Jonas gave her a considering look. ‘You aren’t going to object if I find myself a mistress?’
She was going to mind being made to look a fool when her brand-new husband took another woman into his life, but the alternative was even more unthinkable! ‘I have no guarantee you wouldn’t do that anyway, even if we were sharing a bed.’ She shrugged dismissively.
‘I don’t cheat in my relationships!’ he rasped coldly, eyes glittering darkly.
‘It wouldn’t be called cheating if I knew about it, agreed to it,’ she encouraged desperately.
Jonas watched her with narrowed eyes as he slowly stood up to cross the room towards her, laughing softly as she took an involuntary step backwards. ‘You seem very anxious we shouldn’t have a physical relationship, Cassandra,’ he taunted softly. ‘Why is that?’
Her eyes were wide as he stood directly in front of her now. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ She at least tried to make an effort to stand up to him, although his proximity was very unnerving. ‘A physical relationship between us would make a mockery of everything I believe that sort of closeness should mean between a man and a woman!’ But she knew her voice lacked the necessary conviction, Jonas standing only inches away from her now, his nearness working that same mesmerising effect she had known at the weekend when he had taken her in his arms—
As he was now! Strong, enfolding arms that held her against the lean length of his body even as his mouth lowered to claim hers. And as her lips parted moistly beneath his Cassandra knew that she had only been fooling herself the last time he held her like this—that it hadn’t been illusion at all, that same aching languor entering her limbs as he began to kiss her with hard demand. She wanted this man—this man who was to be her husband!
She wrenched away from him at this realisation, looking up into that hard, merciless face with wide, bewildered eyes. She had married Charles because she loved him, and their physical relationship had been good even once the initial rosy glow had gone and she had realised Charles wasn’t quite as reliable as she might have wished. She didn’t love Jonas, and yet she wanted him in a way that shocked and distressed her.
‘May the mockery continue,’ Jonas told her huskily, eyes black as coal.
Cassandra moved away from him completely. ‘I mean it, Jonas,’ she told him tautly, hands clenched together in front of her. ‘If you insist on going through with this marriage, then it will be in name only.’ She was willing to do a lot to protect the people she loved, but sacrificing herself body and soul to this man was something she just couldn’t do!
He looked at her consideringly, searchingly, slowly nodding at what he read in her face. ‘If you should change your mind…’
‘I won’t,’ she said quickly. Too quickly? Oh, damn the man! ‘But I would like an undertaking from you that eventually all your shares will pass on to Bethany.’ She met his gaze with unwavering challenge.
Jonas’s mouth quirked derisively. ‘And I repeat, do you really think you’re in a position to make conditions?’ he drawled.
Her eyes flashed deeply golden. ‘Those shares are Bethany’s by right,’ she bit out sharply. ‘She—’
‘Calm down, Cassandra,’ Jonas cut in mockingly. ‘I’m doing this to protect Bethany’s interests, not take anything away from her. I’m wealthy enough in my own right to make provision for any children we might have together—’
‘I’ve just told you,’ she flared, her cheeks hot and flushed with the frustration of feeling that this man wasn’t even listening to her! ‘We won’t be having that sort of relationship, so we won’t be having any children either!’ God, she felt flustered just at the thought of bearing this man’s child!
What sort of father would he make? He was very good with Bethany, obviously had no difficulty relaxing with children, and—They wouldn’t be having any children between them! She was relieved that he would probably make a loving stepfather for Bethany, but that would be it!
‘If you say so,’ Jonas drawled dismissively, obviously bored by the whole subject now.
Bored! Good God, Cassandra’s nerves were still shredded by the response she had to this man, and he had lost interest in the subject as if it were only a trivial matter anyway, one that really didn’t merit the attention it had already been given!
‘Do you think now might be a good time to give you that rock Bethany mentioned earlier?’ He crossed the room to the jacket he had draped over the back of the chair, searching through the pockets.
Cassandra tensed at the mere idea of wearing this man’s engagement ring. She still wore the rings that Charles had given her so lovingly; how could she now wear Jonas’s ring in their place? It would surely weigh on her finger like an iron shackle!
The name discreetly printed on the top of the tiny box was enough to warn her of the exquisite originality of the ring within, but, even so, nothing could have quite prepared her for the dazzling flash of emerald and diamonds when Jonas raised the lid of the box for her to see inside. And yet there was nothing ostentatious about the ring itself; it was just that the heart-shaped emerald in the centre was surrounded by such exquisitely perfect diamonds that they reflected the light in glittering facets. It was a beautiful ring, a ring that should have been bought, and worn, with love.
Cassandra stared at it as if mesmerised, shaking her head. ‘I can’t wear that,’ she told him gruffly, unable to actually look at his face, tears stinging her eyes at the mockery of this engagement.
‘If you don’t like this ring we can always choose another one—’
‘It isn’t that,’ she protested emotionally, still blinking back the tears.
‘Then what is it?’ The frown could be heard in his voice. ‘Cassandra…?’ He raised a hand to lift her chin, frowning as he looked into her face and saw her eyes swimming with tears. ‘Cassandra, what—?’
‘Mummy…?’ A disgruntled voice broke the tension that had suddenly fallen over the room, and both Cassandra and Jonas turned to look at Bethany as she stood so forlornly in the doorway, the rabbit she always took to bed with her rucked under her arm now. ‘Mummy, I can’t sleep,’ she added fretfully. ‘And Father Christmas won’t come at all if I don’t go to sleep soon!’ she wailed.
Cassandra blinked back the tears, giving her daughter a watery smile as she crossed to her side. ‘Of course he will, darling.’ She went down on her haunches beside Bethany, smoothing back the ruffled dark hair from the flushed petulance of Bethany’s sleepy face.
‘He hasn’t put anything in my stocking yet, and—He hasn’t been down here yet either!’ the little girl cried as she saw that the mince-pie, sherry and carrots they had put out earlier were still untouched on the fireplace.
Cassandra thanked God that they were; they would have had some serious explaining to do if they had already disposed of the offerings and yet no presents had obviously been left yet!
‘I haven’t gone upstairs to bed yet, darling,’ Cassandra told her daughter soothingly, shooting Jonas a warning frown when his brows were raised mockingly. She turned sharply away from that tauntingly speculative gaze; if things had turned out differently earlier, he was silently telling her, the two of them might have been in her bed for Bethany to come and find! ‘Everyone has to be asleep before Father Christmas comes, darling.’ She firmly turned her attention back to her daughter.
Bethany looked slightly less petulant. ‘Does that mean Uncle Jonas is staying with us tonight after all?’ she asked hopefully.
Cassandra deliberately didn’t look at Jonas this time; obviously, as far as Bethany was concerned, she wouldn’t have minded in the least if she had gone to her mother’s bedroom and found not just Cassandra there but Jonas too!
‘Not this time, love,’ Jonas answered gently as he moved to join them, bending down to scoop Bethany up easily in his arms.
Bethany frowned down at the open ring-box he still held in one of his hands. ‘What’s that?’
Cassandra drew in a sharp breath. She had barely had time to accept he
rself that her marriage to Jonas was going to take place, let alone thought of how she was going to explain it all to Bethany—although she had a feeling, from her daughter’s attitude just now to Jonas’s staying here, that the child wasn’t going to mind too much! And Cassandra could see, from the determination in Jonas’s expression, that the matter was going to be taken out of hands anyway, that he intended telling Bethany of the engagement right now! And once Bethany realised what that ‘rock’ represented, fully understood what an engagement involved, Cassandra had a feeling there would be no turning back, for any of them. There could be no doubt that Bethany adored Jonas, that she was already halfway to accepting him as the paternal figure in her life.
Good God, why didn’t she just stop this now? Appeal to Jonas’s better nature, tell him the truth—that it hadn’t been her father who transferred company funds at all, but Charles…!
Because she wasn’t sure Jonas had a better nature!
What also kept her silent was that she wasn’t sure if knowing Charles had been the one at fault would make any difference to Jonas’s demand that she marry him and give him her shares, or if she would be betraying Charles for nothing, Jonas just wanting those shares at any price.
And if, as she thought, Jonas did just want those shares, she wasn’t sure how he would react to knowing it was Charles who had taken Hunter and Kyle funds and transferred them into a company of his own…!
Usually her father and Charles had made decisions together concerning which deals they should go for and what they should leave alone, and from the success of Hunter and Kyle that system had worked well enough for the years of their partnership. And then three years ago a property deal had been put to them that Cassandra’s father had wanted to stay away from and which Charles had thought they should go ahead with, believing it to be a good investment. He had been so sure it would that he had put his own money in it to start with, along with a loan from the bank. Over the next eighteen months the bottom had dropped out of the property market, as Cassandra’s father had predicted that it would, and the bank had called in the loan on Charles’s deal. The only way Charles could pay them back was to borrow money from Hunter and Kyle funds, money that should, at least, have been approved by both shareholders. It wasn’t, because, as Charles had admitted to her, he had felt foolish after her father had been so certain from the beginning that it wasn’t a deal they should have anything to do with! Charles had lost millions, the property he had bought so confidently worth only a quarter of the price he had paid for it.
Charles had told her everything after her father died so suddenly, needing her support, at least. And, of course, he had got it; she was still his wife, no matter how much she might have deplored what he had done As she was still standing by him, still supporting him, paying the consequences she knew had to be paid…
What would Jonas do with information like that about Charles? The truth of the matter was, she dared not tell him it had been Charles, didn’t believe it would make the slightest difference to him if he learnt it had been a member of his own family—a family he despised!—who had committed the fraudulent act, rather than her father as he believed it to be. He had made it perfectly clear that the only reason he wanted to marry her was to safeguard Bethany’s future and to secure Cassandra’s shares for himself.
Consequently she dared not take the risk of telling Jonas the truth now, knew she would probably be the loser either way, that the outcome would probably be the same no matter what she did, and that Jonas would probably just use that information about Charles to taunt her even more…! It was all those probabilities that actually kept her silent—when she really wanted to scream and shout in protest at her fate!
‘This—’ Jonas slowly held up the ring-box so that Bethany could look inside ‘—is the rock I’m giving Mummy for Christmas.’ He looked challengingly at Cassandra as he made the announcement.
Bethany giggled as she saw the ring inside the box. ‘That isn’t a rock, it’s a—’
‘It’s far too late to be getting into a conversation about rocks or rings,’ Cassandra cut in sharply, much more sharply than she intended, she realised as Bethany looked across at her with puzzled eyes. ‘It really is time you went back to bed, young lady,’ she told her daughter determinedly, taking her from Jonas and smiling at her affectionately to take away any sting there might have appeared in her voice; she was so tense she was surprised she wasn’t actually shrieking at the top of her lungs the way a fishwife was reputed to do. No doubt Jonas would like that! ‘If we don’t all soon get to bed and go to sleep Father Christmas may just decide to give us a miss altogether this year!’ she added teasingly, turning as she reached the doorway. ‘Could you just slip the lock on the front door on your way out, Jonas?’ It was her turn to challenge him now, golden-brown eyes unflinchingly meeting the dark mockery in his.
‘I could,’ he drawled mockingly—telling Cassandra without words that he had no intention of doing so, though, that he would still be here waiting for his answer when she came back downstairs.
Bethany was much easier to settle down this second time; she was actually tired out from the excitement of the day, her protests only minimal as Cassandra tucked the duvet round her and kissed her gently on the brow.
‘Are you going to bed too now, Mummy?’ she prompted hopefully.
Cassandra only wished that she could—that she could go to sleep and all of this would have been some awful nightmare she could wake up from!
‘Soon, darling,’ she promised. ‘I just have to go and put the lights off downstairs,’ and slip the lock on Jonas’s way out!
But she didn’t go downstairs straight away; she moved silently along the hallway to her own bedroom, sitting down on the bed to look down at the rings she still wore so proudly on her left hand, the diamond solitaire Charles had given her on the day he’d asked her to marry him, the plain gold band he had slipped on her finger on their wedding day three months later. How could she possibly take them off and put that diamond and emerald ring of Jonas’s in their place?
Could she tell Jonas the truth? Would he believe her? Would he care?
For all that Charles could be selfish and thoughtless at times, Cassandra had had trouble believing he had done such a thing when he had come to her shortly after her father’s death and told her how deeply into debt he had gone. It hadn’t seemed possible, seemed incredible to her that Charles could have done such a thing without telling anyone. But she had stood by him anyway; he was her husband, Bethany’s father. And she never wanted Bethany to realise that the happy-go-lucky father she had loved so much had actually been so completely irresponsible that he had got them into this mess!
The tears burnt hotly down Cassandra’s cheeks as she took off first her engagement ring and then her wedding-ring, transferring them to her right hand, her decision made…
CHAPTER SIX
PETER HUNTER looked frailer than ever on this crisp and clear Christmas morning, sitting in the conservatory having his mid-morning cup of coffee when they arrived, the sun shining brightly through the glass making it feel warmer than it actually was outside.
At seventy-eight Peter’s once dark hair was now silver-grey, but he was still a tall, imposing man when he stood up, reed-thin, his gaunt face lined with a lifetime of memories, some happy, many sad. Cassandra had always liked her father-in-law, but felt rather in awe of him at the same time, treating him with the same deference she might a revered grandfather.
Jonas didn’t seem to be hampered by the same respectful reserve, not waiting to be invited to sit down in one of the wicker chairs but dropping down into the one nearest his father—possibly because he believed he might be standing a long time if he waited for the invitation to sit down!
‘Sit down, Cassandra,’ he suggested lightly as she still hovered in the background. ‘Don’t worry about Bethany; she’s perfectly happy in the sitting-room playing with the doll’s house you gave her for—Father Christmas gave her for Christmas,’ he corr
ected drily.
Bethany had been overjoyed with the gifts left under the tree for her this morning—and Cassandra had been amazed at the ones left there for her! There had been at least a dozen beautifully wrapped presents that hadn’t been there when Cassandra finally went to bed the night before after placing Bethany’s gifts there.
Not that her daughter had seemed in the least surprised by the gifts for Cassandra; after all, it was perfectly normal for Father Christmas to leave lots of presents for her mother too, so why should this year be any different?
And as she’d looked at the gaily wrapped presents Cassandra had known exactly who they were from and why they were there. How had been another matter, but that was easily settled after she had spoken quietly to Jean in the kitchen; Jonas had left the gifts for Cassandra with her, to be put under the tree once everyone else was in bed for the night. It wasn’t difficult to guess why he had done it, not when she thought of the way Bethany had assured Jonas that her mummy always got ‘lots and lots of presents’ every year at Christmas; Cassandra certainly didn’t fool herself that Jonas had actually bought the lovely gifts to give her pleasure!
Although the fact that he had gone to all that trouble did make the decision she had made the night before seem not quite so horrendous; if Jonas could do something like that for Bethany’s sake, then perhaps there was hope for him yet!
As she had known he would be, Jonas had been waiting for her when she got downstairs the night before, and she had duly accepted his proposal and his ring—although since accepting it she had kept the hand wearing that emerald and diamond ring as much out of view as possible—
A fact Jonas seemed more than aware of as she sat down in the chair on the other side of Peter, a dark frown as Jonas’s face as she held Peter’s gift with her right hand, her left one neatly folded in her lap.
‘Happy Christmas, Peter.’ She leant forward to kiss her father-in-law on the cheek, handing him the wrapped bottle of malt whisky she knew was his favourite—he always enjoyed a glass of it after his dinner each evening. ‘Thank you for the gifts you gave Bethany and me.’ She gave a rueful smile at her daughter’s absence; after kissing her grandfather hello she had disappeared back into the house to where Jonas had carried her doll’s house.
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