Tangled Destinies

‘I think you’ll find I’ve changed,’ he said enigmatically.

‘Hope springs eternal. Now return my foot,’ she said icily, finding his touch on her leg highly disturbing. What was it that bothered her about him? she puzzled. ‘I came here to see Lisa, not to stand around like a stork.’

István studied her impassively for a moment, his fingers absently caressing her ankle, and she mused that he must have powerful thigh muscles to stay crouched in that position for so long. A small shiver curled through her, though she wasn’t cold.

‘You have nicer feet than a stork,’ he remarked idly. ‘Smoother, sexier——’

‘István!’ she protested.

He smiled and released her foot, slowly uncurling his body till he was towering over her again. ‘Takes you back, doesn’t it?’ he mused. ‘Me, unbuttoning your little Noddy slippers at bedtime, singing some nonsense rhyme——’

‘That’s quite enough!’ she husked, hastily interrupting his reminiscences.

She had no wish to remember. István had won their childhood adoration by singing throaty lullabies in a funny language they thought he’d made up. It had been Hungarian, of course. Why their mother should have taught him to speak her native tongue and him alone, she could never fathom. They were all half Hungarian, after all, but their mother had spoken of her background to no one but István. The rest of them she’d discouraged whenever they’d shown any interest in her homeland. Favouritism, she sighed to herself. It still rankled—and she still felt ashamed that it did.

She had an overwhelming sensation of being crowded by him, and moved back a step to lean against the car. Her eyes slanted to see if John was ready to take her inside. To her alarm, she saw that he and Lisa appeared to be arguing. Adding to her anxiety, István placed both his hands on the car either side of her and leaned forwards in what might have been a friendly intimacy but had the effect of seeming rather unnerving because she was effectively trapped.

‘I wanted to remind you of the good times,’ he said softly.

‘There weren’t many—and they were totally overwhelmed by the bad times,’ she muttered, shrinking back. ‘Why remind us of things we’d rather forget?’

‘I’m trying to prepare you,’ he said enigmatically.

‘For what?’ she asked with deep suspicion.

‘Changes,’ he said silkily. ‘Interested?’

She scowled. Fascinated! ‘In you?’ she fended.

‘I thought you might be,’ he said lazily. ‘From the moment you could toddle, you were jealous of the secrets I shared with Ester,’ he added, using their mother’s first name as he always had.

‘None of us liked you closeted with Mother for two hours every single day,’ she said coldly. ‘What were you doing exactly?’

‘Playing music, talking.’

So intently, she thought resentfully, that once when she’d fallen over and had wanted her mother’s arms around her she’d had to bang on the locked door for ages before her mother had finally heard her piteous cries. She’d always been second-best. István had come first, everyone else a long way behind. That had hurt.

‘Look, István,’ she said huskily, ‘You must have some idea of the furore you caused when you disappeared and what you did to our family. This is a happy occasion and we don’t want any gatecrashers——’

‘I was invited,’ he said surprisingly and moved back a little, giving Tanya air space at last. ‘Isn’t that right, Lisa?’ he called out. ‘Didn’t you invite me?’

Tanya flung an appalled glance at her apologetic, guilty-looking friend, who broke away from what looked alarmingly like a full-scale argument with John and ran over to hug her tightly. ‘Oh, Lisa,’ Tanya said, feeling emotional. ‘It’s wonderful to see you again, but…what on earth are you doing asking him here?’ she groaned.

‘Wait and see. Please keep István occupied as long as you can,’ whispered her friend. ‘I’m persuading John not to thump him!’ She beamed at István encouragingly and hurried back to placate the thunderous John.

Tanya reflectively ticked off three unnerving facts. Lisa glowed. István was trying to hide a self-satisfied smirk. And he was definitely concealing a secret that Lisa knew about. The omens weren’t good.

‘Whether you had an invitation or not, you should have stayed away,’ she muttered, her face pinched with anxiety as Lisa drew John further and further away, out of earshot. The prospect of a long bath and a cup of tea was receding rapidly—but she’d put up with discomfort while John’s happiness was at risk. ‘It’s hypocritical of you to come. What do you care about weddings?’

‘I’ve developed a sudden craving for them,’ drawled István.

‘You liar!’ she retorted. ‘Father was right. You just enjoy making trouble, seeing people squirm——’

‘No, Tanya,’ he growled, a hard glitter in his eyes. ‘When he said that, he was being unreasonable. He wasn’t entirely rational where I was concerned.’

Tanya took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Rational? What was rational about Mother’s determination to give you everything and the rest of us nothing? What do you think it did to him, when you got brand new riding boots and we were all hunting for clothes in jumble sales?’

The dangerous glint she’d seen in István’s black eyes was extinguished as his lashes swept down to conceal whatever he was thinking. ‘It was…difficult, I appreciate that——’

‘Not difficult. Impossible!’ she bit. He didn’t understand. She’d have to be more specific. ‘Maybe you were the first child, the first-born son; maybe there is some archaic Hungarian custom that obliged Mother to empty the contents of her whole purse into your piggy bank, but by golly we got resentful, and no wonder!’ she said bitterly.

‘My education must have cost a great deal,’ he agreed quietly, his eyes on her like a watchful hawk.

‘Vast sums,’ she said unhappily. ‘Lavished exclusively on you. No wonder we were poor. Mother even quarrelled with Father about the way she spent her money!’

‘I know. I heard them. Did you ever wonder where Ester got so much money from?’ he enquired idly.

‘She brought it with her when she escaped from Communist Hungary as a young woman,’ she snapped.

‘And worked as a daily help in the vicarage. It’s a strange thing to do, when you have such savings, isn’t it?’ he murmured.

Tanya frowned. She’d never thought of that before. ‘She—she always liked to be busy——’

‘Another thing. She never spent the money on herself at all. The only person she gave it to was me. Odder still, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Unfair! What are you trying to tell me?’ she asked warily, unsettled by the inconsistencies of her mother’s behaviour.

‘To think beyond your resentment. A sense of injustice has robbed you of your brains. Was the money so important to you?’ he probed.

‘No! The injustice, like you said!’ she muttered. ‘And the fact that Mother was besotted with you to the exclusion of the rest of us.’

‘Besotted?’ His eyebrow arched in disagreement. ‘Did she hug me? Kiss me as much as she kissed you and John and your sisters?’

She frowned at the detached way he’d spoken about them all, as if he was talking about someone else’s family. In a way that was true. Her father had disowned him. ‘Of course she…’ Her voice lost its initial confidence and her frown deepened as she struggled in vain to recall any moment of affection between her mother and István. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, she didn’t! In fact…I can hardly remember her cuddling you at all!’ Her amazement apparently pleased him. Something made her think that he was coaxing her towards some extraordinary conclusion.

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ murmured István.

‘Not particularly,’ Tanya retorted quickly, loyal in defending her mother’s behaviour. It had been strange, though. What their mother had felt for István was an unusual kind of love. Nearer to a slavish devotion. ‘No hugs,’ she mused, after a moment. And felt sorry for him.

‘Why do you think that was?’ he queried.

Her huge eyes lifted to his, catching a glimpse of the raw emotion he was obviously feeling. No hugs. Her understanding of his character deepened. ‘I don’t know, it’s inexplicable. Mother was a warm and loving woman to the rest of us. I can’t…’ She wrestled with the discovery. ‘Perhaps you weren’t the cuddly sort,’ she suggested feebly.

‘Not everyone was of that opinion,’ he said softly. His eyes were fixed intently on her, but almost immediately they swivelled to where Lisa stood pleading with John.

Tanya froze. The implication was all too plain. Lisa had once found him eminently huggable. ‘I hope you’re not here to make trouble,’ she breathed, alarmed to see a slow, sensual smile of wicked promise curve his lips. ‘Are you?’ she demanded.

‘All I’ve done is to turn up for a family wedding,’ he said with disarming innocence.

‘You can cause trouble even when you’re not around!’ she complained.

His dark gaze swept back to fasten on her accusing eyes. ‘Meaning?’

‘Like when you never turned up for meals, or never came home at night,’ she said in a low tone. ‘Don’t you know how upset Mother was? We stayed up all hours, waiting for you——’

‘So you were worried!’ he husked.

Drat him, how did he work that one out? Her tone, probably, she thought morosely. She’d betrayed the anxiety she’d felt. The last thing she wanted was for István to know she’d idolised him!

Happiness had once been doing anything that her elder brother did. Like a fool, she’d trailed all over the moors, fifty careful yards behind him, the victim of her own hero-worship. She’d fished the same river, had ridden to the same rocky crag. But then her riding lessons had been cancelled, she remembered with a sigh. Hell hath no fury like a thirteen-year-old girl denied her pony!

Worse, he’d stopped tolerating her quiet adoration and had begun to snap and snarl at her as though she irritated him. The early, childhood days of affection changed almost overnight to a bad-tempered rejection. Her own brother didn’t want to be bothered with her any more and pride had made her pretend she didn’t care.

‘Me? Worried about you? Good grief,’ she said lightly, ‘I’m well aware that the Devil looks after his own. I stayed up to keep Mother company,’ she added, skirting around the truth.

She knew only too painfully what her mother must have been feeling when István failed to turn up. A deep, searing anxiety that was as intense as a physical pain. He could have been lying somewhere in a ditch after falling off his motorbike. Concussed from being thrown by his horse. Drowned in the river. Even now it angered her to think of the needless hours of worry.

‘All those times when you rolled in without an explanation or an apology,’ she continued, ‘I could never fathom why Mother put up with your thoughtlessness, why she always welcomed you back with open arms and a mug of cocoa and digestive biscuits!’ she finished crossly.

‘Well, she understood me better than the rest of you,’ he said with a slight shrug of his big shoulders. ‘She knew what I was doing and that I could take care of myself. And that there were times when I had to get out and roam the moors or drive till I was exhausted. I can’t stand being fenced in. Don’t you know that by now? I need a free rein——’

‘Freedom!’ She fought back the angry tears, struggled to crush the hurtful memories and lashed out blindly. ‘How can you say you were fenced in? You had all the freedom you wanted! You were spoilt rotten!’ she seethed. ‘And you gave nothing back but heartache!’ Flinging a hasty glance in John’s direction, she saw he was well out of earshot and recklessly let her tongue take her further. ‘You seduced Lisa!’ she hissed. ‘You put her life in danger. You——’

‘Yes? Go on,’ he goaded, his eyes glittering. ‘Say it.’

Her teeth ground together, preventing the hot spurt of angry words. If she spoke of the time Lisa lost István’s baby, she knew she’d howl her eyes out because she was on the brink of losing control of her emotions. He’d been twenty-four and should have known better. Lisa, nineteen, almost three months pregnant. Tanya’s body trembled.

‘You never showed an ounce of family feeling!’ she grated, chickening out of the direct accusation. ‘That’s why I fail to see why you’ve come here at this time. You’re not here to celebrate the wedding, are you? You and John have always loathed each other.’ That left Lisa as the reason, she thought in dismay. Her voice rose half an octave. ‘What…what did make you turn up here?’

‘I decided I had to make a play for what I wanted,’ he said softly.

Her heart thudded. ‘That’s what I was afraid of!’ she said jerkily. ‘István——’

‘Pleading will do no good. My mind is made up.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘I refuse to be rushed by you, or anyone. I’m very much my own man, Tanya. I’m calling the shots and in time all will be revealed,’ he drawled, and turned to go.

‘Running away again?’ she taunted, half out of her mind with despair at his intentions. He froze and she knew she’d actually reached a vulnerable part of that apparently impenetrable skin. It gave her no pleasure, however. Somehow he always turned her into a shrew—and that was awful. She hated herself for complaining and whinging, for letting her raw emotions bubble to the surface, for being bitchy. He made her feel less good about herself. That was why she hated to be near him.

Slowly he turned and walked towards her again. ‘I didn’t run,’ he interrupted, a thinly disguised anger underlying the soft tones. ‘I left of my own choice. Why don’t you say it, Tanya? Say what you must and get it out of your system.’

She took a deep breath, the pain swelling to the surface while she struggled with the souring hurt that had destroyed her happiness. ‘All right. You claim that you left?’ she echoed bitterly, blurting it all out in a spurt of spitting flame. ‘Call it what you like, blame who you like; you went without warning, without leaving any address—and—and—you—drove Mother into her grave and—and for that I’ll never, ever forgive you!’

He remained motionless. Her heart rolled over in sickening lurches because she’d voiced the words that had become engraved on her heart and because she had finally faced him with one truth after all the years of nursing its canker inside her.

István’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘How could I kill her?’ he growled. ‘I was in Budapest at the time.’

‘But she didn’t know that! You were special to her and you’d vanished without trace. She went into a decline. Soon after, she died. Isn’t the connection obvious?’ she asked huskily.

Waves of remembered distress made the muscles in her stomach clench as if a ruthless hand gripped her there. A sob lurched from her tremulous lips. Her pained eyes lifted to his and saw…pity.

‘Tan,’ he began, tight with strain.

‘No! Don’t look at me like that! I don’t want it! It’s too late to show sympathy!’ she cried hoarsely. ‘What do you care that Mother was beside herself because you’d vanished?’

‘What did I care?’ he roared. And suddenly, his eyes burning with an intense light, he grabbed her arms in an explosion of movement, his teeth bared in a furious snarl as he shook her violently. ‘What the hell do you know about me?’ he seethed.

Nothing, that was the pity of it all, she thought in silent answer before her brain stopped functioning. Pain erupted in her head, her bruised arms, her neck where it snapped back and forth. ‘István, István!’ she gasped above the roaring in her ears.

Mercifully he came to his senses and held her steady. Her shocked, accusing eyes lifted and widened at the pallor and the gauntness of his face. ‘Twenty-seven years…’ he muttered through bloodless lips. ‘And of all the women I have to vent my frustration on I choose you.’

So he wanted to hurt her. Hearing him, the once-adored elder brother, coldly admitting that he was targeting her was unbearable. Her resolve to be remote and unemotional collapsed under the weight of her own terrible emptiness.

To her total dismay, hot tears overflowed from her stricken eyes and emptied in scalding torrents down her cheeks. With a harsh exclamation, he growled some words in Hungarian then bewildered her by gathering her in his arms and holding her tightly in a bear-hug. The embrace was so welcome, so comfortable and so achingly familiar that she sobbed even harder.

‘I know how much you loved Ester. You did your best to love us all,’ he stated in a harsh mutter. Her shoulders shook and he stroked them. ‘You’re so like her. Strong sense of duty. Loyal. Dogged in your determination and totally blind to anything but what you have to do, like a blinkered horse.’

He was absently stroking the chestnut river of her hair and speaking to her in the same kind of voice he’d once used when she was small and needed comfort in those far-off and innocent days before he’d taken an inexplicable dislike to her. Longing for that time again and disturbed by his gentleness, she buried her face deeper into his warm chest.

Shame filled her. It was a shame brought on by the realisation that the death of her beloved mother had been as traumatic an event as István’s disappearance. That shouldn’t be. He didn’t deserve her regrets. Missing her mother dreadfully, she’d missed István just as much. Two people she’d loved profoundly had gone from her life with a shattering finality.

‘Hush, Tan. I’m here.’

Desperately she tried not to cry. When her mother had died, she hadn’t shed one tear. Her sisters had been inconsolable and she’d cuddled them in her arms till they’d fallen asleep but she’d remained cold, her feelings frozen.

Her hands curled against István’s chest. Safely in her wallet were pictures of him and her mother which comforted her somehow to know that they were there. She could touch the wallet and project her passionate hatred of him to wherever he was in the world. And now he was here and she was in his arms and feeling as if she’d come home. It was all wrong!

István’s strong hand lifted her chin and he stared deeply into her eyes while gently wiping her face with his handkerchief. ‘I’m glad you’ve cried,’ he said huskily. ‘I heard you’d never shed a tear.’ His hand faltered. There was a softening of his mouth that disturbed her, a light in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. ‘You’re more ethereal than ever. I’ve never seen you look more beautiful, Tanya,’ he breathed, a frightening hunger in his voice.

Her throat dried. Beneath the pale suit, her breasts rose and fell with the shallow breath that sought in vain to oxygenate her depleted body. He had an animal magnetism, an intense sexuality that even she, his sister, could feel. Lisa would be a pushover to that unholy, electrical force emanating from him. With barely a thought for the consequences, he switched it on and flooded anyone in his path in a dazzling display of male power.

The blood began to drum in her veins. She couldn’t have moved if her life had depended on it. He held her gaze with the sheer force of his personality and all she could do was to stare at the incredibly sexy mouth and wonder…

Oh, dear heaven! she thought in horror. What is it about István?

And he told her.

‘I feel it too,’ he growled softly.

‘Feel…what?’ she croaked in a revealingly high-pitched voice.

István breathed heavily a few times before elaborating, his wicked black eyes relentless. ‘Desire.’

‘What are you saying…? No!’ she whispered in horror, her mouth only just managing to shape the denial as he moved forwards to close the gap between them. ‘No, István!’

But her speech was slurred and he smiled in triumph. ‘Poor Tanya,’ he said soothingly, his warm breath torching across her face. ‘I think I’d better put you out of your misery.’

Her skin prickled with tension. ‘You’re depraved! Heaven help you, István!’ she rasped, her voice shaking with raw emotion. ‘Your mind is twisted. I wish we weren’t related! If only there were no ties between us—and never had been! I wish—oh, dear God, I wish you’d never been born and that you weren’t my brother!’

‘That last wish is granted,’ he said silkily, dropping a light kiss on her parched lips. ‘I’m not.’

‘What?’ she croaked, bewildered. And all the time she was thinking, No, no! No, it can’t be true…

‘I’m not your brother.’ There was something terrible in the depths of his eyes but his tone was light-hearted. ‘Opens up all sorts of possibilities, doesn’t it?’

CHAPTER TWO

TANYA’S senses reeled. For a moment she didn’t grasp what he was saying and then the full impact of his statement hit her. And by then he was halfway up the castle steps. Numbly, paralysed with shock, she watched his tall, lithe figure in the woman-baiting white shirt and tight black jeans disappear into the hotel.

But it wasn’t true. It was impossible. He’d made a cruel joke to torment her.

She would have run after him if she could move. She would yell at him to leave them all alone if she could succeed in pushing her voice past the awful lump that blocked her throat. Not her brother—a terrible thing to say—a slur on her parents’ integrity!

And yet…

Voices impinged on her consciousness. John’s bitter anger, Lisa’s agitated wails. Her entire body trembled with anger as it dawned on her that István was set fair to ruin the fairy-tale wedding they’d all planned for and had looked forward to with such excitement.

John’s needs fought with her own. His had a greater priority and her instincts were always to respond to her family’s needs. Grimly she forced herself to dismiss István’s outrageous claim as pure, wicked fantasy and to contain her own chaotic feelings. István she could deal with later. This was infinitely more urgent, though at the moment she wasn’t sure whether she should break up the argument or let it blow itself out. Curse István! She scowled, hating to see her brother so upset.

As for that dizzy sensation she’d felt…She was tired. Getting her father comfortably settled, cooking masses of meals for him and freezing them, watering the plants, worrying about leaving him and then worrying even more about Lisa’s love for John—all this had tired her emotionally and physically.

Someone spoke to her. A young woman, dressed entirely in black and carrying a basket of freshly baked bread that smelled deliciously warm and doughy. Tanya registered hunger as she absently returned the woman’s greeting and it suddenly became clear that much of her confused thinking had also been due to her early start that morning without a proper breakfast.

A wry smile touched her pale lips. Hunger pangs, mimicking sexual desire! And then her smile faded as she realised more fully what István had said. He’d casually disowned the mother who’d devoted her life to him. He deserved nothing but contempt for his behaviour. Her hands shaped into fists.

‘Not your brother.’ Ridiculous! Her mother would have told her if he’d been adopted…Wouldn’t she? At the very least, her father would have said something when István had vanished. Bitterness and resentment would have drawn such a fact out of her father, surely? Or he would have told her recently in one of those long, companionable heart-to-hearts.

Crushing the rebellious nagging doubts that kept whispering slyly in her ear, she marshalled her thoughts together. At the moment, Lisa and John needed her. Making sure their wedding went ahead was the most important thing on the agenda and anything that was between herself and István could wait—must wait.

‘Here goes,’ she muttered, heading towards John and Lisa. Ignore István, she told herself. Think only of the wedding. But smiling was more difficult than she’d hoped.

‘Are you going to show me this hotel of yours or am I camping out here?’ she asked John jokingly in a rather stiff little voice that went with the rigid smile.

‘Sorry, I——’ began John.

‘You and István didn’t get on,’ sighed Lisa despondently, slumped rather inappropriately against a statue of Cupid. ‘I heard you arguing.’