‘They don’t think like that…’ she whispered, and it hurt to breathe.
‘My God,’ he said tightly, reaching for her, ‘do you still have no idea what you do to me, Serena? To all men? You’re the most rampantly sexual creature I’ve ever encountered in my life.’
She sucked in her breath, trying to back away, found herself trapped against the chair and almost overbalanced, giving a little cry, her hands shooting to his broad shoulders.
‘You were like mortal sin when I first saw you,’ Nick said thickly, strong hands moving like fire over her slender shoulders as he stared down at her. ‘I can remember looking up at that window and feeling the hair on my scalp stand on end with—’
‘Don’t!’ she whispered, her face burning.
‘That unbelievably sexy body,’ he said under his breath, ‘in that demure lace dress. The combination sent me up in flames, Serena. And those green eyes…my God, you’re a born seductress.’
‘I am not!’
He stared at her, his hands moving through her hair. ‘You look at me like a siren, with all that red hair falling over one eye, and your beautiful mouth parted…’ His voice roughened. ‘And you wonder why I want to take you to bed!’
‘To get an heir,’ she breathed hoarsely, hands shaking on his shoulders. ‘That’s all it is!’
‘Do you seriously think I’d have married you if you were short, fat and ugly?’
‘That only makes you all the more despicable!’
His mouth hardened. ‘I don’t give a damn if you find me despicable. I married you for my own purposes, and if you don’t start to co-operate and fulfil them, Serena, I’ll have to take a very tough line with you.’
‘What are you saying? That you’ll force me?’ she asked bitterly.
‘I won’t need to,’ he said under his breath. ‘Your response to me since I returned has been more than encouraging. I think the truth is that you want me as much as I want you. You have since you first saw me.’
‘No!’ The hot denial sprang from her lips.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly, and ran one long finger down her white throat, invoking shivers, making her heart thud treacherously fast. ‘All I need to do is kiss you till your head spins. Sooner or later, you’ll spin into bed with me, and then I’ll really give you something to spin about.’
‘Oh, God…’ she whispered in sick excitement, and pushed at his shoulders, her stomach clenching as she struggled to get away from him, her breathing intolerably fast.
‘Kiss me!’ Nick said thickly, and swept her into his powerful arms, his mouth closing over hers, eliciting a hoarse moan of pleasure from her, and her mouth was parting helplessly beneath his, her hands clinging to his strong neck as she pressed her slender body against the hard masculinity of his and shook with excitement.
Treacherous…her body was the traitor…she couldn’t fight the tidal-waves of sensual desire that were flooding her, and as the kiss deepened she was moaning, her fingers pushing restlessly into his dark hair.
Suddenly, fear rose in her, anger and hatred too, and she gave a hoarse cry of panic, pushing away from him. He was too startled to stop her.
Breaking away from him, she ran across the room to her bedroom.
‘Come back here!’ Nick followed her at a hellish pace, voice thick with rage and desire. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’
Slamming the door in his face, she locked it, her fingers shaking, and backed away from the closed door in fear and excitement as he rattled the handle violently.
‘It just gets better, Serena,’ he said thickly through the door. ‘More of the same, and the excitement you just felt can spiral right up to ecstasy…Serena…open the damned door.’
‘Go away!’ she said furiously. ‘Just go away and leave me alone!’
‘So you can start an affair with Greyson?’ he bit out. ‘Like hell I will!’ He rattled the door-handle again angrily. ‘You can stay in there and hide for as long as you like, Serena. But sooner or later you’re going to have to come to terms with my presence in your life. As your husband, Serena.’ He slammed the door with one hand. ‘Your husband!’
‘I can hardly forget that, can I?’ she shouted, suddenly overflowing with rage as she stared at that locked door. ‘You’ve made it more than clear that you’re back to get what you wanted from me in the first place!’
‘That’s right,’ his voice said tightly. ‘And by the time you give it to me it’s going to be willingly. I’m your husband—and I will be your lover!’
‘You’ll have to force me!’ she shouted at the closed door. ‘I won’t be able to stop you, but I will be able to hate you for it!’
‘Hate me as much as you want,’ he drawled tightly. ‘I never wanted your love or your affection or your good opinion. I want one thing and one thing only: and, believe me, Serena, I will get it.’
His footsteps receded, his bedroom door slammed, and Serena stood there with his threats ringing in her ears, and her mouth bruised from the devastating passion of his kisses.
How she hated him for doing this. She had known instinctively that he was lying about the jet’s breaking down. From the minute she’d woken to find him in her bed she had felt the shock waves of sexual desire, and now they were threatening to destroy her life.
And he was so clever. So careful to keep it all under wraps until he had got a deep niche carved both in her and in their apartment. Once he was sure the time was right for this, he showed his hand.
Damn him. He would drive her crazy with his ruthless manipulation. He had been here for forty-eight hours and she was reeling like a bumper car from the impact.
If he had been direct with her, honest with her, she could have dealt with it. But he hadn’t He had told lie after lie, and, every now and then, out came the truth in his steely voice as he probed for the answers to questions only he knew about.
He wasn’t going to stop, either. He really was determined to make her have children with him, and although she wanted children she didn’t want to go to bed with Nick Colterne.
He wants to confuse me, she realised angrily. He wants to turn me upside-down by using those clever tactics of his. And he’ll get what he wants if I’m not careful, she realised with a thudding heart—he’ll dodge through every defence I’ve got, manipulating and lying until we’re face to face in bed and I’ve got no escape.
Serena took a very long bath, emerging with wet hair and a softly scented body. As she blow-dried her long red-gold hair into its usual style she suddenly noticed her reflection.
Rampantly sexual, Nick had said…she frowned, studying herself, her full mouth in its customary pout, her slanting green eyes curiously deep and quite powerful in their fathomless intensity.
Dismissing her thoughts as though they were dangerous, she began to dress. Frowning in front of her expensive wardrobe, she knew she must select a dress that would not bring further accusations from Nick.
She chose a dove-grey chiffon and silk dress. It was high-necked, a slim-fitting silk shift covered in pearl-grey chiffon, the sleeves demure and transparent. Against her long red-gold hair and vivid green eyes, it looked almost invisible; but very elegant and ladylike.
Slipping her feet into grey high heels, she caught sight of her reflection and suddenly remembered how she had looked when Nick first saw her, in that little lace dress, so ill-fitting and childlike, straining against her full breasts and hips…
An air of sophistication had crept over her in the three years of their marriage. Serena straightened, staring at herself, realising how unrecognisable she was now from that gauche, gawky teenager.
When she went into the living-room at seven it was empty. Nick had gone. Her heart sank as she looked at his open bedroom door. He had left without even saying goodbye.
Unaccountably, pain shot through her. Letting herself out of the apartment, she went down in the air-conditioned lift, her green eyes brooding and bitter. Nick patently could not wait to see Monique…
‘Evening, Lady Seren
a!’ the doorman drawled as she went out into the hot, brightly lit Manhattan street. ‘Enjoying the heat wave?’
‘It’s wonderful!’ she said with a smile. ‘I do love to see New York relax. Everyone’s wearing such pretty clothes…’
The door man laughed. ‘Your accent always gets me!’ He turned, the sun lilting on the gold braid of his red cap. ‘You want a cab?’
‘Please.’ She pushed a swath of red-gold hair back. ‘To the Met.’ The thought of bumping into Nick there with his mistress was now a source of horror to her. What would she say to Phil? How could she possibly explain the fact that she and her husband were blatantly displaying their mutual indifference to the world?
The Met was ravishing in the evening sunlight. Serena stepped from the cab on to the hot pavement, walked with her usual quick stride to the fountains, green eyes flashing around for a sign of Phil.
In the dove-grey chiffon dress her slender curves caused a riot of male attention, her quick stride making her sway, hips moving with unconscious sexuality.
Suddenly, she saw him and caught her breath with a shock. He stood a few feet away. Nick lounged beside him, indolent and handsome in a black evening suit, the impeccable cut of that expensive material enhancing the air of power and wealth he carried with him like an invisible cloak.
‘Lady Serena!’ Phil waved and smiled. ‘Over here!’
Serena’s eyes raced to Nick’s hard face as he studied her coolly, a gleam of mockery in his blue eyes, a sardonic twist to his mouth. Monique Dupré, of course, stood at his side, radiating thin, expensive glamour.
‘I managed to exchange our seats for a box,’ Nick drawled sardonically as Serena approached with a furious face. ‘Isn’t that swell?’
‘We’ll all be sitting together,’ Phil said, brushing his blond hair back with one elegant, smooth hand. ‘And we’ll get a much better view of the stage.’
‘I doubt that,’ Serena said tightly, heart thudding with rage. ‘Not with four of us in the box!’
‘This is the best box in the house, darling,’ Nick said softly, watching her through his hooded eyelids. ‘And I know you love the best of everything.’
Serena gave him a bitter smile, and flicked her gaze at last to the white-skinned, red-lipped face of Monique Dupré, standing beside him, tall and willowy and utterly magnificent in clinging black silk. The woman was pencil-thin and looked like a fashion photograph.
Jealousy coiled in the pit of her stomach like fire but she was forced to smile at the older, more sophisticated woman. ‘Hello, Monique. How are you?’
‘Oh,’ Monique drawled with a twist of glossy red lips, ‘surviving. The heat wave is playing havoc with my perm, though!’
Serena was coolly polite, nodding. ‘It’s been a mad summer.’
‘Shall we go in?’ Nick murmured, unsmiling, and they all moved away together, crossing that elegant courtyard towards the hallowed portals of Manhattan’s most civilised marble palace.
The deep-rooted feelings of familiarity in Serena rose at once as she entered the chandeliered foyer. Those high ceilings, the elegant patrons, the strong air of hushed sophistication all combined to bring back memories of her childhood, attending Covent Garden with her parents, garden parties at Buck House, meeting her father for tea at the House of Lords…she had always preferred those moments of her life with them. The glamour and excitement had been brief flashes of colour in her otherwise quiet life at Flaxton Manor. Her parents had known that, too, but they had been so old, and they had not quite known what to do with the red-haired firecracker who was their daughter.
Nick led the way into the box. ‘Serena?’ he drawled, indicating the red velvet chair on his right.
Shooting him an angry glance, she moved forward and took her place beside him. Down below, people in the audience looked up, recognising them. No doubt Nick only wanted her to sit with him to ensure no ugly rumours started, and suddenly Serena agreed with him: it had never before entered her head that people might think they had an open marriage.
‘I just love this place,’ Phil drawled, sitting on Serena’s right. ‘It’s so damned awe-inspiring!’
Serena gave him a surprised look. ‘You don’t feel ill-at-ease, do you, Phil?’
He ran a hand through his blond hair. ‘A little. I’m from the Bronx, remember, and we don’t get too many chandeliers down there!’
‘I’ve never been to the Bronx,’ Serena said, smiling. ‘When did you move to New York?’
‘When I was nineteen,’ he said with a grin. ‘Been here ever since, making money and sharpening up my artistic inclinations.’ He gestured to the auditorium. ‘Like visiting the Met, to see and be seen…a lot of deals are made in the interval, important contacts, lunches arranged.’ His blond brows lifted. ‘It’s where the top people meet’
‘They tend to come here,’ Nick said coolly beside Serena, ‘to watch the opera, not the audience.’
‘Well, sure,’ Phil drawled. ‘But there’s no harm in making the most of your opportunities, is there?’
‘No,’ Nick said flatly, watching him through narrowed eyes, ‘and I had you pegged as an opportunist from the very beginning.’
There was an uncomfortable little silence. Phil tensed slightly, his face suddenly guarded as he met Nick Colterne’s shrewd blue gaze and sensed the more powerful, more deadly, more ruthless shark suddenly appearing before him.
‘Are you,’ Nick asked softly, a thread of steel in his voice, ‘an opportunist, Greyson?’
Phil cleared his throat. ‘Sir, I’m just trying to make an honest buck.’
‘Be sure it is honest,’ Nick enunciated coolly, ‘or you’ll find my teeth in your jugular.’
Serena caught her breath. The lights went down. The tension in the box was suddenly intolerable. In the darkness, Phil pursed his lips in a silent whistle.
Monique moved her chair closer to Nick, and Serena saw her slide a long red-taloned hand over his hard thigh. Rage blinded her suddenly. The overture was playing, the curtain going up, and the brightly lit stage filled with colourful drama as the opera began, but Serena barely saw it; all she could see was that redtaloned hand sliding possessively over Nick’s hard thigh, and she began to tremble with the deep sense of injustice and jealousy she felt.
The horror of her marriage was suddenly laid bare before her, and she almost choked on the pain she felt clutching her throat, hot tears stinging her eyes as the opera went on and on.
La Bohème was one of her favourites, but she barely saw it, although the rich vein of pain in Puccini’s music reached her soul, as it always did, and sent shivers through her. She had always felt deeply moved by Puccini, and as she sat beside her ruthless husband she understood why, because the pain she felt was directly echoed by the soaring emotion of the soprano on stage.
The interval was a nightmare as they drank together in the bar, she and her husband and their respective partners. Nick watched Monique’s red mouth with a sardonic smile as she talked to him, flirting openly, and Serena was glad to get back to their box so she wouldn’t have to watch any more.
When the opera was over they streamed out into the night along with the glittering array of Manhattan’s élite.
‘I’m taking Monique home in the limousine,’ Nick drawled, hands thrust in the pockets of his black evening suit. ‘You don’t mind, do you, darling? I’m sure you have…similar plans yourself.’
Serena blanched, appalled by his deliberate humiliation of her in front of Phil, and whispered through white lips, ‘Why should I mind what you do with your mistress?’ Then she turned on her heel and walked angrily away from them all, her eyes burning with a red mist.
‘Wait!’ Phil caught up with her, blond hair flying in the warm night breeze. ‘Don’t let the bastard get to you!’ He caught her arm, his dark eyes concerned. ‘He’s just not worth it!’
‘Oh, God, I can’t go on like this much longer!’ she said fiercely, staring bitterly across the floodlit court-yard as Nick strode with Mon
ique, his hand at the small of her back, towards the waiting limousine. ‘I just can’t live with this marriage any more!’
‘Don’t talk here!’ Phil said quickly, looking around as people passed them, staring openly. ‘Come on…let’s get you home and you can tell me all about it there!’ He strode with her to the road, calling for a taxi, and Serena went numbly, aware that her marriage had finally hit rock-bottom.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE HAD been so blatant. So amused by the humiliation he had inflicted on her. And Serena couldn’t understand the jealous pain clawing at her, the sense of total dark chaos she felt. After years of polite indifference to each other, their marriage was cracking wide open and it felt like Nick’s fist through the pane of glass she had sheltered behind. The glass was shattered now, pieces everywhere, and Serena was a woman covered in broken glass, staring into her husband’s deadly face.
She let herself into the luxurious apartment, her face white and strained. Throwing her keys on the hall table, Serena walked into the living-room, flicking on the lights, and looked at it with new eyes.
‘How long has it been like this?’ Phil asked huskily behind her, and she turned, staring at him, because she had forgotten he was there.
‘I…’ She put a hand to her temple. ‘I don’t know. Forever, I suppose. The hatred must have been there all the time. I just didn’t know it…didn’t want to know it…’
‘You’ve always lived separate lives?’ he questioned, dark eyes probing hers. ‘Separate…personal lives?’
Her mouth twisted bitterly. ‘If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, you can forget it! I would no more take a lover or even consider a relationship with—’
‘Serena, I must ask,’ he said roughly, and put his hands on her slim shoulders, startling her. ‘It was obvious when I first saw you that you were lonely, bored, unloved. I never realised the extent of it, though, until tonight.’
‘Don’t, Phil…’ she pleaded, wincing. ‘I didn’t realise it myself. I…I suppose I’ve just been forced to face it, and I really don’t like what I see.’
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