PAGAN ADVERSARY (23 page)

Harriet, who had been fumbling with the catch on her seatbelt for no

very coherent reason, sank back in her seat with a gasp. 'Tonight you

are having dinner with me.'

'And my wishes don't matter, I suppose.' She stared down at her hands

clamped rigidly together in her lap.

'On this occasion, no. We have things to discuss, Harriet, and privacy

at my home is not always easy to achieve.'

She smoothed a fold of her dress. 'I—see. I suppose you want to talk

about Nicky—and when I'm going home.-'

'Those are among the topics we shall be considering,' he said drily.

'Or did you imagine that life was going to pursue its present course

indefinitely?'

'Of course not.' She kept her head bent. 'As a matter of fact, I think

Nicky's settled down amazingly well. I'm quite ready to leave

whenever you say the word. There's—just one thing.' She paused,

biting her lip.

'You've spent a lot of time with him lately. I think he's going to feel

rather bereft—when you're away such a great deal. He might find the

periods of separation easier to take, if you didn't pay him quite so

much attention.'

He said coldly, 'I have no intention of being separated from Nicky for

long periods, at least until he is old enough to go to school.'

She was taken aback. 'But you can hardly trail him round the world in

your wake with a nursemaid in tow,' she protested. 'What kind of

security is that?'

His brows lifted. 'Nicos will be with my wife, and my wife will be

with me. A child's true security does not lie within four walls as much

as in the love and warmth of those who care for him. We shall be his

home.'

Harriet wanted to ask bitterly, 'Have you discussed this with Maria,

and established her point of view?' But it seemed safer to remain

silent. His words suggested that he wasn't entering marriage quite as

cynically as Spiro had indicated. In fact they created a curiously

intimate picture, considering he didn't appear to be in love with

Maria. But then, she thought, Alex had always taken his

responsibilities to the Marcos Corporation very seriously. Why

should she imagine he would adopt a different attitude to his eventual

marriage? Even the most dedicated playboy must surely tire of that

kind of existence in the end.

'You are very quiet,' he said. 'Does my explanation not satisfy you?'

'It's—perfectly satisfactory.' She swallowed painfully. 'I—I hope

you'll be very happy.'

'Do you, Harriet?' He laughed. 'I had formed the impression you

would rather see me boiled in oil.'

'Perhaps so,' she said. 'But that wouldn't be the best thing for Nicky.'

He said, 'His happiness is what matters most to you still, Harriet. Is

that not so?'

No, she thought. God help me, it's you that matters most. You matter

more to me than anything in my life. She said quietly, 'That's right.'

She hesitated. 'I'm glad that your mother is—well—beginning. . . .'

'You need not struggle for words. I know what you are trying to say,

and I am also glad. I had begun to wonder if she would ever be able to

reconcile her need for Nicos with the unhappy memories his arrival

was bound to revive.'

She bit her lip. 'You don't have to hedge round the subject, Alex.

Spiro told me what was supposed to have happened.'

There was a silence, then in a voice shaken with anger Alex said, 'He

had no right. . . .'

'I persuaded him,' she interrupted. 'I made him tell me. I had to

know—for Nicky's sake. You must see that.' She paused, then added,

'And I don't believe a word of it.'

He said evenly, 'You are hardly in a position to say that. You were not

here at the time.'

'I didn't have to be. I knew Kostas too. I never knew him to do

anything mean or despicable, and I can't understand why—as his

brother—you should have been so ready to condemn him.'

Alex pulled on the wheel, swerving the car off the road on to the

verge beneath some trees, and stopping the engine.

'Is that what you think, Harriet? How little you know! Condemning

Kostas, as you put it, was the hardest decision I have ever made. Yes,

it was out of character for him to do such a thing, but that night he was

not himself. He was more angry than I had ever seen him. He had

quarrelled with our mother most bitterly ."He had demanded the ring

from her, and when she refused --' he shrugged, 'I can only presume

he decided to take the law into his own hands. When I found the safe

it had been rifled—every box had been opened, but only the ring had

gone. That and the documents which had provided him with an

excuse for going to the safe in the first place,' he added grimly.

'I don't care.' Stubbornly Harriet shook her head. 'I still won't believe

it. If he felt he was entitled to this ring for Becca, then why didn't he

give it to her?'

His glance was cynical. 'He did not?'

'No!' she almost exploded.

He shrugged. 'A belated sense of shame, perhaps. Perhaps he

honoured your sister by believing she would not be ready to ally

herself with someone who would stoop to steal from his own family.

Or would she?' His tone sharpened.

'Of course not,' she said wretchedly. 'The very least idea, and Becca

would have had a fit!'

'My mother, of course, believes that he stole the ring at her urging.'

'So Spiro said. And that isn't true either. Becca may not have been the

heiress your mother wanted for her son, but she was no gold-digger.'

She glared at him. 'But I see now why you were so ready to offer me

money to give up Nicky. You thought that we were— tarred with the

same brush.'

'What do you want of me?' Alex asked softly. 'An insincere denial?

Or my assurance that it is some time since I have speculated in those

terms about either you or your late sister?'

'I don't give a damn what you think,' she said shakily. 'But if that's

how it was, then why the hell did you bring me here?'

He said, 'I think you know why.'

His hands reached for her, lifting her bodily towards him out of her

seat with an irresistible force. He turned her harshly so that she lay

across his body, helpless in the crook of his arm, her eyes dilating

with mingled alarm and excitement as his head came down towards

her. He began to kiss her, lightly at first, the merest brushing of his

mouth against her cheekbones, her temples and her startled eyes.

When at last his lips took hers, it was in a kind of agony, as if he was

dying, and she was an elixir that could bring him to life. Her mouth

parted of its own volition and blind instinct took over, prompting a

response as fierce and pagan as his own demand of her. Her hands

locked tightly behind his head, drawing him down to her, holding him

close. The touch of him, the taste of him was a sensual enslavement,

and her body arched towards him in a silent offering of utter

completeness.

He began to caress her, his fingers stroking her hair, then moving

down to her throat and the soft sensitive hollows beneath her ears. His

fingers were gentle, but they brought every nerve-ending to raw,

aching life.

She heard herself whimper against his lips, but it was with pleasure,

not protest, as he tugged open the little blue cords, and his hand slid

under the soft cling of her neckline in intimate exploration. Her whole

body seemed to clench as his thumb stroked delicately across the

budding rose of her nipple, sending shafts of white- hot sensation

through the very core of her being.

Nothing seemed to exist in the world but the heat of his body

enfolding her, the warm draining languor of his mouth, and the sheer

scorch of pleasure that his slow expert caresses were creating for her.

Her breath shuddered in her throat as he lifted his mouth from hers at

last, pressing featherlight kisses down the smooth flesh of her neck to

the curve of her shoulder. His lips brushed the soft veil of material

away from her breasts, and her body was convulsed in yearning as his

mouth took possession of the aroused rosy peaks, the insistent flick of

his tongue against her flesh increasing her excitement almost to the

point of frenzy.

She was touching him in her turn, her hands sliding over ^his body

without inhibition, discovering the warmth of his skin, the play of

muscle beneath the elegant clothes.

She was hungry for him as if, starved" all her life, she had suddenly

been offered a banquet. She loved Alex, and wanted him, and the

need to tell him so was slowly overwhelming her.

Her lips moved to speak his name, but instead she cried out,

frightened, because the whole world was suddenly enveloped in

blue-white light, and as the darkness rolled back, an immense crack

of thunder exploded around them. And with the thunder came ram,

drumming on the roof and splashing the windscreen.

Alex lifted himself away from her with evident reluctance, to close

the window at his side. Harriet huddled back into her own seat,

thankful that the shadows concealed her burning face. The shock of

the lightning had restored her to a kind of shamed sanity, and she

fumbled with her dress fastenings as she struggled for composure.

She had let him hold her, kiss her, explore her body with his hands

and mouth when only a short while before he had spoken openly

about his forthcoming marriage. A sense of decency at least should

have made her fight him, reject his caresses, she thought, feeling sick.

The window adjusted to his satisfaction, he turned to her, and she

spoke in a small strained voice. 'Will you take me back to the villa,

please.'

He said slowly, 'The storm will pass. And we are supposed to be

having dinner.'

'I hate storms. I'm terrified of them.' She certainly sounded as if she

was, she thought detachedly. Her voice was almost cracking. 'Nicky

hates them too, and I want to make sure he's all right. And I don't want

any dinner. I—I couldn't eat anything,' she ended on a little rush of

words.

'Well, that at least may be true,' he said, his voice hardening with

contempt. 'I seem to have lost my appetite—for food—myself. As for

your fear of storms, Harriet
mou,
—you're not a physical coward,

merely a moral one. Yet you need not have worried. Seducing

inexperienced girls in cars is a callow trick which has never appealed

to me.'

The car engine started with a roar, and he turned the vehicle with

almost savage expertise, and sent them rocketing back the way they

had come, while the thunder growled and rumbled above their heads.

As he drew up at the entrance, Alex said with scarcely controlled

impatience, 'Do you wish to wait here while I fetch some

covering—an umbrella, perhaps?'

'N-no,' Harriet stammered. 'I'll be fine, honestly.'

'Honestly?' he echoed. 'I doubt if you know the meaning of the word.

You had better run, then.'

Run she did, head bent, not glancing behind to see if he was

following. She took the stairs two at a time, and went straight to

Nicky's room. It was quite true, he hated storms—when he was

awake. But it was extremely doubtful if the thunder would have

woken him.

His door was standing ajar, which surprised her. Perhaps he had

woken after all, and Yannina was with him, she thought, as she

stopped inside.

But there was no comforting figure at Nicky's bedside, and the bed

itself was empty.

Harriet stood very still, lower lip caught in her teeth, while she

registered this.

She walked over to the baby alarm above" the bed, and saw it was

switched off. She turned it on and said, 'Yannina—is Nicky with

you?' Then she sank down on the bedside chair and waited, trying not

to panic.

It seemed a long time later, but it was actually only seconds, that feet

came flying down the passage and Yannina burst into the room, her

startled gaze seeking the empty bed. The expression on her face told

Harriet all she needed to know.

She said carefully, 'It's all right, Yannina. He probably woke and was

frightened by the storm and went downstairs.'

Yannina's eyes were round. 'But the handle on the door,
thespinis.
It

is too high, and too stiff for him to manage, as you yourself know

well. How could he have left the r'oom? You did not leave the door

open.'

No, thought Harriet, and the alarm was switched on, because I

checked it as I always do.

She tried to smile. 'Well, someone came in—perhaps his

grandmother—and took him downstairs because he was frightened.'

Nicky had never been a wakeful child at nights, nor a wanderer, she