by Julia James
Dragging her pull-along suitcase behind her, she started along the drive. Emotion poured through her, agonising and unbearable, a storm of feelings clutched at her heart. Soon...oh, so soon...all that would be left to her of her beloved home would be memories.
I was happy here once. And no one can take those memories from me. Wherever I go in the world I will take them with me.
She took a searing breath. Just as she would take the memories of her time with Max—that brief, precious time with him.
I had Haughton for a quarter of a century and I had Max for only weeks. But the memories of both must last my lifetime.
An ache started in her so profound it suffused her whole being with a longing and a desire for all that she had lost—the home she had lost, the man she had lost.
As the massed rhododendrons in their crimson glory gave way to lawn she plunged across the grass, cutting up towards the house, her eyes going immediately to its frontage.
This is the last time I shall see it! The last time...the very last time! The last time—
She stopped dead. There, standing on the porch, was a figure—tall and dominating and already in full possession.
It was Max.
* * *
Max watched her approach. He’d timed his own arrival perfectly, having obtained from her school details of the flight she’d be on, and calculating how long it would take her to reach here. He had the paperwork all ready.
As she reached the porch he could see her face was white, the skin stretched tight over her features. He felt emotion pierce him, but suppressed it. No time for that now. He must complete this business as swiftly as possible.
‘What are you doing here?’ The question broke from Ellen even though the moment it was out she knew how stupid it was. What was he doing here? He was taking possession—as he had every right to do.
His long lashes dipped down over his eyes. ‘Waiting for you,’ he said.
He stood aside, gesturing for her to step into the house.
His house. That’s what it is now. Not mine—not once I’ve completed the final step that I must take and put my signature on the contract for my share. That’s all he is waiting for now.
She swallowed. Anguish seared her. Dear God, why did he have to be here? Why must she endure this final ordeal?
How can I bear it?
How could she bear to see him again? How could she bear to feel that terrifying leap in her pulse, which had soared the moment her eyes had lit on him? How could she bear to have her gaze latch on to him, to drink him in like a quenching fountain after a parched desert?
He was crossing to the door to the library. ‘Come,’ he said to her, ‘I have the paperwork here.’
Numbly she followed him, her suitcase abandoned on the porch. She was incapable of thought. Incapable of anything except letting her eyes cling to his form. She felt weak with it—weak with the shock of seeing him again. Weak with the emotion surging in her as she looked at him.
He went to her father’s desk and she could see the documents set out on it. He indicated the chair and, zombie-like, she went to sit on it, her legs like straw suddenly.
She looked at him across the desk. ‘I was going to do this at the solicitor’s later today,’ she said. Her voice sounded dazed.
He gave a quick shake of his head. ‘No need,’ he said, and picked up the pen next to the paperwork, holding it out to her.
Ellen took a breath, ready to sign. What else could she do?
Do it—just do it now. It has to be done, has to be faced, has to be endured. Just as seeing him again has to be endured.
She lowered the pen to the paper. Then, abruptly, before she could start to write, she stopped. The enormity of what she was about to do had frozen her.
She lifted her head to stare helplessly up at Max.
‘Ellen—sign the contract. Go on—sign it.’
There was something implacable in his face now. Something that made her eyes search his features. Something, she realised, that was making her flinch inwardly. Making her forcibly aware that this was a man who dealt in multi-million-pound deals as casually as he ordered a bottle of vintage wine. That to him this purchase was nothing but small fry—a drop in the ocean—when it was the whole ocean itself to her.
Did he see the flash of anguish in her eyes, hear the low catch of her breath—suspect the emotion stabbing at her now? She didn’t know...knew only that he had placed both his hands, palms down, on the edge of the desk opposite her, that his tall frame was looming over her. Dominating, purposeful.
She tried to remember how different he could be—how he had stood at the helm of that catamaran, facing into the wind, his dark hair tousled, his smile lighting up the world for her. How laughter had shaken his shoulders as they’d laughed at something absurd that had caught his humour. How his dark eyes had blazed with fierce desire as he’d swept her into his arms and lowered his possessing mouth to hers...
‘Just sign,’ he said again, wiping all the anguished memories from her. His eyes bored into hers. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he said.
His voice was soft, but there was a weight of intent in it that pressed upon her.
She lowered her head, breaking the crushing gaze that was bending her to his will. His words echoed hollowly. Forcing her to accept their truth. The truth as he saw it—the truth as he had made her see it. She could not go on as she had sought to do, locked in a toxic, unwinnable power struggle in the bitter aftermath of her father’s death.
Slowly, carefully, she set her signature to the document before her, on the final page of it. The only clause visible was full of incomprehensible legal jargon she did not bother to read. Then, swallowing, she sheathed the pen and put it down. It was done—finally done. She had no claim on what had once been her home. Now it was just one more property in Max Vasilikos’s investment portfolio.
Emotion twisted inside her. Impulsively she spoke. ‘Max! Please... I know that the future of Haughton is nothing to do with me...’ She swallowed and her voice changed, becoming imploring. ‘But this was once a happy family home. Please—think how it could be so again!’
She saw a veil come down over his eyes. He straightened, took a step away, glanced around the room they were in. The original dark panelling was still there, and the serried ranks of books, the smoke-stained fireplace with its hearthrug and her father’s worn leather chair. Then his eyes came back to her.
‘When I first came to Haughton,’ he said slowly, ‘my plan, if I decided to buy it, was to realise the value in it and likely sell it on, or rent it out for revenue. But...’ His eyes flickered to the tall windows, out over the gardens beyond, then moved back to her again. ‘But as I walked around, saw it for myself, I realised that I did not want that.’
He looked at her. His expression was still veiled, but there was something behind that veil that caught at her, though she did not know why.
‘I realised,’ he said slowly, and now a different note had entered his voice, ‘that I wanted to keep this house for myself. That I wanted to make this house my home.’
He looked at her. The veil was impenetrable now, and yet she gazed at him fixedly still.
‘I still want that—for it to be a home,’ he said.
For just a fraction of a moment his eyes met hers. Then she pulled her eyes away, closing them tightly. Emotion was sweeping up in her.
‘I’m glad.’ Her voice was tight with emotion. ‘Oh, Max, I’m glad!’ Her eyes flew open again. ‘It deserves to be loved and cherished, to be a happy home again.’
There was a catch in her voice, a catch in her heart. To hear that this was what Max wanted—that Haughton would be protected from the fate she’d dreaded for it—was wonderful! And yet her heart ached to know that he would make a home here for himself...only for himself.
Until one day he brings his wife here!
Images forced themselves upon her. Max carrying his bride over the threshold, sweeping her up the stairs...his threshold, his
stairs, his bride. Max running effortlessly on untired limbs around the pathway beside the lake, taking in his domain, making it his own. Max surrounded one day by children—a Christmas tree here in this hall, where she had once opened her childhood presents—their laughter echoing as hers had once done.
Max’s children. Max’s bride and Max’s wife. Max’s home.
And she would be in Canada, or any place in the world. For where she was would not matter—could not matter. Because she would be without Haughton.
Without Max.
Pain lanced at her and she got to her feet, scraping her father’s chair on the floorboards. She faced Max. He was still standing there, his expression still veiled, still resting his gaze on her.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It does. It does deserve that.’
He spoke the words heavily, incisively, as if they were being carved into him. He looked at her, held her eyes unreadably for one last moment longer, then spoke again.
‘And I hope beyond all things that it will be my home—’
She stared at him. Why had he said that? It was his home now—her signature had made it so.
But he was speaking still. ‘That, however, depends entirely on you.’
Bewilderment filled her. There was something in his eyes now—something that, had the sombreness and the despair of the moment not overwhelmed her, she would have said was a glint.
‘You should always read what you’re signing before you sign it, Ellen,’ he said softly, and his eyes were still holding hers.
‘It’s a contract of sale,’ she said.
Her voice was neutral, but she was trying desperately in her head not to hear the seductive, sensuous echo of his naming of her, that had sent a thousand dangerous whispers across her skin.
‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed.
‘Selling you my share of Haughton.’
‘No,’ said Max, in measured, deliberate tones. ‘It is not that.’ He paused. ‘Read it—you’ve signed it...now read it.’
Numbly, she turned back the pages to reach the opening page. But it was full of legalese and jargon, and the words swam in front of her eyes.
Then Max was speaking again. ‘It is a contract of sale,’ he said, ‘but you are not the vendor.’ He paused. ‘I am.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
MAX’S EYES WERE holding hers and not letting them go—not letting them go for an instant...a single second.
‘You see...’ he said, and he spoke in the same measured tones, but now there was something else in his voice—something that was an emotion rising up to break through, an emotion that was possessing every cell in his body. ‘You see, I am selling you the two-thirds share of Haughton I have already purchased from your stepmother and stepsister. Which, Ellen—’ and now the emotion broke through finally, unstoppably, blazing through him, lighting up his eyes with the fire he had banked down with every ounce of his strength since he’d watched her walk up to him across the lawns ‘—which I now restore to you.’
For one last moment he held on to his self-control.
‘I’ve given you a very good price,’ he told her. ‘I believe even on your teacher’s salary you can afford to pay me a hundred pounds. How does that sound? I hope it’s acceptable—because you’ve just put your signature to it.’
She wasn’t saying anything. She was just staring at him as incomprehension, shock, disbelief, all flashed across her face.
‘I don’t understand...’ It was a whisper, faint and scarcely audible.
For one long, timeless, endless moment the tableau held. Max standing there, his face expressionless, and she seated across the desk from him, as white as a sheet with shock etched across her features. Then, like a dam breaking, all the emotions Max had been holding in check burst from him.
‘Did you truly think I would take your home from you—after you’d ripped the scales from my eyes?’
He took a shuddering breath, making himself calm. His gaze was on her, holding her like a magnet.
‘The moment you hurled what you did at me, before you stormed out, I knew there was only one thing to do. Only one! And now...’ A sigh of profound relief went through him. ‘Now it’s done. I put my legal team on to it straight away, the minute you’d gone, and they got hold of your stepmother out in Spain and told her I’d buy their share even without yours.’
A hard, cynical look entered his eyes.
‘She jumped at the chance like I was dangling a diamond necklace in front of her. My lawyer phoned me their agreement when I was in the Gulf, and then I knew, finally, that I was free to do what I have just done.’ He paused, and an expression moved across his face that showed all that had possessed him until this moment, the driving urgency to accomplish what he had. ‘Make Haughton safe for you,’ he finished.
She heard him, yet still she dared not believe what he was saying. Dared not believe that she had just bought her beloved home back for herself—for a song—for a gift...
For of course it was a gift! How could it be otherwise at so paltry a price? A gift that Max had given her—a gift so wonderful, so precious that it took her breath away, squeezed her lungs so tight she could hardly breathe, could hardly feel the beating of her heart, though it was hammering in her chest.
‘Why?’ It was the only word she could say, as faint and low as her breath could make it. ‘Max—why?’
She took a searing breath through the constriction in her throat and made herself speak again, forced the words from her though they were still low and faint.
‘Why should you care what Pauline and Chloe did to my father and me? Why should you give me so fabulous a gift?’
He was looking at her still, and the expression in his face made the hammering in her heart pound in her ears.
‘Why?’
His voice echoed hers. But he gave her no answer. Only strode around her father’s desk, catching at her hand and drawing her to her feet. Her legs were like jelly and she had to cling to his arm lest she collapse, so overpowering was the shock shaking her.
In her head she kept hearing her own voice, saying over and over again—Haughton is mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! Dear God, it’s mine for ever now!
It was a paean, an anthem, ringing in her head like bells. She gazed helplessly up at Max. At the man who had done this, made this happen. Into her head, flashing like a strobe light, came the memory of the moment Max had given her that first wonderful, miraculous gift—the moment when he’d shown her her reflection the night of the ball, transformed beyond recognition. Made beautiful by him.
He freed me from Chloe’s hex—and now, oh, he’s freed me from Pauline’s too!
Emotion overwhelmed her. Gratitude and wonder and so much more.
‘Why?’ His voice came again, husky now. He caught her other hand, held it, cherished it. He towered over her, his strong body supporting her stricken one. ‘Oh, Ellen—my beautiful, lovely, passionate, wonderful Ellen... Have you really not the faintest idea why?’
He held her a little way from him, the expression on his face rueful.
‘Did you not hear me when I told you that the moment I saw this house I wanted to live here? That something about it called to me? That after all my years of wandering, never having had a home of my own, having existed only on sufferance at my stepfather’s taverna and having lived in hotels and apartments anywhere in the world, I had finally come across a place that urged me to stop...to stop and stay. Make my life here.’
Now the rueful expression deepened.
‘That was what drove me so hard to buy it—to make it mine. What drove me to do all I could to achieve that aim. Including...’ his eyes met hers wryly ‘...whisking you off to London to show you how good your life could be if only you would let go of the place I wanted for myself.’
He gave a regretful sigh.
‘I went on and on at you. I know I did. But you see...’ and now a different note entered his voice ‘...I’d sought an explanation for your stubbornness, your refusal to agree to sell y
our share, from your stepmother and stepsister.’ His eyes shadowed as he remembered that scene in the drawing room when he’d made his initial offer for Haughton. ‘And they told me that you’d become obsessed with the house, that you’d never accepted Pauline’s marriage to your father, that you had rejected them from the very first, seen them as interlopers, invaders.’
He gave a shake of his head.
‘I remembered my own childhood—how my stepfather never wanted me, never accepted me into his home, always resented my presence even though he made use of it. I was always the outsider, the unwanted brat of my mother. Maybe,’ he said slowly, ‘that was why I was so ready to believe what Pauline and Chloe told me. So, while I could make allowances for your reaction to your father’s remarriage, all I could see was how that resentment was poisoning you....chaining you to this place. Making you think it was the only way you could punish Pauline for marrying your father, seeking to take your mother’s place.’
He felt Ellen draw away slightly. Her eyes were full of grief. Her voice when she spoke was low and strained, her glance going to her father’s empty chair by the hearth.
‘I was glad when my father told me he was marrying again. So glad! He’d been grieving for my mother and I desperately wanted him to be happy again. If Pauline made him happy, then I knew I would be happy. I tried to welcome them, tried to befriend Chloe...’ A choke broke in her voice. ‘Well, I told you how they reacted. But even then if they’d only made my father happy I could have borne it! But within months of marrying Pauline my father realised that her only interest in him was his money.’
Her mouth set.
‘He was powerless to do anything about it. If he’d divorced Pauline she’d have taken half of everything he had—forced him to sell Haughton and split the proceeds. So he kept on paying out and paying out and paying out. I had to hide from him all the spite and venom that came from them—hide from him how Chloe had tried to make my life hell at school, and how she constantly sneered at me because I’m tall and sporty, told me how repellent I was because of it until I believed her completely...’