The Blackmail Baby

‘Your father would have wanted you to,’ had been his winning argument.

If there was one thing she and Dracco did share it was their mutual love for her father.

‘Dracco doesn’t love you. Not as a man loves a woman.’

Once again Imogen couldn’t prevent a small sound of anguish escaping her lips.

Narrowing her eyes, Lisa dropped her voice to a soft, sensual purr. ‘Surely even someone as sexless as you must have thought it odd that he hasn’t taken you to bed? Any normal woman would guess immediately what that meant. Especially where an obviously red-blooded man like Dracco is concerned.’ Lisa smiled unkindly at her. ‘If you’re determined to be an unwanted wife you will have to learn to conceal your feelings a little better. Surely you couldn’t have imagined that there haven’t been women in Dracco’s life? He is, after all, a very potent man.’

Imogen prayed that she wouldn’t be sick and that she wouldn’t give in to her desire to run out of the room and away from Lisa’s hateful, mocking voice. Of course she knew there had been other women in Dracco’s life and she knew too what it felt like to be agonisingly jealous of them—after all, she had had enough practice.

Dracco with other girls; girls that he found attractive and desirable in all the ways he obviously did not view her; girls that he wanted in all the ways he did not want her, in his arms, in his bed, beneath the fierce male hardness of his body, naked, skin to skin, whilst he…

To Dracco she was nothing more than a baby, the daughter of his partner and closest friend, someone to be treated with amusement and paternalism as though twenty-odd years separated them and not a mere ten… Ten…a full decade… But soon they would be equals; soon now she would be Dracco’s wife. Imogen gave a small shiver. All through her teenage years she had dreamed of her private fantasy coming true and of Dracco returning her love, telling her that he could not live without her, demanding passionately that she give herself to him and become his wife.

Of course, a tiny part of her, a voice she had refused out of fear and anguish to listen to, urged her to be cautious, to wonder why in all the things that Dracco had said to her since her father’s death there had been no mention of love.

And somehow until now she had managed to ignore what that omission could mean. Until now.

There was, Imogen recognised through her shocked pain, an odd air of almost driven determination in her stepmother’s manner, an air that bordered on furious desperation, but Imogen felt too weakened by her own anguish to consider why that might be.

Drawing herself up to her full height, she told Lisa with quiet dignity, ’Dracco is marrying me—’

‘No,’ Lisa told her furiously, ’Dracco is marrying your inheritance. Have you no pride, you little fool? Any woman worthy of the name would walk away now before it’s too late, find herself a man who really wants her instead of crawling after one who doesn’t; one who already has in his life the woman he really wants!’

Imogen felt as though she was inhabiting a nightmare. What further cruelty was Lisa trying to inflict on her? Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it. She did not want to allow herself to hear it.

It was time for her to leave. Imogen started to walk past her stepmother but Lisa grabbed hold of her arm, stopping her, hissing viciously to her, ‘I know what you’re hoping but you’re wasting your time; Dracco will never love you. He loves someone else. If you don’t believe me, ask him! Ask him today, now, before he marries you, if there is someone; a woman in his life whom he loves. And ask him, if you dare, just who she is.’

A woman in Dracco’s life whom he loved. Imogen’s head was swimming with pain and fear as she started to walk down the aisle. She could see the back of Dracco’s dark head as he waited for her to reach him. The scent of the lilies filling the church was so heady that it was making Imogen feel slightly sick and faint. How could that be true? How could he possibly even consider marrying her if he loved someone else?

Lisa had been lying… Lying, as she had done so often in the past, trying to cause trouble for Imogen; to hurt and upset her.

And as for her final comment, it had to be impossible, surely, as Lisa had been implying that she herself was the woman Dracco loved.

Totally, completely, unbearably impossible, at least so far as Imogen was concerned.

‘Dearly beloved…’

Imogen felt herself start to sway. Immediately Dracco’s fingers curled supportively around her arm.

Pain and longing filled her in equal measures. This should have been the happiest day of her life. She was, after all, marrying the man she loved. The man she had loved since she had first realised what love was.

‘Imogen. Are you all right? For a moment in there I thought you were going to faint.’

Imogen tried to force a smile as she met the frowning concern in Dracco’s gaze. Her husband’s gaze. She could feel her knees threatening to buckle. She felt so odd. So…so alone and afraid.

‘Dracco, there’s something I want to ask you.’ They were standing outside the church whilst the bells pealed and their wedding guests chattered happily.

‘Mmmm…’

Dracco was barely even looking at her, Imogen recognised miserably. They didn’t seem like a newly married couple at all…like husband and wife, a pair of lovers. A sharp pain seemed to pierce her to her heart. Before she could lose her courage she demanded unevenly, ‘Have you…? Is there…is there someone…a woman you love?’

He was looking at her now, Imogen recognised bitterly, concentrating all his attention on her, but not in the way she had longed for. He was frowning forbiddingly in the tense silence her nervous question had created.

Imogen could hardly bear to continue looking at him. She saw the flash of emotion glitter in the jade depths of his eyes; heard the furious anger in his voice as he demanded curtly, ‘Who told you about that?’

Her heart felt as though it was breaking. It was true.

In numb despair she watched as he cursed grimly under his breath and then said more gently, ‘Yes. Yes, there is. But…’

Dracco loved another woman. He loved another woman but he had still married her.

Imogen felt as though her whole world had come crashing down around her. Where was the man she had put on a pedestal; adored, trusted, loved? He didn’t exist…

With a low cry of torment she turned on her heel and started to run, desperate to escape from her pain, from her stepmother’s knowing triumph, but most of all from Dracco himself, who had betrayed her and everything she had believed about him. Behind her she could hear Dracco calling her name, but that only made her run even faster. In the street beyond the church a taxi was pulling up to disgorge its passenger, and without stopping to think what she was doing Imogen ran up to it and jumped in. At any other time the way the taxi driver was goggling at her would have made her giggle, but laughing was the last thing she felt like doing right now…

‘Quick,’ she instructed the driver, her voice trembling. ‘Please hurry.’

As she spoke she darted a quick backward glance towards the church, half expecting to see Dracco coming in pursuit of her, but the street behind her was empty.

‘Don’t tell me,’ the taxi driver quipped jovially as he took in both his passenger’s bridal array and her breathless anxiety, ’you’re in a hurry to get to a wedding—right?’ Laughing at his own joke, he started to negotiate the traffic.

‘Wrong,’ Imogen corrected him fiercely. ’I’m actually in a hurry to get away from one.’

As he swung round to stare at her, ignoring the busy traffic, Imogen could see the bemusement in his eyes.

‘What?’ he protested. ‘A runaway bride? I never thought.’

Quickly Imogen gave him her home address, adding tersely, ‘And please hurry.’

So far there was no evidence of any pursuit—no sign of either Dracco’s sleek Daimler or her stepmother’s Rolls-Royce.

Never had a drive seemed to last so long, nor caused her to sit on the edge of her seat, her fingers clenched into the upholstery in anxiety as she checked constantly to see if they were being followed. But at last the taxi driver was setting her down outside her home, waiting whilst she hurried inside to get the money to pay him—as a bride, there had been no need for her to have any cash with her.

Once she had paid him and soothed his unexpectedly paternal concern for her, she ran back upstairs to her room, dragging off her wedding dress with such force that the fragile fabric ripped. Just as her stepmother and Dracco between them had ripped apart her foolish dreams.

Feverishly she pulled on jeans and a top, hastily emptying the suitcase packed for the honeymoon she and Dracco were to have been taking and refilling it with clothes wrenched blindly off hangers and out of drawers.

She still hadn’t really taken in what she had done; all she knew was that she had to get as far away from Dracco as she could and as fast as she could. If, as her stepmother had warned her, he had only been marrying her to gain control of the business then he would not be satisfied until he had that control. She knew how determined he could be. How focused and… A small shudder shook her body. Dracco! Dracco! How could he have done this to her? How could he have humiliated and hurt her so? Tears burning her eyes, Imogen picked up her new cream leather handbag—bought especially for her honeymoon. Inside it was her passport, and the wallet of traveller’s cheques Dracco had given her earlier in the week.

‘Spending-money,’ he had told her with a small smile. The same smile that always made her heart lift and then beat frantically fast, whilst her insides melted and her body longed…

She had counted them after he had gone, her eyes widening as she realised just how much he had given her.

Well, that money would be put to good use now, she reflected bitterly as she allowed herself to enjoy the irony of her using the money Dracco had given her to spend on their honeymoon on funding her escape from him.

She would use it to buy herself a ticket to fly just as far away from him as she could!