Lost In Love

‘Easy, Marnie...’ Guy’s hand reached out to cover her own, and it was only as the warm brown fingers closed gently over hers that she realised she was sitting with her hands locked into a white-knuckled clench. ‘It cannot be this bad, surely?’ he murmured huskily.

Oh, yes, it could, she thought silently. I hate you and you hate Jamie and Jamie hates himself. It couldn’t be much worse! ‘Guy,’ she began tentatively, ‘about Jamie...’

‘No.’ He removed his hand, and at the same time removed the caring expression from his face. And Marnie felt her heart sink as he leaned back and closed his eyes, effectively shutting her out. It was an old habit of his, and one she knew well. If Guy wished to defer a discussion he simply gave you no room to speak. On a soft sigh, she subsided, accepting that it was no use her trying to force the issue. Even if she tried, he would completely ignore her. It was the way of the man, hard, stubborn, despotic to a certain extent. He played at life by his own set of rules and principles and never allowed anyone to dictate to him.

Besides his undeniably fantastic looks, Guy was a brilliant businessman, a wildly exciting athlete and a dynamic lover. True to his Latin blood, he possessed charm in abundance, arrogance by the ton, energy enough to satisfy six women, and money enough to keep them all in luxury while he did so.

It was that same surfeit of money in the family which gave him the means to indulge his second most favourite passion: that for racing cars. It was a passion that had taken him all over the world to race, living the kind of life that automatically went along with it, his striking good looks and innate charm making sexual conquests so easy for him that by the time he met her Guy had grown cynical beyond belief about the opposite sex.

He had just passed his thirty-fourth birthday by then, and retired from racing on a blaze of glory by winning his second world championship crown, to take up the reins of business from his father ‘so the old man can go and tend to his roses,’ as Guy so drolly liked to put it.

Papa Frabosa...a small frown pulled at her smooth brow. It was ages since she’d seen him. And not because of her break-up with his son, she reminded herself grimly. No, not even that had been able to break the loving bond she and Roberto had forged during her short foray into their lives. But he liked to keep to his Berkshire home these days, since the small stroke several months ago, and Marnie had refused to so much as set foot on the estate since she’d left Guy. The place resurrected too many painful memories.

Opening her mouth to ask him about how his father was, she turned her head to look at him—and immediately forgot all about Roberto Frabosa when she found herself gazing at Guy’s lean, dark profile.

Such a beautiful man, she observed with an ache. A man with everything going for him. Too much for her to cope with. That dynamic character of his needed far more stimulation than an ordinary little artist girl had been able to offer him. She was at least ten years too young for him, ten years behind him in experience—a lesson she had learned the hard way, and had no desire to repeat even though she knew without a single doubt that if she said to him right now, and with no prior warning, that she wanted to be his wife again, Guy would take her back without question. He loved her in his own way, with passion and with spirit. But not in the way she needed to be loved—faithfully. His need to supplement his physical desires with other women had driven a stake so deeply into her heart that the wound still bled profusely—four years on.

He didn’t know, of course, just how deeply he had hurt her. He only knew the small amount she had allowed him to know—and to be fair to him he had never forgiven himself for hurting her that much. His sense of remorse and the knowledge that he had no defence for his behaviour had kept him coming back to her throughout the years in the bleak hope that she might one day learn to forgive him and perhaps take him back. He was a Catholic by religion, and, although they had not married in the Catholic faith, and their divorce had been quite legal, Guy had never accepted it as so. ‘One life, one wife’ was his motto, and she was it. Guy had refused to melt out of her life, and with his usual stubbornness had refused to let her do the melting. So they’d gone on over the years, sharing a strange kind of relationship that hovered somewhere between very close friends and bitter adversaries. He lived in hope that one day she might find it in her to forgive him, and she lived in the hope that one day she would force him to accept that she would not—which was why she did all the bitter biting, and he allowed her to get away with it.

A penance, he’d described it once. A penance for his sins, like the four years they had spent apart. He quite readily accepted it all as deserved. ‘You’ll forgive me one day, Marnie,’ he told her once when one of his many seduction scenes had been foiled—by the skin of her chattering teeth! ‘I will allow you some more time—but not much more,’ he’d warned. ‘Because time is slowly running out for both of us. Papa wants to hold his grandson in his arms before he dies, and I mean to see that he does.’

‘Then don’t look to me to provide it!’ she flashed with enough bitter venom to whiten his face. ‘You would do better, Guy, finding yourself the kind of wife who doesn’t mind sharing you, because this one has no intention of going through that kind of hell again!’

‘And I have already vowed to you that it would not happen again!’ he said haughtily. Guy always became haughty when on the defensive; he hated it so much. ‘That one time was a mistake, one which—’

‘One which was more than enough for me!’ she’d cut him off before he’d got started—as she always did when he tried to explain. ‘Why can’t you get it into your thick head that I don’t love you any more?’ she’d added ruthlessly, yet felt no satisfaction in the way his expression had closed her out, the flicker of pain she’d glimpsed in him managing only to hurt her too.

That was all of five months ago, and since then she’d steered well clear of Guy. But now here she was, driving with him through the streets of Edinburgh knowing with a dull sinking feeling inside that this time he held all the cards, and she had nothing but her pride—if he allowed her to keep it, that was, which was no real certainty.

‘We have arrived,’ his quiet voice broke into her thoughts, and she turned to glance at the porticoed entrance to one of the city’s most exclusive hotels.

He helped her alight, as always the complete gentleman in public, his hand lightly cupping her elbow as they walked inside and led the way to the waiting lift. Neither of them spoke a single word; neither of them felt inclined to. It was the calm before the storm, with both of them conserving their energies for what they knew was to come.

The lift doors closed then opened again several seconds later. Guy guided her out on to the quiet landing and towards a pair of rather imposing white-painted doors, a key dangling casually from his fingers.

She shuddered—she couldn’t help it—and he glanced sharply at her, his mouth tightening into a stubborn line because he knew exactly what she was thinking, and his fingers tightened on her arm as if in confirmation of her fear that this time—this time there would be no compromises, no escape for her.

The suite was more a mini-apartment, with several doors leading off from a small hallway. Guy pushed open one of the doors and indicated that she should precede him into a large and luxuriously furnished sitting-room.

‘Nice,’ she drawled, impressed.

‘Adequate,’ dismissed the man who had spent most of his life living out of a suitcase. He possessed a real contempt of hotels now. He much preferred his rambling country home in Berkshire, or his beautiful apartment in London. ‘Sit down and I’ll mix us both a drink,’ he invited.

Moving with the lean grace Marnie always associated with him, Guy went over to the small bar and began opening cupboard doors while she hovered for a moment, wondering on a sudden swell of panic if she should just turn right around and get out of here while she still could.

Then she remembered Jamie’s bruised and swollen face, and that linen sling around his broken arm. And she remembered Clare, and the desire to run and save her own skin faded away.

For Clare’s peace of mind it was worth it, she told herself as a memory so painful that it clenched at her chest struck her. Stress was a dangerous state of mind—could even kill if left to run wild. She would do almost anything to ensure her sister-in-law never had to experience it.

With a grim setting of her lips, she moved across the room and sat down in one of the soft-cushioned armchairs.

‘Here.’ Guy handed her a tall glass filled almost to the rim with a clear sparkling liquid. ‘Dry martini with lots of soda,’ he informed her, going to sit in the other chair while she smiled wryly at the sardonic tone he had used. It had always amused him that she disliked the taste of alcohol in any form. A dry martini well watered down was just about her limit.

The ice cubes clinked against the side of the glass as Guy took a sip at his own gin and tonic. Then, ‘OK, Marnie,’ he said briskly. ‘Let me have it. What’s that stupid brother of yours done now that could make you come to me for help?’

‘How do you know it’s Jamie who needs your help?’ she flashed indignantly, annoyed that he wasn’t even giving her a chance to work up to mentioning Jamie, and forgetting that she had already given him a clue in the car. ‘I could be here on my own behalf, you know, but typical of you: you immediately jump to your own conclusions and—’

‘Are you here for your own sake?’ he cut in smoothly.

‘No...’ Marnie wriggled uncomfortably where she sat. ‘But you could at least give me a chance to explain before you—’

‘Then it has to be for Jamie,’ he said, ignoring her indignation. ‘I warned you, Marnie,’ he inserted grimly, ignoring all the rest, ‘not to bring your brother’s troubles to me again, and I meant it.’

‘This time it’s different, though,’ she told him, her mouth thin and tight because, no matter how sure she was that she was doing the right thing, she didn’t have to like it, ‘or I wouldn’t have involved you at all, but this time it’s Clare I’m worried about, and...’

‘Clare?’ he repeated sharply. His eyes suddenly narrowed and went hard. ‘What’s he done to her?’ he demanded harshly.

‘Nothing!’ Marnie denied, resenting his condemning tone. ‘He worships the ground she walks on and you know it. Of course Jamie hasn’t done anything to hurt Clare—how could you even think such a thing?’

‘I worshipped the ground you walked on and look how badly I hurt you,’ he pointed out.

‘No, you didn’t,’ she denied that deridingly. ‘You worshipped my body, and when it wasn’t available for you you just went out and found a substitute for it. So don’t you dare try putting Jamie into the same selfish mould as you exist in! He loves Clare,’ she stated tightly, ‘loves as in lifelong caring and fidelity—something you’ve never felt for anyone in your whole life!’

‘Finished?’ he clipped.

‘Yes.’ She subsided at the angry glint now glowing in his narrowed eyes.

‘Then if Jamie is this—caring of Clare, why have you been forced to come to me to beg help for her?’

‘Because...’ She sucked in a deep breath, trying to get a grasp on her growling temper. He could always do it. One minute in his company and he could always rile her until she didn’t know what she was saying! ‘She’s pregnant,’ she said.

‘What—already?’ Guy made a sound of grinding impatience. ‘I don’t call that damned caring of your brother, Marnie,’ he muttered angrily. ‘I call it downright irresponsible!’

So do I, she thought, but held the words back. Guy didn’t need any help in finding faults with her brother. He had an unerring ability to just pluck them out of the air like rabbits from a magician’s hat!

‘What’s the matter with her?’ he went on grimly. ‘Is she ill—does she need money for medical care?’ Already he was fishing inside jacket pocket for his cheque-book, his glass discarded so he could write out a cheque for whatever amount Marnie wished to demand from him.

And she was tempted—oh, so severely tempted to just let it go at that and name a figure which would probably choke him at the size of it but would not stop him giving it to her because it was for little Clare, whom he’d always had a soft spot for and therefore would do anything for.

But that would not be right—nor fair, she acknowledged heavily. If he was going to help them out, then he had a right to know the truth.

‘Wait a mintue,’ she said, swallowing because the truth was going to be that much harder to tell now he’d all but convinced himself Clare was in dire need of his financial asistance. ‘You haven’t heard it all, and I would rather you did before you agreed to anything. Clare is pregnant, but not in any danger of losing this one just yet, though it is the fear that it may happen which made me come to you.’

‘Jamie,’ he said, sitting back, the cheque-book thrown contemptuously aside.

She nodded, deciding it was time to stop prevaricating. He deserved that after the way he had reacted to the thought of Clare’s needing his help. It even warmed her to know that Guy could be so generous to someone he barely knew.

‘He’s just completed the reconstruction of a 1955 Jaguar XK 140 Drophead,’ she began.