Читать книгу Scandals And Secrets - Miranda Lee - Страница 7

CELESTE was turning for her twentieth lap when a glimpse of male legs standing at the end of the pool brought her to a gasping halt, water-filled eyes snapping upwards.

‘Good God, Damian,’ she said irritably once she’d caught her breath and found her feet. ‘You frightened the life out of me.’

Her brother laughed. ‘Nothing and no one can frighten the life out of you, Celeste. What on earth did you think I was? A rapist?’ He laughed again. ‘I would pity any poor rapist who set his sights on you, sister, dear. I know who it’d be ending up on his back.’

Celeste flashed her brother a coolly reproachful glance as she stroked over to the wall, intuition telling her he was referring to her reputation as a man-eater, not complimenting her on her martial arts skills. Damian delighted in delivering sarcastic little barbs her way. In that respect he was very much like Irene.

Dismay and irritation mingled to rattle Celeste momentarily. If there was one person she didn’t like thinking about it was her half-sister. Irene’s death last year might have lessened the feelings of hostility and hatred Celeste had harboured against Irene all these years, but thinking about her inevitably led to thinking about another person, who was unfortunately very much alive.

‘What do you want, Damian?’ she snapped, her nerves suddenly on edge. ‘It’s not like you to surface on a Saturday till at least mid-afternoon. When you come home on a Friday night at all, that is.’

Her brother did not have a monopoly on sarcasm, Celeste realised with a twinge of conscience. Not that Damian was capable of being hurt by such remarks. If anything, he seemed to enjoy any allusion to his decadent lifestyle.

Damian was a lost cause in Celeste’s opinion. Spoilt, selfish and lazy, he was also far too good-looking for his own good. When he’d been younger, she’d made excuses for his wild behaviour, hoping he might grow out of being reckless and irresponsible, especially when it came to the opposite sex. But twenty-nine saw him as a playboy of the worst kind. Celeste was appalled at how many happy marriages he had destroyed. What a pity the wives never saw the wickedness behind that boyish smile and those magnetic black eyes!

If Celeste had had her way, she would have tossed Damian to the four winds ages ago and forced him at least to fend for himself. That might have given him a bit of character. But he was the apple of their mother’s eye, and Adele had ignored all her daughter’s advice when it came to her ‘baby’. She’d insisted Damian be given a position in the family company, for which he was paid a salary far and above his contribution to Campbell Jewels, a salary which never seemed to meet his ever-increasing needs. Only last week, he’d approached Celeste for a loan, which she’d given him on the condition it was the first and last time.

‘I hope you haven’t come here looking for more money,’ she added tartly as she levered herself out of the pool and stripped her cap off. Long tawny blonde waves tumbled over her forehead and eyes. Celeste combed her hair back off her face with her fingers before walking over to pick up a towel and start drying herself. ‘If you have, you’re wasting your time.’

Damian lowered himself on to one of the cane loungers and surveyed his sister with a curious mixture of dislike and admiration.

For a female rising forty, she was still a hot-looking bird. Of course she spent a fortune on her face and hair, and she worked the hell out of her body to keep it looking like that, without an ounce of extra flesh, every muscle toned and honed to perfection.

She was not to his taste, however, either physically or personality-wise. Celeste was as hard as her body. He liked his women soft, in all respects. And he preferred brunettes, especially one particular brunette with big innocent brown eyes, the most luscious body and the sweetest of smiles.

Damn, but he couldn’t wait for the delectable Mrs Nathan Whitmore to fall into his hands. They said everything came to those who waited but he was getting sick and tired of waiting for Gemma to wake up to the sort of man that husband of hers was. Maybe he would have to think of some way he could give the situation a little push...

Meanwhile, he was about to relieve his boredom by giving his darling sister a different kind of push. Hell, but he was going to enjoy relaying the news he’d found out last night.

When Celeste saw Damian’s mouth pull back into a wickedly smug smile, a prickle of alarm shivered down her damp spine.

‘You’d like for me to have come crawling, wouldn’t you?’ he said silkily, linking his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles with an air of arrogant insolence. ‘You like having men suck up to you. It makes you feel all-powerful. That’s one of the reasons why you only screw around with younger men. Because they grovel better, and they’re easier to control.’

Celeste’s mouth dropped open for a second before it snapped shut. Underneath his nasty delivery and understandably inaccurate assumptions, Damian was right about her enjoying power over the male of the species. That was one of her rewards for staying alive, for picking herself up from the edge of insanity and suicide, and choosing to survive. It felt good to have men jumping to obey her every whim and want, having them bow and scrape. The days of her ever having to be afraid of a man, or in having them control any aspect of her life, were long over.

Or so she had believed. Till recently.

‘What a delicate turn of phrase you have, Damian,’ she said drily, needing a few moments to regain her composure after such a disturbing train of thought.

He laughed. ‘Since when did you take offence at calling a spade a spade? You don’t give a damn what people think of you, Celeste. You never have.’

Celeste frowned at this dig at the way she’d lived her life over the past decade or so, especially her uncaring attitude to scandal and gossip. It was true that she’d deliberately fuelled her reputation as a man-eater, publicly parading a long line of toy-boy companions for the gossip-mongers and tabloids to report.

What the general public did not know—or even her own brother—was that not once, during that time, had she actually been to bed with any of those young studs. Oh, yes, she’d flirted openly with them, especially when the cameras had been close. She’d allowed them to take her to highly publicised premieres, charity balls, the races and any other function where her photo was likely to be taken and printed, complete with partner.

Most of her supposed lovers had been independently wealthy playboy types from society families around Sydney. Some, however, had been employees—her personal assistant and chauffeurs were always young, male and handsome—whom she outwardly treated much more intimately than their position warranted. Amazing how quickly rumour escalated such relationships into tempestuous affairs.

Celeste suspected the men themselves lied about their conquests of the infamous female head of Campbell Jewels. Perhaps their male egos prompted them to feed the gossip about her reputedly voracious sexuality, each one in turn thinking they were the only one not to succeed in getting her into bed.

Celeste had never been bothered by any of this before. She had revelled in it all, finding some kind of weird vengeance in the knowledge that there was one particular person whom her scandalous reputation might hopefully hurt. She used to like to picture his face when he read or heard the latest gossip about her. She would imagine him hating her, yet still wanting her at the same time.

Thinking about his ongoing unrequited desire evoked an inner satisfaction that soothed the savage beast lurking within her heart.

Or it had. Till she’d taken herself off to the Whitmore Opals ball a few weeks back and come face to face with that unrequited desire, only to find out that her own desire for Byron Whitmore was still there, just as unrequited as his, and just as strong as ever.

Celeste had been utterly thrown. She’d been so sure she would never feel any desire for any man ever again, let alone the man who’d been the instigation of all her pain and anguish. Suddenly, that night, her much vaunted control over her life had been in danger of slipping away.

Any imminent disintegration had been temporarily staved off, however, by the most unlikely circumstances: an attempted robbery.

The prize for the thieves was to have been the Heart of Fire, a magnificent uncut black opal, the auction of which had been advertised as the highlight of the ball.

When she’d first heard news of the auction on the grapevine, she’d tried dismissing the thought that this could be the same opal which had played such an unfortunate part in her life over twenty years before, but once she saw it for herself on display in the Regency store windows all sorts of tortuous thoughts and futile hopes had forced her to walk back into the lion’s den and confront the past as she had never confronted it before. In the flesh.

The results had been horrendous. Not only was she shattered by the realisation that she still wanted Byron in a sexual sense, she had also stupidly forked out two million dollars for an opal she couldn’t even bear to look at. She hadn’t even been to elicit any real information about the circumstances of the Heart of Fire’s reappearance, Byron having answered her query with some slick lie about it turning up in some old dead miner’s things at Lightning Ridge and being returned to him. As if anyone would just hand over a two-million-dollar opal!

Celeste had been in a most uncharacteristic mental turmoil that night when the balaclavaed robbers made their unexpected appearance. When one grabbed her as hostage, she’d been momentarily at a loss, obeying his commands and weakly going with him like a lamb to the slaughter, till some brutal manhandling had snapped her out of her submissive fog, revitalising her bitter determination never to surrender any of her self to any man in any way ever again, either emotionally or physically.

Out of the blue, she’d struck back, using the self-defence skills she’d learnt many years before, felling her assailants with two quick kicks. With hindsight, she almost felt gratitude to those brutes for bringing back horrific memories which in turn had renewed her fighting spirit.

Suddenly, she’d felt strong again, strong enough to defy this unwanted weakness of still wanting Byron Whitmore in a sexual sense. When fate placed her in his insidious presence once again a few days after the ball, she had delighted in deliberately courting his disgust in an appalling display of over-the-top flirtation with her chauffeur.

Unfortunately, her outrageous behaviour had back-fired on her in a couple of ways. Firstly, the chauffeur had been inspired to take liberties later that evening and she’d had to fire him. But the second and more disastrous outcome was that this time Byron’s obvious contempt had unaccountably distressed, instead of soothed her.

Celeste had eventually pulled herself together to the point where Byron ceased to fill her thoughts on a daily basis. But she certainly wasn’t looking forward to confronting him again next Monday at the trial of the ringleader of the robbers, where they were both witnesses.

‘Is this your version of the silent treatment?’ Damian drawled in a derisive tone. ‘If so, I find it incredibly boring.’

‘Say what it is you have to say, Damian,’ she answered sharply. ‘I’m not in the mood for any of your sick little games.’

‘Moi? Play sick games? Never!’ His laughter grated on her already stretched nerves.

‘Damian,’ she rebuked. ‘Get on with it!’

His hands dropped back to his sides and he sat up, a petulant expression on his too handsome face. ‘You always spoil my fun.’

‘Your idea of fun is not my idea of fun.’

‘Really? I always thought it was. I like a bit of young stuff myself.’

Celeste’s chin came up and she eyed her brother with distaste. ‘I’m going over to the house. I have other things I’d rather do than stand here freezing to death.’

‘What?’

‘What do you mean, what?’

‘I mean what else have you got to do? After all, you haven’t found a new young stud to fill your leisure hours yet, have you? You know, Celeste, you never did tell me why you fired Gerry. I mean, I do realise it’s rather clichéd—and a tad tacky—for the rich lady employer to have her chauffeur perform extra services but he did seem well equipped for the job.’

Celeste was appalled at the fierce heat that raced up her neck and into her cheeks. Blushing had never been her style but her newly sensitised self was suddenly finding the picture she had painted of herself over the years not only embarrassing but almost obscene. When hadn’t she seen what she was doing? Where had her pride disappeared to? Clearly, her hatred of Byron and men in general had warped her so much that she didn’t care what anyone thought of her.

But suddenly, she did. Dear God, she did...

‘Well, well, well,’ Damian drawled. ‘Whatever did Gerry do? I would have thought he was a very straight young fellow. Did he try something a little more...adventurous? Is that it?’

‘Don’t be disgusting, Damian,’ she snapped. ‘I simply decided I didn’t need a chauffeur any longer.’

‘I see. So you have another gorgeous young hunk to tease Byron Whitmore with, do you?’

Celeste gasped before she could stop herself.

‘You thought I didn’t know?’ Damian’s smile was pure malice as he stood up and walked towards her. ‘Silly Celeste. Didn’t you know Irene always told me everything? I know all about your encounters with our dear sister’s husband. Whoops, half-sister. Though he wasn’t her husband the first time, was he? Merely her boyfriend.’

‘He was not,’ Celeste choked out, her head whirling with Damian’s disclosure. ‘Irene and Byron were not going out when I first met him. I was on work experience at Whitmore’s. She didn’t start going out with Byron till after I went back to boarding-school. I didn’t try to take Byron away from Irene. She took him away from me!’

‘And what of later, Celeste?’ Damian said in a low, smarmy voice. ‘He was her husband then, wasn’t he?’

Celeste closed her eyes and shuddered.

‘Yet you made love to him, didn’t you?’ Damian taunted softly. ‘You had to have him, no matter what...’

Celeste’s eyes opened, huge and haunted. ‘Yes,’ she confessed brokenly. ‘Yes...’

‘You callous bitch,’ he said with so much venom that Celeste was stunned.

She shook her head. ‘You don’t understand how it was.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, I understand only too well. We’re all tarred with the same brush. Irene... You... Me... We take after dear Papa, which makes us not good people to cross. We want what we want and God help anyone who gets in our way. You and Irene wanted the same man. A cat fight was inevitable, but the only one who came out on top was Byron. Literally.’

‘You’re disgusting!’

‘That’s the pot calling the kettle black, surely.’

‘It wasn’t like Irene said. I didn’t set out to seduce Byron. I didn’t set out to do anything!’ Anger that she was having to defend her morals to Damian, of all people, had her whirling away and dragging on the towelling robe that she’d brought with her. Flicking her hair over her shoulder, she turned back to face her brother with a steely expression on her face. ‘I do not wish to discuss what happened with Byron in the past. It’s dead and gone as Irene is dead and gone.’

‘Really, Celeste? Are you saying you don’t feel a thing for Byron any more, that he hasn’t been your silent sexual prey all along?’

Outrage at both Damian and her own stupid feelings rose in her breast. ‘I detest Byron Whitmore!’ she lashed out. ‘I wouldn’t let him touch me if he was the last man on earth!’

‘No kidding. Then it won’t bother you that he’s about to be married again.’

Celeste could no more stop the blood from leaving her face than she could the daggers of dismay that stabbed into her heart. She clutched the robe around her and did her level best not to sway on her feet, or look anything other than coldly indifferent. With a supreme effort of will, she somehow found a wry smile and a semblance of composure. ‘Is that so?’ she drawled. ‘And who’s the unlucky lady?’

Damian seemed disconcerted by her quick recovery. Clearly, he’d wanted to distress her, wanted to twist those daggers. His black eyes were still watchful on her, waiting for her to betray her feelings, but this only hardened Celeste’s resolve to keep them to herself. If she was stupid enough still to feel anything for that holier-than-thou hypocrite, then the last thing she was going to do was show it or admit it. That would betray everything that had sustained her all these years.

‘Her name is Catherine Gateshead,’ Damian informed her sourly.

‘And how did you come across this priceless information?’ Celeste thought her tone was perfect. Just a little sarcastic, and a lot bored.

‘A friend of hers told a friend of mine they were going to announce their engagement at Byron’s fiftieth birthday party last night. It seems they’ve been quite a hot item for quite some time.’

Celeste battled to control a whole host of reactions, not the least of which was shock at hearing Byron’s age. Fifty! He didn’t look fifty. Clearly, he wasn’t acting as though he was fifty, either, she thought bitterly. Still, he’d always been a highly sexed man and Irene had been dead for nearly a year.

‘And how old is this Catherine person?’ she asked as nonchalantly as she could manage.

Damian’s smirk suggested he’d picked up on her tension. ‘A good few years younger than you, dear sister. And smashing-looking, I’m told.’

Celeste threw her brother a savage look and he laughed.

‘Jealousy can be an ugly thing. Not that you’ve got anything to worry about, Celeste. No woman can hold a candle to you when you put your mind to it. I’ll never forget the look on that bastard Whitmore’s face when you swanned into the Regency ballroom recently in that dress. God, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. Not that I blame him. That was some dress.’

Celeste cringed at the memory of the aforesaid dress. She hadn’t realised, till she was making her way down the centre of the ballroom and caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrored walls, how that dress looked from a distance. The skin-coloured material and tightly fitted style gave the illusion of nudity, the selected beading marking out a provocative outline around her nipples and crotch. Up close in the boutique, it had not looked so scandalously revealing. Still, under Byron’s critical gaze, she’d had no alternative but to carry off the outrageous outfit with panache or be left looking a fool.

‘It was perfectly obvious to anyone with a brain in their head,’ Damian was raving on, ‘that you’ve only got to click your fingers his way and he’d drop Catherine Whatsername as though she has a contagious disease. Alternatively, you could have some real fun and wait till he married the silly bitch, then move in for the ultimate kill. A married Byron seems to bring out your best hunting instincts.’

Celeste amazed herself by not reacting visibly to Damian’s crude and inflammatory remarks. Her expression remained remarkably cool, as was her laugh. ‘I think you’re confusing me with yourself, brother dear. You’re the one who’s always running after married people. I prefer my bed partners both single and decidedly younger than fifty. I don’t think Byron Whitmore fills the bill, do you?’

Retying the sash on her robe, Celeste picked up her towel and pushed past her brother, striding confidently towards the door. Damian scowled after her, irritated by his lack of success at stirring up trouble. What he didn’t see was the grey pallor in his sister’s face as she left the pool-house, or the haunted look in her eyes. Neither could he guess at the storm of emotion gathering in her heart, nor her lack of confidence in her ability to deal with any of it.

Celeste headed across the lawns and up the stone steps to the back of the house, blinking madly as she went. I do not care about Byron Whitmore, she kept saying to herself. I do not care what he does or where he goes or whom he marries. I do not care!

Celeste swept into the huge kitchen and put on the kettle for a cup of coffee. By the time she was sipping its soothing warmth, she was almost her old self again.

Till she suddenly remembered the trial on Monday.

Her head dropped into her hands, her stomach instantly churning.

‘Oh, God...’