Soliman, Wendy - The Name of the Game (BookStrand Publishing Romance) by Wendy Soliman Page A

recovered.” The smile her directed at her, so full of entreaty, tugged at places she had no control over. “But don’t feel too sorry for me, darling,” he said softly. “For a year or two, things improved. I took overall control of the company, with the help of Eve’s vital five percent, and got on with life as best I could. If nothing else, I had the boys and was determined they would have as normal a family life as possible, in spite of their mother’s instability. They’ll eventually choose their own careers without any influence from me.”
    “So you’ve spent your life doing what everyone else wanted you to do.” She released the smile she could no longer hold in check. “What about your own aspirations?”
    “They were fulfilled when I met you.”
    “Matt, don’t.” She shook her head, confused, irresolute, but still determined not to come between him and his new baby. If he so much as touched her, that resolve would crumble.
    “I’m sorry, Ashley, but you did ask.”
    “Tell me more. There is more, isn’t there?”
    He cocked a brow. “Sure you want to hear it? It’s not pretty.”
    “Now I’m really intrigued.”
    “Okay, don’t say you haven’t been warned.” Matt propped his buttocks against the windowsill and looked directly at her. “In those early days, I had my mother to use as a sounding board when things got rough and, of course, the horses at Lingfield. I stopped pining for what might have been and decided to make the best use I could of the hand life had dealt me. After all, I was in a far better position than most, and if not happy, I was at least content. The boys have adjusted well to life at school and received encouraging reports. On their holidays, I always make time to be with them and we go off doing things together that exclude Eve.”
    “She doesn’t mind?”
    “She barely mentions it. We really do lead separate lives. She has a ton of friends and also spends a lot of time in the West Country with her mother and stepfather. I don’t often go with her. Stephanie and I don’t see eye to eye.”
    “Like mother, like daughter?”
    “Something like that. Eve goes off doing whatever she does whilst the boys and I ride, go sailing, stuff like that. They even somehow persuaded me to go white-water rafting with them recently.” He raised his eyes to heaven, but Ashley wasn’t fooled. He was as big a child as his sons were. “The boys are used to the way their mother behaves and treat her with offhand affection. But they aren’t particularly keen to spend much time with her in the holidays and prefer to be with their grandmother.”
    He looked up at her and the smile he offered her melted her already vulnerable heart. “And then, Ms. Wilde, I met you and you turned my whole well-organized world on its head. I stopped being satisfied with what I had and began wanting so much more. I wanted you. I still want you so much that it hurts like hell. And I give you due warning, it might have taken me a long time to find you, but now that I have, I’ve no intention of ever letting you go.”
    “Matt,” she said, ignoring the surging tide of emotion his possessiveness stirred deep within her core. “You still haven’t explained about the baby. Whose it is, I mean.”
    “Haven’t you guessed?” She shook her head. “I should have thought it would be obvious. It’s Charlie’s, of course.”

Chapter Six

    “What!” After everything Matt had just told her, it shouldn’t have come as any great surprise, but she still had trouble getting her head round something so tawdry. “Surely he didn’t tell you so?”
    “No, but think about, it would be his ultimate revenge.” Matt suddenly looked bone weary and every one of his forty-one years. Ashley desperately wanted to comfort him, but her emotions were too raw, she still didn’t totally believe him, and so she didn’t move. “Not only has he finally had the woman he’s loved for years,” Matt said with a derisive