ANYA opened her eyes just as dawn began to filter in around the thick curtains that protected the penthouse suite from the importuning world. She lay on her back, her blonde hair spread out in a wild tangle on the pillow, the ends tickling at the chin of the naked man who lay sprawled on his stomach beside her, his arms cushioning the pillow under his head, his face relaxed in deep, satiated sleep.
If she had been inclined to disbelieve the evidence of her eyes there was the evidence of her body to attest to the mind-blowing fact that Scott Tyler had spent the night in her bed…or, rather, she in his. She ached in the sweetest of ways in the wickedest of places. The crisply laundered white hotel sheets were wildly rumpled, draping low across their bodies, and, looking down, she could see the tiny bruises and abrasions of love on her breasts and stomach.
Carefully easing over onto her side, she studied the sleeping man, blushing to note that he, too, had reddened marks on his shoulders and back, as if he had been attacked by a fierce small animal…as indeed he had! His hard mouth was relaxed and slightly swollen, throwing the small scar into prominence, and that, along with the break in his arrogant nose and the tousled hair and strong growth of his beard, made him look rakishly disreputable and utterly desirable.
She knew that she would never have any regrets about giving herself to him because he had given of himself so generously in return…He had made her feel more like a woman in one night than Alistair had in all the time she had known him. He had been fierce, dominating and passionate, but exquisitely gentle too, and when she had cried after the sheer intensity of that first time he hadn’t embarrassed her by asking her why, had just held her trembling body against his and kissed away the tears, and then shown her other ways for them to find pleasure in each other that were less unrestrained but no less satisfying, until she had once again been ready to fling herself into the lightning-storm of emotion that accompanied his tumultuous possession.
It hadn’t taken him very long to recognise her lack of experience, and she felt a tingle of excitement prickle over her bare skin as she remembered how much he had enjoyed teaching her the different ways in which her body could accept him, excite him and bring them both to rapturous completion. He had liked to watch the shocked delight appear on her face each time he’d given her a new kind of caress, to coax her into using her hands, her hair, her mouth to make his body quicken and see her shyness melt away in a ravishing eagerness to torture and torment him until he was wildly out of control.
Oh, no, she needn’t have worried that he would find her too ordinary in bed. He seemed to have no concept of the word. With Scott she had been made to feel supremely special, unique, exquisitely fashioned to satisfy his desires in a way that no other woman ever could, or would…
A smile stole across her lips as she lovingly studied his sleeping face, resisting the temptation to brush the dark strands of hair off his brow and kiss the faintly pouting mouth. So wary and mistrustful when awake, he was determined not to let himself be vulnerable to love. His daughter had cracked the self-protective shell around his heart, but the small breach wasn’t wide enough to admit anyone else, had merely thickened the scars created by past betrayals.
Scott had been extremely vocal in the throes of passion, but not a word had been permitted to pass his lips that Anya could mistake for a profession of love. The profound sense of completeness that she had experienced in his arms was a gift that she couldn’t acknowledge without jeopardising their relationship. Well, he might not be interested in her gift of love, but there were other things that she could give him that would bring him a joy that he was prepared to accept.
She began to ease back towards the edge of the bed, sliding out from under the covers, taking care not to awaken the sleeping tiger. Her feet soundless on the thick carpet, she snagged his shirt from the chair as she passed and scampered into her room, where she had a quick shower and donned the items that she had secretly purchased while Petra had been choosing her dress. She cleaned her teeth and ran a brush through her hair and emerged from her bathroom intending to tiptoe back into Scott’s room, to find him sitting on the end of her bed dressed in a hotel bathrobe, a resolute expression that was distinctly unlover-like tautening his face.
‘For a moment I thought our night together had been a figment of my imagination,’ he said roughly. ‘Didn’t your good manners tell you that it’s not the done thing to flee your lover’s bed without at least the courtesy of a farewell?’
Oh, God, was he remembering the way that Kate had taken off without a word? Did he see it as a rejection of everything that they had shared? Did he think Anya was ashamed of what they had done and was seeking to pretend it hadn’t happened?
Suddenly his sweeping gaze took in her feet and he did a shocked double-take that would have made her giggle if she hadn’t been so unnerved by his brooding words. His widening eyes travelled with excruciating slowness up from the white ankle socks to his barely buttoned silk shirt veiling her delicate curves, the shadow of a triangle at the juncture of her thighs and dusky circles at the centre of her breasts making it obvious that she was wearing nothing at all under the tissue-fine fabric.
‘I was just coming back to give you your wake-up call,’ she said huskily, emboldened by the flare of his nostrils and the nervous jump in his throat as he swallowed, his incredulousness turning into smouldering recognition. ‘But I wanted to get dressed first…as you can see.’ She extended a leg, wriggling her toes in the white sock, allowing the silk to flirt slyly between her thighs.
She began slowly walking towards him, shaking back her long hair, causing a rolled-up sleeve to slide off one bare shoulder, revealing the paler skin of her breast.
‘Oh, God, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,’ he murmured thickly, but she hadn’t finished with him yet.
‘I think there’s still a price-sticker on my socks,’ she said sweetly, coming to a halt between his spread knees. ‘Would you mind peeling it off for me?’ She lifted her leg and placed her foot daintily in his lap, just below the loosely tied towelling belt, her heel parting the edges of the bathrobe as she leaned forward.
His spine snapped back as the tender arch of her foot settled into his groin, cupping his rapidly growing arousal. He groaned and grabbed her ankle in a vice-like grip, his other hand stroking up over her smooth knee. ‘I don’t see any sticker,’ he growled.
‘You’re not looking in the right place.’
He was staring at the tantalising shadow where the tail of his shirt draped over her hips. ‘I’m looking exactly where you intended me too, you little minx.’
She felt deliciously wicked. ‘What an old-fashioned term. I thought you were a ruthlessly modern man,’ she teased, curling her toes against his thrusting resistance.
‘Hussy!’ he said, holding her foot securely in place, tilting his hips to increase the pressure on his engorged fullness as his other hand continued to creep up her thigh. ‘If you’re deliberately trying to drive me wild, you’d better be prepared to take the consequences.’
She veiled her smug smile of satisfaction with coyly fluttering lashes. ‘How was I to know you were kinky for white socks?’
‘Because I told you what a turn-on they were,’ he purred. ‘And obviously not only for me…’ His fingertips had stirred through the fluff at the top of her thighs, finding the dewy feminine flower they were seeking, and he watched her eyes glaze over as he delicately stroked apart the moist petals and insinuated himself into her velvety sheath, his thumb playing lightly over the swollen bud bursting forth from its protective hood.
Anya’s insides turned to hot syrup. Her teeth sank into her lower lip and her supporting leg began to tremble, her head suddenly too heavy for the slender column of her neck as sensation rioted through her body.
‘Not so sassy with me now, are you, darling?’ he murmured, deeply gratified by her extravagant response. He withdrew his glistening touch to pull her astride his powerful thighs and smothered her mewed protest with his hungry mouth, his hands wrenching open the buttons of the shirt and helping her to push aside his bathrobe so that he could crush her bare breasts against his hot chest. He fumbled in the pocket of his bathrobe and she had a dizzy moment to appreciate his forethought before he was ready for her, tilting his pelvis as he cupped her hips, teasing her with a few blunt nudges of his rigid shaft before forcing her slowly down onto his engorged length, merging them into one indivisible being.
Anya moaned at the blissful stretching of her body, winding her arms around his strong neck, trying to burrow further into his kiss. He reefed his fingers through her hair to tilt her head, running his hands down her back to settle at the base of her spine. ‘It gets even better,’ he whispered. ‘Lean back for me…’ And when she did he feasted at her breasts, tugging wetly on the nipples as he timed his powerful thrusts to perfection, grunting as her fierce convulsions ignited his own orgasm and they peaked in a wild conflagration of the senses that would be burned into Anya’s memory for ever.
‘Mmm,’ he said lazily as they lay panting in exhaustion on the covers, still damply entwined, amongst a tangle of silk and towelling. He licked at a tiny bead of perspiration on the side of her desire-softened breast. ‘We’ve made love in the bed, the shower, the chair and on the floor in my room…so I suppose we should do the same here.’
Anya’s stomach quivered. ‘We haven’t got time. Petra will probably be awake soon.’
He propped his head on his hand. ‘The door is locked. And I can be quick as well as slow. You seem to like it either way.’ He chuckled as she pinkened.
‘I still think we should be careful. Your—Petra’s mother wouldn’t like it if she was exposed to—’
He cut her off with a kiss on the mouth. ‘Petra’s a very intelligent and perceptive girl. She likes you and she’s already picked up that I’m attracted to you—or, rather, have the “hots” for you, as she so tactfully puts it. As long as we act naturally about it, she’s not going to be traumatised if she realises that our relationship has advanced to the level of being openly affectionate.’
His mouth was being more than affectionate! ‘You said you were taking the hotel room so I’d be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for school today. At this rate I’ll be falling asleep in class,’ she chided him.
‘Ah, but I didn’t say that it was sleep that was going to brighten your eyes or fluff up your tail,’ he teased, riffling the cluster of curls below her flat abdomen with his knuckles.
‘You’re a very conniving man,’ she said, pushing away his hand.
His blue eyes crinkled. ‘But would you call me selfish, rude…indifferent to a woman’s needs?’ he asked slyly.
‘Extremely rude,’ Anya told him, her lips trembling into a smile that made her muted grey eyes glow. He knew very well that she couldn’t criticise his performance on the other counts.
‘But not offensively so,’ he said, startling her with a hint of seriousness. ‘I didn’t hurt you in any way, did I? I wasn’t too rough?’
She couldn’t account the damage done to her heart. ‘Of course not—’
‘It’s just that you’re rather little, and I can see I bruised you,’ he brooded, touching a tiny dark shadow on the upper curve of her breast with a gentle finger.
‘You didn’t exactly come out unscathed yourself,’ she said lightly. ‘You don’t need to feel inhibited because of my size—’
‘Inhibited?’ That sparked a smile. ‘I thought it was my lack of inhibition which might have been a problem.’
‘Well, it wasn’t. I may be little but I’m not brittle.’
‘No, you’re as pliant as a young willow,’ he agreed. ‘Quite astonishingly flexible.’
‘Don’t you ever think of anything but sex?’
‘Not when I’m lying on a bed next to a beautiful naked woman—’
‘I’m not entirely naked,’ she pointed out mischievously. ‘I still have my tiny little white socks on.’
He groaned. ‘Don’t remind me.’
‘And you don’t have to pretend that I’m beautiful, either,’ she told him gravely. ‘I’m happy with who I am.’
‘So am I,’ he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Because who you are is a lovely, complex young woman full of grace, candour and wit, and with an inner strength and intrinsic goodness of heart that makes me feel guilty for taking advantage of her…’
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘I wanted Petra to see the concert but my primary reason for inviting you along was to give me the opportunity to seduce you,’ he said flatly, almost as if he wanted her to recoil in disgust.
Anya widened her eyes in droll surprise. ‘No, really? And here I was thinking that you were the kind of man who always carried that many condoms around with you!’
He scowled. ‘If you were expecting sweet-talk and romance from me, you certainly didn’t get it.’
She actually thought he had been extremely honey-tongued, but she knew what his words were intended to convey. He was warning her against seeing him as love’s young dream.
‘You must be confusing me with someone who cares about those things,’ she said steadily. ‘Someone who prefers glamorous trappings to the real thing.’
He reacted with defensive speed. ‘If you’re talking about Kate, you’re wrong. I told you, I could never confuse you—you’re as different as day and night. I knew that if you heard about the affair that it would taint your whole attitude towards me—’
‘Is that the main reason you kept quiet about it? Because it might have made me suspicious of your motives for seducing me?’
His scowl darkened, his blue eyes sullen. ‘You might have thought I wanted to revenge myself on her by taking you to bed,’ he admitted reluctantly.
Anya’s brow wrinkled, as if the idea had never occurred to her. ‘I don’t see quite how that would work. I’d think that she’d be more likely to pity you for trying to replace her spectacular self with her drab little cousin—’
He jerked up to brace himself over her body on bunched arms. ‘Dammit, stop running yourself down like that! I hope you’re not one of those people who excuse any behaviour on the grounds of genius. However brilliant and famous Petra becomes I would still expect her to be considerate of other people’s feelings. Can’t you see you’re a thousand times better than that selfish bitch, Kate?’
‘Well, I can…but I thought you might be a little hazy on the exact figures,’ she murmured, secretly stunned by the genuineness of his anger.
He blinked, his temper stopped in its tracks by her gentle ribbing. A brief expression of uncertainty flitted across his face and her glowing smile widened.
‘I don’t expect real life to meet the standards of a romantic ideal, Scott,’ she said, reaching up to touch his firm mouth. ‘Besides, romance means vastly different things to different people…especially men and women.’
‘What does it mean to you?’ he asked curiously, settling back down against her.
‘Well, great music and great sex are a pretty terrific beginning…’ she said, straight-faced.
He laughed. She loved to make him laugh. All the harsh, straight angles of his face tilted into slants and curves.
‘What does it mean to you?’ she dared.
‘Right now?’ He lowered his head and nudged her nose with his to tilt her mouth up for his kiss. ‘Why, you, of course…’
Fortunately Petra slept soundly until Scott went in to wake her, and she was too busy enjoying the novelty of a room service breakfast and emptying the snacks out of the mini-bar to notice Anya’s self-conscious air as she buttered her croissant and poured the coffee and tried to carry on a politely innocent conversation with her wickedly uncooperative lover.
She couldn’t help but notice, however, when the Jaguar slid to a stop at the school gates and, after turning his head to say goodbye to Petra in the back seat, Scott leaned over and gave Anya a leisurely kiss on the mouth in full view of the school crossing patrol.
‘Uh-uh—no tongues, you guys. Remember my fragile juvenile psyche!’ she snorted, slinging her bag over her shoulder and opening the door.
‘Your psyche could be marketed as a bullet-proof vest,’ replied Scott drily, sending her off covered in grins while he kindly tilted the rear vision mirror for a flustered Anya to repair her smeared lipstick.
‘A pity it doesn’t taste as good as it looks,’ he remarked. ‘I like you better totally au naturelle. Except for the cute socks, of course,’ he added, just for the pleasure of watching her blush. ‘I’ve got them in my pocket. You can put them on for me again later…’
She sternly repressed the hot thrill his words gave her. ‘You shouldn’t have kissed me like that,’ she told him, putting the lipstick case back in her bag with a little snap.
‘How should I have kissed you, then? I hate to disappoint.’
As if he could! ‘Didn’t you see them all looking?’
‘Who? The kids? We’re a couple. Couples kiss each other goodbye.’ We’re a couple. The phrase sounded much less transitory than We’re lovers, thought Anya wistfully. Some couples who never got married nonetheless stayed together all their lives.
‘Everyone’s going to find out about us anyway. Don’t expect me to skulk around with you like Ransom did—’
‘We never skulked.’ She roused herself to say with dignity. ‘We were discreet.’
‘Although you’re employed by the Board he’s effectively your boss,’ he went on, shaking his head. ‘Office affairs are a legal minefield. Ripe grounds for sexual harassment suits, disputed promotions, unjustified dismissals and all sorts of other nasty complications…’
She realised he was enjoying himself. ‘We were not having an affair.’
‘But you were heading that way. Why else would he take you out to dinner on Friday night?’
‘Perhaps purely for the pleasure of my scintillating conversation. Men and women can simply be platonic friends, you know.’
His lawyer’s ear detected a subtle inflection in her tone and instantly pursued it. ‘Is that what he told you? That he wanted to keep it platonic? When did he say that—before Friday night—or afterwards?’
‘During,’ she sighed, knowing he wouldn’t rest until he had dragged it out of her. As soon as they had been seated in the restaurant Mark had revealed that the purpose of his invitation had been to tactfully define the limits of their relationship. He didn’t want to lead her on, he’d said, and his friendship was all that he could ever offer.
‘Much as I really like you, Anya, it just puts me in too much of an awkward position, ethically speaking, to get romantically involved with anyone on the staff,’ he had explained, with just the right touch of regret. ‘I don’t want to go through something like this again. And neither, I suspect, do you…’
Since Anya had been going to say much the same thing herself, she’d hardly been able to get up and walk out in a huff as he had rambled on about how much he valued her as a friend. After all, she wouldn’t even have agreed to the date with him at all if she hadn’t been jealous of the fact that Scott was going out with Heather Morgan.
Of course, she didn’t tell Scott that part. He was already looking far too smug.
‘So we both got dumped by disillusioned suitors on Friday night.’ He grinned. ‘Leaving no untidy loose ends to get in each other’s way. We are well matched, aren’t we?’
So much so that the next three weeks were a revelation to Anya. Scott might deny any pretensions to romance but he was intrinsically aware of how to make a woman feel special, and being the target of his exclusive interest made her increasingly self-confident, her heart soaring with hope in spite of her attempts to keep her feet firmly on the ground. She didn’t get hearts and flowers from him, but she did get handmade chocolates and pretty scented candles and flourishing seedlings for her garden—small tokens of his caring that she cherished more than diamonds.
At first Anya tried to hold back, wary of encroaching onto forbidden emotional ground by appearing to require more of his attention than he was able or willing to give, but he would have none of it, his innate curiosity and natural possessiveness coming powerfully into play as he responded with renewed determination to conquer any hint of restraint in her manner.
That first night he had driven over to see her after Petra had gone to bed—having paid Mrs Lee an exorbitant amount to stay on and babysit—and had ended up banishing the fevered memory of her bathtime fantasy by replacing it with even more ravishing reality. Sleek and playful as a seal in her steaming bath tub, Scott had proved her willow-like pliancy and his sexual athleticism to their ultimate satisfaction, and the detriment of her bathroom floor!
That had set the pattern of their relationship. Most nights of the week she either went over to The Pines for dinner with Scott and Petra, or he visited her later in the evening. They didn’t always make love, although the passion between them grew rather than diminished with familiarity. Sometimes they would merely talk, and in the process Anya learned more about him to love. She found out that he donated large sums of money to a scholarship fund to enable some of Hunua College’s poorer students to go on to further education, and that he provided free legal counselling to a woman’s refuge. She discovered that he had spoken to Lorna and Ken to assert his right to provide his daughter with a trust fund for her education and music studies, and that he was dreading the rapidly nearing date of Petra’s departure.
‘It feels as if I’m losing her all over again, just when I’m starting to really get to know her,’ he said, as they drank coffee on the couch in her living room, Anya curled up against his side, after an exhausting weekend showing Petra the sights of Auckland, including a ferry-ride out to Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf and a steep walk up to the top of the volcanic cone for a look at the view.
She leaned her head comfortably on his shoulder. ‘It’s not like last time. You’re not really losing her. You’ve both made a binding connection, you’ll see each other again.’
‘Yes, this time Lorna’s not going to have everything her own way,’ he said grimly.
The only point of real conflict between them was Anya’s adamant refusal to stay the night at The Pines, or even allow Scott to make love to her there. Neither frustrated argument nor seductive persuasion could pressure her into changing her mind. Her heart longed to make itself at home in his home, but she was afraid that in doing so she would be overwhelmed by the intensity of her feelings and relinquish the last remaining thread of control that she had over the progress of their affair. She used Scott’s need to concentrate on his daughter in the short time they had left together as the reason for her reticence, but they both knew that it was more than that, and that when Petra had gone she would no longer be able to hide behind her altruistic excuses. The moment of truth was fast approaching—not least because she was also piling up increasingly querulous e-mails from London and Paris.
It arrived far sooner than Anya anticipated. One Saturday morning Scott had to respond to a call for an unscheduled court appearance for one of his remand clients and urged her to stay and keep Petra company while he was gone.
‘I shouldn’t be too long. By the way, do you know anyone called Russell Fuller?’
Anya shook her head. ‘Is he a local?’
‘He’s a freelance journalist. He rang me earlier to ask if he could come and see the house and pick up some information about Kate Carlyle’s time here—’
‘Oh!’ Her heart nearly leaped out of her throat.
He looked at her, eyes narrowing at the sight of her contracted pupils. ‘So you have heard of him?’
‘About him…just that some journalist was doing a big cover piece on Kate. She warned me that he’d probably be coming round,’ she said dully.
He frowned. ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to rake over old ashes, but evidently Kate told him I bought The Pines from her. God knows what else she saw fit to tell him. He was fairly insistent that I could help him on the phone, so I thought it wiser to agree to see him and find out exactly what he wants rather than encourage his persistence by turning him down cold. I made an appointment for him to come over this afternoon. It’s up to you whether you want to be here or not…’
He kissed her warmly before he walked out of the door, misreading her feverish clutch of desperation for one of entrancing eagerness, leaving her standing on the brink of a deep, dark chasm.
She should have told him…but she hadn’t. She had been afraid to destroy the precious trust that had been built up between them. And now it was too late. Her period of grace had run out.
Did she owe her first loyalty to Kate—selfish, brilliant Kate whom she had known all of her life but found difficult to like? Or to Scott—a man whose true complexity she was only beginning to appreciate but whom she already loved? Family or lover? Whichever way she chose someone would be hurt. The question was, which choice would wreak the least damage on the least number of people?
The chunky wooden ladder into the attic still creaked at the metal joints as it unfolded from the pull-down trapdoor, and the attic itself was as dirty and cobwebby as Scott had suggested it would be. Anya’s hand shook as she climbed into the cramped, dusty, stifling room, holding up the candle that she had stolen from the dining room to illuminate her way. She hadn’t wanted to ask Mrs Lee for a torch, but matches had been a fairly innocuous request that hadn’t raised any awkward questions. She hadn’t even had to tell any fibs to Petra, because it would take an earthquake to distract the girl from her morning piano practice.
She stepped carefully across the timber beams, ducking to avoid the cobwebs and the low cross-beams that prevented her from standing up. The attic itself was big, running the full length of the house, but only a small proportion of it had been used for storage. Anya didn’t bother to look under the bulky, shrouded shapes, holding the candle low to look for the small metal trunk that Kate had described.
She found it tucked against a beam and set the candle carefully down on a peeling paint-pot as she opened the lid, coughing at the cloud of dust that puffed into the air. Kate’s green hardback journal was on the top, and she took it out and began rifling quickly through the albums, loose photos and papers, extracting anything in Kate’s distinctive slanting hand, occasionally lingering over a half-remembered photograph or amusing piece of family history. Suddenly conscious that the time was slipping away from her, she hurriedly closed the trunk and gathered up her armful of contraband.
As she turned to leave she knocked over the candle, snuffing it out, and realised she’d lost her matches somewhere in the dark. Fortunately the chinks in the roof tiles and the square of light from the open trapdoor guided her stumbling steps back to her starting point and she slithered down the ladder on trembling legs, dropping Kate’s journal with a crash on the floor. It fell open and several pieces of paper flew out of the pages, and when she gathered them up her eye was caught by the medical letterhead of a consultant gynaecologist.
She had never meant to read any of Kate’s personal papers, feeling that she had already sinned enough against her own honour, but she couldn’t help seeing what was right in front of her eyes.
Kate had had a pregnancy test done at the Manukau City doctors’ office five years ago. The result had been positive. In view of Miss Carlyle’s excellent physical and mental health, she’d had no grounds for abortion under current New Zealand law, even though she was only a few weeks into her pregnancy. If she wished to go ahead with a termination it would have to be done overseas.
Kate, who believed that having babies was the real reason that so few women achieved greatness in the world. Kate, who in the five years since her affair with Scott had recovered from her tax problems and brief career hiccup by fulfilling the promise of her youth with an unbroken string of concerts, recordings and festivals with no more than the odd weekend or two out of the public eye.
No wonder she had been panicked at the thought of Scott going through her papers!
‘What are you doing?’
Scott looked from the attic ladder to Anya’s agonised face. ‘My case was called off—the judge was ill,’ he explained absently, looking puzzled but not yet suspicious. ‘Mrs Lee said she thought you were somewhere upstairs. I heard noises on the way up—I thought we had mice in the ceiling. Was that you? What were you doing up there?’ He raised his eyebrows curiously at the untidy stack she was holding against her chest. ‘What have you got there?’
In the silence that followed, her treacherous fingers went utterly numb, and the damning piece of paper floated down onto the top of Scott’s shoe.
He hesitantly bent to pick it up, along with the fallen journal, alerted by her stillness.
When he saw what he had in his hands he went stark white.
He looked at her again, his eyes pure blue devastation, and she knew that she was looking at the death of a dream.