The Devils Price. Carole Mortimer

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СКАЧАТЬ challengingly. ‘Couldn’t you have brought your way to fame?’

      She had known the insult was coming, had been expecting it, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept when it did come.

      ‘Didn’t my father pay you enough, Cynara?’ he probed hardly.

      She moistened dry lips. ‘I’m sure your father must have told you I didn’t cash that cheque.’

      His laugh was harshly derisive. ‘I know you couldn’t cash the cheque,’ he amended with distaste. ‘My father put a stop on it as soon as you walked out the door with it clutched in your greedy little hand!’

      She should have known Nicholas Buchanan would do something like that, that he wouldn’t take the risk that she just might cash his cheque! But she hadn’t even attempted to do so, by accepting it they all knew she had alienated herself from Zack’s love for good; and that was what she had wanted. It was what Nicholas Buchanan had wanted too, and as usual he had had his way.

      ‘Why didn’t you simply marry a man who could help your career?’ Zack continued to taunt. ‘Someone in the record business, perhaps,’ he scorned.

      ‘If that had been what I had wanted I could have married you!’ she snapped, her eyes flashing darkly. ‘You had enough money to buy me a recording studio!’

      He looked her over with deliberate contempt. ‘I probably would have done too,’ he conceded with self-disgust. ‘I was totally infatuated with you five years ago.’

      Cynara swallowed hard. ‘And I thought it was love.’

      ‘Perhaps it was, for a time,’ he rasped. ‘But knowing the woman you’re in love with, and who supposedly loves you, has accepted money to get out of your life has a way of souring the emotion!’

      It had left him a very embittered man, she could see that. But she didn’t feel she was completely to blame for that. ‘I distinctly remember, on our first evening together, your telling me a temporary relationship was all you were interested in,’ she reminded softly.

      ‘I changed my mind,’ he bit out.

      ‘But I didn’t,’ she stated simply. ‘I didn’t want a husband, rich or otherwise.’

      ‘I soon found that out!’

      ‘I don’t know why you’re so bitter and twisted about it, Zack,’ she dismissed with an indifference she was far from feeling. ‘You must have been reconciled with Joanne soon after that.’

      ‘Yes, I must have been, mustn’t I?’ His mouth twisted. ‘Which brings us back to Michael. From the conversation you had with him he seemed convinced it’s only a matter of time before we resume our affair.’

      ‘I hope you told him how ridiculous that idea was,’ she said dryly.

      He fixed her with an arrogant stare. ‘I am not in the habit of discussing my private life with a ten-year-old!’

      Cynara’s mouth twisted. ‘Even when that ten-year-old can seem like he’s thirty?’

      He gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘Michael is very mature for his age,’ he agreed. ‘Nevertheless, I think you could have refrained from discussing our past—association, with him.’

      ‘I told you, he was the one who introduced the subject,’ she insisted exasperatedly.

      ‘And I told you I don’t believe you,’ Zack rasped.

      ‘Maybe I should just ask Michael to tell you the truth,’ she flared.

      ‘My son is in bed, asleep I hope, at ten o’clock at night,’ he said disparagingly. ‘And he and Kelly return to my mother’s house tomorrow.’

      Her eyes widened. ‘They don’t live with you?’

      His mouth tightened at the unspoken criticism. ‘You think dragging my children from one hotel to another would be a suitably stable life for them? he snapped.

      She shrugged, frowning. ‘They’re with you this time, I just assumed …’

      ‘You assumed wrong,’ he bit out. ‘We are all on our way back from a holiday with Joanne’s mother in Australia, Michael will be returning to his boarding school in a week or so, and Kelly will be cared for by my mother and her nanny.’

      ‘Don’t you miss them?’ The question came out before she could stop herself, biting her lip as he looked at her coldly.

      ‘Your concern for my children is touching, Cynara, considering you’ve been so self-centred in your career you haven’t had time to have any of your own.’ His mouth twisted contemptuously.

      ‘But I can see you wouldn’t want to mar that beautiful body, even temporarily.’ He stood up, instantly dwarfing her. ‘I believe this conversation is over.’

      ‘I believe so too,’ she agreed numbly.

      ‘Don’t discuss our past affair with anyone else, Cynara,’ he warned softly.

      ‘I haven’t discussed it with anyone,’ she flared. ‘Although I would think by now that most of the staff, and quite a few of the guests, are well aware of it.’

      His eyes narrowed to green slits. ‘How?’

      She sighed. ‘Before Michael decided not to eat his lunch he stood up and loudly told me I was no good and not to go near his father again.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘He said he would kill me if I did.’

      ‘Damn,’ Zack bit out fiercely. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

      ‘I can see now where he gets his temper from,’ she softly mocked.

      Green eyes blazed at her. ‘I do not care to discuss the temperament of my son and myself with you,’ he bit out coldly, glancing at the plain gold watch on his wrist. ‘I believe you have another show to do,’ he reminded abruptly before leaving.

      It had been worse, so much worse, than she had imagined. She still loved Zack, and there could never be a future for them, never could have been and never would be. She had known that the night they met, had been grateful for Zack’s honesty about any relationship they had. It hadn’t occurred to her that the fact that they had fallen in love would change those plans. When Zack had asked her to marry him she hadn’t known what to do, or say. In the end she had had no choice, Nicholas Buchanan made sure of that.

      ‘We’re back on,’ Sean appeared in the doorway to tell her. ‘I like the dress,’ he leered teasingly.

      It was a low-cut, low-backed black dress that clung everywhere—and for all the notice Zack had taken of it she might have been wearing a sack! Had she secretly hoped he would still find her attractive, that he might even suggest resuming the affair they had once had? She knew she had hurt Zack too much in the past for him to ever forgive her.

      She gave a rueful look at the chicken sandwich that had curled up at the edges while she spoke to Zack, following Sean out of the room; she didn’t have the appetite for it now, even if she had had the time to eat it.

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