A Passionate Proposition Read online

  ‘What does it mean to you?’ he asked curiously, settling back down against her.

  ‘Well, great music and great sex are a pretty terrific beginning…’ she said, straight-faced.

  He laughed. She loved to make him laugh. All the harsh, straight angles of his face tilted into slants and curves.

  ‘What does it mean to you?’ she dared.

  ‘Right now?’ He lowered his head and nudged her nose with his to tilt her mouth up for his kiss. ‘Why, you, of course…’

  Fortunately Petra slept soundly until Scott went in to wake her, and she was too busy enjoying the novelty of a room service breakfast and emptying the snacks out of the mini-bar to notice Anya’s self-conscious air as she buttered her croissant and poured the coffee and tried to carry on a politely innocent conversation with her wickedly uncooperative lover.

  She couldn’t help but notice, however, when the Jaguar slid to a stop at the school gates and, after turning his head to say goodbye to Petra in the back seat, Scott leaned over and gave Anya a leisurely kiss on the mouth in full view of the school crossing patrol.

  ‘Uh-uh—no tongues, you guys. Remember my fragile juvenile psyche!’ she snorted, slinging her bag over her shoulder and opening the door.

  ‘Your psyche could be marketed as a bullet-proof vest,’ replied Scott drily, sending her off covered in grins while he kindly tilted the rear vision mirror for a flustered Anya to repair her smeared lipstick.

  ‘A pity it doesn’t taste as good as it looks,’ he remarked. ‘I like you better totally au naturelle. Except for the cute socks, of course,’ he added, just for the pleasure of watching her blush. ‘I’ve got them in my pocket. You can put them on for me again later…’

  She sternly repressed the hot thrill his words gave her. ‘You shouldn’t have kissed me like that,’ she told him, putting the lipstick case back in her bag with a little snap.

  ‘How should I have kissed you, then? I hate to disappoint.’

  As if he could! ‘Didn’t you see them all looking?’

  ‘Who? The kids? We’re a couple. Couples kiss each other goodbye.’ We’re a couple. The phrase sounded much less transitory than We’re lovers, thought Anya wistfully. Some couples who never got married nonetheless stayed together all their lives.

  ‘Everyone’s going to find out about us anyway. Don’t expect me to skulk around with you like Ransom did—’

  ‘We never skulked.’ She roused herself to say with dignity. ‘We were discreet.’

  ‘Although you’re employed by the Board he’s effectively your boss,’ he went on, shaking his head. ‘Office affairs are a legal minefield. Ripe grounds for sexual harassment suits, disputed promotions, unjustified dismissals and all sorts of other nasty complications…’

  She realised he was enjoying himself. ‘We were not having an affair.’

  ‘But you were heading that way. Why else would he take you out to dinner on Friday night?’

  ‘Perhaps purely for the pleasure of my scintillating conversation. Men and women can simply be platonic friends, you know.’

  His lawyer’s ear detected a subtle inflection in her tone and instantly pursued it. ‘Is that what he told you? That he wanted to keep it platonic? When did he say that—before Friday night—or afterwards?’

  ‘During,’ she sighed, knowing he wouldn’t rest until he had dragged it out of her. As soon as they had been seated in the restaurant Mark had revealed that the purpose of his invitation had been to tactfully define the limits of their relationship. He didn’t want to lead her on, he’d said, and his friendship was all that he could ever offer.

  ‘Much as I really like you, Anya, it just puts me in too much of an awkward position, ethically speaking, to get romantically involved with anyone on the staff,’ he had explained, with just the right touch of regret. ‘I don’t want to go through something like this again. And neither, I suspect, do you…’

  Since Anya had been going to say much the same thing herself, she’d hardly been able to get up and walk out in a huff as he had rambled on about how much he valued her as a friend. After all, she wouldn’t even have agreed to the date with him at all if she hadn’t been jealous of the fact that Scott was going out with Heather Morgan.

  Of course, she didn’t tell Scott that part. He was already looking far too smug.

  ‘So we both got dumped by disillusioned suitors on Friday night.’ He grinned. ‘Leaving no untidy loose ends to get in each other’s way. We are well matched, aren’t we?’

  So much so that the next three weeks were a revelation to Anya. Scott might deny any pretensions to romance but he was intrinsically aware of how to make a woman feel special, and being the target of his exclusive interest made her increasingly self-confident, her heart soaring with hope in spite of her attempts to keep her feet firmly on the ground. She didn’t get hearts and flowers from him, but she did get handmade chocolates and pretty scented candles and flourishing seedlings for her garden—small tokens of his caring that she cherished more than diamonds.

  At first Anya tried to hold back, wary of encroaching onto forbidden emotional ground by appearing to require more of his attention than he was able or willing to give, but he would have none of it, his innate curiosity and natural possessiveness coming powerfully into play as he responded with renewed determination to conquer any hint of restraint in her manner.

  That first night he had driven over to see her after Petra had gone to bed—having paid Mrs Lee an exorbitant amount to stay on and babysit—and had ended up banishing the fevered memory of her bathtime fantasy by replacing it with even more ravishing reality. Sleek and playful as a seal in her steaming bath tub, Scott had proved her willow-like pliancy and his sexual athleticism to their ultimate satisfaction, and the detriment of her bathroom floor!

  That had set the pattern of their relationship. Most nights of the week she either went over to The Pines for dinner with Scott and Petra, or he visited her later in the evening. They didn’t always make love, although the passion between them grew rather than diminished with familiarity. Sometimes they would merely talk, and in the process Anya learned more about him to love. She found out that he donated large sums of money to a scholarship fund to enable some of Hunua College’s poorer students to go on to further education, and that he provided free legal counselling to a woman’s refuge. She discovered that he had spoken to Lorna and Ken to assert his right to provide his daughter with a trust fund for her education and music studies, and that he was dreading the rapidly nearing date of Petra’s departure.

  ‘It feels as if I’m losing her all over again, just when I’m starting to really get to know her,’ he said, as they drank coffee on the couch in her living room, Anya curled up against his side, after an exhausting weekend showing Petra the sights of Auckland, including a ferry-ride out to Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf and a steep walk up to the top of the volcanic cone for a look at the view.

  She leaned her head comfortably on his shoulder. ‘It’s not like last time. You’re not really losing her. You’ve both made a binding connection, you’ll see each other again.’

  ‘Yes, this time Lorna’s not going to have everything her own way,’ he said grimly.

  The only point of real conflict between them was Anya’s adamant refusal to stay the night at The Pines, or even allow Scott to make love to her there. Neither frustrated argument nor seductive persuasion could pressure her into changing her mind. Her heart longed to make itself at home in his home, but she was afraid that in doing so she would be overwhelmed by the intensity of her feelings and relinquish the last remaining thread of control that she had over the progress of their affair. She used Scott’s need to concentrate on his daughter in the short time they had left together as the reason for her reticence, but they both knew that it was more than that, and that when Petra had gone she would no longer be able to hide behind her altruistic excuses. The moment of truth was fast approaching—not least because she was also piling up increasingly querulous
e-mails from London and Paris.

  It arrived far sooner than Anya anticipated. One Saturday morning Scott had to respond to a call for an unscheduled court appearance for one of his remand clients and urged her to stay and keep Petra company while he was gone.

  ‘I shouldn’t be too long. By the way, do you know anyone called Russell Fuller?’

  Anya shook her head. ‘Is he a local?’

  ‘He’s a freelance journalist. He rang me earlier to ask if he could come and see the house and pick up some information about Kate Carlyle’s time here—’

  ‘Oh!’ Her heart nearly leaped out of her throat.

  He looked at her, eyes narrowing at the sight of her contracted pupils. ‘So you have heard of him?’

  ‘About him…just that some journalist was doing a big cover piece on Kate. She warned me that he’d probably be coming round,’ she said dully.

  He frowned. ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to rake over old ashes, but evidently Kate told him I bought The Pines from her. God knows what else she saw fit to tell him. He was fairly insistent that I could help him on the phone, so I thought it wiser to agree to see him and find out exactly what he wants rather than encourage his persistence by turning him down cold. I made an appointment for him to come over this afternoon. It’s up to you whether you want to be here or not…’

  He kissed her warmly before he walked out of the door, misreading her feverish clutch of desperation for one of entrancing eagerness, leaving her standing on the brink of a deep, dark chasm.

  She should have told him…but she hadn’t. She had been afraid to destroy the precious trust that had been built up between them. And now it was too late. Her period of grace had run out.

  Did she owe her first loyalty to Kate—selfish, brilliant Kate whom she had known all of her life but found difficult to like? Or to Scott—a man whose true complexity she was only beginning to appreciate but whom she already loved? Family or lover? Whichever way she chose someone would be hurt. The question was, which choice would wreak the least damage on the least number of people?

  The chunky wooden ladder into the attic still creaked at the metal joints as it unfolded from the pull-down trapdoor, and the attic itself was as dirty and cobwebby as Scott had suggested it would be. Anya’s hand shook as she climbed into the cramped, dusty, stifling room, holding up the candle that she had stolen from the dining room to illuminate her way. She hadn’t wanted to ask Mrs Lee for a torch, but matches had been a fairly innocuous request that hadn’t raised any awkward questions. She hadn’t even had to tell any fibs to Petra, because it would take an earthquake to distract the girl from her morning piano practice.

  She stepped carefully across the timber beams, ducking to avoid the cobwebs and the low cross-beams that prevented her from standing up. The attic itself was big, running the full length of the house, but only a small proportion of it had been used for storage. Anya didn’t bother to look under the bulky, shrouded shapes, holding the candle low to look for the small metal trunk that Kate had described.

  She found it tucked against a beam and set the candle carefully down on a peeling paint-pot as she opened the lid, coughing at the cloud of dust that puffed into the air. Kate’s green hardback journal was on the top, and she took it out and began rifling quickly through the albums, loose photos and papers, extracting anything in Kate’s distinctive slanting hand, occasionally lingering over a half-remembered photograph or amusing piece of family history. Suddenly conscious that the time was slipping away from her, she hurriedly closed the trunk and gathered up her armful of contraband.

  As she turned to leave she knocked over the candle, snuffing it out, and realised she’d lost her matches somewhere in the dark. Fortunately the chinks in the roof tiles and the square of light from the open trapdoor guided her stumbling steps back to her starting point and she slithered down the ladder on trembling legs, dropping Kate’s journal with a crash on the floor. It fell open and several pieces of paper flew out of the pages, and when she gathered them up her eye was caught by the medical letterhead of a consultant gynaecologist.

  She had never meant to read any of Kate’s personal papers, feeling that she had already sinned enough against her own honour, but she couldn’t help seeing what was right in front of her eyes.

  Kate had had a pregnancy test done at the Manukau City doctors’ office five years ago. The result had been positive. In view of Miss Carlyle’s excellent physical and mental health, she’d had no grounds for abortion under current New Zealand law, even though she was only a few weeks into her pregnancy. If she wished to go ahead with a termination it would have to be done overseas.

  Kate, who believed that having babies was the real reason that so few women achieved greatness in the world. Kate, who in the five years since her affair with Scott had recovered from her tax problems and brief career hiccup by fulfilling the promise of her youth with an unbroken string of concerts, recordings and festivals with no more than the odd weekend or two out of the public eye.

  No wonder she had been panicked at the thought of Scott going through her papers!

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Scott looked from the attic ladder to Anya’s agonised face. ‘My case was called off—the judge was ill,’ he explained absently, looking puzzled but not yet suspicious. ‘Mrs Lee said she thought you were somewhere upstairs. I heard noises on the way up—I thought we had mice in the ceiling. Was that you? What were you doing up there?’ He raised his eyebrows curiously at the untidy stack she was holding against her chest. ‘What have you got there?’

  In the silence that followed, her treacherous fingers went utterly numb, and the damning piece of paper floated down onto the top of Scott’s shoe.

  He hesitantly bent to pick it up, along with the fallen journal, alerted by her stillness.

  When he saw what he had in his hands he went stark white.

  He looked at her again, his eyes pure blue devastation, and she knew that she was looking at the death of a dream.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SCOTT didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. The dead look in his eyes said it all. Anya felt sick. She could have defended herself against his anger, but his pain defeated her. She knew him now, knew the shocked revulsion he must be feeling at this further evidence of betrayal by someone who had claimed to love him.

  He turned and walked away from her, the letter still crumpled in his white fist, the diary in his other hand, moving in a stiff-legged gait down the hall to turn into the master bedroom at the head of the stairs.

  Anya went after him. She could do no less. He hadn’t shut the door but she didn’t take that as any form of encouragement; he was simply functioning on automatic, homing in on his private territory to lick his wounds. He was standing on the far side of the bedroom by the open sash window, flicking through the green journal, sending motes of dust rising to dance through the shafts of sunlight.

  Anya had forgotten the burden she was still carrying, and hurriedly set the rest of the letters and papers on the table by the door, her trembling hands smoothing down the sides of her pale pink shirt-dress.

  ‘Scott, I’m so sorry—’

  ‘So Kate left a few incriminating pieces of personal property in storage when she took off, and after what she’d done she didn’t have the guts to ask for them back,’ he said in a grey monotone, as if he was reading the words off the page. ‘Instead she got her sly little cousin to con her way under my guard and see if she could whip the goods out from under my nose.’

  His head lifted, his eyes blazing at her from behind their film of blue ice, his intelligence rapidly shaking off his shock. ‘How frustrating it must have been when you found I was working from home and Sam was using the room you needed to get into. No wonder you refused to sleep here. The last thing you wanted to encourage was an over-zealous lover who might be inclined to hover inconveniently over every move you made. What a sucker I was to fall for that shy will-she-won’t-she act of yours! You were waiting until Petra we
nt home to give you the run of the house. And I thought you were being cautious about committing yourself to something you weren’t ready for, when really you were just baulking at the idea of prostituting yourself any more than you had to…’

  Anya’s throat tightened. This was far too reminiscent of another confrontation they had had, only this time she didn’t have her cloak of innocence to protect her.

  ‘I never slept with you for any other reason than because I wanted to,’ she told him hoarsely. ‘All right, so Kate did ask me to try and get some things that belonged to her without you knowing about it—’

  ‘And this was your first opportunity to do anything about it? Why risk it now, while Petra was still here?’ His face hardened as something clicked in his brain. ‘Or perhaps you were afraid this was going to be your last opportunity…Ah, yes, of course—’ he laughed bitterly ‘—the magazine article; that’s the reason for the sudden urgency. My God, Kate knew what kind of dynamite this would be if it ever fell into the wrong hands.’

  He held up the fisted letter and shook it at her. ‘She had the bloody termination, didn’t she?’ he grated. ‘That’s why she disappeared so suddenly. She fled to some overseas clinic and aborted my child without even telling me she was pregnant, didn’t she? Didn’t she?’

  Anya laced her trembling hands over her sick stomach. ‘I really don’t know…I can only presume so—’

  His mouth contorted into a savage twist of contempt. ‘You presume—you know damned well she did. She accidentally got pregnant and Kate, being Kate, only thought of how it affected her. God forbid she be trapped into any connection with me after I’d already passed my use-by date. I was simply a fling to while away the time while she waited for her agent to get her out of the financial jam she was in—’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it until I saw that letter, just now,’ said Anya shakily. ‘She simply told me there were diaries here that she didn’t want you or the journalist to find…’