Fortune in the Stars (5 page)

Penny felt a warm glow of satisfaction creep over her as
he disappeared. He actually was a very nice man, she reflected with a
small stab of surprise. It wasn't as though she was discounting his
ghastly hobby of breaking women's hearts, which even his adoring sister
admitted he did with horrifying ease, it was just that the delightful,
almost boyish enthusiasm he had exhibited over the cake indicated a
totally different side to him.

'Oh, heck!' she whispered in alarm to herself. 'I hope I got the proportions right for the icing.' A bad mix
had been known to break teeth.

'It's a shame I didn't manage to get back a bit earlier,
then Juana could have joined us before she left,' Dominic said on his
return.

'She's concocted the most wonderful selection of
tapas
for supper—she says they're your favourite. They look good,
but I'm not really sure what they are.'

'Unbelievably delicious titbits—you haven't
lived until you've tasted Juana's
tapas
!' he
declared, uncorking the champagne. 'Here,' he said, tossing her a box
of matches. 'You light the candle while I pour this.'

She lit the candle, giving the icing a surreptitious prod
with a finger as she did so; it gave to perfection.

'I forgot to tell you—Lexy rang this morning to
wish you a happy birthday. She'll be arriving a week tomorrow.'

'What's keeping her in London?' he asked, handing her a
glass.

'Something to do with the gallery, I think,' replied
Penny, puzzled and slightly irritated with herself to feel her cheeks
colouring.

'No, it's nothing to do with that,' said Dominic. 'I tried
getting her there this morning when I had no success at her
place—they weren't expecting her and hadn't any idea where
she might be.' He broke off with a sudden exclamation. 'I'd better do
the necessary with that candle before it starts dripping all over your
icing.' He clinked the rim of his glass to hers, wished himself many
happy returns, took a gulp of champagne and then a deeply exaggerated
breath.

'Don't forget to make a wish,' Penny reminded him through
her laughter.

He blew out the candle and turned to her with an
altogether wicked grin. 'Would you like to hear my wish?' he murmured
teasingly.

'It won't come true if you tell it,' she informed him, a
trifle sharply because her stomach had maliciously taken to performing
acrobatics once more—not that he had seemed to have heard
either her words or their sharpness; he was busy transferring things to
a trolley.

'We'll take this lot out on to the patio and have it
there,' he announced.

Penny followed him out, remonstrating furiously with her
recalcitrant stomach—then realised what she was doing and
almost threw up her hands in disbelief.

'Don't I get a second wish when I cut the cake?' he asked,
cutting into it.

'Not that I've heard of,' laughed Penny, her spirits
reviving a fraction. 'By the way, where's your secretary?' she asked,
watching as he served two enormous slices of cake on to plates.

'She's staying in Alcudia—her sister lives
there.'

'Is she Spanish?'

'No, French—her sister's married to a Mallorcan
doctor.' He handed her a plate, topped up their glasses, and then took
a mouthful of cake.

Penny watched in trepidation, her mind filling with what
seemed like every word Lexy had ever uttered regarding Librans and
their famed finickiness—their allegedly unremitting need for
an aesthetic harmony amounting to virtual perfection whether it was in
their surroundings, the clothes they wore or the food they ate. And
Juana's cake, she reflected gloomily, had been well-nigh perfect until
all that icing had been ladled over it.

'Well?' she demanded, when he seemed to have munched for
at least a full minute.

He made a sound that was completely unintelligible.

'What did you say?'

His mere repetition of the sound drove her to tasting the
cake for herself—she found it absolutely delicious.

'As I said—twice—the best-iced cake
I've ever tasted,' he announced ambiguously, and promptly took another
mouthful.

Her spirits now almost totally revived, Penny followed
suit; he was right, it
was
delicious, icing and
all!

'I was wondering,' he stated companionably. 'This
spur-of-the-moment flight of yours here; what were you running away
from?'

Penny managed to catch her fork before it clattered to the
marbled patio slabs.

'Nothing,' she lied through a painfully clenched jaw.
Never, she vowed silently, would she ever again allow herself to relax
in this nerve-racking man's company! 'Why on earth should I be running
away from something?' she asked, striving desperately to mask her inner
feelings. 'I was a bit bored and felt like a break.'

'Bored with all your charities?' he murmured with palpable
coolness. 'Perhaps you should get yourself a proper job.'

'You're a fine one to talk!' she snapped, her quick temper
scattering caution to the winds. 'A self-confessed playboy!'

'You misunderstand me; I wasn't necessarily advocating
that you
should
work, simply that it might be a
cure for your boredom.'

Penny took another mouthful of cake, furiously cursing her
casual lie of the previous evening. She had no one but herself to blame
for this—though, for someone as reticent about his own life
as he was, he certainly had a nerve prying into hers like this!

'And I didn't say I don't work,' he continued.

'Oh, yes, I forgot—your grandfather left you a
business empire to play with,' she retorted.

'There is such a thing as creative play,' he murmured
without any apparent rancour. 'And in my creatively playful hands I can
assure you the business will go from strength to
strength—without my having to lift much more than a finger.'

'Banking on beginner's luck, are you?' she asked unkindly.

'Not in the least. I already have a thriving architectural
practice in Paris which I started up from scratch.'

Penny tried hard to mask her astonishment.

'But if you have a perfectly legitimate profession, why on
earth do you refer to yourself as a playboy?' she demanded
exasperatedly.

'Conditioning, my dear Penelope, conditioning,' he drawled
infuriatingly.

Penny flashed him a hostile look. At least Lexy said
nothing about her family, unlike this man, who would make enigmatic
references to it and then get on his high horse when she rose to the
bait!

'Why do you and Lexy hate your grandfather so much?' she
demanded, anger goading her into calling his bluff.

'What makes you think we hate him?' he stalled, his eyes
expressing a hostility that more than matched hers.

'The tone of your voice when you mention anything remotely
concerning him,' she replied, refusing to be intimidated. 'And the fact
that Lexy has never once so much as mentioned him.'

'It seems Lexy rarely mentions me, yet you don't doubt her
love for me,' he countered, his eyes bright with the glitter of granite.

'Oh, forget it!' exclaimed Penny, her patience snapping
completely. 'You're quite happy to pry into my life, but not nearly as
happy if I try the same with you… So let's just drop the
subject!'

'How could you possibly accuse me of prying?' he
protested, suddenly an exaggerated picture of wide-eyed innocence.
'When I hadn't even got round to asking you about the man—or
men— in your life? I'm sure a woman as beautiful as you are
must be knee-deep in them.' He flashed her a calculatedly stunning
smile. 'Tell me, Penny, was it a man you came speeding to my Mallorcan
lair to escape from?'

'That's called the third degree, not prying!' she gasped,
laughter bursting from her at his sheer audacity.

'Now, that's much better,' he murmured, his eyes
twinkling. 'And I really must remind you to be more careful in your
treatment of me on my birthday, because my mother always told me I'd
turn into a grease-spot if I cried on that particular day…
I'd hate to discover she was right.'

'You still remember your parents?' asked Penny,
inexplicably surprised.

'Of course I do—I was nine when they died.' The
laughter left his eyes. 'I remember their warmth and their constant
laughter—and above all the absolute love they personified.'
He raised his glass to his lips and drained it, as though drinking a
private toast. 'And yes, I did hate my grandfather. I hated him for his
coldness, his aversion to laughter, and his total ignorance of the
concept of love.'

'Dominic… I'm sorry,' she whispered, the savage
bitterness in his words chilling her to the core. 'I should never have
mentioned him.'

'Why not?' he rasped. 'Not mentioning his name won't erase
what he was…nor the cheerless, loveless routine into which
he regimented our lives—especially Lexy's.' He leaned back,
his eyes staring sightlessly into the distance of his terrible
memories. 'I had had nine years of my parents' unstinting love to
cushion me; all Lexy ever had was the memories I used to share with
her. To Lexy, my memories of our parents were the fairy-tales of her
childhood.'

'But what made him like that…your grandfather?'
asked Penny, tears blurring her eyes.

He gave an angry shrug. 'Some people are born with
deformities that aren't immediately apparent…perhaps his was
the lack of a soul.'

'But he married your grandmother…' Her words
petered to a perplexed halt.

'And he fathered my mother, the most loving of women,' he
concurred woodenly. 'Perhaps he was normal once, but I can only speak
for the man I knew—and that man was entirely without soul.'

'But you and Lexy have turned out all right, despite him,'
stated Penny, the only words of consolation she could offer.

'Have we?' he questioned with infinite bitterness. 'It
seems my sister is incapable of confiding even in her few closest
friends, and, as for men, her attitude to them isn't exactly
straightforward; she'll go to any lengths rather than risk a close
relationship with one.'

Feeling almost as though it were a betrayal of her friend,
Penny found herself unable to deny the truth in his words. Lexy always
froze men out, whether by claiming they were after her money or
subjecting them to what virtually amounted to ridicule by her candid
disclosures to her friends.

'But you're right about her feelings towards me,' he
continued, his tone almost expressionless. 'Her love for me is such
that she closes her eyes to what I really am. No matter how badly I
behave, she'll always delve into the stars and come up with one excuse
or another for me.'

'But you're not being fair!' exclaimed Penny, leaping to
Lexy's defence despite the fact that she was very much in two minds
about the subject of astrology. 'You can't deny that Lexy can often
tell a person's sign soon after meeting them.'

'You're missing my point,' he said quietly. 'I was
querying your statement regarding how Lexy and I had turned out. I was
merely pointing out that we both seem compelled to keep the opposite
sex at arm's length.'

Penny's eyes widened with incredulity; every scrap of what
little she had heard of Dominic, not to mention his attitude the night
before, gave total lie to such a claim.

'Perhaps, in the light of last night, I should have
phrased that differently,' he murmured. 'Physically, I like women very
much closer than arm's length; emotionally, it's another matter. Once
the word "love" starts getting bandied about I feel it only fair to
disentangle myself.'

'Fair?' enquired Penny, with open scepticism.

'Perhaps you'd care to tell me what you do,' he suggested
blandly. 'You're involved with a man whose company you enjoy, but with
whom you're neither in love nor likely to be. What do you do when that
man starts telling you he loves you, perhaps even starts mentioning
marriage and children?'

'I'd tell him the truth,' stated Penny firmly.

'Would you continue the relationship?'

'No… It would hardly be fair—'

'Hardly fair if I were to either, wouldn't you agree?'

'Yes, but the difference is that I wouldn't go into a
relationship with the attitude that love is something to be avoided
like the plague.'

'You go in looking for love, do you?'

'No! I…' She had leapt in with both feet as
usual, she realised wretchedly, as it now dawned on her that what he
referred to as relationships she would call affairs.

'Penny, I don't regard love as something to be avoided
like the plague…it's just something I've never experienced.'
He gave a deep, throaty chuckle. 'Perhaps I'm just a late developer.
And who knows? Perhaps by the end of the week I'll be down on my knees,
languishing with love for you…and you'll be doing what's
only fair and thereby giving me a taste of my own medicine.' His eyes
caught and held hers in their teasing laughter, while she frantically
racked her brains for a witty response. 'It's getting a bit chilly out
here,' he announced, as she continued her fruitless search. 'Let's go
inside and see what delights Juana has left us.' He rose, casually
holding out a hand to her.

Penny hesitated momentarily, then placed her hand in his.

'Tell me, Penny, are you really not looking for love?' he
murmured mockingly.

'No, I'm damned well not!' she exclaimed, snatching back
her hand.

'So, if I do happen to fall in love with you, I'm in for a
really tough time of it.'

'Far rougher than you could possibly imagine,' she
replied, regaining her composure with merciful speed—only to
have it ruffled once more by amused exasperation as he began staggering
towards the house, clutching theatrically at his heart.

The woman who ever managed to awaken love in this man was
certainly going to have her hands full, she thought, a chuckle of
disbelief escaping her as she followed him indoors.