Penny Jordan - Taken Over

‘Love Williams?’ Joel interrupted for her. ‘Why? Because he spared you a few kisses and caresses, and for all your brave talk my dear, I doubt it’s gone beyond that. You have about you a look of cool purity that I don’t believe is assumed. Does the cold virgin you’ve locked away behind the walls of your intelligence ever rebel, Cassie? Doesn’t she ever long to give herself freely and wholeheartedly to the heat of passion?’

His words, edged with scorn as they were, reminded Cassie of all the cruel barbs she had endured as an adolescent, almost without being aware of it she retreated mentally from him, escaping into that small corner of herself she kept hidden from the world. A look of cool dismissal informed the hazel wariness of her eyes, her body composed and outwardly relaxed as she said lightly, ‘You’re free to make whatever assumptions about me you wish—just as I’m free not to respond to them. I conceded that you’ve been very clever; that unless I want to destroy everything I’ve worked for I have to go along with your plans; to agree to this marriage, but I have no intention of living with you as your wife.’

‘Not in the fullest sense of the word perhaps,’ he agreed, startling her, ‘but I certainly intend that our marriage is seen to be completely normal for its brief duration.’

Cassie was stunned enough to demand huskily, ‘But why? You can’t possibly want …’

‘What I don’t want,’ he said ruthlessly cutting off her words, ‘is to become the butt of every City joke there is, and if you’re wise you’ll share my feelings. I’ll tell the press that it was a whirlwind romance—they already know I want to take over Cassietronics; romantically inclined as they are it will be an easy step for them to believe our romance began when I approached you with my takeover bid.’

‘And in six months’ time when the marriage is over?’ Why oh why did her voice sound so husky, so hurting somehow, as though already she dreaded the ending that was to come?

‘We’ll say it didn’t work out,’ he shrugged. ‘We’ll face that when we come to it …’

‘And all your …’ Cassie’s upper lip curled slightly in distaste, ‘women friends … Will they honestly believe that you preferred a drab little sparrow like me to them?’

‘What they believe isn’t important,’ he told her carelessly, with a monumental display of arrogance. His expression changed as he added curtly, ‘You seem to take a perverse delight in running yourself down. Why I wonder? A defensive mechanism perhaps, doing it before anyone else can do it for you?’

He saw too much; came too close to the truth. Desperate to change the subject before he probed any deeper she blurted out, ‘And once we are married? Where will we live … W …’

‘I shall continue to live in London—I have an apartment there.’ He frowned, and Cassie wondered what he was thinking. Of the pleasures he would have to give up for the six months’ duration of their marriage? When he next spoke his words shocked her into bitter anger; betraying as they did how far his ideas of how their marriage would work differed from hers.

‘I own a house in the Cotswolds—a small estate really. I thought you could live there. There’s plenty of space and all the peace and quite you need to work.’

‘In other words, discreetly out of your way,’ she said furiously, watching his mouth thin and his eyes harden as he turned towards her.

‘What are you trying to say?’ he asked her coldly. ‘That you want to share the apartment with me? That you want to share my bed? Was that the price you demanded from Peter Williams for your company? I wonder if Peter was as happy with the bargain as his father? He’s known to have a taste for glamorous blondes,’ he added cruelly, surveying her with open contempt. ‘Hardly your style, but then no doubt his father simply told him to close his eyes and think of Pentatons.’

The sharp sound of her palm connecting with his lean jaw shocked Cassie. She had never hit anyone in anger before in her life, and her face went white as she stared into navy-blue eyes, boring into hers, burning with a heat that made her shiver with fear.

‘If you ever do that again, I promise you I’ll hit you back,’ Joel told her thickly. ‘Apart from the fact that you could have caused an accident, I won’t tolerate a vitriolic woman.’

‘And I won’t tolerate being insulted the way you’ve just insulted me,’ Cassie choked back at him. How dare he suggest what he had just suggested? Her body burned with the humiliation of it.

‘Why all the emotion?’ he queried softly, ‘Is it because you think I could be right?’

Cassie didn’t deign to answer but sat in icy silence as the powerful car ate up the miles. Inside she was crying out in pain but she would die rather than let Joel Howard see one jot of her anguish. As she stared unseeingly through the windscreen in front of her, only one thought occupied her mind, to the exclusion of all others; and that was a burning desire to make him retract his words; to make him look at her and ache with need for her; and that was surely the most ridiculous, pathetic daydream she had indulged in in all her life; Joel Howard would never, ever want a woman like her.

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