Melting Ice (Roundwell Farm Trilogy)

by Rosalie Ash

  How could she have done that?

  Matt was watching her, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

  ‘So what happened when Megan told your mother?’

  ‘Apparently, Mother wouldn’t do anything about it, and that enraged Megan even more. At least Jessica and I understand now why Megan turned into such a disruptive monster at home, before she went to live with Aunt Grace. But anyway, I think maybe Mum just wanted a quiet life, maybe she was quite happy for Dad to go off bonking another woman, maybe she didn’t rate sex too highly either! God knows, I’ve no trouble relating to that!’ she said flatly.

  ‘Really? I somehow can’t see you turning a blind eye to a husband’s infidelities. You’re much too hot-blooded and idealistic to settle for that kind of cop-out. I also seem to recall that you quite enjoyed sex, Victoria.’

  Her throat suddenly dry, heat flashing through her, she dropped her eyes and gazed into the fire. Just now, when he’d held her in his arms to comfort her, his touch had been ecstasy. The knowledge that he still had the power to arouse her was like a knife through her chest. For a few moments she hated him and desired him so intensely all pretence at indifference evaporated.

  ‘Shall we eat some of this before it gets cold?' Matt suggested levelly.

  Speechlessly, she nodded, bending to spoon some out and handing a plate to Matt without meeting his eyes.

  'It's very good,' she managed to keep her voice light, when she had eaten a few mouthfuls. 'Is this your party piece, or do you have a wide repertoire of clever supper dishes?'

  'My repertoire is fairly limited. I do a few vegetarian versions of this. Apart from that I cook mainly in a wok. I can concoct quite interesting things with shellfish and vegetables and garlic and ginger.'

  'That sounds good, anyway.' She smiled involuntarily. 'Personally I prefer Italian food to Chinese. My ideal menu would be something like lasagna, followed by chocolate tiramisu.'

  'Rather rich for my taste,' Matt countered gravely.

  'I remember. You suffer from indigestion,' Victoria said, with an innocent smile. 'How is your digestion these days?'

  'My digestion is perfect,' said Matt drily. 'Ever since I resigned from De Lembers' Board.'

  ‘Oh yes, so you said. What are you planning to do now?’

  He grimaced slightly, 'I'm intending to paint again. If I can pluck up the courage.'

  She stared at him, suddenly curious. His words made him sound vulnerable, but she knew better. Matt was as hard as iron.

  'Painting? I presume you mean pictures, not painting and decorating? As in houses and walls?’

  ‘Pictures.’ He smiled slightly.

  ‘What sort of thing do you paint?'

  'Landscapes, so far. Some still life.' He shrugged, running a hand around the back of his neck, as if he was feeling too warm. 'I thought I'd try portraits. They're not something I've enjoyed much in the past, but lately I've felt I might be able to tackle them.' He shrugged again, uncharacteristically uncertain for a moment.

  'Good luck with it, then. Presumably you'll fit this in between freelancing, valuing rich Arabs' art collections, that sort of thing?'

  'Something like that.’ He smiled again. ‘Not too much of that sort of thing, though.’

  ‘So…this might sound a bit rude, but can you make enough money to live on painting pictures?’

  ‘No, the painting is just a hobby,’ He met her gaze with a crooked grin, ‘Are you worried that I’ve come back here to sponge off you?’

  She blushed. ‘Hardly. You’d have to be prepared to take on a very large overdraft if you were.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m more than financially viable.’ He said lightly, ‘If you and Archie need anything, you only have to ask.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you. But we don’t. And I wasn’t digging to find out how wealthy you are.’

  ‘I’m sure you weren’t. However, please bear in mind that you don’t have to shoulder the expense of bringing up a child on your own.’

  ‘I don’t intend to ask you for anything, Matt!’

  ‘So you keep saying.’ He shrugged, his tone light, ‘I have several income sources. My paintings sell for enough money to keep things afloat. And I’ve recently made the decision to live a more relaxed and creative style of life.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was so much she didn’t know about Matt, she reflected in surprise, 'Is that why you resigned from De Lembers? Was the job too stressful?'

  Matt poured some more wine. He gazed into his glass, and the firelight reflected in his eyes.

  'Maybe. It's hard to know where to start to explain it to you.'

  Victoria put her empty plate carefully down on the hearth, and threw another log on the fire. The flames began to lick and flicker around it. When Matt lifted his eyes and looked intently at her, there were twin flames in the silver.

  'You don’t have to explain it to me,’ she said quietly, ‘It’s really none of my business, Matt.'

  'Yes, it is. Meeting you, going to New York, and what happened over there, they're linked. I want to explain why I went in the first place.'

  'You had to investigate a fraud, you said.'

  'Yes. But if there hadn't been a fraud to investigate, I would have gone anyway. I was ambitious. New York office was the logical next step. I was in line for the chairmanship if things went right. New York was the final attempt to prove to myself that my life was going the way I wanted it to go.'

  Victoria kept her eyes on the fire. Her throat tightened but she managed to keep her voice detached.

  'But it didn't?'

  'It proved the opposite,' said Matt, with a note of self-mockery. 'There was a man called Samuel Kent working in our New York office. He was a very old…acquaintance of mine. We grew up together for a few years, he was the son of one of my foster-families. We kept in touch, sporadically, after I went back to the children's home. Sam had devoted his whole life to creating a powerful, materialistic empire round himself. Money and power. They'd taken the place of personal relationships. His marriage was in terminal decline, he hardly saw his children. All he cared about was making money.'

  'And he was the one involved in the fraud?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you had to expose him.'

  'Yes. The whole edifice crumbled round him. His wife kicked him out when she found out what was going on. Then he'd got nothing. Or that’s what he must have felt. No job, no power, no friends, and no family. He hung himself in his garage.'

  'Oh God, Matt, I’m so sorry. You must have felt terrible.'

  ‘I felt like a Judas,' he said, 'But the worst thing was seeing myself in him.'

  He looked at her frankly, and the pain in his eyes made her want to put her arms round him and comfort him.

  'You mean, “There but for the grace of God went you”?'

  'Slightly ungrammatical, but yes. I think that is what I felt.’ Matt paused for a moment, then went on, ‘I saw that none of us operate in a vacuum. It made me think about actions and consequences. Sam’s whole family were left devastated by the consequences of his behaviour. I knew then that I didn’t want to turn into another Sam.’

  'Surely resigning from the board was a drastic step,' she reasoned. 'You don't mean you were involved in fraud as well?'

  'No. Of course not.'

  'Then why resign? A minor adjustment in priorities would have sufficed.'

  'Possibly. Except that I'd already been struggling with a major adjustment in priorities. Ever since a weekend in Warwickshire when a stunning red-haired eighteen-year-old flung herself into my bed.'

  Heat rushed to her face. 'I did not fling myself into your bed!' she protested hotly. 'I came to your room to apologise and…you grabbed me!'

  Matt gazed at her levelly, and a glimmer of amusement showed in the silver stare. 'A view of the world through the eyes of an eighteen-year-old. I don't recall you putting up much of a fight.'

  Victoria stood up abruptly. She was hot and tingling all over suddenly. 'Do you want any
thing else to eat? I've got some chocolate cakes I bought this afternoon, or some fruit.'

  'Fruit would be good, thank you.' Matt's voice was drily amused.

  'Fine. I'll make some coffee as well.' She took the dishes with her, and closed the door on him, storming down the passage to the kitchen, uncaring whether she dropped anything or not. How could he be so callous? Taunting her about that weekend? Patronising her with his withering verdict on her character?

  She collected a basket of fruit, a chocolate cake for herself, and made a pot of strong filter coffee with barely restrained violence. He was an insufferable egotist. He couldn't resist gloating over that past conquest. She strode back with the tray, still seething with fury.

  'There are some pears and oranges,' she said tersely, putting the basket in front of Matt with scant grace. She poured coffee and retreated to her chair in stiff silence.

  'I'm sorry, Victoria,' said Matt, peeling a pear with precision. 'I didn't intend to upset you again. I was an eighteen-year-old once. There’s a lot about you that reminds me of my younger self.’

  ‘Really?’ She stared at him furiously, ‘I don’t recall ever being a buttoned up, cynical, cold-hearted brute of a human being!’

  ‘Is that really how you see me?’

  ‘Pretty much, yes.’

  ‘We’re all flawed. And in your own blinkered way you’ve risked disrupting several lives by acting first and thinking afterwards.’

  ‘Getting pregnant was an unfortunate accident! And obviously even though I adore Archie and would never want to be without him now, I regret what happened between us…’

  ‘But the fact is, it did happen. And now, for the rest of our lives, we are parents to our son.’

  'Matt, it took nine long months for our son to develop. In my body. After just one night, not even that, a few moments only, you ceased to be involved in the process. Please don't feel that you have any obligations towards me or towards our son!'

  Chapter Seventeen

  Her voice was shaking, and she stopped abruptly. Matt had stopped eating the pear, and had grown very still. The level penetrating stare he returned gradually began to unnerve her.

  'I didn't exactly rape you that night, Victoria,' he said, 'You were touchingly eager to let me take your virginity. Knowing you had taken no precautions against pregnancy. It seems to me that I have every right to declare an interest in our son. And I personally choose to feel an obligation to both you and our son.'

  Victoria stood up. She was dimly aware that this conversation was getting them nowhere, that they had somehow strayed from logic to blind emotion, but she was past caring.

  'Will you please go?' she said, 'If it will keep you away from me, I'll arrange for you to see Archie quite regularly. But I don't want you to come here again.'

  Matt rose to his feet in a fluid, powerful movement, and the pale, lidded gaze was so scathing she longed to drop her eyes under the onslaught. Only pride and fury kept them level.

  'Don’t be so fucking ridiculous, Victoria.' he said tautly, 'I'll go, but not before I've proved that you're lying to me and to yourself.'

  Before she could duck him, he had pulled her into his arms. He controlled her furious struggles with easy strength. His fingers were hard as he twisted her chin up until her mouth was beneath his, and then he kissed her.

  In the midst of her anger, Victoria felt a wave of despair. She knew that her body was going to betray her. She wanted to fight and struggle and scream, but instead she circled his neck with her arms and ran her fingers into his hair, pulling his mouth down harder on her own and returning the kiss with a shudder of passion she had forgotten she was capable of feeling.

  When their lips parted for a moment she drew in a breath that sounded like a sob, but her whole body was on fire, as if all her anger and resentment were transformed into heightened sexual desire.

  In response he swung her into his arms and took her to the sofa in front of the fire, trapping her on his lap as he kissed her more deeply. Victoria couldn't think any more. All she wanted was to be closer, closer, to surrender to this glorious melting feeling in her bones, and this fiery ache in her stomach. Her struggles to escape had changed to struggles to be as close to Matt as possible, and with a groan he pushed her full length on the sofa and responded to her urgent movements by flicking open the buttons on her jeans and pushing up the soft fabric of her jumper.

  Then at last she felt his lips on her skin, her throat, and his hand could flick open the clasp of her silky lace bra and expose her breasts to receive the caresses they ached for.

  She gave a choked cry of pleasure as she felt his tongue on her hardened nipples, and he drew back for a moment, his face shadowy and almost unrecognisable above her, the pupils dilated with desire.

  'Victoria,' he breathed unevenly, stroking the softness of her with an almost reverent gentleness, his eyes narrowed as he gazed down at her, ‘Did I ever tell you that you have the most perfect breasts I’ve ever seen?’

  ‘No,’ her voice was muffled with emotion, everything melting into surrender, ‘You didn’t…’ Not even when she’d flashed them at him on their first meeting, she thought dazedly, almost finding the strength to giggle but dissolving instead into quivering desire.

  ‘And you’ve gained some curves,’ he said, ‘In all the right places. God, Victoria…’

  He was peeling down her tight jeans and sending another convulsion of desire through her. Lost in sensation, she hungrily moved one hand up inside his T-shirt, felt the warm hardness of his abdomen and chest, trembled over the flat hard nipples and the coarseness of his chest hair, all her long years of needing and wanting pooling into one hot, liquid tug of desire low down in her stomach.

  'Matt, oh God…,' she heard herself whispering against his mouth, as her body strained towards him. He slid the jeans down further, tugged them so that he could pull them right off her. He slipped his hand inside her lacy briefs and cupped her already damp sex with his hand. He groaned, sliding two fingers inside her until she whimpered with need.

  ‘You smell and taste gorgeous, I’ve never forgotten the scent and flavour of you,’ he said, running that same hand up the length of her body, putting his fingers into his own mouth and then into hers.

  That was all it took. Something raw and elemental in Matt’s sexuality ignited a desire in her so powerful, so overwhelming she couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t fight it. She needed him, hungered and thirsted for him, in a mindless, blind way that had her fingers ripping at his white T-shirt, wrenching it over his head, allowing her hands the luxury of stroking and exploring the irresistible lines of his body.

  In front of the fire, on the warmth of the sofa, he lifted her to straddle him, stroked the soft fullness of her breasts, moulded her small waist and the flare of her hips, his eyes dark as smoke as they hungrily scanned her body,

  ‘You’re stunning, but completely crazy,’ he murmured huskily, ‘I don’t have a clue what goes on in your head!’

  ‘Right now, nor do I,’ she whispered breathlessly, ‘I don’t have a clue how you do this to me, if I did I’d know how to stop you.’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t stop me.' His voice was thick with desire and laughter. ‘If you knew how much I’ve been wanting to do this to you again, you wouldn’t be so cruel.’

  She slid a trembling hand to the fastening of his Levis, moved her fingers over the long hard bulge under the button-fly with a rush of heat all over her. Slowly, she flicked open the top two buttons, her eyes caught and held in his narrowed gaze.

  The only sound was dull tick of the grandfather clock in the shadows, the hissing of the logs in the hearth, and their combined ragged breathing.

  Then the sudden sound of Archie’s distressed little voice on the monitor.

  Instantly the wild desire shattered. The breath left her lungs on a long shuddering gasp. Matt went very still, his hands still holding her waist, his eyes half closed and unreadable.

  ‘Mumma, Mumma…’

  S
haking her head to dispel the dark dregs of passion, she pushed herself off him so violently she caught his cheekbone sharply with her elbow.

  ‘Sorry… sorry…’ She grabbed her jumper from the floor and pulled it quickly back on. Archie had begun to cry loudly now. Matt got to his feet, rubbing a hand ruefully over his cheek, and began slowly to re-button his jeans.