Dark Paradise

And she didn’t believe for one moment that Alison was as indispensable as she had been led to believe. Matt Lincoln was an experienced and cynical man. He would know a discontented wife when he saw one, and know exactly what kind of lure to offer.

Drew had known too, she thought painfully. ‘You have an exceptional talent,’ she remembered. And ‘There’s this amazing quality of innocence about you, Kate …’

Tell a woman what she wants to hear, and she’ll follow you anywhere, she thought.

And this was how Matt Lincoln was treating Alison. But why? Because he’d only discovered when it was too late and she was married to someone else that he really cared for her? Kate’s mouth curled. Never in a million years, she dismissed. If he cared, then his first thought would be for her happiness—not a selfish desire to plunge her into the kind of ugly recriminations which were inevitable if she went away with him.

It was more probable that he wanted to boost his ego by proving to himself that he was irresistible. That he only had to beckon and even a bride of a year would run.

Distaste rose like bile in Kate’s throat. But she knew what she had to do. For once in his life, Matt Lincoln was going to have to think again before causing havoc in people’s lives. Slowly she opened her purse and slid the slip of paper inside.

The block of flats the taxi brought her to was a surprise. She had expected somewhere far more opulent and showy, but this place with its warm red brick, its balconies and windowboxes was positively old-fashioned, she thought as she paid off the driver.

She asked, ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ and he gave her a look, half indulgent and half irritable.

‘Do me a favour, love! The name’s on the wall over there if you don’t believe me.’ And he drove off.

Kate went in through the revolving doors. She stood for a moment assimilating her surroundings. Stairs on the left, she noticed, and lifts straight ahead.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ There was a long desk on the right, she saw, with a modern looking switchboard, and a uniformed man looking at her enquiringly.

She said lamely, ‘I’m just visiting someone …’

He nodded politely. ‘Of course, madam. If you could give me the resident’s name, and tell me whether or not you’re expected.’

The building wasn’t as old-fashioned as she thought, she decided drily.

She said, ‘I’ve come to see Mr Matthew Lincoln, and no, I’m not expected.’

‘Then if I might have your name, miss, I’ll just check whether it’s convenient.’ He sounded courteous but inexorable.

Kate swallowed a defeated sigh. ‘It’s Marston—Kate Marston.’

She stood, waiting and listening while he dialled and gave the message. He replaced the receiver and looked at her and she waited to be told that Mr Lincoln was not at home, or Mr Lincoln was busy.

He said, ‘If you’d like to take the lift, miss. It’s the second floor, and the door on the right-hand side of the corridor.’

She said dazedly, ‘I—see. Thank you.’

She took a deep breath as she pressed the button for the second floor and heard the smooth whine of the doors as they closed. There was no going back now.

The palms of her hands felt damp, and she wiped them surreptitiously on her skirt, trying to marshal her thoughts, decide on the best tactic to use.

The lift stopped, and she got out and walked along the corridor. The lighting was subdued, and the carpet under her feet felt thick, muffling her footsteps.

She stopped outside Matt Lincoln’s door and subduing an urge to run away very fast and very ignominiously, she lifted a hand to ring the bell.

But before she could do so, the door opened abruptly.

Matt Lincoln stood staring at her, the dark brows lifted questioningly. He was casually dressed this evening, with faded blue denims encasing his long legs, and a black woollen shirt unbuttoned to reveal the strong column of his throat.

Kate moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. She said, ‘Mr Lincoln, you won’t remember me, but …’

‘I remember you perfectly,’ he said sardonically. ‘You’re the bridesmaid with an equal aversion to dancing and to me. What an unexpected pleasure. Won’t you come in?’

He waved her into the flat, his mouth slanting mockingly at her obvious reluctance.

The room he showed her into seemed enormous, with pale walls and acres of olive brown carpet. Two big sofas upholstered in an abstract design of brown, orange and gold faced each other on either side of an imposing fireplace, and a huge antique desk, heavy with carving, stood beneath the window, but there seemed little occasional furniture and no clutter. A massive shelving unit occupied the length of one wall, part of it housing sophisticated hi-fi and television equipment, including a video tape recorder, and the rest crammed with books.

‘At the flick of a switch, it transforms into a bed,’ Matt Lincoln said smoothly. ‘And mirrors come popping out of the ceiling.’ He grinned maliciously at her startled expression. ‘Relax, Miss Marston. This is my home, not Bluebeard’s chamber. What the hell were you expecting?’

She said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry if I gave the impression …’

He made a gesture of impatience. ‘Forget it. Can I get you a drink?’

She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. This—this isn’t exactly a social call.’ She swallowed. ‘I expect you’re wondering why I’m here.’

‘I am indeed,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure you’re going to tell me. Do you want to sit down, or is it the kind of thing that needs to be said standing?’

There was music playing softly in the background, nothing she recognised, a persuasive mixture of drums and guitars and some kind of wind instrument.

He said, ‘Do you want the music turned off, Miss Marston? I guarantee that I won’t ask you to dance again.’

She looked at him with fierce contempt. ‘Very amusing! You find everything a great joke, don’t you, Mr Lincoln?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘And that particular incident even less hilarious than most. Anyway, we’ve established that you don’t want a drink, and you don’t want to sit down. I, on the other hand, intend to do both.’

She watched him pour a measure of Chivas Regal into a glass. He lifted the tumbler towards her with heavy irony. ‘I drink to your good health, Miss Marston,’ he said. ‘I imagine that’s a safer proposition than our better acquaintance.’

He sauntered across the room and flung himself down on one of the sofas, casually insolent, leaving Kate on her feet and stranded in the middle of the room—as he’d no doubt intended, she thought furiously.

‘Lost for words, Miss Marston?’ He watched her over the top of the glass, the blue eyes examining her with frank arrogance—stripping her, she realised with mortification, slow colour creeping into her face. ‘Now that must be a novelty.’

She lifted her chin, her hazel eyes flashing disdain at him. ‘It doesn’t take a lot of saying, Mr Lincoln. I’d like you to leave Alison alone.’

There was a long loaded silence, then he said, ‘I think you’d better explain exactly what you mean.’

Kate swallowed. ‘Please—don’t let’s be hypocritical. The fact is I saw you together at Père Nicolas.’

‘A public restaurant, ‘he said. ‘In broad daylight. No big deal.’

‘No,’ she said steadily. ‘But I’ve seen Alison since—and she’s told me everything.’

‘Then perhaps in turn you could enlighten me.’ He sounded almost indifferent, and she had to control a little spurt of temper.

She said flatly, ‘She’s told me that you’ve offered her her old job back, starting with a trip to the Caribbean in a week or two.’

‘How indiscreet of her!’ His voice slowed to a drawl. ‘So?’

She stared at him. ‘You do realise that if she goes with you, it will probably be the end of her marriage?’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘But has it been definitely established that she is coming with me?’

‘The fact that it was ever suggested—that she’s considering it, is bad enough,’ Kate said fiercely, and he laughed.

‘How very moral of you! Has it ever occurred to you that Alison is quite old enough to decide for herself what she wants from life—and whom, for that matter.’

‘In normal circumstances, yes,’ she said. ‘But—but she doesn’t seem very happy just now. Frankly, this—intervention of yours couldn’t have come at a worse time.’

‘I’d noticed she wasn’t happy. Why should that be, do you suppose?’

Kate waved a dismissive hand. ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure that left to themselves, they can work it out. Only you’re involved now and Alison has been under your sphere of influence so long that I don’t believe she can think straight when you’re around.’

‘Not Bluebeard after all, but Svengali,’ he said almost idly, staring at the amber glow of the whisky as if it fascinated him. ‘Well, well. Does Alison know that you’ve come here, by any chance?’

‘No, she doesn’t.’

The blue eyes watched her coldly. ‘Then she didn’t fling herself on her knees begging you to save her from herself—and from me?’

‘Of course not,’ Kate said impatiently. ‘I’ve told you, she doesn’t realise …’

‘What’s she’s doing,’ he completed for her smoothly. ‘Odd. When she worked for me before she seemed to be in reasonable control of her faculties. But fortunately, she has you to act as arbiter of her morals. May I ask why?’

Kate was slightly taken aback. ‘Because Jon is my brother, and I don’t want him hurt.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you mean stepbrother?’

‘Does it really make a difference?’

‘A fundamental one, I’d have thought.’ He gave her a long dispassionate look. ‘Are you here at his request, perhaps?’

‘No,’ Kate said angrily. ‘And you can thank your stars that he knows nothing about it. If he knew that you were planning to take Alison away with you, even on a legitimate business trip, he’d be ready to kill you!’

‘Perhaps I should hire a bodyguard.’ Matt Lincoln drank some more whisky.

‘Perhaps you should just leave his wife alone.’ She looked at him fiercely. ‘It’s not fair to tempt her like this when she’s at a low ebb. And you don’t really need her. There’s probably a long queue of idiot women who’d give all they possessed to go to the Caribbean with you.’

‘You flatter me.’ The blue eyes glittered at her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t imagine you get many refusals.’

‘You, of course, being one of the exceptions.’ The smile that twisted the firm, sensual mouth was not a pleasant one.

Kate shrugged. ‘Let’s just say I have a built-in immunity to men of your sort, Mr Lincoln, and leave it at that!’ She paused. ‘You have no real reason to ruin Alison’s marriage, after all. You were never really serious about her, or you’d have asked her to marry you.’

‘Perhaps I’m not the marrying kind.’

She shrugged, ‘But Jon is, and Alison is his wife, and he loves her. It would be terrible for him if it all went wrong. Have you even considered what the consequences might be, if she goes with you?’

‘Oh, I’m not that heedless, Miss Marston,’ he said. ‘I’d take adequate precautions against any—consequences.’

Kate almost ground her teeth. ‘I didn’t mean that, and you know it!’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know it.’ He swallowed the remainder of his whisky and got to his feet in one fluid, angry movement. Alarmed, Kate took an involuntary step backwards, and he laughed.

‘Scared, Miss Marston? So you should be. You have a bloody nerve coming here to preach to me about my morals, using your—disinterested affection for someone else’s husband as an excuse. What a two-faced little bitch you are!’

‘Attack, of course, being the best form of defence.’ Kate spoke contemptuously, but her heart was thumping violently. ‘What’s the matter, Mr Lincoln? Have I actually got to you? Could you be suffering a belated bout of conscience?’

‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘Old-fashioned bad temper, coupled with another emotion you’re probably too perfect to recognise, by your own reckoning anyway.’

He tossed the empty tumbler on to the sofa behind him without even sparing a glance to see if it had landed safely, and came towards her.

Kate gasped, and turned to run for the door, but he’d caught her before she even took two paces, taking her by the shoulders and swinging her round to face him. His face was a mask of anger, the blue eyes blazing.

He said with soft clarity, ‘Not so fast, paragon. Let’s see how secure that pedestal of yours actually is.’

She realised what he meant to do, and aimed a blow at him with her clenched fist. He avoided it easily, jerking his head to one side, swearing under his breath, and the next moment both her arms were pinioned behind her back, his hand clamped like a vice round her wrists. His other hand fastened in her hair, not gently, forcing her to be still as his mouth came down on hers.

She shuddered weakly, closing her eyes, bracing herself against the first bruising onslaught. Only it did not come. Instead his lips closed on hers with bewildering gentleness, exploring their softness with warm sensuousness.

She stood passively enduring the featherlight kisses pressed to the corners of her mouth, the delicate grazing of his teeth against the soft fullness of her lower lip.

She was desperately and shamingly aware that her breathing was changing, quickening as the long deliberate caress went on, and she tried to pull away. Immediately his grasp tightened in her hair, and with a little choked gasp of pain, she was forced to submit.

The pressure of his mouth against hers was subtly more insistent now, his tongue stroking teasingly along the contours of her lips, silently coaxing her to part them, and allow him a deeper, more passionate intimacy, and she felt her whole body shiver as she fought its traitorous urging to let him have his way.

She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. She was being deliberately punished, and she knew it, yet deep within her, a soft, sweet trembling was beginning to take control, compelling her to move towards him so that their bodies touched as well as their mouths, prompting a first bewildered response to his kisses.

A little aching sigh escaped her, as her lips parted, yielding him the sensual dominance he sought.

But the mere fact of his victory seemed to be enough. Matt lifted his head and put her away from him, his smile slow and contemptuous as he looked down at her.

‘No,’ he said softly, ‘you’re not blessed with any special immunity, darling. Want to argue the point further—in bed, perhaps?’

‘Let go of me!’ Her voice cracked on the words.

He stepped back, raising his hands ostentatiously, his dark face sardonic. ‘You’re free, Miss Marston. Unless you have anything else you want to discuss with me.’

She shook her head, staring blindly down at the carpet. ‘No—I was a fool to come here—I should have known—should have realised it wouldn’t be any use.’ Her voice shook. ‘You really don’t care, do you? You’re so used to destroying people, ruining their lives in those programmes of yours, that it doesn’t matter to you any more. I—I don’t know how you can live with yourself.’

She went towards the door, and this time he made no attempt to prevent her from leaving. But Kate felt his anger following her like a shadow as she fled down the dim corridor towards the lift and some kind of safety.

She looked like death the following morning, but that was hardly any wonder considering how little she’d slept. And you didn’t have to be actually asleep in order to have nightmares, she’d discovered too.

She decided she must have been suffering from temporary insanity. That was the only feasible explanation she could find for the way she’d acted. Just what had she hoped to achieve? she asked herself in a kind of despair. Some sort of appeal to Matt Lincoln’s finer feelings? Some hopes, she thought with bitter irony. He was a tough ruthless man at the top of his profession. He had no need to bother with those kind of refinements, as his behaviour towards herself had clearly shown.

She groaned inwardly, feeling the hot colour surge in her face as she unwillingly recalled those few moments she had spent—not in his arms, certainly, because he’d never held her like a lover—but under his power.

She had been seduced, she was forced to acknowledge, and God only knew where it might all have ended if Matt Lincoln had not decided to call a halt.

It should have been me, she accused herself miserably. I might not have been able to use my hands or move my head, but I could have kicked him, bitten him, given him a swollen lip for the make-up girls to disguise.

Passive resistance had done no good at all. And at the end, she had been very far from passive, she remembered with shame.

And she had achieved nothing, except to reveal herself as the worst kind of naïve meddler, and to tell herself that she had meant well wasn’t the slightest comfort. Didn’t they say the road to hell was paved with good intentions?

The cheerful babble of the coffee percolater did nothing to raise her spirits, and she switched it off irritably, giving the inoffensive machine a subdued glare.

From now on, she resolved, she was going to mind her own business, no matter what happened. And her business was her work, and the illustrations that Barlow and Herries were waiting for.

Her chin set determinedly, she marched across the landing into the studio. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d soothed away some inner pain with the anodyne of work, and from what life had taught her already, it wouldn’t be the last.

Normally, she worked fast, with ideas crowding on her as she sketched and discarded, using sheet after sheet of paper as she tried to capture the spirit behind the typed words of the script. But she couldn’t pretend she possessed anything like her normal concentration, she thought wearily, as she crumpled yet another sheet and hurled it towards the brimming wastebasket.

The tap on the studio door was almost a welcome interruption. It would be Maria, Kate thought, flexing her shoulders as she straightened up from her drawing board. She had heard her go out earlier, and guessed she was on her way to the shops, and in particular the small home bakery just round the corner to collect some bread for them both.

Bread and honey, she decided as she called ‘Come in,’ and some of the previously rejected coffee. Probably Maria would join her.

All the breath seemed to escape from her body in one jolting gasp as Matt Lincoln walked into the room.

She slid off the stool, uncomfortably aware of the increased rate of her heartbeat.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I met your landlady on the steps. She told me to come straight up.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Were you hoping to have me arrested for trespass?’

‘Well, she had no right,’ Kate said stormily. ‘Will you please get out of here right now!’

‘Well, you’re consistent, I’ll give you that,’ he said grimly. ‘Morning, afternoon or evening, it’s always the hard word.’

‘What else to do you expect?’ Kate glared at him. ‘How did you find out where I live?’

‘I could ask you the same question,’ he drawled. ‘But I won’t. Let’s just say I’m as good a detective as you any day of the week, and call it quits, shall we?’

She stared at him bitterly, resenting the intrusion, although she knew she had brought it on herself by her own actions. He looked incredibly tall, the sloping attic ceiling emphasising his height, and he seemed to fill the available space completely. Her space, Kate thought angrily. Her privacy.

‘Quits, then,’ she said with an effort. ‘Now will you please leave—I have work to do.’

He took in the litter of crumpled paper around her feet and trailing to the wastebasket. ‘Going well?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘A new project,’ Kate said shortly. ‘And early days yet.’ She paused. ‘Please will you go.’

‘Presently,’ he said. ‘When I’ve said what I came here to say.’

‘There’s no need for any further conversation,’ she began.

‘I don’t agree.’ His tone was smooth but definite, and it seemed to convey a warning. Kate felt herself tense. He glanced round the studio. ‘Is there any coffee going? I’ve had no breakfast.’

‘Too busy looking for me, no doubt,’ she said tautly.

‘Too busy, certainly,’ he said laconically.

She hadn’t the slightest desire to give him coffee, but she knew that any kind of protest would only make her appear mean-minded and foolish, so with a little shrug she led the way across the landing to her bed-sitting room, silently thanking her stars as she did so that in spite of everything, she had still found the time that morning to make her bed and leave the room tidy. She walked over to the worktop and flicked the switch with operated the percolater. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Matt Lincoln looking round appraisingly, lowering the zip on his casual jacket, and her heart sank.

‘Perhaps you’d like to help yourself when it’s ready,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I really do have to get on and …’

‘Not yet.’ His tone was cool but utterly implacable, and he was between her and the door. ‘As I said, we have some talking to do.’ He pulled a chair across and sat down, straddling it, his folded arms resting on its back, grinning sardonically at her expression of dismay.

‘Very well,’ she said, pretending a calmness she certainly didn’t feel. She didn’t like the way he was watching her as she moved about putting milk in a jug, taking two pottery mugs out of her china cupboard. The faded yellow sweatshirt wasn’t particularly revealing, but her jeans clung to her hips and thighs like a second skin, a fact which he was frankly and openly appreciating. Kate gritted her teeth.

The coffee was percolating, sending a beguiling aroma through the room. She wanted to relax—after all, this was her home—but she couldn’t, not with him there. His presence was like an irritant. He seemed to charge up the atmosphere, destroying the workmanlike but peaceful ambience she had been at pains to create for herself.

She poured the coffee into the mugs and handed him one, her face stony. He took it with a brief word of thanks, declining milk and sugar. Kate leaned against the worktop, sipping her own drink, feeling its warmth comfort her and give her heart, while she waited for him to speak.

He said softly at last, ‘I was deeply moved by your eloquence last night.’

‘Oh?’ Her expression was suspicious, her tone antagonistic, and he laughed.

‘You don’t believe me? But you underestimate your own powers of persuasion, darling. If you think it would be such a disaster for Alison to go to the Caribbean with me, then I shall not take her. It’s as simple as that.’

Kate put her mug slowly down on the worktop. ‘I don’t think I understand.’

‘I’m a reformed character. Your impassioned plea has made me see the light. My home-wrecking days are behind me.’

Kate’s lips tightened. ‘This is clearly some kind of weird joke, and I don’t find it very amusing.’

‘I’ve never been more serious.’ The blue eyes glittered oddly as they surveyed her. ‘I am not taking Alison to the Caribbean. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘Why—yes.’ She was taken aback, and growing more and more uneasy.

‘Then you have your wish.’ He paused, then said smoothly, ‘There is, of course, one minor condition.’

‘Oh?’ Kate swallowed. ‘What is it?”

He smiled, his eyes appraising her body again with unconcealed sensuousness. He said gently, ‘On condition that you come with me instead.’

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