Hunter's Moon & Bedded for Revenge Read online

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she gasped at his insulting tone.

  ‘Don’t I?’ he said softly, his eyes narrowed. ‘But I know more about my famous sister-in-law than you perhaps realise,’ he told her dismissively. ‘Cassandra Kyle, the designer of exclusive clothes for the woman with plenty of money! And you owe it all to Charles,’ he scorned.

  Charles had been responsible for helping her open her first boutique in London, she admitted that, knew that without his help she would probably have remained an unknown for a lot more years than she had. And considering the way her business was now, the state of the economy meaning that those women with plenty of money were a lot less well off than they used to be, perhaps it might have been better if she had remained unknown! But that seemed to be something Jonas Hunter didn’t know! She wondered for how long…

  ‘Poor Charles,’ Jonas drawled. ‘I could almost feel sorry for the poor besotted fool he must have become! Admittedly you’re beautiful enough, but I credited my self-centred brother with more sense than to go for that older-man-falling-for-younger-woman trick.’ He shook his head scathingly. ‘Hunter became the hunted,’ he added softly, the slow deliberation with which he delivered the words giving them the full insult he intended them to have.

  Cassandra paled. ‘Get out,’ she told him shakily. ‘Get out of my home!’ She was trembling so badly that she felt as if she might collapse. And she refused to do that in front of this hateful man!

  ‘Oh, I’m going, Cassandra,’ he assured her drily. ‘In fact, I’m going back to the States for a while to sort things out over there. But I’ll be back,’ he told her softly. ‘I’ll be back…’ It was a threat as well as a promise!

  And two months later he had been, taking over as head of Hunter and Kyle. And Cassandra hated seeing him there, hated him for the way he never lost an opportunity during the following months to torment her anew with those accusations…

  * * *

  Bethany still looked slightly confused even once Cassandra had explained the formality of Joy’s future wedding to her, the necessity for Joy to be ‘given away’ by a member of her family if possible, a close friend if not; Cassandra wasn’t sure which category Jonas came under! And Bethany was easily distracted from the subject altogether once Cassandra had mentioned something she did understand: bathtime!

  As far as Bethany was concerned, the huge oval jacuzzi in her parents’ bathroom had been put there solely for her to romp around in, the bubbles created from the surging foam and the scented liquid Cassandra had been persuaded to put in soon up to her small pointed chin as she played games with their rainbow brightness.

  As her young daughter played with squealing delight, Cassandra stood in the adjoining bedroom looking through her wardrobe for something to wear when she visited her mother that evening, because even though she wasn’t going to join them for dinner—she already had a dinner engagement—she wasn’t prepared to let Marguerite get away with this as easily as all that, and intended calling at her mother’s house on her way out. And if Jonas should arrive while she was talking to her mother he would no doubt look at her with his usual criticism—hence her frowning attention on what to wear. If she chose something that would flatter her slender darkness then Jonas would treat her scornfully, and if she chose something demure he would deride the effort as being a false one. She had never been able to win with Jonas. He had formed an opinion of her before they even met, because she had been the wife of the brother he despised, and to give him his due it had never wavered; he despised her as much as he had Charles. Cassandra had formed a similar opinion of him after their first meeting, which had also never wavered—how could it when he had treated her with such contempt on that occasion, and every one since?

  Jonas’s only redeeming quality, as far as she was concerned, was that his dislike of her didn’t extend as far as her daughter; he openly adored Bethany. And Bethany reciprocated by believing him to be the most wonderful man in the world. Cassandra could only hope that her daughter’s taste in men improved before she reached maturity!

  ‘Wear the yellow dress.’ Bethany grinned at her enchantingly from the bath. ‘The one Daddy liked,’ she added softly, sadness entering the golden-brown of her eyes at this mention of her father.

  Cassandra’s own hand shook slightly as she reached out automatically for the dull gold gown that Charles had so liked to see her in, its clinging style to just above her knees, her shoulders left completely bare, classically and tunelessly appealing. Charles had always claimed it gave her eyes a golden glimmer that matched the colour of the dress, and for a brief moment after Bethany had called out to her it had almost seemed as if Charles himself spoke to her.

  ‘Yes—wear the pale gold,’ a voice echoed mockingly. ‘You look like a high priestess in it!’

  Cassandra spun round with a gasp. This second voice was certainly nothing like Charles speaking to her; irresponsibly charming Charles had certainly never spoken to her in that disparaging way! Nor did the man who stood so arrogantly in the open bedroom doorway look anything like the husband Cassandra had loved in spite of his reckless disregard for what he termed ‘tomorrow’. It could take care of itself, he had always claimed with that boyish grin of his. Only he wasn’t here to see ‘tomorrow’ with her; this man was!

  Jonas Hunter. Charles’s younger half-brother, the two of them the products of their father’s two marriages. And Charles and Jonas were as different as night and day, as shadow and sunlight. And there was no confusion in Cassandra’s mind, at least, which man was which!

  CHAPTER TWO

  CASSANDRA looked warily across the room at Jonas, and knew that, despite his height and size, he could move with an animal stealth that was completely unnerving. Which was why she hadn’t heard his approach to her bedroom just now, she realised with deep resentment. This man aroused many emotions in her, and although most people seemed in awe of him no one she knew who had met him seemed to quite know how they felt about him—liking seeming too insipid an emotion to use in connection with this man. People would either love or loathe him, Cassandra would hazard a guess, having no doubt which emotion she herself felt towards him! Or perhaps it was because most other people were so much in awe of his arrogant power that they chose not to voice an opinion about how they felt about him!

  ‘Mrs Humphries let me in,’ he drawled now before Cassandra could voice her displeasure at this blatant intrusion into her home. ‘She told me Bethany was having her bath, and when she was called away to answer the telephone I took it upon myself to come upstairs.’ Dark brows were raised in silent challenge as he dared her to question his arrogance.

  This man ‘took it upon himself’ to do exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted, Cassandra knew—but he wasn’t about to start walking about her house, the home she had shared with Charles for the five years of their marriage, as if he owned it! Which he most certainly did not. Jonas might have inherited a lot of things from Charles when he died, but this house was not one of them.

  Her eyes flashed deeply gold. ‘You—’

  ‘Uncle Jonas! Uncle Jonas!’ An ecstatic Bethany came bounding out of the bathroom to launch herself at Jonas, effectively cutting off any angry rebuke Cassandra might have been—damn it, had been—about to administer. ‘It is you.’ Bethany grinned at him gleefully.

  Jonas had swung the little girl up in his arms by this time, uncaring of the water and bubbles that instantly soaked into his expensively tailored suit, obviously having come here straight from the office, by the formality of his clothing. ‘Hussy!’ Jonas laughed huskily as he buried his face in the damp darkness of Bethany’s hair.

  Cassandra watched the closeness between the two of them with mixed emotions—amazement at the way Jonas lost all trace of that hard cynicism and reserve when it came to Bethany, resentment at that very closeness which had seemed instantaneous from the very moment the two set eyes on each other, while at the same time grateful that Bethany did have this male influence
in her young life. Because Bethany’s other contacts in life were mainly women: Cassandra, her aunt and grandmother, the housekeeper, Jean Humphries; even Bethany’s form-teacher at the day-school she had begun attending in September was a kindly middle-aged lady. But none the less Cassandra could still only deplore her daughter’s choice of a man to adore!

  But adore Jonas she did, and Cassandra moved into the adjoining bathroom to escape the painful sight of Bethany in her uncle’s arms, gathering up one of the thick peach-coloured towels to take it back into the bedroom. ‘Here.’ She held the towel out somewhat impatiently, avoiding Jonas’s darkly taunting gaze as he mockingly noted the way Cassandra carefully avoided any contact with him while she wrapped Bethany in the sumptuous bath-towel. ‘Your suit will be ruined,’ she muttered defensively—she always seemed to be on the defensive where this man was concerned, had been made to feel that way from the very first time they met, and Jonas had never done anything to make her less wary and angry with him than she had been on that occasion.

  ‘I can always buy a new suit,’ Jonas drawled derisively. ‘A cuddle with this particular young lady—’ he tickled Bethany pointedly ‘—is priceless!’

  Amazing how, even when she tried to make an effort with this man, he somehow managed to twist it round so that she appeared the one in the wrong again! Although if she was honest—with herself, at least—she hadn’t really been thinking of him and his damned expensively hand-made suit at all when she got the towel, had actually resented his presence here, but most of all she had hated his easy laughter with Bethany. It was wrong of her, she knew, but when she looked at him with Bethany she felt he had no right to be there at all. But Bethany did love him so, to the point where Cassandra feared he was superseding Charles in her daughter’s affections. Deliberately so on Jonas’s part…?

  Jonas had always been the black sheep of Charles’s family from the little she had gathered from either Charles or his father, Jonas’s mother having been divorced by Peter Hunter years before Jonas reached adulthood. Jonas, it appeared, had lived in America for years without making any effort to see either Charles or their father. Cassandra had realised exactly what sort of man he was when he didn’t even come to their wedding, even though Charles had expressed a wish that he be his best man. Maybe his refusal to be with his own brother on his wedding day was another one of the reasons she now felt so resentful about the part he was going to be asked to play in her sister Joy’s wedding…

  ‘Don’t you think so?’

  She looked up sharply, to find Jonas looking down at her probingly; despite her own considerable height, he was still at least six inches taller than her.

  ‘Bethany’s hugs are priceless,’ he reminded her of what he had said only minutes ago, holding Bethany easily in one arm as he did so.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Cassandra agreed in a briskly dismissive voice, lifting her daughter down on to the carpeted floor. ‘Time we got you into some clothes, young lady, before you get cold,’ she explained with a smile as Bethany looked disappointed. ‘I—Ah, Jean,’ she said with some relief as she spied her housekeeper standing in the doorway Jonas had so recently vacated.

  The older woman, in her early sixties now, Cassandra suddenly realised with a frown, looked slightly harassed as she glanced at Jonas before speaking. ‘I was just on my way upstairs to tell you Mr Hunter was here, when the telephone began to ring.’ She gave Cassandra an apologetic grimace, obviously feeling responsible for Jonas’s arrogant intrusion upstairs; if they had been alone, Cassandra would have assured the woman who had become her friend during the last five years that she was well aware Jean would have been trying to stop the equivalent of a tank in trying to prevent Jonas from doing exactly as he pleased! Although she knew that, given the opportunity, Jean would have had a good try, none the less!

  The two women had had severe differences when Cassandra had first become Charles’s wife. Jean had been in charge of Charles’s household for years when he and Cassandra married; until that time, it seemed, Charles had given every impression of remaining a carefree bachelor, and at already forty-two that perhaps wasn’t such a strange assumption to have made. But it had meant, when he had married Cassandra, that the older woman deeply resented the introduction of a twenty-year-old bride as new mistress of the house. Naturally so, of course.

  Cassandra hadn’t blamed the other woman for feeling that way at all, had tried very hard, during those first few months, not to step on the other woman’s already bruised feelings, determined that Charles shouldn’t be made to feel he was living in the middle of a battlefield—worse than that, that he might actually have to take sides! That was the last thing Cassandra wanted for him, because she knew that he would hate that, that he hated any sort of upset in his usually smooth-running existence. In fact, Cassandra had teased him that it had been for that very reason he had balked against marrying her at all for months after they had realised they were in love. He had protested that it wasn’t that at all, that he felt perhaps the age-difference was too much, that it would eventually break them up. Cassandra’s answer to that had been but think of what a marvellous time they would have had together, for however long it lasted. Charles’s love for her hadn’t been strong enough to fight such an argument, thank God, and Cassandra knew, despite that slightly reckless air of his that could make him so frustratingly irresponsible, that they had shared five good years together.

  But those first few months of being Charles’s wife, because it seemed Jean Humphries would never accept her, had been traumatic ones for Cassandra. And then Cassandra had done something that had forever changed her relationship with Jean—she had produced Bethany… Jean doted on the little girl from the day Cassandra came home from the hospital with her, Bethany being the closest thing the older woman would ever have to a grandchild of her own. For the title of Mrs was only a professional one for Jean, Cassandra knew, the other woman never having been married.

  During the months since Charles’s death, and the problems that had followed, Jean had come to be so much more than just a friend to Cassandra too; she had been the comforting mother she had needed so badly and which her own mother hadn’t been able to be.

  Cassandra gave Jean a wan smile now, knowing just how impossible it would have been to stop Jonas from coming up here. ‘Jonas decided he would like to come up and see Bethany take her bath,’ she accepted dismissively. ‘If you would like to warm Bethany’s milk for her, and perhaps a pot of coffee for us…?’ She looked enquiringly at Jonas as she made the last request; the last thing she actually wanted was to share a cosy pot of coffee with him, but she couldn’t escape the fact that Bethany would probably be so disappointed that it would be hell on earth trying to get her to bed after Jonas had left!

  Her hope that Jonas might refuse the invitation was dashed when he gave a mocking inclination of his head.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ he murmured derisively once Jean had gone to get the drinks and Bethany had returned to the bathroom to dry herself and dress in her pyjamas and dressing-gown ready for bed, his mouth twisting wryly. ‘But I came here straight from the office, and after the day I’ve had I could do with the caffeine,’ he added grimly, running a hand over the tension of his brow.

  Cassandra gave him a searching look. He did look strained, his black-rimmed glasses, glasses he rarely wore, she recalled, partly concealing those hard black eyes. ‘Things not running smoothly at the office?’ she returned lightly, although inwardly she had tensed once again; what had happened to cause those extra lines of strain beside his nose and mouth tonight?

  His expression sharpened with harsh derision. ‘Do you really care?’

  Her eyes flashed deeply gold at his scorn. ‘Of course I—Must I remind you that Hunter and Kyle is as much my concern as it is yours?’ she challenged in a reasoning tone.

  Jonas returned her gaze speculatively. ‘Is it?’

  ‘You know it—’ She abruptly broke off her sharp retort as Bethany came trotting in unconcernedly fr
om the bathroom, dressed in her nightclothes now, and stood expectantly in front of Cassandra as she waited for the nightly ritual of having her hair brushed.

  ‘Uncle Jonas…’ she began tentatively as Cassandra made the steady strokes through her hair with the brush. ‘Uncle Jonas, do you believe in Father Christmas?’ She frowned across the room at him as he sat in the bedroom chair now watching them.

  Cassandra stopped the brushing to look down at her daughter in some surprise; this was the first indication she had ever had that Bethany was even beginning to doubt the myth! Of course, once a child started school, it was difficult to stop older children from telling her the truth, but even so they had gone through all the usual rituals together this year—the letter to Santa with a list of what Bethany would like for Christmas this year dutifully sent off to the North Pole, the trip to see a Father Christmas, in a well-known shop, that Bethany had known wasn’t the real one, but who she believed could pass a message on to him, just in case her letter should go astray. Bethany had helped Jean in the kitchen while she made mince pies, one of which was to be placed on a plate on Christmas Eve, along with eight carrots—one for each of the reindeer—and she had also checked the sherry supply, so that they could leave a glassful out with the mince pie, to warm the poor man on his busy round. In actual fact, either Cassandra or Jean would end up drinking the latter, depending on which of them felt more in need of it after the last-minute rush of getting everything arranged under the tree for the next morning when Bethany woke them at some ungodly hour so that they could go downstairs and see if Father Christmas had been yet!

  All of which made Bethany’s apparent doubt now more than a little puzzling…

  Jonas looked taken aback by the question too. ‘Why do you ask, poppet?’ he avoided warily.