If Ever I Loved You (17 page)

He reached over and took Gina's hand. "Now, if you'll
excuse us we have a lot to talk over and would like to be alone. I'm
sure you can find something to do in another part of the house."

For a moment Bertha looked shocked, then her pale face
seemed to fall accentuating wrinkles that hadn't been obvious before.
Her round fleshy chin trembled and her light blue eyes filled with
tears. She aged before their eyes as she sniffed. "I see. Because I've
dared to criticize your paramour—"

"My wife, Mother," Peter said between clenched teeth.

Bertha continued as though he hadn't spoken. "I'm being
banished to my room like a naughty child. You used to seek my advice,
but now you have no use for a mother who loves you."

She paused on a sob and it occurred to Gina that she was
witnessing one of Bertha's better performances. It was true what Lilly
had said about her mother knowing exactly when to cry, and Bertha was
wringing the tears that trickled down her puffy cheeks for all they
were worth.

Lilly had been wrong about one thing, though. Peter was
not as immune as she had indicated. His hand tightened painfully on
Gina's and a muscle twitched in his jaw as his mother continued her
tirade. "Fortunately I'm getting old. I won't be around much longer to
meddle in your affairs but there's one thing you might consider. If I'm
gone who will you go to for comfort the next time this little
gold-digging hussy walks out on you?"

"Mother!" Peter roared and jumped up, then leaned heavily
on the table for support as a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over
him.

Gina pushed back her chair and was on her feet
immediately. She put an arm around Peter to steady him and glared at
Bertha. "Mrs. Van Housen," she began with icy determination. "If you
don't shut up and get out of here right now, I'm personally going to
escort you to your room."

The two women locked eyes in silent battle, and it was
Bertha who finally turned away and walked out of the kitchen.

Gina eased Peter back in his chair and knelt down beside
him. She brushed a lock of hair off his forehead, now damp with
perspiration. "Are you all right, darling?" she asked anxiously.

The warmth that flooded his eyes alerted her to her
inadvertent use of the endearment, but all he said was, "Just give me a
few minutes, I'll be O.K."

He leaned back in the chair and she rose and started
cleaning up the dirty dishes. She discovered that she was shaking from
the unexpected encounter with Peter's overbearing mother. It was easy
to dislike Bertha and yet Gina couldn't altogether blame the older
woman. Bertha had been against her son's involvement with a little
"commoner," but when she realized that Peter was intent on marriage
she'd made an attempt to welcome Gina into the family only to have to
stand by later and watch her son's anguish when his bride proved, at
least to the eyes of the family, to be an unfaithful money-grabber.
Gina knew she would have felt the same had it been her son who was
involved.

She sighed. It was all such a tangled web and they
couldn't go on this way. The whole situation was getting out of control
and had to be resolved, now. Either she must live with Peter who
desired her but did not love her in a marriage that would probably not
endure once the passion had been satisfied, or she must finally make
him understand that she wanted the marriage terminated immediately.

She glanced anxiously over at him. He was slumped in his
chair and looked pale and exhausted. He was temporarily vulnerable now,
but by tomorrow he'd be strong and invincible again. Peter was a
fighter, a leader, a man sufficient unto himself, and she suspected
that he wasn't above using some of the tricks his mother found so
valuable in getting her own way.

Is that what he was doing to her now? Gina wondered. Had
she been set up? Was his drinking a deliberate ploy to gain her
sympathy and make her even more susceptible to him? She shook her head.
No, that was unlikely. There was no doubt but that the drinking had
made him violently ill, and she couldn't believe that he'd deliberately
bring that on himself. He couldn't want her that badly! It was more
likely that it had started as a temper tantrum because she'd dared to
resist him and then had gotten out of hand.

Peter looked up and caught her watching him, then frowned
when he saw what she was doing. "Gina, you don't have to wash dishes.
We have a housekeeper for that."

She grinned. "I know. Guess I'm just a compulsive tidier,
but I can't see any reason to leave these for Mrs. Webster when I'm
standing around doing nothing. Besides, it's a joy to work in this
kitchen, it's so clean and shiny and well-organized."

"It's your kitchen, sweetheart," he said softly, "You can
do anything in it you want to. But I can think of a much more
interesting diversion than washing dirty dishes." He winked
suggestively.

"Peter Van Housen!" Gina laughed. "You have a one-track
mind. Besides," she teased, "didn't anyone ever tell you that the
diversion you have in mind is better performed in the bedroom with the
door shut?"

"I've been trying for weeks to get you behind the closed
door of a bedroom," he said tersely, all humor gone. "I'm at the point
where I'll take it anywhere I can get it."

Gina sobered quickly and realized she'd asked for that. It
had not only been a stupid way to tease him, it had also been cruel. He
wasn't feeling well enough for bright repartee at the moment.

She dried her hands and went over to stand beside him.
"I'm sorry, Peter," she apologized, "that was a thoughtless thing to
say. You still look pretty rocky. I really do think you should go
upstairs and take a nap."

He looked up at her. "I don't suppose it will do any good
to ask you to take a nap with me?"

She shook her head. "No."

He let out his breath and pushed himself off the chair. He
stood but reached out to hold onto Gina as the dizziness returned.
"Sorry," he muttered, "but I'm afraid you're going to have to help me
upstairs."

She put her arm around his waist and gave him the support
he needed to negotiate the long hall between the library and the living
room, past the family room, Peter's office and a bathroom and up the
wide rustic stairway at the end.

At the top of the stairs Gina paused and Peter looked at
her quizzically until he remembered. "That's right, you haven't been up
here before, have you? I never did give you the grand tour of the
house."

He had his arm around her shoulders and hers was around
his waist. The feel of his tall sturdy body pressing hip to hip and
thigh to thigh with hers was rapidly melting her bones and she knew if
they stood together like that much longer, she'd go to bed with him
whether he asked her again or not.

"I'll tour your house another time," she said crisply.
"For now just tell me where your bedroom is."

He grinned. "Yes ma'am, happy to oblige," he said as he
hugged her closer to him and turned to the left. "It's the first door
down the hall."

He didn't let loose of her as they walked through the
door, and her eyes widened as she surveyed the beautifully decorated
room. It was huge, big enough for two rooms, with a fireplace at one
end that was a continuation of the stone fireplace in the rooms
directly below. The outside wall was a replica of the glass wall in the
living room and it also opened onto a redwood deck. The sheer eggshell
curtains that covered the glass did little to obstruct the sweeping
view of the ocean, only this time she could see even further because of
the higher vantage point.

The room was furnished in dark reddish-brown cherry wood;
the focal piece was a king-size bed covered with a quilted puff satin
spread in a swirl design ranging from navy to sky blue with tiny
streaks of scarlet and cream for accent. Several tables and chests,
including a very feminine dressing table with a lighted mirror, were
grouped around the bed, and at the other end of the room a blue velvet
sofa and two upholstered chairs, one scarlet and one cream, faced the
fireplace.

Gina was entranced. It was the most luxurious bedroom
she'd ever seen. She felt like Alice in Wonderland. "Oh Peter," she
breathed, "it's so—so right! I've never seen anything so
elegant."

He lowered his head and kissed her cheek. "I'm glad you
like it. I had it decorated for you."

"For me?" She felt her resistance weakening. It would be
sheer heaven to share this room with Peter, to lie curled in his arms
at night and listen to the surf pounding against the shore. To waken in
the morning to sunlight streaming through the glass and breakfast for
two on the deck.

She mentally shook herself and pulled abruptly away from
him. "Peter," she said hotly. "Don't you ever give up? Did you honestly
believe that if you couldn't seduce me with sex you could buy me with
all this?"

She swept her arms to indicate not only the room but the
whole house. "You really believe you can get anything you want with
money, don't you?"

He looked surprised by her sudden outburst and his voice
was cool when he responded. "I know I can, but with you I shouldn't
have to. You're my wife, I'm entitled to have you in my bed and I've
about reached the end of my patience with this outraged virgin act of
yours."

Gina gasped and he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook
her as anger replaced the surprise on his face. "You're driving me out
of my mind. You touch me, caress me, allow me enticing liberties and
then act offended when I want more. You respond to my lovemaking until
I'm half crazy with need, then pull away and insist that I stop. Stop!
Just turn it off like a light switch! My God, Gina, don't you know what
that does to a man?"

His fingers dug into her flesh until she cried out with
pain, but he was too enraged now to hear her. He jerked her against him
and held her with one arm around her waist while his other hand gripped
the back of her head so she couldn't move it as his mouth swooped down
and took hers prisoner. Gone was the patient gentleness; it had been
replaced by a much more violent emotion, out of control and dangerous.

Gina struggled ineffectually as his mouth ground into
hers, lustful and hurting. For the first time she was afraid of Peter.
His hold on her was bruising and her breath came in short painful sobs
as she tried desperately to move her head away from the pressure that
was causing her teeth to rip the soft flesh on the underside of her
lips.

When he finally lifted his head she drew breath into her
lungs in shuddering gulps. He looked at her with a stunned expression,
as though he had just realized that he'd been hurting her. She seized
the moment to push him hard, and as she did, his hold loosened and she
wrenched herself out of his grasp. She stood facing him, panting with
exertion and fear, and her voice was loud and tinged with hysteria as
she said, "You're never to blame for anything, are you? You won't leave
me alone. You seduce me with your expert lovemaking and when I respond
it's
my
fault. I've told you in every way I know how that I don't want
your kisses and embraces but you continue to force them on me and then
accuse
me
of being a tease. Now you've decided to
play rough because I've had the audacity to refuse to become your legal
prostitute!"

She turned and rushed from the room. When Peter called her
name she started to run, but she'd forgotten about the sharp turn at
the top of the stairway and was going too fast to maneuver it
successfully. Her foot slipped and she plunged, screaming with surprise
and terror, down the long flight of wide, carpeted stairs!

It seemed to Gina that it took forever for her tortured
body to tumble from one step to another to another… like a
time warp where all movement is slowed. She heard someone shouting, and
a scream that could have been coming from her, although she wasn't
conscious of making a sound except for the thump, thump, thump as she
fell further and further…

Then as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Pain wracked
every inch of her but she was finally still. She was vaguely aware of
footsteps and voices coming from all directions, and when she forced
her eyes to open she saw Peter kneeling beside her, his face white and
stricken. She could see his lips moving but there was so much confusion
that she couldn't understand what he was saying. She closed her eyes
again because it was too much of an effort to keep them open.

Later, whether seconds, minutes or hours she couldn't
tell, she felt herself floating. She moved her head against something
solid and it fitted into the hollow of a shoulder, Peter's shoulder. He
was carrying her back up the stairs. Then slowly, carefully, he lowered
her onto a cloud, soft and smooth and fragrant, and she snuggled
gratefully into it and blotted out the pain and the noise.

"Gina! Gina, open your eyes and look at me!" The command
was sharp and insistent and she huddled deeper into the pillow trying
to shut it out. She ached everywhere and all she wanted was the luxury
of oblivion.

"Gina!" Now a hand was shaking her gentry. Whoever it was
wasn't going to give up, and she struggled out of the fuzzy darkness
and opened her eyes. She was lying on a bed and a man was sitting
beside her, a stranger with sandy hair thinning on top and a solemn
expression.

"Who—who are you," she whispered through dry
lips.

The man looked relieved and smiled. "I'm Dr. Bowmer. Can
you tell me who you are?"

"Virginia Lea Brown," she confessed slowly.

"Good," said the doctor. "Now tell me what day today is."

She looked at him with disbelief. "Did you wake me just to
ask me that?" she grumbled then answered, "It's Tuesday."

"Right!" The doctor beamed, as pleased as if she had
recited Einstein's theory of relativity backward. "Now just one more
question. What's your husband's name?"