A bedroom they were about to share again.
Her stomach knotted, that awful tension centering itself in one vulnerable spot.
So this was it, she told herself nervously. Pay-up time.
Did she have it in her to just give herself to him as though the wedding-ring now gleaming on her finger automatically made it right?
He looked oddly remote standing there so deeply lost in his own thoughts that he wasn’t even aware of her presence. A big, lean man dressed in nothing more than his usual black silk robe. A man whose natural dark colouring seemed to reflect the mood surrounding him tonight, more so while he stood as deep in the shadows as he did.
She chewed down uncertainly on her bottom lip, not quite knowing what she should do next.
Either climb in the bed and think of England, Marnie, she mocked herself acidly, or show a little grace in defeat and go and stand beside him.
She chose the latter, but it took all the courage she had left in her to force her bare feet to walk silently across the thick wool carpet until she reached his side.
‘It—it’s a beautiful night,’ she observed, then could have bitten off her tongue for coming out with such a silly opening remark as that.
Her face muscles clenched, waiting for him to make some mockingly sarcastic remark in return. But he didn’t. Didn’t say anything for a while, and the tension in her increased, making her tremble a little, wishing herself a million miles away. Wishing she’d had the sense to run and keep on running the moment Jamie had walked into her flat with his latest problem.
‘They forecast rain for later,’ Guy answered suddenly, making her jump. Her reaction brought his hooded gaze on her. ‘You look beautiful,’ he murmured, a dry twist of a smile spoiling the compliment. ‘Quite the perfect sacrifice, in fact.’
Unexpected tears began to fill her eyes so she had to avert her face until she had blinked them firmly away, finding this role reversal from being the wronged to the wrongdoer very difficult to cope with. And his sarcasm only managed to make her feel more tense, more miserable.
She could feel his eyes still on her, and the familiar tingling sensation started seeping its way throughout her system, beginning in that ball of tension in her stomach then slowly spreading out until it had encompassed every part of her, from the very roots of her softly falling hair to the tips of her fingers and toes.
Then suddenly he reached for her, his two hands spanning her waist to lift her off the ground before settling her back on her feet directly in front of him.
She glanced up, startled and wary, but Guy’s attention was on her hair, his fingers coming up to thread absently through the long, loose tresses, then down to her shoulders where only the flimsy bootlace straps of her pale pink nightgown stopped the fine silk from slithering to her feet. He ran light fingertips over her skin, and down her arms, raising goosebumps where he touched.
‘Do you think,’ he murmured in a deep quiet voice that revealed an odd touch of bleakness, ‘that as the years go by the gap in our ages will narrow?’ He took up her hands and held them loosely in his own, studying them with his dark lashes lowered over his eyes. ‘You look very young tonight, Marnie,’ he added huskily. ‘As young as the first time we stood together on a night like this. Do I, by contrast, look as old to you?’
Old? she thought, almost smiling at the idea. Guy was not and never would be ‘old’. She had never understood this one small chink in an otherwise impregnable armour of self-confidence.
Her blue eyes drifted across the lean, sleek lines of his face with the detailed intensity of a trained artist. Guy was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. There wasn’t a single thing about his physical appearance she would want to change.
How could someone like him seem to need reassurance from someone like her? She didn’t understand it—never had before.
‘No,’ she answered him at last. That was all. Just that one simple word that to her said it all—and sent some unknown emotions flashing across his face.
He lifted his eyes and let them clash with hers; dark and burning, telling her without words what he was thinking, feeling—wanting. She shuddered, not sure she could answer the look, and had to look down and away.
‘If I never made you feel loved in my arms before, Marnie,’ he muttered thickly, ‘then I promise you that tonight you will feel it right through to your very soul!’
He caught her mouth, not harshly, as his tone had been, but with a kiss so achingly gentle that she found herself responding almost without realising it.
He still held her hands, and he lifted them around his neck. The action arched her body closer to his, and he spanned her slender waist, holding her close while slowly—oh, so slowly—deepening the kiss into something beyond sweetness.
Her lips parted easily, her tongue waiting to tangle sensually with his. He breathed deeply on a sigh. So did she, and it seemed to herald an end to the final threads of inner resistance she had been trying to cling on to. She wanted this. Why should she pretend otherwise when this was what she had been pining for for days now—since that wild scene at his apartment the morning after they’d arrived there?
And perhaps even before that, a small voice suggested. Perhaps you’ve been pining for this for years.
Her hands moved to find the collar of his robe, fingers creeping beneath it, sliding against his warm skin and urging the robe away from his shoulders at the same time. She revelled in the heated silk of his smooth shoulders, in the muscled tension in his upper arms, the robe sliding slowly away until she had exposed the full beauty of his hair-covered chest.
Guy gave a shudder of pleasure as she dragged her mouth from his to capture a male nipple instead, sucking on it, biting at it in a way that made his chest expand on a pleasurable gasp, and her fingers moved to untie the robe, setting his whole body free, giving her access to his lean waist, his tight buttocks and long hair-roughened thighs.
Her nightgown rippled down her body to land in a silken pool of pink ice at her feet. His hands were on her body, stroking with slow feather-light caresses that tempted each nerve-end to come to the surface of her skin so her pleasure was heightened, making her groan and arch and sway with his touch.
‘Marnie…’ he murmured when she ran her fingers along his highly sensitive groin, catching her roving hand tightly in his own. ‘Don’t,’ he whispered. ‘My control is not that good.’
She found his mouth again, swamping out the need for words with a kiss that was so sensual, it fired his blood. And he arched her slender body so it bent like a supple wand against the pulsing rock of his.
And they began to move across the dimly lit room in a kind of primeval love dance that brought them to the bed. When he had eased her down on the pale peach cover he took great care to smooth her long hair out behind her, his expression intent, as though he was acting out some private fantasy of his own.
Marnie lay very still, watching him through dark unguarded eyes. When he caught her gaze he smiled, a soft kind of smile that was so infinitely gentle that it touched something achingly beautiful inside her, and she smiled back, reaching up to pull him down on her.
He went, covering her naked body with his own as though understanding her need at that moment to feel again his total mastery over her in the full weight of his body pressing down on hers.
Their mouths joined and remained joined, even as their caresses became more heated, more intimate. Need began to build like a coiled spring inside both of them, building and building until on a sob she spread her legs and wound them invitingly around him.
It was all the prompting he needed. He entered her on a single swift, sure thrust, then lay heavily against her, his heart, like her own, thundering out of control, mouths still locked while he battled to maintain some control over himself.
She had closed around him like a silken sheath, taking in and holding the pulsing force of him deep, deep inside her.
Then, ‘Love me,’ she whispered breathlessly.
�
��I’ve always loved you, Marnie,’ he murmured thickly back. ‘How could you ever believe otherwise?’
‘No!’ she whimpered, shaking her head because she didn’t want to hear those words, didn’t want to have to think about them, dissect them, understand the devastating import of what they meant.
‘Oh, yes, angel,’ he sighed out caressingly. ‘Yes.’
He moved then, and suddenly words didn’t matter. Their bodies were so in tune that they climbed together in a rhapsody of deep, slow body movements, and when the climax did come it hit her with a sudden racing of the pulses, and that wonderful high tensile floating of the senses held her hovering for endless moments of incredible beauty before she was released, pulling Guy with her into the storm awaiting them, ripples becoming waves, and waves a riptide of pure sensation that carried them on and on before finally, inevitably letting them swim lazily into quieter waters.
They lay spent for a long time before either of them felt willing to move. And then only Guy seemed to find the strength to do it, sliding away from her then reaching to flip back the covers before lifting her gently beneath them and joining her there.
He took her back into his arms, and Marnie lay wrapped in the wonderful afterglow of a beautiful experience, her mind still drifting somewhere high above the clouds, limbs heavy, body replete, senses content to settle back into a languid calm while she listened to the comforting throb of his heartbeat beneath her cheek.
Guy moved again, scooping up the thick curtain of her hair and giving it one gentle twist around his fist—as he always used to do—just before he set it on the pillow behind her.
Then he settled his cheek lightly on top of her head, brushed his lips against her hair and said quietly, ‘Tell me about the child we made and lost, Marnie,’ and succeeded in exploding her contented world into a million broken pieces.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MARNIE came awake the next morning to find herself alone. And only the imprint on the pillow beside her said that Guy had ever been there.
But he had been, she remembered dully. Carefully, steadily—ruthlessly stripping her of every last layer of protection she had grown around herself over the years until all that was left was the raw and tortured woman he found beneath.
So, now he knew everything. She had told him the lot, dumping it all on his lap with a bitter malice which showed how thoroughly he had deranged her with his cruel shock-tactics.
And if she had locked it all away inside her because it was the only way to deal with the pain of it all, then the opening up of that terrible door had inflicted double the pain, double the anger and double the guilt for what she saw as her own unforgivable selfishness in running away as she had, giving no thought to the fragile life growing inside her.
To be fair to Guy, when it had all come pouring out, he had held on to her tightly, refusing to let go even when she fought him like a wildcat in an effort to break free.
Oh, he had held her close, given her his strength and his comfort throughout the whole ordeal. But he had not been satisfied until he had wrenched every last detail from her.
‘You should have told me all this a long time ago!’ he had censured angrily when her sobs had threatened to tear her apart inside. ‘Look how it hurts for its four years’ festering. See what you do to yourself now.’
‘How did you find out?’ she asked when she had enough control over herself to wonder at his uncanny knowledge. She had told no one about her poor baby. No one. Not even Clare, when she’d gone through a similar tragedy.
‘Let’s just leave it that I did know,’ he said grimly. ‘For now it is all out in the open, Marnie, it should be let go. God knows, we’ve both suffered enough over it—more than enough.’
For some reason, the dull throb in his voice set her crying all over again. He drew her closer, and it was in his arms that she fell asleep—only to wake up to find him gone.
And she didn’t dare wonder what that had to mean.
It was then she heard it—the distinctive growl of a powerful engine revving in the distance. She climbed out of bed and, grabbing the loose end of the sheet, wrapped it around her naked body and moved over to the window to wait, knowing that the sound meant that Guy was already down at the track and preparing to take out one of his cars.
It must have rained in the night, she noticed. The air had a fresh, damp smell about it, the lawns below her sparkling in the weak morning sun. She could see the stream babbling more fiercely down towards the lake. And over to the west, just beyond the valley itself, she could see more clouds gathering, thick and dark, promising yet more rain soon.
But the sun still shone on Oaklands, and Roberto’s roses seemed happy enough to lift their heads and open their petals, so maybe the storm was not coming this way—
She heard it then, the sudden change in motor noise, followed quickly by a throaty roar which said Guy had put the car in gear and was speeding smoothly out of the pit lane.
She had often stood here like this waiting for him to go flashing by in some sleek growling monster at awe-inspiring speed. And she closed her eyes now, so she could watch with her mind’s eye him shoot out of the pit lane on to the track itself, each small cut in engine sound denoting a split-second change in gear.
He was already in top gear by the time he hit the track, accelerating away down the main straight on a roar which set her pulses racing along with it. In a second or two he would reach the first sharp curve which sent the track into a tricky S-bend. She heard the distinctive sound as he changed down, the throaty noise as he throttled back followed by the frightening surge of power that said he was out of the bend and accelerating towards the bridge which would take him over the stream then on around the lake until he hit the straight directly in front of the house, coming into her view just as he cleared the water.
Her breath caught in anticipation, eyes wide with a mixture of excitement and fear, for when he hit the length of road in front of her it meant he would have whichever car it was he had decided to take out travelling at its maximum speed.
But it was only when she saw the flash of blue and white as he came into view that she realised he wasn’t driving one of the beautiful museum pieces, but the Frabosa Formula One.
The updated and daunting car was similar to the one he had won his world championships in, but had since moved on a pace in its development to become one of the best cars on the circuit this decade. Guy had decided to include this one in his collection as a testimony to his own success.
And it was the car she hated the most, for its gruesome power, for its flimsy build, and for its total lack of respect for anything human. And because Guy only ever drove that awful car when he was in the blackest of moods.
But what had her heart thudding heavily in her breast as she watched him fly past was the knowledge that he was driving that thing because of what she had told him last night. She was sure of it, just as she was suddenly sickeningly sure that he had taken the blame for their lost child entirely on himself.
With her eyes tightly closed, and lips drawn tight across her teeth, her ears took up her whole concentration, listening for and interpreting each minute sound the engine made for signs of malfunction. Or, worse—any bad timing on the driver’s part. You didn’t spend twelve months of your life around men like Guy without learning quickly the sounds which mattered.
He should be changing gear—now!
He did. Marnie wilted gratefully. The timing was that crucial. For, after the straight in front of the house, he had to negotiate the chicane, a cleverly constructed piece of engineering which also took him back across the stream again, through a series of tricky bends then back towards the main section in front of the pits.
She followed each sound all the way around, knowing to within a metre just where the car should be.
By the time he hit the pits straight he would really be opening up the throttle, his tyres warmed and ready to respond to his lightest command. It would be the second or maybe the third circuit
before he was really flying. And then the crew would be out with their stop-watches, clocking his track time, just as they would do in a real race.
Trembling, she spun away from the window and made for the dressing-room, dragging on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt without bothering with underwear, determined to be back at the window by the time he came past again.
She just made it, breathing fast. He roared past at full throttle, a mere blur on her vision. And she closed her eyes on a silent prayer that he would judge the first bend correctly.
He did. She held her breath. The chicane next. Through—tyres prostesting when he must have touched one of the concrete kerbs on a slight error of judgement.
Don’t do it again! she scolded him silently as he began negotiating the series of bends. Then the smooth roar as he reached full speed past the pits. She waited for him to reach the S-bend, hating his need to test himself in such a way. Hating even more his reason for doing it.
Marnie watched him go by her a third time, and knew with a sinking heart that he had to be driving that car with the turbo charger full on, because she had never seen it go so fast! She almost dropped to the floor with relief when he got safely around the next bend, then the chicane—it was like having her own personal scaled-down model running around her head, she could be that accurate on where he was at any moment.
The straight in front of the pits again, and the roar as he boosted the turbo, the sound seeming to fill the whole valley. Then the S-bend—
She waited breathlessly for the familiar protest from the engine as he throttled back sharply—and certainly the change-down did occur, but the immediate uplift of power never followed it. Instead there was the tooth-grating sound of squealing brakes and screaming tyres followed all too quickly by nothing.
Absolute silence.
For a full five seconds Marnie didn’t move a muscle, the echo of those screaming tyres consuming her every sense, while she used those few precious seconds to accept what had happened.
Then she was running, barefoot, out of the bedroom, along the landing and down the stairs. Hair streaming out behind her, face pure white, she ran across the hall, past Roberto without stopping, even though some sane portion of her mind told her that he too must have heard the crash and understood its frightening possibilities. But she was too wrapped up in her own terror to stop, running out of the door and around the side of the house, racing across neatly shorn lawns, slipping on the wet grass as she went, knowing exactly where she was making for, exactly at what spot Guy had spun the car.
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