Men of Power. Кэрол Мортимер
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breakfast meeting this morning had been with Adrian Carlton, Jerome’s younger brother…?
Jerome’s handsome face darkened angrily. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he finally replied. ‘Adrian doesn’t have the sort of money to buy that amount of shares.’
Kenzie could see, from Dominick’s self-assured smile, that he was in fact telling the truth.
‘Oh, he didn’t buy them from me,’ Dominick said sardonically. ‘I’m signing them over to him later this afternoon. In exchange for his agreeing to release Kenzie from what’s left of her contract.’
‘You—’
‘That was extremely arrogant of you, Dominick!’ Kenzie gasped disbelievingly.
‘You didn’t let me finish, Kenzie,’ he told her softly. ‘Adrian will agree to release you from the contract only if you choose to be released,’ he added firmly.
‘And why would I want to do that?’ She frowned.
‘Because you’re pregnant,’ Dominick pointed out softly. ‘How do you think you’re going to carry on working when you’re seven, eight months pregnant?’
‘Surely that was for me to decide, not you?’ She shook her head.
‘You’re pregnant?’ Jerome interrupted coldly. ‘That’s the reason you fainted last night?’ He stared at her exasperatedly.
‘That’s the reason she fainted last night,’ Dominick clarified, knowing that he hadn’t explained himself to Kenzie properly, and that she saw his behaviour as high-handed. But really he was only trying to give her a let-out if she wanted one, the let-out he knew she had been seeking the last five weeks…
‘I don’t believe this!’ Jerome shook his head as he began pacing the room impatiently. ‘This is just—unbelievable,’ he muttered inadequately. ‘Did you get her pregnant on purpose?’ he accused Dominick. ‘Were you so determined to get her back that you made her pregnant to do it?’ he scorned.
Kenzie’s cheeks were flushed now. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jerome—’
‘You did, didn’t you?’ Jerome took no notice of her as he scowled at Dominick.
‘Jerome, don’t be so—’
‘No, let him speak, Kenzie,’ Dominick cut in evenly, keeping very still as he looked at the other man through narrowed lids. ‘What makes you so sure the baby is mine?’
Jerome snorted. ‘Who else’s would it be?’ he snorted. ‘Kenzie is so damned prudish she should take the veil! At least, she could have done,’ he added insultingly. ‘I’m not sure they accept pregnant nuns—What the hell—?’ he choked as Dominick grasped him by his shirt front and all but lifted him off his feet. ‘Take your hands off me, Masters!’ he blustered as Dominick thrust his face into his.
Letting this man go was the last thing Dominick wanted to do as the truth hit him squarely in the chest. A truth Kenzie had always insisted upon, and which he had refused to believe!
He had taken this man’s word over Kenzie’s, and had instantly believed Carlton when he had told him that he and Kenzie were involved.
It had all been a lie!
A lie Carlton seemed to have forgotten completely in his anger.
‘You lied to me, Carlton!’ he denounced as he pushed the other man away from him. Touching Jerome Carlton now made him feel ill. ‘Why did you tell me that you and Kenzie were having an affair?’
‘You told him what?’ Kenzie choked incredulously as she stared at Jerome in disbelief.
‘I told him that the two of us were involved in a mad, passionate affair that was beyond both our controls,’ Jerome sneered. ‘And that the only reason you were hesitating about coming to New York with me was because you didn’t want to hurt him!’
‘But—but why would you do such a thing?’ Kenzie questioned in a daze, completly shaken by this revelation.
At least it explained why Dominick had refused to believe her denials of the affair—how could he help but doubt her when Jerome was telling him completely the opposite? How must it have made Dominick feel to be told she was only staying with him out of a sense of pity?
To a man like Dominick, who didn’t believe in love, that would have been the final humiliation…
Jerome shrugged, seeming unconcerned by his actions. ‘Because selling off shares in Carlton Cosmetics wasn’t enough to get the company out of trouble,’ he told her unrepentantly. ‘I needed something else, something bigger. What I came up with was the beautiful international model Kenzie Miller as the new face of Carlton Cosmetics. But I had to get your overbearing brute of a husband out of the picture first!’
Kenzie didn’t think or hesitate as her hand arced upwards and made hard contact with Jerome’s cheek, her eyes blazing with tears of anger as she glared her dislike at him.
His face twisted with derision as he put a hand up to his rapidly reddening face. ‘Both of you seem to have lost the plot somewhere,’ he muttered. ‘The question both of you should really be asking yourselves isn’t why I lied about my affair with Kenzie. The question you should be asking yourselves is why Masters found it so easy to believe me…’
The fact that he was right only made Dominick more angry.
‘Get out, Carlton,’ he grated harshly, his face pale, and eyes dark and haunted. ‘Get out now. Before I give in to what I would really like to do to you!’ he added bleakly before turning away, having eyes for no one but Kenzie.
Now he knew exactly what he had done and he knew also that Kenzie could never forgive him for the way he had doubted her.
Why should she? He had listened to, and believed, the word of a man who meant nothing to him, over the word of the woman who meant everything to him…
‘DOMINICK…?’ Kenzie spoke uncertainly once the two of them were alone, the apartment door having slammed shut behind Jerome several seconds ago as he had wisely taken Dominick’s advice and left.
The verbal exchange between the two men had been vicious, but for Kenzie so very enlightening…
She moistened her dry lips. ‘Dominick, exactly when did Jerome tell you he and I were having an affair?’
‘Don’t!’ he groaned huskily, turning away to inhale a deeply controlling breath. ‘I—you—I was so wrong, Kenzie!’ he muttered in despair. ‘So very wrong and so arrogant. And I’m still doing it, aren’t I?’ he added self-disgustedly. ‘If you want to carry on working for Carlton Cosmetics I’ll tell Adrian this afternoon—’
‘I don’t,’ she cut in impatiently, knowing that after the things that had been said this morning, she could never continue working for Carlton Cosmetics, even if Adrian was now in charge of the company. ‘What I want is for you to answer my question.’
‘You’re angry.’ Dominick sighed. ‘You have every right to be,’ he accepted heavily, running a hand through the dark thickness of his hair. ‘What an idiot I’ve been,’ he murmured. ‘A stupid, stupid idiot! Can you ever forgive me, Kenzie?’ He looked at her with pained eyes.
‘I’m not sure there’s really anything to forgive,’ she said quietly.
‘It sounds to me as if we were both manipulated by a totally unprincipled man who saw the rift in our marriage and took advantage of it.’
Dominick gave the ghost of a smile. ‘That’s very generous of you, Kenzie. I’m not sure, in the circumstances, that I could be as generous—’
‘Dominick, please tell me when Jerome told you those