Claiming His Shock Heir

‘Love? That’s an emotion you wouldn’t begin to understand. Love is for fools and weaklings as far as you’re concerned, isn’t it? Tell me, have you ever actually loved anyone? Ever given anyone anything other than your delectable wanton body? Have yo

u, Philippa?’

He was shaking her now, so caught up in his own anger that she sensed that he was barely aware of how much he was hurting her, his fingers biting deeply into her skin as he gave way to the rage simmering inside him and let it erupt fiercely, scorching her with words that burned like red hot brands.

‘How dare you speak to me like that? Of course I’ve loved. I love Simon, I.…’

‘You loved his father, is that it?’ Scott demanded, thin-lipped. ‘But he left you to bear his child alone, didn’t he? He didn’t love you enough to give you his name, isn’t that the truth?’

‘Yes. Yes, I loved Simon’s father,’ she agreed wildly, not allowing herself to think of what she was admitting. ‘And if you want the truth, I still love him, I…’

She came to an abrupt halt just realising where her heated words were leading her, her eyes unknowingly hazed with pain. It was too late to recall her impulsive words and far, far too late to pretend to herself that she hadn’t meant them. Scott’s rage had set off an explosion inside her that had totally destroyed her defences, and now it was too late to recoil from the truth.

‘You still want him,’ Scott grated. ‘Well, you’re just going to have to make do with me, aren’t you?’

His fingers imprisoned her wrists just as she lifted her hands to fend him off, forcing them behind her back and using this superior strength to propel her against the hard length of his body. Fear skittered wildly inside her, her pulses thudding in sensual response.

‘Scott, don’t do this,’ she protested, sensing the sexual urgency building up inside him, and wondering if it was anger that had sparked it off, or her tactless reference to Cara.

‘Shut up, Philippa,’ she heard him say thickly as he lowered his head, ‘unless you want to make me even angrier than I already am. You owe me this.’

She jerked her head back, feeling the bones in her neck snap painfully, her manoeuvre to no avail as Scott anticipated her and used his free hand to grasp her, his fingers tightening into the thickness of her hair, holding her motionless and defenceless as his mouth bruised hers, his teeth nipping painfully on her lower lip.

She held out against him as long as she could, her body stiff with tension and anger, and as though he sensed that she would not give way beneath the pain he was inflicting on her, the pressure of his mouth eased slightly, the fingers clamped to her skull deftly massaging her taut flesh, soothing away the tension she was using to hold him at bay until she could feel it virtually flowing out of her body, to be replaced by a mindless, heady langour; a heat that warmed her skin and drained her resistance.

‘I want you, Philippa, and you want me too, for all that you pretend you don’t.…’

The words were muffled against her mouth but they hurt like tiny darts in her heart, inflicting pain, reminding her of what he really thought about her. She managed to pull away from him long enough to say bitterly, ‘According to you I want most men I come into contact with.… How does it feel being one of a crowd?’

If she had meant to taunt him into releasing her with her bitter words, she had failed miserably Philippa recognised as the pressure on her aching wrists and the base of her spine increased until she was intimately aware of Scott’s body, and its hardening arousal.

‘Right now this is what I feel,’ he told her thickly, watching the recognition dawn in her eyes and with it a sexual excitement she couldn’t quite conceal. This was what love did to you, she thought weakly, it made you vulnerable, dangerously so. ‘And you feel it too.’ There was triumph in the mockingly spoken words and in the glittering eyes that searched her face for more evidence of betrayal. Scott released her wrists, his hand sliding up under her t-shirt, tracing the line of her vertebrae, making her body shudder deliciously in pleasure. She was dying, drowning in a vast, silent pool of warm water, drowning and not even wanting to do a thing about it. ‘Philippa.…’

His voice was tense with hunger and excitement, his mouth hot where it burned against her skin; the tiny, thready pulse thudding in her throat; the exposed curve of her shoulder where his teeth nipped delicately at her soft flesh, his hand cupping the warmth of her breast, his thumb.… Reality shuddered through her and she pushed bitterly away, not knowing which of them she hated the most. He was destroying all that she held most sacred; all the precious tender memories she had held on to during the lonely years, savaging and destroying them with his experienced seduction of her senses, with his kisses that told her how much he wanted her and how little he loved her.

‘Oh no, not this time. We’re not playing that game again,’ he warned her acidly. He took a step towards her and Philippa backed off instinctively, both of them shocked by the sudden intrusion of the brief rap on his door.

‘I’ve brought up your tea, Mr Garston.’ With Scott’s attention deflected to the door and his housekeeper, Philippa was free to escape, using the communicating door between their rooms, locking it feverishly behind her, before subsiding on to her own bed, trying to ignore the dull ache that radiated from the pit of her stomach. She had wanted him and in another few moments she would have let him make love to her, regardless of how much he despised her.

She covered her face with her hands, trying to stop her body from trembling. Dear God, what had she come to? He was like a drug to which she had no resistance at all. He simply had to be in the same room and her senses reacted to him; when he touched her she went up in flames, and only the fact that he didn’t know the truth about Simon and the past, could keep him from guessing exactly how much she still cared. And if he should guess? That was something so potentially humiliating that her skin crawled with heat and agony at the mere thought of it.

She was in her bathroom, showering, trying to suppress her potent memories of Scott’s body clad in nothing other than that brief towel, when she remembered that she had never asked him to release her, or talked to him about her concern for Simon. It would have to wait for another occasion now and one, preferably, conducted in such circumstances that she would not be sidetracked from her purpose by the distracting ache of hunger that always seemed to enfold her when she was with him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ON Saturday morning Philippa woke up early. She had promised to take Simon to York and needed to do some shopping herself. The very hot weather they were having showed up the deficiencies in her wardrobe, which was more geared to lower temperatures, and she was tired of wearing her one and only denim skirt for work every day. That wasn’t the reason she was awake at half-past six though. No, the explanation for her inability to snatch more than a few hours rest lay on the other side of the communicating door, no doubt enjoying the dreamless and restorative sleep that was denied to her. Forget Scott if just for today, an inner voice urged her; forget him.

Unfortunately that was easier said than done, and as she showered Philippa found herself remembering how she had felt when he touched her; how her body had melted with a sudden onrush of heat that had stunned her. He wanted her he had told her and in his arms with his body enforcing its masculinity on her she had felt that wanting and known that it sprang from the same deep craving which motivated his desire to enforce his power over her. He enjoyed humiliating her, Philippa acknowledged wearily; and if he ever guessed how much she still loved him.… But if he knew the truth.…

If he knew the truth it would make no difference that same inner voice warned her; all he would do was use it against her. He was too bitter… too hard for her to reach him now. He wouldn’t surrender his resentment of her lightly; it had become an intrinsic part of him, something he needed to fuel his drive to succeed.

She shivered, half shocked by how easily she could dissect his deepest feelings. This was what love did to you; it gave you an insight, a power that was as much a pain as a pleasure. It brought her no pleasure to know that if she had not allowed him to think she had deserted him Scott would probably have never made his company the success if was. Bitterness, hatred, resentment had that effect on people; it made them hungr

y. Happy people, contented people, were people who laughed at ambition, who turned their backs on the competitive world. Happiness had never spawned an empire-builder.

She reached out for a towel, wrapping it round her body, tensing as she remembered the look in Scott’s eyes that first time he had made love to her after he had forced her to come here. ‘I pretended you were Geoff,’ she had told him and there had been a look in his eyes then that warned her that her remark would not go unpunished. ‘I want you,’ he had said to her, and only she knew how close she had come to replying, ‘I want you, I love you.’

Was that what he was doing, baiting the trap by using the desire he could obviously sense she felt for him, hoping to use it against her, forcing her to admit.… What? That she loved him? No doubt in his eyes such an admission would be fitting recompense for what he saw as her treachery all those years ago.