He hadn't moved any nearer, made any threatening gesture, but she was rooted to the spot with an overwhelming fear of what he might do if she moved so much as an inch. 'You thought I would marry you, commit myself to you when I was using another woman in that way, forcing her to watch us together and even expect her to keep my house?'
She stared at him, her eyes enormous in the chalk-white of her face, as his lips drew back from his teeth in a contemptuous snarl that paralysed her with fright. 'And my fumbling attempts to make you understand how much I loved you—you thought they were all part of the act?' he asked acidly. 'No wonder you cut me dead each time I tried to make you understand how I felt.'
His eyes narrowed still more into black slits that gave his face a sinister, panther-like darkness. 'And you were prepared to marry me, thinking all that? Sell yourself to such a man as that? What are you, Katie? Who are you? Did your flesh creep each time I touched you? Was all that passion, all that desire an act to keep the buyer happy?'
'Carlton, it wasn't like that.' She was frightened, desperately, helplessly frightened, her mind still reeling from the revelation that he loved her—he loved her—but that she had ruined it all, destroyed anything they might have had because he would never forgive her for this. His eyes told her so.
'The hell it wasn't.' His face was grey now, his mouth a hard white slit in a face that was as cold as ice. 'I thought I could make you love me, Katie.'
He gave a harsh bark of a laugh. 'Funny, isn't it? The ultimate irony. I couldn't believe that, feeling as I did, you wouldn't respond. Oh, I know you hated me at the beginning, that circumstances conspired to make it all wrong, but the physical chemistry was real—or I thought it was.'
'You hit me like a ton of bricks that day you came to the office, when I sat with you on my lap and you sobbed out all your insecurities and pain. But we'd got off to a bad start so I thought I'd play the waiting game, persevere, be around.'
'But every time we met there were fireworks and then the solution was dropped in my lap. I could help your father, keep you near me at the same time and show you the man I really was. I was going to be patient, believe it or not.' His face was caustic with self-contempt 'I wasn't going to force my unwelcome attentions on you, I was going to wait until you were ready, however long it took, because once you had married me I had all the time in the world. No one else could touch you. But then…'
He shook his head slowly. 'What the hell was that on our wedding night, Katie? You didn't have to give satisfaction for money like some whore in a brothel.'
She deserved it She knew she deserved it but his words were more punishment that she could bear. The bitter hurt and pain that had turned his face into a stone mask cut her like a knife. What had she done? What had she done! She had seen so many glimpses of his caring side even before they were married and the tenderness he had displayed since they had been man and wife had touched her time and time again. She should have known he wasn't capable of this thing—she should have known, especially loving him as she did.
'Please, Carlton,' she whispered brokenly. 'Let me explain.'
'You've had your revenge, Katie.' As she went to walk towards him he lifted his hand to stop her. 'You've shown me what an arrogant fool I am, but just at this moment the urge to wring that beautiful neck of yours is overpowering so just keep your distance for an hour or so,' he warned with chilling grimness.
'But I want to talk to you,' she pleaded desperately. 'This isn't what you think—'
'I don't want to talk to you,' he said bitterly. 'In fact I don't want to look at you, think about you—' He turned and strode past her, walking to the French doors at the end of the room and opening them savagely before striding out on to the patio and disappearing behind the trees.
'Carlton!' She screamed his name but there was no reply, just the bright, sun-filled room and warm, scented air that was a mockery in itself when she could hardly breathe for the agony that was tearing her apart.
How long she stood there in the screaming silence she didn't know, but eventually she walked slowly across the room and up the stairs, entering their bedroom and walking out on to the balcony that was already hot underfoot with the heat of the sun. She looked up into the clear blue sky first, her eyes narrowed against the piercing light, and then down into the garden below, gazing blindly into space as her mind whirled and spun.
He had said he loved her. The thought was drumming loudly in her head along with the sickening, weak feeling in her stomach which the sudden confrontation had produced. Why hadn't he told her before? Then none of this would have happened.
Her mind searched its memories, like a computer compiling data, and suddenly several little incidents, when he had tried to do just that, were stark and clear in front of her. But she had been too blind, too stubborn to deviate from the verdict her brain had decided to reach and now she had lost him.
She whimpered out loud as she gripped her arms round her waist and swung back and forth in an agony of grief, the locket that he had given her on their wedding night moving gently against her throat.
A sudden movement below focused her eyes on the swimming-pool and she saw Carlton's powerful body cutting through the water like a machine, his arms and legs keeping up an unbelievable speed as he swam relentlessly up and down it.
He was nearly an hour in the water and her eyes didn't leave him for a moment, and when at last he hauled himself out to stand naked and magnificent for a moment in the blazing hot sun she saw that his shoulders were bowed as though with an unbearable weight, and the pain was so intense in her throat that she thrust her fist into her mouth to stop herself crying out. She had hurt him, hurt him as no one else had ever done. The knowledge was crucifying.
She watched him as he pulled his jeans on slowly, running a hand through his wet hair as he straightened, and then the big, lean body stiffened, his shoulders squaring and tensing, and she knew he had come to a decision of some kind.
'Pack your things, Katie.' As he joined her in the bedroom she turned to face him, her heart poundi
ng. 'I'll check the first flight to England.'
'We're going back?' There was a lump in her throat that was making speech almost impossible.
'I hardly think there's any point in continuing this travesty, do you?' he asked grimly as his eyes flickered briefly over her tear-stained face before he turned to leave the room. 'Besides which I want to make sure Maisie doesn't do something silly—something Joe might have to live with for the rest of his life.'
'Carlton—'
'Don't offer any platitudes, Katie.' He swung round so savagely that she took an instinctive step backward, her hand going to her mouth as she realised that his veneer of self-control was paper-thin. 'I don't want to listen to a word you might say. Just keep quiet and pack your things.'
They left that day on an evening flight, the tall, dark, stony-faced man and pale, fair-haired slip of an English girl, and no one looking at their faces would have guessed feat they were on their honeymoon.
Katie was in the grip of a fear so overwhelming that she was functioning purely on automatic, the guilt and horror of what her hasty words had produced in Carlton almost unbearable. He had retreated behind that invincible authority and coldness that had so misled her in the early days, unassailable and proud and quite unreachable.