Lissa.' He groaned her name, burying his face in her hair, his arms coming round her, imprisoning her against his body. His mouth found her throat and explored the satin soft skin roughly, passion bringing a hectic throb to his pulse. He raised his head reluctantly and looked at her, his eyes glittering fiercely. I want you Lissa,' he told her rawly, and if you don't stop me now … If you don't send me away, there's no way I'm going to be able to stop myself from touching you. For years I've wanted you … alternated between desire and dislike for you. Did you know that?'
Lissa shook her head, quivering as his mouth feathered across her cheek and touched the corner of her own.
We hardly ever saw one another,' she managed to croak, unable to believe what she was hearing.
Joel laughed harshly. Because I took great care that we should not. It appalled me that I should be attracted to you, especially knowing what I did about you. Me … a man of going on twenty-three had fallen head over heels in love with a promiscuous child of fifteen.'
What?' Lissa pulled away from him to look at him. But Joel.'
Ridiculous I know, and I soon managed to convince myself that I was imagining it. I pushed you out of my mind … told myself I was suffering from some sort of delayed adolescent crush, but when John and Amanda died and I was faced with the prospect of seeing you marry someone else I knew I couldn't let it happen. I wanted you for myself, and so I used the threat of taking the children away from you … '
She was quivering with a strange sensation of everything being totally unreal. Joel in love with her? She couldn't believe it … and besides …
But Marisa,' she managed to demand. "What about Marisa?'
He frowned down at her. "What about her?'
I thought … you … she … I thought you were lovers,' Lissa told him quietly, I also thought tonight you were trying to tell me you wanted to leave me so that you could be with her.'
His stunned incredulity might have been almost funny in other circumstances, but when Lissa thought of the agony she had put herself through believing him in love with the other woman she felt closer to tears than laughter.
Marisa is the wife of a friend of mine and that's all,' he told her firmly. Okay, once I went out with her, and I agree she might sometimes have given the impression that there was more between us than there genuinely was, but that's all there is to it.'
But you went to see her … '
To help her sort out somewhere to live and give her some financial advice. I also suggested that she think again about leaving Peter.'
But all those evenings when you went out … '
I drove around in the car because it was the only thing I could think of to do to keep my hands off you. Lissa after I'd made love to you it suddenly struck me how selfish I'd been. You said I'd acted humanely. Well maybe you see it that way, I don't. I wanted to free you from the trauma of the past yes, but do you honestly think for one moment that if I hadn't loved you as much as I do that I would have done that by making love to you? Couldn't you tell when I touched you how I felt about you?' His hands cupped her face, his expression so tender, so revealing that her heart seemed to stop beating. I had to leave you alone after that night. I had to give you at least a chance to re-assess our relationship without the additional pressure of any sexual demands from me. I had to give you the opportunity to do at least some of the experimenting you never had the opportunity to do as a teenager. When I saw you with Greaves I feared the worst … and then when you didn't tell me you'd seen him.'
It wasn't my meeting with Simon I was trying to hide from you,' Lissa admitted with a rueful smile, it was the fact that I'd gone especially to London to buy a new dress, purely because I wanted you to admire me in it. When I thought that Marisa was your mistress-the true love of your life, I couldn't bear to admit the truth to you in case you guessed … ' She broke off, and Joel prodded softly.
In case I guessed what?'
That I love you.'
He studied her face silently for so long that she began to think she had imagined it all … that he didn't love her at all … that it was all a cruel trick but then he bent his head, his mouth gentle on hers, and then less gentle as he felt her response.
I couldn't believe it when I found out you were carrying my child,' he told her huskily when he released her. I thought you must hate me because of it … because it would prevent you leaving me for Simon.'
And I thought you would hate me because it would prevent you from going to Marisa,' Lissa admitted. You were so different from the ogre I'd always imagined you to be,' she told him dreamily. So tender and caring that how could I avoid falling in love with you? Then you changed, and reverted to the man I'd always thought you were. I thought it was your way of telling me that you did not want any emotional commitment from me. I thought you'd guessed how I felt about you, and that your coldness towards me was because you didn't want to encourage my feelings.'
Whereas in reality it was directed at myself. The fact that I'd made love to you, quite deliberately … in the hope of making you want me physically and then emotionally, destroyed all the previously conceived notions I held about myself. In any other man I would have ruthlessly condemned what I had done.'
You mean seducing me with champagne and kisses,' Lissa laughed softly and gave him a coquettish smile. Oh I don't know … ' Happiness bubbled up inside her. I rather enjoyed it!'
Oh did you indeed?'
There was nothing in the soft way he murmured the words to cause her heart to jolt into an accelerated beat, but Lissa wasn't really listening to what he was saying, she was too busy looking into his eyes and reading the very private and explicit message they were holding for her.
Joel glanced at his watch and then smiled teasingly at her. It's just gone nine. Too early to go to bed, do you suppose?'
Oh definitely!'
Umm. Well then I shall just have to insist that we finish our fascinating discussion in the privacy of our own room. What do you say to that?'
I say that it sounds like an extremely good idea,' Lissa confirmed innocently, teasing amusement gleaming in her eyes.
As he slipped his arm round her and propelled her towards the stairs she paused, watching the quick frown touch his forehead.
Something wrong?'
"Nothing at all,' she assured him. I was just wondering if we had a bottle of champagne anywhere.'
* * * * *
Loving
PENNY JORDAN
CHAPTER ONE
MUMMY, CAN HEATHER come home and play with me and then stay for tea?'
Looking down into the pleading blue eyes of her six-year-old daughter, Claire once again blessed the totally unexpected inheritance from her unknown great-aunt that had made possible her move away from the centre of London to the small village of Chadbury St John.
Lucy had blossomed out unbelievably in the short month they had been here. Already she seemed plumper, healthier, and now she had made her first best friend'. The huge block of council flats they had lived in before had not led to any friendships for either mother or daughter. They had been living an existence that had virtually been hand to mouth, and with no way out of the dull misery of such poverty.
And then, miraculously, almost overnight everything had changed. How on earth her great-aunt's solicitors had been able to track her down was a miracle in itself, but to learn that she had inherited her cottage, and with it a small but very, very precious private income, had been such a miraculous event that even now Claire sometimes thought she was dreaming.
Not today, Lucy,' she told her daughter indulgently. Heather's mummy won't know where she is if she comes home with us now, will she?' she reminded her crestfallen child gently.
Heather hasn't got a mummy,' Lucy informed her quickly, speaking for the brown-eyed little girl clinging to her side. She only has a daddy, and he goes away a lot.'
Another quick look at the little girl standing close to her own daughter made Claire aware of several things she hadn't noticed before. Unlike Lucy's clothes, although expensive, Heather's were old-fashioned, and too large. Her fine brown hair was scraped back into plaits, and the brown eyes held a defensive, worried look.
Another victim of the growing divorce rate? Claire wondered wryly. Even here in this quiet, almost idyllic village twenty miles from Bath, they were not immune to the pressures of civilisation.
Everyone in the village seemed to accept her own status as that of a young widow. Her great-aunt had apparently not been born locally but had retired to the village after her many years as a schoolteacher, and had, according to what gossip Claire had picked up in the local post office, been the sort of person who believed in keeping herself very much to herself.