'No bother.'
The three of them walked out in an uncomfortable silence. When they were at the front door, Lloyd turned to Emma and said in a low voice, 'It's been a nice evening.' His eyes flickered across to Conrad and then back to her. 'You know that my invitation for you to come and stay with me in Trinidad still stands. Any time. You're a good friend and I'd love to see you.'
'You might see me sooner than you expect.' Over her shoulder she could feel Conrad hovering, listening to every word that they were saying.
If he weren't a rich industrialist, Emma thought, he'd probably be a thug. He certainly had the makings of one, from the athletic, aggressive body to the air of threat that he could create whenever it suited him. It suited him now, and Lloyd almost ran to his car, only turning to wave at Emma when he was secure behind a locked door.
'Well, I hope you're satisfied!' Emma turned on Conrad, fighting to preserve some modicum of self- restraint.
'Very.' He leant against the door-frame and smiled.
'You ruined my evening!'
'So sorry.' He didn't sound in the least bit sorry. In fact, he sounded extremely smug.
'How much have you had to drink anyway?' Emma asked, walking back into the sitting-room to collect the dirty cups and glasses.
'Nothing.' He followed her, and she could almost feel his warm breath on her neck as she stacked the cups and saucers, balancing them precariously in one hand.
He made her edgy. She wished that he would just go to bed. In fact, she wished that he would just leave the island. He had managed to wreck her life and she needed to be a million miles away from him before she could start piecing it together again.
Instead here he was on her heels, watching as she dumped the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.
'I think I'll go to bed now,' she said flatly, spinning round to find him standing much closer to her than she had expected. He stepped forward and she stepped back. It would have been amusing if her heart weren't doing nervous little somersaults in her chest.
'I wish that twerp wouldn't keep throwing himself at you.' Conrad was staring at her intently, refusing to step aside and let her pass him.
'Lloyd isn't a twerp.'
'He doesn't have a brain in his body.'
'He runs a nightclub! He can't be that brainless!'
'His partner runs the nightclub. Lloyd provides pretty backing; he doesn't actually make any decisions.'
'I'm not going to stand here discussing Lloyd with you,' Emma said coldly, hoping that he couldn't hear her heart thumping heavily in her chest.
'The most responsible decisions Lloyd makes,' Conrad continued as if he hadn't heard her, 'are what colour shirt he's going to put on in the morning. Does this blue shirt match OK with these checked grey socks? Should he go for the Paisley tie or the striped one?'
Emma didn't say anything. She couldn't deny that Lloyd didn't care overmuch for the grittier side of reality, that applying himself to anything serious would be anathema to him, and it infuriated her that Conrad was pointing out the truth, but in the most cynical way possible.
'I can't imagine what you see in him. Is it because he's pushy?'
'He's not pushy,' Emma defended Lloyd stoutly. 'I wanted to see him this evening, or else he would never have come. Not that it's any of your business, but he was over here for a couple of days and he got in touch. I invited him over to dinner.'
Not quite true, but it was plausible enough.
'Is that a fact?' Conrad caught her by the wrist, pinning her to the spot. He wasn't drunk. She could see
that now. He was stone-cold sober, and she could also see that he was holding on to his self-control with difficulty. In the sort of mood he was in, she didn't trust him.
She tried to tug her hand away and instead Conrad pulled her towards him so that her body was pressed against his. She could almost feel his heart beating under the fine cotton material of his shirt.
She twisted in panic.
'So,' Conrad rasped. 'You invited him here, did you?'
CHAPTER NINE
Emma felt her skin tingle with alarm.
'Yes,' she muttered stubbornly, in answer to his question.
He was towering over her, his dark face alarmingly menacing. She knew that the best thing to do would be to try and laugh her way out of the situation, although, eyeing him from under her lashes, she wondered whether a forced humour might have just the opposite effect.
'Well, if he has any thoughts of trying on his juvenile charm with you, he'd better have a rethink.'
The unsteady smile died on her lips. She felt the blood rush to her hairline.
'Or else what?' she nearly shouted. 'I can do precisely as I please, and with whom. You may have made love to me but that's as far as it goes. I've already told you that it was a huge mistake anyway! Whatever I choose to do now is none of your business whatsoever.'
'I'm making it my business,' Conrad hissed, his hand tightening on her so that she winced in pain.
'You're hurting me!'
He slackened his grip, and she felt the blood flow back into her veins.
'You can forget about going to Trinidad to visit him,' he said in a low, harsh voice.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she had no intention of visiting him, but she bit back the words. Let him think the worst. Did she care? He had no right to act the tyrant with her.
'I'll do exactly as I please,' she said, enunciating every syllable with cold precision. 'If you must know, I was thinking about flying out some time over the weekend.'
She wasn't, but that didn't matter. What mattered was her need to assert her will.
'Not if I have any say in it.'
Emma's green eyes blazed. 'Stop trying to run my life for me! Not only do you have me deceiving my grandfather, but now you're trying to dictate who I see and when.' She laughed bitterly. 'That might work with those women you go out with, or sleep with, or even,' she added maliciously, 'get engaged to, but as far as I'm concerned you can just take a running jump.'
'Would you have been surprised if I had had too much to drink?' Conrad muttered through clenched teeth. 'You'd drive any sane man to drink.'
'And you'd drive any sane woman right into a mental asylum!' Emma yelled.
They looked at each other for what seemed like eternity. In the dim background Emma was aware of the steady ticking of the kitchen clock, the night sounds drifting through the closed windows, the hum of the refrigerator.
She was trembling all over. From the rage or from the heady impact of his body against hers, she wasn't sure. Then, as she opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, Conrad bent his head and his lips met hers fiercely, crushing all attempts to push him away, under the sheer force of his kiss.
Emma's fists closed uselessly against his chest as she tried not to succumb to the mounting passion firing within her.
His long fingers slid along her shoulders and down her back, and she could feel them with an almost unbearable intensity.
She heard the sound of her own voice telling him to stop, but even to her ears it sounded weak with passion.
His teeth bit gently against the soft skin of her neck, and Emma's head dropped back, like a rag doll.
His hands moved to cup her breasts, and Emma's eyes flew open. If she didn't stop him now, if she didn't stop herself now, then there was no doubt that she would be pulled into her own dizzy need to feel him.
'Let me go,' she said, struggling against an aching want, as she felt his thumbs trace slow circular movements against her nipples. Under her hands, his skin was as hot as hers.
'No!' she said in a high, desperate voice, as his hands slid over her stomach. She pushed him fiercely, and he raised his feverish blue eyes to her.
'Leave me alone,' she said in a strangled tone.
'You want me, Emma.' He moved closer to her, and this time she pushed him away, with as much strength as she could muster. 'Don't retreat behind that wall of ice. You want me, I can feel it. When I
touch you, you tremble, and when I kiss you I can feel your longing as strong as I can feel my own.'
There was no use in trying to deny it, and she didn't bother.
'I want you to leave me alone,' she whispered, i don't want anything to do with you. You can't give me anything, because you have nothing to give. You use people, and I refuse to be used.'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'You know as well as I do! Don't think for a moment that I can't see you for what you are! Yes, I might be attracted to you, but that doesn't make me a blind fool!'
God, she thought, if only that were true.
She turned away, walking wordlessly out of the kitchen, and then running up the long staircase, taking the steps two by two, until she reached her bedroom door.
She slammed it behind her, leaning against it, shaking as though she had been through some terrible ordeal from which she had only just managed to escape. With quick movements she stripped off her dress, tossing it into a heap on the floor, and then stepped into the shower. She wanted to bathe away the perspiration covering her. Even under the cold, sharp water her body still burned where he had touched her, each touch erotic and tantalising, promising her the sort of fulfilment which she shamelessly craved.
She found it difficult to sleep that night. She would drift into a light doze, only to find some new image of Conrad leaping out at her when she least expected it. If this was love, then what, she thought with sharp agony, was the point? Every inch of her body seemed filled with pain.
She went over in her mind all the details of the evening, trying to read something behind his actions. All she could see was that he didn't want to give her up. She was valuable to him after all, she thought bitterly, in a very literal sense. She was his passport to Alistair's money.
God, and to think that despite all that, knowing what she did, she was still attracted to him. Not merely attracted, but desperately in love with his humorous, intelligent, caustic charm.
If her feelings hadn't been involved, if she had only been able to treat him as a fling, some kind of temporary aberration, then things would have been so easy. She could walk away and put the whole episode down to experience. Wasn't that how her friends reacted when they broke off from their lovers? They shrugged their shoulders, cried for a few days, and then moved on.
But on, no. Not her. Emma buried her face into the pillow to stifle her sobs. Why had she been stupid enough to fall in love with the man?
She cringed with embarrassment as she remembered how she had responded to his expert lovemaking, opening up to him with total abandon. At least, she thought, she had had the courage to run away from him last night, even though it had been the most difficult thing she had ever had to do.
She had listened to common sense, but she couldn't hide from the fact that every nerve in her body had wanted him then as much as she had wanted him on the boat. As much as she had wanted him from the moment she laid eyes on him.
She had hoped that Sophia would have been a deterrent, that seeing them together would help her to fight the weak-minded craving that threatened to suffocate her. But it hadn't. It had only served to make her more ashamed and confused.
She needed strength, and it was the one thing which he drained from her.
Even in the darkness of the bedroom, the mere thought of his strong brown hands exploring every inch of her was enough to make her tremble with desire.
There was no option left open to her now but to confess everything to Alistair, to tell him about their sham engagement and to try and make him see that she had no alternative but to leave the island on the first flight back to England.
She would return as soon as she had managed to pick up some of the pieces of her wrecked life. After all, they still had their book to finish.
She was pale and tense when she knocked on Alistair's bedroom door the following morning.
It was a cruel twist that he was looking better than she had seen him since he was taken ill. He hustled her into the chair closest to him, prattling on about everything from the weather to his health, fussing around her like a mother hen.
Emma bit her lip anxiously, feeling horribly guilty, and waited for a lull in the conversation before she began speaking.
Bit by slow bit she told him about Conrad's idea, about her agreement, about how much it hurt her to know that they had done the wrong thing.
Alistair listened to her in complete silence, his hands folded on his lap.
'Whose idea was the engagement?' he asked interestedly.
'Conrad's, as a matter of fact.' Emma looked at him in surprise. He had not reacted as she had expected at all. In fact, he had not reacted. He did not seem in the least bit taken aback and she was at a loss to understand it.
'Ah.' Alistair flashed her an avuncular smile.
'Not that it matters,' Emma carried on. 'I agreed, so we're both to blame.'
'Of course,' Alistair soothed. 'It takes two to tango.'
'Aren't you in the least bit disappointed?' Curiosity got the better of her, and she stared at him with open puzzlement.
'These things happen. But why did you decide that now was the time to tell me the truth? Did you think that I had recuperated enough?' He chortled. 'Fancy the pair of you hoodwinking an old man like me. That's not happened to me from as far back as I can remember!'
'We thought that we were doing it for your own good,' Emma rushed in, apologetically. She hoped that he wasn't going to break down. He had taken the revelation so well, but of course it was all a facade.
He was probably going to dissolve into tears any minute now, or else turn away from her in disappointment. Quite possibly both. She looked anxiously at him, waiting for the inevitable.
Instead his sharp eyes returned her stare with equanimity.
'You still haven't answered my question.'
'Question?' Emma asked, bewildered. 'What question?'
'Why did you suddenly decide to tell me about it now?'
'I... Things have changed,' she stammered haltingly.
'Things?'
'Nothing went according to plan.'
'Meaning?'
Emma raised her shoulders helplessly. Why was he asking her this? She had the feeling that she was being kindly but efficiently cross-examined, except for what, she had no idea.
'I...I found out that I couldn't handle the situation.'
It was a flimsy answer, even to her own ears, but she just didn't know what else to say. Alistair had swept aside the whole explanation of their arrangement with a broad- minded wave, and seemed considerably more interested in quizzing her about tiny details which had no bearing on the case at all.
She knew precisely what he would say if she protested. Grandfatherly interest. She had come to realise that he was not without his fair share of tricks which he plucked from up his sleeve without a backward glance. There was no mistaking Conrad's mentor.
'What do you mean, you couldn't handle the situation?'
'Why are you asking me all these questions?' She looked at him with a trace of desperation.
'Grandfatherly interest.'
Emma couldn't hide a smile. 'I knew you'd say that. You're getting predictable in your old age.'
'And you're being evasive.'
'Oh, all right,' she said, giving up, 'I found myself getting too involved with Conrad for my own good.'
'Ah.'
Emma abruptly stood up and went across to the window, staring through it without seeing anything, only aware of feeling thoroughly miserable and horribly vulnerable.
'You've fallen in love with him?'
'More fool me,' she muttered. There was no point in expanding on the subject, and she threw him a look that said that the matter was closed.
'So what are we going to do about the book?' he said with bewildering good humour, changing the subject, much to Emma's relief. 'Not to mention the fact that I'm not going to let you out of my life now that you're here. I've made that stupid mistake once with your mothe
r, and that was once too often. I've been given a second chance with you, and I won't lose you.'
'I'll be back,' Emma responded warmly. 'As soon as I've sorted myself out, I'll be back over. You'll see me before the year's out.'
'Well, you'd better go, then, for the moment. I feel a little tired. And no,' he assured her, reading her expression, 'I'll be quite all right. I just have some thinking to do.'
'Some thinking?' she asked suspiciously.
'Oh, yes, my love. A crossword puzzle I've been working on. I feel I may have solved the last clue.'
'Crossword puzzle? Clue? Grandfather,' she said helplessly, 'sometimes you lose me.'
She turned to leave the room, nodding as he called after her to send Esther up.
It was not yet midday, and already this was proving to be the longest day in her life. The thought of never seeing Conrad again was intolerable. In a way, it was almost better to continue feeling miserable, knowing that he was around, than to return to England and live in a void.
What would she do? The usual routine of theatres and dinners with her friends, some more freelance work although she had nothing lined up, and all the while she would hear the silent sound of the days as they ruthlessly ticked by, reminding her that nothing would ever change.
When she got back to her room, she disconsolately began throwing her clothes into a suitcase, not bothering to think about the horrendous ironing job she would have on her hands when it came to unpacking.
She phoned the airport, only to be told that there were daily flights to Trinidad, but that all connecting flights from Trinidad to Heathrow were fully booked for the next two days.
Two days!' Emma wailed. 'Is there nothing sooner than that? Like tomorrow?'
'Sorry,' the man automatically said in his businesslike voice. 'Perhaps you would like me to reserve a seat for you for the flight out this coming Thursday?'
'I... Yes, if you could, please.'
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