Long Cold Winter
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

AS the light sea-plane circled the small Caribbean island of St John’s, Autumn stared up at it, shielding her eyes from the brilliance of the sun.

‘Here comes our big fish,’ Alan said humorously, sliding an arm round her shoulders and pulling her against him. ‘I hope you’re going to do your courier bit well and help me hook him.’

They were standing on the smooth pale sand in front of the hotel, a tall, almost too finely drawn girl with a cloud of sunbleached honey blonde hair and eyes the misty violet colour of the bougainvillea that smothered the walls of the double-storey blocks of bedrooms scattered discreetly in the hotel grounds, and a slightly shorter, thickset man in his early thirties, his lightweight tropical suit over-formal next to the golden-toasted, bikini-clad body of his companion.

Autumn moved away automatically, a reflex action where men were concerned and one she barely noticed any more, but Alan Shields saw it, and his mouth compressed slightly. He had taken Autumn on to the staff of his package holiday business, Travel Mates, on the recommendation of his secretary, Sally Ferrars. As far as doing her job went, he had no complaints, but Autumn had displayed a steadfast refusal to respond to his advances which had aroused at first disbelief and then, when he realised that she meant it, curiosity.

Autumn was twenty-two and must surely have had relationships with other men; she was too attractive sexually not to have done, so why the cold shoulder for him? He was not bad looking; comparatively wealthy, free, white and over twenty-one.

He had tried to pump Sally, but she had refused to be badgered. ‘Leave Autumn alone,’ was all she would tell him. Sally was engaged to a British Airways pilot and she treated him with a sisterly forbearance. He glanced thoughtfully at Autumn.

‘We’ve really got to pull out all the stops on this one,’ he warned her. ‘If this guy doesn’t come up with the goods, we’re well and truly sunk, and Tropicana will take us over. If that happens we’ll all be out of a job.’

Autumn knew that Alan wasn’t exaggerating and sympathised. The success of St John’s as the ultimate Caribbean holiday retreat was very close to his heart, and he had invested heavily in the small island and the hotel complex he was having built there. His business, Travel Mates, had been doing very well and there had been no reason to suppose that St John’s wouldn’t be hugely successful. The hotel’s first season had been booked up well in advance and building was on schedule. But then a freak hurricane had virtually destroyed the main hotel building; holidays already booked had had to be cancelled and money refunded, and as a result Alan was facing ruin unless he could find someone willing to invest in the venture.

The larger holiday operators were hovering like vultures, waiting to see what pickings they could get if he failed, and Autumn didn’t need to be reminded how important it was that this possible backer Alan’s merchant bankers had found them invested in the island of St John’s.

Even so, she disliked Alan’s suggestion that she could make some effort to ‘charm’ the man, and she frowned slightly. She liked Alan, and owed him a great deal. Without the job he had given her… She sighed and glanced at her watch. Nearly four o’clock. Every afternoon she spent a couple of hours in the hotel foyer, answering the questions of the holidaymakers who needed advice or help.

‘We’re having dinner alone tonight, just the three of us in my bungalow,’ Alan told her, ‘so wear something pretty.’

‘Pretty? Don’t you mean sexy?’ Autumn queried, giving him a sharp look. ‘I won’t be used as bait, Alan. I’m not making myself available to your backer. Let’s get that understood right from the start.’

Alan assumed a hurt expression.

‘You’ve got it all wrong. All I want you to do is smile nicely and make him feel welcome. Nothing wrong in that, is there?’

‘I think I’ll reserve judgment,’ Autumn said dryly.

She was well aware that Alan thought her something of an enigma, but his earlier determination to break through her defences had waned when he realised that she was not going to give way, and now he tended to treat her more as an efficient member of his staff and less of a challenge to his masculinity. There were still times, though, when his conversation held distinctly sexual overtones, but Autumn had grown adept at keeping him at arm’s length.

‘Want to come with me to welcome our visitor?’ Alan asked lazily, seeing that she wasn’t going to be drawn.

Beyond the reef the small bi-plane had landed safely and was bobbing gently on the smooth water.

Autumn shook her head.

‘I’m too busy. I’ll see you later.’

While Alan headed for the beach and the waiting motor launch, Autumn took the cool, shady path which led through the luxuriant tropical gardens, winding its way past the children’s play area, the tennis courts, and the huge Olympic-size swimming pool with its palm-roofed bar and tempting sun-loungers.

Inside the foyer, the discreet hum of the air-conditioning was the only sound to break the silence. The pretty dark-skinned girl behind the reception desk smiled warmly at Autumn.

‘No customers for you today,’ she chuckled. ‘They’re all too busy enjoying themselves to want to waste a minute!’

Autumn smiled back. It was true that her job here, in some ways, was something of a sinecure, since so far she had received not one complaint. She wandered into the main bar and sat down. Like everything else in the complex, its design had been carefully thought out to complement its surroundings. A large, low-roofed building, open to the sea on one side, and the gardens on another, it had a cool mosaic-tiled floor and simple white walls. Terracotta urns full of bougainvillea and other exotic tropical plants broke up its starkness and provided brilliant patches of colour.

An archway led to the restaurant and dance floor, and Autumn could hear the two brightly plumaged parrots in their huge aviary calling stridently to one another. These two birds had proved a great attraction to the children and their vocabulary seemed to increase by the day.

As she relaxed in one of the cane lounging chairs and watched the soothing, almost hypnotic motion of the waves, Autumn reflected that St John’s really was a dream tropical island paradise come true.

Alan had wanted to create a luxurious and yet unrestricted holiday atmosphere for people who wanted to get away from humdrum normality, and Autumn felt that he had succeeded, or would succeed if he could persuade their visitor to invest in the venture.

The hotel boasted two pools and had five hundred bedrooms, but as these were located in small blocks of eight double rooms, or in some cases, luxuriously equipped chalet bungalows with two double bedrooms, a sitting room and even a small kitchen, spread over fifty acres of beautiful gardens, there was no sense of overcrowding.

For the amateur sportsman the tiny island had everything his heart could desire, from tennis courts and golf, to scuba diving and every known type of water sport, all with expert tuition. Alan’s design for the complex had been on a grand scale, every tiny detail carefully considered so that guests would lack for nothing, whether it was French cuisine, or the ability to buy their own food from the small supermarket and eat al fresco should the mood take them. Every room or bungalow had a veranda or balcony, with a superb view of the sea and the gardens, and behind the main hotel block rose the magnificent backcloth of the volcanic mountain from which the island was formed, clothed in tropical rain-forest.

‘Hello there! Alan said I’d find you here!’

Autumn smiled lazily at the small brunette walking towards her. ‘Hello, Sally. Has he sent you to soften me up?’

Sally Ferrars laughed, sympathetically.

‘Poor Autumn,’ she teased. ‘But it’s your own fault for looking so fantastic!’ She eyed Autumn’s tan enviously before glancing at her own slender limbs. ‘I hope we stay here long enough for me to get a bit of colour. Rick has a weekend off coming up soon, and I want to look my best.’

‘Made any plans for the wedding yet?’ Autumn asked her.

She and Sally had known one another for two years. They had met at night school classes where they had both gone to learn German, and when Autumn had mentioned that she was looking for a job and had had previous hotel work, Sally had suggested that she apply for a courier’s job that had fallen vacant.

‘Some time before Christmas,’ she replied in answer to Autumn’s question. ‘But we don’t know when yet. It all depends when the builders finish the house.’ She yawned and sat down. ‘Tell you what, I could get fatally used to this slower pace of life. I’ve only been here three days, and yet already I’m quite accustomed to being waited on hand and foot!’

‘Umm, it does grow on you,’ Autumn admitted.

The hotel had only been open for three months and she had been there from the start. Because of the setback with the hurricane many things were still not properly finished and Alan had relied on her a good deal to liaise between the work force on the island and his London office. In many ways Autumn had been relieved when he announced that he was coming out to see how things were progressing and she had been glad to hand the responsibility of dealing with the contractors back to him. As the island was so small, with no landing strip, everything had to be brought in by boat, and this was an expensive and protracted business.

‘Alan’s gone out to meet our visitor,’ Sally said unnecessarily. ‘I don’t think he expected the negotiations to blow up so suddenly, otherwise he wouldn’t have left London.’

‘Well, I expect the investor would have wanted to see the set-up here anyway.’

‘Umm. I wonder what he’s like?’

‘Not thinking of trading Rick in already, are you?’ Autumn teased.

Sally shook her head reprovingly, eyeing her friend’s slender, tanned body with envy.

‘It’s probably just as well you didn’t go with Alan. Dressed like that you’d have given our visitor a heart-attack! That bikini is practically an incitement to rape!’

Autumn sat up quickly, frowning. ‘It’s nowhere near as brief as some.’

Sally laughed. ‘I know, but it’s what’s inside it that makes the difference,’ she teased. ‘I’m surprised you’ve never tried modelling, with your figure.’

‘I’m not flat-chested enough,’ Autumn replied matter-of-factly, contemplating the softly swelling curves partially concealed by the scarlet cotton. ‘Besides, I’ve heard it’s dull, hard work.’

‘Umm, but think of all those gorgeous, exciting men you’d get to meet!’

‘I am,’ Autumn responded, her voice so bleak that Sally glanced worriedly at her.

‘I thought we’d agreed that it was time to put the past behind you. You’re only twenty-two. You’ve plenty of time to start again.’

Autumn grimaced slightly. ‘A broken marriage isn’t exactly something you can tie up in blue ribbons and push away at the back of a drawer. And it isn’t an experience I want to repeat—ever.’

‘Not even if the right man came along?’ Sally coaxed.

‘There isn’t any “right man”, Autumn said in a very dry voice. ‘Only plenty of wrong ones.’

Although they had been friends for some time and Sally knew about Autumn’s broken marriage, she knew very little about the man to whom Autumn had been married, or the life she had led prior to their meeting, except that it had left Autumn withdrawn and bitter. Autumn had always made it plain that she didn’t want to talk about the past, and Sally had respected her wishes, but now she said softly.

‘My, my, you did get burned, didn’t you? Care to talk about it?’

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ Autumn told her, with a smile that robbed the words of their brusqueness. ‘I made a mistake…’

‘About marrying him, or loving him?’

Autumn’s smile was bitter. ‘Neither. My mistake was in thinking that he loved me.’ She got up, brushing sand from skin which had the soft, warm bloom of a ripe peach.

‘Do you realise that some folks would give anything for that sunbleached look your hair’s got since you came out here?’ Sally complained, tactfully changing the subject.

‘Yes. Do you realise how much conditioner I need to use? The sun and salt are fatal. Actually I’ve been thinking of having it cut, it’s beginning to become a nuisance.’

The hotel boasted an international class hairdressing salon and she fingered the fluid strands of blonde hair curling on to her shoulders, contemplatively.

‘If I were a rival, I’d be dragging you to that salon myself,’ Sally assured her with a grin. ‘But as I’ve already hooked my man, let me give you a piece of sisterly advice—leave your hair as it is. It suits you—and it’s sexy.’

Autumn pulled a face, her eyes clouding faintly. Sally had meant the word as a compliment, but that wasn’t how she saw it. To be called ‘sexy’ was like someone touching an exposed nerve and implied that she was deliberately seeking to attract the attention of the opposite sex. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She had already endured enough of the humiliation that followed sexual bondage to last her a lifetime. The lessons she had learned during her brief marriage would last a lifetime. They ought to do, she reflected bitterly, they had been taught by an expert, but at the time she had been too naïve to know that; just as she had been too naïve to see so many things that had only become obvious with maturity. No man was ever going to be allowed to have any sort of hold over her again, and to that end she had ruthlessly suppressed the deeply passionate side of her nature which had so betrayed her in the past.

‘Frigid’, one of her dates had called her in baffled _ frustration, but she had merely shrugged aside the word. Men used it as an insult and a weapon; a key to unlock a closed door, but it wouldn’t work with her.

Over her shoulder Sally was watching the beach.

‘Alan’s back!’ she said excitedly. ‘I wish the launch was a little bit closer, I’m dying to see what the big fish looks like.’

Autumn shrugged. ‘Fifty, paunchy, balding, and probably still thinking he’s God’s gift to women.’

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ Sally complained. ‘By the way, I’ve got strict orders to stick to Alan like glue at dinner. He wants you to be free to devote all your attention to charming our visitor.’

‘And I’ve told him I won’t be used,’ Autumn said crisply.

‘Yes, I know. Look, it shouldn’t be so bad. I’ve persuaded him that it would look a bit obvious if the three of you dined alone, so it’s his bungalow for a general discussion and drinks, followed by dinner for the four of us at the Five Fathoms restaurant. That’s what I came to tell you really. We won’t be eating until about eight, and Alan wants you over at his bungalow for half six, so that you can help him put our friend fully in the picture.’

Recognising her friend’s tactful hand in the rearrangement of the evening, Autumn smiled faintly. She hadn’t been looking forward to an evening being very obviously dangled in front of Alan’s visitor, like a piece of tempting bait. Fond though she was of Alan, and much as she was aware of how much she owed him, her own self-respect was something she meant to retain no matter what the cost.

‘I’ll see you later,’ Sally announced, getting to her feet. ‘Alan wants me to type up some figures for him and take them over to the bungalow.’ She frowned anxiously. ‘I do hope everything goes okay. It would be criminal if he lost St John’s now, after all he’s done. Every cent he owns is tied up in it.’

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Autumn told her. ‘But I object to being used as a lure.’

‘Yes, I know, but you know Alan—tact isn’t his strong suit. I don’t think he ever intended you to come on strong with the heavy seduction scene. A light flirtation was probably all he had in mind.’

‘Have you any idea who this man is?’ Autumn asked her.

Sally shook her head.

‘Not a clue. Alan’s been awfully cagey—something about everything having to be kept strictly secret until he comes to a decision. You know how cloak-and-dagger these financial deals can be. I’m sure financiers must all be closet secret agents at heart!’

The bar was starting to fill up with guests wanting to enjoy the view and relax over a pre-dinner drink, and several of them paused to speak to Autumn.

On her way back to her bungalow she paused to glance at the notice board, pleased to see that the boat trip round the island, which was a fortnightly excursion, was well subscribed to.

In her bungalow she glanced at her watch. Half past five. She had an hour to get ready. Deciding against anything too formal, she opened her wardrobe and withdrew a silk two-piece, in deep cyclamen pink, leaving it on the bed while she stepped under the shower.

The cool sting of the water was instantly reviving and she enjoyed the therapeutic effect of the water against her skin. Towelling herself dry, she caught a glimpse of her body in the full-length mirror and frowned, turning away. There had been a time, shortly after her marriage broke up, when she found herself hating the sight of her own flesh, almost to the point where she wanted to inflict pain upon it for its betrayal, but this mood had passed and with it the desire to dress in drab, dull clothes that concealed her figure.

Bending to plug in her hair-dryer, she frowned again, her mind on the letter she had recently received from her solicitor. As she had only been married to her husband for a year before she left him, there could be no divorce without his consent for five years after the date of their marriage. It was now two years since she had left him; that meant she had another two years to wait before she could divorce him. She wielded her hairbrush angrily, making her scalp tingle. As she had made it plain that she had no plans to remarry, the two-year wait should not prove too onerous, her solicitor claimed, but until she was completely and legally free Autumn felt as though she were still held in thrall to the past. That she could never again recapture the innocence she had once had, she did not dispute, but while her marriage continued to exist, even if only on paper, it was like an open wound deep inside her, refusing to heal, festering and spreading its poison through her life. She knew her reasoning was illogical, but her desire to be free possessed her to the extent that she felt as though she were in limbo, unable to get on with the business of living until she had finally severed herself from the past. No one but herself knew how she felt. When she had walked out on her marriage she had locked the door on her memories and thrown away the key. Her mouth compressed. Two more years. How was she to endure it? Beg and plead to be set free? Her mouth twisted bitterly. No way!

The cyclamen silk emphasised her tan, the vivid colour making her hair seem fairer, her eyes more intensely blue, and the thin fabric clung seductively to her long, slender legs; the brief camisole top revealing the full taut swell of her breasts.

People dressed casually on St John’s and Autumn slid her bare feet into high-heeled cyclamen sandals, spraying herself lightly with Opium, before adding a slick of lip-gloss to her mouth. In a face that was delicately modelled with high cheekbones and an almost fragile jawline, she thought her mouth too wide and full. It was only since coming to London that she had discovered that men found it sexy, and she had gone through a stage of wearing only the palest lipstick as she tried to detract from its appeal. Now she had come to terms with her own sexuality. She no longer cared how others viewed her; only how she viewed herself. Her own self-respect was more important than the opinions of others.

The thin silk whispered provocatively against her legs as she stepped outside into the dense darkness of the tropical night, alive with sounds that seemed to echo the pulsing beat of the sea against the shore.

As she opened the door of Alan’s bungalow, Sally smiled up at her over Alan’s head. Alan himself was sitting on the edge of his chair; the posture a familiar one, his mind and body totally engrossed in the man seated opposite him. The electric light was unkind, revealing the stress in his eyes, but didn’t stop him from looking as alert as a terrier at a rat-hole, as he talked quickly, gesticulating, proffering the papers stacked neatly on the table in front of him.

Sally was drinking a rum punch, and poured one for Autumn, who took it with a smile. A large jug of the punch stood on the table, and as Sally leaned forward to top up Alan’s glass Autumn had her first glimpse of the man sitting opposite him.

Recognition and fear welled up inside her like sickness. She was shaking so badly that she had to clasp her hands together to hide their trembling. Thick dark hair curled down over the collar of a pale silk shirt, a jacket lying discarded next to its owner, his back lean and muscled beneath the thin covering.

Alan had stopped talking and was listening carefully. Autumn felt as though she had strayed into a nightmare. She had no need to listen to that cool, incisive voice, shredding all Alan’s carefully balanced arguments; its every inflection and intonation was as familiar to her as her own. If she listened hard enough she could even hear the faint contempt lacing the words.

‘You say everything would have been fine if it hadn’t been for this hurricane,’ he was saying to Alan. ‘But surely hurricanes and tropical islands are something that automatically go together and must be allowed for?’

Alan flushed darkly, his voice conciliating as he mumbled a reply.

How well she knew that hard, ‘I’ve got you in a corner,’ tone, Autumn thought numbly. And what would follow. Alan wouldn’t be allowed to escape until his arguments were relentlessly decimated. Her sickness grew and she wanted badly to run, and then Alan looked up and registered her presence, wariness and relief struggling for supremacy as he stood up and drew her forward.

‘Autumn, let me introduce you to Yorke Laing, head of Laing Airlines.’

She could tell from Alan’s eyes that although he was trying hard to pretend he did not, he knew quite well who Yorke was, and she acknowledged the introduction with a cold smile, extending her hand for the briefest second.

‘Yorke.’

She was not going to be part of the pretence. She knew that Sally was staring at her, and felt relief that her friend at least had not been a party to this charade.

She didn’t need to meet Yorke’s cold green eyes to know the expression she would find there; she had seen it too often before. His face wasn’t strictly handsome. It was too rugged for that, too male; the harsh symmetry of bones and flesh mirroring his nature and attitude to life. Dear God, Autumn thought hysterically. Alan had baited his line for a ‘big fish’ and he had caught one with a vengeance, but what had he used as bait. Her?

Yorke’s eyes slid over her with cool insolence, stripping away the silk suit and laying bare the flesh beneath, but Autumn forced herself to withstand it, her own eyes cold and contemptuous. There had been a time when that look had been sufficient to set her body on fire; but in those days she had seen only the sexual awareness and not the coldness which lay beneath it.

Women had been standing in line for Yorke from the first day he wore long trousers, and there wasn’t a thing he didn’t know about their minds or bodies.

‘Look, we’d better get over to the restaurant,’ Alan said quickly. ‘We can have a drink over there and talk later, when we’re all feeling more relaxed.’

He was standing up as he spoke, and Autumn walked out of the bungalow without a word, ignoring Sally’s puzzled eyes. She could feel Yorke looking at her, and she used the smile experience had taught her was a far more effective weapon than any amount of irritation or embarrassment. It was so cold and bitter that it normally froze off even the most ardent and thick-skinned Don Juan. On Yorke it was like using paper to ward off a forest fire; his glance consumed her, destroying her barricades, warning her of what was to come, but she gave him another of her cold little smiles and turned away from him to Alan. Behind her she could hear the breathless excitement in Sally’s voice as she answered his deep-toned questions. Even Sally, fathoms deep in love with her Richard, was not proof against Yorke’s sexuality.

Alan closed the door of his bungalow and turned to Yorke to make some comment about arranging for him to see over the grounds, and Sally used the momentary diversion to murmur curiously to Autumn, ‘What gives? I detected a definite undercurrent in the bungalow just now, and when you saw Yorke you looked as though you’d seen a ghost.’

‘No such luck,’ Autumn muttered bitterly, taken off guard when Yorke loomed over her, his teeth white in the velvet darkness.

‘What a devoted wife you are, my love,’ he murmured dulcetly, loudly enough for Sally to hear. ‘And when I’ve come all this way to find you…’

He turned back to Alan and Sally gaped in bemusement.

‘Was I hearing things, or…’ she broke off when she saw Autumn’s pale face. ‘My God, Autumn, he is your husband, isn’t he?’

Such was Yorke’s power that even though Sally knew what her marriage had done to her, she could still look at her with perplexed eyes, and was no doubt thinking she must have been a fool to leave him, Autumn thought on a ragged sigh. But who was she to blame Sally? Hadn’t she been just as bemused—once? She loitered behind the others deliberately, glad that the path through the gardens to the Five Fathoms restaurant was barely wide enough for two people. At first when she saw the white flash of a dinner jacket she froze in alarm, thinking it was Yorke, but he was in front of her, his arm resting protectively on Sally’s waist as he helped her to negotiate the twisty path.

‘I’m sorry about this, Autumn,’ Alan muttered, falling into step beside her. ‘It was a hell of a thing to do to you, but he didn’t give me much alternative. When he was first introduced to me I had no idea he was your husband. He’d been recommended to me by my merchant bankers and he seemed enthusiastic about the island. It wasn’t until he’d discovered just how bad things were that he started to put the screws on. He told me if I didn’t fix up this meeting he’d make sure I wouldn’t come out of this mess with ten pounds to call my own.’

‘So you simply caved in and threw me to the wolves?’ She tried to keep the shaken anger out of her voice, but it was impossible. When she had first seen Yorke in the bungalow she had thought she must be hallucinating; that it was all part of the dreadful nightmares that used to torment her in the early months after she left him. There had never been any question of him wanting her back—he had wanted the marriage to end just as much as she did herself. When she had left him she had reverted to her maiden name, simply because she couldn’t bear to retain anything that might remind her of him, and as far as she knew he had never made any attempt to trace her, so why this, now?

‘Come on, it isn’t as bad as all that,’ Alan said gruffly. ‘He just wants to talk to you, Autumn.’

Autumn ignored him.

‘You knew who he was all the time,’ she accused. ‘All the time you were giving me that “be nice to him” bit, you knew!’

‘He made me promise to say nothing. I tell you, Autumn, he would have ruined me if I hadn’t agreed. And still might. Look, I know I’ve no right to ask this of you, but St John’s means one hell of a lot to me; not just financially… and he has the power to make or break it.’

‘Come on, you two,’ Sally called back to them. ‘Stop dawdling!’

Yorke barely glanced at Autumn when they arrived at the restaurant, but she was aware of him with every breath she drew. Why had he gone to such lengths to find her? Did he want a divorce? Her heart thudded against her breastbone and she glanced at his shuttered profile, her palms slightly damp. If that was the case, surely he wouldn’t seek her out in person?

And Alan. He really was unbelievable. Surely he must be able to see that she couldn’t stay on St John’s now? But he didn’t see, she thought tiredly. He was so wrapped up in his business that he saw only that, and Yorke had made use of the fact.

The Five Fathoms restaurant was something of a showpiece; the restaurant itself was below ground, having been excavated out of the volcanic rock, at the opposite end of the bay from the main hotel complex.

Inside it was the last word in luxury, stretching out below the seabed; one huge illuminated glass ‘window’ looking out on to the undersea world of the coral reef, teeming with tiny fish and live coral. Clever lighting and engineering had turned the sea outside into an ‘aquarium’ and through the glass ‘window’ the diners could watch the ceaseless play of underwater life, while they ate and danced.

The atmosphere in the Five Fathoms was more sophisticated than in the dining room attached to the main hotel, and guests tended to dress more formally and make a visit to the Five Fathoms something of an occasion.

The head waiter came forward to greet them, and although he recognised Alan, it was to Yorke that he turned automatically, to ask if he had any table preference.

By common consent they opted for one quite close to the dance floor, but with excellent views through the ‘window’, and as the muted strains of the resident steel band filled the silence, Autumn tried to relax. Now, the numbness which had followed her initial recognition of Yorke had given way to delayed shock, and she was glad of the dim atmosphere of the restaurant, tensing as she anticipated Yorke’s attention being focused upon her.

She had underestimated him, she decided several minutes earlier. He was dividing his time impartially between Alan and Sally, making Sally laugh as he related some anecdote. Autumn stared stoically down at her wine glass. The days were gone when she would vibrate to those soft tones, like a well tuned instrument to a master player, sexual excitement erupting at a mere look, the slightest touch enough to send her into a frenzy of need.

At thirty-four Yorke looked little different than he had done three years ago when she first met him. His body beneath the immaculate dinner suit was still lithe and firm, his hair dark and thick, and his face taut and alert. He looked lean and predatory, the fierce competitiveness that drove him, apparent in his expression. Yorke was a man who admitted no equal; no contenders for the things he considered his.

He had learned about life in a hard school, Autumn reflected. His father had abandoned Yorke and his mother when Yorke was six, rejecting his son in favour of the daughter his mistress had given him, and that rejection was something Yorke had never forgotten nor forgiven. During their marriage Yorke had mentioned his father only once, and that had been when Autumn question him about him. He had been a haulage contractor with a profitable business, but in his will he had made it plain that neither Yorke nor his ex-wife were to receive anything from his estate, and Yorke had bitterly resented this further confirmation of his rejection.

With the benefit of hindsight, Autumn had come to see that Yorke’s driving ambition was as a direct result of this rejection; his desire to succeed a deep-seated need springing from a bottomless well of bitterness; but the knowledge had come too late. And Yorke had succeeded. His hugely successful independent airline was now world-renowned.

The waiter brought the lobster Autumn had ordered as a starter, but she could only pick at it. Ever since she left Yorke she had been armouring herself for the moment when she must confront him again, but now fear tingled along her spine as he raised his head and glanced assessingly at her.

What did he want? Her nails dug into the palms of her hands as she tried to steady her racing pulses.

The others were ready for their main meal, and Autumn pushed her lobster aside barely touched.

‘Something spoiling your appetite?’ Yorke asked smoothly.

She smiled coolly back, glad of the surface sophistication the last few years had brought. At one time Yorke had been able to destroy her fragile defences in three minutes—just as long as it took his expert lovemaking to send her body into heated rebellion against her mind. She had once thought that he loved her, but she had come to realise that hatred was closer to what he actually did feel, and in the end their marriage had become an unendurable hell, while her mind fought against his undeniable mastery of her body.

It was plain that both Alan and Sally had fallen completely under Yorke’s spell, just as she had once done herself, but now she could see through the charming shell to the man beneath and she ignored him when he smiled at her, concentrating purely on surviving the evening unscathed.

At one point while the two men were discussing business, Sally leaned across the table and said enviously to Autumn, ‘I love your outfit. Every other woman in the place is longing to scratch your eyes out and all the men are wondering what you’re like in bed.’

Autumn felt the colour burn up under her skin. Normally Sally’s forthright manner didn’t bother her, but on this occasion her eyes slid automatically to Yorke, her tongue wetting her top lip in nervous dread.

‘Yes, what are you like, Autumn?’ Yorke mocked softly. ‘It’s so long that I’ve practically forgotten.’

‘You’d find me very disappointing.’ Autumn stared at him, deliberately holding his eyes and then letting her own drop as obviously over his body as his glance did over hers. She had found it to be quite an effective ploy in the past. Men might say that they were all in favour of equal rights, but they still thought some rights belonged to them alone.

Yorke wasn’t the slightest bit abashed; indeed he returned her look with deliberately insulting thoroughness, and Autumn, who had seen forty-year-olds flustered under the look she had given him, knew that he had turned the tables on her. She turned away, ostensibly to speak to Alan, but in reality to give herself an opportunity to recharge her emotional batteries.

Merely being in the same room as Yorke drained her of energy; he was like a force-field, destroying everything that threatened his own supremacy.

André, the chef, had surpassed himself with the food, but Autumn was barely aware of what they ate. Other couples drifted on to the dance floor and she found her stomach muscles contracting in nervous dread. She could not dance with Yorke. She could not bear to be held close to him; the mere thought was enough to make her feel physically sick.

At her side she could feel Alan watching Yorke anxiously. Worrying about the future of the island, no doubt, but when he asked her to dance with him she hadn’t the heart to refuse.

The steel band were good and Autumn had danced with Alan often enough for them to make a well matched couple. The small dance floor was quite crowded, and they were on the far side of the room from their table, and yet the moment Yorke and Sally joined them Autumn was unbearably aware of their presence, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickling warningly.

When the music slowed to a more romantic beat, Autumn suggested to Alan that they sit down.

‘Still not forgiven me, have you?’ he asked wryly, his hand on the small of her back as they went back to their table. ‘I honestly didn’t have any choice. Do you think if I hadn’t agreed it would have prevented him from coming out here? He’s a man who’s used to getting his own way, Autumn.’

‘You could have warned me,’ she replied evenly. ‘I’m leaving Travel Mates, Alan. I can’t stay on after this.’

He cursed and then fell silent, glancing across the small distance that separated them from Yorke and Sally, dancing close together.

Once to see him hold another girl like that would have brought a physical pain so acute that it would have hurt, Autumn reflected, watching them. Now she felt nothing. Her feelings were in cold storage, and that was how she intended them to stay.

The music stopped and Sally and Yorke broke apart. As though they were communicating by telepathy Autumn knew that that dance had just been his opening gambit; that he was stalking her, deliberately trying to instil the weakening fear that had once made her his willing victim.

Snatching up her bag, she told Alan she was going to the cloakroom. Once there she reapplied her lip-gloss and combed her hair, sitting sightlessly in front of the mirror. When the door opened she froze, but it was only Sally, her eyes concerned.

‘Are you all right?’

‘As all right as anyone can be after being confronted by a piece of their past they thought well and truly buried,’ Autumn responded.

Sally’s smile was wryly appreciative. ‘And what a past!’

‘If you’d been married to him you wouldn’t have let him out of your sight, is that what you’re going to say?’

Sally heard the bitterness and shook her head. ‘Autumn, you and I have been friends long enough for me to know the sort of person you are. I admit that Yorke isn’t exactly what I pictured when you talked about your husband. He’s far more mind-blowing; but anyone but a fool can tell with just one look that he’s pure steel. Fun to play with as long as it’s just a game, but I’d hate to have him for my enemy, and it was a pretty rotten trick for Alan to play, unleashing him on you like that without any warning. Yorke’s idea, I suppose?’

Autumn nodded her head.

‘It seems that Yorke threatened to destroy Travel Mates if Alan didn’t help him.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Leave here just as soon as I can. I don’t know what Yorke wants, and I don’t care. There’s only one thing I want from him—a divorce!’

‘Look, would you like me to stay with you tonight?’ Sally suggested sympathetically.

Autumn smiled briefly. ‘No, thanks, but it was a kind thought.’

As she slipped out into the darkness she drew in gulps of fresh air, her mind busily planning her escape. Tomorrow she had to go with the sailing trip round the island, but there was a flight to London from St Lucia, the day after, and with any luck she could be on it. Beyond her arrival in London she refused to think. Every instinct she possessed was overwhelming her with the need to put as great a distance between herself and Yorke as she could.

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN she left the restaurant, Autumn didn’t immediately return to her bungalow. Instead she walked along the beach, carrying her flimsy sandals in one hand as she felt the sea-washed firmness of the sand beneath her feet. Tonight she felt a deep longing to give herself up to the vastness of the sea; to be swamped by its embrace, and be swept effortlessly into an unending void where all feeling ceased to exist. It would be so easy to walk into the sea now and keep on walking, and she had to fight against the urge to do so.

Turning her back on the sea, she walked determinedly towards her bungalow, inserting her key in the lock and opening the door.

Once inside she stiffened like a wary cat, sensing danger. Tobacco smoke drifted across the darkened room, but even before the familiar scent reached her, she knew who it was who stood in the shadows by the window.

He crossed the room before she could react, grasping her arm and pulling her towards him, locking the door behind her and pocketing the key with one swift, lithe movement.

‘Still so predictable,’ he mocked. ‘Never fight when you can run.’

‘I wasn’t running, Yorke,’ Autumn told him, shrugging dismissively. ‘If you must know, I was tired. I’ve had a long day and now I want to go to bed.’

It was a tactical mistake and she was annoyed with herself for making it. Yorke’s eyes gleamed silver-green in the darkness; the colour of the sea. Cat’s eyes, watching; waiting eyes.

‘So do I,’ he drawled mockingly.

‘I meant alone,’ Autumn told him without bothering to disguise her withdrawal. ‘I find I prefer it that way, especially in this climate.’ She dropped her shoes on the floor, sliding them on as though the increased inches gave her increased protection, but even so, the top of her head barely reached Yorke’s chin. She knew with a swift stab of satisfaction that her response had surprised him, even though he disguised it. The old Autumn would have been angry and defensive, backing away from him and defying him to touch her.

‘You’ve had experience, then?’ Yorke asked her silkily. ‘But not with friend Alan. You’ve never taken him to your bed, have you, Autumn?’

‘I don’t really think that’s any of your business,’ Autumn replied coolly, reaching up to switch on the light. ‘Do you?’

She felt his indrawn breath, knowing without looking at him that he was angry. So she had pierced his guard. Good! Always in their past encounters he had driven her into a corner, defeating her with his logic and hard determination. Then she had lacked the weapons to fight him, a loser by virtue of her love for him. Now it was different.

‘Have you slept with him?’ Yorke demanded angrily, catching hold of her wrist with sudden violence.

‘Why don’t you ask him?’

Autumn was reasonably sure that he would do no such thing, and her success went to her head. It was going to be easier than she had thought. She had allowed her imagination to build Yorke into a more formidable adversary than he actually was, forgetting that during the intervening years she had grown from an inexperienced adolescent, young for her years, into a woman.

‘Please give me my key and leave,’ she demanded coldly. ‘I have an early start in the morning.’

‘That cold, dismissive manner might work with other men,’ Yorke snarled at her, tightening his grip of her wrist, ‘but it doesn’t work with me, Autumn. I know too well what lies under that ice-cold exterior, and I haven’t followed you half way across the world to be dismissed and frozen out. Besides…’ his voice dropped huskily, his eyes wandering over in insolent appraisal, until she felt her lungs would burst with the effort of maintaining her slow even breathing, ‘we both know that the ice is just a façade, don’t we?’

‘What do you want? I’m not in the mood for games, Yorke. Just say your piece and then go.’

His eyes darkened and for a moment Autumn felt the unleashed power of the anger her dismissal had aroused, and she knew that she had not overestimated the danger he represented—far from it. And then he was smiling mockingly, his eyes cruel, as his thumb circled the soft inner flesh of her wrist with insidious determination.

‘I want you, Autumn,’ he said softly.

Once long ago that soft caress would have been sufficient to drive her into his arms, begging brokenly for the satisfaction only his lovemaking could bring, but now, after one deep, shuddering breath, she had herself under control, her eyes empty of everything but distaste as she stared at him.

‘Well, I don’t want you.’

She sensed that her response had disconcerted him, although he recovered quickly, shielding his thoughts from her and watching her from beneath lowered lashes, his hard face unreadable.

‘Well, well, you’ve grown up with a vengeance, haven’t you?’ he drawled softly. ‘Anyone who didn’t know you could never guess that you’re as vulnerable as an oyster without its shell under all that surface toughness.’

Somehow she managed to laugh, a light, silvery sound, her head thrown back challengingly to reveal the smooth, seductive arch of her throat.

‘You’re the one who doesn’t know me, Yorke. Two years is a long time, and the toughness, as you call it, isn’t just on the surface. It goes way, way down. God knows why you had to drag Alan into our private affairs, but I’ve already told him, I’m leaving Travel Mates as of tonight, and I shall be on the first available flight out of St Lucia. You and I have nothing to say to one another.’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Yorke told her softly. ‘I’m going to see to that. And you’re not as tough as you like to pretend. You’ve forgotten, Autumn, I know everything there is to know about you.’

She smiled again.

‘Not true, Yorke. You knew all there was to know about a girl called Autumn. That girl no longer exists. And you don’t know the first thing about the woman she’s become.’

‘Then perhaps I ought to start finding out,’ Yorke breathed huskily, but Autumn was too quick for him, freeing herself from his grasp and going to stand by the window.

‘Our marriage is over, Yorke, and all I want from you now is my freedom.’

‘That could be arranged.’

She whirled round, staring at him.

‘You’ll agree to our divorce?’

‘I might, under certain conditions.’

‘What conditions?’ Autumn breathed, knowing the moment that she spoke that she had betrayed herself.

‘Not so changed after all,’ Yorke taunted. ‘You’re still as impetutous. I want you back, Autumn, as my wife, living in my home.’

His words caught her off guard, and she flung at him bitterly. ‘Home? And where would that be, Yorke? The flat in Knightsbridge? The one you spent at least one night a month in, in between your business trips. Thanks, but no, thanks. There isn’t any way you could persuade me to go back to you. No prisoner ever enters the condemned cell twice.’

‘Is that what our marriage was to you? And yet you entered it willingly enough, as I remember; even to the extent of being quite prepared to anticipate its vows.’ His mouth twisted wryly at the dark colour flooding her skin.

He was so arrogant, so sure of her capitulation, Autumn reflected angrily, staring out into the night. Over the last two years she had developed an armour against the past; an unscalable wall behind which she had dammed up everything that had happened, including the girl she had once been. Now Yorke was trying to tear down that wall.

‘Don’t try to pretend you ever cared about our marriage, Yorke,’ she said bitterly. ‘We both know that if I hadn’t left voluntarily when I did, you would have had me forcibly removed. You told me yourself that our marriage was a mistake and that I bored you. And it didn’t take you long to replace me either.’

A shaft of pain lanced through her, as the past broke through the barriers, and she tensed automatically, as though by doing so she could hold it back.

‘Why didn’t you divorce me when I left?

Yorke shrugged. ‘Why should I? A wife is an excellent deterrent against unwanted involvements.’

His cynicism took her breath away.

‘But you don’t want me… you don’t love me…’

The words fell between them and she wished them unsaid. They had been her tearful refrain to so many of their quarrels. ‘You don’t love me…’ And never once had he denied it.

‘I need you.’

‘Need me?’ She stared at him, her eyes darkening. ‘You never needed anyone in your entire life—you used to boast about it, telling me how invulnerable you were. I’ve built a new life for myself now, Yorke, and I don’t need you.’

‘Just my consent to our divorce, and I’d give you that; for four months of your time.’

Four months! Autumn wrapped her arms protectively around her body, chilled despite the warmth of the tropical night. During the brief span of their marriage she had come to know that beneath Yorke’s surface, charm lay a cold implacability to have his own way, which would admit no fallibility, no opposition, and now he was saying that he wanted her back. Why?

She asked him, tensing herself against his answer, not knowing what to expect.

‘Business,’ he told her succinctly.

She was glad he couldn’t see her expression. ‘Business?’ Hadn’t that been partially to blame for their break-up? They should never have married in the first place; Yorke had never intended that they should. A brief affair had been all that he wanted, but he had underestimated her inexperience. It would have been better by far if she had simply had an affair with him, she admitted with hindsight, but at nineteen… She sighed, pulling her thoughts away from the past and turning round to face him.

‘Business?’ she reiterated with mocking bitterness. ‘You don’t change, do you, Yorke?’

‘Perhaps if there’d been something worth coming home to I might have come home more often,’ Yorke replied cruelly. ‘But we’re not talking about the past, Autumn, we’re talking about the future. I’m in line for a K—a knighthood,’ he explained curtly when she looked blank. ‘Services to industry, you know the sort of thing.’

She hid her surprise under a cool smile. Where his business was concerned Yorke was tirelessly ambitious, but she had never known position or wealth matter to him for their own sake.

As though he had followed her train of thought he added coolly, ‘For myself I don’t give a damn, but it will do the airline good, and the way competition is these days, every little helps. The problem is that I’ve been warned that under the present very correct government that it will greatly aid my chances of success if I were seen to be respectably married. The playboy image is not favoured, and that’s why I need a wife.’

‘You bastard,’ Autumn said huskily. ‘Go and find yourself one somewhere else, and get out of here.’

He laughed without humour. ‘What did you expect? That I’d come chasing all this way just to get you back into my bed? You always did have a highly charged imagination. You were good, Autumn, but not that good,’ he added brutally. ‘And as for finding myself a wife somewhere else, why should I, when I’ve still got you?’

Their eyes met and held, and Autumn could feel the hot anger welling up inside her, fighting it down as she tried to remain cool and controlled.

‘Stop it, Yorke,’ she warned him. ‘I’m not your possession. And I’m not coming back to you.’

‘Afraid?’ he taunted. ‘You haven’t changed at all, Autumn. You’re still running scared, still terrified of facing up to life.’

She tried to block out his words, but they held a core of truth which echoed bitterly through her.

‘I’m not afraid of you, or any man!’ she lashed back angrily. ‘The past is past for me, Yorke.’

‘But it isn’t, is it?’ he said softly. ‘How can it be while you’re still my wife—and that’s just what you are,’ he reminded her suavely. ‘No matter how much you’d like to deny it or forget it you can’t, can you? And how you hate it!’

His taunts made her writhe with mingled rage and anguish.

‘You’re a coward, Autumn,’ he said coolly. ‘You think you can escape from what happened by pretending not to see it, instead of facing up to it. Or is it something else you fear?’ he taunted softly. ‘Perhaps you’re not as indifferent to me as you pretend?’

‘Indifferent!’ She went white with anger, unable to prevent the highly charged surge of emotion his accusation aroused.

‘I’m not indifferent to you, Yorke,’ she told him bitterly. ‘I hate you, and I’ll go on hating you until the day I die. Does that satisfy you?’

She was panting slightly, her eyes glittering as she threw the words at him. ‘And as for our marriage… Get out of here, Yorke!’

She turned her back on him, fighting for self-control. They had played this scene so often before. Her defiant; him taunting, sure of her ultimate capitulation, which had always been forthcoming, but she was not going to allow her bitterness to give him victory now. The ardent passion which had once held her in thrall to him had been tamed and the searingly painful lessons his humiliation of her pride had inflicted upon her mind acted as a curb upon her senses. She felt like a laboratory mouse trained to react to light and heat, as the sensual softness of his voice reminded her of the bitter pain which had followed her abject surrender, freezing her emotions behind a wall of ice.

‘I’m not the floor show, Yorke,’ she said coldly. ‘I know you get a kick out of baiting me, but you aren’t going to get a reaction. Those days are gone, and I’m immune—you saw to that. Another two years and I’ll be free of you for good, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.’

She hadn’t heard him come up behind her, and when his hands grasped her wrists, pulling her back against the hard male warmth of his body, she froze instantly.

‘So, you’re immune, are you?’ he whispered savagely, turning her towards him and imprisoning her against him, his mouth feathering tormentingly against her throat, reawakening aching memories of how she had once responded to that light caress.

Her mouth felt dry, every muscle tensed against his deliberate and calculated assault upon her senses. So many times before he had broken her self-control like this, but this time she was not going to give way.

She knew the exact moment when his cool amusement gave way to hard anger. She could feel it in the sudden changed pressure of his mouth as it moved against her skin, trying to prise her lips apart as they remained stubbornly closed to him, her eyes open and defiant as they met the smouldering rage in his.

When at last he raised his head, his eyes were murderous.

‘Finished?’ Autumn asked sweetly, enjoying her victory.

‘Like hell!’ Yorke responded, bending his head again and taking her still parted lips in a kiss of searing brutality, from which she automatically withdrew, closing her mind to what was happening and standing within the circle of his hard arms like a stuffed doll, and still it went on, punishing, probing, ripping the scars from old wounds and leaving her exposed and bleeding, her nails digging deep into the palms of her hands as she fought not to betray any emotion.

Yorke released her with a muttered oath and pushed her away, his face suffused with angry colour.

‘You little bitch, you enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ he grated.

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

‘No, I didn’t enjoy it, Yorke, no woman enjoys being humiliated and degraded, but I have learned to distinguish between punishment and pleasure. Now perhaps you understand what I mean when I say that nothing on this earth would induce me to live with you again as your wife.’

‘Not even if I promised you a divorce the moment the New Year Honours List is published?’ Yorke suggested softly.

She was powerless to prevent her instinctive reaction, and hope leapt to life in her eyes as they flew to meet him.

‘Think carefully about it, Autumn. I can make it easy for you, or drag you and the past all through the courts, opening up all the old scars. I can fight you every inch of the way and you’ll be the one who’s hurt, I’ll make sure of that. Remember how it was between us, and think hard before you decide whether you want it spilled out in front of strangers. All I’m asking for is four months of your time. You give me what I want and I’ll tell my solicitors to draw up the divorce papers the moment the Honours List is announced.’

She ran her tongue round lips which had suddenly gone bone dry. She knew that Yorke wasn’t making idle threats and shivered suddenly, tormented by the vivid picture he had drawn, knowing that she could not face the sort of court action he was talking about.

‘You want that divorce—and badly,’ Yorke reminded her softly. ‘Don’t bother trying to deny it. I’m even prepared to put my promise to agree to our divorce in writing if you wish.’

‘You’ll have to,’ Autumn responded crisply, checking as he pounced in triumph.

‘So you’ll do it?’

What alternative did she have? Another two years of hell, trying to hold back the past, with the ordeal and blood-bath of a court hearing at the end of it, or four months of playing the part of Yorke’s ‘wife’ in return for her immediate freedom.

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

‘Yes, I’ll do it, Yorke, but on two conditions. Your promise in writing that the divorce begins the moment the Honours List is published, and your agreement to helping Alan with this venture. That shouldn’t prove too burdensome—eventually the island will prove extremely profitable.’

‘No third condition?’ he taunted softly. ‘Banning me from your bed? A safeguard in case you forget that you’ve turned into a piece of ice and remember how it used to be with us.’

His words brought back memories Autumn would rather have remained forgotten, but she managed to breathe evenly without betraying any of her inner turmoil. He had broken through her defences once tonight; he wasn’t going to do it again.

‘I don’t need a third condition, Yorke,’ she told him quietly. ‘As we shall no doubt be living in your apartment and the bed will be yours, the problem shouldn’t arise. Or have you forgotten telling me that the only way I would ever get into it again would be if I crawled on my hands and knees and begged? My begging days are over, Yorke. I wouldn’t ask you for water if I were dying of thirst. The only reason I’m agreeing to come back to you at all is for the pleasure in four months’ time of leaving the past behind me for ever.’

She saw the colour leave his face, and knew that she had touched a raw spot. When it came to dishing out the contempt Yorke was a past master, but it was a different matter when he was on the receiving end of it. Bile rose in her throat and she felt the bitterness of the past rising up to swamp her, fighting off the cringing memories of that last destructive quarrel when Yorke had thrown those words at her. She had known then that she must get away from him or be completely destroyed, because then her need of him had been so great that she had known that she could not continue to live with him and not eventually plead with him to make love to her, and once she did that she would have destroyed the last fragile remnant of her self-respect.

‘I hope Alan appreciates what you’re doing for him,’ York said sardonically, interrupting her train of thought. ‘Or is it just for him?’ His hand caressed her bare arm, the flesh rising in goosebumps under his skilled fingers, his mouth descending to tease her skin with coaxing, soft kisses. Autumn forced herself to remain still and cold.

‘No, Yorke,’ she told him quietly. ‘It’s for me as well. Call it part of my therapy. I’d like to tell you that having you touch me fills me with loathing,’ she added calmly, ‘but that isn’t true.’

She felt him stiffen and sensed that he was expecting her surrender.

‘You see, Yorke,’ she told him emotionlessly, ‘I feel nothing. Nothing at all, neither for you nor anyone else. You destroyed my ability to feel.’

She moved away from him as she spoke, acutely aware of him behind her as he unlocked the door, throwing her the key.

‘Don’t try running out on me, Autumn,’ he warned her curtly, ‘or I’ll make you wait for eternity for divorce. The moment I’ve got the negotiations here all wrapped up, we’re leaving—together.’

Autumn did not respond. She could not. It was taking all her will-power merely to breathe. She felt as though she had died and been born again, living through some dreadful, indescribable holocaust, to emerge from it another person.

How long she stood staring out of the window she did not know. A soft tap on her door roused her, and Sally’s anxious face told her how concerned her friend had been.

‘I saw Yorke leaving,’ she said by way of explanation for her presence. ‘What happened?’

‘He’s promised me my divorce, provided I live with him for the next four months.’ Autumn explained the situation emotionlessly, whilst Sally listened.

‘You’re hoping that living with him will free you from whatever it is that haunts you from the past, aren’t you?’ she said shrewdly.

‘In a way,’ Autumn agreed wryly. ‘Don’t hypnotists use much the same method for freeing patients from their hang-ups? A mental regression to childhood to live through the trauma once more and come to terms with it?

‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Sally said unhappily. ‘You could be playing with fire.’

‘I’m immune,’ Autumn told her. Discussing Yorke’s offer with Sally had helped to clarify her own thoughts on the subject, and confirmed her own view that the time for running was over, and yet still fear lingered, urging her to flight. That was the response of the gauche adolescent she had been, not the woman she now was.

‘Sure you don’t want me to stay?’ Sally asked her.

Autumn shook her head. She wanted to be alone, to think things through slowly and carefully. When Sally had gone she stared out of her uncurtained window, the soothing movement of the sea beckoning her like a benison, then she opened the french window and walked towards it.

For two years she had told herself that she was free, but she wasn’t, and never would be until she could lie in Yorke’s arms and feel nothing, apart from the intense satisfaction of her rejection of him!

The beach was in darkness and deserted, the faint strains of music reaching her from the hotel fading as she walked farther away from it, her feet making delicate imprints in the damp sand.

She loved the sea, endlessly fascinated by its ceaseless movement. Lying on it was like being rocked in a huge cradle. The tide had washed up a huge conch shell and she picked it up, shuddering a little as she glimpsed the fleshy eel-like conch inside. The sting of a conch could be particularly painful, and she made a mental note to remind the new holidaymakers of this fact in the morning. Collecting the varied shells to be found on the beaches was a favourite pastime with the visitors. The wooden beach hut which held the diving and snorkelling equipment was closed up for the night, the dinghies and windsurfers pulled up outside it; the two power boats the hotel used for water skiing drifted easily at anchor.

The beach came to an abrupt end, the black volcanic rock from which the Five Fathoms restaurant was carved stretching skywards in a sheer, unscalable cliff, thick with luxuriant vegetation, and plunging steeply into the sea. Autumn sat down on a piece of driftwood and stared out into the darkness.

Ever since she had left Yorke she had been hiding from her memories, but now she could hide no longer. The exorcism would have to start somewhere, and the very beginning was as good a place as any, she mused.

CHAPTER THREE

THE very first time she had set eyes on Yorke, Autumn had been standing behind the reception desk of the hotel where she worked, and she had been struck instantly by the hard-boned masculinity of his face and the sensual appeal of his tall, narrow-hipped body clad in a thick cream sweater and thigh-moulding dark pants.

The only time she had ever seen men like him had been in magazines that the guests left behind or on television, and in the flesh he had an impact that sent her senses reeling.

Mary, the girl who was officially on duty and supposed to be teaching her, stared at him in open-mouthed awe and murmured appreciatively to Autumn.

‘Now that’s what I call a man! And all alone. Pity he’s so dark—he’s bound to prefer blondes.’ When Autumn looked puzzled, she exclaimed in affectionate contempt,

‘God, you really don’t know anything, do you?’

Autumn could have replied that she knew quite a lot, but she knew the ‘anything’ Mary referred to meant anything about the male sex, so she kept silent, colour grazing her skin as she saw that the man was watching her.

Mary served him with ingratiating politeness, but he seemed barely aware of her, his eyes totally indifferent as he signed his name on the register and moved away while she rang for a porter.

Who was he, Autumn wondered, and what was he doing here? Her lonely childhood had turned her into something of a daydreamer, and as though he sensed that she was curious about him, he turned to look at her, his eyes losing their cool indifference and surveying her with an intensity that brought the swift colour to her cheeks.

She had gone off duty shortly afterwards, but the next day Mary had been full of their new visitor.

His name was Yorke Laing, she had informed Autumn, and he had been ordered to rest by his doctor following a bout of ‘flu.

‘Yorke Laing.’ Autumn had savoured the name, wondering why it should have such a familiar ring until she remembered who he was. Surely the Yorke Laings of this world did not recuperate from their illnesses in tiny little hotels perched on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors? The South of France or somewhere equally glamorous seemed more in keeping.

‘He’s gorgeous,’ Mary breathed as Yorke walked past the desk. ‘And I bet there isn’t much he doesn’t know about women!’

Yorke turned and smiled at them and Autumn flushed vividly, and Mary’s shrewd eyes noted her changing colour.

The other girls in the hotel had been inclined to tease Autumn at first, when they realised how inexperienced she was, but they were on the whole kind-hearted and their teasing had given way to affectionate protection, and although at nineteen Autumn was only a couple of years their junior they tended to treat her very much as the ‘baby’ of the staff.

It was only since she had come to work at the hotel that she had realised how old-fashioned her upbringing had been. Her parents had been killed in a road accident when she was still a baby, and she had been brought up by a spinster aunt of her father’s, who had lost her own fiancé during the First World War. Emma Kane had been a product of an era that brought up its daughters to be ‘correct young ladies’ and she in turn had brought Autumn up in the same mould. A small private school had given Autumn an excellent education, but as she had always held herself a little aloof from the other girls she had never made any close friends, and the result was that the gap between herself and other girls of her generation had steadily grown wider.

When Aunt Emma died Autumn had been shocked and dismayed. The little cottage in the Yorkshire Dales had been sold and, completely alone for the first time in her life, Autumn did not know what she would have done if her aunt’s solicitor had not very kindly recommended her as a trainee receptionist to the owners of the hotel.

Over the months Autumn had grown accustomed to the other girls’ teasing, which was never malicious, and had even dated boys whom they had introduced to her, but none of the dates had been memorable enough to make her want to repeat them.

She had never been in love in her life, and when Yorke Laing smiled at her in slow, deliberately enticing way, she felt both excited and terrified.

‘I think he fancies you,’ Mary whispered enviously. ‘I told you he would prefer blondes.’

Autumn glanced uncertainly at her friend, not sure if she was teasing her.

‘Honestly, you’re the limit!’ Mary complained. ‘Didn’t that aunt of yours tell you anything?’ She heaved a sigh and put her hands on Autumn’s shoulders, turning her round to face the mirror. ‘Now, take a good look at yourself,’ she instructed.

Autumn stared at her own familiar reflection. Her hair was long, and curled gently on to her shoulders, hesitant blue eyes staring back at her between their fringing of black lashes. Beside Mary’s petite plumpness she felt gangly and awkward, oblivious to the delicate slenderness of her own bones or the inherent grace with which she moved.

‘You’re hopeless!’ Mary announced. ‘There isn’t a girl here who can touch you for looks, Autumn, but for all the use you make of them, you might just as well be a nun. Don’t you know how men look at you?’

How did they look at her? Autumn wondered, and then remembering how she had felt when Yorke Laing smiled at her, she blushed and turned away from the mirror to busy herself with some papers on her desk.

She was only on duty until lunchtime and had promised to go shopping with Mary during the afternoon. Mary wanted some new shoes and she had persuaded Autumn that she needed a pair too. Autumn liked Mary; she was the eldest of a large family, cheerful and outgoing, and it was she who had coaxed Autumn into experimenting with make-up and clothes, showing her how to apply a discreet touch of eye-shadow and glossy lipstick.

Autumn was alone on the reception desk when Yorke Laing came back. She had just been about to go off duty, and the sound of his voice, husky and faintly quizzical, made her blush furiously as she examined the pigeonholes for his mail.

There was nothing for him, and she started to tell him so with a faint stammer, when he smiled, making her catch her breath, as he asked when she went off duty.

‘Now,’ she told him without thinking. ‘Did you want something? I could…’

‘I was wondering if you’d care to spend the afternoon with me,’ he told her suavely. ‘Perhaps show me something of the district.’

Her heart, which had started to pound with excitement, dropped. Of course! He knew nothing of the area and merely wanted a companion for the afternoon. He had only asked her because she happened to be there.

Stammering and blushing, she explained to him that she was going shopping with Mary.

‘Another time, perhaps,’ he said smoothly as her relief came to take over from her, but when she related the incident to Mary later, the latter took her to task over her lack of guile.

‘You should have told him you were free,’ she scolded. ‘Fancy passing up a date with him to come shopping with me!’

‘He only wanted someone to show him round the area,’ Autumn told her uncomfortably.

‘Look, love,’ Mary announced, taking her by the arm and dragging her across the road, ‘men like Yorke Laing don’t need to look for companions; they just take their pick from the willing victims flocking at their heels.’ She glanced at Autumn’s face and gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Perhaps it’s as well you didn’t go with him. You’re such an innocent, you wouldn’t know where to begin with a man like him.’

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