Force Of Feeling

He was dangling them from the tip of one strong, long finger, and a feeling of weakness and disbelief filled Campion as she stared at him.

‘And so you decided to come down here yourself … but why?’

‘Do you remember any of what I said to you this morning?’ he asked her softly.

Did she remember? How could she forget?

‘Yes.’ Her terse answer made him smile slightly, and for one mad moment she had to stop herself from responding to that strange little smile.

‘Then you’ll remember that I told you I’d given the publishers my word that your manuscript would be on their desk on time …’

‘Yes,’ she agreed woodenly, remembering, too, that she had told him it was impossible. That was when they had had their argument about her having a secretary.

‘I even offered you the services of a secretary to help you,’ he added gently.

Campion’s chest swelled with indignation and fury.

‘I don’t want a secretary!’ she told him through bared teeth. ‘I don’t work that way. I don’t need any help with this book, Guy.’

‘Oh, yes, you do,’ he told her unequivocably. ‘But you’re right, you don’t need a secretary; at least, not the kind I had in mind.’

He was looking at her in a way that made danger signals race from one nerve-ending to another, and a tiny prickle of awareness of him touched her skin. He was standing too close to her, and she instinctively took a step back from him. He smiled when he saw her betraying movement, but there was no humour in his smile.

‘Tell me something,’ he encouraged softly. ‘Your heroines, Campion, do they have much of you in them? Or to put it another way—do you imagine yourself to be them when you’re writing?’

A hot wave of colour scalded her skin before she could hold it back.

‘No,’ she told him forcefully. ‘No, I don’t. Why do you ask?’

‘All in good time.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s going on for two, and I, for one, am tired. I think we’ll both be in a better frame of mind to discuss things in the morning. I’ve taken the smaller bedroom. Women always seem to need more room.’

The smaller bedroom? Campion gaped at him.

‘You’re … you’re not staying here?’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Of course I am! Where else would I be staying?’

‘But—you can’t.’

‘Can’t?’ He smiled grimly at her.

‘All right, so you can stay,’ Campion amended, ‘but I’m not staying with you.’ She headed for the door, determined to walk over him to get it open, if she had to. But she was brought to an abrupt halt as he virtually swung her off her feet, and deposited her down on the floor again with such force that her teeth actually rattled.

‘Now, let’s get one thing straight,’ he told her savagely, all pretence of calm good humour stripped from him now. ‘I’ve given my word, both professionally and personally, that your manuscript will be delivered on time. I’ve laid myself out on the line for you and your damn book, Campion, and no matter what it takes, you are going to deliver …’

No matter what it takes …’

His eyes seemed to bore into her skull, and she found she was too petrified to even open her mouth. All she could do was to stare at him with mesmerised astonishment.

‘It’s been one hell of a long day already, needlessly complicated by your unwarranted feminine tantrum and melodramatic flight. All right, so you’re having problems with the book, we both know that …’

Suddenly, Campion got her senses back. Gathering herself up to her full height, she raised her head and said angrily, ‘I’m not staying her listening to any more of this …’

‘Oh, yes, you are … You’re staying here until this damn book is finished, and to my satisfaction. We’re both staying her until it’s finished,’ he added.

‘You … you can’t make me do that …’

‘No. No, I can’t, but if you walk out of here now, Campion, that’s the end as far as I’m concerned, and you might as well throw that manuscript on the fire. Is that what you want? Do you want to quit? To give up? To admit that you simply haven’t got what it takes to …’

She went white, and swayed where she stood, her whole body filled with pain. His words came so close to the insults hurled at her by Craig. So very close that she denied them instinctively, and only realised as the pain subsided exactly what she had committed herself to.

She had committed herself to staying here and finishing her book. And Guy was making it plain that he had every intention of staying here with her.

Suddenly, she was too exhausted to argue the point any further, and besides, her pride would not allow her to back down now. He had virtually told her that he didn’t think she was capable of bringing her characters to life, and suddenly it was very, very important to her that she prove him wrong. She would finish the book, and when she had done it it would be so real, so alive, that … that … Muzzily, she touched her head. What was happening to her? She felt so weak, so drained …

‘You’re tired. Why don’t you go to bed? You can fight with me all you like in the morning.’

Why did the terse words have such an edge of rough pity? She flinched back from it instinctively, giving Guy a single baleful glance as she picked up her bag and headed for the stairs.

‘Admit it, Campion, coming here was a form of running away. A cry for help, if you like.’

The quiet words froze her on the stairs. She turned on him like an angry tigress, the cool aura of remoteness she generally projected for once gone.

‘If I was running away from anything, it was you,’ she told him furiously. ‘You and your interference in my life!’ She stopped abruptly, conscious of an odd tension in the small room. It made her skin tighten slightly, and she was intensely aware of the man watching her. ‘You’re the last person I’d cry out to for help, Guy,’ she added recklessly. ‘The very last.’

‘I see. Very well then, you must stay or go as you please, Campion, but remember one thing, if you leave here …’

‘I’ll be admitting that you’re right and that I can’t finish the book,’ she flung at him. ‘Oh, I’m not going, Guy. I’m staying, and I’m going to make you take back every insult you’ve made about my work. You wait and see.’

A strange look crossed his face, a combination of weariness and triumph, and it made her feel as though somehow she had stepped into a cleverly baited trap. But how could that be? Guy wouldn’t stay on at the cottage for very long, she assured herself as she made her way to the larger of the two bedrooms. He was a city creature; someone who fed off the bright lights and excitement the city generated; he would be bored out of his mind within a very short space of time, and then he would go and she could get on with her work in peace. Until then, she would just have to ignore him. It shouldn’t be that difficult; she had managed well enough for the last ten months. Determinedly, she ignored the small voice that reminded her that during those months she had had Helena to act as a buffer between Guy and herself.

She stalked angrily round the small room, wishing for the hundredth time that her agent had not seen fit to go into partnership with such an irritating man.

She knew that her opinion was a minority one. Everyone else seemed to think that Helena was very fortunate indeed in having as her senior partner a man whose reputation in the literary world meant that he had authors clamouring for him to represent them.

Well, she would never clamour for his services, Campion thought fiercely, and a sudden dark tide of colour washed her pale skin as she realised the significance of the double entendre conjured up by her thoughts. Guy had no permanent relationship in his life, but that did not mean that he lacked feminine companionship. Far from it! Her mouth tightened as she recalled the seemingly endless line of beautiful women who Helena had told her flocked around him.

Well, they were welcome to him, and she just wished he would take himself off back to them.

It was unfortunate that Mabel had so unwittingly told him what she was planning to do. She ground her teeth as she remembered his accusation that she was running away. From him and his threat of a secretary, yes; from her work, no—never—she loved her work.

She froze as she heard footsteps on the stairs and then a brief rap on her door. Guy opened it before she could protest, poking his head around the small gap.

‘Anything you want bringing in from your car? I take it that small carry-all isn’t the only luggage you’ve brought with you? Water’s hot, by the way, if you want a bath.’

Did he really think she was incapable of carrying her own suitcase upstairs if she wanted to?

His pseudo-concern made her feel angry. Did he really think she was stupid enough to believe he was the slightest bit concerned about her comfort? All he wanted from her was a successful book. She frowned, confused by the contradictions in her own emotions. She was tired and on edge, and he was the last person with whom she wanted to share such confined quarters as the small, remote cottage, but she had told him she was going to stay, and she wasn’t going to be the one to back down.