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It was time for her to leave. She could put the letter on Jay’s desk on her way out. Keira picked up her bag and reached for the handle of her trolley case.
Her bedroom door opened.
She swung round, the colour leaving her face as she saw Jay standing in the doorway, looking from her to the case and then back again.
His curt, ‘What’s going on?’ didn’t do anything to steady her nerves.
Keira knew that her voice was trembling as she told him unsteadily, ‘My work here is finished…’
‘Your work may be finished, but what about us?’
This was so much worse than she had expected. She must stay focused and be practical, not give in to her longing to beg him to make her stay.
‘I have to earn my living, Jay.’
So he had been right all along. It had all been an elaborate set-up—a trick to bring him to this point. A sickening rush of bitter anger seized him. But it wasn’t strong enough to stop him giving in and telling her harshly, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make it worth your while to stay. How much did you have in mind? Ten thousand a month?’
Keira couldn’t speak or move. The ferocity of her pain gripped her. It was no good telling herself that she had known what he really thought of her, and that she had no one to blame but herself for the humiliation and anguish she was now suffering. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter—wasn’t she?
‘Not enough? Well, how about if I throw this in as a sweetener?’
Jay reached into his jacket pocket and removed the jeweller’s box, which he threw onto the chair close to where Keira was standing.
‘Go ahead and open it,’ he told her.
Keira felt as though her heart was shrivelling inside her chest, as if she was, in all the ways that really mattered, going through a form of emotional death. It was pointless reminding herself that she had known she would suffer. Knowing had not prepared her for the reality of that pain.
‘I’m not for sale, Jay,’ she told him. She felt leached of life and hope, her voice mirroring her feelings and recording her sense of emptiness and loss.
‘No?’
‘No.’
She thought that he was physically going to stop her from going. And to her shame a part of her actually hoped that he might, despite what he had just said and done. But, although he started to move towards her, he stopped short of reaching her.
She had to walk so close to him that she could almost feel and hear the angry thud of his heartbeat. That same heartbeat she had felt so many times against her own body, and wishing that it might match the love that filled her own heart for him.
Well, she knew now how impossible that was. All Jay wanted was to buy her for as long as he wanted her. That knowledge made her feel acutely sick.
The day she returned home Keira checked her accounts online and found that a very large sum of money indeed had been paid into her business account. Far more than was due to her from Jay on completion of the contract.
Keira e-mailed him, pointing out his error, and received an e-mail in return saying that the extra was ‘for services rendered’. It would not be accepted if it was returned as he always paid his dues.
After she had finished crying Keira made out a cheque for the extra amount and gave it to a charity that helped rescue young women from prostitution, informing them that the money was a gift from Jay.
It was over. It should never have existed in the first place. But now it was over and she had to find a way to get on with her life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE just hoped that her potential client kept their appointment, Keira thought as she walked through the entrance of the expensive and very exclusive boutique hotel suggested by the client as a meeting place. Far too exclusive and discreet to have anything as commercial as a foyer, its entrance hall was more like the entrance to a private home.
An elegantly dressed woman wearing what Keira suspected might be Chanel greeted her and suggested that she might like to wait in a private sitting room, overlooking their equally private garden.
The hotel had been designed by a very well-known design team and showed all their hallmark touches. Keira was impressed and envious.
It had been six weeks since she had left India, and each one of them had felt like its own special version of hell.
