Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick
married,’ he told her tersely, and went over to the table on which he had placed the tray, poured two cups of tea, and handed her one.
Lola shook her head. ‘I don’t want it.’
‘I think you should drink it,’ he said.
Lola’s eyes glittered. ‘I don’t want it,’ she repeated stubbornly.
He looked into her eyes for a moment, then nodded, took his tea over to the window-seat and sat down, although Lola noticed that his own cup went untouched.
‘How do you know all about this house?’ she asked him quietly, having remembered other things, too. ‘The paintings and the vase and now the china storeroom. Did you know Peter Featherstone?’
‘I knew of him,’ he answered. ‘And I had met him on several occasions.’
‘So?’
‘He was my sister’s lover,’ he explained starkly.
Confused, Lola searched in her mind for the name he had surely mentioned at the restaurant in Rome. The woman he clearly adored, who had looked after him when their parents had died. Who had sacrificed her place at university in order to support him. ‘Catrin?’ she ventured hesitantly.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘That’s right. Catrin had an affair with Peter Featherstone for almost fifteen years.’
Fifteen years? Lola blanched. ‘What kind of affair?’
He shrugged. ‘Like any other long-term relationship, I guess. She’s a successful businesswoman in her own right—she travels extensively, as did Peter. She has a flat in London—which Peter bought for her.’
‘But Catrin wanted more, did she?’
His mouth tightened with anger. ‘Why shouldn’t she want more? This house was the major part of his inheritance. They had shared a life together for nearly fifteen years!’
‘And why did they never marry?’
‘Peter didn’t want to. No reason—or at least he gave no reason to Catrin. He said that they were happy as they were, so why change? He used to give her that line—“if something’s not broken why mend it?”’
‘Did she love him?’
‘Very much,’ he answered reluctantly.
‘And did he love her?’
He froze, his features starkly defined and vaguely threatening, and at that moment Lola thought that he looked like the devil incarnate. ‘She thought he loved her,’ he responded quietly. ‘In fact, she was certain of it.’
‘Then why leave me the house?’ she wondered aloud.
His mouth hardened into a grim line. ‘Exactly.’
Lola stared at him, at the cold, forbidding expression on his face, and indignation slowly began to blaze away inside her. Who did he think he was—implying that she was at fault? ‘I think you have some explaining to do, Geraint.’
‘Such as?’
She stared at him, at where he sat on the other side of the room, and an air of disquiet seemed to descend on her. He seemed so distant now; almost a stranger. Had they really shared kisses and giggles and intimacies all that time in bed together?
She was afraid to answer his question, afraid to put into words her most basic fears, in case they turned out not to be fantasy. But if she did not confront her fears—what then?
‘You living next door,’ she said slowly. ‘That isn’t just coincidence, is it?’
He held her gaze steadily. ‘No. Dominic is my oldest friend. We meet up as often as our schedules allow.’ His eyes glittered. ‘He rarely uses this house, and when I explained the situation to him—’
‘And just how did you explain the situation to him?’ she cut in brutally.
He did not flinch under her accusing stare. ‘I didn’t lie, if that’s what you’re implying. I told him that I was interested in meeting the woman who I felt had done my sister out of something I considered to be rightfully hers.’
‘And he agreed, did he, to what some men might have considered a rather bizarre request?’
‘Not Dominic.’ He shrugged dismissively. ‘He didn’t consider the request bizarre at all—why should he? He understood my concern.’
The first arrow had pierced her heart, and she braced herself to withstand a whole quiverful of them. ‘And our meeting—that night we met at the tennis club—was that engineered too?’ Say no, she prayed silently. Please say no.
For the first time, he looked uncomfortable, but again he did not attempt to avoid her gaze. ‘I went there with the intention of meeting you, yes.’
Lola took her cup and drank some tea, and just that one small activity kept her in check, prevented her from some rash, illogical action against him which she might later regret. ‘So all that eyes across a crowded room stuff, which you’ve waxed lyrical about ever since—that was just so much moonshine, was it? You know, you’re really a very good actor, Geraint—’
‘No, Lola!’ His voice sounded savage now, teetering on the edge of control. ‘I went to the clubhouse with the intention of meeting you, yes, but—’
‘But what? With what goal in mind?’ she demanded acidly. ‘Revenge, I presume? A desire to seek some kind of redress for the sister you considered to have been done out of her rightful inheritance? Isn’t that it?’
‘At first, yes,’ he admitted. ‘Although I hadn’t really thought it through properly. Catrin was upset at Peter’s death, and I was angry. It was too easy to put you into the category of being a young and manipulatively beautiful seductress who had persuaded Peter Featherstone to leave his house to you.’ His voice deepened. ‘And then I met you—’
‘Oh, please!’ Lola turned away from him in disgust and sucked a dry, painful breath into her lungs. ‘Spare me the sweeteners, Geraint—I really don’t think I’m in the mood to stomach them right now!’
‘Lola, please listen to me—’
She whirled round, her face contorted with anger and shame. ‘No, I won’t listen to you! I’ve listened enough and I’m sick to my stomach! In fact, you can damned well listen to me! You can say what you want about not having thought things through, but I don’t believe you!
‘You walked into the tennis club that night, took one look at me and decided that turning the charm on was a sure-fire way of getting me to fall under your spell! You did that knowing that you are an extremely good-looking man who probably never needs to even lift a finger to get any woman to come running!
‘And as for someone like me, someone who isn’t used to dealing with men like you, well. . .’ she gave him a sad, wistful smile ‘. . . I never really stood a chance, did I?’
‘Lola, it wasn’t like that—’
‘Yes, it was!’ she yelled. ‘You know damned well it was! Admit it, Geraint! At least be man enough to admit it to me!’
There was silence, a fraught, angry silence as they eyed each other warily.
Eventually he spoke. ‘Revenge may have been at the forefront of my mind at the very beginning. I admit that the idea of me blindly reaching out for some form of primitive retribution was extremely gratifying—but that was nothing more than a temporary form of madness. Very temporary. And I can assure you that once I saw you—’
‘Oh, please don’t insult me by pretending that you were bowled over by my heart-stopping beauty!’ Lola snarled. ‘Although I suppose you must have been grateful that I didn’t resemble the back end of a bus! I mean, how would you have coped with bedding me if that had been the case, Geraint, huh? What would you have done then? Insisted that the seduction should go