Defiant Mistress, Ruthless Millionaire(25)

But those looks were nothing compared to the expression on her face when he was shown through to her office.

"Your ten o'clock is here, Mrs Palmer." The fresh-faced secretary who'd  made his appointment showed him directly into her domain.

"My ten … " Irene rose from her chair. "You! Call security, Anna. This man should not be here."

"I think you'll find you do want to see me, Irene."

Josh slid the typewritten letter and cheque from his pocket and opened  it out on the desk in front of her. He could almost have felt sorry for  her as the colour drained from her face and she slumped back into her  chair.

"Mrs Palmer? Do you still want me to call security?"

The younger woman sounded scared. Josh was prepared to lay money on the  fact that probably no one had ever seen Irene Palmer at a disadvantage  before.

"No, not any more," Irene rasped through lips that had turned slightly  blue around the edges. "Please close the door on your way out."                       
       
           



       

As soon as the door shut behind her assistant, Irene appeared to summon  courage from somewhere. Josh had to admit to a grudging admiration. Not  many people could recover from a shock like the one she'd just received  with such aplomb. Even seated she managed to convey that she was looking  down her nose at him. That he was nothing more than a piece of gum  stuck to the bottom of her heel.

"So you're her son," she finally said, almost to herself. "Now it all makes sense."

Without waiting for her invitation, which he doubted would be  forthcoming anyway, he settled his frame in one of the button-back  leather chairs that faced her desk. "Just what did you say to my mother  to make her leave?"

"What makes you think I said anything?"

"Don't patronise me, Irene. We both know it wasn't Bruce who sent her away. That's your signature on that cheque."

Irene seemed to shrivel a little under his stare.

"It was pathetically easy, you know. Mind you, so was she."

Josh clenched his jaw against the fury her deliberate insult roused  inside him. He took strength in the secure knowledge that her words were  a lie. His mother had never been easy. She'd been a devoted mother and  she'd been a lady. And if she'd ever craved male companionship after her  affair with Bruce, she quelled that craving, putting Josh's needs ahead  of her own every day of his life.

When he didn't visibly react to her comment, Irene continued.

"Bruce and I had difficulty starting a family. After ten years, we'd all  but given up hope-the failure created a distance between us. In many  ways it was a relief when he turned to her for comfort, and I was always  grateful for his discretion. He knew if a scent of his relationship  with her leaked out how destructive it would have been to me. No one  else ever knew.

"When I unexpectedly became pregnant I knew I had to fight to keep him  and I was determined to win. I hadn't strived to build all of this," she  gestured across her office with her hand, "with my husband to see it  all crumble for the sake of Bruce's little fling with his secretary.

"I knew my pregnancy gave me the ammunition to get Bruce to give her up,  until I noticed something else. Your mother made all her own clothes  and it didn't take an expert eye to see that she'd begun to slowly let  the seams out on her dresses, or to recognise the fragility in her face.  I stared at the same weakness in myself every morning."

"So you confronted her."

"Yes, I confronted her. You think I was going to let her destroy what  Bruce and I had created for our own children? Bruce is the type of man  who would have stood by her; he would have given her  child-you-everything our own boys deserved. There was no way I would  allow my children's birthright to be diluted by her bastard."

Irene shoved her chair back from her desk and began to pace.

"I knew she couldn't have told him about her pregnancy yet, or Bruce  would have made a move by then to leave me, and I wasn't about to be  upstaged. So I went to see her in that revolting boardinghouse where she  lived and told her it was over. That Bruce had confessed his affair to  me but that he no longer loved her."

Irene laughed then, a brittle sound that grated on Josh's ears.

"I told her Bruce wanted her to leave Auckland. She refused, telling me  she knew Bruce loved her. Loved her! But I convinced her in the end. I  gave her the letter and the cheque and told her to use it to get rid of  the baby she was carrying. That night I went home and I told Bruce I was  pregnant. He was overjoyed, and the rest, as they say, is history. Oh,  he tried to find her, to let her down gently, I suppose, but she was  already gone. Well and truly gone, and good riddance."

No wonder his mother had never cashed that cheque. It had been blood  money. Money for the sole purpose of taking a life that had been  conceived in love. That Bruce had loved Suzanne he had absolutely no  doubt. He'd read the letters. He'd seen the fear in Irene's eyes. It was  a fear that still ruled her.

Josh's hands curled into knotted fists as he sat and listened to Irene's  invective. The woman was poison. She'd played with lives, moving them  around as if they were no more than pieces on a chessboard.

"You sent that letter to me when my mother died, when I tried to let Bruce know."

"Of course I did. I'd protected my family for more than eighteen years  from that woman. Do you really think I was going to be less vigilant  after all that time?"

"He had a right to know she'd gone. He had a right to know me."

"My husband will never acknowledge you as his son," she stated, her voice as frigid as the Great Southern Ocean.                       
       
           



       

"That doesn't matter to me anymore, Irene, because, you see, even though  you thought you'd done everything right to protect your precious  family, you-and only you-have sown the seeds of the destruction of what  you tried hardest to save."

"How dare you! You're the one. You're the mastermind behind it all. You  even used that poor girl to further your maniacal scheme."

"If, by poor girl, you're talking about Callie, then maybe you should  ask yourself why you groomed her for so many years and then let her take  the blame when everything turned upside down. What kind of person  scouts for the vulnerable the way you did with her, and then lets her  believe she belongs-that she has a place in your world? Then, when it no  longer suits you, you cast her adrift as if she has no value to you  anymore. Is that how you measure everyone in your life? By what they can  do for you?"

Josh closed his eyes a moment to compose himself. To draw on every last  ounce of control he had left. "I feel sorry for you, Irene, because when  all is said and done you had to cheat and lie to get what you have  today-your husband, your business, your entire world. All of it based on  lies. You say you've done it to protect your family, but you only did  what you did out of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of failure. And when  the truth comes out, who will stand in your corner then?"

Twin spots of colour stood stark on Irene's cheeks, but he could see the  fear that now reflected in her eyes. Could see that she feared him and  the threat he was to the very fabric of her world.

"You're threatening me with the media? I'll have an injunction slapped  on you so fast you won't know what gagged you. You will not spoil my  plan. Palmer Enterprises will recover from your attempt to destabilise  us, and when Bruce and I move to Guildara, he'll be the jewel in their  diplomatic crown because I protected him from you."

"No. I'm not going to the media. Not any more. Nor am I going to  systematically take Palmer Enterprises apart piece by piece. You're  simply not worth the effort. Besides, I think my father and my half  brother deserve better than that. But what you decide to do next will be  the key to what makes or breaks Palmers and your dreams for the future.  And if your entire world falls apart, you will know that you were the  only one who could have done anything about it. See how you like playing  God with that truth."

How he made it out the office and down in the elevator to the entrance  to the building he didn't know, but the moment he stepped free of the  Palmer Enterprises building he knew a freedom he had never experienced  before.

Freedom tinged with grief for the ill-fated love affair his parents had  shared. For so many years he'd believed his father had been a man to be  vilified. Some all-powerful being that had held Josh's fate, and the  eventual fate of his mother, in his hands. Yet all along he'd been a  victim of his world. A man who'd been too late-and yes, maybe even too  weak-to act when love had been his for the taking.