Luke didn’t pursue it, but he wore a slightly grim expression as they walked on in silence.
Her hatred—if it had even been that—had turned out to be as intensely personal as her love and an intrinsic part of it, Maria acknowledged privately. It had been born of an instinctive recognition of the damage he could do to her emotional independence and, paradoxically, exacerbated by the way he had deprived her of himself by having her dismissed from that job; finally there had been his open contempt when they had met again…
She felt depressed, suspecting that her quip about rot setting in had held more than a few grains of truth. Relationships were difficult things, to be worked at, and how could any survive when the love in it came from one side only? An end was inevitable.
But not yet, please!
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I DON’T know how much longer we can hope to keep this a clandestine relationship,’ Luke said sardonically one Friday night when the immediate edge of the savage hunger for each other that built up during their partings had been soothed by a wildly abandoned reunion. ‘Jones and Nicky Kai were leaving the building when I arrived this evening, and as Jones seemed to imagine that I was here to call on him I simply explained that you were the object of my presence.’
‘The sex object,’ quipped Maria, a sweet clenching sensation assailing her loins as she reflected on the helplessness of her response to his torrid lovemaking, resentment rising a second later because she still lacked any semblance of control over their relationship. ‘I don’t think you need to worry, Luke. Florian is too unimaginative to make anything of it. He probably just assumed that you were seeing me in connection with my work.’
‘You could always lie to that effect if he does happen to ask you about it,’ Luke suggested harshly.
She stiffened beside him in the darkness, absorbing the bitter truth. Luke was still so ashamed of wanting her, of his inability to deny himself, that he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone, even someone like Florian, for whom he had absolutely no respect, knowing about their affair.
‘I’ve told you, he won’t. He’s too self-centred,’ she snapped. ‘The world revolves around Florian, and anything that doesn’t involve him doesn’t interest him for long either. The only people he really feels any curiosity about are his listeners——’
‘Do we have to have him here in bed with us?’ Luke interrupted, shifting irritably.
‘You introduced the subject,’ Maria defended herself angrily.
‘I mentioned meeting him,’ he corrected her impatiently. ‘But an in-depth analysis of the man’s character is the last thing I want, and damned tasteless in the circumstances.’
‘But what are the circumstances?’ she challenged tauntingly.
‘Right now you’re in bed with me, Maria, not with Florian Jones,’ he reminded her cuttingly.
Furious, she sat up. ‘I wish to God I wasn’t!’
‘Tell me to leave, then.’
He had been lying on his back, some distance away from her as usual, but as he spoke he turned on to his side, reaching out and laying a hand lightly across the smoothness of one slender thigh. Humiliated, Maria felt her nipples grow instantly turgid and experienced again that inner sensation of warmth and weakness. The breath she drew sounded like a sob.
‘You know I can’t, damn you,’ she conceded anguishedly, appalled by her vulnerability as he drew her down into his arms. ‘And I hate it! I hate the way you control this whole thing…and now you’re even demanding control over the subjects we talk about!’
‘We can talk about anything you please,’ he dismissed the protest indifferently, but then the hand that had slid up to her hip tightened possessively. ‘Only Jones is banned. I won’t have him here in bed with us.’
Later, when they lay quiet and apart once more, Maria thought about his attitude, adding it to the oddly driven way in which he had just made love to her. He had been fiercely possessive, racked by an agony of passionate wanting and yet somehow retaining sufficient control to assert his mastery, denying her fulfilment, waiting until she was almost weeping with desire, as if he needed to hear her husky throbbing pleas confirming his dominion in the relationship.
He was jealous of Florian, she accepted, but she could take little comfort or encouragement from the knowledge, except in so far as it meant that he wasn’t ready to put an end to their affair quite yet.
It was only sexual jealousy that he felt, after all, because he had convinced himself that she and Florian had been lovers and probably would be again when this was over. It was a common enough phenomenon, an atavistic instinct with little connection to real emotion.
Nevertheless, it awoke an unexpected flood of tenderness towards him in her, because it made him so very human, this man of whom she had once been so deeply in awe and whose power over her still unnerved her when she reflected on the realities of their relationship.
Inevitably, Luke was lying turned away from her. Immobile, the shape of him was just discernible in the darkness of the bedroom. With the slightest of sighs, Maria put out a hand, her fingers still loosely curled into her palm. The sheet was pulled up only as far as his hip, so that backs of her fingers touched his bare back, warm and still slightly damp.
She had thought he was asleep, realising that he wasn’t only when she felt him tense under the light touch of her fingers, but as he neither moved away nor said a word, she let them remain there, resting lightly against him, the contact lax and undemanding.
After half a minute, however, the tenderness still engulfing her compelled her to move closer, the satin softness of her curls slithering across his skin as she touched him gently with her lips, touch becoming kiss as a wave of simple love for him washed through her.
The passionless but overwhelmingly tender and adoring tribute turned Luke’s tension to absolute rigidity.
‘Cut it out, Maria,’ he ordered her curtly after a few seconds in which he seemed to hold his breath.
She recoiled from the blatant rejection in his voice, snatching hand and mouth away and flinging herself angrily on to her back. Hot tears made her eyes smart, infuriating her still further, and she took a moment or two to try and control a surge of pure emotional misery.
‘It’s the same thing again, isn’t it? You have to be in control of everything that’s between us,’ she accused him defiantly. ‘I have some rights here too, Luke. I can touch you if I want to.’
‘Not——’ He broke off abruptly.
‘You touch me whenever you feel like it,’ she swept on resentfully.
‘Only when I want to make love to you, and that isn’t what you’ve got in mind right now, is it?’
‘I wanted to be close,’ Maria asserted shakily, uncaring in her agony of how much she revealed.
‘I can’t!’ he grated harshly.
‘Don’t you——?’ She couldn’t continue.
‘No. You ask too much. Don’t!’
She subsided wordlessly, wondering ironically how many times it was possible for the same heart to break before there was nothing left of it. At least when that happened, she would stop feeling his rejection so poignantly—stop caring about the fact that she disgusted him so much that he didn’t want anything to do with her except sexually, and that against his will and to the damage of his self-respect.
He didn’t want to be close—to her.
Self-respect. Pride. They were things both of them had sacrificed to this relationship which she was beginning to understand was destructive to both of them.
Perhaps it was her own pride reawakening after all these weeks which prompted her to defy Luke’s distaste, albeit only after she was sure he was asleep, moving up close to his back again, lifting an arm and curving it loosely over the side of his body.
Of course, he flung her off when he woke in the morning. Her own sleep the light, fragmented prewaking kind by this time, Maria realised what was happening at once and merely gave him a sleepily complacent smile, pleased to see the disturbance in his
eyes as he regarded her suspiciously.
‘Yes, all night,’ she confirmed tauntingly as realisation tightened his features.
She didn’t care, she discovered. She loved Luke, but she didn’t care if she had offended him. He deserved it. He had controlled thier relationship for too long, dictating its terms. From now on, she would touch him in any way she pleased, even when neither of them was feeling sexy, because she would still be feeling loving—for as long as the affair lasted.
For the first time, in place of wondering apprehensively when Luke would tire of her, she began to believe that she might be the one to end their liaison, reviving pride rebelling before his lust had faded. It would hurt to do it, to be without him, but she would have to if this went on too long, or he would destroy her emotionally, because she would have nothing left when he did finally tire of her.
But not yet!
Her body was stirring in response to the warmth of his, and Luke was becoming aroused in his turn.
For a moment, as he bent over her, she looked up at him, her parted lips soft and full, and, as had happened in the night, she felt a welter of emotion rising, swamping her heart.
She lifted a hand, touching the hard slope of his dark cheek with gentle fingers, then the arrogant curve of his nose and the darkness of his unshaven jaw.
Recognising the tenderness inherent in the small caresses, Luke looked momentarily distracted. Then his eyes grew hard.
‘You expect too much of me, Maria,’ he told her tautly. ‘I don’t…I can’t respond to that.’
‘I know,’ she allowed with a mocking little smile, painfully aware that she could not control what was about to happen but planning more of the same for later, since he found it so unwelcome, her small revenge.
But later that morning Luke was in one of the relaxed moods she was beginning to like so much, helping her move some recently purchased pots and tubs of plants about her balcony, asking questions, laughing at her description of her mongrel ancestry—Irish, Scottish, English, Portuguese and Italian, and intrigued to learn that she spoke Portuguese.
‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with my single Portuguese ancestor, I’m ashamed to say,’ she explained. ‘It’s just that after we went to live in South Africa it seemed a sensible choice for a third language, as the only non-English-speaking countries among the front line states are Mozambique and Angola.’
‘Of course, Taiwan has a Portuguese connection dating back to the days when it was Formosa, but you won’t have found any opportunity to air it these days. How fluent are you?’ Luke leaned back against the balcony railing, regarding her with bright eyes. ‘I have a part interest, about to become sole if negotiations continue as I expect them to, in a tiny Portuguese-language radio station in Macau. Perhaps we should transfer you and utilise your talents there.’
Superficial contentment was stripped away, exposing the raw resentment beneath, because she knew he didn’t mean it seriously.
‘Isn’t Macau a little close to Hong Kong? Think of the potential for embarrassment,’ she jeered quietly, playing his game, and meeting his suddenly remote gaze. ‘You’re never too old to rock’n’roll, as the myth has it, but I’ve thought I should try something a little more serious than a commercial music station when I move on again. I’m twenty-five now. AIR in Delhi has always attracted radio people from all over the world. All India Radio. There wouldn’t be any problem if I was offered a position. I’ve got two passports, the same as Florian.’
She hadn’t intended to introduce Florian’s name, and she caught her breath nervously as the unthinking words emerged, but for once Luke didn’t react.
‘Just remember that your contract commits you to us for two years,’ he said coolly.
Maria swallowed, her throat aching.
‘But not to you personally, Luke,’ she reminded him sharply, turning and walking inside.
It was ten minutes before he followed her, finding her in the kitchen apparently listening to a mid-Saturday morning news flash on the radio there with blankeyed concentration. He listened to a baseball update and waited for the sponsor’s commercial before turning to her.
‘What’s happening, Maria?’ he asked tautly.
‘I don’t know.’ She moved her hands agitatedly, her angry resentment unhidden. ‘Maybe…maybe it’s beginning to…wind down now, Luke. Us.’
He was briefly silent, and they both gave a moment’s attention to the incongruity of a particularly poignant song succeeding the somewhat crass commercial.
Then, moving towards her, he said abruptly, ‘We’ve still got this.’
‘I don’t feel like it,’ lied Maria, pushing his hand away from her waist quickly before the madness could rise again. ‘I…I want to go out for lunch.’
It was a defiant challenge, and he met it with a frown. ‘I suppose we could go to the Grand Hotel. No one from the station is likely to be there Saturday lunchtime—too formal.’
The possibility of their affair becoming known to others really haunted him! Maria lifted a hand to hit him, but he looked so grimly reluctant that her fingers had uncurled before they reached his chest, touching him lightly before moving up to the lock of black hair that had fallen over his tanned brow.
As she might have anticipated, Luke stepped away from the gentleness of the gesture immediately, and her face grew as closed as his had suddenly become.
‘I’II have to change,’ she said flatly, glancing down at her shorts and turning away.
She wished he could love her!
But he didn’t. She sometimes wondered if he ever gave her a thought between departing from Taipei early on Monday mornings and his Friday evening returns. He never contacted her during the times they were apart, so perhaps he was able to divorce his professional life from his sex life, compartmentalising them in a way she couldn’t. Luke was seldom out of her mind, and the solitary nights she spent were a torment, her bed too big without his presence, the apartment too still and silent.
Somehow, after that, they succeeded in restoring a semblance of what counted as normality in their relationship to the weekend, and it passed without further conflict.
But Maria knew their affair had to end, and soon. If Luke wouldn’t or couldn’t walk away, she would have to be the one. It couldn’t go on. Their mutual dependence was destroying Luke as much as her. No man could go on indulging himself with something he despised and not lose something vital to his integral self.
Taiwan suffered one of its periodic earthquakes early on the Tuesday of the following week, mercifully less severe than many and leaving Taipei itself badly rocked but suffering only superficial damage and few casualties.
However, reports of severe damage and high casualty figures began to come in from communities situated closer to the ‘quake’s epicentre, and they learned that the emergency services were bringing many of the most badly injured victims in to the capital. Maria made the decision to sacrifice a certain amount of advertising revenue and turn the radio station into a temporary community service, as other stations and television channels were doing, monitoring the situation and providing updates, broadcasting official government warnings and advice to those districts likely to be affected by after-shocks and urging their local listenership to donate blood against a possible depletion of existing supplies.
In the early afternoon she and Florian, with two more of their disc jockeys and a number of other public figures, were variously photographed setting an example, the situation being sufficiently dramatic without being overly traumatic to have induced a general spirit of camaraderie.
That evening, when she was back in her office, Maria’s heart jumped stupidly, betrayed by crazy hope, when Luke walked in.
Then she forced herself to face prosaic reality. She guessed that the earthquake was responsible for his presence, since flights in and out of Taipei were functioning normally again already, but whatever concern had brought him was unlikely to be personal. He was here in his professional capacity, doing the same thing a
s she was, in essence, as she was planning to remain in the building to offer moral support to any of the staff who might need it, faced with the unaccustomed demands of this minor crisis.
He was merely being a responsible employer.
‘Are you all right?’ he demanded, and Maria made the shocked discovery that the mere sound of his voice could still make her pulses leap and race, and her heart clench with love and longing.
‘We’re all fine, there’s no damage to the building and we’ve been able to continue broadcasting without interruption,’ she assured him, her voice sharp as resentment rose, and she went on to inform him of the decision she had taken.
‘I assumed you’d do something of the sort. The lost revenue will come back to us,’ he added cynically. ‘This sort of thing can actually work out to a station’s ultimate advantage if handled correctly, which it has been, since you’ve shown us to be flexible and public-spirited. But what about you?’
‘What about me?’ Maria retorted. ‘I think I can cope with any problems that might arise, Mr Scott.’
The lift of his eyebrows was sardonically interrogative. ‘Why the formality, Miss McFadden?’
‘We’re not at the apartment,’ she reminded him, bitter mockery curving her mouth. ‘Penny is in and out every few minutes at present, and we don’t want her to guess that we’re more than just owner and programme manager, do we?’
Anger flickered in his eyes. ‘I hardly think the use of first names is likely to start her speculating about us.’
‘Then how about the way you were so careful to shut the door when you came in?’ she challenged wildly.
‘I’d have done that anyway, whoever you were,’ he returned dismissively, but derision glinted in his eyes as he went on, ‘What’s worrying you, Maria? I’m not about to risk giving the game away by making love to you here and now. I haven’t even kissed you, have I?’
He could hurt her with so little, she reflected, realising that she was finding it more and more difficult to keep hatred alive as a counterbalance to love. It was as if the love had grown too strong lately, absorbing the hatred, and it could swallow her too if she didn’t do something about it soon. The hatred had imparted strength of a kind; the love weakened her.
Ransacked Heart Page 13
