‘You were unlucky.’ She saw the dark eyebrows rise derisively and added quickly, ‘You said she was virtually chosen by your mother and presented in a nice gift-wrapped package your mother knew would appeal. Your mother orchestrated it all really.’
Although how a woman could behave like that to her own son was beyond belief. But then, through the ages, from Roman times and before, there were instances of mothers murdering offspring for position, manoeuvring sons and daughters and sacrificing them for gain or spite, toppling children from thrones and betraying one child in favour of another. Love could be the most powerful force for good in the universe but when it was corrupted…
‘So you believe in happy families and two point four children?’
His voice had been scathing and now her small chin lifted in defiance of the mockery. ‘When it works, when it’s good then it can be very, very good,’ she said quietly, ‘like with my own parents.’
‘And when it doesn’t work?’ he asked expressionlessly. ‘Who is there for the countless casualties, the children, then? Who mends the broken lives, Robyn? Society demands we put a nice clean mask on and get on with the task of living, you know that as well as I do. There are millions of people out there living in a hell of their own making, and the divorce statistics don’t even begin to tell the real number.’
‘You are like the old man who looked at the sky and saw the rain clouds.’ She didn’t have the words to fight what he was saying, besides which the cynicism, the pain, was too much to combat. ‘Next to them was a gloriously radiant rainbow, and when someone pointed that out to him do you know what he said?’
‘Surprise me.’
‘That is merely an arch of colours formed by reflection which will shortly disperse, leaving only the rain clouds.’
He eyed her silently for some moments, and Robyn was conscious of a sudden squawk and carrying-on in the privet hedge at the far side of the garden where a group of sparrows were squabbling as to who sat where, before all fell silent and the insects continued their background drone.
‘Old man.’ His tone was thoughtful. ‘Charming!’
‘I meant—’
‘I know what you meant.’ His eyes were pure silver in the mellow light, and sombre, his lips slightly pursed as though in reflection. And then his mouth unexpectedly softened. ‘Are you real, Robyn Brett?’ he murmured, pulling her towards him so that the smell and feel of him was all about her, teasing at her senses and making her head swim.
‘Real enough.’ She tried to make it light but instead her voice came out breathless.
‘Maybe, maybe not.’ He was holding her loosely within the circle of his arms, his hands round her waist and his face looking down into her upturned one. ‘For the first time in a long, long while I’m looking forward to being with someone, and I’m not so sure I like that at times.’ The comment was almost bewildered and at another time, with someone else, might have been funny. But not now, not with Clay.
Robyn was aware her heart had soared at the reluctant confession which again was a warning in itself, and an odd panicky yet thrilling, excitement had her looking at him wide-eyed, her pupils dilated. His eyes looked back at her, crystal-bright under their thick black lashes and his hard, handsome face dark.
He didn’t want to start caring about her. Her heart was pounding much too fast and she wanted to take a long, deep breath to draw air into her lungs but she didn’t dare. Those piercing eyes saw far too much at the best of times.
And she understood the playboy façade now. The two women who should have loved him most in his life—his mother and his wife—had been the very ones to betray him. The first wrecking his childhood and youth, taking his twin brother from him and slowly torturing his father, and the second rejecting and deceiving him, entrapping him in a loveless marriage which had threatened to destroy his mental health. How could he ever open up his eyes to the beauty of the rainbow after all that?
She took hold of her racing thoughts, forcing her voice into the lightness she had tried for earlier as she said quietly, ‘It’s only you who can decide who you want to be with and how you see your life mapping out, Clay. I’m not going to twist your arm one way or the other.’
‘I’d worked that out for myself,’ he said with the touch of dryness which was habitual with him. ‘Perhaps that’s why I’ve told you more about my past than I’m comfortable with. They say confession is good for the soul but I find the concept of wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve a particularly repugnant one.’
‘I’d worked that out for myself.’ She parried his earlier words with a smile, and was rewarded by a low chuckle. He pulled her into him, kissing her very thoroughly before raising his head again and looking down into her flushed face.
‘How much longer are you going to keep up this ridiculous charade?’ he drawled easily.
‘Charade?’ The change from the bitter, angry and hurt individual to the one who was faintly bewildered by the need to be with her had been pretty hard to take, but now this third person—the normal Clay, the Clay who was totally sure of himself and everyone else—hit her on the raw. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she prevaricated to give herself time to think.
‘You said you wanted time to get to know me,’ he reminded her offhandedly, one hand stroking down her hot face and tracing the outline of her mouth, swollen and tingling from his kisses, before his fingers continued to caress her throat. And then his hand moved in a light, tantalising way over her swollen breasts, which ached from the pressure of being held next to his hard male chest, and she had to bite back a low moan of desire as his fingers lingered on one hard peak. ‘So, what else do you want to know?’ he queried softly.
Now this was pure going-for-the-jugular style, Clay Lincoln. Master strategist and never one to miss an opportunity, Robyn thought with a spurt of healthy anger. She didn’t think for a minute he had purposefully revealed all he had about his background with a premeditated idea of using her sympathy to get her into his bed; in fact she suspected he had annoyed himself with just what he had said, but that taken as read he still had one ultimate goal in mind—an affair. With everything his own way and on his terms. He was amazing!
The lingering effects of his lovemaking and the tender ache in her heart brought about by his revelations about his past took a nose dive. He was still playing games and working to a formula, she acknowledged bitterly.
‘Why do I feel the temperature has suddenly dropped t
en degrees?’ he drawled silkily.
‘Why do I feel I’m being manipulated?’ Robyn countered with a sweetness that didn’t hide the acid underneath.
‘It was worth a try.’ He was totally unrepentant, and Robyn went along with the overt mockery to diffuse the overwhelmingly fierce intimacy that always was a breath away when they were alone together.
Over the last weeks she had grown closer to him, and he to her, and they both knew it. She also knew Clay liked that even less than he liked the thought of looking forward to being with her. This was not what he had expected a couple of months ago when he had first decided to renew his old acquaintance with Guy’s little sister-in-law, she acknowledged painfully. He’d had her labelled as one of the very cosmopolitan, worldly career women he usually went for. But she hadn’t played ball. She still didn’t intend to play ball. So…