The Undoing of de Luca (17 page)

‘I see,’ she managed, moving into the room like a sleep-walker.

‘Well, I don’t,’ Larenz retorted and, even in her shocked state, she heard the current of pulsing rage in his voice. ‘Why did you leave the party without even telling me? Do you realize how many people saw you? Including a few journalists—it will be in all the papers tomorrow, how de Luca’s mistress ran out on him!’

Ellery froze. She turned slowly to face Larenz. Even in the face of his obvious anger, she felt suddenly, eerily calm. ‘That’s the first time you’ve used that word with me.’

Larenz looked nonplussed. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Mistress. You called me your mistress.’

A certain wariness replaced his anger. ‘It’s just a word, Ellery.’

She took a deep breath; this was something she understood. ‘No, it’s not, Larenz. It’s an attitude.’

He let out an exasperated breath. ‘Fine. Whatever. Why did you leave the party?’

Ellery just shook her head. She couldn’t believe how much had changed, or how flimsy the bond between them had really been. She’d thought everything had changed last night, when Larenz had told her there were no rules. Yet there were still rules—just rules for her and not for him. ‘I left because I received a much-needed wake-up call,’ she finally said.

‘A wake-up call? What are you talking about, Ellery?’

‘I heard two women in the ladies’ room,’ Ellery said, her throat tightening, ‘talking about
me
—’

Larenz cursed under his breath. In two strides he’d reached her and his hands clasped her bare shoulders. His skin was warm. ‘Ellery, you must know it is just gossip. Malicious—’

‘Oh, yes, I know that,’ Ellery choked out. ‘Of course I do. I may have been a naive virgin, but I’m not completely stupid.’

‘Then what—’

‘I’m your mistress, Larenz, aren’t I? That’s what this week is.’ Somehow she found the strength to twist away from his grasp. She walked to the doors of the terrace and gazed out at the darkened sky. ‘I came with you to London, to here, thinking it was just a fling, some fun. Thinking I could handle it. And I admit it’s my own fault for being so stupid. For not seeing the forest for the trees.’

‘You are not,’ Larenz gritted out, ‘making the least bit of sense.’

‘No, I know I’m not,’ Ellery agreed. Her voice sounded so reasonable, yet she knew underneath that thin veneer of calm was a boiling river of hurt and shame. ‘And I freely admit that my reaction to that word—mistress—is purely emotional,’ she continued in that same reasonable voice. ‘Irrational, even. It doesn’t change how I feel, I’m afraid.’

Larenz shrugged impatiently. ‘I don’t understand any of this.’

‘And I finally understand everything,’ Ellery returned. ‘These lovely earrings—’ She took off the precious earrings and dropped them onto the coffee table. ‘And these—’ She kicked off the sandals. ‘All of it, payment for sex. Because, if I weren’t sleeping with you, I wouldn’t be here.’

‘This is ridiculous. What are you saying, Ellery? I can’t give you things?
Gifts?
’

‘But they’re not gifts. Our relationship—if I could even call it that—isn’t equal. Because you’re calling the shots, Larenz. When you tire of me, whenever that is, you’ll send me packing. Discard me…like…’ She bit back the words she’d been going to use:
my mother.
‘Like an old shoe.’

Larenz stilled. ‘When I invited you to come with me, you knew the terms of the arrangement—’

‘Oh, yes, I knew the rules. And they
do
apply, don’t they? You’re the only one who is allowed to break or change or even forget them for a moment.’ She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Yes, I knew them. But I didn’t realize how they would make me feel.’

‘You agreed,’ Larenz said, his voice quietly icy. ‘You made it quite clear, in fact, that they suited you, too. You weren’t looking for a relationship, Ellery. Or love. Or did you deceive me?’

‘I deceived myself,’ Ellery said flatly. ‘Because I thought that’s what I wanted. Or could want, at least.’

‘I see.’

‘No, you don’t.’

All of a sudden all the self-righteous anger drained out of her, leaving her only weary and depressed. ‘I knew,’ she said quietly. ‘And so it might not seem fair that I’m changing my mind. But I can’t do this, Larenz. I can’t be your—or any man’s—mistress.’

‘I tell you, Ellery, it is just a word!’ Larenz exploded. ‘Why let it upset you?’

‘Because it’s more than just a word to me.’ Ellery smiled at him sadly. ‘Perhaps I should tell you why I stay at Maddock Manor.’

Larenz regarded her warily. ‘Fine.’

She drew a breath, knowing she needed to explain and yet not wanting to expose herself, not to Larenz when he was like this, so cold and angry and hard. And she’d actually been afraid—for a little while—that she might fall in love with him.

Letting out a little sigh, Ellery sank onto the sofa. Her dress—her gorgeous dress—poufed all around her. ‘I told you I loved my father,’ she began. She stared out of the window, not wanting to look at Larenz or attempt to read his emotions. ‘He was charismatic, charming, larger than life.’ She spoke dully, reeling the list off as if reading from a script. That was all it had been: the script of her father’s false life.

‘He was never good with money,’ she told Larenz. ‘He inherited everything from his father, although the property and title aren’t entailed. Looking back, I suppose the Manor fell slowly into disrepair over the years, slowly enough that I never really noticed. When I was little, it was my home and I loved it. When I got older, I was too busy with my own life to notice or perhaps even to care.’

Larenz gave a little shrug. Although he was listening, he still seemed impatient. ‘It is always so with the young.’

‘I suppose. Anyway, that’s not the point of what I’m telling you. I just want you to understand…everything.’ She looked at him then but saw his expression hadn’t changed. She made herself continue. ‘My father used to go away on trips. Business trips, he called them, although he didn’t have a job as such. He had investments—concerns, he said.’ She gave a sudden bitter laugh that had Larenz raising his eyebrows although he said nothing. ‘Yes, concerns. Two of them, in particular.’ She broke off, drew a breath and then looked at Larenz directly. ‘He’d be gone for days, sometimes weeks at a time. My mother always told me he was doing it for us, to make sure we could stay in our lovely manor house. I think she genuinely believed that—that he was working on these investments of his. At least she made herself believe it, although, looking back, I know she suspected…something. She was certainly unhappy. But neither of us found out the whole truth until he died, when I was nineteen.’

Larenz narrowed his eyes. ‘What happened then?’

‘My father’s secret was revealed,’ Ellery said flatly. ‘Both of them. He had a
mistress
, you see. A mistress and…’ her voice hitched ‘…a son.’ Larenz’s mouth tightened but he said nothing. ‘A son.’ She shook her head, reliving the shock and horror she’d felt on that day, still numb from grief, when her father’s
other
family had come to Maddock Manor and she’d realized how they had been as grief-stricken and
loved
as she and her mother. ‘He visited them,’ she explained dully. ‘When he was gone. He had a whole other life—a whole other family. They lived in Colchester, in quite a nice house, which he provided—part of the reason why the Manor was falling into such disrepair. Funding two separate existences is quite expensive.’

She let out her breath slowly. ‘We didn’t believe them at first. Wouldn’t someone have known? Wouldn’t someone have said something? After all, tooling around Colchester in a vintage Rolls isn’t exactly cloak-and-dagger.’ She tried for a laugh and failed. Her fear was that people
had
known and had kept the secret out of pity. ‘Anyway, the woman showed my mother photographs taken throughout the years. Birthdays, even Christmases when my father said he just had to be away. A whole life.’

Ellery had stared at those photographs with a numb sense of disbelief; she’d gazed at the pictures of her father playing football with the son he’d always wanted—and had had. Her mother’s face had closed in on itself as she’d looked at several snaps of her husband kissing another woman and, worse than that, far worse than that, were the photos of the kind of family life they’d lost years ago, that her father had been enjoying all along. With someone else. It had been the worst kind of betrayal, for both of them.

‘What is her name?’

Ellery glanced at him, startled. ‘You mean my mother…?’

‘No,’ Larenz replied flatly, ‘your father’s mistress. What is her name? Did you know? Do you remember?’

She stared at him, nonplussed. ‘Diane,’ she said after a moment.

‘And the son?’

Ellery didn’t speak for a moment. ‘David,’ she finally said quietly. ‘He’s just a year younger than me. Why do you want to know?’

Larenz shrugged. ‘No reason.’ He paused, the silence tense and impatient. ‘I don’t see what this has to do with you or me.’

You or me.
Not
you and me.
Perhaps there wasn’t a
you and me
any more, that essential
us.
There never had been.

Ellery swallowed. ‘Because I want you to understand…I agreed to this week, Larenz, because I thought it would be different.
I
would be different. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying not to be like my mother, pining away for a man who wouldn’t love her. It’s why I avoided relationships, why I was a virgin.’ She gave a tiny humourless laugh. ‘And so I came on this fling because I thought it would be a way to take control. To choose for myself. To
not
be like her. And,’ she added fairly, ‘I wanted to. I wanted to be with you.’ Larenz said nothing and Ellery finished painfully, ‘But I ended up being something worse than my mother. I ended up being like my father’s mistress. A mistress,’ she repeated, her words filled with self-loathing. ‘I can’t be that.’

‘But I’m not married,’ Larenz said flatly. ‘It’s not the same.’

‘No,’ Ellery agreed, ‘not exactly. I realize that. But it’s not…we’re not…equals, are we? And this whole thing—’ she flung her arm out to encompass the discarded earrings, the sumptuous king-sized bed, everything ‘—isn’t what I wanted. It isn’t me.’

‘What you’re really saying,’ Larenz said in a voice whose quietness still spoke of an underlying fury, ‘is that you do want a relationship.’ He spoke the word with scathing disdain. ‘Love, even.’

Ellery blinked. She didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t want to be so vulnerable, and especially not with Larenz when he looked like this, so cold, so contemptuous. He certainly didn’t want love, not from her, not from anyone. ‘I don’t know what I want,’ she finally said in a small tight voice. ‘Just not this.’

Not this, and yet she still wanted Larenz. Her body ached with the memory of his touch, and her heart ached, too. Even now, when he stared at her so coldly, unmoved by her sordid little story, she wanted to love him. To be loved. The thought was terrifying. She’d been fighting it all along, denying it to herself, yet the truth was so appallingly obvious that Ellery wondered how she’d managed to dupe herself—not to mention Larenz—for so long. Silly, stupid her.

She was a very inconvenient mistress.

‘Anyway, I’m sorry for being difficult,’ she finally managed, half amazed by her own apology. The feelings surely ran too deep for a simple sorry, yet she didn’t know what else to say, how to bridge this chasm that had opened between them, wide and yawning. ‘I know this wasn’t what we agreed on.’ She wondered why she’d told him at all. He
was
right; her father’s past—her past—had nothing to do with Larenz and her. It was just
her
problem, her baggage, and the reason why she was standing here alone, the heart she’d sworn wouldn’t get involved now breaking, just as her mother’s had.

Larenz watched Ellery’s slight shoulders slump, her head bowed, the pain he knew she’d been holding inside for far too long now spilling out, even though she tried to keep it back. From him.

His heart twisted, it tore, for he knew what kind of heartache she’d experienced in her father’s betrayal. He understood all too well how it made you alone and afraid. Afraid to trust, to love. Staying alone was safer.

Wasn’t he the same?

And yet he was, Larenz thought, all too different. What she’d told him tonight confirmed that.

Even so, he wanted to take her in his arms, to smooth the hair from her forehead and kiss the tears shimmering in her eyes—she blinked them back, bravely—and tell her the past didn’t matter at all.

But of course he couldn’t, because it did. The past mattered very much, and it was what kept them both here, suspended in silence, neither of them able to cross the chasm that now yawned between them.

And he was furious—
furious
that she’d reneged on their terms and broken their rules.

And furious with himself for doing the same.

‘I’ll go and change,’ Ellery whispered, her voice breaking, and Larenz stifled a curse. He didn’t want it to end like this, broken and despairing. He didn’t want Ellery to leave.

He wasn’t, Larenz knew, ready to let her go. Even if at some point it was inevitable. Even if letting her go now would be the smartest—and safest—thing he could do. For both of them.

‘Wait.’ He spoke gruffly, his throat tight. He didn’t know what words to say, what would help. What would be enough and yet not too much for, God knew, he didn’t know even now what he was capable of feeling. Giving. ‘Let me help you,’ he finally said.

She turned, surprised, wary and perhaps a little hopeful. Larenz forced his face into a smile. He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know what he wanted to
feel.

‘Let’s not end it like this, Ellery.’

Her mouth turned down at the corners, drooping, and so did her eyes. ‘I’m not sure I really see the point of going on.’

‘There are…’ Larenz paused, his throat drying, tightening, and he forced the words out ‘…there are things I have to tell you, too.’ He could hardly believe he was saying the words. Ellery may have trusted him with her secrets, but he had no intention of revealing his.