Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride by Emma Darcy Page B

guess you now know what to expect.”
    â€œYes. I do. Thank you again.”
    She hung up, her mind crawling with scenarios of what she could expect, and every one of them was a nightmare from hell. Tears started welling, tears of miserable frustration at not having escaped the punishment Bobby Hewson would inevitably deal out to her for having flouted his plans. She remembered only too well her last meeting with him, her eyes cleared of the gullible scales that had blinded her to the man he really was…seeing the totally selfish ego behind his smiling charm.
    He had expected her to give in to him.
    She’d walked away. Flown away.
    And now he was going to catch up with her.
    The tears overflowed and trickled down her cheeks. She bent over, pulled off her shoes and socks, then curled up on the bed, hugging a pillow for comfort. She was facing a totally wretched situation. He’d arrive tomorrow, then all day Saturday, all day Sunday, three nights…and he’d be getting at her every chance he had. She knew he would.
    Regrets for ever having fallen in love with him savaged her as she wept into the pillow. It hadn’t been a real love. More a prolonged affair, sugared and peppered by the excitement and glamour Bobby always brought with him on his flying trips to Sydney. He’d swept in and out of her life, dazzling her with his charm, seducing her with honeyed words, always leaving with the promise of having more time with her on his next visit, making her feel important to him, necessary to him.
    She’d fitted in with what he’d wanted. He hadn’t cared about her needs. Didn’t care about them now, either. He was coming here to satisfy himself, and he’d be scoring off her any way he could…subtle little digs in front of his wife, then seeking her out privately, maybe even trying to get into her bed again. He would see that as a triumph over her bid to put him out of her life. And if she didn’t oblige him…Miranda shuddered, every instinct telling her no one frustrated Bobby Hewson and got away with it.
    A knock on her door broke into the train of misery. She swiped at her tear-sodden face and looked at her watch. It jolted her to see it was a few minutes past five. The current homestead guests were probably back from their day trips and she hadn’t been on hand to deal with any requests or problems. The knock meant someone was looking for her.
    She scrambled off the bed, grabbed some tissues, rubbed her eyes and cheeks, shoved her feet into sandals, finger smoothed her hair back behind her ears. The knock came again as she struggled to calm herself enough to answer it. Probably Val, she thought, wanting to pass some message on before leaving for the day.
    She opened the door and shock hit her again.
    Nathan!
    â€œAh! You’re here.” He smiled, his eyes warm with pleasure.
    Having steeled herself to face responsibility, Miranda was totally undone by Nathan’s smile. The steel collapsed and her whole body turned to jelly.
    â€œI was looking for you to give you Sarah’s diaries,” he went on, holding out the package he was carrying. “Just as well you are here in your private quarters. Makes it easy to put them in a safe place.”
    Somehow she lifted her hands to take the package. Her gaze dropped to it as her mind tried to change gears, adjusting to Nathan’s presence and recalling what she had anticipated…hoped…from it. Except it all felt unreal now, shaky, without substance. She stared down at the diaries—Sarah’s diaries—of a life that was in the past.
    â€œMiranda?”
    She heard the query but it seemed to come from a long distance. Her past was all too alive, threatening to mess her up again and she didn’t know when or where that would stop, now that Bobby had access to her.
    â€œIs there something wrong?”
    Wrong …the awful sense of wrongness was so twisted up inside her…