Best Modern Romances Of The Year 2017. Maisey Yates

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘Where do we go from here, Max?’

      ‘You want an upfront list of demands?’ Max queried. ‘I want you to come home so that I can get to know my daughter.’

      ‘Redbridge Hall is not my home,’ Tia parried in disbelief.

      ‘I may have been paying your staff for you for the past nine months but, legally and every other way, Redbridge is yours until you either sell it or dispose of it in some other way. And the will probably restricts what you can do because Andrew wanted the property kept in the family,’ Max reminded her.

      ‘You’ve been paying the staff?’ Tia gasped.

      ‘Well, someone had to take responsibility for them,’ Max pointed out very drily. ‘Your grandfather employed a lot of people and several businesses operate on the estate. I think eventually you will decide to scale down the household staff to a more appropriate level.’

      Tia had lost all her natural colour. ‘I didn’t think.’

      ‘No, of course you didn’t. You’ve never had staff before but now that you do, you do have to take care of them. And there are decisions waiting that I was unable to deal with because I am not the legal owner of the estate,’ he pointed out.

      Tia reddened. ‘I’m so sorry, Max. I should’ve thought of all that.’

      ‘On the good news front, Grayson Industries is flourishing as never before and the profits will be astronomical this year because I’ve had little else but work to occupy me,’ he proclaimed with sardonic bite.

      Tia sank weakly down on an armchair. Of course, he wanted her back at Redbridge to release him from the added burden of what had never been his responsibility in the first place. She was ashamed that it had not even occurred to her that in her absence life had had to continue at Redbridge. Wages had to be paid, maintenance decisions made and probably requests had had to be answered because the estate land was often used for local events.

      ‘I don’t care about the profits,’ she declared woodenly.

      Max crouched down in front of her to study her with scorchingly furious dark golden eyes. ‘Well, I and thousands of other people employed by Grayson’s do care,’ he countered with lethal derision. ‘And it’s all yours. I may be in charge, I may be the figurehead but at the end of the day all those profits are yours, not mine.’

      Taken aback by his vehemence, Tia flinched back a few inches. ‘But that’s not what Andrew intended.’

      Max swore long and low in Italian, literal sparks dancing in his stunning dark eyes. ‘I don’t care what Andrew intended. I will only take the salary and the bonus package that was agreed when I first took over. I will not live off my wife’s wealth, or my ex-wife’s...or whatever you are planning to become.’

      Tia was more shaken still by that aggressive statement. Max vaulted upright again, long, lean muscles flexing in his thighs, the fabric of his trousers pulling taut. She recognised that he had run out of patience and that he wanted decisions now. But she was taken aback by his attitude to the Grayson wealth. He didn’t want what he saw as her money.

      ‘What do you want now, Max?’ she murmured tautly. ‘You haven’t told me that yet.’

      Max froze. The anger she had sent soaring through him ebbed and he thought about what he wanted. He looked at her and what he wanted was very, very basic. ‘I want you to untangle your hair from those ties and strip. I want sex. It’s been nine months and I’ve never gone through a dry spell this long since I grew up.’

      Shock rocked Tia where she sat, transfixed like a deer in headlights. Slow colour rose in a tide below her fair skin, heat curling at the heart of her, touching and warming places she had stopped thinking about when she left him. She had suppressed that part of herself, her sensual side, meeting with it only in dreams that she could not control. Now she gazed back at Max, marvelling that he was so bold, so unapologetic about what he wanted and oddly excited by the forceful sexual energy he saw no reason to hide.

CHAPTER TEN

      ‘AND NOW THAT I’ve begun being honest, I’ll continue in the same vein,’ Max gritted in a driven undertone, working off a ‘might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb’ soapbox. ‘I also want my daughter with me under the same roof. I will not negotiate on that demand. I’ve missed out on an entire three months of her life and I’m a stranger to her through no fault of my own. That has to change—and fast. We’ll return to Redbridge Hall tomorrow.’

      ‘That’s absolutely impossible!’ Tia exclaimed, leaping upright in emphasis, guilt, shock and consternation flooding her in a heady tide. ‘I’m about to open the tea room for the Easter visitors and I have loads of orders to fulfil.’

      ‘You also have a very competent co-worker and you can afford to hire another employee to take your place. Oh, yes, I did my homework before I came here,’ Max intoned with sizzling cool.

      ‘But you don’t understand... Salsa Cakes is my business.’

      ‘No, your business is Grayson Industries,’ Max contradicted without hesitation. ‘Not what you have here. It’s time to join the real world again, Tia. You were born into one of the richest families in the UK and you can’t run away from your heritage.’

      ‘I didn’t run away!’ Tia seethed back at him, her hands clenched into fists by her sides, her colour high.

      ‘Your choice, your decision. I’m sorry but you’re rich and you’re married to a bastard who will take you any way he can get you. Deal with it, bella mia... I have.’

      The thready wail of a hungry baby pierced the smouldering silence and very quickly grew into a much louder demonstration of baby impatience. ‘I’d better feed Sancha,’ Tia mumbled, bereft of breath and protest, indeed barely able to think or vocalise, too shaken by the change in Max, who certainly could not be accused of soft-coating his message.

      She ran upstairs to scoop her daughter out of her cot and returned to the lounge at a slower pace. As Max moved forward, his lean, darkly handsome features unexpectedly softened, she disconcerted him by literally stuffing her sobbing child into his surprised arms. ‘Max, meet Sancha... Sancha, this is Daddy and he is at the very foot of a learning curve when it comes to babies.’

      ‘But I’m a quick study,’ Max asserted, bundling up Sancha and resting her against his shoulder, a big hand smoothing her back in a soothing motion.

      ‘I have to heat her bottle...and...er...change her...’

      ‘You don’t breastfeed?’

      ‘I did initially but I had problems so we ended up with the bottle and she’s thriving,’ Tia explained, leaving him to go and take care of necessities.

      Max sat down and surveyed his angry-eyed daughter, who was struggling to catch her breath between sobs. He extracted her from the sleeping bag with great care and was amazed by how wriggly her fragile, light little body was. He was surprised to realise that much of his own anger had dissipated. Telling Tia how he felt had helped. Holding his daughter helped even more. All of a sudden he realised that he had moved on from the past that had once haunted him. Sharing that background story had been like curing an illness he had kept locked up inside him. And now he was looking forward and not back on a successful adult life, a stunning wife СКАЧАТЬ