Jessica Hart - Four Christmas Treats

‘Since you’ve been here what?’ Cissie-Rose taunted her triumphantly. ‘He’s taken you to bed and told you he wants you? Poor Tilly. I’m afraid it is you who don’t understand. Because if that is the case then he’s been lying to you as well as to us, and he’s made a complete fool of you. There’s only one thing he wants—only one reason he’s come here—and it’s got nothing to do with wanting you, has it, Silas? Or should I call you James? You see, everyone, this is James Silas Connaught.’

Tilly, who was battling to take in what Cissie-Rose was saying, saw the swift look of recognition Art and Dwight were exchanging, and something as cold as death started to creep through her veins like poison.

‘Yes,’ Cissie-Rose confirmed. ‘The journalist who has been trying to get an interview with Dad for the best part of a year. That’s right, isn’t it, Silas? He must have thought it was his lucky day when you gave him the opportunity to use you, Tilly. Of course he took you to bed. He’s known for being a journalist who always gets his story—aren’t you, Silas?’

‘No, that’s not true. It can’t be! There’s been some mistake,’ Tilly protested, white-faced. ‘Please tell me this isn’t true,’ Tilly begged, turning to face Silas.

‘Yes, there has been a very big mistake.’ Cissie-Rose laughed unkindly. ‘And you’re the one who’s made it, Tilly. Of course I saw right through you in a minute, Silas,’ she said. ‘Which is why I’ve had Dad’s lawyers doing some digging on you.’

‘Silas?’ Tilly begged. Why wasn’t he denying what Cissie-Rose had said?

‘Tilly, I can explain everything,’Silas told her fiercely.

Tilly stared at him. Where was the denial she had expected to hear? She couldn’t bear to see what she was seeing in Silas’s eyes. She wanted to run and hide herself away from the pain of it. She could feel herself starting to tremble violently inside. Nausea gripped her stomach, and a pain like none she had ever previously known tore at her.

‘How could you? How could you?’ She was still holding onto Silas’s hand, but now she released it, not caring what anyone else might think as she ran towards the door and headed for the stairs.

She had to escape from their mockery and contempt. She had to escape from her own pain and humiliation. But most of all she had to escape from Silas. She wanted to lock herself away somewhere private and dark while she tried to come to terms with what she had just learned. She would have defended Silas against all accusations Cissie-Rose had made against him, just as she would have given him her trust and her belief unquestioningly if he had denied what Cissie-Rose had said. But instead he had shown her with his plea, and more tellingly with the look in his eyes, that everything Cissie-Rose had accused him of was true.

She could hardly think or reason logically for the pain that was swamping her. What a fool she had been—to believe his lies about falling in love with her. And no wonder he had been so keen to talk with Art. A mirthless smile twisted her mouth. How ironic it was that she had been stupid enough, dense enough, besotted enough to praise him for his kindness. The pain tightened its grip, raking her emotions raw.

Silas caught up with her outside their bedroom door, refusing to let go of her when she tried to drag her wrist free of his imprisoning grip, bundling her inside the room and closing the door, enclosing them in what was for Tilly its tainted and treacherous intimacy.

‘Let go of me,’ she demanded.

‘Not yet. Not until you’ve listened to me. I know you’re upset, and I understand how you must feel—’

‘How dare you say that to me? You know nothing. If you did you would never…You used me. You lied to me. You pretended to care about me when all the time—’

‘Tilly, no!’

‘So it’s not true? You’re not this James Connaught?’

Silas’s mouth compressed. Why the hell hadn’t he followed his own instinct and his heart and told Tilly the truth earlier? ‘I do write as James Connaught, yes.’

‘And you also moonlight as an out-of-work-actor, hiring yourself out as an escort?’

The bitterness in Tilly’s voice made him want to hold her as tightly as he could, until he had absorbed her pain into himself.

‘No,’ he told her quietly. ‘It was my half-brother Joe who was supposed to come here with you. He asked me to stand in for him because he’d had an accident. At first I refused, but then when he mentioned Art—’

‘You changed your mind.’

It wasn’t in Silas’s nature to lie, especially not to someone who was as important to him as Tilly. ‘Yes.’

‘And when you accused me of hiring you for sex you were just testing the water, were you? Seeing how far you’d have to go to get what you wanted?’

‘That had nothing to do with my hope that I could get closer to Art. I was concerned for Joe. He’s young and impressionable, and I wasn’t convinced that the outfit he was working for was as above board as he claimed.’

Silas took a deep breath. What he had to say to her now was going to be the hardest thing he had ever had to say. He knew his honesty was going to hurt her, but the truth had to be told, so that they could move on from today.

‘That first night here, when you threatened to end our “engagement”, I did think in terms of establishing a relationship with you to ensure that I stayed.’

‘You used me,’ Tilly accused him, her voice flat and devoid of the emotion she was desperately afraid might overwhelm her. ‘You deliberately lied to me, pretended that you were falling in love with me, when all the time I meant nothing to you.’

‘No, that’s not true.’

‘You’re right,’Tilly agreed. ‘The fact that I was falling in love with you was quite important to you. After all, it made everything so much easier for you, didn’t it?’

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. You can’t really believe that I would lie to you about loving you?’

‘Why not? You’ve lied to me about everything else, haven’t you? If you’d really cared about me, Silas, you would have told me the truth.’

‘I intended to.’

Tilly laughed mirthlessly. ‘When? After you’d got your story?’

‘I should have told you. I admit that. But I felt…I didn’t want to risk spoiling what was happening between us.’

Tilly could hardly bear to listen to him. The rawness in his voice made her eyes sting with fierce tears. He sounded so genuine, but of course he wasn’t.

‘As a matter of fact, I was about to tell you earlier—just before your mother interrupted us.’

Tilly frowned, her heart missing a heavy beat as it clung desperately to the fragile hope of his words. She remembered that he had been on the verge of saying something to her. She ached with longing to be able to believe him, but she wasn’t going to let herself give in to that weakness. Not a second time. Her was using her, manipulating her vulnerable emotions, just as he had done all along.

‘If you had really loved me you would have been honest with me right from the start.’

‘Life is not like that, Tilly. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you. I didn’t even realise at first that was what I was doing. By the time I did, it was too late. You’d already accepted me as what you believed I was. And, rightly or wrongly, I felt that our love was still too new and too fragile to bear the weight of the kind of revelations I would have had to make. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t plan to tell you everything. I did. I love you, Tilly, and you love me. Surely that love—our love—deserves a chance?’