All three men rose to their feet, Tony rushing into more urgent speech. ‘Please think about it, Chloe. We had a good marriage before this. I know you wanted a baby and I put it off but I won’t if you give us another chance. I promise you…’
Chloe had no doubt he would keep that promise. A baby was the best string of all to hold her to their marriage. But she vividly remembered how he’d treated Luther-a baby dog-and she couldn’t see Tony as a good father. Nor as a good husband for her. He never had been.
‘This meeting is over,’ she stated flatly. ‘It wasn’t about us, Tony.’
‘But surely you now realise I was Laura’s victim, just as John Flaherty was,’ he pleaded. ‘You’re letting her win, Chloe.’
‘No. She didn’t get anything out of this.’ Except the five hundred dollars, which would have been peanuts in her overall scheme.
‘She got the satisfaction of breaking us up,’ Tony vehemently argued.
Oddly enough, Chloe now felt Laura Farrell had done her a favour-the catalyst for breaking up a lot of bad things in her life. ‘I’ve moved on, Tony. There’s no going back,’ she said firmly.
An angry red flushed his face this time. ‘I can forgive you Max Hart. He took advantage of the situation.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m leaving now. I’d appreciate it-’ she glanced at Tony’s lawyer ‘-if you and your client remain in this boardroom until I’ve gone.’
The lawyer nodded. ‘Understood, Miss Rollins.’
‘Chloe…’ Tony persisted pleadingly.
She turned away and her own lawyer escorted her to the door, opening it.
‘Max Hart won’t marry you,’ Tony threw after her. ‘He won’t give you children. You’ll end up on the scrap heap with the rest of the women he’s had.’
She knew Max would move on as he always did and she knew it would hurt when he did. But he had been there for her at a critical time in her life, giving her what she needed, helping her to find the strength to become a person who could stand on her own feet and make her own choices. She fiercely resolved to remember the good he’d done after he moved on. It had to outweigh the hurt she would inevitably feel.
Her lawyer stepped back to usher her out of the boardroom. Chloe walked forward into the legal secretary’s office.
‘I’d give you a better life than Max Hart ever will,’ Tony persisted in a last, heart-clawing plea. ‘I swear you’re the only woman for me. I’ll never again even look at anyone else. And we’ll have a family. As many children as you want. What we had was good before Laura mucked it up. Think about it, Chloe. Think about it. Call me…’
The door was closed behind her.
Gerry Anderson rose from his chair in the secretary’s office.
Chloe thanked her lawyer.
She could leave now and she did.
Max checked his watch again, frowning over the time that had passed since Chloe’s eleven o’clock meeting with the lawyers and Tony Lipton.
‘What’s got you so uptight, Max?’ Angus Hilliard inquired, his bespectacled grey eyes glinting with sharp curiosity. ‘That’s the third time you’ve checked the time and frowned, apart from the fact you haven’t been giving our business your undivided attention.’
Max grimaced at the head of his legal department who was too astute a man to let anything go unnoticed. ‘Waiting on a call from Chloe. A bit of nasty stuff going on with Tony Lipton and Laura Farrell.’
‘Ah! The pregnant P.A. making more waves? Anything I can do?’
‘No. The divorce lawyers are handling it, Angus. What’s worrying me is the meeting shouldn’t have dragged on this long. I wanted to accompany Chloe to it…’
‘Better you didn’t, Max.’
‘I know. I know. But I don’t trust her husband to play anything straight. Anyhow, Chloe came up with the idea of having the security guy escort her to and from the meeting.’
‘Gerry Anderson?’
‘The same,’ Max affirmed.
‘He’s one of the best,’ Angus assured him, having vetted the security guard personally. ‘Why not call him? Check out what’s going on? I have his number here.’ He opened the teledex on his desk.
‘I’m not his client this time,’ Max pointed out. ‘And Chloe promised to call me.’
‘You have his client’s interests at heart,’ Angus argued. ‘I’m sure Anderson will appreciate that position.’
It smacked of going behind Chloe’s back. Max didn’t like it, yet he felt too uneasy not to make the call. The sense of Chloe separating herself from him was getting stronger. She should have contacted him by now. Unless something was very wrong.
He had to know.
He made the call.
Ten minutes later he was assured that Chloe was safely home, had been since shortly after midday. He’d also been informed of the fraudulent pregnancy-a con game Laura Farrell had played profitably before. The most disturbing news, however, was Gerry Anderson’s report of what he’d overheard Tony Lipton say as Chloe was leaving the lawyer’s office-the strikes against any hope of sharing a long-term future with him lined up against what her husband was offering. And the final plea…
Call me.
She hadn’t made the promised call to him-the man whose lifestyle suggested she was only one link in a chain of many women, none of whom had locked him into marriage or having children.
Was she considering the self-serving promises her husband was holding out to her? Tony Lipton would have played the victim to the hilt, begging forgiveness, pleading for another chance to make a go of their marriage-cancel out his affair with Laura, cancel out her affair with Max, make a fresh start, have a family together…
‘Max, you’re wearing out my carpet.’
The dry comment jolted him into realising he was prowling around Angus’s office like a fiercely frustrated tiger, wanting to lash out at the situation, yet hemmed in by bars he couldn’t simply knock aside. Chloe was no longer living on his property, not so readily accessible, especially if she didn’t choose to be. And she was still married to Tony Lipton, who was undoubtedly trying to capitilise on Laura Farrell’s deceit.
He came to a halt in front of Angus’s desk, who leaned back in his chair and held up his hands in mock fear of being shot down where he sat. ‘Whoa! I’m not the target. I’m the negotiator, remember? Just point me in the direction you want to take…’
‘She’s mine!’ The words snapped out in an explosive burst of feeling. His hand sliced the air as violently as a slashing sword. ‘I don’t want that worm of a husband wriggling back into her life!’
Angus shrugged, looking askance at Max as though his behaviour was distinctly weird. ‘Why would she take him back?’ he queried in a tone of calm reasoning.
Max snarled back at him. ‘Because the P.A.’s pregnancy has been proved fraudulent. Because Tony Lipton knows how to twist that to his advantage-an infidelity trade-off-plus all the forever promises of love, having a family.’ He threw up his hands. ‘That pregnancy was the breaking point because Chloe wanted a baby.’
‘Then give her one, Max. Give her one.’
As though it was the simplest thing in the world!
Max rolled his eyes.
Angus proceeded to argue his strategy, the grey eyes glinting absolute certainty behind the frameless spectacles. ‘If Chloe wants children, sooner or later you’re going to lose her if you’re not prepared to give her any. Basic instinct in most women. Given that you want to keep her, there’s only one sure-fire win position for you to take, Max. Otherwise, you’d best start resigning yourself to letting her go.’
He couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go. It would be totally intolerable to watch her walk away from him to share her life with someone else.
Angus wriggled his fingers in a weighing-up gesture. ‘You’ve never had a problem attracting beautiful women. I happen to think that Chloe Rollins has something very special, but…it’s your life, Max. Your choice.’
Angus was right.
There was only one sure-fire way to win.
The only question was…would Chloe want to join him in the longest run that two people could ever take on together?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHLOE sat on the garden bench in the small backyard, feeding Luther pieces of ham as he frolicked around her feet. It was good to be outside in the open air, good to have the uncomplicated company of her darling little dog. She didn’t feel like eating lunch herself yet. The meeting with Tony had left her with a sense of deep distaste. She didn’t want to talk about it, either.
Her mobile telephone lay beside her on the bench, along with the mug of coffee she’d brought out to drink. Max would be expecting a call from her. She’d promised to let him know the outcome of the meeting. Dirty business, she thought, the whole thing so horribly grubby she didn’t want to rehash it.
Especially the sex in the bathroom bit. Had Max ever had a similar experience while he was in one of his past relationships? Had he knocked it back or let it happen, enjoying the thrill of unplanned pleasure? How much had a woman ever really meant to him, beyond the sexual satisfaction he both took and gave?
She barely registered the distant ringing of the doorbell but Luther went streaking inside to bark at the caller behind the front door. Chloe didn’t move, reluctant to see or talk to anyone. It rang a few more times. Luther kept barking. Chloe reasoned that both Gerry Anderson and Max had her mobile telephone number. They could call her to check if she was in or not. No-one else had the right to bother her.
Whoever was at the door eventually went away. Luther returned, looking triumphantly pleased with himself for having driven off what was obviously an unwelcome visitor. He trotted over to her to be petted and she smiled at him, leaning down to pick him up and set him on her lap, where he curled up contentedly as she patted him.
