by Annie West
But through the fierce surge of sexual excitement rose the knowledge that what she needed from Orsino was more even than this.
A sob rose in her throat as fear stifled joy. When he knew what she had to tell him would it be the end?
She wasn’t sure how she’d survive if he left her again. But she couldn’t go on, living from hour to hour, waiting for him to declare it was over. She had to try.
‘Poppy?’ His hot breath hazed her cheek as he straightened. ‘What is it?’
For an instant she clung tight to his shoulders, wishing they could stay just like this. Then she straightened, pushed him back.
‘We need to talk.’
‘Talk?’ He sounded confused, as if she spoke a foreign language. She didn’t blame him. Her body was on fire. The urge to lose herself in his embrace and the ecstasy she knew he could give her was strong.
But that wouldn’t last.
Poppy took a half pace back and stiffened her shoulders.
‘I have something important you need to hear. Will you listen?’
With the moonlight behind him she couldn’t read his expression, just the lift of his straight shoulders.
‘Yes.’
He didn’t sound encouraging. ‘I want you to promise.’
‘What?’ His tone was sharp.
‘Promise you’ll hear me out. You won’t leave till I’ve finished.’
Silence reigned. Did he, too, remember that night five years ago when he’d walked away, refusing to let her finish what she had to say? Distraught as she’d been, anger had buoyed her through the intervening months when she’d faced the fallout of his desertion. Now the anger had died.
Poppy clasped her hands, tension winding through her.
‘If it means so much to you.’
‘It does.’
‘Very well.’ He inclined his head and she breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I’ll stay.’
‘Do you want to sit?’ She waved to the chair.
‘I’m fine.’ He paused, waiting. ‘What is it, Poppy?’ Did she imagine warmth in his tone?
‘I want to tell you about the past.’
‘Not my favourite topic. Haven’t we said it all?’
She shook her head, the movement jerky as tendons and muscles stiffened. ‘No. Not everything.’
Poppy heaved a deep breath then realised she had no idea where to start. How could she make him understand?
Orsino moved, his hand brushing hers, and she jumped. Swallowing, she turned away and walked to the window, barely registering the exquisite scene of river and formal garden washed in silvery light. It would be easier if she didn’t look at him.
‘When I met you I wasn’t looking for a lover, much less a husband.’ The words tumbled into waiting silence. Poppy pressed her hands together. ‘I was focused on my job. On making a success of myself.’
‘I remember.’ There was a sour note in Orsino’s voice. He’d accepted her work but never gone out of his way to support it.
Poppy swung round, needing him to understand. ‘You heard what my father was like. Can you blame me for wanting to escape? For wanting to build a life for myself and my mother, free of him?’
‘Of course not.’ Orsino’s bulk loomed larger in the dim light.
‘I know you work hard, Orsino. I’ve seen the programs you’re involved in.’ Those glimpses into his philanthropic interests had amazed her. ‘But you never had to build yourself up from nothing. You had family money behind you.’
‘Actually, I live off my investments. I’m not reliant on the family trust.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘But it was there if you needed it—a safety net. I started with no money, just luck and sheer hard work to support me. You said the other day I’d chased media attention.’ She stuck her chin up. ‘Maybe I did. Where’s the harm in that when no one was hurt and it did my career a lot of good?’
She forced herself back to the point. ‘I’m trying to explain why my career is so important.’
‘So you’d never have to rely on your father.’
Poppy nodded. ‘More than that. So I’d never have to rely on anyone, ever, apart from myself.’
She rubbed her hands up her arms, half turning to the river. ‘Growing up watching my parents made me determined not just to escape but never to be weak the way my mother was. Never to allow myself to rely on anyone, make excuses for them, hang on to them even when it was a mistake. I wanted … I’ve always wanted to be independent.’
Poppy drew a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t just financial independence I dreamed of. It was complete self-reliance. That way—’ she paused, her throat closing ‘—I’d never be hurt. You see?’ She spun round to face him.
In the gloom he shook his head.
Poppy clamped her hands on her elbows. She’d never shared this with anyone. Could she make him understand?
‘I didn’t want love. I didn’t trust it. Love was something that made a woman weak—made her a walkover for any man who wanted to grind her underfoot.’
‘I never did that to you! ‘
He moved towards her and she put out a hand to stop him. ‘Hear me out.’
‘I’m not like your father, Poppy. Don’t pretend I am.’ His voice had lost the clipped anger she remembered from past arguments. It sounded raw, pained.
‘I’m not saying you were. Not physically abusive anyway.’
‘Now that’s—’
‘Please!’ She put up one hand and he juddered to a halt mere feet away. ‘What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t about you, at least not in the way you thought. It was about me.’ Now it came to revealing her innermost demons Poppy’s larynx froze, the words emerging as a hoarse whisper. ‘I thought falling in love meant disaster. That it meant laying myself open to the worst kind of hurt and betrayal. So when I fell for you …’ She couldn’t help it—her head drooped, cutting the connection that sizzled between them even in the dark.
‘When I fell in love with you it was paradise and hell together. I’d never felt so ecstatic, or so fearful.’
‘I’d never have hurt you, Poppy. Surely you know that. I’d never raise my hand to a woman.’
‘I know.’ She looked up and caught the gleam of his penetrating gaze on her. ‘I know you’d never hurt me physically. But there are other ways.’
She swung away to the far window, her hand going to the rich velvet curtain drawn open at the casement.
‘I loved you despite my fear, despite all caution. I loved you so much.’ She swallowed and made herself go on. ‘But it wasn’t an equal partnership. You never said you loved me, just that you needed me.’ Poppy blinked and the flaming torches in the grounds shed crystalline shards of light as she forced back hot tears.
‘It seemed I was the one being made to change to fit your life, because you didn’t approve of my long hours, or the times a shoot would take me from you. You didn’t approve of Mischa, either, but he was my friend and mentor, the man who’d helped me since I was fifteen.’
Behind her Orsino remained silent.
‘You didn’t change your life for me. You shut me away from the only thing important to you—your treks. Then I realised I was making excuses for you, like my mother used to for my father. Telling myself it didn’t matter that you left me behind without a second glance, though you always wanted me on tap when you were back in London. Telling myself it didn’t matter that you wouldn’t make an effort to accommodate my needs and my career.’
Poppy’s breath shuddered from tight lungs. ‘Even then, when I saw myself becoming like her, I didn’t want to give you up.’ She swung round and faced the big, taut man standing like a graven statue in the moonlight.
‘Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to love you, understanding you didn’t care for me the way I did you? Knowing I was turning into the sort of woman I’d vowed never to become?’
‘Poppy.’ Orsino stepped close then stopped, his arm falling as she kept talking. If she didn’t get this out now she’d never have t
he guts to tell the truth.
‘I closed in on myself when my mother died. You tried to comfort me but all I could think of was how she’d turned herself inside out explaining away her husband’s behaviour. I saw myself doing the same and knew I needed to distance myself, keep some emotional independence if I was going to survive.’
‘That’s why you told me to fly to Kathmandu for the climb I’d planned?’
Poppy shrugged. ‘You wanted to. You didn’t take much persuading. When I mentioned it you were off like a shot.’ Her gaze snagged on his face. ‘You didn’t love me.’
‘Is that what you told yourself when you went to bed with your precious Mischa?’ An undercurrent of anger turned Orsino’s words into a deep rumble, as if tectonic plates shifted beneath the earth’s surface.
‘It’s no excuse. Like grief and red wine on an empty stomach were no excuse. But yes, I thought it.’ Poppy wrapped her arms tight around herself as she blinked back tears she refused to let fall.
‘I was worn out and desperate. I loved you so much it terrified me. I’d just buried the only other person I loved. I told myself I had to learn from her mistakes.’
‘You say I was one of them?’ His tone was grim.
‘Weren’t you?’ Her head reared up. ‘If you’d really loved me would you have been so eager to race away with your mates to climb a mountain on the other side of the world? Mischa was the one left to pick up the pieces.’
Poppy shook her head, her brief flare of anger dying. ‘I was a fool. I was miserable and furious and drunk. I let him hold me and comfort me and—’
‘You’ve said enough!’ Orsino spoke through gritted teeth. Even in the gloom she saw the tense line of his clenched jaw.
‘No, Orsino, I haven’t. You wouldn’t let me explain then. You just turned on your heel and left me there, alone.’ She gulped. ‘I tried for months to reach you. Letters returned, calls unanswered, emails unopened. You did a brilliant job of cutting me out of your life.’ Pain throbbed through her. ‘I tried again the other day but you made it clear you didn’t want to know.’ Poppy breathed deep and told herself the only way was forward. She refused to play by Orsino’s rules any more.
‘What you refused to hear was that, though Mischa and I kissed—’ she couldn’t believe she blushed ‘—though we ended up on the bed together, we did not have sex.’
Her words died into complete silence. Nothing moved, not even Orsino.
‘When he touched me I realised it wasn’t Mischa I wanted.’ The tears she’d held back so long leaked silently down her cheeks. ‘It was you. I wanted you to hold me. I needed your arms around me. Your voice saying you’d take care of me and it would be all right.’
Still Orsino stood as if turned to stone.
‘That was when I realised how badly I was using him, my only real friend, because I couldn’t have you. Because the man I loved didn’t care enough to stay with me. And because I’d pushed you away.’
Poppy lifted a palm and swiped the wetness off her cheek. ‘When you found me in the shower I’d stripped off my clothes and was trying to wash his touch off. I felt so … unclean, so guilty that I’d let what started as genuine sympathy get out of hand.’
‘But you admitted you’d been with him!’
Poppy wiped her other cheek with a trembling hand.
‘You’d already stalked in, ranting about seeing Mischa leave half undressed. I told you we’d kissed in the bedroom and that I regretted what I’d done. Before I could say any more you turned without a single word and walked out of my life.’
The memory spurted fury into her blood. How could he have left without hearing her out?
She jammed her hands on her hips, waiting.
‘Why tell me this now?’
Poppy’s head jerked back at the harsh crack of his voice. But she refused to be cowed or silenced again.
‘Because it still matters to me. I told myself it didn’t—that you, we, were in the past.’ She drew herself up and met his regard unflinching, despite the churning fear in her belly. ‘I was wrong. It does matter because I never stopped loving you.’ Her words were defiant. ‘That’s why I had to tell you the whole truth.’
Because she’d hoped there was a chance to build something better from the ashes of their past.
Poppy thought Orsino’s silence would break her. It went on so long every nerve stretched taut.
But it wasn’t the silence that destroyed her.
It was his words.
‘No! You’re lying. It’s not possible. It can’t be.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ORSINO LUMBERED THROUGH the antechambers like a man punch-drunk. More than once the floor tilted and rose up to meet him and he had to grab at a wall or doorframe to steady himself. The sound of music and voices came in waves, swelling to a roar in his ears then dying to nothing as Poppy’s words hammered into his brain.
We did not have sex.
Because I never stopped loving you.
She was doing his head in. Playing with him.
Was this her revenge for the way he’d left her high and dry years before?
Was Poppy really so calculating and cruel?
He’d believed many things but never that.
Where the hell was she? He had to find her.
Orsino had no idea how long it had been since she’d turned and left him. Time had waned and stretched. Was it minutes or hours? Surely it couldn’t be so long.
He searched for the dark flame of her long hair, the sinuous body in full-length purple, the glitter of gems and the proud thrust of her chin.
She’d looked like a queen, exquisitely regal and untouchable. Even with tears silvering her cheeks in the moonlight she’d had a power about her, a force that held him in check, awed not just by her words, but by her, the woman who turned him inside out and wrung him dry.
He’d felt empty inside, watching her battle her emotions. As if someone had reached in and ripped out his vital organs.
He swallowed convulsively, groping for the panelled wall, bile rising. What she’d said! How could she expect him to believe it? If what she said was true that meant that for five long years …
Orsino sagged against the wood panelling.
No. He refused to go there. He couldn’t.
He squinted, surveying the throng in the next room through the open double doors. Colour and glitter and acres of bare flesh. But no Poppy.
He sank back, his whole body shuddering. He had to find her. He had to—
‘Well, well. If it’s not the celebrated hero. I have to say you look like you should be in a hospital bed, not propping up a wall. Or have you just had too much champagne?’
‘Mischa.’ Orsino grimaced on the name as he stumbled upright and slitted his eyes.
He couldn’t even find the energy to dredge hatred for the man who surveyed him speculatively, pale eyebrows raised.
‘I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again,’ the other man said, his lip curling.
‘I don’t give a damn whether you’re pleased.’ Orsino shook his head, trying to clear it. ‘Where is she?’
Mischa took his time raising a crystal tumbler to his mouth. With his too-perfect tailoring and languid movements, he looked so cool that Orsino battled the urge to force the information he needed.
‘You’ve lost someone? How careless of you.’ Mischa’s light eyes glittered with something like hatred.
Orsino’s fists bulged. Adrenaline pumped hard through his arteries as his body readied for action. But he held back.
‘Don’t play games. Where’s Poppy?’
‘Give me one good reason why I should tell you.’
‘Because—’ Orsino leaned into the other man’s space ‘—she’s my wife.’
To do him credit Mischa didn’t flinch. Maybe he’d underrated the man.
‘The wife you abandoned and ignored for the past five years?’
If Mischa thought anything he could say had the power to hurt Orsino now, he w
as badly mistaken. It wasn’t possible to inflict more pain.
‘That would be the one.’ Orsino spoke through gritted teeth as he leaned closer. ‘Where is she?’
Mischa faltered back a half step, this time reading something feral in Orsino’s eyes.
‘She’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Left.’ Mischa paused. ‘Alone.’
Orsino’s knees buckled and he lurched back against the wall.
‘She couldn’t have gone.’ His voice was a scratch of protest.
‘You mean she couldn’t have walked out on you?’ Pale eyes skewered him. ‘Why not? She obviously learned the tactic from an expert.’ He paused as if wanting to see Orsino squirm then shrugged and turned away.
‘Wait!’ Orsino straightened, his arm outstretched. ‘Is it true?’
Once he’d been too proud to speak to this guy. Now his pride was dust. He had to know.
‘Is what true?’
‘Poppy said you and she … That you’d never …’
Mischa swung around, his Slavic cheekbones prominent in a face drawn tight with emotion. ‘What? That we’d never had sex? Is that what you’re trying to spit out?’ He bared his teeth. ‘After all this time you’re asking?’
Orsino nodded. ‘Yes.’ It was a harsh rasp of sound, ripped from the depths of his tortured soul.
Mischa took his time replying. ‘Why ask me? The answer’s obvious. You already know what happened that night.’
He spun round and strode across the room, closing the doors behind him, leaving Orsino alone in the darkness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AFTER SCANNING THE hotel lobby, Poppy settled in her seat, flipping open a magazine. Her gaze met familiar violet eyes and she tilted her head, critically examining the photo of herself, half reclining on a rich brocade coverlet, her hair rippling around her. They’d been right to choose the ruby red for that dress. It complemented her pale skin and the fortune in gems she wore.
Poppy remembered the day mere weeks ago when that shot had been taken. No wonder her eyes held that slumberous come-hither look. Her mouth looked fuller, too. An hour before she’d been in Orsino’s bed. She could still recall the taste of his demanding mouth on hers, the hot frenzy of need as he tormented her almost to breaking point before rewarding her ardour with a shuddering, soul-searing climax.