by Anne Weale
‘Welcome back to Orengo. How are you, Anny?’ His words and his offered hand would have seemed friendly enough to anyone watching.
But he didn’t smile and his eyes were as cold as the blue shadows in an ice cave.
‘Good afternoon.’ She spoke as if to a stranger, putting her hand into his with instinctive reluctance to touch him, even in this formal way.
Once, while they were living together and discussing a mutual acquaintance with a slithery handshake, Van had said he had to take care not to shake hands with women as forcefully as with men.
This time he forgot and she had to control a wince as her knuckle bones ground together under the pressure of his fingers. Strangely, the moment of pain reminded her of all the times when his touch had been exquisitely gentle.
In the past, when these same powerful fingers had caressed the most delicate parts of her body, they had done it with a tender sensitivity, the memory of which had often tormented her in the hundreds of lonely nights when her body had clamoured for release from the prison of unsatisfied longings.
Now she slammed the door in her mind through which a flock of unbidden memories had been about to surge.
‘Having summoned me to your presence,’ she said coldly, ‘you might have had the courtesy to be here when I arrived.’
‘You must blame your paper for that. Charlene’s the most efficient PA I’ve ever had. Any glitch in the arrangements won’t have been her fault.’
‘Did they get it wrong that you asked specifically for me?’
‘No, I fixed that myself in conversation with your editor.’
‘Why?’
‘I was curious to see how you’d turned out, Anny.’ He then had the casual effrontery to reach out and take off her glasses, using both hands to tilt the side-pieces upwards so they wouldn’t catch on her ears. ‘The light isn’t strong in here, with your back to the sea. I like to see people’s eyes when I’m talking to them.’
Several angry retorts jostled for utterance. She managed to bite them all back. It was important to stay calm. She mustn’t allow him to ruffle her.
‘Weren’t you equally curious?’ he asked.
‘Not particularly. My life is too busy to spend any time looking back.’
‘I thought curiosity was a journalist’s stock-in-trade? You used to be insatiably curious.’
‘Professionally I still am.’ Deciding to take the initiative, she said, ‘This afternoon, as you weren’t here, I went back to Nice. While I was there I saw you in one of the pavement cafés. Who was the woman with you?’
‘Her name is Candace. She’s American...the widow of a much older Frenchman. When he died, she preferred to stay here. She grew up in the States, but Nice is where she feels most comfortable now.’
‘Really? I feel the same way about Nice as Tobias Smollett.’
‘And how did he feel?’ asked Van, still holding her folded sunglasses and eyeing her with an expression she couldn’t interpret.
‘He called it “a place where I leave nothing but the air which I can possibly regret”.’
‘Is that how you feel about Orengo?’
The question slipped under her guard like the thrust of an expert fencer.
She said coldly, ‘The Orengo I knew has gone. You’ve made it a showplace... somewhere I hardly recognise. Is Candace your mistress?’
To her surprise, he laughed. For a moment she caught a glimpse of the Van she remembered from the time before things began to go wrong for them.
‘Is that professional or personal curiosity?’ he asked.
‘Strictly professional.’
‘I never discuss my private life. You may ask me about my work, my house and my garden. The rest is off limits. If you were personally interested then I would tell you. But you aren’t.’ The look he gave her was mocking and faintly malicious.
‘Without any personal details, a profile isn’t worth writing.’
‘Then put in the details you know,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘Tell your readers about our affair. Expose yourself for a change. Tell them you were my mistress. It will make an interesting twist.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘I was never your mistress. We lived together as equals. You didn’t keep me. I paid my own expenses...or as much as I could afford then.’
‘How many men since then have you lived with as equals?’
Anny drew in an angry breath. ‘That’s not your business.’
‘If you aren’t prepared to be frank with someone who was once a close friend, why should I bare my soul for the gratification of people I don’t know from Adam? Let’s make a bargain. If you’ll be open with me, I’ll be open with you. An answer for an answer. Agreed?’
When he spoke of their past friendship, a curious pain shot through her. As they had when he first appeared, memories came crowding back and this time she couldn’t control them or shut them out. They whirled round her mind like a neat pile of autumn leaves caught by a strong gust of wind and scattered everywhere.
Reluctantly, she said, ‘I’ve been too busy building my career to have time for relationships. There’s only been one other man.’ She hesitated, half inclined to admit that it had been a friendship, not a love affair, but then changed her mind. ‘Not much of a tally compared with yours, I expect.’
‘That depends on the nature of your relationship. Is it serious?’
‘It’s over...it didn’t work out.’
‘For the same reason as last time? Did he want you to give up your career?’
‘You said “an answer for an answer”. I’m not going to be interrogated while you say nothing.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘How many women there’ve been?’ But even as she asked, she cringed inwardly, not wanting to hear the details of her successors.
‘None who’ve mattered,’ he told her coldly. ‘As they say, once bitten, twice shy. This coast is littered with women whose husbands neglect or bore them. They’re fairly boring too, but they serve their purpose.’
Was he speaking the truth? Did he really use women only to satisfy his physical needs? The idea repelled her. At the same time she found it more palatable than the thought of his having several passionate affairs.
‘How disgusting!’ Her lip curled. ‘You might as well have sex with a prostitute if you only want an outlet for lust.’
‘Lust being something you know nothing about, I suppose?’ The look in his eyes reminded her of all the times they had come home after an evening out and stripped off their clothes in a mutual frenzy of desire.
She looked at him with disdain. ‘I’ve never made love with anyone who was just a body to me.’
She wondered how he would react if he knew that, since leaving Paris, she had never made love with anyone, period. Probably he wouldn’t believe it. Fidelity was an ethic which had gone out of style, at least among the movers and shakers, the people who set the trends and lived at the so-called cutting edge of society.
‘You never used to be a liar, Anny.’ As he said it, he was appraising her figure with a familiarity which brought a rush of colour to her face.
‘What the hell do you mean?’ she demanded furiously.
Her anger seemed to amuse him, but although his mouth curled, his eyes were still arctic. ‘Let me put it more kindly,’ he said, with cutting sarcasm. ‘You loved me...remember? Passionately. Sometimes you wanted me so badly, you could hardly wait to get home and tear off your clothes.’
After so long apart, that he still had a telepathic insight into her mind was unnerving.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve ever lain down for anyone else as eagerly as you did for me. I shan’t believe you.’ The flash of his teeth was like a silent snarl. ‘You want me now. Your thighs are beginning to tremble even before I’ve touched you. I could take you now, and you know it.’
She said, her voice quiet and controlled, unlike the turmoil inside her, ‘If you lay a finger on me, I’ll scream the place down.’
The icy gleam
in his eyes had suddenly changed to the blue at the heart of a flame. She recognised that look. She had seen it uncountable times while lying on a bed with his long body rearing above her like a stallion pawing the air. In the past his exultant maleness had thrilled the primeval woman lurking inside her. Now it chilled her.
‘No, you won’t,’ he said softly. ‘You’ll melt in my arms the same way you always did.’
He shot out a hand, grabbed her wrist and jerked her against him. For a moment, holding her pinioned, he gave her a chance to carry out her threat. When her eyes flashed with rage but her voice remained mute, he gave a harsh laugh. ‘You see? Even though you hate my guts for forcing you to come here, you can’t control your secret lust. You knew, as soon as I sent for you, that if I wanted, I could take you. The only thing you don’t know is whether I would want to.’
‘If you try it will be a rape.’ Her voice shook with rage and terror.
But it wasn’t the desperate fear of a woman about to be violated. She was afraid, but not of being physically hurt. What terrified her was something quite different.
‘A rape is forcing a woman against her will,’ he said softly, looking down at her flushed, furious face with the flush of arousal tinting the taut brown skin over his arrogant cheekbones and his blue eyes narrowed and glittering. ‘Your will to resist evaporated when we were shaking hands. Do you think I don’t know that?’
‘Damn you, Van...let me go!’ She struggled, knowing it was hopeless.
‘All in good time.’ His voice was almost caressing. ‘But first we have an experiment to conduct.’
Keeping her trapped with one arm, he used his other hand to hold her face in position for a kiss which began with unexpected gentleness. But almost at once it changed to a savage demand. Anny gave a smothered moan of protest as, out of the ashes of five years’ loneliness, all the remembered sensations burst into flame.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN at last the kiss ended, they glared at each other like bitter adversaries, both made temporarily speechless by the volcanic emotions the fusion of their mouths had released.
Anny knew, because she had felt it, that Van was aroused to a pitch where he might not care if a gardener came by and heard them panting and gasping on the floor of the belvedere.
He had spoken the truth when he said that, if he chose, he could take her here and now.
She had neither the physical strength nor, even more vital, the emotional strength to resist him. His kiss had drained her of everything but an elemental need to feel like a woman again, a female in the arms of a dominant male. The decision was his. She knew that. The feminist side of her brain despised her capitulation. But neither side of her brain was in charge at the moment. Her senses were in control... or, more accurately, out of control.
It was Van who recovered first. Releasing her, stepping back, he said huskily, ‘I knew the result beforehand. So did you. But what you still don’t know is whether, tonight, I’ll take you to bed with me.’ He raked back his thick black hair, his expression derisive. ‘Don’t waste your breath being outraged. Don’t claim that you’d rather die than spend the night in my arms. You’d enjoy it as much as you always did, and you know it.’ After a momentary pause to let that sink in, he added, ‘And much as you’d like to chicken out and run away, you won’t do that. Because, if you did lose your nerve, you’d also lose an important scoop.’
As she was about to blaze back at him, they both heard footsteps approaching. A man in a dark suit and tie appeared, probably the butler.
Speaking English with an Italian accent, he said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. There’s an urgent call from America. These are the details.’ He handed his employer a notepad. ‘They requested that you call them back as soon as possible.’
Van read the notes and nodded. To Anny, playing the courteous host, he said, ‘Excuse me. We’ll continue this conversation later.’
Presently, when she had recovered a little, she returned to the house by an indirect route and went up to her room, locking the door in case Van tried to walk in on her while she was making up her mind what to do.
For a long time she sat in the chair on the loggia, gazing along the familiar coastline, and knowing that really there was nothing to think about
Years ago, as a teenager, with an imperfect grasp of the forces that shaped people’s lives, she hadn’t been able to understand why, when he knew it was bad for him, Bart couldn’t give up drinking.
Now, having worked with people who shared his habit, and known or interviewed others who couldn’t give up cigarettes, fattening foods, or drugs ranging from sleeping pills to cocaine, she knew more about addiction and the often unbreakable holds all these things had on people.
What she hadn’t realised, but saw now with terrifying clarity, was that ever since leaving Paris she had been suffering from withdrawal. And also attempting to suppress and deny her craving.
What had happened in the belvedere had had the same effect as a dieter succumbing to chocolate or a nicotine addict lighting a cigarette after long abstinence. With one cataclysmic kiss, Van had revived her need to have him make love to her.
She had no idea whether he had meant his threat to take her to bed. All she knew was that she wouldn’t, couldn’t resist him, if that was what he chose to do.
Deep down she had always belonged to him, and always would.
She couldn’t believe that he still cared for her. But if, for some complex reason to do with revenge and punishment, he wanted to have her, if only for a single night, she wouldn’t be able to say no and mean it.
Not that she would make it easy for him. But the final outcome was as inevitable as this evening’s sunset and tomorrow’s dawn.
Once, at the time of their separation, she had refused to do what he wanted and walked out on him. But it had been a hollow victory. She had won her independence at the cost of her happiness.
From a worldly point of view she was a success. In a few more years, if things continued to go well, she would be a role model for aspiring women journalists. A fat lot of comfort that was last thing at night when other, less ambitious women were going to bed with men who loved them.
Perhaps she had lost the chance to have that kind of shared life. She couldn’t settle for what poor Jon had to offer, and although Van wanted her physically, she doubted if he would ever again make an emotional commitment. She had held his heart once, but rejected it. He wouldn’t offer it again.
The next time she saw Van, she was on the terrace where drinks were going to be served. The butler had asked what she would like. Wanting to keep a clear head, she had requested a tall glass of iced mineral water.
‘What’s that? A gin and tonic?’ Van appeared round the corner, looking even more distinguished than the first time she saw him in a white dinner jacket. He had always had an air of authority, but now it was more pronounced.
‘Water,’ she told him. ‘Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t run on liquor.’
‘I can see that. Women who knock back a lot of the hard stuff start showing it sooner than men do.’ His eyes appraised her white pique top teamed with a long black skirt with a slit to above the knee which showed only when she moved or crossed her legs. ‘You always did dress very well. That, at least, hasn’t changed.’
‘Thank you.’ Although she acknowledged the remark as if it were a compliment, she knew that the qualification gave it a double edge which was the reverse of flattering.
‘This party tonight...is it a special occasion? Or do you do a lot of entertaining?’
‘Very little compared with most people on this coast. In fact I’m regarded almost as a recluse.’
‘You didn’t give that impression this afternoon. You seemed to be greatly enjoying your American widow’s society.’
‘That sounds almost like jealousy, Anny. But jealousy is a possessive emotion and, as you made very clear the last time we were together, you have no desire to possess or to be possessed.’
&n
bsp; ‘I hope you don’t mean to spar with me in front of your guests. If you do, I shall leave the table.’
The smile that twisted his mouth was that of a torturer considering what refinements of pain he could inflict on his victim.
‘But you won’t leave the house,’ he said softly. ‘The price of that gesture would be too high, wouldn’t it?’
She was tempted to dash the contents of her glass in his handsome, sadistic face, but she managed to restrain herself.
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ she said coldly.
Van laughed, knowing that he could. ‘That sounds like the first car now. Will you excuse me?’
He left her to fume while he went through the house to greet the arriving guests.
With a different host, in a different place, it would have been a good party. His friends were obviously rich, the men assured and well-groomed, the women beautifully turned out and friendly towards her. She had been afraid that Van’s riches might have changed his attitudes and values, making him cultivate people who saw everything in terms of status. But the friends who were here tonight were not of that ilk. These were people Bart would have liked.
Introducing her to them, Van mentioned her biography of Aristide, but it seemed that none of them had read it, or realised she was also a successful journalist. This didn’t dent her self-esteem. She was realistic enough to know that only people on TV could claim to be household names. On the whole, print journos’ bylines didn’t have a lot of impact, unless they’d been going for years, and her book about Aristide, although well-reviewed, hadn’t been a major bestseller.
Predictably the food and the wines were first-class. After dinner, they moved from one terrace to another for coffee, liqueurs and hand-made chocolates.
