A Past To Deny

It was the steely note in his tone that made Maggie freeze with apprehension.

‘It was just that Connor mentioned you hadn’t been back here since his wife died,’ she stated woodenly.

‘And that’s all?’ The note of challenge was undisguised.

Maggie switched on the kettle, playing for time as she fought to control the anger suddenly blazing within her. Perhaps he was only asking if that was all Connor had mentioned…perhaps not. Mortifying in the extreme though the idea was that he might have mentally erased the passion they had once shared, the idea that he was simply playing cat-and-mouse with her made her blood boil.

Unable to contain herself, she spun round to confront him. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. It wasn’t the expression of weariness on his face that shrivelled the anger in her, but the anguish with which it was interlaced.

‘He said that you loved her very much,’ she stated quietly, turning away from his pain to attend to the coffee. And Connor had also mentioned his father’s death, she reflected unhappily, feeling the ghosts of what had once been a scarcely bearable anguish stir within her.

It had been six long years since her own beloved father had died, and despite the healing process of time there were still moments when she could be taken unawares and become engulfed by a suffocating sense of loss. The expression she had witnessed on Slane Fitzpatrick’s face was one with which she could not help but empathise.

‘Yes, I loved Marjorie,’ he said, straightening as she brought the coffee to the table. ‘It would have been difficult not to,’ he added, his eyes clouding over.

She had no idea what connection his coming to Ireland could have with his father, but Maggie felt certain that it wasn’t Marjorie alone occupying his bleak thoughts. Because she could think of nothing she could trust herself to say, she picked up her cup and slowly drank from it. When it was empty she rose to her feet.

‘I’ve a couple of letters I have to write,’ she said, walking over to the dishwasher and starting to stack it, ‘so I’ll just get this cleared—’

‘Leave those; I’ll see to them—you’ve waited on me enough as it is.’

‘Of course I haven’t been waiting on you,’ protested Maggie, closing the dishwasher and turning. ‘You look all in—in fact, you don’t look as though you’ll last much longer.’

His eyes met hers, another of those lazy, disturbingly disruptive grins sauntering across his lips. ‘You get off to your letters, Maggie, and don’t be deceived by appearances,’ he murmured. ‘This guy has reserves of stamina you’d never believe.’

His words poleaxed her and it was left to that other, miraculously detached Maggie to take over, mouthing a polite goodnight and urging her leaden limbs from the room.

It was only when she had closed her bedroom door behind her that her real self re-emerged and her violently trembling body sagged against the wall. There was no way that his remark could have been an innocent coincidence…It couldn’t simply be her imagination that he had just reminded her of the stamina which had enabled him to make love to her time after time that night long ago…or could it?

‘This is impossible,’ he had groaned at one stage during that passion-filled night, when insatiable hunger had flamed between them yet again. ‘What have you done to me?’

And, even though she had been sexually innocent until that same night, she had instinctively known that what was happening between her and the beautiful stranger was an impossibility.

She gave a dazed shake of her head as she straightened her still violently trembling body and then stumbled towards the bed.

That night she had needed the magic of something impossible to heal her vicious wounds…but the cure had come close to destroying her.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_332c2a04-fea1-5dbc-8d23-05b210415e6f)

WHEN she first awoke Maggie lay immobile, willing herself back to sleep, convinced that it was still the middle of the night. When her body failed to respond she checked the time and gave a disbelieving groan. As far as she was concerned, five-thirty in the morning was practically the middle of the night.

She hadn’t even had to contend with the horrors of the day before seeping slowly back into her waking mind; she had woken with those horrors fully intact And oddly enough it had been memories of her father that had filled her thoughts during the long hours in which sleep had eluded her. But other memories began stirring within her now—ones so long buried away and ruthlessly ignored that now there could be no holding them back.

His ice maiden…That was what Peter had so often called her—with what she had mistakenly read as teasing affection—and her lack of any real feelings of physical desire for him had always troubled her during those months when she had believed herself to be in love with him.

Yet, even without such feelings ever having been aroused in her, she had instinctively known that within her lay a capacity for passion that would one day overwhelm her. Crazy though it seemed to her now, she had actually managed to convince herself that, given time, it would be Peter who would eventually find the key to unlock those untapped passions…

But it had been, quite literally, a tall, dark stranger who had produced that elusive key, effortlessly unleashing in her what the man she had once believed she loved had imagined could be forced from her.

And now her knight, in his tarnished armour, lay sleeping just a few doors away from her, she reminded herself bitterly, and with apparently no recollection of their shared night, let alone any understanding of the powers his body still held over hers.

With a stifled cry of protest she sat up, shaking her head violently. She didn’t want to be a freak! What she wanted was to be able to experience in the arms of a man she loved the same rapture she had known in those of Slane Fitzpatrick. Yet, in the almost three years that had passed, she hadn’t found a man she could love, and those forbidden fires had remained dormant within her…until Slane’s lazy grin had put a torch to them.

She leapt from the bed, threw on her dressing gown and stumbled down the stairs. It was just as she was entering the kitchen that the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted to her.

‘Would you care for some coffee?’ asked Slane, glancing up from what he was doing. Clad in a dark velour robe, a shadowy blue-blackness on his unshaven face, he looked drawn and tired and unspeakably attractive. ‘I’ve just fixed it,’ he added, getting out more crockery before Maggie had a chance to respond.

‘Thanks,’ she muttered, sagging down onto a chair. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be up, she thought fuzzily, then decided that that was no wonder, considering what an ungodly hour it was. ‘I’m surprised you’re up,’ she added. ‘I thought you’d be catching up on sleep.’

‘So did I,’ he murmured wryly, passing her a large cup of black coffee, ‘but my body refused to play ball.’ He sat down opposite her, his eyes flickering with amusement over her somewhat dishevelled figure. ‘It’s good to have company, though. I guess you must be one of those people Connor refers to as “larks”—up with the birdies and bright as a button.’

‘Ha, ha,’ muttered Maggie, then took a swig of coffee and nearly choked. ‘God, it’s like treacle!’ she exclaimed with spontaneous candour. ‘I thought you said you only took it twice as strong as Connor.’

‘Stay put—I’ll get the milk,’ he laughed as she made to rise.

When he handed it to her Maggie filled her cup to the brim, and still it looked undrinkably black. She toyed with the idea of making herself some tea, then decided that there was a good chance that the coffee would blast her head clear.

‘I seem to remember Connor saying something about you being the person he got in to run that London shop, Body and Soul, after Marjorie died,’ Slane said, out of the blue.

‘He didn’t get me to run it,’ said Maggie, more than a little thrown. ‘In fact, even when his wife was alive I believe it was never a question of anyone running Body and Soul—they all mucked in together, and with great success. Obviously Connor could hardly step in—even apart from all his other commitments he wouldn’t have had a clue how the company functioned.’

‘Oh, I see-you had?’

‘No, I hadn’t,’ snapped Maggie, now angry. Just who the hell did he think he was, cross-examining her like this? ‘I’d just finished my degree and was still at a loose end. I’m sure it can’t be difficult for you to imagine how shattered the people were who had worked with her and loved her for so many years. All Connor asked me to do was lend a hand, so I did.’

‘What—for two years?’ he enquired with undisguised scepticism.

Shaken by how close she was to losing her temper, Maggie rose and went over to the bread bin. Battling to keep a grip on herself, she cut a couple of slices and put them in the toaster. He did remember, though clearly he wasn’t about to admit it, she told herself angrily, and this snide baiting of her he was indulging in made it plain just how negative and hostile he felt about it all.

‘Amazing though it may seem to a high-powered tycoon such as yourself,’ she heard herself saying, and had swung round to face him before she realised what she was doing, ‘there actually are businesses that operate with everyone happily mucking in and, believe it or not, manage to thrive.

‘Body and Soul might only be a natural pharmacy, but they none the less needed someone with the relevant scientific knowledge, so I suppose in that respect I was taking over from Connor’s wife.’

He was sitting at the table, his chin propped on his hands, gazing at her as though drinking in her every word.

‘My, you sound almost defensive, Maggie,’ he drawled. ‘I was just being sociable and trying to show some interest.’

‘I’m sure you were,’ she retorted from between clenched teeth as she turned back to the toaster. ‘Would you like some of this toast, or what?’

‘I’ll have a rummage through the icebox to see if I can reproduce one of Mrs Morrisons’s famous fry-ups.’

‘There’s only bacon and eggs. If you want that I can cook it for you.’

‘So can I,’ he said, the faint tinge of mockery in his tone setting Maggie’s teeth on edge. ‘I’ll even cook you some too, to prove what a sociable guy I am.’

‘That’s quite all right—I’ll do it,’ she said. The last thing she needed was to be standing around with nothing to occupy her. ‘You must be tired—what with your body clock being all askew,’ she added, just to make sure that he got the message that her cooking him breakfast was not to be the norm. ‘Would you like tomatoes with it?’

‘I’d love tomatoes with it,’ he replied, further irritating her with his mocking stress on her English pronunciation. ‘Do you enjoy cooking, Maggie?’