Dark Fever

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Hmm...’ he said in a dry tone. ‘I suppose you’ve been eating in your apartment? You must have run through most of your food by now. If you need anything from the hotel shop, by the way, you know you can ring them and order it, and have it delivered?’

‘Thank you, I’ll remember that.’

They were talking like strangers on the surface, then-voices polite and impersonal—but their eyes were at war. She kept her lids half closed, hiding herself, shutting him out, but she continually felt the probing of her defences, the quick, shrewd stare fastening on her quivering mouth, her restless hands, her nervous, half-veiled eyes, the vein beating in her neck, every tiny betraying signal of her body language. Gil wasn’t buying her withdrawal, her cool manner towards him in front of Freddie. He was trying to find out what she was really thinking and feeling, and he was far too good at guessing.

That was the last thing Bianca wanted. She was struggling with her feelings, trying to suppress them; she didn’t want him to have an idea what she was going through just having him so close.

‘You’ve got sand on your arm,’ he said, and leaned down, brushed his fingertips lightly over her skin.

Her heart winced with pain. The brief touch was enough to waken every pulse in her body and make her ache for him; her skin began to burn with instant reaction and she felt him watching her, reading her every slightest response with the efficiency of a Geiger counter.

I must get away from him, she thought desperately. I can’t bear this. Shame made her stomach clench. She had hoped that these physical reactions were finished with, but they weren’t, and that frightened her. She had always believed that desire was part of love, but to love you had to know someone completely, to know all about them—and what, after all, did she know about Gil? They had only met for the first time less than two weeks ago. Two weeks was a blink in the procession of time. She had known Rob for a long, long time before she’d got engaged to him.

But you never felt like this about Rob! she told herself, her heart sinking. When did Rob ever make you burn to touch him, to give yourself to him there and then—?

Stop it! she thought, shuddering. Stop think

ing that way.

‘Why don’t we all have dinner tonight?’ asked Freddie, and Bianca quickly answered, very flushed and agitated.

‘I’m sorry, I really would rather have an early night tonight. I’m still trying to get plenty of rest.’

‘Tomorrow night, then?’ asked Freddie. ‘We’re leaving, remember. We won’t get another chance to have that dinner party.’ Her voice was coaxing, full of sunny warmth. ‘Do say yes, Bianca.’

Bianca couldn’t turn her down; it would have been rude and unfriendly and she didn’t want to be either to Freddie. She took a reluctant breath, then nodded.

‘OK, then, tomorrow night,’ she promised, and Freddie beamed, then looked at her brother-in-law.

‘What about you, Gil? You’ll come, won’t you?’

His grey eyes flicked to Bianca’s face, reading the nervous expression in it without difficulty. His mouth twisted; she quickly looked down, and heard him say in a soft, deliberate voice, ‘I’d love to, if Bianca is going to be there!’

Freddie laughed. ‘I thought you would!’

Bianca bit down on her inner lip and winced at the bruising which still stiffened her mouth.

Gil went on, ‘But I have to drive over to Nerja in the afternoon, to walk around the new hotel site with my architect. I’m not meeting him until four, and the meeting may take some time, so I may be late back— can we make dinner at half-past eight?’

‘Is that all right with you, Bianca?’ Freddie asked her, and Bianca shrugged, still avoiding Gil’s gaze, her mind working frantically. So he was going to be out all afternoon tomorrow!

‘Yes, fine,’ she mumbled.

There was a yell from the edge of the sea and Freddie glanced that way, waved and got up.

‘Karl wants me—be seeing you, Gil.’ She ran off down the beach and Bianca felt her body tense immediately. This was what she did not want—to be left alone with Gil. She was terrified of what he might say or do next with his sister-in-law out of the way.

Hurriedly, to distract him from whatever he might have in mind, she asked, ‘Did you say you were planning a new hotel somewhere?’

‘Yes, at Nerja.’ He was standing over her, his dark shadow somehow threatening, making her shiver.

‘Where’s Nerja? Near here?’

‘Along the coast from Marbella, about an hour’s drive. This is a very busy coastal road with a string of crowded resorts spaced out along it—it can take you an age to get from one town to the next; it all depends on the volume of traffic. If the roads are clear I might make it to Nerja in three-quarters of an hour; if there’s a lot of traffic it could take me an hour and a half. Why?’ His grey eyes narrowed on her. ‘Would you like to come along for the ride?’

‘No,’ she broke out, the pulse in her throat beating furiously at the very idea of being alone with him again, even if only in a car.