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Hayley felt her skin begin to prickle in agitation. She knew he would do it and suffer no tweak of conscience about it. Jasper Caulfield was not only ruthless in his personal relationships, but in business even more so. That was how he had achieved the monumental success he had so far, all without a single financial leg-up from his father, who had refused to offer his support because of the shame Jasper had brought upon the Caulfield name when he was eighteen.
‘You’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming to the altar,’ she warned him.
‘I’ve already factored in that possibility.’
Hayley stared at him for a moment as her brain did a few quick calculations. ‘You set Myles up, didn’t you?’ she accused him heatedly. ‘You paid that woman to lure him away from me.’
He leaned back in his chair and gave the red wine in his glass a twirl. ‘He didn’t take too much luring,’ he said smoothly. ‘One look at her cleavage and he was panting like a terrier after a meaty bone.’
Hayley had trouble controlling her rage. It bubbled and boiled inside her, every part of her twitching with the desire to slap that supercilious smirk off his face.
Her hand reached for her glass but, as if he sensed where her mind was leading, he reached for the wine bottle and strategically moved it out of her reach.
‘You bastard!’ she said, her eyes flashing with twin flares of livid blue flame. ‘I bet you paid that woman to break up my engagement! How could you do such a thing? How could you?’
‘Contrary to the conclusion you’ve as usual so hastily jumped to, I did not have anything to do with Myles’s affair. The real estate and property world is rather small. I happened to hear he was a bit of a womaniser when I was speaking with a mutual acquaintance. I thought I should warn you before you got your fingers burnt.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she shot back. ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing you’d do to get your own way.’
‘Listen, sugar,’ he drawled, ‘it seems to me that if your ex-fiancé could be lured away from you by someone like Serena Wiltshire, then he definitely isn’t the man for you, as I indicated earlier. If he wa
s in love with you, no one, and I mean no one, no matter how attractive or determined, would be able to lead him away from you.’
Hayley knew deep down inside that what he said was reasonable but she didn’t want him to be right.
She hated that he was right.
She hated him full stop.
‘When you think about it I did you a favour,’ he added. ‘You found out what a weak person Myles was just in time. Imagine how painful it would have been to find out after you were married with a couple of kids.’
Jasper watched as she sank her teeth into her lower lip, her blue-green eyes misting over again, her small hands absently fidgeting with her glass. Something hard inside him shifted and softened but he couldn’t for the life of him decide what it was.
She looked up at him again, her eyes liquid pools of shimmering blue and green. ‘So you really didn’t pay her to break up my engagement?’
He reached across the table and took one of her hands in his, curling his fingers around her smaller ones. ‘No,’ he said with a grim set to his features. ‘She’s not the first and I expect will not be the last. Some men develop a taste for that sort of thing.’
Hayley looked down at their joined hands, his long tanned fingers with their dusting of masculine hair in stark contrast to the creamy softness of hers.
Light and dark.
Hard and soft.
Man and woman.
Man and wife …
She pulled her hand away and wriggled in her seat in agitation as she forced her mind away from such traitorous thoughts. What was the matter with her? Surely one glass of wine couldn’t suppress inhibition to that degree?
‘I’ve asked Raymond to marry us,’ Jasper inserted into the silence. ‘But he didn’t sound too keen on the idea given the circumstances.’
She pursed her mouth at him. ‘I suppose you’re going to ridicule Raymond for standing up for what he believes in. But at least he’s a decent man who does his best for the community. So many men these days have turned their back on the priesthood, but he’s made that huge sacrifice, and the very least you could do is respect him for it. Anyway, if he did take any money off you—unlike you—he wouldn’t spend it on selfishly on himself, he would only use it for a good cause. He does an amazing job with the homeless youth in the inner city.’
Jasper’s mouth tilted cynically. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Everyone loves Raymond.’
‘He visited Gerald almost daily in the weeks before he died, and yet you didn’t bother to go out there once.’
‘I didn’t see the point,’ he said. ‘My father always preferred my brother, not to mention you. I only seemed to upset him every time I called, so I gave up in the end.’
