Bedroom Bargains of Revenge: Bought for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure / Bedded and Wedded for Revenge / The Italian Boss's Mistress of Revenge. Trish Morey

nothing before I gave you a home. You’ve had every privilege any girl could want. Both of you! And what do I get in return?”

      Sally refused to be shamed into backing down. “We played your game. That’s what you got in return,” she shot back at her mother, hating the sense of having been acquired as a weapon in the war for wealth. She could have been adopted by someone else, someone who would have really loved her—loved Jane.

      “If you had any sense you’d be still playing it,” her mother jeered.

      Sally answered with steely pride. “I won’t be your pawn anymore.”

      “You stupid, stupid girl! Don’t you realise my advice could turn you into a queen?”

      “It’s not what I want.”

      That was the truth of it. She wanted to love the man she had a baby with, wanted him to love her back, both of them loving parents to their child. All the money in the world couldn’t buy that.

      “You want to spend your life mucking out stables?” her mother demanded in towering scorn.

      “At least it’s honest muck. It doesn’t hurt anybody,” Sally flashed back at her.

      She snorted. “Don’t tell me Leonard got hurt by what I did. Nor you and Jane, living in the lap of luxury.”

      It has hurt Jane, Sally thought grimly, knowing her sister had never felt emotionally secure in this home. Not me so much because I had the horses to escape to. But most of all. “It hurt Jack,” she said, knowing that was irrefutable—a little boy robbed of his father, replaced by two girls born to other people.

      “Dear Jack.” Venom dripped off her mother’s tongue. “He hurt so bad he became a billionaire. You expect me to feel sorry for him?” Her eyes glittered with malice. “You mark my words. You’ve walked into his trap, signing this contract, and he’ll take you down. The only way to beat that is to take him down first.”

      “I guess that’s what you did all those years ago, Mother. Do you think taking him down served your best interests in the long run?” Sally challenged. “Seems to me he beat you in the end.”

      Her face twisted with rage. “We’ll come out on top if you do what I say.”

      “I won’t do it,” Sally threw back at her determinedly.

      Her mother charged across the room in a fury, arm swinging out to hit. Sally barely had time to twist aside and raise her own arm to block the blow before it struck.

      “Run to the kitchen and get Graham, Jane,” she yelled at her sister. Then to her mother who was completely out of control, attacking with frightening persistence. “You’d better stop this right now because we’re not going to take any more abuse from you.” Her sister was still scrunched up like a mesmerised bunny. “Jane, go!”

      She finally snapped into action, scrambling off the chesterfield and pelting out of the room.

      “You want to be charged with assault, Mother? I’ll do it. I promise you I’ll do it,” Sally asserted fiercely, frantically fending off more blows. “Graham will come and do what I say because Jack Maguire employs him now. Under my management. I’m the boss, not you. How will it look to your wealthy friends if you get charged with assaulting your daughter?”

      That got through to her.

      She lowered her arms to her sides, hands clenched into tight fists, her chest heaving with frustration, her eyes wild with killing fervour. “Some daughter you are!” she spat.

      The dutiful daughter had died in this room. It was one more grief adding pain to the load in Sally’s heart. “You never really made me feel you were my mother,” she said sadly.

      It evoked a vicious reply. “I hope one of your damned horses throws you and tramples you to death.”

      The last thread of any sense of loyalty broke. There was no room left for smoothing over this ruction. Sally steeled herself to draw a final line under it. “I suggest you pack up and go to wherever you feel good about yourself, because staying here is not going to work for you.”

      Graham charged into the room, Jane hovering nervously behind him. “You need some help, Sally?” he asked, looking belligerently at his former employer.

      Sally grimly made the call. “I think we’re finished here, aren’t we, Mother?”

      Not without one last sting. “Your father would turn in his grave if he knew how you were treating me.”

      Sally stared her down, denying her the satisfaction of seeing any evidence of a guilt trip. Besides which, she felt no guilt. None at all. She and Jane had done their best to please their father while he was alive. That need to please had ended with his death.

      Lady Ellen puffed herself up and started to stalk out of the room in high dudgeon. She snapped her fingers at Jane. “You can come and help me pack.”

      “No. Jane stays here with me,” Sally countermanded, not about to let her sister suffer the role of whipping boy.

      “What? Even the worm turns,” was jeered at Jane who shrank behind Graham as Lady Ellen passed by.

      Then she was gone, leaving behind a bleak emptiness that drained away the strength Sally had somehow managed to hang on to during the horrible confrontation. She started to shake.

      “Anything I can do for you, Sally?” Graham asked caringly.

      Her mind felt too scattered to think straight anymore. She needed comfort. “Would you ask Jeanette to bring us a pot of tea, please, Graham?”

      “Sure.”

      He left the two sisters together. Sally held out her arms to Jane, who flew into the offered embrace, hugging her tight and bursting into tears. “It’s okay,” she automatically soothed. “We have each other. Whatever the future holds, we’ll always have each other.”

      Right now the future felt like a blank slate.

      But it wasn’t really.

      Jack Maguire was written on it.

      This had been his day of reckoning.

      Hers and Jane’s, too.

      She wondered how the slate would read in a year’s time, but was too worn-out to think about it. Just take one day at a time, she told herself, do what feels right. Even when Jack Maguire comes to visit, I won’t do anything that doesn’t feel right.

      CHAPTER SIX

      JACK Maguire stood at the lounge room window of his Woolloomooloo apartment, watching the Queen Mary 2 make its majestic way down Sydney Harbour. It was accompanied by a flotilla of small craft which were made to look absolutely tiny by the massive cruise ship. Quite an incredible spectacle, Jack thought, and bound to bring out crowds of spectators on this, the new Queen Mary’s first visit to Sydney.

      His mind drifted to another first visit—one which he expected to be more personally satisfying. It had been two weeks since the contract with Sally Maguire had been signed, and she hadn’t called him for help on any problem. He’d given her his cell-phone number but not once had she used it. Was she intent on proving herself capable of any task or was she shying clear of him?

      Lady Ellen would have tried her best to poison her mind against him, but Lady Ellen had left the Yarramalong property the morning after the reading of the will. Couldn’t bear to stay there with Sir Leonard gone, he’d heard on the social grapevine. Not a word about eviction. She was currently being cosseted as a house-guest of a high-society friend, playing the grieving widow and saving pride by pretending she’d left Sally to manage the property with her horses.

      The silence from Yarramalong niggled him. Had Sally agreed to her mother’s pretence, intent on keeping him out of their lives as long as she could? He didn’t care what Lady Ellen said or did, provided she was out of the picture he’d set up for himself.