Tamed By Her Husband

And he replied, ‘Too old for you.’

Approaching nineteen, confident of her looks and a sexuality she had sometimes despaired of, she laughed up into his strong, exciting face and, using everything that was feminine in her to try and break through his hard imperviousness towards her, answered sweetly, ‘And what makes you think that that simple question suggests I’d want you?’

Her boldness surprised him, but he merely laughed under his breath and pulled her shockingly close.

‘Because I’m probably the only man in London who hasn’t shown any inclination to bed you,’ he returned, his smile blazing, his eyes coolly sardonic. ‘And one thing I strongly suspect about you, Shannon, is that your greatest challenges are the things you know you can’t have.’

Though she laughed it off, his remark depressed her, assuring her that, when it came to getting Kane Falconer to like her—let alone want her—she was wasting her time. He was too experienced, much too clever for her to outwit, argue with or even try to use her teenage charms on, and in his company she merely suffered one frustrating humiliation after another.

When she started seeing Jason Markham and he asked her to spend the summer with him at his lochside cottage in Scotland she grabbed the chance, as an opportunity to escape not only her father’s increasing domination, but also her hopeless feelings for Kane. They were, she decided, blind and stupidly juvenile; outrageously sexual; agonisingly intense.

Her relationship with Jason, on the other hand, provided her with something far less dramatic, along with friendship, of which, at the time, she seemed to be in short supply. Most of the women she tried to befriend since she had blossomed into womanhood seemed to view her only as a sexual rival, and most men as a means of boosting their egos.

Jason seemed interested in her as a person. He listened to her ideas; seemed to share her dreams. And if the relationship was a little less passionate to start with than he had hoped, well, he had no intention of rushing her—he was a patient man, he assured her, content to wait. And that was how she felt—content and comfortable. As one should feel with a person you were considering making a life with, she managed to convince herself. Not so crazy with wanting that you felt you’d burst from the agony of it; not like the mindless, adolescent crush she had harboured for Kane. And if Jason never drove her to those frenzied heights she had dreamed of reaching in Kane Falconer’s arms…well, wasn’t that for the best? What she felt for Jason was real, not something imagined; real and whole and lasting. Because Jason Markham, up-and-coming racing driver and son of a prominent cabinet minister, was real. Jason was there. Jason was hers.

Which was why, when the story hit the headlines of his wife’s suicide attempt following his infidelity, the tabloids had a field day, citing Shannon as the proverbial femme fatale with Markham as the hapless victim.

Numb with disbelief—over being lied to—she returned to London to face a barrage of questions she refused to answer, as well as a double dose of her father’s temper when she discovered that Kane Falconer had had a disagreement with him that same week and walked out.

She knew Kane had on more than one occasion been head-hunted by the competition; knew he’d found Ranulph difficult to work with. But after the pain of her own betrayal by a man she had convinced herself she was in love with, or at the very least trusted, Kane’s defection lanced her to the quick.

Disillusioned, hurting, she was alone at the house when he called that weekend to pick up some personal papers, when the scandal she was at the centre of turned his usual mocking detachment into full-blown anger with her after she pelted him with an angry tirade of abuse.

‘You dare to question my behaviour?’ His eyes were hard with hostility. ‘That’s rich coming from an attention-seeking little socialite who’ll stop at nothing to get her kicks! And I can think of far worse names, Shannon, but I’ll spare you those.’ She didn’t realise then that he was a friend of Jennifer Markham’s family, which must have accounted for why he was so angry. ‘I only hope you find what you’re looking for—for your sake as well as everybody else’s!’ he sliced at her as he crossed to the door.

Stung by his opinion, by his leaving, by the frustration of never having had this man on her side, she flung back at him, ‘You called me a Jezebel the first time you saw me. Well, if I’m a Jezebel, you’re a Judas! Crossing over to the other side!’

It was her hurt anger that had made her say it; and her envy that he was free to walk away, because secretly she admired him for standing up to her father. He wasn’t a yes man—not a man her father, or anyone for that matter, could push around.

He’d walked out then, slamming the front door behind him, and she hadn’t seen him again until today. Rumour had it that he hadn’t joined another company immediately. She even recalled Ranulph saying he’d cut off his nose to spite his face and that he’d live to regret walking out on Bouvier’s the way he had. But he hadn’t, she thought, if this yacht was anything to go by. He’d obviously got another lucrative post; used those skills and that amazing insight to take him to the top in some other company…

She yawned widely, the occasional gentle motion of the boat relaxing her, making her eyelids heavy…he’d obviously done all right for himself.

The evening sun was streaking gold across the water and, standing on the aft deck, Kane breathed in the cooling air coming off the sea.

Across the wharf the traffic was moving again. He could hear the hum of engines, noticed the first lights coming on in the bars and cafés around the marina, and found himself thinking back to that day, nearly a year ago, when he had answered that distress call from Ranulph Bouvier.

He had found him then, because of circumstances he could so easily have predicted, distraught, driving himself too hard, a near broken man. He had brought it all on himself, Kane knew, but he’d been unable to hold that against the man. Ranulph had needed his help and advice, and Kane had been too worried about him and the company he had once worked for to refuse.

The man was killing himself, he thought. The doctors had told him to take things easy, but it wasn’t just the problems of the company that were driving him into the ground, Kane was sure. It was his estrangement from Shannon that was responsible for that.

On the evening breeze he could still hear Ranulph’s words as he’d stood with him that first evening on the patio of the Bouvier mansion. Find my daughter! For pity’s sake, find my daughter! Find her and…

Effectively, he brought the shutters down over the rest of their conversation, and yet that genuine plea from his old employer still tore at his heart.

The man was a tyrant—an oppressor—yet, handled correctly, he was like a tiger with all its teeth pulled out…loud but harmless. And he wanted his daughter back.

Kane inhaled another deeply impatient sigh. So what if he did? It was none of his business. He might have the know-how to turn the fortunes of a company around, but what he knew about human relationships—father and daughter relationships—he could write on a postage stamp. True, he’d made several attempts to find her—and for his own reasons. But it had been a difficult year, and he had had very little time to go chasing missing heiresses, and when he had had the time he had always drawn a blank. Until today…

And now he had found her, he was beginning to wish he hadn’t. She didn’t look—wasn’t—well, and he was immensely concerned over what she might be doing to herself.

If only he could make her see sense. Persuade her to go home before she wound up making herself really ill, he thought, anxiety clenching his jaw from the futility of his wishful thinking. Because how could he expect to do that in just a couple of hours? he asked himself, cursing his schedule, for once impatient with the commitments he had made that left him very little time.

Above the marina, his glance fell on the imposing monument of Columbus; noticed for the first time that the great man was pointing, not westwards towards the Americas he had discovered, but to the east, and the glittering expanse of the Mediterranean Sea. Inside Kane’s head, a thought took root, sprouted, expanded and grew.

She’ll hate you for this, Falconer, he warned himself, swinging round and crossing the deck with sudden, calculating purpose. And that, he decided wryly, was something he would have to deal with when the time came.

CHAPTER THREE

THE drone of the helicopter was growing louder. The children were laughing and waving, calling to her while the whirr of blades kept drawing nearer, whipping through the heat and the dust. She could just make out the faces of the children now. They weren’t laughing any more. They were looking at her in alarm—some were crying, others screaming—while she lashed frantically at the air, and the sound wasn’t the buzz of a helicopter any more, but of a whole hatch of attacking insects…

’No!’ Shannon shot up, heart thudding, face buried in her cupped hands as she gasped for air.

It was all right, she thought, looking around her, trying to steady her breathing. She had just fallen asleep and she was still in the cabin on Kane’s boat—a swift survey of the pale lacquered wood and rich furnishings around her confirmed it—and the sound she had heard was the throb of the—

Quickly she sat upright on the big, luxurious bed, frowning, listening. The engine? she thought, puzzled.

Feet groping for the mules she had kicked off—goodness knew how long before!—Shannon thrust her toes into them and raced over to peer through the blind.

Through the oval porthole, Barcelona was just a view, and a rapidly diminishing view at that, she realised, aghast.

Without wasting a second, she stumbled back across the cabin, unsteady from the motion, still groggy with sleep.

Kane wasn’t at the lower helm, she noticed as she emerged from below and saw the vacant control seats behind the galley, which meant he had to be powering the boat from the upper deck.

He was sitting at the helm as she climbed the steep steps to the flybridge, and was steering the vessel through the open waters, capable hands dealing with the wheel.

He had changed out of his suit into a black T-shirt and jeans and, in spite of everything, Shannon couldn’t fail to notice the width and power of his shoulders, how dauntingly masculine he was, as she came across the open deck.

‘Where are we going?’

He sent a surprised glance up at her as she moved to stand beside him, her pale features challenging, her hair blowing softly in the wind.

‘So you’re awake at last,’ he observed, returning his attention to the various switches and screens on the instrument panel. ‘How are you feeling?’

How could he dare ask that? Impatiently, Shannon glared down at his bent head. The rays of the low sun were picking out the fiery highlights in his hair. ‘I said, where are we going?’

He was monitoring something on the panel, didn’t even look up as he said, ‘You might have been killing time back there, Shannon, but I wasn’t. I’ve got a schedule to meet.’

‘A sched—What schedule?’ she demanded anxiously. They were cruising at a rate of knots, each powerful slicing of the waves carrying them further and further into the open sea. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re taking me?’ she demanded again.

He was handling the craft with the skill of a master, she realised as she waited for his answer, looking behind at the sun streaking fire across their foaming wake.

‘I have to deliver this thing to Cannes before the end of the week and I’ve already lost valuable time,’ he told her phlegmatically, ‘so I’m afraid you’re going to have to stick with me until delivery.’

‘Cannes. Cannes!’ she repeated, horrified. She couldn’t believe he was saying this. He had to be joking surely? ‘That’s France!’

His mouth moved in mock appreciation as he kept his course, making progress seaward, still following the coast. ‘Ten out of ten for geography, Shannon. It’s good to know you learnt something at those fancy schools you attended.’

‘You arrogant louse!’ With a swish of her hair, angrily she glared at the diminishing coastline, then Kane’s hard countenance again. ‘Turn this thing around this minute!’ And when he simply ignored her, sitting there with that determined thrust to his jaw: ‘I said turn it around!’ she ordered.

‘I’m sorry, Shannon. I can’t do that,’ he said calmly. ‘As I told you, I’m already behind schedule. I’m down a crew member from my outbound journey and you’ve already admitted you weren’t doing anything particular back there.’

‘You abduct me…and you’ve got the audacity to ask me to crew for you?’ It came out as a squeak.

‘You said you were looking for excitement.’

‘I said—’ Had she said that?

‘And I know you’ve done it for your father.’

Yes, in the past. He had even come out on the yacht with them once or twice, she remembered, recalling how excited—how gauche—she had felt in his company. But that was different…

‘So you’re kidnapping me to do it?’ Suddenly fear was the overriding emotion, fear and a deepening anger over the fact that he had tricked her onto the vessel in the first place. ‘If you don’t turn this thing around, so help me, I’ll swim back!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Just watch me!’ Already she was stumbling away, unaware of Kane reducing their speed, only of knocking her hip on the hard casing that housed a fridge and barbecue, in her crazy bid to carry out her threat.

‘Don’t be such a fool!’ As she made it to the steps, he was just that bit too quick for her and she let out a small cry when his arm came round her middle like an iron bar.

‘Let me go!’ She twisted round in his grasp, pummelling at the hard wall of his chest. ‘Let me go, you big bully!’

‘For heaven’s sake, Shannon! Calm down! Do you really think I would have chosen to bring you with me? I’d already lost valuable time through my meeting starting late this afternoon, but you were sleeping far too peacefully for me to disturb. You had a pretty hard smack on the head—and even without that, you weren’t in any fit state for me to leave back there!’

Head swimming, feeling weak—but from his nearness—forcibly, she pulled out of his grasp. ‘Oh, so now you’re doing it for my benefit!’

‘Ultimately, I hope so.’

The evening sun was dazzling, making her squint as she tilted her head to look challengingly up at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that I think you could do with a few days’ looking-after. And if I can persuade you to see what you’re doing to yourself—what you’re throwing away by not facing facts and going home in the process—so much the better!’

Anger turned her eyes almost to sapphire. ‘What do you mean? Face facts? What facts?’

‘A company that will very probably be yours one day—whether you like it or not. A father who isn’t getting any younger.’

Anxiety was suddenly replacing the hot emotion staining her cheeks, corrugating her otherwise smooth forehead. ‘You said you hadn’t seen him.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

Hadn’t he? She couldn’t remember all of what he had said back there in Las Ramblas.

‘What, then? He’s all right, isn’t he?’ The question was a worried whisper.

‘Is that actual concern I see, Shannon?’

‘What do you think?’ she snapped, recognising scepticism in that hard face. Ranulph Bouvier might not have shown himself to be a loving and affectionate parent, but he was her father.

‘What I think is that it’s time you stepped off the merry-go-round of socialising and living it up with your fancy friends and start to consider that your father might possibly need you. Consider that in some things he might also be right instead of opposing and rebelling against everything he stands for just for the sheer hell of it!’

‘For the sheer hell of it?’ Was that what he thought? ‘Why?’ she contested angrily. ‘If I happen to disagree with a lot of what he believes in? I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a hypocrite, Kane. And I don’t recall you always being so deferential to my father. In fact, you were very much against him when you walked out and left him in the lurch!’

His mouth took on a grim cast. Perhaps he didn’t like being reminded, she thought suddenly, wondering also if he remembered how bitterly they had faced each other that last time he had called at the house.

‘If anyone left him in the lurch it was his dearly beloved and very wayward daughter! And only after she’d managed to drag the Bouvier name through the mud!’

‘That’s not true!’ she defended, her flesh tautening over her high, gaunt cheeks as she remembered. She had been slated—and unjustly—by a scandal-raking Press; made a scapegoat and a victim by people who had more power than she had and who, after putting her through the wringer, had effectively hung her out to dry. But being misunderstood and blamed by a father who was too busy and uninterested even to notice what was happening to his only child was worse than anything else. ‘And I left because he refused to acknowledge that I had views and opinions—just as you did!’

‘With one difference,’ Kane uttered succinctly.

‘Oh?’

‘He didn’t raise me.’

She turned around with her shoulders hunched, her arms wrapped protectively around her, staring unseeingly at the diminutive buildings of the Spanish mainland in the distance, dark silhouettes against the vivid red ball of the setting sun.

She couldn’t go back to the oppression—to being dictated to. Nor could she stand everyone believing the worst about her when her only crime was being taken in by a man she had thought was—to all intents and purposes—free to love her. The fact that he’d ranked highly in a couple of world-class races and had a prominent politician father only served to make the supposed affair front-page news when his still very resident wife had taken that overdose and lost her unborn baby because of it. Perhaps, Shannon thought now, it would have been better if she had divulged her side of the story, but she had remained silent when those reporters had hounded her, preferring to be thought an adulteress rather than a fool. Afterwards Ranulph Bouvier had tried to tighten his control of her, tried to deprive her of her independence and her freedom, until his authority had stifled her. Eventually, only weeks after Kane had left the firm, she had fled London for good.

‘Did my father ask you to find me?’ Suspicion narrowed her eyes as she turned back to Kane. ‘Try to bring me home?’ And when he didn’t answer, his mouth still set in that inexorable cast, ‘So that’s it!’ she breathed, letting her arms fall in clarification, her pose no longer defensive, but all-attacking now. ‘He’s got you back working for him again, hasn’t he?’ she accused, certain of it, her lips tightening mutinously when she noticed that almost indiscernible shrug of his shoulder. ‘This is my father’s boat, isn’t it? It isn’t yours at all. And I thought you’d done better for yourself!’ She couldn’t contain the derisory little laugh that trembled through those last words, her laughter masking the pain she had nursed for what seemed like centuries from his cruel opinion of her; the frustration of never being able to tell him that he was wrong; that nothing was as it seemed. ‘So the Bouvier name isn’t that muddied for you after all!’ she continued to taunt him. ‘Or was the deal being offered so much more attractive to you this time?’

Almost inaudibly, she heard him catch his breath. ‘You think that’s all it boils down to, don’t you?’ he said scathingly. ‘Money?’ With that he was striding away from her, back to the helm.

‘Doesn’t it?’ Shannon, following, threw at his broad back. In her experience, it had ranked very highly on most people’s list of priorities, in the men she had met, in the obvious hangers-on, in the long line of superficial, so-called ‘friends’. ‘What’s he offered you? A nice fat bonus if you bring me back?’ She watched him take up his position behind the wheel again and increase the vessel’s speed with a swift, controlling ease. ‘Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it,’ she suggested desperately through the sudden, ominous throbbing of the powerful engine.

‘Out of your allowance?’ From that half-cocked eyebrow, as the boat surged forward, he looked remarkably sceptical.

Perhaps he thought she couldn’t afford him, she considered, wondering how much he knew.

‘I have assets!’ she assured him, clutching the cool steel of a handrail, having to raise her voice above the upsurge of the water, the rush of the stiff and freshening wind. There was the jewellery she hadn’t wanted. The paintings she had left back in England. Not Monets or Constables, it was true, but certainly worth a lot of money by anyone’s standards. And there was her Porsche…

‘So I see.’

‘Not that!’ she berated, when she saw the way his eyes were roving over the slender lines of her body with mocking sensuality, causing her breathing to quicken, her cheeks to flame from the realisation that he had deliberately misinterpreted what she had meant.

‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ he called back over the increasing turbulence of the water, ‘for both our sakes. Much as I find you tempting, it’s not my policy to get involved with news-courting little socialites, so your honour’s quite safe, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ And then, before she could retaliate, stung as she was by his remarks, he was adding, ‘And what makes you think your father’s offered me anything?’

‘Because I know my father.’ Deftly she watched him flick a switch, saw a jumble of data appear on one of the screens. ‘And I know now that, like most people, you can be bought if the price is right.’

‘Well, Shannon,’ he said without looking at her, ‘I’m afraid taking you back there is going to cost me far more than you can afford.’ Then with a pointed glance at her small breasts and the logo stamped blatantly across them, ‘so I’m afraid,’ he intoned firmly, ‘the bulls are going to have to manage without your gallant support for a while.’

‘You…’ The little invective she uttered was barely audible above the boat’s powerful slicing through the waves. ‘And I used to think you were a cut above the rest.’

For a moment as his eyes met hers she saw in his a silent query; a studied contemplation as though she had surprised him with that reckless little confession. Swiftly, though, he was turning away, giving all his attention to the task of steering and navigation. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ he said.

Lips tightening, Shannon swung away from him, down the steps and through the doors into the saloon, where she flopped wearily onto one of the pale leather settees. He’d said he was sorry to disappoint her. Well, she was sorry too, she thought.

She had always admired and envied him: his candidness; his refusal to be anything but his own man. Now she was profoundly disappointed to discover that, when it came down to it, he was just the same as everybody else.

And why? she asked herself bitterly. Surely these feelings he still aroused were only the leftovers of a fierce and painful adolescent crush? And even if she was still affected by that hard, masculine, bred-in-the-bone confidence and by his intensely powerful sexuality, it was only that, just sexual, after all.

Which was just as well, she decided with a sudden clenching of her teeth, because he had certainly made it clear—and with no beating about the bush—that he wasn’t interested in her! As far as he was concerned, she was just a spoilt rich bitch whom he was being paid to return to where he thought she belonged, without knowing anything about her, what made her tick, her values, her hopes, her dreams.

Well, carry on, Kane Falconer! she thought, flicking angrily through a glossy magazine she had plucked from the floor-mounted coffee table before tossing it back down again. You don’t know anything about me—nor are you going to! she determined wretchedly, retreating behind the wall of self-protection she had built around herself. If you want to think the worst about me, then carry on!