’ he rasped disgustedly.

  There was nothing in the least ‘phony’ about Adam, nor ‘smooth’, for that matter, and she and Paul both knew it. But she could appreciate that jealous anger was making Paul say these things.

  ‘I can also see Sophy O’Donnell’s interfering hand behind this!’ His eyes glittered furiously at the thought.

  Eve sighed. ‘Sophy only introduced the two of us; she couldn’t force my reaction to him.’

  Paul gave a disparaging snort. ‘A man like that would take delight in deliberately causing friction between us just because we were doing the decent thing by getting married!’

  Again he spoke out of jealousy and not truth. If Adam had only been out to cause trouble between them, was really the selfish type of man Paul was claiming him to be, then he would have made love to her the night before, not left her as he had. Because she certainly wouldn’t have been able to say no …

  But he hadn’t done that, and she knew it had been because of that ‘moral code’ she had taunted him about, not because he had found any resistance on her part.

  ‘Why else do you think a man of his age has remained single,’ Paul stormed, ‘if not because he would rather have his fun with someone else’s woman?’

  That was just it, she was no longer anyone’s woman. She couldn’t marry Paul feeling as she did about Adam, and yet she knew she wasn’t in love with Adam. She loved Paul, had always loved Paul—she just couldn’t help kissing Adam back whenever he chose to take her into his arms!

  ‘I don’t think that’s the reason he’s never married, Paul,’ she began slowly.

  ‘What would you know about it?’ he scoffed, his eyes silver with anger. ‘You’ve never met anyone like him before, and you’re completely out of your depth with that brand of sophisticated excitement. What on earth am I saying?’ he groaned, his eyes closed in disbelief.