he said eventually. ‘I don’t think I do like you, if liking can be gauged after such a short acquaintanceship, but you are correct in your assumption in one way— your age and your greed are not the real reasons why I want you to call the wedding off.’
‘Why, then?’
‘It’s simple. Because you are not the right woman for him.’
Stunned by the sheer unremitting force with which he spoke, Kimberley stared into his hard, cruel face. ‘What on earth gives you the right to say that?’ she whispered.
‘This does,’ he said, in a voice which was brutal with some unnamed emotion, and he caught her by the waist and bent his dark, savage face to kiss her.
Something happened to her—something irrevocable and mind-blowing. Something which was to change her life forever. What the hell had he done to her with just one kiss? she wondered desperately. Because sexual desire, fiery and hot and potent as life itself, began blazing its way through her veins as his mouth found hers.
Oh, God, but it was heaven.
Heaven.
She opened her mouth to him as though she had waited all her life for that sweet, punishing kiss. She found herself trembling, almost swaying, now wanting more, much more than his kiss. She wanted him to touch her where no man had ever touched her; she wanted those long fingers to remove her T-shirt, to kick away her jeans. She wanted him to lay her down on the floor and make love to her right there…
But then reality crashed in with a sickening sensation as, distantly, somewhere in the house, she heard the sound of someone shouting. She felt his hands drop from her waist, felt, too, his tongue withdraw from her mouth, where it had been inciting her with provocative little movements which had mimicked what no man had ever done to her.
She gave a kind of automatic protest as he lifted his head up and stared down at her dazed face, and she read the contemptuous look in his eyes.
‘I rest my case,’ he said insultingly.
Kimberley straightened her spine and stared back at him, hiding her shame behind the frosty glitter in her blue eyes.
In her eyes sparked the hatred she felt for him. To illustrate his point he had treated her no better than a whore, and in a way she had responded no better than a whore. The way she had felt in his arms had frightened her with its intensity, so that all her carefully fought for self-control had vanished like the wind. She was the vanquished, he the victor. He had all the power, and she had none. And she never wanted to see him again, not as long as she lived.
Never.
But then Kimberley discovered something else. She could see that behind the contempt which distorted the angular features there remained a hunger—a savage, sexual hunger which made his eyes glitter blackly and beat a frantic pulse at the base of his neck. He wants me, she thought, yet he despises me. And he’s a man who gets exactly what he wants.
Oh, my God, thought Kimberley weakly. He’ll come and find me. And what if I can’t—what if I just can’t resist him? What will a man who despises me offer other than instant heartbreak?
Unless she somehow contrived to make him despise her so much that he’d leave her alone forever.
She gave a small, smug half-smile, and allowed the kind of cold, calculating look which she knew he would be expecting to come into her eyes.
‘This—er—financial incentive you’re offering,’ she purred. ‘How much are we actually talking about?’
Some light in his eyes died. If she had thought she’d read scorn and derision there before, it was nothing to the look which now replaced it. He looked at her as though her very presence contaminated the air surrounding him.
He mentioned a sum, and she allowed a rapacious little smile to curve her lips upwards as she nodded. ‘I’ll do it,’ she told him. ‘On one condition.’
He shook his head, the contempt hardening his mouth into an unforgiving line. ‘No conditions, sweetheart,’ he drawled coldly. ‘Unless I make them.’
She shook her head. ‘I won’t do it unless you agree not to tell Duncan anything about what’s happened here this afternoon. I want to tell him— to break things off—in my own way.’
He stared at her incredulously. ‘Do you really think I’d hurt my brother like that? And, much though I’m tempted to tell him about his lucky escape, I’m really not cruel enough to disillusion him with the knowledge that he fell in love with a cheap little tramp. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Perfectly.’ She held out a slim white hand, which was miraculously free from tremor. ‘And now, if we can conclude our business.’
She saw his barely concealed shudder of distaste as he took a cheque-book out from the inside pocket of his suit and began to write.
What she hadn’t expected was that it should hurt quite so much…
Kimberley raked her hand roughly through her hair, as if the frantic movement could somehow magically dispel the image of Harrison which burned on her mind’s eye as if it had been branded there. After more than two years, she thought despairingly, it shouldn’t be quite so vivid. She wasn’t naïve enough to have expected to forget a man like Harrison Nash, but surely by now just the merest thought of him shouldn’t be enough to make the heat rise up in her blood with its slow, insistent throb?
She picked the tea-tray up to carry it back through into the sitting-room where her mother was waiting.
Why remember all that now?
Because she remembered it every time she came home; it was one of the reasons why her visits were more infrequent than either she or her mother liked. This place was tainted with memories of Harrison Nash and that one fateful kiss.
The day after he had kissed her she had done several things. Firstly, and most importantly, she had gone to Duncan and gently given him back his ring. He had not railed or argued with her; he had quietly accepted her stumbling explanation, saying that deep in his heart he had not been completely surprised.
The following day Kimberley had fled to stay with an aunt in Scotland, where she had remained for a fortnight, quietly licking her wounds. She had also cashed the cheque which Harrison had given her and given the money to charity. More importantly, as she’d handed the huge wad of money over to the bemused representative of Save the Children, she had made a solemn vow. That she would put Harrison Nash out of her mind forever.
And so far, at least, it hadn’t worked.
‘Kimberley!’ came her mother’s voice. ‘Where’s this cup of tea you promised me?’
‘Just coming!’ Fixing a smile on to her face, Kimberley took the tray and biscuits in, and poured out two cups.
The Earl Grey tea was deliciously refreshing, but Kimberley, though hungry, took only one bite out of a biscuit then left it—still ruffled about remembering that extraordinary day.
Forcing her mind back on to safer subjects, she offered the plate of biscuits to her mother. ‘How are you going to manage with your foot bandaged?’
‘Oh, I expect I’ll be all right,’ her mother replied unconvincingly.
Kimberley hid a smile. Her mother, love her, was like an open book! ‘Would you like me to come and stay with you until you’re up on your feet properly again?’ she asked.
Mrs Ryan’s smile could have lit up Oxford Street. ‘Oh, would you, dear? I’d be so grateful!’
Kimberley’s mind skipped along. She could telephone her bank later. She was a conscientious highflyer in the merchant bank where she’d worked for the past five years—she doubted whether they’d mind her taking a break at such short notice. ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘But I’ll have to drive back up to town to get some clothes.’
‘That’s