The Millionaire's Mistress

by Miranda Lee

  ‘Marcus...’

  ‘Yes, my love?’

  Her heart twisted at the endearment. ‘Am I?’ she choked out, her chest tightening. ‘I mean do you? Love me, that is?’

  Justine had heard of silences being described as deafening. Now she knew what they meant. Marcus’s silence screamed through her head for several nerve-jangling seconds.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ he said at last, and her chest tightened another notch.

  ‘It...it was important to me all of a sudden.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because...because I want everything between us to be open and above board,’ she blurted out. ‘I hate thinking of the way we first met. I was worried you might still think I was after something from you.

  ‘Which I am, of course,’ she raved on, nerves making her babble uncontrollably. ‘But it’s not your money, Marcus. Or marriage. Although I wouldn’t mind being married to you. Some day. But only if you loved me, of course, and wanted to marry me, because I...I love you, Marcus,’ she finally confessed in a rush. ‘That’s what I’m trying to say. I love you. Oh, God...I hope you’re not angry with me for saying so. Trudy said I shouldn’t tell you, but...but I’m not Trudy, am I?’

  Marcus struggled to control the emotion welling up in his heart, but it was a struggle he was destined to lose.

  ‘No,’ he managed at last in a strangled fashion. ‘No, my darling, you’re not anything like Trudy. And, no, I’m not angry with you, because I...I love you too. How could I not? Oh, God, Justine, I’m getting all choked up here.’ He swallowed convulsively and dashed the wetness from the corners of his eyes. ‘Do you have any idea how many years it’s been since I cried?’

  ‘You’re crying?’ She sounded dazed. ‘Over me?’

  ‘Over you.’

  ‘You didn’t cry over Stephany?’

  ‘That bitch? God, no. Once I saw what she was made of I couldn’t wait to have done with her.’

  ‘What became of her, do you know?’

  ‘Funny you should ask. I had no idea...till last Tuesday. Grace pointed out this article in the Herald to me about a New Zealand banker who was on trial for embezzlement. There was a photograph of his wife going into the court and it was Stephany. I was amused to read he claimed he’d been driven to the crime by his wife’s excesses. I almost felt sorry for the poor devil. Leopards don’t change their spots, do they? Stephany’ll go to her grave conning men out of their money. You don’t have to worry your pretty little head about her, Justine. I can’t stand the woman. If she stood naked in front of me I wouldn’t turn a hair.’

  ‘But...but you must have loved her to begin with, Marcus.’

  Marcus heard her insecurity and was tempted to lie. But she’d said she wanted everything to be open and above board between them. Best to start with the truth.

  ‘I thought I did. As a young lad growing up I had this dream of one day having this perfect life, which included the perfect wife on my arm. Stephany played the role of perfect wife-to-be to perfection—till the ring was on her finger. I fell in love with the illusion she created, not the real woman underneath. She fooled me completely with her flattering words and ways. She was also an accomplished actress in the bedroom. I won’t deny I was seriously infatuated in the beginning.

  ‘I began to suspect something was wrong right from the honeymoon, when all she wanted to do was shop. By the time the crunch came, and I found out what she really was, the wool had already started slipping from my eyes. Still, for a long time after I discovered the truth about her, I mistook the hurt and bitterness I was feeling for a broken heart. More a bruised ego, I think. Once I fell in love with you, sweet thing, I saw that what I’d felt for her hadn’t been true love at all, but a very poor copy.’

  ‘I’m your true love?’

  ‘The truest and the loveliest.’

  ‘Oh, Marcus, now I’m crying!’

  ‘With happiness, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘I’m coming over.’

  ‘Marcus, you shouldn’t. I still have so much work to do. Please let me do it. I...I promise I’ll come over to your place as soon as I’ve finished.’

  ‘In that case you’d better ring your mum and tell her you won’t be home tonight. It’s going to take me hours to show you how much I love you.’

  ‘Oh, Marcus... All right, darling. I’ll ring and tell her straightaway.’

  ‘She won’t come after me with a shotgun, will she?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Pity,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Marcus had thought Justine’s love was all he wanted. But it wasn’t. He wanted more. He wanted her to be his wife and the mother of his children. And soon, not some day.

  But she was still so young. He had no right to rush her, no right to insist she change all her plans to fall in with his. He would have to be patient, have to wait for her ‘some day’.

  Meanwhile...

  ‘You won’t change your mind about coming over?’ he asked tautly, his body already in an agony of longing to hold her in his arms. ‘Promise me.’

  ‘I promise.’

  Justine lay in Marcus’s arms, listening to the rhythm of his sleep and thinking she had never been happier. Marcus had just made love to her with a passion and tenderness which had brought a different dimension to his lovemaking. There had been a sweetness to each kiss and caress which had touched her soul as well as her body. When he’d finally moved into her, telling her all the while how much he loved her, tears had welled up in her eyes. She’d clung to him afterwards, sobbing. He’d kissed the dampness from her cheeks and she’d seen the love for her shining in his eyes. She was, indeed, his true love, as he was hers.

  Okay, so he hadn’t asked her to marry him yet, but he would. Some day. When the time was right.

  Justine knew that time might be a while coming. Marcus had been too hurt in the past to rush into anything. And, in truth, she wanted some more time to prove to him she was nothing like Stephany. She was actually looking forward to the challenge of running a boarding house, of finishing her degree part-time and completing what the last few months had set in motion—the transformation of Justine Montgomery from spoilt little rich bitch to a grown up and independent woman who could be proud of herself.

  She never wanted to revert to being that other silly, empty-headed girl, who hadn’t known the value of a dollar or how to do a full day’s work. She almost felt guilty now of the way she’d treated Howard Barthgate, and those other boys she’d dated. She’d used them shamelessly.

  Not that they had been guiltless. They’d all dropped her soon enough after her father’s death, which just showed the depth of their feelings. Actually, boys like Howard Barthgate were a bit like her father, Justine believed. High on charm, but low on conscience. Marriage, to them, was often simply a merger for money. True love was a concept for peasants, and sex, a commodity to be found wherever it was available. She doubted there was a husband in her old social set who was faithful to his wife.

  Marcus, on the other hand, was lower on charm but higher on conscience. Justine liked that balance a lot better. She sighed a deeply contented sigh and drifted into a deeply contented sleep.

  Her happiness, however, was to be short-lived—disaster waiting with the dawn.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JUSTINE woke to the sound of wind, and a branch slapping its leaves on the bedroom window. The clock on the bedside chest said two minutes to eleven, which meant she was already two hours behind the hour she’d faithfully promised her mother she’d be home.

  ‘Marcus,’ she said, and nudged him in the ribs.

  He groaned.

  ‘Stay there if you like but I have to get up and go home. I have a lot to do today. Our first boarders are arriving tomorrow.’

  Marcus yawned and stretched. ‘God, what’s that infernal noise?’

  ‘It’s the wind. But no rain, unfortunately. Clear blue sky again.’

&nbs
p; ‘Crazy damned weather we’re having. Almost as crazy as I am about you. Come here and kiss me good morning, you beautiful thing, you!’

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Justine squealed, and warded him off. ‘I have to get out of here in fifteen minutes or my mother is going to kill me. I promised her I’d be home long before this.’

  Marcus grinned and snuck a quick kiss in. ‘Was she shocked and horrified when you rang last night?’

  ‘Mum? No. Mum’s always let me run my own race. Nothing I do would ever shock her.’

  ‘Wise Mum.’

  ‘I don’t know about wise. She’s a bit on the scatty side, actually.’

  ‘A darling, though.’

  ‘Yes.’ Justine sighed. ‘Poor Mum. These last couple of months have been traumatic for her.’

  ‘You underestimate her, Justine. She’s a survivor.’

  ‘Perhaps. I think Tom’s in love with her.’

  ‘The gardening chap?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Seemed a nice enough bloke.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘What’s the problem, then?’

  ‘Mum was very much in love with Daddy. I don’t think she’ll ever fall in love again.’

  ‘Funny. People said the same thing about me and Stephany...’

  Justine looked sharply at him, and he grinned.

  ‘They were dead wrong, weren’t they? Now, off you go to the shower, my love, while I lie here and languish in the memory of last night.’

  ‘Turn on the radio while you’re languishing, lazy bones. See if you can get the weekend weather report.’

  Twenty minutes later, a shocked Marcus was speeding up the Pacific Highway towards Lindfield, a pale-faced Justine sitting beside him. He hadn’t just caught the weather, but the whole eleven o’clock news report. The newsreader’s words were still ringing in his ears.

  Some nut-case arsonist, not satisfied by the bushfires which had ringed the rural outskirts of Sydney all summer, had actually set fire to the National Park running along the Lane Cove River. Eightymile-an-hour winds had whipped up what should have been a containable blaze into an uncontrollable force, which was burning all in its path.

  It seemed incredible that a bushfire should be threatening homes in the inner city area, but that was what was happening, according to the news. Several houses had already been burnt to the ground. Lindfield had been one of the suburbs named where houses had succumbed, and more were in danger. Since Justine’s home backed on to the park, Marcus feared it would be one of the first at risk!

  Justine’s panic increased as Marcus drew nearer her street. The pall of green-black smoke in the sky was appalling. She hoped it was just the result of trees burning, but feared this was an optimistic view. The thought of her home burning to the ground was bad enough. The fear of her mother in danger brought a clutch of nausea to her stomach.

  Marcus tried to keep a handle on his fear but it was difficult. Things didn’t look good.

  Dear God, he prayed, as he hadn’t prayed since he was ten years old. Don’t let anything happen to Justine’s mother. Or that stupid damned house. I promise if you keep them both safe, I won’t press or coerce Justine into a precipitous marriage. I’ll even keep using protection and not have any convenient lapses of memory.

  He couldn’t drive down her street. It was blocked with police cars.

  Marcus knew without having to be told that the situation was critical. He could actually see the flames of one house burning at the far end of the street. It was on the other side from Justine’s home, but with the wind it wouldn’t take much to jump that small distance. The sudden realisation that the wind was going in the opposite direction and had already done its business on the other side made him quake inside.

  ‘Oh, Marcus,’ was all Justine said, despair in her voice.

  He parked his car down a side street and they both ran back to the corner of Justine’s street, where groups of people were huddled behind a police barrier, everyone looking shell-shocked.

  Justine suddenly grabbed his arm. ‘Marcus! Look, there’s Mum! She’s all right. Oh, thank God.’

  Marcus did. But there was still the question of the house. Lord knows what would happen if the darned thing had burned to the ground. Adelaide would probably fall apart and so might Justine. She was a far more sensitive and sentimental girl than he’d ever imagined, as evidenced by the sudden flood of tears in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t cry, Justine,’ he advised sternly. ‘Your mum doesn’t need to see you crying. You have to stay strong for her, darling, especially if something’s happened to the house.’

  ‘Yes—yes, you’re quite right, Marcus,’ she said. ‘Mustn’t cry. Must stay strong. It’s only a house, after all. Mum’s fine. That’s all that matters.’

  He was so proud of the way she pulled herself together, of the determination in her eyes to be strong and brave for her mother. But he kept a comforting arm around her waist as they moved over to where her mother was arguing with a policeman.

  She didn’t sound at all scatty, Marcus thought suddenly. She sounded like a mother frantic about her daughter, but determined to get answers. The policeman was looking very harried.

  ‘But you must let me go down there, you stupid man. My daughter said she’d be home first thing this morning and Justine is as good as her word. I won’t do anything silly, I promise. But I need to know if my daugh—’

  Adelaide whirled when Justine tapped her on the shoulder, saying, ‘Mum,’ at the same time.

  The look in the woman’s eyes told it all, and Marcus knew that there was nothing on this earth like a mother’s love. He felt momentarily sad for what he’d missed out on, then glad that the woman who would bear his children one day had been reared by a mother as caring as this.

  ‘Oh, Justine!’ Adelaide cried, her two chins wobbling. ‘I’ve been so worried.’ She clutched at Justine’s upper arms, then hugged her tight. ‘But you’re all right. Tom, look, she’s all right. My precious darling is all right.’

  ‘Yes, dearest,’ Tom said, coming forward from where he’d been silently standing by.

  Justine stared at him when he slipped his arm around her mother’s shoulders, her eyes widening when Adelaide slumped submissively against him. The mother tigress of a moment ago was gone, Marcus saw, replaced by the persona Adelaide had long since adopted, that of the fragile female who had to be cosseted and protected from reality.

  ‘The house is gone, Justine,’ Tom informed them both.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Justine choked out, and Marcus steadied her with a squeeze. ‘Were... were you able to get anything out?’

  ‘I’m afiaid not. By the time we got here they wouldn’t let us down there. The street had been evacuated and blocked off.’

  ‘What do you mean, when you got here?’ Justine looked from Tom to her mother, then back at Tom.

  Adelaide blushed while Tom straightened, his eyes clear and unwavering. ‘Your mother stayed the night at my house, Justine.’

  Marcus might have been amused by Justine’s shock at any other time but this. ‘She...she what?’ she gasped.

  ‘Your mother and I are in love, Justine,’ Tom said, with a simplicity which was quite touching, Marcus thought. He liked the man. He was going to be a lot better partner for Adelaide than the likes of Grayson Montgomery.

  ‘In love,’ Justine repeated rather blankly.

  ‘Yes, dear.’ Her mother joined in at last, looking half-sheepish, half-defiant. ‘Like you and Marcus. We’re going to be married. Tom asked me last night and I said yes. The wedding will be quite soon. At our age we see no reason to wait.’

  ‘But...but what about the house?’

  Adelaide looked wistful, but not too distraught. ‘It’s very upsetting, I know, and I feel for you dreadfully. I know how attached you were to it, and how hard you fought to keep it.’

  Marcus could feel Justine’s dismay and frustration through every pore of her body. He knew full well she’d fought to keep the house more fo
r her mother than for herself!

  ‘It’s only a house after all, dear,’ Adelaide added. ‘And it was heavily insured. Marcus made sure of that before he sanctioned the loan. Tom said I can move in with him straightaway. I doubt anyone will be scandalised in this day and age.’

  ‘But...but what about your things? What about Grandma’s jewellery?’

  ‘All my mother’s jewellery is in the bank’s vaults—didn’t I tell you? Marcus said if I wasn’t going to wear any of it then I’d better put it somewhere safe since we were going to invite a lot of strangers into the house. Oh, my goodness, I’d forgotten about that! What are those poor students going to do when they find out their rooms no longer exist?’

  ‘I dare say they’ll survive,’ Marcus said dryly. And so will you, Adelaide dear, he thought, though I’m not so sure about your daughter. She was looking stunned, the poor darling. She’d lost her home and her illusions in one and the same day.

  ‘I think, Tom, that we should take Adelaide and Justine back to your place,’ he advised. ‘There’s nothing any of us can do here for now. I’ll speak to the policemen and find out when we can return.’

  Tom’s house proved a surprise. Only a few streets away, it was spacious and elegant with a magnificent garden. Tom confided over tea and cake that he hadn’t always been a gardener. He had once been a middle-management executive for a large food company, but had been retrenched at fifty-one after his company was taken over. Despite a lucrative golden handshake he hadn’t wanted to retire, and had gone into gardening—more as an interest than a career. It was apparent Adelaide would not want for anything by marrying him, either in affection or security.

  Marcus was pleased to see Justine looking a little more her old self after an hour or so, though it was clear she was still far more distressed than her mother over the house. Her face was pale and there was a haunted look in her eyes.