Passion & Pleasure: Savage Awakening / For Pleasure...Or Marriage? / Taken for His Pleasure

Fliss glanced at him curiously as he got into the driving seat beside her. ‘Wasn’t that your phone?’

He didn’t look at her as he started the car. ‘So?’

‘So—oughtn’t you to have answered it?’

Matt’s mouth compressed. ‘Probably,’ he agreed carelessly, putting the heavy vehicle into gear and turning down the drive. ‘Where are we going?’

He was aware of Fliss giving him a studied look, but it was Amy who answered him. ‘We usually go to Cobbleton,’ she said, leaning forward to tap her mother on the shoulder. ‘Isn’t that right, Mum?’

Fliss shrugged. ‘Maybe Mr Quinn would prefer to go somewhere else,’ she replied, that prim note of disapproval Matt found most challenging in her voice.

‘I don’t know this area at all,’ he declared, glancing over his shoulder at his other passenger. ‘But Cobbleton sounds good to me. You’ll have to give me directions how to get there.’

‘Oh—’ Amy put a finger to her lips. ‘Well, I know it’s not that far.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps Mummy could tell you which way to go. She knows, don’t you, Mum?’

He heard Fliss give a small sigh. ‘I’m sure Mr Quinn would rather go somewhere he knows,’ she said stiffly. ‘He’s not that unfamiliar with the area. His fianceée’s parents live in the village.’

‘What’s a fianceée?’ asked Amy innocently before Matt could reply, and Fliss turned to give her daughter a tight smile.

‘That needn’t concern you—’

‘I don’t have a fianceée,’ Matt overrode her grimly, and then, as they reached the crossroads on the outskirts of the village, ‘Which way?’

‘Cobbleton is that way.’

Fliss waved a dismissive hand in the direction she wanted him to take, but he could feel the censure oozing from her pores. It annoyed the hell out of him. Dammit, the reason why he hadn’t answered his phone was nothing to do with her. Because that was what this was all about. He just knew it. Did she suspect it might have been Diane? Of course she did. But why the hell did she care what Diane thought when the other woman clearly had no such inhibitions about her?

For a while they travelled in silence. A signpost at the next junction offered the information that Lyme Regis and Honiton were in one direction, while Brightsea and Cobbleton were in the other, so there was no argument over which road to take. Even Amy had subsided into silence, and he guessed his angry outburst had frightened her a little.

That annoyed him more than it should. He and Amy had got along so well up to that point, and he didn’t like to think that she blamed herself for his attitude towards her mother.

Taking a deep breath, he glanced over his shoulder again and said pleasantly, ‘Tell me about Cobbleton. I’ve never heard of it. I guess it isn’t a big place.’

Amy hesitated, but shyness was not her strong suit. ‘No, it’s just small,’ she agreed. ‘But we like it, don’t we, Mum? We’ve been lots of times.’

‘Sounds good.’ Matt concentrated on the road, determinedly not looking at Fliss. If she wanted to sulk, that was her problem. ‘Does it get many visitors?’

‘Some,’ said Amy thoughtfully. ‘But we don’t bother with them. We use’ly just go down to the beach, don’t we, Mum?’

Fliss gave a noncommittal shrug and Matt stifled an oath. This was going to be some outing if she refused to speak unless she was spoken to. Dammit, couldn’t she see that he was making an effort here?

‘Do you swim?’ he asked now, looking deliberately at her, and Fliss was obliged to acknowledge his question.

‘You can, if you want to.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

She shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Not if Amy and I are on our own,’ she replied unwillingly. ‘She can swim, but the beach drops away quite steeply once you’re in the water. I’d be afraid she’d get into difficulties and I couldn’t get to her.’

‘Right.’ Matt was grateful to have got more than a monosyllabic answer at last. ‘So—are there no lifeguards?’

Fliss gave him an incredulous look. ‘At Cobbleton? It’s a fishing village, Mr Quinn. Not Bondi Beach!’

‘It’s Matt,’ he said evenly. Then, ‘There are lifeguards all over the place, not just on Bondi Beach.’

‘Which I suppose you know all about,’ said Fliss shortly, and he raised a modest eyebrow.

‘That there are lifeguards all over the place?’ he asked innocently. ‘Oh, yeah, I—’

‘I meant Bondi Beach,’ she corrected him, even though Matt was fairly sure she’d known exactly what he was doing. ‘I expect you’ve travelled all over the world.’

‘Well, not all,’ he said mildly. ‘But I have been to Oz. Have you?’

Fliss snorted in disbelief, but once again it was Amy who intervened. ‘What’s Oz?’

‘Australia,’ said Matt and Fliss in unison, and then she exchanged a reluctant smile with him. ‘People call it Oz because it’s easier to say than Australia,’ he added for the child’s benefit, giving her mother a conciliatory look. ‘Bondi Beach is a famous Australian landmark.’

‘Oh.’

As Amy absorbed this information, Matt tried again with Fliss. ‘I don’t know what Diane’s told you, but she and I are not engaged. We never have been. Chances are we never will be.’

‘Well, it’s nothing to do with me,’ she said, turning to look out of the window, and for some reason that really annoyed him.

‘Yeah, right,’ he muttered. ‘That’s why you’ve taken a vow of silence, is it? Or was it because I didn’t answer my phone? Forgive me, but I thought that was my business, not yours.’

Of course that was unforgivable and he knew it. He didn’t need to see the hectic colour that stained her cheeks to know he’d offended her again, and he swore under his breath.

‘Do you want to go back?’ he demanded, deciding he was too tired of fighting off his own demons to contemplate fighting hers, too. Either she wanted to spend the day with him or she didn’t. It was her call.

She said nothing for a few moments and he was already looking for somewhere to turn the car when she said in a low voice, ‘Do you?’

Matt did a double take. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, you,’ she murmured unhappily. ‘You’re right. What you do is not my concern. I had no right to interfere. Particularly as you’ve been kind enough to offer to take us to the beach.’

Matt shook his head. ‘Don’t say that.’ And when she looked uncomprehendingly at him, he continued, ‘It wasn’t kind at all. I gatecrashed your outing with Amy, and I’m guessing your father wouldn’t have suddenly acquired a use for his car if I hadn’t been coming along.’

‘You could be right.’ Fliss cast a nervous glance over her shoulder as she answered him, but Matt could see Amy in his rear-view mirror and she didn’t appear to be listening to them. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, I’m used to it.’ Matt grimaced. ‘The Press went from hanging on every word I spoke when I got back, to writing eulogies about my mental incompetence when I began refusing interviews.’

Fliss looked at him then. ‘Are you saying they wrote lies about you?’

Matt pulled a wry face. ‘Nothing libellous, I don’t think. They have teams of legal experts who pore over every word that’s printed to ensure they don’t have to pay out a fortune in damages.’

‘Then—’

‘You have to understand that not everything you read is gospel. So long as there’s a germ of truth in there somewhere they can argue that they’re justified in reporting the story.’ He paused and then went on doggedly. ‘Like the fact that I was—well, for want of a better word, traumatised when I got back. That provided endless columns of newsprint, I can tell you.’