what made him dangerous.
‘Why deny us what we both want?’ he asked, reading her thoughts again in the way he did with such terrifying ease.
‘I don’t always take what I want,’ she said slowly.
‘That’s a mistake. You haven’t had enough pleasure and satisfaction in your life. You should take it now that you’re free.’
‘Free,’ she echoed longingly. ‘Will I ever be free?’
‘What should stop you?’
‘So much…so much…’
He drew her closer and laid his lips against the tender skin of her neck.
‘Take what you want,’ he whispered. ‘Take it, pay the price, but don’t waste time on regrets.’
‘Is that how you live?’
‘Always,’ he said, turning to guide her off the dance floor. ‘Let’s go.’
On the journey they didn’t speak, but sat together in the back of the car, watching the light and darkness flicker over each other’s faces.
Conscious of eyes upon them, they walked sedately through the hotel lobby and up to her suite. Only when the door had closed behind them did he toss aside the velvet wrap and take her into his arms, raining kisses all over her neck and shoulders.
Elise threw back her head, yielding herself up to the sweet sensation, welcoming it. Each touch of his lips sparked off tremors that flowed down over her skin, between her breasts, creating life where there had been only desolation before. A deep, shuddering breath escaped her and she reached for him.
She didn’t know how they got into the bedroom, but she was lying down and he was beside her, casting his jacket aside, then reaching for her dress, pulling it down to uncover her breasts.
For a moment his face, suffused with passion, loomed over her. She reached up, meaning to pull him down to her, but her hand seemed to have a will of its own. Instead of drawing him closer, it tensed to fend him off.
‘Wait,’ she whispered.
He became still, frowning as though not sure he’d heard her properly.
‘Wait,’ she repeated. ‘What’s happening to me?’
It was the worst possible moment for an attack of common sense, but it had leapt on her without warning, freezing her blood, filling her with dismay at herself.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Vincente said. ‘Only you know what you really want. If you’ve changed your mind, you have only to tell me to leave.’
He was breathing harshly, but he was in command of himself.
‘I’m not sure-not any more. Please let me go.’
For the briefest moment he was disconcerted, but then his eyes gleamed with respect.
‘Very clever-very subtle.’
‘No, you’re wrong. I’m not playing tricks. It’s just that-’ She sat up and moved away from him. ‘Good grief! Today was my husband’s funeral.’
‘Suddenly you remember that?’
‘I guess I’m more conventional than I thought I was. I’m sorry. I just can’t do this.’
He too got up, retrieving his jacket from the floor.
‘You may be right,’ he observed. ‘It will keep until we meet again.’
‘I doubt that we’ll ever meet again.’
In the darkness she couldn’t see his face well or read its expression, couldn’t see the bafflement, admiration and sheer blazing hatred that chased each other in swift succession through his eyes.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said softly. ‘This isn’t the end between us. There’ll come a day when you’ll remember what I told you-take what you want. And then you’ll take it because, in that, we’re the same.’
Now her thwarted passion was punishing her, making her tremble with the violence she’d done to herself. But from somewhere she found the strength to give him a challenging look and say, ‘You left something out. I’ll take it when I’m ready, and not before.’
‘Then there’s nothing more for me to say. I will bid you goodnight.’
Before her astonished eyes, he walked calmly out of the room without a backward glance.
Vincente was just closing his suitcase the next morning when his cellphone shrilled.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s your driver. You said to let you know if I saw her. She’s just got into a taxi. I heard her tell the driver to go to the cemetery.’
‘I’ll be right there. Have the engine running.’
He was downstairs in a moment. As they found their way through the streets, he asked tensely, ‘Are you sure you heard her correctly?’
‘She definitely said St Agnes Cemetery, where she buried her husband yesterday. It’s natural enough if she’s grieving for him.’
Vincente didn’t answer this. His eyes were fixed on the road.
By good luck he saw Elise as soon as he reached the cemetery. She’d left her taxi and was walking away. A twist in the path gave him a sideways glimpse of her, revealing that she was carrying a bouquet of glowing red roses.
Red roses. The symbol of love. It defied belief that she was putting them on her husband’s grave.
He followed, taking care to remain among the trees that would hide him, and managed to get close enough to see her drop to one knee before a modest grave, contrasting with the swaggering mausoleums that littered the place. She was facing him and he could see her face well enough to detect its look of unutterable sadness as she spoke to some unseen presence.
He’d come to England seeking her, hating her, determined to make her pay for a long ago act of cruelty. He’d so nearly secured her through her husband, but the greedy fool had died and Vincente had to think of a new plan, fast.
He’d been so sure of the kind of woman he would find, but she had been different-softer, more vulnerable, more honest. But he quickly reminded himself that this was bound to be an act. She’d had years to practise it by now.
By sheer force of will he managed to keep his hatred alive.
Her passion was harder to explain away. He was no stranger to feigned desire. Attracted by his wealth, women had always put themselves out to seduce him, and everything in Elise’s past warned him that she was one of that kind. But she’d turned out to be different. He’d felt her trembling in his arms and his deepest instincts had told him that she wasn’t feigning. At almost any moment he could have stripped her naked and taken her with her full- hearted consent.
Until the end, when she’d fended him off with real intent, filling him with astonishment. For a moment he’d been on the verge of losing control, but he’d forced himself to calm down and leave her. He’d spent the rest of the night racked with unsatisfied desire and anger. But there had also been the dawning of respect, and that disconcerted him more than anything.
Vincente stayed hidden as she rose to go, and only came out from among the trees when she was out of sight. Then he crossed quickly to where she had been and studied the graves. He spotted the red roses at once and dropped down on one knee to read the inscription.
‘George Farnaby,’ he read. He had died two months ago, in December, aged sixty-four.
Frowning, Vincente reached into his pocket and drew out a small notebook. Flipping through the pages, he came to the entry he was looking for.
One final note. Her father died just before Christmas. Ben Carlton’s extensive entertaining was unaffected. A guest at one of his parties says she went through the motions of being a good hostess, but looked terrible.
Vincente looked at the roses that lay, fresh and blooming, against the hard stone. At last he went away.
Elise had slept badly and awoken early. In the shower she’d turned the water down cold, trying to refresh herself enough to view her life clearly, but the world was still a confused place.
After a light breakfast she slipped out and took a taxi to the cemetery, but not to go to Ben’s grave. He was already in the past, but the man who’d died two months earlier still seemed with her. As she laid her flowers on the
