Enemy Within

скачать книгу бесплатно


By the time Mickey entered her teenage years, the marriages had given way to a procession of lovers. There were always new men around. Wherever they went, Tanita had flirted outrageously. Although Mickey loved her mother, she had hated her free and easy lifestyle. Tanita positively basked in the Press stories about her latest lover or husband, even as her daughter grew to hate it.

Mickey’s emerging sexuality had taken place under a barrage of flashlights. Privacy was something only other people had. When she’d proved to be every bit as much of a beauty as her parent, speculation had grown. She’d become as much a target for gossip as her mother. No aspect of her life had been sacred, and when the opposite sex began to take an interest in her the papers had a field-day. Was she, they wondered, the same as her mother?

Mickey herself would have issued a firm no, until she’d met Jean-Luc Renauld. He had come into her life at an unhappy time. She had been nineteen, and just out of finishing school. She had wanted to go to university, but Tanita had flown into a rage, accusing her of being disloyal, of not loving her. Why else would she want to go away when she knew her mother needed her? Blackmail it might have been, but Mickey’s sense of loyalty had made it impossible for her to argue. So she had given up all thought of studying her beloved history, of perhaps making a career for herself in the field of archaeology. Instead she had stayed in the South of France, and had met the man who was to alter her life completely.

He’d been bronzed and golden, a power-boat racer, and for the first time in her life Mickey had felt herself attracted to a man. When he had shown an interest in her, she had fallen head over heels in love with him. He had aroused a passion in her which had bedazzled her. When he had said they must be discreet, that they must meet in secret, she had ignored the knocking of her conscience which tried to tell her this was not quite right. She was in love, totally besotted, and their affair was passionate and flamboyant. Making love with Jean-Luc had been an exhilarating experience. Her senses, let loose, were in total control.

Then one day she had found her picture splashed across the front of the newspapers, the whole affair made public as she was cited in a divorce petition. Shock had broken the spell she had been under, and she knew she should have guessed Jean-Luc was married, for all the signs had been there. She had ignored them because she hadn’t wanted to give him up, and she still didn’t. She had gone to him, telling him she loved him and would face any scandal if it meant they could be together.

Jean-Luc’s reply had instituted the most traumatic experience of her life. The man she’d thought loved her had laughed and called her a fool. A sexy fool, but still a fool. He had taken what she had offered, but he wasn’t about to give up his wife for a nymphet, however exciting and inventive she was. He had gone back to his wife in the hope of stopping the divorce.

That was when Mickey had finally realised it hadn’t been love at all, but lust. She had met a man and wanted him so much that nothing had mattered. She had been no better than her mother, had, in fact, inherited the very same genes. It had been a terrible thing to realise, but she had made herself face it. More than that, she knew she had a choice. If she stayed, then she feared this greedy thing inside her would lead her on from one affair to the next. But if she left... If she took herself away, plunged herself into work, she could get control of herself.

And that was what she had done. Through many tearful scenes with her mother she’d insisted that she wanted to go and find her father. Reluctantly Tanita had agreed to send someone to discover where he was, and as soon as Mickey had heard that news herself she had packed her bags and left.

Michael Hanlon had been surprised but delighted to see her. He had welcomed her into his family and his life, and Mickey hadn’t looked back. Until yesterday, when Ryan Douglas had walked into her life and reawakened that devil inside her, threatening the whole fabric of her existence.

He was in another league. He had an aura, a presence which was almost tactile, instantly alluring to the females of the species, which the tabloids, with their insatiable lust for gossip, were only too happy to reveal. It was very rare indeed for Ryan to be snapped with the same beauty more than once. For twice, the woman had to be exceptional. It was a debatable point which of his reputations was greater—that of his work as a photographer par excellence, or as a lover. Also par excellence?

The whimsical thought caught her on a vulnerable spot. She didn’t want to think of Ryan as a lover. It conjured up wild visions in her mind that should have been shocking, but were, dismayingly, very far from that. Such thinking was dangerous. Besides, any woman who was crazy enough to get involved with a man like Ryan Douglas could expect to carry out that affair as if she were living in a goldfish bowl! And that was quite enough to make Mickey see reason. Her early life had been lived in a blaze of publicity, and, having escaped, she had no wish to be plunged into that particular maelstrom ever again.

The unpleasant memories which floated to the surface of her consciousness made her shiver in distaste, and, hastily crossing to her desk, she turned her thoughts to her present problems with qualified relief.