Long Cold Winter

Women had been standing in line for Yorke from the first day he wore long trousers, and there wasn’t a thing he didn’t know about their minds or bodies.

‘Look, we’d better get over to the restaurant,’ Alan said quickly. ‘We can have a drink over there and talk later, when we’re all feeling more relaxed.’

He was standing up as he spoke, and Autumn walked out of the bungalow without a word, ignoring Sally’s puzzled eyes. She could feel Yorke looking at her, and she used the smile experience had taught her was a far more effective weapon than any amount of irritation or embarrassment. It was so cold and bitter that it normally froze off even the most ardent and thick-skinned Don Juan. On Yorke it was like using paper to ward off a forest fire; his glance consumed her, destroying her barricades, warning her of what was to come, but she gave him another of her cold little smiles and turned away from him to Alan. Behind her she could hear the breathless excitement in Sally’s voice as she answered his deep-toned questions. Even Sally, fathoms deep in love with her Richard, was not proof against Yorke’s sexuality.

Alan closed the door of his bungalow and turned to Yorke to make some comment about arranging for him to see over the grounds, and Sally used the momentary diversion to murmur curiously to Autumn, ‘What gives? I detected a definite undercurrent in the bungalow just now, and when you saw Yorke you looked as though you’d seen a ghost.’

‘No such luck,’ Autumn muttered bitterly, taken off guard when Yorke loomed over her, his teeth white in the velvet darkness.

‘What a devoted wife you are, my love,’ he murmured dulcetly, loudly enough for Sally to hear. ‘And when I’ve come all this way to find you…’

He turned back to Alan and Sally gaped in bemusement.

‘Was I hearing things, or…’ she broke off when she saw Autumn’s pale face. ‘My God, Autumn, he is your husband, isn’t he?’

Such was Yorke’s power that even though Sally knew what her marriage had done to her, she could still look at her with perplexed eyes, and was no doubt thinking she must have been a fool to leave him, Autumn thought on a ragged sigh. But who was she to blame Sally? Hadn’t she been just as bemused—once? She loitered behind the others deliberately, glad that the path through the gardens to the Five Fathoms restaurant was barely wide enough for two people. At first when she saw the white flash of a dinner jacket she froze in alarm, thinking it was Yorke, but he was in front of her, his arm resting protectively on Sally’s waist as he helped her to negotiate the twisty path.

‘I’m sorry about this, Autumn,’ Alan muttered, falling into step beside her. ‘It was a hell of a thing to do to you, but he didn’t give me much alternative. When he was first introduced to me I had no idea he was your husband. He’d been recommended to me by my merchant bankers and he seemed enthusiastic about the island. It wasn’t until he’d discovered just how bad things were that he started to put the screws on. He told me if I didn’t fix up this meeting he’d make sure I wouldn’t come out of this mess with ten pounds to call my own.’

‘So you simply caved in and threw me to the wolves?’ She tried to keep the shaken anger out of her voice, but it was impossible. When she had first seen Yorke in the bungalow she had thought she must be hallucinating; that it was all part of the dreadful nightmares that used to torment her in the early months after she left him. There had never been any question of him wanting her back—he had wanted the marriage to end just as much as she did herself. When she had left him she had reverted to her maiden name, simply because she couldn’t bear to retain anything that might remind her of him, and as far as she knew he had never made any attempt to trace her, so why this, now?

‘Come on, it isn’t as bad as all that,’ Alan said gruffly. ‘He just wants to talk to you, Autumn.’

Autumn ignored him.

‘You knew who he was all the time,’ she accused. ‘All the time you were giving me that “be nice to him” bit, you knew!’

‘He made me promise to say nothing. I tell you, Autumn, he would have ruined me if I hadn’t agreed. And still might. Look, I know I’ve no right to ask this of you, but St John’s means one hell of a lot to me; not just financially… and he has the power to make or break it.’

‘Come on, you two,’ Sally called back to them. ‘Stop dawdling!’

Yorke barely glanced at Autumn when they arrived at the restaurant, but she was aware of him with every breath she drew. Why had he gone to such lengths to find her? Did he want a divorce? Her heart thudded against her breastbone and she glanced at his shuttered profile, her palms slightly damp. If that was the case, surely he wouldn’t seek her out in person?

And Alan. He really was unbelievable. Surely he must be able to see that she couldn’t stay on St John’s now? But he didn’t see, she thought tiredly. He was so wrapped up in his business that he saw only that, and Yorke had made use of the fact.

The Five Fathoms restaurant was something of a showpiece; the restaurant itself was below ground, having been excavated out of the volcanic rock, at the opposite end of the bay from the main hotel complex.

Inside it was the last word in luxury, stretching out below the seabed; one huge illuminated glass ‘window’ looking out on to the undersea world of the coral reef, teeming with tiny fish and live coral. Clever lighting and engineering had turned the sea outside into an ‘aquarium’ and through the glass ‘window’ the diners could watch the ceaseless play of underwater life, while they ate and danced.

The atmosphere in the Five Fathoms was more sophisticated than in the dining room attached to the main hotel, and guests tended to dress more formally and make a visit to the Five Fathoms something of an occasion.

The head waiter came forward to greet them, and although he recognised Alan, it was to Yorke that he turned automatically, to ask if he had any table preference.

By common consent they opted for one quite close to the dance floor, but with excellent views through the ‘window’, and as the muted strains of the resident steel band filled the silence, Autumn tried to relax. Now, the numbness which had followed her initial recognition of Yorke had given way to delayed shock, and she was glad of the dim atmosphere of the restaurant, tensing as she anticipated Yorke’s attention being focused upon her.

She had underestimated him, she decided several minutes earlier. He was dividing his time impartially between Alan and Sally, making Sally laugh as he related some anecdote. Autumn stared stoically down at her wine glass. The days were gone when she would vibrate to those soft tones, like a well tuned instrument to a master player, sexual excitement erupting at a mere look, the slightest touch enough to send her into a frenzy of need.

At thirty-four Yorke looked little different than he had done three years ago when she first met him. His body beneath the immaculate dinner suit was still lithe and firm, his hair dark and thick, and his face taut and alert. He looked lean and predatory, the fierce competitiveness that drove him, apparent in his expression. Yorke was a man who admitted no equal; no contenders for the things he considered his.

He had learned about life in a hard school, Autumn reflected. His father had abandoned Yorke and his mother when Yorke was six, rejecting his son in favour of the daughter his mistress had given him, and that rejection was something Yorke had never forgotten nor forgiven. During their marriage Yorke had mentioned his father only once, and that had been when Autumn question him about him. He had been a haulage contractor with a profitable business, but in his will he had made it plain that neither Yorke nor his ex-wife were to receive anything from his estate, and Yorke had bitterly resented this further confirmation of his rejection.

With the benefit of hindsight, Autumn had come to see that Yorke’s driving ambition was as a direct result of this rejection; his desire to succeed a deep-seated need springing from a bottomless well of bitterness; but the knowledge had come too late. And Yorke had succeeded. His hugely successful independent airline was now world-renowned.

The waiter brought the lobster Autumn had ordered as a starter, but she could only pick at it. Ever since she left Yorke she had been armouring herself for the moment when she must confront him again, but now fear tingled along her spine as he raised his head and glanced assessingly at her.

What did he want? Her nails dug into the palms of her hands as she tried to steady her racing pulses.

The others were ready for their main meal, and Autumn pushed her lobster aside barely touched.

‘Something spoiling your appetite?’ Yorke asked smoothly.

She smiled coolly back, glad of the surface sophistication the last few years had brought. At one time Yorke had been able to destroy her fragile defences in three minutes—just as long as it took his expert lovemaking to send her body into heated rebellion against her mind. She had once thought that he loved her, but she had come to realise that hatred was closer to what he actually did feel, and in the end their marriage had become an unendurable hell, while her mind fought against his undeniable mastery of her body.

It was plain that both Alan and Sally had fallen completely under Yorke’s spell, just as she had once done herself, but now she could see through the charming shell to the man beneath and she ignored him when he smiled at her, concentrating purely on surviving the evening unscathed.

At one point while the two men were discussing business, Sally leaned across the table and said enviously to Autumn, ‘I love your outfit. Every other woman in the place is longing to scratch your eyes out and all the men are wondering what you’re like in bed.’

Autumn felt the colour burn up under her skin. Normally Sally’s forthright manner didn’t bother her, but on this occasion her eyes slid automatically to Yorke, her tongue wetting her top lip in nervous dread.

‘Yes, what are you like, Autumn?’ Yorke mocked softly. ‘It’s so long that I’ve practically forgotten.’

‘You’d find me very disappointing.’ Autumn stared at him, deliberately holding his eyes and then letting her own drop as obviously over his body as his glance did over hers. She had found it to be quite an effective ploy in the past. Men might say that they were all in favour of equal rights, but they still thought some rights belonged to them alone.

Yorke wasn’t the slightest bit abashed; indeed he returned her look with deliberately insulting thoroughness, and Autumn, who had seen forty-year-olds flustered under the look she had given him, knew that he had turned the tables on her. She turned away, ostensibly to speak to Alan, but in reality to give herself an opportunity to recharge her emotional batteries.

Merely being in the same room as Yorke drained her of energy; he was like a force-field, destroying everything that threatened his own supremacy.

André, the chef, had surpassed himself with the food, but Autumn was barely aware of what they ate. Other couples drifted on to the dance floor and she found her stomach muscles contracting in nervous dread. She could not dance with Yorke. She could not bear to be held close to him; the mere thought was enough to make her feel physically sick.

At her side she could feel Alan watching Yorke anxiously. Worrying about the future of the island, no doubt, but when he asked her to dance with him she hadn’t the heart to refuse.

The steel band were good and Autumn had danced with Alan often enough for them to make a well matched couple. The small dance floor was quite crowded, and they were on the far side of the room from their table, and yet the moment Yorke and Sally joined them Autumn was unbearably aware of their presence, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickling warningly.

When the music slowed to a more romantic beat, Autumn suggested to Alan that they sit down.

‘Still not forgiven me, have you?’ he asked wryly, his hand on the small of her back as they went back to their table. ‘I honestly didn’t have any choice. Do you think if I hadn’t agreed it would have prevented him from coming out here? He’s a man who’s used to getting his own way, Autumn.’

‘You could have warned me,’ she replied evenly. ‘I’m leaving Travel Mates, Alan. I can’t stay on after this.’

He cursed and then fell silent, glancing across the small distance that separated them from Yorke and Sally, dancing close together.

Once to see him hold another girl like that would have brought a physical pain so acute that it would have hurt, Autumn reflected, watching them. Now she felt nothing. Her feelings were in cold storage, and that was how she intended them to stay.

The music stopped and Sally and Yorke broke apart. As though they were communicating by telepathy Autumn knew that that dance had just been his opening gambit; that he was stalking her, deliberately trying to instil the weakening fear that had once made her his willing victim.

Snatching up her bag, she told Alan she was going to the cloakroom. Once there she reapplied her lip-gloss and combed her hair, sitting sightlessly in front of the mirror. When the door opened she froze, but it was only Sally, her eyes concerned.

‘Are you all right?’

‘As all right as anyone can be after being confronted by a piece of their past they thought well and truly buried,’ Autumn responded.

Sally’s smile was wryly appreciative. ‘And what a past!’

‘If you’d been married to him you wouldn’t have let him out of your sight, is that what you’re going to say?’

Sally heard the bitterness and shook her head. ‘Autumn, you and I have been friends long enough for me to know the sort of person you are. I admit that Yorke isn’t exactly what I pictured when you talked about your husband. He’s far more mind-blowing; but anyone but a fool can tell with just one look that he’s pure steel. Fun to play with as long as it’s just a game, but I’d hate to have him for my enemy, and it was a pretty rotten trick for Alan to play, unleashing him on you like that without any warning. Yorke’s idea, I suppose?’

Autumn nodded her head.

‘It seems that Yorke threatened to destroy Travel Mates if Alan didn’t help him.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Leave here just as soon as I can. I don’t know what Yorke wants, and I don’t care. There’s only one thing I want from him—a divorce!’

‘Look, would you like me to stay with you tonight?’ Sally suggested sympathetically.

Autumn smiled briefly. ‘No, thanks, but it was a kind thought.’

As she slipped out into the darkness she drew in gulps of fresh air, her mind busily planning her escape. Tomorrow she had to go with the sailing trip round the island, but there was a flight to London from St Lucia, the day after, and with any luck she could be on it. Beyond her arrival in London she refused to think. Every instinct she possessed was overwhelming her with the need to put as great a distance between herself and Yorke as she could.

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN she left the restaurant, Autumn didn’t immediately return to her bungalow. Instead she walked along the beach, carrying her flimsy sandals in one hand as she felt the sea-washed firmness of the sand beneath her feet. Tonight she felt a deep longing to give herself up to the vastness of the sea; to be swamped by its embrace, and be swept effortlessly into an unending void where all feeling ceased to exist. It would be so easy to walk into the sea now and keep on walking, and she had to fight against the urge to do so.

Turning her back on the sea, she walked determinedly towards her bungalow, inserting her key in the lock and opening the door.

Once inside she stiffened like a wary cat, sensing danger. Tobacco smoke drifted across the darkened room, but even before the familiar scent reached her, she knew who it was who stood in the shadows by the window.

He crossed the room before she could react, grasping her arm and pulling her towards him, locking the door behind her and pocketing the key with one swift, lithe movement.

‘Still so predictable,’ he mocked. ‘Never fight when you can run.’

‘I wasn’t running, Yorke,’ Autumn told him, shrugging dismissively. ‘If you must know, I was tired. I’ve had a long day and now I want to go to bed.’

It was a tactical mistake and she was annoyed with herself for making it. Yorke’s eyes gleamed silver-green in the darkness; the colour of the sea. Cat’s eyes, watching; waiting eyes.

‘So do I,’ he drawled mockingly.

‘I meant alone,’ Autumn told him without bothering to disguise her withdrawal. ‘I find I prefer it that way, especially in this climate.’ She dropped her shoes on the floor, sliding them on as though the increased inches gave her increased protection, but even so, the top of her head barely reached Yorke’s chin. She knew with a swift stab of satisfaction that her response had surprised him, even though he disguised it. The old Autumn would have been angry and defensive, backing away from him and defying him to touch her.

‘You’ve had experience, then?’ Yorke asked her silkily. ‘But not with friend Alan. You’ve never taken him to your bed, have you, Autumn?’

‘I don’t really think that’s any of your business,’ Autumn replied coolly, reaching up to switch on the light. ‘Do you?’

She felt his indrawn breath, knowing without looking at him that he was angry. So she had pierced his guard. Good! Always in their past encounters he had driven her into a corner, defeating her with his logic and hard determination. Then she had lacked the weapons to fight him, a loser by virtue of her love for him. Now it was different.

‘Have you slept with him?’ Yorke demanded angrily, catching hold of her wrist with sudden violence.

‘Why don’t you ask him?’

Autumn was reasonably sure that he would do no such thing, and her success went to her head. It was going to be easier than she had thought. She had allowed her imagination to build Yorke into a more formidable adversary than he actually was, forgetting that during the intervening years she had grown from an inexperienced adolescent, young for her years, into a woman.

‘Please give me my key and leave,’ she demanded coldly. ‘I have an early start in the morning.’

‘That cold, dismissive manner might work with other men,’ Yorke snarled at her, tightening his grip of her wrist, ‘but it doesn’t work with me, Autumn. I know too well what lies under that ice-cold exterior, and I haven’t followed you half way across the world to be dismissed and frozen out. Besides…’ his voice dropped huskily, his eyes wandering over in insolent appraisal, until she felt her lungs would burst with the effort of maintaining her slow even breathing, ‘we both know that the ice is just a façade, don’t we?’

‘What do you want? I’m not in the mood for games, Yorke. Just say your piece and then go.’

His eyes darkened and for a moment Autumn felt the unleashed power of the anger her dismissal had aroused, and she knew that she had not overestimated the danger he represented—far from it. And then he was smiling mockingly, his eyes cruel, as his thumb circled the soft inner flesh of her wrist with insidious determination.

‘I want you, Autumn,’ he said softly.

Once long ago that soft caress would have been sufficient to drive her into his arms, begging brokenly for the satisfaction only his lovemaking could bring, but now, after one deep, shuddering breath, she had herself under control, her eyes empty of everything but distaste as she stared at him.

‘Well, I don’t want you.’

She sensed that her response had disconcerted him, although he recovered quickly, shielding his thoughts from her and watching her from beneath lowered lashes, his hard face unreadable.

‘Well, well, you’ve grown up with a vengeance, haven’t you?’ he drawled softly. ‘Anyone who didn’t know you could never guess that you’re as vulnerable as an oyster without its shell under all that surface toughness.’

Somehow she managed to laugh, a light, silvery sound, her head thrown back challengingly to reveal the smooth, seductive arch of her throat.

‘You’re the one who doesn’t know me, Yorke. Two years is a long time, and the toughness, as you call it, isn’t just on the surface. It goes way, way down. God knows why you had to drag Alan into our private affairs, but I’ve already told him, I’m leaving Travel Mates as of tonight, and I shall be on the first available flight out of St Lucia. You and I have nothing to say to one another.’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Yorke told her softly. ‘I’m going to see to that. And you’re not as tough as you like to pretend. You’ve forgotten, Autumn, I know everything there is to know about you.’

She smiled again.

‘Not true, Yorke. You knew all there was to know about a girl called Autumn. That girl no longer exists. And you don’t know the first thing about the woman she’s become.’

‘Then perhaps I ought to start finding out,’ Yorke breathed huskily, but Autumn was too quick for him, freeing herself from his grasp and going to stand by the window.

‘Our marriage is over, Yorke, and all I want from you now is my freedom.’

‘That could be arranged.’

She whirled round, staring at him.

‘You’ll agree to our divorce?’

‘I might, under certain conditions.’

‘What conditions?’ Autumn breathed, knowing the moment that she spoke that she had betrayed herself.

‘Not so changed after all,’ Yorke taunted. ‘You’re still as impetutous. I want you back, Autumn, as my wife, living in my home.’

His words caught her off guard, and she flung at him bitterly. ‘Home? And where would that be, Yorke? The flat in Knightsbridge? The one you spent at least one night a month in, in between your business trips. Thanks, but no, thanks. There isn’t any way you could persuade me to go back to you. No prisoner ever enters the condemned cell twice.’

‘Is that what our marriage was to you? And yet you entered it willingly enough, as I remember; even to the extent of being quite prepared to anticipate its vows.’ His mouth twisted wryly at the dark colour flooding her skin.

He was so arrogant, so sure of her capitulation, Autumn reflected angrily, staring out into the night. Over the last two years she had developed an armour against the past; an unscalable wall behind which she had dammed up everything that had happened, including the girl she had once been. Now Yorke was trying to tear down that wall.

‘Don’t try to pretend you ever cared about our marriage, Yorke,’ she said bitterly. ‘We both know that if I hadn’t left voluntarily when I did, you would have had me forcibly removed. You told me yourself that our marriage was a mistake and that I bored you. And it didn’t take you long to replace me either.’

A shaft of pain lanced through her, as the past broke through the barriers, and she tensed automatically, as though by doing so she could hold it back.

‘Why didn’t you divorce me when I left?

Yorke shrugged. ‘Why should I? A wife is an excellent deterrent against unwanted involvements.’

His cynicism took her breath away.

‘But you don’t want me… you don’t love me…’

The words fell between them and she wished them unsaid. They had been her tearful refrain to so many of their quarrels. ‘You don’t love me…’ And never once had he denied it.

‘I need you.’

‘Need me?’ She stared at him, her eyes darkening. ‘You never needed anyone in your entire life—you used to boast about it, telling me how invulnerable you were. I’ve built a new life for myself now, Yorke, and I don’t need you.’

‘Just my consent to our divorce, and I’d give you that; for four months of your time.’

Four months! Autumn wrapped her arms protectively around her body, chilled despite the warmth of the tropical night. During the brief span of their marriage she had come to know that beneath Yorke’s surface, charm lay a cold implacability to have his own way, which would admit no fallibility, no opposition, and now he was saying that he wanted her back. Why?