‘I wasn’t about to jump on you, Claire.’ Shocked, she clashed with the cold, angry glitter of his bright eyes. As she straightened, the brilliantly colourful beach backdrop revolved dizzily round her, perspiration breaking out on her brow as she swayed in surprise.
‘Are you OK?’ Anger forgotten, Dane sprang upright to steady her. ‘We’ve had a pretty busy day and I keep on forgetting you’re not used to this heat yet.’
The dizziness receded again and she assumed she had got up too fast, for the heat hadn’t been bothering her. The concerned note in his voice was a relief. The awkward moment had passed over. Her only consolation was that Dane obviously believed her physical aversion to him was based on nerves and embarrassment alone. He couldn’t know that heated and quite shameless longings swept her whenever he got too close. He would find that information much more disturbing when he was endeavouring to make her forget that he had ever made love to her.
Restoring their relationship to an easy friendship seemed very important to him and, every time she leapt away from him, she reminded him of something he’d sooner forget—that he had ever been crazy enough to take her to bed.
It racked her with guilt that she hadn’t yet managed to subdue her traitorous body, and it was mortifying to be so easily aroused by a male treating her like a sister. She would just have to try a little harder, she told herself crossly.
Before he left her at the foot of the stairs, he drawled, ‘I reckon we could do with some company. I’ll bring some friends back on my next trip here, OK?’
Concealing her dismay, she forced a smile. So it had come. The sign that Dane was tired of her undiluted company, despite all his flattering remarks. Well, it was silly to take it personally. They were only honeymooners to the outside world, and Dane probably couldn’t have kept the charade up so long had he not had his absences in Jamaica to keep him going. God only knew what he was discreetly getting up to while he
was there. Well, she knew, didn’t she? Her tummy felt unpleasantly queasy. He had to be involved with somebody by now. Sex might just be fun to Dane but she had never imagined he didn’t indulge frequently. He wasn’t the celibate type, and the way women chased him he didn’t have to be. She squashed the resultant nasty imagery flat. It was none of her business now.
He left for Jamaica again before dinner and he didn’t appear for four days. Claire had just climbed out of the antiquated bath when she heard his voice in her bedroom next door. Hastily pulling on a towelling wrap she went through.
At the sight of her wet hair and bare feet, he smiled. ‘I thought you were resting.’
Momentarily entrapped by the sheer brilliance of his smile, she hesitated. ‘You’re early,’ she said uncomfortably and, removing her eyes from him, turned away to sit down at the dressing-table. ‘Are your friends with you? You never told me who they were.’
‘No, I didn’t, did I? But you didn’t ask.’ The sarcastic edge quivered through her nerve-endings. It still crept out now and again despite his admirable determination to be consistently pleasant. ‘Grant Kirby and his daughter, Mei Ling. He’s a hotelier with a stake in the Jamaican development. She’s a model, half-Chinese like his ex-wife. Wear something partyish. She always looks stunning.’
Her cheeks flamed with colour. ‘They’re downstairs, then?’
‘Yes.’ He was suddenly behind her, removing the comb from her nerveless fingers to tug it with depressing deftness through the tangle of her wet hair. ‘Why are you trembling?’ he asked conversationally. ‘Didn’t I tell you that you were safe? Or is it just the sight of me in your bedroom that’s making you so nervous?’
His eyes had strung a jewel-bright trap for her in the mirror. ‘It’s your imagination,’ she fended, dry mouthed. Dear heaven, he was close enough to touch, even the sunwarmed, healthy scent of his lean, virile body was assailing her nostrils, and there was no refuge from the surge of hunger consuming her.
His hands rested briefly on her shoulders as he bent over her to set down the silver comb again, and she jerked as if he had prodded her with an electric probe. The atmosphere was so thick she could practically taste it. ‘If you want me, Claire, you only have to tell me,’ he said, so low she was barely even sure she had caught the words. And then, in that second between believing and acting, Dane broke the spell with a soft, cynical laugh. ‘I shouldn’t tease you, should I? I’ll see you downstairs.’
Forty minutes later Claire anxiously surveyed herself. The tawny-gold gown she had chosen was gorgeous, its beauty in the gossamer fragility of the fabric that moulded to her breasts and then skimmed in fine natural pleats down to her toes, leaving her shoulders bare. If you want me, tell me. If she did, what would he do? Bitterness knotted inside her that he could joke about such a thing. But sex was casual to Dane. As casual and impermanent a pleasure as a good meal. He hadn’t been able to understand why she had got so upset in London. His mocking gibe had hurt and humiliated. There was nothing funny about the situation.
One glance at Mei Ling gave her the sort of sinking sensation she would have had on quicksand. She was tall and slender, a Cleopatra fall of ebony hair framing her exotic features and a scrap of red silk adorning her high breasts, and Claire recognised her instantly as last month’s Vogue cover.
‘Ah, so we have a hostess!’ The grey-haired man helping himself to a drink at the bar shone her a smile. ‘What’s your poison?’
‘Guava juice,’ she confided with a grin. ‘There should be a few bottles under the bar. I’m Claire, I’m Dane’s …’
‘We’re both sophisticated people, honey,’ Mei Ling inserted languidly and, draping her flowing wraparound skirt about her, she reclined back on a couch with a sultry, patronising smile. ‘Dane always has a lady in the picture. Grant, make mine a rum punch. My head’s still not together after that nasty, bumpy little plane we flew in on. God, when will they build a jet-strip here?’
‘You’ve been to Dominica before?’ Claire walked across to clasp the glass that Grant was extending, dismayed that Dane had not even told these friends of his that she was his wife.
‘Once before.’
Instead of handing her the drink, the older man planted an arm round her, his hand wandering down over the curve of her hip. ‘Say, you’re kind of cute for Dane’s tastes.’ He gave her a playful slap on the derrière.
‘Handling my wife knocks you right off my visiting list,’ Dane drawled as he joined them.
‘Your wife?’ Mei Ling echoed, thunderstruck. ‘When did you get married?’
A little flushed, Claire clutched the drink Dane had retrieved for her. ‘A month ago.’
The model eyed her up and down intently as if seeking a hidden vein of uranium that might clarify the mystery.
‘Must have been when we were in Argentina, honey.’ Grant strolled forward, his heavy face faintly mottled with colour. ‘It must’ve been sudden, too.’
‘Not really. Claire’s known me for years.’