Wife in Public (15 page)

‘Jordan?’ his mother bit out in tight disapproval. ‘I did bring up background to you.’

‘We all have skeletons in the closet, don’t we, Mum?’ he answered blandly. ‘Let’s take this to the library for a more in-depth discussion out of the public eye.’

‘Yes,’ she snapped, turning haughtily to escape the threat of embarrassing scandal. ‘If you’ll accompany me, Mr Thornton?’

‘With pleasure, Mrs Powell.’

All five of them left the ballroom in Nonie Powell’s wake.

Ivy’s mind was reeling over the revelations of the last few minutes. Her whole being recoiled from accepting this man as her biological father. Was it true? Did his story have some substance? He’d seemed totally confident that a DNA test would prove his claim of paternity.

Sacha had called him a rotten snake in the grass and clearly that was what he was. Poison.

And she had unwittingly brought him into Jordan’s life.

Poison Ivy.

Her heart sank.

If she was the illegitimate daughter of a blackmailer, how would Jordan feel about this? Would he still want her at his side? He hated blackmail and dealt ruthlessly with it. Maybe he would see separating himself from her as the only way to stop the flow of more and more poison.

T
HE
library was another enormous room; its walls lined with books, a collection of decorative globes of the world adding interest, a huge mahogany desk at one end, two black leather chesterfields facing each other across a parquet coffee table, several black leather armchairs grouped in front of the desk as though ready for a conference.

Jordan led Ivy to one of these and saw her seated, murmuring, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.’

She lifted anguished eyes. ‘I didn’t know anything about this man.’

‘We must get to the truth now, Ivy. Bear with it,’ he advised her, relentless purpose stamped on his face.

She cringed inside, frightened of what else was to be revealed. As Jordan insisted they all be seated and rounded the desk to take the chair behind it, she stared at her mother who had kept this background hidden from her all her life. Sacha was glaring at Dick Thornton with utter loathing. Her blood-red nails were digging into the leather armrest as though wanting to claw him to death.

He sat at perfect ease, his legs casually crossed, a smug little smile lingering on his mouth. Nonie Powell ignored both of them, sitting straight-backed and stiff
faced as she watched her son take what must have been his father’s chair and adopt the air of a formidable chairman who was not about to tolerate any nonsense from anyone at this gathering.

‘Sacha, Ivy believes that her father is dead,’ he started, boring straight to the vital point. ‘Is that true or not?’

‘Robert
was
her father,’ she insisted vehemently. ‘Ivy could not have had a better one. From the day she was born, he loved her and wanted to take care of her. And he did. No father could have been more devoted to his daughter.’ She shot a pleading look at Ivy. ‘You know that’s true.’

‘Yes,’ Ivy agreed, the word coming out huskily as a lump of grief lodged in her throat.

‘Was he her biological father?’ Jordan asked.

Sacha sucked in a deep breath and shot another look of loathing at the man seated beside her. ‘No, he wasn’t. This disgusting rat raped me when I thwarted his plan to talk his brother out of his inheritance. I was left pregnant, and when I couldn’t hide it from Robert any more, he insisted on marrying me and bringing up the child as his.’

‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Dick Thornton protested. ‘You didn’t yell rape at the time, Sacha. There was a lot of free love going on in that house, as you well know.’

‘Free love?’ Nonie Powell queried waspishly.

‘Only between consenting adults,’ Sacha shot at her before turning back to the bad brother in bitter accusation. ‘You knew why I didn’t call the police. None of us could afford to go anywhere else. We were barely scraping along on part-time jobs in between attending college or uni and studying for our courses. I couldn’t risk having us all evicted.’

‘Why would you be evicted?’ Jordan asked.

Dick Thornton gave a bark of derisive laughter. ‘Because they were squatters. A whole bunch of hippie squatters living it up in a deserted mansion.’

‘We weren’t doing any harm,’ Sacha fiercely declared.

‘Squatters,’ Nonie Powell said in a tone of horror.

Sacha rounded on her. ‘Most of us were poor students without any family money to support us. And before you turn your nose up at us, let me tell you, one of them is now the top medical expert in the world in his field. Another is a highly regarded barrister. Yet another went on to become a famous film-maker. I can name names if you feel it necessary to check up on them.’

She turned her gaze anxiously to Ivy. ‘Robert was adrift when he came back from Vietnam. No one wanted to know about what our soldiers suffered there. No one wanted to help them. We should never have been in that war in the first place. Robert was a conscripted soldier, sent to do his duty by his country, then treated like dirt to be swept under the mat when he returned. He found refuge in that house of free-spirited students. He tended the garden and grew vegetables for us. He wanted to nurture life, not destroy it, and we were happy there…’

Tears glittered in her eyes. She dashed them away to glare her hatred at Dick Thornton again. ‘Until his brother came, preying on Robert’s sense of family, saying he didn’t need his part of their inheritance to build a future because he was sterile and had no future.’

‘If you’d kept your big mouth shut, Sacha, Robert would have turned what our parents left him over to me and you’d have gone on your own merry way, just smelling the roses,’ he said mockingly.

Sheer rage erupted. ‘You sick bastard! You set out to make Robert feel worthless and he wasn’t. He had the right to build a life for himself and I wasn’t going to let you take the money he could buy a farm with.’

‘So you stuck your oar in and I stuck mine in,’ he retorted in a crass jeer.

‘By raping her as payback for interfering,’ Jordan inserted quietly.

‘Gave me a lot of satisfaction,’ Dick Thornton admitted with relish, then quickly checked himself. ‘Her word against mine in any court of law. Besides, it’s all water under the bridge. What counts now is you wanting to marry my beautiful daughter and me wanting a slice of her good fortune.’

‘Jordan, you cannot submit to a blackmailer,’ Nonie Powell stated in high dudgeon. ‘This marriage is clearly unsuitable. Best that you walk away from it right now.’

‘Ivy is totally innocent of any wrongdoing!’ Sacha snapped at her. ‘Can you say the same of your own daughter, Nonie?’

Although it had to be a blind hit, it caused Nonie Powell to press her lips together. She looked at Ivy in angry reproof, as though Sacha had learned of Olivia’s problems from her. Which wasn’t true. She hadn’t spoken a word to anyone about Ashton’s attempt at blackmail.

Jordan flicked a querying look at her.

She shook her head, but the implication that she might have blabbed sickened her. No relationship could work without trust. As it was, she wasn’t sure their relationship could survive tonight’s revelations.

Her mind was awash with the flood of information about both her parents and the situation which had brought them together and led to their marriage—a
marriage of need and compassion and love which she hadn’t understood until now. Robert and Sacha were good people but that didn’t matter, any more than her own innocence of any wrong-doing mattered. There was no escaping the fact that she was the daughter of a rapist, and would be forever tainted by this rotten man.

Jordan sat in silence, weighing up what he’d heard so far. He had instinctively dismissed his mother’s solution—
walk away from it
—though that would, of course, extract him from this nasty mess. If it was only lust driving him to keep Ivy in his life…if he still actually anticipated a marriage that only lasted as long as their passion ran hot…why bother dealing with this scum?

He looked at Ivy.

She shook her head as though she’d already given up on the idea of a future together, her eyes sick and despairing, her face totally stricken by all she’d been hearing.

His heart went out to her.

He knew in that instant that this woman meant more to him than anything else in his life. No doubts. No doubts about their future together, either. Nothing on earth could make him walk away from her. He had to fight the urge to get up and take her out of all this right now. The situation had to be resolved first or she’d be haunted by it. He would not let it come between them. Ever.

He turned a stern gaze to his mother. ‘In our family, there have been private matters which we’ve preferred not to bare, Mum. Let’s not make hasty judgements on others. I see no fault in Sacha. And certainly not in Ivy. I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from any further reactive comment and take into account the nobility of decisions
made for the good of others. That deserves respect and admiration, not criticism.’

Nonie frowned at him, not used to being chastised for her behaviour and affronted that it be done in front of others, but she hadn’t given any consideration to Ivy’s feelings and it was well past time she started giving some consideration to how he felt, too.

‘While we’re on the subject of noble sacrifices, let’s get to how much you’ll sacrifice for my silence,’ Dick Thornton said cheerfully. ‘Make it good and you can all play happy families again.’

Jordan wiped everything else from his mind and concentrated on drawing out what was needed. ‘How much do you think your silence is worth?’ he asked coldly.

‘Well, I’m sure parts of the media would gobble up a story like this. Hippie headquarters in a deserted mansion, free love amongst the squatters, brother pitted against brother by our gorgeous butterfly artist, the baby she dumped on one brother to be free to pursue her own career….’

‘I did not dump Ivy!’ Sacha cried, unable to contain her fury at the malignment. ‘She was happy with Robert.’ Her gaze turned pleadingly to her daughter. ‘I tried living on the farm. I helped Robert start it and worked along with him, but it wasn’t the kind of life I wanted and Robert knew it. The artist in me craved much more of the world but he had seen too much of it in Vietnam and the farm was the only world he wanted. He insisted that I go, said I’d given him his life and he wanted to give me mine. We still had weekends together, at the farm or in the city. I didn’t dump you, Ivy. I simply couldn’t take you away from Robert. You were so much
his
little girl.’

‘Except she wasn’t,’ Thornton mocked. ‘And that
lie makes
my
story all the more credible and valuable, doesn’t it, Mr Powell? Lovely fruity fodder for gossip.’

Jordan held up a warning hand to Sacha, not wanting her to interrupt again. ‘Name your price, Mr Thornton.’

‘Oh, I won’t be too greedy,’ Dick Thornton drawled, believing he was in the box seat. ‘Given the fact that you’re a billionaire, I think five million dollars is a relatively modest amount.’

‘You want five million dollars from me or you’ll make your version of the past public. Is that what you’re threatening?’ Jordan bored in.

‘In a nutshell, yes,’ Thornton replied, grinning from ear to ear.

‘Thank you.’

‘No!’ Ivy leapt up from her chair, anguished eyes begging him to understand. ‘You mustn’t do it, Jordan. This will only be the start.’ She tugged at the ring he’d put on her finger as she headed for the desk. ‘Whatever he says won’t be worth anything if I don’t marry you. Take this ring back.’ She laid it on the desk. ‘You can say it was a mistake ever to get involved with me.’ Tears pooled in her eyes. ‘It was. I always knew it was…just a fantasy.’

‘That’s not true,’ Jordan answered her firmly, picking up the ring and rising to his feet. ‘It was right! It was always
right,
Ivy. And I’m not about to let you down.’

‘But…’ Her hands fluttered in despair as the tears trickled down her cheeks.

Jordan caught her hands and slid the ring back on her finger, his eyes burning through her tears with an intensity of purpose that could not be broken. ‘We’re going to be together for the rest of our lives.’

And if it hadn’t been clear to his mother before
why he loved this woman and wanted her as his wife, it should be crystal-clear now, as she witnessed Ivy’s anguish over this situation and her willingness to free him from it.

‘Bravo!’ Thornton crowed, clapping his hands at what he believed was his triumph.

Jordan shot him a sharply derisive look. ‘Bravo, indeed, Mr Thornton. You could not have done a better job of incriminating yourself.’

‘So what?’ Thornton retorted, totally unruffled. ‘It’s in everyone’s interests here to keep this private.’

Jordan hugged Ivy’s shoulders, tucking her close to him, wanting her to feel both comforted and protected as he confronted the slime who so richly deserved some comeuppance.

‘My father occasionally held business meetings in this library. He installed a mechanism in his desk to record them. I switched it on when I sat down. Should you go to any section of the media to sell your story, the first action they will take will be to check with me. I will then take the tape to the police and proceed with criminal charges.’

‘The story will still get out,’ Thornton countered belligerently.

‘No one will buy it, and you, sir, will go to jail without any money.’

‘Oh, bravo!’ It was Sacha this time, clapping her hands with sweet relief at some justice finally being done to the man who had tried to swindle his brother and raped her because she’d frustrated his scheme.

Jordan directed a commanding look at his mother. ‘Time to call in a couple of your security men, Mum. Best that our uninvited visitor be discreetly escorted from the premises.’

Nonie was up from her chair and sweeping out of the library before Dick Thornton had fully processed the fact that his scheme was defeated and
he
was about to be evicted.

‘Now look here!’ he blustered, rising from his chair to fight his corner. ‘I can still cause you embarrassment, turning up at your society events and telling all and sundry I’m Ivy’s dad. It must be worth something to you to have me stay away. That’s not blackmail. You can’t have me jailed for that.’

‘I can have you arrested for harassment,’ Jordan answered, not the least bit concerned by his threat. ‘I doubt a dad who deserted his daughter before she was born will be seen as having any rights at all. Why invite trouble when there’ll be no profit in it for you?’

That salient point gave the slimy con-man a momentary pause for thought. He then shot a vicious look at Ivy. ‘What about her? I can get to her when you’re not around. Buy me off and you can live in peace.’

Feeling Ivy shiver, Jordan hugged her more tightly and spoke with totally ruthless determination. ‘Do you want to be put under surveillance for the rest of your life, every dodgy move you make watched and reported on? As you pointed out, I’m a billionaire and I will go to any lengths—regardless of cost—to protect the woman I’m going to marry. I’ll pay whatever price I have to in order to preserve her peace, but not to you, Dick Thornton. I will never pay you a cent, and I’ll make you pay if you ever give Ivy any further distress. You can count on that.’

The extent of Jordan’s power and the relentless threat of it finally penetrated. The man stared back at him, the fight draining out of his face. He threw up his hands in
defeat as Nonie Powell led two security guards into the library.