Brand of Possession by Carole Mortimer

Author:Carole Mortimer [Mortimer, Carole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488030888
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1980-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

STACY wanted to move, to walk away, but she was rooted to the spot by her own fear. Last night this man had tried to rape her, and although she knew he couldn’t hurt her in front of all these people, verbally he could rip her to shreds.

His fingers curled painfully about her wrist, the smile on his face in no way matching the venom in his eyes. ‘Smile, Stacy,’ he ordered, the pressure of his fingers increasing almost to breaking point. ‘We wouldn’t want anyone to guess that we aren’t the best of friends, now would we?’ The smile remained fixed on his face.

‘I couldn’t give a damn what people think,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’re despicable, and everyone should know it.’

‘Know what, Stacy? That I tried to take you against your will?’ He shook his head mockingly. ‘I don’t think so, Stacy. You see, I would just have to tell them that you’re a young girl who became infatuated with me, and like any red-blooded man I lost my head a little.’

‘And these bruises?’ she sneered.

‘A little too much passion,’ he returned calmly, unwittingly using Jake’s excuse. ‘I think that in your case I would be the one to be believed. You see, Stacy, you’ve been a little too friendly with too many men of late.’

She gasped. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean Saturday night at dinner with Day, the evening spent with Weston, the next day with the same man, surprisingly, and then dinner with me yesterday evening. And now today you’re with Weston again. Not a pretty picture, is it?’ he taunted.

The way he put it it did look pretty damning. ‘But I—’

‘You what?’ he scorned. ‘Tried us all out and found Weston the best in bed?’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t see how anyone would imagine anything else.’

Neither could she! And for a girl who usually steered well clear of any sort of emotional entanglements she seemed to have well and truly blackened her name over the last two days. ‘But Jake knows the truth,’ she insisted. ‘He—’

‘Ah yes, Jake.’ Paul looked at the other man as he talked to Martin Payne, apparently unaware of their conversation. There was pure hate in the look. ‘He may think he knows the truth.’

Stacy gave him a sharp look. ‘What are you saying now?’

‘I’m wondering how Jake would like to hear what really happened last night.’

‘But he already knows.’ She frowned her puzzlement.

‘The truth as you tell it.’

‘But you know it’s right! I wouldn’t—’

Paul laughed, an unpleasant sound without humour. ‘Wouldn’t sleep with me,’ he jeered. ‘Is that what you told Weston?’ He laughed again. ‘I only have to tell him a different story to put the seeds of doubt in his mind, in fact I already made a start on that last night.’

She swallowed hard. ‘You—you did?’

‘Sort of. I implied that it might not have been all onesided, that you liked a man to be rough with you. He didn’t appear to take too much notice of me at the time, but I think I could persuade him that that’s the way it happened if I cared to.

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