Robyn Donald - Dark Fire

It bewildered her and upset her, but the most astonishing thing was that in some obscure way it was exciting. She looked across the table to the shadowed, clever face slashed by the scar, a countenance almost primitive in its force and power, and a feral shudder ran down her spine, set off warning signals all through her, flashpoints of heat and light leaping from cell to cell.

Shaken, at the mercy of forbidden and equivocal sensations, she managed to disguise her response with a sparkling glow of laughter and bright conversation, while Paul watched her with pride and the tiniest hint of possessive smugness. Amazingly, the secret, seething undercurrent of ambiguous emotions appeared to swirl around him without touching him.

She didn’t begrudge him his pride; all men, she knew, wanted to stand well in the eyes of their fellows. It was at once one of their strengths, and rather endearingly childish.

‘Paul tells me we’re having a party tomorrow night,’ Flint said coolly while they waited for dessert.

Natalie had insisted that as mother of the bride she owed friends and relatives a drinks party. Behind Aura’s back she had wheedled Aura’s cousin, Alick Forsythe, into paying for it, and because she refused to entertain in the small unit she and Aura lived in now it was being held at Paul’s apartment.

Aura nodded, hoping her irritation didn’t show. ‘Yes.’ She sent Flint a sideways glance.

His eyes darkened into tawny slits, and for one pulsing second he watched her as though she’d started to strip for him. Then his lashes concealed eyes cold and brilliant as the fire in the heart of a diamond.

Aura’s mouth dried. ‘You’ll meet my mother and my bridesmaid, and an assortment of other people. It should be fun.’

‘I’m sure it will be.’

Aura resented his bland tone, but more the sardonic quirk of his lips that accompanied it. Although she had fought against the whole idea of this wretched party, now that it was inevitable she was prepared to do what she could to make it a success.

By the time the evening wound towards its close Aura was heartily glad. Every nerve in her body was chafed into painful sensitivity, her head ached dully and bed had never seemed so desirable.

By then she knew she would never like Flint Jansen, and found herself hoping savagely that his job kept him well away from them. The less she saw of the beastly man, the better. Fortunately the feeling was mutual, so she wasn’t likely to be plagued with too much of his presence after she and Paul were married.

She expected to be taken straight home, but as Flint held open the car door for her with an aloof, studied smile Paul asked, ‘Do you mind if we go back to the apartment first, darling? I’m expecting a call from London, and I’d like to be there when it comes.’

‘Yes, of course.’

Halfway there she yawned. Instantly Paul said, ‘Poor sweet, you’re exhausted, and no wonder. Look, why don’t I get off at home, then Flint can drive you the rest of the way? That way you’ll be tucked up in bed at a reasonable hour.’

‘Oh, no, there’s—’

Aura’s swift, horrified, thoughtless answer was interrupted by Flint’s amused voice from the back seat. ‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ he said lazily. ‘Where does Aura live?’

Bristling, but recognising that protests would only make her antagonism more obvious, Aura gave him her address.

‘Really?’

The hardly hidden speculation in his tone made her prickle. ‘Yes,’ she said stiffly.

‘I know how to get there.’

The hidden insolence in his words scorched her skin with a sudden betraying flush. Aura’s tense fingers clasped the beaded work of her fringed Victorian bag. She most emphatically did not want to be cooped up with Flint for the twenty minutes or so it would take to get her home. However, as there was no alternative she was going to have to cope as well as she could.

‘Goodnight, sweetheart. Try not to push yourself too hard tomorrow,’ Paul said when the transfer of drivers had been effected. He bent down and kissed her gently. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night.’

She watched him walk across the footpath and in through the door of the elegant block of apartments where they were going to live until they had children.

Aura bit her lip. She had always thought Paul big, but beside Flint Jansen he was somehow diminished.

With a suddenness that took her by surprise Flint set the car in motion. Aura turned her head to look straight ahead, battered by a ridiculous sense of bereavement, almost of panic.

She searched for some light, innocuous, sophisticated comment. Her mind remained obstinately blank.

The man beside her, driving with skill and control if slightly too much speed, didn’t speak either. Aura kept her glance away from his hands on the wheel, but even the thought of them turned her insides to unstable quicksilver. A shattering corollary was the image that flashed into her mind, of those lean tanned hands against the pale translucence of her skin.

Aura stared very hard at the houses on the side of the road. Lights gleamed in windows, on gateposts, highlighted gardens that bore the signs of expensive, skilful attention. Although it was winter, flowers lifted innocent blooms to the shining disc of the moon, early jonquils, daisies, the aristocratic cornucopias of arum lilies. To the left a wall of volcanic stones fenced off a park where the delicate pointed leaves of olive trees moved slightly, their silver reverses shimmering in a swift, soon-dead breeze. Beyond them rose the sharp outlines of a hill.

Aura said sharply, ‘This isn’t the way.’

‘I thought we’d go up One Tree Hill and look at the city lights,’ Flint said in his cool, imperturable voice.

Aura’s head whipped around. Against the glow of the street-lights his profile was a rigorously autocratic silhouette of high forehead and dominating nose, the clear statement of his mouth, a chin and jaw chiselled into lines of power and force.

Speaking evenly, she said, ‘Thanks very much, but I’d rather go straight home.’

A blaze of lights from the showgrounds disclosed his half smile, revealed for a stark moment the narrow, deadly line of the scar. He looked calculating and unreachable. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said calmly. ‘I won’t keep you long.’

Aura felt the first inchoate stirrings of fear. ‘I’m actually rather tired,’ she confessed, keeping up the pretence of reluctantly refusing a small treat, trying to smooth a gloss of civilisation over a situation that frightened her needlessly, to hide her uncalled-for alarm and anger with poise and control. ‘Organising a wedding is far more exhausting than I’d expected it to be.’

His unamused smile held a distinctly carnivorous gleam.

Oh, lord, she thought frantically, keep things in perspective, Aura, and don’t let your imagination run away with you. The man is a barbarian, but he won’t hurt you. After all, he’s Paul’s best friend.

‘I’m sure it is,’ he said, ‘especially at such short notice, but a few minutes spent looking down on the most beautiful city in the world won’t hurt you. Who knows, it could even recharge your batteries.’

‘It might be dangerous up there,’ she said quickly, although she had never heard of anything unpleasant happening on top of One Tree Hill.

His laughter was brief and unamused. ‘I don’t think so.’

She didn’t think so, either. For other people, possibly, but not the ruthlessly competent Flint Jansen.

Opening her mouth to object further, she cast a fulminating glance at that inexorable profile then closed it again. He was a man who made up his mind and didn’t let anyone change it.

The exact reverse of her mother, Aura thought acidly, trying to fight back the fear that curled with sinister menace through her. Natalie’s mind was like a straw caught in a summer wind, whirled this way and that by each small eddy, held only on one course, that of her own self-interest.