Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure (11 page)

Her heels tapped on the marble tiles of the hallway as she approached the half-open door. She could see Orlando standing there, his hand on the handle, but then she felt her confident footsteps falter as she heard Arabella’s voice…

‘Come and meet your son…’

Rachel stopped dead. Through a crack in the door she saw Arabella’s face. She bore the look of a chess grandmaster who had just uttered the word
checkmate.

On the desk, from the depths of a bulky infant carrier seat, Rachel caught a fleeting glimpse of a tiny flailing hand before Orlando slammed the door shut, leaving her shivering on the outside.

Orlando walked slowly over to the window, trying to keep as much distance between himself and Arabella. And this child. His head felt as if it was full of sand, and he rubbed his forehead with his undamaged hand, trying to clear it. Trying to rub away the images of Rachel that wouldn’t seem to leave him.

‘What mess?’

‘Jamie’s kicked me out,’ she said dully. ‘I thought the baby was his, but, given that Jamie is deliciously Scandinavian and blond, it’s painfully bloody obvious that it isn’t.’

‘You must have known that from the dates?’ Orlando ground out from between gritted teeth. Arabella left nothing to chance. Her body ran to the same strictly controlled timetable as the rest of her life.

He heard her sigh. ‘It must have happened that last couple of weeks. When you were…told. Diagnosed. Whatever. Felix was home…’ For a moment her voice faltered, and then hardened, almost defensively. ‘It was a horrible time for me. I was so confused. I didn’t have anyone to talk to…’

Orlando’s face was a mask of contempt, and it dripped from every sneering word. ‘Poor you.’

‘It was hell! You never talked to me. You just pushed me away!’

‘Funny,’ said Orlando acidly. ‘That isn’t how I remember it. As I recall, you ran out of the room when I told you what Parkes had said, and went back to London that afternoon for some party.’ He swore softly. ‘Oh, God. What a coincidence. Jamie van Hartesvelt’s party…’

‘I was shocked…devastated—surely you can understand that! I needed space to think—to adjust,’ Arabella protested. ’Suddenly you weren’t the same person any more, the man I’d fallen in love with. And then, when I came back the next day, you hardly acknowledged my existence. If it hadn’t been for Felix I don’t know how I would have coped…’ She was silent for a moment, and then added, almost in an undertone, ‘Felix was good to me.’

‘Of course he was,’ said Orlando bitterly. ‘Because he’d won. Everything we ever did was in competition with each other, and suddenly it was over. I was out. Defeated. He was the winner, so he could afford to be bloody
good
to you.’

‘It wasn’t like that! He was devastated too. He looked up to you so much, Orlando, and the thought of you being…weakened, being
reduced,
was almost more than he could bear! I wasn’t surprised when I heard that he was dead. He shouldn’t have been flying. He was still too upset.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, spare me the guilt trip! I’m supposed to believe now that Felix’s death is due to my selfish, embarrassing
weakness?
Jeez, Arabella—does it not enter your stupid, self-absorbed head that it’s bad enough knowing that I’m here, sentenced to this bloody awful half-life, while Felix has been robbed of a useful, long, full one? Don’t you think that’s bad enough without you telling me it’s actually
my fault
? Don’t you think I’d change places with him without a second’s hesitation? The only thing that makes it bearable is the knowledge that wherever he is now, he’s laughing because he won. From here to eternity he’s a
hero,
for God’s sake!’

She raised her head, and it was lucky that Orlando couldn’t see the look of cruel triumph on her face. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said quietly. ‘That destroys you, doesn’t it, Orlando? Felix died a hero, while you’re living the life of a hermit.’

Above the drumming of blood in his ears, Orlando heard the sound of Arabella unbuckling the straps of the baby seat, and the soft sigh and whimper of the child as she picked him up. ‘It’s a bit of a come-down, isn’t it, darling, after the accolades and the adulation? Just as well Felix did his bit to uphold the family name. Just as well he’s a good role model for your son. That’s why I called him after his brave uncle. Meet Felix.’

Orlando felt the blood drain from his face. The room was very still, very quiet. The sounds of the party were coming to them as if from a parallel universe, not merely from the other side of a closed door. Eventually Orlando spoke. His voice was hollow.

‘Why? Why did you do that?’

‘Because I did everything to make you love me,’ Arabella hissed venomously. ‘I was
perfect.
You have no idea how much effort it took to be perfect all the time, and it still wasn’t enough. You didn’t love me. You didn’t need me. You had everything and I was just an accessory. But in all that time we were together I came to understand you, and I knew the one person who could really touch your impenetrable heart was Felix. You loved him, but you hated him, too.’

He had to hand it to her. Her aim had been to inflict the maximum amount of pain and she had succeeded. She was right, and he’d underestimated her. She’d made sure in the most subtle, agonising way possible that he would never be allowed to forget Felix’s victory. Felix’s heroism. His own fallibility.

‘Well done,’ he said bleakly. ‘It seems you’ve won too. What now?’

‘I haven’t bloody well won. I’m the loser in all this, Orlando. It’s destroyed my life, my career, my relationship, my
body,
for God’s sake.’ She was pacing briskly back and forth across the room, bouncing the inert bundle in her arms with alarming ferocity. ‘It’s harder than it looks, this parenting thing. No sleep. No going out. No time do have a bath or talk on the phone or go shopping. It’s suffocating. Everybody’s always on at me not to drink and smoke—as if I hadn’t already given up enough.’

Orlando felt the sweat break out on the back of his neck as this insight into the early weeks of his child’s life was starkly revealed. He stepped forward, his hands in his pockets so she couldn’t see his clenched fists, but she was too wrapped up in herself to notice anything else.

Her voice had taken on a slightly hysterical edge. ‘I can’t do it any more, Orlando. I need a break. I’m going to Paris, and I’m leaving the baby with you.’

She closed her eyes against the sudden rush of tears, but felt them ooze out from under her lids as she pictured Orlando’s big, strong hands holding the baby, the lips that had so recently brought her to the brink of ecstasy dropping the tenderest of kisses on that tiny, downy head. And his eyes…his astonishing, glacier-green eyes…looking down into the face of his own child and being softened with helpless love.

As a child she had never known her father, and his absence had caused her to construct an elaborate image of the kind of person she would have chosen to fill his role. A perfect hero: strong, fearless, handsome, honourable. Like Orlando.

She buried her face in the shoulder of the merchant banker while she tried to puncture the misery that was ballooning inside her, but was unable to contain her moan of hopelessness. Unfortunately the merchant banker mistook the sound for pleasure, and instantly tightened his grip, dropping his head to breathe hot, whisky-scented fumes into her ear.

Her eyes flew open in panic and she tried to pull away, but his palm was damp and heavy on her bare back, pushing her body harder against his, so she could feel the pressure of his arousal. It was just like Carlos all over again—and for a second she felt the room tilt and swim as panic swamped her.

‘My turn now, I think,’ said a cold voice.

Instantly the merchant banker released her from his insistent embrace and melted away. Rachel stood in the centre of the floor, looking dazedly up at Orlando.

His face was ashen, utterly drained of colour and emotion, and his eyes were dark and haunted. For a moment they gazed at each other in wordless agony, before he very slowly placed his bandaged hand on her back and drew her into his arms.

He had rescued her again.

‘Boy or girl?’ Rachel whispered.

He held his head very upright, for fear that if he felt her hair brush against him he would be lost.

‘Boy.’

‘How old?’

‘Ten weeks.’

The music of the string quartet was soft and innocuous. Rachel moved with absent-minded fluidity in his arms, so that he could feel her spine flexing beneath his hand. Holding her so close was almost unendurable. Her voice was soft and distant.

‘What’s his name?’

Orlando’s hand tightened convulsively on hers. He closed his eyes briefly.

‘Felix.’

He felt her move her head, tilting it backwards so she could look into his face.

‘Your brother would be pleased about that, wouldn’t he?’

He laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, yes. Extremely pleased.’

‘Congratulations.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Don’t say that.’ He gave a crooked, humourless smile and echoed her words from yesterday. ‘It’s not a “congratulations” situation.’

‘How can it not be? You have a child…’

‘I only have Arabella’s word that he’s mine.’

He’d always been careful. In those days he’d never been without a wallet full of condoms. Had always used one. Always.

In
those days.
But not last night. He hadn’t used one then.

He swore softly.

Rachel stopped, standing still in the centre of the other dancing couples, in roughly the same bit of floor where he had lain her down less than twenty-four hours ago and lost himself in the miraculous softness of her skin, the evocative rose scent of her hair, the caress of her brilliant hands. Then she had been so uncertain, so vulnerable, but now he could sense her strength.

‘She wouldn’t lie about something like this, Orlando. Not in these days of…of DNA tests and everything. You’re shocked just now—who wouldn’t be?—but you have to believe her. You mustn’t deny your child a good father. He deserves better than that.’

Neither of them moved. Orlando’s face was like granite as he stared straight ahead. His narrowed eyes had darkened to the colour of winter seas, and were opaque with fathomless emotion.

‘You’re right.’ he said slowly, letting his hand fall away from her back. His other hand still held hers, and for a moment he smoothed his thumb across her palm, sending sparks of desire shooting up her arm.

‘Thanks for the advice.’

And then he very carefully let her hand go. Without looking back, focusing all his energy on making it to the door, he walked away, taking her words with him as certainly as if she had just carved them on his heart with a rusty nail.

She was right. So right. Little Felix deserved a great father. Which was why Orlando was going to have as little to do with him as possible.

Like his son.

Arabella was in no fit state to look after a goldfish, never mind a baby. The ball-breaking alpha-female whose chilling competence had always terrified the designer pants off the men she worked with had simply collapsed, leaving Orlando no choice but to pick up the slack. Baby Felix would have to stay at Easton while she got herself straight again, and, knowing Arabella, it wouldn’t be long before she was with another man…

He stopped beside a table, leaning against it for a moment. He hoped to God it would be someone decent…someone who would stick around. Someone reliable and kind, who would kick a football around with Felix, teach him card games and read him stories. Someone who would be the sort of father Orlando could never be.

He would do everything he could for the child, of course—see that Felix was generously provided for, both in the short term and in his will, ensure that he received the best care and education. But he would do it at a distance. Felix would never have the burden of knowing his blind father.

On the table was a Chinese vase of his mother’s, which had stood in the same place for as long as he could remember. Now it held a dramatic arrangement of tall branches entwined with tiny, twinkling lights. Absent mindedly he reached out and touched one of the branches, thinking it must be something artificial Lucinda had brought from London.

It was rough and brittle. Real. Suddenly he remembered Rachel struggling through the door that afternoon, her arms full of cumbersome branches…

Had
she
done this? He’d sneered at her at the time, but maybe he’d underestimated her.

Briefly he cupped one of the tiny snowflake-shaped lights in the palm of his hand, feeling its warmth, able to see the glow it cast on his skin. It was only small, but the light was surprisingly powerful, and it transformed the stark branches into something beautiful. Something useful.

He closed his hand tightly around it, and the light went out.

For a moment he held it like that. And then he let it go and walked on to say goodbye to his guests.