A Past Revenge (18 page)

He drew in a ragged breath. 'You have a right to feel bitter about that night, to hate me for it, I realise that.'

'Do you?' she scorned.
'I
doubt it!'

'I wasn't thinking straight that night,' he rasped. 'I just wanted to hurt someone.'

'Me!'

'As it turned out, yes,' he sighed. 'Let me tell
you about that night, Danielle
—
'

'I know all I need to know about it, thank you,' she refused tightly.

'I know there's no real excuse for what I did to you,' he said softly. 'But I didn't realise—I had no idea until after you had left of the real injury I had done you.'

She gave him a sharp look. 'What do you mean?'

The grey eyes were sad with regret as he looked at her. 'You were a virgin.'

Danielle turned away, paling slightly. 'How do you know that?'

'I was far from gentle with you. There was some
evidence of that in the bed, and
—
'

'Oh,' she blushed her embarrassment of the physical evidence he had found of her virginity, laving read about such things but never believed it lad happened to her, the pain she had felt too brief to have done any real damage.

'I'm sorry, Danielle,' his expression showed his regret. 'I don't want to distress you any more than I need to about that night.'

'You won't,' she told him flatly.

'Danielle
—
'

'I'd rather not talk about it any more!' She looked at him coldly. 'The debt has now been paid, I want to forget all about it.'

'But
I
can't,' Nick rasped.
'I
may have been blinded by bitterness and anger when we met seven years ago, but I can see clearly now, and I know I love you.
I
want to marry you.'

'And it must be obvious by now that I have no interest in either one of those things!'

His gaze was compelling on her angrily flushed face. 'Danielle, I may have just wanted to vent my anger against my wife on the nearest available woman seven years ago, but what was your motive for going to bed with me?'

She couldn't meet the merciless probing of his eyes. 'You were Nicholas Andracas,' she shrugged with a nonchalance she was far from feeling—and they both knew it. 'I was overwhelmed by the fact that you had singled me out for your attention.'

'Like hell you were,' he bit out grimly. 'Tell me the real reason, Danielle. Please!'

'I—You were attractive
—
'

'The real reason, Danielle,' he repeated forcefully.

She shook her head in denial of the pressure he was exerting on her. 'If you're expecting a declaration of love out of me for what occurred that night you're going to be disappointed,' she derided bitterly. 'I didn't want or expect you to take me to bed that night.'

'But you were powerless to stop me, weren't you,' he persisted gently.

'You were far stronger than I was
—
'

'And you didn't even try to stop me,' he reminded softly.

'The mood you were in it would have been futile!'

'Yes,' he sighed at the truth of that. 'My wife had decided to file for divorce, and I was furious about the conditions she made. I had to agree to be the guilty party when I wasn't, and she wanted a huge cash settlement. Neither condition exactly hurt me, but I despised Beverley's method of getting her own way.'

'I'm really not interested in the failure of your marriage,' Danielle told him distantly. 'Or the reason for it.'

'But don't you see, it's all connected to that night I hurt you so much?' he demanded impatiently. 'I had received the divorce papers from Beverley only that morning.'

'Carly had already told me that you had some unsettling family news,' she dismissed.

'I'm sure she didn't tell you exactly what that news was, or that Beverley had made it clear I had better agree or else.'

'Or else what?' Danielle asked in a puzzled voice; she couldn't imagine Nick letting himself be blackmailed into doing something he didn't want to do!

'My wife—Beverley, had access to certain information that she knew I didn't want made public,' he revealed roughly.
'I
agreed to her terms, but not without a certain amount of frustrated anger on my part. I was ranting and raging to my niece Carly about how mercenary women were, and how I would rather know up front that I was paying for the privilege of bedding her. Carly thought it was very funny, told me that if I wanted a whore perhaps I ought to get myself one.' He looked at Danielle with pained eyes. 'You left the party with me so willingly, raised no objection when we went to my apartment, that I thought you were Carly's idea of a joke.'

'And I said nothing to make you believe any different,' she recalled dully, remembering the strange and not always comprehensible conversation they had had that night after he had made love to her.

'I
should have known,' he grated. 'Your look of
innocence was too real to be the faking of a
professional, your bewilderment afterwards too
genuine. I came to my senses a little while I was in
the shower, decided I should talk to you, find out
who you really were. But of course you had gone
by the time I returned to the bedroom
—
'

'You told me to go!'

'Yes,' he sighed. 'It was then that I realised the
full extent of what I'd done to you. I realised then
that far from being hired by my niece you must in
fact have been one of her guests. I telephoned her
with the intention of finding out more about you,
but before I could say anything she started teasing
me about going off with one of her school-
friends '

'Finishing-school,'
Danielle cut in determinedly. 'I was nineteen!'

'Nevertheless, I was left with the feeling that I had seduced a child, that I had brutally taken your innocence, searching you out then would have got us nowhere. I had made a mistake with you, but I didn't love you, had nothing I could offer you to erase that memory from your mind, could give you only more embarrassment about the error I had made. I decided it would be better if we just forgot the incident. But you haven't forgotten it, have you, Danielle?'

'No.'

'Neither had I, not completely. Oh I buried the memory at the back of my mind, but it was always there.' He shook his head. 'It's a little late to apologise now, but I'm going to anyway. I never meant to hurt you, Danielle.'

She remained aloof from the warm pleading in his voice. 'As you said, it's a little late for apologies.'

'Danielle, you said the debt had now been paid,' his voice softened encouragingly. 'Couldn't we start again, with none of this between us?'

'No!'

'But I love you,' he groaned huskily.
'I
love you so much. I'd do everything in my power to make up for the past. Won't you even give me a chance?'

Her mouth was tight. 'I said that debt had been paid, Nick,' she rasped coldly. 'But there's another, much worse one, that I can never forgive.'

He frowned, his eyes narrowed questioningly. 'Are you talking about the way I lost my temper last night and forced you to make love with me?'

'We both know it wasn't force,' she derided.

'Then what?' his voice rose as he held back the frustration of his anger. 'Danielle, you have to tell me what else I've done to you!'

'I
didn't intend telling you anything,' she scorned. 'But you came here expecting a few words of apology to make everything right between us. But it never will. You see, you say you had nothing to offer me after that night,' her voice cracked emotionally. 'But a little moral support from you then would have wiped out all the misunderstanding of the past. Put quite simply, Nick, you let me down when I most needed you, and I couldn't trust you now not to do the same thing again. I wouldn't even have wanted you to marry me then, just not let me go through all that alone,' she added contemptuously.

'You mean people found out about that night?' he frowned his puzzlement.

'Of course they found out,' she scorned.

'Did Carly tell
—
'

'
No one
told anyone anything, Nick,' Danielle rasped bitterly. 'No one needed to. A pregnancy is a difficult thing to hide.' She looked at him unflinchingly, the whole truth out now.

Nick seemed to go very pale, almost grey, his
expression haggard.
'I
didn't make you pregnant,
Danielle
—
'

'Then who do you think did?' she scoffed harshly.

He swallowed hard, pain flickering in the depths of his eyes. 'Are you saying I was the father of your child?' he asked disbelievingly.

'I'm stating it as a fact,' she glared at him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his
head. 'Danielle, I couldn't have made you
pregant
—
'

'Oh no?' she taunted hardly. 'Just wait here for a moment.' She ran into her bedroom, quickly finding the three things she wanted, taking them back into the lounge to hand them to Nick. 'I realise none of these things are "conclusive evidence",' she mocked. 'But they're all I have— besides the fact that I know I've never slept with any other man but you.'

Nick looked at her searchingly for several minutes before turning his attention to the things she had handed him. He looked first at the medical card that had accompanied her each time she visited the doctor, the weeks and date of her pregnancy clearly stated. His hands shook slightly as he moved on to the next paper she had given him, the birth certificate of her daughter, with his name clearly shown under father.

He looked up, swallowing convulsively. 'You named her Nicole,' he said dazedly.

Danielle hardened her heart against how shaken he was. 'Choosing
my
daughter's name was my prerogative,' she told him coldly.

'But you called her Nicole,' he repeated determinedly, as if the knowledge were precious to him.

Her eyes flashed deeply green. 'Don't read any deep significance into that,' she snapped dismissively. 'I just happened to like the name.'

His breathing became ragged as he looked down at the last object she had given him, the miniature she had painted of their daughter. 'She—' he ran a hand over his eyes. 'She looks so small,' he finally choked.

'She was,' Danielle told him woodenly. 'Too small.'

His eyes seemed overbright as he looked up at
her. 'Danielle, I had no idea—I couldn't have guessed
—
'

'You didn't even bother to find out!' she accused heatedly.

'For a very good reason.' He drew in a controlling breath. 'Danielle, my marriage had been far from happy for some time before the divorce, and although my wife wanted to leave me I refused to let her, didn't believe in divorce. My wife used the one weapon she had to force me to release her. Danielle, she used the fact that I was incapable of giving her a child.'

She became suddenly still, searching the pale harshness of his face, seeing only the intensity of pain in his eyes, the way he held on tightly to the miniature he still held. 'Why would you believe such a lie?' she prompted softly, suddenly filled with uncertainty.

'She did lie, didn't she,' he stated fiercely.

'Yes,' she answered him simply. 'Nicole was definitely your daughter.'

'A daughter my ex-wife convinced me I could never have!' he rasped. 'No wonder you hate me. God, I have to—I have to be alone for a while. Please—please excuse me.' He pushed the miniature into her hand with the medical card and birth certificate, leaving before she could attempt to stop him.

In that moment Danielle felt a compassion for him she had thought she could never feel for such a man. For seven years Nick had been under the misconception that he was incapable of being a father because his ex-wife had lied to him to achieve her freedom. The shock of now finding out about Nicole must be tearing him apart.

Nicole. She had lied when she told Nick she just 'happened' to like the name. She had deliberately chosen it because it was the nearest female version to his own name, to the name of the man she had loved despite his desertion of her.

And she loved him still!

CHAPTER TEN

T
hat
knowledge didn't come to her in a blinding flash, she knew with startling clarity that it had always been there, pushed to the furthest recesses of her mind so that it didn't cause her any more pain. But she had loved Nick seven years ago, and she loved him now, knew that was the reason she wanted him to be angry when he made love to her last night; his gentleness would have been the breaking of her.