Fire Beneath the Ice

by Helen Brooks

  "Do you?" he demanded savagely. "It all comes down to this, nothing more.

  You're no different from the rest."

  She stared up at him silently, her eyes wide and luminous like the beautiful eyes of a wounded doe.

  "You lied to me." The words were torn out of him,

  "I don't know who you are."

  "I'm sorry--' " And that makes it better? “He glared at her ruthlessly. "

  Sex is the only real thing between a man and a woman and I'm going to prove that to you now. "

  "No." Her voice was very soft.

  "If we make love it will be just that on my side. Wolf, love. From almost the first day of meeting you I couldn't understand why I felt like I did. I fought it, I admit it. I felt I'd betrayed Matthew, let him down in the worst way possible because what I'd felt for him didn't even begin to compare with the emotions you called forth. I called it physical desire too." She stared at him, a touch of bitterness in her face now.

  "But it is much, much more than that with me. I know you're incapable of loving a woman again, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I can't kill this feeling however much I try."

  "You loved Matthew--' " Yes, I did. “She raised her chin slightly, unaware that her blouse was still open, her body revealed in all its softness, and that the gesture of brave confrontation _combined with the vulnerability her body presented hit him like a physical blow, causing his face to whiten.

  "I loved him very much, but not in the way I love you. The love I had for him was undemanding, gentle. He'd always been there and I think we both misunderstood what we felt. He was an only child and so was I. Our love was more that of siblings, brother and sister, but neither of us realised it."

  "You expect me to believe that?" he bit out harshly.

  "No." She held his glance painfully.

  "I don't suppose you'll believe anything I say."

  "Dead right." His eyes narrowed on her face.

  "Hell, you aren't worth this." His voice cracked and he turned on his heel in the same instant, flinging the chair aside with a viciousness that frightened her and banging the door behind him as he strode into the dark street.

  It was some time before the stillness of the house reached her bruised, aching-senses, but then she rose slowly from the floor, her movements dull and sluggish and her face as white as a sheet. The tears had gone, burnt up in the fierce pain that had cauterised her mind so that all that was left was a numb, anaesthetising blankness.

  She had told him, laid her heart bare before him, exposed her love in all its fragility, and he had ground it under his heel.

  She locked the front door automatically, her limbs heavy and leaden and her mouth swollen and bruised with the evidence of his lovemaking, and climbed the stairs slowly, her movements automatic.

  She had ruined everything, any chance they might have had. It was all her fault.

  Mercifully sleep came immediately--a thick, empty blanket in which there was no feeling, no pulse, no life.

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Lydia awoke to the insistent ringing of the alarm the next morning the merciful covering had been lifted and the wound was exposed in all its raw agony. Somehow she got Hannah to nursery, returning home in a daze of pain and grief to an endless post-mortem that produced nothing but guilt and regret.

  She had lied to him. She shut her eyes tightly in an agony of remorse.

  Knowing that it was the one thing he wouldn't tolerate. And what a lie. She shook her head desperately against the sight of his face in those last few moments before he had left. There was nothing she could do, no way back. It was the ultimate betrayal.

  The hours slipped by somehow; she was hardly aware of their passing although she forced herself to eat a sandwich and drink a cup of coffee at lunchtime.

  She couldn't afford to indulge her misery at the cost of Hannah's peace of mind, and if she became ill it would only be her daughter who would suffer.

  She paced endlessly up and down the small lounge after lunch. Tiger had made one or two tentative attempts to sit on her lap in the morning, but had now retired under the set tee for sanctuary, watching her carefully with big saucer-wide eyes, clearly thinking she had gone mad. She couldn't blame him.

  She hadn't been reasoning like a sane woman lately. Why, oh, why hadn't she told _Wolf about Matthew long before this? There had been so many opportunities. She stifled a sob as she drove her fist into her mouth with a hard groan. And all this with Mike. He had obviously suspected she was in league with Anna's husband, at least initially. She should have given him a straightforward explanation after that very first incident, but she had been so horribly embarrassed it had been easier to push it to the back of her mind.

  "Coward, coward, coward..." She looked out of the window bleakly. She wouldn't have thought a human heart could stand pain like this and not shatter.

  Her mother phoned at two, her voice anxious.

  "Lydia? Are you ill, darling? I phoned your office to see how Hannah liked her present, but there was another woman there. What's wrong?"

  So he hadn't wasted any time ring securing her replacement. Her heart jerked and thudded painfully. He hadn't even waited to see if she would go back.

  She clenched her teeth against the anguish. But of course he had known she wouldn't go back--how could she after the things they had said to each other?

  "I'm OK, Mum, just seem to have gone down with one of these viruses."

  She spoke carefully, making her voice as blank as she could.

  "Not enough to knock me off my feet but enough to make concentrating at a word processor impossible."

  "Do you want me to come round? Fetch Hannah? Anything?"

  "No, no, thanks. Everything's under control. A few days at home and I'll be fine, and I don't want you to catch anything." She forced a modicum of warmth into _her voice.

  "Forty-eight hours and I'll be as right as rain." As right as rain? What a stupid banality, she thought bitterly.

  "Are you sure?" Her mother was unusually persistent. "I'm not stupid,

  Lydia, and I am your mother. It isn't anything to do with that man, is it?

  Wolf Strade?"

  "That man'? For a moment Lydia felt a flood of wild hysterical laughter well up inside.

  "That man' had effectively battered through all her de fences and shattered the self-esteem of the last few years into fragments. It was everything to do with him. And still she loved him more than life. She took a deep breath.

  "No, of course not."

  There was a pregnant silence on the other end of the phone that lengthened.

  It was an attribute of her mother's that she could be scathingly disbelieving without saying a word.

  "Well, perhaps it is, but I can't talk about it now. Another time," she added desperately.

  "You know best." Her mother's voice was disapproving but resigned.

  "Well, if you're sure I can't help in any way... Give me a call if you change your mind."

  "I will. Thanks, Mum."

  "Goodbye, Lydia."

  "You know best." Her mother's words taunted her after she had replaced the receiver. But she didn't, did she? She didn't know anything any more.

  She thought about how he had come to the house, his explanation regarding

  Elda. So he was free. at the moment. Perhaps it would have been better to take the brief affair he had wanted? At least that way she would have had memories, if nothing else. Now there was just an empty void where her heart should have been.

  And Wolf? Her heart thudded as she pictured him in _his office, barking orders at the new secretary and immersed in work as usual. It wouldn't take him long to forget she even existed--if he still remembered, that was.

  She ignored the doorbell at first. She needed time to pull herself together before she collected Hannah, and a door-to-door salesman was the last person she felt like coping with right now. They were renowned in this district and normally she could remain polite and firm, but today she wo
uldn't be responsible for her actions if they tried a hard sell. In fact the urge to bite and scream and kick at something, anything, was shockingly fierce. But they were persistent.

  She'd give them that. After a full minute of the bell ringing, with the sort of offensive determination that hit a raw spot deep inside, she suddenly leapt up and flew to the door, wrenching it open with a ferocious scowl that froze as Wolf removed his hand from the button.

  "Hello." He made no attempt to move.

  "Hello." She didn't either.

  They stared at each other in silence for taut seconds before she forced words through her numb lips.

  "I thought you were at the office." It was inane, but his appearance following so closely behind her thoughts was shattering.

  "The office?" She could have said the moon from the blankness in his deep voice.

  "No. I haven't been to the office today."

  "Oh."

  He looked terrible. And gorgeous. He hadn't shaved and the black shadow on his chin gave a whole new meaning to the attraction of designer stubble. A flood of _emotion surged into her chest, constricting breath and sending red-hot tears pricking painfully behind her eyelids. She stepped back quickly, petrified he'd notice. He hated emotion, she knew that.

  "I--' He cleared his throat and tried again.

  "I would like to come in, but if you don't want me to I understand. I guess after last night I'm the last person in the world you want to see."

  Wrong, wrong, wrong, she thought dazedly. Utterly and totally wrong.

  "You look as if you could do with a coffee," she said weakly as she waved him into the house.

  "No. It's not coffee I need." He followed her as far as the lounge doorway and then stood leaning against it, hands thrust deeply into his pockets and his eyes narrowed and piercingly blue as he watched her turn round and face him.

  He was everything she had ever wanted in a man. The knowledge pierced her soul with fire. And he could have been hers, for a time at least, but she had thrown it all away. Her throat felt like sandpaper and she knew in a minute she was going to burst into tears, which would probably be the final straw for him. She didn't know why he was here but she did know emotional scenes. weren't his style.

  "What I need is to talk to you, explain--' He stopped abruptly and she knew the words weren't coming easily to him, that he found this baring of his soul distasteful.

  "It's all right--' " No, it's not all right! “The rigid control faltered and slipped, and for a moment the harsh intensity that flared _in the tormented blue eyes caused her breath to stop. " Dammit! It's anything but.

  "

  He took a long deep pull of air but the mask was severely out of place now, his face naked and open for the first time she could remember. However could she have imagined he was unemotional? she asked herself faintly as fierce hunger, anger and burning contempt washed over his face in scorching savagery. He must hate her. To look at her like this he must hate her.

  She backed from him, her hand to her mouth and her eyes wide with a painful suffering she couldn't hide. "Please go. This won't do any good--' “I’m not going to hurt you. “He swore softly as he saw the agony in her face.

  "Dammit, Lydia, stop looking at me like that. I have to explain to you, you have to understand at least."

  "I do." She forced herself to walk as far as the set tee and sank down on it, her legs trembling.

  "I know I lied to you and you must hate me for it, but please, I can't take much more--' " But you have to understand why--' "I don't care why!"

  Suddenly she was screaming at him as her nerves finally snapped.

  "I don't care, do you hear? You think I'm deceitful and treacherous and dishonest, you've told me that. You think I wanted to make a fool of--' The lump of lead in her chest choked her voice, and as he made a move towards her she shot bolt- upright, her eyes flashing and her face as white as a sheet.

  "Don't you touch me. Don't you dare to touch me. And I'm not going to cry, so don't worry. I just want you to go."

  "No." It was a small word but coated in steel.

  "Not till I've talked to you, properly, without any dramatics."

  Dramatics? He dared to call this bitter grief that was tearing her apart

  'dramatics'? His words acted like a deluge of icy water, restoring control and freezing her heart. "Then talk," she said flatly as she faced him with her hands clenched into fists at her side.

  "If that's what you want."

  "It is." He shook his head slightly, although his eyes never left hers.

  "I've got no right to be here, I know that, not after last night and the things I said, but I need to explain things just once before I get out of your life for good."

  She sat down then. The thought of Wolf being out of her life for good took her legs from under her.

  "I was going to talk to you in Scotland but--' He stopped abruptly.

  "But?" she asked wearily.

  "But I chickened out, lost my nerve." She stared at him, her eyes portraying her shock, and he laughed harshly, the sound a low, raw wound of pain and contempt.

  "Surprised? I don't blame you. Doesn't quite fit in with the macho image, does it? The wolf who walks alone?" The self-derision was so scathingly bitter she could only watch him numbly as he began to pace the room, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

  "I told you my wife and child died eight years ago," he said harshly, 'but there was something else, something I didn't tell you. They were killed on an icy country road driving into town to see a pantomime just before

  Christmas. An articulated lorry jack-knifed on a patch of black ice and they were killed instantly. "

  _"Wolf--' He raised his hand at her anguished voice, and now she saw his eyes were steady.

  "The reason they were there, the reason they died all alone in a piece of twisted metal, was because I had a big contract going through that I considered more important than my family," he continued tightly.

  "I had arranged to be home in time to take them myself, but when a few problems delayed things I rang Miranda and told her to take Carrie in her car and I'd meet her there. I left nearly half an hour later. I knew I'd miss the first part, but what the hell? It was only a two-bit pantomime, wasn't it? No influential contacts present, no high-fliers to clinch a deal with."

  The pain and disgust in his voice were almost more than she could bear. She was seeing the real Wolf now, the man behind the mask, and it was agonising.

  "I saw the police cars first, then a fire engine and a couple of ambulances..." His eyes focused on her, black with pain.

  "There was nothing anyone could do. The car was mangled beyond recognition but, in one of those quirks of fate, the number-plate had been ripped off and was found intact at the side of the road. Funny thing..." He stared at her blindly.

  "I couldn't believe it when the policeman told me the number, and yet I'd known the first moment I saw the road was blocked. I'd known."

  "But you didn't know the accident was going to happen," she-said softly as the tears streamed down her face.

  "It was a million to one chance, one of those things against which there would have been no protection even if you had been driving. You do see that, don't you?"

  "Maybe." He raked back his hair savagely.

  "Maybe not, we'll never know." He continued the pacing again, _his face grey.

  "After the funeral I guess I went crazy for a time. I sure can't remember much about the weeks that followed, anyway. I think they're blanked forever.

  Dad came over and took me off somewhere, a log cabin in the depths of the

  Lake District with the snow up to the windows. I think he saved my sanity."

  He stopped and turned to her, his eyes focusing on her white face.

  "And then one day I wanted to go back. The house was weird, empty, and I began to sort Miranda's things--it was as if it was happening in a film to someone else. But I couldn't go into Carrie's room." He stopped and she saw moisture gli
tter bright for a moment in the vivid blue eyes before it was blinked harshly away.

  "I never did go into her room again, perhaps I should have. Anyway..." He continued the pacing again, his big body seeming to fill the small room,

  "I found letters, addresses, even little gifts among Miranda's things. She'd been having a string of affairs from the first year we were married, before too, maybe. I don't know. Some of the letters were... disgustingly intimate. I sat and read them all, every one, and then I left the house and never went back. I had the site bulldozed within weeks." He laughed harshly, the sound raw in the stillness.