War of Love

She wrenched out of his grasp, wincing at the pain this caused to exactly the same bruised spot where he had grasped her earlier. She was going to be very badly bruised by the time he had finished with her. Or she had finished with him, which she was just about to do!

'I don't know what your problem is now, Mr Buchanan,' she told him heatedly. 'And, quite frankly, I have no wish to know either! Just as I have no wish to be manhandled by you again-----'

'Think yourself lucky it's only your arm I've hurt,' he rasped as she rubbed the bruised spot. 'What I would really like to do is wring your damned neck!' He glared down at her.

Considering they were standing in the middle of a busy street, off ice workers pouring out of the building on either side of them, pushing past the two of them in their rush to get home, it might be a little difficult for him to actually carry out that particular threat at the moment. Although, knowing him as she did, Silke wasn't so sure of that...

What on earth had she done now?

'My uncle,' he bit out viciously, 'has just informed me that he's met the woman he intends making his wife!'

Silke looked up at him blankly. But, as Lyon continued to glare down at her, realisation began to dawn!

'Don't look so innocent, Silke,' Lyon rasped savagely. 'You know damn well I'm talking about you. Henry has just informed me that he intends marrying you as soon as he can persuade you to say yes!' His coldly contemptuous gaze raked over her. 'Which I'm sure won't take him too long!'

Silke couldn't speak, couldn't have uttered a word if she had tried. What was the man talking about?

CHAPTER FOUR

Lyon Buchanan's mouth twisted derisively as Silke continued to gape up at him. 'Don't try and tell me the news has come as a surprise to you,' he snapped contemptuously. 'You must have done something to encourage Henry to think along those lines.'

She shook her head dazedly. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'No?' Lyon said scathingly. 'Henry has lived for sixty-seven years without contemplating marriage to any woman, and yet after meeting you this morning he suddenly decides to take the plunge; forgive me, Silke, if I find your shock a little hard to believe!'

She was starting to come out of the shock now, and as she did, she knew that Lyon had made an error of some sort. Most unusual for him, she was sure! But she had seen the way Henry looked at her mother earlier, her mother's reaction to seeing him, knew that there had once been—possibly still was, if her mother's flight at the mere sight of Henry was anything to go by!—some very strong emotion between the older couple. In fact...

'What exactly did your uncle say?' she prompted guardedly.

Lyon's nostrils flared angrily. 'I told you-----'

'I said exactly,' Silke reminded him quietly, her mind racing.

He drew in a harsh breath. 'Henry was slightly groggy by the time I managed to talk to him; Peter had given him something to help him relax. But Henry made a point of telling me he was going to marry you as soon as he's out of hospital,' his voice rose angrily again over the last.

'Not me,' Silke told him firmly, frowning, positive now Henry hadn't been talking about her. Just what sort of relationship had Henry and her mother had in the past for Henry to have made such a statement to his nephew?

'Of course it was you, damn it!' Lyon looked as if he were about to explode. 'You-----'

'Satin,' Silke said with certainty, preoccupied with thoughts of her mother and Henry. 'I'm sure Henry told you he was going to marry Satin.' She looked at him enquiringly.

'Silke, Satin, it's the same thing; I told you, he was groggy when I spoke to him,' Lyon dismissed impatiently.

Not too groggy to know exactly who he was talking about—and what he wanted! My God, her mother had some explaining to do!

'You're wrong, Mr Buchanan,' Silke shook her head ruefully. 'It isn't the same thing at all. And I'm sure when your uncle feels less—groggy he'll tell you that himself.'

'And I'm telling you that I have no intention of letting a little gold-digger like you marry my uncle!' he bit out contemptuously.

Silke frowned up at him. He really was the most insulting-----! 'And just exactly what right do you think you have to tell anyone who they should or shouldn't marry?' she scorned. 'From the little I've seen of you, you wouldn't know love if it jumped up and bit you on the nose!' She was breathing hard in her agitation. What right did he have to call her a gold-digger? He didn't even know her. Or her mother. Which, if she wasn't mistaken, was going to be more to the point—because she was sure it was her mother Henry had decided he was going to marry. And she was no more a gold-digger than Silke was.

Lyon's face might have been carved out of granite, his mouth a thin, angry line. 'You aren't trying to tell me you love my uncle?' he derided harshly.

'Not yet,' she answered vaguely. But if what she suspected were to become fact, she had a feeling she was going to be put in a position where she could possibly learn to love him as a stepfather. If Henry ever persuaded her mother to stop running. And Silke was positive he was going to have a damn good try at doing exactly that!

'But you might be able to force yourself,' Lyon rasped with contempt. 'Taking into account his bank balance—and his obvious ill-health. After all, the chances are, with his heart complaint, that you wouldn't have to be married to him for too long before he-----'

Silke had never hit anyone in her life before. Until that moment. And there was no thought behind it now either, just an instinctive response to the insult Lyon was making to both her and Henry. Just who did this man think he was? How dared he say those things about her after knowing her for so brief a time?

But if she thought she was angry then, her emotions were mild in comparison with his; his face was deathly white, a nerve pulsing in one rigidly clenched cheek, the red marks where her fingers had made contact standing out lividly against that abnormal paleness.

But as usual it was his eyes that were most expressive, glittering dangerously, almost silver in their intensity.

Silke stared up at him wordlessly, shocked by her own actions as much as by his reaction to it.

'You're going to regret you ever did that,' he finally ground out between clenched, perfectly even white teeth.

She didn't doubt it, had realised that the moment her hand made contact with that hard cheek! But there was no way she was going to stand by and let this man insult her—and his uncle!—in the way he had been doing.

'Goodbye, Mr Buchanan,' she told him with as much dignity as she could muster, turning away to join the milling crowd, people that had only been momentarily diverted in their hurry to get home by the scene taking place on the pavement between the tall, autocratic man and the slender, blonde-haired young woman.

As she walked away, Silke half expected those steely fingers to grasp her once again. But as she took each step further away from Lyon Buchanan and it didn't happen, she began to breathe again, resisting the impulse to turn and look back at him to see exactly what he had done after she walked away, whether he had gone back to his car or was still standing on the pavement where she had left him. No doubt he had roared off in the other direction in his powerful car, thoughts of revenge already forming in his calculating mind!

Silke realised she was trembling with reaction. God, that man was—well, he just was! She had never met anyone like him before. And she hoped she never did again!

* * *

Her mother hadn't, as it turned out, run very far. Silke knew, by the lights blazing in her mother's apartment as she approached the prestigious building, that her mother was definitely at home. It was something, at least.

The fact that her mother was in the kitchen baking bread wasn't a good sign; it was her mother's other escape. All through her haphazard childhood Silke could remember the smell of baking bread whenever her mother had hit another disaster in her life—and there had been many!

It was obvious, from the slightly red-rimmed green eyes as their gazes met across the kitchen, that her mother had been crying. A lot, from her make-up-less cheeks; her mother was always perfectly groomed and made-up.

She abruptly broke off her fierce pummelling of the dough to frown at the distress clearly written on Silke's pale face. 'What happened?' she asked heavily.

Too much for her to be able to tell it all! She couldn't believe it was only just over eight hours since she had gone, under protest, to take up her position in the confectionery department of Buchanan's; it seemed as if a lifetime had passed since Lyon Buchanan had verbally ripped into her before dragging her up to his office.

But Lyon Buchanan wouldn't be where her mother's interest lay...

'Henry Winter collapsed after you ran out of the office this after—steady!' Silke warned concernedly as her mother swayed slightly, her face going even paler.

Silke hurried to pull out a chair from the kitchen table, sitting her mother down in it before moving to sit in the chair opposite, looking across at her worriedly; there could be no doubting her mother's distress at the news.

Her mother moistened dry lips. 'Is he—is he-----?'

'He's in a private clinic,' Silke reassured gently. She had never seen her mother shaken like this; there must have been something very special between her mother and Henry Winter for her to be reacting like this. 'I'm going to telephone later to see if he's-----'

'Just tell me where it is.' Her mother stood up abruptly, already taking off her apron before moving to wash her flour-covered hands.

Silke frowned at her. 'But a short time ago you ran away from the man-----'