Passionate Retribution

His eyes swiftly assessed the scene. 'What the hell is going on?'

'I'm leaving.' This is what it feels like to have hope extinguished, she realised, taking a denim jacket and sliding her arms into it. The relentless flame of optimism she'd sustained on the meagre substance at her disposal was just a smoky memory. 'I'm not going to marry you, Luke. I'm sorry if that deprives you of the opportunity to gloat.' She shrugged and went to pick up the small case.

Luke beat her to it. He deliberately emptied the hurriedly packed contents on to the floor and ground his heel into the resulting pile. 'You're not going anywhere.' His expression was remote, icy, the danger of eruptive fury in the inhuman control.

'You can keep those,' she said, ignoring this statement. 'I'll leave in what I stand up in.' All the vitality had drained from her voice, but not her determination. 'Comfort yourself with the knowledge that Dad will crumble when you tell him your lies. It should keep you warm at nights when Beth isn't available. I hope you'll make my apologies to her.'

'Beth has gone,' he said flatly.

'This juggling of women must get tiresome,' she said with narrow-eyed sympathy.

'I don't love Beth, Emmy. Listen…'

'Love!' she snorted. 'I never for a moment imagined you did. I doubt if you're capable, but she loves you.'

'Martin, her husband, was a friend of mine. I was with him when he was killed in Beirut three years ago.'

'Is that why she feels so guilty? I suppose you were having an affair then. Isn't it convenient that now she wants to make it official you're engaged? You like your liaisons to be disposable, don't you, Luke? Am I to be your excuse to keep her at arm's length?'

'You're blindly jealous.' Anger was licking the edges of control from his voice. 'It doesn't pay to listen to half a conversation,' he said grimly. 'Trust me, Emily.'

She gave a brittle laugh. 'Trust you? That's a contradiction in terms, Luke. Distrust, suspicion and scheming are the activities I instinctively link with your name. I can't stomach it any more. As for jealous,' she jeered spitefully, 'you seem to forget why I'm here to begin with. You hardly think I'd have chosen you as a lover without being blackmailed into it, do you? Your problem is you still think I'm a naive little schoolgirl, and you had me convinced of the same thing too. I'm calling your bluff, Luke… Anything has to be preferable to marriage to you,' she said fiercely. 'I made a mistake when I slept with you, but I don't intend to compound it by staying here…and—' her voice trembled as she looked at the bed and the evocative evidence of its recent occupation '—repeating the same mistake.' Her eyes remained dry, but her chest heaved with violent emotion.

'If that is the case I don't think there's much more to say, is there?' A light behind his eyes seemed to have been switched off; they were just as blue, but blank… dead. 'You really don't think I'm capable of recognising a moral, let alone displaying principles, do you, Emily?'

Their eyes locked and she shivered convulsively at the icy contempt. 'I think you save your moral crusades for the television screen. Your personal life seems totally devoted to your crusade for revenge.'

'I'm deeply touched by this display of faith,' he drawled, his expression one of refined disgust. 'I have always derived satisfaction when I've managed to disturb the synthetically perfect Stapely household, but do you really think I'm insecure enough to give this priority in my life? Besides, all preconceptions, all parameters can be re-drawn for certain women.' His voice had the texture of raw silk, and she stared at him in fascinated half-comprehension. 'Special women, women capable of giving and trusting—an awesome amount of power to place in the hands of an inconsistent female, but then men too have their vulnerabilities.' The nerve in his right cheek clenched erratically and his eyes burned with zealot-like fervour.

'There's nothing for me here?' It was Beth Urquhart he wanted. He was telling her in the cruellest way possible that she, Emily, had only ever been a minor event, like his attempts to redress the injustice his mother had suffered. Beth was the major attraction, the one that could elicit such stark intensity. She willed him to respond; it was pathetic and she knew it, but at that moment anything from him, any sign of contrition, any tenderness, would have been enough to keep her there. She wanted to belong here with him, exclusively.

His expression remained stony, remote, unyielding. He didn't want her, exclusively or otherwise. If he did, he'd stop her. She walked out of the door, her heart breaking; she could almost hear the sound…

CHAPTER NINE

Emily smoothed the simple blue silk shift she wore; the antique gold chain around her neck looked faintly sybaritic against the simplicity of the garment, which relied on her slender figure to give it impact. Not for much longer, she thought wryly, surveying the increased curve of her breasts outlined against the fabric. She allowed Gavin to take her jacket and shook her head to free the loose tendrils of hair that softened the elegant chignon where they had caught in the collar.