“We are still married,” Dracco reminded her.

“Our marriage was never annulled.”

Imogen’s face cleared. “You want an annulment?” She ignored the stab of pain biting into her heart and concentrated instead on clinging to the relief she wanted to feel. “Well, of course, I will agree and—”

“No, I don’t want an annulment.” Dracco cut across her hurried assent. “Far from it. What I want is a child.”

Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

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About the Author

Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Blackmail Baby
Penny Jordan

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PROLOGUE

‘SO YOU’RE going to go through with it? You’re going to go ahead and marry Dracco, even though he doesn’t love you?’

Imogen flinched as the full venom of her stepmother Lisa’s words hit her. They were in Imogen’s bedroom, or at least the bedroom that had been Imogen’s until after her father’s death. Since then Lisa had declared her intention to sell the pretty country house where Imogen had grown up and to buy herself a modern apartment in the small market town where they lived.

‘Dracco has asked me to be on hand to help him entertain the clients,’ Lisa had said at the time of her shock announcement about the house. ‘He says he can see how much more business the company has been attracting since I became your father’s hostess. Unfortunately your mother never seemed to realise just how vitally important being a good hostess was.’

She had given the openly dismissive, almost contemptuous shrug with which Imogen had become teeth-grittingly familiar whenever Lisa spoke about her late mother. Instinctively Imogen had wanted to leap to her mother’s defence, but she had sufficient experience of Lisa to know better than to do so. Even so, she had not been able to stop herself from pointing out quietly, ‘Mummy was ill. Otherwise, I know she would have wanted to entertain Daddy’s clients for him.’

‘Oh, yes, we all know that you think your precious mother was a saint.’ Imogen had seen the furious look of hostility in Lisa’s hard blue eyes. ‘And Dracco agrees with me that you made life very difficult for your father all these years by constantly harping on about your mother, trying to make him feel guilty because he fell in love with me.’

Lisa had preened herself openly, making Imogen’s stomach churn with sickening misery and anguish. Then her stepmother had continued triumphantly, ’Dracco considers that your father was very fortunate to be married to me. In fact…’ She had stopped, giving Imogen a small, secret little smile that had made her heart thump heavily against her ribs. It hurt, unbearably, to hear Lisa speaking about Dracco as though a special closeness existed between them, especially when Imogen was so desperately in love with him herself!

Imogen had never truly been able to understand how her beloved father had fallen in love with a woman as cold and manipulative as Lisa. Granted, she was stunningly attractive: tall, blonde-haired, with a perfect and lushly curved body, totally unlike Imogen’s own. Imogen took after her mother, who had been petite and fine-boned with the same thick dark mop of untameable blackberry curls and amazingly coloured dark violet eyes. And, where Imogen remembered her mother’s eyes shining with warmth and love, Lisa’s pale blue eyes were always cold.

Imogen had loved her father far too much, though, to say anything to him. Her mother had died when she was seven, and when he’d decided to remarry when she was fourteen Imogen had made up her mind to accept her new stepmother for his sake. She had adored her father and been fiercely protective of him, in her little-girl way, after her mother’s death, but she had been ready to welcome into their lives anyone who could make him happy.

Lisa, though, had quickly made it plain that she was not prepared to be equally generous. She had been thirty-two when she married Imogen’s father, with no particular fondness for children and even less for other members of her own sex. Right from the start of their relationship she had treated the young girl as an adversary, a rival for Imogen’s father’s affections and loyalty.

Lisa had been in their lives less than three months when she had told Imogen coolly that she considered it would be far better for her to go to boarding school than live at home and attend the local private school her mother had chosen before succumbing to the degenerative illness which had ultimately killed her. It had been Dracco who had stepped in then, reminding Imogen’s father that his first wife had hand-picked her daughter’s secondary school even when she knew she would not be alive to see Imogen attend it. It had been Dracco too who had come to that same school to break the news of her father’s fatal accident to Imogen, tears sheening the normally composed and unreadable jade depths of his eyes.

That had been nearly twelve months ago. Imogen had been seventeen then, now she was eighteen, and in less than an hour’s time she would be Dracco’s wife.

The car that was to take her to the same small church where her parents had been married and her mother was buried was waiting outside. Inside it was her father’s elderly solicitor, who was to give her away. It was to be a quiet wedding. She had pleaded fervently with Dracco for that.

So you’re going to go through with it? You’re going to go ahead and marry Dracco, even though he doesn’t love you? Imogen’s mind returned to her stepmother’s deliberately painful question.

‘Dracco says it’s…it’s for my own good…and that it’s what my father would have wanted,’ she answered.

“’Dracco says,’” Lisa Atkins mimicked cruelly. ‘You are such a fool, Imogen. There is only one reason Dracco is marrying you and that’s because of who you are. Because he wants to gain full control of the business.’

‘No, that isn’t true!’ Imogen protested frantically. ’Dracco already runs the business,’ she reminded her stepmother. ‘He knows I would never try to change that.’

‘You might not,’ Lisa agreed coolly. ‘But what about the man you may one day marry if Dracco doesn’t step in? He may have other plans. Your father’s will leaves your share in trust for you until you are thirty unless you marry before then. Oh, come on, Imogen. Surely you don’t actually think that Dracco wants you?’ One elegant eyebrow arched mockingly before Lisa went on, ’Dracco is a man! To him you are just a child, less than that, in fact… Dracco wants what you can give him. He has told me himself that if it wasn’t for the business there is no way he’d be marrying you.’

Although she tried to stop herself, Imogen could not quite prevent the sharp gasp of pain escaping. She could see Lisa’s triumphant smile, and hated herself for letting the older woman break through her defences.

In an effort to recover the ground she had lost, she began unsteadily, ’Dracco wouldn’t—’

But she wasn’t allowed to go any further; Lisa stopped her, saying softly, ’Dracco wouldn’t what, Imogen? Dracco wouldn’t confide in me? Oh, my dear, I’m afraid you are way behind the times. Dracco and I…’ She paused and examined her perfectly manicured fingernails. ‘Well, it should be for Dracco to tell you this and not me, but let us just say that Dracco and I have a relationship which is very special—to both of us.’

Imogen could hardly take in what she was being told. She felt sick with a numbing disbelief that this could be happening on her wedding day; the day that should have been one of the happiest of her life, but which now, thanks to Lisa’s shocking revelations, was fast turning into one of the worst.

So far she had not given very much thought to the complexities of her father’s will. She had been too grief-stricken by his loss to consider how his death would affect her financially. She knew, though, of course, that he had been an extremely successful and wealthy man. As an acclaimed financial adviser, John Atkins had been held in high esteem by both his clients and those he did business with. Imogen could still remember how enthusiastic and pleased he had been when he had first taken Dracco under his wing as a raw university graduate.

They had met when her father went to debate an issue at Dracco’s university. Dracco had been on the opposing side and her father had been impressed not just by his debating skills but by his grasp of the whole subject, and what he had described as Dracco’s raw energy and hunger to succeed.

Dracco had had a stormy childhood, abandoned by his own father and brought up by a succession of relatives after his mother had remarried and her second husband had refused to take him on. He had worked to pay his own way through university, and when he had first come to work for Imogen’s father he had for a time lived with them.

It had been Dracco who had chauffeured her to school when her father was away on business; Dracco who had taught her to ride her new bike; Dracco the Dragon, as she had nicknamed him teasingly. And when her father had made him a junior partner in his business it had been Imogen Dracco had taken out to celebrate his promotion—to an ice-cream parlour in the local town.

Quite when her acceptance of him as Dracco, her father’s partner and her own friend had changed, and she had begun to see him as Dracco, the man, Imogen wasn’t sure.

She could remember coming out of school one day to find him waiting for her in the little scarlet sports car he had bought for himself. It had been a hot, sunny afternoon, the hood had been down, the sunlight glinting on the thick night-darkness of his hair. He had turned his head to look at her, as though sensing her presence even before she had reached him, and studied her with the intense dark greenness of his gaze.

Suddenly it had been as though she was seeing him for the first time. As though she had been struck by a thunderbolt. Her heart had started to race and then thud heavily.

She had felt sick, excited, filled with a dangerous, heady exuberance and a shocked self-consciousness. Without knowing why, she had found that she wanted to look at his mouth. Somewhere deep inside her body an unfamiliar sensation had begun to uncurl itself; a sensation that had made her face blush bright red and her legs turn to jelly. She had felt as though she couldn’t bear to be near him in case he guessed how she felt, but at the same time she couldn’t bear him not to be there.

‘Only a child as naïve and inexperienced as you could possibly think that Dracco wants you. A woman, a real woman, would know immediately that there was already someone else in his life. He hasn’t even tried to take you to bed, has he?’ Lisa challenged, before adding cruelly, ‘And don’t bother trying to pretend that you haven’t wanted him to. That crush you have on him is painfully obvious.’

The sharp interruption of Lisa’s goading voice broke into Imogen’s thoughts. Instinctively she turned away from her stepmother to guard her expression, catching sight of her own reflection in the mirror as she did so. It had been Dracco who had insisted that she should wear a traditional wedding dress.

‘Your father would have wanted you to,’ had been his winning argument.

If there was one thing she and Dracco did share it was their mutual love for her father.

‘Dracco doesn’t love you. Not as a man loves a woman.’

Once again Imogen couldn’t prevent a small sound of anguish escaping her lips.

Narrowing her eyes, Lisa dropped her voice to a soft, sensual purr. ‘Surely even someone as sexless as you must have thought it odd that he hasn’t taken you to bed? Any normal woman would guess immediately what that meant. Especially where an obviously red-blooded man like Dracco is concerned.’ Lisa smiled unkindly at her. ‘If you’re determined to be an unwanted wife you will have to learn to conceal your feelings a little better. Surely you couldn’t have imagined that there haven’t been women in Dracco’s life? He is, after all, a very potent man.’

Imogen prayed that she wouldn’t be sick and that she wouldn’t give in to her desire to run out of the room and away from Lisa’s hateful, mocking voice. Of course she knew there had been other women in Dracco’s life and she knew too what it felt like to be agonisingly jealous of them—after all, she had had enough practice.

Dracco with other girls; girls that he found attractive and desirable in all the ways he obviously did not view her; girls that he wanted in all the ways he did not want her, in his arms, in his bed, beneath the fierce male hardness of his body, naked, skin to skin, whilst he…

To Dracco she was nothing more than a baby, the daughter of his partner and closest friend, someone to be treated with amusement and paternalism as though twenty-odd years separated them and not a mere ten… Ten…a full decade… But soon they would be equals; soon now she would be Dracco’s wife. Imogen gave a small shiver. All through her teenage years she had dreamed of her private fantasy coming true and of Dracco returning her love, telling her that he could not live without her, demanding passionately that she give herself to him and become his wife.

Of course, a tiny part of her, a voice she had refused out of fear and anguish to listen to, urged her to be cautious, to wonder why in all the things that Dracco had said to her since her father’s death there had been no mention of love.

And somehow until now she had managed to ignore what that omission could mean. Until now.

There was, Imogen recognised through her shocked pain, an odd air of almost driven determination in her stepmother’s manner, an air that bordered on furious desperation, but Imogen felt too weakened by her own anguish to consider why that might be.

Drawing herself up to her full height, she told Lisa with quiet dignity, ’Dracco is marrying me—’

‘No,’ Lisa told her furiously, ’Dracco is marrying your inheritance. Have you no pride, you little fool? Any woman worthy of the name would walk away now before it’s too late, find herself a man who really wants her instead of crawling after one who doesn’t; one who already has in his life the woman he really wants!’

Imogen felt as though she was inhabiting a nightmare. What further cruelty was Lisa trying to inflict on her? Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it. She did not want to allow herself to hear it.

It was time for her to leave. Imogen started to walk past her stepmother but Lisa grabbed hold of her arm, stopping her, hissing viciously to her, ‘I know what you’re hoping but you’re wasting your time; Dracco will never love you. He loves someone else. If you don’t believe me, ask him! Ask him today, now, before he marries you, if there is someone; a woman in his life whom he loves. And ask him, if you dare, just who she is.’

A woman in Dracco’s life whom he loved. Imogen’s head was swimming with pain and fear as she started to walk down the aisle. She could see the back of Dracco’s dark head as he waited for her to reach him. The scent of the lilies filling the church was so heady that it was making Imogen feel slightly sick and faint. How could that be true? How could he possibly even consider marrying her if he loved someone else?

Lisa had been lying… Lying, as she had done so often in the past, trying to cause trouble for Imogen; to hurt and upset her.

And as for her final comment, it had to be impossible, surely, as Lisa had been implying that she herself was the woman Dracco loved.

Totally, completely, unbearably impossible, at least so far as Imogen was concerned.

‘Dearly beloved…’

Imogen felt herself start to sway. Immediately Dracco’s fingers curled supportively around her arm.

Pain and longing filled her in equal measures. This should have been the happiest day of her life. She was, after all, marrying the man she loved. The man she had loved since she had first realised what love was.

‘Imogen. Are you all right? For a moment in there I thought you were going to faint.’

Imogen tried to force a smile as she met the frowning concern in Dracco’s gaze. Her husband’s gaze. She could feel her knees threatening to buckle. She felt so odd. So…so alone and afraid.

‘Dracco, there’s something I want to ask you.’ They were standing outside the church whilst the bells pealed and their wedding guests chattered happily.

‘Mmmm…’

Dracco was barely even looking at her, Imogen recognised miserably. They didn’t seem like a newly married couple at all…like husband and wife, a pair of lovers. A sharp pain seemed to pierce her to her heart. Before she could lose her courage she demanded unevenly, ‘Have you…? Is there…is there someone…a woman you love?’

He was looking at her now, Imogen recognised bitterly, concentrating all his attention on her, but not in the way she had longed for. He was frowning forbiddingly in the tense silence her nervous question had created.

Imogen could hardly bear to continue looking at him. She saw the flash of emotion glitter in the jade depths of his eyes; heard the furious anger in his voice as he demanded curtly, ‘Who told you about that?’

Her heart felt as though it was breaking. It was true.

In numb despair she watched as he cursed grimly under his breath and then said more gently, ‘Yes. Yes, there is. But…’

Dracco loved another woman. He loved another woman but he had still married her.

Imogen felt as though her whole world had come crashing down around her. Where was the man she had put on a pedestal; adored, trusted, loved? He didn’t exist…

With a low cry of torment she turned on her heel and started to run, desperate to escape from her pain, from her stepmother’s knowing triumph, but most of all from Dracco himself, who had betrayed her and everything she had believed about him. Behind her she could hear Dracco calling her name, but that only made her run even faster. In the street beyond the church a taxi was pulling up to disgorge its passenger, and without stopping to think what she was doing Imogen ran up to it and jumped in. At any other time the way the taxi driver was goggling at her would have made her giggle, but laughing was the last thing she felt like doing right now…

‘Quick,’ she instructed the driver, her voice trembling. ‘Please hurry.’

As she spoke she darted a quick backward glance towards the church, half expecting to see Dracco coming in pursuit of her, but the street behind her was empty.

‘Don’t tell me,’ the taxi driver quipped jovially as he took in both his passenger’s bridal array and her breathless anxiety, ’you’re in a hurry to get to a wedding—right?’ Laughing at his own joke, he started to negotiate the traffic.

‘Wrong,’ Imogen corrected him fiercely. ’I’m actually in a hurry to get away from one.’

As he swung round to stare at her, ignoring the busy traffic, Imogen could see the bemusement in his eyes.

‘What?’ he protested. ‘A runaway bride? I never thought.’

Quickly Imogen gave him her home address, adding tersely, ‘And please hurry.’

So far there was no evidence of any pursuit—no sign of either Dracco’s sleek Daimler or her stepmother’s Rolls-Royce.

Never had a drive seemed to last so long, nor caused her to sit on the edge of her seat, her fingers clenched into the upholstery in anxiety as she checked constantly to see if they were being followed. But at last the taxi driver was setting her down outside her home, waiting whilst she hurried inside to get the money to pay him—as a bride, there had been no need for her to have any cash with her.

Once she had paid him and soothed his unexpectedly paternal concern for her, she ran back upstairs to her room, dragging off her wedding dress with such force that the fragile fabric ripped. Just as her stepmother and Dracco between them had ripped apart her foolish dreams.

Feverishly she pulled on jeans and a top, hastily emptying the suitcase packed for the honeymoon she and Dracco were to have been taking and refilling it with clothes wrenched blindly off hangers and out of drawers.

She still hadn’t really taken in what she had done; all she knew was that she had to get as far away from Dracco as she could and as fast as she could. If, as her stepmother had warned her, he had only been marrying her to gain control of the business then he would not be satisfied until he had that control. She knew how determined he could be. How focused and… A small shudder shook her body. Dracco! Dracco! How could he have done this to her? How could he have humiliated and hurt her so? Tears burning her eyes, Imogen picked up her new cream leather handbag—bought especially for her honeymoon. Inside it was her passport, and the wallet of traveller’s cheques Dracco had given her earlier in the week.

‘Spending-money,’ he had told her with a small smile. The same smile that always made her heart lift and then beat frantically fast, whilst her insides melted and her body longed…

She had counted them after he had gone, her eyes widening as she realised just how much he had given her.

Well, that money would be put to good use now, she reflected bitterly as she allowed herself to enjoy the irony of her using the money Dracco had given her to spend on their honeymoon on funding her escape from him.

She would use it to buy herself a ticket to fly just as far away from him as she could!

‘Well, there are seats left on the flight due to leave for Rio de Janeiro in half an hour,’ the clerk responded in answer to Imogen’s anxious enquiry.

Even whilst she listened to the clerk she couldn’t stop herself from glancing nervously over her shoulder, still half expecting to see Dracco’s familiar figure bearing down on her, and was chagrined to discover that there was a part of her that was almost desperately hoping that he would be.

But now it was too late. Now she was booked on to the flight for Rio. Shakily she walked over to the check-in desk and handed over her case.

Goodbye, home; goodbye, everything she knew; goodbye, love she had hoped so very very much to have.

Goodbye, Dracco!

CHAPTER ONE

Four years later

THROUGHOUT the flight from Rio Imogen had been rehearsing exactly what she was going to say, and the manner in which she was going to say it. She reminded herself as she did so that she wasn’t a naïve girl of just eighteen any more, who knew virtually nothing of the real world or the shadowed, darker side of life, a girl who had been sheltered and protected by her father’s love and concern. No; she was a woman now, a woman of twenty-two, who knew exactly what the real world encompassed, exactly how much pain, poverty and degradation it could hold, as well as how much love, compassion and sheer generosity of spirit.

Looking back over the last four years, it seemed almost impossible that she had anything left in common with the girl she had once been. Imogen closed her eyes and lay back in her seat, an economy-class seat, even though she could technically at least have flown home first class. You didn’t do things like that when you had spent the last few years working to help destitute orphans who lived in a world where children under five would fight to the death over a scrap of bread. Now, thanks to the small private charitable organisation she worked for, some of those orphans at least were being given a roof over their heads, food, education and, most important of all in Imogen’s eyes, love.

Imogen couldn’t pin-point exactly when she had first started to regret turning her back on her inheritance—not in any way for her own sake, but for what it could mean to the charity she worked for and the children she so much wanted to help.

Perhaps it had begun when she had stood and watched the happiness light up the face of Sister Maria the day she had announced to them all, in a voice that trembled with thrilled gratitude, that the fund-raising they had all worked so hard on that year had raised a sum of money that was only a tithe of the income Imogen knew she could have expected from her inheritance—never mind its saleable value.

All she did know was that increasingly over recent months she had begun to question the wisdom of what she had done and just how right she was to allow pride to stand in the way of all that she could do to benefit the charity.

And, as if that weren’t enough, she had begun, too, to wonder how her friends and fellow workers would view her if they knew how wilfully and indeed selfishly she was refusing to use her own assets where they could do so much good. Pride was all very well but who exactly was paying for her to have the luxury of indulging in it? These and other equally painful questions had been causing Imogen to battle within herself for far too long. And now finally she had come to a decision she felt ashamed to have taken so long in reaching.

The nuns were so kind, so gentle, so humbly grateful for every scrap of help they received. They would never blame or criticise her, Imogen knew, but she was beginning to blame and criticise herself.

During her years in Rio Imogen had learned to protect and value her privacy, to guard herself from any unwanted questions, however kindly meant. Her trust was not something she gave lightly to others any more. Her past was a taboo subject and one she discussed with no one.

She had made friends in Rio, it was true, but her past was something she had kept to herself, and the friends she had made had all been kept at something of a distance—especially the men. Falling in love, being in love—these were things that hurt too much for her to even think about, never mind risk doing. Not after Dracco. Dracco. Even now she still sometimes dreamed about him. Dreams that drained her so much emotionally that for days afterwards she ached with pain.

There was no one to whom she wanted to confide just how searing her sense of loss and aloneness had been when she had first arrived in the city, or just how often she had been tempted to change her mind and return home. Only her pride had stopped her—that and the letter she had sent to her father’s solicitor a week after her arrival in Rio, informing him that she was disassociating herself completely from her past life. She had said that she wanted nothing to do with the inheritance her father had left her and that henceforward she wanted to be allowed to lead her own life, on her own. She had made her letter as formal as possible, stating that under no circumstances did she want any kind of contact with either her stepmother or Dracco.

She had, of course, omitted to put any address on the letter, and as an added precaution she had used the last of the money Dracco had given her to fly to America, where she had posted her letter before returning to Rio.

In order to support herself she had found work both as an interpreter and a teacher, and it had been through that work that she had become involved with the sisters and their children’s charity.

It had taken her what was now a guilt-inducing amount of time to bring herself to take the action she was now taking, and she still felt acutely ashamed to remember the look of bemused disbelief on Sister Maria’s face when she had haltingly explained to her that she was not the penniless young woman she had allowed everyone to believe she was.

Sister Maria’s total lack of any attempt to question or criticise her had reinforced Imogen’s determination to put matters right as speedily as she could.

Initially she had believed that it would be enough simply for her to write to her father’s solicitor, explaining that she had changed her mind about the income she could receive under her father’s will. She had explained in the simplest possible terms how she wished to use it to benefit Rio’s pitifully needy street children. It had distressed her to receive a letter back not from Henry Fairburn but from an unknown David Bryant. He had introduced himself in the letter as Henry’s successor and nephew, explaining that his uncle had died and that he had taken over the business.

As to Imogen’s income from the inheritance left to her by her father, the letter had continued, he considered that because of the complications of the situation it would be necessary for her to return to England to put her wishes into action, and he had advised her to lose no time in doing so.

Of course, she had baulked at the idea of returning home. But, after all, what was there really for her to fear other than her own fear?

There was certainly no need for her to fear her long-dead love for Dracco. How could there be?

There had been no contact between them whatsoever, and for all that she knew he and Lisa could now be living together in blissful happiness. They certainly deserved one another. She had never met two people who matched one another so exactly in terms of cold-bloodedness.

It was a great pity that her father had seen fit to make Dracco one of her trustees and an even greater one that Henry, her other trustee, was no longer alive. Imogen wasn’t quite sure just what the full legal position with regard to her inheritance and her rights was, but no doubt this David Bryant would be able to advise her on that. And on the other crumple in the otherwise smooth surface of her life that she really ought to get ironed out?

That small and impossible-to-blank-out fact that she and Dracco were still legally, so far as she was aware, married?

Disconcertingly the only gently chiding comment Sister Maria had made when Imogen had been explaining her situation had been a soft reminder that the vows of marriage were supposed to be for life!

Foolishly she had never bothered to get their marriage annulled. She had been far too terrified in those early days that Dracco might somehow persuade her to return home and to their marriage.

Now, of course, she had no such fear, and no need for the status of a single woman either, other than as a salve to her own pride, a final step into a Dracco-free future.

She was also looking forward to, as she had promised she would, writing to Sister Maria to tell her that everything was going smoothly and that she would soon be returning to Rio.

Her stomach muscles tensed with a nervous apprehension that she told herself firmly was entirely natural as the plane began its descent into Heathrow Airport.

The Imogen who had left Heathrow four years earlier had been pretty in a soft, still-girlish way, but the woman she had become could never in a thousand years have been described as wishy-washily pretty. The hardship of a life that was lived without any kind of luxury, a life that was spent giving one hundred and fifty per cent physical commitment and two hundred and fifty per cent emotional love, had stripped Imogen’s body of its late-teenage layer of protective flesh and honed her face to a delicately boned translucency. This revealed not just her stunningly perfect features and the deep, intense amethyst of her amazing eyes, but also gave her a luminosity that was almost spiritual and that made people turn to look at her not just once but a second and then a third time.

She was dressed simply in soft chinos and a white cotton shirt, but no woman could possibly live in Rio without absorbing something of the sensuality of its people, of a culture that flagrantly and unselfconsciously worshipped the female form. Brazilian clothes were cut in a way that was unique, and not even the loose fit of what she was wearing could conceal the narrowness of Imogen’s waist, the high curve of her breasts, the unexpected length of her legs, but most of all the rounded curve of her bottom.

Her dark hair meant that her skin had adapted well to the South American sun, which had given her a warm, ripe, peachy glow. As she raised her hand to shield her eyes from the shaft of sunlight breaking through the grey cloud the gold watch her father had given her shortly before his death glinted in the light, emphasising the fragility of her wrist. A group of stewardesses walking past her looked enviously at the careless way she had tied the tangled thickness of her curls back off her face with an old white silk scarf.

Taking a deep breath, Imogen summoned a taxi. Once inside it, she studied the piece of paper she had removed from her purse, and gave the address written on it to the driver.

As he repeated it he commented, ’Bute Wharf. That’ll be one of them new developments down by the river.’

Imogen smiled dutifully in acknowledgement of his comment but said nothing. She had asked the advice of her solicitor on where to stay, specifying that it had to be reasonably close to his office, and cheap.

To her astonishment, not only had he replied with a terse note that explained that he had made arrangements for her to stay ‘at the enclosed address’ but which had also enclosed a cheque to cover her air fare. A first-class fare—although she had chosen not to make use of it.

This particular Docklands area of London was unfamiliar to her and Imogen’s eyes widened a little as she studied it through the taxi window: streets filled with expensive cars, young men and women dressed in designer clothing, an air about the whole area of affluence and prestige. Was this really the kind of place where she was going to find cheap accommodation? She began to panic a little, wondering if the solicitor had misunderstood her request.

The taxi was pulling up outside an impressive apartment block. Getting out, Imogen glanced up uncertainly at her surroundings, paying off the taxi and then picking up her one small case before squaring her shoulders and heading determinedly towards the entrance.

As she did so she was vaguely aware of the dark shadow of a large car gliding into the space left by the taxi, but she paid no attention to it, too busy making sure that she had the right address to concern herself with it.

Yes, the address was the same one the solicitor had given her.

A little warily Imogen walked into the luxurious atrium that was the apartment block’s lobby and then stopped, drawn by some compelling force she couldn’t resist to turn round and stare, and then stare again. Her breath froze in shock in her lungs as she recognised the man casually slamming the door of the car she had been so vaguely aware of before turning to stride determinedly through the entrance towards her, exclaiming coolly as he did so, ’Imo! I had hoped to meet you at the airport, but somehow I missed you.’

‘Dracco!’

How weak her voice sounded, shaky and thin, the voice of a child, a girl… Fiercely she tried to clear her throat, reminding herself that she was twenty-two and an adult, but her senses had shut down. They were concentrating exclusively on Dracco.

Four years hadn’t changed him as much as she believed they had changed her, but then, he had already been an adult when she had left.

He still possessed that same aura of taut male sexual power she remembered so vividly, only now, as a woman, she was instantly, intensely aware of just how strong it was. It was like suddenly seeing something which had previously only been a hazy image brought sharply into focus, and she almost recoiled physically from the raw reality of it.

Had she forgotten just how magnetically sexy he was or had she simply never known, been too naïve to know? Well, if so, she wasn’t now.

His hair was still as dark as she remembered, but cut shorter, giving him a somewhat harder edge. His eyes were harder than she remembered too. Harder and scrutinising her with a coldness that made her shiver.

‘You didn’t travel first class.’

‘You knew that I was coming?’ Try as she might, Imogen couldn’t keep her appalled shock to herself.

‘Of course. I’m your trustee, remember, and since the purpose of your visit is to discuss your inheritance…’

Her trustee! Well, of course she knew that, but somehow she had assumed, believed, that it would be David Bryant she would be talking to and that he would act as a negotiator between herself and Dracco. The last thing she wanted or needed was to be confronted by him like this when she was already feeling nervous and on edge. Not to mention jet-lagged.

Determined to grab back at least some small measure of control, she threw at him acidly, ’I’m surprised that Lisa isn’t with you.’

‘Lisa?’

She could see from his sharply incisive tone and the look he was giving her that he didn’t like her pointed comment.

‘This was nothing to do with Lisa,’ he told her coldly.

Of course, he would want to protect his lover, Imogen acknowledged angrily.

The shocking realisation of how much she wanted to hurl at him all the accusations she had thought safely disarmed and vanquished years ago hit her nerve-endings like the kick of a mule. The old Imogen might well have given in and done so, but there had been something in the way he had looked at her when he had reminded her that he was her trustee that was warning her to tread very carefully.

Surely it was only a matter of formality for her to be able to reclaim the income she had previously rejected? It was, after all, legally hers, wasn’t it?

Surely David Bryant would have told her, warned her, if this wasn’t the case or if he had foreseen problems, rather than encouraging her to come all this way?

When it came to disposing of her share of the business, Imogen felt that she was on firmer ground. Since Dracco had been willing to marry her to secure it, surely it made sense that he would be delighted to be given legal control of her share of it in return for guaranteeing its income would be given to the charity?

After all, if she wished she could always sell it on the open market! Knowing that she held that power, that threat over him, helped to rally her courage.

Dracco had reached her now, and Imogen discovered that one thing hadn’t changed. She still had to tilt her head right back to look up into his eyes when he stood next to her.

Too late to regret now the comfortable low-heeled pumps she was wearing.

‘Come on.’ As he spoke Dracco was propelling her forward, the fear of experiencing the sensation of that powerful long-fingered hand of his, placed firmly in the small of her back, causing her to hurry in the direction he was indicating.

What was the matter with her? Why on earth should she fear Dracco touching her now? Once she had feared it because then she had known that even the briefest and most non-sexual contact with him was enough to make her aching body feel as though it might explode with longing, but those days were over! All around her on the streets of Rio she had seen the living, suffering evidence of what happened when two human beings indulged in their sexual desires. She would never abandon her child—never in a million years—but then, she was not a girl, a child herself, penniless and without any means of support. No, that wasn’t the point. The point was…the point was…

Dizzily, dangerously Imogen realised that she was having a hard time focusing on anything logical or sensible; that she was, in fact, finding it virtually impossible to concentrate on anything other than Dracco himself.

‘It’s this way.’

Automatically she followed him towards the glass-walled lift, numbly aware of the brief nod of the hovering uniformed commissionaire as he greeted Dracco with a respectful, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Barrington.’

‘Afternoon, Bates,’ Dracco responded calmly. ‘Family OK?’

‘Yes, they’re fine, and young Robert’s over the moon about that job you got for him.’

The smile Dracco gave the doorman suddenly made him look far less formidable and reminded Imogen of the smiles he once used to give her. An almost unbearably tight pain filled her chest, which she firmly put down to the speed with which the lift was surging upwards.

‘Still scared of heights? Don’t look down,’ Dracco told her coolly. ‘Heaven knows why, but for some reason every architect in the city seems to have decided that glass-walled lifts are the in thing.’

Where once he would have made such a comment in a voice that was ruefully amused, now he sounded terse and cold. Well, there was no reason why he should show her any warmth, was there?

But why shouldn’t he? She had, after all, spared him the trouble of having to pretend that he had wanted to marry her or that he cared about her, and she had given him what he really wanted at the same time. In the letter she had sent to Henry renouncing her inheritance she had given Dracco complete and total authority to use the power that came with her share of the business as he saw fit.

In doing so, she had known beyond any kind of doubt that Dracco would uphold her father’s business ideals and aims. In that regard at least she had known she could trust him totally.

She had closed her eyes when the lift started to move, but unexpectedly the images, the memories suddenly tormenting her were even worse in their own way than the heights she feared. She would, she knew, never forgive Dracco for what he had tried to do; for the way he had tried to manipulate her; for the way he had abused the trust her father had placed in him.

The lift shivered to a silent stop.

‘You can open your eyes now,’ she heard Dracco telling her wryly.

As she edged out of the lift Imogen saw that they had stopped at the floor marked ‘Penthouse Suite’.

Penthouse suite. Her solicitor had roomed her in a penthouse suite? Discomfort flickered down her spine. She just knew that this was going to be expensive.

It had taken her a long time to get used to the shared dormitory she had slept in when she had first arrived in Rio, but when she finally found her own small apartment for the first few weeks she had actually missed the presence of the other girls. Now, though, she had to admit to relishing the privacy and the luxury of having her own bathroom.

‘I asked David Bryant to find me somewhere cheap and convenient for his office,’ she murmured as Dracco produced a key and unlocked the apartment’s door.

Imogen could see his eyebrows rise as he listened to her.

‘Well, he’s complied with both those instructions,’ he informed her. ‘His office isn’t that far away, and you’re staying here as my guest.’

‘Your guest?’

Imogen froze on the spot, staring at him with wide eyes, whilst Dracco pushed the door to, enclosing them both in the intimacy of the empty hallway.

‘Your guest?’ Imogen repeated starkly. ‘This is your apartment?’

‘Yes,’ Dracco confirmed. ‘When David told me that you’d specified you wanted to stay somewhere close to his office I told him that you might as well stay here with me. After all, there’s a great deal we need to discuss…and not just about your inheritance.’

He was, Imogen recognised, looking pointedly at her left hand, the hand from which she had removed the wedding ring he had placed on it, throwing it as far as she could through the open taxi window on her way to Heathrow, too blinded by tears to see where it landed, and too sick at heart to care.

‘You mean…’ She paused and flicked her tongue tip over her suddenly dry lips, nervously aware of Dracco’s iron gaze following her every movement.

‘You mean our marriage?’ she guessed shakily.

‘I mean our marriage,’ Dracco confirmed.

‘You know,’ he told her conversationally as he bent to pick up her lightweight case, ‘for a woman who is still a virgin, you look…decidedly unvirginal.’

Imogen tried to convince herself that the rushing sensation of faintness engulfing her was caused by the airlessness of the hallway rather than by what Dracco had said, but still she heard herself demanding huskily, ‘How…how do you know?’

‘That you are still a virgin?’ Dracco completed for her. ‘I know everything there is to know about you, Imo… After all, you are my wife…’

His wife!

Imogen felt sick; filled with a cold, shaky disbelief and an even colder fear. This was not what she had expected; what she had steeled herself to deal with.

During the long flight from Rio she had forced herself to confront the fear that had raised its threatening head in her nightmares in the days leading up to her journey. She had been terrified that somehow, totally against her will and all logic, if she were to see Dracco again she might discover a dangerous residue of her teenage love for him had somehow survived; that it was waiting, ready to explode like a time bomb, to destroy her new life and the peace of mind she had fought so hard for. But now! Now it wasn’t love that Dracco was arousing inside her but a furious mixture of anger and hostility.

So she was still a virgin—was that a crime?

‘You have no right to pry into my life, to spy on me,’ she began furiously, but Dracco refused to allow her to continue.

‘We are still married. I am still your husband; you are still my wife,’ he pointed out coldly.

Imogen turned away to conceal her expression from him. Married in the eyes of the church, perhaps, but surely not in the eyes of the law, since their marriage had never been consummated. And that certainly didn’t give Dracco the right to claim her as his wife in a voice that suggested… Wearily Imogen shook her head. Now she was letting her imagination run away with her. Thinking she had heard possessiveness in Dracco’s voice.

His words had given her a shock. Why on earth hadn’t Dracco had the marriage set aside? He, after all, loved another woman—her stepmother!

Even after all these years it still filled her with acute nausea and disgust to think of Dracco with Lisa. Her father’s wife and the man her father had loved and valued so very much. Had Dracco slept with Lisa whilst her father was still alive? Had they…? Had he…? Unstoppably all the questions she had fiercely forbidden herself to even think before suddenly stormed through her. The images they were conjuring up sickened her, causing a red-hot boiling pain in her middle.

All those years ago, Dracco had implied to her that he was marrying her to protect her, when all he had really wanted to protect had been his own interests!

Tiredly Imogen closed her eyes. She had come to England for one purpose and one purpose only and that was to claim whatever money might be owing to her. And to persuade Dracco to transfer her interest in the business into the name of the charity so that in future it could benefit direct from her inheritance. Anything else…

‘I haven’t come back to discuss our marriage, Dracco.’ Firmly Imogen took a deep breath, determined to take control of the situation. ’I’ve already written to David Bryant, explaining what I want, and that is—’

‘To give away your inheritance to some charity,’ Dracco interrupted her grimly. ‘No, Imo,’ he told her curtly. ‘As your trustee, there’s no way I would be fulfilling my moral obligation towards you if I agreed, and as your husband…’

She ached to be able to challenge him, to throw caution to the wind and demand furiously to know just when moral obligations had become important to him. But some inner instinct warned her against going too far. This wasn’t how their interview was supposed to go. She was an adult now, on an equal footing with Dracco, and not a child whom he could dictate to.

‘Legally the money is mine,’ she reminded him, having mentally counted to ten and calmed herself down a little.

‘Was yours,’ Dracco corrected her harshly. ‘You insisted that you wanted nothing to do with your inheritance—and you put that insistence in writing—remember.’

Imogen took another deep breath. The situation was proving even more fraught with difficulties than she had expected.

‘I did write to Uncle Henry saying that,’ she agreed, pausing to ask him quietly, ‘When did he die? I had no idea.’

Dracco had turned away from her, and for a moment Imogen thought that he had either not heard her question or that he did not intend to answer it, but then without turning back to her he said coldly, ‘He had a heart attack shortly after…on the day of our wedding.’

Horrified, Imogen could only make a soft, anguished sound of distress.

‘Apparently he hadn’t been feeling well before the ceremony,’ Dracco continued as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘When he collapsed outside the church…’ He stopped whilst Imogen battled against her shock. ‘I went with him to the hospital. They hoped then… But he had a second attack whilst he was in Intensive Care which proved fatal.’

‘Was it…?’ Too shocked to guard her thoughts, Imogen blurted out shakily, ‘Was it because of me? Because I…?’

‘He had been under a tremendous amount of pressure,’ Dracco told her without answering her anguished plea for reassurance. ‘Your father’s death had caused him an immense amount of work, and it seems that there had been certain warning signs of a heart problem which he had ignored. He wasn’t a young man—he was ten years older than your father.’ He paused and then said abruptly, ‘He asked me to tell you how proud he had been to give you away.’

Tears blurred Imogen’s eyes. She had a mental image of her father’s solicitor on the morning of her wedding, dressed in his morning suit, his silver-grey hair immaculately groomed. In the car on the way to the church he had taken hold of her hand and patted it a little awkwardly. He had been a widower, like her father, with no children of his own, and Imogen had always sensed a certain shyness in his manner towards her. Her father had been a very loving man and she had desperately missed the father-daughter warmth of their relationship. She had known from the look in his eyes that, like her, Henry Fairburn had been thinking about her father on that day.

She had been sad to learn of his death from his nephew, but she had never imagined…

‘If you’re going to throw yourself into a self-indulgent bout of emotional guilt, I shouldn’t bother,’ Dracco was warning her hardly. ‘His heart attack was a situation waiting to happen and would have happened whether or not you had been there.’

Somehow, instead of comforting and reassuring her, Dracco’s blunt words were only making her feel worse, Imogen acknowledged.

‘I don’t want to argue with you, Dracco,’ she said quietly. ‘You are a wealthy man in your own right. If you could just see the plight of these children…’

‘It is a good cause, yes, involvement with the shelter. My sources inform me that—’

‘Your sources?’ Imogen checked him angrily. ‘You have no right—’

‘Surely you didn’t think I would allow you to simply disappear without any trace, Imo? For your father’s sake, if nothing else; I owed it to him to—’

‘I can’t believe that even someone like you could stoop so low. To have me watched, spied on,’ Imogen breathed bitterly.

‘You’re overreacting,’ Dracco told her laconically. ‘Yes, I made enquiries to ascertain where you were and what you were doing and with whom,’ he agreed. ‘Anyone would have done the same in the circumstances. You were a young, naïve girl of eighteen. Anything could have happened to you.’

He was frowning broodingly and Imogen had to shake herself free of the foolish feeling that he had been genuinely concerned about her.

‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Dracco, I’m not going to give up,’ she warned him determinedly. ‘The shelter needs money so desperately, and I warn you now that I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure it gets mine.’

The silence that followed her passionate outburst caused a tiny sliver of apprehension to needle its way into Imogen’s nervous system. Dracco was looking at her as though…as though…

Why had she never realised as a girl how very hawkish and predatory he could look, almost demonically so? She shivered and instantly blamed her reaction on the change of continent.

‘Well, you’re a woman now, Imo, and not a girl and, as you must have surely come to realise, nothing in this life comes without a price. You handed your inheritance over to me of your own accord. Now you wish me to hand it back to you, and not only the income which your share of the business has earned these last four years, but the future income of that share as well.’

‘It belongs to me,’ Imogen insisted. ‘The terms of my father’s will stated that it would become mine either on my thirtieth birthday or when I married, whichever happened first.’

‘Mmm…’ Dracco gave her a look she could not identify.

‘You have told me what it is you want me to give you, Imo, but what are you prepared to give me in exchange for my agreement—supposing, of course, that I am prepared to give it?’

Imogen started to frown. What could she give him?

‘We are still married,’ Dracco was reminding her yet again. ‘Our marriage was never annulled.’

Imogen’s face cleared. ‘You want an annulment,’ she guessed, ignoring the sharp, unwanted stab of pain biting into her heart and concentrating instead on clinging determinedly to the relief she wanted to feel. ‘Well, of course I will agree, and—’

‘No, I do not want an annulment,’ Dracco cut across her hurried assent. ‘Far from it.’

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