by Penny Jordan
They had arranged to have dinner together, and because her pride demanded it she was determined not to let him see how much learning the truth had hurt her.
So, instead of lying sick and hurting on her bed, she forced herself to go through the motions of preparing for his return as though nothing had happened.
In the small sitting-room, she lit the fire and closed the woven, heavy curtains against the frosty air, switching on the lamps so that the room had an intimate, welcoming warmth.
In the kitchen she set about the preparations for dinner. When she chose she could be an inspired cook, and she chose now, thanking Providence that she had been out this morning and restocked her freezer and cupboards.
Then, when planning the menu, she had thought only of being alone with Daniel, of letting him know subtly how much she had missed him and how much she wanted to be with him. And so she had planned a meal of intimate simplicity. A lovers’ meal eaten at a table illuminated only with candles in a room darkened with soft shadows.
She still needed those shadows, but now for a different reason. She had no wish for Daniel to see what she knew lay in her eyes. No wish for him to see how easily he could overrule her pride and her will-power.
No matter what he and her father might have planned, she was not going to be used by them. And to think she had almost wept when he had told her of his teenage dreams—of his supposed realisation that money and power were not the most important things in life. If only she had used her brain then, she might have guessed how deliberately that story had been invented and used. Only someone with a sure knowledge of her personality and her attitudes could have known just how much effect it would have on her. She remembered the way he had listened so sympathetically while she had told him about her past. God, how amused he must have been. Her fingers curled into tight, angry fists. Of course, her father would have told him already about her past, would have cautioned and warned him about what to say and what not to say, and yet, oddly, it wasn’t against her father that her hatred and bitterness burned so fiercely.
Her parents loved her. They probably believed they were doing the right thing. They wanted to see her married, drawn back into the ambit of their own lives. Yes, for her father she could find excuses, but for Daniel there were none.
She heard his car long before it stopped outside, marvelling at her senses’ ability and unerring instinct to pick out its now familiar sound.
She had deliberately switched off the light in the hallway so that he wouldn’t see her face. She was wearing a dress she had found at the back of her wardrobe. A dress her mother had insisted on giving her last Christmas, for the family get-together they always had on Boxing Day.
It was silk velvet, long-sleeved and very fitted, curving to the shape of her body, drawing attention to the narrowness of her hips with its soft silk peplum. The back was slashed open in a deep V to her waist, the peplum had a silk frill that ran down to the hem and a silk bow strategically placed so that it resembled a provocative mock bustle. It was a sensual rather than a sexual dress—a dress that invited a man’s touch, that hinted at the secret pleasure of its wearer’s body.
It seemed poetic justice that she should be wearing with it the silk stockings which Emma had given her for her birthday, and the high-heeled satin shoes that drew attention to her slender ankles—every bit as slender and delicate as Emma’s.
She was even wearing a subtle hint of perfume. She knew that she looked good, but there was no pleasure in the knowledge. Her appearance was a decoy—a means of keeping Daniel’s attention occupied, so that when she chose to reveal to Daniel that she knew the truth and that there was no place for him in her life he would find the discovery as painfully shocking as she had found hers this afternoon, albeit for a very different reason.
It wouldn’t be Daniel’s feelings that would be hurt. Men like him didn’t have feelings. They just had greedy bank accounts.
She let him in and stepped swiftly back into the shadows, not giving him the opportunity to greet her.
Deep inside her a nerve vibrated. If she allowed him to touch her, she would never be able to go through with it. She was still too vulnerable to him to withstand the sheer intensity of her own need.
‘Jessica, is everything all right?’
The sharp words were not the ones she had expected. She had thought he would be so triumphant, so cock-a-hoop with his own success that he would not be able to see beyond the façade she was presenting.
They were in the kitchen now, and mercifully she had her back to him.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she told him huskily, and, after all, it wasn’t a lie.
It was the wrong thing to say. She felt him walk towards her, bringing the small eddies of cold air from outside. Her spine tensed, the tiny hairs on her skin rising protectively as she willed herself not to turn round, not to do anything other than walk quickly away.
He followed her, stopping her; one hand on her shoulder firmly turned her towards him.
‘Something is wrong,’ he said quietly. ‘What is it?’
Could he really tell, or was he simply guessing?
‘No,’ she lied. ‘I was just worried that you might be late…the dinner—’
‘To hell with the dinner!’ Daniel said thickly. ‘I’ve missed you, too.’
The emotion he was projecting caught her off guard. In his absence she had allowed herself to forget what a superb actor he was. She stood still, mesmerised by the fine tremble of his hands as they cupped her face, trembling like a sacrifice on the altar and completely unable to pull herself free. The hard, demanding pressure of his kiss took her by surprise, as did the urgency with which his hands slid over her body.
For a moment she weakened and let herself respond to him, let herself pretend that this afternoon had never happened.
‘Oh God, Jess, you don’t know what you do to me.’
The words muttered against her mouth broke the spell, enabling her to pull herself free of his arms and turn her back on him.
‘Dinner’s almost ready,’ she told him shakily.
He looked at the table and said quietly, ‘It looks as though we’re celebrating.’
It was her cue, heaven-sent, and it was surely time to bring down the curtain while she still had the strength. She would have liked to drag the finale out until after dinner, to have lulled him into a false sense of security before denouncing him, but she couldn’t rely on her own strength of will to last that long.
‘We are,’ she told him, and then with a composure she was proud of she poured them both a glass of wine and handed him one, saying evenly, ‘I’m afraid it’s not vintage champagne. My cellar isn’t as extensive as my father’s,’ and then she raised her glass to her mouth and with a brittle smile said shrilly, ‘Congratulations on your partnership with my father, Daniel.’
She saw the shock darken his eyes and knew she ought to have been pleased, but instead all she felt was a rolling tide of pain.
She couldn’t prolong the farce any longer. What was the point? The very idea of revenge, or hurting him as he had hurt her, was risible.
‘It’s no use, Daniel,’ she told him bleakly, putting her glass down clumsily. ‘I know everything. Emma came to see me this afternoon. She told me—’
‘Emma?’
‘Yes, I know it all now—how you deceived me, lied to me.’
‘Jess, let me explain—’
‘Explain?’ She laughed bitterly. Why had she imagined that, once he realised she knew, he would simply walk away from her in shame? She ought to have realised that men like Daniel didn’t know the meaning of the word. Of course he would fight to hold on to what he wanted; of course he would use any means at his disposal to persuade and convince her. But she wasn’t going to listen.
‘Explain what? That it isn’t true that this morning you and my father were celebrating your joining the bank? Tell me that, Daniel, and then maybe I’ll listen to your explanation.’
He looked at her for a long time and then sai
d quietly, ‘Yes…it’s true your father and I are partners, but—’
‘No!’ Jessica cut him short. ‘Whatever you have to say, Daniel, I don’t want to hear it.You’ve already deceived me once. Lied to me—’
‘Lied?’
The anger in his eyes startled her. It wasn’t what she had expected. It frightened her and undermined her determination. It wasn’t the reaction she had expected. Pleas, excuses, explanations—these she had been ready for, but anger…
‘You’re everything I most despise in the human race, Daniel,’ she told him, rushing quickly into her rehearsed speech. ‘Everything I most detest and dislike. There’s no place for you in my life, whatever my father might have told you. I won’t marry a man who wants me because he sees me as a passport to my father’s money—the key to unlock the bank’s vaults. The only reason my father is giving you a partnership is because he wants a grandson.’She gave a high-pitched, hysterical laugh. ‘But he’d be wasting his money, because there’s no way I’d ever let a man like you, a man as contemptible and loathsome as you, make love to me.’
She lifted her hand in a theatrical gesture towards the elegantly set table with its romantic, flickering candlelight and said harshly, ‘Yes, we’re celebrating. We’re celebrating my good fortune in discovering the truth about you before it was too late. You must have been so sure of me, Daniel. So very sure. Telling me you weren’t going to rush me. But, you see, you were too sure, and now that I know the truth about you—’
‘The truth? You know nothing!’ He slammed down his glass of wine and advanced on her so quickly that there wasn’t time for her to move. ‘You’re so ready to condemn, to criticise…’
He was in a towering, furious rage, and Jessica, who had only seen the gentle, easygoing side of him was transfixed by it.
‘…and as for not wanting me—well, let’s just see how true that is, shall we?’
She should have guessed, should have known that he wouldn’t let her reject him. She hit out at him as he picked her up, but he dodged her blows with ease, laughing savagely under his breath as he carried her towards the stairs.
‘So you know everything there is to know, do you?’ he taunted. ‘Somehow I doubt that, but I promise you this much—by tomorrow morning you will do.’
Shock closed her throat and froze her vocal organs. He couldn’t be doing this—couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. She had expected that once she denounced him he would leave, but she had underestimated him, and badly, and now for the first time she was frightened.
Frightened not of the raw male anger she had so obviously generated, but of her own leaping response to it. Frightened of the sensations his touch invoked. Frightened of the emotions she had fought all afternoon to subdue.
It wasn’t true that she didn’t want him. She ought not to want him, that was true, but she did, and humiliatingly she suspected he knew it.
Tell him to stop, tell him you’ve changed your mind—anything…anything to call a halt to what was now happening between them! But, while her feverish brain demanded that she take action, her pride refused to listen. She wasn’t going to be the one to back down. She would show him, prove to him that she was stronger than her emotions, stronger even than her love, that she could put both of them aside and lie cold and unresponsive in his arms—that she meant every word of rejection she had thrown at him. Every word.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HER bedroom was in darkness and cold. She had not anticipated being up here with him, and a thin, sharp light from the hunter’s moon pierced the curtains in an ethereal shaft.
Unerringly Daniel found his way to her bed, dropping her down on to it and pinning her there.
Her brain shrieked at her to abandon her pride and plead with him to stop this madness and set her free, but the words were locked behind her rigid throat muscles.
Her eyes dared him to do his worst, narrowing like a cornered cat’s spitting hatred and disdain.
‘I can explain, Jess, if you let me.’
She trembled on the brink of capitulation. What harm would it do? She wouldn’t believe what he told her, of course, but it would buy her time, and maybe even…
She caught herself up, knowing her own weakness. If once she let him try to coax her round, if once she allowed herself to believe there might be an explanation…
‘Explain.’ She gave him a mirthless smile. ‘Tell me that Emma was wrong and that my father hasn’t made you a partner in the bank. Then I’ll let you explain,’ she goaded him and saw his mouth grow hard and grim.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ he said crisply.
‘Then you can’t tell me anything,’ she goaded, adding, ‘If you rape me, Daniel—’
‘Rape?’He drew in a sharp breath, his eyes brilliant with rage. ‘Rape you?’ She saw the way he fought to control his anger and trembled inwardly. ‘Oh, I’m not going to rape you, Jessica, but I promise you this—you’ll remember this night for as long as you live, and I promise you the memory of it is going to make you weep endless tears of regret and pain. How dare you deny what you feel for me? How dare you accuse me of something so base—?’ He broke off, and her heart leapt. Perhaps after all she had been wrong. Perhaps there was an explanation. But hard on the heels of her joy came reality to bring her crashing back down to earth. Would she never learn? Of course he wanted to make her think, to make her question, to make her doubt…and then, once he had done so, he would use that success to build on, to cajole and coax her.
She must be strong, resolute. She mustn’t allow him to sway her judgement.
‘Nothing you can say or do will make me change my mind,’ she hissed at him. ‘Nothing!’
And only realised when she saw the glitter in his eyes the danger of the challenge she had thrown down at him.
‘I’m not going to rape you,’ he had said, and in her anguish and outrage she had overestimated her own ability to separate herself from her love for him.
Because, despite everything she had learned, despite everything she knew, shamingly, there was still love.
She shuddered beneath the force of it as he cupped her face and said harshly against her mouth, so that she felt the vibration of the words against the too sensitive flesh of her lips as well as heard them, ‘You won’t let me speak to you and explain, but there are other ways of communication. You say you despise me, hate me. I say you’re lying, and that you’re running away, turning your back on all that we could have shared, just as you turned your back on your parents. You’re very good at cutting yourself off from things and people who you no longer want intruding into your life, aren’t you, Jess? I can’t stop you cutting me out of your life, but I intend to make damn sure that you’ll never forget me.’
She had never seen him like this before, never guessed he was capable of such emotion, of such terrible, crushing rage. And yet there was no violence in the way his hands shaped her face, no desire to inflict physical pain, and if she hadn’t been looking into his eyes and seen for herself the terrible dark bitterness burning there she might almost have felt that he was still the Daniel of yesterday, and that the whole nightmarish interlude with Emma and her revelations were just exactly that—a nightmare.
Listening to him, looking at him, she might almost have supposed that he was the injured party, that she was the one with the burden of guilt, who had betrayed their love. Their love. He had never loved her, never seen her as a woman, merely as the key to power and wealth.
His mouth touched hers lightly, delicately, sensitising the soft flesh of her lips, the tormenting friction making them moisten and cling, her heart and her body sending conflicting messages to her brain.
Where she had expected a roughly brutal attack, a clinical and malely arrogant attempt to force himself on her, she found instead she was being subjected to the subtlest and most undermining form of seduction.
The harder she tried to escape and break free, the more Daniel bound her to him with whispered kisses that caressed her skin and bemuse
d her brain—light, tormenting touches that inflicted pleasure and not pain, and made her long to be free of the restrictions of her clothes so that her flesh could fully experience the tormenting drift of his hands.
‘You love me.’
The words seemed to float into her mind, a magic litany that seemed to strengthen the flow of emotion sensitising her flesh.
The words seemed to lure her on, bemusing her mind, promising undreamed-of pleasures, suborning her mind until, sharply and painfully, she remembered the truth and recoiled from him, shivering with self-revulsion.
In the moonlit room he had an advantage which she did not—he could see the expressions chasing one another across her face, the pain and disillusionment, the bewilderment and anguish.
‘Jessica, let me explain.’
Lying here, encircled by his arms, his breath warm and moist against her skin, her body sharply hungry for the pleasure it already sensed he could give it, she was tempted to give in, to let him lie and convince her, to let him take them both into a world of fabrication and let’s pretend, but stalwartly she knew deep down inside her that the few hours of pleasure which allowing herself to be further deceived would give her would be outweighed a hundredfold by the anguish the memory of that false pleasure would eventually bring.
Summoning up the last of her will-power, she pushed him away and said fiercely, ‘No! I already know all I need to know. You lied to me. I asked you if you knew my father. You said no. That was a lie, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?’
He was sitting up, looking down at her, one hard hand on her shoulder pinning her to the bed. Why had she ever considered his eyes warm and tender? Now they were as flat and hard as stone, warning her not to press him too hard, but she ignored the warning, driven by demons of her own, by the knowledge that physically he only had to touch her and her body melted, ached, longed…
‘You lied to me,’ she reiterated. ‘Tell me truthfully that Emma is wrong. That you don’t know my father. That you’ve never met him. That he hasn’t offered you a partnership in the bank.’