Knight's Possession

by Carole Mortimer

  The savage couldn’t be denied in him now, and Laurel looked at him unflinchingly. ‘Would you expect your father to be jealous of you?’ she murmured.

  His eyes widened. ‘Of course not. What sort of question is that?’

  She shrugged, tired beyond imagining, not understanding the way Dan had kept in touch with her mother and not with her. ‘A valid one,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Valid? But—’ His eyes narrowed now. ‘Who is he, Laurel?’ he asked in a hushed voice.

  She drew in a ragged breath. ‘When my mother and father got married it was his second marriage…’

  ‘He had a son from his previous marriage?’ Reece realised in a strangulated voice.

  She nodded wordlessly. For eleven years Dan had been her adored older brother, not seeming to mind when she tagged along with him and his friends when they went out, that he was often expected to baby-sit for her when he got older. And then had come the divorce. Laurel hadn’t been able to believe it when her parents told her she was to stay with her mother and Dan was to go with his father. A brother and sister couldn’t be parted in that cruel way, she had screamed at them. But Dan wasn’t really her brother, only her half-brother, and the law said he had to go to his father. She had pleaded and begged to go with them but it had got her nowhere, and when her father moved to America a year later he had taken Dan with him, severing all contact between them except the letters that had become stilted and finally stopped altogether. Laurel had run away from her mother half a dozen times after that and had to be brought back each time; hating her mother so much she could barely speak to her. And she still hated her.

  ‘Dan is your brother,’ Reece said incredulously.

  ‘Half-brother,’ she corrected bitterly. ‘That distinction made all the difference at the divorce.’

  He swallowed hard, refilling her glass with brandy as she held it between numb fingers. ‘He went with your father?’

  ‘Of course he went with my father,’ she snapped, glaring at him.

  ‘Darling—’

  ‘Don’t!’ She stood up, avoiding his hands as he would have reached for her. ‘I don’t like to be touched!’ she spat out.

  Reece became suddenly still, his eyes deeply golden. ‘Laurel, Amanda had no claim on him—’

  ‘She didn’t want him anyway,’ her voice rose heatedly. ‘Just as she didn’t want me!’

  He shook his head. ‘If that were true the court could easily have given you to your father.’

  ‘Keeping me was a way of getting back at him for their failed marriage,’ Laurel insisted.

  ‘You don’t know that—’

  ‘I know that she never once cuddled me or told me she loved me after Daddy and Dan left, that she kept moving me from home to home, that somehow it was always my toys that got “lost” in those moves. I know that she was relieved when Daddy and Dan went to America so that I couldn’t see them any more.’ Her voice broke emotionally, never having forgotten how her mother had said ‘it’s for the best’, when Laurel had told her of her father’s transfer.

  ‘Then why did Dan keep in touch with her?’ Reece reasoned.

  She didn’t know, felt betrayed by the act. How could he have so easily forgiven Amanda for what she had done to them!

  ‘Laurel,’ Reece spoke softly as he saw the anguish on her face. ‘You were a child at the time, you don’t know exactly what happened.’

  ‘I know my mother has never cared for anyone or anything else but herself—’

  ‘She loves you—’

  ‘No,’ she scorned. ‘Parting me from my father and Dan was not an act of love!’

  ‘You don’t know all the details—’

  ‘I don’t need to,’ she snapped. ‘And if Amanda thinks she can make everything right by inviting Dan to our wedding then she’s mistaken!’

  ‘Is there going to be a wedding?’ he prompted huskily.

  She turned blazing violet eyes on him. ‘You know there isn’t!’ she dismissed impatiently.

  ‘It might be nice if Dan gave you away,’ he suggested softly.

  ‘I said no, Reece,’ she grated.

  ‘Of course February is a long way off—’

  ‘I won’t change my mind,’ she said firmly.

  ‘No, I meant it might be too far,’ Reece frowned. ‘I’m not sure I can wait six or seven weeks to make you my wife.’

  ‘You would have to wait six or seven lifetimes for me to marry you!’ She put her glass down with a solid thud. ‘You were right, Reece, being engaged to you has shown me how wrong I was to think I could be content with the sort of marriage I would have known with Giles, how wrong I was to think I could be content with marriage to any man,’ she added hardly. ‘I realise now I don’t want to be married to anyone.’

  ‘Laurel—’

  ‘It’s been a long day, Reece,’ she told him flatly. ‘I think I would like to go to bed now.’

  ‘Laurel, I won’t let you do this,’ he warned as she walked out of the room.

  She knew once and for all that she was destined to live her life alone. Living with a man, with all the intimacy that implied, was not for her. She didn’t want to rely on anyone, to have her inner feelings probed and analysed. And after the physical perfection she had known with Reece she didn’t want any other man that way, either.

  She took off Reece’s ring once she got to her bedroom, laid it down in the dressing table, waited for the world to collapse and the sky to fall in. Nothing happened.

  It was over, the madness with Reece was finally over.

  * * *

  ‘Where are you going with that suitcase?’

  Laurel looked up slowly. She had wanted to leave quietly, without any fuss or argument, but she knew as she looked at the fury in Reece’s face that wasn’t going to be possible. ‘I think that’s obvious, don’t you?’ she replied calmly.

  He was dressed for work in one of the formal three-piece suits that could make him into a stranger from the insatiable lover of the night. He looked as if his night had once again been sleepless, and Laurel was grateful for the make-up that camouflaged her own shadows.

  ‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ he protested.

  ‘So?’ she shrugged.

  ‘You can’t go to a hotel on Christmas Eve!’

  She knew that if Reece had his way he wouldn’t let her go at all, and that was the reason she knew she couldn’t stay. Reece had stopped playing games, and the emotion in his eyes frightened her.

  ‘A hotel is exactly what I need,’ she told him cruelly. ‘The lack of intrusion, and the formality, are exactly what I want.’

  He flinched, a pulse beating at the side of his mouth. ‘Don’t do this to me, Laurel.’

  Her hand tightened on the handle of her suitcase. ‘You’re a grown man, Reece, you knew my feelings concerning our relationship, and you walked into it with your eyes open.’

  ‘Because I’m not a coward,’ he rasped.

  Her mouth twisted. ‘Neither am I,’ she drawled. ‘I’m just a realist.’

  ‘You’re hard, and… Where’s your ring?’ He frowned down at her bare left hand.

  ‘I left it in the bedroom,’ she told him flatly.

  ‘Our engagement—’

  ‘Is at an end,’ she bit out tautly. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell everyone that you were the one to realise you had made a mistake,’ she taunted, knowing this last was an injustice to him. And yet she made no apology for saying it; it was exactly what she intended telling people if they asked.

  ‘I don’t want you to go, Laurel—’

  ‘I know,’ she accepted gruffly. ‘Despite it all, all that you know I am, and can never be, you still want me.’ She had seen the emotion in his eyes last night, just as she could see it in his eyes now. ‘You’ve become too involved, Reece, can’t you see that?’ she reasoned. ‘From being a caring and helpful stepbrother you’ve taken on the possessiveness of—’

  ‘A husband?’ he finished harshly. ‘Maybe that’s because it’s what I alwa
ys wanted to be to you, from the moment I first saw you.’

  This was what she had hoped to avoid by leaving without seeing him! ‘Reece, please don’t—’

  ‘I looked at you and I wanted you,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘But as soon as Amanda began seeing my father you treated me as if I had the plague. And because you had already gone through the trauma of your mother’s two broken marriages I decided to give you time to get used to this third family. But you never changed. Each time we had a family dinner I expected you to have mellowed, but you never did, treated me as frostily as you did our parents. When your mother received that invitation to your engagement party it was like a fist between my eyes,’ he recalled raggedly.

  ‘Please, Reece,’ she trembled. ‘I don’t want to hear any of this.’

  ‘Why not?’ His eyes were unusually bright. ‘Because it makes you responsible for someone else’s emotions for a change?’ he rasped. ‘You are responsible, Laurel, you’re responsible for my loving you, for my wanting you, for my not being able to live without you.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘You’ll live,’ she assured him shakily.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ he told her flatly.

  Her gaze searched his face desperately, frantically looking for something that would tell her he didn’t mean it, that he was just trying to frighten her. He was shockingly serious.

  ‘This is blackmail, Reece,’ she shook her head. ‘And I won’t be blackmailed.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘I’m not talking about suicide, Laurel, I’m talking about the inner me,’ he bit out. ‘The me that loves you—’

  ‘You don’t love me!’ she snapped.

  ‘Oh yes, I do,’ he nodded, sighing heavily. ‘And for a few days you were mine.’

  ‘You’ll get over it—’

  His scornful laugh interrupted her. ‘I won’t do that, either. But if it makes you feel better to believe that then do so.’ He turned away, his back rigid with control. ‘But while you’re living that cold and lonely life you have mapped out for yourself I want you to know that I love you, that I’ve loved you for the past year, and that I’ll go on loving you. The fact that you refuse to let yourself love me in return isn’t going to change that, nothing will change that. So I wish you happiness in the life you’ve chosen for yourself,’ he rasped.

  It was a hollow wish after what he had just said, and Laurel didn’t stay to dispute it, letting herself out of the house, having left him the key to the door with her ring on the dressing table, the lock clicking shut with finality behind her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LOVE. She had known Reece loved her even before he said the words, had guessed—and that had been the reason she was running away. The love of a man like Reece would consume, devour, and she had already lost too much to the emotion, she daren’t risk any more.

  Reece was a braver person than she, wasn’t afraid to give his love even though he knew it wasn’t returned or wanted. She had relentlessly ignored the love in his eyes these last few days, had chosen to believe he wanted the brief relationship that she did, but finally she had known she couldn’t pretend any more, Reece no longer willing to accept the casual relationship between them that was all she would ever want. She had known when he stormed out of the house after their argument the other evening that he loved her, had seen the pain in his eyes as he flung those bitter words at her. But she had forced that knowledge from her mind when he asked her to stay on in separate bedrooms, hadn’t wanted to admit it. But this morning she had once again seen that love, and known Reece no longer intended to hide what he felt for her, no matter what pressure it put on her or how hurt he got in the process.

  And she had hurt him, could do no other when she didn’t love him in return.

  He was a good man, a kind man, and she knew that at the moment he loved her beyond reason, that he had stooped to any subterfuge to get her to accept him in the relationship he really wanted, that he had announced their own engagement at her party in the hopes of eventually persuading her to make it a real one, that he was now willing to risk his pride to let her know of his love and encourage her to love him.

  She couldn’t.

  ‘Telephone call for you, Laurel.’ Polly looked into the staff-room where Laurel was supposed to be taking her morning coffee-break; in reality she had been staring off into space.

  Her startled gaze flew to her assistant. ‘Who…?’

  ‘Your mother,’ Polly told her ruefully.

  She moistened suddenly dry lips, following the other woman down to her office. ‘Er—did she say what she wanted?’

  ‘No,’ Polly shrugged. ‘Just that she wanted to talk to you.’

  Dan. It had to be about Dan. God, she hoped she was ready for this!

  ‘Yes?’ Her voice was unnaturally sharp as she acknowledged her mother’s call.

  ‘Shall we meet for lunch?’ her mother returned without preamble.

  She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I can’t, I’m afraid,’ she refused with genuine regret. ‘I’ve just taken the only break I’ll be having today.’ And she had only taken that one because she felt close to collapsing, not even having had a cup of coffee this morning after her sleepless night. ‘It isn’t that I don’t want to meet you,’ she hastened to explain. ‘We’re just very busy.’ She had intended calling her mother herself later to arrange a meeting, had known it was inevitable.

  ‘You do realise we have to talk?’ her mother probed.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she agreed with feeling.

  ‘I mean really talk, Laurel,’ she spoke firmly.

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged hardly.

  ‘How about this evening?’ her mother suggested. ‘Before you and Reece have dinner? I could come over, and—’

  ‘I won’t be at Reece’s tonight,’ she interrupted sharply. ‘Perhaps I could drive over and see you?’

  ‘Well, of course, Laurel.’ Her mother’s puzzlement was evident in her voice. ‘Look, if you and Reece are dining in town tonight we could—’

  ‘Reece and I aren’t eating in town tonight,’ she cut in coolly. ‘We aren’t having dinner at all. At least, not together,’ she added brittlely.

  ‘You’ve argued?’ Amanda realised in dismay.

  ‘We’ve realised we aren’t suited after all,’ she corrected. ‘We have nothing in common—’

  ‘But you love each other—’

  ‘No,’ she denied harshly.

  ‘Reece loves you,’ her mother insisted.

  God, did he go around telling everyone! No, she wasn’t being fair to him; Reece wasn’t the sort of man who would publicly proclaim his love to all and sundry. But if she had seen his love for her why shouldn’t other people see it, too?

  ‘You would have to discuss Reece’s feelings with him,’ she said stiffly. ‘But I am not in love with him. Our engagement is at an end.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Amanda’s regret sounded genuine. ‘There’s no hope of—’

  ‘No,’ she dismissed abruptly.

  ‘I see,’ Amanda sighed. ‘In that case Robert and I would like you to spend Christmas with us.’

  ‘I—That isn’t necessary.’ Her suitcase in the corner of the room was evidence of the fact that she hadn’t yet booked into a hotel, but she hadn’t spent Christmas with her mother in years, and she had no intention of spending this one with her, either.

  ‘I’d really like it if you would, Laurel,’ Amanda encouraged.

  She wasn’t exactly pleading, but it was there in her tone of voice none the less. And Laurel didn’t like the guilt it made her feel. Her mother had made her choices, had sacrificed the happiness of her child for what she wanted, why should Laurel feel in the least guilty about making her own choices.

  ‘I have other plans,’ she dismissed coldly.

  ‘Oh…’ Amanda gave a disappointed sigh. ‘Dinner, then. Surely that isn’t asking too much?’

  Was it? She didn’t know. As long as she didn’t have to see Reece, perhaps not. ‘Will Reece be there?’
>
  ‘Well, I haven’t invited him, but I can’t answer for his father,’ Amanda answered honestly. ‘But the two of us have to talk and I don’t think it should wait until after Christmas.’

  Considering the fact, Laurel thought bitterly, that it had taken Amanda fifteen years to get around to this talk she didn’t think another few days would make much difference. But she didn’t want to wait either, and although she didn’t relish the thought of possibly running into Reece again just yet she knew she would have to see him some time, that their family ties dictated she must.

  ‘Dinner tonight will be fine,’ she accepted stiltedly. ‘Although for everyone’s sake I would like you to call me if Reece definitely is going to be there; it could only be embarrassingly awkward for us all.’

  ‘Laurel—’

  ‘Yes?’ she prompted hardly as her mother broke off hesitantly.

  ‘Laurel, I—I—’

  She could feel the same, sense of panic she had known with Reece this morning, her palms becoming clammy.

  ‘I love you, Laurel,’ her mother told her softly before ringing off.

  Pain ripped across her chest, pain such as she had never known before. Amanda loved her? She wouldn’t believe that! Because if she did it made a mockery of the decisions she had made concerning her own life, and it was those decisions that kept her away from the pain of loving.

  The pain in her chest continued.

  * * *

  ‘I realise I’m probably the last person you want to see,’ Reece spoke softly. ‘But I have somethings I have to talk to you about.’

  She had stiffened at the sound of his voice, looking up slowly from her sitting position at her desk, the day over, only Polly left in the shop now as she tidied away the books left out on the counter; she must have let Reece in.

  He looked even more tired than he had this morning, and Laurel knew she was to blame for that. She didn’t flinch, looking at him steadily.

  ‘I have something to give you, too,’ he added huskily.

  Her mouth twisted. ‘Isn’t exchanging Christmas gifts a little inappropriate now?’

  He shook his head. ‘This isn’t strictly a Christmas gift.’