Escape from Desire

Within minutes her dress and jacket were soaked, her fingers damp and cold, as she waited in vain for her bus. Too late she remembered the service was less frequent during the day—one of the cuts imposed by councils anxious to cut down on rates, a step which Tamara approved in theory but which was now proving extremely annoying in practice.

The rain was so heavy that she didn’t see the powerful car approaching until it ground to a halt in front of her, and even then she didn’t realise what it portended until the passenger door was flung open and Zach leaned across to demand threateningly, ‘Are you going to get in voluntarily or do I have to use force? Don’t try running, Tamara,’ he warned her, when she cast an involuntary and frightened look over her shoulder, ‘I’m in no mood to be gentle when I catch you—and I will!’

It was only the knowledge that he spoke the truth—she couldn’t outrun him—that made Tamara acquiesce and climb reluctantly into the Porsche, her wet clothes dripping damply over the soft cream hide seats and the thick pile carpet.

‘What … How did you know where to find me?’ she demanded, already knowing the answer to her original question, which had been, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘It wasn’t difficult,’ he told her curtly. ‘The receptionist was so alarmed by the way you went rushing out of the office that she came up to tell Nigel. From there it wasn’t hard to conclude that you must be heading for home like any other frightened animal, eh, Tamara?’

She didn’t respond to that, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the pavement, a startled protest breaking from her lips as she realised they weren’t heading in the right direction.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded urgently. ‘We’re going the wrong way!’

‘And it’s a road we’ve been down too many times already,’ Zach replied grimly. ‘I’m taking you to my flat, Tamara. I want to talk to you.’

‘We have nothing to say to one another,’ Tamara replied breathlessly. ‘I’m not going to work for you, even if it means giving up my job.’

‘Did I say I wanted you to?’

The question threw her. If he didn’t want her to work for him what was he doing following her? Unless of course he wanted to taunt her with he

r broken engagement; to challenge her with having overplayed her hand when she ‘deliberately allowed herself to become pregnant’, to paraphrase his own accusation.

She shivered suddenly, trembling with the onset of cold and fear.

‘You’re soaking.’ A frown touched Zach’s eyes briefly as he reached forward to touch a switch and heat began to fill the car. ‘What possessed you to run out like that … Surely it wasn’t fear? Not from a girl who faced possible death so bravely.’

Don’t hurt me any more, Tamara wanted to plead, but she folded her lips tightly over the words. She had been humiliated enough—more than enough.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t realise they had turned off the main road and were entering an underground car park.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded again, her eyes registering her fear.

‘I’ve already told you—somewhere where we can talk without being interrupted,’ Zach replied briefly, switching off the engine and reaching behind her to remove his jacket from the back seat, the brush of his fingers against her wet arm making Tamara flinch and stiffen.

‘Well,’ he taunted, ‘are you going to get out of your own free will or do I have to carry you?’

It had the effect he had known it must. She stumbled out of the car, swaying slightly with shock and apprehension.

Zach took her arm, propelling her towards a private lift which bore them upwards in a thick silence. An impersonal foyer carpeted in dull gold met Tamara’s eyes as the lift stopped and the doors opened. Only one door faced them and Zach motioned her towards it while he produced a key.

A small hallway carpeted in the same gold with two excellent Turner reproductions hanging on the walls opened out into a large living room, with a vast expanse of plate glass window overlooking the City.

The flat was obviously much larger than Tamara’s and she was miserably conscious of her bedraggled appearance, her clothes dripping water on to the immaculate pale grey carpet; chilled by the perfect decor of the room, with its silver grey walls, stark black leather settees, and chrome and smoked glass shelving units. It was the sort of room often featured in glossy magazines, but Tamara found it impersonal and unwelcoming.

Zach had disappeared in the direction of another room, and she gasped as he suddenly reappeared bearing a thick fluffy towel.

‘Get those wet things off,’ he commanded briskly. ‘You’re soaked to the skin. You’ll be lucky if you come out of this with nothing worse than a bad chill!’

Tamara looked round wildly for the bathroom—anywhere that was private, but Zach was standing over her, his stance subtly threatening, his eyes as alert as a predatory animal’s.

‘If you’ll just tell me where the bathroom is,’ Tamara began with chilly dignity.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Zach swore, his expression that of a man driven way beyond the boundaries of his self-control. The towel was flung to the floor, Tamara’s whispered protests ignored as knowledgeable fingers peeled off her soaking jacket. Her dress was next, the small buttons dealt with with a ruthless efficiency that appalled her, all her feeble attempts to restrain him shrugged aside as though they were those of a helpless child.

Not until he had removed every single scrap of her clothing did Zach reach for the towel, and then he did not hand it to her, and allow her at least some measure of privacy as she had hoped, but instead started to towel her damp body briskly, rubbing fiery life into limbs which had been chilled to the bone.

Quite when the brisk movements altered and became subtly sensual Tamara couldn’t say. One moment she was standing shivering, hating him bitterly, and the next, or so it seemed, her frozen limbs were responding to his touch in a way which was entirely alien; the blood which had seemed like ice in her veins suddenly beating urgently under her skin, carrying with it an age-old message of desire and need. An aching which began in the pit of her stomach spread hungrily to every corner of her body. It was impossible to hide from Zach how she felt; it was there in every pliant line of her body, in the shimmering heat of her eyes, and the soft promise of her mouth. When the movement of his hands ceased and he stood perfectly still she was no more able to prevent the soft protest forced past her lips than she could stop herself from swaying yearningly towards him.