Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

by Penny Jordan

  A child…Richard’s child; as the waves of pleasure broke inside her, Livvy shivered in feminine awe. That heat she could feel inside her, that ache within her womb…were they just the aftermath of pleasure or were they the beginnings of a new life?

  * * *

  She fell asleep in Richard’s arms, waking up in the darkness some time later, alone and cold.

  Shivering, she slid out of the bed. What on earth had she done, and where was Richard? She opened the bedroom door and walked on to the landing, stopping as she heard his voice.

  He was on the telephone to someone. She was just about to turn away, not wanting to eavesdrop, when she heard him saying quietly, ‘Look, George, it’s all right… Everything’s going to be all right…’

  George…he was speaking to George…George, who could not make time to speak to his wife…George who apparently was too busy and too far away to contact. But not too busy or too far away to ring Richard, apparently.

  She was just about to go downstairs and demand indignantly that he let her speak to George when he added, ‘I’ve told you, there’s no need to worry about her any more; I’ll deal with her. In fact it will be a pleasure,’ she heard him saying grimly. ‘I know exactly what to do to get rid of her.’

  Livvy froze; she felt as though the blood had suddenly drained from her body. She started to shake with sick awareness of what she had done.

  There was no doubt Richard must be talking about her…that it was her he intended to ‘get rid of’. And tonight she had walked right into his trap.

  She had to get away from here, she recognised sickly. No matter what she had promised Gale, she couldn’t stay now. Not when she knew the humiliation that lay in wait for her. All the time he was touching her, caressing her, loving her, in reality he…

  Loving her… She shivered violently. Was that really what she had thought? And after all that he had already said to her.

  ‘You fool… You fool…’ she taunted herself as she pulled on her clothes and quickly hurried into her own room. She didn’t bother trying to pack. She simply grabbed her handbag and headed for the stairs.

  The kitchen door was half open. She could see Richard standing with the phone. He had his back to her, thank goodness. So he knew how to get rid of her, did he? Well, she would save him the bother, and the pleasure of further humiliating her. Oh, she could guess how much he would be anticipating that…anticipating reminding her of each whispered self-betrayal, each yearning touch and kiss…each word of longing and need kissed against his skin.

  She let herself out of the front entrance of the house. Mercifully it had stopped raining, and the sky was clear, the moon almost full.

  Her car was in the outhouse; the engine started first time.

  She had just reached the beginning of the lane when the kitchen door was flung open and Richard came racing out.

  She could see him in her rear-view mirror. He was calling to her, his shock plainly visible.

  So he didn’t like being cheated of his plans to humiliate her, did he? Well, tough. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would let any man do that to her, no matter how much she loved him.

  It must have started raining again, she decided, but when she switched on her windscreen wipers her view was still obscured.

  It took her several seconds to realise that she was crying.

  She drove slowly down the lane. There was no chance of Richard’s catching her after all. She tensed once or twice, wary of skidding on the mud and ending up as he had done in the ditch, but thankfully most of the surface water had drained away and her car was nowhere near as heavy as his.

  She had no idea where she was going to go or what she intended to do.

  For now it was enough that she had left him. Physically at least.

  Emotionally it could take her the rest of her life to forget… Forget… She smiled bitterly to herself… Impossible. She would never forget. Not the pleasure, and certainly not the pain.

  * * *

  She rang Gale from a small village just after dawn, leaving a message on her answering machine saying merely that she was sorry and that she had not been able to stay… That she was all right and intended to use the rest of her holiday to see something of Europe.

  After all, what else was there to do? She couldn’t go home. Not yet. She needed time and she certainly couldn’t go back to the farmhouse.

  She drove all morning, stopping only when she recognised that she was virtually falling asleep at the wheel. She had no idea where she was, nor did she really care. She slept in the car and woke up dry-mouthed and feeling dirty.

  A few miles further down the road she found an auberge where she booked a room.

  Luckily the inn wasn’t very far from a town, where she was able to buy herself a few basic necessities and a change of clothes. She filled up her car with petrol and made an attempt to eat the meal she had ordered.

  What was he doing now…? Waiting for her to crawl back to him? Did he know that she loved him? Had he thought that her sexual desire for him would be enough for him to torment her with?

  In her imagination, she enacted series of vividly painful scenarios of him laughing at her, telling her he had never really wanted her.

  ‘I’ll deal with her,’ he had told George, and she had recognised in his voice not just dislike and contempt but an intention to punish as well.

  She supposed it was partially her own fault. If she had not been so determined to stand by Gale… And if she had not been so stupid as to fall in love with him.

  Hadn’t she recognised the first time she saw him that he was a very determined and ruthless man…? Why had she been stupid enough to imagine he would allow her to stand between the plans he and George had made?

  He wanted the farmhouse, and George wanted to sell it to him. Her presence had made that impossible, and so he had waited and planned and then, when he had finally discovered a weapon he could use against her, he had done so with devastating effect.

  ‘I want you,’ he had said, and she had believed him, believed that if there wasn’t love then there was passion and need, but his passion had been ignited not by her but by his determination to succeed in removing her.

  It was pointless dwelling on all the many small self-betrayals she had made. At least there was one small crumb of comfort. At least she would never have to see him again.

  The pain felt as though something was wrenching apart inside her, splintering into a million tiny fragments of individual, agonising pain.

  How could she be so weak…so stupid?

  * * *

  She travelled for one week and then another, aimlessly criss-crossing France, instinctively shunning the company of others, snatching a few hours of sleep during the day because she was totally unable to do so at night.

  There would not be a child. She told herself she was glad, and for his sake she was, but for her own…

  How long was she going to feel like this? Her heart gave her the answer… Forever… Forever.

  Three weeks after she had fled from the farmhouse, exhausted physically and spiritually as well as emotionally, she turned the car in the direction of the place that had been her childhood retreat and solace.

  None of the family lived there any more, but they were remembered, and Livvy was made welcome, the family who now owned the farmhouse and the land insisting on her staying with them. Their eldest daughter was living in Paris and would not mind her using her room, Livvy was assured. Too drained and weary to argue, she smiled her thanks and allowed herself to be drawn into the warmth of the Gironde family circle.

  She could just as easily have walked into the river that ran along the boundary of the farmlands and allowed its waters to close over her head, she recognised dully, but that was a temptation she knew she must resist.

  * * *

  She stayed in France until not long before the beginning of the new school term.

  She had not made contact with anyone at home; she had not felt strong enough to do so.
She had worked, though, and she had convinced herself that life must go on, no matter how much of a painful burden she found that knowledge.

  She said her goodbyes to the Girondes and headed back for home.

  The phone was ringing as she opened the door. She ignored it, grimacing at the amount of mail piled up on the floor and sniffing the stale air of the closed-up rooms distastefully.

  Life had to go on. Her pride demanded that it go on.

  She froze as one envelope slid free of the others. Her name was written boldly on it. Without knowing how, she knew, she knew that it was from Richard.

  She tore it up without opening it. What was the point? All it could do was hurt her even more.

  She had things to do…food to buy, bills to pay, work to organise.

  The weeks at the farm had tanned her skin, emphasising how slender she had become… How thin… Her hair had grown and needed trimming. Mundane, boring, routine things, the only things that were left in her life for her now.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE phone was ringing. Livvy tried to ignore it, but the noise persisted. Wearily she pushed aside the duvet and reached groggily for the receiver.

  ‘Livvy, you’re back.’

  She tensed as she recognised Gale’s voice. ‘I’ve been ringing you for days. Where on earth have you been? Why haven’t you been in touch? Look, I’m coming round to see you now.’

  ‘Gale, no—I…’ Livvy started to protest, but it was too late.

  Wearily she got up and padded into her bathroom. When Gale said ‘now’, now was exactly what she meant.

  Livvy was just pouring the coffee into the two mugs she had placed on the table when her cousin’s car stopped outside.

  Gale looked different, Livvy recognised, as she opened the door to her. Softer, more womanly somehow. Her manner didn’t seem to have changed, though.

  ‘Livvy—my God, what on earth have you done to yourself?’ she demanded, as Livvy let her in. ‘You’re far too thin. And where have you been?’

  ‘I’m sorry I had to break my promise to you,’ Livvy apologised, as she handed her one of the mugs of coffee. ‘But I—’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. That’s all been sorted out now—Livvy, I’ve got so much to tell you.

  ‘You remember Robert Forrest, George’s boss?’

  ‘The misogynist who took over George’s life? How could I forget him?’

  ‘Well, I was completely wrong about him,’ Gale told her. ‘He’s really the most wonderful man…I can’t tell you how good he’s been. All those things I said about him…I couldn’t have been more wrong. He wasn’t trying to drive George and me apart at all…he was trying to keep us together. He’s totally against divorce.’

  ‘You mean he’s totally against other people’s,’ Livvy suggested drily.

  ‘What?’ Gale looked perplexed.

  ‘You told me that he was divorced…’

  ‘Oh, yes… Well, I was wrong about that, too. Poor man, it seems that his wife actually tricked him into marrying her by pretending that she was pregnant… It was all a complete fabrication she had hatched up to get at her married lover after they’d quarrelled. It’s no wonder it made him bitter.

  ‘Oh, Livvy, I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know that George still loves me. It hasn’t been easy, I admit. Finding out how close I’d come to losing him, learning that he was…attracted to someone else.’

  She bit her lips, her eyes bright with tears. ‘Thank God it never got any further than that. Thanks to Robert. If he hadn’t acted so quickly…sent George abroad so much…

  ‘I misjudged him totally, you know.’

  Livvy stifled her irritation. She was glad for Gale, of course she was, but she was getting a little tired of hearing her cousin sing Robert Forrest’s praises.

  ‘You should have got in touch with us, you know. I was worried about you and Robert…’

  ‘I only got back last night, Gale, and I’ve got stacks of things to do. I’m delighted to hear that you and George have sorted out your differences and that Robert Forrest is such a wonderful, caring human being, but right now…’

  Gale’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel, I suppose I’d better go. What I actually came round for was to tell you that George and I are having a small party on Saturday. It’s our wedding anniversary and… You will come, won’t you…?’

  A party was the last thing she felt like, Livvy acknowledged, but she knew that Gale would nag and persuade her until she gave in and agreed to go.

  ‘All right, but I shan’t be able to stay long. By the way,’ she added as her cousin finished her coffee and stood up, ‘I take it that you and George have sorted out your differences over the farmhouse?’

  What was she doing? Livvy asked herself silently. The night she had left him she had sworn that she was putting Richard out of her life, her thoughts, her heart forever, and yet here she was breaking that vow already. It wasn’t really the farmhouse she wanted to ask Gale about… It was the man who had shared it with her.

  ‘Oh, yes. It was all a misunderstanding really. George never intended to sell the place. I was furious with him about it at first, but once he’d explained and Robert…’

  Robert, Robert, Robert… Here she went again. In George’s shoes, she would begin to feel rather worried about the amount of times Gale included his boss in her conversation and her obvious admiration for him, Livvy reflected irritably.

  ‘Of course, Robert will be there at the party,’ Gale was telling her now.

  ‘Wonderful. I can hardly wait to meet him. Suppose I’ll recognise him by his halo. He will be wearing it, won’t he?’ Livvy asked her grittily.

  Gale was avoiding looking directly at her.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ she accused her, her eyes clouded, and for the first time in her life Livvy recognised uncertainty in her cousin’s expression. ‘I…you know I’d never do anything to hurt you, don’t you? That I’d always have your best interests at heart? After all, you are family, and not just that—’

  Livvy sighed, recognising all the signs that Gale was about to deliver one of her lectures.

  ‘Tell me about it on Saturday,’ she interrupted her firmly, ushering her towards the door and opening it very pointedly for her.

  * * *

  She must have been mad to agree to go to Gale’s party, Livvy reflected tiredly as she dried her hair and stared grimly at her reflection. Would other people recognise, as she did, how much she had changed? Would they too see the shadows clouding her eyes, the vulnerability of her mouth, the effect all the sleepless nights and pain of loving Richard had had on her?

  They were having an early autumn, the leaves already turning and starting to fall. This morning there had been mist on the fields and the sun, which was shining now, had the pale yellow clarity that said the season had changed.

  Livvy discarded the idea of wearing anything summery; it might reveal too clearly how much weight she had lost, and the last thing she wanted was Gale giving her a lecture about it.

  Instead, she put on a favourite knitted suit in a soft pale peach. The ribbed top was loose and comfortable, the skirt neat and straight, and although she might be aware that the waistband of the skirt was loose, and that there was more room inside the jumper than there had been, no one else would do so…

  Not unless they touched her, that was. But then there was no one in her life close enough to her who was likely to do that, was there? No lover…no partner…no Richard to take hold of her arm and notice its thinness, to place his hand on her waist and recognise how narrow it had become.

  Richard… She put down her hairbrush. She was not going to cry…she was not…she must not…she would not, she told herself fiercely.

  * * *

  ‘Oh, Livvy, good, at last. I was just beginning to wonder where you’d got to,’ Gale told her cousin as Livvy handed her the small gift she had bought them and turned to receive George’s hug. ‘Come on in. You�
�ll know most of the others…’

  ‘Except for Mr Wonderful, of course,’ Livvy muttered sotto voce, explaining wryly as Gale turned to look at her, ‘I was referring to George’s boss.’

  Gale suddenly looked very flushed and uncomfortable, Livvy recognised.

  She frowned. Was there more to Gale’s admiration of the other man than mere gratitude? Surely not…

  ‘You know, if I were George I think I might feel a little bit resentful of Mr Robert Forrest. He’s obviously flavour of the month with you at the moment, Gale.’

  ‘What? Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gale told her. ‘I am grateful to Robert, and I do feel guilty about the way I initially misjudged him. You know how I pride myself on being a good judge of character. I feel I owe it to him to…’

  ‘To drag his name into every conversation so that we can all marvel at his metamorphosis from frog to prince?’ Livvy questioned her.

  ‘Livvy, I don’t know what’s got into you. You never used to be like this…’ Gale was frowning, looking so worried and concerned that Livvy immediately felt guilty.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised. ‘It’s just that…’ That I’m helplessly in love with a man who doesn’t want me… How could she say that? She couldn’t, could she?

  ‘It’s just what?’ Gale pressed her anxiously.

  ‘It’s just that I’ve got a lot on my mind. I still haven’t decided what to do about this job.’

  ‘Oh, I see. There’s nothing else, then?’ Gale asked her.

  ‘What else could there be?’ Livvy asked her quietly.

  There was an odd look on Gale’s face, something almost furtive about her manner.

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ Gale assured her hastily. ‘There’s the doorbell. I’d better go…’

  Livvy watched her cousin hurry away with a jaundiced eye.

  * * *

  ‘Gale, I really ought to go. It’s been lovely, but…’

  ‘No. You can’t go yet…’