Dominic's Child

“I’d prefer not to be here at all,” he shot back without a moment’s hesitation. “Nor would I be, if it weren’t for you and your half-baked ideas of a holiday paradise.”

“St. Julian doesn’t pretend to be Rio or Monte Carlo, Mr. Winter. If it did, I wouldn’t bother wasting my time visiting it. The sort of people who flock to places like that don’t particularly appeal to me.”

The merest hint of a grin touched his lips. “People like me, you mean?”

She pulled off her sunglasses and subjected him to a frank examination, wondering if the extraordinary conditions of their mission might offer a glimpse past the good looks to the man within.

She was doomed to disappointment. Black hair swept back from a wide, intelligent brow. His nose had been broken at some point but had suffered not the least for the misfortune and merely enhanced the strong, uncompromising line of his profile. His eyes were the deep still green of woodland pools and his lashes would have been laughable had not the set of his jaw promised dreadful retribution to anyone who dared to make light of their beauty. As for the rest of him, it was so formidably and sexily masculine that he’d probably had to beat women off since the onset of puberty. But as far as giving a clue to his inner self? Not a one!

“What are you staring at?” he inquired testily, swiveling a glance at her.

“You,” she replied. “I’m trying to figure out if you’re this irascible all the time or if it’s a temporary by-product of grief and heartache. I’m inclined to believe the latter since Barbara didn’t strike me as the type who’d willingly devote the rest of her life to a chronic grouch.”

He flung her another outraged glare before turning his attention once again to the road. “How much farther?” he barked.

“About seven miles. Once we round the headland, we drop down to the weather side of the island. You’ll notice the change in the coastline immediately. It’s very wild.”

That he grew progressively more withdrawn as they covered the distance was indication enough that he agreed with her assessment. “Good God!” he muttered at one point, as spray flying across the windswept beach and on to the road caused visibility to shrink to a few yards. “Is it always like this?”

“More or less, though during the hurricane season it gets much worse.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he replied dryly. “Barbara must have been mad to consider trying to sail in this.”

They were approaching the wind-battered southeastern tip of St. Julian, the place where Atlantic fury met the point of most resistance from the land mass. The shore there was littered with easy pickings for the beachcomber: driftwood forged into fantastic shapes, and seashells by the thousand in every shade from dark pearlescent purple to palest satin pink.

“There’s a lookout point right ahead,” Sophie said. “If you pull over, we can walk across the dunes and you’ll see the reef where...”

He nodded, sparing her the necessity of having to elaborate, and swung the mini-moke off the road.

They clambered down to the beach and waded through the fine, soft sand. Then stood shoulder to shoulder and leaned into the wind, together yet separated by the intensely private silence in which Dominic wrapped himself.

A jagged line of surf marked the hidden reef. Close into shore the water swirled and foamed, subdued but by no means tamed by the barrier over which it had hurled itself. But beyond, where the heaving green Atlantic rollers let loose their fury... Dear Lord, Barbara must have been bent on suicide to have tried to sail in that, because no sane person could have hoped to survive such unleashed violence!

Sophie couldn’t quell her shudder and looked away. Small wonder no trace of bodies had been found. It was a miracle the splintered wreckage of the Laser had endured the sort of beating it had taken.

Dominic, however, stared impassively for so long at the scene before him that Sophie half wondered if he’d forgotten her presence. Then, without warning, he swung toward her, his features stark with misery. “Get me the hell away from here before I really lose it,” he muttered savagely.

He saw the dismay she couldn’t hide, saw how it softened to compassion, and didn’t know how he contained himself. He wanted to howl his outrage to the heavens; to curse and revile the cruelty and waste he’d been helpless to prevent. But the shock Sophie Casson now felt would be nothing compared to how she’d react if he really let loose his emotions. They boiled inside him with the same destructive fury of the seas out there, clenching his jaw, his fists, the ridged muscles of his abdomen.

“Dominic,” she said, so softly he could barely hear her above the roar of the seas, “what can I do to help you?”

How certain she was that she understood him, how sure that she could assuage the misery. And how badly he wanted to smash her complacency! Out of the blue, a suggestion of the most outrageous magnitude sprang to mind, explicit, indecent.

Should he voice it? And would she accede to his wishes? Or would her wide gray eyes darken with horror as she backed away and began to run blindly as far from him as she could get?

He swiped at his hair with shaking fingers, appalled at the demons possessing him. Marshaling his features into a semblance of composure, he discarded the unconscionable and settled for the clichéd. “I think I would like to go back to the hotel and get thoroughly drunk. Would you care to join me?”

She was supposed to pucker up her sweet little mouth and simper that alcohol would merely add to his problems, not alleviate them. Instead, her eyes grew suspiciously bright and the next thing he knew, her tanned little hand with its short pink nails had tucked itself into the crook of his elbow. “Of course,” she murmured sympathetically. “Anything you say.”

And then she slipped her arm around his waist and led him back the way they’d come. Slowly, carefully, as if he were a very old, enfeebled man. The demons within itched to succumb to a black, unholy bellow of laughter. He could feel it pulsing deep in his chest and had one hell of a time suppressing it.

“Would you like me to drive?” she asked when they reached the toy that passed for transportation.

“No,” he said, shrugging her off. Heaven forbid he should have a reason not to keep his eyes on the road!

Happy hour was well under way by the time they reached the hotel again. The sun hung just above the horizon, a great flaming ball far too large for its playground. Kerosene torches flickered palely among the trees in anticipation of the sudden rush of night typical of the tropics. Laughter and music combined to drown out the macaws’ last screeching chorus of the day. It was party time. For everyone except Dominic Winter and Sophie Casson.

He decided it was in both their interests for him to ditch her and be alone to drown, if not his sorrows, then at least his guilt. “Look,” he said, “I’m not fit company for a wolverine. What say we hold off on that drink until another time?”

She paused for as long as it took her to catch her lower lip between her teeth, then said, “Yes, of course. Actually, I’d just as soon go upstairs and take a shower before dinner.” She rubbed at her bare arms and indicated the folds of her skirt. “The sea spray’s—”

The last thing he needed was a guided tour on how the fabric clung damply to her long, slender thighs. “Whatever,” he said rudely and, turning his back on her in a deliberate snub, headed straight for the bar and ordered a double brandy.

Let her think he was a sot. He didn’t care, and the bottom line was he needed a little Dutch courage before he phoned the Wexlers. Not that anything he had to tell them would offer a grain of solace, but he’d promised he’d call and he would not willingly renege on a promise to them. If there was anything fine or good left within him after all that had happened, it was his genuine fondness for Barbara’s parents.

Leaning both elbows on the bar, he stared down at the drink in his hand. What a hell of a mess—a no-win situation regardless of which way he looked at it! And those paying the heaviest price were two people who deserved something better in their old age than the heartbreak of outliving their only child. He downed the brandy in one gulp and raised a finger to the bartender for a refill.

Dutch courage be damned! He wanted to be numbed from the neck up. Maybe then he’d be able to banish the demons possessing him.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE time Sophie had bathed and changed, another flower-scented night had fallen, the third since Barbara’s death. The cocktail crowd had gathered around the outdoor bar. She could hear their laughter mingling with the clink of ice on crystal and the throbbing beat of the steel drums. Was Dominic Winter part of that group, his brain sufficiently desensitized by alcohol that the edges of his pain had blurred? Or was he holed up in his room, determinedly drinking himself into oblivion?

“It’s not your business, Sophie,” she muttered, slipping silver and amethyst hoops on her ears. “Let him deal with what’s happened on his own. It’s safer that way.”

Still, she found herself scanning the crowd, looking for him, when she went downstairs. He was not in the dining room, nor, as far as she could tell, was he outside on the wide, tiled patio. But the table she’d shared with no one since Wednesday tonight was again set for two.

She had finished the chilled cucumber soup and was halfway through her conch salad when he appeared. He wore the same open-necked white shirt and ecru linen trousers that he’d worn that afternoon. His hair had been combed repeatedly—by very irritable fingers. There was the faintest shadow of beard on his determined jaw. He looked like a man who’d had one too many—a man looking for trouble and ready to take on the entire world.

Forcibly reminding herself that he had just lost the woman he loved and was more to be pitied than reviled, Sophie forbore to point out that adding a monumental hangover to his troubles would not make them any easier to bear. Instead, she nodded pleasantly and waited for him to make social overtures if, and when, he felt so inclined.

He quickly made it clear he did not feel inclined. “Looks like the hotel is determined to throw us together every chance they get,” he remarked caustically, flinging himself into the seat opposite with rather more grace than one might have expected from a drunk. “Or did your Mother Teresa complex prompt you to request my company so that you could keep an eye on me in case despair drove me to the same sad end that Barbara suffered? Because if it did, I wish to hell you’d just butt out of my affairs.”

His deft handling of the cutlery and lack of slurred speech gave Sophie pause. Dominic Winter was not drunk, as she had first supposed. He was a powder keg ready to explode—wanting to explode—and searching futilely for an excuse to do so. And there wasn’t enough alcohol on St. Julian to do the job. He could have imbibed all night and still remained painfully sober. It was there for anyone to see in his smoldering green eyes. The torment was eating him alive.

“I’m not trying to interfere in your affairs,” she said quietly. “I just want to do whatever I can to help.”

He picked up the scrolled sheet of parchment on which the dinner menu had been printed and slid off the silk tassel encircling it. “It would help me enormously if you’d get on with your meal without feeling the need to engage me in conversation. And it would help me even more if you’d do so quickly and then quietly disappear.”

Normally, Sophie would have refused on principle to do any such thing, even given that his painstaking rudeness had robbed her of her appetite. But in his present mood, she had no more wish to spend time with him than he had with her. So why did she half rise from her seat, then pause uncertainly as if about to change her mind, thereby giving him opportunity to insult her further?

Sensing her hesitation, he glared out from behind the parchment. “I do not want your company, Ms. Casson, nor do I need it,” he declared brusquely.

Cheeks flaming, she dropped her napkin beside her plate and, like the spineless ninny she undoubtedly must be, scuttled away.

She did not see him again until the following evening. “Monsieur has gone to police headquarters with Chief Inspector Montand, to take care of the necessary paperwork, you understand,” the clerk at the front desk told her when she stopped by shortly after breakfast the next morning. “Such a shocking loss of a life can never be dismissed lightly, mademoiselle.” He wrinkled his nose as though to imply that only someone as inconsiderate as Barbara would behave so boorishly in alien territory. “Hélas, that is especially true in the case of foreigners who die while they are here.”

Sophie understood. Fellow guests who’d been friendly enough before the tragedy avoided her now as though afraid she’d somehow cast an evil spell on her friend and might do the same to them. If there’d been any way to cut her holiday short she’d have done so on the spot, but there were only two flights a week in and out of St. Julian, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Whether she liked it or not, she was prisoner there for another four days.

She spent the afternoon at an orchid farm and returned late to the hotel, leaving herself with barely enough time to shower and change for the evening meal. To her surprise, Dominic was already seated at the table when she went down to the dining room.

“Ah, Ms. Casson,” he murmured, rising smoothly and pulling out her chair, “I was hoping you’d favor me with your presence again tonight.”

He looked quite devastating in pale gray trousers and shirt. Urbane, sophisticated and thoroughly in control of himself and the situation.

Very much on her guard, Sophie said, “Were you? Well, I hate to add to your troubles, Mr. Winter, but if you’re hoping to drive me off again by plying me with insults, I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment. I’m far too hungry to allow you to get away with it a second time.”

Even after only one day of tropical sun, his olive skin was burnished with color, so it was difficult to be sure but she thought perhaps he blushed a little at that, an assumption that gained credence with his next words. “I’m afraid I behaved very badly last night,” he said contritely. “I must beg your pardon. I wasn’t at my best.”

You don’t have a best! she felt like informing him. Except she didn’t really believe that. She’d thought for a long time that he was far too good for Barbara. She’d even gone so far as to wish....

Conscience-stricken, she picked up the menu and pretended to read it. Bad enough she’d allowed herself to fantasize when Barbara was alive. To do so now was tantamount to dancing on her grave!

Glancing up, Sophie found his gaze trained on her face. He was different tonight. The rage in his eyes had been replaced by a clouded emptiness as though the reality of Barbara’s death had at last sunk in and he realized no amount of ranting or blaming was going to bring her back.

Sophie almost preferred the other Dominic, the one breathing fire and condemnation. That one moved her to anger despite her better nature; this one moved her to pity—dangerous territory at the best of times.

“I really do apologize,” he said.

“Apology accepted.” She shrugged and searched for another subject, one that would draw her attention away from his broad shoulders and the burden they carried. He was a Samson of a man not intended to be broken, but Barbara’s death had brought him perilously close to the edge. “What looks good for dinner, do you think?”

After some discussion, he ordered turtle steak and she the fish caught fresh that morning. “And wine,” he decided, adding with a faint inflection of humor, “Don’t worry, I’ll behave. I’m a man of fairly temperate habits and don’t, as a rule, choose to drown my sorrows in drink.”

He was trying to be charming and succeeding, and she wished he’d stop. It made too great an assault on her defenses, leaving her vulnerable to the most preposterous urge to comfort him. It was a relief when their food arrived. It gave her something else to do with hands that ached to reach out and touch his long, restless fingers; to cup his cheek and stroke the severe line of his mouth. To pillow his head against her breast...

He’d probably deck her! He wanted glamorous Barbara Wexler, not unremarkable Sophie Casson, and would almost certainly view any attempt on the latter’s part to share his grief as unforgivably presumptuous.

“What did you do today?” he asked, interrupting her line of thought and, when she told him, said, “Do you get many ideas from your travels abroad? For your work, I mean?”

He was no more interested in her answer than was she in his question, but meaningless small talk was safer than silence that allowed her mind to stray to thoughts better left unexplored.

“I remember the first time we met,” he remarked later, staring absently into his glass of wine. “You were halfway up a tree on the Wexler estate, wearing dungarees covered in mud and with a camera slung around your neck.”

“And you thought I was trespassing. You were ready to throw me off the property.”

He nodded. “Yes. I knew they’d hired a landscape architect to design a waterfall and lily pond, but you hardly fitted the description. I’d expected—”

“What?” she snapped, welcoming the surge of annoyance his words inspired. “A man?”

“Not necessarily. Just someone more... professional-looking.”

“Tell me, Mr. Winter,” Sophie shot back, “when you first started out in the construction business, did you show up on the job wearing a three-piece suit?”

He smiled, such a rare and pleasant change from his usual gravity. “As a matter of fact, I did. I’d decided to buy five adjacent properties, all very run-down, and wanted to impress my bank manager into lending me the money to complete the sale. And I think we should drop the Mr. Winter—Ms. Casson thing. It seems to breed hostility between us and we’ve got enough to deal with, without that.”

“If there’s hostility,” Sophie couldn’t help retorting, “it’s of your making, not mine, and has been ever since we met.”

She expected he’d argue the point but he didn’t. He merely raised his elegant black brows and shrugged. “I daresay you’re right,” he admitted. “But that was then and this is now. Things have changed.”

His habitually somber expression was firmly back in place. It was hard to imagine him succumbing to flighty Barbara’s charms; harder still to picture him lowering his icy reserves and making love to her.

The audacity of such speculation sent a wash of color over Sophie’s cheeks. “Um...” she said, nearly choking on a morsel of fish, “I wonder if the Wexlers will still want me about the place after this. Have you spoken with them since...?”

His manner became even more guarded than usual. “I called them last night.”

“They must be—”

“They’re devastated.”

Sophie sighed, thinking of the gentle elderly couple whose entire existence had revolved around the daughter who’d arrived on the scene so late in their lives. “Yes,” she said softly. “To outlive your children is completely contrary to the proper order of nature. I can only imagine how difficult they must be finding it.”

“Try ‘impossible’,” he suggested shortly. “Nothing you imagine can begin to equate with what they’re going through. At this point, I doubt they’re fully able to comprehend it themselves.” The animosity that, fleetingly, had faded from his eyes, resurfaced. “And I’m quite sure they won’t want you around to remind them of what they’ve lost. At the very least, stay away until you hear from them—or better yet, from me. In fact, it might be best for everyone if you were to delegate someone else from your company to complete your share of the landscape project.”

Sophie stared at him over the rim of her glass. “It really doesn’t come as much of a surprise that you’d assume I’m too lacking in tact or respect to show any sensitivity toward the Wexlers, so I won’t waste my breath trying to counteract your opinion,” she said, nothing in her demeanor betraying the hurt his remark had inflicted. “I can live with the fact that you don’t much like me, Mr. Winter, but I will not tolerate your repeated insinuations that Barbara’s death was in any way my fault, and I will not allow you to drive me into hiding. If and when the Wexlers are ready to have me finish the job they hired me to do, I shall make myself available.”

“It would be better for all of us if you stayed away,” he maintained obstinately, and for all that she tried to stern it, another blast of hurt shafted through her at the unbending accusation in his voice. She could protest until the world stopped turning but, just as it was clear nothing could alter his initial antipathy toward her, so it was equally clear that he still held her accountable for the pain he was now suffering.

She was sorely tempted to get up and leave, but pride wouldn’t let her be put to rout two nights in a row. So, willing her voice not to betray her by trembling, she said, “In that case, why don’t you ask to sit somewhere else for the duration of your stay here? Because heaven forbid I should cause you indigestion on top of all my other manifest sins.”

Sophie didn’t know whether or not he’d taken her suggestion to heart because she walked into town for breakfast on Sunday, spent the rest of the morning in the botanical gardens and stopped at a roadside stand for a lunch consisting of a sandwich and freshly squeezed fruit juice cocktail.

It was after two when she got back to the hotel and the breeze that normally made the heat tolerable had died completely. Out of respect for Barbara, she’d abandoned her habit of skin diving in the lagoon beyond the palm-fringed beach each afternoon, and spent the time instead with a book under an umbrella on the patio. But that day, fatigued as much by the fact that she hadn’t slept well the night before as by the hot Caribbean sun, she slipped into a bikini and stretched out on a wicker chaise in the restful shade of her balcony. That she was also going out of her way to avoid Dominic Winter and his cold, disapproving gaze was something she preferred not to acknowledge.

The murmur of the ocean, in concert with the musical splash of the fountains in the gardens below, soothed like a lullaby. All the hard-edged events of the past few days softened, their colors paling to dreamy pastels. Lassitude spread through Sophie’s arms, her legs, and she welcomed it, happy to drift in the no-man’s-land between waking and sleeping.

She didn’t notice when the colors faded to black or the languor took complete possession of her mind as well as her body. She knew nothing until she became suddenly and alarmingly conscious of someone moving about in her room.

There were discreet signs posted throughout the hotel, warning guests to keep their bedroom doors locked and all valuables stored in the safe at the front desk. Sophie had no valuables worth worrying about except for her camera equipment, and she was reasonably certain she’d locked her door, but there was no doubt someone had managed to gain access. Slewing her gaze sideways, she could see through the slats of the louvered balcony doors the shadow of a man moving back and forth within the room.

A glance at her watch showed that more than an hour had passed since she’d apparently fallen asleep. Time enough for a seasoned burglar to pick the lock and go about his business. His mistake, however, lay in choosing a victim who’d already been on the receiving end of Dominic Winter’s unabashed displeasure. She was in no mood to take further abuse from anyone else.

Without stopping to consider the wisdom of such a move, she slid off the chaise and moved swiftly around the half-open door. But the outrage she’d been about to vent at the intruder dwindled to wordless shock at the sight before her.

Dominic was naked from the waist up, his torso in all its sleekly muscled beauty narrowing to fit snugly into the waist of khaki linen shorts. And yet, that was not quite accurate. Although invisible, desolation hung about him like a second presence.