Man Hater Part 11

"Baby, I like what I'm hearing," Came breathed fervently.

"Something tells me that you and I are going to get along real fine together. Look, why don't we blow--we can go out to my yacht and talk this thing through. We'll get more privacy there. What do you say?"

Kelly's first instinct was to refuse. She glanced across the sea of faces and saw Jake dancing with the blonde girl, her body pressed provocatively close to his, and jealousy burned through her. Like an animal in pain she wanted only to escape, and her eyes were still on the slowly gyrating couple as she murmured distractedly, "Yes... yes.. fine..."

"Good. Good, let's go, then." CameWrayman got up, and Kelly followed him along a path which led down through the gardens, giving the odd tantalising glimpse of the moon-silvered sea and the huge white yacht lit from stern to stern and drifting languidly at anchor.

"Hop in," Came instructed, indicating the small powerboat tied up at the jetty.

"The water in this cove is quite deep," he told her as they headed for the yacht, 'but unfortunately not deep enough for the Mary Belinda--after wife number three I got sick of changing her name, and so, although the real Mary Belinda has long since left my life, her namesake remains. "

The small motorboat chugged noisily towards the yacht, Kelly entranced by the reflections of the stars in the midnight-blue water, the swell caused by the boat crested silver by the new moon.

"I've given the crew the night off," Came told her as they went on board. He saw Kelly's bemused expression and grinned boyishly.

"Would you like to see over her? She's one of my favourite toys, and I'm idiotically proud of her."

With good reason, Kelly reflected half an hour later as Came escorted her into what he described as the 'main saloon'. As large and lavishly equipped as a small drawing-room, the room was decorated in soft shades of green and toning cream.

"It's ... it's like something out of a film," she managed at last.

"A.

floating stately home! "

Came laughed.

"You should see some of the yachts that put in to Corfu, they make mine look very small beer indeed--but I still haven't shown you my own private quarters."

Still smiling, Kelly followed him through a door and into a corridor carpeted in a thick pale cream carpet.

As Came opened a door she caught a glimpse of the room beyond it; almost stark in contrast to the pastel prettiness of the 'saloon', it was furnished in a richly Oriental style with a low bed, and several items of beautifully lacquer-worked furniture, including an antique 'medicine cabinet' and a screen. The walls were painted a vivid scarlet, the bed covered in black silk.

"Very sybaritic," she murmured to Came, 'and quite different from the rest of the decor. "

"Yes, I had my own suite redecorated when I divorced my third wife. Do you like it? "

A tinyfris son of warning p.r.i.c.kled along her spine. There was a look inCame's eyes that she recognised and distrusted.

"It's ... it's very eye-catching," she told him, edging back towards the door.

"But hardly the place to discuss business."

"That depends," Came told her, watching her intently.

"On the business, and the potential business partners. I could put a good deal of work your way, Kelly..."

"Provided, in return?" she questioned evenly. She was furiously angry, not so much with Came as with herself by being stupid enough to get herself in this situation. Good heavens, how many times in the past had she been faced with the same potential hazard? More than she cared to remember, but this was the first time she had been idiotic enough to walk blindly into the trap as naively as a child.

"My dear," Came protested, 'need we be so crude? You aren't doing much for my ego, you know. "

"I shouldn't think it's in much danger from anything I can do," Kelly saiddrily .

"I'm not stupid enough to believe you have any interest in me as a person. Came. This is simply an exercise in power politics."

"How astute you are!" He drawled the words pleasantly enough, but there was a look in his eyes that warned Kelly that he was annoyed.

"I thought you and I were two of a kind."

"Perhaps it would be as well if I left..."

"From whose point of view?" There was no humour in his smile now.

"If you return to the villa now, having been seen leaving in my company, my guests, and even worse the inevitable press photographer who always manages to gate crash these do's, will jump to the correct, and as far as I'm concerned, humiliating conclusions. I don't want you making a fool out of me by going back to the villa now, Kelly. You're a grown woman, you knew what you were doing when you agreed to come here with me. Okay, now you've changed your mind, but I haven't changed mine."

He lunged for her, taking Kelly off guard as he grasped her arm. Pain jerked up her arm as he dragged her towards him. The urbane host who had amused and entertained her was gone. In his place was a man governed by vanity and obsessed with his public image, and she had been a fool not to read the truth in the weak mouth and greedy eyes before.

Common sense warned her against panicking; that was just exactly what he hoped she would do. Cool cynicism would be a far more effective weapon if she could just keep her head long enough to use it.

"Look," she pleaded, playing for time, "I can understand why you're annoyed--and some of the blame does lie with me. I wasn't thinking properly and I genuinely thought you did want to talk business. Let's go back to the villa together--that should stop any gossip, and I give you my word as far as I'm concerned that will be the end of the whole thing..."

"Your word!" He laughed harshly.

"My G.o.d, if there's one thing I've learned over the years it's that when a woman gives you her " word", it means exactly nothing. And besides," he said softly, "I want you.

You're a very desirable woman--my kind of woman. "

"But you aren't my kind of man," Kelly retorted pointedly.

"And now--I'm leaving, with or without you."

"Brave words," Came sneered, 'but unfortunately for you no more than that. You can't start the boat without the ignition key, which I have here. " He patted his pocket.

"And besides, you couldn't outrun me, Kelly, but go ahead if you want to."

His voice told her that he would love her to try and make a run for it; that he would enjoy her panic and fear, and even though inwardly she was tense with anxiety and dread, Kelly forced herself to stand her ground and say calmly, "I have no intention to staying here with you. Came--or of allowing you to make love to me."

His sneer almost made her panic.

"How are you going to stop me?" he mocked, tightening his grip on her arm.

"And don't start telling me you'll cry " rape", Kelly. The courts are getting tired of trumped-up charges from women who change their minds at the last minute."

White-faced and thoroughly frightened, Kelly was forced to admit the truth of his comment. Even if she were to accuse him of rape she doubted that her case would stand much chance of success in court. By her own folly she had placed herself in a vulnerable position. She had come willingly with Came to his boat, after, all.

As though he read her mind and sensed victory, Came pulled her towards him, triumph flaring in his eyes.

"Admit it, Kelly," he breathed, nauseating her with his self-conceit, his wine-fumed breath reminding her that he had probably had a considerable amount to drink.

This was confirmed as he raised his free hand and started to fumble clumsily with the straps of her dress, and although what he had had to drink didn't appear to have affected his strength--he was still holding her arm in a bruising grip--it did seem to have affected his coordination.

A miasma of panic settled round her like a mind-paralysing cloud as she tried to fight free of him, her body tensing automatically against the intrusion of his hands against her skin, anger giving way to stark, terror and the age-old human instinct to fight for survival.

"h.e.l.lcat!" Came swore thickly at one point as Kelly scratched frantically at his face, his hand going automatically to the long red welts she had drawn along Ids skin. Momentarily free, Kelly reacted, instantly, racing for the open door, finding her way almost by blind instinct up the nearest companionway, lungs bursting, heart pounding with the fear that fuelled her flight. On the deck her flight was suddenly impeded by a solid ma.s.s that crushed the breath out of her body, the bite of strong fingers on her shoulders making her shudder with panic and despair.

"Kelly... Kelly... What the h.e.l.l's going on?"

"Jake?" She stared at him in utter disbelief, suddenly galvanised into action as she heard Came swearing and breathing heavily down below.

Jake registered her panic and smiled cynically.

"What's the matter? Did lover boy prove too much for you?"

"He told me he wanted to talk about business," Kelly muttered, feeling foolish and very much on the defensive.

"And you're trying to tell me you fell for it?"

Kelly flinched as she heard angry footsteps on the companionway, clutching instinctively at Jake's arm, her eyes widening with fear.

"Oh, please, let's go!"

Came had gained the deck and stood there, swaying slightly, his face livid with rage.

"Just who the h.e.l.l are you?" he demanded thickly, advancing on Jake.

"I'm a friend of Kelly's," Jake replied evenly.

"Thank the kind man for his hospitality, Kelly," he drawled mockingly.

"It's time we left."

For a moment, Kelly thought Came was going to hurl himself at Jake and she held her breath, terrified by the thought of more violence. But half a dozen feet short of Jake Camecame to an uncertain standstill.

"Get her out of my sight," he muttered angrily.

"Frigid little b.i.t.c.h, I didn't really want her anyway!"

All the way back in the boat the words reverberated endlessly through her mind, an acid refrain that seemed to burn through her frail protection, reminding her achingly of Colin and the taunts he had thrown at her, destroying the frail self-possession she had built up in the years between and leaving her as vulnerable to his rejection as she had been then.

She was s.h.i.+vering by the time Jake stopped the motorboat, barely aware of him standing up to throw anchor over the side.

"Come on, jump out, you'll have to wade the rest of the way."

She s.h.i.+vered, backing away from him instinctively as he reached out his hand. The boat rocked wildly. Kelly heard Jake curse and then she was overbalancing, falling backwards into the cold dark water, her startled cry of protest choked off by the seawater filling her mouth and nostrils.

Her panic subsided almost instantly as her feet touched the sandy bottom, and by the time Jake reached her she had regained her balance. The cold water had the effect of shocking her back into an awareness of the present; of Jake's angrily icy face, and the bedraggled picture she must present in her seawater-doused hair and soaking dress. Why had Jake come to look for her and, more important, how had he known where to look?

"Sue was concerned about you," he told her, obviously reading her mind.

"She couldn't find you, and she seemed to think you might be... upset, for some reason."

Kelly was glad of the darkness as her face flamed. Sue meant that she had thought she would be jealous because Jake had disappeared with the blonde.

"That doesn't explain how you knew where to find me," she retorted coolly, dragging the rags of her composure around her, retreating into the protection of the cold hauteur that had worked so well in the past.

"You were seen leaving withWrayman ," Jake told her tersely, as he waded on to the beach and turned to help her. The moonlight fell sharply on his face and for a second his features seemed to tense, a muscle beating violently in his jaw. He looked angry, and more. "Kelly, come on. We're both soaked through. We can't stand here all night. I take it you don't want to go back to the party?"

"Meaning you do? I'm perfectly capable of returning to the villa on my own," she told him acidly, 'so if you want to return to your girlfriend. "

"My girl-friend?" He frowned, and then his expression changed, a mocking smile playing round his mouth.

"Ah yes, of course. But, Kelly, you are forgetting something. You are my girlfriend--at least, you are while I am still in your employ."

For some reason she wanted to cry. She felt the tears sting the back of her eyes and knew with detached certainty that this was only the beginning of the pain she was going to experience. Where and why it had happened she didn't know, but she had fallen in love with Jake.

In a daze she followed him up the beach, barely aware of the fact that he had turned to wait for her, until she felt the warm clasp of his hand on hers.

"Cold?"

She nodded, wondering if she was hallucinating and imagining the tenderness in the word.

The night air was quite warm, but the sea and the shocks she had sustained had left her chilled to the marrow. By the time they reached the garden of Sue's father's villa she was s.h.i.+vering so much that her teeth were chattering. Jake, although equally wet, seemed impervious to the cold.

"Come into the sitting-room and I'll pour you a stiff drink," he suggested curtly as they entered the house.

"It will help combat the shock."

"No!" Kelly didn't want to tell him that she always a.s.sociated the sort of drink he meant with the one the police constable had given her when he broke the news about Colin.

"I'll go and have a shower. I'm just cold, that's all."

Jake shrugged, the powerful shoulders damply encased in the thin silk s.h.i.+rt, his jeans clinging to his body in a way that made her senses respond overpoweringly to the masculinity of him.

The shower helped, but she couldn't banish the ice-cold knot of sickness lodged inside her heart. Came'sfinal words had left a barb that festered powerfully, no matter how she tried to blot them out, and this, coupled with the knowledge of her love for Jake, left her feeling totally disorientated and achingly vulnerable.

She longed to go to bed and sleep so that she could blot out what had happened--forget everything, but she knew that sleep would be impossible, and then she remembered Sue saying that she had some sleeping tablets her doctor had prescribed. Ordinarily, Kelly wouldn't have dreamed of taking medicine prescribed for someone else, but tonight she couldn't endure to lie knowing that Jake was either lying in the opposite bed or, more likely, sharing the bed of the blonde girl who had made her admiration of him all so plain.

She was heading for Sue's bathroom when the living-room door opened and Jake emerged.

He frowned when he saw her, and Kelly was absurdly aware of the brief towel she had wrapped around her body--and the insulting remarks Jake had made earlier. Her face burned as he looked at her. Did he think she had done this purely to attract his attention?

"I wanted to borrow a couple of Sue's sleeping pills," she muttered jerkily.

"I'm sure she won't mind, and I..."

"Want to forget what happened on board the yacht, is that it? What did happen, by the way? Were you genuinely running fromWrayman or were you simply egging him on?"