She was glad she was muffled up in the bulky knitted jumper and her green woolen trousers for around Nicholas she was uncomfortably aware of her body. It was the way he looked at her—complacement, possessive, knowing…
At least she had clothes to cloak her self-consciousness. After staking his nerve-shattering claim on her womb, Nicholas had calmly directed her to her suit, blouse and bra lying crumpled under the bed and led her, clutching them in a bundle, down the iron stairs to the room below, where she had found her empty briefcase and the small suitcase she had left back at the motel at Port Charles. It held only toiletries, her nightdress and a single change of clothes, but it was enough to give her a slight sense of false security.
The sweater she was wearing, however, was his, reluctantly accepted as a necessity if she was to tramp around the island in the blustery weather and not die of exposure. It had amused him to lend it to her, just as it amused him to follow her around so that she couldn’t just sneak off and pretend to search for an escape, she had actually to do it, thoroughly exhausting herself in the process. He was always hovering, offering irritatingly helpful suggestions and teasing her with intriguing little titbits of information about himself that increased her curiosity about him to a dangerous craving.
The more that she found out about him, the more Vivian’s compassionate heart whispered that Nicholas was basically a good man whose fixation with brutal revenge was a cry from the wilderness of his frozen emotional landscape. He had found the loss of his beloved wife and unborn child unacceptable, so, in the nature of a competitive man used to winning, he hadn’t accepted it, and the long years of denial had formed a barrier against natural healing.
In order to save herself, Vivian had realised that she would first have to save him…
‘Poor Vivian,’ he commiserated. ‘Three whole days of scouring every nook and cranny and you still haven’t succeeded in finding a way off the island. When are you going to give up?’
‘Never!’ She pushed past him and began stalking back up the uneven path from the rocky cove.
‘Stubborn wench.’ He was close on her heels. ‘Maybe you should try offering bigger bribes. Frank was quite offended by the low price you put on his loyalty.’
She snorted. His number-one henchman had proved to be predictably incorruptible, but Vivian had known she was expected to go through the motions. She put her nose in the air, and promptly stumbled and teetered on the edge of a sharp, jagged incline.
A powerful arm whipped round her waist, dragging her back against him. Instinctively she reached behind her to clutch at the sides of his coat, her shocked breath rasping in her throat.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t let you go,’ he said, wrapping his other arm around her. ‘You’re safe.’
She felt his face nuzzling into the side of her neck, the stubble of his jaw pleasurably rough against her skin, and for a moment she leaned weakly against him, tempted by his gentleness.
‘Safe? That’s a laugh! I won’t be safe until I get home!’
&nbs
p; ‘Oh, yes, I bet you feel boringly safe with Marvel,’ he said mockingly. ‘Two years engaged to the man and your dossier says you never stay overnight at his flat. I’d say that indicates a pretty huge lack of excitement on both sides—’
‘Just because I’m not promiscuous it doesn’t mean I’m sexless!’ she flashed from the depths of her insecurity, deeply resenting his familiarity with the private details of her life.
‘I don’t think you’re sexless, just surprisingly unawakened,’ he told her smoothly. ‘But I wake you up, don’t I? You rise so beautifully to the slightest hint of bait. No wonder you’re so gullible—you’re tough on the outside and marshmallow within. A delicious bundle of contradictions…’
‘You can talk,’ she said, bristling at the gullible label.
‘Oh, do you find me delicious, Vivian? I’m so glad it’s mutual.’ He smiled archly. ‘Would you like another sample?’
‘No, thank you!’ she lied tightly. That searing, sensuous first kiss in his room had also been his last. His dark threats of sexual domination had made her lightning-swift response to his touch all the more shaming, and yet he hadn’t pressed his advantage.
Braced for further brutally expert assaults on her deplorably shaky defences, Vivian had instead been left at the mercy of her own fevered imagination. This subtle form of self-inflicted torture had been refined with an added sadistic twist by Nicholas—she was still forced to share his bed every night.
The first night Vivian had searched everywhere, and been forced to accept that he was telling the truth when he said there were no extra beds. When she had tried to curl up fully-clothed on the couch in the living-room of the keeper’s cottage, Nicholas had simply slung her over his shoulder and borne her off to his room in the tower, coolly telling her that she could change into her nightdress in privacy, or he would strip her himself and she could sleep with him naked. She had chosen dignity over humiliation and then lain on her side facing the wall, stiff with mingled rage and agonised apprehension as she felt him get in behind her.
Then—nothing!
He had whispered goodnight, tucked his arm comfortably around her middle, yawned and gone to sleep. She had tried to wriggle out from under his arm, but in sleep he was just as possessive, his hand sinking more securely under her waist, a thick, hair-roughened thigh pushing between her knees to drape over her leg, anchoring her firmly against the bed. Even through her blessedly modest nightgown she could feel the warm shudder of his heartbeat against her back and the firm definition of his manhood pressed against her soft bottom.
Each succeeding night it had taken her longer to fall asleep, and each morning when she woke up in a confusion of blushes it was to find that some time in the night she had turned over and mingled with him in a trusting sprawl of limbs.
To her chagrin he accepted her rejection with a careless shrug. ‘I came to tell you that Frank almost has dinner ready,’ he said. ‘And I’ve already warned you it’s not a good idea for you to be stumbling around out here alone when it starts to get dark. Look what nearly happened just now—’
‘That was because you were distracting me. Maybe you did it on purpose,’ she goaded, inexplicably angry at him for caring. ‘Or maybe you’d like to see me go over a cliff, to be killed by an “accident”. That would be rough justice for you, wouldn’t it?’
In the waning light his features were blurred into softness, his eye deeply shadowed by his fierce brow. ‘Do you really think I brought you here to kill you?’
‘I… No,’ she admitted truthfully. His declared intent had been to cause her maximum mental suffering and she couldn’t suffer if she was dead. ‘But we both know there are worse things than dying…’
He moved closer. ‘Like bearing my child, you mean? Would that really be a fate worse than death, Vivian? To make love with me and create a new life…?’