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CHAPTER NINE
SCOTT didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. The dead look in his eyes said it all. Anya felt sick. She could have defended herself against his anger, but his pain defeated her. She knew him now, knew the shocked revulsion he must be feeling at this further evidence of betrayal by someone who had claimed to love him.
He turned and walked away from her, the letter still crumpled in his white fist, the diary in his other hand, moving in a stiff-legged gait down the hall to turn into the master bedroom at the head of the stairs.
Anya went after him. She could do no less. He hadn’t shut the door but she didn’t take that as any form of encouragement; he was simply functioning on automatic, homing in on his private territory to lick his wounds. He was standing on the far side of the bedroom by the open sash window, flicking through the green journal, sending motes of dust rising to dance through the shafts of sunlight.
Anya had forgotten the burden she was still carrying, and hurriedly set the rest of the letters and papers on the table by the door, her trembling hands smoothing down the sides of her pale pink shirt-dress.
‘Scott, I’m so sorry—’
‘So Kate left a few incriminating pieces of personal property in storage when she took off, and after what she’d done she didn’t have the guts to ask for them back,’ he said in a grey monotone, as if he was reading the words off the page. ‘Instead she got her sly little cousin to con her way under my guard and see if she could whip the goods out from under my nose.’
His head lifted, his eyes blazing at her from behind their film of blue ice, his intelligence rapidly shaking off his shock. ‘How frustrating it must have been when you found I was working from home and Sam was using the room you needed to get into. No wonder you refused to sleep here. The last thing you wanted to encourage was an over-zealous lover who might be inclined to hover inconveniently over every move you made. What a sucker I was to fall for that shy will-she-won’t-she act of yours! You were waiting until Petra we
nt home to give you the run of the house. And I thought you were being cautious about committing yourself to something you weren’t ready for, when really you were just baulking at the idea of prostituting yourself any more than you had to…’
Anya’s throat tightened. This was far too reminiscent of another confrontation they had had, only this time she didn’t have her cloak of innocence to protect her.
‘I never slept with you for any other reason than because I wanted to,’ she told him hoarsely. ‘All right, so Kate did ask me to try and get some things that belonged to her without you knowing about it—’
‘And this was your first opportunity to do anything about it? Why risk it now, while Petra was still here?’ His face hardened as something clicked in his brain. ‘Or perhaps you were afraid this was going to be your last opportunity…Ah, yes, of course—’ he laughed bitterly ‘—the magazine article; that’s the reason for the sudden urgency. My God, Kate knew what kind of dynamite this would be if it ever fell into the wrong hands.’
He held up the fisted letter and shook it at her. ‘She had the bloody termination, didn’t she?’ he grated. ‘That’s why she disappeared so suddenly. She fled to some overseas clinic and aborted my child without even telling me she was pregnant, didn’t she? Didn’t she?’
Anya laced her trembling hands over her sick stomach. ‘I really don’t know…I can only presume so—’
His mouth contorted into a savage twist of contempt. ‘You presume—you know damned well she did. She accidentally got pregnant and Kate, being Kate, only thought of how it affected her. God forbid she be trapped into any connection with me after I’d already passed my use-by date. I was simply a fling to while away the time while she waited for her agent to get her out of the financial jam she was in—’
‘I didn’t know anything about it until I saw that letter, just now,’ said Anya shakily. ‘She simply told me there were diaries here that she didn’t want you or the journalist to find…’
‘And you accepted that without question?’ he sneered. ‘Do you think that your gullibility excuses you? You didn’t see anything wrong with what she asking of you? The thought that it was underhanded, dishonest, didn’t bother you—?’
She moistened her pale lips. ‘I—of course I knew it was wrong, but she’s family. I may not have been entirely open with you, but I never lied to you, Scott—’
‘Oh, come on, actions can lie as easily as words. I knew you were holding back on me but I didn’t know why. Now I do—this was in the forefront of your mind the whole time we were together.’ He threw the book and crumpled ball of paper contemptuously onto the floor. ‘Dammit, if she’d simply asked me I would have been happy to be shot of any reminders of her,’ he said bitterly. ‘Is she really so arrogant that she imagines I care either way about her any more?’
Of course she was.
‘She said she was afraid you might use anything you found as payback—’
‘Kate, afraid? Face it, Anya, she was using you, and you knew it and still went along with it. She was demonising me out of guilt, but why didn’t you trust me enough to be honest? Or is that part of the reason you were holding off—hoping to build up the illusion of trust between us until I was sufficiently softened up to give you whatever you wanted, instead of you having to find it yourself?’
He reeled around and spread his arms wide against the sides of the sash window, leaning his forehead against the glass.
‘My God, what is it about me and the women I—?’ He faltered briefly, his voice harshening. ‘The women I seem to attract? First Lorna, then Kate…now you. I’ve had two lovers who stole children from me and a third who conspired to cover up a dirty little secret. And don’t try and tell me that it’s a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body—maybe it is, but if it’s a principle worth fighting for why do it the way Kate did? With no discussion, no question of choice on my part, or joy for the miracle of life we created together—just get rid of my baby as if it was some kind of minor biological inconvenience. At least Lorna had the decency to consult me about her pregnancy and give me the semblance of a choice about my child’s destiny.’
She felt his searing words like a brand upon her heart.
‘Kate could have just had a miscarriage—’ Anya offered up the faint hope. She moved across to stand behind him, the rigidity of his body making his navy suit sit as stiffly across his shoulders as an expensive suit of armour. Unable to resist the urge to comfort him, she laid a gentle, compassionate hand on his unyielding back. His iron-hard muscles contracted even further at her touch.
‘You don’t believe that any more than I do.’ He wiped an angry hand across his face before spinning around. ‘By God, Anya, if you’re pregnant don’t even think of trying to get away with not telling me about it,’ he said savagely, his eyes shining with a ruthless intent. ‘You may not think I’d make a very good parent but you’re not going to be the third woman in my life to deprive me of being a father to my own child.’
‘I would never do that,’ she said thickly, over the tears in her throat.
‘How do I know what you’re capable of doing? For all the time we’ve spent together I don’t know you at all, do I?’ he countered jaggedly.
‘You can’t believe I’d ever do anything to harm a baby of yours,’ she said, her grey eyes soft and pleading, her hand going instinctively to her stomach in an unconscious gesture of protection that sent a tormented spasm across his angry face. ‘And I have no doubt at all that you’ll make an excellent father one day. I’m sorry that I let Kate mix me up in her problem, but I honestly didn’t know how to resolve it.’
