That Devil Love
Page 17
Clear aquamarine eyes met and held tawny in a level gaze. ‘In a way it was his business. He admitted that he’d been Maya’s lover; you’d merely been shielding him.’
There was a taut silence before Zan asked slowly, ‘What do you intend to do about it?’
‘Nothing. As far as I’m concerned it’s over and done with. I wouldn’t want Helen to be hurt.’
Zan sighed, then queried, ‘You think I should have told you?’
She shook her head. ‘I understand why you didn’t.’
He sighed again. ‘Try not to blame Matt too much; he was lonely and vulnerable…missing Helen. When he realised what a fool he’d been he made an effort to end things, but she was completely infatuated with him.
‘I stepped in to try and head her off. Her phone calls were put through to me, and every time she came to the office I talked to her.
‘It wasn’t long before I realised she was emotionally unstable. I felt sorry for her, and several times when she was very low I took her out to lunch.
‘Then one morning there was a slip-up and she managed to get through to Matt’s office. She said she needed to see him and threatened to tell Helen about their affair if he didn’t meet her.
‘He panicked and promised to take her to dinner the next night. Then he came to me, worried to death.
‘We agreed it would be better if he left the country for a while, and in less than two hours he was on a flight to the States. I’d promised to meet Maya in his place and make it clear that it really was all over, and telling Helen wouldn’t alter a thing. That was the night you saw us together.
‘It’s strange how fate works. We were walking to our table when I glanced across the restaurant and met a woman’s eyes. I found that ice, like fire, can burn. That cool, exquisite face seemed branded on my mind.’
As Annis’s eyes widened, he added, ‘This may sound hackneyed, but in that instant I knew you were the woman I’d been waiting all my life for.’
He got to his feet and began to pace. ‘If the circumstances had been different I’d have come over and spoken to you there and then. But Maya was verging on the hysterical and threatening to cause a scene. When I looked your way again, you’d disappeared.
‘Next day I returned to the restaurant and asked about you, but no one knew who you were. I couldn’t believe I’d really lost you, and night after night for almost three weeks, I went back hoping to see you again…’
He moved to stand by the mantel, before resuming quietly, ‘Then, as you know, I had to go over to the States. But still your face haunted me, and when I got home again I found myself looking for you, searching every crowd, chasing after any woman with flaxen hair in case it was you…’
Annis sat motionless, her eyes fixed on his face, filled with the deepest, most poignant emotion she’d ever known.
‘Finally, when I’d lost all hope, I caught sight of you in Leighton’s office. I was like a man possessed. I had to get to know you, to make you mine. I’m not usually so crass but I was terrified of losing you again.’
‘Yet now you’re telling me to go.’
He ran restless fingers through his shorn curls. ‘Only because I can’t live this way any longer.’
‘But if we agreed to be friends?’
‘I want a great deal more than friendship.’
‘Passionate friends?’
‘It’s a tempting thought. But you see I don’t want just passion. I want you to love me as deeply as I love you.’
Getting up, she went to him and put her hands flat against his chest. She felt his heartbeat accelerate beneath her palm as she said, ‘I do love you. I’ve loved you for a long time but I…’
The rest of her words were lost, stifled by his mouth on hers.
They kissed like two people starving for one another, kissed until she felt breathless and her head reeled.
When she sagged against him, he sat down and took her on his lap, cradling her in his arms. ‘Tell me again,’ he ordered.
She glanced up at him from beneath long, gold-tipped lashes, and asked innocently, ‘Tell you what?’
He pinched the lobe of her ear. ‘That you love me. That you’re mine.’
In response to what she recognised as real need, she put her arms around his neck, and, her cheek pressed against his, whispered, ‘I’m yours, whilever I’ve got hands to hold you and lips to kiss you…’
His arms tightened until they almost crushed her ribs. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say it.’
Her fingers following the curve of his jaw and tracing the cleft in his chin, she admitted, ‘I think I started on the road to love that very first time I saw you with Maya…’
He grunted. ‘But I’ve had to force you every step of the way.’
‘Not every step,’ she objected, remembering that night in San Francisco.
‘Almost every step, you heartless witch. Don’t you feel sorry for the way you’ve treated me?’
Seriously, she answered, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said you hadn’t been Maya’s lover.’
‘It was asking a great deal,’ he admitted. ‘But the mere fact that you wanted to gave me hope… Then, after reading that damning note, I couldn’t blame you for not believing me.’
‘I just wish I had. It must have hurt you a lot.’ She kissed him with a passion made all the deeper by regret.
‘Kiss me like that every day for the rest of our lives and it will have been well worth it. And, speaking of the rest of our lives, how do you fancy a second honeymoon?’
‘I don’t feel as if I’ve had a first one yet, having wasted so much of it.’
‘Hmm… Well, I suggest we rectify that immediately by having a double-length two-in-one. Where would you like to go?’
Unhesitatingly, she said, ‘San Francisco… Hawaii…’
‘Which?’
‘Both. And if you want to make three people very happy…’
He lifted a quizzical brow. ‘Three people?’
‘Matt was very concerned that things should be right between us. If you borrow Lani House again…’
Zan kissed her. ‘Anything you say, my darling. So long as he doesn’t want to come along.’
‘He might prove useful…’ she teased.
‘Useful?’
‘To give you a few tips… After all, he does have three children.’
Zan shook his head, eyes glinting. ‘I don’t need any tips. I shall go on the old maxim that practice makes perfect.’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1127-8
THAT DEVIL LOVE
First North American Publication 2003.
Copyright © 1994 by Lee Wilkinson.
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