A Solitary Heart (12 page)

fancy going to the theatre on Friday night, or will that be a bit much

after the drive?'

'I can't speak for the others, but I'd love to,' she said slowly, still in

part reserved because of his apparent change of mood and yet

disarmed at the importance he seemed to attach to her opinions and

wishes.

'Then I'll have a look around tomorrow and see what I can book. We

can go to supper afterwards, and, if we're out during the day on

Saturday, I thought I'd invite some people over for the evening. Then

you can sleep as late as you like the next morning, have a relaxing

brunch with the Sunday papers, and travel back to South Bend at

your leisure. That way those of you who have summer jobs lined up

won't be too tired on Monday. How does that sound?'

It sounded carefully thought out, and considerate, and just exactly

right. The last of her lingering disappointment, which had been

resurrected by the topic of conversation, faded away as she began to

look forward to the weekend.

'Well done,' she said quietly. 'But your plans can't have been what

you wanted to discuss. You didn't know this afternoon that my own

plans had fallen through.'

The Mercedes slid into a parking space at the restaurant. Matthew

turned off the engine and turned to her, his expression inscrutable.

'No, I didn't,' he said softly, 'did I?'

The confinement of the car was stifling. Sian unbuckled her seatbelt

as quickly as her fumbling fingers would allow, but he must have had

split-second reflexes, for he was already striding around the back of

the convertible to reach her door even as she grasped the handle.

What she had intended as an escape became an advancement into

further confrontation, as she slid long legs around and rose to her

feet.

The added height from her heels brought her almost to his level. The

fact added a subtle link in her armour; Sian didn't like the

vulnerability she felt when she had to tilt back her head to look up at

him.

'Well, then,' she said at last, obscurely disturbed by his coiled manner

and his reticence, 'what was it?'

Matthew's amusement was a dangerous, velvet thing. 'Did no one

ever tell you about curiosity and the dead cat?'

Her nostrils pinched. She told him, with a pointed chill as he curled

one hand around her elbow and they strolled towards the restaurant,

'You were the one to initiate this. I was merely following through.'

'Yes, tenacity is one of your strong points, isn't it?' He shouldered a

door open and slanted a smile at her, brief and private. 'I would do

well to remember that.'

She chose to ignore what his intense regard did to her midsection,

and stepped into warmth, light and muted noise.

Sian had heard of the restaurant but had never been. She liked the

rich wood decor and the unobtrusive efficiency of the staff. As the

hostess checked for Matthew's booking, then led them to their table,

she wondered, surprisingly without much heat, just when he had

made the reservation. Before or after he had talked with her? But

then perhaps he had meant to eat here whether she came or not. She

was glad she had not said something precipitate and foolish.

She could not help but be aware of the attention they received, in an

oblique fashion, from the other diners in the restaurant as they

walked through. Sian saw the women glance casually at Matthew's

sulphurously graceful prowl, then halt in wide-eyed assessment. One

or two held forks suspended in mid-air. She had a sudden, primitive

image of stalking over to the more blatant ones and slapping their

laden utensils out of their hands.

When Matthew held out a chair, she settled into it smoothly, her face

dark with self-mockery.

Their conversation was at first desultory as they perused the menu.

Sian settled quickly for a simple meal of grilled rainbow trout, salad

and a glass of white wine. Matt ordered a steak, then when their

waiter left he settled back in his chair and lazily contemplated her.

What shifted, she wondered, behind those private eyes, reflecting the

intense blue of his dark suit so that he seemed almost a stranger?

'What will you be doing with your summer, Sian?' asked Matt, one

corded, long-fingered hand idly twirling the glass of Scotch that had

been set before him. 'Do you have a job lined up?'

'I was going to wait until my father came for his visit before I

decided what to do,' she replied, unaware of her wry grimace or the

downward bent of her mouth. 'Now I suppose I'll have to rethink

things. To be quite honest, I'm not sure what I'll do. The last few

months of school have been too pressured for me to do anything but

cope with the deadlines as they came up.'

'Jane mentioned you graduated top of your class. Congratulations,' he

said, 'and well done. You've worked very hard.'

'Thank you.' Her green eyes held genuine pleasure from his praise.

'But it's not over yet.'

Their meal came, attractively displayed and superbly cooked. Sian

picked at hers without much interest.

'You're going on to graduate school?' he asked after the interruption.

'Mmm, two more years.' He was not looking at her any longer, but

instead studied the amber lights in his drink; she wasn't sure why she

went on to confess, slowly, 'I'm rather intimidated by it, actually.

Courses in business administration aren't exactly my strong point.'

'So you choose to grapple with the subject, instead of avoiding it. I'm

sure you'll do just fine once you're in the middle of it,' he remarked.

His iced-water glass was sweating. With one forefinger he wiped

down the edge of the glass and came away wet. She gave the

movement close attention. Matt lifted his gaze and said softly, 'After

all, as with anything else, it's the anticipation that's the worst part.'

The gold necklace at the base of her neck winked with her tight

swallow. 'Is it?' she said very drily, regarding him from under level

brows. 'And what of reality that exceeds all expectations?'

He was sober-faced, and laughing at her. 'Clarify the matter for me. I

don't see reality's exceeding all expectations as necessarily a terrible

thing.'

'Catastrophe?' she murmured. Her sarcasm was a delicacy flavouring

her words with rare spice. 'Flood, fire, act of God?'

'One cannot live one's life in constant fear of disaster, Sian,' he

returned. 'Bad things do happen, to good and bad people alike. Don't

you see that's why it's so important to snatch at the good when

fortune presents it to us?'

Her smile was excessively mild. 'I don't disagree with you, Matthew.

I do, however, take issue with the imposition of your values over

mine. I'm the one to judge what's good in my life, and I will take it

where I find it.'

His face had tightened until it was a study in angled severity. It gave

her no pleasure to look on it. 'Like Joshua?' he bit out.

She lifted her chin. She didn't know why she didn't just either tell him

.she was 'engaged' to his brother, or confess the real story to him. The

timing would have been right for either. But one was a weapon she

wasn't prepared to use, and the other too revealing. 'If I choose,' she

said coolly.

His eyes glittered. She distrusted him, and her own assessment of his

strange mood, however, as he paid for their meal with apparent

composure, as they strolled leisurely to the parking area.

She did well to be wary, but it was not enough. She waited in silence

while he unlocked her door, then quelled an impulse to step back as

he straightened and turned to regard her with brooding eyes, a taut

mouth.

'I have been remiss. I never did tell you how lovely you look,'

Matthew said then, almost absently. 'You are stunning, Sian. I was

proud to be seen by your side tonight.'

She was shaken by the intensity of pleasure that coursed through her

at his quiet compliment. How vain she was, to know such a fierce

thrill at his words, and to know, too, that they had been judged well

matched by outsiders: her cool femininity in delicate contrast to his

forceful masculinity.

'Thank you,' she said, gravely, sternly demure.

He looked down her, a bright and graceful fall. They stood in relative

privacy between the passenger side of the Mercedes and the car

parked next to it. The light from a nearby street-lamp burned white

along the edge of his bent tawny head; the rest of his face was in

translucent shadow.

'I like your blouse.'

An irony: despite the intimacy of his regard, she had room to be

grateful that he wasn't looking at her face, which felt as if it were

glowing neon-red. Her throat needed to be cleared before she could

speak. 'I like it too.'

He asked throatily, tightly, 'Is it as soft and as silken as it looks?'

Her legs went wobbling. She said, shaken and alarmed, 'I don't think

-'

He brought a hand up inside her open suit jacket and slid the fingers

around the slim curve of her ribs, just under her breast, and at the

light caressing pressure her pulse went wild.

'Mmm,' he sighed, with deceptively sleepy pleasure. 'It is. Cool and

whispery thin, and moulding itself to the body underneath it. That's

how a woman should always dress, in silk and lace, and—well,

maybe a touch of leather.'

His hand moved to the small of her back, and he pulled her to him,

and with slow, sensuous deliberation he began to lower his head.

Her composure, so hard won at the beginning, so grimly maintained

throughout the evening, was now a quivering bowl of jelly. It

trembled strengthlessly at the pit of her stomach, at the back of her

knees, in the base of her throat, and the softened curve of her mouth.

'Matthew,' she managed to gasp. 'Stop it.'

His lips hovered, a bare inch from hers. 'I'm sorry, I don't understand,'

he murmured with oh, such false innocence, as he lifted molten eyes.

'That isn't the message your body was telling me on the beach.'

Her hands rested on his forearms, tightened convulsively on him. Her

lips had gone dry; she licked them and whispered, 'It's what I'm

telling you now.'

With her body bowing back against the strength of his arm, her eyes

dilated to immense black pools; she looked young, dazed and

blinded. He took his time in examining her face, the arced lines of

her collarbones as they disappeared in shadowed mystery into the

neck of her blouse. Then he shook his head a little, and said softly,

'No, you're not.'

Her eyelids fell under an unsustainable weight as he kissed her, a

featherlight, moulded, exploratory caress, and the same searing

judder of sensation that always happened when he touched her

crackled down the length of her body. She made some slight sound,

reactive, incoherent, and his whisper of expelled breath answered.

Gentleness, civilisation's veneer, was discarded for the game it was.

He took her fully into his arms, hard against the length of him, and

slanted his opened mouth over hers.

The dark, secret invasion was impossible to resist. Her lips parted on

a sigh. He touched her inside, drew her out, and danced with her

tongue. She whirled mindlessly in a downward spiral, head to one

side and sinking fast to his shoulder, moulded breast to hard-muscled

breast, the arc of hip to hip, thigh to thigh.

She felt it as if it shook her own foundations, the uncontrollable

tremor that raced over him like fever. He cupped the back of her

head, then dug with delicate urgency into the French twist until the

pins scattered away and her hair spilled over her shoulders and he

sank greedy fingers into the midnight rain.

If he had not been holding her so very tightly, she would have slid

down to the ground. As it was, she clung to him, her arms wound

around his neck by some mysterious force while common sense flew

away on fickle wings and he drove with hard, escalating passion into

her unplumbed depths.

His heart beat like a sledge-hammer against her breasts. His breath

was coming in long-distance-runner gasps; gradually he eased the

ferocity of the tempo into something more bearable, swooping with

shallower intent on the bruised peach of her mouth. If it was meant to

soothe and restore, it did the exact opposite. Plunged into the