“I don’t mean money!” she exploded again. “I bet the money you’ve laid out isn’t even a dent in your billions. It’s what you’re doing with it…with Sally…that’s so evil.”
“Evil?” Jack’s patience was sharply pricked. “What the hell are you on about?”
“You…leading my sister to hell,” came the punchy retort. “She’s fallen blindly in love with you…”
In lust, Jack mentally corrected. Sally enjoyed the fantastic sex they had as much as he did. He’d led her to heaven, not hell.
“…but I’m not blinded by you, Jack Maguire. You’re using her to satisfy some rotten hole in your heart, and when you’ve got all you wanted from her, you’ll abandon her, just as you’ve abandoned every other woman in your life, once the steam has run out of the sex.”
That touched a nerve. “What do you know about my life?” he snapped.
“I researched you,” she flung back at him. “When Sally told me where you were with her, I looked up your social life in the newspaper archives. That’s some record you’ve got. A stream of beautiful women led up your garden path but none of them able to hang on to you. And Sally won’t be any different, will she?”
“Sally is different!” he grated, his jaw clenching in anger at the affront of this snip of a girl, digging into his life.
“She’s different all right. Different because she isn’t some hardened sophisticate. She’ll be devastated when you walk away. But you don’t care about that, do you? You will have played your vengeful little game, fed your dark side with who she is…”
“That’s enough!” he cut in, barely containing the anger she’d stirred. His hand sliced a denial as he hurled a few truths back at her. “You use society tattle to sit in judgement of me? You don’t have a clue where I’m at, Jane Maguire. Why don’t you try trusting your sister’s judgement of me instead of stirring up a nest of snakes?”
“I saw you in action at the solicitor’s office. You’re hard and you’re ruthless,” she hurled straight back at him. “All the years of our growing up together…Sally was always the one to protect me when there was trouble, taking the brunt of any punishment. It’s not fair you picked on her.” She shook her head in anguish. “Not fair! If you have any decency at all, you should let her off the hook before it goes too deep.”
Understanding suddenly sliced through Jack’s outrage. The mouse had steeled herself to become a lion, wanting to protect the sister who had always protected her. She was blundering into completely alien territory, driven by sisterly love which was demanding action from her. However off-line she was, Jack found himself respecting the urge that had brought her to face him with her desperate misgivings about his motivations.
In truth, he had to admit she wasn’t so far off-line. His bitterly frustrating non-relationship with his father was a factor in what he’d set up with Sally. But punishing her for what his father and Lady Ellen had done to him played no part in it. And deliberately hurting her was so far from his mind…
“You’re in a position to have so much else,” Jane pleaded. “It wouldn’t hurt you to let Sally go.”
He was having the best time of his life. No way was he about to walk away from it. Besides, whenever this passion for all that Sally was did eventually burn out, he’d never just abandon her. One way or another, he’d take care of her needs. He wasn’t like his father.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Jane,” he said tersely. “You’re assuming stuff that isn’t true.”
“Tell me what isn’t true,” she challenged, not believing him. “Of everything I’ve said, tell me what isn’t true. Give me a slice of honesty.”
“I did not force anything on Sally. She chose.”
“Huh!” It was a derisive snort. “A choice loaded with heavy persuasives.”
True. But from what he knew of Sally’s character, nothing would have persuaded her to go to bed with him if she hadn’t wanted to. “You should know your sister better.”
“I’ve never known her like this. She’s always been so sensible, so strong in working things through. You’ve messed her up, Jack Maguire, for your own vindictive, selfish satisfaction. And don’t tell me you didn’t set out to do it, because you did. Demanding I stay away whenever you visited, ensuring you had a clear run at her.”
That was true, too.
“I’m not breaking Sally’s contract with you by coming here,” she pointed out. “This isn’t your property. You can’t order me to leave and I won’t until I make you give up this…this black vendetta.”
He shook his head over her self-imposed mission. She’d asked for a slice of honesty and he gave it to her. “The past does colour what I feel with Sally. It colours what she feels with me, too. You can’t…”
“What do you feel?” she retorted, aiming straight at his heart.
Be damned if he was going to lay himself open to any more criticism! “That’s not your business. It’s between me and Sally.”
“She’s my sister. I’m her family. I care. And I have every right to question if you care.”
“Sally Maguire…riding Midnight Magic.”
The announcement, boomed from loudspeakers, ripped Jack’s attention away from Jane. He’d missed the previous riders, didn’t know what Sally was competing against. She was already in the ring, walking her horse to the starting line, her head lifted towards the grandstand, looking for his encouragement and support.
Any moment now she’d spot him, see her sister sitting right next to him—her sister who had undoubtedly poured out to Sally the same hostile suspicions she’d just loaded on him—and the whole tenor of this confrontation told him Jane had not told Sally what she intended to do.
Seeing them together might upset her, might become a major distraction from what she had to do to get Midnight Magic jumping smoothly. And the jumps for the World Cup competition were formidably high. If she lost her concentration…
Jack grabbed Jane’s hand and surged up from his seat, dragging Jane with him, raising their linked hands high above their heads for Sally to see.
“Smile at your sister,” he commanded. “Pretend you’ve made peace with me. She mustn’t feel tense about us when she’s about to take on those jumps.”