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

Much later, her heart heavy, her senses dulled by physical and emotional exhaustion, she stripped herself off and stood robotically beneath a tepid shower. Too tired to unpack and find a nightie, she climbed naked between the sheets of the double bed in the main bedroom, lifting a weary hand up to snap off the bedside lamp, plunging the entire place into darkness.

But before her mind could embrace the mental darkness of sleep, it drifted inexorably back to that moment when Mike had threatened to prove his passion for her and she had groaned for him not to.

A further groan broke from her lips, and she turned to bury her face in the pillow. For now that she was alone, now that Mike was no longer a menacing presence, Salome could admit that the new, sexually aware part of herself had wanted him to prove it, however and wherever and as often as he wished, this realisation having shocked her sufficiently into making one last desperate plea. Fortunately, he had been decent enough to answer that plea.

So for now she was safe. For now... But what of tomorrow, and the next day, and the next?

Mike wanted her, and he was not a man who would give up easily. It might take weeks for this penthouse to be sold. And all the while Mike would be living next door.

The only solution, she finally accepted, was to move back home with her mother. A wave of depression swamped Salome. Why was all this happening to her? All she’d ever wanted in life was to be secure and reasonably happy, and to avoid the sort of emotionally tormented and draining existence she’d had to endure with Molly during all her growing-up years. Now, just as she was getting over the harrowing effect of her divorce, she’d been thrown back into a maelstrom of mental torment, not only besieged by the hurt of having to face the ugly truth of Ralph’s betrayal, but also tortured by a physical desire she didn’t want and couldn’t understand.

The future loomed ahead of her as a maze of misery, with no hope for the peace of mind she had always craved.

Thank the lord tomorrow is my rostered day off, she thought with a sigh. Perhaps I won’t go in to work to make up for today. I just want to pull these blankets over my head and never surface again.

But Salome was to surface from those blankets again, far sooner than she would ever have envisaged, and with a far greater threat to her happiness...

CHAPTER SIX

ONE second Salome was fast asleep, her mind in oblivion. The next, she was awake, her eyes dazzled by the overhead chandelier.

Her first muddled thought was that she must have left the light on. Pushing her tangle of curls back out of her eyes, she glanced at the time on the bedside clock-radio. One thirty-four. It was then that she saw Charles, standing in the bedroom doorway.

Salome sat bolt upright and simply stared at him. He looked drunk, his cheeks flushed, his greying hair untidy. He was also clearly contemptuous at finding her there.

Salome clutched the quilt up towards her throat, her green eyes wide with shock.

‘I thought you said you didn’t want this place,’ he muttered derisively.

His beady, bloodshot eyes raked over her bare shoulders, then dropped to where alarm was making her breasts rise and fall rapidly beneath the bedclothes. A glittering came into his gaze that made Salome feel sick to her stomach. If she hadn’t been so stunned by the situation she might have thought to get out of bed, to do something. But she stayed where she was, huddled under the sheet.

‘Funny,’ Charles slurred, ‘I never imagined you sleeping in the raw. I always pictured you in tantalising black lace, or virginal white silk.’ Chuckling obscenely, he drew out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, then stuffed the packet and lighter back into his suit pocket. The smoke curling around his head made him look even more menacing, his piggy eyes dark and dangerous as he leered at her through the haze.

Salome swallowed and tried to gather her wits. She was not stupid, and it didn’t take her long to gather that Charles held duplicate keys to this penthouse and had been using it as a sort of doss-house. And much as logic demanded that a high-profile lawyer wouldn’t risk his career and reputation by doing anything criminal—like raping her—no amount of common sense seemed to be able to stop fear and panic from clutching at her throat. So much so that she couldn’t even find her voice.

Finally, Charles levered himself away from the door-jamb, stubbing the cigarette out on the wall before he strolled across the beige shag carpet towards the bed. Salome felt her insides cringe, even though she didn’t move an inch. Don’t show any fear, she kept telling herself. He’s just trying to frighten you. He won’t really do anything.

He reached the bottom of the bed and idly picked up a corner of the quilt. Her fingers tightened on her end, uncomfortably aware of her nakedness beneath the bedclothes. Why, oh, why, she groaned, hadn’t she unpacked a nightie?

‘If you’re nice to me,’ he drawled, ‘I’ll tell you why Ralph kicked you out.’

Salome’s heart jumped, then tightened again. ‘I already know,’ she said brusquely. ‘And I have no intention of being nice to you, Charles Smeaton. Not now, not ever! I don’t like you sober and I especially don’t like you drunk!’

Charles dropped the quilt and set cold eyes upon her. ‘Is that so?’ Those beady grey eyes raked over her once more. ‘Well, that’s just too bad.’

Panic was threading its way through Salome’s system, but she kept a brave, bold face turned towards her intruder and slowly eased herself back to sit hard up against the headboard, dragging the quilt with her. ‘If you don’t leave immediately,’ she advised curtly, ‘I’m going to have to tell Ralph. I don’t think he’ll be too pleased with your having kept a set of keys to this place.’

The returning smile was so confident that Salome was rocked. ‘Quite frankly,’ Charles countered, ‘I don’t think Ralph would give a stuff at my using this place. And, since you know why he finished your marriage, you’ll know he has other things on his mind right now.’

Salome shuddered, and that ghastly smile widened. She was scared, and he knew it. In fact, he seemed excited by it, his face flushing all the more. Uncontrollable lust peered out at her, smouldering and strong and sadistic.

Now Salome felt true panic. Aroused and intoxicated, Charles looked incapable of realising the serious consequences if he forced himself upon her. There was no point in screaming, she decided with a rapidly escalating pulse-rate. Without any windows or doors open, no one would hear. Not even Mike next door. These penthouses were solidly built for privacy.

Her eyes slid towards the en-suite bathroom across the room. If she could make it in there, she could lock the door.

Charles’s laughter was low and ugly. ‘I don’t think so, Salome. I’m a lot closer than you.’

She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Closer to me than what?’ she said scoffingly.

Again he laughed. ‘OK, play that game if you want to. Play any game you want to. I like games. My favourite is hard to get. Nothing like a bit of challenge to whet the appetite.’

When he actually began loosening his tie, Salome’s face paled. ‘I want you to get out, Charles!’ she demanded, but her voice was trembling, her fear exposed.

His expression lost all humour as he slid the tie from his neck and curled it, as if it were a snake, on the bed. She almost died when his hands went to the buckle on his belt. ‘I don’t think you should adopt that superior tone with me,’ he warned, then whipped the belt out from his trousers, snapping it in front of her before it too joined the tie. ‘It doesn’t bring out the best in me.’ He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it away, then began on the buttons of his shirt.

‘You can’t seriously mean to do this,’ she rasped, terror a vice in her chest.

‘To do what?’ he smiled.

‘To...to assault me.’

‘Assault?’ He feigned mock-surprise, and pulled off his shirt. Salome was shocked to see that, although overweight, he looked amazingly strong, his chest and shoulders massive. ‘I have no intention of assaulting you, my dear. Once you’re suitably subdued and... restrained...I’ll make sure you enjoy it. In fact, I’ll guarantee it. After all, I know what you are. I know where you come from. You’ve learnt to put on airs and graces, but, underneath the designer clothes and ladylike veneer, you’re nothing but a slut, like your mother.’ He picked up the belt and began moving towards her, an evil, thin-lipped smile beneath his equally thin moustache. ‘God, I’m going to enjoy this!’ he breathed. ‘I’ve been wanting to do it for years!’

Salome moved with a strength and speed she didn’t realise she had. But her adrenalin was high, panic and desperation inspiring her to attempt anything in her own defence. Snatching the heavy brass bedside lamp into shaking hands, she reared up to crash it down on to her assailant’s head before he knew what was happening. Groaning, he collapsed over the bed then began sliding down on to the floor.

She didn’t wait to see what the damage was. Scrambling from the bed, she snatched up a towel from a chair and raced from the room, wrapping the towel around her naked body. Within seconds she was out in the corridor, where she fled along and began hammering on Mike’s door, pounding and screaming for him to help her.

He couldn’t have been asleep, for the door was flung open almost immediately, and he was standing there in a maroon dressing-gown. Startled black eyes swept over her. ‘Salome! What on earth’s going on? Hell, you haven’t got any damned clothes on! Here... put this on.’

He swept off his dressing-gown and helped her flustered body into it, leaving him with only the bottom half of navy silk pyjamas and a magnificently bare chest. It was a tribute to Salome’s fear and consternation that she hardly noticed.

‘Oh, God!’ she sobbed again, letting the towel drop as she sashed the gown tightly around her like a shield. ‘I hit him. I might have killed him!’

‘Hit who? Killed who?’

‘Oh, don’t ask me questions. Just come!’ she cried, grabbing one of his arms with wildly trembling hands, and tugging him out into the corridor.

‘All right, all right.’

He followed her back into the other penthouse, where Salome stopped at the doorway to the bedroom, shaking and pointing. ‘In there...beside the bed...Charles Smeaton...Ralph’s lawyer...’

Mike flashed her a look that suggested he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘You had a man up here? Tonight? After you left me?’

For a second she didn’t comprehend what he was getting at. But then she groaned, understanding dawning like a winter’s day, bleak and cold. ‘No, no, it’s not what you think.’ She shook her head dejectedly. Oh, God, it was so typical of him to believe the worst of her. Typical and despicably predictable. Her dismay eventually found voice in strangled, desolate words. ‘I was alone...asleep. I woke to find Charles in my room. He—’

‘How did he get in?’ Mike interrupted, frowning darkly.

Salome’s sigh was despairing. Did he have to sound so disbelieving? ‘Charles obviously had a duplicate set of keys,’ she explained frustratedly. ‘It was he who handed me over my keys earlier today. I suppose he used the private basement elevator to avoid the security man in the foyer.’

‘Mm.’ Mike still looked sceptical. ‘So what happened next?’

‘He was staring at me in bed, and then he came in and started undressing. He—’ She broke off, the memory of her near-escape sweeping over her, bringing nausea and a feeling of faintness. She swayed, and Mike caught her by her upper arms, his eyes rounding with what looked like horror.

‘He didn’t rape you, did he?’

She heaved in a shuddering breath. ‘No...but he was going to. I...I asked him to leave, but he wouldn’t. I was in bed, you see, and I couldn’t get out. I...I didn’t have any clothes on. He took off his belt, and...’ Another shudder reverberated through her. ‘I think he was going to beat me first,’ she husked. ‘He—’ Her voice died, cut off by the appalled and incredulous expression on Mike’s face.

She smothered a sob of utter despair. ‘It’s true!’ she cried. ‘As God is my witness, it’s true.’

For what seemed like ages he just stared at her, and then his eyes saddened with a type of weary resignation. ‘I believe you, Salome,’ he sighed, his hands lifting to rake back his hair with exasperated fingers. ‘Truly...I believe you.’

His declaration of belief gave her cold comfort, for his words had a sardonic, bitter flavour that implied she was still at fault, as though somehow she inspired men to commit atrocities. Any indignation was swiftly followed by guilt, though, as she recalled what had happened in the lift, how she had eagerly welcomed his attentions, then spurned him later. A shamed heat burnt in her cheeks and her eyes dropped in dismay. How could she blame him for thinking what he did? She had indeed acted like the tease he’d accused her of always being.

Thinking about what had happened between them in the lift, however, did not produce a guilty reaction for long. Instead, it flooded her mind with memories and her body with feelings that were very distracting, especially with Mike standing so close to her in his half-naked state.

Her gaze slowly lifted to flick over him, lingering far too long on the tanned breadth of his shoulders and chest, the smattering of dark curls running from below his throat down to his navel, exposed by the rather low-slung pyjama-trousers.

The sound of a groan coming from the bedroom had Salome’s eyes flying away from their perturbing travels to where two unsteady hands were appearing over the side of the bed, clutching at the sheet. Her heart somersaulted. Good grief, she had virtually forgotten all about Charles, her mind having been totally consumed by her escalating feelings for the man in front of her!

But, with her assailant actually getting to his feet, fear renewed itself in a painfully constricted chest. Charles was a big man, even bigger than Mike, who was at present moving into the bedroom, leaving Salome clutching at the doorframe, her eyes big and frightened.

Charles finally stood up, holding the side of his head. He threw Salome a vicious glare. ‘You bitch!’ he snarled, and made a jagged lunge forwards before suddenly seeing Mike standing on the other side of the bed. He was momentarily taken aback, wobbling on unsteady feet. But then he straightened, his mouth twisting in an ugly and aggressive fashion.

‘Called in the cavalry, did she? Well, it won’t do her any good. I’ll have that bitch in court for assault. I never touched her, you know,’ he flung at Mike. ‘If she says I did, she’s a liar. All I wanted to do was talk!’

‘You take off your shirt to talk?’ came the drawled comment from Mike.

Charles’s blood-shot eyes blinked, his legal mind slowly ticking over. His moustache thinned further as his lips drew back in a smug smile. ‘So we were going to do more than talk. So what? Believe me, bud, she invited me in here. You don’t see any signs of a forced entry, do you?’

‘Nice try,’ Mike rejoined. ‘Too bad about the illegally kept set of keys in your pocket.’

Guilt was written all over Charles’s face, but he tried to bluff his way out of it with a snarled, ‘She gave them to me.’

Salome’s eyes raced to Mike. She was astonished at how unconcerned he looked as he moved around the foot of the bed to stand between Charles and herself, his arms folding in a nonchalant but confident fashion.

‘Who the bloody hell are you, anyway?’ Charles jeered. ‘Some fancy playboy neighbour she’s sucking up to already?’

‘Your judge and jury,’ Mike said in a low, steady voice.

Charles looked taken aback for a second, then aggressive. He squared his shoulders, his wide-legged stance very threatening. ‘Don’t bite off more than you can chew, pretty boy. I was quite a boxer in my day.’

‘I’m terrified,’ Mike drawled, giving his opponent a dismissive glance.

Charles’s face went red with fury. ‘Cocky bastard, aren’t you? Well, cop this!’ His fist shot out quickly, but Mike was quicker, side-stepping and grabbing Charles’s arm, twisting it round behind his back, then pushing him face-down on to the bed, his knee jamming down in the small of the lawyer’s back. Charles began making smothered groaning sounds.

Mike held him there while he looked up at a wide-eyed, breathless Salome with amazing nonchalance.

‘Be a good girl and go and put some coffee on, will you?’ he suggested mildly. ‘I’ll be out to have it after your friend and I have had a little chat. He seems to be labouring under the most peculiar misconceptions about justice.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Not now, Salome,’ he broke in firmly. ‘Later. Close the door and go.’

She closed the door. But she didn’t go.

She stood staring at the door for some time, amazed and undeniably impressed. She had never witnessed such a devastating display of macho skill and strength, and she felt quite overwhelmed by it all. Who would ever have guessed that Mike’s polished and gentlemanly façde hid such a powerful, primitive streak?

A shiver raced up and down her spine at the realisation that such a man would stop at nothing to get his own way, particularly with the weaker sex. This thought should have struck dread into her heart, yet her only response was an upsurge in sexual excitement. Now she wanted him more than ever!

She shook her head, disgusted with herself. What was the matter with her? Hadn’t she learnt from her mother’s mistakes? Heavens, she’d spent her entire life seeing the end result of relationships based on sex and sex alone! Which was all she’d ever have with Mike. The man didn’t like or respect her. He merely wanted her. To even contemplate an affair with him was crazy!

Salome sighed crossly, turning to march across to the kitchen, where it took her ages to find the coffee-percolator and the essentials to make the ordered coffee, telling herself that if she weren’t indebted to Sir Galahad for flattening Charles she wouldn’t be making him any damn thing.

‘Not that Sir Galahad is a good description,’ she grumbled aloud as she shoved the plug into the power-point. ‘More like the Black Knight, come to ravage the fair damsel in distress rather than rescue her!’

Several minutes later, the coffee-machine was perking away, its tantalising aroma teasing her nostrils, when the main bedroom door opened and Mike came out, leading a white-faced and oddly dressed Charles. The jacket and tie looked incongruous over his bare chest, his shirt still out in the hall.

The beady grey eyes didn’t even glance her way as he was shepherded through the living area towards the front door. He looked amazingly cowered, and seemed to have shrunk a few inches.

Salome watched the silent procession in awe, wondering what Mike had said or done to achieve such a transformation in her assailant, from blustering bully to total coward in ten minutes. Charles looked sick, but he didn’t look as if he’d been hit. Besides, she surely would have heard the sounds of a further beating?

‘Goodnight, Charles,’ Mike said equably as he opened the door. ‘I sincerely hope it won’t be necessary for us to meet again.’

Charles looked even sicker at this, if that were possible, and stumbled out the door.

Mike closed it with a quiet click, turning to walk slowly over to Salome. It flustered and annoyed her the way her heart stepped up its beat as he approached, not to mention the way she kept staring at him. She tried focusing her mind on her divorce and the pain it had caused, thinking that that would sway her from any further disastrous involvements with selfishly motivated males.

But no...her pulse-rate kept doing a jig, and an uncomfortable heat started sweeping across her skin as he drew closer and closer, his dark eyes both assessing and speculative.

At the critical moment she spun away and hurried behind the breakfast-bar, busying herself organising cups and saucers, chattering away to cover the rattling of her shaking hands.

‘I don’t know how to thank you enough,’ she said, ‘or how you managed to subdue Charles so totally. He really scared me, you know, though I do think he was quite drunk, and maybe he wouldn’t have done anything; but who knows?’ She shrugged and threw Mike a nervous glance. He was staring at her across the counter with hard, unfathomable eyes, and she would have given anything to know what he was thinking.

But she suspected he would never tell her, and to keep staring back would be to reveal what she herself was thinking: that he was quite marvellously male and virile and gorgeous and, oh, dear God, she wanted him like crazy!

So she dragged her eyes back to what she was doing quite ineptly, spilling some milk on the counter-top as she transferred it from carton to cup. ‘I’m afraid there was only long-life milk in the cupboards,’ she rattled on. ‘You take milk in your coffee, don’t you? You did at the restaurant tonight.’

She was about to pick up the percolator to pour when firm hands closed over her shoulders. Her fingers froze mid-air, and she gasped as Mike pulled her back against him.

‘I don’t really want coffee,’ he murmured at her ear.

Slowly he turned her round, and Salome found herself looking into eyes that told a million stories, all with the same ending. ‘I merely said that to give you something to do,’ he soothed. ‘You were looking lost.’

Salome swallowed. ‘Lost’... What a good word. Yes, that was what she definitely was. Lost... When her marriage had ended she’d been tossed out on to an aimless sea, a ship without a rudder, floating aimlessly, a virtual wreck.

But the man holding her captive and looking down into her eyes was no real salvager, merely one of those scrap-metal dealers who took dead ships to their grave, stripping them of all they were worth and leaving their ghastly empty hulls to rust and ruin.

Her graphic thoughts sent renewed panic into her heart, and she would have pulled back if his grip hadn’t tightened at that moment. She flinched under his bruising hold. ‘What is it you want, then?’ she choked out.

His smile was strangely sad. ‘The same thing I’ve always wanted, Salome. You...’

She stared up at him, unable to understand why he wanted her when he despised her so. Was it just an answer to the challenge he thought she had thrown out to him all those years ago? Or was she always to be plagued with men who only desired her? ‘I—I can’t,’ she blurted out in fear of what would become of her if she gave in.

‘Why not?’ he persisted. ‘You want to. Our encounter in the lift proved that. Besides, I saw it in your eyes a few minutes ago. The need, the yearning. You’re lonely, Salome. Lonely and alone. Let me be with you tonight, to make love to you, comfort you.’

It all sounded so reasonable. And he wasn’t even dressing it up with false words of love.

She stared at him with a mixture of desire and wariness, mindful that he had changed tack on her somewhere, substituting the masterful macho play with a more seductive, subtle tactic. And it was working, too, slipping past her defences to make her melt inside. The temptation to lean against his bare chest, to give herself up to his will, was overwhelming. A low moan escaped her lips before she could smother it. And then it was too late, her head moving of its own accord to nestle into his warm brown throat, a sigh of surrender wafting from deep within her breast.

Mike didn’t say a word. He merely swept her up into his arms and carried her from the penthouse, down the hall, and into his own place, kicking the door shut behind him. Only then did he look into her eyes, shocking her with the violence of emotion burning in their black depths.

‘If you change your mind again,’ he warned darkly, ‘I’m likely to strangle you!’

With that, he continued on into the bedroom, once again kicking the door shut behind him.

CHAPTER SEVEN