The Bride's Secret

by Helen Brooks

  'Sweet dreams, Annie,' Hudson murmured huskily.

  She smelt the clean, sharp tang of his aftershave as he slid into bed, and then heard him swear softly as the pillows tumbled with his entry under the sheets, but she didn't move to help him put them back into place, merely stretching out a careful hand and clicking off her bedside lamp. She heard him do the same, and then, as the room was plunged into darkness, lay stiff and rigid under the sheets as her blood surged through her veins and her senses screamed.

  How in the world had she got herself into this impossible situation anyway? She wanted to cry and shout and scream, to bellow out her frustration and pain and the sheer hopelessness of it all, but she didn't. She lay quietly, each breath an effort of self-control, and stared into the blackness as she forced her pulse to slow. The air pressed down on her, sultry and sticky and thick.

  After a few minutes she knew she would melt with the heat if she didn't slip the thick towelling robe off, so she carefully twisted in the bed, hoping Hudson wouldn't realise what she was doing, and pulled the heavy folds away from her body, sliding the robe out under the covers onto the floor.

  'Better?' Hudson's voice was very deep and very dry.

  She bit on her lips before managing, 'Yes, thank you.'

  'Good. Get some sleep, Annie.'

  Easier said than done, she thought irritably, gazing crossly into the shadows as dark outlines became faintly visible. No doubt he had slept with a member of the opposite sex more times than he could remember, but this was a first for her, and the circumstances couldn't have been more awful. She felt the hot sting of tears at the back of her eyes and spoke fiercely to herself. None of that, none of that; deep breaths and you'll go to sleep. But she had never felt less like sleep in her life.

  Although the bed was vast, and the pile of pillows made a successful barrier, Marianne was vitally aware of every tiny movement Hudson made in the next hour or so as she struggled to fall asleep. She tried to relax, willing her mind to empty and her limbs to loosen up, but it was torture to know the man she loved was inches away and wanting her—if only physically.

  She had just decided that she was never going to get to sleep that night, and that she would give it another few minutes and then quietly slip out of bed and find herself a soft drink from the small fridge in the corner of the sitting room, when she awoke in the pale half-light of dawn. She'd gone to sleep! She lay for a moment, wondering what time it was, before carefully raising her arm to glance at her small silver wristwatch.

  'It's five o'clock.' Hudson's voice was deep and soft at the side of her, and she froze for an instant, her eyes flicking to the heaped pillows, before she forced herself to speak.

  'Is it?' she asked carefully.

  'I know because I've watched every hour come and go,' he continued quietly, before raising himself on one elbow and peering over the downy barrier at her, his eyes soft and warm.

  'You couldn't sleep?' It was a stupid question in view of what he'd just said, but the sight of him had taken all coherent thought clean away. His hair was ruffled slightly—the harsh hairstyle he favoured wouldn't allow more than slightly—and black stubble gave a sexiness to the square jaw that was dynamite.

  'No, Annie, I couldn't sleep,' he said with rueful sarcasm.

  'Oh, I'm sorry; you'll be tired later.' As sparkling repartee it failed miserably, but it was the best she could do in the circumstances, with every nerve she possessed in overdrive.

  'Possibly.' His eyes moved over her, and she pulled the thin sheet up round her neck as discreetly as she could, a burning glow in the smoky grey eyes reminding her of her scanty attire. 'But I'll survive. On a difficult case I sometimes only catnap for the odd half an hour and work through the night for a week or more. It's amazing how you adjust when you have to.'

  'That can't be good for you.' She was genuinely horrified.

  He shrugged offhandedly. 'I've only myself to consider so it's not a problem, and I've never needed much sleep anyway.'

  'No, but your health is important and—'

  'I've always wondered what you look like in the morning when you first wake up, and now I know.'

  The dark voice was husky and rich, and Marianne's senses exploded. She'd dreamt of waking up beside him too—many times.

  'Like a rumpled golden kitten, all silky curls and great honey and green eyes,' he continued softly. 'I want to make you purr, Annie, do you know that? And I could… beautifully.'

  She didn't doubt it for a minute, she thought feverishly.

  'And you know it too.' She lowered her lids quickly but it was too late; he'd read her innermost desire. 'So what's holding you back?' he asked with silky determination.

  Derision was her only escape and she took it. 'You'd like to believe that, wouldn't you?' she said cuttingly, wielding the weapon of disdain as best she could, considering she was fluid inside. 'The great Hudson de Sance, best lawyer, best lover… Is there anything you don't think you're the best at?' she asked with lethal sarcasm, feigning disgust as she turned on her side away from him, jerking the bedclothes mote tightly round her shoulders.

  'Stop it, Annie.' His voice was gentle, his touch tender as he reached over and turned her to face him, holding her still when she would have jerked away. 'You're playing a part, and not even very well. I've met too many real bitches in my work to doubt it'

  'I don't know what you mean,' she said desperately.

  ' You spoke my name in your sleep, not once but several times,' he continued evenly. 'What were you dreaming about, Annie?'

  'Nothing.' The sensation of entrapment was so real she could taste it, her stomach shuddering and twisting as the cool grey eyes pierced hers, and although she struggled to let nothing of what she was feeling show in her eyes he read the hot panic and fear. And this time he was allowing her no evasion.

  'You moaned it,' he whispered relentlessly. 'Breathed it out in little soft sighs—and I knew what you were dreaming. Do you know how I knew?'

  'I don't care,' she muttered frantically.

  'Because I recognised the longing, the desire, the need.' His grip was firm, preventing her from moving and increasing the feeling of being cornered He watched his words sink in before he continued, 'I want you, Annie. Badly.'

  She lay motionless, conscious of a tearing pain deep inside. There were probably hundreds, thousands of men she could have married and to whom her connection with undesirables like Michael wouldn't have meant a thing. But Hudson wasn't one of them. She could never marry a man like Hudson and expect him to take the consequences of having a wife with the sort of family ties she had. She… she was no good for him—bad news.

  'I don't want you.' She forced the words out through numb lips. 'It… it wouldn't work.'

  'Liar.' His voice was without enmity, almost expressionless. 'I can't get you out of my head, Annie—strange that, isn't it?' he said reflectively. 'It's like you're in my blood, my bones, and I don't like it. I'm a man who likes being in control, but you know that,' he said, with a self-deprecating grimace. 'I don't like the feeling of being vulnerable,'

  'I… I don't make you vulnerable.' She was stunned by his revelation, and scared. She could just about take it when he was cold and arrogant, or charming and beguiling. Even the sensual, dark side of him was something she could recognise and fight against. But this exposure of his inner self was lethal.

  It made her want to cover his face in kisses, to hold him close and tell him she cared more than he would ever know. It was… pure torture, she thought, trembling.

  'Yes, you do.' He drew back slightly, his voice steady and his face shadowed. 'There is only one other person who has ever done that to me, and I worked through that one.'

  One other person? He saw the blow register in her eyes but she couldn't have spoken; the pain was too sickening.

  It's not what you're thinking.' There was a peculiar look on his face now, but although she searched his eyes his expression was inscrutable. 'It wasn't a woman—at least not in the sense
you assume.'

  'Wasn't it?' She didn't believe him and it showed.

  'No.' And then he sighed, frustratedly, as he said, 'Damn it, I've told you tins much, I may as well tell you the rest I've never talked about this before to anyone, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I've a feeling there are too many secrets between us as it is.'

  'You needn't explain anything to me,' she said stiffly, her voice and face telling him just the opposite.

  'It was my mother, Annie,' he said softly. 'She left my father, me, our home when I was almost six years old—just walked out one day and didn't come back.' He had let go of her now but she made no effort to move, her eyes on his face. 'She left to go and live with her lover, my father's brother,' he continued with a quiet, steady flatness that told her the memory was still caustic.

  'Your uncle?' She stared at him, horrified.

  'My uncle,' he confirmed softly, his eyes growing reflective as he looked back down the years to the devastation and confusion of a little six-year-old boy and desperate husband.

  'He left my aunt and cousins to be with her. It was an… unusual twist to the eternal triangle and rocked the immediate family, as you can imagine; the repercussions were endless. First the patriarch of the clan—my mother's father from whom I got my name—ordered my mother home but she wouldn't listen. He was a harsh man, strong, and I don't think he had imagined she wouldn't do as she was told—even though she was a grown woman of twenty-seven. Apparently he tried everything—blackmail, threats, enticements—but she wouldn't budge. She had far more of him in her than he realised,' he added bitterly.

  'After a few weeks it became apparent she wasn't coming back. She… she made no effort to contact us, so my grandfather made my father see her to ask for a reconciliation. She didn't want it She told him she wanted a new life with Claude, that he was all that mattered to her.'

  Marianne didn't dare ask what his mother had said about him, but in the next breath he told her, more by what he didn't say than what he did.

  'She wanted all ties with her old life cut,' he said quietly. 'Severed clean. She made a deal with my grandfather after my father had seen her. In payment for her and Claude moving right away, to a different country where Claude had business contacts and where the scandal would be kept to a minimum, he would see that she was rewarded financially. My grandfather agreed.'

  'But you told me when we first met that your parents had died when you were a child.' Marianne stared at his dark face. 'Didn't you?'

  'They did.' He smiled mirthlessly, and again she knew he was feeling far more than he was revealing. How could his mother, how could any woman, walk out on a small boy and wash her hands of him so heartlessly? she asked herself bewilderedly, rage and pain and honor filling her heart. What must it have done to him, to his belief in family values, everything? And then she understood something she had never understood before.

  That was part of what drove him, she thought wonderingly. His championship of the helpless, the victims, the abused and hurting, was all linked to the pain he had suffered when he had been small and helpless. That was why his work was so important to him, so vital. It wasn't just a quest for power and a brilliant career, it was part of his soul. It also explained the sheer ruthless control Hudson could bring to play on his feelings when necessary—he'd had a lifetime of practice.

  'After a year of living in New Zealand my uncle decided he was having to work too hard at making a living,' Hudson continued cynically. 'My mother had used my grandfather's money to set Claude up in his own business, but it didn't go as well as he expected. So he left my mother and returned to his wife and family. My aunt was a Catholic and had refused to give him a divorce—she welcomed him back with open arms, so I understand. My mother…my mother killed herself when she knew he wasn't coming back,' he finished expressionlessly.

  'Oh—oh, Hudson. No… ' The pain was strangling her voice and constricting her breath.

  'I couldn't understand why she would choose death when my father had asked her to come home to me and to him.' Hudson shook his head slowly, his voice a million miles away. 'Why oblivion was preferable to being my mother. I'd written to her, a little note along with my father's letter begging her to come home, and in it I told her how much I loved her, that I'd be a good boy if she came home, that she'd never have to tell me off again. It haunted me for a long time after she'd gone—the fact that I might have been naughty and caused her to go. I could be naughty in those days,' he added with an attempt at lightness as his eyes came back to the present and to Marianne.

  'Of course I realise now there was far more going on than a small boy could understand, but at the time that was the only way I could see it. And no one talked to me, not really. My father was too devastated—he loved her desperately, you see—and my grandfather had ordered that her name must never be spoken—all the sorts of things you could possibly expect in a situation like that,' he added cryptically.

  'Anyway, within a few months my father was dead too. The medical diagnosis was a bad heart, but I think he just stopped wanting to live when the knowledge that she was really gone hit him. Before she died he'd imagined, hoped, he might get her back one day.'

  'And you? What happened to you?' Marianne asked softly.

  'Me? I went to live with my grandfather and I trained myself not to think of my parents, not to want them, not to need them, and it worked… after a time,' he said grimly.

  'And your uncle?'

  'Claude only stayed with his wife a couple of years; I think the damage that had been done to the relationship was too great to overcome. My aunt didn't trust him any more, and she had good cause, as it happens, because he went off with his secretary whom he'd apparently been seeing even before he started the affair with my mother. Messy.' His mouth twisted. 'Very messy.'

  'Hudson, I'm so sorry.' It was the wrong thing to say and she knew it immediately his expression changed.

  'I'm not asking for sympathy, Annie; don't think that,' he said crisply. 'Emotional blackmail isn't my scene.'

  'I know, I know that,' she said quickly, the ring of honesty in her voice causing the hardness to disappear.

  'There are many people out there facing worse,' he said quietly. 'Who live behind a façade all their lives. I had the privilege of wealth to ease the way; some of them are destitute and utterly alone. But I can understand them, you see, get into their minds,' he said softly. 'I used to go on long walks as a child so I could be by myself; my grandfather was an overbearing guardian, and sometimes I needed a chance just to lie down somewhere and scream and cry and rage for my mother to come back, beg for a chance to see her just one more time, even though I knew it was impossible. People still hope for the impossible even when all chance of it has gone, and occasionally, just occasionally, I can make the impossible happen. The bad guys don't always have it their way.'

  She didn't dare breathe in case he stopped the glimpse into his soul that she knew he had never shown anyone else.

  'Nothing is black and white, Annie; the shades of grey are infinite,' he continued almost dreamily. 'We all have our own secret nightmares and hurts and mistakes, but someone, somewhere, has to care sometimes. Does that make sense?' he asked suddenly, the softness dying as he realised all he had revealed.

  Yes, yes, it does.' Her love for him was so intense it was causing a physical ache.

  The agonising revelation about the misery of his childhood, his insight and sensitivity towards human nature and the needs and longings of ordinary folk was dangerous stuff, weakening her resolve and increasing her love and desire to fever pitch. She needed him—and as his head bent to take her lips she didn't resist.

  She wanted to lose herself in him, tell him the truth and put the burden of decision on him. She was tired, so very, very tired of living in the world she inhabited, of never feeling real joy or real happiness, only occasionally watered-down facsimiles of the real thing. Without him the sky was greyer, the air heavier, life duller—beauty didn't touch her in the same
way any more and she wanted to be the old Marianne, not this lifeless creature she saw in the mirror each morning.

  As her lips opened beneath his she heard the little groan he gave, deep in his throat, at her capitulation, and then it was all pleasure and frenzied delight, her hands moving up to his shoulders and into the virile crispness of his hair as he leant over her.

  She realised she was kissing him back with more abandon than she had ever shown, and that they were both shaking with the force of the burning waves of pleasure that were melting and moulding them to each other; her self-control had been discarded along with her reason. She loved him, she wanted him, she needed him… beyond that she couldn't think. Didn't want to think.

  'Annie, Annie… ' His lips trailed burning kisses over her face, her eyelids, her throat 'You feel so good, so good… '

  His hands and mouth were creating a fire that only his body could quench and she was molten in his arms, her blatant need stimulating his desire still more. Hudson was half kneeling on the bed now, his powerful frame bent over the ridge of pillows as she clung to his neck and his fingers deep in the tangled curls that had worked free of the plaits in the night.

  'Say it; say you want me, Annie… ' His voice was deep and husky and she obeyed it blindly, but she got the words wrong, speaking from the depths of her heart rather than her intellect.

  'I love you, Hudson… ' She was so lost in the enchantment, she was quite unaware of what she had revealed. 'I love you… '

  Hudson raised his head, his eyes searching her abandoned face with its closed eyes, her eyelashes thick and dark on her flushed cheeks, before he said, 'Annie? Annie, look at me.'

  She came back from the world of light and sensation slowly, and he gave her a little shake as he said again, 'Open your eyes; look at me. I want you fully compos mentis, damn it.'

  'What… what is it?' She was trembling, her overwhelming need for him making her voice throaty and her eyes wild. 'What's wrong?' What had she done to make him look at her like that?