Cathy Williams - Legacy Of His Revenge

Sophie laughed bitterly because nothing could have been further from the truth. Love had never come into the equation. Before her untimely death, her mother, Angela Watts, had been an aspiring actress whose great misfortune had been her Marilyn Monroe blonde-bombshell looks. Prey to men’s flattery and pursued for her body, she had made the fatal error of throwing her net too wide. James Carney, young, rich and arrogant, had met her at a club and, like all the others, had pursued her, but he had had no intention of ever settling down with someone he considered a two-bit tart with a pretty face. Those details had been drummed into Sophie from as soon as she was old enough to understand. He had had fun with Angela and she had foolishly thought that the fun would actually go somewhere, but even when she had contrived to trap him with a pregnancy he had stood firm, only later marrying a woman he considered of the right class and social position.

‘He met my mother before he was married,’ Sophie confessed, belatedly adding, ‘not that it has anything to do with...well, anything. Mr Rivero, I would be more than happy for you to draw up a schedule for repayment. I will sign it right here and right now and you have my word that you will have every penny I owe you back. With interest if that’s what you want.’

Matias burst out laughing. ‘That’s very obliging of you,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Believe it or not, I haven’t become a successful businessman by putting my faith in the impossible. I have no idea what you owe the bank but I suspect you’re probably barely making ends meet. Am I right?’

He tilted his head to one side and Sophie looked at him with loathing. He might be sinfully handsome but she had never met anyone she hated more on the spot. She wasn’t stupid. He had all the money in the world, from the looks of it, but he wasn’t going to be lenient when it came to getting back every penny she owed him and she knew that he wouldn’t give a hoot if he drove her little company into the ground to do it.

Right now, he was toying with her like a cat playing with a mouse.

‘We could work out a schedule,’ he mused, ‘but I would be on my walking frame before you made the final payment.’ She really had the most wonderfully transparent face, he thought. Impossible though it was, she looked as pure as the driven snow.

But perhaps she wasn’t fashioned in the same mould as the father. Certainly, she wouldn’t have had the example set by him on a daily basis if she was the product of a youthful affair. He was surprised, in fact, that she had any contact with the man at all and he wondered how that had worked when Carney’s socially acceptable wife had been alive.

Matias wasn’t going to waste time pondering stuff like that, however. Right now, he was working out how best to use her to his advantage. When he pulled the plug on Carney, he intended to hit him on all fronts and he wondered whether she could be of use to him in that.

What other secrets was the man hiding? Matias knew that the company was beset with financial problems but, in the ether, there had been rumours of foul play... Sometimes skeletons were hard to find, however hard you dug, and Carney was a man who was sly and smart enough to cover his tracks. Wouldn’t it be satisfying if all his dark secrets were to be exposed to the cruel glare of light...?

Could this fresh-faced girl be the key to unlock more doors? And what if there were personal skeletons? An attack on all fronts was certainly worth considering. He was honest enough to acknowledge that this level of revenge was probably beneath him, but those letters he’d found...they had made this personal...

‘You could always ask Daddy for the money,’ he ventured smoothly, knowing what the answer would be.

‘No!’ This time she did stand up. Her full mouth was drawn into a thin, obstinate line. ‘I won’t have...my father involved in this. Bankrupt me if you want.’ She reached into her bag, pulled out one of the business cards, remembering how filled with optimism she and Julie had been when they had had them printed. ‘Here’s my business card. You can come and see the premises. It’s just in my kitchen but the equipment must be worth something. I have a number of big jobs lined up, so if you’re patient I can do those and you can have the money. As for the rest... I will sell my house and I should be able to sort out the rest of the debt with money left over after the mortgage has been covered.’

Matias looked at her, every line of his powerful body indicating a man totally relaxed, totally unfazed by her emotional outburst.

Dark eyes roamed over her. She had tried to do something businesslike with her hair but somewhere along the line it had rebelled and tangled, white-blonde strands already curling around her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and a curious shade of turquoise and fringed, he noted, with thick dark lashes, which was at odds with the colour of her hair. And her body...

He shifted in his chair, astonished that he was even bothering to notice that she had curves in all the right places and luscious breasts that were prominent against the truly appalling flowered dress she was wearing.

She lacked sophistication and clearly had no style gene whatsoever, so what, he wondered, with a certain amount of irritation, was it about her that captured his attention so completely?

‘You’re overreacting,’ he told her as she remained standing, her blue eyes dark with worry, anger and distress.

‘You’ve just told me that you’re not willing to come to any kind of arrangement with me about the money I owe you for your stupid car!’ Easy-tempered by nature, Sophie was shocked at the stridency of her voice and the fact that she was yelling at him! ‘I can’t go to my bank and draw out the kind of money I would need to make good the damage. So, of course I’m going to be upset.’

‘Sit down.’

‘No. I’m going. You can get in touch with me on the number on the card! I’m going to have to talk this through with Julie. I don’t know what she’s going to say. She’s put in most of her savings to try and get this business of ours going, as have I, so I’m going to have to find the money to pay her back too and make sure she doesn’t have to pay for my mistake.’ Her voice was wobbling and she stared off into the distance in an attempt to stop herself from crying.

Matias squashed all feelings of guilt. Why should he feel guilty? He was staring at a woman whose father had destroyed his family. In that scenario, guilt didn’t exist. After all, all was fair in love and war, wasn’t it?

‘You could do that,’ he murmured, ‘or you could sit back down and listen to the proposition I have for you.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘GO EASY ON THE GIRL,’ Art had urged his friend the previous day. ‘Because Carney’s her father, doesn’t mean that she has been cut from the same cloth.’

Matias hadn’t argued the point with his friend, but he had privately held the view that the apple never fell far from the tree and an innocent smile and fluttering eyelashes, which he was guessing had been the stunt the woman had pulled on Art, didn’t mean she had a pure soul.

Now, however, he was questioning the judgement call he had made before he had even met her. He was seldom, if ever, wrong when it came to summing people up, but in this instance his friend might have had a point. Matias wasn’t going to concede that the woman spent all her spare time helping the poor and unfortunate or that she was the sort who wouldn’t have recognised an uncharitable thought if it did a salsa in front of her. What he did recognise was that he would be better served in his quest for revenge by getting to know her.

She was an unexpected piece of a puzzle he had thought was already complete and he would have to check her out.