The Magnate's Tempestuous Marriage

She stopped a metre short of his feet and cleared her throat. ‘Mr McAllister?’ she said, a sudden burst of nerves making her voice higher than she would have liked. Her drama teacher at school had once called her voice lilting. She found it a touch girlish, not a voice designed to make a great impact in court. But she was working on it.

His eyelids rose, and she finally saw them. His eyes...

An icy grey, with surprisingly long lashes. Not hard. But definitely on the cold side. Yet strangely hot at the same time. Hot and hungry. They took her in with one long sweeping glance, all of her, making her breath catch and her cheeks colour. Not a fierce blush but a blush all the same. How humiliating!

‘That’s me,’ he drawled as he unfolded himself and stood up, towering over her own five feet eight. And she had heels on as well! Not high heels admittedly, but still...

Her neck craned as she gazed up at him, her mouth having gone annoyingly dry. Suppressing a groan, she surreptitiously licked her perversely dry lips and adopted what she hoped was still a sophisticated persona.

‘The present owners of the mine aren’t here yet,’ she said with one of those coolly composed smiles she could summon on autocue. ‘So Mr Katon sent me down to look after you till they arrive.’

He didn’t return her smile. Just stared at her, his eyes like molten steel.

A returning heat started up deep inside her, melting her core and making her want to do and say the most outrageous things. The control she had to exert over herself was enormous.

‘If you’ll follow me, sir,’ she suggested, still coolly polite on the surface.

‘Sweetheart,’ he said, a small smile now lurking at the corners of that cruel yet sexy mouth. ‘I’d follow you into hell.’

Sarah’s mouth dropped open, the realisation hitting her with a certainty that was as strong as it was seductive that she felt exactly the same way about him.

CHAPTER ONE (#ud76f25cd-23d5-5509-8131-e5faadd195a8)

Sydney, fifteen months later...

SCOTT STOOD AT the window behind his desk, staring blindly out at the view. Not that there was much of a view. The office block that housed the head office of McAllister Mines stood in the southern end of Sydney’s CBD, not down at the more picturesque harbour end of town. There was no soothing water to look at. No sparkling Opera House. No beautiful parks or gardens. Just traffic-clogged streets and rather boring buildings.

Not that anything would soothe Scott that Monday morning. Never in his life had he felt such emotional upheaval. He’d been distressed when his father had died. But death, Scott decided, was easier to cope with than betrayal. He still could hardly believe that Sarah would do this to him. They’d only been married a year, yesterday their first wedding anniversary. And whilst Scott harboured a degree of distrust in the female sex, Sarah had been different from the women responsible for his cynicism. Very different. That she would cheat on him seemed...incredible.

The text—with photos attached—had arrived on his business phone last Friday afternoon, shortly after he’d finished meeting with a Singapore billionaire who was staying on the Gold Coast, and whom Scott hoped would help solve his current cash-flow problems. Fortunately, he’d been alone at the time, as his first reaction had been utter shock. Followed by total disbelief. Gradually, however, he was forced to accept the evidence before his eyes. The incriminating photos, after all, had been crystal-clear, all of them stamped with the time and the date when they’d been taken. At lunchtime that very day.

And then there had been the accompanying message.

Thought you might like to know what your wife is getting up to when you go away.

It had been signed, ‘A friend’.

Hardly, Scott thought bitterly. More likely a business enemy of his, or a jealous female colleague of Sarah’s. His wife was the sort of girl who would inspire jealousy in other women. And in her husband. Not that that meant Sarah was innocent. His father used to say that if something looked like a duck, waddled like a duck and quacked like a duck, then the odds were pretty high that it was a duck. It didn’t take Scott long to accept that his wife was having an affair with the superbly dressed, very handsome bastard who featured in those damning photos.

Scott would never have thought himself capable of the kind of black jealousy—and almost uncontrollable fury—that had seen him abandon his PA, Cleo, on the Gold Coast to finish his business negotiations for him, making the excuse that Sarah had been taken ill, then flying straight home to confront his adulterous spouse.

But he hadn’t confronted her straight away, had he?

A measure of guilt—or was it shame?—curled in his stomach at what he had done.

He’d meant to have it out with her immediately, still harbouring some vain hope that there might be a logical explanation to this nightmare. But when he’d strode into their apartment that evening, she’d literally thrown herself at him, seemingly overjoyed by his cutting his business trip short to be with her. Her kisses had been wildly passionate, more so than usual. Whilst their sex life up till now had been more than satisfactory, Sarah was not an aggressive partner. She always left it up to him to make the first move; to take the lead in bed matters. Not that night, however. She’d been quite bold with her actions, touching him intimately as she’d kissed him.

Guilt, he decided now in retrospect.

Perversely, after she’d fallen asleep that night, exhausted from their sexual marathon, he’d been the one who’d felt guilty. Crazy, really. Why should he feel guilty? She was the guilty one. She was the adulterer, not him.

She’d blatantly lied to him about what she’d done that day—telling him she’d been shopping at lunchtime for a fabulous anniversary present for him. But he knew exactly what she’d been doing at lunchtime that Friday.

He’d left her then and gone to his study where he’d acted like the Neanderthal he felt like, drinking himself into oblivion before passing out on the sofa.

Which was where she’d found him the next morning.

And where their final ugly confrontation had begun...

It hadn’t been pretty, Scott still stunned by the accusations Sarah had thrown at him. And the names. In the end, she’d walked out on him. And she hadn’t come back.

By Sunday night Scott was forced to accept that Sarah might never come back.

Something that should have pleased him no end, but, perversely, it hadn’t. As much as he wasn’t the type of man who would countenance having a wife he couldn’t trust, Scott couldn’t get past the niggling doubt that maybe he’d been wrong to jump to the conclusion he had. Maybe he’d made a terrible mistake.

A knock on his office door startled him out of his troubling thoughts. ‘Yes?’ he bit out as he turned away from the window.

Cleo came in somewhat tentatively, the look she gave him speaking volumes. There was worry in her dark eyes and concern on her face. Scott had given her a potted version of the truth when he’d arrived this morning, knowing that it would be impossible to keep lying to Cleo. She wasn’t just his PA. After three years of working closely together she’d become his friend as well. She’d been more shocked than he was, if that were possible, declaring her disbelief openly.

‘Sarah would never be unfaithful to you, Scott. That girl loves you to death!’

Yes, well, he’d always thought so too. But obviously, he was wrong. Cleo, as well.

Scott would have shown her the photos, if he still had them. But he’d given the phone in question to his head of security last Saturday afternoon to have the damned things investigated.

Showing Harvey the photos of his wife with another man had been mortifying to say the least, but he simply had to make sure the photos were genuine and discover who had sent them. Plus he wanted to find out everything he could about the man involved. Lord knew what he would do once he found out his identity.

The man in the photos was facially handsome but he wasn’t as tall or as well built as Scott, his frame on the lean side. Elegant, though. And a snazzy dresser. Scott hated him with a passion.

‘Harvey just rang to say he was on his way up,’ Cleo said, interrupting his jealous train of thought. ‘Do you want me to get you both some coffee?’

Scott had been waiting for Harvey to report back to him all morning, but now that the moment was here he wished he’d never started on this course of action. He should have made Sarah stay and talk to him; should have insisted on her explaining those photos. Though what explanation could there possibly be? She hadn’t denied their veracity. Her outrage that morning had been directed at him, and what he’d done the night before. Okay, so he should have shown her the photos as soon as he arrived home but he hadn’t. Naturally, he’d still been too angry with her the following morning to apologise for what she called his caveman mentality. Her attempts to put the blame on him had almost worked, too. After she’d stormed out of the apartment, he’d begun to think that maybe she was innocent.

Till he’d looked at the photos again.

Scott’s teeth clenched down hard in his jaw after which he glanced up at his patient PA. ‘No coffee right now, thank you, Cleo,’ he told her, doing his best to sound normal and not like a man about to face a firing squad. ‘Oh, and, Cleo...thanks for standing in for me last Friday. I don’t know what I would do without you.’

Cleo shrugged. ‘Afraid I didn’t do you much good. The investor made it obvious that he didn’t like dealing with a female, especially one who’s under thirty. Still, if you want my opinion, you’re better off without his money. I didn’t like the look of him at all. He had shifty eyes.’

Scott smiled a wry smile. Cleo had the habit of judging people by their eyes. And strangely, she was usually right. She’d prevented him making errors in judgment several times. And she had liked Sarah, had thought her the loveliest, nicest girl. He supposed no one could always be right.

‘I’ll scratch him off as a potential partner, then,’ he said.

‘That would be my advice. Still, you’ll need to find someone else quick smart, Scott, or you’ll have to shut down the nickel refinery. Maybe the mine as well. You can’t keep running both at a loss indefinitely.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ he bit out. ‘Look, do some research and see who might be open to investment. Someone from Australia maybe. Ah, Harvey’s here. Come in, Harvey.’

Cleo left them to it, Harvey’s poker face revealing absolutely nothing as he walked in. Harvey was in his mid-fifties, a big burly man and totally bald, with a craggily handsome face, an uncompromising mouth and cold blue eyes. He’d spent twenty years on the police force and another ten as a private detective before he’d become Scott’s head of security. His bouncer-like appearance made him an excellent bodyguard, a job he’d done for Scott on occasion. Being a successful mining magnate did have its hazards, especially when a mine had to be closed, even temporarily. Despite his blue-collar appearance—Harvey was wearing jeans and a black leather bomber jacket—Harvey was also an IT expert, an invaluable security tool in this day and age.