by Kate Walker
‘To keep sisters from knowing each other?’ His disgust showed through the question, sharpening the bitterness of memory so that she had to swallow hard as she nodded her answer.
‘We only found each other again a couple of years ago. We’d both been searching, but Mother had changed her name, and she gave Ciara no reference to the past—she only had the vaguest memories of a young child. It was just after we...’
The childhood memories had been bad enough but the way her reunion with her sister had coincided with the end of her time with Raoul threatened to destroy her. Lifting her head to look into his face, she saw the shadows of memory shift across his face, watched that sexy mouth tighten, as if to hold something back.
‘I’d been trying to find Ciara for ages, but got nowhere.’
Focusing on that aspect of the time after she’d left Corsica gave her enough strength to tell the story without going back over more difficult memories. It had been as a reprieve from the worries of the situation at home, the frustration of finding nothing about her missing sister, that she had treated herself to the short holiday in Corsica. If only she had known she had been jumping out of the frying pan and deep into the heart of the fire when she’d done that.
‘But when the financial settlement was finalised, there was no more war to fight, so my mother finally put us in contact with each other.’
She had barely been back home from Corsica before a wary Ciara had contacted her. She had barely realised she was pregnant before she had made that trip to London to meet with her long-lost sister; barely started to discover the new and wonderful experience of having a family before the tiny seed of what could have been her family for the future had been lost in the most horrific circumstances.
Recalling the shock and the pain, both emotional and physical, of those days, Imogen folded her arms around herself, cradling her lower abdomen where the minute beginnings of her baby—hers and Raoul’s child—had once nestled, safe and secure. At least, it was supposed to have been safe, but fate had dealt them a brutal blow, dragging her baby from her womb and almost killing its mother in the process.
‘Imogen...’
It was only when she heard Raoul’s voice, the note of surprise and shock roughening its edges, that she realised that she hadn’t been able to hold back the tears her memories had stirred. They were spilling down her cheeks in a silent declaration of the misery she couldn’t even begin to voice aloud.
‘Here.’
When had he moved? She hadn’t heard a sound, or noticed any change in his position, but suddenly he was beside her, perched on the arm of the chair, reaching out to her. If he touched her then she would collapse. But no, he was holding something out to her. A blur of white through tear-strained eyes—the handkerchief with which he had wiped the wine from the chair.
‘It’s a little marked—not exactly the crisp white handkerchief of a regency novel.’
His voice had a surprising shake to it. Was that because he was laughing at the image—at himself?
‘No problem,’ she managed, breaking off as the soft cotton touched her face, pressing gently, mopping up the trails of tears down her cheeks. Her heart thudded once, hard and high up under her breastbone, making her catch her breath, and she could find no way to say anything more.
The white handkerchief smelled of his skin after it had been crushed in his hand, the traces of his personal scent still lingering. It was all she could do not to turn her face further into it, inhale that scent, take it deep into her. She wanted to lift her hand, press it against the fingers that held the cotton, crush them against her face so she could remember how it had felt to have him hold her, comfort her.
She could feel the warmth of his body next to hers, the weight of his arm around her shoulder. She’d longed for him to hold her like this in the long, dark days after she’d lost their baby. She’d even thought about contacting him again, or perhaps daring to travel to Corsica to find him and tell him what had happened. Surely at least sharing the loss and the sorrow with him would have helped.
But of course she hadn’t gone. She’d felt she could never return to him, never confront him with that terrible news. Never force him to comfort her when he hadn’t wanted the baby, hadn’t even thought it might exist. He had never even wanted her, so how could he have shown comfort for a loss that only she had known? If she’d told him then he would have made the effort, she had no doubt. He might have expressed a degree of sorrow but it would never have been truly meant and she would have seen the effort he was making in his face, hear it in his words. She would have been broken even further by the insincerity beneath his actions.
‘Your mother must have been the worst kind of person to do that to her children. I can see how it meant so much to you to meet up with Ciara again. You’ll have had a lot of catching up to do.’
There was an uneven delivery to his speech, and the pressure of his hand had altered. He now held the handkerchief still in one place, resting against her cheek, his thoughts seeming to be elsewhere.
‘My sister and I are very close,’ he said slowly. ‘I would do anything for her.’
What had put that darker note into his words? Imogen couldn’t even begin to guess. She could barely cope with the fact that he thought her sorrow was all about her family, her mother’s behaviour and Ciara’s. She couldn’t let him in on the truth. On the fact that it had been at that special moment of reunion with Ciara that the deepest, harshest blow had hit her and it was only because her sister had been there that she had got through it.
She had even let Ciara persuade her to go out on the town way too soon, in a desperate attempt to put the sorrow behind her. Ciara too had been in an emotional state, because of the circumstances in which she’d lost her job, and they had both struggled to accept the way their mother had behaved. The glass of wine they had intended to share that night had turned into another—a bottle—and, totally unprepared for the effects of the alcohol on their systems, they had both staggered out to find a taxi before the evening disintegrated any further.
Now even Ciara had left her life, it seemed, alienated by something she didn’t understand in her relationship with Adnan.
‘Imogen...’
Raoul had moved, sliding down to the floor in front of her, kneeling to take her in his arms.
‘Where is your father? Shall I fetch—?’
‘Oh, no!’
She shook her head. The addition of her father into this emotional mix would be a move too far.
‘He’d be no use at all—he’s given up already and gone to bed.’ With a bottle, she had no doubt. Perhaps, in a way, seeing Raoul’s obvious impatience with her father’s behaviour, she began to understand her mother’s attitude just a little better, to see there might have been two sides to their disastrous marriage.
‘Given up on what? He hasn’t done a thing all day. Couldn’t he have offered to help at least?’
‘It’s his idea of a nightmare, what happened here today.’
‘And not yours?
She hadn’t expected his anger, and that sceptical glance, the narrowing of those penetrating eyes, was too much, too close. Hastily she tried for a diversion in the hope of distracting him.
‘He looked in once and saw you were there.’
She’d seen her father put his head round the door and back away at the sight of Raoul in full organising mode.
‘I suppose he saw that I had some clothes on.’ The twist to Raoul’s mouth was wry. ‘And that was enough.’
Laughter choked in Imogen’s throat at the memory of her father’s awkward command in the middle of the night.
‘He also heard your nickname being bandied about,’ she managed, recalling the way several of the village matrons brought in to serve at the wedding breakfast, and now entrusted with the clearing up, had looked as if their eyes were out on stalks at the sight of Raoul, sleeves rolled up to expose tanned forearms as he hefted bundles of starched linen tablecloths or the boxes packed with food
to go to the hospice. His hair had tumbled forward over his wide brow and he had had the look of the untamed bandit the scandal papers had named him.
‘The Corsican Bandit?’ A lift of his broad shoulders dismissed the familiar title. ‘I’ve heard worse. And considering the stories that have been spreading...’
‘Stories?’ Imogen sat forward sharply. ‘What stories?’
Those gleaming eyes clashed with her uneasy ones for a moment, then again that inscrutable smile flickered across his mouth.
‘That I’m here to break your father down—to steal the stud—and worse. I think you’d better be prepared for the fact that now I’m also supposed to be planning to steal away his daughter.’
‘Oh, no, they can’t think that?’
The way one black, straight brow drifted upwards, questioning her assertion, had her thinking backwards, remembering the knowing looks that she’d received as she’d struggled to explain that the wedding was off, that her prospective groom had left the area—maybe even the country for all she knew.
‘Would it be so very bad?’
His voice had lowered, becoming richer and darker. The soft traces of his accent had deepened, turning his words into a husky purr. The warmth of his breath told her that he was closer, his face almost touching hers. If she blinked she felt her lashes brush across his cheek, and she inhaled his intensely personal scent with every indrawn breath. The handkerchief slipped to the floor and its pressure on her cheek was replaced by the burning touch of his hand, skin against skin. She had only to turn her head and...
‘Oui...’
She heard the agreement forced from his lips, felt it against her cheek as her mouth found the skin of his palm. The scent of his body was like a drug reaching straight for what little was left of her functioning brain and blotting out rational thought.
‘That’s what I’ve wanted to do all day,’ she murmured as she let her tongue slide out to taste him, taking that essence of him into her mouth.
‘And I’ve wanted that for days too.’
His voice was thick and raw, the words struggling to be heard above the beat of his heart so close to hers, the heat of his breath dancing over her skin.
‘Ever since I arrived in that church and saw you there.’
‘Really?’
It was all she could manage as she tried to look into his face, to read the truth in his eyes. But she found that the heat and focus of his stare was too much, too strong for her to take without dissolving into a puddle of molten awareness. Her need for him was like a throbbing pulse all along her body, centring at the juncture of her thighs. The stinging hunger that pooled there made her shift uncomfortably on the chair, uncontrollable need making her reach for him, link her hands behind his head, pulling his face down towards her, holding it there while her lips explored his with the yearning she couldn’t control.
‘Vraiment.’
It sounded like the truth he’d declared it to be. It sounded like the words she’d heard him whisper in the darkness of the long, hot nights on the island in the days when she knew she’d been falling in love with him. In the time when she’d thought there was no reason not to fall in love with him.
‘Me too...’ There was no point in denying it, so why even try. ‘That’s the way I’ve felt too. From the moment I turned and saw you.’
No, before that. As soon as she’d heard his voice and known who was behind her. Wasn’t the truth that in that single moment she had known the wedding could never go ahead? Wasn’t that why she had gone to Raoul’s room in the middle of the night? She’d gone about things the wrong way. She should have spoken to Adnan first. She should have told him that she could never love him as he deserved a wife to love him. She should have acknowledged to herself that she had always loved Raoul, falling for him in a heartbeat and never escaping again. She’d known she could never have a proper marriage with Adnan, but that had done nothing to destroy all the reasons why she had to marry him and live up to their agreement.
‘W-what did you come back for?’ She asked and felt his soft laughter against her ear. His warmth surrounded her, cutting out the rest of the world and enclosing her in a bubble of security, if only for these moments.
‘Exactly as they said,’ he murmured. ‘I came to steal you away.’
She didn’t believe him for a moment, but right now it was what she wanted to hear. What she wanted to feel. That someone thought she was special. That she was wanted for herself, not for what she could offer him or what she brought with her.
That she was wanted—for this one night at least.
‘I hoped that was what you’d say.’
At least that was what she had meant to say, but she barely got the first sound out before her lips were taken in a fierce, demanding kiss. Her head fell back under the pressure of his mouth, her lips opening eagerly to his plundering tongue. His long body came up and over hers, crushing her back into the chair as his heavy, muscular legs slid between her denim-clad limbs. His hands seemed to be everywhere, holding her, hot fingers pushed into her hair, the hard weight of his palm against her thigh, her hip, sliding under the hem of her top, searing across her skin. Instinctively she writhed in delight, pressing herself further into his touch, her pelvis shifting against his, pressing up against the heat and hardness of his erection, dragging a moan from him that sounded right into her open mouth.
‘Raoul...’ She tasted him on the breath that had filled her mouth, felt it burn all the way down to her soul. She wanted this. Oh, dear heaven, but she wanted it.
She was sliding down deeper into the chair, almost to the floor, the heat and the weight of his body against her. And it was all too much. Too hard, too hot, too heavy. And she was too hungry, too needy to take this—just this—and nothing more.
She wanted him on top of her, covering her, the hard weight of him pressing her down into the worn and shabby rug before the fire. But when he was there, sliding over her, long legs entangling with hers, it wasn’t enough. He had too many clothes on and so did she. She didn’t want to feel the linen of his shirt, the fine material of his trousers rubbing against her, making the denim scrape against the highly sensitised nerves under her skin.
Her hands were moving over him feverishly, tugging at the buttons in his shirt, fingers sliding in through the spaces she had made, electrical prickles of response buzzing along her nerves as she felt the crisp brush of hair against her fingertips, the heated satin of his skin.
‘Ma belle... Imogen.’
There it was again, the sound of her name as only he could pronounce it, muttered against the arched lines of her neck, moving down, down towards where the curves of her breasts just showed above the deep vee neck of her shirt. The movement crushed the softness of her body against the hardness of his. So close—and yet far too far away. She wanted, needed, so much more.
But even as Raoul followed her down onto the floor, she felt the sudden tension in him, the slight drawing away from her, creating a gap between the burn of their bodies that let a disturbing drift of cooler air creep over her exposed skin.
‘Ton père—your papa.’
Raoul could have cursed himself for the muttered words that seemed to jolt her out of the burning response she’d shown, freezing the hands that clutched at his shoulders, forcing open those beautiful eyes. Eyes that even in the dim light of the gathering dusk he could see were still glazed with passion. The last thing he wanted was to destroy the mood that had flared so fast and so hot in the moment she had turned her head to kiss his hand. But he had no desire at all to have their passion interrupted by the appearance of her father—drunk or sober. Once had been enough.
‘Your room...’
It was on the other side of the house, up a separate flight of stairs. It would be silent and secret and would give them all the time in the world to give in to the sexual tension that had been burning between them since the first moment they had seen each other again, complete the connection that had never been destroyed by their s
eparation. It had only ebbed temporarily, fading down to smouldering embers, needing the hint of a breath, a touch, a kiss, to coax it into an untamed fire that swept through them all over again, devouring every hesitation or doubt in its path.
This was what had always been between them, how he had always felt about this woman. And everything he had thought had destroyed it, the distance he had believed he had wanted to put between them, had only been a lie. This was why he had never been able to forget Imogen, why he had never been able to replace her in his thoughts, in his dreams, with any other woman. No matter how he’d tried.
And he’d tried, damn it! Tried and failed completely. So tonight was what he had been dreaming of for all the empty years since he’d walked away from her. It was all he had wanted in the time they’d been apart. And nothing—nothing—was going to stop it now.
Imogen was of the same mind, it seemed. He had barely whispered his warning before she was scrambling to her feet, reaching out for his hand to curl her fingers tight around his, tugging him towards the door.
‘My room,’ she agreed, and the thickness of her voice, the unevenness of her breathing, told him she would have as much trouble as he would to get up the stairs without ripping clothes off and discarding them along the way.
CHAPTER TEN
THEY MADE IT to the bedroom, but only just. Imogen’s tee-shirt was already ripped at the seams, coming apart in Raoul’s urgent hands. His belt had been tugged free, the button on his jeans snapped open in a struggle that was then abandoned in place of an assault on the fastenings of his shirt which Imogen found easier to wrench out of the way.
Small white buttons flew across the room, to land with a faint sound against the wall. The sight and scent of his skin, the temptation of the bronzed satin before her, was almost too much and she pressed her mouth against the wall of his chest, tasting and tantalising without restraint.
‘Imogen...’ Raoul growled, hard hands clenching in her hair, seemingly undecided whether to hold her there or to pull her head up and away so he could crush his own kisses on her hungry mouth.
