Dark Fire Page 17

  He swore, muttering something short and succinct and vicious. And then at last his arms loosened, and he pushed her chin up, gazing into her eyes. Aura looked back, her mouth curving.

  ‘That bloody smile,’ he said quietly. ‘You looked at me like that that first night, and I thought—oh, God, I thought, what the hell am I going to do about this? All right, you little witch. When are you going to marry me?’

  Her heart leapt into her throat, and then the light died in her eyes and he demanded, ‘What is it?’

  ‘We can’t get married,’ she said miserably.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Paul—’

  His arms slackened a moment, and she tried to step away, but he said angrily, ‘No. He’s not going to stand between us like an angel with a flaming sword, I’m damned if he is.’

  ‘But he’s your friend.’

  ‘And you,’ he said smoothly, ‘are going to be my wife.’

  ‘He’ll hate it,’ she said, giving in, not realising it.

  Her words fell like heavy stones into mud, fiat, no reverberation, no echo.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied uncompromisingly, ‘I’m afraid he will. But there is nothing we can do about that. We are not responsible for Paul’s happiness.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I didn’t want to come between you.’

  ‘There’s nothing for you to come between. He doesn’t consider me a friend any longer. And even if he did, I’m not going to wait for years until he’s got over you. These last few months have been hell, waiting for you to get him out of your system. Aura, I love you, and I’m damned sure you love me. Our commitment has to be to each other. I want us to marry.’

  Against that simple statement of need she had no defences. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘All right.’

  He stood very still. ‘Just like that?’ he asked incredulously.

  Her smile quivered on her lips. ‘What do you expect me to do? Object for the sake of objection? You know I love you.’

  ‘I thought you might have some mistaken loyalty that would keep you away from me.’ He laughed softly, exultantly, and kissed her forehead. ‘I thought I might have to take you to bed again and again until I got you pregnant, and then persuade you into marrying me. Actually, I was rather looking forward to that.’

  She laughed too, her green eyes tender and soft and amused. ‘I’ll bet,’ she said. ‘I can see I’m going to have a hell of a life.’

  His arms were warm and strong about her, offering not safety but risk, not tranquillity but excitement, nothing of the kind tenderness she had thought she wanted. Flint was fire and danger and exhilarating turbulence; life with him would be far removed from the haven of serene calm she had longed for. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Smiling, she lifted her face in mute invitation.

  Hours later, when the swift tropical darkness had enveloped the island in its purple embrace, she stirred. Instantly Flint’s arms tightened around her.

  ‘No,’ he said into her ear.

  Smiling, she rubbed her cheek against the swell of his chest. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Good.’ He yawned, then kissed the tangle of hair that swirled across his shoulder. ‘Each time we make love I think nothing could be better, nothing could ever match it again, and each time it’s more exciting, more unbearably electrifying. I suppose one day I’ll get so excited I’ll die.’

  ‘Not while we’re making love, I hope,’ she said, laughing.

  He grinned, the lazy, eminently satisfied smile of a man who has the world in his grasp. There was something very tigerish in that smile. ‘Why not? It would be a wonderful way to go.’

  ‘For you, perhaps. I wouldn’t like it at all.’

  ‘OK, I won’t.’ His arms contracted about her. ‘When are you going to marry me?’

  ‘I’ve got a photo shoot in Thailand in a fortnight’s time, and a trip to Japan in January. I can’t get out of them, Flint.’

  For some reason she expected him to object, but he said calmly, ‘No, there’s no reason why you should even try. Shall we get married before you go to Thailand?’

  ‘So soon?’

  He laughed at her scandalised tone, his golden eyes gleaming with tender mockery. ‘Why not? Do you want a big wedding?’

  ‘No!’

  His shoulders moved in a shrug. ‘So why wait? I have to work for Robertson’s until the end of the year, and then we can move to the vineyard. We’ll need to build a couple of houses; I’d contracted the same architect who designed the winery, but as soon as I realised I was in love with you I put him off; you’re going to have to approve his plans. Jean-Pierre is very magnanimous; he says he’ll stay in his caravan until our house is finished, provided you cook him a couple of dinners a week. You’ll like him.’

  Aura looked down into his confident, hard-hewn face. People didn’t change just because they were in love. Natalie was still Natalie, and Flint would always try to bulldoze her into doing what he wanted.

  ‘What if I can’t cook?’ she asked demurely.

  ‘He’ll teach you,’ he said, laughter tilting the corners of his mouth.

  ‘As it happens, I’m not a bad cook, but I’m always ready to take lessons. If you put the architect on hold you must have been pretty confident I’d marry you.’ Her voice was very wry.

  He grinned. ‘It was the only way I could stop myself from slitting my wrists.’ The humour leached from his face. ‘I had to believe you’d get over Paul and turn to me, otherwise I think I’d have gone mad. For the first time in my life I was desperate.’

  ‘I’ll bet you were hell to live with.’

  He flushed slightly, and laughed again. ‘You know me too well,’ he said drily. ‘Well, will you be happy living on a vineyard?’

  ‘It sounds wonderful.’

  He kissed her soft mouth. ‘Of course. Everything’s wonderful. In fact, if I’d tried we couldn’t have worked things better. The business is going to need a good accountant and money manager, and you are clearly sent by providence to be that.’

  She pulled a face. ‘You don’t even know yet whether I can do it.’

  ‘Am I taking too much for granted? Would you rather work in town?’

  For the first time Aura allowed herself to hope that this time everything would work out, that the future would be as bright and shining as it seemed to promise. She said, ‘What would you do if I said I would?’

  His hand in her hair contracted, but he said evenly, ‘I’ll try to persuade you that you’d be happier working with me, but I’m not an ogre, my heart, my darling. You will make your own life.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything I’d like more than working with you.’

  He kissed her, and kissed her again, and after a highly satisfactory interval she sighed, and asked the question that had been nagging at her ever since the last time they’d been together.

  ‘Why did you make love to me that first time? Not that first time we—’ beneath his amused glance colour heated her skin, but she kept on doggedly ‘—we—ah— slept together, but in Auckland. After The Pearl Fishers.’

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said heavily, ‘I was desperate to stop you from marrying Paul, driven by a compulsion stronger than honour or friendship. At the time it seemed all I could do was bypass your better self and home in on the sexual attraction, because I knew you felt that just as strongly as I did. It was the only way to break the ties of loyalty that bound you to him. But as well, I couldn’t resist. You had me so tied up in knots that I had to kiss you. Perhaps I even thought that it might do nothing for me, that it was only because you were forbidden that I wanted you.’

  She flinched, and he said harshly, ‘Yes,’ and in the monosyllable was all his pain and self-disgust, and beneath it, like true metal under corrosion, the shining edifice of his love. ‘But if I did,’ he went on, ‘that first kiss showed me just how wrong I was. I knew then that I had to have you. Yet although your response nearly blew my mind, you were still deter
mined to marry him.’

  She said, ‘I loved him. But after that night I knew I couldn’t marry him.’

  ‘You knew?’ Lifting her chin, he stared down into her face with quick antagonism. ‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘How could I? Not before I told him—I owed him that, at least. I had to wait until he came back from Samoa. And I didn’t know how you felt. You told me you weren’t offering anything but an affair. I was utterly wretched.’

  ‘You and me both.’ The anger died as fast as it came; he kissed her gently, stroking her hair away from her cheek. ‘I needed you to want me because you loved me, not for security, not for any other reason but that you couldn’t live without me. When you still wouldn’t give in, I realised I’d have to force the issue. I know Paul. Under that surface placidness there’s a very possessive man. He’d have tried to keep you any way he could.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ she said.

  ‘Because I told him we were already lovers.’

  She sat up and stared at him. ‘You what?’

  In spite of her indignant struggles he tucked her back against him. ‘Calm down. It was the only thing I could think of to keep him away from you, and even then I didn’t know whether it would work.’

  ‘You lied,’ she said dangerously.

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry, it’s not a habit. I won’t lie to you ever, I swear. I was damned near in despair. You see, I always knew you loved him. That’s why I asked you not to see him by yourself, when I got called away. I thought he might be able to persuade you to go ahead with the wedding. If you had, you’d have torn yourself and him to pieces. Because I would have taken you away from him. You and I were meant to be, my darling.’

  He had understood much more than she gave him credit for. She lay for a long time with her cheek against the steady throb of his heart.

  At last he said unevenly, ‘God, I could have ripped up the whole world when that bloody beeper sounded, but there was nothing I could do, nothing I could think of in the way of damage control except to ask you to stay away from him,’

  ‘And you left me in Cairns because you thought I was still in love with him?’

  He kissed the top of her head, his arms tightening around her. ‘You were still bound to him, emotionally if not legally. You needed time.’

  She nodded. Flint had the clearer vision. She had been anchored to the past by chains of memory, and they had been flawed and false. She didn’t want peace and tranquillity, a husband who worshipped her as though she was something rare and fragile to be kept safe, locked away from harm. She needed a challenge, just as he did; Flint understood her better than she did herself.

  Soberly she said, ‘Yes. I did love him. But I love you far more, and I’m in love with you as well. I know the difference now. I think perhaps I always did; I just wasn’t ready to admit it.’ She told him about the dream she had had the night she had met him. ‘I should have listened to what it was trying to tell me,’ she finished.

  ‘You wouldn’t be the woman I love if you’d just dumped him. I knew you had to have time to get over him,’ he said sombrely. ‘At Cairns I was starving and afraid. I used the attraction between us to get you into bed—and found to my delight that it was the first time for you—but I couldn’t go on doing that. You had to put him into the past where he belonged, and learn to love me, and to do that you had to have time, without pressure, time to discover the truth for yourself.’

  She turned her hot face into his neck. ‘How did you know that it was the first time?’

  ‘Oh, it was all very new to you.’ His smile was wickedly satisfied. ‘It wasn’t difficult to realise why. I know it’s not modem to say that I’m glad you were a virgin, but I felt like the ruler of the universe when I realised.’

  ‘Chauvinist,’ she accused.

  ‘In this, I’m afraid so. Unrepentant, too. Saying goodbye to you that morning was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but too much had happened too fast. I told myself I’d wait patiently for some sign from you.’ He laughed. ‘Although I must admit I was getting damned restless when Jean-Pierre told me you’d come up to the vineyard.’

  ‘Mm.’ She kissed his jaw, and along the scar, her eyes dreamy. ‘I do love you,’ she said.

  ‘And I love you. With all my heart.’

  EPILOGUE

  ‘Aura, what the hell are you doing in there?’ Beneath the exasperation in Flint’s tone was the ever-present note of tenderness, discernible even through the dressing-room door.

  Aura grinned. ‘I’m getting dressed.’

  ‘It had better be worth this wait.’

  ‘Trust me,’ she growled seductively.

  ‘I don’t trust you an inch, but I’ll wait another five minutes.’

  Pulling a face at the door, she slid pearls into her ears, one creamy white, one black, two teardrops that must have cost Flint a fortune three years ago when their son was born.

  ‘There,’ she told her reflection, ‘you’re ready. And though I say so myself, you look stunning.’

  The freshly floral scent of Joy floated up to her nostrils as she opened the door and walked into the bedroom, sleek and sophisticated in a wool georgette dress the exact colour of her skin. Its narrow skirt revealed legs in the sheerest of stockings and high plain, ivory shoes. Seen from the front the dress was demure, with loose long sleeves and soft folds, but at the back the material was draped in a deep cowl that showed her spine almost to her waist. A wide satin band hugged her hips, finishing with a bow at one side.

  She had put her hair up and clipped a matching satin bow at the back of her head. It was definitely dressing to kill, and from the look on Flint’s face when he saw her she had succeeded.

  ‘There,’ she said, twirling so that he could see the back. Smiling, she looked over her shoulder. ‘Was it worth waiting for?’

  ‘You’re always worth waiting for,’ he said, examining her with the bold eye of possession. ‘But this time you’ve outdone yourself. How long do we have to stay at this thing?’

  Laughing, she finished her twirl, stopping just in front of him so that she could look up into his fierce face. ‘Until, my darling, everyone at this presentation has decided that Southern Red is the most exciting development in wine-making that’s hit the world since the Californian experience.’

  He sighed elaborately, spanning her waist with hands that were strong and lean and tanned with years of working in the vineyard. ‘It is,’ he said, his voice ringing with confidence. ‘It’s going to be right up there with the best in ten years’ time.’

  ‘I know.’

  He laughed under his breath. ‘You never doubted, did you? Not even when people told us we were crazy.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. You once told me that you were not in the habit of making mistakes. I believe you.’

  ‘I was damned arrogant.’ His hands tightened for a moment and the golden glitter of his glance sharpened. ‘It’s a wonder you let me anywhere near you.’

  Aura reached up and cupped his cheek. ‘You’re still arrogant,’ she said pertly. ‘But I love you.’

  His grin was part teasing, part amusement, all pure male satisfaction. ‘You know, I must have had all the gods on my side when I fell in love with you. You’ve worked wonders. Thanks to you we’ve come in well under budget, and the publicity has been tremendous. Who but you would have decided to launch our first vintage with a reception in a marquee? Silk-lined, at that? And managed to whip up such a storm of publicity that we’ve even had British wine buyers asking for invitations?’

  She hugged him. ‘They wanted to come because the wine is magnificent,’ she said. ‘And that, my dear heart, is because you and Jean-Pierre are brilliant. Everyone senses history in the making. And it’s going to get better. Darling, this is the start of a dynasty! Now, we’d better go. I’m sure your mother thinks no one can cook crayfish as well as she does. I’ve already had to haul her out of the kitchen twice. She just doesn’t seem to understand that she’s here to
be fussed over and waited on.’

  ‘Not my mother,’ Flint said cheerfully.

  Aura laughed. The house was full, with Natalie and Joe occupying one bedroom, and Flint’s parents in another. They had very little in common, yet they seemed to get on like a house on fire.

  Life, she thought, as she turned down the stairs, had very little more it could offer her.

  ‘Hello, Aura.’

  For a painful second she froze, before slowly turning. Yes, it was Paul, five years older, his blue eyes watchful beneath hooded lids.

  ‘Paul,’ she said, and her smile broke through. ‘Paul, how wonderful to see you!’

  ‘Ah, it’s great to see you, too. Marriage and motherhood and growing wine obviously agrees with you.’

  ‘It does, indeed. You look good, too. Have you talked to Flint?’

  ‘I’ve seen him. I haven’t spoken to him. I’m a bit embarrassed—the last time we met I said some totally unforgivable things to him.’

  Flint had never spoken of that final interview, but since then neither man had seen the other, and she knew that the loss of Paul’s friendship still hurt her husband.

  ‘He forgives a lot more easily than he used to,’ she said drily.

  ‘There were things I had no right to say,’ Paul said, looking at her intently. ‘I’m afraid I blamed him for—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’ve missed you both.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go and say something to him, Paul?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I think I will. You’re even more beautiful than I remember. I hear you have children.’

  ‘A son, Andrew Paul,’ she said deliberately, ‘and a daughter, Sophie. Andrew’s three now, and Sophie is eighteen months. How about you, Paul? Are you married?’

  ‘No,’ he said, smiling faintly. ‘Perhaps I had to exorcise you.’