The Object of His Desire (erotic romance suspense) Read online

  “No, Charlie,” I said. “You didn’t, did you? Because if you had thought, you’d have realized that putting on something like this, impressive and totally out of character as it is, just isn’t going to get you anywhere when I’ve been telling you, over and God-damned over, that there is no us, that there is going to be no us.”

  He was standing now, hands hovering uncertainly at his side.

  “Well I must say you have a funny way of showing it,” he said.

  “You heard the words, right?”

  “But there was more than just words, wasn’t there, Trude? So much more than just words. We have something special , babe. There may not be an us right now, but if you’d only give it a chance it could be really special.”

  “I gave it a chance. It’s over. It’s been over for more than a year, give or take one or two aberrations.”

  That hurt. That was the punch to the soft belly.

  “If you deny it enough, do you think you’ll actually start to believe all that bullshit one day?”

  That was what I needed: more of that arrogant, smug aggression from him. I could fight that.

  “I’m not the one in denial, Charlie. I’ve never been the one in denial. That’s you.”

  “You want to talk about denial?” he said now. “I know exactly why you’re pissed off with me now. It’s because you thought it was him. I could see it, Trude. I saw your face fall when you saw it was me. Disappointed that it wasn’t Willem fucking Bentinck-Stanley.”

  I didn’t meet his look. I couldn’t. He’d seen right through me.

  “I’ve told you, Trude. Steer clear of him. He’s a bad lot. An unworthy character with a history.”

  Did he really say unworthy. Oh bless, Charlie.

  “I tell you, Trudy, the past always catches up with you. Forget all about him, babe. You’re worth far more than that. Oh, Trude... Let’s try again. Give me a chance to show how good it can really be!”

  I don’t know how we had ended up so close, standing almost toe to toe. I could see a pulse twitching in one eyelid, the pale blue of his eyes, whites showing all around the pupil, always a sure sign of his excitement – anger, arousal, whatever.

  He’d dressed how I liked, how he knew he looked good. Dark blue chinos, a plain shirt, a chunky tie loosened at the neck.

  He smelled of Issey Miyake.

  Bastard.

  “I was a fool,” he said. “I was in denial. I blinded myself to signs that things weren’t working, things I could have fixed if only I’d had the balls.”

  A hand raised, a finger gently trailing down the line of my jaw. He knew my buttons all right. The flowers, the setting, the clothes, the looks and touches, the sweet talk...

  Bastard.

  “It’s not going to work,” I said. “You couldn’t fix it then. You can’t fix things now. There is no us.”

  That finger, still on my jaw, the thumb on my chin.

  “We’re magic, Trude.”

  This was not going to happen. Not again. This was not going to turn into ex-sex. I was better than this. Charlie, God damn him, was better than this.

  The intensity. I didn’t remember this kind of intensity in him before. It was as if there was a heat about him. I could feel it, standing so close to him like that.

  I tried to break that spell, that moment.

  “We’re not magic, Charlie. We’re over.”

  I raised a hand to push his away, but in a sudden movement he snatched at me, taking my wrist in his hard grip.

  This is not going to turn into ex-sex again.

  My heart was racing, my legs weak.

  This is not going to happen.

  The line of trees provided a natural screen, shutting off the sounds of London. To the other sides, more trees closed in. It was as if he’d managed to conjure up a private, screened garden just for this encounter.

  “No. Charlie. Just... fuck it. No.”

  He jerked my arm down, pulling me closer, still gripping me by the wrist. So close, my face brushed against his, my breasts squashing against his hard chest. His free arm snaked around me, keeping me close against him.

  Those chinos. Those damned chinos... I could feel his hardness against my belly, and I was weak and I knew I was going to succumb.

  I’m a strong woman.

  I’m a successful, professional woman.

  But a strong man... well, a strong man, holding me hard against him, desperate for me, dominating me. A strong man who knows exactly which buttons to press.

  I looked up into those piercing blue eyes.

  That smile. That arrogant, smug, God-damned smile.

  I pushed against him.

  He misinterpreted at first, thought I was writhing, pressing, wanting more. Then he understood. The look in my eye, maybe.

  I twisted, pushed, tried to break free.

  “No, Charlie. Just what part of ‘no’ don’t you get?”

  “Your words and your actions... well, they don’t seem to correspond, do they, Trude? The churchyard? Then my place? You know how good we can be, babe.”

  His mouth, then, bearing down on mine. His lips hard against my softness, his tongue probing, the taste of wine and cigarettes.

  Had he always been this strong?

  Every time I pushed him away, he took it as a response, an invitation. Every time I softened, he took it as me yielding.

  What did I want?

  At that precise moment, I no longer knew.

  Was this some kind of pivotal moment? Yield, try again, welcome this new Charlie.

  Or was it madness, like the madness that had led to that desperate, needy tryst at the church after Ethan and Eleanor’s wedding? The madness that had led to the repeat encounter at Charlie’s Aldgate apartment?

  “No, Charlie. Just no.”

  His mouth was tracing the line of my jaw. Hard lips, firm tongue.

  His grip was steel, his body hard against me, his need absolutely clear.

  “No...”

  His mouth on my neck, working down.

  I was confused. I was aroused, wet, suddenly urgent.

  But not urgent for Charlie.

  This may well be a pivotal moment, but not the kind he had anticipated. This was confirmation. This was strong me, not weak, vulnerable, immediate gratification me.

  “I said, ‘no’!”

  A harder push, and he stopped, or hesitated at least.

  There was surprise in his look. Maybe he was seeing a new me, just as I’d seen a new him. He hadn’t thought I had the fight.

  “Enough.”

  He tried to pull me closer again. I was still trapped in his embrace, his steel grip on my wrist.

  “The lady said ‘no’.”

  The voice came from behind, somewhere in the trees.

  Charlie paused, looking beyond me, his grip momentarily easing.

  I took that opportunity and squirmed free, twisting, peering into the shadows.

  A figure stepped forward. Dark suit, dark face, white turban. Maninder. Will’s driver.

  “And just what–”

  “Can it, Charlie,” I said. I knew then that Maninder was far more than just a driver. Charlie was tall, but Maninder had a good few inches on him, and he was half as much again broad at the shoulders.

  Will’s driver stood there impassively, his hands at his sides.

  My head was rushing, confused. First Charlie and now this. I looked from Maninder to Charlie and then back again.

  “Just leave me alone,” I yelled. “All of you. Do you hear?”

  I turned away from them both, and marched off through the trees.

  I half-expected Charlie to follow, for it all to end in a fight.

  I didn’t look back.

  I strode out of the park and was halfway home before I paused, gathered myself, realized that I was holding back the tears, tears of anger.

  I looked down.

  I was still clutching the bunch of roses, ragged now, shedding petals. Had I swung them against the tre
es as I passed? Against the park railings, the walls and streetlamps?

  I dropped them, backed away from them, then headed for my apartment.

  14.

  The rest of the week at work, then a quiet weekend. Gym, shopping for essentials, cleaning. Vigorous, over-enthusiastic cleaning.

  Diversionary tactics? Me?

  I tried not to think about any of it. Tried to lose myself in work, in shopping, in exercise and God-damned cleaning.

  So I didn’t dwell on Charlie’s crass, over-bearing behavior. On his assumption that he could just snap his fingers and I’d drop everything, including my panties. On that mad, power-fuelled look in his eyes as he had held me. On my response. Oh no, I didn’t dwell on my response. Weak woman, powerful man. No, that wasn’t me. That really wasn’t me.

  And I didn’t dwell on Will God-damned double-barreled Bentinck-Stanley. What kind of name was that? He had that same arrogance that Charlie had, that assumption that I would drop everything for him. That he could have me whenever he wanted. He’d had his driver following me, for heavens’ sake! The man who’d accused me of stalking him had paid someone to stalk me!

  Did I feel protected? Well maybe, a little. I don’t know what would have happened if Maninder hadn’t stepped in that evening. Would Charlie have carried on? Would he have raped me and all the time thought I was just playing at saying ‘no’? Or would I have succumbed, like I had before? And if I had succumbed, was Maninder under instructions to intervene, or to let me make my own choices?

  I don’t know. I really don’t know where that evening might have gone.

  But I’d learned my lesson. I’d learned from both of them, Charlie and Will.

  I wasn’t at anyone’s beck and call.

  I was strong.

  I wasn’t going to take any more of this.

  §

  So the flight to Innsbruck came as something of a surprise. The flight on a private jet, with a car to take me from my apartment to the City Airport, right in London’s Dockland district.

  A voicemail is all it took. A simple message, recorded while I was in an acquisitions meeting and my cell phone was tucked away in my desk. That slightly flustered manner – was that genuine or just an affectation? – and the apology, yet another apology.

  That’s all it took.

  “Erm... Hi, Trudy Parsons-Editorial. It’s Will. You know, the spoilt upper-class knob who keeps messing you around and making excuses for being just a little bit crap. Well... a lot crap. That Will. Anyway. I’d really like to talk to you. Make a clean breast of it. Let you find out a bit more about me, so you can see why I’m sometimes inconsistent and sometimes rude and most of the time more than a little bit crap. Sorry, that sounds very egocentric, all me, and all that. But I’d like to talk. I’d like to do that selfish thing of just finding an excuse to spend some time with you and maybe convince you that I’m not the posh twit you far too frequently see before you. So... dinner, perhaps? I could have a man pick you up from work at four, if that would suit?”

  Four for dinner? I should have guessed then. I should have realized that he didn’t just mean dinner, he meant hop on a private jet, fly for two hours and emerge in a landscape where every direction you look there are white-capped mountains.

  So that was how I found myself walking down the steps after the plane had landed, to find him standing there, waiting by a black Mercedes Benz.

  “Fucking Austria?” I asked, standing before him.

  He shrugged. “I was tied up,” he said. “And not in a good way.”

  “And my time was more expendable?”

  This wasn’t getting off to the best of starts.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. There: yet another apology. “I just wanted–”

  “You just wanted to show off, didn’t you? Like all the paintings. A van Gogh in the bedroom, a Rembrandt on the stairs. A driver you can spare to do your stalking for you. I get it. I know you’re rich, okay?”

  He had his hands up. Defensive. Apologetic again. “Can we start afresh?” he said. That glint in those dark eyes, that smile. That hint of the predator about him. How could he switch from awkward to predator so smoothly?

  He laughed. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Why did certain men have this effect on me? Why was I so weak before them?

  We started over again.

  We stood there, in a tucked-away corner of Innsbruck airport, surrounded by white-capped Alps, and Willem Bentinck-Stanley held out a hand for me to shake.

  “I’m very happy that you could come,” he said.

  We shook.

  I smiled. I said, “So... dinner? I don’t have a stitch to wear.”

  §

  That luxury. That decadence.

  Being able to step onto an airplane in one city, land in another. No luggage. Not even a carry-on other than my purse with my useless English money, a couple of cards, my cell phone, some lip gloss and powder, and some Handy Andy tissues.

  That, and for it not to be a worry.

  To know that I was being taken to dinner and that there would be clothes for me to change into, someone to do my make-up, someone for my hair.

  Jeez, but he lived in another world entirely.

  This was his normal. This was how it was for him.

  My assistant – an assistant to dress! – told me the dress was by Jill Sander. Deep blue silk, off the shoulder with a sweetheart neckline and almost no back at all. The jewelry was simple, just a delicate Tiffany chain with three tiny diamonds and a matching bracelet. The make-up was Crème de la Mer and Dior, the hair by someone whose last job had been for minor royalty. And the shoes...

  I wasn’t going to be wowed. I’d already decided that.

  It was just money. Stinking big piles of money. That’s all it was.

  I wasn’t going to be impressed. Not even by a pair of black, lace and satin, crystal-encrusted Manolo Blahniks.

  Everything fit like a glove, like a second skin. There had never been any question of that.

  And no. I wasn’t wowed.

  I was beyond wowed.

  If he was gaming me and this was his game, then I was along for the ride.

  Does that make me sound shallow? Does it make me a tramp?

  Maybe, in some people’s eyes. But I still had my sensible head on. I knew my limits, my boundaries.

  And now, for the first time in my life, I knew what it was to be dressed from head to toe in clothes that could have been made for me, in a costume that for probably cost more than a year’s rent on my apartment.

  My year had certainly turned around from that January that was only memorable for a bout of winter vomiting sickness and a burst water pipe. Whatever happened this evening, there was no denying that.

  15.

  I stood at the window of my suite. The white mountains all around were lit up in gold and bronze by the dying embers of the late summer sun. The hotel was a short distance out of Innsbruck, a grand white building that commanded a breathtaking view down its own Alpine valley. The walls were clad in Italian Carrara marble, apparently – Will had told me, before I’d reminded him about his tendency to show off. From the look on his face I wondered if he’d been about to tell me that he owned this place, another legacy of his family fortune.

  Even as I watched, the colors on the mountain tops changed, softening and fading until the peaks were just dark, jagged shapes against the night sky.

  A maid showed me to a private dining room a floor down from my suite. Will waited for me at a table set for two before French windows that gave the same awe-inspiring view down the valley.

  “Okay,” I said, as I lowered myself onto a chair drawn back for me by a tail-coated waiter. “So all this... it’s on a par with your van Gogh and that little Rembrandt by the stairs in your massive country home. So why? Why me? What are you after?”

  He poured wine, something incredibly dark, almost black. He looked up at me after a few seconds, and smiled. “I love that you’re so direct,” he said. “I love that
you’re not fazed by any of this.”

  “But still you try.”

  The wine was heady, an intense hit of fruitiness and then something dry, tart almost. I’d never drunk anything like it.

  “If you were hoping to get me into bed – I know you told your buddies at the wedding that you would have me.” He winced at that. “Well, it takes more than Rembrandt and private jets and incredibly drinkable and probably very expensive wine. Call me old-fashioned but I like to get to know a guy.”

  “The wine,” he said, “it’s actually very reasonable. I know what I like.” Somehow he managed to put far more meaning behind that simple sentence than should have been possible. He knows what he likes, he gets what he wants. “And the rest? The Rembrandts are family heirlooms, the jet mere practicality, the best way to get you from London to here in time for dinner.”

  I noted the plural for the Rembrandts: I’d only seen one at Yeadham Hall.

  “And old-fashioned? I would never call you that. It makes good sense to get to know someone before you get in too deep. To know their quirks, their idiosyncrasies, their desires...”

  This was different Will. This wasn’t the flustered, apologetic Will, the upper class twit who stumbled through life. It wasn’t edgy, predator Will either. This Will was in smooth control. His words were carefully chosen, every sentence like a thread in a spider’s web, designed to entrap, enfold.

  Their desires...

  “You didn’t bring me here to talk about the book, then?”

  “Perhaps. I may have been too dismissive the other day.” Yet another snare set for me: keep that professional interest alive too, as well as all... all this. The setting, the jet, the clothes. All of it. Did he know I’d always been drawn to mountains, that my favorite childhood vacations were when we went skiing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire? That little lodge we stayed in near Attitash, where we could look out over the valley and make up stories about the twinkling lights of the other lodges and hotels. Was this all carefully chosen to play on that, or was that just coincidence?

  And just where is that fine line between attention to detail and stalking?

  Just then, the waiter returned with two plates. Diagonally across each plate was a line of delicate slices of pale meat, just a little pink in the centre, drizzled with a red wine sauce and accompanied by a few artfully arranged baby salad leaves and shoots.