Mistaken Mistress

Mistaken Mistress
Margaret Way

Seeing his business partner at a cozy dinner for two in Brisbane, obviously reveling in his beautiful mistress's company, places Lang Forsyth on high alert. Shock becomes contempt when he realizes that he is far from immune to her himself! Even when her true identity is revealed, Lang can't let go of his suspicions. Surely Eden Sinclair is not as innocent as she appears?He will just have to get close to this mysterious beauty - persuade her to reveal every one of her tempting secrets….

“Why do you hate me so much?” Eden asked quietly.

Lang flashed her a brilliant look. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t hate you at all.”

“But you find no joy in my sudden entry into your life?”

“Maybe I’m hurting too much,” he said involuntarily, but it was too late to recall those revealing words.

“Are you trying to make me feel more guilty?”

“Are you? Marvelous,” he mocked. “How come you lied so easily? How come you couldn’t even warn me?”

“I told you. I couldn’t go against Dad. I know it was wrong, but why are you being so hard on me? Is it me, or do you distrust all women?”

“Not until I met you.”

Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family at weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.

Look out in December for

Outback Angel by Margaret Way (#3727)

Mistaken Mistress

Margaret Way

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

PROLOGUE

FOR over twenty years Owen Carter had tried to forget he had a daughter. Not that he had seen her, not for a second. Not until this day of sorrows; of leaden skies and driving rain. He had journeyed over a thousand miles to sit in the back pew of a lovely old stone church never free of the unshakeable bond that tied him to Cassandra. Her tragic death at the age of forty-three had never been foreseen, now tormented by his memories, he attended her funeral, staring longingly into a face so like Cassandra’s the pull to go to the young woman was enormous. He almost sprang up, but he didn’t dare. Not now.

His daughter was his beautiful Cassandra all over again. The same silky black cloud of hair, the same extraordinary eyes, iris-blue, violet, purple. In Cassandra it had depended on the clothes she wore and the intensity of her moods. On this tragic day, tears starting down her cheeks as she followed her mother’s flower-decked casket, his daughter’s eyes were almost navy, the very white skin, which contrasted so strikingly with her hair, as pale as milk. They had never met but he would have known her anywhere.

It was Cassandra, come back to him.

His eyes so riveted to his daughter, must somehow have broken through her miasma of grief. She turned her head abruptly as if she felt his look, fully focusing on him. It was a deep, direct look so much like Cassandra’s a slight keening broke from him and his broad shoulders crumpled like someone had delivered a king hit to his solar plexus. His daughter. My God! The great love, so deeply rooted in his heart it never saw the sun, suddenly sprang into frantic bloom. Nothing would stop it.

Surely the gods had punished him enough? He had cloistered both of them in his heart, Cassandra and Eden, thinking in some tortured way he’d been protecting the child. Now that was all over as the dynamic force that was in him rose to the challenge. She’s mine, he thought triumphantly. My own flesh and blood. My daughter. The daughter denied me.

Hear me, Cassandra, he cried silently, channelling his thought to the lily draped casket.

This is my daughter. I’ve come to take her home.

CHAPTER ONE

LANG and Owen left the meeting together.

“That went well,” Lang remarked with satisfaction, moving through the lunchtime crowd with such smooth confidence people found themselves quite happy to go around him.

“If it did it was thanks to you,” Owen admitted with open affection. “I thought I was a tough negotiator but you’ve overtaken me. Nowadays you’re the key player.”

“But isn’t that the way you want it?” Lang glanced sideways at his partner’s face. Although Owen looked as fit as ever, indeed he looked what he was, a handsome highly successful man in his prime, the old punch was gone. For the past six months it seemed Owen was no longer driven by his vast business interests. Somehow he had removed himself from his life in the fast track, his focus clearly elsewhere.

It was odd. Perturbing. As were the monthly trips to the state capital Brisbane, the reasons for which Owen had never divulged. Not that he had to. Owen Carter answered to no one. Not him, his former protégé, now his partner, not his wife, Delma. Last month when he had taken over Owen’s role at a business meeting in Singapore he’d found himself unable to contact Owen for a vital forty-eight hours. Their normal practice was to keep one another abreast of all that was happening but on that occasion Owen had simply gone A.W.O.L. But to where?

Lang had seen it as a big shift in the balance of their relationship and it upset him. Over ten years ago, straight from university with an honours degree in commerce and the university gold medal, he had applied for a job with Carter Enterprises, which he quickly secured over a dozen older, highly qualified applicants. He loved the thrill of big business and the high-flying ventures as much as Owen did. He knew he could handle anything Owen threw at him. Which Owen did, the work amounting to quite an overload. But Owen had liked him. Trusted him. They understood one another. Nowadays he had become honorary “family.” Owen was allowing Lang to operate at the very top level virtually without input from himself.

There had to be a story. They’d all noticed the big change in Owen but not even Delma had come close to asking what it was all about. If Owen hadn’t looked so marvellously fit they might have suspected illness. The only other possible reason for all these mysterious trips away was a love affair, which was quite absurd. In the twelve years Owen had been married to Delma, a very attractive woman some ten years his junior, Owen had never looked sideways at another woman though there were plenty that looked longingly at him. The fact was, and Delma admitted it, she had masterminded a strategy to land Owen. Why not? He was handsome, rich, available. Who was he going to leave all his money to? He needed a wife and heir and Delma had convinced him that she would be perfect.

The marriage had turned out to be durable but not, in Lang’s perceptive eyes, what one could call happy. Strictly speaking, it hadn’t been a love match. A fact never outwardly acknowledged by either of them but always running on a subterranean current. With a less than ardent husband always preoccupied with business Delma had taken to mild flirtations. Never too overt, Owen for all his calm detachment wasn’t the man to cuckold. But recently Owen had become a man of mystery. To track him would have been the greatest insult but Lang found himself frequently pondering exactly what was going on in Owen’s life. Owen was a married man with a wife and young son. He was highly regarded in big business and the tropical north where he lived. Why would a man like that want to complicate his life with a secret affair? Providing, of course, the mystery in Owen’s life was a woman.

Whatever Owen’s story, his early life before coming north, he never spoke of it. Otherwise he spoke of anything and everything with his partner. Lang always felt Owen had suffered some terrible blow in his youth. Something he had never dealt with. Owen would probably go to his grave with all his secrets intact.

Now Lang walked at Owen’s side totally unaware of the attention his own looks attracted. Lang was and always had been very casual about such things. Achievement was what mattered. He had gone after it traumatized by his father’s financial crash, which had literally lost the family farm, though farm hardly described Marella Downs. A ten thousand square kilometre run on the western side of the Great Dividing Range, Marella was a most valuable property. Forsyths had lived there for well over a hundred years, a long time in this great southern land, until his father becoming increasingly desperate after a series of financial busts and industry reversals had finally lost it.

His father had since died, unable to handle not adversity, but the burden of guilt he had placed on himself for losing the family heritage. His father had never lived to see him gradually overcome all the terrible setbacks, but his mother had. Barbara Forsyth resided at Marella Downs once more.

He’d made it his life’s business to buy back the farm. There was no way now he could run the station. He was too heavily and financially involved with Carter-Forsyth Enterprises. His sister, Georgia, and her husband, Brad Carson, his good friend from childhood, managed the station very efficiently indeed. When it was time, Brad wanted to buy him out. But that was a good while off yet. Meanwhile the Forsyths were back on Marella Downs with the next generation taken care of in the form of one Ryan Forsyth Carson, aged six. His nephew and godson.

Lang and Owen lunched at the club, a beautiful old building that looked out at the Botanical Gardens. Both men relaxed over an excellent meal, which was served with quiet flourish by the waiter who usually attended to them. They talked easily. It had been their way from day one, but Owen studiously avoided talking business, which in itself was extraordinary despite the six months of change. Instead he concentrated on their outside interests like their mutual obsession with boats, sailing and big game fishing. They had the glorious waters of the Great Barrier Reef at their doorstep after all.

A few acquaintances walked in, toting briefcases. Greetings were exchanged. One man crossed the plush ruby carpet in long strides, patting Owen rather fulsomely on the back. “How’s it going, Owen? You look good! Been making some frequent trips to town, eh?” The snapping gaze was transferred to Lang. “Hi there, Lang, nice to see you again.”