His Rags-to-Riches Bride. Susan Stephens
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behind, made a grab for her but missed, and, bawling with rage, overbalanced and fell flat.
Laine, landing awkwardly, twisted her ankle, but kept going somehow, biting her lip against the pain. A glance over her shoulder showed that a small crowd was already gathering round Clemmens, who was trying to sit up.
She heard his voice like a wounded bull. ‘Stop her—she’s a thief.’ But she didn’t falter, or slacken her pace. She received a few curious looks, but no one attempted to detain her.
She turned abruptly and dodged into a bar that she knew, and made her way through the groups of drinkers as if on her way to the women’s room. Once at the rear, she took the emergency exit instead, finding herself in a quiet backstreet.
However, she’d shot her bolt, and she knew it. She was limping heavily now, and her ankle was swelling up like a balloon, so she hailed the first cruising cab she saw and asked to be taken to the airport.
And now here I am, she thought mirthlessly, as she climbed out of the bath and swathed herself in a towel. Out of the frying pan, straight into the inferno.
She towelled herself down swiftly, then rubbed the excess moisture from her hair and combed it back from her face with her fingers, grimacing as she remembered that her hairdryer was one of the items she’d been forced to abandon on the boat.
But I had a spare one here, she thought, getting back into her robe. I kept it in my dressing table.
Will it still be there—and do I have the nerve to check?
Yet, it was safe enough, she assured herself. Daniel was at the office, and she was surely entitled to retrieve her own property?
She limped across the living area, pushed open the door of her bedroom, and went cautiously inside—only to pause with a small, shocked gasp as she looked around her.
Because it was unrecognisable. The pretty wallpaper with its delicate tracery of honeysuckle had been painted over in plain ivory, and her pale yellow silk bedcover had been replaced by something far more austere in dark brown. The curtains were brown too, and even the bedside rugs had been changed.
Every trace of her, every charming personal touch that her earnings from the gallery had provided, seemed to have been deliberately erased.
They say you shouldn’t go back, she thought, because you’ll find the space you occupied has gone.
And I’m suddenly beginning to feel as if I no longer exist.
As if everything I loved most has been taken away from me. My father first, when I was a baby, then Simon, and eventually Abbotsbrook. Maybe it was never the sanctuary I imagined, and my last memories of it were pretty hideous, but it held a kind of security all the same.
I always thought one day I’d go back, and somehow rediscover everything that was precious from my childhood.
She bit her lip. Oh, come on, now, she adjured herself impatiently. You’re here to dry your hair, not collapse into sentimentality.
She took a breath, then raised her head and looked across the room into the dressing table mirror. If Daniel hadn’t changed, there was little difference in her either. Her hair was still mousy, albeit streaked by the sun, and her figure remained like a stick. Her eyes would always be more grey than green, although she did have her mother’s cheekbones, which perhaps redeemed her face from being totally nondescript.
But not a great deal to set, all the same, against Daniel’s known preferences in womankind. The glamorous leggy blondes with the knowing eyes who’d made her adolescence miserable.
Or Candida, she thought, flinching as she recalled the sultry mouth, the body that swayed inside its clothes as if impatient to be free of them, and the sweet husky voice like poisoned honey.
How could any man resist her?
Deep within her something twisted in renewed agony, and she heard herself gasp.
‘Do not,’ she said aloud, her voice vehement. ‘Do not go there.’
But it was too late. And suddenly it was all too much, the throb in her ankle swamped by this other fiercer pain. She was alone, broke and scared. And she’d been through forty-eight hours of sheer trauma only to find a different kind of hell waiting for her in the place that should have been her refuge.
And Laine put her hands over her face, sank down on the edge of that immaculately smooth, alien bed, and wept, her whole body shaking with her sobs, until she had no more tears left.
CHAPTER THREE
FOR a long time after she was calm again Laine remained where she was, lying face downward on the bed, her fingers digging almost convulsively into the quilted satin of the bedcover.
But she knew she couldn’t stay there. Recognised, in fact, it would have been better if she’d never entered the room at all. Because Daniel was here, all around her, tormenting her senses and her memory.
The faint scent of his cologne was in the air. The subtle musky fragrance she’d always associated with him. That she’d breathed in so many times in the past with all the helpless longing of first love.
‘Time I wasn’t here,’ she said aloud.
She got slowly to her feet, meticulously restoring the coverlet to its former pristine condition. Making sure there was no untoward sign of her presence. And she managed to find her hairdryer, too—not where she’d left it, of course, but at the back of a shelf in the row of immaculately organised wardrobes.
Out of sight—out of mind, she thought as she crossed the living area to the other room. Rather like myself.
He’ll probably never know it’s gone.
And at that same moment she heard the rattle of a key in the front door.
Oh, God, she thought, her heart thudding. He’s back. I got out just in time.
She tossed the hairdryer onto the bed, and turned defensively, pulling the door shut behind her as Daniel came in. He looked preoccupied and not particularly good-tempered.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said stiltedly, wincing at the absurdity of the remark.
His tone was acid. ‘Who were you expecting?’
‘Well, not you. Not so soon.’ She paused. ‘You—startled me.’
‘I can see that,’ he said brusquely. ‘You look like a ghost.’ He walked over to her, putting a finger under her chin as his frowning gaze scanned her face.
‘Don’t.’ Laine pushed his hand away.
‘You’ve been crying,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Is it any concern of yours?’
‘Probably not. But I’ve no wish to share my living space with the human equivalent of a leaking tap.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Do us both a favour, Laine, and give some thought to growing up.’
He walked over to the other room, disappearing briefly to emerge a moment later with a laptop computer in a carrying case slung over his shoulder.
She braced herself, but he made no comment, so it seemed she’d covered her tracks successfully.
‘See you later,’ he tossed at her as he passed.
‘As if I had a choice,’ she returned bitterly as the door closed behind him.
And he would, of course, catch her looking like something the cat dragged in, with wet hair and her old robe. Although that was probably safer, under the circumstances. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel even a momentary attraction to her. Not that it was likely, she reminded herself, and went into her room to dry her hair.
Although thick, it was soft and fine, and needed skilful layering to give it any real shape. No chance of that, however, until she discovered just how dire her financial situation was, she thought as she put down her