Reading Online Novel

Second Chance with the Millionaire(14)


       
           



       

Ridiculously they hadn't even discussed what he did for a living. A  small smile touched her mouth. Whatever it was it was scarcely important  as long as it made him happy. Everything he had said to her implied  that when he did return to America he would ask her to go with him, and  she knew that she would have some hard thinking ahead of her if he did.  She had a responsibility to Oliver and Tara from which she could not  wholly abdicate, but she was no suffering martyr and had no intentions  of sacrificing her own happiness to assume the duties which should by  rights be Fanny's.

No, something could be worked out. It would have to be, she decided  grimly, her full lips tightening briefly as she dwelt on the scenes that  were likely to occur with her emotional stepmother. It didn't matter  what scenes Fanny caused; her love for Saul came first.

Love! The taste of the word made her go dizzy with pleasure. Her  feelings for Saul had transformed her from a level-headed young woman  into a starry-eyed child, full of wonderment and joy. Her hitherto  sedate view of what happiness was had been totally overthrown. It was  like discovering that the rare, shimmering mirage was real after all and  moreover could be reached out to and touched.

Reluctantly she dragged her mind away from Saul and on to her work, and  yet, as she concentrated on the outline for her second book, with  maddening insistence her central male character kept appearing to her as  Saul.

In the end she gave in to her desire to paint a verbal portrait of him,  knowing when she had finished and read through what she had just written  that she had breathed so much life into the character that no one could  ever believe he was simply a work of fiction.

True to his promise Saul was back for twelve and she was out of her seat  and halfway towards the library door the moment she heard his footsteps  outside.

The phone rang while he was kissing her and he disengaged reluctantly,  holding her within the curve of his arm as he picked up the receiver.

As she watched his mouth grew taut, his eyebrows drawing together in a faint frown.

'OK Ma, I get the picture,' he said abruptly at last. 'But it's impossible for me to get back right now.'

He was silent again, listening to whatever it was his mother had to say.  His mother! Lucy had never met her father's sister. Were they alike at  all? What would she think of Saul's involvement with her? Was she one of  those impressively organised American matriachs who already had a  suitable partner picked out for her son?

'No, I don't know how long I'll be-as long as it takes.' He listened again briefly, and then replaced the receiver.

'Problems?' Lucy asked him worriedly.

Her weight was supported against his body and she liked that, liked the  feeling of permanence and safety that emanated from him. He felt as  steady as a rock-and as hard. The thought briefly made her feel cold.  Saul would be a dangerous man to cross, she recognised, seeing in the  way he was frowning the irritation of a man used to making his own  decisions about his life, without having them queried or crossed.

'A hiccup in my stepfather's business affairs and my mother wants me to return home to sort them out.'

He saw her faint frown and explained, 'I work for him.'

That explained how he was able to take so much time off, Lucy realised, wondering again what it was that he did.

'I'm an accountant-of sorts,' he added curtly, and she realised that his work was not something he wanted to discuss.

'Will you have to go back?'

'Not right away.'

The tension in the muscles of his arm where it lay against her body  comforted and yet alarmed her. He didn't want to upset her by saying he  might have to go, but she sensed that it was quite possible.

It was still too soon for him to ask her to go with him-at least as his  lover-and she prayed feverishly that whatever the problem was at home,  it would be solved without the necessity of him having to rush back.

'Are you any closer to finding a buyer for this place?' she asked him,  trying to change the subject. Disposing of the Manor must be a burden to  him when he obviously had so many responsibilities at home.

'There are one or two possibilities,' he told her cautiously, 'but one  always has to be aware as a foreigner that the locals might be trying to  gain an advantage. How do you really feel about losing this place,  Lucy?' he asked her abruptly. 'You must feel some attachment to it.'                       
       
           



       

'Yes, but probably only in the way that you do,' she agreed mildly.  'After all it isn't as though it really belongs … ' She broke off,  appalled by her near indiscretion. How close she had been then to  blurting out the secret of Oliver's birth. She risked a look into Saul's  face, anticipating his curiosity, but instead his expression was  curiously blank, his arm instantly slackening to release her.

As he turned away from her he said evenly, 'How delightfully British you  are at times, Lucy. I see that you do after all consider me something  of an interloper here.'

She was horrified by the way he had misinterpreted her words. 'No …  no,  Saul,' she appealed to him. 'You're quite wrong. I don't see you as an  interloper at all.'

'But neither do you see me as the rightful owner here, is that it?'

What could she say? Legally he was the rightful owner, but she knew he  did not have the soul-deep feeling for the place that her father had had  and which he had passed on to Oliver, in whom she sensed the same  emotion, young though he was. But how could she break the promise she  had made to her father and tell Saul this? And what good would it do  anyway? Saul might even think she was trying to manipulate him into  doing something for Oliver.

When she was silent he laughed shortly, turning round to glare at her as  he said harshly, 'What a pity you didn't fulfil your father's hopes for  you, Lucy, and marry money.' He saw her expression and jeered softly.  'Oh come on, surely you aren't going to tell me you don't know? Even my  mother knew, although she flatly refused to help him when he asked her  to launch you on the American season and introduce you to a few  potential millionaires. The days are gone when they were willing to part  with their money in exchange for an aristocratic wife. No doubt he was  hoping that your wealthy husband would buy this place from me after his  demise, thus securing it for his grandchildren.'

Lucy was completely stunned by what he was saying. He was making it up,  he must be; her father had never once said a word of this to her.

'You think I'm lying don't you?' Saul demanded almost savagely. 'Well  I'm not-ask my mother. I think you were about seventeen when your father  made his first approach.'

Seventeen! Lucy thought back weakly. Fanny had still been married then.  And who knew? Perhaps her father, who had always had a penchant for  crazy schemes, had dreamed up something along the lines Saul was  suggesting.

'I don't think you're lying Saul.' She said it quietly so that he  wouldn't mistake the conviction in her voice. 'It sounds just like the  sort of thing my father would do. If I seemed disbelieving it was  because he never mentioned any of this to me. I know he hoped Fanny  would give him a son; and as you say he was almost obsessed with the  idea of keeping the house for his own heirs.'

'Almost?' Saul derided bitterly.

'Very well then, totally.'

A certain bleakness shadowed her eyes as she remembered how she had  suffered from her father's obsession. A sensitive child, it had not  taken her long to recognise that she was not the child he had wanted-not  a son.

As though he knew her thoughts Saul gave a kind of groan and came towards her, taking her in his arms, holding her fiercely.

'Forgive me. I had no right to say any of those things to you. The plain  fact is that I'm jealous-jealous of the loyalty you give your  father-and half scared to death that I'll have to go home before I can  persuade you to come with me.'

His admission soothed away the hurt. She turned her face up eagerly, her lips parting in soft invitation.

It was a long time before he released her, his voice faintly shaky as he  asked, 'Do I take it that that means that you would come?'

'Anywhere-with you,' Lucy told him, sighing the words against his  throat, her eyes closing in bliss as she tasted the masculine flavour of  him. It was true. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if he  asked it of her. It was too late for pretence now. She was deeply,  crazily in love with him-he was the only thing that mattered and if he  left her now she thought she might go crazy with the agony of losing  him. It was a novel sensation for her, and one that would once have  terrified her, but which she now revelled in, knowing that she wasn't  alone, that he shared her feelings.