'Certainly not.' Joan sounded huffy and Annie shrugged. If Joan wanted to play the martyr then there was little she could do about it.
'I'll have a quick wash,' Annie excused herself. 'Then I'd like a word with you, Norman.' Pushing herself off the bed, she made for the door, but Joan's voice stopped her.
'Your mother phoned, by the way.'
'Willa?' Annie went very still, her hand frozen on the doorknob. Was her mother straining at the bit to take a look at the man little Annie had caught herself? If so, she thought drily, she was too late.
In any case, Norman was one of the few men around who would be impervious to Willa's wiles. And was that, she thought with a flash of bitter insight, why she had agreed to marry him in the first place?
The idea shook her, made her look at herself in a new and unfavourable light, even as Joan said, turning Annie's preconceptions upside down, 'She left a message. She wants you to go to her. She's in Capri—at her villa, she said.'
'Did she say why?' Annie's brow furrowed. Her mother had never really wanted her around. From her teens she had been pushed well into the background of the famous star's life because having a grown-up daughter made her less youthful in the eyes of her admirers. There had to be something drastically wrong to make Willa need her.
'No.' Joan was plumping Norman's pillows, smoothing the counterpane. 'No, she didn't. But she sounded distraught. I think you should go.'
Only because it suits you to have me out of the way, Annie decided cynically. But after this evening Joan would no longer see her as a rival.
'I think I should go, too.' She gave Norman an enquiring look. After all, he was still her employer and could claim her time until she'd worked out her notice.
'Yes, you must,' he agreed readily. 'Take all the time you need.' He didn't seem perturbed by the thought of her absence—in her capacity either as his research assistant or as his fiancée. 'I shall be confined to the house for what could conceivably turn out to be weeks, and the new project's postponed, of course. How is the Professor, anyway?'
The enquiry was belated, but it deserved as full an answer as she could give and five minutes later she left him, going to her room to collect her washing things, a change of clothing.
Of Luke there had been no sign. Maybe he was still too furious with her to feel like socialising with the others, she thought. But there was no sign of anger in him when she practically bounced off him as he came out of the bathroom door. There was something dark and hot in the eyes that met hers and it terrified her more than his anger could ever have done.
All he wore was a towel draped low round his hips, and her mouth went dry. He was magnificently male, lithe, no spare flesh on his muscular frame, his skin velvety, tanned, darkened with rough hair.
She stepped quickly aside, her face scarlet, her pulses hammering a wild tattoo, and he reached for her, his voice raw as he pulled her tightly against the shocking warmth of his nearly naked body.
'Understand me, Annie—I want you, need you. And there's no going back, no forgetting, not now. It's far too late for that.'
She stood still in the warm circle of his arms, her body melting. His magic scuttled all her resolution, as if those firm thoughts and intentions had never existed. Then his hands slid up to cradle her head, his fingers splayed in the softness of her vivid hair, gentle fingers, gentle hands, gentle enough to make her shudder with clamouring needs of her own. And softly, he kissed her, his tongue feathering her lips until she opened them to him, quite voluntarily, desire, deep enough to come near agony, unfurling violently within her.
He could call forth this need at will, she recognised wildly, and she was helpless against his potent persuasion. Helpless, doomed by the wantonness he could command from her.
Convulsively, her hands gripped the naked breadth of his shoulders, feeling solid bone beneath the pliant muscle and heated flesh, and a moan escaped her as he withdrew his mouth from hers and said huskily, 'Enough. Enough for now, my love. Later there will be all the time in the world. And then I will take you and love you with kindness, with passion, with utter devotion. And you will learn what it is like to touch the stars.'
He said those words as if she had no say in the matter, and perhaps she didn't, she thought, beginning to panic, caught in the oldest trap in creation.
She muttered something incoherent, the words sticking thickly in her throat, and hurled herself through the bathroom door. Fumbling for the bolt, she shot it home, then leaned back against the cool, painted wood, her eyes closed, her heart pounding frantically.
Sickened, she knew that he could have taken her there and then, such was the blinding magic of his touch. His bedroom door had been a mere yard away and she would have gone with him, given herself to him without reserve or shame. The shame would have come later.
But he had held back, spoken about a future that would never be theirs. She wanted to cry. She wanted him. She wished she'd never met him.
'You look tired.' Norman's smile was faintly sympathetic.
Annie said raggedly, 'I suppose I am, a little.' She was more than tired, she felt as if she'd been put through a mangle. Her emotions had taken a monumental pounding during the last few days.
Coming from the bathroom she had caught a glimpse of Joan and Luke in the kitchen, preparing supper, and she knew she didn't have much time. So she said quickly, as gently as she knew how.
'Norman, I'm sorry, but I can't marry you. It wouldn't work out for either of us.' Her eyes were wary as she saw distaste darken his face.
'It's Luke, isn't it?' he stated grimly.
'No, of course not!' Shock roughened her voice. 'What makes you say that?'
'I say that because I'm not a fool,' he snapped. 'It was more than cousinly interest that kept him around here before the auction. He's a busy man with usually more than a dozen irons in the fire at any given time. He wouldn't have been hanging around if there hadn't been something in it for him and I saw the way he looked at you—as if he could eat you with his eyes.'
'Yet you were perfectly willing for him to go with me to Wales,' Annie snapped right back, appalled that Norman should have so accurately read his cousin's intent and yet done nothing about it.
'I trusted you,' he countered darkly, then went on peevishly, 'I needed the transcripts of those interviews, and the photographs. And I thought you were too level-headed to be taken in by that womanising relative of mine. But you spent two days alone with him and come back to break our engagement—so what do you expect me to think?' He looked surly, like a thwarted schoolboy.
Her face fiery, her eyes volcanic, Annie ground out, 'Luke has nothing to do with it,' and knew it wasn't the complete truth. Luke had demonstrated that she was capable of deep emotional feeling, a sexual need that Norman could never begin to satisfy.
'I don't believe you,' Norman stated huffily. 'And don't imagine,' he shot as she made to leave the room, 'that you'll tame the brute. You won't be the first woman, or the last, to believe she's got what it takes to get him to make marriage vows and mean them. He's too greedy. He likes quality and quantity when it comes to women. So if you think he'll offer marriage and permanency, then think again. I've known him for thirty-odd years and you've known him for a handful of days. And, I'll tell you now, he'll never marry you!'
'My heart bleeds!' Annie snapped sarcastically, but, sweeping out of the room, she knew her words held a smattering of literal truth. She was breaking up inside, but didn't know why.
Norman hadn't needed to spell out the truth for her. She knew just how shallow Luke's interest in her was, and was pretty certain that once she was out of his dangerous orbit she would forget him, forget the wild magic of his touch. So why did she feel as if her heart were bleeding?
But she would be leaving first thing in the morning, she told herself grimly. She would take the first available flight out to Capri and as far as Luke was concerned she would have vanished off the face of the world. His world, anyway!
CHAPTER EIGHT
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'She's sleeping. It's the first proper rest she's had in two weeks. I don't want to disturb her.'
'Of course not.' Annie didn't take offence at Nora's brusque welcome. A grim, plain dragon of a woman, Nora Gooch had been with Willa for over twenty years, all the devotion she was capable of going to the temperamental star. No one else had ever got a look in.
It was Nora who guarded Willa against importunate fans, snarling directors, the demanding Press. She who soothed and cajoled when Willa threw a tantrum, who grumbled unceasingly over Willa's wilder excesses, who applauded each and every performance the star gave—on screen or off-boosting an ego that was already dangerously inflated.
'I'll show you your room.' Nora strode ahead, her flat shoes flapping against the cool marble floor. 'She hoped you'd come, and I'm thankful you did.'
And that was one big concession, Annie thought, as she lifted her suitcase and followed Nora up the curved staircase.
The usual poky room she had been allotted on past occasions when she and her mother and the usual entourage had stayed at the villa was not for her this time, Annie noted with a faint lift of one dark, arching brow. Nora was showing her into one of the sumptuous guest-rooms, all clear lemon silk curtains and bed-coverings, the carpet a deep-pile pure white.
'You're going to have to fend for yourself,' Nora informed her dourly, her brown-clad bulk planted in the centre of the room. Against the delicate, elegant background the older woman's uncompromising plainness appeared incongruous. 'She dismissed all the servants, gave her secretary an unlimited leave of absence and cancelled Griff's visit.'
Annie's heart sank. Willa, in one of what she called her 'states', always demanded an audience. If Willa were depressed, enraged, or even merely bored, then as many other people as possible had to be in on the act, to witness the performance, had to soothe and placate, amuse and sympathise, had to turn themselves inside out in the effort to make her feel happy and pampered again. And Griff, her agent, was more adept than most when it came to coaxing Willa back into a sunny mood. He was more than half in love with his illustrious client and, for that reason alone, was always the first to be called in a crisis, the first to come running.
But if his visit had been cancelled there had to be something very wrong indeed.
'What's going on?' Annie moved over to the windows and looked down on the wrinkled blue silk of the Mediterranean.
'The end of a love-affair.' The older woman sat down heavily on a fragile-looking gilded chair, staring glumly at her broad, capable hands. 'In the past she's always been the one to end it. She gets bored, or finds someone else and moves on. You know the pattern as well as I. This time it was different. He ended it.' Her mouth turned down in a look of distaste. 'I did warn her. He was less than half her age. A pretty Dutch boy who only wanted one thing—a part in her next film. She hasn't been able to take it. It broke her up and, as if that wasn't bad enough, your letter arrived announcing your engagement. She'd just lost a man and you'd found one. She's no spring chicken, Annie,' Nora imparted drearily, 'and I think she was plain simmering jealous of you.'
A toy boy! Annie felt her knees buckle as distaste and pity in equal measure enervated her. She walked slowly across the room and sank down on the edge of the silk-covered bed, feeling the mattress dip beneath her slender weight.
'So she sent for me?'
Annie's mouth went dry as Nora put her inner misgivings into words. 'Naturally, she's burning to find out what manner of man you've managed to capture!' She got heavily to her feet. 'One word of warning—keep him away from her, at least until some new and fascinating man walks over her horizon.' Her voice deepened, and her words were heavy, as if they were being dragged from her against her will. 'She hasn't treated you well—I've not been blind to her faults over the years. She'll make mischief if she can. At the moment she's a bitterly unhappy woman and she'll try to take your happiness from you. She won't see it that way, of course.' She paused, her hand on the porcelain doorknob. 'If she took your man from you she'd tell herself it wasn't her fault, pout her lips the way she does and say she can't help being totally feminine, completely irresistible! Now…' she sighed tiredly '… I'll go to her. When she wakes I'll tell her you're here.'
As soon as she was alone Annie moved briskly about the room, unpacking her case and putting her things away. The content of Nora's warning hadn't surprised her, only the fact of its delivery did that. In the past Nora had treated her as if she were invisible, and her devotion to Willa had been such that she wouldn't have warned her own mother if the star had taken it into her head to do that lady a fatal mischief!
However, the warning was invalid, Annie thought drily as she dumped folded underwear into a drawer. She no longer had a fiancé!
A quick shower in the adjoining palatial bathroom freshened her a little. The flight to Capri had been relatively short but she felt jaded. And that was owing to her fraught emotional state, she admitted, sighing as she pulled on a pair of light cotton jeans and a cool, matching, apricot-coloured top.
Flicking a comb through her hair, she caught her full lower lip between her teeth in an effort to stop it quivering. Every time her thoughts turned to Luke, wondering where he was, what he was doing, how he had taken the very final slap-in-the-eye of her sly departure, she felt like crying.
She didn't know why he should be so difficult to get out of her head. She had left Seabourne without a word to him, leaving no forwarding address because putting distance between them was the only sensible thing to do in the circumstances. She was missing him more than she could have thought possible.
But at least Willa's problems and the dismissal of the servants meant that her time and her mind would be fully occupied, leaving little room for Luke to intrude.
But he did intrude, damn him! Mentally, he dogged her footsteps as she wandered through the large, silent villa. Through airy rooms and quiet corridors thoughts of him nudged relentlessly at her mind. And she couldn't stand it!
Roses—she would pick some for her room. Even in autumn they bloomed in their thousands in the magnificent, cypress-enclosed gardens that swept via green-lawned terraces to the sea.
But no sooner had the thought occurred than Nora appeared in an arched doorway.
'She wants to see you. I've just made a pot of tea—take it with you and try to persuade her to have some. She's been living on uppers and downers for the past week.'
'Of course.' Automatically, Annie followed Nora to the kitchen, her eyes skimming the laden tray with disbelief. Willa would never allow herself to sample those buttery scones, that wickedly rich chocolate cake. 'Don't you think she'd be more tempted by a thin cucumber sandwich or a very small green salad?' And then, seeing a look of distress pass over Nora's normally deadpan face, she added quickly, 'But I'll gorge myself on your delicious baking, I promise! It is yours, isn't it?'
'Since she tipped out the servants, cook and all, I thought I'd make the type of stuff I fancy for a change.' Nora held out the tray and balanced it on Annie's hands, a twinkle of humour in her eyes. 'I'll fix something less fattening for her ladyship, though in my opinion she could do with gaining a stone.'
Annie had too many memories of her mother's indifference to her to feel anything less than apprehensive as she carried the tray to the room Willa always used when staying at the villa. And compounding her anxieties was the very real fear that the actress had suffered a breakdown.
Everything pointed to it. There was her uncharacteristic insistence on being alone—it was unheard-of for her to live without a troop of servants. Even when she came to the villa to 'get away from it all', as she would wistfully announce, she had always demanded a full complement of admiring hangers-on.
And, equally obviously, Nora couldn't cope. Why else should she have admitted to being thankful to see Annie—have confided in her to the extent that she had done?
Gingerly, Annie nudged the bedroom door open with her knee and stood in the doorway, hardly able to believe her eyes. The cu
rtains were almost completely drawn across the windows, but even in the dim light she could detect the squalor of the frowsty room.
Willa had always been so fastidious, both in her person and her surroundings, and the surly-eyed woman who regarded her from the depths of the rumpled bed didn't look like the glamorous, sophisticated Willa Kennedy at all. She looked old, she looked lost and she looked broken.
Swallowing around a painful lump in her throat, Annie advanced with the tray, and cleared a space on the table-top.
Willa said thickly, 'So you managed to tear yourself away from your fiancé at last.'
'I came as soon as I could.' Now wasn't the time to explain about the broken engagement. The most pressing consideration right now was to ascertain the seriousness of Willa's condition. She might need medical help. 'I've brought some tea,' she went on calmly. 'I'm gasping for a cup myself. But I think we could do with a little more light.'
She went to the windows briskly, pulling back both sets of curtains, wincing inwardly as she saw the full extent of the damage. Cosmetic pots and bottles had been hurled in a tantrum and lay where they had fallen, spilling their contents on to the priceless Persian rugs. The heavy peacock-blue satin bed-hangings had been clawed from their fitments and lay in shimmering pools over the floor, the bed. But worst of all was Willa.
Annie had never seen her mother look anything less than perfect and she doubted if anyone else, save Nora, had either. Now her blonde candyfloss hair was lank, her skin blotchy, her brown eyes puffed with weeping. She had lost weight, too, and the loss had aged her.
Petulantly, Willa waved aside the cup of tea Annie offered and whispered huskily, 'I feel as if I'm finished. You might as well know it—everyone else does by now.'
'Is that so?' Annie sipped from her own cup, her oval face impassive. She had heard those particular phrases too often before to be unduly alarmed. She knew she was now expected to state that the star had never looked lovelier, more fascinating, that her last role had revealed greater depth and range than any that had gone before and that her rich vein of talent could only improve.
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