'I don't really have much choice. We're in debt, we have to find a very large sum of money almost at once, and the banks won't lend us any more. I've been running around all our usual sources, but money is tight everywhere. Frankly, I either let the company crash, and have the vultures move in to pick the bones bare—or I sell out to someone now while I can. At least this way I get the choice of which vulture gets the company!' His voice was dry, his grimace sardonic.
'No, you mustn't sell,' Nadine burst out. She could see the depression in his blue eyes now, the pain and frustration, the sense of despair. She could see it—and she couldn't bear it. 'Larry was right, then. You must have the money back, the money you paid for my shares in the company.'
His face set hard; she saw the veins in his neck stand out as his jaw clenched. 'No!' he said harshly.
'Don't be stupid!' She was angry with him for keeping this to himself all this time. 'You've already wasted several days—I could have arranged to pay you back the money a week ago, if I'd known how desperate matters were! When Larry told me, I didn't really believe him, I thought he was exag- gerating. If you'd told me all this long ago you could have saved yourself a lot of anxiety and hassle.'
'I don't want your money!' His face was pale and obstinate and she eyed him wanting to smack him.
'It isn't mine, anyway. It's yours! I never believed I had a right to that money in the first place. My solicitor kept insisting it was fair, but I didn't want it, Sean. You must have it back. It's invested safely; I'll start proceedings tomorrow to sell the shares.'
'I'm not taking money from you!' he snarled. 'I have some self-respect!'
'You're being pigheaded, Sean! Look at it as an investment, if you like—I'll lend you the money, how about that?'
He turned on his heel, walked along the beach, just as the moon slid out of sight behind a far-off little cloud, plunging the night sky into darkness, extinguishing the glitter of the waves, the silvery patina on the palms.
Nadine watched him, frowning. In this sudden darkness he looked taller, rather menacing, disturbingly male.
He spun round and came back, halted in front of her, looked down into her uplifted, watchful eyes.
'I'll take the money on one condition—you come with it.'
She stiffened. 'If you mean will I try again... ?' She stopped, shook her head. 'It wouldn't work, there's no point in trying.'
'It would work,' he said softly, and his fingertips slid down her bare arm and sent a shudder rippling through her whole body. Sean smiled as he saw the look on her face. He knew she wanted him; they had no secrets from each other in that sensual world they shared.
In a sudden, desperate panic she began to run, her bare feet splashing through the cool, lapping water, along the empty, whispering beach, just as the moon came out from behind the cloud and washed the coastline in silver again, sending her elongated black shadow running ahead of her.
It was a minute before she realised that she was running the wrong way. In her hurry to get away she hadn't thought about where she was going. She had just begun to run. She should have run back towards the beach party, towards the hotel grounds, and she was going in entirely the wrong direction. But by then it was too late to turn and run back. Sean was right behind her, and a few seconds later he sprang forward and caught hold of her, their bodies colliding in a sort of rugby tackle which knocked her off her feet.
She gave a choked cry, struggling. Sean fell with her, holding her, his body going into a complicated twist just before they hit the sand so that she landed on top of him, the fall softened for her by his body.
She lay there winded for an instant; then before she was over the shock Sean took her shoulders and slid her off him sideways. She found herself on her back, staring up at the milky moonlit sky.
Sean arched over her, blotting out the moon with the dark circle of his head, and she looked wildly up at him as the weight of his muscled body fell on her, splaying her against the sand.
'Don't!' she cried out.
His eyes glittered; she heard his thick breathing and felt the panic quicken in her throat.
'No, Sean! Stop it, I don't want to...'
'But that's not true, is it, Nadine?' he said gently. 'You do want me to...you're just scared of admitting it!'
She wished she could deny it but she couldn't, and it was getting worse, this aching need, because the pressure of his warm body over her, the intimacy of that urgent contact, was feeding her desire like petrol flung over a smouldering fire which would start it into flame.
'You've no right to decide what I want and what I don't,' she said, though. 'I am the only one who can say that.'
'You are saying it,' he whispered. 'Your eyes say it...' He brushed a fingertip over her lids and lashes and her eyes closed on a reflex. 'Your mouth says it,' Sean said, and lingeringly stroked her lips. 'Your whole body is saying it...'
Nadine trembled as his hand moved down over her throat, her shoulders, her breasts. 'Don't.' The brush of his flesh against her own made her blood run hotter, made her nerves leap and shiver.
'I've missed you so much,' he suddenly said, and the roughness of his voice made her pulses skip. 'I love you.'
She lay still, tears pricking at her eyes. 'Oh, Sean...'
His head came down, his mouth closing over hers in a hot compulsion that by then she was beyond resisting. Love overwhelmed her. She moaned under that mouth, under the tantalising frustration of his moving hands; her breasts ached where he touched them; her bones grew pliant, as soft as wax, and she knew that if she had tried to stand now she would have fallen down.