Getting Even

by Avril Tremayne

  “I can’t believe you’re wearing a dirty T-shirt,” she said, as he turned on the interior light.

  “Yeah, well, times change,” he said, and started laughing. “And that’s a great title for chapter one of a new book: Rafael and Veronica start afresh—or at least, start dirty.” He reached across her to the glove compartment, extracted the jeweler’s box he’d stored there and held it out to her. “Take it.”

  But all she did was bring her clenched fist to her mouth and look at the box.

  “Take it, Veronica!” he said again.

  “If there’s a huge diamond ring in there I’ll go ballistic, just so you know.”

  “Ballistic over a huge diamond?”

  “Not the diamond, the principle,” she said, taking the box at last. “You going one better than my other husbands.”

  “As it happens, I’m only marginally less in love with your husbands than I am with you. They will be nightly in my prayers for the rest of our lives for keeping you well enough occupied that you didn’t fall in love with someone else, and for getting the hell out of your life at speed so I could get back into it.” He grinned at her. “And, also, they’re responsible for my two New York Times bestsellers.” He leaned over and kissed her. “But the third bestseller, according to Bryan, with you and I killed off, will be even better.” Another kiss. “And incidentally, smartass, it’s not an engagement ring in that box.”

  “So you don’t want to marry me? Again?”

  “I do want to marry you. Again. The difference is that this time I’m going to do it, because this is the right time. And also, because I already gave you a ring—which you’re already wearing. The miracle is you didn’t fling it into the wilderness after you read Stomp.”

  A look of surprise came over her face. “I didn’t even think of doing that.”

  “Which I consider a good sign that you’re accepting my proposal despite hell not having frozen over.”

  “So you’re proposing?”

  “I am.”

  “But it’s not a ring in the box.”

  “It’s an engagement bangle, okay? Now open the damn thing.”

  She opened the box. Took out the diamond-studded platinum bangle, read out the engraving: “‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,’” and started crying again.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  “Because I’ve got closure.”

  Panic shot through him. “Oh no you don’t! Oh no. You. Don’t. You love me.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You love me!”

  “I know that. It’s just—”

  “What the fuck, Veronica!”

  “Oh for God’s s—” But she cut herself off there, grabbed him by two handfuls of hair, pulled him in and kissed him hard. “Now!” she said, when she released him. “Will you shut up?”

  “Okay,” he said meekly.

  “I’m not crying because I don’t love you, I’m crying because I do, you idiot! I love you because I can cry, because it feels like forever since I felt anything enough to cry, because it’s been a thousand forevers since you left me. So let me warn you now, this is the new forever. If you try to get rid of me again, I’ll write a book about you and turn you into a swamp monster. I’ll send Scarlett’s enforcer after you.”

  “Enforcer? Seriously?”

  “And I’ll get a thousand new pins, thicker ones, longer ones, sharper ones, and torture you one body part at a time! What do you think of that?”

  She was crying in earnest by the end of that speech, so he dragged her out of her seat and onto his lap and kissed her so deeply he figured she could barely breathe let alone weep. And when he released her, he cupped her face in his hands and said, “Do you a new deal. Tell me you love me in Spanish, and I’ll be your modern day Heathcliff and read Wuthering Heights aloud to you to seal the forever deal.”

  “Heathcliff!” she said in disgust, then buried her face against his chest and started to cry again. “Oh God! I’ve gone right off Wuthering Heights these past two weeks, you bastard.”

  “No you haven’t,” he said. “I know you’re secretly in love with Heathcliff or you not only would have tossed the ring, you’d have thrown that bangle at me.”

  “What am I going to give you as an engagement present?” she snuffled.

  “A matching bangle. Well, maybe we’ll make mine a bit chunkier. All you have to do is pick out a Heathcliff quote. I’m kind of partial to ‘Drive me mad’ because I know Heathcliff says that at some point and I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re going to do to me. But if you want something a little more romantic, how about that old chestnut, ‘I cannot live without my soul’? Because I don’t want to, you know. I just want to live with you.”

  She raised her head then, gave a sniff or two, then asked, “What about my family?”

  “Hmm,” he said, prying the bangle from her and snapping it onto her wrist. “If we have to get bangles for all of them, you’re going to have to provide the quotes—I’ve reached my Wuthering Heights memory limit.”

  She laughed through her tears as she ran a delicate finger over the platinum band. “I meant what’ll we do about you not liking my family?”

  “What’s not to like? Your parents had you, didn’t they? And if your mother told you to come find me, she’s obviously smarter than either of us. As for Scarlett... Well, she’s got such bad taste in men she has no business being a therapist if you ask me, but even so—”

  “What do you mean, bad taste in men?”

  “Hey, the drug addict, an enforcer.”

  “The enforcer’s a client!”

  “But even so, I’m going to make her love me. And your father, too!”

  “You can’t make people love you.”

  “You just watch me try,” he said. “I got you to love me twice, didn’t I?”

  “No,” she said. “You got me to love you once. I never stopped. Yo siempre te he amado.”

  “Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere! Spanish!”

  “It means I’ve always loved you.”

  “You don’t say! Keep going. I can take it.”

  “Okay, mi amor.”

  “My love. Good.”

  “Tú me perteneces. Siempre me pertenecerás.”

  “I belong to you, and I’ll always belong to you. No contest there.”

  “Te amaré por siempre.”

  “You’ll love me forever.”

  “I will,” she said, and laid her hand against his cheek. Till death do us part, I’m afraid.”

  He covered her hand with his, and smiled into her eyes. “Afraid? No you’re not, my darling. And neither am I.”

  “So what are you waiting for? Let’s go home.”

  * * *

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  Worth the Risk

  by Zara Cox

  PROLOGUE

  Gideon

  GREAT-AUNT FLO WAS pacing my office.

  Seventy-five-year-olds, regardless of how sprightly they still were, had no business pacing three months after double hip-replacement operations.

  Normally I welcomed her out-of-the-blue visits, because out of all my blood relatives, she was the only one I could tolerate for more than five minutes. Which was great, because I adored every wrinkled inch of her.

  Normally that adoration was returned.

  Today, however, every look she speared at me from her light blue eyes sparked an unsettling amount of disappointment.

  My nape tightened.

  I ran through the list of possible unsavoury things I’d done since I last saw her—bloody hell, there were a lot—and tuned back in just as she gave a melodramatic sigh.

  ‘The last straw was when they called you a reckless playboy.’

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. ‘That’s absurd, Aunt Flo. For starters, I’m most definitely not a boy. If we weren’t related, I’d drop my trousers and prove it to you right now.’

  Nelly, Aunt Flo’s trusted assistant, choked, spilling the tea she was pouring.

  Aunt Flo clicked her tongue. ‘Gideon Alexander Mortimer, this is serious. And no, you can’t charm your way out of it.’

  I straightened from where I was perched on the corner of my desk and pulled out a chair. ‘Please sit down, Flo. You’re making me dizzy.’

  ‘Because you’re hung-over again?’ she sniped.

  I wasn’t, and I was more than a little disconcerted by her sharp tone. Usually Florence Jane Mortimer, known as Flo to her nearest and dearest, was soft-spoken, endlessly indulgent and thoroughly enjoyed my brand of wicked humour. Apparently not today.

  ‘No, I’m not hung-over,’ I stated truthfully. But I could’ve done with more than the two snatched hours of sleep after ending a call with Vadim Ilyev, the Russian businessman whose delay tactics on my multibillion-pound deal had made my life hell for the past few months.

  Note to self: never start a conversation with an intransigent Russian after midnight.

  ‘The senior board members are at their wits’ end.’

  I snapped into full focus. ‘What?’ She was talking business. I never tuned out anything to do with the company.

  Her lips pursed as she accepted the tea from Nelly and took a delicate sip. ‘The Mortimer Group has a long, untarnished history of excellence.’

  ‘Yes, one whose final chapter would’ve been written without a happy ending six years ago if I hadn’t stepped in,’ I muttered under my breath.

  ‘Don’t be a braggart, Gideon. You know how much I despise conceited men.’

  My frown deepened. ‘What’s going on, Flo? Usually you’re the first to laud my achievements to anyone who’ll listen.’

  She took another dainty sip, her gaze firmly avoiding mine. ‘The board has grown tired of your extracurricular antics.’

  ‘Doesn’t the very definition of extracurricular mean that it’s my business alone?’ I asked as reasonably as I could manage.

  ‘Not when you’re the head of a multibillion-pound corporation, no.’

  Now it was my turn to pace.

  There’d been growing rumblings about my work hard, party harder lifestyle recently, most likely because it was a healthy, fully fuelled juggernaut I had no intention of parking any time soon. But in light of the fact that I’d single-handedly dragged TMG from the dark ages and made it insanely profitable meant those rumblings had been behind my back. No one dared to question Gideon Mortimer about what he got up to when he wasn’t expertly manning the helm of the most profitable construction company in the western hemisphere.

  Besides, Aunt Flo had been my bulwark against all that nonsense. A five-time divorcee, she was used to scandal and gossip, and at seventy-five still entertained the occasional gentleman caller in her Fitzrovia house. She supported me, too, because she liked to give her various stick-up-their-arses nieces and nephews a moderately arthritic middle finger.

  On top of that, she was the only one who knew what had really happened with Damian that night three years ago. She was also there when Penny dropped the final soul-destroying bombshell.

  She alone understood why I went off the rails for a solid six months after my life had crashed and burned. Without her intervention, I’d probably be in jail for murdering my cousin. She’d kept my secret, used her connections to keep the most salacious morsels of my breakdown and the reason behind it out of the press.

  If I hadn’t been in awe of her before then, I certainly was by the time the red haze cleared and I discovered I had a semblance of a life left.

  The raw double betrayal still haunted me. The one that followed haunted me even more, I wasn’t ashamed to admit. The only time the demons grew quieter was when I deliberately drowned them out with a willing woman and single malt whisky. Apparently that was unacceptable to a few sanctimonious members of my family. I hid a grim smile, wondered whether they would be so hypocritical if they knew the reason behind my behaviour.

  ‘Especially since you turn thirty-three in four months—’

  Bloody hell, I really needed to focus. ‘What’s my age got to do with anything?’

  ‘You’re no longer a boy. They want to see a marked change, a more grounded outlook on life—’

  ‘Or what? They’ll vote to chop my bonus in half?’ Who cared? I was already wealthier than I would
ever be able to spend in two lifetimes. Plus, with a twenty-three per cent share in a company worth thirty-one billion, I had more clout than every individual shareholder.

  ‘Or they’ll consider putting Harry in charge for a while.’

  I stopped midpace. ‘Harry?’ Derisive laughter spilled out unchecked. ‘Are they out of their damned minds? I taught that little pissant everything he knows—’

  ‘Which means he’ll do a stellar job. Especially if he conscripts one of your other cousins to assist him. The board are confident they can elect someone else to head the company without the accompanying Page Three snippets of the CEO’s X-rated lifestyle shoved in their faces every time they open their newspapers.’

  That neat little nugget was a bullet to the chest. One I couldn’t argue with. I felt it penetrate deeper, causing as much damage as possible.

  My cousin Harry was duller than a puddle in winter, with zero personality and even less of a life. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to bed fully dressed in his staid brown suits, his brown hair neatly combed, tie in place, ready to spring to work like a robot.

  The last family member who’d been thrust into the demanding CEO position had lasted just six months before succumbing to a nervous breakdown and a long stint in rehab.

  I’d been considered too young when I presented them with a three-year projection of where the company would be without radical changes—which was basically bankruptcy—and offered to save The Mortimer Group, on condition I was made CEO.

  In the six years since I took over, I made the company wildly successful, and unfortunately pissed off more than a few members of my own family along the way.

  ‘Page Three no longer exists,’ I murmured abstractedly while my mind raced to tackle what could possibly be a real threat to my position.

  Despite his shortcomings, Harry was a hard-working and intelligent subordinate, but he was nowhere near ready to take the helm of the company I’d shaped into running like a Swiss watch. Nor was he in any way equipped to be trusted with the biggest deal TMG was within a whisker of bagging. The deal that had demanded ninety-nine per cent of my working life for the last eight months.