Modern Romance Collection: January Books 5 - 8. Jane Porter

her need for love and happiness, went far deeper, right to the very core of all the vulnerabilities he’d hidden well from everyone.

      ‘And that makes me happy,’ he said curtly, aware of Lisa looking up at him. He didn’t look at her, but kept his focus on his sister, although he wanted to know if Lisa’s beautiful face was tinged with sadness or if the anger she’d thrown at him still made her eyes spark.

      ‘About earlier,’ Lisa said and he swung round to face her, those expressive green eyes widening in shock.

      ‘The conversation with your mother, where you told her you’d found a way to be better than she was?’

      ‘That’s not what I said.’ She gasped and her acting skills surpassed any he knew as tears welled into her eyes.

      ‘What I heard was exactly that, Lisa.’

      ‘That’s not fair, Max. You only heard what I said, not what she’d said to me.’

      ‘It was enough.’

      ‘Enough for what?’ Lisa said the words slowly, intently looking up at him now, her silver earrings swaying gently against her neck, touching skin he’d kissed. Damn it. Why did she always do this to him? Always distract him from what was really going on?

      ‘I will support you and our child but we cannot remain together—or even married.’

      Lisa gasped. ‘You want to go ahead with the divorce?’

      ‘It is for the best, but I will expect to be involved in my child’s life, to see him or her often. In the meantime, we have tonight to get through and, in two days’ time, a New Year’s Eve party.’

      ‘We?’ She glared at him. ‘You expect me to accept that you want a divorce yet continue to act the part of loving wife?’

      ‘I will of course make it financially worth your while by way of a substantial settlement, but I have no wish to give the press or society’s gossips any further ammunition to create headline news with. Therefore, I expect you to act, as you so nicely put it, the loving wife for the remainder of this evening and on New Year’s Eve.’

      ‘You are...’ She struggled to find the right words and he added them for her.

      ‘Cold-hearted? Despicable? Mercenary?’ The smile he bestowed on her was on the surface real, but in reality it was formed in his hardened heart.

      ‘Oh, yes, all of those and I can add some too.’ She at him, anger making her lips press into a firm line.

      ‘Not right now, you won’t,’ he said softly as he leant toward her, touching her gently on the shoulder. ‘You have a role to play and what wife would say such things to the man she loves?’

      ‘I don’t see why we have to keep up such a façade.’ A smile became firmly fixed on her face. How stupid had he been to almost fall for her talk of love, to almost open up a heart he’d thought had died long ago? He’d been on the brink of letting her into his heart, of allowing emotions back into his life. But not any more. It was over. All she wanted was to prove to herself she could be better than her mother and he’d foolishly believed her when she’d told him her mother always tried to bring her down.

      He stepped back from Lisa, calling a waiter over to them, hardly daring to look at how sexy she was in that dress, how the neckline skimmed her breasts, the crossover straps drawing his eyes there even when he tried to avoid looking.

      ‘I am not about to announce to Raul that things have gone wrong in my marriage once again. He knows too much of what is going on between us and I’m not in the habit of admitting failure.’ He took a glass of champagne and a tall, elegant glass of elderflower cocktail and handed it to Lisa.

      She took the drink, sipped it as she looked out across the room decorated in gold for the party. ‘So it’s all about what other people think? To hell with what I think.’

      She moved away from him to briefly speak to someone and he watched her. He wouldn’t have been able to drag his attention away from her if he’d wanted to. The black dress emphasised every curve, sending a spike of lust through him. He clenched his hands into tight fists. Now was not the time to become sidetracked by her—by sex.

      As she returned to his side he looked down at her, liking the way she’d put her hair up, twisting it into a tousled kind of knot that made her look as if she’d not long left his bed. Damn. Why did everything come back to sex with this woman?

      ‘Of course it is. I have no wish for Angelina to think there is discord between us on her birthday.’ Even to him the words sounded stilted. Rehearsed.

      She turned to glare at him. ‘Discord?’ The word echoed loudly around them. Too loudly.

      ‘Everyone will know if you are not able to lower your voice.’

      ‘I don’t damn well care.’ Before he could add anything to that she flounced off and although he wanted to go after her, he didn’t. It would create more of a scene if someone saw them arguing.

      He swigged back his champagne, put down the glass and went in search of a proper drink. At the bar he ordered a whisky and sent it chasing after the champagne, then turned, leaning against the bar, and surveyed the room, the guests.

      ‘I see impending motherhood is wreaking its usual havoc.’ Raul’s voice jolted him and he turned to see his brother, cutting a handsome figure in his black tuxedo.

      There was a smile on his face, but he looked different. Much less tense and not so on edge. More relaxed. Marriage obviously suited him and that fact only made Max even angrier. Why could his younger brother make a success of it and he couldn’t?

      ‘I think it’s more to do with the stress of the season,’ Max offered by way of an explanation. ‘We’ve hardly been in one place for long.’

      ‘So how was Christmas in the English country cottage?’ Humour bubbled in each word, only adding to Max’s disgruntled mood. What the hell did Raul have to be so happy about? As soon as the thought made its presence felt, he pushed it back. He didn’t wish unhappiness on anyone, least of all his brother, who’d also suffered in his childhood due to their so-called father. ‘Was it as romantic as you wanted it to be?’

      It was on the tip of Max’s tongue to tell him it was excellent, but something stopped him. Maybe it was some kind of brothers’ code he wasn’t yet aware of, but he didn’t want to elaborate on the truth.

      ‘It all went very well at first.’

      ‘But?’ Raul asked, a grave look sliding over his face.

      ‘We want different things. Things I can’t give her.’

      Raul nodded. ‘You have to find the solution to that yourself, Max. Only you can and only when you are ready.’

      Max knew they were talking of the same thing. Hadn’t he witnessed it between him and Lydia that day in the restaurant when he’d arrived to meet him? Raul had found his way through the mire of his past and had found love. Just seeing him and Lydia together proved that.

      ‘Any more news on Carlos?’ Max changed the subject. This was not the time or the place to have such a talk with his brother, not after he’d told his wife he wanted a divorce.

      ‘He’s resigned from the board. He’s been in my father’s pocket for so long he seriously thought the company would come to him, that he could buy it for a rock-bottom price. I nearly fell for his insistence that I marry Lydia instead of finding you.’

      Max remembered well the evening they’d met and talked through everything that had brought them together. How they’d both been convinced that their father had wanted them to find one another, to run the business together. That was why he’d put the marriage clause in the contract Lydia’s father had signed, knowing full well marriage was the last thing Raul had wanted.

      ‘But you married her anyway,’ Max said, wondering for the first time if it was a marriage that was as real as