Scandalous Bride
Scandalous Bride
Diana Hamilton
Have you heard the latest? Don't tell anyone, but… . Nathan Monroe didn't know what to believe: he'd just heard that the woman he'd married wasn't all that she seemed. Olivia Monroe was apparently a ruthless woman who would do anything to get what she wanted… . But what did Nat actually know about his newfound wife?Theirs had been a whirlwind marriage - everything had moved so fast - and all Nat could see was that Olivia was hiding some deep, dark secret. Torn by jealousy and distrust, their marriage was heading for the rocks, and the only way to save it was for Nat to discover the truth about his scandalous bride… . Scandals!
“Olivia Monroe killed her first husband then jumped into bed with her boss, the richest married rat in town!” (#u9ce93070-26bc-5f7e-95f4-63a9e96bed30)About the Author (#ubca8deb4-3f9c-5b83-9a0a-962e02a7b9f6)Title Page (#u10e65e92-39c0-5f5c-a9df-067881d8a2af)CHAPTER ONE (#u295c8d2e-73dc-5a60-be65-a1eaae12d900)CHAPTER TWO (#u5b8ddabf-b0b5-501b-baf6-4a3e7abc2ec2)CHAPTER THREE (#ub0c78e13-e705-512a-a1c1-b1ec91cff4da)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Olivia Monroe killed her first husband then jumped into bed with her boss, the richest married rat in town!”
Olivia and Nat stood behind the man as he continued to make the scandalous allegations. “Ask anyone—she’s been sleeping with my big brother for years, and it’s not going to stop just because she’s got herself a solid gold meal ticket for life, all legally tied up with wedding lines!”
DIANA HAMILTON is a true romantic at heart and fell in love with her husband at first sight. They still live in the fairy-tale Tudor house where they raised their three children. Now the idyll is shared with eight rescued cats and a puppy. But despite an often chaotic life-style, ever since she learned to read and write Diana has had her nose in a book—either reading or writing one—and plans to go on doing just that for a very long time to come.
Scandalous Bride
Diana Hamilton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
‘OLIVIA MONROE killed her first husband then jumped into bed with her boss, the richest married rat in town!’
The male voice, thick with alcohol, penetrated the smoochy dance music and the nightclub chatter. Olivia stiffened in Nathan’s arms, flinching as she heard a woman shriek, ‘You can’t be serious, Hughie!’
‘Ask anyone—she’s been sleeping with my big brother for years and it’s not going to stop just because she’s got herself a solid gold meal-ticket for life, all legally tied up with wedding lines!’
‘The Olivia who married that scrummy, rich as a plum-cake Nathan Monroe? Their wedding made the front pages a couple of months ago—good grief! Does he know he’s been taken for a sucker?’ The woman was obviously loving every minute of it and Olivia felt sick, her feet rooting themselves to the minute dance-floor. The elegant, glittering surroundings suddenly felt tawdry.
Had Nathan heard?
Nathan had.
His big, hard body went still. He took an incisive step back, his arms falling to his sides as his hands made dangerous fists. She looked up into his harsh and beautiful face and shuddered, her skin crawling with fire and then ice.
Sometimes the inescapable intensity of what she felt for him frightened her. The inadmissible knowledge that she couldn’t live without him, the way her blood turned to a burning torrent when he walked into a room, the reckless way she’d given every last scrap of her future happiness into his keeping when, years ago, she’d solemnly and sensibly vowed she would never fall in love again.
And now the anger frightened her. Savage, black anger blazing in those steel-grey eyes, pulling the tanned flesh tight against his strong and elegant bones.
Instinctively, her eyes sifted through the swaying bodies, homing in on Hugh Caldwell. Running to fat, he looked older than his thirty-four years. For a split second her eyes clashed with his, dark brown and malicious, before he led his dance partner off the floor with a smirk on his dissolute face.
Olivia held her breath, shocked by the vile gossip Hugh was spreading. The sound of the music had faded, the noise people made when they were enjoying themselves ebbing out of her consciousness, and all she could hear was the thunderous beat of her heart and Nathan’s ice-cold threat, ‘I’ll kill the son of a bitch!’
‘Don’t.’ Her hand on the black sleeve of his dinner jacket stayed him. He swung round to face her, his shoulders wide and hard, intimidating. She took a deep breath. One of them had to remain cool and collected. She felt anything but. However, she’d spent long, lonely years perfecting her act.
‘Make a scene and you’ll give credence to his foul lies,’ she advised quickly. ‘Think about it.’
Of all the exclusive nightclubs in London why had Hugh Caldwell chosen this one? He’d been born with a chip on his shoulder and for the past thirty-four years it had been growing heavier by the day. She had always suspected he could be dangerous but hadn’t imagined he could stoop so low. The cold premonition of disaster feathered over her skin, making her shiver, but—
‘Ignore him, or sue. Or both,’ she said calmly, her mind frantically willing him to agree. He looked capable of tearing Hugh Caldwell limb from limb and taking savage pleasure from every moment.
She hated violence in any form. For one terrible day, the last day of her first husband’s life, she had known what physical violence really was. She had known that it had fatally poisoned their already weakened relationship and had opened her eyes to the fact that violence of another form, emotional violence, had been eroding their marriage almost from day one. ‘Don’t put yourself down on his level.’
That, mercifully, appeared to have the desired effect. She actually saw the battle to rein in his flaring anger. And saw him win. But then nothing ever defeated him, did it? She fought her own impulse to sag with relief, simply dipping her head coolly as he commanded, tight-lipped, ‘We’re leaving.’
And she walked out at his side, five feet three inches of dignity, her glossy black hair whispering against the tanned skin of her back where the sweeping cut of the elegant white dress left it bare. Her amethyst eyes were staring straight ahead and her sultry mouth was caught tight against her teeth in case the tremor of her lips gave her away.
But distressed tremors plagued her on the taxi ride back to the Chelsea mews cottage and she couldn’t relax enough to make them stop.
‘It’s cute,’ he’d said when he’d snapped the cottage up just days before their wedding. ‘A London base for a time. I haven’t had a permanent home in England for years. A cute and private place to make memories before we move on. Like it, sweetheart?’
She’d loved it on sight. Loved the dolls’ house proportions, the cosy, secluded atmosphere, projecting that love into the wonderful memories they’d make together, not heeding the warnings about moving on, not even hearing them properly.
But now he wasn’t saying a thing. The distance between them was far more than a few feet of upholstery. The tension between them was making the small space a void.
He was a proud man with a streak of self-assurance a whole mile wide. A hard man. A brilliant wheeler-dealer, a key stock-market player, his mind had the cutting edge of a diamond.
No one took him for a ride, called him a sucker. That taunt would be eating up his mind. Perhaps even more than the evil slur on her character.
Olivia ached to touch him but didn’t dare. The dam would burst soon enough and the back of a London cab wasn’t the place to cope with it.
If only they’d stayed home tonight, she agonised futilely. But they’d been on the verge of their very first fight. One week back at work after their idyllic two-month honeymoon in the Bahamas, he had as good as demanded she hand in her resignation. He’d wanted to know why she hadn’t already done just that, and she had tried to explain her reluctance, put forward her own ideas, both of them getting more uptight by the moment until he’d pulled them away from the danger with that mind-shatteringly wicked grin of his.
‘Forget it, for now. We’ll eat out tonight, somewhere special. And go clubbing afterwards. Celebrate being married for two months and a week.’ His steely eyes had warmed in that special way, for her alone, and her insides had capered about, twisting with love for him as she’d hurried to change with no foreknowledge of how the evening would end...
After the taxi had drawn away the mews was quiet, the single street lamp accentuating the black shadows. Nathan opened the front door, de-activated the alarm system and stood aside, allowing her to walk through to the cottage-style sitting room in front of him. His silence and the tight cast of his features were ominous.
She switched on a parchment-shaded table lamp, dousing the main lights, preferring the subdued effect. The soft glow made the cottage antiques and the squashily upholstered twin sofas seem so safe and cosy—a much needed antidote to the arctic chill of the atmosphere Nathan was generating.
‘Were they foul lies?’ His voice abraded her.
A give-away flicker of pain darkened her eyes, but only a flicker; she had it under control even though she felt she was coming part, her flesh being painfully stripped from her bones by the knife-edge of his lack of trust
‘How can you even ask?’ Her voice was cool, masking her desperate hurt, her body in the understatedly sexy white dress taut and slim and proud. ‘Don’t you know me better than that—well enough to make the asking of such a question totally irrelevant and completely offensive?’
She lifted her chin higher, blanking out the shameful, hateful knowledge that not all of Hugh’s malicious gossip had been lies, and felt the deep ache of misery spread right through her as he answered tersely, ‘I only know what you choose to tell me.’
He turned his back on her, moving to a side table and sloshing two inches of malt whisky into a glass, draining it in one swallow, his mouth tight as he reminded her, ‘We saw each other, were poleaxed and were married three weeks later.’ He dragged in a sharp breath, his eyes holding hers, adding more slowly, ‘I never thought such a thing could happen to me.’
His lips curled wryly at the memory of that cataclysmic happening and her body leapt in ferocious response at the wonderful memories: the way they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, the way they hadn’t been able to handle being apart, the glorious, fated inevitability of it all.
But then they were dragged back to the present, the brief bonding of shared and precious memories over.
‘Apart from the information that you are an only child and that your parents separated, I know two hard facts about your past,’ he stated. ‘First, you married when you were nineteen, his name was Max and he died six years later. Second, as a widow you became married to your career and that lasted for three years, until we met,’ he enumerated harshly.
‘Or am I wrong there? Does your career still come first? Is that why you won’t quit?’ His face tightened. ‘My work takes me all over the world—you know that. I want you with me, not stuck back here—you know that, too. Is being a PA to the head of Caldwell Engineering more important to you than being with me? Or does the attraction lie mainly with your boss, rather than the job itself?’
Olivia shivered uncontrollably, despising herself for that small betrayal. They had come full circle, right back to where the disastrous evening had started. But, worse than that, he had taken the gossip on board, beginning to question her relationship with her boss, James Caldwell.
She watched numbly as he dragged his black tie away from his shirt, tossing it onto one of the sofas, his jacket following a scant second later. And then he turned and met her wide and wounded eyes.
Even as he held her gaze his expressive mouth softened. His brow furrowing, he dragged taut fingers through his midnight-dark hair. ‘God, I’m sorry, Livvy. Come here.’
She went into his arms willingly, as she always would, the inescapable tug of the wicked chemistry that had sprung to inexorable life between them the moment they’d met working its unending magic.
His arms enfolded her with savage passion, pulling her slender curves into his hard, lean frame, his voice thick and raw with contrition as he bent his dark head and covered her neck with scalding kisses. ‘Forgive me?’
‘Anything...’ Every inch of her body leaping in wild response, she found his mouth and kissed it. Hard. ‘I don’t want us to fight,’ she breathed raggedly. ‘Not us, not ever.’ And she fell apart, as she always did, when he caressed her cheekbones with his large, gentle hands. Slowly, and erotically, he eased her lips apart, sliding his tongue into the moist and receptive softness of her mouth, making her want him, hotly, hungrily. Her hands flew to his shirt buttons, dragging them apart, glorying in the heated hardness of his arousal as it thrust against the softness of her tummy. But...
‘Livvy, no. Not now.’ His voice shook but his hands were rock-steady and just as implacable as he took hers and eased them away, stepping back, putting distance between them, an empty distance that made her ache. ‘We have to work out what to do.’
Do? Her pulses were beating erratically and she couldn’t think straight. It took his, ‘About the low-life back there. From what he said I gathered he’s related to your boss. We’ll sue. No one bad-mouths my wife and gets away with it...’ to bring her mind back on track.
She gave him a small, wobbly smile, pushing her tumbled hair back from her face. ‘There were plenty of witnesses,’ she granted, dropping gracefully onto a chintzy sofa. ‘You could go ahead and sue for slander, if you think it’s worth the trouble.’
‘Trouble!’ he repeated from behind her, his voice tight. ‘He calls my wife a—’
‘I know what he said,’ she put in quickly. Her face was white with strain. She couldn’t bear to have him pick over it. The guilt was too much to live with. She couldn’t bear it if it started haunting her dreams again, doing its utmost to impinge on every aspect of her waking life, coming between them and, inevitably, sullying what she and Nathan had together.
Hurriedly pulling herself together, she stated with a calmness she was far from feeling, ‘Hugh Caldwell has a vicious streak, a foul tongue. No one takes anything he says seriously.’ Not even when there’s a grain of truth in the murky mess? The unwelcome thought came unbidden and she thrust it aside, saying quickly, ‘Which is why he has no friends, simply a few dubious acquaintances who sponge off him.’ Then she added, quirkily, trying to take some of the weight out of the atmosphere, ‘I gather he was a terrible disappointment to his parents.’
Deep silence. And then she heard the clink of glasses. He walked round, handed her a small whisky, took his own and dropped down onto the end of the sofa, angled into the corner, facing her, his clever eyes intent. He leaned forward, his hands between his spread knees, his glass held loosely in one hand.
‘Tell me about him. He’s your boss’s brother? He works for the company?’
‘If you could call what he does work.’ She tried to answer lightly, even though she felt she had been tied down in the witness-box, that every word she said would be carefully measured and weighed.
But at least she was on marginally safer ground now that his immediate attention had been deflected away from court action whereby, even though the lies would be refuted, the grain of truth would be revealed, painting her guilty as sin.
‘His job title is sales director, but his job actually appears to consist of long, boozy lunches with anyone angling for a free meal.’ She took a small sip from her glass, grateful for the warmth, the tiny measure of Dutch courage. She needed it. Hugh Caldwell’s vicious tongue was not going to spoil everything for her. She wouldn’t let it!
‘And your boss—his brother, right?—puts up with it?’ He sounded disbelieving and she couldn’t blame him. He didn’t know the full story.
‘James. Yes, he puts up with it.’ Unknowingly, her voice had softened, the strained lines of her face easing under the influence of a tiny smile.
She admired James Caldwell and would do almost anything for him. Their relationship had many levels. He had helped her when she’d been emotionally bankrupt. Her loyalty, both personal and in her capacity as his PA, was absolute.
‘Why?’ The question was blunt, the expression she surprised at the back of his brooding eyes smacked of aggression, and something else. Suspicion. Olivia sighed wretchedly and set her glass aside.
‘Family duty, perhaps. Who’s to tell?’ She shrugged her slim shoulders, knowing that whatever she said about James Caldwell would only fuel the embers of the argument they’d had much earlier. After hearing that wretched man’s evil gossip, Nathan’s desire to see her quit her job would be set in stone.
‘Hugh is six years younger than James and he’s always resented James for being the first-born, the brainy, good-looking son. Add to that the fact that James took over the reins of Caldwell Engineering when their father had a massive stroke ten years ago and pulled it from the bottom of the league to the top. Plus, when James’s godfather died he left him a huge private fortune. Mix that lot up with a hefty dose of sexual jealousy—Hugh took a girlfriend home and she and James promptly fell in love and married six months later—and you have a recipe for resentment and spite.’
‘So because he’s the underdog in the Caldwell setup, a loser, he spread malicious lies about his brother,’ Nathan said, his astute eyes pinning her down. ‘That figures. But why involve you?’
Olivia sucked in a sharp little breath. Her skin was burning beneath the cool white fabric of her dress. She would have given anything if they could have put the clock back, decided to stay home tonight, as she told him quietly, ‘Just before I was promoted to James’s PA, Hugh made a heavy pass. I was married—Max was still alive—but that didn’t make any difference, not to him! Needless to say, I told him where he could go. He’s probably hated me ever since.’
She tried to make it sound like nothing much, because if Nathan knew what had really happened he wouldn’t rest until he’d exacted every last scrap of retribution.
But even though she’d tried to make light of the revolting incident, to pretend it hadn’t been important, Nathan slapped his untouched glass down on the coffee-table and jerked to his feet. After pacing the room, he swung round to face her at last.
‘So that excuses everything, does it?’ he demanded. ‘Just because he habitually loses out we must all turn a blind eye to the vicious lies he spreads all over the place.’ There was no warmth in his eyes, his rawly sensual mouth pulled back against his teeth with grinding frustration. ‘You don’t have to put it into words. I can read your every thought. So confirm it for me, Liwy—you don’t want to take this any further. Right?’
Her violet eyes were dark compared with the pallor of her face. She met him head-on. ‘I don’t see the point. As long as you don’t believe his lies, I simply don’t see the point. He’s an unimportant, vindictive little man and no one with an ounce of sense takes him seriously.’ She stood up, weariness washing through her, making her sway. ‘I’ll talk to James about it on Monday. Ask his opinion.’
And she felt her breath make a solid, painful lump in her throat as he lashed back, ‘At the same time you hand in your resignation? Why should his opinion be more important than mine?’
Love him to pieces she certainly did, but that didn’t mean she could excuse unfairness. The question of her resignation was far from settled, and he knew it. It was what their first fight had been about; did he think she’d forgotten?
But now wasn’t the time to re-introduce that contentious subject so she simply pointed out, ‘Ordinarily, of course not. But he is involved. And there’s his wife to consider. I think they should be consulted before you start shouting for litigation, don’t you?’ She raked a hand through her hair, sick of the subject. ‘I’m tired; I’m going to bed.’
And, for the first time in their wildly passionate relationship, he didn’t follow, just watched the unknowingly sexy sway of her body with hard, assessing eyes.
Olivia, lying awake in the soft, king-sized bed some twenty minutes later, wondered desperately if things would ever be the same between them again, or if Hugh’s vile tongue had sown the seeds of suspicion, seeds that would grow and spread, smothering all that had been so bright and beautiful between them, turning all that consuming passion to dust.
CHAPTER TWO
PERHAPS she had overreacted, Olivia thought, looking up with the new-day optimism that had helped her survive the bad years with Max.
And then she remembered and her heart dropped nauseatingly. Nathan hadn’t joined her until the early hours, slipping between the sheets beside her, keeping woodenly to his side of the king-sized bed, being very careful not to touch her.
He was punishing her for what Hugh had said in his drunken spite, as if he’d believed every damaging word. His lack of trust appalled her. What chance did their marriage have if he became a stranger at the first stroke of trouble? No, worse than a stranger—an enemy!
Not knowing which emotion took precedence, the anger over his insulting lack of trust or the gut-wrenching misery, she squirmed up against the pillows. She saw him standing at the foot of the bed, his tanned, fantastic body gilded by the June sunlight that streamed through the open window, vigorously rubbing his wet, dark hair with a crisp white towel, making it stand up in endearing spikes.
Despite her savagely raging emotions, her body jerked in immediate wild response. He was so gorgeous; he was everything her body, her heart and soul craved. She couldn’t drag her eyes away. Her skin burned beneath the lazy, sexy scrutiny of his eyes.
He dropped the towel slowly and came to the side of the bed. Her breath thickened in her throat. Six feet three inches of daunting male perfection, lean, hard and perfectly proportioned. He had the brand of graceful strength that made her mouth go dry.
Hunkering down, his warm grey eyes level with hers, he took her hands, his fingers relaxed.
‘Forget last night happened. You were right—I shouldn’t have taken the louse so seriously.’ The pressure of his fingers increased just fractionally. ‘I won’t pretend I understand why you’re apparently reluctant to slap the guy down in public, why you don’t want to fight—but I promise you I’m trying.’
Olivia gritted her teeth, dropping her eyes. This was difficult. He was as good as accusing her of being a wimp, of having no fight in her. It was miles away from the truth. She’d been fighting all her life and wasn’t about to lie down and let things happen to her now.
But, in spite of what he’d said last night, he couldn’t read her mind, so he wasn’t to know how hard she was fighting, fighting to keep her secret guilt away from him, keep it safely shut up inside herself where it could be ignored.
There was no answer to give to that statement, no answer she wanted to give, except, ‘What’s to forget? I don’t remember a thing!’ Her violet eyes sparkled as she drew their twined hands towards her so that the back of his fingers grazed her breasts, heard the sharp hiss of his indrawn breath as she invited rawly, ‘Kiss me.’
The flash of desire deep in his eyes was unmissable and her lush mouth softened, the core of her body aching with heat, needing his lovemaking to blot out the ugly scenes of the night before, but he took a deep breath, his impressive shoulders straightening as he stood upright, releasing her clinging hands.
‘Normally that’s an invitation I’d find impossible to refuse,’ he said. He turned, reaching for his robe, thrusting his long arms into the sleeves, tying the belt round his taut waist. ‘But we both know what it would lead to, don’t we? We wouldn’t leave the bedroom for the rest of the day, and I already phoned Rye House before I showered. We’re spending the weekend there; my parents are looking forward to seeing us.’
He was already pulling casual jeans and shirts from the dressing chest, tossing them, man-like, any old how over the back of a chair. ‘We both need some breathing space and at least we won’t fight in front of an audience. So pack our gear after you’ve showered, would you? I’ll make breakfast.’
Hauling herself out of bed, Olivia felt as if her heart had been dumped about six inches beneath her feet, hating the edge she’d detected in his voice.
Not that she didn’t want to visit his parents; she had taken to them immediately, relieved by their warm welcome because she’d been worried that they might think a widow, from a very ordinary background, was no great catch for their brilliant only son.
And she’d only met them twice before. The first time when Nathan had whisked her to Bedfordshire to announce their almost immediate wedding plans to his commendably phlegmatic parents and the second time at the marriage ceremony itself. So it made perfect sense that, after a week back in England, Nathan would want to visit them. Despite his nomadic life-style he and his parents were very close. She might have envied him that, had not Angela and Edward welcomed her as part of the family.
But she couldn’t help feeling that she and Nathan should have taken the opportunity this weekend to talk over the events of last night, get them in perspective and then, and only then, put them behind them.
But, strangely, Nathan seemed intent on sweeping it all under the carpet, forgetting everything, at least for the moment. Why? He was the most direct person she had ever encountered. Was it because he couldn’t bring himself to even think about the accusations Hugh had made in case he found himself believing them?
Her eyes were clouded, her whole body tense as she towelled herself dry after her shower and walked through to the bedroom to dress and pack. Then the appetising aromas of grilling bacon and fresh, strong coffee wafted up the stairs, making her nose twitch.
It had always astounded her that a man as wealthy as Nathan Monroe, a man who could press buttons and have servants coming out of the woodwork to attend to his every need if he so wished, should know his way around a kitchen like a veteran.
Relaxing a little, she pulled on a pair of soft, well-worn white jeans, topping them with a pansy-purple T-shirt that reflected the colour of her eyes, and told herself she couldn’t spend the entire weekend worrying about his motives.
Besides, Rye House was quite wonderful. Set in acres of rolling, wooded countryside, it had been in the Monroe family since the year dot. She would, she vowed, enjoy the weekend.
And so she did. As they were changing for dinner that evening in the luxurious guest suite, decorated in shades of soft old rose and misty grey, the perfect foil for the handsome antiques that had been handed down from generation to generation, Nathan asked, ‘Glad we came?’ He was standing at the foot of the four-poster bed, watching her mirror-image as she brushed her long black hair. Her answering smile was warm and genuine.
‘Very.’ She put her brush down, wondering if he had any idea how sensational he looked; his soft dark hair falling over his brow, his hands casually thrust into the pockets of the black trousers that clipped his long legs and sexily narrow hips, the stark white shirt making his tan fantastic.
She lowered her eyes. Now was not the time to entertain lustful thoughts about her husband! There was dinner to get through and—
God, would she ever get used to the way he made her feel? She hoped not! Getting her mind back on track, she asked, ‘Where were you all afternoon? I missed you.’
He and Edward, his father, had disappeared directly after lunch while she and his mother had been clearing up, because Hilda, their daily, didn’t work at weekends. And she had missed him, fretted over whether he was deliberately avoiding her, giving himself a slice of the space he’d said they both needed.
‘Sorry about that.’ She caught his cool glance in the mirror. ‘The old man’s building a kit-car in the empty stables. I told him he was in his second childhood, but when he showed me what he was doing I was hooked. A Cobra replica body married to the Rover V8 engine. It’s going to be really something when it’s finished.’
‘Toys for the boys!’ She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. ‘Why do men never grow up?’
She was trying to make a joke of it, lighten the atmosphere, nudge them towards the old, wonderful closeness, but he simply shrugged, walking slowly over the polished oak boards to stand behind her.
‘I can think of a few grown-up things I’d like to do right now.’ His voice was heavy as his eyes made a slow and sultry assessment of her mirror-image, stripping away the soft, garnet-coloured silk of her discreetly styled, sleeveless dress.
‘You are unforgivably beautiful,’ he said rawly. ‘I can’t look at you without wanting to take you to bed. But you know me.’ His mouth curved without humour. ‘I like to get my priorities right. Is it too much to hope that you spent the afternoon mentally composing your letter of resignation?’
‘I’m afraid it is,’ she answered tightly, meeting his cool eyes in the mirror, refusing to let him stare her down. ‘I won’t be forced into a snap decision.’ Max had always tried to do that to her, tried to make her fall in with his plans, using the threat of violence if she didn’t. But she had stood her ground then, and would do so now. ‘We need to have a proper discussion. All we’ve done so far is snipe at each other.’
‘I see.’ He sounded almost bored and turned, strolling to one of the mullioned windows to look out. ‘So what’s to discuss?’
Ohvia bit her lip, tension making her shiver. Because her love for him was so deep it would be too easy to give in, do exactly what he wanted, but she had to stay calm, in control—she had learned that much when she’d been married to Max If she showed any weakness he would pounce, bend her so easily to his will.
‘What I want, for starters,’ she said collectedly. ‘But there’s no time to go into all of that right now. Your mother’s invited some friends to meet us—well, me, I suppose.’ She searched her brain for names. ‘Ruth and Lester Spencer. We’ll be expected to show our faces any time now.’
He moved away from the window, taking his elegantly cut dinner jacket from the wardrobe where she’d hung it earlier. ‘Then we’d better change the subject, hadn’t we?’ He was coolly dismissive. ‘So tell me, what did you and Ma find to do with yourselves?’ he tossed at her, settling the jacket snugly over his shoulders.
‘Plenty.’ She applied her make-up hurriedly, her hands shaking. She was still deeply affected by the undercurrent of antagonism. ‘I helped her prepare the salads for the meal this evening, then she made some lemonade and we carried it out to the rose garden and simply sat and nattered.’
‘What about? Were you bored out of your socks?’ He was sharing the mirror, talking like a polite stranger, tying his bow-tie with expert fingers. ‘Once she starts on the subject of her charity work she sends everyone to sleep. But don’t tell her I told you so; the poor love would be shattered.’
‘We mostly talked about you.’ She capped her lipstick, her voice deliberately matching the coolness of his. ‘But don’t worry, I managed not to yawn.’
She watched his eyes glitter at her and wasn’t going to tell him that the conversation had revealed how ignorant his doting parents were of his true desires and needs, and said instead, ‘I wonder if you appreciate how lucky you are? Oh, not all this—’ She gestured vaguely around the room at the lovely antique furnishings, the porcelain bowls of garden flowers set on almost every available polished surface. ‘But the feeling of love and warmth that comes entirely from your parents. They obviously dote on each other and on you. Which is nice, because it rubs off on me, too. They have the happy knack of making me feel I’m at last part of a family.’
She had already told him that her parents had split up when she was five, that the modest terraced house had been sold after the divorce, she and her mother moving to a one-bedroom flat. But he had more or less accused her of keeping secrets, of telling him little or nothing about herself. So now, as she tipped her head to fix her gold stud earrings, she elaborated.
‘Before Dad left us, my enduring memory is of them fighting. I never saw him again. He hadn’t wanted children; Mum never stopped telling me that. Then, oh, years later, she met a former mutual friend who told her Dad had remarried, had had three children and was completely content. It made her even more bitter. She’d told me so often that Dad had left because I was a burden he didn’t want. Having to face up to the fact that he was perfectly happy with a full-blown family took the blame for the break-up from me and put it on her. After that she became impossible to live with.’
She stood up, smoothing the silky fabric of her dress over her hips, and Nathan asked slowly, ‘Is that why you married so young? To get away from home?’
‘Probably. Although I’d been living on my own for twelve months when I met Max,’ she said dismissively. She didn’t want to talk about it. But she caught his disappointment; it blanked the life from his expressive eyes.
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth, knowing intuitively that he’d wanted to hear her affirm it, tell him that her marriage to Max hadn’t been born of the kind of passion they shared but had been her way out of an intolerable home situation.
But it was too late now to repair the damage and her years with Max were something she never talked about, something she never thought about if she could help it.
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s time we went down. We don’t want to keep dinner waiting any longer.’
The Spencers, Nathan’s parents’ oldest friends, were a comfortable couple, and the panelled dining room, with the tall French windows open to the soft summer evening, the oval mahogany table set with glittering crystal and the heavy family silver, was the perfect setting for convivial conversation over the hot lobster bisque and cold pheasant and salads.
More at ease after two glasses of superb wine, Olivia caught the gleaming humour in Nathan’s eyes across the candlelit table and smiled at him softly, her heart lifting because she felt close to him again, knowing what he was thinking.
Angela Monroe was enthusiastically relating the success of her favourite charity work, but Olivia couldn’t see anyone yawning yet and her smile deepened.
She already felt at home here, accepted, and the misery, the plain nastiness of what had happened last night had assumed the mantle of a bad dream, no more, a fading dream that would soon be entirely lost to memory.
Once he’d got over the shock of what he’d heard last night, Nathan wouldn’t believe a single word of it. And sooner or later he’d agree to discuss their future, listen to what she had to say on the subject of her resignation, and they’d reach a decision they could both be comfortable with.
And she couldn’t imagine, as she saw the soft glow of love in Nathan’s eyes as he watched her across the table—and that couldn’t be merely a trick of the candlelight, could it?—that everything could start to go wrong again. Badly wrong.
‘We’re really going to miss you on the committee, Ruth,’ Angela sighed. ‘Apart from that, I don’t know what I’ll do without you. If you’d asked my permission to sell up I’d have flatly refused!’
Nathan turned to Ruth Spencer, his dark brows raised in mild surprise. ‘Are you and Lester moving? I thought you were as deeply rooted here as the Monroes.’
Ruth shook her head, her white curls bobbing. ‘Hardly. We can’t claim to have been here since William the Conqueror!’ She glanced at her husband. ‘We can’t say it was an easy decision. But The Grange is too big for two old codgers.’
She turned to Olivia. ‘Sadly, we didn’t have children so we don’t even have the excuse of handing the place on through the family. So we’re bowing out gracefully, before we get too old to stand the trauma of moving, and retiring to the coast. We’ve found a manageable cottage with a small garden that’s crying out for reclamation. So that leaves The Grange looking for the owners it deserves—a young family, ideally, to fill all those rooms.’
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Angie?’ Edward grinned at his wife down the length of the table. He was still a handsome man, his iron-grey hair thick and strong, the family resemblance between him and his son unmistakable—which meant, Olivia thought contentedly, Nathan would mature spectacularly well.
‘I’m sure I am!’ Angela put her cutlery neatly on her plate and planted her elbows on the table, cupping her chin in her hands, her merry blue eyes fixing on Nathan’s. He returned her fizzling look with an amused smile.
‘Thinking of buying it, Ma? Housing a few more homeless families? Or are we into craft centres for struggling artisans? Whatever, I’m with you, as always. You can count on my donation.’
Watching him swallow the last of his wine, Olivia thought she had never loved him more. The close family bonds were evident, his interest in what his parents were doing, his open-handed support for his mother’s charities, totally endearing. She closed her eyes briefly, her happiness almost uncontainable. What had she ever done to deserve Nathan’s love? She had never felt so protected, so secure, in the whole of her life.
‘No, darling, not this time.’ Angela tipped her head on one side. Her rich auburn hair had only a few strands of silver and it glowed warmly in the subdued, intimate lighting. ‘Livvy and I had a real heart-to-heart this afternoon. You’re married now, so it’s time you put down roots and stopped jetting all over the world like a demented gnat!’ Her loving smile took any sting out of the words, but Nathan, Olivia noted, didn’t return it. His face had closed up and her heart sank.
‘I know you have the mews cottage, which is fine, I suppose. Livvy says she loves it, and she does have her job to keep her occupied while you’re flitting off here and there, so for the time being I can see you need a London base—and that’s an improvement on hotel rooms and suitcases!
‘But you need somewhere bigger,’ she burbled on in blithe innocence, blissfully unaware of the building tension. ‘The Grange would be perfect. You could come down most weekends and when the children begin to arrive—and I hope that won’t be too far down the road—you could move in permanently. You could fill one of the rooms with all that electronic gadgetry people like you seem unable to function without, and I could have my new daughter, and my grandchildren, practically on the doorstep. I know you’ll have Rye House one day—’ she crossed her fingers elaborately and wagged them at her husband ‘—but that won’t be for ages yet! And it would be lovely to have you settle so near!’
‘Brilliant!’
‘A splendid idea!’ the Spencers enthused as one.
‘You’ve really excelled yourself this time, Ma,’ Nathan said tonelessly. ‘Take your oar out, for God’s sake! Olivia and I are more than capable of sorting out our own future.’
Silence. Angela looked more surprised than stricken. It was probably the first time her adored son had slapped her down, Olivia thought. Whenever she’d tried to interfere in his life before he would have given her that lazy, stupendous smile and just got on with doing exactly what he wanted to do.
Nathan had no intention of settling down; she knew that now. There hadn’t been the time or the inclination during their brief, passionate courtship to think of their future. They had been too obsessed with each other.
She wished, with painful intensity, that her mother-in-law had kept her mouth shut. The relaxed persona Nathan had been acquiring throughout the evening had been wiped away by his mother’s artless interference.
But, even though she was shocked by his cold incisiveness, Angela wasn’t to be deflected. She was his mother, after all, and entitled to open her mouth when no one else would dare.
‘I’m sure you are, dear. But as The Grange is on the market it wouldn’t do any harm if you took Livvy to see over it, would it, now? You could walk across tomorrow morning, if that’s all right with Lester and Ruth.’
Whether or not it would be convenient no one would ever know, Olivia decided sinkingly as Nathan stated flatly, ‘Not possible. We’re leaving directly after breakfast Ten, at the latest.’
It was the first Olivia had heard of it. They’d planned to spend the whole weekend here, driving back to town late on Sunday evening, but there was no point in arguing about it. Nathan had made his mind up and nothing she said would change it. She recognised with an inward shudder that his dark mood had nothing to do with his mother’s well-meaning interference and everything to do with her.
And although the conversation was general for the remainder of the evening she sensed the undercurrent of his anger. She was sure everyone else was unaware; not even his parents, close as they were, could tune into his moods as instinctively as she could.
And much later, almost before he’d closed the bedroom door behind them, he drawled, ‘So that was what the cosy natter was all about this afternoon? The London house, handy for your job, but it would be nice to have a country place, to put down roots, tie us down.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she told him levelly, not wanting to fight. Angela had done all the talking, explaining that Nathan had always had itchy feet, always off someplace else, doing deals, turning wheels. Seizing happily on the fact of his marriage as evidence that he was at long last willing to settle down. ‘The idea that we should consider buying The Grange came as a complete surprise to me, too.’
She walked out of her shoes and took the studs from her ears, searching for a way to put things right between them. ‘Your parents know I work—it’s only natural for them to look into the future, see me giving it up when we start a family, needing somewhere bigger. Everything set out in a nice predictable line.’
She had her back to him, putting the gold studs safely in their soft silk pouch, and only knew he was right behind her when his hands fastened on her shoulders, twisting her round to face him.
‘Did you tell her I’d begged you to hand in your resignation?’ He forced her chin up with his fingers. ‘Look at me. I want to see your eyes. I can tell if you’re lying. Did you?’
‘No.’ She held his gaze squarely, her violet eyes bruised. The lovely guest suite suddenly seemed an alien place. She didn’t want to be here. The matter of her resignation had nothing to do with anyone else. His fingers tightened on her chin, hurting her. She tried to twist away but he wouldn’t let her. She hated having him touch her in anger. It brought back sickening memories of Max.
‘Why not? Because you have no intention of doing what I asked?’ His voice was low, deadly. ‘The whole world is my workplace; you knew that before we married. You’re my wife; I want you with me. But you don’t see it that way—’
‘My career’s important too,’ she retorted, her teeth snapping. Why did men always think they and their needs were the most important things in a relationship? Why should women always be the ones who had to adapt?
‘I offered you another, remember? Helping me. Taking the place of the temps I hire in wherever I happen to be. What makes the job at Caldwell’s more exciting and challenging than that? More satisfying than being with me?’ He released her, his hands dropping to his sides. ‘If you loved me, you’d want to be with me,’ he said flatly. ‘Or was Big-Mouth telling the truth? Can’t you bear to leave James Caldwell?’
CHAPTER THREE
‘THIS is getting to be a habit.’ Nathan’s voice came softly in the thick, curtained darkness. He turned his head towards her. ‘Let’s say we kick it?’
Lying a rigid three feet away, in the intimate cave of the unfamiliar four-poster bed, Olivia wanted to slap him. The sultry, sexy tone of his voice told her he was perfectly happy to forget his temper, the hurtful things it had made him say. But she couldn’t.
They hadn’t made love for thirty-six hours so he was probably frustrated. His rampant male hormones were making him forget the way he’d accused her of refusing to walk away from her job because she was having an ongoing affair with her boss.
Well, she hadn’t forgotten and if he had the nerve to reach out and touch her she would scream—even if it did bring his parents to the guest suite at a run!
She held her breath, all tensed up inside, her eyes hurting from staring into the darkness while she waited for that sneaky hand, that strong, sinfully knowing, sneaky hand, to bridge the gap and begin to work that wicked magic, taking what he wanted...
Which was exactly what she wanted, too. Her body was already responding dramatically. It would be too easy to turn into his arms, pretend that that would resolve everything. The thought appalled her. She blinked her eyes rapidly and made herself breathe. It would be so easy...
‘I can’t forget what you accused me of that easily,’ she said, making her words clipped and precise so he wouldn’t guess how much she wanted to be held in his arms, to be physically assured of his love—wild passion absorbing all their senses, blanking out the frightening knowledge that he couldn’t love her at all if he didn’t trust her. ‘A quick grope won’t make everything all right.’
‘Is that what you think of our lovemaking?’ he came back at her immediately, his voice as cold and bleak as outer space. ‘A quick grope?’
Too late, Olivia wished she’d held her stupid, wilful tongue, done the dignified thing and simply exited the bed, walked out with her head in the air to make herself a nice cup of tea in Angela’s kitchen, as any sane woman would have done in the circumstances. Or looked for Edward’s brandy and poured herself an enormous dose, which was probably a much better idea...
Instead it was Nathan who swung out of bed, reached for his robe. She couldn’t see him but could hear his impatient movements. She wriggled up on one elbow, the fear that he was cutting himself off from her, somehow moving away from her, never, truly, to return—not in spirit, anyway—making her voice sharp.
‘Where are you going?’ If he mentioned tea or brandy, or even her most hated all of panaceas—cocoa—she would join him. Yes, she would, she decided, getting ready to scramble out of bed.
She sagged dejectedly back against the pillows when he drawled at her, ‘To make a couple of phone calls. You have the bed to yourself to sulk in. And don’t worry, wife of my heart, I won’t creep back for a furtive grope.’
Oh, what had made her say that? she thought with anguish as the door closed behind him with a quiet control that told her he’d gone far beyond mere anger.
Tears welled up and ran down her cheeks, slow and fat and born of self-disgust. She hated herself! Of course she didn’t equate the magic of their lovemaking with a quick grope—surely he knew that? Couldn’t he understand that she’d been getting her own back for what he had said earlier?
Flicking on the bedside light, she reached for a handful of tissues, blew her nose and scrubbed her wet cheeks. She had to put things right. Make him understand that she hadn’t meant what she’d said, that she hadn’t been rejecting him but the accusations he’d made.
It was more than time to find out if he really, or even partially, believed the things Hugh had said. They couldn’t get on with their future while he kept a question mark in his mind.
The satin of her robe was cold against her heated skin. She shivered, tying the sash around her waist, sudden indecision making her frown.
He was making a couple of phone calls, he’d said, so right now wouldn’t be the best time to attempt a reconciliation, would it? And at this time of night that could only mean he was contacting somewhere halfway round the world.
But that didn’t mean he was so annoyed with her he was planning on taking the next available flight out to wherever, did it?
The attempted reassurance didn’t work. She chewed on the corner of her lip and her legs began to shake. She sank back on the edge of the bed. She knew enough about his business life to admire the way he’d made himself an enviable fortune, travelling the world looking for investment opportunities, playing the stock market, building stakes in groups to sell on at a profit.
It would be possible, he’d once told her, to conduct most of his business from a well-equipped office, but he preferred the hands-on approach. Was he planning one of his extended foreign business trips to punish her?
Speculation was getting her nowhere. And he wouldn’t be on the phone all night. She crawled back into bed and propped herself up against the pillows, waiting for him.
As soon as he showed his face she’d make everything right between them again, she promised herself. Yes, she most definitely would. And it wouldn’t be too long now, just long enough for him to make those calls. She’d give him that much space; she owed him that. He wouldn’t stay away for the rest of the night.
But he had. Still in her robe, propped against the pillows, disorientated because she wasn’t in her own, familiar surroundings, Olivia woke from fretful dreams, deeply annoyed with herself. She had gone and fallen asleep before he’d come back to bed, and nothing had been put right.
Turning to remedy the unthinkable situation, her body tensed up. His side of the bed was well and truly empty. Had her seeming rejection, her refusal to behave as if nothing had happened, angered him to the point of refusing to be anywhere near her? She felt physically sick.
They met on the sweeping staircase, that much admired feature of Rye House. But she wasn’t up to admiring the Grinling Gibbons carvings right now. She’d showered and dressed quickly, intent on routing him out, dreading the possibility of discovering that their beautiful relationship had been damaged, vowing that she wouldn’t let it be.
‘Where were you?’ she demanded, refusing to flinch beneath those cold grey eyes. He was fully dressed and looked as if he hadn’t slept at all.
‘Working.’ He stopped on his loping way up. ‘I came up to shower and dress at six. You were dead to the world. I’ve been sent to fetch you down for breakfast.’
She didn’t want any. Her stomach was in knots. He was looking at her with a stranger’s eyes. It frightened her. But she wasn’t going to let it show.
‘Punishing me for denting your ego, you mean,’ she retorted, resisting the impulse to shout because one or other of his parents could put in an appearance at any time. But she was sickened by the obvious lie. If their marriage was to grow and flourish they had to be hon-est with each other. She hated evasions of any kind; she’d had enough of those from Max to last her a dozen lifetimes. She stared straight back at him. ‘Admit it. How could you possibly work? Here, in the middle of the night? You were sulking!’
‘I could work on a clothes-line,’ he informed her coldly. ‘A telephone, paper, a pen—I don’t need much more. And sulking’s a woman’s game, one that cuts no ice with me. Coming?’
She looked at his merciless, sensual mouth and shuddered in primitive response. Fighting it, she made her lush lips as prim as they could be. She didn’t want to kiss him—no, she did not. She wanted to shake him!
Trying to smile for his parents’ sake, she got herself into the kitchen by will-power alone. The smell of bacon made her feel ill.
‘You mustn’t let him get away with it!’ Angela stated. ‘Working through the night—there’s no need for it! And he used most of my headed notepaper, too!’ She pointedly moved a bunch of papers out of the way and put a loaded toast rack down on the huge kitchen table.
‘It was all I could find; I’ll get it replaced,’ Nathan said with a tight smile. ‘And don’t nag, Ma; it makes you sound old.’
Olivia’s face ached with the effort of trying to look pleasant and unconcerned, as if she were totally in tune with her new husband’s odd working habits—sympathetic, even faintly amused.
Edward sauntered in, sniffing the air. ‘Is breakfast nearly ready? I’m starving! It’s a shame you two have to rush off this morning. You could have helped me with the Cobra—’ He broke off as he caught his wife’s withering look and amended, ‘Or gone to church with your mother. We’d planned on lunching at the golf club. They put on a passably good roast. No eggs for me, Angie.’ His youthful eyes smiled into Olivia’s. ‘When I remember, I try to watch my cholesterol intake. Pour the coffee, would you, Livvy? I’m gasping. Are you sure you won’t change your minds and stay?’
Pouring coffee into the wide-bowled cups, Olivia left Nathan to convince his parents that they had to make tracks.
‘There are several things I need to sort out,’ he answered tersely as his mother set a huge plate of bacon and eggs in the centre of the table.
‘Help yourselves,’ she invited. ‘Do you know how forbidding you sound, Nat? “Things to sort out”, indeed.’ She took her place and shook out her napkin. ‘You need never do another stroke. You could retire tomorrow, and you know it. Workaholics don’t make the best husbands, isn’t that right, Livvy?’
‘I’m working on it!’ Which probably hadn’t been the most tactful thing to say, she decided, feeling those cold grey eyes on her, boring right through her. But she did her best to look cheerful, eating hardly anything while trying to look as if she was enjoying every mouthful—just waiting for the time when she and Nathan could be alone to sort out the uncomfortable mess they’d somehow got themselves into.
But being alone didn’t necessarily mean being closer, she discovered as they drove away from Rye House not long after breakfast. The silence was gnm.
Her heart lurching, she broke it. ‘I’m sorry about last night. You must know I didn’t mean it.’ She flicked him a hopeful sideways look but his profile was stony. Swallowing a ragged sigh, trying not to plead, she offered, ‘Listen, we have to discuss it rationally—everything. Hugh, James, my job, even Angie’s bright idea about buying that house. Everything.’
They had left the tangle of narrow country lanes behind and Nathan put his foot down. The big car responded throatily and Olivia’s stomach jumped up into her mouth. She just hoped there weren’t any speed cameras about. She said thickly, ‘I hate this atmosphere. I don’t know about you, but I want things back the way they were. We love each other,’ she stated desperately. ‘It should be simple enough!’
‘It is simple enough.’ His voice was as smooth and precise as his driving style. ‘You know what I want. When you’ve reached a decision, tell me. Until then there’s little we can usefully discuss. Think about it.’
Oh, yes, she knew what he wanted. She closed her eyes wearily. Each time her resignation had come up for discussion he’d grown more insistent.
It had started off fairly innocuously, Nathan reasonably pointing out that she didn’t need to work, that her job would keep them apart, that he wanted her with him wherever he went. Desperately torn, she had tried to explain that she would have to think about it.
‘James threw a fit when I told him we were getting mamed and asked for two months’ honeymoon leave,’ she’d told him. ‘But he gave in and said, “Anything, so long as I know the best PA I’m ever likely to get isn’t walking out permanently.’” She’d smiled then, confident that he loved her enough to understand that she couldn’t simply phone through, as he appeared to expect her to, and say she wasn’t coming back. ‘I guess I’d have to train someone else up, and that could take time.’
But Nathan hadn’t seen it that way. ‘He doesn’t own you,’ he’d said. Implying that he did, Olivia had thought, beginning to bristle, appalled by the first coldness she’d seen in his eyes. And it had been then that he’d broken the uncomfortable tension between them, suggesting a restaurant and nightclub. And after that, after overhearing Hugh’s scandalous remarks, he’d stopped trying gentle persuasion and was now insisting.
He had, she recognised hollowly, issued an ultimatum. And told her to think about it.
She didn’t want to.
She loved him to distraction. She would willingly die for him. But he had to see that she wasn’t going to let herself be bullied into doing something she knew would make her uncomfortable with herself. Max had done that too many times; she wouldn’t allow it to happen again.
Yet the prospect of deepening the rift between them by refusing to do meekly exactly as he said, exactly when he said it heaped her heart with deep misery.
She twisted her hands in her lap, her fingers sliding over the engagement ring he’d given her, sliding and stroking it as if that would bring back the gloriously happy recent past. An amethyst in an ornate, heavy gold setting.
‘To match the colour of your eyes,’ he’d told her, slipping it onto her finger, his eyes dark and liquid with love.
She remembered that day so vividly, and the days that had gone before, the days that had come after. She would never forget a single second, and clung to the comfort of her shining memories, remembering how they’d met.
It had been a cold spring day and she’d been sure that sudden, heavy rain showers had been programmed to put in an appearance at a time calculated to cause as much nuisance to herself, personally, as possible.
She’d dropped by the local supermarket on her way home from work and was heading down the street, blinded by rain, carrying the makings of her supper in the flimsy supermarket carrier bag, the thin plastic digging into her fingers.
And the bag had split, tipping her purchases onto the streaming pavement. Cursing under her breath, she’d bent to retrieve what was salvageable, growling with disbelief as a well-polished, handmade shoe stomped on her slices of cold ham. Bouncing up, she’d collided with a lean, male body, felt his steadying hands on her shoulders, and lifted her head to glare at him. And that was when it had happened.
‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’ His grey eyes held hers with the dawning of delight. It was as if, she thought, he recognised her from a long way back, was welcoming her wholeheartedly into his life again.
They had never met before, she knew that; of course she did. But she felt she had known him all her life, had been waiting for him.
The rain came down as if it were trying to flood them out of existence and they simply stood there, oblivious to the torrents, aware only of each other. So shatteringly aware.
And in that timeless moment she lost every scrap of common sense she’d ever had, forgot the solemn promises she’d made to herself about never being stupid enough to fall in love again—because it had happened, and she was soaringly, ecstatically glad.
‘We’ll drown!’ His sudden, spectacular grin shook her to pieces. One hand slid down to take hers. Her fingers curled around his and the sensation of his warm skin on hers was unbelievable. It made her whole body come alive, made her feel that until this moment she’d been half dead and hadn’t realised it.
With his free hand he retrieved her scattered supper, dumping the sodden mess into a litter bin. Then, his fingers entwined possessively in hers, he tugged her over to his waiting car.
Long, low, gun-metal grey, it looked dangerous. And that suited her, she thought, allowing herself to be gently tucked into the passenger seat. She felt wild, her blood hot, coursing wickedly through her veins.
‘Where are you taking me?’ She didn’t stop to ask herself if getting into a car with a strange male was the wisest move she had ever made. She was soaked to the skin, her suit ruined, the weight of the rain water dragging her luxuriant hair from its workaday moorings. She knew she looked a mess and couldn’t stop smiling.
‘My hotel.’ She noted the smile tugging at his mouth, too, as he eased the car out into the flow of traffic. ‘You can dry out while I feed you. It’s the least I can do after ruining your groceries.’
The feeling of belonging, truly belonging to someone swamped her. It was a mystery she couldn’t explain, an inevitable happening. She asked, ‘Are you married?’
‘No. Are you?’
‘I was. He died three years ago.’
He gave her a swift, intense look, his dark brows drawn together. Then he turned his attention back to the road—or at least what he could see of it through the driving ram, the wipers barely coping. ‘And now?’
‘There’s been no one since. I’m married to my career.’
His wickedly gorgeous mouth curved. ‘That I can cope with; a career’s no competition.’
‘What are you competing for?’ How strange, she thought, her eyes bright with silent laughter, to be sitting here, having this conversation. She didn’t even know his name.
‘The right to have you in my bed.’ Softly spoken, musing, almost, his reply took her breath away.
By any standards she should be demanding he stop, let her out. But she didn’t. She didn’t even ask him if he thought she was the type of woman who would go to bed with a man, any man, any time, She knew, with a deep instinctive joy, that he didn’t think any such thing.
She simply asked, ‘When do you see that happening?’ knowing what his answer would be before he gave it.
‘When you’re ready. When you understand, as I did the moment I looked into your eyes, that we’re two halves of a whole.’
Tangled black lashes veiled her eyes as she slumped weakly back in her seat, her arms hugging her body as she tried to contain the happiness that transcended anything she had experienced before. She felt weak with it, and could hardly stand when he exited the now stationary vehicle and walked round to hand her out.
They were in front of the city’s most luxurious hotel and she leant into the support of his possessive arm, blinking the rain out of her eyes, as a livened doorman hurried towards them with an umbrella, another taking the car keys to park the sleek grey monster.
‘Dreadful day, Mr Monroe.’ Sheltering beneath the huge umbrella, they were deferentially escorted up the wide stone steps.
So his name was Monroe. She smiled to herself, a wriggle of happiness further weakening her knees as she heard him correct, ‘You’re wrong there, Ben, old son. It’s the most perfect day that ever dawned!’ His arm tightened around her tiny waist and she was too dazed to take in her surroundings, leaning against him as the lift took them to the top of the building, feeling utterly, blissfully secure, the warmth of it lapping over her, binding her completely.
His suite was a quiet statement of restrained elegance, not sumptuous or overpowering but an essay in refined simplicity, and her eyes went wide, taking it in. It would cost a fortune to stay here. The atmosphere was so rarefied, she felt the first stirrings of misgiving.
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Diana Hamilton
Have you heard the latest? Don't tell anyone, but… . Nathan Monroe didn't know what to believe: he'd just heard that the woman he'd married wasn't all that she seemed. Olivia Monroe was apparently a ruthless woman who would do anything to get what she wanted… . But what did Nat actually know about his newfound wife?Theirs had been a whirlwind marriage - everything had moved so fast - and all Nat could see was that Olivia was hiding some deep, dark secret. Torn by jealousy and distrust, their marriage was heading for the rocks, and the only way to save it was for Nat to discover the truth about his scandalous bride… . Scandals!
“Olivia Monroe killed her first husband then jumped into bed with her boss, the richest married rat in town!” (#u9ce93070-26bc-5f7e-95f4-63a9e96bed30)About the Author (#ubca8deb4-3f9c-5b83-9a0a-962e02a7b9f6)Title Page (#u10e65e92-39c0-5f5c-a9df-067881d8a2af)CHAPTER ONE (#u295c8d2e-73dc-5a60-be65-a1eaae12d900)CHAPTER TWO (#u5b8ddabf-b0b5-501b-baf6-4a3e7abc2ec2)CHAPTER THREE (#ub0c78e13-e705-512a-a1c1-b1ec91cff4da)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Olivia Monroe killed her first husband then jumped into bed with her boss, the richest married rat in town!”
Olivia and Nat stood behind the man as he continued to make the scandalous allegations. “Ask anyone—she’s been sleeping with my big brother for years, and it’s not going to stop just because she’s got herself a solid gold meal ticket for life, all legally tied up with wedding lines!”
DIANA HAMILTON is a true romantic at heart and fell in love with her husband at first sight. They still live in the fairy-tale Tudor house where they raised their three children. Now the idyll is shared with eight rescued cats and a puppy. But despite an often chaotic life-style, ever since she learned to read and write Diana has had her nose in a book—either reading or writing one—and plans to go on doing just that for a very long time to come.
Scandalous Bride
Diana Hamilton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
‘OLIVIA MONROE killed her first husband then jumped into bed with her boss, the richest married rat in town!’
The male voice, thick with alcohol, penetrated the smoochy dance music and the nightclub chatter. Olivia stiffened in Nathan’s arms, flinching as she heard a woman shriek, ‘You can’t be serious, Hughie!’
‘Ask anyone—she’s been sleeping with my big brother for years and it’s not going to stop just because she’s got herself a solid gold meal-ticket for life, all legally tied up with wedding lines!’
‘The Olivia who married that scrummy, rich as a plum-cake Nathan Monroe? Their wedding made the front pages a couple of months ago—good grief! Does he know he’s been taken for a sucker?’ The woman was obviously loving every minute of it and Olivia felt sick, her feet rooting themselves to the minute dance-floor. The elegant, glittering surroundings suddenly felt tawdry.
Had Nathan heard?
Nathan had.
His big, hard body went still. He took an incisive step back, his arms falling to his sides as his hands made dangerous fists. She looked up into his harsh and beautiful face and shuddered, her skin crawling with fire and then ice.
Sometimes the inescapable intensity of what she felt for him frightened her. The inadmissible knowledge that she couldn’t live without him, the way her blood turned to a burning torrent when he walked into a room, the reckless way she’d given every last scrap of her future happiness into his keeping when, years ago, she’d solemnly and sensibly vowed she would never fall in love again.
And now the anger frightened her. Savage, black anger blazing in those steel-grey eyes, pulling the tanned flesh tight against his strong and elegant bones.
Instinctively, her eyes sifted through the swaying bodies, homing in on Hugh Caldwell. Running to fat, he looked older than his thirty-four years. For a split second her eyes clashed with his, dark brown and malicious, before he led his dance partner off the floor with a smirk on his dissolute face.
Olivia held her breath, shocked by the vile gossip Hugh was spreading. The sound of the music had faded, the noise people made when they were enjoying themselves ebbing out of her consciousness, and all she could hear was the thunderous beat of her heart and Nathan’s ice-cold threat, ‘I’ll kill the son of a bitch!’
‘Don’t.’ Her hand on the black sleeve of his dinner jacket stayed him. He swung round to face her, his shoulders wide and hard, intimidating. She took a deep breath. One of them had to remain cool and collected. She felt anything but. However, she’d spent long, lonely years perfecting her act.
‘Make a scene and you’ll give credence to his foul lies,’ she advised quickly. ‘Think about it.’
Of all the exclusive nightclubs in London why had Hugh Caldwell chosen this one? He’d been born with a chip on his shoulder and for the past thirty-four years it had been growing heavier by the day. She had always suspected he could be dangerous but hadn’t imagined he could stoop so low. The cold premonition of disaster feathered over her skin, making her shiver, but—
‘Ignore him, or sue. Or both,’ she said calmly, her mind frantically willing him to agree. He looked capable of tearing Hugh Caldwell limb from limb and taking savage pleasure from every moment.
She hated violence in any form. For one terrible day, the last day of her first husband’s life, she had known what physical violence really was. She had known that it had fatally poisoned their already weakened relationship and had opened her eyes to the fact that violence of another form, emotional violence, had been eroding their marriage almost from day one. ‘Don’t put yourself down on his level.’
That, mercifully, appeared to have the desired effect. She actually saw the battle to rein in his flaring anger. And saw him win. But then nothing ever defeated him, did it? She fought her own impulse to sag with relief, simply dipping her head coolly as he commanded, tight-lipped, ‘We’re leaving.’
And she walked out at his side, five feet three inches of dignity, her glossy black hair whispering against the tanned skin of her back where the sweeping cut of the elegant white dress left it bare. Her amethyst eyes were staring straight ahead and her sultry mouth was caught tight against her teeth in case the tremor of her lips gave her away.
But distressed tremors plagued her on the taxi ride back to the Chelsea mews cottage and she couldn’t relax enough to make them stop.
‘It’s cute,’ he’d said when he’d snapped the cottage up just days before their wedding. ‘A London base for a time. I haven’t had a permanent home in England for years. A cute and private place to make memories before we move on. Like it, sweetheart?’
She’d loved it on sight. Loved the dolls’ house proportions, the cosy, secluded atmosphere, projecting that love into the wonderful memories they’d make together, not heeding the warnings about moving on, not even hearing them properly.
But now he wasn’t saying a thing. The distance between them was far more than a few feet of upholstery. The tension between them was making the small space a void.
He was a proud man with a streak of self-assurance a whole mile wide. A hard man. A brilliant wheeler-dealer, a key stock-market player, his mind had the cutting edge of a diamond.
No one took him for a ride, called him a sucker. That taunt would be eating up his mind. Perhaps even more than the evil slur on her character.
Olivia ached to touch him but didn’t dare. The dam would burst soon enough and the back of a London cab wasn’t the place to cope with it.
If only they’d stayed home tonight, she agonised futilely. But they’d been on the verge of their very first fight. One week back at work after their idyllic two-month honeymoon in the Bahamas, he had as good as demanded she hand in her resignation. He’d wanted to know why she hadn’t already done just that, and she had tried to explain her reluctance, put forward her own ideas, both of them getting more uptight by the moment until he’d pulled them away from the danger with that mind-shatteringly wicked grin of his.
‘Forget it, for now. We’ll eat out tonight, somewhere special. And go clubbing afterwards. Celebrate being married for two months and a week.’ His steely eyes had warmed in that special way, for her alone, and her insides had capered about, twisting with love for him as she’d hurried to change with no foreknowledge of how the evening would end...
After the taxi had drawn away the mews was quiet, the single street lamp accentuating the black shadows. Nathan opened the front door, de-activated the alarm system and stood aside, allowing her to walk through to the cottage-style sitting room in front of him. His silence and the tight cast of his features were ominous.
She switched on a parchment-shaded table lamp, dousing the main lights, preferring the subdued effect. The soft glow made the cottage antiques and the squashily upholstered twin sofas seem so safe and cosy—a much needed antidote to the arctic chill of the atmosphere Nathan was generating.
‘Were they foul lies?’ His voice abraded her.
A give-away flicker of pain darkened her eyes, but only a flicker; she had it under control even though she felt she was coming part, her flesh being painfully stripped from her bones by the knife-edge of his lack of trust
‘How can you even ask?’ Her voice was cool, masking her desperate hurt, her body in the understatedly sexy white dress taut and slim and proud. ‘Don’t you know me better than that—well enough to make the asking of such a question totally irrelevant and completely offensive?’
She lifted her chin higher, blanking out the shameful, hateful knowledge that not all of Hugh’s malicious gossip had been lies, and felt the deep ache of misery spread right through her as he answered tersely, ‘I only know what you choose to tell me.’
He turned his back on her, moving to a side table and sloshing two inches of malt whisky into a glass, draining it in one swallow, his mouth tight as he reminded her, ‘We saw each other, were poleaxed and were married three weeks later.’ He dragged in a sharp breath, his eyes holding hers, adding more slowly, ‘I never thought such a thing could happen to me.’
His lips curled wryly at the memory of that cataclysmic happening and her body leapt in ferocious response at the wonderful memories: the way they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, the way they hadn’t been able to handle being apart, the glorious, fated inevitability of it all.
But then they were dragged back to the present, the brief bonding of shared and precious memories over.
‘Apart from the information that you are an only child and that your parents separated, I know two hard facts about your past,’ he stated. ‘First, you married when you were nineteen, his name was Max and he died six years later. Second, as a widow you became married to your career and that lasted for three years, until we met,’ he enumerated harshly.
‘Or am I wrong there? Does your career still come first? Is that why you won’t quit?’ His face tightened. ‘My work takes me all over the world—you know that. I want you with me, not stuck back here—you know that, too. Is being a PA to the head of Caldwell Engineering more important to you than being with me? Or does the attraction lie mainly with your boss, rather than the job itself?’
Olivia shivered uncontrollably, despising herself for that small betrayal. They had come full circle, right back to where the disastrous evening had started. But, worse than that, he had taken the gossip on board, beginning to question her relationship with her boss, James Caldwell.
She watched numbly as he dragged his black tie away from his shirt, tossing it onto one of the sofas, his jacket following a scant second later. And then he turned and met her wide and wounded eyes.
Even as he held her gaze his expressive mouth softened. His brow furrowing, he dragged taut fingers through his midnight-dark hair. ‘God, I’m sorry, Livvy. Come here.’
She went into his arms willingly, as she always would, the inescapable tug of the wicked chemistry that had sprung to inexorable life between them the moment they’d met working its unending magic.
His arms enfolded her with savage passion, pulling her slender curves into his hard, lean frame, his voice thick and raw with contrition as he bent his dark head and covered her neck with scalding kisses. ‘Forgive me?’
‘Anything...’ Every inch of her body leaping in wild response, she found his mouth and kissed it. Hard. ‘I don’t want us to fight,’ she breathed raggedly. ‘Not us, not ever.’ And she fell apart, as she always did, when he caressed her cheekbones with his large, gentle hands. Slowly, and erotically, he eased her lips apart, sliding his tongue into the moist and receptive softness of her mouth, making her want him, hotly, hungrily. Her hands flew to his shirt buttons, dragging them apart, glorying in the heated hardness of his arousal as it thrust against the softness of her tummy. But...
‘Livvy, no. Not now.’ His voice shook but his hands were rock-steady and just as implacable as he took hers and eased them away, stepping back, putting distance between them, an empty distance that made her ache. ‘We have to work out what to do.’
Do? Her pulses were beating erratically and she couldn’t think straight. It took his, ‘About the low-life back there. From what he said I gathered he’s related to your boss. We’ll sue. No one bad-mouths my wife and gets away with it...’ to bring her mind back on track.
She gave him a small, wobbly smile, pushing her tumbled hair back from her face. ‘There were plenty of witnesses,’ she granted, dropping gracefully onto a chintzy sofa. ‘You could go ahead and sue for slander, if you think it’s worth the trouble.’
‘Trouble!’ he repeated from behind her, his voice tight. ‘He calls my wife a—’
‘I know what he said,’ she put in quickly. Her face was white with strain. She couldn’t bear to have him pick over it. The guilt was too much to live with. She couldn’t bear it if it started haunting her dreams again, doing its utmost to impinge on every aspect of her waking life, coming between them and, inevitably, sullying what she and Nathan had together.
Hurriedly pulling herself together, she stated with a calmness she was far from feeling, ‘Hugh Caldwell has a vicious streak, a foul tongue. No one takes anything he says seriously.’ Not even when there’s a grain of truth in the murky mess? The unwelcome thought came unbidden and she thrust it aside, saying quickly, ‘Which is why he has no friends, simply a few dubious acquaintances who sponge off him.’ Then she added, quirkily, trying to take some of the weight out of the atmosphere, ‘I gather he was a terrible disappointment to his parents.’
Deep silence. And then she heard the clink of glasses. He walked round, handed her a small whisky, took his own and dropped down onto the end of the sofa, angled into the corner, facing her, his clever eyes intent. He leaned forward, his hands between his spread knees, his glass held loosely in one hand.
‘Tell me about him. He’s your boss’s brother? He works for the company?’
‘If you could call what he does work.’ She tried to answer lightly, even though she felt she had been tied down in the witness-box, that every word she said would be carefully measured and weighed.
But at least she was on marginally safer ground now that his immediate attention had been deflected away from court action whereby, even though the lies would be refuted, the grain of truth would be revealed, painting her guilty as sin.
‘His job title is sales director, but his job actually appears to consist of long, boozy lunches with anyone angling for a free meal.’ She took a small sip from her glass, grateful for the warmth, the tiny measure of Dutch courage. She needed it. Hugh Caldwell’s vicious tongue was not going to spoil everything for her. She wouldn’t let it!
‘And your boss—his brother, right?—puts up with it?’ He sounded disbelieving and she couldn’t blame him. He didn’t know the full story.
‘James. Yes, he puts up with it.’ Unknowingly, her voice had softened, the strained lines of her face easing under the influence of a tiny smile.
She admired James Caldwell and would do almost anything for him. Their relationship had many levels. He had helped her when she’d been emotionally bankrupt. Her loyalty, both personal and in her capacity as his PA, was absolute.
‘Why?’ The question was blunt, the expression she surprised at the back of his brooding eyes smacked of aggression, and something else. Suspicion. Olivia sighed wretchedly and set her glass aside.
‘Family duty, perhaps. Who’s to tell?’ She shrugged her slim shoulders, knowing that whatever she said about James Caldwell would only fuel the embers of the argument they’d had much earlier. After hearing that wretched man’s evil gossip, Nathan’s desire to see her quit her job would be set in stone.
‘Hugh is six years younger than James and he’s always resented James for being the first-born, the brainy, good-looking son. Add to that the fact that James took over the reins of Caldwell Engineering when their father had a massive stroke ten years ago and pulled it from the bottom of the league to the top. Plus, when James’s godfather died he left him a huge private fortune. Mix that lot up with a hefty dose of sexual jealousy—Hugh took a girlfriend home and she and James promptly fell in love and married six months later—and you have a recipe for resentment and spite.’
‘So because he’s the underdog in the Caldwell setup, a loser, he spread malicious lies about his brother,’ Nathan said, his astute eyes pinning her down. ‘That figures. But why involve you?’
Olivia sucked in a sharp little breath. Her skin was burning beneath the cool white fabric of her dress. She would have given anything if they could have put the clock back, decided to stay home tonight, as she told him quietly, ‘Just before I was promoted to James’s PA, Hugh made a heavy pass. I was married—Max was still alive—but that didn’t make any difference, not to him! Needless to say, I told him where he could go. He’s probably hated me ever since.’
She tried to make it sound like nothing much, because if Nathan knew what had really happened he wouldn’t rest until he’d exacted every last scrap of retribution.
But even though she’d tried to make light of the revolting incident, to pretend it hadn’t been important, Nathan slapped his untouched glass down on the coffee-table and jerked to his feet. After pacing the room, he swung round to face her at last.
‘So that excuses everything, does it?’ he demanded. ‘Just because he habitually loses out we must all turn a blind eye to the vicious lies he spreads all over the place.’ There was no warmth in his eyes, his rawly sensual mouth pulled back against his teeth with grinding frustration. ‘You don’t have to put it into words. I can read your every thought. So confirm it for me, Liwy—you don’t want to take this any further. Right?’
Her violet eyes were dark compared with the pallor of her face. She met him head-on. ‘I don’t see the point. As long as you don’t believe his lies, I simply don’t see the point. He’s an unimportant, vindictive little man and no one with an ounce of sense takes him seriously.’ She stood up, weariness washing through her, making her sway. ‘I’ll talk to James about it on Monday. Ask his opinion.’
And she felt her breath make a solid, painful lump in her throat as he lashed back, ‘At the same time you hand in your resignation? Why should his opinion be more important than mine?’
Love him to pieces she certainly did, but that didn’t mean she could excuse unfairness. The question of her resignation was far from settled, and he knew it. It was what their first fight had been about; did he think she’d forgotten?
But now wasn’t the time to re-introduce that contentious subject so she simply pointed out, ‘Ordinarily, of course not. But he is involved. And there’s his wife to consider. I think they should be consulted before you start shouting for litigation, don’t you?’ She raked a hand through her hair, sick of the subject. ‘I’m tired; I’m going to bed.’
And, for the first time in their wildly passionate relationship, he didn’t follow, just watched the unknowingly sexy sway of her body with hard, assessing eyes.
Olivia, lying awake in the soft, king-sized bed some twenty minutes later, wondered desperately if things would ever be the same between them again, or if Hugh’s vile tongue had sown the seeds of suspicion, seeds that would grow and spread, smothering all that had been so bright and beautiful between them, turning all that consuming passion to dust.
CHAPTER TWO
PERHAPS she had overreacted, Olivia thought, looking up with the new-day optimism that had helped her survive the bad years with Max.
And then she remembered and her heart dropped nauseatingly. Nathan hadn’t joined her until the early hours, slipping between the sheets beside her, keeping woodenly to his side of the king-sized bed, being very careful not to touch her.
He was punishing her for what Hugh had said in his drunken spite, as if he’d believed every damaging word. His lack of trust appalled her. What chance did their marriage have if he became a stranger at the first stroke of trouble? No, worse than a stranger—an enemy!
Not knowing which emotion took precedence, the anger over his insulting lack of trust or the gut-wrenching misery, she squirmed up against the pillows. She saw him standing at the foot of the bed, his tanned, fantastic body gilded by the June sunlight that streamed through the open window, vigorously rubbing his wet, dark hair with a crisp white towel, making it stand up in endearing spikes.
Despite her savagely raging emotions, her body jerked in immediate wild response. He was so gorgeous; he was everything her body, her heart and soul craved. She couldn’t drag her eyes away. Her skin burned beneath the lazy, sexy scrutiny of his eyes.
He dropped the towel slowly and came to the side of the bed. Her breath thickened in her throat. Six feet three inches of daunting male perfection, lean, hard and perfectly proportioned. He had the brand of graceful strength that made her mouth go dry.
Hunkering down, his warm grey eyes level with hers, he took her hands, his fingers relaxed.
‘Forget last night happened. You were right—I shouldn’t have taken the louse so seriously.’ The pressure of his fingers increased just fractionally. ‘I won’t pretend I understand why you’re apparently reluctant to slap the guy down in public, why you don’t want to fight—but I promise you I’m trying.’
Olivia gritted her teeth, dropping her eyes. This was difficult. He was as good as accusing her of being a wimp, of having no fight in her. It was miles away from the truth. She’d been fighting all her life and wasn’t about to lie down and let things happen to her now.
But, in spite of what he’d said last night, he couldn’t read her mind, so he wasn’t to know how hard she was fighting, fighting to keep her secret guilt away from him, keep it safely shut up inside herself where it could be ignored.
There was no answer to give to that statement, no answer she wanted to give, except, ‘What’s to forget? I don’t remember a thing!’ Her violet eyes sparkled as she drew their twined hands towards her so that the back of his fingers grazed her breasts, heard the sharp hiss of his indrawn breath as she invited rawly, ‘Kiss me.’
The flash of desire deep in his eyes was unmissable and her lush mouth softened, the core of her body aching with heat, needing his lovemaking to blot out the ugly scenes of the night before, but he took a deep breath, his impressive shoulders straightening as he stood upright, releasing her clinging hands.
‘Normally that’s an invitation I’d find impossible to refuse,’ he said. He turned, reaching for his robe, thrusting his long arms into the sleeves, tying the belt round his taut waist. ‘But we both know what it would lead to, don’t we? We wouldn’t leave the bedroom for the rest of the day, and I already phoned Rye House before I showered. We’re spending the weekend there; my parents are looking forward to seeing us.’
He was already pulling casual jeans and shirts from the dressing chest, tossing them, man-like, any old how over the back of a chair. ‘We both need some breathing space and at least we won’t fight in front of an audience. So pack our gear after you’ve showered, would you? I’ll make breakfast.’
Hauling herself out of bed, Olivia felt as if her heart had been dumped about six inches beneath her feet, hating the edge she’d detected in his voice.
Not that she didn’t want to visit his parents; she had taken to them immediately, relieved by their warm welcome because she’d been worried that they might think a widow, from a very ordinary background, was no great catch for their brilliant only son.
And she’d only met them twice before. The first time when Nathan had whisked her to Bedfordshire to announce their almost immediate wedding plans to his commendably phlegmatic parents and the second time at the marriage ceremony itself. So it made perfect sense that, after a week back in England, Nathan would want to visit them. Despite his nomadic life-style he and his parents were very close. She might have envied him that, had not Angela and Edward welcomed her as part of the family.
But she couldn’t help feeling that she and Nathan should have taken the opportunity this weekend to talk over the events of last night, get them in perspective and then, and only then, put them behind them.
But, strangely, Nathan seemed intent on sweeping it all under the carpet, forgetting everything, at least for the moment. Why? He was the most direct person she had ever encountered. Was it because he couldn’t bring himself to even think about the accusations Hugh had made in case he found himself believing them?
Her eyes were clouded, her whole body tense as she towelled herself dry after her shower and walked through to the bedroom to dress and pack. Then the appetising aromas of grilling bacon and fresh, strong coffee wafted up the stairs, making her nose twitch.
It had always astounded her that a man as wealthy as Nathan Monroe, a man who could press buttons and have servants coming out of the woodwork to attend to his every need if he so wished, should know his way around a kitchen like a veteran.
Relaxing a little, she pulled on a pair of soft, well-worn white jeans, topping them with a pansy-purple T-shirt that reflected the colour of her eyes, and told herself she couldn’t spend the entire weekend worrying about his motives.
Besides, Rye House was quite wonderful. Set in acres of rolling, wooded countryside, it had been in the Monroe family since the year dot. She would, she vowed, enjoy the weekend.
And so she did. As they were changing for dinner that evening in the luxurious guest suite, decorated in shades of soft old rose and misty grey, the perfect foil for the handsome antiques that had been handed down from generation to generation, Nathan asked, ‘Glad we came?’ He was standing at the foot of the four-poster bed, watching her mirror-image as she brushed her long black hair. Her answering smile was warm and genuine.
‘Very.’ She put her brush down, wondering if he had any idea how sensational he looked; his soft dark hair falling over his brow, his hands casually thrust into the pockets of the black trousers that clipped his long legs and sexily narrow hips, the stark white shirt making his tan fantastic.
She lowered her eyes. Now was not the time to entertain lustful thoughts about her husband! There was dinner to get through and—
God, would she ever get used to the way he made her feel? She hoped not! Getting her mind back on track, she asked, ‘Where were you all afternoon? I missed you.’
He and Edward, his father, had disappeared directly after lunch while she and his mother had been clearing up, because Hilda, their daily, didn’t work at weekends. And she had missed him, fretted over whether he was deliberately avoiding her, giving himself a slice of the space he’d said they both needed.
‘Sorry about that.’ She caught his cool glance in the mirror. ‘The old man’s building a kit-car in the empty stables. I told him he was in his second childhood, but when he showed me what he was doing I was hooked. A Cobra replica body married to the Rover V8 engine. It’s going to be really something when it’s finished.’
‘Toys for the boys!’ She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. ‘Why do men never grow up?’
She was trying to make a joke of it, lighten the atmosphere, nudge them towards the old, wonderful closeness, but he simply shrugged, walking slowly over the polished oak boards to stand behind her.
‘I can think of a few grown-up things I’d like to do right now.’ His voice was heavy as his eyes made a slow and sultry assessment of her mirror-image, stripping away the soft, garnet-coloured silk of her discreetly styled, sleeveless dress.
‘You are unforgivably beautiful,’ he said rawly. ‘I can’t look at you without wanting to take you to bed. But you know me.’ His mouth curved without humour. ‘I like to get my priorities right. Is it too much to hope that you spent the afternoon mentally composing your letter of resignation?’
‘I’m afraid it is,’ she answered tightly, meeting his cool eyes in the mirror, refusing to let him stare her down. ‘I won’t be forced into a snap decision.’ Max had always tried to do that to her, tried to make her fall in with his plans, using the threat of violence if she didn’t. But she had stood her ground then, and would do so now. ‘We need to have a proper discussion. All we’ve done so far is snipe at each other.’
‘I see.’ He sounded almost bored and turned, strolling to one of the mullioned windows to look out. ‘So what’s to discuss?’
Ohvia bit her lip, tension making her shiver. Because her love for him was so deep it would be too easy to give in, do exactly what he wanted, but she had to stay calm, in control—she had learned that much when she’d been married to Max If she showed any weakness he would pounce, bend her so easily to his will.
‘What I want, for starters,’ she said collectedly. ‘But there’s no time to go into all of that right now. Your mother’s invited some friends to meet us—well, me, I suppose.’ She searched her brain for names. ‘Ruth and Lester Spencer. We’ll be expected to show our faces any time now.’
He moved away from the window, taking his elegantly cut dinner jacket from the wardrobe where she’d hung it earlier. ‘Then we’d better change the subject, hadn’t we?’ He was coolly dismissive. ‘So tell me, what did you and Ma find to do with yourselves?’ he tossed at her, settling the jacket snugly over his shoulders.
‘Plenty.’ She applied her make-up hurriedly, her hands shaking. She was still deeply affected by the undercurrent of antagonism. ‘I helped her prepare the salads for the meal this evening, then she made some lemonade and we carried it out to the rose garden and simply sat and nattered.’
‘What about? Were you bored out of your socks?’ He was sharing the mirror, talking like a polite stranger, tying his bow-tie with expert fingers. ‘Once she starts on the subject of her charity work she sends everyone to sleep. But don’t tell her I told you so; the poor love would be shattered.’
‘We mostly talked about you.’ She capped her lipstick, her voice deliberately matching the coolness of his. ‘But don’t worry, I managed not to yawn.’
She watched his eyes glitter at her and wasn’t going to tell him that the conversation had revealed how ignorant his doting parents were of his true desires and needs, and said instead, ‘I wonder if you appreciate how lucky you are? Oh, not all this—’ She gestured vaguely around the room at the lovely antique furnishings, the porcelain bowls of garden flowers set on almost every available polished surface. ‘But the feeling of love and warmth that comes entirely from your parents. They obviously dote on each other and on you. Which is nice, because it rubs off on me, too. They have the happy knack of making me feel I’m at last part of a family.’
She had already told him that her parents had split up when she was five, that the modest terraced house had been sold after the divorce, she and her mother moving to a one-bedroom flat. But he had more or less accused her of keeping secrets, of telling him little or nothing about herself. So now, as she tipped her head to fix her gold stud earrings, she elaborated.
‘Before Dad left us, my enduring memory is of them fighting. I never saw him again. He hadn’t wanted children; Mum never stopped telling me that. Then, oh, years later, she met a former mutual friend who told her Dad had remarried, had had three children and was completely content. It made her even more bitter. She’d told me so often that Dad had left because I was a burden he didn’t want. Having to face up to the fact that he was perfectly happy with a full-blown family took the blame for the break-up from me and put it on her. After that she became impossible to live with.’
She stood up, smoothing the silky fabric of her dress over her hips, and Nathan asked slowly, ‘Is that why you married so young? To get away from home?’
‘Probably. Although I’d been living on my own for twelve months when I met Max,’ she said dismissively. She didn’t want to talk about it. But she caught his disappointment; it blanked the life from his expressive eyes.
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth, knowing intuitively that he’d wanted to hear her affirm it, tell him that her marriage to Max hadn’t been born of the kind of passion they shared but had been her way out of an intolerable home situation.
But it was too late now to repair the damage and her years with Max were something she never talked about, something she never thought about if she could help it.
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s time we went down. We don’t want to keep dinner waiting any longer.’
The Spencers, Nathan’s parents’ oldest friends, were a comfortable couple, and the panelled dining room, with the tall French windows open to the soft summer evening, the oval mahogany table set with glittering crystal and the heavy family silver, was the perfect setting for convivial conversation over the hot lobster bisque and cold pheasant and salads.
More at ease after two glasses of superb wine, Olivia caught the gleaming humour in Nathan’s eyes across the candlelit table and smiled at him softly, her heart lifting because she felt close to him again, knowing what he was thinking.
Angela Monroe was enthusiastically relating the success of her favourite charity work, but Olivia couldn’t see anyone yawning yet and her smile deepened.
She already felt at home here, accepted, and the misery, the plain nastiness of what had happened last night had assumed the mantle of a bad dream, no more, a fading dream that would soon be entirely lost to memory.
Once he’d got over the shock of what he’d heard last night, Nathan wouldn’t believe a single word of it. And sooner or later he’d agree to discuss their future, listen to what she had to say on the subject of her resignation, and they’d reach a decision they could both be comfortable with.
And she couldn’t imagine, as she saw the soft glow of love in Nathan’s eyes as he watched her across the table—and that couldn’t be merely a trick of the candlelight, could it?—that everything could start to go wrong again. Badly wrong.
‘We’re really going to miss you on the committee, Ruth,’ Angela sighed. ‘Apart from that, I don’t know what I’ll do without you. If you’d asked my permission to sell up I’d have flatly refused!’
Nathan turned to Ruth Spencer, his dark brows raised in mild surprise. ‘Are you and Lester moving? I thought you were as deeply rooted here as the Monroes.’
Ruth shook her head, her white curls bobbing. ‘Hardly. We can’t claim to have been here since William the Conqueror!’ She glanced at her husband. ‘We can’t say it was an easy decision. But The Grange is too big for two old codgers.’
She turned to Olivia. ‘Sadly, we didn’t have children so we don’t even have the excuse of handing the place on through the family. So we’re bowing out gracefully, before we get too old to stand the trauma of moving, and retiring to the coast. We’ve found a manageable cottage with a small garden that’s crying out for reclamation. So that leaves The Grange looking for the owners it deserves—a young family, ideally, to fill all those rooms.’
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Angie?’ Edward grinned at his wife down the length of the table. He was still a handsome man, his iron-grey hair thick and strong, the family resemblance between him and his son unmistakable—which meant, Olivia thought contentedly, Nathan would mature spectacularly well.
‘I’m sure I am!’ Angela put her cutlery neatly on her plate and planted her elbows on the table, cupping her chin in her hands, her merry blue eyes fixing on Nathan’s. He returned her fizzling look with an amused smile.
‘Thinking of buying it, Ma? Housing a few more homeless families? Or are we into craft centres for struggling artisans? Whatever, I’m with you, as always. You can count on my donation.’
Watching him swallow the last of his wine, Olivia thought she had never loved him more. The close family bonds were evident, his interest in what his parents were doing, his open-handed support for his mother’s charities, totally endearing. She closed her eyes briefly, her happiness almost uncontainable. What had she ever done to deserve Nathan’s love? She had never felt so protected, so secure, in the whole of her life.
‘No, darling, not this time.’ Angela tipped her head on one side. Her rich auburn hair had only a few strands of silver and it glowed warmly in the subdued, intimate lighting. ‘Livvy and I had a real heart-to-heart this afternoon. You’re married now, so it’s time you put down roots and stopped jetting all over the world like a demented gnat!’ Her loving smile took any sting out of the words, but Nathan, Olivia noted, didn’t return it. His face had closed up and her heart sank.
‘I know you have the mews cottage, which is fine, I suppose. Livvy says she loves it, and she does have her job to keep her occupied while you’re flitting off here and there, so for the time being I can see you need a London base—and that’s an improvement on hotel rooms and suitcases!
‘But you need somewhere bigger,’ she burbled on in blithe innocence, blissfully unaware of the building tension. ‘The Grange would be perfect. You could come down most weekends and when the children begin to arrive—and I hope that won’t be too far down the road—you could move in permanently. You could fill one of the rooms with all that electronic gadgetry people like you seem unable to function without, and I could have my new daughter, and my grandchildren, practically on the doorstep. I know you’ll have Rye House one day—’ she crossed her fingers elaborately and wagged them at her husband ‘—but that won’t be for ages yet! And it would be lovely to have you settle so near!’
‘Brilliant!’
‘A splendid idea!’ the Spencers enthused as one.
‘You’ve really excelled yourself this time, Ma,’ Nathan said tonelessly. ‘Take your oar out, for God’s sake! Olivia and I are more than capable of sorting out our own future.’
Silence. Angela looked more surprised than stricken. It was probably the first time her adored son had slapped her down, Olivia thought. Whenever she’d tried to interfere in his life before he would have given her that lazy, stupendous smile and just got on with doing exactly what he wanted to do.
Nathan had no intention of settling down; she knew that now. There hadn’t been the time or the inclination during their brief, passionate courtship to think of their future. They had been too obsessed with each other.
She wished, with painful intensity, that her mother-in-law had kept her mouth shut. The relaxed persona Nathan had been acquiring throughout the evening had been wiped away by his mother’s artless interference.
But, even though she was shocked by his cold incisiveness, Angela wasn’t to be deflected. She was his mother, after all, and entitled to open her mouth when no one else would dare.
‘I’m sure you are, dear. But as The Grange is on the market it wouldn’t do any harm if you took Livvy to see over it, would it, now? You could walk across tomorrow morning, if that’s all right with Lester and Ruth.’
Whether or not it would be convenient no one would ever know, Olivia decided sinkingly as Nathan stated flatly, ‘Not possible. We’re leaving directly after breakfast Ten, at the latest.’
It was the first Olivia had heard of it. They’d planned to spend the whole weekend here, driving back to town late on Sunday evening, but there was no point in arguing about it. Nathan had made his mind up and nothing she said would change it. She recognised with an inward shudder that his dark mood had nothing to do with his mother’s well-meaning interference and everything to do with her.
And although the conversation was general for the remainder of the evening she sensed the undercurrent of his anger. She was sure everyone else was unaware; not even his parents, close as they were, could tune into his moods as instinctively as she could.
And much later, almost before he’d closed the bedroom door behind them, he drawled, ‘So that was what the cosy natter was all about this afternoon? The London house, handy for your job, but it would be nice to have a country place, to put down roots, tie us down.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she told him levelly, not wanting to fight. Angela had done all the talking, explaining that Nathan had always had itchy feet, always off someplace else, doing deals, turning wheels. Seizing happily on the fact of his marriage as evidence that he was at long last willing to settle down. ‘The idea that we should consider buying The Grange came as a complete surprise to me, too.’
She walked out of her shoes and took the studs from her ears, searching for a way to put things right between them. ‘Your parents know I work—it’s only natural for them to look into the future, see me giving it up when we start a family, needing somewhere bigger. Everything set out in a nice predictable line.’
She had her back to him, putting the gold studs safely in their soft silk pouch, and only knew he was right behind her when his hands fastened on her shoulders, twisting her round to face him.
‘Did you tell her I’d begged you to hand in your resignation?’ He forced her chin up with his fingers. ‘Look at me. I want to see your eyes. I can tell if you’re lying. Did you?’
‘No.’ She held his gaze squarely, her violet eyes bruised. The lovely guest suite suddenly seemed an alien place. She didn’t want to be here. The matter of her resignation had nothing to do with anyone else. His fingers tightened on her chin, hurting her. She tried to twist away but he wouldn’t let her. She hated having him touch her in anger. It brought back sickening memories of Max.
‘Why not? Because you have no intention of doing what I asked?’ His voice was low, deadly. ‘The whole world is my workplace; you knew that before we married. You’re my wife; I want you with me. But you don’t see it that way—’
‘My career’s important too,’ she retorted, her teeth snapping. Why did men always think they and their needs were the most important things in a relationship? Why should women always be the ones who had to adapt?
‘I offered you another, remember? Helping me. Taking the place of the temps I hire in wherever I happen to be. What makes the job at Caldwell’s more exciting and challenging than that? More satisfying than being with me?’ He released her, his hands dropping to his sides. ‘If you loved me, you’d want to be with me,’ he said flatly. ‘Or was Big-Mouth telling the truth? Can’t you bear to leave James Caldwell?’
CHAPTER THREE
‘THIS is getting to be a habit.’ Nathan’s voice came softly in the thick, curtained darkness. He turned his head towards her. ‘Let’s say we kick it?’
Lying a rigid three feet away, in the intimate cave of the unfamiliar four-poster bed, Olivia wanted to slap him. The sultry, sexy tone of his voice told her he was perfectly happy to forget his temper, the hurtful things it had made him say. But she couldn’t.
They hadn’t made love for thirty-six hours so he was probably frustrated. His rampant male hormones were making him forget the way he’d accused her of refusing to walk away from her job because she was having an ongoing affair with her boss.
Well, she hadn’t forgotten and if he had the nerve to reach out and touch her she would scream—even if it did bring his parents to the guest suite at a run!
She held her breath, all tensed up inside, her eyes hurting from staring into the darkness while she waited for that sneaky hand, that strong, sinfully knowing, sneaky hand, to bridge the gap and begin to work that wicked magic, taking what he wanted...
Which was exactly what she wanted, too. Her body was already responding dramatically. It would be too easy to turn into his arms, pretend that that would resolve everything. The thought appalled her. She blinked her eyes rapidly and made herself breathe. It would be so easy...
‘I can’t forget what you accused me of that easily,’ she said, making her words clipped and precise so he wouldn’t guess how much she wanted to be held in his arms, to be physically assured of his love—wild passion absorbing all their senses, blanking out the frightening knowledge that he couldn’t love her at all if he didn’t trust her. ‘A quick grope won’t make everything all right.’
‘Is that what you think of our lovemaking?’ he came back at her immediately, his voice as cold and bleak as outer space. ‘A quick grope?’
Too late, Olivia wished she’d held her stupid, wilful tongue, done the dignified thing and simply exited the bed, walked out with her head in the air to make herself a nice cup of tea in Angela’s kitchen, as any sane woman would have done in the circumstances. Or looked for Edward’s brandy and poured herself an enormous dose, which was probably a much better idea...
Instead it was Nathan who swung out of bed, reached for his robe. She couldn’t see him but could hear his impatient movements. She wriggled up on one elbow, the fear that he was cutting himself off from her, somehow moving away from her, never, truly, to return—not in spirit, anyway—making her voice sharp.
‘Where are you going?’ If he mentioned tea or brandy, or even her most hated all of panaceas—cocoa—she would join him. Yes, she would, she decided, getting ready to scramble out of bed.
She sagged dejectedly back against the pillows when he drawled at her, ‘To make a couple of phone calls. You have the bed to yourself to sulk in. And don’t worry, wife of my heart, I won’t creep back for a furtive grope.’
Oh, what had made her say that? she thought with anguish as the door closed behind him with a quiet control that told her he’d gone far beyond mere anger.
Tears welled up and ran down her cheeks, slow and fat and born of self-disgust. She hated herself! Of course she didn’t equate the magic of their lovemaking with a quick grope—surely he knew that? Couldn’t he understand that she’d been getting her own back for what he had said earlier?
Flicking on the bedside light, she reached for a handful of tissues, blew her nose and scrubbed her wet cheeks. She had to put things right. Make him understand that she hadn’t meant what she’d said, that she hadn’t been rejecting him but the accusations he’d made.
It was more than time to find out if he really, or even partially, believed the things Hugh had said. They couldn’t get on with their future while he kept a question mark in his mind.
The satin of her robe was cold against her heated skin. She shivered, tying the sash around her waist, sudden indecision making her frown.
He was making a couple of phone calls, he’d said, so right now wouldn’t be the best time to attempt a reconciliation, would it? And at this time of night that could only mean he was contacting somewhere halfway round the world.
But that didn’t mean he was so annoyed with her he was planning on taking the next available flight out to wherever, did it?
The attempted reassurance didn’t work. She chewed on the corner of her lip and her legs began to shake. She sank back on the edge of the bed. She knew enough about his business life to admire the way he’d made himself an enviable fortune, travelling the world looking for investment opportunities, playing the stock market, building stakes in groups to sell on at a profit.
It would be possible, he’d once told her, to conduct most of his business from a well-equipped office, but he preferred the hands-on approach. Was he planning one of his extended foreign business trips to punish her?
Speculation was getting her nowhere. And he wouldn’t be on the phone all night. She crawled back into bed and propped herself up against the pillows, waiting for him.
As soon as he showed his face she’d make everything right between them again, she promised herself. Yes, she most definitely would. And it wouldn’t be too long now, just long enough for him to make those calls. She’d give him that much space; she owed him that. He wouldn’t stay away for the rest of the night.
But he had. Still in her robe, propped against the pillows, disorientated because she wasn’t in her own, familiar surroundings, Olivia woke from fretful dreams, deeply annoyed with herself. She had gone and fallen asleep before he’d come back to bed, and nothing had been put right.
Turning to remedy the unthinkable situation, her body tensed up. His side of the bed was well and truly empty. Had her seeming rejection, her refusal to behave as if nothing had happened, angered him to the point of refusing to be anywhere near her? She felt physically sick.
They met on the sweeping staircase, that much admired feature of Rye House. But she wasn’t up to admiring the Grinling Gibbons carvings right now. She’d showered and dressed quickly, intent on routing him out, dreading the possibility of discovering that their beautiful relationship had been damaged, vowing that she wouldn’t let it be.
‘Where were you?’ she demanded, refusing to flinch beneath those cold grey eyes. He was fully dressed and looked as if he hadn’t slept at all.
‘Working.’ He stopped on his loping way up. ‘I came up to shower and dress at six. You were dead to the world. I’ve been sent to fetch you down for breakfast.’
She didn’t want any. Her stomach was in knots. He was looking at her with a stranger’s eyes. It frightened her. But she wasn’t going to let it show.
‘Punishing me for denting your ego, you mean,’ she retorted, resisting the impulse to shout because one or other of his parents could put in an appearance at any time. But she was sickened by the obvious lie. If their marriage was to grow and flourish they had to be hon-est with each other. She hated evasions of any kind; she’d had enough of those from Max to last her a dozen lifetimes. She stared straight back at him. ‘Admit it. How could you possibly work? Here, in the middle of the night? You were sulking!’
‘I could work on a clothes-line,’ he informed her coldly. ‘A telephone, paper, a pen—I don’t need much more. And sulking’s a woman’s game, one that cuts no ice with me. Coming?’
She looked at his merciless, sensual mouth and shuddered in primitive response. Fighting it, she made her lush lips as prim as they could be. She didn’t want to kiss him—no, she did not. She wanted to shake him!
Trying to smile for his parents’ sake, she got herself into the kitchen by will-power alone. The smell of bacon made her feel ill.
‘You mustn’t let him get away with it!’ Angela stated. ‘Working through the night—there’s no need for it! And he used most of my headed notepaper, too!’ She pointedly moved a bunch of papers out of the way and put a loaded toast rack down on the huge kitchen table.
‘It was all I could find; I’ll get it replaced,’ Nathan said with a tight smile. ‘And don’t nag, Ma; it makes you sound old.’
Olivia’s face ached with the effort of trying to look pleasant and unconcerned, as if she were totally in tune with her new husband’s odd working habits—sympathetic, even faintly amused.
Edward sauntered in, sniffing the air. ‘Is breakfast nearly ready? I’m starving! It’s a shame you two have to rush off this morning. You could have helped me with the Cobra—’ He broke off as he caught his wife’s withering look and amended, ‘Or gone to church with your mother. We’d planned on lunching at the golf club. They put on a passably good roast. No eggs for me, Angie.’ His youthful eyes smiled into Olivia’s. ‘When I remember, I try to watch my cholesterol intake. Pour the coffee, would you, Livvy? I’m gasping. Are you sure you won’t change your minds and stay?’
Pouring coffee into the wide-bowled cups, Olivia left Nathan to convince his parents that they had to make tracks.
‘There are several things I need to sort out,’ he answered tersely as his mother set a huge plate of bacon and eggs in the centre of the table.
‘Help yourselves,’ she invited. ‘Do you know how forbidding you sound, Nat? “Things to sort out”, indeed.’ She took her place and shook out her napkin. ‘You need never do another stroke. You could retire tomorrow, and you know it. Workaholics don’t make the best husbands, isn’t that right, Livvy?’
‘I’m working on it!’ Which probably hadn’t been the most tactful thing to say, she decided, feeling those cold grey eyes on her, boring right through her. But she did her best to look cheerful, eating hardly anything while trying to look as if she was enjoying every mouthful—just waiting for the time when she and Nathan could be alone to sort out the uncomfortable mess they’d somehow got themselves into.
But being alone didn’t necessarily mean being closer, she discovered as they drove away from Rye House not long after breakfast. The silence was gnm.
Her heart lurching, she broke it. ‘I’m sorry about last night. You must know I didn’t mean it.’ She flicked him a hopeful sideways look but his profile was stony. Swallowing a ragged sigh, trying not to plead, she offered, ‘Listen, we have to discuss it rationally—everything. Hugh, James, my job, even Angie’s bright idea about buying that house. Everything.’
They had left the tangle of narrow country lanes behind and Nathan put his foot down. The big car responded throatily and Olivia’s stomach jumped up into her mouth. She just hoped there weren’t any speed cameras about. She said thickly, ‘I hate this atmosphere. I don’t know about you, but I want things back the way they were. We love each other,’ she stated desperately. ‘It should be simple enough!’
‘It is simple enough.’ His voice was as smooth and precise as his driving style. ‘You know what I want. When you’ve reached a decision, tell me. Until then there’s little we can usefully discuss. Think about it.’
Oh, yes, she knew what he wanted. She closed her eyes wearily. Each time her resignation had come up for discussion he’d grown more insistent.
It had started off fairly innocuously, Nathan reasonably pointing out that she didn’t need to work, that her job would keep them apart, that he wanted her with him wherever he went. Desperately torn, she had tried to explain that she would have to think about it.
‘James threw a fit when I told him we were getting mamed and asked for two months’ honeymoon leave,’ she’d told him. ‘But he gave in and said, “Anything, so long as I know the best PA I’m ever likely to get isn’t walking out permanently.’” She’d smiled then, confident that he loved her enough to understand that she couldn’t simply phone through, as he appeared to expect her to, and say she wasn’t coming back. ‘I guess I’d have to train someone else up, and that could take time.’
But Nathan hadn’t seen it that way. ‘He doesn’t own you,’ he’d said. Implying that he did, Olivia had thought, beginning to bristle, appalled by the first coldness she’d seen in his eyes. And it had been then that he’d broken the uncomfortable tension between them, suggesting a restaurant and nightclub. And after that, after overhearing Hugh’s scandalous remarks, he’d stopped trying gentle persuasion and was now insisting.
He had, she recognised hollowly, issued an ultimatum. And told her to think about it.
She didn’t want to.
She loved him to distraction. She would willingly die for him. But he had to see that she wasn’t going to let herself be bullied into doing something she knew would make her uncomfortable with herself. Max had done that too many times; she wouldn’t allow it to happen again.
Yet the prospect of deepening the rift between them by refusing to do meekly exactly as he said, exactly when he said it heaped her heart with deep misery.
She twisted her hands in her lap, her fingers sliding over the engagement ring he’d given her, sliding and stroking it as if that would bring back the gloriously happy recent past. An amethyst in an ornate, heavy gold setting.
‘To match the colour of your eyes,’ he’d told her, slipping it onto her finger, his eyes dark and liquid with love.
She remembered that day so vividly, and the days that had gone before, the days that had come after. She would never forget a single second, and clung to the comfort of her shining memories, remembering how they’d met.
It had been a cold spring day and she’d been sure that sudden, heavy rain showers had been programmed to put in an appearance at a time calculated to cause as much nuisance to herself, personally, as possible.
She’d dropped by the local supermarket on her way home from work and was heading down the street, blinded by rain, carrying the makings of her supper in the flimsy supermarket carrier bag, the thin plastic digging into her fingers.
And the bag had split, tipping her purchases onto the streaming pavement. Cursing under her breath, she’d bent to retrieve what was salvageable, growling with disbelief as a well-polished, handmade shoe stomped on her slices of cold ham. Bouncing up, she’d collided with a lean, male body, felt his steadying hands on her shoulders, and lifted her head to glare at him. And that was when it had happened.
‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’ His grey eyes held hers with the dawning of delight. It was as if, she thought, he recognised her from a long way back, was welcoming her wholeheartedly into his life again.
They had never met before, she knew that; of course she did. But she felt she had known him all her life, had been waiting for him.
The rain came down as if it were trying to flood them out of existence and they simply stood there, oblivious to the torrents, aware only of each other. So shatteringly aware.
And in that timeless moment she lost every scrap of common sense she’d ever had, forgot the solemn promises she’d made to herself about never being stupid enough to fall in love again—because it had happened, and she was soaringly, ecstatically glad.
‘We’ll drown!’ His sudden, spectacular grin shook her to pieces. One hand slid down to take hers. Her fingers curled around his and the sensation of his warm skin on hers was unbelievable. It made her whole body come alive, made her feel that until this moment she’d been half dead and hadn’t realised it.
With his free hand he retrieved her scattered supper, dumping the sodden mess into a litter bin. Then, his fingers entwined possessively in hers, he tugged her over to his waiting car.
Long, low, gun-metal grey, it looked dangerous. And that suited her, she thought, allowing herself to be gently tucked into the passenger seat. She felt wild, her blood hot, coursing wickedly through her veins.
‘Where are you taking me?’ She didn’t stop to ask herself if getting into a car with a strange male was the wisest move she had ever made. She was soaked to the skin, her suit ruined, the weight of the rain water dragging her luxuriant hair from its workaday moorings. She knew she looked a mess and couldn’t stop smiling.
‘My hotel.’ She noted the smile tugging at his mouth, too, as he eased the car out into the flow of traffic. ‘You can dry out while I feed you. It’s the least I can do after ruining your groceries.’
The feeling of belonging, truly belonging to someone swamped her. It was a mystery she couldn’t explain, an inevitable happening. She asked, ‘Are you married?’
‘No. Are you?’
‘I was. He died three years ago.’
He gave her a swift, intense look, his dark brows drawn together. Then he turned his attention back to the road—or at least what he could see of it through the driving ram, the wipers barely coping. ‘And now?’
‘There’s been no one since. I’m married to my career.’
His wickedly gorgeous mouth curved. ‘That I can cope with; a career’s no competition.’
‘What are you competing for?’ How strange, she thought, her eyes bright with silent laughter, to be sitting here, having this conversation. She didn’t even know his name.
‘The right to have you in my bed.’ Softly spoken, musing, almost, his reply took her breath away.
By any standards she should be demanding he stop, let her out. But she didn’t. She didn’t even ask him if he thought she was the type of woman who would go to bed with a man, any man, any time, She knew, with a deep instinctive joy, that he didn’t think any such thing.
She simply asked, ‘When do you see that happening?’ knowing what his answer would be before he gave it.
‘When you’re ready. When you understand, as I did the moment I looked into your eyes, that we’re two halves of a whole.’
Tangled black lashes veiled her eyes as she slumped weakly back in her seat, her arms hugging her body as she tried to contain the happiness that transcended anything she had experienced before. She felt weak with it, and could hardly stand when he exited the now stationary vehicle and walked round to hand her out.
They were in front of the city’s most luxurious hotel and she leant into the support of his possessive arm, blinking the rain out of her eyes, as a livened doorman hurried towards them with an umbrella, another taking the car keys to park the sleek grey monster.
‘Dreadful day, Mr Monroe.’ Sheltering beneath the huge umbrella, they were deferentially escorted up the wide stone steps.
So his name was Monroe. She smiled to herself, a wriggle of happiness further weakening her knees as she heard him correct, ‘You’re wrong there, Ben, old son. It’s the most perfect day that ever dawned!’ His arm tightened around her tiny waist and she was too dazed to take in her surroundings, leaning against him as the lift took them to the top of the building, feeling utterly, blissfully secure, the warmth of it lapping over her, binding her completely.
His suite was a quiet statement of restrained elegance, not sumptuous or overpowering but an essay in refined simplicity, and her eyes went wide, taking it in. It would cost a fortune to stay here. The atmosphere was so rarefied, she felt the first stirrings of misgiving.
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Diana Hamilton
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Have you heard the latest? Don′t tell anyone, but… . Nathan Monroe didn′t know what to believe: he′d just heard that the woman he′d married wasn′t all that she seemed. Olivia Monroe was apparently a ruthless woman who would do anything to get what she wanted… . But what did Nat actually know about his newfound wife?Theirs had been a whirlwind marriage – everything had moved so fast – and all Nat could see was that Olivia was hiding some deep, dark secret. Torn by jealousy and distrust, their marriage was heading for the rocks, and the only way to save it was for Nat to discover the truth about his scandalous bride… . Scandals!