Authors: Sara Craven
'On this trip, you have only the rights I choose to accord you,' said Matt. 'And to quote your own words—how do I know I can trust you?' He watched her flush angrily and laughed. 'No, darling, I think I'll keep my own counsel, at least for the time being.'
'Will you please stop calling me that!' Kate muttered between gritted teeth.
'What would you like me to call you?' he asked pleasantly. 'It can hardly be Miss Marston in the circumstances. How about "My sweet" or "my dear love"?
'Oh, make it what the hell you want,' she sighed wearily. 'And when we get to St Antoine, I want my own room.'
'Tough,' he said succinctly. 'The booking has already been made, and it stands. You'll have to cross your fingers that there are twin beds.'
She bit her lip. 'And tonight?
'You really think you're irresistible, don't you?' Matt looked down at her smiling, and she looked away, hating the disadvantage she was at, loathing the sheer masculine challenge of him. All the time they'd been talking, she had been deeply conscious of the fact that he was shirtless, unwillingly aware of the breadth of his shoulders and the taut muscularity of his chest and abdomen. If they'd been talking on a beach, she wouldn't have given his state of semi-undress a second thought, probably, but here in this room, at this time of night, it seemed a threat, which was exactly what he intended, she suspected. 'But you really have no need to worry. It's been a long journey, and I'm too tired to contemplate even a mild pass.'
'I'm grateful for the reassurance,' she said sarcastically. 'But it doesn't alter a thing. I've no intention of sharing a bed with you.'
His grin widened. 'Why? Isn't it big enough for you?'
It was almost as big as the island itself, not merely king-sized, but emperor-sized, and she was probably being ridiculous. He obviously thought she was, but she didn't care.
He added cheerfully, 'But please yourself, of course. I hope that chair remains comfortable.'
Kate was taken aback. She said, 'I thought you might have offered me the bed.'
'Did you now?' He sauntered across the room. 'Well, half of it is as far as my generosity runs.' He picked up a couple of pillows and arranged them with ostentatious care down the centre of the bed. 'Not the Berlin Wall, but an adequate barricade, I'd have said. And if you don't want to use the bathroom, then I do.'
He opened his case, pulling out a silky robe and shaking the creases out of it. No pyjamas, she registered with a sinking heart, but then after his comment in London about 'unnecessary refinements' she supposed that would have been too much to ask for.
When she was alone, she sat staring at the floor and wishing that she was dead at worst, or that she'd never got involved at the very least. She groaned. The next two weeks, dancing to whatever tune he chose to play, promised to be unbearable, a humiliating, embarrassing experience.
Her only comfort was the thought that Alison was still safely with Jon, because this would have been a very bad scene for Alison. Matt Lincoln certainly wouldn't have made any guarantees to her about his conduct, even if she'd wanted him to, she thought miserably, remembering the way Alison had been looking at him in the restaurant. She acquitted Alison of actually contemplating infidelity in cold blood, but at the same time her sister-in-law was bored and peeved with marriage, and she would be vulnerable to the kinds of pressure that these circumstances would produce. Someone as blatantly attractive as Matt Lincoln with all that undoubted sexual charisma wouldn't even have to try very hard, she thought.
But she wasn't like Alison, or like any of the other girls he fancied for a while. She wasn't vulnerable. She was impervious to any amount of his kind of charm, and for that she had Drew Wakefield to thank, although it had never occurred to her that she would ever be grateful for the lesson he'd taught her. Drew had always been her secret shame, but now he was her secret weapon, and one that she could well need before she was finished.
She shivered, wondering why she was sitting there, thinking all these disturbing things when she could have been searching in his case, his jacket for her passport. Not that it would have been there, she realised wearily. It would be downstairs in the hotel safe, and retrieving it without a damned good reason wouldn't be easy.
She heard the bathroom door open and Matt returning. One swift sidelong look under her lashes told her all that she needed to know, that he was wearing the silk robe and nothing underneath it.
She heard the tinkle of ice cubes and the subdued pop of a cork, and realised he was opening the champagne.
He said, 'I'm drinking to the success of this assignment. Do you want to join me?' He smiled. 'Champagne makes a fantastic nightcap—beats warm milk into a cocked hat!'
Kate said stonily, 'I'm not in a celebratory mood. I don't want any champagne.'
'As you please.' He paused. 'When you think of something you do want perhaps you'd let me know.'
He was laughing at her, and she glared at him, remembering the first time she'd looked across a room and seen him with a glass of champagne in his hand, and felt the unwilling tug of attraction.
As she felt it now, she realised incredulously. She swallowed, gulping air, fighting down bewilderment and dismay. The implication in his words had been that some day she might want him, and it was fortunate he'd never know how close to the truth he was.
Her heart was beating extra-fast suddenly, and in her ears it seemed as audible as that distant insistent drumbeat. She leaned back in her chair, breathing deeply, struggling for composure. And she'd just been congratulating herself on her own invulnerability where he was concerned, she thought bitterly.
She was in danger, real danger, and she couldn't deny it, but at least she realised it, and forewarned was forearmed—wasn't it?
Matt lifted his glass in a mocking toast. To us,' he said, and drank, almost as though he'd been reading her thoughts.
Kate's colour rose, and she got to her feet in one swift movement and went over to her case, busying herself with unlocking it and searching for her toilet bag, finding her nightdress and robe, although if she was going to be spending the night in that chair, then she would do better to remain fully dressed.
The bathroom door had a bolt, and she pushed it into place, uncaring whether he heard or not, feeling a sense of security for the first time.
She unbuttoned her dress slowly and wearily. It had been a long and tiring flight, she thought, and probably accounted for that extraordinary moment of weakness just now. She would feel entirely different in the morning.
She sighed as she stepped under the shower, letting the warm water stream soothingly down her body, lifting her hair away from the nape of her neck with both hands. With no fear of interruption, she had not bothered to draw the shower curtain, and as she turned under the pouring water, she caught a glimpse of herself in the long mirror opposite. She wasn't narcissistic. She took her slim good-looking body with its high round breasts, gently curving hips and long slender flanks very much for granted, but tonight she looked steadily, examining herself, wondering how a man would see her. 'Delectable,' Matt Lincoln had said, but he'd been sneering. And if Alison was a reflection of his taste, then she was too thin. Alison's curves had a hint of the voluptuous, and she was a spasmodic dieter, constantly complaining about her weight.
Kate turned off the water and stepped out, reaching for a towel. It felt damp against her skin, and with a shock she realised it was the one Matt had used. His male scent seemed to cling to it, enveloping her, and with a gasp she flung it away.
She cleaned her teeth with her usual meticulous thoroughness, then brushed her hair until it swung in a shining curtain. There was a scent spray in her bag, one of her favourite fragrances, and almost before she knew what she was doing, she was using it, letting a perfumed cloud mist her throat, her shoulders, her breasts cupped in the fragile bodice of her nightdress.
With a little groan of self-contempt she capped the spray, thrusting it back into the bag with shaking fingers. She snatched up her robe and put it on, knotting the sash round her small waist with unnecessary vigour.
When she went back into the bedroom, Matt was already in bed, the thin sheet clearly outlining the lean relaxed lines of his body. He was propped on one arm reading, and drinking occasionally from the glass in his other hand. He didn't even glance up as she came in, and she saw that in spite of her refusal, a glass of champagne had been placed temptingly on the low table at the other side of the bed.
The chair by the window was beginning to look singularly uninviting, she thought with a tiny grimace.
She wanted to burst out laughing. The whole thing was so incredible, more way-out than anything she could have imagined.
She thought, 'My first night in the Caribbean, and I'm spending it in bed with a man who, if not exactly a stranger, is certainly an enigma to me, and sipping champagne. What could be more decadent?'
Matt's back was turned towards her, but she still felt absurdly selfconscious as she took off her robe and slid gingerly under the sheet. She was waiting for some sardonic comment, but he gave no sign he was even aware she had joined him, and she felt an odd sense of anti-climax. She glanced over her shoulder at the strong, tanned curve of his shoulder and spine, experiencing once again that betraying leap of the senses.
Physically, she felt bone-weary, but her nerves were taut, her mind jumping.
How could he lie there, she raged inwardly, reading so casually, as if this was an everyday occurrence? But then, a sly inner voice reminded her, it probably was. According to the gossip columns most of his loves had lived-in, including the Lorna Bryce that Felix had mentioned. What was it Maria had said? That she'd ended up 'cut to ribbons'? Kate could believe it. Perhaps that was how Matt signalled indifference, the beginning of the end, with the book, the glass of wine and the deliberately turned shoulder.
Only in her case, he was signalling that it was never going to start, and she should have been overjoyed at that because he'd got her into an impossible situation, and she disliked him anyway.
He knew that, of course, and he was probably deriving some kind of sadistic pleasure from her embarrassment. It was mortifying to know that he'd been ahead of her, every step of the way, duping her, making her believe exactly what he wanted, react in the way that he wanted.
He was moving, and her whole body tensed as she wondered what she would do if he touched her. But he was only turning off the bedside lamp, and his 'Goodnight' was as brief and courteous as if he'd simply been thanking her for a pleasant evening.
Kate turned off her own light, and the darkness closed in on her, hour after hour of it as she lay listening to the soft regular sound of his sleeping breath, and trying to make sense of the welter of confused thoughts and emotions in her tired mind.
The air-strip on St Antoine was tiny, and Kate braced herself as they came in to land, fearing the worst. But they were down with scarcely a bump almost before she knew it, and she opened her eyes weakly and stopped clutching the armrests.
Matt was watching her, brows raised. 'You really are a nervous traveller!'
She gave him a muted glare. She was nothing of the sort, but the events of the past twenty-four hours would have made anyone into a nervous wreck.
She'd no idea what time she had finally fallen asleep, but she had an uneasy feeling that daylight hadn't been far away. It had been the hardest thing in the world to wake up, and face the breakfast of hot rolls, fresh fruit and coffee which had been served in their room. By some cosmic injustice, Matt looked a million dollars, refreshed and alert, she noted sourly.
The terminal buildings were amazing—a collection of prefabricated huts which looked as if one good wind would see them' off for ever. And immigration procedures were casual in the extreme, Kate discovered, fuming.
'So much for your elaborate cover story,' she said sarcastically, as they stood outside in the sunshine waiting for a taxi. They couldn't have given a damn who you are or why you're here. They barely glanced at your passport.'
Matt grinned. 'Think so? I can guarantee at this moment, the word is being passed along the line.'
Tight-lipped, she said, 'Egotist,' and turned her attention to her surroundings.
She'd discovered long ago that it was unfair to judge any place by the area immediately around the airport or the railway station, but St Antoine seemed to have jumped that particular hazard. The dusty road which led, Matt told her, into town, was fringed with trees and flowering shrubs, and in the distance tall hills which just missed being mountains hung like blue shadows in the haze of heat.
She tried to recall some of the information she had acquired about St Antoine from the library. Centuries ago, cane and coffee had been grown, and buccaneers had used the oddly named Paradis Anchorage, but those stirring times were long over, and fruit growing, fishing and boat chartering were the main industries now.
They were staying at the Paradis Hotel, Matt had told her over breakfast, which stood on the beach in the next bay to the harbour. It sounded wonderful, and in any other circumstances it would have been, but she had felt she was having the prison described where she was about to serve a sentence. Not a long one, she was forced to admit. Two weeks were not an eternity, but she suspected they could seem like it, and if every night was going to be like the one she had just passed, she would surely crack from the strain.
The taxi was another eye-opener. It was painted a vivid yellow which made the sun look pale, and Kate blinked faintly and queried, 'What on earth-?'
Matt grinned. 'It's one of a fleet,' he explained. 'They call themselves the Banana Bunch. They do car rental as well, and I thought we might hire a jeep and do a tour of the island.'
'All in the line of work?' she queried, poisonously sweet.
'Naturally,' he said, leaving her unsure whether the offer of sightseeing had been an olive branch or not. Probably not, she decided.