The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo (14 page)

Madeline had gone white, Celeste could see. White with fury.

‘Don’t you
dare
threaten me!’

‘I’m not threatening you. I’m warning you!’ he shot back. ‘And if you imagine
I’d
say a word about it you’re even more insane. Insane to think I would want to be caught in any sordid backwash!’

Madeline was twisting Lucien’s bag in her hands, crushing it with the force of them. Her face working.

‘I
will
get what I want—because I always do! I
always
do! Nothing’s stopped me in my life—and it won’t now! If I want to be Mrs Edward Roxburgh, wife of the next damn Vice President, I
shall!
’

Rafael took a breath. Hard and scissoring. His eyes were like bullets.

‘Madeline,’ he said, incising each word, ‘you might be the world’s most...
liberated...
woman, and you might be worth close to a billion dollars now...but you can never,
never
be the wife of the Vice President of the USA. Because there will never be a Vice President whose wife...’ he took another breath, then said it ‘...once worked as a prostitute.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HERE
WAS
SILENCE
—complete silence. Then into the silence came the sound of the sapphire clutch falling on the floor. Madeline had dropped it.

Rafael watched her turn, slowly, back to the front door. Saw her walk out of it. Saw her walk down the carpeted corridor to the elevators. Then he crossed to the door and closed it quietly. He turned back to Celeste.

She looked like a ghost.

Regret hit him—regret that she had heard what he had just said. Regret flooded through him that she’d had to endure Madeline at all.

He came up to her as she stood, as motionless as a statue. ‘I am so,
so
sorry,’ he said, looking her in the eyes. ‘I am so sorry that you had to be subjected to that—to
any
of that!’

‘She’s still got keys to this apartment.’

Celeste heard her voice speaking. It didn’t seem to be saying the most important thing, but it was saying the thing that seemed to be in her head right now. Keeping out everything else. Everything that
had
to be kept out.

Rafael swore, then simply said, ‘The locks will be changed today.’ He took another breath, steadying himself. ‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘And you look like you do, too.’

She didn’t answer, just went to pick up the discarded bag, smoothing it out. She put it on a side table and then, since Rafael was looking at her with such concern on his face that it hurt, she nodded. She followed him through into the kitchen. He got out a bottle of malt whisky and downed a shot in one. She ran some water and started to sip it.

‘You’re in shock,’ Rafael said. ‘I can see you are. Look, come and sit down. I need to talk to you.’

He ran himself a glass of water as well, and they both went through into the lounge.

Rafael threw himself onto his usual place on the sofa and looked at Celeste. ‘Please—sit down before you fall down.’

Carefully she lowered herself down at the other end of the sofa, her fingers curled around the cold water glass. She looked at Rafael. His face was shadowed, but not from the light outside. From the darkness within. Then, abruptly, he started to speak.

‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know all through our affair, our relationship.’ His voice hardened. ‘And I wish to God I’d never found out. Except,’ he said, and now his voice had the dryness of the desert in it, ‘that it was Madeline herself who told me.’

He stared ahead for a moment, seeing nothing but the past, then spoke again.

‘She’d been drinking, so maybe that made her rash—but then, Madeline always has had a reckless streak in her. It’s the one she uses, gambles with, to make her fortunes. And, of course...’ his voice changed again ‘...she doesn’t see it as rashness. To her, it’s simply no big deal.’

He turned to look at Celeste again.

‘It came out of a conversation we were having—just after-dinner chat at her flat, nothing more drastic than that. We were talking about economics and the conditions required for economic growth in general, such as a financial system that can create reliable and relatively low-cost credit, and so on. And, on an individual basis, we talked about capital formation. That,’ he explained, ‘is the formal name for accumulating sufficient surplus wealth, or capital, to use for investment. We started talking about how we’d both dealt with the problem ourselves. It’s a real problem for budding entrepreneurs without pre-existing assets to serve as security for a loan.’

He paused, then went on.

‘I said I’d built up my initial investment capital by working through university, living as frugally as I could. Then, when I graduated, I worked eighteen-hour days, non-stop, for over three years, doing the kind of work that paid a premium because it was so noxious or back-breaking or in godawful places...’ He paused again, and then went on. ‘When I’d finished telling her, Madeline laughed.’

He looked at Celeste.

‘She laughed and said that what I’d endured made her glad she was a woman in business. Because she possessed a natural asset that gave her an ROT—Return on Time—that was orders of magnitude greater than anything
I’d
had to do to accumulate my capital for investment.’ He took a breath. ‘In six months, she boasted, she’d made three times as much as I had in three years of slaving non-stop. And the work, she told me, had been the most enjoyable she’d ever had. She’d even, at one point, considered making it her main line of business. Brothels, as she pointed out, are never loss-makers...’

He took a gulp of water, and then another, and another, draining the glass as though it might wash him out. Then he looked back at Celeste. There was no expression on her face still.

He got to his feet.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘More sorry than I can say that you ever got touched by any of this! Let alone found out about Madeline!’ His face tightened. ‘I wish I’d had the damn self-control not to blurt it out in front of you, but it just came right out because she’s being so incredibly blind to the risk she’s running! What I warned her about is inevitable! When the electioneering starts, and the global TV coverage heats up, some former client or fellow call girl will recognise her—and will sell the story to the media!’

He took a breath, his face grim.

‘If she doesn’t find a graceful way to break up with Roxburgh I’ll have no choice but to warn him myself, for his own sake, because it will finish his career otherwise. I don’t want to—God knows I don’t!’ His eyes hardened. ‘Madeline knew perfectly well when she told me about her past that I wouldn’t publicise her method of capital formation! But where she miscalculated, of course—’ and now his expression changed yet again, becoming for the first time clearer, as if a weight had stopped crushing down on him ‘—was in thinking that I would share her tolerance towards her method.’

He looked at Celeste again.

‘I left her flat that evening—walked out on her. My decision to end our affair, and for that reason...annoyed...her. She did her best to get me back...’

Into his head sprang the image of Madeline, stretched naked and voluptuous on his bed, taunting him not to desire her any more...refusing to accept his rejection of her...of what she had done...what she was...

He spoke again, willing Celeste to believe him. ‘I hope with all my heart you can believe that there is no power on earth that could ever,
ever
induce me to tolerate her again! I wouldn’t touch Madeline with surgical gloves on!’ he spelt out. His voice iced. ‘Or any woman like her!’

She could hear the contempt in his voice, the disgust. The total revulsion.

She pulled her eyes away, her gaze going towards the wide windows that opened out to the terrace beyond. She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped.

Rafael’s cell phone was ringing. With a curse, he glanced at the number, then answered it.

‘No, I haven’t forgotten. I’ll be there.’ He disconnected, reached out a hand to Celeste.

‘I am really gutted to do this, but I’ve got to go,’ he told her. ‘That was my PA, reminding me I have to be downtown in half an hour. I’d get out of the meeting if I could, but this guy is flying out to SF this evening.’

He bent to drop a kiss on Celeste’s head. She was still looking like a ghost, and he hated to leave her like this, but in a way, although the scene with Madeline had been ugly in the extreme, surely it must have convinced her that Madeline Walters was out of his life for ever.

‘Are you going to be OK?’ he asked, concerned. Celeste nodded, and he spoke reassuringly. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can, but it probably won’t be till about seven. Let’s have a really easy night in—I think we both deserve it!’

He smiled encouragingly, squeezing her nerveless hand again.

‘And, please, don’t waste another single thought on Madeline. She isn’t worth it. She isn’t worth anything—no woman like her is.’ He glanced at his watch and swore. ‘Damn—I have to go.’

He crossed to the door. Looked back at her. Felt emotion pour through him.

Thank God I’ve got Celeste! Thank God she is in my life—thank God!

How much she meant to him! How very, very much...

I never want to lose her...

Then, tearing himself away, he left the apartment.

Behind him, on the sofa, Celeste went on sitting. Inside, knives with the sharpest blades were slicing her into pieces.

* * *

Though his meeting had gone well, Rafael had spent it itching for it to be over. He wanted to get shot of work, shot of his office and back to Celeste. He’d texted her when he’d got downtown—something warm and reassuring—but hadn’t heard back. Now, as he finished running through his agenda for the following day, prior to finally getting out of his office to head home, he checked his mobile again.

His head lifted—there was a text from Celeste. He clicked it open. As he read, his spirits nosedived. He read it twice through, but it was still the same.

She’d texted to tell him that her London agency had phoned and wanted her back urgently for an upcoming job she felt she could not turn down. She was booked on a flight out of JFK and en route to the airport.

Disbelievingly, Rafael stared at the words. Then, as if a blow had fallen, he took the full impact of her message. She was gone. Gone—just like that.

He felt winded, as if he’d been punched.

How could she just pick up and go like that? How
could
she?

Could she still be upset about Madeline, even after he’d assured her that there was nothing more between them—that all he felt for her was revulsion?

Urgency filled him. He had to go after Celeste right away!

I have to go to her—do whatever it takes to convince her that Madeline is nothing to me!

He called her number. He had to speak to her. But her phone went to voicemail. A crippling sense of
déjà vu
hit him.

His calls going to voicemail, answer machine...

Her abrupt disappearing acts...

The punch to his stomach came again.

With a razoring breath, he seized his laptop and minutes later had booked an evening flight to Heathrow, then he headed down to the pavement to his waiting car. ‘JFK,’ he instructed tersely, and got his phone out again, retrying Celeste’s number, then texting her his flight details.

Then, as if the devil were driving him, he sat back, staring out with bottled frustration at the rush-hour traffic jamming the roadways out of Manhattan.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
HE
LOW
HUM
of the jet engines vibrated through the fuselage as Celeste reclined in her seat. Outside the night was dark mid-Atlantic. She was trying not to think, trying not to feel—trying not to be conscious at all. Willing herself to sleep. But sleep would not come.

By the time the plane landed she was living up to its reputation as the red-eye. She looked haggard, she knew, and if she really
had
got an assignment she would have needed a ton of make-up to disguise the fact. But she wasn’t going to a job—that had been her excuse for leaving New York.

Leaving Rafael.

No—she mustn’t think that. Mustn’t say it. Mustn’t allow it into her head. She must block it totally, completely. Because if she didn’t—

Claws tearing at her, talons ripping her, knives slicing her—shredding her to pieces, into bloodied rags of flesh.

She bit her lip, trying to stifle the pain. Forced herself to keep functioning even if she felt as if she was a walking corpse. A corpse coming through Immigration, walking out into the arrivals area. But not in Heathrow, nor any UK airport. The first plane leaving when she’d got to JFK the afternoon before had been for Frankfurt, and that was where she’d landed. And it was just as well. The unanswered—unanswerable—texts piling up on her mobile told her exactly what Rafael was doing.

Following her to London.

The pain came again. Pain for herself. Pain for him.

I don’t want to do this to him!
The cry came from deep within her.
I don’t want to do this to him—but I must...I must!

She knew with a sick dread that she could not flee for ever. Could not hide for ever. At some point, eventually, she would have to go back to London.

Face him.

An ordeal she would have given the world not to have to face. An ordeal she could not face yet.

I need time—just a few days...

A few days to accept what had happened.

To accept that everything between her and Rafael was over...

* * *

Rafael was in London. He hadn’t moved from his apartment there since the morning he’d arrived. The morning he’d arrived to find that Celeste had not gone to her flat. Had not gone to her agency. That her agency thought she was still in New York. That there was no urgent assignment they’d called her back for. That they had no idea where she was.

So he’d stayed in London. Where else should he go? If she turned up back in New York he would be informed. If she turned up at her London flat he would be informed. If she contacted her agency he would be informed. He’d even contacted Louise and asked...
begged...
her to tell him if she heard any news about her. He knew of no one else in the modelling world she might know.

But for five endless days now she had simply disappeared off the planet.

He’d stopped phoning, stopped texting. She wasn’t going to reply, it was clear. He could only wait until she reappeared out of the thin air she’d vanished into.

He reached sightlessly for the whisky bottle on the table beside the sofa, then stopped himself. He had to get a grip. Had to control himself. Getting mindlessly drunk to numb himself would serve no purpose.

He set the bottle back with a clunk on the table. As he did so, his mobile suddenly buzzed into life. He fell on it like a drowning man.

‘Ms Philips has just returned to her apartment,’ said the operative set to watch her flat.

Rafael could feel relief flooding him. Drowning his senses. Gratitude poured through him. He was out of his apartment moments later, flinging himself into his waiting car, and within twenty minutes he was outside her flat in Notting Hill. Launching himself up the steps from the pavement, he pressed the buzzer to her flat.

How long would it take her to answer? Perhaps she was in the bathroom, the kitchen—somewhere it might delay her picking up the entry phone. Maybe, of course, she just wasn’t going to answer her door at this hour of the night.

He flicked open his mobile, phoned her. But before it connected the front door was buzzed open. He was inside instantly, running up the stairs to her floor. Not caring if his rapid tread disturbed her neighbours. Not caring about anything in the entire universe except seeing her again—being with her again...

Celeste—
his
Celeste...

Always my Celeste!

Because he knew that now. Knew it with every fibre of his being. Knew it with every cell of his body. He could not do without her. Could not live his life without her. She was everything to him—everything!

Had he once truly, actually considered marrying Madeline? Had he ever been that deluded? It was impossible to believe now. Impossible to believe that he had felt anything for her.

Even desire...

But as he circled the stairwell, two steps at a time in his haste, he pushed Madeline out of his head. Celeste was everything Madeline was not—and was everything to him.

He rounded the last corner of the stairs onto Celeste’s landing. She was standing in the open doorway of her apartment. He’d never been there, he realised with a rush of surprise. Well, it was of no account. She wouldn’t be needing it any longer.

His arms went around her, enveloping her in a hug. ‘My God, where have you
been?
’ he asked into her hair. He drew back, holding her shoulders, drinking her in like a man who had been in the desert for five punishing, killing, waterless days.

She was in a dressing gown. Nothing glamorous or stylish—just a plain, light blue, thin wool, ankle-length, waist-tied wrap. Her hair was in a ponytail, her face bare of make-up. But his eyes feasted on her. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. The most wonderful. The most precious...

He guided her inside so he could kiss her properly.

But she backed away from him. ‘Rafael, no—’

Her voice was high-pitched, and there was something wrong with it. He looked at her, consternation in his face.

‘Are you all right?’ Concern was open in his voice. He wanted to put his arms around her again, hold her close.

‘Um...’ she said.

She was looking deathly pale, he realised suddenly. His expression changed.

‘Are you ill?’

The question shot from him, infused with fear. God, was that it—was that why she’d suddenly rushed off? Nothing to do with Madeline at all! Images sprang in his head of her in hospital, having tests, being told nightmare news...

She gave a half shake of her head.

‘Thank God!’ he exclaimed. He looked around. They were in a tiny hall, and he could see a sitting room beyond, through the open doorway, with the large sash windows—curtained now—that he’d seen from the street below.

He went through into it and she followed numbly. He turned back to her, having taken in an impression of simple decor, soothing and tranquil, a soft, comfortable sofa in grey fabric, and a pale oak dining table and chairs. There was a pale grey carpet, landscape prints on the walls and books stashed in an open-front bookcase against the wall. An old-fashioned Victorian iron fireplace held fat candles on its hearth.

He looked at her. Words fell from him. ‘I’ve been worried out of my mind.’

Two spots of colour started to burn in her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m...sorry.’ She paused. ‘But I...I had to go...’

‘To a non-existent modelling assignment?’ His eyebrows rose.

She took a breath. ‘No. You know that was just an excuse.’

He looked at her. Every antenna he possessed had gone on high alert.

‘So why did you leave?’ he asked. He kept his voice steady. He had to know! If it were because of Madeline then he must find a way to convince her that she meant nothing to him now!

Celeste looked away. Then back at him. ‘Would you mind if I made myself some tea? It’s been a long journey. I’ve just come back on Eurostar.’

‘Eurostar?’

‘I flew into Frankfurt,’ she said, ‘from JFK. And since then I’ve been...’ She fell silent.

I’ve been trying to find the strength to do what I must do now, and I don’t know whether I can, though I know I have to. I have to because you’ve turned up now, like this, and I’m not ready... I’m just not ready. But I’ve got to do it because it has to end now...right now. I have to end it...

She moved towards the kitchen that opened off the sitting room. It was compact, and Rafael came and stood in the doorway, making it seem smaller than ever. Making the air in it hard to breathe.

She filled up the kettle. ‘Coffee?’ she asked, trying to sound normal. ‘It’s only instant, I’m afraid. I don’t have a machine.’

Into her mind’s eye leapt the formidably complicated machine in the Manhattan apartment that only he knew how to use. That she would never learn to use now...

She tore her mind away, focussed only on putting the kettle on, getting out the coffee jar, her tea caddy. No China tea tonight—this needed strong Indian...Assam. With a strength to get her through the coming ordeal.

She busied herself with mugs, with tea and coffee and boiling water, milk out of the fridge—milk she’d bought at a late-night convenience store near the station before she’d got a taxi here. Her mind darted inconsequentially, trying to find an escape. An escape from what was going to happen.

But there was no escape. She knew that. Knew it with the certainty of a concrete weight crushing her. Crushing her in to the ground.

Burying her.

Anguish cried within her.

I thought I was free! Free of the past! Free to make myself anew! Free to claim what was being given to me! Free to take Rafael’s hand outstretched to me! Free to be with him—to hold him and kiss him and embrace him!

Free to love him...

Because she
had
fallen in love with him. Of course she had. How could she not? Self-knowledge sliced through her, cleaving her in two. She had fallen in love with him somewhere along the way...some time when she had lain in his arms, cherished and safe...

But she hadn’t been safe at all.

And she hadn’t been free.

‘I want you to tell me what’s wrong!’

Rafael’s voice penetrated her anguish. His accent was pronounced—a sign of the tension he was under—although he was keeping his voice rock-steady. He sat himself down on her sofa, waiting for her to sit beside him.

Her eyes went to him. Her heart leapt. Oh, how good it was to see him again! How good to let her gaze feast on him, to drink in every sculpted plane of his face, every feathered sable shaft of his hair, every lean, honed line of his body! How good it was to see him again...see him here.

I have to make a memory of this moment! I have to imprint his image on the sofa, so that I can always see him there. Always have this moment...only this moment...

She moved restlessly, hands cupping her mug of tea, going not to sit beside him but on the edge of the armchair by the fireplace. She saw his eyes flicker uncertainly as she took her place away from him.

She didn’t want to—she wanted to set down her tea, take his coffee from him and then wrap her arms around him as if he were the life raft of her life.

But she could not do that. She could never do that now. She was adrift, alone on an endless sea that was carrying her far, far away on a current that had started long ago, trapped in it for ever...

‘Why did you leave?’ he asked.

He looked into her face and knew the answer. The answer he hadn’t wanted to hear. The answer he’d thought needed no response from him. But it must, or why else would she have done what she had.

‘It’s because of Madeline, isn’t it?’ he said. His voice was quiet. Deadly.

Her eyelids dipped over her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said.

He looked at her. The fumes from the coffee cup on the low table in front of him rose in a coil. Madeline had thrown
her
coil around them—he had thought he’d broken it, but it must be tightening still around Celeste or else why would she have run from him?

‘She said something to you, didn’t she?’ he said, never taking his eyes from her. ‘She dripped some vicious, toxic poison into your ears before I came, and that’s why you left.’

That had to be it—it
had
to! But Celeste was shaking her head.

His face worked. ‘Then why—in God’s name,
why?
Didn’t I make it crystal clear to you just why I would never in a thousand years have anything more to do with her? Do you think I would
ever
want anything to do with her—with anyone who’s like her?’

He took a shuddering breath. Celeste was looking at him and her face was set.

His expression changed. Slowly, he spoke. ‘You think I was too harsh, don’t you?’

His words fell into silence.

He spoke again. ‘You think I was too harsh, too condemning. Too pitiless—too
puritan!
Despising Madeline for what she did—how she earned her first money!’

He sat back, drawing a breath. Never taking his eyes from her. Then he spoke again.

‘Celeste, I come from a country that is poor—with a level of poverty almost unthinkable in the pampered West, in the developed countries of Europe and North America and Australasia. I come from a region where
peones
toiled on the land, barely scraping a living by subsistence farming or working on the landlord’s vast
estancias,
where those in the cities lived in shacks and shanty towns. Where children begged in streets with gutters running with sewage, where they slept in doorways at night and stole by day, and inhaled glue to numb their hunger and their fear.’

He looked relentlessly into her eyes.

‘And where women, young and old, would sell their bodies for a meal, or for shelter, or to feed their children!
That,
to me, is poverty!
That,
to me, is need and desperation! And if you think—’ His voice gritted with intensity, his eyes burning. ‘If you think that I would ever,
ever
condemn a woman in those pitiless circumstances from surviving in any way she could, then you have misjudged me utterly!’