Fortune in the Stars (7 page)

'Juana was right,' muttered Dominic, at last breaking the
frigid silence. He pressed a button on the dashboard which brought the
convertible roof of the car sliding silently into place around them.

By the time they reached the villa, the rain was dropping
in an unbroken sheet from sombre skies.

'I can't say I remember having seen rain like this here
before,' he said, switching off the engine. He turned to her. 'Penny,
you wouldn't mind nipping into the house to see if you could find me an
umbrella, would you? I hate getting my hair wet.'

It was his completely deadpan tone that held her frozen in
an instant of shock—then she dissolved into laughter.

'Come on,' she challenged through her chuckles. 'I'll race
you in!'

She was drenched in the few seconds it took for her to
reach the front door. When she turned to look for him, she found him
sauntering towards her, his head thrown back as the rain gushed down on
him.

'You're mad!'

'I told you I like rain,' he called back. 'Care to dance?'

She leaned weakly against one of the marble columns,
watching as he executed a clowning dance before joining her.

'Your hair's wet,' she laughed up at him as they entered
the house.

'Oh, my God—no!' Dominic groaned, clutching
theatrically at his head.

'You
are
mad,' she sighed
exasperatedly. 'Completely and utterly.' Then she was shrieking in
protest as he caught hold of her, shaking his head and spraying drops
of rain all over her.

'No—don't!' he exclaimed, as she made to break
free. 'There's something I need to check up on.'

Before Penny had time to realise what was happening, let
alone register any protest, his arms were holding her fully and his
mouth was covering hers. Yet when his arms repositioned her more firmly
against him, and when his lips began moving in probing sureness on
hers, she realised exactly what was happening, and she registered not
the slightest protest.

Her arms slipped around him, her hands spreading against
the muscled firmness of his back, and as her lips parted beneath his
they tasted the heady sweetness of passion and instantly craved for
more.

'You're wet,' he groaned softly against her mouth, his own
silencing any reply as it continued its fevered exploration.

And when his fingers deftly undid her button-through top,
the only moves she made were to accommodate him and then to stretch her
arms up and around his neck. Each new sensation bombarding her she
welcomed with a total lack of any inhibition, a small, sharp cry of
pleasure escaping her even when his hands moved to cup her breasts.

But when his fingers began their delicate search against
her flesh, the excitement they awoke in her turned pleasure to a need
and then to a powerful demand that stirred a spark of alertness in her
even as its drug threatened to overwhelm her.

'Dominic, I… Please,' she gasped, her
incoherent words reflecting the chaos within her.

'You're not drunk now, Penny,' he whispered hoarsely. 'You
never were, but I had to check.'

'To check what?' she groaned, the glimmer of sanity
striving to gain hold in her losing ground to the allure of an
instinctive knowledge that here in his arms she would find the answer
to the need aching through her.

'That the effect of our first accidental kiss hadn't been
a figment of my imagination,' he whispered distractedly against lips
loath to be parted from his. He withdrew his head slightly from hers,
the darkness of passion burning in his eyes as he gazed down at her. 'I
hate to stop, my sweet, but I think we ought to take ourselves off
somewhere more suitable… Tempted though I am, the hall floor
isn't an ideal place for making love.'

It was the unmistakable fact he was stating in those
huskily whispered words that restored her sanity in one blinding flash,
but it was the paralysing shock of her own behaviour that made speech
impossible for her— that led her to walk through the marbled
halls beside him like an automaton, her unfeeling hand locked in his.

When he stopped she felt him turn her towards him, and the
touch of his fingers on her cheek.

'You're crying,' he stated, the words almost
expressionless. 'I should have given into temptation and made love to
you right there and then.'

'I'm sorry,' she whispered through frozen lips, scarcely
hearing her own reflex words through the pall of dazed disbelief still
paralysing her thought processes.

'Are you sure I'm the person you should be apologising to?
This time you've only been unfaithful to him in your thoughts, but the
next time it will be by your deeds.'

Three
days, thought Penny, weary reluctance dragging her footsteps towards
the kitchen. Three days of gale-force winds and torrential rain that
even her limited knowledge told her must be unusual—if not
unique— for this sunshine island. Three days with neither
sign nor word of Lexy, and not even the presence of Juana or the maid
as relief from a companion who regarded verbal combat as a form of
relaxation and who could, when the mood took him, innocently discuss
the weather while his eyes lazily stripped the clothing from her body.

'I thought it was your turn to cook breakfast this
morning,' was the accusation with which Dominic greeted her appearance.

'You should have thought of that before being so rude
about the lunch I produced,' she retorted, and was instantly furious
with herself for rising without hesitation to his proffered
bait—perhaps, just perhaps, she would one day learn to think
before opening her mouth!

'It wasn't my intention to be rude. I merely pointed out
that it was inedible,' he replied, juggling toast from the toaster to
the warming drawer and refilling the toaster with a casual efficiency
she found immensely galling. 'A lightly grilled slab of stewing beef
isn't exactly my idea of the perfect lunch.'

'I've already told you I mistook it for steak!' she
exclaimed. Scant minutes in his presence and already she was well on
the way to losing her temper!

'My, you do seem to have got out of bed on the wrong side
this morning, Penny,' he murmured, removing eggs from the pan on the
cooker before him. 'Don't tell me this freak weather's still disturbing
your sleep?'

For once managing to guard her tongue, and then only by
gritting her teeth quite painfully, Penny busied herself stacking
crockery and cutlery on to the trolley. The truth was she hadn't had a
decent night's sleep since the bad weather had started, she accepted
wearily. Not that the weather had anything to do with it, apart from
offering her the odd brief moment of distraction on the first night
from the furious churning of the thoughts that had kept her
remorselessly from sleep throughout it.

She watched in silence as he began loading up the trolley,
willing objectivity into the eyes that travelled from the taut, muscled
broadness of his shoulders to the luxuriant darkness of his hair and
then on to the chiselled uniformity of his handsome features. The
ghastly thing was that she had spent the best part of a year worried
sick about the possibility—no, the probability—that
she was frigid, and now she was reduced to losing sleep over the fact
that she most certainly wasn't. She watched as he transferred the
boiled eggs into a napkin-lined basket, noticing the strong whiteness
of the teeth biting gently in concentration against the fullness of his
bottom lip as he did so. And well might she be losing sleep, she
thought dejectedly as her treacherous stomach gave a rolling
lurch—he was argumentative, openly delighted in infuriating
her, and was self-possessed way beyond the point of
arrogance…and she fancied him like mad!

'A peseta for them,' he murmured, his eyes rising without
warning to hers.

'If you must know, I was wondering how much longer you
could possibly drag that out—I'm starving.' Though her tone achieved the required haughtiness, her
cheeks unfortunately flamed like beacons.

'Glad to hear it,' he replied, his mocking eyes moving
slowly from one glowing cheek to the other. 'You trundle this lot into
the dining-room while I grab the coffee-pot.'

Given the choice, she fumed defeatedly, she would settle
for frigidity any day over this decidedly alarming physical attraction
towards a man she hardly knew and didn't even like most of the time.

It was against the absent Lexy that she began levelling
all her pent-up frustrations as they took breakfast. Where the hell was
she? Probably doubled up with laughter somewhere at the thought of what
she was suffering here, imagined Penny sourly, her friend having no
doubt known all along the likely outcome.

'Don't you think you ought to try contacting Lexy?' she
demanded, impatience spilling into her words. 'After all, she should
have been here two days ago.'

'I tried ringing her on and off last night, right up until
two this morning, in fact,' he replied, his tone sharp. 'I also tried
several other places she might have been—again without
success.' He was frowning deeply as he picked up his cup and drank from
it. 'And I plan contacting a few other people just as soon as we've
finished breakfast.'

Something in his tone brought Penny's eyes to his face,
and the worry she saw etched in every line of it startled her.

'There's no need to panic,' she chided, touched despite
herself. 'Something tells me that this new—'

She broke off in the nick of time, appalled at how
casually she had almost let slip the very thing Lexy wanted kept from
him.

'Well?' Dominic demanded, his eyes sharp with suspicion.
'What, precisely, tells you what?'

'That. . .well, she's obviously heard about the bad weather
here,' Penny gabbled as the tell-tale colour rose steadily in her
cheeks, 'and she's sensibly decided to postpone coming until it clears.'

Those shrewd eyes of his once again swept from one
colourful cheek to the other before he spoke.

'And you—a friend of hers—don't find
it odd that it didn't occur to her to pick up the phone and inform us
of this sensible decision of hers?' he enquired, the words dripping ice.

Penny's heart sank. Punctuality and impeccable good
manners were Lexy's hallmarks, and it would take something quite
extraordinary to suspend either in her. This Peter Langton really must
be someone even more special than she had suspected, she realised with
a small
frisson
of anxiety.

'You never know—perhaps this bad weather's
affecting the telephones,' she muttered, unconvincingly even to her own
ears.

'There's absolutely nothing wrong with the telephones
here,' he snapped, his eyes flashing danger signals as he added, 'And
if she's up to something which you know about, I suggest you tell me
here and now, before I waste hours attempting to track her down.'

'Why on earth should she be up to something?' blustered
Penny. 'Anyone would think she was a child, the way you talk, instead
of a grown woman.'

'And even as a child Lexy was never irresponsible,'
Dominic informed her acidly. 'Before I knew I'd manage to get here, I
arranged for her to choose furnishing samples and bring them over to
discuss with the hotel manager. Lexy knows Miguel's arranged to spend
some time in Spain as from the end of this week.'

'But she also knows you're here now,' protested Penny,
again with a disturbing lack of conviction according to her own ears.

'For God's sake!' he exploded. 'She knows me well enough
to know that despite having the ultimate say I'd never dream of
imposing anything on my manager without consulting him first!' He
slammed his fist down on the table with a force that rattled the
crockery and almost had Penny jumping out of her skin. 'You know where
she is, don't you?' he accused harshly.

'No!' she exclaimed, relieved at last to be actually
speaking the truth. 'Dominic, honestly, I've no idea where she might
be.'

But he hadn't believed her; of that she had little doubt.

She had spent the rest of the morning browsing listlessly
in the book-lined study, torn by twin feelings of guilt and
loyalty—the guilt jolting to the forefront each time the
extension phone in the room emitted the strangled half-ring indicating
that Dominic was making yet another call in his attempt to track down
his sister.

'Damn it, Lexy—how could you do this to me?' she
groaned softly as the phone yet again gave out its accusing little ping.

Incredible though it might seem, she must have moved in
with Peter Langton, reasoned Penny desperately. And it really was none
of Dominic's business what Lexy chose to do, she told herself firmly,
returning the book she had been leafing through to its shelf. Then she
leaned her head wearily against the row of books as the guilt she had
been so assiduously suppressing suddenly broke free and washed over her.

The dreadful thing was that he was so unquestionably and
deeply worried…just as she herself would have been had she
not know the truth.

Now thoroughly racked by guilt, she made her way to the
kitchen, finding welcome distraction from the cringe-making memories of
her previous day's attempts as she contemplated making lunch.

They were running very low on food, she told herself after
a quick search, guilt nagging persistently within her. And it nagged on
unabated while she made up a cheese salad with the bits and pieces she
could find and then placed some stale bread in the oven in an attempt
to revive it.

'Are you doing lunch?'

'Yes,' replied Penny, starting visibly at the unexpected
sound of his voice. 'Is there any chance of our doing a bit of
shopping?' she added, composing herself. 'We seem to be running out of
food… Dominic, is something wrong?' she asked, thrown by the
oddly strained look on his face as he approached her.

'Yes,' he rasped, halting so close to her that their
bodies almost touched. 'Your apparent lack of interest in my sister's
whereabouts.' He grasped her by the shoulders, his fingers biting into
her flesh. 'You didn't even ask if I'd managed to contact her! You're
either a lousy friend, or you know where she is. Which is it, Penny?'