Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage(16)

She was so deep in thought that she didn’t realise at first that Kieron had stopped next to a long, sleek, pale grey car, which looked both fast and dangerous.

‘Get in,’ he instructed her, unlocking the passenger door and standing over her while she did to.

She sank into the luxurious hide upholstery, unwillingly impressed by the opulence of the vehicle. When Kieron got in beside her and slammed his door she moved instinctively farther towards hers, oppressed by the unwanted intimacy the narrow confines of the car forced upon her.

When Kieron turned towards her, she flinched, her eyes wide and dark, colour running up angrily under her skin as he reached casually for the seat belt and held it up mockingly in front of her.

‘What did you think I was going to do? Give way to the violent passion of my feelings and make love to you?’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ She was thankful that long habit gave her the ability to inject ice into her voice, her eyes staring rigidly ahead of her as Kieron snapped the seat belt into its holder. He hadn’t touched her, and yet for a moment she had been intensely aware of him in a way that brought unwanted memories crowding back. Inside she was trembling with reaction and fear, but she willed herself not to betray it, saying nothing as Kieron started the car. It moved off with a powerful, throaty roar, Briony sitting silent at his side.

He glanced at her once or twice, but when she refused to look back he switched on the cassette player, inserting a tape.

The voice of Rita Coolidge filled the car. She was singing something haunting and sad about parting lovers, and Briony felt the skin of her scalp prickle warningly.

‘Still sulking because I broke up your “romance"? Kieron drawled. ‘There’s no need for me to ask if you know that he’s married already, of course. Do you love him?’

The question caught her off guard, her eyes green and angry as she glared at him.

‘That’s no business of yours!’

‘Sure it is. You’re both on my staff. Love affairs in the office play havoc with performance.’

‘And you’re concerned that my “affair” with Matt might affect my work?’ she said sweetly. ‘Don’t worry—it won’t.’

‘I’ll bet,’ Kieron drawled succinctly. ‘He doesn’t look as though he’s got what it takes to keep one woman satisfied, never mind two.’

His sheer audacity all but took her breath away, and she turned on him angrily, her determination not to speak to him forgotten.

‘How I feel about Matt has nothing to do with you. And I don’t want to talk about it. Just drop me here, and I’ll make the rest of the way alone.’

She reached angrily for the door handle, and Kieron swore viciously, the car screeching to a halt. And then he was reaching for her, his face white with fury, his eyes murderous with rage.

He shook her like a rag doll.

‘Don’t you ever try anything like that again, you silly little bitch! What the hell were you going to do? Fling yourself out on to the road? We were doing forty miles an hour back there, in case it had escaped your notice. Do you know what a road surface could do to your skin at that speed? It would have been ripped to ribbons!’

‘Stop it!’ Briony was feeling faintly sick, her head throbbing painfully with shock and fright. She had never really intended to open the car door; he had just made her so angry that she had reached for it automatically.

He let her go with a smothered imprecation, his hands tightening on the steering wheel and a white line of rage round his mouth. Briony glanced covertly at him. For a moment in his arms she had been filled with a wild, fierce satisfaction as she felt his anger beat up to meet her own, but now it was gone, her imagination painting pictures of what would have happened to her if she had succeeded in opening the door.

Kieron seemed to be simply staring into space, and she wondered what thoughts were running through his mind. In one short day he had made his presence felt on the paper, and people were already beginning to speak of him with respect. He had intense pride and resilience, and it must go against the grain to have her constantly under his nose—a reminder of what he had done to her. Or perhaps it didn’t bother him. Perhaps he was ruthless enough to pretend it had never happened.

He started the car again without speaking. There was a faint clicking noise and when Briony looked puzzled, he explained coldly, ‘An automatic locking device for the doors. If you insist on behaving like a child then you deserve to be treated like one—or would it give you some sort of twisted satisfaction to kill yourself in my presence?’

Her hands, which were lying in her lap, itched to slap his face, but she contented herself with a cold stare, her eyes the colour of sea in winter.