Ransacked Heart

by Jayne Bauling

  ‘Because any changes, however positive, require adjustment, and most people feel more comfortable with the familiar.’

  Luke inclined his head slightly, studying the tilted smile that indented one corner of her mouth.

  ‘And yours will be positive changes,’ he complimented her thoughtfully. ‘I particularly like the idea of your making yourself available for an hour once a week so that listeners can phone in with their criticisms, complaints and suggestions.’

  ‘And a little praise too once in a while, I hope, but I’ve learnt not to expect it.’ She laughed more naturally than she had in his presence before. ‘I started a similar scheme in Wellington, but then I did it at the same hour on the same day every week. Here I want to vary the times so that I hear from a true cross-section of our listeners, and those who listen to the graveyard shift, for instance, probably never hear the breakfast show. I’ll pick a different slot each week and get the jock on duty to announce that I’m doing it.’

  ‘Yes. It’s your plan to play at least one local release every hour that’s causing the real excitement,’ Luke went on.

  ‘As long as it’s up to the standard of all the other music we play and in line with what listeners’ tastes require us to provide, although opinions will inevitably vary regarding both criteria, especially as we’re a nonspecialist station with specialist programmes.’

  He had been watching the expressions that played across her face as she spoke, determination, enthusiasm and simple enjoyment in the challenges presented by her job.

  ‘You love radio, don’t you?’ he realised.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why radio?’

  ‘As opposed to the one with the pictures?’

  He smiled. ‘Radio is the old-fashioned medium.’

  ‘But it will never be obsolete.’ Maria was firm.

  ‘I wouldn’t be involved with so many stations if I thought it might,’ Luke told her drily. ‘How many people have referred to it as theatre or television of the mind? I’m a listener to all sorts of radio myself. I like the stimulation of being required to use my imagination.’

  ‘It reaches more people than other media too,’ she suggested, never averse to singing the praises of radio. ‘Especially in countries where there are large rural populations still living under Third World conditions, the transistor is usually among the most prized of possessions.’

  ‘And often a sole link with world events.’ Luke glanced at his watch. ‘You’ve never wanted to be behind a microphone, though, have you? You could. You have a good voice, fascinating, when you’re not furiously fighting the inevitable.’

  ‘Nothing is inevitable. No, I prefer…making radio work.’ Maria gestured expressively. ‘Management, producing—and I’ve even got some experience assisting studio engineers.’

  ‘Being in control?’ He gave her a contemplative look. ‘Lunch?’

  Maria looked at her own watch and then at him, the pleasure fading from her face. He wasn’t asking her because he wanted to discuss the station or prolong the more general conversation they had just shared. That disturbing sexual awareness marked his expression once more, and she felt an answering tug of reaction deep within her.

  ‘I’m going out with one of the jocks,’ she excused herself flatly. ‘He’s going to show me this museum he was telling me about. It’s got jade, ivory and lacquer art that’s over four thousand years old on display, he says.’

  ‘Not Jones this time, presumably?’ A derisive note was back in Luke’s voice. ‘Yes, Cavell tells me you’re receiving various invitations.’

  ‘Your spy?’ she gibed, recalling that Cavell had been with her when another DJ had telephoned to ask her out to a street market that only operated at night.

  ‘You’re using them, Maria,’ Luke condemned softly.

  ‘Do you blame me?’ she flared unthinkingly, unable to deny it.

  There was something cruel about the smile flickering around his mouth.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  Maria hesitated, her pride in revolt. To give him the satisfaction of hearing her agree that she was afraid——

  But she was afraid, of her own wild reaction to him, acutely conscious that he would be utterly merciless in taking advantage of it as long as he had no respect for her.

  ‘Not you, anyway, and fear doesn’t necessarily come into this at all,’ she prevaricated stiffly.

  A breath of laughter came from Luke. ‘You’re looking absolutely terrified right this minute. God, woman, what do you imagine I’m going to do? Chase you round the desk?’

  It was what he would do if he caught her that worried her, Maria reflected drily.

  ‘I’d scream for Penny if you did,’ she asserted sharply.

  ‘I don’t play those games—but I should tell you here and now that I’ll make you regret it if ever you try to involve anyone else in this,’ he warned her silkily, his grey eyes suddenly steely and intent. ‘But to answer your question, why should I blame you or otherwise? It’s not me you’re attempting to use, for whatever reason. But the others could well do a lot of blaming when they realise what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better warn them about me, then?’ The taunt was bitter.

  ‘What for? They’re experienced adults, not innocent young boys,’ Luke said dismissively. ‘Presumably they’re attracted to you, one way or another, so any warnings should come from you, and there’s only one that seems relevant in the circumstances. Have you told them they’ll have to wait their turn?’

  ‘Oh, right! All these men waiting in line to—to have me!’ Maria’s eyes blazed pure gold. ‘I’m starting to regret this desk here between us, Luke.’

  The flashing smile it elicited was wholly feral.

  ‘Come round and beat me up, then, Maria,’ he invited her. holding out a hand.

  But caution had reasserted itself, a direct response to his mockery. She knew how any contact between them, however aggressive, would end.

  ‘If other men are attracted to me, then they’re attracted to more of me than you are because they see more of me. They don’t limit themselves to a single aspect as you do, Luke.’ Her brilliant curls spun and swirled as she threw up her chin impetuously, the gesture one of unconscious pride, almost arrogance, as disdain hardened her face. ‘But then perhaps you’re limited anyway, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  Luke’s features seemed to reshape themselves momentarily, his expression become one of savage anger, and he had taken the first step of the few that would bring him round the desk to her before she saw him drag control back to himself.

  ‘But then they don’t yet know what you are. But I don’t think they really count for anything here except as some sort of shield you seem to think you require. But what about Florian Jones, Maria?’ Hostility twisted his smile. ‘What do you do for him?’

  Shock assailed her as she made the discovery that his insults did not merely provoke anger; they had the power to distress. But then just looking at Luke actually hurt her, as did the mere sound of his voice, over and above the contemptuous content of what he said. The ache was in her chest, tight and hard, reminding her of icy winter days in Johannesburg long ago, when you laboured painfully to drag the rarefied air into your lungs at that high altitude.

  ‘More than I’d ever be interested in doing for someone as one-dimensional as you are.’ It was biting, but she was censoring herself instinctively now, because Florian’s personality was truly one-dimensional, albeit in another way, and the only thing she had ever given him was the degree of tolerance his peculiar genius made his due. ‘It really is a classic version of the old story, isn’t it? You’re only interested in one thing!’

  A whiplash smile acknowledged the theatricality of her tone.

  ‘What else is there? But perhaps it’s more a question of what I can do for you?’

  ‘Not a damned thing!’

  ‘A liar as well,’ Luke commented caustically. ‘We both know what we can do for
each other, so why all this frantic resistance, when it’s obviously fraying your nerves? Are you just naturally contrary? This time I’ve got no crazy, pointless altruism restraining me, and you must long since have discarded whatever distorted idealism made you believe you had to be faithful to Jones in fact and thought, since you claim to have had at least one other relationship between your spells with him. We’re free to indulge what’s between us, to let it run its course, so why not accept the inevitable?’

  For a moment Maria’s shining head drooped, a bright flower bowing to elements beyond its strength. Was it inevitable?

  Then she looked at Luke again, and hurt was an intrinsic part of her response to him now, a relentless ache that went on and on, without respite.

  ‘Why?’ she repeated his question passionately. ‘Do you seriously need to ask, Luke? When you speak to me as you do, implying that I’m——And why not say what you mean anyway? There are lots of plain old-fashioned words I can think of right now, going back to the Bible, some of them.’

  ‘They don’t necessarily apply to you except very loosely. It’s waste I despise, that and self-deception. But what is it you resent so much, Maria? The fact that I’m not blind where you’re concerned? I can’t pretend to be, and you know it, so what do you want? Some sort of courtship? Do you think you deserve it? Must I fake an interest in your mind——?’

  ‘I don’t want anything from you, Luke!’

  Alarm rose in response to the dark, angry glitter her defiant claim brought to his eyes, and as he began to move towards her, Maria also moved, whirling past him as he came round the desk.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ A hand shot out to stop her.

  ‘To open the door for you so you can leave.’ Blistering rage gripped her.

  She had been just past Luke when he had caught at her, and now his arms came round her from behind, drawing her back against him, and the response she dreaded was already weakening her as the warmth of him transmitted itself to her.

  ‘I’ll leave when I’m ready. Fight this if you feel you have to, Maria, but don’t lie about it so crassly. You’re not even deceiving yourself, are you? You want me.’

  ‘No——’

  But she was too distracted to complete the denial, and the breathlessness afflicting her made it unconvincing. Still behind her, Luke had bent his head and had been murmuring his taunts close to one ear, while the strong arms he had bound about her waist were tightening securely, making her captivity a torment. Her awareness of the hard body at her back was unbearably acute, and a shivering sigh shook her, but she didn’t know if it was governed by despair or surrender.

  ‘No?’

  Fascination held her still and silent as she watched the slow, deliberate passage of the hand that moved across and down, over her stomach, the snowy whiteness of her skirt emphasising the rich coppery depth of his tan. Then she was closing her eyes in an agony of resistance, as if making that hand invisible could prevent what she knew was going to happen.

  An aching pause, and he was cupping her intimately; a finger stirred, casually contemptuous, and a shudder convulsed her, a violent response, turning her rigid. Luke’s fingers flexed once and were relaxed, and a bitter hunger was flooding her.

  ‘Sex!’

  She was tearing herself away from him and spinning round to face him, a storm in her eyes that was only part fury.

  ‘What else?’ Luke countered, his expression unexpectedly grim instead of triumphant.

  ‘And you expect me to give in to it, to some biological urge?’ Anger enabled her to see clearly now and drove her straight to the relevant point, eschewing futile denials. ‘Do you think I have no pride?’

  ‘Pride?’ He dismissed it with a faint, scornful laugh as he moved towards the door. ‘We all have it in some degree, but it’s hardly necessary as a restraint here. Where desire, or anything else for that matter, is mutual, there can be no humiliation, no abuse of power. God, do you think I’d come near you, talk to you about it, touch you, if I didn’t know for a certainty that you want me as badly as I do you?’

  Knowledge replacing anger forced silence on Maria. Yes, she had recognised pride as an intrinsic component of his personal make-up, and the fact that it could permit him to ignore or override her resistance, her hostility, her hatred, was probably the true measure of his confidence in her ultimate surrender. He knew what he did to her. He had even known six years ago, before she herself had identified what ailed her in his presence then.

  ‘You want to punish me,’ she stated woodenly.

  ‘You’ve mentioned punishment before, so perhaps you think you deserve it.’ He stirred restlessly. ‘That’s not what I want, Maria, and even if I did, what do you think I am? I want you and I believe you owe me, but wanting you hasn’t unbalanced me to the extent you seem to believe. Squandering yourself on a man like Jones isn’t an actual crime, and I don’t have the right to punish it.’

  ‘You do it with words, though, or you try to. The constant references to…to what you believe of me——’ Maria halted fleetingly, abandoning the pointless once more, and then said the only thing he really needed to hear, simply and directly, without attempting to clothe it in sophistication. ‘I won’t steep with a man who doesn’t respect me.’

  ‘And a man you hate, don’t forget,’ he reminded her mockingly.

  ‘Yes!’ Her eyes blazed. ‘Did you really think I might have forgotten? I’ll never forget, Luke!’

  ‘Or forgive. I meant to ask you,’ he added. ‘Did you know your father was dying when you left Johannesburg?’

  ‘Yes, damn you!’

  Anguish coloured her voice as she recalled the dilemma that had confronted her, but no compunction softened Luke’s countenance.

  ‘Then I didn’t do that to you, Maria, as you claimed the other night. You could have chosen to stay in Johannesburg.’

  ‘But not in radio,’ she asserted resentfully, her eyes dropping momentarily as the simple truth awoke old guilt.

  ‘It would presumably have been only a temporary interruption to your career,’ he pointed out mercilessly.

  ‘God, do you think I don’t know that——?’

  Maria broke off angrily. She had dealt with the guilt years ago and put it behind her, but here he was, reviving it with his ruthless logic. She needed to remember that he himself had been responsible for her having had to face that terrible choice in the first place.

  ‘As you say,’ he taunted, and lifted a hand to the door-handle. ‘Friday night. Cavell says you’ve been invited to the awards ceremony, and she’s asked the organisers to seat us together. I’ll fetch you.’

  ‘What else does Cavell say?’ Maria demanded tempestuously, hatred fully alive again now. ‘Does she know what’s going on—why you’re doing this?’

  ‘The personal aspect of this has nothing to do with Cavell. I’ll be seeing you.’

  Luke was ruthlessly dismissive, utterly without conscience, and she could welcome this further evidence of his hypocrisy because it reinforced resistance.

  But as he stood there a few seconds more, holding her eyes relentlessly, Maria was assailed by a sense of what her fate would be like if ever she was weak enough to succumb to the dark, dangerous attraction he held for her.

  Florian had referred blithely to Luke’s owning them, with regard to his interest in the radio station, when in fact he was liberal in the extent of the leeway he allowed them, but in a personal relationship, she knew with sudden bone-deep conviction, his ownership would be total. He would demand and take—everything. Physical possession would be emotional pillage, her identity, free will and pride the spoils he claimed for himself.

  She shivered, only inwardly, but Luke must have sensed her recognition of these realities, because satisfaction stamped his face as he opened the door and left her.

  ‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?’ Penny Seu Chen murmured with mischievous lasciviousness, drifting into Maria’s office less than a minute later.

  She
was nineteen, the age Maria had been when she had first felt the power of Luke’s attraction, and Maria regarded her with ironic envy, wishing she could have reacted as insouciantly, her awe and admiration as impersonal as Penny’s, Luke confined to some remote pedestal along with other out-of-reach heroes, contact undreamed-of.

  ‘I think he’s dangerous,’ she said drily.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A NEW dilemma had begun to torment Maria.

  To tell Luke the truth, somehow force him to accept that she had never been involved with Florian in the way he imagined, might just possibly put an end to his—his persecution of her.

  She knew that, but pride made her reluctant to even try—yet she thought she might have to. On the one hand, it would mean she was letting Luke and his opinions matter to her, but shouldn’t she herself, her own peace of mind, matter too?

  She was no longer sure if she could afford to consider just one particular aspect of her pride when there were other far more vulnerable areas, capable of sustaining appalling damage.

  To make Luke listen to her—could she do it? Should she?

  She was still unsure on the Friday night when she sat beside Luke at a table shared with Giles and Ursula Estwick and a famous local actress married to a slightly less famous politician, in one of Taipei’s luxury hotels, the massive second-floor chamber in which the televised awards ceremony was taking place officially and quaintly designated the Ballroom.

  ‘No ball has ever been held here,’ Luke told Maria laconically. ‘It’s used mostly for conventions, and occasionally for events such as this, as well as cabaret and supper-theatre runs.’

  In public he was urbane, and no one could have guessed that their presence here together was dictated by anything other than professional considerations.

  ‘Awards ceremonies seem to adhere to more or less the same format the world over,’ Maria commented, betraying slight disappointment. ‘Successive pairs of celebrities, one to open the envelope and read out the winner’s name, the other to hand over the bauble, live audience and viewers and listeners at home making fun of the acceptance speeches—brevity is brilliance—and executive types rolled out to ramble on about each different category, with entertainment acts in between.’