Ransacked Heart

by Jayne Bauling

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Exasperation lifted her voice. ‘Florian talks like that when he’s in one of his exuberant moods. It’s that flippancy that makes the listeners love him; three hours’ broadcasting a day is usually enough to use up the excess, but he doesn’t work weekends.’

  ‘Excuses, suddenly? Explanations?’ Luke derided in an unexpectedly savage tone. ‘It didn’t matter what I thought yesterday.’

  ‘It doesn’t now. That’s why I’m not explaining anything more to you,’ she asserted stonily, almost grateful for the reminder that his opinion must not be allowed to matter.

  ‘Then if you’re ready, shall we move, as I don’t imagine you can bring yourself to offer me a drink before we go?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ she told him.

  ‘Yes.’

  Grey eyes swept the outfit which had caused her some qualms, but it was modest compared to Nicky Kai’s, the oyster-coloured chiffon shirt collarless and slit to a point between her breasts, loose enough to leave them a mystery only occasionally glimpsed when she moved, dark nipples a shadowy suggestion. Beneath it, she wore loose silky pants in the same colour, pleated and gathered into a deep, fitted waistband and tapering at her ankles, one of which sported a fine gold anklet.

  ‘Cavell Fielding approved it.’ Maria hated the way she sounded so defensive.

  ‘Oh, it’s perfect for what’s required,’ Luke acknowledged ironically. ‘Distracting, though.’

  The way he went on looking at her made her flesh heat, and she took a second or two to ensure that her voice would emerge steadily before saying, ‘I want to make one thing absolutely crystal-clear, Luke.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m not a priest.’

  Jet-black eyebrows rose. ‘Anything but, I would have said.’

  ‘I don’t do exorcisms,’ she elaborated shortly.

  It amused Luke for a moment, but then a merciless glint appeared in his eyes.

  ‘Why not? What’s the difference? Passion as exorcism or passion as release and renewal of energy, which is probably all the so-called act of love means to your lover upstairs, if his partners are so interchangeable…or the little death as an end in itself?’

  Incensed, Maria flung up her head, choking on rage, and but for her fear of any physical contact between them, she might have lashed out at him. Her hands stayed down at her sides.

  ‘Love’s little death,’ she corrected him in a stifled voice.

  ‘Yes, so that doesn’t apply here,’ he conceded tightly, his face hardening. Then he shrugged. ‘You know I can’t promise you what you want, Maria, especially now. Since you arrived, but particularly since last night, the haunting has become possession, the ghost a demon.’

  ‘Oh, very dramatic and biblical! Is it supposed to intimidate me or merely impress?’ Maria retorted scathingly. ‘You really believe you’re going to—to win this, don’t you?’

  ‘I do now.’ His tone was significant. ‘If I had any doubts before, you’ve made me believe it. Lust can be a powerful compulsion, can’t it? I know, all too well, how it can outweigh everything else—the disgust I feel for you and the way I consequently despise myself, for instance.’

  ‘But not hatred, Luke!’ Maria’s voice shook with the force of the rage and resentment his arrogance incited. ‘You don’t even know the full extent of what you did to me six years ago. It wasn’t just the job, and having to give up my Communications course——’

  ‘Being parted from Jones,’ he supplied sardonically.

  She stared at him, her eyes like burning lamps in her suddenly pale face.

  ‘Were you with your father when he died?’ she asked deliberately.

  ‘Yes.’ Luke’s face was abruptly shuttered.

  ‘I wasn’t with mine! That’s what you did to me! You deprived me of the chance to be there for him, and for my mother, when he was dying, because there weren’t any jobs going in radio in Johannesburg at the time, so I had to go to Durban. That’s what I hate you for, Luke. That’s what I’ll never forgive.’

  Now rejection hardened his expression.

  ‘I’m really not very interested in the emotional side of your family life, Maria,’ he informed her brutally, and glanced at his watch. ‘Shall we go?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘WHAT did you do today?’ Luke asked Maria.

  ‘A couple of interviews this morning, and I met Penny Seu Chen this afternoon and she showed me round our building, studios and offices, and we rearranged a few things in mine. I start work proper tomorrow.’

  She had said that before, Maria realised, when they had left the theatre and Luke had asked her if she wanted to get a meal somewhere. No, she had wanted to go home where she would get something out of the fridge she had found ready stocked for her on her arrival in Taipei. Work tomorrow…

  She didn’t usually repeat herself, but apprehension was numbing her brain, making her stupid.

  Because here they were once again, making the same journey between the lift and the door of her apartment, too short a walk in which to resolve dilemmas or reach decisions. She had thought she was tense last night, but now it struck her that she hadn’t known what tension was then because she hadn’t known what Luke could do to her.

  Suspense was a subtle torment, stealing the grace and ease from her walk. She felt as if she was struggling through a nightmare syrup that suffocated and hampered, and yet still this walk was too short—too short!

  She had spent the evening smouldering with resentment after his callous dismissal of her father’s death, but now the biblical phrases Luke had employed earlier were suddenly hammering at her brain and heightening her agitation, although she suspected that she was playing into his hands by allowing them to do so. He liked her uncertain and apprehensive; it reinforced his power and it was part of the punishment.

  They had reached her door, and instinct took over. Maria turned clear eyes, golden-brown tonight, on Luke and said what needed to be said, eschewing preamble, cleverness and a host of other possible costumes in which she might have dressed it up.

  ‘No.’

  His shadow fell on her and a traitorous flicker of anticipation stirred her senses. It was almost as if he was touching her already—but it was only the shadow of him.

  Seconds passed before he replied. Then an ironic smile lit the dark coppery face.

  ‘Yes, I’m beginning to accept that you intend to make a fight of it.’ The condescension there implied that the acceptance was possible only because he knew he would win. ‘Ah, but I should have acted six years ago, I should have taken you then when you were vulnerable in your confusion—as I supposed—involved with a recently married man presumably for the first time, and not knowing what it was you felt for me because you were so sure Jones was all you wanted. As it turned out, you weren’t so vulnerable, but the confusion then was real because it was all fairly new to you, so I could have had you then.’

  Maria stood there, hating him, but not for anything he had done to her in the past. It was not a moment for remembering a job lost and parents left alone. What she hated was the scorn lacing his recognition of the power he had held over her, then and now, although it occurred to her that he really had been considerate—merciful—in leaving her alone six years ago. She could never have coped then. She wasn’t sure that she could now.

  ‘Go away,’ she urged him in a flat, hard voice.

  ‘Yes, I will, because, as you’ve felt it necessary to keep reminding me, tomorrow is your first day in a new job, and because I can wait, now that I’m sure of you. But in the meantime, you can let Jones know that he’ll have some waiting of his own to do. I don’t share, Maria, so he’s just going to have to postpone the resumption of your affair until I’m done with you.’

  ‘I don’t have to listen to this!’ Stung by the complete absence of regard for her the insolent words betrayed, Maria rammed her key into the lock with violently shaking fingers, anger stoking and stirring a seething cauldron of other emotions. ‘Until you�
�ve done with me——’

  ‘Unfortunately I can’t tell you how long that will be,’ Luke inserted drily as she pushed open the door. ‘But I can promise you I won’t extend it a moment longer than is necessary.’

  ‘Necessary to you!’ Maria faced him furiously again. ‘My needs, my wishes, just don’t come into it, do they?’

  Fascinating in the way it hinted at both a deep sensuality and fastidious restraint, his mouth twisted.

  ‘Your needs? You had all the consideration I could afford, and that far more than you deserved, six years ago. I was a masochist then. Not this time, though.’ A sardonic gleam entered the grey eyes as he paused. ‘But it’s not really an issue, is it? Your needs are my needs, unless you think yours will outlast mine?’

  ‘The only need I have where you’re concerned is for you to leave me alone, Luke——’ She froze momentarily as he lifted a hand, passing light fingers over the bright satiny curls at one side of her head. ‘You lied to me. Don’t touch me!’

  ‘No, I didn’t lie to you, Maria.’

  But, as she took two steps backwards, he followed her into the apartment’s hallway, softly lit by the lamp she had left on.

  ‘You said…’

  Her voice trailed away as a fingertip brushed across the tempestuous curve of her lips, but when Luke bent his head he ignored her mouth, his own swooping to the shadowy centre of her chiffon-covered right breast, there to impress a hard, demanding kiss that sent a pang of piercingly erotic sensation shooting to the core of her womanhood.

  More than anything else could have been, it was searingly expressive of the contempt in which he held her, because he had ignored her face where her personality and individuality were written, his attention given wholly to a part of her body—and a body was just a body as far as she was concerned, with nothing to do with one’s emotional identity.

  A body could also be a traitor, indulging urges alien to intellect and emotion. As the moist heat of the mouth working at her breast penetrated the soft material of her shirt, that pang repeated itself, over and over again, so that she had to bite back a whimper. Her nipple was hard and swollen in Luke’s mouth, its hot stinging ache too much like pleasure, and she knew herself doubly degraded, by his kiss and by her own response to it, the pleading curve of her body as she pressed herself into his mouth a flagrant denial of the protest screaming in her mind.

  He had begun it, but she was an active participant now, her breast voluptuously offered to the sensual onslaught of his parted lips when she knew she should be shrinking from them. Small, jerkily spasmodic movements stirred her whole body as she strained towards him, and he steadied her by sliding an arm about her waist, still intent on the proud thrust of the breast he was ravishing with such devastatingly effective skill.

  Maria’s breath came short and shallow now, perspiration sprang from her pores in an explosion of heat, and the driven sound of her reluctant pleasure and need could no longer be contained, escaping her in a low, shivering cry as she flung back her head.

  That was when Luke chose to end it, raising his head and examining the agonised tension that held her face and the taut, smooth line of her exposed throat with dark, glittering eyes.

  ‘I didn’t lie to you,’ he repeated tightly, withdrawing his arm from around her waist and stepping back. I’m leaving now, and I’m not touching you again tonight, because the next time I touch you ‘I’II go on touching you. You do know that, don’t you?’

  With Luke looking at her like that, a combination of desire and disgust hardening his features and his mouth somehow more richly sensual than it had looked before, Maria had no difficulty believing him. The threat was real, and more potent than ever.

  ‘Get out of here,’ she instructed him huskily, capable only of voicing her greatest need at that moment, no more.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he warned her casually, sketching a smile that went nowhere near his eyes, and then he had gone.

  Maria locked the door and stood still, trying to control her breathing and slow her racing thoughts. Her glance fell, focusing on the front of her shirt, and heat burst to the surface of her skin as she saw the moist transparent circle left by Luke’s mouth, the fine material plastered revealingly to the darkened, sharply erect peak of her breast.

  Damn him!

  The anger obsessed her, but later she turned it on herself and found it mixed with shamed bewilderment. How could she? Pride alone should have made her indifferent to Luke’s touch, at the very least; old hatred and new resentment ought to make it repulsive.

  The woman she seemed to have become over the course of a single weekend—just forty-eight hours—bore no resemblance to the vague mental picture she had always, possibly complacently, had of herself. She was not frigid, but nor had she ever been a slave to purely carnal temptations; because she had always placed a higher value on mental and emotional stimulation than on physical.

  And look at her now!

  Over the next couple of days she discovered that she had to be careful not to think about Luke Scott. If she wasn’t, he slipped into her mind, the memory of her response to him both torment and humiliation, and dislodging him once he entered her thoughts proved far more difficult than keeping him out in the first place.

  When she saw him again, on the Wednesday, Maria was half expecting it in view of certain events the previous evening, and Luke obviously knew it.

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed drily, ackowledging her lack of surprise when he walked into her office after Penny Seu Chen had announced his presence. ‘Didn’t you warn Jones that he’d have to wait a while?’

  Having anticipated this, Maria was able to meet it with a degree of control.

  ‘Aren’t you letting this get away from you, Luke? You had your weekend’s worth of fun at my expense. That should have been enough.’

  She spoke the lie smoothly, but she thought he recognised it. She had known, without questioning how she knew, that Luke Scott was not done with her.

  Appropriately, he ignored it.

  ‘How did the two of you appease Nicky Kai?’ he asked.

  ‘Nicky was attending some sort of state banquet. I understand it’s a common occurrence—Taiwan’s greatest beauty brought out on show to impress visiting statesmen. Florian doesn’t usually get invited and won’t go when he does. He cherishes his anti-establishment image. Last night he had a choice between a quiet evening at home and the outdoor concert. He knows I’ve no more outgrown the excesses of stadium rock than he has. He invited me, and I accepted. With Nicky’s full knowledge and consent. Satisfied?’

  A flippant defiance was audible in the explanation but the mockery that dragged at her deliberately assumed smile, making a travesty of it, was aimed at herself. Luke Scott didn’t merit any explanation. He had no right to one.

  But she had known this encounter was coming ever since she and Florian had attracted the attention of the photographers covering the concert at one of Taipei’s main sports stadiums the previous night.

  ‘The somewhat juvenile excesses, surely?’ Luke taunted softly, coming right up to the desk behind which she stood, having risen instinctively when Penny had told her he was here—a betrayal, she knew, but she could not have faced him sitting down. ‘But perhaps it was a nostalgia trip for the two of you? Did it take you back to that concert in Zimbabwe and any others there might have been—in Sydney perhaps—being there with him?’

  Maria drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly.

  ‘Nostalgia didn’t come into it,’ she stated shortly.

  ‘No, perhaps not, since it’s usually a response to things lost, or ended, and you still have Jones,’ Luke conceded cynically.

  ‘As a friend and colleague.’ Her fingers toyed with the ends of the fine saffron scarf she wore in her hair, a floppy bow peeping provocatively from her curls just below one ear.

  Luke didn’t trouble to hide his disbelief. ‘So if not nostalgia, what did it mean to you?’

  ‘Whatever it meant, you’re the l
ast person I’d share my thoughts and feelings with,’ Maria flared, suddenly infuriated by the open scepticism she saw glinting in his eyes.

  ‘Then share the facts,’ he invited her cynically. ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘Since my teens——’

  Maria broke off. Oh, God, why was she explaining like this, as if he had a right to know? He didn’t. He didn’t matter. She had decided that, hadn’t she?

  ‘When you discovered that you had things in common. What, precisely?’

  ‘An interest in radio and the fact that both his family and my own were recent immigrants to South Africa—and that’s all!’

  She despised herself for sounding so defensive, but perhaps if Luke understood he might leave her in peace. The bleak little idea diluted self-disgust, but then Maria saw that her explanation hadn’t caused his expression to soften.

  ‘Is he really worth it, Maria?’ His scorn remained intact, and remorseless. ‘I suppose you must think so, or you wouldn’t be here.’

  The weakness had passed and her chin rose. Explanations were for those who mattered to her.

  ‘I’m here because I wanted this job.’ Even that was an explanation of sorts, she realised belatedly. ‘And I’d like to get on with it now, if you don’t mind.’

  Luke regarded her in silence for several seconds before making an oddly restless gesture.

  ‘How is it going?’ he asked eventually, hostility not quite masked by the neutrality of the question.

  ‘I’m pleased with it,’ Maria responded warily, reminding herself that she worked for the man.

  ‘And you feel the people here are pleased with you?’ Luke probed.

  ‘I believe they are.’ She was cautiously confident. ‘Although it’s not so much I who has to please them as my ideas, since a lack of support would hamper or even prevent their implementation—but those I’ve already mooted have met with even less resistance than I anticipated.’

  ‘Why should you have anticipated any, if they’re good ideas?’

  Briefly, his interest was in her as a person with opinions and particular professional attitudes of her own, rather than as a female body he wanted to possess, and Maria responded with relief.