Hunter's Moon & Bedded for Revenge Read online

  ‘I’m afraid I already have an appointment this evening,’ Simeon refused with obvious relief for this previously made engagement—although Cassandra was sure he would have invented one if he hadn’t had one! ‘Mr Hunter.’ He nodded his parting to the other man, stepping forward to give Cassandra the customary kiss on the cheek—and then thinking better of it as hard black eyes narrowed ominously, a slight flush to his boyish cheeks now as he gave Cassandra a nervously apologetic smile. ‘Cassandra. Bethany.’ He fled out into the hallway after the last, the firm click of the front door closing seconds later confirming his departure.

  “‘Mr Hunter”,’ Jonas repeated with cold derision. ‘Are all your lovers as polite to your relatives?’

  Cassandra gasped as he once again caught her off guard with the intimacy of his attack. But at the same time she was very aware of the listening Bethany—and of how her daughter loved to relate what she had overheard to other people!

  ‘I told you, Simeon isn’t my lover!’ she hissed with a pointed look in Bethany’s direction. ‘And you aren’t a relative of mine,’ she added firmly.

  ‘No?’ Dark brows rose. ‘I’m Bethany’s uncle, so I must be related to you too.’

  Half-brothers of dead husbands didn’t count. If the half-brother had been anyone other than Jonas, then he might have done, but it was him, and there was nothing she could do to erase the antagonism she felt towards him every time they met. In fact, she was sure it was an antagonism he deliberately nurtured. Quite why she had no idea.

  With Charles dead, her left as his widow, Jonas his half-brother, they should really have been drawn together in the grief of having lost Charles so suddenly. But Jonas still seemed to harbour some past resentment towards Charles which prevented him from feeling any other emotion towards him—or the woman Charles had married!

  Oh, Jonas had returned to England to take over the company, but she really knew little about him. Peter, Charles’s and Jonas’s father, had little to say about his younger son when Cassandra visited him with Bethany, and she somehow didn’t think the rift that had existed between them before Jonas left England all those years ago had been healed either.

  Of course Peter was getting old now, well into his seventies, becoming frailer all the time, spending most of his time in seclusion at his Berkshire home, increasingly so since Charles’s death. But surely Peter’s advanced years and declining health were added reasons why he and Jonas should now try to sort out their differences? It was—

  ‘Mummy, what’s a lover?’ Bethany’s puzzled voice effectively cut into her thoughts.

  ‘If you don’t understand, ask,’ Cassandra had always told her daughter—and now wished she hadn’t! ‘Why don’t you ask Uncle Jonas to explain, darling?’ she suggested brightly, having thankfully spotted Jean waiting patiently in the doorway after having come in answer to her ring. ‘While I go and organise tea with Jean.’ She shot Jonas a smugly triumphant smile before sweeping out of the room and closing the door firmly behind her, uncaring if her actions looked slightly childish; Jonas had brought the subject up—he could deal with it!

  Jean raised blonde brows peppered with grey. ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Don’t ask!’ Cassandra squeezed the other woman’s arm in gratitude for her timely rescue.

  ‘I had a feeling you might say that.’ Jean gave a rueful chuckle. ‘Tea for three, I gather?’

  Cassandra pulled a face. ‘It appears that we have a guest, yes.’

  Jonas didn’t exactly join them for tea; he joined Bethany. Cassandra might just as well not have been there for all the notice he took of her as the toasted tea-cakes and muffins, both dripping with butter, fast disappeared, followed by huge chunks of Jean’s fruit-cake.

  What Jonas had told Bethany in answer to her question about ‘a lover’ Cassandra didn’t enquire, but Bethany seemed satisfied, whatever it had been!

  But still Jonas made no effort to leave once tea had been eaten and cleared away, offering to help bath Bethany when the time came, an offer it would have looked churlish to refuse. Not that Cassandra would have minded looking churlish where this man was concerned, but once again Bethany was involved, and once the suggestion had been made her daughter was all for it, especially after Jonas had suggested they play battle-ships among the bubbles in the jacuzzi. Cassandra gave up any idea of diverting her daughter after that!

  She was starting to feel as if her life here with Bethany was being invaded, and not slowly either; Jonas was doing this the way he did everything, head-on, without a care as to whose feelings he might be trampling on—certainly not Cassandra’s! And Cassandra would be lying, to herself as much as anyone else, if she didn’t admit she felt slightly hurt by Bethany’s easy defection to this man she hadn’t even known until nine months ago. She even had to stand by tonight while Jonas read Bethany her bedtime story, a nightly ritual mother and daughter had always shared together, even when Charles was alive. Cassandra had always made a point, no matter how busy she was, or where they happened to be, of putting Bethany to bed herself and reading her the bedtime story.

  But not tonight. Tonight Jonas was given that honour. And feeling superfluous—as well as slightly hurt, although she couldn’t blame Bethany, for she knew the little girl was enjoying this male attention—Cassandra left them to it.

  How odd. It was such a little thing, just a bedtime story before Bethany snuggled down in her bed for the night, and yet Cassandra felt bereft at being denied this enjoyable routine for the first time since her daughter had been born. Utterly ridiculous to feel this way, Cassandra knew as she sat down dejectedly on her own bed. Was she becoming selfish where Bethany was concerned, over-protective, possessive…? She hadn’t thought so, and yet—

  She heard Jonas leave Bethany’s bedroom and go downstairs, realised she should go down and join him, but knowing she wasn’t ready to do so yet. She was still disturbed by her own reaction, by those feelings of rejection.

  It didn’t help to learn, when she checked in on Bethany a few minutes later on her way downstairs, that her daughter had enjoyed the change in story-teller immensely!

  ‘Uncle Jonas is wonderful, isn’t he, Mummy?’ Bethany murmured sleepily, her eyes aglow, not really expecting an answer—Which was just as well, because Cassandra couldn’t think of a single complimentary thing to say about the man!

  And so she said nothing, just smiling gently, Bethany falling asleep even as Cassandra sat watching her, the little girl absolutely worn out by her busy day.

  How innocent and untroubled Bethany looked in sleep, totally safe and secure in her own little world—thank God. It could all have turned out so differently, Cassandra knew, after they had lost Charles so suddenly, and she was gratefull beyond belief that, although Bethany missed her father, there didn’t seem to be any emotional repercussions on Bethany from his death. Except this growing affection Bethany was developing for Jonas!

  It came as something of a shock to Cassandra to discover, when she finally made her way down to her little sitting-room, that Jonas had fallen asleep in there! And he looked far from innocent and untroubled in the same state!

  Seeming to have fallen back against the sofa, having drifted off to sleep in spite of himself, the harshness was still there in the hardness of his cheeks and jaw, dark lashes fanned down over those piercing black eyes behind the glasses he wore again today, a vulnerability that on any other man would have been boyishly endearing. Not on Jonas. The inward power that was this man still emanated from him, giving the impression that he would open his eyes at any moment and pin her to the spot with that lethal black gaze.

  And at that moment he did exactly that!

  Cassandra was held captive as she hesitated in the doorway, like a butterfly held on a pin, Jonas’s narrowed gaze fixed on her as he slowly stretched, flexing his limbs from the uncomfortable position he had been in.

  Why couldn’t he be like other people, she fumed inwardly, and wake up slightly disorientated by his surroundings, an
d feel vulnerable because of that? What a stupid question, she berated herself even as she thought of it; Jonas didn’t have a vulnerable bone in his body!

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he drawled without any real apology, sitting forward forcibly. ‘Jet lag,’ he shrugged. ‘I only arrived back from the States early this morning.’

  And he had thundered straight back into their lives, Cassandra realised with a frown. Why?

  ‘I thought perhaps you might want to see me,’ Jonas told her mockingly, eyes narrowed.

  Yes, of course she did, but on her terms, not when she was still feeling slightly off-balance about her resentment concerning his closeness to Bethany. She wanted to sit down as a business partner and discuss what was, after all, a business matter, not deal with this now, when she still felt vulnerable in her position as Bethany’s mother, let alone this man’s business equal!

  ‘As it happens,’ he continued softly, not seeming at all bothered that she had so far made no response to his remarks, ‘I wanted to see you too.’

  She eyed him warily. ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed huskily, his mouth twisting derisively at the sudden tension that emanated from her. ‘Why don’t you come into the room and close the door, Cassandra?’ he suggested quietly, not having moved from his sitting position on the sofa, and yet seeming to dominate the room with his presence anyway. ‘What I have to say is private. Very private,’ he repeated softly.

  Like a spider setting a trap for the unsuspecting fly. But she wasn’t completely unsuspecting, had been warned, she knew, by Jonas himself, over a week ago. And yet still she felt at a disadvantage against this man, knowing he was capable of using any leverage he chose to achieve what he wanted.

  But there was no way she could have even guessed what it was he did want!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CASSANDRA stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. ‘Would—would you repeat that? Please…’ she added as a numbed afterthought. She couldn’t, just couldn’t have heard him right the first time!

  Jonas looked mildly amused by her response. ‘I said, I want you to marry me,’ he repeated calmly.

  She had heard him right the first time! Why? was her next thought. Jonas despised her, had made his opinion of her more than plain from the beginning; he couldn’t possibly want her as his own wife when he had such contempt for her for marrying the brother he had despised. And yet that was exactly what he had said; he wanted her to marry him.

  Thank God she had closed the sitting-room door now; she would have hated an unsuspecting Jean to have been passing the room and overheard Jonas’s remark, or, even worse, Bethany, come downstairs in search of that glass of water she occasionally delayed bedtime with!

  Cassandra looked frowningly across the room at Jonas now, trying to guess from his expression what he could possibly be thinking of. She should have known better; Jonas gave nothing of his thoughts away that he didn’t want people to know! And at this moment in time he didn’t want her to know anything other than what he told her, his expression enquiring as she continued to stare at him, coal-black eyes meeting her searching gaze with cool disdain. Nothing. And yet she knew he had just said he wanted to marry her…

  It was like a nightmare, but she knew, as Jonas continued to look at her with that steadily unnerving intent, that it was a nightmare she wasn’t going to wake up from!

  She drew in a ragged breath to her starved lungs, her hands tightly clenched together in front of her—the latter so that Jonas shouldn’t see how badly they were trembling. Although, knowing Jonas, he probably knew exactly what effect his words had had on her.

  ‘Why?’ was all she could finally manage to say.

  ‘Ah, Cassandra.’ To her surprise his smile held pleasure. ‘I knew I could rely on you not to disappoint me!’

  Her frown deepened; she couldn’t begin to know what this man was talking about! Perhaps all of this was just a bad reaction to jet lag on his part, she thought hopefully. And then her hopes were dashed again as she remembered he had been perfectly lucid when he arrived. But he had fallen asleep since then, so perhaps—

  ‘No false cries of, “Oh, Jonas, this is so sudden”,’ he rasped with obvious derision. ‘Or, “Oh, Jonas, I didn’t know you cared!”’ His mouth twisted harshly.

  It was sudden, but as she knew only too well that he didn’t care… ‘I repeat, Jonas, why?’ She still eyed him warily, taking an involuntary step backwards as he stood up, colour darkening her cheeks as he saw the movement and raised mocking brows.

  He was smiling again now, but it was still a smile that unnerved. ‘Because, my dear Cassandra—’

  ‘I’m not your dear anything!’ she cut in heatedly, stung by his obvious derision.

  ‘No,’ he acknowledged hardly, all humour fading now. ‘But you will be my wife. You see,’ he continued firmly as she would have protested once again, ‘you have something I want. But equally I have something you want.’

  She doubted that immensely! And yet… He looked so confident, so sure of himself. She tensed warily once again, sensing there was so much more to come.

  ‘The thing is, Cassandra…’ he spoke almost conversationally now, his hands in his trouser pockets as he rocked slowly backwards and forwards on his heels ‘… twenty-five per cent of Hunter and Kyle shares just isn’t enough to run the company effectively.’ He looked at her challengingly as she at first frowned, and then gasped in astonishment, as she realised exactly what he was saying. The only thing he could possibly want from her to enable him to have more control over Hunter and Kyle was her shares—the ten per cent left to her by her father! But if that were so, what could he possibly have that she would want from—? Oh, God, no, she inwardly groaned, as she realised exactly what exchange he was offering her. It had to be that!

  ‘Yes, Cassandra.’ Jonas smiled now, not unpleasantly; after all, he had no reason to be nasty—he was the man who knew he held all the aces up his sleeve! ‘The little matter of the audit I’ve just had done of the company. And we both know what the accountants found—don’t we?’ he prompted softly.

  Cassandra looked at him searchingly, wondering just how much he knew. Everything, from the triumphant glitter in those night-dark eyes.

  She had been so numbed after Charles’s death so soon after her father’s, her fashion business falling more and more into debt, until she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on, that she hadn’t given a thought to the problem that dogged Hunter and Kyle, and by the time she had realised exactly what a catastrophe had befallen them all Jonas was in charge, and as the days and then weeks passed, and he made no mention of—of what had been going on she had thought Charles must have been wrong about the seriousness of the problem after all. If he hadn’t, Jonas would surely have discovered it and demanded to know exactly what had been happening at Hunter and Kyle during the year before the two partners’ deaths.

  That’s what she had thought. Until a week ago. When Jonas first mentioned that audit to her. But this was family, and surely Jonas realised that any scandal that came out about the company would affect them all…?

  But she knew, even as she looked pleadingly at the harshness of his face, that Jonas knew exactly how much of company funds had been diverted into another, private company, for the personal use of one of its partners. She could also see from the hard lack of sympathy in his expression that he now intended exacting his pound of flesh for the knowledge, down to the last ounce—or share!

  She moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘How did they find out?’ Was that really her voice, that husky quaver that seemed to border on tears?

  ‘It was very cleverly done, I grant you. I can even admire the way in which it was achieved.’ He gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘A maze within a maze. Which was why I hadn’t realised exactly what was going on long ago. Maybe I should have realised; after all, I got my business grounding in the toughest market in the world, in New York, where money is everything, and there are no gentlemen,’ he said gri
mly.

  No one could ever accuse him of being that, Cassandra inwardly agreed.

  ‘But I’m completely aware of the facts now,’ he continued harshly. ‘Feel confident about coming to you and confronting you with your father’s embezzling of company funds for his own personal use,’ he said disgustedly.

  Cassandra stared at him, all the colour draining from her face once again.

  ‘Yes.’ Jonas’s mouth twisted at her obvious reaction. ‘It isn’t very pleasant when you say it out loud, is it?’ he dismissed hardly. ‘But you can see why I think it only fair, in the circumstances, that your father’s ten per cent of the company should return to a Hunter—’

  ‘I’m a Hunter,’ she cut in sharply, her thoughts racing at the things he was saying.

  Jonas looked at her coldly. ‘At the moment, yes, and if you marry me, you’ll remain so,’ he rasped. ‘But if you married someone like that young puppy you’ve been seeing, the one I found you with here this afternoon—’

  ‘I told you,’ she defended heatedly, ‘my friendship with Simeon is a platonic one; there is no relationship.’ There had been no one else in her life of a romantic nature from the day she started going out with Charles over five years ago. There certainly hadn’t been any other men for her since his death ten months ago.

  Jonas nodded grimly. ‘And I’m sure we’ll work just as well together,’ he drawled disparagingly, raising dark brows as she gave a scornful snort at the claim. ‘You don’t think so?’ he challenged softly, advancing across the room towards her on that soft tread of his that was so surprising for such a large man.