Indecent Deception Read online

  ‘I’m sorry, Chrissy…’ He released his breath heavily. ‘She was going to come home with me—I’m certain she was—and then the phone rang. I eavesdropped. It was him…’

  Chrissy tried and failed to swallow. ‘Blaze? Blaze ph-phoned Elaine? When?’

  ‘About half an hour ago. If we sit here long enough, you’ll see him driving past on his way over there. She couldn’t get me out the door fast enough,’ Steve related harshly, painfully. ‘So you tell me… If he hates her, what’s going on?’

  Chrissy was fumbling nervelessly with the key in the ignition.

  ‘He married you not four days ago, and the second you’re out of sight he goes to Elaine,’ Steve spelt out unnecessarily.

  ‘Would you mind g-getting out of the car?’

  ‘What the—?’ Steve frowned at her and then reached for her hand. ‘Chrissy, let them get on with it. They deserve each other—’

  ‘I’ll k-kill him!’ Chrissy spat back.

  ‘That’s how I felt,’ Steve muttered wearily. ‘But what’s the point?’

  ‘The p-point, Steve, is that h-he is my husband!’ Chrissy exclaimed. ‘Now get out of the c-car!’

  Her brother-in-law shook his head. ‘You’ll only humiliate yourself if you confront him—’

  ‘L-like h-hell I w-will!’ she stammered fiercely.

  Steve climbed out. ‘Look, I’ll be at the Pheasant until lunchtime. I don’t think I should drive, the way I feel right now…’

  No such inhibition afflicted Chrissy. She drove off like a rocket heading for outer space. A rage unlike anything she had ever experienced possessed her. How dared Blaze do this to Steve? How dared Blaze approach Elaine again? Hadn’t he caused enough trouble? Steve must have made a mistake. It couldn’t have been Blaze on the phone, she decided abruptly. She wouldn’t put it past her sister to have another man up her sleeve with whom to soothe her battered ego!

  Blaze was strolling towards the Ferrari when she screeched to a halt. Not surprisingly, he stilled, an expression of incredulity on his starkly handsome features.

  ‘If that is an example of your driving proficiency,’ he drawled, ‘you have just lost your wheels. Give me the keys.’

  She threw them at him. ‘Where are y-you going?’

  Blaze scooped up the keys with complete cool. ‘I gather Rosie is at the playgroup. When does it finish? I’ll pick her up on the way back.’

  He hadn’t answered her. He was moving towards the Ferrari again. Her belief that Steve had got it all wrong suffered a sudden lurch in confidence. ‘Where a-are you going?’ she demanded, her tone half an octave higher.

  ‘I’ll be back in time for lunch…I think.’

  She sprinted across the gravel like a maniac and plastered herself against the driver’s door of his car. ‘I ran into Steve in the v-village! He told me that you were going to see Elaine…’

  ‘Yes…’ Blaze planted two powerful hands to her waist and set her aside, taking full advantage of the shock dealt by that careless affirmative.

  It was as if the world had stopped turning. Paralysed by horror, she stared at him. ‘But y-you…but you c-can’t be…’

  ‘I am,’ Blaze bit out with chilling impatience. ‘And when I need your permission to go anywhere, I’ll be two feet underground, pushing up daisies—’

  ‘I…I won’t let you go!’ Chrissy shrieked at him. ‘I’d sooner y-you were d-dead!’

  Dense black lashes dropped low over his intent gaze. He stared at her, sapphire-blue eyes absorbing her trembling, her ferocity, her total abandonment of any form of self-control. Wild green eyes assaulted his in violent threat. Disturbingly he dealt her a sudden brilliant smile. ‘Where are the spare keys for the Discovery?’ he enquired quietly.

  ‘W-what?’

  ‘Forget it.’ In one long stride he had reached her car, flipped open the bonnet, and extracted something. ‘I have this strange feeling that commiting adultery with you around could be a considerable challenge…’

  Anguish in her eyes, she watched him swing into the Ferrari and drive off. Rage and disbelief were tearing her apart. She couldn’t believe that he could just go to Elaine like that! And yet he had, openly, unashamedly, making it brutally clear that neither her feelings nor those of Elaine’s husband mattered a damn.

  Her head was spinning. Was it possible that in some twisted fashion he really did care about Elaine? Or was he still after revenge? Chrissy didn’t know… She didn’t feel she was in a fit state to know anything any more. All she knew was that the man she loved was on his way to her far more beautiful sister where he was assured of a rapturous welcome. He hadn’t even bothered to lie to her… Evidently he didn’t consider her that important.

  The truth was agonisingly painful. She wasn’t his wife, not in any real sense. Blaze didn’t think of her as his wife. She was the home help he slept with. He despised her. He had forced her down that aisle in a rage. She was behaving like a wronged wife and he hadn’t given her that status. She hurt all over. Mental pain had somehow become physical as well. He’s with Elaine now, she thought, and she wanted to die…

  For the first hour she paced the floor. An hour beyond that, drained of all movement, she was lying face down on the bed. She began to panic. Rosie was due out of the playgroup soon and she couldn’t believe that Blaze would be there to pick her up. Then she heard the unmistakable low throb of the Ferrari.

  She couldn’t face going downstairs, couldn’t face another confrontation within hearing distance of the yard. She and Rosie would leave Westleigh Hall with dignity, she promised herself, cold, frigid dignity. She heard his light step on the stairs. Rosie had probably gone into the kitchen to find her.

  ‘Rosie’s with Floss.’

  Chrissy reared up and snatched at the first object that came to hand. Her alarm clock went sailing across the room and smashed harmlessly against the wall. He ducked, though, which gave her some satisfaction. ‘You f-filthy womaniser!’ she screamed at him. ‘I’m leaving y-you!’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ he derided, kicking the door shut in his wake.

  He looked incredibly cool, calm and collected. In fact, if it hadn’t been beyond the bounds of amusement, she would have sworn that amusement briefly flickered in that sapphire-blue gaze. ‘Why didn’t you simply tell me that Elaine was pregnant?’ he asked with level emphasis.

  Her eyes flew wide and she stared at him.

  ‘I really ought to cringe from the image you must have of me.’ Blaze sighed. ‘I would have backed off from your sister the minute you told me. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted an abortion on my conscience…’

  In shock, her tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lips. ‘Elaine…Elaine admitted th-that she was—’

  ‘With a little persuasion,’ Blaze interposed smoothly. ‘Why do you think I went over there?

  ‘I…I thought…’

  ‘Rampantly jealous, aren’t you?’ he mocked. ‘It occurred to me that I ought to check your story out…give you the benefit of the doubt just one more time—’

  ‘I was n-not jealous!’ Chrissy snapped fierily and then frowned, still struggling to comprehend that he had approached Elaine for the truth. That in itself hurt.

  ‘And now you’re angry that I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry.’ His mouth tautened. ‘But whether or not she was pregnant was really quite immaterial. My main reason for going over there was Rosie…’

  ‘R-Rosie?’ she echoed in bewilderment.

  ‘I wanted the name of your mother’s lawyer. But Elaine told me something that should make adopting Rosie easier…’

  Chrissy was entirely lost. ‘Adopting h-her?’

  ‘Dennis Carruthers is dead,’ Blaze proffered flatly. ‘He was killed in a car accident a couple of weeks after he got out on parole.’

  ‘You w-want to adopt Rosie?’ Chrissy prompted, not even able to react to the news of Dennis’s death.

  ‘Obviously. We’ll get in touch with the social services as soon as possible. I want
everything on a legal basis,’ Blaze stressed gently. ‘When Rosie’s old enough to understand, we’ll tell her the truth about her parentage, but I fully intend to treat her exactly if she were our child.’

  ‘We’ and ‘our’, he had said, indicating that she was expected to play a part in his adoption plans. Chrissy was trembling. ‘Blaze…I don’t think I kn-know what you’re talking about…’

  ‘I have disabused Elaine of the idea that I have any interest in her,’ Blaze imparted, drawing closer to the bed. ‘I even spent an hour with Steve down at the Pheasant—’

  ‘Steve?’ she ejaculated incredulously.

  ‘I told him that absolutely nothing had happened between Elaine and me…’

  ‘Really?’ Chrissy responded, painfully unconvinced.

  ‘I have never slept with your sister.’ Intensely blue eyes rested on her. ‘Three years ago, she got into bed with another man in the belief that it would make me want her more. It didn’t… It turned me right off. That’s why I ditched her.’

  Chrissy stared back at him in stunned surprise. She had always assumed that his relationship with Elaine had been an intimate one. ‘You n-never—? I mean—’

  ‘Never.’

  Her head was reeling. ‘You said you saw Steve…’

  ‘I felt he deserved the truth.’ His mouth twisted expressively. ‘He’s not likely to get much of that from his wife. Elaine had told me that they were in the middle of a divorce—I gather that was quite an exaggeration…’

  ‘Yes.’

  Blaze frowned. ‘I felt really sorry for the poor bastard. He seems to know what she’s like but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to him. He talks about her as if she’s a spoilt, not very bright child…and I dare say that when he finds out about the baby he’ll be delighted. She was in quite a state when I left her… I have this feeling she’ll fall on his neck…’

  ‘You were with h-her in London,’ Chrissy said tightly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She showed up without invitation.’ He dealt her a derisive smile. ‘Don’t you know that sister of yours? She knew where my apartment was and called in. I took her out to dinner and I agreed to give her a lift home the next morning. That’s all it took to play her along and enrage your father.’

  ‘What d-did you do with the killer bimbo while you were down there?’ she persisted doggedly.

  Faint colour darkened his hard cheekbones. ‘If you want me to be frank—’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Chrissy asserted tightly.

  ‘I did plan to go to bed with her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.’

  ‘Am I supposed to believe that?’ Chrissy felt achingly vulnerable, and her gaze clung to his dark features. ‘Why did you go to see Elaine and Steve?’

  He sank down on the edge of the bed. He expelled his breath audibly. ‘Last night…I felt like hell afterwards—’

  ‘You w-were asleep—’

  ‘No. Hurting you, I discovered, hurts me,’ he drawled flatly. ‘Last night, I went too far and I knew I had to sort it all out before I completely blew our relationship…’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that we had one,’ she muttered tightly, afraid to believe what he was telling her.

  ‘I didn’t mean what I said about you being unfit to have Rosie,’ he breathed harshly. ‘I just wanted to hurt you…’

  ‘Maybe you were right,’ she whispered.

  ‘I was totally wrong. You really love her, and that really impressed me from the first moment I saw the two of you together,’ Blaze imparted. ‘If my mother had had to struggle like that to keep me, I’d have ended up in a children’s home…’

  Without even thinking about it, Chrissy smoothed a hand over a lean, muscled thigh. ‘No…’

  ‘Yes,’ he contradicted wryly. ‘Giving birth to me was Barb’s big rebellion. She didn’t realise until it was too late that as far as her contemporaries were concerned she had put herself beyond the pale. If she’d had a discreet termination or gone away and given me up, nobody would have batted an eyelash. But she broke the rules and she was punished for it. My grandfather told me that I had ruined her life—’

  ‘That was wicked!’ Chrissy told him hotly.

  ‘Chocolate with a melting centre,’ Blaze murmured huskily, tugging her into his arms without warning. ‘What did I tell you about men with sob stories?’

  Uncertainly she blinked up at him and then her cheeks burned, her slender length already reacting to the hard, masculine angles of his body against hers. He was prepared to forgive her for what she had done because he didn’t want to let Rosie go, she reflected painfully. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough…but disturbingly she couldn’t find the strength to object when sure hands began peeling off her clothing.

  ‘We sh-shouldn’t do this,’ she muttered shakily.

  ‘I came back from London one hundred per cent determined to get you into bed,’ he confided, pressing his mouth hotly to the sweet valley between her breasts. ‘And then you most inconveniently fell down drunk at my feet after telling me that I was everything you didn’t want…’

  ‘I th-think I lied.’ Chrissy was having great difficulty in concentrating.

  ‘It was like being hit by lightning. I was actually quite grateful that you passed out… That was the moment that I realised I had fallen in love for the first time in my life. I was shattered,’ he revealed somewhat indistinctly as his tongue circled the shallow indentation of her navel.

  Every muscle jerked taut. Chrissy gave a faint gasp, arching her back. ‘Love?’

  ‘It had to be love. I felt like a heel. I’d got you drunk…I had every intention of getting you flat on your back…’

  ‘Had y-you?’ She moaned as he travelled perilously close to the tender flesh on the inside of one thigh.

  ‘I’d thought about nothing else for days… I was obsessed with this idea that once I had you I would be able to forget you again…’

  ‘Ah…’ The soft bitten-back sigh was forced from her. She could feel control slipping inexorably away. ‘Stop talking…’

  ‘And you call me a hedonist,’ he murmured provocatively. ‘I have just told you that I am madly in love with you and you tell me to shut up!’

  Glazed green eyes focused on him incredulously. ‘Did I…? Do you?’

  ‘Why do you think I married you?

  ‘You said to Elaine—’

  ‘That I was insanely in love… I must have been to stand her revelation about Rosie and still go ahead.’ He uttered a soft, teasing laugh. ‘I couldn’t let you go. I wanted to strangle you…but I just couldn’t let you go. Why do you think I was in such a rage? I told myself I was going to make your life a living hell…’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you the truth at the ch-church,’ Chrissy confided in a shamed undertone. ‘I wanted you…’

  ‘Sordid lust for my beautiful body.’ Blaze groaned with rampant amusement. ‘I never thought you’d admit that…’

  ‘I love you!’ Chrissy argued fierily.

  Raw heat pooled in the pit of her stomach as he ground his lean hips erotically into the cradle of her thighs. His blatant arousal electrified her. Laughing sapphire-blue eyes swept over her hectically flushed face. ‘You’re just ashamed that you haven’t got better taste.’

  ‘I have superb taste,’ Chrissy asserted with a certain degree of smugness, lost in a state of positive bliss.

  He took her mouth with devouring hunger and the world spun violently on its axis. A very, very long time later, when she had come down from the clouds, she murmured, ‘I really am sorry that I lied about Rosie…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Blaze advised, lazily toying with a strand of her hair. ‘You’ll maybe have worked out your penance by about our sixth child…’

  ‘Our sixth?’ she gasped, sitting bolt upright in shock.

  A lean hand flattened her back on the pillows. He rolled over and trapped her with the weight of his body. Jewelled eyes, brilliant with amusement, rested on her. ‘I plan
to keep you very busy in the bedroom…’

  *

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-8456-2

  Indecent Deception

  Copyright © 1994 by Lynne Graham

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