Shadow Marriage

by Penny Jordan

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HOW bare everything looked with the equipment half dismantled, Sarah thought, studying the activity going on all around her. Later, when they had all gone, the hire company would come to remove the trailers and then there would be nothing left to even show that they had been there; at least not outwardly. Rather like her relationship with Ben, she thought tiredly. Outwardly it might never have happened, but inwardly… She stiffened slightly as she saw the object of her thoughts approaching, her muscles as tense as an angry cat’s, ready to scratch rather than purr.

  ‘I thought you finished packing half an hour ago,’ was his opening comment, but Sarah didn’t miss the way his eyes hardened over her closed and withdrawn expression, or the tautly controlled anger which seemed to emanate from him as he stood watching her, his body tautly lean, the action of sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans drawing attention to the powerful strength of his thighs and their wholly male structure. Deeply flushed, she looked away, trying to control breathing suddenly as laboured as though she had been running.

  ‘Sarah!’ Her head snapped up as she heard someone call her name. Paul came loping towards her, his dark hair damp, a bronze sheen on his deeply tanned skin. By anyone else’s standards he was undoubtedly a very handsome man, Sarah acknowledged, forcing a smile, but he didn’t possess one tenth of the sensual magnetism of the man standing next to her.

  ‘I just wanted to thank you for helping out last night,’ Paul began as he drew level with them. ‘I did start to come back when I’d dealt with my arm, but when I got to Dale’s trailer I saw he was in it, and comparatively sober as well.’ He turned to Ben and grimaced. ‘He gave us both a hard time, Ben, and Sarah was a real good Samaritan, offering to help me with him when I came to the trailer looking for you.’ With another smile he sauntered off, leaving Sarah alone with Ben in a silence that seemed fraught with unspoken under-currents.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Ben’s voice was perfectly even, but nevertheless Sarah shivered as much as if the temperature had suddenly dropped by ten degrees.

  ‘Sarah!’ His tone warned her that he was getting impatient. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded.

  ‘You heard Paul,’ she returned, trying to match his cool dryness of tone. ‘He knocked on the trailer door some time after twelve last night. At first I thought it was you. He explained that Dale had… had been into town,’ she hesitated a little over the words, not wanting to betray to him Dale’s recklessness, but réalised her small subterfuge had been in vain when Ben’s mouth twisted and he said sardonically:

  ‘Had got himself so drunk that Paul had to bring him back half insensible, is that what you mean?’

  ‘He… he had been drinking,’ Sarah agreed, trying to avoid the question. ‘Paul wanted to try and… sober him up. He’d come to you for help, and I…’

  ‘And you naturally leapt into the breach,’ Ben sneered. ‘But that still doesn’t explain how I came to find you in his arms, does it? Or do you want him so much that you don’t mind being mauled by someone in his condition?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’

  ‘No? Then tell me what it was like?’ Suddenly he seemed to have moved much too close to her, his fingers curling round her arm, and Sarah had the impression that if he could he’d like to shake the truth out of her.

  ‘I made him some coffee, but as we were trying to get him to drink it, it spilled over Paul and he had to go and change and see to his arm. When he had gone, Dale…’

  ‘I think I can guess for myself what Dale did when he was alone with you,’ Ben interrupted, his voice suddenly as dangerous as broken glass. ‘Did it never occur to you that for a man in his supposed state he sobered up quickly enough when I appeared?’

  It had struck her that Dale had made a remarkably swift recovery, and although she wasn’t going to say as much to Ben, her expression gave her away, and he drawled sardonically, ‘And taking that a step further, might it just be possible that Dale manoeuvred Paul deliberately, using him to…’

  ‘To be alone with me?’ Sarah demanded, her temper suddenly rising. Why did everyone try to blacken Dale? ‘If Dale wants to be alone with me, he doesn’t need to resort to subterfuge.’

  ‘Not unless he wants me to be a witness to it,’ Ben agreed, watching the emotions chase one another across her face.

  ‘But why… why should he want to do that?’ Just for a moment Sarah felt as though she teetered on the edge of some breathtaking discovery; something so important and monumental that her mind reeled with the power of it, but no sooner had she grasped the possibility than it eluded her, and Ben’s face, grimly closed and hard with anger, mocked the vulnerability of her thoughts.

  ‘Leave it, Sarah,’ he advised her grittily. ‘You’ve just overplayed your hand.’ He released her and walked away without a backward glance; leaving her smouldering with fresh anger. There hadn’t been so much as an apology for last night; for wrongly accusing her, for… making love to her. Her heart thudded in suddenly accelerated confusion. Had she expected him to apologise? To tell her that he had made love to her out of desire and want, rather than anger? But there had been desire, she protested fiercely, and not just on her part.

  * * *

  ‘Just as soon as we take off I’ll have the steward bring you a drink.’

  They were in the cabin of R.J.’s private jet, and Sarah was still staring wonderingly around her, marvelling at the luxury of it. Gina was lying back in her own seat, eyes closed, her expression one of bored petulance, rejecting every attempt on the part of her lover to placate her.

  Sarah had half expected her to insist on sitting with Ben, but it was evident that much as she wanted Ben, she wasn’t prepared to risk losing her rich lover to get him, and Sarah could well imagine how that would gall a man of Ben’s temperament. He would never stand for coming second—in any woman’s affections.

  Their take-off was smooth, the steward moving swiftly to dispense drinks. Sarah asked for something long and cold, and settled back in her seat to drink it. Ben was sitting next to her, and even without looking at him she was conscious of his proximity, wave after wave of heat suffusing her body as she recognised the intensity of her own desire to touch and be touched by him. She jerked her thoughts away from Ben painfully, to hear R.J. saying, ‘I’ve got a little surprise for you, Ben—instead of the traditional film, we’re going to watch the rushes. This husband of yours is in a class of his own,’ R.J. told Sarah whimsically. ‘Unlike every other director I know, he won’t watch the rushes daily. He prefers to wait.’

  ‘Because I like to see each piece of film cold,’ Ben told him. ‘When a scene’s been freshly filmed my own reaction to it’s still clouded by whatever I felt when it was done. I prefer to see it without the rose-tinted lenses.’

  ‘Darling, you’re too fussy,’ Gina pouted. ‘And so very strict!’ She glanced at her lover. ‘You wouldn’t believe how nasty he’s been to me!’

  If the words held a suggestion of threat R.J. obviously didn’t hear it. Instead, much to Sarah’s surprise, he beamed. ‘That’s what I like to hear,’ he told Ben, clapping him on the back, ‘someone else being careful with my money.’

  ‘Not just yours, darling,’ Gina protested, flashing Ben a distinctly provocative look. ‘Ben’s invested in the film, too. Some day he’s going to be nearly as rich as you.’

  Once again the financier didn’t rise to the bait, instead calling over the steward and murmuring some instructions. Within seconds the cabin was darkened, the screen seeming to appear like magic from the ceiling, and Sarah found that she was holding her breath as she watched.

  ‘Well, darling, what do you think?’ Gina lit a cigarette, as light once again flooded the cabin, leaning back in her seat in a pose Sarah thought was probably deliberately provocative, showing off the lines of her body in her thin silk suit.

  ‘It’s taking shape,’ was Ben’s only response, and yet Sarah had been sure that he was pleased, sensing it more from his silence and s
tillness as they watched the rushes than from any verbal comment he had made.

  Her own scenes she had scrutinised carefully, holding her breath as she watched the one with Paul when he kissed her. The small flaw had been carefully edited out, and she frowned, wondering who had noticed, and how the studio had known to take it out.

  Some time during the afternoon the effects of her sleepless night and the long flight overtook her. Through the waves of sleep engulfing her Sarah had a hazy impression of Ben bending over her, and the armrest between them being removed, his arm securing her against the length of his body, but it was just her imagination, she told herself. Ben had no desire at all to hold her in his arms.

  * * *

  She woke to a sensation of warmth and languorous happiness, opening her eyes slowly as she stretched, suddenly aware that she was pillowed against Ben’s side, her head resting just below his shoulder, her body turned into his. His arm was round her, his hand curving possessively just below the swell of her breast. She moved slightly and felt the pressure of his arm tighten, a muttered protest alerting her to the fact that he was still asleep. On the other side of the cabin she could see the motionless figure of Gina, and raised herself slowly, taking care not to disturb Ben, as she looked down into his sleeping face, unprotected and vulnerable, its harshness softened by the thick sweep of his dark lashes, wondering a little at the acute weakening well of protective love the sight of him stirred within her. Even the hard lines of his mouth seemed softer, the full underlip denoting the intensity of his passion.

  He stirred and opened his eyes, still glazed with sleep, his ‘Sarah! Darling!’ stirred her senses in much the same way that his expelled breath stirred the tendrils of hair at her temples, her defences unprepared for the warm pressure of his hand as it slid into her hair, propelling her against him, her mouth parting instinctively to the slow movement of his lips against hers, Ben’s eyes closing again as his tongue gently explored the shape of her mouth, so slowly and seductively that it was like drowning in honey.

  ‘Hey, come on, you two lovebirds! Time for breakfast!’

  R.J.’s voice interrupted them, and Ben’s eyes opened and hardened as they took in her flushed cheeks and slightly swollen mouth. ‘What a pity Dale can’t be the one to interrupt us now,’ he whispered as he released her. ‘Do you think he’d be disillusioned?’

  His look and the tone of his voice reminded her of everything that she would rather forget.

  ‘Dale knows I’m an actress, Ben,’ she retorted, sounding braver than she felt. ‘He knows I can always pretend that the man holding me in his arms is the one I really want.’

  ‘Is that so? Then perhaps I ought to have had a tape beside me the other night.’ His voice was ugly now, and she flinched from the acidity of it. ‘It was my name you called, Sarah, me who you begged to make love to you? Remember?’

  She was thankful that the sudden arrival of the steward meant that she needn’t reply. He had come to take their order for breakfast, and she numbly asked him simply for a cup of coffee, shuddering as Ben drawled that he was hungry enough for a full breakfast. Her stomach was churning so much she doubted she could even drink her coffee, but their exchange patently hadn’t affected Ben in the slightest. But then when had she ever touched his emotions? If he had cared in the slightest about her he would never have tried to make good his bet!

  * * *

  ‘Welcome to America.’ Ben’s tone was sardonic rather than welcoming, and Sarah fought to control the clenching muscles of her stomach as the hot sunshine of the Californian morning hit her. Thanks to R.J. they were whisked through Immigration in next to no time—Sarah had been a little startled to discover that Ben had retained his U.K. citizenship and was forced to go through Immigration with her. His work as a film director surely meant that he would spend the rest of his life in and around Hollywood, and she had never heard him say anything that might prove him to be inordinately proud of being British. But then she knew so little about him, she reflected miserably.

  ‘This way.’ A cool touch on her arm directed her to a line of waiting cars, and Ben came to rest beside a sleekly elegant black limousine. The chauffeur greeted him with a smile, glancing curiously at Sarah. ‘My wife,’ Ben informed him as he opened the door for her, then slid inside the cool welcome of the car.

  ‘Which do you want, Mr de l’Isle,’ the chauffeur asked him, ‘the studio or your home?’

  ‘Home, please, Ray,’ Ben replied easily. ‘Sarah will want to get settled in, but you can tell Andy I’ll be in this afternoon. Ray drives for the studio, not for me,’ Ben explained to Sarah as he settled back beside her. ‘I’ve got a meeting there this afternoon. Try not to miss me too much, although I should be back for dinner.’

  The mockery in his glance reminded Sarah, if she was in any need of a reminder, that the comment was for the benefit of their driver rather than for her, and she forced her glance away from the dark power of Ben’s features and tried to study the scene outside the car. The highway they were travelling along was far wider than anything she had experienced before, packed with glittering pieces of metal. The ultimate consumer society, she found herself thinking as she studied the billboards and the obvious affluence surrounding her.

  ‘We won’t go into Hollywood,’ Ben told her. ‘Plenty of time for you to see that later. We’ll take the coast road, Ray,’ he told the driver, ‘it should be quieter.’

  The beauty of the countryside caught Sarah’s breath, the tantalising glimpses she had of the ocean making her long for Ray to stop the car so that she could see more, and then the road was sweeping past luxurious and well-tended houses, dropping closer to the coast until it ran parallel to the beach, giving Sarah her first sight of what Ben told her drawlingly were ‘beach houses’. Where on earth had she got the idea that they were simple dwellings constructed out of timber and built mainly on stilts? These houses were magnificent, breath-catching, their views only to be guessed at.

  ‘I’ll have to drop you there,’ Ray announced suddenly, turning to grin at Ben. ‘I daren’t risk this along that apology you call a road.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. We can use the Range Rover to go the rest of the way.’

  ‘Do you want me to pick you up later?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘No need. I’ll drive myself in.’ He opened his door and slid out as Ray came round to help Sarah. The first thing that struck her was the dazing heat; the second the sudden sensation of disorientation. Ray was helping Ben with the cases, and then suddenly he was backing the car, turning it, and leaving them completely alone on what appeared to be a deserted stretch of road.

  ‘This way,’ Ben touched her arm, and Sarah withdrew from his touch as though it stung, barely aware of the grimly sardonic twist to his features. ‘What’s the matter?’ he drawled as he led the way to a concrete building Sarah vaguely realised must be a garage. ‘Hoping we’d be close enough to Hollywood for you to see lover-boy pretty regularly?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t mix with that crowd, Sarah. It’s pretty remote down here. In fact this track…’ he indicated the dust grooves in the tussocky sand, ‘leads only to my house, so if it’s company you want, you’ll have to rely on mine.’

  He opened the garage door and disappeared inside. She heard an engine fire and stood well back as a Range Rover appeared. ‘Come on, get in.’ Ben opened the door and leaned down, half lifting and half pulling her in, before completing his reversing manoeuvre. Before he closed the garage with some electronic device she caught a glimpse of a dark, expensive-looking saloon car, and then he was turning, facing down the narrow rutted track.

  ‘You obviously like isolation.’ Her voice sounded dry and cracked, edged with tension and pain.

  Ben shrugged. ‘I certainly prefer no company to the wrong company.’ He turned to study her. ‘Unlike you. How many men have there been in your life as well as Dale, Sarah? What sort of relationship is it you have with him, anyway? He isn’t exactly the faithful type. What is it? An open affair
, each of you free to do your own thing when the other isn’t around?’

  ‘There hasn’t been anyone,’ Sarah retorted hotly, just managing to catch back the words ‘apart from you’, shuddering to think of the effect of such a damning admission.

  ‘You know, you say that emotively enough for it to be true.’ He studied her again. ‘But haven’t you forgotten something? Or rather should I say “someone”,’ he added pointedly, and she flushed as she realised he was referring to himself. ‘They say a woman never forgets her first lover, and I was the first, wasn’t I, Sarah?’

  Her voice seemed to have locked in her throat, her vocal chords incapable of uttering a sound. ‘I… I don’t want to talk about it,’ she managed huskily at last.

  ‘Because you hate yourself so much?’ he taunted, but beneath the taunting Sarah sensed a deep seam of anger, tightly held under control, and it frightened her, making her glad when the Range Rover suddenly came to a halt at the entrance to a small bay.

  ‘This beach is strictly private,’ Ben told her as he climbed lithely out. She heard him coming alongside her, and panicked, thrusting open her door, half stumbling in her anxiety to get out before he could touch her. Her haste was her undoing, and she felt her feet slip from beneath her, her breath arrested as she heard Ben curse, hard hands grasping her waist, his body cushioning her from the fall as she was pressed along the hard length of it.

  For a moment it seemed that time stood still, her heart thudding painfully against her ribs, her eyes for once on a level with Ben’s, hers wide and startled, his dark and unfathomable, then he started to lower her to the ground, still holding her against his body, his head lowering with her descent, his arms suddenly clamping bruisingly round her. She knew long before his mouth touched hers that he was going to kiss her. Dry-mouthed and shaking, she could only stare up at him, her voice an inarticulate murmur as his head blotted out the sunlight and hot delight burned through her. She felt light, almost boneless in his arms, closing her mind to reason and letting her hands slide up and into the thickness of his hair. His body tensed and then he was kissing her with hungry insistence, tasting the warm sweetness of her soft lips, making her open her mouth to him, her body drenched in such a fierce thrust of pleasure that she murmured his name involuntarily against his lips. Instantly she was thrust away from him, contemptuous eyes raking her trembling form.