term is starting, it’s because it’s where I want to be—’
She broke off. Echoing bleakly in her head were the unspoken words—while I still have it.
But that was too painful even to think—too painful to say to the man who was trying to take it from her. Even though she knew that if it was not him who wanted to buy it at some point someone else would, and Pauline and Chloe would force the sale through, and she would lose the place she held so dear to her. The place where all her happiness was centred.
Yet even as the clutch of emotion that always came when she thought of Haughton gripped her, so did another.
All my happiness? And what of the happiness I’ve had with Max? What of that?
But her mind sheered away. Whatever happiness she’d had with Max, it was never, ever going to be anything other than temporary. How could it be otherwise? He’d transformed her into a woman who could finally indulge in her own sensuality—a gift she would always be grateful for, just as she’d told him. But for him...? Well, she was just a...a novelty, maybe, made all the more intriguing by the revelation of her desirability for him. Whatever her appeal for him, she had to accept that she was no more than a good companion, in bed and out, while they were together.
‘We’re good together,’ he’d said, and it was true.
But it did not make it anything more.
Time for me to go home.
She shook her head, her expression anguished now. ‘I just want to go home, Max,’ she said. ‘It’s all I want to do.’
Even as she spoke she could feel that anguish spearing her. Yes, she wanted to go home—to be there while she still could, before it was torn from her—but it was not all she wanted. She wanted Max—oh, how she wanted him, to be with him—but even if she stayed now it would only be putting off what must be the inevitable end, only be making it worse for herself. So best for her to go now—go now and have precious time at the home that she could only lose in the end.
He saw her expression and hated seeing it. Hated hearing her say what she had said. Telling him she didn’t want to be with him—wanted instead to return to the place he was trying to free her from. Frustration boiled up in him—more than frustration. It was an emotion he did not want to name, could not name. It boiled over. He stepped towards her, closed his hands around her arms, fastening her to him.
‘Ellen, don’t do this. Your obsession with Haughton isn’t healthy. It’s poisoning you. Chaining you to a life you should not be living!’
His voice was urgent, his expression burning. Here they were, not an hour back in the UK, and she was already reverting to what she’d been like when he’d first known her. He had to stop that—right now! He had to make her see what she was doing to herself. Had to convince her, finally, that she must set herself free from her self-imposed chains. Chains that were as constraining and as deadly as those of her belief that she lacked beauty or desirability had been.
He took a shuddering breath, surged on with what he must say to her now to set her free.
Free to seize life with both hands. Free to take all it offers. Free to be with me—
Words were pouring from him. He could not stop them. He’d tried to be gentle on her during their time together, tried to ease her into seeing how she had to let the past go, not cling to it, had to move forward with her life, not stay trapped in the mesh of resentment she so obviously felt about her father’s remarriage, unable to free herself of it. He had to make her see that now—in all its stark, unvarnished truth—or she’d just go right back into it all again. And be lost...
Lost to him...
An even greater urgency fuelled his words. ‘You call it home—but it’s a tomb, Ellen. Your tomb. Don’t you see? You’ve buried yourself in it, clung to it, and you go on clinging to it because you can use it as a weapon against Pauline, who dared to marry your doting father and give him a second chance of happiness—’
A cry broke from her but he did not stop. Could not stop.
Frustration surged in him, boiling up out of the long, sleep-depriving red-eye flight that had taken them from their passion-filled carefree travels together to land them back here.
Ellen—his Ellen—whom he’d freed from her self-imposed mental prison of thinking herself unlovely and undesirable, was now determined to go straight back to the destructive life he’d released her from. He couldn’t bear to let it happen. He had to make her see what she was doing to herself, consumed by bitterness as she was. It was a bitterness that was destroying her. Changing her from the wonderful, carefree, passionate woman she’d been when she was with him. Changing her back into the embittered, resentful, anger-obsessed person he’d first encountered.
He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t!
He plunged on. ‘Ellen—look at yourself. You’ve let your anger and resentment eat into you. For years and years. You never gave Pauline and Chloe a chance—you never wanted them to be part of your family. You were fixated on your father—understandably, because of the loss of your mother—but now you’ve become obsessed with punishing them by hanging on to Haughton.’
She thrust him away, lurching backwards. Her eyes were wide and distended. Emotion battered at her. Stress, weariness and anger rushed up in her.
‘It’s my home, Max! Why should I sell it so that someone like you can turn it into a hotel? Or sell it on to some oligarch or sheikh who’ll only set foot it in once a year, if that!’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘That isn’t what I want to do with Haughton. What I want is—’
She didn’t let him finish. Dear God, why was he choosing now, of all times, to lay into her again? Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Stop going on and on about it?
‘I don’t care what you want! I don’t care because I will fight you to the last—fight Pauline and Chloe to the last. Haughton is my home, and all I want—all I want—is to live there in peace!’
Max’s hand slashed through the air. Exasperation and anger and emotions that were far more powerful than both of them fuelled his outburst. ‘Then do it! Just damn well do it! Stop your venomous, vengeful feud with your stepmother, which is twisting you and poisoning you, and buy them out.’
He saw her freeze, his words stopping her in her tracks.
‘Buy them out...’ It was not a question, not a statement. Merely an echo. Her face was blank—quite blank.
He took a heavy breath. ‘Yes, buy them out. If that is how you feel, Ellen, then simply buy their share from them so they can make a new life for themselves somewhere miles away from you, since I’m sure they feel the same way themselves. And then there’ll finally be an end to this sorry saga. God knows I’ve tried to show you how good your life can be, but while you cling to your vendetta, keep punishing Pauline and Chloe, the poison is destroying you.’
He shook his head. He was beating it against a brick wall, he could see. He turned away, pouring himself a cup of coffee and knocking it back, as if to restore energy levels that were suddenly drained dry. Could nothing make her see what she was doing to
