Lost In Love

HE WASN’T there.

‘Typical,’ Marnie muttered as she replaced the receiver, ‘just damned typical!’ feeling all that careful mental preparation going frustratingly to waste.

Guy might live in London, have his business base there, but the very nature of that business kept him constantly on the move, personally overseeing every aspect of the conglomerate of companies he had inherited from his abdicating father on Guy’s own retirement from motor racing. And it took several calls to different numbers suggested to her before she eventually tracked him down, in Edinburgh of all places.

She was put through to a plastic-sounding female voice who seemed about as approachable as a polar bear. ‘Mr Frabosa is in conference,’ came the uncompromising block to Marie’s request to speak to him. ‘He does not wish to be disturbed.’

Is that so? mused Marnie, the woman’s frigid tone putting a mulish glint into her blue eyes. For the last hour she had been passed from pillar to post in her attempt to contact Guy, and in the end she had only got the Edinburgh information by pulling rank on the frosty-voiced female blocking her request. It wasn’t often that Marnie laid claim to her married title, but she felt no qualms about doing so when she thought the moment warranted it. She had more than earned the right, after all.

And it seemed the same tactic was required again! ‘Just inform him that Mrs Frabosa wishes to speak to him, will you?’ she said coldly, and gained the expected result as the woman stammered through a nervous apology and went off to inform Guy of his caller.

For the next five minutes, she hung on the line with only the intermittent crackle of static to tell her she was still connected while she waited for Guy to come dutifully to the phone.

He didn’t.

Instead she got the plastic voice again, sounding flustered. ‘Mr Frabosa sends his apologies, Mrs Frabosa, but asks if he could call you back as soon as he returns to London?’

Marnie’s lips tightened. ‘When will that be exactly?’ she asked.

‘The day after tomorrow, Mrs Frabosa.’

The day after tomorrow. Marnie paused for a moment to consider her next move. The very fact that she was calling him must in itself tell Guy that she needed to speak to him urgently, since it was such a rare occurrence. It was typical, she irritably supposed, for him to make her wait. He always had liked to annoy her by stretching her patience to its limits.

Well, two could play at this game, she decided, as sly calculation joined the sense of mutiny. ‘Then tell him thank you, but it doesn’t matter,’ she announced, and calmly replaced the receiver.

She knew Guy, she knew him well.

It took just three minutes for him to get back to her. And, just to annoy him, she waited until she had counted six hollow rings before she lifted the receiver and casually chanted her name.

‘Sometimes, cara, you try my patience just a little too far.’

The deep velvet tones of his voice swimming so smoothly down the line had her closing her eyes and clenching her teeth in an effort to stop herself responding to the sheer beauty of it. Loving or hating this man, he still had the power to move her sexually.

‘Hello, Guy. How are you?’ Of the people who knew him in England—his adopted country since his father emigrated here some decades ago—most called him Guy with a hard G. Marnie, on the other hand, had always preferred the European pronunciation, and the way the softer-sounding ‘ghee’ slid so sensually off the tongue. And Guy loved it. He said just hearing her say his name was enough to make his body respond to the promise it seemed to offer. Once upon a time she would say his name just to witness that unhidden burning response. Now she said it to annoy him because he was well aware it held no invitation any more.

‘I am well, Marnie,’ he politely replied, before going on to wryly mock, ‘Right up until I heard you wished to speak to me, that is.’

‘Poor darling,’ she mourned, quite falsely. ‘What a troublesome ex-wife you have.’

‘Is that what you’re going to be?’ he enquired. ‘Troublesome?’

‘Probably,’ she admitted, keeping her voice light. It always paid to be in control around Guy; he was just too quick to turn the slightest sign of weakness to his own advantage. And the advantage was going to be with him all too soon enough. ‘It’s rather important that I see you today. Can it be arranged?’

‘Not unless you can get to Edinburgh,’ he told her bluntly. ‘I will be stuck here for at least another two days.’

Marnie suppressed an impatient sigh. Could Jamie’s problem wait that long? Going by the sense of urgency her brother had brought in with him that afternoon, the answer was no, it would not wait.

Marnie chewed on her bottom lip, considering calling his bluff a second time and just severing the conversation with a light, ‘Shame, but no matter, forget I even called,’ kind of reply. It had worked several times in the past. They might be divorced, but not with Guy’s blessing. He had fought her all the way, until she had turned totally ruthless and used her trump card against him. But he made no secret of the fact that he was quite willing to do almost anything for her but die at her feet, and usually when she snapped her fingers he came running.

Then she remembered Clare, and any idea of playing cat and mouse with Guy on this one slid quietly and irrevocably from her mind.

‘I suppose you have your plane up there with you?’ she said.

‘Correct, my love,’ he said quite happily. Guy liked to thwart her when possible. She allowed it to happen so rarely that he tended to wallow in the few occasions when it did occur. ‘Of course,’ he went on, his velvet voice smoothly mocking, ‘if the idea of flying shuttle up here is totally abhorrent to you, then I think I can put Sunday afternoon aside for you...’

And what about Saturday? she wondered, feeling the biting discomfort of evil suspicion creep insidiously through her blood. Today was Wednesday. He said he was stuck up there for two days. That brought him to Friday. That could only mean one thing in Guy’s book, for he had this—unbroken little rule about never spending Saturday alone! He most probably had her with him now! Her suspicious mind took her on another step. After all, hadn’t she personal experience of Guy’s passions? One night without a woman and he wasn’t fit to know!

‘And I also suppose you are entertaining one of your ladies up there?’

‘Am I?’ he murmured in a maddeningly unrevealing drawl.

‘If I make the effort to get to Edinburgh, Guy,’ she went on tightly, ‘it will not be to play gooseberry to your latest fancy piece!’

‘Darling,’ he drawled, silky-voiced, refusing to be riled by her frankly aggravating tone, ‘if you can take so much trouble just to share my company, then I will make sure I am free.’

Which still told her exactly nothing! ‘And the poor fool who is living under the mistaken belief that she will be enjoying your full attention—what happens to her?’

‘Why?’ he countered. ‘Are you expecting to stay with me all night?’ He sounded insufferably at ease, mildly surprised, and horribly mocking. ‘If that is the case, darling, then I most certainly will make sure I am free.’

Marnie’s lips tightened. ‘If you’re still hankering after that, Guy,’ she told him witheringly, ‘then I feel sorry for you. I happen to be rather fastidious about the men who share my bed. One cannot be too careful these days.’

‘Bitch,’ he said. ‘Take care, Marnie, that one day I don’t decide to prove to you just how weak your aversion to me actually is, because you would never forgive yourself for surrendering to this—now, what was it you once called me?’ He was playing the silky snake now, slithering along her nerve-ends with that lethal weapon of a tongue of his. ‘A middle-aged has-been putting himself out for voluntary stud? Quaint,’ he drawled. ‘Very quaint.’

Marnie had the grace to wince at the hard reminder of those particular words. She had flung some terrible things at him four years ago. Unforgivable things, most of them. But she had been hurting so badly at the time, while he had been so calm, so utterly gentle with her that she had simply exploded, wanting to rile his sleeping devil with terrible insults and bitter accusations. She had not succeeded. All she had achieved was to make him walk abruptly away from her. It was either that or hit her, she knew that now. But four years ago his turning his back on her at that moment had hurt almost as much as everything else he had done to her.

‘It isn’t my fault you crave variety,’ she put in waspishly to hide her own discomfort.

‘It is that same “craving”, as you so sweetly put it,’ he countered, ‘that made our nights such—exquisite adventures.’

‘And I was so endearingly naïve, wasn’t I?’ Her full bottom lip curled in derision. ‘Such a pathetically gullible thing, and so willing to let you walk all over me.’

‘Look.’ His patience suddenly snapped. ‘I really have no more time to give to this kind of verbal battle today. If you called me up just to fill in a few spare moments trying to irritate me, then I think I should inform you that you have managed it. Now,’ he said curtly, ‘do you come up to Edinburgh or do we sever this conversation before it deteriorates into a real slanging match?’

‘I’ll check the times of the shuttle and let your secretary know my arrival time,’ she muttered, backing down. It would do her cause no good to have put him in one of his black moods before she’d even got to see him. Things were going to be difficult enough as it was.

‘I think I should also mention at this juncture that if this has anything to do with that brother of yours then you will be wasting your time taking that shuttle,’ he warned.

‘I’ll see you later,’ she said, and heard his sigh of impatience as she quickly replaced the receiver.

* * *

Jamie must have been standing by the telephone waiting for her to call, because he answered it on the first ring. ‘Clare’s resting upstairs,’ he explained. ‘I didn’t want the telephone to disturb her. Have you spoken to Guy?’

‘He’s in Edinburgh,’ she informed him. ‘I’m on my way up to see him right now.’

‘Thanks for doing this for me, Marnie,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘I know how much you hate going to him for anything, and believe me, I wouldn’t have asked you to do it this time if it weren’t for Clare...’

‘How is she?’ Marnie enquired concernedly.