by Penny Jordan
‘Relax.’ The cool bite in Joel’s voice chilled her. ‘I’m not about to rape you, if that’s what’s worrying you.’
Painful colour stung her skin as she caught the cynically bitter undertones to his voice. ‘I didn’t think you were.’
Her zip came free and slid smoothly upwards. Joel stepped away from her, turning his back on her as he continued dressing. He looked devastatingly masculine in the formality of his evening clothes, Lissa acknowledged miserably, watching covertly as he inserted gold links into his shirt cuffs, deftly snapping them closed.
‘Ready?’
His glance swept over her, dismissing her without comment, his indifference towards her so painful that her face felt stiff from the effort of trying to conceal her feelings from him.
They went downstairs together, Joel’s attitude towards her punctiliously correct as he handed her into the car.
As he started the engine he inserted a cassette into the tape deck, turning up the sound just loudly enough to make conversation difficult, effectively shutting her off from him, Lissa thought. He couldn’t have made it more plain if he had spelled it out for her, how uninterested in her he really was.
It took just under an hour for them to reach the Andrews’ house—a rather solid Victorian red-brick building on the outskirts of a small village. The gateposts and short drive were illuminated clearly enough for Lissa to have a brief glimpse of the edge of an immaculate lawn that somehow matched the mental picture she had already built up of Marisa Andrews—cool, immaculate, perfectly groomed.
Joel stopped the car and released his seat belt, Lissa doing the same. She was out of the car before he could help her, and he gave a rather grim smile as he waited for her to precede him up the shallow flight of stone steps.
The door was opened before they rang. ‘Joel, darling, I thought I recognised your car.’
Lissa recognised the smoothly feline feminine voice instantly. She could feel the tiny hairs on the surface of her skin prickling with atavistic dislike. ‘Do come in, both of you.’
As Lissa walked into the hall ahead of Joel she had ample opportunity to study their hostess, as Joel bent to kiss her cheek. Small, much smaller than herself, ash blonde hair cut to emphasise the delicacy of her features; she was everything that she herself was not Lissa recognised on a downward plunge of her heart. Although she suspected that her hostess must be somewhere in her early thirties, she could easily have passed for a woman of twenty-seven or eight. Although she tried not to, Lissa couldn’t help but be aware of the way Marisa’s fingers clung to Joel’s shoulder, as she prolonged his greeting kiss, neither could she miss the look of cold malevolence which her hostess directed towards her as she cooed with soft sweetness. ‘Joel darling, you’re neglecting your new wife. Do please introduce her to me.’
Grimly Lissa listened to Joel’s introductions, hating the tinklingly false laugh Marisa gave when she interrupted gaily, ‘Oh Joel, no need to be quite so formal. Joel and I have known one another for years,’ she told Lissa, directing a coquettish glance towards Joel. ‘You know darling, you’ve grown into such an impossibly handsome man, that I really think perhaps I should have married you and not Peter. But then handsome men always make difficult husbands, don’t they, Lissa? One always has to be on one’s guard in case one loses them to someone else, wouldn’t you agree Lissa? Far better I always think to be a handsome man’s mistress than his wife. So much more fun.’
Lissa managed a cool smile, knowing quite well that Marisa was trying her best to make her feel uncomfortable and outside the charmed circle she had so plainly drawn around Joel and herself.
‘Where’s Peter?’ Joel enquired easily. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages.’
‘Oh, he’s in the drawing room.’ Marisa pulled a face. ‘He’s watching some stuffy programme on high finance. It should be over soon. My husband’s a stockbroker,’ she explained to Lissa, ‘and sometimes I think he cares more about his stocks and shares than he does about me.’
‘Impossible,’ Joel replied smiling at her. ‘Or at least if he does, then he’s a fool.’
Lissa could feel the anger inside her, heating to a white-hot glow as she observed this interchange. Her nails were pressing so hard into the palms of her hands that they hurt.
The proprietorially flirtatious manner Marisa had adopted towards Joel set the tone for the whole evening, and Lissa had to grit her teeth and pretend not to notice the number of times her hostess excluded her from the conversation by referring to events which had happened in the past. She also had to pretend not to notice how often Marisa managed to touch Joel, or to draw his attention to her. To counteract her hostess’s rudeness, Lissa directed her attention towards Peter Andrews, who despite his rather solid appearance had a keen, rather dry wit, which he exercised to their mutual enjoyment.
‘Old Joel married,’ Peter murmured jovially when they had reached the coffee stage. He directed a brief grin towards his friend and added, ‘I was beginning to think I’d never see the day.’
‘Oh come on, darling, be practical,’ Marisa interrupted. ‘Naturally Joel had to marry. After all he has those children to think of now …’
As she waited for Joel to at least make a token attempt to deny Marisa’s insinuation Lissa could feel her face burning with humiliation and resentment. How dare he subject her to Marisa’s bitchiness? How dare he bring her here to be insulted and tormented by the sight of Marisa continually making it plain how much she wanted him?
Peter gave an embarrassed cough and glanced rather uncertainly towards Lissa.
Pride came to her rescue. With a brittle smile she said tightly, ‘That’s right, Marisa. The children are Joel’s responsibility and as I’ve discovered, he’s a man who takes his responsibilities extremely seriously, but of course, taking our marriage seriously doesn’t preclude either of us from …’ she managed a tiny, expressive shrug, ‘shall we say making other friendships outside that marriage.’
There was a definite silence when she had finished. Without looking at either Joel or Marisa she picked up her coffee cup and made a pretence of drinking. Let Marisa make what she liked of that, she thought viciously.
‘Goodness. How very … civilised of you,’ was Marisa’s eventual comment. She turned to Joel. ‘Darling I must say that had you married me, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been anything like as practical, and how you must have changed.’ She directed Lissa a smile of sweet malice. ‘You perhaps won’t believe this, but I remember Joel as being quite outrageously possessive and jealous.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Lissa agreed with commendable control, and an acidly sweet smile of her own, ‘but that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? I think everyone feels things more intensely in their late teens and early twenties. I know I did.’
The evening dragged on interminably. Marisa insisted on taking Joel into her own private sitting room to show him some prints she had recently bought, and to judge by the willingness with which Joel went with her, she had been right to suspect that Joel still cared for her. Why had Marisa married Peter when it was so obvious that she preferred Joel, Lissa wondered miserably. Had she perhaps married Peter on some impulsive whim only to discover that it was Joel she really wanted?
‘You mustn’t mind Marisa,’ Peter told her, breaking in on her thoughts. ‘I’m afraid she’s grown rather used to thinking of Joel as her exclusive property.’
‘No, of course not,’ Lissa agreed, feeling rather sorry for him. ‘I realise that you’re all very old friends.’
‘Yes … Joel was dating Marisa when he introduced her to me,’ Peter agreed, confirming what Joel himself had told her. ‘Of course, he wasn’t in a position to get married then. His father was extremely strict with him—kept him on a very tight rein financially.’
Lissa bit her lip. Was that the reason Marisa had married Peter in preference to Joel? Because Peter had been the better-off financially. Lissa was under no illusions about the other woman. Marisa was a woman who wanted the very be
st that life had to offer. Her marriage to Peter had given her financial security, but now she wanted more … she wanted Joel … And Joel quite plainly wanted her, Lissa reflected sickly seconds later as they both walked into the room. There was still a faint smear of lipstick on Joel’s mouth, and she felt the sickness boil into fierce hatred as she averted her eyes from Marisa’s cat-like expression of complacency.
It was gone one in the morning when they eventually left. The angry surge of adrenalin which had kept Lissa going throughout the evening evaporated the moment she got into the car, leaving her unbelievably exhausted and more miserably unhappy than she could ever remember being in her life.
They had driven half a dozen miles or so when the tape finally stopped. As Lissa reached out to turn it over, Joel stopped her, his eyes meeting hers briefly for a moment, before he bit out, ‘And just what the hell were you trying to do to Marisa?’
What was she trying to do to her! Lissa took a deep breath and tried to steady herself, her voice when she eventually managed to speak sounded unfamiliar, but reassuringly steady. ‘Only the most stupid or appallingly cruel man would confront his wife with his mistress in such intimate conditions,’ she told him huskily. ‘If I was rude to Marisa, then I was only responding to her verbal attacks on me.’
For a moment it seemed to Lissa that he checked and would have said something, but then he paused and at last said coolly, ‘In self-defence? Is that all it was? There were one or two moments when I thought I detected more than a hint of jealousy.’
His astuteness infuriated her. ‘Me, jealous of your relationship with Marisa? Why did she marry Peter and not you in the first place, Joel? Was it because he promised to be the better husband from a material point of view?’
He stopped the car with a jerk that threw her forward in her seatbelt with such force that her head almost bumped into the windscreen. The jolt winded and shocked her, but Joel made no allowances for that, his hands gripping her shoulders as he swung her round to face him, his eyes glittering with a savagery that made her draw in her breath. He did love Marisa. He would never have reacted like this otherwise. Pain … awful and all-consuming filled her until there was no room for anything else, not even the ability to be alarmed by the quality of his anger.
She let what he was saying wash over her, and then when he had finished said numbly, ‘You’ve still got her lipstick on your mouth …’
She watched in anguish as he raised his hand and rubbed it off.
‘Even if you didn’t care about humiliating me, Joel,’ she said tiredly as he re-started the engine, ‘I should have thought you might have spared some consideration for Peter. After all he is supposed to be your friend.’
‘Peter knew what he was getting into when he married Marisa,’ Joel informed her harshly.
After that neither of them spoke until they reached Winterly. Lissa got out of the car quickly and went straight upstairs to the girls’ room. Mrs Fuller had promised to listen out for them, but they were both fast asleep. Emma was sucking her thumb, Lissa released it from her mouth, and bent down to kiss both girls, tears stinging her eyes. Joel had married her for their sake; and she must always bear that in mind. The tender, caring lover she thought she remembered had just been an illusion. Now she had no idea why Joel had made love to her. Once she had thought she knew, but after tonight … She shuddered, suddenly picturing him with Marisa … the sickness grew inside her and she dashed into the girls’ bathroom. Joel walked in just as she was wiping her face, frowning quickly.
‘Something wrong?’
‘I must have eaten something that disagreed with me,’ Lissa told him shakily, snapping off the light. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now, Joel. I’m tired.’
‘Of me? Is that what that little speech to Marisa about marriage was all about?’
He followed her into their room and tugged savagely at his shirt buttons, stopping suddenly to frown and walk over to his tallboy. He opened a drawer and took out a long flat gift-wrapped package, which he tossed casually over to her. ‘I nearly forgot, today’s your birthday, isn’t it?’
Lissa could have wept. It was, and she herself had almost forgotten about it. She would rather have had no present at all from Joel than one thrown at her in this careless manner which made it plain that it was no more than a duty gift.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
She did so reluctantly with fingers that trembled, unable to suppress a small gasp of surprise when she opened the slim box and discovered the pearl choker inside.
‘I …’ She didn’t know what to say to him. Tears misted her vision, swimming in front of her eyes. She touched the pearls gently, and wished that he was giving her this gift with love and caring.
‘They’re beautiful.’
‘I bought them because the texture and sheen reminded me of your skin.’
Her eyes opened wider, her head lifting until her glance met his, the visions conjured up in her mind by his quiet words making her go hot with need. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine he was touching her, caressing her with the slow intensity she remembered so vividly, learning the contours of her body, absorbing her into himself as though he never wanted to be apart from her.
‘I …’
‘I went up to London to get them the other day,’ he continued quietly, but now there was a new note to his voice, a grim bitterness that caught her attention. She frowned and he laughed harshly. ‘Yes, that’s right … the day you also decided to visit the city. Why did you go there, Lissa? Or can I guess? Was the temptation to see Greaves too much to resist? Did you want to see what effect you would have on him now that you’re free to take him as your lover? Did you, Lissa? Did you let him take you back to his flat and make love to you?’
Lissa could only stare at him. Joel had seen her with Simon! She remembered now that she had felt as though someone had been watching her when they were sitting in the café. The words of explanation and denial trembled on the tip of her tongue, and then she remembered Marisa.
‘Is that why you made it so obvious tonight that Marisa is your mistress, Joel?’ she countered with commendable coolness. ‘Because you saw me with Simon?’
‘So you don’t deny it?’
He was watching her with menacing intensity, the glittering rage so clearly discernible in his eyes igniting a strange mixture of misery and exhilaration inside her which spurred her on to ignore the warning signs.
‘Why should I? Do you deny that Marisa is your mistress? If you are free to enjoy a sexual relationship with someone else, then why should I not be?’
‘If it’s sex you want, then I can satisfy that need for you right here and now.’
Too late she realised her mistake. Lissa backed away hastily, the box containing her pearls clattering on to the carpet. Common sense told her to face Joel and tell him quite simply that it was all a stupid mistake, and that far from encouraging Simon to make sexual advances towards her, she had been telling him quite categorically that she didn’t want him, but something deeper than common sense took hold of her. She turned to run, motivated purely by blind, unthinking instinct. Joel caught her before she reached the door, swinging her round and into his arms, tightening them round her until she could feel the buttons of his shirt pressing into her. Even to breathe hurt, and although she twisted desperately against him she couldn’t break free. One hand tangled in her hair, tugging painfully on the roots forcing her mouth to accept the bruising pressure of his. He kissed her with a sexual savagery that shocked her, and yet beneath her fear and anger ran an undeniable thread of liquid pleasure; a fierce need to match fire with fire and to respond to him with all the aching need that was building up inside her. It was hard to fight against herself and him, and even while she told herself that this was not right; that any intimacy between them while he was in this savagely punishing mood could only lead to further unhappiness for her, she could feel her will to resist slipping away from her. It was no use telling herself that he was simply u
sing her as a vent for his frustrations and anger … that afterwards she would only feel renewed self-contempt and loathing … that by responding to him she was endangering her own self-respect. Her mouth softened under his, her heart thudding with delirious release as he recognised her surrender and took swift advantage of it, his tongue impatiently seeking access to her mouth, and when granted it, using her weakness ruthlessly against her. His fingers found her zipper and slid it down. Lissa was dimly conscious of his hands against her skin, smoothing up over her back, making her shiver first with pleasure and then with need as he pushed her dress away from her body. She was touching him too, sliding her hands inside his shirt, rediscovering the contours of his body. His mouth left hers, burning hotly against her skin as he tilted her head back, devastating her senses as he slowly ravaged the taut column of her throat.
‘Is this what you want, Lissa?’ His fingers sought the clasp of her bra, freeing her breasts to his knowing touch. She managed a strangled protest that died away into a whimpering admission of pleasure as his lips followed his hands, the movement of his tongue roughly erotic as it brushed the sensitive peaks of her breasts. Her fingers bit protestingly into his shoulders, a fierce surge of pride and anger that he could do this to her making her fight against the sexual coercion he was using so cold bloodedly. He made a harsh sound of pain but far from releasing her pushed her down on to the bed, following her there. Momentarily her hands were free, and Lissa used them to fend him off, anger turning swiftly to fear when her nail accidentally caught his shoulder, tearing his flesh. Joel swore, swiftly imprisoning both her hands, pinning them above her head. A wild reckless sexual excitement thundered through her as she saw his expression and read in his eyes the same fierce hunger that was in her own. Joel wanted her! It was savagely satisfying to know that even though he loved Marisa she could make him want her. She wanted to taunt him with her knowledge to humiliate and denigrate him as he had done her. He moved against her, expelling a deep breath, and she caught sight of the thin thread of blood against his skin where she had scratched him. His glance followed hers. Their eyes meshed, his burning dark metallic gold, hers a dark bright, defiant hazel. She could feel the hard muscles of his thighs against her body … she knew that he wanted her … This should have been her moment of triumph, her chance to show him that he was not invincible. He moved slightly and her eyes were drawn back to his shoulder. Almost absently she touched his skin with her tongue, feeling him flinch and tense. His blood tasted slightly rusty, the knowledge that she had caused it to flow turning her bitterness to guilt. What if at this moment he did want her? Wasn’t he only really using her as an escape valve because he couldn’t have the woman he really loved? The fight went out of her, leaving her empty … drained. She felt Joel’s grasp of her wrists slacken and prepared to move away from him. His hand cupped her face and she turned to look at him, dreading the words of contempt she was sure she was going to hear. As she looked into his eyes the expression glittering back at her there was one she didn’t recognise. His skin seemed to be drawn too tightly over his bones, a dark flush staining it.
