Mistress & a Million Dollars / Satin & A Scandalous Affair: Mistress & a Million Dollars. Jan Colley

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СКАЧАТЬ and took out his checkbook. “This is it, Anita. This is all you’re getting.” He quickly wrote out the check, then shoved it at her. “Now here. Take it. And don’t ever come back.”

      The woman greedily snatched the check, read the amount, and her eyes widened with glee. She folded the paper and put it in her handbag. “I won’t come back. I promise.” A minute later, she left without a word of thanks, or regret, and Briana’s heart squeezed with hurt for Jarrod. He didn’t deserve a mother like that. No one did.

      “You can come out now, Briana.”

      She stepped away from the door with as much aplomb as she could. “How did you know I was there?” she asked, moving into the living room.

      “I heard the swish of your walk.”

      “Oh, you did not,” she chided, slightly embarrassed. He’d been much too busy with Anita.

      “I did.” His eyes slid over her with lazy sensuality. “Like now.”

      The arm of the sofa was close by, so she casually sat herself down on it, her knees weak. Then she took a breath and concentrated on the woman who had angered him so much. “She’ll come back, you know.”

      All at once, he turned toward the patio door, but not before she’d seen the bleakness in his eyes. “Yes, I know.”

      “Will you give her more money?”

      His shoulders stiffened but he didn’t turn around. “No. She’s gotten enough out of me over the years.”

      She soaked up this information as she considered the tense line of his back beneath the gray polo shirt and black trousers. His clothes may be casual but their quality wasn’t. Neither was the tumultuous feelings he must hold inside him.

      “How long have you known her?” she asked, not sure he would share any information with her.

      He remained where he was. Then, “Anita first came looking for money in my early twenties.”

      Her heart softened with sympathy. How terrible that his mother had come looking for money, and not her son. “Does she come often?”

      “She turns up every couple of years and asks for a ‘loan,’” he said, and this time he did spare her a look over his shoulder, his eyes filled with cynicism.

      Briana stood up and went beside him. “You don’t owe her anything,” she said quietly.

      “I know.”

      She put her hand on his arm. “But I guess it’s hard to cut ties, no matter what she’s done to you.”

      He glanced at her, put his hand over hers. “She never hesitated to give me up, you know,” he said, surprising her with the admission. “She told me so the first time I met her. She said she’d been young and single, and a baby would have tied her down, and she’d had no intention of giving up her freedom.”

      Briana winced at the other woman’s insensitivity. She hated thinking how he must have felt when he discovered she had so easily given him away. Up until then he had probably given his mother an excuse, some leeway, as to why she’d given him up. But to face the reality that she just hadn’t wanted a baby, hadn’t wanted him, and worse, that she hadn’t cared, must have been a dreadful shock.

      “She’s just selfish, Jarrod. Lots of single mothers keep their babies, even back then.”

      He dropped his hand and turned to face her. “Exactly. If she’d given me up for me, then I could have forgiven her. But it was all for her.” His jaw clenched. “I was better off without her.”

      “Absolutely.” She paused, not sure whether to ask or not. “What about your real father?”

      He shrugged. “Apparently he died years ago.”

      She arched a brow. “You were never curious about him?”

      “No. Should I have been?” He grimaced. “Look, I was never curious about my birth parents. Never. I had a terrific upbringing and so did Matt. As far as I’m concerned, Katherine and Oliver Hammond are my real parents and Matt is my real brother.”

      Her throat almost closed up for a moment. “Good for you,” she said huskily, and meant it. She was beginning to see a new side to the Hammond family that was no longer tarred by Marise’s somewhat sarcastic comments. Not that she hadn’t liked the Hammonds when she’d met them at Marise’s wedding and the few times since. Only, now she could see a different dimension to them, and she liked what she saw.

      She gave a slight smile. “It may sound crazy, but when I first heard how Howard believed his kidnapped son was alive, I thought for a moment it might have been you.”

      Jarrod snorted. “There’s a thought. Son to Anita Stirling or Howard Blackstone? What a choice!” He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I’m not the missing heir to the Blackstone fortune. Thank God!”

      Briana had to agree with him. He’d been adopted by the Hammonds, raised by the Hammonds—he was a Hammond. To find out he actually belonged to his family’s enemy would have been hard to take. And now that she knew how cruelly his mother had abandoned him, the blow would be doubly hard.

      Not that he wouldn’t rise above it, she knew, admiration stirring inside her with a new understanding of this man.

      He put his hand under her chin, and for one heart-stopping moment held her gaze. Then he leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips.

      “Thank you,” he said, lifting his head.

      “For?”

      “Listening. Understanding.”

      Her stomach fluttered like a butterfly’s wings. “I’m told I have a good ear for listening.”

      He lifted a finger and ran it around her ear. “They’re beautiful ears. Perfect.” He placed his lips against it, then gently tugged at her lobe with this teeth.

      She groaned as his lips began making their way down her throat. “Um—weren’t we going to the—”

       Where were they going?

      Oh yes.

      “—Moomba Festival?” she finished.

      “After.”

      “After?” she murmured.

      “After we make love.”

      Regardless of the way Jarrod made love to her—with a passion that hadn’t diminished despite the numerous times he’d taken her in the last thirty-six hours—Briana didn’t deceive herself that anything had changed.

      And obviously he’d thought the same. He certainly seemed in a hurry to dress and leave the room afterward, saying he had some work to do before they went to the festival. That was probably so, but she suspected he needed some time to himself. It wasn’t every day a man like him let a woman see his vulnerable side.

      Still, she was relieved he had put up that СКАЧАТЬ