Hot Surrender Page 8

  Larry winced from the illumination, head held down, not meeting her eyes. There were swelling bruises on his face, a smear of blood from his nose.

  Zoe stared at him. 'How could you do a thing like this? What did you intend to do to me? Rape me? Kill me?'

  Just saying it made her blood run cold. Until her mind started working he had been winning; she had been so scared she might not have stopped him, out of sheer terror. Now she knew just how a woman felt when a man jumped her out of the dark. Fear was the enemy as much as any rapist.

  'No,' Larry muttered. 'No, I wouldn't have… Zoe, I love you. I wouldn't have hurt you.'

  Her cat-like green eyes spat rage and contempt 'Love me? Oh, that's why you knocked me to the floor and tried to scare the living daylights out of me? You have a funny idea of love!'

  'I kept ringing; you wouldn't talk to me! You wouldn't see me. I was desperate.'

  'So you attacked me! Did you really think you could get away with it? After all those threatening phone calls the police would have been on to you in two seconds flat; you would have been the obvious suspect, and no matter how much you lied a simple DNA test would soon have proved it was you! You might have gone to prison for years.'

  'You made me love you and then you dumped me!' he said in that familiar, petulant, childish voice, and she looked at him with contempt.

  'I didn't make you do anything of the kind! Nobody can make anybody love them, and if you cared twopence for me you wouldn't be here now; you wouldn't feel justified in hurting me!'

  'You hurt me!'

  'I may have damaged your ego; I don't believe I hurt you. It's not me you're obsessed with; it's yourself.'

  He looked as if she'd hit him again. 'How can you be so cruel? If I did attack you, you deserved it You know I love you, but you treat me like a stray dog.' He was dark red now and breathing thickly. Suddenly he went for her again, his hands reaching for her throat, taking her off guard again.

  Choking, her ears buzzing, Zoe tried to fight free, but Larry was in a frenzied state. His hands were stronger than she had realised; she couldn't pull them down from her throat. Her eyes clouded, she felt herself losing consciousness, and then abruptly he let go of her. Zoe reeled back and fell against the wall, coughing and retching, breathing painfully.

  Her eyes were still clouded, but dimly she saw someone who hadn't been there before. Another man. He must have pulled Larry off her. Who was it? she thought stupidly. And where on earth had he come from just in the nick of time?

  She looked through the open front door. A car was parked outside. The cold night air was clearing her brain. She knew that car. Shakily, she pushed hair back from her eyes and looked at the newcomer again.

  'Are you okay?' Connel's deep voice asked, and she laughed wildly at the question.

  Hoarsely, she whispered, 'I'll live!'

  'You're lucky I got here in time! I'll ring the police.'

  'Wait…' she said, touching his arm, and he halted, looking down at her with a frown.

  'Where's Larry? Has he gone?' she asked, and the dark eyes narrowed, hard as obsidian.

  'You know him?'

  She nodded, and his mouth tightened.

  After a pause, he glanced sideways and her gaze followed his. Larry lay on the floor at the foot of the stairs, on his back. His eyes were shut but his mouth was open.

  'What's the matter with him?'

  'I knocked him out,' Connel curtly told her.

  'He looks dead!'

  'He isn't.'

  She was worried. 'Are you sure?'

  'If you'd stop talking for a second you'd hear him breathing.'

  She didn't like the aggressive tone, or the way he was looking at her. In the silence between them she heard Larry breathing like a boiling kettle through his open mouth, and looked at him with uneasy concern.

  'He sounds odd—how hard did you hit him?'

  Scowling, Connel said, 'When I got here I found him trying to kill you—and when I dragged him away from you he turned on me so I punched him in the face. I simply hit him hard enough to make sure he cooled down. Now, if you've finished your inquisition, I'll go and ring the police.' He turned to walk towards the sitting room and she shouted after him.

  'No!'

  In mid-step he stopped and looked back at her, black brows lifting incredulously.

  'What do you mean—no? He was trying to strangle you. The man's dangerous. If you don't call the police he'll try again, and you may not be so lucky next time. If I hadn't turned up when I did you could be dead by now.'

  His raised voice had penetrated the fog in Larry's brain; he stirred, groaned, began to struggle into a sitting position, holding his jaw.

  'W…w…what happened?' Blearily, he looked around and saw them; Zoe watched awareness flash into his eyes. 'Oh…' he moaned, as his gaze moved on to take in Connel's frowning face. Taking a deep breath, Larry grunted, 'Was it him who hit me?'

  'Yes, and I'll do it again if you make the wrong move,' threatened Connel in a voice that meant every word he said.

  Larry gingerly rubbed his jawline. 'It feels as if I've been hit by a truck. I'm going to sue you, mister! You could have killed me, hitting me that hard!'

  'You can tell the police when they get here,' snapped Connel.

  Alarm came into Larry's eyes. 'Police?' He staggered to his feet. 'You…you've rung the police?' He looked reproachfully at Zoe. 'You didn't? How could you when you know I'd never have hurt you. I love you; you know I do. Haven't you done enough to me? Making me love you, then dumping me, refusing to see me, or even talk to me? You drive me insane, and then you call the police—you're determined to ruin my life, aren't you? You won't be satisfied until I'm in prison, out of a job, my whole life destroyed!'

  Wearily, Zoe said, 'Oh, go away, Larry. He hasn't rung the police. But if you ever come near me again, I will. No more phone calls or letters! And never, ever, come to my home again unless you want to end up in a cell.'

  'Zoe…don't be so heartless!' he groaned, coming towards her with his hands held out. 'I'm sorry…forgive me…I love you…'

  She looked at him scornfully. 'No, you don't, or you wouldn't have tried to strangle me. If you love someone, you don't want to hurt them. You love yourself, Larry. Not me.'

  'I can't stop thinking about you; I can't sleep—just give me one more chance, Zoe! It isn't much to ask, is it?'

  Connel harshly ground out through his teeth, 'That's enough of that, sunshine. You heard her. She doesn't want you here. On your way and don't come back, or you'll have me to deal with,'

  Larry looked wildly at him, then at Zoe. 'Is he why you dumped me? I suspected it was something like that There had to be another man—with you, there's always another man, isn't there?'

  Furious, she opened her mouth to deny it, but he didn't give her the chance. Looking at Connel with bitterness, he sneered, 'You'll find out what she's like! It will be your turn next for the treatment. Don't let yourself care too much—she waits until you're crazy about her and then she dumps you. She's as cold as ice and as cruel as a cat playing with a half-dead mouse.'

  Zoe flinched at the accusation. It wasn't true. Of course it wasn't. She wasn't cold. Or cruel.

  Connel's dark eyes flicked to her face, then back to Larry. Brusquely, he muttered, 'You've had your say. Come on, you're leaving.' Grabbing Larry's collar, he frogmarched him out of the cottage before slamming the front door on him.

  Zoe unsteadily walked into the kitchen, put on the light, then sat down before her legs gave way. She didn't want to humiliate herself in front of Connel by fainting, but she was chilled to the bone and shivering. Of course, she was tired after working for hours in the open air, and on top of that being attacked by Larry when she got back here.

  Connel followed her into the room, gave her a hard, searching look, then without a word began to make tea.

  Over his shoulder as he set out mugs he said icily, 'You know, I was beginning to think Hal had been wrong about you, but obviously he
had your number spot-on. You've destroyed that stupid guy. I wish now I hadn't hit the poor bastard so hard.'

  'Go away,' she yelled at him, fighting with tears and a sense of injustice. 'Get out of my house. Right now. And don't come back.'

  'What's the matter, Zoe? Afraid of the truth?' The biting tone was like a scalpel boring into her heart; she lifted her head, clouds of red hair spilling around her white face, to look at him with pain and anger.

  'It isn't the truth! If I go out with someone and realise I don't want it to get serious, what am I supposed to do? Marry him even if he bores me rigid? Haven't you ever dated someone then realised she was the wrong woman for you? If you can, why shouldn't I? Don't I have the right to change my mind?'

  His eyes watched her, hard as black glass, glittering.

  It made her even edgier to have him look at her that way. She bit her lip, but ploughed on huskily. 'Larry, for instance— I liked him when I met him, but then he started telling me endlessly about his previous girlfriends. He wanted me to be jealous. If we bumped into some girl he had once dated he was ecstatic, and kept telling me I didn't need to be jealous, but it was obvious he hoped I would be and he got sulky when I wasn't.'

  His mouth twisted. 'I suppose he was right in a way— jealousy would have meant you cared.'

  She had to admit that. 'I suppose so—but I wasn't in love with him, so I had to stop seeing him. You must see that? All his attempts to make me jealous got on my nerves. Even worse, he wanted me to tell him all about the guys I'd been out with—but I wouldn't do that, either. I don't believe in talking about one man to another; once a relationship is over it's over, and it isn't fair to them to talk about them behind their back.'

  'No,' he agreed, frowning. 'Most men would hate that. Including me.'

  She laughed roughly. 'That I can imagine.' Oh, yes, she knew that much about him. He was a man with strong ideas about himself; he would hate to know a woman was spreading gossip about him. She viewed him with some sympathy. That was one thing they had in common.

  'I wouldn't want a guy talking about me to other women,' she said. 'But Larry was determined to know who else I'd been out with and whether I'd slept with them. I refused to tell him anything, but he kept on and on about it—he's the obsessive type, only it's himself he's really obsessed with. He sees everyone else in relation to himself and never sees any other point of view. I explained that I don't believe in talking about what's over, but he simply refused to accept that He wouldn't accept that I didn't want to see him again, either. He's been ringing and writing ever since! He wouldn't give up. But I didn't think he was crazy enough to show up and actually attack me!'

  Connel put a cup of tea in front of her. 'Just as well I turned up when I did. God knows what would have happened if I hadn't. Have you eaten?'

  She stared blankly, not remembering for a second, and he angrily muttered at her, 'You haven't, have you? You make me so furious! Are you trying to make yourself really ill? When your sister rang me and told me you had got dressed and gone off while she was collecting her little girl I wanted to follow you and make you come back, but I didn't know where the film was being made and your sister had no idea either, nor did she have a phone number for the film company.'

  'Well, I'm glad about that!' she muttered, glaring. 'I wouldn't have appreciated being arrested and dragged away from my job in front of the whole film crew! Who do you think you are?'

  'You shouldn't have gone back to work immediately after that accident'

  'I didn't want my film being handed over to someone else! You don't understand…'

  He bent down close to her, his dark eyes boring into hers. 'No, it's you who doesn't understand! Shock can kill! This might be your last film if you don't listen to reason!'

  'I'm fine,' she said obstinately, shifting away from the menace of that strong face. Her heart hurt against her ribs at being so close to him. 'Stop invading my body space!'

  His eyes gleamed in a new way. 'Am I, Zoe?' he whispered, and her throat fluttered with awareness.

  'Stop threatening me! First Larry, then you! What's wrong with men lately? Why are they so aggressive? Why do they think they know what's best for other people? Why do they try to push people around?'

  'I don't know about Larry, but as to me—I'm only trying to make you listen to reason!' He put out a hand to brush her tousled red hair back from her face; his long fingers light and gentle. 'You're such a fool, Zoe. Your own worst enemy.'

  Oh, God, that was true! she thought, swallowing hard. She was a fool. The sound of his deep voice, the brush of his fingers, had made her feel weak, as if she might faint on the floor at his feet any minute. He was far too close. She averted her eyes from the temptation of that wide, powerful mouth, but could still see every line of it. She couldn't remember ever wanting to be kissed with such a deep ache of need and it appalled her. What on earth was wrong with her? Maybe he was right and she was still in shock, if not actually off her head! It was the only explanation for the crazy way she felt.

  'Your skin's cold,' he said, stroking her cheek. 'Drink your tea while I make some food. I haven't eaten, either What have you got in your Bridge?'

  'Nothing much,' she said, picking up her cup and holding it gratefully between her shivering hands. The warmth of the tea made her feel better, but she was still very shaky as she sipped the sweet, milky liquid and watched him opening the fridge.

  'What do you mean? There's plenty of food in here.'

  Over his shoulder she saw he was right 'Sancha must have done some shopping for me; that was good of her.'

  Connel gave her a dry glance. 'Especially after you ran out on her—she's furious with you about that, by the way. She was very upset when she got back here and found you gone.'

  She must ring Sancha and apologise, but not tonight She wasn't up to it. It would have to be tomorrow.

  He straightened, inspecting a plate he held in his hand. 'How about steak? There's enough here for two, and it would only take a few minutes to cook. I cook a lot of steak. I see Sancha stocked up on vegetables; there's mushrooms and tomatoes and I could microwave a jacket potato unless you want chips.'

  'No, jacket potato would be fine. I rarely eat chips, too high in calories.' She put down her cup and began to get up. 'I'll help.'

  He whirled and put his hands on her shoulders. 'Sit down again. I'm doing the cooking. All I want you to do is sit by the radiator and stay warm.'

  'You big bully,' she huskily said, trembling again at how it felt to be so close to his powerful, warm body. She had the most stupid yearning to lean on him, put her arms round him and cling. What was the matter with her? She had never wanted to cling to any man before. She had never been the clinging type—the opposite, in fact!

  He walked away, came back with a glass of orange juice. 'Here, drink this while I heat up some soup for you. I remember you said you liked it There's some fresh soup in the fridge, I see—tomato and basil or asparagus. Which would you like?'

  'Tomato, thank you.' She sipped her juice, watching him in a sort of trance as he moved around. He was beginning to look as if he belonged in her kitchen and that was even more worrying. Familiarity was dangerous, so was habit—if she wasn't careful she would start missing him when he wasn't here.

  Putting the waxed soup box into the microwave, he quickly flicked the control buttons to switch the oven on, then began dealing with the other ingredients, washing and drying the steak, slicing tomatoes, rubbing oil into the outer skin of the potato before sprinkling it with salt. His deftness and speed were impressive.

  A few minutes later Zoe had a bowl of hot soup in front of her. Connel gave her a soup spoon and a roll and butter.

  'You get on with that while I finish cooking the meal.'

  She bent over to inhale the scent, sighing. 'Smells delicious. Aren't you going to have some?'

  'No. I'll just have the steak. It will be ready in ten minutes, so start eating the soup.'

  It was like being married, she thought,
taking her first spoonful. He gave her his orders as if he had every right to run her life. She ought to do something about that, but just now she felt too cold and tired. Next time she saw him she would tell him where to jump. If she felt normal enough.

  'Is it okay?' Connel asked her, and she nodded, taking some more.

  'It tastes as good as it smells.'

  The rest of the meal was as marvellous; he had cooked the steak to perfection, although he had given her too much. She couldn't eat it all, and by the time she had finished her meal she was heavy-eyed and drowsy.

  'No coffee,' Connel told her, studying her across the kitchen table. 'Bed for you now.'

  'Not after eating all that food!'

  'You're asleep where you sit!' he mocked, and she laughed, knowing he was right She was barely able to keep her eyes open.

  'Well, first I'll help you clear the kitchen and wash up!'

  'That won't take me five minutes. Upstairs with you, Zoe—or do you want me to carry you and undress you?'

  Heat burned in her face. Her eyes couldn't hold the mockery in his; she looked away. I certainly don't!' She got up too fast and hit her knee on the table-leg, staggered slightly, grunting in pain.

  Connel's arms went round her. 'Now what have you done?'

  Her throat closed in alarm. 'Nothing, I'm okay.' She pushed at his wide shoulders without making any impact on him at all. Indeed, he laughed, looking down into her flushed face, his eyes darkly bright.

  Softly he said, 'Why are you in such a panic, Zoe? What are you afraid of? Me? Or yourself?'

  'I'm not afraid of you or myself,' she lied, ice trickling down her spine in spite of the curious fact that her body was burning. If anyone had asked a month ago what sort of person she was, she would have said she was a cool, clear-headed professional woman. Someone rational and balanced. Not given to extremes. Now she was suddenly a battleground for violent swings of feeling, of reaction and counter-reaction, back and forth, and it was deeply disturbing.

  'Sure about that?' Connel's head bent, his warm mouth brushed her neck, and she took a deep, shaken breath.