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Misery, coupled with anger at the hand fate had dealt her, made her voice thick and throaty as she countered, ‘Of course I knew! It was unfair and it hurt! And as far as my father was concerned I would never be coming back here. He finally disowned me and threw me out when I refused to fall in with his plans and get engaged to Jeremy.’
She saw his quick frown, heard the sharp intake of his breath as he asked, ‘Is that true? Your father said the engagement was planned for your eighteenth birthday—only a few weeks away, that the marriage would take place early the following spring.’
‘Really!’
She couldn’t entirely blame her father. He had only been saying what he’d believed to be the truth, that he could, as usual, coerce her into doing exactly what he told her to do. But she could blame Dexter for taking her father’s statement at face value and deciding that she’d been using him, having a sneaky affair on the side, enjoying—what had he called it?—rough trade!
‘And when did that conversation take place?’ she queried bitterly, ‘When he offered you money to make yourself scarce?’
‘Yes.’
The simple, unrepentant affirmative rocked her. Stupidly, she’d been hoping that he’d categorically deny ever having taken that pay-off, that his betrayal hadn’t been as thorough and as cruel as she’d believed, that her father had lied.
Her shoulders slumping, she removed his jacket and dropped it on the floor. She felt so tired and empty now it was an effort to stand upright. Bed. Sleep. That was what she needed. Tomorrow the traumatic happenings of this day would be behind her and she could go on.
She took a faltering step towards the staircase and heard him say gently, ‘What happened this afternoon was a shock for me, too, Caro. I guess I’m only just coming out of it. No, don’t go—?
? She took another jerky step towards the escape route of the stairs. ‘Hear me out, please. I want you to forget we have a history. I want you to marry me.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
CAROLINE turned quickly. Too quickly. Her head swam dizzily. She would have fallen if Ben hadn’t slipped an arm around her and held her, pulling her against the broad, hard wall of his chest.
His blunt, out-of-the-blue proposal was the very last thing she’d expected. Her acceptance, should she be crazy enough to give it, would throw up implications she didn’t think she’d be able to handle.
Marrying Ben Dexter had once been her most precious dream but now, after all that had happened and the passage of so many years, it was totally out of the question. Her shoulders shook with the onset of hysteria and her sudden, unstoppable and totally humiliating tears soaked the front of his T-shirt.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said soothingly. ‘Please don’t. I shouldn’t have landed that on you so suddenly.’ Strong hands on her slender shoulders held her slightly away, his fingers brushing away the wetness from her cheeks, his dark eyes sweeping over her troubled features. ‘I don’t expect an answer right now, Caro. You’ll need time to think about it. I’ve been mulling it over ever since you fell asleep in my arms, so I’ve had a head start.’
He dropped a light kiss on her quivering mouth, his eyes smiling now, bringing all his forceful charisma into play as he slipped an arm back around her waist and insisted wryly, ‘We’ll both feel less disorientated if we eat. I’ll throw something on the stove while you choose the wine.’
Resisting the strong desire to disintegrate into further hysterics Caroline dragged air through her pinched nostrils and blurted, ‘I can’t marry you, you know I can’t—it was a crazy thing to ask!’
She felt utterly confused and deeply upset and his lazy ‘Why?’ did nothing to help. Breathing unevenly, she pulled away from him. Ever since she’d returned to Langley Hayes she’d lost her grip on reality. Somehow or other she had to regain it.
‘Because,’ she said more steadily, determined now to gather her defences against the man her treacherous body and stupid heart craved so desperately, ‘what you feel for me is simply lust—not to mention contempt. Marriage couldn’t possibly work out.’
‘Contempt; yes, there was that,’ he admitted softly after a pause no longer than a heartbeat. ‘For a long time now I’ve believed you were planning to marry the Curtis fortune while having a furtive affair with me. That sort of conviction is difficult to shake off. You see, way back then, I wanted to ask you if it was true, about Curtis, but when I got back I found that letter telling me it was all over between us, that you never wanted to set eyes on me again. As far as I was concerned it confirmed everything your father had told me.’
He walked into her line of vision, his hands bunched into his trouser pockets, his dark eyes moody. ‘I had to go that day; there was no choice. With hindsight I know I should have told you of my plans, explained why I used to disappear for days, but I wasn’t sure things would work out.’ His mouth compressed wryly. ‘I guess I was misguided but I wanted to present you—everyone—with a tangible success, not a pipedream.
‘For over a year Jim Mays—an old friend from up north—and I had been trying to set up in the software business. We met up now and then to develop ideas. Then, that day, right after my disastrous meeting with your father, Jim phoned me, told me to drop everything and get down to London because he’d found a potential backer who would only be available for a few hours that day. But all the while we were pitching I was desperate to get back and get the truth from you.
‘But the moment I did get back Mother gave me your letter—giving me the brush-off in no uncertain terms, and from then on I thought you were every kind of bitch. Now I prefer to believe your version of events, that your father threw you out because you refused to marry Curtis. As for your Dear John, looking back I guess we can put that down to cold feet. You were very young at the time. So forget the contempt side of it, Caro, it no longer exists.’
He shrugged slightly, his mouth indented. ‘And, as for lust, what’s wrong with that? It’s nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the species, so don’t knock it. OK, I admit to the crass sin of getting you here under false pretences. I wanted to prove to myself that you were nothing special and all I did was prove that you were very special indeed. We’re dynamite together; no other woman comes near you as far as I’m concerned. You’re a singing in my blood, a desperate hunger—this afternoon proved that much.’ His voice thickened. ‘And I think—no, I know, you felt it too. It’s not finished Caro; it’s lasted twelve long years; it’s an undying fever.’
His words bewildered, delighted and terrified her. She could so easily ignore common sense and give in to the craving to marry the man she loved, to take what she could of him for the time it lasted.
She put her fingers to her temples in the age-old gesture of despair. The time it lasted would be short. How could it be otherwise when he was motivated only by lust and long memory of an incomparable, magical summer, and she by a love that was tainted with mistrust?
True, he had come back to find the truth from all that time ago. But that underlined his deceit. He had come back despite having taken a wad of her father’s cash in return for the promise to stay away.
Unconsciously, she shook her head. ‘Sex isn’t everything, no matter how brilliant it is. So, OK—’ she gave him a tired smile ‘—I admit that what we once had made such an impression that, like you, apparently, it’s hard to find a partner that measures up. But the bottom line is, Ben, you deceived and cheated on us all—Father, Maggie Pope, me. People don’t change, not basically. I would always be waiting for it to happen again.’
And when that happened she would be destroyed. Utterly, totally and completely.
The hall clock struck the hour, nine sonorous beats, and Ben said darkly, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Then he swore softly, almost inaudibly as the doorbell chimed. ‘Wait.’ He flung the word at her tersely. ‘I’ll get rid of whoever it is and then you can tell me what you meant.’
