Ellen took a breath, ready to sign. What else could she do?
Do it—just do it now. It has to be done, has to be faced, has to be endured. Just as seeing him again has to be endured.
She lowered the pen to the paper. Then, abruptly, before she could start to write, she stopped. The enormity of what she was about to do had frozen her.
She lifted her head to stare helplessly up at Max.
‘Ellen—sign the contract. Go on—sign it.’
There was something implacable in his face now. Something that made her eyes search his features. Something, she realised, that was making her flinch inwardly. Making her forcibly aware that this was a man who dealt in multi-million-pound deals as casually as he ordered a bottle of vintage wine. That to him this purchase was nothing but small fry—a drop in the ocean—when it was the whole ocean itself to her.
Did he see the flash of anguish in her eyes, hear the low catch of her breath—suspect the emotion stabbing at her now? She didn’t know...knew only that he had placed both his hands, palms down, on the edge of the desk opposite her, that his tall frame was looming over her. Dominating, purposeful.
She tried to remember how different he could be—how he had stood at the helm of that catamaran, facing into the wind, his dark hair tousled, his smile lighting up the world for her. How laughter had shaken his shoulders as they’d laughed at something absurd that had caught his humour. How his dark eyes had blazed with fierce desire as he’d swept her into his arms and lowered his possessing mouth to hers...
‘Just sign,’ he said again, wiping all the anguished memories from her. His eyes bored into hers. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he said.
His voice was soft, but there was a weight of intent in it that pressed upon her.
She lowered her head, breaking the crushing gaze that was bending her to his will. His words echoed hollowly. Forcing her to accept their truth. The truth as he saw it—the truth as he had made her see it. She could not go on as she had sought to do, locked in a toxic, unwinnable power struggle in the bitter aftermath of her father’s death.
Slowly, carefully, she set her signature to the document before her, on the final page of it. The only clause visible was full of incomprehensible legal jargon she did not bother to read. Then, swallowing, she sheathed the pen and put it down. It was done—finally done. She had no claim on what had once been her home. Now it was just one more property in Max Vasilikos’s investment portfolio.
Emotion twisted inside her. Impulsively she spoke. ‘Max! Please... I know that the future of Haughton is nothing to do with me...’ She swallowed and her voice changed, becoming imploring. ‘But this was once a happy family home. Please—think how it could be so again!’
She saw a veil come down over his eyes. He straightened, took a step away, glanced around the room they were in. The original dark panelling was still there, and the serried ranks of books, the smoke-stained fireplace with its hearthrug and her father’s worn leather chair. Then his eyes came back to her.
‘When I first came to Haughton,’ he said slowly, ‘my plan, if I decided to buy it, was to realise the value in it and likely sell it on, or rent it out for revenue. But...’ His eyes flickered to the tall windows, out over the gardens beyond, then moved back to her again. ‘But as I walked around, saw it for myself, I realised that I did not want that.’
He looked at her. His expression was still veiled, but there was something behind that veil that caught at her, though she did not know why.
‘I realised,’ he said slowly, and now a different note had entered his voice, ‘that I wanted to keep this house for myself. That I wanted to make this house my home.’
He looked at her. The veil was impenetrable now, and yet she gazed at him fixedly still.
‘I still want that—for it to be a home,’ he said.
For just a fraction of a moment his eyes met hers. Then she pulled her eyes away, closing them tightly. Emotion was sweeping up in her.
‘I’m glad.’ Her voice was tight with emotion. ‘Oh, Max, I’m glad!’ Her eyes flew open again. ‘It deserves to be loved and cherished, to be a happy home again.’
There was a catch in her voice, a catch in her heart. To hear that this was what Max wanted—that Haughton would be protected from the fate she’d dreaded for it—was wonderful! And yet her heart ached to know that he would make a home here for himself...only for himself.
Until one day he brings his wife here!
Images forced themselves upon her. Max carrying his bride over the threshold, sweeping her up the stairs...his threshold, his
stairs, his bride. Max running effortlessly on untired limbs around the pathway beside the lake, taking in his domain, making it his own. Max surrounded one day by children—a Christmas tree here in this hall, where she had once opened her childhood presents—their laughter echoing as hers had once done.
Max’s children. Max’s bride and Max’s wife. Max’s home.
And she would be in Canada, or any place in the world. For where she was would not matter—could not matter. Because she would be without Haughton.
Without Max.
Pain lanced at her and she got to her feet, scraping her father’s chair on the floorboards. She faced Max. He was still standing there, his expression still veiled, still resting his gaze on her.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It does. It does deserve that.’