White Lies

‘You’ve made that perfectly clear by your clumsy invitation,’ she said coldly, deciding to scramble over the rocks to the next bay and escape his unwanted attentions.

‘Good. Because I don’t want you to think I’d ever play fair,’ he told her silkily, and she paused, wondering what he meant. Her hesitation gave him the opportunity to capture her wrists in his vice-like hands. ‘You and your kind are like parasites. And, for your information, I invited you to my boat on the off chance that I could keep you there till you promised to get the hell off the island,’ he added, with no shame at all for his attempt to manipulate her.

‘If you don’t take your hands off me,’ she said coldly, ‘I’m going to scream. And I can scream for England, I promise you.’

‘Surely you don’t want any publicity?’ he murmured. ‘Not the kind of woman you are.’

She tried to speak, but her throat was filled by a hard, dry lump. What kind of woman did he mean? she wanted to ask, horrified to be thought anything but hard-working, moral and conscientious. But the curl of Pascal’s lip, the flinty scorn in his piercing eyes and the intensely physical threat of his muscular body made her feel as if she’d committed an indecent act and ought to be hiding herself in shame.

Dawning on her slowly was the realisation that he knew something about her background—something so dreadful that any decent person would be justified in despising her and her kind. What kind? Who was she?

Mandy’s sharp, shuddering intake of breath sucked in his warmth, the scent of his powerful male body. A shiver skimmed down her back. If she was right, she didn’t want to hear the truth from this unsympathetic brute. The revelation should come in private, from someone who might care about her feelings. The shock that there might be awful secrets in her family past had shaken her to the core. She wanted. to know now. Or she’d have a sleepless night filled with the sound of her own sobbing.

Sound suddenly forced its way through her white, trembling lips. ‘Pascal,’ she said rawly, ‘I pray that somewhere inside that steel skin of yours is a heart. Because I need to find it.’ Her hand reached out in an urgent plea because she knew she had nothing to lose. ‘I beg you, take pity on me—’

‘Go home. Staying here will destroy you,’ he said grimly.

She winced. ‘I have to stay! You know why I’m here!’ she cried, looking up at him through swimming eyes. ‘Don’t you feel any compassion for me?’

‘Not a scrap.’

‘Forget your bitterness!’ she begged. ‘Forget whatever vendetta lies between you and your father! I badly need to see him; you must realise that! I can, I will do it the hard way if I have to, but you can make it a lot easier and save me time. Whatever your feelings, please, in the name of humanity, arrange a meeting for me as soon as he’s better! I’ve come all this way, my hopes raised...’

Her voice trailed into silence. He had moved even closer, so that her fingers touched his chest. Blinking, she registered the firm, moulded muscle, the warmth and the flawless texture of his skin that cried out to be stroked. Beautiful, she thought, much to her own surprise, and had to fight against the foolish, knee-jerk urge to slide each palm up to his gleaming brown shoulders and hold him close, because the lure of that warm body was overwhelming.

She pulled herself together. ‘Please,’ she repeated, her hazel eyes huge with anxiety and her whole heart in her long, pleading look.

‘You were right. You can be very persuasive,’ he said huskily.

‘Oh!’ she breathed, filled with hope. ‘Pascal...’ Her voice dried up.

Serious and unnervingly determined, he slowly reached out with his forefinger, and Mandy watched it come closer to her mouth, knowing that her lips were parting and that her breath was rushing from her lungs in a long, low sigh. Hunger. Hunger for a man’s touch!

She stopped breathing, fighting her need for comfort and love. It had happened once before, when she’d been desperately lonely and in need of affection. A million hormones had flooded her brain and made her behave stupidly, allowing an acquaintance to kiss and caress her and touch her body till she’d found herself hating the fact that he wasn’t her late husband. And she’d spent the next twenty minutes fighting and coaxing and pleading to be left alone.

She recognised that her body still yearned for a lover. But not this man. So, to save herself, she whipped her head around and the fingertip briefly touched her teeth, then slid across her jaw and throat before it was retracted.

But she couldn’t erase the memory of his burning blue eyes spilling desire into hers, or the faintly salty taste of his finger and its erotic, tantalising caress that promised much, leaving her suffering from a sense of emptiness. And she knew that she was out of her league and that the few men she’d known before had been relatively unsophisticated and inexperienced compared with the knowing Pascal.

She and Dave had been like happy children—sweethearts for a long time, marrying young, loving, playing, laughing. After he’d died men had tried to make headway with her but her heart and body had been frozen in time...

The sea lost its sparkle and grew dim. Dim because tears were filling her eyes. Crying! And Dave had been gone for two whole years!

Why did she feel so emotional? Was it the long journey? Was it the joy of finding herself in a tropical paradise and then the let-down when the promised meeting with Vincente St Honoré had failed to materialise? She groaned softly. Perhaps it was because she feared that her hopes might be cruelly dashed. Or perhaps it was the anticlimax from the high tension and excitement of wondering if she might at last be on the brink of tracing her true parents.

And now, to top it all, there was the all-pervading fear that her family hid a dark and alarming secret.

Pascal must be aware that she was crying. But he remained still and silent. Her cheeks grew wet and salty tears reached the corner of her mouth because she couldn’t rid herself of the despair.

She licked them up, lapping them with the tip of her pink tongue while she reflected that she wanted to find her parents more than anything in the world. It had always been in her mind, even though she’d been happy in the children’s home because Dave was there, and Dave had been first her childhood friend and then the man she’d wanted to marry. He’d become her husband immediately she’d left the home on her eighteenth birthday, and their bliss together had more than fulfilled one of her dreams.

Her other dream was to know if her mother was still alive and who she was. And she’d also dreamed of helping her mother if necessary—because she was sure her mother wouldn’t have abandoned her at the Glasgow nursing home unless she’d been desperate.

Mandy knew that she needed someone of her own to love. Dave’s death had left an emptiness that had grown worse with time, not better.

I’m terribly alone, she thought, her lower lip stubbornly refusing to stop quivering. I want to find my roots, whatever they are, and I’m close, very close, but fate in the shape of Pascal St Honoré is stopping me—

‘My father would adore you,’ said Pascal softly, touching her wet cheek.

‘That’s nice,’ she husked shakily.

‘No, it’s not.’ A big, solid hand came to rest on her slender back and she felt herself shudder. ‘It’s the last thing I want,’ he said tightly.

Slowly she turned her head to look at him and, though he must have seen the tear-stains on her unhappy face, his bleak and anguished expression didn’t change. There was disapproval set like concrete in his expressive mouth. Not one ounce of compassion.

His gaze slid away. ‘Simon’s on his way with our drinks from the beach bar at last. Wipe your eyes,’ he ordered.

Pride was enough to have her surreptitiously wiping her tear-stained face with her handkerchief, thankful that Simon had a long way to come still and that she’d be halfway decent by the time he arrived.

She felt worried. There must be a reason why Pascal felt such disgust for her. For the first time she questioned the wisdom of seeking her roots. Maybe the cost would be too great and the anguish of knowing the truth could hurt her badly.

‘I need your help,’ she said in a low voice.

‘You have serious doubts now, don’t you?’ murmured Pascal soothingly. ‘You’re beginning to see that it might be unwise to pursue your goal.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘Good. Very good,’ he approved.

He gave her a tong, slow look that seemed to heat her very soul. Something was crackling across the space between them—an electricity, a wave of male energy that poured through her lowered defences and seared directly into the secret places of her body. Her lips parted, her breath shortened in dizzying confusion. Muscles tightened in spasms in that core deep inside her that only Dave had ever liquefied before.

‘Pascal, I—’ she began doubtfully.

‘Act normally,’ he muttered in an undertone. ‘Wait till Simon’s gone and then I’ll tell you what I’m prepared to do for you.’

The words trembled with a warmth that seemed to slip through every vein in her body. And she wasn’t sure what he meant, only that he was going to help.

‘Thank you,’ she breathed gratefully.

Pascal’s golden brow winged upwards, his voice still rich with sensuality. ‘You’ll thank me more thoroughly than that before I’m through with you,’ he promised.

His meaning was now plain. Mandy’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You’re shameless!’ she said indignantly.

‘With a father like mine, it’s inevitable,’ he drawled.

‘Drink, lady?’

Mandy looked up at the young St Lucian, bestowed a shaky smile on him and accepted the exotically decorated glass of juice. It would give her something to do with her hands. Right now she felt an overwhelming urge to slap Pascal’s smug face.