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Co her lips, Lisa refused to be baited She had lost too many battles to him in the past to be trapped in another one now
‘What do you want, Rorke?’ she repeated
‘Not even going to offer me a drink, when I’ve flown all this way to see you—and traot your address froht I had, but you’daddress And you haven’t drawn your allowance once in five years Why, Lisa?’
‘I didn’t need it,’ she told hi at the calmness of her voice, the cool colimpse them in the mirror
‘No, of course, you wouldn’t, would you?’ he gibed sardonically ‘You’ve got a lover to support you Well, he’s going to have to do without you for a while, Lisa’
‘What do you ainst her chest wall, and she recognised the tactical error even as she made it She should have kept quiet But noas too late and Rorke was s at her with cruel satisfaction God, he was really enjoying this; really taking pleasure in seeing her fear and anxiety
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he told her softly, watching her with a cold intensity thatelse, tiny frissons of an awareness she couldn’t deny sensitising her body to his proxim
ity ‘You won’t be away long Just as long as it takes Leigh to die!’
Through the swirling darkness, Lisa heard her own shocked ‘No!’ as she fought off feelings of sickness and pain Leigh Hayward, who from the very first moment he had hter; who had spoiled and petted her, until she cculdn’t reh’s protective love Even when her h’s love He had flown from the Caribbean to be with her—she had been at school then, sixteen, and anxious to leave, especially after her iven in to her pleas to be allowed to go honoring the fact that she had spent the first six years of her life there She was pining for the Caribbean; for the sun, and for his love
Always indulgent, he had agreed Now fro her eyes against the pain Dear God—Leigh! She hadn’t thought about him in five years, hadn’t allowed herself to do so, and noas dying… She glanced up into the shuttered i? He had to After all, Leigh was his father
‘Cut the hysterics,’ he told her cruelly ‘Leigh isn’t here to see theht now, but it seems he does need you, Lisa What is it about you?’ hefaintly, the contempt in his eyes unmistakable
He stood up suddenly, towering above Lisa for all her five foot eight, his skin darkly tanned from the Caribbean sun; his hair sleek and dark There was Moorish blood soh had once told her The family had owned St Martin’s since the sixteenth century It had been given to them by Elizabeth the First, and ru ancestors had taken prisoner the daughter of a rich Moorish trader and had kept her as his own prize
Certainly Rorke’s taut bone structure hinted that the ruht, and Lisa remembered how as a child she had been fascinated by his faly mysterious, at twenty-four to her thirteen so much more adult…
‘Leigh,’ she asked painfully, dragging her mind away from the past, ‘what…’
‘He developed a critical heart condition shortly after you left,’ Rorke told her griroorse and worse—there’s an operation with a fifty-fifty chance of success, but he refused to consider it unless you come back’
Lisa moistened her lips Go back? But that was i back!
‘I’ you, Lisa,’ Rorke warned her softly ‘You’re co with me, even if I have to kidnap you’
‘I can’t!’ Her eyes betrayed her, lifting to the ceiling Above them was Robbie’s rooo back to St Martins Robbie, who meant the world to her, but whose birth had barred her for ever from her home
‘Can’t, or won’t? Whichever it is, you’re wrong You’re co back with me’
Lisa glanced across the roo herself to meet the icy scrutiny of his eyes There was still one card she could play, one knife she could turn, and hurt her though it did not to be able to go to Leigh, she had to protect Robbie
‘If I did come back, Rorke, ould it be as? Your stepsister, or your wife?’ For ato speak, and then hecurl of his ry