Forbidden Pleasure. Robyn Donald

through a transparent door and into another world.

      The two men shaking hands on the front page weren’t statesmen signing an important treaty; they were smirking actors chosen to fill empty space on the page. The people marching in the streets of the capital city in a tiny state somewhere on the Adriatic Sea were extras from an old movie, selected for their lined, worn faces and dressed by Wardrobe in thick, drab peasants’ clothing.

      Only the photograph of children playing in the sea meant anything; yes, she thought, looking at them with her heart compressed into a painful knot, they were real, they were complete and oh, they were lucky.

      To break the soggy spell of self-pity, she strode over the thick, springy kikuyu grass to the edge of the busy beach. Small children ran around happily, yelling and laughing, many swam in the milky band of water that denoted the shallows.

      Ianthe closed her eyes but immediately forced her lashes back up. Beneath her breath she muttered, ‘I’m not going to stand here like a wimp,’ and walked across the blinding white sand.

      Nausea clutched her before she’d gone halfway. Breathing shallowly, fighting back the panic that turned her clammy and shaking, she forced herself to stand there for long, chilling moments before turning and stumbling back.

      A couple of youths were passing; through the roaring in her ears she heard one jeer, ‘Hey, blondie, need some help?’

      Intent only on reaching sanctuary, she blundered past. His companion said something and followed it up by catching her arm.

      A voice cracked out across the beach. ‘Let her go.’

      They swivelled around, both assuming the swaggering, aggressive posture of a male whose territory has been violated. Heart thudding painfully in her throat, Ianthe froze.

      Alex Considine was taller than they were, but they were stocky, tight-skinned and muscular, with necks wider than their heads, their macho strut a violent contrast to his athletic grace. Yet such was the dark power of Alex’s personality that after one glance the man who held Ianthe dropped her arm as though her skin burned his fingers, and the other said uneasily, ‘She’s OK, mate. We thought she was going to fall over,’ before stepping back and decamping.

      Alex didn’t even watch them go. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded as he closed the gap between them with a couple of long strides. His hands fastened onto her, holding her up by her shoulders, and for a paralysing moment she was exposed to the full intensity of his gaze.

      Ianthe knew she had skin the colour of cottage cheese and dark blotches under her eyes. She swallowed to ease her dry mouth, but could only croak, ‘Yes.’

      Alex’s quiet, ‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ made her stomach leap.

      She dragged in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stupidly, trying to overcome the empty sickness of fear.

      He said, ‘Come on,’ and turned her towards the bach. A steel-hard arm buttressed her, giving her the strength to climb the low bank. ‘We’ll go inside,’ he said, his voice oddly distant.

      Numbly she obeyed the crisp command and crossed the wide back verandah, where chairs sat in shabby communion. As they passed the low table he picked up a plastic bag.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ Ianthe asked woodenly after he’d pushed the door open and let her go through.

      ‘You forgot your frozen goods.’ Without asking permission he put the bag into her small freezer compartment. ‘You need some stimulant. I’ll make coffee.’

      She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. ‘I don’t want anything, thanks. I’m fine now.’

      Ignoring her, he opened the door into the fridge and removed a jug of orange juice. ‘This will do,’ he said, pouring a glass and bringing it across to her. ‘Sit down,’ he ordered, his unwavering gaze commanding her obedience.

      It was too much trouble to protest, so she collapsed ungracefully into a chair. He waited until she’d pushed the heavy, clinging hair back from her face, then offered the glass. Accepting it, Ianthe watched with outrage and dismay as it wobbled in her hand.

      ‘I’ll do it,’ Alex Considine said abruptly, and took it back, holding it to her mouth so that she could sip the sweetly tart liquid.

      It helped. Soon she felt secure enough to take the glass and gulp down more of the juice.

      He waited until she’d almost finished before asking evenly, ‘What happened? What did they say to you?’

      ‘It wasn’t them.’ She dismissed the two men.

      ‘Then what?’

      His level voice didn’t fool her; she wasn’t going to be able to fob him off. Ianthe bent her head so that she couldn’t see the narrow masculine hips, the long muscular legs. The silence hummed, strident with the confusion in her head, in her heart.

      Eventually she said, ‘I had a dizzy turn.’

      Although he said nothing, his disbelief was patent.

      Slowly she finished the juice. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her throat thick.

      ‘Look at me,’ he ordered.

      Lifting her chin was a mistake, and staring him full in the eyes, daring him to take the issue any further, was an even bigger one. Alex’s pale gaze drilled through her meagre defences.

      ‘Have you got sunstroke?’ he asked.

      It would have been a pat answer, but she shook her head. Lies didn’t come easily to her. ‘No. I just felt a bit—over-whelmed.’ She couldn’t breathe in the hot room and her skin was too sensitive, too tight. ‘I think I’d rather be outside,’ she said, forcing her voice into something like normality. ‘It’s cooler on the verandah.’

      ‘All right. Do you need help?’

      ‘No!’ She tried to soften the blunt refusal. ‘I feel much better now.’

      But once outside she realised she needed activity to burn off the adrenalin that still pumped through her body. Looking towards the motor camp, she asked aggressively, ‘Would you like to go for a walk and see how the other half spend their holidays?’

      With a keen look he answered crisply, ‘Why not?’

      Nothing had changed. Children, hatted and slick with sunscreen, still laughed and called in clear, high voices, still splashed in the chalky water that stretched out to where the lake bed dropped away.

      The edge was still as sharp and sudden against the fierce, glinting blue of the deeper water.

      Ianthe averted her eyes and concentrated hard on walking through the holidaymakers without giving away how aware she was of the man who strode beside her. Sand crunched beneath their feet. Alex looked around, the fan of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes slightly indented. How old was he? Thirty-three or four, she guessed.

      He said, ‘This place reminds me of the village I lived in until I was ten.’

      Intrigued, Ianthe was stopped from asking questions by an indefinable reserve in his tone, in the angular, aristocratic line of his profile.

      They walked around families, past groups of teenagers indulging in their noisy, unsophisticated courtship rituals, and as they went by Ianthe felt the eyes, some on her, some on Alex. She was accustomed to being watched; it interested her that Alex too had developed a way to deal with onlookers. He didn’t make eye contact, he walked steadily—not fast, not slow—and although he swivelled when a child shrieked behind them he turned away again immediately he realised it was under supervision.

      Who was he? She recognised his name, so possibly he had turned up in a newspaper. However, she had a strongly visual memory; if she’d seen a photograph of him she’d have remembered his startling good looks and pale eyes instead of merely being haunted by a vague familiarity.

      Yet would any photograph