The Alpha Male. Madeleine Ker

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Ryan’s arrival that morning had released a flood of memories and emotions that she’d been valiantly holding back behind some mental dam deep within herself. Though the day was so busy that she hardly had a moment to draw breath, Penny thought about him every second. Thought about what had existed between them, what they had shared and lost.

      Most of all, she thought about the expression in his eyes when he’d accused her of aborting their child.

      Naturally, he would see it like that.

      It was true that she had made that horrible threat. But of course she’d never had any intention of ever carrying it out! She’d been desperate, and could think of no other threat that would stop him from following her. What had happened to her had seemed like a fateful punishment—though she’d already been sick with the brain inflammation that had almost killed her when she’d said those words.

      Why had her letter never reached him? She remembered writing it.

      When he didn’t reply, or come to her, she’d just assumed that he had been unable to forgive what she’d done.

      That his silence was his answer.

      But in those agonised days after she’d been discharged from St Cyprian’s, her mind had not been working properly. Perhaps she had never posted it. Perhaps even writing it had been a dream.

      Certainly, Ryan had never come to her, though she had thought he would. She had been so alone, with no comfort and no hope.

      He had not come, and she had moved on.

      Now, as she worked busily in the banqueting hall, she reflected on how far she had travelled since those dark days. Penny had been determined that her previous life would just cease to exist, that she would make a brand-new start. And that was what she had achieved.

      She was never going to be so madly unhappy again.

      She looked down the high table with a critical eye. Everything looked beautiful! Each place setting was a work of art. Tara was still setting out the individual vases of flowers. Penny had made them low and wide, so they wouldn’t be knocked over easily, and so that Her Worship’s guests wouldn’t have to peer round them to talk to each other.

      The big arrangements that flanked the tables had turned out spectacular, even though the yellow gladioli she had envisioned had been toned down to a more subtle cream.

      And everything went perfectly with the big centrepiece she had set up in the square formed by the four long tables. That space was to have been left empty, but at the last minute she’d had a brainwave. She was particularly proud of that.

      The mayor and her private secretary bustled in now to take a last look. Her Worship was a diminutive, fiercely energetic woman who prided herself on her modern views—which was why, Penny suspected, she had chosen a newcomer to do her banquet, rather than one of the well-established, but old-fashioned, town florists.

      ‘It’s exquisite!’ she enthused, patting Penny on the shoulder. ‘Truly magnificent, Miss Watkins. That centrepiece is wonderful!’

      ‘Thank you,’ Penny smiled.

      ‘A perfect autumnal note,’ the mayor went on. ‘The bare branches giving a home to new life, the old nurturing the new—it’s quite an illustration of my mayoralty, don’t you think, Daphne?’

      ‘Absolutely, Your Worship,’ the obsequious secretary chimed, her timing as perfect as a Swiss clock.

      ‘Very original, Penny,’ the mayor affirmed. ‘I don’t know where you creative people get all your ideas!’

      Hippy Dave had helped with this one, though she could scarcely tell the mayor that; for the spectacular centrepiece was none other than the dead tree that he had brought to her workshop that morning.

      Penny had attacked it with a saw borrowed from Miles Clampett, had trimmed it into a more elegant shape, then had decorated the bare branches with birds’ nests—each nest containing a brood of fluffy ‘chicks’—gold and silver ribbon and flower buds on the point of opening. Artfully lit with concealed highlighters, it looked stark and exciting.

      ‘I think you can count on my patronage next year,’ the mayor murmured into Penny’s ear as she left. ‘Well done, Penny!’

      And thus, Penny smiled to herself, had the humblest of the mayor’s flock contributed to the banquet in no small way. She could almost forgive Hippy Dave.

      Tara had finished setting out the posies. It was now over to the caterers and the master of ceremonies. She got ready to leave, winding her scarf around her slender throat. It had been a long, cold day, and she was looking forward to getting back to her own nest.

      With a final word to Tara, she slipped out of the banquet hall—and straight into a pair of strong arms that closed possessively around her slim frame.

      ‘Not so fast,’ Ryan said.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped, looking up into his face.

      ‘Your partner suggested I take a look at your work,’ he said smoothly. ‘So here I am. Now, show me what you’ve done.’

      She disengaged herself from his arms, her face still tight from the unwelcome shock. ‘It’s no big deal, Ryan. Look all you want. I’m going home.’

      ‘In a moment,’ he growled, catching her hand, his fingers twining possessively through hers. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’

      ‘Let me go!’ she hissed, trying not to make a scene in front of everybody.

      But he was leading her remorselessly back to the table. ‘Very pretty,’ he said, his grey eyes taking everything in with that swift way he had. ‘Not very original, considering what you’re capable of—but pretty.’

      ‘It’s a mayor’s banquet, not a gathering of your glittering London friends,’ she retorted, stung by his faint praise. ‘They wanted pretty, not original.’

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ