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Needing to keep her mental image of him sullied she reminded herself of the child he had fathered and had callously abandoned. Her own father had told her that Maggie Pope was a slut, had warned her not to have anything to do with her, ever, because if she did she’d be locked in her room until it was time to go back to school. Yet during those last traumatic days he’d said, ‘Ask Maggie Pope who fathered that brat of hers. Dexter. You don’t believe me? Well, just go and ask her!’
Caroline shuddered, her body suddenly cold, as if she’d been immersed in icy water. It had been the worst day of her life and she didn’t want to relive it, but couldn’t stop the pictures that flashed into her mind.
The baby girl, around two months old at that time, had had silky black hair, just like Ben’s, and Maggie had said sourly, ‘Sure she’s his. Only he don’t want to know—that’s his sort all over. Drop a girl as soon as the novelty’s over, or someone tastier comes along—no sense of responsibility!’
Swallowing hard, Caroline forced her mind back to the job in hand. At the far end of the corridor, where the old Tudor wing joined the main part of the house, there had been a handsome mahogany linen press. But, like most of the other pieces of any value, it had gone. Irritation pricked her. Her professional appraisal was unnecessary. The few pieces of any value would be obvious to anyone. Ben Dexter had got her here under false pretences.
But why?
Automatically, her hand lifted to the latch on the oak-boarded door that led to the old wing. These rooms, over the kitchen regions, had been forbidden to her as a child. ‘Full of spiders and creepy-crawlies, and the floorboards are rotten,’ Dorothy Skeet had warned, and she’d been eight years old before she’d plucked up the courage to poke her nose in.
Now all was changed. Crumbling timbers had been replaced with silvery oak beams and sunlight streamed in through the windows, enriching the colours of the Persian rugs on the polished floor of what was clearly the sitting room of the suite Ben had reserved for his own use, the attractively furnished room dominated by the painting that had thrown them together again. First Love.
She caught her breath, her heart starting to thud. If Michael hadn’t recognised the lost Lassoon masterpiece for what it was, or if Ben hadn’t wanted to own it, then her life would have gone on smoothly, the old, painful yearnings would never have resurfaced so strongly because she and Ben would not have met again.
Her bones tightened rigidly as she stared up at what could have been her mirror image. She and Ben had spent a couple of blissfully happy, ecstatic months together and his betrayal had been cruel. But it had been twelve years ago, for pity’s sake. It should have been written off to experience, forgotten.
But it hadn’t.
‘You approve?’ His voice was silky-soft.
Caroline gave an involuntary jerk of her head, startled out of her tormenting thoughts. Then she turned reluctantly to face him, her violet eyes huge in the delicate pallor of her face.
He was looking particularly spectacular in a beautifully cut dark blue suit, crisp white shirt and sober tie. At the back of the house she hadn’t heard his car draw up outside. If she had she would have taken evasive action. As it was she could only answer his question, ‘It’s your painting, it’s up to you where you hang it. Though I hope you have some sort of security system.’
‘There speaks the prosaic Caroline Harvey.’ He was smiling, just slightly, but his eyes were cold, like splinters of polished jet. ‘But let’s take the larger view, shall we? Don’t you agree that the portrait should be here, back at home, as it were?’ Laughter was lurking in the curl of his voice now. It incensed her.
‘Rubbish!’ she said stoutly. He was playing games with her and she wasn’t going to let him amuse himself at her expense. ‘You’re talking as if that’s a portrait of me hanging on that wall—and you know damned well it isn’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me—’
‘But it could be, couldn’t it?’ he inserted smoothly. ‘You, as I remember you. After I’d read the article about its discovery, saw the photograph, I knew I had to have that painting and hang it here. As a reminder that things aren’t always as they seem. The sitter looks like you, but she isn’t. Just as you, when I knew you, weren’t what I thought you were.’
‘That’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black if ever I heard one!’ she said in sharp retaliation. This was a man with a serious grudge. Had he resented so badly that letter saying she never wanted to see him again? Was his ego still smarting over being dumped for once, after all this time?
This was getting far too deep for her. She was leaving. This very minute.
‘Mr Dexter,’ she said, schooling her voice to what she hoped would pass as icy coolness. ‘There is no point in my being here any longer. My professional services weren’t required in the first place. As far as I can see you’ve already disposed of most of the worthless furnishings and kept less than a handful of good pieces. I’ll let you have Weinberg’s evaluation of their worth in writing.’
‘How kind.’ One dark brow was elevated mockingly. He was blocking the doorway and to get out of here she’d have to brush right past him. Close to him. She couldn’t face that. Just being in the same room with him made her feel weak all over.
Caroline swallowed convulsively and Ben drawled, ‘You were right about your professional services not being needed. But I have other needs, Caro, and you are going to satisfy every last one of them. Only then will you be free to go.’
He gave her a slow, thoughtful look
, ‘I suggest we stop pussy-footing around and start right now.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘NOW, why would I agree to do that?’ Caroline queried, facing him with a poise she was miles away from feeling. Her heart was thumping wildly, her flesh quivering on her bones.
A long time ago they’d satisfied each other’s needs completely—was that what he was suggesting? Had last night been a slow, cruelly teasing prelude to an inexorable seduction? The palms of her hands were slick now and drops of perspiration beaded her forehead, gathered in the cleft between her breasts as she was torn between jangling nervousness and helpless excitement.
‘Because you owe me,’ he retorted heavily, his narrowed eyes holding hers then dropping to rest on her mouth. ‘You owe me for twelve, wasted years.’
Her brain told her to walk out of here, pack her bags and phone for a taxi. He couldn’t hold her here by force. But her heart was beating in compelling opposition, telling her to stay.
That their long-ago tempestuous love affair had left an indelible mark on him too, given his love-’em-and-leave-’em attitude to women, was shattering. Perhaps it was mischievous fate that had brought them back together because it was finally time to close the circle and at last shut the past away where it belonged.
She couldn’t walk away from this, this final confrontation, if that was what it was. ‘Judging by your impressive achievements, the last twelve years can hardly be called a waste,’ she managed to say, desperately striving to bring an air of factual normality into a conversation that was in danger of becoming unreal: Unreal to believe that she could have wounded his psyche as he, she now admitted helplessly, had so deeply wounded hers.
