A High Price to Pay by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online Page A

harsh and
    hurried as if she'd taken part in some marathon race.
    A pretty antique mirror with a gilt frame hung above the telephone
    table. She looked at herself steadily, registering her pallor, and the
    wide, frightened eyes under the delicately winged brows.
    Aloud, she said, 'Well, it's done, and somehow I have to live with
    it—and make the best of it.' Then she turned away.
    She awoke in the night to find tears on her face, feverish with dreams
    she could only remember in part. She fetched herself a glass of water
    from the bathroom and lay in the dark sipping it, and listening to the
    rain on the window, wondering restlessly whether Nick Bristow had
    played back the tape on his machine yet. She bit her lip. Of course,
    she was taking it for granted that he would be spending the night
    under his own roof, although she had no real reason to suppose he
    would be.
    It was far more likely that he would be with one of his ladies. If not
    Hester Monclair, then someone else, she thought with distaste, then
    immediately chided herself. She had no grounds to speculate now, or

    at any future time about that side of his life. He'd made that very clear.
    He would live his life, and she would live hers, and on the occasions
    when their paths crossed, she would be expected to keep to safe,
    neutral topics of conversation.
    That, after all, was part of the price she was going to pay for
    Ladymead, and her family's security.
    She grimaced, drinking the rest of her water, and settled back with
    determination, willing herself back to sleep. But it wasn't as easy as
    that. In the darkness, she kept seeing Nick Bristow's image, almost as
    if he'd been etched on to her aching eyes.
    'This is ridiculous,' she muttered crossly, turning over and burying her
    face in her too-hot pillow. She was tired and worried and confused,
    that was all. That was why she was having these adolescent fantasies
    suddenly about how it would feel to have that hard, cynical mouth
    touching hers in passion, or see something more than indifference in
    those cool blue eyes.
    Alison groaned aloud, and dealt the inoffensive pillow a blow with
    her clenched fist, telling herself restlessly that it was more or less
    inevitable that the wretched man should be on her mind. After all,
    she'd only agreed to marry him a few hours before.
    But if she had to think of him, why did it have to be in such blatantly
    physical terms? It certainly wasn't like her. Simon had held her in his
    arms, and kissed her, but he'd never managed to intrude upon her
    dreams, sleeping or waking.
    She'd thought she'd woken in tears because she'd been thinking of her
    father, but now, she was not so sure.
    Yet there was a logical explanation for everything, she told herself
    severely. Nick Bristow was a shatteringly attractive man, quite apart

    from the cataclysmic effect he had had on her life. It was little
    wonder, surely, that he was preying on her mind.
    But once this strange business-marriage of theirs was a fait accompli,
    things would change, she decided resolutely. Her role would be to run
    Ladymead in the same ordered groove as always, and Nick Bristow
    would hardly impinge on her life at all. That was the way they both
    wanted it, after all, and that was the way it would be.
    She overslept the next morning, and was having a hasty breakfast
    with one eye on the clock when she heard the sound of a car coming
    up the drive. It was too early for visitors, she thought, grabbing her
    bag as she rose to her feet. Her mother was still asleep, and Mrs
    Horner would have to fend off whoever it was.
    As she reached the dining room door, it opened abruptly, and Alison
    stopped with a little gasp of surprise as Nick Bristow strode in.
    She had never seen him wearing anything but formal clothes, but this
    morning he was casually dressed in close-fitting black denim pants,
    topped by a rollneck cashmere sweater in the same colour, and a
    suede jacket slung over one shoulder.
    He said without