Dark Paradise (12 page)

'On the face of it, no,' Matt agreed. 'And if this Mr Big was just any entrepreneur with an eye to the tourist industry, I wouldn't give him a second thought. But he isn't.'

Kate dissected a lobster claw. 'And you still aren't going to tell me who he is?'

'That's right.' He smiled coolly at her. 'You tend to overreact, and it's something I don't need.'

She said tartly, 'You mean there could be danger?'

'There often is.'

She drew a deep breath. 'Well, thanks a lot!'

'On the other hand,' he said, 'it could all be a damp squib, a figment of someone's overwrought imagination.' But if I start getting close, I'll warn you. I might even put you on the next flight out. So you can keep those nightmares strictly under control.' He paused. 'And who's Drew?'

She dropped her fork, stammering, 'What do you mean?'

'You said his name in your sleep last night.' The blue eyes watched her shrewdly, and she wanted to lift her hands and cover her face.

She said at last, 'He was just—a man I used to know.'

'I'd gathered that,' Matt drawled. 'Not, surely, the man in the restaurant?'

Her lips parted. 'You saw us? You recognised me?'

He gave her an ironic look. 'Did you think you'd be easy to forget? And I noticed you noticing us, too, so I wasn't altogether surprised when you made contact.'

'Did Alison see me?' she demanded huskily.

'No,' he shook his head. 'Alison had—er—other things on her mind.'

'Naturally.' Her voice sounded thick. 'And while we're on the subject, what did you mean by that crack of yours about house rules? I didn't find it funny.'

'I didn't mean you to.' He shrugged. 'Nevertheless it happens to be the truth.'

'All right,' she said, 'so you didn't have an affair with Alison while she was working with you. Very honourable, I'm sure. But that didn't stop you moving in later.'

Matt put down his fork. 'You brought the matter up,' he said. 'So let's get the whole thing straight once and for all. I have never had, or ever contemplated having, any kind of affair with Alison. I can't of course speak for any plans she might have made. In fact I got a strong hint more than once that she was available, but I never at any time followed it through.'

'But you were bringing her here…'

'No,' he said, 'I was not.'

Kate looked at him in utter bewilderment. 'I don't understand…'

'Of course you don't,' he said with a kind of weary exasperation. 'That's what I've been trying to tell you. This is how it was—Alison showed up at the Television Centre one day. She was clearly unhappy and angling for an invitation to lunch, and against my better judgment, I decided to take her out. It was obvious that marriage hadn't lived up to her expectations, and she was hinting broadly that she'd like her old job back. I'm well satisfied with Carole, my present secretary, and I let her know plainly that there was no chance. She seemed to accept it. But I did not mention this trip to her, or ask her to go with me. I've no idea where she learned about it, except that she was in Carole's office for a while, chatting to her, and she probably used her eyes and ears to good effect.' He paused. 'She was never slow on the uptake. There was literature about St Antoine lying around, and tickets. If she'd asked a direct question, Carole would probably have seen no harm in answering it. After all, Alison taught her the job before she left.'

'I don't believe you,' said Kate.

He shrugged a shoulder. 'Then ask her yourself. And don't expect me to explain why she should have told you a string of lies. As I've said, she didn't seem happy, and no doubt she felt she had her reasons.'

There was still food on her plate, but she pushed it away. She felt sick.

She said, 'It can't be true.' But she knew that it was, knew that if she was confronting Alison at that moment, what she would hear. Her voice began to shake. 'Why didn't you tell me… Why did you let me think…?'

'Because you made me bloody angry,' Matt told her. 'Arriving at the flat and accusing me like that. I decided you needed a lesson.'

Dull colour rose in her face. 'You don't go in for half measures!'

He looked at her grimly. 'You asked for it, darling. You had me tried and condemned from the first moment we met. I wasn't even allowed to speak in my own defence.'

Kate bit her lip. 'I'm sorry.'

'No, you're not,' he said derisively. 'A little mortified, maybe, a little less armoured in self-righteousness, but there aren't any real regrets, so don't pretend.' He pushed back his chair and stood up. 'I'm going to make a couple of phone calls and see about hiring some kind of vehicle. I'll meet you on the beach in an hour.' He paused. 'Don't look so shattered!'

'What do you expect?' She glared at him, and he began to laugh.

That's more like it! You'll fight back, darling. I have the greatest faith in your recuperative powers.' His eyes met hers, held them, and the smile hardened on his mouth. He said softly, 'On the subject of regrets, I have a major one—that I'll probably never have ten minutes alone with the bastard who gave you that chip on your shoulder about men.'

He walked away, and Kate watched him go, suddenly and stingingly aware in spite of what he had said of a number of very real regrets, none of which seemed to make any sense at all.

The beach was wonderful, Kate decided as she sat in the shadow of a palm tree, allowing the coarse silvery sand to drift through her fingers. The sun was wonderful, the sea looked wonderful, and in other circumstances this could have been the holiday of a lifetime. It would still be a trip to remember, she thought ruefully, but for all the wrong reasons.

There weren't many people on the beach, and a kind of warm somnolence hung over the afternoon. Only brief snatches of conversation and muted laughter reached her ears above the soothing whisper of the sea, and a solitary windsurfer moved across the sunlit dazzle of the water.

Kate shaded her eyes and watched him, admiring his expertise. She'd never tried windsurfing, or water skiing either, which was another activity the hotel provided, but this could be the time to start, because she intended to fill her days as full as possible to stop herself thinking, brooding.

Not that it would be easy. Her head was still whirling in confusion over Matt's unwelcome revelation. In her mind, she had gone back over everything Alison had said, trying to find some clue, some explanation, but there was none. For whatever reason, her sister-in-law had deliberately misled her.

She led me up the garden path, Kate thought wryly, and I—I not only walked through the gate, I slammed it behind me and locked it too.

She pushed a hand through her hair with a little sigh. Oh God, what a fool she'd been, naive and totally credulous, only too ready to believe the worst.

She'd wanted to think badly of Matt, to have all her inbuilt prejudices about him confirmed because he reminded her of Drew who had hurt without compunction, who had not cared for anyone or anything except his own interests.

Those prejudices had been her barrier to retreat behind, the weapon she had used on that instinctive immediate attraction. Matt Lincoln had spelled danger to her from that first moment, so the attraction between them had to be destroyed, because this time she was going to walk away unscathed.

She groaned silently. And what had happened to all those hard-headed sensible resolutions? They had led to a closer involvement than she could ever have dreamed of. She was here in a trap of her own making, and she would have to endure it until he chose to set her free.

If she was ever free again.

A shadow fell across her, and she tensed. A bottle of sun oil dropped into the sand beside her.

'You'll need to use that,' said Matt. He spread the large coloured towel he was carrying and lowered himself on to it. Clad in minimal black trunks, his broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped body looked magnificent.

Kate asked inanely, 'How did your phone calls go?'

'Reasonably,' he said.

'In other words, mind your own business.'

'Something like that,' he agreed.

'Except that you've made it my business—bringing me here, and forcing me to act in this charade!'

'Oh, really?' he said mockingly. 'So far, darling, there's been no force, and precious little acting either. I'm hoping for a marked improvement—now that we know each other better. And now, you'd better put some oil on. This sun is fierce.'

She shrugged, i don't burn that easily,' she said, and could have bitten her tongue out when she saw his slow smile. She uncapped the bottle and poured some of the fragrant oil into the palm of her hand. It felt good on her skin. She never tanned deeply, but usually her body acquired a warm honey-golden colour after a few days in the sun.

Now, she felt selfconsciously pale in the brief turquoise triangles which constituted her bikini, aware that Matt, propped on an elbow, was watching her, and wondering, if he was remembering, as she was, how he had undressed her only a few hours before, touching her, cupping her breasts in his strong fingers as if they were the petals of flowers. Her hand shook suddenly as she smeared the oil across her bare midriff.

He said, 'Shall I oil your back?' and she jumped, fumbling a little as she put the cap back on the bottle.

'Thanks, but no. I'm not planning on any serious sunbathing today.' Her voice sounded husky, and the words seemed to tumble over each other. She was expecting some sardonic remark, but all he said was, 'In that case, you can oil mine instead.'

He rolled on to his stomach, pillowing his head on his arms. Kate stared at him, the smooth bronze skin, the play of muscle engendered by his slightest movement, and knew she couldn't do anything of the kind.

She said, 'I don't think…'

'I'm not asking you to think,' he cut across her with sharp impatience, it's a thing any woman would do for her man, so you can do the same, instead of telling the world that you can't stand touching me at any price,' he added harshly, and Kate winced.

She began to apply the oil, her hands moving tentatively and reluctantly across his body, its warmth and strength tantalising her fingertips. Her face was impassive, tightly controlled, but she wished she was wearing her sunglasses, because she was terribly afraid he might turn his head and look into her eyes and see for himself the effect this sensuous contact was having on her, know that she was longing to bend her head and run her lips across the width of his shoulders and down the long, firm column of his spine. She wanted to let her soft palms caress him, learning every bone and sinew, and having to pretend an indifference bordering on aversion was almost killing her suddenly.

She smoothed the oil down to the narrow line of his trunks, then recapped the bottle, asking coolly, 'Satisfied?'

'Far from it.' Matt turned swiftly, catching her off guard, his hands reaching up and taking her shoulders, pulling her down on top of him, crushing her breasts against his hard chest, while his mouth touched hers in a passionless travesty of a kiss. The whole embrace could hardly have lasted more than a few seconds, but it seemed an eternity before he let her go.

He said laconically, 'Don't look so stricken, darling. The ordeal is over—at least for the time being.'

Kate caught her breath. 'Perhaps you could warn me if there are to be any—similar demonstrations,' she said huskily.

'Sure. Consider yourself warned.' Matt relaxed back on to his towel.

'That isn't what I meant…'

'Do you think I don't know that?' he asked contemptuously. 'But if you expect me to signal every advance, you can forget it. As you're the new lady in my life, I shouldn't be able to keep my hands off you, and no one would expect anything different. Just be thankful you'll have your nights to yourself.'

'Yes,' she said thickly, 'I will.' She rolled on to her back and lay looking up at the sky, feeling humiliated tears pricking at the back of her lids. At last she said, 'I've been thinking about Alison.'

'Not altogether surprisingly,' he said. 'What conclusions did you come to?'

'Not very many at all,' she acknowledged with a little sigh. 'I can't understand why she should have told me all those things when they weren't true.'

'It's not that difficult,' he said. 'Jealousy often motivates the most extraordinary behaviour.'

'Jealousy?' She turned her head. 'You mean she was jealous of your new secretary?'

'No, darling, I mean that she's jealous of you.'

Kate said flatly, 'That's ridiculous. She has no cause…'

He shook his head. 'I don't think Alison would agree with you. Before she got married, before she was even engaged, she used to talk about you a lot—your looks, your style, your career—and the fact that you were only Jon's stepsister, and no blood relation. She talked about that more than anything.'

Kate was very still. 'She thought that Jon and I…?'

'Of course she did. After all, you'd lived in the same house for a number of years; there had to be some kind of bond between you. I don't think Alison ever figured out what it was, not even after she was married.'

'That's because there was nothing to figure,' Kate said wearily. 'Jon's my brother, no more and no less, and Alison has no reason to believe otherwise.'

Matt gave her a straight look. 'And the fact that if your stepbrother had a problem he was more likely to turn to you and the rest of the family for help than to his wife-did she imagine that too?'

Kate bit her lip. 'Is that what she says?'

'She says she began to feel that your family was a kind of charmed circle in which she would always be an outsider.'

Kate was silent for a moment. 'That's not fair.'

'People who are in love and jealous and miserable are often unfair.'

'And Jon has a point of view, too.' She stared at him defiantly. 'He was convinced that you'd had an affair with Alison, that she couldn't get you out of her mind.'

Matt shrugged. 'She was probably trying to fight fire with fire. She was jealous and uncertain, and she wanted her husband to feel the same. It may not be very rational, but it's understandable.'

'And you have every sympathy with her,' Kate said bitterly.