Husband Not Included. Mary Lyons
Читать онлайн книгу.
expect me to throw up everything I’d worked for just because you’d been offered a job in some fly-blown, disease-ridden jungle in South America?’ she snarled, desperately trying to wriggle out from beneath his powerful grip on her shoulders. ‘Did you listen to anything I had to say? Did you hell!’
‘That was different,’ he growled.
‘Oh, right! So you admit that there was one law for you as my husband—and quite another for me in the role of wife...? Nice one, Ross!’ she grated scornfully. ‘Besides, I notice that you clearly didn’t stay in South America for more than five minutes. So, it looks as if I made the right decision after all!’
‘You always were a first-class bitch!’ he hissed, pulling her struggling figure hard up against the length of his tall, firm body.
‘And you were always a total bastard!’ she panted. ‘If I’m going down the tubes with ACE I’ll damn well take you with me. I’ll tell them—I’ll tell the whole wide world just what a vile, rotten...devious...’
But even as Flora hunted frantically in her mind for a few more nasty adjectives to describe her foul husband she was forcibly silenced as he swiftly lowered his dark head. A brief second later his lips were on hers, fierce and contemptuous, as though he intended to totally drain her of the will to defy him ever again.
Her heartbeat was pounding like a sledgehammer beneath the stormy force of his cruel mouth, her soft breasts crushed tightly against his hard frame, and she knew that Ross was using this kiss as a punishment for her defiance; the brutal arrogance of his flesh was demanding her complete submission to his iron will.
Not until she was almost fainting, her tired and weary body trembling weakly against him, did she feel his lips softening for a few, brief moments before he slowly raised his dark head.
There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of their heavy breathing, and she stared numbly up at Ross, too emotionally exhausted to say or do anything, knowing that without the support of his arms she would have slumped helplessly to the floor.
But if she was incapable of speech he seemed to have no problem in finding his voice.
‘I’ve no intention of apologizing for what happened just now,’ he grated. ‘And if you’ve got any sense in that beautiful head of yours—which I very much doubt—you’ll keep well out of my way for the rest of your stay on this island.’
‘Don’t...don’t you dare threaten me, you...you foul bully!’ she gasped huskily. ‘Believe me, if I had one of my father’s shotguns to hand I wouldn’t think twice before putting a bullet through your stupid head!’
‘You’re all heart, darling,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘But then, I always say that you can take the girl out of the farmyard—but you can’t take the farmyard out of the girl. And it looks as if I’m right—especially if your new “rustic” hairstyle is anything to go by,’ he added scornfully, lifting a curly lock of her long blonde hair.
‘Leave me alone!’ she snapped, unable to prevent an involuntary shiver at the touch of his fingers brushing against her skin.
He gave a short bark of angry laughter as he spun on his heel and marched swiftly towards the door. ‘Don’t worry—I’ve got far better ways of spending my time than dancing attendance on an empty-headed blonde bimbo!’
‘Get lost!’ she yelled, almost beside herself with rage. ‘And I hope I live long enough to dance on your grave!’
‘I’m sure that you will, Flora,’ he drawled coolly.
Opening the door, he paused in the doorway, his tall, broad-shouldered figure a dark silhouette against the bright sunlight as he delivered his parting shot. ‘But at least I’ll have the satisfaction—when I’m six feet under and pushing up the daisies—of not having to watch the last waltz being performed by a wizened, lonely, toothless old hag!’
Shaking with nervous exhaustion, her ears ringing with the loud bang of the front door being slammed shut behind Ross’s departing figure, Flora waited with bated breath until she heard the sound of his vehicle fading away in the distance. Only then did she feel capable of staggering a few feet across the floor, before sinking down into a rattan chair.
Trust the bastard Ross Whitney to make sure that he had the last word! she told herself grimly, shutting her eyes for a moment and allowing the waves of mental and physical exhaustion to flood through her weary body.
Goodness knows, almost from the first moment that she’d succeeded in gaining the Angel Girl contract she had been troubled by bad vibes about the job. And how right she’d been! Because this whole trip to the Caribbean had been clearly doomed from the start. And now, having stupidly thrown away her only opportunity of gaining the support of Ross, there seemed no way of avoiding the forthcoming disaster.
How could she have been such a blithering idiot? It wasn’t as though she was a teenager and didn’t know any better. She was supposed to be a sophisticated woman of twenty-six, for heaven’s sake! So, why on earth had she allowed herself to become involved in a stupid, no-holds-barred fight with Ross? And to have effectively torpedoed her only chance of solving her problems with the cosmetic company?
Groaning out loud at her own folly, Flora buried her face in her hands for a moment. Unfortunately, it was no good putting all the blame for the disastrous scene which had just taken place on Ross. Although it had been partly his fault, of course. The foul, rotten man had always known how to make her madder than a hornets’ nest—in just about five seconds flat—but there’d been absolutely no call for some of those nasty, snide remarks.
All the same...maybe if her nerves hadn’t been at screaming point, after such a long and tiring day, she might have been able to cope with her ex-husband. He had, after all, been the one who’d deserted her—suddenly vanishing into thin air, never to be seen again from that day to this—leaving her to face the lonely tears and all the problems involved in sorting out the shattered pieces of their brief marriage.
In fact, now she came to think about it, Ross had obviously been having the time of his life here in the Caribbean. While she’d been slaving away on the catwalk and in front of the cameras, her swine of a husband had probably been living the life of Reilly: swigging rum, making love to dusky maidens and writing those rubbishy books of his.
Nice work if you can get it! she told herself grimly. So, what now gave him the right to claim the moral high ground? Why was he still bothering to blame her for what had happened in the past?
However, despite running the disastrous scene back and forth through her tired mind, she failed to find any answers to those questions. In fact, she only succeeded in giving herself a thumping headache.
Realising that she couldn’t sit in the chair all day, Flora wearily began to unpack her cases. After taking some aspirins, and deciding that maybe a shower and a change of clothes might at least make her feel slightly better, she made her way to the small bathroom.
Unfortunately, even after showering and washing her hair, she still felt nerve-rackingly tense and jittery. Which wasn’t surprising, she told herself glumly. That encounter with Ross had been bad enough, but it was nothing to the explosion which was likely to break over her head once Claudia learned that she was married. And to have even hoped that her lousy ex-husband would help to save her bacon had been foolish in the extreme.
Gazing dispiritedly at herself in the dressing table mirror, trying to ignore the strained expression on her pale face as she dragged a brush through her damp curls, she cursed her ex-husband’s good memory. It had clearly been a bad, bad mistake to have ever told Ross about her past. Because he obviously hadn’t been able to resist the cruel jibe he’d made about her upbringing on the farm in Cumberland. And, knowing the swine, he’d undoubtedly have a lot of fun telling everyone on the island about it as well.
She gave a heavy sigh. There was nothing she could do if Ross decided to broadcast the news. But so what if he did? She was over twenty-one years of age. And besides, she was sufficiently successful nowadays not to care if her father, or her dreaded stepmother,