Love Me

Episode 2

Despairingly she struggled valiantly to resist but it was useless. Her own

foolish senses were doing far more to aid David than to support her, turning traitor

and welcoming his sensual assault of her mouth with the eagerness of parched

land greedily soaking up a heavy rainfall.

David...’

She tried weakly to summon her flagging defences, but the objection she tried

to make was lost beneath David’s kiss and all the ineffectual parting of her lips did

was to allow David’s tongue to slip masterfully into the sweet moistness of her

mouth.

We’re already very close to the limit of this year’s budget,’ Kelly warned

him sternly, ‘and—’

‘So what? We’ll just have to increase this year’s funding,’ Nichole told her with

typical laid-back geniality.

Nichole,’ Kelly protested, ‘you’re talking about an increase of heaven alone

knows how many million dollars... The Trust...’

‘I am the Trust,’ Nichole reminded her gently, and Kelly had to acknowledge

that he spoke the truth. Even so, she gave him an ironic look to which he

responded by informing her loftily, ‘I’m just doing what I know the old man

would have wanted me to do...’

‘By buying a decaying neoclassical pile in the middle of italy?’ Kelly

asked him dryly.

And she was still shaking her head as Nichole told her winningly, ‘You’ll love

it, Kelly...I promise you!’

Kelly was tempted to tell him that she was far too busy and that he

would have to find someone else to take charge of this particular project, but her

pride—the same pride which had kept her going, kept her head held high and her

spirit strong through David’s rejection of her and everything that had followed—

refused to allow her to do so.

This time she and David would be meeting on equal ground—as adults—and

this time...this time...

This time what? This time she wasn’t going to let him hurt her. This time her

attitude towards him would be cool, distant and totally businesslike.

This time...

Kelly closed her eyes as she felt the tiny shivers of apprehension icing down

her spine. The last time she had seen David had been when he had unexpectedly

turned up at the airport four years ago when she had been leaving Australia to

finish her degree course in Australia. She could still remember the shock it had

given her to see him there, the shock and the sharply sweet surge of helpless given her to see him there, the shock and the sharply sweet surge of helpless

pleasure and longing.

She had still been so vulnerable and naive then, a part of her still hoping that

maybe, just maybe, he had changed his mind...his heart... But of course he had

not. He had been there simply to assure himself that she was actually leaving the

country and his life.

Nick knew, of course, that she had once had a foolish adolescent crush on his

friend and employee but, thankfully, that was all he did know; thankfully, he had

no knowledge of that shaming and searingly painful, never to be thought about,

never mind talked about incident that had taken place when she had still been at

university in Australia.

No one knew about that. Only she and David. But that was all in the past now,

and she was determined that this time when she and David met, as meet they

would surely have to, she would be the one who would have the upper hand and

he would be the one who would be the supplicant; she would have the power to

deny and refuse him what he wanted and he would have to beg and plead with

her.

Immediately Kelly opened her eyes. What on earth had got into her? That

kind of warped, vengeful thinking was, to her mind, as foolish and adolescent as

her youthful infatuation with David had been. She was above all that kind of thing.

She had to be; her job demanded it. No, she would make no distinction between

David and all the other clients she had had to deal with. The fact that David had once

cruelly and uncaringly turned down her pleas for his love, for his lovemaking,

the fact that he had once rejected and demeaned her, would make no difference

to the way she treated him. She was above all that kind of small-mindedness.

Proudly she lifted her head as she continued to listen to Nichole enthusiastically

telling her the virtues of his latest ‘find’.

*

David stared grimly around the unfurnished, dusty and cobweb-festooned hallway

of city Hall. The smell of neglect and the much more ominous dry rot hung

malodorously on the still, late afternoon air. The large room, in common with the

rest of the city Hall, had a desolate, down-at-heel air of weariness which reminded

him uncomfortably of the elderly great-uncle who had owned the property when

David was growing up. Visits to see him had been something which David had

always dreaded and, ironically, he could remember how relieved he had been to

discover that it was not he but an older cousin who would ultimately inherit the

responsibility for the vast, empty, neglected house responsibility for the vast, empty, neglected house.

But now that cousin was dead and he,David, was company’s owner, or at least

he had been until a week or so ago, when he had finally and thankfully signed

the papers which would convey legal ownership of company and all the

problems that went with it into the hands of Nichole.

His initial reaction when he had unexpectedly and unwontedly inherited the

place had been to make enquiries to see if any of the Australian trusts could be

persuaded to take it over, but, as their representatives had quickly and wryly

explained, the trusts were awash with unwanted properties and deluged with

despairing owners wanting them to take on even more.

Faced with the prospect of having to stand aside and watch as the house and

its lands fell into an even greater state of decay, Davis hadn’t known what on earth

he was going to do—his inheritance had been the house and the land; there

hadn’t been any money to leave for its upkeep—and then Nick had happened to

mention the existence of an eccentric European billionaire whose main vocation

and purpose in life was the buying up and restoring of old properties which he

then opened to the public, and David had lost no time in getting in touch with him.

To his relief Nichole had flown over to Australia to view the house and promptly

declared that he loved it.

That relief had turned to something very different, though, when he had

received a fax from Nichole advising him that his assistant, Kelly,

would be flying over to Australian to act as his representative over the repair and

renovation of the property. He could, of course, have simply chosen to turn his

back, walk away, and leave someone else to liaise with Kelly, but David wasn’t

like that. If he had a job to do he preferred to see it through for himself, no

matter how unwanted or potentially problematic that task might be.

Potentially problematic! A bitter half-smile curled his mouth. There was

nothing potential about the problems that Kelly was likely to cause him...

Nothing potential at all.

He had heard scraps of news about her over the years, of course, mainly from

Nick and Elly. Kelly had completed her degree course and majored summa

cum laude... Kelly was living in Europe and looking for a job... Kelly had

got a job... Kelly was working in Venice... In Rome. Kelly

Nick and Elly weren’t his only sources of information, though. Only the

previous winter in Australia, David had unexpectedly bumped into Kelly’s mother,

Nick’s mother, predictably just outside Hardy.

Linda had gushed enthusiastically over his recent elevation to the peerage She had always been the most appalling snob and David could still remember how

bitterly she had opposed Nick’s request to her after his father had died that

Kelly be allowed to stay on at Place with him instead of being sent to

boarding school.

Kelly cannot possibly live with you, Nick,’ she had told him sharply. ‘For

one thing it simply wouldn’t be proper. There is, after all, no blood relationship

between you. And for another... Kelly has been spending far too much time

with the wrong sort of people.’

David, who had been standing outside Nick’s library whilst this conversation

had been taking place, had turned round and been about to walk away when, to

his disgust, he had suddenly heard his own name mentioned. Nick had demanded

of his mother, ‘What wrong sort of people...?’

‘Well, David for a start... Oh, I know you count him as one of your friends, but

he’s still merely an employee and—’

Nick had immediately exploded, informing his mother, much to David’s

chagrin, ‘David is a friend and, as for anything else, he happens to be far better

born than either you or I.’

‘Really?’ had come back the acid retort. ‘He might be better born, Nick, but

he still doesn’t have any money. Kelly is very much in danger of developing the

sort of crush on him that could totally ruin her reputation if she’s to make the

right sort of marriage.’

‘“The right sort of marriage”?’ Nick had retorted angrily. ‘For heaven’s sake,

what century are you living in...?’

Kelly is my daughter and there’s no way I want her mixing with the estate

workers...and that includes David... And whilst we’re on the subject, Nick, I really

do think that as Kelly’s brother you do have a responsibility to her to

protect her from unsuitable...friendships...’

David could still remember how bitterly, furiously angry he had been, how

humiliated he had felt... He had made sure that he kept his distance from Kelly

after that, even if Kelly herself had not made that particularly easy. He had been

twenty-six then, ten years older than Kelly. A man, whilst she was still only a

child.

A child... A child who had told him passionately that she loved and wanted

him; a child who had demanded even more passionately that he love her back,

that he make love to her...with her...that he show her...teach her...take her...

He could have wrung her pretty little neck for that...wrung it or— He could

still remember how she had defied him, flinging herself into his arms, wrapping

them round him, pressing her soft lips against him them round him, pressing her soft lips against him...

Then, he had managed to resist her...just...that time...

She had always been so passionately intense. It was perhaps no wonder that

the love she had professed to feel for him had ultimately turned to loathing and

hatred.

And now she was coming back. Not just to Australia's but here, to city,

into his home...his life...

What would she be like? Beautiful, of course; that went without saying... Her

mother had told him as much when he had bumped into her—not that he needed

telling; it had been blindingly obvious even when she was a child that ultimately

she would be an extraordinarily beautiful woman.

‘You’ll know, of course, that Kelly is working in Europe...for a

billionaire...’ Linda had cooed happily at him, smiling with satisfaction.

‘He’s totally besotted with her of course,’ she had added, and though it hadn’t

been put into as many words David had gained the distinct impression from

Kelly’s mother that the relationship between Kelly and Nichole was rather more

than that of merely employer and employee...