Susan Stephens - His Rags-to-Riches Bride

If you knew, she thought, as she reluctantly swallowed the capsules, and handed back the glass. If you had the least idea of what’s happened in the past few days, then perhaps you’d understand why I’m strung on wires. But you don’t—and anyway you’re the last person in the world that I could ever tell.

He was looking at her frowningly. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘There was food on the plane,’ she returned evasively. She hadn’t touched any of it. She’d felt sick to her stomach, as well as sick at heart, her mind going in dazed circles as she tried to make sense of what Andy had done. The brutal extent of his betrayal.

And to come reeling out of hell, after all she’d been through, to find this man of all men waiting for her was the final shattering blow.

He paused. ‘I’m going to make coffee. Do you want some?’

Laine shook her head. ‘No—thank you.’

She leaned back against the cushions, closing her eyes. Blocking him out physically would be a start, she thought wearily. The beginning of a long, uphill struggle to free herself from him, and the memories he evoked, which, incredibly, still had the power to devastate even two long years further on.

But her senses still told her when he moved away, and how pathetic was that? How could she be so aware of a man who’d deliberately and cynically betrayed her? Who’d destroyed her self-esteem and her trust, along with the first delirious ache of first love. A love that had left her in small pieces, unfulfilled and almost destroyed.

But she couldn’t let herself think about that. Not now. Not ever. She had other far more important considerations to deal with—like finding work.

As he’d so charmingly indicated, she thought, gritting her teeth.

She could hear the distant chink of crockery as he moved around in the kitchen, and shifted restlessly on the cushions.

Oh, God, these coming weeks were going to be the kind of agony that no painkillers could ever touch, but, whatever her feelings, she couldn’t afford to move out immediately, and he probably knew it.

She’d always hoped that if they ever met again by some mischance, far in the future, she’d be so bolstered by her own success—her own happiness—that she could look him in the eye with indifference.

But Fate had planned it otherwise.

She had no idea how much money she had in her bank account, but it couldn’t be much. And she’d used the last remaining bit of credit on her card to buy her ticket home, so that was another bill she could expect eventually.

And now, with Jamie gone, she couldn’t even beg a temporary loan.

I think I’ve just hit rock bottom, she thought. Unless there’s another layer they haven’t mentioned.

‘Don’t go to sleep, Laine.’ His voice made her jump. ‘Try and switch yourself to London time, or you could be jet-lagged for days.’

She opened reluctant eyes and looked at him. He was holding out a beaker.

‘I suggest you drink this. You need the caffeine to get you started.’

She said haughtily, ‘If this is intended as some kind of olive branch …’

‘I know. I can stick it where the sun don’t shine. But don’t worry. It’s not peace I’m offering—more an armed truce. Now, take it.’

She bit her lip, and obeyed with open reluctance. The brew it contained was black and strong without sugar, just as she liked it, which somehow made acceptance even more galling.

He sat down on the sofa opposite, stretching out long legs, observing her narrow-eyed. ‘And what are your career plans now that boat chartering has hit the rocks?’

She stiffened defensively. ‘I didn’t actually say that.’

‘You didn’t have to. You hardly came in whistling A life on the ocean wave.’

She took another sip of coffee while she tried to think of an acceptable approximation of the truth. ‘Let’s just say that my partner and I discovered we had irreconcilable differences and leave it at that.’

Daniel’s brows lifted sardonically. ‘Well, that has a familiar ring,’ he commented, making her wince inwardly. ‘Is this a final breach, or more of a decree nisi?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is it over, or only over unless—or until—he comes grovelling on his knees for forgiveness?’

Her stomach gave a sudden crazy lurch. ‘That won’t happen. And I’d rather not discuss it any further.’

‘A Sinclair family trait,’ he said softly. ‘Leaving all kinds of things unsaid. Rather like trying to cap a volcano, don’t you think?’

‘No,’ she said stonily. ‘I don’t. I think privacy should be respected.’

‘Is that why you couldn’t be reached in Florida?’

No, she thought. That was because Andy hadn’t paid the rent on our office, and the landlord closed it down. But I didn’t know that at the time.

‘Jamie and I are brother and sister,’ she returned. ‘But we’re not joined at the hip.’

‘I can tell that,’ he said. ‘Sandra came as quite a surprise, didn’t she?’

‘Jamie’s had a lot of girls, and will probably have many more,’ she said. ‘It’s no big deal.’

‘I think,’ he said, ‘this one might be.’

‘Oh, really?’ Her tone was sarcastic. ‘You’ve been out of our lives for two years. Now you’re suddenly in my brother’s confidence? I don’t think so.’

‘You’re the one that’s out of touch, Laine. Jamie and I have been in contact quite a lot in recent months—one way and another.’

There was something about that—the phrasing, perhaps, or an odd note in his voice—which sent a prickle of unease down her spine.

Because on the face of it there was no need, or even likelihood, for their paths to cross. Jamie was a minor cog in a firm of City accountants. Daniel had inherited his family business empire and become a publishing magnate before he was thirty.

And, besides, he’d been Simon’s friend, she thought flatly, fighting the instinctive pain. No one else’s. Simon, her adored eldest brother, the golden boy, ten years her senior.

Daniel’s best mate at school from way back. Both high-flyers in the sixth form, members of the First Eleven at cricket, and demon tennis partners.

But there the resemblance ended. Because Daniel was a loner, the only son of a driven father who, after his wife’s death, had poured all his energies, all his emotions into work, into relentless expansion and acquisition, leaving little time to give to a small boy. In school holidays he’d been left to the mercies of paid staff, or farmed out to various business acquaintances with young families.

While Simon had had his mother, two younger siblings, and Abbotsbrook, that wonderful crumbling relic of a house with its huge untidy garden to come home to at the end of each term. A place where every summer gave the illusion of being filled with sun and warmth.

Eventually, grudgingly, Robert Flynn had agreed that his son could spend part of his holidays with his friend’s family.

After all, as Angela Sinclair had remarked, the house was always full of people. There were guests almost every weekend. One more would make little difference.

Except to me, Laine thought with a pang. It made all the difference in the world to me.

But that was forbidden territory, and she dared not go there. Particularly now.

She finished her coffee, and put the beaker on the floor. ‘Jamie’s well below your league, isn’t he? You always seemed to regard him as something of a pain. And you certainly can’t be short of places to live, so why here?’

‘It’s an arrangement that suited us both.’

‘And Cowper Dymond don’t have a New York branch,’ she went on. ‘So what’s Jamie doing over there?’

‘He’s working for me,’ Daniel said. ‘In the royalties section of Hirondelle Books.’