CHAPTER FOUR
Alex drew his car to a halt outside the cottage and sat for a moment, scowling through the windshield at the other vehicle already parked outside Louise's cottage.
Someone had got here before him, and he wasn't in the mood for polite conversation. There were questions he wanted answers to — and fast. And they weren't the sort of questions he wanted to discuss in front of anyone else.
For a moment or two he considered turning around and driving away again, but then he changed his mind. He wanted this business over and done with as soon as possible.
Done with? Face it, he told himself as he got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. Nothing about Louise had ever been "done with."
He might have thought that he had been "over" her when he had left the village and gone to live in Spain, but he had been deluding himself to believe so. And coming back here had just proved it.
In five minutes flat she had got under his skin as strongly as ever, and he had been forced to admit that nothing had died. Seeing her had simply revived all the hunger that he had felt when he had known her before. Revived it so strongly that he spent his nights enduring wild, erotic dreams about her, waking up hard and aching. And when he was with her he felt as if he had lost all the years in between, being once more reduced to the yearning, lustful state of the nineteen-year-old he had been when he had first met her.
That was why he was here now.
He had told himself that now that he knew exactly what Louise wanted from him, he would pack his bags and get out of there — fast. All she saw him as was a wealthy man who could restore her precious manor — and along with it the status of the Browning family — to its former glory. So was he going to let himself be used like that?
No way!
At least that was what he had told himself three days ago. He was getting on the next plane back to Spain and…
And here he was at Louise's front door again.
He had cursed his stupidity, told himself he was every sort of a fool. But he hadn't been able to get Louise Browning out of his mind in eight long years, and he might as well face the fact that he wasn't going to be able to do it now.
The door was slightly ajar, and as he raised his hand to knock he heard the sound of raised voices from inside the cottage.
"But I told you…"
"I know what you told me, darling, but it just wasn't true, was it?"
Louise's light tones and another, rougher, very masculine voice that he recognized instantly even after the length of time since he had heard it.
The man he had once thought his friend, but who had proved himself to be the exact opposite.
"Can't you give me another few days?"
Louise looked up into the disturbingly cold face of the man before her, quailing inside as she saw the ruthless cruelty stamped on it.
"You've had all the days you're getting! You pay by the end of the month or else."
"But I told you —"
Three days ago she had hoped…but since then she hadn't seen or heard from Alex, and the one tiny chance of a solution that she had had seemed to have shrivelled into ashes, like paper in a flame, disintegrating totally.
"Oh, I know what you said, darling. You made some ridiculous claim about being married — to Alex Alcolar, of all people! He'd sort this all out, you said. And quite frankly, I don't believe a word of it. If Alex is going to come riding to your rescue like a knight on a white charger, then he'd be here by now."
"You told him! You wrote that letter!"
"I wrote — but nothing happened. If he's your husband, as you claim, then where the hell is he?"
"Here."
The single word came from behind them both, making Thornton spin round in shock, a violent curse escaping his lips. Louise couldn't even manage that much. Though her mouth opened, no sound came out.
"Sorry I'm late, querida...."
Alex moved swiftly into the room, bypassing Thornton with only a coolly disdainful glance. Coming to Louise's side, he stunned her even further by dropping a swift, totally unexpected kiss onto her vulnerable mouth.
"I had a last-minute phone call just as I was leaving."
If she had been capable of thinking of any reply, that kiss drove it totally from her mind. That and the use of that word, querida, along with the apparently genuine warmth in his tone made her head spin in disbelief. When he moved to her side and slid a strong arm around her waist, she welcomed its support with gratitude, her legs suddenly feeling weak as cotton wool beneath her.
"So —"
At last he turned and surveyed the man before him, slate-gray gaze cold and impenetrable.
"Shall we get down to business?"
"Alex…" Louise tried, but he silenced her with a smile and a swift shake of his head.
"No, amada…"
The softness of the words was threaded through with unyielding steel. A steel that was matched by the warning flash of those dark eyes, cautioning her not to overstep the invisible line he'd laid down.
"We agreed. I would deal with this. You can leave it to me. What I would like you to do is to make me a coffee. I'm parched.…"
The none-too-subtle push he gave her left her no option but to head for the kitchen as he wanted. Any attempt to disobey would only result in an undignified struggle; one Alex would undoubtedly win with ease. So she gave in — for now.
She even made herself fill the kettle and switch it on. But the water boiled totally ignored as she struggled to listen to what was happening in the dining room.
The thickness of the door and the space of the hall between them blocked the words, so that all she could hear was the indistinct murmur of the two different voices, Thornton's loud and blustering, Alex's smooth and totally impassive. Louise found that she was clenching her hands tight in an attack of nerves, nails digging into her palms.
And then just as she thought she couldn't bear it any longer, she heard the front door open and close on a loud and obviously angry slam. The next moment a car roared into life and sped away down the lane.
Alex or Thornton?
A swift glance out of the window gave her the answer. Alex's car was still parked opposite the cottage.
A rush of feeling swamped her, but even she couldn't have said whether it was relief or the opposite. Alex had got rid of Thornton, it seemed — but did that mean that she could say goodbye to all her problems, only to welcome in a whole new set of difficulties?
The phrase "out of the frying pan and into the fire" sounded ominously inside her head as she forced her reluctant feet across the hallway to the dining room.
Alex was standing by the big open fireplace, staring down into the flames, a brooding expression on his stunning face. But he swung round as he heard the door open and Louise hesitated on the threshold.
"He's gone," he said, anticipating her question. "And he won't be back."
"Can you be sure? How do you know —"
"I know," Alex broke in curtly. "He's had all the money that he's getting out of me, and I made it clear that if he tried anything again there was plenty of information that I could hand over to the police — information that could put him back inside if I chose to reveal it. Yes, you can be sure he's gone."
But that's wonderful!"
Impulsively she took a couple of steps forward, her hands coming out — then froze as she looked into his handsome face and saw the blank, opaque look in his eyes.
"He's gone," he repeated. "You're clear of him. Now you'll have to deal with me."
09-05-07, 09:36 AM
رغم أني ماقريتها لسى وعلى فكره أنصحك تقرين " من يطفئ الحنين " الروايه رووووووووووووووووووعه من أفضل 
جديد مواضيع قسم الارشيف
العرض العادي
