‘She hasn’t said that to me, but I do know that she’s unhappy.’
‘Meryl, unhappy?’
He looked so affronted that if it hadn’t been so serious Christy could almost have laughed.
She had interfered enough—perhaps even too much, she told herself as David turned away to glare through the window with brooding intensity. For herself, she didn’t doubt that he loved his wife—she had never doubted it—but Meryl needed and deserved more than David was giving her, and it would do him no harm to think that he might lose her.
Whatever the outcome of her interference, at least she knew one thing, and that was that David’s feelings for her were once again simply those of a friend. She hadn’t ever really feared that he would pursue her to the Borders; there were too many more easily accessible distractions in his life for that, but it was still a relief to know that his pursuit of her was over.
Later in the evening, she was a little surprised by the firmness with which Meryl refused to accompany David to the theatre.
‘It will do him good to be turned down once in a while. His lady love isn’t on stage tonight. Her understudy is taking the part, so he won’t have the consolation of watching her. I suspect that’s why he wanted me to go, but for once I decided I wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle.’ Her face changed all of a sudden, crumbling. ‘Oh God, Christy, I’m such a fool. Why on earth don’t I simply give up? I can’t go on competing…’
‘You don’t need to. He does love you, Meryl. I just think he needs to be reminded how much occasionally. He’ll never change. He’ll always be a terrible flirt, but if you could have seen his face this afternoon when I suggested to him that you might be tired of him.’
Meryl stared at her. ‘You said that…’
‘Umm…and David looked as shocked as a child being told that there isn’t any Father Christmas.’
‘Mmm. I never thought of trying to make him jealous.’
Christy grinned. ‘Well, I shouldn’t throw yourself too energetically into the part.’ She looked meaningfully at Meryl’s stomach. ‘With David’s vivid imagination…’
‘Oh God, yes. Well, maybe I’ll save that for next time. After junior has safely arrived. After all, we can’t give David too many shocks all at once!’
They both laughed, and Christy was pleased to see how much more cheerful Meryl looked. Both of them were surprised when David came home early, but Christy tactfully took herself off to bed, claiming that the unaccustomed pace of London life had exhausted her.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WELL, there you are, safely delivered, and on time.’ With cheerful disregard for the fact that he was occupying a space reserved for taxis, David slid his Ferrari into the kerb. Ahead of them a taxi was disgorging its passenger, and Christy felt her stomach jerk as though she had suddenly ascended ten floors in a high-speed lift, as she recognised Dominic’s dark head and lean body emerging from its interior.
As though by some alchemy that was beyond rational analysis, he turned his head and looked straight at her. She had no need to possess any mind-reading gift to interpret the hard contempt in his eyes as his glance raked from her to David.
While she was staring back at him in hypnotised agony David leaned across her, oblivious to what was happening, and kissed her full on the mouth. It wasn’t a lover’s kiss, merely the exuberant embrace of a man who enjoyed kissing women and who knew without conceit that they enjoyed it too, and Christy detached herself from it with ease, but when she looked towards the taxi, Dominic had gone.
Of course David insisted on going with her to the barrier, carrying the box with her dress in it, and kissing her again. This time on the cheek.
‘Have a safe journey back. You’ll have to fly out and see us when we’re in the States.’
As she hurried on to the train Christy searched the first class compartments hoping to avoid any sight of Dominic. And where was Amanda? By what malignant turn of fate had she chosen to come down to London at exactly the same time as they did? Her face burned suddenly as she thought of the construction Dominic might have put on her appearance, but then she relaxed as she remembered that he had also seen her with David, and there had been no doubt from his expression what interpretation he had put on that. No, he could hardly think she was following him after witnessing that kiss, thank goodness!
She settled herself comfortably in her seat, wishing she had had the forethought to get some magazines, but David had bustled her on to the train without giving her the chance to buy any. She turned her face towards the window as the train started to move. She hoped that things would work out for Meryl and David. She liked them both, but she had a special fondness and sympathy for Meryl.
Lost in thought, she was aware of someone subsiding into the seat next to hers.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught the brief glimpse of sun-tanned lean wrist and immaculate shirt cuff, and her stomach muscles suddenly clenched protestingly in immediate recognition.
‘Dominic!’ His name had left her lips before she could suppress it, and as she turned towards him, her suspicions confirmed, she saw the contemptuous way his mouth curled as he acknowledged her husky whisper.
‘Dreaming about your lover, were you?’
He didn’t wait for her to confirm or deny his allegation. ‘Odd, isn’t it, how easily we human beings deceive ourselves? There was a time when I would have said you were the last person to involve yourself in a relationship with someone who was committed to someone else.’
His open contempt hurt and made her want to lash out at him to ease her pain.
‘People change, Dominic,’ she told him.
‘So I’m beginning to realise.’ He looked up and saw the box containing her dress on the parcel shelf above them. A cynical glitter darkened his eyes, and he reached up and touched the box with his fingertips, asking her dulcetly, ‘What’s this, Christy? Payment for services rendered, like the fur coat?’
She ached to hit out at him, conscious of the way her face was burning with a mixture of rage and pain.
She stood up, trembling with the force of her emotion, reaching for the box, and at the same time trying to scramble past him as she said fiercely, ‘I don’t need paying to spend time with the man I love.’
She couldn’t get past him. His long legs were thrust out in front of him, and she couldn’t seem to move without coming into physical contact with him.
Her voice thick with frustration, she demanded huskily, ‘Dominic, please let me past.’
‘Why?’
She turned and stared at him. There was a deceptively calm amusement in his eyes. She sucked in air, her muscles tensing. He was enjoying baiting her like this, and he had no intention of letting her go.
‘Sit down, Christy,’ he told her softly. ‘You’re creating a scene.’ She looked round and saw that he was right—other travellers were beginning to stare at them. ‘I’ve got my car at Newcastle, and my first appointment when I get home is to see your mother. She’ll think it odd when she learns that we’ve travelled home on the same train without seeing one another.’
Christy knew that he was right, but there was no way she wanted to spend the journey fending off his acid comments.
‘Where’s Amanda?’ she asked him curtly, subsiding back into her seat.
‘Staying on in London with her mother for a few days.’
The look on his face prompted her into irrational retaliation for his cruel remarks to her. ‘I’m surprised she allowed you to return without her,’ she taunted, but instead of getting angry, he merely laughed, his eyes glittering with a strange intensity as he turned to her and whispered mockingly,
‘Why, Christy, anyone would think you were jealous.’
He might have forced her to remain sitting with him, but she didn’t have to talk to him, Christy told herself. Compressing her mouth, she turned away from him and stared out of the window. Already she could feel the tension invading her body. Her throat was dry and she ached for something to drink.
Quite how she managed to fall asleep she didn’t know, but somehow she must have done, and it was the sound of Dominic’s voice in her ear, and the pressure and heat of his torso pressed against hers as he leaned across to shake her, that finally made her wake up.
Totally disorientated, she stared mutely up at him, noticing for the first time that his eyes weren’t a flat hard grey after all, and that there was a band of darker almost blue-black colour round the iris.
Fascinated, she stared at it, until the sound of his voice brought her back to reality, and she became intensely aware of the heat emanating from his body, and the rebellious response of her own to his proximity. Beneath her jacket she could feel the prickling awareness swelling her breasts. Nervously her glance dropped from his, unintentionally lingering on the sculptured hardness of his mouth. She felt herself start to tremble. What would it be like to trace that hard outline with her fingertips; to feel his mouth on hers? Sick with need and fear, she tensed back from him. Was it her imagination, or was there something dangerous about the thick, tense silence that seemed to engulf them?
She couldn’t bring herself to look into Dominic’s eyes and read for herself that he was aware of her self-betrayal.
‘I’ve brought you a cup of coffee and a sandwich.’
The mundaneness of the words calmed her frantic imaginings, and she forced a polite smile to her lips—lips that suddenly seemed stiff and unwilling to move as ordered by her brain.