Sara Craven - Wicked Surrender - Ruthless Awakening / The Multi-Millionaire's Virgin Mistress / The Timber Baron's Virgin Bride

She drew a harsh breath. ‘Isn’t that still the authorised version of what happened?’

‘You, of course, have a different one.’

‘I certainly have another perception of my mother. You never knew her.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘And you never knew mine.’

‘True. However, I’m sure she wouldn’t want those stories rehashed either, or served up as background to your supposed involvement with me.’

‘Indeed not,’ he said. ‘So I shall make damned sure that our “supposed involvement” remains our little secret, and I advise you most strongly to do the same. Unless you think I missed the vague threat in your last remark.’

He paused. ‘I’m not planning to parade you through the streets of Barcelona, sweetheart, or sunbathe nude with you by a pool on the Côte d’Azur. The paparazzi can’t board this boat, and this is where you’ll stay—until the wedding’s past and gone and the happy couple far away where you can’t touch them.’

He sent her a grim smile as he turned to leave. At the door he hesitated, glancing back at her. ‘In retrospect,’ he said, ‘wouldn’t it have been better just to have taken my advice and stayed in London? Think it over, if by some mischance you can’t sleep. Goodnight, Rhianna.’

‘In retrospect,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t it have been better, in fact, if you and I had never met? You think about that.’

The door closed behind him, and this time she heard the key turn in the lock. For a moment she sat motionless, then she drew a long quivering breath and bent forward, covering her face with her hands.

While in her head a voice whispered over and over again, What can I do? Oh, God, what I can I do? How can I bear this?

But she heard only silence in reply.

AS A confrontation, she thought painfully, it had not gone too well. She might have had the last word, but the upper hand had eluded her completely.

What on earth had possessed her to rake up past history to throw at him? They both knew what had happened, and nothing could change that—a certainty she’d lived with during the whole five years since she’d first learned the truth.

The summer when her life had changed forever.

She’d had her eighteenth birthday, acknowledged as usual by a card from her aunt, and celebrated joyously by a night out in Falmouth with Carrie and some of the girls from school. Her final examinations had been over, and she’d been waiting for the results—although her grades hadn’t really been all that important, she reflected unhappily, as Aunt Kezia had refused point-blank to allow her to apply for a university place, unlike Carrie, who’d been hoping to go to Oxford.

‘It’s time you went out to work, my girl,’ Miss Trewint declared harshly. ‘Started contributing to your upkeep.’

In the meantime, almost as soon as the school gates closed, she found Rhianna a job for the season at Rollo’s Café. The hours were long, it was poorly paid, Mrs Rollo was a witch and by the time her board and lodging had been extracted Rhianna was left with little to show for each week’s hard work.

And this, she supposed, was to be her future. Or some dead-end office job, using the computing and word processing course from school, bolstered by weekend and evening work during the summer.

The only bright spot on the horizon was the anticipation of Carrie’s eighteenth birthday, which was going to be marked by a major party at Penvarnon House.

And for once Simon was expected to be there.

He’d pretty much faded out of the picture since he’d gone up to Cambridge two years ago. He still came to Polkernick sometimes in the summer, when his parents were there, but they were fleeting visits, and often he was accompanied by friends from university, his time occupied with them. Sometimes, too, the friends were female.

Instinct told Rhianna, suffering her own pangs, how much Carrie must be hurt by this, and by the fact that her regular letters to Simon had been answered so infrequently since he left for university.

‘He’s frantically busy, of course,’ she’d said once, her clear eyes faintly shadowed. ‘With work and all the other stuff he’s involved in. Because it’s a different world. Everyone says so. Three years of complete whirl.’ She’d paused. ‘Besides, everything changes. We all move on, and I shall too.’

But Rhianna wasn’t convinced. And her own dream image of Simon the Golden wasn’t quite as perfect as it had been once, its gold just a little tarnished.

She wondered if he was bringing anyone to Carrie’s party, and hoped devoutly that he wasn’t.

She’d been invited, although naturally she wouldn’t be attending the dinner that would precede the dancing. Judging by Carrie’s obvious embarrassment, it was clear her mother had vetoed any such idea.

Carrie had the world’s loveliest dress, in aquamarine chiffon, and Rhianna couldn’t hope to emulate that. However, a charity shop in Truro had yielded a simple black slip of a dress in a silky fabric, cut on the bias with shoestring straps, nearly new, in her size and affordable. They’d even found her a pair of high-heeled sandals to match—which, the helper had confided, had proved too narrow-fitting for most of their customers.

‘Might have been made for you, my handsome,’ she’d said cheerfully, as she’d wrapped them.

And they did look good, Rhianna thought as she gave herself a last critical once-over before the party. She was just turning from the mirror when her door opened abruptly and her aunt marched in.

‘They’re going to be a waitress short at the dinner tonight,’ she said, her eyes sweeping scornfully over Rhianna’s slim figure. ‘One of the girls is sick, so I told Mrs Seymour you’d take her place.’

Rhianna gasped helplessly. ‘But I can’t do that. Carrie’s invited me to the dancing as a guest,’ she protested. ‘You know that. And I bought this dress specially.’

‘Yes, and a rare waste of money too. Good job you have it to burn.’ Miss Trewint tossed the dark button-through dress and frilled white apron she had over her arm onto Rhianna’s bed. ‘Well, you won’t be parading yourself like a trollop tonight, madam. So get changed and over to the house, and sharp about it. People will be arriving. And tie your hair back.’

The door banged behind her. Throat tight, eyes burning, Rhianna hung the black dress back in the wardrobe and put on the navy uniform. It was a size too big, but she tied the apron more tightly round her waist to give it more shape. She dragged her hair back from her face and plaited it quickly, her fingers shaking, then changed her sandals for the low-heeled pair she wore at the café.

The hired help, she thought bitterly, and looking just as drab as Aunt Kezia could have wished.

Carrie met her with a look of utter consternation. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she said furiously. ‘Your aunt—my mother—what the hell are they playing at?’

‘Teaching me my place, I think.’ Rhianna gave her a swift hug. ‘Don’t worry about it. We can exchange above and below stairs viewpoints afterwards.’ She wanted to add, I really don’t mind, but it wasn’t true. She minded like blazes.

It was a very long evening. Rhianna carried round trays of drinks, platters of canapés, and later stood at the dinner, helping to serve the poached salmon and carve the turkey.

Mrs Seymour, she thought, surreptitiously easing her aching feet as she watched Moira’s lavender-clad figure floating radiantly among the guests, is certainly getting her money’s worth. That is if she actually intends to pay me.

One of the first people she’d seen had naturally been Simon.

‘Good God.’ He’d looked her up and down blankly, then started to grin. ‘If it isn’t the lovely Rhianna. Bloody hell, I didn’t realise this was supposed to be fancy dress.’