Belinda had gushed enthusiastically over his recent elevation to the peerage. She had always been the most appalling snob and Ran could still remember how bitterly she had opposed Alex’s request to her after his father had died that Sylvie be allowed to stay on at Otel Place with him instead of being sent to boarding school.
‘Sylvie cannot possibly live with you, Alex,’ she had told him sharply. ‘For one thing it simply wouldn’t be proper. There is, after all, no blood relationship between you. And for another... Sylvie has been spending far too much time with the wrong sort of people.’
Ran, who had been standing outside Alex’s library whilst this conversation had been taking place, had turned round and been about to walk away when, to his disgust, he had suddenly heard his own name mentioned. Alex had demanded of his stepmother, ‘What wrong sort of people...?’
‘Well, Ran for a start... Oh, I know you count him as one of your friends, but he’s still merely an employee and—’
Alex had immediately exploded, informing his stepmother, much to Ran’s chagrin, ‘Ran is a friend and, as for anything else, he happens to be far better born than either you or I.’
‘Really?’ had come back the acid retort. ‘He might be better born, Alex, but he still doesn’t have any money. Sylvie is very much in danger of developing the sort of crush on him that could totally ruin her reputation if she’s to make the right sort of marriage.’
‘“The right sort of marriage”?’ Alex had retorted angrily. ‘For heaven’s sake, what century are you living in...?’
‘Sylvie is my daughter and there’s no way I want her mixing with the estate workers...and that includes Ran... And whilst we’re on the subject, Alex, I really do think that as Sylvie’s stepbrother you do have a responsibility to her to protect her from unsuitable...friendships...’
Ran could still remember how bitterly, furiously angry he had been, how humiliated he had felt... He had made sure that he kept his distance from Sylvie after that, even if Sylvie herself had not made that particularly easy. He had been twenty-seven then, ten years older than Sylvie. A man, whilst she was still only a child.
A child... A child who had told him passionately that she loved and wanted him; a child who had demanded even more passionately that he love her back, that he make love to her...with her...that he show her...teach her...take her...
He could have wrung her pretty little neck for that...wrung it or— He could still remember how she had defied him, flinging herself into his arms, wrapping them round him, pressing her soft lips against him...
Then, he had managed to resist her...just...that time...
She had always been so passionately intense. It was perhaps no wonder that the love she had professed to feel for him had ultimately turned to loathing and hatred.
And now she was coming back. Not just to England but here, to Haverton, into his home...his life...
What would she be like? Beautiful, of course; that went without saying... Her mother had told him as much when he had bumped into her—not that he needed telling; it had been blindingly obvious even when she was a child that ultimately she would be an extraordinarily beautiful woman.
‘You’ll know, of course, that Sylvie is working in New York...for a billionaire...’ Belinda had cooed happily at him, smiling with satisfaction.
‘He’s totally besotted with her of course,’ she had added, and though it hadn’t been put into as many words Ran had gained the distinct impression from Sylvie’s mother that the relationship between Sylvie and Lloyd was rather more than that of merely employer and employee...
It had come as something of a shock to him later, when he met Lloyd, to recognise how much older than Sylvie he actually was, but he had told himself that if Sylvie chose to have as her lover a man who was plainly so much older than her then that was her business and no one else’s.