Summer Sins

‘Why did you go out of your way to annoy him so much?’ she asked. ‘You seemed to relish in shocking him at every opportunity.’

A curtain seemed to come over his face as he reached to top up both of their glasses. ‘My father liked to think he could control me,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t prepared to play the game.’

‘You’re playing now, though, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘You’re following the dictates of his will to the letter.’

His eyes met hers across the table. ‘I want that property, Hayley,’ he said. ‘And nothing and no one is going to stand in my way to get it.’

‘Except me,’ she reminded him coolly.

His eyes glittered as they held hers. ‘If you want to play dirty, darling, I’m all for it. I love nothing better than a damned good fight. But I should warn you that you are the one who has the most to lose. The financial security you’ve worked so hard for will be in jeopardy.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to say he wouldn’t dare, but she stopped just in time.

He would dare.

‘The very last thing I want to do is marry you,’ she said staring into the blood-red contents of her glass.

‘If it’s any consolation to you I feel exactly the same way,’ he said. ‘But we only have to live together for a month. And it’s the only way we will both get what we want.’

She raised her eyes to his once more. ‘It seems to me you stand to gain much more from this enterprise than I do. You get to inherit Crickglades while I get a sum of money at the end.’

He studied her tense features for a moment. ‘Were you surprised he didn’t leave you more?’

‘No, of course not …’ She looked genuinely puzzled by his query. ‘Why should I? I’m not a blood relative. I was just his stepdaughter and not for all that long at that.’

‘All the same, it had been generally assumed he had left you the lot.’

‘It was generally assumed by you, no one else,’ she put in caustically. ‘I never once asked Gerald for a thing. To tell you the truth I was surprised he didn’t leave everything equally between you and Raymond.’ A little frown interrupted the smoothness of her brow. ‘He must have changed his mind at the last minute for some reason.’

‘Perhaps he assumed Raymond would be well provided for by the church,’ he said, and, after an almost undetectable pause, added, ‘It’s all my brother has ever wanted to do. For as long as I can remember he had his heart set on the priesthood.’

Something in his tone brought Hayley’s gaze back to his. ‘You admire him for it, don’t you?’ she said, unable to remove the element of surprise from her voice. ‘I thought you didn’t get on all that well.’

He met her look with equanimity. ‘He’s my older brother,’ he said. ‘We may have had our differences growing up, but what brothers don’t? But, yes, I do admire him for sacrificing himself for others. It’s not something everyone can or is prepared to do.’

Hayley ran a fingertip around the rim of her glass as she let the silence swirl about them momentarily. ‘About the pre-nup thing …’

Jasper stiffened. ‘What about it?’

‘Your father insisted there wasn’t to be one between us.’

‘So?’

She met his gaze once more. ‘As far as I see it you are in a very precarious situation,’ she said, choosing her words with care. ‘If I agree to this marriage between us, at the end of it I can legitimately strip you of, if not half, then a considerable portion of your assets.’

He clenched his jaw, making his cheekbones instantly sharpen, his mouth turning into a thin white line. ‘I was right about you all along, wasn’t I?’ he said. ‘My father was a blind fool. He thought you were nothing like your sleep-around money-hungry mother, but you’re already counting the pennies, aren’t you?’

Hayley wanted to defend herself but stopped just in time. Let him think she was after all she could get. What did it matter? He hated her anyway. Nothing she said was going to change that. But if any money did come her way she would give it to Daniel Moorebank, the son he had abandoned.

‘I have decided I will marry you,’ she said with a lift of her chin.

Jasper’s dark eyes bored into hers. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret this?’ he asked.

‘As you say, we’ll only have to live together for a month,’ she reminded him. ‘And it’s not as if we have to spend every second of it together. You can live your life and I’ll live mine. It will be over before we know it.’

He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, his eyes still locked on hers. ‘So you really are prepared to be my wife?’

‘Yes, but we only have to share a house, not a bed.’