LITMIR.BIZ

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need for revenge.

      Though more sinned against than sinning, she had wrecked all his carefully laid plans and, in his own eyes at least, had made him look a fool.

      Not something a man like him would easily forgive.

      She shivered.

      ‘You’re surely not cold?’ Ryan asked.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Ashamed?’

      ‘Why should I be ashamed?’

      ‘I can think of several good reasons. First and foremost that you treated a woman, who had taken you to her heart, in such a callous fashion…’

      Perhaps, in retrospect, she should have left a note, made up some excuse for going… But, shocked and stunned, feeling mortally wounded, she hadn’t known what to say.

      ‘I’m sorry if it seemed that way. I never meant to hurt her…’

      A shrill bleating cut through her words.

      ‘Excuse me.’ Reaching into his jacket pocket he produced a mobile phone. ‘Falconer… It has? Good… Yes… Yes… Be with you shortly.’

      Dropping the phone back in his pocket, he rose to his feet and pulled on his jacket. ‘I’m sorry I have to leave quite so soon.’

      ‘I’m afraid I can’t say the same,’ she informed him trenchantly.

      Paying her back for her show of spirit, he came round the table and with studied insolence slipped his hand inside the lapels of her robe and cupped her breast.

      Knowing that he was waiting for her to jump up and protest, summoning every last ounce of will-power, she sat still and silent.

      Smiling a little, he bent his dark head and his mouth brushed hers. ‘When you’re in bed on your own tonight, dream that I’m making love to you.’

      ‘Not if I can help it,’ she spat at him.

      ‘If you’re frustrated enough, you might find it impossible not to.’

      ‘I’m not frustrated.’

      Smiling, he rubbed his thumb over the nipple until it firmed. ‘You were always very responsive.’

      Unable to stand any more, she jerked away and, dragging the lapels together, jumped to her feet. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something? Or should I say, someone?’

      His blue-violet eyes narrowed.

      ‘Charles might not be a young man by your standards, but he’s fit and in his prime. If I am frustrated I won’t need to stay that way.’

      She saw a white line appear round Ryan’s mouth and, fiercely glad that he was furious, laughed in his face.

      With a sound almost like a growl, he took her upper arms, his fingers biting into the soft flesh, and warned softly, ‘Don’t even think about it. From now on I intend to be the only man in your life, so if Raynor does get any bright ideas about making love to you, it will pay you to say no, and mean it.’

      Dragging her right up against him, he kissed her once more. This time his kiss was hard and unsparing, rocking her to her very foundations. Then suddenly she was free.

      ‘Be seeing you,’ he said mockingly.

      A moment later she heard the front door open and close.

      Badly shaken, she went through to the hall on unsteady legs. Ryan was gone, but she noted abstractedly that her purse had been picked up and placed neatly on the telephone table.

      Trembling now as reaction set in, she sank down on the bottom step of the stairs and stared blindly into space while her thoughts whirled.

      Oh, dear Lord, what was she to do? Ryan’s unwelcome visit had proved at least two terrifying things: that he was in deadly earnest; and that her chances of resisting him were practically nil.

      It had been that way from the start. She had looked at him and had loved him, heart and soul.

      Recognising at some deep, subconscious level that he was the one she had been waiting all her life for, she had given herself to him with a joyous certainty, and the hope of a happy ever after.

      But that happy ever after had been short-lived. A bare two months from its rapturous start to its bitter ending…

      And now, unless she could find some way of keeping Ryan at bay, the torture would start all over again.

      She would still be there, and even if his feelings for the other woman—love or obsession, call it what one will—had died, the situation would still be quite intolerable.

      No matter what he said about wanting only her, Virginia knew that she would never again be able to believe nor trust him. And he must know that… It might even be part of his revenge to have her on the rack of jealousy and torment…

      No, no, she couldn’t, wouldn’t go back to him.

      But, even as she tried to make herself believe it, she knew she was like a moth that, unable to help itself, was drawn irresistibly and fatally towards a candle flame.

      CHAPTER THREE

      GRITTING her teeth, she tried to reject that frightening image. Somehow she must help herself. Find a way out of still loving Ryan.

      If only she had loved Charles enough to marry him… But it wasn’t so much a case of not loving Charles, as of still loving Ryan.

      Though how could she go on loving a man who hated her? Who only wanted to hurt her? It was utter madness. That kind of self-destructive love could end up wrecking her whole life.

      If she allowed it to.

      But even if she was strong enough to hold out against him, all she had to look forward to was an empty future.

      As far as she was concerned, love and sex went hand in hand. She wasn’t one for casual sex nor for affairs, but she was a young woman still with natural needs.

      True those needs had been smothered and suppressed for over two-and-a-half years, but how quickly they had flared into life as soon as Ryan had kissed her.

      If she didn’t want to live like a nun, marrying Charles, a man she was fond of and respected, was the obvious answer. She would be safe then, her future more hopeful, with the prospect of children and a happy, family life.

      As for her reservations about it not being fair to him, well, she had told him honestly how she felt, and he’d said he was willing to try…

      So why not? It might be no grande passion, at least on her side, but if she could make him happy…

      The clock chiming eight roused her. With a bit of luck, Charles would be home in about half an hour.

      Getting to her feet, she went back to the kitchen and, making a determined effort to think about the brighter future she had envisaged, rather than the unhappy past, began to wash up and clear away the debris of the meal.

      She had only just finished and plugged in the kettle when she heard the sound of Charles’s key in the lock.

      Hurrying through to the hall, she smiled at him. ‘You’re back nice and early.’

      Hearing the relief in her voice, he was glad that he’d hurried straight home rather than going on to a pub, as his companion had suggested when their business was over.

      ‘How did your appointment go?’

      ‘Very well.’

      ‘That’s good.’

      She sounded distracted, he thought, as though her mind was on other things.

      Studying her pale, drawn face, he asked gently, ‘Headache still bothering you?’

      ‘No, not really. I took some tablets when I first got home. By the way, the kettle’s on

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