Midnight Wedding Read online

  There was a palm under her T-shirt, between her shoulder-blades; another, possessive, at her hip. He pressed her to the ground. His smooth golden chest was hot as a furnace. Holly’s lips parted in a breath of pure desire. And all the time his mouth teased and promised and lured until Holly’s senses swam.

  ‘What do you want?’ His voice was uneven.

  I want you to love me.

  She had no idea where the voice in her head had come from. It terrified her. She froze.

  Jack felt it. He raised his head and looked down at her.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said urgently.

  But she just stared at him, too shaken by the revelation she had just experienced to speak.

  I’m in love with him. That’s why the marriage service seemed so real. That’s why we made love. That’s why I haven’t slept properly since. I love Jack Armour.

  He lifted himself and took hold of her T-shirt to pull it over her head. Still stunned, Holly raised her hands like a puppet.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Jack furiously. ‘You’re not a child.’

  She blinked, stung. ‘Wh-what?’

  ‘Don’t go limp and pliant on me. If you want me, have the guts to show me.’

  ‘Want you?’ Holly was outraged that he did not already know. ‘Want you?’

  She thrust him away and struggled up onto an elbow. Turned. Pushed him to the ground. Saw his eyes flare in the dark.

  He gave a ragged laugh. ‘Show me, then.’ And let his hands fall.

  She knew he would not touch her again unless she made him. Half-angry, half-determined, Holly set herself to test his resistance to breaking point. She folded herself over him, savouring the smell of his skin, stroking the long athlete’s limbs, tasting him. She felt him grit his teeth as her tongue-tip explored.

  ‘Holly,’ he groaned.

  She smiled against his skin. He shuddered uncontrollably as she found the hollow of his hip bone.

  ‘Holly, for God’s sake!’

  Suddenly it seemed he could not stand any more. His hands no longer lay determinedly idle. He tipped her onto her back. Holly gave herself up to the senses. In sheer rapturous excitement, she forgot all restraint. It was magic. It was what she was born for. Jack was hers.

  Only he wasn’t.

  With a great cry of despair, she thrust him away and leaped to her feet.

  ‘No,’ she shouted. It was savage.

  Jack got up. He turned her to face him, his hands warm against the shivering skin of her shoulders.

  ‘Hol?’

  She shook herself free. She would not met his eyes. ‘I’m cold.’

  He gave a soft, sexy laugh. ‘No, you’re not.’

  For a moment Holly almost hated him. ‘Yes, I am,’ she shouted. ‘And you’re not helping. For heaven’s sake, get dressed.’

  He scanned her face. She could sense his bewilderment, to say nothing of his frustration, and there was not a thing she could do about it.

  In the end he let her go with a sigh.

  ‘Your shirt.’ He gave it to her, then went over to his pack and hauled things out of it until he found his own. ‘My shirt.’ He pulled it on with jerky movements. ‘Better?’ he said with savage mockery.

  Holly huddled into her T-shirt. Then she sat down against the cave wall and hugged her knees. Her legs were trembling. She did not answer.

  With a little exclamation of disgust, Jack went to the mouth of the cave. The landscape was still obscured by a silver curtain of water. Wind and water roared around the mountain side like a wild beast. But not loudly enough to drown her kettle-drum of a heart.

  I love him. I love him.

  She looked at him as he stood there, dark against the rain. He had his back to her, his head half turned to look down the valley. He was tall as a warrior, dark and deadly as a Barbary pirate. He looked whipcord-thin but she knew—didn’t she?—the strength in that sleek body.

  And I love him. I love him.

  She hauled herself to her feet and went over to him.

  Without looking at her, he said, ‘If you were always going to end up with a marriage of convenience, it would have saved a lot of time if you’d stuck with the guy in Smallville.’

  Holly flinched. But she also thought she heard a touch of hurt in his voice. She had never been so uncertain of what she wanted but she knew she could not bear to have hurt Jack.

  ‘It’s not the same thing at all.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Explain the difference to me.’

  She struggled to put it into words. ‘You were thinking about me. Not your career or the company. Me.’

  ‘How do you know the other guy wasn’t?’

  ‘Homer?’ She was so startled she laughed aloud. ‘It was obvious. All he cared about was getting his hands on a stake in the business. I knew that.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not very good at reading men,’ Jack said quietly.

  It was like a blow. Holly took a step backwards.

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  He swung round. He did not touch her. Repressed anger vibrated off him like sound waves.

  ‘You can’t just—’

  But Holly did not let him finish. ‘I know what this is about,’ she spat. ‘Virginity was a bad mistake, wasn’t it?’

  For a moment Jack looked absolutely murderous.

  She went on recklessly, ‘Well, if I’d realised it was going to be such a problem, I’d have unloaded before.’

  He was as pale as the golden skin permitted. ‘Why didn’t you?’ The taut mouth barely moved.

  ‘Because I never wanted to,’ Holly yelled.

  ‘Why not?’

  It was a question she had asked herself. All the fight went out of her.

  ‘Oh, who knows?’ she said wearily. ‘Maybe I was too suspicious of guys who seemed to be attracted to me. Maybe I wasn’t in one place long enough.’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe there’s something wrong with me.’

  There was a long, complicated silence.

  Then—‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ he said curtly.

  He still did not touch her. But something gave her hope. She moved closer.

  ‘Isn’t there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why do you say I can’t read men?’

  ‘Because—’ he began in a goaded tone. Then stopped dead. He folded his lips together as if they would never open again.

  Holly took another step forward.

  ‘It’s because I’m not sophisticated enough, isn’t it? Is that why you didn’t tell me about Susana?’

  His eyes flared. ‘How do you know about Susana?’

  ‘Oh, someone usually tells the wife about the mistress,’ she said, demonstrating her sophistication.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you think I wouldn’t find out?’

  He shook his head helplessly. ‘I didn’t think it was anything to do with you.’

  It went in like a stiletto: so true you hardly felt it; so deadly you began to bleed to death.

  Holly kept her smile steady, though she could feel the cold spreading from her heart. It was all too familiar. After her mother died, ice floes had locked her into place for years, getting her through the tensions of the house in Lansing Mills and the loss of everything she knew. She had prayed she would never feel like that again.

  She said, almost in desperation, ‘Even after I became your wife?’

  ‘Not a wife in that way.’

  ‘In every way there is,’ Holly pointed out, still smiling.

  It was Jack’s turn to flinch. He said hurriedly, ‘What did they tell you about Susana?’

  ‘That she was the love of your life. Were they wrong?’

  He closed his eyes briefly. ‘No.’

  The hot rain thundered outside but Holly was cold to her fingertips.

  ‘So when you married me you…?’

  ‘I was trying to help. All right? That’s all.’

  ‘And when you made love to me?’

  ‘Come on,’ he said harshly. �
��You can’t read men that badly. I wanted you.’

  The cold was like a pain. All she wanted was for him to hold her. Even if he did not love her. Even if he despised her.

  She said softly, ‘So you don’t want me any more?’

  He pushed an agitated hand through his hair. ‘Don’t play games you don’t want to finish.’

  ‘And if I’ve changed my mind? If I do want to finish them?’

  He went very still.

  She took the final step. ‘I’m your wife. I want to feel like your wife.’

  She put a hand on his chest. Under the shirt she could feel his heart was racing. She pressed herself against him. For a moment he stood like a rock. Only that sprinting heart betrayed him.

  She put up both hands. His smooth dark hair was still damp, soft as an animal’s pelt, under her fingers. She brought his head down to meet her kiss.

  He groaned. But his groan was lost in her mouth.

  The rain pounded on the rocks outside. In the humid cave they were as alone as the last man and woman on earth. Or the first.

  Holly was terrified. She was jubilant. She was on a journey she had never made before. Unashamed, she tore at his clothes. Naked in her arms he was slim and muscular. And out of control.

  He made her writhe. He made her growl with pleasure. He made her scream until the cave bounced with the sound. And then, shatteringly, he exploded deep, deep inside her, blasting away the ice for ever.

  It was only afterwards, when they lay spent on the rough cave floor, that he broke her heart.

  Stretching lazily, he murmured, ‘Do you feel like my wife now?’

  Heaven help her, he sounded kind but quite, quite detached. And he did not say that he felt like her husband.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A WEEK later Holly was sitting in a lawyer’s office in London.

  ‘This is a mess,’ said the man on the other side of the big desk. He frowned.

  Holly remembered that frown. He had been her mother’s lawyer. It was he who had taken her to the Dorchester to meet her American father for the first time. And it was he who had broken the news that Dennis was taking her back to Lansing Mills with him and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

  He had been sympathetic but firm then. He was the same now, all these years later.

  ‘First of all, how are you managing? London must seem strange after all this time.’

  Holly smiled wanly. ‘Not a problem. Surviving in strange cities is what I do.’

  He looked faintly alarmed.

  She took pity on him. ‘I’ve got a room and I’ve signed on with an agency to do cleaning. It will do while I take stock.’

  He was relieved but disapproving. ‘That’s not necessary. I can advance you money from your mother’s estate…’

  Holly bit her lip. ‘Jack gave me enough money to tide me over.’

  There was a little silence. ‘Ah, yes. Mr Armour.’

  She looked down at her hands.

  ‘My assistant has been in touch with his firm in Miami. They seem to be in regular communication with him. He has expressed a wish that you stay in his house in Shropshire until your legal situation is clarified. I believe you have been there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Holly. Her lips felt numb. ‘When we first left France.’

  The cold, empty house had appalled her. Now, of course, she knew why it was so empty. He had bought it for the love of his life, only she had not wanted it in the end.

  ‘Good,’ said the lawyer, oblivious.

  ‘But I don’t want to stay there.’

  He took off his glasses and sat back in his chair. ‘I can understand that. It seems rather isolated. If you’re afraid, I am empowered to arrange for a housekeeper to live with you.’

  Holly was offended. ‘I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to live in—in someone else’s house.’

  ‘I appreciate that. Nevertheless, from my point of view it would be a great deal easier if you could bring yourself to do it. Just until the dispositions under your father’s will are resolved.’

  ‘Why?’ she said, preparing for battle.

  He rounded up a trail of paper clips across his blotter.

  ‘Your father was—how shall I put this?—determined to have his own way. Well, look at the way he changed your name and got you an American passport as well as your English one. You withheld your consent but it made no difference.’

  ‘He rode roughshod over everyone,’ said Holly. ‘Not just me.’

  ‘Quite. That included his lawyers, I imagine. That will is crazy. But it is there and you’ve got a brother-in-law who is going to use any means he can to retain full control of your inheritance. So we mustn’t give him any. Do you understand?’

  ‘No.’

  He stopped playing with the paper clips. ‘All right. Put it this way. I’ve sent off your marriage certificate to the Lansing lawyers. That should release your inheritance. But I’ve already had notification that they intend to challenge it on the grounds that it is just a legal fiction.’

  Holly was appalled. That possibility had never occurred to her.

  ‘Can they do that?’

  ‘They can do anything Brendan Sugrue tells them to do. I can go to court and defend it, of course. We’d probably win in the end. Meanwhile, you’re probably talking two sets of American lawyers, a lot of time, the risk that there could be an order requiring you to live with the Sugrues again…The possible complications are endless.’

  Holly closed her eyes. ‘Why are they doing this to me?’

  ‘Money.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think you realise quite how wealthy your father was,’ the lawyer told her drily.

  Holly opened her eyes and stared. ‘Well, the house was huge in comparison with my mother’s flat, but—’

  ‘Your father,’ said the lawyer deliberately, ‘ran a multinational empire. By the time he died his personal assets amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s why it’s worth Brendan Sugrue fighting to keep you under his guardianship. That’s why lawyers will take it, no matter how weak the underlying case.’

  ‘Hundred of millions?’ Holly could not take it in.

  ‘That’s how he met your mother. She was his secretary, running his European private office. They had an affair whenever he was over.’

  Holly remembered her mother’s sadness. At last it made sense. ‘I see.’

  ‘I suspect,’ said the lawyer, suddenly unprofessional, ‘that when he found out about you he was shocked that she had managed to do something without taking his orders about it. Oh, he took his responsibility to you seriously, no doubt about that. But he was also reasserting his right to dominate. I imagine that’s what that crazy will is all about.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said Holly absently. ‘Hundreds of millions?’

  ‘Most of it goes to his charitable foundation, but there’s still plenty left for you and your sister. You will be a wealthy woman.’

  ‘I don’t want—’ said Holly, revolted. And stopped. She remembered Jack saying ruefully, ‘What we need is a friendly millionaire.’

  ‘We can all think of something we would do with a few million dollars,’ the lawyer said understandingly. ‘So you don’t want to blow half of it on law suits. My best advice is take Mr Armour’s offer and carry on as his wife while I sort this out.’

  A friendly millionaire. She had seen his passionate commitment and the work that Armour Disaster Recovery could do. It would be a good use of the money, Holly thought. And it would go some way to paying her debt to Jack. Maybe then she would have a chance of forgetting him.

  ‘All right,’ she said, accepting the inevitable.

  The lawyer gave a sigh of relief. He became brisk.

  ‘Right. No more cleaning jobs. You pick up the keys from Armour’s London office. Here’s the address. You will need a bank account, credit cards. Give them my name as a reference. Meanwhile I’ll arrange a cash advance for you.’

  Holly felt s
lightly overwhelmed. ‘Th-thank you.’

  ‘I suggest you go down to Shropshire as soon as possible. Then when Sugrue’s agents start investigating, they will find that you are living in your husband’s house.’

  That hurt.

  ‘Yes,’ said Holly woodenly.

  ‘There’s a train with reasonable connections this afternoon. Of course, in a lonely place like that you’ll need a car.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘I suppose you do drive?’

  ‘No. I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough—or had enough money—to learn.’

  He beamed. ‘Well, you can take lessons while you’re waiting.’

  ‘Waiting for what?’ said Holly suddenly suspicious.

  For the first time he looked uncomfortable. ‘For your inheritance to be transferred, of course.’

  She looked at him narrowly. He would not meet her eyes, shifting in his chair and pushing the paper clips about distractedly.

  ‘It will all work out,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sure.’

  Holly was still turning that remark over in her mind when she let herself in to Jack’s house that evening. It was only one oddity in an all-round strange day but for some reason it disturbed her more than the other things. More even than the fact that the people at Armour’s London office had expected her, had been delighted to see her and had passed on messages from Jack just as if it was an ordinary marriage.

  It all seemed too pat, somehow. Too contrived. As if Jack was sitting somewhere behind a curtain taking control of her life again.

  ‘Paranoia,’ she said aloud. ‘Jack’s got more important things to think about than me. I’m not the love of his life, after all.’

  She kept reminding herself of that as she reacquainted herself with the house he had brought her to so briefly. With a little smile, Holly remembered what a shock the house had been. For one thing, it was more of a castle than a house. For another, it was in the middle of nowhere. For a third, it was empty.

  Holly remembered how totally she had known it was empty as soon as they walked in through the front door. Oh, it was tidy and polished—someone obviously came in to clean—but the coldness hit her. And the echoes. Their footsteps reverberated as if they were in an underground cavern.

  This is a house that has not been lived in for a long time, she had thought. In fact it felt as if no one had ever lived there. She had looked round the empty walls and wondered why.