by Mary Lyons
Luke shrugged his broad shoulders. 'For various reasons—mainly to do with business,' he said casually, his tone bland and dismissive as he continued to explore the large room.
She should have remembered that the damn man never gave anything away, Samantha told herself grimly. However, there were one or two pressing questions to which she needed an urgent answer.
'I'm not interested in your business affairs,' she said curtly. 'However, I do want to know. . . I mean, how did you. . .?'
'How did I recognise you?' He gave a short bark of sardonic laughter. 'My dear girl! Despite your valiant attempts to disguise yourself in that dreadful old baseball hat, surely you can't have seriously imagined that I wouldn't be able to identify my own wife?'
Since that was exactly what she'd hoped, Samantha stood rooted to the floor, glaring at him with stormy eyes as she mentally struggled to reassess the situation. It was absolutely sickening to find that all her frantic precautions, all her determined efforts to avoid him, had been a complete and utter waste of time. She had always suspected that he had an almost supernatural ability to see around corners and through walls. And she knew that she wasn't the only one to think so: most of his business competitors had seemed to feel exactly the same way.
He hadn't changed at all, she thought gloomily. Physically, he was perhaps thinner than she remembered; there were a few more few silver strands among the dark hair at his temples, and the lines about his firm, determined mouth seemed to be more deeply etched. But, in essence, he appeared to be very much the same hard, ruthless man from whom she had run away over four years ago.
'What an enterprising girl you've turned out to be!' He gave her a cold, mocking grin. 'I must say that it was a novel experience to take a supposedly routine, scheduled flight—only to find that it was my wife at the controls of the aircraft! You do have a licence to fly that aeroplane, I hope?' he enquired blandly.
'That's not a very intelligent question, Luke,' she retorted, mimicking both the words and tone of voice which he had used earlier.
He suddenly stopped his restless perambulations about the room, turning to stare at her from beneath his heavy eyelids with a deep intensity that she found distinctly unnerving. It was if he was doing some complicated, mental arithmetic, which obstinately refused to add up correctly, and she quickly looked away from those all-seeing, penetrating eyes.
'All right, let's get down to brass tacks,' she said, painfully aware of the breathless, nervous wobble in her voice. 'Why are you here, and what do you want?'
'Maybe I felt, under the circumstances, that it might be easier if we first met in private, rather than among a crowd of guests. As to what I want. . .' He paused, his eyes moving slowly over her slim figure clothed only in the thin silk gown. 'Why should you assume that I want anything?'
Samantha's cheeks burned. If, during the past few years, she had ever wondered about the possibility of meeting Luke again, she had never in her wildest dreams envisaged the present situation, in which she was so clearly at a disadvantage. Suddenly becoming embarrassingly conscious, not only of being naked beneath her robe, but also of her bare feet and the tangled cloud of newly washed hair, it was all she could do to hang on to her temper in the face of Luke's insulting, analytical appraisal.
'OK—so you've called to say "hello",' she said through clenched teeth. 'However, as far as I'm concerned, the next word that comes to mind is— "goodbye".'
'Such a friendly welcome!' he murmured sardonically.
'I don't feel friendly, and you're definitely not welcome,' she retorted quickly, her trembling figure striving to control an increasing tide of fury and resentment at the unfairness of life in general, and Luke in particular.
The room was large, and yet it seemed filled with his presence. His lean, tautly muscled frame clothed in cream linen trousers with a matching short-sleeved, casual shirt, radiated an impression of power and confidence, and there was clearly very little that escaped those piercing blue eyes beneath heavy lids, through which he appeared to survey life with a faintly contemptuous, cynical amusement. Not that she was likely to be fooled by such a false expression, nor by his oh-so-deceptive aura of relaxed, sensual charm, which was already having a most peculiar effect on her pulse-rate, despite the ten feet or so which-lay between them. Calm down. . .keep cool. . . she warned herself urgently, knowing that she mustn't, not even for one second, forget that Luke Brandon was an extremely dangerous man.
'You've already made your feelings abundantly clear,' he drawled. 'In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that it is you, Samantha, whom I have to thank for the unnecessarily thorough search of both our luggage—and our persons—by the local Customs. Hmm?'
Oh, lord—she'd completely forgotten all about that! Her cheeks reddened beneath Luke's hard scrutiny.
'Perhaps you can enlighten me as to exactly what you told the Customs officers? What were we supposed to be smuggling? Gold, was it—or maybe, diamonds? Well. . .?' he demanded as she remained silent.
'I—er—I might have said something about drugs. . .' she muttered, avoiding his gaze and fervently wishing that she'd never given in to such a crazy, mischievous impulse back at the airport.
His lips tightened, his eyes narrowing to chips of blue ice as he surveyed the girl standing across the room. 'It's obvious that you're still the same stupid, spoiled brat that I married,' he remarked flatly.
'I certainly was stupid to marry you—I must have been out of my mind!'
'However, leaving aside my own extreme annoyance at your childish behaviour,' he continued, ignoring her angry protest, 'I'm afraid that you've succeeded in seriously upsetting Miss van de Burgh.'
'I—I'm sorry,' Samantha muttered, ashamed to find herself having to stifle a grin at the thought of the cool blonde's discomfort.
'I'm sure you are. And Corrine will undoubtedly expect your grovelling apology.'
'You must be joking!' she snapped. 'I've told you I'm sorry, and that's all you're going to get from me.'
'Really. . .?'
Cold shivers feathered down her spine as she registered the tone of grim menace underlying his lazy drawl. Remembering how, in the past, he had never given an inch in any argument or discussion, she swiftly decided that the sooner she brought this disastrous reunion to a close, the better.
'It's hardly been a pleasure—but it certainly has been interesting to meet you again, Luke. Especially since it's emphasised just how totally incompatible we always were.' She looked pointedly down at her wristwatch. 'However, it's getting late and I've got a lot of work to do, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave.'
His lips curved into a brief, wintry smile. 'No, I don't think so.'
'Who cares what you think?' she snarled, before taking a deep breath as she strove to regain her temper and assume a facade of cool composure. Her fingers itched with an imperative, urgent desire to slap that superior smile off his handsome face! 'Just in case I didn't make myself clear, maybe I'd better put it more bluntly: I want you out of here, right this minute. Beat it. . . vamoose. . . get lost!' she added furiously, when it became clear he was making no effort to move.
'I'll leave when I'm ready to do so, and not before,' he drawled.
'Oh—to hell with you!' she retorted, tightening the belt on her gown as she turned and stalked over to a drinks tray.
She really ought to be in the hotel kitchen by now, supervising the preparation of the evening meal. But since her bedroom up in the gallery was open to the sitting-room below, there was no way she could begin to get dressed while Luke was still here. Giving an exasperated, heavy sigh, she gazed dully down at the bottles on the tray. If she was going to have to face much more of her husband—and it very much looked as if she was— then she was definitely going to need some Dutch courage.
'If you're offering me a drink, I'll have a neat Scotch,' Luke murmured.
'I'm not offering you a damn thing,' she grated, without looking round as she concentrated on pouring herself a la
rge, medicinal dose of rum.
His swift movement across the floor was so sudden that he caught her completely by surprise, the bottle of rum flying from her hands and landing on a nearby couch as he grasped her arm, roughly spinning her around to face him.
'What do you think you're doing?' she cried, stunned by the rapid sequence of events.
His blue eyes were glinting chips of ice, his wide mouth set and grim as he put his hands on her shoulders and shook her fiercely. 'I'm not putting up with any more of your atrocious, infantile rudeness!' he growled. 'It's about time I taught you some decent manners.'
Samantha, rapidly recovering from her shock, was now almost spitting with fury. 'Teach me manners. . .?' She gave a high, shrill laugh. 'Oh, yeah? You and who else. . .?'
Even as she uttered the childish challenge, she knew that she had made a very grave mistake. Jerked swiftly forward, she just had enough time to feel his breath on her face, to smell the distinctive male scent of tobacco and aftershave, before his arms closed about her like a vice and his furiously angry, tanned face came swiftly down towards her.
The mouth that possessed hers was hard and forceful, obliterating all coherent thought as he forced her lips apart, his tongue an instrument of savage torture as he ravaged the inner softness of her mouth in a brutal invasion that seemed endless. Unable to move, almost unable to breathe beneath his emotional assault, she was almost fainting when he at last relaxed the cruel pressure, slowly raising his dark head to stare intently down at the girl lying like a broken doll in his arms.
'That. . .that hurt!' she gasped, her eyes swimming with tears of helpless rage and self-pity.
Luke's face was drawn and pale beneath his tan, a muscle beating in his clenched jaw as he gazed into eyes which resembled large, tragic pools of shimmering emerald. 'It was meant to!' he rasped, before his taut features gradually relaxed and he gave a heavy sigh. 'You should have known better than to deliberately provoke me, Samantha.'
'I. . . I didn't. . .'
'Oh, yes, indeed you did,' he murmured, raising a hand to gently brush away the damp hair from her brow. 'The only question is—why? Perhaps we should try to discover the answer, hmm?'
Shattered and bemused by his onslaught, it was a second or two before his words broke through the confusion in her brain. 'No. . .!' she shrieked, her cry abruptly terminated as once again his mouth claimed her lips.
She fought him with all the dwindling reserves of strength at her command, beating her fists against his broad shoulders and any other part of his anatomy that she could reach. It was a fruitless, humiliating exercise as he adroitly captured her wrists with contemptuous ease, using one of his large hands to clasp them behind her back, while burying his other hand in the tangled mass of her fiery red hair.
Totally exhausted by the futile protest which had claimed every ounce of her strength, she slowly realised that the mouth possessing hers was not, as she had feared, a hard, brutal instrument of torture. Instead of the punishing pressure, his lips were soft and tender as they moved sensuously over hers, arousing a response she was unable to control as a treacherous warmth invaded her trembling limbs.
The sweet seduction of his lips and tongue, together with her close, intimate contact with the hard male contours of his body was having a disastrous effect on her long-dormant emotions. Despite all that had been wrong with their marriage, the sexual chemistry between them had always been a strong, powerful force in their relationship, and she wasn't too bemused not to know that Luke was using the one weapon which had never failed him. But it was four long years since a man had held her like this, and his deepening kiss was tearing down all her carefully erected barriers, leaving her helpless to prevent her body from responding to the rising tide of passion racing through her veins.
Releasing her wrists, his hand moved slowly down over her spine, sliding sinuously over the thin silk gown as he erotically traced the warm curves of her body, before slipping it off her shoulder to expose the burgeoning fullness of her breast. She shivered with delight at the sensual, erotic touch of his fingers on her soft flesh, a moan breaking from her throat as his lips left hers to gently kiss away the teardrops trembling on her damp eyelashes, and then trailing a slow, scorching path on down over her neck and throat before fastening possessively over the swollen peak of her breast.
Trapped in a dense mist of desire and pleasure, it was some moments before Samantha realised that the buzzing sound in her ears was coming from the telephone on her desk by the window.
'Ignore it,' Luke muttered impatiently as she began to struggle for release from his embrace. But the enchanted, magic spell which he had woven was now shattered to smithereens, and with a sob she tore herself out of his arms. Her hands shaking as if she was in the grip of a fever, she frantically clutched her gown together and retied her sash, fighting to control her ragged breathing as she stared at him in horrified consternation.
What on earth had she been doing? This was Luke Brandon—her dreaded husband—and a man for whom she was quite, quite certain that she felt nothing but acute dislike, if not downright hatred!
The phone finally stopped ringing, but neither of them noticed the fact. Luke's face was pale, his eyes glittering like icicles. He, too, seemed to be breathing unsteadily, but he had no apparent difficulty in finding his voice.
'Despite your assurance to the contrary, it would seem that we're not totally incompatible after all,' he drawled.
'Oh, yes, we are!' she assured him grimly. 'What. . . well, what happened, just now, doesn't mean a damn thing. It's just. . .' She waved her hands distractedly in the air. 'It's just—er—some sort of physical chemistry, that's all. Believe me,' she added huskily, 'the days when you pulled the sexual strings and I danced to your tune are well and truly over.'
'Not from where I was standing!' He gave her a cold, mocking smile. 'You may not wear my wedding ring any longer, but you wanted me just now, and there's little point in denying it.'
She could feel her cheeks flaming at the flat, hard certainty in his voice. God—he really was the pits! Anyone, with even half an ounce of sensitivity in his veins, would surely see that there was nothing to be gained in raking over the ashes of a dead relationship.
'Luke, please do try to be reasonable,' she said as calmly as she could. 'You can't just walk casually back into my life like this.'
'Why not? You walked just as casually out of mine.'
'Oh, no, I didn't! I ran—as fast and as far as my legs would carry me!'
There was a long silence as Samantha gazed at the hard, impassive expression on his face, which gave no clue to what he was thinking. 'OK,' she said at last. 'Maybe I should have stayed in New York, found myself a smart lawyer and gone for a quick divorce. Perhaps it was childish and juvenile to take to my heels and run away.' She sighed, brushing a trembling hand through the tangled curls of her long red hair. 'But that was four years ago, Luke, and I'm no longer the young girl you married. Maybe you remember her: that pathetically naive, unsophisticated eighteen-year-old. . .?' she added bitterly. 'Well, things are very different now. I know what I want out of life.'
He surveyed her with cool detachment. 'And just what do you want, Samantha?'
'A lot of things you wouldn't even begin to appreciate,' she retorted sharply, stung by his patronising attitude and the clear note of ironic scepticism in his deep voice. 'However, first and foremost I want a divorce!'
'Why?'
'"Why?"' she echoed blankly, looking at him in astonishment. 'For heaven's sake—surely it must be obvious? After all, we've been separated for so long. . .both of us living separate lives, and. . .'
'Are you planning to marry someone else?'
She cursed inwardly as she felt her cheeks redden beneath the narrowing gaze from his piercing blue eyes. No, she wasn't—not at the moment, anyway—although she had no intention of telling him so. Besides, he had a nerve questioning her about her future matrimonial plans—especially since he wa
s the one who was travelling around the Caribbean with a flashy blonde girlfriend in tow!
'Well?'
'If. . . well, if I am thinking of getting married again, it has absolutely nothing to do with you,' she said firmly.
'Oh, no?' Luke gave a harsh bark of sardonic laughter as he spun on his heels and strode over towards the door. 'If you want my consent to a divorce, I think you'll find that—as your present husband—it has everything to do with me!'
A moment later he was gone. Samantha stood rooted to the spot, so shaken by his abrupt departure that it was some time before the sweet smell of rum drew her attention to the bottle which had fallen on to the couch. Wrinkling her nose at the strong aroma, she removed the damp cushions and cleared up the mess, before forcing her trembling legs to climb the stairs to the gallery bedroom, where she lay down and stared blindly up at the ceiling.
Damn, damn and double damn! She'd really made a mess of things just now, hadn't she? Instead of demonstrating to Luke that she was no longer the immature, emotional young girl to whom he had once been married, she had been so thrown by his sudden arrival that she'd completely lost both her cool, and her temper. She hadn't ever wanted to see him again, of course. But if and when they eventually met, she had been fully determined to impress upon Luke the fact that she was now a grown woman and, if not exactly dripping with poise and sangfroid, at least quite capable of being calm and collected in the face of adversity. And if 'the face of adversity' wasn't a perfect, apposite description of his unexpected reappearance in her life, she didn't know what was!
So he'd materialised in her life at long last, and what had happened? She'd blown it—that was what had happened! It seemed almost unbelievable to realise that it had taken her less than five minutes to casually toss aside any wisdom and maturity she had gained over the last four years. In truth, she had no option but to face the degrading fact that Luke had, as always, made mincemeat of her. Despite not having set eyes on the dreadful man for so long, it seemed that the moment he hove into view, all her composure and finesse disappeared into thin air.
