If Ever I Loved You (19 page)

The following day was more of the same, and by evening
Gina was a bundle of screaming nerve ends. The inactivity was bad
enough, but Peter's cheerful brotherly attitude was driving her right
up the wall. She had to get out of there! She had a lot of bruises but
her head no longer hurt and she was able to walk with a limp but at
least she could get around.

They had dinner in the family room in front of a cheerful
fire in the rustic stone fireplace, sitting together on the couch and
eating from lap trays. Gina was so aware of Peter's nearness that she
hardly tasted the spaghetti with white clam sauce, the tossed fresh
spinach and bacon salad, hot buttered french bread and wine.

When they had finished eating Peter carried their trays to
the kitchen and brought back a silver coffee service. Gina's hand shook
with nervousness as she poured the coffee. She'd made up her mind to
confront Peter about leaving and couldn't put it off any longer.

She handed him a cup but left hers sitting on the table as
she said, "I—I'm getting around quite well now, Peter, and
I'm anxious to get back to the shop."

He looked at her and smiled. "It's still too early, give
it a few more days. If you're worried about your business I can have
one of our people at the gallery in San Francisco come up for a week or
so and take over."

She shook her head. "No, you don't understand. I can't
stand this inactivity. I need to get back to work. I want to go home."

She knew by his expression that he wasn't going to agree.
The smile was gone, the shuttered look back on his face. "You are home,
Gina," he said as he set his cup beside hers.

She clutched her hands together in her lap to still their
trembling. "No, Peter," she said, "I'm not. I appreciate your wanting
to share this beautiful place with me but I can't stay here. I'm going
back to Mendocino."

He looked at her without expression and his voice was
cold. "You don't have any intention of trying to make this marriage
work, do you." It wasn't a question but a statement.

She looked away, unable to hold his unwavering gaze. "No,
I don't," she said in a voice that quivered with emotion. "Our marriage
died seven years ago, let it rest in peace."

"I'd be happy to," he said grimly, "but unfortunately it's
not that simple. I've found no peace in these intervening years and I
don't think you have either. What do you want from me, Gina? It seems
to me that if I'm willing to forgive and try to forget you certainly
should be."

There it was again, his absolute certainty that she had
lied, cheated and tricked him into marriage. He was implacable on that
issue; she was the sinner and he had been sinned against. It was true,
he had been sinned against, but not by her!

She closed her eyes against the pain and forced her voice
to remain steady as she said, "Why do you refuse to understand, Peter?
I've told you so often. When I was eighteen I gave you all that I had
to give—my love. I figuratively laid my heart at your feet
and you trampled on it. When you walked out on me without trying to
understand my side of the story I wanted to die."

Peter caught his breath but she continued. "No please,
don't interrupt. I waited for you to come back, even if it was to ask
for an annulment, but you sent your lawyer instead with threats of
retribution if I tried to get any money from you." She grimaced.
"That's all the breakup of our brief marriage meant to you, the amount
of money it would cost to get rid of me."

"No, Gina—" Peter gasped, but she wasn't
listening.

"The newspaper columnists had a field day. For weeks there
was public speculation over why the most eligible bachelor in San
Francisco had walked out on his bride only hours after the wedding. The
reporters hounded me constantly. I couldn't even go out of the house
without being accosted by photographers and newspeople."

She shuddered. "I was left completely at their mercy and I
had no idea how to handle it. I was both frightened and mortified, and
not once did a member of the Van Housen family try to protect me. You
disappeared and your parents and brothers were unavailable in their
impenetrable mansion in the Sea Cliff district. My family and I were
thrown to that pack of wolves and left to survive as best we could."

She looked squarely at Peter then and let the hostility
blaze from her eyes. "We survived by uprooting our lives and moving
three thousand miles across the country and now you have the gall to
accuse
me
of running away!
You
ran out when I needed you, Peter, and I managed to put my life back
together and live without you. Now all I want from you is the same
thing I've asked you for over and over, my freedom. I don't want your
house, or your money, or your influence, I just want to have this farce
of a marriage dissolved so I can get on with my life."

She raised her head to look at him and was surprised to
find a grimace of such utter desolation on his face that she
unwittingly uttered a little cry and held out her hand, but before she
could touch him the cold, hard look had returned and she decided she'd
only imagined the other. She was sure of it a few seconds later when he
got up and walked to the fireplace where he stood with his back to her
looking into the flames.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his gray flannel
slacks. "All right, Gina," he said with icy deliberation. "I'll give
you your freedom."

She gasped, but it sounded more like a sob. Before she
could say anything, however, he continued, "I'll agree to a dissolution
on one condition, that you spend one night making love with me."

She stared at his back, stunned. It wasn't possible that
she'd heard what she thought she had. Even Peter wouldn't make a demand
like that!

But she knew that he would. If he wanted something badly
enough Peter Van Housen would use any means to get it, and he knew her
weakness for him. Well, this time he had gone too far. She had no
intentions of submitting to blackmail!

She stood and was appalled to find that her knees were
shaking. "Well thanks but no thanks," she said with what she hoped was
the proper amount of sarcasm. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go pack."

She started to limp toward the door but he swung around
and caught her, pulling her roughly into his arms. "
Now
Gina!" he muttered as his lips pressed tingling little kisses from her
temple to her ear. "
Tonight
! I've been behaving like an
inexperienced teenager letting you torment me, but no more. You've run
out of time, love, and now you're going to pay up."

He nuzzled the sensitive hollow at the side of her throat
and set her pulse to pounding.

She tried to pull away but his arms tightened and his hand
found its way under her pull-over knit blouse and cupped one of her
lace-covered breasts. A wave of heat surged through her leaving a thin
film of moisture on her skin and she knew if she didn't do something
quickly she'd be lost. She struggled but was no match for his strength.

Maybe she could reason with him. She stopped fighting and
he unfastened her bra and gently massaged her nipple, bringing it to a
throbbing peak. "Peter," she begged. "Don't. Oh please don't do this to
me! Surely you don't intend to force me when you know I'm unwilling!"

Somehow, without her realizing it, he had managed to
unfasten the button on her white slacks and his hand dipped under the
waistband and stroked the bare small of her back. "I wouldn't dream of
forcing you," he murmured against her ear. "It won't be necessary. You
want this almost as much as I do. Even as you say you're unwilling, you
respond to me, you always have."

His hand moved lower and he made little circular motions
against the swell of her buttocks. He was right! She arched against him
without ever willing it. Her traitorous body was on fire with desire
for him and when he swung her into his arms and headed for the stairway
she clasped her arms around his neck and buried her flaming face in his
shoulder.

In the beautiful blue master bedroom he stood her beside
the huge bed and started to remove her blouse. With a last effort at
self-preservation she folded her arms across her chest and shook her
head from side to side. "No, no, please no."

He didn't argue but kissed her tenderly and started
removing her slacks instead. She gave in then and let him undress her.
He lowered her to the bed, then undressed himself and slid in beside
her. She shivered with need as he drew her naked body against his own
and sought her moist trembling lips.

Gina made one last effort to resist by clenching her teeth
and refusing to return the kiss. She could feel the tightly leashed
tension in him as he moved against her and moaned, "Don't fight me,
sweetheart. I don't want to be rough, but I'm rapidly losing control.
Please Gina, let me love you."

She slid her arms around him then and opened her mouth to
his plundering tongue as they both ignited in flame. He seemed to know
exactly where to touch and caress her to bring her to the edge of
madness and she wasn't prepared for the sharp searing pain that
accompanied his total possession. She stiffened and for a moment
neither of them moved as they lay suspended on the brink of ecstasy.

Gina opened her eyes and saw Peter's face above her,
frozen with surprise. For a second she was afraid he was going to
withdraw and her arms tightened around him as his voice, raw with
anguish, sounded against her ear. "Oh my lovely Gina!"

It was a cry of pain, not of the flesh but of the spirit.
Then with infinite tenderness he began once more the rhythm of passion,
bringing her slowly, carefully, to the radiant joy of shared release
that bonded them together and made them one.

Afterward he held her, gentled her, until her breathing
stabilized and she returned slowly to the real world. Then he rolled
away from her and sat on the side of the bed with his back to her, his
shoulders slumped and his hands hanging loosely between his knees. It
was then that she knew she had been wrong. Their union hadn't bonded
them together, but had wrenched them even further apart. Peter knew now
beyond any doubt that she had never made love with Mel Calicutt or any
other man, but the knowledge had come too late. It no longer made any
difference to him. The wonder had all been on her part: for him the
experience had been a disappointment.

She was still too vulnerable to control her emotions and
tears welled in her eyes and ran down her face as she put out her hand
and touched his bare hip. "Peter?" she whispered.

He didn't turn to look at her and his voice was flat as he
said, "I didn't mean to hurt you, Gina. I—I didn't
know… I should have stopped but I couldn't… I
just couldn't."

He rubbed his hands over his face then stood and began
dressing quickly. Gina wanted to tell him that the pain in her body had
been minor, but the pain in her soul was so great that all she could do
was sob and bury her face in her pillow.

She felt his hand stroking her hair. "I'm sorry. I can't
possibly tell you how sorry," he said in that wooden tone and walked
out of the room, closing the door softly behind him. A few minutes
later she heard the powerful engine of the Jaguar roar to life and tear
off into the night.

Gina shuddered convulsively and chastised herself for
being such a baby.
Grown up women don't cry
, she
told herself fiercely as she sat up and swung her feet to the floor.
Grown
women meet life head on and take their lumps
. She reached for a tissue
and blew her nose.
The only trouble is you can get an
awfully lumpy head that way
! She stood and started toward
the bathroom.

The needles of hot pulsating water from the shower stung
her creamy skin, but had the desired effect of making her feel alive
again and ready to fight the depression that had threatened to
overwhelm her. She'd let Peter do that to her once and it had taken her
years to feel like a woman again. This time she'd suspected that he
would walk out once he'd had his fill of her but she hadn't expected it
to come so soon. What had gone wrong? She'd achieved a mind-blowing
ecstasy, why hadn't he?

Gina had been prepared for the anguish Peter's departure
would bring. She'd been through that before, but what she hadn't
expected was the blow it had been to her ego. She'd never doubted but
that he would find as much fulfillment in their love-making as she
would and it was shattering to her very womanhood to know that she was
so lacking in ability to please him.

Maybe if she'd been more experienced; if she hadn't clung
to her virginity all these years; if she'd gone to bed with some of the
men who had been so anxious to take her, then she would have learned
the more sophisticated ways to make the act memorable.

She turned off the water and reached for a soft fluffy
towel. "Stop it, Gina!" she said aloud as she dried herself vigorously.
She hadn't been "saving" her virginity, she was simply incapable of
engaging in indiscriminate love affairs and if that made her too
inexpert for Peter's taste, then so be it.

She wasn't going to wallow in self-pity. She had a
business to run. It wouldn't take the place of the husband and children
she wanted but it was a living, a challenge, and hopefully a device to
keep her sane.

A glance at her wristwatch told her that it was ten
o'clock but she knew better than to try to sleep. It was going to be a
long night and she wasn't going to spend it tossing and turning in bed,
tearing herself apart thinking of Peter. She dressed in blue jeans and
a pink velour long-sleeved blouse to ward off the damp night chill and
used the blow dryer to style and dry her hair.

She was just finishing with her hair when the doorbell
rang.
Who on earth could that be at this hour
?
she thought as she limped out of her room and down the stairs. She knew
the door would be answered by one of the Websters but she felt a shiver
of apprehension. It couldn't be Peter; he had his own key and wouldn't
ring for admittance. But who else would come to this secluded place at
such a late hour?