My mind refused to focus, lingering between sleep and a violent headache. Something…there was something…Oh, my God!
Memories flooded in. Glittering black eyes taking me over, the electric touch of his hands on my heated skin. Shame washed over me. What had I done?
Nothing. The knowledge arrived at once. We had danced and he had shaken me with sensations that had nothing to do with Daniel Brown. His hands had moved across my skin. His lips had brushed mine, burning them before moving on, and all the time I had felt the cold grip of tingling fear that made me so alive. And then he had simply gone, leaving me to face Nicola’s fury for dancing with him at all.
I knew that she was right. I should be listening to her warnings. But what did I care? Live for the moment; take what you can before it is taken away from you. That was my new motto. I wasn’t looking for a relationship or even love. All I wanted was physical sensation that stayed well away from my heart.
Would I see him again? Did I want to see him again? Part of me said no and part of me longed for the crazy fever that came over me every time my eyes met his.
All Saturday my nerves were on edge. He had persuaded me to give him my number. What if he rang? Did I want him to? Guilt made my stomach churn and I fought to push it away. Why should I feel guilty? My one true love was gone forever, so what did anything matter anymore? No, Alex Lyall had nothing to do with Daniel Brown, this was just about me, about trying to feel alive again.
I tidied my apartment and collapsed in front of the TV to watch anything that would take my mind off the turmoil that frazzled my brain. When my cell phone buzzed in my bag, I leaped up. I was fumbling for the phone as the sound stopped.
One missed call.
I didn’t recognize the number. Should I ring it? No, that was the last thing I wanted. What if it was him? What would I say?
Suddenly I felt so lonely and afraid that I dialed Aunt V’s number, needing to hear her familiar voice. When the phone rang on and on, I gripped the receiver in my hand, willing her to pick up.
The person you are calling is not available, please try later.
Panic squeezed me, closing my throat and shortening my breath.
It was the weirdest moment for a knock to sound on my door, almost as if someone had come holding out a hand in support. I rushed to open it, forgetting to keep the chain on in my haste.
He stepped through the door with such authority that I never thought to question it.
“These are for you, country girl,” he said, holding out a large bunch of blood-red roses. A tremor ran through my body. Red for love, yellow for friendship, blood-red for passion. I accepted them from him in a trance, feeling awkward all of a sudden in my jeans and baggy sweatshirt.
“Go and get your glad rags on, princess,” he commented. “I’m taking you out.”
I giggled stupidly. “Make your mind up. What am I—a country girl or a princess?”
He held my eyes with his brooding gaze and my whole being turned to mush.
“At the moment you look like a country girl, but I am going to make you feel like a princess. Now, hurry up. The table’s booked for nine.”
“Were you so sure that I would agree?” I asked him.
He reached out one long finger and traced it down my cheek. “Oh, yes, Lucy,” he told me. “I always get what I want.”
I quivered inside, knowing that I should keep my distance, knowing that I shouldn’t allow him to manipulate me, yet unable to resist the electricity between us.
He handed me the roses. “Better put them in water,” he advised.
And the moment to say no was gone.
We ate at a restaurant in the city center, a plush place, with tinkling glasses, pulsating background music and efficient black-clad waiters. I gasped when I saw the prices. Alex merely glanced at the menu before looking across the table at me.
“I suggest the beef,” he said. “It really is exceptional.”
“You dine here a lot, then?”
Was this the sort of life he lived—expensive restaurants, smart suits, blood-red roses by the two dozen? The fast lane. Was this the fast lane?
“It is one of the better places,” he said, snapping his fingers at a waiter, who rushed over to us and hovered uncertainly.
“A bottle of my usual, please, Pierre.”
Was he going to ask me what I wanted? I opened my mouth to speak as he leaned toward me.
“Red okay for you, Lucy? Or would you prefer something else?”
I shook my head. “No, that’s fine…thank you.”
I ordered something with prawns for my starter and deliberately didn’t order the beef.
“And for my main course I’ll have—”
He looked at me from beneath his eyelids, an amused glint in his dark eyes.
“I’ll have the chicken,” I said, deliberately holding his gaze.
What did we talk about? I remember that we talked a lot about me. To my dismay, he already knew so much about me that it made me feel uncomfortable. Things such as where I came from and where I worked, little things, but still…And yet I learned nothing at all about him. I didn’t know what he did for a living, or what his hobbies were, or even where he lived.
“How did you find out so much about me?” I asked. He just smiled and clasped my hand, making my fingers tingle and sending a strange quiver to the very center of my being.
“I have already told you, Lucy,” he said, his voice deep and low, vibrating almost. “I make it my business to find out about the people I’m interested in.”
I couldn’t help my reply. “So are you interested in me?”
His fingers tightened.
“Oh, yes, Lucy McTavish, I am very interested in you.”
We took a taxi back to my apartment. I felt mellow, yet slightly odd, dizzy and strange. I sank into my seat, watching the buildings pass by in a blur of flashing lights. My breathing sounded loud in my ears, and I was intensely aware of Alex sitting silently beside me, not quite touching but so near that I could feel the heat of his body next to mine, a heat that made me shudder with uncontrollable longing.
He handed me out of the cab like a queen, and when I stumbled on the curb his arm reached around me. For a second I felt a rush of fear, but he tightened his arm, holding me against him as he took the key from my limp fingers. And then somehow we were inside the apartment. I heard the door slam as if in the distance, and when he turned me toward him there was no me anymore, just an unbelievable sensation that started in my core and rippled through my body, stripping my defenses.
His fingers began to move over my skin and I lost myself to the need. My clothes slipped away, unnoticed, and somehow it was hot damp skin on skin, hard tense muscle, tingling ecstasy, and all the time his glittering black eyes consumed me, before his body lowered over mine and brought me, screaming, to a pulsating climax.
I must have slept then, for when I awoke, the sun was streaming in my window and I was alone. My head ached unbearably, and I shut my eyes again, once more feeling shame wash over me as the memories began to filter into the fog that was my brain. What was wrong with me? My arms were like lead, my whole body was filled with a weird lethargy and my mind felt fuddled. Bits of last night kept bursting in, both shocking and exciting me at the same time, and despite myself, I felt a tingle once again deep inside me, a quivering physical need that left me gasping for more. What had happened to me? It was as if something had taken me over and turned me into someone else, a person I didn’t know, or even like very much this morning.
Never again, I told myself. From now on I would stay well away from Alex Lyall.
But even as I made myself that promise, my treacherous body shivered with delicious memories.
Sunday in the city. I never let myself compare it with those Sundays spent at Homewood with Daniel. They were gone. He was gone. Who cared now what I did with my life? Certainly not me. I wandered along the riverside, trying to think of anything other than last night. Watching a butterfly flit from flower to flower, getting on with its brief life, as I was getting on with mine. Because that is what we all do, isn’t it? Just get on with our lives the best way we can. And if we make mistakes, so what? Then we have to learn to live with them.
The phone was ringing as I let myself back into my apartment and I let it ring on. I couldn’t face Aunt V, and I didn’t dare face Alex if he deigned to call. Or had he taken what he wanted and moved on? Had I been a total fool? The quiver deep inside me told me not, and pushed aside my shame. Why shouldn’t I live a bit? Love would never reach my heart, for that had died long ago, with Daniel Brown.
After a late lunch, I spent half an hour in the shower, struggling not to think of anything at all, but the memories kept on swirling in my head. Eventually I stepped out and draped a towel around my wet hair, then stared at my reflection in the steamed-up glass. Surprisingly the wide gray eyes that stared back at me looked just as they had the day before. I turned from side to side, expecting to see—What?
My hips were a trifle too wide, but my waist tapered nicely and my full breasts were firm. I felt my nipples tingle with memories of sensations from last night and a searing heat coursed through my body.
In that exact moment I heard a thud. I grabbed a large white bath towel and wrapped it around me with a new rush of guilt. The sound came again, more urgent. I walked slowly toward the door, clutching my towel with one hand, while the other hesitating in midair. Perhaps I should just pretend that I wasn’t home. But what if it was Aunt V? My fingers curled around the key and slowly turned it. The lock clicked, the latch went down and a frantic drumroll beat inside my chest.
“Lucy?”
I froze at the inevitable sound of his voice. Was it with fear or anticipation? My mind felt numb.
“Take off the chain.”
It was a command, not a plea. For a moment more I hesitated, before my hand moved, trembling, to do his bidding. When he stepped inside, just as before his presence filled the room. The door slammed shut with an air of finality. The soft white towel fell away from me at the touch of his urgent fingers, leaving me naked and shuddering beneath his burning gaze, and as his eyes devoured me, I knew that I was lost.
That was the start of a madness that lasted for the next three months. Our relationship was purely physical, and at first I kept it a total secret. It was like sleeping with stranger. He would arrive unannounced at any time of the evening, and next morning when I awoke he would be gone, or sometimes he never came at all. He could even have been married, for all I could tell, and I was no nearer to knowing if Nicola’s warnings were true than on that very first night, when his disturbing gaze had locked onto mine and placed me in this hypnotic physical state.
The only time we ever actually went out together was for a very occasional late-evening visit to the restaurant he had taken me to that very first night—when my only pathetic retaliation to his manipulation was to order chicken instead of beef. So when he turned up one sunny afternoon in August, I was utterly surprised.
I had just watched Aunt V drive off in her new car—Edna, it appeared, had insisted Aunt V buy it, now that she was a businesswoman. We had laughed about that.
“Businesswoman,” she had snorted. “How could I ever be considered a businesswoman?” And she kissed me warmly on the cheek and drove away with a smile on her face.
When Alex appeared only moments later, he just hadn’t seemed to fit. I felt self-conscious and awkward, but he pushed my reservations aside.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand.
“Where are we going?”
He smiled that breathtaking smile that turned his perfect features into something you could only describe as handsome, and then his smile faded as his eyes washed over me.
“Hurry up and get changed,” he ordered.
Something deep within me objected, and I twirled before him. “Don’t you like my lazy-day sweater?” I laughed.
He scowled, flicking at the collar of his dark blue suit. “I prefer you to wear nothing,” he murmured.
Heat seeped through my body, cracking my fragile defenses.
“But,” he added, “failing that, I would like you to look like a woman.”
I slid into the passenger seat of the black BMW parked against the curb, running my hands over the soft gray leather and inhaling its intoxicating aroma. My senses shivered deliciously.
“You never told me that you had a car like this!” I exclaimed.
He ignored me, staring straight ahead as the engine purred to life.
I tried again. “Where are we going?”
His long tanned fingers reached across and trailed over my knee, then moved slowly up my inner thigh as he swung the car out into the road. I closed my teeth tightly around my bottom lip and stifled a moan.
“Wait and see,” he murmured.
The area we eventually stopped at was brand-new. Tall, terraced houses stood in a multicolored row of beige and cream and terra cotta. Smart new cars were parked on perfectly manicured driveways and the only people I saw were thirty-somethings who walked with the assurance of success. I gave Alex a puzzled glance and he smiled a self-satisfied smile.
“Come on,” he said, removing a set of keys from his pocket.
I followed uneasily in his footsteps.
Entering the house he so proudly showed me was like entering an Ideal Home exhibition. Everything was new and minimalist, about as far away from me as anything could be. When he pivoted toward me with a feverish glitter in his black eyes and asked my opinion, I realized I was expected to approve.
“It is a beautiful house,” I told him honestly, for no one could say that it wasn’t.
“I want you to move in, Lucy,” he said. Panic took away my breath and made my stomach churn.
“With you?” My voice sounded high-pitched and strange.
“Well, I will be here, of course.” He hesitated, and a frown flitted across his face. “Nothing will change. Things will be the same as they are now, only the surroundings will be…”
He grimaced and I felt a prickle of anger uncurl itself inside me.
“More desirable?” I finished for him.
He shrugged. “Something like that.”
The prickle pierced my flesh.
“You mean, you want me to be some kind of kept woman, here in your house in these perfect surroundings, always available for when you choose to call.”
Nicola’s warning flashed into my mind as his face hardened. I felt myself tremble at the angry glint in his eyes, and then suddenly he was laughing. I had never heard him laugh before.
“I’ve just realized what it is I like about you, Lucy McTavish,” he said.
When I looked at him defiantly his gaze moved deliberately down my body. “Apart from the obvious, of course.”
His glittering eyes returned to meet mine.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“Should I be?”
“That is for you to find out,” he murmured, reaching across to draw me toward him. When his magic fingers began their exquisite job of turning my body to liquid, I was lost.
After it was over, I lay back languidly on the cream leather sofa, tracing my finger across his cheek.
“This doesn’t mean that I’ve changed my mind,” I told him.
His face darkened as he said, “We’ll see.”
So why was I surprised when, two weeks later, my landlord called to tell me that he wasn’t going to renew my six-month lease.
“Getting some work done on it,” he mumbled. “Sorry, but it can’t be helped.”
Was I so naive that I couldn’t see the truth? Obviously I must have been, because when I told Alex and he came up with the idea that I could take his town house and pay rent to make it official, I was easily persuaded.
Nicola finally found out about our affair just a couple of days before I moved out of my apartment. The expression of fear on her face made me feel strangely uneasy. Did she know more about Alex than she was letting on?
I had left the door ajar, and she arrived unannounced, hammered on it once and burst in as he was putting on his jacket to leave. He didn’t speak, just stared at her, his lips drawn together in a tight line and his jaw clenched. Then he walked out the door without glancing back.
There was total silence for a moment as the door slammed behind him. She looked at me with amazement on her face and I squirmed at the horror in her eyes.
“Lucy!” she eventually cried. “What are you trying to do? Dice with death?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I told her. “It’s nothing serious. I’m just having fun, that’s all. You know…living a bit.”
“If that’s your idea of living a bit, then I hope you never decide to live a lot,” she groaned. “No wonder I haven’t been able to get you to go out lately.”
Despite her disapproval, she was desperate to get every detail.
“When did it start? How often do you see him? What is he, you know, like?”
I told her nothing, just laughed off her questions. To appease her, I agreed to go to the Duck for a quick drink.
“One thing,” I said before we went inside. “Don’t tell anyone, will you?”
She eyed me then with more sincerity in her face than I had ever seen her show.
“Be careful, Luce,” she warned me. “You can’t even begin to understand the kind of person he is.”
“I don’t need to,” I told her determinedly. “It’s just a bit of fun.”
“Then why do you want to keep it a secret?” she asked. I stared down at my hands. The truth is, I didn’t know.