Elusive Obsession

by Carole Mortimer

  Every nerve in her body was screaming a protest, every brain cell she possessed recoiling in horror, as she knew, seconds before his mouth descended savagely on hers, that he was going to kiss her!

  And it was like no other kiss she had ever known in her life before; it was totally demanding, erotically forceful, allowing no room for denial or rejection, just completely and utterly sensual, those warm lips moving over and against hers in a slow caress that seemed without end.

  Try as she might—and she did try!—Diana’s mouth couldn’t escape his, and then, just when she thought she couldn’t stand it any longer, she knew what she had to do, knew that she was approaching this all wrong; her response, any response, was what Reece Falcon wanted!

  And so she went suddenly still, her arms falling to her sides, her body going limp in his arms, her mouth coldly slack and unmoving.

  For long, timeless seconds, as Reece continued to kiss her, it seemed that wasn’t going to work either. And then—miraculously to her, because she was starting to feel faint now!—he seemed to realise she was completely unresponsive, and his mouth stilled against hers even as he opened his eyes and looked down at her, her green gaze returning his with cold contempt for what he was doing to her.

  He raised his head slowly, and Diana could see the flush slowly spreading under the tanned skin of his cheeks. Good; she hoped he burned with humiliation for what he had just tried to do!

  He rolled away from her completely now, getting to his feet and running a hand through the dark thickness of his hair, his expression one of barely constrained frustration as he once again turned to look down at her.

  Diana returned that look coldly as she too got slowly to her feet, relieved to find, as she did so, that the shaking of her legs wasn’t visually apparent, even if she was fully aware of how unsteady they felt beneath her. Her hand moved up to push her hair back dismissively from her face, hair that seconds ago Reece Falcon had entangled his fingers in as he held her mouth against his. Oh, God, she mustn’t think of that—couldn’t, or she would go mad.

  ‘You don’t have the first idea how to “satisfy the needs” of a “woman like me”!’ she told him with obvious contempt for his behaviour seconds ago.

  A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw at the taunt. ‘And you’re telling me that Chris does?’ he bit back glacially.

  She met his gaze with contempt. ‘I’m telling you nothing, Mr Falcon,’ she scorned coldly. ‘Because, you see, I don’t have to——’

  ‘I have the power to break you!’ he told her with icy softness.

  Diana didn’t even flinch at the threat; he couldn’t have used a worse word to her! ‘I don’t think so, Mr Falcon,’ she returned with a calmness she knew was badly in danger of crumbling if she didn’t end this meeting very soon. The power to break people; was that all this man understood? ‘You see, Chris has asked me to marry him,’ she told Reece Falcon triumphantly. ‘And I’m still considering his offer.’ Let him see how he liked someone else having the power for a change!

  He looked as if he would have liked to physically hit out at her at that moment, although he visibly restrained himself, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “‘Consider” it all you want, Diana,’ he bit out contemptuously. ‘But I can assure you, you’ll never be Chris’s bride!’

  She wanted at that moment more than anything to meet his challenge, to announce then and there that she would be marrying Chris, no matter what objections this man may make about it, so angry did she feel at his absolute certainty that she would never manage to marry his son. But to meet—and then feel she had to carry out—such a direct challenge didn’t fall in with her own plans at all.

  ‘Aren’t you taking rather a lot for granted in assuming that I might want to be?’ she scorned, her head back proudly.

  ‘He’s wealthy,’ his father shrugged. ‘Quite presentable——’

  ‘But your son,’ Diana put in softly. ‘As you seem so fond of reminding me,’ she derided.

  Reece’s mouth thinned. ‘Chris won’t be marrying anyone he knows I disapprove of,’ he said with certainty.

  The damned arrogance of this man! ‘If I wanted to marry Chris,’ she told him quietly, ‘believe me, I would. With or without your approval!’

  He looked at her with coldly glittering eyes. ‘The day he married you I would throw him out of my organisation and disinherit him!’

  She shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Fortunately, I earn enough to keep us both.’

  His eyes narrowed to steely slits now. ‘Are you telling me that it wouldn’t bother you having to work to keep your own husband?’ He looked at her disbelievingly.

  Diana shrugged again. ‘Not in the least,’ she dismissed with certainty; she had no intention of marrying Chris, but it wouldn’t have bothered her if she had met and fallen in love with someone who had no money, if they should live mainly on her money. But the way this man thought he couldn’t even begin to understand that sort of relationship, she realised contemptuously. ‘If I cared about him enough,’ she added tauntingly, ‘it wouldn’t matter which one of us earned the money.’

  Reece’s mouth twisted scornfully. ‘And do you care about Chris enough to do that for him?’ he challenged. ‘Because if the two of you marry, it’s a certainty that’s what will happen.’

  She gave a little half-smile, completely in control again herself in the face of his frustrated anger. ‘I believe we were talking metaphorically, Mr Falcon, concerning the relationship I would have with my future husband. Whoever he might be,’ she reminded him. ‘As I’ve already told you concerning Chris’s marriage proposal, I’m still thinking it over.’

  ‘You——’

  ‘But if I did decide to accept him, and you did carry out your threats——’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ Reece grated. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘Then you seem to have forgotten one important factor.’ She shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Chris is your son,’ she reminded him hardly. ‘And as such I can’t see him being without some sort of career for long.’ Chris might have been brought up as the son of wealthy parents, but as far as she could gather he had received no concessions from his father when he’d decided to enter his business, had had to prove himself first as an assistant to one of his father’s assistants; in other words, he had been a general dogsbody for almost a year! No, she didn’t doubt Chris would survive, no matter what his father decided about his future; Chris had the Falcon determination to succeed in life, although so far he didn’t seem to want to do it by stepping on people the way his father had.

  Reece Falcon looked at her with glittering eyes. ‘I could ensure that neither of you ever worked again.’

  She didn’t doubt that he could carry out such a threat, but if he thought such a claim—truthful as it undoubtedly was—impressed or frightened her, he was mistaken. ‘Then you’re to be pitied rather than admired,’ she told him with scorn. ‘Because if you ever did such a thing, Chris would never forgive you.’

  ‘Damn you!’ Reece grated furiously at what he knew to be the truth, his jaw tightly clenched.

  ‘Possibly,’ she returned coolly. ‘Now if you would excuse me…?’ She arched mocking brows. ‘Chris may be here in a minute, and I would like to look my best for him,’ she added pointedly.

  Reece Falcon looked as if he would dearly love to strangle her with his bare hands, controlling his rage with obvious effort, before turning on his heel and slamming out of the flat.

  Only once Diana was completely sure he had gone, the door safely locked behind him, did she allow the trembling reaction to begin. And once it started she couldn’t seem to stop it! She didn’t know how often, or how successfully, she was going to be able to cope with meetings like that one.

  But she had to. Had to!

  Reece’s anger lasted all the time it took his chauffeur to drive him across town to the penthouse apartment he had in London on the tenth floor of the prestigious building he owned.

  But he knew, deep inside, that it
was himself he was angry with above all else. Good God, he was jealous—jealous, damn it!—he who had never known the emotion before, with any woman.

  Jealous of his own son’s relationship with Diana Lamb…!

  CHAPTER THREE

  DIANA was still badly shaken when the doorbell rang a couple of minutes later for the second time that morning. If Reece Falcon had come back to issue more threats and dire warnings…!

  But it wasn’t him who stood on her doorstep this time when she wrenched the door open. ‘Chris!’ she greeted him weakly; she had mockingly made that challenge to Reece Falcon a few minutes ago about Chris’s expected arrival here, but it hadn’t been strictly true, and now that he was here——!

  Good God, she was surprised the two men, father and son, hadn’t actually met at the lift, one leaving, the other one anticipating seeing her again.

  She wasn’t quite sure in her own mind yet what she should say to Chris about his father; just that she had ‘seen him’ didn’t even begin to cover those two momentous meetings she had had with Reece Falcon, but telling Chris the truth about them wasn’t something she wanted to do either. Oh, she had no doubt that to do so would cause friction between father and son, but that wasn’t actually what she wanted at this point in time. She would just have to stick to the ‘seen him’ explanation!

  ‘You could look a little more pleased to see me,’ Chris grinned teasingly, in complete contrast to his father in looks, his blond hair kept styled slightly overlong, warm eyes a deep shade of blue, his boyishly handsome face showing none of the cynicism his father displayed so readily.

  Having actually come to like this impetuous young man, Diana deeply regretted that she might be the one to put the first lines of disillusionment on that charmingly attractive face.

  But she couldn’t develop a conscience over Chris; he was a Falcon, and all of that family had to be her enemy. All she had to do was keep remembering that all the time Reece Falcon had been destroying her father, her family, the secure life of nine-year-old Divinia, he had been lavishing love and money on his own child—Chris! All she had to do was make sure she never forgot that fact, reminding herself that perhaps it was time, in Chris’s privileged life, that he did learn there were some people who could say no to him, that she intended doing so. But not yet. Not yet…

  She returned his smile teasingly, moving to kiss him lightly on the lips, the two of them of a similar height, even with Diana standing in her bare feet; it was a source of deep irritation to him that if she did wear shoes with a heel on she instantly towered over him. She impatiently dismissed from her mind the recollection that Reece Falcon had been one of the few men she had met who would still be taller than her even if she chose to wear three-inch heels on her shoes!

  ‘Of course I’m pleased to see you,’ she told Chris lightly as she put her arm through the crook of his to pull him inside the flat and shut the door behind him.

  ‘Then couldn’t you show it a little more?’ He gave a disgruntled grimace at the lack of passion in the kiss she had given him just now.

  She laughed softly, back on familiar ground with this young man—not like with his father; that was like walking on an unmarked minefield. ‘Not at eleven-thirty in the morning I couldn’t, no,’ she dismissed easily, balking slightly as they entered the comfort of her sitting-room and she saw the food Reece Falcon had put out on plates earlier and put on the floor. Although she recovered well—she thought. ‘You see, I’ve been expecting you——’ She indicated the plates of food; after all, she and Reece Falcon hadn’t had chance to eat any of it, and Puddle had only sneaked off with one little pastry!

  Chris’s face lit up with pleasure at the sight of the food he thought she had got in for him, and Diana allowed herself to feel just a little guilty for not being instrumental in providing the food at all. But she didn’t think, considering how unconstructive this morning’s meeting between herself and Reece Falcon had been, that the older man was likely to mention to his son that he had brought the bread and pastries here with the intention of sharing them with Diana himself!

  ‘My favourite!’ Chris bit hungrily into an apple danish. ‘And made as only the French can,’ he added appreciatively after swallowing the last bite. ‘How did you enjoy Paris?’ he asked interestedly as she came back into the room with freshly poured coffee.

  She grimaced, sitting down cross-legged on the floor beside him. ‘About as much as I expect you liked New York!’

  ‘Too much work and not enough fun,’ he said knowingly. ‘Although,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘I did manage to have dinner one evening with my mother while I was there.’

  Cathy Reiter—she had remarried a fellow American a couple of years after divorcing Reece Falcon—had returned to her native country once the divorce became final and her ex-husband gained custody of their only child. Chris had always been sure his mother had made the move initially because his father made it so difficult for her to have any access to him. Over the next five years Chris had apparently seen very little of his mother, until, at the age of fourteen, he had braved telling his father that he would like to go to America to live with her for a while.

  How galling that must have been for Reece Falcon, Diana acknowledged ruefully. When she had pressed Chris for his reasons for wanting to do that he had merely shrugged the subject off dismissively. But Diana would hazard a guess on its having something to do with the lack of any real foundation to his father’s life and the fact that his mother had now remarried, was settled with her new husband, and was able, emotionally at least, to offer Chris more.

  Reece Falcon had, predictably, objected to the mere suggestion of Chris’s going to live with his mother, even for a short time. Whereupon Chris had shown himself to be as determined as he, and had run away from the school he boarded at. And been found and brought back by his father. And run away. And been found and brought back by his father. And run away again. By which time Reece Falcon had decided he had to admit defeat and allowed Chris, for two years only, to join his mother in New York. And those two years had renewed a bond between Chris and his mother that still existed today, no matter how long a time it was in between when they saw each other.

  Diana felt her own curiosity about the woman who had been married to Reece Falcon for ten years. What sort of woman was she, not only to have held the dubious role of Reece Falcon’s wife for that number of years, but also to have wanted to, knowing—and Cathy Falcon couldn’t have helped but know after his own treatment of her!—how utterly ruthless he was?

  She had come to the conclusion that Cathy Falcon was either as ruthlessly uncaring as her husband, or very stupid, to have built her own life, and that of her child, on the money and success that had been accumulated at the costly expense of others not quite so cleverly ruthless. There was a third alternative, of course, and that was that Cathy Falcon could actually have loved her husband so much that she hadn’t cared how he made his money. But that third alternative was so unacceptable to Diana as to be totally unthinkable!

  ‘How was she?’ Diana asked lightly, drinking her coffee, but not touching the food; after all, Reece Falcon had bought it—no doubt with the wealth he had acquired from some other poor fool who had trusted him! The food would have choked her.

  ‘Very well.’ Chris nodded confidently, eating the pastries as if he hadn’t seen food for a week—and maybe, after hours of aeroplane food, that was how he felt! He certainly didn’t need to worry about putting on weight—he never sat still long enough to accumulate the pounds. ‘My little sister seems to be bigger every time I see her,’ he added ruefully, looking at Diana frowningly as she began to chuckle. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your little sister does get bigger every time you see her, you idiot!’ She smiled. ‘Children have a way of doing that!’

  ‘Very funny!’ He grimaced at the teasing. ‘You know very well what I mean.’

  Yes, of course she did. When she had first learnt of Chris’s five-year-old half-sister, who lived in New Y
ork with her mother, Diana couldn’t help wondering if it had been the unexpected arrival of this rival for his mother’s affections that had triggered off his own desire almost six years ago to go and live with her in New York. But, even if it had been his initial reason for going, Diana had learnt over the weeks of knowing him that Chris was very fond of the little blonde-haired angel born into his mother’s second marriage; that he carried the little girl’s photograph around with him in his wallet, and produced it proudly if asked.

  ‘I’m sure she was very pleased to see you too.’ Diana squeezed Chris’s arm with understanding for his affection for the little girl. She had often wondered if her own life might not have been different if Janette had been interested in having children of her own, in being a proper stepmother to her too. But there would still have been Marco…

  ‘Yes, she was.’ Chris’s hand covered hers to show he didn’t mind the teasing—that, in fact, he rather liked it! ‘Which brings us back to my original remark: how pleased are you to see me?’ He looked at her a little anxiously.

  She shrugged, doing her best to firmly push thoughts of Marco and those dark years from her mind. ‘I told you——’

  ‘Precisely nothing.’ He sighed his disappointment. ‘Which is what you—cleverly—do, most of the time.’

  She frowned at how suddenly the conversation had become so serious. ‘Chris——’

  ‘Did you get the roses while you were in Paris?’ he asked eagerly.

  Because of the time-difference and their both having heavy workloads this last week, they hadn’t had a chance to actually talk on the telephone. ‘Yes, I did, thank you,’ she smiled. ‘But you really shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.’

  ‘No trouble,’ he dismissed easily, his expression suddenly intent. ‘Did you get the message that went with them?’

  She moistened lips that were invitingly pink, despite being bare of any lip-colouring. ‘You were right about your father,’ she nodded. ‘He did come to——’