The Tycoon's Blackmailed Mistress - Maxine Sullivan Page 0,34

scoffed. “By making sure I never got a moment to myself? By criticizing everything I did? By sucking the life out of me?” She shook her halo of blond hair. “No, the only one who was spoiled was Robert, only I didn’t see that when I first married him.”

Flynn began to burn for her. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

She shuddered, the look in her eyes clutching at his heart. “You’re doing it already. Flynn, I only went to bed with you. I didn’t expect a proposal of marriage.”

He forced himself to relax. He would show her that things would be different with him. He would prove it to her, if she let him. “I’m not asking you to cut off an arm, Danielle.”

Her lips twisted. “At least that would be quicker than the slow torture of being smothered to death.”

Dammit, her husband had made the mistakes, not him. He wasn’t about to pay for the faults of another man, especially a dead one.

“You won’t get a better offer,” he pointed out.

She shot him a cold look. “I don’t want a better offer. I don’t want any offer at all.” She headed for the bathroom door, then stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “And, Flynn, this isn’t the beginning of an affair. This is the end of it.”

He watched her go, heard the click of the lock behind her, but not for a minute did he agree that this was the end for them. He hadn’t got where he was by giving up on something he wanted badly. And right now he not only wanted to protect Danielle and her baby, but all at once he wanted Danielle in his life, as crazy as it sounded.

And he always got what he wanted.

Seven

D anielle leaned her hands on the bathroom sink for support and swallowed away the lump in her throat. Marriage!

How could Flynn do this to her? How could he take something so beautiful like their lovemaking last night and spoil it with a proposal of marriage? He had to be the last person she’d expect to want to marry her. The last person who’d want to tie himself down. After all, he was a virile man who was sure to have a string of women more willing and able.

Yet he wanted her.

The supposed gold digger.

The supposed fortune hunter.

The supposed woman who would do anything to get his attention.

She just didn’t understand it. But it didn’t matter anyway. Dear God, she couldn’t go through another marriage to a man who needed to possess her for the sake of possession. She wouldn’t be able to breathe again. Just thinking about it made her throat tighten. All she wanted was her independence.

But she had to think about it, in case she found herself weakening toward Flynn. She had to remember and be strong. She must never forget what Robert had done to her in the name of love. Never forget Robert wanting to know where she was every minute of the day, even when she was at work. Never forget the “suggestions” of what to wear, not just by Robert but his mother. Nor the criticism whenever she’d given an opinion, until she’d given no opinion at all.

She’d been young when she’d married, too young, really. And she’d been looking to fall in love when she’d met Robert. She’d missed her parents and had wanted someone to love her back.

But she’d chosen the wrong man, the wrong family, and by the time she’d discovered that, it had been too late. She’d married Robert Ford.

And his mother.

And Flynn wanted her to walk back into the fire? There was no way she would make that mistake again. No amount of sex, no matter how fantastic, would be enough to get her to marry him.

Thankfully Flynn had gone by the time she came out of the bathroom, and Danielle escaped for a stroll through the botanical gardens, appreciating the cooler lushness of the tropical surrounds in the steady heat of the day. But it did nothing to ease her mind, though she kept looking over her shoulder as she walked. She had the feeling someone was watching her, but she soon dismissed the thought. If Flynn were anywhere near her, she’d know about it. And then she spent the rest of Sunday at home on edge that Flynn would come back and put pressure on her to accept his proposal of marriage.

What nerve he had.

Not that she doubted for a moment she would give in,