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Eventually the path she had taken led down to the narrow road, bordered on one side by the May Brook which rattled its shallow way over stones to debouch into the sea.
She was alone on the windswept ochre sands, and she slipped off her high-heeled shoes, dumping them behind a rock, turned her back on the tiny harbour, and strode towards the foaming water-line.
She had walked for over a mile before she managed to get the worst of her anger under control. For the first time since she had known him she felt respect for Norman withering away. And without their respect for each other, she realised, their relationship was bankrupt.
Had he categorically stated that he was unprepared, ever, to move from The Laurels, then she would naturally have been disappointed but she would have respected his viewpoint, would have accepted it. Where one lived was, after all, less important than with whom one lived.
But he hadn't done that, and he'd only agreed to her putting in a bid when he'd realised his cousin wanted the property. Nor was Luke the type of man to stand aside and allow someone else to take what he wanted. Norman had been well aware of that!
She pushed her fingers through her vivid hair and stood at the water-line, staring out to sea. The water was sparkling, little lights dancing on the tumbling surface, and she sighed, dragging the sharp, clean air into her lungs.
Norman was weak, she acknowledged now. He was content to stand aside and allow Luke to snatch away one of the things she'd wanted most in the world, while letting her believe he was on her side! He had given her hope where he'd known there had been none, and had promptly absented himself so that he wouldn't have to witness her disappointment. He had even asked Chris to look out for her afterwards—so sure had he been that Luke would outbid her!
She wasn't sure if she could ever forgive him for that. So she would face him with it and see how things went from there. She wasn't sure if she could marry him now, spend the rest of her life with a man she couldn't really respect.
Her mouth tightening, she turned and began to walk back, her lips pulling down cynically as she wondered how Norman would react if he discovered that Luke had had ideas of seducing her right under his nose! Would he fight for her, fling his cousin out on his handsome head—or would he simply close his eyes and pretend not to notice?
Not that it would come to that, she reassured herself firmly, as the very thought of being seduced by Luke, under Norman's nose or not, made her feel hot and peculiar. For one thing, she comforted herself, Luke would be leaving, probably today, since there was nothing to keep him here now that Monk's Hall was his. And, for another thing, she wouldn't allow it to happen. She had successfully kept him at bay all week.
Except for this morning, a tiny, unwelcome inner voice reminded her. Except for this morning. And her response to his kiss, to his voice and his wicked hands, hadn't been exactly reassuring from her viewpoint!
So the sooner he left, the better, she conceded honestly, then dragged in her breath because she could see a lone figure walking towards her. Distance in no way diminished that potent male charisma. Horribly, her skin tingled and her heart lurched—and there had to be something very potent indeed about a man who could do that to her at a distance of several hundred yards.
Gritting her teeth, she walked steadily towards him, because there was nowhere else to go unless she turned and ran. And that no man alive could make her do!
He was just standing now, totally relaxed, waiting for her to reach him, the slight breeze from the sea lifting the dark softness of his hair. I'll shoot when I see the whites of his eyes, she thought grimly, because no way would she have allowed him to see how he'd hurt her. He had taken Monk's Hall and she was aching inside.
Still walking steadily, she gathered her mental resources until, still a couple of yards away, she fired her first shot.
'Congratulations. You've acquired a beautiful property.' She carried on walking, not deviating from her path by an inch, and would have passed right by him, a slight smile fixed painfully on her face, but one strong hand lazed out and caught her arm, pulling her to a reluctant and undignified halt. Annie swallowed an unidentifiable lump in her throat and said frigidly, 'Please let me go.'
'In a moment.'
Both hands were holding her now and he might as well have said, 'When I'm good and ready,' because that was what he'd meant. She could read that much in the steady blue glint of his eyes.
Masking her feelings, she glared haughtily back at him. She would have died before she allowed him an inkling of the havoc he was creating inside her. The mere touch of his hands set her on fire. She could feel every one of his finger-ends through the stuff of her suit jacket; the awareness unnerved her.
'Annie… I'm sorry about Monk's Hall,' he said softly. If she'd been an idiot she might have believed him, because the hard, sometimes mocking lines of his face had softened to something resembling compassion. But she wasn't an idiot and this man had a thousand faces, all of them devious, and if he thought that a little soft-soaping from him, a spurious regret or two, would get her melting into his arms—and thus round off his stay here nicely— then he had another think coming!
'I know how you'd set your heart on living there with Norman, but don't you see—' his fingers tightened fractionally as he drew her closer to him '—it would never have worked? I've known him all my life, on and off, and he hasn't changed. He likes his comforts and he likes them to be functional.
He'd have been out of his depth, rattling around Monk's Hall.'
'Are you trying to tell me that you bought that place—and paid way over the odds for it, too— merely to save Norman from a horrid fate?' she said grittily, emphasising her scorn with a look that would have withered any man but Luke Derringer.
'No, I didn't say that.'
His air of patience was galling, raising her temperature, and she growled, 'Then save your sympathy; it's not needed. You beat me over the house, but it's not the end of the world.'
'No?' His eyes softened with a misty pity that made her spitting mad. She didn't want anyone's pity, least of all his. 'Then why the long solitary walk?' he questioned astutely. 'You had too many things to do to have lunch with me, so why the sudden urge for time-wasting solitude? I saw you from the grounds of the Hall. I knew you had to be hurting. I came to sympathise.'
'How gracious!' Annie snapped her teeth at him, her eyes dark with a fury she feared she would not be able to contain much longer. She jerked her arms, but his grasp was unwavering. 'Didn't it occur to your monstrous ego that I would make any excuse to get out of spending time with you? Now let me go!'
'Of course.' To her secret amazement he released her arms, his eyes suddenly bleak.
Amazement? she questioned a reeling brain as she strode away as quickly as her narrow skirt would permit. Regret might have been nearer the mark, she decided with an honesty that had her near to loathing herself. She had fully—and not without a strange, wild inner excitement—expected him to repeat the kiss of this morning!
He was an opportunist of the most selfish kind, and the fact that he had simply released her without taking what he had openly admitted he wanted was totally out of character.
