Dark Paradise
Sara Craven
Mills & Boon proudly presents THE SARA CRAVEN COLLECTION. Sara’s powerful and passionate romances have captivated and thrilled readers all over the world for five decades making her an international bestseller.He's be expecting sun, sand and sexMatt Lincoln, hard-hitting television journalist possessed a sexual charisma that was almost tangible and a male ego that could almost touch the clouds. Unless Kate agreed to accompany him on a little tryst to the Caribbean, he would seduce her stepbrother's wife.Through bitter experience, Kate had acquired immunity to men like Matt. Now she wanted revenge. She would pretend to fall headlong into his irresistible arms. Then at just the right moment, she'd pierce his overblown ego with her scathing rejection.But for Kate the right moment never came.
Dark Paradise
Sara Craven
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER (#u09825d52-70c8-5f18-98d2-c20e685dee5e)
TITLE PAGE (#ud4b48117-cc27-534d-a610-31d2a2588625)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#u9c04f6f1-f7ba-5e76-8656-e66b3806f360)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
ENDPAGE (#litres_trial_promo)
COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u8c4f8b0b-78e4-57bb-9471-f3d846108295)
THE wine in her glass glowed like a ruby. And had cost very nearly as much, Kate Marston reflected drily.
She’d been expecting a business lunch, but this was fast developing into an occasion, and she wasn’t sure she could take it.
She wondered what would happen if she were to lean across the table and say to her companion, ‘Clive, you’re very sweet, and I like you. But it will never, ever be any more than that. So if all this expensive claret and sharing a chateaubriand is to promote a shift in our relationship, then they’d better go back to the kitchen’.
She wouldn’t say it, of course. She was too fond of Clive to give him such a public affront, besides being fairly dependent on him financially, and extremely hungry as well.
She had been a young hopeful in her final year at art college when they had met. He was the youngest director of a well-known publishing firm specialising in children’s books, and she’d been hawking a portfolio of her work around, looking for a job as an illustrator.
She was tired of hearing how talented she was, accompanied by regretful little speeches about economic recession and cutbacks, and she had expected little different from Barlow and Herries. Her confidence, her belief in herself had taken several hard knocks already, and she was surprised to get beyond the reception desk.
Her surprise deepened as the fair-haired, rather solemn young man into whose office she had been shown began to exhibit signs of positive enthusiasm as he examined the paintings and sketches she had brought.
‘Do you know,’ he had said at last, ‘you could be exactly the person we need.’
He told her confidentially that they had just acquired an established and popular author for their list who was proving troublesome to say the least. The lady in question had left their chief rivals after rows about publicity and the quality of illustrations for her books, and Barlow and Herries were naturally anxious to satisfy her on both these points.
Only it was proving more difficult than anyone had ever imagined.
‘She’s turned her nose up at all our regular artists,’ Clive Joffrey had said rather bitterly. ‘She claims she wants something original and unique to match her very personal style, and I quote. I think you might have what she wants.’ He picked up one painting and studied it closely. ‘This is a scene from one of her books, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Kate, hope and excitement choking any deeper explanation.
He nodded. ‘I like it. All that sweetness and light on the surface, and the sinister undertones.’ He shuddered. ‘God knows why kids go overboard for her, but they do. Her books would have given me nightmares when I was a child!’
Kate smiled. ‘I love them.’
‘Better and better. Make sure you tell her that when you meet. That’s another thing she insists on—meeting everyone, checking on the vibrations. Awful woman.’ He gave her a narrow glance. ‘Think you could cope?’
Amazingly, she had, and was still doing so. Not that the dreaded Felicity, as she was known, was her only source of income. Clive had seen to that, recommending her to contacts in the magazine and advertising worlds, so that now, three years after that fateful interview, she had a flourishing freelance career as an artist.
The only fly in the ointment had proved to be Clive, whose personal interest in her had developed as rapidly as his professional interest had done. That was something she hadn’t wanted at all, and she had done her best to dissuade him, but all to no avail. Clive might seem quiet, but he was also determined, she had discovered, and eventually she had succumbed in a moment of weakness to his gentle pressuring and agreed to go to the theatre with him.
That evening, and subsequent outings in his company, had proved pleasantly undemanding, and if Clive was content to be held at arm’s length, then Kate supposed she had no real reason to complain.
Except that lately she had sensed a change in his attitude, a growing impatience perhaps with the course of their friendship, because it was nothing more.
This lunch today was a case in point. She was used to the publishing habit of conducting business discussions over well-cooked food in congenial surroundings, but these surroundings were more than congenial—they were luxurious, and the whole meal was developing all the hallmarks of a celebration, of some kind.
Kate sighed inwardly. Clive’s whole manner was portentous too, suggesting that it was all leading up to something. A proposal? she wondered wryly. And if so—what? Marriage, or something rather more casual. Because neither was acceptable.
And as if to confirm her worst fears, Clive lifted his glass and said, ‘To us.’
She smiled wanly, and drank, without echoing his words. She wished she didn’t feel so depressed. This was a fantastic restaurant, and the chateaubriand currently being dissected for them on a serving table looked delicious. Why couldn’t she enter into the spirit of the occasion, and worry about overtures from Clive as and when they occurred?
There was a slight hubbub nearby and she glanced round to see a well-known film star making his way to a table, trying to pretend that he wasn’t instantly recognisable.
Her mouth relaxed into a smile as she wondered how many other lunchers had shared her enjoyment of that air of total selfconsciousness. Not Clive. He was too busy fussing about the vegetables, she thought, as she glanced round the restaurant. But there were others exchanging amused smiles, and one girl in particular, her face alive with excitement and laughter as she leaned towards her companion.
Kate froze. Alison? she thought. But it can’t be! For a moment she wondered if the wine could be giving her hallucinations, or if there’d been a maverick among the wild mushrooms she’d been served as a first course.
It couldn’t be her sister-in-law sitting only a few tables away. For one thing, there was no way Jon, her stepbrother, could afford these prices …
Almost reluctantly, she looked again, aware of a sense of foreboding.
It was Alison all right. That blonde head was unmistakable, and so was the way she moved her hands when the conversation became animated.
Kate couldn’t see her companion. There was a waiter in the way, and she watched tensely, willing the man to move.
‘Mange-touts, madame?’ The slightly reproachful tone of their own waiter indicated it was probably the second time of asking.
‘Please,’ she said, aware of Clive’s puzzled look. She forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry—I thought I saw someone I knew. But I was mistaken.’
The view to the table where Alison was sitting was unimpeded now, but she made herself pick up her knife and fork, taste the chateaubriand, pass an appreciative remark before she looked again.
There wasn’t much to see. The back of a man’s dark head, the breadth of his shoulders under an expensive jacket. And certainly not Jon. Which led to the question—what was her sister-in-law doing having lunch in one of London’s top restaurants with another man after barely a year of marriage?
Not merely another man, either. That lightning glance had told her all the bad news. Alison was with Matt Lincoln.
Kate would have known that arrogant tilt of the head anywhere, she thought bitterly, even if Alison herself hadn’t given the secret away. How many times had she seen that same expression of pleasure and absorption lighting up Alison’s face, usually accompanying some anecdote in which ‘Matt said’ or ‘Matt did …’
Such a pretty girl, her family had agreed, and clever too to hold down such a responsible job, because Matt Lincoln, her boss, was a name to be reckoned with in the world of television. He’d started out as a journalist, switched to TV news reporting, and then moved into the area of current affairs, producing and presenting a hard-hitting series of documentaries which had already collected a small clutch of prized awards.
Kate had watched and admired, even if she had reservations about the man himself. He was clever, ruthless and possessed of a sexual charisma that was almost tangible, and she didn’t like or trust men like that—men who were invulnerable, who marched through life like archetypal lords of creation.
His documentaries were brilliant, of course. He was an ace investigative journalist, and his targets were left with their villainies and weaknesses totally exposed. People rarely emerged with credit once Matt Lincoln’s searchlight had been trained on them.
Kate had sometimes wondered what his victims did with the ruin of their lives when it was all over. She’d mentioned this once to Alison, who had stared at her in amazement and asked what it mattered?
‘They’re crooks,’ she had said with calm confidence. ‘All of them, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Save your sympathy for the people they’ve conned and swindled.’
The spark in her blue eyes added silently, ‘And don’t criticise Matt to me, because he can do no wrong.’
Alison was very different from the majority of the girl-friends Jon had brought home, and this was what had made Kate suspect that this time it might be serious—at least with him. She wasn’t so sure about Alison’s feelings. After all, she had a glamorous job. She accompanied Matt Lincoln everywhere—even abroad. She met everyone that he met, and clearly enjoyed every exuberant moment of it, so would she be prepared to jettison all that for marriage with an assistant solicitor in a suburban legal practice?
Kate loved Jon, and always had, but she had no illusions about him. He was attractive, without being an Adonis, and possessed of a quiet charm, but might not his personality seem pallid when compared with Matt Lincoln’s arrogant forcefulness?
She knew without being told that Jon had misgivings too, although she hadn’t the slightest doubt that he was in love with Alison, and one evening when they’d had the house to themselves, he’d confided in her.
‘The trouble is I can’t figure out the situation,’ he’d said gloomily. ‘She’s worked with him closely for nearly two years, she’s travelled the world with him, she mentions him in every other breath, and yet I don’t know how heavily she’s been involved with him—if at all.’
Kate felt her way carefully. ‘Is it important that you do know?’
He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘Yes. I wish it wasn’t.’
‘Then can’t you ask?’
‘I’ve tried,’ he said unhappily. ‘Part of the problem is I feel a swine for probing. I keep telling myself that I love her, and therefore I should trust her. I really want to—and yet…’
Kate understood what he was trying to convey. Her mother had been a widow when she met Jon’s father, but Michael Herbert had been divorced, and gradually it had emerged that his wife had left him for another man when Jon was quite small. Jon had been a reticent child, but gradually he had learned to relax under the influence of his stepmother’s gentle serenity, and to accept and even return the affection which was offered.
Yet always at the back of his mind there had to be the memory of what his mother had done, she thought, which probably explained this strange streak of possessiveness he was displaying towards Alison.
She said gently, ‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about. After all, it’s the future you should be concerned with, not what’s past.’
He had smiled ruefully, running a caressing finger down the curve of her cheek. ‘Like you, Kate?’ Then, seeing her face change, he said swiftly, ‘No, I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean it.’
‘No, I asked for it.’ Kate forced a smile. ‘It’s really a case of “Physician, heal thyself”, isn’t it? But the thing is, Jon, you don’t know that there’s been anything between Alison and Matt Lincoln. Not every secretary has an affair with her boss, you know.’ She giggled suddenly. ‘Has Alison ever speculated about you and Miss Chalmers?’
Jon laughed too, his pleasant face relaxing. ‘I doubt it, but then if Miss Chalmers was in her thirties instead of her fifties, and diabolically attractive to boot, perhaps she might.’
Whatever his reservations, he had obviously managed to overcome them, because he and Alison had been married only a couple of months later, and Matt Lincoln had been one of the guests at the wedding—as Kate had good reason to remember, she thought with a sudden stiffening of her spine.
Clive’s voice cut plaintively across her reverie. ‘I have the oddest feeling I’m lunching alone. Come back to me, Kate.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She ate another mouthful with feigned enthusiasm, because she might as well have been chewing cardboard.
‘Still spotting familiar faces?’ Clive signalled the wine waiter to pour some more into her glass. ‘This is the place for them.’
‘I think it is,’ Kate said wryly, mourning her wonderful meal. She would have to lie and say she wasn’t very hungry. She could hardly say, ‘My sister-in-law is over there having a whale of a time with the man she used to work for, who may or may not have been her lover, and knowing what this could do to Jon has ruined my appetite.’
But that was the truth. Because Kate was ready to swear it had been quite some time since Alison had worn that particular glow for her husband. ‘Teething troubles,’ Kate’s mother had said, and she was probably quite right. For all Kate knew, Alison was lunching here with Matt with Jon’s blessing and approbation, only she didn’t believe it for one moment, because if there was going to be a bone of contention between the newlyweds, then it was likely to be called Matt Lincoln.
She supposed it would be the easiest thing in the world to walk across as they were leaving and say hello, and gauge what was going on from Alison’s reaction, but she knew she wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t risk seeing a look of guilt on her sister-in-law’s face, although Matt Lincoln would no doubt find the situation amusing in the extreme.
She could remember reading an article in a magazine quoting him as castigating what he termed ‘Suburban morality’ for concerning itself too much with trivial sins, and closing its eyes to the deeper crimes against humanity being perpetrated somewhere in the world each day.
Probably Matt Lincoln would regard the seduction of someone else’s wife as a very trivial sin, she thought stormily.
‘Is something wrong?’ Clive’s tone was worried. ‘You look as if you’re about to plunge that knife into someone!’
She forced a laugh. ‘Well, I promise it isn’t you, Clive. I’m afraid I’m just poor company today.’
‘You’re never that,’ he said warmly. ‘Is something bothering you? Can I help?’
She said, ‘It’s a family matter,’ and determinedly changed the subject. The dreaded Felicity’s latest book was a slight departure from her usual style, and Kate was wondering how far Clive expected the jacket and illustrations to reflect this. It was a good ploy and occupied them for the rest of lunch.
The next time Kate allowed her glance to slide towards the other table, it was to note with relief that it was unoccupied. Alison and her companion had departed—perhaps to go their separate ways, or perhaps not.
Clive said ruefully, ‘All we’ve done is talk about work, and that’s the last thing I intended.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Perhaps I should wait for a time when I can count on all your attention.’
He wanted to call a taxi for her, but she refused, saying she felt like walking.
It was a beautiful day, crisply autumnal, reminding her of horse-chestnut trees and bonfires. Alison and Jon had been married on a day just like this, she recalled, and the sun had been so warm that the guests had spilled out on to the terrace and lawns of the riverside hotel where the reception was being held.
Kate had been chief bridesmaid, in a topaz crěpe dress with a high ruffled neck, her curling chestnut hair drawn into a casually pretty topknot. She didn’t outshine the bride—Alison managed to look ethereal and radiant in her white silk organza—but she looked and felt good, and Jon’s unattached friends buzzed round her like flies round a honeypot. After Jon and Alison had left for Paris, there was going to be a family dinner that evening, and Jon’s best man, a friend since their schooldays, was escorting her in the traditional manner, and she declined all the other offers with smiling charm.
And all the time she was intensely aware that she was under surveillance.
If Kate was providing a centre of attention for the men, then Matt Lincoln was the same and more for the women. He was the celebrity guest, and it could only be a matter of time before someone actually asked him for an autograph, Kate thought cynically. Wherever he went there was an adoring group like satellite moons round a planet, but she supposed that wasn’t altogether his fault. Even without the glamour imposed by television, Matt Lincoln was formidable, exuding a vibrantly masculine aura. No one with blood in her veins could have overlooked him even for a moment, and Kate was annoyed to find how often her own eyes were straying in his direction.
‘For God’s sake,’ she adjured herself irritably, ‘haven’t you learned your lesson?’
And to make matters worse, each time she looked at him, it was to discover that he was watching her, a half smile playing about his lips as if he had discerned her inner struggle and was amused by it.
So she did her best to ignore him, and pretend that the buzz of talk and laughter around him did not exist, although she couldn’t help but be aware of the almost electric excitement his presence engendered. But he was bound to leave soon, she told herself. A suburban wedding couldn’t hold his interest or confine the air of restless energy which characterised him for very much longer.
Not for the first time, she wondered why he had accepted the invitation. The dinner service he had bought as a wedding present was displayed with the other gifts, so no other gesture was necessary. Alison’s parents had issued the invitations, of course, and had been cock-a-hoop when he had accepted, but Kate knew that Jon had not been pleased, although he’d said nothing in the light of Alison’s jubilation.
She had watched her stepbrother watching Matt kiss the bride, seen the rigidity of his features, and her heart had ached for him. Matt had been in Venezuela until the previous day, and had dashed back specially, she heard Alison’s mother smugly proclaiming to a coterie of her friends.
‘Why did he bother?’ she asked herself savagely.
She had avoided him, and the inevitable introductions, since the reception began. She had no wish to become one of the admiring throng, she told herself, although even her mother who was not easily impressed had been won over, she noticed.
But at an intimate gathering like a wedding reception, she couldn’t hope to keep out of his way for ever.
She was chatting to Simon, the best man, when she became suddenly aware that he was beside them. She was immediately irritated by Simon’s deference, stopping in mid-sentence to turn to Matt Lincoln.
‘Can I get you another drink, Mr Lincoln?’
‘No, thanks.’ Matt Lincoln shook his head, smiling. ‘Jet-lag and alcohol don’t mix too well.’ He nodded towards the adjoining room where a small band had been playing softly during the reception. ‘But some gentle exercise could be just what I need.’ He looked down at Kate. ‘We haven’t actually met, but I’m sure this is our dance.’
The tenor of the music had changed, she realised as she took in what he had said. The energetic disco beat had changed to a slower dreamy rhythm, and people were moving closer, holding each other as they danced.
He would expect to put his arms round her, she realised, a kind of sick panic rising inside her at the prospect.
Her voice sounded thick as she said, ‘I don’t want to dance, Mr Lincoln. Why don’t you ask one of your devoted fans? I’m sure any one of them would be only too delighted.’
The blue eyes narrowed slightly but he was still smiling. ‘I can’t really debate that without sounding like a slob. But the point doesn’t arise, because the fact is I’ve asked you—Miss er …’
‘Marston,’ Simon supplied helpfully. ‘Kate Marston.’
‘Kate,’ Matt Lincoln repeated musingly. ‘A nice old-fashioned name.’
She said hotly, ‘Please don’t patronise me, Mr Lincoln. I’m not the subject of one of your programmes. And here’s another fact, as you’re so keen on them—I’m turning down your invitation.’
She’d never been so deliberately rude to anyone in her life, and she was aware of Simon gaping.
For a long moment, Matt Lincoln stood looking at her as she felt the betrayal of embarrassed colour rising in her cheeks, then he said coolly, ‘I beg your pardon for having annoyed you.’ And turned away.
‘My God,’ Simon said helplessly. ‘That was a bit strong, wasn’t it?’
Kate lifted her chin defiantly, crushing down an unexpected feeling of shame. ‘I don’t think any lasting damage has been done—not to an ego like his!’
Simon was looking at her as if she was a stranger who had suddenly developed horns and a tail. ‘But he only wanted to dance with you, Kate. Hell’s bells, you couldn’t have cut him off more sharply if he’d made a heavy pass!’
‘Well, I find his conviction that he’s God’s gift to women a bit strong too,’ Kate retorted. ‘Men like that are an abomination. One smile, an invitation to dance—and they expect you to—to roll over and beg!’
‘Well—roll over anyway,’ said Simon with a mock leer. ‘I didn’t know you were such a feminist, Kate.’
‘I’m not,’ she said shortly. ‘But he—his whole approach—reminded me of—of someone I used to know.’
‘Did you give him a hard time too?’ Kate wondered if the alarm she heard in Simon’s voice was altogether feigned.
She gave him a placatory smile. ‘No.’ She glanced round. ‘I think Alison’s ready to go up and change. I’d better help her.’
‘Fine,’ Simon agreed, and she realised ruefully as she left the room in Alison’s wake that he was probably regretting that he had to spend the evening with her. And she wasn’t altogether sure she could blame him.
By the time they came downstairs again, Matt Lincoln had left, to Alison’s momentary pouting disappointment. Kate could only feel relief. She had almost been tempted to remain upstairs packing away the discarded wedding dress and tidying up generally rather than face him again.
She had imagined he had passed out of her life for ever. Now, it seemed, he was back with a vengeance.
Her steps began to slow. She had been walking aimlessly in no particular direction, or so she had thought. Now, as the glass and concrete block of the National Television building reared up in front of her, she wasn’t so sure.
Was this what they called a Freudian slip? she asked herself wryly.
She stood staring up at the building, hating the way all those windows seemed to stare back like so many blank eyes, then gave herself a swift mental shake. She was doing no earthly good drifting round London, worrying about something for which there might be a perfectly innocent explanation.
The best thing she could do was go back to the studio and get on with her own work, her own life.
In other words, mind her own business.
The studio was one large attic room of a tall Edwardian house. It had windows on two sides and a skylight, and Kate loved it. There was another attic across the narrow passage, and this she used as a bedsitter, sharing the bathroom on the floor below with the family who owned the house, Felix who was a newspaper photographer, his wife Maria and their two children. It was an arrangement that suited them all.
As Kate unlocked the front door and went in, Maria’s voice called from the kitchen, ‘How was the drunken lunch?’
Kate put her head round the kitchen door. ‘Remarkably sober,’ she said. ‘Something smells wonderful.’
Maria grimaced. ‘Not really.’ She waved a spoon. ‘Just an ordinary little meat sauce to go with spaghetti—it being the end of the month and all—but I think you’ll be amused by its precocity. Want to join us, or are you too full of caviare and champagne?’
‘I’d love to,’ Kate said regretfully, and meant it, because Maria was generally an inspired cook even with the most average ingredients. ‘But I thought I would go home this evening. It’s been some time since I saw them all.’
‘Fine,’ Maria said amiably. She gave Kate a narrow look. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’
‘Of course not.’ Kate achieved a laugh. ‘I do go home occasionally, you know!’
‘I didn’t mean that. I just thought you looked a bit fraught, that’s all,’ said Maria, stirring her sauce, and lowering the flame beneath the pan.
‘Oh,’ Kate pulled a face, cursing her landlady’s perspicacity. ‘It’s just this new book—there could be problems. Nothing that I can’t handle, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Maria agreed. ‘Well, enjoy yourself this evening.’
Kate’s mother was delighted to get her phone call. ‘Darling, how marvellous! Jon and Alison are coming over too. It’ll be a real family party.’
‘Yes, won’t it?’ Kate agreed. She replaced her receiver slowly. She had intended to do some subtle probing, now it seemed she was going to be able to see them together and judge the state of their relationship for herself.
And probably Alison would be bubbling over with the story of her wonderful lunch, she told herself forcefully.
Her stepfather greeted her at the door with a warm hug.
‘You’ve lost weight, my girl.’ He held her at arms’ length and stared at her critically.
Kate wrinkled her nose at him. ‘That’s what you always say. I only wish it was true.’
‘Well, at least you’ll get a decent meal inside you tonight,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Steak and kidney pie and all the trimmings. How’s work going? Any interesting commissions?’
He poured sherry, and they took it into the kitchen and talked to Kate’s mother as she bustled around, putting the last touches to the meal. She was a woman who had always found her fulfilment in caring for her family, and they’d often teased her about it, calling her ‘an endangered species’, which she accepted with unruffled calm.
Watching her, seeing her pleasure in the preparations she was making, Kate found herself thinking, ‘Oh, let everything be all right! She and Dad love Jon. They’re so proud of him. If anything went wrong in his marriage, they’d be so hurt, so bewildered.’
They heard his car pull on to the drive at the side of the house, and presently he came in. He was smiling and carrying a bunch of flowers for his stepmother, but Kate thought he looked tired.
He said ruefully, ‘I’m on my own, I’m afraid. Ally sends love and apologies, but she’s going to have an early night. She’s got a splitting headache.’
‘Oh.’ Mrs Herbert looked downcast. ‘I wonder what’s caused that?’
Hangover? Kate supplied silently. Guilty conscience? Or had they had a blazing row, perhaps?
‘Hi, love,’ Jon bent and kissed her cheek. ‘Anything exciting in your life?’
She shrugged. ‘Depends on your view of excitement.’ Keeping her voice casual, she added, ‘I had lunch at Père Nicolas today.’
Jon whistled appreciatively. ‘Very impressive! I hope you weren’t paying.’
‘Oh, Kate!’ her mother wailed. ‘Then you won’t want another big meal. What am I going to do with all this pie?’
‘I’m starving,’ Kate assured her. ‘No restaurant food could ever compare with yours, you know that.’
She would eat the dinner in front of her if it killed her, she promised herself. And it probably would, because she’d been counting on Jon saying something on the lines of ‘Now there’s a coincidence. Alison was lunching there too.’ Whereas it was evident that he knew nothing at all about Alison’s midday activities. Oh hell, she thought. Hell and damnation!
She finished everything on her plate with a struggle, and it was no consolation to note that Jon didn’t have much of an appetite either. He talked cheerfully about the office, making them laugh with his story of a client who was always house-hunting, then finding some fatal flaw with the property of his dreams just before the contracts were due to be signed.
‘And his own house is sold, so if he doesn’t make up his mind soon, he could end up in a tent on the common,’ he added with a gesture of mock despair.
‘Talking of dream houses,’ his father said. ‘How’s the decorating at your place coming along?’
Jon helped himself to cheese. ‘It’s rather ground to a halt at the moment,’ he said, after a pause.
Mrs Herbert was piling used dishes on to a tray. ‘But Alison was so keen, so full of plans when you bought it.’ She laughed. ‘I got the impression that she was into interior decoration in a big way.’
Jon said wryly, ‘I think that was before she discovered how much there was to do, and what graft it was.’ He paused. ‘As a matter of fact, she’s talking about going out to work again.’
‘Getting her old job back?’ his father asked.
‘No.’ Jon’s denial was altogether too swift and too forceful, and he tempered it with a laugh. ‘I mean, those sort of opportunities only come along once in a lifetime. I’m afraid she’ll have to settle for something rather more humdrum.’
Kate pushed her chair back and rose. ‘Leave the dishes,’ she told her mother, ‘I’ll do them.’
‘And I’ll help.’ Jon got up too.
Mrs Herbert smiled at them both affectionately. ‘Just like old times,’ she said.
Kate filled the sink with hot water, and whisked the washing up liquid into a lather.
Casually she said, ‘Has Ally any idea what kind of job she wants?’
‘We haven’t really discussed it in any detail.’ His voice sounded awkward. ‘I don’t think she’ll find it very easy, with so many people out of work. And it isn’t as if she needs the money—I don’t keep her short of cash.’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, I shouldn’t burden you with our problems. I suppose we’re experiencing the “period of adjustment” that all couples go through.’
‘You don’t want her to work again,’ said Kate.
He sighed. ‘No, I don’t. And I thought she didn’t either, or so she always said before we were married. At first, she seemed absorbed in the house.’ His mouth tightened. ‘I suppose after working for a man like Lincoln, domestic life with me must seem very tame.’
Feeling her way carefully, Kate said, ‘But I thought—Alison said something about starting a family as soon as possible.’
‘That’s right,’ he said flatly. ‘But it hasn’t happened yet. Hell, we’ve only been married a year, there isn’t that much damned hurry. But I suppose if she gets a job, it will have to be put off indefinitely. She seems to have decided that’s what she’d prefer,’ he added bitterly.
Kate swallowed. ‘Well, she did have a pretty high-powered career. And I suppose with her contacts in television, it’s not impossible …’
‘Over my dead body,’ said Jon, with stark emphasis. The weary look had deepened on his face. ‘If she wants to work, I won’t stop her, but she’s not going back within a mile of Matt Lincoln. I was sick of the sound of his name before we were married. I’m not living with it now.’ He took a dry tea towel out of a drawer. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? We did Othello at school, and I had no sympathy for him at all. I kept thinking what a fool he was to get so stirred up by jealousy, and for so little reason. And now I’m exactly in the same boat!’ He gave a shaky laugh. ‘I can’t even stay in the sitting room when he’s on television!’
Kate mopped at an already clean plate as if she was trying to remove the pattern. ‘Isn’t that rather—irrational? After all, you don’t know that there was ever anything between them.’
‘As I’ve told myself a hundred times.’ Jon sounded defeated. ‘But it makes no damned difference at all. He’s the sort of man women go for. He’s got it all, looks, charm, charisma—and don’t let anyone tell you that success isn’t an aphrodisiac,’ he added savagely. ‘You met him at the wedding, didn’t you? You saw the effect he had on everyone.’
Kate bent her head. ‘Yes, I met him,’ she agreed colourlessly.
‘And didn’t like him?’ Jon gave her a curious look. ‘My God, that must make you one in a million!’
‘Perhaps.’ Kate moved her shoulders. ‘Actually, he reminded me of someone.’
‘He did?’
She nodded. ‘Drew Wakefield.’
‘Him?’ Jon frowned a little. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. But I thought you’d forgotten all about him.’
‘You don’t forget about someone like Drew,’ she said bitterly. ‘Being involved with him is like being in a bad accident. You can be left with scars.’
‘Kate,’ Jon’s eyes were gentle, ‘that was over a long time ago. Let it go.’
She emptied the water out of the sink. ‘Can you let Matt Lincoln go?’
He said wryly, ‘Touché.’ Then he sighed. ‘What fools we both are!’
She nodded. ‘The coffee’s ready. Why don’t you take the tray through while I finish up here.’
When she was alone, she moved slowly, wiping down surfaces, and restoring the kitchen to its usual pristine condition.
It had been unfair of her, she thought, to aim that taunt at Jon, because although he didn’t know it yet, Matt Lincoln was still very much part of his life. She only wished it were otherwise.
She rinsed out the cloth she’d been using and hung it to dry, staring out of the kitchen window at the dark garden beyond.
Well, she would make it otherwise. Jon loved Alison, and their marriage deserved a chance which it wouldn’t have if the pernicious influence of someone like Matt Lincoln was allowed to take hold.
Drew Wakefield, she thought bitterly. Matt Lincoln. Birds of a feather, pursuing their destructive way through other people’s lives, uncaring of the chaos they left behind.
Only this time—somehow—she wasn’t going to allow it to happen. Scandal and bitterness weren’t going to ruin her family’s lives, she vowed silently, not if she could help it.
She thought savagely, ‘To hell with you, Matt Lincoln!’ then shivered suddenly as if a cold hand had brushed against her in warning.
CHAPTER TWO (#u8c4f8b0b-78e4-57bb-9471-f3d846108295)
‘MATT LINCOLN’S address?’ Felix stared at her in amazement. ‘What on earth do you want that for?’
Kate moved her shoulders evasively. ‘Do you think you can get it for me?’
‘I daresay I can. It’ll be on file somewhere at the office, and if not, Lorna Bryce from Features was involved with him for a while. She’d know,’ said Felix. ‘But wouldn’t it be easier just to call National Television?’
‘Perhaps,’ Kate’s voice was noncommittal. ‘I’m hoping it won’t be necessary to call him at all.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ Felix said a mite caustically. ‘Leave him to the Lornas of this world, darling. He’s out of your league.’
‘Don’t be so rude, Felix,’ Maria, who was crocheting by the fire, interrupted placidly. ‘Kate’s a lovely girl.’
‘Have I ever denied it?’ Felix gestured dramatically. ‘So why throw her to the lions?’ He grinned at Kate. ‘Or do you like living dangerously, after all, and if so, what are you doing with boring old Clive?’
‘You’re a nosy swine,’ his wife said in amiable condemnation. Her eyes shrewdly noted Kate’s obvious embarrassment. ‘I’m sure Kate knows what she’s doing.’
Do I? Kate wondered dismally.
She had spent a miserable restless night trying and failing to decide on a particular course of action, and had wasted a working day too through her inability to concentrate properly.
All she knew was that some sort of confrontation was inevitable. Simply telling Jon what she had seen and letting him sort it out at whatever cost would be an unbearably sneaky thing to do, she thought. And seeking out Matt Lincoln at the television centre through layers of protective commissionaires and secretaries didn’t appeal to her either. Her courage would have dwindled long before she reached him.
Her request to Felix to find out his home address—his telephone number was, naturally enough, exdirectory—had been made on the spur of the moment. And she wouldn’t use it. It was purely something to be held in reserve, because first thing tomorrow she was going to talk to Alison.
It wasn’t a prospect she welcomed. She had been Alison’s chief bridesmaid, but that had been as a matter of form, she thought wryly, and hadn’t prompted any real intimacy between them. Nor had they become any closer since. She had tried, but apart from the fact they seemed to have little in common, she had always sensed a slight reserve about her sister-in-law.
And after tomorrow, I suppose I’ll be lucky if she ever speaks to me again, she told herself ruefully.
Every metre of the following day’s bus and tube journey to the modern estate where Jon and Alison lived, she kept telling herself she didn’t have to go through with it, that she could always turn back and allow whatever was going to happen to go right ahead without any interference from her.
The houses were attractively terraced, built on three sides of a square overlooking a lawned area with shrubs and a striking piece of modern sculpture. The individual gardens in front of the houses were more relaxed, several holding a scatter of children’s toys, but the overall impression was one of quiet because most of the houses were occupied by working couples.
It occurred to Kate, not for the first time, that Alison might not find it merely quiet, but lonely during the daytime with the neighbouring wives out at jobs, or absorbed in their young families.
Perhaps she couldn’t altogether be blamed for wanting to resume her career. Housework, shopping and decorating could hardly fill all her time, Kate thought with sudden compassion.
As she walked up the path, the front door opened, and Alison appeared, smiling rather warily. ‘Surprise, surprise!’
‘We all missed you the other night,’ said Kate. ‘I thought I’d come and see how you were.’ She saw Alison look puzzled, and elaborated, ‘Your headache.’
‘Oh, that.’ Alison stood back to allow Kate past her into the house. ‘It wasn’t serious, just annoying.’
‘I thought from what Jon said it was a migraine at the very least.’
‘He exaggerates,’ Alison shrugged. ‘Sit down and I’ll bring some coffee.’
‘You must have known I was coming,’ Kate joked, unfastening her jacket.
Alison’s smile was wintry. ‘I did. I watched you walk all the way round the central lawn. Do you know you’re the only person who’s come into the close this morning?’
Kate could believe it. While Alison was busy in the kitchen she glanced round the sitting room. It was immaculate as always, the furnishings and curtains looking brand-new, fresh flowers on the coffee table in front of the hearth, and a faint smell of lavender wax in the air.
She waited until her sister-in-law had set down the tray and poured the coffee, then she said, trying to sound casual, ‘Jon says you’re thinking of getting a job.’
The spoon Alison was using clattered into the saucer. She said, ‘That’s right.’ There was a brief pause, then she said, ‘As a matter of fact I might be getting my old job back.’
Kate stirred her coffee. ‘With National Television?’
‘With Matt Lincoln,’ Alison said quickly and flatly.
‘Oh,’ said Kate, rather helplessly.
‘It came right out of the blue,’ Alison went on, a faint colour stealing into her face. ‘Apparently none of the girls who’ve been working for him since I left have been the slightest bit of good. And he has an important assignment coming up in a couple of weeks—in the Caribbean. He wants me to go with him.’
Kate drew a deep breath. ‘He does? And what did you say?’
‘I told him I’d think about it.’ There was a note almost of smugness in Alison’s voice. ‘What do you think about that?’
Kate shrugged. ‘What’s more to the point—what is Jon going to think about it?’
‘Jon will just have to get used to the idea.’ Alison’s flush deepened. ‘After all, marriage these days isn’t a terminal condition. There is supposed to be life afterwards. And I’m going to go out of my skull if I have to spend many more days looking out of that window, watching people walk round the close!’ She managed a little laugh.
Kate swallowed, ‘Yes, I can understand that. But—but I thought it was your idea to give up your job when you got married.’
‘It was, but I must have been insane,’ Alison said with sudden sharpness. ‘I suppose I thought …’ She stopped. ‘Well, that doesn’t matter. One of the few benefits of being shut up alone here all day is that it gives you time to think, to realise what a fool you’ve been.’ She took a breath. ‘I should never have left Matt in the first place.’
Kate didn’t like the sound of that. It implied that there had been more to their relationship than work.
‘But we both realise it was a mistake,’ Alison continued. ‘And this Caribbean trip will be a good chance to make sure that we’re—still on the same wavelength.’
Kate drank some coffee. ‘Isn’t the method rather a drastic one?’ she enquired pleasantly.
It was Alison’s turn to shrug. ‘Perhaps. But Jon has his career. Why shouldn’t I be allowed mine?’ She paused. ‘I thought you of all people would understand, Kate. After all, you have your flat, your work, your independence. Don’t tell me you’re dying to give it all up for a flowered pinny the moment your publisher man pops the question!’
There were undercurrents here beneath the mockery which Kate did not feel capable of fathoming.
She said, ‘No, I can’t say that. But on the other hand, I’m not sure I’d be contemplating a trip abroad with another man before my first anniversary either.’
Alison’s giggle jarred. ‘What a fuddy-duddy you are, after all, Kate! Haven’t you ever heard of open marriage? It’s far more interesting than the sort of prison most men want to shut you up in.’
‘Do you feel as if you’re in prison?’ Kate set her empty cup back on the tray.
‘Yes, if you must know,’ Alison said shrilly, ‘I do!’
Kate felt her way carefully. ‘Have you told Jon how you feel? Perhaps …?’
‘Of course I’ve told him, but it hasn’t made an atom of difference,’ Alison said angrily. ‘He’s always been spoiled, of course. He’s had your mother, the classic happy drudge, waiting on him, and he thinks all women should be like her. Well, he’s wrong!’ Her voice rose sharply.
The biting reference to her mother caught Kate on the raw, but she controlled a hot rejoinder. She said, ‘If Jon’s views of marriage are old-fashioned, I think you need to go further back than that. His own mother walked out on him, if you remember.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Alison said rather sullenly. ‘And I can’t say I altogether blame her, if Jon’s father was as ridiculously possessive as he is.’
Kate was beginning to feel sick. Every word that Alison uttered seemed to be bad news. She tried to imagine Jon’s reaction when Alison told him what she was contemplating, but failed completely. For his wife to resume work at National Television would have been sufficient blow, knowing how he felt about Matt Lincoln, but this proposed trip to the Caribbean opened up a whole new dimension, she thought, horrified.
She said calmly, ‘I’ve never regarded my stepfather as being overly possessive, but then other people’s marriages are generally a closed book.’
‘How true,’ Alison agreed. ‘You’re quite a philosopher, aren’t you, Kate?’
Kate looked at her steadily for a moment, then she said, ‘You don’t like me, do you, Alison? I wish I knew why.’
‘Oh, but you’re wrong,’ Alison said, smiling. ‘It’s a great comfort to know that while I’m away with Matt, Sister Kate and the family will be around to give Jon consolation. Would you like some more coffee?’
‘No thanks.’ Kate got to her feet, buttoning her jacket. ‘I really have to be going.’
‘What a shame,’ Alison said politely.
The breeze had risen she found when she got outside, and the initial brightness of the day had clouded over, and she shivered as she walked along, conscious that Alison would be watching every step she took. She kept her head down and lengthened her stride.
She found she was shaking inside as she stood at the bus stop for what seemed an interminable time. Alison’s attitude bewildered her. Boredom might have made her sister-in-law resentful of the confines of marriage, but was that any real reason to rush on disaster as she seemed bent on doing? What had happened to the love she must have felt for Jon? Could that really have dissipated so quickly? And even if marriage hadn’t lived up to Alison’s illusions, surely after so short a time there was still something left to build on?
Or was Matt Lincoln’s power over her really so absolute?
Kate couldn’t be sure, but she told herself the fact that Alison hadn’t instantly accepted his offer had to be a hopeful sign.
‘Just as long as my interference doesn’t push her into doing something stupid,’ she thought gloomily, as the bus finally trundled into sight.
When she arrived back at the house, Maria was waiting for her.
‘Felix phoned,’ she said, holding out a slip of paper. ‘With the information you wanted.’
‘Oh,’ Kate accepted it gingerly. ‘That was quick work.’
‘I think he had the impression that there was some sort of crisis going on,’ Maria said drily. ‘Is there?’
‘Something of the kind,’ Kate admitted. ‘I wish I could tell you about it, Maria, but—but it’s a family matter.’
‘But not, thank God, the sort that Felix clearly imagines,’ said Maria, an underlying note of laughter in her voice. She gave Kate’s flat young stomach a long and meaningful look.
‘No, of course not.’ Kate was appalled. ‘My God, I hardly know the man!’
‘That could be best,’ Maria nodded. ‘That girl Felix mentioned—Lorna Bryce—apparently she was almost cut to ribbons when he finished with her, and Felix reckons that ordinarily she’s quite a tough cookie.’ She turned away, adding almost as an afterthought, ‘Clive may not set the world on fire, but he doesn’t leave charred remains behind him either.’
In the studio, Kate stood staring down at the piece of paper in her hand, sorely tempted to tear it into a hundred infinitesimal fragments.
But that wouldn’t solve anything. She had no idea how deep the problems between Jon and Alison were, but she knew that this offer from Matt Lincoln could not have come at a worse time. If Alison were to accept, Kate was sure it would finish all hope of them ever working out their difficulties together. The marriage would end bitterly.
And she didn’t believe for one moment that Alison was as indispensable as she had been led to believe. Matt Lincoln was an experienced and cynical man. He would know a discontented wife when he saw one, and know exactly what kind of lure to offer.
Drew had known too, she thought painfully. ‘You have an exceptional talent,’ she remembered. And ‘There’s this amazing quality of innocence about you, Kate …’
Tell a woman what she wants to hear, and she’ll follow you anywhere, she thought.
And this was how Matt Lincoln was treating Alison. But why? Because he’d only discovered when it was too late and she was married to someone else that he really cared for her? Kate’s mouth curled. Never in a million years, she dismissed. If he cared, then his first thought would be for her happiness—not a selfish desire to plunge her into the kind of ugly recriminations which were inevitable if she went away with him.
It was more probable that he wanted to boost his ego by proving to himself that he was irresistible. That he only had to beckon and even a bride of a year would run.
Distaste rose like bile in Kate’s throat. But she knew what she had to do. For once in his life, Matt Lincoln was going to have to think again before causing havoc in people’s lives. Slowly she opened her purse and slid the slip of paper inside.
The block of flats the taxi brought her to was a surprise. She had expected somewhere far more opulent and showy, but this place with its warm red brick, its balconies and windowboxes was positively old-fashioned, she thought as she paid off the driver.
She asked, ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ and he gave her a look, half indulgent and half irritable.
‘Do me a favour, love! The name’s on the wall over there if you don’t believe me.’ And he drove off.
Kate went in through the revolving doors. She stood for a moment assimilating her surroundings. Stairs on the left, she noticed, and lifts straight ahead.
‘Can I help you, madam?’ There was a long desk on the right, she saw, with a modern looking switchboard, and a uniformed man looking at her enquiringly.
She said lamely, ‘I’m just visiting someone …’
He nodded politely. ‘Of course, madam. If you could give me the resident’s name, and tell me whether or not you’re expected.’
The building wasn’t as old-fashioned as she thought, she decided drily.
She said, ‘I’ve come to see Mr Matthew Lincoln, and no, I’m not expected.’
‘Then if I might have your name, miss, I’ll just check whether it’s convenient.’ He sounded courteous but inexorable.
Kate swallowed a defeated sigh. ‘It’s Marston—Kate Marston.’
She stood, waiting and listening while he dialled and gave the message. He replaced the receiver and looked at her and she waited to be told that Mr Lincoln was not at home, or Mr Lincoln was busy.
He said, ‘If you’d like to take the lift, miss. It’s the second floor, and the door on the right-hand side of the corridor.’
She said dazedly, ‘I—see. Thank you.’
She took a deep breath as she pressed the button for the second floor and heard the smooth whine of the doors as they closed. There was no going back now.
The palms of her hands felt damp, and she wiped them surreptitiously on her skirt, trying to marshal her thoughts, decide on the best tactic to use.
The lift stopped, and she got out and walked along the corridor. The lighting was subdued, and the carpet under her feet felt thick, muffling her footsteps.
She stopped outside Matt Lincoln’s door and subduing an urge to run away very fast and very ignominiously, she lifted a hand to ring the bell.
But before she could do so, the door opened abruptly.
Matt Lincoln stood staring at her, the dark brows lifted questioningly. He was casually dressed this evening, with faded blue denims encasing his long legs, and a black woollen shirt unbuttoned to reveal the strong column of his throat.
Kate moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. She said, ‘Mr Lincoln, you won’t remember me, but …’
‘I remember you perfectly,’ he said sardonically. ‘You’re the bridesmaid with an equal aversion to dancing and to me. What an unexpected pleasure. Won’t you come in?’
He waved her into the flat, his mouth slanting mockingly at her obvious reluctance.
The room he showed her into seemed enormous, with pale walls and acres of olive brown carpet. Two big sofas upholstered in an abstract design of brown, orange and gold faced each other on either side of an imposing fireplace, and a huge antique desk, heavy with carving, stood beneath the window, but there seemed little occasional furniture and no clutter. A massive shelving unit occupied the length of one wall, part of it housing sophisticated hi-fi and television equipment, including a video tape recorder, and the rest crammed with books.
‘At the flick of a switch, it transforms into a bed,’ Matt Lincoln said smoothly. ‘And mirrors come popping out of the ceiling.’ He grinned maliciously at her startled expression. ‘Relax, Miss Marston. This is my home, not Bluebeard’s chamber. What the hell were you expecting?’
She said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry if I gave the impression …’
He made a gesture of impatience. ‘Forget it. Can I get you a drink?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. This—this isn’t exactly a social call.’ She swallowed. ‘I expect you’re wondering why I’m here.’
‘I am indeed,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure you’re going to tell me. Do you want to sit down, or is it the kind of thing that needs to be said standing?’
There was music playing softly in the background, nothing she recognised, a persuasive mixture of drums and guitars and some kind of wind instrument.
He said, ‘Do you want the music turned off, Miss Marston? I guarantee that I won’t ask you to dance again.’
She looked at him with fierce contempt. ‘Very amusing! You find everything a great joke, don’t you, Mr Lincoln?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘And that particular incident even less hilarious than most. Anyway, we’ve established that you don’t want a drink, and you don’t want to sit down. I, on the other hand, intend to do both.’
She watched him pour a measure of Chivas Regal into a glass. He lifted the tumbler towards her with heavy irony. ‘I drink to your good health, Miss Marston,’ he said. ‘I imagine that’s a safer proposition than our better acquaintance.’
He sauntered across the room and flung himself down on one of the sofas, casually insolent, leaving Kate on her feet and stranded in the middle of the room—as he’d no doubt intended, she thought furiously.
‘Lost for words, Miss Marston?’ He watched her over the top of the glass, the blue eyes examining her with frank arrogance—stripping her, she realised with mortification, slow colour creeping into her face. ‘Now that must be a novelty.’
She lifted her chin, her hazel eyes flashing disdain at him. ‘It doesn’t take a lot of saying, Mr Lincoln. I’d like you to leave Alison alone.’
There was a long loaded silence, then he said, ‘I think you’d better explain exactly what you mean.’
Kate swallowed. ‘Please—don’t let’s be hypocritical. The fact is I saw you together at Père Nicolas.’
‘A public restaurant, ‘he said. ‘In broad daylight. No big deal.’
‘No,’ she said steadily. ‘But I’ve seen Alison since—and she’s told me everything.’
‘Then perhaps in turn you could enlighten me.’ He sounded almost indifferent, and she had to control a little spurt of temper.
She said flatly, ‘She’s told me that you’ve offered her her old job back, starting with a trip to the Caribbean in a week or two.’
‘How indiscreet of her!’ His voice slowed to a drawl. ‘So?’
She stared at him. ‘You do realise that if she goes with you, it will probably be the end of her marriage?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘But has it been definitely established that she is coming with me?’
‘The fact that it was ever suggested—that she’s considering it, is bad enough,’ Kate said fiercely, and he laughed.
‘How very moral of you! Has it ever occurred to you that Alison is quite old enough to decide for herself what she wants from life—and whom, for that matter.’
‘In normal circumstances, yes,’ she said. ‘But—but she doesn’t seem very happy just now. Frankly, this—intervention of yours couldn’t have come at a worse time.’
‘I’d noticed she wasn’t happy. Why should that be, do you suppose?’
Kate waved a dismissive hand. ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure that left to themselves, they can work it out. Only you’re involved now and Alison has been under your sphere of influence so long that I don’t believe she can think straight when you’re around.’
‘Not Bluebeard after all, but Svengali,’ he said almost idly, staring at the amber glow of the whisky as if it fascinated him. ‘Well, well. Does Alison know that you’ve come here, by any chance?’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
The blue eyes watched her coldly. ‘Then she didn’t fling herself on her knees begging you to save her from herself—and from me?’
‘Of course not,’ Kate said impatiently. ‘I’ve told you, she doesn’t realise …’
‘What’s she’s doing,’ he completed for her smoothly. ‘Odd. When she worked for me before she seemed to be in reasonable control of her faculties. But fortunately, she has you to act as arbiter of her morals. May I ask why?’
Kate was slightly taken aback. ‘Because Jon is my brother, and I don’t want him hurt.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you mean stepbrother?’
‘Does it really make a difference?’
‘A fundamental one, I’d have thought.’ He gave her a long dispassionate look. ‘Are you here at his request, perhaps?’
‘No,’ Kate said angrily. ‘And you can thank your stars that he knows nothing about it. If he knew that you were planning to take Alison away with you, even on a legitimate business trip, he’d be ready to kill you!’
‘Perhaps I should hire a bodyguard.’ Matt Lincoln drank some more whisky.
‘Perhaps you should just leave his wife alone.’ She looked at him fiercely. ‘It’s not fair to tempt her like this when she’s at a low ebb. And you don’t really need her. There’s probably a long queue of idiot women who’d give all they possessed to go to the Caribbean with you.’
‘You flatter me.’ The blue eyes glittered at her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t imagine you get many refusals.’
‘You, of course, being one of the exceptions.’ The smile that twisted the firm, sensual mouth was not a pleasant one.
Kate shrugged. ‘Let’s just say I have a built-in immunity to men of your sort, Mr Lincoln, and leave it at that!’ She paused. ‘You have no real reason to ruin Alison’s marriage, after all. You were never really serious about her, or you’d have asked her to marry you.’
‘Perhaps I’m not the marrying kind.’
She shrugged, ‘But Jon is, and Alison is his wife, and he loves her. It would be terrible for him if it all went wrong. Have you even considered what the consequences might be, if she goes with you?’
‘Oh, I’m not that heedless, Miss Marston,’ he said. ‘I’d take adequate precautions against any—consequences.’
Kate almost ground her teeth. ‘I didn’t mean that, and you know it!’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know it.’ He swallowed the remainder of his whisky and got to his feet in one fluid, angry movement. Alarmed, Kate took an involuntary step backwards, and he laughed.
‘Scared, Miss Marston? So you should be. You have a bloody nerve coming here to preach to me about my morals, using your—disinterested affection for someone else’s husband as an excuse. What a two-faced little bitch you are!’
‘Attack, of course, being the best form of defence.’ Kate spoke contemptuously, but her heart was thumping violently. ‘What’s the matter, Mr Lincoln? Have I actually got to you? Could you be suffering a belated bout of conscience?’
‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘Old-fashioned bad temper, coupled with another emotion you’re probably too perfect to recognise, by your own reckoning anyway.’
He tossed the empty tumbler on to the sofa behind him without even sparing a glance to see if it had landed safely, and came towards her.
Kate gasped, and turned to run for the door, but he’d caught her before she even took two paces, taking her by the shoulders and swinging her round to face him. His face was a mask of anger, the blue eyes blazing.
He said with soft clarity, ‘Not so fast, paragon. Let’s see how secure that pedestal of yours actually is.’
She realised what he meant to do, and aimed a blow at him with her clenched fist. He avoided it easily, jerking his head to one side, swearing under his breath, and the next moment both her arms were pinioned behind her back, his hand clamped like a vice round her wrists. His other hand fastened in her hair, not gently, forcing her to be still as his mouth came down on hers.
She shuddered weakly, closing her eyes, bracing herself against the first bruising onslaught. Only it did not come. Instead his lips closed on hers with bewildering gentleness, exploring their softness with warm sensuousness.
She stood passively enduring the featherlight kisses pressed to the corners of her mouth, the delicate grazing of his teeth against the soft fullness of her lower lip.
She was desperately and shamingly aware that her breathing was changing, quickening as the long deliberate caress went on, and she tried to pull away. Immediately his grasp tightened in her hair, and with a little choked gasp of pain, she was forced to submit.
The pressure of his mouth against hers was subtly more insistent now, his tongue stroking teasingly along the contours of her lips, silently coaxing her to part them, and allow him a deeper, more passionate intimacy, and she felt her whole body shiver as she fought its traitorous urging to let him have his way.
She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. She was being deliberately punished, and she knew it, yet deep within her, a soft, sweet trembling was beginning to take control, compelling her to move towards him so that their bodies touched as well as their mouths, prompting a first bewildered response to his kisses.
A little aching sigh escaped her, as her lips parted, yielding him the sensual dominance he sought.
But the mere fact of his victory seemed to be enough. Matt lifted his head and put her away from him, his smile slow and contemptuous as he looked down at her.
‘No,’ he said softly, ‘you’re not blessed with any special immunity, darling. Want to argue the point further—in bed, perhaps?’
‘Let go of me!’ Her voice cracked on the words.
He stepped back, raising his hands ostentatiously, his dark face sardonic. ‘You’re free, Miss Marston. Unless you have anything else you want to discuss with me.’
She shook her head, staring blindly down at the carpet. ‘No—I was a fool to come here—I should have known—should have realised it wouldn’t be any use.’ Her voice shook. ‘You really don’t care, do you? You’re so used to destroying people, ruining their lives in those programmes of yours, that it doesn’t matter to you any more. I—I don’t know how you can live with yourself.’
She went towards the door, and this time he made no attempt to prevent her from leaving. But Kate felt his anger following her like a shadow as she fled down the dim corridor towards the lift and some kind of safety.
She looked like death the following morning, but that was hardly any wonder considering how little she’d slept. And you didn’t have to be actually asleep in order to have nightmares, she’d discovered too.
She decided she must have been suffering from temporary insanity. That was the only feasible explanation she could find for the way she’d acted. Just what had she hoped to achieve? she asked herself in a kind of despair. Some sort of appeal to Matt Lincoln’s finer feelings? Some hopes, she thought with bitter irony. He was a tough ruthless man at the top of his profession. He had no need to bother with those kind of refinements, as his behaviour towards herself had clearly shown.
She groaned inwardly, feeling the hot colour surge in her face as she unwillingly recalled those few moments she had spent—not in his arms, certainly, because he’d never held her like a lover—but under his power.
She had been seduced, she was forced to acknowledge, and God only knew where it might all have ended if Matt Lincoln had not decided to call a halt.
It should have been me, she accused herself miserably. I might not have been able to use my hands or move my head, but I could have kicked him, bitten him, given him a swollen lip for the make-up girls to disguise.
Passive resistance had done no good at all. And at the end, she had been very far from passive, she remembered with shame.
And she had achieved nothing, except to reveal herself as the worst kind of naïve meddler, and to tell herself that she had meant well wasn’t the slightest comfort. Didn’t they say the road to hell was paved with good intentions?
The cheerful babble of the coffee percolater did nothing to raise her spirits, and she switched it off irritably, giving the inoffensive machine a subdued glare.
From now on, she resolved, she was going to mind her own business, no matter what happened. And her business was her work, and the illustrations that Barlow and Herries were waiting for.
Her chin set determinedly, she marched across the landing into the studio. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d soothed away some inner pain with the anodyne of work, and from what life had taught her already, it wouldn’t be the last.
Normally, she worked fast, with ideas crowding on her as she sketched and discarded, using sheet after sheet of paper as she tried to capture the spirit behind the typed words of the script. But she couldn’t pretend she possessed anything like her normal concentration, she thought wearily, as she crumpled yet another sheet and hurled it towards the brimming wastebasket.
The tap on the studio door was almost a welcome interruption. It would be Maria, Kate thought, flexing her shoulders as she straightened up from her drawing board. She had heard her go out earlier, and guessed she was on her way to the shops, and in particular the small home bakery just round the corner to collect some bread for them both.
Bread and honey, she decided as she called ‘Come in,’ and some of the previously rejected coffee. Probably Maria would join her.
All the breath seemed to escape from her body in one jolting gasp as Matt Lincoln walked into the room.
She slid off the stool, uncomfortably aware of the increased rate of her heartbeat.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I met your landlady on the steps. She told me to come straight up.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Were you hoping to have me arrested for trespass?’
‘Well, she had no right,’ Kate said stormily. ‘Will you please get out of here right now!’
‘Well, you’re consistent, I’ll give you that,’ he said grimly. ‘Morning, afternoon or evening, it’s always the hard word.’
‘What else to do you expect?’ Kate glared at him. ‘How did you find out where I live?’
‘I could ask you the same question,’ he drawled. ‘But I won’t. Let’s just say I’m as good a detective as you any day of the week, and call it quits, shall we?’
She stared at him bitterly, resenting the intrusion, although she knew she had brought it on herself by her own actions. He looked incredibly tall, the sloping attic ceiling emphasising his height, and he seemed to fill the available space completely. Her space, Kate thought angrily. Her privacy.
‘Quits, then,’ she said with an effort. ‘Now will you please leave—I have work to do.’
He took in the litter of crumpled paper around her feet and trailing to the wastebasket. ‘Going well?’ he asked pleasantly.
‘A new project,’ Kate said shortly. ‘And early days yet.’ She paused. ‘Please will you go.’
‘Presently,’ he said. ‘When I’ve said what I came here to say.’
‘There’s no need for any further conversation,’ she began.
‘I don’t agree.’ His tone was smooth but definite, and it seemed to convey a warning. Kate felt herself tense. He glanced round the studio. ‘Is there any coffee going? I’ve had no breakfast.’
‘Too busy looking for me, no doubt,’ she said tautly.
‘Too busy, certainly,’ he said laconically.
She hadn’t the slightest desire to give him coffee, but she knew that any kind of protest would only make her appear mean-minded and foolish, so with a little shrug she led the way across the landing to her bed-sitting room, silently thanking her stars as she did so that in spite of everything, she had still found the time that morning to make her bed and leave the room tidy. She walked over to the worktop and flicked the switch with operated the percolater. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Matt Lincoln looking round appraisingly, lowering the zip on his casual jacket, and her heart sank.
‘Perhaps you’d like to help yourself when it’s ready,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I really do have to get on and …’
‘Not yet.’ His tone was cool but utterly implacable, and he was between her and the door. ‘As I said, we have some talking to do.’ He pulled a chair across and sat down, straddling it, his folded arms resting on its back, grinning sardonically at her expression of dismay.
‘Very well,’ she said, pretending a calmness she certainly didn’t feel. She didn’t like the way he was watching her as she moved about putting milk in a jug, taking two pottery mugs out of her china cupboard. The faded yellow sweatshirt wasn’t particularly revealing, but her jeans clung to her hips and thighs like a second skin, a fact which he was frankly and openly appreciating. Kate gritted her teeth.
The coffee was percolating, sending a beguiling aroma through the room. She wanted to relax—after all, this was her home—but she couldn’t, not with him there. His presence was like an irritant. He seemed to charge up the atmosphere, destroying the workmanlike but peaceful ambience she had been at pains to create for herself.
She poured the coffee into the mugs and handed him one, her face stony. He took it with a brief word of thanks, declining milk and sugar. Kate leaned against the worktop, sipping her own drink, feeling its warmth comfort her and give her heart, while she waited for him to speak.
He said softly at last, ‘I was deeply moved by your eloquence last night.’
‘Oh?’ Her expression was suspicious, her tone antagonistic, and he laughed.
‘You don’t believe me? But you underestimate your own powers of persuasion, darling. If you think it would be such a disaster for Alison to go to the Caribbean with me, then I shall not take her. It’s as simple as that.’
Kate put her mug slowly down on the worktop. ‘I don’t think I understand.’
‘I’m a reformed character. Your impassioned plea has made me see the light. My home-wrecking days are behind me.’
Kate’s lips tightened. ‘This is clearly some kind of weird joke, and I don’t find it very amusing.’
‘I’ve never been more serious.’ The blue eyes glittered oddly as they surveyed her. ‘I am not taking Alison to the Caribbean. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘Why—yes.’ She was taken aback, and growing more and more uneasy.
‘Then you have your wish.’ He paused, then said smoothly, ‘There is, of course, one minor condition.’
‘Oh?’ Kate swallowed. ‘What is it?”
He smiled, his eyes appraising her body again with unconcealed sensuousness. He said gently, ‘On condition that you come with me instead.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u8c4f8b0b-78e4-57bb-9471-f3d846108295)
FOR a long moment, Kate couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Then, at last, she managed, ‘You—really—are joking.’
‘Not in the least.’ He was no longer smiling. The dark face was set and almost cruel. ‘That’s the way it is, darling, I am off to the Caribbean on the fifth of next month, and I haven’t the slightest intention of travelling alone. If you want Alison to stay at home and go on practising the role of the virtuous wife, then you’ll go with me. If you don’t then she will. See how easy it all is?’
‘Easy?’ Her mouth was so dry, she could hardly force the word out. ‘My God!’ Then something snapped inside her, and she picked up her mug of coffee and threw it at him.
He had the reflexes of a cat. As her hand came up he was already moving. The coffee went everywhere, the mug smashed against the opposite wall, and he was unscathed.
Not only unscathed, but grinning in unholy amusement as he looked at the mess she’d made. ‘You’ve got a violent streak, darling. Your parents must have been clairvoyant when they named you after a shrew. What a way to behave when you’ve just been offered the holiday of a lifetime!’
Kate regained her self-control with a superhuman effort, digging her nails painfully into the palms of her hands.
‘I wouldn’t have described your offer in quite those terms. I thought it more of an insult.’ She lifted her chin, speaking coolly.
His brows rose. ‘Obviously you’ve never been insulted. But there’s no need to smash things. All you have to say is “no”, and the offer to Alison will stand. Why complicate matters by breaking the crockery?’
She said huskily, ‘You couldn’t imagine for one moment that I’d agree.’
‘Now there you’re wrong.’ He threw back his head and looked at her, his eyes narrowed. ‘I got the distinct impression last night that you’d do anything in your power to prevent me from ruining your—stepbrother’s marriage. I merely decided to test the depth of your commitment.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not impressed.’
‘I’d do anything within reason, naturally.’ Kate bit her lip. ‘But this suggestion of yours is—sick. It’s twisted!’
Matt burst out laughing. ‘Now how do you make that out?’ he wanted to know.
‘Because you only said it to embarrass me—to punish me,’ she answered in a low voice.
He shrugged. ‘Partly true, perhaps. But certainly not the whole truth.’ He paused. ‘I fancied you at that wedding, as you know perfectly well. And last night’s—admittedly brief—encounter has whetted my appetite as far as you’re concerned.’
‘But not,’ said Kate, ‘mine for you.’
Matt shrugged again. ‘Then the answer’s “No” and Alison goes with me.’ He looked at her meditatively. ‘She won’t be quite so—lively a companion, but at least she’s never tried to deny her own responses.’
‘Are you implying that I do?’ Kate demanded furiously.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When I saw you at that wedding, it was a mutual thing, and you know it.’
‘No,’ Kate said.
‘Oh, but it was.’ His voice was gentle, but there was a steely note underlying it which chilled her. ‘I wasn’t the only one looking, darling, and every sidelong glance I had from you was drawing me across the room like a bloody magnet. I wanted to find out all kinds of things about you, and not merely what you looked like without that silky thing you were swathed in—although that was part of it,’ he added, a self-derisive smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
‘And I, of course, was supposed to be flattered by your attentions,’ Kate said stonily. ‘The famous Matthew Lincoln honouring us all with his presence at a suburban wedding. God, what an ego you must have! Believe me, Mr Lincoln, setting you up was a pleasure.’
‘I believe it.’ Matt’s mouth twisted. ‘But now it seems to be my turn, darling, and I intend to make the most of it.’ He put the mug down on the table. ‘Thank you for the coffee,’ he went on with a mocking glance at the stained wall behind him. ‘And the proposition I’ve made you still stands. You have the next twenty-four hours to decide if this marriage you have such faith in is really worth saving or not. The decision is yours.’ He walked across to the wall-mounted memo pad she kept beside her food cupboard, and wrote a number on it. ‘Call me,’ he said, and left.
Kate sagged back against the worktop, hearing his footsteps receding down the stairs with a feeling which mingled relief and other emotions not so easily definable. She could hardly believe what had happened.
Matt Lincoln didn’t—couldn’t expect that she would agree, she thought desperately. He was merely tormenting her. He had to be.
She filled a bowl with water, took a cloth and some liquid cleanser and began to clear up the mess she’d made. The brilliantly coloured handwoven blankets she’d bought on a trip to Greece the previous year and which she used to disguise her bed as a couch during the day were soaked with coffee, and would need to go to the cleaners, and she bit her lip as she stripped them and folded them.
All she had to do was dial the number he had left, and tell Matt Lincoln to go to hell. Except that wouldn’t be the end of it because of Alison’s involvement.
She groaned. That, of course, was the joker in the pack. The fact that she knew about Alison. That it was in her power to stop her sister-in-law from messing up her life completely, because Kate had no doubt that that was what was at stake.
Matt Lincoln wasn’t a lover from the past, desperate to rekindle an old passion no matter what it cost. She could have understood that, if not condoned it. But it wasn’t any romantic elopement he was planning. Alison had said an assignment, but that, she suspected, was merely to provide an element of respectability.
No, he was off to the Caribbean and he wanted a woman to go with him. It was as simple as that, to use his own phrase. He lived a high-powered life, but now he was in the mood for some relaxation. Sun, sand and sex, Kate thought wryly. Wasn’t that what the travel brochures offered, even if it wasn’t quite as overt as that?
And Alison’s marriage made no difference to his plans, because the fact was that Alison herself didn’t matter. She’d been chosen because she was an available female body, and that was all.
But anyone else would do as well. His insulting offer to herself had made that more than clear. She still could hardly believe it. Did he really imagine for one moment that she would agree, that she’d take a step that would transform their relationship from that of antagonistic strangers to the kind of total intimacy which made her mind reel?
It was impossible. No one would do such a thing, and that was why he’d suggested it, of course.
She rinsed her cloth and wrung it out as if it were Matt Lincoln’s neck.
No doubt the foolish weakness of her capitulation the previous night had prompted him. Probably he thought that her dislike of him, and everything he represented as a man, was only a façade, and that one kiss would transform the Sleeping Beauty into the ideal travelling companion, she thought savagely.
God, he was a bastard, and she wished she’d kicked his shins to splinters!
Yes, she’d been shaken out of her usual cool control, but only by surprise. The last thing she had expected had been for him to kiss her. He had caught her off guard, that was all, she assured herself, and that was why she had behaved so stupidly.
And he had all the experience in the world, a small voice reminded her. That long, sensuous kiss had taught her that Matt Lincoln would be the kind of lover against whom a woman would measure all other men for the rest of her life …
She stopped short, frowning. Those were avenues of thought she definitely did not want to explore, she told herself decisively. She wasn’t interested in him as a human being, let alone a lover.
All she wanted was that he should forget about Alison, and it was too late now to wish that she’d never got involved, to regret with all her being that she had ever sought him out.
What satisfaction his arrogant ego must have derived from her intervention, she thought angrily. He was well revenged for the snub she had administered at the wedding. By revealing her concern for Alison, she’d given him a stick to beat her with, and he hadn’t hesitated to use it.
She’d done no good at all, she thought dolefully. In fact, if she was honest, she’d probably made matters worse.
She sighed and poured the bowl of water away down the sink. She hadn’t made a perfect job of clearing up, but then she hadn’t been entirely concentrating on what she was doing.
She looked at the phone number scrawled on the memo board, and her brows drew together angrily. He knew damned well she would never use it. She must have been mad to allow him to amuse himself at her expense, to pretend that he could really be persuaded to think again about his selfish pleasures.
It would serve him right, she thought, if she was to call his bluff.
She picked up the damp cloth she had been using and went to wipe the board clean, then stopped abruptly, her brain working furiously.
Well, why not? Why shouldn’t she do just that? God only knew he’d asked for it, she assured herself almost feverishly.
She poured herself another mug of coffee, and sat down to think. There was nothing to prevent her from going. Her passport was in order, and she’d been vaguely considering taking some sort of break, although nothing as opulent as a Caribbean island.
Not that she’d be spending very long there, she thought grimly. It would probably only be a matter of hours before Matt Lincoln discovered that she was not the pushover he thought, and that he’d been set up all over again. He wouldn’t be pleased, but there wouldn’t be a great deal he could do about it.
Unless he chose to play rough, a warning voice reminded her, but she dismissed it. She might not like him, but she gave him credit for not having the instincts of a rapist. Oh no, he wouldn’t use force, she thought. He would rely on his own physical attraction, and his undoubted powers of persuasion to get her into his bed, and when he failed, he would be only too glad to see the back of her. And she could then decide whether to continue the holiday on her own, or return home.
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