Back in the Lion's Den Read Free

that—somehow use his power and influence to get even with her for how he believed she had treated Niall.
    ‘I didn’t come here for that.’
    ‘No. You just want me to hand her over without all the hassle. Well, I’m sorry, Conan, but the answer’s still no. Daisy’s not going anywhere without me, and I’m certainly not putting myself back into the lion’s den, thank you very much!’
    ‘Oh, I think you will, Sienna.’
    ‘And what makes you so sure?’
    ‘Conscience, sweetheart. If you have one.’
    Her small chin came up as she said bitterly, ignoring the patronising way in which he had addressed her, ‘Like you, you mean?’
    She didn’t wait to catch any sniping response.
    Making sure Daisy was asleep, Sienna kissed the little girl’s soft cheek before extinguishing her bedside lamp, unable to resist stroking the silky chestnut hair that curled against the pillow.
    Like Niall’s, she thought poignantly, pulling the duvet up over the chubby arm wrapped around her pink hippopotamus. Daisy had inherited her father’s colouring, not hers.
    Going back downstairs, she opened the back door to let in a big bouncing bundle of white shaggy fur, filled a bowl with the dog’s supper, and then started the ironing—normalthings she did every day, except tonight things felt anything but normal.
    Meeting Conan again had opened up all the unhappiness of the past, forcing her to dwell on wounds she’d thought had healed, forcing her to think, to remember.
    She had been just twenty when she had met Niall.
    With her parents having sold their UK home to live abroad, Sienna had chosen to stay in England on her own. Her parents had always done their own thing. They liked sun, sea and sand, and Sienna had been happy for them, while relishing the prospect of occasional holidays in Spain.
    She had been working as a receptionist at her local gym when she had met Niall. He had been a regular member there, and had often come into the bar where she had sometimes helped when it was short-staffed. She had instantly warmed to his wicked sense of humour. He’d been witty and charming, and just a little bit crazy, and she’d been swept off her feet before she had known what hit her.
    Her parents had flown over for the wedding, which had been a short civil ceremony after a whirlwind romance. Faith and Barry Swann and Niall’s mother—a barrister’s widow—were poles apart, and while they’d tried to befriend her new mother-in-law it was clear that Avril Ryder hadn’t really warmed towards them. It had also been clear to Sienna from the start that the woman believed she had trapped her youngest son into marriage by getting pregnant, which was something over which Sienna had been silently smug, proving her wrong when Daisy had arrived exactly a year to the day that they had married.
    Conan had been at the wedding, interrupting some important business conference he’d been attending in Europe, and the cool touch of his lips on her cheek as he’d wished her well after the ceremony had been as formal as it had been unsettling.
    It had been clear, though, that Niall looked up to his brother, and Sienna had understood why. Already approaching his latetwenties to his half-brother’s twenty-three, and spearheading a global telecommunications company, Conan Ryder had been a mind-blowing success—dynamic, wealthy and sophisticated. It had been apparent to Sienna from the start who Niall was trying to emulate in the way he spoke, in his image, even in that air of glacial composure that Conan exuded.
    Niall had been a top sales executive working at Conan’s head office, though not before pulling himself out of university and destroying his mother’s hopes of him following his late father into the legal profession. Nevertheless, he had been good at his job, and determined that she would reap the benefits—from the clothes he had bought her to every conceivable luxury she had wanted in their modern four bedroom home, a house he had