Sara Craven - The Innocent's Sinful Craving

For a moment Dana felt the room sway about her. ‘I see,’ she managed.

She swallowed. ‘How—how did the visit to the church go?’

‘Brilliantly. The country wedding is definitely on, although I don’t know what Dad will say.’

Dana’s brows lifted. ‘He’s coming, then, to give you away?’

Nicola sighed. ‘Yes, and bringing the ghastly Sadie with him unfortunately.’

Diverted momentarily from her own troubles, Dana gave her a sympathetic look. That first sailing holiday had turned life upside down for Adam and Nicola. Francis Latimer had decided he’d found his true metier, and to the shock of the entire family, he’d thrown up his safe city job and bought a struggling sailing and diving venture in the Greek islands, which by sheer hard work and force of will, he’d turned into a roaring success.

Along the way, he’d met Sadie, an Australian working for one of the large tour companies supplying him with excursion business, and a summer fling had continued throughout the winter and thereafter.

Sadie was loud, determinedly jolly and convinced she would soon have her Frankie’s children eating out of her hand. When it didn’t happen, she became increasingly resentful and family holidays turned into a hostile nightmare.

Which was how Nicola, and Adam too, had come to pass the greater part of their school vacations at Mannion, while their father spent his winters in Queensland, running a boat chartering business with Sadie’s brother Craig.

‘Well, at least you’re seeing him again.’ Dana tried to sound consoling. ‘Have you heard from your mother?’

‘An occasional letter telling us she’s happy and staying where she is. How about you?’

Dana forced a shrug. ‘Much the same, although the information filters through from Aunt Joss.’

Apparently Linda found her daughter too strong a reminder of everything that had gone wrong in her life for direct contact, and Dana had been advised to accept that and let her find her own way back. If she ever did.

But if I can offer her Mannion, she thought, then maybe I’ll discover the mother I’ve never really known. The one with hopes and dreams who existed before Jack Latimer was killed. Not the woman disowned by his mother and left out on a limb to grieve with no way back, but the smiling, pretty girl who’d helped run the Royal Oak because the landlord’s wife drank.

‘Life and soul of the place, she was,’ Betty Wilfrey, the Royal Oak’s cook had once told her. ‘Reception, bar work, chambermaiding, she could turn her hand to anything. It was never the same after she left. No wonder Bob Harvey sold up and went too before a year passed.’

And now all too many years had gone by, thought Dana. Her throat tightening, she got to her feet. ‘Should we go down?’

‘I guess so. Dinner’s running slightly late because Adam’s only just arrived, in a bit of a strop and without Robina, because they’ve had a fight,’ said Nicola, adding with a touch of grimness, ‘I’ve had to remind him that this is my weekend, not his.’

Dana bit her lip. ‘Perhaps he’s upset because he really does care for her,’ she suggested reluctantly.

‘Adam cares for getting his own way,’ Nicola said shortly as they left the room.

* * *

Pre-dinner drinks turned out to be champagne on the terrace, poured, Dana saw, by Zac Belisandro, immaculate in a dark grey suit with a silk tie the colour of rubies.

As Dana accepted her flute with a murmur of thanks, she was acutely aware of his gaze slowly examining her, lingering on the roundness of her breasts.

His unashamed scrutiny revived memories she wanted very badly to forget, and she was glad to obey Nicola’s summons and greet her former schoolmates Joanna and Emily, with their respective fiancés.

Then Eddie was commandeering her to meet his parents, a handsome grey-haired couple, radiating contentment about their son’s engagement and openly—sweetly—about each other.

They were also with patient goodwill listening to Mimi Latimer bewailing Robina’s no-show and its detrimental effect on the placement at dinner.

‘It can hardly matter,’ Mrs Marchwood said soothingly. ‘Not at a family dinner when we’re all friends.’

Miss Latimer acquiesced reluctantly, but the look she sent Dana told a very different story.

But what did that matter when Adam had just appeared on the terrace, smiling and relaxed in a cream linen suit and an open-necked shirt as blue as his eyes, any earlier bad humour apparently forgotten or put on hold?

He saw Dana and stopped short, his eyes widening.

‘My God, I don’t believe it.’ He turned to his sister. ‘Nic, you little devil, so this is the surprise you promised me.’

He crossed to Dana, taking both her hands in a graceful gesture and laughing down into her face.

‘Where on earth did you spring from—after all this time? How long is it, exactly?’

She could have told him to the day, the hour, the minute, but was saved from temptation by Mimi Latimer.

‘She’s been selling overpriced flats in London, one of them to Nicola and Edward, it seems. I hope they have a survey done.’

‘A full one—before they made their offer,’ Dana said crisply. ‘Hello, Adam. It’s good to see you.’

‘So, you’re a career girl.’ Adam shook his head. ‘I often wondered what had become of you.’

Then why didn’t you try to find me...?

But she didn’t ask the question aloud. Instead she smiled back at him, keeping her tone casual. ‘Oh, I’ve never been that far away. And I can’t tell you how it feels to be here again—with all these memories.’

‘More champagne?’ said Zac Belisandro blandly, appearing beside them as silently as a dark ghost and refilling the glass she’d put down on a table. ‘To celebrate this joyous reunion.’

Hoping I’ll drink too much and make a fool of myself, no doubt, she thought as she gently removed her hands from Adam’s clasp. But it’s not going to happen, because this top-up is going to be poured away as soon as Zac’s back is turned.

Except, that never seemed to happen. He wasn’t actually following her. He was just—never very far away.

But then, when had he ever been?

But this weekend she would deal with it. She might not be able to distance herself physically, or not until she was the mistress of the house and could control the guest list, but she could and should excise him mentally once and for all.

Put the events of seven years ago in a box, close it securely, then let it drop from thirty thousand feet into the Mariana Trench or some other abyss. Wasn’t that what the therapists recommended?

It might not have worked for my mother, she thought bitterly, but I’ll damned well make it work for me.

She took judicious sips of champagne during the chilled cucumber soup and the poached fillets of sole, accepting half a glass of claret to accompany the beautifully roasted ribs of beef.

She’d been seated between Greg and Chris, the bridesmaids’ fiancés, well away from Adam who occupied the head of the table, but perfectly placed to hear the chunterings of Miss Latimer, stationed at its foot.

‘Such a shame dear Robina can’t be with us,’ she declared fretfully during a lull in the general conversation, adding, to Adam’s obvious displeasure, ‘I know lateness can be trying, but I understand even the dear Queen Mother was habitually unpunctual in her younger days.’

Dana felt a bubble of laughter welling up inside her. At the same moment, she realised that Zac was looking at her from the other side of the table, his dark eyes brilliant, alight with shared and quite unholy amusement and found her gaze locked with his.

Like being mesmerised, she thought, and a shiver ran through her.