No Need for Love

‘You’re forgetting something.’ His hands tightened on her until she could feel the bite of each finger in her flesh. ‘No matter what lies you tell yourself, you know you want to make love with me.’

‘It’s not making love,’ she said in a shaken, angry whisper, ‘it’s—it’s having sex!’

His eyes darkened, and his voice was as hard as the hands holding her. ‘Whatever you say.’

‘That’s what it is, isn’t it?’ She glared at him, her chin tilted at a proud angle. ‘It’s—it’s sex for pay, nothing else.’

‘Hannah!’ A muscle jumped in Grant’s jaw. ‘Goddammit, I’m warning you!’

‘I know you are. You’ve warned me. You’ll force me to uphold my end of our agreement or ruin me.’ The breath rasped in her throat. ‘Well, you’ll have to ruin me, then, Grant, because I’ve no intention of—of prostituting myself for you.’

Silence fell between them. Hannah was shaking inside, but she forced herself to meet Grant’s furious glare without flinching. It seemed a long time before he lifted his hands from her shoulders with exaggerated care and gave her a cold smile.

‘Believe me, your eagerness to end our relationship is matched only by my own. You have my assurance that I won’t prolong things a day more than necessary.’

Hannah’s chin lifted. ‘I’ve no intention of staying married to you. You might as well get that through your head.’

‘And you might as well remember what I told you last night. There’ll be no divorce.’

‘I’ll leave you anyway, and don’t bother reminding me that I have no job and no place to live——’

‘And no way to get back to San Francisco unless I pay for your ticket.

‘That’s not true.’ Her heart was thudding so loudly she was afraid he could hear it. ‘I have money of my own.’

‘You have fifty dollars in your purse.’ His smile was all teeth. ‘I took the liberty of checking this morning. That won’t get you very far, darling.’

She stared at him. ‘I have credit cards.’

‘Not any more.’

‘You took them?’ Her eyes widened in shock. ‘You had no right!’

‘I have every right. You’re my wife.’

‘You—you…’ Her breath sputtered. ‘You bastard! You son of a bitch! You—you——’

‘Four weeks, Hannah.’ His voice was calm, which only infuriated her more. ‘That’s hardly a lifetime.’

‘No.’ She drew in her breath as she stared into his eyes. ‘But it’s more than enough time for me to hate you as I’ve never hated another human being in my lifer!

She turned and started back towards the hotel, when Grant reached out and caught hold of her.

‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ he said.

Hannah swung around. ‘I should have known,’ she said furiously. ‘You can’t bear not getting your own way, can you, Grant?’ Her hands balled into fists. ‘And you’ll even keep me a prisoner to do it!’

Grant’s mouth narrowed. ‘You have it all wrong.’ His hands slid down her arms until he was clasping her wrists. ‘What I’m doing is keeping you my wife.’

Hannah stared at him in silence. He moved no nearer and made no attempt to draw her to him, but his nearness, and the memory of his touch, were enough.

She gave a muffled cry, wrenched herself free, and flew across the sand to the relative safety of the hotel.

CHAPTER TEN

HOW easy it was to control your world, if you were Grant MacLean. Hannah watched with cool detachment as everyone scurried to do his bidding.

Their luggage was packed and waiting in the lobby when they returned to the hotel; the bill was ready and presented discreetly for Grant’s signature and at almost the same moment a gleaming black Land Rover pulled up outside the doors.

‘Let’s go,’ Grant said briskly. His hand fastened around hers in a gesture that might look loving but was, in reality, a manacle.

Hannah’s heart was racing, but she gave Grant a cool stare. Did he think she was going to make a scene? Well, she wasn’t. She had no intention of letting him see how angry and frightened she was. She would, instead, retaliate in the only way she could, and treat his power with contempt.

‘You don’t need to handcuff me,’ she said coldly.

She wrenched her hand from his, marched to the Land Rover, and threw the door open. Once inside, she sat unmoving while he supervised the loading of their luggage, her face a mask that slipped only when the head porter bade them goodbye.

‘Vaya con Dios,’ he said with a polite smile.

Hannah had to bite back the urge to tell him she was going not with God but with the devil.

They made good time along the main road. Signs flashed by for the aeropuerto and Hannah had one instant of almost breathless hope that everything he’d said had been nothing but angry words said to upset her, but the signs were quickly behind them and they were heading up a narrow road that climbed into the mountains.

They passed through a town, then through little villages. She kept waiting for Grant to slow the car and turn into one of them, but he kept his foot firmly on the accelerator. The road narrowed again, until it was only a dirt track, and still they climbed.

Maybe he hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said he was taking her a million miles from anywhere. But why? What was he planning?

She glanced at him cautiously, taking in the harsh profile, the narrowed mouth and jutting jaw. What had he said about his reasons for staying on in Mexico for the month? ‘We don’t really know each other.’ Did he really think that in four short weeks they would come to know each other? Did he think all it would take to get her into his bed was knowing that he liked dogs and helped little old ladies across the street?

Hannah clasped her hands in her lap. She knew everything she needed to know about Grant MacLean. Grant MacLean got what he wanted, or else.

That was what this was all about. She’d resisted his sexual advances…

No. That was a lie.

She shifted uneasily in her seat. She had responded to him; there was no point in pretending she hadn’t. But the fever in her blood had turned to ice once she’d understood what his intentions were.

She’d thought he’d been as swept up in passion as she, but the truth was that her seduction had been nothing more than a detail of their arrangement. Sally had been quite right: Grant had no heart, he had only an ego a mile wide.

She could not imagine ever feeling desire for him again, much less passion. The house he’d rented had eight rooms, he’d said. Hannah blew out her breath. Fine. She would avoid him. When he was in the kitchen, she’d be in the bathroom. When he was outside, she’d be inside. And whatever bedroom she chose would be as far from his as possible.

Would he endure four weeks of that? She gave him another tight-lipped glance. No, she didn’t think_so. A week would probably be more than enough. By then, even Grant would be willing to admit failure. They would fly home, and he’d have to endure the raised eyebrows and speculative whispers that would surely greet the announcement that their whirlwind courtship had led straight to a whirlwind divorce.

‘I don’t give a damn what people think,’ he’d said, but it wasn’t true. He cared what people thought as much as anybody. More, perhaps, considering the size of his damned ego.

‘If the directions the agent gave us are accurate, we should be there soon.’

She looked up. Grant was concentrating on the road ahead, his hands lying lightly on the steering-wheel. His tone was conversational.

Hannah almost laughed. She hoped he enjoyed talking to himself.

‘And just take a look at that view. Damn, but it’s spectacular.’

The man sounded just like a tourist. Her chin lifted. If he thought some pleasant chit-chat was going to change anything, he was——

‘—crazy.’ She swung towards him, and he flashed a quick smile. ‘Hell, I must have been, agreeing to rent a. house sight unseen, then finding out it’s ten t

housand feet straight up a mountainside.’

Ten thousand feet? Surely he wasn’t serious?

‘Well, the agent swore the trip’s worth it.’ The engine hummed as he downshifted on the steepening grade. ‘He says the forest comes right up to the back door. And the view goes on forever. He says…’ Grant glanced past her and gave a long, slow whistle. ‘Wow!’ he whispered.

Wow? Hannah’s jaw clenched. What did ‘wow’ mean?

‘Forever is right,’ he murmured. He chuckled softly. ‘I just hope this car has good brakes.’

He was trying to get a reaction from her. Well, she wasn’t about to oblige. Still, she couldn’t resist taking one swift peek out of the corner of her eye.

‘Oh, God.’ She felt the blood drain from her face as she turned quickly back to the road and pressed her spine against the seat. ‘It’s not ten thousand feet,’ she whispered. ‘It’s ten million.’

‘It’s probably more like three thousand,’ Grant said agreeably. ‘We won’t need oxygen masks after all.’

It was a joke, she knew. But, like all good jokes, it held a kernel of truth. The air did seem different here, now that she thought about it. She took a deep breath. Was it thinner? No. Not really. What it was, was cleaner. Sharper. It had a tang, like—like pine.

For the first time, she lifted her eyes to the mountains rising all around them. The trees—pine, for the most part—were a deep, deep green, a colour that mirrored that of the emerald on her finger, and they pierced a sky that was a shade of blue she could not recall ever having seen before, unless in a child’s box of crayons.

Beautiful, she thought.

‘Yes,’ Grant said softly, ‘it is, isn’t it?’