by Miranda Lee
Justine hurried to hold her mother before she fainted, knowing that their lives would never be the same again.
CHAPTER TWO
‘A BOARDING house!’ her mother exclaimed in horror. ‘You want to turn my home into a boarding house? Oh, no, no, no. That would never do, Justine. It’s out of the question. Goodness, whatever will my friends think?’
‘Who cares what they think?’ came Justine’s frustrated reply. ‘Most of them are just fair-weather friends anyway. How many phone calls or visits have you had from your so-called friends lately?’ Justine asked her mother. ‘How many invitations? They all came to the funeral, mouthing platitudes of sympathy and support, but as soon as they found out all our money was gone, they dropped us like hot-cakes. It’s as though we’ve suddenly got a brand on our foreheads. Poor, it says. To be given a wide berth.’
‘Oh, Justine, you’re imagining things. Why, only yesterday I received an invitation in the mail from Ivy, inviting us both to Felix’s fiftieth birthday party this coming Saturday evening.’
Justine refrained from pointing out that that was probably Trudy’s doing, Ivy being Trudy’s mother. The invitation had been suspiciously late. Yesterday was Wednesday, after all. No doubt Trudy had made a fuss when she’d found out Justine and her mother were not on the guest list for her father’s party and insisted her mother ask them.
Justine didn’t like Ivy Turrell one bit. She was an awful snob. Her husband wasn’t much better. Felix had made a fortune selling insurance, and only invited people to his home who could be of benefit to him. Naturally, there’d been a time when the well-to-do Montgomerys had always been on the Turrells’ guest-list. Not so for much longer, Justine thought ruefully.
‘People are giving us a little time to get over our grief,’ her mother went on, seeing through her usual rose-coloured glasses. ‘We’re not really poor, and it’s only been two months since your father...since he...he...’ She slumped down on the side of her unmade bed, her hands twisting together in her lap. ‘Since the funeral,’ she finished in a strangled tone.
Justine sat down beside her, sliding a comforting arm around her sagging shoulders.
‘Mum, we have to face facts. We are poor, compared to the people we’ve been mixing with. Okay, so technically you still own this house and its contents. But we have no income any more. And Daddy died owing nearly half a million dollars.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ her mother wailed.
‘Where did all the money go? I inherited a considerable amount from my parents when they passed away. It all came to me. I was their only child.’
‘Daddy spent it all, Mum. And in a way, so did we. Neither of us ever asked where he got the money for our generous allowances, did we? We never budgeted, never went out to work ourselves, never questioned our lifestyles of sheer luxury. We just accepted all this as our due,’ she finished, waving around at the opulent bedroom, with its silk furnishings and antique furniture.
‘But Grayson never liked my asking him questions,’ came the tremulous excuse.
Justine patted her mother’s hands. ‘I know, Mum. I know.’
‘He...he used to get angry if I asked him questions.’
Bastard, Justine thought bitterly.
She’d once loved and admired her father, but not any more. She knew the real man now, not the smiling sugar-daddy who’d obviously thought being a husband and father was covered by keeping his wife and daughter’s bank accounts topped up. The truth was he’d shamefully neglected his family, relying on his empty charm to keep sweet the women in his life.
Justine was forced to accept now that her father had married her mother for money, never love. Grayson Montgomery’s greed had been as prodigious as his lust. One of the worst rumours she’d heard since his death was that he’d taken advantage of several elderly and very wealthy widows who’d consulted him about investments, worming his way into their affections and becoming a beneficiary in their wills—money which he’d subsequently frittered away.
Justine didn’t doubt any of it. She only had to look at their own dire financial situation to know the truth about the man. Over the last few years, her father had cashed in every viable asset to bankroll his increasingly expensive lifestyle. His rampant gambling plus regular visits to high-class call girls had cost quite a bit. He’d died with no life insurance, a considerable overdraft and a massive personal loan on which the family home had been offered as security. His Jaguar had since been repossessed, as had her mother’s Astra. Only her own Nissan was unencumbered. But even that would have to go. Justine would have to trade it in next week, for a cheaper, smaller model.
‘We really don’t have any money?’ her mother asked tearfully.
‘None, I’m afraid,’ she confessed. ‘Daddy’s bank is also threatening to sell the house so they can recoup their losses. They will, too.’
Her mother’s eyes flooded with tears and her shoulders began to shake. ‘But this is my home. My father bought it when he married my mother sixty years ago. I was born here. Brought up here. All my memories are here. I...I couldn’t bear to lose this as well.’
Justine could see that. It had been her home as well, since her grandparents had passed away. She didn’t want to sell the house, but someone had to be practical; someone had to face reality and do something to make ends meet!
Like her mother, Justine had spent her entire life not having to worry about a thing, and it hadn’t been easy for her since her father’s death. But oddly enough, in adversity Justine had found hidden strengths of character she hadn’t realised she possessed. One was a determination not to succumb to self-pity.
‘Which is why I’m trying to save it,’ she pointed out firmly to her mother. ‘The boarding house idea is the only solution. Even so, we’re going to have to auction off some of the contents to reduce the loan. I thought I’d start with the things Grandma left me in her will. They’re quite valuable, you know.’
Up till today, Justine’s mother had simply refused to face what her husband had done, both in life and in death. She’d gone along blithely pretending that everything would come out right in the end if she buried her head in the sand long enough.
Justine watched now as she struggled to accept reality. Unfortunately, her mother’s ingrained habit of ignoring unpalatable facts was simply too strong.
Instead of facing their situation, she became stroppy. ‘Part with your grandmother’s legacy? Absolutely not! I won’t hear of it! I...I’ll go down to the bank manager myself tomorrow and explain. I’m sure he can wait till we both get jobs and can repay your father’s debts.’
Justine could not believe her mother’s naïvety! Who on earth was going to employ a fifty-seven-year-old woman who’d never worked in her life? Her own prospects weren’t much better!
‘Mum, neither of us have skills to offer an employer,’ she explained patiently. ‘I’d have some chance because I’m younger. But nothing fancy. Even if I was lucky enough to get a job in a boutique or a supermarket, my salary would not even touch the sides of the loan repayments. Our only chance is to run a business. We have five spare bedrooms in this house if we share this one. Daddy’s study could be made into a bedroom as well, since it has a very comfy convertible sofa. The university is just down the road. We could bring in good money by renting all six rooms to students who want full board.’
‘But who would do all the cooking and cleaning? You let Gladys and June go last week.’
‘We’ll have to do it together, Mum. We can’t afford a cook. Or a cleaner. Or a gardener, for that matter.’
‘Oh, no, not Tom too,’ Adelaide protested.
‘Yes, Tom too. We just don’t have enough money to pay him. Fact is, Mum, we don’t have any money left at all. The electricity bill came in this week, and the phone bill is still unpaid since before Christmas. They’re threatening to cut us off by the end of the week. We’re going to have to sell a few things today to pay those bills and buy some food. Some personal things we don’t real
ly need.’
Adelaide’s head jerked up, her eyes pained. ‘Not my mother’s jewellery!’
Justine sighed and stood up. ‘It might come to that eventually, but, no, we’ll hang on to Grandma’s jewellery for a while. We wouldn’t get a fraction of what it’s worth, anyway. I was thinking of taking a car-load of clothes down to that second-hand clothing store which specialises in designer labels. Just our evening dresses to begin with,’ she added when her mother looked appalled. ‘I doubt we’ll be getting invited to too many dinner parties or fancy dos in future.’
‘What about Felix’s birthday party?’ her mother challenged with a burst of petulance. ‘I’ll have you know that that invitation said “black tie”. What are we going to wear if we sell all our evening clothes?’
‘Very well, we’ll keep a couple of evening dresses each,’ Justine compromised. ‘But we’ll have to sell some day wear instead. Shoes and bags included. Do you want me to go through your wardrobe and sort something out, or will you?’
Adelaide began shaking her head from side to side. ‘This is terrible. Whatever is to become of us?’
‘Nothing too terrible, if I can sell my boarding house plan to the man I’m going to see this Friday morning.’
Adelaide glanced up with that blankly childlike expression which made you want to protect her. ‘Man? What man?’
‘A man in a bank. Not the bank who’s threatening to sell us up. One of those merchant banks which specialises in low-interest business loans. Trudy’s given me the name of a loans officer there whom she knows personally. It seems he’s simpatico to damsels in distress.’
Actually, Trudy hadn’t put it quite like that.
‘Wade has an insatiable appetite for women,’ she’d said. ‘He’ll do anything to get his leg over. I was at a New Year’s Eve party the other week and he boasted to me of the loans he’d granted last year in exchange for some slap and tickle. I think he was trying to impress me with his boldness. Didn’t do a bad job, either. Given his penchant for female flesh, you’d be sure to qualify for one of his loans.’
‘I’m not that desperate, Trudy,’ Justine had said, shuddering at the thought of giving sex for a loan. That was no better than prostitution!
‘No one’s suggesting you have to actually come across, Jussie. Of course I might, just for the hell of it,’ Trudy had added with an impish grin. ‘Wade is a handsome devil. But I can understand that a girl like you, who’s waiting for true love to strike, would not even consider such an outrageous idea!
‘So just smile and flirt and flatter the sexy scoundrel. And give him the impression that he’ll be amply rewarded if he sanctions your loan. With that face and figure of yours he’ll be drooling at the mouth, his brains firmly in his pants as he puts pen to paper.’
‘But what will happen when I don’t deliver?’ Justine had pointed out.
‘Oh, he’ll be seriously peeved. No doubt about that. But he can hardly go to his boss and complain, can he? Believe me when I say that the head of that particular bank would not take kindly to one of his employees using his position to rubber-stamp loans in exchange for sexual favours. I’ve met Marcus Osborne. Father’s had him over to the house on a couple of occasions. He’s a formidable man at the best of times. Ruthlessly ambitious but straight as a die. If he ever finds out what Wade is up to, poor Wade will be out on his ear.’
And well deservedly, Justine had thought at the time. She still did. But she also saw she had no alternative but to keep her appointment with the lecherous Wade or let the house be sold. All Justine’s other banking options had finally run out. After a myriad of phone calls, only one other loans officer had consented to see her during the past week, and he’d actually laughed at her idea.
The memory of that laughter hardened Justine’s resolve. Come ten o’clock tomorrow morning, she was going to sashay into Wade Hampton’s office, ready to do anything to achieve her goal and save her family home. If she had to humiliate herself a little, then she would. If she had to surrender some of her infernal pride, then too bad. If she had to beg, then...
No-no, she would not beg. That was going too far.
So was actually sleeping with the man. Good Lord! The very idea!
‘What are you going to wear?’ her mother asked.
‘What?’
‘For your appointment with this man in the bank. What are you going to wear?’
‘I’m not sure. I haven’t thought about it yet.’
‘Then perhaps you should, before you sell off all your decent clothes.’
The word ‘decent’ struck a certain irony with Justine. Decent was not the look she would be striving for tomorrow, not if she wanted Wade Hampton’s brains to be addled from the moment she walked into his office. She needed to wear something very bright, very tight and very sexy.
A certain lime-green dress popped into her mind. She’d bought it whilst shopping with Trudy—always a mistake. Trudy was a bad influence at the best of times. Admittedly, the girl did have an infallible taste for the kind of clothes which made men sit up and take notice.
This particular dress was made of a double knit material which clung like Howard Barthgate. It had a modest enough neckline but was appallingly short, the tight, straight skirt curving provocatively around her derrière. Justine had only worn it once, to lectures late last year. When she’d sat down and crossed her long tanned legs to one side of her cramped desk, the poor professor’s eyes had nearly popped out of his head.
Would Wade Hampton’s eyes pop out as well?
Justine cringed at the thought, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, she’d found out. The rules of her life had changed. She was now playing a new game. It was called survival.
Oddly enough, the thought enthused her. She jumped up from the chair, full of new determination.
‘Come on, Mum. Time for us to go downstairs and have a hearty breakfast. We have a lot of work to do today!’
CHAPTER THREE
MARCUS sat at his desk, angrily tapping his gold pen on the leather-inlaid surface, his eyes not properly focused on the paper in his right hand.
He still could not believe the gall of that young man! Not a hint of remorse, or conscience. He hadn’t even cared about being dismissed on the spot, without a reference.
Of course he came from a moneyed family, with plenty of the right connections and contacts. He didn’t need his salary. He hadn’t had to work his finger to the bone to make something of himself, to drag himself out of the gutter of abject poverty and succeed against all the odds. Wade Hampton’s job as loans officer was really just a fill-in, a way of passing the time till he inherited the Hampton family fortune.
The Wade Hamptons of this world had no idea how the other half lived. They were born with silver spoons in their mouths and grew up without having to toe the line in any way, shape or form.
Even Marcus’s diatribe this morning over his lack of moral fibre had not made a single dent in the young man’s insolence and arrogance.
When Marcus had been told of Hampton’s tendency to approve loans not on the merit of the business venture but on the sexual co-operativeness of the client, he’d seen red. The thought that the reputation of the bank was being besmirched behind his back was like salt rubbed into a raw wound. If there was one thing Marcus valued above all else it was his good name, and the good name of his bank. Yet here was an employee, using his position of power to virtually blackmail women into his bed.
Not that Hampton had seen it that way.
‘Blackmail?’ he’d scorned when this accusation had been thrown at him. ‘I don’t have to blackmail women to go to bed with me. Not the second time, anyway,’ he’d smirked. ‘There’s nothing wrong with what I did. Everyone was happy. Me. The ladies. And your stupid old bank. Not one of my loans has ever been foreclosed. It’s only stuffed shirts like you who think combining business with pleasure is a crime. God, just look at you. You dress like an undertaker. And you act like my grandfather. I’ll bet you haven’t be
en to bed with a bird in donkey’s years.
‘But that’s your problem. As are my appointments for today,’ he’d declared as he whirled and strode for the door. ‘I’m outta here!’
A good fifteen minutes had passed since Hampton’s departure, during which time Marcus had instructed his secretary to inform Personnel of the situation, then get him a computer printout of the loans officer’s appointments for that Friday, all of which had been done with her usual efficiency.
It was Marcus who was not operating with his usual efficiency. The appointment list had been in his hands for a full five minutes, yet he hadn’t been able to concentrate on the names. Hampton’s comment about his sex life—or lack of it—still rankled.
How long had it been since he’d been to bed with a woman?
Too damned long, came the testy realisation.
Clenching his teeth, Marcus dragged his attention back to the paper in his hands, his eyes widening, then narrowing when he spied the first name on the list.
Hampton’s ten o’clock appointment—his first for the day—was none other than Miss Justine Montgomery!
Marcus’s surprise was only exceeded by his curiosity. What on earth was the wealthy Miss Montgomery doing coming to his bank for a loan? She must know they specialised in business loans. What use would she have for such a loan?
Did she fancy herself going into some small business to pass her idle hours away till she landed herself a rich husband? An art gallery perhaps? Or a fashion boutique? A trendy coffee shop?
Marcus could only guess. There was one way of finding out for certain, he supposed. Take the appointment himself and ask.
The thought of seeing Miss Montgomery again—and in a position where he had the upper hand—held an insidious attraction. Marcus began to appreciate what Hampton had found so appealing about his job. To have a woman—especially an incredibly beautiful young woman—beholden to you. To have it in your power to give her something she wanted in exchange for something you wanted...