‘There’s a positive to all this?’ Molly echoed dazedly.
‘Oh, yes.’ Gideon nodded with grim satisfaction.
She blinked. ‘And that would be…?’
Those dark blue eyes gleamed with that same satisfaction. ‘Crys is now married to your stepbrother. A situation that would certainly alter if you were ever to feel the need to clear your own conscience. Crys would find it very difficult to stay married to the brother of the woman who had an affair with her first husband.’
‘Now just a minute—’
‘I’ve wasted all the time that I’m going to tonight,’ Gideon rasped with a dismissive shake of his head.
On her, that was, Molly acknowledged numbly. This was worse, so much worse than she could ever have imagined. Oh, she had known there had to be a reason behind Gideon’s complete contempt for her, had guessed that it probably had something to do with finding her in James’s apartment that morning just over three years ago, but she had never imagined…
‘Be warned, Molly,’ Gideon added harshly. ‘I won’t ever let you do or say anything that will hurt Crys. Is that understood?’ he prompted determinedly.
She swallowed hard. ‘Perfectly.’ She nodded, wondering if he weren’t being just a little hypocritical. His protectiveness of Crys—erroneous as it might be in her own case—seemed to indicate more than just ex-brother-in-law affection on his own part.
Not that she was particularly interested in that; it was his belief of her own behaviour that was so disturbing.
Crys had been, and still was, Molly’s best friend. And Molly had known James for some time before introducing Crys to him; James had been one of her best friends, too. But that was all he had ever been: her friend.
Not that she thought this man was about to believe that for a moment. He had formed an opinion of her on one brief meeting. A bad opinion. And the only way to even try to explain herself was to give him an explanation of a time in her life she would rather forget. An explanation he was unlikely to believe in any case.
‘Good,’ Gideon bit out with satisfaction. ‘In that case, I have nothing further to say to you. Except—’
‘Please,’ Molly protested weakly, putting up a shaking hand to the temple that had started to throb painfully. ‘I’ve already heard enough of your insults for one evening.’ She sighed heavily.
Gideon paused on his way to the bedroom door. ‘Oh, I wasn’t about to insult you again, Molly,’ he assured her lightly.
‘No?’ she said disbelievingly.
‘No,’ he said derisively. ‘I was about to tell you that I’d lied about dealing with the spider. It’s on the ceiling directly above your head. Have a good night!’ he added tauntingly, before letting himself out of the bedroom.
Molly didn’t see him leave. One glance at the ceiling above her head revealed that there was indeed a spider. A huge one!
She shot off the bed so fast she almost fell over, staring in horrified fascination at the long-legged, fat-bodied insect.
Swine!
Rotter!
Sadist!
And she wasn’t referring to the spider!
THE phrase ‘you look like hell’ came to mind as Molly looked at herself in the dressing-table mirror the following morning. Her hair stood out in a wild tumble of curls and her face pale, with dark shadows beneath her eyes.
It wasn’t just any morning, either; it was Christmas Eve.
But she had never felt less like Christmas than she did at this moment. She had spent a sleepless night, alternately looking at the spider or thinking of the things Gideon had said to her the previous evening.
He really believed she’d had an affair with his brother James behind Crys’s back.
For one thing, she hadn’t felt that way about James—had only ever looked on him as a friend. For another, Crys was her best friend; there was no way Molly could ever have betrayed that friendship, even if she had been in love with James, by sneaking behind Crys’s back and having an affair with him.
But if Gideon ever chose to tell Crys of that morning when he had arrived at the apartment Crys had shared with James, and found Molly in residence, her only clothing one of James’s shirts, would her friend be able to believe in her complete innocence?
Molly would assure her that James had only ever been her friend. But in light of that night Molly had once spent at the married couple’s apartment, while Crys had been away, the night Gideon was aware of, too, would Crys still believe in her innocence?
Gideon had contemptuously assured her he had no intention of ever telling Crys about that night, that he had no desire to hurt her or to ever see her hurt, but would he continue to feel that way if it no longer suited his own plans?
Unhappily, the conclusion Molly had come to during the long sleepless night had been that she simply didn’t know the answer to that question. Despite her aversion to going anywhere near the man ever again, she would have to speak to Gideon on the subject.
But not until she had done something about the way she looked.
And she did try. She washed her hair and styled it until it was silkily gleaming on her shoulders, applied make-up to hide her paleness and those dark shadows beneath her eyes, even chose her clothes carefully: a burnt-orange-coloured blouse teamed with fitted black denims. It was just that none of those things could hide the fact that she looked and felt thoroughly exhausted from all the thinking she had done during the night.
Oh, damn the man—and his suspicious mind. If it weren’t for both those things she would be enjoying a warm family Christmas with Crys, Sam and the baby, just as she had envisaged when she’d accepted their invitation to stay.
‘Last again?’ Gideon taunted the moment she entered the kitchen, shortly after nine o’clock.
He would have to be the first person she saw this morning—and he wasn’t alone, either. Crys was sitting at the kitchen table with him.
The latter turned to smile warmly at Molly as she walked over to pour herself some coffee from the pot. ‘Sam and David have taken Peter and Merlin for a walk to give me a few minutes’ break; Peter was cranky all night—didn’t seem to want to settle.’ She grimaced affectionately.
‘I know the feeling.’ Molly nodded, sipping her hot coffee, her brooding gaze daring Gideon to come back with another one of his barbed comments after the total inaccuracy of his initial statement; they both knew that David had been the last down the previous morning.
Crys at once looked concerned. ‘Sam said there was a spider in your bedroom last night,’ she sympathised.
Molly looked coldly at Gideon now. ‘There was,’ she confirmed flatly. And that sadistic swine had left her alone in her bedroom with it all night.
He returned her gaze steadily, the blandness of his expression giving away none of his emotions or thoughts.
In Molly’s opinion he didn’t have any of the former, and far too much of the latter.
‘Lucky that Gideon was able to deal with it for you.’ Crys nodded happily.
The only thing Gideon had dealt with was his own need to tell Molly exactly what he thought of her—before leaving her alone with that monster spider!
‘Wasn’t it?’ she returned noncommittally, no longer even looking at Gideon, just too tired to cope with