A Woman Accused

He shrugged lazily. ‘Whatever you say, sweetheart.’

She rose to her feet. ‘Goodbye, Mr Archer. I wish I could say it had been nice to see you again, but—’

He shook his head as he leaned back against the wall. ‘I’m not leaving yet, Miss Harris,’ he said, his formal tone mimicking hers.

‘Yes, you are. We’ve nothing more to discuss.’

‘We’ve plenty to discuss.’ He cocked his head to the side and smiled again. ‘For instance, what did you do to old Charlie to kill him?’

The blood rushed from her face. ‘What?’

Edward laughed and held up his hand. ‘Let me rephrase that. What little tricks did you introduce him to last night, hmm?’ His smile faded. ‘It must have been something pretty cute to have done him in. Charlie was used to keeping fast company, but then I suppose a woman like you knows some things that can take a man as close to heaven as they do to hell.’

Olivia stared at him. ‘Are you suggesting—are you trying to insinuate that I—that Charles and I were—that we were...?’

‘I’m not insinuating anything.’ Edward moved quickly; he was across the narrow room and standing next to her before she had time to react. ‘I saw him, Olivia.’ His voice was soft, silken, and filled with menace. ‘I saw him in that big, silk-sheeted bed, I saw the imprint your head had left on the pillow beside his, I saw the bit of black lace you left tossed on the floor—’

‘I don’t have to listen to this nonsense,’ Olivia began as she started past him.

Edward’s hand closed tightly on her shoulder. ‘It’s too bad you weren’t with him when he breathed his last, Miss Harris. After all, your lover—’

‘Damn you!’ Angry tears rose in her eyes as she twisted unsuccessfully in his grasp. ‘He wasn’t my lover!’

He pulled her to him. ‘No?’

‘No! He was—’

He was Ria’s lover, she’d almost said. But no one knew that, and how could she name Ria without speaking to her first? Besides, neither she nor Ria owed this man any explanations. He was related to Charles’s wife, Ria had said, and his only interest in Charles was in finding a way to get his hands on the family fortune. Well, she could see that for herself now. Edward Archer didn’t give a damn about Charles’s death. Whatever he was angry about, it wasn’t because Charles Wright was no more.

‘I don’t owe you any explanations,’ she said stiffly.

He laughed. ‘No. I suppose you don’t.’ He stepped closer to her. ‘But you might want to be a little nicer to me, baby, considering that you’ve lost your bread and butter.’

Olivia twisted against his hand. ‘I don’t have to be anything to you! You’ve no right to—’

‘I have every right,’ he said in a silken whisper. ‘You’d better be a hell of a lot nicer to me.’ She cried out as his arms went around her and he pulled her against the hardness of his long, powerful body. ‘You’re going to have bills to pay, sweetheart, and I control the estate.’ He shifted her in his arms so that she was off balance; her weight fell against him and he smiled lazily at the feel of her body against his. ‘You’ll have to give up the flat in Sutton Place, of course.’

‘You’re insane! I don’t have a—’

‘But this place is pretty cosy. I might just let you keep it, and that pretty little design studio you play around in.’

‘Get out!’ she panted as she struggled to break free. ‘Damn you to hell, Edward Archer, get—’

‘Assuming you’re as nice to me as you were to old Charlie,’ he whispered, and then his mouth dropped to hers.

He was strong, as strong as she had known he would be. His arms imprisoned her, made her captive to the heat of his body. She cried out and tried to turn away from him.

‘I can be as generous as he was,’ he whispered against her mouth. He caught her head in his hands and held her so she couldn’t get away. ‘And I can make you happy in bed. We both know that.’

‘You bastard!’

‘Hell, we can make each other happy in bed,’ he said thickly, and he bent to her and kissed her again.

It was the same way he’d kissed her the first time, it was an angry, overpowering kiss meant to remind her of who was in charge and of what he thought of her, and it sent rage rocketing through her.

‘I hate you,’ she whispered fiercely.

Edward went very still. ‘Do you?’ he whispered, and suddenly there was a subtle change in the way he was holding her. His arms were just as hard, his embrace as unyielding. His body burned against hers with the same urgency. But there was a strange kind of longing in the way he held her. His kiss changed, too. It gentled, asked instead of demanded, gave instead of took.

‘Olivia,’ he whispered, and with a little sob of defeat she lifted her arms and wound them tightly around his neck. She pressed herself to him, wanting the feel of him imprinted on her breasts, on her belly, wanting to feel the silken darkness of his hair under her caressing hand, to feel the heat of his mouth on hers.

He thrust her from him so suddenly that she almost fell. Her lashes lifted; she stared into his face, watching as his eyes went from sea-dark to ice.

‘You see?’ he said. ‘It would be terrific.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But I’m not really sure I want to take another man’s leavings.’

She didn’t hesitate. Her hand came up and she hit him, hard, across the cheek. The crack of flesh against flesh was like the crack of lightning, and echoed through the small room. The look that flashed across Edward’s face was ominous, but Olivia was past caring.

‘You bastard,’ she said in a choked whisper. ‘You can’t come into my home and treat me like this! Just who in hell do you think you are?’

His smile was slow and lazy, as if she’d finally asked him the only question worth an answer, and he seemed to take an eternity before he answered.

‘I thought you knew,’ he said softly. ‘I’m Charles Wright’s stepson.’

She stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re not. You’re a relative of his w...’

‘I’m his stepson, Miss Harris. And I’m here to see to it that you don’t keep one cent of what rightly belongs to my mother.’

‘Your—your mother? But Charles was divorcing her.’

He laughed. ‘Did he tell you that, too? Hell, it must have been his favourite bedtime tale.’ The laughter fled his face. ‘Listen and listen well, baby, because I’m only going to say this once before I let my attorneys do the talking.’ One arm swept out in a gesture that took in everything: the flat, the floors beneath, and, Olivia knew, her very existence. ‘You’re not going to keep any of it. Not this place, not the apartment leased in your name on Sutton Place—’

‘What apartment?’

‘You’re going to lose it all, Miss Harris. My lawyers and I will see to that. So maybe you’d better shine up your shoes and go for a stroll. Pick a good spot, baby, and with any luck you might be able to find another sucker to replace good old Charlie.’

Olivia wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Get out,’ she whispered, ‘you—you...’

His teeth glinted in a quick smile. ‘The lady’s finally at a loss for words.’ Turning, he reached for the doorknob. ‘Not to worry, darling. Talk isn’t what you’re best at anyway.’

She took a step towards him. ‘Get out of my house!’

‘Enjoy it while you can.’ He laughed softly. ‘It won’t be yours much longer.’

The door opened, then slammed shut, and Olivia was finally, mercifully, alone.

CHAPTER THREE

OLIVIA sat at her desk, her dark head illuminated by the light from the brass gooseneck lamp beside her. It was late, almost eight o’clock on a Wednesday evening, and the studio was quiet, the silence broken only by the whisper of paper as she leafed through the documents that had been contained in the file folder that now lay on the floor beside her.