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‘And I have already vowed to you that it would not happen again!’ he said haughtily. Guy always became haughty when on the defensive; he hated it so much. ‘That one time was a mistake, one which—’
‘One which was more than enough for me!’ she’d cut him off before he’d got started—as she always did when he tried to explain. ‘Why can’t you get it into your thick head that I don’t love you any more?’ she’d added ruthlessly, yet felt no satisfaction in the way his expression had closed her out, the flicker of pain she’d glimpsed in him managing only to hurt her too.
That was all of five months ago, and since then she’d steered well clear of Guy. But now here she was, driving with him through the streets of Edinburgh knowing with a dull sinking feeling inside that this time he held all the cards, and she had nothing but her pride—if he allowed her to keep it, that was, which was no real certainty.
‘We have arrived,’ his quiet voice broke into her thoughts, and she turned to glance at the porticoed entrance to one of the city’s most exclusive hotels.
He helped her alight, as always the complete gentleman in public, his hand lightly cupping her elbow as they walked inside and led the way to the waiting lift. Neither of them spoke a single word; neither of them felt inclined to. It was the calm before the storm, with both of them conserving their energies for what they knew was to come.
The lift doors closed then opened again several seconds later. Guy guided her out on to the quiet landing and towards a pair of rather imposing white-painted doors, a key dangling casually from his fingers.
She shuddered—she couldn’t help it—and he glanced sharply at her, his mouth tightening into a stubborn line because he knew exactly what she was thinking, and his fingers tightened on her arm as if in confirmation of her fear that this time—this time there would be no compromises, no escape for her.
The suite was more a mini-apartment, with several doors leading off from a small hallway. Guy pushed open one of the doors and indicated that she should precede him into a large and luxuriously furnished sitting-room.
‘Nice,’ she drawled, impressed.
‘Adequate,’ dismissed the man who had spent most of his life living out of a suitcase. He possessed a real contempt of hotels now. He much preferred his rambling country home in Berkshire, or his beautiful apartment in London. ‘Sit down and I’ll mix us both a drink,’ he invited.
Moving with the lean grace Marnie always associated with him, Guy went over to the small bar and began opening cupboard doors while she hovered for a moment, wondering on a sudden swell of panic if she should just turn right around and get out of here while she still could.
Then she remembered Jamie’s bruised and swollen face, and that linen sling around his broken arm. And she remembered Clare, and the desire to run and save her own skin faded away.
For Clare’s peace of mind it was worth it, she told herself as a memory so painful that it clenched at her chest struck her. Stress was a dangerous state of mind—could even kill if left to run wild. She would do almost anything to ensure her sister-in-law never had to experience it.
With a grim setting of her lips, she moved across the room and sat down in one of the soft-cushioned armchairs.
‘Here.’ Guy handed her a tall glass filled almost to the rim with a clear sparkling liquid. ‘Dry martini with lots of soda,’ he informed her, going to sit in the other chair while she smiled wryly at the sardonic tone he had used. It had always amused him that she disliked the taste of alcohol in any form. A dry martini well watered down was just about her limit.
The ice cubes clinked against the side of the glass as Guy took a sip at his own gin and tonic. Then, ‘OK, Marnie,’ he said briskly. ‘Let me have it. What’s that stupid brother of yours done now that could make you come to me for help?’
‘How do you know it’s Jamie who needs your help?’ she flashed indignantly, annoyed that he wasn’t even giving her a chance to work up to mentioning Jamie, and forgetting that she had already given him a clue in the car. ‘I could be here on my own behalf, you know, but typical of you: you immediately jump to your own conclusions and—’
‘Are you here for your own sake?’ he cut in smoothly.
‘No...’ Marnie wriggled uncomfortably where she sat. ‘But you could at least give me a chance to explain before you—’
‘Then it has to be for Jamie,’ he said, ignoring her indignation. ‘I warned you, Marnie,’ he inserted grimly, ignoring all the rest, ‘not to bring your brother’s troubles to me again, and I meant it.’
‘This time it’s different, though,’ she told him, her mouth thin and tight because, no matter how sure she was that she was doing the right thing, she didn’t have to like it, ‘or I wouldn’t have involved you at all, but this time it’s Clare I’m worried about, and...’
‘Clare?’ he repeated sharply. His eyes suddenly narrowed and went hard. ‘What’s he done to her?’ he demanded harshly.
‘Nothing!’ Marnie denied, resenting his condemning tone. ‘He worships the ground she walks on and you know it. Of course Jamie hasn’t done anything to hurt Clare—how could you even think such a thing?’
‘I worshipped the ground you walked on and look how badly I hurt you,’ he pointed out.
‘No, you didn’t,’ she denied that deridingly. ‘You worshipped my body, and when it wasn’t available for you you just went out and found a substitute for it. So don’t you dare try putting Jamie into the same selfish mould as you exist in! He loves Clare,’ she stated tightly, ‘loves as in lifelong caring and fidelity—something you’ve never felt for anyone in your whole life!’
‘Finished?’ he clipped.
‘Yes.’ She subsided at the angry glint now glowing in his narrowed eyes.
‘Then if Jamie is this—caring of Clare, why have you been forced to come to me to beg help for her?’
‘Because...’ She sucked in a deep breath, trying to get a grasp on her growling temper. He could always do it. One minute in his company and he could always rile her until she didn’t know what she was saying! ‘She’s pregnant,’ she said.
‘What—already?’ Guy made a sound of grinding impatience. ‘I don’t call that damned caring of your brother, Marnie,’ he muttered angrily. ‘I call it downright irresponsible!’
So do I, she thought, but held the words back. Guy didn’t need any help in finding faults with her brother. He had an unerring ability to just pluck them out of the air like rabbits from a magician’s hat!
‘What’s the matter with her?’ he went on grimly. ‘Is she ill—does she need money for medical care?’ Already he was fishing inside jacket pocket for his cheque-book, his glass discarded so he could write out a cheque for whatever amount Marnie wished to demand from him.
And she was tempted—oh, so severely tempted to just let it go at that and name a figure which would probably choke him at the size of it but would not stop him giving it to her because it was for little Clare, whom he’d always had a soft spot for and therefore would do anything for.
But that would not be right—nor fair, she acknowledged heavily. If he was going to help them out, then he had a right to know the truth.
‘Wait a mintue,’ she said, swallowing because the truth was going to be that much harder to tell now he’d all but convinced himself Clare was in dire need of his financial asistance. ‘You haven’t heard it all, and I would rather you did before you agreed to anything. Clare is pregnant, but not in any danger of losing this one just yet, though it is the fear that it may happen which made me come to you.’
‘Jamie,’ he said, sitting back, the cheque-book thrown contemptuously aside.
She nodded, deciding it was time to stop prevaricating. He deserved that after the way he had reacted to the thought of Clare’s needing his help. It even warmed her to know that Guy could be so generous to someone he barely knew.
‘He’s just completed the reconstruction of a 1955 Jaguar XK 140 Drophead,’ she began.
‘I have one of those!’ Guy’s mood instantly changed to one of glowing enthusiasm. ‘I wonder if he managed to solve the problem with the—?’
‘While he was delivering it to the owner yesterday...’ she interrupted him a trifle impatiently; it was typical of him to be so easily diverted by the name of a precious car ‘...a lorry coming in the other direction skidded on a patch of oil and ploughed straight into him. The Jaguar was written off.’
‘What—totally?’ He was horrifed.
‘It went up in flames,’ she informed him grimly.
‘Bloody stupid—anyone seriously hurt?’
‘In general, my brother lives a charmed life,’ Marnie sighed. ‘No, not seriously,’ she confirmed. ‘Jamie managed to climb out of the tangled mess just before it caught fire with nothing more than a bruised face and a broken arm for his trouble.’
‘That beaufiful car,’ Guy murmured in the mournful tone of the true car fanatic. ‘Jamie must be sick.’
‘You could say that,’ Marnie agreed. ‘The car wasn’t insured.’
That dragged Guy surely back on course. He stared at her in blank amazement, then looked appalled, then just downright disgusted. ‘How much?’ he snapped.
She told him, he swore loudly and she grimaced, entirely in sympathy with him.
‘And I suppose he’s hoping that good old Guy will come up with the readies to bail him out.’ His tone was scathing to say the least. ‘Well, you can just go back and tell him that it’s no go this time, Marnie! I have just about had enough of that reckless brother of yours and his stupid—’
‘You’ve missed the point,’ she put in quietly, catching his attention before his Italian temperament ran away with him.
‘What point?’ he demanded.
‘Clare,’ she reminded him.
‘Clare?’ Guy looked blank for a moment, then went as pale as a ghost. ‘She wasn’t in the car with him, was she?’ he choked.
‘No!’ Marnie quickly assured him. ‘No—that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. But—Guy,’ she appealed to him for understanding, ‘she’s pregnant and she shouldn’t be! It was already a big enough shock for her to have Jamie come home with his face all bruised and his arm in a sling—how do you think she’s going to react when she finds out she forgot to renew his insurance policy and that they’ve now got to find upwards of fifty thousand pounds to compensate the owner of the car?’
Silence. Guy was staring at her through hard, angry eyes as he let all of it really sink in, and Marnie sat there staring back with her lovely blue eyes wide in anxious appeal, hoping that just this once—this one last time—he would come up trumps for her and help them out without demanding anything back in return.
‘He promises to pay you back—Guy,’ she added quickly, when he continued to say nothing, ‘he—he said to tell you he’s managed to acquire an MG K3 Magnette and you can have that as a down-payment. And he’s—’
‘A damned fool if he thinks I would accept anything from him!’ Guy cut in impatiently. ‘And I warned you, Marnie, quite distinctly, the last time you came begging to me on his behalf, that I had done more than enough for the man who wrecked our marriage,’ he reminded her forcefully.
‘Jamie didn’t wreck our marriage,’ she said wearily. ‘You did that all on your own.’
The dark head shook grimly. ‘We would still be together,’ stated the man who had always preferred to scatter blame around like raindrops so long as none of it stuck to himself, ‘living together—loving together, if your stupid brother hadn’t stuck his nose into my affairs.’
‘”Affairs” being the operative word,’ she derided.
‘Damn you, Marnie!’ Angrily, he climbed out of his chair, frustration making him run a hand through the thick, sleek blackness of his hair. ‘I didn’t mean it in that way—and you know it!’ He turned to glare down at her, then sucked in a deep, calming breath. ‘Your brother was directly responsible for—’
‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ It was her turn to cut him short—as she always did when he attempted to bring up the past. ‘It’s all just dead news now.’
‘Not while I’m still breathing, it is not,’ he bit out. ‘We still have unfinished business, you and I,’ he went on to warn, wagging a long finger at her in a way which was consciously gauged to infuriate her. ‘And, until you are prepared to give me a fair hearing, it will remain unfinished. Just remember that as you sit there hating me with your beautiful eyes. For one day I will make you listen, and then it will be you doing the apologising and I taking revenge!’
‘Oh, yes.’ The scorn in her voice derided him outright. ‘As I think I’ve already said, I don’t want to talk about it. I came here today to—’
‘Beg for more money for your useless brother,’ Guy tartly supplied for her.
‘No,’ she angrily denied that. ‘To beg for Clare!’ She too came to her feet, irritation and frustration in every line of her slender frame. ‘I was as determined as you are not to bail Jamie out of any more of his disasters,’ she snapped. ‘I told him this time and in no uncertain terms that I would not involve you again! But—God,’ she sighed, lifting her strained eyes to his, ‘this is different, Guy, you’ve got to see that? This time it isn’t just you and me and Jamie we’re fighting about; it involves Clare! Sweet, gentle Clare who has never wished harm on anyone in her entire life! You can’t turn your back on her, Guy, surely? Not just to gain your sweet revenge over Jamie?’
He was going to refuse, she could see it in the grim, hard cut of his tightly held mouth, and panic began to shimmer inside her. ‘Please, Guy.’ She lifted a trembling hand to clutch pleadingly at the bunching muscles in his upper arm. ‘Please...’ she begged.
He looked long and hard into the deep blue of her pleading eyes, his own so dark and disturbing that Marnie’s insides began to churn with an old memory so sweet and aching that she wanted to cry out against it. Once she had drowned in that look, placed all her vulnerable love and trust in its meaning what it appeared to tell her.
She watched him glance down to where her hand clutched at him, his beautiful eyelashes forming a thick, sweeping arch against his strong cheekbones. Watched the hardness ease from his mouth as he lifted his gaze back to her own, and suddenly the silence between them began to throb with tension—a raw sexual tension that had no right to show itself at this vital moment! Marnie moved, her tingling fingers flexing slightly in an effort to dispel the unwanted sensation, her tongue flicking in agitation across the fullness of her suddenly dry lips, her breathing slow and heavy.
Guy saw it all, every revealing thing she was experiencing at this new kind of physical closeness, and something unfathomable passed across his face...a further darkening of those rich brown eyes that had her holding her breath in dear hope that her plea was reaching him.
‘Please...’ she repeated huskily. ‘Put your prejudices aside this one last time—for Clare’s sake?’
He hesitated visibly—long enough to make hope flare into her eyes—only to have him dip his dark head a little closer to her own as he countered softly but with a ruthlessness that left her in no doubt at all to his meaning, ‘And you, Marnie? Are you prepared to put your own prejudices aside, for sweet Clare’s sake?’
Her thudding heart sank, her body went cold, and she stood very still, staring into the utterly uncompromising set of his lean, dark features, wondering why she had actually had the gall to convince herself that she could win him round this one last time. Guy had, after all, told her in no uncertain terms not to come begging to him again unless she was prepared to pay the price. She had never known him say anything without carrying it through. It was what made him the man he was today, this stubborn unwillingness of his to compromise over anything—even the way he conducted his life, she reminded herself grimly. Married or not, Guy had always refused to answer to anyone but himself.
Unclipping her hand from his arm, she took a shaky step back from him, then turned away so she wouldn’t have to witness the flare of triumph her answer would put in his eyes. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘I’m prepared to do that.’
Oddly, and surprisingly since she had just conceded to him what he had been trying to get her to do for four long years now, instead of thrusting his triumph down her throat, Guy too turned away, going to stand over by the window.
‘How prepared?’ he persisted, not turning to face her with the final challenge, his back a rigid bulk of taut muscle for her to stare bleakly upon.
‘Whatever it takes,’ she promised flatly. ‘Whatever it is you want in return.’
‘You.’ He turned his head, his expression as cool and uncompromising as she had ever known it. ‘I want you back.’
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