‘Enough to keep you in line, Marnie, never fear,’ he derided.
‘Oh, God.’ White-faced, she sank down on the sofa where Guy had just been sitting. ‘I had no idea,’ she whispered. ‘Jamie never uttered a single word that he’d been borrowing money from you of his own volition.’
His mouth tightened at her obvious distress. ‘Look,’ he sighed. ‘If it makes you feel any better about it, it was Jamie who suggested he come back to Oaklands to work for me. And it was he who offered his garage to me as collateral against the money he owes me. He’s learning, Marnie,’ he added grimly. ‘Learning to take responsibility for his own life at last. Let him be. Let him do it. He has used you and me and what we feel for each other for quite long enough.’
‘And Clare?’ she whispered thickly. ‘Is she to be cast out in the cold also?’
‘No one,’ Guy said heavily, ‘is being cast out! Only made to bear the brunt of their own actions. And if you think about it, Marnie,’ he added quietly, ‘Clare will be living a mere stone’s throw away from you from now on. Surely that makes it easier for you to cosset her, not less? Now,’ he said briskly ‘let’s get over to your flat. I want to be at Oaklands before sundown.’
He drove her to her flat in an atmosphere of grim silence, Marnie’s thoughts locked on the shocked discovery that her brother had even dared to approach Guy for money on his own! And Guy, she wondered frowningly. What had driven him to so much as give a penny to a man he liked to blame his broken marriage on?
You know the answer, a little voice said inside her head. He did it because of you.
He had never been inside her flat before. She went off to her bedroom to change into fresh underwear and a short straight apple-green silk skirt which had its own matching loosely cut jacket, and a white silk blouse before turning her attention to her packing.
She could hear Guy moving about in her studio-cum-sitting-room, arrogantly fishing around her private possessions as if he had the right. Her mouth tightened, resentment at his presumptuousness sending her stalking around her bedroom collecting and throwing her clothes into her open suitcases with scant regard to how they were going to look when she unpacked them again.
He was standing viewing her latest painting when she emerged, his dark head tilted to one side in interested study.
‘This is good,’ he said without turning to look at her. ‘Who is it?’
‘Amelia Sangster,’ she answered shortly. Then couldn’t help adding with a smile in her voice, ‘And the cat’s name is Dickens.’
‘Heavy name for such a sweet little cat,’ he mocked.
‘He doesn’t think so.’ Marnie walked over to stand beside him. ‘He sleeps every night curled up on Amelia’s leather-bound volumes of Dickens’ full works—Will I be allowed to deliver this?’ she asked shortly. ‘Or is poor Amelia to be disappointed like all my other expectant clients?’
Guy turned his head to look down at her, his expression telling her absolutely nothing as he searched her cool face. She had left her hair down this morning, and the waving tresses shimmered around her face and shoulders, lit by the sunlight seeping in through the window.
‘Is it finished?’ he asked.
‘Can’t you tell?’ she drawled sarcastically, refusing point-blank to admit that the picture was so close to being finished that probably only an expert eye would be able to tell it wasn’t. And Guy had never professed to being an art expert.
He ignored the sarcasm. ‘Do you want to finish it?’
‘Of course!’ she snapped, amazed that he should even have to ask such a stupid question.
He just shrugged. ‘Then I will have it picked up and delivered to Oaklands,’ he said. ‘But the rest—’ he lifted his right hand up so she could see the big black appointments book he was holding ‘—will have to stay disappointed.’
‘But—that’s my appointments book!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing with it?’
‘Holding on to it for future reference,’ he drawled.
‘Future reference to what?’
‘To all those poor people we are going to disappoint,’ he answered with maddening calm. ‘I will have my secretary write them all a nice letter, letting them down gently.’
‘I can do that myself,’ she clipped, reaching out to take the book.
He moved it smoothly out of her way. ‘No, you won’t,’ he murmured, returning his attention back to Amelia and her cat. ‘I don’t trust you, Marnie,’ he informed her quite casually, ‘to do what is needed to be done. So I will pass the job on to my very reliable secretary.’
‘God, I despise you,’ she muttered, moving away from him.
He shrugged as if that didn’t matter to him either. ‘Packed everything you need?’ he enquired.
‘Yes.’ Suddenly she felt like weeping, coming to a standstill in the middle of the cluttered studio and gazing around her like a child about to lose everything that was comfortable and secure in its life.
She’d been happy here—if happiness could be gauged by the gentle waves of peace and contentment she had managed to surround herself with. Like an island, she realised. Living here alone for the last four years had been like living on a tranquil island, after spending a year in the ruthless jungle Guy existed in.
‘Then the rest can be delivered along with the painting,’ Guy decided. ‘Show me where your cases are and let’s get going.’
The tears remained clogging the back of her throat as she watched Guy lift her suitcases and carry them to the door. Once there, he turned back to find her standing there, her face white with misery.
‘Guy—?’ she whispered pleadingly, but what she was pleading for Marnie just did not know.
His face darkened, his expression suddenly fierce as he spun away from her. ‘I’ll take these down to the car,’ he muttered, and walked out, leaving her standing there, feeling about as lost and helpless as she had ever felt in her whole life.
He didn’t come back, and Marnie knew why. He was waiting for her to go to him. If he had to come back and drag her out, then it would mean that she was still fighting him for every inch of herself she could keep. If she walked out of the flat of her own accord, then he’d won another small battle. Small, because they both knew she really had no choice.
He was sitting with the car window rolled down, his arm resting on it, his long fingers lying along the thin line of his mouth. He looked darkly handsome and grimly forbidding with his profile turned to her like that, and she felt her heart squeeze on a final clutch of regret at what she was leaving behind.
He didn’t turn his head to look at her as she closed the main door to the Victorian town-house her flat was a part of. Or bother to watch her walk to the car and around it to climb into the passenger seat beside him. Neither did he move while she settled herself, locking home her safety-belt, flicking back her hair from her pale face. When she finally went still, he straightened in his seat, reached out to start the engine, pressed a button which sent his window sliding smoothly upwards, then slid the car into gear.
Marnie swallowed, keeping her own eyes staring bleakly frontwards. They moved into the traffic. And, as they left the flat as she had called home for four blessed years, she finally accepted that her life would never be her own again.
Guy owned it now.
Perhaps more solidly than he had done the first time around.
‘What now?’ she managed to ask once she felt she had her voice under control.
‘Now, we begin,’ he said, and that was all, the words simple but profound.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS a perfect time to be arriving at Oaklands. They entered by the East Gate late afternoon, as the June sun hovered high above the hilltop opposite.
‘Guy—stop a moment,’
He glanced questioningly at her, his eyes darkened as he brought the car to a halt and turned to watch the enchantment light her face.
‘I always loved this place,’ she murmured, unaware of just how much of her inner self she w
as revealing with that wistfully spoken statement. ‘Oh, look, Guy!’ she cried, leaning forward in her eagerness. ‘The stream is swollen so wide it could almost be a river!’
‘The weather has been poor in the hills for this time of year,’ he told her, his gaze remaining fixed on her rapt profile. ‘There was a time a few weeks ago when we worried it might burst its banks.’
‘I can see that the lake is full, too,’ she said, gazing down to where the water lapped the rim of the rickety old jetty where Roberto’s small rowing-boat bobbed gently up and down.
The house was there. Big and solid and sure. Standing as it had done for two centuries, surviving everything the years had thrown at it through a succession of owners, not all of them kind to its sturdy walls.
‘You’ve made some changes over there,’ she noticed, pointing towards the stable block where, just beyond and to the right, her artistic eye for detail had picked out a new addition. A small building that looked like a cottage, built to blend graciously in with its present surroundings. ‘A new annexe for your cars?’ she supposed, frowning because it seemed a long way from the other buildings where Guy housed his precious collection.
‘Something like that,’ he answered unrevealingly, then put the car in motion again. ‘My father will have already spotted us coming in the gates,’ he said. ‘If we don’t drive down there soon, he will be striding up here to meet us!’
‘W-what have you told him?’
Guy glanced at her, and saw she had gone pale, even with the warmth of the sun on her face. ‘That we are reconciled,’ he said, returning his attention back to the road. ‘He is, as you would expect, ecstatic about it.’ He sounded a trifle cynical. ‘And I would prefer it, Marnie, if he remain that way.’
‘Of course!’ she cried, hurt that Guy should feel it necessary to warn her like that. ‘You know I would never do anything to hurt your father!’
‘You hurt him when you left us,’ Guy reminded her.
‘That was different,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘Roberto knows I still adore him.’
‘I once believed you adored me, too. And look where it got me.’
‘It got you what you deserved!’ Marnie flashed. ‘And I would think your father knows it!’
‘You are probably right,’ Guy ruefully agreed, slowing to guide the car deftly over the narrow little bridge which spanned the stream. ‘Still,’ he shrugged, ‘he likes to kid himself that I am a son to be proud of. It would be a shame to disillusion him too much.’
‘Well, his disillusionment will not come from me,’ Marnie stated coolly. ‘It never did.’
After crossing the racing track, the driveway took a sharp bend to the left, taking them sailing through the thick cluster of majestic oaks which gave the estate its name, and around to the front of the house which faced south, so it could catch the full day’s sun in its face, no matter what time of year it was.
Guy drew the car to a stop then turned to look at her. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ She nodded, but her insides were trembling as she climbed out of the car.
Guy came to join her, his hand slipping around her waist and firmly drawing her body closer to his side. Marnie stiffened a little, appalled by how violently her senses reacted.
‘Relax!’ he admonished. ‘And turn your face and smile at me! Do it!’ he whispered fiercely when she went to refuse. ‘My father has just come out of the house and is watching us!’
Having to force it, Marnie turned her bright head, tilted her face and smiled up at him. Their eyes clashed, and held, the air around them suddenly too dense to breathe, when she felt something sting her sharply. She gasped. Guy went tense, his heartbeat quickening. And she felt her own begin to hammer, that strange imaginary sting sending tingling shock-waves outwards to every corner of her body. His irises darkened, spiralling out from rich liquid brown to deep black pits that seemed to be drawing her closer and closer.
‘Marnie,’ Guy whispered hoarsely.
‘No.’ She tried to deny what she knew was happening to both of them. But her voice held no strength, and, even as she mouthed the word, her tongue was coming out to run sensually around her parted lips.
She wanted him to kiss her, she realised with a small shock. She not only wanted it, her whole body was crying out for it. Begging for it. Needing it.
His hand moved, flattening against her spine so he could urge her around in front of him. Then she was pressed against the solid length of his body, and Guy was slowly bringing his mouth down to cover her own.
The world began to spin, her senses spiralling with it. The hand at her back urged her closer, bending her into a subtle arch which brought her thighs into quivering contact with his hard arousal. His other hand buried itself in her hair, cupping her head so he could deepen the kiss, and Marnie let her hands drift restlessly over his muscled arms until they fell heavily over his shoulders. Her breasts tightened, the stinging nubs pushing themselves against the warm hardness of his chest. Guy drew in a shaky breath and held on to it, his body beginning to tremble. She felt it just as her own began to do the same. And when he eventually dragged his mouth away from hers they both looked dazed, bewildered, heavy-eyed with need.
‘Don’t ever deny that we have this!’ he rasped out thickly. ‘No matter what else we lost, Marnie, we never lost this!’
He made to take her mouth again, but she pulled stiffly out of his arms, suddenly feeling so cold and empty inside that she shivered.
She moved away from him, swallowing in an effort to shift the lump from her throat, and struggling to pull herself together before turning her attention on the watchful Roberto Frabosa.
He looked older than the last time she’d seen him, and so infinitely frail, standing there with his tall, thin body leaning so elegantly on his walking stick, that she found it easy to discover her smile again, warm it, make it the most natural smile she had used in days.
‘Papa,’ she murmured, and began to move quickly towards him.
His free arm went tightly around her, his face burying itself into her hair for a long emotional moment before he said gruffly, ‘This has to be the most beautiful moment of my life, Marnie. The most beautiful.’
He lifted his head, gazing at her with suspiciously moist eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply.
‘And it is all over now?’ he demanded, glancing at his son as he came to join them. ‘You love each other again?’
Love? Marnie’s smile faltered. She didn’t think she was capable of loving anyone again.
‘The point is, Papa—’ Guy’s arm came possessively around her waist ‘—did we ever actually stop?’
‘Well, you stopped doing something,’ Roberto pointed out, ‘or the last four years would not have been what they were!’ He shook his silvered head. ‘Barren years!’ he condemned them impatiently. ‘Such wasted, barren years!’
‘Papa!’ Guy’s voice was unusually harsh as he felt Marnie jerk back against his arm as if she’d been shot. ‘Take a small piece of advice from your son if you will—’ with effort, he strained the harshness out of his voice but still sounded grim ‘—and resist the temptation to prod unstable substances. They tend to have this irritating tendency to explode in one’s face!’
Marnie gasped at the unexpected outburst, and Roberto stared at Guy in sharp surprise. And in the ensuing silence which followed something passed between father and son over the top of Marnie’s head that made Roberto go pale before he recovered, to send her a rueful smile.
‘I have a cryptic for a son,’ he mocked.
*
‘Why did he snap at you like that?’
Marnie and Roberto were sitting alone in his private study, sipping coffee, surrounded by the precious books he spent most of his time poring over these days. Guy had disappeared as soon as good manners allowed, making for his workshops with all the eagerness of a young boy wanting to play with his favourite toys. Away in the distance she could hear the throaty roar of a car engine being revved experi
mentally, and could see in her mind’s eye the circle of grease-covered bodies bent over the car listening with expert ears to the finely tuned sound.
When Guy had bought this private estate, some fifteen years ago now, he had done so with the intention of building his own racing track and workshops in the grounds. He had done all of this without managing to spoil the natural beauty of the surrounding valley, sparing no expense to achieve it, just as he would spare no expense to keep his precious collection in the very peak of its original condition.
He would, during their stay here, take each car out and put it through its paces, listen for faults, test its performance—but most of all enjoy himself—before railing at his mechanic if everything was not exactly as he expected it to be.
According to Roberto, the success of Guy’s transition from world-class Grand Prix driver to high-powered businessman was entirely due to his having an outlet for his natural restlessness in his collection of cars.
He was a man of many faces, many moods. Quick to temper, quick to humour, and quick to passion. But for all that she had seen him curse and swear, laugh and tease, burn up with desire and seem to die in release, she had never seen him be anything but lovingly respectful to his father.
Roberto glanced sharply at her. ‘You think I did not deserve my roasting?’ he quizzed.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘And it just isn’t like him to speak to you like that.’
‘But there you have just hit the nail unwittingly on its head, my dear,’ Roberto said gravely. ‘My son is not himself. And has not been for a long time. Four years, in fact.’
Marnie lowered her face, refusing to take him on with that one.
‘I am a very proud and loving father, Marnie,’ he went on coolly. ‘But do not think me blind to his faults, for I am not.’
‘Guy has no faults,’ she mocked.
Roberto smiled at her joke, but shook his head in a refusal to be diverted. ‘And I find myself wondering, you know, why, after all the pain and misery you have put each other through, you are now deciding to try again at a marriage which could not have been as good as it seemed the first time, for it to falter so totally at the first obstacle it came up against.’
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