Settling The Score

‘Or do you imagine for a moment that I always have—’

‘Sex with complete strangers in lifts?’ he supplied drily.

An angry flare of colour emphasised Romy’s high cheekbones. ‘I did not have sex with you!’ she protested huskily.

‘No? Depends on your definition of sex, surely?’ he queried insultingly. ‘It’s true we stopped short of actual—’

‘Stop it!’ Romy yelled, and actually clapped her hands over her ears, but dropped them almost immediately when she realised how childish the gesture must appear.

‘Why?’ he questioned, in mock surprise. ‘Does it bother you?’

‘Of course it bothers me!’ she declared.

‘What does?’ he snapped. ‘Your indiscriminate sexual appetite? Or your cuckolding of the man who was my best friend?’

‘And what about you, Dominic?’ she retorted, trying to resist the thrill it gave her just to say his name out loud. ‘Does it make you feel good to know that hours before you were due to be best man at our wedding you were practically ripping off my underwear?’

‘Ripping it off?’ he drawled arrogantly. ‘I think your memory must be defective, Romy. As I recall, we didn’t actually remove any of your clothes, did we? But I suspect that you would have needed very little coaxing to do so! Don’t you? Be honest now.’

Her cheeks still on fire, Romy shut her eyes, as if that would dispel the tantalising and forbidden pictures which had sprung up before her mind’s eye with disturbing clarity. And when she opened them again she surprised a taut, angry mask which had momentarily hardened his features. So he was tense, too, was he? she thought with surprise. Then why? Why bring her here? ‘That’s all water under the bridge now, surely?’ she asked him.

His eyes were piercing, their silver-grey light as direct and as steely as a sword. ‘Is it? I find that I tend to file the whole episode away under “unfinished business” rather than “water under the bridge”.’

‘Perhaps that’s your conscience troubling you?’ Romy suggested sweetly, and then immediately wished she hadn’t.

‘Perhaps it is.’ His eyes were icy cold. ‘And what about your conscience, Romy? Does that ever give you a sleepless night? Do you ever think about Mark? Did you think about Mark as you made those false wedding vows—?’

‘They were not false!’ she declared automatically.

‘Those false wedding vows,’ he persisted, with deadly calm. ‘Just hours after I felt you climax beneath my fingers.’ He shook his head, as if he had been given an insurmountable problem to solve. ‘It still seems scarcely credible to me that the supposedly virgin bride my college friend had spoken of so proudly and so fondly should have been grappling half-naked with me within minutes of our meeting.’

But it wasn’t like that! Romy would have yelled at him, if he hadn’t literally taken her breath away with his candour. Nothing like that!

Except that he wouldn’t believe her—and why should he? There was a whacking great kernel of truth behind his words. She had done all those things he had accused her of—and more! And if she tried to defend her actions she would sound like the worst kind of hypocrite—the kind of woman who allowed herself to get carried away by passion and then turned around and blamed the man.

No, if there was any blame to be apportioned then it must be laid firmly at her door. After all, Dominic had not forced her to do anything she had not wanted to. Quite the contrary, in fact...

Dominic stared at her and frowned. Her face had gone as white as a glass of milk and she had started to sway. Instinctively, he moved away from the fireplace and was beside her in seconds, his hands gripping at her upper arms beneath the soft material of her jacket.

‘Romy?’ he demanded roughly, the soft feel of her flesh beneath his hands making him want to do something much more elemental than comfort her. ‘Are you OK?’

The way he said her name was like cool water to a thirsty camel, the touch of his hands like some rejuvenating life-force, and Romy found herself staring helplessly into his eyes.

Close up, his presence haunted her even more. Initially she had thought that he had changed very little, but she had been wrong. It was true that the thick ruffled hair had remained untouched by grey—a fact made all the more remarkable by its coal-dark blackness—but the years had subtly redefined his face, Romy realised. All the softness of youth had completely disappeared. His features were harder, while his mouth fell naturally into a cynical line. Around the piercing grey eyes were now the fine lines of age and experience. He looked, she thought, suppressing a sudden shudder of sexual awareness, like a man who knew exactly what he wanted out of life...

So what the hell did he want from her?

‘Romy!’ he said again, and this time gave her an almost imperceptible little shake. ‘What is it?’

She stared at him, completely deflated by the shocking memory of what had happened between the two of them. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Tired?’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘I’m not surprised! Deception can be tiring, can’t it? In fact, it must be positively exhausting. Imagine the amount of devious planning it must take to make sure that your lies don’t get found out. I wonder if Mark ever found you out?’ he mused. ‘I often wonder if your rampant promiscuity could have been a contributing factor to his premature death.’

Romy sucked in an agonised breath, a movement which made her cheekbones look impossibly hollow. How could he? How could he be so deliberately cruel? But she decided to let it go. For the moment.

‘Quite apart from the fact that your sexual demands must have been pretty challenging,’ he continued contemptuously, ‘I must say that even I have never met a woman who was turned on so completely or so quickly as you, Romy. I don’t think that Mark was the best man to be able to cope with your needs, do you?’

‘That’s enough!’ she told him angrily, shaking his hands off her arms impatiently. He had only pretended to be concerned—it had taken very little time for him to start insulting her all over again! ‘Don’t you imagine I feel bad enough about Mark’s death without you adding to it with your vile accusations?’

His eyes glittered with dangerous challenge. ‘So your conscience is entirely clear, is it, Romy?’

‘Oh, damn you, Dominic Dashwood!’ She could barely bring herself to look into those clever, searching silver eyes. ‘Damn you to hell!’ And as her words whipped discordantly around the room Romy wondered just what her secretary would say if she could hear her.

Or see her. Sitting weakly and pathetically on the edge of the sofa whilst glaring balefully at a man who was doing nothing more sensational than recounting facts which she had tried to keep hidden away—even from herself—for all these years.

What the hell was happening to her? Romy Salisbury was famous for her ability to remain unruffled, for refusing to be thrown—no matter how sticky the situation.

What about the time early last year, for example, when a foreign minor royal had hired her to organise an American evening for his thirty-fifth birthday and the cook and the waitress had failed to show?

Romy had cooked and served the meal entirely by herself, and the royal personage had got wind of it, insisting on coming down into the kitchen to congratulate her in person.

‘Oh, it was nothing, sir.’ Romy had blushed modestly, whilst trying out a very rusty curtsy. ‘Just hot dogs and beans and a mud-pie pudding.’

‘Though I suspect,’ the Prince had murmured, with a practised smile, ‘that even a swan fashioned out of ice would not have defeated you!’

‘I’m just grateful that you had less elaborate requirements than that, sir!’ Romy had joked, pulling a mock grimace which had told the Prince exactly what she thought of over-the-top gestures like swans made out of ice. And the twinkle in the Prince’s eye had told her that he agreed with her sentiments entirely!

After that, her workload had quadrupled overnight, giving Romy the luxury of being able to pick and choose her jobs. It really was amazing how much clout royal patronage gave you!

So, this Romy Salisbury who could chat with ease to princes—what connection did she have with the woman who was currently behaving like a beaten dog? Just because she had come across the man she had alternately dreamed of and dreaded meeting for five long years. What are you, Romy Salisbury? she asked herself. A woman or a wimp?

Her dark eyes flared with the light of battle, and Dominic’s eyes raked over her face.

‘So why?’ he suddenly demanded.

So many whys. ‘I’m not a mind-reader!’ she retorted. ‘Why what?’

‘Why did you pretend not to recognise me?’

Romy smiled and decided to brazen it out. ‘Because I dislike the idea of being manipulated, I suppose.’

‘Manipulated?’

“That’s right.’

‘Manipulated by whom?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ she remonstrated tartly. ‘By you, of course. You deliberately went to the trouble of booking me under the name of one of your more obscure property companies instead of giving your real name. Presumably with the intention of shocking me when we met. What kind of reaction were you hoping for, Dominic? That I would collapse in a swoon at your feet when I came face to face with you?’