A Husband's Price

‘And I said you’d be cutting off your nose to spite your face,’ he reminded her dryly. ‘However, if you prefer to take your chances on the open market, and keep your fingers crossed that whoever fancies taking this place on has got the necessary financial backing to deliver the asking price, rather than consider the obvious advantages of dealing privately with a successful outfit like the Hallam Group, then that, of course, is your prerogative.’

He’d followed her. He was standing right behind her. She could smell the cool, lemony scent of his aftershave, the rugged undertone of dominant male. It flummoxed her, made her feel disorientated. She despised him totally yet could understand completely why her younger self had fallen for him, had gladly given all she had of herself, would have unhesitatingly given her life for him had it been required of her...

Claudia swallowed roughly, her movements jerky as she put distance between them. She really hated to admit it, but he was right. A private deal between her and the Hallam Group would save a lot of grief. A company as secure as his wouldn’t haggle over a fair price. She needed the best deal she could get to pay off those massive debts.

A quick, private sale would be easier on her father, too. He wouldn’t have to suffer the local speculation that would precede a public auction. Having to sell up at all would affect him badly—he could do without the added stress of having to explain why to anyone who felt inclined to ask.

The book she’d been reading recently was lying on a side table. She hadn’t been enjoying it. She picked it up because it was something to do, and hopefully it would make him think she was perfectly composed, unaffected by having to share room space with him.

But her fingers were agitated, clumsy, as she tried to slot it into a vacant space on the packed bookshelves. It fell, spine up, to the floor, the snapshot of her and Rosie, taken earlier this year, the one she’d been using as a bookmark, landing on the soft, jewel-coloured Persian carpet.

He had picked the book up before she had time to think, handing it to her but keeping the snapshot. Claudia felt physically sick, her hand going up to cover her mouth. A dull flush mounted his jutting cheekbones, his eyes glittering hotly as he raised them to meet hers.

‘You have a daughter?’ he asked harshly, glancing down again at the two grinning images and swiftly back up at her, forcing her to nod the affirmative.

‘Look—about lunch. I agree. We can discuss business in neutral surroundings. I might as well hear what you have to offer.’ She would have said anything—anything at all—to change the subject, to take his mind off that photograph. She swept past him, plucking it from his fingers with a murmured, ‘Thank you,’ as she went. She felt his eyes boring into her back, right between her rigid shoulder blades, as she made for the door. ‘I’ll collect my handbag and let Amy know I’ll be out. I won’t keep you waiting more than a minute or two.’

Back in her bedroom, she pressed her fingertips to her throbbing temples. If the past six weeks had been a nightmare, then Adam Weston’s appearance put the tin lid on it! After her meeting with the bank manager she had foolishly imagined that nothing very much worse could happen.

How wrong she had been!

Stifling a groan, she surveyed her image in the dressing-table mirror. She looked haggard, middle-aged, careworn. She shrugged, turning away, taking her bag from the top of the chest of drawers where she’d left it earlier and tucking the photograph safely inside.

So what did it matter if she looked like death warmed up? He wasn’t interested in her, in the way she looked. He never had been. All he’d been interested in was her prospects.

Nor did she want him to be interested in her. Of course she didn’t. She was no longer a silly teenager who thought the world a beautiful place and the people in it perfect angels. She knew better now. And she could hack it; she could face having lunch with that snake. For the sake of her father and her child, she could endure it and would, she determined grimly, stick out for the best price she could possibly get.

Business, it seemed, wasn’t on his mind. And it had fled from hers as soon as they’d realised where they were.

The Unicorn. A mythical beast, which was fitting because it had been here that he had declared his mythical love all those years ago, she thought bitterly as she eyed the tiny, stone-built pub from the side window of Adam’s Jaguar.

‘Remember it?’ he asked now, removing the key from the ignition, and she gave him a blank-eyed stare.

‘Should I?’ She exited the car.

Of course she remembered it. The tiny pub, tucked away in a narrow, wooded valley, well off the beaten track. She hadn’t been back in all this time, but she could have given him an inventory. However, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d ever thought about the place after that night.

They’d ridden here on his motorbike one glorious evening, scraping enough money up between them to buy a glass of cider each and an enormous, bursting-with-flavour Cornish pasty, which they’d shared.

After they’d eaten, they’d sat outside on one of the picnic benches, slowly drinking the cider, and he’d reached over the table and wiped a bead of moisture from her mouth with his thumb, rubbing softly, slowly, his eyes heavy, his voice low and warm, so warm. ‘I love you, Claudia. I want you. Always. So now you know.’ His eyes had lingered on her mouth and she had known he wanted to kiss her. ‘You’ve got the rest of the summer to get used to the idea of having me around, loving you, wanting you.’

She hadn’t needed the rest of the summer to get used to that. She’d gloried in the idea of him loving her and wanting her. She’d felt exactly the same and had been ecstatic about it.

He’d touched her before, of course, the slide of a hand over her hip, a kiss—nothing heavy—stroking her breasts very, very lightly, as if he wasn’t sure of himself, or of her, making her hold her breath with the wonder of the sensations, of what was happening to her body. After his declaration of love she’d known there would be more; known that neither of them would be willing or capable of holding back.

Neither of them had spoken much about that. They’d ridden back to Farthings Hall, her arms clasped tightly around his body, and she’d known what it felt like to be in a trance. The moon had been up by then and after he’d parked the bike he’d drawn her away from the caravan when she would have gone inside to make coffee, as she always did after one of their evening excursions.

She hadn’t asked where they were going. She hadn’t had to. Somehow she’d known that the moonlit cove would be where she would give herself for the first time to the man she would love for all time.

Only she didn’t love him for all time, of course, she reminded herself staunchly as she trod firmly over the cobbled car park ahead of him. Her love had died the moment she’d learned the truth from Helen. And she’d die herself before she allowed him to know that she remembered anything about this place or had anything but the very haziest of memories about that lost summer.

Small though it was, the Unicorn had a reputation for good, unpretentious, home-cooked food. At a table in a quiet window alcove, Adam handed her the menu. Claudia put it down, unopened. ‘I’ll have a green salad and coffee.’ Her mouth compressed. It would be foolish and wasteful to order anything more when she had the feeling her stomach would reject whatever she tried to feed it.

A sable brow quirked with sardonic intent. ‘Is that how you’ve lost so much weight? Living on a lettuce leaf washed down with black coffee?’

So he hadn’t totally forgotten. He remembered enough about her to be able to compare the gaunt woman opposite with the eighteen-year-old who’d been blessed with all those lush curves. Hearing him as good as admit it gave her a spurt of savage pleasure. He’d tried to give the impression that he hadn’t given the Hall, or her, a second’s thought in all these years, and had just now proved himself wrong.

But then, he was an expert liar. He probably had a first-class degree in the twisted art!

‘We’re here on business,’ she reminded him, unfolding the large linen napkin and shaking it out over her knees as their food arrived. ‘I suggest we stick to that, rather than descend to the personal.’

‘Descend?’ He almost smiled. ‘In the past, when talk reached a personal level, things tended to go up, not down.’ He forked up some of the seafood pie he’d ordered but didn’t eat it, she noticed as she ignored his unsubtle innuendo, applying herself to her salad. She managed to swallow some but gave up altogether when he leaned back in his chair and asked, ‘Your daughter... What do you call her?’

‘Rosie.’ She hated having to tell him, but she could hardly refuse. She didn’t want to discuss her beloved, infinitely precious child with him at all. Ever.

‘Pretty.’ His unsmiling eyes bored into hers. ‘Rosie Favel. It rings a faint bell. Favel? Should I know your husband?’ he persisted.

Claudia sighed. It was none of his business. She would have told him just that, but practicalities had to come before pride. She had the future welfare of her father and her child to consider. She needed to get the best deal she could out of this man and continued rudeness wouldn’t do anything to help in that respect.

She stirred her sugarless black coffee slowly, gathering patience. ‘Perhaps,’ she granted, then took a heartening sip of the hot and excellent brew. He was not to be fobbed off with that, however. His intent, unblinking expression told her that much.

‘You probably saw him around at odd times during the summer you worked here.’ She refused to elevate the couple of months he was at Farthings Hall higher than that, give it more importance. ‘Tony was my father’s accountant. He came around fairly regularly.’

‘That fair-haired guy who always seemed to be hanging around your stepmother.’ His mouth curled derisively and his voice was bitter. Because Helen had shown the young and sexy part-time gardener off the premises, preferring the more experienced attentions of her so-called distant cousin?

Had he seen what she and her father had signally failed to recognise—the ongoing affair between those two? She felt her face go red. The idea was hurtful and somehow very degrading.

‘He has to be twenty years your senior.’ His eyes were cold, as if he despised everything about her.

Claudia corrected him hotly, ‘Twelve, actually. Not that it mattered. He was kind.’

Whatever else Tony had been, or hadn’t been, he had always shown her kindness. It was ironic, really, that she hadn’t discovered how cruelly he’d treated her until after his death.

‘How nice for you.’ Adam showed his teeth. As an attempted smile it wouldn’t rate one out of ten, and his subsequent, ‘So when did you marry your well-healed, ageing Lothario?’ made her grind her teeth.

‘October. Exactly six years ago. Satisfied?’ He hadn’t picked up on her earlier use of the past tense and she frowned, wondering, just for a moment, why she didn’t come right out with it and tell him Tony was dead. And knew the answer: because she couldn’t afford to have him know too much about her situation. ‘Maybe now we can change the subject and talk about why we are here at all.’

‘Gladly.’ He drained his coffee cup. ‘How old is Rosie?’

Her blue eyes clouded with anger. Why the heck couldn’t he leave it? ‘What my daughter’s age has to do with the sale of Farthings Hall escapes me.’ She bunched up her napkin and dropped it on her largely untouched salad, gathered her handbag and swept to her feet. ‘I can only imagine you have no intention whatsoever of making an offer, that you brought me here with the sole objective of causing me as much aggravation as possible because, six years ago, I had the temerity to dump you!’

Claudia stalked out, leaving him to settle the bill, and she was waiting impatiently by the Jaguar when he finally strolled out after what seemed to her to be an inordinate length of time.

‘I liked the outraged dignity act.’ He was actually smiling for the first time that day. Claudia looked quickly away. That smile of his had always been lethal and nothing had changed in that respect except he used it a lot less often. Round her, at least.

‘I hate wasting time, Mr Weston.’ She glanced at her wristwatch. They should be back at Farthings Hall in time for her to collect Rosie from the village primary school. She prayed that he wouldn’t hang around. There wasn’t going to be a deal. This morning had been a painful waste of time.

‘So, Mrs Favel, do I.’ He opened the passenger door. ‘Though I wouldn’t agree our time has been wasted—even though more questions have been raised than answered.’ He ushered her into the passenger seat and closed the door. While he walked round to the driver’s side she wondered what he was talking about and decided she definitely didn’t want to know.

One thing she was sure of was the unlikelihood of him making any offer for her home on behalf of his company. That, she reasoned, would have been ruled out of the question the moment he’d realised who she was. He probably still felt bitter about the way he’d been ordered off the property six years ago when he’d been just the hired help.

He wouldn’t be inclined to do her any favours. She breathed out raggedly, shifting in her seat as the powerful car tucked neatly into the side of the narrow lane on a particularly tight bend.

‘Relax,’ he said coolly. ‘I’ll have our surveyor go over your property. One day next week, perhaps. Our formal offer will depend on his report.’

Claudia did as she was told. She relaxed. Well, as much as she could, given the company she was keeping. He hadn’t written off the possibility of a sale, so she could keep the harmful truth from her father for another few days—until she was forced to tell him everything by the imminent arrival of the surveyor. Every day he got a little stronger, so the longer she could keep the dreadful news from him, the better.

A few more minutes and they would be back at the Hall. After Adam dropped her off he’d drive away, she consoled herself, and she would never have to see him again because all further business could be handled through their solicitors. And she could begin again the process of forgetting how very much she had once loved him, and how very much she had hated him for the first few years, and—

‘That is Rosie?’

The car had swept up the gravelled driveway and she hadn’t noticed. His query brought her out of her bitter ruminations. Her daughter was careering down the flight of stone steps from the open main entrance door, dressed in cotton dungarees, her soft black hair flying around her face, Amy red-faced and puffing in hot pursuit.

Adam braked, the action controlled and smooth, and Claudia practically fell out of the door, reaching out and catching her squealing and giggling offspring and lifting her protectively into her arms.

‘Mummeee! Amy said to watch for the car—I saw you come!’ That wide, heart-stopping smile lit up the gorgeous little face, the wide, smoke-grey eyes. ‘The roof of the school fell down,’ she exaggerated wildly. ‘The whole school nearly fell down!’

‘Just the ceiling in the cloakroom, and only part of it at that,’ Amy explained breathlessly. ‘But Miss Possinger phoned at lunchtime to say could one of us collect her because all the children were being sent home early. They’re getting the plasterers in to fix it this evening.’

Claudia unwound her daughter’s arms from their stranglehold around her neck, her poor heart pounding. ‘Run along in with Amy, darling. I won’t be a moment.’ She wouldn’t have been that long even if, in her haste to stop her exuberant little girl hurtling off down the drive, she hadn’t left her handbag behind in the car. ‘Then I’ll get changed and maybe we’ll take a picnic down to the cove.’

She didn’t want her daughter around Adam Weston for one split second longer than necessary and she cursed the fates that had made it necessary at all, and held her breath as, the promise of a picnic as bait, Rosie slid to the ground, took Amy’s hand and trotted willingly back to the house.

Everything was OK. Claudia let out a relieved sigh of pent-up breath, then broke out in a cold sweat and felt the ground tilt beneath her feet as Adam said, his voice very cold, very precise, ‘That child is mine.’

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