Innocent Cinderella: His Untamed Innocent / Penniless and Purchased / Her Last Night of Innocence

Marin was shaking, but she managed to lift her chin. ‘You’re crude,’ she said with quiet clarity. ‘Crude and unbelievably vile.’

‘And you, Miss Wade, are a fool,’ Diana retorted, shrugging. ‘Oh, I expect you’ll be enough of a novelty to become the flavour of the month for a little while.’ She shrugged. ‘After all, I’m sure he’s grateful if nothing else. But he also gets bored very easily—and very quickly. He’ll soon have exhausted all your limited possibilities.

‘And he certainly doesn’t do happy-ever-after, in case you were hoping.’

‘I wasn’t.’ Marin’s voice was ice, chipped from the shivering emptiness inside her. ‘But thanks for your concern, if that’s what it is. Goodbye, Mrs Halsay.’

She walked past Diana into the house, heading blindly across the drawing room and out into the hall to the downstairs cloakroom, her heart beating like a wild creature chased by hunters.

She shot the small, brass bolt on the door, then walked across to the tiled vanity unit with its scented soaps, hand lotions and pile of small, fluffy towels. Leaning over the shell-shaped basin, she retched drily and weakly.

As the feeling of nausea began to pass and she felt marginally calmer, she straightened, turning on the cold tap and letting the water run over the pulses in her wrists. She caught her reflection in the large gilt-edged mirror right in front of her.

Found herself looking at—understanding—what Diana Halsay had seen: all the signs of self-betrayal. The shadowed, dreaming eyes emphasised by the smudges of sleeplessness beneath them; the sensuous, luminous pallor of her skin and the soft mouth, blurred and swollen with kissing.

Well and truly laid. Diana’s words ate into her brain like acid. Corrosive, destructive.

Has Jake taken pity on you at last? Like a starving kid outside a baker’s window.

Comments that made her feel as if the skin had been flayed from her body. Because she could not deny that they held a basic truth.

I thought I’d been so clever, she thought, pretending to pretend, hiding what I was truly feeling. But I was only fooling myself. And all the time people have been laughing at me.

She poured water into her cupped hands, splashing it on to her face as if she could wash away the evidence of last night. Of her appalling weakness. Her stupidity. That, she thought, above all.

And now she had to go back and face them, the occupants of this small, malicious world, and the man who’d brought her here. Subjected her to this. The man she now had to rely on to take her out of it and back to where she really belonged, she reminded herself bitterly.

And quelled the sob rising in her throat.

The dining room was mercifully empty. There was coffee on a hotplate on the sideboard and she poured some into a cup, swallowing it in great, painful gulps, trying to dispel the chill inside her.

She did not turn as she heard someone enter the room, but she knew instantly who it was, and her body tensed painfully.

Jake’s arms slid round her waist, drawing her back against him as he nuzzled her neck. ‘Where did you go?’

By some supreme effort, her voice sounded almost normal. ‘I—I couldn’t sleep.’

‘You should have woken me.’ He smiled against her skin. ‘I know the perfect cure for insomnia.’

‘Anyway, it was morning.’ She remembered lying in his arms, watching night turn into day, her body glowing with joy and fulfilment. Making her forget that people spoke about ‘the cold light of dawn’. Meaning a time when reason and commonsense kicked in. Even a time for an agony of shame and bitter regret.

‘You speak as if that makes a difference,’ he said softly. ‘All evidence to the contrary.’

The words twisted inside her like a knife. She released herself. ‘How—how soon can we leave here, please?’

‘It’s usual to stay for lunch,’ he said after a pause. ‘But we can go earlier, if that’s what you want.’

‘Yes.’ Her voice shook a little. ‘I—really want to. I—I’ve had enough.’

‘Which makes two of us, believe me.’

Believe me. Oh God, how could he say that? she wondered, unable to look at him as he stood beside her, casually helping himself to coffee.

‘You go and pack our things,’ he went on. ‘While I have a final brief word with Graham, and then we can be off.’

Marin was standing by her bedroom window, gazing sightlessly at the garden, some fifteen minutes later when she heard him go into his room. A moment later, he appeared in the doorway.

‘You didn’t pack for me?’

She turned defensively. ‘I didn’t know you wanted me to.’ It was a lie. She couldn’t bear the implied intimacy of handling his clothing, touching things he’d worn recently. Behaving as if they were a couple.

He shrugged, sending her a faintly puzzled look. ‘It would have saved time, that’s all. But it doesn’t really matter.’

He paused. ‘I’ve already said our farewells. Our hostess has swept her female guests off to the tennis court, and Graham and the guys are planning to play poker.’

He smiled at her. ‘I’ll throw my things together then, with one bound, we can be free.’

The garden blurred suddenly, but her voice was steady. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We can.’ And felt her heart break.

Chapter Nine (#ulink_7dbca17e-ac61-5ce0-bd31-3ee7a1728c28)

THE VILLAGE WAS several miles behind them. That part of her ordeal was over, but now she had to deal with its aftermath.

In spite of herself, she found she was glancing sideways at his hands on the wheel of the car as they steered it, controlled it, with effortless expertise.

Just as he’d done with her last night. His hands on her body touching, arousing, with the same precision. Taking her exactly where he wanted her to go.

And, God help her, she’d wanted it too. Had wanted all of it and more. Had wanted the glory of him with her, inside her, as they reached paradise together. Had prayed for it never to stop.

Only to find all that pain, hunger and rapture belittled—reduced to words like pity, reward and gratitude. The passion she’d imagined replaced by a sense of obligation.

He’d performed, she thought. He’d given her pleasure, because she’d made it so shamefully clear that was what she required. Why she’d thrown herself at him, as she had.

He knew how to arouse—to fulfil, but that did not mean that he had to be emotionally engaged. Inexperienced as she was, she’d been aware of his restraint. Maybe he’d simply known how little effort on his part would be needed to bring her to climax. Turn her into his willing creature.

Worst of all, she’d ignored the fact that he’d tried to step back from her.

Suddenly she remembered Greg, standing in the flat in France. ‘She’s no bloody oil-painting,’ he’d said, the words dripping with contempt. ‘Who the hell would want to start anything with such a pathetic little object?’

Oh God, she whispered under her breath. How can it be possible to hurt so much? To feel so ashamed?

‘Well, that’s that, thank God.’ She started as Jake’s voice intruded on her unhappy reverie. ‘Would you mind if we made a slight detour?’

She swallowed. ‘Why should we do that?’

‘There’s somewhere we could have lunch,’ he said. There was a smile in his voice. ‘It’s not too far out of our way, and you might like it.’

‘Thank you.’ Her voice was polite but definite. ‘But I’d rather go straight back to London. If you don’t mind.’