Forbidden Surrender

‘Mm,’ her father nodded. ‘She wanted to wait up with me, but I wouldn’t let her. The party was strain enough for her.’

‘I’m sorry to be such a worry to you.’ Sara bit her lip.

He put his arm about her shoulders. ‘You aren’t a worry, Sara, you’re part of this family. Maybe we’re at fault for not telling you, but that was the way Marie wanted it.’

She frowned. ‘Marie didn’t want me told?’ Somehow that hurt.

‘Only because she wanted your reaction to her to be that of any sister towards another. Very few people know of her illness, only myself, Dominic, his mother—and his brother too now.’ His mouth twisted.

‘I think Danny is in love with her,’ Sara revealed huskily.

‘I know,’ her father acknowledged heavily. ‘But it won’t do him any good, Marie just isn’t interested.’

‘No.’ Dominic was Marie’s love, but Sara felt pity for Danny, knowing such an unwanted love herself, for Dominic. It seemed that both of them had lost out, that they had loved tragically.

She went to bed, but she didn’t sleep, and Marie seemed very restless too, tossing and turning in her bed. She went in to look at her once, just to make sure she wasn’t awake and in pain. Marie was asleep, but muttering constantly, actually crying out a couple of times. She looked so young and vulnerable lying there, the bright bubbly personality she showed to other people stripped from her, leaving her looking like a lost little girl.

Marie slept in late the next morning. Sara didn’t sleep at all, finally giving up to go and sit downstairs. It seemed her father was sleeping late too, and when the maid announced Dominic’s arrival she had no other choice but to receive him, her embarrassment acute as she sat up from her lying position on the sofa.

Dominic looked no more pleased to see her than she was him; his expression was forbidding. ‘Marie and your father are still resting?’ he asked stiffly, looking very tall and attractive in navy blue trousers and a matching fitted shirt, the sleeves of the latter turned back to just below his elbows.

‘Yes,’ she answered gruffly.

‘But you didn’t feel the same need?’ There was bitter mockery in his voice.

‘I—I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Couldn’t, or wasn’t allowed to?’ Dominic scorned.

Sara was very pale, her brown eyes shadowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You spent the night with your lover, didn’t you?’ he derided harshly.

She blushed. ‘I spent part of the night with Eddie, yes,’ she confirmed in a stilted voice. ‘But not all of it.’

‘At least your father was spared that humiliation.’ Dominic’s mouth twisted. ‘Explaining away your sudden absence wasn’t very easy, worrying about what you were doing was even harder on him.’

‘What I was doing …?’ Sara echoed in a choked voice.

‘Yes,’ he snapped tautly. ‘Spending the night with your lover wasn’t supposed to be conducive to his peace of mind, was it?’

‘Eddie wasn’t my lover—–’

‘Wasn’t?’ Dominic cut in sharply. ‘Does that mean he is now?’ He grasped her arms and shook her. ‘Does it, Sara?’

‘And if he were?’ Her eyes blazed with anger. She was exhausted from her sleepless night, crying with the pain of her sister’s illness, and aching with the love she felt towards Dominic. Just to have him touch her, even in anger like this, was an agony of pleasure almost too much to bear. She shook out of his grasp, anger her only form of defence against his overwhelming attraction. ‘What does it have to do with you?’ she asked him defiantly.

He thrust her even further away from him. ‘Not a lot, apparently. What time did you get home? And don’t ask what that has to do with me, I just wanted to know what time Marie got to bed.’

There was silent condemnation in his glacial blue eyes, and all fight left her. ‘She was already in bed when I got home just after three,’ she told him dully.

His mouth tightened. ‘Why him, Sara?’ he ground out fiercely.

‘Why him—–? He isn’t my lover, Dominic,’ she admitted softly. ‘I just cried on his shoulder a little.’