A Solitary Heart (11 page)

fall in love with a man; really fall in love, with the complete and utter

abandon that Matt had described that day on the beach?

She would never survive it. She hadn't the strength. An all-

consuming passion like that would incinerate her to white ash; she

knew it as she knew the force of her own emotions. She couldn't love

a man and still keep her distance; she would give him her heart and

soul until nothing remained of her but an empty shell.

Jane wandered back into the living-room, her relaxed demeanour

dropping away instantly as she took in the sight of Sian's streaked,

tight face. 'Who was on the phone?' she asked in quick concern.

Sian wiped her cheeks and tried to assume a more normal expression.

'It was my father. He isn't coming for the weekend after all.'

She could hardly bear the gentle look of compassion that .came over

her friend's face, and the disappointment for her sake. 'Oh, Sian, I am

sorry.'

'Never mind,' she said, attempting a careless shrug. She thought she'd

succeeded rather well. 'That's life.'

It might not be for some—for Matt. But that was how life was for

her, and it was high time she got used to the fact and got on with it.

*

It had turned cooler, the sky leaden and overcast; the temperature had

been so high over the weekend that by Wednesday afternoon the

sultry threat of thunderstorms was making Sian's head ache dully.

It suited her mood, which had turned grim and silent after talking

with her father. Clad in jeans and sweatshirt, she went out in the back

garden to take advantage of the cooler weather while it held, weeding

with scrupulous care the flower-bed she'd planted and maintained

over the last four years.

After she'd finished a section, she sat back on her heels and stretched

her aching back, dirt-encrusted hands lying passive in her lap. The

moisture-heavy air was un- refreshing. She closed her eyes and tilted

back her face, mouth tight with unhappiness. Just rain, damn it.

'You missed a weed,' said Matthew.

She started violently, heart thumping a wild rhythm, and her eyes

flew open; she hadn't heard him approach. 'Think of the devil,' she

said, deadpan.

His regard of her was sardonic, unsmiling. 'Always a dangerous thing

to do.'

He stood at ease, balanced lightly as a swordsman, long legs planted

a few feet apart, the thick, powerful thigh muscles straining the

denim that covered them. He looked ready to hold his position

forever if need be, or to pounce with lightning speed.

Sian ducked her head from the poised, lithe sight of him. She located

the weed he had mentioned and yanked it, with a vicious twist of the

wrist. Instead of pulling out the roots, it snapped in her clawed

fingers. 'I thought you went back to Chicago,' she said, and could

have groaned at what he might read into the flat statement.

'No. Vacation, remember?' said Matt briefly. He broke out of his

fighter's stance, fluid as a dance, and crouched lightly beside her. 'I

went to Indianapolis for the day, to visit my mother. Have dinner

with me.'

Sian's soft mouth would have trembled, if she'd let it. She moved to

another unweeded section, away from him. 'No.'

Matt's voice was harsh, impatient. 'Why not?'

'I'm busy.' She attacked another weed, shoulders hunched.

There was a pause, then he said, very evenly, 'Jane and Steven are

going out tonight. Joshua is studying for his LSAT exams. What are

you busy with?'

'None of your business.' She was very rude. She didn't care.

He did. Hard fingers snaked under her downbent chin and forced her

face up, angry predator's eyes raking over her, raking through her

tight facade with one neat, psychic claw-slash, and uncovering the

pain beneath it. The harsh planes and angles of his face eased

somewhat, as did his grip; she took advantage of that and jerked

away, her breathing unsteady.

She thought he was going to comment on what he'd seen, but he

didn't. Instead, Matthew rocked back on his heels and said, slow and

contemplatively, 'Lobster bisque, sauted scallops, chicken tetrazzini.

Barbecued ribs, stuffed potato skins, linguini with shrimp, fried

mushrooms. Fruit, yoghurt, salad, hell's bells, even a hamburger

would do. Sian, I'm hungry.'

She had started to smile somewhere in the middle of his recital, albeit

reluctantly, and at the pure pathos at the end she had to laugh out

loud. At the musical sound the golden man kneeling beside her

smiled, keen and white. She caught the tail end of it, just a suggestion

of movement that drew her attention to the tough, sexy mouth. Her

eyes lingered, helplessly fascinated in spite of herself, then she tried

to cover it up by glancing down the robust, healthy length of him.

'You're obviously pining for a good meal,' she said wryly.

'So come oblige me,' he told her in prompt reply. 'Besides, I need to

talk to you.'

'What are we doing now, chopping liver?' she parried with false

lightness.

Jane called from the back porch, 'Hi, Matt. Anyone interested in a

glass of lemonade?'

His hazel eyes held hers; they could contain a vast amount of

patience when he willed it. 'Alone,' he added drily.

Sian wavered under his unrelenting stare, under Jane's growing

curiosity; she didn't have anything planned for that evening, and she

wouldn't put it past her blonde friend to confess as much to Matt.

Oddly, instead of feeling trapped into acceptance, she felt lighter

instead. 'All right,' she said in abrupt capitulation. 'Dinner.'

He rose to his feet immediately, a fluid surge of motion, and turned

away even as she accepted; he would never be still for too long, for

he was a creature of light and fire, a burning pillar who knew how to

dampen the flaming inferno to accommodate the frailties of the

company around him, but never quite extinguish it.

'I'll pick you up at eight o'clock,' said Matt over his shoulder. The

slant of his gaze touched on her, with delicate amusement. 'Don't

dress for a burger bar, will you? I'm not that desperate!'

Sian and her room-mate had to share the bathroom with courtesy and

timing as they readied for their respective evenings, a ritual that had

been perfected over the tenure of shared occupancy.

Sian wore an elegant cream linen suit and matching court shoes, with

a long skirt that flowed to her shapely ankles. Her dull-mushroom

blouse was pure silk, and the gold necklace winked with rich colour

at the slim base of her throat. With her gleaming hair pulled back into

a smooth French twist and her make-up subtly emphasising the

contours of her green eyes and high cheekbones, she looked cool and

composed, and strikingly elegant.

Jane was finished with the bathroom, so Sian nipped in to insert one

last pin into her hair. When at last she was satisfied that the thick,

heavy mass wasn't about to spill out of its confines in the middle of

dinner, she swept up her cream bag and strolled to the open front

door where Jane stood.

The calibre of the deep male voice was unmistakable. Jane and Matt

were involved in their conversation, and so did not see Sian's stride

falter, or the flustered flush that washed over her ivory complexion.

The rest of her afternoon had passed in a daze, but now with its

dissipation came the mocking-bird cry that she must have been mad

to consider going out with Matt for the evening. His presence was

overwhelming enough in safe company; being alone with him, with

the promise of languid hours spiralling ahead, carried the acrid scent

of dynamite.

It was too late to back out. She recovered herself quickly enough, and

by the time she reached the other two she appeared as unruffled as

ever.

Dressed in a navy blue suit with a white shirt and tie, and gold cuff-

links glinting at his strong wrists, Matthew looked formally elegant

and impacted on the senses with the same breathtaking force as the

first glimpse of a masterpiece painting. Sian's experienced eye

admired the cut and rich quality of the suit and how it moulded itself

without ostentatiousness and yet with devastating effect to the

vibrant, powerful form of the body underneath.

Jane had paused in the middle of a sentence when the blonde saw that

Matt's attention had shifted away from her, and an arrested

expression had crept into his eyes. Sian looked up from the gleaming

tips of his Italian shoes to his handsome face, and saw that he had

caught her absorbed inspection. Neither Matt nor Sian responded to

Jane's discreet goodbye as she left them alone.

His smile was naked and primitive, a lean, sexy, dangerous look that

made Sian fear, shakenly, that she might be the main course for

dinner.

'My God, a woman ready, and on time,' purred Matthew, as he leaned

one expensively sheathed broad shoulder against the doorpost, in a

negligent attitude that Sian could sense was utterly false. Underneath

he was thrumming, the hunter held under flawless control. 'It's a gift

a man would sell his soul for.'

Whatever had wound him up, Sian would, for sanity's sake, have to

quell. She said, imperturbable and prosaic, yet with wary eyes,

'Surely there's no need for such an extreme, when the price of a well-

cooked dinner will suffice.'

'Madam,' said the devil who was a gentleman, with a deceptively

submissive inclination of his tawny head, 'I assure you, I am entirely

at your service.'

His wicked gaze held hers, managing to make what would otherwise

be an innocuous reply into something smokily suggestive. Sian felt a

hot, betraying tide of colour rise to her cheeks. He saw, and his smile

widened just a taunting fraction, and her composure broke.

'You need to be put on a leash!'

'What an evocative fantasy,' he murmured. 'Do you see your hand at

the other end?'

Her nostrils flared in a hissing inward breath. He was incorrigible in

his present mood. She almost turned back, and be damned to

courtesy. Almost, but she stepped off the threshold and into the night,

her narrow hands white on her bag, racketing heart in her throat, the

pain and disappointment from that afternoon quite forgotten.

'I'd be far too wise to want to hold your leash,' she said, green eyes

flashing at brilliant odds with her even tone. 'Headstrong as you are,

I'd only gain whiplash for my pains.'

'You disappoint me,' murmured Matt, his hand a hot brand through

the material of her jacket as he led her to the Mercedes. 'From our

conversation on the beach two days ago, I would have said that

control held all the attraction for you.'

'You misunderstood,' she replied, carefully, delicately feinting. She

slid into the seat, soft leather whispering a sigh as her weight settled

in the bucket seat. 'I only ever desire control over my own destiny,

never over another human being.'

'Ah,' he replied, one corner of his mouth curled, as he eased into the

driver's seat. 'A chill, polite distance between you and the rest of the

world. What a lonely life you have ahead of you.'

'Your point of view,' she said, with a supreme gentleness that only

afterwards did she realise sounded like a goad. He drove them

swiftly, expertly along the route to a reputable restaurant, while a

reckless glitter shone in those hazel eyes and an emotion akin to

anger tautened the skin across hard cheekbones.

Thinking to divert whatever riotous intention impelled him, she

licked dry lips and asked, 'What was it you wanted to talk to me

about?'

He shot her a glance from under slanted brows, but remarked with

cool apparent irrelevance, 'Jane told me that your father couldn't

come for the weekend.'

The reminder made her calm expression flicker, a brief crack in the

poised facade that hardened into rigidity. 'That's right,' she said,

obsessively neutral.

Perhaps he had missed it. He continued, "That means you could come

to Chicago with the other three.'

He was indifferent, extending a courtesy forced on him by

extenuating circumstances. She said, watching him, 'Only if you have

the room to put up one more person.'

Now he seemed surprised at her cautious diffidence. 'Well, of course.

You were included in the invitation to begin with. I'm sorry for your

sake that your father couldn't make it, but his loss is our gain. Do you