Ruthless Passion

by Penny Jordan

  Neither. He was simply taking an attractive and very sensual woman out to dinner. That was all.

  If that was all, why hadn’t he told her who he was?

  * * *

  In her own room, Christie showered, rubbing the sponge firmly over her skin so that it glowed from the friction. She had good skin, firm and sleek, olive-tinged and healthy. It clung firmly to her bones and muscles. As she rinsed herself off she reached for her towel and then changed her mind, padding naked into the bedroom to study her image thoughtfully in the mirror there, trying to view herself as a man might.

  Her legs were long and elegant, her body a woman’s rather than a girl’s, her breasts well shaped but soft from having breast-fed Cathy, her nipples dark and surrounded by large and slightly swollen areolae.

  On holiday, sunbathing topless, she had seen the way a certain kind of man had looked at them and, while she had pitied the men for their sexual repression and inadequacy, she had been sharply irritated by their furtively expressed sexual immaturity. She had no more control over the shape of her breasts than she had had over the colour of her eyes; they had been encoded within her at her conception, but to some men it was as though she had deliberately chosen them as an advertisement of her sexual availability.

  She had her own scale now for judging how men reacted to them, a private test, which disappointingly few men managed to pass.

  There was, after all, as she had pointed out to the distraught woman patient who had come to her requesting a breast-implant operation because of her husband’s attitude towards her neat and perfectly normal pair of thirty-two As, far more to a woman’s sexuality than a pair of oversized boobs. ‘Try telling your husband you want him to have his penis extended,’ Christie had told her.

  The woman had stared at her. ‘Is there such an operation?’ she had asked doubtfully.

  Christie hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry. One thing she did know was that, if there were, ninety-five per cent of the world’s male population would no doubt be queueing up for it. Perhaps, after all, a sex that still could not accept, despite overwhelming evidence to prove it, that as far as women were concerned it was not the size of the equipment that was important but what you actually did with it, and, even more important, what you did before and after you even got around to using it, could be forgiven for its fixation on large breasts.

  She placed her hand flat against her midriff. Her waist curved in, her hips round and smooth, her stomach a small gentle swell above the dark tangle of her pubic hair.

  Christie knew that she was fortunate in her easy acceptance of her own body and her own sexuality. Every day in her surgery she listened to women patients who were not, and ached for them in their lack of self-love, wanting to urge them to thrust aside their ingrained sense of lack of self-worth and somehow to replace it with pride in their sexuality, with self-confidence in their womanhood, with the right that surely belonged to every human being to value themselves … to love themselves.

  It had taken her a long time and a lot of self-searching before she had been able to cast aside the image of herself she had seen in her father’s eyes and to stand tall and proud in her own individuality; an individuality she was fiercely determined to protect and see thrive.

  She was perfectly happy to share her body, her pleasure in her own sexuality, her desire and even some of her vulnerabilities with a lover; what she was not and never would be prepared to do was to submerge herself in him, abasing herself for him, demoting herself to second place for the sake of his needs, his ego. If he was not man enough to accept her as an equal, to understand that for her there would always be times when her own needs, her own ambitions must be set above his and he must accept that fact, then there was no place for him in her life, not even as a lover.

  Which was probably why she had been celibate for these last several years, she acknowledged humorously as she finished her tally of her physical self and briskly dried her still damp skin, extracting clean underwear from the drawer, a plain fine silk bra and equally plain briefs to go under the warm tobacco-brown of the simple silk dress she was going to wear.

  No need for tights; her legs were smooth and lightly tanned, and the silk fabric of her dress wasn’t happy over man-made Lycra and nylon.

  She had washed her hair. Now she dried it, brushing it vigorously. It was thick and shoulder-length with a strong curl. When she was a child her father had always complained that it looked wild and untamed. She remembered that now as she plaited it into elegant control. She shivered, acknowledging how much she already wanted Leo; knowing that the imagination of his mouth against her own, against her breast, her stomach and the sensitive female flesh where a small pulse was already beating excitedly, was tensing her stomach and making her body soften and ache so that she could feel its sensual swell pressing against the constriction of her clothes; those who believed that it was only male arousal that caused such an immediate and visible physical swelling of the body were woefully ignorant of either their own or their partner’s reaction.

  But then, how many of them ever actually looked? She had been mystified when a man had moved uncomfortably away from her as she studied his erection, sensually enjoying its effect on her senses, on her awareness of the pleasure that awaited her in having him inside her.

  It put him off, he told her uncomfortably. Women were supposed to close their eyes.

  It had done more than put him off, and after that it had been another test she had subconsciously used on her would-be lovers. They had not only to enjoy having her look at them, but to enjoy looking at her as well.

  After all, sex, good sex, should surely employ the use of all of one’s senses; the physical penetration of one body by another was, to her, only the climax of what should have been a banquet, a feast of all the senses. A man who did not enjoy watching her, seeing how much his touch aroused and pleased her, was in her opinion a very poor kind of lover.

  Christie wasn’t a fool. She knew that many of her feelings, her beliefs challenged some of the most dearly held male beliefs, challenged them too dangerously in many cases, but she refused to be bullied or cowed into a sexual stereotype because that was the only way some men’s egos could accept her.

  And yet she was very much a woman, secretly acknowledging that part of her sexuality that wanted at the height of her desire to be passive, penetrated, possessed, but knew that in being all those things there remained a subtle strength and power, an elemental mystery that held the kernel of the atavistic male drive to possess the female.

  Very few men could understand that in a woman. But the few that could and did …

  A wry smile curled her mouth. Don’t get too carried away, she warned herself. Just because he looks good and turns you on, it doesn’t mean he’s one of them.

  She was down in the lobby at one minute to eight. Christie did not play silly power-games to manipulate the opposite sex, and she was pleased to see that Leo had had the good manners to get there ahead of her.

  Good manners were not to her an old-fashioned, outdated means of putting women in second place. Used properly, they were simply an awareness of and a consideration for others. Of either sex. Had she been the one to ask Leo to dinner she would have made sure she was there ahead of him too.

  She liked the way he smiled at her, openly taking in her appearance and equally openly letting her know that he found her attractive.

  ‘The restaurant isn’t very far away,’ he told her. ‘We can walk or take a taxi.’

  ‘Oh, walk, please,’ Christie responded. ‘It’s so stuffy in here that I’d welcome some fresh air.’

  Although he was wearing a suit, it was more casually tailored than the one in which he had arrived at the airport. The cloth looked as though it was some kind of silk mixture and not the kind that had been bought cheaply in between flights to and from Hong Kong and made up overnight, she recognised shrewdly. Which meant either that he was independently wealthy or that he had a generous expense account. Somehow s
he did not think it was the latter.

  He opened the main door for her, but allowed her to walk freely and easily, choosing her own distance from him, which had the effect of causing her to move a little closer to him than she might normally have done. A subtle piece of clever manipulation or a genuine recognition of her equality?

  ‘I don’t know what the restaurant is going to be like,’ he warned her as he indicated that they should turn left into a narrow street that led up towards the castle. ‘It has been recommended to me.’

  ‘You have friends in Edinburgh?’ Christie asked him.

  ‘Er—no.’

  She tensed a little, sensing that he was uneasy, withholding something from her.

  Damn, she had noticed that small betraying hesitation, Leo acknowledged, registering Christie’s reflexive muscle tension and the quick assessing look she gave him.

  He hated lying and he had never been any good at it. And to be a good liar one had to enjoy it, he admitted ruefully. To treat it as a mere pedestrian necessity rather than to indulge in it with flair and enjoyment might have been enough to have helped him get by, but whenever he was called upon to utter even the most basic of humdrum white lies he could almost feel himself flinching away from doing so.

  Elle had laughed at him for it. Lying well was not just a skill, nor even a necessity, but one of life’s greatest pleasures, she had told him, adding mockingly that she was surprised he was such a good lover when he lacked this most important loverly skill. It was probably because what he lacked in verbal deceptive flair he made up for with his sensitivity and awareness of people’s emotions, she had decided.

  Whether she was right about that or not, Leo knew one thing: Christie Jardine was not the kind of woman who would share Elle’s views on the necessity of deceit.

  ‘I … I heard about it from … from a business associate,’ he told Christie now, grimly aware that his words, while technically true, still held that betraying note of tension.

  A business associate. Did that mean another woman? Christie questioned inwardly, and then frowned quickly. What did it matter how he had learned about the restaurant? Or why her question had made him so uncomfortable? He was a stranger, someone she barely knew, she reminded herself as Leo touched her arm lightly and said, ‘I think we turn left here.’

  After all, she could hardly expect him to catalogue his life and the people in it for her, just because they were going out for dinner. She knew she would have been the first to object had he started cross-questioning her about her own life.

  They were off the main thoroughfare now and in one of the maze of narrow streets—wynds, as they called them—which formed a maze of ginnels and alleys between the ancient tenement buildings. Once these tenements had been the city apartments of those wealthy high-born country Scots who would leave their estates to come to Edinburgh to enjoy the social season.

  The wynd opened unexpectedly into a small courtyard, and Christie blinked in surprise and pleasure at the sight of the profusion of window-boxes, and pots full of flowers that filled the small grey space.

  Someone had very cleverly elected to choose plants grey and silver in foliage with white, pale blue and the palest misty lavender-grey flowers, so that now at night with the dusk, the pale, ghostly blue-grey of a northern-lying land, the plants blended perfectly into their surroundings in a way that the hot, bright colours of the Mediterranean never could have done. Even the pots had been carefully chosen to enhance that effect, she observed as she moved closer to study the raised design on one of the lead containers.

  Leo watched her as she moved forward to run her fingertip along the relief pattern. She had elegantly long fingers, but the nails were cut short and unpolished. She was totally absorbed in what she was doing, all her concentration focused on the pleasure the containers and their contents were giving her.

  It was rare these days to see a child, never mind an adult, exhibit that kind of delight; natural; honest; unashamed of the emotion that others might see.

  Her plait had swung forward on to her face and he discovered that he wanted to reach out and tuck it behind her ear so that he could watch her.

  He saw her frown suddenly, a rueful look curling her mouth as she turned to him and said, ‘They aren’t lead at all, they’re plastic.’

  He could sense her disappointment. ‘Lead would be prohibitively expensive and more at risk from thieves. The plastic is a very good facsimile.’

  ‘Until you get too close to it,’ she agreed.

  ‘Like a good many things in life,’ Leo suggested quietly.

  Christie frowned. Had he guessed … known … that that was exactly what had been running through her mind, or had he simply voiced a belief that was his own? Either way, it disturbed her that their thoughts should have run so exactly parallel.

  ‘At least the flowers are real.’

  Leo looked at her as he held the restaurant door open for her. Reality in all things would be very important to this woman. Reality and truth.

  The restaurant was busy without being overcrowded. The bar area was upstairs in an open gallery so that one could if one wished enjoy an aperitif while looking down on the dining area without being guilty of prying and, equally important, without making the diners below feel as though they were exhibits in a cage.

  ‘Very clever,’ Christie commented when they were seated at a table, waiting for their drinks, ‘allowing people to indulge in people-watching and to tempt their appetites at the same time.’

  ‘Mm … and hopefully to prevent them getting too restless when they’re kept waiting for a table.’

  Christie gave him a shrewd look: intelligent and good-looking, and, from what she had seen so far, without that irritating male aggression that seemed to be a shared vice of so many successful men.

  Successful? She frowned. Now, why had she thought that? Because he wore discreetly expensive clothes; because of his manner; the way he was so comfortably at ease with himself and with his surroundings. The restaurant might not to the untutored eye appear luxurious, and it certainly wasn’t ostentatious, far from it; but Christie had already discerned that the diners, local people in the main, to judge from their soft accents, were not those on their way up their chosen ladders in life, but those who had reached the top and been there long enough to feel relaxed and unimpressed by either status or wealth.

  This was a restaurant for people who knew what they wanted out of life; who sought to please themselves and were far removed from the necessity of pleasing others. As Christie watched, a female diner shook her head over the selection of vegetables she was being shown, her smile rejecting the food without embarrassment or self-consciousness, her manner towards the waiter as she spoke to him very definitely that of someone who knew beyond any kind of doubt that the restaurant would be only too pleased to provide whatever it was she chose to have; that there was no need for raised voices or aggressive demands; that she was there to be pleased and pampered.

  At another table a woman was sampling some fresh raspberries, tasting a couple before opting to have them, a tiny frown marring her immaculate made-up face as she judged their flavour and texture.

  ‘The restaurant specialises in providing fresh locally grown or produced food,’ Leo told her. ‘It isn’t exclusively vegetarian but the menu doesn’t carry very many rich red meat dishes. I’m not a vegetarian myself … but, I must admit, these days I seem to have lost the lust for very heavy meats.’

  ‘As a doctor, I’m all too well aware of the dangers of too much fat consumption,’ Christie told him. ‘I’m a terrific fish fan, and Cathy and I both enjoy raw vegetables and fruit.’

  ‘Cathy?’

  Christie put down her glass, giving herself a few seconds to reply. It wasn’t like her to introduce Cathy into her conversation like that; at least, not in this sort of situation. Cathy and her private life were things she preferred to keep private.

  ‘My daughter,’ she explained.

  Her voice was terse enough for L
eo to pick up on her reluctance to discuss the subject, but suddenly it had become very important to him to know if there was a man to go with the child. He gave her a quick look. She would not respond well to a direct question, he suspected; already she was on her guard, slightly tense, her body stiffening as she sat bolt-upright in her chair, her body language almost defying him to ask her anything more.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he told her quietly. ‘I don’t have any children, nor indeed a wife.’

  ‘The two don’t necessarily go hand in hand,’ Christie pointed out drily.

  Leo felt her tension relax a little. He had suspected she wouldn’t be able to resist that kind of comment. ‘No,’ he agreed, and then added firmly, ‘However, if I did have a child or children inside or outside marriage, whatever the status of my relationship with the mother, I would want to keep them within my life.’

  For the first time Christie heard a certain steeliness in his voice and for some reason it made her sharply aware of the contrast between his attitude and that of Cathy’s father.

  Angrily she pointed out to him, ‘You might not be given that choice. If your relationship with your child’s mother broke down there would be no guarantee that you could continue to have a relationship with your child. Most courts still find in favour of a child’s mother.’

  ‘Yes. But I should like to think that, even if I and my child’s mother could not continue with our relationship, both of us would be left with enough respect for one another and enough love for one child to come to some arrangement that would allow us both to remain in his or her life, even if we no longer remained there together.’

  His idealism and the sincerity with which he spoke irritated Christie. He obviously had no idea of what life was really like. The break-up of a sexual and emotional relationship between two adults was a very painful thing, with neither of them inclined or even able to make sane, loving arrangements for sharing the child they had created together, but because she couldn’t voice those thoughts without betraying her own emotions she said instead, ‘What about the distance factor? Sometimes even with the best will in the world it’s not always possible for a father to remain in contact with children who might live some distance away.’