"What?" The squeaked question was out before Ronnie realized she had voiced it.
Pieter finally looked up, frowning. "I told you, Ronnie, Drake is also a sculptor. I intend to draw him into our work." His brooding gaze left her to travel to Drake with a hint of pride. "This young man could probably have far surpassed me in genius if his interests weren't so diversified. His hands war with his mind—art and business. But he has come to push me. I intend to push in return and involve him in our project."
Ronnie placed her fork down and reached for her water glass, dismayed by the trembling that assailed her fingers. She couldn't possibly model with Drake in the room. Pieter was carving the curves of her back into pink marble. Sitting for her husband was clinical. Sitting, clothed only in drapery, while the two chiseled and discussed human anatomy, using her like the marble beneath their hands, would be enough to drive her over the brink.
She would be like a fish out of water, exposed, totally vulnerable to whatever verbal attack Drake chose to make.
And he knew it. He raised his glass higher to her as a single brow quirked high in cynical amusement. "I shall be looking forward to tomorrow."
Ronnie drained the entire glass of water, only to find that the effort still did nothing to dampen her desert-dry throat.
There could be no tomorrow. She was determined and adamant. But now was not the time to argue with Pieter. They did not argue, or even "discuss," in front of others, but this was one time she would make an unrelenting stand against the man she strove to please in all other ways.
Drake must have sensed her plan to protest. "Please don't be distressed, Veronica," he told her glibly. "I assure you that I am a legitimate artist."
Pieter waved his hand in the air with dramatic dismissal. "Don't worry about Ronnie, Drake. She's a very professional lady."
"And one who needs a bit of air," Ronnie declared, unable to sit still any longer and be discussed as if she weren't present. Rising quickly, she murmured, "If you'll excuse me for a moment . . ."
Pieter might be shocked that she was walking out on company, but that too would have to be brought up later. She was getting out of the room.
Both men rose quickly. "Certainly, my dear," Pieter murmured in response, concern in his tone. But there was also anger. Ronnie didn't really care. Maybe it was time she stopped catering to him.
"I'll rejoin you shortly," she promised, surprised by the cool determination of her own voice, "back in the salon for brandy. . . ."
She was sailing regally out the door before either man could give further contemplation to her abrupt departure.
But she wasn't out of earshot quickly enough to miss Pieter's damning words as the two reseated themselves.
"I doubt if Veronica will be modeling much longer for me, which means my project must be completed soon. Her loyalty to me has been excessive, but I'd like to see her pursuing a few new interests. ..."
She was going to scream. Either that or bury herself beneath the fertile soil that harbored her cherished plants. . . .
But she did neither. She did flee to the garden, discarding her stately walk as soon as she had left the house behind. Her heels twisted in the dirt as she ran, wrenching her ankles, but she didn't care. She needed time desperately. Time to retrieve a measure of dignity.
She was panting when she reached the little tile paths that ran among her flowers and the fountains that played in the garden. Finding the wrought iron love seat wedged near the rear wall, she sank onto it, automatically straightening the tendrils of sleek auburn hair that had fallen loose in her reckless run.
Now, more than ever, she had to talk to Drake alone. Without giving away any of the truth, she had to somehow subtly convince this man who had torn into her life like a cyclone that he could endanger her husband's precarious health.
She never heard his footsteps. He came upon her as silently as a wraith, a shocking feat for a man of his size and robust vitality. Her first knowledge that he had come upon her was the result of his raw words.
"So—the 'Mrs.' that doesn't matter is Von Hurst. Tacky, madam. That name has mattered with incredible importance for almost twenty years."
"What are you doing out here?" Ronnie bit back sharply. She didn't need to feign civility out there.
"Pieter is concerned," Drake drawled mockingly, setting a polished shoe upon the love seat, his hands in his pockets, leaning toward her. "The poor man doesn't seem to know what's gotten into his precious wife. Actually, it seems there's a lot the poor man doesn't know about his wife."
Ronnie curled her nails into the iron pattern of the seat, wishing fervently that she could flail them across his hard, accusing, bronze face and draw the blood he seemed to want from her.
The metal grating beneath her fingers braced her with the illusion of strength. She lifted her chin high and forced her eyes to brazen into his. She clenched her teeth together, then parted them to speak with a collected firmness.
"And do you intend to inform Pieter that you have been previously acquainted with his wife?"
Dark eyes swept her contemptuously from head to toe. "I shouldn't answer that. I should let you worry." He planted his foot back on the ground, dusted the love seat, flung back his jacket tails, and sat beside her. Unwittingly Ronnie found herself shrinking as far to the side as the seat would allow.
"My, my, what are we afraid of?" Drake mocked grimly, catching her wrist with a coiled menace. "My touch? Ahhh, but there was a time when you begged for it, Mrs. von Hurst."
"Please!" Ronnie murmured, twisting her wrist within his crushing grip as her teeth sank into her lip.
"A note of distress? I'm truly touched!" His teeth flashed in a wicked grin as he brought his face menacingly close to hers. Again she thought that his eyes were like a black fire, capable of burning flesh with all the true heat of hell.
"Drake, please," she protested, wincing. He was so close that his mustache tickled the peach softness of her skin, tantalizing her, terrifying her. "Pieter is right inside—"
With a curt laugh he withdrew and dropped her hand as if it were poison. "You needn't fear advances from me, Mrs. von Hurst," he grated, his tone dripping the venom of his eyes. Apparently his mind was running along the same lines as hers. "My dear, sweet poison beauty. I happen to think the world of Pieter von Hurst. I wouldn't think of touching his wife. It was a vast pity I ever did."
Ronnie had to find a way to fight her tears and ignore his cutting cynicism.
"So you don't intend to say anything to Pieter?" she inquired flatly, unconsciously rubbing her wrist as she stared into the foliage before her.
"No, I don't. I see no reason to hurt the man. He has obviously been gravely ill."
Ronnie breathed a silent sigh of relief. "Thank you," she said stiffly.
"Don't thank me!" His hiss was soft, but to her ears it came as a roar. "I'm not doing anything for you. It's my sound opinion that you should be horsewhipped. My God, woman! Your heart must be chiseled out of marble! Running around on a man who has given you his adoration on a platter, a man who has been ill. A man like Pieter von Hurst!" His voice rang with his own self-disgust for having had the affair, and Ronnie inwardly cringed.
"I don't have to listen to your judgments," she said hollowly.
"Wrong, Mrs. von Hurst," Drake said, a gravel-like tone lacing his voice.
Ronnie tensed, aware of the extent of his anger, acutely sensing the depth of the coiled strength that breathed beside her, held in check by sheer willpower. She didn't dare breathe, or make a move herself, when he again picked up her hand, idly trailing his tanned fingers over the faint blue veins.
"I'm afraid, Ronnie, that you'll have to listen to every word I have to say—until I leave, that is, which could be awhile yet—because there is one thing that could make me tell Pieter about his precious wife."
"Oh?" Ronnie heard her own voice, coming with faint curiosity, as if it were very far away. "And what is that?"
"Well," Drake said, matter-of-fact
ly, "the slightest implication that your excessive loyalty has turned to a few new interests."
Ronnie involuntarily attempted to snatch her hand away, but Drake held it securely. She tried to turn her head completely from his, but he caught her chin with his other hand and held it firmly, lowering his own autocratic features over hers again. "Let's not play this too cool, shall we, Mrs. von Hurst?" he lashed out icily. "I don't know what your personal game is, but I do hope you know what you're doing. Potential consequences, you know. Say, should you produce a child, I can guarantee you I'll be back—to claim it."
Ronnie gasped, shocked by his vehemence and firm determination, and the very idea. "There is no child," she rasped, adding with narrowed eyes. "And you couldn't."
"Try me."
"It's irrelevant," she grated, swallowing. "Pieter—"
"I'm afraid Pieter would have to discover at that point that his wife is a crystal angel with the devil's own heart."
"Don't worry, at that point—" Ronnie began desperately. She broke off her own words. To go further would be to betray the confidence Pieter had entrusted her with. "Could you please let go of my chin?" she demanded haughtily.
He shook his head relentlessly. "I want to stare into those beautiful blue eyes when I listen to your treachery."
Ronnie grated her teeth with fury, further irked because she feared she would soon start trembling. It was too easy to remember when those same dark eyes had stared into hers with tenderness, too easy to remember when his touch was gentle, tender, demanding nothing but that she love him with equal ardency. . .
"Drake, please"—she searched his eyes for a shred of compassion and found none—"I swear to you. There is no child."
"And how do you know?" he queried sceptically, reminding her that forty-eight hours hadn't passed since they'd parted.
"Believe me, I know," she said with all the confidence she could muster. "I—" She faltered only a second. "I do know what I'm doing. This is the nineteen eighties."
He released her chin and hand and stood, annoying her as he towered above her. "Well, I don't know," he informed her curtly. "And I promise you, I'll be waiting to see. I'd hate to hazard a guess about you and Pieter, but the time you spent with me was wildly potent. You were a wanton. . . ."
Ronnie sprang to her feet, wilder than Drake had ever seen her, any semblance of her regal cool shot entirely to the winds of mindless wrath. She didn't give a damn at that moment if her house guest reappeared inside with her hand print clearly etched on the side of his face.
But she never raised her hand. His arms locked around her body as soon as as she sprang up. "No, no, no, Mrs. von Hurst. No outraged violence. I won't tolerate it from a woman who literally asked me to take her."
Seething with frustration, Ronnie went limp. To pinnacle her wretchedness the shelter of his arms, even in anger, was dangerously enticing. She so desperately wanted to bury her head in the mass of hair that she knew lurked beneath the crisp tie and pressed dress shirt; so desperately wanted to blurt out everything that had happened, the way that everything was. . . .
She stiffened her slender spine and met his eyes. Exhausted, dejected, she spoke to him tiredly. "I think we'd better get in. Pieter might start worrying."
He let her go and, squaring her shoulders, she started back down the tile path.
"Ronnie."
She stopped and turned back without expression as he called her name.
"You will sit tomorrow."
She shrugged dispiritedly. Arguing with Pieter could have caused him a lapse anyway, and he was looking so happy.
"Yes, I'll sit," she said coldly, resuming her trip back to the house.
Drake watched her go in a torn agony himself. He didn't know what to think, but he couldn't help what he felt.
Logically she was poison. A cold-hearted temptress. A woman who would betray an ailing husband to partake in an illicit affair with all-out ardency, and, unwittingly, granted, use against that husband a man who was his most fervent fan.
Used. Drake knew he had been used more shockingly than ever, and it was that thought that fully boiled his blood to where the cap could barely be kept on his steaming temper.
But it was impossible to look at her and not be touched, not be swept back into a land of passion and tenderness.
She was still incredibly beautiful. And majestic. That proud lift of her shoulders and bracing of her spine when challenged . . .
She would never be cornered.
And then there were those eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes that had been haunting him since he first saw her. Eyes that could freeze with blue ice. Cold, assured, confident eyes, which every once in a rare while relented and lost their guard.
And then they could be beseechingly, trustingly warm—the eyes of a sensitive, sensuous woman. Eyes that lured him into a silken trap, made him fantasize... made him believe against all reason that she was all things good—love, devotion, and loyalty. . . .
But that was ridiculous—she was none of those things. And if his haunted body still yearned for her with an alien singleness and treachery, it didn't matter.
He could never touch her again.
She was Von Hurst's wife.
Chapter Four
As Ronnie hurried along the path she heard her name called again. Stopping, she saw that Drake was catching up with her, his long strides bringing him quickly along.
"Don't you think we should make an appearance together?" he suggested mildly, his expression now fathomless. "I was sent to escort you back in."
Ronnie watched him contemplatively for several seconds, then her dark lashes swept over her cheeks. "I suppose," she said indifferently.
He offered her his arm, and she accepted it lightly as they returned to the house. Pieter was already in the salon, where Henri was preparing stout snifters of a fine cognac.
"Ah—there you are!" Pieter greeted them jovially. His gaze alighted upon his wife with mild curiosity. "Are you quite all right, my dear?"
"Yes, fine." Ronnie smiled weakly, accepting her cognac with a nod of thanks to Henri. "I've a bit of a headache, though." She kept her gaze upon Pieter rather than Drake. "If you two will forgive me, I think I'll excuse myself shortly and retire for the night."
Pieter frowned and nodded his acquiescence. "My wife, I'm afraid, Drake, will need her rest. I don't go about much myself these days, so she'll be your escort around the island." His frown deepened and his brooding eyes turned to probe Ronnie. "I hope you didn't acquire sunstroke aboard that ship. Too much time in the sun is not healthy."
Ronnie tensed, sipping on her cognac, She didn't dare look in Drake's direction. "I'm fine, Pieter, just a little tired. I—er—I really wasn't in the sun that much." She winced at the folly of her last statement. If she had ever left an opening for Drake to pounce upon, that was it. But he said nothing. She couldn't see him from the angle of her chair, but she could sense his presence as he casually leaned against the bar.
Pieter turned to him in explanation. "Ronnie just sailed off on one of those Harbor cruises you see advertised." He lifted a gaunt hand in the air. "As I've said, I seldom leave the house myself. Veronica, however, is still young. I insist that she occasionally get out and enjoy herself."
"How nice," Drake replied, his tone betraying nothing. Ronnie could feel his dark eyes turn to her. "And did you enjoy yourself, Mrs. von Hurst? I hear that those cruises can be very pleasant—offering every amenity."
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