by Julia James
She thrust him away, lurching backwards. Her eyes were wide and distended. Emotion battered at her. Stress, weariness and anger rushed up in her.
‘It’s my home, Max! Why should I sell it so that someone like you can turn it into a hotel? Or sell it on to some oligarch or sheikh who’ll only set foot it in once a year, if that!’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘That isn’t what I want to do with Haughton. What I want is—’
She didn’t let him finish. Dear God, why was he choosing now, of all times, to lay into her again? Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Stop going on and on about it?
‘I don’t care what you want! I don’t care because I will fight you to the last—fight Pauline and Chloe to the last. Haughton is my home, and all I want—all I want—is to live there in peace!’
Max’s hand slashed through the air. Exasperation and anger and emotions that were far more powerful than both of them fuelled his outburst. ‘Then do it! Just damn well do it! Stop your venomous, vengeful feud with your stepmother, which is twisting you and poisoning you, and buy them out.’
He saw her freeze, his words stopping her in her tracks.
‘Buy them out...’ It was not a question, not a statement. Merely an echo. Her face was blank—quite blank.
He took a heavy breath. ‘Yes, buy them out. If that is how you feel, Ellen, then simply buy their share from them so they can make a new life for themselves somewhere miles away from you, since I’m sure they feel the same way themselves. And then there’ll finally be an end to this sorry saga. God knows I’ve tried to show you how good your life can be, but while you cling to your vendetta, keep punishing Pauline and Chloe, the poison is destroying you.’
He shook his head. He was beating it against a brick wall, he could see. He turned away, pouring himself a cup of coffee and knocking it back, as if to restore energy levels that were suddenly drained dry. Could nothing make her see what she was doing to herself?
There was the lightest touch on his arm. Ellen was there, drawing his attention. He put down the drained cup and turned.
There was something strange in her expression—something he’d never seen before. And it chilled him to the core.
Her voice, when she spoke was thin...thin like a needle. ‘You said I should buy out Pauline and Chloe’s share of Haughton...’ Something flared in her eyes like a black flame. ‘What with?’ The words were spat at him.
Exasperation lashed from him. ‘Ellen, don’t be melodramatic,’ he said crushingly. ‘You could easily buy them out if you wanted. Pauline told me that you’d inherited everything else your father left—his stocks, his shares, all his other assets. She told me herself he was a very wealthy man.’
He saw her face whiten like a bone. Bleach-white. The hand on his sleeve seemed to spasm. But when she spoke her voice was very calm. Too calm.
‘Let me tell you something, Max.’
Her hand dropped like a dead weight from his arm. There was something odd about the way she was looking at him. Something that made him think of a mortally wounded animal.
‘Do you remember the night of that Edwardian ball? The jeweller who arrived with all that jewellery for hire? Do you remember I chose the rubies immediately?’
There was something wrong with her voice too, and it made Max frown.
‘It was not just because they went with my gown. It was because—’
And now there was definitely something wrong with her voice—with her eyes—with her white face and stiffened body.
‘Because they once belonged to my mother. I recognised them instantly—especially the ring. It was her engagement ring. And it was my great-grandmother’s before that—as was the rest of the parure. My mother liked the old-fashioned setting. But Pauline did not.’
And now Ellen’s eyes had a different expression in them—one that Max found was causing the blood in his veins to freeze.
‘So she sold it. She sold a great deal of my mother’s jewellery, only keeping what she liked. Or what Chloe liked. They both like pearls, as it happens, in particular. The double pearl necklace Pauline was wearing when you came to lunch was my father’s tenth anniversary present to my mother, and the pearl bracelet Chloe wore was given to me by my parents for my thirteenth birthday. Chloe helped herself to it—said it was wasted on me. Wasted on me because I was nothing but a clumsy great elephant, an ugly lump, totally gross. And she never, ever missed an opportunity to remind me of that! Wherever and whenever. She made me a laughing stock at school for it, and has gone on laughing ever since—she’s mocked me mercilessly ever since her mother got her claws into my poor, hapless father!’
Max saw her take a breath—just a light, short breath—before she plunged on. There was still the same chilling light in her eyes, in her voice.
‘When Pauline married my father he was, indeed, a very wealthy man. It was his main attraction for her, his money—she just loved spending it. And so she spent and she spent and she spent! She spent it all. All of it! She spent it on endless holidays to expensive places—spent a fortune on interior designers both at Haughton and for the flat in Mayfair she insisted on. And she spent it on couture clothes for herself and Chloe, and on flash cars that were renewed every year, and more and more jewellery for themselves, and endless parties and living the high life at my father’s expense.
‘She burned through the lot. He sold everything in the end—all his stocks and shares, and some of the most valuable paintings. He cashed in all his funds and his life insurance, just to keep her in the luxury she demanded for herself. He died with almost nothing except Haughton—and he left two-thirds of that to Pauline and Chloe. Pauline made sure of that when he had to make a new will once he’d remarried. Made very, very sure!
‘So you see, Max—’ there was a twisting in her voice now, like the wire of a garrotte ‘—there is absolutely nothing left of my father’s wealth except what Haughton represents, so it would be hard for me to buy out Pauline and Chloe on my teacher’s salary. That goes on paying for groceries and council tax and utility bills—and for my stepmother and stepsister’s essential expenses. Like having their hair done. Their little jaunts abroad, of course, are paid for by systematically selling off the antiques and paintings left in the house.’
Her voice changed again, becoming mocking in its viciousness.
‘To be fair to them, that’s how I’ve decided I’m going to pay for the clothes I bought here in London. After all, why shouldn’t I get just a fraction—a tiny, minute, minuscule fraction—of what my father’s wife has taken? And by the same token, Max...’
The pitch of her voice chilled his blood once more, and the venom in her eyes was toxic.
‘Why shouldn’t I be just a tiny, teeny bit...reluctant...to let that pair of blood-sucking vampires sell my parents’ home out from under my feet? Why damn well shouldn’t I? Because it’s all I’ve got left. They’ve taken everything else—everything! They bled my father dry and made his life hell—and mine! And I will loathe their guts for it till my dying day.’
A shuddering breath escaped her, as if she were at the end of all her strength.
‘So now, if you don’t mind, Max, I’m going to go back to the place where I was born and raised, where I was once entirely happy until those...vultures...invaded it. The home I so fondly thought would one day be mine to raise my own family in, where I’d live out my days, but which is now going to be torn from me by my grasping, greedy, vile stepmother and stepsister, because it’s the only thing left they can take. And I’m going to make the most of it—the very most of it—until the law courts, or the bailiffs, or your security guards or whatever it damn well takes drive me out of it.’
Her face contorted. She whirled around, seizing up her suitcase. He watched her stalk across the room, yank open the door, slam it shut behind her. Watched her while he stood motionless.
Quite, quite motionless.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HAUGHTON WAS BATHED in watery sunlight, turning the ho
use and gardens to pale silver, but as she stepped inside misery filled Ellen to the brim—for her father’s ruin, her stepmother’s avarice, for her angry parting with Max, for parting with him at all.
And for the loss of her home, which must come—now, or later, come it must.
As she went into the kitchen she could feel a dull, dread awareness forcing itself into her consciousness. A new, bitter truth pushing itself in front of her.
I can’t go on like this. I just can’t—not any longer.
Stark and brutal, the words incised themselves into her consciousness. She felt a pit of cold, icy water in her insides, a knot of dread and resolve. She had to face it—accept it. She could not stay locked in her vicious, destructive battle with Pauline and Chloe. It was a battle she could not win in the end. A battle that was indeed twisting her, deforming her.
I can’t stop them taking it from me. I can’t stop them and I can’t go on the way I have been. So all I can do is give in. Give up. Give up my home.
More words echoed in her head, stinging even more painfully. Max calling this house a tomb. Her tomb. She felt her hands clench as if in desperate denial. But his accusation stabbed again. Forcing her to face what he had launched at her. Forcing her to face another truth as well.
I’ve changed. Max has changed me—changed not just my outer appearance but what is inside as well. I’m not the same person any more. Being with him, seeing the world with him, has changed me. He’s opened my eyes to the world beyond here, given me the means to make the most of it, to stride through it with confidence and assurance.
I won’t have him and I won’t have Haughton—but I will have myself. And that must be enough. It must be enough because it is all that I can have now.
She knew it, accepted it—had no choice but to accept it.
But it was with a heavy heart and a sick feeling of dread and painful anguish that she went to make the phone call she knew she must make.
* * *
Max sat with an expression of polite interest on his face, as his meeting with the Sheikh’s development minister proceeded. The meeting was going well, mutual benefits from his proposal were being agreed, relations were all extremely cordial and everyone all around was very pleased.
But Max’s thoughts were far, far away, burningly consumed by a project that was small fry compared to the one being set up here, but ultimately far more important to him. One that was crucial to his future. His UK head of legal affairs had phoned him just as he’d arrived for his meeting and Max had mentally punched the air with relief.
The meeting finally over, with an entirely satisfactory conclusion, Max walked out to his waiting car. The heat of the Persian Gulf engulfed him. So did spearing emotion.
Ellen should be here. She should be at the hotel, by the pool. I’d join her and then enjoy a sundowner as the day cooled, looking forward to dinner together followed by an early night.
Then tomorrow we’d explore the souks of the old city, with the scent of a thousand spices and the fragrance of frankincense everywhere we went, with gold glinting from a hundred stalls! We’d cruise along the coast at sunset in a dhow, watching the sun set over the city like a ball of crimson flame.
The next day we’d drive into the desert, camp out in the Empty Quarter, sleep under the stars burning holes in heaven’s floor...
He tore his mind away. He must not indulge in such wishful thinking. He must only look to the future now—must get back to his hotel, phone London, get matters expedited, concluded with all possible haste. No delays could be tolerated. The rest of his life depended on it.
* * *
Ellen glanced at her stopwatch, lifted her whistle to her lips and blew sharply to call full time on the match that was taking place on the pitch in front of her. She shivered. A cold wind was blowing, seemingly straight off the tundra hundreds of miles to the north—the Canadian spring was later to arrive than the English one.
But she was grateful that her headmistress had looked to her to accompany the school’s lacrosse team’s visit to a school in Ontario at short notice when a fellow games teacher had had to pull out. Even more grateful for the invitation she had just received from the principal here—to spend the summer semester as an exchange teacher.
New horizons, a new life—Max would approve.
She sheered her mind away. No—don’t think of Max. Don’t think of anything to do with him. He was gone, out of her life now—gone from everything that had ever been anything to do with her. Except... She felt emotion twist inside her like a spasm, except from the one place on earth she had sought so desperately to keep—the place that a single phone call to her solicitor had severed from her for ever.
Maybe here, as she forged a new life for herself, she might start to forget the home she had lost. Maybe here, in the years to come, she might forget the man who had given her more than she had ever thought to have—who now possessed what she had feared so much to lose. Maybe. But she could not believe it. Because there was only one place on earth she wanted to call home. Only one man on earth she wanted to share it with.
Max! Oh, Max, why am I missing you so much? Why do I want only to rush back to you? To go with you wherever in the world you go, for however long you want me? Why do my dreams torment me? Why does longing fill me—useless, hopeless longing for some fairy-tale world where it would all have been different?
A world in which Haughton was hers. In which Max was hers.
But what was the point of such longings? What would be the point, now, in standing here in the cold wind, in this alien land, and dreading a future on her own, without Haughton, without Max? What would be the point of admitting that what she had tried to pass off as merely a predictable reaction to the first man in her life was so much more?
What would be the point in admitting she’d fallen in love with him?
* * *
Max turned the powerful car on to the long curve of the gravelled drive, flanked at either side by a crimson blaze of rhododendrons, misted with bluebells along its verges, until the vista opened up to reveal the lawns and gardens beyond, and then the house itself, with the pale mauve of wisteria coming into bloom tumbling over the porch.
Haughton was, indeed, looking its best in the late spring sunshine. Satisfaction overflowed in him.
He had achieved exactly what he wanted, and as he parked his car in the kitchen courtyard his mind went back to the first time he had done so.
I fell in love with this place the moment I saw it and nothing has changed.
Except that Haughton was now his.
Satisfaction curved his mouth into a smile, putting a gleam into his dark eyes as he strode up to the back door. Haughton was his. His to do exactly as he wanted! With no more blocks or obstacles or impediments.
His keys were at the ready—after the completion of his purchase they were in his possession—and he unlocked the back door, glancing briefly into the kitchen where Ellen had hurled at his head her refusal to sell her share of the property unless it was forced from her by a court of law. Yet again satisfaction filled him. Well, that had not proved necessary.
He walked down the stone-flagged corridor to push open the green baize door and walk out into the front hall. It was chilly there, with no heating on yet, but that would be easily remedied. He paused, and gazed around, feeling the silence of the old house lap at him.
It’s waiting. Waiting for its new owner to take possession. To live here and make a home here. To love it as it wants to be loved, to cherish it and value it.
Into his head came the memory of how he’d stood on this very spot, recognising his self-discovery, his sudden determination that he should make a home here for himself—recalling the moment he’d first felt that overpowering urge so strongly.
For a fleeting moment regret showed in his eyes for what he had done. Then it was gone. He had done what he had done, and it was what he had wanted to do. He would allow himself to feel nothing but satisfaction at having accomplished it. Nothing b
ut that. He would have no regrets at how he had achieved it—at the price that had been paid for it. None.
He strode to the front door, throwing back the bolts and locks and opening it wide. Only one more signature was required to fulfil his purpose, to achieve what he wanted to do. And that would be supplied soon—very soon. He stood and watched over the gardens. Waiting...
* * *
Ellen sat in the back of the taxi taking her from the station to Haughton. A grief so profound she could not name its depth filled her. This was to be her very last time walking into the house that had been her home—that was hers no longer. Now, after landing that morning from Toronto, her charges having been safely bestowed upon their waiting parents, she was coming here only to remove her own personal possessions and the few keepsakes she still had from her parents before returning to Canada.
Everything else was included in the sale. A sale that had been conducted at breakneck speed the moment she’d made that fatal phone call to her solicitor to yield victory to Pauline and Chloe.
Now all that remained was for her to put her signature to the contract. She’d be calling in at the family solicitor on her way back to the station. Where Pauline and Chloe were she did not know and did not care. They’d signed the contract and taken themselves off—presumably to await the transfer of their share of the sale price into their accounts and then spend it as lavishly on themselves as they had spent all the rest of her father’s money.
She closed her eyes. She must not let bitterness and anger fill her again. She must not! Max had been right—those harsh emotions had eaten away at her for too long. Now she had to make a new life for herself. A life without Haughton. A life without Max.
She felt her throat constrict, felt pain lance at her.
I’ve lost my home and I’ve lost my heart as well. I can bear neither of them, and yet I must.
‘Stop! Please!’
The words broke from her as the taxi driver turned between the stone pillars on to the drive. Startled, he braked, and Ellen fumbled for money, pressing it into his hand and scrambling from the vehicle.