Mistress Of The Groom. Susan Napier

don’t want anything from you.’

      ‘So you said. But there’s no gallery here to play martyr to, no one to care whether you show a glimpse of human weakness.’ He thrust the glass towards her.

      ‘I said no.’ She turned her head haughtily away. She hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast and, even if she could bring herself to take anything from his hands, the alcohol would probably hit her like a freight train. She didn’t want to be any more helpless in front of him than she was already.

      Had she really come across to her staff like an unfeeling robot? No, he was just saying those things to hurt her. They weren’t true. She had wanted Sherwood’s to be the best, and in striving to achieve her goals she had expected a lot from her employees but no more than she demanded of herself. Far from being a carbon-copy of her dogmatic father, she had wanted to stamp her own personality on the company, but real-estate was a dog-eat-dog business and the relentless pressure she had been under had necessitated her putting aside her new ideas in order to concentrate on the fight for sheer survival.

      ‘Suit yourself. Ah, well...here’s to the sweet taste of victory,’ he toasted her, and drank with robust pleasure, not flinching as the raw alcohol flowed over his split lip.

      Everything about him was big and brash. There was an offensive vitality about him that contrasted with her own wilted state.

      Jane remembered how uncomfortable Ava had been with his restless volatility, his constant need to be challenged, the natural aggressiveness which charged his character and made him a dangerous man to cross. Being engaged to him had been acceptable when they saw little of each other, but when he had started winding down his business activities closer to the wedding Ava had found herself unable to cope with the everyday reality of his forceful nature.

      Jane had understood her fear, even though she didn’t share it. She had disliked Ryan Blair for reasons of her own but she had never been afraid of him. Even now she was more furious than fearful, for she knew that her own strength of character would carry her through this crisis, as it had through previous tough times in her life.

      He lowered his glass and stretched out his long legs so that they brushed insolently against hers. ‘So...what are your plans now that Daddy’s little heiress is broke and unemployed?’

      ‘Do you think I’m going to tell you?’ she said, swivelling her hips so that her legs were no longer touching his, resenting the implication that she had been a spoilt brat for whom life had been cushioned by privilege.

      His blue eyes glinted in the passing slash of a streetlight. ‘I’ll find out anyway.’

      She didn’t answer, merely gave him the icy look of contempt with which she habitually bid her fears and insecurities.

      ‘Of course, your options are rather limited, aren’t they?’ he mused silkily. ‘The word is already out that anyone who offers a helping hand to Jane Sherwood could find themselves in the same mire. I think “unemployable” rather than “unemployed” is a better description, don’t you?’

      She had already discovered the extent of his influence in her fruitless journey around the banks. With his connections she didn’t doubt that he could extend the threat to every city in New Zealand...and probably Australia, too.

      She shrugged as if she didn’t care, her expression coolly unrevealing. ‘Whatever makes you happy.’

      He leaned forward so sharply that the whiskey nearly slopped out of his glass. ‘You trashed my wedding without warning, without apology, without even an explanation,’ he said harshly. ‘What would make me happy is some expression of regret.’

      She hesitated a fraction of a second too long and he leaned back again, his blunt features grim. ‘But of course you don’t regret anything, do you? Why should you? As far as you’re concerned you got away with your lies.’

      ‘I don’t regret what I did,’ she said bravely. ‘Maybe how I did it, but not that it was done. Ava was my friend; I knew you weren’t right for her—’

      ‘So you lied. In church. In front of my family. My friends. The woman I intended to spend the rest of my life with. You said that my vows would be a lie before God but you were the one committing an act of desecration!’

      Jane flushed and looked blindly down at her throbbing hand. She couldn’t deny the searing accusation. Her guilty knowledge was a burden she would carry to her grave, and beyond—for she had not dared seek advice or absolution for her sin. She had done this man a grievous wrong in the very house of truth. Her only excuse was that he was strong and Ava was weak. He had survived—thrived, even—in the aftermath of disaster, as she had known that he would...

      ‘You told your lies and then you disappeared before anyone could ask you for proof,’ he said, with the pent-up savagery of years. ‘But you knew you wouldn’t need proof, didn’t you? You knew that Ava was highly strung, you knew that the shock of your words would be enough to send her into hysterics. You were her best friend, she trusted you, and you used that trust to humiliate her and her parents to the extent that she never wanted to see me again.

      ‘You were sick with jealousy of your best friend’s happiness so you smashed it to smithereens by publicly announcing that you and I were lovers!’

      Jane’s flush deepened as she recalled the brazen words that she had flung down the aisle:

      ‘This man doesn’t love this woman enough to forsake all others. He hasn’t even honoured her with his faithfulness during their engagement I’m sorry, Ava, but I can’t let you do this without knowing what’s been going on behind your back—Ryan and I have been having an affair for months...’

      ‘Why didn’t you instantly deny it?’ she choked, defending the indefensible. ‘You just stood there...you didn’t even try to denounce me—’

      ‘I was as stunned as everyone else. It was such a flagrant lie I didn’t think anyone would believe it for a moment...especially Ava. She knew that I loved her—’

      ‘How can you say that?’ said Jane fiercely. ‘You hardly spent any time together...you certainly hardly knew her when you proposed. It was more of a business arrangement with Paul Brandon than a love-match—’

      ‘Is that how you justified yourself?’ He grated a bitter laugh and watched her flinch. ‘I loved her, dammit! From the first moment we met I knew that she was the one for me...she was so beautiful, so gentle and sweet and womanly. The business deal was just the icing on the cake as far as I was concerned; my feelings for Ava were separate—private and precious.

      ‘And that’s what you just couldn’t stomach, isn’t it? That Ava had someone to love her and you didn’t— because you’re a hard-faced, cold-hearted, selfish bitch who always has to be the centre of attention—’

      ‘No—’ Jane shook her head, a thick swath of wavy hair swirling over her shoulder, creating an inky splash against her white breast.

      She didn’t want to believe that he had been as deeply in love with Ava as he claimed, but, oh, God, wouldn’t that explain the extraordinary viciousness with which he had come to pursue his revenge? It would also explain why he had left for Australia rather than force a confrontation when Ava had run away and shortly thereafter married someone else. If he had been in love, Ava’s lack of faith in his honour would have been profoundly wounding, perhaps rendering him incapable of acting rationally in his own defence.

      Based on what Ava had told her, Jane had thought it was only Ryan’s pocket and his pride that would be injured if she forced the abandonment of the wedding, and those things were easily repaired for a man of his talent and toughness. But if he loved even half as passionately as he hated.

      ‘No...’ She shook away the weakening thought. If he had loved then it was an ideal, an Ava who had never really existed except in his imagination.

      ‘Yes! So now I’ve decided to give you what you wanted back then, sweetheart...’ The endearment was a subtle insult, an insidious threat, as he unfolded