Ruthless Passion

by Penny Jordan

  He had known almost from the moment he’d met her, and certainly from the moment he’d known anything about her, that she would never abandon her life to become a part of his. How could she, and remain true to her own values and beliefs? But there was a sore small place in his heart; a tiny rebellious male gene which every now and then broke through the layers of civilisation and moderation to whisper that if she had loved him as he loved her she would have given up anything, everything to be with him.

  The taunting whisper of its atavistic voice made him more resentful of its presence within him than it did of her, more disappointed by his own reaction than hers, but it still had its effect on him, even if that effect was only the exhaustion caused by fighting to suppress it, and so he spent the first twelve hours after his return from Cheshire wholly absorbed in trying to separate himself from the person he wanted to be and the life he wanted to lead and to concentrate instead on the person he had to be and the life he was committed to lead.

  It was because of that absorption that he didn’t really have time to dwell on Wilhelm’s silence or to question the reasons for it, so that the sight of the headlines splashed all over the newspaper of the man he saw standing in the street when he pulled up at a ‘stop’ light came as such a shock to him that he missed the change of lights, causing the traffic behind him to demonstrate aggressively and noisily its angry contempt at his lack of concentration.

  He pulled up as soon as he could, parking his car haphazardly at the kerb-side as he went to buy himself a copy of the paper, and then reading the headlines with growing anger and dismay as he headed back to his car.

  ‘Mistress reveals secret plan to depose Hessler boss,’ the headline ran, and beneath it in almost as large type was a dramatic account of how Wilhelm had apparently confided to his latest mistress his plans for organising a board coup to discredit Leo and to wrest control of the corporation away from him and back to himself.

  It wasn’t so much Wilhelm’s fraternal disloyalty that caused Leo to frown, his body tensing as he quickly scanned the article—after all, he knew how Wilhelm felt about him; it wasn’t even really the tackiness of the way the article was written, with its sexual innuendo and its detailing of Wilhelm’s ‘girlfriend’s’ description of Wilhelm’s sexual athleticism and insatiability; stripped of its exaggeration, all the article was revealing was that Wilhelm, in common with a good many men of his age and status, had discovered that the enthusiasm of a pretty, vapid bimbette, who no doubt had more affection for his bank balance than for him, had had a startling effect on his libido. No, what did concern Leo was the information which others would cut out of the dross as quickly as he had done himself: that Hessler Chemie was dangerously poised on the edge of a volatile schism which would potentially tear the corporation apart.

  Leo was not naïve; there would be those on the board who for their own reasons would support Wilhelm’s claims to the chairmanship against his own.

  And then there was the even more serious issue of the damage it would do to Hessler Chemie’s standing when—and it would be when and not if—the financial Press worldwide picked up on the story and correctly evaluated it.

  The corporation’s office block occupied a prestigious situation overlooking the river. Originally the office block, the research laboratories and even the manufacturing side of the business had shared the same site, but with expansion had come the necessity for larger office space, different research requirements, and much, much more extensive manufacturing processes so that now the site that had once housed everything was now only deemed large enough for the head-office block.

  Leo parked his car beneath the building in his private car-parking slot. That at least was something Wilhelm had not attempted to take over, he noticed wryly as he saw his brother’s car parked several yards away.

  Where Leo would for preference have chosen a vintage-model car had he been able to ignore the promptings of his conscience which told him that such a vehicle could not be ecologically justified, Wilhelm preferred to equip himself with the most expensive and ostentatious Mercedes on the market.

  At least he had chosen a German car, he had sneered when Leo had commented quietly to him that he felt the ownership of such a model was inappropriate, especially when the corporation had ostensibly paid for it and ostensibly owned it.

  Leo had refused to allow this gibe about his own four-year-old hard-working practical Volvo to get under his skin, equably returning Wilhelm’s fire by pointing out that, since the corporation already owned a chauffeur-driven luxury-class Mercedes limousine, Wilhelm could more discreetly have acquired something a little less exuberant for his private motoring.

  He shouldn’t like to see the other board directors claiming the same rights as his brother, he had added gently, and of course Wilhelm had deliberately misinterpreted his comment to mean that Leo was pointedly underlining the fact that he had been demoted to the status of a mere director, where once he had expected to hold a far superior position; the position now, in fact, held by Leo himself.

  He grimaced a little as he passed his brother’s car, the scene, according to the amazingly detailed and explicit confidences of his latest girlfriend, of several impetuous amorous incidents. For a girl who openly admitted that ‘brains were not her strong point’, she had a truly awesome recall of the most minute details, Leo reflected cynically as he headed for his private lift.

  As he got into it and the door closed he wondered how Anna was reacting to these revelations. Leo did not doubt that his sister-in-law was well aware of her husband’s infidelities, but being aware of such affairs when they were conducted with discretion and diplomacy that allowed her to retain something of her self-respect, in public at least, was one thing; having her husband’s sexual antics bruited abroad in the tabloid Press for all her friends both genuine and not so genuine to giggle and gloat over was quite another.

  And what about Wilhelm’s sons? His nephews? He had never been as close to them as he would have liked, and this knowledge deepened the grim tension of his features. That was his fault. He could have made more of an effort to spend time with them; should have done so. The fact that he had discovered that Wilhelm was his half-brother made no difference to his feeling of responsibility towards his nephews.

  But at least they were spared a burden that would not be spared his own children, should he ever have any.

  They could not carry his father’s genes.

  Children. He frowned broodingly as he got out of the lift and headed for his private suite of offices. Given the present state of the world, he was not even sure that he would wish to bring children into it. But to share with the woman he loved the knowledge that their loving had created another human being … ah … that was something different … something so deeply personal, so elemental, so basic to the very core of his personality that even to think of it caused the most intense shiver of sensation to pass through him.

  The act of conception, of knowing that the two of you together were to create the magic spark of human life, was surely something so precious, so awesome, so far above the mundane banality that ruled so much of human life that it was surely almost a form of worship, a reiteration of everything within man that yearned to believe in the divine, despite the cynicism and logic of the sciences which warned him against the self-delusion of doing so.

  His secretary watched him as he walked through her office. She was an attractive woman, married with three children.

  He smiled courteously at her as he headed for his own office. She would know about the article, of course; in fact he doubted if anyone in the organisation did not by now.

  Within an hour of having opened his office door he had had telephone calls from five members of the corporation’s board, two of them expressing their sympathy and support, two demanding to know what was going on and one announcing that Wilhelm ought to be shot for the disgrace he had brought on the corporation’s name.

  Cynically Leo reflected that it was the two who had cal
led to assure him of their support who concerned him the most. He had, after all, as yet not made any request for any such support, and might well have supposed himself to be so safe in his role of guardianship of the corporation that he did not need to canvass anyone’s support. Because of the terms of his father’s will he could not be deposed except in the most exceptional circumstances, and he most certainly could not be voted out of office, just as Wilhelm could not be voted back into it.

  Which begged the question: why had they felt it necessary to offer their support?

  By lunchtime he had tried on four separate occasions to speak to Wilhelm, and on each occasion, and with obvious growing discomfort, had been put off by Wilhelm’s secretary.

  He could, of course, always walk down the corridor to Wilhelm’s office and command his brother’s attention, but, since he suspected that that was the kind of high-handed and theatrical response which Wilhelm would be only too delighted to have provoked, he calmly thanked Wilhelm’s secretary and put down the receiver.

  Wilhelm would eventually have to speak with him, and when he did it would be on his terms and not his brother’s, Leo decided grimly.

  In the meantime he had other business to attend to. The sharks of the financial Press were already circling, not exactly threshing the water in excited anticipation of a kill, but certainly scenting blood. The telephone calls from the Press and even those from his fellow board members Leo had been prepared for and expecting, but the one he received late in the afternoon from his sister-in-law he had not.

  She sounded surprisingly calm; too calm, perhaps? Leo wondered uneasily as he listened gravely to her. She told him that she would like to see him, and as soon as possible.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Leo agreed, even though he already knew that if she was expecting him somehow to reverse what had happened and to turn Wilhelm into a faithful husband there was simply no way he could achieve this. And she must know it too, but he liked her enough to keep his thoughts to himself and to say instead that he would call round to see her just as soon as he could.

  He still hadn’t spoken to Wilhelm himself. Leo knew his brother well enough to know that by now Wilhelm would be gleefully anticipating the battle he himself had deliberately set up; that he would have his own battle-lines drawn and that he would have taken for himself the most advantageous position. Well, as his brother was about to discover, without an opponent it was simply not possible to wage war.

  Wilhelm was not a patient man, and for Leo simply to ignore the situation he had contrived would wear dangerously at his self-control to the point even where he himself threw away every advantage he had striven for simply for the pleasure of forcing a fight. But there were greater issues at risk here, Leo acknowledged. It wasn’t simply a matter of defusing the situation or even one of forcing Wilhelm to accept his supremacy. Personal issues had to be put aside in favour of the reputation and future of the corporation; and the mere fact that Wilhelm was prepared to jeopardise both of those surely showed how clearly unfit he was to head Hessler Chemie. During their father’s lifetime he had been there to keep a firm grip on Wilhelm, and it was that firm grip which needed to be imposed now.

  It was almost six o’clock before Leo was able to leave his office; a relatively early leaving him for him. When he went down to the car park he noted grimly that Wilhelm’s car had gone, but, as he had anticipated, when he eventually drove into the private car parking area belonging to the exclusive apartments where Wilhelm and Anna lived there was no sign of Wilhelm’s Mercedes, even though Anna’s BMW was there.

  Anna opened the door to him the moment he knocked, ushering him inside. She looked different, Leo recognised, although he was not sure why at first, and then he realised as he gave her a second look that her hairstyle was softer and so were her clothes, the formality of the severely tailored designer outfits she normally wore replaced by an equally expensive but more loosely structured linen suit in a muted pastel shade.

  ‘You’ve seen the papers, of course?’ she asked him tensely as she lit a cigarette and inhaled nervously.

  ‘Yes,’ Leo acknowledged, discreetly removing himself from the orbit of her smoke. ‘I’m so sorry, Anna,’ he added genuinely.

  Her mouth hardened as she gave a small shrug. ‘We both know that it isn’t the first time, and I don’t suppose it will be the last.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘But at least in the past he has been more … discreet.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  Leo watched as she flicked ash into an ashtray. She had always been an elegant woman, elegant and graceful, but the years of living with his brother had chipped away at that elegance and grace so that now her movements were jerky with tension, and the disillusionment of her life had begun to drag bitter lines on her fine skin, giving her face an unhappy anxiety.

  ‘He might have been discreet in public, but he certainly wasn’t here at home. On the contrary.’ She paused and stubbed out her cigarette, half smoked, turning towards Leo and telling him almost defiantly, ‘Sometimes I used to think that he actually enjoyed telling me … describing them to me and the things he used to do to them. To them … not with them. That was never Wilhelm’s way, and still isn’t, for all I know.’ She caught the tiny betraying movement Leo made and smiled thinly. ‘Oh, yes, he stopped sleeping with me years ago; he used to taunt me with it, telling me how ugly my body had become since the boys’ birth, telling me that no one would blame him for no longer desiring me; telling me that the only reason he stayed married to me was because of his father. There must be no divorce in the von Hessler family, no slur on the von Hessler name.’

  ‘Divorce is hardly considered a slur … not these days,’ Leo commented mildly.

  ‘I should have divorced him, of course,’ Anna was saying as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘I wanted to, but I was too afraid … too beaten down by my own sense of inferiority. Wilhelm, you see, had always made it plain to me that if I should ever leave him he would make sure that I would be reduced to such penury that I should virtually be living in the gutter. He meant it, too.’

  Leo couldn’t conceal either his shock or his disgust. ‘You must have known I would never have allowed that to happen, Anna. Why didn’t you come to me … say something?’

  She gave him another tight smile. ‘I had my pride, Leo, if you can call it that, and, remember, initially you were still very much a boy. It’s ironic really that this should happen now. No doubt the world will believe that it is because of his latest infidelity that I am now leaving Wilhelm, when in fact it is several weeks now since I made my final decision.’

  ‘You’re leaving him?’ He didn’t attempt to conceal his surprise. He had come here expecting to be asked to speak to Wilhelm on Anna’s behalf, to demand that he give up his mistress.

  ‘Do you blame me?’ Anna asked him wryly.

  Leo shook his head. ‘How could I?’

  ‘I always used to think that it was impossible for me ever to be able to leave Wilhelm,’ Anna told him, relaxing a little now that she had made her announcement. ‘I thought it was an impossibility—that there was simply no way for me to break free, but then I realised that there is always a way. And that it’s just a matter of valuing yourself enough to look for it. Do you know what made me value myself enough to do that, Leo?’ she asked, watching him.

  He shook his head. He still wasn’t sure why Anna had felt it necessary to tell him that she was leaving Wilhelm. They had, after all, never been particularly close.

  ‘Falling in love,’ she told him. ‘Oh, I know; it’s an obvious cliché, but it’s true none the less. I met Franz last year. He’s from the east.’ She saw Leo’s face and told him fiercely, ‘Yes, he’s poor. Yes, he has a different way of life, a different moral code, almost, from mine, but that doesn’t make our love any the less worthwhile, and we do love one another, Leo. So much so that he is quite prepared for me to walk away from Wilhelm with nothing, which is just as well, because that is exactly what I have.’ She saw his fac
e and laughed without humour. ‘Do you realise that even the bills for my clothes are sent direct to Wilhelm, that he never allows me to have any cash of my own? But money doesn’t matter to me. Not any more. What does matter, though, is the boys.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I asked you here, Leo, because I want you to promise me that you will not allow Wilhelm to warp them. Oh, I know he will not allow me to have any contact with them; that he will punish me through them. But then, how much contact do I have with them now? They are strangers to me, and that gulf will grow as they get older; Wilhelm will see to that.

  ‘Promise me you will do this for me, Leo.’

  He was, Leo discovered, unexpectedly moved by her plea and by her obvious sincerity. ‘I will do what I can,’ he promised her, and meant it. ‘But I shall need to have some forwarding address where I can keep in contact with you, Anna.’

  He would, he had already decided, make sure that Wilhelm was not allowed to leave her penniless, no matter how vindictive his brother might try to be. She would, after all, be granted some monies after they divorced.

  ‘I have it here,’ she told him, handing him a piece of paper. ‘Franz has a small farm in the east. Of course, we do not know whether he will be allowed to retain ownership … someone from the west may still appear to claim it. There is an old farmhouse … very old … with a roof that leaks. My grandparents were farmers, you know.’

  Leo leaned forward and kissed her gently. ‘I wish you luck, Anna,’ he told her.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t need it, Leo,’ she told him. ‘All I need is what I have—Franz’s love.’

  As he walked back to his car Leo discovered that he was actually envying her. Somehow she had found a way to do what had been denied to him, and that was to make her own decisions about how she would live her life.

  ‘It’s never impossible,’ she’d said. ‘There’s always a way … it’s just a matter of valuing yourself enough to look for it.’