Blackmailed by the Vengeful Tycoon

by Penny Jordan

  Emma felt the well of blackness opening up treacherously beneath her. She was dimly conscious of Bianca’s face, its beauty marred by the two ugly patches of colour darkening her cheekbones, but then mercifully the blackness engulfed her and she was alone and safe.

  * * *

  ‘Emma?’

  She recognised his voice instantly but refused to respond to it. What was the point? She had been awake when he walked into the room but had feigned sleep, buying time, wishing only that he would go and leave her alone with her humiliation. The first thing she had known when she came round from her faint was that Bianca had been telling the truth. She was not really engaged to Drake, but she had not admitted as much to the other woman. Frightened by her collapse, Bianca had sent for her housekeeper who had fussed and fussed until Emma was on the point of screaming. Desperate to be alone she had volunteered to go to bed and rest, but there had been precious little rest to be found. Instead her thoughts had gone round and round, trapping her in a mill-race of self-betrayal and contempt. Her memory had returned completely, but twenty-four hours too late.

  Dear God, when she remembered how she had behaved last night. Even knowing that Drake was watching her she was unable to stop herself from shuddering with self-loathing. But Drake had known, she reminded herself bitterly, Drake had known and he had still…

  ‘Hey, don’t I get a kiss?’

  His duplicity infuriated her. She wanted to lash out at him almost physically to make him ache with pain as she was aching, but in reality she felt forced to admit that she had no one to blame but herself. She had thrown herself at him and he, being the man that he was had simply taken what she had offered. It was as simple and basic as that. Now, despite the pain building inside her pride compelled her to find some means of protecting herself; of concealing from him how deep her feeling for him actually went.

  ‘I hardly think so Drake.’ She was proud of the crisp cool sound of her voice. ‘I’ve regained my memory,’ she added coolly. ‘Unfortunately several hours too late.’

  She was surprised by the dark colour burning along his cheekbones and by the anger she saw blazing in his eyes.

  ‘I see. Hit you hard has it, the realisation that that moral code of yours wasn’t quite as inviolate as you had believed. We’re all of us only human Emma, you’re no exception to that rule.’

  ‘What are you trying to say? That I didn’t know what I was doing?’ She was torturing herself but was unable to stop doing it, unable to stop scorning herself for her own self-betrayal.

  ‘Oh you knew what you were doing all right.’ The mockery in Drake’s voice made her skin burn. ‘You were doing exactly what you’ve wanted to do ever since we met, however much you might want to deny it.’

  ‘And I hate myself for it,’ Emma told him bitterly, watching the way his face closed up and his eyes grew bitter, without understanding the reasons for them doing so.

  CHAPTER NINE

  USING a will-power and self-control she hadn’t known she possessed Emma managed to endure the remainder of her stay in New York. She had agreed to pose as Drake’s fiancée for as long as it took to conclude the negotiations safely, and she was determined that she was not going to give Bianca the satisfaction of seeing her run away.

  Not that it was easy. They stayed on for a further week while Drake and Giles wrapped up all the final details, and during that week Emma not only had to cope with the anguish of her love for Drake, and the continual strain of hiding it from him and pretending a curt indifference she could never feel, but she also had to endure Bianca’s vicious verbal attacks which ranged from outright statements that Drake could not possibly love her to more subtle and sometimes more painful innuendoes which luckily she managed to totally ignore.

  None of it was easy, but at last the final details of the contract were agreed and both parties had signed. Since she had confronted him with her return of memory Drake had been controlled and wary whenever they were together. Was he frightened that she might demand the traditional virgin’s recompense for loss of her virginity? she wondered acidly on one such occasion. But then she reminded herself that he had known of her inexperience, had known of it, and deliberately ignored it simply to appease his own megalomania. That was what she found hardest to forgive; to understand; that he had known the truth but that he had quite callously ignored it.

  On the few occasions he had attempted to bring the subject up; to talk to her about it, Emma had cut him off abruptly stating that it was not something she wished to discuss.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he had demanded on one such occasion. They had been deeply involved in the final details of the contract all morning and she had been able to see the exhaustion drawn into the fine-grained texture of his skin. Not only that but he was also distinctly tense and on edge, the mocking indolence she had grown to associate with him, displaced by a bitter wariness she could only assume sprang from her discovery of the truth before he had been able to exploit the situation to the full. When he had told her with such arrogant self-assurance that they would be lovers, she had not dreamed he would go to such lengths to fulfil his boast. And the pitiful thing was that it would not have been necessary. One smile; one false word of love and she doubted that she would have been able to resist him for much longer.

  ‘What is it?’ he had persisted. ‘Disillusioned to discover that after all your body’s capable of disobeying you and enjoying sex without love?’

  It had hurt so much to hear him say the words. For one aching moment she had been tempted to tell him the truth, to blurt out that there might not have been love on his side, but there certainly had on hers, but she had restrained herself, telling herself that if nothing else she could retain some degree of pride. He obviously didn’t realise that she loved him, and he never was going to realise, she had told herself firmly.

  ‘Is it?’ She could still remember the way his facial muscles had tensed as she spoke, almost as though in anticipation of some mortal blow. ‘We obviously have vastly differing memories of what happened,’ she had continued blightingly. ‘Enjoyment was certainly not the word I would have used.’ She had almost broken down then, but had forced herself to remain cool and unmoving in the face of his angry retort, closing her eyes to blot out the sight of his tight, too pale face and glittering eyes.

  It was over now, she reminded herself, opening her bedroom door. The contract was signed and this evening they flew back to London. As far as she was concerned she could not get home fast enough. She was tired deep down in her bones; in her very soul really. Tired and broken; aching with the pain of her love and yet knowing there was no surcease for it.

  Even if they had not quarrelled, even if they were still lovers the pain would still be there. She didn’t just want Drake’s desire; she craved his love; wanted and needed it so that it was a sickness in her soul; a pain that absorbed all her energy and will-power.

  They scarcely spoke to one another on the long flight back to Britain. Emma was glad. Her self-control was at such a low ebb that she didn’t believe she could have said a word without bursting into tears. It was only as they were actually landing that Drake said tersely, ‘Emma, look we must talk, there’s…’

  ‘Nothing we have to say to one another really,’ she responded quickly, not wanting to hear his protestations, his glib explanations of his behaviour. ‘We made a bargain. I stuck to my side of it, and now it’s over.’

  ‘Meaning that I did not stick to mine?’ he demanded bitterly.

  Emma could not bring herself to look at him. Her mouth twisted slightly as she told him, ‘In your own eyes I’m sure you did. After all you did warn me that you intended us to become lovers.’ At last she managed to raise her eyes to his, using all the contempt and anger she felt at the sheer callousness of his behaviour to give her the courage to do so. ‘It simply never occurred to me that you meant you would use any and every means at your disposal to do so. What’s the matter Drake?’ she asked mirthlessly. ‘Are you so insecure; so uncertain
of yourself as a man and a human being that you have to cheat?’

  ‘You wanted me to make love to you.’

  Now she couldn’t look at him, and the hoarse tension of his voice made her stomach clench in bitter protest. The emotion he was projecting sounded so real, but she knew the truth.

  ‘So I did. When I thought you were my fiancé; when I believed that we were in love.’

  ‘You accuse me of deceiving others Emma,’ he retorted brutally, ‘but when it comes to deceiving yourself you’re an expert. Do tell me,’ he invited cuttingly, ‘how was it you were able to persuade yourself so easily that you loved me enough to accept me as your fiancé; as your lover in fact?’

  Another second and he would be guessing the truth Emma thought frantically, panicked into saying bitterly, ‘I don’t know. I only wish to God I did, because on a scale of nought to ten it rates a full one hundred as the worst experience of my life.’

  After that he had said nothing, but she could tell from the angry white lines carved either side of his mouth that he was furious with her.

  They went through Customs in a tense bitter silence, which was broken only when Drake commandeered them both a taxi.

  It was already gone ten at night, but when he suggested that she stay at his apartment for the night Emma shook her head curtly, her scathing, ‘No thanks,’ drawing patches of dark colour to stain his cheekbones and add a curiously vulnerable appearance to his face, which somehow looked thinner, drawn almost.

  He didn’t try to argue with her, for which Emma was deeply thankful, but it was only when he had got out of the taxi that she finally felt able to breathe properly.

  Knowing she would not be able to get rail connections all the way home at this hour, she decided to hang the expense and go all the way home by cab. She was just too weary to wrestle with the problem of finding cheap accommodation in London at this time of night and anyway she wanted the security and comfort of home; like a wounded animal she longed for the protection of the place she knew best, she thought tiredly closing her eyes and leaning back against the leather seat.

  As she had expected when she got home the vicarage was in darkness. When he was not out, her father went to bed relatively early. She let herself in with her key, dumping her suitcase in the hall before making her way up to her own room.

  It was so deeply familiar that she could scarcely believe how much had changed since she last saw it; first the realisation of her love for Drake; then trying to cope with it; to fight against his blatantly expressed desire for her, which had all been a complete waste of time, she reminded herself bitterly as she climbed into bed. Tomorrow she would have to start re-thinking the course of her life, but that was tomorrow, right now all she wanted was sleep and oblivion; and the longer it lasted the better.

  * * *

  The first problem she had not anticipated was her father’s concern over her supposed ‘broken engagement’. Over breakfast she told him simply that they had discovered that their personalities clashed, and while on the surface he had accepted this, she could sense him turning the matter over in his mind and carefully weighing it.

  ‘You know you surprise me,’ he told her at length. ‘I should have thought your personalities would have meshed extremely well. Unlike Camilla, you need a man who can be strong enough to over-rule you on occasions. You don’t respond to weakness Emma; probably because your own character is so unswerving.’

  Emma tried to shrug nonchalantly. ‘A broken engagement isn’t the end of the world these days.’ She put down her cup and faced her father. ‘I was wondering if that post with David Carter was still open.’

  Although he regarded her thoughtfully her father made no comment other than a calm, ‘I think so. Would you like me to find out?’

  ‘It might be an idea.’

  ‘Running away Emma, that isn’t like you.’

  She could hardly tell her father that Drake was most unlikely to come looking for her with a view to persuading her that they were after all suited, so she took refuge in a brief shrug. She knew that if she told him the truth he would not stand in judgment, but talking about what had happened was still far too painful for her to discuss it with any third party. She never had been a person who found surcease in discussing her problems with others. No, all she could do was to keep herself so busy that there simply wasn’t time to think or brood.

  In the afternoon once she had unpacked she decided to walk through the village and up to the Manor. Sooner or later she would have to see Camilla. How was her sister settling down to married life, she wondered as she set out. She knew from her father that she and David had returned from their honeymoon the previous week, although her father had not yet seen Camilla.

  Laura opened the door to her brief knock, beaming with pleasure when she saw her. ‘Back from New York so soon?’ Her eyes rested briefly on Emma’s left hand, and swallowing the anguish burning in her throat Emma said lightly, ‘Yes, it didn’t work out as we hoped, so we decided to cut our trip short.’

  Accepting Emma’s philosophical attitude at face value she stood to one side to let her walk into the hall. ‘Well these things happen,’ she agreed. ‘Have you come to see Camilla?’

  Grateful for the fact that she hadn’t asked any awkward questions, Emma nodded.

  ‘She’s in the sitting-room. I’ll go and organise some coffee for you.’

  Camilla was glancing through a magazine when Emma walked in. She threw it down the moment she saw her sister, and Emma’s heart sank a little as she saw her petulant expression.

  ‘You look marvellous,’ she began placatingly, ‘What a wonderful tan. I really envy you. How was Barbados?’

  ‘Oh all right,’ Camilla shrugged. ‘Not as exciting as New York though I’ll bet. Where’s Drake?’

  ‘I don’t have the faintest idea.’ Emma accompanied the cool words with a brief smile. ‘The engagement is off.’

  Camilla stared at her. She seemed about to say something, and then the door opened and David walked in. He went straight to his wife’s side, kissing her warmly.

  ‘God I never realised how dull estate work could be, or how distracting it is to have such a lovely wife.’

  The adoration in his eyes as he looked at her sister made Emma’s heart ache with jealousy. If only Drake felt that way about her. Something in her expression must have betrayed her because she heard Camilla saying with genuine concern. ‘Emma are you all right, you’ve gone quite pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she lied. In point of fact for a moment she had felt quite dizzy. It was an unnerving sensation making her remember the American doctor’s warning about concussion. ‘Jet lag I expect,’ she added by way of explanation. ‘I only got back late last night.’

  ‘Emma’s engagement’s off,’ Camilla remarked to her husband. ‘What happened exactly?’

  While David gently chided his wife for her brutality Emma made herself shrug and say as she had done to her father. ‘Oh nothing very dramatic we simply discovered that we were poles apart in our outlook on life.’

  ‘I could have told you that myself.’ There was a certain degree of satisfaction in her sister’s voice, and Emma remembered that Camilla had always liked to be the one in the limelight; and that she had always resented anyone up-staging her.

  ‘So it’s all over. What will you do now then?’

  ‘I’m hoping to get a summer job working with Professor Carter.’

  Camilla pulled a face. ‘God how boring. No wonder you and Drake didn’t suit. At least he knows how to have a good time.’

  Emma was conscious of a sudden tension in the atmosphere. David glanced at his wife and frowned. Camilla’s expression was tinged with a faint smugness and Emma felt herself tense in response to the heavy silence. Camilla always had enjoyed baiting David, and normally he was slow to respond, but this time she seemed to have succeeded. He looked very angry.

  ‘I thought you didn’t know the man all that well,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Oh no… well
I don’t,’ Camilla agreed lamely, ‘but one only has to read the newspapers. Oh do stop being such a jealous bore darling,’ she chided him. ‘Emma I’m afraid we’re going to have to throw you out. We’re going out to dinner with some friend’s of Mama’s this evening and we really ought to be getting ready.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time yet, Camilla,’ David interrupted, still frowning. ‘Emma is your sister and…’

  ‘And I have to get back to the vicarage,’ Emma broke in calmly. ‘Enjoy your dinner party.’

  As she walked home she wondered about her sister’s marriage. Was Camilla growing bored already, or was it simply that she enjoyed making David jealous? And for so little reason. Her sister could be swimming in dangerous waters, Emma thought. She had rarely seen David look as angry as he had when she mentioned Drake’s name. She wouldn’t put it past her irresponsible sister to pretend that there had been more between herself and Drake than there had been simply to torment David.

  Reminding herself that her sister’s marriage was none of her affair Emma continued on her way home.

  Over dinner she discovered that the post with Professor Carter was indeed still open; mainly because there were so few people qualified to fill it who were willing to work for the extremely small salary he was able to pay. She could live in at Cambridge, and the change of scene would do her good she told herself. There would be no memories of Drake there to torment her.

  Several days later Emma reflected that she had forgotten that one took one’s memories with one. It seemed impossible that she could have lost nearly half a stone in so short a time, but that was what had happened. When she looked in the mirror she barely recognised herself in the finedrawn, almost haunted woman who stared back at her. The work itself was interesting; the pace of life in Cambridge with most of the graduates gone for the summer recess, drowsy and timeless, which probably accounted for her increasing restlessness, Emma decided, trying to deny to herself that her restlessness sprang from the fact that she was missing Drake’s dynamic presence.