Lost In Love. Michelle Reid

just completed the reconstruction of a 1955 Jaguar XK 140 Drophead,’ she began.

      ‘I have one of those!’ Guy’s mood instantly changed to one of glowing enthusiasm. ‘I wonder if he managed to solve the problem with the—?’

      ‘While he was delivering it to the owner yesterday...’ she interrupted him a trifle impatiently; it was typical of him to be so easily diverted by the name of a precious car ‘...a lorry coming in the other direction skidded on a patch of oil and ploughed straight into him. The Jaguar was written off.’

      ‘What—totally?’ He was horrifed.

      ‘It went up in flames,’ she informed him grimly.

      ‘Bloody stupid—anyone seriously hurt?’

      ‘In general, my brother lives a charmed life,’ Marnie sighed. ‘No, not seriously,’ she confirmed. ‘Jamie managed to climb out of the tangled mess just before it caught fire with nothing more than a bruised face and a broken arm for his trouble.’

      ‘That beaufiful car,’ Guy murmured in the mournful tone of the true car fanatic. ‘Jamie must be sick.’

      ‘You could say that,’ Marnie agreed. ‘The car wasn’t insured.’

      That dragged Guy surely back on course. He stared at her in blank amazement, then looked appalled, then just downright disgusted. ‘How much?’ he snapped.

      She told him, he swore loudly and she grimaced, entirely in sympathy with him.

      ‘And I suppose he’s hoping that good old Guy will come up with the readies to bail him out.’ His tone was scathing to say the least. ‘Well, you can just go back and tell him that it’s no go this time, Marnie! I have just about had enough of that reckless brother of yours and his stupid—’

      ‘You’ve missed the point,’ she put in quietly, catching his attention before his Italian temperament ran away with him.

      ‘What point?’ he demanded.

      ‘Clare,’ she reminded him.

      ‘Clare?’ Guy looked blank for a moment, then went as pale as a ghost. ‘She wasn’t in the car with him, was she?’ he choked.

      ‘No!’ Marnie quickly assured him. ‘No—that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. But—Guy,’ she appealed to him for understanding, ‘she’s pregnant and she shouldn’t be! It was already a big enough shock for her to have Jamie come home with his face all bruised and his arm in a sling—how do you think she’s going to react when she finds out she forgot to renew his insurance policy and that they’ve now got to find upwards of fifty thousand pounds to compensate the owner of the car?’

      Silence. Guy was staring at her through hard, angry eyes as he let all of it really sink in, and Marnie sat there staring back with her lovely blue eyes wide in anxious appeal, hoping that just this once—this one last time—he would come up trumps for her and help them out without demanding anything back in return.

      ‘He promises to pay you back—Guy,’ she added quickly, when he continued to say nothing, ‘he—he said to tell you he’s managed to acquire an MG K3 Magnette and you can have that as a down-payment. And he’s—’

      ‘A damned fool if he thinks I would accept anything from him!’ Guy cut in impatiently. ‘And I warned you, Marnie, quite distinctly, the last time you came begging to me on his behalf, that I had done more than enough for the man who wrecked our marriage,’ he reminded her forcefully.

      ‘Jamie didn’t wreck our marriage,’ she said wearily. ‘You did that all on your own.’

      The dark head shook grimly. ‘We would still be together,’ stated the man who had always preferred to scatter blame around like raindrops so long as none of it stuck to himself, ‘living together—loving together, if your stupid brother hadn’t stuck his nose into my affairs.’

      ‘”Affairs” being the operative word,’ she derided.

      ‘Damn you, Marnie!’ Angrily, he climbed out of his chair, frustration making him run a hand through the thick, sleek blackness of his hair. ‘I didn’t mean it in that way—and you know it!’ He turned to glare down at her, then sucked in a deep, calming breath. ‘Your brother was directly responsible for—’

      ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ It was her turn to cut him short—as she always did when he attempted to bring up the past. ‘It’s all just dead news now.’

      ‘Not while I’m still breathing, it is not,’ he bit out. ‘We still have unfinished business, you and I,’ he went on to warn, wagging a long finger at her in a way which was consciously gauged to infuriate her. ‘And, until you are prepared to give me a fair hearing, it will remain unfinished. Just remember that as you sit there hating me with your beautiful eyes. For one day I will make you listen, and then it will be you doing the apologising and I taking revenge!’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ The scorn in her voice derided him outright. ‘As I think I’ve already said, I don’t want to talk about it. I came here today to—’

      ‘Beg for more money for your useless brother,’ Guy tartly supplied for her.

      ‘No,’ she angrily denied that. ‘To beg for Clare!’ She too came to her feet, irritation and frustration in every line of her slender frame. ‘I was as determined as you are not to bail Jamie out of any more of his disasters,’ she snapped. ‘I told him this time and in no uncertain terms that I would not involve you again! But—God,’ she sighed, lifting her strained eyes to his, ‘this is different, Guy, you’ve got to see that? This time it isn’t just you and me and Jamie we’re fighting about; it involves Clare! Sweet, gentle Clare who has never wished harm on anyone in her entire life! You can’t turn your back on her, Guy, surely? Not just to gain your sweet revenge over Jamie?’

      He was going to refuse, she could see it in the grim, hard cut of his tightly held mouth, and panic began to shimmer inside her. ‘Please, Guy.’ She lifted a trembling hand to clutch pleadingly at the bunching muscles in his upper arm. ‘Please...’ she begged.

      He looked long and hard into the deep blue of her pleading eyes, his own so dark and disturbing that Marnie’s insides began to churn with an old memory so sweet and aching that she wanted to cry out against it. Once she had drowned in that look, placed all her vulnerable love and trust in its meaning what it appeared to tell her.

      She watched him glance down to where her hand clutched at him, his beautiful eyelashes forming a thick, sweeping arch against his strong cheekbones. Watched the hardness ease from his mouth as he lifted his gaze back to her own, and suddenly the silence between them began to throb with tension—a raw sexual tension that had no right to show itself at this vital moment! Marnie moved, her tingling fingers flexing slightly in an effort to dispel the unwanted sensation, her tongue flicking in agitation across the fullness of her suddenly dry lips, her breathing slow and heavy.

      Guy saw it all, every revealing thing she was experiencing at this new kind of physical closeness, and something unfathomable passed across his face...a further darkening of those rich brown eyes that had her holding her breath in dear hope that her plea was reaching him.

      ‘Please...’ she repeated huskily. ‘Put your prejudices aside this one last time—for Clare’s sake?’

      He hesitated visibly—long enough to make hope flare into her eyes—only to have him dip his dark head a little closer to her own as he countered softly but with a ruthlessness that left her in no doubt at all to his meaning, ‘And you, Marnie? Are you prepared to put your own prejudices aside, for sweet Clare’s sake?’

      Her thudding heart sank, her body went cold, and she stood very still, staring into the utterly uncompromising set of his lean, dark features, wondering why she had actually had the gall to convince herself that she could win him round this one last time. Guy had, after all, told her in no uncertain terms not to come begging to him again unless she was prepared to pay the price. She had never known him say anything without