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‘Actually, I came to see if you fancied going out for a drink with me tonight?’
‘Heather doesn’t.’
‘I’d love to go with you,’ she said quickly, overruling whatever it was Kyle had been about to say. ‘What time?’
‘I’ll pick you up about eight.’
She could sense Kyle’s disapproval, and she was so acutely aware of him still that she also picked up on his sexual jealo
usy.
Kyle, jealous of David? She shivered, and tried to stem the flood of primitive pleasure rushing through her. This was madness! She was playing with fire. There could never be any real sort of relationship between her and Kyle, and to have one based on the sort of sexual intensity they had just generated was so appallingly dangerous that she automatically dismissed it. No, she didn’t want to fall into that sort of trap. Instinctively she fought against what she knew would be dangerous to her, trying to dismiss the feelings Kyle had aroused in her, trying to convince herself that they had been born out of anxiety and proximity.
It was obvious from Kyle’s silence, once David had gone, that he was furious with her, but stubbornly Heather refused to be the first to break it. It was no concern of Kyle’s whom she dated, just because…just because they had almost been lovers. She shied away from the word physically, just as she shied away emotionally from what was happening to her.
It was Kyle who eventually broke the silence, saying heavily, ‘Heather, we have to talk.’
‘No!’ Panic hit her, she didn’t want to talk about what had happened. It was shaming enough that it simply had. ‘No, no, I don’t want to talk… What happened this morning…it’s over…I just want to forget it…’
She saw his mouth tighten, and for a moment she held her breath, frightened by the contempt she saw in his eyes, but then he turned away and shrugged.
‘If that’s the way you want it. You never did like facing up to anything, did you, Heather? I suppose I should have expected something like this. I’m going out.’
‘You’re not well enough,’ she protested.
‘Well, let me put it to you this way,’ he told her, rounding on her, his eyes dark, glittering with the intensity of his anger. ‘If I stay here and I can’t get through to you any other way, I might…I just might be tempted to take you right back to my bed and show you…’ He broke off, making a harsh sound of disgust deep in his throat. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, what’s the use? I’ve got work to do. If you hear from the hospital, I’ll be in my study…I take it we are still going to see your parents this afternoon?’
That was the arrangement they had made, and Heather nodded her head, confused by both his attitude and his comments. What was it he had been going to say? That he could take her to bed and overcome her scruples? That he could make her want him with the same mind-destroying intensity she had experienced this morning? She already knew that. Why else was she so terrified of letting him get too close to her? Why else was she so determined to put up barriers against him? How long had her body secretly wanted him as its lover? How long had she needed him like that? How long would she need him? It was a frighteningly appalling prospect to want a man with such a physical intensity, and with a need that seemed to turn her off all other members of the male sex, when she knew there was no love, no respect, no softer, gentler emotions of any sort between them.
David was her armour against him, she recognised. David was her only means of keeping him at bay, because once he knew that there had been no other man, that he only had to touch her and she melted with longing for his possession…once he knew that… She shivered; she would never allow Kyle to become her lover. She would never open herself to the emotional pain that such a relationship would bring. Never!
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS she stared around her father’s hospital room, Heather was acutely conscious of a feeling of constraint and nervousness. She couldn’t even look at Kyle, and yet at the same time she was desperately afraid that her parents, especially her mother, would guess that something was wrong and start to question her.
Amazingly, her mother appeared not to notice how jumpy and tense she was, and she put it down to the fact that she was still quite naturally concentrating all her attention on her father.
Kyle knew, though. The cool, mocking glances he gave her whenever she dared to look at him informed her of that. How adept he was at concealing and controlling his emotions! Looking at him now, witnessing that taunting curl of his mouth, who could ever imagine that not so very long ago that mouth…
Abruptly she turned her head away, her face flushing as she was swept by an unwelcome surge of physical desire.
‘You look hot, Heather, are you all right?’
Of course, it would be now that her mother suddenly became maternal and concerned, and Heather could see in the sardonic smile Kyle gave her that he knew quite well what had caused that brilliant wave of heat to surge over her skin.
Today her father looked even better; he was participating far more in the conversation, and some of the machines had been taken away. He was now out of intensive care and talking enthusiastically to them about how much he was looking forward to going to Portugal.
Her parents knew the part of the country where Kyle’s villa was situated very well. It was right down by the Spanish border, quiet and still, virtually untouched by tourism.
Listening to the three of them talking, Heather was conscious once more of being shut out, but for once she didn’t mind. It gave her an opportunity to strengthen her defences. But against what? An attack on her virtue? She shuddered a little, remembering how easily Kyle had been able to arouse her. Too easily.
‘Heather, come back! You were miles away.’
With a small start, she looked at her mother.
‘Probably thinking about her date tonight,’ Kyle drawled.
‘A date? Who with?’ her mother asked curiously.
