Black Widow Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

far worse in the past by refusing to believe in her integrity. He hadn’t even liked her. That had hurt. Withdrawing her arm from his grasp, she smiled sadly. “You didn’t—and it doesn’t matter. Really.”
    His eyes were a brilliant, unfathomable blue. “So what do you say, Rebecca? Arrange Savvas’s wedding and let’s put the past behind us. Call it quits, hmm?”
    She flicked him a glance.
    Damon was prepared to bury the old resentments and bad feelings—perhaps there was a chance they could reach a truce. So that one day she would be able to tell him about T.J. And then there was that other temptation…
    If she helped with the wedding—not for payment, of course, she couldn’t do that—but to achieve a truce—then Damon might get to know her, might even discover what she’d always known, that they were bound by invisible ties too powerful to ignore. But…
    Doubt assailed her.
    Damon was a wealthy, powerful man. What if he found out the truth about T.J.? She simply couldn’t risk T.J.’s security to chase a pitiful fantasy that she might—might—change Damon’s poor opinion of her.
    She sighed. “Look, I told you—I don’t do weddings any more.” Defeat weighed her down. Whatever she’d once felt for him he’d trampled into the dust, making it clear that he despised her. She waved a dismissive hand at the cheque on the table. “Not even for that ridiculously large amount of money.”
    “But my mother—”
    “Your mother knows I can’t do the wedding. I told her myself!” Soula had sounded fine on the telephone two weeks ago and the heart attack had taken place two years ago. This helpless sense of letting Soula down was just Damon’s manipulation. In his world the end always justified the means. “If you want, I’ll call her and tell her again that I can’t do it.”
    Alarm lit his eyes. “I don’t want you—”
    “Talking to your mother. I know, I know!” Because he didn’t want her finding out that he’d lied about his mother’s health? Or because he didn’t want Rebecca Grainger, a woman he utterly despised, having anything to do with his beloved mother?
    He tried to say something, but she held up a hand, a new burn of hurt searing her at his appallingly low opinion of her, until all she wanted to do was hit back. “So please tell her not to call me again. And I don’t want you bothering me, either. My answer stands.”
    His mouth snapped shut, an uncompromising line in that hard, wildly handsome face, while his eyes glittered with menace.
    Yes, it was past time she accepted that there was nothing that she could salvage from the past, nothing that would make Damon look at her through kinder eyes.
    “Now, you say you’re such a busy, important man—you’d better get back to Auckland.”
    Rebecca didn’t wait for his reply. One last reproachful look, then she whirled and bolted through her shop, ignoring the turning heads, until she reached the safety of her rabbit hole of an office behind the large workmanlike kitchen, shaken to the core by their bitter exchange.

    Hours after their confrontation, Damon strode across the forecourt of the chain hotel of which he’d just checked out. Long shadows cast by the row of cypress trees edging the boundary crept like dark fingers across the cobbled pavers, reminding Damon that the afternoon was waning.
    Had he heeded Rebecca’s parting shot this morning, he’d already have been back in Auckland, closing the Rangiwhau deal. The CEO had demanded a face-to-face meeting this afternoon. Damon had stalled. Instead of concluding a lucrative deal that would make his shareholders a killing, he’d spent the afternoon closeted in a hotel room, juggling conference calls, working like a demon…all the while plotting how to get Rebecca to change her mind. And trying to rid himself of the ridiculous notion that he’d wounded her.
    Impossible. The woman ate men for breakfast.
    Damon had a fleeting memory of Aaron Grainger.
    A good man. A