by Helen Brooks
The fireworks went off without a hitch, lighting up the dark sky with glittering stars and curls to the accompaniment of oohs and aahs by the assembled guests and shrill squeals from the children who were present. The strawberries were consumed with every appearance of enjoyment, the excellent champagne drunk with relish, and back in the kitchen, as the staff brought the last dishes through, Mitch suddenly grabbed her and swung her round, his voice exuberant.
'Perfect. You planned it all perfectly, Mim.' He released her, to stand grinning down into her exhausted face. 'And we pulled it off, didn't we? I had my doubts whether we ever would.'
'Did you?' She forced a smile from somewhere and then sat down rather suddenly on a chair.
'You're whacked.' Mitch waved a hand at the chaos behind them. 'We'll see to all this; you go to bed.'
'No.' There was still far too much to do. 'But I think I'll go and get a breath of fresh air if you don't mind. I won't be long.' She had to do something to combat this faintness she was feeling.
'Be as long as you like,' Mitch said cheerfully. 'I think our reference is guaranteed now, don't you?'
Damn the reference. As she fetched her coat from the flat and walked through to the garden from the door at the end of the corridor she was conscious that she was feeling most unlike herself. She couldn't have named the emotions that were bubbling away deep in her chest to anyone, but a burning rage was there, as well as crucifying hurt and pain, and as the icy cold air hit her hot face she took a long, deep gasp of its crystal cleanness, shutting her eyes for a moment then opening than to walk quietly round to the side of the house that was not overlooked by any windows.
The night was deathly quiet and still, the sky a dark blanket in which a million twinkling stars provided a natural display that was more impressive than any man-made explosions and coloured sparks, and already frost was thick on the top of the snow, its glittering crystals picked out by the moonlight that was flooding the pale winter night.
Her feet were wet through within seconds, and too late she remembered that she had forgotten to change her light working shoes, but it didn't matter. She leant against the trunk of a silver birch and shut her eyes tightly. Nothing mattered. She was way, way out of her league with this thing, and the only person she could blame was herself.
She couldn't even blame Reece—she felt the urge to howl and scream take hold and bit it back savagely— not really, not if she was honest. He had been brutally honest all along in making it plain that the only emotion he could feel for her was one of male sexual desire. Probably that was all he felt for Sharon too, but the difference was that she was like him, she could cope with how he was—enjoy it, even. Miriam shook her head silently. And soon he would be out of her life for good. It was too much to take in.
She heard the footsteps behind her just a second too late to turn as a pair of hard and very strong male arms enclosed her from behind, hugging her to a broad chest at the same time as a prickly face nuzzled into her neck. For a second, just a second, she thought it might be Reece, and then Donnie's Australian twang destroyed what she was forced to acknowledge had been—crazily— hope.
'I've been waiting to do this all day.' His breath smelt strongly of beer and his voice was slurred—two facts that she absorbed at the same time as she felt his hands move up and under her coat, fastening on her breasts with supreme disregard for any niceties.
'Stop it.' She jerked in his hold as she slapped at his hands, but it had the same effect as hitting out at a block of granite.
'Aw, c'mon, Miriam, relax a little,' he said thickly as he turned her round within his arms. 'There's no one around—'
'Wrong.' Reece's voice was like a pistol shot in the cold air, and Miriam nearly jumped out of her skin as Donnie jerked violently with surprise. The next moment he had been plucked away, to be thrown to one side so savagely that he lost his footing and sprawled helplessly in the snow, a large lilac bush depositing its mantle of thick snow on the top of him as he banged into its trunk. 'The good time is in the house,' Reece growled grimly as the fair-haired man struggled to his feet, swearing profusely, 'and cut the bad language.'
'Like hell I will!' As Donnie made a swing for his jaw Reece moved slightly to one side, trapping the other man's arm behind his back as he forced him to his knees.
'You're way out of line here, mister,' he breathed tightly as he bent over Donnie's groaning form. 'Now, we can play this the nice way and assume you've had a bit too much to drink and are very sorry for bothering this young lady, or we can take matters further and see which of us ends up in the hospital first—'
'Please stop.' Miriam sprang in front of them both, her voice shrill and frightened. 'You're going to ruin Barbara's and Craig's wedding day if you fight. Please, just leave it.'
'Well?' Reece stepped back a pace as he let go of Donnie's arm, and the big man raised himself to his feet, his face red and scowling. 'Are you going to listen to good advice?'
'I don't know what all the fuss is about.' Donnie shook his head as his words blurred and ran into each other again. 'I wasn't going to rape her; I only wanted—'
'We both know what you wanted and it's no go.' Reece looked as though he was prepared to do murder, and after another sidelong glance at his dark, angry face Donnie clearly felt that discretion was the better part of valour as he brushed himself down, muttering quietly under his breath before turning and walking away.
Miriam watched him go until he disappeared from view into the house, her hands pressed in fists against her cheeks, and then she turned to Reece to see him watching her through deadly cold, narrowed eyes. 'Satisfied?' he asked tightly.
'Satisfied?' She stared at him as shock and relief warred with surprise. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'Don't give me that.' The silver gaze was lethal. 'Are you telling me you didn't arrange to meet that lout out here? You must have known what to expect.'
'I'm not telling you anything,' she snapped back furiously. 'As usual, it's you making all the assumptions.' She couldn't believe that he was acting this way, not with his present mistress and soon-to-be wife, who hadn't left his side all day, established cosily in the house and no doubt awaiting his return with eager anticipation.
'It doesn't need a great mathematician to put two and two together,' he growled tightly.
'And in this case come up with an answer of ten.' She drew her coat more closely around her as the cold began to make her feet numb. 'I don't have to explain myself to you and I have no intention of doing so,' she stated flatly. 'Now, I'm sure Sharon's waiting for you so if you've quite finished—'
'Damn Sharon.' He caught hold of her arm as he pulled her sharply to face him. 'And you're wrong; you do have to explain such conduct to me. In case you've forgotten, you are here for the express purpose of carrying out a job for me—'
'I know!' She was aware that her control had gone, totally, but she didn't care. The culmination of weeks and days and hours of being on a constant knife-edge, combined with the bitter hurt and humiliation that she had suffered that day at his hands, caused an explosion that nothing and no one could have prevented. 'Oh, believe me, I know; I've had it shoved down my throat enough today never to forget it.'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning whatever you like.' She glared at him, jerking his hand off her arm and baring her teeth like a small, cornered animal. 'Now just leave me alone, Reece, and get back to the people who matter.' One in particular.
'And I was beginning to think you just might be different.' His laugh was harsh and caustic in the biting air. 'But you're just the same as all the others after all.'
'The others?' Funnily enough, his words caused an ice-cold anger that was more potent than any hysterical rage. 'And you'd know plenty about others wouldn't you, Reece?' she said bitterly. 'Well, I'm sorry, Mr Iceman. I'm sure it would be convenient for you to package me up and slot me into one of the holes in that tidy little mind of yours but I won't oblige.' She was shaking from head to foot, but more with fury th
an cold. 'I'm not going to fit into your concept of what a female should be like, any more than I'm going to excuse your spineless attitude to life and love.'
'Spineless?' For a moment she thought that he was going to hit her so great was his rage, but she didn't move an inch, her eyes burning with hot tears that she was determined he would never see.
'Yes, spineless,' she reiterated tightly. 'What else would you call it when you try to get me into bed at the same time as telling me that it will only be a light affair, that you'll never love me or be prepared to stay? You were making excuses for yourself in advance, preparing an escape route just in case you should start to feel something for me and panic, and then you could turn round with the immortal line of 'I told you so'.'
'It wasn't like that—'
'Yes, it was.' She backed from him now, her face scarlet. 'It was. I hate you. I hate this place and your life and everything about you. I wish I'd never met you. You deserve people like Sharon—that's the truth of it. You wouldn't know a real woman if one rose up and bit you! You're shallow, that's all. Shallow and cold and I must have been mad to think I was in love with you.'
He stood completely motionless, a grey stone statue in the darkness, as she turned and ran for the house, sobbing helplessly as the realisation of what she had just said and done washed over her in a searing flood. She went straight to the flat, locking the door behind her and throwing herself on the carpet as she cried as though her heart would break—long, shuddering sobs that tore from her body in pain and despair and confusion.
How could she have said all that? she asked herself weakly after long minutes as she curled into a tight little ball. He would never forgive her, never. If there had been the slightest hope for the future—anything—she had just destroyed it more effectively than Sharon could ever have done.
It was a good deal later that she heard the knock on the door, and as she froze, her hand going to her mouth as her breathing stopped, the relief was indescribable as Mitch's voice sounded outside. 'Mim? Are you in there?'
Once he was in the tears started again, but this time there was none of the tearing anguish of before, just a numb, empty hopelessness that seemed to fill her body and mind until she felt as though she was in a black void where nothing good could ever penetrate again. 'I want to go home, Mitch.' She raised her head as her brother came in with the coffee that he had insisted on making. 'I've had enough.'
'You're exhausted.' He patted her arm ineffectually. She hadn't told him what had transpired, beyond a brief outline of Donnie's advances and the way Reece had dealt with him. 'Things never get you down normally; you need a break.'
He sat down opposite her on one of the easy chairs. 'I'll stay here tonight and oversee everything. There won't be too much to do tomorrow, so why don't you take some time off and get away? You've worked damn hard on this one, Mim, and worn yourself to a frazzle. We've nothing heavy for the next few weeks, and with the amount we're getting for this job, and our order book for next year, we've got no problems financially. Why don't you disappear for three or four weeks in the sun? You haven't had a holiday for years and it'd do you good.'
'I might just do that.' She smiled weakly and forced herself to accept the coffee and drink it as though her world hadn't just fallen apart. 'If you're sure you can cope.'
'Sure I'm sure.' Mitch grinned and walked into the bedroom, packing her case and bringing it through, to the lounge. 'Now, I'll sleep here tonight and clear things tomorrow. You go home and take the phone off the hook and get some rest. Come on.' He took her arm, pulling her to her feet and picking up the case with his other hand. 'The car's outside; I came in it this morning. You use that as the vans are both here too.'
She could never remember driving home that night, the next few hours blurring for ever in her mind, but when she awoke the next morning to a Sunday filled with bright winter sunshine something had clarified in her mind during the long night hours. She was eaten up with misery and jealousy and anger and she didn't like herself like this—she didn't like it at all. Some of what she had screamed at Reece the night before had been the truth and some of it had been a result of her blinding jealousy and hurt, but whatever, it couldn't continue.
She took a long, deep breath as she lay in the snug warmth of her bed watching a dancing ray of white sunlight on the far wall. Mitch was right; she had to get away and try and get herself together. She couldn't go on like this. She didn't want to. She wanted to be able at least to like herself again, even if she wasn't someone that Reece Vance could love.
CHAPTER TEN
Mitch banked the enormous cheque that Reece had given him on Sunday prompt and early Monday morning, and before Miriam left for Morocco later that day she wrote another cheque to cover the whole of the debt outstanding on the vans, along with a formal little note of thanks expressing best wishes for himself and Sharon in their future together.
It nearly killed her to do it but, once done, the solid weight that had settled where her heart should have been was a little easier. If she could do this she could do anything, she thought wryly as she watched the buff-coloured envelope slip into the postbox with a dull thud.
And later that afternoon, as she sat in the airport departure lounge on the first stage of her month's holiday to Morocco, which she had got at a ridiculously low price due to a last-minute cancellation by the original ticket-holders, she reflected flatly that she had learnt more about herself in the last few weeks than in the whole of all the years before.
She had never imagined spending Christmas alone in a foreign country for a start, but the date of the holiday was such that she would be travelling home at the beginning of the new year and it amazed her that she didn't even care. She had written no Christmas cards, bought no presents, would be detached from the last-minute rush involving Christmas trees, turkeys and plum puddings, and all she could feel was indifference.
What have you done to me, Reece? she asked herself more than once on the uneventful plane journey. Would the joy of living ever revive? It frightened her that she didn't know and didn't care.
She spent the first few days in Casablanca by the hotel pool, reading, sleeping and eating. She felt strange when she stopped to analyse it, almost as though she were convalescing after a serious illness that had taken every scrap of energy and drive and left her an empty, damaged shell.
And she was still feeling exactly the same on the following Tuesday, when she had been in Morocco just over a week. She had visited one or two mosques, their towering minarets and beautiful arches delicate and timeless under the hot Eastern sun, and wandered slowly in the countless souks—markets filled with tiny stalls where, in the ancient way of Eastern peoples, merchants haggled over the prices with their customers. And although England with its snow and winter chill seemed a million miles away still the feeling of unreality persisted.
So, as she opened sleep-filled eyes after dozing lazily on a comfortable sun-lounger at the edge of the pool for most of the afternoon, the fact that Reece was lying not three feet away from her took a second or two to sink in.
She stared at him mindlessly and the beautiful silver-grey eyes stared back, his black hair gleaming in the last of the dying sunlight and his big body naked except for a pair of brief swimming trunks.
'Hello, Miriam.' It was his voice that convinced her it wasn't a dream—that deep, dark voice that had made her mad on occasion with its cool, authoritative tone and arrogant self-assurance.
'I—' She struggled into a sitting position as she became aware of two things simultaneously. One was the fact that the brief bikini that she was wearing left very little to the imagination, and the other, intrinsically linked with the first, was the effect that the sight of his near-naked body was having on hers.
He looked magnificent but she had known he would, she thought desperately as her brain began to function again. 'Where's Sharon?' She glanced round her helplessly, as though the lovely blonde was going to drop out of the sky like the wicked witch of the East.<
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'Sharon?' His eyes narrowed slightly, but apart from that he didn't move a muscle. 'I've no idea. Should I have?'
'But—' She stopped abruptly again and then, mercifully, hot rage began to sweep away the confusion and panic and loosen her tongue. 'Of course you should,' she said tightly as she reached down by the side of the lounger for her robe and moved her feet over the side of the plastic frame as she slipped it on.
The rush of love and longing that had deluged her since she had opened her eyes had to be brought under control, she told herself desperately as she kept her face in profile to the piercing gaze. He mustn't guess—
'Why?' He was leaning on one elbow as he watched her, the epitome of the relaxed holiday-maker, and for a moment she could have kicked him for that casual confidence.
'Look, I don't know why you're here but—'
'I'm here to see you, Miriam, and, for the record, I couldn't care less where Sharon is now or at any other time,' he said quietly, bringing her eyes to his with a little snap. 'I don't know what that lady has been telling you—'
'She's been telling me about your plans for the future,' Miriam said tightly, 'which I suppose you are now going to deny?' She laughed harshly, the sound jarring in the thick, scented air and causing the one or two hotel guests who were left by the pool to glance over before returning to their magazines. 'As if you could.'
'I could.' He sat up now, swinging his feet over the side of his lounger and taking her arm in his. 'Put your sandals on,' he said grimly, 'We're going for a walk in the gardens.'
'I'm not going anywhere with you—'
'You damn well are.' He cut short her outraged protest with an intimidatingly firm voice as he reached down for his shirt and forced her upwards. 'And if you object I'll carry you if necessary. We're going to talk somewhere private, and as you'd probably throw a blue fit if I suggested my room or yours the gardens will have to do.'
