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.“My father grew up in a fortunate situation, financially.Privileged was the word they used then.He’s always been aware of the contamination factor present when one marital partner has a certain amount of worldly goods.”“Money,” Delanie said, summing up what he seemed to be having difficulty saying.“Your father thought every woman who might want to marry him would be after his money?”“Something like that.”“How sad,” she mused.“He lived his life without being able to really love.”“He didn’t spend his life alone,” Mitchell said, his voice dry.“Companionship was never a problem.”She looked at him, wondering if he really thought having a woman to decorate his arm and give him sex was enough.“But didn’t he ever fall in love? Ever find a woman who he knew would stick with him through thick and thin?”Mitchell glanced down, his gaze suddenly shuttered.“That’s a tall order for any man, to find a woman like that.”She shook her head.“Not really.Relationships are complicated, but if your father was convinced that they all just wanted his money, how would he know it if a woman really loved him? Maybe he created a self-fulfilling prophecy with his distrust.”“To be absolutely fair,” Mitchell said slowly, “my mother’s behavior gave him reason to believe she’d married him for his money.That she valued the fortune over the man.”“Your mother?”“Yes,” he said, his tone just as easy as if they were discussing the weather.“My mother sold me to him when they divorced.For one million dollars, she signed over her parental rights and disappeared from my life.”“My God,” Delanie said, straightening to look up at him in concern.“How awful.Are you sure that’s what really happened? Divorce can be messy and confusing.Kids can get their facts mixed up.”“My facts are very accurate,” he told her with a faint smile.“I’ve read the divorce papers.”“And they said that? That she was selling you?”“Of course not,” he said, a hint of annoyance in his voice.“But the inference was clear.She was to receive the money, above and beyond her settlement amount, and my father received full parental rights.”“She actually signed her parental rights away? You never saw her again?”“I saw her several times,” he admitted.“When I was fifteen or sixteen, we sailed through the Aegean sea on her yacht.I was curious about her.”“That’s only natural.”The quirk of his lips held no humor.“Yes.I needed confirmation of the things my father had told me.He knew that and let me go.”“And was she really a money-grubbing, heartless witch?”“Not really heartless,” he said, looking at her in surprise.“She was very pleasant.She introduced me to her current lover and his children.She asked how my life was going.It was a pleasant holiday, but it didn’t change my view of things.”“How painful that must have been for you,” Delanie said, leaning into his body to offer comfort.Mitchell was silent.“How casual and indifferent!” She pressed her head against his chest.“You must have walked away feeling completely unimportant to her.”“I did,” he admitted, the words abrupt, as if he were realizing the truth of his feelings for the first time.“But surely you and your father must have known that not all women are like that,” Delanie said insistently.“Most would pay a million dollars to keep their child, rather than the other way around.”Mitchell glanced down at her, a frown between his brows.“Maybe so, but most women don’t have husbands with the kind of resources like the men in our family.Money does…cloud things.”“It doesn’t have to,” she said absolutely, her fingers absently sifting through the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest.“But I can see how something like that could make it hard to know who to trust.”“Can you?” he said, still in that musing tone.“Of course.Particularly if you saw your dad struggling with the divorce.”She glanced up at him and saw him staring into the dwindling fire.No wonder he’d met her with such hostility that day at the attorney’s office.She must have seemed like another scheming woman, out for what she could get.A woman like his mother.Did Mitchell suspect every woman who was attracted to him of just wanting his money? Didn’t he know how special he was? What a loving, desirable man he was apart from his bank account?Yes, he could be annoyingly retentive about some things and he had a problem opening up to people.But there was something strong and reliable about Mitchell.Something threatening to her equilibrium while, at the same time, making her feel tremendously safe.It hit her then as she looked up at him.She’d fallen in love with Mitchell Riese.Throughout the skirmishes and the conflict over The Cedars, she’d come to see the man behind the toughness.Hadn’t he held her just now and decried her hyper-responsibility in a way no one else had ever done.Most people were happy to let her handle the crises, never thinking about her feelings.Most people who knew her just expected her to save the day.But not Mitchell.She loved him.Why else would she have had passionate wanton sex with him? Since the birth of her daughter, she’d vowed to enter into any future relationship with her eyes wide open.No more tripping and stumbling into anything.No more forgotten episodes.No more men who came and went without a trace.Once was enough.Despite the fact that she felt compelled to take birth control pills to prevent another surprise pregnancy, there’d been no one in her life since she woke in the hospital, her memory like a piece of aged Swiss cheese.And here she was—eyes wide open—in love with Mitchell the millionaire.A man who she’d have to convince that he meant more to her than all the money in the world.She hadn’t a clue how to begin.He was complicated and basic, at the same time, and this magic between them was so new.He’d been hurt before, wounded by life, as she had been, but they had to grab this enchantment between them.If she could convince him it was real.All she could think to do at this moment was to reach up and draw him down for her kiss.She’d love him into believing.******The next day, Mitchell walked up the path to the cottage with the white picket fence, conscious of a strange sense of well-being.The sex had been great.Beyond terrific.Just the thought of her wild, hungry moans as he’d driven into her, her red-gold head thrown back in ecstasy, made him quicken.He wanted to believe that was all he was in this for, the sex.But when he woke with a smile on his face this morning he’d decided not to examine his own motives too closely.For once, he was going with the feelings, trusting that little-used part of himself.If she were really a golddigger would she have insisted on paying for the repairs to the Villa?He’d never known a woman like Delanie before.Maybe this was insanity, but it felt too good to dispute.Maybe their past was murky, yet he couldn’t shake the sense that she wasn’t at all who he’d thought she was originally.The morning sun cascaded over the little cottage like a downpour of goodwill.It seemed perfect for her house to be covered in sunlight.She was like sunlight with her glimmering hair and her laughing eyes.Clutching the bakery bag of bagels and the bouquet of spring flowers he’d bought for her, he bounded up the steps.They’d had no chance to make plans the night before.Delanie had jumped up and left in a hurry after they’d made love again on the chaise lounge.Saying Connie was waiting on her, she’d thrown on her clothes, kissed him and run out.He’d woke alone in his bed this morning and wanted her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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