Special Treatment

A tiny shock thrilled through her as she discovered how much she was relishing the pleasure of putting him down. What was happening to her? What sort of woman was she turning into? She had seen at first hand how hard and embittered some of her older female colleagues had become, and she didn’t want to end up like that. They were so cynical and worldly; time and humankind had destroyed all their illusions and hardened them so that they were incapable of having any real feelings. She couldn’t live like that.

‘What’s a beautiful woman like you doing all alone, I wonder?’

The banality of his words enflamed her. Surely she was worthy of something a little better than that? And then, appallingly, her pain-bruised mind registered the word alone, and she could feel the lump gather treacherously in her throat. Oh, God, she couldn’t cry now! Not in front of this man.

To punish herself, as much as to get rid of him, she said bitterly, ‘If I’m on my own, it’s by my own choice, and if you would please …’

‘Your choice?’ She flinched beneath the derision in his voice. ‘Are you sure that’s the truth? Wouldn’t it be more honest of you to admit that you’re on your own because your lover is with his wife?’

How on earth had he known? Was her guilt written in her eyes for everyone to see? Susannah wanted to cower back from him and hide her face, but pride kept her standing where she was. She wasn’t prepared for this. She would never be prepared for it. She remembered how sick she had been after Louise had gone, and she felt a return of that nausea now.

She made to push past him and he caught hold of her, his voice rasping as he derided acidly, ‘Running away? What’s wrong? Can’t you face up to the truth? Can’t you admit that you haven’t got the guts to find your own man; that you prefer to steal someone else’s?’

Susannah looked round in panic. Couldn’t someone see what was happening? She almost expected him to lift her off her feet and to shake her like a terrier with a rat. Her breath was locked in her throat, her heart thumping in rapid, shallow strokes.

‘How innocent you look. Like a child cowering in fear of the dark. But you aren’t innocent, are you?’

She wanted to deny it, to demand by what right he spoke to her like this. But to her horror she heard herself saying weakly instead, ‘How did you know? How …’

And then, frighteningly, the room went dark all around her and started to sway. Noise rode over her in waves, like echoes from a sea shell. She just had time to realise, in horror, that she was actually fainting, before everything went black.

When Susannah came round, she was lying on the chesterfield in Neil’s study.

The door was closed. Susannah struggled to sit up, and gasped as she felt the top of her dress fall away. As she clutched it to her in frantic embarrassment, she saw someone move.

Her heart chopped as she watched her antagonist detach himself from the shadows and come towards her.

‘Mamie—’ she demanded weakly.

‘We don’t want to spoil her party, do we? Besides, you’re all right now. That’s quite an art,’ he added callously, ‘fainting to order. Got you out of more than one tight situation, no doubt.’

How dared he? How dared he imply that she … Oh, it really was too much! She sat up again, forgetting her dress until it was too late, and the fierce burning heat of his gaze grazed over her naked breasts.

She made a small choking sound in her throat, a mixture of embarrassment and fear, her hands instinctively moving protectively to conceal her body.

As his fingers caught her wrists, she winced in shocked pain, but despite all her efforts she was unable to stop him from pushing her hands down.

He was closer to her now. She could feel his breath against her forehead. His fingers were hard, and yet curiously warm against her wrists. His thumb stroked across her racing pulse.

‘You should have been an actress. So much manufactured emotion! And why? You can’t really expect me to believe I’m the first man to see you like this.’

His derision taunted her. Even she could feel the unsteady racing of her pulse beneath his touch. What was he trying to do to her?

An awful, untenable thought shook her, and as though he had read her mind his face hardened.

‘You don’t really think I’d degrade myself by committing rape? Oh, come on.’ His mouth twisted, his eyes derisive.

‘Why did you bring me in here?’ She was breathing shallowly, as though her body wanted to conserve what was left of its weak strength. ‘My dress …’

‘You fainted, and I unzipped the back of your dress … so that you could breathe unhindered.’

His unspoken statement on the extreme tightness of her dress infuriated her. She tried to pull herself away from him.

‘Yes, well … but I’m all right now and, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get dressed.’

‘Oh, but I do mind.’

Susannah stared at him.

‘Oh, come on! Don’t pretend to be surprised. You must be used to the way men react to the sight of your body by now. What do you think is so different about me that would stop me from enjoying the view? Or are you frightened your lover might walk in and discover us?’

Her lover?

Confused, she stared at him. She had experienced so many unfamiliar emotions in such a short space of time, she scarcely knew what she thought any more.

‘I … He won’t,’ she told him absently.

The way he was looking at her was having the oddest effect on her senses. It was almost as though he were in some way hypnotising her. His fingers still touched her wrists, but their touch now was a persuasive caress that made her skin tingle and her breath catch. It was all so unfamiliar to her. David had never had time for such light, teasing loveplay.

Loveplay! Horrified, she pulled away, and his hand accidentally brushed against her breast. The quiver of sensation that shot through her at that touch terrified her.

‘I must go.’

She said it like a sleep-walker, struggling to sit up, her eyes fixed on the door, and the reality that lay beyond it. Here, in this room, she seemed to have strayed into an unknown dimension. Who was this man? What was she doing with him?

She made to get up, but he caught hold of her, his hands hard against her narrow bare ribcage.

‘No,’ he denied harshly and, as her heart leapt in terror, he repeated the denial more softly, his head bending towards her. She felt his breath feather against her skin, caught the clean scent of it and then shuddered, caught up in a mindless complexity of emotions as his hands moved to cup her breasts, his weight bearing her backwards into the chesterfield, his fingers fanning out possessively against her paler flesh as his mouth whispered against hers.

‘No, I’m not letting you go yet. I rescued you, remember? And now I’m claiming my reward.’

Rescued her? From what? A faint that he himself had induced? Round and round in crazy circles spun her mind, faster and faster, until she was unable to catch hold of anything stable and real. Beneath his mouth her own softened, unable to withstand the skilled precision of its movements. She felt his tongue caressing her too vulnerable flesh; heard herself moan deeply in her throat as her body, denied fulfilment of its femininity in her relationship with David, accepted and welcomed the maleness of him. Her mouth opened, her head bending back beneath the force of his kiss. He made a sound against her lips, masculine and savage in its arousal. His body moved against her own, hard and …

Shock coursed through her. What on earth was she doing? She wrenched her mouth from his, but he ignored her attempt to break free, his lips moving unhurriedly along the slope of her shoulder and down towards her breast. She arched her back, frantic to get away from him, and then every muscle in her body stilled as his lips captured the taut pinnacle of her nipple and drew on it so fiercely and sweetly that every single one of her senses became fixated on what she was experiencing.

Such physical pleasure! Why had she never known it had existed? David’s hurried fumbling attempts to caress her between quarrels had in no way prepared her for this. She was drowning in delight and loving it.

She must have made some sound, because abruptly he released her, his mouth moving arousingly against her moist skin as he muttered, ‘You liked that? Do you want more?’

And before she could speak he was drawing her back into his mouth, sucking on her with a slow and erotic deliberation that made her forget everything but the necessity of ensuring that such pleasure never stopped.

‘I want you. You know that, don’t you?’

The savage words cut through the intensity of her dazed pleasure. She looked up at him. His lashes were so dark and thick. She wanted to reach out and touch him. His skin was flushed, and slightly damp. She could feel the heat burning along his cheekbones as he pressed his face against her skin. He did want her. She exulted in the knowledge.

‘Is this how you entrapped him? With the lure of your body and your pseudo-innocence? Oh God, I …’

The savage disgust in his voice hurt. Susannah wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that this was something she had never shared with any other man and never would, and then reality struck her, starkly and inescapably. What was she doing?

She took advantage of his momentary relaxation to push him away.

He released her, and then cursed as she sprang off the chesterfield, tugging her dress on, her eyes glittering with green fire.

‘Don’t you dare come anywhere near me! Don’t touch me.’ Her voice shook, but she was back in control of herself now. ‘I don’t know who you are, or what you think you’re doing … I don’t know what you think gives you the right to—question me!’

‘Don’t you?’ His voice was flat and derisive. ‘Odd, I could have sworn that not so very long ago you knew exactly what it was.’

The way his glance lingered on her breasts made his meaning all too clear. Before she left this room, she had to convince him that he meant nothing to her. Nothing at all. Her pride demanded it. What had happened was too demeaning—so shocking. She moved and winced as her stimulated breasts thrust demandingly against the constraining fabric of her dress, her awareness of her own arousal increasing her humiliation. How could she ever have allowed herself to be caught in such a situation, and with a complete stranger?

‘Oh, that,’ she told him coolly, striving for detachment and self-control. ‘Please don’t take it personally. It’s been rather a long time since I was last—with my lover.’

She shrugged, triumph buoying her up as she caught the fierce glitter of anger darkening his eyes, knowing that he wanted to reject what she was saying. She was hurting his pride and she was glad, fiercely glad.

‘Men don’t have the monopoly on sexual frustration, you know,’ she told him.

‘You …’ He lunged towards her, but as she backed off he stopped, his face contorting with savage bitterness. ‘You wanted me,’ he told her flatly.

‘No,’ she corrected him acidly, ‘I wanted a man … any man, if you want me to be totally honest.’ Her eyebrows lifted as she viewed his bitter, dark face. ‘Oh, come on. You look like a sophisticated man. Surely you didn’t think I was overcome with passion for you?’

He looked as though he wanted to kill her, thought Susannah, torn between exultation and stark, terrifying fear. What on earth had she done? What on earth was she going to do if he refused to believe her? But no, he was turning on his heel and walking towards the door.

At the door, he stopped and turned to look at her.

‘With luck, you and I will never meet again,’ she told him sweetly.

‘Don’t be too sure.’

A threat? But why? He couldn’t want to see her again. Shrugging slightly, she waited until she was sure he had gone and then hurried up to her room.

One look in her mirror told her that she had made a wise decision. Her lips, bare of lip gloss, still looked swollen from his kiss. Her eyes glittered with febrile arousal, and her breasts—Guiltily, she stared down at where they strained against her dress, her nipples hard and erect. She touched them, covering them with trembling hands, as though to protect herself from harm.

Weak with shock and reaction, she collapsed on to her bed. What on earth had got into her? Thank God she would never see him again. Thank goodness, he had believed her claim that she had used him as a substitute for her lover, but that had only been in the shock of the moment, when his brain had been confused by the arousal of his body. Later, when he had time to think … to question … Shaking her head, she got up again. She couldn’t stay up here. If she did, Mamie would come up, wanting to know what was wrong. She would have to go back down.

She was half-way across the hall when she bumped into Paul, walking the other way.

‘Ah, there you are! Ma has just sent me to look for you.’

Susannah let him take her arm. Several people were milling about around the entrance to the marquee but, when Paul stopped, her glance went instinctively to the tall, dark-haired man with his back to her. Her heart started pumping frantically, her body shaking.

‘Good, there’s Hazard. He made it, after all. I’d better introduce him to Ma and Pop.’

‘Hazard?’ Susannah queried faintly.

‘Yes. Hazard Maine. He and I both did a stint in Sydney. I met him a few months ago, and then we bumped into one another on the Qantas flight coming over. He’s taking up a new post in this country and he’s at a bit of a loose end. He was at school over here, apparently. He’s lost touch with people since, and so I invited him here.’

‘Where … where is he?’

‘Over there.’

She stared, dumbstruck, at the dark head he was pointing out to her, and an appalling awareness of what she had done swept over her. The man who had accused her of having a married lover, the man she had let caress and arouse her in a way that no man had ever done, the man she had quite deliberately allowed to believe she was the very worst kind of hardened tramp, was Hazard Maine. Paul’s friend … her new boss!

She made a small, inarticulate little sound of despair in her throat.

‘Something wrong?’

‘Paul … I … I have to go and talk to Richard,’ she invented. ‘I’ve just remembered something I should have told him.’

‘Richard?’ Paul called queryingly after her, but she was already disappearing into the crowd, and so he shrugged his shoulders and went on alone.

Hazard Maine! How could fate have tricked her so cruelly? Why had she not had any intuitive warning? Not even his accent had betrayed him. She had never imagined—never dreamed … She wondered frantically whether it was possible to change her whole appearance before Monday, whether she could somehow make herself unrecognisable. Then logic intruded, and she squared her shoulders.

There was nothing he could do. He could hardly sack her because she had allowed him a few physical intimacies, or because she had implied that she was simply using him to satisfy a need aroused by another man. No, he could hardly sack her for that, not without making himself look a fool, and Hazard Maine had not struck her as the type of man who welcomed being made to look a fool.

No, like her, he would just have to accept their working relationship.

And yet, reassure herself as she might, nothing could completely dispel her fear. It was too late now to regret her folly. And Aunt Emily hadn’t brought her up to run away from life’s problems. Besides, where could she run to? No, she would just have to brazen it out.

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