A Husband's Price

Claudia had breathed a huge sigh of cowardly relief when her father had accepted the invitation. She could have her meeting with the Hallam man with her father none the wiser. Every day that passed without him having to learn the miserable truth was a bonus.

And Rosie was out of the way, too, safely at school. Had she been at home, she would have wanted to be with her mummy, even though she loved Amy to pieces. Serious conversation with a bubbly, demanding five-and-a-bit-year-old was problematical to say the least.

The trouble was, since the death of her daddy and Steppie—as Helen, her stepgrandmother, had preferred to be called—Rosie had become very clingy. Not that either of them had spent much time with the little girl, and both of them had developed the habit of absenting themselves if Rosie had been ill or just plain tiresome.

Their deaths must have left a hole in the little girl’s life; one day they’d been around—in the background, but around—and the next they’d been blown away. But possibly the most traumatic thing had been her beloved grandpa’s illness and his subsequent need for lots of rest and quiet. Rosie probably couldn’t understand why her grandpa could no longer play those boisterous games she enjoyed or read to her for hours on end.

Claudia sighed and heaved herself out of the bath. The Hallam man would be arriving in half an hour. She couldn’t remember if the solicitor had actually said his name. But it would be Mr Hallam. She definitely recalled him saying that her visitor was the deceased Harold Hallam’s heir. It would be his son. Her solicitor would surely have said, had the new chief executive gone under a name other than the family one.

And what to wear? A simple grey linen suit with a cream silk blouse. Cool, businesslike, entirely suitable for a young widow.

Her soft brown hair caught back into the nape of her neck with a mock-tortoiseshell clip, and with the merest suggestion of make-up, her mind played truant, sliding back to those photographs she’d been looking at on her return from her traumatic meeting with her bank manager. Particularly, the one of her.

How she had changed. Still five feet seven inches, of course, but she’d lost all those lavish curves. After Rosie’s birth she’d fined down but now, since the traumas of the last few weeks, she looked positively scrawny. The Claudia in that old photograph had been a cheerful optimist, with laughing eyes and a beaming, open smile.

The mirror image she scrutinised now was older, wiser, a bit of a cynic with an overlay of composure, a strength of will that practically defied anyone to mess with her. She was through with being anyone’s eager little doormat. She was twenty-four years old, the age Adam Weston had been when they’d first met. She looked and felt a great deal older.

And another difference: the woman in the mirror was as good as bankrupt. The girl in the photograph had been quite a considerable heiress.

And therein had lain the attraction, of course.

She remembered with absolute and still painful clarity exactly how, over six years ago now, she had discovered that particular home truth.

Helen had told her. Helen had been sitting on the edge of her bed, clad in brief scarlet satin panties and bra, looking absolutely furious, yet finding compassion as she grabbed Claudia’s hand and squeezed it.

‘And you know what that slimeball Adam Toerag Weston had the gall to say? I can still hardly believe it! He actually told me not to be miffed because he’d been messing about—as he so chivalrously put it—with you! Miffed—I ask you! As if I’d be interested in a loser like him! As if I’d have some furtive, sleazy affair with a jobless, homeless, penniless layabout when I’m married to a lovely, lovely man like your father! But this is the point, dearest—’

Helen had released her hand with a final squeeze, reached for a scarlet satin robe and wrapped it around her body. ‘He actually said that he’d played up to you because you were quite an heiress. You’d agreed to marry him, or so he claimed, and, as his darling daughter’s husband, Guy wouldn’t object to keeping him in the manner to which he had always wanted to become accustomed—not if he didn’t want to alienate his darling daughter. I only hope, dearest, that you haven’t let him go too far with you, that you haven’t actually fallen for him, or anything stupid like that...’

Claudia had closed her eyes to stop the hurt from showing. She had wanted to scream that it wasn’t true, that Adam loved her, loved her for herself, that he didn’t care about her father’s wealth, Farthings Hall, the land, all that stuff. But she had never lied to herself. And if the evidence of her own eyes hadn’t been enough there had been that conversation on the first date they’d ever had.

It hadn’t been an accident that had found her in the vicinity of the old caravan at the back of the glasshouses about seven hours after she’d first been introduced to Adam. Or an accident that she had been wearing a pair of very brief shorts and her best sleeveless T-shirt. The crisp white garments had shown off her long and shapely legs and accentuated the honey-gold tan she’d managed to acquire.

Her heart had been fluttering wildly as she’d approached the open caravan door, but she’d told herself not to be stupid. She, as his employer’s daughter, had the perfect excuse for being here.

She could hear him moving about, whistling tunelessly beneath his breath, and before she could knock or call out he had appeared in the doorway, still wearing nothing but those threadbare cut-offs, a towel slung over one shoulder. Instead of the heavy working boots, he’d been sporting a pair of beat-up trainers.

‘Hello again.’ He’d smiled that smile. For several seconds Claudia hadn’t been able to speak. She’d felt her face go fiery red and had hoped quite desperately that he’d put it down to the heat, to the sun glinting off the roofs of the glasshouses, boiling down from a cloudless blue sky.

‘I...’ Agitatedly, she had pulled in a deep, deep breath. A huge mistake. Just looking at him, being on the receiving end of that deeply sexy smile, had made her legs go weak, made her breasts feel hot and full and tingly. And dragging air into her lungs that way had made them push against the soft white cloth of her top, and she’d known he’d noticed because his gaze had dropped, fastened there, right there, his lids heavy, thick dark lashes veiling his expression.

So she had begun again, gabbling now. ‘I wondered if you have everything you need? The caravan hasn’t been used in ages, not since—’

‘It’s fine. That nice housekeeper of yours—Amy?—supplied me with a bundle of bed- and bathroom linen, food supplies—and the place is clean, sweet as a nut.’

He had loped down the steps, pulling the van door to behind him. Claudia had swallowed a huge lump of disappointment. She’d hoped he’d invite her inside to see for herself. But what he had said was even better, more than she’d hoped for. ‘I’m told there’s a path through the valley leading down to a cove. I fancied a swim. Coming?’

Was she ever! She’d gone back to the house to get her swimming costume and met him back at the caravan. And it had been lovely, that walk. They’d talked a lot; well, he had, mostly. She’d asked him questions about himself but he’d skirted them, telling her to talk about herself, but she hadn’t been able to; there hadn’t been much to say. So it had ended up with him asking questions, making comments.

“This is a fantastic place. Magical. How does it make you feel, knowing it will all be yours one day? Not yet, of course, but some time in the future. Will you keep it on? Does the responsibility worry you? Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown—and all that.’

They’d been sitting in the soft golden sand by then, the sun dipping down towards the sea. He hadn’t seemed to need an answer; he could almost have been talking to himself. He’d leaned forward, softly tracing the outline of her mouth with the tip of a forefinger. ‘You are very lovely.’

And after that everything else had been simple. He’d gone out of his way to confirm his deductions that the land, the house, the business would all be hers in the fullness of time, and had gone ahead and trapped her with the honey-sweet bait of great sex and her own foolish notions of undying romantic love...

Claudia blinked, shaking her head, annoyed with herself, pushing the unwanted memories away. She couldn’t remember now what had made her think back to all of that. Adam. Betrayal. Loss.

She pulled herself together and swiftly left the room, heading down the stairs for the library. She’d asked Amy to bring Mr Hallam there when he arrived at eleven-thirty. Then bring coffee through.

She glanced at her watch and groaned. Eleven thirty-five. He might already be here. Unforgivable of her to have gone off into that backward-looking trance, wasting time.

‘He’s arrived!’ Amy appeared at the foot of the stairs, her voice low and urgent. ‘I put him in the library and said you wouldn’t be a minute. I was on my way to warn you.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry to be late.’ Claudia gave Amy a reassuring smile. She should have been there to greet the man, of course, but she was only late by a few minutes, not long enough to warrant Amy’s obvious anxiety.

‘Wait.’ Amy caught her arm before she could hurry through. ‘You don’t understand. It’s not a Mr Hallam, like you said. It’s—’

‘Remember me?’

The library door now stood open, framing the impressive, immaculately suited figure of Adam Weston.

‘Because I remember you.’ He moved forward, eyes fixed on Claudia’s speechless lips, then they lifted to clash with hers. ‘How could I possibly forget?’

He smiled, a sensual movement of that wickedly crafted mouth. It was sexier than ever. But his eyes didn’t smile; didn’t come near it. ‘Might I ask you to bring us some coffee, Amy?’ he asked the stunned-seeming housekeeper. ‘Mrs Favel and I have a great deal to talk through.’

CHAPTER TWO

SILENCE. Shock clamped Claudia into a small, dark, very tight corn. Clamped her in so tightly she could barely breathe, let alone speak.

How dared he show his face here? Oh, how dared he?

Then the thick silence eased just a little, slowly nudged away by the inevitable impingement of ordinary, everyday sounds. The sonorous, echoey ticking of the longcase clock; the stutter and grumble of machinery from directly outside as Bill, the new groundsman, tried to start the ride-on mower; Amy’s voice—the sound of the words she spoke as they fell on the still air, but not the sense of them—and the sound of the housekeeper’s feet on the polished wood floor blocks as she walked away; the thump of her own, wild heartbeats.

He’d changed, and yet he hadn’t. That was the first coherent thought she had. Though how a thought could be coherent and contradictory was a total mystery.

At thirty, Adam Weston was a spectacularly attractive man. The once over-long, soft black hair was expertly cut and those pagan-god features were tougher now, more forceful than they’d been six years ago. That superbly fit body was clothed in a silky dark grey suit, crafted by a master tailor, instead of the scruffy cut-offs and washed-out T-shirts that had been his habitual wear during that long, hot summer when she had loved him so.

A man with those looks, that kind of honed physique, would always land on his feet, especially if he still possessed that laid-back, lazy charm, the charm that had had her swooning at his feet from that first unforgettable smile.

Obviously, he’d finally married an heiress. Well, bully for him! she thought cynically, wondering if he’d come here to gloat because he’d done very well, thank you, for himself and she was practically bankrupt.

‘What do you want, Adam?’ Her voice was tight, quaky, like an old woman’s. And she knew she didn’t look anything like the lushly curvaceous, fresh-faced and dewy-eyed eighteen-year-old he’d sweet-talked into his bed all those years ago. She didn’t need that look of distaste he was giving her to tell her that, while he’d been able to bring himself to the point of actually making love to her six years ago, he found her a total turn-off now.

Claudia lifted her chin and told herself she didn’t care, in either event. ‘I’m expecting someone. Can you see yourself out?’

She knew she sounded like a snob of the first water, the lady of the manor ordering the boot boy out of her rarefied presence, and saw his eyes narrow and harden. Those smoky grey eyes that didn’t smile any more.

‘You’re expecting me, Mrs Favel.’ His voice was clipped. Hard. As hard as his eyes. ‘The Hallam Group,’ he reminded her, as if, Claudia thought resentfully, he thought she was completely stupid.

But hadn’t he always thought that? That she had rampaging hormones where other people had brains. That she’d be a pushover, blindly and ecstatically rushing into marriage with a drifter who was only interested in getting his hands on her assets, which, in those days, had been considerable.

Within a few short weeks he’d had her besotted, head over heels in love and so eager to accept his proposal of marriage she’d practically fallen over herself. And the only thing that had stopped her dragging him down the aisle had been the evidence of her own eyes...

Adam walking out of Helen’s bedroom, his face tight and furious. He’d been so furious he hadn’t seen her at the top of the service stairs, her arms full of freshly laundered bed-linen.

Helen. Helen sitting on the edge of her bed, clad only in those wisps of underwear. Furious, too, spitting out that poison about him only being interested in her, Claudia’s future financial prospects, ramming home the final nail in the coffin of her love for him with, ‘He must have seen me come up here—he knows your father’s out I was getting ready to have a shower before changing. He just walked in and started on about the way he’d always fancied me. He said we could have fun—adult fun. He was sick of playing with a child, only the child, as it happened, would one day come into a fortune. He meant you, my poor sweet! And then...heaven help me...I told him to pack his bags and get off Farthings Hall property. I said if he was still around when your father got back he’d regret it.’

‘I was told to expect the late Mr Hallam’s heir,’ she said now, her voice stiff with remembered outrage and pain. Then added insultingly, ‘Not the tea boy.’

His smile was wintry. ‘And I always thought you had such lovely manners.’ He turned, walked away, moving over the huge, raftered hall back towards the library. ‘Harold Hallam was my mother’s brother. He didn’t marry and, as far as anyone knows, he had no issue. I inherited his holding in the Group. Perhaps now we might begin our discussions, provided you’re satisfied with my credentials. Unless, of course, you’re no longer interested in any offer my company might be prepared to come up with.’

Disorientated, Claudia stared at his retreating back. Such wide, spare shoulders tapering down to that narrow, flat waist, such long, long legs, and all of him so elegantly packaged in a suit so beautifully cut it could only have come from Savile Row.

‘So you finally fell on your feet.’ She truly hadn’t realised she’d spoken the thought aloud until he turned at the door to the library, grey eyes chilling, that utterly sensual, boldly defined mouth contemptuous.

‘So it would seem.’

She tilted her chin in challenging defiance, her blue eyes cool. After what he’d done to her, did he really expect to make her feel ashamed of her lack of manners? Did he seriously expect her to apologise?

It would give her enormous satisfaction to ask him to leave.

But he’d disappeared into the library—as if he already owned the place—and she pulled in a deep breath, drew back her shoulders and followed.

She found Amy practically on her heels, the delicate china coffee cups rattling companionably on the tray she carried.

Claudia stepped aside at the doorway to allow the housekeeper passage, wincing as the older woman put the tray down on the long, polished table, a huge smile splitting her rosy face as she marvelled, ‘Well, and isn’t this a turn up for the books, young Adam? Who’d have thought—?’

‘Thank you, Amy,’ Claudia interrupted smoothly. Amy had had a soft spot for the young Adam Weston all those years ago, making sure he was lavishly supplied from the kitchens, that the old caravan he was living in was packed with creature comforts. He’d had the useful ability to charm just about anyone who could do him any good!

Pointedly, she began to pour coffee, both cups black and sugarless because that was the way she liked it and he could do what the heck he wanted with his. Amy suggested, ‘Should I put a match to the fire? It’s a bit nippy, don’t you think?’

She was already bustling towards the wide stone hearth, but Adam’s smile stopped her. His smile, Claudia remembered, could stop a runaway train. No problem. ‘We’re fine, Amy. Truly. Besides, after we’ve had coffee, Mrs Favel and I will be going to find a quiet pub for lunch, but thank you for the offer.’

This man had acquired authority, Claudia decided acidly as Amy melted away. Lashings of it. But nothing would induce her to have lunch with him. As soon as Amy had closed the door she said, ‘I’m sorry to have wasted your time, but I’ve decided not to do business with your company after all.’

‘Cutting your nose off to spite your face?’ The slight smile he gave her as he picked up his coffee was a patronising insult. Claudia felt her entire body seizing up, every bone, every muscle going rigid with tension.

Over the past six years she’d really believed she had come to terms with what he had done, with his wickedly cruel betrayal. If anyone had told her that seeing him again would affect her like this—as if he still had the power to give her pain, to make her go weak and boneless with one look from those smoke-grey eyes—then she would have laughed until her ribs cracked.

He drained his cup, his eyes assessing her over the rim. ‘I’ve had a shock, too, Claudia. You were the last person I expected to see this morning.’ He put the cup back on its saucer with a tiny click and suggested, ‘So why don’t we both take a deep breath, put on our business hats, and start again?’ He made a small gesture with one lean, strong-boned hand. ‘Won’t you, perhaps, sit down?’

She ignored the seamless way he was taking over, her brows frowning above her thickly lashed eyes as she picked up her cup and carried it over to one of the deeply recessed window embrasures—because her legs felt distinctly shaky, and for no other reason at all. Sitting down on the padded cushion, she tilted one interrogative brow.

‘Who else would you expect to see? Widow Twanky? You can’t have forgotten who owns Farthings Hall.’

‘Six years ago Guy Sullivan, your father, owned the property. I hadn’t given the place a thought until the impending sale was brought to my attention. The name Favel meant nothing to me. Your father...’ For the first time he looked unsure of himself, as if he had only just realised that the change of ownership might mean Guy Sullivan was no longer living. ‘Your father always treated me fairly,’ be said quietly.

Sarcastic swine! He’d been long gone, on that rattletrap old motorbike of his, well before her father had returned that day, so he had no way of knowing what Guy Sullivan would have said and done had he been told—as Helen had threatened—what had been happening in his absence.

He’d got the treatment he deserved from her and from Helen. Had it given him pleasure to hammer home the fact that he hadn’t given her a moment’s thought in six long years?

But she put him out of his misery in one respect. ‘Dad’s visiting a friend for the day.’ She saw the slight tension drain from his face and knew with a small shock of surprise that he was actually relieved.

‘But you are the present owner?’ He was leaning back against the table, half sitting, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes narrowed as if he was weighing up everything she said.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t have to tell him any more.

‘Sole owner?’

She dipped her head in acknowledgement and he drawled, as if the prospect didn’t much appeal, ‘Then you and I do business. At this stage, there’s no need for me to view the property; I remember as much as I need to right now.’

Claudia forced herself not to flinch at that callously casual reminder. He might have been able to wipe her from his memory banks with no trouble at all but during his time here he’d surveyed every inch of the property, so no, he wouldn’t have forgotten what he’d seen, and decided to have.

They’d roamed every inch of the acreage together, the formal gardens, the paddocks, the headlands and the lovely unspoilt valley that led down to the cove, following the well-trodden path meandering beside the clear, sparkly waters of the stream, hand in hand, blissfully happy. Or so she’d thought.

And he’d obviously known enough about the interior of the house to go straight to Helen’s bedroom the moment a suitable opportunity arose. He had never troubled himself to find out where her, Claudia’s, room was. He’d made love to her in many places: the soft, moonlit grass of the headlands, the silky sand of the cove, even in the caravan on that claustrophobic bunk bed; but never here in the house.

Had he had too much respect for Helen, been too overawed by her golden, sizzling sexiness, to believe he had any hope of seducing her at all in the great outdoors or the mouldering old caravan? Had he decided his chances would be greater in the comfort of her own suite of rooms, between the luxury of satin sheets?

‘So, since the restaurant here is closed at lunchtime during the off season, I suggest we find a quiet pub and discuss generalities over lunch.’

Claudia blinked herself back to the here and now. He seemed able to operate as if there had never been anything between them in the past, or as if what had happened between them was not worth remembering, she thought resentfully, beginning to burn with a slow, deep anger. Perhaps the only way a person could live with the memory of their own despicable behaviour was to ignore it, as he seemed to be doing with great success.

Claudia rose and returned her cup and saucer to the tray. Her face was calm, icily controlled, hiding the raging inner turmoil. She was about to repeat forcefully her earlier statement that no way would she do business with him but, before she could get the words out, he stated coolly, ‘You’re married.’

That had to be obvious, of course, from her change of surname and, of course, he looked and sounded utterly detached. Why should he look anything other? His emotions had never been engaged where she was concerned, only his greed.

‘So?’ Her mouth was trembling. She thinned her lips to make it stop. ‘Are you?’

‘No. But that’s hardly relevant. Your husband isn’t a joint owner of the property?’ The grey of his eyes was, if anything, even more austere, his mouth twisting in a parody of a smile. ‘Don’t look so defensive, Mrs Favel. My interest in you and your husband isn’t personal. On a professional basis I need to know exactly who I have to deal with.’

He was astute, she had to give him that, Claudia acknowledged shakily. He could tell she felt threatened—her body language must have given her away. And, truth to tell, she had been threatened ever since she’d walked into the kitchen gardens six years ago and feasted her eyes on the stunning perfection of him.

He had threatened her happiness, her innocence, her unquestioning belief in the intrinsic goodness of human nature. Threatened and destroyed. So she had every right to look defensive.

‘I’m the sole owner.’ She could see no reason to tell him of Tony’s death, to tell him anything other than, ‘However, it’s entirely academic. Maybe you weren’t listening, but I distinctly remember telling you I’d decided not to deal with your company.’

She swung round on the low heels of her court shoes, facing the empty hearth rather than see him watching her with those chilling, empty eyes.