Lisa leant back against the wall, her face grey beneath her golden tan, her legs trembling. She could not believe what she was hearing. Could not bear to believe it. Alex, the man she had fallen head over heels in love with, the man she had married, the man she had thought loved her, was in league with her no-good stepbrother to try and buy Lawson’s and redevelop the site. She stifled the groan that rose in her throat and listened, praying it was all a mistake.
‘I don’t think so. I don’t need any investors.’ Alex’s clipped tone gave her hope. Now he would denounce the whole plan. But she was wrong.
‘But your man promised I could have stake in it.’
‘I’ll need to check, and if that is so, then of course you can. But could you afford to? Even with your father’s share of the sale? It will be your father’s share I take it?’
‘Yes. The old man doesn’t need the money. He has a fat pension to look forward to. As I’m his only son and heir, it’s immaterial whether he gives me the cash now or when he dies.’
‘Has Harold agreed?’
‘I haven’t asked him yet. But he will, he never refuses me anything.’
‘Lucky you. But, as I understand it, Lisa owns fifty two per cent and your father thirteen per cent; the other thirty five per cent is held by the heirs of the original partner in the firm. You’re hardly going to get a fortune. In fact…’ The deep, slightly accented voice dropped lower and paused tantalisingly. ‘My wife is madly in love with me. She may simply give me the company without any necessity on my part to acquire the other forty-eight per cent.’
Lisa bit hard on her bottom lip to stop the cry of outrage bursting forth.
‘Why you sneaky devil.’ Nigel burst out.
‘Enough. I would not dream of accepting a gift of that size from a lady, not even my wife. I don’t believe in being beholden to anyone, man or woman,’
‘Sorry. No, of course not. But are you sure Lisa will go along with your plan for Lawson’s? Her mother flatly refused to sell a year ago.’
‘A year ago Lisa had not met me. Now she is my wife, and soon, hopefully, the mother of my children. I can safely say she will not have the time or the inclination to continue at work. She will do as I say. You have nothing to worry about Nigel. You will get yours; I promise you that.’
Lisa closed her eyes, her whole body shivering with pain and anger. The shocking discovery that her husband was about to betray her, not with another woman but with her stepbrother, had cut to the very centre of her being. It had razored her nerves and turned her into a seething mass of conflicting emotions.
Alex’s love, the wedding, everything had been one big sham. Alex and Nigel were plotting between them to take over Lawson’s. To redevelop the site! Over her dead body, Lisa vowed.
The week her mother had been diagnosed as having cancer, an approach had been made to buy Lawson’s. Lisa racked her brains but she could not remember the name of the company. It certainly had not been Solomos International and there had been no mention of redeveloping the site; developing a partnership had been the impression given. Her mother, Harold and herself had briefly discussed it at the time. Her mother had decided against it; Lawson’s Designer Glass was to stay a family firm as a memorial to Peter, and, as it happened a few months later, also to herself.
Lisa shuddered. The pain was waiting for her, she knew, but with brutal determination she blocked it out and allowed rage, fierce and primeval, to consume her mind. For a second she was tempted to burst into the living room and confront the two rats who were plotting against her…
Instead, ice-cold reasoning prevailed. She did not need to hear any more, and silently she returned to the master bedroom.
CHAPTER TWO
LISA started towards the dressing room, her first thought to get dressed and go. Then she realised the futility of such a gesture. In order to leave she would have to confront Alex, and she was not ready to do that. She doubted she ever would be.
She shivered anew, not with pain but remembered pleasure. Alex, her husband, her lover! He only had to look at her and she went weak at the knees. She and a few million other women, she tried to tell herself. And how many of the other, faceless women had known the wonder of his lovemaking, the seductive power of his caress, his kiss, the magnificent strength of his sleek, hard, toned body?
Lisa groaned in disgust at her own weak will and, swinging around, glanced at the bed. Very soon now, Alex would ring the house at Stratford-upon-Avon and discover from Harold that she had left to join him in London. Panicking, she crossed to the large patio window that opened out on to the balcony and slid it open. Stepping out, she took a few deep breaths in an effort to calm down. Tomorrow was Mid-summer’s Day and tonight was clear and light, although it was ten o’clock. A panoramic view of London stretched out before her, tinged with gold as the evening sun slid towards the distant horizon. Much the same as her confidence in her marriage was sliding into oblivion, she thought bitterly.
She squared her shoulders; self-pity was an emotion she despised. She had to think, to do something, but what? It was still warm; she could spend the night outside. Fool! Alex was bound to look for her.
Slowly she turned and reluctantly entered the bedroom again; her eyes slid back to the huge bed, the imprint of where she had catnapped on the coverlet clearly visible. Her head jerked up at the sound of a door closing. Nigel departing, maybe? Any minute now, Alex would make the phone call and discover her whereabouts. Lisa did the only thing she could. She lay back down on the bed. Perhaps if she pretended to be asleep Alex would not wake her. She prayed he would be fooled, because, if not, she had no confidence in her ability to resist the magnetic pull of his virile sensuality. Even knowing Alex had only married her for a business deal, knowing what a wicked, callous swine he was, was still no protection against the force of his potent personality.
Closing her eyes, Lisa feigned sleep, but her mind spun with images of the past. It had seemed so simple not two months ago, when she had fallen in love with Alex at first sight. Fate, Kismet…
It had been Harold’s birthday and Nigel had arrived at their Stratford-upon-Avon home unannounced. He had insisted his father and Lisa had mourned long enough for her mother and that he was taking them both out for a meal at the top hotel in the area.
With hindsight Lisa realised she should have guessed there was something funny going on, because experience had taught her that Nigel only ever visited his father if he wanted something, usually money. His appearance in Statford-upon-Avon on his father’s birthday had been the first time she had seen him since her mother’s funeral. For Harold’s sake, she had agreed to the dinner date, and at nine in the evening the three of them had been sitting in the hotel’s cocktail bar, enjoying after-dinner coffee and Cognacs, when Alex had strolled into the bar.
Lisa would never forget the moment when she had looked up and seen Alex Solomos for the first time. Her body had reacted as if in shock. She’d forgotten to breathe! He was an attractive man, but it had been more than that. Something about him had called out to her innermost being; her stomach had churned and her heart had raced out of control. She’d felt as if she had been struck by lightning.
Wearing a black dinner suit and a brilliant white dress shirt—a perfect foil for his olive-skinned complexion—and standing head and shoulders above every other male in the room, he’d crossed to the bar in a few lithe strides. She’d watched as he’d ordered a drink, before turning around and resting his superbly muscled long-limbed body against the bar. His dark gaze had casually scanned the room his eyes bored.
Lisa, wide eyed and wondrous, had found she could do nothing but stare. Then she’d blushed to the roots of her hair when his deep-set eyes had met hers, and then travelled on down over her body, widening in obvious appreciation on the length of her long legs.