he said curtly as he rang the bell by the side of the fireplace. When Mrs Baines had cleared the remains of the meal, exclaiming in pleasure at the appreciation of her cooking, he closed the door behind her and moved back to his chair, turning off the television as he did so.
‘There is another point I want to discuss with you, Candy, so forget the school problem for a moment.’ She resented hearing her nickname on his lips almost as much as she had done when he had called her Candice. The poor man can’t win, she thought wryly, except that no one in their right mind would ever describe Cameron Strythe as a poor man.
‘Your father is the same age as mine, I understand?’ She stared at him blankly. What on earth had her father’s age to do with anything?
‘I’ve no idea. I suppose they must be close in age; they grew up together, after all.’
‘Well, at sixty I think your father deserves some years without having the responsibility of what is a very taxing job on his shoulders. If Dad had taken it easier he might still be here now.’
She stared at him as the meaning of his words filtered through to her brain. ‘You aren’t going to sack him? You can’t!’ She rose abruptly to her feet, her eyes tragic.
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, woman.’ His voice cut through her like a razor. ‘I’m talking about retirement.’
‘Retirement?’ she mumbled. ‘But he doesn’t want to retire. The cottage and everything—where would they live?’ This last tack had taken her by surprise and for a moment she couldn’t get her mind to function properly, and then, as hot, blinding rage took over, she took a step towards him, drawing him to his feet by her fury.
‘You swine; you total, absolute swine!’ She was too enraged to see how white his face had gone and how those cold eyes had become positively arctic. ‘You come back here after all this time and what do you do?’ She was almost incoherent in her anger. ‘First you are going to close down the school and I don’t know what Kevin will do...’ She gave a gasping sob as she took breath. ‘And then Dad: you’re going to take out your spite on Dad as well. And what have we done to you? It was you who messed up our lives; you’ve had a rare old time ... making your fortune in Australia, and now everything is yours——’
‘Stop it.’ He had reached her side in one stride and took her arms in his hands, shaking her slightly as her voice rose to the edge of hysteria. ‘Control yourself.’
‘Control myself?’ Her voice was a shriek, but she couldn’t have stopped the avalanche if she had wanted to and she didn’t want to. She wanted to scream and yell at him, wanted to claw his face with her hands. She hated him, oh, she did, so much.
As his hand came across her face in a sharp slap the surprise of it cut off her voice as though with a knife and then the next minute he had pulled her into his arms, holding her shaking figure close as he talked in quiet, reasonable tones. ‘I’m sorry, Candy, but I had to do that; you were going to make yourself ill.’ She wanted to struggle, wanted to fight him, but suddenly the adrenalin had all gone and it was only his hands on her body keeping her upright.
‘You haven’t given me a chance to explain, to make you understand.’ He was speaking into the soft silk of her hair, her head pressed into the front of his chest, and now he lifted her face with one hand, gazing down into the tear-drenched huge eyes. ‘How can anyone so beautiful be so obstinate?’ There was a note in his voice she didn’t dare dwell on, but it made her want to cry even more. ‘What is it with you, carrot-tops?’
As his mouth came down on hers she knew she ought to resist. This was Cameron, who had used her sister so badly and now was ripping her safe little world apart, but with a sense of horror she realised she had been waiting for this since the first time she had seen him again. He was so different to any other man she had ever met, so...
As the kiss deepened his probing lips opened hers with effortless ease, speaking of his practised seduction, but although she recognised his expertise she was powerless to stop him. It was a kiss, only a kiss, and yet he had her whole body trembling and aching as though they had been making love for hours. She had always laughed at those books that spoke of the heroine becoming helpless under the hero’s passion, but she was experiencing it now!
‘So sweet, so very, very sweet ...’ His breath was hot and clean as his mouth moved to her throat, kissing the pulse beating so frantically until she thought she would faint with the thrill of it. He had her pressed close into his body, moulding her shape to his, and as she became aware of his arousal she knew a moment’s bitter-sweet satisfaction that he wanted her; he wanted her and he couldn’t hide the fact.
As his tongue ravaged the secret places of her mouth she knew a sensual pleasure she had never experienced before, hardly conscious that he was moving down her throat and still down to the soft swell of her breasts, moving aside her blouse with practised ease. His hands and mouth were both tender and forceful and she was mesmerised by it all, by this delicious intoxication that had taken over her whole body.
Somewhere, dimly, she heard a telephone ringing, but that was in another world. Her world was here in this room, with a growing, whirling crescendo of feeling, and the soft, crackling glow of the fire red against her closed eyelids.
The tap on the door and Mrs Baines’s voice acted like a draught of cold water. She jerked violently out of Cameron’s arms, glancing wildly at the closed door, and then became fully aware of the state of her undress as she stood swaying and dazed in the middle of the room.
‘Just a moment, Mrs Baines.’ Cameron’s voice was unforgivably cool, and she knew a second’s intense, burning humiliation as he waited for her to fasten the tiny silver buttons of her blouse and straighten her tumbled hair before moving across the room. She heard Mrs Baines’s voice, but couldn’t distinguish what she said through the drumming in her ears. What had she done? What had she done? To fall into his arms like that! After everything she had said, after everything he had done!
She glanced frantically at the closed door and heard Cameron’s voice, low and controlled, talking to someone in the hall. He must be on the telephone. How was she going to face him again? How was she going to endure the cool, sardonic mockery that those ice-blue eyes managed so well?
She looked towards the window hidden behind thick velvet full-length curtains. She knew the dining-room windows led on to the bowling-green-smooth lawns at the back of the house. How often she had played there as a young child while the rest of the two families socialised inside, running in and out with garlands of daisies and handfuls of buttercups picked from the small copse beyond the lawns, and later she had often sat in the shade of the big oak bordering the lawns with Uncle Charles while Mrs Baines served them tea.
She didn’t think about her actions; she just knew she had to escape before Cameron returned. It was easy to slip out through the full-length windows, shutting them carefully behind her, and then she ran like a young deer across the lawns until she reached the drive, only feeling safe once she was on the road that skirted the village. She was halfway home, keeping to the shadows, before she realised she had left her bag with its mass of homework corrections sitting by the side of her chair in the dining-room. ‘Damn, damn, damn...’ She ground her teeth angrily. Well, she couldn’t go back now. There was no way she was facing him again tonight. She would rather walk through fire backwards.
There was only Jasper to greet her when she reached home, for which she was supremely thankful. After fixing herself a cup of coffee, she carried it with her into her bedroom, drinking it down in hot, reviving gulps as she ran a warm, scented bath. She needed to soak, soak away the seductive memory of his hands and mouth on her flesh, the sense of burning betrayal of Michelle she
