by Penny Jordan
A shudder of pleasure shook her. Instinctively, she pressed closer to the hardness of his thighs, her own moving in imploring, seductive enticement against him.
‘Hazard!’ His name whispered past her lips in a husky plea. His hands moved down over her and she shivered in agonised arousal.
‘We can’t—not now. Emma’s awake and…’ Gently, he pushed her away from him, and she fought to mask her disappointment. ‘You intoxicate me, do you know that? You’re more lethal than a bottle of spirits. When I see you like this…’ His eyes darkened as his gaze moved slowly over her trembling mouth and then down to the exposed fullness of her breast.
Susannah held her breath, willing him to take her back in his arms. For a moment, it seemed he would, and then, with a tremendous effort, he gently restored her clothing to its original state.
Susannah wasn’t sure which of them shook the most as he fastened her shirt buttons. She rather suspected it was herself.
‘When I touch you, I could almost think that I’m the first man to teach you the meaning of physical pleasure.’ He grimaced wryly. ‘Odd how man’s innate chauvinism can catch him out at times.’
‘Would you want that…knowing that you’re my first lover?’
The fierce blaze that illuminated his eyes half frightened her. She shook beneath the raw passion of it, and then it died, his eyes going flat and hard as he said tonelessly, ‘You’re talking myths and fairy stories; the days when a man valued a woman for her virginity are long gone, and so they should be.’
‘So you don’t mind that…that there have been other men in my life?’ she asked uncertainly. She wanted to tell him the truth, but she was frightened of his reaction. Emotionally, he might want to be her first lover, but practically speaking…
‘What the hell do you think I am? Of course I mind,’ he told her fiercely. ‘I’m as jealous as hell at the thought of any other man touching you, but these are the nineteen-eighties, Susannah, and I wouldn’t think much of myself as a man if I couldn’t accept that there have been other relationships in your life, just as there have in mine.’
‘No. It’s the fact that one of those relationships was with a married man that you really resent, isn’t it?’ she asked, groping for the truth, trying to understand what motivated him. ‘Hazard, is that because your parents were divorced? Is…’
‘Stop it! I don’t want to talk about it. For God’s sake, Susannah, can’t you see that I want to forget that there was ever anyone else in your life? I…I’d prefer not to talk about it.’ He turned away from her. ‘I’ll go and make some coffee.’
Susannah let him go, not daring to even try to reach out and touch him, either physically or emotionally. They had been on the very brink of having their first real quarrel, and she had bungled everything dreadfully. All she had wanted to do was to tell him the truth. But what was the truth? That she had been emotionally but not physically involved with a married man? She was just as culpable as if she had had an affair with David, and that was something she never allowed herself to forget. She only had to remember the pitiable state to which his wife had reduced herself, begging her to give him back to her, to be filled with nausea and distaste. She had hated herself then, and she still carried some of that hatred deep inside her like a poison. What she wanted was absolution, but that did not come from man, it came from God. It came from within oneself, she admitted tiredly.
Never, as long as she lived, would she forget David’s wife’s face. Perhaps that was to be her punishment. She had ended the affair just as soon as she had known the truth, but maybe she should have guessed earlier that David was married. She should have known that he was deceiving her.
Her thoughts went round and round in tormented circles, engrossing her to the extent that she physically jumped when Hazard spoke to her. ‘Coffee’s ready.’
They drank it in silence. Emma, it seemed, had had breakfast earlier. The electricity was back on and Hazard had been able to make her a light meal.
‘The flood water has gone down, Joanna Barnes told me, and the forecast for today is very windy but dry, so we shouldn’t have any trouble leaving once Emma’s niece can confirm that she’s able to come and take over.’
Susannah couldn’t look at him. Stupidly, tears blurred her eyes. Her hand shook so much, she had to hold on to her mug with both hands.
‘I’m sorry.’ His gentle words made her throat ache. ‘It’s just…I suppose I’m not used to opening up about myself with people, and I’m so damned jealous whenever I think of you with someone else. The more I get to know you, the less I’m able to understand how you could get yourself involved in that sort of relationship. You’re so uncompromisingly honest, Susannah.’
His voice was rough with suppressed emotion.
‘I think we both got a little carried away. Too much emotion too early in the morning,’ she said shakily.
‘Not to mention the fact that I, for one, am as frustrated as hell,’ Hazard agreed bluntly. ‘I’d like to take you away somewhere, where I can have you completely to myself. Next weekend, perhaps?’
* * *
The rest of the day passed very quickly. Emma insisted on giving them an interview, despite their protests that it could wait until she was feeling better.
A telephone call from her niece confirmed that she would be there later in the afternoon. Hazard and Susannah waited until she arrived.
She was a pleasant, capable-looking woman in her thirties, who quickly took charge and thanked them for coming to her aunt’s assistance. ‘We keep warning her that it’s too remote for her up here, especially in winter, but this was the home she shared with Uncle Harold when he was alive, and she doesn’t want to leave it. I can understand why, but Ralph and I worry about her. She was cut off by heavy snowfalls three times last winter, and now this…’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But what can you do? I value my own independence, so I sympathise with her.’
As they drove home, Hazard told Susannah that he had a prior commitment for most of Sunday that he couldn’t get out of.
‘Lunch with our chairman, as a matter of fact,’ he added by way of explanation.
‘Oh yes, of course. You’ve known him a long time, haven’t you?’ She fell silent as he turned to study her, his face cold and shuttered.
‘How do you know that?’
Not wanting to admit that he had been the subject of office gossip, she shrugged and fibbed unconvincingly, ‘Oh, I can’t remember. I must have heard it somewhere…’
His eyes were bleak, and Susannah had the feeling that he was furiously angry with her. But why? Because she had mentioned his relationship with Mac? What was there in that to warrant his sudden coldness?
She felt drained and exhausted, too exhausted to have another quarrel with him. They would have to talk about it later, when she felt better able to come to grips with the situation.
They parted outside the door of her flat. Susannah didn’t invite him in, and her goodbye was stilted. She turned to push the door open and stiffened as Hazard caught hold of her, spinning her round and plundering her mouth with his with almost frenzied passion.
All her doubts and resentment vanished. She clung eagerly to him. ‘Don’t invite me to come in,’ he groaned against her mouth. ‘If I do, I’ll probably never leave. You and I need time, Susannah. Time to be alone with one another, with no ghosts intruding between us. Meet me tomorrow night. We’ll have dinner together. I should be free by then.’
‘I can’t,’ she told him regretfully. ‘I’ve promised to baby-sit for a friend. It’s her wedding anniversary and I can’t let her down.’
‘No… I understand.’ He kissed her again, lingeringly and thoroughly, so that she felt her bones were melting. ‘How on earth I’m going to get any work done with you about to distract me, I have no idea!’
From her flat window, Susannah watched him drive away, and she felt as though he had taken a part of her with him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON MONDAY MORNING,
Susannah dressed for the office in a very nervous state of mind. She both longed to see Hazard and yet dreaded seeing him, and the fact that they would be meeting as colleagues rather than lovers made it all the more difficult. She felt incredibly nervous about continuing to work closely with him. She frowned, remembering the circumstances surrounding her new position within the magazine. Hazard had demoted her! Oh, perhaps not obviously, but she knew that he had. He didn’t trust her judgement, and she knew enough about him to know that their new relationship would not change that.
But why had he taken such a harsh attitude towards her? Richard had always been full of praise for her work, so encouraging.
She arrived at work to discover that Hazard would not be coming in. ‘He must have rung very early,’ Lizzie told her. ‘I came in and found a message on the answering machine. Apparently, he’s had to fly to New York.’
A tiny, cold finger of doubt reached out and pressed maliciously against Susannah’s spine. Why had he said nothing to her? Why had he not rung her?
She spent the morning typing up the notes from the interview with Emma. It had been fun conducting the interview in a way that would not reveal her real sex. Hazard had allowed her to conduct the interview alone, and she had seen this as a slight softening of his working attitude towards her. However, today, for some reason, the printed words looked flat and lifeless.
She decided to take an early lunch, hoping that the break would send her back to work with renewed zeal.
The rain had stopped over the weekend, but the weather was still far from fine, with a cool, mean little east wind and a depressing layer of monotonous cloud.
Head down against the wind, deep in thought, she apologised automatically as she cannoned into someone.
‘Susannah!’
‘Richard.’ She smiled her pleasure and surprise at seeing him.
‘I was just on my way over to the magazine. How are you? Is all going well?’
The temptation to confide in him almost overwhelmed her, and as though he sensed her mood of depression he glanced at his watch and said quickly, ‘Look, I’m due at a meeting in fifteen minutes, but I’m staying over in town tonight. Caroline has taken the kids to see her father for a week, and so I decided I might as well get as much work crammed in as I could in her absence. How about having dinner with me tonight?’
Dinner with Richard… Richard, who was Mac’s son-in-law, and who might be able to give her more background information about Hazard. Information she was suddenly greedy for, she recognised, subduing the small Aunt-Emily-created voice that warned her she was playing in dangerous waters, and which added sternly that if Hazard wanted her to have such information he would give it to her himself.
She didn’t want to listen to such sensible statements, and so, recklessly ignoring them, she nodded.
‘I’ll pick you up about eight, if that’s OK.’
Seeing Richard had done the trick. By the time she got back to work, Susannah felt a resurgence of her normal energy. She rang Emma’s niece and asked after the patient, relieved to hear that the older woman was well on the road to recovery. She then got down to working on her article, but every time the phone rang her whole body tensed.
She desperately wanted to hear Hazard’s voice. New York—what could have taken him there? She didn’t even know when he was due back.
‘You’re very on edge,’ Lizzie commented as five o’clock drew near. ‘Something wrong?’
‘No…nothing. Did…did Hazard say if he would ring again?’ She couldn’t look at Lizzie as she asked the question, in case she gave herself away.
The other girl seemed totally unaware of her tension. ‘No, he didn’t, but I expect he’ll get in touch if he thinks there’s anything we need to know,’ she said comfortably, covering her typewriter and standing up. ‘I’m off. How about you?’
‘I think I’ll hang on for a while. I’m still not entirely happy with this article.’
It wasn’t true, but it gave her an excuse to remain in the office, just in case Hazard should ring.
‘My, my! Still hard at it,’ Claire commented mockingly when she poked her head round the door half an hour later. ‘Lucky you, by the way,’ she added sarcastically, ‘working so close to our very eligible boss. Has he chased you round the desk yet?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Susannah snapped before she could stop herself.
‘It wouldn’t exactly be his style, would it? Besides, I hear that these days the boot is very much on the other foot. Or, should I say, the high heel is very much on the other foot? It seems our modern, successful, executive sisters aren’t always above demanding, from lesser male colleagues, those favours that used to be a totally male preserve.’
Susannah couldn’t see where the conversation was leading, but she knew Claire too well to allow her to see that she was irritating her. There was nothing Claire enjoyed more than tormenting some unfortunate victim into retaliation.
‘I think I’ll be on my way.’ She tidied up her desk and stood up.
‘Yes, so must I. Pity Hazard isn’t here. I’ve got two tickets for La Bohème tonight. I was going to offer him one.’
‘He doesn’t like opera.’
The words slipped out unguardedly. Claire’s eyebrows rose. ‘Really? And how would you know that, darling?’
‘He must have mentioned it in passing,’ Susannah stammered as carelessly as she could. ‘Look, I must go, Claire, I’m going out tonight.’
The last thing she wanted was for the fashion columnist to realise she was in love with Hazard.
She had already discovered how very close-mouthed he was about his private life, and if he thought she had been gossiping about their relationship with someone else… Wearily, she left the office. She had been apprehensive about seeing him again this morning, but that apprehension had been washed away by the flood of disappointment that had swept over her when she’d realised he wouldn’t be there.
New York… What was he doing there? Who was he with? Jealousy and doubt, two very dangerous and damaging emotions, she recognised, fighting to subdue them. No relationship could thrive healthily when they were present. They were like choking ivy, strangling the life out of love.
It was still cold, the east wind more suited to winter than late summer.
Perhaps she needed a holiday, and that was why she was feeling so down, she reflected, and then fell to daydreaming about some isolated, pale, sandy beach on a tropical island, where she and Hazard were alone.
It was disheartening to come back to life and recognise that she was in London and Hazard in New York.
* * *
Richard picked her up at eight as he had promised. He drove her to a small, quiet restaurant that specialised in Italian food.
‘I remembered it was your favourite,’ he explained as he led her inside.
The restaurant was family-run, small and friendly, the food among the best she had ever tasted, but still the evening felt flat. Richard drew her out skilfully and she found herself confiding in him, telling him of her concern about her demotion.
‘I don’t think for one moment that Hazard can doubt your ability,’ he comforted her kindly. ‘He’s probably anxious to make sure you don’t overstretch yourself too quickly. I saw him at the weekend, as it happens, and he certainly didn’t give me the impression that he was concerned about you. How are you getting on with him, apart from that? On a more personal level, for instance?’
‘On a personal level?’ Susannah shot him a doubtful look, and then, when she saw his face, decided against prevarication. ‘I think I’m in love with him. Really in love—nothing like what I felt for David,’ she admitted shakily. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? I hardly know him, and yet…’
‘I know just what you mean. It was like that with Caro and me. She was everything I didn’t want for myself: the boss’s daughter, self-willed, intelligent—everything I disliked. I’d come up the hard way and, if I’m honest, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. The first time
I met her I thought she was the snootiest bitch I’d ever set eyes on, and she went out of her way to go on making sure I felt like that.’
‘So what happened?’ Susannah pressed him, curious, in spite of Aunt Emily’s upbringing that stipulated that one must never ask others personal questions.
‘Mac happened,’ Richard told her wryly. ‘He kept on throwing us together until one day the light dawned.’
‘You love her very much, don’t you?’ Susannah asked softly.
‘More than I thought it possible for me to love any woman,’ he agreed. ‘The way I feel about Caroline changed me a great deal. Until then, I’d been very scornful about emotion. My own parents separated when I was quite young…but enough about me. You’re in love with Hazard, you say.’
‘And he says he feels the same way about me.’
‘So what’s bothering you?’
‘I know so little about him,’ she told him expressively. ‘He’s so…so guarded whenever I mention his past. It’s as though he wants to draw a veil over it.’
‘And you think I might be able to lift that veil? I’m sorry, Susannah,’ Richard replied, shaking his head. ‘I can’t. You must see that,’ he told her gently.
‘I…I…know, or at least I’ve heard that he was practically brought up by Mac,’ she faltered slightly as Richard’s expression grew stern.
‘Susannah, Hazard himself is really the person you should ask about this.’
‘I’ve tried to but, every time the subject crops up, it’s as though he’s deliberately shutting me out.’
Richard looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re a sensitive person, too sensitive, perhaps, to make a truly successful reporter—for that you need an ability to close yourself off from other people’s feelings, and you can’t do that. Hazard, on the other hand…’ He paused, as though seeking the right words. ‘Hazard has taught himself not just to block himself off from the feelings of others, but to block himself off from his own as well.’
He caught her shocked exclamation of distress and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid it’s true, Susannah, and if your relationship with him is to have any real basis you must accept that. I can’t tell you any more without betraying confidences that aren’t mine to give. You say you’re in love with Hazard. I don’t doubt it. He’s a very charismatic man, but do you love him? I hope so, my dear, because he’s a man who needs the kind of love you have to give very badly. It’s up to you, Susannah. You must find a way through the barriers, because I doubt that he’ll ever let them down voluntarily. Sometimes, things happen to us that have such a traumatic effect on our lives that we can’t set them aside…’