Tangled Destinies

‘You never showed an ounce of family feeling!’ she grated, chickening out of the direct accusation. ‘That’s why I fail to see why you’ve come here at this time. You’re not here to celebrate the wedding, are you? You and John have always loathed each other.’ That left Lisa as the reason, she thought in dismay. Her voice rose half an octave. ‘What…what did make you turn up here?’

‘I decided I had to make a play for what I wanted,’ he said softly.

Her heart thudded. ‘That’s what I was afraid of!’ she said jerkily. ‘István——’

‘Pleading will do no good. My mind is made up.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘I refuse to be rushed by you, or anyone. I’m very much my own man, Tanya. I’m calling the shots and in time all will be revealed,’ he drawled, and turned to go.

‘Running away again?’ she taunted, half out of her mind with despair at his intentions. He froze and she knew she’d actually reached a vulnerable part of that apparently impenetrable skin. It gave her no pleasure, however. Somehow he always turned her into a shrew—and that was awful. She hated herself for complaining and whinging, for letting her raw emotions bubble to the surface, for being bitchy. He made her feel less good about herself. That was why she hated to be near him.

Slowly he turned and walked towards her again. ‘I didn’t run,’ he interrupted, a thinly disguised anger underlying the soft tones. ‘I left of my own choice. Why don’t you say it, Tanya? Say what you must and get it out of your system.’

She took a deep breath, the pain swelling to the surface while she struggled with the souring hurt that had destroyed her happiness. ‘All right. You claim that you left?’ she echoed bitterly, blurting it all out in a spurt of spitting flame. ‘Call it what you like, blame who you like; you went without warning, without leaving any address—and—and—you—drove Mother into her grave and—and for that I’ll never, ever forgive you!’

He remained motionless. Her heart rolled over in sickening lurches because she’d voiced the words that had become engraved on her heart and because she had finally faced him with one truth after all the years of nursing its canker inside her.

István’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘How could I kill her?’ he growled. ‘I was in Budapest at the time.’

‘But she didn’t know that! You were special to her and you’d vanished without trace. She went into a decline. Soon after, she died. Isn’t the connection obvious?’ she asked huskily.

Waves of remembered distress made the muscles in her stomach clench as if a ruthless hand gripped her there. A sob lurched from her tremulous lips. Her pained eyes lifted to his and saw…pity.

‘Tan,’ he began, tight with strain.

‘No! Don’t look at me like that! I don’t want it! It’s too late to show sympathy!’ she cried hoarsely. ‘What do you care that Mother was beside herself because you’d vanished?’

‘What did I care?’ he roared. And suddenly, his eyes burning with an intense light, he grabbed her arms in an explosion of movement, his teeth bared in a furious snarl as he shook her violently. ‘What the hell do you know about me?’ he seethed.

Nothing, that was the pity of it all, she thought in silent answer before her brain stopped functioning. Pain erupted in her head, her bruised arms, her neck where it snapped back and forth. ‘István, István!’ she gasped above the roaring in her ears.

Mercifully he came to his senses and held her steady. Her shocked, accusing eyes lifted and widened at the pallor and the gauntness of his face. ‘Twenty-seven years…’ he muttered through bloodless lips. ‘And of all the women I have to vent my frustration on I choose you.’

So he wanted to hurt her. Hearing him, the once-adored elder brother, coldly admitting that he was targeting her was unbearable. Her resolve to be remote and unemotional collapsed under the weight of her own terrible emptiness.

To her total dismay, hot tears overflowed from her stricken eyes and emptied in scalding torrents down her cheeks. With a harsh exclamation, he growled some words in Hungarian then bewildered her by gathering her in his arms and holding her tightly in a bear-hug. The embrace was so welcome, so comfortable and so achingly familiar that she sobbed even harder.

‘I know how much you loved Ester. You did your best to love us all,’ he stated in a harsh mutter. Her shoulders shook and he stroked them. ‘You’re so like her. Strong sense of duty. Loyal. Dogged in your determination and totally blind to anything but what you have to do, like a blinkered horse.’

He was absently stroking the chestnut river of her hair and speaking to her in the same kind of voice he’d once used when she was small and needed comfort in those far-off and innocent days before he’d taken an inexplicable dislike to her. Longing for that time again and disturbed by his gentleness, she buried her face deeper into his warm chest.

Shame filled her. It was a shame brought on by the realisation that the death of her beloved mother had been as traumatic an event as István’s disappearance. That shouldn’t be. He didn’t deserve her regrets. Missing her mother dreadfully, she’d missed István just as much. Two people she’d loved profoundly had gone from her life with a shattering finality.

‘Hush, Tan. I’m here.’

Desperately she tried not to cry. When her mother had died, she hadn’t shed one tear. Her sisters had been inconsolable and she’d cuddled them in her arms till they’d fallen asleep but she’d remained cold, her feelings frozen.

Her hands curled against István’s chest. Safely in her wallet were pictures of him and her mother which comforted her somehow to know that they were there. She could touch the wallet and project her passionate hatred of him to wherever he was in the world. And now he was here and she was in his arms and feeling as if she’d come home. It was all wrong!

István’s strong hand lifted her chin and he stared deeply into her eyes while gently wiping her face with his handkerchief. ‘I’m glad you’ve cried,’ he said huskily. ‘I heard you’d never shed a tear.’ His hand faltered. There was a softening of his mouth that disturbed her, a light in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. ‘You’re more ethereal than ever. I’ve never seen you look more beautiful, Tanya,’ he breathed, a frightening hunger in his voice.

Her throat dried. Beneath the pale suit, her breasts rose and fell with the shallow breath that sought in vain to oxygenate her depleted body. He had an animal magnetism, an intense sexuality that even she, his sister, could feel. Lisa would be a pushover to that unholy, electrical force emanating from him. With barely a thought for the consequences, he switched it on and flooded anyone in his path in a dazzling display of male power.

The blood began to drum in her veins. She couldn’t have moved if her life had depended on it. He held her gaze with the sheer force of his personality and all she could do was to stare at the incredibly sexy mouth and wonder…

Oh, dear heaven! she thought in horror. What is it about István?

And he told her.

‘I feel it too,’ he growled softly.

‘Feel…what?’ she croaked in a revealingly high-pitched voice.

István breathed heavily a few times before elaborating, his wicked black eyes relentless. ‘Desire.’

‘What are you saying…? No!’ she whispered in horror, her mouth only just managing to shape the denial as he moved forwards to close the gap between them. ‘No, István!’

But her speech was slurred and he smiled in triumph. ‘Poor Tanya,’ he said soothingly, his warm breath torching across her face. ‘I think I’d better put you out of your misery.’

Her skin prickled with tension. ‘You’re depraved! Heaven help you, István!’ she rasped, her voice shaking with raw emotion. ‘Your mind is twisted. I wish we weren’t related! If only there were no ties between us—and never had been! I wish—oh, dear God, I wish you’d never been born and that you weren’t my brother!’

‘That last wish is granted,’ he said silkily, dropping a light kiss on her parched lips. ‘I’m not.’

‘What?’ she croaked, bewildered. And all the time she was thinking, No, no! No, it can’t be true…

‘I’m not your brother.’ There was something terrible in the depths of his eyes but his tone was light-hearted. ‘Opens up all sorts of possibilities, doesn’t it?’

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_5dcc03eb-8a73-5c30-b7f9-533be7e7ea68)

TANYA’S senses reeled. For a moment she didn’t grasp what he was saying and then the full impact of his statement hit her. And by then he was halfway up the castle steps. Numbly, paralysed with shock, she watched his tall, lithe figure in the woman-baiting white shirt and tight black jeans disappear into the hotel.

But it wasn’t true. It was impossible. He’d made a cruel joke to torment her.

She would have run after him if she could move. She would yell at him to leave them all alone if she could succeed in pushing her voice past the awful lump that blocked her throat. Not her brother—a terrible thing to say—a slur on her parents’ integrity!

And yet…

Voices impinged on her consciousness. John’s bitter anger, Lisa’s agitated wails. Her entire body trembled with anger as it dawned on her that István was set fair to ruin the fairy-tale wedding they’d all planned for and had looked forward to with such excitement.

John’s needs fought with her own. His had a greater priority and her instincts were always to respond to her family’s needs. Grimly she forced herself to dismiss István’s outrageous claim as pure, wicked fantasy and to contain her own chaotic feelings. István she could deal with later. This was infinitely more urgent, though at the moment she wasn’t sure whether she should break up the argument or let it blow itself out. Curse István! She scowled, hating to see her brother so upset.

As for that dizzy sensation she’d felt…She was tired. Getting her father comfortably settled, cooking masses of meals for him and freezing them, watering the plants, worrying about leaving him and then worrying even more about Lisa’s love for John—all this had tired her emotionally and physically.

Someone spoke to her. A young woman, dressed entirely in black and carrying a basket of freshly baked bread that smelled deliciously warm and doughy. Tanya registered hunger as she absently returned the woman’s greeting and it suddenly became clear that much of her confused thinking had also been due to her early start that morning without a proper breakfast.

A wry smile touched her pale lips. Hunger pangs, mimicking sexual desire! And then her smile faded as she realised more fully what István had said. He’d casually disowned the mother who’d devoted her life to him. He deserved nothing but contempt for his behaviour. Her hands shaped into fists.

‘Not your brother.’ Ridiculous! Her mother would have told her if he’d been adopted…Wouldn’t she? At the very least, her father would have said something when István had vanished. Bitterness and resentment would have drawn such a fact out of her father, surely? Or he would have told her recently in one of those long, companionable heart-to-hearts.

Crushing the rebellious nagging doubts that kept whispering slyly in her ear, she marshalled her thoughts together. At the moment, Lisa and John needed her. Making sure their wedding went ahead was the most important thing on the agenda and anything that was between herself and István could wait—must wait.