Substitute Lover
Substitute Lover
PENNY JORDAN
Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now.He needed a make-believe lover…It was such a strange request - Gray Chalmers asking Stephanie to pose as his lover to help him resist the attractions of a beautiful but married woman. Gray knew Stephanie, knew she didn't even like being touched. Yet he insisted she come back to the village to play the part of the femme fatale.Gray had never pried into the bitter marriage Stephanie had endured to his cousin. He'd offered only comfort in the ten years since its tragic ending. So, while she hated the pretense, she couldn't refuse.
Substitute Lover
Penny Jordan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u07b82a2e-d6c3-5e94-b9b5-c323686d00c6)
Title Page (#u7abe2e29-0358-5d39-b0e9-32fe6cf01be3)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u257ae8f7-09ab-5ddb-b74c-40a6b084d208)
AHEAD of her loomed the motorway exit sign for the village. Stephanie sighed faintly, the soft sound whispering past vulnerably curved lips. The late afternoon sunlight burnished her long hair into a shining copper cloak. Normally she wore it up in a neat chignon, but today she had left it loose.
Only the inward clenching of her stomach muscles betrayed her growing tension. She hated coming back so much. Fear and pain mingled inside her, making her fingers grip harder on the steering-wheel.
If it wasn’t for Gray … She shuddered visibly, aching to close her eyes and blot out the terrible images blocking out the gentle, rolling countryside and the wide span of the motorway.
Never, ever, no matter how long she lived, would she forget that terrible night when they had come to tell her that Paul was dead. The shock of it, coming so quickly on the heels of that last bitter quarrel, had produced a burden of guilt she carried with her still.
Even now, ten years later, she often woke in the night re-living that last fatal evening they had spent together. The quarrel had blown up over nothing—and it had not been the first time. After only three months of marriage Paul had become a stranger—a frighteningly violent stranger, too, at times—who called her frigid and sexless, and complained that he wished he had never married her.
He had stormed out of the cottage and she had let him, too confused and miserable to try and coax him back.
It had been a bad summer, with constant gales and dangerous seas. She had never dreamed that he intended to take out his boat, but he had. Who knew what thoughts had been in his mind in those last few hours of his life? The seas had been far too dangerous for a lone yachtsman, so the coastguard had told them, and Paul, reckless as always, had omitted to wear his buoyancy jacket and safety harness.
He had been swept overboard by one of the giant waves, or so the authorities surmised, because his body had been found on a beach by an early morning stroller.
His grief-stricken parents had demanded to know why she hadn’t alerted the coastguard earlier, when he had not come home, and Stephanie had been forced to lie, unwilling to add to their pain by telling them that there had been other nights during their brief marriage when he hadn’t come home, when she had slept alone in the wide double bed she had grown to hate. But John and Elise Chalmers had worshipped their only child, and she had not had the heart to destroy their image of him.
She knew that they blamed her for his death, and in her heart of hearts she felt equally guilty. If she had been a different type of woman … if she had had the sexuality to keep Paul at her side, he would not have grown bored with her company … would not have been driven by the relentless devil that possessed him, unleashing a streak of violence in him that she had never suspected existed.
They had married too young and on too short an acquaintance; she knew that now. Neither of them had really known the other, and by the time they realised how intrinsically different they were it was too late—they were married.
Tears stung her eyes briefly, her guilt momentarily overlaid by sorrow. Paul had been so alive … so good-looking and arrogantly male. She had stopped loving him within weeks of their marriage—the first time he had hit her he had destroyed her image of him and with it her almost childish adoration; but that did not stop her regretting his death and the waste of such a very young life.
Only Gray had stood up for her and said in that quiet, slow voice of his that she was not to blame for Paul’s death. But Gray didn’t know the truth. Even now he still didn’t know the truth, but his defence of her, the way his arms had held her, comforting and protecting her in the shocking aftermath of the news, had formed a bond between them that nothing could ever break.
Automatically she turned off the motorway, taking the pretty country road that dipped between the gentle hills and then meandered through the New Forest down to the coast. Her bright yellow VW preferred the gentle pace of country driving, the engine almost purring as the motorway was completely lost from sight and they were swallowed up by golden fields, ripely heavy with their summer crop.
Her friends in London teased her about her devotion to her little car. She earned a good living from her work as an illustration artist, and then additionally there was the income she derived from her share in the boat-yard that had been in Paul’s family for several generations.
She always felt uncomfortable about that inheritance, but Gray had urged her not to dispose of it, and she had agreed. Now that Paul’s parents were dead, she and Gray were joint owners of the yard.
Pauls and Gray’s grandfather had started it, passing it on to his two sons.
Gray’s parents had been killed in a sailing accident when he was fourteen years old, and he had virtually been brought up alongside his cousin. But Paul had never really liked Gray. She had known that from the first and had put the animosity between them down to the seven-year age-gap. As a teenager, newly arrived in the area, she had found Gray both distant and rather formidable.
It had been her father’s interest in boats that had led to her introduction to Paul. The boat-yard was one of his accounts at the branch of the bank he had just been transferred to as manager, and he had taken Stephanie with him, on a visit to inspect the yard.
Paul had been working in the yard, a slim, golden-haired young god with a deep tan and a self-assured smile.
She had thought their love was mutual, but she realised now that to Paul she had only been a new challenge. He had a reputation locally as something of a playboy, but she hadn’t known that then.
She had been a rather shy teenager, a product of an all-girls’ school, studious and not as knowledgeable about sex as most of her peers.
She had just left school, and had been looking forward to going to art school after the long summer break. And then she had met Paul.
Within days they were virtually inseparable. When Paul discovered her reservations about allowing him to make love to her, and the fact that she was still a virgin, he had announced that they would get married.
That had been typical of his impulsiveness and his determination to have his own way, Stephanie had recognised later, but at the time she had been too bemused to do anything but follow where he led. Of course they had encountered massive parental objections, from both families; but the more their parents urged them to wait, the more determined Paul became that they would not.
Even Gray had suggested that they get to know one another a little better before making such an important commitment, but Paul had laughed at him, she remembered, sneering that since Gray was not married himself he was not qualified to speak.
In the end their parents had given way, perhaps in the fear that if they did not, they might do something even more reckless … and who knew … perhaps they would have done. Paul had whispered on more than one occasion that if it was the only way, they could start a baby. ‘Then they’ll have to let us get married,’ he had coaxed.
Whether or not she would have gone that far she didn’t know. Certainly she had been bemused enough by her feelings for him to do almost anything he suggested. Her parents had tried to tell her that she was suffering from a classic case of infatuation but she hadn’t wanted to know … she hadn’t wanted to believe them.
In the end, Paul had got his way. They had had a small family wedding, she had worn a white dress; and they had moved into a pretty cottage down near the harbour that Paul’s parents had bought for them. Mr and Mrs Chalmers had a large house just outside the village, and Gray lived in what had been his grandfather’s cottage quite close to the boat-yard.
Their honeymoon had been a bitter disappointment—for both of them. Paul did not have the patience or the experience to arouse her to the point where she could enjoy his lovemaking, and he had swiftly grown impatient and then angry with her for her lack of response.
The first time he had hit her had been after a quarrel, and she had been too shocked to do anything other than stare at him. Her father had never raised a hand to her in all her life, and the cruelty of Paul’s blow hurt her emotions more than her flesh.
Of course, he had immediately been contrite; they had made up their quarrel and he had sworn never to touch her in anger again.
Within days he had broken that promise and, by the time their honeymoon was over, Stephanie had learned to fear her new husband’s sudden surges of temper.
She returned to her new home and her new life sick at heart and cowed in spirit.
People noticed of course, especially her parents, but she had too much pride to tell them the truth. Inwardly she felt, as Paul claimed, that she was to blame for his violence, that she invited it in some way, and deserved it for her inability to respond to him as a woman.
His violence towards her quickly escalated to the point where she cringed every time he came near her.
They stopped making love within days of returning to their new home, and quite soon after that Paul started staying out later and later at night, and then not coming home at all.
He had made no secret of the fact that there were other girls, but whenever she suggested that they end the marriage he had flown into one of his almost maniacal tempers, and she soon learned not to bring the subject up.
His death might have freed her from the physical violence of their marriage, but emotionally she was still trapped, both in her own guilt for failing him as a woman, and her fear that she was somehow not like other members of her sex—not capable of responding sexually to anyone’s embrace.
Her memories of the unhappiness of the few short months of her marriage, and the guilt feelings that had come afterwards, were so strong, that she hated returning to the village.
Paul’s parents no longer lived there—they had moved away shortly after his death, when Paul’s father had sold out his share of the boat-yard to Gray. Now they were both dead, increasing her sense of guilt. They had both adored Paul, worshipped him almost, seeing no fault in him.
Stephanie’s own pride had made it impossible for her to discuss with anyone the cruelty of Paul’s treatment of her, and so it remained locked inside her, a dark, unhappy secret that still had the power to destroy her sleep.
There had been no man in her life since Paul. What would have been the point? She would only have incited them to violence once they discovered her lack of sexuality. Gray was the only man in her life, and their relationship was a sexless, friendly one that could quite easily have existed between two members of the same sex.
The road crested a hill. To her left she could see the bright glitter of the river, slow and majestic in its steady progress towards the sea.
Soon she would be there. A quiver of apprehension ran through her, all her doubts and dreads about the wisdom of obeying Gray’s request that she come down here betrayed in the cloudy darkness of her eyes.
Her body—too slim and fragile, perhaps, for a woman of twenty-eight—tensed, ready to absorb the shock of pain and guilt that waited for her with her first glimpse of the estuary and the sea.
It was a small place, the village, where everyone knew everyone else. They all knew about her loss; about Paul’s death, but none of them knew about her deeper anguish. Perhaps fearing his parents’ discovering the truth, Paul had gone into Southampton on those nights when he didn’t return home, and had found there, or so he had told her, the sexual satisfaction he could not get from her, his wife.
Cold … frigid. The accusations, so well remembered, hammered against her skull, turning her skin pale with anguish.
If only Gray had come up to London to discuss the business of the boat-yard with her, as he had done in the past, but this time he had been insistent that she return here. He had even threatened to come and get her if she refused and, knowing he meant it, she had eventually, reluctantly, given way.
Perhaps in her shoes another woman might have tried to prove Paul’s accusations wrong by taking one lover after another, but Stephanie couldn’t do that. She was too afraid that Paul had been right. She had failed with him, and she would fail with anyone else.
Instead, she had locked herself away behind the barrier of her guilt, using Paul as an excuse for not forming any new relationships. No other man was going to get an opportunity to abuse her physically, or hurt and betray her because she couldn’t satisfy him; no other man was going to turn from her to someone else, as Paul had done.
Not even Gray had known, as she wept in his arms, that she cried not just for Paul himself but for the betrayal of their love and her own failure to prove herself a woman. And he would never know it.
The village was in sight now, and she automatically tensed her muscles, glancing at her watch. Gone six o’clock, but Gray would probably still be at the boat-yard. She would go there first, rather than the cottage.
Gray lived there alone now and had done for several years. The shock of losing her son had led to Paul’s mother’s death, and Paul’s father, Gray’s uncle, had died two years later from a heart attack. Now only Gray was left.
The boat-yard was on the far side of the village, right down on the bank of the estuary. It had been in Gray’s family for about a hundred years.
As she parked her VW and climbed out of it, Gray emerged from his office and came towards her. Tall, with forbiddingly broad shoulders and a shock of night-black hair, he was a commandingly masculine man. Densely blue eyes studied her and, shockingly, Stephanie momentarily recognised in them the age-old appraisal of a man looking at a woman.
Gray moved and the appraisal was gone, leaving her to suspect that she must have imagined it.
The late afternoon breeze coming off the estuary flattened the silky curve of her skirt against her hip and the long line of her legs. She lifted a hand to push her hair back off her face and heard Gray growl, ‘You’re getting too thin. What have you been doing to yourself?’
‘I’m not thin, just fashionably slim!’ she protested.
He was wearing an old pair of jeans that clung to his body like a second skin. Hastily averting her eyes from the powerful muscles of his thighs, she was tensely aware of his eyes narrowing.
‘What’s wrong? You’re as skittish as a dinghy without a tiller.’
His fingers closed over her arm, drawing her towards him. She could smell the familiar male scent of his body, and felt an almost uncontrollable urge to cling to him and let him stand between her and her pain.
‘You know coming down here always affects me like this.’
Instead of comforting her as he normally did, he released her almost abruptly.
‘After ten years?’ There was something almost sardonic about the way he said it. ‘That’s one hell of a long time to grieve, Steph.’
Before she could comment, the office door opened and a stunning blonde came out. Dressed in tight white jeans and a brief silky top, she swayed provocatively towards them.
‘I’ve still got a few things to do down here.’ Gray glanced towards the blonde. ‘I’ll take you up to the cottage and join you there later.’
Stephanie always stayed at the cottage when she visited Gray. The village had no hotel, and besides, where else should she stay? But now some contrariness made her glance across at the blonde walking towards them, her mouth curling slightly as she asked, ‘Are you sure you want me to stay with you, Gray? I don’t want to be in the way.’
She saw his mouth tighten. ‘Well now, that’s quite a question. What made you ask it, I wonder?’
For some reason she had annoyed him. Conscious of the blonde watching them, Stephanie took a deep breath.
‘Nothing at all. I just wondered if your girlfriend might object?’
‘Girlfriend?’ His dark head swivelled to look at the blonde. She smiled back, teasingly. She was older than Stephanie had first imagined, and she was wearing a wedding ring, but that meant nothing these days.
‘Carla won’t mind. She knows that we’re old friends.’
As though to prove the point he called over casually to the blonde, ‘I’m just taking Stephanie back to the cottage. I won’t be long.’
Stephanie had to run to keep up with his long-legged stride as he walked towards her VW. Watching him fold himself inside reminded her of how tall and broad he was, the play of hard muscles beneath his skin alienly male.
She just wasn’t used to being this close to a man … any man, she told herself as she drove the car towards the cottage; that was why she was so conscious of Gray’s masculinity.
‘I’ve put you in the far bedroom,’ he told her laconically as he opened the cottage door. ‘I’ll leave you to get yourself settled in. I’ll be back in half an hour. I’ve just got one or two things to finish off.’
‘Half an hour. I’m sure Carla would be very flattered if she heard that.’
Suddenly conscious of how waspish and acid she sounded, Stephanie turned away from him. What was the matter with her? Gray had had girlfriends before. He was one of the most eligible men on the estuary. Physically, he was everything a woman could want in a man; he was also kind and gentle. Strange that at thirty-four-odd he should still be unmarried, and stranger still that she had never questioned his lack of a wife before.
‘Oh, I’m sure I could think of a way to make amends.’ He said it so softly that the words shivered across her skin, the look in his eyes as she turned to stare at him making her own widen with shocked pain.
Gray was her friend. He knew how much she loathed anything that had the slightest sexual connotation, and yet here he was deliberately making her aware of his sexuality, of the very masculine side of him that he had previously held in check.
Before she could protest he said bleakly, ‘Don’t provoke me, Steph, I’m not in the mood for it.’
As he turned away from her she recognised that she was not the only one who had lost weight; he too was slightly thinner, his profile carved in slightly harder lines. Was something wrong? Was that why he wanted to see her? Was that why he was acting so oddly? From the time of Paul’s death he had been her friend, he had supported and protected her, and she had come to lean on him, to trust him, as she knew she could never trust anyone else, but now …
He paused at the door and turned towards her.
‘Not everyone’s like you, Steph,’ he told her harshly. ‘We haven’t all abdicated from the human race, and the needs and emotions that go with being human.’
Stephanie recoiled as though he had hit her. In all the years they had been friends, Gray had never once spoken to her like that. Never once looked at her the way he was looking at her right now, with his mouth twisted and his eyes hard and accusing.
‘Gray …’ Panic filled her voice and her eyes. What was happening to them? She was losing him … losing his friendship … she could sense it, feel it almost …
‘I’ll see you later.’
He was gone before she could object. Numbly she stared at the closed door. What was happening? A tiny frisson of fear trembled through her. She wandered uneasily round the small sitting-room. The cottage was very old, the rooms low-ceilinged and beamed. She sat down in one of the chintz-covered chairs and stared unseeingly into the empty fireplace. The horse brasses, collected by Gray’s mother, shone against the buttermilk-coloured walls, the soft salt-laden breeze flowing in through one of the open lattice windows. The room was as familiar to Stephanie as her London flat, although she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had been here since Paul’s death. The house had been let while Gray lived with Paul’s parents, but as soon as he was eighteen he had announced that he was moving into his parents’ old home. There had never been the rapport between Gray and Paul’s parents that had existed between them and their own child. Many, many times he must have felt shut out, but to his credit he had never let it show … never resented Paul in the way that the younger man had resented him. They had never discussed Paul’s animosity towards him; the past was a closed book and one which she had assumed neither of them wished to open.
She had never thought of Gray in any male or sexual sense, but today, shockingly, she had looked at him and seen not her friend, but a man with sexual desires and drives like any other.
A curious, aching pain built up inside her and spread tormentingly through her body. What was wrong with her? Was she really so insecure that she feared the thought of sharing Gray with someone else? She had always known that he didn’t live the life of a monk … but until today she had never come face to face with the reality of his sexuality, and she was shocked by her own reaction to it. Instead of feeling nothing, she had felt a surprising degree of jealousy. But why?
And why had Gray been so offhand, almost angry with her? Normally he greeted her with a warm hug and a welcoming smile, but not this time—not today. Had it been because Carla had been there? It shocked her how much she had missed that brief, warm contact with his body. Confused by the chaos of her thoughts and feelings, she tried to dismiss them as a natural result of her return to the place where she had known such pain and misery, but something deep inside her refused to be convinced.
Angry with herself, Stephanie went outside to her car and brought in her suitcase. She didn’t intend staying for more than a couple of days, and it didn’t take her long to unpack her things and put them away. The room she was sleeping in had sloping eaves and a tiny window that overlooked the wild tangle of the cottage garden, and the hills beyond. The cottage had four bedrooms, and this one had once been Gray’s.
Now he slept in the large double bedroom which had once been his parents’, and as she stepped out on to the landing something made her hesitate and then slowly push open the door to Gray’s room.
He had an experienced sailor’s neatness. Nothing was out of place. An old-fashioned four-poster bed dominated the room, and against her will Stephanie’s eyes were drawn to it. How many women had shared it with Gray over the years? None of them would have been like her, frigid and undesirable. A lump gathered painfully in her chest, a familiar sense of anguish enveloping her. She didn’t want to be the way she was. She …
‘Looking for something?’
The unexpectedly harsh sound of Gray’s voice behind her made her jump. She turned round sharply, stumbling in shock. She hadn’t heard him come in.
Instantly his arms came out to steady her. Although it had been months since he last held her, she was immediately aware of a sense of homecoming and security. Without being aware of what she was doing, she snuggled up against him, sighing faintly.
‘For God’s sake, Stephanie!’
Instantly she stiffened in his arms, suddenly conscious of the hard thud of his heart and the heat coming off his body.
‘What the hell are you doing? Dreaming about Paul? He’s dead, Stephanie. Dead. And for all the living you do, you might as well be, too. Hasn’t there been anyone in these last ten years?’
‘I don’t want that sort of relationship in my life. You know that.’ She had to turn her head so that he couldn’t look at her.
As his arms dropped away from her, he said flatly, ‘We … you can’t go on living like this, Steph. It’s not …’
‘Not what? Not “natural”? Is that what you’re going to say, Gray? That I’m not “natural”?’
Her overwrought nerves shrieked in protest as she flung the words at him.
He seemed to be looking at her with an odd mixture of pain and defeat in his eyes. Her breath locked in her throat, tears not far away. What on earth was happening to them? She and Gray had been so close, such good friends, and now … and now they seemed to be teetering on the brink of destroying all that they had shared.
He made a slight movement, a reaching out towards her from which she immediately recoiled, her expression proud and tortured as she cried out painfully, ‘You want the truth, Gray? All right, I’ll give it to you. I don’t have the least interest in sex.’ She took a deep, rather shaky breath. ‘I’m frigid, Gray.’ There, she’d said it; she’d admitted at last the agonising lack of sexuality that had caused her so much pain.
‘Steph!’
She heard the shock in Gray’s voice, but she couldn’t respond to it; couldn’t listen to any more questions now, however well meant. Gray cared for her as a friend, and would want to help her, but this was one problem that no one else could help with.
Suddenly she had an overwhelming need to be alone.
‘I … I think I’d better find somewhere else to stay tonight, Gray, I …’
She saw from the look on his face that she had hurt and angered him. So many gulfs were springing up between them, so many barriers that couldn’t be crossed.
She made a dash for her room and privacy, coming to an abrupt halt as Gray’s fingers tightened round her wrist, holding her prisoner. Shock had darkened his eyes to dense sapphire, his mouth a hard line of disbelief as he shook her.
‘What the hell is this, Steph? Is that really what you think? That you’re frigid?’
‘Isn’t it what you think?’ As she stood there, trembling, Stephanie wondered frantically what on earth had happened between them to promote this conversation. Talking about her relationship with Paul and the flaws in her femininity wasn’t something she had ever wanted to do, least of all with Gray, who, friend though he was, was also so undeniably male that he made her acutely aware of the pathetic shortcomings in her own personality. Instinctively, without knowing how she possessed that knowledge, she knew that as a lover Gray would be both skilled and tender.
Dragging her mind away from such provocative thoughts she saw that he was frowning.
‘I don’t make those kind of assumptions without some hard facts to back them up. As I haven’t been to bed with you, I don’t know, do I?’
It was what he hadn’t said rather than what he had that shocked her speechless.
‘I’ll wash and then we’ll have something to eat. I’ve got a lot to talk over with you.’
His calm words broke the spell that had held her silent.
‘Won’t Carla object to your spending the evening with me?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Why should she? She knows that we’re old friends.’
To her chagrin, Stephanie realised that he was looking amused.
‘Why don’t you go down and make us some coffee? And then over dinner I’ll show you the plans of the new boat I’m working on.’
This was the Gray she knew … her friend. The tension that had engulfed her earlier eased. Feeling relieved, she hurried downstairs to the kitchen.
Mrs Ames, Gray’s daily, had left a casserole ready-prepared in the fridge, and one of her famous apple pies.
Although the cottage had a pretty dining-room, normally when she came to stay they ate off trays in the sitting-room. It was more cosy.
It didn’t take long to make the coffee and, wanting to make amends for her earlier childishness, Stephanie poured some into a mug for Gray and took it upstairs.
His bedroom door was open. She could smell the clean, pine-fresh scent of his soap, and from behind the closed door of his bathroom she could hear him singing.
Her mouth curved into a brief grin as she recognised the familiar sound of an old sea shanty. It was one Gray only sang when he was feeling particularly happy. Perhaps she had been wrong about there being some serious problem with the boat-yard.
Knocking briefly on his open door, she walked into his bedroom. She had been silly to get so upset simply because he had asked about her as a friend. Not knowing the truth, he had simply thought that she had grieved for Paul for long enough.
But now that he did know the truth … he had not exhibited the shock she might have expected. Lost in thought, she gnawed worriedly at her lower lip.
The door to Gray’s bathroom opened and he walked into the bedroom, plainly unaware that she was there. His hair was damp and he was towelling it roughly. The rest of his body … Scarlet faced, Stephanie stood rooted to the spot, totally unable to move, as she slowly absorbed the details of his nude body.
Gray only realised that she was there when he threw down the towel. Transfixed with shock and embarrassment, Stephanie gulped as he walked past her and gently closed the bedroom door.
‘I … I brought you a cup of coffee.’
Her voice was a thick, unfamiliar croak, but at least speaking freed her from her momentary paralysis. She turned to flee and discovered that somehow Gray was standing in front of the door.
‘Thank you.’ He said it gently, casually reaching out to take the mug from her. Hideously embarrassed, Stephanie looked everywhere but at him. Why, oh why had she walked into his bedroom in the first place? She had known that he was having a shower.
‘What’s the matter, Steph?’ His voice was as soft as silk, but still she couldn’t look at him. ‘You’ve seen me working on the boats wearing not that much more.’
‘That … that was different.’ She was having difficulty in swallowing.
‘Not that much surely. I’m the one who should be embarrassed, you know.’
Maybe he should be, but he certainly wasn’t. Why on earth didn’t he put some clothes on?
As though he read her mind, he moved to one side, opening a drawer and casually pulling out socks and underpants.
‘Pass me that shirt on the bed, will you?’
He sounded so casually at ease that Stephanie found she was doing what he asked almost without thinking. By the time she had handed it to him, he was already wearing the brief dark-coloured underpants.
‘The sight of a nude male surely can’t be so shocking, can it? After all, there was Paul … the two of you were married, even if you are claiming that his death made you frigid. You must have known what boys look like.’
The hint of teasing in his voice made her skin burn. She was too stunned to correct his mistaken assumption that her frigidity was the result of Paul’s death. ‘Boys, yes, but … but you aren’t a boy, Gray.’
He didn’t say anything, but Stephanie had the distinct impression that he smiled faintly before he pulled his shirt on.
Watching his fingers move deftly over the buttons, securing them so that the tanned expanse of his torso with its shadowing of dark silk hair was hidden from her, aroused the most curious sensation in the pit of her stomach. He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a set of cuff-links.
‘Damn, I can’t seem to manage these. Come and give me a hand will you, Steph?’
Numbly she walked over to him, trying to focus her eyes on the sinewed strength of his wrist as he bared it for her inspection. The contrast between his dark, tanned skin and the crisp whiteness of his shirt cuff was curiously disturbing. She wanted to put her fingertips over the strong pulse she could see beating under his skin, and feel its heat. She wanted the comfort and security of his arms, in the same way she had wanted them when Paul was killed.
It seemed to take a lifetime to secure both cuff-links, but at last it was done. When she stepped back from him she was surprised to see how shaky she felt.
‘I’d better go down and check on dinner.’
As she stepped away from him, Stephanie thought she heard him laugh softly.
What was happening to her? she wondered numbly as she went downstairs. She already knew she was sexless, incapable of arousing a man, so why was she so suddenly and inexplicably experiencing this odd desire to reach out and touch Gray? She had been shocked and embarrassed by his nudity but she had felt something else as well: a purely feminine recognition of the powerful masculinity of him, an intensely female responsiveness to his maleness. But surely that was impossible? She couldn’t experience those sort of feelings. Could she?
Thoroughly confused, she tried to concentrate on preparing their meal, and to direct her thoughts to whatever it was that Gray wanted to discuss with her, but irrationally they kept straying to Gray’s earlier assertion that he wasn’t qualified to judge whether she was frigid or not.
Could Paul have been wrong? She frowned. But surely if he had been she would have known about it before now? In the ten years since his death she had never once experienced the slightest desire for any man. The phone rang, and she went to answer it.
It was Carla, asking for Gray. As she called him to the phone Stephanie was gripped by the most painfully acute sensation of jealousy. Jealousy? But she had no right to be jealous of Carla’s place in Gray’s life. No right at all.
Thoroughly confused, she went back to the kitchen, trying to dismiss her painfully intrusive thoughts.
When he came into the kitchen Gray was frowning heavily. Whatever Carla had had to say to him it couldn’t have been to his liking. Had the blonde perhaps objected to her presence at the cottage, after all? If Gray was her lover … Gray her lover? Shock ripped through her unprepared body—the body she was so convinced could never respond sexually to any man. What on earth was happening to her?
‘Stephanie … what is it? Are you ill?’
She looked up, her eyes still dark with shock. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged. She was looking at Gray and yet it was almost as though she was looking at a stranger.
He reached out for her, warm hands gripping her rigid arms, his face creased in lines of concern.
‘You’re trembling. What is it? What’s wrong?’
Another minute and she would be cradled against the hard warmth of his body … the body that, like the man, belonged to someone else. Immediately she tensed, and Gray let her go.
She felt sick with shock as she realised what she was feeling. She was jealous. Jealous of Carla. No, not of Carla, she amended hastily … she was jealous of their relationship, because it threatened her own friendship with Gray. Yes, that was it …
Shakily she let her mind absorb her thoughts, like a swimmer frightened by the depths, now reaching out for the safety of the shallows where they could touch the ocean floor.
‘I’m all right now, Gray …’
It was obvious that he wasn’t totally convinced. ‘What happened?’
She shrugged carelessly. ‘Oh, nothing. I just felt cold, that’s all.’
It was plain that he didn’t believe her, but fortunately he didn’t press the subject.
‘I’ll fix the trays. Will you check on the casserole?’
Everything was as it had always been, she thought thankfully, obeying his instructions. Or was it? She risked a covert glance at him. She was terrified of losing his friendship … especially to another woman.
CHAPTER TWO (#u257ae8f7-09ab-5ddb-b74c-40a6b084d208)
THEY had eaten both the casserole and the apple pie before Gray broached the subject of Stephanie’s visit.
‘I’ll wash up if you make the coffee,’ he suggested, bending to take the tray from her lap. ‘No one else makes it quite the way you do.’
‘Oh, no? I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.’
Instead of making him smile, her flip answer drew a sharp frown. Now what had she done to offend him? she wondered unhappily as she followed him to the kitchen. Something was different; something had changed between them. She felt different than she had ever felt before, buoyed up and excited one moment, and miserable and on edge the next.
Amazingly, Gray managed to unfasten his cuff-links much more easily than she had put them in. Watching him as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves and started washing up their dishes, Stephanie felt a burning tide of awareness sweep over her body. His forearms were tanned and strongly muscled. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to stroke her fingertips through those thick, dark hairs.
‘I asked you to come down here because I need a favour.’ The abrupt words cut through the hazy sensuality of her private thoughts, jerking her back to reality. What on earth had come over her?
‘I’m having some problems with the boat-yard. Business has fallen off quite sharply lately. I’m working on the design for a new boat which I’m hoping will be successful. If all goes well I plan to show it at next year’s Boat Show, but launching a new boat is a pretty risky business, especially for a yard like ours.’
For no reason at all, a cold spiral of fear had invaded the pit of her stomach. Gray had stopped washing the dishes and had turned round to face her. The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense, almost stiflingly so.
‘I’m entering this year’s Fastnet, Steph,’ Gray told her quietly. ‘If I can win, and I think I can, the publicity would give the new boat a boost that nothing else could match. Winning the Fastnet will give us more publicity, more credibility than we could get from any amount of advertising.’
Stephanie knew that every word he said was true. A boat designed and made by an acknowledged winner of a race as prestigious as the Fastnet would sell better than a tennis racquet endorsed by a Davis Cup champion, but nothing could silence the words of protest from tumbling from her lips. Since Paul’s death she had been left with a morbid fear of the sea. She knew that he was himself to blame for the accident by his rash disregard of the safety rules, that did not quell her fear, there was more to it than that.
She could hardly bear to look at the sea, even on a calm day and, as Gray well knew, coming down here to the estuary was purgatory for her.
She had once loved sailing. It was her father’s hobby and, like him, she had been thrilled about his transfer to this part of the coast which had a reputation of being an idyllic spot for small boat enthusiasts.
She had been more grateful than she could say when her father had been transferred to an inland posting shortly after Paul’s death, and never once since that time had she set foot in a boat herself, even though she had once crewed enthusiastically and knowledgeably both for her father, and for Paul.
Now Gray was telling her that he intended to enter one of the most dangerous races of all, and she shook with fear for him.
‘Gray … please don’t,’ she pleaded huskily.
‘Stephanie, I have to. Don’t you understand?’ he demanded harshly. ‘If I don’t, I stand to lose the boat-yard … I have no other choice.’
She could see that, but she still longed to beg him to change his mind. Instead, she said shakily, ‘Gray, please … I don’t want to lose you as well.’
‘You won’t, I promise you you won’t.’ She felt him move as he gathered her against his body, bracing himself against the unit as he rocked her gently in his arms.
Tense with fear, Stephanie buried her face against his chest, soothed by the heavy thud of his heart.
‘If I’m to go ahead I’m going to need your help, Steph.’ His voice was muffled slightly by her hair, and slightly unsteady, as though he was under a tremendous strain. ‘I want you to move into the cottage, and take over the day-to-day running of the boat-yard for me until after the race. You could work from here on your illustrations, just as easily as you do in London …’
‘Run the yard!’ She jerked away from him, horrified. ‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Yes, you could. You did it when you and Paul were married.’
It was true that she had helped out at the yard all those years ago, organising the office along more practical lines.
‘Stephanie, when have I ever asked you for anything?’ His voice was rough, grating against her tense nerves. It was true, in their relationship he had always been the giver, she the taker. Although he didn’t say it, she felt that he was reminding her that she owed him a debt—a debt he was now calling in. How could she explain to him how much she feared and loathed everything that reminded her of Paul? He thought she was still grieving for a husband she had loved and adored. How could she tell him that what she felt was guilt—that there was no love … that the reality of marriage had woken her from what had only been an adolescent’s dream?
‘I … I need time to think …’ Implicit in her husky words was an acknowledgement of all that she owed him.
He had stood by her when she felt everyone else was against her, accusing her of pushing Paul to his death, because of their quarrel. How could she deny his request for help? She knew how much the boat-yard meant to him.
Almost on a sigh she heard herself saying, ‘I … I’ve made up my mind. I’ll do it … I …’
She didn’t get the opportunity to say any more. She was in Gray’s arms, held tight in a crushing grip that drove the breath from her lungs and brought a surge of blind panic as her body remembered how often it had been imprisoned with similar force by Paul.
She fought frantically against his constraining hold, until she felt him releasing her. Breathing deeply, she staggered back against the wall, her eyes dark with fear.
‘For God’s sake! What the hell did you think I was going to do … Rape you?’
As she raised her shocked eyes to his, Stephanie saw him rake angry fingers through his hair.
‘I know how you feel about Paul, Stephanie, but you can’t cling to those memories for ever. Christ, if that’s how you react when someone else touches you, I’m not surprised there hasn’t been anyone else.’
The look in his eyes chilled her, she felt like a child abandoned by its parents, and longed to cry out to him to understand.
Instead she moved away from the wall, and turned away, shivering with the inner bleakness possessing her.
‘Stephanie …’ She felt his fingers touch her arm and this time she didn’t move away.
‘Look, I’m sorry. We’re both wound up. I should have remembered how much you hate being touched.’
Her expression gave her away and he grimaced wryly.
‘Did you think I didn’t know? You freeze every time I come near you.’
Did she?
‘Has it ever occurred to you that there’s something dangerously obsessive about your determination to remain faithful to Paul’s memory? Do you think he would have done the same if the positions had been reversed?’ he demanded harshly. ‘It’s time to put the past behind you, Steph. Nothing’s going to bring Paul back. You’ve got to start learning to live again. You told me not long ago that you were frigid.’ His hand slid to her face cupping it, lifting it so that he could look down into her eyes.
‘I don’t think you are, but I think you’ve convinced yourself of it because it makes it easier for you to escape from the pain of loving anyone else. It’s easier to tell yourself you’re frigid than to risk loving someone whom you might ultimately lose.’
She wanted to tell him that he was wong, that she was frigid, that Paul himself had told her so; but somehow she was mesmerised by the magnetic glitter of his eyes as his head bent slowly towards her own.
Slowly, shockingly she realised what he meant to do, and by the time that knowledge had infiltrated her brain it was too late to move away. His lips were moving gently and softly over her own, their commanding impact making hers cling bemusedly to his warmth. Shock held her unmoving within his embrace, her breath obstructed by what was happening to her. She could feel her heart racing.
‘Stay with me, Stephanie. Stay with me and help me …’ Gray whispered the words against her mouth, and they brought her back to reality, releasing her from the trance imposed by his totally unexpected kiss. She drew away shakily and he let her, watching her through half-closed eyes.
‘Yes … Yes, I will.’ Her lips framed the words slowly, still quivering from the silken pressure of Gray’s kiss. Thoroughly bemused, she was barely aware of what she was saying. She heard him laugh softly, deep in his throat, as he stepped back from her.
‘You kiss like a little girl, do you know that?’
Pain pierced her. What on earth was she thinking of? To let Gray kiss her? And as for Gray himself … Her claim that she was frigid must have piqued his male curiosity, but now he knew the truth for himself he was hardly likely to kiss her again, she reflected flatly, still trying to recover from the blow of his soft-voiced taunt.
Her pride demanded some recompense and so, turning her back on him and busying herself with the coffee, she said coolly, ‘We’re friends, Gray, not lovers, and that’s how I kissed you—as a friend.’
She was a little surprised by the anger in his eyes when he reached past her to relieve her of the heavy coffee jug. She and Gray had often had arguments in the past and he had never seemed to harbour any resentment on those occasions when she won. In fact, Gray had always encouraged her to think for herself and to form her own views. He had never been the sort of man who preferred women to be obedient, quiet echoes of their men’s views.
‘If I’m going to stay on to look after the yard I’ll need to go back to London to collect my paints and some extra clothes.’
‘I’ll run you back on Monday morning. I’ve got some business to deal with, so I’ll stay at your place Monday night and then we’ll come back together on Tuesday. I’m not going to give you any opportunity to back out of this, Steph,’ he warned her, before she could speak. ‘I need your help too much for that.’
He wasn’t saying so but Stephanie also knew that he had every right to ask for and expect her help. He had, after all, given her his in those dark months after the accident. Without his support … She shuddered slightly, remembering the accusations she had flung at him then; the demand that he leave her to simply die. There had been plenty of times when she hadn’t wanted to go on living, when she had thought that there was no longer any point to life, but Gray had refused to let her go, to let her abandon herself to that sort of self-destruction.
Yes, she owed him a lot, but how on earth was she going to cope with living so close to the sea; with knowing that every day Gray himself was out there, sailing on it; that Gray was going to enter one of the most dangerous sailing races in the world? The cup she was holding slid from her fingers to crash down on to the stone floor, her hands going up to cover her face.
In a tortured voice she pleaded, ‘Gray, please don’t do it! There must be another way.’
Tough, work-scarred fingers pulled her hands away from her eyes so that he could look at her.
‘I have to do it,’ he told her grimly. ‘Can’t you understand that? The yard’s been losing money steadily over the last few years—you know that …’
She had, of course, but she had not realised how intensely Gray was worrying about it.
‘There’s still money coming in from the moorings you let out to summer visitors.’
‘Yes, they’re just about keeping us afloat, but it’s not enough. I want this yard to be again what it once was. There’s no cash available for development and investment … to do the things I want to do. You know that the design and production of small craft has always been more important to me than the day-to-day running of the yard.’
‘But the Fastnet …’ she protested weakly. ‘Gray … What … what does Carla think about it?’
The words were out before she could stop them. A curious expression, half-pain, half-pride, crossed Gray’s face.
‘She knows that it’s something I have to do,’ he told her quietly, and she was pierced with a poignant sense of loss, so totally did his voice and expression exclude her.
In those few words Gray had condemned her to the periphery of his life; had shown her that there was someone else in his life far more important to him than she could ever be.
She swallowed hard against the pain.
‘You love her a great deal.’ Her voice trembled and she saw Gray’s brief smile.
‘Can one quantify love? I don’t think so.’
‘Did you know the moment you met her that …?’
‘That I had found the woman I was going to love for the rest of my life?’ he submitted for her.
Something quivered and hurt inside her, some deep-lodged pain that, like a tiny splinter buried deep in one’s flesh, festered and irritated. Why had she never known before how possessive she felt about Gray? Why had it taken another woman to open her eyes to how desirable a man he was?
‘You’re looking very pale. What’s wrong?’
‘I just don’t like the thought of you entering the Fastnet.’ It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the entire truth either. It was the thought of losing him to Carla that had driven the blood from her face, just as much as the thought of losing him to the sea had frozen her heart in ice.
‘Come and have a look at the plans, I’ve got them here in my study.’
Something in the firm purposefulness of his voice calmed her a little. Gray knew the sea … he did not take risks … he never had. She remembered how thrilled she had been on the rare occasions she had sailed with him. Even then he had been fascinated by the problems of designing safe racing craft. His uncle had called it time-wasting. He preferred the more mundane side of the business. He had wanted to sell off part of the boat-yard to form a huge marina, but Gray and the local council had opposed him, and rightly so. It would have completely spoiled the atmosphere of the small village.
Somehow she found herself being guided into the study and sitting down alongside Gray while he unrolled plans for the hull of the new racing craft.
Soon he was lost in enthusiasm for what he was doing, pointing out to her how the design could be modified to fit into a family market; how the utilitarian interior of the prototype racing craft could be turned into comfortably luxurious accommodation for a small family.
At the moment, Stephanie was working on the book cover for a novel set in the Caribbean, and in her mind’s eye she saw Gray’s sleek new craft swinging gently at anchor in the background.
For ten years she had turned her back completely on sailing but now, poring over the plans Gray had spread out on the large partners’ desk in the study, she felt all the old enthusiasm and excitement of her teenage years come rushing back. A single glance had been enough to show her the grace and potential of Gray’s new boat. Without even having to strain her imagination to the slightest degree, she could already see the boat’s sleek lines as she sped over the water; she could almost feel the old thrill of racing against other small craft, the salt-laden breeze stinging her skin and lifting her hair. Those had been good days … happy, carefree days, before …
‘These new compounds mean that we can make the hull lighter than ever before, and these sails—–’ Gray’s finger indicated one of the sketches, and Stephanie pushed aside the past to concentrate on what he was showing her.
Unlike many of the entrants in the Fastnet Race, Gray’s yacht would only be sailed by him. Apparently, the fact that it could be handled by one man alone was one of its potential selling points in its racier form.
‘The sails will certainly give it plenty of speed,’ Stephanie remarked.
Her fear must have shown in her voice, because Gray said lightly, ‘Yes, and the special buoyancy tanks we’ve fitted will make it virtually unsinkable. The beauty of this design is that it can be fitted out as anything from a racing yacht to a sea-going cruiser, depending on what the customer wants. More and more people are sailing these days, and they’re demanding a wider and better equipped range of craft at the right price. I need that business, Stephanie, and I’m determined to get it.’ He rolled up the plans. ‘So far we’re very pleased with the way she’s tested out. I’m hoping to do the final sea trials in the next couple of weeks.’
She shivered slightly, unaware of the way the light from the lamp highlighted the rich copper tone of her hair. In the last ten years she had changed from a pretty girl into a beautiful, although somewhat haunted woman, Gray thought, watching her. He had a momentary impulse to reach out and watch her hair glide through his fingers, to see if it felt as warm and vibrant as it looked. Her mouth curved as she smiled uncertainly at him, and he got up abruptly.
‘You stay there, I’ll go and make us both some coffee.’
The clipped way he spoke broke the mood of relaxed friendship between them. It was almost as though he didn’t want her company …
Stephanie turned her head to one side automatically, hiding her expression from him. It was idiotic to feel hurt, but they had been getting on so well, and then for no reason at all, or so it seemed, Gray had suddenly retreated from her.
After he had gone into the kitchen for their coffee, Stephanie hunched her arms round her knees. The light from the lamp illuminated the haunting pensiveness of her face. Gray was right, it was time she learned to come to terms with the past, but every time she thought about Paul, every time she remembered his cruel words, every time she remembered how quickly their love had died, pain engulfed her.
It was safer to love a man the way she loved Gray, as a brother, rather than to love one the way she had loved Paul. And yet … She frowned, and chewed anxiously on her bottom lip. There was something different about Gray. She was aware of a tension within him that she had never noticed before. Gray was always so calm and controlled. She had rarely seen him lose his temper, never heard him raise his voice. He was a man of infinite resource and capability, adept at concealing his thoughts and his feelings, and yet today she had sensed that that control was slipping. Was it just because he was worried about the boat-yard?
She was still puzzling over a change in him when he came back with their coffee. A quick look at his face revealed that he was smiling at her, and Stephanie expelled a faint sigh of relief, without really knowing why she should do so. All she could think was that she didn’t want to be at odds with Gray, whatever the reason, and yet in the past they had quarrelled mightily over various issues on which they had taken opposing stances without it damaging their relationship in the slightest. So why was she so afraid now? Was it perhaps because of Carla? Did she fear that she might lose his friendship? That somehow his relationship with Carla threatened his relationship with her? But surely that was silly; she and Gray were friends, Carla and Gray were lovers.
‘Penny for them?’
Instinctively she bent her head so that a silky swathe of hair hid her expression from him. It was the first time she had ever felt the need to be defensive with Gray, and part of her mourned the fact that this should be so.
‘They aren’t worth it.’ She smiled up at him and wondered if her smile looked as forced as it felt. ‘I think I’ll go up to bed, if you don’t mind, Gray. I’m tired—it must be the hot weather.’
She had to avoid looking at him as she gave voice to the small lie. She never went to bed early on the first night of her visits. She and Gray normally stayed up until the early hours of the morning, catching up on one another’s news, teasing each other, talking … But tonight, for some reason, she was conscious of an air of constraint between them, and almost every time she looked at Gray, she couldn’t help mentally picturing him with Carla, his body as magnificently nude as it had been earlier, its muscled hardness covering the blonde’s more delicately female shape.
Gray didn’t say a word about her unusual decision to go to bed early, but as he walked her to the door and opened it for her, Stephanie glanced up at him and saw that his dark eyebrows were drawn together in a heavy frown.
Instinctively, without thinking what she was doing, she raised herself up on tiptoe, and pressed her fingertips to the frown lines, tenderly smoothing them away. Her gesture was completely unselfconscious, born of her desire to restore their relationship to its normal footing, but from the way Gray reacted her touch might have burned his skin like acid.
Lean fingers clamped round her wrist, his head jerking back as though he loathed the physical contact between their skins.
The pain of his bone-crunching grip was nothing to compare with the anguish of rejection which Stephanie suffered, when she saw the look of revulsion in his eyes.
‘Gray!’ Shock rounded her eyes to deep violet pools of pain, humiliation sending a burning wave of scarlet across her skin. Her arm throbbed from the tightness of his grip, and a terrible feeling of nausea churned in her stomach. What was it she had done?
Blue eyes narrowed sharply on her face, a hard burn of colour darkening the taut thrust of Gray’s cheekbones. More than ever he reminded her of a beast of prey, a dangerous jungle cat, waiting to pounce on its victim.
‘What did I do wrong?’
The words whispered past lips trembling slightly with the aftermath of shock.
Stephanie saw Gray’s lips twist. ‘Twenty-eight years old and you have to ask me that? You haven’t done the male sex any favours by living like a nun since Paul’s death, Steph.’
The violet eyes betrayed bewilderment and he made a sound of self-derision deep in his throat, caught midway between anger and amusement.
‘For God’s sake, do you want me to spell it out for you?’
Something dangerous had been let loose in the room: Stephanie could sense it and yet she didn’t know where the danger came from. She touched the tip of her tongue to her trembling lips, moistening them, in an acutely nervous gesture, blinking a little as she saw the flat hardness compressing Gray’s mouth as he watched her movements like a hawk.
Her voice in a husky whisper she protested, ‘Gray, I only touched you. I’ve touched you before.’
‘Now it’s different.’ His voice was flat, metallic almost, as though he’d deliberately forced every iota of emotion out of it. ‘Then I wasn’t suffering from the frustration that’s eating into me now.’
The shock of it tensed her muscles. Gray had never spoken to her like this before, never mentioned his physical desires, or the women he shared them with.
She wet her lips again, conscious of a strange heat burning through her veins. She didn’t want to hear about Gray’s sex life, but for some reason she heard herself saying slowly, ‘Carla …?’
‘Carla’s married, Steph.’
Numb with shock, Stephanie heard him swear. For some reason her heart was racing, her nerve-endings pulsingly conscious of Gray’s tension. She saw him move and stiffened with shock as his fingers bit into the tender flesh of her upper arms.
‘You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?’ His voice was thick and unfamiliar, and for the first time since she had known him, his movements were less than perfectly controlled. She could actually hear the fierce thud of his heart as he closed the distance between them, so loud that it drowned her instinctive gasp of shock.
‘This is what it’s all about, Stephanie. This, and this.’ He pulled her so close to his body that she could feel its heat; so close that, shockingly, she was aware of his physical arousal. If just the thought of Carla could affect him like this … Icy cold with shock, she shuddered. Instantly Gray released her, an expression of cold withdrawal icing over his eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was curt. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
He turned his back to her, and part of her ached to reach out and comfort him. Instead she said shakily. ‘It’s all right, Gray. I … I … understand. At least, I think I do.’
‘Do you?’ He turned to look at her, searching her face with hard eyes. Stephanie made herself hold that searching gaze.
‘I think so. You love Carla, but she’s married to someone else. You love someone who’s out of reach.’
‘I certainly do.’ The look he gave her was wryly sardonic. ‘Go to bed, Stephanie,’ he told her tiredly. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in discussing things any further.’
Despite her original claim that she was tired, Stephanie couldn’t sleep. It had come as a shock to learn that Gray was in love with Carla, and it hadn’t been a pleasant shock. In fact, she was stunned to discover just how resentful and unhappy she felt. She loved him as a friend, as a brother—so why did she feel like this?
Of course, it was because Carla was married. That was the explanation! Poor Gray, what a terrible situation for him. She knew how devastating jealousy could be, and he must be jealous of Carla’s husband—jealous and frustrated. Her face burned as she remembered the way he had demonstrated that frustration to her. She had never known Gray behave with anything other than calm, brotherly affection; had never before seen him like this, driven, and almost aggressive towards her. She hated the thought of their relationship changing; of another woman coming between them.
She told herself she was being unrealistic, selfish even, but it didn’t help.
‘I’m sorry about last night—things got a little out of control.’ Gray grimaced faintly as he handed Stephanie her breakfast. ‘I don’t normally let go like that.’
He was watching her covertly, as though expecting … expecting what? Despite her own complicated feelings last night, Stephanie had made a vow that she would give Gray all the emotional support she could to sustain him during what she knew from her own experience would be a very traumatic time.
‘Carla’s husband and I are financial partners in the boat I’m sailing for the Fastnet—that’s how I met her.’
Stephanie knew that her disquiet must have shown in her eyes, because Gray’s mouth twisted. ‘We can’t all love to order,’ he told her, curtly turning away from her. ‘We’ll leave for London this afternoon to collect your stuff. We’ll stay at your place overnight.’
‘You’ll have to sleep on the settee,’ she warned him.
‘It won’t matter for one night, and besides, I’d never get an hotel room at this time of year.’
‘No. London is packed with tourists. Have you much business to do?’
Gray shook his head, pouring them both a second cup of coffee. ‘No, I should be through it by lunchtime, and then we can head back here in the afternoon. By the way, you’ll need a room to work in while you’re here. There’s an empty office down at the yard, will that do? I could show you it later.’
This was more like the Gray she knew, and although it hurt her that he didn’t want to discuss Carla with her, part of her was glad. She was growing to hate the sound of the other woman’s name.
She thought she’d been successful in keeping her thoughts hidden from him until he said softly, ‘What is it, Steph?’
‘I’m worried about you—about your involvement with Carla.’
For some reason her admission alarmed her, and she looked down at her plate, missing the look of brooding pain he gave her.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I know you’re not the sort of man who’d really want to be involved with a woman who’s married to someone else,’ she offered lamely. ‘You’re always so honest in everything you do, Gray.’
‘Think you know me well, don’t you? Well, don’t be too sure, love. The pain of an almost unendurable physical desire that you know can never really be satisfied makes a man do irrational things. Remember that, Steph.’
What was he trying to tell her? A faint shiver of apprehension held her in a cold grip. Instinctively she reached out to cover his hand with her own. His hands were large and well shaped with long fingers, clever hands … caring hands.
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PENNY JORDAN
Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now.He needed a make-believe lover…It was such a strange request - Gray Chalmers asking Stephanie to pose as his lover to help him resist the attractions of a beautiful but married woman. Gray knew Stephanie, knew she didn't even like being touched. Yet he insisted she come back to the village to play the part of the femme fatale.Gray had never pried into the bitter marriage Stephanie had endured to his cousin. He'd offered only comfort in the ten years since its tragic ending. So, while she hated the pretense, she couldn't refuse.
Substitute Lover
Penny Jordan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u07b82a2e-d6c3-5e94-b9b5-c323686d00c6)
Title Page (#u7abe2e29-0358-5d39-b0e9-32fe6cf01be3)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u257ae8f7-09ab-5ddb-b74c-40a6b084d208)
AHEAD of her loomed the motorway exit sign for the village. Stephanie sighed faintly, the soft sound whispering past vulnerably curved lips. The late afternoon sunlight burnished her long hair into a shining copper cloak. Normally she wore it up in a neat chignon, but today she had left it loose.
Only the inward clenching of her stomach muscles betrayed her growing tension. She hated coming back so much. Fear and pain mingled inside her, making her fingers grip harder on the steering-wheel.
If it wasn’t for Gray … She shuddered visibly, aching to close her eyes and blot out the terrible images blocking out the gentle, rolling countryside and the wide span of the motorway.
Never, ever, no matter how long she lived, would she forget that terrible night when they had come to tell her that Paul was dead. The shock of it, coming so quickly on the heels of that last bitter quarrel, had produced a burden of guilt she carried with her still.
Even now, ten years later, she often woke in the night re-living that last fatal evening they had spent together. The quarrel had blown up over nothing—and it had not been the first time. After only three months of marriage Paul had become a stranger—a frighteningly violent stranger, too, at times—who called her frigid and sexless, and complained that he wished he had never married her.
He had stormed out of the cottage and she had let him, too confused and miserable to try and coax him back.
It had been a bad summer, with constant gales and dangerous seas. She had never dreamed that he intended to take out his boat, but he had. Who knew what thoughts had been in his mind in those last few hours of his life? The seas had been far too dangerous for a lone yachtsman, so the coastguard had told them, and Paul, reckless as always, had omitted to wear his buoyancy jacket and safety harness.
He had been swept overboard by one of the giant waves, or so the authorities surmised, because his body had been found on a beach by an early morning stroller.
His grief-stricken parents had demanded to know why she hadn’t alerted the coastguard earlier, when he had not come home, and Stephanie had been forced to lie, unwilling to add to their pain by telling them that there had been other nights during their brief marriage when he hadn’t come home, when she had slept alone in the wide double bed she had grown to hate. But John and Elise Chalmers had worshipped their only child, and she had not had the heart to destroy their image of him.
She knew that they blamed her for his death, and in her heart of hearts she felt equally guilty. If she had been a different type of woman … if she had had the sexuality to keep Paul at her side, he would not have grown bored with her company … would not have been driven by the relentless devil that possessed him, unleashing a streak of violence in him that she had never suspected existed.
They had married too young and on too short an acquaintance; she knew that now. Neither of them had really known the other, and by the time they realised how intrinsically different they were it was too late—they were married.
Tears stung her eyes briefly, her guilt momentarily overlaid by sorrow. Paul had been so alive … so good-looking and arrogantly male. She had stopped loving him within weeks of their marriage—the first time he had hit her he had destroyed her image of him and with it her almost childish adoration; but that did not stop her regretting his death and the waste of such a very young life.
Only Gray had stood up for her and said in that quiet, slow voice of his that she was not to blame for Paul’s death. But Gray didn’t know the truth. Even now he still didn’t know the truth, but his defence of her, the way his arms had held her, comforting and protecting her in the shocking aftermath of the news, had formed a bond between them that nothing could ever break.
Automatically she turned off the motorway, taking the pretty country road that dipped between the gentle hills and then meandered through the New Forest down to the coast. Her bright yellow VW preferred the gentle pace of country driving, the engine almost purring as the motorway was completely lost from sight and they were swallowed up by golden fields, ripely heavy with their summer crop.
Her friends in London teased her about her devotion to her little car. She earned a good living from her work as an illustration artist, and then additionally there was the income she derived from her share in the boat-yard that had been in Paul’s family for several generations.
She always felt uncomfortable about that inheritance, but Gray had urged her not to dispose of it, and she had agreed. Now that Paul’s parents were dead, she and Gray were joint owners of the yard.
Pauls and Gray’s grandfather had started it, passing it on to his two sons.
Gray’s parents had been killed in a sailing accident when he was fourteen years old, and he had virtually been brought up alongside his cousin. But Paul had never really liked Gray. She had known that from the first and had put the animosity between them down to the seven-year age-gap. As a teenager, newly arrived in the area, she had found Gray both distant and rather formidable.
It had been her father’s interest in boats that had led to her introduction to Paul. The boat-yard was one of his accounts at the branch of the bank he had just been transferred to as manager, and he had taken Stephanie with him, on a visit to inspect the yard.
Paul had been working in the yard, a slim, golden-haired young god with a deep tan and a self-assured smile.
She had thought their love was mutual, but she realised now that to Paul she had only been a new challenge. He had a reputation locally as something of a playboy, but she hadn’t known that then.
She had been a rather shy teenager, a product of an all-girls’ school, studious and not as knowledgeable about sex as most of her peers.
She had just left school, and had been looking forward to going to art school after the long summer break. And then she had met Paul.
Within days they were virtually inseparable. When Paul discovered her reservations about allowing him to make love to her, and the fact that she was still a virgin, he had announced that they would get married.
That had been typical of his impulsiveness and his determination to have his own way, Stephanie had recognised later, but at the time she had been too bemused to do anything but follow where he led. Of course they had encountered massive parental objections, from both families; but the more their parents urged them to wait, the more determined Paul became that they would not.
Even Gray had suggested that they get to know one another a little better before making such an important commitment, but Paul had laughed at him, she remembered, sneering that since Gray was not married himself he was not qualified to speak.
In the end their parents had given way, perhaps in the fear that if they did not, they might do something even more reckless … and who knew … perhaps they would have done. Paul had whispered on more than one occasion that if it was the only way, they could start a baby. ‘Then they’ll have to let us get married,’ he had coaxed.
Whether or not she would have gone that far she didn’t know. Certainly she had been bemused enough by her feelings for him to do almost anything he suggested. Her parents had tried to tell her that she was suffering from a classic case of infatuation but she hadn’t wanted to know … she hadn’t wanted to believe them.
In the end, Paul had got his way. They had had a small family wedding, she had worn a white dress; and they had moved into a pretty cottage down near the harbour that Paul’s parents had bought for them. Mr and Mrs Chalmers had a large house just outside the village, and Gray lived in what had been his grandfather’s cottage quite close to the boat-yard.
Their honeymoon had been a bitter disappointment—for both of them. Paul did not have the patience or the experience to arouse her to the point where she could enjoy his lovemaking, and he had swiftly grown impatient and then angry with her for her lack of response.
The first time he had hit her had been after a quarrel, and she had been too shocked to do anything other than stare at him. Her father had never raised a hand to her in all her life, and the cruelty of Paul’s blow hurt her emotions more than her flesh.
Of course, he had immediately been contrite; they had made up their quarrel and he had sworn never to touch her in anger again.
Within days he had broken that promise and, by the time their honeymoon was over, Stephanie had learned to fear her new husband’s sudden surges of temper.
She returned to her new home and her new life sick at heart and cowed in spirit.
People noticed of course, especially her parents, but she had too much pride to tell them the truth. Inwardly she felt, as Paul claimed, that she was to blame for his violence, that she invited it in some way, and deserved it for her inability to respond to him as a woman.
His violence towards her quickly escalated to the point where she cringed every time he came near her.
They stopped making love within days of returning to their new home, and quite soon after that Paul started staying out later and later at night, and then not coming home at all.
He had made no secret of the fact that there were other girls, but whenever she suggested that they end the marriage he had flown into one of his almost maniacal tempers, and she soon learned not to bring the subject up.
His death might have freed her from the physical violence of their marriage, but emotionally she was still trapped, both in her own guilt for failing him as a woman, and her fear that she was somehow not like other members of her sex—not capable of responding sexually to anyone’s embrace.
Her memories of the unhappiness of the few short months of her marriage, and the guilt feelings that had come afterwards, were so strong, that she hated returning to the village.
Paul’s parents no longer lived there—they had moved away shortly after his death, when Paul’s father had sold out his share of the boat-yard to Gray. Now they were both dead, increasing her sense of guilt. They had both adored Paul, worshipped him almost, seeing no fault in him.
Stephanie’s own pride had made it impossible for her to discuss with anyone the cruelty of Paul’s treatment of her, and so it remained locked inside her, a dark, unhappy secret that still had the power to destroy her sleep.
There had been no man in her life since Paul. What would have been the point? She would only have incited them to violence once they discovered her lack of sexuality. Gray was the only man in her life, and their relationship was a sexless, friendly one that could quite easily have existed between two members of the same sex.
The road crested a hill. To her left she could see the bright glitter of the river, slow and majestic in its steady progress towards the sea.
Soon she would be there. A quiver of apprehension ran through her, all her doubts and dreads about the wisdom of obeying Gray’s request that she come down here betrayed in the cloudy darkness of her eyes.
Her body—too slim and fragile, perhaps, for a woman of twenty-eight—tensed, ready to absorb the shock of pain and guilt that waited for her with her first glimpse of the estuary and the sea.
It was a small place, the village, where everyone knew everyone else. They all knew about her loss; about Paul’s death, but none of them knew about her deeper anguish. Perhaps fearing his parents’ discovering the truth, Paul had gone into Southampton on those nights when he didn’t return home, and had found there, or so he had told her, the sexual satisfaction he could not get from her, his wife.
Cold … frigid. The accusations, so well remembered, hammered against her skull, turning her skin pale with anguish.
If only Gray had come up to London to discuss the business of the boat-yard with her, as he had done in the past, but this time he had been insistent that she return here. He had even threatened to come and get her if she refused and, knowing he meant it, she had eventually, reluctantly, given way.
Perhaps in her shoes another woman might have tried to prove Paul’s accusations wrong by taking one lover after another, but Stephanie couldn’t do that. She was too afraid that Paul had been right. She had failed with him, and she would fail with anyone else.
Instead, she had locked herself away behind the barrier of her guilt, using Paul as an excuse for not forming any new relationships. No other man was going to get an opportunity to abuse her physically, or hurt and betray her because she couldn’t satisfy him; no other man was going to turn from her to someone else, as Paul had done.
Not even Gray had known, as she wept in his arms, that she cried not just for Paul himself but for the betrayal of their love and her own failure to prove herself a woman. And he would never know it.
The village was in sight now, and she automatically tensed her muscles, glancing at her watch. Gone six o’clock, but Gray would probably still be at the boat-yard. She would go there first, rather than the cottage.
Gray lived there alone now and had done for several years. The shock of losing her son had led to Paul’s mother’s death, and Paul’s father, Gray’s uncle, had died two years later from a heart attack. Now only Gray was left.
The boat-yard was on the far side of the village, right down on the bank of the estuary. It had been in Gray’s family for about a hundred years.
As she parked her VW and climbed out of it, Gray emerged from his office and came towards her. Tall, with forbiddingly broad shoulders and a shock of night-black hair, he was a commandingly masculine man. Densely blue eyes studied her and, shockingly, Stephanie momentarily recognised in them the age-old appraisal of a man looking at a woman.
Gray moved and the appraisal was gone, leaving her to suspect that she must have imagined it.
The late afternoon breeze coming off the estuary flattened the silky curve of her skirt against her hip and the long line of her legs. She lifted a hand to push her hair back off her face and heard Gray growl, ‘You’re getting too thin. What have you been doing to yourself?’
‘I’m not thin, just fashionably slim!’ she protested.
He was wearing an old pair of jeans that clung to his body like a second skin. Hastily averting her eyes from the powerful muscles of his thighs, she was tensely aware of his eyes narrowing.
‘What’s wrong? You’re as skittish as a dinghy without a tiller.’
His fingers closed over her arm, drawing her towards him. She could smell the familiar male scent of his body, and felt an almost uncontrollable urge to cling to him and let him stand between her and her pain.
‘You know coming down here always affects me like this.’
Instead of comforting her as he normally did, he released her almost abruptly.
‘After ten years?’ There was something almost sardonic about the way he said it. ‘That’s one hell of a long time to grieve, Steph.’
Before she could comment, the office door opened and a stunning blonde came out. Dressed in tight white jeans and a brief silky top, she swayed provocatively towards them.
‘I’ve still got a few things to do down here.’ Gray glanced towards the blonde. ‘I’ll take you up to the cottage and join you there later.’
Stephanie always stayed at the cottage when she visited Gray. The village had no hotel, and besides, where else should she stay? But now some contrariness made her glance across at the blonde walking towards them, her mouth curling slightly as she asked, ‘Are you sure you want me to stay with you, Gray? I don’t want to be in the way.’
She saw his mouth tighten. ‘Well now, that’s quite a question. What made you ask it, I wonder?’
For some reason she had annoyed him. Conscious of the blonde watching them, Stephanie took a deep breath.
‘Nothing at all. I just wondered if your girlfriend might object?’
‘Girlfriend?’ His dark head swivelled to look at the blonde. She smiled back, teasingly. She was older than Stephanie had first imagined, and she was wearing a wedding ring, but that meant nothing these days.
‘Carla won’t mind. She knows that we’re old friends.’
As though to prove the point he called over casually to the blonde, ‘I’m just taking Stephanie back to the cottage. I won’t be long.’
Stephanie had to run to keep up with his long-legged stride as he walked towards her VW. Watching him fold himself inside reminded her of how tall and broad he was, the play of hard muscles beneath his skin alienly male.
She just wasn’t used to being this close to a man … any man, she told herself as she drove the car towards the cottage; that was why she was so conscious of Gray’s masculinity.
‘I’ve put you in the far bedroom,’ he told her laconically as he opened the cottage door. ‘I’ll leave you to get yourself settled in. I’ll be back in half an hour. I’ve just got one or two things to finish off.’
‘Half an hour. I’m sure Carla would be very flattered if she heard that.’
Suddenly conscious of how waspish and acid she sounded, Stephanie turned away from him. What was the matter with her? Gray had had girlfriends before. He was one of the most eligible men on the estuary. Physically, he was everything a woman could want in a man; he was also kind and gentle. Strange that at thirty-four-odd he should still be unmarried, and stranger still that she had never questioned his lack of a wife before.
‘Oh, I’m sure I could think of a way to make amends.’ He said it so softly that the words shivered across her skin, the look in his eyes as she turned to stare at him making her own widen with shocked pain.
Gray was her friend. He knew how much she loathed anything that had the slightest sexual connotation, and yet here he was deliberately making her aware of his sexuality, of the very masculine side of him that he had previously held in check.
Before she could protest he said bleakly, ‘Don’t provoke me, Steph, I’m not in the mood for it.’
As he turned away from her she recognised that she was not the only one who had lost weight; he too was slightly thinner, his profile carved in slightly harder lines. Was something wrong? Was that why he wanted to see her? Was that why he was acting so oddly? From the time of Paul’s death he had been her friend, he had supported and protected her, and she had come to lean on him, to trust him, as she knew she could never trust anyone else, but now …
He paused at the door and turned towards her.
‘Not everyone’s like you, Steph,’ he told her harshly. ‘We haven’t all abdicated from the human race, and the needs and emotions that go with being human.’
Stephanie recoiled as though he had hit her. In all the years they had been friends, Gray had never once spoken to her like that. Never once looked at her the way he was looking at her right now, with his mouth twisted and his eyes hard and accusing.
‘Gray …’ Panic filled her voice and her eyes. What was happening to them? She was losing him … losing his friendship … she could sense it, feel it almost …
‘I’ll see you later.’
He was gone before she could object. Numbly she stared at the closed door. What was happening? A tiny frisson of fear trembled through her. She wandered uneasily round the small sitting-room. The cottage was very old, the rooms low-ceilinged and beamed. She sat down in one of the chintz-covered chairs and stared unseeingly into the empty fireplace. The horse brasses, collected by Gray’s mother, shone against the buttermilk-coloured walls, the soft salt-laden breeze flowing in through one of the open lattice windows. The room was as familiar to Stephanie as her London flat, although she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had been here since Paul’s death. The house had been let while Gray lived with Paul’s parents, but as soon as he was eighteen he had announced that he was moving into his parents’ old home. There had never been the rapport between Gray and Paul’s parents that had existed between them and their own child. Many, many times he must have felt shut out, but to his credit he had never let it show … never resented Paul in the way that the younger man had resented him. They had never discussed Paul’s animosity towards him; the past was a closed book and one which she had assumed neither of them wished to open.
She had never thought of Gray in any male or sexual sense, but today, shockingly, she had looked at him and seen not her friend, but a man with sexual desires and drives like any other.
A curious, aching pain built up inside her and spread tormentingly through her body. What was wrong with her? Was she really so insecure that she feared the thought of sharing Gray with someone else? She had always known that he didn’t live the life of a monk … but until today she had never come face to face with the reality of his sexuality, and she was shocked by her own reaction to it. Instead of feeling nothing, she had felt a surprising degree of jealousy. But why?
And why had Gray been so offhand, almost angry with her? Normally he greeted her with a warm hug and a welcoming smile, but not this time—not today. Had it been because Carla had been there? It shocked her how much she had missed that brief, warm contact with his body. Confused by the chaos of her thoughts and feelings, she tried to dismiss them as a natural result of her return to the place where she had known such pain and misery, but something deep inside her refused to be convinced.
Angry with herself, Stephanie went outside to her car and brought in her suitcase. She didn’t intend staying for more than a couple of days, and it didn’t take her long to unpack her things and put them away. The room she was sleeping in had sloping eaves and a tiny window that overlooked the wild tangle of the cottage garden, and the hills beyond. The cottage had four bedrooms, and this one had once been Gray’s.
Now he slept in the large double bedroom which had once been his parents’, and as she stepped out on to the landing something made her hesitate and then slowly push open the door to Gray’s room.
He had an experienced sailor’s neatness. Nothing was out of place. An old-fashioned four-poster bed dominated the room, and against her will Stephanie’s eyes were drawn to it. How many women had shared it with Gray over the years? None of them would have been like her, frigid and undesirable. A lump gathered painfully in her chest, a familiar sense of anguish enveloping her. She didn’t want to be the way she was. She …
‘Looking for something?’
The unexpectedly harsh sound of Gray’s voice behind her made her jump. She turned round sharply, stumbling in shock. She hadn’t heard him come in.
Instantly his arms came out to steady her. Although it had been months since he last held her, she was immediately aware of a sense of homecoming and security. Without being aware of what she was doing, she snuggled up against him, sighing faintly.
‘For God’s sake, Stephanie!’
Instantly she stiffened in his arms, suddenly conscious of the hard thud of his heart and the heat coming off his body.
‘What the hell are you doing? Dreaming about Paul? He’s dead, Stephanie. Dead. And for all the living you do, you might as well be, too. Hasn’t there been anyone in these last ten years?’
‘I don’t want that sort of relationship in my life. You know that.’ She had to turn her head so that he couldn’t look at her.
As his arms dropped away from her, he said flatly, ‘We … you can’t go on living like this, Steph. It’s not …’
‘Not what? Not “natural”? Is that what you’re going to say, Gray? That I’m not “natural”?’
Her overwrought nerves shrieked in protest as she flung the words at him.
He seemed to be looking at her with an odd mixture of pain and defeat in his eyes. Her breath locked in her throat, tears not far away. What on earth was happening to them? She and Gray had been so close, such good friends, and now … and now they seemed to be teetering on the brink of destroying all that they had shared.
He made a slight movement, a reaching out towards her from which she immediately recoiled, her expression proud and tortured as she cried out painfully, ‘You want the truth, Gray? All right, I’ll give it to you. I don’t have the least interest in sex.’ She took a deep, rather shaky breath. ‘I’m frigid, Gray.’ There, she’d said it; she’d admitted at last the agonising lack of sexuality that had caused her so much pain.
‘Steph!’
She heard the shock in Gray’s voice, but she couldn’t respond to it; couldn’t listen to any more questions now, however well meant. Gray cared for her as a friend, and would want to help her, but this was one problem that no one else could help with.
Suddenly she had an overwhelming need to be alone.
‘I … I think I’d better find somewhere else to stay tonight, Gray, I …’
She saw from the look on his face that she had hurt and angered him. So many gulfs were springing up between them, so many barriers that couldn’t be crossed.
She made a dash for her room and privacy, coming to an abrupt halt as Gray’s fingers tightened round her wrist, holding her prisoner. Shock had darkened his eyes to dense sapphire, his mouth a hard line of disbelief as he shook her.
‘What the hell is this, Steph? Is that really what you think? That you’re frigid?’
‘Isn’t it what you think?’ As she stood there, trembling, Stephanie wondered frantically what on earth had happened between them to promote this conversation. Talking about her relationship with Paul and the flaws in her femininity wasn’t something she had ever wanted to do, least of all with Gray, who, friend though he was, was also so undeniably male that he made her acutely aware of the pathetic shortcomings in her own personality. Instinctively, without knowing how she possessed that knowledge, she knew that as a lover Gray would be both skilled and tender.
Dragging her mind away from such provocative thoughts she saw that he was frowning.
‘I don’t make those kind of assumptions without some hard facts to back them up. As I haven’t been to bed with you, I don’t know, do I?’
It was what he hadn’t said rather than what he had that shocked her speechless.
‘I’ll wash and then we’ll have something to eat. I’ve got a lot to talk over with you.’
His calm words broke the spell that had held her silent.
‘Won’t Carla object to your spending the evening with me?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Why should she? She knows that we’re old friends.’
To her chagrin, Stephanie realised that he was looking amused.
‘Why don’t you go down and make us some coffee? And then over dinner I’ll show you the plans of the new boat I’m working on.’
This was the Gray she knew … her friend. The tension that had engulfed her earlier eased. Feeling relieved, she hurried downstairs to the kitchen.
Mrs Ames, Gray’s daily, had left a casserole ready-prepared in the fridge, and one of her famous apple pies.
Although the cottage had a pretty dining-room, normally when she came to stay they ate off trays in the sitting-room. It was more cosy.
It didn’t take long to make the coffee and, wanting to make amends for her earlier childishness, Stephanie poured some into a mug for Gray and took it upstairs.
His bedroom door was open. She could smell the clean, pine-fresh scent of his soap, and from behind the closed door of his bathroom she could hear him singing.
Her mouth curved into a brief grin as she recognised the familiar sound of an old sea shanty. It was one Gray only sang when he was feeling particularly happy. Perhaps she had been wrong about there being some serious problem with the boat-yard.
Knocking briefly on his open door, she walked into his bedroom. She had been silly to get so upset simply because he had asked about her as a friend. Not knowing the truth, he had simply thought that she had grieved for Paul for long enough.
But now that he did know the truth … he had not exhibited the shock she might have expected. Lost in thought, she gnawed worriedly at her lower lip.
The door to Gray’s bathroom opened and he walked into the bedroom, plainly unaware that she was there. His hair was damp and he was towelling it roughly. The rest of his body … Scarlet faced, Stephanie stood rooted to the spot, totally unable to move, as she slowly absorbed the details of his nude body.
Gray only realised that she was there when he threw down the towel. Transfixed with shock and embarrassment, Stephanie gulped as he walked past her and gently closed the bedroom door.
‘I … I brought you a cup of coffee.’
Her voice was a thick, unfamiliar croak, but at least speaking freed her from her momentary paralysis. She turned to flee and discovered that somehow Gray was standing in front of the door.
‘Thank you.’ He said it gently, casually reaching out to take the mug from her. Hideously embarrassed, Stephanie looked everywhere but at him. Why, oh why had she walked into his bedroom in the first place? She had known that he was having a shower.
‘What’s the matter, Steph?’ His voice was as soft as silk, but still she couldn’t look at him. ‘You’ve seen me working on the boats wearing not that much more.’
‘That … that was different.’ She was having difficulty in swallowing.
‘Not that much surely. I’m the one who should be embarrassed, you know.’
Maybe he should be, but he certainly wasn’t. Why on earth didn’t he put some clothes on?
As though he read her mind, he moved to one side, opening a drawer and casually pulling out socks and underpants.
‘Pass me that shirt on the bed, will you?’
He sounded so casually at ease that Stephanie found she was doing what he asked almost without thinking. By the time she had handed it to him, he was already wearing the brief dark-coloured underpants.
‘The sight of a nude male surely can’t be so shocking, can it? After all, there was Paul … the two of you were married, even if you are claiming that his death made you frigid. You must have known what boys look like.’
The hint of teasing in his voice made her skin burn. She was too stunned to correct his mistaken assumption that her frigidity was the result of Paul’s death. ‘Boys, yes, but … but you aren’t a boy, Gray.’
He didn’t say anything, but Stephanie had the distinct impression that he smiled faintly before he pulled his shirt on.
Watching his fingers move deftly over the buttons, securing them so that the tanned expanse of his torso with its shadowing of dark silk hair was hidden from her, aroused the most curious sensation in the pit of her stomach. He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a set of cuff-links.
‘Damn, I can’t seem to manage these. Come and give me a hand will you, Steph?’
Numbly she walked over to him, trying to focus her eyes on the sinewed strength of his wrist as he bared it for her inspection. The contrast between his dark, tanned skin and the crisp whiteness of his shirt cuff was curiously disturbing. She wanted to put her fingertips over the strong pulse she could see beating under his skin, and feel its heat. She wanted the comfort and security of his arms, in the same way she had wanted them when Paul was killed.
It seemed to take a lifetime to secure both cuff-links, but at last it was done. When she stepped back from him she was surprised to see how shaky she felt.
‘I’d better go down and check on dinner.’
As she stepped away from him, Stephanie thought she heard him laugh softly.
What was happening to her? she wondered numbly as she went downstairs. She already knew she was sexless, incapable of arousing a man, so why was she so suddenly and inexplicably experiencing this odd desire to reach out and touch Gray? She had been shocked and embarrassed by his nudity but she had felt something else as well: a purely feminine recognition of the powerful masculinity of him, an intensely female responsiveness to his maleness. But surely that was impossible? She couldn’t experience those sort of feelings. Could she?
Thoroughly confused, she tried to concentrate on preparing their meal, and to direct her thoughts to whatever it was that Gray wanted to discuss with her, but irrationally they kept straying to Gray’s earlier assertion that he wasn’t qualified to judge whether she was frigid or not.
Could Paul have been wrong? She frowned. But surely if he had been she would have known about it before now? In the ten years since his death she had never once experienced the slightest desire for any man. The phone rang, and she went to answer it.
It was Carla, asking for Gray. As she called him to the phone Stephanie was gripped by the most painfully acute sensation of jealousy. Jealousy? But she had no right to be jealous of Carla’s place in Gray’s life. No right at all.
Thoroughly confused, she went back to the kitchen, trying to dismiss her painfully intrusive thoughts.
When he came into the kitchen Gray was frowning heavily. Whatever Carla had had to say to him it couldn’t have been to his liking. Had the blonde perhaps objected to her presence at the cottage, after all? If Gray was her lover … Gray her lover? Shock ripped through her unprepared body—the body she was so convinced could never respond sexually to any man. What on earth was happening to her?
‘Stephanie … what is it? Are you ill?’
She looked up, her eyes still dark with shock. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged. She was looking at Gray and yet it was almost as though she was looking at a stranger.
He reached out for her, warm hands gripping her rigid arms, his face creased in lines of concern.
‘You’re trembling. What is it? What’s wrong?’
Another minute and she would be cradled against the hard warmth of his body … the body that, like the man, belonged to someone else. Immediately she tensed, and Gray let her go.
She felt sick with shock as she realised what she was feeling. She was jealous. Jealous of Carla. No, not of Carla, she amended hastily … she was jealous of their relationship, because it threatened her own friendship with Gray. Yes, that was it …
Shakily she let her mind absorb her thoughts, like a swimmer frightened by the depths, now reaching out for the safety of the shallows where they could touch the ocean floor.
‘I’m all right now, Gray …’
It was obvious that he wasn’t totally convinced. ‘What happened?’
She shrugged carelessly. ‘Oh, nothing. I just felt cold, that’s all.’
It was plain that he didn’t believe her, but fortunately he didn’t press the subject.
‘I’ll fix the trays. Will you check on the casserole?’
Everything was as it had always been, she thought thankfully, obeying his instructions. Or was it? She risked a covert glance at him. She was terrified of losing his friendship … especially to another woman.
CHAPTER TWO (#u257ae8f7-09ab-5ddb-b74c-40a6b084d208)
THEY had eaten both the casserole and the apple pie before Gray broached the subject of Stephanie’s visit.
‘I’ll wash up if you make the coffee,’ he suggested, bending to take the tray from her lap. ‘No one else makes it quite the way you do.’
‘Oh, no? I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.’
Instead of making him smile, her flip answer drew a sharp frown. Now what had she done to offend him? she wondered unhappily as she followed him to the kitchen. Something was different; something had changed between them. She felt different than she had ever felt before, buoyed up and excited one moment, and miserable and on edge the next.
Amazingly, Gray managed to unfasten his cuff-links much more easily than she had put them in. Watching him as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves and started washing up their dishes, Stephanie felt a burning tide of awareness sweep over her body. His forearms were tanned and strongly muscled. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to stroke her fingertips through those thick, dark hairs.
‘I asked you to come down here because I need a favour.’ The abrupt words cut through the hazy sensuality of her private thoughts, jerking her back to reality. What on earth had come over her?
‘I’m having some problems with the boat-yard. Business has fallen off quite sharply lately. I’m working on the design for a new boat which I’m hoping will be successful. If all goes well I plan to show it at next year’s Boat Show, but launching a new boat is a pretty risky business, especially for a yard like ours.’
For no reason at all, a cold spiral of fear had invaded the pit of her stomach. Gray had stopped washing the dishes and had turned round to face her. The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense, almost stiflingly so.
‘I’m entering this year’s Fastnet, Steph,’ Gray told her quietly. ‘If I can win, and I think I can, the publicity would give the new boat a boost that nothing else could match. Winning the Fastnet will give us more publicity, more credibility than we could get from any amount of advertising.’
Stephanie knew that every word he said was true. A boat designed and made by an acknowledged winner of a race as prestigious as the Fastnet would sell better than a tennis racquet endorsed by a Davis Cup champion, but nothing could silence the words of protest from tumbling from her lips. Since Paul’s death she had been left with a morbid fear of the sea. She knew that he was himself to blame for the accident by his rash disregard of the safety rules, that did not quell her fear, there was more to it than that.
She could hardly bear to look at the sea, even on a calm day and, as Gray well knew, coming down here to the estuary was purgatory for her.
She had once loved sailing. It was her father’s hobby and, like him, she had been thrilled about his transfer to this part of the coast which had a reputation of being an idyllic spot for small boat enthusiasts.
She had been more grateful than she could say when her father had been transferred to an inland posting shortly after Paul’s death, and never once since that time had she set foot in a boat herself, even though she had once crewed enthusiastically and knowledgeably both for her father, and for Paul.
Now Gray was telling her that he intended to enter one of the most dangerous races of all, and she shook with fear for him.
‘Gray … please don’t,’ she pleaded huskily.
‘Stephanie, I have to. Don’t you understand?’ he demanded harshly. ‘If I don’t, I stand to lose the boat-yard … I have no other choice.’
She could see that, but she still longed to beg him to change his mind. Instead, she said shakily, ‘Gray, please … I don’t want to lose you as well.’
‘You won’t, I promise you you won’t.’ She felt him move as he gathered her against his body, bracing himself against the unit as he rocked her gently in his arms.
Tense with fear, Stephanie buried her face against his chest, soothed by the heavy thud of his heart.
‘If I’m to go ahead I’m going to need your help, Steph.’ His voice was muffled slightly by her hair, and slightly unsteady, as though he was under a tremendous strain. ‘I want you to move into the cottage, and take over the day-to-day running of the boat-yard for me until after the race. You could work from here on your illustrations, just as easily as you do in London …’
‘Run the yard!’ She jerked away from him, horrified. ‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Yes, you could. You did it when you and Paul were married.’
It was true that she had helped out at the yard all those years ago, organising the office along more practical lines.
‘Stephanie, when have I ever asked you for anything?’ His voice was rough, grating against her tense nerves. It was true, in their relationship he had always been the giver, she the taker. Although he didn’t say it, she felt that he was reminding her that she owed him a debt—a debt he was now calling in. How could she explain to him how much she feared and loathed everything that reminded her of Paul? He thought she was still grieving for a husband she had loved and adored. How could she tell him that what she felt was guilt—that there was no love … that the reality of marriage had woken her from what had only been an adolescent’s dream?
‘I … I need time to think …’ Implicit in her husky words was an acknowledgement of all that she owed him.
He had stood by her when she felt everyone else was against her, accusing her of pushing Paul to his death, because of their quarrel. How could she deny his request for help? She knew how much the boat-yard meant to him.
Almost on a sigh she heard herself saying, ‘I … I’ve made up my mind. I’ll do it … I …’
She didn’t get the opportunity to say any more. She was in Gray’s arms, held tight in a crushing grip that drove the breath from her lungs and brought a surge of blind panic as her body remembered how often it had been imprisoned with similar force by Paul.
She fought frantically against his constraining hold, until she felt him releasing her. Breathing deeply, she staggered back against the wall, her eyes dark with fear.
‘For God’s sake! What the hell did you think I was going to do … Rape you?’
As she raised her shocked eyes to his, Stephanie saw him rake angry fingers through his hair.
‘I know how you feel about Paul, Stephanie, but you can’t cling to those memories for ever. Christ, if that’s how you react when someone else touches you, I’m not surprised there hasn’t been anyone else.’
The look in his eyes chilled her, she felt like a child abandoned by its parents, and longed to cry out to him to understand.
Instead she moved away from the wall, and turned away, shivering with the inner bleakness possessing her.
‘Stephanie …’ She felt his fingers touch her arm and this time she didn’t move away.
‘Look, I’m sorry. We’re both wound up. I should have remembered how much you hate being touched.’
Her expression gave her away and he grimaced wryly.
‘Did you think I didn’t know? You freeze every time I come near you.’
Did she?
‘Has it ever occurred to you that there’s something dangerously obsessive about your determination to remain faithful to Paul’s memory? Do you think he would have done the same if the positions had been reversed?’ he demanded harshly. ‘It’s time to put the past behind you, Steph. Nothing’s going to bring Paul back. You’ve got to start learning to live again. You told me not long ago that you were frigid.’ His hand slid to her face cupping it, lifting it so that he could look down into her eyes.
‘I don’t think you are, but I think you’ve convinced yourself of it because it makes it easier for you to escape from the pain of loving anyone else. It’s easier to tell yourself you’re frigid than to risk loving someone whom you might ultimately lose.’
She wanted to tell him that he was wong, that she was frigid, that Paul himself had told her so; but somehow she was mesmerised by the magnetic glitter of his eyes as his head bent slowly towards her own.
Slowly, shockingly she realised what he meant to do, and by the time that knowledge had infiltrated her brain it was too late to move away. His lips were moving gently and softly over her own, their commanding impact making hers cling bemusedly to his warmth. Shock held her unmoving within his embrace, her breath obstructed by what was happening to her. She could feel her heart racing.
‘Stay with me, Stephanie. Stay with me and help me …’ Gray whispered the words against her mouth, and they brought her back to reality, releasing her from the trance imposed by his totally unexpected kiss. She drew away shakily and he let her, watching her through half-closed eyes.
‘Yes … Yes, I will.’ Her lips framed the words slowly, still quivering from the silken pressure of Gray’s kiss. Thoroughly bemused, she was barely aware of what she was saying. She heard him laugh softly, deep in his throat, as he stepped back from her.
‘You kiss like a little girl, do you know that?’
Pain pierced her. What on earth was she thinking of? To let Gray kiss her? And as for Gray himself … Her claim that she was frigid must have piqued his male curiosity, but now he knew the truth for himself he was hardly likely to kiss her again, she reflected flatly, still trying to recover from the blow of his soft-voiced taunt.
Her pride demanded some recompense and so, turning her back on him and busying herself with the coffee, she said coolly, ‘We’re friends, Gray, not lovers, and that’s how I kissed you—as a friend.’
She was a little surprised by the anger in his eyes when he reached past her to relieve her of the heavy coffee jug. She and Gray had often had arguments in the past and he had never seemed to harbour any resentment on those occasions when she won. In fact, Gray had always encouraged her to think for herself and to form her own views. He had never been the sort of man who preferred women to be obedient, quiet echoes of their men’s views.
‘If I’m going to stay on to look after the yard I’ll need to go back to London to collect my paints and some extra clothes.’
‘I’ll run you back on Monday morning. I’ve got some business to deal with, so I’ll stay at your place Monday night and then we’ll come back together on Tuesday. I’m not going to give you any opportunity to back out of this, Steph,’ he warned her, before she could speak. ‘I need your help too much for that.’
He wasn’t saying so but Stephanie also knew that he had every right to ask for and expect her help. He had, after all, given her his in those dark months after the accident. Without his support … She shuddered slightly, remembering the accusations she had flung at him then; the demand that he leave her to simply die. There had been plenty of times when she hadn’t wanted to go on living, when she had thought that there was no longer any point to life, but Gray had refused to let her go, to let her abandon herself to that sort of self-destruction.
Yes, she owed him a lot, but how on earth was she going to cope with living so close to the sea; with knowing that every day Gray himself was out there, sailing on it; that Gray was going to enter one of the most dangerous sailing races in the world? The cup she was holding slid from her fingers to crash down on to the stone floor, her hands going up to cover her face.
In a tortured voice she pleaded, ‘Gray, please don’t do it! There must be another way.’
Tough, work-scarred fingers pulled her hands away from her eyes so that he could look at her.
‘I have to do it,’ he told her grimly. ‘Can’t you understand that? The yard’s been losing money steadily over the last few years—you know that …’
She had, of course, but she had not realised how intensely Gray was worrying about it.
‘There’s still money coming in from the moorings you let out to summer visitors.’
‘Yes, they’re just about keeping us afloat, but it’s not enough. I want this yard to be again what it once was. There’s no cash available for development and investment … to do the things I want to do. You know that the design and production of small craft has always been more important to me than the day-to-day running of the yard.’
‘But the Fastnet …’ she protested weakly. ‘Gray … What … what does Carla think about it?’
The words were out before she could stop them. A curious expression, half-pain, half-pride, crossed Gray’s face.
‘She knows that it’s something I have to do,’ he told her quietly, and she was pierced with a poignant sense of loss, so totally did his voice and expression exclude her.
In those few words Gray had condemned her to the periphery of his life; had shown her that there was someone else in his life far more important to him than she could ever be.
She swallowed hard against the pain.
‘You love her a great deal.’ Her voice trembled and she saw Gray’s brief smile.
‘Can one quantify love? I don’t think so.’
‘Did you know the moment you met her that …?’
‘That I had found the woman I was going to love for the rest of my life?’ he submitted for her.
Something quivered and hurt inside her, some deep-lodged pain that, like a tiny splinter buried deep in one’s flesh, festered and irritated. Why had she never known before how possessive she felt about Gray? Why had it taken another woman to open her eyes to how desirable a man he was?
‘You’re looking very pale. What’s wrong?’
‘I just don’t like the thought of you entering the Fastnet.’ It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the entire truth either. It was the thought of losing him to Carla that had driven the blood from her face, just as much as the thought of losing him to the sea had frozen her heart in ice.
‘Come and have a look at the plans, I’ve got them here in my study.’
Something in the firm purposefulness of his voice calmed her a little. Gray knew the sea … he did not take risks … he never had. She remembered how thrilled she had been on the rare occasions she had sailed with him. Even then he had been fascinated by the problems of designing safe racing craft. His uncle had called it time-wasting. He preferred the more mundane side of the business. He had wanted to sell off part of the boat-yard to form a huge marina, but Gray and the local council had opposed him, and rightly so. It would have completely spoiled the atmosphere of the small village.
Somehow she found herself being guided into the study and sitting down alongside Gray while he unrolled plans for the hull of the new racing craft.
Soon he was lost in enthusiasm for what he was doing, pointing out to her how the design could be modified to fit into a family market; how the utilitarian interior of the prototype racing craft could be turned into comfortably luxurious accommodation for a small family.
At the moment, Stephanie was working on the book cover for a novel set in the Caribbean, and in her mind’s eye she saw Gray’s sleek new craft swinging gently at anchor in the background.
For ten years she had turned her back completely on sailing but now, poring over the plans Gray had spread out on the large partners’ desk in the study, she felt all the old enthusiasm and excitement of her teenage years come rushing back. A single glance had been enough to show her the grace and potential of Gray’s new boat. Without even having to strain her imagination to the slightest degree, she could already see the boat’s sleek lines as she sped over the water; she could almost feel the old thrill of racing against other small craft, the salt-laden breeze stinging her skin and lifting her hair. Those had been good days … happy, carefree days, before …
‘These new compounds mean that we can make the hull lighter than ever before, and these sails—–’ Gray’s finger indicated one of the sketches, and Stephanie pushed aside the past to concentrate on what he was showing her.
Unlike many of the entrants in the Fastnet Race, Gray’s yacht would only be sailed by him. Apparently, the fact that it could be handled by one man alone was one of its potential selling points in its racier form.
‘The sails will certainly give it plenty of speed,’ Stephanie remarked.
Her fear must have shown in her voice, because Gray said lightly, ‘Yes, and the special buoyancy tanks we’ve fitted will make it virtually unsinkable. The beauty of this design is that it can be fitted out as anything from a racing yacht to a sea-going cruiser, depending on what the customer wants. More and more people are sailing these days, and they’re demanding a wider and better equipped range of craft at the right price. I need that business, Stephanie, and I’m determined to get it.’ He rolled up the plans. ‘So far we’re very pleased with the way she’s tested out. I’m hoping to do the final sea trials in the next couple of weeks.’
She shivered slightly, unaware of the way the light from the lamp highlighted the rich copper tone of her hair. In the last ten years she had changed from a pretty girl into a beautiful, although somewhat haunted woman, Gray thought, watching her. He had a momentary impulse to reach out and watch her hair glide through his fingers, to see if it felt as warm and vibrant as it looked. Her mouth curved as she smiled uncertainly at him, and he got up abruptly.
‘You stay there, I’ll go and make us both some coffee.’
The clipped way he spoke broke the mood of relaxed friendship between them. It was almost as though he didn’t want her company …
Stephanie turned her head to one side automatically, hiding her expression from him. It was idiotic to feel hurt, but they had been getting on so well, and then for no reason at all, or so it seemed, Gray had suddenly retreated from her.
After he had gone into the kitchen for their coffee, Stephanie hunched her arms round her knees. The light from the lamp illuminated the haunting pensiveness of her face. Gray was right, it was time she learned to come to terms with the past, but every time she thought about Paul, every time she remembered his cruel words, every time she remembered how quickly their love had died, pain engulfed her.
It was safer to love a man the way she loved Gray, as a brother, rather than to love one the way she had loved Paul. And yet … She frowned, and chewed anxiously on her bottom lip. There was something different about Gray. She was aware of a tension within him that she had never noticed before. Gray was always so calm and controlled. She had rarely seen him lose his temper, never heard him raise his voice. He was a man of infinite resource and capability, adept at concealing his thoughts and his feelings, and yet today she had sensed that that control was slipping. Was it just because he was worried about the boat-yard?
She was still puzzling over a change in him when he came back with their coffee. A quick look at his face revealed that he was smiling at her, and Stephanie expelled a faint sigh of relief, without really knowing why she should do so. All she could think was that she didn’t want to be at odds with Gray, whatever the reason, and yet in the past they had quarrelled mightily over various issues on which they had taken opposing stances without it damaging their relationship in the slightest. So why was she so afraid now? Was it perhaps because of Carla? Did she fear that she might lose his friendship? That somehow his relationship with Carla threatened his relationship with her? But surely that was silly; she and Gray were friends, Carla and Gray were lovers.
‘Penny for them?’
Instinctively she bent her head so that a silky swathe of hair hid her expression from him. It was the first time she had ever felt the need to be defensive with Gray, and part of her mourned the fact that this should be so.
‘They aren’t worth it.’ She smiled up at him and wondered if her smile looked as forced as it felt. ‘I think I’ll go up to bed, if you don’t mind, Gray. I’m tired—it must be the hot weather.’
She had to avoid looking at him as she gave voice to the small lie. She never went to bed early on the first night of her visits. She and Gray normally stayed up until the early hours of the morning, catching up on one another’s news, teasing each other, talking … But tonight, for some reason, she was conscious of an air of constraint between them, and almost every time she looked at Gray, she couldn’t help mentally picturing him with Carla, his body as magnificently nude as it had been earlier, its muscled hardness covering the blonde’s more delicately female shape.
Gray didn’t say a word about her unusual decision to go to bed early, but as he walked her to the door and opened it for her, Stephanie glanced up at him and saw that his dark eyebrows were drawn together in a heavy frown.
Instinctively, without thinking what she was doing, she raised herself up on tiptoe, and pressed her fingertips to the frown lines, tenderly smoothing them away. Her gesture was completely unselfconscious, born of her desire to restore their relationship to its normal footing, but from the way Gray reacted her touch might have burned his skin like acid.
Lean fingers clamped round her wrist, his head jerking back as though he loathed the physical contact between their skins.
The pain of his bone-crunching grip was nothing to compare with the anguish of rejection which Stephanie suffered, when she saw the look of revulsion in his eyes.
‘Gray!’ Shock rounded her eyes to deep violet pools of pain, humiliation sending a burning wave of scarlet across her skin. Her arm throbbed from the tightness of his grip, and a terrible feeling of nausea churned in her stomach. What was it she had done?
Blue eyes narrowed sharply on her face, a hard burn of colour darkening the taut thrust of Gray’s cheekbones. More than ever he reminded her of a beast of prey, a dangerous jungle cat, waiting to pounce on its victim.
‘What did I do wrong?’
The words whispered past lips trembling slightly with the aftermath of shock.
Stephanie saw Gray’s lips twist. ‘Twenty-eight years old and you have to ask me that? You haven’t done the male sex any favours by living like a nun since Paul’s death, Steph.’
The violet eyes betrayed bewilderment and he made a sound of self-derision deep in his throat, caught midway between anger and amusement.
‘For God’s sake, do you want me to spell it out for you?’
Something dangerous had been let loose in the room: Stephanie could sense it and yet she didn’t know where the danger came from. She touched the tip of her tongue to her trembling lips, moistening them, in an acutely nervous gesture, blinking a little as she saw the flat hardness compressing Gray’s mouth as he watched her movements like a hawk.
Her voice in a husky whisper she protested, ‘Gray, I only touched you. I’ve touched you before.’
‘Now it’s different.’ His voice was flat, metallic almost, as though he’d deliberately forced every iota of emotion out of it. ‘Then I wasn’t suffering from the frustration that’s eating into me now.’
The shock of it tensed her muscles. Gray had never spoken to her like this before, never mentioned his physical desires, or the women he shared them with.
She wet her lips again, conscious of a strange heat burning through her veins. She didn’t want to hear about Gray’s sex life, but for some reason she heard herself saying slowly, ‘Carla …?’
‘Carla’s married, Steph.’
Numb with shock, Stephanie heard him swear. For some reason her heart was racing, her nerve-endings pulsingly conscious of Gray’s tension. She saw him move and stiffened with shock as his fingers bit into the tender flesh of her upper arms.
‘You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?’ His voice was thick and unfamiliar, and for the first time since she had known him, his movements were less than perfectly controlled. She could actually hear the fierce thud of his heart as he closed the distance between them, so loud that it drowned her instinctive gasp of shock.
‘This is what it’s all about, Stephanie. This, and this.’ He pulled her so close to his body that she could feel its heat; so close that, shockingly, she was aware of his physical arousal. If just the thought of Carla could affect him like this … Icy cold with shock, she shuddered. Instantly Gray released her, an expression of cold withdrawal icing over his eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was curt. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
He turned his back to her, and part of her ached to reach out and comfort him. Instead she said shakily. ‘It’s all right, Gray. I … I … understand. At least, I think I do.’
‘Do you?’ He turned to look at her, searching her face with hard eyes. Stephanie made herself hold that searching gaze.
‘I think so. You love Carla, but she’s married to someone else. You love someone who’s out of reach.’
‘I certainly do.’ The look he gave her was wryly sardonic. ‘Go to bed, Stephanie,’ he told her tiredly. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in discussing things any further.’
Despite her original claim that she was tired, Stephanie couldn’t sleep. It had come as a shock to learn that Gray was in love with Carla, and it hadn’t been a pleasant shock. In fact, she was stunned to discover just how resentful and unhappy she felt. She loved him as a friend, as a brother—so why did she feel like this?
Of course, it was because Carla was married. That was the explanation! Poor Gray, what a terrible situation for him. She knew how devastating jealousy could be, and he must be jealous of Carla’s husband—jealous and frustrated. Her face burned as she remembered the way he had demonstrated that frustration to her. She had never known Gray behave with anything other than calm, brotherly affection; had never before seen him like this, driven, and almost aggressive towards her. She hated the thought of their relationship changing; of another woman coming between them.
She told herself she was being unrealistic, selfish even, but it didn’t help.
‘I’m sorry about last night—things got a little out of control.’ Gray grimaced faintly as he handed Stephanie her breakfast. ‘I don’t normally let go like that.’
He was watching her covertly, as though expecting … expecting what? Despite her own complicated feelings last night, Stephanie had made a vow that she would give Gray all the emotional support she could to sustain him during what she knew from her own experience would be a very traumatic time.
‘Carla’s husband and I are financial partners in the boat I’m sailing for the Fastnet—that’s how I met her.’
Stephanie knew that her disquiet must have shown in her eyes, because Gray’s mouth twisted. ‘We can’t all love to order,’ he told her, curtly turning away from her. ‘We’ll leave for London this afternoon to collect your stuff. We’ll stay at your place overnight.’
‘You’ll have to sleep on the settee,’ she warned him.
‘It won’t matter for one night, and besides, I’d never get an hotel room at this time of year.’
‘No. London is packed with tourists. Have you much business to do?’
Gray shook his head, pouring them both a second cup of coffee. ‘No, I should be through it by lunchtime, and then we can head back here in the afternoon. By the way, you’ll need a room to work in while you’re here. There’s an empty office down at the yard, will that do? I could show you it later.’
This was more like the Gray she knew, and although it hurt her that he didn’t want to discuss Carla with her, part of her was glad. She was growing to hate the sound of the other woman’s name.
She thought she’d been successful in keeping her thoughts hidden from him until he said softly, ‘What is it, Steph?’
‘I’m worried about you—about your involvement with Carla.’
For some reason her admission alarmed her, and she looked down at her plate, missing the look of brooding pain he gave her.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I know you’re not the sort of man who’d really want to be involved with a woman who’s married to someone else,’ she offered lamely. ‘You’re always so honest in everything you do, Gray.’
‘Think you know me well, don’t you? Well, don’t be too sure, love. The pain of an almost unendurable physical desire that you know can never really be satisfied makes a man do irrational things. Remember that, Steph.’
What was he trying to tell her? A faint shiver of apprehension held her in a cold grip. Instinctively she reached out to cover his hand with her own. His hands were large and well shaped with long fingers, clever hands … caring hands.
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Пенни Джордан
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now.He needed a make-believe lover…It was such a strange request – Gray Chalmers asking Stephanie to pose as his lover to help him resist the attractions of a beautiful but married woman. Gray knew Stephanie, knew she didn′t even like being touched. Yet he insisted she come back to the village to play the part of the femme fatale.Gray had never pried into the bitter marriage Stephanie had endured to his cousin. He′d offered only comfort in the ten years since its tragic ending. So, while she hated the pretense, she couldn′t refuse.