Fear of Love

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘When you’re a woman I’ll tell you about it,’ he told her dryly. ‘If you can be shocked by that tame scene I interrupted last night you’d be a hospital case if I went into all the details of just how important women are to me. But I want a woman about only when I want—well, use your imagination a little. Having a female in my home just to look at is a new experience.’

  Remembering the way he had looked at her just now she hoped he wouldn’t look at her too often. Her legs had felt weak, every nerve in her body aware of him, and for a few brief minutes she had thought of him only as a vitally attractive man and not as her tormenter. But she mustn’t ever forget the way he used women or the parting she had witnessed between him and Sabrina Gilbert the morning before.

  ‘I already know the way you use women,’ she said tartly.

  ‘Sabrina,’ he smiled to himself.

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘But Sabrina uses me too. She was married, you know, her divorce went through about four months ago. And when you’ve been married you get used to a certain—relationship.’

  Colour flamed anew in Alexandra’s cheeks. ‘Are you telling me that she—you—’

  ‘We have a mutual sexual need that we satisfy with each other,’ he finished for her, his amusement at her horror evident.

  ‘That’s disgusting!’

  ‘I suppose to you it must seem that way. But at least this way there’s no jealousy or possessiveness.’

  ‘No love either.’

  Dominic gave a derisive smile. ‘What’s love? And don’t try to explain it to me, you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

  She gasped indignantly. ‘I have a better idea of it than you do!’

  ‘An idea is right. You’ve been in love with love the last few months, it’s a phase all young single girls go through. Marianne was the same, the only trouble being that I believed it to be the real thing. Roger Young is in the same predicament I found myself in fourteen years ago.’

  Her mouth tightened. ‘I don’t want to talk about Roger.’

  ‘Because he dared to show a little passion?’ He shook his head. ‘That was nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? He—well, he touched me, and—and—’

  ‘It was nothing,’ he repeated infuriatingly. ‘When you meet a real man you’ll know the difference.’

  ‘A real man!’ she scorned. ‘I suppose you think yourself one.’

  ‘I don’t need to, I leave that to other people.’

  ‘I don’t think that about you, I just think you’re arrogant and boastful.’

  His narrowed grey eyes levelled on her critically. ‘I think you’re being antagonising,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Now why could that be?’ he mused. ‘Could it be that you’re curious as to whether or not it would be different with me?’

  ‘No—no, I—’ her eyes widened. ‘Certainly not!’

  He pushed himself to his feet, his muscles rippling beneath the fitted brown shirt he wore, coming to stand in front of her, his eyes challengingly on her bent head. ‘I would be more than happy to oblige, Alex,’ he said softly.

  Alexandra licked her suddenly dry lips, her eyes on a level with the waistband of his trousers. ‘Don’t be silly! I—I was only—’

  ‘Only trying to force me into this,’ he finished. ‘I’m perfectly well aware of the look you gave me when you came into the room, and there was nothing innocent about it.’

  ‘The look I gave you?’ Alexandra cut in heatedly, her blue eyes clashing with his cool grey ones. ‘It was you—you were mentally undressing me.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he surprised her by admitting. ‘I caught a brief glimpse of your bare midriff when you were with Young and I wanted to know what the rest of you looks like.’

  ‘The same as every other woman!’ she snapped in her embarrassment; his admission was the last thing she had been expecting. ‘We all have the same anatomy.’

  Dominic smiled. ‘But some of you have more than others.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m fat?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘I didn’t mean weight-wise.’ His eyes taunted her, the mocking lift to his mouth incensing her even more. He put out a hand and pulled her to her feet, his eyes on her uplifted breasts. ‘Certain men prefer certain parts of the female body. Personally, I’ve always liked these,’ his fingertips ran lightly over the tip of her breasts. ‘And yours are lovely.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Alexandra recoiled away from him. ‘How dare you? How dare you talk to me like this, touch me like this!’

  ‘I dare because you want me to.’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Oh yes, you do, Alex. You’re just awakening to the pleasure you can get from your body, and what you shared with Young last night did not give you pleasure. Right now you’re wondering if it’s the same with every man. I’m offering to prove that it isn’t.’

  She backed away from him. ‘Dominic, don’t do this. How can we live together with you acting like this?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Quite easily, much easier than we are at the moment.’

  ‘But we—yesterday you said you couldn’t stand me.’

  ‘And today I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘You can’t do that—’

  The butler entered the room after a brief knock and Alexandra moved hurriedly to the other side of the room. Dominic had made her aware of him as she had never been aware of any man before, not even Roger. But it was a purely sexual awareness, nothing like her love for Roger.

  ‘Mr Young is on the telephone again for Miss Paige, sir,’ Charles informed them.

  Roger! Thank heavens, a return to normality after the tenseness of the last few minutes. ‘I’ll take it in the dining-room, thank you, Charles,’ she answered.

  Dominic was watching her as the butler left the room. ‘Charles informed me earlier that you’ve been refusing telephone calls from Roger all day. You’ve suddenly decided to speak to him.’

  ‘Yes. If you’ll excuse me.’ She made a mad dash for the door.

  ‘You changed your mind because of what happened just now,’ he said softly. She wrenched open the door. ‘If you must know, yes!’

  ‘Don’t think that forgiving your boy-friend will change anything between us,’ he warned. ‘We’re aware of each other now and nothing can change that.’

  Standing apart from his disturbing influence some of her fight returned.

  ‘You’re just aware of the fact that you have a female living in your house and you think it’s too good an opportunity to miss.’

  To her chagrin he smiled. ‘You can fight me all you want, Alex, but I’ll get you in the end, one way or another.’

  She looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean, get me?’

  Dominic turned away. ‘Forget I said it,’ he ordered harshly. ‘I must be insane. You’re half my age, a mere child.’

  ‘Dominic, you—’

  ‘Stay out of my way, Alex!’ he snapped. ‘Go and talk to your boy-friend and forget this ever happened.’

  She leant heavily on the door once she was out of the room. How could she be expected to forget anything that had taken place just now, the things Dominic had said, the way he had touched her? Her body still tingled from that touch and she felt she would never be the same again.

  She sounded breathless when she picked up the telephone. ‘Roger?’ she said tentatively.

  ‘Oh, Alexandra. Thank goodness you’re speaking to me! I’ve been going frantic today when you wouldn’t answer any of my calls.’

  Here was a man and a situation she was better able to control. ‘You could always have come over, I’ve been in most of the day.’

  ‘I suggested that earlier when I spoke to Mr Tempest, but he didn’t seem to think it a good idea.’

  She stiffened. ‘You spoke to Dominic?’

  ‘Yes, he said you were at the hospital visiting Gail.’

  ‘But he told you not to come over?’ she persisted.

  ‘He said he wasn’t sure of your reaction
. I’m sorry about last night, I don’t know what came over me—well, I do, but I shouldn’t—’

  All tension left her body. ‘Forget it, Roger. I shouldn’t have reacted so violently. Dominic coming in like that shook me a little.’

  ‘I felt a little embarrassed myself. I don’t think he likes me.’

  She gave a shaky laugh. ‘He doesn’t like me either. He wasn’t rude to you, was he?’

  ‘A bit abrupt, but not rude. Will you come over for dinner this evening?’ Roger asked hopefully.

  ‘Do your parents know we had an argument?’ She couldn’t face them if they did, especially if they knew the reason for it—not that it was the sort of thing Roger was likely to tell his parents.

  ‘No, I didn’t tell them.’

  ‘In that case, I would love to come over.’ Anything to avoid having to sit down to dinner with Dominic Tempest.

  ‘Great. About seven-thirty?’

  ‘Will there be anyone else there?’

  ‘No, just the family.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll see you later, then.’

  Dominic was just leaving the lounge as Alexandra came out of the dining-room. She coloured immediately, her telephone conversation with Roger not helping to dispel the awareness that had sprung up between herself and Dominic this afternoon.

  She knew he was as much aware of it as she was by the wary look in his eyes. They looked at each other across the passageway, neither speaking but the tension between them a tangible thing.

  Finally it was Dominic who spoke. ‘You made it up with him, then,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Yes. I’m going out to dinner.’ She couldn’t meet his gaze.

  He gave a half smile. ‘You didn’t need to do that to avoid me. I’ll be working through dinner tonight anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t do it to avoid you. Why should I?’ She looked at him defiantly.

  ‘Why indeed?’ he mused.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she brushed past him, ‘I’m going to my room.’

  ‘You have nothing to fear from me,’ he rasped. ‘I’ll admit to a momentary attraction, but it’s passed now. It will never happen again.’

  She stopped with her foot on the bottom stair. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Don’t hope, Alex, know,’ he said behind her. ‘Perhaps for a moment you reminded me of Marianne, I don’t know.’

  She spun round to face him, anger in every line of her body. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better, the fact that I was a substitute for your wife?’

  ‘Ex-wife,’ he corrected. ‘And that wasn’t what I meant, all I was trying to explain was that I—’

  ‘Don’t bother to finish!’ Alexandra snapped. ‘You’re insulting, do you know that?’

  His grey eyes narrowed. ‘I wasn’t trying to be insulting.’

  ‘You don’t need to try!’ She ran up the stairs. ‘A substitute for your wife!’

  ‘Alex!’

  Her blue eyes flashed. ‘Don’t you “Alex” me! You just carry on your sexual relationship with Sabrina Gilbert and leave me alone. Keep your insults for her—maybe she doesn’t mind being used in that way.’

  ‘Alex, will you listen to me!’ he commanded angrily.

  ‘No, I won’t! And so that the whole house doesn’t become aware of just how despicable you are I’ll go to my room before I really lose my temper. I’ll be glad to get out of this house tonight!’ She turned and ran to her room.

  She had reminded him of his wife indeed! Had Marianne Tempest looked anything like her?—she didn’t remember anyone ever saying she had. She would ask Gail the next time she visited her; she had seen pictures of her. But what an insult!—the attraction Dominic had felt hadn’t even been for her.

  There was a hammering on her bedroom door. ‘Alex? Alex, let me in!’ It was Dominic, and he sounded really angry. Thank goodness she had thought to lock the door.

  ‘Why? So that you can imagine I’m your wife again?’ She slammed shut her wardrobe door after taking out the gown to wear that evening. ‘No, thank you!’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ his voice lowered. ‘I was just trying to make you feel better when I said that.’

  ‘Feel better!’ she cried. ‘To be told I reminded you of another woman was supposed to make me feel better?’

  ‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding me,’ he said impatiently. ‘Open the door,’ he rattled the doorhandle.

  ‘I’m taking a shower, Dominic.’

  A short silence. ‘All the more reason to open the door,’ he suggested throatily.

  ‘Go to hell!’

  She could hear him laughing. ‘Okay, Alex, please yourself. Have a nice time this evening.’

  ‘I will!’

  She would make sure she did if only to spite him, and she would have done if it wasn’t for the fact that as soon as she saw Roger she knew things were over between them. Whatever love she had thought she felt for him no longer existed, only liking and friendship were left.

  The knowledge held her tongue-tied all through dinner. She was here under false pretences, the Youngs believing her to be their future daughter-in-law. But she couldn’t marry Roger now; she didn’t love him.

  What would she have done if they had already been married? How disastrous that would have been. And she probably would have been married to him too if it weren’t for Dominic’s interference; she could have persuaded Gail and Trevor around to her way of thinking if it hadn’t been for him, she knew that now.

  It was the reason for discovering her infatuation and not love for Roger that worried her the most. Perhaps it was the fact that she could feel drawn to Dominic that had prompted this change of heart, but whatever it was she didn’t know what to do about it.

  Roger was still in love with her, it had been apparent when he had kissed her on her arrival. She still felt pleasure in his embrace, but it was no longer the same, there had been none of the tingling excitement she usually felt.

  They went up to Roger’s sitting-room after dinner to play records. ‘You’re very quiet,’ Roger remarked concernedly.

  She gave a bright smile. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be.’

  ‘You’re not still mad at me, are you?’ He came to sit next to her on the sofa. ‘I thought you’d forgiven me.’

  ‘There was nothing to forgive,’ she said nervously. ‘I was just being silly.’

  ‘Kiss and make up?’ he asked persuasively.

  She gave a light laugh to cover her aversion to such an act. ‘Not just now, Roger. Let’s listen to the records.’

  ‘I’d much rather kiss you,’ he said sulkily.

  ‘After last night I think we should calm things down a little,’ she snapped. ‘Just be friends for a while.’

  He lifted her chin, searching her face for some sign of teasing. ‘You are joking, darling?’ he asked uncertainly.

  ‘No,’ she pushed back her long hair from her face, ‘I’m confused, Roger. I don’t know what I want any more.’ Except that she no longer wanted to marry him.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand you.’

  Alexandra smoothed the frown from his brow. ‘I don’t understand myself.’

  ‘But we’re getting engaged soon, Gail and Trevor agreed that we could when you were seventeen and a half. I thought we could go and look for a ring at the weekend.’

  Alexandra stood up. ‘No, not this weekend! I—I have too much to think about with Gail in hospital.’

  Roger watched her closely. ‘That isn’t the reason. I have apologised for last night, Alexandra, I can’t do any more.’

  ‘I accepted that apology. It’s just that last night proved to me that I’m not ready for marriage.’ She looked at him pleadingly. ‘Surely you’ve realised that too?’

  ‘I know that last night unnerved you. But that was only because we aren’t married yet. Of course you couldn’t let me make love to you then, I was being stupid to expect it. But once we’re married—’

  ‘No!’ she denied sharply. ‘I can’t marry you. I can’t
!’

  Roger wasn’t quick enough to stop her exit and she managed to get almost to the front door of the house before anyone stopped her.

  ‘Are you leaving, my dear?’ Mrs Young came out of the lounge.

  ‘Er—Yes. I—I—Mr Tempest doesn’t like me to be in late,’ Alexandra said hurriedly.

  ‘Quite right of him. It’s very thoughtful of you to consider his feelings like this. I’ll wish you goodnight, Alexandra.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mrs Young.’ She left quickly as she saw Roger starting to descend the stairs.

  The light was still on in Dominic’s study as she crept into the house and so she made as little noise as possible on her way up the stairs. Nevertheless, she must have made some noise because she heard the study door open and turning she saw Dominic looking up at her.

  ‘You’re home early,’ he remarked thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t enjoy your evening?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I did,’ she contradicted. ‘I—er—I’m rather tired, that’s all,’ she lied.

  ‘I see. You forgot to tell me Trevor would be telephoning tonight.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘It didn’t matter, I was in all evening anyway.’

  She turned to leave. ‘Goodnight, Dominic.’

  ‘I’m going to London in the morning,’ he said softly behind her.

  That stopped her progress and she turned back to face him. ‘But it’s only Tuesday,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, but I think it best. It will give you a few days to get over the situation I’ve created here.’

  ‘So you admit there is a situation,’ she scoffed.

  ‘It would be useless to deny it. I’m aware of you and you’re aware of me, and it’s better if we don’t see each other for a few days.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m hoping things will be different when I get back.’

  ‘When you’ve spent a few days with your mistress,’ she accused fiercely. Dominic sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does she know she’s a substitute too?’ she sneered. ‘Does she know that you’re thinking of someone else as you make love to her? I’m sure that even with the casual relationship you say you have with her she wouldn’t stand for that.’

  His face was thunderous. ‘I have never thought of anyone else when I make love to her!’ he denied furiously.