Hawk's Prey. Кэрол Мортимер

having really known her mother, except from the photographs her father kept, Whitney had envisaged becoming friends with Geraldine Hawkworth. But the first time she met the other woman she had told her what a nuisance she was, and how her guardianship had disrupted her life. Whitney had always known that Hawk came from a very wealthy family, that he had become something of the black sheep when he had chosen to take up racing motor cycles instead of going into the family-run businesses that had made them all so wealthy. Being given the guardianship of a fifteen-year-old girl had necessitated Hawk donning the respectability of the family business rather than the excitement of travelling around the world racing, Geraldine had tartly informed her. And the other woman obviously resented the loss of that exciting life.

      Not that Hawk had ever seemed to blame her in any way, not even when the change in career had such an adverse affect on his marriage. But for years the confinement of business had sat awkwardly on his shoulders, and Geraldine had never made any secret of her dissatisfaction with the new, staid, if equally rich, life she now led. The arguments between the couple had often been horrific those first two years after Whitney left school, Geraldine having a wicked temper.

      When Whitney reached eighteen she had suggested to Hawk that now that his guardianship was over she should move out and give the married couple some privacy. It was then that she had discovered that, although she had now reached the age of consent, Hawk was to remain her guardian until she was twenty-one. Her father, perhaps because of his long absences, had always been protective of her, but nevertheless the thought of spending another three years with the bitter Geraldine and the determined Hawk had filled her with dismay.

      But the situation between the married couple had suddenly changed. Geraldine began to go out alone, sometimes all night, and it was obvious when she returned the next morning in the same evening gown she had gone out in that she hadn’t just arranged to stay overnight with friends.

      Hawk became more withdrawn than ever, concentrating all his energies on his business empire, at last seeming to fit smoothly into this new career he had adopted for her sake, often working late into the evenings. Although the latter, Whitney had been sure, was so that he didn’t have to be at home to witness Geraldine going out to meet what had to be her latest lover. Somehow the role of cuckolded husband didn’t sit well on the shoulders of the man Whitney had come to know—and love. But, as Hawk raised no objection to the situation between himself and Geraldine, Whitney had had to accept that he loved the other woman, no matter what she did, or who she did it with.

      Geraldine had finally tired of the life she was living just before Whitney’s twenty-first birthday, asking Hawk for a divorce, which he agreed to give her without argument; how could he hold on to the woman when she obviously wanted to leave!

      With Geraldine out of the house while they waited for their divorce, Whitney had tried to get closer to Hawk, to show him that she loved him even if Geraldine had been too stupid to. He had rejected her love by arranging for her to move into her own house, and handing over the diamond-studded watch on the eve of her birthday, the last time they had met before today.

      She had been working for the Hawkworth-owned newspaper since she was twenty, and as she knew she was good at the job she had seen no reason to change that; she occasionally saw Hawk striding about the building. He looked older after his divorce from Geraldine became final and she remarried, more cynical than ever, and despite the fact that he had always appeared to be a highly sensual man there had been no women reputed to be in his life, not even casually. Even though she no longer wanted him Geraldine still owned him body and soul. It didn’t matter to Hawk that she had made a fool of him with other men during their marriage, that she ridiculed his love during that stormy time, or that she had become involved with and finally married one of the most powerfully corrupt men in England.

      Knowing Geraldine as Whitney did, only too well, and the other woman’s craving for excitement in any shape or form—the more dangerous, the better she liked it—she had a feeling that Geraldine was involved in Tom Beresford’s corruption right up to her beautiful neck.

      She also had a feeling that, despite what the other woman had done to him, Hawk was going to protect Geraldine and the happiness she had found with the other man with the last breath in his body if necessary.

      God, how she hoped she was wrong!