Absolutely not!” Kristy cried, terribly disconcerted by the effect his suggestive words had on her pulse rate.
Her reply seemed to incense him. “Then I will tell you what I think,” he seethed. His mouth curled around the words as he spat them out. “You are a cowardly sneak! Your effrontery in presenting yourself here is unbelievable! You are shameless, heartless, gutless...”
Shock paralysed Kristy’s mind for several seconds. Then a tidal wave of outrage swept through her, lifting her hand, propelling it with furious force. It struck his face so hard it snapped his head back. It left reddened weals across his cheek, and Kristy’s eyes burned with savage satisfaction at the sight Never had she felt so angry in her life.
“Keep your slanderous words and thoughts to yourself!” she hissed, ready to fight tooth and nail if he so much as tried to insult her again in such an offensive fashion.
He had no right. All she had done was trespass into his room, and she had been given a key for that purpose anyway. She couldn’t see how any blame for that could be attached to her. She did not deserve such abuse and no way in the world would she tolerate it.
The dark eyes flared with violent passion. She met them with blue ice, defying him to do his worst. The clash of will and turbulent emotion somehow seeded something even more disturbing. Kristy was conscious of a shift inside herself, an uncoiling of a need, a desire, an awakening tingle in her blood that she had never felt before.
She did not know this man.
Yet something inside her did. Or seemed to. Some subconscious recognition she was at a total loss to explain. The feeling was even stronger now than it had been in the lobby, spurring with it a fiercely primitive urge to have what he’d put into her mind. She found herself literally craving to know what it would be like to feel his body caressing hers.
Suddenly the searing dark eyes were like magnets, dragging on her soul. A sense of deep intimacy pulsed between them. She had a compelling urge to reach up and touch his cheek, to tenderly stroke away the hurt marks she had inflicted. She only just managed to check what would have been an insane move, given the situation.
Kristy didn’t understand herself at all. How could she be so enthralled by the man, when what was happening now was hardly a promising beginning for anything? She had never struck anyone in her whole life until he had stirred her into it.
An appalled horror descended on her. She was a nonviolent person. Words, not fists, had always been her creed. Ever since she had entered this hotel, things had started swinging out of normality.
Was it Alice who had stepped through the looking glass and into another world?
Kristy was beginning to feel the same thing had happened to her. She took a deep breath and tried to regain some sanity. How could there be any sense of intimacy between this stranger and herself? She had to be imagining it. His talk of love and lovemaking must be triggering wild offshoots from the need to belong to someone, somewhere.
Yet, as though they were somehow acutely attuned to each other, she sensed a similar withdrawal from him, the automatic reaction to shock and disbelief, needing time to pause and take stock, to reassess. His face tightened. His mouth thinned into a grim line. The dark eyes narrowed to gleaming slits.
Kristy thought about apologising, but since this whole scene had erupted from her initial apology, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, he had been as much in the wrong as she was. Pride insisted she concede no fault in what she had done, but explanations were certainly due.
“Monsieur . . .” she started again.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped angrily.
Whatever I say seems to get me into trouble, Kristy thought. “Very well,” she agreed, wondering what else she could call him. “There is an explanation....”
“I shall be interested to hear it,” he snapped again. “I shall be fascinated to hear how you explain yourself,” he went on, his voice gathering a stinging contempt. “Every word will be a priceless pearl to my ears. I shall assess it with intense appreciation for its worth.”
Which set Kristy back on her heels because her explanation didn’t make much sense to her, and she doubted it would make sense to him either. However, the truth was the truth. “I have this key....” she began slowly. “The manager gave it to me....”
That was as far as she got.
He took hold of her shoulders and shook her in furious impatience. “You are incredible! Totally incredible!” he seethed.
Kristy realised that what he was saying was true. Her explanation was totally incredible. But this man was teetering on the edge of being totally out of control and she didn’t know what to say or do. “Please...” She couldn’t call him monsieur. “. . . take your hands off me,” she begged.
He laughed with arrogant disdain, but he released her and dropped his hands to his sides. “You think I cannot do that?” he taunted, his eyes flashing bitter derision. “You think I have to touch you? That I cannot help myself?” He bared his teeth in a scornful sneer. “I can do it. See for yourself!”
“Thank you,” Kristy breathed in deep relief.
Violence did breed violence, she thought. She shouldn’t have slapped him. Strictly words from now on, she promised herself.
As though he had come to the same civilized conclusion, he stepped back from her in haughty rejection, a cold pride stamped on his face. His aristocratic bearing was very pronounced as he strode around the room, releasing his inner turbulence in sharp angry gestures and bursts of scorn.
“You are nothing,” he hurled at her. “Nothing at all! Not a speck of dirt. Utterly insignificant. Meaningless.”
Kristy steeled herself to remain cool, no matter how hotly this man stirred her blood. In actual fact, what he said was a fairly accurate description. To the world at large, she was a nobody. There was no-one left who cared whether she existed or not. Besides, agreeing with people’s ideas was a better way of placating them than disagreeing with them.
“I realise that,” she said calmly.
Her answer brought him to an abrupt halt. His brow creased in puzzlement. The dark eyes stabbed at her in suspicious re-assessment “You realise that?” he said slowly, watching intently for some telltale reaction from her.
“Certainly,” Kristy said with assurance. Why should she mean anything to this man? They were complete strangers.
He sauntered towards her, ruthless purpose stamped on his face. “I’ll prove how worthless you are.”
“You don’t have to prove anything of the kind,” Kristy cried in alarm. She didn’t want him to shake her again.
“Where have you been for the last two years?” he bit out savagely. “What have you been doing? Why did you move out of my life without so much as a word of warning or excuse?”
Understanding began to dawn in Kristy’s mind. For some reason this man thought she was someone else. Enlightenment grew in rippling waves. The hotel staff, from the doorman to the manager, had thought she was someone else. It was the only explanation that fitted the facts; all the odd reactions she had been getting from the staff which she had set down to snobbery, the accident in the lobby that had happened because this man had caught sight of her, the bellboy’s proclaiming it un scandale terrible, the manager with his strange manoeuvrings and talk of discretion.
This certainly loomed as a very delicate situation!
The tantalising question was...who was she supposed to be? Who did they all think she was? And why couldn’t they see she wasn’t who they thought she was?
“Answer me!”
He was towering over her again, commanding her attention. Kristy pulled her mind out of its whirling flurry of activity and concentrated on what was most immediate. Somewhere, sometime, there had to be an explanation of what was happening.