‘He doesn’t exactly keep me in chains.’
‘But to escape for a little while you’ve been forced to sneak out of the apartment without his knowledge.’
She ran her tongue over dry lips. ‘Because he’s been so ill, he wants me to be there.’
‘To take care of him?’
‘Not exactly… Kathleen does that. He just doesn’t like me out of his sight.’
‘In case you leave him for good? He can’t be very sure of you.’
When she said nothing, Keir changed tack. ‘You told me you’ve been working from home as his PA?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he doesn’t give you any wages?”
‘No,’ she admitted, her colour rising as she recalled the time she’d been forced to borrow a few dollars from Kathleen to buy some small personal item.
‘But he provides me with my food and a roof over my head, a luxurious one at that, and he’s urged me to buy anything I want and charge it to him.’
‘And do you?’
After a moment, she shook her head.
‘Why not?’
She spoke the exact truth. ‘It doesn’t seem fair when I’m giving him virtually nothing in return.’
‘So, because you don’t sleep with him, you’re reluctant to spend his money… But I presume you’d spend it if you were married to him?’
‘A wife is somewhat different from a fiancée… Though I’d be happy to keep on working if he wanted me to.’
‘You mean be independent? I doubt if he’d want you to do that. His whole strategy is geared to keeping you dependent on him…’
Recognizing that as the truth, she made no attempt to argue.
‘And, at a guess, I’d say you don’t like it?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she admitted shortly.
‘So presumably that’s why you were wearing the same dress you wore at the Anglo American party?’
‘You saw so little of me that night, I’m surprised you remember.’ Then quickly she added, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that like it sounds. I know now you couldn’t help it.’
‘I wish to God I had,’ he burst out suddenly. ‘If I’d stayed with you then, things might have worked out differently. You might have had my ring on your finger rather than his.’
‘Then, you do believe it wasn’t his money that influenced me?’
‘I’m starting to.’
There was a long, thoughtful silence.
Attracted by the lighted window, a huge furry moth began to dash itself against the glass.
Sera winced at the soft thuds its body was making.
Without a word Keir got up and, opening the door a crack, switched off the light, leaving only the pale moon to illuminate the scene.
Released from that fatal attraction, the moth fluttered away.
‘Thank you,’ Sera murmured. ‘That was kind of you.’
Taking his seat again, he said evenly, ‘I hate to see any living thing set on a course of self-destruction. Life is much too precious to waste.’
He was right, of course. And she would be wasting her life married to a man she didn’t love, a man who didn’t want children.
But what choice had she got…?
‘Did you sleep with him before the accident?’ Keir’s question came out of the blue.
‘What?’ she asked, startled.
‘I asked if you slept with Rothwell before the accident?’
‘No. I’ve never slept with him.’
She heard Keir’s faint but unmistakable sigh of relief. Then he asked sharply, ‘Why not? You slept with me.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t want to seem promiscuous,’ she retorted with a flash of spirit. ‘Or maybe Martin has old-fashioned values…’
Keir put his own interpretation on that. ‘Which means that finding you were…shall we say…not over eager, Rothwell didn’t push too hard. He must have been afraid of scaring you off before you were married. Then the accident happened, and he’s been waiting ever since. I could almost feel sorry for the poor devil…’
Pursing his lips, Keir added ruefully, ‘In a sense, we’re both in the same boat.’
Unsure what to make of that cryptic remark, Sera said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean that we’re both frustrated, that for different reasons we’ve each been waiting the best part of a year for a woman we’re both obsessed with…’
Two men, she thought bleakly, each of them wanting her, but neither of them loving her. It was terrifying to be the victim of one man’s obsession let alone two…
Keir had loved her once, or so he’d said… But he’d allowed bitterness, and what he described as disillusionment, to warp his feelings.
Now, combined with a desire for her, was an even greater desire for revenge.
She shuddered and shuddered again.
Watching her, he returned to the attack. ‘You still haven’t answered my question. Why do you stay with him, Sera?’
‘You must know why,’ she said desperately.
Keir’s black brows drew together in a frown. ‘Tell me something,’ he pursued after a moment, ‘if it hadn’t been for the accident would you have gone ahead and married him?’
Sensing a loaded question, she answered with what firmness she could muster, ‘Of course I would.’
‘You hadn’t been having second thoughts?’
Without looking at him, she queried, ‘What makes you ask that?’
‘Something that Cheryl let slip. When I tried to pin her down she looked uncomfortable and said it was nothing really, she’d just had the feeling that you wanted out. Though her brother was mad about you, she wasn’t convinced that you loved him. She’d thought at first it was me you loved. When you gave me the brush-off and began to go out with him, she decided it was the Rothwell millions that had attracted you, and said as much…’
Sera had never really understood why Keir had been so certain it was Martin’s money she was after; now it seemed that Cheryl might have put the idea into his head.
‘But Rothwell had set his heart on marrying you, and she thought that for the sake of having a rich husband you’d go through with it. Then, apparently, she began to change her mind… So what I’m asking is, had you changed your mind? Had you, Sera?’ His dark eyes, silvered by the moonlight, pinned her. ‘I want the truth.’
Worn down by his questions, his sheer persistence, and the knowledge that he wouldn’t give up until he had got at the truth, she admitted heavily, ‘Yes, I had changed my mind. I should never have agreed to marry him in the first place… But he was very likeable, and good company when I was lonely. He gave me his time, treated me as though I mattered more than his business, and I was grateful. I seemed to have lost—’ About to say you she broke off abruptly and bit her lip.
His eyes on her face, Keir prompted, ‘You seemed to have lost…?’
Swallowing, she went on doggedly, ‘I seemed to have lost my desire for a career, and I suppose I persuaded myself that if I married Martin the gratitude and affection I felt for him would grow into love. We hadn’t been engaged very long when I realized I’d made a bad mistake. I tried to tell him how I felt, but he refused to believe I was serious. He said it was just pre-wedding nerves.’
‘So you let things drift?’
She sighed. ‘For a while. Then I knew I just had to make a stand. I was planning to give him back his ring the weekend we were due to go to Pine Cove, the weekend of the accident, but nothing went right…’
Keir sat like stone, neither moving nor speaking, only his eyes alive in the mask of his face.
With a kind of dull hopelessness, she went on, ‘If I’d broken the engagement before the accident happened, it would have been different. But I didn’t, and afterwards it was too late. I couldn’t just walk away from him when he was so badly injured.’
‘So you’re determined to marry a man you don’t love?’
‘There’s nothing else I can do.’
Taking her hand, Keir
said urgently, ‘Don’t be a fool, Sera. You can’t sacrifice yourself like this.’
‘Leave me alone,’ she begged, jerking her hand free. ‘I can’t stand any more!’
‘Just answer me one more question with absolute truth. Did you agree to marry Rothwell because you thought I no longer cared about you?’
Barely above a whisper, she answered, ‘Because I thought you never had.’
She saw the flare of triumph in his eyes before he asked sharply, ‘How did you feel about me? Had you stopped loving me?’
‘You said one more question, and I’ve answered it. Oh, please, Keir, take me back home. It’s not too late.’
Reading his refusal in his face, she cried, ‘Can’t you see it’s useless? I’ll never leave Martin while he still wants me. Keeping me here is just a waste of time. Talking won’t alter anything.’
‘Talking might not.’
It was true, and she knew it.
If he once touched her intimately, kissed her, she would be lost. What she felt for Keir was stronger than guilt, more powerful than conscience…
But aware that she must keep fighting, she said raggedly, ‘I’ll never willingly sleep with you.’
He sighed. ‘Then, I may have to try a little friendly persuasion. But I don’t think it will be too difficult to get you to respond.’
‘Even if, on a purely physical level, you can make me respond, it won’t alter anything. You can’t keep me here forever and as soon as you let me go I’ll run back to him.’
‘And what will you tell him?’
‘The truth, if necessary.’
‘He won’t like the idea that you’ve slept with me—to put it mildly.’
‘Oh, yes, I know he’ll be furious, but I’ll crawl on my knees if I have to…’
Her words had all the effect she could have hoped for. She felt Keir stiffen and, without looking at him, knew he was shaken to the core.
But still it failed to deflect him from his purpose.
‘And have him bruise you again?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Oh, no! If anyone is going to make bruises on you, it’ll be me… But they’ll be marks of passion rather than anger, and I’ll enjoy kissing them better.’
His words provoked a turbulent sense of anticipation, causing her skin to grow heated and her heart to grow chilled.
Sweeping her up in his arms, he carried her into the house, shouldering the door shut behind them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVEN inside, the moonlight was so bright that he needed no other light while he made his way through to the living-room and climbed the creaking stairs.
Only too aware that it would be hopeless, Sera made no attempt to struggle. He was so much stronger than she was that words were her only defence and, so far, words had proved useless against his determination.
In the bedroom he put her down on the bed and slipped off her sandals. Then, in spite of her clutched hands and bitter objections, he unzipped her jeans, easing them over her hips and buttocks, and freeing her slender legs.
Sitting down beside her, he brushed a strand of fine black hair away from her cheek, before bending his dark head to drop a kiss on her forehead, the tip of her nose, then a series of soft, baby kisses on her lips.
Her eyes closed, she lay quite still, striving to marshal her defences, to disassociate herself from what was happening to her.
Deprived of sight, her other senses seemed heightened. She could hear his light, even breathing and the strong beat of his heart.
She found herself achingly aware of a sharp, clean scent that was purely male, the freshness of his breath, and the tang of his aftershave cologne.
Softly, tenderly, he kissed her face, her eyelids, her throat and then again her parted lips. His kisses were sweeter, more seductive, than anything she could have imagined.
Sera had braced herself for some kind of onslaught and his unexpected tenderness disarmed her completely. She made a small sound, halfway between a sigh and a sob.
‘It’s all right.’ His voice was gentle, soothing. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
He might not hurt her physically, but if he made love to her against her will he’d break her heart. She wanted to tell him that, but no words would come.
As though he could read her mind, he said quietly. ‘This is the one course left open to me. I can’t seem to get through to you in any other way and, if only for the sake of what we once had, I’ve got to make you change your mind.’
But he couldn’t make her change her mind. It wasn’t that simple.
Watching her face, seeing her silent rejection of his words, he said slowly. ‘A year ago I thought that you loved me. Did you, Sera? I need to know.’
She opened heavy eyes and looked up at him in the moonlight that made the room nearly as light as day.
Almost as if the words were dragged out of her, she whispered, ‘Yes, I did love you.’
‘And do you still?’
If she admitted that she did, all hope of winning the fight would be lost. And somehow she just had to win. Summoning every last ounce of will-power, she said, ‘No.’
His head jerked a little, as though she’d struck him. Then he said quietly, ‘Well, even if it makes you hate me, I refuse to stand by and watch you ruin your life.’
Lifting her left hand, he began to slide the half hoop of diamonds over her knuckle.
Like a poignant echo from the past, she recalled the time Martin had taken Keir’s ring from her finger. Only this time it was like removing a shackle.
‘Wh-why are you doing this?’ The stammered words were a forlorn and belated protest.
Tossing it onto the bedside cabinet, he answered, ‘I can’t make love to you with another man’s ring on your finger.’
‘I don’t want you to make love to me,’ she cried, desperate to prevent him.
Softly and with complete certainty, he told her, ‘You will in a little while.’
He resumed the seige, teasing and coaxing when she struggled to keep her mouth closed against him. His tongue tip followed the line of her lips, finding the soft, sensitive inner skin, encouraging them to part and, when they did, deepening the kiss until her head reeled.
While he kissed her, he undid the buttons of her shirt and the front fastening of her bra then, lifting her a little, deftly disposed of both garments, before lowering her back onto the pillows.
Her breasts were small and firm and beautifully shaped. He weighed and fondled them, caressing the petal-soft skin, before enclosing them in his hands, leaving only the nipples exposed to the warm and erotic ministrations of his tongue.
As he drew first one and then the other into his mouth, it brought such exquisite delight that she was unable to stifle the little whimpers and murmurs that rose in her throat.
When the sensations he was arousing got too much to bear, she ran her fingers into his thick, springy hair and tried to lift his head.
His response was to smooth a hand down her flat stomach to the scrap of ivory satin that was her only protection and, with the lightest of touches, draw all sensation down.
Feeling the jump and flutter of her tightly strung nerves and muscles, he raised his head to kiss first her throat and then her lips.
Brushing his open mouth back and forth across hers, he slid his free hand under her hair to cradle her head and lift it into his kiss.
She made a small sound, almost like a moan, as his tongue explored and revelled in the moist sweetness of her mouth.
While he kissed her, his moving hand becoming dissatisfied, needing to replace the smooth satin of her briefs with the warm silk of her skin, he disposed of the last dainty barrier.
Then his long, sensitive fingers brushed downy curls, stroked along the smooth skin of her inner thigh and began a gentle and rhythmic exploration.
Her breath started to come in quick, uneven gasps, her heart raced, her whole body tensed and all coherent thought vanished.
Judged to perfection, his caress stopped just short, leaving her
poised on the brink.
From a very long way away, she heard his voice ask, ‘Well, Sera? Do you want me to make love to you?’
As though his determined mastery of her body had released her mind from its self-imposed restraints, she knew that the only thing that really mattered was this man: his voice, his touch, his taste, his scent in her nostrils…
Tonight she had run through the whole gamut of emotions: fear, anger, despair. Such deep feelings had stripped her bare, left her vulnerable and heightened her emotional capacity.
Through a tight throat, she said, ‘Yes.’ The single word sounded tortured.
‘Are you quite sure about that?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
This man was the man she loved and, after the last desolate year, it wasn’t mere bodily satisfaction she craved, but warmth and comfort, at the very least a semblance of caring to fill her empty heart.
She wanted to feel his weight, hold him in her arms, cradle his dark head to her breast and, afterwards, go to sleep with her head pillowed on his shoulder.
Her slender body bathed in moonlight, she held out her arms to him.
Just for an instant he hesitated, touched by a fleeting sense of misgiving, a doubt that he was doing the right thing.
But she wanted him in a way she had never wanted Rothwell, he was certain of it…
And he needed to become a part of her, to make her part of himself, even if it meant he would never again be whole without her.
It took only a matter of seconds for him to strip off his own clothes and join her on the bed.
She gave a little sigh, and his, more than her own, welcomed him as she had done once before. He was the other half of herself, completing the whole, making sense of her being.
As though in perfect agreement with that unspoken thought, he said fiercely, ‘You’re mine, and you always will be.’
With his first strong thrust, the tightness in her abdomen eased and relaxed into incandescence and, when he began to move, a core of heat like a beating heart became a rhythm that caught her up and carried her along, as right and natural, as necessary as her own breathing.
Then the spiralling warmth and joy reached a climax and exploded inside her. Fierce, elemental torrents of feeling went surging through her to shoot triumphantly sky-high like molten lava.
The Determined Husband Page 12