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Not that she had had much of an opportunity to talk to any of them. Ronan had kept her very much at his side so that she hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know any of his guests. She could only hope that they wouldn’t hold it against her later.
A faint frown drew Lily’s fair brows together as she recalled her meeting with one of Ronan’s particular friends. His best man, Connor Fitzpatrick, had seemed rather distant when she had been introduced to him the day before, and he had subjected her to a disturbingly close scrutiny that had distinctly unnerved her. Hannah, her own best friend and chief bridesmaid, was having much more success with him now on the dance floor, some remark she had made earning her a wide, brilliant smile.
‘Why the black look?’ Ronan had caught the change in her expression.
‘I was just thinking that I get the impression Connor doesn’t really like or approve of me.’
Those steely eyes flashed swiftly in the direction of his friend, that hint of a frown returning just for a moment. But then a second later Ronan turned back to her with a smile that dismissed her fears as foolish and unnecessary.
‘What’s not to like or approve, little silly?’ he murmured softly. ‘To tell you the truth, he’s probably far more likely to doubt my own sincerity and motives in entering into this marriage. After all, I’ve hardly been the type to settle down until now, and, let’s face it, this was something of a whirlwind romance. You knocked me right off my feet and I haven’t been able to regain my balance ever since.’
Those words had reassured her at the time, Lily recalled miserably, reluctantly coming back to the present to find herself still staring at the door through which Ronan had just disappeared. But now they rang brutally hollow, overlaid instead by the cold, callous declaration that he was leaving and never coming back.
The sound of a door opening downstairs jolted her into movement. What was she doing sitting here like this, letting Ronan go? He was her husband! They’d been married for less than twenty-four hours. Was she going to let him leave without a fight?
Frantically she flung back the bedclothes, snatching up the mint-green wrap-around robe that lay on a chair beside the bed. Refusing to allow herself to dwell on the fact that the matching silk and lace nightdress which she had worn so briefly the night before now lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, where Ronan had discarded it in the heat of his passion, she yanked it on, tugging the belt fastened as she headed for the stairs.
The front door stood wide open, letting in the sunlight and the sound of birdsong. The cheerful noise stabbed at her, bringing home the contrast between its light-hearted notes and the dark sense of dread that dulled her own soul.
‘Ronan!’
He was already outside, standing by his car as he loaded his case into the boot. The sight made her heart thud against her chest in shocked recognition that he had meant what he had said. Even now, she had still held on to the weak thread of hope that it had all just been some sick, tasteless joke.
‘Ronan, wait!’
He ignored her, his dark head turned away, the set of his broad shoulders under the tailored jacket seeming to declare unrelenting rejection of her plea without a word being spoken.
‘Oh, please, don’t do this!’ She reached the steps from the main door as she spoke. ‘Ronan, you can’t do this to me. I won’t let you!’
Slowly, deliberately, Ronan reached up and slammed the lid of the boot closed. The dull thud it made reverberated inside Lily’s head, making her think fearfully of steel doors slamming in her face, or the sound of a clock sounding an hour she had dreaded.
But then he turned, and at the sight of his face all other thoughts fled from her mind, leaving it cold and hollow with dread.
This wasn’t Ronan! This wasn’t the man she loved with all her heart, the man she had given herself to, body and soul, only the day before!
It was as if some stranger had moved in, an alien, who had taken over Ronan’s body, ejecting his spirit and leaving behind only the shell of the man to whom she had given her heart. A stranger with the same burnished hair, the same devastatingly attractive features, the same lean, strong build.
But these were not the same eyes—not her Ronan’s eyes. They were cold and hard as tempered steel, lethal as a stiletto-blade, impregnable as metal shutters.
‘You can’t…’ she began again, but her voice had lost all conviction.
The look Ronan turned on her was wintry, bleak as the coldest November day.
‘I can do anything I want,’ he flung at her. ‘Just try and stop me.’
CHAPTER TWO
LILY did the only thing she could think of.
Heedless of the fact that she was wearing nothing but the green robe, and determinedly ignoring the bite of the gravel into the soles of her bare feet, she ran out into the drive and caught hold of the sleeve of Ronan’s jacket, clinging on to it tightly.
‘I won’t let you go until you give me some sort of an explanation! You owe me that at least!’
The words were swallowed back down her throat as she met the inimical blaze of his glare, his eyes burning translucent in the spring sunlight. Ronan shrugged off her clinging hold with a negligence that was positively insulting.
‘I owe you nothing,’ he declared, fastidiously adjusting the fit of his jacket before opening the front door of his car. ‘If anything, the debts are all on your side.’
‘On my… Oh, no, you don’t!’
Seeing that he was about to slide into the driver’s seat, she lurched forward once more, this time fastening her arms around his narrow waist from behind.
She realised just how big a mistake she had made as soon as her fingers locked together above the polished metal buckle on the narrow leather belt he wore. Now her hands were resting on the taut, flat plane of his stomach, her hold bringing her breasts and hips into close contact with the firm line of his back.
She had held him like this last night, only then he had been warm and approachable, not this glacially hostile stranger. He had been wearing only a towelling robe, having got up in the middle of the night for some reason. She had woken to find him staring out of the bedroom window and had crept up behind him, coming close and sliding her arms around him just as now.
But it had been so very different then. Then she had felt his immediate response, his sudden tension, the reaction of his body betraying his hunger for her with a speed that had made her laugh out loud in delight. She had pressed up against the width of his back, sliding her fingers under the loosely tied belt of his robe, sighing her pleasure as she’d encountered the warm smoothness of his flesh.
And Ronan had sighed too, a sound that was half a gasp of pleasure, half a moan of surrender as he’d swivelled round within the confines of her arms to gather her close to him.
But under these very different circumstances such memories and the cruel stab of pain they brought were a source of weakness. If she let them they would undermine her resolve. They had already left her vulnerable to Ronan’s immediate reaction, making it only too easy for him to break free from her hold with a force that sent her spinning away, crashing painfully into the side of the car.
‘I’m going, Lily,’ he declared harshly. ‘And nothing you can do will stop me.’
This was proving so much harder than he had anticipated. She had only to touch him and every nerve in his body set up a clamorous demand, tightening until there was an ache in his groin that pleaded for the release of pleasure that he had known the night before.
When he had started out on this, he had believed he could keep all emotion out of it. He hadn’t reckoned on wanting her so much. But he had to fight that base need. It would destroy him and leave his plan in ashes if he didn’t.
It took all his strength to wrench himself away instead of turning and gathering her up in his arms, kissing her with the sort of hungry sensuality that took him with it into mindless oblivion.
Despair tore at Lily’s heart as she saw him slide into the driving seat and push his key firmly into the ignition. Despair combined with the feelings that now assailed her to make it impossible to think clearly.
She had known only one night of this man’s lovemaking, had spent just a few short hours in his arms, but her body knew his so intimately it was as if she was some slave of long ago, marked with her master’s brand. She had only to touch him and every sense sprang into vivid, throbbing life. Each nerve burned sharply, awakening, yearning, demanding the pleasure his caresses could bring.
Like a finely tuned instrument responding to the skill of a master performer, she had only to feel the warmth of his body, inhale the intensely personal scent of his skin, feel his heart beating under her cheek and she was lost. Able only to perform the tune that he decided to play.
But if she didn’t act now, and quickly, he would be gone, and she would never see him again. She didn’t doubt that he meant what he said; conviction was stamped into every hard line into which his face was set. The trouble was that she had no idea why.
A sudden blaze of panic brought a desperate clarity to her thoughts. An idea so crazy it might just work sprang into her mind, pushing her into action. Not giving herself time to lose her nerve, she swung round sharply and clambered up on to the bonnet of the Mercedes, gathering her inadequate clothing around her as she did so.
‘Lily!’ It was a bellow of pure rage. ‘Get off there!’
‘Make me!’
Just for a second, as the engine revved fiercely, she feared he might actually call her bluff and drive off with her still perched up there. Horrific visions of the powerful car speeding down the drive, making a few wild zigzagging turns designed to throw her off, filled her head, making her blood run cold. She had just reached the point where she was actually fearfully contemplating the damage that would be the result of a fall from the fast-moving vehicle on to the gravel, when Ronan took his foot off the accelerator.
The sound of the motor died abruptly. Lily barely had time to sigh with relief before the driver’s door was pushed open violently. Getting out, Ronan stalked towards her, white marks of fury etched around his nose and mouth.
‘Lily…’
When he finally stood beside her, hands braced on his hips, indigo eyes blazing incandescent with anger, it took all of Lily’s mental strength not to shrink back against the windscreen. Instead she forced herself to face him with what she hoped was a look of cool defiance.
‘You’re not making this easy for me!’ he declared through tightly clenched teeth.
‘I don’t want to make it easy! I plan on making it as difficult as possible for you to leave me, because I—’
‘Are you really so desperate that you’d beg me to stay when it must be painfully clear that it’s the last thing on God’s earth I want to do? That I obviously can’t stand the sight of you.’
‘But last night…’
‘Last night was last night. It was an appalling mistake—a mental aberration—and one I most definitely do not intend to let happen again.’
‘It didn’t feel like that to me!’
But then what experience did she have to go on? She had only had one other brief, unsatisfactory love affair, which had been more a relationship of the mind than any great physical passion. Kristian’s lovemaking had been comfortable, uninspired, and totally unexciting when compared to the fires Ronan could light inside her. Fires that she had never suspected could exist, whose sheer, elemental force had rocked her world, making her feel that she had lost her grip on everything she had formerly believed herself to be.
In Ronan’s arms she became another woman entirely. A wild, wanton, primitive creature, who met his passion with a hunger that matched and occasionally even outstripped it.
‘You wanted it every bit as much as I did!’ she flung at him. ‘You—’
‘Women aren’t the only ones who can fake it,’ Ronan shot back callously, making her thoughts reel with the cruelty of the gibe.
‘Oh, now I know you’re lying! There was nothing fake about last night—about any of it!’
If she believed that then he would have destroyed everything. All her precious memories of her wedding night. The night she had believed marked the beginning of the most wonderful part of her existence. The night she now feared would be the only experience she would ever have of married life.
She hadn’t even known about the house. That had been a surprise Ronan had sprung on her at the very last moment. When she had left the reception and got into the car with him, she had believed that they were heading for the airport and a plane ride to the honeymoon destination he had kept a closely guarded secret from her.
But, ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he had told her as the last of the waving, cheering guests had disappeared from view. ‘Our plane doesn’t leave until three tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Tomorrow!’
Automatically, Lily had glanced back towards the hotel they had just left, thinking of the way, only half an hour before, she had been giggling excitedly with Hannah as they’d tried to guess just where in the world Ronan planned on taking her.
‘But where will we spend tonight?’
‘You leave that to me.’ A small, enigmatic smile had curled the corners of Ronan’s wide mouth. ‘I have everything under control. Just put yourself entirely in my hands and see what happens.’
Now, looking back at that moment, hearing those words again with the benefit of hindsight, Lily found that they made her shiver in spite of the warmth of the sun. Something about the way Ronan had spoken brought a sense of nausea to the pit of her stomach.
But last night, worn out by the excitement of the day, decidedly tiddly on champagne, and even more intoxicated by the thought of actually being Mrs Ronan Guerin, she had felt no such premonition of danger. Instead, she had wriggled sensuously in her seat, almost purring like a small, contented cat.
‘I can’t wait to put myself in your hands,’ she’d murmured, giving the words a distinctly lascivious intonation as she ran her hand up his arm, stroking from square shoulder to strong wrist and back again. ‘And I’m dying to get my hands on certain parts of you.’
This time she let her fingers slide down his jacket until they reached the strong line of his thighs. There, she walked them along the hard muscle that was stretched taut as his foot rested on the car’s pedal, moving slowly and deliberately inwards, smiling as she saw it bunch in instinctive reaction.
‘Behave yourself, witch!’ Ronan reproved laughingly. ‘You’ll have us off the road if you don’t stop that nonsense—Lily!’ This time the warning was more serious as she ignored his protest.
‘I don’t want to behave!’ Lily pouted with mock petulance. ‘I’ve had to behave myself for the last eight weeks, and it’s been intensely frustrating.’
‘And whose idea was that? As I recall, you were the one who insisted on waiting until our wedding day.’
‘And you agreed! But it is our wedding day now, so we don’t have to wait any longer. We’re legally married so I can do what I want. And I want to do this…’
Emboldened by the excitement that was building up inside her, she slid her fingers provocatively in between his thighs, her teasing smile growing wider as she heard his breath hiss sharply inwards in uncontrolled response.
‘Lily! Be a good girl, please.’
‘Oh, I’ll be good.’ The huskiness of her voice gave the words a very different meaning from the one he had used. ‘I’ll be very good. I plan to be the best you’ve ever known. So, wherever we’re going, why don’t you put your foot down? I want to get there just as fast as we possibly can.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
Ronan had suited action to the words, ramming the accelerator pedal almost to the floor, and the car had sped along the road out of town, heading for the countryside.
The unexpected warmth of the day had turned into an uncomfortably close evening by the time he steered the powerful vehicle off the narrow lane and up a winding, steep drive, coming to a halt before the impressive building at the top of it.
‘Wow!’ Lily could only stare in amazed admiration.
Built in a stone that had been mellowed by the passage of years, the house had an elegant porch supported on Grecian-style pillars and mullioned windows that reflected the glow of the setting sun. Over half of the front was covered in luxuriant ivy that extended over the roof of the large Victorian-style conservatory attached to one side. On the other side was a formal rose garden and at the back, seen through an archway, was the promise of an even more spacious garden, richly lawned.
‘What a gorgeous place! Whose is it?’
‘Yours—and mine.’
‘Ours!’ Lily was too stunned to notice the definite break between Ronan’s words. ‘But how?’
‘I bought it. Isn’t that how one usually acquires a house?’
‘Of course I know that!’ Lily aimed a playful punch at his arm. ‘When did you…?’
‘I signed the contracts last week. Oh, I know…’ He’d seen her expression and interpreted it with almost telepathic accuracy. ‘Connor said I should have consulted with you, but as soon as I saw the place I knew that you’d love it.’
‘And you were right.’
Lily let the fact that he had understood her so well ease the sharp sting that had come with the thought that he had autocratically taken charge of everything without a word to her. What she found harder to accept was the fact that his best friend had known about the house—her marital home—before she had.
‘Well, the two of us would have been far too cramped in that little flat of yours. This place is near enough to town for you to travel in every day and keep an eye on your business. After all, as the owner of Edgerton’s most up and coming floral design business you should live somewhere rather more elegant than a one-bedroomed box.’
‘And it’s not too far from the motorway, so you can get to and from London.’
‘Mmm—seen enough? Because from the look of the clouds gathering there’s a storm about to break directly overhead. If we don’t get inside soon we’ll be soaked before we even reach the door.’
Ronan was quickly proved right. They had barely unloaded the cases from the car and deposited them in the black and white tiled hall when the first crash of thunder sounded, followed seconds later by the lash of rain against the windows.
‘Oh, that was close!’ Lily jumped exaggeratedly, huddling close to Ronan.
‘You’re not scared of thunder?’
‘Not me.’ She lifted laughing eyes to his disbelieving face. ‘But it was a good excuse to get myself into your arms so that I could do this…’
Drawing his dark head down, she kissed him long and hard, tantalising his lips open with small, seductive darts of her tongue. Her private hope was that this was all the encouragement he would need to take things further, but, although his response was satisfactorily passionate, he made no attempt to deepen the caress, instead easing himself from her grasp and capturing her wandering hands in one of his.
‘Enough of that! Don’t you want to see your new home?’
‘The bedrooms, perhaps.’ Lily’s smile was roguish. ‘The rest of the house will still be there afterwards… No?’ She could not believe it when he shook his head.
After weeks of abstinence throughout their admittedly brief courtship, she had been so sure that Ronan would be impatient to consummate their marriage. In her own mind, she had been absolutely convinced that they would barely get inside their room before he would make passionate love to her. But that had been when she had believed that he was taking her to a hotel room, not this lovely house.
‘Later.’ His smile grew when he saw her mutinous face. ‘Lily, I want this to be just right. I want everything to go exactly as I planned, so please, bear with me.’
A flash of lightning seared across the sky, illuminating the strong-boned features of his face and making his eyes gleam like silver.
‘Believe me, it will be worth waiting for.’
The words, the deep, intent voice in which they were spoken, and the burningly sensual look that accompanied them, all combined to send a shiver of delighted anticipation down Lily’s spine as her momentary disappointment fled to be replaced by a tingle of excitement.
He was right. Delaying now would only add to the pleasure of what was to come. They should pace themselves slowly, savour the anticipation, let their appetites grow until they could hold back no longer. They had all the time in the world; there was no need to pounce on each other like gluttons at a feast table, cramming tasty morsels into their mouths with indiscriminate greed.
‘I’ll hold you to that promise,’ she told him huskily. ‘But, until that time comes, I suppose I’ll have to settle for the guided tour.’
It was a large house, full of intriguing little corridors and unexpected corners, and by the time they had inspected every nook and cranny it was completely dark. The thunder had receded to a low grumble in the distance and the lightning no longer blazed across the sky. The ending of the storm had left quite a chill in the air, and when they returned to the elegant sitting room Lily couldn’t suppress a faint shiver at the noticeable drop in temperature.
‘You’re cold.’ Ronan frowned his concern. ‘Shall I light a fire before we have supper?’
Lily’s eyes followed the direction of his gesture towards the large open fireplace, topped by a wooden mantelpiece and framed by Victorian flowered tiles, and the shiver became more exaggerated, turning into a shudder of genuine fear.
‘No! Thanks,’ she added hastily.
‘But it is a lot cooler in here, and it would be romantic to sit by the light of the flames.’
The light of the flames…
In her mind Lily unwillingly found herself dragged back into the past. She could see another room, one so very different from the spacious green and gold one in which she stood. She could see the cosy, slightly shabby décor and furniture, the Christmas tree standing in one corner, the paper chains on the walls. And on the mantelpiece cotton wool had been arranged to look like a snow scene, with miniature houses, fir trees, Santa Claus and a tiny sleigh pulled by model reindeer.
Below, in the grate, the crackle of the log fire. Before its flames stood a small, fair-haired figure, his hand outstretched towards a candle, freezing at her cry of warning. She had managed to stop Davey that time. But later… Later there had been the sudden flare of flames licking at the cotton wool, catching on the chains, leaping to the curtains, and suddenly all was fire, all alight, all…
‘Lily?’
Jolted back to the present, she could only blink in confusion for a moment, until she realised who it was who stood before her, that it was Ronan who had spoken her name. And then it was an effort to force a smile.
‘No fire, thanks. It’s not that cold. All I need is a hot drink to warm me up—that and someone’s arms around me.’
Some day she must tell Ronan the full story of that terrible night. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him exactly how her parents had died.
But not tonight. It wasn’t the time or the place. It would spoil the atmosphere, ruin this special evening she had waited for—for an age, it seemed.
‘Is there any food in this palace of yours?’
‘But of course. I told you everything would be perfect. Come with me.’
He led her across the hall and into the large farmhouse kitchen, which was the only room in the house they hadn’t yet visited. There, under covers on the scrubbed pine table, was a wonderful selection of all her favourite foods, carefully prepared and beautifully served on the finest china.
‘Help yourself.’
To Lily’s surprise she found that she was genuinely hungry. That morning she had been too on edge to eat anything substantial, and at the reception a blend of happiness and excitement had destroyed her appetite, so that now she was definitely ravenous. Picking up a plate, she selected several savoury treats and nibbled at them eagerly, nodding her thanks when Ronan set a glass of perfectly chilled wine on the table beside her.