Forgotten Father Read Online Free PDF Page B

start.”
    “I haven’t!” she cried. “He’s been a friend. Nothing
but a good friend.”
    “What ever you call it, it’s done. He’s worth
millions,” Mitchell told her with chilly contempt. “I’m sure that
was enough for you to overlook the obvious drawbacks to being the
mistress of a man old enough to be your grandfather. But it’s
through. I want you to pack your stuff and leave—now.”
    “I’ve never slept with Donovan!” she insisted
desperately, unwilling to let him believe so badly of her. “He
wouldn’t—I wouldn’t—“
    Slicing an impatient hand through the air, Mitchell
said, “ Save it ! I came up here this weekend specifically to
deal with this situation and buy you off—“
    “Mitchell, I haven’t slept with your
grandfather!”
    “Then he’s not getting very good value for the money
he’s given you,” Mitchell declared brutally, his gaze scraping over
her body in a way it hadn’t the night before.
    “Money? What money?” she asked wildly.
    “The checks he’s been giving you, the ones marked miscellaneous . A hundred thousand once, ten and thirty
thousand two other times.” Mitchell stood next to the railing, his
hands shoved into his pants pockets, his face hard as stone.
    Delanie shook her head in desperate denial.
“Expenses. Renovating a place like this costs a huge amount of
money. Rugs, artwork. Donovan always wanted me to have enough
capital to operate, but it never meant anything ! Nothing
like that! ”
    Mitchell’s smile grew uglier. “Don’t think I’m
stupid, Lanie. I got the preliminary report on the investigation I
ordered on you. I know about the married boyfriend in college, the
law professor who helped you set up your business and the lover
who’s restaurant went bankrupt right before you dumped him. Money’s
what motivates your ‘love’.”
    “You had me investigated?” she whispered, a
desperate sense of disorientation gripping her.
    “Hell, yes.” The smile on his face grew colder
still. “Never do dirty business without knowing all the dirt. Every
businessman knows that rule.”
    “You don’t understand,” she said, the panic in her
chest making the words halting. “I didn’t know he,…John…was
married…the others were—you just don’t understand.”
    Mitchell looked away from her, his jaw taut. “If I
didn’t understand before last night, you opened my eyes. I don’t
care what kind of game you’re playing, but you picked the wrong
man—“
    “I’m not playing any game!” She reached impulsively
out to him, her hand on his arm.
    He stared down at where her fingers clasped his the
sleeve of his suit coat.
    Snatching her hand back as if burned, she glared up
into his arctic eyes. “How can you think these things about me?
Last night—“
    “Is better left forgotten.” He bit the words out,
the abrupt enmity in his face unbearable.
    “But we—“
    “Copulated in the dark like animals,” Mitchell
finished, anger suddenly blazing from him. “I hope you got some
pleasure out of it, because that’s all you’ll get.”
    “What do you think I wanted out of it?” she demanded
in desperation and anger.
    “I imagine, it seemed like the perfect plan to you,”
he sneered, hostility crackling in the air between them. “You’re
boffing the old man, coaxing thousands of dollars out of him,
wheedling half-ownership of The Cedars away from the family—“
    “What!” she gasped. “I didn’t!”
    “— I’m sure a wedding was the next
objective.”
    Delanie shook her head, dazed. The air seemed too
thick to breathe, the sun too bright on her face.
    “But you took a misstep last night, Lanie. If you
thought to blackmail me into agreeing to your marriage to
Donovan—“
    “How would sleeping with you accomplish that?” she
cried.
    Mitchell looked at her as if she were a worm under
his shoe. “By threatening to tell your sweetheart that his grandson
knowingly poached on his territory and sampled your wares. Seduced