Forbidden or For Bedding? (13 page)

Her face worked. ‘I met her last night. I didn't know it was her—and thank God she didn't know who I was! But it was clear—clear as a bell—that she knew what she was in for in marrying him. Knew just how Guy was going to treat her. I didn't know it was him she was talking about—just heard about her cold-blooded brute of a fiancé, who thinks her clumsy and gauche, and who's going to set up a mistress and pay no attention to his bride and doesn't even damn well care! Doesn't care that he's going to humiliate her and neglect her. And I felt so damn sorry for her. But I didn't…didn't…' Her features twisted. ‘I didn't realise that it was going to be me who was going to be set up to
be the convenient mistress. To give her husband someone “beautiful and elegant—”' she mocked the description with bitter savagery ‘—to have sex with, because he'd be uninterested in his
ingénue
young teenage bride!'

She raked more air into her lungs. ‘Immie, I thought you were cynical and mistrusting, but you were right—right all along! I thought that however…
odd
…you thought my relationship with Guy was, you were wrong about his treating me badly. I wasn't just convenient sex-on-demand as you said I was.' Her voice hardened, scraping along her skin. ‘But you were right all along. That's exactly what I was. Exactly what he still wants me to be. The only difference is that this time—' she gave a harsh, humourless laugh ‘—I'm to be even more invisible! This time around I mustn't even phone him, mustn't contact him, must be totally unseen, unsuspected.' Her voice twisted. ‘At least until he's got this convenient extra-marital sexual arrangement accepted by his bride. Which she will, poor kid, because it's what she's expecting anyway.'

Her face worked again, hands clenching.

‘Oh, Immie—how could I have been such a damn
fool
?'

Across the breakfast bar, Imogen could only sigh heavily, squeeze Alexa's hands comfortingly, and say, with care and tact, ‘It's always easy to blind ourselves to what we don't want to know.' Then, with even more care and tact, she said, ‘Um, you mentioned that Guy let himself in? Which means he must still have your keys? I don't mean to panic you, but it might be a good idea to change the lock.'

Alexa gazed across at her friend. Her expression changed.

‘Oh,' she said, ‘I'm going to do a lot more than just that.'

 

Guy was in a good mood. An excellent mood. The best mood he'd been in for a long time.

Everyone noticed it. His staff, his friends, his family. He knew what they ascribed his good mood to, and he found it
fort amusant
that they did. Because it had nothing to do with his impending nuptials.

Just the opposite.

Marriage to Louisa no longer loured over his head like a heavy weight. Now, thankfully, he no longer had only its confines ahead of him. Instead, he had something very different. Satisfaction creamed through him. Why had he ever thought he'd have to relinquish his liaison with Alexa? Do without her? She'd suited him so well. Why had he ever terminated his affair with her just because he had been hog-tied by Heinrich into marrying his daughter to save his pernicious bank? Such a sacrifice was, in fact, quite unnecessary.

Oh, it would be tricky, he knew. Not easy to pull off, and requiring careful timing and finesse. Yes, it would involve deceiving Louisa—but, young as she was, she had been born to a family in which such arrangements were unexceptional, so why should she object to what he was planning? She understood the realities of the kinds of lives they all led, the privileges and the obligations alike. And, since she was no more in love with him than he with her, why should she care either way? Yes, she might perceive his arrangement as unflattering, but there was no question that she would be jealous, or feel rejected. Why should she not be accommodating about it all? Understand what he was doing, and why?

As for Alexa, she had already proved exemplarily discreet, so he had no reason to doubt
her
continuance on that score. He'd warned her that extra discretion would be required initially, but he was confident it would not be an
issue for her. She would be as accommodating as Louisa, understanding the necessity for a low profile for the time being.

His mind raced ahead.

When can I be with her again?

Anticipation licked in him. The hunger of desire—desire that had burned within him that night of the charity gala when he'd seen her again after doing without her for four long months. He'd told himself that terminating their affair had been a necessity he could not avoid—unwelcome though it had been when she was so exactly what suited him—but seeing her again like that he had known, when the revealing anger lashed within him, that one thing was very clear about Alexa.

No man but me.

Well, now it was going to stay that way. No man but he in her life.

That was what he wanted—and that was now what he was going to get.

He just had to make it work, that was all. And he would. Of that he was confident.

He leant back in his chair, reaching out to the keyboard on his desk, tapping it briefly to pull up his diary, scrolling rapidly down the coming weeks. He looked for that all-essential window when he could get back to London—back to Alexa.

Back to her bed.

He paused the scroll. There—that was the opportunity he wanted. Ten days away. A mere ten days to wait before he got her to himself again. His good mood enhanced, he extracted his mobile and dialled hers. There was no answer. He gave a slight shrug, sliding the phone back in his jacket pocket. He would try again later. Because of this new, irritating need for discretion he would not leave a message,
only speak to her—though he knew from previous experience that when she was painting, whether or not her subject was a commission or personal, she would not answer.

Tant pis
—there was time in hand.

But as the days slipped by he was still not able to reach her. Three days before he was due in London his mounting irritation peaked, and he sent one of his security staff to convey the information about his imminent arrival.

The information was never delivered.

Alexa Harcourt, so he was informed by his security staff, no longer lived at that address. Alexa Harcourt, so his disbelieving enquiries further revealed, had disappeared off the face of the earth.

A
LEXA
flexed her fingers, trying to warm them and failing. The cold was biting, eating into her, making holding a paintbrush an increasing ordeal. The lone electric heater in the room she'd allocated as a studio, actually little more than a lean-to, made scant impact against the harsh weather outside.

But this desolate spot was exactly what she'd sought—somewhere to hide from the man who wanted to keep her as a handy side-dish for his tasteless marriage to a girl who was resigned to his infidelity even before her wedding day. Somewhere to hide from the man who'd treated her as a convenient source of sex-on-demand, accepting and acquiescent, whenever it had suited him.

A man who expected her to say yes to anything he wanted of her.

Her face hardened. Well, finally,
finally,
she'd learnt to say no.

The tight band around her heart, which had been there for so long now, tightened another notch. She'd learnt to welcome it, that crushing tightness. Knowing that it was like a stay around her heart, holding it together. Holding her together. Making her strong.

Strong enough to hate the man she'd once loved.

Because hate him she did. There was no doubt about that. No doubt in her mind whatsoever.

He treated you like dirt—and then he came back to treat you even worse than dirt!

All the arguments that she'd poured out at Imogen's that long, nightmare day when she'd fled to her friend's house, churning with emotion, sounded again in her head. Imogen had let her pour them out, let her purge herself, and then, making her a large, hot, strong mug of tea, she'd run through all the options that presented themselves.

This cottage in the middle of winter, in the middle of nowhere, had not been top of Imogen's list. Top of her list, Alexa knew, was simply changing the locks on Alexa's flat, changing her mobile and landline number, paying a solicitor to write to Guy de Rochemont informing him not to attempt any further contact with his client, and then, as a perfect remedy to all of Alexa's ills, going out with Richard Saxonby as often as it took for her to realise he was a perfect match, then moving in with him, settling down and, best of all, marrying him.

‘He's absolutely ideal for you!' Imogen had waxed lyrical, running through, yet again, all the reasons why he was such a wonderful man and perfect for Alexa.

But Alexa knew that his main attraction, for her friend, was that he was not Guy. That was all that really mattered to Imogen. Keeping Guy away from Alexa, keeping him out of her life. Out of her head. Most importantly of all, out of her heart.

‘Thank goodness he's shown his true colours—not that I was ever in doubt anyway,' she seethed. ‘But now even you, blind as you were to him, have seen him for what he is!'

To Imogen it was obvious, Alexa could see, that the way
to rid herself of Guy de Rochemont was by replacing him with Richard. But for Alexa it was not that simple.

‘It wouldn't be fair on Richard,' she said. ‘And anyway…' her chest heaved ‘…I don't want to be in London. It's too—'

Dangerous
—that was what she meant to say. Too dangerous. Oh, she could change her locks and her telephone numbers, but that wouldn't make her feel safe.

Safe from Guy—safe from what he wanted of her.

Memory burned like a flame, licking over her flesh. It was agony—and worse, far worse, than agony….

She shut her eyes, trying to stamp out the flame, stamp out the memory imprinted onto her body.
Her body fusing with his, melding, becoming one, becoming whole…

Desperately she tore her mind away, forcing her eyes to open again. Imogen was talking, immediately sympathetic. ‘I agree—a change of scene is exactly what you need. Somewhere completely different. A holiday—you haven't had one in ages. Somewhere tropical—the Caribbean, the Maldives, the Seychelles!' Seeing her friend's expression, she hurried on. ‘We'll go together. I can rearrange my diary today—there's nothing I can't get out of—then we'll hit the internet and book online. We can be at the airport tomorrow!'

‘I don't think—' Alexa started hesitantly. What Imogen was suggesting was the very last thing she would possibly want.

‘It's just what you need,' Imogen repeated. ‘A complete change of scene, total relaxation. Getting away from everything—especially that adulterous bastard!'

Alexa shook her head. ‘I want to move out of London,' she said.

Imogen was aghast. ‘You can't run away! Why
should
you?
He's
the one that's been a despicable rat. Why should you have to go? What about your commissions?'

‘I've nearly finished the current one, and you'll just have to cancel anything else.'

Imogen bit her lip. ‘I won't let you mess up your career for that creep.'

Alexa just looked at her. ‘I've no heart for it any more. I don't want anything more to do with that world. All those rich, powerful men… It…it reminds me too much…'

‘OK,' Imogen allowed, hearing the shaky note in Alexa's voice. ‘Well, why not go on some kind of art-break, or something, for the rest of the winter? Move to Morocco, or Brazil, somewhere you can just paint your own stuff for a couple of months? I'll postpone any bookings and say you've gone somewhere warm for your health for the time being.'

Alexa nodded slowly, murmuring agreement, and Imogen was reassured. But she was aghast when she discovered just what Alexa had decided on.

‘No, no, no,
no
!' she cried. ‘That's just
not
what you need. Holing up in some godforsaken hovel in the wilds of Devon in the middle of winter!'

But her objections fell on deaf ears. Alexa packed her suitcase, and enough of her art materials to keep her going, put away the personal effects in her apartment, and handed it over to an estate agent to let it for six months. Then she hired a car, loaded it up, and set off.

‘The estate agent has my contact details, but I've told him not to let you have them unless it's a genuine life or death emergency,' she told an appalled Imogen.

‘I can't believe you're doing this,' Imogen said disbelievingly.

‘I need to do it.' It was all Alexa could manage to say.

It had been true, and was true still, she knew, despite the
drear, cheerless countryside—or because of it. The leafless trees, the cold, raw weather, the grey, lowering skies and bare, muddy fields tuned in exactly with what she felt.

Desolate.

A desolation of the heart. Of the spirit.

Worse, much worse than before.

Then I thought it was simply that I'd fallen in love with a man who hadn't fallen in love with me. I accepted it—just as I accepted the limitations of the relationship—but I never thought ill of him.

The vice around her heart crushed tighter still.

Now she knew better.

She knew that she'd fallen in love with a man who wanted nothing more than adulterous, clandestine sexual congress. He regarded her as fit for nothing more. Humiliating his bride, holding both her and the woman he wanted to make sexual use of in callous contempt.

For a man like that it was possible to feel only one emotion.

Not love. Never love—not for a man like that. Love had to be not ignored, like last time, not starved or blanked out, but torn out by its roots, ripped out of her heart, bleed though it would. It did not matter. She had to be clean of such a tainted, toxic emotion. For such a man only one emotion should be felt.

Hatred. Hatred that would burn her clean—burn and rip that misbegotten love out of her. Hatred that could tear it loose.

Hatred that could free her from its thrall. Release her from this prison of desolation.

But hatred had to be channelled, or it would devour her.

With a set, granite face she reached again for the canvas. Blank, bare—

Then reached for her paints, her brush.

Reached for her hatred.

And let it loose upon the canvas.

 

‘Well?' Guy's voice was harsh as he snatched up the phone.

‘It's done.' The person at the other end of the line was brief, the way he knew his employer wanted him to be. He'd given the answer he knew his employer wanted. Just why Guy de Rochemont, who ran the vast financial and commercial empire of Rochemont-Lorenz, wanted to make this particular purchase his employee had no idea. It fitted in with nothing in the vast Rochemont-Lorenz portfolio, and was on such a small scale that even if there had been some logical reason for it, it was hardly of the order of magnitude that would draw the attention of the head of the empire. But it was not his job to ask questions—only to carry out instructions, and that was what he had done.

‘Now, get me the following information,' came his next instruction down the line. ‘I want it by tonight.' The line went dead.

In his London office, Guy dropped the phone on the gleaming mahoghany surface of his desk. His eyes stared out into the middle distance. They were very green. Very glittering.

Hard as emeralds.

They were harder still when he received the information he'd demanded. Still hard when the next morning, after a sleepless night—as so many nights now were—he climbed into the gleaming new vehicle and gunned the engine, keying in his destination to the satnav.

As he headed out into the London traffic the emerald glitter focussed only on the direction he was going.

Westwards.

 

It had been raining all night. Steady, relentless rain that had come down out of a leaden sky, turning the fields to a quagmire and the unmetalled lane up to the cottage to little better. Alexa was glad she didn't have to get in any shopping for a while. She'd got into a routine since she'd been here, of driving into the local market town some ten miles away and picking up enough groceries and household items to keep her going for a week.

Her lifestyle was simple, pared to the bone. She was uninterested in anything else. So long as the stash of logs neatly stacked in the outhouse extension behind the cottage's old-fashioned kitchen held out, so she could feed the log-burning stove in the sitting room that was the main source of heat besides the electric heater in the lean to, and so long as the electricity supply stayed operational, she was fine.

She wasn't lonely.

She was used, after all, to a quiet lifestyle. Even in London she'd been content with her own company, never craving the bright lights. Occasional dinner parties, lunch out, the theatre, concerts and art exhibitions were all that she'd wanted. Had it not been for her work and for the rich treasures of art that London housed she'd have been happier in the country anyway.

Though she would not want to live anywhere as remote, as desolate as this isolated cottage. It was doubtless an idyllically pastoral hideway in the summer for holiday-makers, but it now dripped water from the eaves on her head when she stepped outside. From under the doors a perpetual draught whistled, echoing the wind wuthering in the chimney in the evenings. The windows rattled in the bedroom, and she was pretty certain that mice were scuttling in the cob walls.

Not that they bothered her either, provided they kept out
of sight. Nor did the spiders that emerged from the wood basket, scuttling across the sitting room to take refuge under the sofa.

Unless the rain was a deluge, she made the effort to get outdoors every day, pulling on the pair of sturdy gumboots she'd bought in the market town, with a thick waxed jacket and a scarf to hold her hair down in the wind that blew in from the west, whatever the weather. She tramped down the muddy lanes and across fields, where incurious cattle continued to graze, and weather-beaten sheep lifted heads to stare unblinkingly at her as she crossed their domain.

The bleakness all around her echoed her own.

How long had she been here now? The days had merged one into another, and then into weeks. It must be four, five weeks already.

But time had no meaning for her. She was living in a world of her own, bare and bleak, but it was what she wanted. What she needed.

She crossed to the log-burner and crouched down to feed it. She'd mastered the art of keeping it alight, damping down all night, then building it up again in the morning. Now, by midday, the little sitting room was warm, despite the raw cold outside and the sodden, chill air.

Closing the door of the log-burner, she straightened. And turned her head sharply. She could hear a car approaching.

It was a car, definitely, not the tractor in which the local farmer sometimes lumbered past the cottage on his way to his fields. Warily, she crossed to the little deep inset window and peered out across the lane. A huge four-by-four was drawing up, its sides covered in newly spattered mud from the unmetalled lane, its wheels half a foot deep in a waterlogged rut.

Was this the letting agent? The local farmer? Someone
who was completely lost down this dead-end lane? Someone was getting out. She heard a car door slam, but she couldn't see from this side. She quit her post and headed for the front door, pulling it open.

And froze.

Disbelief drowned her. She could
not
be seeing what she was. She couldn't…

It can't be him—it can't, it can't! It's impossible. Impossible! He can't be here. He can't, he can't, he can't!

But he was. Striding up to her.

Her vision swam, and she clutched at the doorframe to steady herself. He stopped in front of her. Tall. Overpowering.

Intimidating.

A shot of emotion bolted through her. It wasn't fear—it couldn't be fear, surely it couldn't be fear? But it was strong, and sharp and it seized her lungs.

‘Alexa.'

It was all he said, standing there, confronting her.

‘How—how did you…?' Her frail voice failed.

But he didn't answer, merely steered past her, going into the cottage. Numbly she followed him. He seemed far too tall for its low-pitched confines. He strode into the living room, where the log-burner beckoned, and positioned himself in front of it, looking around the room. Then his gaze swept back to Alexa, standing frozen by the doorway. His eyes glittered.