'If I were going to teach Gavin a lesson I'd choose someone who didn't despise me because of who my father is. Dear God, Luke, you must think I'm stupid. You're so twisted you'd probably tape the event and post it to Dad,' she accused, disgust, aimed mostly at her own helpless response, and aching sound in her voice. 'I'm not a stupid teenager any more.' I might as well be. At least I kept an illusion of pride then, and then I didn't know how deep and deadly was Luke's need—need for retribution, she thought despairingly.
'At least you were honest then,' he interrupted, his voice as calm as her own was frantic. 'If I were so lost to any sense of morality, so single-minded, hasn't it occurred to you that I could have blighted the Stapely pride much more thoroughly simply by taking what you were so eager to offer at the time?'
'You were distracted by the merry widow, that's all,' she sneered. 'Providence cured me and saved me from making an even bigger fool of myself. Or you just couldn't stomach the thought of touching a Stapely.'
Luke made a scornful noise. 'Didn't you ever realise that that little scene was stage-managed with the precise intention of curing you of the infatuation? It's a tricky situation for a man in his twenties to be worshipped by a girl in the grip of pubescent hormonal imbalance. It was either that or do what you were so anxious for. I think the reality would have sent you running even faster. I don't think you were as ready for the grown-up league as you thought.'
Had that been his idea of kindness? The cruel reminder of her naive transparency made her flush. 'You expect me to believe that,' she snorted, 'after I've seen how much you hate my parents? You could have ruined me.' Why wouldn't he have? Was she to believe in scruples after she had glimpsed the indelible hate in his eyes, knew what his plans for her future were?
Silently he looked into her eyes, his expression at its most impenetrable. 'Naturally you feel I wouldn't have passed up the opportunity.' He half turned away, his expression one of distaste. 'At that time I half thought there might be something worth protecting, nurturing, in those big, transparent brown eyes. Even though you were a spoilt brat I thought by some miracle you'd been spared the taint.' He gave a mirthless laugh and continued with heavy irony, 'I had no way of seeing what a deceitful apology for a woman you'd turn into. But then, when it comes down to it you are a Stapely. You're as shallow and self-serving as the rest of them,' he said with thin-lipped distaste.
She took a step backwards as though he'd struck her. 'You are the arbiter of taste in womanly attributes, I take it.' Her voice was hard but inside for some reason she wanted to cry, weep like the child she no longer was. Mentally she remonstrated with herself for this wrenching, instinctive response to his cold indictment.
'If homogenised life is what you want, far be it from me to criticise.'
His drawl made her want to run at him, fists flying. 'Look at me, will you?' she snapped, catching hold of his sleeve, aware even in the heat of the moment of the sinewy hardness beneath the fabric. 'You were criticising…you are. Who gave you the right?' she demanded fiercely.
'Why in God's name did you never break free?' The words erupted and the anger in his face was savage. 'After university, you went back to that bloody mausoleum. Haven't you got any backbone? I expected more—much more of you. I thought I saw some integrity in your eyes once.'
The unexpectedness of the accusation, and the accompanying information that Luke had spared a passing thought for her, made her catch her breath. 'Terribly sorry to be such a profound disappointment to you,' she snapped with heavy irony, quashing the unexpected sense of guilt as though she had to justify herself to him.
'What is the great attraction of Charlcot? The company of sweet little Charlotte? That's the same poor soul who swiped your boyfriend, is it?' he asked with a quirk of one eyebrow. 'Dear Charlotte, beneath her wistful-little-girl looks, can manage very nicely, thank you. What had you intended to do, take her with you when you got hitched? As things have turned out I'm sure hubby would have been amenable. I mean, two of you might have doubled his promotion prospects!'
So the only thing that would make a man want her was her family's wealth, was it? She saw his face distorted through a glaze of tears. 'You are a pig. I don't see what it is about my life that offends you so much.'
'I hate waste.' The sudden flash in his eyes made her blink, and she struggled against the hands that turned and caught her own forearms, half dragging her towards him. 'Your life is aseptically neat, down to the last ingredient—a lover you can control and never be out of control with. You can't even be honest about what the guy actually meant to you. All this tearful carping about loving him. I know honest emotion doesn't exist in the precincts of Charlcot's palatial walls, but you can't invent life to suit your own purposes. You have to get out, get bruised, sample things, live. You can't plan life; it just happens if you let it.'