‘Let me remind you that I never wanted to be here in the first place,’ she glared—but Diana noticed she took a step back away from Reece, just in case!
‘Then you shouldn’t have come here trying to blackmail Diana,’ Reece reminded her harshly.
‘I wouldn’t have done—if it weren’t so damned obvious that there was something odd going on,’ Janette scorned. ‘If you had known who Diana Lamb was then I would have heard from you, I knew that,’ she sneered. ‘And if she hadn’t told you who she was then there had to be a reason why she hadn’t…’ She smiled knowingly. ‘I suddenly realised exactly what Little Miss Prim was up to.’
‘And decided, in your usual devious way——’
‘I was being devious?’ Janette interrupted Reece tauntingly. ‘Oh, come on, Reece, you can’t blame a girl for——’
‘Just get on with it, Janette,’ he advised harshly. ‘Chalford,’ he prompted her bitingly.
She shrugged, turning to Diana. ‘Chalford is yours,’ she told her in a bored voice. ‘It was held in trust for you, meticulously maintained,’ she added with a derisive twist of her lip. ‘But I was only allowed to stay there if you did, and——’
‘Janette!’ There was no doubting Reece’s almost loss of control now.
She sighed. ‘I didn’t want to live there anyway, too many damned memories——OK,’ she soothed as Reece looked ready to explode. ‘The house is yours, Diana; it became legally yours on your twenty-first birthday.’
It was shock upon shock, upon shock. Diana didn’t want to hear that Chalford was hers. Because it made Reece guilty of all she had thought all these years. And she hadn’t wanted to know that. Maybe in time, if they had managed to sort out their other problems, she might even have managed to convince herself it had all been a terrible mistake on her part, that Reece couldn’t possibly be responsible for those things. She loved him enough to want that to be true. But what she was hearing now made that impossible. And still she loved him…
‘Why?’ she at last managed to croak.
‘Surely that’s obvious?’ Janette was the one to answer her derisively. ‘Poor Howard had shot him——’
‘That’s enough, Janette!’ Reece cut in harshly. ‘I can handle this from here.’
‘Can you?’ Janette scorned, shooting the ashen-faced Diana a pointed look.
He nodded. ‘It’s all a matter of trust, Janette—something you have no conception of!’
* * *
And it was something he and Diana were going to have to learn if they were to have any future together at all. And it was something he knew Diana, green eyes haunted, her face white, a slight tremble to her lips, her hands visibly shaking, wasn’t going to find easy to do. He had known how traumatic this was going to be for her, but at the same time he knew it couldn’t be delayed any longer.
He looked at Janette again now, instantly struck by the contrast between the two women, Janette so hard and mocking, even in the face of the pain she knew she must be inflicting on Diana—and the anger that would evoke in him!
He shook his head. ‘What Howard ever saw in you to take his own life because he knew he had lost you I’ll never know,’ he said disgustedly, hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, because at that moment he would dearly have loved to throttle her, and damn the consequences.
‘That isn’t why he—why he died!’ Diana gasped protestingly, her eyes full of the memory now of the horror she would never be able to forget.
‘Oh, yes,’ Reece said gently, his expression softened with understanding as he well remembered the accusation Howard had thrown at him concerning Janette. But what he also knew, and Diana couldn’t, was that it had only been Howard’s way of explaining in his own mind why Janette was leaving him; Howard simply hadn’t been able to accept the truth—that his wife had no intention of standing by him in the face of financial and social ruin. ‘It’s exactly the reason he died.’ He gave a regretful sigh as Diana seemed to pale even more.
‘Howard had got himself involved in a business deal that went sadly wrong, and he persuaded me, much against my better judgement but because he was a friend, to help him out with a loan until things got back on their feet. And he insisted on putting Chalford up as collateral for the loan,’ he added grimly. ‘I never wanted your home, Diana,’ he told her quietly. ‘But your father was a man of honour, and when he lost everything else he insisted that a deal was a deal, that Chalford was now mine. And when he told Janette, she gave him the last blow by telling him she had no intention of staying with him when he had no money and no house,’ he rasped disgustedly. ‘Isn’t that what happened, Janette?’ he prompted hardly. ‘There was no affair between us. Ever!’
She avoided his icy gaze and Diana’s pained one. ‘For God’s sake, Reece, it’s history——’
‘It affects the present,’ he grated harshly.
Janette glared at him with hate-filled eyes. ‘All right, so I did tell Howard I wasn’t going to stand smilingly at his side while our world came crashing down around our ears,’ she snapped defensively. ‘The other part was his own invention. He knew I found you attractive; can I help it if he chose to draw his own conclusions about my leaving him?’ she scorned.
Reece could see the effect all of this was having on Diana, knew she realised exactly why her father had taken his own life now. And her expression was a mixture of relief and——He wasn’t sure what the other emotion was. But God, he knew what he hoped it was!
* * *
Diana was barely aware of Reece pointedly holding the door open for Janette to leave, having difficulty herself taking in all that had been revealed about the past during the last half-hour. Was it really only half an hour? But it had changed her whole view of things. Because she had listened that day as a child, a child who worshipped her father, had heard his distress and instantly felt defensive on his behalf, disliking intensely the person causing him anguish and pain. Reece… She had listened as a child, judged as a child, felt protective towards her father, as any child would.
And on her father’s part she could see now that, like any wounded animal, he had turned on anyone who came near him, the loss of his wife taking away any reason he might still have had after the blow of financial ruin. Not even the existence of his daughter had been enough, she now realised, to shake him out of his despondency, and he certainly hadn’t wanted to listen to Reece when he’d tried to tell him he didn’t want his house or his wife! She didn’t doubt that Reece had wanted to help him that day; she had come to know the real Reece these last few weeks, and realised now that, although he could be arrogant, demanding, even ruthless, he was not a man who enjoyed seeing others in pain, and he certainly didn’t maliciously inflict it. And he had thought of her father as a friend, he had said, and, thinking back to that conversation she had overheard, she realised now that her father had been the aggressive one, completely unwilling to listen to anything Reece might have to say.
And Janette, the beautiful, selfish Janette, had no reason to lie, had nothing to gain by the things she had admitted. Ultimately, in her selfishness and greed, the other woman had become the loser.
Diana only hoped she and Reece weren’t going to be the same, that they could manage to salvage something from this mess. It would be the biggest tragedy of all if they couldn’t…
Her eyes swam with unshed tears when she looked across the room at Reece as he stood there so still and wary. ‘You know what I believed,’ she choked. ‘And I’m not even going to attempt to evade admitting my motivation in meeting you. But I want you to know, I fell in love with you anyway, Reece,’ she told him almost pleadingly. ‘I love you so very much.’ If nothing else, she owed him that!
‘At last!’ he groaned weakly, crossing the room with determined strides to come down on his knees beside her and take her fiercely into his arms. ‘God, Diana, you have no idea how frightened I’ve been,’ he rasped. ‘How utterly helpless I’ve felt. Just plain scared!’ he admitted shakily before kissing her wit
h an intensity that left them both breathless, Reece cradling each side of her face with tender hands. ‘I love you so much that nothing else matters to me. And I do mean nothing,’ he said shakily.
Diana clung to him, feeling as if the two of them had been through a hurricane only to emerge together on the other side of it if not exactly on safe ground, at least in calmer waters. ‘For years I hated you for what I thought you had done to my family——’
‘It would have been unusual if you hadn’t, believing what you did,’ he comforted.
She shook her head, dazed at her own actions now that she thought back on them. ‘I still can’t believe what I almost——It was meeting Chris that had such an impact on me,’ she explained shakily, shaking her head. ‘Until then I had never realised just how deep-rooted my dislike of the Falcon family was. But there he was, young, successful, never having had to struggle for anything in his life——I know that isn’t completely true now,’ she conceded as Reece would have protested. ‘But at the time he just seemed like a rather spoilt young man. And he had decided he wanted me. His arrogance seemed——’
‘Exactly like mine,’ Reece accepted ruefully.
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged heavily. ‘And suddenly all the old resentment and hatred came back, and I couldn’t——’
‘Darling, you had a right,’ Reece told her gently. ‘Especially after what you suffered at the hands of Janette and that husband of hers.’ A savage light entered his eyes. ‘I’d like to break every bone——’
‘Marco isn’t important, Reece,’ she assured him firmly—knowing that he wasn’t, that he never really had been. ‘It’s all over now. I want to get on with living rather than just existing. And I want to do that with you—if you’ll have me.’ She looked at him with shyly questioning eyes.
His arms moved about her possessively. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight again now that I know you love me!’
Some of the tension left her as she gave a shaky laugh. ‘That could be rather awkward for you…’ she attempted to tease, knowing they had been through so much since they met that they needed the light relief of being able to indulge in a little banter now. Reece, she realised, had lost weight during the last week; he was much leaner, his face looking almost gaunt from the tremendous strain he had been under. And how she hated to see him like this; she inwardly made a vow to erase every one of those worry-lines between his eyes with her love.
‘Nevertheless, I’m keeping you with me!’ he ably demonstrated that his arrogance was back in full force already!
Diana smiled indulgently. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’
‘Not even Chalford?’ He quirked dark brows. ‘It’s yours, you know. I never wanted the damned place. I tried, that day, to tell your father that I had only accepted it as collateral because he had insisted, that I didn’t want the estate, that I was willing to weather the financial storm with him until things swung back in his favour—as they eventually would have done.’
Reece shook his head. ‘I never wanted to take his home away from him, or his family. He had already lost so much, it would have been like kicking a whipped puppy. But Howard didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say that day.’ His face was as haunted by the memories as Diana’s was. ‘I decided to leave, come back when things had calmed down a little. Maybe if I had insisted he listen to me that day——’
‘Don’t, Reece!’ She put silencing fingers over his lips. ‘The past can’t be changed, no matter how much both of us wish for those “maybes”. Let it go,’ she said softly.
He frowned concernedly. ‘Can you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she nodded with certainty, knowing she had to let the past go now, that it was her future with Reece that mattered.
‘And Chalford?’ Reece prompted. ‘It’s there waiting for you. If you want it.’
She swallowed hard, overwhelmed by the knowledge that the estate had been hers all the time.
Reece scowled. ‘I could strangle Janette for the way she——! I should never have entrusted her with that allowance for you, but the truth of the matter is I was ill for a while after your father died, and by the time I felt well enough to deal with any business I had all of my time filled trying to sort out your father’s financial muddle. I thought the least Janette could be trusted to do was take care of you.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe I should have followed up on what Janette was doing with the allowance, checked that it really was being spent on you, but the doctors had told me the best thing for you was to be able to carry on as normal a life as possible, without being confronted by a lot of strangers, especially as seeing me again would only bring that traumatic day vividly back into focus. At the time, I had no idea you had actually been present in the room when I was talking to your father in his study that day; I only realised that from Janette a week ago.’ He looked grim.
‘If I had known I might have insisted the best thing to do for you was get the truth out in the open. But I let myself be swayed by what the doctors said and Janette led me to believe. And she always told me you were well again, happy in school, that when the time came she would hand Chalford over to you.’ He shook his head disgustedly at the lies he had been told.
‘Chalford…’ Diana repeated softly. ‘When you told me just now that it was mine, my first instinct was that I could never go back there.’ She frowned. ‘But then I realised I was being silly, that I have to go back, if only to lay the ghosts to rest once and for all. But I only want to go back to say goodbye,’ she added regretfully. ‘After that I would like to sell it. Is that all right with you?’
Reece visibly relaxed. ‘Yes,’ he agreed huskily. ‘If you had wanted to live there, I would have done, but, I have to admit, it wouldn’t have been easy. Diana, there’s still one thing we haven’t discussed,’ he said with slow reluctance to introduce what was obviously going to be yet another tense moment between them. He drew in a ragged breath. ‘When I came to see you the other day, the morning I found Janette here and realised who you were,’ he reminded her at her puzzled frown, ‘I came to talk to you about something—important to both of us.’
She frowned at his anxiety, remembering now his urgency that day, and she could feel herself tensing as if for a blow, could tell by the return of his strained expression that he wasn’t at all sure how she was going to react to what he was going to tell her.
But nothing he could say now would stop her loving him, absolutely nothing.
* * *
Reece saw the determined resolve on her face, and his heart constricted with love for her. She had lost so much, suffered so much for one so young, and he didn’t want to be the one to cause her any more pain. But he couldn’t deceive her either; that would be unforgivable.
There was only one way to approach this! ‘Diana, I told you I didn’t want any more children because the truth of the matter is, I believe I’m sterile!’ So stark, so cold, so—barren!
She looked stunned by the statement, uncomprehending. ‘But—I—there’s Chris…?’ She frowned her puzzlement.
Reece stood up; he couldn’t bear her proximity when he was talking about something that affected them both as deeply as this. There was nothing he would like better than to have a child—children—with Diana, a son or a daughter with her deep green eyes and golden hair. God, he ached to have a child with her, but——‘I had mumps.’ He spoke abruptly. ‘Several years ago now. I was very ill. The chances are——’ he sighed raggedly ‘—that I’m sterile.’
Diana frowned. ‘But you aren’t sure? I mean, you’ve never had tests, anything like that?’
He hated the damned thought of it. At least while he didn’t know for certain he could put the idea of it from his mind. And as he had never had any interest before in marrying again it hadn’t seemed important… He had tried to ignore the possibility when he’d first asked Diana to marry him, but in the end he had known he had to be completely honest with her.
‘I’m willing to do that,’ he said tightly. ‘For you. If you’ll—
—’
‘Mumps…’ she spoke slowly. ‘Reece, when did you have mumps?’
He shrugged, not seeing the significance of the ‘when’—it was the ‘perhaps’ he was sterile that was important. ‘Not long after your father died,’ he dismissed. ‘That was the illness I mentioned earlier.’ He shook his head. ‘I spent a couple of days in bed, and then I had to get up—I couldn’t leave your father’s financial affairs any longer. Maybe if I hadn’t felt so ill I would have known to pay more attention to your welfare, but I don’t think I was thinking very well at all at the time, with a temperature of a hundred and three!’
For a moment Diana just stared at him, and then she nodded slowly. ‘I know.’ She gave a choked laugh. ‘I really do know, Reece.’ She stood up to come over to him as he frowned at her reaction. ‘The reason I was at home when my father died was because I had been sent home from school because I was ill. If you remember, it was actually term-time. But I had mumps——’
‘Mumps?’ Reece spoke at the same time she did, having realised exactly what she was trying to tell him. She had been the reason he had got the childhood ailment. He had never been able to fathom out where it had come from, since he had known it wasn’t from Chris, who had had it years before. It was incredible that it should have been Diana all the time!
‘You aren’t going to be sterile, Reece,’ she told him with determined certainty now. ‘The fates couldn’t be that cruel to us after all that we’ve already gone through.’
He looked down at her, his arms about her as he tightly enfolded her to him. ‘And if they are?’ He had to give her one last chance to change her mind about marrying him, no matter what it cost him. And it would cost him dearly.
She gave him a bright, unshadowed smile. ‘Then we have each other, and it won’t matter.’
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