The Master Player

But it was she who cried out as he shook Luther off, grabbed the dog’s wildly squirming body, strode to the door, yanked it open, hurled the little terrier outside and closed the door on him. She flew at Tony, fists beating at his chest as he stood in front of the door, preventing her from reversing his action.

‘How dare you treat Luther like that, you rotten bully!’ she yelled at him. ‘Get out of my way! Get out of my life!’

‘You’ve completely lost the plot, Chloe!’ he fiercely retorted, grabbing her wrists to stop the pummelling. ‘Calm down! All I want is a civilised conversation without a rabid dog distracting us and that’s what we’re going to have.’

‘Let me go!’ she screamed, struggling to pull out of his hold.

He forcibly hauled her over to the sofa and flung her onto it. ‘Sit there and shut up!’ he commanded, all primed to prevent her from moving, glaring down at her with meanly narrowed eyes.

Chloe obeyed, frightened he might do her worse violence if she tried to escape him. She sat still and retreated into grim silence, staring stonily at him as he pulled one of the rockers around so he could sit in face-to-face confrontation with her. Fear was pounding through her heart but she refused to show it. Tony’s behaviour was utterly contemptible. Yet the sense of being trapped again was eating at her mind, and all she could think of was how much she needed to be rescued.

Luther was madly yapping outside.

Was Eric still working somewhere in the grounds?

Would he hear the little dog’s distress and wonder?

But it wasn’t Eric her mind fixed on. She wanted Max to come-Max, her white knight, who’d been standing between her and her dragons, keeping them away.

Max decided the only way to get rid of this continually niggling frustration over Chloe was with a burst of intense physical activity-swim twenty lengths of the pool without a pause. It might also cool down the long-simmering desire she hadn’t wanted to know about. He kept remembering her reaction when he’d let her see it, the swift lowering of her eyes, the agitated reach for her glass of wine, then seizing the first reasonable opportunity to part from his company.

She wasn’t ready for him and Max wasn’t used to waiting. In the ordinary course of events, the women he connected with were only too eager to get into bed with him. No reservations at all. The problem was this situation was not ordinary. The connection was there with Chloe. He didn’t doubt that for a second. But she clearly had emotional issues, which were making her shy away from acknowledging the sexual buzz between them, let alone showing pleasure in it.

Did it frighten her?

Did she think it was too soon after her husband’s defection to be feeling anything towards another man?

Max didn’t give a hoot how scandalous an affair between them might be, but it could be worrying Chloe. Though surely she realised he would look after her, and on a purely practical level, there were many advantages in being attached to him. It certainly wouldn’t do her career any harm. He could find the best roles for her to play, take her places she’d never been, show her the world and show her to the world.

Unfortunately he suspected she didn’t have a worldly streak in her, and she was certainly not driven by ambition, which made her very different to most of the women he met. He’d recognised that from the start and found it very appealing. She’d been used, and suffered so much from it she’d never use anyone else to push her own barrow. He couldn’t change her feelings in that regard and didn’t want to. He just wanted…her.

Too much.

Too soon.

He headed out to the pool. The heat of the day was lingering on. Maybe Chloe would feel hot after her nap and come up for a swim. He wanted her so badly even a limited encounter with her was better than nothing. He’d no sooner stepped out on the pool patio than he heard Luther yapping in frantic ferocity for a little dog.

Something was wrong. Max instantly broke into a fast stride under the columned pergola that led to the steps down to the next terrace. It had been a bad summer for snakes. Eric had spotted a few on the property-harmless green tree snakes-but it didn’t mean there weren’t any red-bellied black ones around. Or a deadly brown one. Terriers were renowned for going after snakes. If Luther got bitten…

But why wasn’t Chloe calling him off? Surely she hadn’t let the dog out alone. He was only a pup-eight weeks old. Yet there was no sound from her. This felt like a bad scene. Adrenaline was pumping through him as the guest house came into view. Luther was clawing at the front door in a desperate frenzy. No Chloe in sight.

Max bounded down the steps. Luther didn’t even register his approach. The little dog’s attention was totally fixed on whatever was going on inside the house. Had Chloe fainted, collapsed, knocked herself out somehow?

A sense of urgency drove him into running to the front door, hand reaching instantly for the knob, testing if it was locked. It wasn’t. It turned. Both he and Luther burst into the living room, the dog belting straight for the man leaping up from one of the rocking chairs. Chloe was huddled on the far corner of the sofa, her face lighting with huge relief at seeing him.

The man turned, scowling at Luther, his expression sliding to angry defiance as he saw Max.

Tony Lipton!

With her husband distracted from her, Chloe pushed up from the sofa, ran around the chair he had occupied and threw herself at Max, who was only too happy to curl a protective arm around her and hold her close, so close he could feel the agitated rise and fall of her lovely soft breasts and the rapid thumping of her heart. He rubbed his cheek against her silky hair-too tempting not to-and glared at Tony Lipton over her head, hating him for having had an intimate relationship with Chloe and not even valuing it enough to care about her.

‘How did you get here?’ he demanded.

Chloe answered in a wild rush. ‘He came by boat, Max, and he threw Luther out and forced me to sit down and listen to him. I tried to make him go, but…’

‘Forced?’ Anger surged, the urge to punch out Tony Lipton rising to flash-point.

Fear flickered in the other man’s eyes. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! She’s making a drama out of nothing. I just wanted to talk to her,’ he jeered dismissively. ‘I have a right to, as her husband.’