A Scandalous Inheritance

by Penny Jordan

  The twins woke her, announcing that she had been asleep for hours and that it was almost time for dinner.

  ‘Uncle Jay’s back. He’s in the den, making some phone calls,’ Rosalie told her, as they all went inside.

  Jay. She shivered slightly… Her husband! Only he wasn’t, not really… Panic swept through her. Why had she slept the afternoon away? Why hadn’t she been on the phone to her solicitor, trying to extricate herself from this unwanted marriage?

  The lethargy that had dogged her all day still clung to her body. She shivered again…Jay was such a ruthless man, so determined to get what he wanted, so determined to see her in the worst of all possible lights.

  She went upstairs to her room and opened the door into the sitting-room. The personal belongings she had left on the small writing desk had gone.

  Uneasily she walked into the bedroom. It was pristinely immaculate; no trace of her possessions anywhere. Her panic increased. She opened a cupboard door…empty…

  She heard a sound behind her and swung round. Jay lounged against the doorframe, his arms folded, his eyes watching her movements.

  ‘Where are all my things?’

  ‘Where do you think? In my room! Dolores had them moved there this afternoon.’

  For a moment she was too shocked to speak. She could only stare at him, trying to absorb what he was telling her. This couldn’t be happening…Dolores would never…but as far as Dolores knew they were a perfectly ordinary married couple. But they weren’t and they never could be.

  ‘Well, she can just move them back again.’ She had got her voice back, but it sounded odd, rusty and unfamiliar. ‘No way am I sharing a room with you.’

  ‘My feelings exactly,’ Jay agreed, folding his arms, and giving her a gritty look, ‘but you seem to be forgetting something… The twins, and apparently everyone else around here as well, seem to think we’re in love.’

  Natasha looked at him, her mouth compressing, disliking the meaning cloaked within the words.

  ‘That’s not my fault,’ she assured him.

  ‘No?’

  The silky disbelief in the one word sent shivers down her spine.

  ‘No!’ she reiterated firmly.

  ‘Then how do you explain away Cherry’s congratulatory comment to you this morning?’ His eyebrows lifted interrogatively, and to her chagrin, Natasha felt her face flush guiltily.

  ‘It wasn’t what you think. Rosalie and Cherry…’

  How could she explain to him the twins’ fear that he would marry Jenneth, and their subsequent, entirely innocent, suggestion that she should try to make him fall in love with her instead?

  ‘I must admit this isn’t what I expected,’ Jay told her, when she remained silent. ‘It was my intention to keep our marriage…’

  ‘A secret?’ she submitted cynically.

  He shrugged, ‘Other than to the three interested parties, that is myself, you and your lover, yes… It was obvious that once he knew that you were married to me he would drop out of the scene.’

  ‘Allowing you to put pressure on me to hand over my share of the ranch so that I could go with him, I suppose,’ Natasha supplied angrily.

  ‘Unfortunately, I hadn’t expected him to be at the ranch waiting for us,’ Jay continued, smoothly ignoring her outburst.

  And of course he had had to announce their marriage to stop her from leaving with Adam, Natasha realised.

  ‘I’m not going to share a bedroom with you,’ she repeated stubbornly.

  ‘What is it you’re so afraid of?’ She hated the cynical way he looked at her. ‘Not me, surely?’

  ‘How can you say that, after what you’ve done?’ Natasha demanded heatedly, deliberately mis-understanding.

  ‘Some people would think everything I’ve done is justified in view of what you’ve done to me!’

  ‘Does the ranch really mean so much to you that you’d demean yourself by marrying a woman you so obviously despise?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at her, a faintly brooding expression in his eyes. ‘Not in a personal sense… wealth and all its trappings,’ he shrugged, ‘they mean nothing. But this land, the people who have worked for it…fought for it…died for it. Yes, they’re important to me. More important than my own personal feelings. I owe it to them to hold this place together, to pass it on to the next generation.’

  ‘But you have no son,’ Natasha reminded him.

  He frowned, and looked at her almost as though he hadn’t realised who he was talking to.

  ‘The twins will marry, they will have children… A son, a daughter, it doesn’t matter…’

  It was odd that he hadn’t reminded her that there was nothing to stop him having a child of his own. Had he really loved the twins’ mother so much that he couldn’t even endure the thought of another woman bearing his child? That didn’t tie in with a personality ruthless enough to abduct, to do what had been done to her.

  The door to her sitting-room opened and Dolores came in.

  ‘Ah, there you are. I’ve moved your things into Jay’s room,’ she told Natasha unnecessarily. ‘You’ve got ten minutes before I start to serve dinner.’

  Now was her chance to tell the truth, to denounce him in front of Dolores and end this farce. But instead she found herself walking towards the door, shepherded there by Jay, who was walking alongside her.

  ‘This way.’ He touched her arm and her skin tingled dangerously.

  His room was right at the end of the hallway. Unlike hers, it didn’t have its own sitting-room, but it was enormous, furnished with heavily carved Spanish furniture and decorated in glowing Mexican fabrics.

  The bed was huge. It had a heavy carved headboard, and a traditional patchwork quilt covered the bed. It looked large enough to sleep four adults with ease, and yet Natasha felt herself looking away from it, her stomach muscles knotting with tension.

  Jay had been right about one thing. She had nothing to fear from him sexually. The desire she had sensed in him when he kissed her previously had been totally absent since their marriage and, besides, she had always known how much he resented feeling it.

  ‘Bathroom’s over here,’ Jay told her, striding into the room and pushing open a door. ‘This room used to belong to my parents, but I only moved in here after Gramps died. Dressingroom’s through there.’ He opened another door and Natasha walked through it into a long narrow room, the length of which ran fitted wardrobes. She opened one and saw all her dresses hanging neatly inside it. The wardrobe doors were mirror-fronted and the room itself was almost as large as the small bedroom of her London flat.

  If only there was a chair in it she could have slept in here instead of sharing Jay’s bed.

  ‘I need to take a shower,’ she heard Jay saying behind her. ‘We’d better get a move on, otherwise Dolores will be lambasting us for being late for dinner.’

  How long would it take him to shower? Natasha wondered feverishly, closing the dressing-room door behind her and quickly tugging off her jeans and top. She would have liked a shower too, but she wasn’t going to risk running into Jay in a state of undress.

  The moment she was changed she went downstairs. The twins looked surprised to see her without Jay.

  Why on earth hadn’t she told them right from the start that they were living in a dream world in imagining that she and Jay were going to live happily ever after?

  The answer to that was simple enough—she hadn’t wanted to disappoint them with the truth, and now she was going to have to pay for that weakness.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ALL through dinner Natasha was on edge, surreptitiously watching Jay, while trying to appear light-hearted and happy for the twins.

  When he announced that he had some work to do, she gave a tiny, unconscious sigh of relief, silencing the girls’ protests.

  With any luck, his work would keep him in his study until she was safely upstairs and asleep.

  She saw the twins off to bed, and made a pretence of reading a magazine, anxiousl
y waiting as the minutes ticked by until she could reasonably go upstairs, praying that Jay wouldn’t emerge from his den until she had done so.

  She had no illusions left. If he were to guess how she felt about sharing a room with him, he would take a fiendish delight in enforcing an unwanted intimacy on her. She shuddered tensely, a fine film of sweat breaking out on her skin.

  It was gone ten o’clock at last. She put down the magazine and walked shakily upstairs.

  In the unfamiliar bedroom, she found her nightclothes and headed for the bathroom.

  The enormous half-sunken bath tempted her, but she dared not linger. Who had had it installed? It was easily large enough to accommodate two… Her mouth went dry, her pulses racing as she closed her mind against the unwanted mental image of Jay sharing the bathroom’s sensual intimacy with someone… Had he ever brought the twins’ mother here? Had she…

  No, she must not think like that…

  She showered, quickly rubbing herself until her skin glowed, before donning her cotton nightdress.

  On the threshold of the bedroom she hesitated, glancing unhappily at the bed. Large though it was, she didn’t want to share it with Jay. She didn’t want… She didn’t want anything to do with him, she told herself firmly, ignoring the tiny frisson of sexual awareness that spread through her body. How could it be that she could feel this sexual hunger for a man whom logic told her she should hate and despise?

  She looked frantically around the room, desperately searching for a means of escape. Her glance clung to the door to the dressing-room. She could sleep in there on a chair… It would be uncomfortable, but better than sharing Jay’s bed…

  The only chair that was suitable was a heavy armchair that she only just managed to drag into the narrow space. Her arms ached from the effort of moving it; her heart was thudding with fearful dread in case Jay should walk in and discover what she was doing.

  She had no idea where she might find some spare bedding, so she snatched a pillow from the bed, and a huge, fluffy bath towel from the carefully folded pile in the bathroom, and then, wrapping this round her, curled up as best she could in the armchair.

  She wasn’t very comfortable, and each time she tried to find a way of easing a new ache, she thought longingly of the huge bed, but then the memory of Jay stopped her from going to it. He might have forced her into this marriage, and into a mould that was completely false to her real nature, but there were some things he could not force her to do.

  She would show him that she had grit and determination to match his; that she couldn’t be pushed around, bullied, despised and condemned…

  Drowsily, her muddled thoughts tailed off as exhaustion eased her cramped limbs into sleep.

  She didn’t hear the door to the bedroom open just under an hour later, nor see the quick tension that gripped Jay’s body as he saw the empty bed, but she did feel the warm strength in the arms that plucked her from her cramped impromptu bed, and some instinct buried deep inside her surfaced through her sleep, making her snuggle seekingly against him.

  Her body registered the coolness of his withdrawal when he put her down, and she turned instinctively towards him, her forehead puckered in a faint frown, her cramped limbs relaxing into the spaciousness of the bed.

  Jay studied her frowningly for several seconds before straightening up. What was it about this woman that sparked off such a fierce burn of desire within him? He knew what she was, and he had wanted women before. But never quite like this, he admitted broodingly, ruthlessly subduing the ache building up inside him; never quite like this.

  Despite the comfort of the large bed, Natasha’s sleep was restless. She moved unceasingly, turning over and reaching out as though in search of something.

  She turned over and came to rest against something warm and solid. Her body relaxed on a small sigh as it ceased its restless questing, her sleep deepening as she snuggled closer to Jay’s sleeping frame.

  It was a nightmare that woke her, a sickening, frightening sensation of being relentlessly pursued by some nameless, formless enemy that brought her out of the depths of her slumbers with a sharp cry and an abrupt movement that woke Jay as well.

  It took her several seconds to realise she wasn’t alone in bed, and then several more to remember that she ought to have been sleeping in the armchair.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  The shock of hearing Jay’s voice panicked her, sending her instinctively towards the far edge of the bed. His fingers manacled her wrist before she got there, keeping her imprisoned.

  ‘Let me go,’ Natasha demanded. ‘If you think I’m sharing this bed with you…’

  The smile that curled his mouth silenced her, making a shiver of fear tremor through her muscles. It was a cruel, cynical smile, edged with bitterness.

  ‘Is that a fact? Then just how do you account for the fact that less than an hour ago you couldn’t wait to get just as close to me as you possibly could?’

  ‘That’s a lie…I was sleeping in the dressing-room.’

  ‘Yes, where anyone, including the twins, could have walked in and seen you,’ Jay agreed angrily. ‘I’m not talking about that,’ his voice was scornful. ‘I’m talking about the way, the moment you got in this bed, you clung to me like ivy hugs a wall.’

  ‘No!’ The husky denial ripped from her throat in an agonised sound of distress.

  She felt Jay reach towards her with his free hand and she flinched away in the semi-darkness, but he was only switching on one of the lamps.

  ‘Yes,’ he told her gratingly, capturing her chin and turning her face so that she had to look at him.

  He wasn’t wearing a pyjama top, and his skin glowed like polished gold in the lamplight. His chest rose and fell sharply as he breathed, anger glittering in his eyes. Like a woodland creature fascinated by the gaze of a hunter, Natasha felt her gaze cling helplessly to the hard outline of his mouth.

  ‘You’re lying.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I wouldn’t come near you for…for ten times as much as Tip left me.’

  It was the wrong thing to say. She felt it in the sudden explosive compacting of his muscles.

  ‘Well now, is that a fact?’ He looked past her at the night-stand which held a collection of change and dollar bills, and said, with soft menace that brought a shudder of horror to her skin, ‘I’ve got a hundred dollars here that says I could make you cry out for me, and want me so much that you’d be begging me to take you.’

  ‘No!’ It was the only protest she could get through her locked throat muscles—her whole body felt literally frozen with dread.

  ‘No, what? No, I couldn’t do it or…’

  What was happening to her? It was like an unending nightmare that piled horror upon horror with no release!

  ‘I’m going to turn that into a yes,’ she heard Jay saying savagely. ‘I’m going to show that greedy little mind of yours just exactly what it’s sold out…Have you ever given yourself to any man just for the pleasure of it, Natasha?’ he asked her softly.

  He was stroking the inner skin of her wrist hypnotically, with fingers that made her flesh tingle and her body quiver. She was desperately afraid of the purpose she read in his eyes, but she knew that there was no way he was going to let her go.

  ‘Before tonight’s over, I’m going to make you ache and burn…’ He moved, drawing her against the warm hardness of his torso, his head bending so that his mouth could explore the smooth softness of her throat, smothering words that had almost sounded like, ‘The way you’ve done to me.’

  But he could hardly have said that, she admitted feverishly, her brain clouded by her fear of the pleasure he was making her feel. Just the touch of his mouth against her skin ignited such sensations inside her! She opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but all that emerged was a soft moan. As though it had been a command in a private language, his mouth moved, probing the neckline of her nightdress, his hand tracing the shape of her spine, arching her against him.

  The ribbon ties at the neck
line of her night-dress gave way beneath his hands, laying her breasts bare to his gaze.

  Natasha closed her eyes, caught between shame and another less easily understood sensation that made her shiver and brought her coral-pink nipples burgeoning into taut fullness.

  She felt Jay slide her nightdress off her shoulders, and then his hands were cupping her breasts. She kept her eyes tightly closed.

  ‘Yes,’ she heard him say thickly. ‘I always knew you would feel like this. Soft, silky.’ His thumbs rubbed slowly against the hard points of her breasts, making her shudder fiercely at the surge of pleasure that rushed through her.

  ‘So responsive, especially to a man you don’t want. But then you’ve never wanted any man, have you, Natasha? You only want their money.’

  She cried out wildly, pushing away from him, but he was too strong for her, his arms locking round her body so that her breasts were pressed against the hardness of his chest. She tried to breathe, and found she could only take in shallow sips of air. She struggled and gasped beneath the onslaught of strange pleasure that invaded her, as her frantic movements inadvertently dragged the hard points of her breasts against the rough darkness of Jay’s body hair.

  She felt the answering tension shock through Jay, and heard the sound he made deep in his chest. Then he was cupping her breasts, pressing them into his body, moving against her in a way that made her powerless to resist the flood of sensation spilling through her.

  She made a sound, something between a cry and a sob, but when his hands slid down her ribcage and arched her back, so that he could bend his head and take first one and then the other swollen nipple into his mouth, she made no physical or verbal protest.

  The lamplight highlighted them, etching the primitive intimacy of their embrace, her hair spilling over his arm, his body dark and golden against the silky paleness of hers, her breasts crowned by the dusky aroused buds of flesh so recently possessed by his mouth.

  Way, way beyond any form of rational thought, Natasha could only cling to the hardness of his arms, her mind and her body completely overwhelmed by the sensations induced by the spearing intimacy of his mouth. She shuddered deeply, torn by the enormity of what he had made her feel, her eyes tightly closed, her lashes black smudges against the paleness of her skin, her mouth a vulnerable curve of pink.