Diana Hamilton - Sweet Sinner

She began to rip it to shreds.

‘Four years ago, when Petra was eighteen,’ she explained more calmly, ‘she worked as a receptionist in a small hotel near Orpington. Just temporarily, until she took her place at university. Dad’s always insisted that we both cram in as much education as possible—he was a teacher.’

For the first time, a tiny smile played round the edges of her mouth, and then she, in turn, shrugged. ‘She was looking forward to it, to getting her degree and making a career—with books—in publishing or with an agency. Then she met someone. He swept her off her feet, as the saying goes.’ She gave him another shrug, a look that said she didn’t believe in that sort of thing herself, and ploughed straight on. ‘I was studying hard for my finals at that time, at university myself, so I didn’t know what was going on. But Dad knew something was up. Petra stopped going home, and when she did put in an appearance she acted strangely. Then the truth came out. She was pregnant. The creep had talked about marriage, talked about undying love—and she had believed him.’ Unconsciously, her voice hardened. ‘When he learned she was pregnant, instead of naming the day he told her he was already married with three children. She never saw him again.’

‘And she didn’t say who he was?’ Cade asked, his dry tone telling her he had difficulty believing any of this.

And Zoe came back firmly, ‘No. After she broke the news she refused to talk about him. She probably could have traced him and demanded some kind of financial support but she obviously wanted to forget him, put it all behind her. And Dad and I supported her in that.’

‘I would imagine the advent of twins made forgetting him a touch difficult.’ An unforgivable trace of humour quirked his long mouth, drawing her startled attention to all that latent sensuality.

She would have liked to hit him but controlled herself and said primly, ‘None of us has ever looked on the boys as belonging to anyone but our family. We all love them devotedly. Dad helps Petra look after them during the week while I go down to the cottage at weekends to do my bit and give Dad a breathing space. Nobody resents them; we love them to pieces.’

‘You haven’t once mentioned your mother in all of this.’ The new, lighter tone of query in his voice, the careful way he was watching her, gave her hope that he was beginning to believe her at last.

So the relief of that gentled her tone as she told him softly, ‘Mum died fourteen years ago. Dad brought us up.’

He had devoted his life to his daughters because with the death of his wife there had been nothing else to live for. And although she could understand such depth of devotion she couldn’t condone it. If he had been able to find a new love and marry again—without feeling he was betraying everything he and Mum had been to each other—then he needn’t have sacrificed his career in the way he had, and she needn’t have had to witness those rare unguarded moments when his deep loneliness had shown in his eyes.

‘So your father is left with the unenviable task of bringing up a second family—virtually single-handed if I read you right—as a result of his daughter’s thoughtless lack of control.’

Pompous, pious, ignorant bastard!

Zoe ground her teeth, biting back the verbal brickbats she was itching to throw at him, remembering his threats, his ability—if he so chose—to put her prospects within her company at very grave risk.

It wasn’t like that. Petra had been deceived in the vilest way possible. Her heart had been broken because she’d loved the man and had believed he loved her, too. Her life could have been ruined but she’d been too strongwilled to let that happen and she, Zoe, and Dad, had been right behind her decision to carry on with her pregnancy.

They’d put their heads together and worked everything out. Petra would get her degree through the Open University and Dad would take early retirement when the babies needed more time-consuming attention, leaving their mother free to push on with her studies.

And Zoe was able to give practical help, too. Visiting every weekend to give a hand, giving all the financial support she could afford because although the state helped it was a pittance and didn’t go anywhere. And how dared he imply that all responsibility had been offloaded on to Dad? And the tiny boys didn’t represent an ‘unenviable task’—they were a joy!

Stormy green eyes clashed with his. She could see the cold condemnation in his eyes and knew she had to allow herself the luxury of putting him in his place. After all, his reasons for wanting her taken off the Wright and Grantham account were no longer valid, he could hardly demand her removal for being less than boot-licking, could he?

‘Have you always been so moralistic and judgemental, Mr Cade?’ she enquired in the coollest, most dismissive tone she could find. ‘Was it something that happened, or were you born like it?’ She reached for her handbag, determined that she would be the one to end what had turned out to be a very distasteful, unsettling interview. ‘Did you never do something you later regretted when you were an inexperienced eighteen?’

But James Cade would have been born with all the experience in the world buried deep in his frigid soul, she scorned as she gathered herself to go. She couldn’t imagine him ever being vulnerable, open to hurt and betrayal. Yet the look in his eyes told her she had inadvertently touched a raw nerve, revived something, a memory perhaps, that he could hardly bear to look at.

Interesting.

Too interesting to share, obviously. His face went blank again, his voice almost soft as he commanded, ‘Sit down. I haven’t finished with you yet.’

So she did, with a flurry of internal exasperation. She was going to have to watch her tongue. The more time she spent with him, the more she found herself spoiling for a fight. He was, she decided, infinitely dangerous to her equanimity—never mind her sanity!

‘I’m sorry.’ She arranged her features primly, a slightly off-balance semblance of her normal serene and unflustered expression. ‘I thought everything had been resolved.’ Perhaps he did want to talk about his personal tax returns, she thought. She couldn’t think of anything else he might need to say on the once vexed subject of her suspect morals.

Or maybe, she wondered without a lot of hope, he wanted to apologise. And just stared at him, unable to believe this was happening when he stated coldly,

‘I’m still trying to decide—given what you’ve told me—whether you are as brave and unselfish as you’d like to have me believe, or an accomplished liar.’ He settled his elbows on the arm-rests of his chair, grey eyes impaling her above steepled fingers. ‘The way you choose to conduct your life doesn’t affect me, personally, so don’t accuse me of taking the moralistic stance. But your lifestyle could leave you open to blackmail; I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to see that. And, as I said, there is a certain amount of sensitive, highly confidential information that our rivals would willingly pay substantial sums to obtain, or certain questionable newspapers would love to use as sensational headline material. “New Wonder Drug—Cure All or Kill All”—I’m sure you can visualise the type of thing?’ He allowed his voice to tail off, as if the final word had been said and the subject wearied him, and Zoe sucked in her breath, desperately fighting to find all the control she’d always had at the end of her neat fingers and now seemed to have lost.

And her struggle for composure must have been written all over her face because he lowered his hands and smiled. And the effect was utterly, unnervingly devastating. Made her almost forget his damning opinion of her, his stubborn refusal to believe in her integrity, until he said, ‘You don’t need to try so hard to project a meek, prim image, Miss Kilgerran. I’ve seen you in quite a different persona, remember? Black fishnet—a little torn around the knees, but fetching for all that. A cleavage any Page Three girl would be proud of and an apology for a skirt that defies description. And in any case, Miss Kilgerran, your eyes give you away. They positively spit with wild green passion whenever I say something you don’t want to hear.’