Franco didn’t mind. He figured she might as well sleep with something. It sure as hell wouldn’t be him.
It couldn’t be him. Not now.
‘You deserve it, Holly.’ He could say that honestly, even if his voice, like his spirit, was flat.
‘And Gus was just so excited when I rang and told him.’ She looked at him and smiled and for the first time he noticed the tautness around her eyes and the tension around her mouth.
‘He must be very proud.’
‘He is.’ A pause, and then, ‘You haven’t mentioned my speech at all.’
Ah. There was good reason for that. ‘It was a good speech,’ he conceded. ‘People laughed. You did well.’
‘And? I thought you’d be a bit more excited. You’ll have your contract signed. You’ll be free to go home like you always wanted.’
He looked at her. It might have been the end of a long night filled with celebration and her hair and make-up might be a little less perfect than when she started, but yet she was still utterly gorgeous.
It struck him then what he was giving up when he left. He was going to lose Holly from his life. Forever. And his gut twisted at the notion of never seeing her again. But what right did he have to want for anything else?
What right did he have to hope for anything else?
None at all.
Holly stepped closer to him, took one of his hands and placed it against one perfect breast. ‘So, don’t you want to celebrate? While you’re still here? While you still can.’
In spite of himself, his fingers squeezed, and he closed his eyes and ached to do more. It would be so easy to do more, so easy to blot it all out and lose himself in pleasure, but he was already living a lie, and at some stage the lies had to stop.
It was time for the pretence to stop.
He opened his eyes to see tears in hers and he ached for all the hurt and he knew this couldn’t go on.
‘Forget the contract,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Tear it up. Throw it on the fire. I don’t care. Just don’t sign it.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t sign it. Because your speech was good,’ he said, pulling his hand from her, ‘but it was flawed.’
She blinked up at him. ‘Why?’
‘Because you credited me with too much. Because I never came here because I had faith in Purman Wines. I never stayed because I had faith in Purman Wines.’
Her eyes were wide with confusion. ‘What?’
‘I came here for money. Purely and simply for money. Because if I didn’t get your signature on the dotted line, I’d be cut off for ever from the cash flow from the Chatsfield Family Trust and I couldn’t afford to lose it. So I had no choice. I had to get you to sign.’
Her hands were in her hair, her nails pressing into her scalp. She could not be hearing this. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I did it for the money, Holly. I only ever did it for the money. I came here wanting your signature so that I could keep my share of the Chatsfield empire’s income.’
It made no sense to Holly. She’d thought that her declaration of the impending contract would put a full stop on their relationship, but not now, just in a day or two, when the contract was signed. And until then, she’d still have those days and nights.
But now? He was telling her he’d never been interested in their wines, just the signature on a contract …
And the gears and cogs of her mind turned back a few short weeks and she remembered a man who had come here in one God-awful hurry, and not been interested in the vineyard or the winery or the cellar door or anything more than getting their signature on the dotted line.
‘You never did care about any of it,’ she said, thinking back as all the pieces fell into place. ‘You didn’t even want to taste our wine. And that’s why. Because it didn’t matter to you.’ She looked up at him then and asked him how much. He named an annual figure and she closed her eyes again.
She should be flattered, she guessed. That was one almighty signing fee.
And not the only fee he’d extracted from this deal.
Oh, God, she was all kinds of stupid. She’d offered herself to him on a silver platter.
How old did you have to be before you learned when you were being played? How many times did you have to fall for the worst kind of man—the one who said pretty words and sounded like he meant them when all the time he was just stringing you along?
‘So what was I?’ she demanded, her voice becoming shrill and there was no way she could prevent it. ‘The bonus?’
‘Holly, that had nothing to do with it.’
‘Really? Because that’s how it looks to me, Franco. That’s very much how it looks to me. You get a gold-plated deal and a lovely commission and take whatever you can get on the side.’