Welcome to the intensely emotional world of Margaret Way

where rugged, brooding bachelors meet their match in the burning heart of Australia …

Praise for the author:

“Margaret Way delivers … vividly written, dramatic stories.”

—RT Book Reviews

“With climactic scenes, dramatic imagery and bold characters, Margaret Way makes the Outback come alive …”

—RT Book Reviews

Her heart gave a great lunge, its rhythm interrupted. For a moment it was as if the whole world stood still.

“It’s me, Mel. Let me in.”

Shakers and movers would covet such a voice; beguiling and commanding at the same time. No way she could ignore him. No way he would give her the chance. Pulses racing she hit the button to open the security door. She was on the top floor. The lift would deliver him to her in moments. Her feet sprouted wings and she ran down the hallway into the master bedroom. Her hair was wildly tumbled; there was a hectic blush in her olive-skinned cheeks, her eyes seemed more brilliant than usual. She had changed out of her classic designer suit immediately she’d arrived home, pulling a caftan over her head. No time to renew her lipstick. She ran a moist tongue over the full contours of her mouth.

As usual he’d reduced her to a bundle of nerves. You’d think she would be well and truly over that. She, who had gained a reputation for being cool, calm and collected. Only she was hypersensitive to every last little thing about Dev Langdon.

About the Author

MARGARET WAY, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland, Australia. A Conservatorium-trained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing—initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining alfresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft: from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars, and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky, to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, and she finds the laid-back village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over one hundred books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.

The Cattle King’s Bride
Margaret Way

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

CHAPTER ONE

AMELIA’S first call of the day was at 8:00 a.m., just as she was about to leave for work. The ear-splitting din of three phones ringing simultaneously, the main line, the extension and the fax, resounded through the apartment, shattering the morning’s silence. Difficult to continue on one’s way with that call to arms and pressed for time, she decided to ignore the triple summons. It would go to message and she would attend to it when she arrived home.

Her hand on the doorknob, something—call it a premonition—urged her to turn back. She felt in her bones that this wasn’t going to be her usual day. Dropping her expensive handbag, she moved with care onto the white tiles of the kitchen floor—she was wearing stilettos—snatching up the phone.

“Mel here.” Her usual engaging tones emerged a bit on the impatient side.

“Amelia, it’s me,” said the dulcet, slightly accented voice on the other end.

Anxiety settled in. “Mum! Is everything okay?” Cordless phone in hand, she dropped into a chair. The news wouldn’t be good. Her mother wasn’t given to phone calls. Mel was the one who did the calling and the emailing while her mother rang once a month. It was as though she had precious little free time. This early morning call had to be urgent. “It’s Mr Langdon, isn’t it?” Gregory Langdon, legendary cattle baron, was seventy-eight years old. His lifelong vigorous health had been failing rapidly over the past year.

“He’s dying, Amelia.” Sarina made no attempt to hide her powerful grief. “His doctor has given him a week at most. He wants you home.”

Even given that kind of news, Amelia found herself bristling. “Home?” She gave a disbelieving snort, descending to a familiar dark place. “It was never a home, Mum. You were a domestic until Mr Langdon elevated you to housekeeper. I was always the housekeeper’s cheeky kid. I’ve begged you over and over to come live with me, but you’ve chosen your own path.” It was a tremendous hurt. She loved her mother. She earned an excellent salary; she was in a position to make life a whole lot better for them both.

Sarina Norton answered in her near emotionless way. “As I must, Amelia. You must steer your own way in life. You don’t need to be burdened with me. Mr Langdon was very good to us. He gave us shelter after your father was killed.”

No one could deny that. Not even Mel, although over the years their long stay on Kooraki had been the source of endless humiliation, with her mother the butt of scurrilous gossip. Her father, Mike Norton, the station foreman, had been killed in a cattle stampede when she was six. It had been regarded as a huge tragedy by everyone on the station. Mike Norton, the consummate horseman, had been thrown from his horse and trampled before his fellow stockmen were able to bring the bellowing, stampeding mob under control.

Such a terrible way to die. She had suffered nightmares for years and years, often waking with her own screams ringing in her ears. “Was that really so extraordinarily generous for a man of Mr Langdon’s wealth to be good to us? He could have given you, a grieving widow with a small child, enough money to comfortably tide you over, before helping you get back to one of the cities. God knows Mrs Langdon hated us. How did you tolerate that? I never did. Even as a child I used to rage at her. How could I not? The imperious Mistress of Kooraki Station took such pleasure in goading and humiliating you. Mrs Langdon hated us until the day she died.”

“She hated us because Gregory loved us. You were a great favourite of Gregory’s.”

Amelia reacted. “Gregory? What’s happened to the so-respectful Mr Langdon?”

Her mother remained silent. Her mother had long since turned silence into an art form.

Only silence wasn’t Mel’s thing. She liked everything and everyone up front. No secrets, no evasions. She had grown up with them hanging over her like a dark, ominous cloud. “So we’re supposed to owe Gregory love and gratitude forever and ever. Is that it, Mum? That’s ruthless old Cattle King Gregory Langdon getting in touch with his feminine side? He couldn’t control his dreadful Mireille. She must have made him a totally lousy wife.”

“Whatever, he married her. He must have loved her at one time.”

“Reality check here, Mum,” Mel said cynically. “She was the heiress to the Devereaux fortune.”

“And she was the mother of his son and heir,” Sarina retorted with no change of tone. She showed none of the fire of her Italian heritage. “There was no chance of divorce in that family.”

“More’s the pity!” Mel lamented. “Surely divorce has to be preferable to allowing lives to be damaged. Everyone suffered in that family.”

“Divorce wasn’t an option, Amelia,” Sarina, reared a devout Catholic—or so she claimed—repeated. “And, while we’re on the subject, Gregory couldn’t control his wife when he wasn’t there. So I suggest you be fair. Gregory was an important man with huge responsibilities, many commitments. Mrs Langdon may have always wanted us out of the way, but she never got her wish, did she?”

“Now that’s a tricky one, Mum,” Amelia answered grimly. “We both know plenty of people thought, even if they didn’t dare say it to his face, you meant more to him than his own wife.” Why not bring it out into the open? Mel thought defiantly. The gossip that had had to be endured had left its indelible mark on her. So much bad history! Shame had been part of her life on Kooraki. She had grown up doubting herself and her place in the world. Dev had once said during one of their famously heated exchanges that her emotional development had been impeded. Easy for him to talk. He had the Langdon-Devereaux name. What did she have?

She had never been able to ask her mother questions. If someone gave every indication they didn’t want questions raised, you never did. Even a fatherless daughter left in the dark. Yet she loved her mother regardless and had been fiercely protective of her all her life. Sarina, not that far off fifty and looking nowhere near it, was a very beautiful woman. What must she have been like in her twenties?

Pretty much like you.

“We meant more to him, Amelia,” Sarina said. “Mr Langdon loved children. You were so full of life, so intelligent. He liked that. You were never afraid of him.”

“Or of Mireille. I’m the definitive Leo, Mum. Surfeit of pride.”

“I do know that, Amelia. You have to remember it was Langdon money that put you through school, then university.”

“Maybe Gregory felt a tad guilty. Neither of us ever knew what exactly happened the day of the stampede. My father, from all accounts, was an exceptional horseman, an expert cattle handler. Yet he was thrown. For all we know, wicked old Mireille could have paid someone to spook the cattle and target Dad. Ever think of that? She was one ruthless woman. She even went so far as to imply it could have been a David and Bathsheba situation, casting guilt on her own unfaithful husband. She was just so hateful.”

There was another moment of utter silence as if her controlled mother had been caught off guard. “Amelia, I can’t talk about it,” Sarina said in a sealed off voice. “It’s all in the past.”

Mel inhaled a sharp breath. Her mother was in denial about so many things. She had long since faced the fact she only knew the parts of her mother Sarina was prepared to share. “The past is never dead, Mum. It follows us around. I hated taking Langdon charity.”

“You’ve made that perfectly plain, Amelia. But you did take it. Please remember, beggars can’t be choosers. Michael left me with very little. He hadn’t been promoted to foreman long.”

“Plenty of people told me what a great guy Dad was. I do remember him, Mum. I’ll mourn him until the day I die. My dad!” She spoke strongly as though her claim was being contested.

“Do you think I don’t miss him, Amelia?” her mother retorted, curiously dispassionate. “After I lost him I had to face the fact I had few employment skills. More significantly, I had a small child to bring up. I had to take what was offered. I’m glad I did, for all I suffered.”

“For all we suffered, Mum. Don’t leave me out. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t been sent away to boarding school.”

“Then please remember it was Mr Langdon who insisted you have a first-class education. You were very bright.”

“I remember the way Dad used to read to me,” Mel said with intense nostalgia. “Thinking back, I realise he was a born scholar in the true sense of the word. He craved knowledge. He was an admirable man.”

“Yes, he was, Amelia,” her mother agreed. “He had great plans for you, but I have to remind you, you wouldn’t be where you are today without Gregory Langdon. Why, you were given access to one of the finest private libraries in the country right here on Kooraki.”

“And wasn’t dear Mireille savage about that?” Amelia did her own bit of reminding. Yet she had to consider the magnanimity of the gesture! A young girl, daughter of a servant, granted access to a magnificent library with wonderful books bound in gold-tooled leather with gilt-edged pages—the great books of the world, tomes on history, literature, poetry, architecture, the arts of the world. It was a library that had come together over generations of book-lovers and collectors. “What a cruel woman she was, poisoning every relationship. She even distanced her own son from his father. No wonder the grandson took off, but he never did say why.”

“Dev, unlike his father, resisted control,” Sarina said. “Gregory was a mountain of a man.”

“That’s not it, Mum,” Mel flatly contradicted. “It was something more. Another unsolved mystery. Dev had to have had some private issue with his grandfather he wasn’t prepared to talk about. Not surprising, really. They were one screwed up family.”

“Too much goes on in your head, Amelia.”

“Maybe, but I spent much of my life walking through a minefield. Right now I’m making a life for myself, Mum. I can’t come—I’m sorry. I have a good job. I want to hold on to it. Mr Langdon may say he wants me, but no way the clan will. Dev mightn’t turn up, either.”

“I think otherwise,” Sarina replied, quite strongly for her. “Ava and her husband are already here. Ava’s marriage wouldn’t appear to be a happy one, though she would never confide in me. Luke Selwyn is charming, but perhaps Ava isn’t the woman he thought she was.”

Mel reacted to the definite note of malice. “Please don’t criticise Ava, Mum. Ava is a gentle, sensitive soul. In her own way she’s had a tough time. Women have always been second-class citizens to Gregory Langdon. Sons matter, grandsons matter. Men are the natural born rulers of the world. If there’s blame to be placed for a marriage breakdown it’s on Luke. The charm—I certainly don’t see it—is superficial at best. He’s a shallow person, full of self-importance. He wasn’t near good enough for Ava. Dev didn’t like him and Dev is a good judge of his fellow man.”

“But Ava would have him,” Sarina said, again without empathy.

“She needed an escape route.” Mel understood Ava’s underlying motivation.

“Be that as it may! Dev has been contacted. He’ll come and he isn’t a forgiving man.”

“Why would he be?” Mel’s heart gave a familiar twist at the very sound of his name. “But it’s his grandfather. They’re family, Mum. I’m not. I have no place there.”

“It was the first thing Dev asked. ‘Is Mel about to obey the summons?’“

“And I can just imagine how he said it! That’s exactly what it is. A summons, never a request.”

Her mother provided an answer of sorts. “Gregory Langdon lived his whole life as the heir to, then the inheritor of a great station. Orders come easily to men like that. They don’t really know anything else. Money. Power. The rich are very different, my dear. Dev is very different.”

“I know that. His world view is simple. Born to rule.”

“You must make the effort, Amelia.” There was a steely note in Sarina’s voice. “Surely you’re due a vacation? It has to be a year since your trip to New York. You and Dev are needed here. There is that bond between you.”

A bond that up until now couldn’t be broken.

Two parts of a whole. Dev had said that. Dev wanted her there.

Jump, Mel, jump!

What Dev wanted, Dev got. He lived in her heart and in her brain. Indeed, he was part of her. She had always loved him. She couldn’t stop loving him, no matter how hard she tried, or the relationships she had tried to make work because she knew at some subterranean level Dev was out of reach. Only his dominance over her was beyond her control. Fate was unavoidable, predestined, she thought. She missed Dev more than anyone could possibly imagine, even if it was she who constantly held out against him and the tantalizing talk of marriage. She was lost in a maze of doubts and misgivings and she couldn’t get out.

She had never told her mother that Dev had been with her on a brief visit to New York. She felt that the older woman would have vented her strong disapproval. Her mother, though ultra-restrained in her manner, had a curiously implacable streak and a blackness of mood that seized her from time to time. Odd that she would disapprove of her and Dev, considering the endless rumours about Sarina and Gregory Langdon.

Her brain churning, Mel hung up at the conclusion of the call. There was no denying Gregory Langdon had shown her affection as a child. Probably the fight in her had intrigued him. Would Gregory Langdon reinstate his splendid grandson? She had the absolute certainty that he would. Underneath the tyrannical hand, Gregory Langdon had been proud of Dev, loving him as he had never loved his own son, Dev’s father, Erik. Besides, Gregory really didn’t have an option. It was an open secret that Erik Langdon would never be up to the job. No way could Erik step into his father’s shoes.

Dev could. She knew it would be wise to stay away from Kooraki for her own peace of mind. Stay away from Dev. Stay away from the on-off passionate love affair neither of them seemed able to resolve. In Mel’s view there were too many powerful forces aligned against it.

Dev—James Devereaux Langdon—in all probability his grandfather’s heir.

Who was she?

That woman’s daughter.

She would never escape the tag.

CHAPTER TWO

GETTING through the day was surprisingly difficult. Even her boss at Greshams, the merchant bank, Andrew Frazier, had asked if she had anything on her mind. Obviously he had noted her abstraction and she owed him an explanation. He was her mentor and a kind of father figure, and she found herself confiding that Gregory Langdon, national icon, was dying. Andy knew all about the Langdons. She didn’t mention she had been summoned to Gregory Langdon’s deathbed. Only Andy, being Andy, asked.

Since she had been recruited straight from university with an Honours degree in Economics, Andrew Frazier had come to learn a lot about what went on under Amelia Norton’s smooth, confident and very hard-working exterior.

“I don’t want to go, Andrew. Nothing good can come from my going back to Kooraki.”

Andrew steepled his fingers, looking across at his protégée. “But Langdon has asked for you and your mother wants you there?”

“Yes,” she admitted wryly.

“Isn’t the grandson the guy you’re in love with?” Andy questioned, concerned about her. Amelia Norton was a very clever young woman, a glowing Italianate beauty, with considerable business skills, but he knew beneath the surface she wasn’t happy or fulfilled.

“I should never have told you that, Andy,” she said, dipping her dark head.

“Just answer the question. This love affair has been on the boil for years!”

The light of irony came into Mel’s beautiful dark eyes. “A bit like Scarlett and Rhett.”

“So what’s the stumbling block?”

“Lots of things, Andrew. I don’t want to get mixed up with the Langdon-Devereaux clan. Most of them are shareholders in Langdon Enterprises. I had to break free of all that. I have to stay free. Peace of mind is very important to me.”

“I think it comes down to your fear of being dominated, Mel. I gather young Langdon is a very forceful guy.”

“It’s in the chromosomes,” Mel said. “Nothing and no one, least of all me, could change that.”

“You have fears he could possibly turn into his grandfather at some later stage of life?”

“Dev is a real piece of work,” Mel said in a low voice. “A force of nature. He’s as tough as they come. He’ll take on anyone, including his own grandfather. No one does that. Absolutely no one.”

“But surely you told me the old man was a virtual tyrant?”

“He was. He dominated Dev’s dad, Erik, completely. With all that money and power, people tend to turn into despots.”

“Are you sure you’re giving your Dev a chance?” Andrew asked, disconcerting her. “I would have thought the last man you’d want would be a wimp.” Such a man would never be able to handle her, Andrew thought to himself. “I thought we’d agreed your upbringing on Kooraki has a lot to do with your mind-set. The late Mrs Langdon being so unkind, your mother made to feel like a servant in the worst Victorian times.”

“How I hated it, Andy!” Mel said, tears actually coming to her eyes. “Hated it,” she repeated.

“Yet Gregory Langdon saw to it you and your mother were protected. You told me yourself he paid for your education.”

“You sound like you think I should go, Andy.” Mel blinked furiously.

“That’s your decision.”

“So many mixed emotions!” Mel sighed. “There are so many cross-currents in that family. It’s like a seething cauldron. Even between Dev and me. The cause, of course, is the collective hostility towards my mother. And me as an extension. Ava, Dev’s sister, is the real princess. She’s lovely.”

“She’ll be there?”

“Of course.” Mel nodded. “Ava loves people, even when they don’t deserve it.”

“You’re due for your annual vacation, aren’t you?” Andrew Frazier saw his protégée was in two minds and needed helping out

“There’s the underwriting of the Saracen deal.”

“Burgess can finish what little there’s left of that. I sense you think you should go, Mel. Your mother’s wish matters. So does Gregory Langdon’s. You owe him that much.”

Mel met her mentor’s shrewd, kindly eyes. “I would have to go tomorrow, Andy. His doctors give him no more than a week.”

“Then get yourself organized, Amelia,” Frazier advised. “If Langdon dies and you aren’t there, I don’t think you will be able to forgive yourself in the future.”

At first she couldn’t believe anyone was buzzing her at ten-thirty at night. She almost didn’t bother going to the intercom. Probably some teenagers having their little bit of fun. It wouldn’t be the first time. Only whoever was pushing the button to her apartment wasn’t going anywhere fast. She had almost finished packing and a couple of items of clothing still lay on her bed. Thrusting her lush fall of hair over her shoulders, she walked down the hall to push a button. Immediately she received a clear video shot of who was standing in the entrance to her eight-unit block.

Her heart gave a great lunge, its rhythm interrupted. For a moment it was as if the whole world stood still.

“It’s me, Mel. Let me in.”

Shakers and movers would covet such a voice, beguiling and commanding at the same time. No way she could ignore him. No way he would give her the chance. Pulses racing, she hit the button to open the security door. She was on the top floor. The lift would deliver him to her in moments. Her feet sprouted wings and she ran down the hallway into the master bedroom. Her hair was wildly tumbled; there was a hectic blush in her olive-skinned cheeks, her eyes seemed more brilliant than usual. She had changed out of her classic Armani suit immediately after she’d arrived home, pulling a Pucci-style kaftan over her head. No time to renew her lipstick. She ran a moist tongue over the full contours of her mouth.

As usual, he’d reduced her to a bundle of nerves. You’d think she would be well and truly over that. She, who had gained a reputation for being cool, calm and collected. Only she was hypersensitive to every last little thing about Dev Langdon. She drew a couple of deep breaths to counteract the onset of nervous tension.

Fine black brows raised superciliously as she opened the door. Dev didn’t hesitate. He moved inside with his familiar athletic grace, dropping an overnight bag to the floor, where it fell with a thud. “Are you going to hug me or what?”

Dev did mockery better than anyone. “Hugs would be only the start.” She shut the door, staring pointedly at the expensive leather bag.

“Have to talk to you, Mel.” He moved into the living room, looking around appreciatively at the lovely, inviting interior. Mel had real style!

“About what?” She reacted sharply.

“Don’t play the fool. You, of all people, it does not suit.”

“So what are you doing here?” The worst of it was he looked marvellous. Tall, rangy, wide shoulders that emphasized the narrow expanse of his waist, lean hips, long legs. A shock of blond, thickly waving hair curled up at the collar of his denim bomber jacket. Jewels for eyes, a dazzling shade of aquamarine that glittered against the dark golden tan of his skin.

Here was a man sexy enough to take any woman by storm. “I’m here to pick you up, dear heart. Your mother contacted me. I’ve got Uncle Noel’s Cessna. We leave first thing in the morning.”

She leant heavily into sarcasm as her form of defence. “Are you proud of the way you give orders?” She ran a backward hand over her tumbled mane.

“Not proud of it at all,” he said wryly. “It’s inherited, I suppose.”

“Not from your father.”

He spun to face her. His chiselled features with his strong cheekbones had grown taut. “Enough about my dad.”

“Let’s move on to my mother,” she countered. There were always shifts and starts, backing off, coming together, combustible electric currents, with her and Dev. Why not? They had serious unresolved issues between them.

“Try to keep focus, Mel,” he said briskly. “My grandfather is dying. He wants to see you and me.” He stood back so he could study her from head to toe. “You look beautiful, Mel,” he said in a dark, caressing voice. “More beautiful every time I lay eyes on you. Which isn’t often of late,” he tacked on in an entirely different tone.

“I thought we’d agreed on time-out?”

He contradicted flatly, “You’re the one who always insists on time-out. Just how much time-out do you want? You’re so into your intensive search for identity, it’s become an obsession. You’d better find yourself soon. Neither of us is getting any younger. Neither of us is able to jettison the other. I know you’ve tried.”

“What about you?” she retorted hotly, falling into the trap. “Isn’t Megan Kennedy still in the picture?” An image of that very glamorous brunette sprang to mind. “It’s certainly a match the clan would approve.”

“Except for a couple of strikes against it. One, I don’t give a damn what the clan thinks. Two, although I like Megan—she’s a fun girl and doesn’t pretend otherwise—no chance I’m in love with her.”

“But shouldn’t we treat love as absolutely foolish, Dev? What’s that saying? ‘There is always some madness in love’?”

“Nietzsche.” Dev came up with the name of the German philosopher. “He went on to say, ‘But there is also always some reason in madness.’“

“Madness either way. Love fades, Dev. Other attributes have to come into play—friendship, shared backgrounds and beliefs, eligibility. Sex isn’t the be-all and end-all.”

Dev gave a sardonic laugh, his dazzling eyes whipping over her face and beautiful body beneath its thin silky covering. “I wouldn’t marry a woman I didn’t want in my bed. My kind of woman would have sole possession of my body, my heart and my soul. The trouble with you, Amelia, is you’re not only at war with me, you’re at war with yourself.”

She didn’t reply. Her anger was warring with a terrible longing.

Dev threw up his elegant hands, callused on the fingertips. “Look, I don’t want to continue along these lines, Mel. I could do with a drink. I need to unravel.”

“What about a power nap, then take off?” she suggested, hardly trusting her own voice. Whatever the friction, there was the never-ending thrill of his presence. “Where are you staying, anyway?’

“Mel, darling, I’m staying right here.”

“Joke?”

“Can’t say I’m full of humour at the moment,” he confessed, stabbing a hand into his thick hair. It was one heck of an asset, that hair, Mel thought, bleached by a hot sun to a lighter gold than the last time she had seen him. “You can put me up, can’t you, Mel? I’m not expecting to share your bed.”

“Smart thinking, Dev. You won’t.” It was her classic defence mechanism.

Only he gave her a devastating grin. “Can’t you say, ‘I’ve missed you’? ‘It’s good to see you, Dev.’ Something with a bit of weight to it?”

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “You’ve taken me by surprise. And at this time of night! You could have rung.”

“And have you hang up? No way! Drink, Mel. Single malt Scotch if you’ve got it.”

She moved away, anxious to break eye contact. “So Noel lent you the Cessna?” Noel was the Devereaux patriarch. Dev, his great-nephew and godson, was the apple of his eye. Noel Devereaux had two daughters, but no son to succeed him. He adored his girls, both married to the right people, but it was a son he had longed for. Now he had Dev, since Dev had packed up and stormed off Kooraki. There was no love lost between Gregory Langdon and Noel Devereaux, both rich, powerful men.

“I do most of the flying these days. Noel is a good guy.”

“It must be a big help having you around the place,” she pointed out dryly. “Word is, you virtually run Westhaven.”

“So?”

“So I thought congratulations might be in order?”

“I’m not an employee, sweetheart.” Dev’s tone was laconic. “I’m family. Uncle Noel actually wants to hand over control.”

“You mean retire?” she asked in genuine surprise.

He shrugged. “Not exactly, but Diane wants to travel. She wants them to spend much more time together—see more of their girls and their grandchildren. The time appears to be right for Noel to hand over the reins.”

“To you, obviously.”

“The girls aren’t interested, neither are the husbands, very successful city men. It’s control, anyway, not ownership.”

She didn’t risk another comment. “Can I get you something else?” He had come a long way. And for her. Though it was as if she had little say in the matter.

“A ham sandwich, maybe? Could I grab a cup of black coffee, as well? You doing okay, Mel?”

“Wonderfully well, thank you, Dev.” She maintained a cool control.

“So look at me. I always know when you’re telling big fat lies.”

“No lie. I’m highly regarded at Greshams.” Mel began to assemble the makings of a ham, cheese and wholegrain mustard sandwich. The coffee would take only a few moments. “I’ll feed you, then I wish you’d find yourself a hotel, Dev.”

He pressed his back into the plush leather sofa with an exaggerated sigh of comfort. “Sorry, Amelia. I’m staying here. I need some sleep. Speaking of sleep, it’s not too late for you to say you’ll sleep with me.”

“Get it straight, Dev. I won’t.” Mel’s answer was remarkably breezy considering how she felt. She walked back, handing him a good measure of Glenfiddich over a few ice cubes.

He raised his remarkable eyes to her. “Many thanks, dear heart.”

Knowing him so well, she observed, “You’re upset.”

He took a long gulp of whisky before replying. “Why wouldn’t I be? I owe him. You owe him. He cared about you. You were such a feisty little kid.”

“So what went wrong, Dev?” she asked with some bitterness.

They were back on well-trodden ground. “We all know that,” Dev gritted out.

“Your grandmother hated my mother and me.”

His expression darkened. “She feared your mother. I’d say she had a certain respect for you, you little terror!”

“Well, she’s gone now and soon your grandfather will join her. They’ll lie together in the family plot, if nothing else. You’re talking about running Westhaven. Surely you’ve considered your grandfather could have planned on handing Langdon Enterprises to you.”

“After our bust-up?” he said, draining the rest of the Scotch. “Many harsh words were spoken.”

“You’ve never told me what it was all about.” She tried to fix his gaze but did not succeed.

How could he? Dev thought, leaning forward to place his crystal tumbler on the table, with its small collection of art books. Mel had more than enough to handle. Better he never told her. It was all so sick and sad.

“Okay, so you won’t!” she said, her nerves frayed. “But, trust me on this, Dev. We both know your father has always found walking in your grandfather’s shadow very heavy going. It’s not in his nature or his area of expertise to step into Gregory’s shoes.”

Dev wasn’t having any of it. “Dad will inherit as a matter of course,” he said as though it were written in stone. “My father is the legitimate heir.”

“Maybe, in the normal way, but your grandfather isn’t going to allow his hard-won empire to fall apart. He needs someone to run it after he’s gone. That someone is you.”

Dev punched one fist into the other. “Dad has worked his butt off.”

“I know.”

Dev loved his mild-mannered father. He had always been very protective of him, even as a child. Erik Langdon was a long way from being incompetent, but it had proved impossible for him to emulate his dynamic father, a man with the Midas touch. Erik lacked the specific qualities it took to be the man at the very top of the chain. He had once gone on record as saying it was like trying to drive a vehicle uphill with the handbrake on. The Can-Do man had skipped a generation. It was Dev who had inherited all the skills necessary to succeed his tycoon grandfather.

“I’m sure your father will be justly rewarded,” she said, as gently as she could, “but your grandfather won’t cede him control. Want to bet I’m right?”

“Darling Mel, you always are,” Dev drawled. “Let’s get off the subject. Life is just one long series of hurdles for us.”

“It happens when one gets caught up with wealthy, dysfunctional families.” Mel matched him for sarcasm. “I’ll get your sandwich. The coffee will only take a moment.”

“You never intended to go, did you?”

She could have shown him her packing. Instead, she said, “I don’t like letting my mother down.”

“You’ve let me down, haven’t you?” he flashed back. “How many times exactly have you told me you loved me?”

She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t begin to count the number, Dev. But we live on two different levels. We have separate lives. You have an escape valve, being who you are. Soon you’ll be the CEO of Langdon Enterprises, with huge responsibilities, always busy, always travelling thither and yon.”

“Gimme a break, Mel!” His voice held a rasp. “You’re a clever woman. You’d fit in supremely well.”

Her laugh was raw. “Not with the clan, I wouldn’t. They do have a hold on you, Dev. A few of them are major shareholders.”

“So what? I can’t solve your problems, Mel. Problems are keeping this God-awful distance between us,” he said with intense frustration. “This damned love torment. The never-ending family stuff is the prime cause of our alienation.”

“It’s your family, Dev. Not mine. Such as it is. We’ve talked and we’ve walked all around our feelings. We’re on a merry-go-round and we can’t jump off. Any thought of marriage has turned into an impossible dream.”

Dev leapt to his feet, his aquamarine eyes blazing with anger and outrage. “You know why? Because you’re always applying the brakes. Think I don’t know you fear being dominated? As though it could happen! What you really want is to bend my will to yours. It’s the war of the sexes, with you the man-hater. You said you wanted to stand on your own two feet. I’ve gone along with that.”

“Standing on my own two feet is central to everything.” Mel tried to defend herself.

“But I applaud it, Mel,” he cried in utter exasperation. “That’s what you can’t seem to grasp. I’m proud of you and how clever you are. You’d be a big asset to Langdon Enterprises, if you ever left Greshams. Anyone would think we were in competition, the way you behave. I don’t understand what it is you want me to be. I can’t grapple with all your expectations of the perfect man. I’m me. Far from perfect. Sometimes I think you’re actually frightened of me. Not in a physical sense. You know I would never hurt you. But you do have this huge problem with male domination.”

God knew it was true. “I grew up with it, didn’t I, this little satellite orbiting a giant tyrannical figure. Your grandfather carried domination to the extreme. Always the iron fist.”

“For goodness’ sake, Mel,” Dev protested, “he was himself. Stronger, cleverer, tougher than anyone else.”

“You might be describing yourself.” Mel shook her head bleakly.

Dev showed his fast-rising temper. “Now you’re making me really angry. What is it you want me to be, Mel? Do you even know? I can’t figure it out and I’ve come at it from every angle. As far as I can see, your biggest problem is you. Your exaggerated need for independence, self-reliance, like you don’t need a man, as though a man could break you. I’m telling you it’s paranoia!”

“Okay, maybe it is!” Pressure was expanding inside her, building up a huge head of steam. There were always bottled-up forces ready to explode when they came together, a consequence of their shared troubled history and her mother’s illicit position in Gregory Langdon’s life. “Let’s stop now, Dev,” she said more quietly. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

He sat down again, bending his blond head almost to his knees. “And I don’t want to argue with you. But you are one strange woman, Mel.”

“I expect I am,” she said in a haunted voice. “You know your place in the world, Dev. All I know is I grew up without a father and a father’s love and wisdom. What I know about my mother wouldn’t fill half a page in a child’s exercise book. She’s the only child of Italian parents, Francis and Adriana Cavallaro, who migrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. It has a large Italian and Italian-descent population. There was no other family. My mother left home, a bit like Ava, to escape her father’s very strict control. I never got to know any of my family. God knows why she decided to shift as far away as North Queensland. That’s a long haul.”

“Do we even know if that’s true?” Dev muttered. “I wouldn’t put it past your mother to have been wearing an impenetrable disguise all these years. When she came to Kooraki no one would have questioned her background. Where she came from would have been considered irrelevant. She was simply Mike Norton’s young wife.”

“Terrible to think my mother’s past could be an invention, a construct of lies. I hate blacked out spaces, secrets.”

“Tell me about it,” Dev said. “Most families have them. You are letting them plague you to death. You have to make a leap of faith. Faith in me. Your mother has her story but it’s obvious she doesn’t want you to know it, even if it would offer you comfort.”

She gave him a despairing look. “Was her home life so bad she simply had to run away? Did she cast off her past like a snake sloughs off its skin? My dad would have known. But he’s not around to tell me,” she said with the deepest regret.

“One day your mother might confide in you, Mel.” Dev tried to offer comfort, but he had no faith whatsoever in Sarina Norton, whom he knew as a devious woman and most likely an accomplished spinner of lies. “She’s a secretive woman without your strengths. But she had no difficulty conning men into thinking they needed to protect her.” He hadn’t intended saying that. It just sprang out. His own view was that men needed protection from Sarina Norton.

“Con? Did you say con?” Mel asked, midway between wrath and shock.

“I did and that’s my theory,” Dev shot back unapologetically.

Mel was severely taken aback. Dev had never spoken harshly of her mother.

“Give it a bit of thought, Mel. Your mother is a born actress. If she’d made it to the big screen she would have won an award.”

“What, playing the role of conning men?”

“I can’t think of anyone better,” Dev said bluntly. “Didn’t you ever watch her with the male staff? In fact any man that moved across her path.”

Mel looked back at him, stunned. “What is this, Dev? Payback time? I didn’t realize you so disliked my mother.”

His expression hardened. “On the subject of your mother it pays to keep my mouth shut. I’ve never been out to hurt you, Mel.”

Disturbing thoughts were sweeping into her mind. “But she thinks the world of you, Dev. How could you attack her, unless she tried to con you?” It didn’t seem possible.

Dev picked a non-existent thread from his shirt. “Cons don’t go down well with me, Mel.”

“What sort of an answer is that?”

“Are we going to have a problem with it?” he asked in a decidedly edgy voice.

Not, she realized, unless she was prepared to launch into an all-out fight. “Did it help or harm her, do you suppose, the fact that she was so beautiful?” Mel asked, always looking for some way to unravel the mystery that was her mother.

“Hell, she still is.” There was a harsh note in Dev’s voice. “Beautiful women have a lot of power. You know that. You have to accept your mother’s nature, Mel. I know you wanted her to come live with you, but the reality was she wanted to stay on Kooraki.”

Mel responded with real grief. “She chose Kooraki over me. She chose your grandfather over me, a man old enough to be her father, but what the hell? He was anything but your average bloke.” With a defeated sigh, she picked up the laden tray. Dev stood up to take it from her, setting it down on the coffee table.

She let him eat in peace. She had poured two coffees. Now she sat opposite him, sipping at hers, the rich aroma tantalizing her nostrils and soothing her.

“That was good!” he exclaimed in satisfaction when he was finished. “I haven’t had anything since around ten this morning.”

“Why is Mum so set on my attending?’

“Why are you so set against it?”

“All your grandfather thinks he has to do is give the order and we all fall into line. Well, most of us do,” she said wryly. “Not you, of course, even when you were told you were being cut out of his will.”

“Big deal!” Dev exclaimed. “I was prepared to risk it. I never felt good about telling my grandfather to go to hell, Mel. It was just something that had to be said. And there’s another thing. Whether he meant it or not, he broke Dad’s spirit.”

“I can’t understand why your father never stood up to him.”

Dev’s brief laugh was without humour. “Not everyone is a born fire-eater, Mel. Besides, he had to contend with a double whammy. Between my grandfather and my grandmother, Dad had a rough ride. My mother tolerated the situation as long as she could before she had to take off. Self-preservation. I used to dream of her coming back. Poor Ava was the worst affected. But at least we see our mother now. The truly amazing thing is they’re still married. Neither of them filed for divorce. Both could have found new partners in record time.”

“I expect your grandfather forbade it.”

“Maybe he did.” Dev shrugged. “He might have stopped Dad, but not Mum. She broke free. My parents should have moved away from Kooraki after they were married. They should have had a home of their own. I remember they were happy once. I believe they still have strong feelings for one another.”

Mel thought so, too. “Will your mother come?”

Dev nodded. “If Gregory dies, there’ll be the funeral.”

“Is Ava happy?” Mel asked. Lovely, graceful Ava, the granddaughter shoved into the background.

Dev gave a brotherly howl of anguish. “We both know Ava chose marriage as a way out. She had no real idea of what she was letting herself in for. She always claims she’s happy, but I don’t accept that. If I ever found out that husband of hers was ill-treating her in any way—not physically. He wouldn’t dare—but trying to browbeat her, he’d better look out. And that’s a promise.”

Mel had no doubts about that. She stood up. “For your information, I did intend to go, Dev. I’m as good as packed. I’ll have to cancel my morning flight.”

“Better do it now,” he said, rising to his feet and carrying the tray back into the kitchen. “I’m not exactly sure where I’m to sleep. Obviously the master bedroom is verboten. No need to lock the door, by the way. I don’t bother women.”

“No. It’s generally the other way around.”

“I’m a man like any other, Mel.” He gave her a sweeping glance out of his aquamarine eyes. “Even for you I can’t swear off sex entirely.” There was a sardonic twist to his handsome mouth.

“No need to tell me,” she said with an acid edge. “Someone always manages to give me the latest gossip. I knew all about your little fling with Megan Kennedy.”

“Megan knew what she was getting into,” he said, unperturbed. “We’re still friends.”

She rounded on him, temper flashing. “Isn’t that lovely!” She hadn’t forgotten how fearfully upset she had been, how hard it had been to hide it. The “Megan” affair had been her worst case of jealousy yet. She had to remind herself she’d had her own little flings that were predestined to fail.

“Might I remind you the pot can’t call the kettle black?” he said suavely. “Now, where do I sleep?”

She waved an imperious arm. “There’s the second bedroom, as you well know. The bed is made up.”

“You only have to call out if you get lonely, Mel.”

“My head only has to touch the pillow and it’s lights out,” she assured him.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.