Элли Блейк – Bargaining with the Billionaire: The Blackmail Bargain / The Billion-Dollar Bride / How To Marry a Billionaire (страница 8)
Peta heard the sound of the engine just before breakfast. Frowning, she closed the gate behind her and turned to see the station Land Rover come up the drive. Her heart jumped unexpectedly, only to go cold when Ian’s rangy form unfolded from behind the wheel.
‘Hello,’ she said warily.
‘How are you?’
Ever since she’d noticed the worrying change in his attitude she’d braced herself for this meeting. Without moving, she said brightly, ‘I’m fine, thanks. What can I do for you?’
‘You could make me a cup of coffee,’ he suggested with a wry smile.
Ten days ago she wouldn’t have thought a thing about it; she’d have made the coffee and they’d have drunk it sitting on the narrow deck while they talked easily about farming matters.
‘I’d love to,’ she said easily, ‘but I’m on my way to feed a calf your brother-in-law helped me drag out of the swamp.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
After a moment’s hesitation she turned and led the way to the calf-shed.
Hiding her wary discomfort with a brisk veneer, she made up the mixture and stayed to make sure the calf drank it. ‘She must be feeling better; this time yesterday she didn’t want to drink at all.’
Ian observed, ‘Curt told us about it.’
‘I’d have managed without him,’ she said quickly, sad because the friendship and support Ian had offered so unstintingly was shattered. He’d stepped over an invisible boundary and now there was no going back.
He said casually, ‘It looks pretty good now.’
‘She’ll survive.’
Ian’s face crinkled into a wry smile. ‘Good. What did you think of Curt?’
Peta made a production of her shrug. ‘He’s more or less as I’d imagined him.’
Ian said, ‘And that is?’
‘Like any other tycoon,’ she said lightly. ‘Dominating, formidable, high-handed and more than a bit arrogant.’
He nodded and got to his feet. ‘Good-looking too.’
‘Yes.’ But Curt’s handsome face and the impact of his strong bone structure were irrelevant. Like a force of nature, his compelling personality overwhelmed everything else.
Her upwards glance caught an unusual indecision in Ian’s face, as though he was trying to make up his mind about something.
Suspecting that it would be better if he never said the words that were in his mind, she said, ‘Shouldn’t you be on your way home? Gillian will be wondering where you are.’
‘Gillian isn’t—’ The noise of a car engine coming up the drive stopped him in mid-sentence. He turned his head so that he could see through the open end of the shed and in a flat voice said, ‘This is her car.’
Peta froze. She hated scenes, and she suspected she was about to be treated to one. Ian moved jerkily out into the sunlight, but she sat there watching the calf drink, ears straining as the engine cut out.
Voices revealed that it was Gillian who’d driven up. And with her, Curt.
Peta’s skin tightened as she took in the pattern of sounds, of silences. She should get up and go out; instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the white brush at the end of the calf’s tail, watching it swish to and fro as the little animal sucked.
When she heard Gillian’s laugh she relaxed a fraction, only to tense up again as the voices approached. Above the calf’s noisy, enthusiastic slurps she heard Curt’s deep voice, and the foreboding that had been prowling below the surface of her consciousness since the previous night rocketed off the scale.
‘Hello, Peta,’ Gillian called out. ‘Can we come in?’
‘Of course.’ Still she kept her eyes on the calf, only looking up when it became rude not to acknowledge them.
Clad in casual clothes that proclaimed the imprint of a designer, Gillian looked completely out of place in the calf- shed with its dusty smell of hay and the more earthy scent of young animals. His expression a combination of stubbornness and indecision, Ian walked behind his wife.
In fact, Peta realised, the only person whose self- assurance remained intact and invulnerable was Curt.
Wondering if anything ever put a crack in his self- assurance, Peta greeted them with a brief smile. ‘Have you come to examine the patient? As you can see, she’s in good heart today.’
Gillian made a soft clucking noise. ‘What a pretty little thing,’ she cooed, and leaned over to give the curly poll a scratch. ‘I thought she’d be covered in mud!’
‘No, I brushed her down and dried her yesterday.’
‘You didn’t explain how she got into the swamp.’ Curt’s voice, anger running beneath each deliberate word like lava welling through rocks.
The hairs on the back of Peta’s neck stood on end in primitive reaction. ‘I don’t know what spooked her into the swamp, but she was well and truly stuck when I found her.’ She smiled wryly. ‘And when Curt rode up on his big black horse Laddie’s impersonation of a werewolf in hysterics didn’t help—the calf bolted even further into the mud.’
Laddie apparently considered the sound of his name to be an invitation and ran towards the calf-pen just as the little animal turned to survey its audience.
‘Get in behind!’ Peta commanded sternly, leaping up from the hay bale to grab his collar. Her foot slid over a stone and turned her ankle. Although she regained her balance instantly, Ian grabbed her arm.
When Peta said the first thing that came to her mind, it was in a thin voice she hardly recognised. ‘Thank you, Ian, but it was just a stone.’
He dropped his hand. ‘I thought you were going to end up on your nose!’
Peta prayed no one would recognise the artificial timbre of her laugh. ‘That would be twice in twenty-four hours. Curt had to drag me out of the swamp yesterday.’
Curt said, ‘Gillian, why don’t you go home with Ian? I have something to discuss with Peta. I’ll bring your car back, and I won’t be more than ten minutes or so.’
The words fell into a silence echoing with repressed emotions. His sister broke it by saying brightly, ‘Make sure it’s no more than ten minutes;
His gaze fixed on Curt, Ian said, ‘I’ll see you when you get back.’
Curt’s brows lifted, but he waited until they’d driven away before turning to Peta, still frozen with dismay. She swallowed and met his gaze, hard as flint. Defensively, she folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin.
In a level voice that didn’t conceal the iron in his words, he said, ‘If you carry on this thing with Ian you’ll regret it.’
Without waiting for an answer Curt went on, ‘Because cutting off the lease will be only the first step to taking everything you’ve got away from you.’
Starkly conscious of the ruthless determination in his tone, Peta blurted, ‘There is no
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘I’m not lying,’ she said aggressively, heart thudding crazily beneath her crossed arms. ‘And I’m not scared of empty threats. There’s no way you can do that.’
‘I’ll make your life here impossible,’ he returned with cold precision. ‘To start off with, I’ll deny you access over Tanekaha land.’
She stared at him, her swift response drying on her lips. He couldn’t do that. Yet one glance from those flat, lethal eyes and Peta knew he would. ‘My father had an agreement—’
‘It isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Any halfway decent lawyer would have it thrown out of court. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll pay for you to have an independent opinion,’ he said contemptuously. He waited for the implications of this to sink in before adding with a brutal lack of emotion, ‘Without access your land is valueless— worth only what I’d be prepared to pay for it. And if you run off with Ian that will be peanuts.’
He meant it. Suddenly scared, Peta said harshly, ‘I don’t plan to run off with him. I don’t want—’
‘I don’t care what
‘No!’
Her voice vibrated with outrage, but Curt knew how easy it was to assume that offended tone. One of his lovers had given a very convincing display when he’d told her that he refused to share her sexual favours. He’d had proof then too.
He shrugged. ‘Not that it matters. But if you believe that breaking up Ian’s marriage will get you a better life, you’re wrong. He won’t only lose his wife, he’ll be out of a job and I’ll make sure he never works as anything more than a farmhand for the rest of his life. You might be happy with that; trust me, Ian won’t be.’
Green fire mixed with gold flamed in her eyes. Heat radiated from her, enriching the golden lights in her hair and the smooth, warm silk of her skin. Curt resisted the hard pull of lust in his groin.
‘I don’t want to break up
So she was just using the poor bastard. Anger gave Curt’s words formidable intensity. ‘But what do you mean to him?’
Her white teeth bit into her full lower lip. Curt’s blood surged through his veins; she managed to invest the most trivial of gestures with an innate sensuality that damned near splintered his self-control.