Truly, she thought, he looked like the devil himself when strong emotion carved lines into his face and added even stronger lines to an already powerful jaw-line.
Even blind, he moved with the easy grace of a lean, hungry cat, having made a remarkable adjustment to the layout of the room around him.
What was equally obvious, although perhaps only to her, Rena thought, was that Ran was angry. More than angry, he was seething with a bitterness that, to her, was like a close-banked furnace, liable at any moment to blaze into uncontrolled fury.
And it was her fault: she hadn’t needed his fiery personal remarks to tell her that. But what to do about it? Any attempt at apology now, she reckoned, would be met with only anger and contempt.
Still, she had to try for her own peace of mind. So when the lesson was over, surprisingly without any specific assignments for the coming week, she once again hung back to speak with Ran after the others had left.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do. Especially since he seemed to know she was there, almost to have expected her to be.
‘What’s the story, Rena?’ he demanded once the sound of footsteps had disappeared and it seemed they were alone. ‘Did you stay behind to rub a little salt in the wounds, or just to complain about my assessment of your work?’
‘Neither, and you very well know that,’ she retorted, anger blazing up as she unconsciously covered her nervousness with defensive tactics. ‘I wanted to apologise.’
‘For what — the truth?’ His voice was ragged with emotion, his entire bearing taut and tense. ‘Don’t bother, I’ve been handed worse lines in my time.’
‘I really don’t think that’s the point,’ she replied. ‘What I said was ... inexcusable.’
He grinned, not friendly, but savage, like some wild animal faced with its next meal. ‘If it’s the way you usually react to compliments, I’m surprised you’ve ever been close enough to a man to have built up such a storehouse of hatred,’ he said.
Words leapt to Rena’s lips — hot, angry, bitter words — but she choked them back. What, indeed, could she say? You shouldn’t be surprised? If I’m really a man-hater it’s your fault? I only hate one man, and it’s you?
No, she would say nothing. That decision was made just as Ran decided it was the wrong decision.
‘What? Nothing to say?’ he demanded. ‘Don’t tell me all this bitterness is stored up inside a twenty-two-year-old virgin.’
That was too much! Rena’s temper flung aside her good intentions, her common sense. ‘Damn you!’ she snapped, stalking towards him like an angry cat, one hand raised to claw out at his face. Only at the last instant did she turn her wrist so that it was the flat of her palm which struck him instead of her nails.
Ran stood like a statue as the sound of the slap rang through the emptiness around them. Only his reflective, mirrored glasses seemed to move, shimmering and rippling with the deepness of his breath. To Rena, it was like looking into deep, bottomless pools that distorted her own reflection.
The mark of her palm stood out like a brand on a face pale and taut with emotion. When he finally spoke, his voice trembled, but it was with restrained fury, not fear.
‘That really took a lot of courage,’ he sneered. ‘Perhaps I should turn the other cheek.’
They stood there, each silent but panting with their anger, and Rena felt as if she might drown in those horrid, mirroring glasses.
It was Ran who broke the silence. ‘Perhaps I’ve misjudged you,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe you’re not quite as innocent as I thought.’
She had no chance to reply. His hands snaked out to take her by the upper arms, drawing her against him as his mouth searched unerringly for her lips.
Cruelly he forced her lips apart, ravishing her mouth and holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. There was no warmth in his kiss, only a cold, soul-chilling passion, a barbaric sensuality that neither wanted nor needed response.
And yet she responded! Her body, despite two years of being asked to forget Ran’s touch, forget Ran’s very existence, seemed to blossom forth in desire. Her knees trembled; she would have fallen but for his hold on her, her pulse quickened in desire, not fear or even anger.
The heat of him seemed to burn through their clothing to sear her breasts, hardening her nipples against him. Her loins burned at the feel of him against her.
And he knew! As his mouth possessed her, he couldn’t help but feel the betraying responses of her body. What remained of her consciousness ordered her hands to stay clenched at her sides; instead, they slowly lifted to grasp at his upper arms, revelling in the familiar touch of his hard muscles. Her thighs shifted closer to him, seeking the remembered touch of his strong, muscular legs.
Only Rena’s eyes obeyed her; they stayed closed, unable to accept the sight of her former lover so close to her. But the rest of her body, like his, had no need of vision. As his lips became less demanding, more caressing, her own curved to meet them, tasting him, luxuriating in the taste of him.
When he released her arms to free his own hands for a more extensive exploration of her body, she unthinkingly raised them around his neck, her fingers entwined in the thickness of his hair. Her breasts quivered for his touch, demanding, crying out for the caress of his fingers. And when his lips moved away to run a trail of fire down her cheek, her throat, into the hollow of her shoulder, her own lips returned the caress along his jaw-line, kissing at his ear.
They fitted. Fitted as they always had; from the very first time Ran had ever kissed her, their bodies had seemed to know each other, to instinctively recognise exactly how to achieve the maximum closeness, the maximum sensation.
Rena flowed into him, all thought of resistance long gone, replaced now by a burning, consuming need of him. Her lips, her fingers, her very body strained for the essence of him, her voice cried out his name in silence.
And then it was over. So suddenly that Rena was taken completely by surprise, he recoiled from her, almost flinging her from him in a single violent movement:
‘That’ll do, I think,’ he said, voice ragged. ‘And now I think you’d better go.’
Rena was thunderstruck. What to say? What to do? Her entire being felt as if it had been wrenched apart, torn from that single essence it needed — Ran. She tried to speak, to see him through eyes blurred by tears.
‘No!’ he commanded. ‘Not a word ... not a single bloody feminine deceitful word. Just get out!’
And he turned away to grope his way towards the desk, flinging himself carelessly into his chair and then sitting, silent and still as a statue, his head in his hands.
‘But ...’ She tried again, but no more words would come.
‘I said get out. Out!’ And his voice was as cold as the emptiness inside her.
She went. Not willingly, but in a blind rush of desperation that sent her hurtling through the doorway, down the stairs and out into the street, where she sat huddled in her car and cried, pouring out her soul to the emptiness of the night. It seemed hours before she was fit to drive, but still the black Jaguar hadn’t come for Ran. Not that she cared.
Once home, she cried again, and this time the tears were angry, bitter. Scalding tears that puffed up her eyes and burned tracks down her cheeks and into the pillow beneath her head. She hated Ran Logan more than she had ever done, even when he had left her. But what really hurt was the knowledge that she now hated herself even more.
When she finally got to sleep, it was the dulled, heavy sleep of emotional exhaustion, and she woke next day feeling as if she hadn’t slept at all.
Numb, moving with the stilted, shambling movements of a zombie, she managed to get through the day. But only just. And not, she noticed, without drawing several concerned looks from the other girls at work. But no one asked, no one tried to infringe upon her privacy, and for this at least she was thankful.
The rest of the week and even the weekend followed much the same lines. Rena rose each morning feeling worse than when she had gone
to bed, moved listlessly through the routines of shower and shampoo and dressing and breakfast, then drove to work and forced herself into the routine there. Each night, except for her regular singing gig, she drove home to a simple meal or none at all, and was in bed seeking desperately for sleep by nine o’clock.
She didn’t go to class the next Wednesday. She did think about it, but every instinct, every remaining crumb of common sense within her, demanded that she stay away.
Would he have missed her? she wondered, but only in passing. Somehow it didn’t seem likely. And how could it matter anyway? Ran must know her identity by this time; he surely couldn’t have failed to recognise her kisses, her caresses. Even if his eyes told him nothing, his body, like hers, must have screamed in recognition.
But then maybe not. She had to keep reminding herself that he probably didn’t care that much in the first place. Obviously, or he wouldn’t have deserted her the moment he had gained the prize he really wanted. She puzzled over it all that evening, but went to sleep without being any closer to really knowing.
Yet somehow the thinking helped, perhaps by virtue of being the only really constructive thing she had done in a week. She slept relatively well, and approached her work the next morning feeling more or less normal again.
Normal enough, surprisingly, that when her lunch break arrived Rena found herself famished. But where to go? She was strolling down the main street, mentally assessing the counter lunch possibilities of the various pubs, when she was hailed by a familiar voice.
‘John,’ she replied. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ replied her fellow creative writing student. ‘And you seem a good deal better than was predicted last night, I must say.’
‘Last night?’ She tried to be super-casual. ‘What could they have been predicting about me? That I’d died or something?’
‘No, nothing quite so drastic. Merely that you might be ill or something, although I must say you don’t look ill to me. Louise, of course, held forth at some length that you’d dropped out, but Logan wasn’t having a bit of that idea.’
John looked at her speculatively. ‘He said you might be all kinds of things, but he wouldn’t believe you were a quitter. I agreed with him, but now I’m not so sure.’
Rena didn’t bother to try and hide her guilt. ‘I think perhaps you should have agreed with Louise,’ she said quietly.
John’s grin was infectious. ‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wrong before; it won’t kill me. I feel a bit sorry for our esteemed teacher, though. He’s going to look a bit of a mug for having defended you so stoutly.’
Ran ... defending her? Rena’s incredulity must have been obvious.
‘Find that hard to believe? My, my, you two really must have got off on the wrong foot,’ said John, his pale blue eyes twinkling with amusement.
‘I don’t know what you mean by that,’ Rena said.
‘No, of course you don’t,’ he conceded blithely. ‘You know, I may be getting on a bit, but unlike our esteemed teacher, I’m not blind. Nor stupid either,’ he added.
Nor was he. Rena could see there wasn’t much sense in pretending. ‘That obvious?’ she asked with a shy grin.
He laughed. ‘Only to me, I think, but then I’ve a wealth of experience to draw on. But maybe to Louise as well, though I think she just doesn’t like you because you’re so much prettier.’
‘You’re an old flatterer!’ But she was honestly pleased at the compliment and didn’t try to hide it.
‘And a dirty old man as well,’ he replied. ‘Unfortunately, just a bit too old for you, or Logan would find himself needing more than blindness as an advantage.’
Then his mood and tone changed abruptly. ‘So you’ve quit, have you? Not just taken a week off to try and teach the lad a lesson?’
‘I ... don’t see much to be gained by staying with it,’ Rena hedged.
Old John’s eyes were grim. Then he shrugged. ‘Just as well, I suppose. Ran Logan isn’t the type of man to play those kinds of games with, and if you ever expected to gain anything by it you’d be doomed to failure anyway. Seems a bit of a pity to give Louise such a clear field, though. She was all over him like a rash last night.’
Rena met his eyes directly, choking down the rush of jealousy that boiled to life within her. ‘And that’s meant to make me jealous, I suppose,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a nerve, accusing me of playing games!’
John laughed. ‘Really, my child, I have nothing to gain by making you jealous,’ he said pointedly. ‘Just giving you something to think about, that’s all. Although I must admit I’d prefer to be taught by somebody in a better mood than I expect Logan might be if you weren’t there. We’ll just ignore the fact that Louise is a proper pain that will get worse as she goes along.’
Now it was Rena’s turn to laugh. ‘Why do I have the feeling you don’t like the woman?’ she chuckled. ‘Personally I think she and Randall Logan would make an excellent pair. She’s certainly very beautiful ... you can’t deny that.’
‘All in the eye of the beholder,’ John replied lazily, and Rena flinched at having her own words returned, however innocently. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘young Logan isn’t in much of a position to be impressed by all that redheaded pulchritude, is he?’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Rena was suspicious, and his next words confirmed her worst suspicions.
‘Only that I think he already knows what you look like. And no, I don’t expect you to admit it. Just a little private theory of my own, that’s all.’
‘You do have strange theories,’ Rena replied, frantically searching for the right thing to say if she was to throw John as far from his theory as possible. ‘Although he did say I had a voice that reminded him of someone; perhaps that’s what set you off.’
‘Whatever you say,’ he replied laughingly, obviously not caring a whit whether she knew or not that he didn’t believe her. ‘Do you want me to tell him next week that you’re out of it, then?’
‘Yes!’ The word formed in her mind, rattled around on her tongue, but flatly refused to emerge. Rena stood there, knowing her mouth was moving, knowing she must look totally ridiculous to the canny, kindly older man facing her. But she could not say it.
John’s laughter was loud, but not cruel. ‘Should be an interesting class, I reckon,’ he chortled. ‘A teacher that can’t see, one student that can’t speak . . . perhaps I’ll have to wear shorts and show off my wooden leg. Humph! I wonder what there is about Louise ... besides congenital bitchiness, I mean? Maybe ...’ He patted himself on the chest. ‘Well, just a thought.’
Just a thought, but one too many for Rena and for John as well. Oblivious to the curious stares of passers- by, they stood and howled with laughter, leaning on one another, finally, simply to keep from falling down.
It quite literally made Rena’s day. She returned to work in a delightful frame of mind, happy and smiling and cheerful. It lasted until she got home that night to find a letter from her landlord — and Ran Logan’s black Jaguar parked in front of the house.
CHAPTER FIVE
The sight of the car was the worst shock of the two, at first. Rena nearly drove her own battered old machine through the back wall of the carport, she was so busy wondering how Ran had found her. And why.
But it wasn’t Ran who emerged from the large, shiny car to meet Rena in front of her mailbox. It was Valerie Dunn, looking stunning and rather overdressed as usual. Also, Rena thought, looking somewhat out of sorts.
‘Miss Everett? Yes, I suppose you must be,’ said the chic older woman, making no attempt to shake hands or be otherwise pleasant. ‘I am Valerie Dunn, personal secretary to Mr Randall Logan.’
‘Yes?’ Only the one word. Rena didn’t know, couldn’t even imagine, what was going on, but she wasn’t going to make anything easy for this woman she so deeply disliked.
‘Frankly, I was rather expecting someone ... older,’ Valerie Dunn observed, obviously more concerned with her own
ideas than anything Rena might have to say. ‘You have put the flat in order, I presume.’
‘Flat? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,’ Rena replied, honestly confused and not really in the mood to play guessing games.
‘Well, of course, the flat,’ Miss Dunn said crossly, waving a general flick of one perfectly-manicured hand towards Rena’s house. Then she paused, her face angry and cross.
What came next was a single, surprisingly crude expletive, a word not at all in keeping with the woman’s carefully-tended appearance and sophistication. Rena stayed silent, inwardly quite enjoying Valerie Dunn’s loss of composure. More than just enjoyable, she thought. There was a certain savage satisfaction.
‘I suppose you’ve not received the letter ... don’t know what I’m talking about at all,’ Valerie spat. ‘Typical ... just typical!’ She then launched into a vicious condemnation of the Australian postal service, particularly the Queensland portion thereof.
Rena didn’t bother to listen; instead she moved the few steps necessary and reached into her letter box to collect the usual selection of junk mail and, surprisingly, a letter from her landlord.
To her surprise, Valerie pounced on the letter, almost grabbing it from Rena’s very fingers once she’d seen the letterhead on the envelope.
‘Hah! Just as I thought,’ she cried. Then, in tones that clearly delineated her expectations of Rena’s position in the whole matter, ‘Perhaps you’d like to read that — now — so that I can conclude my business here and get back to my proper duties.’
For a moment Rena seriously considered refusal. It would, she thought, serve the haughty bitch right. But to put her off would only mean having to face her yet again, presumably. There couldn’t be any question that Valerie Dunn knew what the letter contained, even if Rena didn’t.
Which, Rena thought, was all the more confusing. And, somehow ... threatening. What possible connection was there?
Ah well, only one way to find out, she thought. And ripped open the envelope, though not without first steeling herself for a shock. And just as well she did!
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