Читать книгу Sharon Kendrick Collection - Шэрон Кендрик, Sharon Kendrick - Страница 33
ОглавлениеDOMINIC DASHWOOD drove through the ornate golden and navy gates of St Fiacre’s Hill estate with just a little more speed than was necessary. Though not with as much speed as he would have liked, he decided, with a grim smile which nonetheless transformed his devastating features into the kind of face that most women only ever fantasised about.
Tensing one long, muscular thigh, he depressed the accelerator pedal, and his dark green Aston Martin shot forward like a bullet.
What he would have liked was to be on some wide, empty highway, where he could put his foot down and succumb to the heady lure of mechanical power. Machines and speed were two of Dominic’s great passions. In the past women had accused him of being cold and unfeeling.
‘You love that damned car more than you love me!’ some sultry beauty had once poutingly accused him.
And Dominic had been unable to deny the truth which lay behind her accusation. He had taken her to bed one last time—because she had begged him to and, in truth, because he had wanted to—and had then walked away, wondering what it was that made him immune to the pain of emotion.
You know damn well what it is! mocked an inner voice, and Dominic’s long fingers tightened convulsively around the soft leather of the steering wheel, as if they were biting deliciously into a woman’s tender flesh. But not just any woman. He felt the potent flicker of desire as he slowed to take the bend near the clubhouse.
His sensual mouth twisted as a woman in tennis whites emerged from the St Fiacre’s club-house. She stopped dead and stared at the car as it roared by, her eyes narrowing with speculation as they took in the hard, handsome profile of the driver.
But Dominic deliberately avoided eye contact with her. The woman’s body language made it patently clear that she was available, and Dominic avoided such openly available women like the plague.
His unconscious sexual appeal had become the bane of his life. In his youth he had used it, squandered it even. For many years now he had desired the challenge of a woman who would not melt with early submission into his arms.
Unfortunately, the woman he was scheduled to meet in just under an hour was not going to provide the challenge he needed, though once again he felt the reluctant heat coursing around his veins which just the thought of her could provoke.
For Romy Salisbury was everything he despised in a woman.
She was a siren who used her sexuality indiscriminately. Who had ruined at least one man’s life and had haunted his own for longer than he cared to admit.
A muscle worked in his lightly tanned cheek as he drove past another sports car, unwilling excitement shivering its way up his spine as he anticipated what he intended to happen.
Dominic smiled—but it was a cold, cruel smile as his mind lingered on the pleasure of the retribution he was going to exact in the next few days.
He had waited five years for his moment and now it had come at last.
It was high time that he settled the score with the delicious Miss Romy Salisbury.
Romy missed the turning for St Fiacre’s Hill and said something rather rude underneath her breath. The entrance was so well camouflaged she was surprised that even the residents could find it!
But then, didn’t they always say that you got what you paid for? And what St Fiacre’s residents were paying for—apart from ultra-luxurious houses in the jewel-like setting of nine hundred prime Surrey acres—was privacy, pure and sweet.
Privacy from nosy tourists with their instant cameras always to hand, who were curious to know how the super-rich really lived. And privacy from good, old-fashioned fortune-hunters—people with an eye to the main chance who thought they could get rich quick by marrying into money!
Romy glanced in the rear-view mirror, realising that she would have to go right round the roundabout and come back in again.
Minutes later, she was heading back towards the St Fiacre’s turn-off in her zippy little black car, bought largely with the bonus given to her by her last grateful client.
Not for the first time, Romy thanked her lucky stars that in business at least she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. No job was too big, too small or too difficult for Romy to tackle, and Top Class, her very own company, was going from strength to strength.
She drew up in front of the distinctive navy blue and gold wrought-iron gates which separated St Fiacre’s from the rest of the world, and decided to risk a quick, critical glance at herself in the driver’s mirror.
Not too bad, she thought dispassionately as she squinted her eyes against the glare of the sun reflected there. She flicked a trace of dust from one smooth, pale cheek and risked a closer look.
Her face carried the barest trace of make-up and her thick, straight hair was expertly styled in the urchin cut which was currently so fashionable and which made the most of the unusual pale honey colour.
She wore a silk and linen trouser suit in a neutral dark cream colour which flattered the pale magnolia of her skin and the deep velvety brown of her eyes. Beneath the suit Romy wore a simple white silk T-shirt, and she looked as she had intended to look—professional and efficient and ready for anything.
Or anyone, she reminded herself, with a wry little twist of her wide mouth as she punched in the security number she had been given.
The gates swung open and Romy drove through them to have her first inside view of the St Fiacre’s estate.
She could see immediately why it was dubbed ‘the Beverly Hills of England’ by the popular Press. It didn’t just exude money—it positively shouted it from the summit of every beautifully designed rooftop!
Or at least what you could actually see of every rooftop, thought Romy as she craned her neck to try to get a better look at some of the palatial mansions she was passing.
Impossible to see anything, really. The hedges were too high, the gates and the fences too impenetrable. Several houses even had menacing-looking signs bearing the message “Warning! Dogs Loose!”.
Romy shuddered and uttered a fervent prayer that she wouldn’t bump into anything which growled and bared its teeth!
She glanced down at the directions her secretary had neatly typed out for her.
First right, down the road for half a mile, then the second house past the oak tree. She looked for confirmation that she had found the right house, saw the sign saying “Brunswick House” and, although she had tried for weeks now to suppress it, familiar cold fingers of fear crept over her skin.
Don’t be crazy, she urged herself silently. It’s just a job, like any other job. A job, what’s more, that you could do in your sleep!
But it was so much more than a job to Romy—in fact, for once, most uncharacteristically, the job had taken on secondary importance. Not even her secretary knew how high the stakes were going to be at this particular interview. For Romy was going to see Dominic again, after five long years which had seemed to stretch out in front of her like an eternity.
And this time she intended to exorcise his cruel and sexy ghost once and for all.
The gates were open and Romy steered the car down a sweeping drive which seemed to go on for ever, dimly observing the beautifully laid out gardens in the middle of which glittered a formal lake, before drawing up in front of an elegant red-brick house.
She switched off the ignition and quietly took in her surroundings.
In front of the house a dark green Aston Martin was parked, its sleek lines lying so close to the ground that it looked like a lithe jungle cat, just before it pounced.
So he was home...
Waiting...
Suppressing a shiver, and picking up her slim leather briefcase, Romy swung her legs out of the car, wishing that she could shake off the persistent and rather disconcerting feeling that she was being watched.
She had raised one hand to press on the doorbell when the door was suddenly opened, and Romy stood staring up at a man whose coldly handsome features would be etched on her memory until her dying day.
Dominic Dashwood—in the living, breathing flesh.
And... Oh, my God!
Elation and despair swamped over her like a tidal wave as she discovered that time and maturity had done nothing except add to that formidable appeal of his. He had always been a dynamic-looking man, but now he exuded the quietly confident air of the seriously successful.
With the expertise born of weeks of practice, Romy somehow managed to present to him a face which was both polite and impassive, as if he were just another client she was meeting.
‘Hello,’ he said softly.
‘H-hello,’ she stammered, feeling as overcome as a sixteen-year-old in the presence of her favourite pop star. Oh, why in heaven’s name had she agreed to take the job? Had she really been stupid enough to think that she might now be immune to him? After all that had happened between them?
So what did she do next? Did she pretend she didn’t recognise him, or what? She hunted for the smallest flicker of recognition in his eyes but saw nothing other than self-possession and detachment. So either he didn‘t recognise her or he was pretending not to. Well, two could play at that game, mister!
‘Romy Salisbury,’ he stated, in a deep voice which still had the power to bring her out in goosebumps beneath the cream jacket she wore. His steely grey eyes swept over her in candid assessment.
Romy waited, but that was all he said and she carefully kept her face neutrat—determined not to show that she was itching to know why he had asked her here.
It might simply be coincidence that he had hired her, of course. She was, after all, one of the best party planners in the business. So why on earth look for hidden agendas which might simply not exist? And wouldn’t it be best for everyone if he didn’t recognise her? Five years was a long time.
But deep in her heart she knew that it was not coincidence which had brought her here this weekend. Men like Dominic Dashwood did not allow something as unpredictable as coincidence to govern their lives.
‘That’s right,’ she agreed with a smile, and decided to follow his lead—polite but distant
Very distant.
‘So, by a simple process of elimination, you must be...’ Her voice faltered slightly as she failed to block out just how spectacularly handsome he was. How could she have forgotten that? ‘Austen Holdings, I suppose?’ she finished pertly, giving the name of the company in which he had made the booking, presumably to keep his identity secret
She held her hand out to him, triumphant in the knowledge that in that at least he had failed! ‘So would you prefer me to call you Austen?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘Or Holdings?’
Dominic had to bite back a reluctant smile as he wondered if her cool indifference was feigned or genuine; his pride and his ego instinctively rebelled against the unthinkable—that she did not remember him!
But he hesitated for no more than a fraction of a second, then took her outstretched hand in his. ‘You must call me Dominic,’ he instructed softly. ‘Or Dashwood, if you prefer.’
His grey eyes blazed at her as he watched for her reaction, and this made Romy even more determined to keep her face impassive.
‘Dominic will do just fine.’ she agreed noncommittally. ‘Why on earth should I want to call you Dashwood?’
He smiled, but now Romy could detect a cold flicker of anger which lurked in the depths of his grey eyes. Had her supposed failure to recognise him provoked that? she wondered.
‘Because the new wave of women seem to rather enjoy calling men by their surnames,’ he explained, his deep voice sounding faintly steely. ‘Maybe it reminds them of their schooldays—or maybe it just gives them a feeling of power over the opposite sex,’ he concluded, his eyes glittering with an unspoken question.
But Romy couldn’t think straight enough to answer any question, unspoken or otherwise. Because his handshake assumed an air of almost shocking intimacy as she felt that first brief caress.
The sensation of having him grasp her fingers like that made her mouth fall open in an instinctive gasp, and she remembered just how intimately those hands had explored every centimetre of her body... She had to battle to stop herself from swaying.
‘Are you feeling ill?’ His eyes narrowed and he let her hand go, but he hadn’t missed the darkening of her eyes and the swift hardening of her nipples beneath the silken T-shirt, and Dominic felt a small but triumphant surge of sexual power heating his loins.
His voice sounded concerned, but Romy didn’t miss the speculative gleam in those steely grey eyes. ‘No. I’m just—hot.’ She indicated the blazing sun with a wave of her arm. ‘That’s all.’
He nodded. ‘Of course you are,’ he agreed formally. ‘Hot and bothered. It’s been the hottest July on record. So why don’t we go inside and I can fix you something cool to drink while we discuss the job?’
Romy was horribly aware that he automatically seemed to be taking control of the situation, and found herself wondering just why she was allowing it to happen.
Romy’s whole life was her job. She was a party planner, or an “entertainment expert” as she preferred to call it! She took the sting out of organising any function—from the smallest children’s birthday tea to the grandest weekend shooting party.
She spent the majority of her time working in other people’s homes, from huge and austere Scottish castles to the most opulent of London residences, and she had never suffered a single qualm about the nature of her work in the past.
So why did she now feel as though she was some poor, unsuspecting little fly being lured into the web of an evil black spider?
And why the hell didn’t he say something about what had happened between the two of them five years earlier? About the man she had gone on to marry?
Feeling weak and more than a little shaky, Romy followed him through a long, echoing hallway and into an airy sitting room which overlooked a garden bright with summer flowers. Even further into the distance shone the golden dazzle of sunlight as it glanced off the waters of the lake.
‘Please sit,’ he suggested, though he did no such thing himself, moving to stand by the elegant stone fireplace and surveying her with a cool watchfulness, an insulting and almost icy detachment in his face which Romy suddenly longed to smash into smithereens.
‘Thanks.’ She perched on the edge of a yellow damask chaise lounge before turning towards him. Taking all her courage into her hands, she drew in a very deep breath and said, ‘So just why have you invited me here today, Dominic?’
An ironic twist of the lips she remembered so well was the only outward reaction to her remark. ‘Ah! So you do recognise me?’
She gave him a bitter, brittle smile. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous! Of course I recognise you!’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ he observed, with sardonic emphasis.
‘Or do you imagine for a moment that I always have—’
‘Sex with complete strangers in lifts?’ he supplied drily.
An angry flare of colour emphasised Romy’s high cheekbones. ‘I did not have sex with you!’ she protested huskily.
‘No? Depends on your definition of sex, surely?’ he queried insultingly. ‘It’s true we stopped short of actual—’
‘Stop it!’ Romy yelled, and actually clapped her hands over her ears, but dropped them almost immediately when she realised how childish the gesture must appear.
‘Why?’ he questioned, in mock surprise. ‘Does it bother you?’
‘Of course it bothers me!’ she declared.
‘What does?’ he snapped. ‘Your indiscriminate sexual appetite? Or your cuckolding of the man who was my best friend?’
‘And what about you, Dominic?’ she retorted, trying to resist the thrill it gave her just to say his name out loud. ‘Does it make you feel good to know that hours before you were due to be best man at our wedding you were practically ripping off my underwear?’
‘Ripping it off?’ he drawled arrogantly. ‘I think your memory must be defective, Romy. As I recall, we didn’t actually remove any of your clothes, did we? But I suspect that you would have needed very little coaxing to do so! Don’t you? Be honest now.’
Her cheeks still on fire, Romy shut her eyes, as if that would dispel the tantalising and forbidden pictures which had sprung up before her mind’s eye with disturbing clarity. And when she opened them again she surprised a taut, angry mask which had momentarily hardened his features. So he was tense, too, was he? she thought with surprise. Then why? Why bring her here? ‘That’s all water under the bridge now, surely?’ she asked him.
His eyes were piercing, their silver-grey light as direct and as steely as a sword. ‘Is it? I find that I tend to file the whole episode away under “unfinished business” rather than “water under the bridge”.’
‘Perhaps that’s your conscience troubling you?’ Romy suggested sweetly, and then immediately wished she hadn’t.
‘Perhaps it is.’ His eyes were icy cold. ‘And what about your conscience, Romy? Does that ever give you a sleepless night? Do you ever think about Mark? Did you think about Mark as you made those false wedding vows—?’
‘They were not false!’ she declared automatically.
‘Those false wedding vows,’ he persisted, with deadly calm. ‘Just hours after I felt you climax beneath my fingers.’ He shook his head, as if he had been given an insurmountable problem to solve. ‘It still seems scarcely credible to me that the supposedly virgin bride my college friend had spoken of so proudly and so fondly should have been grappling half-naked with me within minutes of our meeting.’
But it wasn’t like that! Romy would have yelled at him, if he hadn’t literally taken her breath away with his candour. Nothing like that!
Except that he wouldn’t believe her—and why should he? There was a whacking great kernel of truth behind his words. She had done all those things he had accused her of—and more! And if she tried to defend her actions she would sound like the worst kind of hypocrite—the kind of woman who allowed herself to get carried away by passion and then turned around and blamed the man.
No, if there was any blame to be apportioned then it must be laid firmly at her door. After all, Dominic had not forced her to do anything she had not wanted to. Quite the contrary, in fact...
Dominic stared at her and frowned. Her face had gone as white as a glass of milk and she had started to sway. Instinctively, he moved away from the fireplace and was beside her in seconds, his hands gripping at her upper arms beneath the soft material of her jacket.
‘Romy?’ he demanded roughly, the soft feel of her flesh beneath his hands making him want to do something much more elemental than comfort her. ‘Are you OK?’
The way he said her name was like cool water to a thirsty camel, the touch of his hands like some rejuvenating life-force, and Romy found herself staring helplessly into his eyes.
Close up, his presence haunted her even more. Initially she had thought that he had changed very little, but she had been wrong. It was true that the thick ruffled hair had remained untouched by grey—a fact made all the more remarkable by its coal-dark blackness—but the years had subtly redefined his face, Romy realised. All the softness of youth had completely disappeared. His features were harder, while his mouth fell naturally into a cynical line. Around the piercing grey eyes were now the fine lines of age and experience. He looked, she thought, suppressing a sudden shudder of sexual awareness, like a man who knew exactly what he wanted out of life...
So what the hell did he want from her?
‘Romy!’ he said again, and this time gave her an almost imperceptible little shake. ‘What is it?’
She stared at him, completely deflated by the shocking memory of what had happened between the two of them. ‘I’m tired.’
‘Tired?’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘I’m not surprised! Deception can be tiring, can’t it? In fact, it must be positively exhausting. Imagine the amount of devious planning it must take to make sure that your lies don’t get found out. I wonder if Mark ever found you out?’ he mused. ‘I often wonder if your rampant promiscuity could have been a contributing factor to his premature death.’
Romy sucked in an agonised breath, a movement which made her cheekbones look impossibly hollow. How could he? How could he be so deliberately cruel? But she decided to let it go. For the moment.
‘Quite apart from the fact that your sexual demands must have been pretty challenging,’ he continued contemptuously, ‘I must say that even I have never met a woman who was turned on so completely or so quickly as you, Romy. I don’t think that Mark was the best man to be able to cope with your needs, do you?’
‘That’s enough!’ she told him angrily, shaking his hands off her arms impatiently. He had only pretended to be concerned—it had taken very little time for him to start insulting her all over again! ‘Don’t you imagine I feel bad enough about Mark’s death without you adding to it with your vile accusations?’
His eyes glittered with dangerous challenge. ‘So your conscience is entirely clear, is it, Romy?’
‘Oh, damn you, Dominic Dashwood!’ She could barely bring herself to look into those clever, searching silver eyes. ‘Damn you to hell!’ And as her words whipped discordantly around the room Romy wondered just what her secretary would say if she could hear her.
Or see her. Sitting weakly and pathetically on the edge of the sofa whilst glaring balefully at a man who was doing nothing more sensational than recounting facts which she had tried to keep hidden away—even from herself—for all these years.
What the hell was happening to her? Romy Salisbury was famous for her ability to remain unruffled, for refusing to be thrown—no matter how sticky the situation.
What about the time early last year, for example, when a foreign minor royal had hired her to organise an American evening for his thirty-fifth birthday and the cook and the waitress had failed to show?
Romy had cooked and served the meal entirely by herself, and the royal personage had got wind of it, insisting on coming down into the kitchen to congratulate her in person.
‘Oh, it was nothing, sir.’ Romy had blushed modestly, whilst trying out a very rusty curtsy. ‘Just hot dogs and beans and a mud-pie pudding.’
‘Though I suspect,’ the Prince had murmured, with a practised smile, ‘that even a swan fashioned out of ice would not have defeated you!’
‘I’m just grateful that you had less elaborate requirements than that, sir!’ Romy had joked, pulling a mock grimace which had told the Prince exactly what she thought of over-the-top gestures like swans made out of ice. And the twinkle in the Prince’s eye had told her that he agreed with her sentiments entirely!
After that, her workload had quadrupled overnight, giving Romy the luxury of being able to pick and choose her jobs. It really was amazing how much clout royal patronage gave you!
So, this Romy Salisbury who could chat with ease to princes—what connection did she have with the woman who was currently behaving like a beaten dog? Just because she had come across the man she had alternately dreamed of and dreaded meeting for five long years. What are you, Romy Salisbury? she asked herself. A woman or a wimp?
Her dark eyes flared with the light of battle, and Dominic’s eyes raked over her face.
‘So why?’ he suddenly demanded.
So many whys. ‘I’m not a mind-reader!’ she retorted. ‘Why what?’
‘Why did you pretend not to recognise me?’
Romy smiled and decided to brazen it out. ‘Because I dislike the idea of being manipulated, I suppose.’
‘Manipulated?’
“That’s right.’
‘Manipulated by whom?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ she remonstrated tartly. ‘By you, of course. You deliberately went to the trouble of booking me under the name of one of your more obscure property companies instead of giving your real name. Presumably with the intention of shocking me when we met. What kind of reaction were you hoping for, Dominic? That I would collapse in a swoon at your feet when I came face to face with you?’
His grey eyes narrowed. ‘You mean you knew that you were about to meet me?’
‘Of course I knew!’ scoffed Romy. ‘Or did you imagine that I would just happily take a job without bothering to check it out first? My work involves me going into people’s homes—often staying there. And I’m a woman! Do you suppose for a moment that I would put myself at risk by not finding out a few details about who is employing me? I’m running a business here, Dominic, for heaven’s sake, not a knitting circle!’
He gave her a grudging look of admiration. ‘Well, well, well, Romy,’ he observed drily. ‘You seem to have acquired a little common sense over the years, at least. Pity it didn’t come five years earlier.’
His patronising comment made Romy even more angry. She drew a deep, indignant breath. ‘But even if I hadn’t known I was going to meet you, why would you naturally assume that I’d recognise you immediately? Is it so inconceivable that I would fail to do so? Do you imagine that you are such a magnificent specimen, Dominic, that you’re unforgettable? That any woman meeting you would have you branded indelibly on her memory for evermore?’
‘I would have been more than a little—surprised if you had failed to recognise me. Quite apart from the fact that I was your best man. After all, we had quite an...experience together, didn’t we?’ He gave a lazy smile which made Romy uncomfortably aware that he was recalling that erotic encounter in the lift. ‘Though I have to admit that most women tell me I have an unforgettable face.’
His words stabbed at her like a knife and it took every ounce of concentration that Romy possessed not to lash out at him in a jealous fit of rage she knew she had no right to feel.
‘Oh, do they?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled arrogantly. ‘They do.’
‘Dominic Dashwood,’ Romy declared heatedly, ‘did anyone ever tell you that you are nothing but an arrogant...arrogant...?
‘Bastard?’ he supplied drily. ‘Is that the word you’re searching for? So why not come out and say it, Romy? It’s true, after all.’
Romy gave him a steady look. ‘I would have used a far more creative insult than “bastard”, thank you very much! And that sounds like a mighty big chip on your shoulder to me.’
His smile had suddenly died and now he shook his dark head with slow emphasis. ‘Not at all,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Illegitimacy no longer carries the stigma that it did when I was growing up.’
She stared at him in surprise. Surely that wasn’t a trace of vulnerability showing through the steely armour?
Romy had always defined Dominic as a black-hearted villain and seducer. But now, with the benefit of maturity, she recognised that she might have been guilty of a little over-simplification.
Had he been a victim of taunts at school? Ridiculed and derided as a child because he had been born on the wrong side of the blanket?
For the first time she lost something of her guarded expression. Her mouth softened and her lips moved into an unconscious pout as a wave of empathy washed over her.
What was it about this man, she wondered, that she should want to take him in her arms and comfort him? And after everything that had happened between them, too...
She gazed across the room at him, the sudden silence making her acutely aware of their isolation.
Her mind began to stray into forbidden territory as she allowed her eyes to drift over the magnificent thrust of his thighs, all tensile muscular perfection beneath the cambric trousers. And the thin silk shirt he wore did absolutely everything to emphasise the hard, lean abdomen and the suggestion of strength rippling in each arm.
Romy shut her eyes in despair, and when she opened them it was to find him staring at her.
‘We’d better have something to drink,’ he said abruptly. ‘You look terrible.’
‘You don’t look so wonderful yourself,’ she lied, but she found herself sinking back against the chaise lounge. Because he was right. She felt terrible. The shock of seeing him again, no doubt. And making the disappointing discovery that in five years she had built up no magic immunity against his devastating appeal.
His eyes narrowed as they raked over her slumped frame. ‘Stay there!’ he ordered curtly.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she murmured drily.
Their eyes locked for one long moment, and when he turned to leave Romy found herself watching his retreat obsessively, unable to tear her eyes away from him and yet despising her need to do so.
When Romy had met him he had been twenty-six—very bright and very ambitious. It had been easy, then, to predict that he had a golden future ahead of him. But now it was possible to see how he had managed to surpass even that early promise.
And it wasn’t so much the palatial mansion he lived in, or the expensive clothes he wore, or even the tell-tale designer watch which was designed to withstand almost anything and had a price tag to match. No, it was something much less tangible than material possessions, and yet far more valuable in its way.
For Dominic carried a quiet authority about him which combined both strength and dignity.
He was, Romy recognised, the type of man whose respect would be highly valued. And there was no doubt in her mind that he would probably accord more respect to a snail than he would to her.
And could she blame him? Could she? If she told even the most impartial observer the facts concerning their ill-fated meeting, would they not condemn her, too?
She tried to stem them, but the memories were too strong, too long suppressed for her to be able to stop them flooding back with bitter-sweet clarity.
Long-forgotten fragments of events floated free and her mind took her back to a summer’s afternoon almost exactly five years before...
