‘What made you suddenly decide it was over?’ she asked unevenly. ‘On Friday night, Luke?’
He faced her again, his smile a travesty.
‘If you remember, you had told me it was over and I was…persuading you that it wasn’t,’ he reminded her unwillingly. ‘Then suddenly I just couldn’t take it any longer—the knowledge that the only effect I had on you was sexual, the only way I could influence you was physically, whereas you loved Jones, as I thought; your relationship with him was emotional…Of course, as I now know, that doesn’t apply, but the rest still stands. It isn’t—it wasn’t enough. I want…wanted it all or, in the end, I found I wanted nothing, although I’d originally thought I could be satisfied with something.’
‘Luke——’ Shaken, desperately needing to know
the cause of such possessiveness, Maria lifted a hand and then let it fall helplessly.
‘Additionally, you’d recently started being kind, or tender,’ Luke resumed disgustedly, rejection suddenly blazing in his eyes. ‘I couldn’t bear it, that tenderness that came across so like loving. It mocked me, but at the same time I knew I was in danger of surrendering to it, that damned semblance of what I wanted—I was being weakened by it, seduced into yielding to your power over me, and it’s so much more comprehensive than my one-dimensional influence on you. I didn’t want to have to face up to how completely…I am
yours——And damn it, I’ve told you I don’t expect
you to spare me, but I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to stand here baring my soul in order to make you feel better and less of a victim! I can walk away.’
Acting on it, he turned away again, and Maria went after him, knocking her shin against the coffee-table in her haste. She caught up with him beside the telephone.
‘Luke, wait!’ The entreaty was breathless and she hesitated, trying to shape words with which to express the single, vital question suddenly hammering away at her mind. ‘Please…help me. I need you to tell me, to explain——’
‘I’m sorry, I’d like to help you, but I just can’t,’ Luke cut ruthlessly into her stammering plea. ‘You’ll get over it. You’re resilient and intelligent enough to be able to see it for what it was. Right now I’m far more in need of help than you, so I can’t afford to consider your needs.’
‘Then let me,’ she urged agitatedly, touching his bare forearm with gentle fingers. ‘Luke…Oh, I’m not sure! But maybe I can. Can’t you…? Can’t we——?’
Luke had tensed as she touched him, and after a few seconds he flung her hand off, the violence of the gesture silencing her abruptly.
‘Don’t do that, Maria! I don’t want your kindness. How many times do I have to tell you I can’t stand it?’ he demanded stormily. ‘I can’t bear it when you touch me like that!’
Maria had been feeling more vulnerable than she had ever done in her life, but now she lost her temper.
‘I’m not being kind when I touch you like that, you bastard! You don’t deserve kindness!’ It was tempestuously emphatic.
‘Then——’
‘I’m being loving,’ she added the truth passionately. ‘You don’t deserve that either, damn you, but there it is. I can’t help it…Oh, Luke, what’s wrong?’
Emotion had darkened his eyes almost to black, shocking her, but otherwise he kept his expression rigidly controlled.
‘Are you serious?’ he asked tautly.
‘I suppose you need Florian Jones to convince you of this as well?’ she snapped with furious derision.
‘How, Maria?’ Ignoring the mockery, Luke’s demand was quietly intense. ‘When you’ve been so resentful of what was between us—so ashamed of it? Because you were the one who kept going on about the need to keep it secret. You said you didn’t want your friends and colleagues here knowing about us.’
Maria’s anger abated as she realised how much the answer meant to him.
‘I said that to…to get back at you, because I thought you were ashamed of it,’ she admitted, beginning to feel slightly guilty. ‘It was petty, I know. All the other times were just a way of reminding myself of the realities and provoking you at the same time. I was ashamed of myself, you see. I hated myself for letting you control my life when you despised me.’
‘You hated me as well,’ he reminded her warily.
But he was lifting a hand, sliding it beneath the satiny brightness of her curls, long fingers spreading and his thumb brushing gently across her cheek. Unaccustomed to such tenderness from this man who had so rarely shown her anything but contempt and passion, Maria found herself beginning to tremble, while a hot, smarting sensation afflicted her eyes and emotion tightened her throat.
‘For a long time I thought I did,’ she confided softly ‘I kept trying to find all sorts of reasons for doing so. The first time we made love, I started out believing I hated you, but when we…by the end I knew I didn’t really, and that I loved you. Then for a while I tried loving and hating you all at once, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t. The love was too much…I haven’t been able to make myself believe I hate you for some time now, Luke.’
‘Ah, God, Maria!’ Luke breathed achingly.
She lifted a hand to his, her fingers curving lovingly over the back of his wrist.
‘Only it was never really hatred,’ she went on shakily. ‘I was always frightened of the way I felt, I think because I knew without really understanding it that you could…you could own me, Luke. I feared that, but I must always have wanted it too, because when you had me dismissed from that job——Oh, I hated that, I hated not being able to see you any more, but I thought it was you I hated. I found all sorts of reasons for it, like not being there when my father died. I never understood until I came to Taipei and we met again, when I started to realise why I’d always reacted so strongly to you. At first, when I did, I thought it was purely a physical dependence I’d been afraid of, because I was so slow to understand. It was even worse when I realised that it was more than that. I think I’ve always loved you, Luke.’
His thumb continued to stroke back and forth over her cheek as he regarded her sombrely.
‘You’re right, Maria, I don’t deserve——’
‘Luke!’ she broke in urgently, suddenly shaking so badly she could hardly stand. ‘Please! I need to know,
I need you to tell me if——All the things you’ve told
me, everything you’ve felt and wanted. Was it just possessiveness, wanting it all, all of me, or…? Please tell me!’
‘Oh, my God, weren’t you sure when you——?’
Luke broke off without completing the shocked question, the appalled look in his eyes gradually giving way to contrition as he stared at her. ‘Then you’re braver than I am, my darling. I love you, Maria. I’ve always loved you, from when I first saw you in South Africa, and without even knowing a thing about you, since you could never bring yourself to utter a word when I was around. I never doubted what I was feeling, but I was shocked when it didn’t fade over the years, and I went through phases of trying to convince myself that it was some sort of obsession, a perverse desire for the one woman I believed I could never have—or not in the way I wanted you, loving me as well as wanting me.’
He sounded so rueful that her heart clenched, and she lowered her hand, sliding both arms loosely about him.
‘Oh, Luke——’ she began, but she couldn’t continue, choking on emotion.
‘What can I say, Maria?’ he asked, his features tightening as he saw the tears standing in her eyes. ‘I thought you loved Jones—that’s why I’ve treated you as I have. You must have realised that I resented him.’
‘I thought it was just sexual jealousy,’ she acknowledged.
‘No, I think I’ve got my priorities right,’ Luke told her, lifting his other hand to her head. ‘You could have had a hundred casual affairs, and I’d have adjusted to them somehow and tried to make you fall in love with me, but the thought that you’d loved someone else and still loved him, because it seemed
to have gone on over the years, periodically resumed…Ah, God!’
He fell silent, but his face was shadowed by the memory of a very personal anguish, and Maria could be grateful for the merciful ignorance that had carried her through those same six years in which he had been so haunted.
‘If I’d known why it mattered so much to you I’d have tried harder to make you accept the truth,’ she said, yielding to her own regrets for a moment. ‘I wish I’d known, Luke.’
‘And if I had known, even just that you were free to love me if I could persuade you to, I wouldn’t have been so—’ Breaking off, Luke was once again silent for several seconds. ‘But I began this without any hope whatsoever of winning the one thing I wanted above all others because I thought it was already given, and what I took in compensation merely made me want it more and resent its absence, because I kept loving you more and more. God! When I think that every time I rejected your tenderness, it was your love I was rejecting——’
‘It doesn’t matter any more, Luke,’ Maria stopped him gently. ‘We can make it up to each other now, can’t we?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled suddenly, and she caught her breath.
‘We love each other,’ she realised anew, wonder in her voice.
‘So what now?’ he asked with a slight uneven laugh.
‘We have a future,’ she stated confidently.
‘Yes.’
Luke’s hands were cradling her head and he was kissing her all over her face with an adoring tenderness she would never have dreamed was possible. For a short time she stood still and silent, scarcely breathing as she revelled in the novelty of his tenderness, but presently her body started stirring in response to the warmth of his mouth, a new sweetness to her desire.
‘Luke,’ she whispered yearningly, moving closer to him. ‘My darling?’
‘I’m not sure how long I can continue this way right now,’ he muttered shakily. ‘You see, I want to make love to you and be able to tell you I love you and hear you say you love me while it’s happening.’
‘I was thinking I’d like exactly the same thing,’ she confessed, giving him a radiant smile. ‘And there’ll be other times…’
There would be times for tenderness, and one such time came later, in the aftermath of passion enriched by the knowledge of love, a bonus as they lay touching each other languidly and lovingly, luxuriating in the freedom of being able to express their feelings in this alternative way, confidently but without urgency.
‘One thing disappoints me,’ Maria mentioned mischievously against Luke’s shoulder.
‘What?’
‘Back there in the lift earlier you didn’t instantly and gallantly leap to my defence and punch Florian on the nose when he was carrying on about how undesirable I am!’
Luke laughed, the movement shaking her gently. ‘I was too riveted by what I was learning, but I’ll do it next time I see him, if you insist, only…I never thought the day would come when I’d feel sorry for the man, but I do. If he’s never caught his breath at the sight of your crooked smile, or felt his heart lurch with love at the sound of your voice, or watched you walk across a room and wanted you and finally found out that you return his feelings, then he’s a poor man and I’m the richest man in the world. Maria?’
‘Yes?’
‘I want more than just weekends.’ His hand smoothed her curls away from her face.
‘Me too,’ she murmured happily.
‘I want to marry you,’ he went on.
‘I was beginning to think I might have to be the one to raise the question,’ she returned demurely.
‘No, the next question is yours.’
‘A family?’
‘If you want one, I’d love it, but I was thinking of more immediate practical considerations.’
Luke had tensed very slightly, and Maria smiled.
‘Oh, Luke, a radio station is only a radio station, and there are plenty all around the world, but there’s only one Luke Scott.’ She laughed as she felt him relax. ‘Didn’t you know, you fool? Of course, there’s the question of my present contract, but I feel sure I can bribe the boss into helping me get out of it without too much hassle.’
‘That will depend on what you’ve got to offer him,’ Luke responded, wickedly challenging.
‘I’II show you in a little while, my darling—as if you don’t already have a very good idea!’ laughed Maria.
‘We’ll work something out,’ he promised her.
Their eyes met, sheer delight in each other in both pairs, and then Luke was kissing her on the mouth with so much loving tenderness that she couldn’t speak for quite a while.
There would be other practical problems for them to discuss later, she knew, but she was confident that she and Luke would solve them all.
Together, they couldn’t fail.
ISBN 978-14592-6261-4
RANSACKED HEART
First North American Publication 1998.
Copyright© 1993 by Jayne Bauling
All rights reserved Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention
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