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When the door shut behind him and she was really alone she suddenly felt as though her legs couldn’t hold her any more. She sank on to a small, heavily embroidered chair in soft gold as she glanced round the room distractedly. It was beautiful, like everything else here. She shut her eyes for an instant and breathed deeply. ‘This is crazy, you know it’s crazy,’ she said out loud, the sound of her voice bringing her eyes open with a quick snap. ‘Look around you, girl, just open your eyes and look. What could he possibly want with you, apart from a quick fling for convenience’s sake?’ She shut her eyes again as the thoughts hammered relentlessly in her mind. But he was different, she felt he was different... She sat for a long time in the quietness of the graceful room, the soft warming glow from the wall-lights reflecting back the gold of the heavy brocade curtains, which had been pulled to banish the cold world outside. She had never felt so confused in her life.
After a time she wandered into the large and very ornate bathroom, deciding to have a bath and luxuriate in the sumptuous surroundings rather than a quick shower. Half an hour later, with her wet hair swathed in a small hand-towel and her body enfolded in a warm fluffy bath-sheet, she padded through again to the sitting-room and through to the bedroom beyond, opening the large walk-in wardrobe and wondering what to wear as she gazed at her entire stock of clothes which seemed lost in the vastness.
The sound of high laughter beneath the window caught her attention and made her stiffen. Hugging the towel tightly round her, she walked across to the curtains and pulled them aside, peering down the ivy-covered stone wall outside to the snow-covered drive. She could just see a woman standing in the light from the house, the drifting snowflakes that were caught in the slight breeze now the storm had burnt itself out falling on to sleek black hair and the lovely young upturned face. She laughed again, her full red lips a soft pout in the whiteness of her face, and although Fabia couldn’t see her expression clearly in the dim light she felt the beautiful face was alight with some emotion, alive with feeling. It was the girl from the reception, his girlfriend!
As Alex stepped into view, taking the woman’s arm in the way he had so often taken hers, she felt no shred of surprise. With a feeling of doom she realised she had expected the inevitable from the first moment the carefree laughter had met her ears. It had been too good to be true, the hope, the expectation. She had known really, deep inside.
She wanted to turn away but remained glued to the window in an agony of self-torture. He walked the woman over to a Land Rover parked haphazardly to one side of the drive, bending down to hear something she was saying so the lighter brown of his hair merged with the darkness of hers. As she saw the woman’s arms come round his neck and Alex’s head being drawn down to meet the half-open bright red lips Fabia shot away from the window as though it had burnt her, the towel falling from her hair and the damp golden strands tumbling down on to the bare skin of her shoulders.
‘Fool, fool, fool...’ She ground the words out through tightly clenched teeth as she strode round the room in an agony of feeling before collapsing on the softness of the bed. ‘It doesn’t matter, he means nothing to you.’ She was talking to herself in earnest now but she didn’t care, she reflected wildly as she buried her face in the sweet-smelling duvet. There was nothing to get upset about; he hadn’t done anything after all, had he? Hadn’t promised a thing. She sat up suddenly, her eyes widening in shock. Just the opposite, in fact! He had been absolutely honest with her when he had explained his reasons for wanting her to accompany him here. He needed someone who was quite clear as to where she stood, no strings attached and certainly not heart-strings. She pulled his words out of the depths of her mind. ‘I am in the middle of several important business transactions and can’t waste time on trivia.’ She bit her lip hard. What had he said? Oh, yes, he didn’t want ‘interminable problems once the festive season is over’. That woman down there, there were probably lots more like her and now he was counting her as of the same ilk. She tasted blood in her mouth. How could she have been so stupid? Of course he wouldn’t say no to a little light diversion during her stay here; what man would? Of course he was going to try it on and see how she responded. And had she responded! She groaned as she kicked at the duvet viciously with her legs. But she hadn’t meant it like that, she had felt—
She froze on the bed. What had she felt? She sat up, her hair a tangled mass of gold around her heart-shaped face in which her eyes shone out a vivid violet-blue in the whiteness. ‘I felt a darn sight too much,’ she murmured in the emptiness. But it was just physical attraction, of course it was. She nodded vigorously. The raw sexuality between them couldn’t be denied but from this moment on she would keep it in its place. If she couldn’t be remembered for anything else he would remember her as the one he didn’t sleep with!
By the time she was ready for dinner she was the epitome of the cool blonde, long golden hair swept into a soft loose bun on the top of her head and a little discreet make-up to give some colour to her over-pale face. She had bought two new evening dresses, along with a long black skirt and several glittery tops, expecting they would dress for dinner each night, and now the soft gold silk of the ridiculously expensive dress gave her the courage she needed to face him again. She looked good, she knew she did, and for the moment that was all she must think of. She had brought this whole mess on herself, she would admit that, but she was blowed if she was going to become one of Alexander Cade’s ‘fancies’. ‘No way, Mr Cade,’ she said bitterly into the mirror as she checked herself for the last time. ‘You’re just like all the rest; the only difference with you is that you’re honest about it. Well, thanks for the warning. I shan’t forget again.’ The tenderness, the sweet words, they were a familiar pattern, probably genuine at the time but swiftly forgotten. How easy it had been to persuade herself differently.
She eased her mouth into a smile as she caught its tightness in the mirror. He had told her he was a busy man with no time for commitment. Well, fine; that suited her just fine! He had nothing she wanted. She despised all his kind.
Her thoughts were mirrored on her face as she opened the door, starting visibly as she almost cannoned into the focus of her malevolence, who was standing just outside, hand raised to knock. ‘What’s happened?’ The smile on his face died as his rapier-sharp glance swept over her face seconds before she schooled her features into blankness.
‘Happened?’ She forced a short laugh and then wished she hadn’t as the sound died in a croak. ‘Nothing’s happened.’
‘You’re upset.’ He looked at her keenly. ‘You weren’t like this when I left you a couple of hours ago.’
Before I saw you in a passionate clinch with Miss Happy-Go-Lucky? she thought balefully. How dared he? How dared he look at her as though he really cared how she felt when just half an hour before he had held another woman in his arms? She still wasn’t quite sure what his little game was but she didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all!
‘Nonsense.’ She smiled casually. ‘You just startled me, that’s all.’
‘Well, if you look like that when you’re startled, angel-face, I sure dread to think how you appear when you’re angry.’ He leant back against the far wall as he spoke, his eyes lazy as they wandered over her slender form. ‘You look gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, by the way.’
Cut the charm, she thought to herself angrily, this girl’s immune. ‘I’m here to do a job and I intend to do it to the best of my ability,’ she said coolly, driving back all treacherous thoughts of how delicious he looked in his evening suit with rigid determination. ‘You kept your part of the arrangement; now I do my bit, OK?’
He straightened abruptly, the warmth in his face dying as he took in her stony face and hard voice. ‘I see, a business deal, nothing else. That’s what this little episode is trying to tell me, right?’ She nodded coldly. ‘And the little scene in the sitting-room? That meant nothing, I suppose?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘What is it with you, Fabia?’ He took a step towards her and then seemed to force himself to stand still, his big body taut and restrained. ‘Why are we back to the ice-maiden act? It won’t wash any more. I know you want me as much as I want you. I felt your need downstairs when we were making love.’
‘We weren’t doing anything of the sort,’ she said icily as inside her whole being jolted with the force of his words. So he thought he only had to click his fingers and she would succumb, did he? The arrogance! The sheer male arrogance! ‘We exchanged a few kisses, that’s all; love had nothing to do with it! That phrase is dreadfully misused.’
‘Well, excuse me...’ he drawled slowly, resuming his former position against the wall, his eyes hooded against her. Somehow she felt the casual stance was a pose, a sham, but then she couldn’t trust her feelings where he was concerned. The last few hours had made that plain. ‘Do I take it you are still prepared to play the part allotted to you in public?’ She nodded again, her eyes wary. ‘Well, that’s good of you, that’s really benevolent,’ he said smoothly. ‘But let me make one thing plain, Fabia—I thought I already had but it would appear you had missed my point.’ The gold eyes had turned to marble. ‘In private there is no need to continue the charade. I’m not starved of female companionship, as you well know.’ His face was expressionless but she suddenly knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he w
as furiously angry. ‘Neither would I intentionally force myself where I’m not wanted. I obviously misunderstood your...enthusiasm for the role as something else. Nevertheless you are here and you’ll behave yourself in front of my grandmother. Do you understand me?’
‘Perfectly.’ She glared at him furiously and for a long moment they were like two contestants in a boxing-ring seconds before the bell went for the next round.
‘Hell, Fabia,’ he shook his head as he levered himself off the wall, ‘why do I always bite back with you? Look, I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours but how about giving me a break, girl? Letting down the drawbridge for just a short time? You don’t know me, fine, I accept that, but how about throwing out all the preconceived rubbish that you’ve taken in and giving us a chance to get to know each other better? If nothing else it’s going to make the next few days a lot easier for everyone concerned.’
For a moment, just a moment, the sincerity in his deep rich voice reached her and she felt herself weakening, and then the icy hand of logic pulled her backwards with a sharp jerk. Fool, she told herself bitterly, how many times do you have to be burnt before you stop playing with fire? The man’s lethal. You thought Robin had got a good line but he was a mere novice beside Alex.
‘I’m here to do a job for you and nothing else,’ she repeated as she shut the door behind her, turning back to see his face close against her, his features setting into the cold autocratic lines she knew so well.
‘OK, Fabia, have it your way,’ he said unemotionally, his eyes looking through her as they walked along the corridor. ‘If you want to live in that little box you’ve made for yourself, who am I to try and dissuade you?’ The tone was casual and uncaring and hurt her more than anything that had gone before, but she said nothing. Her emotions were too raw for more verbal sparring.
Isabella was sitting in solitary splendour as they entered the huge dining-room, a tiny little figure at the end of the vast dining-table, and somehow, in spite of the little woman’s caustic tongue, the sight touched Fabia deeply.
‘You look quite charming, my dear,’ Isabella said warmly as they reached her side, patting the chair to the left of her as she spoke.
‘Thank you.’ Fabia looked into the wrinkled old face warily. She had the distinct impression that those bright black button eyes saw far more than Isabella revealed.
