by Natalie Fox
‘Why?’ Verity asked. She knew she ought to be high-tailing it out of here but that wretched curiosity of hers was pinning her to the spot. The contents of that disk she had loaded had hooked her.
‘It’s personal.’
‘What is? Molly Shaw? There’s nothing personal about that. The book is a classic.’
‘You really have been snooping pretty hard, haven’t you? Did you sneak in here as soon as I’d left?’
‘No!’ Verity exclaimed. Her hand went up to rake her hair from her face. ‘Look, I didn’t meant to. I was just restless, waiting for you to come back, and I wandered in here and honestly, I don’t know why I did it. I just loaded your machine up and read a bit of your work. I mean, I don’t even know what it’s about... what exactly you are doing...’
‘A screenplay, an adaptation of Molly Shaw for the big screen.’
‘Oh,’ Verity breathed. She hadn’t been sure, she had suspected it was something like that, but, ‘I...I didn’t know you were a writer,’ she said.
‘I’m not.’
‘Oh,’ she breathed again, trying to understand, and then suddenly she did. She smiled. ‘I do understand, you know. Childhood ambitions and all that. I used to want to be a ballet dancer but I didn’t have what it takes ...’
‘This isn’t a childhood ambition,’ he told her curtly.
‘Oh—’
‘And will you stop breathing “Oh” like that?’
Verity shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m surprised. I thought you were a businessman and presumed you were working on some accounting or something. A screenplay,’ she murmured, fishing for more. ‘I’m very impressed.’
‘I doubt that,’ he grated. ‘Now would you like to leave so that I can get on with it in peace?’
‘Why doubt that I’m impressed?’ Verity urged. She didn’t want to go yet.
His eyes locked into hers. ‘Are you really interested or are you just making conversation? In my bedroom?’ he added meaningfully.
Verity shifted her feet but held her ground. ‘I’m not interested in what you think I’m here for because it isn’t true, but I’m very interested in your work. I’m loosely a writer too, nothing as impressive as a screenplay, but you never know what the wedding book could lead to.’
He smiled at that but offered no more and went over to the bathroom to get a towel for his wet hair.
‘Is it still raining?’ she asked. Silly question when it was obvious it was, but she was making conversation because she wanted to hear more about his work.
He stopped rubbing his head and looked at her coolly. ‘Get out, Verity.’
The tone of his voice and the way the words were delivered with such deep warning affected her. She felt it as sharply as if he had pricked her with a hot needle. Suddenly something sheered off the walls, nothing you could put a name to, just a charged feeling of awareness of each other. Nervously Verity stepped back, not taking her eyes off him for an instant. He didn’t move, just stood poised with his hands stilled on the towel and his damp hair, watching her, testing her, daring her.
Verity turned and fled.
She was making tea when he joined her in the kitchen, and probably because it was the kitchen there wasn’t a repetition of that buzzy sexual awareness.
‘I got the shopping you asked for,’ he told her.
‘Yes, thank you. It’s my turn to cook tonight. Do you like spaghetti?’
‘Fine by me.’
He sat down at the kitchen table and she made the tea without speaking. She wondered why he was sitting there when he had lost a good part of the working day already.
‘Is it easy to adapt a book for the screen?’ she asked.
‘Depends.’
‘On what? How good you are?’
He smiled and took the cup of tea she offered. ‘You really are intent on getting it out of me, aren’t you?’
Verity sat at the table. ‘It interests me, really it does. You have your own film company. Are you intending to produce it yourself?’
He nodded. ‘And direct it.’
‘And star in it?’ Verity teased.
‘Hardly. I’m not into drag. It’s the story of a mother who raised seven daughters single-handed during the industrial revolution.’
‘I know,’ Verity smiled. ‘I have read it.’
‘Do you think it will make a good film?’
Verity was flattered that he wanted her opinion. ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before and surprised you’re tackling it personally.’
‘I didn’t intend to. I mean I intended to produce it but the team of writers I hired were hopeless.’
‘So you thought you’d have a go yourself?’
He nodded. ‘My father was a writer—Alex Scott; heard of him?’
‘The Shardfords and the Cumbrian Trilogy.’ Verity was impressed.
‘I thought some of his talent might have rubbed off.’
‘From what I read on your disk, I believe it has, and I’m not just saying that to make up for snooping on you.’
‘Thanks,’ Rupert murmured, and smiled. ‘I’m sorry if I was a bit cross with you for intruding, but I must admit to a certain reservation with this part of my work. Sarah was very derisive—’
‘Sarah?’ Verity interjected quietly. Her fingers coiled round her cup. ‘Your wife?’
‘The lady that was nearly my wife. We lived together for two years. She walked out six months ago.’
Desperately Verity tried to appreciate the fact that he wasn’t married but it wasn’t easy. Sarah might not have been his wife, but Verity could read in Rupert’s eyes the depth of his loss.
‘Didn’t she like the thought of you being a writer?’ Verity realised she had forced that out, striving for some sort of normality though she wondered why the need. What did it matter, his ex-lover’s opinions?
‘She didn’t like anything that took up my time. A very possessive lady.’ He grated his chair back and the sound matched his voice. ‘What time’s dinner?’
‘About eight.’
He went back upstairs and Verity was left alone with her thoughts. She cleared up the dirty cups and wondered why Sarah had left him if she was such a ‘possessive lady’. Suddenly she smiled to herself. A week ago she wouldn’t have had any doubt in her mind why any woman would want to walk out on such a morose, arrogant swine, but now... She shrugged. What had changed? He was still a morose, arrogant swine. Sexy with it, though, she conceded.
She went back upstairs to her bedroom. She had another couple of hours of working time but it was colder than ever. She peered down at the radiator and turned the setting up to maximum. It was then that the lights blew, and there was a flash from where the radiator was plugged in.
Verity screeched so loudly that she thought Rupert must surely hear. She rushed to her door to shout that she was all right, but he was already bearing down on her.
‘What the hell have you done?’ He thrust past her and wrenched the radiator plug from its socket. ‘You’ve blown all the electrics!’
‘I’ve blown all the electrics? How do you make that out?’
‘You’ve got the damned thing plugged into a lamp socket.’ He pointed to another plug-point across the room. ‘You should have used that one, a heavy-duty plug-point.’
‘Well, I’m not a damned electrician. How was I supposed to know the workings of Spanish electricity? It’s been working perfectly on that,’ Verity protested, waving her hands at the connector. ‘There’s something wrong with the radiator, there must be. I turned it up—’
‘And overloaded the circuit,’ he growled at her.
‘But I might have been killed!’ she wailed, distressed that he wasn’t concerned for her safety.
‘But you weren’t and I’ve lost precious work on my computer because of the loss of power!’ he slammed back at her.
Verity’s shoulders sagged. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. Oh, God, she knew how she would feel if it had happened to her.
‘Like hell you are!’
‘I am!’ she screamed. ‘Just remember my name’s Verity, not bloody Sarah!’ As soon as it was out she wished it was in. Her teeth clamped over her bottom lip in remorse.
‘I can live without you, Verity Brooks,’ he grated harshly after freezing her to the spot with the blackest of looks. ‘I can live very well without you!’
He slammed her door after him. It was minutes before Verity moved and then only because the lights had flashed back on. Whatever he’d done, he’d fixed it. She wheeled the radiator across the room and plugged it into the socket he had suggested. It didn’t work, but at least the lights hadn’t blown again.
She didn’t knock on his bedroom door but marched straight in. ‘I’m truly sorry about what happened. It wasn’t done intentionally.’
‘I know,’ he drawled, and turned from his computer to face her.
‘And I’m sorry about what I said about Sarah. It was awful of me.’
‘It was,’ he agreed.
She stepped towards him. ‘Did you lose much?’
He turned back to the computer. ‘Not much, but enough to make me as mad as hell.’
Verity smiled and reached out and touched his shoulder, and the touch turned to a caress and she was amazed at her own audacity in touching him so intimately.
‘Don’t do that, Verity,’ he warned without turning. ‘I won’t be responsible.’
Verity stilled her hand but didn’t remove it. She knew then that she didn’t want him to be responsible at all. She wanted him to turn and take her in his arms and forget Sarah and have only Verity Brooks in his heart.
Did he read minds too? He turned and slid his arms around her waist and she bent her head and buried her mouth in his thick hair.
‘I’m sorry too,’ he rasped. ‘I should have shown more concern for you. Did you get a shock from the radiator?’
‘Only one of fright,’ she whispered back, but she was more afraid now. He slid her sweat-shirt up and grazed his mouth tantalisingly across her bare midriff. Verity let out a small gasp of sheer pleasure. Her mind accelerated, taking her further and further in her sea of imagination. She was naked with him and he was loving her, kissing her, about to consummate what she so longed for. He was loving her, making love to her, entering her and... mouthing the name Sarah as he did it.
Her body stiffened, her heated flesh cooled desperately quickly. She tried to pull away, but he held her.
‘Don’t tease, Verity. I don’t like that,’ he husked achingly.
He stood up as she tore herself away. He reached her at the door, swung her back and kicked shut the door.
‘I said I don’t like that, Verity. Don’t start something you don’t intend to finish.’
‘I shouldn’t have come. I just wanted to say I was sorry,’ she uttered weakly as his hands pinned her to the door by her shoulders.
‘And offer your body in payment and then draw back when you had second thoughts?’
She didn’t answer, just stared at him, stupefied. Why had she come? She knew; deep in her heart, she knew.
‘It... it wasn’t second thoughts.’
‘What, then?’
‘You’re clever at reading my thoughts. I’d thought it was obvious.’
He graced her with a cynical smile. ‘The lady in my life?’
Again she offered nothing. Again he smiled cynically. ‘And what about the lost lover in your heart, Verity?’
She shook her head. ‘I never loved him, and he’s dead now anyway. You loved your lady and she’s still with you, you said that; you said she was in your life... so you must still love her.’
‘And what the hell has love to do with us? Don’t tell me it’s a consideration here?’
Her whole body burned in his grasp. She squirmed, but it was useless to try to free herself.
‘No, it’s not a consideration!’ she breathed heatedly. ‘But I’m no substitute for your lost lover and that’s what I would be if we did make love. You’ve never shown any feelings for me before—’
‘And I’m sure the feeling is damned mutual!’
‘My God,’ Verity gasped. ‘Stuart was right—put two people in an isolated situation and sex will rear its ugly head.’
‘Sex is ugly to you, is it?’ he asked derisively.
‘I didn’t say that... but yes... yes, it damn well is when it’s used this way!’
He lowered his lips and let them brush dazedly across hers. ‘This is ugly, is it?’ His body, warm and inviting and very aroused, was crushed against hers.
Dear God, but it was the opposite. Beautiful and tempting.
‘Don’t—’
‘Don’t,’ he echoed against the paleness of her throat. ‘That’s all I ever get from you, Verity Brooks. Why don’t you try “do” for size and see how you like it.’
‘Not this way!’ she cried, struggling in his grip, but when his mouth took hers again the struggle faded away. There were tears in her eyes because this was all so reminiscent of what she had been through before. Mike punishing her for his inadequacies, and now Rupert punishing her for Sarah’s.
She wanted him to stop this assault on her tender emotions. She wasn’t ready for this, to just give herself to him in the heat of the moment, just because she was so desperately lonely and so was he.
With a mammoth effort she was out of his arms and wrenching at the door-handle. To her surprise, he stood back and opened the door for her. His eyes locked her out, staring down at her as she hesitated in the doorway. They were cold and hostile and she returned that hostility with her own cool violet eyes.
‘I came here to apologise and it stands. I haven’t changed my mind.’
‘Will you ever change your mind?’ he husked.
She didn’t even question about what, because she knew. She didn’t answer yes or no either, but that was because she didn’t know.
She tried to work but it was impossible, so she went downstairs and struggled with the fire till she had it blazing. She sat back on her heels and watched the flames fiercely gather momentum. She presumed Rupert was still upstairs working. It was getting dark and she ought to be thinking of getting the dinner on, but she was loath to leave the fire and loath to make that final decision. Did she want to let go and allow this affair to happen? She liked him enough to, but she had been hurt and used before and so had he, and was just liking enough? She bit her lip and realised that that was just the decision she’d had to make with Mike. She hadn’t loved Mike but had hoped the intimate side of their relationship would develop that liking into love.
‘What are you thinking?’ Rupert asked as he came down the stone steps into the sitting-room.
Verity didn’t get up and Rupert came and sat behind her on the sofa. He reached out and loosened her long blonde hair from where it was caught in the collar of her sweater.
‘I was thinking about relationships,’ she told him quietly, staring into the fire.
He laughed softly. ‘Your honesty is one of the things I like about you. Any other woman would have said something inane like “nothing in particular”. There isn’t a second of your life when you think of “nothing in particular”.’
‘Would Sarah have said that?’
‘Yes. She wasn’t honest like you.’
‘Why did she leave you?’ She turned then to look at him. His eyes were dark and broody and she sensed he might not tell her. Men were worse than women for hiding their true feelings.
‘I didn’t give her enough of my time. Sarah was a very demanding lady.’
She sounded like Mike, Verity mused. ‘You loved her very much, didn’t you?’
To her surprise, he shook his head and the corners of his mouth turned up. ‘Not enough. If I’d loved her more I wouldn’t have left her alone so much, would I?’
Verity shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t realise quite how much you loved her till after she’d gone.’
‘Maybe.’
That wasn’t what Verity wanted t
o hear. She looked away from him and stared into the fire again. ‘I got the impression you were choked off with her leaving you.’
She heard a soft laugh behind her and swung round again. ‘What’s so amusing?’
‘You. You’re determined to get it all out of me, aren’t you?’
Verity coloured and lowered her lashes. ‘I’m just curious.’
‘You are,’ he agreed, ‘but I wonder for what reason.’
Her eyes widened. She wondered herself, but not for long. Of course she wanted to know his feelings before letting herself go. She didn’t want to be hurt again.
She scrambled to her feet. ‘I’ll get on with the dinner.’ She hurried out of the room and he didn’t follow her. She worked feverishly on the meal, amazed at the thoughts that swept in and out of her mind. She was actually considering having an affair with that man and wanting to get the clutter of his past relationship with Sarah, a woman she didn’t know or want to, out of the way. She was mad, quite mad, because what difference would it make? An affair was an affair and didn’t spell anything more.
She had to go through and get him when he didn’t respond to her call that dinner was ready.
He was asleep, stretched out on the sofa. The fire was dying down and she jammed a couple more logs on the embers. Then she turned and studied him. He was tempting. So strong and powerful and very good-looking. His hair was in need of a cut and somehow that made him more appealing than when she had first met him. Then he had been suave and sophisticated and quite aloof; now he was human. Sarah had been a fool. To be living with this man and to have lost him. She should have stood her ground and fought for his attention.
‘That’s what I would have done,’ Verity murmured as she reached down and touched his shoulder.
‘What was that?’ he muttered, opening his eyes fully.
‘Supper’s ready.’ She smiled and flicked a wisp of hair from his brow in a playful gesture, and he caught her wrist and pulled her down on top of him.
‘How much longer are you going to hold me off?’ he drawled against her silky hair.
‘I wasn’t aware I was,’ she murmured back.
‘That sounds very interesting, very interesting indeed.’
‘And so is my spaghetti,’ she teased. ‘I improvised a bit but I’m sure you’ll like it.’
