Читать книгу Back in the Lion's Den - Elizabeth Power, Elizabeth Power - Страница 8

FROM luxury saloon to private jet, to the equally luxurious chauffeur-driven car that had been waiting for them at the airport, the journey to Provence had been as smooth and as hassle-free as only the journeys of men as mega-rich as Conan Ryder could be. A discreet cabin crew had catered for their every need while Conan worked on his laptop in a separate compartment of the plane, keeping Sienna topped up with refreshments and occupying Daisy with games and the odd edible treat. Even Shadow had slept most of the way, in the large, comfortable carrier provided for the purpose, oblivious to the fact that he was being whisked thousands of feet up over a glittering body of water, and down across vast swathes of unfenced and sunlit fields.

Now, with the concrete and the crowds of the bustling mainland coast behind them, they were travelling across wild and isolated land jutting out into a sparkling sea.

It was another world, Sienna thought, gazing at the tall pine trees that defined the landscape and concealed exclusive walled mansions from prying eyes. A world far removed from the one she knew. A billionaire’s retreat.

As the car slowed to pass through electrically operated gates into the lush, meandering grounds of Conan’s hideaway, Sienna gulped back a gasp. What she was looking at was no less than magnificent. A huge white modern terracotta-roofed villa built on various levels, with a profusion of flower draped balconies, balustrades and floor to ceiling windows enjoying dramatic views of the rocky coast above which they were perched, of looming mountains and a breath-catching expanse of azure water.

Conan was sitting in the front of the car, conversing with his driver in amazingly fluent French, and had said very little to her since leaving the airport.

Viewing his dark and striking profile with the same mixture of wonder and appreciation with which she would view a classical marble statue as he turned and laughed at something the chauffeur had said, she resolved never to let him see just how overwhelmed she was by his wealth and his dauntingly impressive house—or by him!

Sitting immediately behind him, however, little Daisy had no such qualms.

As the car drew to a standstill at the end of the long drive, she exclaimed excitedly, ‘Is this where we’re going to live?’

‘Yes, Daisy.’ Conan’s voice was decisive, causing Sienna to look at him quickly with a little trickle of unease.

‘For ever and ever?’

Ignoring her mother’s questioning glare—deliberately, Sienna felt—Conan laughed rather menacingly, she thought. ‘I think even you would tire of such delightful surroundings eventually.’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ the little girl lobbed back, certain of it. And if that conversation wasn’t enough to unsettle Sienna, then her daughter’s continuing enthusiasm made sure of it as Daisy asked her uncle, ‘Are you going to live with us too?’

Trying to reject the unwelcome connotations inspired by that innocent enough question, as Conan’s glance sliced across hers with something mocking in those green-gold eyes, she uttered quickly for his as well as her daughter’s benefit, ‘It’s just a holiday, Daisy. Just for a few weeks. That’s all.’

Something firmed the hard line of that sculpted masculine mouth, but the arrival of a couple of male members of staff to deal with their bags and let a grateful Shadow out of the back of the car precluded whatever he had been about to say.

Out of the car before Conan could come round to assist her, Sienna moved to catch Daisy’s hand to stop her running on ahead. Or perhaps, subconsciously, she needed the little girl’s support as much as her daughter usually needed hers, Sienna thought self-deprecatingly, nervous at suddenly finding herself on this unfamiliar, unfriendly, exclusively Ryder territory.

Surprisingly, though, Daisy made a small protest and tugged away from her, causing something not unlike resentment to rush up inside Sienna as the little girl ran over to grasp Conan’s hand.

This unexpected action caught Conan totally unawares. With a sharp intake of breath that caused his chest to rise beneath the tailored shirt and his wide shoulders to stiffen, he glanced down at the little face beaming up at him, a blend of surprise and resistance coursing through his long, lean body.

‘And to what do I owe this pleasure?’ he asked the little girl.

Suddenly not sure of what to make of this tall, inflexible stranger, Daisy lost her courage, letting go of his hand. It still didn’t deter her from skipping along beside him, or from shrugging off her mother’s hand as it shot out to restrain her.

‘Get used to it, Sienna,’ Conan advised, quietly so that none of the others could hear. ‘You’ve had her to yourself long enough, and now you’re going to have to accept that she has other family she needs to get to know and spend time with. And if you can manage to curb your tongue with my mother while you’re here you’ll be doing us all a favour. As I’ve already explained, she’s very unwell.’

Peeved by his smug and condescending attitude, itching to remind him that it was she who had been on the receiving end of Avril Ryder’s disdain and disparaging remarks in the past, Sienna decided it wouldn’t help to promote good relations between them and considered it best to remain silent.

Ignoring him, she called to Shadow, who was already sniffing his way round one of the marble pillars at the top of the steps, and was relieved when the dog bounded down to her at once.

There was solace to be found in ruffling his fur, Sienna decided, speaking soothingly to the animal as she attached a lead to his red tartan collar.

A member of staff took the dog as soon as they entered the house, and Sienna had the disconcerting feeling that she was relinquishing all her power to Conan Ryder.

‘Don’t worry. He’ll be adequately catered for,’ he assured her evenly, wise to her silent objection.

‘But will he be cared for?’ Sienna argued in protest. ‘He was ill treated before he was rescued and needs special handling. He likes tea, and the odd bowl of tomato soup, and he always sleeps on my bed because he doesn’t like being left in the dark.’

‘Give me strength …’ Those dark fringed eyes rolled skyward. ‘He’s a dog,’ Conan reminded her, sounding exasperated.

So are you. She mouthed it at him with a scowl, across Daisy’s bouncing curls, not wanting anyone else to witness what she knew was a very childish retaliation. But Conan Ryder was as hard and impervious to human frailty as his brother had always led her to believe he was—as she had witnessed herself in his treatment of his younger sibling. So what chance did a mere animal have against so much indifference and superiority?

A young maid called Claudette showed her and Daisy to their rooms on the first floor. Each had its own luxurious bathroom, and both bedrooms reflected more of what Sienna had seen so far of the villa’s décor. Light, airy and spacious, with tasteful and predominantly white furniture, Daisy’s room was smaller, and had touches of pink in its floral bedspread and at the windows. Sienna couldn’t help thinking it had been chosen especially for her. The room was also just a step away from Sienna’s across the wide landing.

Conan was waiting for them in the marble-floored hall when they came back downstairs a short time later, and Daisy ran to him at once, just as she had outside.

For a moment, with that determined little hand clutching his, Conan felt the same surge of resistance as he had experienced before—like a barrier slamming down on his emotions. But the little girl was giggling up at him, as though defying him to try and frighten her off again, and, yielding a little, he allowed her merely a glimmer of a smile before casting an inscrutable glance towards Sienna.

Was that triumph in his eyes? she wondered. Because while he seemed not to overly welcome his niece’s attention, she felt that after what he had said outside he was putting up with it simply to needle her.

His scrutiny, though, was causing her pulses to leap-frog.

Now, tingling from the way his gaze ran over her freshly brushed hair and the golden slope of her shoulders beneath her sundress, Sienna stepped out of the beautiful house onto a sun terrace above a garden that tumbled down to the rocky shoreline and the restless sea.

Avril Ryder was propped up on a recliner in the canopied shade of the terrace, a flower-draped pergola behind her filling the air with some exotic scent. A creamy throw over her legs, she looked thinner, Sienna decided, her hair greyer than she remembered beneath a wide-brimmed floppy hat.

‘Oh, there you are!’ Her smile for Conan faded as her gaze shifted to Sienna, her eyes keenly assessing behind tinted lenses. Without a word to her former daughter-in-law, however, she turned her attention to Daisy, still clutching the man’s hand. ‘At last!’ The transformation in the woman’s face was like the sun coming out after a long hard winter. Her smile was warm and genuine, lending a glimmer of life to the otherwise waxen face. ‘Come here, child. Let me see you.’

Daisy ran to her without hesitation and let the painfully thin arms engulf her. Too thin, Sienna decided, silently shocked at Niall’s mother’s appearance. No wonder Conan was worried about her, she thought, aware now that he must be far more concerned than he was letting on.

Impassively, however, she murmured, ‘This is your grandmother, Daisy.’

Looking up at the pale and weary-looking face, Daisy giggled and asked, ‘Why are you wearing that funny hat?’

Sienna bit the inside of her lip, expecting the pale lips to tighten as she had seen them do so often in the past. But instead they were curving in a soft smile. ‘To keep the sun off my head. It doesn’t look all that pretty, does it? But it does its job.’

Sienna watched Daisy digest this for a moment. ‘Are you really going to be my grandmother?’ she enquired. ‘I’ve always wanted two. My friend Zoe has two. Are you going to take me to the beach like my Aunty Nanny?’

Sienna could have sworn there were tears in the shaded eyes that had suddenly turned her way.

‘It’s what she calls Mum,’ she explained simply with a little shrug. At forty-eight, Faith Swann considered herself far too young to be called a grandmother.

‘And you, Sienna …?’ A bony hand was stroking the soft tumble of Daisy’s curls, those tired eyes continually returning to the child’s face as though they couldn’t get enough of what they were seeing. A shaft of pain sliced viciously through Sienna as she wondered if her mother-in-law had noticed Daisy’s likeness to her lost son. ‘How have you been?’

Sienna’s response was tentative. ‘I’m fine.’ This was hardly the same woman who had made her constantly aware that she wasn’t good enough for Niall—who had ultimately blamed her for what had happened to her younger son.

‘I think we should leave them for a little while, don’t you?’ Sienna stiffened at the firm, masculine hand around her elbow, and caught Conan’s reprimand, low and lethally soft against her ear.

‘You can’t possibly object?’

She couldn’t tell him that her reluctance sprang from spending any more time than she had to alone with him.

‘No,’ she said tensely. ‘I don’t object.’

‘Good.’ The eyes that roamed speculatively across her face told her that the small inflexion in her voice hadn’t escaped him. He gestured for her to precede him through the pergola along the pale stonework of a shrub-bordered, sun-baked path.

‘I didn’t realise your mother was so … unwell,’ she said hesitantly, concerned. ‘Unwell’ seemed far too moderate a word to describe Avril Ryder’s appearance. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

‘I sincerely hope so.’ The skin was drawn tightly over Conan’s hard-boned cheeks and Sienna realised he was far more worried than he was letting on.

‘Perhaps having Daisy here will help?’ she offered, feeling that same tug of remorse over having denied Niall’s family the right to see his daughter.

‘Yes.’ The single syllable seemed dragged through Conan’s clenched teeth. It was clear he was thinking along the same lines, she thought, feeling chastened. ‘And you, Sienna. What have you been doing for the past three years?’

A slim shoulder lifted slightly beneath her floral print sundress—a cool blend of white and soft blues and greens, teamed that morning with a green lacy cropped bolero, which she had discarded as soon as they had stepped off the plane.

‘This and that. Training for my diplomas and the rest of my gym qualifications. Visiting Mum and Dad.’

‘In Spain.’

It wasn’t a question, she was quick to realise. He had obviously been informed. It was just another black mark against her in the Ryder family’s eyes, she’d always felt. That she was the daughter of a mere carpenter, who had sold up everything he had to go and run a wine bar for British ex-patriots with his wife on the Costa del Sol!

‘And what about the man whose flat you were sharing the night your husband died?’ His tone had turned as hard as the earth they were skirting on either side of the path, where an endless profusion of white roses made her almost heady with their fragrance. ‘How long did he stay in the picture?’

‘I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind,’ she responded, turning away.

Her profile, he noticed, was proud and challenging, yet insufferably alluring. He felt that stirring in his blood, that primal desire he had always recognised for his late brother’s wife, and always violently rejected with every bone in his body.

‘I bet you wouldn’t!’

Sienna’s expression as she looked his way again was almost careless, her pink creamy lips set in a sexy pout. He had the almost unbearable urge to crush them beneath his, to feel her body stir as his was stirring—and the evidence would be apparent if he carried on thinking like this! he thought censoriously.

She gave a little shrug, nonchalant and dismissive, as though her actions in the past were of no consequence whatsoever. That action caused the strap of her dress suddenly to slip off her shoulder. Its bareness was provocative, like pale silk begging for his touch.

Sienna reached for the fallen strap, sucking in her breath as Conan did the same, getting to it before she could and slipping it back on her shoulder.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, breathless from the shocking electrical impulses zinging through her at the merest touch of his hand.

‘When did you have that done?’ He meant her tattoo, and his voice was cool, composed, holding none of the turmoil that was going on inside her.

‘On my eighteenth birthday.’

Something tugged at his mouth. ‘Before you knew better.’

She ignored that statement, because that’s what it was. Her tattoo was just another thing he didn’t like about her, she realised, telling herself quite adamantly that she didn’t care.

‘Daisy has a lot of energy,’ she expressed, wanting to get away from him and his flower-filled garden, finding both disturbing with her troubling awareness of his far too unsettling proximity. ‘Do you think that leaving her with Avril for too long is a good idea?’

They had stopped on the path. ‘For my mother’s welfare?’ From beneath his dark lashes he regarded her with a contemplative amusement. ‘Or for yours, Sienna?’

Her throat going dry, she swallowed. Goodness! The man was perceptive!

‘Why should I be concerned for my welfare?’ she bluffed, her heart rate quickening, pretending not to understand as she sent a glance seawards to where a flotilla of sailboats sported their jaunty colours as they skirted the peninsula.

‘Why are you always so jittery when you’re alone with me?’

‘I’m not jittery.’ Who was she kidding? ‘Why should it make me jittery being alone with you?’

‘You tell me.’

The warmth of the sun on her skin was a sensuality she could well have done without, and the hum of Mediterranean insects only emphasised the pregnant silence between them.

‘Is it because I’m the only one who knows your secret, Sienna?’

She looked at him quickly, her eyes hooded and wary. ‘My secret?’

Her tone, Conan noted, was tinged with alarm. What else had she been hiding for those two and a half years she’d been married to his brother?

‘The only one who knows the kind of girl you really are,’ he elaborated.

‘You think you know. Knew,’ she corrected emphatically.

He laughed softly. ‘Whose so-called “shopping trips” to London and all those wanderings around museums were just a smokescreen for an illicit affair.’

About to deny it strongly, she felt the significance of what he’d meant when he said he was the only one who knew suddenly dawn on her, so that unthinkingly she asked, ‘You didn’t tell your mother about your suspicions?’ She found that amazing. ‘You surprise me, Conan.’ She would have thought he wouldn’t miss a chance to tell Avril exactly what he believed he’d discovered.

‘And break her heart more than it was broken already to find that her son’s wife was cheating on him? Don’t you think she was devastated enough?’

Emotionlessly, because she would never give Niall’s brother the satisfaction of knowing how much she had been through herself, she uttered, ‘Your discretion becomes you.’

‘Which is more than could be said for your morals.’

‘Yes, well …’ Heated colour crept across her cheeks. ‘That was what you wanted to believe. You wouldn’t listen to anything I said when I tried to explain.’

‘That you and this Timothy Leicester were just good friends?’ He laughed again, more harshly this time. ‘It’s a worn-out cliché.’

‘No, we were more—much more than that, Conan.’ Her gaze glanced across his, hard and defiant. She recognised from the rigidity of his jaw the danger that lay in provoking him, and yet it was a danger unlike any she had known before …

It would be sheer folly to antagonise him, or to deliberately fuel his hostility towards her, and so she burst out truthfully, ‘I was never unfaithful to Niall. I loved him!’ It was wrung from the anguished depths of her heart.

‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t wholly acknowledge the authenticity of that statement. After all, we both know your capacity for telling lies.’ They were walking again, and with a courtesy that was incongruous with the harshness of his words he stopped to lift a low branch of oleander that was growing over the path, its stems heavy with pink blossoms, their sultry scent impinging on the air.

Sienna moved under it and felt her hair lightly brush his arm. The contact was unwelcome, unwanted and electrifying.

‘Which brings me to the other reason.’

‘Other reason?’ She dragged her gaze from the blue water of a pool she had spotted on another level of the garden, glancing warily up at him as he let the branch go and fell into step beside her. ‘For what?’

‘For why you’ve always made every excuse under the sun to limit the time you spend alone with me.’

Had she? She hadn’t been conscious of it.

Heart beating erratically, she responded, ‘Simple. I just don’t like your company.’

‘That goes without saying. But it isn’t just my company that disturbs you, is it, Sienna?’

What was it then? she wondered, glancing out at the last of the sailboats that were still within her vision on the sparkling water. Because she wasn’t sure. Even when she’d been married to his brother Conan had disturbed her beyond belief. It was that raw animal energy that positively crackled from him that she found so unsettling, even without the dark enigma of his character, or the penetrating green-gold of eyes that seemed to strip her of her every secret—along with her floundering self-confidence—on those few occasions that she had come in contact with him. Eyes that assessed, judged and unhinged her so much that she was always glad to escape.

His ability to unsettle her, she realised despairingly, had only intensified with the years. But now, striving for equanimity, she murmured, ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t you?’ His smile was feral. ‘Oh, I think you do.’

She wasn’t sure when they had stopped walking, but now she felt the snare of those glacial green-gold eyes holding her as though in an invisible trap.

‘I’m talking about sex, Sienna.’

With her heart suddenly hammering against her ribcage, she echoed, ‘Sex?’ She uttered a brittle little laugh. ‘With you?’ Her mouth contorted at the concept of such an idea, masking the furore of wild sensations going on inside her.

Conan’s lips moved wryly, mocking, unperturbed. ‘Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite so graphically as that,’ he stated, watching the colour rise in her cheeks and seeming to relish every ounce of her discomfiture. ‘I was talking chemistry—unlikely though I know that seems. But then since when did physical attraction ever have anything to do with liking the object of one’s attraction, or even respecting them for that matter? And I know your respect for me is about as low on the scale of one to a thousand as mine is for you.’

‘That makes it all right, then, doesn’t it?’ she snapped. ‘I often get my kicks out of shacking up with men I can’t stand the sight of!’

‘Or with those who keep you in enough luxury to buy your affection until you find more interesting diversions elsewhere.’

‘Like I did with Niall, I suppose?’ she jibed.

‘You might think it’s something to hold up as a trophy, Sienna, but I don’t. My brother was besotted with you.’

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, closing her eyes, clenching her teeth against the well of emotion that threatened to engulf her, the unshed tears that were locked inside her and seemed doomed never to know the mercy of release.

Niall had been besotted. Adoring. Almost obsessive in his love for her, so that sometimes she’d felt stifled by the possessiveness that had sprung from his insecurities. She’d been someone to flaunt. To show off. To place on a pedestal so high that sometimes she’d been frightened of toppling off. And sometimes she’d felt—to use Conan’s own words—like a trophy, a feather in Niall’s cap to parade over the man he’d most wanted to impress: his richer, harder-headed and far more successful older brother.

As he watched the emotions that chased across her face, a groove deepened between Conan’s thick eyebrows. Was she telling him the truth? Had she ever really loved his brother? Was that what was tormenting her? Plain and simple guilt? Or was it something else altogether?

‘Remorse, Sienna?’ He reached out and slid a hand around the nape of her neck. He heard her breath catch, felt her body stiffen, the pulse beneath his fingers beating a frenzied rhythm.

‘What are you hoping?’ To her own ears she sounded afraid, and her breathlessness was betraying to him that it was herself she was afraid of, the sensations that were ripping through her just from the touch of those cool fingers on her heated skin. ‘That I’ll fall for you so you can dump me? Because that’s about as likely as one of our spacecraft finding life on Mars tomorrow night!’

Way off in the distance the buzz of a speedboat encroached on the peaceful garden. Closer to hand, a gentle breeze played among the spiky leaves of the oleander tree.

‘I’ve always lived by the premise that’s anything’s likely.’ A complacent smile touched his lips. ‘And we both know you weren’t impervious to me even with two other lovers in the picture—don’t we, Sienna?’

Fear clouded her eyes. ‘You read it all wrong!’

‘Did I?’

He was referring to the firm’s dinner-dance that she had attended with Niall. Niall had been drinking with clients at the bar, trying to tie down a deal. Conan had come over to the table where she had been sitting alone and asked her to dance—just out of courtesy, she’d guessed.