the sofa.
‘You son of a bitch!’ she shrieked. ‘In Hollywood they queue up to sleep with me. I’ve had-’ She began to reel off a string of names.
But she was talking to air. Carson had walked out of the room.
Gina saw him coming and backed up the stairs. He found her at the top, leaning against the wall, almost dizzy from what she’d witnessed.
‘How much of that did you see?’ Carson asked her.
‘I saw her trying to kiss you-’
‘Then you also saw me reject her. I couldn’t sleep with her if she was the last woman on earth. She makes me ill. Don’t tell me you doubted that?’ He looked more closely and saw her eyes shining with tears. ‘What a fool you are, my darling!’ he said gently. ‘Did you really think she could get me back to her bed?’
‘I wondered,’ she said huskily.
‘Well, now you know better.’
A movement from below made him draw her away to his room. When they were inside he locked the door and put his hands on her shoulders, looking into her face by the pale light coming through the window.
‘You really believed that of me?’ he asked. ‘We’re to be married soon, and you thought I’d take another woman to my bed?’
‘Brenda isn’t just another woman. I’ve heard you talk about her, like an obsession that would haunt you for ever.’
‘Maybe she was, once. A sick obsession. But sickness can be healed. I’m a different man now, whole and sane because you came to me with your generosity, your courage and your laughter. I’d forgotten about laughter until I met you with your crazy little car. I’d forgotten about love until I held you in my arms.’
He drew her closer. ‘Now, this is all I want. Let that woman do her damnedest! She won’t part us.’
‘But, Carson, don’t you realise that-?’
‘Forget her,’ he said against her mouth.
With a sinking heart Gina realised that Carson hadn’t discerned the bleak truth that faced them. Angelica had already done her damnedest, and it was enough to make their life together impossible.
But the feel of his lips was wonderful, creating heat and passion, so that the sad thoughts faded. There would be a lifetime for them later. Just now she would surrender to her love, and lay up for herself memories to cherish like treasure in the cold, lonely time ahead: the time that she had seen, and he hadn’t.
Slowly, almost reverently, he drew off her nightdress, revealing the whole of her slim, pale body.
‘Do you know how long-and how badly-I’ve wanted you?’ he murmured.
Gina shook her head. ‘I only wish I did.’
‘Then let me show you.’
He pulled off his own clothes, kicked them impatiently aside, and drew her nakedness against his own. The first touch was like fire for them both. His kiss was deep and intense, taking possession of her. She leaned against him, glad to yield to her desire, eager to belong to him totally in the flesh as she did in spirit.
She felt his body along the length of her own, pressing her close, and she held him, running her hands over his long, muscular back, down the length of his spine to the lean, powerful hips and thighs. Tremors went through him at the touch of her fingers, gentle at first, then inciting him as she grew in confidence.
His tension grew as he sensed her caresses asking for his love, and he lifted her, carrying her the short distance to his big bed, and laying her down tenderly. He didn’t rush her, but contemplated every line and curve of her beauty before dropping his head to lay between her breasts.
She had known nothing like the sensation of his lips loving and teasing her nipples while she took long, ecstatic breaths. She couldn’t have said where love ended and desire began. For this man alone, they were one and the same.
She had feared Carson’s passion was dead, but now she saw his fierce, growing urgency, and knew that what Angelica Duvaine had striven in vain to rouse was hers for the asking.
When he came over her she was ready, sweet and welcoming, offering him all she had. The feel of him inside her was wonderful. She was right to have claimed this moment, perhaps all she would ever know of love. She held him to her passionately, seeking to imprint every detail of his body on her memory.
The smooth back under her hands would be with her always, as would the breadth of his shoulders, and the heat of his skin against hers. But what would live with her longest was the memory of being one with him, of being his utterly and completely in a union of body, soul and heart.
She held him closer, whispering his name, nothing held back, no defences. All his. His in every way. When the moment came she tried vainly to hold onto it, and wept as it slipped away. For other lovers there was the promise of next time, but not for her.
Carson kissed her face until her tears had dried, smiling at her in the moonlight.
‘Now you belong to me for ever,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said huskily. ‘I’ll always belong to you, wherever I am, wherever you are.’
‘What are you talking about? We’re not going to be apart. We’re going to be married.’
‘But we
CHAPTER TWELVE
CARSON frowned as if he couldn’t comprehend her meaning.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘This is a beginning for us. You can’t leave me now.’ His voice was arrogant with possessiveness. ‘I won’t allow it.’
She rested her face against him, willing the world to vanish. If only he could order this as he ordered so many things.
‘Don’t you realise that it’s gone beyond that?’ she asked huskily. ‘It’s out of our hands. Oh, darling, I wish I could see some hope for us, but I can’t.’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t mean that,’ he said at last. ‘Forget what Brenda said about still being married to me-’
‘It’s not Brenda, it’s Joey. He wants his family back, and he thinks he has it. Haven’t you seen how happy he is?’
‘He’s in a fool’s paradise. Gina, don’t talk like this. Don’t make us all suffer because that woman has taken you in.’
‘She hasn’t taken me in,’ she answered in a shaking voice. ‘I see exactly what she is. But I also saw Joey’s face when she appeared.
‘When my mother died, for months afterwards I told myself that she hadn’t really gone for good, that one day she’d forgive me for being “a bad girl”, and come home. I pictured it again and again, how the door would open, and there she’d be. And I’d run to her, and she’d hold me. She was dead, but that didn’t stop me imagining it.
‘And today it was there in Joey’s eyes, everything I’d been thinking and feeling. His dream came true.’
‘But it’s only a few days ago that he was talking of you as his mother.’
‘Only as a substitute. Now he’s got the real thing, and for the first time he’s completely happy. I won’t be the one to take that happiness away from him.’
‘No, Brenda will do that.’
‘Then he’ll have you to make it up to him. You’ll have to stick close by them both, make her behave herself, help him when she doesn’t.’
He tore his hair. ‘This will all be over in a few days. She’ll rush back to Los Angeles-’
‘I don’t think we can count on that. She’s going through a rough patch. She lost that TV show. Darling, however long it takes, let Joey enjoy his happiness while he can. You can help now. You two have found each other.’
‘Only because of you.’
‘Yes, maybe because of me. I’d like to think so. You’ll both be all right now.’
‘Will we?’ he said bitterly. ‘Do you think I can love you as deeply as I do, and be
