by Helen Brooks
She opened her mouth to protest further, but the look in the narrowed grey eyes convinced her that he meant exactly what he said, and she couldn't face the sort of scene that would follow if she refused. She pulled the belt of her robe angrily tight, knotting it firmly round her waist—a gesture that wasn't lost on Reece and which caused his hard mouth to straighten further as he led her away from the pool to the rambling, ornate gardens that surrounded the hotel, full of small, secluded bowers and wooden seats with the odd sparkling fountain here and there.
She was trembling violently and to her chagrin knew that he must be able to feel it through his hand on her arm, but there was nothing she could do but brazen it out, humiliating though it was. She raised her chin defiantly as her thoughts went into hyper-drive.
Why was he here? Her heart thudded painfully as the thought that had tormented her for days came to the forefront of her mind. She had told him that she was in love with him in the last heated seconds of that awful row. She blinked as her skin burnt with embarrassment. How could she have done the one thing that she had purposed not to? But it was too late now. Was that why he was here? To capitalise on what he would almost certainly see as a weakness? But how had he found out where to find her?
'Mitch told me you were here.' It was almost as though he had read her mind. 'After a little persuading,' he added grimly.
'You didn't hurt him?' she asked weakly, suddenly horrified as the thought occurred.
'Of course I didn't hurt him; he's your brother, for crying out loud!' Reece glared at her in amazement before stopping at a quiet, secluded bench set back in a small half-circle of bushes and forcing her down on the sun-warmed wood. 'I just meant that it took me some time, that's all—a week, in fact. He was determined not to give away your hidey-hole—'
'It's not a hidey-hole.' She reared up like a scalded cat, her cheeks scarlet with humiliation and rage. 'I came away for a few days in the sun, that's all.'
'Well, I sure as hell didn't.' He sat down beside her and she tried to block the smell and nearness of him from her senses as her body reacted with a million little signals sending shivers all down her limbs. His shirt was undone, his dark, hair-roughened chest and muscled frame in full view, and she had never, ever thought to feel as she was feeling now about a man's body. She knew that the male of the species was prone to uncontrollable urges, but the female?
'We need to talk, Miriam.' He turned slightly, one arm along the back of the seat as he watched her troubled profile. 'And the first thing is that I am not involved with Sharon in any way—never have been and never will be. She is a friend, or more precisely the daughter of my parents' friends, and that's all. Due to the close relationship between the two sets of parents she has always been around and, as Barbara reminded me most forcibly before she went off on honeymoon, prone to take outrageous advantage given half a chance, but I have never found her in the slightest bit attractive. That's the truth.'
He gestured irritably with one hand. 'She is far too like her mother for a start.'
'But—' She stared at him with huge, wade eyes.
'But?'
'She said you were going to get married, that you were already… close,' Miriam whispered painfully.
'Like I said, she is a carbon copy of her mother who is a twin spirit to my mother,' he stated grimly, his mouth tight. 'I could strangle the lot of them.'
'Is that why you're here?' she asked faintly, her face confused. 'Just to tell me you aren't having an affair with Sharon?'
'No.' He had turned away, but now swung to face her again, raising tortured eyes to hers. 'I'm going mad, Miriam…' He raked his hair back savagely. 'Stark, staring mad—but I have to ask. Did you mean it?'
'What?' She knew what he meant but couldn't reply as she gazed into the silver-grey eyes that were suddenly anything but cold and distant. That look in his eyes—it couldn't be what she thought it was. She was imagining things again, things born out of her desperate love for him.
'When you said—' He took a deep, hard pull of air and she realised, with a throb of incredulity, that he was nervous. 'When you said you had thought you were in love with me,' he said gruffly.
'I—' The words strangled and died in her throat. She couldn't—she just couldn't open herself to more humiliation and pain. What did he want with her, for goodness' sake? Hadn't he hurt her enough?
'Listen to me,' he whispered huskily, and her eyes opened wide in shock at the sound of his voice. She had never thought to hear the great and invincible Reece Vance plead, but she was tearing it now. 'Just listen, and then at the end of it if you want me to go, if it's all too late, I'll clear out of this hotel and your life for ever.'
'Reece—'
'Since the day I met you I've been in the worst sort of hell you could imagine,' he said softly, his voice unsteady and full of pain. 'Everything about you, every little thing I loved—' He shook his head as he stopped abruptly. 'I don't mean just your looks, although they are perfect, but the whole of you. Your honesty, that devastating frankness, the natural gaiety and warmth that draws people like moths to a flame—it's been crucifying me hour by hour, Miriam.'
'But why?' Her face was white with shock and bewilderment even as the hope that she had thought dead began to smoulder in the ashes.
'Because you were right, that night of Barbara's wedding,' he said grimly as he stood up to stand with his back towards her and watch the glittering play of water in the small fountain. 'You called me spineless, accused me of all manner of crimes and you were right in most of them. I was terrified to trust my heart where you were concerned. I've never been in love before— hell, I didn't even believe in the damn concept—and all of a sudden the thing hits me like a ton of bricks and I'm out for the count.'
'You said, when you were fighting so vehemently for Barbara's happiness, that she is the type of person who only loves once, and when I heard it it was like a thunderbolt straight through my heart. I knew it—deep inside I knew it. Because I'm the same. I'd already fallen in love with you but I couldn't let myself believe it. Dammit, my own sister had more guts than me!'
He began to pace in front of her as she sat in stunned silence, not daring to move.
'Those apes Gregory sent round that day—I could have cheerfully wiped them from the face of the earth for daring to frighten you the way they did, with their threats and bullying. I wanted to protect you, take care of you, cherish you—' He groaned out loud as he drove one hand into his fist. 'Yes, and love and adore you. All the things my father felt for my mother, that nearly destroyed him and ruined his peace of mind from the day he met her.'
'But your mother didn't love your father or anyone,' she whispered through numb lips. 'You told me that—'
'And you didn't love me.' He stopped to face her, his eyes agonised. 'Hell, you didn't even like me. There was just this physical attraction, that was all. It was so damn ironic—' He shook his head savagely.
'But you had told me you would never love me,' she said softly as her heart began to beat so fast that she thought she would faint. 'You said all you could ever offer was a brief affair—'
'I lied.' He laughed harshly—a dry, raw sound that made her flinch. 'To myself as much as you. You'd turned my world upside down and I was desperately trying to right it in the only way I knew how.'
Oh, Reece, Reece, Reece, Reece… She gazed at him in the swiftly enveloping dusk. At his dear, precious face, haunted by a hundred doubts and fears born of a desperately lonely childhood and miserable youth, an adulthood searching for something that had always eluded him until he turned his back on it and made a life on his own terms and conditions.
'And then I found out you'd been in love before…' he said in a strained, harsh voice as a muscle jerked in his jaw. 'I was crazy with jealousy that you'd loved someone—'
'For the whole of the time since we met,' she agreed softly, watching him with loving, passionate eyes as his head came up to search her face desperately, an incredulous hope beginning to burn in
the silver depths of his eyes. 'Never before…' She stood up and reached up to him, winding her arms round his neck as his body froze at her touch. 'And I'll never love again if I can't have you. In that, if nothing else, I'm a true Vance—'
As his mouth came down on hers he crushed her into him in such an agony of love and relief that she could barely breathe, his need so great that it consumed them both as they swayed together in the soft, dusky air, touching and kissing and tasting.
'You'll marry me?' He moved his mouth from hers long enough to ask her and she nodded mistily, unaware of the tears streaming down her face. 'Oh, my love…' He enfolded her into his hardness with a husky groan. 'I could eat you alive.'
And then Wednesday set out to prove that he meant exactly what he said—much to Sunday's delight and undying satisfaction.
