The Groom's Revenge

‘Are you, indeed?’ Aidan had drawled, one dark eyebrow drifting upwards in intrigued speculation as he’d subjected her to a slow, deliberate scrutiny. Those deep brown eyes had scanned every inch of her from the top of her head, over the home-made dress and down to her slender feet, before he’d added, ‘Do you know, you could be right?’

He had offered her a drink, and the rest was history. History that had turned so terribly sour in the end, leading as it had done to the farce of her wedding day. If only she had known...

But the truth was that she had never really known Aidan Wolfe—except perhaps in one way.

A tiny touch of colour crept into India’s cheeks at the memory of the very physical, passionate nature of their relationship. Then faded again at the thought of the way that that very sensuality had been her undoing. It had rushed her into Aidan’s bed and into that precipitous marriage, handing him the perfect weapon to turn against her. -

Almost in the same moment that she had realised the depth of her love for him, that same love had been transformed into an equally powerful, deeply burning hatred.

That hatred had sustained her through the dark days that had followed. It had forced her out of bed on the mornings when all she’d wanted to do was to pull the covers over her head and hide away. It had given her the strength to ignore the speculative looks and whispered comments that had greeted her appearance in the village. If she gave in to the hurt, then Aidan had won. He would have succeeded in his cruel plan to humiliate her, and she would rather die than let that happen.

And so she had forced herself to get on with her life, meeting those curious glances with what she’d hoped was a confident smile, and holding her head high. The act had worked, seeming to convince people that she didn’t care, and in the end she had almost come to believe it Until today.

‘When did these arrive?’ she asked her brother, the catch in her voice revealing feelings that went deeper than the careless gesture towards the flowers indicated.

‘Coogan’s delivered them at two this afternoon.’

Gary was clearly unaware of her struggle to impose some control over her emotions. But then, like most fourteen-year-olds, he lived in his own private world. He probably didn’t even realise what day it was, the events of the previous year having faded from his mind at least.

‘Did they say who they were from?’

And why two o’clock so precisely, unless they were from someone who knew the significance of that time? If the choice of flowers had already set her teeth on edge, now an uncomfortable suspicion ran like pins and needles along every nerve.

‘Dunno. But there’s a card somewhere if you want to look.’

She didn’t; didn’t want confirmation of her fears. But she just had to.

‘Who’s “A”?’ Gary looked over her shoulder in curiosity. ‘Some secret admirer?’

‘Nothing like that.’

Did he really not know? Was it possible that he couldn’t even guess? Or was it only in her own thoughts that the single, forceful initial could only ever mean one name?

The urge to tear the card into tiny pieces and fling them from her, with the bouquet following them, was almost overwhelming. Only the thought that such an emotional reaction was precisely what Aidan would have wanted stayed her hand.

Of course, deep down, she had known that it had to be Aidan who had sent the flowers. The cynical choice of blooms, deliberately matching the ones that had made up her wedding bouquet, and the delivery planned for the exact time of the aborted wedding service a year ago had left no room for hope that they could have been from anyone else. But, after all this time, how could he be so cruel, so vindictive? How he must hate her—and all over one rather silly, thoughtless declaration!

‘I’ll take these to the hospital tonight,’ she said stiffly, knowing that to keep the bouquet in the house would be more than she could bear. ‘Someone there will appreciate them.’

‘But...’ Gary looked bewildered, his frown one of confusion. ‘They were meant for you—to wish you a happy...’

‘They weren’t meant to wish me a happy anything, Gary. And right now I’ve got too much on my plate to concern myself with the fact that today’s my birthday.’

Wearily she ran a hand through her hair, raking the blue-black strands back from a face that strain had made pale and drawn.

‘Mum’s staying at the hospital again, so it’ll just be you and me for supper tonight. But it’ll have to be something out of the freezer, I’m afraid. I haven’t got time to make anything from scratch before Jim comes to pick me up for another stint at Dad’s bedside.’

‘Is there any change?’ Her brother’s voice was sharp with anxiety. ‘Any sign of Dad coming out of the coma?’

‘None, I’m afraid, sweetie.’

The sight of Gary’s troubled face, his teeth digging hard into his lower lip and his eyes suspiciously bright, had India moving to his side. Gently she put one hand on his arm, knowing from past experience that the small gesture was all the sympathy his spiky young masculinity could accept at the moment.

All thought of the hateful bouquet was pushed from her mind. Instead, her thoughts were filled by the memory of the scene she had just left in the hospital—the hushed atmosphere of the intensive care unit, the machines and tubes attached to her father’s motionless body.

‘But he is breathing on his own, at least—that’s something. All we can do is wait.’

‘But they’ve said that for days now!’ Gary’s voice was rough with distress. His father’s stroke had devastated him, and he had found it difficult to come to terms with events.

‘I know, love.’

India’s green eyes were dull and clouded. Like Gary, she found it almost impossible to accept that her father—who, at barely fifty, she had believed still in the prime of life—could have been felled so completely by the illness that had struck without warning just a week ago.

‘But there’s nothing else to do. He’s in good hands, and all we can do is wait—and pray.’

Wait and pray. The words still echoed inside India’s head some hours later when, feeling physically and mentally drained, she arrived back at the Grange after yet another trip to the hospital.

‘Thanks for bringing me home, Jim.’ She sighed, turning with a tired smile to the man at the wheel of the car. ‘I don’t think I’d have been up to driving myself, so I really appreciate it.’

‘No trouble.’ James Hawthorne smoothed a tidying hand over the light brown hair that the breeze from an open window had ruffled as he smiled back at her, blue eyes warm. ‘You know I’m only too willing to help.’

India glanced towards the house, noting the darkened windows, the single light left burning in the hall.

‘It looks like Gary’s already gone to bed, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t invite you in for coffee.’

‘Nothing to forgive,’ her companion returned easily as she pushed open her door. ‘I wouldn’t have accepted anyway. You look as if you need to get straight to bed.’

‘Oh, I do!’ India sighed. ‘I feel as if I could sleep for a week. Some birthday, huh?’

‘We’ll make up for it when things get better,’ James assured her. ‘Now, you get off and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

India was halfway out of the car when an impulse had her turning back and pressing a spontaneous kiss on his left cheek.

‘You’ve been so good to me. I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘No problem,’ was the smiling response. ‘You know I’d do anything for you. You only have to ask.’

From the look on his face it was plain that he wanted more than just the friendly kiss she had given him, and the realisation twisted her nerves sharply. Hastily she backed out of the car again, with rather more speed than grace.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Drive carefully, please.’

It wasn’t Jim’s fault that she couldn’t feel anything for him, India reflected sadly as she watched his car move off down the drive and disappear into the darkness of the night. She doubted if she could feel anything for any man ever again. Aidan Wolfe had cured her of that foolishness.

‘Oh, how sweet!’

‘What...?’

A sharp cry of shock escaping her, India jumped like a startled cat as a voice sounded suddenly from the deep shadows cast by the house.

‘“You’ve been so good to me”.’ The cynical tones echoed her words but gave them a dangerously different emphasis. ‘“I don’t know how to thank you”.’

After her initial panicked reaction, the sound of that terrifyingly familiar, husky intonation had India freezing in horror.

‘I’m sure you’ll find a way to thank him, won’t you, Princess?’

And the use of that once familiar teasing nickname drove all hope of redemption from her head. One person had invented that name for her, playing on the fact that India had once been part of the British empire, and only one person had ever used it—affectionately at first. It was only later that she had been able to see the other, less complimentary undertones in it.

There was no hope now that she could be mistaken, she told herself, turning slowly with a sense of dreary resignation. At last she found that her tongue had loosened enough for her to croak, ‘Hello, Aidan.’

He had been in her thoughts so much that if he had appeared as some unearthly apparition, conjured out of the air by her bleak memories earlier in the day, then she wouldn’t have been surprised. But, of course, Aidan Wolfe was solid flesh and bone, six feet two of toned muscle over a powerful frame. There was nothing in the least ethereal about him.

His feet were planted firmly on the stone flags that lay before the heavy wooden main door, his hands resting loosely on lean hips, his head slightly to one side. His whole stance was one of mocking challenge as his dark eyes, eyes that were just pools of black in the shadowed planes of his face, met her stunned green ones in open provocation.

‘What are you doing here?’

Aidan stepped forward into the light of the lamp that illuminated the courtyard. His smile was just a hateful, cruel curl of his lips that made her blood run cold.

‘Would you believe I’ve come to wish you a happy birthday?’

‘No.’

It was a clipped, curt rejection of his teasing question, and she made no attempt to respond to that mockery of a smile.

‘And you know that I know that has to be the furthest thing from your thoughts.’

‘Well, there you’d be wrong, you know,’ Aidan put in with deceptive mildness, that smile growing wider. ‘I do wish you a very happy—what? Twenty-fourth birthday? And a wonderful year to follow.’

He almost sounded as if he meant it, India told herself. But almost immediately she clamped down hard on that weak train of thought. Even to allow the possibility to slide into her mind was foolish in the extreme. Foolish and very dangerous.

‘It can hardly be much worse than last year.’

She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, fearing that they gave away far too much. She didn’t want this man to know of all the long, lonely nights she had spent lying awake in an agony of frustration, the dreary, empty days she had dragged herself through since he had abandoned her so brutally. Immediately she tried to cover her tracks.

‘Though really I should thank you for what you did. You saved me from making what could quite possibly have been the worst mistake of my life.’

The way his head went back slightly, showing that her attack had hit home, made her give a small smile of satisfaction.

‘But I’m sure you didn’t come here to chat over old times.’ Deliberately she laced the words with acid. ‘So perhaps you’ll tell me the real reason for your sudden materialisation.’

‘Materialisation,’ Aidan echoed in dark amusement. ‘You make me sound like some alien being, or a ghost.’

Ghost indeed. The ghost of happier times, a reminder of the way she had once felt. India flinched away from the stab of anguish that pushed her into unconsidered speech.

‘A werewolf or a vampire is more like it!’ she flung at him.

‘Now you’re being fanciful.’

‘Am I? Am I really?’

How she wished she could bring her voice down a note on two. It was too high, too shrill, too bitterly revealing. It infuriated her even more to remember that she had always promised herself that if she ever met this man again then she would be so cool, would freeze him out completely. She could never bear it if he knew just how badly he had hurt her.

‘Well, let me tell you something, Mr Wolfe. In my mind, a vampire is just what you are! An emotional vampire, someone who preys on people’s feelings, taking them and sucking them dry, then casting them aside without a second thought when you’ve tired of them.’

‘Oh, come on.’ The smooth voice mocked her outburst. ‘You surely aren’t claiming that I broke your heart? After all, it wasn’t me you wanted but my money.’

His tone had sharpened noticeably on the last words, and now he took a couple of swift steps towards her, coming very close for the first time.

It took all India’s self-control not to recoil in panic. She had forgotten just how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were under the immaculately white T-shirt and the loose linen jacket.

She had never seen Aidan quite so casually dressed before, she realised. In all the time that they had been dating he had stuck rigidly to the formal suits he wore for work as well as leisure. So now it was painfully disconcerting to feel her mouth dry in an instinctively sensual response to the way that the soft cotton clung to the honed lines of his chest, the denim jeans he wore with it emphasising the powerful length of his legs.

Oh, God, how could he still do this to her after all that had happened? She couldn’t be so weak that he had only to appear and she fell straight back under his spell, could she?

‘You broke my heart? Now who’s being fanciful? We never had that sort of a relationship, and you know it You wanted me and I wanted you.’

‘And what I brought with me,’ Aidan inserted brutally. ‘So, tell me, how is it with your new lover?’

‘Lover?’ For a few seconds she couldn’t focus her mind enough to think. ‘Oh, Jim!’

‘Yes, Jim.’

The twist to Aidan’s mouth, the roughness of his voice, turned the name into an obscenity.

‘“You’ve been so good to me” Jim. “I don’t know how to thank you” Jim. What does he do for you, my lovely India? Does he give you more than I ever could? Was he the next wealthy man to walk through the door after I walked out of it?’

‘Precisely! You walked out!’ India pounced on the opening he had given her. ‘You walked out on me, remember. So don’t come the jilted fiancé—’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Aidan responded coolly, stopping her dead. ‘Believe me, he’s welcome to you.’

Those dark eyes noted the way India clamped her mouth shut against any weak protest at the callousness, and his smile surfaced once more. The curl of his lips was even more predatory than before.

‘But I wonder if he knows just how much it’s going to cost him.’

‘If you must know,’ India declared, unable to endure his taunts any longer, ‘Jim is just a very junior cog in the firm of Jenkins and Curran, my father’s—’

‘Your father’s solicitors,’ Aidan inserted dismissively. ‘I know who they are only too well.’

‘But how?’

‘We’ve had dealings,’ was the enigmatic response. ‘Which reminds me. Where is your dear papa?’

The edge in his voice was worrying, an undertone of threat seeming to lurk in his words like jagged rocks underneath the still surface of a calm sea. Hearing it, India felt an intuitive shiver run down her spine, setting her protective instincts on red alert.

‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked warily.

‘It was your father I came to see. Let’s just say I have some important business to discuss with him.’

If she had felt apprehensive before, that cryptic remark made matters ten times worse. Even before her wedding day Aidan and her father had been at daggers drawn, and she very much doubted that time had done anything to ease the situation.

‘I don’t think he’d want anything to do with you!’ The memory of the state in which she had just left her father sharpened her voice, giving it extra emphasis.

‘Oh, he’ll see me, darling. I promise you, he’ll want to talk to me very much, and if he’s wise he’ll arrange a meeting very soon. So when will he be back?’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ India ignored the question, concentrating instead on the implications behind that ‘if he’s wise’.

‘Just what it says,’ Aidan returned indifferently. ‘I want to see your father, and it would be better for him if I saw him soon. So when do you expect him home?’

‘I don’t know.’

Which at least was nothing more than the truth. No matter when her father came out of hospital, it would be a long time before he would be well enough to talk to anyone, let alone the predatory Lone Wolfe. But what possible business could connect two such disparate men?

‘I could give him a message if you like,’ she managed, her attempt at cool confidence sadly marred by the sudden realisation that Aidan was between her and the door.

If she wanted to get inside she would have to go past him, she told herself. The idea made her uneasy, uncomfortably aware of the heavy shadows cast by the trees, the silence of the night and the recollection of the fact that Gary’s room was at the back of the house, well out of earshot.

‘If you just tell me what you want to say.’

For a long moment Aidan considered. ‘No.’ He shook his dark head decisively. ‘It’s between the two of us. ‘I’ll find him later. Tell him I was looking for him.’

‘Is that it?’ India questioned, receiving another of those slanted, mocking glances that aggravated the already edgy way she was feeling.

‘Were you looking for something more?’

‘Not on your life!’

She was disconcerted to realise just how close he had come to her, suddenly only inches away from her.

‘A pity.’ It was a low, seductive murmur, one that drew her attention against her will. Drew it and held it as if she were hypnotised. ‘Because I was just thinking that I couldn’t let you go without a kiss for old times’ sake.’

‘For—!’ India spluttered, a sense of panic gripping her round the throat, choking off her words as his head came even nearer, lowering to blot out the light of the moon.

He was so near that she could hear the sound of his breathing, catch the tang of some exclusive cologne. Her heart lurched into a wild, uneven rhythm that made her blood pound in her ears, and she was sure he must hear the accelerated beat of her heart.

‘Don’t you dare!’

Her voice was high and sharp, and it stilled that ominous movement, his head coming to a sudden halt.

‘Don’t you dare...’

It was less successful this time. A betraying quiver that she couldn’t quite suppress deprived her words of the force she had aimed for.

A wicked smile curved his lips, revealing perfect white teeth.

‘Oh, I dare,’ he drawled softly. ‘The question is, do you? You see, I wouldn’t be content with just a peck on the cheek and a breathless thank-you such as you gave your so-kind Jim.’

‘But you...’

‘I what?’ Aidan murmured when she struggled to find words to fling at him.

The trouble was that with that dark head so very close, with his lips curved into that deceptive softness, all she could think of was how it had once been. She could recall so vividly how it had felt to run her hands through the dark silk of his hair, to have that beautiful mouth against her own...

To her horror she found that she had actually raised her head, tilting it slightly, her lips parting as if to receive his kiss.

‘I what, sweetheart?’ Aidan repeated on a very different note, one so smokily sensual that it seemed to have the power to draw her soul from her body and straight into his ruthless hands. ‘I rejected you, cast you off—is that it?’

She couldn’t find any response. Her tongue seemed frozen and stiff inside her mouth.

‘Ah, but you’re forgetting one thing, my darling India. I may have walked away from the thought of tying myself down, but I could never refuse the invitation offered by that glorious body of yours. I was always unable to resist the temptation you offered, and, after twelve months, the hunger you arouse is stronger than ever.’

‘Invitation!’ India exploded, her head coming up sharply, green eyes blazing in rejection of his blunt declaration. ‘Offer! I’m not inviting anything! And, believe me, I have nothing whatsoever to offer you ever again! If you think otherwise, then you have most definitely totally misread the signals.’

‘Perhaps.’ His tone implied that he very much doubted it. ‘But, India, sweetheart—’

‘And I am not your sweetheart, or anything else! How you can possibly even begin to imagine that after the way you treated me I would want anything at all to do with you, I just don’t know. But...’

Drawing a deep breath, she snatched at the one thing she hoped would convince him once and for all.

‘Get it through your thick skull that I am not available! As you saw, I’m with Jim now.’

Dear Jim. He wouldn’t mind his name being taken in vain in this way. He would probably even enjoy the thought of being linked with her, in fantasy if not in reality. At least she could rely on him to back her up if her story was challenged.

‘He’s the only man in my life; the only one I want.’

If he argued, she thought, her breathing fast and uneven, if he so much as questioned her declaration or asked for proof she didn’t know what she would do. That last outburst seemed to have used up all her remaining strength, and she didn’t feel she had anything in reserve with which to fight him.

But Aidan’s unexpected reaction seemed to blast apart the last scrap of solid ground beneath her feet, destroying the shreds of her composure as it did so.

‘OK,’ he said casually, shrugging those broad shoulders in a gesture of supreme indifference. ‘If that’s how you want it.’

It was how little he cared that really hurt. India found herself frozen to the spot, unable to do anything more than watch as he turned and strolled away, heading for the car that was parked at the side of the house, almost invisible in the shadows.

If he had ever felt anything for her, however little, then surely he would have shown some reaction? Surely his face would have betrayed a hint of disappointment, or anger, or at the very least jealousy? Or was she being all sorts of a fool even to hope?

But even the realisation that Aidan felt nothing at all couldn’t stop her heart from jolting painfully in her chest, seeming to lurch almost into her throat, when he suddenly paused and turned back to her.

‘Tell your father I was here,’ he said, and his voice had returned to the ominously dark intonation that had so worried her earlier. ‘And that we have important things to discuss.’

‘What—?’ India began, but her feeble attempt at speech was brushed aside, falling to the ground like splintered glass as it came up against the hard, unyielding mask of his face.

‘Just tell him I’ll be back. And if he’s wise he’ll be here to see me.’

In spite of the heat of the evening, the words sent a shiver like the trail of icy water down India’s spine. There could be no mistaking the menace behind them—a threat made all the worse by the fact that she had no idea what was involved.

‘But what...?’

But Aidan had gone. And as the dark, sleek car disappeared down the drive, turning the corner out of sight, she was suddenly swamped by a terrible sense of loneliness, a feeling of dread that was all the worse for having no rational explanation.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’LL be back.’

For two days now, Aidan’s words had rung inside India’s head, their disturbing undertones seeming to grow more and more ominous with each repetition. The fact that she could think of no reason at all for Aidan to want to speak to her father only added to her already deeply uneasy frame of mind.