Billionaire Bosses Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

none of it.

      ‘Do you mean that?’ he whispered.

      She had one last chance to deny her words, reclaim all the joy life could offer her.

      ‘Do you mean it?’ he repeated. ‘Is that all there’s been between us? You trying to bring me down, to punish me for my attitude in the first few days? Is that the truth?’

      One last chance.

      ‘Now the sun will always shine,

      Joy is here for ever.’

      Frantically, she switched the radio off.

      ‘You know the saying,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You win some, you lose some. I like to win them all.’

      Now it was too late. The last trace of feeling had gone from him. His eyes were those of a dead man.

      ‘I suppose I should be glad you came clean so soon,’ he said. ‘You might have taken it much further before you…but it’s always wise to face the truth.’

      A sneering look came into his eyes.

      ‘So all the worst I thought of you was right after all. I should have more faith in my own judgement. Are you pleased? Does it give you a nasty little thrill to have brought me down?’

      She managed a cynical laugh. ‘I came to your bed and gave you a good time. That’s hardly bringing you down.’

      His eyes as they raked her were brutal.

      ‘Oh, but you did much more than that,’ he breathed. ‘You put on the sweet, generous mask and it fooled me so thoroughly that I told you things that never before.’ He drew a shuddering breath. ‘Well, I hope it gave you a good laugh.’

      She was about to protest wildly that he was terribly wrong, but she controlled the impulse in time and offered him a smile precisely calculated to infuriate him. It would break his heart, but if it drove him away from her it would be better for him in the long run. And for his sake she would hide her own broken heart and endure.

      ‘I see that it did,’ he grated. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you.’

      ‘You’re right,’ she said brightly. ‘We’ve said all we have to say, haven’t we?’

      He made no attempt to follow her into the bedroom as she gathered her things and when she came out he was waiting by the front door, as though determined to make sure that she left.

      ‘Good day to you,’ he said politely.

      ‘Goodbye,’ she told him, and fled.

      A robot might have functioned as Pippa did for the rest of the day. Her efficiency was beyond reproach, her smile fixed, her work done to the highest standard.

      ‘What the devil is the matter with her?’ muttered David, her employer and friend.

      ‘Why not ask her? ‘ his secretary suggested.

      ‘I daren’t. She terrifies the life out of me.’

      At last it was time to escape back to the apartment that would now be her cage. As if by a signal, Pippa began to tidy the place, although it was already tidy. From now on order and good management would be her watch words. She would concentrate on her career, be the best lawyer in the business and never again try to break out of the prison created by her nightmares. Life would be safe.

      At last, when she’d put everything else away, she came to the box rescued from the attic in Crimea Street. Taking out the gloves and scarves, she discovered some handwritten books at the bottom.

      ‘That’s Gran’s handwriting,’ she breathed. ‘But surely she didn’t keep a diary? She wouldn’t have had time.’

      Yet the diaries went back to Dee’s early life, when she had been a nurse, and had still sometimes found the time to jot down her thoughts about the life around her. Sometimes amusing, sometimes caustic, sometimes full of emotion, always revealing an ebullient personality that Pippa recognised.

      There were the long, anguished months when she’d loved Mark Sellon hopelessly, becoming engaged to him, then breaking it off because she couldn’t believe he loved her. But he’d been returned to her in the hospital, shot down by enemy planes, and she’d sat by his unconscious form, speaking more freely than she could have done if he’d been awake. Dee had written:

      I told him that I must believe that somewhere, deep in his heart, he could hear me. Wherever he was, he must surely feel my love reaching out to him, and know that it was always his.

      Pippa read far into the night, until she came to the passage that, in her heart, she had always known she’d find, written just after her grandfather’s death.

      I saw you laid in the ground today and had to come away, leaving you there. And yet I haven’t really left you behind because you’re still with me, and you always will be; just as I’ll always be with you in your heart, until we really are together again. It doesn’t matter how long that is. Time doesn’t really exist. It’s just an illusion.

      Pippa dropped her head into her hands. That was how love should be, how it never would be for her. She knew that now.

      She laid everything away tidily, turned out all the lights and went to bed. A faint gleam from the window showed her the toy bear on her dressing table. In this poor light his shabbiness was concealed and his glass eyes seemed to glimmer softly.

      ‘No,’ she told him. ‘I’m not listening to you. You want me to believe one thing, and I know it’s different. I believed you once. I believed Gran. She used to talk to me about her and Grandpa, saying that one day it would happen to me. And I thought it had when I met Jack. He made me feel so safe and loved, and sure of the future. And now I don’t want to feel safe and loved. Ever. Do you understand? ‘

      But he had no reply for her.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHARLIE called the next day, his voice full of excitement over the line.

      ‘Bless you for what you’ve done for me,’ he said. ‘And I’m not talking about the trial.’

      ‘You’ve seen Lee? ‘

      ‘Yes, I’ve just had a long talk and it’s looking good for a couple of weeks’ time. Oh, boy, wait until Roscoe hears about this!’

      ‘Don’t be in a rush to tell him, Charlie, and don’t do anything rash. Wait until you’re a little more certain.’

      ‘All right, Miss Wise and Wonderful. I’ll do it your way. And thank you again.’

      She wondered if she would hear from Roscoe but days passed in silence. Just as well, she told herself. If she saw him she might weaken, and that must not happen. Much better this way.

      But the ache persisted.

      Days passed, nights passed. She told herself that it was getting easier, except that every knock at the door was him. Until it wasn’t.

      But then, one evening, it was.

      One look was enough to tell her that if anything had changed it wasn’t for the better. Now his face wasn’t just cold but furious.

      ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

      She stood back and he walked in, turning on her as soon as the door closed.

      ‘My God, I never thought you’d stoop to this,’ he raged.

      ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

      ‘Oh, please, you wreck his life and then you don’t know what I mean?’

      ‘If you’re talking about what I think you are—’

      ‘I’m talking about Charlie walking out of the firm,