by Penny Jordan
Much too small? A size at most, Emma guessed, but she didn’t say anything merely smiling politely. She wasn’t here to get upset or offended, she was here simply to act as a form of protection for Drake, and personal feelings of her own weren’t allowable.
‘I must apologise for Bianca,’ Giles murmured uncomfortably when she had gone. ‘She’s been going through a difficult time recently. The drugs she’s taking for the depression she’s been suffering from sometimes have an adverse effect on her. I suppose all beautiful women go through a similar thing as they get older.’
He was asking her to make allowances for his wife, and Emma smiled again, and said truthfully, ‘I’m just sorry we’re here at such a difficult time for you.’
‘Don’t let it put you off marriage,’ Giles cautioned Drake on a lighter note.
‘It doesn’t.’ The look he gave Emma literally made her toes curl and all her commonsense warnings to herself go up in sheets of flames. The man was as lethal as dynamite, she told herself. If it was possible to do such a thing he was making love to her just by simply looking at her. The sensation was an unnerving one.
After lunch the men continued to discuss business while Emma made careful notes. It was gone five before they finally called it a day, and she was stiff from so much unaccustomed sitting still. A long soak in a hot bath was definitely called for she decided as she made her way to her room. There was also the question of what to wear tonight. Out to dinner Bianca had said, and Emma preferred the elegance of being slightly underdressed to going for over-kill.
After inspecting the contents of her wardrobe she decided on a simple silk jersey Jean Muir dress in a misty shade of lilac. At first she had been uncertain about the dress because of the colour of her hair, but the shade was one that did wonders for her Celtic skin and eyes, giving the latter a faintly purple depth that made them seem twice their normal size.
Having decided on her dress, she went into the bathroom to run a bath. She doubted that they would go out much before eight, which gave her ample time to rest and then get ready. She had brought a couple of paperbacks with her and taking one with her she wandered through into her bathroom.
An expensive range of toiletries had been provided for her use but after uncapping and sniffing the bath oil Emma rejected it in favour of her own Chanel. The perfume reminded her too much of Bianca; it was heavy and sultry, and not to her own taste at all.
The bath was enormous and the water piping hot; the paperback she had bought on impulse a good choice. Time went by and Emma was lost in another world, lifting her eyes from her book occasionally to add more water and push away thoughts of guilt at her self-indulgence. At home there was never enough time for a long soak; or when there was Camilla was in the bathroom.
‘Emma?’
She was so lost in her book that it was several seconds before she registered the sound of Drake’s voice calling her name, and it was only when he called her name again, his voice closer this time, that she was galvanised into action, calling out breathlessly, ‘Yes, I’m here Drake… I…’ Her voice was strangled in her throat as Drake pushed open the unclosed door. The towel she managed to snatch up was barely large enough to wrap round herself, her face pink with indignation as she glowered at him.
‘Umm, Number 5.’ His voice was light, amused almost, but there was nothing amused about the long slow tour his eyes took of her body still damp from her undignified scramble to get out of the bath, and very inadequately concealed by the small towel.
‘You should have stayed outside,’ Emma protested wrathfully. ‘Why…?’
‘You should have let me know before that you were in here. I called out at least three times, for all I knew you could have drowned in here.’
Giving him a scathing look Emma started to skirt round him. He was standing between her and the protection of her robe. He made no effort to help her, merely picking up the paperback where she had dropped it and glancing as though extremely interested in it, at the printed pages.
‘Will you please go away and let me get dressed.’ The words were gritted through Emma’s teeth as embarrassment gave way to anger.
‘What? And deny myself the alluring picture of my fiancée…?’
‘I am not your fiancée.’ Emma snapped the words at him, glaring at him angrily. ‘This is simply a business arrangement—remember? And it does not entitle you to come walking unannounced into my bathroom.’
‘Oh but I was announced—’
‘Will you please go away.’
‘What are you so frightened of Emma?’ His voice was soft, dangerously so, his scrutiny thorough as he studied her thoughtfully. ‘You’re far more adequately covered now than you would be on a beach for instance.’
What he said was true; she wasn’t frightened so much as far too aware of the contrast between his masculinity and her own femininity and her vulnerability towards him.
‘You scared me,’ she said at last, admitting only a portion of the truth, ‘I had no idea you were there.’
‘I came in to talk to you about tonight. There was something I forgot to mention before we left London, and Bianca’s bitchy remarks at lunch reminded me.’
Emma longed to tell him that whatever it was could wait until she was dressed, but every feminine instinct she possessed warned her that to do so would be to concede him a very definite advantage.
She was standing within two feet of him, with her robe lying behind him on a chair, and he stood between her and the door. ‘If you’ll just give me a minute to put on my robe we can talk about it,’ she suggested lightly, hoping he wouldn’t guess at her tension. The smile that curved his mouth told her that he had, his eyes mocking her.
‘I like you the way you are,’ he told her smoothly. ‘And I like it even more knowing that my liking it disturbs you Emma. Oh yes it does,’ he said softly before she could deny it. ‘When you’re disturbed about anything your eyes turn almost violet. What worries you so much? Is it the fact that I might do this?’
There was no way she could evade his arms imprisoning her, holding her tensed body against the relaxed outline of his. He laughed softly deep in his throat when she glared at him. ‘Relax tigress,’ he commanded her as he bent towards her, ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
The moment he said the words Emma knew that he was lying to her. Oh, he wasn’t going to hurt her physically right enough, but emotionally… So intense was the sense of self-revelation she suffered that her body shuddered with the force of it. Somehow without her being aware of it she had become dangerously vulnerable to him; a vulnerability that could only spring from the deepest kind of emotional involvement and yet there was none between them. Her feelings for him were purely and simply physical; weren’t they?
She was so deeply involved in her own thoughts that it took his fierce, ‘Emma… don’t try and escape from me that way… Look at me,’ to focus her attention on the darkly tense expression in his eyes.
‘Where were you then?’ he demanded. ‘Where were your thoughts?’
‘On my sister,’ Emma lied valiantly, ‘I was…’
‘Forget her,’ Drake advised her. ‘Think only of this.’
The heat of his mouth searing hers shocked her body first into frozen immobility and then into fierce, heated life. As if governed by an inner force that could not be controlled by her brain, her hands lifted to his shoulders, seeking for and finding the firm curve of his nape and the thick hair that grew there. Her mouth parted at the insistence of his, not making any attempt to resist his sensual invasion, her body shuddered, alight with a fierce, deep hunger as his hand slid from her waist to her breast, cupping it through the softness of the towel, his thumb unerringly finding the burgeoning tautness of her nipple.
Aching waves of pleasure spread through her body, radiating outwards from his seductive caress. Unable to stop herself from shuddering deeply in response Emma closed her eyes. It was a mistake. Instantly she was transported to a world where the senses ruled. Behind her closed eyes images of Dr
ake danced; his body supple and male, and completely nude.
Fire shimmered across her skin, the aching in the pit of her stomach intensifying. She was barely aware of the firm tug Drake gave her protective towel, knowing only that as it fell away and his hands moved over her back into the curve of her waist, holding her against him, she was consumed by a fierce need to have him go on touching her, holding her, caressing her, loving her…
It took her several seconds to react to what she had unwittingly betrayed to herself; seconds during which she drowned beneath the sexual expertise of his touch, intoxicated to the point of madness by the feel and smell of him, recovering only when her brain forced her to acknowledge the danger she was courting.
Why should she want his love? Sex was all he could offer her; and sex was all she wanted from him, wasn’t it?
When she stopped returning his kiss Drake lifted his mouth from hers, brilliantly jade eyes studying the smoky, aroused grey of her own.
‘Second thoughts? It’s too late for them now Emma, and besides they’d be a complete waste of time. You want me,’ he told her arrogantly, and it was the sureness in his voice, the male conceit adding victory to his eyes that gave her the courage to move slightly away from him, her body tense as she responded coolly, ‘Yes, of course I do, Drake, but sexual wanting isn’t enough I’m afraid at least not for me.’
She saw him frown and bent to retrieve her towel, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way her body reacted to his careless appraisal of it. When she stood up and re-secured it, he was still frowning and Emma knew she had to take what small advantage she had gained and use it against him before he guessed the truth.
‘You surely don’t suppose you’re the first man I have wanted?’ She managed to inject a small thread of amused mockery into the words and had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes harden, his mouth tightening slightly as he moved a step back from her. ‘I’m twenty-six years old Drake,’ she shrugged smoothly. ‘Of course I’ve experienced physical desire before, but I made myself a promise years ago that I wouldn’t succumb to it unless it was teamed with something else. You see,’ she told him proudly, hoping he wouldn’t challenge her; that he wouldn’t guess that no man had ever aroused her to the fiery heights he had taken her to, ‘I’m not prepared to settle for the second rate; for sex on its own.’
‘You want “love” as well is that it?’ he interrupted harshly, his mouth and tone openly derisive. ‘People have wasted their lives looking for that elusive state,’ he told her sardonically. ‘What makes you think you’ll be any more successful? You’re so smug and secure locked away behind your own principles aren’t you Emma? What do you expect me to do? Admire you for them? Well I don’t find them admirable, I think they’re the mark of a coward; a woman who won’t allow herself to come down to earth and enjoy life as it is. There’s nothing morally wrong about enjoying sex for sex’s sake; rather the opposite. The love you dream of is an elusive, non-existent state of mind.’
Every word he was saying to her was driving the pain deeper into her heart. She had known right from the start what manner of man he was; it was pointless to cry aching tears inside now because she loved him and she knew that love would never be returned. ‘What is it you want from me Emma?’ he demanded explosively. ‘What is it you want me to say? That I love you?’ His mouth twisted. ‘I thought better of you; I didn’t think you were the kind of woman who demanded lip-service paying to a set of outmoded customs…’
‘Stop it Drake.’ The words came out huskily, betraying to herself her intense pain. ‘Whatever you say to me won’t make any difference. I want to give and to receive love; I want to share my body with a man for whom I feel more than just sexual desire.’
‘Just sexual desire?’ She could hardly bear the derision in his eyes. ‘Oh Emma how you deceive yourself. Just ten minutes ago that same “mere sexual desire” had you going mad in my arms; hungry for my complete possession. Lie to yourself if you must,’ he added curtly, ‘but don’t lie to me. Just remember when the ache of your body keeps you awake at night what you could have had and what you still can have, if you come and ask me nicely.’
‘Never.’ The denial exploded from her tense throat, earning a cynical grimace.
‘You’re chasing after rainbows Emma; looking for pots of gold that don’t exist. You’re the first woman I’ve ever met who I find as stimulating mentally as I do sexually. We could be very good together you and I, and the pity of it is that by the time you’re ready to admit as much it will be way, way too late.’
‘Meaning that you’ll already have moved on to the next woman; the next challenge,’ Emma retorted bitterly. ‘I’m sorry Drake, but I want more from a man than a few weeks’ sexual pleasure and then goodbye.’
‘Well you know what they say.’ His smile was cruelly hard. ‘Either you use it or you lose it.’
He was gone before she could add another retort and childishly Emma followed him to the connecting door locking it behind him although she knew he would make no attempt to walk through it. Drake wasn’t that kind of man. He didn’t need to be, with women like Bianca around she thought wryly, asking herself derisively if she had locked the door not so much to keep Drake out, but to keep herself in; to stop herself from weakening and going to him.
It made no difference that she spent most of the evening telling herself that she had made the right decision. Every time she looked up from the meal she was barely tasting to find Drake deep in conversation with one or other of their fellow female guests she was pierced with a jealousy so acute that she could hardly contain it.
To make matters worse Bianca kept on watching her; like a cat at a mousehole Emma thought muzzily, aimlessly pushing a piece of steak round her plate.
Giles’s friends were a couple in their mid-forties, the husband brash and too forceful for Emma’s taste, the woman relentlessly flirtatious, brittle in a way that made Emma shudder inwardly and pray that she herself never found herself trapped in a life-style that necessitated such behaviour.
It was something she ought to take as a timely warning, she told herself later on as they were driven back to the house. Marriage to Drake, if such a thing by some miracle were ever to come to pass would be a constant effort to be the woman Drake wanted her to be and she too would develop that fretful, anxious look, she had seen so clearly betrayed on Rita Vanguard’s smoothly made up face. No, that wasn’t for her. She wanted a mate she could share her life with; laugh with; love deeply and intensely. Which was one of the reasons she was still single, she reminded herself sardonically. Perhaps Drake was right, perhaps she was living in a fantasy world.
They were back at the house almost before she realised it, so deeply engrossed in her thoughts that it came as something of a shock to hear Bianca saying tauntingly, ‘I think our love birds must have had a quarrel. Never mind my dear,’ she said to Emma, ‘they do say a double bed is a great place for making up and Drake was always at his best between the sheets or so I’ve heard.’
Bianca was playing a dangerous game Emma thought, chancing to see the deeply bitter look crossing Giles’s face. She was playing with fire and if she wasn’t careful she was going to get badly burned.
‘Thanks for the testimonial.’ Drake sounded laconically unconcerned by Bianca’s remarks. ‘Our apologies, if we’ve both been somewhat subdued this evening,’ he apologised to Giles as they entered the house. ‘Jet lag catching up on us, I suspect.’
‘I know the feeling. Bianca should have been a little more thoughtful and given you a couple of days to recover before arranging anything. It always takes me at least forty-eight hours to get anything like back to normal.’
‘Yes, but darling, you’re at least thirty years older than Drake,’ Bianca murmured sweetly as they walked into the house. Emma almost cringed for the other woman’s unkindness. Although he fought hard not to show it, Giles had winced away from her cruel words. Drake’s mouth was a hard line as he refused a nightcap, and as Emma turned towards the stairs he fol
lowed her, catching hold of her elbow to bend his head and murmur, ‘Still believe in the magic potency of “love”, after witnessing that little débécle?’
‘I doubt that Bianca ever loved Giles, as I conceive it,’ she responded shortly, ‘although it’s obvious that he adores her.’
‘And a relationship with love on one side and not on the other, isn’t what you’d go for, I take it? It would be against all those high-minded principles of yours?’
‘It would be a recipe for disaster,’ Emma responded shortly, hating herself for the unruly thoughts he was arousing inside her; the insane desire to turn to him and tell him that she loved him; and that so long as he was a part of it, she could take any relationship he cared to offer her.
Was she completely mad, she asked herself as she paused outside her room. She had seen tonight, with her own eyes, the effect marriage to a sexually dynamic man could have on a woman. She personally might have found John Vanguard brash and insensitive to his wife’s needs, but she had recognised instantly the powerful sexual aura he gave off, and it hadn’t needed Drake’s murmured remark that John had probably slept with every single woman at the dinner table apart from herself, to underline the man’s sexuality. Drake had made the remark to torment her, but Emma had instantly looked at his wife, and had seen past the carefully lifted and made up forty-odd-year-old face and had seen the agony of the woman behind it; a woman still deeply in love with a husband who no longer fully had that love. Was that what she wanted for herself?
‘Where do you go to when you get that look in your eyes? And don’t tell me you’re thinking about your sister again,’ Drake demanded, roughly grasping her arm.
‘I was thinking about John Vanguard,’ Emma responded truthfully without thinking, gasping out loud in sharp pain as Drake’s fingers hardened on her skin. ‘Damn you,’ he cursed violently. ‘Just what in hell are you trying to do to me?’ His voice was thick and unfamiliar, sending frissons of corresponding sensations curling down her spine. ‘I’ve been going mad all evening with wanting you, aching so much that I can feel it in every bone; every muscle,’ he ground out at her, ‘and then you throw John Vanguard in my face as calmly as you please. I thought Bianca was the original bitch, but I’m beginning to revise my opinion. What were you wondering about just then? How good he is in bed? Why don’t you ask Bianca?’