Читать книгу Chasing Summer: Date with Destiny / Marooned with the Maverick / A Summer Wedding at Willowmere - Abigail Gordon, Abigail Gordon - Страница 15

WALKING into the bedroom and seeing the brass lamp lying on the floor beside the rumpled bed sent a chill through Salome. What would have happened if she had missed, if Charles had overpowered her, or if Mike hadn’t been next door to come to the rescue? She slumped down on the end of the bed and dropped her head into her hands, feeling unexpectedly nauseous.

Mike was right to get the locks changed. Charles still had his set of keys. What was to stop him sneaking back some time, perhaps when Mike was out? The thought sent shivers up and down her spine, and she reminded herself always to put the chain across and also to buy one of those alarms which women could use to frighten off an assailant.

Salome sighed and straightened, feeling better with her resolves. She had never been a physical coward, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Less than an hour later the bedroom was tidied, the stale coffee in the percolator poured away, the towel around her replaced by a tailored pair of khaki trousers and a cowl-necked lemon mohair jumper, her hair tied back with a lemon ribbon. Her make-up was at a minimum. Grey-green eye-shadow, mascara and coral lipstick. No foundation or blusher. The lengthy bath had put a healthy glow in her normally pale cheeks.

With tan loafers on her feet and a matching bag slung over her shoulder, she fairly dashed along the corridor, then started the long trek down the fire-stairs, determined not to go in that lift again till she’d been assured it wouldn’t break down. Hopefully, this would be by the time she needed to go back up!

The first thing she saw when she stepped out into the basement car park was Mike, standing behind her Ferrari with his hands on his hips. If she hadn’t been so taken aback by his clothing she might have noticed that he was staring down at something, his face grim. As it was, all her attention was riveted to his tight, stone-washed grey jeans, white T-shirt and black leather flying-jacket.

She smothered a groan. Wasn’t he sexy enough, without dressing like Marlon Brando in The Wild One? And what in heaven was he doing down here anyway?

He glanced up at her as she approached, his expression turning to one of open admiration as it flicked over this more softly casual though still stylish version of herself. It was when his dark brows suddenly bunched together in a black frown and he glared back down at the car that she realised something was wrong.

‘What is it?’ she said, hurrying forward. She followed his downward glance with her own. The Ferrari was low on the cement, all four tyres viciously slashed. ‘Oh, no...’

‘It’s easily fixable,’ he assured her.

She grimaced, then frowned up at him. ‘Charles, do you think?’

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. It could have been the gang of kids who apparently sabotaged the main fuse-box with fire-crackers last night. Hence the blackout.’

‘Oh...’ Salome hoped it was. The image of Charles doing anything as vindictive as this was frightening. Mike wasn’t looking too happy about it either.

‘I think, Salome,’ he began firmly, ‘that we should drop in on your ex-husband and tell him what his lawyer’s been up to.’

She panicked at the idea. She no longer wanted to see Ralph. She certainly wasn’t up to facing him today. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said hastily. ‘He...he won’t see anyone.’

‘He’ll see me.’

Salome stared at his supremely confident face, and didn’t doubt it. There was a force in Mike that could be quite unstoppable once on the move.

‘He...he has cameras on top of the gates,’ she went on nervously. ‘If he sees me with you, he won’t let you in, believe me.’

‘Then he won’t see you with me,’ he stated unequivocally. ‘You can duck down.’

What could she say? She had gone on and on to Mike just yesterday about all the times she had tried to see Ralph. Now here he was, giving her the perfect opportunity to confront her ex-husband with moral support at her side, and she didn’t want to take it. What was she so frightened of finding out? She already knew about the other woman.

She shook her head in frustrated resignation. ‘Oh, all right. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Once Ralph finds out we’ve tricked him, he’ll throw us out.’

‘He wouldn’t want to try,’ Mike said darkly.

Salome shivered. There was something about Mike that frightened her at times, an air of suppressed violence. Was it this quality that had cowered Charles so devastatingly? Or had she been right when she’d wondered if Mike had an unsavoury background?

‘Mike...’ she began gingerly.

He glanced up from where he’d been looking at the tyres again. ‘What?’

She swallowed. ‘What did you do to Charles last night? What did you say to make him back down? I couldn’t believe it when he came out looking so...so defeated.’

A wry smile lifted the corner of his mouth. ‘There’s no great secret. I merely pointed out what might happen if he chose to do certain things.’

‘You mean you physically threatened him?’

‘I suppose one could put it that way.’

‘What exactly did you threaten to do?’

His glance was blackly amused. ‘You really want to know?’

She took a deep breath. ‘I really want to know.’

He leaned back on the car behind him and folded his arms. ‘Just the usual. That he might wake up one night to find his kneecaps nailed to the floor and certain parts of his anatomy missing.’

‘You didn’t!’ she gasped. ‘You wouldn’t!’

He laughed. ‘Yes, I did, and no, I wouldn’t. But he doesn’t know that,’ he added drily. ‘Look, Salome...’ He straightened, black eyes flashing. ‘When your parents are Italian immigrants, and you grow up in the western suburbs of Sydney, you learn three things. One—not to react to racial abuse. Two—how to fight. And three—how to handle a bully. Your Charles is a typical bully—physically big, but with no real courage or tolerance of pain. All you have to do to get the upper hand is hurt the bastards once. After that they will heartily believe whatever physical threat you make. Of course, with a man like Charles, who does have a degree of intelligence, it doesn’t hurt to have a second string to your bow, such as the threat of losing his very comfortable lifestyle. After all, I’m sure your ex-husband, if he is any sort of a man, won’t appreciate his lawyer trying to assault his ex-wife. Some pressure applied from that quarter can only help. It’s amazing, too, how often the pain of losing one’s money can sometimes be more persuasive than the pain of losing—er—other things.’

He smiled down at her wide-eyed face, taking her elbow and leading her somewhat stunned self over to his Jaguar. What kind of man was this? she thought dazedly. So tough, so forceful, so ruthless!

‘We’ll go to your mother’s first,’ he went on in that deceptively mild tone he could adopt when he chose to play the gentleman, ‘and pick up your things. I’ll need to make a call from there as well. I was supposed to be at my parents’ place for lunch, but there might not be time for that.’

‘Your parents?’ she repeated blankly.

His eyes gleamed with a sardonic light. ‘Yes, I do have parents, Salome. I didn’t ooze out of a man-hole up at the Cross. There’s even an older brother, Angelo, as well as three younger sisters—Gina, Antonia and Therese. All respectably married. I’m the only black sheep.’

Very black, came the automatic thought.

Her mind suddenly clicked into gear. Here was her escape from going to see Ralph. ‘Oh, well, then, please don’t put yourself out for me. Just drop me off at Molly’s and go on. You could always ring Ralph about Charles later. You shouldn’t miss an important lunch-date with your parents.’

They had reached his car, and Mike inserted the key in the passenger-door. ‘Hardly all that important,’ he threw over his shoulder. He wrenched open the door, and stepped back to wave her inside. ‘I go out to see them every Friday for lunch. They won’t die of disappointment if I miss one time.’

The image of Mike as a dutiful son distracted Salome for a moment, and she just stood there. She hadn’t thought of him with parents at all before now, let alone having the capacity to love and care about them, as he so obviously did. ‘Where do they live?’ she asked. ‘Your parents...’

‘Kellyville. They own a market garden.’

‘Oh, but that’s not far from Ralph’s!’ she said, before realising she was putting her foot in it.

Mike’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Are you suggesting we might continue on there for lunch, together?’

‘Well, I...’ Did she want that? To meet his parents? It seemed perfectly pointless and futile under the circumstances, but in an odd sort of way, yes, she did want to, did want to fill in the hazy picture of Mike’s background. It seemed sad to love a man and not really know him.

‘If you like,’ she said lamely.

‘I don’t like,’ he snarled.

She blinked shock at his attitude.

‘You don’t know my mother,’ he went on testily. ‘One look at you and she’ll start knitting baby-bootees.’

Salome blinked again.

‘My dear Salome...’ he tipped up her chin with a single fingertip, looking deeply into her eyes with a dry, cynical expression ‘...all Italian Mammas want their sons married with a whole brood of children to spoil. You might not realise it but, dressed as you are today, you look the image of wholesome womanhood, ripe for marriage and babies!

‘So much for images,’ he muttered and, sliding his hand around under the weight of hair at her neck, he captured her mouth in a kiss not intended to convey anything wholesome.

Salome wished she hadn’t responded, wished she had kept her lips pressed firmly together, her tongue still. But her love doomed her to failure. She moaned under his seductive onslaught, which only made matters worse. Impassioned by the sound of her arousal, his fingers tightened in the soft flesh of her neck, his mouth increasing its pressure, his free hand sliding up under her jumper to cover a single lace-cupped breast, to tease her nipple to rock-like hardness.

When he let her go she staggered back against the car. ‘I think, perhaps, you’d better get in,’ he ground out. ‘Or shall we forget the whole damned business and go back up to bed?’

She stared at him. He meant it. He actually meant it. And, worst of all, she was tempted. God, what was she coming to, accepting this man’s derision in the same breath as his kisses? Surely love didn’t demand that a woman give up her self-respect, did it?

Yet if she tried to convince him he was all wrong about her he wouldn’t believe her. Not that she could entirely blame him for that. She had dug her own grave with her behaviour at his restaurant over the years. Even as late as last night, she had implied that she had taken various lovers since her divorce, ones which she didn’t even bother to go out with.

Then there was the way she had acted with him in bed, with such uninhibited abandon. How could she explain that away if she was to claim relative innocence? By admitting she loved him? He would laugh. Or, even worse, use her admission to corrupt her further to his wishes. For he didn’t want her love, only her total submission. Which, from the way he could make her feel with a simple kiss, was not far off anyway.

Even now he was looking at her with a smug, expectant look on his face, waiting for her to agree to a return to bed.

With great difficulty Salome dredged up a semblance of a smile, letting her eyes cool as they looked up at him. They landed on his smouldering eyes, drifted down to his beckoning mouth, dropped further to his taut virility, all without so much as a visible flicker.

Once again, she was struck by her capacity to act a part. Thanks to her treacherous husband! But how well she had learnt her lessons, managing to go from tortured, aroused woman to controlled sophisticate in twenty seconds. ‘They say pleasure is increased by the waiting, Mike,’ she said in a voice designed to dampen even the hottest lover. ‘Let’s wait.’

She turned away and lowered herself gracefully into the car, sliding the seatbelt across her breasts, trying to ignore their swollen state and the way her nipples were jutting hard right through her soft bra to be outlined against the lemon wool. Her cheeks pinked under the feel of Mike’s searing glare, but she refused to look up. Finally, he swung the door shut, striding around to unlock his side and climb in behind the wheel. His sidelong glance was savage as he shoved the key into the ignition, fired the engine and slammed the gear-stick into reverse. But the car remained stationary, his hand curling over the gear-stick, his knuckles whitening as he again looked daggers at her.

‘That was what the fiasco in the lift was last night, wasn’t it?’ he pronounced harshly. ‘A game of tease. You always planned to give in eventually, didn’t you? Tell me, did it titillate you further, hone your undeniably voracious sexual appetite, to make me wait?’

She stared back at him and gulped. This was taking her role-playing too far. ‘No,’ she denied. ‘It wasn’t like that at all!’

He seemed taken aback by her vehemence. ‘What, then?’

‘I—I was embarrassed...confused... Drunk!’ she added in desperation.

He made a scoffing sound. ‘Not that drunk.’

She threw her head back to stare straight ahead. ‘You don’t have to believe me,’ she said stiffly.

‘I sure as hell don’t! One day, Salome,’ he growled, ‘you’ll play your sexual games with the wrong partner. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if poor old Charles might not have been on the end of a few of them.’

Her head snapped around in automatic outrage. ‘Charles needed no encouragement,’ she protested. ‘You don’t honestly believe I’d let a man like that touch me, do you?’ An involuntary shudder rippled through her, revealing the shaken, vulnerable woman she was.

Mike frowned across at her, then shook his head. ‘God knows what I believe any more. You’ve got me stumped.’

Salome wanted to cry. She had him stumped? She was the one who was stumped! Well and truly. A crazy laugh escaped her lips before she could snatch it back.

‘And what does that mean?’ he flung at her.

Now she couldn’t stop laughing. ‘Nothing... nothing.’

He muttered something decidedly obscene, and backed out like a madman, screeching up the ramp from the basement like a teenage hoodlum showing off. But he wasn’t showing off, Salome realised as her hysteria died and she saw the evidence of real pain on his face. He was hurting, hurting badly.

It shocked her. Shocked and puzzled her. Why should it bother him to believe bad things of her? He wanted her badly, didn’t he? Her thoughts confused and depressed her, and she sat in silence as Mike weaved his way through the busy lanes, eating up the miles between McMahon’s Point and Killara in record time.

She sagged with relief when the Jaguar screeched into the kerb outside Molly’s. But, with the engine suddenly dead, the silence and tension between them was excruciating. Mike made a frustrated sound and turned towards her. ‘Salome...’

Her green eyes carried true bewilderment and unhappiness as they reluctantly faced him. ‘Yes?’

He sighed when he saw them. ‘I’m sorry. What I said...I didn’t really mean it. I—I know you didn’t lead Charles on. I know your fear and shock last night was genuine. And I know you weren’t deliberately teasing me in the lift. It just happened between us, didn’t it? Though why you had to run away afterwards, I’ll never understand.’

Tears rushed into her eyes. Tears of relief. She hadn’t realised how much his vile accusations had been tearing her apart.

‘Please don’t cry,’ he rasped.

‘No,’ she agreed, blinking furiously.

‘I said I was sorry. There’s no reason to cry.’

No reason to cry? she thought wretchedly. No reason? Oh, Mike...if only you knew...

They both sat in silence for a minute as she got herself under control, drawing a tissue from her handbag and wiping her nose.

‘Shall we go inside?’ he finally suggested. ‘I’ll make the call to my parents while you collect your things. Maybe your mother could make us both a cup of tea?’

‘I don’t think she’s home,’ Salome said, having noticed Wayne’s car was missing. ‘It looks like she and Wayne have gone out. At least...’ she sighed as a horn blew and a white Falcon sedan swung into the driveway in front of them ‘...they were out.’

‘Hm. Wayne’s not exactly popular with you, is he?’ Mike commented.

Salome shrugged. ‘He’s all right, I guess. I hardly know him. Neither does Molly,’ she added pointedly. ‘Certainly not enough to have him stay.’

‘He’s living with your mother?’

‘He moved in yesterday,’ she said curtly.

‘Ahh...I see... Hence your move to the penthouse.’

‘Exactly.’ Salome pushed open the car door and climbed out on to the footpath. Mike alighted from his side, a sardonic smile on his face as he walked around to join her. ‘And here I was, thinking you had succumbed to the fatal attraction of living next to me.’

‘Mike! Salome!’ Molly called from the driveway. ‘Come on in. You’re just in time!’

‘In time for what?’ Salome muttered under her breath.

‘Now, now, be nice,’ Mike whispered, sliding an arm through hers. ‘Besides, your mother is a grown woman, entitled to live her life as she sees fit. You demand the same rights, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘But nothing! Let the woman have her fun.’

‘F-fun?’ Salome spluttered, outraged. ‘I’ll have you know that she’s been having fun with men since before I was born. Always at my expense, I might add. Do you have any idea what it was like, having a procession of creepy uncles living with you? Most of them young enough to be my boyfriend, instead of Molly’s, with libidos to match? I had to have eyes in the back of my head, trying to outwit their octopus hands!’