An Unforgettable Man

by Penny Jordan

  But what if it hadn’t…? All those years ago she had not been the girl he had expected to have in his arms…the girl he had wanted to have there.

  Last night she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge the fact. Last night she had been so caught up in her own emotions and desires that she had simply assumed that Gideon shared them too.

  Certain things he had said, the tone of his voice when he had said them, now came back to her. Things which last night she had chosen to ignore as unimportant, things which in her own emotionally heightened state she had simply dismissed as negligible, no longer seemed quite so easy to dismiss in the cold light of day.

  ‘You can thank me now…’ Gideon had told her, and later, as they had made love, she had assumed that he had meant that she could thank him with her love… But what if he had not meant that at all? What if he had meant something completely different and far, far less intimate and loving?

  The trouble was that she had no previous experience to go on… No awareness of what men did say in the heat of their desire.

  ‘Don’t play the virgin for me,’ Gideon had told her harshly, but the actions of his body as its possession had adapted to the shocked tension of her body had seemed to mitigate his words, and she had thought it unnecessary to tell him that she was not playing, that her virginity, while not, perhaps, something she was exactly proud to admit to, was nevertheless a fact. Not so much because she had made any conscious effort to retain it, but more because her body had never wanted any other man in the way that it had wanted his younger self.

  What was she doing looking for problems, when by rights she ought to be walking on cloud nine?

  Her grandmother was safely over her operation and Courage had just found the man who had invaded her dreams and possessed her most secret self ever since she had first met him. A man whom she had thought never to meet again.

  If only he was with her now. She ached to hold him. To talk to him. To tell him how ashamed and afraid that long-ago evening had made her. How worried she had been for him, how guilty about her part in what had happened.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ her grandmother had soothed her. ‘I’m sure the young man, whoever he is, will have realised that you were as much a victim of what happened as he was himself.’

  She had taken comfort from her grandmother’s wise counsel then, but now she ached to reassure herself that Gideon had not suffered from the incident.

  A wry smile curled her mouth. Her stepfather and his daughter would no doubt be extremely surprised and chagrined if they ever learned how successful Gideon had become. For herself, his financial success was unimportant. It was Gideon himself who mattered.

  Gideon… Gideon… She closed her eyes, mentally working out how long she would have to wait to see him again. Funny how things had turned out. Had it only been yesterday that she had told herself that it was a relief to know he was going away, that she preferred it when he wasn’t there…? Now…

  The mystery of why she had been so intensely aware of him, her emotions and her body so intensely disturbed by him, was solved.

  Her emotions had known what her body and mind had refused to recognise.

  Suddenly she ached for him to be with her, to be able to talk to him, to ask him…to explain to him. He couldn’t have recognised her, she decided reluctantly, because if he had he would surely have said so.

  Which meant that it was up to her to remind him of that long-ago meeting, even if that did mean that she had to face the pain of discovering that he could not even remember the event.

  She didn’t want their relationship to start with any shadows between them, any old ghosts, even if she was the only one who was aware of their existence. Honesty had always been important to her, in every aspect of her life, but most especially where such a very special and intimate relationship was concerned.

  What would he say when he discovered that she had not, in fact, been ‘playing’ the virgin? A small, gentle smile curled her mouth. She would perhaps not tell him that yet, but wait until their relationship was a little better established, a little more equally balanced, before sharing with him the knowledge that she, the young girl of long ago, had been so overwhelmed by him, by his masculinity, that he had become her dream lover, and that her body had steadfastly clung to its longing just for him.

  He would laugh, of course, and so would she. But deep in her heart Courage knew that a part of her, a small, secret, deeply female part of her, would always be glad that he had been the first. And the last?

  Only time knew the answer to that question.

  ‘What’s brought that smile to your face?’ Jenny quizzed her teasingly, later in the day when they were both in the kitchen, Jenny having returned from her visit to her daughter. ‘Anyone would think you’ve fallen in love.’

  Courage couldn’t help it; she could feel her face flooding with brilliant colour, even though she shook her head and denied Jenny’s assertion.

  Even when she had been with her grandmother she had been guiltily aware that her thoughts kept returning to Gideon as she wondered what he was doing and if he was thinking of her.

  The specialist continued to be pleased with her grand-mother’s progress and was proposing that she was moved to the convalescent home within the next few days.

  ‘All this fuss,’ her grandmother had sighed, but she had not argued or protested.

  Never had so few hours seemed to last for so long, Courage decided achingly later that night, lying awake in her bed thinking of Gideon, longing for him, wanting him. Was it really only twenty-four hours since she had lain in Gideon’s arms, had held him and been held by him…had loved him and been loved by him…? With almost a tortured moan she turned over, burying her hot face in her pillow.

  Gideon. Gideon… If only he were here with her now… If only…

  She felt almost dizzy with her emotional and physical longing for him, her skin burning alternately hot and cold with feverish desire as she closed her eyes and gave in to the temptation of mentally reliving the events of the previous evening. The way he had held her…touched her… The stroke of his fingers against her skin… The heat of his mouth… The girl she had been would have been shocked by the raw intensity of his sexuality, but the woman she now was…

  Oh, Gideon… Gideon…

  CHAPTER NINE

  BYJUGGLING with her work and conscientiously making sure she had made up the time by working well into the evening, Courage was able to take enough time off to go with her grandmother to the convalescent home re-commended by the specialist, and to see her comfortably settled in her new, temporary surroundings.

  ‘Honestly, all this fuss,’ her grandmother complained. But the stress of the operation had taken its toll on her and she did not protest too much when the nurses insisted that she had to rest.

  ‘Heaven knows what all this must be costing,’ she fretted to Courage.

  ‘You’re not to worry about anything like that,’ Courage told her firmly. ‘Leave everything to me. You just concentrate on getting yourself better.’

  ‘It’s just as well we operated when we did,’ the specialist had told Courage earlier. ‘The damage was even more extensive than we had suspected. Your grand-mother is a very strong woman and a very stubborn one. I suspect she must have been suffering a great deal more than she wanted to acknowledge, and I doubt she could have continued on for very much longer.’

  ‘But she’ll be all right now?’ Courage had pressed him anxiously.

  ‘Right as rain,’ he had reassured her. ‘Provided she behaves sensibly and gives her body time to recover properly, which is one of the reasons why I want her to have this extended period of recuperation.’

  Courage had felt so relieved she had almost been light-headed. She still hadn’t discussed delaying the repayments to her loan with Gideon, of course, but she was sure that once he knew what had happened he would understand.

  In view of their new relationship, it was even more important to her than ever that she mainta
ined her financial independence. It was one thing to have accepted a loan from Gideon as her employer, but now that things had changed… now that they were lovers…

  She prayed that he would have the sensitivity and understanding not to suggest giving her the money. Her pride and her self-respect had always been very important to her, and while she could appreciate that he might want to help her, and that to him a sum of money which might seem enormous to her would be trifling, she very much wanted to stand by their original agreement.

  Asking him to accept a delay in the commencement of her repayments on the loan was not what she really wanted to have to do—it hurt her pride to have to go back on her given word—but her grandmother’s health and well-being were more important to her than her pride.

  Her heart started to beat faster. Important though it was, discussing the repayment of her loan with Gideon was not exactly going to be her first priority when he did return. A delicate flush stained her skin as she remembered the morning she had taken his breakfast into his bedroom and she mentally reran the whole scene, imagining that it was taking place now and not then.

  When she came to the bit where Gideon had appeared wearing only a towel her thoughts were so intensely sensual and erotic that she could actually feel physical reaction to them within her own body.

  How many hours now until Gideon came back?

  However, when he did return it was not the exciting, intimate event Courage had anticipated. To start with he telephoned while she was out on a restocking trip combined with a fleeting visit to her grandmother and told Jenny that he had been delayed in Kuwait in consultation with a potential new client whom he would be bringing back with him. They would return in time for lunch the next day, he further told Jenny, and his client would be staying overnight.

  ‘Looks like he could be getting quite a lot of business in Kuwait and in the neighbouring Middle Eastern countries,’ Jenny commented.

  ‘Mmm. The Gulf War caused so much destruction out there, it’s not surprising, really,’ Courage agreed firmly, swallowing her own feeling of disappointment and letdown.

  There would be time enough for her and Gideon to be alone and talk once his client had gone, and he was, after all, only staying the one night, she comforted herself. That was all.

  In the meantime there was work to be done, and her training came to the fore as she went over the menus with Jenny and then went upstairs to check on the guest-suite which was being prepared for Gideon’s client.

  On the day of Gideon’s return she had been up early to go to the market and buy the fresh supplies Jenny needed and to get freshly cut flowers for the house and the guest-suite.

  She arranged them deftly while Jenny looked on in admiration.

  ‘You make it look so easy. I love those natural, soft arrangements so much more than the old-fashioned, stiff variety, but whenever I try anything like that it just doesn’t work.’

  ‘It’s just a matter of practice,’ Courage assured her, standing back to check on the display she was working on in the huge fireplace which dominated the hallway.

  The pale creamy colour of the lilies and the froth of soft green and whites she had used with them complemented the rich colour of the dark wood.

  By lunchtime the scent of the lilies would have filled the room. Courage loved displays that were scented—freesias in spring, roses in summer, the rich, warm scent of spices mixed with the ashy smell of burning wood in winter, the earthiness of ripened fruit in the autumn, displayed in huge bowls of rich gold and russet colours, highlighted by the darkness of newly picked plums with the bloom still on them.

  Wherever possible, Courage preferred to see flowers and fruit indigenous to the area in her arrangements, and the lilies were very similar to those she had seen growing in a sheltered part of the house’s garden.

  In the dining-room a huge bowl of massed sweet-peas broke up the plain crispness of the white damask tablecloth.

  Courage glanced at her watch, trying to subdue the butterflies tormenting her stomach.

  At one-thirty, when Jenny came into her office to ask her anxiously if she had heard anything from Gideon as she was concerned that lunch would spoil if it was kept waiting much longer, Courage was glad of her training to fall back on as she dealt calmly with the older woman’s anxiety without revealing that she herself had been counting almost the seconds since twelve o’clock, her ears stretched for the returning sound of Gideon’s car, her heart pounding, her whole body going dizzy with longing as she anticipated the moment when he would walk in and she would see him again.

  At two-thirty she agreed with Jenny that an alternative cold meal would have to be organised for lunch, and at three-thirty she had already been on to the airline to try and find out if she could trace which flight Gideon had been on.

  None of them had any record of him travelling as a passenger on their Kuwait to Heathrow flights.

  In the end it was gone five o’clock before Courage’s ears caught the sound they had been straining for all day—Gideon’s voice outside in the corridor as he talked to the prospective client he had brought back with him.

  As he opened her office door Courage felt her heart start to lift in happy pleasure. The urge to leave her desk and run towards him and throw herself into his arms was so intense that she wasn’t quite sure how she managed to avoid giving in to it. As it was, she couldn’t quite control the smile quivering round her mouth, nor the soft light warming her eyes as she saw him walk into the room.

  ‘Courage, are you responsible for those lilies in the fireplace?’

  The abrupt, almost accusatory tone of his voice froze her smile, confusing her and extinguishing the happy glow from her eyes.

  ‘Yes. I—’

  ‘Then come and remove them, will you? My client is allergic to their scent…’

  Mortified, Courage started to apologise, her face flushing as guiltily as a naughty schoolgirl’s as she turned to follow Gideon, who had already turned on his heel and walked back into the corridor.

  He was walking so fast that she almost had to run to catch up with him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maryam. I’ll have the damn things removed immediately,’ she heard him saying as he turned the corner and walked into the hallway ahead of her.

  Maryam…

  Courage’s heart missed a beat and then another as she, too, turned the corner and saw the woman standing by the hallway’s circular table.

  She was tall and dark-haired, her olive skin as smooth and silky as her polished hair. She was wearing a neutral-toned trouser-suit with a plain silk-satin blouse, both of them very obviously Italian in design and more than likely from Armani’s couture range, Courage guessed.

  She had seen wealthy Arab women before on many occasions, and had often been wryly touched to see the expensive finery they wore concealed in public by their traditional robes, but this woman had an air of self-confidence and self-assurance about her that said that there was no way she intended to obey anyone’s rules other than her own.

  Her jewellery, like her make-up and her clothes, was awe-inspiringly expensive and very subtly discreet. She was closer to Gideon’s age than her own, Courage guessed, and from the brief but dismissive look she had given Courage herself not a woman who considered any other members of her sex to be any threat to her.

  ‘I’m sorry about your flowers,’ she apologised to Courage in perfect English. ‘Unfortunately I am allergic to their scent… If someone could show me to my room?’ she added to Gideon, turning away from Courage in dismissal. ‘After that delicious lunch all I want to do is sleep, and I have some telephone calls I must make home to Baraq… My father-in-law worries so…’

  She gave a small shrug. ‘It is a result of the atrocities against our family, of course. For a man of his age to have seen his own sons die… I had hoped that encouraging him to take an interest in his gardens again might help him, but as you saw for yourself… It is very sad. But Baraq is a small country, and we do not have men with your design e
xpertise, so now I’m afraid you will have to work with me…’

  Courage could feel the fine hairs at the back of her neck lifting in atavistic jealousy as she heard the flirtatious note in the other woman’s voice.

  ‘I’m already looking forward to it…’ she heard Gideon respond, equally sensually.

  Courage’s hands shook as she started to remove the offending lilies from her arrangement, her eyes threatening to film with tears. How could Gideon flirt with another woman after what they had shared…? Didn’t he realise how much he was hurting her…? How horribly jealous he was making her feel.

  ‘Which room have you put the Princess in, Courage?’ she heard him asking her.

  Swallowing back her pain, she replied as calmly as she could. ‘Shall I go with—?’ she began, but Gideon cut her short, saying that he would show the Princess up to her suite.

  Courage refused to give in to the temptation to turn round and watch them as she heard their feet on the stairs. Was Gideon walking alongside the Princess, as the width of the stairs allowed? His hand beneath her elbow, perhaps, as he politely guided and helped her… Was she smiling at him, standing as flirtatiously close to him as she could, letting her body just touch his, watching him from beneath mock-demurely lowered eyelashes—using all the feminine charms that women of her culture were taught to make the most of from birth? Eastern women laughed at European women like her for their refusal to make full use of the weapons nature had given them, Courage knew.

  Even after they had disappeared the powerful scent of the Princess’s perfume continued to fill the hallway, easily dominating that of the now condemned lilies.

  Courage’s tender heart mourned their unexpected death-warrant while they were still in the first flush of their fresh beauty. She touched the petals gently in mute apology to them for the role she had unwittingly played in their early demise.

  Gideon had made no reference to the fact that he had not returned in time for lunch, as he had arranged, but it was obvious that he and the Princess must have lunched somewhere from her conversation.