Force of Feeling

‘It suits you like that.’

Campion froze immediately. How dared he torment her like this, pretending that he actually found her physically attractive, when they both knew that no man, never mind one like him, could possible do that?

‘I…’ The words of denial stuck in her throat. Her chest felt tight and sore. She saw Guy reach out towards her, and flinched back from any physical contact with him.

‘What’s wrong? Every time I compliment you, you react as though I’d insulted you.’

It was the pain inside her that made her cry out sharply, ‘What am I supposed to do? Fall at your feet in gratitude?’

She tried to push past him, and cried out as he caught hold of her wrists, dragging her towards him.

Was it only this morning that she had envied his laconic self-control? Well, it had gone now. Grey sparks flamed in the depths of his eyes, and she could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he breathed harshly. ‘Nothing so dramatic, just a smile would be sufficient. The reaction any—’

‘Any normal woman would make?’ Campion finished for him. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’

She had stopped trying to pull away from him. He obviously had no intention of letting her go, and every time she moved his grip hurt her wrists.

‘No, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t. What is it about you, Campion? Why do you go to such lengths to deny your sexuality? I’ve been watching you, and shall I tell you what I see?’

He didn’t need to, Campion already knew. If the image in her mirror every morning wasn’t enough, she still had Craig’s insults burned into her soul to remind her.

‘I see a woman who for some reason is so desperate to conceal her sexuality that she doesn’t even realise what she’s betraying by going to such extremes. By your very desire to appear sexual, you make yourself stand out, do you know that?’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Yes, it is.’

He looked at her broodingly, and the pressure of his grip eased. His thumbs started stroking lightly against the delicate inside of her wrists. Her pulse stopped, and then thudded hectically. She felt as though her blood was draining from every part of her body, to throb frantically beneath his touch.

‘You’re such a very beautiful woman, and yet you behave…’

‘Stop it! Stop it…’

Somehow she managed to wrench herself from his grip, her senses in agonised turmoil as she raced past him and upstairs to her room.

How could he do this to her? What was the point? A very beautiful woman! Did he think she was blind? Her throat was tight with tears of anger she refused to shed. She waited tensely, expecting him to come bursting into her room with every breath she took, but the seconds and then the minutes went past in silence. Then, shockingly, she heard the slam of the kitchen door.

She ran to the window and watched as Guy climbed into his car.

He was leaving. Thank God for that!

And yet she had no sense of relief, no lessening of the tension coiling inside her. Instead she felt empty, aching, unsettled.

She went back downstairs, but she couldn’t work. Dusk gave way to Stygian dark. She made herself a cup of coffee and wandered round the kitchen. How empty the cottage seemed without him, and yet she had wanted him to go. Hadn’t she?

Just for a moment, she tried to imagine what might have happened if he had stayed, if she had really been beautiful as he had cruelly called her…

Her body quivered, tiny flames heating her skin. Her hand shook and she put her coffee down, hugging her arms tightly around herself, as though to reject the sensations she was experiencing.

How long had she felt like this and not known it? How long had she ached like this and not known why? She was behaving like an adolescent, or the archetypal frustrated spinster, she taunted herself.

Guy French had no interest in her other than as a writer. She had no idea why he was pretending to find her attractive; no idea at all. Somehow, she would have thought he was far too fastidious to lower himself to such contemptible behaviour.

She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t work. She might as well go to bed and try to catch up on last night’s missed sleep.

It only occurred to her once she was in bed that, with Guy gone, there was nothing to stop her returning to London herself, but, with Guy gone, what was the point? The book still had to be finished, and she was more determined than ever now to prove that she could finish it.

She slept for two hours, and then woke up abruptly, feeling cold and hungry.