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Fifty Nine
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FATED ESCAPE Sixty
FIVE miles or so before her ultimate destination Sylvie pulled the car she had hired at the airport over to the side of the road and switched off the engine—not because she was unsure of where she was going, not even because she wanted to absorb the beauty of the Derbyshire countryside around her, magnificent though it was as it basked warmly in the mid-afternoon sunshine, devoid of any sign of human occupation apart from her own.No, the reason she had stopped was that she had been tellingly aware for the last few miles not just of the slight dampness of her hands on the steering wheel but, even more betraying, of the increasing turmoil of her thoughts and the nervous butterflies churning her stomach.When she finally met...confronted...Ran, she wanted to be calm and in control of both herself and the situation. She was not, she reminded herself sternly, meeting him as an idealistic teenager who had fallen so disastrously and desperately in love with him, but as a woman, a woman who
FATED ESCAPE Sixty One
The shaming fact was that, no matter how she tried to convince herself otherwise, she had done exactly what she had promised herself she would not do and allowed him to take the upper hand. And worse than that...far worse...she had... Quickly she swallowed the frighteningly familiar and painful lump of aching emptiness she could feel blocking the back of her throat. No way... She was not going down that road again...not for a king’s ransom. The arrogant, selfish, almost cruel way Ran had just behaved towards her proved everything she had ever learned about him. She was under no illusions about why he had kissed her like that... It was his way of reminding her not just of the past, but also of his superiority...of telling her that, whilst she might be the one who was in charge of the project they were going to be working on together, he still had the power to control her...to control her and to hurt her.Sylvie turned swiftly on her heel, not waiting for him to see the emotions she
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Two
Haverton Hall’s rooms might not possess quite the vastness of the palazzo’s marble-floored rooms, nor the fading grandeur of the Prague palace, but Sylvie had already lost count of the number of salons and ante-chambers they had walked through on the lower floor. The gallery felt as though it stretched for miles, and as she studied the dusty wooden floor of the ballroom her heart sank at the thought of inspecting its lofty plasterwork ceiling and its elegantly inlaid paneling. And they still had the upper floors to go over! But she couldn’t afford to show any weakness in front of Ran and have him crowing over her. No way. And so, ignoring the warning beginnings of a throbbing headache, she took a deep breath and began to inspect the paneling.‘The first thing we’re going to need to do is to get a report on the extent of the dry rot,’ she told Ran in a firmly businesslike voice.He stopped her. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Sylvie paused and turned to look angrily at him.‘Ran, there’
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Three
They were supposed to be confined to the park area surrounding the house and not cropping the grazing he needed for his sheep. There must be a break in the fence somewhere—the new fence which he had just severely depleted his carefully hoarded bank balance to buy—which meant…There had been rumors about rustlers being in the area; other farmers had reported break-ins and losses.Once he had seen Sylvie settled at the house he would have to come back out and check the fencing.Sylvie winced as the Land Rover hit a rut in the road, sitting up and just about managing to suppress a sharp cry of pain—or at least she thought she had suppressed it until she heard Ran asking her curtly, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’‘Nothing... I’ve got a headache, that’s all,’ she stressed offhandedly, but her face flushed as she saw the look he was giving her and she realized that he wasn’t deceived.‘A headache?’ he queried dryly. ‘It looks more like a migraine to me. Have you got some medication for it
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Four
The next thing she knew, Ran was taking her very firmly by the arm and propelling her towards the door, ignoring her protests to leave her alone.At the top of the stairs, to her infuriated chagrin, he turned round and swung her up into his arms, telling her through gritted teeth, ‘If you’re going to faint on me, Sylvie, then here’s the best place to do it.’She wanted to tell him that fainting was the last thing she intended to do, but her face was pressed against the warm flesh of his throat and if she tried to speak her lips would be touching his skin and then…Swallowing hard, Sylvie tried to concentrate on banishing the agonizing pain in her head but it was something that she couldn’t just will away. As she knew from past experience, the only way of getting rid of it was for her to go to bed and sleep it off.They were downstairs now and Ran was crossing the hallway, thrusting open the door and carrying her out into the fresh air.‘What are you doing?’ she demanded as he walked p
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Five
It was several seconds before Ran bothered to respond to her unrehearsed but determinedly distancing little speech, and for a moment Sylvie thought that he was actually going to ignore what she had said, but then he turned towards her and said, ‘So what you’re saying is that it’s to be purely business between us, is that it?’It took every ounce of courage that Sylvie possessed, and then some, for her to be able to meet the look he was giving her full-on, but somehow or other she managed to do so, even if the effort left her perilously short of breath and with her heart pounding almost as painfully as her head, She agreed coolly, ‘Yes.’Ran was the one to look away first, his face hardening as he glanced briefly at her mouth before doing so.‘Well, if that’s what you want, so be it,’ he told her crisply, returning his attention to his driving.His response, instead of making her feel relieved, left her feeling... What?Disappointed that he hadn’t challenged her, hadn’t given her the o
FATED ESCAPE Fifty Six
‘Why not?’ Sylvie had questioned curiously, her adoring teenage heart thumping frantically at the thought of being married to Ran, of being his wife, of sharing his life, his bed… A delicious shiver of anticipatory pleasure had run through her as she’d willed her stepbrother to say that there was a mysterious someone in Ran’s life, far too young for him as yet, a special someone...herself…But instead, disappointingly, prosaically, Alex had told her, ‘An estate manager’s salary and tied accommodation in a small cottage are hardly up to the standard or style of living that the women Ran dates are used to, and he’s far too proud to want to live off his wife...’‘The women...?’ Sylvie had flared unhappily, whilst her mother, who had been listening to their conversation, had chipped in disparagingly.‘Ran would be far better off marrying some farmer’s daughter, a girl who’s been brought up for that kind of lifestyle...’Sylvie remembered how Alex’s eyebrows had risen at this display of s
FATED ESCAPE One
Finding my mate was supposed to be the best day of my life. Not the worst.Everyone told me I should be lucky to have someone as beautiful as the blond- haired, blue-eyed, golden-skinned alpha, Shane Dacre, as my mate.How can anyone feel lucky with a mate who only laughed when they were walking away from you?For a year I took it.I swallowed it all down: all the pain from his secret cruelties, all the disgust in his eyes when he looked at me, all the fury at my standing in the way of his true happiness.I ate it until nothing tasted the same. Until even my food tasted bitter.It wouldn’t have been so bad if the old alpha, Shane’s father Iain, wasn’t pushing so hard for an heir.The most stable packs had an alpha who prepared for the next generation, his father loved to remind Shane at every opportunity with a pointed look aimed my way.But the heir had to come from his mate’s body. Mine.And so, he came to my bed, still smelling of her. The long blonde-haired, golden-eyed, and equal
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