A Passionate Deceit

Still smarting from her own stupidity and ignoring the protests coming from her numbed limbs, Tessa changed her mind about going straight back to the hotel and made her way along the beach towards the town.

Only the day before, her first sight of the small town of Rathmullan, nestling sleepily on the shores of Lough Swilly with its magnificent backdrop of heather-hued mountains, had taken her breath away and filled her with an inexpressible joy. Today, feeling miserable and confused as she did, the mist-laden beauty of her surroundings only served to make her feel worse.

There wasn’t anything wrong with what she was doing, she argued with herself; if someone in the public eye chose not to co-operate with the Press, it was common knowledge that slightly underhand methods were often used to satisfy the public’s interest. And by interest she didn’t mean scurrilous curiosity about his private life, she meant the sort of balanced article she intended compiling on his professional life. All right, so she wasn’t yet a bona fide journalist, but she had to start somewhere!

She entered one of the shops in a terrace of small, stone-fronted cottages lining the rain-washed main street and bought notepads, pencils and an English newspaper. Further along she got herself a heavyweight tracksuit that looked as though it might keep her reasonably warm on days as bitterly cold as this particular one.

But as she made her way back to the hotel, along a heavily wooded path running parallel to the shoreline below, she began asking herself why, if she was so sure she was doing nothing wrong, she was still feeling so confused and dejected.

Probably because she still wasn’t one hundred per cent convinced she was right, she answered herself gloomily. Or was she being completely honest with herself? Because she might as well face up to it that, true to form, she was yet again attracted to a man who was completely unsuitable—though unsuitable was hardly the word, she informed herself grimly. Sandro Lambert wasn’t unsuitable in the relatively mundane way one or two other men had been. This time she was way out of her depth; up against a man who not only had looks that many a woman would be reduced to drooling over, but who was also an international celebrity—the sort of man who had women such as the stunning Angelica Bellini virtually at his beck and call!

She felt shame burn through her when she remembered how her juvenile gawping had irritated him. And the only reason he had kissed her was because, as he had so quickly pointed out, she had flung herself into his arms—the fact that she had done so accidentally being neither here nor there.

She walked through the grounds of the hotel, darting round to the back entrance when she saw Sandro in a group of men emerging from the path leading from the beach…he was the last person she felt like facing at that moment.

She was behaving like a lunatic, she remonstrated angrily with herself when she reached her room and began shedding her damp clothing. Spending half the night agonising over the fact that a man she barely knew had kissed her was bad enough; becoming reduced to sneaking round corners to avoid that same man was downright lunacy!

She kept her mind occupied by running over Babs’s wardrobe instructions as she took a long, hot bath and then washed her hair. Later, her hair wrapped in a towel and her body in a snowy white bathrobe, she flopped down on the bed and began glancing through the newspaper she had bought earlier. In its centre pages she came across a light-heartedly written article entitled ‘Unfaithful Heart-Throbs Given their Marching Orders’. The subject matter—women who had broken off their engagements to straying famous men—was of no particular interest to her. It was the apparently effortless, almost throw-away style of the writing that caught her attention and thoroughly depressed her as she realised just how limited her own writing skills were by comparison. It was only at the very end of the article, in a list citing a number of other men in the public eye whose fiancées had abandoned them because of their constant womanising, that she spotted a familiar name.

Rising from the bed, she flung aside the paper and went over to the dressing-table. So Sandro had been engaged to a childhood sweetheart who had decided enough was enough only a few weeks ago, she thought as she switched on the drier and began drying her hair—so what? It was all no doubt covered in those articles on him she had hastily got together before leaving London but hadn’t yet found time to read, she told herself, then gave her entire attention to the drying of her hair when it crossed her mind that she had had plenty of time to read them, including last night…or even right now.

She switched off the drier and was vigorously brushing her gleaming, shoulder-length hair when a tap on the door made her turn.

The door was half-open and Sandro was lounging against its frame with the air of one who had been doing so for some time.

‘I knocked a couple of times, but you probably couldn’t hear me over the noise of your hairdrier,’ he said, closing the door behind him and strolling over to where she sat at the dressing-table. ‘You’ve missed lunch,’ he informed her, stooping to pick up the tortoiseshell-backed brush that had slipped from her hand and placing it on the dressing-table top.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘But you couldn’t have had much in the way of break-fast either.’

‘I’ll eat tonight,’ she muttered, tensing with consternation at the sudden pounding of her heart.

‘Why did you go tearing off into town instead of back to the hotel earlier?’

‘Because I—’ She broke off, furious to find herself actually embarking on answering him. ‘What business is it of yours? Anyone would think you were my father—going on about my skipping meals and not doing as I’m told!’

He leaned over and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze.

‘That’s probably because I’m not sure whether you’re twelve or twenty,’ he replied, both his voice and face confusingly devoid of expression.

‘Which age did you think I was last night?’ she demanded angrily as she twisted free from his hold, and could have bitten off her tongue as soon as she’d said it.

‘I didn’t expect you to take my words quite that literally,’ he informed her in drawling tones, his eyes glowering down into hers. ‘What age are you, anyway?’

‘Why should my age be of any concern to you?’ she demanded before she had time to think better of it.

‘You answer my question first—then I’ll answer yours,’ he mocked, a half-smile flickering across his lips while the scowling darkness remained unaltered in his eyes.

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Yes—I think I can accept that,’ he murmured, ‘now that you’re not sporting your usual infantile hairstyle.’ As he spoke he casually reached out and ran his fingers through the silky luxuriance of her hair.

Tessa wondered, as she drew her head sharply back from the electrifying touch of those trespassing fingers, if there was any way he could have sensed the magnitude of the effect they had had on her, and felt a shiver of horror ripple through her at the very idea.

‘I…weren’t you supposed to answer my question…now that I’ve answered yours?’ she gabbled, then realised she hadn’t the faintest idea what that question was.

‘Why should your age be any concern of mine?’ he mused, mercifully jogging her traumatised memory. ‘Perhaps women do mature much younger than men, but at thirty-one I do really feel I’m a bit old to be getting involved with teenagers.’

It was on the tip of Tessa’s tongue to ask exactly what he meant by ‘involved’; she felt slightly giddy with relief when she succeeded in biting back the words.

‘I’m glad you understand what I mean,’ he murmured.

‘I’m surprised to hear that, considering I know exactly what you mean!’ exploded Tessa, all thought of caution deserting her. ‘Which, to quote you, is that, despite my most definitely not being your type, you’ve decided to amuse yourself at my expense!’

‘As I’ve said before, I wish you wouldn’t take my remarks quite as literally as you appear to,’ he drawled.

‘What am I supposed to do—search your bald utterances for some subtly hidden flattery?’ she demanded scathingly.

‘Forget what I said yesterday,’ he murmured softly, his hands this time reaching out to the lapels of her bathrobe, prising them slowly apart before sliding his hands up to cup the shoulders he had exposed.

Tessa’s own hands rose agitatedly, not in any attempt to remove his, but to clutch her gaping robe over her breasts.

‘But you’re entitled to be flattered by how strongly attracted I am to the strange mixture I find in you of innocence and—’ He broke off, drawing her sharply to her feet.

‘Of innocence and what?’ she croaked, unable to stop herself.

‘You have to understand that English isn’t my first language,’ he whispered, his words baffling her while the glow softening his eyes held her in mesmerised thrall. ‘I express myself far better, in times like these, in Italian.’

His arms had encircled her and his mouth was coaxing open hers before she had even begun querying the sense of his words. She became vaguely aware of her hands, still clutching at her robe and now trapped between their bodies, but there was no way her stunned mind could distinguish whether the violent pounding of heartbeats against them was a product of one heart or two.

There had been men who had managed to stir an awareness in her of the powerful potential of her own latent desire, but it was only in this man’s arms that a once-shadowy awareness erupted into a violent awakening. And it wasn’t simply the sensuous sweetness of the mouth taking such burning advantage of the eager acquiescence of hers that was threatening to demolish the control she had never before had need to exercise, it seemed to be everything about him—the slight graze of his incipient beard against her skin; the aura of explosive virility emanating from that lean, hard body entrapping her own; that hint of fragrance, subtle yet unquestionably masculine, a scent that was exclusively his. For the first time in her life she knew herself to be in the arms of a man capable of stripping her bare of every defence she possessed…and her only reaction was her body’s eager participation in the wonder of its erotic awakening.

‘Hell, Tessa,’ he groaned, tearing his mouth from its passionate exploration of hers and burying his face against her hair, ‘I’m supposed to be meeting those actors this afternoon, not whiling it away making love to you.’ He lowered his head, his mouth searching hotly in the curve of her neck while his hands moved impatiently to the knotted belt of her robe.

By making love, her sluggish mind began warning her, this man meant a good deal more than a passionate exchange of kisses.

‘Shall I put them off till this evening?’ he breathed huskily. ‘Then we’ll be free to spend the afternoon making love and, in between, getting to know one another.’

He couldn’t have expressed it any plainer than that, shrieked out her now almost fully restored mind—and this, remember, was the same man who had so arrogantly informed her that, despite her many shortcomings, he might just decide to amuse himself at her expense!

‘I see you’ve made up your mind,’ she stated, her voice tight with strain.

He responded instantly to what he must have detected in her tone, his head rising as his arms released her.

‘Made up my mind?’

‘Yes—to amuse yourself at my expense.’

‘Wouldn’t it have been a mutual amusement?’ he enquired, the softness of passion in his eyes giving way to the sharpness of ice.

‘For your information, I go in for slightly more conventional ways of getting to know men than leaping into bed with them,’ she informed him icily, moving hurriedly away from him.

‘That didn’t exactly answer my question,’ he drawled. ‘And, for your information, there’s no need for you to put all that space between us; I’m not given to forcing my attentions on women…not that it would be necessary with you.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ exclaimed Tessa, trembling with rage.

‘Grow up, Tessa,’ he snapped. ‘I’m experienced enough to know when I’ve a responsive woman in my arms—no matter how much she chooses to protest once she’s safely out of them.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t let that go to your head if I were you,’ she flung at him angrily. ‘Not with the sort of louse I’m invariably attracted to!’

‘I’d love to stay and continue this delightful conversation, darling,’ he drawled, strolling to the door, ‘but I’ve those actors to meet’

So cool, so completely distanced from the man whose passion had turned her world upside-down only moments before, she thought with numbed bemusement as the door closed behind him. Only the most practised of seducers could have put on a display so calculatedly convincing…and only the most naïve of fools would have been so thoroughly taken in—and then compounded her stupidity by making herself sound little better than a gangster’s moll in her attempts to excuse herself.

CHAPTER THREE

TESSA huddled her slim body against a sand dune as another gust of wind scudded ferociously across the beach. I wish the film crew would stop fiddling around and get on with things, she thought miserably, feeling frozen and redundant She liked to be fully occupied, not left alone and at the mercy of thoughts that would inevitably leave her feeling even more confused and alienated.

Absorbing and exhausting, it was these long hours of work that normally proved her salvation—a shelter into which she could retreat and leave behind the perplexities of a world in which she no longer felt secure. There were even times, when she hadn’t her work to distract her, when she felt pangs of acute homesickness—when she longed for her mother’s gentle humour, the noisy presence of her half-brother, Rupert, and perhaps most of all those long, chatty walks she and her stepfather used to take before her journalistic ambitions had thrown up that invisible barrier between them.

Charles would love it here, she thought wistfully as she gazed down the beach, her eyes dulling with resentment as they came to rest on the tall, slim figure that stood out from the rest. Sandro, too, became another person when at work, she thought, frowning as she found herself having to make a conscious effort not to allow her gaze to linger. There were times when he became oblivious of the fact that it was no longer the paragon Carla he had at his beck and call, but she didn’t really mind that; it was those times when he would forget and call her Carla that she most often felt the closest she ever came to being at ease with him. But outside the safe confines of work he reduced her to a mass of confusion.

He was using her, she told herself bitterly, though she had no idea why. And Angelica—why did she have this unpleasant feeling that Angelica was using her too? Never in a million years would she feel at ease with Angelica…yet Angelica constantly sought her company.

She gave a small shudder as she remembered the feelings that had assailed her that terrible afternoon when, not long after Sandro had left to meet the Irish actors, she had answered the knock on her door and found Angelica standing there. Not once during those moments of madness in Sandro’s arms had any thought of the beautiful Italian woman entered her mind, yet surely not even an out-and-out adulteress could have felt any more guilty and hopeless than she had on opening the door that afternoon.

About the only thing they could claim to have in common was the fact that they were the only two women staying at the hotel, thought Tessa with a sigh, yet whenever she had a free moment there was Angelica at her side…and letting her know, without ever actually uttering a word on the subject, that Sandro was hers and hers alone, no matter what appearances might indicate to the contrary. And what, exactly, did appearances indicate? She hadn’t a clue, she realised with a defeated shake of her head before casting an anxious look along the beach and praying they would start the work in which she could become involved.

Only a woman of supreme confidence could react with the serene lack of concern Angelica always displayed during those ghastly times when Sandro would so blatantly flirt with the only other female guest present He could easily have picked on one of the maids, thought Tessa angrily, but no, he had to pick on her! And even Paolo had objected: though she didn’t speak a word of Italian, she had instinctively known that that was what Paolo had been remonstrating with him over in the bar the other night But, unlike herself, Paolo obviously knew the true nature of Sandro’s relationship with Angelica and whatever it was about it that resulted in another woman being used as an unwitting pawn. And that was exactly how she was being used, she told herself with a shudder of resentment, wondering how it was that she hadn’t instantly sensed those dark currents of intensity pulsating back and forth between the almost detachedly serene Italian woman and the brooding, often volatile director.

If this were a film scenario, she told herself bitterly, Angelica and Sandro would be the stars…and she a bit player plucked for use from the crowd.

‘Tessa!’ Sandro bellowed over to her. ‘Take the yellow mark against the rocks and let Paolo line up on you!’

Like one offered a reprieve, Tessa leapt up, digging in her pocket for her notepad as she raced over to the rocks.

‘It’s quite simple, really,’ he had told her on one of those rare occasions when he had remembered his promise to make allowances for her ignorance and had explained a procedure to her—instead of leaving her to pump a crew member as she usually did. ‘Some directors use markers to guide every step of every scene, but I don’t—I feel it inhibits the natural flow of an actor’s movements. But the three we’re using aren’t experienced in film work, and as we’re short on rehearsal time I’m afraid we’ll have to do quite a bit of choreography. In the studio each actor would be allocated his own colour, and the continuity people would then chalk the movements out in the relevant colours. Obviously chalk won’t be any good on wet sand, so we’ll have to come up with something else.’

Her hands trembling from the bitter cold, Tessa leafed through her pad till she found what she wanted. Using her notes as a guide to where she had placed the wads of Plasticine she had decided on as a substitute for chalk, she let her eyes scan the rocks. Suppressing a slight twinge of alarm when she found nothing, she looked again at her notes. Just the three single markers were involved in this particular scene, she thought frustratedly, one yellow for the father, one red and one blue for each of the sons—they didn’t even have to move, just remain immobile as they gazed out to sea. So simple, she told herself wryly as she felt the stirrings of panic, but it had taken what had seemed like interminable hours of agonising for Sandro and Paolo to work out precisely where each man was to be positioned!

‘Tessa!’

‘Hang on a minute!’ she yelled back, trying desperately to calm herself as she started scanning the rocks further along for the blue marker…the red marker…any marker!

‘For God’s sake, just position yourself in front of that large rock to the left of you!’ roared Sandro. ‘To your left!’ he bellowed when she hesitated a fraction.

Now completely unnerved, Tessa tripped over a piece of half-buried rock and almost went sprawling in her rush to carry out the orders now coming fast and furious from a plainly irate director.

Thoughts of her article had somehow slipped to the back of her mind in the past few days, but one of these days she would produce the definitive article on dictatorial directors, she vowed vengefully to herself as she shivered in the icy wind, not daring to move a muscle while Sandro and Paolo fussed around, jabbering away to one another in Italian and seeking, in their usual, mind-bogglingly pernickety manner, the correct angle for this, the perfect approach shot for that…But she would probably be accused of gross exaggeration, she thought peevishly. For example, anyone witnessing this particular instance of artistic agonising between director and cinematographer would automatically assume that the most crucial scene in the entire film was about to be shot—they would never believe that this was merely a discussion on a few options for tomorrow’s shoot!

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