Best of Virgins Bundle

by Cathy Williams

  He had risen when she did; she was tall enough, for a woman, but he towered over her, battering her with the power of his presence and his forceful personality.

  ‘Can you get a babysitter for him?’ he asked, long thick lashes narrowing his gaze.

  She swallowed and banished a craven impulse to lick her lips. ‘Why?’

  ‘Answer me, Paige.’

  She lifted defiant eyes. ‘I don’t have to answer you,’ she said in a low, intense voice. ‘I’m not your employee or someone who wants to curry favour with you. The question of a babysitter doesn’t arise because I won’t leave Brodie.’

  Another evasion, but with any luck she’d made him angry enough not to notice. She turned away with the almost sleeping child in her arms and headed for the door that led to two small bedrooms and a minuscule bathroom.

  Marc’s voice came from behind, cool and deliberate. ‘In that case, I’ll come along tomorrow morning and bring breakfast for us both.’

  Paige froze. ‘No,’ she said tautly.

  ‘Why not?’

  She was shaking her head, knowing only that she didn’t dare see anything more of him. The only way she could think of to counter that inflexible will involved threatening him with harassment, and she couldn’t trust herself to berate him without waking Brodie.

  Fuming, she opened the door into the tiny hall. ‘Because I don’t want you here,’ she said between her teeth.

  ‘Tough,’ he said, just as bluntly. ‘We have things to talk about.’

  She swivelled around. ‘What on earth do we have to talk about? Juliette is dead, and she was the only thing we had in common.’

  A sardonic brow lifted as he surveyed her with infuriating confidence. ‘Unfortunately, that’s not true. At the moment you’re too concerned about Brodie to concentrate. He’ll almost certainly be feeling much better in the morning and we can discuss things then.’

  Paige pressed her lips together as he walked out into the sunshine and closed the door behind him.

  Cradling the baby, she watched the sun strike fire from Marc’s head. He seemed a creature from another planet—virile, radiating a potent energy that transformed the tired, drab surroundings and set her thrumming with deep, hidden desires.

  Dangerous, frightening desires, doomed to be frustrated. She turned away, sickened by her body’s treachery.

  As she tucked the baby into his crib and stood patting his back, she thought of Juliette. It had been only a couple of years after her marriage that she’d rung Paige from New York and recounted her suspicions about Marc and Lauren, her lightly accented voice wry and steady.

  Paige, her own life smashed to splinters after her father had walked out on her and her mother, had said immediately, ‘Dump him.’ And wondered why she’d felt so desolate.

  But Juliette replied, ‘That would be stupid. This is only a fling.’

  Astounded, Paige said, ‘But you’ll never be able to trust him!’

  ‘I trust him not to abandon me, as your father did your mother,’ Juliette said with complete conviction. ‘Marc won’t betray me like that.’

  And when Paige spluttered into silence her friend continued, ‘He and I understand each other. He is not like your father and I am not like your mother, eating out my heart for something I can’t have. We have a very good marriage, and if common sense and practicality sound a little boring, they are not such bad foundations for a union that will last a lifetime.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why are you upset about this affair?’ Paige asked, honestly bewildered.

  ‘Oh, it hurts a little.’ Her friend gave a soft sigh. ‘But I’m not all fire and passion, like you, and Marc and I came to an understanding of the sort of marriage we would have before we married. He was very honest.’

  ‘He told you he’d have affairs?’ Paige asked in shocked astonishment.

  Where had Marc acquired such an arrogantly medieval attitude towards loyalty and honour in marriage? Surely Juliette didn’t believe that it was merely a practical arrangement for the propagation of children and advancement of family fortunes?

  Juliette laughed with real amusement. ‘Of course not! He said he didn’t seem able to feel the sort of love that poets write about, but that he liked me very much and wished for me to be the mother of his children. And I was glad, because between you and me, Paige, I’m not romantic either. I don’t think I could cope with a grande passion; I’ve seen how they can tear people to bits, and they don’t last. My children won’t worry about their parents divorcing because one or the other falls in love with someone else. Marc and I will always be together, and there for them.’

  Even now Paige could remember the shiver down her spine. Such a bloodless union might have suited Juliette, but she’d never accept so little from a man.

  Actually, she had no intention of accepting anything from a man. Life without men was much more peaceful. She shuddered, recalling her mother’s years of anguished despair after the break-up of her marriage. Laying yourself open to pain was foolhardy.

  Voices from outside jerked her from her memories. With a final pat on Brodie’s back, she hurried across to the window and peered through the curtains to see Sherry hurtle across the concrete, groping for her key as a taxi drew away.

  By the time Paige got to the living room Brodie’s mother had managed to unlock the door and was pushing it open, her small, voluptuous body quivering with frantic impatience.

  ‘How is he?’ she demanded.

  Soothingly Paige told her, ‘The doctor’s sure it’s chicken pox. I’ve put the prescription lotion on his rash and it doesn’t seem to be worrying him nearly as much.’

  ‘His temperature?’ Sherry asked, rushing across to the door into the tiny hall.

  ‘He’s still flushed, but it hasn’t been long since he took the medication.’

  Sherry nodded and disappeared, leaving Paige listening to the low hum of a perfectly tuned engine. Her breath catching in her throat, she glanced through the window and saw the BMW turn back into the car park. Incredulously she watched Marc get out, lift a parcel from the passenger’s seat and walk purposefully towards the flat.

  Mindful of Brodie, he knocked quietly. And it was only because she didn’t want the baby to wake that she flew across to open the door. ‘What do you want? I told you—’

  He held out the parcel. ‘Here.’

  Paige stared at it with wary suspicion. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘An electric kettle,’ he told her, and strode past her and into the kitchen, where he dumped the parcel on to the counter.

  White with temper, she gritted, ‘I don’t want it. Please go.’

  ‘Not until I’ve collected this.’ He picked up the old electric jug and its dangerously frayed cord. With a hard-edged smile he carried it across to the door.

  Keeping her voice low, Paige said vehemently, ‘I don’t want anything from you.’

  ‘Is it just me?’ His eyes narrowed into steel-blue slivers. Into the heated silence he finished, ‘That’s the second thing you’ve refused to take from me.’

  Paige’s lashes flickered down over her eyes. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said in a wooden voice.

  ‘You didn’t want to accept the locket,’ he said evenly.

  She froze, and he smiled and touched her mouth with a long forefinger. Heat sizzled through her, and she clenched her eyes shut.

  ‘That’s not going to help,’ he said with contempt. ‘It’s lust, Paige. “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame,” as Shakespeare said. We saw each other and we wanted each other, and neither of us can forget it.’ He paused. ‘Because it’s still there.’

  Her eyes flew open as the colour drained from her skin, leaving her cold and shivering. The anger and bitterness openly displayed in his face dried the words on her tongue.

  His smile was savage. ‘In spite of everything.’

  And he kissed her, punishing her—and punishing himself too, she dimly realised as passion roared like a holocaust through
her.

  It only lasted a moment. He swore against her mouth, chilling words in a language she only dimly recognised to be French, and then let her go as though she disgusted him.

  Swaying, Paige clutched the chair and watched him stride noiselessly out of the door.

  Almost gibbering with a mindless mixture of rage and cold terror, she dammed the reckless words that threatened to tumble out and watched the car drive away, taking him out of her life.

  ‘Wow!’ Sherry breathed, easing herself around the door. ‘And double wow. If any guy could make my little heart go pitter-patter again, it would be that one.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Paige said furiously. ‘There’s a woman already in residence. She’s tall and dark and super-elegant, and she suits him perfectly.’ She dragged in a painful breath. ‘Satisfied that Brodie’s getting better?’

  Sherry nodded. ‘He’s sound asleep.’ She came across and looked at the parcel. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘An electric kettle. Your triple wow of a man doesn’t like ours.’ Paige tried to smile.

  ‘I don’t blame him. Talk about living dangerously! What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Well, the original kettle belonged to you, so you choose.’

  ‘Then I choose to keep it.’

  Paige turned away, listening as Sherry unpacked the box. She felt as though her emotions had been flung into the heart of a cyclone and were whirling around in uncontrollable violence, destroying everything in their path.

  ‘It’s a good one. I’ll christen it with a cup of coffee for us both,’ Sherry said on a sigh. ‘It’s been a bastard of a day and I could do with something to give me some zip.’

  Collapsing onto the sofa, Paige decided she could do with some extra zip too. Her mouth stung from Marc’s kiss and she felt like a stalk of overcooked asparagus. This, she decided, must be an adrenaline crash.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHERRY looked across the counter. In an elaborately casual voice she asked, ‘Who was the guy?’

  ‘My best friend’s husband.’

  ‘The friend who was killed in a car accident?’ At Paige’s nod her eyes widened. ‘The French guy?’

  ‘His mother is French,’ Paige said scrupulously. ‘His father was a New Zealander; they used to call him the Robber Baron.’

  ‘This one looks pretty French to me.’ Sherry filled the new kettle. ‘Mediterranean macho to the nth degree. What do they call him? Lord of all he surveys?’

  ‘It fits,’ Paige told her with an acid smile, ‘but I think they take him too seriously to call him anything but sir.’

  ‘So what’s he doing here? Did he come looking for you?’

  Paige snorted. ‘Why would he do that? It was sheer coincidence that we met in the foyer of the hotel. Don’t worry; we won’t be seeing him again.’

  ‘You met him coming down from the club?’ Sherry looked unhappily at her. ‘I hope you told him you aren’t a stripper—that you’re just looking after Brodie for me until you get another job?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him anything because it’s none of his business,’ Paige said firmly. ‘And I’m really sorry I had to visit you at work. I hope your boss wasn’t too angry, but Brodie got sick so quickly. He was fine when I went down to pay the rent, but we were only halfway home when I could see he had a temperature, and I didn’t have enough money to take him to the doctor.’

  ‘Oh, the boss was a bit snippy, but she’s got kids of her own so she understood. She let me off early without squealing.’ Yawning, Sherry poured water into two mismatched mugs and brought one across to Paige.

  Who sighed and asked, ‘Why don’t you give up stripping? You hate it and—’

  ‘I’ll give it up when I’ve paid off the debts my rat of a husband ran up in my name and when I’ve saved enough money to make a future for Brodie,’ Sherry said firmly. ‘I’m not brainy, like you. All I’ve got to offer is a good body and a sense of rhythm. Where else would I get decent money unless I worked the streets? And I’m not going to do that.’

  Paige grimaced. ‘Of course you won’t.’

  ‘Bloody men,’ Sherry said, lowering herself onto the sofa. ‘I’ll bring Brodie up to think a lot more highly of women than his conman of a father ever did, I can tell you.’ She glanced down at her finger, as though remembering the wedding ring that had once been there. ‘He’s going to be educated. He won’t mortgage the house and gamble it away, then skip to Australia when he’s found out.’

  Paige raised her coffee mug. ‘Here’s to responsible men,’ she said mockingly.

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  But both women laughed.

  Much later, as the sleepless night stretched before her, Paige lay in bed and deliberately let herself recall the first time she’d met Marc Corbett.

  Only seventeen, she’d been so giddy with excitement she’d hardly been able to put two coherent thoughts together. With Juliette’s bombshell request to be her bridesmaid had come an invitation to her mother and first-class tickets to Paris. Although her mother had refused to travel, Lloyd had insisted that Paige go, offering to pay her expenses.

  She thought now that she’d have been safer staying in her pleasant pastoral sanctuary at Bellhaven.

  Yet it had all started so well. After the reunion with Juliette she’d discovered that their friendship still held. And then—oh, Paris! She’d loved the fittings for her gorgeous dress, the art galleries, the museums, the wonderful gardens—especially the gardens! Thoughtful as ever, Juliette had organised visits to several.

  Marc had been on a business trip in Asia, not returning until two days before the wedding. They had met at a chic private dinner put on by his even more chic mother in her splendidly opulent apartment.

  Introduced by a proud Juliette, Paige had looked into his remote, handsome face with sharp awareness and a terrifying, heated interest. Bewildered by the intensity of her response, she’d been formal and quiet, hoping that no one had noticed.

  Restlessly Paige turned over in the bed and opened her eyes. Lights flashed across the window as a car rumbled into the forecourt, its engine kicking oddly before it died. Its door thudded shut, followed by the front door of a unit. Somewhere towards the port a siren sounded, eerily discordant.

  In Paris the bridal party had stayed in a hotel, and after Marc had brought them back from his mother’s dinner party Paige had gone to her room, tactfully leaving him with his fiancée.

  But about half an hour later he’d knocked on the door.

  When she’d opened it her silly heart had looped a wild circle in her chest.

  ‘I think you should have this tonight,’ he said, holding out a small, exquisitely wrapped parcel. ‘As you are to wear it tomorrow.’

  Eyeing it, she said wonderingly, ‘What is it?’

  His smile melted her spine. ‘It’s traditional for the bridegroom to give the bridesmaid a gift,’ he told her. And when she didn’t reach for it he said a little impatiently, ‘This is it.’

  Almost reluctantly she took the small parcel, flushing because her hand shook when his fingers touched hers. ‘Thank you,’ she half-whispered, mortified by the small betrayal.

  She should have closed the door then, and opened the gift in her room, but by then she’d already started fumbling with the bow and the ribbon, so acutely conscious of him watching her that she felt he could see her forbidden excitement.

  It was a jeweller’s box. Paige’s breath stopped in her throat. All she could hear was the feverish tattoo of her heart as she flicked it open.

  It dazzled her with its beauty—a round gold pendant on a heavy gold chain, the link set with a diamond that flashed and gleamed as blue as his eyes.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ she said huskily, keeping her head down. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘It’s a locket,’ he told her. ‘For keeping pictures of one’s lovers.’ His voice deepened. ‘Or one particular lover.’

  Heat flamed through her. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, b
ecause she couldn’t find any other words.

  Silence, thick and pulsing with hidden intensity, linked them in a frightening cell of intimacy.

  Marc broke it with a quick, harsh question. ‘Are you going to put it on?’

  She hesitated, then took the lovely thing from the velvet box and looped it around her neck. Every tiny hair on her body stood upright; her skin, oddly too tight, prickled with sensation as she fumbled the catch.

  ‘Turn around,’ Marc told her, that note of impatience roughening his voice again.

  Mouth dry, she obeyed, and he did it up, his fingers cool on the nape of her neck. Excitement rode her hard with a jolt of pure fusion—fire and ice and a rushing thrill that almost overwhelmed her.

  ‘There,’ he said, his voice oddly clipped, and stepped back.

  Slowly, afraid of what she might see in his face, she turned towards him. He looked at the locket against her skin.

  ‘Very pretty,’ he said distantly, his voice as steady as his eyes. But in his jaw a muscle flicked once, twice, three times.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, a cold unease spreading beneath her ribs. She didn’t know how to close this, so she gave a brief, meaningless smile and stepped back, shutting the door against him and leaning back on it with her stomach lurching.

  He had looked at her as she had seen her father look at the woman he’d left her mother for. And, although Paige was a virgin, she’d seen enough of illicit desire to recognise its heavy, ominous throb.

  Snatching off the locket, Paige dropped it into the box and snapped it shut, horrified by the sensations rioting through her—an aching sweetness and a reckless urgency that made her breasts tingle and her body throb.

  Sick at heart, she despised herself. Tomorrow Marc was going to marry her best friend, but for a moment she’d wanted him with a desire that scared her witless. A few words, a touch, an exchange of glances had been all it took to transmute her innocent awareness into a heated, urgent need.

  For the whole of the next day, the locket that Juliette insisted she wear burned like fire against her skin.