by Sara Craven
Wondering what Adam would think the first time he saw her naked. When she allowed that to happen.
Asking herself too if he would be glad to find her still innocent and know that she had kept herself for him.
It was a decision that had caused problems with the men she’d dated during the past seven years. A few had been bewildered, some hurt and most of them angry when they discovered that her ‘no’ meant exactly that. ‘Commitment-phobe’ had been one accusation. ‘Frigid’ had been another.
But Adam would have no reason to say that, she told herself as she stepped out of the bath, reaching for a towel.
She smoothed body lotion in her favourite scent into her skin, aware how close to her a man, intrigued by its subtle fragrance, would need to be in order to appreciate it fully.
And she intended Adam to get pretty damned close, no matter how many girlfriends he might have in tow. Because she would be the one who would count.
She was back in her room applying a final coat of mascara to her lashes when Nicola came knocking at the door.
She looked around her, pulling a face. ‘Dana, I’m so sorry about this. When Zac announced he’d be joining us, Aunt Mimi had a panic attack and gave him the room I’d picked for you. And we’re pretty full up, so I can’t really move you.’
‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’ Dana returned her cosmetics to their purse. She kept her voice casual. ‘So you weren’t expecting him?’
‘Well, eventually, just not this weekend. But his father was having heart surgery which got rescheduled, and he flew back early to be around for the operation.’ She smiled. ‘Apparently it was a great success. He must be so relieved.’
I didn’t see many signs of rejoicing, thought Dana, examining her flawless nails.
‘And he didn’t feel obliged to rush back and make sure Belisandro Australasia hadn’t collapsed in his absence?’ she queried drily.
‘Oh, he’s not going back to Melbourne,’ said Nicola with appalling cheerfulness. ‘From now on he’ll be based in Europe, waiting to take over as chairman of the whole shebang when his father retires, which might be quite soon. And he’ll be working from London, so we’ll see much more of him.’
For a moment Dana felt the room sway about her. ‘I see,’ she managed.
She swallowed. ‘How—how did the visit to the church go?’
‘Brilliantly. The country wedding is definitely on, although I don’t know what Dad will say.’
Dana’s brows lifted. ‘He’s coming, then, to give you away?’
Nicola sighed. ‘Yes, and bringing the ghastly Sadie with him unfortunately.’
Diverted momentarily from her own troubles, Dana gave her a sympathetic look. That first sailing holiday had turned life upside down for Adam and Nicola. Francis Latimer had decided he’d found his true metier, and to the shock of the entire family, he’d thrown up his safe city job and bought a struggling sailing and diving venture in the Greek islands, which by sheer hard work and force of will, he’d turned into a roaring success.
Along the way, he’d met Sadie, an Australian working for one of the large tour companies supplying him with excursion business, and a summer fling had continued throughout the winter and thereafter.
Sadie was loud, determinedly jolly and convinced she would soon have her Frankie’s children eating out of her hand. When it didn’t happen, she became increasingly resentful and family holidays turned into a hostile nightmare.
Which was how Nicola, and Adam too, had come to pass the greater part of their school vacations at Mannion, while their father spent his winters in Queensland, running a boat chartering business with Sadie’s brother Craig.
‘Well, at least you’re seeing him again.’ Dana tried to sound consoling. ‘Have you heard from your mother?’
‘An occasional letter telling us she’s happy and staying where she is. How about you?’
Dana forced a shrug. ‘Much the same, although the information filters through from Aunt Joss.’
Apparently Linda found her daughter too strong a reminder of everything that had gone wrong in her life for direct contact, and Dana had been advised to accept that and let her find her own way back. If she ever did.
But if I can offer her Mannion, she thought, then maybe I’ll discover the mother I’ve never really known. The one with hopes and dreams who existed before Jack Latimer was killed. Not the woman disowned by his mother and left out on a limb to grieve with no way back, but the smiling, pretty girl who’d helped run the Royal Oak because the landlord’s wife drank.
‘Life and soul of the place, she was,’ Betty Wilfrey, the Royal Oak’s cook had once told her. ‘Reception, bar work, chambermaiding, she could turn her hand to anything. It was never the same after she left. No wonder Bob Harvey sold up and went too before a year passed.’
And now all too many years had gone by, thought Dana. Her throat tightening, she got to her feet. ‘Should we go down?’
‘I guess so. Dinner’s running slightly late because Adam’s only just arrived, in a bit of a strop and without Robina, because they’ve had a fight,’ said Nicola, adding with a touch of grimness, ‘I’ve had to remind him that this is my weekend, not his.’
Dana bit her lip. ‘Perhaps he’s upset because he really does care for her,’ she suggested reluctantly.
‘Adam cares for getting his own way,’ Nicola said shortly as they left the room.
* * *
Pre-dinner drinks turned out to be champagne on the terrace, poured, Dana saw, by Zac Belisandro, immaculate in a dark grey suit with a silk tie the colour of rubies.
As Dana accepted her flute with a murmur of thanks, she was acutely aware of his gaze slowly examining her, lingering on the roundness of her breasts.
His unashamed scrutiny revived memories she wanted very badly to forget, and she was glad to obey Nicola’s summons and greet her former schoolmates Joanna and Emily, with their respective fiancés.
Then Eddie was commandeering her to meet his parents, a handsome grey-haired couple, radiating contentment about their son’s engagement and openly—sweetly—about each other.
They were also with patient goodwill listening to Mimi Latimer bewailing Robina’s no-show and its detrimental effect on the placement at dinner.
‘It can hardly matter,’ Mrs Marchwood said soothingly. ‘Not at a family dinner when we’re all friends.’
Miss Latimer acquiesced reluctantly, but the look she sent Dana told a very different story.
But what did that matter when Adam had just appeared on the terrace, smiling and relaxed in a cream linen suit and an open-necked shirt as blue as his eyes, any earlier bad humour apparently forgotten or put on hold?
He saw Dana and stopped short, his eyes widening.
‘My God, I don’t believe it.’ He turned to his sister. ‘Nic, you little devil, so this is the surprise you promised me.’
He crossed to Dana, taking both her hands in a graceful gesture and laughing down into her face.
‘Where on earth did you spring from—after all this time? How long is it, exactly?’
She could have told him to the day, the hour, the minute, but was saved from temptation by Mimi Latimer.
‘She’s been selling overpriced flats in London, one of them to Nicola and Edward, it seems. I hope they have a survey done.’
‘A full one—before they made their offer,’ Dana said crisply. ‘Hello, Adam. It’s good to see you.’
‘So, you’re a career girl.’ Adam shook his head. ‘I often wondered what had become of you.’
Then why didn’t you try to find me...?
But she didn’t ask the question aloud. Instead she smiled back at him, keeping her tone casual. ‘Oh, I’ve never been that far away. And I can’t tell you how it feels to be here again—with all these memori
es.’
‘More champagne?’ said Zac Belisandro blandly, appearing beside them as silently as a dark ghost and refilling the glass she’d put down on a table. ‘To celebrate this joyous reunion.’
Hoping I’ll drink too much and make a fool of myself, no doubt, she thought as she gently removed her hands from Adam’s clasp. But it’s not going to happen, because this top-up is going to be poured away as soon as Zac’s back is turned.
Except, that never seemed to happen. He wasn’t actually following her. He was just—never very far away.
But then, when had he ever been?
But this weekend she would deal with it. She might not be able to distance herself physically, or not until she was the mistress of the house and could control the guest list, but she could and should excise him mentally once and for all.
Put the events of seven years ago in a box, close it securely, then let it drop from thirty thousand feet into the Mariana Trench or some other abyss. Wasn’t that what the therapists recommended?
It might not have worked for my mother, she thought bitterly, but I’ll damned well make it work for me.
She took judicious sips of champagne during the chilled cucumber soup and the poached fillets of sole, accepting half a glass of claret to accompany the beautifully roasted ribs of beef.
She’d been seated between Greg and Chris, the bridesmaids’ fiancés, well away from Adam who occupied the head of the table, but perfectly placed to hear the chunterings of Miss Latimer, stationed at its foot.
‘Such a shame dear Robina can’t be with us,’ she declared fretfully during a lull in the general conversation, adding, to Adam’s obvious displeasure, ‘I know lateness can be trying, but I understand even the dear Queen Mother was habitually unpunctual in her younger days.’
Dana felt a bubble of laughter welling up inside her. At the same moment, she realised that Zac was looking at her from the other side of the table, his dark eyes brilliant, alight with shared and quite unholy amusement and found her gaze locked with his.
Like being mesmerised, she thought, and a shiver ran through her.
Shocked, she bit her lip hard to break the spell, forcing herself to look down at her plate, knowing as she did so that her remaining appetite had deserted her.
Knowing too that she couldn’t permit any kind of connection between them however trivial, however fleeting. Could not afford the slightest threat to her plans.
Chris was speaking to her and she turned to him in relief. ‘This is the most amazing house. It’s actually got a billiard room. When I went in, I expected to find Professor Plum with the candlestick.’ He paused. ‘I understand you and Nic grew up here together?’
‘Hardly,’ Miss Latimer put in tartly. ‘Dana’s aunt was the housekeeper here.’
‘She certainly was.’ Dana made herself speak lightly. ‘And I believe this is her version of lemon syllabub that we’re eating now. She must have left the recipe for her successor.’
‘There’ve been several of those.’ Mimi Latimer again. ‘It’s almost impossible to get reliable help these days. People simply don’t know their place any more.’
‘I think they do,’ Dana returned quietly. ‘Only these days they tend to choose their own.’
‘Adam was saying there used to be an Orangery,’ Greg put in quickly as Mimi bridled. ‘Only he’s turned it into a swimming pool.’
The Orangery gone, Dana thought, startled. But it had been Serafina’s pride and joy. Did she know what Adam intended when she handed over the house? If so, how could she have let it happen?
If I hadn’t been sent away—if I’d stayed here with Adam, I wouldn’t have let him do it, she thought. I’d have talked him out of it somehow.
‘Some Orangery,’ Adam said, taking another helping of syllabub. ‘I never remember a single orange, so I decided a pool would be more useful—and more fun.’
Practical, thought Dana. But depressing. And if something had to go, I wish you’d chosen the summer house.
She shivered again and Chris noticed.
‘Feeling cold?’ he asked, surprised.
‘No, just a slight headache,’ she improvised hastily. ‘Maybe there’s a summer storm on the way.’
And saw in a flash, like the lightning she’d just invented, the sardonic twist of Zac’s lips. Telling her the storm was already here—and waiting for her.
CHAPTER THREE
AFTER DINNER, THE PARTY split up, the men going off to the billiard room for a knock-out snooker tournament, and the women congregating in the drawing room for coffee and wedding chat.
Dana had already resigned herself to the knowledge that there’d be no opportunity for a private conversation with Adam. Certainly not while Zac was hovering at his shoulder.
But she was annoyed to discover that her fib about a headache was coming true. That will teach me a lesson, she thought, as she made her excuses and took herself off to bed.
Even with the window open, the small room was stifling, and even lying naked under a single sheet, she felt as if she was suffocating. And her headache was getting worse.
Stress, she thought, searching vainly for a cool spot on the pillow. Tension. That’s all it is. And I know exactly who to blame for it.
She swallowed a couple of the ibuprofen she’d found in the bathroom cupboard, and eventually fell into a restless doze only to be woken again by a fierce rumble of thunder directly overhead, accompanied by a waft of cold, damp air and the splash of rain.
I don’t believe this, she groaned as she stumbled out of bed, closed the window and put on her cotton nightshirt. What else can I wish upon myself?
And now she’d be awake while the storm lasted, or even for the rest of the night. Just when she needed all her wits about her for the day ahead.
She hadn’t brought a book with her, but downstairs in the room which had once been Serafina’s study, there’d be the daily paper and a selection of magazines, to provide her with temporary distraction until the night became quiet again.
She put on her robe, tying the sash tightly round her waist and trod quietly along the passage to the stairs.
The house was still, as if she was the only one to be disturbed by the weather. She opened the study door, went across to the desk and switched on the lamp.
‘Buongiorno,’ Zac said courteously.
Dana spun round with a startled cry, her heart thumping.
He was sitting in the high-backed armchair beside the empty fireplace, fully dressed apart from his coat and tie, which were on the floor beside him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded unevenly.
He got to his feet, raking back his hair with a lazy hand. ‘I needed some private time to think, after which I seem to have slept. Until, of course, you whistled up this storm, my little witch, when I stayed to watch nature’s light show. It has been quite spectacular. And you? Have you come down to dance between the raindrops?’
‘Very amusing.’ She picked up the nearest magazine—a county glossy—from the desk. ‘Please resume your viewing. I won’t disturb you any longer.’
He said quite gently, ‘If only that were true. But we both know it is not. Nor that simple.’
‘I know nothing of the kind,’ she said curtly, aware of his scrutiny and wishing her robe was infinitely thicker. And that she did not have to walk past him to reach the door.
And, more importantly, that she’d stayed safely in her room in the first place.
‘Then consider it now.’
As he spoke, another flash of lightning blazed into the room through the uncurtained windows and the lamp on the desk went out, leaving them first dazzled, then in total darkness.
Dana gasped. ‘What’s happened?’
‘A local power cut.’ His tone was laconic. ‘The storm playing h
avoc with the electrics. It often happens, as I am sure you remember.’
Yes, she thought, but she hadn’t bargained for it to happen here and now.
She said quickly, ‘I’d better go back to my room.’
‘Why the haste?’ He paused. ‘After all, we have been alone in the dark before, you and I.’
As if she could have forgotten, she thought shakily. And it was not a situation she could afford to repeat.
He hadn’t moved. She would swear to that, but she felt that he was somehow nearer. As if the walls of the room were closing in on them, and she needed to get out—to get away in the same way that she needed to draw her next breath.
She thought, I have to be safe.
She began to edge towards where she thought the door should be, only to catch her foot in something lying on the floor—oh, God, his bloody coat—and stumble forward, her balance gone.
Only to find herself grabbed and steadied, then held in the circle of his arms, feeling his warmth, inhaling the haunting trace of the cologne he still used after all this time. Aware that his grasp was tightening.
Panic closed her throat.
‘Let go of me, damn you.’ She choked the words then struck upwards, her hands curled into claws, finding taut skin stretched over bone and a hint of stubble.
She felt Zac wince, heard him swear under his breath before he stepped back, freeing her.
Another jagged flash lit up the room, and gathering the folds of her robe in clumsy hands, Dana ran to the door and across the wide hall to the stairs.
She tripped twice, clutching at the smooth oak bannister rail, almost hauling herself, panting, from step to step in case he was there behind her, following silently, cat-like, in the stifling darkness.
Wondering, if his hand fell on her shoulder, if she would have breath enough to scream and what she would say if she did and people came. How she could possibly explain when the real explanation must remain hidden. For ever.
In her room, with the door closed and the key turned in the stiff lock, she picked up the discarded coverlet from the floor and rolled herself in it, pulling a fold over her head and lying still, waiting for her heartbeat to slow and the rasp of her breathing to subside into normality.
