Would the conversation struggle towards normality? she wondered. While Amanda packed her case upstairs and vanished back towards London.
Elizabeth would never know the answer to that one because no sooner had she sat down—blessed relief for her legs which felt like jelly—than the door was pushed open and there was Amanda, framed in the doorway like an avenging angel.
The trouser suit was gone, replaced by a red dress that hugged her body like cling film. Elizabeth realised that, while Andreas had doubtless been in the sitting room trying to placate James, Amanda had taken the opportunity to have a bath and freshen up.
For a few seconds both James and Andreas seemed to be frozen to the spot. James disapproving and working himself up to one of his famous rants, and Andreas’s hard features stamped with icy disdain. Elizabeth almost felt sorry for the woman because there was nothing Andreas loathed more than a scene, as he had once told her in passing. And Amanda certainly looked like a woman on the verge of causing a very big scene.
She stepped into the room and waved a bundle of papers at them, at which point Elizabeth felt the room begin to spin around her. She made to get up and then immediately collapsed back onto the sofa.
‘Just thought you’d like to have a look at these!’ She smiled triumphantly at Elizabeth. Between her grasping fingers, the faded blue envelopes were instantly recognisable.
‘You have no right…’
‘Oh, I think everyone in here will agree that I had every right to tell them exactly what you are! And I can’t imagine what took you so long. Did you think that you needed to spend some time buttering the old man up before you staked your claim?’ Amanda’s china-blue eyes were cool, amused and smugly satisfied that pay-back time had arrived. ‘Well, good luck.’ She spun round without glancing inAndreas’s direction. It was a magnificent spin, a neatly executed twirl which ensured that every aspect of her fabulous body was revealed, a timely reminder to her ex of what he would be missing.
Elizabeth had no time to feel jealous because she was way too busy feeling terrified. Her eyes were glued to the bundle of envelopes which had been casually dropped on the old, mahogany table in the middle of the room. On the one hand, she wanted nothing more than to dash to the table, snatch up the envelopes and run away as fast as she could. On the other hand, she was overcome by a sense of fatalism. What would be, would be.
She gradually became aware of both Andreas and James staring at her. Amanda had left with a flourish, although Elizabeth couldn’t have said exactly when.
Andreas was the first to break the silence.
‘Are you going to explain what the hell that was all about?’ He glanced at the envelopes burning a hole on the table, and knew that all the vague suspicions he had entertained about her were now going to be proved. Little Miss Innocent looked as guilty as sin with her colour up and her fingers twisting restively on her lap.
‘May I have a word with James privately?’ Elizabeth ventured and Andreas shot her a look of rampant incredulity.
‘Well, in that case…’ She took the bundle of letters and handed them to James, along with his reading glasses, which were in the top pocket of his shirt and which he constantly forgot. ‘Do you remember a woman called Phyllis? You met her, well, over twenty-five years ago. She was thirty-two at the time and you were in your late forties. She was crazy about you, except she didn’t know at the time that you were already married…’
James looked at her on a sharply indrawn breath as his quick mind connected the dots, and he reached for the bundle of envelopes. His hand was shaking. ‘I remember her,’ he said quietly. ‘I used to call her my vanilla milkshake, because of the colour of her hair and because she brought such sweetness and pleasure to my life.’ Tears formed in the corners of his eyes and he rubbed them away with his fingers. ‘Her nose was not unlike yours, my dear. I’m afraid I can’t quite bring myself to read these just yet. May I hold on to them for a while?’
‘I would have told you sooner.’ Elizabeth knelt next to him and lowered her head. ‘I so wanted to get to know you. Then when I discovered that you were ill, that your heart was weak…I kept putting it off, and then it seemed so big I was scared.’ When she felt his old hand on her head, she breathed a sigh of relief. The tension of the past months of uncertainty were finally released in tears which she allowed to flow freely down her cheeks. From behind her, she could feel Andreas’s eyes on her; she had no idea what he was thinking and she told herself fiercely that she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that she was accepted by her father. But she did care.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, sniffing.
‘So am I, my dear. But regret is a wasted emotion, so enough of that. Andreas, my boy, it’s time to leave us be for a moment. We have a lot to discuss.’
It was two hours before Elizabeth emerged from the sitting room. James could still not bring himself to read the letters. She thought that he might read them in his room later, and in the privacy of his bedroom reflect on opportunities missed and chances wasted—although he had stood firm in his belief that there was nothing to be gained from regrets.
For her part, she felt wrung out but at peace for the first time, possibly in her life.
James had retired to bed. Maria would bring him supper on a tray, he had told her, clutching the letters as she helped him to his feet. Now Elizabeth headed for the kitchen. When she glanced through the arched, leaded side-window in the hall, she was distantly aware that the red sportscar had vanished along with its owner. It seemed ironic that the fallout maliciously anticipated by Amanda had transpired into an act of kindness.
She swung into the kitchen and there he was, standing with a drink in one hand and giving the impression that he had been there waiting for her all along, knowing that she would want a fortifying cup of coffee after the recent upheaval. Except that the expression on his face wasn’t that of a man about to deliver a generous dose of sympathy and compassion.
Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks and waited for her heart to stop beating wildly, but of course if didn’t. All the while she had been talking to James, she had been sickeningly aware of the further confrontation to come with his godson. Even though she told herself that whatever he said would be meaningless, because she wasn’t involved with him, and indeed had seen him for the man he really was—a man who picked up and dropped women without his conscience being bothered in any way. Amanda, dumped from a great height because he had discovered a newer toy, must have been distraught to have jumped in her car and driven all the way to Somerset for a showdown. It was crazy to see her as the bad guy, when the really bad guy was standing in front of her with an expression that could freeze water.
Elizabeth was far from confrontational, but on this occasion she decided that she would launch her attack before he had the opportunity to shoot her down in flames, which was what his glacial eyes promised. Going against her inclination to open her sentence with I’m sorry, I know you must be furious; please try to understand the position I found myself in, she said instead, ‘You never told me that you had a girlfriend. Never!’
The shock and hurt she had felt came back to her with remembered force, bolstering her confidence. Bitterness and anger were two very strong allies. ‘How could you? How could you string me along when you had a girlfriend in London? If I had decided to return to London with you—which I wouldn’t have—then what were you going to do with Amanda? Stuff her in a cupboard somewhere? Or were you going to juggle two women at the same time?’
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’
‘You treat people as though they have no feelings, Andreas, and you do that because you have no feelings of your own.’
‘You dare stand there and talk about how human beings should treat one another? Before you claim the moral highground, let me just remind you that you’re a liar, and quite probably a gold-digger into the bargain.’ And that was about the calmest way he could have phrased it. Never had he felt so shell-shocked in his life,
and furious with himself that he had been taken in. Hadn’t he known from the start that there was something fishy about her? And yet he had put all that to one side because he had been overtaken by something as utterly controllable as lust. In the presence of his godfather, he had been obliged to hang on to his restraint, but he had been saving his fury for when he caught her on her own. Did she think that she could wrong-foot him with a load of irrelevant questions about Amanda?
‘Were you sleeping with her while you were planning to seduce me?’
Andreas flushed darkly. Somewhere along the line his so-called planned seduction had become mired in the very real, very powerful attraction he had felt, and that in itself enraged him.
‘I don’t believe I’m obliged to answer questions of that nature.’
‘Well, why should I answer questions from you?’ She stood her ground in the face of his blazing anger at her unprecedented insurrection.
Andreas was finding it hard to equate the stubborn creature with her arms folded with the timid girl who had first introduced herself into James’s life. Into her father’s life. Unwilling to release his anger, he coldly thought that that timidity was what had been required of her at the time.
‘You came into this house in the guise of the caring assistant so that you could check out how the land lay,’ he drawled in a remote, icy voice that she hated. ‘And you tell me that you don’t see why you should explain yourself to me? That’s rich, coming from the woman who has felt free to stand on her soap box and preach to me about my so-called arrogance.’
‘I’m not a hypocrite, if that’s what you’re implying.’ But her balloon had burst and she could feel herself deflate. This was the man she loved, for better or worse, and speculating about what he thought of her was killing her.
‘You came here under false pretences. How do I know that you are who you say you are? How do I know that you haven’t been light-fingered with someone else’s property?’
‘I haven’t. There are details about my mum that only I could know. Details that…that James knows as well. And I’m sorry about the false pretences. I would have said something a lot sooner, but…’
‘But?’ There was no point pursuing the doubt angle because she was telling the truth. Andreas could see that as clearly as he could see the fool he had unwittingly made of himself.
‘First of all, I didn’t want to upset James. And then it just got too complicated.’
‘I find it hard to believe that there could be all that many complications attached to announcing your identity in view of all the fabulous wealth you stand to inherit.’
Elizabeth blanched and stepped back as though she had been struck. How easy it was for passion to turn to coldblooded accusations and hatred; she heard the hatred even though he hadn’t raised his voice. In Andreas’s black-and-white world, she had deceived him, and in deceiving him had committed an unforgivable sin.
‘I didn’t come here because I thought that there might be something in it for me, and it’s really horrible of you to suggest that. But then, I don’t know why I should be surprised.’
Andreas’s eyes tangled with her wide, green, disappointed gaze and something inside him shifted with exasperating ease. To think that he was feared and admired for his astounding self-control and ability to see things with dispassionate logic. It was pathetic!
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ It was a question he had not meant to ask, because just asking for any kind of clarification on the matter suggested weakness. ‘Scratch that. I’m really not interested.’
Elizabeth gritted her teeth and inhaled deeply, because standing up to Andreas was like trying to keep upright in a force-ten gale. ‘I’ll tell you anyway,’ she said in a rush, ‘because you always think that you can say whatever you want to say and hang the consequences. You thought the worst of me the minute I got here; I don’t know why I thought that getting to know me would have made you see that I’m not the kind of money-grabbing gold-digger you originally thought I was. I was stupid to think that you might have given me the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Oh, please, spare me the violins! And don’t try and pretend that you’re purer than the driven snow. “False pretences” is what springs to mind. In other words, you lied. Liars don’t have the privilege of giving speeches on other people’s priniciples.’
‘You should talk,’ Elizabeth muttered.
‘What do you intend to do now?’ Andreas asked coldly, choosing to ignore her sotto voce remark.
Elizabeth’s eyes skittered away from his shimmering, forbidding gaze. With every passing word, she could feel the doors slamming on the fragile relationship they had had. She had got in too deep and this was the price she was going to have to pay. ‘I wasn’t going to tell him!’ she blurted out, and Andreas frowned, impatient and uncomprehending. ‘I was going to keep my identity secret. I just wanted to get to know my father, and I would have been happy to leave it there.’
‘You expect me to believe that?’
‘No.’
Andreas found himself taken aback by the quietly spoken monosyllable, but he recovered quickly. ‘How well you know me.’ His mouth curled derisively. ‘And you still haven’t answered my question.’
Elizabeth shrugged. ‘I know that James…my father…no longer really needs daily attention. He asked me to stay on here, but I’ve decided that I’m going to look for work locally, maybe rent somewhere in the village.’
‘How noble of you. I wonder how long that ambition will last with the siren of a manor house calling? Rent free.’
Elizabeth lifted her chin and glared. ‘I think I’ve answered enough of your questions!’
‘You’re right.’ He astonished her by smoothly agreeing. ‘But there are just a few little pearls of wisdom that I’m going to put your way, and if you have a single iota of sense you’ll make damn sure you pay heed to them. The first is that, whatever your real motives are for approaching James in this manner, for getting under his skin and then revealing yourself in your true colours, I am not my godfather. I will leave for London in two days’ time, but I have access online to all his financial dealings. I handle his considerable banking affairs, and if I spot one unaccounted for penny going astray I’ll be on your case like a ton of bricks.’
So now she was a common thief? Andreas scowled, stamping down a hitherto unseen side to him that appeared gullible enough to find that notion laughable. He reminded himself that not only was the woman a liar and a fraud but she was also the woman who had turned him down. Narrow escape for him, naturally, but he was still outraged at the rejection.
Elizabeth nodded because she was weary of repeating her intentions. Her brain had latched on to that simple statement that he would be leaving for London in two days, and having latched on was refusing to let it go. She could already feel the emptiness of his imminent departure swirling around her like a wintry breeze, even though she told herself that their relationship had only ever been an interlude that would come to an end, and that as endings went sooner was surely better than later.
‘Needless to say,’ Andreas informed her coolly, ‘your services with me are no longer required.’
Like the hired help, which was what Amanda had called her, she was now being dismissed.
She turned away, tears blurring her vision, though fortunately her long hair, cascading around her face, hid that final humiliation from his piercing eyes.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she left the kitchen. All her energy seemed to have seeped out of her body, and it was only as she was tiredly heading up the stairs that she realised that she would have some contact with him in time to come, as James’s godson. Limited contact, granted, but any contact would require some measure of self-composure. She just couldn’t fall to pieces every time she looked at his face, heard his voice or allowed her eyes to linger on the sinewy lines of his body. She would go mad.
She would have to work hard at getting him out of her system. Now that everything was out in t
he open, she would be able to really get to know her father, to find out all she could about him, and to indulge him in a way she had not been able to when she had just been his carer. That would go a long way to restoring her sanity and putting the sorry situation with Andreas into perspective. In due course, she told herself, it would likewise help to patch up the wear and tear on her heart—and if the patch-up job was a bit dodgy to start with then over time it would become more solid, and eventually to the casual observer it would look as if it had never been damaged.
Maybe she would step out of her vacuum and actually begin living a little. Maybe she would start taking an interest in guys. Maybe she was just kidding herself when she assumed that Andreas was irreplaceable. How could someone so arrogant, so merciless, so emotionally deep-frozen, be irreplaceable? It didn’t make sense.
She needed to recapture the practical girl she had been all her life and then everything would fall into place.
She wasn’t to know that that was not going to be an option.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WITH the whirring of the helicopter blades making conversation on his mobile impossible, Andreas finally had time to think about what was happening back at the manor house—after a week of plunging himself back into a work routine which even for him had been extreme, and had left his secretary dazed and exhausted. None of it was to his liking.
Powerful Boss, Prim Miss Jones Page 12
