Читать книгу In Bed with Her Ex: Miss Prim and the Billionaire / Mardie and the City Surgeon / The Boy is Back in Town - Marion Lennox, Lucy Gordon - Страница 14

LAURA Degrande had settled contentedly in a small house in the suburbs of Paris. It wasn’t a wealthy district, but she always said life was better without wealth. Her marriage to Amos Falcon had not been happy, and the only good thing to come from it was her son, Marcel. He would have kept her in luxury, but she refused, accepting an allowance that was comfortable, but no more, despite his indignant protests. It was the only blot on their otherwise affectionate relationship.

Her face lit up when he appeared at her door.

‘My darling, how lovely to see you. I was thrilled to get your call this morning. What is it that’s so urgent?’

Hugging her, Marcel said, ‘I need to look through some old stuff that you stored for me.’

‘Have you lost something?’

‘You might say that. Are the bags where I left them?’

‘Still in the attic.’

‘See you later.’

He hurried up the stairs before she could answer, and shut himself away in the little room, where he began to pull open bags and boxes, tossing them aside when they didn’t contain what he wanted. When Laura looked in he turned a haggard face towards her.

‘There’s something missing—a big grey envelope—I left it here—it’s gone—’

‘Oh, that. Yes, I found it but there was only rubbish inside, shreds of paper that you’d obviously torn up. I thought they should be thrown out.’

‘What?’ The sound that broke from him was a roar of anguish. His face was haggard, desperate. ‘You threw it out?’

‘No, calm down. I thought about it but then I remembered what you’re like about not throwing things away. So I stored them safely—up here on this shelf. Yes, here’s the envelope.’

He almost snatched it from her with a choking, ‘Thank you!’

Laura left the room quickly, knowing that something desperately important had happened, and he needed to be alone to cope with it.

Marcel wrenched open the envelope and a load of small bits of paper cascaded onto the floor. Frantically he gathered them up, found a small table and began to piece them together. It was hard because his hands were shaking, and the paper had been torn into tiny shreds.

As he worked he could see himself again, on that night long ago, tearing, tearing, desperate with hate and misery.

He’d left the hospital as soon as he was strong enough, and gone straight to Cassie’s home. The lights were out and he knew the worst as soon as he arrived, but he still banged on the door, crying her name, banging more desperately.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ said a voice behind him. ‘She’s gone.’

Behind him stood a middle-aged man who Marcel knew vaguely. He was usually grumpy, but today he seemed pleased at the bad news he was imparting.

‘Gone where?’ Marcel demanded.

A shrug. ‘How do I know? She packed up and left days ago. I saw her get into a posh car. Bloke who owned it must be a millionaire, so I reckon that’s finished you. She saw sense at last.’

Seeing Marcel’s face, he retreated hastily.

At first he refused to believe it, banging on the door again and screaming her name, until at last even he had to accept the truth. She’d gone without a backward glance.

He didn’t remember the journey home, except that he sat drinking in the back of the taxi until he tumbled out onto the pavement and staggered into the building.

On the mat he found an envelope, with his name in Cassie’s handwriting. The sight had been enough to make him explode with drunken rage and misery, tearing it, tearing, tearing, tearing—until only shreds were left.

He’d left England next morning. At the airport he’d had a brief glimpse of Cassie, dressed up to the nines, in the company of a man who clearly had money coming out of his ears. That sight answered all his questions. He’d screamed abuse, and fled.

In Paris he’d taken refuge in his mother’s home, collapsing and letting her care for him. When he unpacked it was actually a surprise to discover that he’d brought Cassie’s letter, although in shreds. He had no memory of putting it into his bag.

Now was the time to destroy it finally, but he hesitated. Better to keep it, and read it one day, years ahead. When he was an old man, ruling a financial empire, with an expensive wife and a gang of children, then he would read the whore’s miserable excuses.

And laugh.

How he would laugh! He’d laugh as violently as he was weeping now.

When at last he could control his sobs he took the bits of paper to his room, stuffed them into an envelope and put it in a drawer by his bed. There it had stayed until he’d moved out. Then he’d hidden it away in the little attic, asking his mother to be sure never to touch his things.

As the years passed he’d sometimes thought of the day that would come when he could read her pathetic words and jeer at her memory. Now that day was here.

He worked feverishly, fixing the pieces together. But gradually his tension increased. Something was wrong. No, it was impossible. Be patient! It would come right.

But at last he could no longer delude himself. With every tiny wisp of paper scrutinised to no avail, with every last chance gone, he slammed his fist into the wall again and again.

When there was no word, and her calls went unanswered, Cassie came to a final reluctant decision. As she packed she chided herself for imagining that things could ever have been different. Her flesh was still warm from their encounters the night before, but she should never have fooled herself.

He was punishing her by abandoning her in the way he felt she’d abandoned him. The generous person he’d once been would never have taken such cruel, carefully thought out vengeance, but now he was a different man, one she didn’t know.

She called the airport and booked herself onto the evening flight to London. There! It was done.

‘You are leaving?’ asked Vera, who’d been listening.

‘Yes, I have to. Would you please give this to Marcel?’ She handed over a sealed envelope. Inside was a small piece of paper, on which she’d written: ‘It’s better this way. I’m sure you agree. Cassie.’

‘Can’t you wait just a little?’ Vera begged.

‘No, I’ve stayed too long already.’

Take-off was not for three hours but she felt an urgent need to get away at once. She took a taxi to the airport and sat, trying not to brood. She should never have come to this place, never dreamed that the terrible wrongs of the past could be put right. How triumphant he would feel, knowing his snub had driven her away! How glad he would be to be rid of her!

At last it was time to check in. She rose and joined the queue. She had almost reached the front when a yell rent the air.

‘Cassie!’

Everyone looked up to see the man standing at the top of a flight of stairs, but he saw none of them. His eyes were fixed only on her as he hurled himself down at breakneck speed and ran to her so fast that he had to seize her in order to steady himself.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded frantically.

‘I’m going home.’

‘You’re staying here.’

‘Let go of me.’

‘No!’ He was holding her in an unbreakable grip. ‘You can either agree to come back with me, or we can fight it out right here and now. Which?’

‘You’re impossible!’

‘It took you ten years to discover that? I thought you were clever. Yes or no?’ ‘All right—yes.’

‘Good. Is this yours?’ He lifted her suitcase with one hand while still holding her wrist with the other. Plainly he was taking no chances.

In this awkward fashion they made it out of the building to where the car from La Couronne was waiting for them. While the chauffeur loaded the suitcase Marcel guided her into the back and drew the glass partition across, isolating them. As the car sped through the Paris traffic he kept hold of her hand.

‘There’s no need to grip me so tightly,’ she said. ‘I’m hardly going to jump out here.’

‘I’m taking no chances. You could vanish at any time. You’ve done it twice, you won’t do it to me again. You can count on that.’

‘I went because you made it so obvious that you wanted to be rid of me.’

‘Are you mad?’ he demanded.

‘I’m not the one who vanished into thin air. When a woman awakes to find the man gone in the morning that’s a pretty clear message.’

‘Tell me about vanishing into thin air,’ he growled. ‘You’re the expert.’

‘I left a note with Vera—’

‘I didn’t mean today.’ The words came out as a cry of pain, and she cursed herself for stupidity.

‘No, I guess not. I’m sorry. So when you left this morning, that was your way of paying me back?’

‘I went because I had to, but … things happened. I never meant to stay away so long. When I got back and Vera told me you’d left for England I couldn’t believe it. I tried to call you but you’d turned your phone off—like last time.’

She drew a sharp breath. Something in his voice, his eyes, revealed all his suffering as no mere words could have done.

‘But why did you have to dash off?’ she asked.

‘To read the letter you wrote me ten years ago.’

‘But you said you never got it.’

‘No, I said I never read it. I was so blazing mad I tore it up without reading it.’

‘Then how could you read it now?’

‘Because I kept it,’ he said savagely. ‘Fool that I am, I kept it.’

She could hardly believe her ears. ‘And you never—in all these years—?’

‘No, I never read it. But neither did I throw it away. Today I went to my mother’s home where it’s been stored, meaning to fit it together. But it isn’t all there. Some of the pieces are lost. I came straight back to find you, and you were gone. Vera heard you booking the flight so I had to act fast.’

‘You only just got there in time,’ she murmured.

‘Well, actually—I have a friend who works in airport security. I called him. You wouldn’t have been allowed to get on that plane.’

‘What? You actually dared—?’

‘I couldn’t risk you getting away. It’s too important.’

‘And suppose I want to get away?’

He looked at her in silence. Words could never have said so clearly that what she wanted played no part in this. This was a man driven by demons that were too strong for him, and perhaps also for her.

‘So you want me to explain the missing pieces?’ she guessed.

‘If you can remember them.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured. ‘I can remember everything.’

They had reached La Couronne. Marcel hurried her inside, his hand still on her arm. Several people tried to attract his attention, but he never saw them. Only one thing mattered now.

As soon as they were inside his apartment he locked the door. She almost told him there was no need, but then kept silent. Marcel was in the grip of an obsession and she, of all people, couldn’t say it was irrational. She knew a burst of pity for him, standing on the edge of a dangerous pit. If he fell into its fearsome depths, wouldn’t she be at least partly to blame?

He held out the letter, where she could see tiny scraps stuck onto a base sheet, but with gaping holes. ‘Do you recognise this?’ he demanded. ‘Yes, of course.’

He thrust it into her hands and turned away. ‘Read it to me.’ It felt weird to see the words over which she’d struggled so hard and wept so many tears. She began to read aloud.

‘ “My darling, beloved Marcel, you will wonder why I didn’t come to you when you were in pain and trouble, but I didn’t dare. What happened wasn’t an accident. It was done on purpose by a man who wants to claim me for himself. I refused him, and—”’ She stopped. ‘There’s a gap here.’

‘What are the missing words?’ he asked.

She closed her eyes, travelling back to the past. ‘“He hurt you, to show me what would happen if I didn’t give in,”’ she said slowly. She opened her eyes.

‘Then the letter goes on, “I couldn’t risk coming to you in the hospital because he would have known and he might kill you. I’m delivering this through your door, because it’s the only way I can think of that he won’t find out. I hope and pray that it will be safe. I couldn’t bear it if you believed I’d just walked away, or stopped loving you.” Then there’s another gap.’

‘Do you know what’s missing?’ When she didn’t answer he turned and repeated harshly, ‘Do you?’

‘Yes. I said—’“I will never stop loving you, until the very end of my days, but this is the last time I can ever say so.”’ The signature is still there if you want to read it.

‘I don’t need to read it,’ he said quietly, and recited, ‘Your very own Cassie, yours forever, however long “forever” may last.’ I don’t suppose you remember writing that.’

‘Yes, I remember writing every word, even the ones that aren’t here any more.’

‘“I will never stop loving you until the very end of my days,”’ he repeated. ‘You’re sure you wrote that?’

‘Yes, I’m quite sure. But even if you doubt me, the rest of the letter is there. I told you what had happened and why I had to leave you. If only you’d read it then, you’d have known that I still loved you—oh, Marcel—all these years!’

‘Don’t,’ he begged, shuddering. ‘If I think of that I’ll go mad.’

‘I’m surprised we haven’t both gone mad long before this. And it was all so unnecessary.’ ‘Yes, if I’d read this then—’

‘No, I mean more than that. There’s another reason the last ten years could have been avoided.’ She broke off, heaving.

‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.

She raised fierce eyes to his face.

‘I mean that you played your part in what happened to us. It could all have been so different if only you’d been honest with me. Why didn’t you tell me who you were, who your father was? We need never have been driven apart.’

He stared. ‘What difference—?’

Her temper was rising fast. ‘If I’d known you were the son of Amos Falcon I’d have gone to him for help. He’s a powerful man. When he heard what Jake had done he would have dealt with him, had him arrested, sent to jail. We’d have been safe.

‘Everything since then could have been different. You’d have been spared all that suffering and disillusion. I’d have been spared that terrible time with Jake. So much misery because you had to play a silly game.’

He tore his hair. ‘I was just … I didn’t want you to know I came from a rich family.’

‘Because you thought I’d be too interested in your money. Charming!’

‘No, because you thought I was poor and you chose me over your rich admirers. That meant the world to me—’

‘Yes, but there was a high price, and you weren’t the only one who paid it. You spoke of hating me, but I could hate you for what you did to my life with your juvenile games. When I found out the truth recently I … I just couldn’t … so much misery, and so needless—aaaargh!’

The last word was a scream that seemed to tear itself from her body without her meaning it. It was followed by another, and another, and now she couldn’t stop screaming.

‘Cassie!’ he tried, reaching for her. ‘Cassie!’

‘Get away from me,’ she screamed. ‘Don’t touch me. I hate you.’

He wouldn’t let her fight him off, drawing her closer until her face was against his shoulder, murmuring in her ear, ‘That’s right, hate me. I deserve it. Hate me, hate me.’

‘Yes,’ she wept.

‘I’m a damned fool and you suffered for it. Call me every name you can think of. Hit me if you like.’ He drew back so that she could see his face. ‘It’s no more than I deserve. Go on, I won’t stop you.’

She couldn’t speak, just shook her head while the tears ran down her cheeks. Then she was back in his arms, held against him, feeling him pick her up, kick open a door and lay her down on a soft bed.

But this was no love-making. Lying beside her, he held her gently, murmuring soothing words, stroking her hair. Her efforts to stop weeping were in vain, and he seemed to understand this because he murmured, ‘Go on, cry it out. Don’t try to hold back.’

‘All those wasted years,’ she choked.

‘Years when we could have been together,’ he agreed, ‘loving each other, making each other happy, having children. All gone because I was a conceited oaf.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ she managed to say. ‘You were just young—’

‘Young and stupid,’ he supplied. ‘Not thinking of anyone but myself, imagining I could play games without people being hurt—’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ she said huskily.

‘Why not? It’s true. I did it. My silly pretence meant you couldn’t seek my father’s help and, even after that, if I’d only read your letter I—imbécile, stupide!’ ‘Marcel,’ she wept, ‘Marcel—’

Distress choked her again, but now it was the same with him. She could feel his body heaving, his arms around her as hers were around him.

‘I did it,’ he sobbed. ‘I did it. It’s all my fault.’

‘No … no …’ She tightened her embrace, tenderly stroking his head as a mother might have done with a child.

‘Ten years,’ he gasped. ‘Ten years! Where did they go? How can we get them back?’

‘We can’t,’ she said. ‘What’s done can never be undone.’

‘I don’t believe that!’

‘Marcel, you can’t turn the clock back; it isn’t possible. We can only go on from here.’

He didn’t reply in words, but she felt his arms tighten, as though he feared that she might slip away again.

Go on where? said the voice in her head. And what do you mean by ‘we ‘? Who are you? Who is he now?

She silenced the voice. She had no answer to those troublesome questions. Everything she’d suffered, the lessons learned in the last ten years, all the confusion and despair, were uniting to cry with a thousand voices that from this moment nothing would be simple, nothing easy, and it might all end in more heartbreak.

It was a relief to realise that he was relaxing into sleep in her arms, as though in her he found the only true comfort. She stroked him some more, murmuring soft words in his ear. ‘Sleep, my darling. We’ll find a way. I only wish I knew … I wish I knew …’

But then sleep came to her rescue too, and the words faded into nothing.

It was dark when she awoke and the illuminated clock by the bed told her they had dozed for barely an hour. Careful not to awaken Marcel, she eased away and sat on the side of the bed, dropping her head into her hands, feeling drained.

The concerns that had worried her before were even stronger now. Their tumultuous discoveries could bring great happiness, or great despair. They had found each other again, and perhaps the troubles of the past could be made right. But it was too soon to be sure, and she had a strange sensation of watching everything from a distance.

She walked over to the window, looking out on the dazzling view. Paris was a blaze of light against the darkness.

‘Are you all right?’ came his voice from behind her.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said quickly.

He came up behind her and she felt his hands on her shoulders. ‘Are you sure? You seem very troubled.’

How had he divined that merely from her back view? she wondered. How and where had he gained such insight?

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked softly.

‘I don’t know. My thoughts come and go so quickly I can’t keep up with them.’

‘Me too,’ he agreed. ‘We must have many long talks.’

‘But not now,’ she said. ‘I feel as though I’m choking. I need to go out into the fresh air.’

‘Fine, let’s go for a walk.’

‘No, I have to be alone.’

‘Cassie—’

‘It’s all right, I won’t vanish again. I’ll return, I promise.’

‘It’s dark,’ he persisted. ‘Do you know how late it is?’

‘I have to do this,’ she said in a tense voice. ‘Please, Marcel, don’t try to stop me.’

He was silent and she sensed his struggle. But at last he sighed and stood back to let her pass.

Without even going to her own apartment, she hurried directly down to the entrance. The hotel was close to the River Seine, and by following the signs she was able to find the way to the water. Here she could stand looking down at the little ripples, glittering through the darkness, and listen to the sounds of the city. Late as it was, Paris was still alive. Far in the distance she could see the Eiffel Tower reaching up into the heavens.

She turned around slowly and that was when she saw the man, fifty yards away along the embankment, standing quite still, watching her. At first she thought he was a stalker, but then she recognised him. Marcel.

When she began to walk towards him he backed away. When she turned and moved off he followed.

‘Marcel,’ she called. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

At last he drew close enough for her to see a slightly sheepish look on his face.

‘I was just concerned for your safety,’ he responded. ‘I’ll keep my distance, and leave you in peace. But I’ll always be there if you need me.’

Her annoyance died and she managed a shaky laugh. ‘My guardian angel, huh?’

‘That has to be the first time anyone’s mistaken me for an angel,’ he said wryly.

‘Why do I find that so easy to believe? All right, you can stay.’

Recently she had forgotten how much charm he had when he was set on getting his own way. Suddenly she was remembering.

He completed the effect by taking two small wine bottles from his pockets and handing her one. ‘Let’s sit down,’ he said.

She did so and drank the wine thankfully. ‘It’s a lot to take in all at once, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘These last few years must have been terrible for you. The man who had me run down—was that the man I saw you with at the airport?’

‘Yes, that was Jake. I’d spent the previous few days at his house, “entertaining him” as he put it.’

‘You don’t need to say any more,’ Marcel said in a strained voice.

‘No, I guess not.

‘We were travelling to America that day. After he’d seen you he kept on and on at me, demanding to know if I’d been in touch with you. I swore I hadn’t, and in the end he believed me because he said if you’d known the truth you wouldn’t have called me “Whore”.

‘I didn’t know what to believe. I thought perhaps you’d read my letter and were pretending, or maybe you hadn’t been home yet and would get it later. But I told Jake that he must be right about that.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘It was always wise to tell Jake he was right. He’d already destroyed my cellphone so that nobody could get in touch with me.’

‘So you were his prisoner?’ he said, aghast. ‘All that time you were suffering and I did nothing to help you.’

‘How could you? I must admit that I did hope for a while, but in the end I realised you’d accepted our parting and that was the end. So I married him.’

‘You married him?’

‘Why not? I felt my life was over. I just went with the tide. When I found he’d been fooling around with other women it gave me the weapon I needed to divorce him. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid of him any more. I accepted some money from him because I had people who needed it, but I didn’t keep any for myself. I didn’t want anything from him, even his name. I used Henshaw because it was my mother’s maiden name.’

‘What’s happened to him since? Does he trouble you?’

‘He’s in jail at the moment, for several years, hopefully. I told you how I took business courses after that, and started on the life I live now.’ She raised her wine bottle to the moon. ‘Independence every time. Cheers!’

‘Independence or isolation?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘Does it matter? Either way, it’s better to rely on yourself.’

He sighed. ‘I guess so.’

He was glad she couldn’t see his face, lest his thoughts showed. He was remembering one night, a lifetime ago, when she’d endured a bad day at work and thrown herself into his arms.

‘What would I do without you?’ she’d sighed. ‘That rotten photographer—goodness, but he’s nasty! Never mind. I can put up with anything as long as I know I have you—’

‘And you’ll always have me,’ he’d assured her.

Three weeks later, the disaster had separated them.

‘Better rely on yourself,’ he repeated, ‘rather than on a fool who thought it was funny to conceal his real background, and plunged you both into tragedy.’

‘Hey, I wasn’t getting at you. Nobody knows what’s just around the corner.’ She laughed. ‘After all, we never saw this coming, did we?’

‘And you’d have run a mile if you’d known. I remember you saying so.’ He waited for her answer. It didn’t come. ‘How long ago since your divorce?’ he asked.

‘About five years. Since then I’ve been Mrs Henshaw, bestriding the financial world. It suits me. Remember you used to joke about my having a great brain?’

‘It wasn’t entirely a joke. I think I was a bit jealous of the way you could read something once and remember it like it was set in stone.’

‘There now, I told you I was made to be a businesswoman.’

‘But that’s not your only talent. Why didn’t you go back to modelling? You’re still beautiful.’

‘Not really.’

‘I say you are,’ he said fiercely.

‘I won’t argue about it. But it takes more than beauty and I’ve lost something special. I know that. I knew it then. I’d look in the mirror and see that a light had gone out inside me. Besides,’ she hurried on before he could protest, ‘I wanted to try something new. It was my choice. Life moves on, we don’t stay in the same place.

‘Cassie was one person. Mrs Henshaw is another. I became quite pleased with her. She takes people by surprise. Some of them are even scared of her.’

‘And you like people being scared of you?’

‘Not all the time, but it has its uses. She’s a bright lady is Mrs Henshaw. Lots of common sense.’

‘Now you’re scaring me.’

‘Good.’

‘So I’ve got to get used to Mrs Henshaw hanging around, when the one I want is Cassie?’

‘I’m not sure that’s a wise choice. Mrs Henshaw has to get that hotel set up. You need her expertise, her “great brain”. Cassie wouldn’t be up to the job.’

She managed to say it in a teasing tone, and he managed a smile in reply. But they both knew that she was conveying a subtle warning.

Go slowly. Don’t rush it. A false step could mean disaster.

‘I think we should go back now,’ she said.

She rose and offered him her hand. He hesitated only a moment before nodding and taking it. In this way, with him following her lead, they strolled back to the hotel.