A Rich Man's Whim - By Lynne Graham Page 0,62

a sinking heart. Had he already guessed that she would soon be back at Danegold Hall? Was she now honour-bound to stage some ghastly sordid confrontation over the head of Lara? Of course, if he was there and she was moving out she would have to give him some sort of explanation. She comforted herself with the awareness that Mikhail would only be home during the day mid-week on the very rarest of occasions and wondered if a brief note would do, in which she would say something meaningless but not unpleasant such as that things were not working out for her.

She ought to hate him, she thought painfully, wondering what the matter with her was. Perhaps she was still too much in shock to be thinking clearly, she reckoned wretchedly, in shock that Mikhail was not the man she had honestly believed he was and that he was a much more lightweight, untrustworthy and dishonest individual than she could ever have guessed from the way he had treated her. Ironically he had treated her very well. So, did he think that sexual infidelity was unimportant? She remembered the clusters of eager young woman who had surrounded him every time he went out in public and accepted that temptation must often have come his way. Yet to have slept with a woman who worked for him, whom Kat knew and accepted, was beyond forgiveness.

Kat mounted the steps to the front door, which was already standing open with Reeves, Mikhail’s imperturbable butler, stationed there. With a pained smile in response to his greeting, Kat limped in, acknowledging that if anything her feet were hurting her even more than they had earlier that afternoon. Maybe taking them off on the train had been unwise. Halfway across the hall she came to a halt, slid the beautiful but too-tight shoes off and walked barefoot up the stairs. She headed straight to the bedroom she shared with Mikhail and the dressing room where a miniature trunk held everything from her passport to her birth certificate. She lifted out the papers, slapped them down on the bed and went off to locate a suitcase. She couldn’t believe she was leaving the man she loved, couldn’t bear even the thought of it, yet knew she had no choice. Lara could only have known that Mikhail had not slept with Kat that night if Lara had spent that same night with him: her brain could not get past that fact.

From drawers she dug out a few basic changes of clothing. She wasn’t fool enough to try and pack everything. She would just take what was necessary for a couple of weeks and ask for the rest to be sent on to her. She supposed she would move back to the farmhouse with Emmie and knew her sibling would be glad to have company. What price her fine sensitivity about accepting the house from Mikhail now?

‘You’re not even giving me a chance to defend myself?’

Kat froze and spun to see Mikhail poised in the doorway, his lean darkly handsome face grim and taut as he asked that question. He had discarded his tie and his jacket and stood there in shirt sleeves, his black diamond eyes hard. He was toughing Lara’s confession out, Kat assumed, determined to admit no fault. She turned her head away from him because she felt as if her heart were breaking inside her.

‘Kat?’ Mikhail prompted.

‘Yes, I heard what you said but I don’t really know how to respond. Sometimes it’s best to say nothing. I don’t want to argue with you—what’s the point?’

‘The point is us,’ Mikhail growled. ‘Isn’t what we have worth fighting for?’

Kat dropped the clothing in her hands into the open case and shot him a furious glance of reproach. ‘OK. Did you sleep with her?’

‘No,’ Mikhail framed succinctly, hard dark eyes challenging her.

Kat turned back to her packing. ‘Well, of course you’re going to say that,’ she told him, totally unimpressed.

‘What the hell was the point of asking me, then?’ Mikhail roared back at her. ‘You know you’ve put me through one hell of an afternoon?’

Refusing to be intimidated by that lion’s roar, Kat kept on packing. ‘I can’t say that I enjoyed my afternoon either—’

‘First of all I had to put up with a melodramatic tantrum from an employee, then you went missing!’ He stressed the word.

Infuriated, Kat whipped back to him. ‘I did not go missing!’

‘How do you think I felt when you took off after that