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She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping but she couldn’t move.
Sebastian was blackmailing her father’s fiancee! Making her break off the engagement! Because he would stop at nothing— as Terrina had as good as confided—to prevent Marcus remarrying, thus diverting his property away from him!
And Terrina’s acid drawl hammered the awful fact hard into her cringing brain. ‘Congratulations! You’ve stopped me coming between you and your inheritance. But you’re not home and dry yet. You’d better get your skates on and slap a wedding ring on his new-found daughter’s finger, hadn’t you? It’s the only way to make sure of your future inheritance.’
‘Believe me—’ Sebastian’s voice carried a smile— ‘I intend to.’
The sound of a chair’s legs being scraped across the floor.
Both hands over her mouth, Rosie fled. She’d stumbled into the blackest of black nightmares! She might have found her father, but her heart was utterly and hopelessly shattered.
It all fell into place now. Sebastian wouldn’t let anyone stand in the way of his future inheritance. He’d prevented his godfather’s remarriage and now all he had to do was marry the new heir and, bingo! He’d get what he wanted.
Chillingly, she recalled his immediate reaction when she’d told him who she was. His greedy instincts had come to the fore when he’d accused her of trying to get his godfather’s money.
When she’d put the proof of her identity into his hands he’d back-tracked a little, added all that stuff about not being able to believe the older man could have betrayed his wife, the aunt Sebastian had professed to have loved so much. And later, when he’d actually seen the proof and had had time to think, he’d asked a few more questions and had been nice to her again.
Deciding that she, and not he, would be likely to inherit Marcus’s wealth, he’d known he’d have to sweeten her up all over again, get her ready for the marriage proposal he’d admitted to Terrina he was going to make.
Louse!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE last thing Rosie wanted to do was face the new day. She’d finally sobbed herself to sleep, and when Paquita had woken her at ten with a breakfast tray she’d wanted nothing more than to bury her face in the pillow and tell her to go away.
But, remembering her manners, she’d thanked her anyway, ignored the tray which had been left on a small table beneath one of the long windows, and hauled herself to the adjoining bathroom, where the sight of her puffy red eyes and swollen nose hadn’t done a single thing to alleviate her misery.
The discovery that she wasn’t pregnant was the final blow.
Though it should be one enormous relief, she sniped at herself, as she opened the doors to the hanging cupboard and dispiritedly wondered what to wear.
Was she really such a love—torn idiot as to actually want to be carrying Sebastian’s baby? She should be calling for champagne to celebrate the fact that she wasn’t to be the unmarried mother of a child who bore a slimy, manipulative blackmailer’s genes!
Covering up was the order of the day, she decided. She felt as if she was in mourning. For a baby who hadn’t been there in the first place? For the loss of love?
Oh, snap out of it!
What she’d overheard had been a blessing in disguise—well, hadn’t it? She might have spent the rest of her days mooning uselessly over a worthless, mercenary skunk, remembering…
She didn’t want to remember. It made her cringe all over to even think of him! A
nd she had found her father, and he was a good man. And that should make up for everything. Well, shouldn’t it?
Stylish cotton trousers in a pale smoky blue with a matching short-sleeved jacket over a deeper blue vest was as sober as she could get, given the choice of garments she’d stuffed into her suitcase.
She would much rather be pulling on her own scuffed jeans and one of her plain, well washed T-shirts. Wearing the clothes Sebastian had bought her now made her feel kind of creepy, like the sort of woman who accepted gifts for services rendered.
She was listlessly brushing her hair when Dona Elvira entered the room. She smiled warmly. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’
‘Shell shocked,’ Rosie admitted, laying down the brush and turning to face the other woman. That elegant lady looked sympathetic but mightily pleased at the same time. If she thought her admission had to do with at last meeting her father, and nothing to do with finding out what kind of man Sebastian was, then that was fine by Rosie.
‘It must have been a deeply emotional meeting,’ Dona Elvira sympathised, verifying Rosie’s assumption. She probably didn’t know what kind of man her precious son was, either, and Rosie wasn’t about to take the blinkers off her eyes. She could keep her illusions, and welcome!
‘But a happy one, yes?’ the older woman insisted.
‘I breakfasted with Marcus and he gave me the background details. He is like—how do you say it?—a dog with two heads!’
‘Tails,’ Rosie corrected automatically, and tried to smile because she knew it was expected of her.
