Fortune in the Stars by Kate Proctor Page B

round as she reached his side, his face pale with
unleashed rage.
    'And I near as damn it begged
you
,
didn't I, Penny?' he snarled, pushing her violently from his path as he
strode on.
    'Dominic, can't you understand there was nothing more I
could possibly tell you?' she pleaded frantically, running to keep pace
with him.
    He stopped in his tracks, his clenched fist smashing
against the wall scant inches from her with a sickening crunch.
    'Get away from me,' he intoned hoarsely. 'That could so
easily have been you.'
    'If it makes you feel any better, then go on and hit me!'
she cried wildly. 'But for God's sake tell me what's going on!'
    'I'll tell you!' he raged, his control seeming to snap as
he rounded on her, his fingers bruising against the flesh of her upper
arms as he grasped her and lifted her almost off her feet.
'No…not here,' he hissed, evil in the eyes burning down into
her. 'The light's not good enough… I want to be able to read
every shade of every expression on your face.'
    With his totally incomprehensible words only increasing
her feelings of dread, Penny gave no resistance as he half dragged,
half carried her to her room. Images of Lexy, laughing, rebellious,
gentle, were flashing through her mind as the overhead lights came on.
Then those images were blotted out by the ravaged gaze of the man
gazing down at her upturned face and whose fingers now bit cruelly into
her flesh.
    'Now, let me read in your beautiful, lying face whether or
not the name Peter Langton means anything to you,' he whispered, his
eyes as cruel as his punishing fingers as they read the betrayal
already staining her cheeks. 'Of course it does,' he snarled, flinging
her from him with a violence that knocked the breath from her as she
landed sprawled across the bed. 'What can I possibly tell you about
Lexy that you don't already know, you stupid, ignorant, criminally
irresponsible bitch?'
    As Penny struggled into a huddled sitting position, the
realisation beginning to dawn on her chased away her feelings of panic
and replaced them with ones of outrage. He had had her almost gibbering
with fear over the possibility of something having happened to Lexy,
but brotherly love, she now realised, had little to do with the
violence of his rage —it was simply that his sister had had
the temerity to get herself involved with a man whom this monstrously
overbearing brother happened to dislike. In the light of what she had
just witnessed, she could understand only too well why Lexy had broken
habits of a lifetime and run for cover!
    Her expression tight with disgust, she gazed up at his
blackly scowling countenance.
    'Why don't you take a look at yourself in that mirror over
there?' she suggested through clenched teeth. 'I've seen
three-year-olds display temper-tantrums similar to yours—but
never an adult. Pick up a few things and smash them, then call me a few
more names—that should help make you feel really great!'
    She realised the instant the words were out how stupid
and, more to the point, how decidedly dangerous it was of her to have
expressed her anger so recklessly given his present mood; and the
murderous look in his eyes as he made a sudden start towards her only
strengthened that view. She felt the breath she had been unconsciously
holding burst from her as he abruptly straightened, the hands clenching
compulsively at his sides the only indication of the formidable battle
he was waging for control.
    'You have fifteen minutes to get your things together,
then we're leaving,' he stated in a voice she scarcely recognised; then
he turned and left her.
    For the second time in the space of hours, Penny packed.
And it was only when she had closed the second of her cases that she
gave a sudden groan of anger and frustration. He had lied about the
roads being impassable! Had she just kept going in the small hours of
this morning she could have saved herself all this!
    'You lied to me about the roads, didn't you?' she hurled
at him in