Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Yes… You and Robert Forrest both obviously share the same lack of any real moral values.’

  Livvy saw with some satisfaction that she had succeeded in silencing him. But not for long.

  ‘Moral values? My God, that’s rich, coming from someone like you,’ he told her bitterly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ The moment she made the heated demand, Livvy knew she had done the wrong thing. She watched as the hostility in his eyes was overlaid with cynical contempt.

  ‘Oh, come on. I saw you last night, remember? With your…friend. Tell me something, did you ever bother to wait long enough to find out his name before falling into bed with him? Good, was he? But hardly the type you’d want to take home with you? No, I expect that, like your cousin, when you find a fool besotted enough to marry you you’ll make sure he’s rich enough to support you.’

  Livvy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How dared he make such allegations against her, misjudge her so unfairly, condemn her on such implausible evidence? His insults to her were too pathetic to warrant rejection, she decided shakily, but his remark about Gale…

  ‘Gale did not marry George for his money,’ she told him coldly.

  ‘No? From what I’ve seen of your cousin, she’s very good at spending her husband’s money. Nor is she above blackmailing him if necessary by using their children.’

  ‘Gale just wants the best for her sons. Any mother would,’ Livvy protested, defending her cousin.

  ‘The best for her sons and the best for herself, but where does George fit in? I doubt very much that she ever gives any thought to what he might want…to what might be best for him. It’s no wonder…’

  He stopped abruptly, frowning, absorbed in his own thoughts, Livvy recognised as she wondered uneasily exactly what they were. He seemed to know an awful lot about George and Gale. He also seemed to have a definite bias against her sex, Livvy reflected, and then wondered if it was women in general he felt contempt for, or merely Gale and herself in particular.

  If so…

  If so, what did it matter? She didn’t know him, after all, and after the way he had just behaved and spoken she was heartily glad she wasn’t likely to get to know him either.

  She ought to feel sorry for him really, not angry with him. He really was the most abysmal judge of character, his judgement so flawed that in other circumstances his condemnation of her would almost have been laughable.

  ‘I think you should leave,’ she told him firmly. ‘George ought to have checked with Gale before allowing you to come down here to inspect the property. Gale doesn’t…’

  ‘Gale doesn’t what?’ he challenged. ‘Gale doesn’t want him to sell it? Is that why she sent you here? To use your charm to persuade would-be buyers to change their minds.’

  His mouth twisted in a way that made Livvy want to hit him as he said the word ‘charm’. That he should have such a low opinion of her sex was his problem and not hers, she reminded herself, and there was at least one point she could correct him on.

  ‘Gale did not send me here—for any purpose. I came of my own free will, because I wanted a quiet, peaceful, uninterrupted holiday on my own.’

  He was not impressed. The look he gave her sent shivers icing down her back. It was so unkind, so feral almost.

  He didn’t like her defiant attitude, she could see it in his eyes, and with it an awareness of his sexual power and her potential weakness. It was totally unlike her to be so keenly aware of a man’s sexuality, and totally inappropriate in these circumstances. It irked her, baffled her, angered her, and yet made her feel anxious as well that she should have this sharp, unwanted insight into the maleness he exuded.

  Her heart was beating much faster than usual, and not just because she was so angry with him, she acknowledged. She had heard that anger could be a powerful aphrodisiac, but surely not when that anger was directed at a total stranger, and a man, moreover, who on the face of it had nothing about him other than the extraordinary strength of his sexuality to attract her?

  And since when, anyway, had she been attracted by a man’s sexuality? All her previous relationships had been based on mutual interests, mutual liking, mutual respect.

  ‘A peaceful, solitary holiday…a woman like you?’ he scoffed tauntingly now. ‘Don’t forget I saw you at the auberge.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Livvy protested, and then stopped. Why should she bother to explain herself to him? If he hadn’t been able to see with his own eyes what was actually happening, what chance was there of his listening while she tried to explain, and why should she anyway?

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he agreed curtly and then, almost as though it was against his will, he added harshly, ‘For God’s sake, has it never occurred to you what risks you’re running? Or is that all part of the excitement…the danger of not knowing…of living dangerously, taking risks?’

  Too shocked to defend herself, Livvy stared at him. His teeth were white and strong. She gave a small, uncontrollable shudder, imagining their sharp bite against her skin…imagining…

  ‘Gale can’t stop George from selling this place, you know,’ he warned her. ‘He’s under a great deal of stress at the moment, and—’

  ‘Yes, because Robert Forrest is virtually making him work twenty-four hours a day,’ Livvy interrupted him bitterly. ‘All Gale wants is a chance to talk things over with him, but she barely sees him, he’s so busy, never mind gets time to discuss anything with him.’

  ‘The impression I have of your cousin isn’t that of a woman who goes in much for discussion or compromise. If George is avoiding her, perhaps it’s because he feels he has a good reason to do so.’

  Livvy tensed. This man, whoever he was, seemed to know a good deal about her cousin’s marriage, his words revealing vulnerabilities in it that Livvy hadn’t known existed. Her stomach tensed uneasily; George and Gale had always seemed to have such a secure, sturdy marriage. Both of them were devoted to their sons. Livvy had seen far too often in her work as a teacher the effects of a parental break-up on children to want to see the same thing happen to her nephews.

  ‘Gale loves George.’ She could hear the anxiety and distress in her own voice.

  ‘Does she? Or does she simply love the lifestyle he provides?’

  ‘No,’ Livvy denied vehemently. ‘Gale had a good job of her own when she met George; she was financially independent. She gave that up to marry him, to be with him and the boys.’

  ‘So if material things don’t matter to her, why all the fuss about his wanting to sell this place?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s trying to sell it without consulting her,’ Livvy told him, rallying. ‘Going behind her back…deceiving her…not telling her that he had arranged for you—’

  ‘Just as she didn’t tell George that she had arranged for you to come here,’ he interrupted her, adding tauntingly, ‘Besides, what makes you so sure that I do want to buy the property; perhaps, like you, I’ve simply come here for a holiday…a rest and some relaxation…a couple of weeks away?’

  ‘No!’ Livvy couldn’t keep the appalled denial back.

  He couldn’t possibly mean what he was saying; he couldn’t possibly be intending to stay here, not after all the things he had said about her. He was simply doing it to torment her…to bully her. Well, she wasn’t going to be bullied. She had learned enough as a teacher to be able to stand her ground.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she told him flatly.

  ‘Don’t you?’ he shrugged dismissively. ‘Well, that’s your choice. You aren’t exactly someone I’d choose to share a house with, but…’ He turned towards the door.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ Livvy protested.

  He turned round, looking at her speculatively before telling her softly, ‘Oh, but I think I can. After all, unlike you, I have the owner’s permission to do so. Besides, I think I owe it to George to do so. To protect his interests, so to speak. Just as you are here to protect Gale’s.’

  ‘Th
at’s not true…I’m just here on holiday.’

  He smiled at her, a cold, challenging, triumphant smile. ‘Of course, you could always leave. In fact…’

  ‘I’m not leaving.’

  What on earth had she done? she wondered sickly, suddenly feeling oddly light-headed. She couldn’t back down now, even though staying here with him was the last thing she wanted to do.

  ‘You’re not helping your cousin’s marriage by doing this, you know. But then perhaps that isn’t why you’re here. Perhaps you’re here because Gale knows that George can’t sell the property while you’re living in it, ostensibly a sitting tenant…’

  Livvy gasped in outrage. ‘That’s not true! I’m simply on holiday; and besides, Gale would never do anything like that, even if…’ She bit her lip. What was she doing, allowing herself to be drawn into this kind of argument with him?

  She had guessed from what Gale had told her that she and George were at loggerheads over the farmhouse and that Gale was upset because George was spending so much time away from home, but she had not thought that their problems were serious enough to actually threaten their marriage.

  ‘All Gale wants is a chance to talk to George, but that seems to be impossible while Robert Forrest… What kind of man is he, anyway?’ she exploded, her emotions suddenly breaking her self-control. ‘If George and Gale are having problems, then he’s the one to blame. No wonder his own wife left him. I’m only surprised that he found anyone idiotic enough to marry him in the first place.’

  She stopped abruptly, angry with herself. What on earth was she saying? She didn’t even know the man and it was completely out of character for her to criticise someone without any real justification. It was his fault, this arrogant, interfering, unwanted male interloper in her life who stood watching her with those cold, dangerous eyes. He was bringing to the surface a side to her nature she had never even known existed.

  The cold from the stone floor was beginning to strike an icy chill through her feet. All she wanted was for him to go, to leave her in peace; but he was not going to do so, she recognised, and she could not now leave herself…not without totally losing face and letting him know that he had got the better of her, and there was no way her feminine pride was going to allow him to do that.

  He had not come for a holiday, no matter what he might pretend, she was sure of that, and she also suspected that he was not going to admit his real purpose to her, for no other reason than that it seemed to give him some sort of perverted pleasure to bait and torment her. Whatever his original plans had been—possibly a brief look around the farmhouse over the period of a couple of days before returning to Britain—he now intended to stay.

  But he wanted her to leave, she recognised. Well, she wasn’t going to.

  She told him so, her expression dogged as she said fiercely, ‘I’m not leaving and you can’t make me.’

  For a moment she wondered if she had gone too far. There was a look in his eyes that told her how much…how very, very much he would have liked to prove her wrong by physically picking her up and depositing her in her car if necessary.

  Instead he shrugged his shoulders, powerfully broad beneath a suit far too formal for a man who claimed to be on holiday.

  ‘That’s your choice,’ he told her dismissively, adding in a voice as thick and soft as cream, ‘Mind you, I shouldn’t have thought there would be much locally to interest a woman of your type.’

  Her type? Livvy tensed. What did he mean? What was he trying to imply now? she wondered warily. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t anything complimentary. For all its smoothness, there had been something as rough and as dangerous as jagged broken glass beneath the softness of his voice.

  ‘What do you mean, my type?’ she challenged him. Women were not types. They were individuals, each one of them a special and complex interweaving of a variety of traits that made them so. To suggest anything else was not merely to demean her but to demean her whole sex as well.

  ‘You don’t really need an answer, surely? But since you asked…’

  From mild contempt the grey eyes changed, registering a brutal sexual speculation that rendered her powerless to do anything but stand there while he subjected her to a slow visual, sexual exploration that left her feeling numb with shock and disbelief. No man…no man had ever, ever looked at her like that. No man had ever dared; nor had she contemplated the idea that any man ever would. It was something so totally outside her experience, her existence, that the shock of it left her incapable not just of movement but of speech as well.

  Her body knew what he had done, though, and it still managed to register its outrage and fury, her skin, her whole body flushing with such heat that she could feel it burning beneath the thin barriers of her T-shirt and wrap.

  She had not realised before, she thought dizzily, that it was not just cold, and sometimes—very, very rarely now—a certain frisson of sensual awareness that could make her muscles tense like that and her nipples suddenly harden and push fiercely against her clothes. Anger could do it as well.

  ‘You have no right. You know nothing about me…about my type,’ she told him huskily, her throat thick with a mixture of shocked emotional tears and ferocious rage.

  ‘I know as much as every other heterosexual male who’s passed through the usual teenage rites of passage via the sexual games offered by more juvenile versions. The pouting-mouthed, wide-eyed, tousle-haired just-got-out-of-bed look does have a certain louche appeal to inexperienced boys.

  ‘Fortunately one grows out of it and becomes rather more discerning with maturity.’

  Livvy could hardly believe what she was hearing. The way she had just heard herself described bore so little resemblance to the truth that in any other circumstances she would have found it laughable. Her, a pouting parody of some kind of sexual bimbo? She was anything but…and as for her tousle-haired just-got-out-of-bed look… Surely he didn’t think…couldn’t think that it was with sexual motive in mind that she had staggered out of bed and come down here…not when she hadn’t even known who her unexpected and unwanted visitor was…

  She took a deep breath and said angrily, ‘Look, Mr…’ She paused, floundering, realising that she didn’t even know his name.

  He seemed to hesitate, to pause slightly warily before telling her curtly, reluctantly almost, ‘R…Richard Field… And since it seems that we’re going to be co-tenants here I suppose it might be as well to know your name. Not that I intend to make much use of it…’

  For a moment Livvy was tempted to turn her back on him and walk away, but good manners and custom forced her to supply him with the information he had requested.

  ‘Olivia…Olivia Lucy,’ she told him, her voice just as curt as his had been. No need to tell him that no one other than officialdom ever referred to her by her full name, nor to say wistfully how much she sometimes wished that they would. Olivia Lucy had an elegance, a sophistication to it which was completely lacking in ‘Livvy Lucy’.

  ‘Olivia…’ Unexpectedly his expression changed, the devastating sexual scrutiny he had subjected her to previously replaced by an equally devastating and somehow far more unsettling searching thoughtfulness that left her holding her breath, as though something of tremendous import was somehow being weighed in the balance.

  When he eventually looked away from her, she derided herself angrily for her reaction. Who was he to sit in judgement on her? She didn’t like him any more than he liked her. In fact, if anything, she probably detested him more, felt even more contempt for him than he had shown that he felt for her.

  A woman of her type. She could feel herself starting to grind her teeth. Well, there was one thing she intended to make sure he did know about her, and that was that a woman of her type found a man of his type utterly loathsome and detestable, she decided as she turned her back on him and walked out of the room.

  Just as soon as she could, she intended to telephone Gale and find out exactly what was going on, but first she needed to g
o back upstairs and get dressed.

  She heard him coming upstairs while she was in the bathroom and automatically she grasped her towel closer to her body as she stared at the closed door.

  Something about him made her feel uncomfortably and unfamiliarly aware of her femininity, her sexuality, her vulnerability, and not just because of the way he had spoken to her and looked at her; it went deeper than that, a deep-rooted feminine awareness of his maleness which seemed to add something highly charged and very dangerous to the antagonism between them. She couldn’t remember ever reacting so fiercely, so passionately to any man before.

  So passionately! She shivered, pulling the towel even more tightly around herself.

  Her type of woman, indeed!

  She grimaced as she let the towel drop, her glance drawn reluctantly to her body.

  There was no truth in any of his accusations. How could there be? If her hair had been tousled it had simply been because she had just been woken up…by him. And if he had seen that unexpected—unfamiliar—hardening of her nipples, well, it wasn’t her fault that he had totally misinterpreted their message.

  She tensed, her face flushing as unbelievably they repeated their earlier reaction. Unwillingly she glanced down at her body, her tension increasing as she saw how flushed the areolae were, how unfamiliarly provocative the outline of her breasts.

  Hurriedly she picked up the towel, wrapping it tightly round her body with fingers that shook slightly.

  When she went back downstairs, fully dressed, her hair pulled back off her face in what she believed to be a neat and suitably schoolmarmish style, but which in actual fact, instead of making her look severe, simply emphasised the delicacy of her bone-structure and the femininity of her features, there was no sign of Richard Field.