A Scandalous Engagement. CATHY WILLIAMS

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СКАЧАТЬ I gather. My apologies if I’ve broken up the cosy little love-nest.’

      Jade went bright red at his words, opened her mouth to contradict him, and then closed it again. She might as well wait for his full sheet of accusations before she started defending herself.

      ‘You must have both known that I’d be back, though. Didn’t you?’ His mouth curled. ‘Did Andy imagine for one second that he could fax me his letter of resignation and get no reaction from me but a good luck card and a transatlantic pat on the shoulder?’

      ‘You’ll have to ask your brother that one,’ she muttered uncomfortably, shifting in the chair, aware that she was perspiring slightly and highly resenting the way he made her feel, like a criminal being tried for charges as yet unspecified.

      ‘I’m asking you!’ he exploded, shedding his cool demeanour and giving her a taste of what lay underneath. A dangerous wolf in dangerous wolf’s clothing. As if she hadn’t already figured that one out. All wolves had teeth and he was baring his.

      She steeled herself not to wilt at his outburst and gave him a serene smile.

      ‘Yes, well, there’s no need to raise your voice, Mr Greene, and you must know that I can’t answer your question, since I don’t know what’s going on in every recess of your brother’s head.’

      ‘Well, answer me this,’ he rasped. ‘Did you coerce Andy into this move so that you could get your pretty little foot through the door?’

      The accusation, thinly disguised as a question, was followed by such a long silence that the soft noises in the room, the gentle ticking of the antique clock on the mantelpiece, became resounding explosions. She felt fury rush through her, and she had to clamp shut her mouth just in case she started yelling at him. Yelling never got anyone anywhere. It just made a situation worse.

      ‘I see where all this is leading. No wonder you didn’t want me to call Andy. You needed a bit of time on your own to try and pin me down into…what, exactly? Breaking down and confessing that I’m a gold-digger who’s ruthlessly using your brother for his money?’

      ‘It won’t be the first time that a woman’s head has been turned by a big bank balance,’ he grated, recovering his deadly calm. ‘And Andy’s a gullible victim. He likes the underdog.’

      ‘I am not an underdog, Mr Greene. I happen to have been holding down a very good job before…’ She paused, pulling herself sharply back from any mention of counselling. ‘Before I decided to go back into art.’

      ‘Which is why it just doesn’t add up, if you don’t mind my saying.’ He gave her a cold, triumphant smile. ‘The few girls I have ever known my brother to associate with have all been simpering females without a brain between their ears. You have to admit that it’s a bit strange to find him here with you now, cohabiting in the family mansion which he swore he would never return to. I’m not a complete fool, Miss Summers, and I’m nothing like my brother. I’ve never been taken in by feminine wiles in my entire life and I can smell a scam from a mile away.

      ‘You’re clever. Clever enough to interest my brother long enough to get what you want. Did you flatter his ego? Was that how you decided to operate? A cunning word here, a sideways glance there, a soft gasp of admiration when he confided that he had always been interested in the world of art? Was that how it went, Miss Summers? Then a hesitant suggestion that perhaps moving in together might be a good idea? Get to know one another better? Share your love of art at close range? Was that how things progressed?’

      Jade’s fists clenched into balls at her sides. It was all so ridiculous that she very nearly burst out laughing. If only he knew. But the fact was that Curtis Greene knew nothing at all about his brother. He had never taken the time to find out.

      ‘What’s so damned funny?’ he asked with narrow-eyed suspicion.

      The ghost of a smile which had curved her lips upwards turned into a grin which became even broader as she watched his expression go from hostile suspicion to outright wrath. She began to laugh, throwing her head back and giving full vent to the sound that had become so alien to her over the past two years. She laughed until the tears rolled down her face, and then she subsided into giggles, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands like a child. Eventually she sobered up enough to look at him.

      ‘I haven’t laughed so much in years,’ she said in a sudden, confiding outburst. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘My pleasure.’ There was naked curiosity in the cool blue eyes now, but instead of trying to slake it he lowered his eyes for a few seconds, then returned his gaze to her face.

      ‘But I don’t get the joke.’

      ‘The joke, Mr Greene, is not just that you’re utterly and hopelessly wrong about me. It’s how utterly and hopelessly wrong you are. I’m not after your brother’s money, or anyone else’s money for that matter. I learned the hard way that money doesn’t buy anything that really makes a difference.’ She paused, shocked that for the second time this aggravating, misguided man had almost succeeded in reaching a place in her that very few people had reached thus far. If any.

      ‘Very philosophical for a girl of…eighteen? Nineteen?’

      ‘Twenty-six, actually.’

      ‘Then what is your relationship with my brother?’ he demanded.

      ‘What business is it of yours?’

      ‘What business is it of mine? What business is it of mine?’ he spluttered, wearing the expression of someone who could hardly believe what they were hearing. ‘God, woman, you’ve got some bare-faced cheek!’

      ‘Oh, sorry.’ Now that his mask of thunderous wrath had slipped, she allowed herself to relax. The atmosphere had altered between them. She couldn’t quite work out how, but she suspected that it was because however much his logic tried to tell him that she was up to no good, his instincts were telling him otherwise. And, peripherally, he was not accustomed to being answered back. She sensed that in some strange, intangible way. He was a man who had prematurely assumed a mantle of power and had grown to accept the respect and subservience it would have brought him.

      She knew enough from Andy to piece together Curtis Greene in a way she would not have been capable of doing had she simply met him out of the blue. She knew that he had been the first born, the love-child of his parents when his mother had been only a girl herself. The marriage that had ensued had been going for quite some years before two more children had been produced. By the time his parents had died, in a light aircraft accident, Curtis had been a young man in his early twenties, and without warning had found himself catapulted into a dynasty which he had proved himself more than equipped to handle. More importantly, he had found himself surrogate parent to his two younger siblings and, from what she had gathered, had fulfilled his role through the iron rod of discipline rather than the gentle hand of love.

      His past had made him the person that he was today, just as it had made his brother the person he had turned out to be.

      She found that she was staring at him, mentally trying to piece him together in much the same way he had been trying to piece her together earlier on, and she only snapped back to the present when he said roughly, ‘He’s my brother. I have to look out for him.’

      ‘In which case, you have nothing to fear from me.’ She lowered her eyes and half smiled to herself as she played the secrets she held in her head. ‘Andy and I are simply very good friends. Two СКАЧАТЬ