Slave to Love

Impatience flickered across his face, followed by a frowning look of indecision when she continued to stare at him like that, and the desire to come and find out why she was spitting green daggers at him began to war with his determination to keep as far away from her as he possibly could tonight.

Then, with a small shrug of exasperation, he took a half-step towards her, and her senses began to fizz on a bright clamour of triumph when it looked as though she was going to win this particular battle and he was going to come to her!

But, just at that moment, a flash of blood-red silk caught her eye, and she glanced to one side of him just in time to see Delia wind her arm into the bent crook of his. By the time Roberta looked back at Mac his attention had already withdrawn from her, to be centred indulgently on his wife’s smilingly upturned face.

Ex-wife, she reminded herself as disappointment sent her racing heart plummeting to her feet. Ex damned wife! They had been divorced for almost eight years! Yet to look at them you would think that they couldn’t so much as function without the other close by!

God! Jealousy shot like the hot flame of hell right through her, forcing her to lower her eyes, close them tightly, pretend—pretend for her own sake more than anything else—not to have noticed their easy intimacy.

Solomon Maclaine and Delia Curzon had both been just eighteen years old when they were forced to get married because Lulu was on the way. All in all it had been an acceptable match, linking the Maclaine wealth with the Curzon millions, and generally making both families rather pleased at their siblings’ misdemeanour. But, from the small amount Mac had told her, the marriage had been anything but idyllic. And the long-overdue divorce which took place ten years later had been inevitable—though not so to their staunchly conservative families or their adored daughter.

Hence the show being put on by both Mac and Delia tonight, and the reason why, as usual, Roberta found herself left out in the cold.

‘Had enough yet?’

Starting at the unexpected closeness of Joel’s voice, she lifted her face, the nape-length edges of her softly curling pale blonde hair skimming across the expanse of milk-white skin left exposed by the off-the-shoulder design of her black velvet dress as she turned to look into his sardonically smiling face. But she knew that smile; Joel was angry—the little tic working at the side of his jaw told her so. Whatever Delia had said to him had just about finished him off tonight.

So, ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘I’ve had enough.’ Then, on a sudden burst of grim certainty, she thought, More than enough! and felt a new emotion begin to seethe inside her, one which came from the bitter decay of her own self-respect.

For twelve months she had been playing this game the way Mac wanted it played—being what he wanted her to be when he wanted her to be it. But she was damned if she was going to be marked as ‘the other woman’ by a load of people she could not care less about just because they refused to accept a divorce that had taken place eight years ago!

Being seen as a man’s lover was one thing but being labelled his little bit on the side was very much another!

‘Daddy’s bimbo’. That telling bit of cruelty was, she realised, having a profound effect on her.

And yes, she decided roundly, she’d had enough. She had honestly and finally had enough! Her relationship with Mac was going nowhere and had no hope of doing so while he considered his family more important to him than she was!

All her life she had played second-best to someone—second-best to her parents, who had been rather shocked to find themselves landed with a baby they had never really wanted. Second-best to their dual careers as wildlife experts, which had sent them wandering all over the world studying the habits of one animal or other while this new animal—a human child—was left behind with whoever would have her so long as their lives were not disrupted in any way. And now there was Mac, forcing her to take second place in his life to a family that was obviously so much more important to him.

And there was the rub, she noted rawly. She was not important enough to Mac for him to care what his attitude did to her. And if the last twelve months had not made him care, then nothing would.

She was fighting for a lost cause, and the realisation of it hit her like a runaway train, smack bang in the chest, lifting her perfectly shaped breasts and dropping them again in a single wrenching gasp of pain.

It was time to cut her losses and get out. Where she loved, Mac only desired. And why she had never realised it before was quite beyond her!

‘Uh-oh...’ Joel chanted drily. ‘Those lovely green eyes of yours tell me that trouble is a-brewing!’

You’re not so happy with this situation yourself! she wanted to snap. But, ‘I’m quite ready to leave if you are,’ was all she replied, holding herself stiffly, forcing her face to reveal as little as possible of what was going on inside her. Joel could see that something momentous was, but then he was standing barely a foot away from her, and also Joel knew her perhaps better than anyone else.

‘OK, sweetheart.’ Suddenly the mockery had gone from his voice, and he reached out to take one of her hands, squeezing it gently when he felt how much it trembled. ‘Let’s leave the gracious way, shall we?’ he suggested with false lightness. ‘Through the door with our chins up.’

‘You see too much,’ she muttered as he began leading her through the milling throng and out into the empty hallway of Mac’s elegant country home.

‘And you too little, angel-face,’ he replied rather drily, then with a gentle push, which was almost a gesture of sympathy, sent her towards the stairs. ‘Go get your coat.’

Her slender body was exquisite in the black velvet, and Joel watched her move gracefully up the stairs. She was beautiful; no one could deny that. Mac would not have given her a second glance if she hadn’t been. He liked his women beautiful, blonde, sexy. And Roberta possessed one of the sexiest figures that Joel had ever laid eyes on. She was all soft lines and seductively rounded curves, with skin like milk and hair that bubbled softly around her lovely face. Looking at her, you would be forgiven for mistaking her as the archetypal dumb blonde.

But Roberta Chandler was far from dumb—as those sharply intelligent green eyes would tell you, if you could bring yourself to look that high.

It had been to his advantage that Joel had bothered to look beyond that sizzling sexual allure when she’d come for her interview last year, because it meant that he had got himself the best personal assistant he had ever had, and Mac—by his good fortune of being his brother—had got himself the rarest woman he had ever had.

‘Where’s Roberta?’

Think of the devil, Joel thought drily as he turned around. ‘Fetching her coat,’ he replied.

Mac’s thick black brows took on a downward swoop. ‘So soon? It’s only—’ he glanced at the solid gold watch that he had strapped to his wrist ‘—ten-thirty. The night’s still young.’

‘Is it?’ Joel murmured cryptically. ‘I thought it well and truly done to death, myself.’