Vendetta

by Susan Napier

  With a muttered curse, Vivian snatched the sweater and hastily pulled it over her blushing head, contorting herself to arrange it carefully over the top of the bedclothes before she let them go. Thankfully, the sweater came to mid-thigh, although she still felt horribly exposed as she crabbed to the edge of the bed and swung her feet tentatively to the floor.

  ‘That colour makes you look like a fire-cracker with a lit fuse.’

  The faint suggestion of approval confused her. She was acutely conscious of the scent of him clinging to the sweater, mingling with her own, and of the soft brush of the thin fabric against her bare breasts. She licked her lower lip, and then fingered it nervously. It felt fuller than usual.

  ‘What are you going to do—with the photographs, I mean?’

  ‘Why, there’s only one honourable thing to do with them.’

  Hope flared briefly. ‘What’s that?’

  He plucked her hand from her mouth and mockingly kissed the backs of her fingers.

  ‘Have them delivered to the church on Saturday, of course. Your poor fiancé must be given some reason for being left stranded at the altar!’

  His tongue flicked against her knuckles, stroking her with a brief sting of moist fire that distracted her from his bombshell. She jerked her hand away, but not before he had caught her wrist and with a savage twist removed Peter’s ring from her finger.

  ‘We’ll send this bauble along with the pretty pictures, just to make sure he gets the message that he can’t have you.’

  He tossed it in the air and caught it, flaunting his possession before thrusting it casually into his pocket.

  ‘You can’t do that…’ Vivian whispered, her first thought of the havoc he could wreak on an already tense situation; that was, if the wedding hadn’t already been cancelled. Had Janna and Peter taken her advice seriously and gone ahead with the arrangements, or were they still stubbornly wallowing in joint guilt and remorse?

  ‘Marvel will never marry you now, Vivian. Learn to accept it.’

  ‘No, Peter loves me!’ she declared desperately, jumping to her feet. On one level, at least, it was still true. It was because of his deep affection and respect for Vivian that he and Janna had put themselves through such torture over the past few weeks. Vivian hadn’t even been able to maintain a righteous fury over the betrayal, for it was obvious that the guilt-stricken pair had suffered agonies trying to ignore and then deny their love, in order not to hurt sweet, gentle, defenceless Vivian.

  She had bluntly told them to stop being so nobly self-sacrificing. The practical thing to do would be to forget the huge hassle of calling off the elaborate wedding-arrangements and returning all the presents, and just switch brides. Janna and Peter had looked so appalled that Vivian had burst out laughing. It had been the laughter more than anything that made her realise that perhaps she wasn’t as heartbroken as a jilted woman should be.

  So, when the first opportunity had presented itself for her to prove that she wasn’t the sweet, gentle, defenceless creature everyone was going to feel sorry for, she had grabbed at it defiantly with both hands.

  ‘Marvel’s going to take one look at those pictures and know it’s all over between you.’ Nicholas continued his ruthless attack. ‘He’ll never be able to forget the sight of you burning in your lover’s arms—’

  ‘We’re not lovers!’ Vivian shrieked. ‘Those pictures—they’re all fakes. You just… You posed me, like a mannequin—’

  ‘Did I really, Vivian?’ he taunted softly. ‘You were very willing. Don’t you remember telling me how I made you feel all soft and hot and buttery inside, and grumbling that it wasn’t fair you had to miss out on the thrill of being ravished by a sexy villain…?’

  ‘That was the drug talking, not me! There’s a big difference between being barely conscious and being willing,’ she pointed out with smouldering force. ‘And—and, anyway—if I… If we had done anything…I’d know…’

  ‘How?’ He seemed sincerely curious.

  She practically melted her spectacles with the glare she gave him. ‘I just would, that’s all,’ she said stubbornly.

  ‘Not if I was very skilful and very tender, and you were very, very receptive… Not if you were all soft and buttery inside,’ he said, in a satin murmur that slithered over her skin.

  ‘Stop it! I won’t listen!’ she cried childishly, covering her burning ears with her hands. His eyes dropped to the sharp rise of the hem of his sweater as it flirted against her upper thighs, and she hurriedly lowered her arms. ‘No one else will listen to your lies, either. They’ll believe me…’

  ‘But you won’t be there to tell them the truth,’ he said smoothly. ‘You’ll be here with me. You don’t think I’m going to let you go so easily, do you?’

  ‘But you have to let me leave eventually.’ She tried to sound confident.

  ‘Eventually, you may find that you don’t want to leave…’

  His insinuating murmur filled her with alarm. What was he suggesting—that he intended to turn her into some kind of…sex-slave, addicted to the forbidden pleasure that he could provide?

  ‘You can’t keep me imprisoned here forever…’ she protested faintly.

  He shrugged. ‘Who’s keeping you prisoner? You came here of your own free will. In fact, you’ve already sent a fax to your office saying that everything is fine and that you’ll be back with the contract the day before the wedding. So don’t think anyone’s going to come flying to your rescue.’

  That much was true. She had been too secretive, too determined to solve the problem herself.

  When she had gone to visit Nicholas Rose’s lawyer, to plead that her sister’s illness made it impossible for her to deliver the settlement papers personally, as arranged, Vivian had been still reeling from what she had discovered on her visit to Janna’s flat.

  Then she had bumped into a secretary over-loaded with files, and glimpsed among the scattered papers a letter addressed to Nowhere Island—but to Nicholas Thorne, not Nicholas Rose.

  Some fast and furious digging for information had brought answers that had shocked her out of her self-pitying depression and sent her charging off in a spirit of reckless bravado.

  Only now was she realising how ill-prepared she was for her mission. Nicholas Thorne had shown no sign so far of being open either to intimidation or to reason.

  Vivian swallowed. Damn it, she couldn’t afford to let negative feelings undermine the determination that had brought her here!

  ‘Look, I realise that you genuinely feel that you have some justification for hating me, but don’t you see that what you’re doing is wrong. That car crash was an accident. The police investigated it thoroughly at the time—’

  ‘Your sister claimed that our car skidded as we came around the corner,’ he said neutrally.

  ‘Yes, but Janna wasn’t accusing you of anything,’ Vivian explained eagerly. ‘She was just describing what she saw. The police said the skid-marks confirmed that neither of us was speeding…it was just the way the gravel had been shifted by the rain, making the road unstable—an act of God…’

  Then she added gently, because she knew the tortuous ways that guilt could haunt the innocent, ‘Neither of us was to blame for that night. Not me and not you. We’ll never know if we could have prevented it by doing something slightly faster or reacting differently, but being human isn’t a crime…’

  She broke off because he was looking at her extremely oddly. ‘You think I blame myself?’

  She hurriedly changed her tack. ‘When I wrote to you back then, I just wanted you to know that I was sorry for the accident…I didn’t mean to taunt you with your grief, if that was what you thought. I—I never showed your reply to anyone else. I didn’t think you meant those terrible threats. I thought it was just your grief lashing out. I can’t believe you’ve nursed that mistaken grudge all these years. Surely, for the sake of your son, you should have put the tragedy behind you—’

  ‘My son?’

  The floor
suddenly seemed to heave beneath her feet as Vivian realised what his arrested expression could mean. ‘I—I know he was injured, and it’s all a bit hazy now, but at the hospital I remember the doctor saying he was a very lucky boy to be in the back seat… H-he is still alive, isn’t he?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Very much so.’

  ‘Oh. Oh! That’s great!’ Vivian’s eyes were starry with brilliant relief. ‘And…in good health?’ she asked, with more restrained caution.

  ‘Excellent.’

  She beamed at him. ‘I’m so glad for you!’

  He cocked his head with an ironic smile. ‘So am I.’

  ‘It must have been a terrible experience for a child,’ she said, her emotions swinging wildly back to deep compassion.

  ‘At fifteen, you were little more than a child yourself.’

  She drew herself up to her full height, once more unsettlingly conscious that the top of her head barely reached his unshaven chin. ‘I’ve always been mature for my age.’

  ‘You like children?’ he asked inconsequentially.

  ‘Of course I like children,’ she said, bewildered.

  ‘Some women don’t.’

  ‘Well, I love them,’ she said firmly. She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Peter thinks I’ll make a great mother.’

  His eye narrowed. ‘From what you know of me, you should be on your knees begging for mercy, not deliberately going out of your way to annoy me,’ he warned with silky menace, and she gasped as his big hand suddenly curled around her throat, applying an uncomfortable pressure to draw her towards him until her breasts rested against his chest.

  ‘Take your own advice, Vivian, and forget the past. You’re not going home to marry Marvel; you’re not going to have his children or share any kind of future with him…’

  His hand tightened under her jaw, lifting her up on to her toes, so that she had to clutch at his thick shoulders for balance, her fingers sliding against his smooth skin.

  ‘I’m your future now. I’m the one who controls your destiny.’ She gave a little yip as his free hand slipped under the hem of his sweater to splay warmly across her quivering, tautly stretched belly. ‘And I’m the one who controls your fertility. The first child you’ll ever carry in your womb will be mine. The first baby to suckle at your breast will belong to me, as you will…’

  Vivian trembled in shock at the starkly primitive statement of possession and her equally primitive response. Her lips parted soundlessly as his fingertips skimmed under the lacy band of her panties and pressed gently into the fringes of the downy thicket between her thighs.

  ‘Such a fiery little nest… Is it as hot and spicy as its colour suggests? I’ll bet it is…’ She gave a faint whimper that was stifled by the nip of his teeth against her tender lower lip and his purred praise vibrating over her tongue. ‘I bet you’re hot and spicy all over when you’re in sexual heat, peppered with those delicious freckles and salted with the sweat of your arousal. I look forward to dining on your splendour…’ His hand moved up to brush briefly across the silky undersides of her heavy breasts, pausing to discover the betraying tightness of her nipples.

  He made a deep sound of male gratification and suddenly released her, stepping back to study with ferocious pleasure her swaying body and her dazed look of sensual confusion.

  His chest rose and fell rapidly, his body rippling with arrogant satisfaction as he straightened her glasses, which were fogged and slightly askew.

  ‘You do see the exquisite justice of it, don’t you, Vivian? An eye for an eye is such a paltry vengeance for a man of my sensual nature. I prefer a much more intimate, pleasurable and fruitful form of revenge…’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘LOST something, Ginger?’

  Stomping out of the dilapidated old boat-house, which it had taken her half an hour to break into, Vivian stopped dead.

  Yes, my sanity, she wanted to say. She must be mad to allow him to play these games with her; crazier still to be enjoying it.

  Nicholas Thorne had threatened her in the most elemental way a man could threaten a woman, and yet it wasn’t fear that made her heart race and her stomach churn whenever he was near…

  She looked up, squinting against the slanting rays of the setting sun.

  He was leaning against the corner of the salt-encrusted wooden building, a familiar, infuriating smile of mockery twisting his narrow mouth, an oilskin jacket flapping open over his grey fisherman’s sweater and the usual pair of jeans. Somehow she had difficulty picturing him in a conventional suit, yet he must wear one all the time in his role as ruthless head of a sprawling business empire.

  ‘A boat, perhaps?’

  ‘You have to have one somewhere,’ she growled, disturbed as ever by his wicked humour. ‘You can’t live on an island without owning some kind of boat.’

  ‘Feel free to look around,’ he replied with another quirk of his lips.

  ‘Thank you, I will,’ she said cuttingly.

  She was glad she was muffled up in the bulky knitted jumper and her green woolen trousers for around Nicholas she was uncomfortably aware of her body. It was the way he looked at her—complacement, possessive, knowing…

  At least she had clothes to cloak her self-consciousness. After staking his nerve-shattering claim on her womb, Nicholas had calmly directed her to her suit, blouse and bra lying crumpled under the bed and led her, clutching them in a bundle, down the iron stairs to the room below, where she had found her empty briefcase and the small suitcase she had left back at the motel at Port Charles. It held only toiletries, her nightdress and a single change of clothes, but it was enough to give her a slight sense of false security.

  The sweater she was wearing, however, was his, reluctantly accepted as a necessity if she was to tramp around the island in the blustery weather and not die of exposure. It had amused him to lend it to her, just as it amused him to follow her around so that she couldn’t just sneak off and pretend to search for an escape, she had actually to do it, thoroughly exhausting herself in the process. He was always hovering, offering irritatingly helpful suggestions and teasing her with intriguing little titbits of information about himself that increased her curiosity about him to a dangerous craving.

  The more that she found out about him, the more Vivian’s compassionate heart whispered that Nicholas was basically a good man whose fixation with brutal revenge was a cry from the wilderness of his frozen emotional landscape. He had found the loss of his beloved wife and unborn child unacceptable, so, in the nature of a competitive man used to winning, he hadn’t accepted it, and the long years of denial had formed a barrier against natural healing.

  In order to save herself, Vivian had realised that she would first have to save him…

  ‘Poor Vivian,’ he commiserated. ‘Three whole days of scouring every nook and cranny and you still haven’t succeeded in finding a way off the island. When are you going to give up?’

  ‘Never!’ She pushed past him and began stalking back up the uneven path from the rocky cove.

  ‘Stubborn wench.’ He was close on her heels. ‘Maybe you should try offering bigger bribes. Frank was quite offended by the low price you put on his loyalty.’

  She snorted. His number-one henchman had proved to be predictably incorruptible, but Vivian had known she was expected to go through the motions. She put her nose in the air, and promptly stumbled and teetered on the edge of a sharp, jagged incline.

  A powerful arm whipped round her waist, dragging her back against him. Instinctively she reached behind her to clutch at the sides of his coat, her shocked breath rasping in her throat.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let you go,’ he said, wrapping his other arm around her. ‘You’re safe.’

  She felt his face nuzzling into the side of her neck, the stubble of his jaw pleasurably rough against her skin, and for a moment she leaned weakly against him, tempted by his gentleness.

  ‘Safe? That’s a laugh! I won’t be safe until I get home!’

&nbs
p; ‘Oh, yes, I bet you feel boringly safe with Marvel,’ he said mockingly. ‘Two years engaged to the man and your dossier says you never stay overnight at his flat. I’d say that indicates a pretty huge lack of excitement on both sides—’

  ‘Just because I’m not promiscuous it doesn’t mean I’m sexless!’ she flashed from the depths of her insecurity, deeply resenting his familiarity with the private details of her life.

  ‘I don’t think you’re sexless, just surprisingly unawakened,’ he told her smoothly. ‘But I wake you up, don’t I? You rise so beautifully to the slightest hint of bait. No wonder you’re so gullible—you’re tough on the outside and marshmallow within. A delicious bundle of contradictions…’

  ‘You can talk,’ she said, bristling at the gullible label.

  ‘Oh, do you find me delicious, Vivian? I’m so glad it’s mutual.’ He smiled archly. ‘Would you like another sample?’

  ‘No, thank you!’ she lied tightly. That searing, sensuous first kiss in his room had also been his last. His dark threats of sexual domination had made her lightning-swift response to his touch all the more shaming, and yet he hadn’t pressed his advantage.

  Braced for further brutally expert assaults on her deplorably shaky defences, Vivian had instead been left at the mercy of her own fevered imagination. This subtle form of self-inflicted torture had been refined with an added sadistic twist by Nicholas—she was still forced to share his bed every night.

  The first night Vivian had searched everywhere, and been forced to accept that he was telling the truth when he said there were no extra beds. When she had tried to curl up fully-clothed on the couch in the living-room of the keeper’s cottage, Nicholas had simply slung her over his shoulder and borne her off to his room in the tower, coolly telling her that she could change into her nightdress in privacy, or he would strip her himself and she could sleep with him naked. She had chosen dignity over humiliation and then lain on her side facing the wall, stiff with mingled rage and agonised apprehension as she felt him get in behind her.