Best of Virgins Bundle

by Cathy Williams

  ‘It must be a ten-year-old’s rite of passage.’ He strolled down onto the sand, Fancy a silent shadow at his heels. ‘My father taught me how to do it here.’

  He stooped, picked up a flat, round pebble and sent it out with a deft twist of his wrist. Both watched it skip six times before falling into the water.

  ‘Do you take everything so competitively?’ Paige asked wryly.

  He shrugged. ‘I wasn’t trying to beat your score, but competition was bred into me.’

  He kept so much of himself hidden that Paige held her breath, wondering if she dared follow up this tiny hint. What had his father been like? Had he shown his son a softer side?

  ‘No quarter given?’ she asked.

  ‘He played to win, even when I was four and he was teaching me chess.’

  Her heart twisted at the thought of a small boy faced with his father’s determination to beat him. ‘I’ll bet he was a bad loser.’

  He laughed. ‘The first time I got him he admitted defeat with gritted teeth, but I heard him bragging about it to a friend. He was proud of me.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said softly, ‘one of those supreme moments, like the instant you realise that it’s you, not the bike, in control.’

  There was amusement in his voice when he agreed, yet through the comfortable silence that followed a familiar wild hunger simmered through her veins.

  She gestured at the crimson afterglow of the sunset over the mainland and said, ‘I can see why you call this place home. It’s completely, ravishingly beautiful.’

  And she’d eat her heart out for it—and its owner—after she left.

  ‘Beauty beyond compare,’ he agreed, turning his head so that for a moment the crimson light from the sea was reflected onto his profile. His beautiful mouth sketched an ironic smile. ‘But if we don’t want to see a very stern Rose Oliver we’d better get inside and think about a drink before dinner.’

  It was a definite closing of the door that had so temporarily opened. Paige flinched internally, but turned with him and went across the lawn and into the house.

  ‘I’ll change,’ she said quietly.

  As she got into a simple straight skirt and a sleeveless scoop-necked top in a soft bronze that gave a deeper glow to her hair, she heard a helicopter fly in, fast and low, its rotors thumping as it landed on the pad.

  Bringing someone? She stopped combing her hair and bit her lip, but she had no right to complain.

  Yet outside the door to the morning room she stopped and gathered her courage in both her hands. Through it she could hear voices, so, yes, someone had arrived. And she was almost sure she knew who it was.

  Her skin chilled, and she opened the door.

  Marc and Lauren were looking out of the window at the sunset. Although they weren’t touching, something about the silence that encompassed them clamped every muscle in Paige’s body into punishing rigidity.

  Anguish stabbed her in a region of her heart she hadn’t known existed. He had lied, she thought painfully; this was how Juliette had known they were lovers. Their intimacy was so obvious it blazed as brightly as Marc’s eyes.

  She hadn’t expected commitment, but she had believed him when he’d said he and Lauren weren’t lovers—only to be betrayed. And he’d betrayed Lauren too.

  Did any man keep his promises?

  Forced to watch as Lauren looked into Marc’s face and laughed, she recognised love in that soft sound—and a teasing inflection that hurt even more because it spoke of knowledge and equality.

  ‘Oh, Marc,’ his lover said, ‘you darling idiot!’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BEYOND thought, acting on a desperate instinct to protect herself from utter humiliation, Paige made a production of closing the door behind her. When she turned back to the room both Marc and Lauren had swung around.

  Side by side, the link between them blazed as obvious as the posters at the strip club. A slow anger began to boil inside her as she saw them focus their attention onto her, deliberately concealing that silent, intangible connection.

  Whipping up the remnants of shattered pride to stiffen her spine, Paige went towards them, her head held high enough to strain her shoulders and neck.

  His handsome face impassive, Marc said, ‘What would you like to drink before dinner, Paige? There’s wine and sherry, or orange juice if you’d rather.’

  Paige would much rather. Anything alcoholic might loosen the fierce leash she’d clamped on her emotions. Forcing herself to overcome an anguish so strong she could barely breathe, she said, ‘I’d love orange juice, thank you,’ wondering if she sounded as stilted to them as she did in her own ears.

  Marc glanced at the woman beside him. ‘Lauren? The usual?’

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled at Paige—a warm smile that hurt its recipient more than anything else since she’d come into the room.

  She could see why, in spite of everything, Juliette had liked this woman.

  Who said now, ‘How lucky you are to live in Hawke Bay. When I’m in New Zealand I always like to try your superb wines, especially the sauvignon blanc and pinot gris. And your winemakers are producing some excellent reds.’

  She had what sounded like an impeccable French accent. As well as wine, she’d probably be able to eloquently discuss food and the latest books and shows.

  If Paige’s smile was as ragged as it felt on her lips, neither seemed to notice. ‘Living in a wine-growing district means that I’ve absorbed information by osmosis, but I have to admit I don’t know much about it.’ Grateful for the steadiness of her voice, she added, ‘When it comes to discussing the finer points of New Zealand styles and vintages I’m lost.’

  But after Marc had given them their respective drinks he began to talk of Northland’s new boutique wineries. Paige didn’t have to feign attention; he had the rare ability of being able to invest any subject with interest.

  And even knowing that he’s lied to you and betrayed you you’d listen to him for the pleasure of hearing his voice, an inner demon jeered.

  Cynicism was good; it stopped her from remembering how it had felt to be in his arms, to—

  Ruthlessly she dragged her mind back to the conversation, which had moved onto new industries in New Zealand’s northernmost province. Northland’s long, slender peninsula, pointing to the tropics, had traditionally been an agricultural and holiday area, but this was changing, and from what he and Lauren said Marc was a major player in that change.

  Paige found that she could cope if she pretended she was acting in a play—as the foil for the main characters, she thought bitterly. Every second since she’d walked in had reinforced the bond between them; they knew each other very, very well.

  By the time the housekeeper called them for dinner her throat had tightened, and after a couple of surreptitious swallows she knew she wasn’t going to be able to eat.

  Yet to save face she’d have to force food past the hard, heavy lump in her chest. A judicious lubrication of wine might help; she nodded when Marc offered a glass of red, and when it was poured took a slow, cautious sip.

  ‘Do you like that?’ he asked, startling her.

  She looked no further than his chin. ‘It’s delicious,’ she said politely.

  ‘Tell me what you taste when you drink it.’

  ‘Is this some kind of test?’ she asked, her tone a little too sweet.

  Lauren made a soft noise that could have been a stifled laugh.

  Long fingers relaxed around the base of his glass, Marc leaned back and looked across the table. Candlelight flickered sensuously across his dark face, accenting the hawklike features. Paige’s stomach clenched into a knot and her spine went into instant meltdown.

  I have to get away before I make a total fool of myself, she thought feverishly.

  ‘I’m interested in your opinion,’ he said mildly, yet a steely note ran through the words and his hard, blue gaze didn’t leave her face.

  She shrugged. ‘It’s—well, the word that comes to mind is ea
rthy—yet I think I can taste plums. And a hint of liquorice.’ She hesitated before adding with a touch of defiance that hid, she hoped, her wounded outrage, ‘All in all, an arrogant vintage with hidden depths.’

  Lauren’s laughter broke the silence. ‘She got you there, Marc. As clever a piece of subtext as I’ve come across in a while.’

  One raised black brow indicated Marc’s mocking amusement. ‘You have a palate.’

  Shamefully flattered, Paige said stiffly, ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Not as naturally sensitive as yours.’

  When he smiled at her it was hard to remember that this was the man who’d lied to her, then seduced her, even though he must have known his mistress was arriving later that day.

  She glanced at Lauren, caught an odd little smile curling her perfect mouth, and decided she was either depraved or she didn’t know what sort of man she loved.

  Paige called on every ounce of composure she possessed to say, ‘How gratifying.’

  ‘Another accomplishment to add to your list,’ he said urbanely.

  The note of irony in his words told her he’d recognised her withdrawal. Heat stung her skin. What did he mean by that?

  Staring at the food on her plate with dogged determination, Paige responded, ‘A good sense of taste is hardly an accomplishment.’

  ‘And that’s a reply that shows a charming humility.’ Marc’s dry voice altered, becoming infused with a coolly goading irony that stopped Paige’s heart. ‘You should be proud of your many and varied talents.’

  Surely he wouldn’t mention those frenzied hours in his arms—not in front of the woman who was listening with every appearance of composure—even, she thought on a spark of anger, amusement—to this conversation.

  There was a deadly little silence before he finished, ‘Lauren has been remarking on your sense of style, and Sherry told me you have green fingers.’

  The glimmer of the candlelight hid any expression in his eyes. And was that a sleekly patronising smile from the high-powered executive beside him?

  Paige refused to respond with anything other than a wooden, ‘Thank you,’ and when Lauren stepped in with an innocuous comment about gardening she could only summon a resentful gratitude.

  She chewed grimly and made herself swallow even when her stomach showed signs of rebelling. And she made stilted conversation about her interest in plants.

  ‘A friend of mine breeds roses,’ Marc said deliberately. ‘You might have heard of him—Adam Curwen.’

  Her gaze, pure green in the subdued light, crossed swords with his. ‘He’s brilliant,’ she said thinly. ‘A trendsetter, yet his roses are tough and healthy and their scent is glorious.’

  ‘I’ll introduce him to you one day. He’d be—’

  Rain drowned his voice—sudden, tempestuous pellets slashing onto the roof and across the windows. Paige noted the way one of Lauren’s brows shot up as she sent a swift glance at Marc.

  In spite of everything she could do to quench it a tiny fugitive flame of hope flickered into life in the cold region of her heart. He’d spoken as though there was some sort of future for them…

  No, she thought fiercely. She wasn’t like Juliette or Lauren—she wouldn’t share him. It was demeaning and humiliating; it would be a slow death of the things that mattered most—her integrity, her self-respect.

  If she couldn’t be the only woman in his life she’d rather not have him in hers. Sometimes the price of love came too high.

  When the fusillade of rain had passed, Lauren said sympathetically, ‘It’s a pity it’s been so wet while you’re here.’

  Carefully avoiding Marc’s eyes, Paige smiled. ‘Actually, it’s been lovely in between the showers, and I expected the rain—Northland is notorious for its humidity.’

  ‘Spoken like a loyal daughter of Hawke Bay’s drier, more Mediterranean climate,’ Marc said. He paused for a second, then added in an aloof tone underlined with a subtle taunt, ‘Rain has its benefits—lush fertility, and an abundance of natural beauty.’

  Light collected in his wine as he raised the glass to his mouth, then flashed crimson when he drank. Paige felt her colour deepen, and because her hand quivered she set her fork down with a sharp little crash that seemed to reverberate around the room.

  She wondered if she was being absurdly sensitive. It was ridiculous to suspect an underlying meaning in everything he said!

  Lauren murmured, ‘But all of New Zealand—all that I’ve seen, anyway—is beautiful. Even your cities are set in glorious surroundings.’

  ‘We’re very lucky,’ Paige agreed, welcoming the change of subject with galling relief. ‘Of the cities you’ve visited, which one did you enjoy the most?’

  ‘Paris,’ Lauren said promptly, with a wistful smile that made her seem more vulnerable. She was silent a moment. ‘But there are so many wonderful places in the world—and I hate to think that in one lifetime I’m never going to get around them all!’

  And she talked charmingly of some of her favourites.

  Later, as Paige prepared for bed, she prayed she’d been able to hide her turbulent emotions. She thought she’d managed to behave like an adult—one who’d never touched Marc, never kissed him, never lain with him in this bed and given him everything she had.

  After dinner he’d asked courteously if she wanted to watch a film. Equally courteous, she’d told him that she was a little tired so she’d go to bed.

  He had got to his feet. ‘How are your shoulders?’

  ‘Just a bit stiff.’

  ‘Shower before you go to bed and let the water play on your back again,’ he’d advised.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ she’d told him colourlessly.

  Only twelve hours of this farce to go, she had reminded herself as she’d smiled meaninglessly in their general direction and turned towards the door.

  Now, sitting on her bed, she wondered how on earth she was going to get through the night.

  A bitter, aching sense of loss submerged her. And that was stupid, because how could she lose what she’d never had? Her involuntary, electric awareness of him—even her reluctant love—seemed indecent now she’d seen that invisible, undeniable bond between Marc and Lauren. But worse was the corroding jealousy that came dangerously near resentment.

  ‘Brooding isn’t going to help.’ She climbed to her feet with the effort of someone determined not to give in to pain, and went into the opulent, scented bathroom.

  And she was not going to surrender to self-pity. She’d find the guts and determination to make something of her life. Marc’s sexual initiation of her might have been without the emotion she craved from him, but he’d given her a rare and precious gift—knowledge of her own sensuality and complete satisfaction.

  Gripping the counter, she stared at herself in the mirror, meeting eyes tormented by secrets above a mouth with fuller, more ardent contours than she’d seen before.

  In Marc’s arms she’d crossed the perilous border from inexperience to knowledge.

  ‘You already know that life can be tough—learn to deal with it,’ she advised tautly.

  She had to, because after the next day she was never going to see him again.

  Grimacing, she fought back another wave of pain. She’d been such an idiot—so eager to co-operate in her own undoing, willingly tricking herself into believing that making love to Marc would mean something to him, even when he’d told her it wouldn’t.

  At least he’d made sure that there would be no unwanted results from their loving. She blinked hard, because now she knew why Sherry was so determined to do the best for Brodie; she too would have protected Marc’s child, no matter what she had to do.

  She tried hard to feel thankful that it wasn’t going to happen.

  Unbidden, a thought clawed its way through the tumult in her brain. Perhaps the closeness between Lauren and him was the rapport of ex-lovers who were now friends?

  Her heart leapt, but Paige had done enough wishful thinking that day to learn
her lesson. ‘No,’ she said with scornful contempt.

  There had been real affection in their attitude to each other, a kind of unspoken empathy they didn’t notice because it was so familiar.

  Was Lauren like Juliette, sweetly complaisant and docile, content with the sort of relationship that gave Marc freedom to do what he wanted when he wanted with any other woman he wanted?

  ‘She might be, but I’m not,’ Paige said grimly. In the mirror she saw anger contort her face, and thought painfully, I can’t bear this. I’m turning into a different person and I hate it. It’s better to find out now that I’ll never be able to trust him.

  But oh, it hurt.

  Back in Napier, away from his disturbing effect on her, she’d pick up the shards of her life and cement them back together; she’d find a job that had something to do with her interests. Certainly she’d opt out of the battle between the sexes. Love was a war zone, with far more losers than winners.

  Until tomorrow she had to grit her teeth, keep reminding herself of the sort of man Marc was, and endure.

  Although the prospect of life without him crumbled something strong and vital in her, she’d cope. Time was on her side, because she was stronger than her mother—she wasn’t going to waste her life yearning for a man she couldn’t trust.

  Yet as she got into the shower she knew that some part of her would never recover; oh, she’d manage, but for her there would be no other man—she’d go to her grave wanting Marc.

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ she scoffed.

  Safely camouflaged by the rush of water, she let the tears fall, giving in—just this once—to the grief sifting through her soul like a grey mist.

  Once in bed she kept her restless mind busy by working out vicious ways of paying Marc back. For what? she mocked. Making her want him? Making her lose her head? He hadn’t even tried; she’d fallen headlong and with insulting ease.

  But anger gave her strength, whereas desolation leached it away. And right now she needed strength.

  And she was not in love with him! If you loved someone you were supposed to want their happiness above all else.