Untamed Lover

She knew that determined set of his mouth from old—knew that it signalled the inexorable side of his nature. And she sat back in a daze against the soft leather of the seat before her senses began to return, and with them her temper.

‘This is kidnap, you do realise that?’

‘Is it? A court might see it differently—a husband making a last-minute stab at reconciliation...’

Quite without warning her heart gave a sudden lurch as she remembered the nights she’d spent sobbing into her pillow, not really believing that he had walked out on her for good. Oh, the black, heartless devil! ‘But Liam,’ she said coldly, ‘you seem to have missed the whole point of the party which you gatecrashed. I’m going to be married in five weeks’ time. To Henry.’

‘Are you?’ he queried silkily.

‘Yes, I am!’ But Scarlett found herself shivering at his deep, dark voice—hating herself for the little frisson of awareness which traced sensuous fingers up the entire length of her spine. Just what was it about this particular man which sent her senses into overdrive? ‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded again, hearing her own tame question with appalled disbelief. Why wasn’t she screaming the place down?

Because it wouldn’t do her any good; she knew that. He was too strong to resist. And not just physically either.

He didn’t answer, just gave her a brief sideways glance—in time to see the tremble that convulsed her upper body. ‘You’re cold,’ he remarked, and put out a strong brown hand to turn the heating up.

‘Of course I’m cold!’ she returned. ‘It’s the middle of winter, it’s snowing, and I’m wearing very thin clothes.’

‘And very little underwear, from what I saw,’ he grated. ‘You never used to wear such sexy little bits of nonsense when you were married to me! But then I don’t really remember you wearing much underwear at all. The problem we had, as I recall, was keeping it on.’

Scarlett’s mouth fell wide open as she turned to look at him in disbelieving shock. ‘What was that you said?’

‘You heard.’

‘You were spying on me!’ she realised in horror. ‘As I was standing in front of the window I knew that someone was out there, watching me. It was you!’

‘Who did you think it would be?’ he mocked. ‘Was the floor show for dear Henry? Hoping to inspire a little passion in him, were you, Scarlett? Let’s hope for your sake that he makes love more accurately than he kisses.’

‘Why, you—!’ Her hand went up automatically.

‘Don’t even think of it,’ his cold voice rang out. ‘I’m driving, remember?’

‘You couldn’t stop me if I wanted to!’ she taunted.

‘Couldn’t I?’ he said quietly. ‘I could stop this car right now and quieten you down very effectively, Scarlett—and I’m sure you don’t need to ask me how.’

Her hand fell to her lap, her cheeks flushed pink in the darkness. This was madness! Sheer madness. Liam was kidnapping her, for God’s sake, and she was just sitting back in her seat like a lemon and letting him!

‘You just can’t do this to me!’ she protested.

‘I just did.’

‘Haven’t you got any consideration for other people? My stepfather will be worried sick about me.’

‘He’ll survive,’ he said coldly.

‘He’ll call the police,’ she said, equally coldly.

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘And you’ll be arrested. Slung into jail.’ She heard her voice rising sharply. ‘Though it probably won’t be the first time, will it, Liam?’

She saw the merest glimmer of amusement hover around a mouth that was far too delectable for its own good. ‘You think I’ve done time?’ he queried, almost casually.

‘Nothing would surprise me about you!’ she said, with feeling.

‘Well, that’s good, Scarlett,’ he drawled. ‘Never underestimate your opponent—that’s the first ground rule for battle.’

She felt sadness mixed with fury. They were battling now; they had battled then. Their whole brief relationship had been a war, punctuated with wild flurries of peace in the form of their ecstatic lovemaking. She hunted around for the coup de grâce to wound him. ‘Well, I’d like to know where you got the money to pay for this fancy car,’ she said insultingly.

She saw his knuckles tighten for an instant on the steering wheel, but there was nothing but sardonic amusement in his voice as he spoke. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Scarlett, but your patronising Lady Bountiful act fails to impress me.’

‘It used to, though,’ she said bitterly. ‘I thought that my classy accent turned you on. I thought you liked hob-nobbing with the gentry—almost as much as I liked slumming it with you.’

The lie sounded convincing—even to her. Let him believe that her passion for him had been the youthful experimentation of a naïve young girl, which had quickly faded. Never let him know that he had been the love of her life, the man with whom she had constantly found herself comparing other men. And hadn’t the other men always come up lacking? Wasn’t that why she’d agreed to an eminently ‘suitable’ marriage to Henry—because she’d given up looking for love?

‘Slumming, huh?’ The deep voice was clinical, detached... The old Liam would have exploded with anger at the jibe, stopped whatever he was doing and taken her into his arms with a ruthless passion which would have had her denying anything he’d wanted her to deny.

But this Liam—this stranger in the suit—he merely reached out and pushed a cassette into the tape deck, and music filled the car.

Scarlett could have screamed as the violently passionate strains of the love-scene from Carmen pierced the air with frighteningly sweet sensuality. But short of actually putting her fingers in her ears, there wasn’t a lot she could do to blot the sound out. Instead, she stared fixedly ahead at the empty road. When had he learnt to like opera? she wondered with a sudden bitterness.

She realised with a sudden shock that she had never seen him drive before either. During their lamentably brief and ill-fated marriage they had been desperately short of money—and Liam had stubbornly refused to accept any hand-outs from her stepfather. Which was why they’d lived in the small, dingy flat over the café, where the smell of cabbage had drifted upwards and seemed to permeate even their clothes and their skin. And where Scarlett would play at being a housewife while Liam went out to his labouring job each morning.

She had to think clearly. Liam was back, but there was a limit to how far even he would go. What was he planning? And why, for goodness’ sake, was she just accepting this dramatic seizure, as though it was inevitable? As though, with him around, she had no conscious will of her own?

Drawing her shoulders back, she sat up straight in her seat and forced herself to take note of landmarks as the snow-clothed countryside flashed by. Her heart started hammering as she recognised the village as they drove quietly through it and circumnavigated the iced-over village pond.

The road out of it was narrow, winding. She closed her eyes quickly, not daring to open them again, although she knew exactly what she would see if she did. To her left she would see a dramatic line of horse-chestnuts, like scarecrows of the gods, waving their bare black arms against the heavy, snow-laden sky.

How could he have done? she wondered with helpless bitterness. To have brought her here...

‘Afraid to look, Scarlett?’ mocked the deep voice beside her, and she fluttered open her eyelids in defiance, still not believing it to be true. Her heart was sinking, yet at the same time it started to hammer with some shameful excitement as the car drew up in front of the small cottage.

As he turned the engine off she released her seatbelt and turned on him, her long nails instinctively forming cat-like talons which attempted to scrabble at his face. But he fended them off as a tiger would swat a butterfly, his big, strong hands closing decisively over hers.

There was a cold, cruel smile on his face as he watched her lips part automatically as their skin made contact. ‘Fight me all you like, Scarlett—but why don’t we get horizontal first?’ he said insultingly. But before she could retaliate he had unbuckled his seatbelt, stepped out of the car, had walked around to her side and was doing the same for her.

‘Take me home at once!’ she said flatly. ‘If you do that, and leave me alone, I’ll let the whole matter drop.’

‘Not even a little bit curious, Scarlett, to know what your dear husband has been doing for all these years?’

‘Not in the least.’ Her eyes deliberately swept down every inch of the superbly cut and outrageously expensive suit. ‘Something underhand, I shouldn’t doubt—judging from the money you’re obviously throwing around.’

‘You think so?’ he asked softly.

Hurt him, urged an inner voice. Hurt him badly, as he hurt you. She gave him a supercilious little smile. ‘How did you make your money, then, Liam?’ she said patronisingly. ‘Labouring?’

‘But I thought you liked all that kind of thing, sweetheart?’ he drawled. ‘Your bit of rough,’ he added with insulting emphasis.

She felt all the blood drain from her face. ‘Why, you arrogant blackguard!’ she gasped out. Her eyes hardened to match the coldness in his. ‘Take me home, Liam!’

Soft snowflakes were fluttering onto the jet hair which the light breeze ruffled as he shook his head. ‘Not yet. I want to talk to you,’ he said, with the kind of steely emphasis used by a man not used to taking no for an answer.

‘See my solicitor.’

‘What’s the matter, Scarlett?’ he mocked. ‘Afraid to go inside? Does the past repulse you so much?’

As he drew her attention to the cottage she gave him her haughtiest look, narrowing her eyes so that he would be unable to read any of the nostalgic pain in her eyes. Not here, anywhere but here, where her love for him had been born. It had been in there—in that cottage—that she’d given herself to him one summer afternoon.

On a dusty floor he had slowly bared her flesh, had kissed her and possessed her with such exquisite sweetness. She had cried afterwards, salty tears of grateful joy sliding into his shoulders and down his chest. But even as the shudders had died away in his own body she had felt his anger. As though he had already sensed the repercussions of that sweet, wild mating...

‘Quite frankly, I can hardly remember the place,’ she lied frostily. ‘But, as you know, my stepfather owns it. So, as well as abduction we can add trespassing to your charge-sheet.’

He gave a short, abrasive laugh. ‘I think not,’ he said arrogantly. ‘Come inside, Scarlett. I told you—we need to talk, and it’s too cold to stay out here.’

He pulled her out of the car, not roughly, but with that gentle strength which had always been at the heart of his lovemaking. And for one bizarre moment of insanity Scarlett had to steel herself not to sink into those powerful arms.

‘I’ll never forgive you for this!’ she said fervently as he guided her towards the door and unlocked it.

‘That is purely academic.’ The handsome face was impassive, as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

Scarlett walked in, and her mouth fell open in surprise. In her mind’s eye she had imagined that the cottage would look exactly the same—neglected and run-down, bare and dilapidated—but to her astonishment someone had done the place up. And had done it up beautifully too.

The floorboards had been properly waxed to a deep shine, and Persian rugs in vibrant hues of sapphire and turquoise silk were scattered around. The walls had been recently covered in a pale wash and hung with several superb watercolours. Soft and pale modern furniture provided the seating. Someone had put central heating in too. Whoever had decorated had exquisite taste, and it had nothing of her parents’ rather predictable penchant for old-fashioned polished mahogany.

‘Who owns this?’ asked Scarlett suddenly.

‘I do.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ But her denial was merely automatic; his words had held the unmistakable ring of truth.

‘That is, of course, your prerogative,’ he said coolly.

Scarlett was growing more confused by the moment. ‘But my stepfather would never sell it—certainly not to you!’

‘So sure?’ A kind of smile curved the corners of his lips upwards, though his blue eyes stayed as cold as the temperature outside, and something in the oddly confident look on his face filled her with a strange kind of dread. Of course her stepfather wouldn’t have sold him the cottage! Why on earth would he have had any dealings with a man he detested almost as much as she did?

‘Sit down, Scarlett, while I light the fire. Coffee? Or perhaps you’d prefer something stronger?’

This was crazy! Any minute now and they’d be discussing politics—and here, of all places! She needed to get out—before the past, with its shockingly poignant memories, started that aching in her heart all over again. ‘I want out, that’s what I want—back to my party! You said you wanted to talk, Liam—then start talking. I’ll give you five minutes.’

‘We need some heat first.’ And he crouched down to start the fire. Flames leapt up and licked realistically at logs, and suddenly the room looked deceptively and cloyingly homely. Scarlett sat down on one of the squashy leather sofas, feeling as though her whole world had tipped upside-down, her reality totally distorted as she watched him pour brandy into two glasses and put them both onto a small table which sat in front of the sofa.

She glanced at her watch. It was approaching eleven. ‘I can’t wait for my stepfather to get here,’ she said calmly.

‘But not Henry?’

Henry? Scarlett stared at the hands which were clasped in her lap, wondering why she’d made the Freudian omission of neglecting to use Henry’s name. She looked up, and her eyes burned a golden fire as she met his steady blue stare. ‘Henry will take you to pieces. You can’t just walk into my house and carry me off against my will—you bloody great brute!’

‘But I just did,’ he pointed out.

‘If you wanted to speak to me didn’t it occur to you to just pick the phone up, like anyone else would have done, and ask to meet me?’

He gave her a coldly mocking smile. ‘And would you have agreed to meet me?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Well, then—I rest my case.’ And he lifted his glass to her in mock toast. ‘What shall we drink to?’ he asked conversationally.

‘How about divorce?’

‘So cruel,’ he remonstrated mockingly. ‘And yet, really I am the injured party—wouldn’t you say? After all, I was the one you trapped into marriage in the first place, wasn’t I?’

‘I didn’t...’ But her words of denial died away. Because wasn’t he right, in a way? She had trapped him. She had wanted him, and had lured him with all calculation of the spoilt child she’d been at the time. But she had loved him, or so she’d thought. And oh, how she’d paid a hundredfold for her youthful desire for Liam Rouse.

She watched as he slid down onto the squashy sofa opposite hers, the long black-trousered legs spread out in front of him.

Lord, but he looked good, she thought reluctantly. Still the same firmly packed muscular body, without a scrap of fat on it. The same broad chest, narrow hips and long, powerful thighs. But there was a change in him too.

She had known Liam in the very first flush of manhood, his virility untempered by anything other than need. But now... Now there was an element of rigid self-control about him, a steely determination—it was easy to see in the unperturbed watchfulness on that harshly handsome face, and even easier to read in those cold, blue eyes which unsmilingly underwent her scrutiny.

She took a deep breath and looked at him steadily, wanting to know what had turned Liam from that untamed and beautiful lover into this urbane and sophisticated man who now sat before her.

‘Have you been in England all this time?’

His mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. ‘Why?’ he mocked softly. ‘Did you miss me?’

More than he would ever know. ‘I missed you like the proverbial hole in the head!’ she shot back archly.

‘But I bet you missed my body, Scarlett?’ he murmured with ruthless accuracy. ‘Mmm?’

To her horror, just the thought of his body in the context to which he was referring was enough to produce a reaction: that familiar tug which hardened her nipples to frustrated tips which just cried out for the suckling of his moist, ravening mouth; the warm pooling sensation which culminated in a hot, hot aching at the juncture of her thighs. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, feeling the scalding flush of shame and arousal stain her cheeks, and knew that her eyes had darkened in conjunction with his. And knew that he’d missed nothing.

‘Yes,’ he affirmed softly. ‘You missed my body like hell, Scarlett.’

Hell was appropriate enough—the smug, arrogant devil! She took a slug of brandy and managed a chilly stare. ‘How tedious you can be sometimes, Liam. Have you lost all the art of polite conversation?’ She gave him a mocking little smile. ‘Oh! How silly of me! I forgot, of course, that you didn’t really have the skill to begin with—’

‘Such condescension,’ he reprimanded. ‘Really, Scarlett—did no one ever tell you that’s a sign of low intelligence?’

And why was it she never seemed able to get the better of him in an argument? she thought furiously. ‘Go to hell!’ she snapped.

‘Succinct,’ he murmured. ‘Now, what were we talking about before you sank to playground level? You were, I believe, quizzing me about my life, weren’t you?’

She should stick her nose in the air and tell him that she wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in anything he’d done—so it was rather strange to find herself asking, ‘Where have you been all this time?’

He sipped his own drink and put the glass back down on the table. ‘First I went to Australia. Then the States. My main home is still in Australia.’

And now? she thought with a sinking heart. Even out of sight, Liam had never been entirely out of mind. Surely he wasn’t planning to re-enter her life? ‘So now you’re back for good?’ she said, voicing the fear.

‘That rather depends,’ he said obscurely, ‘on the outcome of our talk.’

Something in the way he said it alerted alarm bells in Scarlett’s head. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘You’d better tell me what this is all about, Liam.’

‘I told you. I have a proposition to put to you.’

Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What kind of proposition?’

He gave a distinctly wolfish smile. ‘I need a favour from you.’

She actually laughed aloud. ‘Well, if that doesn’t take the biscuit for arrogant, bare-faced cheek! You reappear after ten years and then try bargaining with me? You’re not in a position to negotiate.’

‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Scarlett,’ he said, in a tone of chilling assurance. ‘I always operate from a position of strength. It’s a lesson I learned very early on in life.’

Something about this new Liam made her feel uneasy. The years had redefined that ridiculously primitive masculinity he’d always exuded. Oh, it was still there, but tempered beneath the cool and worldly assurance he now carried with him. And, in a way, the impact was all the greater under its new guise. The hand of steel masked beneath the velvet glove...but just as hard and as impenetrable as ever...

He had been cold and unfeeling, she thought bitterly. He had walked away without giving her a second thought—well, she was damned if she’d let him back into her life on any terms!

She studied him, feigning impartiality. ‘Tell me what you’re asking,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t any money to give you,’ she added insultingly.

This brought a reaction. It was so fleeting that someone who had not made a hobby out of studying his harsh features might have missed it completely. But it was there, and Scarlett saw it. Rage, in about as undiluted a form as you could get it, burned like a blazing fire in those blue eyes. Rage, which somehow—sinisterly—managed to convey some kind of threat. And as she felt her heartbeat pick up she realised that it was a sexual threat, communicated silently to her traitorous and willing body.

Then it was gone. Instead, the eyes were narrowed, ill-concealed distaste replacing rage. ‘You think I need your money?’ he questioned softly. ‘That even if I did I would ever come crawling back to ask you? And I can imagine what you’d like in exchange for your money too.’ His eyes glittered with censure. ‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Scarlett, but I played the role of stud just once in my life—and that was once too often.’

Scarlett stared at him in horrified disbelief. He couldn’t believe that—he just couldn’t! Surely he didn’t believe that it had just been the bed thing for her? He had been her entire world, her universe. For her, the sun had risen and set in Liam’s eyes. She shuddered at the memory before answering him.

‘While you may have the time or the inclination to sit around here discussing an episode of our lives best left forgotten—I do not.’ She stared at her wristwatch pointedly. ‘I have a party going on, guests waiting—so come on, out with it, Liam.’

There was the faintest upward pull at the corner of his mouth, and to her consternation she felt her cheeks flame at his silent acknowledgement of sexual innuendo.

‘Get on with it!’ She glared at him. ‘And tell me about your proposition.’

‘So delightfully put,’ he murmured, then crossed one long leg over the other. ‘Very well. We’ve tarried for long enough. You see, it’s not your money I need, Scarlett—it’s you.’

To her fury, her heart had resumed its excited little pitter-pattering. Some long-forgotten yearning deep within her flared into tentative life. She found herself swallowing. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.

He smiled. ‘I want you to do me a little favour, Scarlett,’ he said softly.

The yearning crumbled into dust, but some glittering message which sparked at the depths of his eyes warned her not to simply ignore his statement. ‘What kind of favour?’

He smiled again. He looked invincible. ‘I have a big business merger going through. Contracts are about to be signed. All I need to do is put the icing on top of the cake, so to speak, so I’m holding a house party at one of my homes in Australia for my prospective business colleagues and their wives. I want everything to run like clockwork, and I need a hostess—someone who knows how to play the part to perfection—and who better than you, Scarlett?’ he finished mockingly.

CHAPTER THREE

SCARLETT stared at Liam as though he had just spouted horns and a tail. She shook her head from side to side in disbelief. ‘It’s a preposterous suggestion! Laughable! It doesn’t even deserve the dignity of an answer.’

He didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed by her negative response. ‘You won’t do it, then?’

She nearly choked on the last of the brandy she had been drinking to gain a bit of Dutch courage. ‘Of course I won’t do it! I don’t know how you’ve got the brass neck to even consider it! As if I’d endure even a minute more of your company than I have to—let alone take part in some farcical ‘‘house party’’ to impress your business cronies. And if I did meet any of them, I’d take great delight in telling them—’

‘How great I am in bed?’ he mocked softly, giving a deep laugh as he saw the colour which scorched over her pale skin.

‘That was completely unnecessary, and below the belt!’

He raised his eyebrows infinitesimally and gave a very sexy smirk. ‘I certainly hope so,’ he drawled.

Scarlett gave up. His sexual innuendo she couldn’t cope with—not when she was marooned out in the middle of nowhere with him. It was time to put her foot down—once and for all!

‘How many times do I have to tell you? Watch my lips, Liam! I am engaged to someone else! And, just in case that’s still not clear enough, watch my lips again! In five weeks’ time you and I will be divorced!’