don’t understand...’ It was a whisper, faint and scarcely audible.
For one long, timeless, endless moment the tableau held. Max standing there, his face expressionless, and she seated across the desk from him, as white as a sheet with shock etched across her features. Then, like a dam breaking, all the emotions Max had been holding in check burst from him.
‘Did you truly think I would take your home from you—after you’d ripped the scales from my eyes?’
He took a shuddering breath, making himself calm. His gaze was on her, holding her like a magnet.
‘The moment you hurled what you did at me, before you stormed out, I knew there was only one thing to do. Only one! And now...’ A sigh of profound relief went through him. ‘Now it’s done. I put my legal team on to it straight away, the minute you’d gone, and they got hold of your stepmother out in Spain and told her I’d buy their share even without yours.’
A hard, cynical look entered his eyes.
‘She jumped at the chance like I was dangling a diamond necklace in front of her. My lawyer phoned me their agreement when I was in the Gulf, and then I knew, finally, that I was free to do what I have just done.’ He paused, and an expression moved across his face that showed all that had possessed him until this moment, the driving urgency to accomplish what he had. ‘Make Haughton safe for you,’ he finished.
She heard him, yet still she dared not believe what he was saying. Dared not believe that she had just bought her beloved home back for herself—for a song—for a gift...
For of course it was a gift! How could it be otherwise at so paltry a price? A gift that Max had given her—a gift so wonderful, so precious that it took her breath away, squeezed her lungs so tight she could hardly breathe, could hardly feel the beating of her heart, though it was hammering in her chest.
‘Why?’ It was the only word she could say, as faint and low as her breath could make it. ‘Max—why?’
She took a searing breath through the constriction in her throat and made herself speak again, forced the words from her though they were still low and faint.
‘Why should you care what Pauline and Chloe did to my father and me? Why should you give me so fabulous a gift?’
He was looking at her still, and the expression in his face made the hammering in her heart pound in her ears.
‘Why?’
His voice echoed hers. But he gave her no answer. Only strode around her father’s desk, catching at her hand and drawing her to her feet. Her legs were like jelly and she had to cling to his arm lest she collapse, so overpowering was the shock shaking her.
In her head she kept hearing her own voice, saying over and over again—Haughton is mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! Dear God, it’s mine for ever now!
It was a paean, an anthem, ringing in her head like bells. She gazed helplessly up at Max. At the man who had done this, made this happen. Into her head, flashing like a strobe light, came the memory of the moment Max had given her that first wonderful, miraculous gift—the moment when he’d shown her her reflection the night of the ball, transformed beyond recognition. Made beautiful by him.
He freed me from Chloe’s hex—and now, oh, he’s freed me from Pauline’s too!
Emotion overwhelmed her. Gratitude and wonder and so much more.
‘Why?’ His voice came again, husky now. He caught her other hand, held it, cherished it. He towered over her, his strong body supporting her stricken one. ‘Oh, Ellen—my beautiful, lovely, passionate, wonderful Ellen... Have you really not the faintest idea why?’
He held her a little way from him, the expression on his face rueful.
‘Did you not hear me when I told you that the moment I saw this house I wanted to live here? That something about it called to me? That after all my years of wandering, never having had a home of my own, having existed only on sufferance at my stepfather’s taverna and having lived in hotels and apartments anywhere in the world, I had finally come across a place that urged me to stop...to stop and stay. Make my life here.’
Now the rueful expression deepened.
‘That was what drove me so hard to buy it—to make it mine. What drove me to do all I could to achieve that aim. Including...’ his eyes met hers wryly ‘...whisking you off to London to show you how good your life could be if only you would let go of the place I wanted for myself.’
He gave a regretful sigh.
‘I went on and on at you. I know I did. But you see...’ and now a different note entered his voice ‘...I’d sought an explanation for your stubbornness, your refusal to agree to sell your share, from your stepmother and stepsister.’ His eyes shadowed as he remembered that scene in the drawing room when he’d made his initial offer for Haughton. ‘And they told me that you’d become obsessed with the house, that you’d never accepted Pauline’s marriage to your father, that you had rejected them from the very first, seen them as interlopers, invaders.’
He gave a shake of his head.
‘I remembered my own childhood—how my stepfather never wanted me, never accepted me into his home, always resented my presence even though he made use of it. I was always the outsider, the unwanted brat of my mother. Maybe,’ he said slowly, ‘that was why I was so ready to believe what Pauline and Chloe told me. So, while I could make allowances for your reaction to your father’s remarriage, all I could see was how that resentment was poisoning you....chaining you to this place. Making you think it was the only way you could punish Pauline for marrying your father, seeking to take your mother’s place.’
He felt Ellen draw away slightly. Her eyes were full of grief. Her voice when she spoke was low and strained, her glance going to her father’s empty chair by the hearth.
‘I was glad when my father told me he was marrying again. So glad! He’d been grieving for my mother and I desperately wanted him to be happy again. If Pauline made him happy, then I knew I would be happy. I tried to welcome them, tried to befriend Chloe...’ A choke broke in her voice. ‘Well, I told you how they reacted. But even then if they’d only made my father happy I could have borne it! But within months of marrying Pauline my father realised that her only interest in him was his money.’
Her mouth set.
‘He was powerless to do anything about it. If he’d divorced Pauline she’d have taken half of everything he had—forced him to sell Haughton and split the proceeds. So he kept on paying out and paying out and paying out. I had to hide from him all the spite and venom that came from them—hide from him how Chloe had tried to make my life hell at school, and how she constantly sneered at me because I’m tall and sporty, told me how repellent I was because of it until I believed her completely...’
Her voice broke in another choke before she could continue.
‘I had to hide it all from my father because he’d only have been hurt all the more, worried about me more, and felt yet more trapped by Pauline. So when he died I was almost relieved, because finally I didn’t have to pretend any longer. I could find my backbone and resolve that even though I knew it was impossible to stop Pauline and Chloe from getting their claws into Haughton eventually I would do everything in
