by Lynne Graham
It was jealousy, bitter as bile in her shaken system, burning up through the steadily widening cracks in her composure. The discovery devastated her. That she could feel such a thing after all she had learnt was disgusting, hateful, utterly shameful!
‘I’m going out.’ The keys of the Ferrari were clasped in one lean hand.
Chrissy jerked upright. ‘To see Elaine?’ The instant the question escaped her, she bitterly regretted it.
‘When I give you the right to query my every move I’ll let you know,’ Blaze drawled softly. ‘And at this moment in time all we have is a somewhat unconventional working relationship. Beyond that? Nada…’
Nothing, she translated. He didn’t need to string her along any more. She had played her part well. He hadn’t even had to go to the boring lengths of actually making love to her to extract her best performance from her. She climbed the stairs like an old lady and then suddenly, without the smallest warning, she was having to run to the bathroom to be horribly and thoroughly sick.
Afterwards, she splashed her face with shaking hands. Nada…nothing. His sudden, lancing cruelty had been like a whiplash on already raw flesh. She felt absolutely humiliated. Bruised, beaten, an object of scorn. And beyond that was this overpowering inner pain that told her that the cut had gone deeper still than he knew or she could ever have dreamt in her worst nightmares.
Chapter 6
Chrissy parked behind Elaine’s Porsche. Her father rarely bothered to use the garages, and the fact that there was no other car visible led her to hope that he had already left for his office in Reading. She had left Rosie with Floss, telling her that she had some shopping to do. Floss had remarked on her pallor but not on her reddened eyes. Floss, she suspected, saw far more than she ever betrayed.
Blaze had eaten breakfast with inhuman cool, even chatting to Rosie in between times. Chrissy hadn’t been able to eat a thing. Food would have choked her. She had lain awake throughout the long night, torturing herself with self-loathing, desperate for an avenue of escape that would take her far from Westleigh Hall. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Blaze. She didn’t ever want to see him again. But escape required money she didn’t have. She was horrified by the trap in which she found herself.
Elaine, clad in an expensive black lace négligé set, opened the door. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.
‘May I come in?’ Chrissy asked tautly.
‘Suit yourself!’ Walking into the lounge, Elaine left her to follow.
‘I’m surprised you’re still here,’ Chrissy admitted. ‘I thought Dad might have thrown you out when he realised that you were seeing B-Blaze.’ Helplessly, she stumbled over his name, her strained mouth tightening.
‘Oh, I told Dad; he just gave me a lift home…and that was all,’ Elaine told her smugly. ‘He always believes what I tell him. I gather you weren’t so successful.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Don’t play dumb, Chrissy. I know you’re working for Blaze. He told me when we were in London…’
‘When we were in London’… The careless intimacy of the admission twisted Chrissy’s stomach. The assurance also told her that Blaze had left nothing to chance. ‘Did you run into him a-accidentally?’ She despised herself for asking.
Elaine raised a tart brow. ‘Don’t be more stupid than you can help…and, if I were you, I’d start looking around for another job. Blaze always did have a weird sense of humour, but when I move in you move out. Nobody’s going to be cracking three-in-a-bed jokes behind my back!’
‘You’re moving in?’ Chrissy looked incredulous.
‘Naturally…when the place is more habitable. Blaze knows I’m not the type to rough it.’ Elaine studied her reflection intently in the mirror above the fireplace, flicked a silver-blonde strand of hair back in place, and gave herself a fat, cat-got-the-cream smile of satisfaction. ‘Once I explained my side of that stupid business with the old man, we were back where we were three years ago.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ Elaine swung round. ‘I had no idea what Dad was planning to do.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Blaze understands…I don’t give a damn whether you do or not!’ Elaine said sharply. ‘Lord Whitley agreed to the stakes. If he didn’t have the money, he shouldn’t have played. Nobody twisted his arm, for goodness’ sake! And you know Dad—he doesn’t let anyone owe him money. He had a right to try and collect it. He won it fair and square. It wasn’t our fault that the old boy had a dodgy ticker. He wasn’t going to last forever anyway!’
The ease with which Elaine exonerated herself from all responsibility shook Chrissy. Her sister’s conscience was clearly at peace. Evidently Blaze had pretended to accept her wholly selfish explanation and that would be enough for Elaine, who was too self-absorbed to be sensitive.
Chrissy took a deep breath. ‘I want you to listen to me—’
‘About what?’ Elaine looked crashingly bored. ‘You didn’t need to come here to tell me that there’s nothing going on between you and Blaze. My God!’ With a derisive laugh, she surveyed her kid sister. ‘As if he’d ever be that desperate!’
Chrissy went white. Although it was the truth, it still hurt to be taunted. ‘Elaine, Blaze blames you for his grandfather’s death. Whatever else he’s telling you, he’s lying. He couldn’t possibly be planning any future that includes you—’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Elaine groaned.
‘He wants revenge. He hasn’t forgotten what you did…’
‘You’re jealous, aren’t you?’
‘I’m trying to warn you—’
‘Where the hell do you think you get the right to talk to me like that about Blaze?’ Elaine lost her temper suddenly. ‘I’m not listening to it. See yourself out!’
Left talking to thin air, Chrissy followed her sister to her bedroom. ‘I know you don’t want to believe me, but why would I lie?’
‘Because you’re a jealous bitch!’ Elaine condemned. ‘Blaze is worth millions and you can’t stand for me to get him!’
‘Millions?’ Chrissy queried drily.
‘At least. His father left him the lot.’ Elaine smiled to herself. ‘A total fluke, but amazing good luck. His father married and had two legitimate kids, but the whole family went down in a plane crash eighteen months ago. Blaze copped the lot.’
She had lost her kid sister’s attention. Chrissy was staring at the box protruding from the waste-paper bin. Unless she was very much mistaken… She bent and fished it out. She hadn’t been mistaken. It belonged to a pregnancy-testing kit!
‘Oh, hell!’ Registering the source of her stillness, Elaine snatched the evidence angrily from her and thrust it back in the bin. ‘I’m warning you…if you don’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll kill you! I’ve got a booking at a clinic next week and that will take care of that!’
Chrissy was stunned. ‘You’re pregnant?’
‘Fabulous timing, don’t you think?’ Elaine muttered sulkily. ‘I could scream! All my own doing, of course. I let Steve persuade me just that once and look where I am now!’
‘And you’re planning to have an abortion?’ Chrissy was deeply disturbed by the announcement. ‘You c-can’t do that, Elaine. Not for Blaze’s benefit.’
‘Who else would I do it for? Stop looking at me like that!’ Elaine told her furiously. ‘It’s my choice, my decision…’
‘But presumably you wanted the baby when it was conceived,’ reasoned Chrissy, appalled by her sister’s intentions towards her unborn child.
‘Times change. I want a quick, clean divorce so that Blaze can marry me and I’m not complicating the issue.’
‘Has Blaze mentioned marriage?’ Chrissy breathed.
‘Not yet…but he will,’ Elaine stated with her usual confidence. ‘So you must see how impossible it would be for me to be pregnant with another man’s child.’
Chrissy sank down shakily on the edge of the bed. Dear heaven, but Elaine could be callous. She wanted Blaze, and not
hing, not even the precious gift of life in her womb, was to be allowed to come before that ambition. If Steve ever found out, it would destroy him. But, worst of all, Elaine would be disposing of her unborn child for nothing, taking life for no good reason. How could she stand by and let that happen when she knew that Blaze was acting solely out of malice? No way did Blaze intend any future with her sister!
‘If you’re thinking of telling Blaze, I’ll just deny it!’ Elaine slammed at her. ‘And he wouldn’t care even if he did believe you!’
Since that was Chrissy’s estimation as well, she bowed her head. Her brain was seething. What could she do to convince her sister that Blaze was deliberately leading her up the garden path? She simply couldn’t stand by and allow Elaine to abort her baby, her own unborn nephew or niece, for Blaze’s benefit. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she did. Whatever decision Elaine reached in the near future, she must make that very serious decision without the false premise that Blaze would be in the picture.
Elaine vented a scornful laugh. ‘I wonder if he’s heard those utterly ridiculous rumours that he’s the father of your child? I nearly asked him. Only Dad could be dumb enough to think that Blaze would ever have slept with you… I mean, when and where and how? But then Dad thinks no woman between fifteen and fifty is safe with Blaze!’
As inspiration took hold of her, Chrissy tensed. Suddenly she grasped that there was one way of dividing Elaine from Blaze. If she could convince her sister that that utterly ridiculous rumour was true…! Elaine would be outraged. Snatching up her bag, Chrissy dug into her purse to extract a photo of Rosie.
‘When?’ she repeated, tilting up her chin with determination. ‘W-well, it was the night before your wedding. Blaze had crashed his car on the back lane of the Manor. He was very drunk and I took him home…’
Elaine’s blue eyes fixed on her in disbelief. ‘You’re not being funny…’
‘I w-wasn’t trying to be.’
‘I’m not going to listen to fairy-tales!’ Elaine’s voice had risen an octave, revealing that she was indeed listening.
‘This is Rosie.’ Chrissy cast the photo down on the bedspread almost carelessly, afraid to overplay her hand, and then went on to tell Elaine in greater detail about how she had come upon Blaze that night.
‘He did crash his car… On the way to the church I saw it being towed to the garage.’ Elaine was staring down at the photo, suddenly very pale and rigid. ‘But he wouldn’t have slept with you! My God, you were barely out of school!’
‘Do you remember how weepy I was on your wedding day?’ Chrissy reminded her. ‘I h-had a crush on him… H-he was drunk and w-when he made a pass at me…well, I was…I was flattered—’
‘I won’t believe it…I won’t!’ In sudden temper, Elaine snatched the photo up and tore it violently in two.
‘When I f-found out I was pregnant, I was devastated, but I was down in London and I knew he wasn’t likely to be interested,’ Chrissy continued, and her voice was tremulous. On one level she couldn’t believe that she was doing this, telling this outrageous lie with all the trimmings, but on another she knew that it was her only hope of protecting Elaine’s unborn child. ‘I love kids, you know that. That’s w-why I had her. I r-reckoned it was the only part of him I was ever likely to have…’
Inwardly, she cringed from that final fatuous assertion.
‘It isn’t true!’ Elaine shrieked at her. ‘You’re making it up!’
‘Well, you ask yourself w-why he gave me this job,’ Chrissy dared with growing confidence. ‘And while you ponder that, s-spare a thought to what we were doing in the Pheasant yesterday all afternoon.’ Her cheeks burned as she made that provocative suggestion.
The silence seethed.
‘You—!’ Words seemed to fail her sister. And then suddenly she attacked, landing Chrissy such a slap across the face that she almost knocked her off the bed. ‘The only man I ever wanted! You, of all people! It’s revolting!’
Her cheek burning fierily, Chrissy hurriedly moved out of reach. Elaine was screeching at the top of her voice, ‘Get out! I’ll never forgive you for this…never!’
As she made it out to the hall, Elaine screamed after her, ‘He was mine…do you hear me? He was mine!’
At least she was talking in the past tense. But then Elaine couldn’t bear the idea that she had been sharing Blaze with her kid sister any more than she would be able to bear the knowledge that Blaze had been deceiving her. Chrissy should have felt guilty on Blaze’s behalf but she didn’t. He would never know what she had done. Elaine would go home to Steve. Elaine always ran for security when things got messy.
Chrissy drove to Reading, determined to give Blaze no opportunity to suspect that she had been anywhere near Elaine. On her return, Hamish answered the door at the Lodge. Floss had taken Rosie visiting in the village.
Floss had also left an elaborate salad in the fridge for Blaze’s lunch. Even though it was after three, it was still there. Chrissy began pushing the furniture back into place in the drawing-room. Everything was sparkling. The professional cleaners, who had arrived before she went out, had, at her request, concentrated on the completed downstairs rooms. Of course, the decorators hadn’t even begun yet. Every wall was crying out for paint and paper, but she was able to spread a particularly beautiful Persian rug on the polished mahogany floor of the drawing-room and, even without curtains, the room immediately began to take on a welcoming aspect. She was just thinking that tomorrow she would start trying to sort out the dining-room when she heard the Ferrari brake to a tyre-squealing halt outside.
A frownline divided her delicate brows. Tension began to crawl up her rigid spine. Abruptly, she decided to take evasive action, and headed for the kitchen. She was halfway out into the yard when a set of powerful fingers closed like a vice over her forearm.
‘And where are you going?’ Blaze enquired, and there was something strange about his voice, something she couldn’t quite grasp but which none the less lunged her into sudden, instinctive panic.
‘T-to pick up R-Rosie!’
‘Floss isn’t back yet.’
‘Oh.’ She still hadn’t managed to look at him, but from the instant she had heard his car she had felt as though every lie she had told Elaine was tattooed on her forehead for him to see. She broke out in nervous perspiration. ‘Would you like your lunch?’
‘Look at me!’ he demanded in a savage undertone. Her breath coming in audible snatches from her convulsed throat, she lifted her head. He didn’t know his own strength. The lean fingers anchored to her arm were biting deep into her shrinking flesh.
Warily, she collided with sapphire-blue eyes and connected with the ferocious tension splintering from him. It sprang out at her from the prominence of his tautened bone-structure, the dark flush overlying his cheekbones, the thinned flatness of his set mouth. His raw, searching scrutiny, alight with furious condemnation and suspicion, flamed over her pale, drawn face. It was like being hit by lightning. Her stomach lurched and dropped to the soles of her feet.
‘Elaine came over here this morning, half dressed, hysterical and raving like a madwoman,’ Blaze spelt out in a murderously controlled tone that sent a shiver down her spine.
Her blood ran cold in her veins. She was shattered. It had never occurred to her that Elaine would confront him. Had her sister actually told him what she had claimed? Surely not… Had she been wrong to assume that Elaine had too much pride to lower herself to such a head-on clash? The fact that her arm was about to drop off from lack of circulation suggested that she had been more wrong in that assumption than she had ever been wrong about anything in her life. And, since such a development had not once crossed her mind when she’d impulsively decided to lie to her sister, she was paralysed by sheer shock, staring up at him wide-eyed and stricken by an attack of mortification deep enough to drown in.
‘Y-you’re h-hurting me,’ she whispered shakily.
He released her arm. Automatically, she massag
ed the bruised member while she thought frantically. Dear God, what was she going to do now? Of course, he wouldn’t believe her. Elaine had, he wouldn’t, she told herself. But then, if he didn’t believe her, he would be perfectly capable of convincing Elaine that she had been lying. And if that happened she would be back to square one. She was appalled by the realisation that she was stuck with the lie now that he was aware of her claim. She had only one advantage: he had no memory of that night! At least, if he had, he had yet to betray the fact.
‘I don’t believe it’s true…you’ve got to be lying!’ The accusation was flung at her in wrathful challenge.
He was in shock, an unusual condition for Blaze Kenyon. That reaffirmed her view that he recalled nothing of that long-ago night. All she really had to do was stall him long enough for Elaine to leave the area.
‘One,’ he itemised with raw bite, ‘you were only seventeen. There is no way that, even in the state I was in, I would have touched you! Two…I have never, ever had unprotected sex, not even when I was a teenager! Three…why wouldn’t you have told me? Why would you agree to work for me and even then only spill the beans to Elaine?’
He had her cornered by the back door. The handle was digging into her spine. Hot colour had flushed her complexion. He raised a not quite steady hand and drove his fingers roughly through his luxuriant black hair. He really was shaken up. She hadn’t imagined that anything could penetrate that tough self-assurance and cynicism, but this had. Momentarily, guilt tore at her, and then she remembered Elaine’s baby, his savage and admitted desire to take revenge. As soon as it was safe to do so, she would tell him the truth, but not before.
‘Damn you!’ he slung at her with raw frustration. ‘If you don’t start talking, I won’t be responsible for what I do next!’
‘What e-exactly do you want me to say?’ she managed, intimidated by the violent anger vibrating from him.
‘You’re lying! It’s a sordid fabrication from start to finish! That’s what I want you to say,’ he informed her.
