by Heidi Rice
She found his erection, but he dragged her hand away.
‘Lose the dress,’ he said as he tore off his shirt, and the gruff demand in his voice made the light of challenge spark in her eyes.
‘I don’t take orders,’ she said, sounding indignant, but he could see the hot light of her lust. She understood this game as much as he did—even if it didn’t feel like a game any more.
‘Lose the dress or it gets ripped off.’
‘Oh, for...’
She shimmied out of the clinging silk to reveal the lacy panties he adored. Palming her bottom, he lifted her onto the vanity unit, shoving her toiletries off the countertop. The bag crashed to the floor, scattering her stuff across the tiles.
Need careered through his system along with pain and possession—the same damn combination that had tortured him a lifetime ago.
She placed trembling palms on his chest. ‘Dane, slow down.’
‘In a minute,’ he said, the need to have her, to claim her, powering through him like a freight train.
He ripped the delicate panties. And plunged his fingers into the hot, wet heart of her at last.
She sobbed, gasped and grasped his biceps. He stroked the slick flesh, knowing just how and where to touch her to send her spiralling into a stunning orgasm. He watched her go over, and the powerful emotion coiling inside him—part fear, part euphoria—made his erection throb harder against her thigh.
‘You ready for me?’ he demanded, barely able to speak as need tormented him.
She nodded, dazed. He sank into her to the hilt, the euphoria bursting inside him as she clasped him tight.
Yes. If this was the only way he could have her, the only way he could make her his, he was going to show her that this was one thing no other man would ever be able to give her.
She clung to his arms as he thrust hard and dug deep, her muscles milking him as she started to crest again. The hunger gripped him, as painful as it was exquisite. He shouted out as she sobbed her release into his neck. And his seed burst into the hot, wet grip of her body.
The wish that they could create another baby and then she’d have to be his was savage and insane. Just the way it had been all those years ago.
Reality returned as he came down, tasting the salty sweat on her neck, and the first jabs of shame and panic assaulted him. Hell, he’d taken her like an animal. He should have held back. He didn’t want her to know how much he needed her.
He eased out of her. Felt her flinch.
‘Did I hurt you?’
She was trembling. ‘No, I’m fine.’
The words pulsed in his skull. Mocking him and making him ache at the same time. He forced an easy smile to his lips and turned on the hot jets of the shower. Steam rose as he checked the temperature.
‘Let’s get cleaned up.’
He dragged her under the spray with him. But as he washed her hair, feeling the strands like wet silk through his fingers, that need consumed him all over again. To hold her, to have her, to make her stay.
And the visceral fear that had lurked inside him for so long roared into life and chilled him to the bone.
* * *
‘Is everything okay?’
Xanthe watched Dane leave the shower cubicle and grab a towel, feeling his sudden withdrawal like a physical blow.
He wrapped the towel round his hips. ‘Sure,’ he said, but he didn’t turn towards her as he bent to pick up the toiletries scattered over the floor.
The joy that had been so fresh and new and exciting a moment ago, when he’d taken her with such hunger and purpose, faded. She turned off the shower and pulled one of the fluffy bath sheets off the vanity unit to wrap around herself, suddenly feeling exposed and so needy.
Had she completely misjudged everything? All the signals she’d thought he’d been sending her this evening that there might be more? That his feelings matched her own?
‘I’ll do it.’ She stepped towards him to help pick up her toiletries, but he shrugged off her outstretched hand.
‘I made the mess. I’ll clean it up.’ He placed the bag on the vanity unit, dumping the last of its scattered contents inside.
The strangely impersonal tone sent a shudder through her. She wrapped the towel tighter. Then lifted another towel to dry her hair.
‘Where are the birth control pills?’
The clattering beat of her heart jumped into an uneasy rhythm at the flat question. ‘Sorry?’
‘Your pills? You said you were on the pill,’ he prompted. ‘I don’t see them here.’
He’d checked her toiletries for contraceptive pills? Agony twisted in the pit of her stomach. Slicing through the last of the joy.
‘I’m not on the pill.’
His brows arrowed down in a confused frown. ‘So what type of birth control are you using?’
She could see the accusation in his eyes, hear the brittle demand in his voice, and all the blurred edges came together to create a shocking and utterly terrifying truth.
She’d been wrong—so wrong—all over again.
‘I’m not using any,’ she said.
‘What the hell—?’
He looked so shocked she felt the hole in the pit of her stomach ripped open—until it was the same gaping wound that had crippled her once before.
He marched towards her and gripped her arm. ‘What kind of game are you playing? Are you nuts? I could have gotten you pregnant again.’
She tugged her arm free, the accusation in his face cutting into her insides. How stupid she had been to keep this a secret. When it was the thing that had grounded her for so long. Stopped all those stupid romantic dreams from destroying her.
‘I’m not going to get accidentally pregnant. Because I can’t.’
She walked past him, suddenly desperate to get away from him. She needed to have some clothes on and to get out of here.
‘Wait—what are you saying?’ He followed her out of the bathroom and dragged her round to face him.
She thrust her forearms against him. ‘Let me go. I want to leave.’
She tried to wrestle free, but he wouldn’t let go.
‘You need to tell me what you mean.’
She could feel the storm welling inside her, tearing at her insides the way it had for so many years while she’d struggled to come to terms with the truth. But she didn’t want to break in front of him. She had to be in control, to be measured, not let him see how much this had devastated her when she told him the details—or he would know she’d fallen for him again. And the one thing she could not bear was his pity.
‘I told you—I can’t get pregnant.’
‘Why can’t you?’
The probing question was too much.
‘What gives you the right to ask me that?’
‘Hell, Red, just tell me why you can’t have another child. I want to know.’
The storm churned in her stomach, more violent than the one they’d survived together, and tears were stinging her eyes.
‘Because I’m barren. Because I waited too long in that motel room to call my father. I was sure that you would come for me. I was haemorrhaging. There was an infection. Understand?’
She headed towards the lounge, frantic now.
‘I need to leave. I should have left yesterday.’
This time she held back the tears with an iron will. Pity, responsibility, sex—those were the only things Dane had ever had to give. She could see that so clearly now.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ His voice sounded strained.
‘Because it happened and now it’s over,’ she said.
She got dressed while he watched. Grateful when he didn’t approach her. She was stronger now. She could get through this. She wasn’t the bright, naive girl she’d once been—someone who’d come close to being destroyed by her past. She could never let him have that power over her again.
Shoving the few meagre items she had brought with her into her briefcase, she turned to look at him.
; He stood in the doorway, the towel hooked around his waist, his expression frozen and unreadable.
‘You know what’s really idiotic?’ she said. ‘For a moment there I thought we could make this work. That somehow we could overcome all the mistakes from our past, all the things we did wrong, and make it right.’
‘What?’
He looked so stunned she hesitated—but only for a moment. This was a ludicrous pipe dream. It always had been and always would be.
‘It was a stupid idea,’ she said. ‘Like before.’
She wanted to be angry with him, so she could fill the great gaping hole in the pit of her stomach. But she couldn’t. Because all she could feel was an agonising sense of loss.
‘Damn it, Red. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
He approached her and lifted his hand, but she stiffened and stepped back.
‘Can’t you see that just makes it even more painful?’ she said.
He let his hand drop. His expression wasn’t frozen any more. She could see confusion, regret, maybe even sadness, but she steeled herself against the traitorous wobble in her heart that made her want to believe they still had a chance.
She pulled the papers out of the briefcase. The papers she’d come all this way to make him sign in order to end their marriage, without ever realising that what she had really wanted to do was mend it.
‘You expected me to trust you, Dane. And you got angry when I didn’t. But despite all the confusion with these—’ she lifted the papers and dropped them on the coffee table ‘—the truth is I do trust you. And I think I always did. Because I never stopped loving you. That’s why it’s so ironic that you were never able to trust me.’
His jaw flexed. His gaze was bleak. But he didn’t try to stop her again as she walked out the door.
She felt herself crumpling. The pain was too much. But she held her body ramrod-straight, her spine stiff, until she climbed into a cab to take her to the airport.
She collapsed onto the seat, wrenching sobs shuddering through her body.
‘You all right, ma’am?’ the cab driver called through the grille.
‘Yes, it’s okay. I’m okay,’ she murmured as she scrubbed away the tears with her fist and tried to make herself believe it.
She would be okay. Eventually. The way she had been before. Dane was a part of her past. A painful, poignant part of her past. She’d just forgotten that for a few days.
He’d never been a bad man. He had simply never been able to love her. Not the way she needed to be loved.
Once she was back in the UK—back where she belonged, doing what she loved—everything would be okay again.
But as they headed to the dock, and the boat to Nassau, even the promise of a fifteen-hour workday and her luxury apartment overlooking the Thames couldn’t ease the lonely longing in her battered heart—for something that had only ever been real in her foolish romantic imagination.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘BILL SAYS THEY’RE ready to sign off on the Calhoun deal. He’s checked through the contracts and everything looks good.’
‘Right. Thanks, Angela,’ Xanthe murmured as she studied the small pleasure boat making its way up the Thames.
July sunlight sparkled off the muddy water, reminding her of...
‘Is everything okay, Miss Carmichael?’
Xanthe swung round, detaching her gaze from the view out of the window of her office in Whitehall to find her PA studying her with a concerned frown on her face. The same concerned frown Xanthe had seen too often in the last two weeks. Ever since she’d returned from the Bahamas.
Get your head back in the game.
‘Yes, of course.’ She walked back to her desk, struggling to pull herself out of her latest daydream.
Everything wasn’t okay. She wasn’t sleeping, she’d barely eaten a full meal in two weeks, and she felt tired and listless and hollow inside.
Maybe it was just overwork. After the... She paused to think of an adequate word... After the difficult trip to the Caribbean, she’d thrown herself back into work as soon as she’d returned. She’d wanted to be busy, to feel useful, to feel as if her life had purpose, direction—all those things she’d lacked so long ago when she’d allowed herself to fall into love with Dane Redmond the first time.
But work wasn’t the panacea it had once been.
She missed him—not just his body and all the wonderful things he could do to hers, but his energy, his charisma, the dogged will, even the arrogance that she’d once persuaded herself she hated. Even their arguments held a strange sort of nostalgia that made no sense.
Their trip had only been five days in total. Her life, her outlook on life, couldn’t change in five days. This was just another emotional blip that she would get over the way she’d got over all the others. dpg
But why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? About the feeling of having his arms around her as she wept for their baby? The force field of raw charisma that had energised everything about their encounter and made everything since her return seem dull and lifeless in comparison?
And that look on his face when she’d told him of her foolish hopes... He’d looked astonished.
Every night since her return she’d lain awake trying to analyse that expression. Had there been disbelief there? Disdain? Or had there been hope?
Angela slipped a pile of paperwork onto the desk blotter. Then pointed at the signature field on the back page. ‘You just need to sign here and here, and I’ll get it back to Contracts.’
Xanthe picked up the gold pen she used to sign all her deals. Then hesitated, her mind foggy with fatigue and confusion. ‘Remind me again—what’s the Calhoun deal?’
She heard Angela’s intake of breath.
When her PA finally spoke, her voice was heavy with concern. ‘It’s the deal you’ve been working on for three months...to invest in a new terminal in Belfast.’
Xanthe wrote her signature, the black ink swimming before her eyes, the tears threatening anew.
Good Lord, why couldn’t she stop going over the same ground, reanalysing everything Dane had said and done? Trying to find an excuse to contact him again?
This was pathetic. She was pathetic.
The intercom on her desk buzzed. She clicked it on as Angela gathered up the documents and began putting them back into the file. ‘Yes, Clare?’ she said, addressing the new intern Angela had been training all week.
‘There’s a gentleman here to see you, Miss Carmichael. He says he has some papers for you. He’s very insistent. Can I send him in?’
‘Tell him to leave them outside.’ She clicked off the intercom. ‘Could you handle it, whatever it is, Angela? I think I’m going home.’
‘Of course, Miss Carmichael.’
But as Angela opened the door Xanthe’s head shot up at the low voice she could hear outside her office, arguing with the intern. Her mind blurred along with her vision at the sight of Dane striding into her office.
‘Excuse me, sir, you can’t come in here. Miss Car—’
‘The hell I can’t.’
He walked past Angela, who was trying and failing to guard the doorway.
‘We need to talk, Red.’
Xanthe stood up, locking her knees when her legs refused to cooperate. A surge of heat twisted with a leap of joy, making her body feel weightless. She buried it deep. Shock and confusion overwhelmed her when he marched to the desk, his muscular body rippling with tension beneath a light grey designer suit and crisp white shirt.
‘What are you doing here?’
Hadn’t she made it clear she never wanted to see him again? Couldn’t he respect at least one of her wishes? She couldn’t say goodbye all over again—it wasn’t fair.
Pulling a bunch of papers from the inside pocket of his suit, he slapped them down on the desk. ‘I’ve come to tell you I’m not signing these.’
‘Shall I call Security?’ Angela asked, her face going red.
If only it could be th
at simple.
‘That’s okay, Angela.’
‘I’m her husband,’ Dane growled at the same time.
Angela’s face grew redder. ‘Excuse me...?’
‘I’ll handle this,’ Xanthe reiterated. Somehow she would find the strength to kick him out of her life again. ‘Please leave and shut the door.’
The door closed behind her PA as heat she didn’t want to feel rushed all over her body and her heart clutched tight in her chest. She glanced down at the crumpled papers. Their divorce papers. The ones she’d tried to make him sign to protect her company.
‘If you’ve quite finished bullying my staff, maybe you’d like to explain to me why you found it necessary to come barging in here to tell me something I already know.’
She’d had new papers drawn up as soon as she’d returned. Papers without the codicil.
‘Dissolving our marriage is merely a formality now,’ she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. She couldn’t argue about this now—not when she was still so close to breaking point. ‘In case your lawyer hasn’t told you, I’ve filed new papers,’ she added. Maybe this was simply a misunderstanding. ‘There’s nothing in them you should find objectionable. I trust you not to sue for the shares. You’ve got what you wanted.’
‘I know about the new papers. I’m not signing those either.’
‘But... Why not?’ Was he trying to torture her now? Prolong her agony? What had she done to deserve this punishment?
‘Because I don’t want to,’ he said, but he didn’t look belligerent or annoyed any more. His features had softened. ‘Because you matter to me.’
‘No, I don’t—not really,’ she said, suddenly feeling desperately weary. And sad.
Did he think she wanted his pity? Maybe he was trying to tell her he cared about her. But it was far too little and way too late.
‘Don’t tell me how I feel, Red.’
‘Then please don’t call me Red.’
The sweet nickname sliced through all her defences, reminding her of how little she’d once been willing to settle for. And how she’d nearly persuaded herself to do so again.
He walked round the desk, crowding into her space. She stiffened and tried to step back, but got caught between the chair and the desk when his finger reached out to touch a curl of hair.