Blackmailed Bride. Sylvie Kurtz

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СКАЧАТЬ already told you. I’m not for sale. From what I hear, you’re not in a position to make such a generous offer.”

      “Idle village gossip. I hadn’t thought you the gullible sort.” He opened a drawer, the solid flex of his muscles beneath the shirt uninterrupted by her barb. He searched the drawer’s contents, slammed it shut, then started on the next. “Everyone has a price.”

      “You don’t even know who I am.” Arms crossed over her chest, Cathlynn waited for his next move, icy expectation standing between them.

      He stopped suddenly. His shadow loomed long and spectral on the wall behind him. “Your name is Cathlynn O’Connell and you’re an antiques dealer from Nashua.”

      His smile caught her off guard. It lit up his face in a most attractive way, and she almost forgot her anger.

      “How did you know?” She turned away from the desk, eclipsing his smile from her sight.

      He picked up an index card and let it float back to his desk. “Your registration card for the auction.”

      He resumed his search and came up with an antique silver frame, then handed it to her, his fingers hesitating for a moment against hers. She took the frame more to break the unnerving contact than anything else, but a warm shiver still managed to snake through her. Even as she focused on the picture, she couldn’t stop the heated hum where skin had touched skin.

      The photograph showed the face of a happy bride. The hair color, framed in white lace, was different than hers, she noted—darker, richer. The eyes also appeared darker, but the picture’s colors had mutated with time. The facial features were similar enough that Sterling might put down to maturity the differences in their looks. Yes, the young girl in the picture might have grown into something like her. A shiver crawled along her scalp and slid down her spine.

      “Uncanny, isn’t it?” Jonas’s voice startled her from her reverie.

      “Yes.” Cathlynn placed the picture on the desk and retreated to the fireplace. She needed warmth to thaw the cold ice clogging her veins.

      “Think of this as a vacation.”

      “I haven’t said I’ll take your offer.” She rubbed her hands and offered her palms to the heat emanating from the weaving flames.

      “I saw the way you looked at that piece of glass.” Jonas came to stand behind her. His presence pulsated along her skin, raising the hairs along her arms in static protest. “I saw how fervently you tried to hide your desire while you bid.” His breath caressed her hair like a Chinook wind. “You want the Aidan Heart more than you want anything else in the world.” His voice wooed her like a gentle spring breeze. “What’s a few weeks of your life for something you want so much?”

      His fingers reached for her shoulders and the possessive weight of his palms felt as if it burned a hole through her coat. “Cathlynn…”

      Her name sang into her soul and echoed in her mind. He’d said it so gently, she could almost believe this dark man had a heart. And God help her, she couldn’t leave without the Aidan Heart.

      What were a few weeks when she’d searched for her ancestor’s sculpture for most of her life?

      A log in the fireplace broke in half and crashed on the hot bed of coals, sending up a shower of sparks.

      “Why do you need me to pretend I’m Alana?” Cathlynn asked, trying to figure out exactly what she’d get herself into if she accepted. Her throat felt dry, her palms sweaty. “How do you expect to fool Sterling? What if he sees a more recent picture of her?”

      “That won’t be a problem.”

      Jonas slipped his hands from her shoulders, and Cathlynn found herself inexplicably bereft. “Won’t he find it suspicious that there are no pictures lying about?”

      Jonas returned to his desk. “Alana hated to have her picture taken. She didn’t realize this picture existed. It’s the only one I have of her. You’ll do it then? You’ll play Alana?”

      “I haven’t said so. I still don’t know exactly what you expect from me. What if Sterling wants to talk about Alana’s family, her past?”

      “I’ll coach you on the basics. You’ll do your best to avoid him most of the time.” Jonas sat down in the big leather chair behind his desk. “Basically, you need to be seen but not heard until Sterling leaves after Alana’s birthday.”

      “Why?”

      “Because there’s a lot at stake.” Guarded tension stretched his features taut. Secrets, dark and dangerous, oozed from his every pore, igniting her curiosity and firing urgent warnings along her strained nerves like the dots and dashes of Morse code.

      “Like what?” Cathlynn dragged a chair by his desk and sat down. Even if the village gossip proved true, he needed her alive, she had nothing to fear from him.

      “Like a trust fund worth millions that reverts to her in a few weeks’ time on her 30th birthday.”

      Greed, always a good motive for murder. Why hadn’t anyone else thought of it? But then, only the gossip of old ladies had Alana dead. To the rest of the logical world she was merely missing. And wouldn’t he wait until after the signing over of the trust to kill her?

      “As her husband, won’t you inherit?”

      Jonas picked up a pencil from his desk and tapped it on his other hand in an annoying nervous rhythm. His eyes hardened, putting more distance between them. “With Alana missing, there will be delays and I need my promised share now to continue my work. I’m close to a breakthrough. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to…leave.”

      “That sounds awfully cold.”

      The pencil stilled; the eyes didn’t. They seemed to bore deeper and deeper, past the cracks in her mask, to her soft inner core, and anchor. What was he looking for? What did he want from her? Jonas’s unwavering scrutiny narrowed the room, making her edgy and stifling her breath low in her lungs. She smoothed the skirt of her dress to remind herself she was indeed fully clothed.

      “There are mitigating circumstances,” Jonas said.

      “Such as?”

      The corded tendons along his jaw drew tight, relaxed, then tightened again, but he didn’t say anything.

      “What if she comes back?”

      Jonas dropped the pencil and stood up abruptly. He walked to the window, but Cathlynn could have sworn he didn’t see the mad dance of snowflakes falling past the windowpane. The iron-stiff set of his face frightened her with its severity. Something ate at him. Guilt? What had happened between him and Alana to cause such unbending grimness? His skin had paled, making him appear even more formidable.

      “What if she comes back?” Cathlynn found the courage to ask again, not sure she really wanted an answer. Her mind had already worked overtime on sinister conclusions.

      “I doubt she will.” His voice grated with something close to hatred. His jaw tensed, raising tiny knots along the muscle. He didn’t amplify. Or was the harshness due to his loss? Could she be mistaken? Had he loved Alana, and were the ominous feelings СКАЧАТЬ