There is only one word that comes into my head when I think of you. Mine. You were the one thing I couldn’t walk away from, the one constant thing I desired more than anything else. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get you out of my mind or my fantasies.’ He winked. ‘You don’t know the things you’ve done in my fantasies. Besides I knew you secretly couldn’t keep your hands off me.’
‘You think the sun rises just to hear you crow, don’t you?’ I retorted.
‘Doesn’t it?’
I grinned. ‘Well, I suppose I will keep you then. You’ll be useful for picking up heavy stuff.’
‘And licking your pussy.’
I licked my lips. ‘By the way, I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘That you’re my stepsister?’
My mouth fell open. ‘You knew? How?’
‘It was the last piece of the puzzle for me. The moment I found out you were a virgin I knew. No matter how beautiful you are, Robert was not going to leave his entire inheritance to a random stranger he was not even fucking. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how it all came about.’
‘All my life my mama never told me who my father was. I figure it was because he wounded her badly. I think he was the only one she ever loved and he left her after a month.’
I bent my head and looked at my fingers. They were twisted in my lap. It still hurt to think of that day my mama died.
‘Then on the day it was clear to her that she was passing she whispered Robert’s name in my ear and told me go and find him. She said he was a mean man, but I would melt his heart. I had no money at all. I went to the bank manger to beg for a little loan and he told me … I could have the money if I got on my fine knees and sucked him off.’
Ivan’s eyes flared and his large hands covered mine protectively.
‘I didn’t know what to do. I was in such a state. I sold a little chain my mama had given me to someone who gave me seventy dollars for it. Then I went into the café and did an Internet search for Robert Maxwell, the owner of Jetcorp. I made a long distance phone call to his office and told his secretary that my name was Tawny St. Clair who was the daughter of Tandy Sinclair and that I had something very, very important to tell him.’
Remembering that time still made a lump form in my throat and I swallowed it away.
‘I said I would be calling again tomorrow at the same time and could she kindly tell him that. The next twenty-four hours were longest in my life. The next day I called and God answered my prayers. My palms were so sweaty the phone kept slipping out of my hand, but he only asked me two questions. Was mama still alive? When I said no, I heard him sigh, and there was so much regret in the sound I knew that somehow he was no longer the mean man that mama knew. Then he asked me when I could come. Straightaway, I said. So he sent me a ticket and I came to England.’
I smiled with the memory.
‘I can still remember the first day I arrived at his doorstep. He looked at me with a smile in his eyes and said, “Well, I never would have thought it possible, but you’re even more beautiful than your mama.” I told him I thought he talked funny and he said, “That, young lady, is because you can’t hear yourself.” I laughed and so did he. And that was the beginning.’
‘Why at that stage did he make you pretend that you were a nail technician he had hired?’
‘I think he was afraid of what his children would do to me even then.’
‘My poor darling. I’ve been so unfair to you.’
‘No you haven’t. I’ve had the best time in my life with you.’
‘God, I love you so much,’ he breathed.
‘So you really, really do love me,’ I asked, almost unable to believe that someone as grand as him could love me.
‘I really, really do.’
‘When did you find out though?’ I wheedled.
‘Oh, well. Wanting to kill Ralph that night might have been a good clue, but really, when you banged my head with the cake tin.’
‘What?’
‘Really. It knocked some sense into me,’ he teased.
‘Now you’re just teasing me.’
‘Tawny honey, I think I’ve been in love with you for years. I guess even Robert knew too. I remember he used to deliberately talk about you even when I pretended outright disinterest. I used to get so jealous. Tawny this. Tawny that. Fucking hell. I used leave his house in a terrible temper. I couldn’t believe you were his and not mine. I used to out and get drunk, fuck a random blonde, and pretend it was you.’
I licked my lips and looked up from under my eyelashes. ‘Don’t you want those blondes anymore?’