Into Temptation Read online

  Her pulse throbbed, and her emotions were in turmoil. Despicable. He was despicable. But then why was she feeling not disgust, but something else entirely? It was raw jealousy – the thought of him with someone else. She hated herself for it even as she realised it; the thought of his mouth on someone else’s, his arms pulling another woman towards him, her head thrown back, breathing his name… The chaotic images spilled out into her head.

  No!

  No. She couldn’t give into this. Jack Ward was a bastard. A philandering, womanising pig who thought nothing of cheating on his girlfriend – who got off on casual conquests, and who had in all likelihood had a great many of them. She’d been just one of many. But then cheating came naturally to the Wards, didn’t it? Lying to people, playing with them like he was playing with her, hiding his true identity, and then forcing her to work out her notice for no more reason than the fact that it most likely amused him to make her do something she didn’t want to, to watch her squirm.

  She needed to forget him. Stop the obsessive thoughts about that night and expunge him from her mind. As quickly as possible.

  The door swung open, making her jump. Jack came in, his presence immediately charging the room with a palpable and edgy energy.

  ‘Good,’ he said gruffly, offering no apology for his late arrival, ‘you’re here. We need to get going, at once.’

  ‘I’m afraid I broke your photograph frame,’ she said, her voice unsteady, transferring the pieces from her lap onto the desk. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He raised his brows.

  ‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘you couldn’t resist a look.’

  She swallowed, and got up, feeling herself redden. ‘I had absolutely no business to be looking at it. I can only hope the frame wasn’t an antique. Of course, I’ll replace…’

  ‘And did it tell you any more about me?’ he interjected before she could say any more. ‘Did it give you any more clues about black-hearted Jack Ward, disreputable buyer of hotels and devious seducer of women?’

  Amber’s heart thunked. ‘I… I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do Amber.’ Jack picked up the photograph, and stared at it briefly, the expression of ironic detachment that habitually edged his features minutely loosening. ‘My mother,’ he said simply. ‘She was beautiful wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Amber agreed softly. Because it was true.

  He placed the photograph carefully between the pages of his desk diary and turned to her, eyes once again steely. ‘The frame is of no consequence. Now, do you have your things?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, mentally resolving to wait until later to tell him about the phone-call. ‘Everything’s downstairs.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  He drove them to the harbour, then onto St Julian’s Pier. It was a hive of activity, boats large and small disgorging passengers and cargo, lorries queuing up to unload their metal containers onto the cargo ships bound for the south coast of England.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be at the Albert Pier?’ she asked, getting out of the car. It was from there that the passenger boats normally left for Sark.

  ‘No,’ he said, unloading their luggage. ‘We’re travelling under our own steam today. In fact, here’s our transport now.’ He nodded towards the entrance to the marina, where a sleek white motor cruiser was slicing cleanly through the water towards them. It drew up alongside the quay and two men jumped out to secure it, then immediately set about loading on Amber and Jack’s bags.

  So Jack Ward owned his own cabin cruiser, thought Amber, impressed despite herself – but determined not to let it show. Running an international hotels company was obviously a lucrative business.

  He held out a hand to help her down the stone steps. She took it, skin tingling at the brief touch of his cool, steady fingers, and jumped aboard. The ropes once again untied, Jack took the wheel, reversed the boat, and began to negotiate the craft back out of the marina.

  Amber, seeing him occupied, disappeared down into the luxurious interior and found a well-appointed bathroom, where she quickly discarded her business suit – utterly impractical for a boat trip – and changed into shorts, sandals and a white shirt. On the way back up she passed the galley, where the two crewmen were now busily preparing a delicious-looking lunch of shellfish, setting canapés on plates and opening a bottle of chilled champagne.

  How like Jack, she thought. It was a simple business trip to Sark, and a quick forty-five minute trip on the ferry was really all that was called for. But then she was learning that Jack Ward didn’t do things the way other people did them.

  She took a seat at the back of the cruiser and watched as Jack skilfully navigated the boat across the treacherous stretch of sea just beyond the St Peter Port marina, negotiating the markers and buoys that signalled the reefs and rocks lying just below the surface. His perfect, tight-jawed profile was clearly depicted against the enormous blue sky, and once more she felt the now-familiar yank of desire.

  She looked away, up at the hill above Bordeaux bay, where Le Fourchet Hotel basked golden in the late morning sun. As a young girl she’d always loved the return leg of sailing trips to the other Channel Islands, seeing the old family hotel sitting peacefully atop the hill, almost as if it was waiting up there, looking out for their return. It had sat there for over two hundred years, and it was said that in years gone past sailors had used the small clock tower set in its roof as a guide to their position. Oh if only her father hadn’t sold out to Adam Ward. If only he hadn’t had to sell. How different things might have been…

  ‘Have you ever been back?’ Jack asked. She looked up, and realised with a stab of annoyance that he’d been following her gaze.

  ‘No,’ she said coldly, looking back at the town of St Peter Port, its grey and white houses piled up and down the hillside like a stack of dominoes. ‘I’ve no desire whatsoever to go back.’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to,’ he said. ‘It might help.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she countered irritably.’

  ‘Help you stop feeling so bitter; lay the ghosts of the past to rest. If you see for yourself how well Le Fourchet is doing now it will make you realise your father was right to sell. He didn’t have the resources to do the place justice, and he knew that. Selling was a shrewd move.’

  ‘Don’t presume to think you know anything about my father,’ she rounded on him, ‘or, for that matter, about me, and what I might be feeling.’

  ‘You see, increasingly the middle ground in the hotel industry is shrinking,’ he continued, smoothly ignoring her comment. ‘The business has changed exponentially over the past few years, and there’s little money in being an independent, run-of-the-mill three-star hotel any more. You either take a hotel completely up-market and offer your guests the full top-of-the-range package, or cut back to the very basics and take the high-volume, low margin route.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ she said, turning the full, challenging force of her eyes on him. ‘There’s always going to be room for the mid-market independent hotel. If nothing else, people like them because they have a lot more character than the average chain hotel.’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘You’re very forthright in your views.’

  ‘No more than you are,’ she bit back.

  ‘But you see, Amber, being part of a larger group doesn’t have to mean uniformity,’ he said equably, ‘and that’s certainly not the case with Ward Hotels. We strive to make all our establishments unique. Le Fourchet, for instance, has been completely restored to how it would have been in Georgian times, when it was built, filled with paintings and antiques. And you must have seen that its seafood restaurant has just been awarded a second Michelin star.’ He slowed the boat as it passed over the wake left by a large yacht. ‘And next year we’re looking to put in a casino.’

  ‘A casino?’ she cried, horrified. ‘But Le Fourchet has always been a family hotel. A casino wouldn’t fit in at all!’

  ‘That’s wher
e you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘A casino is precisely what’s called for. A luxury, high-stakes casino like the ones you find in Mayfair. Le Fourchet isn’t a family hotel any more, Amber. It’s an opulent, five-star establishment – in need of five-star facilities. Like I said, you ought to go and have a look at it. In fact, I’ll take you for lunch there next week.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go back there if you paid me!’ she cried, jumping to her feet, roused to sudden, incandescent rage. ‘Good God, I’ve never met anyone so insufferably arrogant! You think you know it all don’t you? You think money counts for everything. Well let me tell you, it doesn’t!’ she threw at him, her face burning with passion. ‘My father was a brilliant hotelier. He knew his business inside and out, and he knew exactly what people wanted: good service and reasonable prices. He had the same families come back year after year. You can’t get a better endorsement than that! And he took the time to speak to people, to get to know them. In which of your sterile, anonymous Ward Hotels establishments can you say that? My father might not have had the financial clout that yours did, but he was a decent, honest man – a man who would never have reneged on an agreement – unlike your father! If I’m bitter about the past it’s not because my father sold up, it’s because he sold up to a sorry excuse for a company like Ward Hotels!’

  There was a forbidding silence. Then finally Jack spoke: ‘I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of Ward Hotels Amber,’ he said in a low voice, his handsome face now a dark, fixed mask of disapproval, ‘but I can only assure you – as I have already done – that my father always acted honourably.’

  ‘Hah!’ she cried, ‘you wouldn’t know honourable behaviour if it hit you in the face. If you did you wouldn’t be sleeping around in Guernsey while your girlfriend is sitting in London, waiting for you.’

  His brow furrowed. ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘Someone called Cassie rang earlier while you were out. She told me to tell you… and wait, I want to get this right: she said to tell you she’s wearing the black silk lingerie you bought for her in Paris. I think that perhaps you’d better head over there straight away before she gets too cold and decides to change into something more sensible instead.’

  He made no response, his face stony, betraying no hint of emotion. But as she watched, a nerve began, minutely, to twitch at his temple. Hah! So he was human after all.

  ‘Do you know how to steer a boat?’ he asked brusquely.

  ‘I’m a Guernsey-woman. What do you think?’

  ‘Then take the wheel. Keep her on the same course.’

  He disappeared down into the boat. Good, she thought. She had got to him. And doubtless it was a rare achievement for anyone to manage to provoke Jack Ward. He’d probably gone to phone his awful girlfriend, ask her to text him a selfie of her in her tawdry black lingerie. The two of them were truly welcome to each other. She looked angrily out at the sparkling sea. Oh if only she could be rid of that ridiculous twinge of envy! What the hell was wrong with her?

  A few minutes later he returned and took the wheel once more – and they lapsed into stony silence.

  The boat sliced smoothly through the Little Russell, the wide stretch of turquoise sea between Guernsey and Herm. The tiny island hove into view, its pretty sandy beaches crowned with outcrops of bracken and fragrant yellow gorse. The slightly larger Sark was now clearly visible in the distance, its green quilt of fields and trees set atop a coastline almost entirely dominated by steep cliffs and vertiginous gullies.

  The two crewmen reappeared bearing food and drink. She ate a few canapés, and drank a flute of champagne. Then, at a loss for what else to do, she went to stretch out in the sun at the bow of the boat.

  Eventually they tied up in Sark’s tiny Maseline Harbour, and began the long trudge up Harbour Hill, an impossibly steep, winding dirt track about half a mile long. A tractor hauling a trailer with seats usually met the passenger ferries at the bottom of the hill, and took up all those who couldn’t manage the walk. But it was a matter of pride for most regular visitors to get up the hill under their own steam.

  Gradually all her tensions began to recede. She felt, as she always felt when in Sark, that she was going back in time, to some gentler, less hurried century. Owing to its size – just three miles long – tractors were the only form of motorised transport allowed. People rode bicycles, horses, or simply walked to wherever they needed to be. The lack of cars meant the whole place was pervaded by a delicious tranquillity utterly unimaginable anywhere else. Birds sang clearly and sweetly in the trees and hedgerows, and wildflowers grew freely in the little fields and hedgerows, untainted by exhaust fumes and undisturbed by modern intensive farming methods.

  Everything was green and fragrant, tinged with the smell of flowers and the tang of the sea. Clumps of tall pink and purple foxglove bloomed at the side of the track, and, further up, clusters of cream Burnet Rose. Butterflies fluttered everywhere. For the first time that day she felt her spirits lift.

  At the top of the hill an old-fashioned wooden carriage, pulled by a sturdy black horse, met them. A young man sitting in the driver’s seat greeted them.

  ‘I thought we’d start off by taking an island tour,’ Jack told her.

  ‘A tour?’ What was going on now? First a leisurely boat trip, and now a jolly island tour? When were they going to do some actual work? ‘It’s not necessary on my account,’ she said. ‘I already know Sark. I’ve been coming here since I was a little girl. I know how busy you are, and so if it’s all the same to you I’d rather get straight to the hotel and start going through the accounts.’

  ‘It isn’t all the same to me,’ he said slowly, looking down at her, the suggestion of a knowing smile playing across his handsome mouth, making her flesh tingle. ‘Climb aboard.’ He held out his hand to her for the second time that day. She took it and stepped up.

  The carriage bore them through the tiny hamlet that was Sark’s main town and onto La Rue de Rade, one of the many dirt tracks that served as Sark’s road network, criss-crossing the humped back of the little island.

  Soon they passed La Seigneurie, the enchanting seventeenth century home of Sark’s head of government, its old walled garden alive with traditional English roses of every hue, the incredible scent bathing them in sweetness.

  ‘So this is where the feudal lord lives,’ Jack commented sardonically, leaning back in the carriage, ‘and from whence he commands his vassals’.

  ‘The Seigneur lives here, yes,’ Amber replied – Sark had the unique distinction of being Europe’s last surviving feudal state – ‘but I don’t think he has vassals any more. Things run along pretty modern lines now. La Vermandée hotel, for instance,’ she began, seeing an opportunity to turn the conversation back to work, ‘is run along exactly the same lines as the other hotels in the De Garis group, although the tax situation is a little different. But naturally you already know that.’

  ‘Naturally,’ he replied. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing it.’

  She turned to him. ‘You mean you haven’t even seen La Vermandée yet?’

  ‘No. This is my first time in Sark – and it’s even more charming than I expected. A carriage ride really is the perfect way to see it.’

  ‘You bought a hotel without even visiting it?’ she persisted, confused.

  ‘I buy hotels without visiting them all the time. We buy nearly a hundred hotels a year, Amber. I can’t visit them all. That’s what I employ people for.’

  She felt a jab of embarrassment, and immediately wanted to kick herself. Of course. Ward Hotels was enormous. And its owner had much bigger fish to fry than a tiny Sark hotel. She had momentarily forgotten with whom she was dealing – had betrayed her small town mindset. What a greenhorn he must think her. ‘Yes… yes of course.’ She smoothed down her shorts in an agitated gesture. ‘I wonder that you’re here in the Channel Islands at all,’ she went on, after a minute, ‘given your workload. Why didn’t you just leave the entire deal to one of your subordinates?’

 
; ‘I could have done,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I needed a break. And I like to combine work with pleasure, where I can.’ He turned the full force of his dark blue eyes on her, a self-assured look in them telling her quite clearly that he had forgotten nothing of their night of passion.

  She looked away, her face suddenly on fire – but feeling an unbidden shiver of desire pass through her even at the same time as she detested him. Was that why he had brought her to Sark? So he could spend time alone with her, try to engineer a second night in bed together? Was that what all this was in aid of? If so then he was a louse, a louse of the worst kind!

  She gulped in a lungful of the soft, sea-tinged air. Then breathed it out again, controlled and slow. She had to rise above this, reassert her pride, somehow get things back under control. ‘I… I’ve brought La Vermandée’s detailed financial projections for the year ahead,’ she managed to articulate. ‘We can go through them with the manager, taking into account the latest forward bookings and…’

  But then all at once, before she could say another word, there was a sudden commotion on the track ahead. A large black dog had run out into the road, teeth bared, snarling as if was possessed. It began to snap at the horse’s legs, barking ferociously. The horse reared up, whinnying with fear, and jolting the carriage savagely from side to side.

  ‘Oh!’ Amber cried, making a grab for the nearest rail. The dog raced around the horse’s legs, growling and yapping. Then, all of a sudden, the larger animal pelted forward at a gallop, jerking the careering carriage in its wake. She watched, mute with horror, as Jack jumped forward, snatched the reins from the shocked young driver and attempted to halt the terrified animal. But it lurched on and on. Amber, her limbs rigid with disbelieving fear, desperately tried to hold on as each horrific second slowly and agonisingly unfolded, like a slow-motion nightmare playing inside her head.

  They banked perilously around a corner, and then she saw how, straight ahead, the dirt track suddenly forked. The horse made for the narrower of the two lanes, and with a horrific clarity, she realised that they weren’t going to make it. With a sickening, splintering crack of metal and wood the right carriage wheel ran up the bank and snapped clean off, spinning through the air as if it weighed nothing.