Dark Paradise (21 page)

Kate chose her words carefully, 'Perhaps—when you love someone very much—you are prepared to forgive them, whatever they do.'

'You think he cares for her in that way?' he demanded incredulously. 'It is impossible! He is not a weak man, and tonight her behaviour has been blatant.' He paused. 'I did warn you how it would be.'

'Yes,' Kate acknowledged miserably, 'you warned me.'

'And yet you say you trust him,' Carlos went on, half to himself. 'It is incredible! But perhaps you don't yet realise what she is capable of.'

Kate sighed. 'I think I do.' She could see the way Leanne was dancing with Matt, her body against his, her arms linked round his neck.

Carlos muttered, 'She is shameless—evil.'

'Perhaps so,' Kate said wearily. 'But I don't see that saying these things over and over again helps at all.'

He gave her an offended look, and relapsed into silence.

When the music ended, Kate excused herself as diplomatically as possible, and said goodnight to Alvarez.

'So soon, child?' He sounded disappointed, and she gave him a faint smile.

'It's been a pretty shattering day.'

He nodded. 'Then sleep well, and tomorrow we will talk again.'

And say what? she wondered as she walked across the patio towards the house. To her surprise, she found Carlos at her shoulder.

'I think I can manage to find my way back to my room unaided,' she said more sharply than she had intended. She wanted to be alone, and she certainly didn't want to hear another diatribe against Leanne.

'My father expects me to escort you,' Carlos announced.

'I see,' Kate said bitterly. 'I don't intend to pinch the silver, you know. Do you treat all your guests this way?'

Carlos halted, his gaze going sharply to her face. 'Guests? What guests? I don't understand what you mean.'

'Joke,' she said with a sigh. 'I'm not surprised you didn't recognise it. They're pretty thin on the ground round here, I'd imagine.'

'A joke—I see.' His brow cleared. 'I am sorry I didn't understand. Naturally there are no guests. It would be impossible.' He paused, then added with odd insistence, 'You do believe me, don't you?'

'Of course I do,' said Kate with a little shrug. 'Why shouldn't I?'

It was a relief to reach her room, and she gave him a brief smile and a determined, 'Goodnight, Carlos.'

He took her hand and stood looking down at it. 'It is still early. Couldn't we talk for a while?'

'No, we couldn't,' she said gently. 'I'm really tired. I'll see you tomorrow.'

'I thought you liked me,' he protested sulkily.

Kate groaned inwardly. 'I think you're very nice,' she began temperately.

Carlos said almost fiercely, 'And I think you are beautiful,' and his hands came down on her shoulders, pulling her towards him. Caught off balance, she half fell against him, and his mouth descended eagerly on hers.

Matt said arctically, 'I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was interrupting something.'

He was only a couple of yards away, standing with his hands on his hips, watching them. Carlos let Kate go as if he had been stung. If she hadn't been so furious, she could almost have felt sorry for him. Desperately trying to recover his poise, he said, 'I did not realise you were there.'

'So I gather.' Matt's face was glacial, his mouth in a taut line of anger. 'Have you finished saying goodnight to Miss Marston?'

'Oh—yes.' Carlos' gaze slid embarrassedly away from Kate's. 'Er—sleep well.' He turned and scuttled away, head bent.

Kate moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. 'Thank you. I—I don't know what came over him.'

The dark brows lifted arrogantly. 'No? I suggest it was exactly the same thing that prompted him beside the pool this afternoon.

'I'd be grateful if you didn't encourage the little idiot,' he added, after a pause while Kate digested what he had said. 'It could cause complications.'

Kate gasped. 'I haven't encouraged him!' she began heatedly.

He shrugged. 'You didn't slap his face either. You let him kiss you earlier, you've been dancing with him, and you allowed him to walk you to your room. He must have thought it was his birthday.'

She stared at him. 'How did you know he'd kissed me?'

'Our room overlooks the pool,' he said. 'Or hadn't you noticed? I happened to be on the balcony. I had a circle seat. Leave him alone, Kate. He's immature and confused—totally bad news as far as you're concerned.'

'Oh, thanks for the good advice!' Her voice shook. 'And who made you the arbiter of everyone's morals around here—after the way you've been behaving with—with that woman!'

'You have some complaint?' asked Matt, too pleasantly.

She hesitated, sensing danger. 'It's none of my business.'

'You seem to have made it your business,' he said flatly. 'Not long ago, you were telling Jethro that you trusted me. You were amazingly convincing. Now you seem to be accusing me of playing around with his wife.'

She muttered, 'She's been throwing herself at you ever since you got here.'

He shrugged. That's no great problem, although it's something I should have foreseen," perhaps. But if you're thinking Jethro still harbours any illusions about her then forget it. He recovered from those a long time ago—probably even before they were married.'

'Is that supposed to be some kind of excuse?'

'No,' he said. 'Because I don't need one. Leanne is what she is, and no one can change that. Jethro may have thought differently once—I suspect he had some crazy idea about turning her into another Evita—but he knows better now.'

'But he loved her once,' Kate said stubbornly.

'I'd hardly describe it quite so romantically.' His voice was cynical.

'And your relationship with her?' Kate lifted her chin defiantly. 'How would you describe that?'

He gave her a long, level look. 'What do you want me to say, Kate?' His voice roughened. 'That it was entirely platonic? It wouldn't be the truth, so why should I lie about it? God knows it was over a long time ago.'

'Was it?'

He was very still for a moment. 'What the hell are you saying?'

She bit her lip. 'It's obvious that Leanne doesn't think it's over.'

'And that makes it so?' He gave a short laugh. 'Thanks. What was that you were saying a little while ago about trust?'

'Wasn't it what you wanted me to say?' Kate stared down at the floor.

His hand took her chin, forcing it upwards, making her meet his gaze. 'No,' he said harshly, 'I'd have preferred you to mean it. For one crazy moment, I thought you did. But it was all part of the performance, wasn't it?' He paused. 'Wasn't it?'

For one long moment Kate was tempted to tell him the truth, to let the depth of feeling he had aroused in her spill over into words, to throw herself on his mercy. But the burning memory of his rejection of her only a few hours ago still lingered. She couldn't face another, even greater humiliation.

She said again, 'I thought it was what you wanted.'

Matt was silent for a moment or two, then his hand fell away.

He said, 'Then you'll be glad to know that you don't have to perjure yourself any more. The agreement ends here. It's—outlived any usefulness it might conceivably have had, and frankly it's becoming an embarrassment! He gave her a bleak look. 'Goodnight.'

She watched him walk across the room, and vanish into the dressing room. The door closed behind him with a click.

She was alone, and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

She felt mentally and physically exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. She dozed, began to dream uneasily and awoke with a start as if someone had put a hand on her shoulder.

She sat up, the single sheet covering her sliding away from her naked body. Leanne's black nightdress was draped across the dressing stool. She couldn't have borne to have it anywhere near her.

The night was quiet. The air was warm and still. She swallowed, breathing deeply, trying to relax herself, but she felt as taut as a drum. She glanced restlessly round the room, wondering what had woken her, running her tongue over her dry lips.

Then somewhere close at hand she heard a woman's laugh—soft, amused, seductive.

Kate tensed, then she slid out of bed, taking the sheet with her, winding it round her body, and tiptoed over to the door of the dressing room. For a long moment she stood listening, hardly breathing, but she heard only silence and the deep heavy beat of her own pulses.

She put out a hand and gently tried the door. It gave instantly, swinging noiselessly open. Kate swallowed, feeling like Bluebeard's wife. If Matt woke up, if he saw her standing there, wrapped in a sheet, what would he think? And what could she say? 'I thought I heard Leanne, and came to see if you were together.' Never! She would just have to pretend that she was sleepwalking, or had heard a strange noise and was frightened. She hitched up the sheet and stepped forward uncertainly, words of apology for having woken him already forming on her lips. And then she stopped, because they weren't necessary. The sheet was turned back and the pillow dented, but the bed was empty. Matt wasn't there.

Kate turned with a gasp, half expecting to find him standing behind her, grimly asking what she thought she was doing, but she was alone.

She backed out of The room, closing the door behind her, her legs curiously weak. And heard the laugh again, and recognised this time the direction it was coming from.

The sheet trailing on the floor around her, she crossed to the window and opened the long shutters a fraction, easing herself through the opening on to the balcony.

Below the pool rippled and shimmered in the moonlight, and she paused, staring down, telling herself that she was mistaken, obsessed.

But she wasn't imagining the faint splashing sounds, or the way the pattern of the ripples was breaking up on the water. As she watched, Leanne grasped the rail at the side of the pool and pulled herself out with easy grace. She stood on the edge in the moonlight, twisting her dark hair into a rope to wring the water out of it, completely naked and aware of it, confident in her own beauty.

And not alone. Transfixed on her balcony—what had Matt called it—'a circle seat'?—she saw a movement under the pergola, saw a tall figure, heard a man's voice speak, although the tone and the words eluded her.

Leanne Alvarez shook her hair over her shoulders and walked to the pergola. Kate's clenched fist went up to her mouth to prevent her crying out. She saw the shadows move again, and Leanne's triumphant smile. She heard her voice. 'Darling, you must not be so impatient. After all, it is your own fault that we have been apart for so long.' Numbly Kate watched her walk up the shallow steps of the pergola to be snatched passionately into the darkness of an embrace, then she forced her nerveless limbs to move, stepping back silently into the security and dimness of the bedroom, away from the betrayal of the moonlight.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt even to exist. Like an automaton she walked to the bed, and sank down on it, still wrapped in the sheet, curling involuntarily into the comfort position of childhood. For a moment she lay still, then one tearing dry sob after another shook her body.

Matt with Leanne down there, uncaring who might see them. A little moan escaped her throat. It had taken no time at all for Leanne to re-establish her power over Matt, she thought desperately. He had said their affair was over, but Leanne had known that it was not.

Kate buried her face in the pillow. So much for love and trust and hope, stifled almost at birth. What a fool she'd been to think that Matt was different! How naively she had accepted his control where she was concerned as proof that he was not just another womaniser like Drew. Well, she knew better now.

If Matt had wanted her, he would have taken her. God knows, she had given him sufficient opportunity. But instead he had taken Leanne who was beautiful and amoral, and who had promised to give him what he wanted.

A long deep shiver went through her. She wanted to get away from this house, and its strange twisted relationships. She wanted to go home, to work and sanity, and a measure of calm. The last twenty-four hours had been like living in some wild, lurid dream, but she was awake now, and she needed to escape.

And escape above all from the sheer confusion of emotion inside her—the jealousy, the frustration, the passionate crying need for this man of all men, who would never love her or belong to her as she so desperately wanted.

She thought, 'I must get away. I must—or I shall go mad!'

It must have been almost dawn before she fell at last into an uneasy sleep, listening vainly all the time for the sound of Matt's return to his room.

She was woken by Jakey, bringing a tray of fruit juice and coffee to her, with the information that breakfast was being served on the patio.

She knew she wouldn't be able to manage a mouthful of solid food, but she was glad of the coffee. Its warmth and fragrance seemed to put fresh heart into her, and she poured a second cup and took it into the bathroom with her while she showered and cleaned her teeth.

All she had to wear again was the coral bikini and its covering shirt, and she put them on with reluctance, only to find when she re-emerged into the bedroom that Jethro Alvarez had been as good as his word and her luggage was waiting for her.

Another obstacle to her departure had been removed, Kate thought, dropping to her knees beside her case. She stripped off the bikini, rolling it into a ball and thrusting it down the side of the case, putting on instead a sleeveless shift dress in a stinging lemon yellow. She tied her hair back at the nape of her neck with a matching scarf, and concealed the ravages of the previous night behind her sunglasses before going downstairs.

She had no wish to meet the other members of the household, but common sense dictated that she couldn't spend all day in her room. The last thing she wanted was for Matt and Leanne to guess that she knew about their relationship. She needed to leave St Antoine with some remnants of pride intact.

As she walked down the stairs, Carlos seemed to appear from nowhere, and she guessed with irritation that he'd been waiting for her.