HAUGHTON WAS BATHED in watery sunlight, turning the house and gardens to pale silver, but as she stepped inside misery filled Ellen to the brim—for her father’s ruin, her stepmother’s avarice, for her angry parting with Max, for parting with him at all.
And for the loss of her home, which must come—now, or later, come it must.
As she went into the kitchen she could feel a dull, dread awareness forcing itself into her consciousness. A new, bitter truth pushing itself in front of her.
I can’t go on like this. I just can’t—not any longer.
Stark and brutal, the words incised themselves into her consciousness. She felt a pit of cold, icy water in her insides, a knot of dread and resolve. She had to face it—accept it. She could not stay locked in her vicious, destructive battle with Pauline and Chloe. It was a battle she could not win in the end. A battle that was indeed twisting her, deforming her.
I can’t stop them taking it from me. I can’t stop them and I can’t go on the way I have been. So all I can do is give in. Give up. Give up my home.
More words echoed in her head, stinging even more painfully. Max calling this house a tomb. Her tomb. She felt her hands clench as if in desperate denial. But his accusation stabbed again. Forcing her to face what he had launched at her. Forcing her to face another truth as well.
I’ve changed. Max has changed me—changed not just my outer appearance but what is inside as well. I’m not the same person any more. Being with him, seeing the world with him, has changed me. He’s opened my eyes to the world beyond here, given me the means to make the most of it, to stride through it with confidence and assurance.
I won’t have him and I won’t have Haughton—but I will have myself. And that must be enough. It must be enough because it is all that I can have now.
She knew it, accepted it—had no choice but to accept it.
But it was with a heavy heart and a sick feeling of dread and painful anguish that she went to make the phone call she knew she must make.
* * *
Max sat with an expression of polite interest on his face, as his meeting with the Sheikh’s development minister proceeded. The meeting was going well, mutual benefits from his proposal were being agreed, relations were all extremely cordial and everyone all around was very pleased.
But Max’s thoughts were far, far away, burningly consumed by a project that was small fry compared to the one being set up here, but ultimately far more important to him. One that was crucial to his future. His UK head of legal affairs had phoned him just as he’d arrived for his meeting and Max had mentally punched the air with relief.
The meeting finally over, with an entirely satisfactory conclusion, Max walked out to his waiting car. The heat of the Persian Gulf engulfed him. So did spearing emotion.
Ellen should be here. She should be at the hotel, by the pool. I’d join her and then enjoy a sundowner as the day cooled, looking forward to dinner together followed by an early night.
Then tomorrow we’d explore the souks of the old city, with the scent of a thousand spices and the fragrance of frankincense everywhere we went, with gold glinting from a hundred stalls! We’d cruise along the coast at sunset in a dhow, watching the sun set over the city like a ball of crimson flame.
The next day we’d drive into the desert, camp out in the Empty Quarter, sleep under the stars burning holes in heaven’s floor...
He tore his mind away. He must not indulge in such wishful thinking. He must only look to the future now—must get back to his hotel, phone London, get matters expedited, concluded with all possible haste. No delays could be tolerated. The rest of his life depended on it.
* * *
Ellen glanced at her stopwatch, lifted her whistle to her lips and blew sharply to call full time on the match that was taking place on the pitch in front of her. She shivered. A cold wind was blowing, seemingly straight off the tundra hundreds of miles to the north—the Canadian spring was later to arrive than the English one.
But she was grateful that her headmistress had looked to her to accompany the school’s lacrosse team’s visit to a school in Ontario at short notice when a fellow games teacher had had to pull out. Even more grateful for the invitation she had just received from the principal here—to spend the summer semester as an exchange teacher.
New horizons, a new life—Max would approve.
She sheered her mind away. No—don’t think of Max. Don’t think of anything to do with him. He was gone, out of her life now—gone from everything that had ever been anything to do with her. Except... She felt emotion twist inside her like a spasm, except from the one place on earth she had sought so desperately to keep—the place that a single phone call to her solicitor had severed from her for ever.
Maybe here, as she forged a new life for herself, she might start to forget the home she had lost. Maybe here, in the years to come, she might forget the man who had given her more than she had ever thought to have—who now possessed what she had feared so much to lose. Maybe. But she could not believe it. Because there was only one place on earth she wanted to call home. Only one man on earth she wanted to share it with.
Max! Oh, Max, why am I missing you so much? Why do I want only to rush back to you? To go with you wherever in the world you go, for however long you want me? Why do my dreams torment me? Why does longing fill me—useless, hopeless longing for some fairy-tale world where it would all have been different?
A world in which Haughton was hers. In which Max was hers.
But what was the point of such longings? What would be the point, now, in standing here in the cold wind, in this alien land, and dreading a future on her own, without Haughton, without Max? What would be the point of admitting that what she had tried to pass off as merely a predictable reaction to the first man in her life was so much more?
What would be the point in admitting she’d fallen in love with him?
* * *
Max turned the powerful car on to the long curve of the gravelled drive, flanked at either side by a crimson blaze of rhododendrons, misted with bluebells along its verges, until the vista opened up to reveal the lawns and gardens beyond, and then the house itself, with the pale mauve of wisteria coming into bloom tumbling over the porch.
Haughton was, indeed, looking its best in the late spring sunshine. Satisfaction overflowed in him.
He had achieved exactly what he wanted, and as he parked his car in the kitchen courtyard his mind went back to the first time he had done so.
I fell in love with this place the moment I saw it and nothing has changed.
Except that Haughton was now his.
Satisfaction curved his mouth into a smile, putting a gleam into his dark eyes as he strode up to the back door. Haughton was his. His to do exactly as he wanted! With no more blocks or obstacles or impediments.
His keys were at the ready—after the completion of his purchase they were in his possession—and he unlocked the back door, glancing briefly into the kitchen where Ellen had hurled at his head her refusal to sell her share of the property unless it was forced from her by a court of law. Yet again satisfaction filled him. Well, that had not proved necessary.
He walked down the stone-flagged corridor to push open the green baize door and walk out into the front hall. It was chilly there, with no heating on yet, but that would be easily remedied. He paused, and gazed around, feeling the silence of the old house lap at him.
It’s waiting. Waiting for its new owner to take possession. To live here and make a home here. To love it as it wants to be loved, to cherish it and value it.
Into his head came the memory of how he’d stood on this very spot, recognising his self-discovery, his sudden determination that he should make a home here for himself—recalling the moment he’d first felt that overpowering urge so strongly.
For a fleeting moment regret showed in his eyes for what he had done. Then it was gone. He had done what he had done, and it was what he had wanted to do. He would allow himself to feel nothing but satisfaction at having accomplished it. Nothing 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 her. Dominating, purposeful.
She tried to remember how different he could be—how he had stood at the helm of that catamaran, facing into the wind, his dark hair tousled, his smile lighting up the world for her. How laughter had shaken his shoulders as they’d laughed at something absurd that had caught his humour. How his dark eyes had blazed with fierce desire as he’d swept her into his arms and lowered his possessing mouth to hers...
‘Just sign,’ he said again, wiping all the anguished memories from her. His eyes bored into hers. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he said.
His voice was soft, but there was a weight of intent in it that pressed upon her.
She lowered her head, breaking the crushing gaze that was bending her to his will. His words echoed hollowly. Forcing her to accept their truth. The truth as he saw it—the truth as he had made her see it. She could not go on as she had sought to do, locked in a toxic, unwinnable power struggle in the bitter aftermath of her father’s death.
Slowly, carefully, she set her signature to the document before her, on the final page of it. The only clause visible was full of incomprehensible legal jargon she did not bother to read. Then, swallowing, she sheathed the pen and put it down. It was done—finally done. She had no claim on what had once been her home. Now it was just one more property in Max Vasilikos’s investment portfolio.
Emotion twisted inside her. Impulsively she spoke. ‘Max! Please... I know that the future of Haughton is nothing to do with me...’ She swallowed and her voice changed, becoming imploring. ‘But this was once a happy family home. Please—think how it could be so again!’
She saw a veil come down over his eyes. He straightened, took a step away, glanced around the room they were in. The original dark panelling was still there, and the serried ranks of books, the smoke-stained fireplace with its hearthrug and her father’s worn leather chair. Then his eyes came back to her.
‘When I first came to Haughton,’ he said slowly, ‘my plan, if I decided to buy it, was to realise the value in it and likely sell it on, or rent it out for revenue. But...’ His eyes flickered to the tall windows, out over the gardens beyond, then moved back to her again. ‘But as I walked around, saw it for myself, I realised that I did not want that.’
He looked at her. His expression was still veiled, but there was something behind that veil that caught at her, though she did not know why.
‘I realised,’ he said slowly, and now a different note had entered his voice, ‘that I wanted to keep this house for myself. That I wanted to make this house my home.’
He looked at her. The veil was impenetrable now, and yet she gazed at him fixedly still.
‘I still want that—for it to be a home,’ he said.
For just a fraction of a moment his eyes met hers. Then she pulled her eyes away, closing them tightly. Emotion was sweeping up in her.
‘I’m glad.’ Her voice was tight with emotion. ‘Oh, Max, I’m glad!’ Her eyes flew open again. ‘It deserves to be loved and cherished, to be a happy home again.’
There was a catch in her voice, a catch in her heart. To hear that this was what Max wanted—that Haughton would be protected from the fate she’d dreaded for it—was wonderful! And yet her heart ached to know that he would make a home here for himself...only for himself.
Until one day he brings his wife here!
Images forced themselves upon her. Max carrying his bride over the threshold, sweeping her up the stairs...his threshold, his stairs, his bride. Max running effortlessly on untired limbs around the pathway beside the lake, taking in his domain, making it his own. Max surrounded one day by children—a Christmas tree here in this hall, where she had once opened her childhood presents—their laughter echoing as hers had once done.
Max’s children. Max’s bride and Max’s wife. Max’s home.
And she would be in Canada, or any place in the world. For where she was would not matter—could not matter. Because she would be without Haughton.
Without Max.
Pain lanced at her and she got to her feet, scraping her father’s chair on the floorboards. She faced Max. He was still standing there, his expression still veiled, still resting his gaze on her.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It does. It does deserve that.’
He spoke the words heavily, incisively, as if they were being carved into him. He looked at her, held her eyes unreadably for one last moment longer, then spoke again.
‘And I hope beyond all things that it will be my home—’
She stared at him. Why had he said that? It was his home now—her signature had made it so.
But he was speaking still. ‘That, however, depends entirely on you.’
Bewilderment filled her. There was something in his eyes now—something that, had the sombreness and the despair of the moment not overwhelmed her, she would have said was a glint.
‘You should always read what you’re signing before you sign it, Ellen,’ he said softly, and his eyes were still holding hers.
‘It’s a contract of sale,’ she said.
Her voice was neutral, but she was trying desperately in her head not to hear the seductive, sensuous echo of his naming of her, that had sent a thousand dangerous whispers across her skin.
‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed.
‘Selling you my share of Haughton.’
‘No,’ said Max, in measured, deliberate tones. ‘It is not that.’ He paused. ‘Read it—you’ve signed it...now read it.’
Numbly, she turned back the pages to reach the opening page. But it was full of legalese and jargon, and the words swam in front of her eyes.
Then Max was speaking again. ‘It is a contract of sale,’ he said, ‘but you are not the vendor.’ He paused. ‘I am.’