Bittersweet Passion

Mei Ling tinkled with laughter. ‘Oh, do tell all!’ she encouraged in a throaty purr.

‘Dane and I do have business to discuss,’ Grant interceded. ‘Why don’t you girls talk about your clothes and your latest social triumphs, and let us get on with talking boring shop?’

His daughter pouted and swung her feet down off the couch, clearly expecting Claire to join her. The time before dinner vanished on a tide of desultory and trivial chatter because it was glaringly obvious Mei Ling had not the smallest interest in anyone beyond Dane, her slanted dark eyes following his every movement round the room.

‘I’m surprised you let him wander about Jamaica alone,’ she hazarded on the way into dinner. ‘But Dane would do just what he wanted to do, wouldn’t he?’ she concluded with great condescension.

‘Would he?’ Claire opened limpid eyes, an extraordinarily strong urge to scratch winging through her.

Mei Ling just ignored her. ‘He’s the best looking male I’ve ever seen, and he’s just loaded with sex appeal,’ she commented with rich appreciation.

‘Speaking personally, of course, I always preferred his IQ.’

Mei Ling drew incredulous eyes back to her.

Determinedly Claire smiled. ‘His looks are just the icing on the cake.’

The most horrible suspicion was blossoming within her now. Was Mei Ling Dane’s current bed-partner? The girl seemed so incredibly confident, despite Claire’s presence. Why should Dane feel obligated to remain celibate when they both knew their marriage was just a piece of paper? His bedroom was in the other wing of the house and yes, in Claire’s opinion, he was perfectly capable of carrying off such a ménage à trois. The suspicion shook her to the very depths. Dane had invited the Kirbys here to stay and then to join them on the yacht. Was Dane quietly letting her know that he wasn’t waiting indefinitely to take up his usual way of life?

‘Knock down a few walls here and there, and it’s going to be one fabulous place,’ Grant was saying enthusiastically over the creole lobster. ‘Then when you clear some of those trees off the acreage you own and put in pools, maybe a couples-only complex above the beach … what do you think?’

‘Ghastly!’ The admission leapt off Claire’s tongue and she bit her lip. ‘Oh, not your ideas, Grant, but this is such a lovely old house. I’m sentimental. I hate to think of it becoming a hotel and losing its character. Jacuzzis in the en suites and all that.’

Dane lifted a sable brow at her sudden loquacity. ‘I was planning on retaining the character. This place is a potential goldmine.’

‘You don’t need it,’ she said helplessly.

‘Meaning?’ he persisted calmly.

Grant was shaking his head ruefully, man-to-man-over-little-woman’s-idiocy fashion. ‘You’re not into business, are you?’

‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted.’ Recollecting her exact position in Dane’s life, she didn’t know what had got into her to speak her mind suddenly on what was frankly none of her busine

ss.

Grant was bent on re-educating her. ‘It will cost a mint to put this place in order. Stands to reason it has to be a paying proposition. You could always hang on to a private suite here for your own use,’ he pointed out. ‘Though why you should want to before this island develops some nightspots, I don’t know. There isn’t a top hotel here yet. It’s crying out for development.’

Claire nodded peaceably, feeling Dane’s penetrating gaze resting on her profile and wishing she had kept quiet. Money, money, money. His world revolved on multi-million dollar deals and this house was just another moneyspinner to him.

After dinner Mei Ling hugged Dane’s side and hung on his every word in the most sickeningly sycophantic style. Grant expounded at length on his vision of Dominica in another decade. It was depressing. When Claire looked up she registered that Dane and Mei Ling had stepped out on to the terrace where they were no longer within view. Obeying an impulse of stark fear, she said, ‘Excuse me, Grant. It’s getting cool. I’ll just go and get a shawl.’

She went out through the dining-room where the table was being cleared. Her stiletto heels clicked on the wooden floor of the terrace and stirred the couple in the shadows. Inside again, she leant back up against the wall, a trickle of sweat running down between her breasts, a punched-in-the-stomach sensation bowing her head. The agony of sick jealousy was a canker clawing at her.

Kissing her right where he could be seen! Bastard! Her stomach somersaulted and heaved. As if someone had ripped a veil from her eyes she saw inside her own anguish. When had it happened? When had she fallen in love with Dane? Or had it always been there, merely lying dormant because she had never dreamt that Dane could ever be more than a fantasy to her? Still in shock, she forced herself off the wall, away from the servants’ curious dark eyes and upstairs to collect a shawl. Had she been seen? It could easily have been one of the servants.

Perhaps pride hadn’t let her admit even to herself how completely she had become a victim of Dane’s powerful attraction. Once, she had congratulated herself on her immunity. In retrospect she couldn’t begin to excuse her own wilful blindness. Of course she couldn’t bear other women to look at him, another woman to touch him. Of course she had treasured and revelled in every moment of his exclusive company. She loved him, she loved him as she had never loved Max.

Something inside her had died when she saw them, mercifully numbing her because she couldn’t stand that amount of pain all at once. But there was nothing deathlike about the agonising bite of bitter jealousy that now brought her closer to screaming point.

And Dane didn’t want her love. She was sure of that. He had never intended this sojourn abroad to be anything more than a convalescent holiday.

She had been drifting along in a sort of fool’s paradise, convincing herself that she only wanted his friendship. She couldn’t drift any longer. At any time she might betray herself and she couldn’t take that risk. Dane would pity her. He would find another guilt trip to carry and all along she’d seen that remorse in him and obstinately shut her eyes to the evidence. The gifts, the unasked-for and unexpected attention … Dane’s way of saying sorry, and that was all he had to give her. The give-poor-Claire-a-good-time syndrome, the treat for the deprived child … it was so humiliating, and yet she had let him do it because subconsciously she hadn’t been able to face the time when they would have to part.

But she couldn’t let it continue. It was already clear that Dane was pining for more exciting company … and resenting the lonely nights he spent here on Dominica. Now was the time for her to talk cheerfully of leaving, for there was no future for her with Dane. The first move would have to come from her and it would have to be soon, very soon. With Mei Ling already on the scene, her own graceful bowing out was imperative.

She returned to Grant trailing a shawl. At the bar she fixed herself a rum cocktail and drank, still seeing Mei Ling welded to Dane, two bodies in perfect sychronisation. ‘Would you like a refill?’ she asked Grant steadily.

‘Don’t mind if I do.’ He was too self-absorbed to notice the twin spots of feverish colour over her cheekbones.