A Savage Adoration

What a terrifyingly complex man Dominic was turning out to be. How could he change so quickly? Not an hour ago he had been berating and taunting her, and yet here he was now talking to her as calmly and pleasantly as he had done in the days when she was still a child, and he was her adored hero. But beneath that pleasant, almost lazily indulgent surface lurked dangers she as a child hadn't known existed, and consequently, although Dominic seemed to have abandoned his earlier aggression and talked pleasantly to her, telling her about the years he had spent in America, Christy was on her guard against him, her responses stilted and slightly unnatural.

Every time he tried to turn the conversation in her direction she instinctively parried every question, refusing to allow him to draw her into any intimate confidences. And yet, even as she did so, she was painfully aware that in other circumstances she could too easily have allowed herself to drift back into their old relationship. He still exercised a power and enchantment for her that she knew would never entirely disappear, but then she suspected that few women would be able to withstand Dominic if he chose not to allow them to do so.

The train was drawing into Newcastle station when she saw him frown, a derisory glitter darkening his eyes as he scrutinised her.

'It isn't going to work, is it, Christy?' he taunted her with a return to his earlier cynicism. 'There's no way you and I can ever be polite acquaintances, is there?'

She felt as though her heart was being torn into pieces, but she managed to say calmly enough, 'Is there any reason why we should be?'

She saw his face darken. He turned away from her as he muttered under his breath, 'No… no damned reason at all,' and then he was lifting her dress box down for her, and she had no alternative but to follow him out of the train and along the station to his parked car.

She told herself that she was glad of his silence as he drove them home, but in truth it was more nerve-racking than she wanted to admit. She couldn't stop her foolish heart from imagining all manner of romantic scenarios, in which instead of being two people enduring an enforced intimacy as though it were a penance, they were what she had always dreamed they might be: two lovers inhabiting a silence that sprang from perfect communion with one another.

When he stopped outside her parents' home, he spoke for the first time. 'I'll come in and see your mother now.'

Of course her mother was delighted to see them both, expressing delight and pleasure when she heard they had travelled back from London together.

'And did you manage to sort out David's problem?' she asked Christy while her father went downstairs to make them all some coffee.

'Yes, we found the file.'

'And Meryl's well, is she?'

Sarah Marsden had heard all about David's wife from Christy. 'Yes. Well, she's as well as can be expected.' She had been staring out of the window while Dominic pulled off his jacket, and now she turned round to address her mother, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the way the fine cotton clung to his body. Beneath it she could see the clear outline of his torso, and she stood, breathless and aching with love for him as she watched the masculine play of muscles and felt the need run through her body in a white-hot searing tide.

'Christy…'

The plaintive note in her mother's voice brought her back to reality and her unfinished sentence. Now her face was as hot as her body had been seconds before.

'Er… yes… Meryl's pregnant.'

She was aware of a sharply indrawn breath, and only realised it was Dominic's when she glanced at him and saw the savage condemnation bracketing his mouth.

Too late she realised the interpretation he would put on her remark, and sure enough, as he came over to the bed, he stopped at her side to mutter bitterly in her ear, 'And you still accept him as your lover, knowing that? What sort of woman are you, Christy?'

The sort who's foolish enough to go on loving you even though my love isn't wanted, she longed to cry out, but the years of self-control stopped her.

Her father's arrival with the coffee broke into the unnatural silence. Dominic moved to her mother's side.

'Well, you seem to be making excellent progress,' he pronounced as he stood up.

'It's all this spoiling I'm getting,' Sarah smiled back at him. 'Which brings me to a favour I'd like to ask you, Dominic'

Why on earth couldn't he smile at her like that just once, Christy thought bitterly, instead of always thinking the worst of her?

Later she decided that her absorption in Dominic's smile had been the reason her intuition hadn't warned her what was coming, but by then it was too late.

'I was wondering if you would drive Christy to and from the ball,' her mother was saying. 'Tim doesn't want to go. He says it won't be any fun without me.' She gazed fondly across at her husband. 'And after…' she looked apologetically at Christy, 'well, after her slight mishap with, the car we would be worried about her driving, especially if the weather is bad.'

For a moment Christy was too appalled to speak. She couldn't look at Dominic, and then, her tongue suddenly freed of its constriction, she rushed into nervous speech.

'Heavens, Mum, there's no need for that,' she protested. 'I can get a taxi…' she added wildly, only to receive a quelling look from Dominic.

'I'd be delighted to escort Christy to the ball,' he told her mother. 'In fact,' he looked up and across at Christy, holding her eyes and daring her to contradict him, as he said smoothly, 'I was going to ask her to come with me anyway.'

Liar, Christy thought bitterly, but there was no way she could say that to him with her parents looking fondly on at them as though…

She swallowed and gulped for air, her heart sinking as she saw quite plainly what her parents were thinking. Heavens, they had got her all paired off with Dominic! Her teeth dug into her bottom lip as she fought to stop herself from bursting into hysterical giggles. Later, when she was on her own with her mother, she would tell her that her matchmaking plans were doomed to failure—and why. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Dominic acidly what he intended to tell Amanda, but she managed to resist the temptation. He might be taking her to the ball, but there was no doubt in Christy's mind whom he would be partnering once they were there.