Love Islands…The Collection. Jane Porter

he went on, ‘keep going—but slow down to a jog so we can talk.’

      He moved to one side of the path. She started up again, conscious that her heart was pounding far more quickly than the exertion of her run required. She found herself blinking. The casual cruelty of what he’d just said reverberated in her, but she must not let it show. With an effort, and still burningly conscious of her skimpy attire and perspiring body, of her hair held back only by a wide sweatband, of being bereft of the glasses she’d been wearing over lunch, she loped beside him.

      ‘What about?’ she returned. The thought came to her that maybe she could use this wretched encounter to convince him that there really was no point in his staying any longer—that buying Haughton was off the menu for him.

      ‘I’m making an offer for this place,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘It will be near the asking price...’ He trailed off.

      Dismay lanced through her. ‘I still don’t want to sell my share,’ she replied grittily.

      ‘Your third...’ Max didn’t take his eyes from her ‘...will be well over a million pounds...’

      ‘I don’t care what it is. Mr Vasilikos—please understand—my share is not for sale at any price. I don’t want to sell.’

      ‘Why not?’ His brows snapped together.

      ‘What do you mean, why not?’ she riposted. ‘My reasons are my own—I don’t want to sell.’ She turned her face, making herself look at him. ‘That’s all there is to it. And I’ll make it as hard as I possibly can for you to complete a sale. I’ll fight it to the bitter end!’

      Vehemence broke through in her voice and she could see it register with him. His eyebrows rose, and she knew he was about to say something—but she didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to do anything but get away from him. Get back to the house, the sanctuary of her bedroom. Throw herself down on the bed and weep and weep. For what she feared most in the world would come true if this man went through with his threat!

      She couldn’t bear it—she just couldn’t. She couldn’t bear to lose her home. The place she loved most in all the world. She couldn’t bear it.

      With a burst of speed she shot forward, leaving him behind. Leaving behind Max Vasilikos, the man who wanted to wrench her home from her.

      As he watched her power forward, accelerating away, Max let her go. But when she disappeared from sight across the lawns that crossed the front of the house his thoughts were full.

      Why was Ellen Mountford so set on making difficulties for him? And why were his eyes following her fantastic figure until she was totally beyond his view? And why was he then regretting that she was beyond it?

      The question was suddenly stronger in his head, knocking aside his concern about an easy purchase of the place he intended to buy, whatever obstacles one of its owners might put in his path.

      When he reached the house Max went in search of his hostess. She was in the drawing room with her daughter, and both greeted him effusively, starting to ask him about his tour of the outbuildings and the grounds.

      But he cut immediately to the chase.

      ‘Why was I not informed of the ownership structure of this property?’ he asked.

      His voice was level, but there was a note in it that anyone who’d ever been in commercial negotiations with him would have taken as a warning not to try and outmanoeuvre him or prevaricate.

      ‘Your stepdaughter apprised me of the facts after lunch,’ he went on.

      He kept his level gaze on Pauline. Beside her on the sofa, Chloe Mountford gave a little choke. An angry one. But her mother threw her a silencing look. Then she turned her face towards Max. She gave a little sigh.

      ‘Oh, dear, what has the poor girl told you, Mr Vasilikos?’ There was a note of apprehension in her voice.

      ‘That she does not wish to sell her share,’ he replied bluntly. ‘And that she is prepared to force you to resort to legal measures to make her do so. Which will, as you must be aware, be both costly and time-consuming.’

      Pauline Mountford’s be-ringed fingers wound into each other. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Vasilikos, that you have been exposed to...well, to this, unfortunate development. I had hoped we could reach a happy conclusion between ourselves and—’

      Max cut across her, his tone decisive. ‘I make no bones that I want to buy this place,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want problems and I don’t want delays.’

      ‘We don’t either!’ agreed Chloe promptly. ‘Mummy, we’ve just got to stop Ellen ruining everything.’

      He looked at the pair of them. ‘Do you know what is behind her reluctance to sell?’

      Pauline sighed again, her face shadowing. ‘I believe,’ she said slowly, ‘that she is a very unhappy young woman. Poor Ellen has always found it very...difficult...to have us here.’

      ‘She’s hated us from the start,’ Chloe said tightly. ‘She’s never made us welcome.’

      Pauline sighed once more. ‘Alas, I’m afraid it’s true. She was at a difficult age when Edward married me. And I fear it is all too common, sadly, for a daughter who has previously had the undivided attention of her father not to allow that he might seek to find happiness with someone else. I did my best...’ she sighed again ‘...and so did poor little Chloe—you did, darling, didn’t you? You made every effort to be friends, wanted her so much to be your new sister! But, well... I do not wish to speak ill of Ellen, but nothing—absolutely nothing that we did—could please her. She was, I fear, set on resenting us. It upset her father dreadfully. Too late, he realised how much he’d spoiled her, made her possessive and clinging. He could control her a little, though not a great deal, but now that he is gone...’ A little sob escaped her. ‘Well, she has become as you see her.’

      ‘She never goes anywhere!’ Chloe exclaimed. ‘She just buries herself here all year round.’

      Pauline nodded. ‘Sadly, that is true. She has her little teaching job at her old school—which in itself surely cannot be advisable, for it keeps her horizons from widening—but that is all she has. She has no social life—she rejects all my attempts to...to involve her!’ She levelled her eyes at Max. ‘I want nothing but the best for her. If Haughton holds too many memories for me to bear, for her I am sure it is much, much worse. Doting on her father as she did was not emotionally healthy for a young woman...’

      Max frowned. ‘Did she not want her father to include you in his will? Neither you nor her stepsister?’ he asked.

      Was that the root of the matter? That Ellen Mountford had wanted everything her father had left to go to her, cutting out his second wife and stepdaughter completely?

      ‘That may be so, alas,’ confirmed Pauline. ‘My poor Edward quite thought of Chloe as his own daughter—she took his name, as you know. Perhaps that led to some...well, perhaps some jealousy on Ellen’s part? Possessive as she was about her father...’

      Memory stung in Max’s head. His mother might have taken his stepfather’s name, but he—the nameless, fatherless bastard she had borne—had never been permitted to.

      Pauline was speaking again, and he drew his mind back to the present.

      ‘You must not think, Mr Vasilikos, that Edward has been in any way unfair to Ellen. Oh, he might have taken steps to ensure that Chloe and myself were taken care of financially, by way of including us in the ownership of this house, but Ellen was left everything else. And my husband...’ she gave a sigh ‘...was a very wealthy man, with a substantial stock portfolio and other assets.’ She took a little breath. ‘Our share of this house, Mr Vasilikos, is all we have, Chloe and I, so I’m sure you will understand why,