Red Collar (18 page)

*****

Clayton pulled her into his room, slamming the door behind them. Capturing her against the hard wooden oak door, his arms
caging her on either side of her, he glared at her.

“I leave you for five minutes and you’re already on a mission
to sow seeds of doubts about our relationship in my family,” he growled. “I thought I paid you enough to hold your tongue.”

Kate pushed against his arms and then immediately regretted it when he began tussling with her. He had pulled himself against her in their passionate wrestle, their bodies rubbing against each other
. Her breasts grazed against his chest, her nipples peaked immediately upon his touch. And despite how angry she felt with him now, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her legs around him as he would plunge into her in an aching need to sate her hunger.

She could tell from the grating bulge in his groin that he
was as much aroused as she was and she gave a small cry as he traced his hands down her sides only to take possession of her breasts.

“Kate,” he whimpered, kissing her at the base of her neck.

And then with a sudden move, he tangled his hands in her hair to pull her head roughly up so she could meet his blazing eyes.

“Don’t you ever try that again,
” he warned.

Stunned, she stared at him speechless
and questioningly, wondering wildly what he was referring to. A second ago, he had been heated with passion, while she had writhed unabashedly in his arms.

“
Don’t do anything to cause my family to doubt our relationship. I love them too much for you to give them any reason to worry,” he continued, in his curt voice.

Kate flared. “But not enough
to tell them the truth,” she spat back as she tried to unclench his hold on her hair.

She felt a sudden nausea rising up inside her, feeling disgusted of how she very easily gave herself up to him
. How could she have been so stupid? She had never felt as big a fool as she did now. And it took just a touch from him to fall into his spell again. She was pathetic. She needed to have a better grasp on her emotions and her body.

He didn’t love her
, she reminded herself. All he wanted was to possess her body and he had paid handsomely for it.

He tightened his hold and she grit her teeth to hide the pain he was causing her.

“That’s my problem. Leave that to my conscience,” he minced.

“I didn’t know you had a conscience,” she said, angrily.

He stared at her in such ire that for a brief moment, she thought he would swing her up to his hips and take her in that same rage against the door. She was crazy to even hope he would.

He let her go, stepping away from her.

“I’m going to have a shower,” he mumbled. “When I get back, I expect you to be here, waiting for me.”

“
You’re not going to tell them, are you?” she persisted stubbornly.

An inner voice told her to drop the matter. He was right. It wasn’t any of her business. All she needed w
as the money which he had paid already. Now she needed to painstakingly survive the four remaining days and go home. She didn’t have to see him again. Ever.

But why then did it feel it was every bit her business that he lied to his family about them?

“They’re fine with what they’re told,” he said in a low voice as he pulled off his shirt.

“Because they think that’s the truth. That we’re a happily engaged couple
, when you and I both know we’re anything but that. Hasn’t this deception gone too far? Do you have to act it out as well before them.”

He raised his head. “Act what out? Act that we’re in love?
To hold you as if nothing else matters? That I’ve lied to my own family to be with you? To have you?”

She blushed, trying to avert her eyes. She longed for all he had said to be true. But this was reality and it would never be as she wanted it to be.

“I meant you didn’t have to tell them we were engaged or in love.”

He smirked as he picked up a towel. “And tell them you’re a professional escort
? Come on, Kate. No man in his right mind takes a prostitute home to his family.”

She glared at him. “So you agr
ee that you have lost your mind? Why have you brought me here, Clayton? Why take the risk? What makes you so sure it won’t be me spilling the beans on my whoring profession?”

He threw his towel onto the bed and in two swift steps, he was before her again. His fingers pinned painfully into the flesh of her arms, as he lifted her up to him so she could feel his raspy breath against her face.

“One word about this, and I swear Kate, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life. There are ways I can make your life so miserable, you’d be pleading for me to take you back and release you of its misery.”

He diced each word with such
precision; she knew he would deliver upon it to the letter.

She bit her lips, trying to claw back the pain he was infli
cting upon her. Strangely, his pinching fingers didn’t hurt as much as the ache she felt in her heart. How could she have been so daft to fall for a man like Clayton who traded hearts like he did old businesses?

His eyes narrowed, suspiciously. “Are you trying to extort more money out of this?”

She blinked, dazed by her pain and his words. They somehow mingled in her mind, as she struggled to decipher its meaning. “What?”

He threw her back. “Are you trying to milk more money out of me, now that you know I am protective of my family? Well, well,” he muttered shaking his head. “You’re certainly a devious one, Kate Ripley.  But let me tell you one thing, you’ve got the wrong
man to tango with, because you’re not getting another dime from me. I paid you a price we both agreed to. So if you ever as speak of asking for more, I’ll take you back to New York myself and unleash a vengeance from hell on you.”

She lifted her jaw, stubbornly. “Somehow those words suit you, Clayton. I don’t expect anything less.”

He glared at her and then picked up his towel before striding majestically into the bathroom.

Only when
he slammed the bathroom door shut, the impact of their bitter argument took a toll upon her, overwhelming her. She leant back against the bedroom door, hoping its strong, aged oak would support her. Instead she slid down it, her head gathered at her knees as she wept silently for her breaking heart.

Kate heard the shower run in the bathroom. She picked herself up, determined more than ever to pull through the next four days. She checked herself in the mirror, neatening herself and salvaging what she could of her tear-stained face with face powder.

“I will get through
this,” she meditated. “I will not fall in love. I deserve better. I am not in love with Clayton. I shall not fall in love.”

She held onto the dresser, shivering with her words. She did not
know if she had the strength to follow through with them though. Clayton had somehow managed to touch her heart. But how? She had been careful. She had promised herself she would never fall into such traps. She gripped her foundation bottle hard in anger. She must be so weak that every time a man held her in his arms, her soul convinced her it was love. But how many men did ever hold her in their arms? Only two. Alan and Clayton. And it was the latter who hurt her more.

A knock sounded at the door breaking into her self-meditating trance.

“Kate?” It was Grandma Connie.

She pulled a smile before the mirror and tapped her face to release the blood back into it.
Feeling satisfied with her feigned attempt of an elated self, she opened the door.

“Oh, K
ate,” she mumbled. “Is Clayton still in the shower?”

“He
is,” Kate replied. “He won’t be long, I’m sure.”

Grandma waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Let him take his time. Why don’t you join us in the
veranda? We’ve got breakfast all laden out and I know you didn’t have much to eat when Clayton whisked you away so quickly. You must be hungry.”

Kate bit her lips. Clayton had specifically told her to wait for him.

“Come on, dear,” Grandma hooked her arm into hers. “Clayton knows where to find us. If you wait any longer, I’m just scared you might pass out on the rest of the day. And we have more guests coming. They might take you for a drunk.” She chuckled.

Kate smiled. She lifted her head defiantly and closed the door behind her.
“You’re right Grandma. I’m famished. I could eat a horse right now.”

Grandma upturned her lips in deep thought. “Well, we do have a couple of old studs we want to get rid of. I’d be happy to feed them to you.”

Kate blinked at her in surprise and then burst out with a laugh. “Why not? I should make myself useful while I’m here, right?”

The two women giggled as Grand
ma Connie led Kate, arm in arm to the veranda.

Olivia and Leah were already seated in the beautiful dark wicker rattan chairs. Leah’s boys played about in the well-maintained grounds of the house. In the background, the mountainous terrain of the island was ornamented with evergreen and native trees while the waves of the Pacific Ocean lashed against the banks of the island in the distance. The view was all too surreal for Kate as she soaked in its magnificence.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered aloud, the words escaping her lips before she realized it. She blushed when she saw the other women smile at her. “I suppose you must be used to it.”

Olivia nodded her head and turned to the rugged mountains. “Yes, they are beautiful and yes, we are probably accustomed to the view. Ever so much that sometimes it is good to be reminded of how lucky we are to live in such a place.”

Leah leaned forward. “Do you know how we came to live on this island?” Her voice was dropped to a whisper as if she was disclosing a family secret.

Kate shook her head, keenly interested in her story.

“A long, long time ago,” she started. “
Great, great, great grandfather, Victor Reid visited Russian America to take advantage of the then lucrative fur trade with the Alaskan natives. You must know that the so-called lord of Alaska, Alexander Baranov was strictly against non-Russian Europeans partaking in this business. Well, you don’t blame him, the Russians kick-started the entire fur trading in Alaska and it was their territory. But then they did not have access to the Canton market which was good business. The American hunters and trappers encroached into their territory despite the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 which declared that Russians had exclusive rights to the fur trade above a certain latitude, I can’t remember what, and the Americans below that line.

But
Victor Reid was one of those business men that didn’t give a toss about declarations and treaties. He was aware that some of the best furs came from New Archangel, the then capital of Alaska and now city of Sitka. But because Baranov had issued strict guidelines on trading solely with the Shelekhov family who had won a monopoly on the fur trade from Tsar Paul I, Victor Reid had to invent ways in which he could get his hands on the fur from New Archangel.

It was then he happened to come into contact with
twenty one year old Vasily Pasternack who had moved over to Alaska a little earlier with his family. They were simple peasants in Russia, hoping that the fur trade would help lift a little of their economic standards.  They struggled in the beginning, only able to make ends meet.

But then one day when Victor Reid offered them a
profitable sum for black marketing fur from New Archangel, Vasily Pasternack did not hesitate. It was either imprisonment or dying hungry in the cold roads of a new place, together with his wife and two young children in tow and he’d rather have preferred the former.

The deal worked out immensely well and Pasternack was soon rising through the ranks as an important business man in the Russian circles.
He went on to have three more daughters and two sons. In the wake of his good luck, he also bought off this island from the Tlingits for a meager sum. The Tlingits saw little use of the land as the major business took place on the main land. But Pasternack envisioned much more. With an island of his own, he could further develop his black-marketing trade in the guise of some potential legitimate business.

But things did not quite
happen as he wanted them to. Baranov retired in 1818 and despite the treaty, the Russians lost quite a lot of control on Alaska. The furs of the Russian territory became more accessible to the Americans and soon Pasternack was going through another bout of ill-luck as his black-marketing trade gradually began to recede. 

On the brink of poverty
again, he pleaded with his old acquaintance Victor Reid for help who then lent him a substantial sum of money to pull him out of his debts in return for quality fur. But it didn’t take Reid long to realize that he would never get his money back or the fur. It didn’t help that Vasily Pasternack died soon after.