Lovers Not Friends Read online

  ‘He didn’t come because he’s been in Spain for the last three years,’ she said tightly. ‘He’s—’

  ‘Dead when I get hold of him,’ Blade finished grimly.

  ‘John has nothing to do with this.’ She found she was wringing her hands in her anguish and forced them into tight fists in her lap. ‘He sent me a postcard a few months ago with his new address to say he was back in England, and when I left it was the only place I could think of to go. I didn’t even stay a night with him. He put me in touch with a lady in the village who takes in the occasional guest—’

  ‘Mrs Cox,’ Blade stated stonily. ‘Yes, I know. I also know that you see him on a pretty regular basis, so do us both a favour and cut the bull, Amy.’

  She stared at him helplessly as her mind flew on. Maybe she should let him think she had left him for John? She felt his impatient movement at her side, and turned quickly to speak. The note she had left had stated only that she considered their marriage had been a terrible mistake and that she had decided, unequivocally, that it was over. That she wanted no settlement, nothing from him, and that divorce proceedings would start immediately. He was a fiercely proud, implacable man. If he thought she had left him for a lover, that knock to his male ego would be unspeakable and final. And this had to be final.

  ‘My relationship with John is nothing to do with you,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t—’

  ‘The hell it isn’t!’ he ground out through closed teeth as he studied her set face with harsh black eyes. ‘You took me for one hell of a ride, sweetheart, and no one, no one, does that. When I get hold of him …’ His voice stopped but the look on his dark face was lethal.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said, with as much calm as she could muster through the racing fury of her heart-beat. ‘Hurting John won’t do any good, I’ll never come back—’

  ‘You’ll never get the chance,’ he interrupted brutally. ‘You’re soiled merchandise and I only have the best.’ She knew he was lashing out through his own hurt, but hearing him speak like this was agonising. After all they’d shared, all the dreams for the future … ‘By the time I’ve finished with him no other woman will want him, that much I promise you.’

  ‘Blade—’ She caught herself abruptly. What could she say now? The hole was getting deeper and deeper, but she couldn’t let John take the brunt of this when all he had done was to offer comfort and refuge. ‘John is a friend, nothing more.’

  ‘Sure he is.’ He opened the car door abruptly and stepped out on to the springy coarse grass beyond. ‘I need some fresh air, something stinks in there.’

  ‘I mean it, Blade.’ She sprang out of the car, her voice desperate now. ‘Please listen to me.’

  ‘Listen to you?’ He swung round with such ferocity that she shrank back against the comforting bulk of the car, her eyes wide with fear. ‘Listen to you? Honey, you’re garbage plain and simple. You think lover-boy is in for a good hiding? How right you are.’ The black eyes were narrowed onyx slits. ‘And there hasn’t been a day in the last three months when I haven’t wished you were a man so I could exact the same punishment on you personally. But—’ he surveyed her with a bitter smile ‘—there are more ways than one to skin a rat.’

  ‘Blade—’ Her breath caught in her throat and she almost choked with fear. ‘Can’t you just give me a divorce and leave it at that—?’

  ‘You’ll get your divorce.’ A pair of rooks suddenly swooped down over their heads from a large oak tree at the side of the road, their harsh, raucous cry fitting the moment perfectly, and as Blade’s eyes followed the birds she flinched at the bleakness of his profile. But she had to do this. She had no other choice. This might hurt now, but if she stayed with him it would destroy him in the end. She had no other choice.

  ‘Why, Amy?’ As he turned to confront her, it was the Blade she had been dreading through long restless nights of tossing and turning and tormented dreams. In his face was a glimpse of the Blade only she had known, vulnerable, assailable, with a capacity for tenderness that was unlimited. She could cope with the fierce hostile stranger breathing fire and damnation, but not this, never this. ‘What went wrong? I thought everything was so—’ He stopped suddenly, turning in one harsh movement to stare out over the hills again, his hands clenched fists in his pockets. ‘But I didn’t know you, did I? It was all make-believe, all of it.’

  Oh, my darling. As she looked at the back of his head, the sunlight turning the burnished brown gold, she knew she was experiencing the worst that could ever happen to her. The future, with its promise of a living nightmare, was nothing compared to the piercing agony that was gripping her soul in a stranglehold, killing every spark of joy, every good thing. She would exist from this day but she wouldn’t really be alive. But she loved him too much to take him with her into the pit. This way he could recover and live his life. And he would recover. He was a survivor. He’d forget her in time and there would be countless women only too ready to help him.

  Her eyes were dry. This pain was too deep for tears, and she turned blindly to look at a tiny farmhouse far in the distance from which a plume of smoke was slowly rising into the blue sky. ‘It was just one of those things,’ she said slowly as she forced the words out through stiff lips. ‘Life’s like that …’

  ‘Amy?’ She hadn’t been aware that he had turned and was watching her, and now, as she met his eyes, she quickly schooled her features into an acceptable mask. ‘There isn’t something more, is there? Something you aren’t telling me?’

  She stared at him, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. She should have been on her guard every second, she shouldn’t have relaxed for a moment. He was too intuitive, too perceptive. How many times had she seen him go straight for the jugular in the past and marvelled at his ability to see beyond the obvious, to expose every little weakness? The same attributes that made him so formidable in business were in force now and she must be careful, very careful.

  ‘Aren’t the facts enough?’ she said tightly. ‘Do you want more skeletons from the closet? Well, I’m sorry, I can’t oblige you, Blade. You’ll have to hate me for what you know; there isn’t more.’

  He stared at her for a whole minute, his eyes searching her face with an intentness that made her breath stop, and then he shook his head slowly, his mouth a thin white line in the starkness of his face. ‘There couldn’t really be more, could there?’ he said with biting cynicism. ‘It was just that for a minute—’ He stopped abruptly and indicated the car with a violent wave of his hand. ‘Get in, I’ve had more than enough.’

  They didn’t speak on the return journey, and as he drew up outside Arthur’s little restaurant he leant across her and opened the door in one easy movement. ‘Goodbye, Amy.’ The tone was flat, all emotion gone.

  ‘Goodbye.’ She never did know how she got out of the car, but it took all the will power she possessed to walk away. She opened the door of the restaurant without looking round, hearing the car pull away with a furious roar of the powerful engine as she did so. She just made it through the kitchen door before she collapsed in a heap at Arthur Kelly’s feet, her eyes big and stunned.

  ‘Amy?’ Arthur pulled her to her feet, guiding her to the one and only small stool by the back door, his lined face tight with concern. ‘What on earth is it, lass? What’s happened?’ He patted ineffectually at her hands as he spoke, obviously quite out of his depth.

  ‘Arthur, can I go home?’ She couldn’t speak for several seconds but when she did her voice was a tiny whisper. ‘I feel awful.’

  ‘You look it.’ He peered distractedly through the pane of glass in the kitchen door at the customers beyond. ‘I can’t really take you now; I’ll call a taxi, yes?’

  ‘No, please don’t.’ The nearest taxi-cab service was in a small market town miles away and she needed to be alone now. ‘I’ll be home in ten minutes, I’d rather walk.’

  ‘You don’t look fit to walk, lass, let me—’

  ‘Please, Arthur.’ She faced him, her bl
ue eyes enormous. ‘I’d rather.’

  ‘OK, lass, have it your own way.’ He wrinkled his brow worriedly. ‘But give me a call once you’re home, eh? Just to keep an old man happy.’

  ‘I will. And I’ll see you tomorrow as usual.’

  Much later that night, as Amy sat in her darkened room filled with evening shadows, after a meal cooked by the reputable Mrs Cox of which she hadn’t been able to eat a bite, she forced herself to face the fact that had emerged from her meeting with Blade earlier. She had been hoping subconsciously against all reason and all logic that when she saw him again—and she had known, knowing Blade as she did, that she would see him again—that somehow he would work a miracle and things would be all right. It was ridiculous, insane, like a fully grown adult insisting in believing in Father Christmas when the magic had been dead for years, but a tiny part of her had clung on to the hope without her being aware of it.

  In all she had had nine months with him, three of those as his wife, and it had been heaven on earth. She had been terrified that first day, as a relatively new employee of the large catering firm she worked for, when she had been called upon to liaise with the great man’s secretary about a formal dinner Blade was holding that weekend. She had ventured into the massive office block with the warnings and admonitions of the other staff ringing in her ears.

  ‘He’s incredibly difficult to please, so make sure you get every little detail down on paper.’

  ‘He never tolerates mistakes; go through things with his secretary at least twice to make sure you’ve got it right.’

  ‘Don’t question anything he asks for; his word is law.’ The list had been endless and had reduced her to a nervous wreck before she knocked on the door to his secretary’s office, which was more luxurious than her own little flat.

  The room had been empty, and as she had stood in the midst of the ankle-deep carpeting, the hushed atmosphere reaching out to intimidate her still more, the catch to her case containing all the firm’s literature had broken and the whole mess of papers cascaded out on to the floor. She had been on her hands and knees retrieving them with frantic haste when a deep cool male voice from the doorway froze her in her tracks.

  ‘Miss Myatt? From Business Catering?’ She raised doomed eyes to the laconic unsmiling figure leaning lazily in relaxed scrutiny as her brain had died on her. ‘My secretary is indisposed today, Miss Myatt; I’m afraid you will have to talk to me.’

  He was afraid? She had followed him weakly into the sumptuous office beyond the interconnecting door, setting the case down quickly, which caused it to spill open again in a repeat of the fiasco.

  ‘Miss Myatt, this is not your day …’ He moved round the desk to help, dark eyes filled with wicked amusement at her discomfiture.

  Later he told her he’d fallen in love with her at that moment. ‘Like a bolt of lightning,’ he’d said seriously, his eyes following the smooth pure profile of her face topped by its mass of rich golden hair. She had been twenty-one and hopelessly naïve; he had been thirty-five and anything but.

  He was successful, wildly handsome, with a string of much-publicised affairs credited to his account, but when he told her he had never been in love before she believed him. If it had been different he would have told her. He was that type of man. They had laughed together, loved together—and now it was over. Because Blade Forbes was an action man. Their honeymoon had been spent scuba diving and hang-gliding with long, warm nights of passionate love. He hardly knew what it was to be still. And she had loved that too along with everything else about him.

  But how would such a man, hard, dynamic, with a zest for life that was unquenchable, cope with a wife who would be confined to a wheelchair by the time she was thirty and a hospital bed five years after that? Unable to move, breathe by herself?

  The impersonal brutality of the stark medical facts came back to her as though she were reading them for the first time. The doctor’s report she had been shown hadn’t pulled any punches; indeed the clinical outline of the effects of the disease that was lying dormant in her body till it was matured enough to rear its head in a few years’ time had seemed almost savage on that first reading. But then, how many ways were there to impart news like that? She twisted in the darkness, a pale slender figure in the shaft of moonlight from the uncurtained window.

  The cold, typewritten report was engraved in her memory word for word; she only had to close her eyes for the small black letters to be there in all their severity. Her heart pounded as she ran over them again in her mind, their message of a living death as hard to take now as when she had first read it.

  She had been right to leave Blade, she had. She caught her breath on a sob of pain; she had had no choice. But, oh—she gazed round the dark room almost wildly—that didn’t make it any easier.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘GOOD morning, Amy.’ She stood transfixed, halfway out of the kitchen door, as Blade sauntered across the small restaurant after shutting the front door quietly behind him.

  ‘What do you want?’ she breathed softly, her eyes drinking in the sight of him even as her logic repudiated the thrill that had shot through her whole body.

  ‘Lunch? If that’s not too outrageous? I did assume this was a working restaurant?’ The sarcasm was cold and biting and she blushed hotly as he seated himself at a table, his whole demeanour lazy and relaxed.

  ‘Why are you here?’ She moved to stand by his chair, her voice a low hiss.

  ‘I am here to eat,’ he said slowly, with exaggerated patience. ‘You do remember that I do all the things a normal man does? Some with more enjoyment than others,’ he finished silkily, his voice dark and rich and his eyes hard and mocking as she blushed hotly.

  Thank goodness John would be away for another twenty-four hours yet; she had to get rid of Blade before that somehow.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean,’ she flashed back tightly. ‘We said all that could be said yesterday—’

  ‘We did not,’ he said sharply. ‘And please cut the naïve and stupid act because we both know that you are neither. We still have arrangements to make and matters to discuss. And my movements are my own affair, remember that, Amy. You have waived the right to question me in any way.’

  ‘I see.’ She glared at him angrily. ‘It’s the muscle-man approach, is it? Forcing your way in—’

  ‘It was barely twenty-four hours ago that you accused me of being a bully in this very place,’ he interrupted her coldly, his words falling like small pieces of ice into the heated atmosphere. ‘I’d drop the insults if I were you, sweetheart. I don’t like them and I have no intention of tolerating any more. Now, get the menu and do the job I assume the proprietor is paying you to do.’

  His arrogance left her speechless and as she swung round, with a furious twist of her body that set the high silky ponytail at the back of her head swinging madly, she heard him laugh softly and the sound chilled her blood. There was no amusement, no mirth in the sound, just a callous, biting cruelty that brought all her fine body hairs upright in instinctive protection. Whatever game he was playing he wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever and she would just have to put up with things for the moment, but why was he here? He’d said he despised her, that he felt nothing but contempt and scorn for her, so why was he back here this morning …? To torment her? She looked him full in the face as she placed the handwritten menu on the table in front of him, and the black eyes stared back at her, their expression unfathomable. Yes, that must be it. She wouldn’t have thought he was capable of such pointless cruelty, but then she had never defied him before and after what he thought she had done maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. Some men wouldn’t have stopped at verbal abuse. And he still clearly intended to settle things with John in his own way.

  ‘Thanks.’ As he studied the menu she stood at his side, her eyes drawn to his bent head and a feeling of inexpressible emotion causing shivers of fear to flit down her spine in ever-increasing rhythm. His tawny brown hair gleamed richly wi
th virile health in the May sunlight, his coal-black eyes with their thick, almost feminine lashes in impressive contrast. How often had she run her fingers through that mass of strong, coarse hair after a night of passion when she had felt as though even her toes were alive with sensual delight? He had been a magnificent lover. She forced her gaze up to stare blindly out of the window. Sensuous, erotic, but with a tender sensitivity to her own feelings that had caused the bond between them to strengthen and grow night by night. No wonder he didn’t understand why she had left. If only she hadn’t followed through on the impulse to visit Sandra that day …

  ‘I’ll have the soup, followed by an omelette, please.’ She jumped visibly as he spoke and a dark frown creased his forehead. ‘Daydreaming, Amy? I won’t ask who’s featured in them but for the moment would you concentrate on doing your job?’ The tone was biting.

  ‘You don’t have to be so thoroughly unpleasant,’ she said tightly as she wrote his order on the small notepad attached to her belt.

  ‘You call this unpleasant?’ he asked with a mocking, frosty amazement. ‘You don’t know the half, girl. But you will.’ The dark eyes were pure granite. ‘Oh, yes, you will.’

  As she walked through to the kitchen a feeling of incredible weariness had her hands shaking. Was all this worth it? Perhaps it would be better to tell him? To let him share in the agony with her rather than bear it all alone? But then she remembered Sandra’s drawn, lined face, the sunken features and the still young body already twisted into a caricature of an old woman. Could she bear those eyes that had always blazed with love and passion dulling with pity and wretched, helpless misery? To have him look at her each day as she slowly got worse, to see— She stopped her thoughts from the destructive path they were following and straightened her back as hot rage against the unfairness of it all flooded her system with adrenalin.

  Stop your whining, girl, she told herself fiercely as the doorbell in the outer room signified more customers. One day, one hour at a time. She had realised weeks ago that was the only way she was going to bear the months and years ahead. If she looked into the future she lost all her courage.