For Revenge or Redemption?

For Revenge or Redemption? by Elizabeth Power

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Authors: Elizabeth Power
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company made her wonder if there was something going on between him and Corinne. ‘Did you cook this up between you?’
    ‘No, we didn’t. I haven’t seen Paul Harringdale since you broke up with him. He’s not my type.’
    No. Your type is more besotted elderly men who’ll give you anything just to hear you flatter their diminishing egos! Grace thought bitterly.
    ‘When you’ve calmed down a bit, Grace, you’ll realise that I’ve done Culverwells a favour. The company needs a man like Seth Mason. When he approached me to see if I’d sell, what could I do? He can be pretty persuasive. Wow! I don’t know what you’re complaining about. I can’t imagine it being that much of a punishment, taking orders from a man like that.’
    Grace bit back the desire to tell her grandfather’s widow that she could go ahead and take orders from him if she wanted to, because she wasn’t going to. But then she would have to hand in her resignation and she had already promised herself that she wouldn’t do that.
    ‘Goodbye, Corinne.’
    Ringing off, she stepped through into the adjacent showerroom and, stripping off her clothes, stepped under the refreshing spray of the jets, wishing she could cut off her thoughts as easily as she had cut the line to her grandfather’s widow.
    But the memories wouldn’t leave her alone, and unwillingly she found herself reflecting on the emotional chaos of eight years ago: the shock of her pregnancy. Her shame and regret over the way she had behaved. The unbelievable anguish following a miscarriage at four-and-a-half months.
    It was then that she’d realised that life wasn’t just one big party; that there were debts to be paid and rules to berespected, and that some things in life had a far, far greater value than status or money.
    But she didn’t want to think about any of that. It was all because of seeing Seth again that the past had opened its floodgates, making her dwell on things that she wanted, needed, to forget: regret. Loneliness. Self-blame. The pain of her loss.
    She didn’t have to think about it, and she wouldn’t, she told herself fiercely. She had enough worries with the company right now and the shock of Seth Mason taking over.
    Towelling herself off, she went through into the dressingroom adjacent to her office and, sliding back the doors on the mirror-fronted cupboards, she scanned the shelves for fresh underwear. She always kept a change of clothes in the office in case of an unexpected out-of-hours meeting or dinner when she couldn’t get home to change.
    Now she pulled a silver-grey silk blouse and dark businesssuit down off their hangers, donned clean underwear and drew a short pencil-line skirt up over her hips.
    She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him get to her, she determined as she slipped on her blouse and came through into her office to jot down a reminder to herself of a dental appointment that had almost slipped her mind. She couldn’t help wondering what he would say if he ever found out that there had been repercussions from their love-making all those years ago. What he would think—that it had been her comeuppance for the appalling way in which she had behaved?
    Fumbling with the top fastening of her blouse, she shuddered from the thought of how he might gloat. She was glad that he didn’t know and would never know all that she had been through. Then she looked up, startled, her eyes dark and enormous, to see him striding into her office.
    ‘Don’t you ever knock?’ she challenged, flustered, still trying to fasten her blouse which was gaping open, revealing too much of her creamy breasts in their black lacy cups.
    ‘The door was open.’ He looked as shocked and surprisedas she was to see him, while his eyes skimmed with barely veiled masculine interest over her state of undress. ‘Anyway, I thought you’d gone home.’
    ‘Because you ordered me to?’ She couldn’t seem to give him any leeway, even if she wanted to.
    ‘Advised,’ he

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