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Her words were met with a silence so deep, so total it was almost shocking. All the small sounds of the day—the leaves on the trees sighing in the breeze, the faint murmur of traffic in the distance, the buzz of a bee in the honeysuckle—seemed suddenly startlingly loud, as if someone had turned the volume up to full.
Ronan simply watched her for the space of several slow, tense heartbeats, steely eyes narrowed assessingly, his dark head once more tilted to the side. Then at last he nodded slowly, a faint quirk of sardonic amusement curling his hard mouth.
‘OK,’ he said, his voice as slow and deliberate as the way he nodded agreement. ‘If that’s hatred then it suits me fine.’
And as he pulled her back to him with lazy ease time seemed to slow down almost to a halt, and all Lily could do was watch in stunned fascination as those beautifully carved lips lowered slowly to meet hers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THIS was not what she had meant at all!
Panic ripped through Lily at the shocking realisation that her plan had gone very wrong indeed. Her behaviour had rebounded on her with quite the opposite effect to the one she had aimed for.
She had been so sure that if she showed a sexual licentiousness to match his own Ronan would be repelled by her forwardness. Either that or he would at least realise that he no longer had that particular hold over her, and let the matter drop like one very hot potato indeed.
Instead of which he seemed to have taken her declaration as a challenge. Or, even worse, he saw it as giving him carte blanche to launch into a purely physical relationship, one based solely on mutual lust and therefore free of the awkward implication and confines of any such problems as feelings, or consideration of the other.
He must have thought that all his birthdays had come at once as she’d seemed to hand him his own private fantasy on a plate. It would be just what a man like him would dream of: a woman who shared his own amoral approach to sex and who was willing to indulge it as freely and frequently as he desired.
‘A real stud… Sexual dynamite…’ Over and over again her own foolish words came back to haunt her, making her groan aloud at the thought that she could have been so stupidly provocative.
‘My feelings exactly,’ drawled Ronan, shocking her even more with the realisation that he had interpreted her response as one of sensual excitement, a lascivious anticipation she couldn’t hold back from him.
‘Ronan…’
But what could she say? If she panicked, pulled back and twisted out of his arms, she would have shown her story to be the pack of lies it actually was. He already knew that there was no way she could stop herself from responding to him, and if she destroyed the advantage she had gained by admitting to a sexual attraction while declaring that she hated him he would know she was hiding something.
It wouldn’t take that cool, incisive mind of his more than a couple of seconds to slash through the flimsy defence she had built around herself and see straight into her vulnerable heart.
Nervously she moistened the lips that panic had dried so shockingly, her head whirling with frantic, disparate thoughts. Out of the confusion she snatched at the only thing she could think of that might distract him.
‘But what about Davey?’
It worked. If she had flung a bucketful of icy water in his face it couldn’t have had a more dramatic effect. Ronan’s proud dark head went back, blue-grey eyes narrowing sharply, the ferocity of his muttered expletive making Lily’s toes curl in fearful response.
She could only pray that her brother had had enough time to get well away. The speed at which he had driven off down the drive should have taken him many miles from Edgerton by now.
‘Davey.’ Her brother’s name was a dark-toned curse.
What the hell was he thinking of? Ronan reproved himself bitterly. It was Cornwell he really wanted; Davey who should pay for what he had done. How could he have let himself be distracted by Lily and the sexual web she spun round him so easily? It was bad enough that he had become so obsessed with her, but was he going to let her divert him from his purpose when it was all he had been able to think of for the past six months?
He had to remember Rosalie and the tragedy of her young life. God, it hurt so much to recall what had happened. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe it. But that was the reason he was here in the first place. The only reason he had ever tangled with the Cornwell family at all.
But he had never expected that things would get so complicated. It had never crossed his mind that he might actually find himself attracted to Cornwell’s sister, let alone that she would become an obsession with him, an itch that he just couldn’t scratch. If he had even suspected the way that Lily could cloud his thinking, making him respond only to the most primitive urges, he would have steered well clear of her from the start.
‘I’d actually forgotten about your rat of a brother.’
It was what she had aimed for, what she would have said she most wanted, but still she felt outrageously insulted by the speed and carelessness with which he released her. She was pushed roughly to one side as he reached into his pocket for his mobile phone, punching in a number with swift stabs of one long finger.
‘Gerry?’ he snapped as soon as there was a response. ‘I found Cornwell but he managed to give me the slip. He—’
‘What are you doing!’
In a panic Lily reached for the instrument, trying to snatch it from his hand. Ronan avoided her grasping fingers by the simple expedient of lifting it well out of reach, leaving her jumping ineffectually, her face white with nerves.
‘I’m arranging for someone to take over the hunt for your brother,’ he told her bluntly. ‘I could kill myself for letting him get away like that. And then, of course, I was distracted…’
A quirk of one dark winged brow gave the clear message that he hadn’t minded that part of things quite as much.
‘I really am most grateful to you for reminding me of what really matters.’
Which was offensive enough to be like a physical slap in the face, leaving her gasping with shock.
‘But Davey—you can’t set your thugs onto him! He—’
‘My thugs!’
Ronan’s exaggerated surprise told her that she had jumped to conclusions as nightmare visions of Davey, hunted down, captured, possibly hurt, flooded her mind, depriving her of the ability to continue.
‘Believe me, Gerry is no thug. But he has been helping me find your brother. I either use him again or call in the police. You tell me which course of action you favour.’
It sounded so reasonable. Almost as if he was actually offering her some sort of a choice instead of total impasse. He had her in a cleft stick, and to judge from the sardonic gleam in his eyes he was well aware of that fact.
Lily could only shake her head dispiritedly from side to side, not knowing what to think. The police would make matters official. They had rules to abide by; they had no choice. Davey wouldn’t be harmed, but it was almost inevitable that he would be charged with something.
Would that charge just be breaking his contract? Or would they say that he had actually stolen all the money? That could mean a prison sentence—or would they just fine him? But of course he wouldn’t be able to pay. And God alone knew what other accusations Ronan might throw at him.
‘Oh, no…’
‘Is that no to the police, or my friend Gerry here?’ Ronan enquired, his obviously phoney and insincere note of concern setting her teeth on edge.
‘You can’t call in the police!’
She was past caring if her fear showed in her voice. If Davey had suffered from nightmares here, in this comfortable house, he would never survive arrest and a night or more in the cells, she knew, a shudder of horror wracking her slender body.
‘Right!’
Before she had time to realise what he was doing, Ronan snapped some crisp, curt commands into his phone and switched it off again.
‘Gerry will handle things.’
The colour drained from Lily’s cheeks at just the thought.
‘Please, no! Ronan, call off your bloodhound…!’
His harsh crack of laughter splintered the air, silencing her abruptly.
‘Bloodhound indeed! Poor Gerry would be mortified by such an unflattering description. Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart…’
That steely gaze raked over her distressed face, but betrayed no sign of softening at the sight of her shocked golden eyes and drawn, bloodless cheeks.
‘He’s very good at his job.’
If he meant that to be reassuring, he didn’t succeed. In fact it had the exact opposite effect, making her legs come close to buckling beneath her. She almost felt that she would prefer her brother to face the police after all, or Ronan’s cold-blooded ruthlessness, rather than this unknown tough.
‘And what are you going to do while Gerry is busy with what he’s so good at?’
Ronan’s cold, caustic smile warned that she wasn’t going to like his answer one little bit.
‘Oh, I plan to stick around here for a while. Now your brother knows where you are, he’s bound to try and contact you again.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that! The last time Davey vanished it was over three years before I saw him again.’
And she’d barely got him back before she’d lost him once more. It was all Ronan’s fault. Another very black mark to add to the already long list of his crimes. More coal to heap onto the fires of her hatred and keep them blazing.
