Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ sleepily. ‘I’m so glad we’re not fighting any more,’ she added sombrely. ‘I saw Saul earlier. He seems to think that his and Hillary’s marriage is virtually over.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ Caspar said, stifling a yawn.

      ‘You know?’ Olivia demanded, suddenly alert as she leaned up on her elbow and frowned down at him. ‘How do you know?’

      Something about the way he hesitated before replying and then looked away from her made her clench her stomach muscles and watch him warily.

      ‘I, er, Hillary told me when we had dinner together this evening….’

      ‘You had dinner with Hillary! You invited another woman out to dinner without telling me?’ Olivia demanded, spacing the words out carefully, all her earlier pleasure draining away as she stared at Caspar in shock. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why?’

      ‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,’ Caspar answered angrily. ‘For God’s sake, Livvy,’ he expostulated, pushing his fingers irritably into his hair, ‘it’s past two in the morning, and right now the last thing I feel like doing is being cross-examined as if I’m guilty of a major crime. You just said yourself how much you hate it when we fight and yet here you are—’

      ‘I’m not fighting,’ Olivia interrupted him tersely.

      ‘No? Then you’re sure as hell giving a fair imitation of it,’ Caspar retorted grumpily.

      ‘Caspar, we’re lovers, we’ve planned a future together. I wouldn’t go out and have dinner with another man and then not tell you about it.’

      ‘No, but you’re quite happy to change all our plans and have me looking a fool while you announce that you’re staying here and playing the dutiful daughter and niece, that it’s far, far more important to you than being with me, even though it’s been made plain to you that your sacrifice isn’t either necessary or wanted,’ Caspar came back with angry ferocity.

      Olivia sat upright in bed and stared at him through the darkness.

      ‘Caspar, I explained about that,’ she protested. ‘It will only be for a few weeks … I thought you understood … and tonight …’ She paused and bit her lip before continuing. ‘Tonight, when I told you I love you … I thought—’

      ‘You thought what?’ he interrupted her savagely. ‘You thought because you’d made the big sacrifice of finally committing yourself verbally to me that that made everything okay. That I’m dumb enough, besotted enough, to go away and wait patiently until you’re ready. Was that what tonight was all about, Livvy?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘Was that what all the passion … all the hunger, all the sex was for, to keep me quiet? Well, I’ve got news for you … it didn’t work.’

      ‘Caspar,’ Olivia protested, but he had already turned his back on her, hunching his body as close to the edge of the bed as he could.

      Well, let him sulk if he wants to, Olivia decided wrathfully. She wasn’t the one who had spoiled things between them. Not this time. No, Caspar had done that all by himself. Why hadn’t he told her that he’d had dinner with Hillary? And even worse, would he ever have told her if she hadn’t just happened to stumble on the truth?

      Had tonight’s seemingly passionate and intense lovemaking simply been a ploy on his part to make her come to heel … to make her commit herself to him verbally, to give him the words of love he wanted just so that he could use them against her in the kind of emotional power struggle she had so foolishly believed their love meant too much to either of them for them to enter into? And if she had been wrong about that, how much else had she been wrong about, as well? Did Caspar really love her at all? Quietly she, too, lay down, her own back firmly turned to him.

      ‘Olivia, have you got a minute?’

      Uncertainly Olivia looked across the kitchen at Caspar. She had woken early in anticipation of going into the office but Caspar wasn’t there beside her. Even as early as it was, he must have dressed and gone downstairs ahead of her, thus depriving her of any opportunity of talking privately with him in the comforting intimacy of her bedroom.

      ‘I’ve decided to go ahead and call the airline this morning,’ he told her tersely.

      An ominous sense of foreboding gripped Olivia. ‘Call the airline if you like, but I’d hoped we weren’t going to do that until we went back to London.’

      ‘We weren’t,’ Caspar agreed, emphasising the ‘we’ before adding grimly, ‘But then we weren’t planning to spend more than a few days here saying goodbye to your folks.’

      Olivia stared at him in dismay. ‘But, Caspar, that was before my father had his heart attack. Can’t …?’ She dug her teeth into her bottom lip, willing herself to stay calm whilst she begged, ‘Caspar, please don’t do this to me … to us … Caspar …’ Her voice shook so much she had to stop speaking.

      ‘Livvy … look, it isn’t too late,’ Caspar told her urgently, crossing the space between them and grasping her hands. ‘Tell your uncle you’ve changed your mind … that you can’t stay. I’ll get us seats on the first available flight and we—’

      ‘No … no, you know I can’t do that,’ Olivia protested, drawing her hands free of Caspar’s grasp. ‘Caspar, why won’t you understand?’ she pleaded, pressing her hands to her aching head. ‘I have to stay.’

      ‘No, you don’t,’ Caspar countered brutally. ‘You want to stay. You, Olivia, and no one else. Your uncle doesn’t want you here and neither does your grandfather. You want to stay because—’

      ‘Because it’s the right thing for me to do. My father—’

      ‘The right thing?’ Caspar laughed bitterly. ‘You already know my views on that subject,’ he told her angrily.

      ‘I’ve never seen you like this before,’ Olivia protested, her teeth starting to chatter, even though she wasn’t particularly cold. As a child she had never liked ‘scenes’ or ‘quarrels’. One of the things she had liked most about Caspar had been his calmness, his logical approach to things, his ability to bypass the kind of emotional response and overreaction to life’s hazards that had been such a familiar part of her childhood.

      ‘What you are trying to say,’ Caspar challenged her, ‘is that you’ve made a mistake … committed yourself to the wrong guy. Well, I guess that feeling goes both ways. Maybe I’m not too thrilled to discover that you aren’t exactly the woman I thought you were, either,’ he told her hurtfully.

      Olivia stared at him, unable to fully take in what he was saying. ‘Caspar,’ she protested, but as she took a step towards him, he stepped back from her, leaving her standing frozen in disbelief in mid-step as she read the rejection in his body language.

      ‘Perhaps it’s for the best that we both found out the truth before we got in any deeper.’

      The truth. What truth? She loved him … he loved her … wasn’t that all that really mattered? Was it? If she turned round now and told him that she had changed her mind, that she would break her promise to her uncle and return to America with him, was that really the kind of basis she wanted to build her future, their future on? Wouldn’t she in effect be setting a precedent that meant that every time she had to make a decision he didn’t share, that ultimately he would expect her СКАЧАТЬ