that’s how I like you.’ He grunted in cold approval. ‘Ruffled and undignified and stripped of all those falsely cultivated airs! And perhaps you’d mind telling me again just why you walked out on me, Kendal? And don’t try to convince yourself I was anything other than tender with you. Except, of course, when you wanted me to be otherwise…’
It took all her strength, but she managed to free herself as everything that was feminine in her throbbed with the recollection of just how tender this man knew how to be.
‘Wasn’t incarceration and infidelity enough? You wanted a dutiful little wife at home while you carried on your secret little liaison with Lauren Westgate! Only it wasn’t secret, was it, Jarrad? Ralph found out—which was the real reason he had to go! Why you fired him! You and Lauren!’
The big swivel chair squeaked beneath Jarrad’s weight as he leaned back, draping one white-sleeved arm over the padded leather.
‘My relationship with Lauren had nothing to do with why your brother-in-law had to leave the company,’ he said with a grim cast to his mouth.
‘Like hell!’ she spat back, her eyes dark and wounded. It had been like twisting a knife in an already open wound when he had had her sister’s accountant husband struck off his payroll. Quiet, gentle Ralph, who had reluctantly given in to her demands to tell her what he knew, had confirmed what she had already suspected was happening between Jarrad and his lovely sales director. That raw wound had split wide open, producing scars that had never healed, when she had been left to witness the turmoil into which Jarrad’s action had plunged her own’s sister’s marriage, causing Chrissie to lose the baby she had been expecting. Then there had been the financial problems. Ralph’s loss of self-esteem. The final break-up…
‘You wanted brains and breeding and you got it, didn’t you? Brains in the office and a dumb, unsuspecting redhead to breed with at home!’
‘And Kendal Mitchell’s made up her mind about that, and nothing I say could ever convince her otherwise, could it?’ Jarrad said roughly.
Try me! Give me some proof that there was never anything between you and Lauren! Foolishly, even now, her heart cried out to him, although he hadn’t tried to offer any proof of it then. Nor had he done so when he had hounded her for those first six months after she’d left, demanding that she return home, and only for his son’s sake, though he hadn’t said that in so many words. But of course she knew it was only because of Matthew.
‘You’re right! Nothing can—or ever will!’ she flung at him, and turned on her heel, wanting to get out of there before the tears of frustration and regret she could feel burning behind her eyes threatened to degrade her in front of him.
‘Kendal!’
She froze on the spot, his imperious tone forcing her to glance back over her shoulder.
‘I meant what I said. You take that job in the States and you go on your own.’
‘And if I don’t?’ she challenged.
‘Then I’ll sue for custody.’
Kendal’s teeth sank into the inner flesh of her bottom lip. ‘You wouldn’t be that callous,’ she whispered.
‘Try me.’
‘You’d never get it!’
‘Why not?’ That hard, cruel mouth pulled down on one side. ‘An incarcerating and unfaithful husband,’ he said, using her own description of him, ‘doesn’t necessarily make for a poor father in English law.’
He was right, of course, and he would use every shred of power and influence he possessed to see it turned out his way. She knew from experience that Jarrad Mitchell always got what he wanted.
‘Get lost!’ she breathed, turning away, battling against an inner surge of panic.
‘No, that’s been your prerogative, darling.’ She heard his voice coming mockingly from behind her. ‘But not any more. Aren’t you rather forgetting something?’
She stopped in her tracks and turned back to him, frowning.
‘The address of where you’re staying,’ he supplied emotionlessly. And then, when she hesitated, he said, ‘Unless, of course, you’d prefer to give it to my solicitor.’
He meant it! Oh, dear heaven.
As he got to his feet she wanted to claw his arrogant face with her carefully lacquered nails, because, of course, he’d been right when he’d said she had hoped that seeing her would soften him into submission. But Jarrad Mitchell never submitted to anyone, she remembered bitingly. He only ever controlled.
Well, get this! she thought, leaning on her small green handbag and scrawling the address of her new flat in the notebook she always carried, which contained the names of useful contacts in the design world. I’m going to take up your challenge of a fight and just for once I’m going to win!
Nevertheless her spirit masked a very strong element of doubt and not a little fear as she tore the page out of her notebook and flung it in the direction of her husband’s daunting figure, unaware of his cool amusement as the page fluttered under his desk from the sudden draught caused as she swept out of his office.
‘So what did he say?’
There was eager anticipation in Chrissie Langdon’s question as she watched her sister sip the sweet, hot tea she had made her.
‘You wouldn’t believe it!’
Five years older than Chrissie, Kendal wasn’t usually one to pour out her troubles to her sister, especially since, during the past year or so, Chrissie had had enough problems of her own. Today, though, it was obvious to Chrissie that her sister was clearly in a state.
‘Oh, I would! Believe me, where Jarrad Mitchell’s concerned, I would!’ Chrissie breathed, rolling large brown eyes emphasised by her small face and her short, spiky brown hair. She darted a glance to eighteen-month-old Matthew, whom she had been looking after that morning, and who had just discovered that hurling a book across the carpet was far more exciting than turning its pages. ‘Go on. Fire away.’
Kendal put down her cup and saucer on the wicker table which formed part of the rustic, bohemian furnishings that Chrissie loved. In fact, when Chrissie had moved into the Victorian semi with Ralph three years ago—newly married and spending money like water—Kendal recalled how she had tried to help her economise, suggesting cost-cutting ways with the design.
Now, though, being in the same position as Kendal was, and between jobs as an office receptionist, Kendal knew that if it hadn’t been for the proceeds of their old home—half of which she had released to Chrissie on her last birthday, the other half of which she had put in trust for Matthew—her sister would have had difficulty keeping up payments on the house even when she was in full-time employment.
Now she sat back, took a deep breath and said, ‘He’s going to sue for custody.’
Chrissie whistled under her breath. ‘What? If you go abroad? Or in any case?’ she appended, suddenly looking aghast, and Kendal groaned. She hadn’t actually considered that he might do it regardless.
‘I think he meant if I take this job.’
