Fortune in the Stars (18 page)

'Are you trying to pick a fight with me?' he teased,
rubbing his chin against her head.

This time she shook her head, the beginnings of a
melancholy sadness beginning to encroach on her beautiful contentment.

'Perhaps I should be picking a fight with you, though,' he
sighed.

'Don't you dare!' she exclaimed, a sudden desperation in
her to suspend time and keep them both in this wondrous vacuum of
fulfilment forever.

She moved against him until her cheek was resting on his
and to where her lips could silence his if the need arose.

'But I was the first…wasn't I, Penny?' he
demanded huskily.

'Yes,' she whispered, the sadness gaining increasing hold
on her, forcing her towards the bleak contemplation of reality.
'Dominic…there's a lot I have to explain—'

'Oh, no you don't,' he interrupted with a lazy chuckle.
'You can call me all the macho chauvinists you like, but I don't want
to hear a string of reasons why… Just leave me to bask in
the knowledge of having been the first.'

'Wake
up, sleepy little Leo.'

Penny woke up to the caress of those words in her ears and
the sight of their enunciator seated on the edge of the bed. And the
delightfully sensuous warmth pervading her left her in no doubt that
she had awakened in heaven.

'How is it you can remember my star sign, yet not your
own?' she queried with drowsy contentment.

'I'm afraid we'll have to puzzle that one out later,' he
replied, his laughter soft and inciting to her receptive senses. 'I
told Rob I'd be at his chambers around nine, and I'm already running
late.'

She struggled to sit up, disappointment swamping her.
'Dominic, do you really—?' She bit back the rest of her
words, caution taking over as the last vestiges of sleep began drifting
from her.

'Yes, I do—really,' he chuckled softly. 'But I
can't say I want to—go, that is.' He gave a groaned laugh as
colour instantly pinkened her cheeks, then took her in his arms in a
brief hug. 'I knew it would be wiser to leave you a note and slope
off,' he sighed, releasing her and rising. 'I'll be back as soon as I
can.'

He picked up his raincoat and strode to the door. 'Shall I
have coffee sent up to you?'

Penny gazed at him in silent bemusement, her mind refusing
to function.

'Right—I'll do that,' he grinned.

For an instant he seemed to hesitate, then shook his head,
opened the door and left.

For several seconds Penny's eyes lingered where he had
stood.

'I love you,' she stated with unfaltering clarity. 'I
love, I love you, I love you!'

She flopped back against the pillows, dizzy and elated
with the sheer joy of loving. For several seconds she lay there, trying
to cling on to that wondrous feeling as she struggled to ignore the
questions beginning to steal into her mind and their accompanying
stirrings of apprehension.

All right, she gave in at last, what would his reaction
have been had he heard those reckless declarations of love? It was
impossible for two people to have shared the magic they had without
there being love, she told herself in an attempt to dispel the gnawing,
nagging sensation now taking such firm hold within her.

Yet he had shared that magic with others, she reminded
herself with brutal objectivity, a bleak chill now threatening to
envelope her. And afterwards, she wondered with sick dread, had it been
protestations of love as fervent as her own that had driven him from
those others?

She rose and ran a bath, breaking off to drink several
cups of the coffee he had had sent up to her before taking it.

She wouldn't have been feeling as sickeningly uncertain as
this if it hadn't been for all the lies, she fretted… Or
would she?

For well over two hours her mind see-sawed back and forth,
examining all the minutiae of their relationship, sometimes lifting her
with hope, but ultimately reducing her to dark despair.

After a long battle with herself she reached out for the
phone and dialled Sarah's number. It was the fact that she had no real
news about Lexy that had held her back from making the call for so
long…but it was her desperate need just to hear the
comforting sound of a friend's voice that finally drove her to it.

At first she got no reply, and later, when she eventually
got an engaged tone, the need in her to hear Sarah's voice had become
so urgent that she found herself trying the number with an almost
deranged persistence until she at last got through.

'Sarah!' she choked wildly, relief and the threat of tears
distorting her voice.

'Oh, Penny, thank God it's you!' groaned Sarah. 'I've just
had Jake on the phone to tell me of the run-in he had with Dominic
Raphael at a fellow barrister's chambers.'

As the frantic rush of Sarah's words continued Penny felt
her legs begin to give way beneath her. She fell weakly on to one of
the chairs beside her.

'It's just that being better placed than most, Jake
thought he'd put out a few feelers regarding Lexy… Penny,
he'd no idea they'd clash with those already being put out by her
brother and his friends.'

Penny felt the blood drain from her. It simply hadn't
occurred to her that Jake, being a barrister like the friend helping
Dominic, might try using similar contacts.

'Penny, it just hadn't crossed my mind that you wouldn't
have told Dominic you'd been in touch with me,' Sarah was continuing.
'Jakes says he's never witnessed a man have more difficulty trying to
hide his fury than Dominic when the penny finally dropped. I've really
landed you well and truly in it, haven't I, love?'

Penny's shoulders sagged. 'It's all my own stupid fault,'
she sighed. 'You couldn't possibly have been expected to know. But
there's one thing I have to ask you,' she exclaimed, her voice
pleading. 'Sarah, do you by any chance have…well, a sort of
gut feeling about all this—?'

'That Lexy will be OK?' cut in Sarah.

'Yes.'

'All I can say is thank God you have it too,' breathed
Sarah, relief flooding her voice. 'You can't imagine the number of
times I've wondered if I'm not simply trying to kid myself.'

Her spirits lifting, Penny decided to put another question
which was preying on her mind. 'Sarah, has Lexy ever mentioned a Niall
Winterton to you?'

'I was going to ask
you
about him,'
sighed Sarah. 'Apparently he fits into all this somehow or
other—but I've no idea who he is. Penny, there are times I
promise myself I'll throttle Lexy once she turns up…then I
think of Erica. Oh, Penny, I hope to God this feeling we have is
reliable, because—'

'Hang on a minute, will you, Sarah?' asked Penny, her
blood freezing as she heard a key in the door. 'Look, I'll have to ring
off now—I'll be in touch as soon as I can.'

'To spread more of the word around, no doubt,' came
Dominic's coldly drawling voice from the doorway as she replaced the
receiver. 'Who were you spreading it to this time?'

'Dominic, please…you have to let me explain.'

'But that would only spoil things,' he drawled, slinging
his coat on the nearest bed as he strolled towards where she sat. 'I
don't like my women open books,' he murmured, drawing her to her feet.
'A few lies between lovers adds a bit of spice to a relationship, or so
I've heard.'

'Dominic, why try to hide your anger behind flippance?'
pleaded Penny, his touch confusing and exciting her.

'How could there possibly be room for anger in me when my
head's filled solely with images of you?' he demanded huskily, reaching
out and opening the buttons of her blouse. 'Wild images of you crying
out in passion in my arms.'

He slipped the blouse unhurriedly over her shoulders, then
down her unresisting arms and off her, his eyes never once rising to
hers.

'Dominic, why won't you look at me?' she whispered, the
coldness of fear clashing with the heat of longing already ignited in
her.

'But I
am
looking,' he murmured, his
eyes locked on her body as he slowly removed her bra.

Penny raised her hands to his face, forcing his gaze to
hers.

'Dominic, why are you behaving like this?' she pleaded,
the hot glow of desire she encountered in his eyes doing little to
dispel the chilled knot of fear within her.

'Because I want you, my delectable Penny,' he replied,
shrugging free of his jacket and then removing his tie. 'Wasn't last
night proof of how desperately I want you?' he whispered, taking her
hands and placing them against his shirt, guiding her fingers to the
buttons. 'Don't be shy…be as uninhibited as you were last
night,' he urged, as her hands remained immobile against him.

He cupped her face in his hands and began kissing her. And
it was the gentle seduction of his kisses that stilled the frantic
voice of warning crying out within her and goaded her fingers to
trembling response.

Yes, there had been anger in him—an anger he had
found impossible to mask in those few moments after he had entered the
room. But the magic was still there between them, she convinced herself
as her body began responding with an increasing lack of inhibition to
the impatient ardour of his.

'I can't stop wanting you,' he groaned in hoarse protest,
lifting her in his arms and carrying her to the bed.

'Don't ever stop!' she entreated, driven by the rage of
love within her that promised to conquer not only her every fear, but
also his every doubt.

But later, as she lay spent in his arms, Penny recognised
those promises for the delusions they were. Last night there had been a
sense of sharing between them. Yet this time, though his body had
driven hers beyond endurance, and had time and again answered fully
each demand its passionate urgings had awoken in her, that beautiful,
innately mental sense of sharing had been absent.

And last night he had cradled her in his arms, once
passion was spent, and in their sharing of one another's contentment
there had even been laughter.

She sat up, gazing down at the man in whose arms she had
found ecstasy, and yet who now lay beside her like a remote stranger.

'Dominic,' she begged, her face tense and pale. 'We have
to talk.'

His eyes rose to hers, chilling in their remoteness.

'OK—so what do you want to talk about?' he
drawled, each icy word cutting into her with the keen sharpness of a
razor.

'Dear God, how could you, Dominic?' she whispered, aghast.
'How could you possibly make love to me as you just have, and
then—?'

'Believe me, making love to you is something I find
exceptionally easy to do.'

Her mind and body recoiling in horror from those taunting
words, Penny leapt from the bed and threw on her dressing-gown.

'You have such a beautiful body,' he murmured. 'It hardly
seems fair for you to cover it from eyes as appreciative as mine.'

Her cheeks scarlet, Penny belted the gown as tightly as
she possibly could.

'Dominic, please don't do this,' she pleaded hoarsely. 'I
know I was wrong to tell you—'

'To tell me what?' He cut through her pleas with
undisguised savagery. 'Which of your lies—and something tells
me there are many of them—do you feel it was so wrong to tell
me? Is there a
right
lie to tell?'

'No, but—'

'Penny, you may spare yourself the bother of
confessing… I simply have no wish to hear it.' He rose from
the bed and gazed irritably around. 'Where's my robe?'

'Hanging on the door,' replied Penny, the words out before
her besieged mind had any chance to react to this latest madness
assailing it.

She shook her head in stunned bewilderment as he strolled
to the door and donned his robe with leisurely detachment. Then she
sank down on to one of the chairs, holding her head in her hands as she
felt something begin to give way inside her.

'This is crazy,' she whispered dazedly to herself. 'It's
completely crazy.'

'I really can't see what your problem is,' he remarked in
eerily hearty tones, walking towards her. 'You should start looking at
things as they are and stop complicating them with matters that really
have no bearing on anything.'

Penny raised dazed and lifeless eyes to the tall figure
towering beside her. It was crazy…and it was probably all
down to her, she reasoned tortuously. It could be that he hadn't just
uttered the load of incomprehensible gibberish that her ears told her
he had…it was more likely a case of her mind having finally
cracked.

'I suppose your lack of experience makes it that much
harder for you to realise that what you and I have is just about
unique,' he continued in tones of calm reason. 'But, believe it or not,
sex can often be very much of a hit-and-miss affair to begin
with— whereas you and I have managed to hit the jackpot at
first go…if you'll forgive the metaphor.'

Penny felt herself tense instinctively for what his
gradually harshening tone forewarned was about to be unleashed on her.

'I can't foresee any problems in our making the best of
what we have going for us while it still lasts,' he drawled softly.
'Especially now that my vague apprehensions that this time I might fall
in love have proved quite groundless…not that it was ever
really a serious possibility.'

Penny crossed her arms tightly around herself, imprisoning
the terrible pain within her lest it escape and betray the even more
terrible sickness of humiliation with which she was doing battle.

'In fact, all in the garden is lovely—or perhaps
it's rosy, I always muddle that one—as far as our
relationship is concerned. Incredible sex, no emotional
ties… Penny, where are you going?' he demanded as she
suddenly leapt up and hurled her way past him.

He caught her as she reached the bathroom door, his eyes
glittering with an inner satisfaction as they raked over her tense
pallor.