The Marriage Debt. Daphne Clair
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the expensive restaurant he’d chosen—or that his secretary had chosen for him—that he leaned his forearms on the linen tablecloth, looked across the wreath of flowers surrounding a squat gold candle in a glass bowl, and said, ‘So why did you phone me, Shannon? If not just to give your bedmate a bit of kinky titillation?’
Shannon clenched her fingers about her fork. ‘Craig is not my bedmate. And if he were, I wouldn’t have done a thing like that.’
Looking at her thoughtfully, he said, ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. Considering the company you keep you’re surprisingly straitlaced in some ways.’
‘Is that a complaint?’ she asked, stung. Had he found her a boring lover? ‘I’m sorry if I wasn’t up to your expectations.’
‘You know I had no complaints,’ he said. ‘I’ve never enjoyed such a…satisfactory relationship, as far as sex goes.’
‘Satisfactory,’ she repeated. ‘Oh, thank you.’
‘I’ve offended you,’ he said calmly, but there was a lurking amusement in his eyes. ‘You were all I had imagined, and more,’ he said. ‘You have a beautiful body that I still dream about, and you made love like an angel—a surprisingly shy and yet intriguingly sexy angel.’
‘Angels have no sex,’ Shannon rejoined. ‘They’re gender neutral.’
‘Let’s not be too literal.’ He paused before saying with unusual deliberation, his lowered voice sending an insidiously pleasurable sensation curling down her spine, ‘It was a transcendental spiritual experience making love with you, as well as a very pleasurable physical one.’
Transcendental? An extravagant word, especially from Devin. But one that just about described it, for her as well as for him.
Not transcendental enough to keep them together. Her heart seemed to swell under the influence of something painful pushing against its walls from the inside. ‘That’s very…flattering,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure you’ve had equally spiritual experiences with other women.’
His face became mask-like. ‘Cynicism is new for you,’ he said.
‘A pity I didn’t have it when we met.’ It might have helped armour her against what was to come.
For a split second she saw a blaze of anger in his eyes, and then the waiter brought wine and made a ritual of pouring, and by the time he’d gone Devin had assumed a bland expression that told her nothing about his feelings.
He lifted his glass to her silently and waited for her to raise hers before he drank.
Replacing his glass on the table, he asked, ‘Do you want to know about Rachelle?’
‘No.’
‘We find each other useful for social occasions,’ he said, ignoring her denial. ‘We’re not emotionally involved. She has a bad marriage behind her and isn’t interested in an intimate relationship.’
So was he patiently waiting for her to become interested? And if they weren’t emotionally involved, did that necessarily mean they weren’t having sex? Some people were able to separate the two.
Don’t go there. ‘I’m not interested in your…girlfriends,’ she told him.
‘Sure?’ His gaze searched her face.
‘Absolutely. This meeting isn’t about personal matters, Devin. I have a business proposition for you.’
‘Business?’ He leaned back in his chair, regarding her dispassionately.
It crossed her mind that if she’d worn something low-cut, clinging, seductive, she might have had a better chance at persuading him.
Immediately she dismissed the thought. As she’d just said, this was business, and seduction had no place in it.
‘So,’ he said, looking like a large, watchful animal, his eyes lynx-like and unblinking. ‘What do you want from me, Shannon?’
She breathed deeply, quickly, and passed her tongue briefly over her lips. ‘I need money,’ she said. Might as well spit it out and get it over with. ‘And I need it fast. You’re the only person I know who has the kind of money I’m looking for.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘I SEE.’ Devin straightened, and folded his arms, his face showing only guarded curiosity. ‘What is it? You’ve overspent and need a loan?’
‘Nothing like that. I have a proposition for you.’
His brows rose. ‘A proposition?’
‘A business proposal.’ She had to put a positive spin on this, convince him that he wouldn’t be throwing cash down the drain. Devin was as hard-headed about money as any other successful businessman, probably more than most. ‘It’s an investment opportunity.’
‘A film,’ he guessed, his resigned, slightly contemptuous tone implying that he didn’t think much of the idea. His eyes strayed to a neighbouring table where a party of a half dozen women were chattering and laughing.
Shannon leaned forward to catch his attention, trying to infuse all her passionate belief in the project into her voice, her eyes. ‘A special film. It could be a great film if I can raise the finance. An international success.’
Devin still looked sceptical.
‘New Zealand is hot at the box office right now,’ Shannon pressed.
‘Right up there with Hollywood?’ Devin queried dryly.
Brushing aside the sarcasm, Shannon launched into her carefully prepared background pitch about the growing worldwide film market.
The party at the next table had ordered several bottles of wine and were obviously celebrating something. Shannon had to raise her voice a little.
The waiter brought their meals and Shannon picked up her knife and fork, but kept talking. She had hardly touched the tender pork medallions in their golden apricot and orange sauce when Devin, halfway through his medium-rare pepper steak, raised a hand. ‘Eat your dinner,’ he ordered. ‘It’s a shame to let it spoil.’
Maybe she’d said too much. Devin liked good food and good wine and enjoyed savouring it. She should have remembered that. In business she knew he was incisive, practical, getting straight to the point, known as a fast worker. But paradoxically he took his pleasures in more leisurely fashion, giving time to appreciating scents, tastes, textures.
He had made love like that, as if there was all the time in the world to explore the soft inner skin of her elbow with a fingertip, tracing the faint path of a blue vein, to sift his fingers through her hair and admire the silky fan of it falling against the pillow, to inhale the perfume she’d dabbed behind her ear, his tongue finding the shallow groove, and to delight in looking at her naked body, his head propped on one hand while the other made tantalising patterns about her breasts, her navel, touching lightly, teasing until she raised her arms and pulled him fiercely to her, unable to bear the exquisite torment any longer.
‘What are you thinking about?’
His voice brought her back with a jerk to their surroundings. She realised she was sitting with her fork in her hand and probably a dreamy expression on her face. Hastily she lifted a piece of pork to her mouth, ducking her head as she cut another tender slice. ‘This sauce,’ she said. ‘It’s delicious.’
She must stop thinking that way, stop remembering. Their marriage was history now and they’d both come a long way.
She’d heard that Devin was spending a lot of time in America, after setting up a branch of his company there. After their split she’d consciously avoided places where she might expect to meet him, although she couldn’t escape the odd news item, the unexpected encounter with a photograph in some magazine picked up in a doctor’s waiting room, or an article about his company on the business pages of the daily paper.