Emma Darcy - Bride Of His Choice

“What your sisters covet…what your father denied you and more.”

Her head whirled with Richard’s words, all of them striking such painful places.

“I hand you the keys to the whole Durant empire, everything Lawrence acquired in his ruthless drive for power. And no one will scorn you again, or treat you in a contemptible manner. As my wife, you will be my queen, in every sense.”

The low throb of his voice was like a drumbeat on her heart.

“Only you can satisfy me. Only you. We’re two of a kind, Leigh. You and I….”

Initially a French/English teacher, Emma Darcy changed careers to computer programming before marriage and motherhood settled her into a community life. Creative urges were channeled into oil painting, pottery, designing and overseeing the construction and decorating of two homes, all in the midst of keeping up with three lively sons and the very social life of her businessman husband, Frank. Very much a people person, and always interested in relationships, she finds the world of romance fiction a happy one and the challenge of creating her own cast of characters very addictive. She enjoys traveling, and her experiences often find their way into her books. Emma Darcy lives on a country property in New South Wales, Australia.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Pearl Grant, with much love and appreciation for having shared my books with me from the beginning, for giving me the confidence to write what I do and, most of all, for being my friend.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHPATER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

AUTHOR’S NOTE

THE plane touched down with barely a bump. Leigh Durant unclenched her hands and opened her eyes. She was back. A safe landing…though the nerves still knotted in her stomach proclaimed there was little else that would be safe about this trip.

From her seat next to a window, she noted the rain forecast for Sydney was certainly accurate. The view of Botany Bay was obliterated by wet darkness.

It was a dark and stormy night…

The cartoon character Snoopy, sitting on his doghouse with his typewriter, always started his stories with those ominous words. Leigh wondered if she was starting a new phase of her life by coming home or simply ending the one that had started the day she was born, twenty-four years ago.

Ever since the media had broken the news of Lawrence Durant’s fatal heart attack, she’d started hoping her long, lonely exile was over. Yet she wasn’t sure of anything where her family was concerned. All she knew was the man who had so cruelly dominated their lives was dead. And Leigh wanted to see him buried. Buried beyond any possible redemption. After that…

Well, she’d try to ascertain if it was possible to forge a new relationship with her mother and sisters. They might not want anything to do with her. It had been six years since she’d been part of their world…six years since she’d run away from the hell of knowing she didn’t belong to it and never could while ever Lawrence Durant lived. It might be that none of them would welcome her back…and the hole of emptiness in her life would never be filled.

Leigh instinctively fought against the prospect of that bleak outcome. There had to be a chance. Lawrence was no longer there to influence their behaviour towards her…the daughter who wasn’t his daughter, the cuckoo he’d hated having in his nest. Her mother and sisters were free of him now. Surely she could be re-united with them, if there was any fairness at all in this world.

The plane came to a halt. Leigh released her seat-belt and rose with the other passengers to retrieve her hand luggage. She was stiff and tired and did a bit of stretching to ease her cramped muscles as they waited in line to disembark. It had been a long trip—yesterday’s flight from Broome to Perth, the stopover there to buy suitable clothes, then this afternoon’s flight from Perth to Sydney, right across the Australian continent. It would be good just to get out of the plane.

The passengers moved slowly down the aisle towards the exit door. Leigh had worked her way up to being level with the first-class seats when her gaze fell on a discarded newspaper. The photograph of a face caught her eye and her heart contracted.

Richard…Richard Seymour.

Before she even realised what she was doing, the newspaper was in her hand and she was staring at the current image of the man who’d haunted her teenage years.

“Move on!” someone called impatiently.

“You’re holding us up, Miss,” the man behind her said more politely.

“Sorry,” she gabbled, her face burning as she hurried forward and shot into the disembarking tunnel, still holding the wretched newspaper. She wished she could drop it and vowed to do so the moment she reached the first litter bin inside the terminal.

Richard Seymour…

She’d read about him in various articles relating to Lawrence Durant’s shock death…the man who was now in charge of the vast financial empire, steadying the ripples on the stock exchange…the man groomed by the great tycoon to take over from him…Lawrence Durant’s protégé and right hand. But none of the articles had been accompanied by a photograph.

It was seeing his face again that had got to her, releasing a flood of the ambivalent feelings he’d always stirred. Stupid! she savagely berated herself. One thing was certain. If this was the start of a new phase in her life, he wouldn’t be featuring in it. There was no reason for him to ever mix with the Durant family again. He now had what he wanted, the top spot with no one to answer to except the shareholders.

A furious energy coursed through her as she entered the airport terminal, spotted a rubbish bin and strode straight over to it, ridding herself of the photographic reminder of a man who wasn’t worth thinking about. Of course she would see him at the funeral tomorrow. Richard Seymour could hardly miss that. But no-one could force her to have anything to do with him. Not any more. Lawrence Durant was dead.

It was still raining when she stepped out of the terminal. Luckily she didn’t have to queue for a taxi-cab. There were plenty waiting. She ran to one, jumped into the back seat, hauling her bag with her, shut the door and gave the address of her hotel to the driver. He zipped off into the line of traffic and Leigh tried to relax.

Impossible task. She stared broodingly out at the wet street, a zigzag of lights reflected in sheets of streaming water. A dark and stormy night…was it an omen? Should she have stayed in Broome, keeping the past pushed behind her? Was she on a totally hopeless mission?