Читать книгу She Devil - Christy McKellen - Страница 10

I’VE FELT SO much anger towards April Darlington-Hume over the years, it’s impossible to quantify it.

At least, I think it’s anger.

It certainly feels like it most of the time.

Except for the times it doesn’t.

I’ve never known what to do with those feelings, though, so mostly I’ve tried to ignore them.

Which hasn’t been easy.

I fucking adored her ten years ago, imagining that we’d stay together after we graduated from university and make a real go of it. It would have been challenging, sure, with me travelling the world one way to take part in tennis championships and she the other to build her career in the business world, but we could have done it. If she’d been brave enough.

It was her father that got in the middle of us. I’m pretty bloody sure of it. He never thought I was good enough for her and in the end she clearly gave in and decided he must be right—even after I tried so hard to be there for her after her mother died. I knew exactly how much pain she was in because I’d been through the same thing in my teens when I’d lost my own mother—who had chosen her love of alcohol over her desire to stay alive and in my life and had succumbed to liver disease. I did nothing but send April letters, gifts and offer support and generally put my life on hold for her in case she needed me.

But she didn’t.

Instead she dumped me, without even giving me a decent reason, then proceeded to act as if I didn’t exist any more. She wouldn’t take my calls or come down and meet me at the door when I turned up at her house. And, when I finally managed to confront her when she left the house one day on her own, rather than hiding away in her chauffeur-driven car, she refused to talk to me, telling me to leave her alone and that it was over between us.

That she didn’t love me and she was moving on. That I would be a hindrance to her family responsibilities and her career.

That was all the explanation I got. After a year and a half of growing so close to her I seriously thought we’d get married one day.

Because she’d been my best friend as well as my lover. My other half.

But it turned out I’d meant nothing to her. Less than nothing.

It’s no wonder I lost the plot for a while after being treated like that. I’m not especially proud of my actions at that time but I was hurting and so fucking angry with her, I could barely think straight.

And now we’ve gone and raked it all up again.

I’ve not been able to stop thinking about her since that night at the fundraiser. Her words have turned over and over in my mind, especially the part about her faking her orgasms with me. I don’t believe that’s true. It can’t be. I would have known. I’m sure of it.

Wouldn’t I?

I’ve never had any complaints from women before.

But, despite being ninety-nine per cent certain I’m not misremembering our time together, that one per cent has planted a seed of doubt in my mind. Which has been fucking with my head ever since—so much so I’ve had trouble thinking about anything else.

That is until the letter from my father was handed to me by the executor of his will.

I’d been summoned to the solicitor’s office in Kensington a few weeks after I’d buried my father in the De Montfort family plot on a clifftop graveyard just outside St Ives—where we’d laid my mother to rest fifteen years before. The solicitor, Phil Clary, was one of my father’s oldest school friends and it was he who handed me a thick cream envelope with a sad, supportive smile.

‘Your father wrote this after his first heart attack a year ago and wanted you to have it a little while after he’d been laid to rest.’ He nodded towards the envelope. ‘I think he wanted to give you a bit of time to grieve first.’

I have to admit, I was intrigued. He’d already willed everything he owned to me, including the entirety of his prosperous software business, so I was at a loss to think what could be in this letter. It had to be something seriously important for him to have had it delivered to me in this way.

After ripping it open and sliding out a single sheet of paper, I took a breath before starting to read my fathers achingly familiar handwriting, my heart in my mouth.

Son,

If you’re reading this it means my damaged heart has finally given up on me and I’m in the ground. In a lot of ways this will be a relief. There have been many times in my life when I’ve prayed for an easy way out of the despair I’ve often found myself sucked into, particularly since losing the woman I loved more than life itself.

Please don’t think for a second that this means I ever wanted to leave you, though. You are the one and only thing I did absolutely right in my life and I’m so proud to call you my son. You turned out to be a better man than I could ever have hoped for.

I’m sending you this letter now because I need you to do something—something I was never able to ask of you while I was alive. Go and ask April Darlington-Hume to tell you what really happened to her mother.

What they reported in the papers wasn’t the whole story. Not even half of it. I’ve wanted to tell you about it so many times, but it’s proved impossible for me.

You’ll understand what I mean by that when you finally hear the long-buried truth. Even though it may be distressing to hear, I’ve come to realise that you knowing everything is the most important thing in the world.

It will finally give me peace and hopefully you too, eventually.

Take care of yourself, Jamie.

Be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.

Your loving father,

Cliff

I stared at the piece of paper in my trembling hand, holding back an onslaught of emotion that brought back the memory of the excruciating mental agony I’d experienced as I’d watched his coffin being lowered into his grave.

Despite the distracting weight of my grief, I was still intrigued by this posthumous missive. Why on earth did I need to know what had really happened to April’s mother? And why couldn’t he have told me when he’d been alive? Had April’s father, Maxim, been blackmailing him all these years so he hadn’t been able to tell me what he’d obviously felt I now needed to know? As far as I knew, Maxim had taken great pleasure in bankrupting my father’s first business not long after Isabella Darlington-Hume had died, but was there more to the story than that? And, if so, why hadn’t April told me about it at the time? Why, instead, had she cut all ties with me? Had her father forced her to do it?

It seems incredible that something like that could have happened. But then, you never did know with Maxim Darlington-Hume. He’d probably happily use his daughter as a shield if he thought it would let him get away with something.

Is that why my father wrote me this letter—to ask me finally to get justice for him? Or for me—so I can finally get closure?

But of course that means connecting with April again.

Something I’m reluctant to do after our last clash.

Being inside her again, so physically close when my feelings about losing my father were still so raw, had been electric. I’d needed it so badly, that intimacy, that primal, life-affirming connection. But I hated that it was her I’d needed it with. In those moments I’d let my emotions control me, something I’m very careful not to do any more, and it had scared the crap out of me, how good it felt to fuck her. To be close to her. To connect with her again. I was on a razor edge of ecstasy and despair. And it was dangerous. Really bloody dangerous.

Which is why I’d forced myself to turn the situation back into a game. Perhaps it had been a way of punishing her for making me feel like that. I don’t know. It was a fucked-up situation through and through.

And not one I should consider revisiting.

But I know my father would hate to think she’d beaten me into submission and that I was just moping about, feeling sorry for myself, now that he’s gone. I’m the last living De Montfort without a steady partner or children and perhaps he was afraid I’d never be able to commit to someone if I was still hung up about my disastrous relationship with April. That I would spend the rest of my life alone.

So I’m going to take his challenge and run with it. To be the man he was so proud of and get him the justice he deserves. I’m finally going to make April tell me the truth then nail that bastard Maxim to the wall for what he put my father through—even up the score between our two families. Then maybe I’ll finally be able to move on from my hang-ups about April Darlington-Hume.

But all this means I need to find a way to see her again.

I need some sort of bait. But in order to make that work I’ll have to offer her something she can’t refuse. Something she has no choice but to deal with herself.

Maybe then I’ll finally be able to put this thing between us to bed once and for all.

* * *

I choose to roll out my plan on my private island off the coast of Greece, deciding it’ll be the best way to secure her complete attention for as long as I need it.

Now I’ve retired from professional tennis and I’m in a position where I can run my sports-clothing company remotely I like to spend a lot of time here on Palioph. It’s small compared to the rest of the Greek islands, with only three miles between its coasts, but to me it’s six and a half square miles of paradise.

It only has one residence on it, a two-storey, six-bedroomed Greek mansion with a balcony that wraps all the way round the house, giving me three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sea views. It’s right on the northern coast, and has a white sand beach directly in front of the house and a small harbour just a five minute walk away where I keep a small yacht moored for trips to the mainland. In a complex next door to the house I also have a gym, an Olympic-sized open-air swimming pool and both lawn and clay tennis courts.

You can see why I like to spend so much time here.

And, if all goes to plan, April’s going to be more than happy to spend some time here with me. For a handful of days, at least. I’m hoping that’s all the time it’ll take to get the information I want from her.

Thankfully, the lure of the business proposition I’ve set in motion has caught her attention and I’m expecting her to arrive here on a private-hire yacht any minute now.

I pace the room as I wait to hear the sound of the boat’s engine as it approaches the harbour, aware of my blood thrumming through my veins.

To my great annoyance I’m actually nervous about seeing her again. I guess it’s because I know I probably only have one chance to get this right. If she senses how important this information is to me, she’ll use it against me by deliberately withholding it, and I can kiss goodbye to fulfilling my father’s dying request.

Which I’m not going to let happen.

I owe him that much.

I turn and look out of the floor-to-ceiling window as the sound of a boat’s motor breaks the still air of the living room where I’m waiting. It’s her. I can see her standing on the deck of the small yacht, looking towards the house. The sun is making her blonde hair shine like spun gold and I’m struck by how proudly she holds herself, as if she’s keenly aware of the power she holds. Because she does. I’ve witnessed it first hand: the way people’s eyes are drawn to her whenever she enters a room. She’s a beautiful woman, after all, but there’s more to it than that. She has a formidable presence.

Trouble is, she knows it too well.

Tearing my eyes away from her, I go to the kitchen and pour myself a cold drink, trying to get the image of her out of my mind. But it determinedly stays there as I close my eyes and tip back my head to drink the ice-cold water. All I can see is her hair streaming behind her in the breeze and the magnificent swell of her breasts pressed against the soft material of her blouse as it plasters itself to her body. She’s wearing a white trouser-suit, for Christ’s sake, and she looks incredible in it.

Fuck.

I’m really going to have to watch myself around her. The last thing I need is to allow myself to indulge in some stupid fucking fantasy where we re-form the connection we once had. After the way she’s treated me over the years, I know that’s impossible. That I can’t trust her for a second.

It’s ten long minutes before there’s a loud, assertive knock on the front door—so very April—and I’m finally able to pace through to the hallway and swing the door open to admit her.

She stands on the doorstep for a moment, her cool blue eyes assessing me, as if trying to figure out my game plan before she enters.

Good luck with that, sweetheart.

‘April, good of you to come all this way.’

She raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow, then gives me a wry smile. ‘You didn’t exactly give me a choice. Your broker made it clear you were only interested in seeing prospective buyers here on your island.’

I nod. ‘This is where I run my businesses from now.’

The look in her eyes is discerning, as if she suspects she’s been brought here on false pretences.

Shrewd woman.

‘So you’re really serious about selling your father’s company?’ Her eyebrows twitch upwards. ‘I have to admit, I’m surprised you’re happy to potentially sell to DH Worldwide, considering our history.’ She moves her finger between the two of us to make it plain she means us personally.

I shrug. ‘I just want the best deal I can get for it. I can’t let my personal feelings get in the way of the most intelligent business decision to make.’ I lean against the doorjamb and fold my arms. ‘But, before you get too excited, I have to point out that you’re up against some stiff competition, so there’s a good chance I won’t be selling to you anyway. Unless you can offer me a deal I can’t refuse.’

I can tell she’s trying not to frown at that, but I don’t allow the smile that’s pushing at my mouth to surface. I want her to think I’m deadly serious about selling De Montfort Software and that she’s in with a real chance of securing the sale.

‘I know you won’t want to lose out, though, April. And I’m damn sure your father won’t either. I’m guessing it’ll put a real dent in his confidence in you taking over the CEO role full-time if you can’t close this deal. Am I right?’

She doesn’t answer this, but I can tell from a slight, momentarily unguarded expression of worry that flashes in her eyes that I’ve hit the nail on the head. I’d specifically made sure her father heard about me putting up my father’s business for sale so she’d be forced to respond to it. I knew Maxim Darlington-Hume wouldn’t be able to pass up an opportunity to take another of my family’s businesses from us. Especially one that would be so beneficial to his company’s portfolio. And it appears I was right.

She glances over my shoulder as if looking for something—or someone—inside the house.

‘Have my rivals arrived yet?’

‘They’ve been and gone already.’ I keep my expression blank so as not to give away my ruse. ‘You’re the last one to turn up.’

In reality, the others haven’t actually been invited to come yet. I’m still trying to decide whether I actually want to sell my father’s business right now, or try running it myself for a while first, but she doesn’t need to know that.

She frowns and it’s clear the idea of being last to the table frustrates her. ‘Oh, I see. Well, I’m here now, so perhaps we should get straight down to business, then.’

‘I’d expect nothing less from a professional such as yourself,’ I say, waving her inside with a sarcastic flourish.

She gives me a stiff sort of nod—I can tell it’s killing her, having to try and be so unnaturally friendly towards me—stalks past me, then pauses in the middle of the hallway, waiting for me to close the door and show her in which room we’re going to be doing business.

I lead her towards the library, which is my favourite room in the house. I’ve had it stocked with hundreds of books, both fiction and non-fiction—a lot of which I’ve read and enjoyed over the years I’ve lived here.

Her face is a picture as she gazes around the room, clearly surprised I would own such intellectual things as books.

‘Don’t tell me, you had no idea I could read,’ I tease her.

She visibly tenses, as if I’ve hit a nerve, then holds up a hand in supplication.

‘Look, Jamie. I know we’ve not exactly had the best of relationships over the years, but can we put that aside for the time being? What happened the last time we saw each other was a mistake, I’m sure you’ll agree. It was clearly a time of heightened emotions and a culmination of a lot of pent up anger which I think we’re both mature enough to move on from now.’