So she was going to get dressed and go down and face him. Head on.
And she was going to look her best. She wasn’t going to let him see how much he had devastated her.
With her shoulders squared, jaw tight with resolve, Jessica headed for the shower.
He was in the study—in Marty’s study. She spotted him through the open door as she marched down the long curving staircase that led into the hall. He was sitting at the big oak desk, a pile of papers in front of him and his head bent over one file. A terrible, sour taste rose into Jessica’s mouth at the sight of this—this usurper—in the place where she had so often seen her stepfather. In Marty’s chair, at Marty’s desk.
The thought that perhaps in the last few months of the older man’s life he might have been sitting at that desk wrestling with the problems that his debts had forced on him, wondering how to cope—driven to accept Angelos’s help—made the bitter taste even worse so that it was almost like acid burning on her tongue.
And so, in spite of the fact that Angelos lifted his dark head as she walked past the door and tossed some sort of greeting her way, she carefully ignored him. Keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, hands firmly in the pockets of the beige trousers she wore with a soft green shirt, she headed for the kitchen and a much wanted cup of coffee.
She would need a strong dose of caffeine in her system before she could face him. Without it, she knew she would hiss and spit if she had to speak to him face to face. So she headed straight for the old-fashioned whistling kettle, filling it and slamming it back down on to the stove as a way of expressing her feelings without speaking.
‘Coffee,’ she said aloud to herself, reaching for a mug from a hook.
‘I’ll have one of those.’
The voice from behind her made her jump, though deep down she knew she’d been expecting it. But, although every nerve in her body tightened and twisted at the knowledge of his presence, she clamped down hard on the jittery feeling that clutched at her stomach and forced her voice to stay calm as she responded.
‘You really shouldn’t sneak up on me like that when I’m in the kitchen.’ Damn it, her voice was calm—but it must be obvious that that was only achieved by the way she had clenched her teeth so tight that already her jaw was beginning to ache. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t drop this mug.’
‘It wouldn’t have mattered.’
She couldn’t see but she could well imagine the careless shrug with which he dismissed the piece of china she held in her hand. Her fingers tightened round the handle as she fought with the need to swing round and fling it at his arrogant head.
Instead she made herself turn slowly, reluctantly. Her skin was already shivering with awareness of his presence and the knowledge of the fact that he was so very close behind her only made that burning sensitivity so much worse. He had the appalling knack of seeming to fill a room, even one as big as the old-fashioned Manor House kitchen. It was as if his presence expanded to fill the space, dominating it, sucking all the oxygen from the atmosphere and leaving her gasping for breath. Overnight she had told herself that her imagination had to have been working overtime, that there was no way he could be so big, so powerful, so dark. His eyes couldn’t be so deep and brilliant, his hair such a glossy black.
But, standing before her now, with the elegant business suit discarded in favour of a coffee-coloured long-sleeved T-shirt and darker brown trousers, he was all that and more. She had once thought him devastating, totally destructive to her peace of mind. She had known so little then! The man he had become was a hundred—a thousand—times more dangerous.
‘It’s only a mug.’
‘And you can afford so many other mugs, of course.’
The look Angelos turned on her was one of total exasperation.
‘I don’t happen to think that a mug is worth making a fuss about.’
‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Or were you perhaps thinking that you’d expect me to pay for a replacement, seeing as you now own Manorfield and everything that’s in it, lock stock and barrel and I’m just here under sufferance?’
This time the look that flashed from those black eyes was brilliant with cold anger and she actually heard his teeth snap together as he too bit back the first response that had sprung to his mouth.
‘Don’t be damn stupid, Jessica. And stop trying to provoke an argument. It’s too early in the morning.’
‘So do I need to make an appointment to speak to you now? Or to argue with you at least? Well, perhaps you’ll tell me when it is the right time—because we have a lot to argue about.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It doesn’t have to be this way.’
‘It doesn’t?’ Jessica scorned. ‘From where I’m standing, this is exactly how it has to be. After all, you moved in and stole everything…’
‘Not stole!’ Angelos stated with vicious emphasis. ‘I stole nothing. I came by everything legally.’
‘Oh, yes, perfectly legally. By throwing outrageous sums of money at it—and at a man who couldn’t say no.’
‘Your stepfather was deeply grateful for my assistance.’
‘Oh, I’ll just bet he was! Considering you had him cornered, with no possible other way out. You saw a way to get what you’d always wanted, at a price you could afford to pay, and so you moved in for the kill. You didn’t give a damn about the people you’d trampled on—the people Marty really wanted his estate to go to.’
‘You?’
He inserted it, swift and sharp as a stiletto in the ribs, and with it came just the same sort of burning pain, so that she had to fight against the wince of distress that would betray her. Somehow she managed to transform the involuntary hand movement that came up between them in a nervous, defensive gesture, into one that dismissed his slashing question, brushing it aside in angry impatience.
‘The people who mattered to Marty.’
What had she said now that had made his face change so much, turning the glittering jet ice of his eyes into a flame of pure savagery, with a burning hatred that made her take an involuntary step back, away from the danger zone?
‘You just used the wealth you had to snatch it away at the cheapest possible—’
‘You don’t know what it cost me,’ he snarled from between gritted teeth.
‘I have some idea of what the estate is worth.’
This time it was Angelos’s hand that came up between them in an expressive, angry gesture, long fingers spread wide, broad palm acting as a barrier between them.
‘I wasn’t talking about money.’
‘What else is there to talk about where this is concerned? What I’m wondering is where you got the money from.’
‘Where the hell a penniless stable boy got the cash to buy out your stepfather, hmm?’ Angelos questioned cynically, his beautiful mouth twisting in bitter scorn. ‘You clearly don’t think it could possibly have been acquired legally.’
‘I never said that!’
She tried to meet his accusing eyes squarely but her gaze skittered away from his at the memory of just how the ‘penniless stable boy’ she had believed him to be had ended up out on the streets because of her.
‘You didn’t have to say anything.’ Angelos gave the words a dangerous softness, one that made all the tiny hairs