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“You are a master of tact, Monsieur,” Kristy said dryly.
He completely missed the irony edging her words. He positively preened, beaming his appreciation of her compliment. “We have—may I say it—a worldwide reputation for tact and... uh... understanding. Thank you.”
“This place you wish to escort me to...I hope it is cheap, Monsieur,” Kristy said with blunt directness. There was no onus on her to play with subtleties. “You see, I don’t have a lot of money...”
“Say no more, Madame. Discretion. Appeasement. Understanding. With my experience...” He spread his hands in a gesture that embraced a whole world of discretion and appeasement and understanding.
“In that case,” Kristy said decisively, “I may as well get going right now. If you will excuse me, I’ll just collect my bag.” She didn’t want the services of another bellboy, not in this hotel.
“Non, non, Madame. Allow me to carry it for you.”
It surprised Kristy. She would have thought it was beneath his dignity to act as her porter. In a tearing hurry to get her out of his hotel, she thought with bitter cynicism.
She stepped back, waving a careless invitation for him to enter. He collected her canvas carryall while she retrieved her handbag. Coming here had been a silly daydream, Kristy told herself as they vacated the room. The past was gone and could never be truly recaptured. At least she’d seen the place. In the circumstances, that was quite enough.
The manager led her along the corridor. He only went a short way before putting down her bag and producing a set of keys which he flourished as though he was St. Peter about to open the portals of heaven. Kristy did a swift rethink. He couldn’t be throwing her out of the hotel after all, so this must be a cheaper room.
He unlocked the door before them, swung it open like an impresario, and eloquently gestured Kristy forward. “Madame, your room,” he announced with almost smug satisfaction.
Kristy took several steps, saw what was in front of her, and stopped dead. Was this some kind of joke? To take her out of a room and lead her to what was clearly a luxurious suite had to be the height of perversity when she had made such a point of revealing a very real need not to be extravagant.
“I can’t afford this,” she protested.
The manager looked offended. “Madame is our guest. Of course Madame is not expected to pay for anything while she is our guest.” His voice had a touch of outrage at her failure to understand his understanding.
“I think,” said Kristy forcefully, “there is some mistake.”
“Madame...uh...Holloway . . .” He gave another little jovial chuckle and added a conspiratorial wink. “The mistake has been rectified.”
He marched into the huge sitting room—complete with a conservatory and a private terrace—and into a dressing-room where he deposited her canvas carryall, thereby emphasizing her accepted status here. Kristy watched him doubtfully, certain there had been some ridiculous mix-up. On the other hand, he had called her by her own name although why he persisted with Madame was beyond her. He could not have failed to notice she wasn’t wearing any rings.
“Are you sure this is the right place for me, Monsieur? ” she asked, feeling the need to get this pinned down to something concrete.
He beamed supreme confidence. “Certainement”
Kristy gave up. She didn’t need the stress of sorting out this madness, or getting a room in another hotel. This was some management bungle and they could pay for it. She’d made her terms absolutely clear, and after all this hassle, no way was she going to be shifted again.
“One last thing, Madame Holloway . . .”
“Yes?”
The manager went to a door on the other side of the sitting room, took a key from the flourished key ring, and inserted it in the lock. “For your use only,” he said solemnly.
Kristy looked at him blankly. What did he mean by that?
He gave the key a dramatic twist. “Unlocked,” he said. Then he turned the key the other way. “Locked,” he said. “I will leave it to Madame’s discretion.”
“Monsieur . . .” Kristy expostulated, totally bewildered by the whole sequence of events.
“Say no more. Say no more. Tact. Diplomacy. Understanding. We know all these things.”
He withdrew the key from the lock, came across the room, and pressed it into her hand. It was too much for Kristy. Altogether too much.
“Monsieur . . .”
“Enough. You are our guest You pay for nothing. If this...er...delicate situation can be fortunately resolved... uh...please remember me.”
And so saying, he bowed his way out of the room, leaving her with another of his jovial little laughs, to which he seemed addicted.
Of one thing Kristy was absolutely certain. There was some mistake here of gigantic proportions. It was equally clear it was someone else’s mistake. She had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
She frowned over his parting words...this delicate situation. What was he referring to? She didn’t have a clue. It just seemed that ever since the hotel doorman had laid eyes on her, the world had shifted out of kilter.
Discretion said she should get out of here as soon as possible. Retreat. Retire before some ghastly disaster occurred. Un scandale terrible!
The over-the-top thought evoked a burst of somewhat hysterical laughter. Which suggested, after she’d sobered up again, that her nerves were in a bad way. The experience of this hotel was definitely not soothing, as she had anticipated it would be. The depression of being totally alone hit her again, whispering that her trip to Geneva would probably be a failure, too.
The energy that had driven her to this journey drained away. Let the hotel management discover its mistake, she decided listlessly. There was no need for her to pre-empt any action. She had tried to protest, to explain, to set the situation straight. None of this was her fault. No doubt she would receive another visit soon and everything would be resolved properly, so there was no point in unpacking her bag.
Meanwhile, she had this key in her hand. Kristy eyed the interconnecting door which could be locked or unlocked with the burning-question key. Maybe the answers, or some answer to this delicate situation, lay on the other side of the door. It was none of her business, of course. On the other hand, she had somehow got involved.
She thought of Pandora who opened the lid of the box which let loose all the troubles of the world. Curiosity was a terrible thing and it could be very dangerous. Better to let it go and not risk adding more trouble to trouble.
Kristy set the key down on a coffee table and turned her back on it. She walked out to the private terrace, deciding she might as well enjoy all this luxury while she could because she couldn’t see it lasting for long. This was not the place for her and that key could only lead to something even more out of bounds.
The view was the kind which sold postcards; the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Place de la Concorde, all spread out for her to admire and wonder at the genius which had planned such a magnificent vista. Kristy, however, could not concentrate her mind on it. A sense of restlessness drove her back into the sitting room.
The key kept drawing her gaze. It had a powerful fascination. Caught on a seesaw of temptation, she almost leapt out of her skin when a knock came on the door. But it wasn’t on that door. It was on the one which led in from the corridor.
They’ve discovered the mistake, she thought, relieved that she hadn’t surrendered to the curiosity which would have led her into a very awkward indiscretion.
Anticipating a return of the manager, she was surprised when a maid entered, bearing an elegant vase of long-stemmed roses. It was placed on the table beside the key. I’m getting in deeper, Kristy thought. She weakly thanked the maid who withdrew without comment.
Her inner tension moved up a notch when a second knock came. It heralded another maid who carried in a bottle of champagne and an artistically arranged platter of fruit. Kristy stared at both offerings as though they were deadly poison. Why was she such an honoured guest? What was behind all this?
A third knock brought a third maid bearing gift boxes of eau de toilette and soaps.
It was as good as a birthday, Kristy thought ruefully, except she wasn’t enjoying it. Impossible to shake off the feeling that the gifts were connected to that key. She eyed it balefully. Would it unlock the door to the mystery of why she was here and suddenly being treated like royalty? Maybe she should find out what she could before she became even more entrenched in this weird situation.
She picked up the key.
I’ll take just a little peep, she thought.
It’s none of your business, her mind chided.
Yes, it is, another part responded. I’m already in this up to my neck. I didn’t ask to be involved but I am. I definitely am. And I’ve got every right to find out.
She listened to the other side of her mind in case it wanted to pull her back behind the safe cautious line.
No response.
The argument was perfectly sound.
After all, the manager had left the decision in her hands, and she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She did have every reason to take a little peek into the room beyond that door. She had been invited to unlock it at will.
Her fingers closed tightly around the key as her legs moved forward. Determinedly ignoring the burning feeling in her palm and the apprehensive hammering of her heart, Kristy reached the door, fitted the key to the lock and turned it with a swift decisive twist. Then taking a deep breath to calm her leaping nerves, and telling herself she was acting positively and purposefully, she opened the door.
She half-expected some monster to be on the other side but there was no reaction to the door’s opening. No sound. No movement. Nothing. Taking courage at finding no repercussions to her initial trespass, Kristy pushed the door fully ajar. It revealed another sitting room, similar to hers.
She stood motionless for several seconds, listening intently. Still no sounds of occupation. No signs of occupation, either. She took the first step over the threshold. The need to find some answer to this extra accommodation urged her on.
The click of a key in a lock made her freeze halfway across the room. She stared in horror at the door which gave access to the corridor outside. Her throat constricted, her heart thumped in wild apprehension as the door opened. Her eyes widened in shock as she instantly identified the man who stepped inside.
It was the man from the lobby, the man who’d transfixed her with his knowing eyes, the elegant aristocratic man who had inelegantly broken up the romantic interlude with his companion, creating un scandale terrible!
Kristy’s mind dazedly registered the fact that he did not look shocked at seeing her. He actually smiled at her, but it was not the brilliant smile of pleasure that had lit his face for his companion in the lobby. It was a cold cynical curl of his lips, a knowing little smile. Whatever knowledge was behind it gave him no pleasure at all.
He shut the door without a word, without a crack in his composure. Everything in his manner projected he had anticipated her being here.
Yet how could he?
And what could he know about her?
A sense of weird unreality gripped Kristy, holding her in tense waiting for what would come next.
CHAPTER THREE
“SO!”
It was a sibilant hiss that seethed with explosive emotion. Kristy instantly realised his composure was a facade, and it was not only his voice that revealed how brittle the façade was. The dark eyes were not dancing with amusement. They glittered with a primitive ferocity...anger, pain, blistering accusation.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he demanded, repitching his voice to a tone of sardonic mockery that didn’t quite disguise an undercurrent of barely leashed savagery.
It was a beautiful voice, rich and male and mesmerisingly coloured by the emotion it projected. Kristy had to shake herself out of her appreciation of it, focus on what was being demanded.
He probably thinks I’m some kind of thief, she thought, and frantically searched her mind for the best way to explain her presence. An attempt at appeasement came up as top priority.
“Je regrette . . .” she began tentatively, but got no further.
“You’re sorry?” Incredulity resonated around the room. The dark eyes swept her with scathing contempt. “You’re sony,” he repeated jeeringly. He tilted his head back and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Bon Dieu! You have a thousand things to explain and all you can say is you’re sorry.” His derisive laugh had an element of wildness that sent chills down Kristy’s spine.
She darted a look at the interconnecting door, measuring her line of retreat.
“Oh, no, my precious darling!”
The endearment held no affection whatsoever. The tone of venomous purpose whipped Kristy’s gaze back to him. He was moving swiftly to cut off her escape route and the aura of violence he emanated was quite enough to hold Kristy absolutely still. She didn’t want to provoke him any more than he was already provoked by her presence here.
“You will not leave until I’m satisfied you have explained...everything...to me,” he promised her, a threat underlining every word.
Kristy swallowed hard. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating with electric tension and it was difficult to make her mouth work. But speak she must. “It’s very simple really,” she began.
It seemed to provoke the man even more. “Simple!” he interjected, his eyes blazing dark fury. He moved closer to tower over her. “Two years! Two long lonely bitter years! And all you can say is you’re sorry? And it’s simple?” His voice literally shook with outrage.
Kristy’s mind whirled with confusion. What did two years have to do with anything? “I don’t know what you want to know,” she rushed out in the hope of getting some direction from him since he didn’t like anything she said.
At least it had a calming effect, Kristy thought with relief. The blaze of fury banked down to a simmer which still looked dangerous but was temporarily under control. Then he smiled at her. Somehow the smile was as chilling as his derisive laugh had been. It spelled disaster if she put a foot wrong.
“Did you come here in the hope of hearing words of love from me?” he asked in a soft jeering tone.
“Certainly not,” Kristy replied incredulously. The idea was absurd. Why would she expect to hear endearments from a stranger?
One black eyebrow rose in mocking challenge. “To tell me that you love me?”
Kristy could hardly believe she was hearing this. She didn’t know the man. What kind of woman did he think she was? A boldly enterprising callgirl on the make, slipping into his room to set up a chance?
“That’s ridiculous!” she protested.
He laughed. “How true!” The dark eyes burned more intensely into hers and his voice lowered to a purring throb. “Was it to seduce me into making love to you? To feel my body caressing yours in the way you most enjoy?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Kristy cried, terribly disconcerted by the effect his suggestive words had on her pulse rate.
Her reply seemed to incense him. “Then I will tell you what I think,” he seethed. His mouth curled around the words as he spat them out. “You are a cowardly sneak! Your effrontery in presenting yourself here is unbelievable! You are shameless, heartless, gutless...”
Shock paralysed Kristy’s mind for several seconds. Then a tidal wave of outrage swept through her, lifting her hand, propelling it with furious force. It struck his face so hard it snapped his head back. It left reddened weals across his cheek, and Kristy’s eyes burned with savage satisfaction at the sight Never had she felt so angry in her life.
“Keep your slanderous words and thoughts to yourself!” she hissed, ready to fight tooth and nail if he so much as tried to insult her again in such an offensive fashion.
He had no right. All she had done was trespass into his room, and she had been given a key for that purpose anyway. She couldn’t see how any blame for that could be attached to her. She did not deserve such abuse and no way in the world would she tolerate it.
The dark eyes flared with violent passion. She met them with blue ice, defying him to do his worst. The clash of will and turbulent emotion somehow seeded something even more disturbing. Kristy was conscious of a shift inside herself, an uncoiling of a need, a desire, an awakening tingle in her blood that she had never felt before.
She did not know this man.
Yet something inside her did. Or seemed to. Some subconscious recognition she was at a total loss to explain. The feeling was even stronger now than it had been in the lobby, spurring with it a fiercely primitive urge to have what he’d put into her mind. She found herself literally craving to know what it would be like to feel his body caressing hers.
Suddenly the searing dark eyes were like magnets, dragging on her soul. A sense of deep intimacy pulsed between them. She had a compelling urge to reach up and touch his cheek, to tenderly stroke away the hurt marks she had inflicted. She only just managed to check what would have been an insane move, given the situation.
Kristy didn’t understand herself at all. How could she be so enthralled by the man, when what was happening now was hardly a promising beginning for anything? She had never struck anyone in her whole life until he had stirred her into it.
An appalled horror descended on her. She was a nonviolent person. Words, not fists, had always been her creed. Ever since she had entered this hotel, things had started swinging out of normality.
Was it Alice who had stepped through the looking glass and into another world?
Kristy was beginning to feel the same thing had happened to her. She took a deep breath and tried to regain some sanity. How could there be any sense of intimacy between this stranger and herself? She had to be imagining it. His talk of love and lovemaking must be triggering wild offshoots from the need to belong to someone, somewhere.
Yet, as though they were somehow acutely attuned to each other, she sensed a similar withdrawal from him, the automatic reaction to shock and disbelief, needing time to pause and take stock, to reassess. His face tightened. His mouth thinned into a grim line. The dark eyes narrowed to gleaming slits.
Kristy thought about apologising, but since this whole scene had erupted from her initial apology, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, he had been as much in the wrong as she was. Pride insisted she concede no fault in what she had done, but explanations were certainly due.
“Monsieur . . .” she started again.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped angrily.
Whatever I say seems to get me into trouble, Kristy thought. “Very well,” she agreed, wondering what else she could call him. “There is an explanation....”
“I shall be interested to hear it,” he snapped again. “I shall be fascinated to hear how you explain yourself,” he went on, his voice gathering a stinging contempt. “Every word will be a priceless pearl to my ears. I shall assess it with intense appreciation for its worth.”
Which set Kristy back on her heels because her explanation didn’t make much sense to her, and she doubted it would make sense to him either. However, the truth was the truth. “I have this key....” she began slowly. “The manager gave it to me....”
That was as far as she got.
He took hold of her shoulders and shook her in furious impatience. “You are incredible! Totally incredible!” he seethed.
Kristy realised that what he was saying was true. Her explanation was totally incredible. But this man was teetering on the edge of being totally out of control and she didn’t know what to say or do. “Please...” She couldn’t call him monsieur. “. . . take your hands off me,” she begged.
He laughed with arrogant disdain, but he released her and dropped his hands to his sides. “You think I cannot do that?” he taunted, his eyes flashing bitter derision. “You think I have to touch you? That I cannot help myself?” He bared his teeth in a scornful sneer. “I can do it. See for yourself!”
“Thank you,” Kristy breathed in deep relief.
Violence did breed violence, she thought. She shouldn’t have slapped him. Strictly words from now on, she promised herself.
As though he had come to the same civilized conclusion, he stepped back from her in haughty rejection, a cold pride stamped on his face. His aristocratic bearing was very pronounced as he strode around the room, releasing his inner turbulence in sharp angry gestures and bursts of scorn.
“You are nothing,” he hurled at her. “Nothing at all! Not a speck of dirt. Utterly insignificant. Meaningless.”
Kristy steeled herself to remain cool, no matter how hotly this man stirred her blood. In actual fact, what he said was a fairly accurate description. To the world at large, she was a nobody. There was no-one left who cared whether she existed or not. Besides, agreeing with people’s ideas was a better way of placating them than disagreeing with them.
“I realise that,” she said calmly.
Her answer brought him to an abrupt halt. His brow creased in puzzlement. The dark eyes stabbed at her in suspicious re-assessment “You realise that?” he said slowly, watching intently for some telltale reaction from her.
“Certainly,” Kristy said with assurance. Why should she mean anything to this man? They were complete strangers.
He sauntered towards her, ruthless purpose stamped on his face. “I’ll prove how worthless you are.”
“You don’t have to prove anything of the kind,” Kristy cried in alarm. She didn’t want him to shake her again.
“Where have you been for the last two years?” he bit out savagely. “What have you been doing? Why did you move out of my life without so much as a word of warning or excuse?”
Understanding began to dawn in Kristy’s mind. For some reason this man thought she was someone else. Enlightenment grew in rippling waves. The hotel staff, from the doorman to the manager, had thought she was someone else. It was the only explanation that fitted the facts; all the odd reactions she had been getting from the staff which she had set down to snobbery, the accident in the lobby that had happened because this man had caught sight of her, the bellboy’s proclaiming it un scandale terrible, the manager with his strange manoeuvrings and talk of discretion.
This certainly loomed as a very delicate situation!
The tantalising question was...who was she supposed to be? Who did they all think she was? And why couldn’t they see she wasn’t who they thought she was?
“Answer me!”
He was towering over her again, commanding her attention. Kristy pulled her mind out of its whirling flurry of activity and concentrated on what was most immediate. Somewhere, sometime, there had to be an explanation of what was happening. In the meantime, Kristy thought, it was imperative to answer this man’s question truthfully and with a calm composure. Her heart gave a nervous little flutter as she looked up into the darkly demanding eyes.
“I was in San Francisco most of the time....”
“So! You did go with the American!” he threw at her. “Yes...I can hear it in your voice. Damn you for the conniving cheat you are!”
“I’m not a cheat!” she hurled back at him in fierce resentment.
“You think you can get to me again? After what you’ve done?”
She hadn’t done anything! Except use the key that had brought her into this room. However, before she could expostulate, his hand lifted and curled around her cheek. Kristy flinched away from the touch but it was an ineffectual movement. He tilted her chin up, bent his head, and his mouth crashed onto hers.
The shock of it left her momentarily defenceless. His hand slid into her hair entangling itself in the thick tresses and binding her to him as forcefully as the arm that scooped her body hard against his. Then an explosion of sensation robbed her of any thought of resistance.