Rebel's Bargain

by Annie West

  It must be the medication but he felt he could happily stay like this for ever.

  ‘Thank you.’ It was a breath of sound in the darkness. ‘For what you did. For stopping him.’

  ‘You did quite a job of stopping him yourself.’ Orsino refused to dwell on what might have happened. ‘That was some move you made. Where did you learn it?’

  ‘Self-defence classes.’

  ‘I’m glad you never had to use what you learned before now.’

  His hand drifted over the curve of her waist. But instead of supple softness Poppy was rigid beneath his touch.

  She’d been on edge ever since that scene in the ballroom. Despite her quick thinking in dealing with her attacker, she’d worn the glazed look of someone in shock.

  His stomach curdled. ‘You haven’t needed any self-defence moves before, have you?’

  The silence stretched into a yawning chasm. Orsino felt her quiver.

  ‘Poppy?’ He tried to see her face but she turned into his shoulder, her breathing uneven against his flesh.

  ‘It wouldn’t have done much good. I was just a kid. I don’t think I’d have been a match for him.’

  ‘Him?’ Orsino’s grip hardened and he forced himself to relax, lifting his hand to stroke her hair, though his insides roiled in churning frenzy.

  A shuddering sigh broke from her.

  ‘My father.’

  His belly turned into a lump of frigid metal. ‘He beat you?’ Orsino could barely form the words. His hand stilled, caught in her long tresses.

  ‘Usually my mother. But if I got in the way …’ She shrugged. ‘That’s why she sent me away to school, to keep me safe. She sold off her jewellery and the last of her inheritance from her parents to fund my boarding school.’

  ‘I—’ He swallowed, searching for words that just wouldn’t come. He pulled her closer. The rapid thump of her heart revealed how much the memory cost her.

  ‘But why?’ He knew there were violent men in the world. Hell, he’d helped establish shelters for their victims. Yet he couldn’t get his head around the fact Poppy was a victim, too.

  ‘Because he was a vicious bully?’ Shakily she laughed, the wretched sound tearing strips from his heart.

  ‘My mother always made excuses, saying, “If only you’d known him in the old days”. Apparently things changed when he lost the family money through bad investments. He kept the estate, just, but not the money. That’s when he took to drink. And when he drank he got angry and took it out on her.’

  ‘And you.’ His body vibrated in a surge of furious energy that had no outlet. The thought of her defenceless and battered skewered him with a razor-sharp blade.

  ‘Only a couple of times.’

  ‘A couple of times too many.’

  ‘Oh, Orsino.’ He felt the spill of dampness from her lashes like a brand on his skin.

  He wasn’t good with tears. He’d never been adept at dealing with feelings or offering comfort. He’d tried when her mother died but Poppy had turned away, closing in on herself, rejecting him. An ice-cold hand squeezed his innards at the memory.

  Clumsily Orsino patted at her head, wishing he could ease the hurt he felt in her tightly held body.

  ‘Is that why you took up modelling so young?’ Given her intelligence he’d been surprised she hadn’t finished school.

  She nodded against his shoulder. ‘I wanted to be independent as soon as I could.’ Her voice was husky with the tears she held in check. ‘That was my goal from as early as I could remember. Earn money to make a new home for myself and my mother. Away from him.’

  ‘But she stayed with him.’

  ‘She loved him. Despite it all, she still cared. But she promised me …’

  ‘What?’ Orsino bent his head to hear. Poppy’s voice was a mere drift of sound.

  ‘She promised that one day she’d leave him. When I broke into the big time and had enough to support her. We had such plans.’ Her voice wobbled with pain. ‘The fun we’d have together. Just simple things, you know, but special to us. Those dreams kept me going. I’d always promised myself I’d make it up to her for all she’d been through.’

  Orsino’s heart dived at the throb of anguish in her scratchy voice.

  ‘But she didn’t leave him,’ Orsino said. Poppy had already been a rising star when he’d met her, yet she’d lived alone.

  ‘No. He was diagnosed with a terminal illness just when I thought I’d convinced her to come away. She stayed—said he needed her.’ The pain and incredulity in Poppy’s voice told their own tale.

  Orsino knew the rest. Her father had died just before their whirlwind wedding then in a brutal blow Poppy’s mother had outlived her husband by a mere few months.

  He digested what Poppy had just shared.

  He’d known she was distraught when her mother died. That had been obvious even to a man who’d never known a parent’s love, whose mother was a vague memory and whose father was too caught up in business and his own pleasure to connect with his children.

  Poppy’s grief had been beyond his understanding, though he’d tried. How he’d tried.

  Now, discovering this bond between mother and daughter made her anguish more understandable. He wished he’d tried even harder.

  If she’d set her heart on helping her mother how difficult it must have been to face her sudden death—all those dreams destroyed.

  He smoothed Poppy’s back in long strokes with a hand that trembled. If he’d been able to comfort her better when she lost her mother would she have shunned him as she had?

  Would she have sought solace in the arms of another man? A pain that had no physical explanation punctured his chest.

  Had his own inadequacy pushed her away?

  It went against everything Orsino believed about himself even to consider it. Yet he couldn’t dislodge the kernel of disturbing thought from his brain.

  Orsino was used to thinking himself invincible. But those hours facing death in the ice had torn away that comfortable lie. He was as human as the next man.

  Was he also fatally flawed?

  From the age of seven Orsino had hidden what passed for his feelings behind a facade of charm and smiles. No, it had been earlier than that. Had he ever felt secure enough, loved enough, to be honest about emotions?

  His features screwed up in a grimace.

  What was the point of revisiting the past? It was done and dusted, the damage too late to fix.

  Yet he had to know more.

  ‘You never told me. We were married but you never said a word.’ Another case of her shutting him out?

  ‘We were married for just four months! Besides, we didn’t talk about our families. I never met most of yours. Just Lucca.’

  ‘We’re not a close family.’ Now there was an understatement.

  ‘Anyway, my father was dead. There didn’t seem any point talking about it.’

  Her words didn’t ring true. Once Orsino might have been convinced, but he’d spent the past five years learning to work with people, often people under incredible stress. He’d learned a little about reading emotion.

  ‘No point telling your husband how badly you were hurting?’ He’d bet everything he had she only shared now because the shock of tonight’s attack had thrown her off balance.

  Poppy stiffened under his slow caress. He felt her blink against his skin.

  ‘There never seemed to be a right moment to dredge up the past. And what good would it have done?’

  Orsino thought about that, remembering their volatile courtship. Neither had been hanging out for a life partner. But they’d been swept off their feet in a rush of passion that had them alternately insatiable in each other’s arms and backing off, wary of the intensity of what they felt.

  At least in his case it had been like that. Till he’d realised he wanted Poppy not just in his bed but in his life and went after her, determined not to let her slip through his fingers.

  A quick marriage had been his way of ensuring
she was his. He’d needed her so badly even his cynicism about marriage and families had crumbled when it meant having Poppy.

  Fat lot of good that had done him when she decided to betray him with Mischa.

  Mischa. Orsino gritted his teeth.

  No. Not now. Mischa’s involvement in this advertising project was for later.

  Orsino’s ‘simple’ arrangement with Poppy—sex with no ties and no regrets—was becoming far more complex than he’d thought possible.

  Mischa and the outside world could wait.

  ‘Or maybe you had no intention of ever letting me into that part of your life.’ He’d be damned if he shouldered all the guilt for what had gone wrong.

  He’d tried to be there for her when her mother died but Poppy had turned her back in spectacular fashion. Who could blame him for leaving on his climbing trip when she’d virtually shoved him out the door?

  Poppy made to roll away but his grip tightened.

  ‘Why, Poppy? Didn’t I deserve your trust?’ Orsino’s voice grated against something raw inside. Something he now realised had never healed, not since the day he’d come home to find she’d been with another man.

  Part of him, the macho take-it-on-the-chin-and-hide-your-feelings part, writhed and screamed that he should even ask. The other part, too long silent, had to know, even if it gutted him.

  Poppy’s hand splayed wide on his chest and Orsino closed his eyes, revelling in the magic of her touch even now, when he felt half dead.

  ‘Would you have wanted to know?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Of course!’ How could she even ask?

  ‘There’s no of course about it. You never talked about feelings, Orsino. You said you needed me. That you wanted me. That life would be so good together. But I was never sure …’

  ‘What?’ He moved, trying to see her face in the gloom, but she tilted her head away.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Go to sleep. You need rest.’

  Orsino ground his teeth. Was there ever a more infuriating woman? The feel of her body against his was like a glimpse of paradise and the tentative truce they’d declared should have made life easy, yet she insisted on being difficult. Did she do it deliberately?

  ‘You really think I’m going to sleep now you’ve left me hanging like that? Spit it out. What weren’t you sure about?’

  ‘As if you don’t know.’ Her breath shuddered against his skin. ‘I never knew whether you loved me.’ Her voice was defiant, yet behind the bravado he heard it tremble.

  Orsino groped for a response, but his brain was too busy trying and failing to process what she’d said.

  She’d thought he hadn’t loved her?

  Why would he marry her if he hadn’t loved her?

  He’d had women chasing him since his teens. Women who wanted a chunk of the Chatsfield family fortune, or a celebrity husband who could provide a luxury lifestyle to boot.

  Surely the fact he’d chosen Poppy, instead of one of the hundreds of others, was proof enough!

  ‘The sex was fantastic, of course, but there was always a part of you closed off from everyone else. Behind the charisma and the charm was someone I knew I couldn’t reach.’

  She paused and he wondered dully what had possessed him to ask for the truth.

  Hadn’t he known probing the past was a mistake?

  ‘Like your trips away.’

  ‘What about them?’ Impatience tinged his tone. Those climbing trips had been part of his life since his teens. They had kept him sane and functioning in a dysfunctional family, in a society where everyone wanted something and nothing seemed to have real value or depth.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘But they were important to you and whenever I asked about them you clammed up. You didn’t want me involved.’

  Great! According to her he’d screwed up their marriage because he’d continued to enjoy outdoor treks she hadn’t a hope of keeping up with. And because he hadn’t said ‘I love you’ enough.

  Orsino’s mouth flattened.

  Typical of her to blame him when the reason for their marriage crashing and burning was her lust for another man. He opened his mouth to give her a blast but his brain seemed to have no control over his tongue.

  ‘I’m sorry you felt that way, Poppy.’

  It was true. Despite the anguish she’d caused, regret seeped through him.

  He’d had to be resilient and self-sufficient from an early age and his predilection for extreme sports had honed his ability for intense personal focus.

  Had he really shut her out by clinging to what had been his lifeline—his escapes to the wilderness?

  It seemed impossible. Yet he’d learned in the past years that people and their needs were anything but simple.

  Against his shoulder she nodded, sliding her long, soft hair in a caress across his skin. ‘It’s over, Orsino. It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know why we’re discussing it. There’s no going back.’

  She took the words out of his mouth.

  He told himself that was good. She wasn’t expecting this affair to go anywhere once it reached its natural conclusion.

  It was only much later, when the sound of Poppy’s even breathing told him she’d finally fallen asleep, that he found himself wondering.

  In the days when it had still been true, had he ever told Poppy he loved her?

  Or, it struck him suddenly, had he, the man renowned for reckless courage, been too scared?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE WHOOSHING ROAR of the burners made conversation impossible but Poppy didn’t mind. From here, suspended high above fields and forests, she watched the peach-gold dawn glaze the landscape. Long shadows stretched inky blue as if retreating from the light. Pale patches of frost hadn’t yet melted.

  Threads of mist clung to the river as it meandered around a bluff topped by a moated fairytale castle that bristled with round towers.

  Below was an ancient town with steeply tiled roofs and narrow streets. Poppy craned her neck over the edge of the basket in fascination.

  The pilot switched off the blast of heat firing the hot air balloon and in the blissful silence she heard the cry of a lone bird.

  ‘It’s nothing like being in a plane.’ She felt her smile spread across her features. ‘This is so … real. Looking out a plane window it all seems so far away. But this—I can almost smell the earth and the wood smoke.’

  Orsino moved behind her, his big frame solid at her back. She leaned into him, luxuriating in his nearness. A secret smile curved her lips as his hand rubbed her arm. Even through the heavy coat his touch was magic.

  ‘Totally different,’ he murmured. ‘I’m glad you like it.’

  ‘How could I not?’ She swung around. ‘It’s glorious.’

  He didn’t smile back, but something that looked like pleasure lurked at the corner of his mouth and a long dimple grooved his cheek. With his dark, unshaven jaw and wind-tousled hair, and the early sun highlighting the tiny creases beside his eyes, he looked exactly what he was: an adventurer. Like the highwaymen and pirates she’d fantasised about in her girlish dreams.

  Poppy’s heart careered as her eyes met his and she saw a glow of warmth.

  ‘Not everyone appreciates the solitary splendour of it. Some prefer bright lights, glamour and bustle.’

  ‘Is that what you think of me?’ Their focus had always been on the present, never what had gone before.

  Orsino shrugged. ‘We met in the city. You lived and worked there the whole time I knew you.’ Poppy swallowed, wondering why his use of the past tense saddened her. ‘We were always going out to clubs or opening nights.’

  Poppy nodded. Their marriage had been a whirl of activity. Until it had fallen apart. Who’d have guessed they could talk so amicably now?

  She kept her voice low, aware they weren’t alone. ‘I was brought up in the country. I loved getting up as the sun rose to go for a long ride.’ Until her father sold her old pony, trying to pay debts.

  ‘What el
se did you enjoy?’

  Poppy turned and looked at the slowly drifting landscape. In the distance she saw their chateau straddling the river, surrounded by its geometrically patterned gardens and the forest beyond. The scene’s delicate beauty stole her breath.

  ‘Would you believe, fishing?’ It had been so long, she’d almost forgotten. ‘Our neighbour was an expert. I used to tag along.’ Those were the days she found any excuse to get out of the house and away from her father.

  ‘Somehow I can’t imagine you in waders.’ Orsino’s breath breezed the back of her neck and she shivered, pulling her warm jacket closer.

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ She smiled. ‘The first time I actually hooked a fish I was so stunned I stumbled and ended up drenched from head to toe.’

  Orsino chuckled. ‘I’d never picked you for a lover of the great outdoors.’ He paused and when he spoke again his voice was sober. ‘Maybe I should have brought you somewhere like this five years ago. I love the peace up here. It’s like climbing. Just you in the vast wilderness. It’s … cathartic, pitting yourself against nature. There’s something clean and real about it. No room for falsehood or empty words. No pretence. What you see is what you get, however harsh.’

  Poppy swivelled around but it was hard to read his face. He’d donned his dark glasses as the sun rose and the light intensified. Every instinct clamoured that here was something absolutely vital to Orsino. These adventures weren’t just fun for him. They were necessary.

  ‘I would have liked that.’ Poppy swallowed, wondering how different things would have been if he’d shared some of this with her years ago. ‘I didn’t know you were a balloonist.’

  Orsino turned and gestured to the lanky Frenchman piloting them. ‘Thierry is the balloonist. I was always just along for the ride.’

  ‘I’m glad you admit it at last, Orsino,’ Thierry said in accented English, his smile flashing. ‘That trip across South America you were pure baggage, except when we landed and you got to pose for the cameras.’