Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

the desire, the wanting, the arousal. But then just as she was about to turn over, he suddenly reached out and took hold of her, pinning her beneath him with a speed and strength that took her off guard, and when she looked up at him in stunned shock he told her angrily, ‘Very well, if that’s what you want …’

      ‘Caspar,’ Olivia started to protest but it was already too late. With the weight of his body keeping her pressed to the bed, he was already starting to enter her.

      Her body, she recognised, must have been more aroused, more responsive than she had thought because it was certainly accepting him easily enough now, despite her efforts to tense her muscles against him.

      ‘I thought you wanted me to get it over with,’ Caspar reminded her grimly as he felt her efforts to resist him.

      He had started moving faster, harder, and to her shock Olivia realised that a part of her was almost enjoying the knowledge that she had made him angry. It seemed as though in pushing him into anger she could allow herself to acknowledge her own sensual and sexual needs.

      She stiffened as she found that her body was quite definitely starting to respond to the fiercely rhythmic thrust of Caspar’s within it. She wanted to push him away, to stop him doing what he was doing, to reach out and scratch him with her nails, bite him with her teeth, fight against his sexual possession of her and at the same time … at the same time …

      She gave a sharp gasp as the first fluttering contraction of her orgasm caught her off guard and then it was too late, much too late for her to do anything but wrap herself around him and call out his name as the intensity of her own need swamped and engulfed her.

      They had never used sex as a means of hurting one another before, not physically and certainly not emotionally, but they had done last night. After it was over she had turned her back on Caspar, feigning sleep when he had tentatively touched her and whispered her name.

      After a while she had felt him move away and turn his back to her whilst she had stayed stiffly where she was, aching to be able to turn to him and be taken in his arms and yet too angry … too hurt to allow herself to tell him so.

      When she had woken up this morning, Caspar was already in the bathroom. They had been treating one another with guarded politeness all day. Stubbornly Olivia told herself that Caspar was the one in the wrong and not her. He should have known how she was feeling; he should have seen … understood. She was disturbingly conscious of a growing feeling of alienation between them, a reluctance on her part to feel able to confide fully in him, to tell him about the hours she lay awake at night, worrying not just about her father but also about her mother, listening for the betraying sound of her mother creeping downstairs to repeat the self-destructive binging and vomiting cycle of behaviour that she had witnessed before the party.

      Now she smiled tiredly as Jon came over to join her and Saul. Of all of them Jon was the one who was taking her father’s illness the hardest, Olivia suspected. After all, not only was he her father’s twin brother and bound to be psychologically affected by his heart attack, he was also the one who had to bear the brunt of the family’s panic and fear, especially her mother’s and his own father’s. In her mother’s case, that fear had been displayed in bouts of hysterical tears and a need to cling to him both physically and emotionally, which must be hard enough for him to bear, but when it came to her grandfather … Judgementally Olivia glanced across the room to where her grandfather was sitting.

      Perhaps he didn’t mean to give the impression that he wished it had been Jon who had been stricken with a heart attack and not David … that if he had to lose one of his sons he would prefer it to be Jon and not David. But, nevertheless, that was the impression he had given and Jon must have inevitably been hurt by such accusations—despite his enviable stoicism and quiet acceptance of his father’s angry claims that it was due to his own failure to shoulder his fair share of the burden of running the practice that David had been overworked to the extent that his heart had damaged by the strain.

      ‘Livvy and I were just wondering how you are going to manage with the practice,’ Saul commented. ‘I imagine your best option would be to get a locum in and—’

      ‘No.’ The swiftness with which Jon rejected Saul’s suggestion surprised Olivia. His voice, normally gentle and controlled, had been almost harsh. ‘I … I haven’t had time to come to any decision about the practice as yet,’ Jon told them stiffly as Olivia and Saul instinctively exchanged surprised glances. Such vehemence and intensity were so foreign to Jon’s nature that it had caught them both off guard a little.

      ‘But you will have to make a decision soon,’ Jenny interposed quietly from her seat near by. ‘You can’t possibly run the practice on your own. There’s far too much work and besides—’

      ‘Besides what?’ Jon challenged her, ignoring Olivia and Saul’s presence as he turned round to face his wife, his voice and eyes suddenly sharply bitter. ‘Besides what?’ he demanded again. ‘Besides I’m not David and therefore not capable of running the practice by myself?’

      ‘Jon. You know I didn’t mean anything of the kind,’ Jenny reproached him. He had changed so much over these past few days that sometimes she hardly recognised him. She knew how much pressure he was under, how anxious and concerned he was for David … how caught up with supporting not just Tiggy but his father, as well; and she sensed how hurt he must have been by Ben’s obvious belief that he was not capable of stepping into David’s shoes. But it was impossible for him to do two men’s work indefinitely and that was all that she had been going to say.

      ‘I could help out for a while….’

      As soon as she had said the words, Olivia wondered what on earth had possessed her. She was already committed to going to America with Caspar. All their plans had been made.

      ‘Oh, Livvy, could you? But what about your own job?’ Jenny exclaimed in obvious relief.

      Olivia was conscious of Caspar listening to her and watching her from the other side of the room. Hillary was at his side, a place she was frequently to be found of late, she reflected a little bitterly. As Hillary reached up and whispered something to him, Olivia’s chin tilted stubbornly.

      It was too late for her to retract what she had said now and besides … ‘I’m … I’m between jobs at the moment,’ she told her aunt quite truthfully. ‘I … I haven’t got round to telling the family yet, but I actually handed in my notice at work some time ago, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t step into Dad’s shoes and help out at the practice for a little while at least.’

      ‘Could you, Livvy. That would be marvellous, wouldn’t it, Jon?’ Jenny exclaimed as she turned to her husband. ‘It would—’

      ‘What’s this, what’s this?’ Ben was demanding, having obviously been told by Max what was going on.

      ‘Livvy’s just offered to help out at the practice until David’s well enough to go back to work,’ Jenny explained to her father-in-law.

      ‘To do what? She can’t! She’s only a girl and she’s not—’

      ‘I might be a girl, Gramps, but I’m also a fully qualified practising solicitor,’ Olivia heard herself reminding her grandfather in a coolly firm voice. But despite her outward control, inwardly her heart had started to beat too fast and she could feel the familiar turmoil beginning to churn her stomach. ‘I know it’s what Dad would want me to do,’ she added, looking her grandfather squarely in the eye. ‘Unless, of course, Max wants—’

      ‘That’s impossible,’ Ben told her testily. ‘You know that perfectly well. Max is trying for the Bar.’

      ‘Are you sure you know what you’re taking on?’ Saul murmured in her ear. ‘It’s not going to be easy for you, you know. I dare say that Jon isn’t as much of a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist as Ben, but you’re still talking about a very old-fashioned country practice with very old-fashioned country clients.’

      ‘What are you trying to say to me, Saul?’ she challenged him sharply. ‘That I’m not up to the work?’