That night she'd excused herself from the dinner that Kyle had offered, pleading an upset tummy. He had been exceptionally kind to her that night, and over the next few days until he had left Brighton to go back to the City. Kind! That had been the final straw. His scorn she could live with. His kindness could go to the devil! She had not gone out with him again, despite pressing invitations. And she'd never spoken to him again.
Not until ten minutes ago, at least.
Though her hurt and anger had lain too deep for words, it had been within her powers to act out her feelings on the set.
And the understanding of her role that had eluded her until then had suddenly been there, shimmering in her performance the next morning.
During the last days at Brighton, and the final episodes in the studio, she'd brought a quality of fury against the world to Maisie Wilkin that had made Percy Schumaker kiss her on both cheeks, and the studio crew give her standing ovations on several occasions.
It was as if, for the first time, she had really known what it was like to be someone like Maisie Wilkin—ugly, slighted, disadvantaged, the kind of person nobody really bothered to understand until it was too late.
Sophie had never spoken to Helene about what she'd heard that afternoon on the beach.
Once or twice, she'd caught Helene staring at her as though she'd half suspected the truth, but neither of them had ever brought it up. Nor had Sophie ever laid the slightest blame at Helene's door. To her, Helene le Bon would always be someone who had helped her profoundly in her career, and since The Elmtree Road Murders they had remained friends.
`You're a very talented actress,' Helene had said gently, on the last day of filming. 'You have a bright future ahead of you, Sophie.'
But she'd been drained and exhausted by the time filming had ended.
Her first concern, once filming had ended last November, had been to slough off Maisie Wilkin, the way a snake shed its unwanted skin. She had gone back to her St John's Wood flat, and had retreated deep into her shell, had embarked on a crash diet, had seen no one, gone nowhere. She had superintended the eradication of Maisie without sorrow or remorse. Diet and exercise had taken care of the extra weight. The black
hair-dye had washed out, and the rest had been mainly cosmetic.
Getting back to work, she had spent the first five months of this year touring with a repertory company, staging a trio of very modern dramas called Here, There, and Nowhere, which had never played to more than half-full houses. It had been her second substantial job in acting, but it had been far from a success. Most of the cast had been young hopefuls, like herself. She, in fact, with her experience of television, had been better off than most of them.
The pay had been minimal, the conditions had been exhausting, and everyone had let out a silent sigh of relief when the director had finally announced, at the beginning of June, that the tour was folding. None of them had been paid for more than three
months out of the five. Without her fee from The Elmtree Road Murders, which she'd been hoarding in her building-society account, she would have had a thin time of it.
When the tour had folded, Sophie had found herself at a loose end. And she'd been very run down. After the pain of what had happened in Brighton, the debacle of Here, There, and Nowhere had taken a lot out of her. She'd felt that she desperately needed a break, some kind of sun-drenched holiday to restore her calm and help bring back her dented self-respect.
She'd seen the cancellation in the travel agent's window. Though the price of the holiday had been halved, it was still expensive. And three weeks was longer than she'd wanted to go for. But she'd felt somehow drawn to the idea, and the lure of Jamaica had been irresistible in the end. She'd dipped into her little hoard from The Elmtree Road Murders, and had bought the ticket, hoping she was doing the right thing.
She was now feeling that three weeks of sun, sea, and salads were definitely going to be the right thing. She hadn't needed to come all this way just to get a tan and relax.
But she'd needed the psychological break, and the
glamour of Jamaica was proving marvellously beneficial to her weary psyche, as it was to her physical wellbeing.
She'd tried so hard to forget Kyle over the disastrous five months of the tour. But, at the end of it all, she knew she had only half conquered the hurt. It was still there, inside her, overlaid with a veil that any casual word could whisk away.
That was really why she had come to Jamaica. Because of Kyle Hart. To get over him once and for all.
And now he was walking towards her, on a sun-drenched beach in Ocho Rios, and he didn't even know who she was.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS the child who reached her first.
Ì've found some beautiful shells,' she said, sitting down next to Sophie and overturning her bucket of treasures to sort through them. 'Aren't they lovely?'
`Lovely.'
"Course, most of them are broken,' the child sighed. `You have to go diving to get the ones that aren't broken. My uncle's going to dive for me soon. Look—mother o' pearl!'
`That's very pretty,' Sophie said, taking the shell from the child. Her pulse-rate was just settling down to normal as Kyle approached.
He looked down at her speculatively. 'This is going to sound rather weak—but we've met somewhere before, haven't we?'
`No.' The lie came to her mouth at once, unbidden. `No, I don't think we have.'
`W ell, then you remind me very strongly of someone I've met once before, though I can't think who.' Suddenly he smiled. 'That sounds like the crudest kind of come-on line, doesn't it? Worse than "do you come here often?"'
Sophie smiled blankly. She didn't want him to recognise her, not any more.
Kyle was taller than she had remembered, a big, leanly built man who wore his rangy body with the assurance of complete authority. In Brighton, the naked power of his body had been cloaked in linen and silk. Out here, practically naked but for the black triangle of his swimming-trunks, he made Sophie aware of the aggressive mastery that
burned in his every movement. It was as though she could physically see the calm, potent
maturity that set Kyle apart from every man she'd ever met before.
`Can I ask you your name?'
`Sophie Webb.' Again, she hadn't meant to lie. The words had just been there in her mouth. Actually, it was almost the truth—Sophie Webb Aspen was her full name.
Would 'Sophie' ring any bells?
Apparently not.
`My name's Kyle Hart. And this is Emma, my niece.'
`Pleased to meet you,' Emma smiled, and wandered off down to the water's edge to look for more shells.
Kyle sat down in the space his niece had vacated, the warm skin of his shoulder brushing hers for a moment, making her flinch as though she'd been touched with a hot branding-iron. 'We're also staying in the San Antonio. We arrived yesterday.'
Àre you with Emma's parents?'
`No.' He glanced at the figure of the little girl. 'My brother and his wife are going through a rough patch with their marriage. In fact, they're on the brink of a separation. I volunteered to take Emma on holiday, partly to get her away from the atmosphere at home, and partly to give her parents a breathing-space. A chance to save their marriage before the ultimate breakup.'
Ì see.'
That was why he was here. At least she now knew who Emma was, and why Kyle was in Jamaica. Her idea that he'd come to find her had been just as absurd as she'd known it would be.
Ànd you?' He glanced at her briefly. 'Are you here with friends?'
Ì'm on my own,' she replied.
He didn't look surprised, but she sensed that he was. `Your first visit to Jamaica?'
`Yes.'
Èngland to the Caribbean is a long way to come on your own.' His expression told her he was still puzzled
by her, still trying to place her. 'May I ask what you do for a living?'
Ì'm ... a model.'
`That figures,' he sm
iled, his eyes drifting over her figure. 'I'm afraid my own occupation is nothing so glamorous. I work in a bank.'
`Really?' The tension was too much for her. Making small talk with Kyle was just too much. She knew that if she didn't get away now she would say or do something really stupid.
With nervous movements, Sophie gathered up her towel and straw bag, and rose fluidly to her feet. 'I'm awfully sorry,' she said, 'but it's time for me to get out of the sun.'
He glanced up at her, dark lashes veiling a slow smile. His eyes took in the honey-tanned length of her body, slow and sultry as a caress, before he spoke. 'You should have said at once if my presence disturbed you.'
`No,' she replied, slightly breathless, 'I really am too hot. I'm going to have a shower before lunch.'
`Then I might see you at lunch?' He couldn't see her eyes behind the dark glasses, but his glance was disturbingly penetrating all the same.
Òf course,' Sophie replied, turning away. 'You might.'
She walked quickly up the beach away from him. She felt his eyes dwelling on her back, and knew in her bones that he was watching the swing of her long legs.
By the time she got back to the hotel her skin was damp with nerves. She took the lift up to her room, wriggled out of her bikini, and stepped under a cool shower.
Whew! What a weirdly tense little experience that had been!
Well, if nothing else, that chance meeting with Kyle Hart had just boosted her ego by several degrees. She'd come here to unwind, to relax, and to restore her self-image. If he didn't even recognise her any more, then her self-image was well and truly restored!
She evidently presented a very different picture from the one she'd presented last autumn.
She felt a smile creep across her lips. What had possessed her to tell him she was a model called Sophie Webb? Mischievously, she was now pleased she had done so.
Let him find out who she really was, if he could. She was going to enjoy seeing the look on his face when he did!
She stepped out of the shower, brown and dripping, and dried herself.
Saying that he worked in a bank was almost more of an untruth than her own claim to be a model. She knew that he was, in fact, a partner in a very prestigious firm of merchant bankers, and that 'Hart' was one of the names carved over the lintel of the neo-classical building in the City.
But what she'd said was also at least partly true. She'd done a fair bit of modelling for fashion magazines, especially during her time at drama school, and if her acting career didn't work out she might be doing a lot more in the future. She had never commanded anything like good pay, of course, but it had helped to pay the rent and tuition fees.
So she hadn't really lied to him.
There was, in fact, no immediate prospect of further work for Sophie. Joey Gilmour, her American-born agent, had assured her that in the wake of The Elmtree Road Murders there would be further offers, which was always a possibility. She was hoping that her substantial fee from the film, plus what she made from the bath-oil ad, would tide her over until something else came in.
In any case, she wasn't here to worry.
Sophie dressed in a light and airy blue and green dress that brought out the naturally rich colouring of her hair and skin. She looped a string of rose-quartz beads round her neck. The jewellery wasn't expensive, but against her throat the colours glowed prettily.
Come to think of it, this situation might be fun, after all. And perhaps, for once, she would have a more interesting companion over lunch than the thick paperback she was still only a third of the way through.
Would he join her at her table? Would he have remembered who she was since this morning?
She touched her lips with a pink lip-gloss, and went down to lunch feeling as though she were going on stage.
He hadn't recalled her yet. He and Emma joined her table, and all ordered the same thing: a light salad with cold meats. Sophie was now feeling a lot more poised in his company, and was drily awaiting the moment when it suddenly dawned on him who she was.
`Do you always wear those sunglasses?' Kyle enquired, leaning back in his chair to survey her.
`My eyes aren't used to this bright sunlight.' Actually, the sunglasses had prescription lenses, and she could see much more clearly with them. Not that he would know that—the Dior frames looked anything but practical.
Òr is it that you don't want to be recognised?' he asked lazily. Sophie couldn't stop herself from jumping, but he went on, 'After all, you must be a fairly famous model.'
`Wily should I be so famous?'
`This place doesn't come cheap,' he shrugged, glancing round the glamorous palm -
lined dining-room. 'Money means success. And, in your line of work, success means fame.'
She ate a mouthful of salad before answering. 'I'm not famous, and I probably never will be. I certainly don't want to be.'
`That's a very unfeminine sentiment.' The wicked smile made him suddenly dazzlingly handsome. It was the smile and the eyebrows that gave his face such a cruel cast, she realised suddenly. The dark brows curved down over those tawny eyes in a way that conveyed passion, and the level grin, inlaid with beautiful white teeth, held
a predatory quality, the smile on the face of a tiger. 'I assume that's why you look so familiar,' he said, pouring the fresh orange juice that the waiter had brought. 'You must have been on the cover of a magazine at some time, and I'll have seen your face on the news-stands. Something like Vogue, I'd guess.'
Sophie shook her head, trying not to laugh. 'Not Vogue. But you've probably seen my face here and there.' `Where would I have been likely to see it?'
`Here and there,' she repeated, shrugging her slender shoulders.
Kyle smiled again at her evasive reply. 'Mystery lady,' he said softly. 'You don't like answering questions, do you?'
Ì just don't like talking about myself.'
Ànother unfeminine quality,' he observed. Sophie watched his hands as he cut his food. Strong, capable hands, the knuckles etched with glinting hair. On his wrist he wore a black diver's watch, evidently expensive, but not flashy. She knew he was a wealthy man, but he adopted few of the accoutrements of wealth. He didn't adorn himself with gold jewellery or conspicuous clothes, as if he didn't need to prove anything.
Às for the cost of this holiday,' she said, sipping the orange juice, 'I assure you it's an unwonted extravagance, and not the sort of thing I do every six months.'
`You must be rewarding yourself for something, then.'
Èxactly,' Sophie said. He couldn't see the glint in her grey eyes behind the sunglasses, but he caught the tone in her voice.
Ìntriguing,' he purred. 'May I ask what?'
Òh ... having come through something.'
`W hat?'
`Something private.'
He grimaced. 'And the curtain comes down again, leaving the mystery intact.'
She put down her knife and fork, and propped her neat chin on her clasped hands. 'I just felt I needed a
break from work. I finished a tough assignment a while ago, and I was a bit run down, so I decided to get away from it all. There's nothing mysterious about that at all.'
Ìt's a mystery to me that you should have decided to come to a place like Jamaica all on your own,' Kyle replied calmly, finishing his grapefruit, and breaking a roll. À
woman with your beauty and personality shouldn't have to endure solitude.'
The irony of it all kept laughter bubbling just beneath the surface of her deliberately cool poise. The man who'd once described her as an overweight owl with a face like suet pudding, among other things, was sitting here complimenting her on her beauty and charm. Such was the power of a slight change in appearance.
`To me, solitude is a gift, rather than a penance,' she told him. She was rather enjoying her Mystery Lady role. She could see that it piqued and intrigued him, and there was no harm in hamming it up a little. 'I like to get away from the madding crowd from time to time.'
T
an I go and play now?' Emma demanded, plainly bored with the adult conversation.
`Go on,' Kyle nodded. 'But stay out of the sun, or you'll roast.' He watched the little girl scamper off, then turned to her with a smile. 'This is the first time she's been abroad.
She's a real London child. Do you live in London?'
`Yes, nowadays. But I grew up in Scarborough.' `Where the Fair is? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?'
`The same,' she smiled.
He considered her thoughtfully. 'Well, well. A country girl. I wouldn't have thought it.
You have the poise of someone whose ancestors danced the gavotte.'
`My ancestors were Yorkshire farming folk. My father has a small sheep-farm—just twenty acres of moorland, really, overlooking the sea.
Ìs it pretty?'
Ì think it's lovely.'
He studied the elegant, sophisticated woman in front of him. 'And may I ask how you got the Yorkshire out of your voice?'
Ìt's still there, if you listen. Or would you rather I prefaced every sentence with ee ba gum?'
He grinned. 'Any more at home like you?'
Ì haven't any brothers or sisters, if that's what you mean.'
Àh. So that explains why you're always so collected. You never had any competition as a child.'
Òh, I wouldn't say that,' Sophie said wryly. 'My cousin Jenny gave me as much competition as half a dozen sisters!'
`She sounds like quite a girl,' Kyle smiled.
`She's two years younger than me, but she's a real beauty. Much prettier than I'll ever be.'
`Really?' he said, his disbelief flattering.
`She's the one who ought to be the model, but she's got more brains as well as more looks. She's studying maths at the University of York now.'
`W hat a paragon she must be,' Kyle said gently.
Ìf I were the jealous type,' she assured him, 'I could get quite worked up about Jenny.'
He studied her. 'Has she the same rich chestnut hair and cool grey eyes?'
Duel of Passion Page 3
