What she wanted above all else was to get away from Marc and lick her wounds and remake her life…
After what seemed hours of tossing in the bed she opened her eyes, blinking at the hard, white slabs of moonlight that fell through the shutters and tiger-striped the floor.
She switched on her light and peered at the bedside clock.
She’d been in bed under thirty minutes. It was, she thought, her bravado fading under a wave of weary misery, going to be a long night.
‘Yeah, that’s good. You’re getting the hang of it. That graft’ll take.’
Paige flushed. The elderly nurseryman was sparing with his praise so this was a rare moment.
They stood for a couple of moments evaluating the rose bush before he remarked, ‘I don’t know why you’re so set on going to university—it’s a waste of time. Breeding new plants is mostly knowing what they want, and you get that by growing them. After that it’s gut feelings and persistence and a good eye. I reckon you’ve got those already.’
Paige too had been wondering whether the money Juliette had left her would be wasted on university fees. ‘I don’t have to make a decision for a couple of months.’
‘Well, you’re doing pretty good. Don’t forget to clean that grafting knife.’
‘I won’t.’
He strode off, then turned. ‘Knew I came out here for something. There’s a joker out front wants to talk to you.’
During the past three months Paige had thought she’d blocked out the fantasy that Marc might walk back into her life, but there it was again, painfully sharp and instant. Stop it now, she thought, putting the grafting knife down. It’s not going to happen.
She was knitting her life together with dreams and will power, and she wasn’t going to let a stupid obsession ruin her progress.
‘Who is it?’ she asked casually.
‘Never seen him before.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m not expecting anyone. He can wait until finishing time.’
‘Ten minutes won’t do him any harm,’ her boss agreed. ‘But you worked all through lunchtime so you might as well go now.’
It took her ten minutes to wash her hands and take off her overalls, then run a comb through her hair without scanning her face. She knew what she’d see there—opaque eyes, a mouth that had somehow tightened over the past three months, a general air of tense control.
It was hot in the cloakroom; she pulled her T-shirt away from her body and puffed out her cheeks. She had a long ride home.
Small pack on her back, she wheeled her bicycle around the shabby building, part office, part greenhouse, then stopped in the shade of a huge silk tree. Dismay hammered at her—dismay and a wild exhilaration that broke through the crust of ice she’d moulded around her emotions. Only one man in her acquaintance would be driving a car like this expensive European saloon.
Marc had seen her coming. The car door opened and he got out, wearing strength and power with a formidable authority that reinforced his height and the spread of his shoulders.
‘Paige,’ he said with uncompromising self-possession, scrutinising her. ‘How are you?’
Dry-mouthed, she returned, ‘Stunned.’ And grubby and angry, she told herself fiercely. It had to be anger that drove the colour into her skin and stirred up her energy levels, sending blood racing through her body.
That satirical eyebrow shot up and he smiled narrowly. ‘Stunned? I’m surprised—surely you didn’t expect your coldly formal farewell at Kerikeri airport to be the final words between us?’
She was staring at him as though he’d walked out of a spaceship and demanded to be taken to her leader. It was, Marc thought with cold self-derision, patently obvious she hadn’t been expecting him. He knew why, too; all the men in her life had abandoned her in their various ways.
As he had.
Damn, she’d lost weight since he’d put her on the plane. Her face was more finely drawn; perhaps the heat and working two jobs were grinding her down. But her mouth still beckoned with lushly sensuous impact, and he still wanted her as much as he had before.
More.
‘I think we’ve said everything there is to say to each other,’ she retorted, not giving an inch, her square jaw lifting a fraction and her eyes gleaming green. ‘Do you?’ He held her gaze until the thick black lashes swept down and her colour faded.
‘Yes,’ she said coldly, hating him for doing this to her. ‘And I’m afraid I’m running late, so I have to go.’
‘I’ll give you a ride home.’
‘No, thank you.’ She sent a savage, meaningless smile in his direction. ‘I need my bike to get me here tomorrow morning.’
‘You work on Sundays?’
Feeling like a total idiot for forgetting that today was Saturday, she held his eyes steadily. ‘On Monday, then.’
‘Your bike will go in the boot.’
Her laughter lacked humour. ‘It will also scratch the paint.’
She stiffened at his negligent shrug, and the anger that was holding her upright intensified into cold rage when he said indifferently, ‘So?’
‘So I don’t want a lift home.’
‘I need to talk to you—’
‘What about what I need?’ she demanded.
Coolly arrogant, he returned, ‘You need it too.’
‘Like a hole in the head,’ she said inelegantly, adding with rigid disdain, ‘If it’s my welfare you’re interested in, as you can see I’m fine. I’m thoroughly enjoying working here, and learning a lot.’ She dragged in a swift, shallow breath and hurtled on, ‘Sherry and Brodie are settled and well. She loves her employers; they love her. She adores living in the country and she’s switched from saving every cent she can for the deposit on a house to investing in stocks and shares.’
‘The share market had better watch out,’ he said with a lazy smile that scorched the length of her spine. ‘Are you pregnant?’
Her fingers clenched on the handlebars. Well, of course! She should have thought of that. In spite of the precautions he’d taken, Marc Corbett covered all bases; he wouldn’t want an inconvenient child on the periphery of his life!
Fighting back a buzzing in her head, she said baldly, ‘No.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
She met his assessing eyes with a fiercely independent glare. ‘Absolutely one hundred per cent sure. But even if I were, what would you do about it?’
‘Marry you,’ he said grimly.
Astonishment widened her eyes, but she made a swift recovery. ‘Not even you,’ she said, the metal in her words as cutting as steel, ‘can do the impossible. I wouldn’t marry you if I were pregnant, but it isn’t relevant because I’m not. Now, go back to your world and leave me in mine.’
He reached her before she had time to swing her leg over the bicycle. Strong hands closed over the handlebars and stopped the machine from moving.
‘Once you asked me if Juliette had been happy. Now I’m asking you—are you happy?’ he asked, his voice aloof.
But when she looked up she read an iron, uncompromising will in the hard angles and planes of his face.
She folded her lips together firmly and met his scrutiny with defiance that covered, she prayed, the pain beneath. ‘Let my bike go, please,’ she said between her teeth.
‘I’d like to explain some things to you.’
‘I can’t talk to you. I have to get home because I go to another job, and I’m due there in an hour.’ She hated lying to him, but she had to get out of here—his closeness was melting her resolve like a blowtorch on ice.
Her father’s rejection had scarred her life and coloured her attitudes. Without realising it, she’d organised her life so that no man could get close enough to her to spurn her love. Somehow she’d twisted her feelings so much she’d even welcomed Marc’s statement that he wasn’t offering anything but sex because it freed her from her fear of rejection.
But she could no longer lie to herself. In spite of everything, she love
d him, and every moment she spent with him brought her closer to admitting it.
‘Coming home with me will make up time,’ he said crisply. ‘Get in—I’ll put this in the boot.’
Mind racing, she hesitated; a seething glance told her he wasn’t going to move, and short of yelling for help she had no chance of getting away. And perhaps this talk he wanted would give her an ending, a way to finally cut him out of her heart.
‘Is this how you got to be a tycoon?’ she asked scornfully. ‘By nagging and harassment?’
He lifted the bike and dumped it in the car’s big boot, lowering the top carefully to avoid scratching the gleaming paint. ‘I prefer to call it bloody-minded perseverance,’ he told her gravely.
Once they were purring down the road she asked, ‘What is so important that it brings you here again?’
‘I’ll wait until we get home,’ he said with infuriating self-possession. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing.’
Almost she snarled, but it wouldn’t do any good, so she unclenched her jaw and kept her eyes on the road ahead. ‘Working,’ she returned steadily. ‘And playing with Brodie when Sherry comes into town. He’s grown such a lot—he can sit up and make noises, and laugh.’ With the slightest of snaps she said, ‘How’s Lauren?’
‘She’s fine, and sends her regards.’
‘Oh.’ Disconcerted, Paige sent a sideways glance at him, and met eyes the polished blue of a gun barrel.
Her stomach jolting into free-fall, she turned her gaze ahead again.
Marc asked, ‘Why are you working two jobs?’
Shrugging, she said, ‘I need to earn as much as I can before the start of the next academic year.’
‘So what sort of job takes up your Saturday night?’
‘Oh, of course. Today’s Saturday,’ she said lamely. ‘Ah, during the week I clean offices.’ Ashamed, she stared out of the side window.
He didn’t say anything, for which she was grateful. She should have known better than to lie; her mother had used to tell her she was the world’s worst fibber.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BACK at the unit, Paige turned and fixed her gaze just past Marc’s ear. ‘I’m grubby. I need to shower and change.’
‘I’ll make you coffee.’ Marc looked across at the kitchen and observed with irritating blandness, ‘I’m glad to see you’re using the electric jug I bought.’
‘I don’t cut off my nose to spite my face,’ she said shortly, and disappeared.
After showering in record time, she changed into clean jeans and a dark green T-shirt. For the first time since she’d left Arohanui, she realised with a sinking feeling in her stomach, she looked human again. Sparks of gold glittered in her green eyes, her cheeks were pink, and her heart pumped blood so vigorously through her system that she felt alert and vital and ready for anything.
But when Marc left she’d be right back where she started—desolated and wretched.
So? She could cope, even if it took every ounce of will power she possessed.
She set her chin at a jaunty angle and walked into her tiny living room.
Marc’s glance registered nothing more dangerous than cool assessment. Handing her a mug of coffee, he said abruptly, ‘When I told you I was faithful to Juliette, I was lying.’
‘I know.’ She tried to hide her raw, exposed emotions with an expressionless voice.
A muscle flicked in his arrogant jaw. ‘You don’t know why.’
Paige bit back the scornful words that threatened to spill out and waited in an agony of apprehension for him to tell her that he loved Lauren.
He said levelly, ‘When I met you, I looked at you and I wanted you—the classic coup de foudre.’
Bewildered, she stared at his harshly angular face. ‘I don’t—’
‘Thunderbolt,’ he translated with bleak brevity. ‘And, like a thunderbolt, it scared the hell out of me. And it wasn’t one-sided. Don’t shake your head—do you think I don’t recognise when a woman wants me, even a seventeen-year-old virgin who doesn’t know what the hell has happened to her? You did your best to resist it, and you succeeded in hiding it from anyone else, but I knew—and was infuriated and humiliated, because there was nothing more to it than mindless, elemental hunger.’
‘I—yes, I know,’ she said inaudibly, bracing herself.
Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this. He was going to tell her that he’d been exorcising an old obsession when they’d made love.
The thought made her sick. Get on with it, she told him silently. Just do what it is you need to do and then go! Clenching her teeth together, she stared into the depths of her coffee and watched the liquid swirl lazily around.
Tonelessly he said, ‘So I ignored it. I had made a promise to Juliette and I kept it.’ He paused, before continuing in a tone laced with self-disgust, ‘But I couldn’t forget you. I carried you like a shining talisman, a memento of something precious that never happened, in my head and in my heart. I don’t know whether Juliette sensed that, but I suspect it was what convinced her that Lauren was my mistress.’
Coffee slopped over the side of her mug. Ignoring it, Paige whispered, ‘Oh, no!’
‘She never knew,’ he said swiftly, taking the mug from her and setting it down on the table. ‘She valued your friendship highly. From the start we both understood that ours was a practical marriage. She wasn’t in love with me and she knew I wasn’t in love with her. I liked her very much, and I was sure I could make her happy. It never occurred to me she’d decide that Lauren and I were having an affair.’
‘How could she not?’ Paige still didn’t believe him, although something niggled at the back of her mind. She added trenchantly, ‘When I saw you and Lauren together there was such a sense of—of love and trust—and a deep, deep connection that can’t be mistaken. If she’s not your lover, what is she?’
He didn’t answer straight away. Paige couldn’t look at him; in an agony of suspense she waited, listening to her heart thud noisily in her throat.
Without inflection he said, ‘I must ask you to keep this confidential, although I have her permission to tell you. She’s my half-sister.’
Paige’s jaw dropped. Incredulously, she repeated, ‘Your half-sister!’
That small muscle flicked again in his jaw. ‘Her mother and my father had an affair—one of his many affairs—and Lauren was the result.’ He spoke austerely, his body language indicating his contempt. ‘She doesn’t want anyone to know because her parents are still alive and her father believes she is his child—as she is in everything but genetic heritage. She loves him, and he has a weak heart. She’s worried that if he ever found out not only would it wreck her parents’ marriage but it could kill her father.’
Stunned, Paige picked up her coffee mug and took a fortifying sip. All she could think of to say was a feeble, ‘How did she learn about it?’
‘A medical emergency when she was twenty-two—I donated bone marrow.’
‘But surely her father realised then—?’
His mouth twisted. ‘Her mother was desperate and contacted me, hoping I might be a compatible donor. Fortunately I was; apparently she told her husband that I was on the worldwide register. She asked me not to tell anyone. So I didn’t—not even Juliette. But I was determined to keep in touch with Lauren; when she asked if she could join the firm I agreed. She is extremely good at her work, and utterly loyal.’
‘I’m not surprised; you saved her life. I don’t know how I missed it, but you have the same bone structure,’ Paige said quietly, wondering now at her own blindness. It was too early, and too presumptuous, to be relieved. ‘And you both lift your left eyebrow; I noticed that, but not anything else except that special rapport between you.’
‘Juliette never saw the physical resemblance,’ Marc said remotely, his lashes hiding all but narrow slivers of blue.
Paige’s fingers twisted together. ‘But she knew that there was something not right about your marriage. I feel that I betrayed her.’
He stared at her as though she was crazy. She expected an explosion, and for a moment she thought she was going to get one, but eventually he closed his eyes and dragged in a breath. When he opened his eyes and expelled the air from his lungs he’d re-established control.
‘How?’ he asked, almost temperately.
‘If you kept on wanting me, even when you were married to her—’ She stopped, because so much had been unsaid.
His brows drew together. ‘Go on.’
The words tied themselves in knots on her tongue, but she had to keep going. ‘I can’t bear to think I made her unhappy.’
He exhaled again, and ran a hand through his black hair. ‘If anyone made her unhappy,’ he pointed out in a tone that strove for reason, ‘I did. You were totally innocent.’
She bit her lip. ‘I wanted you.’
‘Paige, stop staring at me as though I’m the enemy.’ He strode across to the door and stared for a moment outside, as though working out what to say next. After a charged moment he swung around. ‘Sit down. You look as though you’ve been run over by a Jumbo Jet.’
Reluctantly she obeyed, crossing her legs at the ankle, setting the mug on the table and then locking her nervous fingers together in her lap.
‘I need to tell you about my marriage, and to do that I have to tell you about my family,’ he said in a crisp, unemotional voice. ‘To begin with, my father was notorious for his affairs.’
Paige realised he was hating this. She asked soberly, ‘Is that why they called him the Robber Baron?’
He paused. ‘Only partly. He conducted business like one of the old robber barons of industry. He always vowed he loved my mother—and I think in a strange sort of way he did.’
Paige snorted, and he smiled without humour. ‘I couldn’t agree more. My mother loved him desperately. She couldn’t cope with his amours, and he didn’t seem to be able to stop himself. Not that he was a rake; he chose sophisticated women, not innocents. I think I told you once that my childhood was punctuated by hideous rows and even more hideous silences; what I didn’t tell you was that there were at least three suicide attempts by my mother. There may have been more.’
Best of Virgins Bundle Page 166