by Susan Napier
‘It was my pleasure,’ he said gravely. ‘You’re a delightful young woman, Beth…and a credit to all your family.’
His subtle phrasing caused her to give him a sudden look of mature comprehension. ‘I guess I’ll see you again some time, then…’ she said.
‘I guess you will.’
She glanced again at the woman at his side. ‘See you, Rachel…’
‘See you…’
‘You’re allowed to cry, you know,’ murmured Matthew, as Rachel turned her back on her last glimpse of the pair and walked stiffly away, shoulders squared and jaw clenched, her long legs eating up the broad expanse of terminal carpet. ‘It’s considered de rigueur at airports.’
‘I’m not going to cry,’ she denied.
She got into the back of the limo and slid across to the far window, leaving a wide expanse of leather seat between them. As the limo purred back into the flow of traffic she kept her head turned to stare with fierce concentration out of the tinted window. After a few kilometres of thick silence she heard a soft rustle, and a white handkerchief appeared on the edge of her blurry vision.
‘Thank you, but I have some tissues somewhere…’ Her sight almost totally obscured by her silent stream of tears, she wrestled with the catch on her bag until suddenly it was wrenched out of her hands and thrown onto the opposite seat.
‘Dammit, Rachel, just take it!’ He forced his handkerchief into her hand, and she startled them both by suddenly twisting her body around and throwing herself against his shoulder in a paroxysm of noisy sobs.
He had unclicked his seat belt to draw near, and now he undid hers so that he could wrap his arms around her trembling torso and hold her more tightly against his warm chest, uttering soothing reassurances as she wept into his jacket.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ he murmured, patting her back, his chin resting on top of her ruffled head. ‘You have a right to cry…’
‘I’m always saying goodbye. Everyone always leaves…’
‘I’m not leaving. I’m right here. And your daughter is moving on to a new phase of her life, but she’ll still be your daughter wherever she is…’ She was shaken by a renewed storm of sobs. ‘That’s right, let it all out…’
She did, in a series of disjointed little rushes, punctuated with fresh tears.
‘It isn’t as if I haven’t already let go…I did that when she was born…before that, even. I—my parents didn’t want to know about the baby—they even tried to stop Robyn adopting her. But she knew I hated the idea of losing touch completely, and she so badly wanted a child herself…it seemed like fate. And then, just after Beth was born, Simon was posted to Hong Kong for six years.’
‘Oh, darling…’
She hastened to dismiss his shocked pity. ‘No, no—it was better that way; it was the exactly right thing to happen.’ She hiccuped between sobs. ‘It would have been too confusing otherwise. The clean break gave Robyn and Beth a chance to really bond as mother and child, and it gave me a chance to grow up. So by the time they came back to New Zealand to live Beth was just like a real niece to me—someone I loved, but more as an indivisible part of Simon and Robyn than as a part of me…you know what I mean…?’ She was aware of Matt nodding against the curve of her scalp. ‘It all seemed so natural, and Beth was so secure that she never had any problem knowing that I was the one who gave birth to her. I’ve never regretted it…not really—’ She choked. ‘Robyn is such a terrific mum.’
He cupped her chin and tilted her face up to his so that she couldn’t hide her expression. ‘And I bet you will be too,’ he told her quietly.
His soft words dropped into the hollow of her heart.
‘I’m nearly thirty-one!’ she pointed out, her hazel eyes brimming.
‘Oh, dear—then you’d better make sure you take a younger lover, with plenty of lusty enthusiasm and stamina,’ he murmured, looking down into the deep V of her dress, where her ripe breasts nestled in mouth-watering splendour. ‘What a coincidence there’s someone on hand who happens to meet the specifications.’
His mouth came down on hers, smothering her squeak of outrage that he should make such a mockery of her pain, but she was swiftly appeased by the steamy pleasure of his soul-deep kisses. His arm tightened around the back of her waist and she angled her mouth against his to give him even greater access, crushing the lapels of his jacket in her eager hands. Her tears dried up completely, her aching awareness of loss replaced by a sense of straining fullness, the temperature in the air-conditioned back seat steadily rising as the limo wound its way back across town.
When Rachel resurfaced, conscious of the sudden cessation of engine vibration, she was aghast to find herself plastered astride Matthew’s lap; his hands were burrowed inside her halter, his head thrown back against the headrest, his parted mouth wet with her kisses, his eyes behind his fogged spectacles shut tight and his face drawn into a rictus of agonised restraint.
‘Just—don’t move for a moment,’ he instructed in a stifled voice.
Glancing out of the window, Rachel saw she was back home, and felt a traitorous stab of disappointment as she ignored his plea, pushing away his hands and scrambling frantically off his lap, lunging for the door.
She nearly fell out of the car in her eagerness to alight, and dashed up the path, only to pull up short at the front door when she realised she didn’t have her keys.
She turned and found Matthew, walking with preternatural care, bringing her her bag and the gauzy jacket she had shed some time on the feverish return journey.
He had smoothed down his wildly disordered hair but his eyes still had a hectic glitter behind the silver frames.
Rachel had intended to shut the door in his face, but he was on her heels as she stepped inside, and instead of taking him to task she froze, a prickle running down her spine, her senses swiftly changing focus.
CHAPTER EIGHT
RACHEL frowned, and began a swift prowl of the rooms.
Matthew, alert to every nuance of her expression, stuck close. ‘What’s the matter?’
It took her a little while to figure out why she was getting a feeling of wrongness. ‘Someone’s been here in the house while we’ve been gone.’
‘Are you sure?’
Rachel adjusted a file on the desk in the corner of the lounge. ‘Things have been moved, doors left in a different position…’
‘Maybe Robyn or Beth—’
‘No. I rechecked the whole house before we left and I have an excellent visual memory.’ She pushed in a drawer of the desk that wasn’t quite closed and shivered. ‘Nothing too overt, but someone’s definitely been in here, going through my things. I know it. I can feel it.’
He didn’t deride her intuition, as Frank would have done. Instead he insisted she go through the house with him again, pointing out the subtle evidence, discovering the slight rearrangement of clothing in her drawers. ‘Whoever it was has done a very neat job,’ he commented. ‘Can you tell if anything is missing?
‘There doesn’t seem to be,’ she said, nibbling her lower lip and finding it embarrassingly tender. ‘There’s no sign of a forced entry-point, either, so it’s not a run-of-the-mill B&E; it has to have been a skeleton-key job…’
‘You don’t have an alarm?’ He frowned.
She shrugged. ‘We don’t get much crime in this area—it’s a friendly neighbourhood—and, anyway, I don’t have a great deal of stuff worth stealing—the computer, the microwave and video are usually first to go in a burglary, but it looks as though they haven’t even been touched.’
‘Probably not a burglary, then. Someone looking for something else? Do you keep any of Westons’ security-sensitive stuff here?’
‘Certainly not—Frank’s very strict about that kind of thing.’
‘What about this mysterious harasser Robyn was talking about? Could he or she have turned to stalking?’
‘It simply doesn’t fit the pattern—all the other things have been impersonal ways of getting at me from
afar, without running any risk of a face-to-face confrontation.’
‘Then what is worth someone running that sort of risk for?’
The thought struck them both at the same time, and Rachel rolled away her computer chair and hauled out her briefcase, which she had shoved to the back of the tunnel under her desk.
‘The photographs—’ she said in dismay when she knelt down and unsnapped the case. She sat back on her haunches. ‘They’re gone!’
Matthew swore. ‘So it could very well have been our blackmailer.’
‘But no one knew I had them! Except you…’
His eyes kindled. ‘Are you accusing me of paying someone to toss over your house while we were making out on the back seat of my Dad’s car?’
His phrasing was deliberately designed to make her blush, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. ‘No, of course not,’ she said weakly, rising back to her feet.
‘I know you don’t really trust me yet, but at least credit me with some sense of morality,’ he scolded her, before turning back to the immediate problem. ‘Since our engagement was announced maybe whoever it is needs to urgently find out what’s really going on between us. And, since my residences are pretty well impregnable, the logical place to troll for stray information on our relationship would be here. The fact part of the evidence has been retrieved might indicate our blackmailer is getting cold feet. Thank God you keep that unfortunate note I wrote to you close to your heart—’
‘It’s in my wallet,’ she corrected him sharply.
He grinned. ‘I was speaking figuratively,’ he soothed.
‘Well, there was nothing else to be found, so I doubt whoever it is will come back,’ murmured Rachel, wrapping her arms around her waist. The late afternoon was edging into evening, and soon she would have to start thinking about her solitary meal. She lifted her chin. She probably wouldn’t feel like anything much after their superb four-course lunch. Maybe just a boiled egg in front of the TV…
Matthew was observing her contradictory body language. ‘Not that it matters, because, friendly neighbourhood or not—you’re not staying here,’ he announced. ‘Not tonight, anyway. And preferably not until we arrange to have the locks changed and a decent alarm installed.’
Rachel tossed her head, her eyes flaring with pride. ‘I’m not scared!’
‘Maybe not, my dear lioness, but I am,’ he said with rueful truth. ‘If anything happened to you I’d feel responsible, and I have enough on my conscience. I’m not prepared to leave you here alone, Rachel, and that’s that! And if you’re honest you’ll admit you don’t really want to be by yourself tonight, either. You’re staying with me.’
Honesty hadn’t had a hell of a lot to do with allowing herself to be persuaded into his unnecessarily protective custody, Rachel thought to herself later, as she lay in a huge bath of bubbles in one of the upstairs bedrooms of his country fortress. The real truth was that she had craved more of those mind-blowing kisses, and in that she had been severely disappointed for Matthew had suddenly become as virtuous as a priest.
After entertaining her with a detailed tour both inside and outside his house that would have done credit to the impersonality of a real estate salesman, Matt had urged Rachel to have a swim while he prepared another of his delicious light salads, this time with shrimp, for their evening meal. He had served it with a crisp white wine and kept the conversation innocuous, and then, leaving the dishes in the sink for the housekeeper to deal with the next morning, had pleaded pressure of work and gone through a stack of papers while Rachel had curled up on the other end of the couch and tried to concentrate on a borrowed book, sipping her way through another glass and a half of wine.
She had felt all her senses humming by the time he had closed the last folder, only to find herself confronted by a masculine yawn and a polite goodnight that had shunted her off to her room…alone. There her thoughts had grown oppressively melancholy, until she had banished them by mentally weaving a series of passionate fantasies which she now had an urgent desire to turn into reality.
Stepping out of her bubble bath and patting herself dry on the huge dark green bathsheet, Rachel reached for the sexy knee-length white satin chemise that Robyn had given her as a thank-you present that morning. It had looked quite modest in the box, but, looking at herself in the mirror, she realised that the slinky fabric concealed yet cleverly revealed the peaks and valleys of her body, sliding against her skin with every breath, the tips of her breasts showing as sharp points against the pearly satin.
She smoothed down the sides with trembling hands, a little tingle shooting through her as her fingers encountered her silky thighs through the daring slits that reached almost to her hip. She had had just enough wine to free her from nervous inhibition, and more than enough to dispel any niggling fear of rejection. She ached with a deep-seated need that Matt was destined to appease.
He hadn’t told her where his own room was—a glaring omission which Rachel refused to consider a deterrent. Her feet bare, she embarked on her quest through the maze of quiet, carpeted hallways on the upper floor, her figure shimmering like a ghost in the pale rays of the silver moon which shone down through the strips of patterned glass in the ceiling.
When she finally saw the mellow glow of an electric light spilling out through a half-open door, Rachel ventured in without knocking.
‘You said I wouldn’t want to be by myself tonight, and you were right…’
Matt, clad only in his cream trousers, his belt unbuckled, whirled around from the low mirrored bureau, his unshielded eyes flaring with shock. He threw the towel he was holding onto the dark-covered bed and strode towards her.
‘Dammit, Rachel, what are you doing here?’ His voice was hoarse as his gaze slid over the waterfall of satin to focus briefly on the rippling V where her thighs met before racing back up to her face. Even without his glasses he could still recognise trouble when he saw it. ‘If I’d already turned on the motion sensors the security board would be lit up like a Christmas tree right now!’
‘But you hadn’t. You knew I might be lonely,’ she said huskily, and reached out to walk her fingers up his naked chest. ‘You told me I shouldn’t be alone tonight…’
He caught her wrist. ‘Don’t do that,’ he ordered roughly.
‘Why not?’ With her other hand she touched his flat nipple. It was hot, dry and beaded instantly under her touch. She felt a surge of reckless pleasure. ‘Isn’t this what you expected when you brought me here?’
‘For God’s sake.’ His fingers manacled both her wrists, holding them out to her sides. ‘Not now, not like this…’
‘Like what?’ she asked, moving forward so that the front of her thighs brushed his and her satin-tipped breasts settled against his skin. She bent her knee, excited by her own daring, allowing it to nudge between his muscle-locked legs. She lifted her face and touched her tongue to the ridge of his jaw, tasting his tangy male flavour.
‘When?’ she murmured seductively. ‘When will you make love to me, Matt?’ The lighting was sensuously low, and the simple functionality of the room spurred her imagination. ‘I want you to love me here, now…on the bed, on the bureau, on the floor—I don’t care,’ she purred. ‘I just know we can make each other feel good…’
‘Rachel—’ He groaned as she tasted him again, sipping and nibbling at the dark stubble on his chin, pushing closer and rubbing herself wantonly against his stiff body. ‘Dammit, I promised myself I wasn’t going to let this happen,’ he gritted. ‘I should never have let you drink the rest of that wine, but I thought it might help you relax…’
‘I’m relaxed,’ she whispered against his mouth, insinuating her leg further between his. ‘I’m not drunk, I know what I’m doing…’
‘It’s night, your biorhythms are low, your emotional defences are down…and you’re missing the people you love,’ he said raggedly, pulling his reluctant mouth away from her kiss. ‘The feel-good bit is just an illusion—it won’t last the dawn. Yo
u don’t really want sex, you want love, and you don’t really want me to love you; you just want to be close to someone—anyone—who can fill the emptiness for a while. Don’t think I’m not tempted,’ he grunted, jerking his hardening body away from her sinuously stroking hips. ‘But I won’t be used as an emotional substitute—not ever again. I’ve been used like that once before, and it was sheer hell…’
He shuddered, drawing her hands together, binding them in an attitude of prayer as he pressed them to his lips. ‘I want you to trust me, not resent me for taking advantage of your vulnerability.’
Rachel shook her head fiercely. ‘You wouldn’t be taking advantage. Do you think I don’t know the difference between seduction and force? I know what it’s like to be truly forced.’ She spoke feverishly in her effort to convince. ‘That’s how Bethany was conceived. I was raped by a drunk—the father of a boy I’d started dating. At first I was too scared and too ashamed to tell anyone, and then I found I was pregnant.
‘It turned out that he’d raped other girls, too, even younger than me, and there was a court case during which he died. I was glad! I hated him for what he did, and it took me a long time to learn to trust men again. It also made me very selective about with whom I chose to be sexual.’ She swayed against him. ‘So if you’re my choice then I must trust you…’
‘Oh, no—oh, God, Rachel…’ Matt’s eyes were smouldering coals in a face which was suddenly ash-grey. ‘I never imagined—I’m so sorry…’ His voice was racked with a deep torment that seemed to go beyond empathy.
‘I had Bethany,’ she said, as if it explained her survival, and in many ways it did. ‘What goes wrong in our lives doesn’t always turn out to be all for the worst.’ Desire made her impatient. ‘Anyway, what does it matter why we want each other tonight?’
‘It matters.’ He looked painfully shaken, the barrier of his will breached by her honesty, but not broken. ‘I can’t do this casually. I—Leigh was the first woman I ever loved.’
