Substitute Engagement

by Jayne Bauling

  ‘No, only when I’m forced to be,’ she retorted resentfully.

  ‘Oh, I know you’ve kept referring to blackmail, but you’ve played along so consistently and nicely that it must be necessary to you,’ Rob guessed, softly derisive, and she supposed it was, but she wasn’t going to admit as much out loud. ‘But perhaps the charade is frustrating you where Hassan is concerned?’

  ‘Why have you got this idea about him and me?’ Curiosity distracted her.

  ‘He’s obviously acquainted with a softer, warmer side of you. Then again, I can see that side for myself when you mention him. He’s one person who doesn’t seem to arouse your hostility,’ Rob observed challengingly.

  ‘Because he’s one person who has never harmed me in any way,’ she snapped. ‘That makes him my friend, and that’s what he’s going to stay. We go back too far to hold any mystery for each other—which I would have said was a prerequisite for romance.’

  He laughed softly. ‘I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules.’

  Lucia had to laugh too. ‘In fact, I told him something similar earlier. He’s one of those ambitious people who has got his whole future plotted out. When his career reaches an appropriate stage he intends to find someone suitable to marry, but, being an idealist as well, he’s also planning to fall in love with her. I told him it doesn’t work like that, and that it will serve him right if he falls in love with someone totally unsuitable.’

  ‘It happens,’ Rob agreed rather drily, and Lucia knew that he must be thinking about Shelagh, whose devotion to her career had made her so unsuitable for him but whom he must still love, as he had failed to settle down with any other, more suitable woman.

  ‘I did want to see you, though.’ She changed the subject, what he had done returning to the front of her mind.

  ‘No, don’t get up,’ he adjured, seeing her intention and dropping gracefully into a relaxed position beside her on the sand.

  He was too close and Lucia tensed, uncertain, but a vision of herself standing up and railing at him while he reclined at her feet was too ridiculous to be contemplated, and the thought pulled her lips into a reluctant little smile for a moment.

  Then anger forced its way back.

  ‘What do you think you were doing, attacking Thierry last night? Nadine told me,’ she offered accusingly. ‘I asked you, and you promised not to let anyone else know the things—that you know about me. That was an abuse of my trust. All right, I should have known better than to put my faith in you, when you don’t owe me anything and you haven’t shown me any sort of regard or even consideration before. But it was also an abuse of—of your gift! That horrible way you’ve got of…of knowing me. Telling him what he’d done to me like that. I have got some pride, you know.’

  The trite conclusion prompted a snatch of sardonic laughter that made her skin prickle.

  ‘That’s an understatement if ever I heard one. No, be quiet, you difficult girl,’ he added peremptorily as she drew a sharp breath. ‘You really are the touchiest, most impossible person I know, forever attacking me over this, that and the other, and always without possessing all the facts. I know you? It’s time you got to know me, Lucia—to know that you can and should trust me.

  ‘I will never do anything to add to the humiliation you’ve endured over this business—and I do know how much you hate my knowing, but neither of us could have helped that, given the circumstances, and I won’t pretend I don’t know. You’re almost inclined to blame me for the whole thing, aren’t you? Still hating me for being the messenger…

  ‘Whatever Nadine said, she can’t have known the facts either. I don’t suppose Olivier went into detail about what I said. I remembered you’d told me you’d let him believe our fiction for some reason—whether out of pride, to ease his conscience or to make him jealous in the hope of winning him back—so I made it very clear to him that his engagement to Nadine had come as an absolute relief to you, that you’d realised you were too special for him and were relishing your freedom. All right?’

  The last bit came too close to something she had been fumbling for earlier, and she was silent for several seconds. Finally she nodded, before realising that perhaps he couldn’t see her.

  ‘Yes,’ she allowed curtly, and then, because she wasn’t ready to give up the fight quite yet, asked stiffly, ‘But why did you have to say anything to him about it at all?’

  ‘The guy irritated me,’ Rob volunteered flatly, ‘sitting there basking in the approval of Nadine and his mother, all untroubled because everyone—including you, apparently—has let him get away far too easily with what is unacceptable behaviour by any standards, although I can guess why he did it that way. I am human—I gave in to my irritation and let him know that not everyone views him so indulgently.’

  ‘Then you were…cruel,’ Lucia ventured slowly. ‘He’s so sensitive—’

  ‘Stop trying to defend him,’ Rob cut in edgily. ‘He doesn’t deserve it. If you want to know, in attempting to justify himself he had a go at turning the whole thing round and blaming you.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ she affirmed sadly.

  ‘He was highly uncomplimentary about you and how inadequate you’ve been—absent all the time—and would still have been, had he married you,’ Rob swept on mercilessly. ‘For instance, I gather you were distinctly reluctant to provide him with a family.’

  At last—at long last—the moment came when she could direct her rage squarely and solely at Thierry.

  ‘Why should I have wanted children with him?’ she retaliated savagely. ‘I was going to have to be a mother anyway, to him—’

  ‘Oh, Lucia, that’s a terrible betrayal,’ Rob mocked bitingly as she broke off, stricken as she realised the same thing.

  She wasn’t sure if it was a betrayal of Thierry or herself, and she didn’t think she cared about the former, because she owed him no loyalty now, especially when he himself had already talked about her so treacherously to this man.

  She shrugged defensively. ‘Except that I had almost made up my mind to agree to start a family at once, as he wanted, to make up for his having to wait all these years. I also thought it might bring out a…sort of stronger, supportive side of his nature that seems to have disappeared since I first met him, because children are vulnerable. Anyway, I do…I did want children eventually. I like them, although I’m not sure what sort of mother I would have made.’

  ‘Will make. I can’t see you letting one broken engagement drive you to a nunnery, and you will get over Olivier, Lucia. You’ll be a good mother,’ Rob added surprisingly, and the sincerity she heard there created an area of warmth around her heart.

  ‘But Olivier would have gone on leaning on you just because you are strong, and even when you’re not you pretend well enough to be convincing. You’re right, you’d have needed to be a mother to him too, whereas Nadine brings out that strength you mentioned because she is less obviously strong herself.

  ‘You’d have ended up martyring yourself, or else out of control, tripping on power. You must have accepted that by now? He and my sister suit each other. You can’t imagine you’re still in—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it yet,’ Lucia interrupted hurriedly, with a strangely desperate feeling.

  ‘Or think about it? All right,’ he allowed quietly, and when he spoke again it was to ask lightly, ‘What were you doing out here? Communing with nature?’

  ‘I’m not that fond of nature,’ she confided, feeling almost shy now she had nothing to fight about or against.

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘People,’ she added self-consciously. ‘They’re what I like.’

  ‘People—so why were you all alone, as you’ve implied that you weren’t actually waiting for me?’

  A nervous little laugh escaped her as she realised that she was about to take a major leap forward by admitting, ‘I wanted to sit and look at the sea and think about how I don’t have to dive any more, only then I didn’t…Other things got in the wa
y.’

  Other freedoms. A treacherous thought.

  ‘They do that.’

  ‘I’m glad I don’t have to dive. I’m glad you…knew, and told Chester to take me off the trips. I…I thank you,’ she concluded with stilted formality; admitting to any weakness was so new and difficult for her that she couldn’t be entirely natural about it.

  ‘It’s all right, Lucia,’ he said, his unemphatic tone and absence of mockery making it easier for her to relax. ‘None of us likes having other people knowing our vulnerabilities, but you do need someone to know for you. I think we all do—or we become our own oppressors if we never share them, whether through inhibition, pride or whatever.’

  ‘I know…I often have too much pride,’ she confessed awkwardly, venturing further into this new territory of sharing. ‘It has been a problem.’

  ‘But you’ve needed it just lately.’

  He still spoke with the easy, neutral tone of comprehension, still without derision, so this baring of some of her secrets wasn’t quite as hard as she might have imagined, especially when he was someone who seemed to know most of them in advance anyway.

  It occurred to her that he was being kind because he pitied her, but even that only troubled her a little for the moment. She was more inclined to think how nice he was. She liked him.

  The discovery surprised her, but it gave her something else to tell him while she was in this honest mood.

  ‘Rob?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t hate you for being the messenger any more.’ It still didn’t come entirely easily, but it was softly sincere.

  There was a brief silence which wasn’t truly a silence. Lucia listened to soft sounds—the sough of the palms behind them and the heaving sighs of the sea’s suck and swell before them.

  Then Rob said, ‘You’ve come a long way in a very short space of time, haven’t you? Three and a half days?’

  ‘Further than anyone can know,’ she agreed in a small, fine voice, following her words with a faint breath of laughter. ‘Anyone except you, of course.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He stirred. Lucia was still sitting cross-legged, comfortable in wash-softened denim shorts and a white blouse, sleeveless and collarless. Now she felt his hand come to rest on the bare curve of the knee nearest to him, and she could accept its warm weight without tensing in this strange mood of surrender that had fallen over her.

  She thought it must be simply because she was tired, taxed beyond her strength and resistance by the emotional demands she had faced and met since Saturday afternoon—the need to fight, to be angry, to pretend.

  Now there was nothing left, at least temporarily. She thought about asking him about his business on the other island that he had visited today, and then it occurred to her that she ought to remove his hand from her knee before the warm sensation of weakness pervading her became irresistible.

  ‘Are you going to put another hotel in the Comoros?’ she wondered, her voice languid as she put out a hand to grasp his wrist.

  ‘It’s a real possibility after the discussions I had today,’ Rob confirmed, and then there was a pause before he asked, ‘Lucia, what are you doing?’

  Yes, what? Lucia was appalled, her face heating. Her fingers seemed to have a will of their own. Instead of lifting his hand from her knee, they were travelling slowly up over the underside of his forearm, circling his elbow and straying inquisitively beneath the sleeve of the casual shirt that he was wearing with a pair of jeans. Acutely embarrassed, she snatched her hand away.

  ‘Nothing—I’m sorry…I don’t know. Do you live in one of your hotels?’ she asked agitatedly, realising that she didn’t know where his home was or even if he had one.

  ‘I have suites kept for my exclusive use in all of them, as I travel a lot There’s a house in Zimbabwe—Harare—for when I want to get right away from the business. I’m still a citizen there.’

  As he spoke he slid his hand from her knee, his palm flattening as he stroked it over her inner thigh, and this time Lucia let him complete the caress. She knew she shouldn’t She ought to be putting space between them. But she couldn’t make herself do the things her mind was dictating. Instead she leaned closer, letting her head rest against his shoulder.

  Her hand moved to cover his where it lay on her thigh, his long fingers still stirring slightly in idle play, making her skin tingle deliciously. Hers didn’t stay still either, tracing the shape of his hand, finding it beautiful in its capable masculine strength.

  Then Rob moved, freeing his hand and lifting it, altering his position so that he could curl his arm right round her shoulders, letting her lean in to him more fully, taking most of her slight weight.

  A small, unevenly darting line of light marked the passage of an errant firefly, and Lucia followed its flight with her eyes, breathing in the scents of island vanilla, the sea’s salt and Rob’s special male fragrance.

  She liked the feeling of closeness between them. At one level she was embarrassed by how much she had revealed to him during their short acquaintance, and especially tonight, but in conflict with pride’s peculiar sensitivities was releif that someone should know her so well, obviating any need to pretend because to do so would have been pointless. It meant that she could relax for once, and soak up this new peace that came along with the acceptance that was seeping through her.

  The relaxation couldn’t be complete, though. It was too shot through with her awareness of Rob, of the light caress of his breath across her brow, the hard, confident strength of his encircling arm and the living reality of the body against which she was cradled. Unthinkingly she let her hand drop to his thigh; it came to rest high up, close to his groin, and the immediate tensing of the muscles beneath her fingers put flight to the healingly drifting mood that had held her.

  ‘Who am I, Lucia?’ he demanded in a low voice.

  ‘You’re Rob,’ she answered him obediently, instinctively understanding why he needed to ask such a question.

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  He was turning and drawing her in to him, his lips seeking as she let her head fall back. Lucia was enveloped in warmth as she felt his mouth on hers and his hands roving about her body, the questing caresses openly seductive.

  She was melting, all softness within, and he was hardness, his vibrant flesh and powerful muscles springing to rampant life under her eager hands.

  Mouths ablaze with pleasure, their kisses grew increasingly passionate. Lucia felt engulfed by the passion, her blood singing and fizzing in her veins with erotic zest, and her fingers flew, unbuttoning his shirt, to find heated flesh and the tantalising tickle of his body hair for her palms’ delight, and then for her lips too as he freed her mouth and she ducked her head swiftly to scatter wild, quick kisses all over his chest.

  Her lips located the hard nub of one nipple and parted for her wayward tongue to linger delicately, tenderly stroking and teasingly flickering, and her senses rejoiced at the fierce ripple of response that ran through his body.

  ‘That feels so good,’ Rob murmured.

  ‘You do,’ she insisted shyly, smiling against him, almost mindless because this was the one thing that she and all humans could do without thought—find a mate, arouse and pleasure.

  ‘And you’re amazing,’ he muttered, his lips brushing the smooth, polished skin beneath one ear as his fingers went skilfully about the task of unbuttoning her blouse.

  She beat him to her bra, though, freeing her breasts to his touch, an almost soundless little cry of rapturous welcome escaping her as she felt his fingers close gently round one softly swollen mound.

  Rob was easing her back to lie down, and she went willingly, careless of the sand that she would get in her hair because still she didn’t want to be thinking yet. Feeling was sufficient; it was everything.

  He was bent over her, a dark shape against the white dazzle of stars filling the jet-black sky, and her hands were urging him down to her. A swift, hard kiss for her silentl
y beseeching mouth, and then he had left it, lips going on their sure way, travelling sensuously over her neck and one shoulder, and on to the stiff peak of the breast that his fingers still circled.

  Then they moved to the other. Lucia’s breasts felt unbelievably sensitive, tenderly aching, and as he took her fully into the hot moistness of his mouth her desire for him leapt incredibly and went on doing so, escalating unbearably. It was a raging, ravenous need that seemed to occupy her heart, or wherever her emotions had their fount, as much as the pulsing matrix of her womanhood. Her hands left his head and neck, her fingers biting frantically into his shoulders now as she surrendered to the frenzy devouring her.

  Her hips were stirring urgently in obedience to the piercing hunger deep within, lifting involuntarily in search of his maleness, and she moaned helplessly when Rob went still suddenly, his lips at rest in the hollow between her breasts.

  Slowly he lifted his head, and she ventured shakily, ‘Won’t you…? Do you want to? Finish it? Make love, Rob?’

  ‘No. Not yet,’ he replied thoughtfully, moving away from her and sitting up, and a fine thread of humour laced his voice as he added, ‘And certainly not out here. I don’t think I want to be at one with nature to quite such an extent.’

  She put out a hand to touch him. ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t touch me for a minute, please, Lucia,’ he cut in tautly, rising swiftly to his feet and turning his back on her.

  Lucia twisted into a kneeling position. ‘But what’s wrong? Rob?’ she demanded unevenly, utterly at a loss and beginning to be distressed.

  ‘A whole lot,’ he snapped harshly, and she saw him throw a glance back at her over his shoulder. ‘Get up, Lucia! Get up at once!’

  He sounded so furious suddenly, and so imperative that she scrambled to her feet in alarm, completely bewildered.

  ‘Rob, what did I do?’ she demanded anxiously, her voice thick with threatening tears.

  ‘What was happening here was for all the wrong reasons—on both sides!’ he asserted scathingly as he faced her. ‘All right, I know you weren’t using me as a substitute, but, judging by the confiding mood you were in a little while ago, it’s comfort you’re seeking tonight, and that’s not a good enough reason for me. I don’t make love to women to comfort them, to ease a broken heart—or to soothe a bruised ego!’