Prisoner Of The Heart

Automatically she reloaded the camera with film, her eyes straying once more to the powerful figure of Chay Buchanan. But he had stopped the apparently effortless crawl and was lying on his back in the water, looking back towards the tower. Sophie watched, almost mesmerised by the beauty of his body glistening through the sheen of water as it rose and fell against the restless sea surging through the narrow gap in the rock. A tiny crease furrowed her forehead as she frowned, wondering what he was doing. Then, with a jolt, she knew, almost froze, as a buzz of excitement rippled her skin to gooseflesh. He was watching someone. There was someone else on the terrace.

She flattened herself as close to the edge of her rocky perch as she dared and strained to see. Who was it? A woman? Please, please, she begged the kindly Fates, let it be a woman. Someone famous. A well-known actress. A model. Something sensational enough to make up for not getting inside the tower, something that would please Nigel enough to hand over that precious envelope... And if it was somebody else’s wife? Her conscience jabbed at her. She pushed the thought to one side. This was not the moment to dwell on moral dilemmas. She would worry about that later. Right now, if she didn’t keep her head, there would be no photographs.

She hung over the edge a little, blotting out the dizzying drop to the sea in her effort to gain a few extra inches of terrace, but the great overhang of rock that protected the tower from prying eyes was still obstructing her view. Chay Buchanan raised his arms in encouragement to his unseen companion and a flash of white teeth confirmed that he was laughing. And she had been right about his mouth. Long seconds passed before she remembered her task and captured the moment on film.

A sudden movement galvanised her into action, but the body that leapt into those inviting arms was no famous beauty. It was a child. A dark-haired, straight-limbed boy, five or maybe six years old, and as at home in the water as his father. For a moment surprise held her transfixed. There could be no mistake in the relationship, the likeness was too marked. But Nigel had said nothing about a child. Or a wife. And Chay Buchanan certainly hadn’t had the look of a married man.

She shook away the thought and the film ripped through the spool as she kept her finger on the release. With almost trembling fingers she dropped the used film into her bag and fed in another. There was barely enough light now for long-range photography. The sun was dipping relentlessly towards the sea, but still she carried on, her eye glued to the camera and the two figures framed in the viewfinder. Then she saw the boy pointing towards the cliff. Towards her.

Chay Buchanan’s eyes creased as he scoured the cliff, and the mouth once again became that angry slash as the lowering sun gleamed against the hooded lens, betraying her. For a particle of a second their eyes clashed as the distance that separated them shrank to nothing.

There was no hurry, she told her trembling fingers as she flipped the film from the camera. By the time he was dry and dressed and halfway to the cliff-top, where her car was hidden from casual view, she would be gone. There was plenty of time. She repeated the words over and over in her head like a mantra. Just a short, easy climb and she was away. But her hands trembled a little as she hurriedly pushed her camera into the soft cocoon in her carrying bag. She slung it over her shoulder, glanced up at the route she had to take and reached for the first handhold.

It was unexpectedly difficult. Hours of being cramped, unable to stretch properly, had left her stupidly weak, and her legs began to tremble as she forced them to push her upwards, and her hands slipped sweatily on the suddenly elusive handholds as she thought of Chay Buchanan hurrying to intercept her. She was forced to stop, draw deep breaths into her lungs, remind herself that it was easy. She hadn’t been about to kill herself over a few photographs. If it had been dangerous she would never have risked it.

Not even for Jennie? The thought of her sister lent her fresh strength. She had seen the way clearly down to the ledge. Now it was simply a matter of keeping her head, forgetting the drop below her and climbing back up to the cliff path before Chay Buchanan got there. The thought of meeting him again urged her on.

She clenched her teeth as the pain burned in her forearms. And with every agonising inch up the cliff-face she cursed Chay Buchanan. All she wanted was one photograph, a simple portrait to illustrate Nigel’s article. And she had asked politely. If he hadn’t been so damned rude she might have taken his refusal. It wasn’t her way to sneak around corners, taking pictures of people who would rather be left alone. But a stab of guilt seared her cheeks as she recalled the extraordinary thrill of triumph when she had had the man in her sights.

Her fingertips reached upwards; she was desperate now for the ledge. Surely she was nearly there? But fifteen feet suddenly seemed more like fifty as there was just more rock to tear at her nails and scrape the skin from her fingers. Going down, it had all seemed so simple. Plenty of footholds. No more daunting than the bank in the local park where she and Jennie had played as children. The difference being that when she had slipped in the park there hadn’t been a vertiginous drop down a sea-lashed cliff. Stop it! she warned her imagination. If she fell she would crash back on to the ledge. Nasty, painfut–that was all. All? And if she hit her head? Rolled off?

Panic made her glance up, and her shift in weight almost undid her. She threw herself back at the rock-face, closing her eyes to shut out the dizzy spinning, and for the first time felt real fear cold-feather her spine. She clung on, wondering just how long she could stay there before the pain in her arms and the trembling weakness in her legs became too much and she simply fell.

‘Can I offer you a hand, Sophie Nash?’

Her whole body lurched with shock at the harsh invitation. Taking great care not to overbalance, she glanced up once more, to find herself being regarded by a pair of fathomless eyes. He had flattened himself against the ground and stretched a hand down towards her. So close? She had been that close? She felt like weeping with frustration. But pride kept the tears at bay. Instead she glared at the strong, square hand and quite deliberately ignored the proferred lifeline. ‘I can manage,’ she ground out, and, as if to demonstrate this, grabbed the nearest rocky protrusion to ease herself up another few inches.

‘I really think you should take my hand,’ he advised coldly. ‘I won’t drop you, despite the undoubted provocation.’

But this small triumph had given her new heart. Adrenalin surging through her veins, she made another foot of height before she was forced once more to stop. She pressed her cheek against the rapidly cooling rock and tried to ease the strain on her limbs and drag air into her lungs through her parched throat. She hadn’t known it was possible to hurt so much.

‘Don’t be stubborn, Sophie.’ His voice was urgent now. ‘You’re not going to make it without help.’

His hawkish face was nearer, the lines carved deep into his cheeks, and he reached for her. ‘Leave me alone,’ she gasped, but the words were little more than a croak.

‘Fine words. Remember them,’ he ordered, ‘if you live long enough.’

‘I can manage!’ she repeated, the words turning into a scream when her foot slipped and her forehead collided sharply against the rock as she scrabbled with her toe for a hold to halt the sickening slip. She was jerked to an agonised halt as Chay Buchanan’s hands grasped her wrist and he hauled her over the edge, grabbing her in a vice-like grip as he rolled away from the yawning chasm.

‘You’ve dislocated my arm!’ she complained bitterly, as the pain of torn muscles brought tears swimming to her eyes.

‘You would rather have fallen?’ She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer through pain and tears. ‘And I haven’t dislocated anything.’ He moved her arm, none too gently, and she groaned involuntarily and let her head fall forward on to his naked chest. ‘See? Still in working order. No thanks to you.’

No wonder he had been so quick to reach her, she thought. He hadn’t bothered to dry himself or put on more than a pair of shorts. But she was too weak with pain and exhaustion to move. Instead she lay very still, her cheek pressed against the dark hair that stippled his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heartbeat, while she tried to recover her strength. But he wasn’t finished with her yet.

‘You have dangerous hobbies, Sophie Nash.’ He grasped her plait and yanked up her head, forcing her to confront him. ‘But then, it isn’t a hobby, is it?’ She yelped and fresh tears started to her eyes, but he didn’t care. His grasp only tightened, so that it was impossible to move without pain. ‘Nevertheless, climbing alone, without a safety line, is just about the most stupid, reckless...’ He stopped, clearly too angry to continue. Really angry. Those pirate’s eyes were fierce enough to kill. ‘Does anyone know where you are? If you’d fallen would anyone ever have known what had happened to you?’

How could he be so utterly heartless? Surely he must see that she was in agony? ‘Someone would have found my car,’ she gasped out.

‘Someone would have found your car?’ he repeated, in utter disbelief. “‘Here lie some bits and pieces of Sophie Nash. We know it was her because we found her car.” Some epitaph.’ Then the fact that silent tears were by now pouring down her face and on to his chest apparently penetrated, because he loosened his grasp of her hair and she almost whimpered with relief. But he hadn’t finished. ‘Let me tell you, girl, that you don’t have much of a career as a paparazzo ahead of you if you ignore the simplest safety precautions.’

‘I’m not a paparazzo,’ she protested.

‘You’re giving a very good impression of one. For God’s sake, is a photograph of me so valuable that it’s worth risking your life? Whoever commissioned you must have promised to pay you a very great deal of money.’ He frowned, then rolled over, pinning her against the rock-hard ground, crushing her breasts against his naked chest until she could hardly breathe. ‘Who was it, Sophie?’

Pay? He thought she would do this for money? Days trailing around holiday resorts at the crack of dawn when they were deserted, making the best of hotels so that they should look exotic and desirable holiday destinations, that was what she was paid for.

Her attempt to get a photograph of the great Chay Buchanan while she was on the island had not been for the vast sums paid to professional paparazzi. It had been for something infinitely more precious. For a moment she was tempted to tell him. Ask him... She met his eyes and hope died. Chay Buchanan hadn’t just turned her down when she had wanted to take his photograph. He had been...contemptuous. Anger, determination, sheer bloody-mindedness, had blinded her to the folly, the very real risk, of what she was doing.

She lay, too weak to move, her head thudding with pain from his maltreatment of her scalp. More likely the bang on your forehead, that know-it-all inner voice immediately contradicted her. She would have liked to touch the tender spot, check it out to assess the damage, but his weight fixed her to the spot and she lay quite helpless. She opened her lids to meet the angry onslaught of his eyes.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

She had been stupid. She knew it, was prepared to admit it. To herself. But she certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of telling him so. And she wasn’t going to tell him about Nigel. She had the feeling that Nigel wouldn’t like that at all.

‘I wanted a photograph of you to hang on my bedroom wall,’ she managed to snap out. ‘I’m a fan.’

For a moment he seemed taken aback. Then his lips curved in a parody of a smile. ‘I don’t think so, Miss Nash. I believe it would take a great deal more than that to send you down that cliff.’

‘You’re too modest, Mr Buchanan. Besides, it was easy enough,’ she gasped, but the pain in her shoulder, her head, and torn and bleeding hands made a liar of her. Easy enough getting down.

‘Easy?’ he sneered. ‘If it had been easy you wouldn’t be lying here, you would be racing to Luqa airport now with your ill-gotten gains.’

She lay back against the hard rock. He was right, of course, and now he would take the films and she would have to tell Nigel she had failed, appeal to his sense of honour. A hollow little voice suggested that Nigel was not overburdened with the stuff. But Chay Buchanan mustn’t know how much it mattered.

‘I wasn’t in a hurry,’ she said, as if strolling up a rockface was an everyday occurrence. ‘I was...admiring the view,’ she added, with a slightly wobbly attempt at airiness.

‘You won’t admit it, will you?’ he replied, clearly infuriated by this unrepentant display of bravado. Then he eased himself away from her, letting his eyes trail insolently from a pair of clear grey eyes, by way of a very ordinary nose and a full, over-large mouth, to linger on a bosom that rose and fell far too rapidly. ‘But you’re right about one thing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the view.’

Sophie felt the colour flood to her face as she realised just how vulnerable she was. Pinned to the ground by his body, she had made not the slightest effort to free herself. ‘How...how dare you?’ she blustered, attempting to fling herself away from him, but he had her effortlessly pinioned between a pair of powerful thighs.

‘Don’t go all shy on me, Sophie. This morning you were quite prepared to offer me anything I wanted for that photograph.’

‘That’s not true! Let me go!’ she demanded. Then, breathlessly, as his fingers brushed against her breast and the tip involuntarily tightened to his touch, she squeaked, ‘What are you doing?’ her grey eyes widening in alarm. ‘Stop it!’

‘You don’t really mean that, Sophie Nash,’ he said, knowing eyes dwelling momentarily on the tell-tale peaks thrusting against the thin white cotton of her shirt. ‘There’s no need to be embarrassed. Sex is the obvious response to a brush with death. It’s simply nature’s prompting to ensure the perpetuation of the species. But I’m afraid that right now I have something else on my mind.’

He flipped open the button of her breast-pocket and removed the film she had stowed there for safety. Then, without haste, not deliberately touching her but making no effort to avoid the inevitable intimacy, he thoroughly searched the rest of her pockets, while she squirmed with embarrassment. ‘Just one roll?’ he said at last.

She swallowed, then, very slowly, she nodded. For a moment he stared at her and she held her breath, certain that he would challenge her, would see the blatant lie. But her cheeks were already flaming from the intimacy of his touch and apparently satisfied he stood up, pulling her to her feet and half supporting her as her legs refused to work properly. He propelled her back towards the edge of the cliff.

‘No!’ She tried to step back but he held her fast, and she was too frightened of falling to attempt to jerk free. ‘What...are you going to do?’ He didn’t answer, but took one gashed and bleeding hand, placed the spool of film into it and wrapped her stiff, rapidly swelling fingers around it. She glanced up at him uncertainly.

‘Throw it into the sea, Sophie Nash,’ he commanded, his words eerily echoing her own thoughts as she had perched on the ledge. But that had been before his hands had ransacked her pockets without a thought for her feelings. And his feelings? her over-active conscience prompted. But she was in no mood to listen to such stuff. He had no feelings. He was just a great big bully.

‘No!’ She defied him.

His hand gripped her arm more tightly. ‘Do as I say.’