CHAPTER SIX
‘I REALISE you’re keen to find work, Miss Fletcher.’ The older woman gave her a less impersonal smile than she had been rewarded with at the two previous employment agencies. ‘But without qualifications it won’t be easy. Even the most junior clerical job requires some O-level grades.’ She sighed meaningfully. ‘Perhaps you ought to consider domestic service.’
Claire was ready to do anything but that. With a reasonable job prospect she might have talked to Dane. But not about domestic service. He would consider that an insult. When she got home, Thompson smoothly broke into the announcement that Dane would not be back for dinner. He tacked on the supposed mention of a business meeting and apologies which she estimated to be his addition rather than Dane’s.
Her thoughts swerved back uncomfortably to Max. Hadn’t she loved him as much as she believed, or had her disgust and contempt numbed her emotions? She was angry, bitter and humiliated but not as hurt as she felt she ought to have been. Obviously, their year apart had changed her. She was stronger and less forgiving. His betrayal seemed just like one more hard knock she had to take, and there was an undeniable relief amidst her confusion. She hadn’t hurt him and no longer had to carry the guilt of betraying him.
She went to bed early though she didn’t sleep. For as the evening wore on she became more and more convinced Dane was not going to appear before breakfast time. Surprisingly, she was not indifferent to the idea. In conflict, she certainly was. She couldn’t bear the image of Dane making love to another woman. It was pride, she told herself, the same pride that had responded furiously to Max’s infidelity. When the slam of the front door reverberated through the apartment, her tension increased instead of decreasing.
The lights snapped on, the bed rippling as Dane came down on the edge of it. He brushed her hair gently back off her cheekbone. ‘Well, you could say you didn’t expect me to come back tonight.’
Her lashes swept up. It infuriated her that he had not had a single doubt that she would be lying awake. ‘And why should I say that?’
He took off his jacket and threw it on a nearby unit with the ingrained carelessness of someone used to someone else tidying up after him. ‘Because if I go to bed with someone else while I’m married to you, that’s it, finito,’ he emphasised coldly. ‘And I don’t respect you, you’re goddamned right I don’t respect you for suggesting I do!’
She leant up on one elbow. ‘Are you calling this a marriage?’
He sprang fluidly upright and started to undress. He hadn’t an inhibited bone in his magnificent body. She wondered sickly just how many women had lain watching Dane doing exactly this, and she knew with painful certainty that for most of them it would have been enough to be assured of his desire.
‘Are you?’ she repeated daringly, to take her mind off visual enticements.
He dropped his shirt. ‘Don’t push me tonight, Claire. I’m not in the mood.’ His bronzed profile was remote, unyielding. ‘What do you want me to tell you, that I felt good about being the first?’
She rolled over to avoid his scrutiny. ‘I didn’t realise you’d noticed.’
He swore softly. ‘I noticed when it was too late, and to be honest I didn’t much care at the time.’
‘You sound much more like yourself.’
‘You set me up, Claire. If you get more than you bargained for before this ends, blame yourself. But I was pleased that I was your first lover. I actually enjoyed the fact,’ he admitted with savage candour. ‘I amazed myself. There must by something bred into the male psyche that not even environment can breed out again. Then again, if you hadn’t been so wildly responsive I don’t believe I’d ever have found out, because I wouldn’t have forced you. I imagine that suited you, too.’
‘How?’
‘A consummated marriage can’t be set aside.’
He disappeared into the bathroom. In his absence she boiled. His hostility could not have been greater had she put a cage round him, and she perfectly comprehended the message behind his reference to her virginity. It wouldn’t make him feel suddenly tied to her. Why didn’t he just jet off to one of his other residences and enjoy his freedom as if she didn’t exist?
‘I’ve decided that we’ll fly out to the Caribbean tomorrow.’ As he crossed back to the bed, he delivered her bemused eyes a cool smile. ‘I might as well be there and it can be regarded as a working honeymoon by anyone who’s interested. It would be less odd than holing up here and never going out together.’
‘I didn’t think you cared whether things looked odd or not, and I don’t want …’
‘I didn’t ask if you did,’ Dane interrupted as he slid into bed beside her, long and lean and smoothly muscled. ‘Where were you today?’
Caught unprepared, she reddened. ‘Looking for a job,’ she muttered.
A slanting dark brow elevated as he laughed and reached for her with hands that brooked no argument. ‘My wife doesn’t work. We’re married. The deed is done and I’ll make the best of it for the moment. No, that wasn’t calculated to woo you into fast surrender, was it?’ he taunted mockingly, holding her slightly above him as he stretched sensually back, midnight-blue eyes taking in her dilated pupils and luminously pink cheeks. ‘The truth is I burn for you. That’s why I came home. I didn’t want a substitute and I never planned on taking one, either. Now why don’t you match my honesty for a change?’
His tone had a mesmeric, intimate quality that jerked strings inside her, strings attached to feelings she didn’t understand. Feelings that heightened her inner conflict, for she was helplessly, secretly pleased that he should desire her even if she didn’t want that desire to be carried to its natural conclusion.
His fingers plucked free the tie ribbon on one bare, creamy shoulder and then shifted calmly over to its twin. ‘No … I don’t feel that way!’ she protested.
‘I could make you beg for satisfaction. Shall I do that? Is that what it takes for an honest answer?’ His smile chilled her. ‘And don’t dredge up Max. I’ve no doubt you did have a boyfriend some time in the last few years but if you’d been considering marriage, you wouldn’t still have been a virgin. No one your age enters a commitment that heavy without checking they’re sexually compatible. You see, we are.’ As he gauged in advance her intent to free herself, a vibrantly amused smile swept the chill from his keen gaze. He swung her over so that she lay half-beneath him. ‘And it doesn’t have to be a fight when we’re married,’ he informed her teasingly, hooking his fingers into the lightly shirred lace of her nightdress, and gently baring her breasts.
‘Don’t do this to me … please, Dane.’ The plea was wrenched from her. ‘It’s tearing me apart.’
A shimmer of violet lit his measuring gaze. ‘Then tell me you want me just as badly as I want you,’ he insisted hardly.
‘The truth is that I hate you and I hate myself.’ In silent agony she turned her coppery head away from him.