No sneaking behind my back. No playing me for a fool. Do I make myself clear?' His grip on her arm tightened ever further, and she had to bite her lip to stop the cry of pain.

Suddenly, he released her, his angry face slowly smoothing to a semblance of his usual composure. Gemma's eyes were round upon him, the throbbing in her arm still there to remind her of what had just happened. But it was his words that had frightened her the most. He did not expec t their marriage to last. He expected her to leave him. He'd expected it right from the start!

Why?

Because he didn't love her? Or because he didn't think she loved him?

Both, she guessed with a madly beating heart. Melanie had spelt it out for her one day when she'd asked the other woman for advice about her marriage. Right from the start Gemma had been worried about their lack of true intimacy or communication. Nathan never talked to her, never told her anything about himself or his writing or what he did when they weren't together. All he ever seemed to want her for was bed.

Melanie had expressed the opinion that a lot of people married for the wrong reasons. For l.u.s.t, not love. If it was just l.u.s.t between them, she'd said, then one day, they would wake up and there'd be nothing there.

Was that what Nathan was expecting? For them to wake up one day and find nothing there any more? The thought appalled her!

'There's a letter for you,' he said, his casual tone belying his violence of a moment before. 'I put it on your dressing-table. I think it's from that old lady out at Lightning Ridge.'

Despite her inner distress and confusion, Gemma felt an instant brightening. 'Ma?'

'Must you call her that?' he ground out. 'She's not your mother.'

'She was more of a mother to me than my real one!'

'True. She'd have to get the wooden spoon for motherhood, that' s for sure!'

Gemma stared at him. He sounded as if he knew her mother. Yet that was impossible! At her behest, Nathan had hired an investigator to try to uncover the ident.i.ty of the woman who'd given birth to her, and who had subsequently disappeared from the face of the earth. But the mysterious Mary Bell on her birth certificate existed nowhere else but on that doc.u.ment of lies. Neither was her dead father - alias Jon Sm ith - registered anywhere, except on his illegally obtained driver's licence.

But of course his real name had been Stefan. She'd found that out when she'd discovered that old photograph shortly after his death. Which reminded her. . .

'Nathan, you never did give me back my photograph. You know. . .the one of my mother.'

'The one you think is your mother, don't you mean? You don't really k now one way or the other.'

Gemma frowned at her husband. 'Is there something you haven't told me, Nathan? Did that investigator find out something you don't want me to know?'

'What makes you think that?'

Nathan's evasion of her question with another question rang warning bells in her brain. That was what he always did when he didn't want to answer her.

'I'm not sure,' she said hesitantly, though her heart was racing. 'A hunch, I guess. You do like making decisions for me, don't you? I could well imagine you keeping something from me because you think it's for the best.' My G.o.d, could he know who her mother was and hadn't told her?

She stared at him and her voice, when she resumed, was shaking. 'Nathan, you haven't done that, have you? You know how important it is to me to find out my mother's ident.i.ty, no matter what. . .don't you?'

'Yes, of course, darling,' he soothed, putting down his gla.s.s and coming forward to draw her into his arms. More warning bells rang. This was plan B when plan A didn't work. Make love to the silly little idiot to shut her up.

'I would never do anything to hurt you, Gemma,' he crooned. 'You know that.'

Those treacherously seductive lips covered hers, and, to her shame, her pulse leapt. But her distress was far greater than her desire to lose herself in that dark erotic world her husband could create so easily, so she pulled her mouth away, sending a deeply resentful glare up into his wickedly handsome face. 'That won't work this time, Nathan. I do not want to make love. I want to know what you've been keeping from me, what you know that I don't know.'

His head lifted, his steady gaze showing not even a hint of agitation. 'I know a lot of things that you don't know, Gemma,' he drawled. 'But nothing you'd want to know, I a.s.sure you.'

'You will swear on your own mother's grave that you don't know the ident.i.ty of my mother?'

There was a tiny twitching at the corner of his .beautiful mouth, but nothing else. 'I do so swear,' he said, and Gemma let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

'Happy now?'

She stared up into his suddenly cold eyes and felt a chill run right through her. He might have told her the truth just now but he didn't always. Of that she was certain.

'I'm going to go and read my letter,' she said stiffly, and, whirling, fled to their bedroom, relieved when Nathan didn't follow her. If he'd come after her and started one of his ruthlessly successful seductions, she wasn't sure what she would have done. They hadn't made love for over a week, due to her time of the month last week, and she probably would not be able to resist him indefinitely.

Nathan had once vowed to attune her body to his demands, and she couldn't deny he'd done that. And mote! She'd found herself lately getting addicted to his making love to her in a less than gentle fashion. In fact, when she was in the right mood, she found his more aggressive attentions so exciting that she lost all control. Oddly enough, this often coincided with their having an argument. Since their life together lately had become punctuated with verbal spats, this type of lovemaking was happening more and more. She sometimes wondered if Nathan goaded her on purpose to make her more amenable to his savage kisses and caresses, not to mention the more adventurous type of position. She still lacked the courage to take the initiative in the bedroom, but she certainly didn't object to whatever he wanted to do to her.

It was only afterwards that she sometimes worried over what had transpired between them. Was it her own lack of control that bothered her? Or Nathan's? Admittedly, there were times when he seemed beyond reason, beyond ever being told to stop. Still, she never did want him to stop, did she?

Now she glanced nervously at the bedroom, suddenly fearful of Nathan bursting in. But the door remained closed and, finally, Gemma gave a strangled sob which perversely sounded disappointed. G.o.d, what was to become of her? She couldn't live with Nathan, and she couldn't live without him!

Remembering Ma's letter, she hurried over to pick up the rather grubby envelope and tear it open. Ma seemed to be her only link with down-to-earth reality these days and the only other female whose advice she could possibly ask. Melanie was no longer around, Ava had no real-life experience, Lenore was definitely not on her list of potential confidantes, which only left Jade, who wasn't much older than herself and was so wrapped up in her new husband that Gemma didn't like to bother her with her own mixed-up troubles.

Besides, she wasn't at all sure Jade would be sympathetic. When Gemma and Nathan had recently attended Jade's small garden wedding at Belleview, Jade had come up to her afterwards, given her a big hug and told her that if Kyle loved her as much as she knew Nathan loved his new wife, then she'd be delirious with joy! Jade might have always had a tendency to exaggerate with her larger-than-life personality but there was no doubt she believed her adoptive brother was truly in love at long last.

Which made her the only one, Gemma realised with bleak bitterness.

Except perhaps Byron. . .Byron seemed to have faith in their marriage. There again, Byron wasn't the most intuitive of men, from what she had seen. Or the most sensitive. Look at the way he treated poor Ava!

Gemma sighed as she thought of Byron's sister. It wasn't her fault that the caterer at Jade's wedding had got the number of guests wrong and delivered food for two hundred guests, instead of twenty. But anyone would think it was, the way he'd carried on. The man needed some woman to come along and sort him out, someone like. . .like. . .Celeste Campbell! Now there was a woman who wouldn't be bossed or bullied, who would give as good as she got -and a bit more besides!

But any hope of that happening was pie in the sky, Gemma realised drily. Though a person would have had to be blind not to sense there was something between those two. The night of the Whitmore Opals ball, when Celeste had stunned everyone by showing up, the air had crackled with electricity every time she came within three feet of Byron. As for Byron. . .he hadn't been able to take his eyes off his outrageous but undeniably gorgeous sister-in-law, even if she was his main business rival and supposed deadly enemy.

Gemma would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when whatever had happened between those two had happened. It must have been pretty dramatic, and pretty dreadful, whatever it was!

She'd also have liked to have been a fly on the wall during Nathan's growing-up years. She'd always believed the answer to his secretive and highly complex personality lay in the past, but he had no more intention of telling her about that than he had of discussing he r own past with her.

Sighing, Gemma pulled out Ma's letter and started to read. A minute later, she was jumping off the bed and racing out to find Nathan, who was standing at one of the windows, staring out over the darkening waters of Elizabeth Bay, another drink in his hands.

'Nathan, guess what?' she burst out.

Nathan turned slowly, one of his eyebrows lifting in a droll fashion. 'What?'

'You know that man out at Lightning Ridge who a.s.saulted me years ago? The one who scared me to death the day we first met?'

'Yes. .

'He's dead! Got in a fight with another miner, and had a stroke or something. Ma says it's good riddance to bad rubbish!'

Nathan took an idle sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving her face. 'I couldn't agree more. But you seem inordinately pleased. I never took you for a creature who would relish revenge.'

'It's not revenge, Nathan, but relief. Now I can go back without being afraid.'

Nathan's gla.s.s stilled mid-way to his lips. 'Go back?'

'To Lightning Ridge. I promised Ma I'd come back' and visit her. Not only that, I always wanted to ask a few questions around town by myself. Not that I wasn't grateful about you hiring that private investigator. But you don't know what Ridge people are like. They wouldn't take kindly to some slick city fellow asking them personal questions. I'd have a much better chance of finding out the truth about my parents if I were alone.'

'You really think so, Gemma?'

'I know so. Please. . .don't try to stop me from doing thi s, Nathan. I've quite made up my mind.'

A few moments pa.s.sed while Gemma stood, breathlessly waiting, and Nathan lifted the gla.s.s to drink once more. Now his eyes were glazed, as though he were thinking about something a long way away. Suddenly, he snapped back to the present.

'When were you thinking of going?' he asked.

Gemma expelled her long-held breath. 'Friday week. I thought I could take the morning flight and come back on the Monday afternoon. That way I'll only have to take two days off work. I haven't been at the shop long enough to ask for real holidays, but if I work some extra Sat.u.r.days, then. .

'Good grief, Gemma!' Nathan suddenly snapped. 'You're one of the family. Do you honestly think Byron wouldn't give you some time off? All you have to do is ask. There's no need to grovel around like some silly little salesgirl.'

'I wasn't going to grovel, Nathan,' she countered, hurt by his att.i.tude. 'It's called acting with integrity and consideration, not grovelling. I don't like to take advantage of my position as your wife. Neither do I like to let people down. We're short-staffed right at this moment. Gloria's come down with the chicken pox. Hopefully, by Friday week, she'll be back on deck.'

'You're too considerate. Believe me, those girls at the shop would stick the knife in your back as quick as look at you.'

'Yes, so you keep telling me, Nathan,' Gemma said wearily. 'But it's me I have to live with, not them. If they do nasty things, that's their problem. I have to be true to myself.'

Nathan exploded with a type of black exasperation.

'G.o.d! How on earth did someone like you come out of. . .out of. . .someone like your father? It doesn't make sense!'

'Maybe I'm more like my mother than my father,' Qemma suggested, which brought a harsh laugh from her cynical husband.

'You don't believe that any more than I do, Gemma. She deserted you as a baby, left you with that b.a.s.t.a.r.d to bring you up. Would a sweet, kind and caring creature do that? I don't think so.'

'You don't know what circ.u.mstances led my mother to do what she did,' Gemma defended, but lamely. Down deep, she thought pretty well the same as Nathan. If she ever came face to face with her mother, she might just slap that face. 'She. . .she probably died soon after I was born.'

'You don't believe that.'

'No. . .no, I don't.'

'Why?'

Gemma shrugged. 'I think it's the way Dad spoke of her, on the rare occasions he did speak of her. He used to say, "She's a s.l.u.t, your mother". Not. . .she was a s.l.u.t.'

'That's splitting hairs, isn't it?'

'I suppose so, but it's what I feel. Sometimes all one has to go on is what one feels.'

'Yes,' Nathan said, nodding slowly. 'You're right. But sometimes, one feels what one wants to feel, not what is real.'

Gemma was still thinking about her mother being alive or dead, when Nathan suddenly materialised in front of her, taking her shoulders in his hands and pulling her hard against him.

'And what is it you can feel right now?' he rasped.

His hungry kiss cut off any answer she might have given, his expertise taking advantage of her slightly disorientated state of mind. With all her recent doubts tumbling through her mind, she began to battle against what her body instinctively yearned, which was simply to sink against him and let mindless desire take over. Valiantly, she held herself stiffly in his arms, resenting the way her lips automatically fell apart for his silkily seductive tongue, the way her heartbeat revved up in tune with his.

But he was too strong for her, too merciless, too knowledgeable of her body's weakness. She shivered when he trailed an almost tender hand up and down her spine while his other hand caressed her b.u.t.tocks. Slowly, he pleated her skirt upwards till cool air met the gap between her top of her stockings and her skimpy satin underwear. When his fingers found bare flesh at the top of her thighs, then slipped under the elastic of her panties and began an intimate and highly expert exploration, her defeat was inevitable.

Arousal surged its insidiously heated path along her veins, her memory tempting her with how it felt when it was the full length of his desire invading her, not those tantalising teasing fingers. At long last, she moaned a moan of a total and tortured surrender, and Nathan gave an answering growl of triumph.

Tell me you love me,' he whispered into her trembling mouth.

'I love you,' she said. Obediently. Blindly.

'Here, then,' he demanded hoa.r.s.ely. 'On the floor. . . Now!'

'Yes,' she agreed wildly, even as he was already pulling her down on to the carpet and dragging at her underwear.

But later, as she lay beneath his sprawled body and listened to the desire draining from him in harsh dry gasps, Gemma hated the power Nathan had to make her do and say things like some puppet on a string. Was this love? Or some other dark force? A darkly destructive force that was like a summer storm, full of heat and wild electricity, building and building till it exploded into a sudden and dramatic downpour.

But unlike a summer storm, after which the sun came out and everything was warm and clean and peaceful, Gemma didn't feel warm, or clean, or peaceful at that moment.

Nathan's weight rolled from her and she buried her face into the soft pile of the carpet, cringing when he pulled her clothes back into place.

'I'll run you a bath,' he said from what seemed a long way away. He must have stood up. It sounded as if he was fixing his clothes. A zip was closed abruptly.

'Please don't,' came her m.u.f.fled protest. 'I. . .I'd rather have a shower.'

'Suit yourself. Call me when dinner's ready. I'll be in my study.'

Gemma flinched at the sound of the door closing firmly behind him. Five minutes later, she was standing under a hot shower, trying to wash every bit of him from her body.

CHAPTER THREE.

IN THE end, Ava was glad Byron had stayed the night at Ca therine's. It meant he wasn't around to comment on her nervous state the following morning.

Ava didn't try to reason why Vince Morelli's coming to mow their lawns at nine o'clock should be putting her in such a tizz. Her subconscious understood the reason only too well. In fact, her conscious brain wasn't confused, either. This was as close as she was ever going to come to one of her fantasies coming true.

She dithered over what she should wear. A glance through her bedroom window showed the beginnings of a pleasant, delightfully mild spring day. Sydney was sometimes at its best in September and the forecast had predicted a top temperature of twenty degrees, with light sea breezes.

Ava pulled out a pair of lightweight black trousers that she had bought recently from her favourite boutique, favourite because it specialised in fashion for big women, clever fashion that flattered and hid faults to perfection.

Ava believed she had a lot of faults to hide, despite her now busier lifestyle's having stripped quite a few pounds from her previously very tubby body without her even trying. She'd had no time for dieting. Not so much time, either, for stuffing herself with all the junk foods she usually craved.

So when she pulled on the black trousers the elastic waist didn't have to nearly expire from stretching to get around her middle. Eyes widening with surprise, she raced to inspect her semi-naked self in the full- length mirror on the back of the wardrobe door, something she hadn't done in donkey's ages.

What she saw startled, then thrilled her. Goodness, she really didn't look too bad. Not exactly svelte, she thought ruefully as she pinched the spare tyre just above her waist. But her hips, bottom and thighs had trimmed down more than she'd realised. Must be all the running up and down stairs she'd been doing!