Page 4 of His Best Mistake

“I want answers.”

“To what sort of questions?”

“What sort of questions do you bloody well think?”

“I genuinely have no idea,” she said, baffled by more than just the conversation. Like why was he having this effect on her? She’d never been so immediately, so strongly attracted to anyone, let alone a stranger. It was bizarre. And highly inconvenient if she was going to have to put him up for the night. “Who on earth are you?”

“Jack Maclean,” he said, and she momentarily ignored the weird goings-on inside her to rack her brains and scour her memory, but try as she might, she came up with nothing. She didn’t know a Jack Maclean. She didn’t know any Macleans. Except –

Oh.

Shit.

As realisation dawned Stella felt the blood drain from her face and the pulsing heat inside her dissipate, and then it was as if the sides of the car were closing in on her, squeezing out the air and making it difficult to breathe.

She did know who he was. She’d stumbled across him in the

aftermath of New Year’s Eve while obsessively, compulsively googling Cora, the woman whose fiancé she’d misguidedly dated. Jack Maclean was Cora’s older brother, a hotshot currency trader with his own company and billions in the bank. From what she remembered from the article she’d skimmed through he was a force to be reckoned with. In the pursuit of his goals he was single-minded and relentless. And now he was here. On a mission. For what was clearly going to be quite a while.

Bollocks.

Taking a deep breath, Stella braced herself for the battle that was undoubtedly coming her way since he was hardly here for a chat about the weather, and said, “We’d better go inside.”

*

Smothering a curse as pain stabbed him in the chest, Jack eased himself out of the driver’s seat, locked the car and set off in Stella’s wake, frustrated and aching and even more unsettled than was usual for this time of year.

Up until that sodding sheep had forced him off the road everything had been going exactly according to plan. When his sister had confessed a week ago that she was going insane not knowing anything about the ‘scheming, brazen, engagement-wrecking bitch harlot’ who’d seduced her fiancé he’d offered to remedy the situation. He’d had to do something. He was climbing the walls and Cora was in pieces.

So he’d hired an old school friend who now ran a company that had an investigations arm to, among other things, locate the ‘she-devil’ – his sister’s words. This morning, with the information fresh in his in-box, he had taken the jet to Inverness. On arrival he’d climbed into the Land Rover that had been waiting for him at the bottom of the aircraft’s steps and embarked on the uncomfortable drive to the remote cottage in the Highlands where Stella was said to be hiding out.

He’d envisaged a relatively quick trip. When he’d left at dawn he’d imagined being back at his apartment in Mayfair in time for a late dinner. But thanks to a sheep with a death wish that plan had gone to hell, and now he was stuck, in this godforsaken place, with a woman he despised and who ought not to be as strikingly, heart-stoppingly attractive as she was.

When he’d first heard her voice, he’d instantly thought of honey and warmth, and long-frozen parts of him had actually started melting. When she’d wriggled her way between the seats to locate the penknife and the trace of her scent had wound into his head, he’d momentarily forgotten why he was here. Then their eyes had met in that damn rear-view mirror and he’d felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. It was attraction of the fiercest kind, the kind he didn’t think he’d experienced before, and it was all intensely infuriating since Stella Grant was the absolutely last person he should find appealing.

Turning up the collar of his coat and lengthening his strides because it was bloody freezing Jack ignored the faint ache of his ribs and grimly surveyed his surroundings. In the summer the landscape was no doubt stunning. In late January it was cold and bleak. The flat terrain either side of the track he’d spent the last hour navigating was rocky and barren. The sun was nowhere to be seen and the dense cloud, thickening and darkening with every mile he’d driven, turned everything into a cold, unforgiving shade of whitish-grey. Even the snow that was now falling was not landing gently and prettily but was being whipped up into harsh icy flurries by the wind.

Desolate. That was the word for it. And he should know. Desolation had been his constant companion for the last three years, eleven months, three weeks and four days.

It was pretty damn merciless too, which was actually rather fitting because when it came to the woman marching towards the house ahead of him Jack wasn’t feeling in a particularly merciful frame of mind. She’d destroyed his sister’s self-esteem. She’d broken her heart and pulverised her happiness. She’d also, very possibly, stolen a valuable family heirloom. She didn’t deserve forgiveness. Or mercy. She deserved to rot in hell. The protective anger that had been simmering inside him ever since Cora had called him, distraught, on New Year’s Eve to say that she’d just discovered Brad had been having an affair surged through him all over again. Jack felt his hands curl into fists and his jaw set. If he ever got his hands on that low-life bastard, he’d beat the living shit out of him. Unfortunately Brad had gone AWOL, so that course of action had had to be put on hold.

In the meantime, though, he was going to get vengeance by letting Stella Grant know in no uncertain terms exactly what he thought of her. He saw absolutely no reason why he should tread softly. She certainly hadn’t. By the time he was done with the perfidious witch she’d be on her knees, grovelling for forgiveness. She’d be willing to do anything to atone for what she’d done. He was going to crush her rotten, unprincipled soul to dust, and frankly, he couldn’t wait.

Chapter Two

Realising she needed the space and time to come up with a strategy to deal with the inevitable and imminent confrontation, Stella had capitalised on her head start by marching back to the house with such speed she’d practically broken into a run. Since she hadn’t looked back she didn’t know how far behind Jack was lagging. Nor did she particularly care. All that mattered was that she develop a plan as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

And that was exactly what she’d done, she thought with relief, resting one hand on the pale blue wall of the hall as she tugged her boots off with the other. Whatever was coming her way, she’d remain cool and collected, and handle it in a mature, focused manner. Jack was bound to have certain grievances – which she could totally understand – and naturally he’d want to air them. He’d said he wanted answers, and as far as she could she’d provide them.

However, she’d done nothing wrong and she had nothing to be ashamed of. She was as much a victim in all this as Cora, and she had right on her side. She’d therefore present her case, clarifying any misunderstandings and correcting any misconceptions he may have, and ask him to pass on her explanations and her apologies to his sister. From what she could recall, that article she’d skimmed had also stated that while somewhat ruthless, Jack was scrupulously fair, so he’d give her a chance and listen, and it would all be very civilised.

And then, having achieved closure, she’d send him on his way. In her car. It wasn’t snowing that hard, and she might be a bit of a wimp by not wanting to drive in the cold and the dark but from what she’d seen she doubted he would have any such qualms. Once he got back to town he could make his own arrangements and have someone return her car to her in the morning and they’d be done. She could draw a line under the whole sorry story and move on.

It was a good plan.

An excellent plan.

And one that had come in the nick of time because the displacement of the air around her and the weird prickling of her skin told her that Jack had caught up and was now right behind her.

---