It was now almost a whole year since they'd first met, in Brighton, and Sophie realised that for those twelve months he had hardly been out of her thoughts for a single day.
He had haunted her from the first moment they'd met. In that long spell between Brighton and Jamaica, she had dreamed of him, and for three miraculous weeks in Jamaica he had been hers.
Even the savage period of his 'game' with Jenny had made her love him still further.
She would rather have Kyle tormenting her than not have him at all. Than have this emptiness, this vacuum ...
How had it all turned so sour? When she looked back at the decisions she had taken, at the way she had left him, with that cool little note, she found it almost impossible to explain her own behaviour. She'd treated it all like a game, but it hadn't ever been a game. Kyle's feelings for her had been deep and true, and she'd made a mockery of them.
The truly sad thing was that she knew in her heart that Kyle's feelings towards her were still profound. He would never have expended so much passion on trying to wound her if he hadn't really still cared, deep down. That Scorpio temper... what a tragic waste.
He was out of her life now, forever. She lived in dread that one day she would hear, or read, of his marriage. That was a blow that she truly dreaded. How could she not dread it? Kyle was the only man she had ever loved, and she would never stop loving him, not until the end of her days.
She tried not to think about Kyle at all, but the memories were obtrusive, and she had been in the habit of dreaming about him for so long that it was almost impossible to break. His loss made her whole future seem so dark, so without hope. What was her future? Where did the path forward lie? Sometimes she felt she could not see it at all ...
These past weeks in Tuscany, she had been feeling more and more insecure as an actress. She had lost something vital, the will to impersonate someone else's feelings, and it astonished her sometimes that Franco and the others couldn't detect that. At times she felt utterly naked, the script empty words in her mouth, her actions mechanical and without life.
What was she going to do when she got back to London? Joey kept promising great things, but she felt so unprepared for any more work that she didn't know what she was going to say to him. Maybe she would go home.
It was months since she'd been with her parents. Maybe a few weeks in Scarborough, listening to that gravelly North Sea rhythm, would help clear her cloudy head. She was beginning to see why nervous break-downs were so common in the acting profession.
Once you began to doubt yourself, the strain on you became enormous ...
She went up to her room after dinner, and stared at the pages of a book. As the Italian dusk deepened, the sweet trill of a nightingale sounded from the distant cypresses, to be answered by another, then another...
Enchanted by the exouisite song, she put down her unread book, and went to the window.
The evening sky was deep violet, streaked with gold and crimson. A soft, warm breeze was blowing, smelling of the distant Mediterranean.
While the twilight gathered, a deep peace stole all around. As she looked down into the courtyard, her heart faltered.
A tall figure was standing under the pergola, looking up at her window. A figure so like Kyle that she thought she must be dreaming. She laid a hand instinctively over her suddenly racing heart.
'Kyle?' Eyes wide with shock, she stared for a few seconds longer, then turned and ran to the stairs. She was praying that it wasn't a mirage as she raced down the tiled staircase, her breath fast and uneven. Would he be there when she got down? Had he been a figment of her grieving heart's imagination?
She pushed the door open, and stepped out into the twilit courtyard, her mind spinning.
It hadn't been an illusion.
Kyle was standing where she had last seen him, motionless, a dark, tall figure that had haunted her mind for so long. They stared at each other tautly for a long moment. She couldn't speak for emotion.
Then he walked slowly over to her, those deep, beautiful eyes staring down into her face. 'God help me,' he said huskily. 'You're so very beautiful, Sophie.'
`Kyle, what—?' Her voice caught in her dry throat. `W hat are you doing in Italy?'
`Looking for my salvation' He looked tired, and his chin was dark with stubble. The jacket he was wearing was grey vicuña, soft as a cloud. He reached out to touch her face with gentle, almost hesitant fingers. 'Looking for forgiveness from a woman whom I've hurt beyond forgiving. Looking for you, Sophie'
Òh, darling,' she whimpered, melting into his arms, almost too stunned to take his presence in.
His arms wrapped around her, the way they'd done in countless dreams. Except that this was real.
`Can you forgive me for my stupidity and cruelty?' he asked huskily, his mouth pressed into the fragrant curls of her hair. 'Since you left, I've ached for you until I thought I'd go out of my mind ...'
`There's nothing to forgive,' she whispered.
Ì've been standing out here, trying to gather the courage to come in and see you.' His voice was strained. Ì—I didn't know how you'd receive me.'
Curious faces were peering at them from the windows. `Come up to my room,' she begged shakily. 'We can't talk here!'
She took his hand, and led him up to her little room, now bathed in the crimson and gold of the sunset. As she shut the door behind them, Kyle took her in his arms with the urgency of a drowning man, and started covering her face with kisses. Sophie clung to him, gasping at the male passion she felt in the rigid muscles of his body.
Ì love you,' he whispered, his mouth finding hers for a dizzyingly deep kiss. 'I've lain in bed dreaming of you beside me, and waking to loneliness and regret. I told myself to wait until you got back from Italy, but I couldn't stay away. I had to come and find you.
I've been in Italy for two days.'
Her eyes were closed in bliss. She felt as though a pain of months had suddenly been taken away, to be replaced by a throbbing delight. 'Why didn't you come to me as soon as you got here?'
Ì had to pluck up the courage.'
`Do you need courage to face me?'
Ì need courage to face how much I need you, how much I adore you ... I stood among the crowd watching you working yesterday and today. Watching that boy pretend to be your lover—' His arms tightened, their formidable strength almost crushing her. 'It tore me apart. I thought I'd die, standing there, seeing another man kissing you, holding you in his arms, making love to you—'
Òh, Kyle! None of that is real!'
He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her mouth. Ì've thought so many times of that threat you made—that you'd have a love-affair with Luigi Canotta—'
Òf course I haven't done that,' she laughed unsteadily. 'It's all only fiction, my love,'
she said, looking up at him with eyes that were filling with tears of unbearable emotion.
`With you, I can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is fiction,' he said quietly. 'All I know is that without you my life is a barren wilderness, without hope. I can't go on without you, Sophie. I love you, with all my heart and being. I want us to put the dark past behind us, and enter the future together.' He drew a deep, ragged breath. 'I want you to marry me.'
Joy filled her, making her legs weak. If this was a dream, and she woke up alone, she would kill herself.
Ì'm yours, Kyle. I always have been! Oh, Kyle—you don't have to marry me. Just let me be close to you!'
`Close?' He touched her wet eyelashes with his lips. `My love, I'm going to grapple you to my soul with hoops of steel. For God's sake, tell me you forgive me for the way I behaved in London!'
'I forgave you even before you hurt me,' she said softly.
`How much I must have made you suffer. I was half mad, my darling. During that bloody awful cruise with Emma, I just brooded and burned. I got no sleep, no peace. I swore I'd have a terrible revenge on you for doing that to me. When I got back to London, I wanted to come rou
nd to your flat and tell you exactly what I thought of you.
But I didn't trust myself not to weaken and break down. I had this horrible vision of me making a fool of myself in front of you, telling you how much I loved you—and you laughing in my face!'
`How could you ever have had such an idea about me?' she asked numbly.
`My mind was distorted with pain and disappointment. It was that Scorpio need to strike back that you once spoke about. All I could think of was punishing you, even though somewhere, deep down beneath my anger and hurt, I knew that you really did care about me. When Helene mentioned your cousin Jenny, I suddenly realised how I could get at you.'
Sophie shuddered. 'You chose a very cruel weapon. When I thought I'd lost you to Jenny, my heart almost broke.'
`God forgive me,' he whispered. 'As if I could ever have any serious feelings towards that feather-brained little flirt ...' He drew her close, his lips closing on hers. Ì adore you. I can't live without you.
Ì'm the one who needs forgiveness,' Sophie whispered, a long while later. 'What I did in Jamaica was imbecilic. But I was so afraid, Kyle. So afraid of losing you that I had to run away. I didn't know how deep your feelings were. I didn't think they could possibly be as deep as mine!'
`Sophie .. They sank down on to the bed together, Kyle's magnificent face tight with emotion. 'That night in Ocho Rios, the night before you left ... I was going to ask you to marry me.
She felt the blood drain from her heart. 'Kyle!'
Ì'd only known you three weeks—or so I thought. But I knew there would never be anyone like you again. I started to get terrified of losing you. I had this sort of nightmare that one day you would suddenly be gone.' He pulled a wry face. 'Little did I know how soon that nightmare was going to come true! I wanted to ask you to be my wife after we'd made love. But things didn't work out that way. I told myself I would ask you the next day. I spent hours lying awake, and rehearsing a stupid little speech. And I, too, was terribly afraid. I knew you wanted me, but it was so hard to tell how deeply you cared. If at all. You were so mysterious, so
hard to fathom. You made me feel so uncertain, so clumsy—'
`My love,' she said brokenly, 'I had no idea. Oh, if I'd only known!'
Àfter you left, it was as though my soul had been poisoned,' he went on, shaking his dark head. 'I was so bitter, so desolate. I wanted to come racing after you, but my pride wouldn't let me. It took a long while for it to sink in. Sophie Aspen, not Sophie Webb.
The Sophie I fell in love with in Jamaica was the same girl I'd once laughed at in Brighton.' His eyes were dark as they looked into hers. 'Well, I've paid for my folly, my darling. If I hurt you in Brighton, if I was stupid and blind and didn't look beyond appearances, you made me pay tenfold in Jamaica. I've never felt so crushed in my life.'
Ì was afraid that once you knew who I really was you'd lose interest in me,' she said in a husky voice. 'I thought it might happen all over again—that you'd find me absurd and ridiculous '
`Sophie.' He took her hands. 'When I met you in Brighton, you were an overweight girl in heavy spectacles, wearing shabby clothes, with lank black hair. You were a strange creature, then. So drab and plain. Even when you came off set, Maisie still seemed to hang over you. You were uncertain and shy, yet there was something about you that intrigued me. What I saw on that beach in Ocho Rios was an exciting, beautiful woman with a slender body and chestnut hair. Tanned, poised, graceful, hiding mysteriously behind dark glasses. It was nine months later, in another world. Do you find it so hard to understand how I didn't recognise you?'
Ì was still the same person,' she smiled tremulously.
`Yes.' His expression was bitter. 'I've been so blind. When I first met you in Brighton, I should have seen beyond appearances. I should have listened to the voice in my heart that was telling me you were something special, something wonderful. But I let you slip through
my fingers. I hurt you then, and I hurt you in London—but I swear I'll never hurt you again.' He paused, gathering his thoughts. 'Remember that I told you I hadn't watched The Elmtree Road Murders? Well, of course I did watch it. There was no ladyfriend.
And while I watched, I had the weirdest feelings. I was remembering it all so clearly.
Remembering you, in Brighton. There was something so familiar about you, when we next met in Jamaica. I was sure I knew you well, but I could never put my finger on it.
You appearance had changed so much that it was impossible for me to recognise you as Sophie Aspen. And the longer I was with you, the harder it got for me to pin-point that mystery. I thought that this feeling that I knew you was natural, because we were so perfectly suited. I didn't realise that I was already in love with you.' His voice gentled. 'But I didn't fall in love with your face or your figure. I fell in love with you, with the woman you are inside. And I've realised something else over these past few weeks of misery—that if I'd only got to know you better in Brighton, I would have fallen in love with you then.'
She laughed quietly. 'The idea of magnificent, passionate Kyle Hart falling in love with ugly little Maisie Wilkin is crazy!'
Not so crazy. You were in disguise, though. You fooled me, not once, but twice!
Sophie, my sin lay in not looking beyond appearances. My only plea is that it's a very common male fault. We men are fools. We tend to judge women through our eyes, rather than through our reason. We're terrible blockheads that way. All I can say is that your appearance made it easy for me to get to know you in Jamaica. And to know you was to love you. I've learned my lesson. You're the only woman I have ever wanted to marry. The only woman who ever got through my defences far enough to make me
feel an emotion I thought I could never feel, an emotion that I thought was beyond me ... love.' He brushed his lips over her half-open mouth. 'I've never
known love before. I never will again.' Their kiss deepened. She felt his hand cup her breast, caressing the soft curve with trembling hunger. 'I'm madly, irrevocably in love with you, Sophie,' he whispered. 'I want to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.
And I'm not leaving here until you say you'll marry me.'
`You're not leaving me at all, not ever. Not ever again. And yes, I'll marry you, my love.
Without you I'm nothing, you see. If I don't marry you, I'll just wither up and die, and blow away on the wind ...'
She clung to him, arching her neck ecstatically as he kissed the hollow of her throat, that favourite place he so loved to kiss. She ran her fingers through the thick, crisp roots of his hair, just losing herself in the scent and the feel of him. Suddenly, they didn't need any more words. Clinging together, they sank back on to the bed, mouths seeking, kissing, adoring. The tension of long separation was starting to coil like a spring between them, making them ache for release.
`W e'll marry as soon as we get back to London,' he was planning thoughtfully. 'How much longer must you stay here?'
À week.'
`Just enough time to get a really big wedding on the go! But ... does that boy have to kiss you again?' Kyle asked, dark eyes searching hers.
She smiled dreamily. 'Luigi? Hardly. There's only a week's filming left, and Marjorie has to die soon. Quite appropriate, really, when you think that Sophie is starting a new life.'
The emeralds of his eyes were bright with love and amusement. 'My little actress, how I love you!'
Ì'm only an actress for one more week.' She was deadly serious as she looked into his eyes. 'I want nothing more than to be your wife, Kyle. I don't have, any ambitions after that. This is the last film I'll ever make, Kyle. I'm never going to act again. From now on, I only want reality—the reality of our love.'
`Sophie, that isn't what I want,' he said gently, caressing her slim flanks.
Ìt's what I want,' she replied tenderly. 'I just can't do it anymore. I was getting desperate. I don't want anything except truth from now on. I don't want anything that will take me away from you, not for so much as a day. I don't ever want t
o have to kiss another man, or to have to pretend another love. I'm going to take marriage to you very seriously, Kyle. I'm going to put every ounce of myself into it. Into loving you, loving our children, making sure nothing ever goes wrong again—'
`Nothing ever will,' Kyle vowed.
`Make love to me,' she whispered.
His eyes glittered. 'Here? Now?'
`Here and now. I've waited so long that if I have to wait any longer I'll go mad!'
He was kissing her throat, his fingers flicking open the buttons of her dress. 'Don't you want to be a virgin on your wedding-day?' he whispered.
`No,' she said simply, 'I want you, now!'
`Scorpios have stings, little virgin.'
'Go on,' she invited, her eyes dreamy as he started kissing her naked breasts. 'Sting me ...'
The twilight had deepened into velvety darkness. In the deep blue sky, a golden moon slowly rose over the Italian cypresses until it was high enough to shine in at an open bedroom window, where two lovers were learning the old, secret, mysterious language
of love. But the moon was too old to be shocked by anything it saw through open bedroom windows ... and the lovers never even noticed.
Duel of Passion Page 18