Ruthless Contract. Kathryn Ross
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had lingered over coffee, both of them loath to see the end of the evening.
‘I’m glad you are staying longer.’ Abigail whispered as their eyes met and held across the candle-lit table.
‘So am I.’ He smiled and reached for her hand. Then gently he lifted it to his lips and kissed the palm, then each finger in turn in a blatantly sensual caress.
Abigail felt a tremor run through her body. All her senses were heightened; she felt almost light-headed with desire as she looked into the darkness of his eyes.
‘I’m staying because of you, Abbie,’ he whispered. ‘I’m falling in love with you, my darling, and I can hardly bear the thought of leaving.’
‘Oh, Greg.’ She looked away from him and sudden tears of happiness shone in her eyes. In her dreams she had heard those words, but she hadn’t dared to let herself hope he would say them.
‘Tears?’ He brushed a gentle finger under the dark sweep of her lashes as she tried to hide her eyes from him. ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart. The last thing I want is to upset you.’
‘I’m not upset.’ Her voice shook slightly as she lifted shimmering eyes to his. ‘I love you…with all my heart.’
He reached across and cupped her face in an exquisitely tender hand. ‘You don’t know how happy that makes me,’ he rasped huskily.
She smiled shakily. She felt as if they had come to the most momentous moment of her life. ‘Where do we go from here?’ she whispered.
He smiled. ‘We are in a very beautiful country inn.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And how I’ve managed to keep my hands off you these past few months is beyond me.’
Nerves spiralled inside her. But she knew she wanted him, she wanted him as she had never wanted anything else in her life before.
She would never forget that night…much as she tried to keep it buried deep inside her, at the oddest moments it came back to haunt her.
The heavy scent of the climbing roses that nodded gently against the open mullioned window. The cool feeling of the linen sheets against her naked skin. The taste of Greg’s skin on her lips, the powerful feeling of his hard body against her soft yielding one.
His mouth caressed every inch of her slender body with driving urgency. His caress held undisguised hunger, yet when he took her it was with such gentle tenderness that she could have died there and then with the sheer pleasure of being loved by him. She held him against her fiercely, loving him more than she had thought possible.
‘Don’t ever leave me,’ she whispered softly into the darkness of the night as, sated, they drifted to sleep locked in each other’s arms.
As the weeks drifted by their love affair became more and more intense.
‘I think Greg will ask you to marry him,’ Jenny remarked casually one day.
‘I don’t know.’ Abigail shrugged. They had never discussed the future. Abigail was almost frightened to bring the subject up.
‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you,’ Jenny declared confidently. ‘Love and passion fairly sizzle in the air between you.’
Abigail merely laughed. She didn’t want to tempt fate by being over-confident but she did feel as if things were right between her and Greg. She had made up her mind that he was the man she wanted to spend her whole life with. Whether that life would be spent in England or the States she didn’t care. She would have followed Greg to the ends of the earth.
Remembering the strength of her feelings for just a moment, Abigail stirred restlessly between the silken sheets. She didn’t want to think about the past. She didn’t want to remember how passionately Greg had made love to her. She needed to remember instead his deceit, his duplicity.
Never for one moment had she suspected that Greg was already engaged to a woman in the States. The knowledge had hurt unbearably…Abigail had never experienced such bitter deceit.
She found out about Connie purely by chance, about a fortnight before Greg finally left for the States.
They had planned to go out in a foursome that night, but Greg suddenly rang up to say he couldn’t make it, that he wasn’t feeling very well.
Abigail had been disappointed but she hadn’t thought there was anything amiss. When Jenny left with Mike, she sat alone in the flat and tried to content herself watching a television programme, but she felt restless and lonely. It wouldn’t be long before Greg went back to the States; every evening was precious and she hated to waste one like this.
In the end she dialled his hotel, intending to ask him if she could go round and keep him company.
When a woman answered the phone, Abigail’s immediate thought was that she had been put through to the wrong room.
‘I’m sorry—I wanted room 402,’ she said hurriedly.
She had been about to put the phone down when the husky voice said, ‘This is room 402.’
There had been a moment’s startled silence before Abigail said in a strained voice, ‘I wanted to speak to Greg.’
‘He’s in the shower at the moment,’ the woman had said airily. ‘I’m his fiancee—can I give him a message?’
Icy cold shock-waves had made it almost impossible to answer. It took all her strength to say huskily, ‘No…no message.’
After she had put the phone down Abigail sat in the quiet solitude of her apartment, absolutely shattered.
Up until that moment she had actually believed herself to be in love with Greg Prescott and she had believed the words he had whispered in her ear as they made love. She felt a fool…She felt cheap and used.
It was true to say that no other man had caused her so much anguish so much heartache. She had felt truly let down by him. He had seemed so genuine, so interested in her. It hurt like crazy to know he had only been leading her on, that all the time he was engaged to be married to another woman.
It had been a bitter irony that on that same evening, Jenny came home and announced her engagement to Michael.
‘He asked me over dinner.’ Jenny’s face glowed with happiness. ‘Your turn next, Abbie…Greg will pop the question any day.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Abbie had smiled bravely and kissed her sister. ‘But I wish you every happiness.’
‘Oh, I’ll be happy…and so will you.’
Abigail hadn’t the heart to put a cloud over her sister’s wonderful news with her own gloomy report. So she had merely shrugged. ‘You know, Jen, I don’t know if Greg is quite my type and I’m not really ready to settle down yet.’
Jenny had looked astounded at those words. They were the first of many lies she was to tell Jenny about her feelings where Greg was concerned.
Apart from wanting to salvage her pride from the situation Abigail hadn’t wanted to disillusion Jenny about Greg—after all, Greg would be her brother-in-law soon and what was the point in souring that relationship before it started?
It was a natural reaction for Abigail to want to protect Jenny. Since they were small she had always looked out for her younger sister, and when their parents died and there were just the two of them that bond had grown even stronger.
Still, she had got her own back on Greg in a subtle kind of way, she thought grimly now. For a start, she had let his beautiful fiancée, Connie, know exactly how Greg had been filling in his time since reaching London. It was no wonder the woman had ditched him and gone dashing back to the States.
She didn’t regret telling the woman either, she thought now, as she tossed and turned. She deserved to know what kind of a rat her fiance was. If she was engaged to a man like that she would thank someone for enlightening her. Her loathing