Prisoner Of The Heart

‘No, damn you. I worked hard for those pictures. Do your own dirty work.’

That’s rich, coming from someone who spies on other people for a living. Throw it!’ For a long moment she outfaced him, chin high, eyes blazing. ‘Throw it!’ he demanded.

Slowly, almost against her will, she turned to stare down at the white sea boiling around the rocks. It was oddly hypnotic, almost mesmerising. She began to sway towards it, only to be snapped back by Chay with a fierce oath. With a faint moan she turned and buried her face in his chest, and for a moment he held her and she knew he had been right. She could so easily have fallen.

And he was right about something else. Held against the warmth of his chest, almost drowning in the scent of his skin, the sharp tang of sweat and sea-water so strong that she could almost taste the salt, she wanted him to pull her down to the ground and take her, right there in the open air, with the sound of the sea pounding in her ears. The knowledge was as brutal as a slap in the face.

Horrified by desire so raw she could practically taste it, she tore herself away from him on legs weak from more than the terror of falling. It was far more frightening than that. She had to get away from this man. As quickly as possible, and not just because of her appalling reaction to him. He had found one film but she- might still get away with the others. Might still snatch her moment of triumph.

She bent to pick up her bag, wincing as its weight bit into her fingers, staggering a little as the ground dipped and swayed. The feeling was beginning to come back to her hands with a vengeance, the cuts and grazes stinging viciously and making her feel nauseous.

‘Nice try, Sophie. But I’ll have the film.’ He caught her wrist, turning her roughly, and for a moment she thought he had guessed. But he forced open her fingers, still curled tightly around the little cassette, and she cried out involuntarily. For a moment he stared at her hand, then with a sharp impatient movement he said, ‘You’d better come inside and clean these.’

‘I’m all right,’ she protested hoarsely. He hadn’t suspected. ‘I’ll go back to my hotel,’ she said quickly. Except that she’d already checked out. Her bags were in the car. She would be driving straight to the airport where she could clean up and change back into the pristine two-piece she had been wearing when she had called on him earlier. And, once she was inside the departure lounge, she would be beyond his reach.

‘You think you can drive in that state?’ he uttered in disbelief.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said desperately. All she wanted was to get to the car and sit down for a moment, until this sickening weakness passed. She paused. ‘I suppose I should thank you for saving me,’ she added, a little grudgingly.

‘Yes, you should,’ he ground out. ‘But we’re so far beyond the niceties of good manners that I’d prefer it if you didn’t bother.’

Hackles rose at his sharp, contemptuous tone. ‘I won’t! In fact, Mr Buchanan, you can rest assured that I won’t bother you ever again.’

‘I wish I could believe that, Sophie Nash. Why don’t I?’ His eyes fastened on the bag biting painfully into her shoulder, and before she could prevent him he had slipped it away from her and was hefting it thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps I’d better keep this to be on the safe side.’

Her grey eyes widened in horror and she flung herself at him, making a grab for the bag. ‘No!’ she cried as he effortlessly whisked it out of her reach. Everything spun horribly from the sudden movement.

‘No?’ he enquired.

‘It’s just my camera. I can’t work without it.’

‘That is supposed to appeal to my better nature? Frankly, I can’t think of anything that would please me more.’

‘I doubt you have a better nature!’ she flung at him.

‘Then you are beginning to show some sense at last.’ He glanced at the bag. ‘This is just your camera? You went to a lot of trouble for just one roll of film. How long were you down on the ledge?’

‘Hours,’ she admitted. ‘But you were only there for a few minutes.’

‘True. But how long does it take with a motor-drive?’

‘Not long,’ she admitted. Then she took a gamble. ‘In fact there are about sixty exposed films in my bag. I’ve been working all week for a tour company, taking pictures for next year’s brochures.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’ he asked.

Her hands were beginning to throb horribly and she lifted them in a helpless little gesture. ‘Why not? It’s the truth.’ She swallowed as saliva began to flood her mouth. Another moment and she knew she would be sick. If only he would let her go so that she could just sit down for a minute. But he was relentless.

‘Come on, Sophie Nash. You can’t expect me to believe that you would risk all that work?’ he said incredulously.

‘Risk?’ Nothing was making much sense. She was the one who had been at risk.

‘You might have dropped your bag while you were climbing down.’

‘I...’ She blinked as he began to recede. ‘I was very careful.’ She took a step, but the ground seemed to be made of foam rubber. Surprised, she reached out a hand to steady herself and he caught it.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice seemed to come from a long way off. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to be...’ She lifted her hand to her head and saw the blood running down her fingers. Then, mercifully, everything went black.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a5cfc6ee-6f66-5e7a-96b0-0a115b96d0f4)

SOPHIE woke with a throbbing head and dry mouth, every part of her aching. The room was dim, what light there was slanting through two pairs of louvred shutters closed on tall windows. She raised her wrist to see what time it was and heard a groan. It was a moment or two before she realised the sound had come from her own lips.

She stared at bruised, swollen fingers, that looked as if they might have been through a wringer, and winced. Her fingers. And memory began to rush back, a little confused, but with the basic facts intact. The slow motion nightmare as she had tried to make it to the cliff-top. And she had nearly made it. Would have made it. Only Chay Buchanan had been waiting for her.

She looked around her at the strange room and then with a rush of horror she knew. She was in the lion’s den. Worse. She groaned, and this time the response was quite deliberate. She was in the lion’s bed.

The thought was enough to drag her protesting body from the smooth linen sheet, but as she propped herself against the great carved bedhead and the sheet slipped from her body something else became startlingly obvious. She was naked. She gingerly grasped the sheet between her fingers and lifted it. Utterly naked. Someone had undressed her.

Who? It seemed vitally important that she remember. Then, rather hurriedly, she blotted out the thought before she did. She didn’t want to contemplate the possibility of her unconscious body being undressed by Chay Buchanan. Instead she focused her attention on her surroundings.

She was in a long, wide room, the stone walls painted matt white, with two large panels, glowing blue-green abstractions of the sea, the only decoration. The floor was of some dark polished wood. On it were laid rich Bukhara rugs, barred with faint stripes of light that filtered through louvred shutters closed over floor-to-ceiling windows. Apart from the bed, flanked by nighttables and a pair of tall Chinese lamps, the only furniture was an enormous chest of drawers with heavy brass handles and an equally impressive wardrobe. A man’s room. Completely devoid of any woman’s touch.

She rose unsteadily, dragged the sheet from the bed, clumsily wrapped it about her with fingers that refused to bend properly and staggered to the bathroom at the far end of the room. Halfway there she questioned her knowledge that it was a bathroom, but with the question came the all too shocking answer. She remembered. And blushed hot and painfully at the memory.

He had brought her here. She had been dimly aware of being carried up a wide staircase. Then he had propped her up and the sudden rush of water had brought her gasping back to life as he had stood with her in the enormous shower-stall, stripping her while the cascade of warm water had washed away dust and sweat and blood.

She tried to swallow, but her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth as she remembered how, too weak to stand unaided, she had simply leaned against him, her head against his shoulder, her breasts startlingly white against the dark tan of his chest. She had been incapable of protest as he had held her around the waist and briskly soaped her with a huge sponge, rinsed her, dried her and wrapped her in a soft white bathrobe and bathed her hands with antiseptic, his fingers gentle, even if the straight, hard lines of his mouth and his angry eyes had made his feelings more than plain.

The mirror alongside the bath reflected bright spots of colour that rouged her cheeks like patches on a rag doll’s face against the whiteness of her skin, the pale gold shock of hair. And he had threatened her with a dungeon. She had the unnerving feeling that his dungeon would be far safer than his bathroom.

But one question was answered. There was no Mrs Buchanan. No wife, however tolerant, would have put up with such goings on. She glanced around, and the lack of feminine accoutrements confirmed the fact that whoever usually shared Chay Buchanan’s king-sized bed she certainly wasn’t a permanent fixture. She forced herself to her feet and opened the bathroom cabinet. Not even constant enough to have left a toothbrush. She quickly closed the door. It was none of her business, she told herself firmly.

But it was too late to blot out the image of his personal toiletries, his exquisite taste in cologne, the fact that he used an open razor.

‘Have you seen enough? Or do you want the guided tour?’

She spun round, then wished she hadn’t as the room lurched sickeningly. She leaned momentarily against the cool richness of Catalan tiles that decorated the wall. Then, as she followed the direction of his eyes, tugged desperately at the sheet, which had shifted alarmingly as she turned, a sudden coolness warned her that it had left her rear exposed. She edged sideways as she caught her reflection in the mirror alongside the bath. How on earth had she got that bruise on her shoulder? She lifted it slightly and the pain brought instant recall of the tearing jerk as he had hauled her over the edge of the cliff to safety.

‘I was looking for some painkillers,’ she said, with a brave attempt at dignified suffering.

His lip curled derisively. ‘Of course you were.’ He took her arm and led her firmly back to the bed. ‘Lie down and I’ll bring you something.’

‘I’m not an invalid.’

‘No, just a pain in the backside. But you’d better lie down before you fall down.’ She sat down abruptly on the bed, but only because her legs were so wobbly. It was nothing to do with his telling her to and she stubbornly refused the cool enticement of a down pillow.

‘If you’ll bring my clothes, I’ll stop being a pain in the—’ she started angrily, then stopped, gathered herself a little. She couldn’t afford to aggravate the man any further. ‘If you’ll bring my clothes, I’ll be happy to leave,’ she said, with exaggerated politeness.