Fire Beneath the Ice

by Helen Brooks

"I forgot to set my alarm--' " No problem. “The newspaper crackled a bit but still remained in place.

  "Relax and enjoy a leisurely break- fast--you earned it yesterday."

  Yesterday? For a moment she thought he was being sarcastic about the dreadful, ill-fated evening, and then reason asserted itself. He was referring to the long day's _work. Of course he was. She brushed a silky strand of hair off her face. Somehow yesterday had narrowed down to several catastrophic hours as far as she was concerned.

  She must look awful. She touched her hair tentatively. No make-up, and she hadn't even brushed her hair before she had raced out here.

  She shut her eyes for an instant in exasperation at her impulsiveness and then opened them to pour herself a cup of black coffee. She usually had it white but she needed all the undiluted caffeine she could get this morning--that stimulating alkaloid had better work, and fast. To sit here and eat breakfast with him was bad enough, but with him fully dressed and looking as delicious as ever, and her barely decent. She sighed deeply.

  "Now what?" As the newspaper lowered her heartbeat increased tenfold.

  Freshly shaven and with his still-damp hair slicked back he way just too--too much.

  "Sorry?" she gazed at him warily, noting the absence of a jacket. The pale grey shirt sat on the big broad shoulders like an advertisement for its brand name, and the carelessly knotted silk tie matched perfectly. It wasn't fair that one man should have so much going for him.

  "The big sigh?" He eyed her sardonically.

  "I would have thought you'd be starving this morning. Sue's food may be gourmet style but she serves the sort of portions that she and the rest of her model-friends eat. Hardly satisfying or even remotely adequate. Now, stop contemplating the food and eat it instead." The newspaper was raised again, leaving her staring at it open mouthed

  She hadn't dreamt that disastrous finish to the evening, had she? It had actually happened? She remembered the black rage on his face and the icy fury that _had turned the silver-blue eyes into pinpoints of steel, and shivered suddenly. But this morning he was so. reasonable. What was going on?

  "You'll be seeing Hannah later," the disembodied voice said after a moment or two.

  "We're catching the two-thirty plane to London."

  "Oh, right," she responded weakly.

  "We could have stayed another day but Doug can see to the odds and ends now, and there's a previous appointment at five I'd like to keep if I can. Perhaps you'd take most of the papers back to the office for me?" he asked quietly.

  "Of course." A previous appointment? There was some inflexion in his voice, just something, that told her it wasn't a business appointment. Elda? The beautiful brunette's name flashed into her mind and she felt the piece of toast in her mouth turn to cotton wool. Of course it would be Elda and why shouldn't it be? He was a free agent, unattached and fancy-free. He could see exactly who he liked.

  The pain in her chest deepened. The corrosive scene last night, her awful accusations he could dismiss as unimportant this morning, because she was unimportant. When would she learn? When would she ever learn?

  She finished the slice of toast quickly and stood up, her voice cool and flat even as she trembled inside.

  "I'll go and have a bath, if that's all right?" she asked quietly.

  "Fine." His eyes had narrowed at her tone but he made no other comment.

  "I'd like to leave here at twelve and call in the office for a few minutes,

  OK?"

  "I'll be ready." She walked with as much dignity as she could muster into her room, and when she joined him just before twelve she was the epitome of the perfect secretary--immaculate, cool, with not a hair out of place _and a remote, businesslike expression tightening her delicate features. Never again would she betray any emotion to this man, never.

  Her back stiffened with conviction. Once back in London she would give a week's notice and then that would be that. She ignored with ruthless determination the jerk her heart gave at the thought.

  Doug was waiting for them at the office, a good- natured, warm smile on his face and his manner easy. It only took one glance for Lydia to realise that

  Sue hadn't told him what had passed between them the night before. Whatever excuse she had made for the obvious tension, it wasn't the real one. How could some men be so blind where the female of the species was concerned? she asked herself in amazement.

  Sue was the original barracuda, in fact she made the large voracious hunter seem like a sweet little goldfish, but Doug obviously loved her in spite of the fact that she didn't even like his children. Men were different creatures, she thought faintly, aliens. She glanced at Wolf's hard, cold face silently. Definitely aliens. And she had given this particular alien far too much power where she was concerned.

  "Well, all's well that ends well?" Doug grinned cheerfully as they finished checking the last of the figures and gave them to his secretary to fax through.

  "Next time you come down I hope you can stay longer. Wolf-- perhaps we could put you up? I know Sue would like that."

  Lydia glanced sharply at Doug's smiling face to see if there was an edge beneath the apparent goodwill but no, his face expressed nothing but what his words indicated.

  "Thanks, Doug." Wolfs voice was bland and dry-in the extreme.

  "But it's probably better if I'm independent.

  I often work until late in the night and I wouldn't want to keep you up. "

  "Well, the offer's always open." The other man seemed totally oblivious to

  Wolfs cynical glance at Lydia and her burning cheeks.

  Once back in the privacy of the car, Wolf eyed Lydia sardonically as he started the engine.

  "Trusting soul, isn't he?" The deep voice was bland and cool.

  "Unlike some."

  "If that means me, I think you're being most unfair." She glared at him angrily.

  "I've said I'm sorry for misunderstanding things and I am, but surely you can see how things looked from my side? Sue virtually told me--' She stopped abruptly.

  "Well, you know what she hinted at," she finished helplessly.

  "And how readily you believed her." There was a note in his voice she couldn't place. If she hadn't known it was impossible, she would almost have thought it was pain. The journey home was tight with tension, the air electric. Wolf seemed to have disappeared into a world of his own, his face withdrawn and cold and his body taut, but she barely noticed; her whole being was eaten up with misery. She knew she had to leave this man, and fast, but the thought made her sick with pain. It was ridiculous, crazy, but somehow the idea of never seeing him again had got all out of proportion in her mind.

  She didn't understand it, or herself, but it was a fact.

  Once back in London he settled her in a taxi-cab with a pile of papers to drop off at the office.

  "I wanted to talk to you today, but the timing was all wrong." His face was stiff as he surveyed her through the window.

  "There's something I need to discuss with you in some depth, something you need to understand, but it can't be rushed."

  "I'm sure tomorrow will do." She forced herself to _smile brightly.

  "You mustn't be late for your appointment."

  "No..." He straightened and stood back from the taxi and just for a moment, an insane moment, he seemed vulnerable and strangely alone among the crowds thronging the terminal, his eyes bleak and uncertain as they held hers. She felt herself leaning forward instinctively but then the taxi moved off and the moment was lost. She sank back against the upholstered seat that smelt vaguely of leather and smoke as her heart thudded its beat violently against her chest. She really must be losing her reason. If the taxi hadn't chosen that second to move away she would have made the most colossal foot of herself for the second time in twenty-four hours. What would she have said to him? She didn't know. What she did know was that her hand had been moving to reach out to his. She shut her eyes tightly. He would probably have ignored it with that icy-cold disdain he
was so good at or, worse, made a cool cynical remark that would have cut her in two.

  She had to leave him. No. She corrected herself firmly. She had to leave

  Strade Engineering's employ, that was all it meant. That was all it had to mean.

  She dropped her suitcase off at home before continuing in the taxi to the office, where she worked furiously until just on five, when she left on the dot. She wasn't normally time-conscious, just the opposite in fact, but the thought of being around when Wolf returned fresh from Elda's arms was too much. OK, so she had been wrong about Sue, she told herself bleakly as the tube carried her swiftly homewards, but Elda still remained. And it was worse, somehow, that Elda was so inoffensive--likeable even. If she had been another Sue, hard and patently selfish, Lydia could have dismissed her as

  just another jet-setter out for kicks, but Elda was nice. And Wolf displayed a gentleness with her that seemed to belie his earlier comments on his attitude to his women. But perhaps this appointment had nothing to do with Elda? The hope died as quickly as it was born.

  Somehow a primitive instinct that was irrefragable told her it had.

  Hannah's welcome was ecstatic, and for an hour or so the ache in her heart eased as she played with her daughter before getting tea. The trip had been hectic and not conducive to shopping, but she had found the perfect present in the airport shop, a delicate gold chain with a tiny little engraved locket that she knew Hannah would love. Matthew had bought Lydia a similar, much larger one on her eighteenth birthday, which had always held untold fascination for her daughter, and now Hannah insisted on keeping hers on as they went upstairs for her evening bath. As she soaped the tiny wriggling body, responding to a long, involved story Hannah was telling her about an incident at nursery, the phone began to ring downstairs.

  "Oh, Mummeee..." Hannah's pouting lower lip and disappointed face as she made to lift her out of the bath halted her in her tracks. The phone continued relentlessly. What if it was Wolf? Her stomach lurched helplessly. Well, what if it was? She turned back to Hannah with a reassuring smile.

  "Five more minutes and that's all." If it was Wolf, if, he could always phone back later, and why would it be him, anyway? She was beginning to get into the realms of fantasy with this thing, she thought testily. All that had happened, the bare unadulterated fact, was that he had been tempted to indulge in a brief convenient affair with his temporary secretary, and when she had refused _had accepted the rebuff with the minimum of emotion. He was probably quite relieved, her mind ground on ruthlessly. Once the initial passion had been sated she would have become the proverbial millstone round his neck. He knew, and she knew, that she just wasn't his type. Naive, inexperienced, unsophisticated? Probably, she thought grimly. But if there was a choice of remaining as she was or becoming like one of the women he usually enjoyed, she knew she had had no alternative but to act as she had.

  To do otherwise would have been emotional suicide.

  She had just settled herself in front of the television later that evening.

  Tiger a warm bundle of purring fur on her lap, when the telephone rang again.

  "Lydia?" Ridiculous, stupid, but at the sound of his deep, silky voice her oxygen-level took a nosedive.

  "Is this a good moment?" the dark voice asked carefully.

  "A good moment?" She tried valiantly to pull herself together and act like a responsible, mature adult.

  "I wanted to talk to you." There was a brief pause, and just for a moment she felt he was finding this conversation as nerve-racking as she was, but that was crazy.

  "I'd prefer it be somewhere private, not the office." This time the pause was longer.

  "Are you free now if I come round?"

  "But--' She stopped abruptly and took a long, deep shuddering breath.

  What did he want to come round for? The answer registered in every nerve of her body and scared her half to death. She wanted him to come round, to make love to her. "Can you give me some idea of what it's about?" she asked faintly.

  Did he think that her rage over Sue had indicated she was jealous?

  That she wanted him? That her 'no' had been a subtle come-on? Perhaps he wasn't _used to being refused, and that apparent calm and cold acceptance of her rebuff had merely hidden a ruthless determination to get his own way?

  "You know," he said quietly.

  "This attraction between us."

  "Oh." His very control was intimidating. He was so much in command of every situation, the master of his own emotions and everyone else's.

  Suddenly she had to ask, and she knew she wouldn't be able to do it if he stood before her in the flesh.

  "That appointment tonight?" She shut her eyes tightly.

  "Was it with Elda?" she asked bleakly.

  "How did you know?" He sounded surprised, nothing more. No guilt. No shame.

  How did she know? The pain that shot through her whole being was shattering.

  She knew because her love for him had sensitised her to every little thing about him. She knew the look on his face when he thought of Elda, the tone of his voice. She knew so many things about him she had never consciously realised before. Because she loved him.

  The knowledge had been there with her for weeks but she had been too busy fighting it to let it get through to her brain. She loved him in a way she had never loved Matthew. In a way he had told her he was incapable of and didn't want.

  "I don't think it would be a good idea for you to come round. Wolf."

  There was a small, blank silence and she forced herself to continue.

  "Elda wouldn't like it," she said painfully.

  "Elda?" The name was a small explosion.

  "What the hell has Elda got to do with it?"

  "Not a lot, probably." Her heart was pounding so hard against her ribcage she was sure he could hear it.

  "Let's just say she's an illustration of the case-history."

  _"Lydia, I'm sure that this is making sense to one of us, but it sure isn't me." She heard a deep, indrawn breath and then his voice spoke again more quietly.

  "I'm coming round--' " No! “For a moment she felt a flash of emotion that was close to hatred.

  "Perhaps Elda can stand knowing she is just one in a long line of brief liaisons, perhaps she even really wants it that way, I don't know. What I do know is that I have no intention of being her replacement." This time the silence on the end of the phone was absolute. And then shockingly, unbelievably, the line went dead. He'd hung up on her. She gazed at the inoffensive piece of plastic in her hands for a full minute before replacing the receiver slowly. He hadn't tried to cajole, reassure, bully. He'd just simply hung up on her. The rejection was a stunning slap in the face. He couldn't have made it plainer how little she mattered.

  She began to pace the lounge. Tiger staring up at her with wide, disapproving green eyes as she walked to and fro in an agony of bitter pain.

  Well, what had she expected? she asked herself wildly.

  Protestations of undying love? A declaration of a change of heart? An announcement that he had discovered she was the one true love of his life and that he was prepared to give up all for her? She laughed bitterly, that sound a cracked, dry exclamation of pain in the quiet room. She had harboured such stupidly romantic hopes in the secret recesses of her heart, she admitted to herself grimly, even if she hadn't acknowledged them to herself. And now she had got exactly what she deserved. She clenched her hands together and forced herself to sit down. He had lost a wife and daughter and his heart had died with them. End of story.

  The sharp, angry knocking on her door a few minutes _later took no account of a small child sleeping. He had come to see her. As she stumbled forwards she wasn't sure if it was anger, pain, relief or wild exhilaration that had turned her legs to water, but as she flung open the door, to reveal Wolf dark and scowling on the doorstep, she knew the main component of her emotion was burning rage. Rage that he could put her through this, rage that she meant so little in comparison to what
she felt for him, rage at Elda and the hundred and one others like her-- "Elda is the wife of my best friend." As she automatically tried to close the door, stunned at the outrageous lie, he thrust his foot in the space and jerked the handle out of her hand.

  "Oh, no, you're going to listen, listen to every damn word I want to say."

  The words were low and furious and all the more deadly for being spoken in a quiet, controlled hiss.

  "I don't know what this husband of yours has done to you to make you so distrustful of the male gender, but I sure as hell intend to find out." She found herself manhandled back into the lounge and sank down on to the set tee as her legs refused to support her another moment.

  "Elda is Andrew's wife--the doctor I called out to you when you hurt your head?" She nodded helplessly as he stood in front of her, magnificent and frightening in his black rage.