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She had been stupid to be even the tiniest bit worried over the effect the magnificent Willa Kennedy was having on Luke. If she hadn't watched the star take Hernando from her, she would have viewed her mother's antics with slightly pitying amusement. Besides, Luke loved her. He had made love to her with passion, but with deep tenderness, too, and that had to mean something very positive. And he had told her he loved her and that must have meant something very much more. And, loving him in return, she trusted him. He wouldn't have followed her here if she weren't very special to him. He wouldn't wreck what they had going for each other for the sake of one of the short-lived, tempestuous affairs which Willa considered her right with any man who turned her on!
Surprising herself, Annie woke early, full of bounce, with no sign of the headache she so richly deserved.
Dressing quickly in white cotton jeans and a nut-brown sleeveless top, she wondered if Luke was up yet, or whether he was still sleeping in because he'd been dragged back to the party.
When he'd carried her through the villa last night he had been careful to avoid being seen by any of the others. They would have made capital out of her sorry condition, nothing was surer than that, so she owed him a big thank-you for that. And for a whole load of other things, she thought dreamily, as she dragged a comb through her tumbled hair. Things such as teaching her to trust again, to love…
The last time she'd seen him had been when he had gently deposited her on her bed and then dropped a light but lingering kiss on her lips. He had disappeared then and moments later Nora had stumped in, her face resigned.
'Luke tells me you're under the weather,' she'd stated, peering into Annie's flushed face. 'You shouldn't let her get to you.'
She had known what Nora meant, whom she meant, and she had agreed tiredly, wanting nothing more than to be left alone, to curl up and sleep, just as she was. But Nora had insisted on helping her to undress, hanging her things away in one of the big cupboards before finally leaving.
Annie put her comb down and touched her lips with bronze colour. It was barely six o'clock and she was going to make a pot of tea. She would drink it on the patio and dream a little. The details of her future and Luke's was something they were going to have to sort out later, when they'd left the villa—which would be this morning, if Annie had any say in the matter. But for now she could spin a few delicious daydreams all of her own!
Walking silently along the corridor, her footsteps were muffled by the thick silky carpet. Blithely, she nipped around a corner then froze back against the wall, her heart slamming to a painful halt.
Luke, barefoot, was emerging from Willa's bedroom. He turned slowly in the doorway, his back to her, his impressive masculine body naked save for a towel slung low on lean hips.
The villa was hushed, with not even the servants stirring yet, and although his voice was lowered she could hear every word. Every betraying word.
'Don't worry, I'll break the news to Annie myself, if that's what you'd prefer. I'll tell her exactly what's happened.'
'I know it's cowardly, but yes, I would rather she heard it from you.' Willa's voice came breathlessly. 'Her opinion of me is already rock-bottom—'
'It will be all right,' he assured her huskily. Willa had stepped beyond the shelter of her doorway, languorously lovely in a neglige that was little more than a cascade of black lace. Tentatively almost, she placed a white, scarlet-tipped hand against the tanned breadth of his chest and he lifted it to his lips. 'I promise, everything will be fine.' His voice took on a growl of humour that turned Annie sick. 'I know exactly how to deal with your daughter if she makes the unholy fuss you're afraid of!'
'Truly? I shudder to think of what she'll say and do when she discovers—' Willa lifted her perfect profile and, utterly sickened, her blood rushing in painful surges through her veins, Annie watched as Luke bent to drop a kiss on the smooth pale forehead.
Terrified of being discovered, of having them witness her distress, Annie pressed a hand to her racing heart, her mouth dry, as if she had swallowed ashes. But the two in the doorway were oblivious to anything but each other, and when she heard Luke murmur, 'Love takes many forms—Annie will understand—now, go back to bed, you must get some sleep,' she called desperately on all her mental and physical resources and made her way back to her own bedroom on shaky legs.
CHAPTER TEN
Annie didn't slam her door behind her; she closed it very quietly. She was going to handle this thing with dignity—she was left with nothing else but that.
Her initial assessment of Luke's character had been the right one, she told herself grimly, as she folded her clothes into an open suitcase. He was a loner, self-sufficient, he travelled light and made no lasting commitments. And as far as women were concerned he enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the challenge—and, boy, she had been a challenge to his male ego all right! He had even had to say he loved her, and that must have been a first!
Bitterly, she recalled how he'd remarked that he hadn't expected that things would turn out to be so easy. And that had to include her seduction! Just one word of love had been all it had taken, and words were cheap, weren't they? But after the conquest he was running true to form. He simply lost interest and turned his attention to new quarry.
He was a man who would take female companionship where it was offered, provided the woman doing the offering was to his sophisticated taste. And Willa was. Oh, yes, Willa at her most enchanting would be to any man's taste! And hadn't the first words he'd spoken to her at that dreadful party said it all? 'Your mother's a fascinating woman.'
Too fascinating to be resisted. Had Willa not been on the scene then Luke might have retained his interest in her for a few more weeks. But Willa had been on the scene, and obviously very willing. All her life Annie had watched men falling at her mother's feet, succumbing to that fatal charm. Why should Luke be any different? And hadn't she been warned that this very thing could happen?
She had been every kind of fool, she admitted miserably. But his timing had been perfect. He had arrived just as she had realised she was in love with him. And his own words of love had been all that had been needed to tip the balance, to have her giving herself to him with wanton abandonment. She should have had more sense!
Sometimes she didn't understand herself at all. What kind of woman could fall in love with a man who had openly admitted he was only interested in having an affair? But for some warped reasoning of the heart she had trusted him and what had happened had been predictable. After the chase, the conquest. After that—nothing. It was a typical pattern. He inhabited that shallow world where people looked for instant gratification, took what they wanted by fair means or foul.
Her packing completed, she closed the suitcase with a snap. Now all she had to do was call a taxi. She wasn't running from Luke, not this time, she was walking away from a distasteful situation, and if she happened to bump into him before she left she would tell him, calmly and precisely, just what she thought of him!
But all vestiges of composure left her as, after the briefest of taps, he appeared in her doorway. Her heart fluttered wildly and tears pushed at the back of her eyes.
The towel was slung around his neck now, and his lean and muscular body was attired in brief scarlet swimming-trunks that left very little to the imagination.
'Good morning, sweetheart. Feeling better?' His tone was lazy, very laid-back, but his intense blue eyes were, amazingly, a statement of desire.
Annie tried to inject naked dislike into the stare she gave him back but felt her mouth quiver with nerves, her body ache with jealousy, her heart swell until she thought it would burst with love. Yes, damn it all, with love—even after what had happened!
It would be a long time before she would get him out of her system, she acknowledged with an inner cry of despair. She cursed the day that they had met.
