Savage Obsession

She had lain awake, tormented by memories. For months, ever since the accident, he hadn't come near her, hadn't so much as touched her hand, carefully avoiding any physical contact, spending more and more time away from home.

Yet yesterday afternoon he had acted as if he was starving for her; his hoarse cry of male exultation as he had driven her to the wild heights of ecstatic fulfilment and then exploded catacyclismically inside the throbbing sheath of her body had surely been more than the climax of pleasure gained from having a final sexual fling with a wife he no longer cared about.

Could he have made love to her with such tu­multuous passion, shown such tenderness, if she no longer meant anything to him? It was a question she couldn't answer, but was determined to ask.

If there was any hope, no matter how slight, for their marriage, then she was going to put up a fight to keep him, she vowed staunchly as she walked back down the hill from the old town, through the maze of little streets with their tempting shops and restaurants.

Praying he hadn't already left for home—last evening he'd clearly been pushed for time, as she'd noted when witnessing his impatient glance at his watch—she hurried on, her high heels tapping on the cobbles. If there was the remotest chance of saving their marriage then, clearly, he must re­cognise Harry as his son, see him regularly, make provision for his future.

Despite the loss of her own child, Beth was sure she could come to terms with such a state of af­fairs—if only she could be sure that his obsession with the boy's mother was a thing of the past!

'Well, well—look who's here!' The husky drawl was unmistakable and Beth's feet froze to the spot while cold apprehension crawled all over her body. She didn't believe this was happening, she simply didn't believe it!

She turned her head slowly towards the pavement tables outside the restaurant she'd been so blithely passing and her heart wrenched painfully inside her as she met Zanna's scornfully derisive eyes.

Her mouth dry as dust, she could only stand and stare, transfixed, as Zanna's lush scarlet lips parted in a parody of a smile.

'Charles said you were taking a working holiday—a euphemism, if ever I heard one.' She put her coffee-cup back on its saucer and leaned back in her chair, her red-gold hair curling on to the delicately tanned shoulders the low-cut white sundress she was wearing left bare. And her voice was brittle now. 'But we all know why you took to your heels, don't we? Your prim little mind couldn't face the fact of Harry's existence—you couldn't even bear to discuss the ramifications, could you? Not that your pigheaded cowardice makes a scrap of difference; what's happened has happened and even if your delicate sensibilities are offended you can't alter a thing.'

'I have no intention of trying.' Beth had found her voice now but it emerged sounding rusty, as if she hadn't used it in a long, long time.

Charles had sought her out for one purpose only—to discuss the divorce. And even then he hadn't been able to be parted from the woman he had loved for years, the woman who had only re­cently come back into his life. She wondered hys­terically what the other woman would say if she told her how those discussions had never taken place and exactly how they'd been side-tracked!

But she held her tongue, biting back the bitter words because, although they would show Charles in a bad light, they would also reveal her own total vulnerability to him—the way she had behaved like a sex-starved wanton while he, as she had originally and logically believed, had only been putting his mark of possession on her for one last time—his sexual arousal down to the fact that he had disap­proved of his titular wife living under the same roof as her employer.

And at that moment she hated everyone—Charles, Zanna, but most of all herself—and she clipped out emotionally, 'You can have what you want. It won't be long until your bastard can legit­imately take the name of Savage!'

The moment the scathing words were out, she could have bitten her tongue off. None of this mess was the child's fault, and from what she had seen of him during that dreadful weekend he was utterly charming, a well adjusted, confident little boy who resembled Charles so strongly that every time she had looked at him her heart had contracted, breaking up a little more.

'I'm sorry,' she murmured huskily, appalled at herself, but Zanna obviously took no offence, the thickness of her skin unbelievable as she shrugged.

'You're quite right, of course. That's what I plan and that's what is going to happen.' And then, amazingly, she patted the vacant seat beside her. 'Sit down. Charles shouldn't be long. He took Harry to watch the ferry docking and we arranged to

meet here.' She inspected the face of her tiny jewelled watch. 'He should be here any moment; we're flying south this afternoon.'

South to the sun, to the exotic playgrounds of France, where the two of them could enjoy a ro­mantic idyll, making up for the wasted years when they had been apart, their tiny son completing their bonding. She might have known that he wouldn't install his mistress and son at South Park until after the divorce, when he could take her there as his wife.

'No. Thanks,' Beth muttered, feeling ill. Did Zanna really expect her to sit and wait for the husband who so patently wanted her out of his life? Did she really expect the three of them to sit together, drinking coffee, making polite and mean­ingless conversation? That sort of thing might happen in the sophisticated circles Zanna moved in, but to Beth the whole idea was incredible.

'As you like.' The other woman gave a careless shrug. 'Run and hide from the facts again—it doesn't bother me. I always knew you weren't woman enough to hold him.' She gave a vicious little smile. 'Charles is strong meat. I never did think you could cope with a man that sexually dangerous, that overpowering.'

Wordlessly, Beth stumbled away, tears of hu­miliation blinding her. Like every young girl around, just emerging into womanhood, she had been irresistibly drawn to the dark potency of Charles Savage's intimidating masculinity. But, unlike the others, she hadn't grown out of it, found a man more easily tamed.

She, blind fool that she was, had believed she could handle the forceful and dangerous mascu­linity she sensed in him, could tame that dark presence with the strength of her love. And despite all that had happened, everything she knew, she had clung to that hopeless belief right up until half an hour ago. Fool!

At last, subsiding breathlessly into her car, she hauled herself together. Zanna knew, and had always known, that only a woman as powerfully seductive, as wilful as she was, could carve a place for herself in Charles's heart—carve it and keep it.

And now she, Beth, knew it too. And, at last, finally and with no looking back, accepted it. She would show the world that she was capable of living without him, could handle her life and her future—no matter how empty it seemed.

The rest of her life began right here and, no matter how tough the exercise, she would never look back.

Her hand quite steady, her features set, she reached for the ignition…

CHAPTER FIVE

The August heat was stifling, thunder brewing om­inously. Beth pushed her overlong fringe out of her eyes and tried to concentrate on transcribing her shorthand. She would have to make the effort to drive into Boulogne to get her hair restyled; the normally sleek and elegant cut was growing out of hand.

But what did it matter? she thought tiredly, closing her eyes, her shoulders slumping. Her brave intention to get on with her life, never looking back over her shoulder, had suffered a fatal set-back. How could she avoid staring back into the past when, two days ago, she had discovered she was pregnant?