‘For you,’ she said. ‘You were good. Very good indeed. I’m afraid I don’t know what the market rate for stud services is, but I’m sure you’ll agree that this sum represents a generous recompense for your time.’
She turned to go. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, hauling her back round again.
His face was a savage snarl.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
She could feel that bubble of pressure rising inside her. It was starting to balloon through her.
‘I’m paying you,’ she spelt out, ‘for the all the sex I got. There was such a lot of it, and it was so very—inventive. And certainly very educational.’
‘You are paying me?’
She might have laughed out loud. Laughed at the expression on his face. It was outrage, anger, disbelief—and something more that she would not think about.
But she had no time to laugh. Nor inclination either. The feelings ballooning inside her made no room for laughter. No room for anything. Except its own swelling volume, which was growing inexorably, unstoppably.
His other hand closed over her shoulder, crushing her bones. The cheque fluttered to the ground.
‘You dare to do this? You sell yourself to me like a whore and you then dare to offer me money?’
The pressure exploded through her.
Throwing up her hands, she pushed his arms away, stepping backwards.
‘You bastard!’ she cried out. ‘What did I ever do to you for you to treat me the way you have? To do to me what you did? All I did was say no to you! Say no to going to bed with you! But you wouldn’t take no for an answer, would you? You had to go on and on and on at me! Hunting me down because you wanted me and I didn’t want you! And for that crime, the terrible, heinous crime of not wanting to go to bed with you, have the cheap, meaningless, sordid little affair that you wanted to have, for that unforgivable crime of saying no, you had to resort to blackmail! You played with my brother’s life just to get me into your bed!’
His face was black as thunder. The rage was ripping through him.
‘You came to me—offered yourself to bail him out!’
Her face contorted.
‘I had no choice! You gave me no choice! You spelt it out in letters a mile high when you told me you might—might—buy Loring Lanchester! I got the message all right—you had to have what you’d been wanting from me or you wouldn’t go ahead with the takeover! What choice did that give me? Tell me that! What did you think I would do? Do you think I would stand back and watch my brother lose Salton? Do you think I could have lived with myself if I hadn’t paid the price you demanded? I did what I did for his sake. I didn’t want to. Dear God in heaven, I didn’t want to!’ Her voice choked.
He laughed—a harsh, mocking sound that flayed her.
‘No. You made that clear enough. You thought you were going to get away with lying back and thinking of your ancestral pile. You’d have kept your gloves on if you could—to stop yourself having to touch me!’
Her eyes were venomous with loathing.
‘You’re right. I would have. Your touch contaminated me. I didn’t come to you a whore—but I left as one! You made sure of that! I had to take what you handed out or my brother’s life would have been destroyed—but now, now I’m clearing my account with you! Not his! And my account is that cheque!’
‘A million pounds?’
His voice was scathing, still black with anger.
‘Why not? My body was worth even more to you! You bought Loring Lanchester just to force me into your bed! But a million is all I can raise in cash. It’s nothing to you, of course. I know that, with all your money. And it galls me even to give you that, because if I think I’m privileged then it’s nothing compared with you! Look in the mirror and tell me if you’re proud of what you see! I might have been born with a silver spoon, but you were born with a golden one!
‘God knows how much of your poor benighted country you own, how many wretched peons slave away for you on a pittance while you gad about the world on your merry way, making more and more obscene amounts of money—enough to buy banks as toys and buy sexual favours! So that’s what that cheque is for. And you can cash it or tear it up or choke on it. I don’t care! You bought Loring Lanchester, Mr Saez, but you didn’t buy me! And now I’m rid of you!’
She turned away. Stumbling. Unseeing. The room whirled around her dizzyingly. Bile rose in her torn throat. She reached the door and pulled it open.
He watched her walk out. Standing stock still, every muscle frozen, immobile.
The door shut behind her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN