Robyn Donald – Iceberg (21 page)

Justin, it hasn't been love.'

He leaned across and pushed aside the strap of the sun-top she wore, his eyes kindling with a cold fire as they

found the marks where his fingers had gripped her the night before.

'Perhaps you're right,' he said slowly, pulling her with him as he rose from his chair, 'but it's very sweet, for all

that. Don't you feel you could take a chance on it turning to love, Linnet?'

Mesmerised by the icy brilliance of his glance, the purpose she saw written mere and shaping the sensual lines

of his mouth, she still had enough strength of will to say loudly, 'No! And don't do this, Justin….
Please!’

He smiled then. 'But I enjoy it. And so do you, my darling, much as you hate me knowing it.'

In his eyes there were darker specks, islands of gold in the pale grey which made them forbidding. They seemed

to blaze up now, engulfing Linnet in a devouring fire of emotion from which she had no wish to escape. Very

dimly she could hear a thrush singing, the sound of a car changing gear on the road—and then she heard

nothing more but the soft sounds of his breathing and a thunder of heartbeats in her ears as his mouth sought

each of the marks inflicted by his fingers, as if to draw pain from each one.

When the strap landed against her upper arm she pulled back, but his arm across her back was strong and he

crushed her mouth beneath his, probing deep within in a kiss that was as sensual as it was controlled. Dimly

Linnet realised that his lovemaking was 'coldly determined, that he was deliberately using all of the expertise at

his command to reduce her to submission, but she was caught by the twin snares of her love and the response

his sexuality induced from her body.

So her hands came up to cradle his head closer and ever closer, and when his mouth left hers she whispered,

'Please—Justin------' not knowing what she asked for, aware only that she did not care
if
he took her now, that

this ache which shook her body could only be assuaged by complete union with him.

He smiled men, and ran his hands through her hair, holding her head still while his mouth traced every sensitive

pulse spot and hollow of her face, moving to her throat and then to the gentle curves of her bared breasts. Desire

was a red tide of abandon, a weakening of every muscle in delicious languor, a sensitivity of skin and

serves which made her respond wantonly to Justin's hands and mouth with her own, kissing his shoulder as she

pulled his shirt up so that she could rest against the hard warmth of his chest, her lips as soft and inviting as any

courtesan of old.

Then he held her, cheek against cheek, while her body screamed with frustration and she could feel the cold

film of his sweat against her hands, her face and her breasts.

'You see, you do enjoy it,' he said thickly, the. words slurred with the passion she had aroused. With a merciless

finger he tipped her chin up so that he could look into her eyes. 'If I kissed you now and kept my mouth on

yours, I could carry you into your bedroom and make love to you and you'd give me .everything I wanted,

gladly, wouldn't you?'

His glance compelled an answer. 'Yes,' she said sullenly.

‘Then why refuse my proposal?'

Bitterness choked her. 'Is that all that marriage means to you? Sex? No wonder your first attempt was unhappy!'

she said cruelly, careless of his reaction now that his scheme was clear to her.'

A line of white appeared around his mouth. 'You know nothing about that.'

'No. But I do know that you're trying to force me into a situation that I can't escape from,'

'If I'd wanted to do that I'd have accepted what you so freely offered a moment ago,' he returned /with icy anger.

Incredible that they should stand like this, skin against skin, his arm across her shoulders, her hands across his

back, lovers who hated each other. Linnet pulled away, yanking up the shirred sun-top to hide her breasts, her

expression as cold and set as his, only the full redness of her lips marking the passion which had so nearly fused

them into one being.

And yet, in spite of that mask she had donned, she knew that he had only to touch her again and she would melt

just as swiftly, fired by a desire she could no longer control.

'It's just as well you didn't,' she said on an indrawn breath. 'I'd have been hating myself by now.'

Justin smiled, and said with a meaning look at his watch, 'Hardly, Linnet.'

Her blush was a rolling tide of colour which made her even angrier with him. 'Look, just go, will you!' she

snapped, turning half away. 'I have things to do this morning, even if you haven't'. For some reason she added,

I’m going down to the library.'

'Ah, yes.' He took his time about tucking his shirt back into his trousers, apparently not noticing the fact that she

had walked abruptly into the kitchen.

Now she stood staring down at her hands, curling her fingers sharply into her palms to prevent them feeling the

smooth dampness of his skin under them.

It took her some moments to realise that he had gone. Light-footed as a panther, he must have just walked out

^without bothering to close the door. Linnet shivered, wrapping her arms about her waist as though to keep

warm while her brain raced futilely back and forth, mouse-timid, refusing to face the implications of the

incredible scene which had just been enacted.

After a while she went across to the table, picked up the coffee cups, astounded to find his unfinished one still

warm. It seemed an aeon ago that he had sat there drinking it; so much had happened since.

Anger gripped her. How
dared
he come here and propose so coldly, as though a wife was something to be

bought like a refrigerator. Like any good consumer, he had tested her first, she thought, lashing herself with

her^ humiliation as she swirled detergent into the sink and' deposited the dishes in the frothy water. Tested her

—no doubt awarding so many marks for passion, so many marks for appearance, so many marks for anything

else his cynical arrogance deemed important in a wife. As he must have done for Bronwyn too. Regardless of

what her sister said, his reaction to the situation they had walked in on last night had been too violent for him to

have been entirely indifferent, the marks on her shoulder were proof enough of that!

Impelled by the need to escape from the confines of the flat she hurried through the dishes, changed her clothes

and pulled the door to behind her with no fixed notion of where she was going. There must have been some rain

during the night, but the sky was cloudless now, the warm vibrant blue of early summer before the heat of

summer fired it into a metallic bowl. A light breeze tugged at the pale tendrils against her cheek, cooling and

refreshing. It was hot enough for a faint mist to rise from the tarseal of the drive, early enough for the birds still

to be singing. There was even one vagrant tui, chirruping from the ferny branches of a jacaranda tree.

Very beautiful—it was unfortunate that as she passed the garage of Justin's house he should come out with

Sarah clinging to his hand.

There was no dignified way of coping, especially not when Sarah squealed with joy and her father viewed

Linnet with an ironic mockery which infuriated as well as shamed her.

She tried, however, responding to Sarah's greeting with a smile, ignoring the lifted eyebrow with which Justin

signified that he noticed her change of clothes.

'Where are you going?' Sarah asked eagerly.

Lashes lowered, Linnet replied, 'To do some shopping and then to the library.'

'Oh.' Sarah knew better now than to demand to accompany her, but her voice was wistful when she asked, 'Will

you be back after lunch?'

'Yes.'

'Good.' She brightened instantly. 'I've got a bit stuck with that little duck around the beak.' Turning to her father,

she told him confidentially, 'I've got a present for Anna's birthday hidden in Linnet's wardrobe. Linnet showed

me how to make it. Daddy, I don't know what I'd do without Linnet now.'

Very deliberately he said, 'Perhaps you won't have to. I've asked her to marry me, but she's a bit hesitant.

You'd better see if you can persuade her to say yes.'

Above Sarah's ecstatic little body Linnet met the cold amusement of his gaze with seething accusation, but it

was her eyes which fell first.

All that she said through stiff lips was, That's totally unfair, Justin.'

'Isn't there an old adage: "All's fair in love and war"?'

'Why’

But he said nothing, just kissed his daughter goodbye and left them.

When he came home that night Sarah was in bed, her temperature soaring while Anna wondered worriedly

whether to call the doctor. Linnet was beside the bed sponging the woebegone little face with cool water, her

expression shuttered to hide the anguish and anger she felt, her voice softly soothing the child.

Justin came straight in, kissed and cuddled his daughter with some resultant calming of her overwrought

condition, then got to his feet.

When Linnet followed him from the room, 'Do you want to see me?' he asked politely, looking down from his

greater height with a return to his former aloofness.

'Yes.''

Then I suggest that the study will be the best place.'

Once there her eyes flew to the painting she had admired Now she found its starkness unpleasant, the ruthless

realism a mirror of the man who stood below it.

Without preamble she said, 'I'll marry you, but I'd never forgive you for the rotten methods you used to get your

own way.'

He smiled at that. 'Very dramatic, but I'll bet that in twenty years' time you'll be wondering why you made all

this fuss.’

'Justin, I mean what I say. I'll marry you, under duress. I shudder at the thought of spending the rest of my life

married to a man who sees me as an ideal substitute mother for his daughter and only wants the most basic

things from me, but I've no option now you've told Sarah.' The-words tumbled over each other in the intensity

of feeling; she was unaware that her hands were twisting together with the desperation of a distraught woman.

After a moment of silence she ended numbly, 'I think I hate you.'

'I can cope with that,' he said with insolent honesty, 'as long as you respond as you did this morning.'

'Must
you look at everything from that angle?' She knew that the contempt in her voice was angering him, but

she was too angry herself to care any longer. Sarah's distress had been shattering enough to render the day a

hideous turmoil of emotions and she felt that she must strike out at the cause of it all or explode with pent-up

frustration.

'You've just told me that I see you as a sex object,' he returned indifferently. 'Is it feminine lack of logic which

makes you flare up when I follow suit, or is it pique?'

'Go to hell!' she choked, furious that he had put his finger on the reason for her anger with such brutal accuracy.

'Gladly.' He laughed, came towards her and caught her in his arms, looking down at her with a kind of hard

possessiveness. 'But you'll come with me, my beautiful firebrand.'

The kiss was brief, but quite long enough to convince Linnet of her inability to resist him. When it was over he

smiled, 'So that's that. You'll------'

Sarah's voice was high-pitched, so, accusing that both of them whipped guiltily around to face her as she stood,

nightdress-clad, in the doorway.

‘Why are you kissing each other?'

Her father moved across the carpet with his usual noiseless tread. 'Because she's just decided that she will marry

me after all,' he told her gently. 'What are you doing out of bed?'

'I wanted to know what you were talking about,' Clinging on to Justin's hand, she stared unblinkingly at Linnet.

'Are you going to marry him?' .

‘Yes.'

An exhausted-sigh shook the child's slender frame.

'Good. I’ll
go
back to bed how. Daddy, you come with me. I want to tell you something.'

Bookshelves took up one of the walls; on the theory that you know a man best by his books, and to still theracing of her heart and brain, Linnet surveyed the volumes. Not many novels, although there were some

obviously well-read classics, mostly from the eighteenth century. Typical, she thought. A century known for its

hard logic and lack of romantic fervour. A large "number of books about New Zealand ranging from an

exquisite collection of hand-painted plates of birds to a very erudite tome on politics, all of the famous essayists

and a range of books covering anthropology and archaeology, sociology and a few other -ologies as well. Not

exactly a light selection, she decided. Rather astonishing to see an assortment of modern poets. Justin had plenty

of other interests beside his business.

It struck her as strange that she knew very little about this business of his, apart from what Bronwyn had told

her. Doyle Holdings could mean anything.

When he returned she was looking at a small paper-weight in the shape of a sinuously curved dolphin, her

slender fingers touching the flowing silver with sensitive appreciation.

'Is she all right?' she asked, setting it back on the shelf.

'Yes. She's already asleep.' He moved a, few papers around on his desk, then said briskly, ‘I’ll call for you at ten

tomorrow morning and we'll select a ring. Did you go to the library this morning?'

Avoiding his eyes, she answered, 'No.'

'So you knew that this decision was inevitable.'