LITMIR.BIZ

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sustained his steady blue gaze with extreme difficulty as he slipped the jacket off the hanger and held it out to her. ‘It seems to be cured of whatever befell it—do you want to put it back on?’

      She cleared her throat. ‘No, thanks—I’ll just carry it; it’s a bit warm.’ She smiled as she took it from him, but his expression was uncharacteristically cool.

      ‘You’re going to have a fairly tender bruise there tomorrow,’ he said quietly, and touched the soft skin at the outermost swell of her breast, where it was exposed by the cut-away armhole of her top. ‘In fact, you’re going to have quite a few by the looks of it,’ he continued, his eyes moving over her bare throat and shoulders. ‘And here I always thought Josh’s bark was worse than his bite…’

      Regan fell back a step, clutching her jacket to her chest, feeling worse than naked, her cheeks stinging hot.

      ‘I—I—’

      ‘I wondered why he seemed so unusually twitchy when I wanted to come down and settle in. He tried to convince me that I’d be better off at the condo—when we both know I’m the last person Carolyn would want around as a chaperon.’

      ‘I’m sorry—’ Regan’s awkwardly expressed compassion caused a muscle to jump in his jaw, making him look markedly like his brother did when he was in a smouldering temper.

      ‘Oh, so you’re already in on that sordid family secret, are you?’ he guessed bitterly. ‘Josh is usually more discreet about his problems. I wouldn’t have thought he was the type to indulge in careless pillow talk, but then neither did I think he regarded sex as a combat sport—’

      ‘That’s enough, Chris,’ Joshua’s voice crackled out as he came down the stairs two at a time, jumping the final distance and coming up behind Regan. ‘There’s no need to embarrass yourself more than you have already.’

      ‘I’m not embarrassed.’

      ‘Well, you should be. You’re insulting a guest and I thought I’d taught you better manners. Come on, Regan, I’ll give you a lift back to the house.’

      ‘Why hustle her off in such a rush just because I’ve inconveniently turned up? Could it be you’re the one embarrassed at being caught with your pants down?’

      Joshua stepped in front of Regan, shielding her from his brother’s crudity.

      ‘You’re asking for a punch in the mouth!’

      ‘Why? Because I’ve found out the truth?’ Chris said rawly. ‘That you’re not as lily-white as you like everyone to believe? I always knew you were a manipulative bastard, but to con Sir Frank into bringing your mistress up here so that you can flaunt your affair under Carolyn’s unsuspecting nose—’

      ‘I am not flaunting her, and she is not my mistress!’

      ‘You’re going to tell me you two were innocently playing checkers before I came on board? Don’t make me laugh! Regan has your brand stamped all over her—God, she even smells of you.’

      Regan went hot all over. She hoped he was talking about the expensive cologne!

      ‘Dammit, Chris—’

      ‘No—damn you! Don’t you know how humiliated Caro would be if she knew? She trusts you, dammit!’ His voice was thick with torment. ‘She was so very quick to believe that I would let her down that she wouldn’t listen to anything I said afterwards—but big Josh—oh, no, never! She really believes that you’re the saint and I’m the sinner. And she likes Regan, she thinks of her as a friend…and all this time her new friend and her so-called fiancé have been—’

      ‘Don’t say it!’ Joshua ground out as Chris teetered on the brink of obscenity.

      His brother laughed harshly. ‘I knew you were attracted to her, but I naively thought that—being such a stickler for men doing the right thing by their women—you’d merely suffer the tortures of the damned denying yourself.’

      Instead of trying to douse the inflammatory situation with his cool reason, Joshua inexplicably chose to pour gasoline on the flames. ‘Or, if I gave in to the attraction, that I’d feel compelled to confess all to Carolyn? Is that what you were hoping would happen, Chris? So that you could rush in and replay the big dramatic scene that you flubbed a couple of months ago, this time with you as the valiant saviour and me as the faithless villain? Forget it. You had your chance and blew it. As it happens, I’ve decided that Carolyn will make an ideal wife. There’s a distinct commercial advantage in a businessman being associated with a beautiful, well-bred wife bouncing the evidence of his potent virility on her pretty knee…’

      Regan felt Joshua’s callous, careless taunt like a blow to her heart, but Chris looked utterly shattered. His young face was haggard as he looked at the brother he had idolised for so many years with an expression of pure loathing.

      ‘You bastard. You think you’re going to have it all, don’t you? I won’t let you do it! If you hurt Caro—’

      ‘If you keep your mouth shut and mind your own business, she need never find out!’ Joshua snapped. ‘Get real, Chris—Carolyn may have been the embodiment of your boyish sexual fantasies, but, frankly, my tastes are a lot more mature. Now, if you don’t mind, Regan and I will skip the rest of the moral lecture!’

      Joshua was tight-lipped and broodingly morose on the way back to the house, and Regan made a coward of herself by pretending that she had a headache and ducking dinner. She had no wish to sit across the table from Carolyn and listen to her talk about her latest wedding dress fitting, or speculate feverishly on where Joshua might take her on their honeymoon.

      But there was no avoiding the other woman early the next morning when she crashed into Regan’s room just as she was finally managing to doze off after tossing and turning sleeplessly all night.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ Regan asked blearily, struggling to sit up as Carolyn threw herself dramatically into the chair by the bed.

      ‘I’m bleeding,’ she moaned, and Regan’s eyes snapped wide, noticing the tear-tracks on Carolyn’s normally flawless cheeks and her unnaturally pasty expression.

      ‘My God, do you think you’re having a miscarriage?’ she said, leaping out of bed.

      ‘No—I’m bleeding—I’ve got my period.’ Carolyn wrung her slender hands and rocked to and fro in the chair. ‘Oh, God, Regan—what am I going to do?’

      ‘But—but—you’re pregnant…’ Regan squawked, and Carolyn shook her head.

      ‘No—no, I’m not. It was a mistake—’

      Regan collapsed on the side of the bed. ‘A mistake? But you had a test…’

      ‘It was wrong. It happens—not often, the doctor says, but it happens. I never went back for a physical examination, you see. But I started feeling some cramps yesterday afternoon, and so I drove over to Granny’s GP and…’ her big golden-brown eyes filled with tears ‘…and she said she couldn’t feel anything when she palpated me, so she sent me for another test and it came back negative…’

      Regan’s brain was reeling. ‘But, how could that be…surely you had all the symptoms?’

      ‘The doctor said sometimes a woman’s body can mimic the early physical signs if she really believes that she’s pregnant, and I did believe it—I did!’ Carolyn’s light contralto rose sharply, as if to convince herself of her own sincerity. ‘My period didn’t come and then I felt nauseous nearly all the time, and my breasts started to feel sore and I put on weight…of course I thought I was pregnant!’ she shrilled.

      ‘The doctor said part of it was probably only fluid retention because my cycle was disturbed. I couldn’t believe it—I didn’t dare tell anyone in case it turned out to

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