Mistess of the Groom

by Susan Napier

  'Back,' she whispered. Trust him to know that her bra was the weak point in her defence. She had tried going braless after she had broken her hand, but her size had made it uncomfortable and she had been too self­-conscious about the way her breasts moved beneath her clothes to go out that way in public. Putting on a bra with only one good hand had been difficult, but not im­possible, but now ...

  Jane closed her eyes, surrendering to the inevitable.

  But he didn't pull off her T-shirt. His hands were warm as they skimmed her waist under the loose fabric, sep­arating to slide up around her ribs and meet again at the centre of her back. His breath was just as warm on her forehead as he deftly unhooked the tiny fastening and her full breasts shifted, settling lower on her chest, lightly brushing against his ...

  They stood for a frozen moment, then Jane felt him sigh and his hands fell away as he stepped back. She opened her eyes. His gaze was sombre, steady.

  'If you want any more help, you'll have to ask for it.' She couldn't say it. She just couldn't get the words out of her fear-locked throat, past her stubborn lips.

  His nostrils flared and his features seemed to tighten, accentuating the broad, flat cheekbones and thrust of his Jaw.

  Without a word he peeled off her T-shirt and gently slid the bra down her arms. He knelt and unzipped her shorts and drew them off, along with her panties. Not once did he take his eyes off hers.

  He rose to turn back her bed and guided her down onto the cool white cotton, draping the top sheet care­fully over her voluptuous nudity. Then he left the room, returning a few minutes later with a bowl of warm soapy water, a face cloth, a towel and her hair brush.

  Silently, rinsing the cloth often, he sat on the side of the bed and slowly washed her face, throat and shoul­ders, and the upper swell of her breasts that rose above the folded sheet. His face was a fascinating golden mask in the candlelight as he patted her skin softly dry and loosened her hair from its pony-tail, brushing it out in a wavy black fan across the white pillow.

  He leant over and blew out the candle, and in the velvety blackness she felt his lips press briefly over her ruffled brow, her eyes-each in turn-and her mouth. Then, still without speaking, he was gone, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HE WAS driving her crazy!

  Four days later her uninvited house guest was still firmly ensconced, and Jane's peace and quiet had been irrevocably shattered. The phone was constantly ringing and Ryan was a perpetual whirlwind of activity. If he wasn't firing off memos and faxes or conducting con­ference calls, he was despatching his domestic duties with infuriating efficiency or tackling some of the most urgently needed repair work on the house with tools and materials he had salvaged from the garage.

  He seemed impervious to the discomforts of the cramped cottage-indeed, seemed to treat the daily drudgery as a challenge! If she escaped down to the beach he imposed his presence on her there, too-jog­ging, body-surfing, leafing through reports or pestering her with conversation that was impossible to ignore. He was every bit as relentless on his mission of mercy as he had been at pursuing his vengeance.

  'Don't you ever relax?' she had grumbled at him on the second evening, when he was once again nagging at her to play a game of chess rather than curling up next to the oil lamp with her book. For all he wouldn't let her lift a finger he seemed determined to involve her in everything he did.

  He looked genuinely surprised. 'I am relaxed.'

  'If this is you relaxed I'd hate to see you excited,' she said drily, and instantly regretted her words when his eyes gleamed with amusement.

  'You already have,' he reminded her. 'And you didn't hate it at all.'

  She scrunched deeper in the comfy old easy chair, wishing he didn't look so impossibly sexy in black. His trousers and short-sleeved shirt were plain, and un­adorned by designer labels, yet somehow were rendered elegant by the wearer. He could ring the changes in a wardrobe that seemed to mysteriously grow larger by the day while Jane was forced by convenience to wear what­ever was easiest to put on-usually the ubiquitous shorts and T-shirt.

  She tossed her head. She didn't care how she looked, she was no longer one of the dress-to-impress brigade.

  'I meant you seem to think you have to fill every waking moment with activity,' she said, watching him set out the chess pieces he had found in some dusty corner. 'The only time you rest is when you're sleeping.'

  She'd used to be like that, too, she realised-con­stantly wound up, always restlessly looking for the next challenge, alert for the next stab in the back from friend or foe. Until it had all been snatched away from her she hadn't realised how subtly it had ground down her en­joyment of life.

  He shrugged. 'It comes naturally to me. I've worked hard all my life. In fact, this is the closest thing I've had to a holiday for years.' His eyelids drooped as he re­membered that the last holiday he had planned was go­ing to be his honeymoon.

  Jane shifted uncomfortably under his stare. 'Ava al­ways said you found business more interesting than you did her,' she blurted, unknowingly echoing his thoughts.

  He abandoned the chess pieces to come prowling across the room. 'Did she come running to you with all her petty complaints about my shortcomings?'

  'They weren't petty, not to Ava.'

  'Obviously not. But if she had come to me with them, instead of you, we might have worked them out.'

  'I doubt it,' said Jane involuntarily, remembering Ava's soft brown eyes brimming with anguished tears over her love for Conrad. Whatever Ryan had suffered, at least he hadn't had to cope with the added humiliation of knowing he was being dumped for a man who didn't have a tenth of his personal charisma.

  His eyes narrowed as they always did when he aimed one of his stinging verbal darts. 'Didn't I satisfy her in bed? Was that why she was so quick to believe I'd been having an affair with someone else?'

  'You weren't even sleeping together-' Jane pro­tested, and bit her lip as she realised the trap he had set.

  He looked grimly satisfied by her admission that she had been privy to the most intimate details of his rela­tionship with Ava. 'Did she also tell you why?'

  'It was none of my business,' she said, looking away.

  Maybe if she hadn't actively discouraged Ava's early confidences about her relationship with Ryan events might not have been forced to such a drastic turn. But she had dealt with the fierce envy that she had felt when­ever Ava had talked about Ryan by appearing to be su­premely uninterested.

  'I guess you knew she was still a virgin. She said she wanted to wait until we were married,' he said softly, his shrewd gaze on Jane's guiltily averted face. 'Did you encourage her in that view, during your girlish chats, by any chance...?'

  Jane's blue eyes flashed as her chin tilted proudly up. 'Oh, no, you don't-you can't blame me for that! I never did understand how she could-' She clamped her jaw shut before she said too much.

  'What? Deny me? Resist me?' he probed, with a trace of his former silky malice. 'I know you find me sexually irresistible, Jane,' he said, making her blush. 'But we're talking about someone with a strong sense of morality and an innate shyness.'

  Jane couldn't help snorting. It hadn't been morality that had stopped Ava from sleeping with her fiancé-it had been her love for another man. She certainly hadn't been shy with Conrad!

  'Whereas you ...' he murmured speculatively. 'I think that if you were in love with a man, he wouldn't be able to keep you out of his bed.'

  Her flush deepened as she thought of the wanton way she had behaved in that hotel room. 'If you're implying that I have no sense of morality...'

  'Not at all. I'm just saying that once you commit your­self to a course of action you commit yourself utterly, ­no half measures, no holding back ... full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes! A lot of people find that kind of overwhelming strength of purpose intimidating, es­pecially in a woman.'

  'That's their problem!' declared Jane, not sure whether
to be flattered or insulted by his character sketch.

  'I agree. Fortunately it's not mine. I'm not easily in­timidated.' He rubbed his jaw reminiscently.

  'Nor am I,' she said, staring resentfully up at his tow­ering figure. 'So you can forget about hassling me into a chess game. I'm relaxing with a book, and when I've finished this chapter I'm going to go to bed-to sleep,' she added hurriedly.

  He didn't move away. 'I'm not used to having such early nights. I'm having trouble sleeping. I toss and turn for hours in my lonely bed-'

  'Probably the lumps in the mattress,' said Jane re­pressively, warned by the wicked quirk at the corner of his mouth.

  'One lump in particular,' he agreed. 'Care to come to my room and help me smooth it out?'

  With difficulty she kept her eyes on his, acutely aware that his hips were level with her face. 'Sorry-no hands,' she said sweetly, holding up her bandaged mitts.

  'You won't need them; you can use your mouth-I happen to know you have a very versatile tongue,' he shot back silkily, and laughed at her glowering expres­sion, sending a kick of exhilaration along her nerves. 'Walked right into that one, didn't you, sweetheart? You know, I think you're right-an idle chat is far more re­laxing than a tense battle of chess that takes all one's concentration. '

  He stretched his impressive musculature, abandoning the chessboard to stroll over to the couch where she was sitting with her book in her lap. 'Let's just sit here cosily together and talk some more about ourselves ... '

  That was the last thing she wanted, since he had an infuriating knack of provoking her into saying things that were better left unsaid.

  So, of course, they had ended up playing chess, with Jane being roundly beaten even though all Ryan's con­centration had definitely not been on the game.

  The trouble was that no matter how absorbed he ap­peared to be in his own activities he always seemed to know where Jane was and what she was doing.

  She couldn't even potter about in the garden without his interference. Only this morning she had waited until he was safely engaged in his morning conference call to his office before sneaking out to the garden to do some surreptitious weeding. She had only just worked out a painless technique, using a short length of bamboo stake to burrow under the weed roots and flick them out of the soil, when a shadow loomed and the stick was whipped from her hand.

  'Do you have to do this right now?'

  His irritation was music to her ears. 'Yes.'

  He sighed heavily. 'Tell me what to do.'

  'Don't tempt me,' she said sarcastically, eyeing the stick in his hand.

  He looked down at her, kneeling at the edge of the garden. 'I know you're frustrated by the enforced inac­tivity, but I don't want you getting that dressing dirty now that those blisters are oozing.'

  'You don't want me doing anything!' she burst out irritably. That soothing, reasonable voice of his got on her nerves. She didn't want him to be kind, she wanted him to be angry and hostile and easy to hate.

  'Just following doctor's orders,' he said. 'Most women would be pleased at having a man run around at their beck and call.'

  'Running around maybe, riding roughshod over no!'

  'I'm just trying to help-'

  'Are you? Or are you just here to enjoy watching me suffer?'

  Her bitter utterance was followed by a pregnant si­lence. He crouched down beside her. 'I'm sorry if you believe that,' he said gravely. 'Maybe it was true-once. But that was before I got to know you-'

  She bristled. 'You don't know me-'

  'As well as anyone, I suspect. The fact that your best friend lives in Wellington says it all, really, doesn't it, Jane? You don't like people getting too close. You'd rather keep them at arm's length, in case they find out you aren't as tough as you pretend to be.'

  She stiffened. Was that pity she heard in his voice? 'Spare me your cheap psychoanalysis.'

  'Don't be so defensive. I'm trying hard to build up some trust here, Jane-how about meeting me halfway? We've both been guilty of malice and misjudgement in the past. You said you were searching for new begin­nings at Piha. So why won't you begin by accepting my offer of friendship?'

  'Because you don't want to be friends,' she said harshly.

  'Lovers are friends, Jane.'

  She flinched. 'Not always,' she denied. There had been nothing friendly about their sexual encounter in the hotel. And James-he had never mixed sex with friendship, either. As far as he had been concerned making love to Jane had been just a shrewd business move, an attempt to cement her loyalty.

  'Have you had many?'

  Her eyebrows shot up haughtily. 'Friends?'

  'Lovers.'

  'One or two.' She tried to sound blasé and to her chagrin he took her literally, thereby guessing the truth. 'Well, I didn't take your virginity so I guess that makes me number two,' he said teasingly. 'Was I better than the other guy?'

  She jumped to her feet, gesturing towards the carrots with a shaking hand. 'Those need to be weeded and thinned out or their growth will be restricted,' she said, quoting the gardening guide she had consulted that morning.

  'I take it that's a "yes"!' he called after her as she retreated hastily back into the house.

  God, he was infuriating, she thought now, as she found a box of old clothes to sort through, most of all when he was right!

  If only she could figure out his true motive for inflict­ing his presence on her. If it wasn't revenge, if he felt genuine remorse for reducing her to her present circum­stances, surely he would have granted her her plea to be left alone?

  And if he had come here to seduce her, why didn't he just get on with it with his usual relentless efficiency, dammit, instead of playing this drawn-out game of cat and mouse?

  That first, bewildering night had set the scene. Ryan had the unique ability to tease her, annoy her, irritate her with his 'take charge' bossiness, only, in the next breath, to confuse her with such tender caring that she was in danger of believing in miracles... Then, just when he had her on the verge of surrender, aching for him to ruthlessly take advantage of her heightened vulnerability, he would withdraw, leaving her hollow with lone­liness and seething with physical frustration.

  Also, he had a way of looking at her-just looking­ through half-closed eyes that reminded her of those heated hours they had spent together in that hotel room and the way he had looked at her then-all fury and wild desire. And once the memory was roused it was infuriatingly difficult to dislodge from her conscious­ness.

  In this she was her own worst enemy. She should never have allowed him to continue to perform those intimate personal services-helping her dress and un­dress, brushing her hair each morning and night, dressing her wound-but she had been unable to deny herself the exquisite torture of his touch. She was an intelligent woman; she could have found a way around her tem­porary disabilities if she had really tried. Instead, while she had whined loudly at him for curtailing her freedom, a wicked part of her, a primitive throwback to pre­-liberated times, had secretly wallowed in her helpless­ness.

  It had to stop!

  The situation was more innocent yet potentially far more dangerous than the one from which she had es­caped. She could imagine the screaming headlines if the Press found out that Jane Sherwood had the millionaire tycoon who had caused her financial ruin acting as her unpaid domestic slave. They would come up with all sorts of kinky scenarios to explain the bizarre set-up-­and they wouldn't be far wrong-she thought with a frisson of excitement at the memory of some of the de­viant desires that Ryan aroused in her breast.

  Oh, God, what if Ryan had planned for the story to leak to the Press? He was quite capable of such Machiavellian cunning. But no. She hastily dismissed the idea. For it would be Ryan's reputation that would suffer most if they were embroiled in a sex scandal that implied he was some kind of S&M freak who enjoyed playing a submissive role.

  She was still brooding on the alarming possibilities when there was a sharp knocking on the fron
t door. Assuming the worst, she opened the door warily, but it was no sleazy journalist lurking on the sagging porch.

  'Is Ryan in?'

  Jane stared at the tall, skinny, sulky-looking redhead in the skin-tight acid-green dress who stood tapping a sandalled foot on the cracked boards, oozing hostile im­patience. Parked haphazardly next to the four-wheel drive was a sporty convertible, its engine still ticking.

  'Oh, yes.'

  'Good.' Without waiting to be invited, the young woman brushed past Jane into the house, her green eyes darting curiously about, widening at the sight of peeling paintwork and faded furniture.

  'Where is he-in here?' She headed towards the hum of the fax machine in the living room.

  Jane felt her blood begin to simmer. How dared Ryan invite a strange woman to her home? Especially a beau­tiful, long-legged waif who made Jane feel like a clump­ing Amazon.

  'No, he's out the back, digging in the garden,' she said sourly.

  'The garden! But Ryan hates gardening!' The state­ment came out shrill and accusing.

  Jane smiled into her incredulous face, enjoying a petty sense of revenge on both of them.

  'I know. Isn't he a darling? He just can't seem to do enough for me!' she trilled, earning herself a vitriolic glare from kohl-lined eyes as her visitor rushed to find the back door. Her coltish grace made Jane realise that under the sophisticated make-up the waif was younger than she had first appeared-much too young for a hard­ened cynic like Ryan Blair.

  Cradle-snatcher! she thought balefully as the girl ran towards Ryan, the long red locks-which could only have come from a bottle-flouncing down her back as she called out his name.

  She was only slightly mollified by the dismay on Ryan's face as he rose to his feet, a clutch of wispy carrot plants dripping from his large hand. So ... he hadn't been expecting a visit from his little totty!

  A moment later he dropped the carrots as the girl launched herself into his arms for a hug that made Jane's bones ache. They fitted together with the ease of long­standing intimacy. Jane folded her arms across the tight­ness in her chest as the pair began an animated conver­sation, the girl's thin arms gesticulating wildly and Ryan's body language surprisingly defensive. Good! She hoped he was having a great deal of trouble explaining himself!