by Shirley Wine
The lift stopped and they stepped into an open, spacious office reception. ‘Chloe, this is my fiancée, Victoria.’
A tall, svelte blonde rose from her desk, walked around it and extended her hand to Victoria. Chloe had to be close to fifty, but she was one of those women who were ageless and would still look beautiful at eighty.
‘It’s nice to put a face to the voice,’ Victoria said as they shook hands.
‘How’s Greta Beardsley working out for you?’ Chloe asked, her eyes twinkling.
‘She’s ideal. You certainly picked a winner for me there,’ Victoria said and turned to Keir. ‘I need to have a word with you.’
Shrewd, dark eyes scanned her face and whatever he saw had him saying to Chloe, ‘See we’re not disturbed and hold all my calls.’
Keir opened his office door and escorted Victoria into his inner sanctum. She barely heard the door close over the thunder of her heartbeats.
God, I can’t do this.
To give herself time, she wandered around his office, studying paintings on the wall, picking up from a side table a small bronze statue of a girl carrying two baskets. She rubbed a nervous finger over the cold metal before carefully replacing the statue where it had sat.
All this time she was aware of his silent scrutiny.
She turned to the window and stared out. In the distance she caught a glimpse of the water through the trees, marking the course of the mighty Waikato River as it snaked its way through Hamilton.
‘What’s the matter, Victoria?’
She gave a start and turned to look at him. ‘What makes you ask?’
‘Maybe because you resemble a cat on hot bricks,’ he said with dry humour.
The observation made her wince and she surreptitiously wiped a damp palm on her skirt as she turned to face him.
So it starts, the demands you want satisfied. His contemptuous words tormented her.
She couldn’t ask. Desperate, she turned to flee.
In two strides Keir crossed the space and took her chilled hands in his. ‘Victoria, what is it?’
She looked up at him, stricken, and prayed that Albee had read Keir right. There was only one way to do this. She took a slow, deep breath and asked, ‘I want ten thousand dollars, Keir.’
His face went blank.
Those expressive chocolate eyes were strangely opaque. No sound broke the incredible stillness as they stood motionless, just looking at each other.
Say something. Anything!
Victoria felt sick to the pit of her stomach. What was he thinking?
Without uttering a word he turned to his desk, yanked open a drawer and extracted a chequebook. The sounds of his movements impinged on the heavy silence.
He put his hand inside his suit jacket, the silence so sharp she heard the rustle of the silk lining of his suit coat. The scratch of the fountain pen on paper made her mouth go dry.
Tension throbbed on the air.
Through the long reaches of the previous night she’d tried to imagine this scene and she hadn’t come even close. The sound of the cheque ripping from the book was so obscenely loud.
‘Here’s your payment, madam.’ The menace in his silky voice made all the hairs on her body stand to attention. ‘Now I’ll take mine.’
Before she had time to grasp the enormity of his words, he caught her in a crushing grip and hauled her close to his body, tension hardening in every muscle and sinew.
A strong hand forced up her chin.
He stopped her shocked protest by the simple expedient of covering her mouth with his in a predatory kiss, a kiss that scorched clear through to her toes.
Panicked excitement leapt along her veins.
This was no ordinary kiss.
It was powerful, hungry and had a deep underlay of emotion she was unable to unscramble her wits enough to interpret.
She felt his hand at the buttons of her blouse, then his long, supple fingers were on her breast kneading and stroking until she was bucking beneath his touch. Her whimpers were absorbed in the cavern of his mouth.
Victoria was barely aware of moving until her knees buckled and she hit the edge of his desk. Without breaking the kiss, he lifted her and she sat on the front edge. A powerful knee nudged her thighs apart and he was between them. He leaned her backward and afraid of falling, she let him go, leaning her hands back on the desk to support her weight.
His hands moved up to her head and quickly destroyed the coronet she had taken such care in creating. Hairpins pinged as they landed on the surface of his polished oak desk.
Her hair cascaded around her shoulders.
Keir allowed her no time to regroup before he scrambled her wits even more.
A hard hand slid up her thigh and in one effortless movement he ripped her panties in two, tossing them carelessly aside. Long lean fingers probed the entrance to her body, already slick with arousal. As he penetrated deeply with his fingers, her shocked cry was muffled in his mouth.
This was ravishment, plain and simple.
Before she guessed what he was about, he dropped to his knees and his mouth replaced his hand. Victoria bucked and cried out before fiery sensation streaked through her entire being, turning her into a quivering mass of molten sensation, wound so tight she crashed off the edge of the world. He allowed her no time before he was there driving relentlessly into her body. Her head hung backward, the effort to lift it too much.
His hard thrusts drove her up and over the edge until, boneless, she spiralled into black space. Keir’s harsh breathing penetrated her stupor. Slowly raising weighted eyelids, she lifted her head. He stood in front of her fully clothed, but it was his expression that brought her sharply back to her senses and chilled her to the bone.
She tried to speak but he held up an imperative hand.
‘Don’t say a word,’ he hissed from between clenched teeth. ‘I don’t want to hear it. I’m the fool. I actually thought you were different.’ He leaned past her, picked up the cheque from the desk and thrust it down the front of her gaping bra. ‘I’ll have a second installment tonight.’
A tide of crimson humiliation swept over her whole body, up her neck and into her face. Struggling to summon what little dignity she still possessed, she slid off the desk and straightened her skirt. Her hands shook as she hooked her bra and buttoned her blouse.
With one sweeping movement she raked a hand through her hair and swept the mass over one shoulder before she stooped and picked up her purse. Her legs were unsteady, but she forced them to move toward the door, stepping over her discarded panties. She had her hand on the doorknob when he spoke.
‘Victoria—’
She looked back over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised in question. For long, silent moments their gazes clashed.
She lifted her chin; pride was all she had left. ‘Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear.’
The tide of crimson that swept up his face should have pleased her, but she discovered it only increased the emptiness that threatened to consume her.
Not until she was clear of his office did anger and misery surface.
She had known Keir would deeply resent her asking for money, but she’d never expected such an extreme reaction. As she walked, the wind caught her unrestrained hair, blowing it across her face. With a frustrated sigh, she pushed it from her face, grimacing as it caught on her lips. A sandwich board on the footpath caught her attention, and in that split second she made a decision and walked inside.
Luck was on her side.
‘We have a cancelled appointment. Would madam like to step through now?’
For one moment Victoria hesitated. Then, with grim resolution, she took this as a sign. It was time. Time she cast aside foolish dreams and started over. Without trust, there was no future for her with Keir.
***
Keir lifted a hand and let it fall. The click of the door closing behind Victoria held a finality that made him swear. A low, succinct oath blistered the air.
What h
ave I done?
He raked a shaking hand through his hair and closed his eyes, but Victoria’s shattered expression was burned onto his retinas.
The silence mocked him.
With another frustrated oath, he went to the window and leaned his hot face against the glass, but this did little to cool the emotions ripping at him.
Anger. Betrayal. Disillusionment.
The rage slowly subsided, but its aftermath left him weak and trembling and he slumped against the window frame, dismayed to find he needed the support.
Shame soaked clear through to his soul.
This uncontrollable emotion welled up and consumed him and everything in its path, the same as it had done when he discovered his mother was very much alive. And when Katrina—
With Katrina, he’d managed to hold it together until he had put the width of an entire country between them … or he would have choked the life out of her, very, very slowly.
Katrina no longer mattered.
But with Victoria …
Fear mingled with shame. This time he’d expended his rage on Victoria, the one woman who didn’t deserve to be hurt.
I’m tired of paying for some other woman’s sins …
Keir rubbed his face, surprised when it came away wet. Over the past month, as he’d pieced together the fragments of their past, Keir’s admiration and gratitude for his son’s mother had grown. Alone and with minimal support, she’d refused to relinquish their son, despite enormous pressure from her father. She’d worked so hard to raise Connor, all the while as she forged a career to support them both.
He clenched his fist.
Andrew Scanlan had treated his daughter appallingly.
As if I’m treating her a whole heap better?
If Victoria needed to ask him for money, Keir knew she must have a valid, pressing reason. Now that it was too late, he knew he should have asked her why and not just reacted.
Instead, he’d treated her like some two-bit whore.
Guilt flayed him.
He strode back to his desk. What the hell could he do to fix this? Victoria’s ripped panties lay on the carpet and as he stooped to pick them up, his hands shook. The torn scrap of satin and lace was an indelible stain on his honour.
Icy dread clawed at him.
This eruption of temper could have the very worst kind of consequence. It could well cost him the one woman who brought warmth and laughter into his barren life, the only woman he could ever love.
Love?
His roiling thoughts came to an abrupt halt. He prodded the idea from every angle and wondered how he could be so blind. The thought of life without Victoria chilled him to the bone. He raked an agitated hand through his hair, cold sweat beaded his brow and the knot in his gut tightened. His temper may well have cost him the one woman who held the power to help him heal.
How can I repair the damage?
Victoria was not the mother who’d abandoned him, or Muriel who dealt in lies and cruelty, nor was she Katrina with her duplicitous agendas. He knew this, and yet in one moment of blinding rage he’d expended years of anger at all three women on the one person who didn’t deserve it.
In a moment of clear insight, Keir knew that unless he faced the issues from his past, nothing was more certain than that he stood to lose the one woman who was the centre of his world.
Inaction wasn’t an option.
Unless you ask the right questions, you’ll never get the right answers.
In one blinding moment, Keir finally understood Dan Sinclair’s cryptic words. He understood that if he wanted to salvage his relationship with Victoria, he needed to ask the questions he should have asked a long time ago. He strode back to his desk, picked up the phone and punched out a number he rarely called but that was indelibly imprinted on his mind nonetheless.
The phone picked up. ‘Donovan.’
‘Dad? It’s Keir. I need to see you.’
Chapter Twenty
The absence of the usual press contingent was the first thing to grab Keir’s attention when he reached Dunstan. The second was the unfamiliar car parked in front of his house on the forecourt.
Damn!
He didn’t want to face visitors before he had a chance to talk to Victoria. He pulled into the garage, parked, and then rapidly mounted the stairs, too impatient to wait for the lift.
Apprehension twisted his gut in knots. Was it even possible to make amends? Fear and something very close to despair threatened to bring him to his knees. Keir knew he couldn’t blame Victoria if she left. Since leaving Darkhaven, he’d been quaking in fear that he was too late. For the first time in his adult life he was very much afraid he would not be able to correct an appalling mistake. He inhaled a sharp breath and opened the door into the gallery overlooking the family room.
Shock stilled his breath.
My mother? Here?
Elizabeth Ellison sat on a sofa in the family room reading to Connor, and she looked up as she heard his footstep, her expression wary and nervous. She was definitely not overjoyed to see him.
Can I blame her? After the way I’ve treated her?
She was the very last person Keir expected to see. Garth Ellison looked up when he heard Keir’s footsteps and he rose from the sofa to stand beside his wife, one hand on her shoulder in a protective stance. Tension radiated from him in waves.
Keir walked slowly down the shallow flight of stairs and into the family room.
‘Mother, this is a surprise,’ he said, first to break the pulsing silence.
What an understatement. His mother had never visited him, and judging by her expression, she wasn’t at all sure of her welcome now.
Why are my mother and Ellison here?
As if today’s revelations weren’t enough to contend with, he was now face-to-face with another woman he’d grievously wronged.
He did not need this.
‘Daddy!’ Connor looked up, saw Keir and tore across the room, hurling himself into his father’s arms. ‘I’s got a new granny? I got three grannies now. Granny Daphne, Granny Muriel and Granny Elizabeth.’
Keir scooped Connor into a bear hug, focusing all his attention on his son as he fought to regain some sense of balance.
‘Now fancy that. Three grannies. Aren’t you a lucky one,’ he murmured, his voice husky with strain. ‘I need to talk to your granny now, okay tiger?’
‘Okay.’ Connor gave him another strangling hug.
Keir lowered the little boy to the floor and the child raced off to play with the Lego spread out on the floor beside the sofa where Elizabeth sat.
Connor’s exuberant energy was a startling contrast to the awkward tension radiating from the adults.
Walking far more sedately, Keir followed his son into the room and approached his mother. Ellison moved closer to Elizabeth as she rose from the sofa, hovering defensively at her side.
‘Ellison,’ Keir said with a nod of acknowledgment, and he held out a hand to his stepfather.
‘Donovan.’ Ellison shook Keir’s hand, but his expression remained wary.
The older man’s firm grip and his harsh expression were an unmistakable warning: Don’t do or say anything to hurt your mother.
Shame scorched Keir as he remembered some of the names and accusations he’d flung at the nervous woman facing him.
Ellison has good cause to issue me a warning.
‘Hello, Mother.’ Keir leaned down and kissed her cheek.
‘Keir.’ Elizabeth held out a hand, her voice shaky with apprehension. ‘Connor’s a lovely child and so like you at that age.’
How could she know what I looked like when I was five?
As far as Keir was aware, he’d not seen his mother from the time he was four until the summer he turned seventeen. What else was there in those missing years that he didn’t know about?
‘So I’ve been told.’ Keir’s voice was husky with strain as he put his hands on his mother’s shoulders and looked into her eyes, the words torn from him. ‘
I’m so damned sorry. I’m so sorry for hurting you when you didn’t deserve it.’
Her lovely throat worked as she swallowed, and tears filled her grey eyes, and he knew that she too was battling strong emotions.
‘It was never your fault, my darling. I’ve always known and understood that,’ she whispered, her face crumpling. ‘I could only watch you grow up from a safe distance. But there was never a day when I didn’t miss you, Seth.’
‘Don’t call me that. Using that name has caused me a ton of grief.’ Somehow he managed a shaky chuckle. He blinked rapidly as he battled powerful feelings.
‘So I’ve learned.’ She lifted a hand to wipe away tears.
Keir, overcome with reaction, pulled her into a tight hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and he discovered himself fighting tears. He sucked in a deep breath. Wrapped in her scented embrace, memories surfaced and warmed the chilled place in his soul, a place so empty it had ached all his life.
He knew deep in his heart that as a child he’d been held and rocked and loved by this woman. As he held her crushed close, that gaping wound began to close. Keir didn’t want to let her go or lose this precious, newly awakened memory. He held her shoulders and looked into grey eyes swimming with tears.
‘You never hated me, or abandoned me—’ His cracked voice broke and he was unable to continue.
‘I’ve never, ever hated you. You idolised your father; I couldn’t take you away from him. But I love you so much, sweetheart. More than you’ll ever know, and I never once thought that my leaving you would mean being cut out of your life.’ Tears trembled on her lashes. ‘At first Caine was bitter—’
‘And then he married Muriel.’ Keir pulled his mother into his arms and as he held her he was sure he felt Muriel’s poison leaching away and setting him free. ‘You smell the same.’
Elizabeth pulled away from him, her laugh shaky as she scrubbed at her cheeks. ‘I’ve always used this perfume.’
‘I’ve just come from Darkhaven,’ Keir said gruffly, ‘and finally got to ask the right questions. Dad had no right to lie to me.’
Elizabeth lifted a gentle hand and stroked Keir’s face, her palm warm against his cheek. ‘One jealous woman has caused us both far too much sorrow. Your father hasn’t had it easy and his future doesn’t look bright. Let it go, Keir.’
