Читать книгу Master Of Seduction - Sarah Holland - Страница 8

EMMA dressed carefully that night, aware of the importance of first impressions, and aware that she didn’t want either Toby or Charles, whom she had not yet met, to think she was a sexy woman up for grabs. Knowing Natasha just a little by now, she was fairly sure that Toby would have been told Emma was young, single and ready to mingle. I don’t want to get grabbed, she thought, ready to spike Natasha’s nasty little matchmaking guns.

The black evening dress she chose was serenely sensual, made of loose, elegant silk, making her look attractive without looking available. Pearls gleamed around her throat, pearl and diamond drops in her ears, glistening against the wealth of her long black curly hair. She wore strappy, black high heels, and was bathed in a discreet aura of Safari.

When she went up on deck, she steeled herself not only to spar with Natasha and meet the other two guests, but also to be very cool with the arrogant, conceited and thoroughly detestable Mr Patrick Kinsella.

To her annoyance, he was the only one there. Emma stopped on the tranquil deck, studying Patrick, who stood leaning against the steel railings looking out at St Tropez with his back to her. The sun glowed evening gold across the town, music came from the cafés opposite the yacht, and sports cars zoomed about, carrying breezy young people from lazy cafés to exclusive nightclubs. Patrick was wearing a black dinner-jacket, impeccably cut, and the way it fitted his powerful muscular body was pure poetry. Emma remembered Liz telling her that women threw themselves at his feet and, looking him up and down with dislike, she had to admit she could see why. He wasn’t her type, but as far as gorgeous playboys were concerned he was a magnificent specimen.

He turned suddenly then and saw her. She found herself momentarily breathless. His eyes were even more blue, more dazzling, more acutely sensitive than she remembered.

‘Hi,’ Emma said warily, and did not smile at him, remembering his unsmiling stare in the leafy square of the town and prickling under this latest, cool assessment.

‘Hi.’ He didn’t smile either, but he did push lightly away from the railings and lift his dark brows, saying, ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Thanks.’ She walked towards him, her heels clickclacking elegantly on the wooden deck. ‘Something light and cold would be nice.’

Patrick moved like the giant he was to the table, and poured a long cold drink for her. Emma watched his body movements. He seemed at once fascinating and loathsome. She wondered why. Then it occurred to her that fascination and loathing were both intense reactions, which meant that she was far from indifferent to him.

Emma was a great analyser of feelings. She had been blinded too many times by emotions—powerful emotions, the kind that blistered and bludgeoned one’s logic into oblivion—and she had no intention of ever again finding herself kneeling at the feet of some great male god, who later turned out to be all too horribly human.

So recognising an emotional response to Mr Patrick Kinsella was something which instantly sent her logic into overdrive, demanding a rapid analysis of just why she might react so strongly to him.

What had Liz told her about him? she wondered now with narrowed, wary eyes. All she could remember was that he was occasionally in the newspapers and that, in the past, he had been a notorious womaniser.

Work hard, play hard had been his motto, and the string of beauties his name had been linked with formed an impressive collection—film stars, beauty queens, models. He had hardly led a blameless life.

But lately, according to Liz, that aspect of his life had been played down in the Press because it had begun to affect his very serious reputation at work. All sex appeal aside, he was first and foremost a businessman, and he could hardly continue to live the life of James Bond without it rebounding on his business reputation. That didn’t mean, however, that he no longer womanised. Far from it. He was probably just a lot more discreet. And that was further indication of quite how clever, calculating and cynical Patrick Kinsella really was.

‘Here,’ he said, and silver cuff-links flashed in his crisp white cuffs as he turned to hand her her drink. She thanked him with a polite smile, and for a second they drank in silence.

It was faintly uncomfortable. But Emma had no intention of making polite chit-chat with him, particularly after the way he’d behaved towards her so far.

Eventually, it was Patrick who broke the silence.

‘Did you do any shopping in town?’

‘Yes.’ She sipped her drink and did not look at him.

‘There are a number of very interesting shops here.’

‘Yes, there are.’ Emma nodded expressionlessly.

‘My favourite is the tiny little art shop in the old part of town.’

Emma smiled politely and sipped her drink again. Patrick was silent for a moment, then came to loom next to her at the ship’s railings. Emma pretended interest in the town. Patrick loomed. He was watching her. She felt acutely aware of his gaze and also aware of his anger.

Slowly, she looked up.

Their eyes met in a cool moment of mutual recognition.

He smiled slowly. So did she.

‘We’re going to be stuck on this yacht together,’ drawled Patrick Kinsella, ‘for another fortnight. Life will be so much easier if you don’t bear a grudge.’

‘I’m not bearing a grudge,’ she drawled, just as cynical as he. ‘I just respond to treatment, like any other normal human being.’

‘And as my treatment of you thus far——’ his hard mouth moved in a faint, rueful smile ‘—has hardly been exemplary, you intend to pay me back in kind. Is that it?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Because of our discussion this afternoon?’

‘I felt attacked, Mr Kinsella. Didn’t you notice?’

‘I thought you could take it.’

‘I can take it. But every action has a reaction.’

‘And this is yours? Hmm. Well, that’s something I can take, too. Besides, you were patronising all of us with what you were saying.’

‘Oh, was I?’

‘Yes, you were.’ His blue eyes were as direct as his words. ‘You thought we were all arguing for romance. You thought you were talking to a bunch of naïve teenagers still living in bluebird-and-orange-blossom land.’

‘I can assure you,’ she laughed cynically, ‘I would never put you in that particular category!’

‘Better not, Miss Baccarat. I stopped believing in romance a long time ago.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said, eyeing him with cat-like suspicion. ‘I had you pegged for an arrogant, cynical swine as soon as I saw you.’

He laughed. ‘Good for you.’ The blue eyes danced with rakish amusement as he looked down his arrogant nose at her. ‘Honest as well as beautiful.’

‘Flattery won’t work with me.’

‘It’s not flattery. You are honest—and beautiful. I didn’t notice it when you first boarded. You just seemed like another pretty little dolly in a red dress. But dollies don’t have serious integrity, and you do appear to have, even if it is a little misguided.’

‘Forgive a mere dolly having the presumption to ask, but how can integrity be misguided?’

‘Because it misses the mark.’

‘And what particular mark might that be?’

His brows arched. ‘The truth.’

Emma smiled through her perfect white teeth. ‘You’re very patronising.’

‘Am I?’

‘I fear so. But don’t let it worry you. I fully intend to patronise you into the ground before this cruise is out.’

He laughed again, eyes smiling into hers as he leant idly beside her, tall and handsome and well aware of it. ‘Well, that’s what you were doing this afternoon. That’s why I broke in and stopped you pussyfooting around. You’re so used to being with people who still live in fairyland that you automatically feed them palliatives instead of saying what you really think.’

‘There’s no point in trying to destroy their illusions, Mr Kinsella. They wouldn’t listen even if you did try.’

‘Well, I won’t argue with that. You have to leave them wandering blindfold through a maze, bumping into things, never recognising them for what they are, labouring under the delusions of love, romance, happyever-after…’ He laughed harshly and shook his dark head. ‘It’s enough to make one horribly cynical.’

She laughed too, green eyes blazing with a strange mixture of dislike, admiration and understanding. ‘But you are horribly cynical.’

‘So I am!’ He laughed then, but as the breeze gently played with his jet-black hair his smile faded and he drawled, ‘It’s very isolating, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is.’

They seemed to have reached a point of mutual agreement without realising it, and Emma didn’t stop to think about what she said next, because it just seemed like a natural progression of the conversation, which she thought was still an argument.

‘I often wonder,’ she said, ‘if I’ll ever be able to be completely honest with another human being, because everyone I meet always tries to persuade me that black is white and white is black.’

‘Like addicts trying to get you hooked on their particular drug.’ He nodded coolly, unsmiling. ‘Religion isn’t the opium of the masses any more—romantic love is. And, as with all drugs, once the haze clears, one cannot tolerate real life. One has a clear-cut choice: take some more of the drug, or face reality.’

Emma shuddered. ‘I prefer reality.’

‘Me too.’ He studied her with a smile. ‘But, as you so rightly said, one despairs of ever finding someone with whom one can be completely honest. It’s as though everybody else is living on another planet. I used to find it depressing, but I’m so used to feeling isolated from the people I love that I——’ He broke off suddenly, staring at her, then gave a slow smile, looking right into her eyes with a frown, and drawled sardonically, ‘What an extraordinary conversation!’

The sea breeze flickered through Emma’s hair as she smiled at him, thinking the same thing.

Patrick gave a cool, wry laugh. ‘What made me tell you all of that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Emma smiled lazily at him. ‘I’m just wondering the same thing myself, about what I told you.’

‘Most embarrassing,’ he drawled with a rakish laugh. ‘Let’s not tell anyone we had this conversation!’

‘Agreed!’

‘Shake on it.’

Their hands moved out, touched, clung.

Suddenly, a peculiar silence descended on them, one of deep intimacy, respect and mutual understanding. Emma’s toes curled. Her hand was in his and she just kept smiling, felt her heart begin to beat faster. He smiled too, eyes glittering down into hers, then, very slowly, he stopped smiling, and as he did she felt her heart thud, her body jump as though energised by some unstoppable force, and her eyes drop like fire to his hard, handsome mouth.

When she looked up she saw that he was staring at her mouth too. His gaze flashed up suddenly to meet hers. Their hands tightened together, and the unexpected violence of sexual attraction reared up between them so powerfully that Emma felt her whole body shake with it.

‘Ahoy there!’ Liz called cheerily from along the deck.

Patrick and Emma leapt away from each other as though burnt—or as though they’d been caught in some illicit, deeply intimate act.

‘Where are all the others?’ Liz tottered towards them in a peacock-blue silk dress, high heels and a cloud of Joy perfume. ‘Don’t tell me Charles and Toby are still in town!’

‘No, they came back to the ship at around six…’

Emma struggled for composure as Patrick talked to his sister, but she was deeply shaken, and so was her body—her heart was pounding much too fast, her pulses racing like wildfire, and the tension suddenly coiling in her stomach was at once frightening and exciting.

Stupid, she said to herself, sipping her drink too quickly, alarmed by the tremor of her hands. We were only talking. No need to get so pathetically romantic about it all of a sudden, as though I genuinely wanted to kiss him.

Of course I don’t want to kiss him, she thought, and stared at his firm, handsome, sexy mouth.

‘So,’ said Liz with a smile, ‘what have you two been talking about up here on your own?’

Emma’s eyes met Patrick’s in a fierce blaze of mutual understanding. She looked away quickly, but not before she had noticed how very handsome his face was, the tough bones beneath the tanned skin strikingly male, revealing a formidable personality in the hard, sensual set of his mouth, the uncompromising line of his jaw, and the sexy droop of those heavy eyelids.

He’s quite superb, she thought with a shock as she heard her voice say with false gaiety, ‘Oh, we were just talking about St Tropez.’

Patrick shot her a quick, unsmiling stare that made her blush. She had lied. Why had she lied? She couldn’t understand it.

‘Good old St Tropez!’ Liz was pouring herself a drink. ‘Patrick, did you tell her how many times you’ve been here?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Patrick lied, and now it was her turn to stare at him. He looked away from her, raking a hand through his jet-black hair. She saw him raise his glass to his mouth, take a drink, then look back at her with a hard, narrowed stare that focused on her eyes, then on her mouth, then moved slowly down her body in a rapid, unsmiling assessment, as though he had only just noticed her body—but how he noticed it now, in every detail, fast, fast, fast, whizzing over the curve of her full breasts, the narrow slenderness of her waist, down past her slim hips and on down over her legs—long, shapely legs—right down to her narrow ankles.

‘I love St Tropez.’ Liz was oblivious to their silent intimacy. ‘It’s such a beautiful place, full of so many…’

Patrick’s eyes met Emma’s suddenly, and the dark, dangerous desire she saw revealed in them made her want to run screaming from this sunlit deck.

‘Oh, look!’ Liz broke off her rhapsody of St Tropez. ‘Here come good old Toby and Charles!’

Emma dragged her hectic gaze from Patrick’s, breathing in shallow, inaudible little gasps as she struggled to come to terms with what she was feeling— and what he was so obviously feeling too. She told herself it couldn’t possibly be real. It must be some kind of mistake or accident. After all, nobody really felt physical attraction so powerfully. That was just something that happened in storybooks, films, romantic novels.

‘Evening all!’ called a jolly, boyish blond man in his mid-thirties. ‘Crack open the champers! I’ve arrived!’

‘Hi, Toby!’ Liz went to greet him with a kiss. ‘You’re looking awfully flushed! You must have caught the sun this afternoon!’

‘I always do. It’s the de Courcey skin. I think one of our ancestors must have been old Dracula himself.’

Emma was acutely aware of Patrick standing close to her, watching her with his heavy-lidded eyes. He was leaning against the rails, one strong hand close to the small of her back, and all she could think about was how close it was, and how very easily it could slide up on to her back, those long fingers moving lightly over her skin…

‘Toby, have you met my friend Emma Baccarat?’

‘No, but I can’t wait to do so! Look at that stunning figure!’

Emma smiled politely, shook his hand, aware of Patrick’s blue eyes on her, and of the long hand so close to her back.

‘What a cracker you are!’ Toby giggled. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me the new arrival was so gorgeous?’

Everyone laughed.

‘And have you met our cousin Charles?’ Liz was gesturing to the tall, elegant blond man who was with Toby. ‘He’s married to Natasha.’

‘The Wicked Witch of the West,’ Toby said, giggling.

‘Don’t be horrible about my poor darling Natasha,’ said Charles.

Emma barely noticed either Toby or Charles. She was too busy noticing Patrick Kinsella, standing beside her, stunningly gorgeous, unbearably handsome, frighteningly real…

‘How do you do, Miss Baccarat?’ Charles de Courcey said with infinite charm, shaking her hand, his dark eyes gentle and sweet.

‘Very well, thank you.’ Emma shook his hand and wished Patrick would disappear. ‘And you?’

‘Oh, marvellous. Had a lovely day; looks like it’s going to be a super night…’

Patrick finished his drink, moved with cool male grace to the table, put his glass down. Emma didn’t look at him but she saw every move he made, every ripple of muscle beneath that impeccable black dinner-jacket, every turn of his dark head and every flicker of his blue, blue eyes.

‘Uh-oh!’ Toby giggled suddenly. ‘Here comes The Evil One.’

Natasha appeared on deck looking drop-deadly in a shimmering silver sheath which she must have been poured into, for it clung to her every slender curve. Her dark hair was pushed back in a sultry swath, her heavy eyelids were outlined in black and her lips dripped bloodred gloss.

‘Vampirella, I presume!’ Toby joked.

‘Do be quiet, Toby,’ Natasha said, slinking towards them. ‘Don’t give Charles a drink, Patrick—he’s been knocking back the sherry all afternoon, and I don’t want him to lose consciousness too soon. Why, Miss Baccarat! Weren’t you told to dress for dinner?’

Emma barely registered the insult—she was too busy forcing herself not to feel what she was feeling.

‘I think Emma looks absolutely superb,’ Patrick murmured coolly, watching her from beneath those heavy eyelids and making her heart skip rapid beats.

‘Well, you would, Patrick!’ Natasha said waspishly. ‘No doubt you’ve decided to take up the challenge. After all, if anyone can get Miss Baccarat to fall wildly in love, it’s you.’

Emma stiffened like a board, her hand clutching her glass so tightly, she thought it might shatter into a thousand pieces. Over my dead body! she told herself furiously. Over my dead body!

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Toby.

‘Oh, we were having this conversation when they first arrived…’ said Natasha, but Emma wasn’t listeningshe was furiously remembering Patrick’s reputation as a lady-killer, playboy, seducer par excellence. She felt a fool, humiliated, aware now that Patrick Kinsella had probably elicited these responses in her through experience or cynical manipulation or some other technique which she had no defence against.

I knew they weren’t real feelings, she thought angrily, sipping her drink too fast. I knew feelings like these didn’t exist outside storybooks.

‘…and she said she didn’t believe in love or romance.’

Emma’s face was burning angry crimson. She didn’t know where to look or what to say. She wanted to die.

‘So I told her she must want someone to kiss from time to time…’

Patrick moved coolly, suddenly, and as his powerful body blocked the others from her view Emma looked up into his clever, serious eyes and felt breathless all over again because he clearly understood what was going on inside her mind. She swallowed hard, dragging her gaze from his. He hesitated for a second, then his long fingers touched her cheek, making her quite literally catch her breath and stare up at him again, horrified.

‘…and then Patrick asked her if she’d ever wanted to kiss anyone…’

Emma looked down suddenly at his mouth, then went scarlet, felt more vulnerable than she had ever felt in her life, and had no option other than to bend her dark head because there was nowhere else to hide.

Turning from Emma, Patrick cut into Natasha’s diatribe. ‘I think it’s time we all left for dinner.’

They all turned to look up at him, as though he were a god.

‘I booked the table for eight o’clock, and it’s nearly that now.’ He studied the black and silver Rolex on his wrist, the crisp white cuff shooting back to reveal a tanned, black-haired forearm. ‘As we have to sail at midnight, I think an early start is advisable.’

They left the yacht, a glamorous set of people bathed in gold evening light, walking along the expensive shopping streets while open-topped sports cars zoomed past and little red Lambretta scooters whizzed along carrying young people in jeans, their hair blowing back in the hot breeze.

Naturally, they fell into pairs as they walked. Charles and Toby. Natasha and Liz…

Patrick fell into step beside Emma. She felt her heart beating too fast. The warm sun was on her skin, the breeze in her hair, and all the lights of St Tropez seemed bright, hot, blazing with glamour.

‘Do you think you’ll enjoy the cruise?’

It was small talk, and Emma was grateful for that, answering, ‘Yes. Particularly Morocco. I’ve never been there.’

‘Rabat is very beautiful.’ His voice was deep, cool, very male. ‘It’s the capital, but it’s quite a way inland from Casablanca, which is where we’ll be stopping. I’ll hire a car, drive you into the city for——’

‘No, that’s quite all right!’ Emma tried hard not to sound as though she was afraid of spending an entire day alone with him, although she had a sneaking suspicion that she was. ‘Casablanca will be fine for me. I don’t need to see Rabat.’

He just looked at her coolly, analytically, from under those heavy eyelids, and her heart skipped so many beats she was surprised she didn’t have a cardiac arrest.

‘How much longer till we get to this restaurant?’ she demanded with a brittle laugh, and then blushed hotly, aware of his serious blue eyes burning through her pretence. ‘I’m really quite hungry!’

He looked at her in cool enquiry, and his eyes wanted to know why she was resorting to such artifice.

Feeling sick, she looked away from him.

‘Here we are!’ Natasha said suddenly, stopping at a vast restaurant surrounded by black iron grilles, plants and flowers and trees in the garden beneath the long blue and white canopy. ‘Well done, Patrick! You unerringly pick the most exclusive restaurants.’

He gave a cool, wry smile. ‘Just for you, Natasha,’ he said, and pushed open the gate of the private enclosure, watching Emma as she walked past him, making her very aware of his every look, his every flicker of thought.

The maître d’ swept up to them, bowed low. ‘Monsieur Kinsella! How wonderful to see you again! May I show you to your table…?’

Emma walked with the others across the terracotta paving. Women stared at Patrick in open admiration, men with jealous awe.

‘He looks like one of your heroes, doesn’t he?’ Natasha said to Liz. ‘Tall, dark and dangerous.’

Emma pretended not to hear. Dry-mouthed, she wandered aimlessly around while the others took their places. Patrick sat at the head of the table, leaning back coolly, his powerful eyes watching her trying to sit as far away from him as possible.

‘Oh, are you sitting up here with me?’ Toby said in surprise as she sat down beside him, in the furthest chair from Patrick. ‘I thought you were getting on famously with Patrick?’

‘Well, I just ended up walking with him, that’s all.’ She smiled, aware of Patrick’s laser-blue eyes burning on her, and deliberately did not look in his direction, smiling instead at Toby. ‘And now I’ve ended up sitting with you.’

‘Good-oh!’ Toby giggled amiably. ‘What shall we talk about? Oh—I know! Let’s talk about sex! That’s always a good dinner party conversation!’

‘Trust Toby to lower the moral tone,’ Natasha said contemptuously. ‘I say—is that Brigitte Bardot over there?’

Everybody looked to see if it was.

The waiter came up to take their order. Emma decided on sole meunière with salad because she had a feeling she was losing her appetite, and didn’t want everyone to notice—especially not Patrick.

‘I must remember to use this restaurant in one of my books,’ Liz said when the waiter had gone. ‘It’s a great place for the hero to take the heroine. They could have that corner table over there and argue passionately over their main course.’

‘Why do they always have to argue?’ Natasha asked.

‘Because,’ said Liz, ‘when two people fall in love they invariably fight tooth and claw to stop it happening.’

Emma slowly leaned her head to one side to look at Patrick while he wasn’t looking at her. She knew he couldn’t be looking at her, because she could hear him talking to Charles, but she was mistaken—he was looking straight at her, and as their eyes collided she felt so violently exposed that it was like being staked stark naked to her chair.

‘Usually, though,’ said Liz, sipping her wine, ‘the man recognises it first and acts on it.’

Emma dragged her gaze from Patrick’s and stared at the crystal glass in front of her.

‘But it’s all tied up with sexual attraction, you see, especially for him,’ Liz went on. ‘So he just keeps trying to get the heroine into bed, and, of course, she reacts like a scalded cat, because she thinks that’s all he wants.’

‘It usually is,’ said Natasha.

Patrick’s blue eyes flicked briefly, hotly, to Emma’s breasts.

‘And that’s why they argue so much,’ Liz said. ‘It’s the age-old difference between the sexes.’

‘Men want sex and women want love?’ Natasha laughed. ‘Stale news!’

‘So the minute the man pounces on the woman,’ said Liz, ‘all hell breaks loose because he can’t admit his feelings and she can’t let him make love to her until he does. Stalemate. Somebody has to give.’

Patrick Kinsella looked directly at Emma, his face hard, handsome, very cool, and as she met his eyes she felt devoid of all defence, completely convinced that he could see the bare vulnerability in her face, her skin, her hands, her shoulders, the very set of her body.

Pull yourself together! she thought furiously, and looked down at her knife and fork. Her hands shook as she blindly rearranged them.

‘Oh, look!’ said Natasha. ‘Miss Baccarat’s gone all shaky!’

Emma flicked angry green eyes up to her spiteful face. ‘I’m tired. I should have slept instead of going shopping.’

‘Not all this talk about passionate lovers, then?’ Natasha laughed. ‘You must be getting quite desperate now that you’re twenty-six, mustn’t you? Speaking of desperate—where the hell is my lobster? I’m starving.’

‘Desperate?’ said Toby with a laugh. ‘Who, this little beauty? She’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen in years. In fact I’m surprised Patrick hasn’t commented on her stunning looks. He’s usually the fastest gun in the West when it comes to seducing a pretty lady.’

Emma’s mouth tightened and she steeled herself not to look at Patrick.

‘But then he’s so discreet,’ said Toby, ‘that he’s probably planning to come to your cabin later tonight and relieve you of your négligé.’

Patrick’s dark lashes flickered and a faint smile touched his hard, sensual mouth. He shot a quick, lazy, burning look at Emma that told her Toby had hit the nail right on the head.

That was exactly what he had been planning to do.

Over my dead body, thought Emma furiously, glaring at him. Over my dead body!