Chasing Summer: Date with Destiny / Marooned with the Maverick / A Summer Wedding at Willowmere

‘Does it matter?’ she flung at him. He blinked. ‘All I want to know is when was the last time you saw Ralph?’ she went on, her tone urgent.

He gave her a long, assessing look before speaking. ‘A few weeks ago.’

‘Do you mean at the restaurant or here?’ she persisted.

‘You were with Ralph the last time he came to the restaurant, and that was well over a year ago.’

‘Oh...’ She frowned and chewed her bottom lip. ‘It was here, then?’

‘Yes. We run into each other occasionally. But what’s this all about, Mrs Diamond? Surely you’ve been in touch with your ex-husband personally if this penthouse is now yours?’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t...I...’ The lump gathering in her throat appalled her. The last person in the world she wanted to break down in front of was this man. ‘I haven’t seen Ralph for fourteen months,’ she finished in a strangled voice.

Sympathy did strange things to Michael Angellini’s face. It made him almost human. His mouth softened. And his eyes, which were usually as hard as flint, melted to a liquid ebony, washing over her with a look of surprising warmth and pity.

And then he did something else that stunned Salome. He touched her.

Oh, it wasn’t an intimate, or a bold caress. He merely reached out his hand to curve lightly over one shoulder. But it seemed to burn a hand-print on the skin beneath her dress. She froze, her eyes widening, her lips parting slightly.

‘I think, Mrs Diamond,’ he was saying, his hand tightening before releasing her tingling flesh, ‘that you could do with a drink. You seem very stressed. Why don’t you come along to my place, where I can get you something to settle your nerves?’

Salome stared at this man whom she had always detested, unable to get her mind off her response to his touch. Surely it couldn’t have been a sexual response? Surely not!

‘Are you all right, Mrs Diamond? You look...odd.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she snapped in confusion.

A single dark eyebrow lifted and those black eyes hardened again. ‘Of course,’ he drawled. ‘Well, would you like to have a drink with me? Or would you rather be by yourself?’

Salome gave the darkly handsome face a hurried once-over, and was comforted to see she now felt nothing. Nothing at all! She sighed with relief. It had been shock, that was all, shock that her long-time foe had extended an unexpectedly sympathetic hand. No doubt she was susceptible to sympathy at the moment.

But the thought insinuated that he might have misinterpreted her reaction to his touch, and might even now be sizing her up as easy meat for his bachelor bed. The incident with Charles that morning had shown her that a man didn’t have to like her to lust after her.

‘You don’t have to feel obliged to accept,’ he said curtly as he noted her swift frown. ‘I won’t be offended in the slightest. I merely thought you looked like you could do with some company for a while. Believe me, I do realise you have never found my company to your liking in the past.’

Salome bristled. ‘What came first,’ she bit out, ‘the chicken or the egg?’

He stared at her for a moment, then laughed, drawing her gaze to his dazzling white teeth and the attractive dimple in his chin. But there was no laughter in his eyes. They remained as hard and cold as ever. For some reason this annoyed her even more than usual.

‘I think, perhaps, that I will take a rain-check on the drink,’ she said with an icy hauteur that belied her agitated pulse-rate.

The laughter died on his lips, his strong jaw clenching tightly. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he grated out. ‘All I’m suggesting is that we have a drink together. Not another damned thing!’ Looking away, he ran an angry hand through his hair. ‘I’m not a masochist,’ he muttered under his breath, before swinging his eyes back and adding more loudly, ‘I thought you were anxious to hear about your ex-husband. Look, let’s have no more silly arguments. Where are your keys? Aah...I see them.’

With that, he strode inside, picked up the keys from the coffee-table in the centre of the living-room, and returned, ushering her firmly outside and locking the door. Then, taking her elbow, he guided her along the hall, shepherded her through an open door, and deposited her on a cream leather sofa that was identical to the one in Ralph’s unit.

‘There!’ He left her and strode over behind the glass and chrome bar that curved around one wall. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’

Salome opened her mouth then snapped it shut. She couldn’t trust herself to speak just yet.

A ‘masochist’? she was fuming, her excellent hearing having picked up his low comment. Low, in more ways than one. If that wasn’t the insult to end all insults. Brother, was she fed up with the way men perceived her. Fed up to the eye teeth!

Unfortunately, this particular man had information she wanted, so it wasn’t in her interests to give him a blast of her Irish temper at that moment. But, by God, if he came out with another of those clangers, she was going to let him have it! And it wouldn’t be the softly spoken, elegant Mrs Diamond he would have to contend with, but Salome Twynan, street-wise and tough, a fighter from her earliest years, a girl who’d had to be, just to survive!

CHAPTER TWO

‘SO!’ Michael deposited two crystal tumblers on to the glass top of the bar. ‘What will you have to drink? Your usual?’

Salome stared at him.

‘My dear lady,’ came the dry remark, ‘you don’t have to look so surprised. You and your husband were regulars at my restaurant for years. It’s my job to familiarise myself with my clientele’s likes and dislikes. I wouldn’t be much of a host if I hadn’t absorbed the fact that you only drink vodka and orange before dinner, and dry Riesling or white burgundy with your meals.’

He pushed the long sleeves of the blue sweater up his arms, showing surprisingly little body hair, and glanced at the gold watch on his wrist. ‘Since it is now approaching five, I merely guessed the vodka and orange.’ Those cold black eyes lifted. ‘Was I wrong?’ he drawled. ‘Or have your tastes changed in the last year?’

Salome’s green eyes flashed as they locked on to his hard gaze, certain that there was an underlying innuendo in those last words. Clearly he thought that, as Mrs Diamond, she had cleverly catered her tastes to what Ralph had liked, since he too had been fond of vodka and dry white wines. No doubt Mr Jump-To-Conclusions Angellini was now anticipating that such a professional gold-digger as herself might have moved on to the next man already, and adapted her likes and dislikes accordingly.

A type of black humour curved her lips back into a seductive smile. ‘Why don’t you just pour me something you like?’ she purred. ‘I’m sure you have excellent taste.’ She gave him a heavy-lidded glance, thinking viciously that if he was fooled by such blatantly feigned behaviour then he deserved to be!

He glared at her for a moment, then gave a dry, hard laugh. ‘Come now, Mrs Diamond,’ he scoffed. ‘You don’t really expect me to fall for the batting eyelashes and husky-voice trick, do you? Save it for an older, more vulnerable prey—one who’ll be so dazzled by your beauty that he won’t notice the dollar-signs clicking over behind those gorgeous green eyes of yours.’

He folded his arms and frowned at her. ‘You puzzle me, though. You’re a clever woman—an expert, I would have imagined, on the male psyche. I can’t believe you seriously thought that I would be so gullible. After all, I know that you know I’ve never been blind to your—er—chosen vocation in life.’

Salome could have reacted several ways. With a burst of true temper. Dignified outrage. Frozen silence. Even tears. She chose none of them. A cool smile crossed her lips and she had the pleasure of seeing a shocked look pass over her adversary’s face. ‘To be honest, it was an on-the-spot performance,’ she confessed bluntly. ‘A test, so to speak. But I’m relieved to see you came through it with flying colours. God knows how I would have coped if you hadn’t.’

His back stiffened, his arms slowly unfolding to grip the edge of the bar, a barely controlled fury smouldering in those normally cold black eyes. The fact that she had finally got under his skin soothed Salome’s own suppressed anger.

‘But you were right about one thing, Michael, dear,’ she went on. ‘Your company is not to my liking, and neither am I a masochist. I came along here with you merely because I wanted to hear news about my husband.’

‘Ex-husband,’ he reminded her harshly.

‘Whatever.’ She uncrossed her legs and got to her feet, unable to sit there sedately any longer. She tried to keep a calm exterior, but inside her blood was well and truly up. ‘If you’re not going to have the decency to tell me what you know without any added insults,’ she said curtly, ‘then just say so and I’ll leave.’

He didn’t say so. He just stood behind the bar, staring at her. Salome got the oddest impression that with her firm stance she had achieved more in changing this man’s opinion of her than she’d been able to do in her years as Ralph’s wife. There was a look of grudging respect in his eyes as they moved slowly over her.

‘I see there’s more to you than meets the eye, Mrs Diamond,’ he said at last.

She snorted. ‘Am I supposed to be flattered by that remark?’

His laugh was very dry. ‘No. I guess not.’

‘Then would you kindly put me out of my misery and tell me what you know about Ralph?’

Again she was on the end of a sharp look. ‘And are you in misery about your...about Mr Diamond?’

She shook her head in exasperation. ‘Wouldn’t you be, if the person you were married to chucked you out one day without so much as a word of explanation, then refused to see you?’

‘I would,’ he admitted slowly, ‘if I really loved that person, and knew I hadn’t done anything to instigate such behaviour.’

Salome gritted her teeth. ‘Oh, of course,’ she ground out, ‘that couldn’t apply to me, could it? I’m Delilah and Jezebel all wrapped up in one, aren’t I? The sort of vampirish female that ensnares older men into her sexual clutches in order to fleece them of every cent, then tosses them to the wolves when the game grows tedious or a better meal-ticket comes along?’

He was clearly startled by her verbal attack, but recovered well to shrug nonchalantly. ‘You said that. I didn’t.’

‘But you’ve been thinking it all right,’ she flung at him. ‘You thought it the very first night Ralph took me to your rotten damned restaurant!’

He glared at her, eyes hard again. ‘You have to admit you did a good impression of the vacuous sex-object wife, married to a man old enough to be your father!’

‘Age has nothing to do with love,’ she argued. ‘And I wasn’t vacuous. I was shy. Tongue-tied...’

‘Oh, come now,’ he scorned. ‘Shy? Tongue-tied?’

‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘At first.’

‘Well, you soon learned what was expected of you,’ he pointed out caustically. ‘I’ve never seen such an accomplished courtesan, dripping all over your escort, eating him up with your eyes, laughing deliciously at every joke he made. And the clothes you wore. Or didn’t wear, more accurately. Hardly the way a shy woman would dress!’

A fierce blush coloured Salome’s cheeks at the essence of truth behind this accusation. Ralph had always chosen her clothes, and he had a penchant for evening wear that was very sexy. Low necklines and bare shoulders meant that underwear had always been at a minimum. Neither could she dismiss the fact that on subsequent visits to Angellini’s she had often gone over the top with her flirtatious behaviour towards Ralph out of some sort of spite of their host’s ever-reproachful eyes.

‘I was always perfectly decently dressed,’ she defended staunchly through her inner fluster. ‘And decently behaved. Ralph was my husband, and you had no right to sneer at me behind his back.’

‘I never sneered.’

‘You could have fooled me!’

‘Apparently I did!’ he snapped.

They both glared at each other, the silence electric. And then he did the strangest thing. He sighed, his face softening, his eyes almost apologetic.

‘Look, let’s stop this,’ he said reasonably. ‘It’s rather childish, don’t you think? If it makes you feel better, I apologise. Now calm down and sit down. I’ll get you that drink.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘I think you might be more in need of it now than before.’

For a moment Salome stood where she was, feeling somewhat stunned. But then she slumped back down on the sofa, for she had begun to shake with spent emotion. What on earth was wrong with her, letting this man goad her into defending herself so hotly? What did it matter what he thought of her? He meant nothing to her, nothing at all! The only issue at stake here was trying to find out what she could about Ralph, yet she had allowed herself to be totally side-tracked.

Irritated, she glared over at Michael’s now superbly composed self, silently going about mixing the drinks with efficient, economical movements. Cubes of ice were dropped in first, followed by a hefty slurp of vodka. Finally the glasses were topped up with fresh orange juice from the small bar fridge. She watched him walk round the front of the bar, grudgingly admitting that he looked almost as good in casual clothes as he did when dressed formally.

The softly moulding crew-necked pullover showed that his broad shoulders were not an illusion of good tailoring, the wool’s blue colour highlighting his dark colouring. Salome’s gaze drifted downwards to where his trim hips and long legs were housed in a pair of loosely fitting grey trousers. It annoyed her when she began to wonder what he would look like in a pair of tight, body-hugging jeans.

‘Here we are,’ he said, scooping up the brimming drinks without spilling a drop, and bringing them over with the skill and ease of an experienced waiter.

Which is probably what he once was, she thought caustically, before reminding herself that they had a lot in common, in that case. She had been a waitress before marrying Ralph. It bothered her momentarily that her years as the wealthy and privileged Mrs Diamond might have turned her into some sort of snob, since Salome Twynan would never have looked down her nose at someone for doing any kind of a job at all.

Don’t be silly, she berated herself. You have every reason to feel bitchy towards this man. It has nothing to do with what job he’s done, or hasn’t done!

‘So you really have no idea why Mr Diamond ended your marriage?’ Michael asked, giving her a penetrating look as he handed over her drink.

The intensity those black eyes could project unnerved her. ‘None,’ she admitted.

He sat down on the sofa next to her, his own drink moving to his lips, those same disturbing eyes watching her closely over the rim of the glass.

Salome tried desperately to ignore how his gaze and closeness were affecting her. She felt stifled, nervous, afraid even. Of what? she puzzled frantically. Because she was alone with him in his apartment? Michael Angellini didn’t seem the type of man to make a crass pass unless given some encouragement. He was, on the surface at least, a gentleman.

Salome pushed aside her illogical apprehension and put her mind back on the issue at hand. ‘I came home one day,’ she explained somewhat reluctantly, ‘and found my bags packed. Ralph gave me no explanation other than to state that our marriage was over.’

The man next to her was clearly taken aback. He straightened and just stared at her, his glass hovering at his lips. Salome sipped her own drink, her hand shaking slightly.

‘I...I tried to find out the reason, but he wouldn’t budge,’ she went on agitatedly. ‘In the end I suppose I got a little hysterical. Ralph simply called one of his body-guards and had me removed from the premises.’

‘My God, that’s appalling!’

The depth of disgust Salome saw in his face startled her. Yet it was oddly comforting to have someone else find Ralph’s behaviour inexcusable. Even her own mother had presumed she had been to blame. But then, poor Molly always thought women were to blame when a relationship ended.

‘As I said to you earlier,’ she managed to get out, ‘I haven’t seen Ralph in the fourteen months since that day. Not that I haven’t tried.’ And she found herself relaying to her surprisingly intent listener all her endeavours to have a personal meeting with her ex-husband.

‘So, you see,’ she finished, ‘I’m anxious to hear anything about Ralph at all. I want some answers. I need some answers!’

‘Of course you do,’ he agreed strongly. ‘Of course. No one deserves to be treated like that!’

Not even a gold-digging little tramp like me, Salome added silently with a weary sigh. Strangely enough, all of a sudden, this man’s low opinion of her hurt. It hurt like mad. Ralph might have been able to snub his nose at the opinion of others, but Salome was finding it increasingly upsetting to have people believe she was little better than a woman of easy virtue.

An involuntary shudder ran through her, bringing a puzzled frown from her companion. ‘Is there something wrong with your drink?’ he asked.

It was just as well, Salome realised bitterly, that she had grown expert at the art of the superbly bland social face, which consisted of totally unreadable eyes and a soulless smile.

Yet, somehow, hiding the hurt this man kept dishing out, however unconsciously, proved to be more difficult than usual. That plastic smile just wouldn’t come, and when she looked at him she found herself becoming lost in those incredible black eyes of his, which at that moment were filled with a disarming sympathy. She dragged her own away, and stared down at the half-empty drink.

‘No,’ she said tautly, twisting the glass around and around in her hands. ‘It’s fine.’ She gulped most of it back in one go, then cleared her throat and looked up. ‘You’re being very nice to me, Michael. Considering...’

For a second he just looked at her, but she thought she detected a hint of irony in his eyes. He reached to pick up his own drink once more, turning his eyes back to hold her nervous ones with consummate ease. ‘My friends call me Mike,’ he said quietly.

For a second Salome was taken aback. Then she laughed. ‘I’m not a friend, though, am I?’

He smiled and shrugged. ‘You could become one.’

‘I doubt that very much.’

‘Why?’

Her expression was incredulous. ‘Why? For one thing, you don’t like me!’

‘Aah...’ His smile became quite cynical. ‘I can’t deny that I didn’t like you much when you were Mrs Diamond. But as...Salome’s your name, isn’t it?’

‘Y-yes,’ she admitted warily.

‘As single Salome, I think I could like you well enough,’ he stated with a seductive softness, then leaned back and took another swallow of his drink.

Salome’s insides tightened. Was this what she’d subconsciously been waiting for, been agitated about? For her one-time foe to make a sexual move towards her? Her glare was withering. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to get used to that sort of remark,’ she snapped. ‘But I would have thought that a man as eligible as yourself wouldn’t have to resort to chasing frustrated divorcees.’

There was a sardonic lift to one eyebrow. ‘And are you frustrated, Salome?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ She stood up and slammed her glass down on to the low marble-topped table in front of the sofa. ‘I’m not going to stay here and exchange sexual innuendoes. Obviously your offer of friendship was nothing but a ruse. You couldn’t give a damn about helping me with news of Ralph. All you really want is to get me into bed!’

He stared at her for what seemed like ages, then a wry smile tugged at his lips. ‘Let me assure you, my dear Salome,’ he drawled, ‘that such a thought has never entered my head. Of course,’ he added, his gaze travelling slowly over her heaving breasts, ‘I wouldn’t knock you back if you offered. Or aren’t you that frustrated?’

‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Oh!’ she repeated with a stamp of her foot. ‘Of all the—’ Flustered and fuming, she whirled on her heels and began striding towards the door.

‘Mr Diamond always had the same young woman with him.’

Salome froze mid-stride, then turned. So there was another woman, a new ‘project’ for Ralph to work on, a new ‘possession’. Funny, she would have thought she’d be relieved to find an answer at last. Instead, she still felt devastated. Yet there she’d been lately, thinking her love for Ralph had finally begun to die.

‘A—a young woman?’ she repeated blankly.

‘Yes. A brunette. Attractive. Very well-groomed. A career girl, by the look of her. Though I have to confess I don’t think they were business acquaintances. Fact is,’ Michael went on quite ruthlessly, ‘there’s no doubt in my mind they were lovers. I saw them come out of the penthouse very early in the morning together a couple of times. Once they had their arms around each other in the corridor.’

Lovers?

Salome stared, a weak hand fluttering up to her throat as she tried to make sense of Michael’s observation. How could Ralph have a lover? Unless... unless he had lied to her...

Salome felt quite ill, the blood draining from her face, her eyes dropping to the floor. Why would he have done such a thing? Why?

‘Come and sit down.’

Salome’s head jerked up when gentle hands closed over her shoulders. How had he got to her side so quickly? The last time she had looked he had been sitting down.

‘Come on.’ He led her over and settled her on the sofa. ‘I’m sorry, Salome. I shouldn’t have told you that quite so bluntly. I didn’t realise—’

Her head snapped up, green eyes pained. ‘Realise what?’ she said brokenly. ‘That I might really care about my husband? That I might actually be upset to find he was probably being unfaithful to me all along?’

He crouched down on his haunches in front of her, his hands gripping hers. ‘Maybe Mr Diamond has a lover now. But I don’t believe he would have been unfaithful to you while you were still living together.’

The fierceness in his voice and eyes startled her. ‘I can’t imagine any man having a woman like you in his bed,’ he continued, ‘and looking elsewhere.’

For a second she almost laughed at the complete irony of his remark. Till she realised exactly what his words implied—that, as a supposed ‘professional’ at the art of lovemaking, she should be well equipped to hold a man’s interest.

It infuriated her that she kept on feeling distressed by this man’s bad opinion of her. No way, however, was she going to show that he had upset her again.

She still laughed, but it reeked of sarcasm. She also snatched away her hands. ‘What a typically superficial male comment! No woman is that good. Somehow, I expected more of you, Michael Angellini, than to believe sex alone will hold a man indefinitely. Or is that all it takes to hold you?’ she couldn’t resist adding.

Those black eyes glittered dangerously as he got slowly to his feet, glaring down at her. She had hit a nerve all right with her comment. And serve him right! she thought savagely. She’d had a few nerves hit by him over the years. She lifted her chin defiantly to glare back up at him. Think of me what you like, her eyes taunted. I don’t give a damn!

‘Actually, you’re wrong, Salome,’ he bit out. ‘Sex, alone, does not hold me. I wish it did,’ he grated out, throwing her a black look as he dropped down in his corner of the sofa. ‘At least sex is straightforward and simple. It’s when it gets tangled up with deeper emotions that the trouble starts.’

Salome found herself feeling an odd sympathy for him. He sounded genuinely wretched, as though he had suffered deeply from an unhappy love-affair, and was still suffering. She didn’t like to see anyone on the end of that kind of distress—even Mike. She knew how it felt.