Dangerous Ground (Harlequin Presents, December 118)

by Alison Kelly

  Beside her, Flanagan made a disparaging sound. ‘He loved her and he hated her,’ he said. ‘I’m still not sure which was the more dominant emotion, but then, I spent more time in boarding-school than I ever did with either of them.’

  ‘What about vacations? You must have at least come home then.’

  ‘Sure. But that didn’t mean they were home.’ He seemed hypnotised by the motion of his thumb over her knuckles as he spoke. ‘One or the other was usually away on some shoot, and on the rare occasion when the three of us were together I felt like I was in the middle of World War III.’

  He stopped playing with her hand and lifted his eyes to her face, as if for an instant he hadn’t been sure why he was telling her this and didn’t want to continue. Seeing the hurt, haunted look tensing his face, Jacqui had intended to tell him not to say any more, but she surprised herself by saying, ‘Go on.’

  ‘My parents married after what I gather was a short, torrid affair in Europe, during which my father launched Madelene’s career and consolidated his already rapid rise in the photographic world.

  ‘For a few years they were both happy with their fastpaced lives, but Dad was from a conservative, wealthy Irish background and had a strong desire—not to mention a lot of pressure put on him—to have a family. Madelene flatly refused. Kids weren’t on her agenda under any circumstances; fame was her passion, money her idol and pregnancy her worst nightmare.’

  ‘So you’re adopted?’

  He seemed momentarily startled that she should have drawn that conclusion, before an ironic smile formed on his mouth. ‘No, I’m a classic example of how unreliable birth-control can be.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why?’ His expression was pure puzzlement.

  ‘Well, I guess it must be kind of hard to grow up knowing you were an…an accident.’

  ‘At least I’m here,’ he said dully. ‘Madelene told me more than once that if she hadn’t been Catholic she’d have had me aborted—’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Jacqui’s gasp held genuine shock. ‘How could a mother say that to a child?’

  ‘Madelene was nothing if not brutally honest,’ he said bitterly. ‘She saw child-bearing as a threat to her career—something to avoid at all costs. She arranged to have a tubal ligation immediately after my birth without even consulting my father.

  ‘Years later, when they were having a fight because he wanted her to quit modelling and consider having another child, she threw it up at him. That’s when Wade started having affairs, and from then on the marriage—like Madelene’s career—was pretty much all over bar the shouting.’

  His mouth twisted into an ironic sneer. ‘Actually the shouting outlasted everything—even the divorce.’

  ‘Was that when she went back to Canada?’ He nodded. ‘But why did…?’ She paused, trying to think of a tactful way of asking what puzzled her. She needn’t have bothered; he read her mind.

  ‘Why did I go with her?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, given the way she treated you—’

  ‘In her own way Madelene loved me. Oh, she mightn’t have loved me from birth, with that instinctive maternal love all women are supposed to have, but she grew to love me. And she was usually fine with me if Wade wasn’t around.’

  ‘Wade deliberately came between you?’

  ‘It wasn’t deliberate. And it wasn’t only Wade. You see, if there was an adult male present—any adult male—it was his attention, his approval and his affection that Madelene needed. It wasn’t intentional, it was just Madelene. She needed reassurance that her face and body were every bit as fabulous as they’d always been.

  ‘When they weren’t, and her work started drying up, she took to drinking—heavily. Champagne was her preferred beverage, from sun-up to sundown. The only time she even tried to stay sober was when I was around, carefully saying all the things she wanted to hear and making her laugh.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ he said flatly. ‘But I felt fifty. Still, for all her faults Madelene was still my mother, and, as my being around seemed to have a positive effect on her, when she asked me to move to Canada with her I said yes.’

  ‘How did Wade react to that?’

  ‘He thought it was the best thing to do. He still cared about Madelene; maybe he even still loved her—I don’t know—but he’d given up trying to deal with her years before.’ He paused and ran a weary hand over his face, and her heart felt his pain.

  ‘Not a happy story, huh?’ His question was a carelessly intoned rhetorical one, but when he turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm the urge to comfort him was so overwhelming that Jacqui nearly wept.

  ‘Strange, isn’t it?’ she said, caressing his slightly scratchy jaw. ‘I grew up thinking that kids with backgrounds like yours must be so lucky—that poverty was the only thing that could hurt anyone.’

  His chuckle chilled her to the bone.

  ‘Honey, you were right! Take it from me, poverty not money is the root of all evil.’ At her stunned look he patted her hand. ‘Relax, I’m being deliberately cynical—but you have to hear the second half of the story to understand why. And, believe me, it’s no better than the first.’

  Trepidation began sliding along her nerve-endings. ‘I’m not sure I want to hear it,’ she said honestly.

  ‘It’ll help explain why I’ve been fighting my feelings for you for so long.’ He searched her face with frank brown eyes. ‘And why I still am to some extent.’

  Something in his gaze turned her heart into an ice-cube, chilling her to her toes. ‘If this is a brush-off, Flanagan, I’d rather have it straight.’

  ‘It’s not a brush-off,’ he said solemnly. ‘In fact, if I didn’t think this relationship was going to run for longer than a few sessions of hot, torrid sex, I wouldn’t be telling you this.’

  Her temperature soared back towards boiling-point, but she dipped her head, sensing that it wasn’t wise to let him see the depth of her feelings for him.

  He guided her chin up. ‘I need to tell you.’

  That simple statement dangled untouched in the surrounding silence for what seemed an eternity. Jacqui searched his face in the hope that his need was based in love for her, not selfishness. She found no answer either way.

  She sighed, resigning herself to the knowledge that she’d never be able to deny this man anything he believed that he needed.

  ‘OK, Flanagan,’ she said, injecting lightness into her voice. ‘Give me Part Two—but, be advised, if you have any aspirations of having your life story turned into a movie, forget them! I suspect a six-part mini-series wouldn’t do it justice!’

  His smile was gentle. ‘Both ideas would bomb—simply because there isn’t an actress around who’s beautiful enough to play you.’

  Jacqui was fleetingly hopeful that the look he sent her meant that his passion might spare her having to listen to what she suspected was going to be painful. Certainly painful for her. But his kiss, though tender, was quickly over, and he rolled away from her to stare at the ceiling.

  ‘I met Angelica when I was studying photography at college. A pal introduced us, saying that she was looking for a part-time modelling job to earn enough money to undertake a photography course.

  ‘Angel—as she liked to be called—was uniquely and breathtakingly beautiful, and any fool could have seen that she was more suited to the other side of a lens, so I asked if she’d considered it. She said no, because she couldn’t afford to have a portfolio done, so I said I’d do one free of charge. That’s when her eyes lit up like neon signs and I fell instantly in love!’

  The jealousy Jacqui felt towards the unknown woman tasted like acid in her mouth, and she had to force herself to listen as Flanagan continued.

  ‘We started dating, but I had no idea how different our backgrounds were until a couple of weeks later, when I was invited to have dinner with her family. Once I’d seen the appalling surroundings she lived in I asked her to move in with me. At first
she was reluctant, saying she wouldn’t feel right living in sin, no matter how much she loved me. So I proposed.’

  ‘And suddenly her morals flew out the window?’ Jacqui’s question was rhetorical—she already knew the answer—but she was given confirmation of it.

  ‘Man, I was so dumb!’ The obvious self-contempt in Flanagan’s voice provided her with a small measure of satisfaction. ‘Besotted idiot that I was, I practically threw my money at her—not to mention at the rest of her family.’

  ‘But surely you couldn’t have been earning that much?’

  He looked at her as if she were stupid, then blinked and said, ‘Oh, I guess I forgot to explain about my grandparents.’

  She nodded.

  ‘When my parents divorced, my Irish grandparents disinherited Wade, and since his twin brother had died single a few years earlier I inherited their scientific publishing empire when they died.’

  Wade had never told Jacqui about his background, so this was something of a surprise. ‘So you’re saying you were putrid rich back then?’

  ‘I still am,’ he told her shortly.

  ‘I…I had no idea.’

  ‘No? Well, I’m a lot smarter now than I was when I met Angel. I don’t advertise my wealth and I don’t delude myself that money buys happiness or any other intangible human emotion.

  ‘Unfortunately I wasn’t so wise at twenty, and, when Angel protested about how guilty she’d feel living in luxury while her parents were unemployed and barely able to pay the rent, I thought, What the heck? I was in love, and it wasn’t as if I couldn’t afford to make her happy!

  ‘So I did what any lovesick idiot would do—bought a new home for her parents in an upmarket area and set her father up in a trucking business. No strings attached!’

  Jacqui was speechless, but she knew that her feelings showed in her face.

  ‘You can’t think me any more of a fool than I do myself,’ he told her. ‘Suckers didn’t come any bigger than me back then!

  ‘Anyway, I put a portfolio of her together and she sent it to every high-profile agency in New York and the offers flooded in. Angel accepted the highest-paying one, although my gut feeling was to go with one offering slightly less but with a more solid reputation. But Angel was big on making her own decisions, and she disregarded my advice and opinions on her career as glibly as she disregarded them on everything else.’

  ‘But you gave her her start,’ Jacqui protested. ‘And your background automatically gave you more insight into the industry than she’d have had. Heavens, both your parents were icons in the business!’

  ‘Which was exactly why—as I found out much later— Angel had engineered our meeting in the first place.’ He swore. ‘I was played for a fool, and I not only smiled while it happened, but paid for it into the bargain!’

  She wanted to say that it had been Angelica not he who’d been the fool. How could a woman who’d already had Flanagan’s love have needed more? Wanted any more?

  ‘I’ll never make the same mistake again. I wouldn’t be that stupid twice.’

  The sadness in his face tore at her, and desperately she grabbed at words that would reassure him that she didn’t think he was stupid. She wanted to tell him that she thought he was the smartest, most wonderful man she’d ever known, and that she loved him beyond belief. But she couldn’t. Because at this moment she knew that he wouldn’t let himself believe in such a love. In fact she feared that he never would.

  Trying to rise above her own despair, she searched for a way to reduce his, to bring the devilish, light-hearted Flanagan grin back to his face. She swallowed once and forced a smile.

  ‘So look on the bright side, Flanagan,’ she said glibly. ‘They reckon you can’t put a price on experience, but with a good accountant you could probably come pretty close to it!’

  His reaction told her that he hadn’t taken her words in the spirit she’d intended. He jumped off the bed, uttering a string of expletives.

  ‘I’m sorry…I…’ Her voice died under the weight of his quick, stabbing glare, before he turned, fists clenched, to face the wall.

  The anger and tension bracing his muscles were highlighted by his nudity. Oh, God, Jacqui thought, what had this woman done to him?

  She wanted to go to him and got off the bed, but was too afraid of doing more damage than her wise-cracking mouth already had, and instead stood silently beside him. The atmosphere of the room became utterly still and chilled by the invisible wall which Patric had stepped behind—a wall of silence and remoteness so impregnable that Jacqui knew any breach in it would have to come from Patric.

  When he did finally speak it startled her, but there was no trace of rage in his voice now, and she let out the breath she’d been unaware of holding.

  ‘Three days before we were due to marry I walked in and overheard Angel telling her mother that she’d cancelled an appointment she’d made at a well-known termination clinic.’

  Jacqui’s blood ran cold. ‘She…she was pregnant?’

  He sneered, shaking his head. ‘She’d thought she was. It turned out to be what she called “a false alarm”. She’d only been four days late with her period, but the thought of pregnancy jeopardising her precious career had had her lining up abortionists before she’d even bothered to have her condition confirmed!’

  He swore violently and punched the wall. ‘The bitch hadn’t even been going to tell me! We were to have married in a few days, yet she’d have aborted our child because it would have interrupted her career!’ He ran both hands through his hair. ‘Like I said, Madelene wasn’t real maternal, but at least she gave me the chance to breathe.’

  Tears blurred Jacqui’s vision and she bit down hard on her hand to stop the sob in her throat from escaping. No wonder he hated models! The two most important women in his life had put their careers before him. Between them they’d made him feel as if his life and the possible life of his future child were worth less than a job—a job which at best might span twelve years.

  ‘It really makes my gut churn to know my judgement is so lousy, that I could have imagined myself in love with such a manipulative little tramp in the first place,’ he continued. ‘To her I was a meal ticket and a rung on the ladder of success. Since then I’ve been wary of career women in general and models in particular.’

  His self-recrimination clawed at Jacqui’s heart and she threw her arms around him. ‘Oh, Flanagan…’ Her intention had been to console him, but it was he who became the comforter as tides of silent tears ran down her face and on to his chest.

  As Patric held the warm, quietly sobbing woman in his arms he realised that her distress was even more unbearable to him than his memories. Ah, hell! Why hadn’t he remembered that Phil had told him Jacqui had been present at her nephew’s birth? His timing was lousy! No wonder she was so damned upset.

  Cursing his selfish insensitivity, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the bed. Burying his face in the silkiness of her hair, he held her tightly until her sobs abated and her body was again relaxed and pliant against him.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he asked, when a tear-streaked face tried to smile at him.

  The waves of relief that washed over him at her nod were accompanied by a silent prayer of thanks. Yet he was uncomfortably aware of the remnants of high-density emotion lingering in the room. Anxious to escape its cloying effects, he dropped a kiss on Jacqui’s nose and suggested the first thing that came into his head.

  ‘Let’s hit the beach for a few hours,’ he said.

  ‘Wait,’ she said urgently as he moved away from her.

  The confusion and indecision troubling her face made him uneasy. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Flanagan, you said that you can’t trust birth-control to be one hundred per cent reliable. You also implied that your judgement wasn’t to be trusted.’ She looked at him for confirmation.

  ‘Yeah. So?’ Damn her! He didn’t want to discuss this any more! Couldn’t she just let it go? Hell, he’d alread
y told her more than he’d ever told anyone else.

  ‘So, no one’s judgement is one hundred per cent trustworthy,’ she said earnestly. ‘But has it never occurred to you that yours is worth more than it ever was now that you’ve learned there’s no such thing as a wingless angel?’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TWENTY-FIVE minutes later Jacqui was almost surprised to discover that there was nothing to distinguish them from the scores of other couples and families frolicking under the midafternoon sun on Port Macquarie’s most popular beach. And she revelled in the ordinariness of being with Flanagan for a reason other than one which pertained to their business arrangement.

  Sitting cross-legged on their towels, they sipped cola and ate sauce-drenched Pluto pups—batter-covered frankfurters on sticks—which Flanagan claimed he hadn’t had for ‘a hundred years’.

  Then, while waiting a sensible period before finishing their food and swimming, they joked and talked about inane topics such as their star signs and what football teams they followed. Politically they were poles apart, but, considering how Flanagan seemed not even to notice the appreciative glances being directed at him by practically every female between the ages of five and ninety-five, Jacqui was prepared to forgive him anything!

  However, on a public beach the silent message he sent her with his eyes as they roamed possessively over her body, and the way he kept finding reasons to touch her, became a form of torture. In lieu of a cold shower she finally jumped to her feet and sprinted towards the water’s edge, knowing that he was in pursuit.

  Physically exhausted after their madcap antics in the surf, she lay face down on her towel, revelling in the feel of masculine hands animating her skin with sunscreen. But, though the firm, slow movement of Flanagan’s fingers across the muscles of her shoulders and back felt nearly as therapeutic as it did seductive, it did little to ease her mental tension.

  For, while it had been easy for a time to lose herself in the energy of the light-hearted, teasingly boyish Flanagan, who’d made her laugh until she’d almost drowned, then had insisted on giving her his version of the kiss of life in water so deep that she’d had to wrap herself around him to stay afloat, a part of her mind was still dwelling on the anguish she’d heard in his voice back in the hotel room.