The Ultimate Surrender

‘Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I want to have a man in my life who loves me…a child whom he and I have created together?’

Tears clogged her voice and inside her head she could see both the man she really wanted and his child. It had been a long week, and she was physically tired and emotionally exhausted. Just how much more was she supposed to have to take?

‘Well, that’s a bit of a volte-face, isn’t it?’ Marcus derided her. ‘What happened to the Polly who claimed that she could only love one man and that no one else could ever replace him in her affections—or her bed?

‘Have you the least idea of what you’re going to be getting yourself into with Bernstein, Polly? Aside from the fact that he’s younger than you, according to Suzi he uses women like disposable paper tissues, and even she…You know there was a time when the two of them…?’

‘I know they were lovers, yes,’ Polly agreed tersely. ‘But if that doesn’t matter to you, why should it matter to me? After all—’

‘You can’t take this job, Polly.’ Marcus interrupted her grimly. ‘You belong here at Fraser House.’

‘I what? No way!’ Polly told him furiously, shaking her head. ‘I don’t belong anywhere, Marcus, nor to anyone, any man. I’m a free agent, and if I want to work for Phil, if I want to go to bed with him, then I have every right to do so. And if I want to have his child then that’s my right as well, Marcus,’ she insisted.

He suddenly reached past her, snatching up the letter he had thrown down onto her desk and ripping it into pieces as he told her through gritted teeth, ‘You think so? Well, I’m sorry to disillusion you, Polly, but there’s no way you are going to be able to accept Bernstein’s so-called “job”.’

‘Marcus,’ Polly protested. ‘You can’t do that. I—’

‘You’ll what? Make me an offer I can’t refuse?’ Marcus’s mouth twisted cynically. ‘Every man might have his price, Polly, but you don’t have what it takes to meet mine.’

White-faced at his insult, her chest tightening in protest against the savagery of her own pain, Polly whispered shakily, ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Marcus. I thought you’d be glad to have me out of your life.’

‘Out of my life maybe,’ Marcus conceded coolly, ‘but someone has to run the hotel.’

Polly gave a small gasp of pain. She should have expected it, perhaps, but still, to have it confirmed that she meant so little to him as a person, that she couldn’t even lay claim to his friendship and affection as a fellow human being, hurt dreadfully.

‘Suzi could do that,’ she pointed out quietly.

‘Whose idea was that? Bernstein’s or yours? No doubt it would suit you both to have her safely out of your lives, albeit for rather different reasons. Doesn’t it bother you at all, Polly, knowing that the position you’re being offered, the job you’re being offered, should more rightfully go to Suzi?’

‘I’m not going to listen to any more of this,’ Polly told him tersely. ‘You can’t stop me leaving, Marcus. I have legally given you formal notice of my decision to stop working here.’

‘You have,’ Marcus agreed cordially, ‘but, as I’m sure you’ll know, having read our contract, you are legally bound to give six months’ notice. Six months is a long time in the life of a man like Bernstein, Polly. Are you sure he’ll want you enough to wait that long?’

‘Six months?’ Polly gasped. ‘It can’t possibly be so long.’ But it must be, she recognised; Marcus wouldn’t say so otherwise. Six months!

In six months Marcus and Suzi could be married and Suzi could be carrying Marcus’s child, whilst she would have to stay here and witness their love for one another. Six months! She closed her eyes weakly. There was no way she could endure that kind of emotional torment. The back of her eyes stung with the tears she was fighting to control, and her throat and chest ached with her tension.

As he watched her, Marcus reflected bitterly that when he had originally had that clause placed in their contract it had been to protect Polly and not himself. He had been concerned that if the hotel did not do well her pride might force her to leave and look for another job rather than stay on, suspecting that he might be making up her salary from his own funds, which was exactly what he had planned to do. But as it had turned out the hotel had done so well that there had never been any need for him to do so, and now the clause he had originally devised to protect Polly financially would, he hoped, help to protect her emotionally.