Daphne's Christmas Flame Read online

  “Or in revenge,” Daphne said softly. When Victor drew her to him, it was the most natural thing on earth to lean into his kiss.

  “Victor, I am so sorry for the way Mother had you fired.” Daphne sighed deeply, regret mingling with utter satisfaction after that fabulous kiss. Memories were pouring heat into her loins, yet this time she didn’t try to check the flood. Instead, she looked deep into Victor’s eyes, her soft white fingers tenderly exploring the chiseled features of his dark face, and lingering over the proud contours of his high cheekbones. “For years I’ve wanted to go back and change that night. I was so frightened of Mother, so ashamed of disappointing her. But that’s no excuse. I don’t mean it as an excuse! When she caught us alone together, I wanted to say something… I wanted to tell her…”

  “You were nineteen.” Victor kissed her fingertips. “What could you have said?”

  “I could have told her I was a woman!” Daphne jerked her hand free, and frowned at the blue waters of the lake. “I could have told her the truth, that you protected me from myself when things went too far. I didn’t have to burst into tears, and run upstairs to my room like a useless ninny. I didn’t have to go away to school in England either! I could have stayed here, in San Reynaldo, and studied at the university.”

  “You could have done that,” Victor agreed. “But it wouldn’t have stopped the revolution from happening. It wouldn’t have stopped the new government from confiscating your land, and flooding the valley. The truth is, Daphne, you needed to go back to England and get an education. And you wanted to go.”

  “But I…” Daphne couldn’t deny it. Victor had just put his finger on the real reason she felt so guilty about what had happened all those years ago. She had left San Reynaldo to grow up. “Didn’t you at least hate me for leaving?” she asked, in a very small voice.

  Victor shrugged. “You left me. I was hurt. But you grew up into a strong, smart woman. That wouldn’t have happened if you’d been afraid to leave home.”

  “Right, well, I made good as a model. But I was a crappy student at the university,” Daphne admitted. “I thought I was getting even with Mother and Father. But really I was only hurting myself. It was like I had to keep proving I wasn’t good enough for you, over and over.”

  Victor smiled. “And you did that by becoming a sexy and sought-after fashion model?”

  Daphne gave him a look. “I wanted you to know that other men wanted me.”

  The dark male felt a surge of possessive desire. “You never wanted any of them?” His tone was offhand, yet the pulse-beat in his muscular brown throat quickened noticeably.

  “Not one of them. Never.” The redhead shook her head, feeling an odd thrill of triumph. It would be so old-fashioned to say she had saved herself for this one special man. The fact was, she just hadn’t wanted anyone else. But she had never dared to hope that Victor might feel the same way!

  “When I saw you on all those magazine covers, I thought about the night we almost had together,” he confessed. “I bought every magazine, and I put the covers on my wall, and I stared at your lovely face for hours. Just like a damned teenager! And I thought you were saying, look at me, Victor Sebastian. See what you could have had, if only you hadn’t been so damned honorable!”

  They both laughed, but Daphne felt her heart starting to beat quicker and quicker. This man had suffered for her. He had suffered for her and he had been wronged by her, and yet he knew her. He saw past her fears and weakness, and her stubborn pride, and he wanted her anyway. Leaning close to Victor on the blanket, she whispered, “I reckon you’re right, Victor. A part of me was angry at you for letting me go. I wanted you to see me on those covers and invite me home. I wanted to tease you with my famous face and glamorous body, and then reject you. I wanted to hurt you.”

  “Bitch,” Victor purred. He pulled her into his arms, holding her close so that she felt all the strength of his body, coiled and supple like a great cat.

  “But I couldn’t follow through,” Daphne cried breathlessly. “The moment I saw you… oh!” Victor cupped one of her straining breasts in his hand, and she shivered with pleasure at his touch.

  “I’m grateful you changed your mind, at any rate.”

  “Let me show you a thing or two about being grateful,” Daphne teased. She wriggled on Victor’s lap, feeling the rock hard desire under her rounded bottom. She began to shower soft kisses on his lips. “That is for the wonderful picnic,” she told him softly. Her tone was breezy, playful, but her heart was pounding with nervous anticipation. Victor enfolded all her senses, intoxicating her. The man smelled of sunlight, horses, leather, and healthy male sweat. Kissing each sun-browned cheek in turn, she added, “That is for the wonderful morning ride. That is for being the most wonderful, thoughtful, caring and passionate man I know.” Grinning like an imp, she pulled away just slightly, giving herself room enough to kiss him smack on the nose. “Okay, your turn!”

  “You are the love of my life,” Victor breathed, seizing her by the shoulders and kissing her ripe red mouth with bruising force. “I have waited years – but now I cannot wait any longer.” With a hoarse cry of need he gave himself up to worshiping his pale English beauty, come home at last. Soon he was kissing her lips, her throat, and the sensitive hollow of her neck. His kisses were hot and hungry, almost violent, but with a new wisdom Daphne felt the molten tenderness in his touch. Arching backwards, she subsided onto the soft, clean blanket, her eyes closed in rapture.

  “Please take me, Victor,” she sighed. “Take me home!”

  “You are home,” Victor growled. He was kneeling over her, kissing her pale face and her red lips, and at the same time he was jerking at her garments. He stripped the dark blue riding jacket from her shoulders with crude force. But he unfastened her white lace neck cloth with surprisingly deft fingers. And then he began unbuttoning her blouse.

  “Hurry, Victor, please hurry!” Daphne felt too impatient to wait. She threw her arms around his neck, hampering his movements. She was so greedy to taste him, to explore his body. She kept stroking his back, and tangling her hands in his hair. She was kissing him deeply, her strokes bold and forceful, using her tongue in a playful parody of what she longed for him to do to her. But then he began to kiss back. And she nearly came from the intimate surge of primal male power.

  “Lift up,” he commanded, his voice hoarse. Victor was not distracted by the kisses that melted her. He succeeded in stripping her blouse, unsnapping her bra. But he needed her to raise herself off the blanket so he could complete the task of making her his. Glad to obey, Daphne giggled as she helped him, letting him pull off her breeches, her boots, and her flimsy white panties.

  “Now it’s your turn,” she said shyly.

  Victor understood. They were both thinking of how he’d taken her in the machine room. When Daphne sat up and began unbuttoning his yellow shirt he did not stop her.

  “Today you are the one in control.”

  “Thank you.” Daphne kissed him lightly on the forehead. Her fingers began exploring the crisp black hair curling on his broad suntanned chest.

  Victor laughed. It was a sound he did not often make. He kissed her ears, the delicate curves already wet with nipping and teasing bites. Now he licked them with his tongue, making her shudder. And he said to her, “This is what I was thinking of the whole time we posed for pictures that day.”

  “Yes, you were quite the alpha male.” Daphne giggled, a bit nervously. She half expected Victor to be as hungry and savage this time as he had been before. She understood how deeply he respected her, and she was ready to give him her total trust. Yet this time it was all quite different. They were in a secluded spot, under the open sky, and Victor had all the time in the world.

  He used that time to drive her utterly insane.

  The quick, masterful job he’d done in the machine room was nothing to what he could do with time to spare. Victor made her breasts ache unbearably with just a single twist of his fingers. And he used his
mouth to increase the ache to a torment, to a throbbing pulse that made it feel as if they were ready to burst under the rasping pressure of his broad palms. Tears spilled from her eyes, but he only kissed them away, laughing low in his throat at the way she caught fire so readily.

  “Not a redhead for nothing,” he breathed in her ear. It was a wicked joke, but she could manage only a thin gasp of a laugh in reply. She was naked in his arms now, wet and writhing, powerless to do anything but respond to the sensations he unleashed with such knowing precision.

  Daphne couldn’t even remember the playful kisses she had given him just moments ago. She had no idea how she had unleashed all this primal desire. But she wanted, needed, and desperately craved everything Victor did to her. He owned her body in a way she could never explain. He turned his attention to the wetness between her thighs, first kneading with his finger, then his tongue, finally making her shriek aloud as she jackknifed into a lightning-quick release that stunned her. The soaring release into a sky full of stars was followed by a swoon into deep and welcome blackness.

  “What happened?” she asked, coming back to her senses just a few moments later. Victor was looking down at her, brushing the straying tendrils of flame-red hair from her face, his dark eyes infinitely tender. So gentle and understanding, yet Daphne felt she had somehow let him down. “Was that it? Is it over?”

  “Daphne dearest, it has only just begun.”

  And then he slid himself between her thighs, the long hard thickness making her gasp.

  Daphne was expecting a quick race to another lightning release. Instead, Victor let her relax. She drifted into the surprisingly gentle pace, forgetting that this time around she was supposed to do something for him as well.

  But it turned out she didn’t need to worry. Victor took his time inside her, but the gentle strokes aroused him as well as her. Daphne heard herself moaning, surprised at the way she had drifted away into pleasure. But the real surprise was when a second wave of release washed over her, sweet and warm and bathing her in a delicious golden light. She hardly even noticed Victor’s hoarse shout of triumph or the spurt of heat deep within her womanly core.

  “I don’t think I’m ready to catch that London flight,” she confessed, hours later. She and Victor had actually bathed in the artificial lake, and then helped each other dress. The cold water and the shock of the air had helped Daphne wake up, but she still felt dazed and a bit out of things.

  Was she still asleep? Or was she finally wide awake?

  “You need to go,” Victor said, helping her into her jacket. He was all business now, but when she looked up at him in apprehension he immediately dropped a kiss on her soft, upturned mouth. “You’ll be back, redhead. But we both have business we need to wrap up. Here, take this.”

  “Oh, my.” Daphne’s hands were trembling when she opened the tiny jewelry box. When she saw what was pinned to the velvet she began to cry. “A horseshoe made of diamonds?”

  “You remember that day. Your horse threw a shoe, but you handled him beautifully.”

  “I had a good teacher. A damned good teacher.” Daphne looked up at him, her blue eyes streaming, her face wet with tears. But they were tears she didn’t want to hide. Daphne was through hiding things, from others and from herself. From now on she was all about showing her love openly.

  Defiantly.

  Victor nodded. “I kept that horseshoe for luck. I still have it. Now I want you to wear this tiny replica as a ring.”

  “You mean, like an engagement ring?” Daphne’s trembling mouth curved in a smile.

  “Exactly.” Victor smiled back at her. “This is your home, Daphne. The people love you as much as I do. And you love them, too. That was obvious from the way you enchanted everyone at the dam yesterday. With you by my side we will make San Reynaldo a progressive, modern country.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Daphne said, feeling a trace of unease. “But you know, Victor, I have a career already. I’m a fashion model, and my world is in Europe, not here in South America.”

  “Your work is there, but your heart is here,” Victor told her, frowning. “Why pretend that you don’t love this place more than any other place on earth? I know better.”

  The fashion model blushed, remembering her unprofessional behavior at the dam. “Look, my heart will always belong to San Reynaldo,” Daphne acknowledged. “But the country I love is the country of my childhood, Victor. Can’t you see that? I fell in love with you as a little girl, and my memories of San Reynaldo are a part of that. But today San Reynaldo is a different country, a changing country. And I’ve changed too. Why can’t you accept that? I’m not a little girl any more, Victor. No one tells me where to go, or how to live my life. I’m an independent woman with a career of my own, and I’m proud of the work I do!”

  “And what happened between us at the dam, and just now, that was only work?” There was a dangerous glint in Victor’s dark eyes.

  “No, of course not!” Daphne hated being put on the defensive like this. “I just meant that when I’m in public I wear a public face, like that speech at the dam opening. I was happy to be there, but I would have been just as happy at a supermarket opening in Alberta!”

  “I see.” Victor was suddenly very cold and formal, the provincial governor once more. “Possibly I misunderstood what passed between us just now. You are a career woman after all. Your work is what matters most, and your work is in Europe.”

  “You matter to me too!” Daphne cried hotly. “And you are just as committed to your work as I am to mine.”

  “There is a great deal of difference between your work and mine,” Victor said stubbornly. “My country needs me. My people count on me. It is not merely a frivolous pursuit of fashion.”

  “Well, there are people in the fashion world who help the poor too,” Daphne insisted. She felt like crying, but she forced the tears back because she wanted Victor to understand her. “My agent, Albert King, has supported a host of London charities for years. You know that, you’ve talked to him! I have nothing to be ashamed of, being a working woman. I’m a successful model and I’m proud of it! People like Bertie count on me, just like your people count on you. I love the work I do, Victor. And I’m not giving it up overnight just because you and I have feelings for each other.”

  “Love is measured in terms of sacrifice,” Victor said grimly. “To love truly, one must give up everything and start anew. That is an old saying among my people.”

  “Right, it’s an old saying,” Daphne echoed bitterly. “It’s always the same. You get to have love and a career, but I have to sacrifice one thing to have another.” She was crying now, she couldn’t help it. The tears rolled down her cheek, but she refused to sniffle and sob like a baby.

  “I cannot leave my people,” Victor said stiffly. “Not even for you, my love.”

  “You won’t come to London. You won’t give up your life for me, or even think about it. Well, I won’t quit modeling, not even if it means we’re really finished. I mean forever!” Daphne sniffled loudly, but she was crying angry tears now. Her gaze was steady and she didn’t flinch.

  “In that case, let me take you to the airport.”

  “Yes, please do.” Daphne dredged up a cool smile, her pride forcing her to take control.

  But she cried all the way back to London.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Three weeks later

  “All right, you horrible lot, that’s a wrap. No more work tonight, it’s Christmas Eve!”

  Daphne Hart sagged into a cushioned armchair the moment the cameras stopped clicking. The photographer in charge of the shoot was a good friend of Albert King’s so he was giving them all a break. Everyone was chattering as they unhooked the lighting and took apart all the expensive cameras, stuffing everything back into plush velvet-lined cases for the long ride back to London. They all had plans for Christmas Eve, parties with friends or special time with their families.

  All Daphne wanted to do was climb into a hot bat
h and put her feet up. The flame-haired fashion model closed her striking sapphire-blue eyes, tuning out all the noise and bustle around her. The last three weeks had been non-stop modeling work, not because her bald, fat, money-loving agent was pressuring her, but simply because she didn’t want to be alone. Ever since her disastrous trip to San Reynaldo, Daphne didn’t like having time on her hands. She didn’t want to mope around her big empty flat all day, or toss and turn all night, dreaming restless dreams of the one man she could never have.

  So instead the determined redhead gamely took on one modeling assignment after another, working from before sunrise until long after dark. That way when she finally fell into bed at night the only thing waiting for her was sleep, deep and dreamless. Sailing off into deep slumber was like going on a long journey and leaving behind all your regrets. Forgetting what you couldn’t have…

  “Would you like some mineral water, Miss Daphne? Or how about some fruit juice?”

  “A juice would be lovely, Jimmy. Thank you!” Daphne tugged open her tired blue eyes, and gave the new photographer’s assistant a warm, drowsy smile. Jimmy Lunceford was clumsy and a little awkward, but he was a decent lad. During a long shoot, it was his job to look after the models, fetching cold drinks when it was hot or warm wraps when it was cold. Tonight had been a bit of both, as Daphne got quite a workout modeling for a fancy magazine on interior design. Her clothes were not so bad, a comfortable lounging outfit in black silk and a dazzling string of pearls. But she was really modeling the furniture, not the clothes. That meant dozens of poses in quick succession, twisting and turning every which way while the photographer barked out commands like an army drill sergeant. Daphne kept wriggling all over, spilling off the sofa to sprawl on the thick fur rug. Then she climbed up into the armchair, draping herself over the cushions in lazy poses that suggested sin and sensuality, while the camera captured one perfect shot after another. It was all very sexy, yet Daphne didn’t feel turned on in the slightest. She didn’t feel anything but pride in her job. She was finished with love and fighting not to think about Victor.