A Solitary Heart (14 page)

who was a stranger.

When she was as presentable as she could possibly make herself, she

left the bathroom and walked into the kitchen.

Jane had made the coffee that Sian had forsaken. Her blonde friend

sat at the table with Steven, and Joshua, and, as the kitchen set had

only four chairs, Matthew had appropriated a tall stool, leaving the

fourth chair empty for her.

She stood unnoticed in the doorway and studied him numbly. That

tough countenance was composed, shuttered, the lean body in that

elegant suit relaxed. He looked distinctly undisturbed by the

cataclysmic events that had just taken place, and she searched for

hate in her terrified heart, for she had been cauterised.

Then she saw the dark residue of heat that clenched his skin, the

hooded glitter of his eyes, and her hands, which had clawed, flexed.

Jane saw her first and smiled in puzzlement. 'Hi, did you have a good

dinner? We rescued Joshua from his books. Sian, wasn't your hair...?'

Sian's eyes flashed at her, a brief warning flick. Her friend's voice

died away. Suddenly Jane became very busy with serving coffee to

everyone, while under the distraction of the movement Sian slid

weakly into the empty chair beside Matthew, who looked at her with

a tight, sulphurous smile.

'We rode to the restaurant with the convertible top down, and Sian's

hair blew everywhere,' lied Matt smoothly, his tawny brows slanted

mockingly. 'She still hasn't forgiven me for ruffling her feathers, have

you, darling?'

Her heart thumped. Damn him, he should have remained silent and

let Jane's remark pass into oblivion. Then, because everyone was

looking at her for some kind of reply, she grimaced and said drily, 'I

looked as if I'd been dragged through a bush backwards.'

Steven and Joshua laughed. Jane was staring at her profile; she could

feel it and didn't dare to look at her friend, or her fixed, set

expression would crumble. She took the only revenge she could on

Matt, groping surreptitiously with her foot to grind her stiletto heel

into the toe of his shoe.

She could feel his silent grunt as the conversation turned to other

things, then he casually shifted his position, putting one hand on the

back of the chair behind Sian's head while lifting his foot out of

range.

It looked an elegant, indolent pose and also placed her into the half

curve of his body. She tried to ignore the long, hard thigh pressing

against her arm, but found it was a losing battle. She could feel every

flex and shift of the muscle sliding underneath the dark cloth and in

desperation she turned to chatter animatedly to the others.

She nearly leaped out of her skin when she felt the stealthy caress of

his fingers flowing through the fine, sensitive hairs at the nape of her

neck. Unseen by any of the others, the ball of his thumb found the

base of her skull and rotated with sensuous gentleness against the soft

skin, and her whole body quivered in response.

It was agony, trying to maintain a semblance of normality while

wave upon wave of chaotic emotion clashed symphonic cymbals

inside her so loudly that she was amazed no one else could hear it.

Fury, sheer, inarticulate stupefaction at his audacity, and an insidious

pleasure, warred for supremacy; and she could sense the tension

weaving through his otherwise placid demeanour.

'Are you all right?' Joshua asked her. 'You look sort of dazed.'

Incautiously she said the first thing that came into her reeling head.

'Oh, I'm fine, I'll just be ready for bed soon.'

Her tormentor shook, a fine tremor that ran down his whole, body,

and oh, she could wish for the freedom to curse him to a thousand

hells. She slipped one hand under the cover of her other arm, groped

at his thigh until she had a good hold of skin and cloth and pinched as

hard as she could.

'Ouch!' he snapped. He had to sit forward to jerk away, which

thankfully removed the hand at her neck.

'What's wrong?' asked Jane, surprised.

'My leg went to sleep,' drawled Matthew, as he flexed the injured

limb. His face was creased with sardonic amusement. 'It feels as if a

cat has sunk her claws into it.'

'You ought to be more careful in how you position yourself in the

future,' Sian said in a sugary voice and a poisoned smile.

He shot her a dark look and growled at her. 'You're an unsympathetic

woman, Sian Riley.'

She clicked her fingers at him. 'Hard as nails, that's what I am.'

The other three became involved in some kind of argument. It

sounded good-natured, Sian assumed an attentive expression and

never heard a word of it. Matthew had hooked an ankle around one of

her legs and slid down her calf slowly. Her mouth shook, and she

pressed the offending tender flesh tight in desperation. He reached

her shoe and began to ease it from her narrow foot.

She exploded upright. 'The air in here seems awfully stuffy,' she

snapped, as four pairs of eyes regarded her, three of them surprised.

T think I'll go change out of this suit.'

Matt turned his tawny head. They stood staring at each other for a

brief moment, and she could feel his proximity like a coal brazier

emitting heat. He murmured,
sot to voce,
'Running away?'

'Just forming a strategic retreat until you start behaving yourself,' she

replied grimly, proud of her even tone.

Neither of them cared about their fascinated audience. Matthew's

eyes gleamed, satiric and lazy. 'How unutterably tame, sleeping

princess.'

She thrust her angry expression close to his and said succinctly, 'The

French call it etiquette. In case you were wondering, that stands for

good manners. Excuse me, please.'

'Wait, Sian, I'll come with you. I just remembered I didn't put your

clothes away after doing laundry today,' declared her friend, who

scrambled to her feet in an untidy rush.

Sian stared at the blonde in amazement, for today had not been

laundry day. But questions were beyond her; she pivoted on her heel

and stalked out of the kitchen, her room-mate close behind.

As she travelled down the hall, she thrust her hands through her hair

distractedly and held on to her head. It seemed that she and Matthew

were destined to enter into a relationship that throbbed with

disturbing undercurrents of one kind or another, which invariably

built up to a static discharge of glowing white sparks.

First it had been his disapproval over Joshua's intended proposal.

Now it looked as though he had every intention of niggling away at

her peace of mind in an unrelenting pursuit of—Sian's mind shied

away from the memory of what had happened in the restaurant car

park, the kitchen, then she forced herself to be blunt to the point of

crudity.

Face facts, she told herself fiercely. She had offered herself to him

earlier, and he had only done what any normal, healthy male would

have. Was it entirely his fault, considering that she had reacted the

way she had?

She would have melted into a stunned heap at his feet had he let her.

The gall of it—after all her fine philosophising about what she was

looking for in a husband, about how she scorned passionate affairs of

the heart, then one seductive touch from him and she flared like a

torch.

So what did she think she was playing at, allowing herself to be

seduced by him? What did he think to gain? Was she a challenge to

him because of her differing standards, or merely light relief?

She had to come to some conclusion, and fast, because otherwise she

would find she had trapped herself into another dangerous situation

by emitting unconscious signals he was sure to pick up. Maybe it

would be wisest just to cry off the weekend party at his place. Then

she might never have to see him, or face his provocative

unpredictability, again.

She strode into her bedroom, as did Jane, who shut the door behind

her. Sian couldn't look at her friend. Instead she began to jerk her

clothes off in tight, frustrated movements.

Jane had settled on her bed and after a moment asked, 'Are you going

to tell me what's happened between you and Matt?'

Off came her suit jacket. Usually so neat, she threw it into a corner

and slipped out of her skirt. 'What makes you think anything

happened?'

'Because,' retorted her friend in exasperation, 'you two are sparring

again as if World War III is about to break out!'

The skirt followed the jacket, then her blouse, and her shoes and

tights. Sian's mouth was twisted in wry resignation. Trust Jane to

barge right into the heart of the matter. Then, because she hated to

hurt her friend's feelings and she needed someone to confide in

anyway, she said as she yanked a T-shirt over her head, 'He kissed

me.'

How inadequate were the words; but she couldn't confess the real

depth of what had happened to save her life. Jane appeared

disappointingly unsurprised. 'So? I'd already figured as much.'

She swivelled around to face her face and asked grimly, 'Was it that

obvious?'

'Sweetheart, I know you,' replied Jane gently. 'And I've been

watching the way you and Matt looked at each other over the

weekend when you thought nobody was paying attention. It was

bound to happen sooner or later.'

'Well, I, for one, wish it hadn't,' said Sian, her expression taut, as she

pulled on a pair of shorts. 'It's a nuisance and a problem, and God

only knows what he thinks of it all.'

'If appearances are anything to go by, he probably can't wait to get

you alone, so that he can do it again!' Jane exclaimed with a laugh,

but she sobered quickly enough under Sian's furious glare and asked

sympathetically, 'What's the matter, love, did you like it too much?'

Her hand crept up to cover her mouth as she went a vivid, tell-tale

red. She whispered, 'Oh, Jane. What am I going to do?'

'I don't know,' said her friend quietly. 'It doesn't exactly fit into your

plans, does it?'

'Not in the least bit.' She bowed her head, her hair swinging forward,

and she said, 'Maybe I'll go ahead and stay home for the weekend

anyway.'

'Oh, Sian, but you can't! Everybody's expecting you to come along,

now that your father can't come to visit!' Jane said in dismay. 'Don't

you think you're overreacting a bit?'

'I know I'm a coward. And maybe I'm being ridiculous, but—I don't

know what else to do.' Then she burst out in frustration, 'Why can't

we just be friends, like everybody else?'

'Darling, you might as well ask for the earth to stop revolving around

the sun.' Jane reached forward and took hold of her clenched hands.

'Listen, is it such a bad thing, finding yourself attracted to a man as

wonderful as Matt? So what if he changes a few of your concepts? It

happens to everybody at some time in their lives. Maybe you should

have a wild affair with him; at the very least it would teach you what

you want in a husband.'

'I already know what I want in a husband,' she said stubbornly, her

green eyes hunted. 'Faithfulness, constancy and stability.'

'And what man is going to give that to you, and still remain

uninvolved?' Jane retorted. 'Even marriages of convenience have to

be built on some kind of give and take, and it would certainly help if

you could enjoy going to bed with your partner! Take your heart out

of that safety deposit box you keep it locked in, and expose it to a

few risks. It might get broken, but it'll mend. It might grow and

expand to find the world a larger and better place than it was

before—I don't know. But I do know one thing, Sian—if you don't

learn how to break out of the shell you've built around yourself, you'll

be in real danger of playing Solitaire for the rest of your life.'

Then Jane let her go to pick up the clothes in the corner, wisely

giving her time to assess what she had said. Sian sank on to her bed

and just sat in whirling silence, her thinking patterns all in tatters.

Had she really been cloistering herself off from the real world, under

the pretext of waiting for the right man to come along? She dated,

didn't she? She'd had loads of boyfriends!

And, with a sharp, chill change in perception, she looked back at