Caribbean Desire

by Cathy Williams

  It took a huge effort to pretend to Alistair, when she went to visit him, that there was nothing wrong.

  'Are you sure?' he insisted, frowning. 'You look peaky.'

  'I must have taken too much sun this afternoon,' Emma hedged vaguely, launching into an extended account of how she had spent the day, omitting all mention of Conrad. She knew from experience how Alistair responded to his name, and the last thing she needed was to spend an hour and a half talking about him. He had eaten away enough of her already.

  By the end of the evening she felt totally drained and ready for bed. She had no idea where Conrad was, had asked no one, and was only grateful for his absence.

  Coward, she told herself; you're going to have to face him some time, although every second that he was not

  around was a second more for her to reconstruct her barricade, her invisible protection.

  Now that she knew what she was up against, maybe she could manage a little more successfully to slap down any wayward attraction, because there was no way that she had any intention of giving in furthur to her own frightening craving for him.

  Had she learnt nothing at all from her mother? After her disastrous and brief marriage to her father, she had spent the rest of her life seemingly drawn to all those men from whom she should have been running as fast as she could. Towards the end, she had given up completely and resigned herself to the fact that stability and enduring love would always be beyond her grasp. It had only been her sense of humour that had saved her from becoming an embittered woman.

  Emma had seen it and had learnt from it. Or, at least, she'd thought she had. Certainly if she had had any sense she would have left the island the minute she clapped eyes on Conrad DeVere. She had had too much faith in her own inner strength, and too little in his overwhelming and magnetic sex appeal.

  It helped when Esther informed her in passing that she would be on her own that evening, as Conrad had gone to see Sophia and her parents.

  It came as no surprise. Through the open kitchen window she had noticed that his car was missing, and it didn't take a fool to put two and two together. He had hardly decided to go for a drive to the beach so that he could look at the moonlight.

  Oh, no. Not him. Not Conrad DeVere. Why look at the moonlight when he could take the quickest route to Sophia's house and finish what he had begun with Emma?

  Something inside her whispered that he was not that type of man, but she paid no attention to it. It made

  things infinitely easier if she believed the very worst of him, and she needed all the help she could get.

  For the first time since she had arrived on the island she slept badly, waking up several times to a feeling of disorientation in the inky blackness of the bedroom.

  The face that stared back at her the following morning in the mirror was a true reflection of her state of mind. There were shadows underneath her eyes; even the tan seemed to have deserted her.

  With grim determination, she carefully applied a layer of make-up, much more than she normally used, until she at least resembled something human. Her hair she drew back into a thick ponytail with a piece of black elastic.

  She knew exactly how she would occupy herself for the morning. No beach, no relaxation, nothing so lazy and enjoyable. She did not want to enjoy herself at all. In some obscure way she thought that it would help if she punished herself, so after a light breakfast she quickly visited Alistair—who, although considerably brighter than he had been, now seemed to have developed the habit of pitifully referring to his advanced years—and then vanished into the study.

  There was not much to do. She had finished all the typing which had been on her agenda a few days, so she painstakingly revised her work and then set about rooting through the books, devouring as much literature on Alistair's life as she could. There was a surprising amount of cuttings, some dating back further than she had expected. Emma read it all, slowly and carefully, making the time spin out as much as she could.

  It was interesting reading about the man whom she was beginning to know so well, trying to fit together the pieces of his personality as seen in black and white against the flesh-and-blood old man lying in his bed upstairs. Wasn't there a wide variance? she mused. Only

  the factual side of his life could be relied upon as being the truth.

  She was so engrossed in her detective work that when the phone clanged next to her Emma physically jumped and looked at it in surprise.

  It was Sophia on the other end. She sounded breathless and slightly hesitant as she asked whether Conrad was back yet.

  i have no idea,' Emma replied truthfully.

  There was a pause on the other end, 'Can you tell him that I called?'

  Emma promised, glancing at her watch which showed that it had gone twelve o'clock. 'I could go and see whether I can find him for you,' she said reluctantly, relieved when the other girl told her not to bother.

  it's just that I'm flying out to Rome this afternoon,' Sophia explained.

  'And you wanted to talk to him before you left.' Why wait for her to say it? Emma thought. If she volunteered the information herself, then it somehow made her feel more in control.

  'Yes,' Sophia agreed, 'I wanted to tell him that I was sorry about how things ended.'

  'I'll tell him.' Emma felt a thread of curiosity streak through her, but she was determined not to give in to it. She had already given in to too much as far as Conrad was concerned. Her first step in fighting off that desperate attraction towards him which threatened to engulf her, was to have as little to do with him, and as little to say about him, as possible.

  'Don't you want to know what I'm talking about?' Sophia asked.

  'Not really.'

  'Well' Sophia began, and Emma thought, Oh, no,

  here we go. She could recognise the lowered voice of someone who wanted to confess, to pour their heart out.

  Emma had been the confidante of her friends too many times for her not to see the signs.

  This time, she did not want to be on the receiving end. There was too much locked up inside her which she would have liked to burden someone with, but couldn't. It wasn't simply that her friends were all thousands of miles away. The fact was that she had made too much of a habit of her aloofness, had cultivated her privacy for too long, for her to suddenly break it.

  'You needn't talk to me about this,' she said with a hint of desperation in her voice.

  'I know, but it's just that I haven't anyone else to tell. Besides, sometimes it's easier talking to a stranger than to a friend.' Sophia fell silent, as though she was trying to put her thoughts into some kind of sequence, it's just that I broke off the engagement and I wanted to make sure that we were still friends. I feel so badly about it, but I chatted to Lloyd about it when he was here, and I decided that I just wasn't ready for marriage. Besides, an important job came up.'

  'An important job?' Wasn't marriage an important job? Emma wondered.

  Sophia's tone relaxed, began to sound more confident and enthusiastic. 'A chance-in-a-lifetime opportunity, really. I got offered a contract to work for a cosmetic firm, and part of the agreement was no attachment to the opposite sex for a year. So you see, there was nothing really that I could do.'

  'Of course,' Emma said with mild sarcasm. 'When exactly did you tell Conrad?'

  'At the beach yesterday. Well, I sort of told him then. We talked about it properly yesterday evening—but it was while you and Lloyd were swimming that I sort of hinted..

  'Ah, I see.' And she did. No wonder he was in such a filthy mood on the drive back. It made sense.

  'Of course,' Sophia said confidentially, and Emma could imagine her adopting a suitable pose by the telephone, 'I'll be missing out on all the security I would have had married to a man like Conrad. I mean, he's the catch around. Handsome, powerful, and of course rich, rich, rich. Not just his money, but he'll probably get all of Alistair's money as well. Still' she sighed

  theatrically '—that's life, as my dearest
brother would say.'

  She chatted inconsequentially about Lloyd, but Emma didn't hear what she was saying. She felt faint. Alistair's money? Did he think he was going to inherit Alistair's money? He had never suggested anything of the kind, but if Sophia was as nonchalant about disclosing such information, then surely it must be based on fact. No smoke without fire.

  Tiny, suspicious thoughts were buzzing in her head, irritating insects which refused to go away. Emma blinked and shook her head to clear it.

  'Anyway, could you pass on the message?' Almost before Emma had had a chance to agree, the other girl had rung off, and Emma held the receiver away from her ear, absent-mindedly hearing the flat, purring dialling tone.

  She replaced the receiver thoughtfully, no longer in any mood to pore over old journals and newspaper clippings.

  The nagging uncertainties were becoming too persistent, the buzzing of one bee developing into a swarm. She didn't want to listen to them. After all, they were hardly based on fact, and Sophia might have been completely wrong in her assumptions—but then again, they answered a lot of questions.

  For instance, was that the real reason for Conrad's initial reaction to her? Had he seen her as more than simply a potential threat to Alistair? Had he seen her as a potential threat to him as well?

  She went out to the garden and looked admiringly at the flowers and plants, her mind somewhere else.

  Anyway, she thought, it didn't matter one way or the other, because she really didn't care what the man thought of her.

  She tried to relax and enjoy the warm, salty sea breeze rustling through the coconut trees and the hibiscus plants, but it was with a depressing feeling of inevitability that she saw Conrad's car pull up the long driveway. She had no intention of initiating a conversation with him. She watched him lever his long body out of the driver's seat and gave him a false, syrupy smile as he approached her.

  He didn't smile back.

  'Super garden,' Emma said conversationally, refusing to be rattled either by the hard set of his face or her disconcerting train of thoughts. It annoyed her that, however suspicious she was of him, she still could not prevent her physical awareness of him. 'Can you believe this variety of flowers? It's almost like being at the Chelsea Flower Show. I made an effort once to cultivate the small patch at the back of the house at home, but I soon discovered that I didn't have green fingers. Only when it came to the weeds, at any rate.' The small talk was dying on her lips, and she flashed him another brilliant smile.

  She could feel the pulse in her neck throbbing with painful intensity and she kept her eyes riveted to his face. There was no way that she would let herself drink in the lean muscularity of his body. That would conjure up too many graphic images of it pressed against hers, his thighs hard and demanding, his hands feverishly raking her back and breasts.

  'I've just seen the doctor,' he said bluntly, i passed him on the way back and stopped for a chat.'

  Emma's eyes widened in surprise. She had had no idea that Doctor Tompkins had been to the house, but then

  she had been so absorbed in her work that she had not been aware of very much outside it.

  'What did he say?' she asked quickly. 'I didn't even know that he had been. I was working all morning.'

  'No change, and he still refuses to elaborate on the seriousness of Alistair's condition. I can't drag a thing out of him. He just keeps wittering on about the rights of the patient, and that it was Alistair's decision to tell us or not to tell us exactly what's going on.'

  They had begun walking back to the house, Emma keeping a reasonable distance away from him.

  She had wondered whether he would mention their lovemaking the day before, but apparently not. She thought bitterly that it meant so little to him that it was not even worth a passing word. He would put the whole thing down to experience, if he hadn't forgotten about it all already.

  She had probably been no more than a trivial diversion for him. He would have willingly and expertly made love to her to take his mind off his rejection by Sophia and, when she had come to her senses and made him leave, would have put the whole episode out of his mind like an irksome dream.

  How was he to know that every touch from him was now embedded in her heart, like some virulent stranglehold?

  The women he dated, the women he made love to, she forced herself to think, were women of experience. He and they satiated themselves with each other and then moved on, like trains flashing past each other in the dead of night.

  The fact that she could not forget just showed what a gullible fool she was.

  Well, two could play at that game. She could be as cool as he was, even if it took everything out of her. There was no way that she would let him see how much

  he had affected her. She would cling on to the remnants of her pride if it was the last thing she did.

  So she listened to him with a forced, tinny smile.

  'What can we do?' she asked, if Alistair refuses to divulge exactly how serious his condition is, then we have no choice but to accept it.'

  'You accept a lot, don't you?' he asked with a strange inflexion in his voice. 'All with that cool little face of yours.'

  Emma felt her heart beating heavily against her ribcage and she said airily, i try.'

  The atmosphere thickened between them and, to break it, Emma commented in a neutral voice that Sophia had called. 'To apologise about the engagement,' she added tonelessly.

  'So she told you, did she?'

  'She told me that she'd broken it off, yes.' And more. I hope, she thought silently, that it's wrecked your ego. She glanced across at him, but he did not look like a man whose ego had taken a beating.

  He shrugged, it was mutual.'

  'Was that why you were so abrupt and ill-humoured at the beach yesterday?' Emma could not resist asking coldly.

  'At the beach?' He looked at her sharply. 'What are you talking about?'

  You know what I'm talking about, she wanted to scream. Instead she said calmly, 'Sophia said that she began to tell you that she couldn't go through with the marriage yesterday at the beach.'

  'Oh, yes, so she did,' he agreed.

  'Faced with the choice of an offer from a cosmetics firm and an offer from you, she plumped for the better one,' Emma pressed. If she wanted to drive the point home and stir a reaction from him, she failed. He nodded agreeably but didn't seem in the least perturbed by the implication.

  'She has her career to think of,' he said, pushing the front door open so that Emma could walk through. She brushed past him, feeling her pulses quicken at his proximity.

  Didn't anything put a dent in this man's staggering self-confidence? And he talked about her coolness! Of course, he had mentioned that calling off the engagement had been mutual, but he had not elaborated. Maybe it was his own way of saving face, but he was not behaving like a man trying to justify a broken relationship.

  'I think we should both go and see Alistair and try and figure out exactly what's going on,' Conrad said, relegating the whole subject of himself and Sophia to the past.

  Emma nodded. She would have liked to have continued the discussion—she would have taken an almost masochistic pleasure in it—but she already knew him well enough to realise that he would divulge no more than he wanted to.

  Alistair was in his wheelchair when they entered the bedroom, a book in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. He had obviously not expected them and glanced sheepishly at the bed.

  'You're looking better,' Conrad said drily, sitting on the old flowered sofa in the corner of the room. He patted the free seat next to him and Emma reluctantly sat down, primly crossing her legs at the ankles.

  'I'm still a sick man,' Alistair mumbled, sipping out of his coffee-cup.

  He glanced coyly at both of them, and said in a weak voice, 'I'm better for having my lovely granddaughter here, of course, but I'm still ill. The doctor tells me so, anyway.'

  'Which brings us to the point in question,' Conrad said smoothly. 'The doc
tor. He refuses to say anything, leaving it up to you. Except that you haven't exactly been

  a fount of information either. So what's the story? How ill are you?'

  'I've already told you,' Alistair complained evasively. He threw Emma a watery smile and asked her if she'd like Esther to bring up another tray with coffee and biscuits.

  Conrad shook his head. 'You're avoiding the subject again, Alistair.'

  'Perish the thought.'

  'So, in words of one syllable, tell me what the doctor said. Is it your heart playing up again?'

  Emma knew that Alistair had a heart condition. He had spoken to her about it, but he had not mentioned that that was at the bottom of his current problem. In retrospect, she realised that he had swept aside all mention of his illness with suave caginess.

  'Something like that,' Alistair mumbled testily, i won't bore you with the details.'

  'Please,' Conrad persisted, 'bore us.' He looked at Emma and glanced upwards. Without realising it, she dropped her mask and grinned.

  'Well,' Alistair began, 'it's the old ticker. Not as strong as it used to be. The doctor said that I shouldn't get any shocks. A pleasant surprise might be nice, though— might revive me. I mean,' he added hastily, 'Emma's revelation was wonderful, a rush of spring air into an old man's bones, but as you can see I'm still very much under the weather. So the doctor tells me.'

  'Very informative. Doctor Tompkins,' Conrad said wryly. 'His advice sounds very much like the sort of advice you'd prescribe for yourself.'

  Alistair made an indeterminate sound.

  'Well, no doubt you'll find this a pleasant surprise. Sophia and I are no longer an issue.'

  Alistair's eyes gleamed under the bushy brows. 'AH off, is it? Just as well, my boy. The two of you weren't suited at all, as I've told you often enough before. I'm