‘How inconvenient for you!’ Keilly stared fixedly ahead, and yet she still knew every detail about the man at her side, knew that the clothes she had guessed to be expensive the first time he was here were really designer jeans and a silk shirt, that the longer casually windswept styling of his hair had been achieved by an expert, and that the chunky gold medallion he wore at his throat probably cost a fortune. She knew all that about him now, now that she knew he was Rod Bartlett.
‘It was a little,’ he replied tautly. ‘I was taking a break from my latest film when Barbie suggested I come up here and see for myself the lady who had taken such an intense dislike to me.’
‘I’m flattered,’ her tone implied she was anything but that. ‘Although I’m surprised you bothered.’ Once again she wondered what Barbie was to him, although she made no mention of the other woman. She was not jealous, damn it! She despised this man, and his lifestyle, and that wasn’t only because of what he had done to Kathy in the past.
His expression was grim, the lean hand moving the wheel with the minimum of effort. ‘The publicity abroad and here reached embarrassing proportions.’
‘How awful for you!’
‘Keilly,’ he sighed. ‘I’m just trying to explain the situation to you. The press were speculating all sorts of things, and I must admit I began to wonder myself. Your name sounded familiar—’
‘We had never met before,’ she told him sharply, paling slightly.
‘No, I realised that the moment I saw you. I still don’t know why you disliked me so much you had to put it in writing,’ he frowned, the beautiful blue eyes puzzled.
‘Dislike,’ she amended. ‘The feeling is still very much in the present tense. Your deceit in coming here under an assumed name just confirms my opinion of you. But at least now you’ll be able to tell the “speculating” press that I’m merely a vindictive woman hitting out at you. After all, if anyone ever asks I won’t be able to deny that we’ve met, that we’ve made love.’
‘That isn’t why I kissed you, damn it,’ he grated. ‘Being attracted to you was the last thing on my mind when I came here. And it isn’t an assumed name, I sometimes choose to use only part of it, but my full name is Roderick Richard Bartlett.’
‘What a mouthful!’
‘Exactly,’ he bit out tautly. ‘Admittedly I usually use the name Rod Richards when I don’t want to be recognised, but I thought you were too intelligent for that.’
‘How nice!’
‘Keilly, for God’s sake! You liked me when I was Rick Richards,’ he rasped. ‘What’s so different about me now?’
Now she knew him as a seducer, a man who was totally selfish, a man not unlike her father had been! ‘If you don’t know then I’m not going to tell you,’ she snapped.
‘What sort of stupid answer is that?’
Her eyes flashed deeply grey. ‘The only one I can think of at the moment! How did you expect me to react to the truth about you?’ she demanded accusingly. ‘Forget everything that I—I wrote about you?’ her words were vehement as she realised the slip she had almost made, almost revealing what she knew about his treatment of Kathy. ‘Be flattered and excited that a famous film star deigned to kiss me one night on a deserted beach? Is that what you thought?’
His hands tightly gripped the steering wheel. ‘If it were, I would hardly have bothered to come back,’ he said between clenched teeth.
The tautness of his jaw made Keilly a witness of the famous cleft in the hard chin, Rod Bartlett’s sex appeal was something that couldn’t be denied. ‘You told me yourself,’ she shrugged. ‘You need a holiday, a quiet holiday.’
‘It never occurred to me to come back to Selchurch until I met you.’
‘I won’t be your summer affair, Mr Bartlett—Oh!’ she groaned her surprised pain as he swerved the powerful car off the road, knocking her arm against the door as they bumped over the uneven ground to the hilltop that overlooked the little town.
He stared straight ahead for several minutes after switching off the engine, his hands still on the steering-wheel, his shoulders tensed. ‘You’re angry,’ he began to relax a little, talking in a controlled voice. ‘And I can understand why. But I don’t want you for a summer affair,’ he turned in his seat to look at her, the console separating them. ‘There are plenty of women back in London who would be only too ready to oblige if that were all I wanted,’ he said without conceit. ‘I want more than that from you, Keilly—’
‘I’m not even willing to offer that much,’ she pushed open the door to get out of the car, moving to the side of the hill, looking down on the town that had been her home all her life. She loved this little town, she belonged here, and she could understand in that moment how Kathy had been so impressed with the glamour and excitement a young actor in London must have shown to her small-town inexperience. She could understand it, but she wasn’t about to repeat it!
She sensed Rod Bartlett’s presence beside her, kept her face expressionless as she gazed down at the calm blue-grey sea that for once didn’t reflect her mood, her thoughts stormy, her hands clenching and unclenching in her denims’ pockets.
‘Keilly—’ he swore under his breath as she flinched away from him before moving several feet away with pointed distaste. ‘Just because my name had changed doesn’t mean I have too,’ a nerve pulsed erratically in the shaven smoothness of his jaw, ‘I wanted you nine weeks ago, and I want you now.’
Her mouth twisted, tears glistening in her eyes for the way she had been deceived. ‘The same way you’ve wanted all those other women you’ve “relaxed” with the last ten or twelve years?’ she reminded him of the way he had described Rod Bartlett’s numerous affairs the last time he had been here. ‘Thanks, but no thanks, Mr Bartlett.’
‘Afraid you might get hurt?’ he flared.
She shook her head with cool disdain. ‘Not interested in taking a number.’
‘Why you—’
‘Careful, Mr Bartlett,’ she taunted. ‘Your ego is showing.’
He gave a ragged sigh. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly. ‘Losing my temper with you is not going to help the situation.’
‘As I see it there is no situation,’ she dismissed. ‘You’re a guest in my aunt and uncle’s hotel, and as such I’m required to be polite to you in my professional capacity. Personally, that’s a different matter,’ she added stiltedly. ‘Then I would prefer it if you left me completely alone.’
‘I can’t do that,’ he told her grimly.
‘Why not?’ she frowned.
‘You know why,’ he said heavily. ‘Contrary to what you think, what you want to believe, all my responses to you have been genuine. Admit it, Keilly, if I were still Rick Richards you wouldn’t be doubting my feelings in this way.’
She blushed at the truth of that. ‘But you aren’t, are you,’ she reminded stiffly. ‘You’re Rod Bartlett, the man hundreds of women claim to have slept with, one of them even committed suicide for you.’
He seemed to pale at the last accusation, a pulse beating in his jaw. ‘Hundreds is an exaggeration,’ he bit out tautly. ‘As for Veronica—’
‘You talk about her as if she didn’t matter!’ Keilly accused heatedly.
His eyes flashed deeply blue, his lashes long and sooty. ‘I loved her,’ the statement was made so simply it couldn’t possibly be doubted. ‘She was the best thing that ever happened to me. At the time I met her I was drifting, using people as they used me, my career going nowhere. Veronica put me back together, showed me that being true to myself, to my beliefs, was all that really mattered when it came down to it. I loved her,’ he repeated huskily.
Keilly swallowed hard at his quiet sincerity, forcing herself to remember the way the other woman had died. ‘It’s amazing how your career suddenly took off once you were her live-in-lover,’ she said with sarcasm, ignoring the dangerous darkening of his expression. ‘Yes, I’m sure you “loved” her very much,’ she derided.
He thrust his hands into his hair, as if he might strike her
if he didn’t. ‘I wanted to marry her, but she refused,’ he revealed tightly.
Her eyes widened slightly at this admission, although she hardened her heart once again. This man was still the user he had been then, would always be. ‘Maybe she just didn’t want to be used any more,’ Keilly scorned.
His mouth thinned, his eyes becoming glacial. ‘Make your mind up, Keilly,’ he rasped. ‘I’m either the user who discarded Veronica when she was no longer useful, or I’m the man she spurned as a husband,’ his mouth twisted. ‘I can’t be both.’
‘You—You—You’re a totally selfish man!’ she accused hotly. ‘And I don’t believe for one moment you asked Veronica King to marry you. Why would she commit suicide if that were the case?’
‘Why indeed?’ he echoed softly.
Keilly gave him a searching look. ‘She did commit suicide.’
‘Yes,’ he didn’t dispute the claim.
‘Because of you!’
He gave a controlled sigh. ‘In part,’ he nodded. ‘Although not for the reasons you think,’ he added sharply. ‘Maybe one day, if the two of us ever sort out our differences, I’ll tell you all about Veronica.’
‘That day will never come,’ she said with vehemence, knowing from his callous treatment of Kathy how selfish he was. Maybe he truly believed he had changed from the drifter and user he had been then, but he had still crushed people underfoot to achieve it.
‘I have to disagree with you,’ he shrugged. ‘I have to believe that one day we’ll be together. And when that time comes we’ll talk about Veronica. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind in the circumstances.’
‘Why not now?’ she frowned.
‘It’s all a question of trust, Keilly,’ he held her gaze with steady blue eyes. ‘And when you learn to trust me—again, I’ll know the time is right to tell you the truth about Veronica and myself.’
‘And all those other women you’ve slept with?’ she taunted with distaste.
‘I told you, there haven’t been so many, and most—although I’m not claiming all,’ he added grimly. ‘Knew there was no future in the relationship.’
‘And the ones that didn’t?’
‘I’m not claiming to be a saint, Keilly,’ he snapped, a dark hue to his lean cheeks. ‘I’ve hurt people, I’m aware of that, but then so has everyone. We’re all fallible, we all make mistakes.’
‘Only you don’t pay for yours, the woman does!’
He searched her flushed face with a probing glance. ‘I haven’t left a trail of fatherless children behind me, if that’s what you believe,’ he bit out, his mouth twisting with derision. ‘Believe me, I would have heard about it by now if I had.’
She knew what he meant; there had been a lot of paternity cases brought against people who were prominent in the media, and his name had so far been noticeably absent considering the amount of affairs he was reputed to have had. But she also knew of his carelessness with Kathy! ‘Maybe you’ve just been lucky,’ she dismissed abruptly, knowing the penalty paid by people like him.
‘And maybe I haven’t,’ he rasped. ‘Keilly, that was all in the past, it’s the future we should concern ourselves with.’
‘What future?’
‘The one we’re going to have,’ he moved so close their legs almost touched. ‘I told you, Keilly, we’re going to be together.’
‘You—’ Her denial was effectively cut off by Rod Bartlett’s mouth coming down on hers.
It was useless fighting him, he was much stronger than she was, but she didn’t offer him any response or encouragement either. She wanted to, God how she wanted to, but pride and common sense made her hold out. This man may be jaded with his London life, be a little bored with his sophisticated friends, but she wasn’t about to provide him with a little light amusement.
Then the pressure of his mouth on hers began to change, no longer taking from her but asking for a response with the light caress of his lips as he nibbled on hers, taking the lower lip fully into his mouth with an eroticism that made her shudder in reaction, her body melting into his as she groaned her capitulation.
‘Keilly, Keilly,’ he muttered her name over and over again as his mouth travelled the length of her throat, his strong hands caressing the curve of her spine as he held her into him.
She felt his hands against her bare skin beneath her cotton shirt, gasping as one of those hands cupped beneath her bare breast, his thumbtip moving lightly across the peak, the nipple surging to pulsating life beneath the sensitive caress. Warmth spread through her body at the intimacy of his caress, no other man ever touching her in this way.
‘God, Keilly, how I want and need you—Keilly?’ his voice sharpened as she pushed away from him, his hands straining her back against him.
‘Let me go,’ she ordered through gritted teeth.
‘Didn’t you hear me? I said—’
‘I heard,’ she managed to wrench away from him, breathing hard in her agitation, the tautness of her breasts thrusting against the cotton material of her shirt. ‘You must think me very stupid, Mr Bartlett—’
‘I don’t think you’re anything at the moment, because I don’t understand you!’ he stared at her as if he had never seen her before. ‘Do you always react this way when a man tells you how much he needs you?’ he frowned.
‘No other man ever has,’ she bit out. ‘And I certainly don’t want to hear it from you,’ she refused to acknowledge the way he seemed to pale at her words. ‘I may be naïve,’ she continued hardly. ‘But I’m not some impressionable teenager that will be taken in by a line like that—’
‘Line…?’ he repeated icily.
‘What else would you call it?’ she scorned. ‘God, did you think I was so stupid, a dumb idiot from the backwoods that you could fool along until it was time for you to leave here? And then what would you have said about needing me, that it was another one of those mistakes you seem to keep making, that we should part for a while to see how we really feel about each other? I saw that film,’ she scoffed. ‘The heroine never saw the hero again!’
‘This isn’t a film,’ he told her heatedly. ‘This is real life, yours and mine, and I don’t play scenes from films in my life.’
‘You could have fooled me—could have,’ she repeated mockingly. ‘But I’m really not that stupid. Now if you don’t mind I’d like to go back to town. I have the time off anyway, so I think I’ll spend some of it on the beach.’
‘Keilly, listen to me—’
‘The water is probably still too cold at the moment, but I could take a walk along the beach,’ she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I wonder—’
‘Keilly, will you listen to me!’
She looked at him with cool grey eyes. ‘Not if you’re going to tell me you need me again,’ she told him flatly. ‘I doubt you need anyone. I hope you enjoy your stay here, Mr Bartlett, I’m sure there must be a lot of your old friends who would just love to see you. I hope you’ll understand if I prefer not to be counted in their number, I simply don’t have the time for world-weary superstars looking for a new thrill.’
His jaw tightened at her insulting tone, but there was no other visible evidence of his burning anger. ‘You may not be a child, Keilly,’ he ground out slowly. ‘But you certainly think like one, world-weary superstar,’ he derided. ‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?’
‘No more ridiculous than you did a few minutes ago, I can assure you!’ she flared.
He flushed, sighing heavily. ‘I can see there’s no point in talking to you now. I’ll see you again once you’ve calmed down.’
‘I’m completely calm,’ she told him evenly. ‘And if you aren’t ready to go back yet I think I’ll walk.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ he said tautly, turning to go back to the car, sitting behind the wheel to wait for her to join him.
Her movements weren’t as fluid as usual, too conscious of brooding blue eyes watching her progress, climbing in beside him as the engine roared into life, s
taring wordlessly ahead as they drove back down the coastal road.
She had to blink back the tears so that he shouldn’t see how much his betrayal had hurt her. Rod Bartlett! God, it was like a nightmare. And she had believed she was falling in love with him! The fact that he was who he was had ended that, she couldn’t feel anything for the man who had so calculatingly seduced Kathy before going to a woman who could give him so much more—until she too became dispensable. He said he didn’t act in real life, well he had certainly been doing a good job of pretending since the moment they had met, to be a kind and sensitive man, something he could never be in reality!
‘Thank you,’ she said stiltedly as he stopped the car outside the hotel.
‘Keilly!’ His hand on her arm stopped her getting out. ‘I mean it,’ he told her quietly as she looked at him with wide questioning eyes. ‘I need you more than I’ve ever needed anyone in my life before.’
She flushed. ‘Please save that routine for some poor idiot who will believe you,’ she sighed wearily. ‘It’s wasted on me.’
He drove off as soon as she stepped out on to the pavement, and with a ragged sigh she at last allowed the tension to flow out of her. He hadn’t even used an original approach with her, had used the same line with her as he had with Kathy all those years ago.
Kathy. Dear God, she had to see Kathy straight away, had to warn her cousin that Rod Bartlett was indeed back in town!
The Hall was a warm and happy place in spite of its size, Kathy making the huge country estate into a home for her husband and daughter. Although her welcoming smile as she opened the door herself turned to a look of anxiety as she saw Keilly.
‘I’ve been waiting for you to call me all morning,’ she dragged Keilly through to the comfort of the small sitting room she always used for friends and family.
‘It’s only ten-thirty,’ she delayed, standing nervously in front of the unlit fireplace.
Kathy grimaced. ‘When you’ve been up since six that seems a long time.’
Her brows rose. ‘You had an early start today?’
‘Heather has been coughing most of the night. I think she’s getting a chest cold,’ Kathy shrugged. ‘I’ve kept her at home today.’
Taming The Notorious Billionaire (HQR Presents) Page 6