скачать книгу бесплатно
I gaped at her. “I went to California to give the reporter a tour of your house—as you asked me to!”
She waved her hand dismissively. “That? All that happened ages ago. I’m talking about my movie premiere last night. You should have been there for me!”
“Are you kidding?” I breathed.
“You know how nervous I get, being at public events. You promised you’d always be there....”
“Yeah, when I was your assistant.” I swallowed looking between her and Jason. “Before I was completely humiliated in front of the whole world—”
“Are you still trying to punish me for that?” she demanded. “We didn’t mean to fall in love. It was an accident. When it’s right, you just know.” She looked lovingly at Jason, then glared at me. “It’s petty of you, Diana, it really is, and I’m disappointed. You and Jason didn’t even sleep together.”
“You told her that?” I breathed, staring down at him.
Rubbing the back of his blond head, Jason gave me the rueful smile I used to find so irresistible. “You and I were friends, Diana. We dated and yeah, there was a little flirting going on, but hell,” he shook his head, “you never let me touch you. Said you wanted to wait for true love or some such...but this is the twenty-first century. I don’t know what century you’re living in, but as far as I’m concerned, if there’s no sex, there’s no relationship.”
For a second I couldn’t breathe. No relationship? As if I’d imagined it all in my mind? “You—”
And it was then I saw the sparkle on Madison’s left hand.
A huge canary-yellow diamond ring.
On that finger.
With an intake of breath, I covered my mouth with my hand. For a moment, the only sound in the library was the crackle of the fire in counterpoint to the miserable drip-drip-drip of water from my hair as I stood like a mud-splattered, drowned rat in front of my beautiful stepsister, who had a ten-carat engagement ring on one hand, and the man I’d loved holding the other.
“You’re—” I was horrified to feel tears burning the backs of my eyelids as I looked between them. “You’re engaged?”
Madison put her hand over the ring. “Yes...” A smile softened the sharp lines of her face as she looked at Jason. “He asked me last night, after the premiere.”
Jason smiled back. Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it. “Best night of my life.”
Their eyes glowed as they looked at each other. They were in love. Really, deeply in love. It was one thing to know it in my mind, and something else entirely to see it right in front of me. I not only felt sick, I felt invisible. An echo went through my mind.
I feel sorry for you. How it must hurt to know they’ll never be punished for hurting you. That while you suffer, they’re making love in oblivious joy. You’re so meaningless, they’ve forgotten you even exist.
“Stop pouting and be happy for us.” Madison turned back to me. “Come back and work for me. I need you. Someone will have to coordinate with the wedding planner...”
Wedding planner!
“And don’t worry,” Jason said to me kindly. “You’ll find a real boyfriend someday, Di. Great girl like you. It’s bound to happen, even if it takes a while...”
Violently, I held up a trembling hand, unable to bear another patronizing word. My heart was collapsing in my chest, squeezing into hard little pieces, about to fly out of my ribs like bullets. In another moment, I’d weep in front of them, and then I really would have to die.
“Darling.” Edward purred behind me, suddenly wrapping his arms around me. Pulling me back protectively against his body, he murmured, “Didn’t you tell them?”
I looked back at him blankly. “Tell them?”
He smiled down at me, his expression tender, his dark blue gaze caressing mine. “About us.”
“Us?” I said.
“Us.” Edward looked at me as if it were all he could do right now not to lift me up in his arms and carry me upstairs to bed. No man had looked at me like that before. Not ever. The full seductive force of his gaze was a blast of heat, an intoxicating drug that made every part of me yearn to tremble and unfold like a flower. “Diana, why didn’t you tell them...” he stroked back a tendril of my hair, “that we’re lovers?”
What? My heart stopped beating.
“What?” Madison said.
“What?” Jason said.
Edward looked down at me with concern. “But darling, you’re chilled to the bone. Your clothes are wet. Were you taking the dog on a walk?”
Teeth chattering—and not just from cold—I nodded like a fool.
He gave me a slow, sensual smile. “Why don’t you go upstairs to our room—” our room? I thought dumbly “—and change. We’ll wait.”
“I will not wait,” Madison snapped. “Not until you agree to come back and plan our wedding.” Looking between Edward and me, no doubt comparing his perfect gorgeousness to my slovenly mess, she added suspiciously, “And I don’t believe for a second that the two of you...”
Edward didn’t even look her way. “Actually, Diana,” he whispered, twining a long muddy, tangled tendril of my hair as if it were silken perfection, “I think I’ll come upstairs. Help you out of these cold, wet clothes.”
Any woman could get warm instantly, just by looking up into Edward’s hot dark gaze. Had I wandered into some strange parallel universe, where I was the beautiful movie star, instead of Madison? Had I fallen on my walk and hit my head on a rock?
I felt my stepsister’s gaze travel over us both, from the way I was standing to the way that Edward supported my arm. There was new doubt in her melodious voice as she said, “You’re really—together?”
“Only recently,” Edward said, smiling down at me hungrily, cupping my cheek with his hand. As if he were already thinking about what he intended to do to me in bed. “I wanted Diana from the moment we met. But she tortured me,” his eyes traced mine, “making me wait. And wait. The sexiest, most desirable woman in the world.”
“She’s just a physical therapist.” Madison sounded grumpy.
Edward finally looked at her. “Yes. A healer. And what Diana knows about the human body—” He exhaled, looking at me in wonder. “No wonder she’s the most amazing lover I’ve ever had.”
My body flashed hot, then cold.
“The two of you are in love?” Jason said, dumbfounded.
“Love?” Edward snorted. “No.” He looked down at me, stroking my cheek, and I felt his fingertips against my skin. “What we have is purely physical. Sex. And fire.”
A little sound came from the back of Jason’s throat as he stared between us, his eyes comically huge.
“I don’t understand.” Madison’s beautiful face was bewildered, as if she was confused how any other woman could be the center of a man’s attention when she herself was in the room. “It’s only been a couple months.”
“When it’s right, you just know.” He smiled as he echoed her earlier words. Wrapping both his strong arms around me, he pulled me back against his chest. “I’m sorry Diana’s not available to be your assistant, Madison. But after your long trip from London, perhaps the two of you will join us for dinner?”
“Uh.” Jason couldn’t stop staring at me, as if he’d never quite seen me before. “I don’t think...”
“Of course we will.” Madison looked at Edward with new, almost proprietary interest. “I look forward to getting to know your new boyfriend, Diana.”
“Good,” Edward replied, as if he hadn’t noticed her sudden pointed look, like a cat who’d just noticed a particularly appealing mouse. But I’d noticed it. And by the crease in his forehead, so had Jason. “Please excuse us while I take Diana upstairs.” His voice lingered wickedly on the word take. “In the meantime help yourselves to tea, or there’s drinks at the bar if you’d like something stronger.”
Edward pulled me out into the hall.
“I need something stronger,” I muttered.
“Hsst,” he said beneath his breath. Holding my hand, he drew me down the echoing flagstones of the dark hallway and up the sweeping stairs. It wasn’t until we were at my bedroom door that I stopped, looking at him with my brow creased.
“You made them think we were lovers.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I felt like it.”
I swallowed, shaking my head. “I don’t understand.”
Edward’s eyes narrowed. “They were treating you so badly. Trying to guilt you into planning their wedding. Don’t worry, you’ll find a real boyfriend someday,” he mimicked Jason, then snorted with a flare of nostril. “Supercilious, condescending prats.”
An unwilling laugh burbled to my lips, then faded. “But maybe they were right,” I said softly, looking down. “I should have known he’d choose Madison over me. And I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m starting to think I’ll never—”
“Don’t be an idiot.” He put his hand against my cheek. “You could have any man you want, any time you want. If you don’t have one at the moment, it’s by your choice.”
I swallowed, looking up at him. “You’re being very kind, but...”
“I’m not kind.” He paused. “I just didn’t like them treating you as if you were invisible. As if you were nobody.”
“I am nobody,” I whispered.
Dropping his hand, he gave a low heartfelt curse. “For the last two months, you’ve matched me toe-to-toe, like a fighter. An equal. But the instant you walked into the library, you changed into a timid little mouse. What happened?”
“Why do you care?” I forced myself to meet his eyes. “You were running on the treadmill today, Edward. You don’t even need a physical therapist anymore.” I shook my head a little tearfully. “It’s time for me to—”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said furiously. “Don’t even think about using that as an excuse to run away. Why do I care? Because I don’t like to see the woman who regularly brings me to my knees—that’s you—falling apart at the feet of those vapid, self-absorbed idiots!”
“When did I bring you to your knees?” I said stupidly.
He looked down at me. “Have you already forgotten,” he said softly, “how just two hours ago, I took you in my arms and begged you to make love to me? I was putty in your hands.”
A shiver went over me, starting from my tingling, bruised lips. Tossing my head, I tried to laugh. “I don’t remember any begging—”
My sentence cut off as he pulled me abruptly into his arms. His fingertips stroked down my cheek, skimming lightly down my jaw, my neck. I trembled beneath his touch, feeling the warm caress of his breath, the heat of his powerful body against mine.
“This is how I beg,” he whispered, his lips close to mine, making me burn, making me lose my breath. Slowly, he kissed me, softly, so softly. “You’re strong, Diana. And brave.” His lips flickered like a whisper of breath against mine. “Why are you suddenly pretending not to be?” He moved back, and his expression changed, almost to a glare. “I want the woman I hired, the one who’s constantly trying to kick my ass. Bring her back.”
I licked my lips. “It’s hard...”
“No. It’s easy. Be your real self again, or get the hell out of my house.”
My lips parted in shock. It was funny. I’d been planning to leave Penryth Hall, talking myself into it. But the thought of Edward kicking me out suddenly felt unbearable.
“You’re firing me?” I said faintly. The way he looked at me made me shiver. My heart pounded, and my lips tingled in memory. “You don’t understand. Madison and I have a history. And Jason—” My voice stopped.
“You still love him?” His eyes grew hard. “You’re a fool. But that’s what love does,” he said grimly. “Makes us fools.”
Thinking of Jason, sitting next to Madison on the couch as he said patronizingly, If there’s no sex, there’s no relationship, I shook my head. “I don’t know what I feel anymore.”
“Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Pull yourself together. You’re better than this, Diana. And I’m not interested in watching you let them wipe their feet on you.” He glared at me. “Either stop acting like a doormat or you can ask them for a ride back to London.”
I stared up at him, feeling faint, assaulted on all sides. How I wished I could be the woman he described—the one who was brave and strong. But the thought of facing them and telling them what I really thought.... Jason...and Madison...
“I don’t think I can do it,” I choked out.
“You have twenty minutes to decide.” Edward’s jaw tightened. Turning away, he stopped at the bedroom door. “Take a shower. Brush your hair. Get on dry clothes. When you come back downstairs for dinner, I’ll see your answer.”
* * *
My legs were shaking as I came downstairs a half hour later. I’d taken my time in the shower, closing my eyes beneath the hot steam. I combed out my wet hair, then started to reach in the closet for my typical wardrobe of casual T-shirt and cargo pants. Then I stopped.
Instead, I took out a skirt and blouse, and black high-heeled shoes. I put on red lipstick, which I’d almost forgotten I owned, and a headband. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. It looked like me, but not me. It looked like the me that I used to be, in high school. Before Mom had gotten sick. Before Madison had taken the dream I’d wanted.
You’re strong, Diana. And brave. Why are you suddenly pretending not to be?
As I came downstairs, I could hear that the three of them had already started dinner without me in the medieval great hall. Well, Edward had told me twenty minutes. He was probably starting to wonder if I’d decided to pack for London.
I was still wondering myself.
I could play it safe, say nothing tonight and quietly leave with Madison, back to my old life. I could plan their wedding, be silently helpful and invisible.
Or—
Or I could be brave enough to be myself. And tell Jason and Madison how I really felt. Then I could remain at Penryth Hall—but I’d almost certainly end up in Edward’s bed.
Let him keep your heart. I will have your body. Very soon. And we both know it.
Yes. I swallowed. If I stayed here, it would happen. Sooner or later. Probably sooner. I wouldn’t be able to resist for much longer. I’d give my virginity to a playboy who wanted only a physical affair. It would be just sex, as he’d said.
Sex. And fire.
I felt dizzy just thinking of it.
So which would it be?
Remain invisible, mute and untouched?
Or risk everything, be honest and brave—but know that it would irrevocably change my life?
Standing outside the great hall, I still didn’t know. I was caught between longing and fear. But I was already late. Clutching my hands into fists, I took a deep breath and walked in.
Madison had appropriated the place of honor at the long, candlelit dining table, with Jason on her right side and Edward on her left. Edward saw me, and his expression sharpened.
“You’re here,” he said, motioning toward the place to his left. Avoiding his gaze, I slid quietly into the chair beside him at the table.
