Lee Wilkinson – Ryan's Revenge (страница 9)

She saw a white line appear round Ryan’s mouth and, fiercely glad that he was furious, laughed in his face.

With a sound almost like a growl, he took her upper arms, his fingers biting into the soft flesh, and warned softly, ‘Don’t even think about it. From now on I intend to be the only man in your life, so if Raynor does get any bright ideas about making love to you, it will pay you to say no, and mean it.’

Dragging her right up against him, he kissed her once more. This time his kiss was hard and unsparing, rocking her to her very foundations. Then suddenly she was free.

‘Be seeing you,’ he said mockingly.

A moment later she heard the front door open and close.

Badly shaken, she went through to the hall on unsteady legs. Ryan was gone, but she noted abstractedly that her purse had been picked up and placed neatly on the telephone table.

Trembling now as reaction set in, she sank down on the bottom step of the stairs and stared blindly into space while her thoughts whirled.

Oh, dear Lord, what was she to do? Ryan’s unwelcome visit had proved at least two terrifying things: that he was in deadly earnest; and that her chances of resisting him were practically nil.

It had been that way from the start. She had looked at him and had loved him, heart and soul.

Recognising at some deep, subconscious level that he was the one she had been waiting all her life for, she had given herself to him with a joyous certainty, and the hope of a happy ever after.

But that happy ever after had been short-lived. A bare two months from its rapturous start to its bitter ending…

And now, unless she could find some way of keeping Ryan at bay, the torture would start all over again.

She would still be there, and even if his feelings for the other woman—love or obsession, call it what one will—had died, the situation would still be quite intolerable.

No matter what he said about wanting only her, Virginia knew that she would never again be able to believe nor trust him. And he must know that… It might even be part of his revenge to have her on the rack of jealousy and torment…

No, no, she couldn’t, wouldn’t go back to him.

But, even as she tried to make herself believe it, she knew she was like a moth that, unable to help itself, was drawn irresistibly and fatally towards a candle flame.

CHAPTER THREE

GRITTING her teeth, she tried to reject that frightening image. Somehow she must help herself. Find a way out of still loving Ryan.

If only she had loved Charles enough to marry him… But it wasn’t so much a case of not loving Charles, as of still loving Ryan.

Though how could she go on loving a man who hated her? Who only wanted to hurt her? It was utter madness. That kind of self-destructive love could end up wrecking her whole life.

If she allowed it to.

But even if she was strong enough to hold out against him, all she had to look forward to was an empty future.

As far as she was concerned, love and sex went hand in hand. She wasn’t one for casual sex nor for affairs, but she was a young woman still with natural needs.

True those needs had been smothered and suppressed for over two-and-a-half years, but how quickly they had flared into life as soon as Ryan had kissed her.

If she didn’t want to live like a nun, marrying Charles, a man she was fond of and respected, was the obvious answer. She would be safe then, her future more hopeful, with the prospect of children and a happy, family life.

As for her reservations about it not being fair to him, well, she had told him honestly how she felt, and he’d said he was willing to try…

So why not? It might be no grande passion, at least on her side, but if she could make him happy…

The clock chiming eight roused her. With a bit of luck, Charles would be home in about half an hour.

Getting to her feet, she went back to the kitchen and, making a determined effort to think about the brighter future she had envisaged, rather than the unhappy past, began to wash up and clear away the debris of the meal.

She had only just finished and plugged in the kettle when she heard the sound of Charles’s key in the lock.

Hurrying through to the hall, she smiled at him. ‘You’re back nice and early.’

Hearing the relief in her voice, he was glad that he’d hurried straight home rather than going on to a pub, as his companion had suggested when their business was over.

‘How did your appointment go?’

‘Very well.’

‘That’s good.’

She sounded distracted, he thought, as though her mind was on other things.

Studying her pale, drawn face, he asked gently, ‘Headache still bothering you?’

‘No, not really. I took some tablets when I first got home. By the way, the kettle’s on if you’d like some coffee?’

‘Love some.’

Wearing the robe he had bought her, and with her curly hair tumbling around her shoulders, he thought she had never looked so lovely. Nor so fraught. Something had happened to seriously upset her.

Wondering if she wanted to talk about it, or if she would prefer to be alone, he asked carefully, ‘Were you thinking of having an early night?’

Shaking her head, she explained, ‘I didn’t bother getting dressed again after my shower.’

‘Then if you’re not off to bed, why don’t you have some coffee with me?’

‘Yes, I’d like to. There’s something I want to tell you.’

He hung up the jacket of his suit, and was starting to follow her into the kitchen when she said hastily, ‘I’ll bring it through to the living-room.’

The kitchen was still uncomfortably full of Ryan’s presence.

When she had filled the cafetière and had put the coffee things on the tray, she carried it in and set it down on the low table.

The west-facing room, always pleasant in the evening, was full of low sun, which threw a distorted pattern of oblong window panes and leafy branches onto the magnolia walls.

She poured the coffee, stirred sugar and cream into his, and handed it to him.

‘Thank you. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve being waited on,’ he remarked humorously.

Too tense to sit still, she left her own cup untouched and, wandering over to the window, stood looking out while the silence lengthened.

Now the moment had arrived, she had no idea how to broach the subject.

Watching her and guessing her difficulty, he said, ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

Still she hesitated. Suppose he’d had second thoughts about his proposal? Decided it had been a mistake?

Well there was only one way to find out. Turning, she took the bull by the horns. ‘When you asked me to marry you, you said if I ever changed my mind the offer would still be open…’

Thrown, because it was the last thing he’d expected her to say, it was a second or two before he assured her, ‘It is.’

As she let out the breath she’d been unconsciously holding, his blue eyes filled with a dawning hope, he asked urgently, ‘Have you changed your mind?’

‘Yes. I will marry you, if you still want me to.’

‘Darling!’ He was on his feet and gathering her close, eager as a boy. ‘Believe me, I’ve never wanted anything more.’

He held her firmly, with no sign of diffidence, and his kiss was pleasant, almost exciting.

After a while he stopped kissing her to ask, ‘What made you change your mind?’

‘Well, I…I got to thinking… I’d like a husband and a home and a family… You do want children?’ she added a shade anxiously.

‘I’d never actually thought about it,’ he answered honestly. ‘But if that’s what it takes to make you happy… How many were you thinking of?’ He sounded like a man on a high, a man who could hardly believe his luck.

‘At least two, possibly three or four.’

‘Why stop at four?’ he teased.