Читать книгу The Baby Secret - HELEN BROOKS, Helen Brooks - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

THE doctor’s examination was not rough, but Victoria’s tenseness still made it uncomfortable and she breathed a sigh of relief when it was over and the little man said, ‘You may get dressed now, Miss Brown.’

‘Thank you.’ She was too taut to smile.

Once seated in front of the doctor’s desk, the brilliant Tunisian sun outside the window mocking her gnawing anxiety, the dark-eyed, gentle-faced elderly man stared at her for a few moments before he said, his voice, with its heavy accent, faintly embarrassed, ‘Miss Brown, what made you think you were ill?’

Victoria stared back at him, her vivid blue eyes apprehensive as she answered, ‘I...I told you. I haven’t been feeling too well, sick and dizzy, and lately it’s got worse. I’ve been feeling very tired too, and... Oh, just generally ill. And then when I started to get constant nausea and couldn’t keep anything down . . .’

‘Yes, I see.’ He cleared his throat loudly and her apprehension increased tenfold. ‘Miss Brown, to the best of my knowledge you appear perfectly healthy,’ he said quietly, ‘but you do realise—?’ He stopped abruptly, moving one or two papers on his desk before adding, ‘You do understand you are expecting a child?’ He raised his dark eyes to her shocked face.

Victoria stared at him, too stunned to react.

‘Miss Brown?’ The doctor was clearly finding it awkward.

‘I’m not... I can’t be...’ She looked at him in total confusion. ‘I can’t be,’ she whispered bewilderedly, her eyes huge.

‘With your permission I would like to do a pregnancy test,’ Dr Fenez said gently, ‘just to confirm things, but I am sure that I felt a twelve-to-fourteen-week uterus. Now, you say you have only missed one menstrual period?’ he asked briskly.

‘Yes.’ Victoria nodded dazedly. ‘Although...’

‘Yes?’ he asked encouragingly. ‘You have thought of something?’

‘The last two weren’t normal, now I come to think about it. Hardly anything...’ She couldn’t believe this; he had to be wrong.

‘That can happen with a first pregnancy—the body takes time to settle into its new role. I take it this is your first pregnancy?’ he added carefully, his face bland and professional.

Victoria nodded, her mind racing. Pregnancy? Her first pregnancy? She had considered various possibilities over the last few weeks, from nervous tension to a growth of some kind, but not this particular kind of growth, she thought with a slight touch of hysteria. She couldn’t be; she just couldn’t. They had only done it once. That would be too unlucky, wouldn’t it?

‘Dr Fenez?’ She spoke out what was on her mind. ‘Can you get pregnant the first time you...?’ She waved her hands helplessly.

‘Of course.’ The little doctor nodded briskly, hiding his concern and surprise at the position this beautiful slender young woman in front of him was in. Not that it was the first time he had come across such a situation—in his long and varied career he had seen many things, especially in the last decade or so as western values had crept into his beloved country—but this girl was different somehow. She hadn’t seemed the type. But then there were no types, he reminded himself silently—his own family was proof of that Look at Kailia, his sister’s child—pregnant at sixteen and married within two weeks. His sister had nearly gone mad.

The pregnancy test confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis. Victoria was most definitely pregnant, at least three months, the doctor thought, so if she would like to check the date of her last normal period...?

The sun was high in a sapphire-blue sky when Victoria stepped out of the big white-washed building into the fierce heat of a Tunisian summer day, and she stood for a moment, gazing blankly around her, as she tried to gather her scattered wits. She was pregnant. She was pregnant. With Zac’s child.

She ought to be feeling horrified, upset, desperate, she told herself bewilderedly as she began to walk slowly along the dusty pavement, pulling her big straw hat over her sleek blonde hair as she did so. But she didn’t. She just felt amazed, totally astounded...but pleased. She paused, glancing up into the crystal sky as she searched her heart. Yes, she was pleased. She was. This baby would be all that was left of a love that had consumed her with its passion, but it was a million times more than she had dreamt of right up to a few minutes ago. Zac’s baby... She didn’t realise she was crying until the sun scorched the rivulets running down her cheeks, and then she brushed her face hastily, walking more briskly as she made her way home through the busy, crowded streets.

The little white domed house Victoria was renting was cool and shaded as she stepped through the front door, the mosaic tiles cold beneath her feet as she kicked off her flat leather sandals and padded through to the tiny kitchen at the rear of the property, where all was quiet and tranquil and breathed peace.

When she had first come here all those weeks ago now, she had been like a wounded animal seeking a hiding place in which to lick its wounds, she thought soberly, pouring herself a glass of the home-made lemonade she kept in the fridge. And the quiet little house, with its uncluttered plain interior and horseshoe-shaped stone steps leading down to the small, slightly sunken garden of sun-drenched grass surrounded by eucalyptus, orange and lemon trees and palms and flowering shrubs, had been like balm to her soul. She would have gone mad if she had had to stay in England another day. She would never forget the overwhelming relief she had felt when she had boarded the plane at Heathrow airport.

She drank the refreshingly cold and tart drink straight down and then poured herself another glass, carrying it through into the sitting room and opening the French doors into the garden before she sat down in the old rocking chair at the side of the windows. It was her favourite spot in the fierce heat of the day when even the shaded garden was too hot for her pale English skin, and she had sat for hours staring out into the brightly spangled vista, her mind going over and over the last whirlwind months since Zac Harding had blazed into her life.

She hadn’t done that so much in the last few days, she thought now, shifting slightly in the cushioned seat as the cramp-like pain she had been experiencing on and off for the last weeks made itself known. Her mind seemed to have become numb, frozen almost. Perhaps one could only take so much grief and pain without losing one’s sanity? Certainly every time she had pictured Zac with Gina she had felt she was going mad.

Zac Harding. She shut her eyes tightly, but still the tall, lean figure was there in front of her. Raven-black hair just touched with grey, dark, glittering eyes set in a handsome, aesthetic face that was all male—he had a presence that was devastating.

She had first seen him across a crowded room—the oldest cliché in the world, she thought with tired wryness—and from the moment their eyes had met she had known she would never meet another man who would stir her the way he did. It wasn’t just his smouldering good looks, stunning though they were, or the aura of wealth and power that surrounded him. She would have been able to resist that—she had in the past, hadn’t she? She’d come from a privileged background and had known other men just as wealthy and influential as Zac. But he was different. He had a magnetism, a dark, sardonic sensualness that was lethal, and women went down before it like ninepins. She’d gone down before it...

But he had told her she was special. And, fool that she was, she had believed him. Victoria’s soft mouth tightened and she opened her eyes wide before shaking her head at her own stupidity. How could she have been so naive, so simple and trusting? she asked herself disgustedly. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned either. Everyone had said she was crazy to believe that Zac Harding could ever settle for one woman. And in the final event he hadn’t; she had been proved wrong and everyone had been able to nod their wise heads and tut-tut as her world had fallen apart around her ears. The few that knew, that was.

A sharp knock at the front door of the small, two-bedroomed house brought her out of her reverie like a douche of cold water. In the whole of the two months she had been here she had had no visitors, apart from William Howard who was an old and dear friend of hers and who owned the property, and he had popped over on two occasions from England just to make sure she was all right. He had offered her the use of his holiday home in the first dark days of her split with Zac, and she had accepted gratefully, needing desperately to get away from all that was familiar.

It had been a matter of principle that she pay rent for staying at Mimosa—the cottage was so named for the beautiful blossom in the surrounding trees in February and March—but William’s parents were due for a visit at the end of June, so Victoria only had another few days in her small sanctuary.

She had been dreading the return home and all it would entail, but now... Victoria’s hand rested protectively on her stomach for a brief moment on her way to the front door. Now she had a reason to be strong, a reason to pull herself together and concentrate on the future. And she would do it by herself—she would ask help of no one; she would forge her own destiny and carve out a place for herself and her child. Other women did it—within her own circle there were one or two friends who, by circumstances or design, were both mother and father to their children, but oh... She paused a moment before opening the door. She would have given the world for it not to be this way.

‘Hello, Victoria.’ Zac’s voice was quiet and silky-smooth.

She couldn’t move or speak, and she really wondered—for the merest of moments—whether the big dark figure in front of her was a product of her fevered imagination. She had thought about him, dreamt about him, tasted, sensed, felt him every single minute of the endless days and nights they had been apart, but the flesh-and-blood man was so much more powerful than her bitter-sweet memories. Devastatingly, frighteningly powerful.

‘Can I come in?’ He inclined his head towards the sweltering, dusty street behind him. ‘It’s hot enough to fry eggs out here.’

But still she couldn’t respond, and then, as she watched his mouth begin to say something that her ears didn’t seem to be able to hear, Victoria knew she was going to pass out. Her last sight of him, as the rushing in her ears became a dark tunnel drawing her down, would have been amusing in any other circumstances. The cool, imperturbable countenance changed, as though someone had flicked a switch, and there was sheer amazement and alarm on his face as he leapt forward to catch her in his arms.

When she came round she was lying on the flamboyantly embroidered sofa in the sitting room, and she opened her eyes to see Zac’s angry handsome face just inches from her own as he crouched at her side, his narrowed gaze tight on her.

‘You haven’t been eating properly.’ He was straight into the attack. ‘You must have lost a stone in weight.’

It was altogether too much, and Victoria didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Instead she weakly expostulated, ‘What do you expect? I’m a normal human being, Zac; I have annoying things called feelings. I can’t turn my emotions on and off at will.’ She forced the tears back with superhuman effort

‘Meaning I can?’ he asked grimly, his lips setting in a hard straight line and his frown ferocious as he eyed her angrily.

But she wasn’t going to be intimidated. Not now, not ever, Victoria told herself shakily as she struggled into a sitting position on the sofa and Zac rose to his feet ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ she agreed bitterly. And then, as the full horror of the situation dawned on her, she added through trembling lips as her chin rose defiantly, ‘And what are you doing here anyway?’

‘I was just passing by so I thought I’d call in,’ he said, with the cruel, cutting sarcasm he did so well. ‘What else?’

‘You weren’t supposed to know...’ Her voice trailed away as the midnight-black eyes blazed at her.

‘Where you were hiding?’ he finished caustically. ‘Oh, I’m fully aware of that, Victoria. No one knows that better than I. I’ve spent a small fortune trying to find—’ He stopped abruptly, taking a long hard pull of air before he said, his formidable composure fully restored and his voice cool, ‘Are you feeling better?’ He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers.

‘Better?’ For a split second she thought he was referring to the baby before she realised how ridiculous she was being. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine now. It’s...the heat,’ she said quickly.

‘Is it?’ He glared at her, his dark eyes flashing over her slender shape and pale, drawn face in a razor-sharp scrutiny that did nothing for her fragile equilibrium, before he added insult to injury by stating flatly, ‘You look as though a breath of wind would blow you away.’ It wasn’t meant as a compliment.

‘Do I?’ She wouldn’t have imagined just a few minutes before that she could spring up from the sofa with such suddenness, but the white-hot fury that had her in its grip banished even the faintest remnant of weakness. ‘Well, now you’ve come spreading happiness and cheer, perhaps you’d like to leave? I don’t remember inviting you in in the first place,’ she added caustically.

‘You’d rather I’d left you sprawled in the doorway?’ he drawled derisively, his temper apparently quite restored.

‘Yes!’ And then, as the black eyebrows rose, she amended, ‘No. Oh, you know what I mean,’ she floundered angrily. ‘I was perfectly all right before you came.’ She glared at him, her colour high.

‘Were you?’

The mockery was all gone, his voice soft and low, and she shivered at its power over her, but her voice was firm when she said, ‘I want you to leave, Zac. I want you to leave now.’

‘I’ve only just arrived,’ he countered easily.

‘I mean it.’ She raised her chin, looking him full in the face.

‘Yes, you probably do.’ He looked down at her, the black eyes onyx-hard and very cold. ‘But we have things to discuss, Victoria, whether you like it or not.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ In the past she had always rather relished the fact that he was nearly ten inches taller than her five feet six inches, but now it was merely daunting. ‘I have absolutely nothing to say to you except goodbye,’ she said flatly.

‘For crying out loud!’ It was a snarl of savage frustration. ‘What’s the matter with you? Listen to me, woman.’

‘Don’t “woman” me, Zac,’ Victoria said coldly, forcing her voice to betray none of the trembling that was turning her stomach over and over. ‘Save that form of address for—’ She found she couldn’t say Gina’s name and substituted, ‘Your other women.’

Part of her couldn’t believe she was talking to him like this and she doubted if anyone had before. Zac Harding was a law unto himself, a powerful, ruthless law which was dangerously self-sufficient and utterly without mercy for those who crossed him. He had terrified her when she had first met him all those months ago—terrified and fascinated and enthralled her to the point where she had been unable to imagine a world without him. And then she had thought she didn’t have to, she reminded herself painfully. Fool that she was. But she’d learnt her lesson well.

‘I refuse to have this conversation again.’ It was icy and overbearing, and so utterly him that Victoria wanted to stamp her feet and throw a tantrum in a way she hadn’t done since she was a toddler. ‘And you wall listen to me, Victoria, but for now—’ he eyed her white face and the trembling she couldn’t quite hide ‘—you need something to eat,’ he finished smoothly.

‘Eat?’ She stared at him as though he were mad. ‘I don’t want anything to eat for goodness’ sake, and I’ve told you—’

‘And I’m telling you.’ He crossed muscled arms over the wide expanse of his chest—a chest that was broad and hairy and wonderful to snuggle up to, Victoria thought weakly, before she slammed the door on that particular avenue of thought—and stood surveying her with narrowed eyes, his legs slightly apart and his body relaxed.

‘I’ve been travelling for I don’t know how many hours and I haven’t eaten since last night. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and my patience is at an all-time low, okay? Added to which you look as though a good meal would do you no harm at all. Now—’ he held up an authoritative hand as Victoria went to speak ‘—I promise that once we’ve eaten, and had that little chat, I’ll leave. There was no compromise in his tone.

‘I want you to go now,’ she repeated stubbornly.

‘No way, Victoria.’ It was final, and she knew him well enough to know that she could talk until she was blue in the face and they would still end up having that meal.

But she still persisted. ‘You’ve got no right to barge in here like this—’ She stopped abruptly as he rounded on her angrily, his dark eyes flashing fire and his face black with rage.

‘I have every right,’ he stated with imperious authority. ‘I am your husband—or had that little fact slipped your memory?’

‘Only until the divorce becomes final,’ she countered swiftly. ‘And...and I’m not using my married name any more.’

‘That doesn’t make you any less married,’ he said with unarguable logic. ‘You’re my wife, Victoria. It’s legal.’

‘We were barely married.’ Victoria was aware her voice was higher-pitched than normal and strived desperately to bring it down an octave or two as she continued, ‘It was only for a day.’

‘And a night.’ His gaze narrowed as he saw his words register in her liquid, violet-blue eyes, his cleanly sculpted mouth twisting in a sardonic smile as he added, ‘Don’t forget the night, Victoria. Annulment is definitely not an option.’

As if she could forget. She stared at him, her face suffusing with enough colour to satisfy even Zac. She had been an innocent twenty to his experienced and far from innocent thirty-five, and he had taken her into a heaven that was indescribable. The wedding had been a fairy-tale one of white lace and orange blossom, despite the fact that it had all been arranged in as little as four months from the point at which they had got engaged, and every moment had been one of exquisite beauty and romance. But the night... The night had been one of unforgettable passion.

Victoria had been nervous when he had first shut the door of their hotel room, and they were alone at last. Nervous of her naiveté, of her potential inability to please and satisfy a well-versed man of the world like Zac, of her ingenuousness and lack of sophistication in the arts of love.

She had met Zac Harding the day after she had returned to England from Romania, where she had been taking a year out after A levels working in an orphanage before taking up her university place. She had been nineteen and untouched.

It had been her mother who had introduced them. Coral Chigley-Brown had thrown one of her little parties—ostensibly to celebrate Victoria’s safe return from that ‘awful place’, as her mother termed Romania, but really because Coral was the sort of social butterfly who found a different excuse for a soirée of some kind every week. Even now Victoria could picture the look of satisfaction on her mother’s pretty, expertly made-up face as she had watched Zac’s dark, glittering eyes narrow with interest on her daughter. She just hadn’t known her mother’s real reason for desiring an alliance between the Chigley-Browns and the Hardings. Not then.

‘Victoria?’ Zac’s voice brought her back from a dark place. ‘I presume this little idyll far from the madding crowd has a kitchen?’

‘A kitchen?’ She stared at him as though the words were foreign to her and then nodded towards an arched doorway. ‘Through there, but if you insist on staying for a meal I’ll see to it.’

‘Sit down; you look as though you need to,’ he said drily. ‘I’ll sort something out for us.’ He eyed her mockingly.

‘You?’ If he had taken all his clothes off and danced the conga she couldn’t have looked more amazed, Zac reflected somewhat cynically. ‘You can cook?’ Victoria asked weakly.

‘Yes, I can cook, Victoria,’ he said smoothly. ‘I can do a lot of things you are not yet aware of. Now, sit down and think nice thoughts, and once you are looking less drained we can commence battle. Okay?’

He didn’t wait for an answer, striding through the doorway into the small kitchen where she heard him beginning to clatter about like an army of chars among William’s pots and pans.

She needed to sit down if she were being honest, Victoria thought shakily, staring at the empty doorway one more time before making tremblingly for the rocking chair. It wasn’t just that she had skipped breakfast before going to the appointment with the doctor because she had been feeling ill, or the heat and feeling of nausea that were now combining to make her light-headed; it was...it was him, Zac. All her troubles were down to Zac.

He was right when he said there were lots of things she didn’t know about him, Victoria thought with painful honesty as she flopped down in the cushioned cane. Their whirlwind courtship and swift marriage had been very much a public affair, and they had hardly been alone at all in the preceding months.

Why hadn’t it occurred to her to be suspicious about that? she asked herself now. It was natural for newly engaged couples to want to be alone, surely, but Zac hadn’t seemed to want that. But then with Gina in tow, why should he? He’d had everything he wanted.

Lies, lies, lies—their whole relationship had been built on a pack of lies, and it had only been hours after their union that the house of cards had come tumbling down.

Victoria had been vaguely aware of the telephone ringing very early the morning after their wedding, and of Zac reaching out a hand and speaking quietly into the receiver.

She had heard him mutter something into the phone, and then, after sitting up abruptly, he had padded through into the sumptuous sitting room of the bridal suite at the hotel where they had held the reception, and continued the call on the extension in there.

She had still been half awake when he had come back into the bedroom and begun dressing, and her sleepy, ‘Zac, is anything wrong?’ had brought a reply of,

‘Just a business crisis I need to sort out with Jack before we fly to Jamaica this morning. Go back to sleep, darling, I’ll only be a few minutes.’

And, trusting, blind fool that she was, she had gone back to sleep, exhausted by the excitement of the day before and her consuming, wildly passionate and utterly thrilling initiation into the intimacy of married life. Had there ever been such a fool as she?

When she had next surfaced it was to Zac gently kissing her awake, his eyes dark and hot, but when she had held out her arms in an unspoken invitation for him to join her in the massive bed he had shaken his head slowly, softening the refusal with a laughing reminder that they had arranged to share breakfast with the guests who had stayed over at the hotel after the late evening reception. It made her squirm with humiliation now to think of it.

She had felt a little hurt before she’d told herself she was being silly. This was the first day of their lives together as man and wife—they had all the time in the world in which to share their love. But as she had dressed, Zac watching her with a strange expression on his dark, handsome face, Victoria hadn’t been able to rid herself of the impression that something was wrong even as she told herself she was being ridiculous.

He hadn’t been the adoring, besotted bridegroom of the day before, or the ardent, sensual lover of the night hours, a lover who had tenderly tempered his considerable sexual prowess to her nervous inexperience until she had been as wildly abandoned as he was. He’d been different. Something had changed, and she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it. He’d seemed preoccupied.

And then, shockingly, in the elegant, air-conditioned luxury of the hotel lounge, she had discovered why her husband of a few hours had refused her fumbling sexual advances that morning.

Zac had wanted to make a phone call before they went through to join the others for breakfast, and she had sat down in one of the deeply cushioned sofas to wait for him, glancing idly at a glossy magazine and reflecting that she had never imagined it was possible to feel so happy. But she felt loved, she’d told herself joyfully. For the first time in her life she felt really loved. Hers had been a privileged childhood in the material sense, but her parents had never made any secret of the fact that they hadn’t wanted a child and that she was an intrusion into their lives.

When she had been shipped off to boarding-school at the tender age of seven, it had been her nanny she had cried for—she had barely known her parents. And when her father had died three years later she had attended the funeral of a stranger. As she had gone into her teenage years she had tried to get to know her mother, but after countless cold rebuffs had finally accepted they were a million miles apart in everything that mattered.

Her mother was an avid socialite who used her considerable wealth for a life of pampered luxury, and who worried more about a chip in her nail varnish than starving children in the Third World. Victoria’s gentle, sweet nature was anathema to her mother—Coral saw it only as weakness and despised her for it.

And so, as Victoria had sat waiting for her new husband on this, the first morning of her new life, her heart had sunk slightly when that familiar voice had sounded at her elbow, saying, ‘Victoria? What on earth are you skulking out here for?’

There had been no real justification in Coral’s taking advantage of Zac’s generous offer to provide accommodation at the hotel for any guests who wanted to stay over for the night after the celebrations—she only lived a short drive away in a sumptuous apartment in Kensington—but it hadn’t surprised Victoria either. Coral was like that. She took everything she could and then some.

‘Skulking?’ Victoria forced a smile as she turned in her seat to look up at the hard, pretty face staring down at her. ‘I’m not skulking, Mother. I’m waiting for Zac,’ she said quietly.

‘Are you?’ Her mother paused, frowning slightly before she said, ‘You really ought to get in there with all the others and show them you don’t care, Victoria. It’s the only way.’

‘Don’t care?’ Victoria echoed confusedly.

‘Exactly.’ Coral’s voice was sharp and impatient.

‘Mother, I’m sure this conversation is making sense to you but I don’t have a clue what you are on about,’ Victoria said patiently. ‘What is it I’m not supposed to care about?’

‘You mean you don’t know?’ Coral sank gracefully into a seat opposite her daughter, crossing her legs and raising her chin slightly in order to show her profile to its best advantage to anyone who might be watching. ‘I would have thought Zac would have told you by now,’ she added disapprovingly, her eyes narrowing on Victoria’s beautiful, slightly bewildered face. It was a source of constant aggravation to Coral that such beauty had been wasted on someone who didn’t care for the social scene, and who didn’t—in Coral’s opinion—make the best of themselves.

Victoria stared at her mother, the little prickles running down her spine telling her she was about to hear something she didn’t want to hear. But still she said, ‘Go on,’ her voice steady.

‘Gina Rossellini—that second, or is it third cousin of Zac’s?—took an overdose last night. She was in the room next to mine and there was such a commotion at about four o’clock this morning. Stupid woman.’ The last two words were vicious. ‘It’s all for Zac’s attention of course. I know her type.’

‘Mother...’ Victoria shook her head slowly, her sleek fall of silver-blonde hair that was cut in feathered wisps down to her shoulder blades shimmering under the artificial lights of the hotel lounge. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ she asked quietly, her stomach doing a mighty cartwheel. ‘Are you saying that there is something going on between Zac and Gina Rossellini?’

‘She’s been his mistress for years, girl; I thought you knew,’ Coral said irritably. ‘Everyone else on the planet does.’

‘I... How could I know?’ Victoria was suddenly aware of the moment in piercing detail—the subdued, discreet lighting overhead, the dusky pink carpet and luxurious furnishings, the faint perfume from the fresh flowers at the side of them—it was all stamped on her consciousness along with the horror of her mother’s next words that chilled her blood to liquid ice.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter much one way or the other, does it?’ Coral said matter-of-factly. ‘Your father’s mistress knew him long before I did and if you’re wise you won’t put anything in the way of this association continuing. A mistress is very useful, Victoria. She can take care of all that—’ her mother flicked a languid hand with a distasteful wrinkle of her small nose ‘—side of things which men seem to find so important. As long as she knows her place—as Linda Ward did—she can be an asset to you.’

‘Linda... Aunty Linda! You mean Aunty Linda was father’s mistress?’ Victoria asked faintly. She’d always known Linda Ward as one of her parents’ close friends, although her mother had always treated the other woman with a patronising condescension Victoria hadn’t understood until this very moment. ‘And you didn’t mind?’

‘Of course not.’ Her mother was clearly losing patience as she snapped, ‘All men have mistresses, Victoria, if they can afford them. For heaven’s sake open your eyes, girl. Of course one would prefer they have a little more control and discretion than Gina obviously has, but that comes of her having Latin blood, I suppose. Still, Zac’s mother was Italian so I suppose Gina suits him in certain regards. Men look for different things in wives and mistresses,’ Coral continued in the normal superior manner she adopted when talking to her daughter.

‘Mistresses are for certain...basic needs; wives are chosen for their social connections and pedigree, and for the continuation of the family name if so required . . .’

‘Zac...Zac isn’t like that,’ Victoria protested dazedly. ‘I don’t know what happened with Gina, but he isn’t still seeing her, I know it. And he married me because he loves me, not because of my name or standing or anything like that,’ she finished a trifle wildly, her hands clenching into two fists at her sides.

‘Pull yourself together.’ It was soft but deadly. ‘Don’t you dare cause a scene, Victoria. Of course Zac has a regard for you, but an alliance with the Chigley-Browns is also very useful to him. Your father’s business interests were very far-reaching, and there is already a deal going through to cement an alliance.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ Victoria glared at her. ‘I don’t.’

But her mother’s sharp ears caught the soft quiver in the brave protest, and her hard blue eyes that resembled cold glass were piercing. Coral sighed irritably, before she snapped, ‘I do hope you aren’t going to be difficult about all this, Victoria. For a grown woman of twenty you really are most childish. Zac spent peat of the night in Ginas’s room when he was called to her side—now face that and get on with things for goodness’ sake. I don’t know how many of our guests—’ ours? thought Victoria numbly ‘—are aware of the situation, but you need to handle this with the sophistication Zac will naturally expect of his wife.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ This time it was a fierce hiss, and Coral actually drew back in her chair, her light blue eyes wide with shock and surprise, as Victoria continued, ‘You disgust me, do you know that? You have always disgusted me, although when I was younger I couldn’t put a name to why. But you’re shallow, utterly selfish, and you don’t care about anyone but yourself. You’ve never loved me; I don’t believe you’ve ever loved anyone.’

Victoria rose as she finished speaking, glaring down at her mother with blazing blue eyes. ‘I’m going to find Zac now, and I know he’ll tell me it was all lies. We want to have a real marriage, something you couldn’t possibly understand.’

‘Victoria.’ Angry though her mother was, her voice still didn’t rise above a certain level, her control absolute. ‘Sit down at once and behave yourself. I’m ashamed of you.’

‘I’m a married woman, Mother, and your time of telling me what to do is over,’ Victoria said tightly. ‘I couldn’t believe the terrible scene you caused when I said I wanted to go to help the children in Romania, or the tactics you used to try and stop me going, but you failed then and you will continue to fail. I make my own decisions now; kindly remember that in future. And we will never agree on anything; I accept that now. We’re worlds apart.’

She was shaking so much as she walked over to join Zac that he couldn’t fail to notice, and as he finished his telephone call abruptly the thought did flash through Victoria’s mind as to why he couldn’t have used the phone in their suite.

‘Tory?’ It was his pet name for her and she welcomed the security of the intimacy for a moment. ‘What’s wrong?’ He took her arm as he spoke, moving her into a quiet corner as he held her against his chest before moving her away slightly in order to look down into her face. ‘Has someone upset you?’

‘My...my mother.’ Victoria breathed deeply, willing herself to remain strong. ‘She said things, things about you and...Gina.’

‘What things?’ His voice was expressionless and calm, but Victoria had seen the impact in his eyes and her heart stopped before racing on like an express train. There was something in this.

‘She said Gina was your mistress.’ Victoria pulled away from him now, standing straight and stiff as she looked intently into his face. ‘And that your business interests are forming a merger with my father’s. She said it’s all been arranged for ages.’

‘And?’ He continued to look at her with the poker face she had seen him adopt with other people in other situations. But not her. Never with her. With her he had been open and warm and tender... Black foreboding took all the colour from her face.

‘Isn’t that enough?’ Victoria asked tightly. ‘Is it true?’

‘Tory, let’s go somewhere more private to discuss this.’

‘Where did you go when you left our room last night?’ she asked with painful dignity, holding her slender body ramrod-straight. ‘Did you go to see Gina because she had taken an overdose?’

‘Victoria, I’m not prepared to discuss this here.’ The ‘Tory’ had gone, Victoria thought with grim discernment, and in that moment she knew whom he had been phoning too. Gina Rossellini.

‘Why did she do that, Zac?’ She ignored his furious frown with a regal composure her mother would have been proud of. ‘Was it because she couldn’t handle seeing you marry someone else? Because she’d thought she was going to be the one you took down the aisle, rather than becoming the one you kept on the side? And why did you marry me anyway? Were my connections better than hers? Have I swelled the Harding coffers?’ she persisted stiffly.

‘Is that what Coral told you?’ he asked grimly.

But he hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t denied it. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. ‘Zac, are you, or are you not, dealing with the people who now run my father’s business interests for my mother with a view to an alliance?’ Victoria asked woodenly. ‘A simple yes or no will do.’ She stared at him desperately.

‘Yes.’ And he didn’t bat an eyelid. Not an eyelid.

‘And did you spend part of the night with Gina when she called you after taking an overdose?’ she continued flatly, her heart thudding as the nightmare escalated at his grim,

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And she is your mistress.’

It was a statement, not a question, and now his cool control was absolute when he said evenly, ‘We had a relationship once, Victoria. Past tense.’

She wanted to believe him. She couldn’t believe how much she wanted to—but she didn’t. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her before, Zac? Especially knowing she would be here at the wedding?’ Victoria asked numbly. And she had actually liked Gina when she had met her, she thought with a stab of fierce self-disgust at her own credulity. She’d thought the other woman charming.

‘She wasn’t relevant to you and me,’ he said softly. ‘That’s why.’ He went to take her arm again but she jerked away tightly.

‘Wasn’t relevant?’ What planet was this man on? What planet were they all on? Victoria asked herself bitterly. And then she remembered something Zac had let slip a couple of weeks before, and she felt her heart crack and break into a hundred tiny pieces.

‘You had lunch with her recently,’ she stated slowly, searching her memory. ‘You said you were helping her buy an apartment, putting her in touch with the right people.’ And now she stepped back a pace, her violet eyes black with pain. ‘You were setting up a love nest, weren’t you? And this morning, this morning—’ She couldn’t express how his withdrawal from her when she had first awoken was affecting her. ‘I hate you,’ she said bitterly.

‘Victoria!’ He caught her arm as she went to swing away from him, forcing her to remain where she was. ‘Listen to me, for crying out loud. Listen. I can explain all this.’

‘You left me on our wedding night to go to her,’ Victoria said slowly, her voice flat but her eyes expressing her shock and horror. ‘You still care about her, don’t you? You still love her. When she called you, you went to her and left me.’

‘Victoria, I married you,’ he said with savage restraint, his fingers bruising the soft flesh of her arm. ‘I love you.’

‘Tell me you feel nothing for her. Tell me,’ she insisted hotly. ‘Tell me you didn’t buy her that apartment, that I’m wrong.’

And then his eyes flickered again and she knew he wouldn’t say it. Because he knew she would know he was lying.

‘I’m going back to the room for a while; I want to be alone,’ she said shakily. ‘I’ll join you and the others later.’

‘I’m coming with you; this has gone far enough—’

‘No.’ She interrupted his angry voice with a sharp lift of her chin and a straightening of her body. ‘I need...I need some time before I come into breakfast, and then...we can talk afterwards. I can’t now; I just can’t.’ Her voice broke then, and as his face twisted and he would have taken her in his arms she backed away so sharply she almost fell over. She couldn’t bear for him to touch her. She hated him. Oh, she hated him.

‘Please, Zac,’ she said with touching dignity, ‘if you’ve ever had any feeling for me at all, let me have a few minutes by myself. I feel you owe me that at least.’

‘This is crazy,’ he ground out furiously through clenched teeth. ‘Your damned mother wants shooting!’

‘I’ll see you in a few minutes.’ Her voice was dismissive, and she didn’t argue the point further, walking swiftly over to the lifts and entering the first one without turning her head. She had half expected him to follow, and by the time she reached their suite and realised he wasn’t going to something had solidified in her heart, making it feel like a ten-ton weight.

Their bags were sitting in the corner, packed and labelled for their month’s honeymoon in Jamaica, but Victoria took only her overnight case and handbag with her, leaving the hotel quietly by the back entrance through the kitchens to avoid Reception and the possibility that Zac might be there. Facing him again was unthinkable.

Once outside in the cool chill of the late March morning, she stood uncertainly looking from left to right along the side road bordering the rear of the hotel. She couldn’t go to their beautiful new house in Wimbledon, or her mother’s apartment in Kensington—they would be the first places Zac would look for her—and most of their friends’ and relations’ homes were out for the same reason. She bit her lip, her face desperate. And then it came to her. William. She could go to William.

William was the brother of one of her old schoolfriends, and she had known him since her first visit to her friend’s house when she had been eight years old and terribly shy. He had teased her, played with her, and never once led her to believe he considered an eight-year-old girl beneath his fifteen-year-old notice.

For the next few years Victoria had spent most of the holidays from boarding-school with his family. Her mother had been only too pleased to be spared the inconvenience of having her around—something Coral had made abundantly clear several times—and when Victoria was thirteen, and the family had moved abroad, William had stayed in England. He had a very modern bachelor pad with enough gadgets for a James Bond movie, and she had still continued to visit him now and again before she had left England for the year in Romania.

He had a high-pressured and absorbing job in the BBC, which meant he was out of the country for weeks at a time on some assignment or other, but she knew he had been due home from the latest mission the night before. He had sent a polite note to her a couple of weeks ago to say he regretted he was going to miss the wedding by hours. So, more likely than not he would be in, and, best of all, Zac had never met him. In fact she wasn’t even sure if Zac knew of the other man’s existence.

William had been in—very in as it happened—and once he had got dressed and the lady had left, insisting she had been due to leave in the next hour anyway, he had let Victoria cry herself into a frenzy and then out of it again. He had held her close, murmuring soothing nothings and asking no questions until she was calmer, at which point he had made a pot of very strong coffee and they had talked the afternoon away.

At the end of that time he’d offered her unconditional sanctuary for as long as she felt she needed it, with an additional invitation of the use of his holiday home in Tunisia which he’d recently inherited from his grandmother.

And she hadn’t seen Zac again.