The Groom's Revenge

‘Though really I should thank you for what you did. You saved me from making what could quite possibly have been the worst mistake of my life.’

The way his head went back slightly, showing that her attack had hit home, made her give a small smile of satisfaction.

‘But I’m sure you didn’t come here to chat over old times.’ Deliberately she laced the words with acid. ‘So perhaps you’ll tell me the real reason for your sudden materialisation.’

‘Materialisation,’ Aidan echoed in dark amusement. ‘You make me sound like some alien being, or a ghost.’

Ghost indeed. The ghost of happier times, a reminder of the way she had once felt. India flinched away from the stab of anguish that pushed her into unconsidered speech.

‘A werewolf or a vampire is more like it!’ she flung at him.

‘Now you’re being fanciful.’

‘Am I? Am I really?’

How she wished she could bring her voice down a note on two. It was too high, too shrill, too bitterly revealing. It infuriated her even more to remember that she had always promised herself that if she ever met this man again then she would be so cool, would freeze him out completely. She could never bear it if he knew just how badly he had hurt her.

‘Well, let me tell you something, Mr Wolfe. In my mind, a vampire is just what you are! An emotional vampire, someone who preys on people’s feelings, taking them and sucking them dry, then casting them aside without a second thought when you’ve tired of them.’

‘Oh, come on.’ The smooth voice mocked her outburst. ‘You surely aren’t claiming that I broke your heart? After all, it wasn’t me you wanted but my money.’

His tone had sharpened noticeably on the last words, and now he took a couple of swift steps towards her, coming very close for the first time.

It took all India’s self-control not to recoil in panic. She had forgotten just how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were under the immaculately white T-shirt and the loose linen jacket.

She had never seen Aidan quite so casually dressed before, she realised. In all the time that they had been dating he had stuck rigidly to the formal suits he wore for work as well as leisure. So now it was painfully disconcerting to feel her mouth dry in an instinctively sensual response to the way that the soft cotton clung to the honed lines of his chest, the denim jeans he wore with it emphasising the powerful length of his legs.

Oh, God, how could he still do this to her after all that had happened? She couldn’t be so weak that he had only to appear and she fell straight back under his spell, could she?

‘You broke my heart? Now who’s being fanciful? We never had that sort of a relationship, and you know it You wanted me and I wanted you.’

‘And what I brought with me,’ Aidan inserted brutally. ‘So, tell me, how is it with your new lover?’

‘Lover?’ For a few seconds she couldn’t focus her mind enough to think. ‘Oh, Jim!’

‘Yes, Jim.’

The twist to Aidan’s mouth, the roughness of his voice, turned the name into an obscenity.

‘“You’ve been so good to me” Jim. “I don’t know how to thank you” Jim. What does he do for you, my lovely India? Does he give you more than I ever could? Was he the next wealthy man to walk through the door after I walked out of it?’

‘Precisely! You walked out!’ India pounced on the opening he had given her. ‘You walked out on me, remember. So don’t come the jilted fiancе—’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Aidan responded coolly, stopping her dead. ‘Believe me, he’s welcome to you.’

Those dark eyes noted the way India clamped her mouth shut against any weak protest at the callousness, and his smile surfaced once more. The curl of his lips was even more predatory than before.

‘But I wonder if he knows just how much it’s going to cost him.’

‘If you must know,’ India declared, unable to endure his taunts any longer, ‘Jim is just a very junior cog in the firm of Jenkins and Curran, my father’s—’

‘Your father’s solicitors,’ Aidan inserted dismissively. ‘I know who they are only too well.’

‘But how?’

‘We’ve had dealings,’ was the enigmatic response. ‘Which reminds me. Where is your dear papa?’

The edge in his voice was worrying, an undertone of threat seeming to lurk in his words like jagged rocks underneath the still surface of a calm sea. Hearing it, India felt an intuitive shiver run down her spine, setting her protective instincts on red alert.

‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked warily.

‘It was your father I came to see. Let’s just say I have some important business to discuss with him.’

If she had felt apprehensive before, that cryptic remark made matters ten times worse. Even before her wedding day Aidan and her father had been at daggers drawn, and she very much doubted that time had done anything to ease the situation.

‘I don’t think he’d want anything to do with you!’ The memory of the state in which she had just left her father sharpened her voice, giving it extra emphasis.

‘Oh, he’ll see me, darling. I promise you, he’ll want to talk to me very much, and if he’s wise he’ll arrange a meeting very soon. So when will he be back?’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ India ignored the question, concentrating instead on the implications behind that ‘if he’s wise’.

‘Just what it says,’ Aidan returned indifferently. ‘I want to see your father, and it would be better for him if I saw him soon. So when do you expect him home?’

‘I don’t know.’

Which at least was nothing more than the truth. No matter when her father came out of hospital, it would be a long time before he would be well enough to talk to anyone, let alone the predatory Lone Wolfe. But what possible business could connect two such disparate men?

‘I could give him a message if you like,’ she managed, her attempt at cool confidence sadly marred by the sudden realisation that Aidan was between her and the door.

If she wanted to get inside she would have to go past him, she told herself. The idea made her uneasy, uncomfortably aware of the heavy shadows cast by the trees, the silence of the night and the recollection of the fact that Gary’s room was at the back of the house, well out of earshot.

‘If you just tell me what you want to say.’

For a long moment Aidan considered. ‘No.’ He shook his dark head decisively. ‘It’s between the two of us. ‘I’ll find him later. Tell him I was looking for him.’

‘Is that it?’ India questioned, receiving another of those slanted, mocking glances that aggravated the already edgy way she was feeling.

‘Were you looking for something more?’

‘Not on your life!’

She was disconcerted to realise just how close he had come to her, suddenly only inches away from her.

‘A pity.’ It was a low, seductive murmur, one that drew her attention against her will. Drew it and held it as if she were hypnotised. ‘Because I was just thinking that I couldn’t let you go without a kiss for old times’ sake.’

‘For—!’ India spluttered, a sense of panic gripping her round the throat, choking off her words as his head came even nearer, lowering to blot out the light of the moon.

He was so near that she could hear the sound of his breathing, catch the tang of some exclusive cologne. Her heart lurched into a wild, uneven rhythm that made her blood pound in her ears, and she was sure he must hear the accelerated beat of her heart.