His Blackmailed Bride - Sandra Marton Mills & Boon Modern

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as if she’d simply decided, on impulse, to move back to Connecticut from New York a year ago, but it hadn’t been that simple. She’d come home unannounced, the taste of freedom bitter in her mouth. A taxi had taken her from the railway station in Greenwich to the grey-shingled house she’d grown up in. She could still remember taking out her key to open the door, then hesitating, remembering suddenly that she’d not lived here for the past four years, not since she’d turned twenty and finished business school. Slowly, she’d dropped the key back into her shoulder bag, and then she’d rung the doorbell.

      Janet Gardiner had answered the door, her face showing first delighted surprise and then worried concern as she became aware of her daughter’s drawn features. But she’d acted as if Paige’s presence were nothing but an unexpected pleasure, bustling her out of her coat and into the kitchen, setting another place at the old oak table before the fireplace, keeping up a line of chatter designed to put her daughter at ease. Her father had arrived home late from the office. To Paige’s surprise, he’d hardly seemed to notice her.

      ‘Paige has come for a visit,’ her mother said, her eyebrows raised in warning that he ask no questions of their only child.

      But her father seemed too absorbed in his own thoughts to do anything more than mumble a few words.

      ‘That’s nice,’ he said, and then he went off to his study and left the two women to themselves.

      ‘Is something wrong with Father?’ Paige asked.

      ‘Nothing more than the usual,’ her mother said patiently. ‘You know how he is—there’s always some pie-in-the-sky scheme hatching in his head that’s going to make him an instant millionaire.’

      Paige shook her head. ‘Poor Daddy. What was it last time? Gold mines or something?’

      Mrs Gardiner smiled wearily. ‘Or something. I’ll never understand how a man who handles money for a firm like Fowlers’ can have such bad judgement with his own.’ She sighed. ‘After the last disaster, I made him promise he wouldn’t touch our savings again.’

      Paige smiled. ‘Does he still say, “no risk, no gain”?’

      ‘Yes. And I told him that was all right as long as you could afford to lose the money you risked.’ Her mother laughed. ‘Let him squander his cigar money, if it makes him happy. He’s a good man, darling, he just thinks we need more—that he’s less a man, somehow, because he hasn’t been able to give us the moon. I mean, it’s not as if he drank or didn’t love me…’ Her eyebrows rose as Paige’s face suddenly crumpled. ‘Sweetheart, what is it?’

      And Paige told her. Not everything; it had all been too recent and too painful. But she told her mother enough. How she’d met someone, thought she was in love, succumbed to her own burgeoning sexuality and found disappointment instead of fulfilment. In one brief encounter, she’d lost both her innocence and her desire.

      ‘And the man?’ Her mother touched her hand.

      ‘He said I wasn’t a woman. He said…’

      Her mother put her arms around her. ‘Forget about him,’ she said fiercely. ‘A man like that…’ Janet Gardiner had looked at her for a long moment, and then she’d smiled. ‘I have a wonderful idea,’ she’d said, and then she’d made the suggestion that had been destined to change Paige’s life. ‘Why don’t you move back here for a while? You could commute into the city, if you really want to keep that job of yours.’

      ‘Or I could look for one right here in Greenwich,’ Paige had said, too quickly, and both women had laughed, Paige with tears glistening in her eyes. ‘I was hoping you’d ask me to stay.’

      Her mother had patted her hand. ‘This is your home, Paige. Of course we want you to stay. And you’ll put all this behind you, believe me.’

      And she had, Paige thought, staring blindly at the mirror that hung on the wall opposite her bed. First had come the job at Maywalk’s department store. And then her father had begun playing Cupid, inviting his boss’s son home to dinner, urging her to accept Alan’s invitations, mixing together business and social occasions so that she was in Alan’s company even when she wasn’t dating him.

      Not that she hadn’t liked him—no one would ever dislike Alan Fowler, with his looks and his charm. And if there were no sparks when he kissed her—well, that was all the better, wasn’t it? Compatibility and respect were the soils in which love grew. Passion? Passion was for the movies and for books. It was overrated and oversold, and what she’d experienced of it was enough to last her a lifetime.

      Until two nights ago. Until she’d behaved like a… a wanton with a man who’d probably disappeared into the night.

      And thank goodness he had, she thought as she brushed furiously at her pale blonde hair. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about seeing him again. As for the emotions he’d unleashed—she’d learn to feel all that, and more, with Alan. He would be her husband and she’d learn to want his kisses and caresses.

      There was a soft tap at the door. ‘Alan’s here,’ her mother said brightly. ‘Ready, dear?’

      Paige took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she said, and she told herself that she finally was.

      The rehearsal dinner as well as the wedding were to be held at the Fowler home. Paige’s mother had protested at first, saying that it was the bride’s family who should make the wedding, but Alan’s mother had been pleasantly but firmly insistent. Alan had urged Paige to go along with his mother’s plans. ‘It’s easier to go along with Mother once she has a bee in her bonnet,’ he’d said with a wry smile.

      But, in the end, it was Paige’s father who’d forced the decision.

      ‘Let the Fowlers do it all,’ he’d said. ‘They’re the ones with the money.’ Paige had looked at him in surprise, and he’d given her a quick smile that had barely softened the harshness of his words. ‘I only meant that it’s foolish to argue.’ In the end, Paige and her mother had agreed.

      Now, standing in the Fowlers’ impressive sitting room, gazing around her at the milling crowd, Paige was glad they had. It looked as if half the world was present—or half Connecticut and New York, anyway.

      ‘If the Fowlers invited so many people to the rehearsal dinner, just imagine how many there’ll be at the wedding tomorrow,’ she whispered to her mother. ‘I don’t think I recognise a dozen faces!’

      ‘Don’t worry about a thing, dear. Just smile and say “thank you” and “no, thank you” in all the right places.’

      Paige laughed. ‘I won’t let Alan out of my sight, once he shows up.’

      ‘Shows up, indeed. Where’s he gone to?’

      ‘The airport. I only half heard the story. Some last-minute arrival’s just come in, and apparently Alan was so delighted to hear about it that he decided to fetch him himself.’

      ‘The mysterious brother, perhaps?’

      Paige shrugged. ‘Maybe. All I know is I’ve been left here to hold down the fort. Believe me,’ she laughed, ‘Alan’s going to pay for… oh, God!’

      The words were a choked whisper. Her mother turned to her in surprise.

      ‘Paige? What is it? You’re white as a sheet.’

      ‘I… nothing. Nothing. I just…’

      Paige could hear herself stammering, saying words that made no sense. But it was a miracle she could speak at all, she thought, staring across the crowded room. He was here. The stranger, the man she’d let make love to her two nights before—he was here, a guest in the Fowler home, a guest at her rehearsal dinner. He hadn’t seen her yet; he was standing at the far end of the room, alone, holding a glass in his hand. She watched as someone stopped beside him—a woman, young, lovely, her face tilted smilingly up to his. He nodded, said something, but there was no answering smile. The woman spoke again, saying

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