Revenge by Seduction

by Alex Ryder

  The smile on his lips was provocative, and the look in those grey eyes was playing havoc with her already disturbed emotions. Her heartbeat was quickening and pounding in her chest when he asked softly, ‘How charitable would you like me to be? Should I just take my pound of flesh and be content with that?’

  She struggled to bring the words from the dryness of her mouth. ‘Just…just leave me with some self-respect. Th—that’s all I ask, Ryan. Destroy those pictures of me so that no one up here will ever know the truth. Give me a chance to make a respectable life for myself after you’ve gone.’

  His dark brows rose a fraction but his eyes held her remorselessly. ‘Is that all? I’m disappointed, Catriona. I thought you’d have set your sights higher than that. After all, you are in love with me, aren’t you?’

  The question stunned her. Not simply because of its directness but because it forced her into sudden confrontation with the very thing she’d been trying to avoid. Up until the last hour or so it had been easy enough to explain her feelings for him as nothing but the result of raw, sexual attraction, because he certainly had nothing else going for him—unless you were stupid enough to think that wealth and power counted for anything. But now she had seen a different side to him. She had seen a man with a generosity of spirit and enough humanity to throw away a career rather than put up with injustice and barbarism.

  His eyes still held hers, searching and probing deep into her very soul and still awaiting an answer. With a tremendous effort she managed to rip her gaze away and she stared blindly through the windscreen. Finding her voice at last, she said stiffly, ‘Any woman would be a fool to fall in love with you, Ryan. She could never trust you to be faithful, could she? By your own admission you’re a man who prefers casual relationships. “On a regular basis” was the phrase you used. I remember it quite clearly. Your idea of being in love is different from mine. It’s only the physical pleasure you’re obsessed with. Nothing else matters to you.’

  Ryan was suddenly filled with a sense of frustration. That had been her conception of him which he’d gone to such lengths to destroy. But apparently it had been a waste of time. No doubt she’d rationalised his behaviour to fit in with her own image of him.

  There was one consoling thought however. Instead of outright denial that she was, in spite of everything, still in love with him she’d neatly evaded the question. All she’d said was that a woman would be foolish to fall for an unfaithful hound like him. Was she beginning to crack? He’d find out soon enough, when he judged the time and place to be right. The one thing he was certain of was that he wasn’t going to lose her. Now that he’d finally found this wonderful woman he wasn’t going to let Catriona McNeil get away again—whatever it took.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THEY’D no sooner settled themselves in a quiet corner of the cocktail lounge than the smartly dressed waiter was by their side with his order book at the ready. Ryan ordered a couple of drinks, then asked for the menu to be sent through.

  The soft music and discreet lighting was no doubt designed to promote a feeling of relaxation and well-being, but it was wasted on her. She still felt as edgy and nervous as a candle-flame. Ryan, on the other hand, wore his usual air of relaxed confidence, and the way he kept looking at her with that expression of smouldering relish for things to come did nothing for her peace of mind. He might have won the game, and his night of passion might be assured, but did he have to look so damned pleased with himself about it?

  When the drinks and the menu arrived he grinned at her. ‘Glenlivet and spring water. That was your favourite, as I recall. Or was that, like everything else, simply said in order to impress me?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ she muttered self-consciously.

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Don’t you dare call me a liar!’ she snapped.

  He raised a thin dark eyebrow at her in surprise. ‘Why not? That’s exactly what you are.’ His grey eyes, half angry and half amused, invited her to reply defiantly but she merely glared at him in silence and he finally sighed and opened the menu with a flourish. ‘It doesn’t matter. Now, what would you like to eat? How about the poached salmon? I should think that any chef in this part of the country can do culinary marvels with freshly caught salmon.’

  ‘I’m not really that hungry,’ she told him, recovering some poise and examining her fingernails. ‘My appetite seems to have gone.’

  ‘Drink your apéritif,’ he suggested with a tender smile of exaggerated compassion. ‘That will bring it back.’ Without consulting her further, he signalled the waiter again and gave the order.

  ‘After dinner we’ll have a quiet stroll along the riverbank and enjoy the evening air,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘It’s the end of a lovely summer day and the stars will soon be out. It should put you in the mood for romance.’

  Romance? she thought bitterly. Was that what he called it? She took a delicate sip of her drink then replaced the glass and looked up slowly to meet his eyes in heated challenge. ‘Just how long do you intend staying in Kindarroch?’

  He feigned a look of surprise. ‘I thought I’d made that clear to you yesterday. This part of the country is ripe for development. All it needs is someone to drag it into the twentieth century.’

  ‘And that someone has to be you, does it?’ she asked coldly.

  He shrugged. ‘Why not? It’s what I do best. In any case, it’s thanks to you that I’m here in the first place so you’ve no right complaining.’

  ‘I’ve got every right in the world to complain,’ she retorted. ‘If you treated women with more respect instead of as mere playthings to satisfy your lust none of this would have happened.’

  ‘You may be right,’ he said indifferently. ‘But as for all these women you’re so concerned about…well, they got no more than they deserved. Most of them gambled and lost, but none of them complained afterwards. Not until you arrived on the scene.’

  She could hardly believe she was hearing this. He made Attila the Hun sound like a saint. Of all the conceited, arrogant… ‘Are you saying I deserved to be treated like that?’ she demanded furiously.

  ‘Let’s just say that at the time I believed you did,’ he answered suavely. He raised his glass in a mock toast. ‘Anyway, there was no harm done, except to your dignity, so let’s drink to your continuing good health.’

  She clenched her fists and counted very slowly to ten, then spoke as calmly as she could. ‘I think it would be better if I went back to London. I’ll leave at the end of the week.’

  He thought about that for a moment, then shook his head doubtfully. ‘That would be a grave mistake, Catriona. It would wreck my plans. Anyway, look what happened to you the last time you went. You were like a lamb in a den of wolves.’

  She couldn’t argue with that. Then she thought of Morag and muttered, ‘I listened to the wrong advice the last time. This time I won’t be so stupid.’

  ‘Everyone says that,’ he remarked with casual dismissal. ‘But they usually keep making the same mistakes.’ He stretched over the table and patted the back of her hand paternally. ‘Take my word for it. You’d be much safer staying here with me. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t, as the old saying goes.’

  She’d never really known the meaning of frustration until now. It wasn’t very often she was stuck for words but this was one of the times. You couldn’t argue with him. And if you insulted him he just smiled and threw it back in your face. She was beginning to get the uneasy feeling that he was deliberately winding her up. Why? Was he looking for more than her mere physical submission? Was he some kind of sadistic fiend intent on turning her into a nervous wreck?

  No! That was a stupid idea. She’d seen the good and caring side of his nature. So it had to be something else.

  With an air of distraction she made little circles on the tabletop with her glass, then looked up and frowned at him suspiciously. ‘Just what exactly is it that you intend doing up here? You’re surely not g
oing to renovate and live in the old Duke’s hunting lodge?’

  He grinned. ‘Why not? Wouldn’t I make a good lord of the manor?’

  ‘I’d say it would be too boring for a man like you.’ She smiled scornfully. ‘Just imagine it. No Cardini’s. No supply of pretty young women on tap. You wouldn’t last more than a month.’

  He grinned again, then sighed. ‘You’re right. But I wouldn’t be staying there. I have other ideas for that place.’ He studied his glass for a moment, then became quite serious. ‘A few months ago I was approached by a couple of men from my old regiment. Sergeants. Good men. Tough and loyal. They’re civilians now but they don’t want to let all their special service training go to waste. They had this scheme for setting up an adventure centre. The idea has been tried before and it works. The big multinational companies send their promising young executives there for courses on leadership and self-reliance. The men asked me to go into partnership with them and find a suitable place. That hunting lodge is almost in the middle of one of the largest remaining wildernesses in Europe. It’s the perfect location for such an enterprise.’

  She wished she could find something wrong with the idea but she couldn’t, and she said grudgingly, ‘I suppose it might work.’

  ‘I’ll make damn sure it works,’ he asserted cheerfully. ‘And it’ll need quite a large staff to keep the place running. Naturally they’d all be recruited from the outlying communities and they’d have to live in.’ His grey eyes gazed at her innocently. ‘How would you like to be in charge of the catering?’

  Ignoring that last remark, she said, ‘And what about Kindarroch? Are you really going to buy the hotel?’

  ‘I have a surveyor coming from Inverness to look it over tomorrow. I want to extend it and add another twenty rooms.’

  ‘But why?’ she asked, genuinely puzzled. ‘It hardly pays its way as it is. Not enough tourists come here in the summer. If it wasn’t for the bar takings at the weekends they’d have closed years ago.’

  ‘That’s because there is absolutely nothing there to attract anyone. Why should anyone want to visit a small fishing village that went into decline years ago? A few artists, perhaps? Poets looking for solitude? At the rate it’s going Kindarroch will be nothing but a memory in twenty years’ time.’

  He was only saying what everyone in Kindarroch knew but were loath to admit.

  ‘And I suppose you’re going to change all that?’ she asked with a little smile of irony.

  ‘You don’t mind if I give it a try, do you?’ he retorted with equal sarcasm.

  ‘Only if you leave old Morag in peace,’ she said firmly. ‘I saw the way you were looking at her cottage. “The best view in Kindarroch,” you said. You can’t wait to get your grasping hands on it, can you?’

  For a moment he just sat looking at her in silence. No. Not at her. It was as if he was looking through her…beyond… She felt gooseflesh prickling up her arm, then the spell was broken and his eyes became sharply focused on hers. ‘Your old friend has nothing to fear from me, Catriona. In fact I’d like to reassure her personally. I’d like you to take me to meet her some time.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ And she’d make sure he put any promise he made down in writing, she thought grimly. ‘So how exactly do you intend dragging my village into the twentieth century?’ she demanded.

  ‘I’m going to turn it into the finest marina north of the Med,’ he announced casually. ‘Everything is already there. It has one of the safest harbours on the west coast and plenty of room for development. In three years’ time you’ll never recognise the place.’

  She stared at him, then almost shuddered. ‘You can’t be serious! We’ve had these weekend sailors with their flashy yachts and motor cruisers before. They come ashore, lording it over everyone. They bring all their fancy food and drink with them, so they never contribute anything to the local economy, and when they’ve gone they leave the place littered with junk and all the trash they’ve tossed overboard.’ She eyed him with derision. ‘The villagers aren’t going to thank you for that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect them to,’ he answered patiently. ‘But there won’t be any weekend sailors to worry about. It’s settlers I want to attract. High-powered executives with their families. They’ll love the peace and quiet of the Western Highlands. Hunting, shooting, fishing and sailing right on their doorstep.’

  She almost laughed aloud. The flaw in the idea was so obvious. ‘And how are these “high-powered executives” going to commute to their offices in London? Are you going to build an airstrip as well?’ she asked caustically. ‘By the time they get home at night it’ll be time to put the cat out.’

  ‘They won’t have to commute anywhere,’ he replied calmly. ‘Haven’t you heard? This is the age of the information highway. Do you realise that the average executive in London does as much work while stuck in some traffic jam somewhere by using a cell phone and a laptop computer as he does in his office? He can be in instantaneous touch with his secretary in Manchester or his head salesman in Tokyo. The days of the office block are over. They’re too expensive and take up too much valuable real estate.’ He grinned at her look of wonder. ‘In Kindarroch there’ll be a business centre with state-of-the-art technology. Everything they could conceivably need will be there. And just think of the jobs it’ll bring.’

  It took her breath away. Whatever else he might be he was undoubtedly a man with one hell of an imagination. And she hadn’t the slightest doubt that he could do it. If he was as ruthless and single-minded in business as he was in the pursuit of women then he was bound to succeed.

  ‘Well, if you pull it off, they’ll probably erect a statue to you on the harbour wall,’ she said bitterly. ‘You’ll forgive me if I stay away from the unveiling, won’t you?’

  That taunting little grin was back on his lips as he remonstrated, ‘Come now, Catriona. Don’t be such a spoilsport. After all, if there is any credit to be given I insist that you share it with me. If it hadn’t been for you I’d never have heard of Kindarroch.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ she muttered.

  She remained tense during dinner, only managing to pick away without much enthusiasm at the delicious meal. Thankfully Ryan made no attempt to indulge in small talk, and for that at least she was grateful. It gave her time to ponder her situation. On second thoughts perhaps that was a deliberate ploy on his part. Just let her stew in her own juice. When it came to exacting revenge, the McNeils had nothing to teach him.

  She’d never, ever been anything other than ruthlessly honest with herself, and if she applied that to her present situation she was forced to admit that the thought of making love with him tonight made her dry-mouthed with anticipation. She could easily rationalise her guilt away by reminding herself that she was only doing it to save her family from shame. No one needed to tell her that that was a specious argument but it would have to do. Her desire to be possessed by him once more might be primitive but it was also a demon which wasn’t going to be ignored and forgotten just because it wasn’t welcome.

  Her real problem was just over the horizon. If he’d intended returning to London when he’d got what he’d come for she could have lived with that. He’d have been gone for good and she could have readjusted her life accordingly.

  But he wasn’t going to leave. From the grandiose plans he’d just unfolded it looked as if he intended taking up permanent residence. And he’d also given broad hints at his displeasure should she decide to leave. What the hell was his idea? Did he think she’d stand for being his personal concubine to be on hand whenever he felt like it?

  Instead of having coffee when the meal was over he took her back to the cocktail lounge for another whisky.

  ‘Are you intending to get me drunk?’ she demanded quietly when they were seated.

  ‘Perish the thought,’ he answered glibly. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for that. The look of resignation on your face as you sat through the meal told me all I want to know.’ He bared
his teeth in a satyr’s grin. ‘But I’ve a deep-down feeling that beneath that sour expression your little heart is beating wildly in anticipation of the pleasures ahead.’

  She looked away uncomfortably. ‘You’re impossible. You’re a disgrace to your sex.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he admitted with frankness. ‘I’m no angel, but at least I’m honest… Unlike some people I can think of, I’ve never pretended to be something I’m not.’

  It had the unmistakable ring of an accusation and she looked at him sharply. ‘I suppose you’re going to drag Trixie Trotter back from the dead?’

  He returned her look with an even sharper one of his own. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that misguided escapade, my dear girl. I was remembering the conversation we had when we first met.’

  Her face went blank and he continued softly, ‘It was only a few weeks ago, Catriona. Surely you haven’t forgotten the start of it all and the lies you told me?’

  She sat up rigidly, almost bristling with anger, aware but uncaring of the covert glances in her direction. ‘That’s the third time today you’ve accused me of lying!’ she said in a fury. ‘I resent that strongly. Either you apologise right now or I’ll…I’ll…’

  ‘You’ll what?’ he asked, raising a darkly mocking eyebrow in challenge.

  She sat and glared at him for a moment, then she pushed her chair back, got angrily to her feet and stormed her way to the exit.

  He caught up with her in the foyer, and, grabbing her tightly by the arm, he unobtrusively steered her towards the main entrance and out onto the terrace. There he pulled her to a stop and looked down into her flushed and angry face. ‘All right. Calm down, you impetuous little fire-eater. I apologise. Instead of saying that you lied to me I should perhaps have said that you misled me. There, does that make you feel any better?’

  ‘No, it bloody well doesn’t,’ she fumed.

  ‘Then perhaps this will.’ With an abruptness which shocked her into startled immobility he yanked her head back and kissed her savagely on the lips.