Read When the Devil Drives for Free Online

raged inwardly. Sowing discord and distrust wherever he went.
    She couldn't deny that Simon had been all kinds of a fool, but she
    couldn't believe he was also a thief. She wouldn't believe it.
    'There's got to be some way out of this mess,' she said aloud, through
    gritted teeth, as she paced the length and breadth of the
    drawing-room. 'There's got to be. Together we'll think of something.
    We have to!'
    She swallowed convulsively as that same small voice in her head
    reminded her of the sheer magnitude of what was threatening them
    all. The loss of their home, the destruction of their remaining business
    venture, and personal disgrace for Simon—and all at the worst
    possible time, if there was ever a good time for such things to happen,
    she acknowledged wryly.
    It was no good telling herself that it was all Simon's own fault, and
    he'd have to find some remedy himself. She couldn't leave him to sink
    if she could help him to swim. But she couldn't sacrifice herself
    either.
    Cal Blackstone's words rang like hammer blows inside her brain. 'I
    want you. Come to me...'
    He's just offered me the ultimate insult, she told herself, by
    presuming I'd even consider such a degrading suggestion. He's
    misjudged me completely.
    Yet he'd summed up some of her past reactions with disturbing
    accuracy, she recalled unwillingly. His comments about her marriage
    to Martin had been too close to the mark for comfort.
    She shivered. What was she saying? She'd loved Martin, of course
    she had. He'd been sweet and safe and there, and she'd thought that
    was enough. She'd convinced herself that it was.
    Only it wasn't, she thought wretchedly. How could it be? And it was
    disaster for both of us.
    On the day of his funeral, she'd stood in the small bleak churchyard in
    the conventional black dress of the widow, feeling drained of
    emotion, totally objective, as if all this tragedy were happening to
    some other person. She could even remember being thankful that the
    demure veiling on her equally conventional hat concealed the fact
    that she was completely tearless.
    Then she'd looked up and seen Cal Blackstone staring at her. He'd
    been standing on the edge of thesmall crowd of mourners, but his
    head wasn't bent in grief or common respect. There had been
    bitterness i'a the look he sent her, and condemnation, and overlying
    all a kind of grim triumph.
    Don't think I've given up, his glance had told her. This marriage of
    yours was just an obstacle which has now been removed. And now
    I'm coming after you again.
    The knowledge of it had been like a blow, knocking all the breath out
    of her body. Involuntarily, instinctively, she'd taken a step backwards
    in instant negation, her foot stumbling on a tussock of earth.
    'Be careful, my dear!' Her father had insisted on attending the
    ceremony with her, standing bareheaded at her side in the windswept
    graveyard, and she'd snatched at his arm for comfort and support as
    she'd done when she was a small girl, and a crowd of jeering boys had
    thrown earth and stones at their car.
    Oh, I will, she'd promised herself silently. I'll take more care than I've
    ever done in my whole life.
    Aunt Vinnie's letter offering her sanctuary had been, like Martin's
    proposal of marriage, a godsend, a lifeline, and she'd snatched at that
    too, telling herself that Cal Blackstone would eventually resign
    himself to the fact that she was gone, and abandon his crazy obsession
    about her.
    He wasn't really serious about it, she'd assured herself over and over
    again. For heaven's sake, he was never short of female
    companionship, so he wasn't exactly single-minded about his pursuit
    of her, if she could call it that. He didn't chase her, yet he always
    seemed to be there, like a dark shadow on the edge of her world, a
    winter storm threatening the brightness of her horizon.
    If she went away, and stayed away, with luck he'd forget her, and get
    safely married to one of the many willing ladies he escorted. Time
    and