but that. He would have no regrets at how he had achieved it—at the price that had been paid for it. None.
He strode to the front door, throwing back the bolts and locks and opening it wide. Only one more signature was required to fulfil his purpose, to achieve what he wanted to do. And that would be supplied soon—very soon. He stood and watched over the gardens. Waiting...
Ellen sat in the back of the taxi taking her from the station to Haughton. A grief so profound she could not name its depth filled her. This was to be her very last time walking into the house that had been her home—that was hers no longer. Now, after landing that morning from Toronto, her charges having been safely bestowed upon their waiting parents, she was coming here only to remove her own personal possessions and the few keepsakes she still had from her parents before returning to Canada.
Everything else was included in the sale. A sale that had been conducted at breakneck speed the moment she’d made that fatal phone call to her solicitor to yield victory to Pauline and Chloe.
Now all that remained was for her to put her signature to the contract. She’d be calling in at the family solicitor on her way back to the station. Where Pauline and Chloe were she did not know and did not care. They’d signed the contract and taken themselves off—presumably to await the transfer of their share of the sale price into their accounts and then spend it as lavishly on themselves as they had spent all the rest of her father’s money.
She closed her eyes. She must not let bitterness and anger fill her again. She must not! Max had been right—those harsh emotions had eaten away at her for too long. Now she had to make a new life for herself. A life without Haughton. A life without Max.
She felt her throat constrict, felt pain lance at her.
I’ve lost my home and I’ve lost my heart as well. I can bear neither of them, and yet I must.
‘Stop! Please!’
The words broke from her as the taxi driver turned between the stone pillars on to the drive. Startled, he braked, and Ellen fumbled for money, pressing it into his hand and scrambling from the vehicle.
Dragging her pull-along suitcase behind her, she started along the drive. Emotion poured through her, agonising and unbearable, a storm of feelings clutched at her heart. Soon...oh, so soon...all that would be left to her of her beloved home would be memories.
I was happy here once. And no one can take those memories from me. Wherever I go in the world I will take them with me.
She took a searing breath. Just as she would take the memories of her time with Max—that brief, precious time with him.
I had Haughton for a quarter of a century and I had Max for only weeks. But the memories of both must last my lifetime.
An ache started in her so profound it suffused her whole being with a longing and a desire for all that she had lost—the home she had lost, the man she had lost.
As the massed rhododendrons in their crimson glory gave way to lawn she plunged across the grass, cutting up towards the house, her eyes going immediately to its frontage.
This is the last time I shall see it! The last time...the very last time! The last time—
She stopped dead. There, standing on the porch, was a figure—tall and dominating and already in full possession.
It was Max.
Max watched her approach. He’d timed his own arrival perfectly, having obtained from her school details of the flight she’d be on, and calculating how long it would take her to reach here. He had the paperwork all ready.
As she reached the porch he could see her face was white, the skin stretched tight over her features. He felt emotion pierce him, but suppressed it. No time for that now. He must complete this business as swiftly as possible.
‘What are you doing here?’ The question broke from Ellen even though the moment it was out she knew how stupid it was. What was he doing here? He was taking possession—as he had every right to do.
His long lashes dipped down over his eyes. ‘Waiting for you,’ he said.
He stood aside, gesturing for her to step into the house.
His house. That’s what it is now. Not mine—not once I’ve completed the final step that I must take and put my signature on the contract for my share. That’s all he is waiting for now.
She swallowed. Anguish seared her. Dear God, why did he have to be here? Why must she endure this final ordeal?
How can I bear it?
How could she bear to see him again? How could she bear to feel that terrifying leap in her pulse, which had soared the moment her eyes had lit on him? How could she bear to have her gaze latch on to him, to drink him in like a quenching fountain after a parched desert?
He was crossing to the door to the library. ‘Come,’ he said to her, ‘I have the paperwork here.’
Numbly she followed him, her suitcase abandoned on the porch. She was incapable of thought. Incapable of anything except letting her eyes cling to his form. She felt weak with it—weak with the shock of seeing him again. Weak with the emotion surging in her as she looked at him.
He went to her father’s desk and she could see the documents set out on it. He indicated the chair and, zombie-like, she went to sit on it, her legs like straw suddenly.
She looked at him across the desk. ‘I was going to do this at the solicitor’s later today,’ she said. Her voice sounded dazed.
He gave a quick shake of his head. ‘No need,’ he said, and picked up the pen next to the paperwork, holding it out to her.
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
