There was a singing noise in her ears, a dull roaring in her blood. Dear God! She mustn’t faint. Somehow she managed to stagger out of the car and across to the group of men. One of them turned at her approach.
‘What…? What happened?’ she stammered sickly.
‘Bad accident, miss.’ The policeman’s voice was calm and soothing.
‘Was…was anyone hurt?’ She was shivering violently now and she could see the man frowning slightly.
‘The driver was killed.’ It was one of the other men who spoke, his voice blunt, carrying an edge of disapproval.
Killed… Killed… Dominic was dead. Somehow Kate managed to get back in her car and get it started, even though she heard the policeman calling something out to her. No doubt he had been aware of her shock, but she didn’t want to answer any questions now… all she wanted to do was to be alone with this enormous unbelievable pain that was flowering inside her.
Dead… dead… dead… The words beat out a monotonous rhythm in her brain all the way home, as though somehow by repetition they might become real. But it was real. Dominic was dead. He had died at the wheel of his car. Doing what? Looking for her. She stalled the car as she brought it to a halt in the drive, her body so weak that she could barely walk to the front door. Everything seemed to be swaying round her, a terrible draining weakness taking her over, almost as though her life-blood was draining from her body.
Automatically she made for the drawing-room, pushing open the door and then coming to an abrupt halt as a figure detached itself from one of the easy chairs.
‘So you’re back. Where the hell have you been?’
/> Dominic? Kate swayed weakly on legs that threatened to crumple beneath her. ‘But you…you’re dead…’ She stared at him, trembling wildly, unable to strand the strain of two consecutive shocks coming so quickly on top of one another.
‘Dead? Wishful thinking, I’m afraid, my pet.’ His voice was hatefully sardonic, his movements as he came towards her banishing her first dread that she was simply conjuring up his memory in her anguish. She tried to breathe and found that her muscles simply refused to work, her eyes growing wide as she stared and stared into his face. When he reached her she stretched out blindly, her fingers trembling as she touched his face.
‘Kate…’ His voice was rough, his eyes impatient as he grabbed her hands and tugged them down to her sides. ‘Just what the hell are you playing at? God, I never know where the hell I am with you! What is it you want from me? Revenge… is that it? You want to pay me back for rejecting you, is that it?’
Kate heard him, but the words didn’t register, she was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he was alive.
‘You’re not dead.’ She repeated the words slowly, still staring at him. ‘You’re not dead…’ She kept on saying it, her body trembling more intensely with each repetition.
‘Kate?’
Dominic released her hands, cupping her face and turning it slightly so that the light fell sharply on her white tortured features. Kate felt him draw in his breath.
She closed her eyes, feeling the horror recede. ‘I saw your car… the BMW. The police were there. I asked them if anyone was hurt, and they told me… They told me you were dead.’
Her control broke over the last few words, huge sobs shaking her body.
Above her she heard Dominic swear, and then she was being rocked against his body, his arms wrapped tightly round her. ‘Not me, my darling,’ he soothed her. ‘Not me… the prisoners who escaped took it. I’ve been driving all over the place looking for you, and foolishly when I went down to the cottage to check it earlier I left the keys in it. They must have seen me arrive. It didn’t get them very far. The driver was killed and the other man badly injured. The police have only just left here.’
Gradually her body ceased to shake, control returning to her limbs and her mind. Harry had been right; it was time to stop running.
‘Why did you run away?’
She could feel the tension in his body and she knew that no matter what the outcome she had to tell him the truth.
Lifting her head so that she could look into his eyes, she said quietly, ‘Because I love you… because I was frightened…because…’
Dominic didn’t let her get any further, his eyes suddenly darkening with a mixture of emotions she found it hard to define.
‘You love me?’ Incredulity and anger seemed to be blended in his voice in equal parts, and for a moment she wished she had not told him, but it was too late for that now.
‘Yes…’
‘You love me and you let me think… You let me think it was just physical, just an eight-year-old ache that needed easing. Damn you, Kate…’ His voice thickened over the last few words and then she was hauled against him, his mouth punishingly fierce as it fastened over her own.
It took her several seconds to recognise his near-violence as passion and not anger, and then easily and joyously her mouth opened beneath his, her arms going round his neck. Without breaking the kiss, he shifted slightly so that she was balanced against his body, aware of its hard, exciting pulsing.
Tiny prickles of excitement burned her skin, her need to feel the life force of him deep inside her after believing that it was lost to her for ever overriding everything else. Her hand moved to the waistband of his jeans and slid down over his thigh.
‘No…’ Dominic’s hand clamped down over her own, turning her eyes brilliant with shock. ‘Not yet,’ he amended softly. ‘First we have to talk. Do you know what you’ve put me through?’ he demanded, almost shaking her. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I woke up and you’d gone!’