Bargain with the devil Read Free Page A

carefully.
    He chuckled unexpectedly. „Don’t think you’re going to talk me out of this with a bit of patio psychology,“ he mocked. „Although you’re welcome to try. After all, part of the revenge will be watching the various members of the Rylan clan grow increasingly upset and finally desperate. There are all sorts of possibilities, you know. One is that your father will fear for the health of the company and will attempt to resume control. Your brother will resent that, naturally, and they’ll quarrel.“ Hunter lifted a hand as if handing the conclusion to Stacy on a platter. „Another wedge, this time between father and son.
    Your father won’t like that one bit. Not after raising your brother as the heir apparent!“
    Stacy thought of the proud manner in which Paul Rylan had turned the responsibility for the day-to-day running of Rylan Enterprises over to her thirty-year-old brother, and then taken off on a lengthy cruise to demonstrate his complete confidence in the young man. Then she reflected on the humiliation her brother, Eric, would experience if he had to face his father with the news that the son of an old business rival had run off with his beautiful young wife, of whom Paul and Miriam Rylan had so wholeheartedly approved! If there were problems with the business on top of that…!
    „Your whole plan hinges on Leana going along with your seduction routine,“ Stacy snapped. „She’s not a vicious person. I think she really does care for my brother. I’ll explain what you’re up to, and she won’t have anything further to do with you!“
    „You think not? As long as your brother is too tied up with business or too doting on his little flirt of a wife to take her in hand, I’ll be able to control Leana!“
    Stacy was very much afraid he was right. The pressures of business at the moment were such that Eric simply didn’t have time to do all the amusing and entertaining things with his wife that Leana expected as her due. Furthermore, he tended to give his charming new bride everything she wished, including her way in a great many things. Hunter probably didn’t know it, but there had already been quarrels between the recently married pair. Even Stacy wasn’t certain how deep or how brutal the arguments had been. She perceived only a hint of them from the few things Leana had casually mentioned. Hunter’s efforts might find particularly wide opportunity if he really set out to break up Eric and Leana’s marriage. Stacy glanced down at the partially eaten apple in her hand, trying to think of some way to talk Hunter Manning out of his plans. Slowly she lifted her head, meeting the hard gray gaze with an honest, pleading expression in her own green eyes.
    „Mr. Manning,“ she began clearly, deliberately. „I understand that you were very affected by what happened fourteen years ago, but revenge is a dangerous emotion if you let it dominate your life.
    What happiness will it bring you to destroy my brother’s marriage?“
    „I’m not looking for happiness, Miss Rylan,“ Hunter returned mockingly. „Merely satisfaction.“
    „And what will you do when you have that? Do you suppose it will last very long?“
    „Longer than what most people call happiness, I believe,“ he told her arrogantly.
    „You can’t have known much happiness, I think,“ Stacy mused gently.
    „Thank you for your concern, Miss Rylan. I assure you it’s entirely unnecessary!“
    „I agree! I expect you’re the last person in the world over whom I should worry! I only mentioned it because I thought you might want to consider the relative merits of happiness and the satisfaction of revenge. I think if you gain one, it will be at the expense of the other, and you ought to consider the long-range consequences!“ Stacy retorted spiritedly.
    „I’m fully capable of doing my own long-range planning, thank you. I have, after all, just spent fourteen years getting myself to the precise point where I am