The Blackmail Baby

Imogen felt sick; filled with a cold, shaky disbelief and an even colder fear. This was not what she had expected; what she had steeled herself to deal with.

During the long flight from Rio she had forced herself to confront the fear that had raised its threatening head in her nightmares in the days leading up to her journey. She had been terrified that somehow, totally against her will and all logic, if she were to see Dracco again she might discover a dangerous residue of her teenage love for him had somehow survived; that it was waiting, ready to explode like a time bomb, to destroy her new life and the peace of mind she had fought so hard for. But now! Now it wasn’t love that Dracco was arousing inside her but a furious mixture of anger and hostility.

So she was still a virgin—was that a crime?

‘You have no right to pry into my life, to spy on me,’ she began furiously, but Dracco refused to allow her to continue.

‘We are still married. I am still your husband; you are still my wife,’ he pointed out coldly.

Imogen turned away to conceal her expression from him. Married in the eyes of the church, perhaps, but surely not in the eyes of the law, since their marriage had never been consummated. And that certainly didn’t give Dracco the right to claim her as his wife in a voice that suggested… Wearily Imogen shook her head. Now she was letting her imagination run away with her. Thinking she had heard possessiveness in Dracco’s voice.

His words had given her a shock. Why on earth hadn’t Dracco had the marriage set aside? He, after all, loved another woman—her stepmother!

Even after all these years it still filled her with acute nausea and disgust to think of Dracco with Lisa. Her father’s wife and the man her father had loved and valued so very much. Had Dracco slept with Lisa whilst her father was still alive? Had they…? Had he…? Unstoppably all the questions she had fiercely forbidden herself to even think before suddenly stormed through her. The images they were conjuring up sickened her, causing a red-hot boiling pain in her middle.

All those years ago, Dracco had implied to her that he was marrying her to protect her, when all he had really wanted to protect had been his own interests!

Tiredly Imogen closed her eyes. She had come to England for one purpose and one purpose only and that was to claim whatever money might be owing to her. And to persuade Dracco to transfer her interest in the business into the name of the charity so that in future it could benefit direct from her inheritance. Anything else…

‘I haven’t come back to discuss our marriage, Dracco.’ Firmly Imogen took a deep breath, determined to take control of the situation. ’I’ve already written to David Bryant, explaining what I want, and that is—’

‘To give away your inheritance to some charity,’ Dracco interrupted her grimly. ‘No, Imo,’ he told her curtly. ‘As your trustee, there’s no way I would be fulfilling my moral obligation towards you if I agreed, and as your husband…’

She ached to be able to challenge him, to throw caution to the wind and demand furiously to know just when moral obligations had become important to him. But some inner instinct warned her against going too far. This wasn’t how their interview was supposed to go. She was an adult now, on an equal footing with Dracco, and not a child whom he could dictate to.

‘Legally the money is mine,’ she reminded him, having mentally counted to ten and calmed herself down a little.

‘Was yours,’ Dracco corrected her harshly. ‘You insisted that you wanted nothing to do with your inheritance—and you put that insistence in writing—remember.’

Imogen took another deep breath. The situation was proving even more fraught with difficulties than she had expected.

‘I did write to Uncle Henry saying that,’ she agreed, pausing to ask him quietly, ‘When did he die? I had no idea.’

Dracco had turned away from her, and for a moment Imogen thought that he had either not heard her question or that he did not intend to answer it, but then without turning back to her he said coldly, ‘He had a heart attack shortly after…on the day of our wedding.’

Horrified, Imogen could only make a soft, anguished sound of distress.

‘Apparently he hadn’t been feeling well before the ceremony,’ Dracco continued as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘When he collapsed outside the church…’ He stopped whilst Imogen battled against her shock. ‘I went with him to the hospital. They hoped then… But he had a second attack whilst he was in Intensive Care which proved fatal.’

‘Was it…?’ Too shocked to guard her thoughts, Imogen blurted out shakily, ‘Was it because of me? Because I…?’

‘He had been under a tremendous amount of pressure,’ Dracco told her without answering her anguished plea for reassurance. ‘Your father’s death had caused him an immense amount of work, and it seems that there had been certain warning signs of a heart problem which he had ignored. He wasn’t a young man—he was ten years older than your father.’ He paused and then said abruptly, ‘He asked me to tell you how proud he had been to give you away.’

Tears blurred Imogen’s eyes. She had a mental image of her father’s solicitor on the morning of her wedding, dressed in his morning suit, his silver-grey hair immaculately groomed. In the car on the way to the church he had taken hold of her hand and patted it a little awkwardly. He had been a widower, like her father, with no children of his own, and Imogen had always sensed a certain shyness in his manner towards her. Her father had been a very loving man and she had desperately missed the father-daughter warmth of their relationship. She had known from the look in his eyes that, like her, Henry Fairburn had been thinking about her father on that day.

She had been sad to learn of his death from his nephew, but she had never imagined…

‘If you’re going to throw yourself into a self-indulgent bout of emotional guilt, I shouldn’t bother,’ Dracco was warning her hardly. ‘His heart attack was a situation waiting to happen and would have happened whether or not you had been there.’

Somehow, instead of comforting and reassuring her, Dracco’s blunt words were only making her feel worse, Imogen acknowledged.

‘I don’t want to argue with you, Dracco,’ she said quietly. ‘You are a wealthy man in your own right. If you could just see the plight of these children…’

‘It is a good cause, yes, involvement with the shelter. My sources inform me that—’

‘Your sources?’ Imogen checked him angrily. ‘You have no right—’

‘Surely you didn’t think I would allow you to simply disappear without any trace, Imo? For your father’s sake, if nothing else; I owed it to him to—’

‘I can’t believe that even someone like you could stoop so low. To have me watched, spied on,’ Imogen breathed bitterly.

‘You’re overreacting,’ Dracco told her laconically. ‘Yes, I made enquiries to ascertain where you were and what you were doing and with whom,’ he agreed. ‘Anyone would have done the same in the circumstances. You were a young, naïve girl of eighteen. Anything could have happened to you.’

He was frowning broodingly and Imogen had to shake herself free of the foolish feeling that he had been genuinely concerned about her.

‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Dracco, I’m not going to give up,’ she warned him determinedly. ‘The shelter needs money so desperately, and I warn you now that I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure it gets mine.’

The silence that followed her passionate outburst caused a tiny sliver of apprehension to needle its way into Imogen’s nervous system. Dracco was looking at her as though…as though…

Why had she never realised as a girl how very hawkish and predatory he could look, almost demonically so? She shivered and instantly blamed her reaction on the change of continent.

‘Well, you’re a woman now, Imo, and not a girl and, as you must have surely come to realise, nothing in this life comes without a price. You handed your inheritance over to me of your own accord. Now you wish me to hand it back to you, and not only the income which your share of the business has earned these last four years, but the future income of that share as well.’

‘It belongs to me,’ Imogen insisted. ‘The terms of my father’s will stated that it would become mine either on my thirtieth birthday or when I married, whichever happened first.’

‘Mmm…’ Dracco gave her a look she could not identify.

‘You have told me what it is you want me to give you, Imo, but what are you prepared to give me in exchange for my agreement—supposing, of course, that I am prepared to give it?’

Imogen started to frown. What could she give him?

‘We are still married,’ Dracco was reminding her yet again. ‘Our marriage was never annulled.’

Imogen’s face cleared. ‘You want an annulment,’ she guessed, ignoring the sharp, unwanted stab of pain biting into her heart and concentrating instead on clinging determinedly to the relief she wanted to feel. ‘Well, of course I will agree, and—’

‘No, I do not want an annulment,’ Dracco cut across her hurried assent. ‘Far from it.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU don’t want an annulment?’ Imogen stared at Dracco as though she couldn’t believe what she had heard. ‘What…what do you mean?’ she demanded.

She could hear the nervous stammer in her voice and despised herself for it. Dracco couldn’t mean that he wanted to remain married to her. That was impossible. And just as impossible to accept was that sharp, shocking thrill of excitement his words had given her.

Dracco watched her carefully. As Imogen’s trustee, it was his moral duty to safeguard her inheritance for her, to be worthy of the trust her father had placed in him, and that was something he fully intended to do. And if in helping her he was able to progress his own personal agenda, then so much the better! And as for him telling her just why…but, no…that was totally out of the question. Fate had generously dealt some very powerful cards into his hand, and now it was up to him to play them successfully. And he intended to play them and to win!

Imogen felt a nervous tremor run through her body as she waited for Dracco’s response. His expression was hard and unreadable, his eyes cold and distant.

‘I hope that you don’t need me to remind you of just how much your father meant to me,’ he began abruptly.