Читать книгу Untamed Billionaires: Marriage: For Business or Pleasure? / Getting Red-Hot with the Rogue / One Night with the Rebel Billionaire - Элли Блейк, Ally Blake - Страница 10

‘SO, THE prodigal daughter returns.’

From the moment Brittany knew she’d be returning home she’d been bracing for this confrontation.

However, no matter that she told herself it was ridiculous, no amount of deep breathing, or steeling her nerves, or trying to remember how far in the past it all was could calm her in any way as she faced her father for the first time in ten years. She could feel her hands shaking.

She paused at the entrance to his apartment, one of the few in the exclusive Jacaranda special accommodation home for the elderly.

Not that Darby Lloyd would ever admit to his seventy-two years. He’d had work done on his face several times, had hair plugs to arrest a threatening bald patch and continued to wear designer clothes better suited to a man half his age.

But pots of money or cosmetic work or fancy clothes couldn’t buy health and that was one thing he didn’t have these days.

Five years ago, he’d tried to guilt her into quitting her job and returning to look after him as he grew older and more bitter. He’d nearly succeeded. However, some deep part of her had resisted his pressure. He had been a cruel tyrant who’d controlled her life until she’d come into a small inheritance from her mum when she’d turned eighteen and fled as far from him as she could get. She simply couldn’t go back to the hell she’d left behind.

In her heart, she desperately wanted to be anywhere but in front of the man who would have ruined her life if she’d let him, but her pride wouldn’t let her pay a visit to her hometown and not see him. She was older and stronger—surely she could stand to face him now? She had come here today to prove to herself she’d finally set the past to rest. Working harder, longer, than everyone else might keep the memory demons at bay, but she knew if she stopped, slowed down her frenetic pace, the old fears could come crowding back to fling her right back to the dim, dark place ten years earlier.

And she’d be damned if she let that happen. In a way, she should thank dear old Dad for shaping her into the woman she was today: strong, capable and successful, everything he’d said she’d never be.

But there was more to this visit and she knew it, no matter all her self talk to the contrary.

She was here because of hope.

Hope that he might have changed. Hope that after all this time they might actually have a shot at some semblance of a normal father-daughter relationship.

And if not? Well, she was different now: a woman on top of her career, a woman who depended on no one, a woman a far cry from the victim she’d once been.

She’d vowed back then never to be helpless again, had instigated huge steps to eradicate the confusion and fear, yet as she stood on the threshold to this room trepidation tripped across her skin as the anxiety she’d fought to conquer over the last decade clawed at her belly.

‘How are you, Dad?’

‘Much the same.’

He limped towards her, waving his cane at a seat for her. ‘No thanks to you.’

Taking several deep breaths, she perched on the edge of the chair, willing the dread to subside, hating the vulnerability being this close to him elicited.

She needed to do this, needed to see if there was the slightest chance for them before she returned to London.

‘You look good.’

He grunted in response, wouldn’t meet her gaze, his surly expression putting a serious dent in her hopes for some kind of reconciliation.

‘This place is lovely.’

Another monosyllabic grunt as his frown deepened and her patience wore a little thinner.

‘Dad, I really think it’s time to—’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

His snarl caught her off guard despite his churlishness, yet it wasn’t his response that saddened her as much as the contempt in his truculent glare.

She’d been a fool to hope for anything other than what she got: more of the same from a boorish man who didn’t give a hoot about her.

‘I’m here on business.’

He showed no interest, seemed bored more than anything else. Faced with his silence she could not help asking him:

‘Don’t you want to know how I am? What I’ve been doing? What I’ve achieved?’

His withering stare clued her into his response before he spoke.

‘I don’t give a damn any more.’

Pain sliced her heart in two, the old familiar questions reverberating through her head: What did I do wrong? Why did you stop loving me? Could I have done anything differently?

But she wasn’t the same scared teenager any more.

She had her career skyrocketing all the way to the top and she’d be damned if she sat here and took any of his crap.

Resisting the urge to jab her finger at him to ram home her point, she sat back, folded her arms and looked him straight in the eye.

‘Maybe you should give a damn. That way, you’d know I’m a senior executive at a top London ad firm, that I’m good at what I do and I’ve done it all on my own, no thanks to you.’

She’d come here with some semblance of the idealistic girl she’d once been, but that girl vanished beneath his lack of caring and she wanted to rub his nose in her independence, in her success, in the proof she’d survived despite what he’d put her through.

If she’d thought her outburst would gain a reaction, gain recognition for her achievements, she should’ve known better.

He glowered, drew himself up, resembling the towering giant of a man she remembered as he rammed his cane against the floor.

‘You’re a fool if you think I care about any of that.’

Her heart ached as she stared at the man who was her father biologically but didn’t know the meaning of the word.

She could rant and rave and fling past hurts or present triumphs in his face but what would be the point? Darby listened to no one but himself, which was why he now found himself in this place. No amount of money on offer had induced anyone locally to play nursemaid and she couldn’t blame them.

Slinging her bag higher on her shoulder, she kept her face devoid of pity for the father she’d never had.

‘Sorry you feel that way. I thought…’

What? That the old despot might’ve changed, might’ve mellowed with time and illness? Not likely. If anything, his belligerence had worsened and she’d been crazy to come here, setting the past to rest while hoping for a miracle.

‘Thought what? I’d welcome you with open arms after all this time?’

He snorted, waved his good hand towards the door. ‘Just leave the way you came in.’

She’d cried rivers of wasted tears when she was a teenager for all this man had put her through and there was no way she’d stand here now and allow him to reduce her to tears again.

With a shake of her head, she turned away, ready to walk out and never look back.

‘That’s it, run away again. Though this time, you won’t have a penny of mine to cushion you when you fall.’

Icy foreboding trickled down her spine as she slowly swung back to face him.

‘What did you just say?’

His malevolent grin raised goose bumps on her skin. ‘You heard. That money from your mother? It was a crock. She never left you a cent. That was my money you squandered on your little trip, my money that made sure you didn’t end up in the gutter.’

She staggered, leaned against the doorway for support, her gut twisting with the painful truth.

‘So, daughter dearest, looks like you owe me after all.’

With his words ringing in her ears, she stumbled from the apartment, from the accommodation and made it to her car before she collapsed, slumping over the steering wheel.

She’d thought she’d escaped his stranglehold ten years earlier, had fought hard for her independence, had found safety and confidence in her career.

She’d been wrong.

Right then, she vowed to do whatever it took to pay off her debt.

You owe me…

With the hateful truth ringing in her ears, her head snapped up as she straightened, knowing what she had to do.

There was only one thing that would clear a debt of that magnitude and, right now, gaining her promotion was a necessity.

In choosing between owing her dad a huge amount of money and agreeing to Nick’s outlandish proposal, marrying Nick would be the lesser of two evils.

She’d come.

Nick squinted at Brittany between the spokes of his Harley, trying to read her expression and coming up empty.

She’d left a message for him at the hotel desk requesting a meeting and he had suggested to meet at the farm, hoping that the memories might throw her off balance—make her vulnerable, more easily manipulated. He hadn’t anticipated that those very same memories might unsettle him as well, but with Britt standing there, dressed in a short white skirt and pink vest-top, gnawing at her full bottom lip, an action he remembered all too well, attending to his bike was the last thing on his mind.

He waited for her to speak, continued polishing the chrome, an action he found soothing. He rarely got time to lavish on his bike these days and this was the first opportunity he’d had to work on his baby in months.

Even with her forget-me-not eyes clouded with worry, tendrils of hair escaping her ponytail and draping her face in golden copper and that worried action which drew attention to her lush mouth like it always had, she looked incredible, like his greatest fantasy come to life.

Which she was, not that he’d ever told her. He’d had his chance ten years earlier and she’d made it more than clear what she’d thought of his rebuff back then.

‘You blow this chance, Mancini, you’ll never get another one. This is it, you and me, together. So what will it be?’

His answer had been pretty clear. He’d given her one last kiss, a bruising, harsh kiss to say goodbye to the best thing that could’ve happened to him, pushed her away and said, ‘There is no us, Red. And there never will be.’

She hadn’t cried and he’d admired her for it. She hadn’t clung or tried to change his mind. She’d sent him a pitying look, shook her long red mane, held her head high and walked out on him, leaving him with an ache in the vicinity of his heart. An ache that had returned tenfold despite all his self talk what they’d shared back then was nothing more than a teenage fling.

Slamming a door on pointless memories, he stood, tucked the polishing cloth in his back pocket and leaned against the bike.

‘You made it.’

For a second, he wished he hadn’t sounded so flippant as her eyes clouded with wariness.

‘Yeah, thanks for agreeing to meet me.’

The hint of vulnerability in her voice, in her expression, stunned him. The Brittany Lloyd he knew would never show weakness in front of anybody, least of all him.

‘Let’s pull up a seat.’ He pointed to the outer perimeter of the machinery shed, where a few old-fashioned plastic garden chairs lay scattered. ‘Have you given any more thought to my proposal?’

Stupid question. As if she would’ve thought of anything else since she’d stormed out of his office yesterday.

She ignored his question and said, ‘I want to talk about my father.’

No way.

If there was one topic of conversation off-limits, that was it.

Darby Lloyd was an out and out bastard. He’d controlled everything and everyone in this district, had set out to ruin Papa. Until Nick had given him what he wanted.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, ‘I don’t have much to say on that topic.’

‘Not many people do. But I want to know something. Did he ever approach you about me back when we were dating? Did he try to interfere?’

His blood chilled. There was no way he’d ever tell her the truth about her father. Besides, it wasn’t as if Darby were the cause of their break-up. It’d been much easier to blame their disintegrated relationship on her wanting to escape Jacaranda for the bright lights of a big city. That way, he could live with himself and what he’d done.

To help justify their break-up he’d told himself women were fickle. His aunt had run off to Melbourne with a salesman, his godmother had absconded with the butcher to Bunbury, his mum had abandoned her family and Britt had followed suit, hightailing it to London as soon as she hit eighteen.

Britt might have invited him along for the ride but he’d known that was due to the teenage fantasy she’d built in her head, the one where she saw him as some fancy Prince Charming riding his white horse to save her.

The problem with fantasies was they weren’t true and he’d been forced to burst her bubble before he did something silly—such as trust her as he’d trusted his mother.

‘What did he do? Tell me.’

She clicked her fingers in front of his face and as he looked into her luminous blue eyes a small part of him wished he’d indulged her fantasy.

Where would they be today if he had? Happily married with a brood of ruffians? Sharing confidences and dreams? Spending every night wrapped in each other’s arms, recreating the magic, the passion, that haunted him to this day? He could’ve had one hell of a life.

But he’d made his choices, his sacrifices, and, considering the successful hotelier he’d become, life wasn’t all bad.

‘Just thinking of the good old days,’he said, trying to distract her. He didn’t want to talk about her father, not now, not ever.

‘Good old days?’

She gaped at him and he clamped down on a grin. ‘Which ones? The ones where you tied my plaits to the bus seat, or the ones where you plucked my lunch right out of my hands, or the ones where you threw my pet rock collection into the river?’

He smiled at the memories, remembering how he’d used to tease her mercilessly and how she’d given as good as she’d got. She’d been a little firebrand back then, her red hair a definite symbol of a quick-fire temper. And a symbol of a simmering passion he’d been lucky enough to unleash.

Man, had she pushed his buttons back then and he hoped to God he’d grown out of it, whatever it was.

He didn’t have time for emotions in this marriage. It was business, pure and simple. He had more important matters to consider, such as building his profile with investors, expanding into new cities and upping profit margins.

‘You loved every minute of it. Remember that time I put a toad in your bag?’

She rolled her eyes, a smile twitching at the corners of her glossed lips. ‘Oh yeah, I really loved that. Not!’

‘How about the garlic I rubbed into your Spandau Ballet T-shirt?’

Her lips twitched more. ‘You were a jerk.’

‘What about the shed incident?’

‘Which one?’

Her lips curved into a small, secretive smile and he clenched his hands into fists and thrust them into his pockets to prevent them reaching for her.

‘The time you had me shovelling manure or the time you opened your mouth and poured the verbal variety on me so I’d fall into your arms?’

‘Ouch!’ He clutched at his heart. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, Red. That hurt.’

‘And you haven’t changed a bit either, still shovelling it in the hope to distract me. Now, can we get back to the topic of my father?’

She was onto him. Always had been, seeing right through his tough-guy act, reducing him to a love-struck schmuck around her.

Correction, lust-struck schmuck.

Big difference there. He’d never loved Brittany. Liked her, lusted after her but he’d never dared love her.

He didn’t do love.

Love equalled loss and loneliness and pain, emotions he could do without.

Folding his arms, he leaned back in the rickety chair. If he couldn’t deflect her attention, he’d have to give her some snippet of the truth to placate her before they tackled more important matters, like the question of their impending nuptials.

‘You know how much your dad hated any guy who came near you. Why dredge all this up now?’

She gnawed at her bottom lip, fiddled with the edge of her short skirt. He’d never seen her this nervous before.

Well, maybe on one other occasion, the night she’d asked him to go away with her, the night he’d made the final break.

Until yesterday, he’d convinced himself he’d made the right decision. Women were unpredictable, erratic creatures who couldn’t be depended on. Then Brittany Lloyd walked back into his life, making him re-evaluate his choice and think a whole lot of ‘what-ifs’.

What if he’d gone away with her?

What if they’d made a life together?

What if they fell in love and lived happily ever after?

Yeah, like happy-ever-afters ever happened in the real world.

‘Because I visited him yesterday.’ She raised stricken eyes to his and it took every ounce of will power not to reach out, bundle her into his arms and comfort her. ‘He hasn’t changed a bit.’

He swallowed the bitterness that rose at the thought of Darby Lloyd and his far-reaching tentacles poisoning everything and everyone around him, including this remarkably special woman.

He hadn’t blamed her for running away. He’d wondered what took her so long.

Unable to resist, he reached out and took hold of her hand, surprised and more than a little grateful when she let him. ‘Want to know what I think?’

She nodded, her eyes wide with pain.

‘You’ve moved on. From what you’ve told me, you’re a successful businesswoman with one hell of a career so don’t let the past suck you back in.’

He squeezed her hand, trailed his thumb across the back of it. ‘It’s not worth it.’

Brittany couldn’t meet his gaze; it was far too kind. Far too full of memories.

‘Thanks,’ she muttered, and made an angry swipe at her eyes, dashing away the tears pooled there. She’d done nothing but make a fool of herself since she’d arrived in Jacaranda: making assumptions about Nick, letting him kiss her, hoping her father had changed. She didn’t need to start blubbering like a two-year-old to top it off.

Teasing Nick she could handle. Compassionate Nick, holding her hand and staring at her with unquestionable warmth in his eyes, had the potential to undo her completely.

‘Hey, don’t cry.’

He leaned over and brushed away the tears that had spilled over and run down her cheeks.

Great. Just her luck she hadn’t worn waterproof mascara today.

‘Jet lag catching up with me,’ she muttered, blinking rapidly only to find a veritable flood seeping out of her eyes.

‘Come here, you.’

Before she could protest, Nick hauled her into his arms and cradled her close, smoothing her hair, making small crooning noises. Being enveloped in his strong arms, her face pressed against hard chest wall, surrounded by his familiar scent of sugar and spice and all things nice, should’ve soothed her.

It didn’t. Being held by Nick dammed her tears but it resurrected a host of feelings that had nothing to do with comfort.

Desire seeped through her body as he continued stroking her hair, rendering her powerless to move. She couldn’t have pulled away if she wanted to. And, God help her, she didn’t want to.

She inhaled deeply, allowing the heady combination of sugar-cane sweetness, metal polish and tropical sunshine to flood her lungs, enjoying the momentary lapse in reason as she wished he could hold her like this for ever.

Sliding her arms around his waist, she allowed her hands the luxury of smoothing across hard muscle, revelling in the heat radiating through his cotton T-shirt.

Closing her eyes, she sighed, knowing there was no place in the world she’d rather be than right here.

London was her life now, the vibrant city a part of her new persona but even with her career shooting into the stratosphere, at times like this, in the warm embrace of an incredible man, it wasn’t enough.

She’d tried to forget Nick, had rarely succeeded: wondering what he was doing, who he was doing it with, where they would be if he’d said yes to her all those years ago.

‘You okay now?’

He pulled back with such swiftness she almost fell off her chair.

‘Yeah, thanks.’

She scanned his face for an indication of what he was thinking, but true to form the Mancini mask had slipped into place, leaving her wondering what was going on behind those enigmatic dark eyes. She’d seen it their last night together ten years ago, the night he’d broken her heart.

‘We have other business to discuss.’

Her heart sank.

For those all too brief moments when he’d held her, she’d forgotten the reason she’d requested this meeting. But the thought of her father, as poisonous as a puffer fish, leaped to mind and she knew she had to do this.

It was the only way.

She needed this promotion now more than ever, needed the money to clear a debt she’d never known existed and the sooner that was done, the better. Then she’d finally be free.

‘You’re right, we do need to talk.’

She twisted a strand of hair around her finger, a habit she’d long conquered, before belatedly releasing it. What was it about this guy that obliterated the last ten years as if they’d never happened and thrust her back to a time she’d rather forget?

‘I have an answer to your proposal.’

‘And?’

He propped against the bike, looking every bit the bad boy rebel he’d once been: dark, devastating, delicious.

She swallowed, her throat clenching with how much she still wanted him after all this time.

He might’ve proposed a marriage for business purposes but deep down she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d be able to keep her hands off him. And considering he’d kissed her, twice, she had an inkling the feeling was mutual.

So where did that leave them? What would the boundaries of their marriage be? Monogamous? Casual?

He straightened, stepped closer to her.

‘Stop over-analysing this. Give me your answer and we’ll go from there.’

With her heart pounding and heat from his proximity prickling her skin, she wrenched her gaze from his chest within tantalising touching distance and slowly raised it until wavering blue locked with questioning brown.

Her voice barely above a whisper, she nodded.

‘My answer is yes.’