Millionaire's Woman

by Helen Brooks

  Cory saw Nick shut his eyes briefly.

  ‘Cory, is that you?’ Mr Ward peered into the hall, his eyes enormous behind the strong glasses he wore. ‘Is everything all right?’ he shouted.

  ‘Everything’s fine, Mr Ward.’ She found she was yelling at the top of her voice to make herself heard.

  ‘Are you sure, dear?’ Mrs Ward screeched back.

  ‘Quite sure.’

  Mr Ward was now in the process of trying to drag the dog back into the flat but Arnie was having none of it. He hadn’t had excitement like this for a long time.

  It took both of the Wards to manouevre the dog in enough to shut their door, Mr Ward pulling with all his might and his wife getting in front of Arnie and using her ample body as a sort of battering ram. Nick stood watching them as though he couldn’t believe his eyes, his arms crossed over his chest and his face dark.

  They had no sooner shut their door when, above the sounds of, ‘No more, Arnie!’ and ‘Quiet, boy, quiet! Lie down!’, a timid voice above Cory said, ‘Is everything all right down there?’

  Cory turned round and stared into the faces of the young couple from the top flat who were hovering on her landing. ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said again, wishing the inoffensive pair to the ends of the earth. ‘Go back to bed.’

  Something in her voice must have convinced them not to prolong the discussion because they vanished immediately.

  She turned back to Nick, who hadn’t moved a muscle. ‘I didn’t want us to part like this.’ She stared at him but the hard, handsome face didn’t change. ‘I thought we could be—’

  Don’t say friends.’

  ‘Civilised. I was going to say civilised.’

  ‘I’m not civilised where you are concerned, Cory. I thought you knew that.’

  For a moment she couldn’t speak.

  ‘Go to bed.’ It was toneless, final.

  She opened her mouth to argue but suddenly there was so much anger in his face that she shut it again. And then she saw him visibly get his temper under control again. ‘I mean it, Cory. Before I do or say something I’ll regret.’

  When she reached the landing and opened her door, switching on the light, Cory paused for a moment. Then she heard the front door to the building open and close. He had gone.

  How long she sat on the sofa in the sitting room with her bag at her feet Cory didn’t know. Eventually she rose, walking into the kitchen on legs that were shaky. She made herself a mug of milky coffee, carrying it back into the sitting room.

  Her hands cupped round the warmth of the mug, her brain seemed to kick in and come to life again. They were finished. She was never going to see him again. It was over. Why had she done it, why? She had made the biggest mistake of her life.

  She swayed back and forth a few times, her eyes dry now she could cry at last. Suddenly the emptiness of what she saw before her was too consuming for the relief of tears.

  If she had stayed with him who knew what the future might have held? He might have grown to love her like she loved him; he might. Anything was possible. People could change, mellow. He could have decided at some point down the line that he wanted more than a semi-bachelor existence. Marriage, even children might have presented themselves as attractive.

  She finished the coffee before standing up and beginning to pace the room, twisting her hands in front of her like a demented woman. She had burnt all her bridges tonight because Nick was a proud man and he would never forgive her for this. Even if she begged him, he wouldn’t take her back now.

  How could she have done it? Why had she been so stupid? It had seemed so right earlier after she had listened to him talking to Margaret, but now it seemed just as wrong. She didn’t understand herself. She didn’t understand herself at all. He had said he loved her. OK, it might not be the roses round the door and ring on the finger kind of emotion when he spoke about the word, but at least it had been a start. Now…

  After a while she forced herself to go into the bedroom and get undressed. She had a shower, standing under the warm flow of water for some time, but nothing helped the terrible grinding pain in her heart. After brushing her teeth, she pulled on an old pair of pyjamas that had seen better days but which were fleecy and warm and climbed into bed. Half an hour later she was back in the sitting room again, not knowing what to do with herself.

  She would go and see him in the morning. Eat humble pie. Crawl if necessary. She glanced at the clock. It was only three o’clock in the morning. How was she going to endure the next few hours without going mad?

  The buzzer on the intercom in the hall brought her eyes widening and her heart thudding. She suddenly had a mental picture of a policeman standing at the front door with the news that Nick’s car had crashed and he was dead. He had driven like one of the Formula One drivers he admired so much on the way back from Barnstaple.

  She rushed to the hall, flicking the switch on the intercom with trembling hands. ‘Yes, who is it?’ she croaked.

  ‘Cory?’

  The relief she felt in hearing Nick’s voice almost made her faint. Somehow she managed to say, ‘Nick? What are you doing back here?’

  ‘I’ve asked myself the same question.’ It was dry and sardonic, but there was none of the furious rage of earlier. ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, yes.’ She pressed the switch to open the front door almost numbly, unable to believe he was here. That he was back. And then it suddenly swept over her. She had to tell him. This was her moment. She didn’t know what had brought him back but she couldn’t miss it again.

  She opened the flat door, stepping out on to the landing just as he reached the top of the stairs. ‘Nick!’ She flung herself at him with enough force to have taken them both down the stairs if he hadn’t braced himself at the last moment. ‘Oh, Nick, Nick. I didn’t mean it. I was stupid, crazy. I don’t want us to finish, I don’t.’ The tears which had been on hold all night had burst forth in a torrent, her voice a wail.

  She was aware of him picking her up when she continued to cling on to him like grim death, also that Arnie was barking again downstairs and the flat door above had just opened. Nick carried her into the flat, kicking the door shut behind him and walking over to the sofa, where he sat down with her on his lap. She still had her arms round his neck in a stranglehold, terrified he was going to leave before she could say what she had to say. The only trouble was, she couldn’t get anything out with the tears blocking her voice and her nose streaming.

  He let her sob for a minute or two against his chest before prising her arms away and reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief. After wiping her eyes, he held it to her nose. ‘Blow.’

  She blew, gulping and then saying, ‘Nick, oh, Nick.’

  ‘Whatever I expected, it wasn’t this.’ There was a thread of amusement in his voice but she didn’t care. He was here.

  ‘I was so stupid.’ She tried desperately to stop crying but now she had started she didn’t seem able to control the tears. ‘And I didn’t mean it. It’s just that with you not wanting commitment and all that, I thought it was for the best. But it’s not.’

  ‘Slow down, love, slow down.’

  Love. He had called her love. Suddenly she could see a light at the end of the tunnel again.

  ‘What’s all this about me not wanting commitment?’ he asked softly, getting her to blow her nose again.

  She must look a fright. Cory became aware of her tearravaged face and runny nose at the same time that it registered that she was wearing the most un-sexy pair of pyjamas in the world. It helped stem the tears. Shakily she said, ‘I look awful; these are my oldest pyjamas. I bet none of your other girlfriends ever wore anything like this, did they?’

  ‘Cory, none of my other girlfriends have been remotely like you,’ he said very drily. ‘None of them refused to have anything to do with me until I had to resort to blackmail to get a date; none of them viewed me with suspicion and downright dislike; none of them had me walking the floor at night
and having cold showers like they were going out of fashion, and none of them nearly took my nose off with one of my own doors. Having said that—’ he adjusted her more comfortably on his lap, stroking her hair back from her damp, blotchy face ‘—none of them were as sweet as honey without a trace of malice in the whole of their bodies; none of them cared about struggling families and folk who couldn’t do a thing in return for them, and certainly none of them would have thought about clearing up for a tired old woman who needed to put her feet up.’

  ‘Your mother isn’t old and she would kill you for saying so,’ Cory said shakily.

  ‘A tired woman then.’ He smiled at her. A heavenly smile. ‘And none of them have given me the run-around like you, sending me away and then welcoming me back in a manner that took my breath away.’

  She looked at him, unsure if he meant it or not.

  ‘Now, I repeat, what’s this about my not wanting commitment?’ he asked softly.

  ‘You don’t. You never have.’ She stared at him earnestly. ‘You told me so, and when you were talking to Margaret today—’ She stopped. This was what being truthful led to.

  ‘You heard us?’ He pulled her to him, kissing her hard before he said, ‘There is absolutely nothing between Margaret and I; there never has been, not really. A couple of summers ago I took her for dinner a few times, to the theatre and things like that, but that was all. It didn’t go any further.’

  ‘You didn’t go to bed with her?’

  ‘I’d as soon bed the wicked witch of the west.’ He kissed her again. ‘That was never on the cards, not with Margaret. She knew that from the start. But she was a bit low—her own fault, there had been a divorce case in which she was named as the scarlet woman—and I provided a shoulder to cry on.’

  She smiled. ‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re glad.’ He brushed her mouth with his lips. ‘And, as for me not wanting commitment, that was the bilge I talked before I met you. Don’t you know that?’

  She shook her head, not daring to hope he was saying what it sounded like he was saying.

  He groaned. ‘Look at me, woman. I’m a nervous wreck. Do you think I’d put up with what I’ve put up with if I wasn’t head over heels in love with you? I’ve never waited for any woman like I have you; I’ve never had to,’ he added wryly.

  Now that she could believe. They queued up for Nick Morgan.

  His mouth sought hers and he kissed her with increasing ardour, his hands moving over her body, caressing and fondling. He raised his head. ‘What are these things made of?’ he asked, glancing at the pyjamas with definite dislike.

  ‘I don’t know. Something woolly.’

  ‘You won’t be wearing anything like that on our honeymoon.’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes stretched wide. She couldn’t have heard right.

  ‘I’m asking you to marry me, darling Cory.’ Suddenly he was deadly serious. ‘I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to fill our house in Barnstaple with lots of little Corys and one or two Nicks. I want to make up to you for what your parents did and convince you you’re loved more than you’d have dreamt possible. Every morning or our lives I want to tell you that Iadore and worship you. I want to take all the bad memories out of here—’ he touched her forehead with a gentle finger ‘—and fill it with joy. Will you let me? Will you let me do that?’

  She nodded wordlessly, incapable of uttering a sound.

  ‘I wanted to tell you all this after we’d talked in the walled garden,’ he said, ‘but I was going to lead in to it slowly. The damage your parents did—’ he shook his head ‘—I knew it would take time to diminish and I’d rushed in like a bull in a china shop. It had all happened too fast for you, hadn’t it?’

  His insight amazed her, especially as she hadn’t looked at it that way herself. But it was true. Again she nodded. And finally she told him the words he’d been waiting to hear. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘With all my heart.’

  ‘And I you, my darling. Never doubt it. You’re my sun, moon and stars. Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. My special, funny, beautiful, incomparable Cory.’

  ‘And you’re my Nick.’

  She put her arms around him and the blue eyes smiled.

  The Millionaire’s Runaway Bride

  By

  Catherine George

  Catherine George was born on the border between Wales and England, in a village blessed with both a public and a lending library, and fervently encouraged by a like-minded mother she early developed an addiction to reading.

  At eighteen Catherine met the husband who eventually took her off to Brazil, where he worked as Chief Engineer of a large gold-mining operation in Minas Gerais, which provided a popular background for several of Catherine’s early novels.

  After nine happy years the education of their small son took them back to Britain, and soon afterwards a daughter was born. But Catherine always found time to read, if only in the bath! When her husband’s job took him abroad again she enrolled on a creative writing course, then read countless novels by Mills & Boon® authors before trying a hand at one herself. Her first effort was not only accepted, but voted best of its genre for that year.

  Catherine has written well over sixty novels since and won another award along the way. But now she has come full circle. After Brazil, and in England the Wirral, Warwick and the Forest of Dean, the family home is now in the beautiful Welsh Marches—with access to a county library, several bookshops and a busy market hall with a treasure trove of second-hand paperbacks!

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE locked the car, and set off at a run past such a long line of parked cars she felt horribly guilty. The party was obvi-ously in full swing and the guest of honour was late. As she raced up the drive towards the house the door flew open, but before Anna Maitland could start scolding Kate gave her a hug and a penitent kiss.

  ‘Sorry, folks,’ she panted.

  ‘The late Miss Durant!’ Ben Maitland grinned and gave her a bear hug.

  Anna elbowed her husband aside. ‘You said you were about to leave when I rang, Kate. Where have you been?’

  ‘I went on painting too long. And at the last minute I remembered that my party gear was still packed, so I had to wear something that didn’t need ironing.’ Kate pointed an accusing finger at her friend’s clinging beaded dress. ‘Hey—just look at that cleavage! You said dress code was casual.’

  ‘Smartcasual,’ scolded Anna,frowning at Kate’s jeans.

  ‘Are we going to stand out here all night?’ inquired Ben.

  ‘No, indeed—get a move on, Kate,’ ordered Anna. ‘Take your things up to the spare room.’

  Kate saluted smartly, and ran upstairs to dump her bag and toss her coat on the bed. She replaced suede boots with black silk slippers with high silver heels, tugged her silver satin camisole into place and teased a loose strand from her upswept knot of hair. She renewed her lipstick, hung silver and crystal icicles from her ears and ran downstairs to join her friends.

  ‘Smart casual after all, Cinderella,’ said Anna, relieved.

  ‘Ready for the fray?’ asked Ben.

  Kate grinned. ‘You bet. Lead me to the champagne.’

  Anna seized Kate by the hand to tow her through the crowd of people in party mood, taking her on a round of greetings to old acquaintances and introductions to new ones before she left her with a fair, attractive man ordered to take good care of her. Richard Forster was obviously only too happy to do so, and Kate was quickly absorbed into a convivial group, blissfully unaware that she was under surveillance.

  In the adjoining conservatory, half concealed by greenery, a man stood answering questions about his company’s latest regeneration project. His answers were courteous and informative but his covert attention was on the new arrival. Unlike the other women she wore jeans with some shiny thing that looked like underwear. Her lean, boyish figure had fuller curves above the waist now, but her hair still shone like the conkers
they’d once collected under his father’s chestnut tree. And, instead of looking the odd one out, she made the other women seem overdressed.

  ‘That’s Anna Maitland’s friend, Kate Durant,’ said the man next to him, following his look. ‘Want an introduction?’

  Still unaware that she was under scrutiny, Kate sipped champagne and contributed her fair share to the conversation in the group. But when she turned her head slightly her fingers clenched, white-knuckled on her glass, as she recognised the tall man wending his way towards her. The mane of black waving hair was shorter, the build more formidable and the angular planes of the face harder, but one look at him was like a blow to the heart.

  ‘Hello, Katherine,’ he said casually, as though it had been days instead of years since their last encounter.

  ‘You’ve met Jack Logan?’ asked Richard Forster, and Kate pulled herself together, smiling with hard-won composure as she held out her hand.

  ‘Why, yes, many moons ago. Hello, Jack. Fancy meeting you here.’

  ‘Kate and I are old friends from way back.’ He included the group in his smile as he put a hand under her elbow. ‘Forgive me if I steal her away for a minute.’

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t introduce you.’ She took her arm back once they were out of earshot. ‘I didn’t get all the names.’

  ‘I know most of them.’

  ‘And they all know you, of course.’

  ‘Big fish, small pool.’ His eyes held hers. ‘You look good, Kate. A touch rounder these days, but it suits you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Kate peered past him round the room. ‘Where’s your wife?’ she asked pointedly.