Cass was flooded with relief. Briefly. Then she tensed again.
‘I woke her, I’m afraid,’ he continued. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to lift her.’
He spoke softly, an apologetic note in his voice that Cass had rarely heard. Their relationship had always been too volatile for civilised exchanges.
‘It isn’t Melanie,’ she announced and left him to play guessing games while she finally went to pick up her niece. ‘’Sa’right, I’m here. ‘Sa’right. Shh,’ she crooned, holding the baby into her body.
‘You!’ Dray Carlisle exclaimed, and reached to switch on a bedside lamp.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed as light filled the darkness, ‘me.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ he added, though he obviously did—and was less than thrilled about it. He took a step towards her, demanding, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Right at the moment, trying to get Ellie back to sleep,’ she responded as the baby’s cries escalated. ‘Unless you’d like to do it? In which case, could I suggest a slightly less aggressive tone?’
She offered the baby to him but it was purely a mocking gesture.
His eyes bored into her as he responded, ‘Very funny… I’ll wait outside.’
‘If that’s what you want.’ Cass’s tone was dismissive.
‘No, what I want,’ he ground back, ‘is to go to bed.’
Cass shrugged. She wasn’t stopping him.
‘Don’t worry, that wasn’t a proposition.’ He crossed to the door. ‘After a nine-hour flight, I haven’t the energy.’
‘I wasn’t worried,’ she returned sharply.
It backfired, however, as he paused briefly in the doorway to murmur, ‘Now that is interesting.’
‘I didn’t mean—’ She tried to correct any false impressions but he was already walking up the corridor. She pulled a face instead, reassuring herself that he had known what she’d meant. He just enjoyed making her feel uncomfortable.
Of course it now seemed like an act of total lunacy. To be here in his house without permission, nursing this baby, perhaps his baby, and putting herself in this vulnerable position. She must have been crazy!
She went on pacing the floor, a manifestation of nerves, but at least Ellie found it soothing. Her cries gradually subsided to the occasional whimper, then transformed into snuffling as her breathing levelled out.
Cass carefully laid her back in her cot and switched off the light, but she was in no hurry to leave the room. She sat in a rocker in the darkness and counted the minutes going by. Ten, fifteen, twenty—was that long enough?
There was no sound from the corridor. Had he lost patience? Had he gone down to his own floor? She waited another five minutes to be sure, before slipping back through the adjoining door.
She shut it firmly behind her before groping for the bed and the lamp beside it. She almost jumped out of her skin as she switched it on to find him sitting in an armchair in the corner. It was creepy how he could be there, silent in the darkness, without her sensing it.
He seemed quite relaxed, one hand in a pocket, the other nursing a glass, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was still wearing suit trousers and a plain white shirt, but it was open at the neck, the tie two strips across his shoulders.
She remained standing, demanding rather fatuously, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘That’s my line surely…I live here, remember?’
‘I was told you were in America.’
‘I realised that,’ he drawled back, studying his fingernails. ‘I presume you would not be enjoying my hospitality otherwise… How many days have you been here?’
She scowled darkly. He made it sound as if she’d been freeloading off him.
‘I came this afternoon to see how the baby was,’ she relayed. ‘I had no plans to stay but Mrs Henderson’s husband has broken his hip and there was no alternative.’
‘What about Melanie?’
‘She’s walked out.’
His eyes reflected suspicion. ‘I wonder what made her do that.’
‘Don’t look at me! I’ve never even met the girl… She was probably missing you,’ she suggested somewhat unwisely.
His jaw tightened. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Work it out!’ Cass didn’t hide her disdain.
A haughty stare was trained on her. She made the mistake of staring back. Their eyes locked for what seemed an interminable moment.
When he finally stood and crossed the room, she couldn’t quite remember what they were arguing about.
‘You think I was involved with her?’ he asked in deceptively quiet tones.
Cass gave no comment rather than make things worse.
‘You do, don’t you? You have some absurd idea that I go around seducing any woman who steps into my path. You do have a low opinion of me…or is it of yourself?’
It was Cass’s turn to demand, ‘Meaning?’
‘First you accuse me of sleeping with your sister and fathering her child,’ he recounted, ‘then imply I’ve moved on to the teenage nanny, whom, incidentally, I wouldn’t know in a crowd. Is there anyone else you’d like to suggest? Mrs Henderson, perhaps?’
‘Who knows?’ she parried.
‘Exactly—who does know?’ He used the words against her. ‘The general idea is I’m indiscriminate, yet what actual evidence have you? Who is the only person you can absolutely say for certain has been in my bed?’
It took Cass just a moment to catch on, then a dull angry red heightened her cheek-bones. He was talking about her, of course.
‘Is that the logic, Cass?’ he ran on. ‘You’re worthless so anyone willing to sleep with you has to be even more worthless?’
Cass didn’t give his theory more than a second’s thought before countering, ‘That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in my life! If I’ve slept with you—’
‘No if about it.’
‘All right, the fact I’ve slept with you, call it a moment’s madness, an act of lunacy, but, the rest, that’s just amateur psychology claptrap!’ she dismissed contemptuously.
Cass didn’t care if she provoked a fight. An angry Dray Carlisle she could deal with.
It seemed, however, he was working to a different agenda.
‘Acts,’ he eventually replied.
‘What?’
‘Acts of lunacy. More than one. Sixteen, in fact. Nineteen if you count oral sex.’
Cass was finally shocked into silence, both at his frankness and the idea that he’d kept a tally.
She waited for a mocking smile to appear, but he remained deadly serious, his gaze willing her to remember how it had really been.
Cass remembered well enough. She didn’t need steady blue eyes calling her back to that time. Even angry with him, she could still feel it—an attraction so primitive it threatened to overwhelm any other emotion.
Safer to take refuge in indignation, to raise her arm, to transcribe an arc to his cheek-bone.
He didn’t expect it, but, in a way, neither did Cass. She’d never slapped anyone before. It was alarming, the cracking sound, the sharp hurting sting on her palm, his head jerking in recoil.
She saw the mark of her fingers on his cheek and, before he had a chance to react, she backed away from him. An arm went out to stop her and, panicking, she turned to run.
She never even made the door. He was on her, hand gripping her by the sleeve, pulling her round so roughly the shirt ripped and she spun backwards. She would have fallen had he not caught her. Gratitude, however, wasn’t uppermost in her mind as he pinned her against the wall. She might have struck out a second time but his hands were now steel bands round her wrist.
‘Let me go!’ she snapped at him, furious rather than frightened.
‘So you can hit me again? I think not.’
‘You asked for it!’
He arched a brow. ‘By telling the truth? Is it so hard to face—the fact we had sex together?’
Cass gave him a
derisive look in reply and tried, unsuccessfully, to jerk her hands free.
‘It shouldn’t be.’ His voice hardened. ‘You knew the whole time, after all.’
‘Knew what?’
‘That we were having sex.’
Cass stared at him. He was making no sense, yet he expected an answer.
‘What else?’ she muttered back.
‘What else?’ His lips twisted at her words. ‘You really had no illusions, had you? No thoughts that we weren’t just having sex but actually making love. No plans for a relationship that would last longer than a couple of weeks.’
What was he saying: that he’d had such illusions, such thoughts, such plans?
She shook her head and he took it as his answer. ‘No, of course not.’
‘I never said—’ Cass tried to backtrack.
He wouldn’t let her. ‘You imagine that makes things better? The fact that you said nothing?’
‘You don’t understand—’ she appealed hopelessly.
‘Like hell I don’t!’ His voice lowered to a harsh note. ‘Oh, you said nothing all right. You waited until I was head over heels and making true confessions before you decided to walk. And even then you said nothing. You left your sister to do it for you!’
Cass stared at him in wonder. He’d been head over heels? He’d loved her as he’d claimed? Loved her as she’d loved him? Could it be possible?
Possible or not, it was in the past, dead and gone, as he growled at her, ‘Don’t give me that wide-eyed look! You knew how I felt. I practically went down on my knees to you, and still you said nothing…because that’s what really turns you on, isn’t it?’ he demanded, dragging her body closer to his.
His breath was hot on her face like his anger and her arms were crushed against his chest. She swallowed hard, but no words came.
He didn’t wait for an answer, anyway. ‘That sense of power over me. It’s what you taste when I kiss you. See.’ He covered her mouth and kissed her hard, smothering any cry of protest, before continuing hoarsely, ‘So how was it, Cass, sweet or bitter?’
Cass shook her head once more. She didn’t want to go down this road. It was too dangerous.
‘I have no power,’ she breathed unsteadily.
‘Haven’t you?’ He slid his hands down to her hips and pulled her lower body briefly against the hard pulse of his.
She drew back immediately and he let her, but only so far, before he lifted a hand to tilt her head.
Every alarm bell was ringing in Cass’s head but when he asked, ‘You’re not scared, are you?’ pride came before good sense.
‘Why? Should I be?’ She threw him a defiant look.
Mistake. Dark blue eyes met and held hers. She felt mesmerised by his gaze.
It took all her will-power not to tremble as a hand began to caress the nape of her neck.
‘So cool and controlled—’ His voice was admiring, but he was intent on destroying that composure.
She held her breath when his hand lifted to smooth back the hair from her face, then cup her cheek.
It was a contest of wills. Cass knew he was winning even before he traced the outline of her features and her heart stopped beating. He rested his fingers against her mouth and she gasped slightly, needing to breathe. It was what he wanted, access. The tips of long, tapering fingers slid in and out, moistening her lips as a kiss might.
Only somehow it was more intimate and she shut her eyes in reflex. ‘Don’t!’
‘I have to.’ A whisper against her lips as he took her face in his hands and finally lowered his mouth to hers.
I can’t. A cry in her head that was never uttered. And anyway it was a lie. She could. It was easy.
When it came to him, it was all too easy. He didn’t have to force her. The first gentle touch of his lips and her resistance was minimal. For all of ten seconds, she was passive, then she was helplessly responding, clinging to him as he deepened the kiss until it was an intimate loving invasion that left her breathing hard.
He gave her no chance to recover as he pressed her against the wall and, with one hand still buried in her hair, began a slow journey down her body. He kissed her temple, lobes, the curve of her cheek, flicking with his tongue the pulse beating wildly at her throat. He pushed aside the gaping neck of her shirt until he could taste the sheen of perspiration in the hollows of her shoulders.
She was lost even before a hand slipped under her makeshift nightshirt, forcing buttons loose to expose the soft, rounded flesh beneath. He cupped the weight of her breast for a moment, then reached a thumb to stroke the nipple. She moaned aloud and he dragged her head back and stifled the sound with his mouth.
He kissed her hungrily, with lips and tongue and teeth, while his hand moved between breasts, gentle at first, slowly fingering, then pulling, tormenting, until the peaks were swollen hard and she was weak with longing. They swayed towards the narrow single bed. She fell with him and lay under him, a willing victim, as he tore open her shirt to put his mouth to her breasts, sucking and biting and playing, while a hand smoothed over the flat of her belly downwards to the soft, secret place between her thighs.
It was true. He had forgotten nothing. How to touch her, to stroke her, to draw the small pleasure noises from her mouth until she was aching for him, arching to him, needing completion.
Only when he raised his head away did Cass hear another sound: the crying of a baby.
Dray gave a low groan. He’d heard it, too.
‘Ignore it…just for a little.’ It was a plea not a command, as he entwined his limbs with hers and began kissing her again.
Cass tried. She still wanted him. That didn’t change. But as the crying grew louder, it also grew harder to block.
‘I’m sorry,’ she finally murmured against his mouth, ‘I can’t.’
He lifted his head once more and saw her distracted look. He swore in frustration, but muttered a resigned, ‘I understand,’ as the baby’s crying rose another pitch.
He rolled away from her and, sitting on the edge of the bed, watched as she buttoned her nightshirt. She was all fingers and thumbs, made worse by the fact that he was still stroking her thigh. She raised her head to find him smiling.
He knew the effect he had on her. She’d made it fairly obvious, after all. This was just an interval.
Half dressed, she hurried through to the nursery to pick up a distressed Ellie. She imagined he would stay in the other room, but he didn’t. He followed her through, and switched on the softly glowing nightlight. It seemed he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
His eyes rested on her as she paced the floor, holding Ellie to her warm body. She tried to keep her thoughts focused on the baby but it was hard. She was still light-headed with desire for Dray.
When Ellie was near to sleep again, she laid her in the cot and they both stood for a moment, looking down at the pouting mouth and the flutter of long lashes on soft, rounded cheeks.
‘She’s rather beautiful, isn’t she?’ he said softly.
‘Yes,’ Cass had to agree.
‘Maybe that will make a difference,’ he added in the same musing tone.
Cass understood what he meant. Beauty could open doors, hearts even. His words, however, brought a sudden chill to hers, as the reality of their situation surfaced once more.
‘Why?’ Her gaze went from the baby to the man, kin to each other in their dark good looks. ‘Does it to you?’
Her voice was low so as not to waken the baby, but the note of accusation in it couldn’t be missed.
When he raised his eyes back to her face, it was with a quizzical expression.
Had he imagined she was suddenly tame? A little love-making and she’d forget his own role in the whole sorry business? Did he think her so weak?
He was silent for a moment, eyes burning into hers, reading her mind.
‘You still think she’s mine?’ he challenged in low tones.
There was an undercurrent of anger in the question. It would
have been easy to take it as a denial. But wishing a thing so didn’t make it so. Cass had learned that a long time ago.
‘Well, she isn’t,’ he added unequivocally.
Now that was a denial. Nothing open to interpretation about it. She could fall right back into his arms.
That was clearly what he thought, at any rate, as he came round the end of the cot and reached for her.
Cass, however, was already backing away, determined not to let him touch her. If he did, she’d be lost again.
‘You must think I’m a fool,’ she flashed at him, ‘to take your word, just like that, so I’ll go back to bed with you.’
It stopped him in his tracks. His hands fell back to his sides and the half-smile on his face became a thin, angry line. He didn’t like being called a liar.
‘No, I think you’re a coward,’ he eventually muttered back, ‘hiding from the truth and your real feelings, craving intimacy yet scared of it, running from anything or anyone you can’t handle.’
Just words. So why did they hurt so much? Because they were meant? Because they rang true? Or ultimately because he was the one to walk away, turning on his heel, leaving the room and her without a backward glance?
All these and more, Cass realised as she went back through to the bed where they’d almost made love and lay down on it, and curled into a wretched ball, and tried desperately to ignore the longing eating at her inside.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHAT happened the following day wasn’t planned. Cass’s last thought on falling asleep and her first thought on waking was how quickly she could leave. Only the needs of a crying baby stopped her going immediately.
She went through and picked up Ellie, continued on to the bathroom where she dressed before going downstairs. There was no sign of Dray Carlisle and, at first, she was relieved. She made up a feed in response to Ellie’s hungry cries and sat nursing her in the kitchen, memorising the detail of her face and hair and little hands, believing this would be their last meeting for a long time.
When the baby fell asleep again, Cass laid her in the pram, fetched her coat from the back door and sat, waiting for Dray Carlisle to appear. She assumed that, jet-lagged, he was still asleep upstairs.
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