her dress into place with hands that had shook slightly.
She remembered she’d made a small sound of protest, her arms reaching out to him again, but he had stepped back a pace, his voice grim as he’d said, ‘This should never have happened, Robyn. Hell, it must be the wine and the atmosphere and the fact that you’re so different tonight. But you’re too young, a child still, and I should never have touched you.’
‘I’m not a child.’ It hurt, terribly. ‘I’m over sixteen.’ She couldn’t believe he’d called her a child again.
‘Sixteen?’ His laugh was harsh, like a bark. ‘Damn it all, I’m twenty-three.’ And he glared at her.
‘I don’t care.’ The voices were still there in the background and she felt desperate to make him understand before they were found. ‘I—I’ve loved you for ages.’
‘Loved me?’ The note in his voice cut her in two and it was in that moment she discovered that love and hate are different sides of the same coin. ‘You’re barely out of nappies for crying out loud. How can you know what love is?’
She stared at him, too devastated to say a thing, and he glared back at her as he continued, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to with boys at school but judging by tonight it’s too damn much. I came very near to having you just now; do you understand that? Now, whether it’d be the first time or not for you is neither here or there, I know I should never have laid a finger on you. I’ve let Cassie and Guy down as well as myself.’
Cassie’s voice rose above the other calls and on hearing it Robyn whirled round and away from him, skimming across the grass like a will o’ the wisp, her hands pressed to her lips as she struggled not to cry. She paused to catch her breath before she emerged from the concealing shadows into the lights of the massive patio outside the room her parents had hired for the reception, adjusting her clothes and smoothing her hair. Then, forcing a smile to her face, she called, ‘I’m here, Cass.’
‘Where on earth have you been?’
It was her mother who spoke, her voice irritable, but Robyn ignored her, running over to Cassie and Guy and flinging her arms round her sister as she said brokenly, ‘Oh, Cass, I’m going to miss you so much.’
‘No, you won’t! I’m only going to be a few minutes away and you can come round whenever you like. And think, Robyn, no more fights over the bathroom!’ Cassie said, her own voice husky.
Their hugs and kisses masked Robyn’s shock and despair; everyone took her tears as emotion at Cassie having married, knowing how close the two sisters were.
And then Guy’s brother called that he’d brought the car round to the front of the hotel and they all poured through reception and out onto the drive. Guy’s brother and cronies had done a good job on Guy’s Cavalier, with shaving foam, ribbons and a supermarket-load of tin cans, and soon the happy couple were off in a hail of rice and confetti and ribald shouts from Guy’s football cronies, some of which made her mother’s face tighten.
Robyn stood stiff and still looking after the departing lights of the car, willing herself not to give way to the storm of emotion that was like a great hot ball in her chest. She had to get through this with a modicum of dignity, she told herself silently. No one, no one must guess what had happened, not a hint. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. She wouldn’t.
The whole episode hadn’t been Clay’s idea. She had followed him out to the lake when he had made it perfectly clear all evening he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She had thrown herself at him, quite literally—offered herself on a plate. No, not even offered, she corrected painfully—forced herself on him more like. She’d instigated everything, everything. What had possessed her? And now he thought she was loose, anybody’s…
And then his voice sounded just behind her, saying coolly, ‘Robyn, we need to talk.’ His hand took her elbow, turning her to face him. His face was closed, inscrutable.
‘Let go of me.’ Her voice surprised her: she didn’t expect it to be so firm or so cold considering what she was feeling like inside. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’
He complied, instantly.
‘I’ve nothing to say to you, Clay, beyond that I’m as sorry as you at what happened tonight,’ she said tautly. ‘So, can we leave it at that?’ She stepped away from him as she spoke.
The other guests were moving back inside and her mother approached them, sniffling loudly as she gushed how wonderful Cassie had looked and how desperately they were going to miss her. Robyn took her mother’s arm, making some light comment that she was quite proud of when her heart and her pride were in tatters, and once inside the hotel she slipped into the ladies’ cloakroom, locking the door of one of the cubicles behind her. She stayed in there some time, sick and numb with agonising misery and shame, and when she emerged Clay had already left.
She discovered the next morning, listening to her parents chat over breakfast, that Clay had apparently had a plane to catch having pulled off some big deal in the States. Her father was full of it, declaring they had been lucky to see him at all considering the way Clay’s particular star was rising in the world of business since his father had died.
‘He’ll go places, that young man,’ Mr Brett stated firmly. ‘He might have been born with something of a silver spoon in his mouth but he’s not your average, spoilt rich kid, not Clay Lincoln. He’ll go to the very top, you mark my words.’
Robyn knew exactly what Clay Lincoln was, and also the place she would like him to go. Shame and disillusionment and pain ate her up for months on end and she buried herself in working for her A levels, refusing all offers of dates from any young hopefuls and keeping herself strictly to herself.
Time passed. She gained first-class grades in her examinations and went to university with the wounds having healed to some extent. But she was wary, extremely wary, of the opposite sex. The odd date, a casual friend or two was fine; anything other than that and she wasn’t interested. It wasn’t that she purposely shut her mind and heart to love and commitment, more that it would take a special man to give her the confidence to become vulnerable again.
The special man hadn’t come along, the years had passed, and now she was twenty-eight and liked her life the way it was.
She sat up suddenly in the bath, angry that she had so completely indulged herself with memories that were difficult even now to come to terms with. They said that time heals all wounds… Robyn grimaced to herself as she stepped out of the bath and wrapped a big fluffy towel round herself, sarong fashion. Maybe, in ninety-nine per cent of cases that was true, but where Clay Lincoln was concerned the scar tissue was almost raw. But that was her problem.
Her soft mouth tightened, and the chocolate brown eyes fringed by thick black lashes that drew so many male glances on a day-to-day basis lost their velvet warmth and became as hard as iron as they narrowed reflectively.
She had thrown herself at him that day so many years ago and had probably got exactly what she had deserved. She had come to terms with that years ago, but it had taught her a lesson about the ruthless, hard quality of the opposite sex she had never forgotten. He had made her feel less than the dirt under his shoes that night, and however stupid she had been—and she had been stupid all right—she still didn’t think she’d deserved that. She’d only been sixteen for goodness’ sake.
But it didn’t matter. She walked through to the bedroom, sitting down at her small but exquisite dressing table that
