It was just unfortunate that hearing about him was one thing, but trying not to think about him was another—and the moment she set foot over the threshold of Brockbank House more memories of that hateful, scheming man came flooding back to haunt her.
Kimberley wondered how she could have allowed herself to be talked into doing this particularly distorted ‘favour’ for her mother. She hadn’t been near the house, not for over two years, not since that dreadful day when Harrison had given her the cheque.
Despite her mother’s assurances she had been dreading seeing Mrs Nash, but Duncan’s mother held her hand out immediately she opened the front door. She was a tall, graceful woman, with Duncan’s soft brown eyes; Harrison, Kimberley knew, was the image of his father who had been killed in a yachting accident when both boys were quite small.
‘Hello, Kimberley,’ said Mrs Nash. ‘It’s good of you to help me out.’
‘It’s no trouble. Really. Mother insisted I stand in for her.’
Mrs Nash smiled. ‘Eleanor’s so terribly conscientious. I really don’t know what I’d do without her.’ There was a pause. ‘She told you that Duncan’s getting married?’
‘Yes, she did.’ Kimberley hesitated. ‘I’m very happy for him, Mrs Nash. Really, I am.’
Mrs Nash smiled. ‘I rather thought you might be.’ She laid her hand on Kimberley’s arm. ‘Won’t you come and have some tea with me?’
Kimberley shook her head. ‘Another time, perhaps. I’d rather get started, if you don’t mind.’
‘I understand.’
Did she? thought Kimberley. Not really. She imagined that even the fairly liberal Mrs Nash would be shocked if she knew the real reason for Kimberley’s reluctance to linger any longer at Brockbank House than she needed to. What would she say if Kimberley told her that the sight of that framed silver photograph of Harrison on the hall table was playing havoc with her equilibrium?
She stared at it, trying to view it objectively. It was just a face, after all. The features weren’t particularly even—the eyes were too cold and the jaw much too harshly defined ever to be called handsome. The photographer had caught him smiling, but it wasn’t a sunny, happy smile. It was nothing but a cynical upward curve of those hard, sensual lips.
Kimberley turned away from the photo, removed her coat, and set to work immediately. She’d tied her hair back and was wearing a pair of ripped jeans with her oldest T-shirt, which seemed to have shrunk slightly with repeated washing. Once black, it was now a sort of washed-out grey colour, and it revealed about two inches of her midriff.
She couldn’t find a mop, so she filled up a bucket with hot soapy water and set about cleaning the floor the old-fashioned way—on her hands and knees!
There was something curiously relaxing about seeing the floor clean up beneath her cloth. Her busy life in London meant that she employed someone else to clean her house, but actually it was really quite satisfying to do it yourself, she decided—if you had the time.
She was just about to wring out her cloth when she heard the kitchen door open. Kimberley looked up, expecting to see Mrs Nash, her smile of greeting fading into frozen disbelief as the longest pair of legs she had ever seen swam into her field of vision. She let her gaze wander up into a hard and cruel face.
And the cold grey eyes of Harrison Nash.
‘WELL, well, well—how the mighty have fallen,’ came the sardonic drawl.
His voice sounded exactly the same—-rich and deep. And as contemptuous as it had ever been. Kimberley dropped the cloth and it splashed water on to the front of her T-shirt.
‘Do you know,’ he continued, in that same, silky tone which sent prickles of excitement and dread down her spine, ‘I rather like to see you in such a subservient position, Kimberley? Rather fetching. And, funnily enough, I was never particularly turned on by wet T-shirt competitions—but I can now see that I’m going to have to revise my opinion.’
His cool grey gaze had travelled to her sopping T-shirt, where the water had cruelly outlined the rounded swell of her breasts with detailed precision. Under his gaze she felt the nipples tighten immediately into those exquisitely painful little peaks, and she felt a hot weakness kick at the pit of her stomach. She saw the flash of hunger which darkened his eyes and he moved the tip of his tongue over his lips in a gesture which shrieked pure provocation.
Remember what he did to you.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demanded as she flung the cloth back into the bucket and scrambled to her feet.
‘I really should be asking you that question, don’t you think? Are times hard for merchant bankers? Supplementing your income with a spot of charring——’
‘My mother happens to do the charring in this house,’ she cut in icily. ‘God knows why she does it, but she does—and I will not have you insulting her.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of insulting your mother, whom I both like and respect.’ His eyes narrowed; she could barely see them. ‘Unlike her little madam of a daughter. Tell me, did you hatch a plot to get back into this house, somehow—anyhow? What are your intentions—to try to ruin Duncan’s life a second time?’
Kimberley stared at him, wondering genuinely if his memory was defective. ‘You’re mad! What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about your motives for being here.’
‘My motives? You really aren’t making yourself at all clear, I’m afraid, Harrison.’
‘Then allow me to elucidate,’ he said softly. ‘My brother is returning from America, where he went after you dumped him, and he’s bringing with him his new fiancée. And now you’re here. Again. I’m just interested to know what you’re up to. Do you want him back? Or do you just want to rub in what’s he’s been missing all these years? Are you planning to flaunt that beautiful, hot, rapacious little body around him?’
‘You are mad,’ she said scornfully. ‘If your memory serves you as well as mine, you will recall that you were the one determined to break our relationship up.’
He gave her a ruthless little smile. ‘You think so? If you’d really loved him you’d have told me to go to hell! As a matter of fact, that’s what I expected to happen.’
Kimberley’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Expected? Are you telling me that you were calling my bluff? That it was some kind of little test which I had to pass to be allowed to marry your brother?’
He inclined his head. ‘If you like. When a rather wild young man—who stands to inherit the kind of money Duncan will one day have—announces he’s about to marry, it’s wise to put the commitment of both partners to the test.’
It was unbelievable! The man was living in the Dark Ages! Kimberley shook her head slowly and incredulously. ‘Did your mother know this—that you were conducting this barbaric little experiment?’
He gave her a bored smile as he ignored her question. ‘As I said—I expected to be sent away with a flea in my ear. Instead of which you went out of here clutching a big, fat cheque in your greedy little hand. But that was nothing to what you very nearly gave me. Was it, Kimberley?’ he mocked.
Kimberley blushed scarlet. Only someone as hateful as Harrison Nash would take such pleasure in reminding her of her behaviour that day.
He moved a little towards her and instinctively she stiffened, her head held proudly high, her eyes slitted into glittering blue shards.
‘So what did