Kitabı oku: «Marrying The Enemy!»

CHAPTER ONE

THE clod of earth made a dull sound on the coffin as the last of the mourners dispersed, leaving Alex standing alone before the open grave.

Page Masterton. Her supposed grandfather. The man who had ruined his own daughter’s life and then called on his estranged granddaughter to…To what? Forgive him in his old age?

A shadow, more ominous than the shifting soil, fell across the grave, causing her breath to catch, her insides to tighten with a stomach-churning anticipation. She knew, even before she turned round, that it would be York. York Masterton, whose entrepreneurial ventures she had followed even from the other side of the world, and an insidious tension stole through her as she turned to meet the harsh austerity of his dark, strikingly etched features.

‘Would you mind telling me who you are?’

His deep voice was as cold as the raw frost that hadn’t melted despite the vain attempts of the bright March sun, and beneath her black three-quarter-coat Alex shivered.

‘You mean you don’t know me, York? Your only cousin?’ There was no affection, only bitter sarcasm in her testing response, because hadn’t he been as instrumental as Page all those years ago in hastening Shirley’s sad end?

She observed his shocked surprise with a little twist of satisfaction. It wouldn’t be like the chief executive of Mastertons, Britain’s biggest name in quarrying and civil engineering, to be nonplussed, and he would be chief—totally in control—now that his uncle had died.

‘Alexia?’ Entirely thrown though he was, he still cut a dominating figure—the long, dark coat he wore over a dark suit, and his sleek black hair filling her with the fanciful, unsettling notion of a raven swooping over its prey. He was, however, merely frowning down at her, those grey-green eyes—which, with that lean, hardstructured face, were so suggestive of his Irish ancestry—disbelieving as he breathed again in a voice that held no trace of the Gaelic accent, ‘Alexia?’

She held her breath, and her gaze wavered for a moment beneath the piercing clarity of his. How could she convince him—or anyone else for that matter—that she was Alexia Masterton when she couldn’t even convince herself?

Her chin lifted in an unconsciously rebellious gesture. ‘Alex.’ Her tone was clipped and concise.

‘Alex.’ He repeated the name as though giving it careful consideration. ‘You used to hate being called that.’

She swallowed. ‘Did I?’

He didn’t respond, except with that cool, contemplative gaze.

‘Well…Alex…’ He took a step towards her, the power of his masculinity so overwhelming her that she would have moved back if it had not been for the scrape of the grave diggers’ spades behind her. ‘This is a surprise, though I must say I would never have recognised you.’

She laughed now, a small, tight sound. Well, no, you wouldn’t, would you? she thought drily, but said only, ‘I suppose I’ve matured a bit…’

‘A bit?’His exclamation held harsh incredulity. ‘You’ve changed beyond all recognition!’

Well, what had she expected him to say? She knew she would have been pushing her luck if she had hoped resemblance between her and the awkward teenager he’d known for that brief period, but she merely shrugged and glanced away.

Outside the small country church, groups of darkly clad figures still hovered, waiting to pay their respects. Behind, the Somerset hills rose, sharply white in contrast, glittering under the late frost.

‘I was just a kid.’ How had he managed with just one look to make her feel exactly what she was—a total intruder?

‘A kid who was nicely rounded if not plump.’ His remark seemed to give him licence to regard the willowy lines of her body with a thoroughness that was overtly sexual—albeit suspicious—awakening her to the full force of an attraction that only she knew had driven the young Alexia almost crazy with shame. ‘A stammering seventeen-year-old with glasses.’

‘That was ten years ago.’ The sudden tremor in her voice was unmistakable, causing a cruel smile to lift one corner of his mouth. ‘I outgrew the puppy-fat with the specs.’

A nerve seemed to quiver in that strong jaw as his gaze flicked inevitably upwards. ‘You were also a brunette.’

There was scepticism in every lean inch of him. But he had had to mention it, hadn’t he? she thought tensely, feeling his gaze resting with hard contemplation on her hair. She had tried low-lights when it had started greying, then, out of desperation, she’d worn it short and blonde for a while, when the paler strands had become too significant to hide. But by the time she was twenty-five she had given up the battle and started growing it again, so that now it touched her shoulders in a sea of waves beneath the loosely flowing black hood, in her natural colour, soft silver, which with her velvety black brows and blue eyes gave her a uniqueness she had, for some time now, been forced to accept.

‘Not everyone’s as perfect as you, York,’ she uttered, dragging her gaze reluctantly down over his hard, lean physique before sidestepping away from him. At thirtysix—if her calculations were correct—he was the perfect specimen of untrammelled masculinity and didn’t even possess one grey strand on that arrogant head!

‘Exactly why have you come here?’

‘You wrote to me, remember?’

‘Did I?’

The doubt in his voice made her back stiffen as she turned, but over her shoulder she threw back disdainfully, ‘You know you did.’

‘All right, supposing I did? That was over six weeks ago. Pity you couldn’t have managed to get here while he was still alive!’ His condemnatory tones followed her across the frozen grass. ‘But then why bother—when you probably guessed he’d already made you a substantial beneficiary in his will?’

She turned back and cast a quick glance up at him, her eyes guarded, concealing any emotion. She hadn’t even considered that the late, wealthy businessman might have left his only grandchild anything…

‘Isn’t that what you were hoping?’ His hard, accusing tone said he believed she had considered it—and above everything else.

‘No,’ she said quietly, the cold that penetrated the thin soles of her low-heeled shoes making her shiver. She’d forgotten how long the winter could linger in England.

‘Oh, come on…Alex.’ That crease between the thick masculine brows, the way he hesitated over her name told her that, not surprisingly, he still wasn’t convinced that she was who she said she was—wasn’t absolutely sure. ‘Why else would you have flown twelve thousand miles from New Zealand just to arrive right on cue here today? And don’t try to convince me it was out of a loving granddaughter’s devotion, or you would have come as soon as you’d realised he was ill.’

He was right, but what could she tell him? That she hadn’t got his letter? That she’d only recently changed address in Auckland and that his communication had taken five weeks to catch up? Everyone knew there had been virtually no contact and certainly no affection between Page Masterton and his granddaughter in twentyseven years, and she doubted if this hard, cynical nephew of his would believe an excuse like that.

As for coming here today—a perfect stranger—because that was what she was—what could she say to him? How could she explain her reasons when she wasn’t even sure what they were herself? Perhaps she just wanted justice for the unfortunate Shirley and her wretched little offspring, but she had ceased to associate herself with either of them for so long that she wasn’t sure any more.

Or perhaps it was because she, Alex Johns, all alone in the world, had once so ached to belong to a family—no, not just any family, this family, she thought, with bitter self-recrimination—that she had followed their enterprises through those specially ordered English newspapers with a rapacity that had bordered on the obsessional. She only knew that when she had come home from the studios last week and found lying on the mat that crumpled letter that began, “My dear Alexia…” the desire to give in to what remained of those reckless, adolescent yearnings had proved too much.

Her mind clamped tight against the feelings that had ravaged her then. But if York Masterton knew for a moment one of the main reasons why she had been motivated to come…

She shuddered, staring sightlessly at the stone monuments and marble carvings around the little churchyard, guessing at the degree of verbal brutality he could be capable of.

‘You didn’t give a damn about him.’ Those censuring masculine tones flayed her. ‘Otherwise you would have been here weeks ago—as soon as you received my letter.

Do you think I went to all the trouble of trying to trace you for the fun of it? If it had been left to me I would have—’

He broke off, the lean angles of his face looking drawn—drawn with grief for his uncle, she was astute enough to realise. But there was a bitter detestation in him, too, of her, and quietly she taunted, ‘You would have done what, York? Left me to rot?’ Raw bitterness percolated through her words. ‘Like your uncle did with Shirley?’

She saw anger flare in those grey-green eyes before it gave way to a question—analysing, diamond-hard.

‘Shirley?’

Alex took a breath, steeling herself against his cynical probing. ‘She was only nineteen when she had me, York, you know that. We were more like sisters. Surely you can’t have forgotten how she didn’t like me calling her anything else? I suppose she didn’t like having to admit I was her daughter.’

‘But you’ve no qualms about admitting it?’

His voice was coldly sarcastic and a wave of colour washed up over Alex’s face. Did he mean because of Shirley’s volatile, fiercely rebellious nature? Or was he testing her, looking for some inconsistency…? She almost wanted to turn and run.

‘Anyway, it was up to you, wasn’t it?’ she said pointedly, refusing to let his sarcasm and his obvious suspicions get to her. ‘So why did you—write to me, I mean? Did Page specifically request you to?’

‘No.’

So he had tried to find his late cousin’s missing daughter solely on his own initiative. For some reason that disturbed Alex far more than if it had been at the other man’s instigation.

‘He wouldn’t have admitted to it, but I knew he wanted me to find his only grandchild. As for myself…’ his mouth took on a humourless curve as he regarded her again with that studied insolence ‘…perhaps I was curious enough to wonder what Shirley’s daughter had grown up to be. From the teenager I remember I half expected to find her eking out an existence in one of the seedier parts of London.’

Alex’s hands curled into tight, tense fists. Was that what he thought had happened to her?

‘I hadn’t anticipated her running off to New Zealand—let alone changing her name—like someone determined never to be found.’

Perhaps she had been, Alex thought with a sudden, swift dart of anguish that caused her eyes to darken, but, picking up on his words, quickly she said, ‘Her? You mean me.’

An eyebrow tilted as he murmured silkily, ‘Of course,’ but the scepticism was still mirrored in his eyes. Obviously her claim to be his second cousin had thrown him more than she had anticipated. ‘It took three months of searching before I’d even picked up a trace.’

But somehow, with the help of that expensive missing persons bureau, he had assumed a link between Alexia Masterton and Auckland television programme researcher Alex Johns and acted upon it.

‘Full marks for enterprise, York.’ Another little shudder ran through her that was to do with more than just the bitter morning. ‘But then you always were resourceful.’

His mouth quirked. ‘How do you know? We only met once.’

Was he testing her again? She drew herself up to her full height, which, tall as she was, still left her feeling strangely overshadowed by his dominating stature.

‘Twice,’ she corrected him. ‘The first time for little more than a week. The second a year later—after Shirley died—when you came to ask—no, demand—that I came home.’

The subtle movement of an eyebrow was his only acknowledgement of that sudden little burst of rebellion. ‘But you didn’t, did you?’ he said. ‘You ran away instead.’ His eyes seemed to dissect her before he smiled superficially. ‘Full marks for remembering, Alex. Or are you simply as resourceful as I am?’

She swallowed, looking up at him, a wariness clouding the deep sapphire of her eyes. God! He would be lethal to anyone who imagined they could make a fool of him, she thought, but said only, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Beneath the expensive coat a broad shoulder lifted in casual dismissal, so that she breathed, ‘Are you honestly saying you’re actually doubting who I am?’

The lean contours of his face tightened before he sent a glance over his shoulder as doors were thrown closed on the gleaming black saloon cars outside the church.

‘You wouldn’t be the first to turn up laying claim to being Page’s long-lost granddaughter. Since he died we’ve had reporters lying in wait like a pack of starved wolves, hoping for news of the elusive Alexia, morning, noon and night. Thanks to my cousin’s determination to hurt her father—even down to that last act of killing herself—this family’s affairs are no longer granted the anonymity they should be—in private matters at any rate!’

‘So you think I’m one of them? One of these…fallacious claimants?’ she uttered, indignant at the callous way he had referred to his cousin’s death, though those sharply honed edges of his intellect were stripping her nerves bare. ‘Anyway, don’t you think my mother told me everything there was to know about you that I didn’t know already?’ she appended brittly. ‘You and Page?’

‘Your mother? Shirley?’ A cynical smile played around his lips. ‘Whatever she told you—for whatever reason—I needn’t ask if it was all bad, need I?’ he said. ‘My cousin had a talent for spreading untruths about her family—her father in particular—that was second to none. She was nothing but a single-minded, mendacious little tramp.’

Alex caught her breath at the smouldering animosity in him. How was he expecting her to react? With hot retaliation and bitter protestations? Perhaps he was thinking that if she were really Shirley’s daughter she would.

‘That’s just your opinion, York,’ she responded, with a calmness that surprised even her. ‘She was independent, yes—she had to be to bring up a child singlehanded. But I never had any reason to doubt that everything she told me was true.’

‘No?’ he sneered. ‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?’

He was trying to needle her, she realised, but said quietly, ‘Obviously not.’ And when he looked at her quizzically, as though half expecting her to come clean and admit to being the impostor he suspected her of being, she added quickly, ‘Anything she said about either of you, you deserved.’

Too well she knew how Page Masterton had totally governed his daughter’s life, preventing her from marrying the man she loved. ‘It’s not every woman who’s lucky enough to have a father who thinks so much of her that he shows it by threatening to call in a debt and bankrupt her fiancé’s family if the boy dares to even consider marrying into his. Only she was pregnant, but Page didn’t tell him that. He just arranged for a convenient job for him abroad.

‘And when Shirley rebelled by leaving home—when he couldn’t break her into being the adoring daughter he wanted her to be—he tried to get even by attempting to separate her from her own daughter on the only occasion she did come back—and with your help! Perhaps this isn’t the time or the place to say it, but Page ruined her life—and you know it.’

His gaze lifted briefly as a rook took off with a distracting cry across the churchyard, and his smile was frozen—like the grass—as he drawled, ‘My dear, you really have been misguided.’

‘Have I?’ Alex’s hood slipped back, freeing soft silver waves as she tossed her head indignantly. ‘But then you would stand up for him, wouldn’t you?’ she breathed in a bitterly censorious voice. ‘He wanted a son and you filled that role quite adequately, didn’t you?’

The firm lines of his mouth twisted in mocking disdain. ‘Hardly!’

‘No wonder she felt pushed out.’

‘Pushed out?’ His laugh split the air with a cloud of warm breath. ‘My dear young woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he rasped. ‘By the time she’d made her bed I was little more than ten—scarcely old enough to have had any influence on the path of selfdestruction she was already headed down and you know it. And you’re right—anger tightened the muscles of his chest beneath the pristine shirt ‘—this isn’t the time or the place.’

She would have liked to tell him that she knew exactly what she was talking about, because, above all else, in the beginning, before the rot had set in—before circumstances had driven her into the reckless lifestyle that had killed her—Shirley had been her closest friend.

His last remark, though, had effectively silenced her—which was just as well, she realised, because two elderly women were approaching, one of them stopping a polite distance away as the taller of them singled York out.

‘York, I’m going back to the house in Brigette’s car so you’ll not need to be worrying about me. The service was beautiful, wasn’t it?’ she added approvingly, before her interest settled on the slim young woman at his side.

His smile for the older woman was warm, none of his animosity towards Alex allowed to show through the exterior charm, so that only she sensed the scorn behind it when he suddenly said, ‘Mother, would you believe that this confident, silver-haired creature is the long-lost Alexia?’ And then he added startlingly to Alex, ‘You remember my mother?’

Studying the grey-haired lady in the elegant dark wool suit, Alex felt all her composure deserting her. Was she supposed to? Because York Masterton clearly thought she should. But she couldn’t even remember Shirley’s ever saying she’d met his mother. Hadn’t both his parents moved to Ireland, which was where his paternal grandfather had come from? And hadn’t York stayed in England to finish his schooling before going into the family business because he’d got on better with Page—his step-uncle—than he had with his own father?

‘You mean…this is Page’s granddaughter?’

As the woman whispered her surprised disbelief Alex could feel York’s hard scrutiny. Unconsciously, her nails dug into her palms. What was he expecting her to say? That she remembered his mother vividly? And what was he going to do? Expose her as a fraud? Pick her up bodily and cart her off to the nearest police station if she said she didn’t?

Surprisingly, the thought of his handling her made her veins pulse with something more unwelcome than just the revulsion and resentment she knew she should only have room for, and, striving for something intelligible to say that wouldn’t further increase his suspicions about her, she couldn’t have been more relieved when his mother chipped in.

‘It’s gratifying to see you here, dear. Let us hope that now we can begin to put the past behind us. I’m Celia, if you weren’t already aware,’ she elucidated, her kind, friendly manner causing a pang of guilt in Alex because she wasn’t exactly here to make peace with the family as Celia thought.

‘But really, York,’ the woman went on, amiably reprimanding her son, ‘your memory doesn’t usually let you down. You must be overworking, darling, or keeping your mind on too many other things, otherwise you’d have remembered me saying only recently that I’d never had the chance to meet Shirley’s daughter.’

Well, thank heaven for that! Breathing a sigh of relief, Alex smilingly made some appropriate response, and from under her lashes sent a cursory glance towards the tall man beside her.

He was looking smug, as though he’d enjoyed her moment of discomfort, even if it had backfired on him before he’d been able to expose her to what she realised now was his sheer, machiavellian cunning. Then the second woman had moved across to him, smiling her appreciation for what she clearly saw as a very personable man as she expressed a few fond remarks about his uncle and stepped away.

‘I hope I’ll see you back at the house and that we’ll have some time to get to know each other, Alexia, before I leave for Dublin,’ Celia said with warm sincerity.

‘Yes.’ It wasn’t a very positive response from Alex. She didn’t want to go anywhere where York was likely to be—and that included the house—although she wasn’t sure how she could avoid it if she was to find what she had come for. But, grateful for a flicker of warmth from one member of the Masterton family, she added, ‘Thanks. I hope so too.’

York’s expression was unfathomable, so that she couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he watched the two older women walking away. But, on finding herself disconcertingly alone with him again, Alex’s chin came up and, despite her pumping heart, she breathed, ‘You can’t intimidate me, York.’

‘Can’t I?’ The firm, thrusting lines of his jaw harshened as he gave her his full attention again. ‘Maybe not,’ he conceded. ‘But if you think you can just walk in here and stake a claim on my uncle’s generosity without my doing anything to stop you, you’ve got another think coming!’

His determination unnerved her. Nevertheless, in spite of it she managed to smile.

‘That should be interesting.’ Whatever Page Masterton had left his granddaughter, she wasn’t likely to be making any claim to it. Even so, she couldn’t help taunting,

‘And I thought you were rich enough, York.’ From the things she’d read about him it seemed he’d made millionaire status ten times over! ‘What ever could he have left me that could possibly make any difference to you?’

The grass crunched under his highly polished black shoes as he followed her down onto the path towards the church. ‘We’re going to require concrete evidence from you as to exactly who you are before we even begin to think about discussing that.’

Alex drew in a breath, colour rising in her cheeks. ‘I don’t have to prove anything to you!’

His eyes were astute, missing nothing. ‘Spare me the indignation, lady,’ he advised. ‘It’s going to take more than that to convince me…Alex. And my uncle’s solicitors are going to need more than just a sultry smile and that sexy New Zealand accent before they agree to grant you the half-share of the house.’

‘Half the house? Is that what he left…?’ Me, she had been going to finish with, but stopped herself short. She had no right to it. Nor did she want it-any of the Masterton money.

‘Over my dead body,’ he whispered, the venom in him causing a slick of fear to infiltrate her blood.

Hadn’t she learned from everything she had read about him—from his hard-nosed business acumen down to the hidden forces of his personality—how tough he was? Hadn’t Shirley warned her? Why, then, had she imagined she could come here like this?

‘If I’d been Page I would have disinherited you entirely.’

‘But he didn’t.’ Unexpectedly, something stirred in Alex—something she banked down before it could manifest itself into anything more concrete as she uttered, ‘And you resent that like hell, don’t you?’

The hard glitter in his eyes confirmed it, but it was resentment born solely out of his contempt for Shirley and whoever he thought she was, she was surprised to find herself acknowledging, rather than any sort of greed on his part.

‘Wouldn’t you,’ he returned, ‘if you’d seen a man virtually destroy himself because of the total disregard by his only daughter, and when her avaricious, alleged little offspring turns up to get her hands on the only thing Shirley didn’t already bleed him of—his money?’

She doubted if Page Masterton had ever cared enough about his daughter to suffer any sort of emotional trauma over her desertion, but all she said was, ‘“Alleged”, York?’ From beneath her lashes she slanted him a glance that was both challenging and watchful. ‘Are you still insinuating I’m not who I say I am?’

They had come to a standstill on the path. Beneath the bare trees York’s face was criss-crossed by shadows.

‘Are you?’ he demanded, his eyes narrowing with cold calculation.

Alex’s breathing stilled beneath the stylish cut of her coat. How Shirley’s intimidated little daughter would have savoured seeing him in such a state of ambivalence—so undecided—ten years ago!

She laughed, the sound easy on the cold, clear air. ‘You really don’t know, do you? And that’s what’s really bugging you, isn’t it, York? The fact that you aren’t really sure. Just for once you aren’t completely in control and you can’t stand it, can you…cousin dear? Well, you’ll just have to accept my word for it, won’t you?’ she finished, with bitter irony twisting her mouth.

His smile was slick, without warmth, cold as the day. ‘Accept the word of anyone who calls herself Shirley’s daughter? Hah! That’s laughable in itself! But whatever you are—freeloading little tramp or total charlatan—I’m warning you now, I’m a very dangerous man to cross. Make one false move—just one mistake—and I’ll…’

‘You’ll do what?’ she retaliated, undeterred by his threatening tone. ‘Clap me in irons?’

His eyes mocked her response, her whole defiant stance. ‘Is that how you like to play? Bound and begging for mercy? Not quite the little innocent who came to my bedroom expecting chaste kisses.’

A heated flush stole into the translucent sheen of her cheeks. Oh, stupid, stupid fool! What was she letting herself get into? Why had she imagined she could come here without inviting a whole heap of trouble? Yet—from another life, it seemed—reluctantly she was aware of how his body would feel beneath her hands, of the hard, burning arousal of his kisses. Because Alexia had known. But that Alexia was dead. And all she had to do was play the part until her purpose here was accomplished…

‘Unlike you,’ she said softly, refusing to be swayed by the power of his sexuality, ‘I’ve always been rather particular with whom I play.’

He chuckled at that. Perhaps he didn’t mind being reminded that he had once been photographed with an actress who’d later become mixed up in a pretty hairraising scandal. ‘An unfortunate liaison,’ he said dismissively.

‘Very,’ she said pointedly, although she knew that his integrity had emerged unscathed.

‘Nevertheless, until I’m satisfied as to exactly who you are, you’ll be coming back to Moorlands with me where I can keep an eye on you for however long it takes.’

For however long what took? Proving her false identity? Was that what he was hoping for?

‘I’m doing no such thing! I’ve got a very adequate hotel room in town, thanks!’ she snapped, deciding that staying under the same roof with this man could lead her into nothing but trouble. ‘Naturally I’ll want to—’ she started, but he cut in, his expression inexorable, his mouth grim.

‘You’ll do exactly as I say.’

She wanted to argue against it, but that overriding determination in him—that tyrannical streak that she knew very well was characteristic of the Masterton men—was too strong. It was the reason why Shirley had left home, why she had struggled for an existence on her own with only her child after Page had prevented her marriage, why she’d been dragged down into the unfortunate lifestyle that had led to her overdose. Accidental, the coroner had said, brought about by a lethal blend of booze and barbiturates.

Something speared through Alex—something cutting and deep. Oh, to find some skeleton in the impeccable Masterton cupboard! Particularly in the high and mighty, unimpeachable York’s!

But refusing to do as he said, insisting on staying at the hotel, wouldn’t help her in trying to convince him that she was his cousin, nor to find those letters which, suddenly, had become the most important things in her life. And so, feigning sweetness, with a totally false smile, she uttered, ‘As you put it so hospitably, how can I refuse?’