by Penny Jordan
‘Why not,’ Emma agreed coolly, fighting against the flood of emotions his angry words had aroused. She badly wanted to tell him that he was mistaken but she daredn’t. If she gave way now she would spend the night in his arms; in his bed, and tomorrow morning she would bitterly regret her folly. ‘I’m sure she’d be only too glad to give me a blow by blow description; of your technique as well as his.’
The expletive that burst into the tense silence between them made Emma shrink. Used as she was to TV technicians’ colourful language, this was something else. The fingers Drake had clamped round her arm tightened until they were bone white, a look in his eyes that made her regret to the depths of her soul her hasty words.
‘Why bother getting the information secondhand.’ His voice was a thick, angry grate against over-sensitised nerves. ‘I’ll give you a personal demonstration.’
The violence with which he thrust open her bedroom door was a shock to her already over-tense system. Panic flooded through her body at the anger she seemed to have built up inside him. Drake was no carefully controlled product of a middle class public school like most of the other men she knew. He had grown up in a rough, tough atmosphere and it had left its mark on him.
Instinct told her to take the course of least resistance and so she remained completely passive beneath the bruising pressure of a kiss designed to hurt and degrade. His teeth against her skin hurt and drew blood forcing an involuntary gasp of pain that gave him the leverage he had wanted, his mouth brutalising the soft sensitivity of hers.
‘Fight me, damn you.’ His voice was harsh and strange against her ear, her whole body trembling nervously with a mixture of tension and reaction. ‘Show me that you’re capable of some feelings at least… or is your lack of sexual experience merely a cover for the fact that you’re completely incapable of feeling anything, Emma?’
It was so brutal that she had no way of shielding herself from the pain. She could feel the blood draining out of her body; the agony of having her own deepest most private fears revealed with all the brutality of newly formed skin being ripped away from a wound. The pity of it was that until she had met him she would not have been able to refute the taunt. It had taken him to show her the true depths of her own sexuality; to show her that she was indeed capable of feeling deep passion; intense sexual hunger and for a moment she was driven almost to the point where she wanted to abandon everything she had fought for and show him all the hungry need she felt. But she couldn’t do that. Drake was an intelligent man, once his anger had cooled he would start to analyse her reactions and it wouldn’t take him long to guess the truth. That was the one thing she could not bear. Always an intensely private person, Emma could not carry the double burden of loving him and knowing that he knew of that love and probably pitied her for it. Instinctively she searched for a means of self-defence and found it slotted away neatly in her mind.
‘You said you wouldn’t touch me again,’ she reminded him huskily, ‘you said you would wait until I came to you.’ Slowly her confidence returned and she was able to look him in the face, knowing that all he felt for her was sexual desire and the look she could see in his eyes; almost savage in its intensity could only be sexual frustration.
For what seemed to be an endless span of time they simply looked at one another, and then Drake broke the tense silence to say rawly, ‘Damn you Emma, damn you for the cold-hearted, unfeeling bitch you are.’
He was just on the point of turning away when Bianca came up the stairs. Emma knew the older woman must have seen the swollen bruised contours of her lips because her glance lingered glitteringly on them before she said tauntingly to Drake, ‘My goodness Drake what on earth have you been doing to your little fiancée. She looks as though she’s been mauled by an animal.’
‘Jealous, Bianca?’
It was a sign of just how much his control had slipped that he should reply the way he had, Emma thought, shivering a little as she saw the look that passed between them; an intense, bitter hunger on Bianca’s part which she had no difficulty in interpreting at all, and an angry curtness on Drake’s which was harder to understand.
She could appreciate that he could be suffering from sexual frustration; after all wasn’t she herself? Hadn’t she too experienced the sharp claws of need his earlier caresses had unleashed inside her; but Drake was an experienced man not someone who had never known the full force of sexual desire before and surely it took more than the brief caresses they had shared to arouse him to the point where frustrated desire had to be turned into the sort of anger he was exhibiting?
‘Why should I be?’ Bianca had recovered some of her poise, her red mouth curling into a taunting smile. ‘It’s already obvious to me that your fiancée can’t satisfy you Drake. But I can.’ Ignoring Emma completely she moved closer to him placing her hand on his wrist, smiling invitingly up to him. Emma was completely stunned. It was the sort of behaviour one expected to read or to see on celluloid, but certainly not to experience in real life. Bianca was totally ignoring her, treating her as though she simply did not exist. Remembering the agreement she and Drake had made and her supposed role, Emma thought frantically, wondering how she ought to react. Easy, an inner voice mocked her, just follow your instincts and scratch her eyes out.
Effective, but hardly what Drake would want. She was Drake’s fiancée at least as far as the rest of the world was concerned, and no matter what had passed between them privately, Drake had given her no indication that he wanted that to change; or that he might welcome Bianca’s advances. When it came down to it, his business interests were of far more interest to Drake than any woman. Her mind made up, Emma acted. Placing her hand on his arm she moved closer towards him, noting that she had no need to fake the faint trembling that seemed to have invaded her, even to the extent of infecting her voice.
‘Drake, what’s going on? Why does…’
‘I’ll tell you what’s going on,’ Bianca shrilled back interrupting her. ‘Drake’s trying to fob me off by producing you. He’s just using you because he doesn’t want Giles to know the truth.’
It came so close to the mark that for a moment Emma was stupefied.
‘You’re becoming hysterical Bianca.’ Drake had recovered his control, his voice cool and icily dismissive. ‘The fact that you and I were briefly lovers long before you met Giles is no secret to Emma, and you’re only storing up humiliation and pain for yourself by constantly trying to resurrect something that was never truly alive.’
‘You wanted me.’ If anything Bianca’s voice was even shriller and Emma found it in herself to feel sorry for the other woman no matter how badly she was behaving.
‘Did I?’ Drake sounded bored. ‘I seem to remember that the boot was somewhat on the other foot. You were the one who did all the running, Bianca,’ he told her cruelly.
She went white and gasped out loud releasing his arm. ‘You… you…’
‘Bounder?’ Drake supplied wryly for her. ‘I never did pretend to be a gentleman, Bianca, and it seems to me that was what you liked about me as I remember it.’
‘All right, marry her if you want to,’ Bianca snapped back viciously. ‘Take her to bed and make love to her, but if you think Giles will go ahead with that magazine deal when I tell him the truth, you’ve got another think coming.’
‘If Giles had any sense the only action he’d take once you’ve revealed all to him would be in the direction of the divorce courts,’ Drake responded. ‘The only reason I’ve put up with your tricks, Bianca, is that I don’t want to hurt Giles, but I’ve come to the end of my patience. Tell him what the hell you like.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE had never in her life experienced so much tension as she was experiencing now, Emma thought wearily as she studied her face in her bedroom mirror.
The atmosphere in the house since Bianca’s outburst three nights ago, had been virtually intolerable. The only positive thing to happen was that Drake and Giles were continuing to negotiate the sale of th
e magazine. Giles’s secretary was now fully recovered and back at work, and having chatted to the older woman on several occasions, Emma had found her warm-hearted and intelligent. She also suspected that Marti was in love with Giles. Life was a constant series of almost macabre jokes, she reflected unhappily, and Drake was probably right, love was an impossible to reach nirvana; a hoax thought up by unkind and mocking Gods to torment lesser human beings.
Bianca was in a mega-sulk, which although in many ways easier to bear than her constant vitriolic outbursts made for a very uncomfortable atmosphere, but Bianca’s behaviour wasn’t the sole cause for her tension, Emma admitted to herself. There was also Drake; and her own awareness of him; her body’s awareness of the fact that he slept in the next room; her imagination’s cruelty in relaying to her night after night tormenting images of his body, powerful and sleek, capable of arousing her own to the very heights of human experience. But in the trade off to reach those heights she would be giving up so much… She would always have her memories, a traitorous voice persuaded her; many women married for friendship; for children; for calmer, surer waters than those represented by Drake.
That way was not for her… It was unfair and weak. Better to spend her life completely alone… So why not take what was offered to her now; why not allow herself the pleasure Drake could give her and leave payment of the price for the future?
On and on the inner arguments raged exhausting her mentally and physically, and Drake wasn’t helping. Every time he touched her or looked at her, he turned the screw a little tighter, increasing her hunger for him, wearing away her resistance. Since that night outside her room he had had himself completely under control. Which was more than she could say for herself, Emma thought ruefully. Today he and Giles had gone to see Giles’s lawyers and would be gone for most of the day, which was probably why she felt so restless.
At last unable to endure the confining, stifling atmosphere of the mansion any longer Emma decided she would go into New York and do some window shopping. She hadn’t visited the city stores once during her stay and it would be a way of passing time.
Giles had said on several occasions that if she wanted to go anywhere she had simply to tell Barnes their major domo who would organise a car for her, and without giving herself time to change her mind Emma sought him out.
Although he expressed doubts as to the wisdom of Emma going into the city centre alone, she eventually overruled him, and an hour later was seated in the back of Giles’s luxurious limousine travelling towards New York itself.
The sheer pace of life in the heart of New York was something that had to be seen to be believed Emma decided exploring the fashion floors of Macy’s Department Store. American women possessed a panache and style that took Emma’s breath away and yet she didn’t envy them. Somehow in their search for perfection, of face, figure and lifestyle they had developed a hungry, almost desperate look of strain that made her wonder if at the end of the day the frenetic pace of life was really worthwhile. I must be getting old, she told herself ruefully looking round for a coffee bar where she could sit down and catch her breath. She hadn’t bought anything; for one thing she had neglected to bring any money out with her, fully alive to the dangers of carrying cash in the city centre and neither did she have the credit card Drake had given her. She had hoped that getting away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the mansion might bring her back down to earth; put her in touch with reality again, but all it had done was to emphasise the wide gap that lay between Drake and herself. Here in New York, as in any other international city, he would be completely at home, whereas she preferred the relative peace and simplicity of country life. Why was she bothering to convince herself of their incompatibility, she derided herself an hour later, stepping out into the heat and bustle of the New York streets; she was perfectly safe from Drake; he would not approach her again; the ball was now in her court; all she had to do was to withstand her own feelings.
Easier said than done Emma thought, blinking in the harsh sunlight. The sidewalk was crowded with people and she felt someone jostle her from behind, thrusting painfully into her side. She turned automatically to object, the sound strangled in her throat as she saw the man’s raised fist, and realised too late what was happening. Fool, fool she chided herself mentally in the instant that it dawned on her that she was the victim of a mugger’s attack. Why had she turned round, why hadn’t she realised what was happening and simply let him snatch her bag; there was little enough in it. So many thoughts chased through her mind in the few seconds it took for the hard blow to knock her to the sidewalk that later she was to find it impossible to believe a greater time had not elapsed.
She was aware of pain exploding in her head, of her arm being wrenched excruciatingly, of noises all around her, slowly dying away as she became engulfed in a tide of unconsciousness, her last thought a panicky fear of simply being left here to die while all around her life went on. New Yorkers were notorious for their non-involvement in the violence that went on around them every day.
‘Emma?’
The voice was familiar, but the anxiety in it wasn’t, and Emma struggled painfully to analyse why the anxiety should be so perplexing.
‘She’s not speaking.’
There was something else joining the anxiety now, a harshness that was more familiar underwriting the masculinity of the voice. It was a voice that belonged to a man who knew what he wanted from life, and who took it regardless of any opposition. Oddly enough it was also a voice that reassured her; that made her feel safe and secure.
‘Give her time. She’s had a bad knock, there’s bound to be an element of concussion. To be honest we’d prefer to keep her here for observation for twenty-four hours.’
There was a hint of disapproval in the other male voice which Emma now recognised as American, as though this had been a point of conflict at an earlier discussion. She badly wanted to say that she didn’t want to be left behind; that she wanted to go with the first speaker wherever he wanted to take her.
‘Emma?’ She knew he had bent closer to the bed, because she could feel his breath fanning her skin. She forced her eyes to open and a sensation like a massive shock wave jolted through her system. She had never seen such darkly green eyes, was her first dazed thought, followed quickly by the knowledge that she had seen these particular eyes before.
‘Emma… are you all right?’
There was that anxiety again and now that she could focus on him properly she could see it mirrored in his eyes; evident in the taut stretch of skin against facial bones.
She lifted her hand and was bemused for a second by the brilliant flash of light from the diamond on her engagement finger. Something in her expression must have given her away because he said thickly, ‘It’s mine,’ and Emma had the distinct impression that what he was really saying was, ‘You are mine.’ The thought made her feel secure and safe and she looked trustingly up at him.
‘We’re engaged?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ He was watching her closely and Emma shook her head; she had several muzzy impressions of pain and then falling; and slightly dimmer ones of a huge house which for some reason she didn’t want to return to. One thing was clear to her and that was that they were visitors to America, because neither of them had American accents, but why they were here she could not remember.
‘What can you remember, Emma?’ His voice was stronger now, firmer and yet still carrying an undertone of anxiety.
‘Very little,’ she told him truthfully. ‘Just pain and then falling.’
‘Temporary amnesia,’ she heard the other voice interjecting curtly. ‘That’s one of the reasons we’d prefer her to stay here.’
Watching him frown, Emma felt panic well up inside her. ‘Don’t leave me here,’ she begged, fighting back weak tears. ‘Please…’ His eyes narrowed as she reached out towards him, and she wanted to tell him that he was the only familiar thing there was; the only person who could provide reality in the strange
empty world she suddenly seemed to have entered.
‘I have no intention of leaving you, Emma mine.’
‘Drake… I’ve just heard the news, how is she…’ The man who burst into the room was vaguely familiar, older by far than her fiancé and yet still very attractive. The feeling she felt on seeing him was a strange one; a combination of liking and pity, but yet she couldn’t understand the reason for those feelings.
‘Still very groggy,’ Drake responded. ‘I don’t want to leave her here alone and yet it’s too soon to fly her back to England.’
‘Good God you can’t do that. No, she must come back to the house. We’ll get a nurse…’
‘No! No… I don’t want anyone.’ It was to Drake that she appealed, wanting to tell him that he was the only person she wanted; the only person she needed. The doctor was frowning again. ‘This is all very irregular,’ he began, but Emma over-ruled him. ‘Please… I want to go with my fiancé.’
‘Very well, but only on the understanding that you ring us if there should be the slightest change in her condition.’ He was speaking to Drake not to her Emma realised. ‘If she becomes sleepy or listless, we want to know about it. At the moment she’s suffering slight concussion but if it should get worse.’
‘What about her memory?’
‘That will return once the effects of the blow and the anaesthetic wear off. She’s bound to feel very muddled for at least forty-eight hours. You’ve been one very lucky young woman,’ he told Emma severely.
‘What happened?’ Emma asked shakily, ‘I remember falling…’
‘You were mugged,’ Drake answered curtly for her, ‘but luckily for you a policeman saw what had happened and he brought you here. Again luckily, you had enough identification in your bag for the hospital to trace me.’