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‘Who else?’ he taunted. ‘Who did you expect? Hank?’ He rooms in the village!
‘Scott what are you doing in my room? His intrusion had ceased to be funny and she stared impotently at him as he came towards her. The moonlight through her thin curtains revealed the contours of his body, gilded in silver, potently masculine, with very little concealed by the terry robe he was wearing. His hair was damp and she could smell fresh soap and clean skin.
‘Scott, what do you think you are doing?’ she repeated nervously. He was reaching casually for her bedclothes, flicking them back, pausing, his hands on the belt of his robe.
‘I should have thought it was patently obvious, I’m getting into bed with you.…’
‘But you said you wouldn’t.…’
‘Sleep with you?’ She saw the white flash of his teeth but guessed there was no real amusement in his smile, ‘Neither will I, the sort of relationship we shall have precludes the pleasure of sleeping together, but I do have certain needs, and you.…’
‘For God’s sake Scott, you can’t mean this,’ Philippa broke in, horrified.
‘Oh but I do, and you must have expected me,’ he said smoothly, ‘otherwise why would you sleep with nothing to cover your delectable body other than my sheets? You knew what you were accepting when I told you what I would demand. Tonight I need a woman.’
‘Then go to Cara,’ Philippa said furiously, ‘I’m sure she’d be only too glad to… to accommodate you.…’
‘Doubtless she would, if I was prepared to meet her price. Cara wants marriage, whereas you… you aren’t in any position to demand anything in return for my enjoyment of your body, and I will enjoy it Philippa.’
‘I’ll scream!’
He shrugged off his robe and her breath was caught and smothered by the male beauty of his body. ‘Go ahead, no one will hear you. My mother sleeps on the next floor with her companion, as does Simon. In fact I think I might enjoy it more if you did scream although we both know there can only be one outcome. Does it bring back memories for you, lying here in my bed, like the virgin sacrifice you once were?’ He wrenched back the covers before she could stop him and it was his turn to study her body, although there was nothing covert about his inspection of her silver-white limbs.
‘I don’t want to remember,’ Philippa breathed bitterly, ‘You’re desecrating those memories, Scott, you’re destroying them. You.…’
‘No, you can’t destroy what was only an illusion,’ he said roughly. ‘Don’t try and deceive me again, Philippa.’ He was on the bed, and she realised that he meant to make love to her, and moreover that there was no way she could stop him.
‘Is this how you mean to exact your revenge, by using my body…?’
‘This is only the start of it; this is the private side of it; the tip of the iceberg, the rest will come later. You humiliated me publicly, Philippa, I want you to remember that, and besides, what makes you think you won’t enjoy this?’
‘How can I when you’re doing it to hurt me?’
‘Oh, very easily,’ he said softly, ‘You see I intend to make sure that you do. I want you melting in my arms, Philippa, pleading and begging me to take you, and I warn you now I’m not going to be satisfied with anything less.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SCOTT, don’t do this.’
‘That isn’t what you said to me eleven years ago.’ His face loomed darkly over hers as he pushed her down on the bed, the same cold fury burning in his eyes which she had witnessed earlier. Fear raced from nerve ending to nerve ending as Philippa fought against him.
‘You aren’t the man you were eleven years ago.’ The words were whispered between her tortured efforts to breathe. ‘This is rape, Scott.’
‘No.’ His lips were bared in a grin that reminded her of a wolf before it attacked its prey. ‘This is what you owe me, Philippa. Night after night, week after week, month after month I dreamed about you, about how you had been in my arms. For eleven years you’ve haunted me, making it impossible for me to trust any member of your sex, or my own judgement where women are concerned. You and you alone are responsible for the fact that I don’t trust the female race, and now you’re going to pay.’
‘How, by you raping me?’ Somehow she had to make him see what he was doing. She had to reason with him and persuade him to let her go. The Scott she had loved could never have acted like this. Never, and all her instincts urged her to hold fast to her memories. Surely that Scott couldn’t have disappeared completely, taken over by this cold, dangerous man who seemed to have taken his place?
‘I’ve already told you, it won’t be rape. We were lovers once, Philippa? Remember?’
‘But we aren’t the same people we were then.’
‘What are you trying to tell me? That you’re suffering from regret?’ He laughed harshly, the sound thrown back at them echoing faintly round the large room. ‘Oh, no, you won’t escape that way. You owe me this. Did you ever think about me when you were with Rivers? Did you think about me whilst you were conceiving his child? Simon could have been our son.’
Was he really so blind that he couldn’t see the truth? She remembered how she had longed for him to come after her, when she had told him it was over between them, and demand that she stayed. She had hoped against hope that he would refute the lies she had forced herself to tell him; that somehow he would know that she could never give herself to anyone but him, but she hadn’t become bitter when he had believed her; she hadn’t allowed his desertion of her to fester over the years. Instead she had held tight to t
he knowledge that he had loved her, and of course she had had Simon, whereas Scott had had nothing, but the pain of believing himself rejected by her.
Yes, she could see that it was possible that her behaviour could have sown the seeds of distrust of all women for him. He had loved her very intensely; just as she had loved him. It was useless crying over the past, as useless as crying for the moon but nevertheless she felt the tears welling in her eyes, and turned her head, but not quickly enough. The moonlight revealed the damp tracks to Scott’s keen gaze and he laughed softly, the sound chilling her body.
