An Enticing Debt to Pay by Annie West

Author:Annie West
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

JONAS TOSSED THE design portfolio onto his desk and sat back, rubbing eyes gritty from lack of sleep. He couldn’t concentrate. He hadn’t been able to concentrate since that scene with Ravenna.

Ruggiero women are good enough to be mistresses but never wives.

The look on her face as she’d thrown what he was thinking straight back at him! Defiance, hauteur and a pain that cut to the bone. It was that anguish, etched in her eyes and taut frame, that had dragged him from blind fury long enough to recognise he might have overreacted.

Might have? He’d jumped down her throat without hearing her out.

Because it was easier to dismiss Ravenna as a gold-digging opportunist than believe she could be something more.

Yet it was the something more he’d responded to, not just her sexuality. It was the woman who’d comforted him, her enemy. The woman who, without being asked, catered cheerfully for those working around the Hall, even him, the man set on making her life hell. The woman who had rolled up her sleeves and taken on the ridiculously impossible task he’d set her, revealing a grit and determination he’d not thought possible. The woman who’d fought him tooth and nail but never shied from the consequences of her actions in thieving from him.

He shook his head. Something didn’t add up, but he was too befuddled to work it out.

Jonas looked at his half-empty mug and the scatter of crumbs on the plate she’d left on his desk and felt remorse.

Good enough to be mistresses. The pain in her words made him feel two inches tall.

No woman deserved to think that. Especially the woman who’d shared herself so unstintingly while he’d behaved with the finesse of a Neanderthal.

In Paris he’d thought her a consummate liar, a woman totally changed from the earnest, engaging teenager he’d met. But that scene in his bedroom proved him wrong. Ravenna couldn’t hide her shame and anguish as she faced him down.

He felt like scum.

As if he’d taken advantage of her.

For the first time he wondered how Ravenna had reacted to her mother’s affair.

The teenage Ravenna had seemed heartbreakingly alone in a world that judged merit on status and money. She’d suffered at the hands of bullies who despised her lack of wealth. Yet she hadn’t envied their money, just hated their shallowness.

How had she felt when her mother took up with Piers, revelling like a self-satisfied potentate in the furore over his gorgeous mistress? Had Ravenna enjoyed the ride?

Or, the thought struck hard, had she cringed at the gossip about her mother leeching Piers for cash?

Ravenna had developed that shell of pride for a reason.

Once the thought lodged he couldn’t shake it. Especially as he recalled the wretchedness she’d tried to hide when he’d accused her of sleeping her way out of trouble.

Guilt smote him. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps not. But the memory of that haunted look discomfited him.

Jonas shoved back the chair and strode across the room.

He halted when he saw Ravenna talking with his garden designer, Adam Renshaw.

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