Something flashed in his hard, dark gaze: a sizzle of golden fury. ‘This is grubby…this is beneath me!’ Andreas incised with a raw, slashing derision that cut her to the bone. ‘At least admit the truth. When such behaviour is witnessed, there is no scope to lie or make excuses.’
‘But I’m not lying or making excuses,’ Hope fielded breathlessly, for sheer shock was making her feel as if she had been punched squarely in the solar plexus. ‘What am I supposed to have been doing with Ben?’
‘You were kissing him—’
‘I wasn’t!’ Hope gasped. ‘Your sister is—’
Andreas spread his arms in a sudden violent movement that shook her into silence. ‘Don’t offend me even more by daring to question my sister’s integrity. She saw what she saw. You abused her hospitality and embarrassed her.’
‘I did not…I swear I did not,’ Hope muttered in bewilderment, her head swimming with too many thoughts at once. As she finally grasped how cruelly manipulative and unashamedly deceitful Elyssa Southwick had been, she felt sick to the stomach. For an instant she was simply shattered that someone she barely knew could be prepared to tell a lie of such appalling magnitude about her.
‘Elyssa was very upset and she didn’t know what to do. But after discussing the matter with her husband, she decided that I had a right to know that you were behaving like a slut behind my back!’ Andreas bit out rawly, his wintry cool and control starting to crack.
Hope trembled. ‘But it’s not true. Not a word of it is true—’
‘I want to hear you admit the truth before I leave. You owe me that at the very least,’ Andreas growled.
Even as she saw that her world was falling apart, Hope was sickly fascinated by the callous ruthlessness that Elyssa had employed to bring about the destruction she had threatened. ‘I’ve been a real fool,’ she mumbled in a daze. ‘I always try to overlook other people’s mistakes and not stand in judgement because I know I’m not perfect either. But I overlooked one very dangerous fact…your sister is as clever as you are and it seems she decided that I was a threat to her security.’
His handsome mouth curled. ‘That’s offensive nonsense. Have the decency to leave Elyssa out of this unpleasant business.’
‘I don’t think I can.’ Yet Hope was also asking herself how she could possibly stage a creditable counter-accusation. Having got her story in first, Elyssa had backed it up most impressively with her husband’s reference to having previously seen Hope in Ben Campbell’s arms. It didn’t matter that that latter incident had taken place in the most innocent of circumstances. The other man’s additional testimony had made the case against Hope look irrefutable. On the other hand, she reasoned, perhaps the story might have looked unarguable to a stranger, but should Andreas not know her better?
‘Don’t you know me better than this?’ she whispered out loud.
That question hit Andreas as hard as a blast of dynamite detonating inside a giant rock. Rage was like a clenched-tight fist inside him and it took all his concentration to keep it contained. He could not stand to look at her; yet somehow he could not make himself look away. He had trusted her. Until his sister had blown away his illusions he had had no idea just how deep his trust in Hope had run. The sleazy truth had come as a body blow. But then placing that amount of faith in a mistress was asking for trouble, he reflected bitterly. He had kept her around too long. He had let her rosy, cosy sentimentality infect him like a virus and blur the boundaries of what they shared: great sex, nothing more, and he could find equally great sex elsewhere.
‘Andreas?’ Hope breathed unevenly, a tumult of emotions thrust down as she fought a fierce battle not to lose control. ‘Do you really think that I would do something like that?’
Insolent golden eyes zeroed in on her. ‘Is it beyond impossible?’ Andreas drawled smooth as silk. ‘You did it with me in a barn the first night we met.’
All the natural colour bled from Hope’s complexion to leave her pale as parchment. Pain exploded inside her. But on some level, she welcomed the hurt inflicted by his cruel derision. Perhaps it was a long overdue punishment for her recklessness that night. Evidently that bad beginning had come back to haunt her. He didn’t respect her; he had obviously never respected her. Virgin or not, she had been too easy a conquest and he was now looking back at that as though it had been the first betraying symptom of her being a slut in the making. It was incredibly cruel of him to throw that first night back in her teeth. She had cherished the memory of the night she fell in love with him as the very essence of romance. But he had slung that same recollection back to her as a base and humiliating insult.
Her eyes felt horribly hot, dry and scratchy. Shock seemed to have driven all desire to cry out of her. ‘Yes I did, didn’t I?’ she managed gruffly. ‘But even if it wasn’t special for you, it was for me.’
Emanating pure indifference on that issue, Andreas shrugged a broad shoulder in a gesture that was as careless as it was wounding.
Hope tried again. ‘You have to listen to me—’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘I didn’t do anything tonight and I’m not lying to you. I have never kissed Ben Campbell,’ Hope declared with vehemence.
‘I expect you to find alternative accommodation by the end of the month. It’s over,’ Andreas countered with supreme derision.
Hope realised he was about to leave and horror galvanised her out of her paralysis into sudden action. She placed herself between Andreas and the front door. ‘You can’t leave!’
‘Watch me—’
‘No, I won’t. I want you to stop and think about the person you know me to be. Ask yourself if I’d throw what we have away just for the chance to snog Ben Campbell!’
His strong jaw line clenched. ‘Other women have. He’s wrecked several marriages with his little-boy-lost act. He’s also famous for going after women who belong to other men—’
‘But I don’t fancy him…I never have. I imagine half of London has got to snog Ben when he’s drunk. He’s not exactly exclusive,’ Hope pointed out in growing desperation, praying that the very tenor of her comments would force Andreas to see that she had never even thought of Ben Campbell as a potentially fanciable male. All he had ever been on her terms was Vanessa’s rather dissolute and amusing cousin. ‘If you won’t believe me, ask Ben if anything happened tonight.’
Outraged by that suggestion, Andreas vented a harsh laugh of incredulity. ‘Why would I lower myself to that level? Had you been my wife, I would have confronted him. I would’ve torn him apart for daring to lay a single finger on you!’ he proclaimed with a disconcertingly vicious edge to his dark, deep drawl. ‘But you’re not my wife, you’re my mistress and, as such, expendable with the minimum of fuss.’
Ashen-pale beneath the lash of his naked contempt, Hope looked back at him, distraught turquoise eyes sparkling with sudden angry denial. ‘I am not and I have never been your mistress.’
‘Then what are you?’ Andreas purred like a panther ready to flex his claws and draw blood.
‘A woman who fell in love with you and who never stopped to count the cost,’ Hope quantified jerkily, her generous mouth compressing. ‘Some people would judge me harshly enough for that or call me a fool. But that doesn’t make me your mistress—’
‘A lot of women have told me they loved me,’ Andreas murmured with sizzling scorn. ‘Invariably they love what I can give them more.’
Her spine ached with tension. ‘But I’ve never let you give me anything. With the exception of this apartment, I’ve kept your money out of our relationship and I never once looked for or accepted expensive gifts. Don’t try to bundle me up with other women when I’ve always been