‘Talking to a cat now?’ drawled a taunting voice from the doorway, and Diana looked up sharply to find Janette standing there looking at her with mockingly raised brows. ‘I heard you talking to someone,’ she explained her presence there with a dismissive shrug. ‘I thought perhaps you might have another visitor. One you didn’t want me to meet,’ she added challengingly.
Reece. She meant Reece. Because if Reece saw Janette here he was sure to question their friendship. And once he realised they weren’t friends at all… Reece was far too intelligent not to eventually add two and two together and come up with the correct answer of four. If Janette didn’t tell him the truth first, that was! Although there was no danger of the two of them meeting this morning; Reece was working today, and he had known she was relaxing this morning before going to a photographic session this afternoon.
‘But then,’ Janette added scornfully, ‘you always were rather over-sentimental when it came to animals, weren’t you?’
They both knew the other woman was referring to Diana’s pony Honey now, a gift from her father on her seventh birthday, sold along with everything else after her father’s death to help pay the debts. At the time Divinia had been too numbed to really notice his going, but months later she had broken her heart over it.
‘The coffee is ready.’ Diana pointedly picked up the laden tray in preparation for going into the other room with it.
Janette stepped tauntingly to one side to let her pass, the thin heels of her shoes tapping on the wooden floor as she followed Diana down the hallway. ‘Such an—interesting choice of décor,’ she drawled as she sat down once again, watching with narrowed eyes as Diana poured the coffee.
She looked across at the other woman from her kneeling position on the floor. ‘You didn’t come here to criticise my flat.’ She sighed her impatience with the delay.
‘Didn’t I?’ Janette sipped the freshly brewed coffee appreciatively. ‘No, perhaps not,’ she acknowledged softly. ‘Does Reece know you’re only marrying him out of a sense of revenge?’
Diana felt as if all the breath had been knocked from her body at the directness of this attack, the colour draining from her cheeks. She had been expecting this, should have been ready for it, and yet she now felt completely breathless.
Janette watched her with slightly raised brows, completely unruffled by the accusation she had just calmly made. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she said knowingly. ‘Reece has no idea that the model Divine, his beautiful Diana, is actually Divinia Lambeth, does he?’ she taunted, gaining in confidence all the time as she saw the truth of her words in Diana’s ashen face.
Diana swallowed hard. ‘My relationship with Reece is none of your business——’
‘Oh, but it is,’ Janette smiled confidently. ‘You see, I’m going through a rather messy divorce at the moment——Oh, yes, I’m divorcing Marco.’ Her mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Have decided after all these years that I really can’t take any more of his behaviour. Unfortunately, for me, he made me sign one of those nasty little pre-marital agreements that means I get a mere pittance in allowance if there should be a divorce——’
‘Then don’t divorce him,’ Diana said without sympathy. But she had to admit to being more than a little surprised Janette should be taking such a step, mainly because she couldn’t imagine Janette taking such exception to anything that Marco did that she would feel the need to divorce him. As far as she was aware, Janette had been blatantly ignoring everything her faithless husband did since she first married him.
Hard blue eyes narrowed icily at the dismissive statement. ‘It isn’t as simple as that——’
‘Things never were where Marco was concerned,’ Diana said with remembered disgust.
‘You aren’t going to start on about that again, are you?’ Janette sighed her impatient irritation.
Her eyes flashed deeply green at the bored dismissal. ‘You knew your husband had tried to rape me, a sixteen-year-old innocent——’
‘Oh, don’t talk such rot, Divinia,’ Janette snapped coldly, her face twisted into an ugly mask. ‘Marco has never had any reason to rape any woman, no matter what her age; they’ve always been waiting in line to give it away!’ she added with distaste for her husband’s appetites.
‘And what about the ones who didn’t want to give it away?’ Diana demanded incredulously. The memory of that day with Marco was almost as traumatic as her father’s death. And she had never been able to understand the other woman’s attitude then—or since!—when she had run to her crying hysterically, after Marco had attacked her next to their pool.
Janette had been resting in her room that afternoon with one of her ‘headaches’—recovering from a hangover from the night before might have described it more accurately!—and Divinia, lounging by the pool after a brief swim, had been taken completely by surprise when Marco began to compliment her more intimately than ever before on her budding body.
Oh, the Italian could be charming, and, like a lot of Latin men, a little flirtatious, and he had teased her since her arrival the week before about how quickly she was growing up.
But this time it hadn’t been teasing or flirtatious, and it had all too soon become ugly and degrading, with Divinia only just managing to push him away and escape inside the villa, her mouth swollen from the force of his lips on hers.
Janette hadn’t believed her when she had run to tell her what had happened. Or, at least, she had said she didn’t, brushing the whole incident away as the exaggerated result of a too-active imagination combined with a crush on an older man.
The last thing Diana had ever felt was attracted to Marco. In fact, for the remainder of that holiday she had stayed in her bedroom, with the door locked, where she didn’t have to see him. And she had never again accepted any of Janette and Marco’s invitations to stay with them, feeling as betrayed by Janette’s lack of belief in her as she was by Marco’s actions.
‘I didn’t come here to discuss the past, Divinia,’ Janette told her chidingly now. ‘The thing is, because of the divorce, I’m a little short of cash right now, and I’m sure, until you have Reece’s wedding-ring firmly on your finger, that you would rather he——’
‘No!’ Diana cut in harshly, her eyes dark with pain. ‘What you’re talking about is blackmail, Janette, and I——’
‘What an ugly word.’ Janette winced with exaggerated pain.
‘Blackmail is an ugly word.’ She looked at the other woman disgustedly. ‘It’s an ugly word to describe an ugly deed.’
‘All I’m asking is that you help me out with a little money until I can sort things out with Marco.’ Janette pouted her irritation. ‘You don’t——’ She broke off as the doorbell rang. ‘More visitors?’ she drawled. ‘Not a lover, surely, Divinia?’ she taunted as Diana looked flustered at this second intrusion of the morning.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ She stood up abruptly; whoever it was at the door, she had to get rid of them, and quickly. The sooner she settled this situation with Janette, the better. Much as she hated the thought of what the other woman was suggesting, at the same time it gave her a small glimmer of hope that perhaps she could make things right between herself and Reece after all!
Janette nodded, smiling slightly. ‘Knowing Reece as I do, that would be just a little too dangerous, darling. I should imagine he would make a very jealous fiancé.’
‘As opposed to a lover?’ Diana snapped, bright spots of colour in her otherwise pale cheeks.
Janette’s smile became rueful. ‘That could be another one of those little things we discuss—once you’ve got rid of your visitor, of course.’ She frowned her irritation as the doorbell rang intrusively a second time. ‘Persistent little devil, whoever it is!’ She brushed away an imaginary speck from her white dress before looking up at Diana expectantly.
Diana turned and fled the room, shaking badly as she went out into the hallway. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. And it was all her own fault. If she had never gone
near Reece…!
And she wasn’t fooled for a moment by Janette’s explanation of her divorce now that she had had even a short time to think about it; she knew there had to be more to that than Janette was telling her.
But, whatever the real reasons for Janette’s divorce from Marco, it had pushed Janette into coming here to ask for money. Blackmail, Diana had called it, and blackmail it was!
She felt herself sway dizzily as she opened the door and found Reece standing there! She should have known who the ‘persistent little devil’ was, should have guessed. Instead she felt as if she had received yet another blow to her solar plexus.
‘Diana!’ he groaned softly, making no effort to take her in his arms. ‘I had to come and see you.’ He was very pale, a nerve pulsing in his cheek. ‘I owe you some sort of explanation for last night.’
Last night? She stared at him, dumbfounded; what had happened last night?
* * *
He had spent a long, restless night going over and over in his mind the dilemma he had put himself in, had dressed and gone to the office this morning knowing it was a waste of time—that he had to see Diana. He knew now, after hours of wrestling with his conscience, that he couldn’t even think of marrying her without telling her the truth about himself. And he wasn’t looking forward to it.
He had gone through a whole gamut of emotions and uncertainties through those long hours of sleeplessness during the night. Guilt. Pain. Tenderness. Love. But most of all he had known fear, as he had never experienced it before. He was terrified of losing Diana.
Diana, on closer inspection, didn’t look any better than he did. She was very pale, and there was a haunted look in her eyes.
Reece felt himself tense when Diana moved away from him as he would have taken her in his arms. Had she already guessed the truth? Did she know? Or had she just realised, as she lay in her own lonely bed, that she couldn’t accept what he had said to her? Oh, God, they had to talk!
‘I don’t know what you mean, Reece.’ She shook her head in confusion, looking incredibly young and oh, so vulnerable at that moment. ‘And now isn’t really a good time to talk about it.’
He knew she had an assignment this afternoon, but he also knew there was never going to be a ‘good’ time to talk about this, and he was tensed up to do it now. ‘It has to be now, Diana,’ he told her softly—before he lost his nerve and just grabbed at her with both hands and took the consequences for deceiving her after they were married!
‘No!’ She held her hand up in apology as she realised how sharply she had spoken. ‘You don’t understand, Reece,’ she added shakily. ‘It isn’t convenient just now. I—have a visitor.’
His frowned deepened, and he looked at her more intently. She had been behaving oddly ever since she’d opened the door and saw him standing there, now that he thought about it, but at the time he had put that down to the fact that she must be upset about last night too. But he realised now that she was standing almost defensively in the doorway, that she obviously didn’t want to invite him inside.
Obviously she didn’t want him to see whoever it was she had in there! Who the hell could it be that she was behaving so defensively?
Jealousy ripped through him the way he imagined the burning sensation of a knife being thrust into his chest would feel, and he pushed past her effortlessly to take determined steps in the direction of the sitting-room. If it was Chris she had in there——!
Because there was something else he had realised as he’d lain awake last night: Diana might have agreed to marry him, might wear his ring on her finger, but not once had she ever told him she loved him…! She had to love him; why else would she have agreed to marry him? But even so——
‘Reece!’ She hurried after him now, clutching at his arm. ‘Reece, listen to me!’ she cried pleadingly before he could open the door to the sitting-room. ‘It isn’t what you think!’
He was trying not to ‘think’ at all, and as he threw open the door to find it was a woman who stood there and not the man he had been expecting he felt totally confused. Except… It might be twelve years since he’d last seen this woman, but she hadn’t changed much, was still beautifully alluring to look at—and mercenary as hell! Janette Lambeth. No, that wasn’t her name now, because she had remarried not long after Howard’s death—some Italian if he remembered correctly. What the hell did it matter who this woman had married, or what she had done in the years since he had last seen her? What he wanted to know was what was she doing here, in Diana’s home? Surely the two of them weren’t friends? He wouldn’t have said Janette was Diana’s type of person at all. But then, how well did he really know the woman he was going to marry…?
* * *
She wanted to die. Wanted the ground to open up and swallow her down into it, leaving not a trace of her presence here. And then these two people who were left, both of them looking wary now, could thrash out the details of her involvement with Reece between them.
And they would both be wrong. Because, whatever her initial motivation in setting out to captivate Reece, she now loved him more than life itself. And after today she knew she was going to have to live without him…
‘Diana?’ he questioned harshly.
Janette was looking at her too, furious as she realised her ploy to blackmail Diana was no longer going to work. The hardness of her gaze promised retribution for that as she glared at Diana.
And then the cold fury was replaced by a lightly charming smile as she turned to Reece. ‘Don’t be so distant, Reece,’ she all but purred. ‘We’re old—friends, remember?’ She looked at him with warm knowing eyes.
Diana felt sick at the thought of the two of them together. ‘Yes, Reece,’ she choked. ‘Don’t you remember?’
The tender lover she had known since he’d asked her to marry him had now gone, and in his place was the steely eyed Reece Falcon she had met in Paris all those weeks ago, a man who didn’t suffer fools gladly—and who wouldn’t suffer being deceived at all! That sick feeling in the pit of Diana’s stomach intensified.
‘Janette.’ He nodded abrupt acknowledgement in her direction, not by word or deed confirming that he ‘remembered’ anything! But, at the same time, the fact that he acknowledged the other woman at all was indication that he remembered her only too well! ‘I wasn’t aware that the two of you knew each other?’ His eyes were narrowed to steely slits.
‘Oh, yes.’ Janette was back in command of her emotions now, well aware that she had lost out in the nasty game she had intended playing with Diana, but also realising that she hadn’t lost completely, that she could still enjoy herself—at Diana’s expense! ‘I don’t believe you met Divinia all those years ago, did you?’ she drawled conversationally. ‘But she’s certainly grown into a beauty, hasn’t she?’ She arched blonde brows.
‘Divinia…?’ Reece frowned. ‘But I—you——’ He faltered as the truth obviously began to dawn on him.
Diana, watching him, wanted to cry out once again that it wasn’t what he thought it was, wanted to scream the denial at him. But the saddest part of all this, she acknowledged, for both Reece and herself—her identity having at last been realised, she could see by his stunned expression—was that in the beginning she had only wanted to get to know him so that she could make him suffer as her father had, as she had in the years that followed. But it wasn’t true now. God, it wasn’t true now…!
* * *
Divinia Lambeth…
For a moment Reece was so dazed—gobsmacked, as he had once described his reaction to Diana!—by the realisation that this was who Diana Lamb really was that he couldn’t think at all!
And then it all came back to him with sickening clarity: that pointless meeting with Howard Lambeth when he had tried to discuss the financial situation with the other man—something he had realised was completely futile in the light of the other man’s state of mind at the time, resulting in Reece’s leaving before the insults got out of hand.
He had driven all the
way back to London that day inwardly cursing the other man’s stupidity, only to arrive back at his apartment to see on the evening news that there had been some sort of shooting accident at Lambeth’s home, and that the other man had received fatal injuries. Only hours before, Reece had tried to reason with the man, and suddenly he was dead…!
Janette, hysterial and accusing, floundering herself in a morass of uncertainties, had been the one to telephone him and tell him Howard’s death hadn’t been an accident at all—that the other man had deliberately shot himself. And that his nine-year-old daughter had been in the room at the time…
Diana, Reece now realised, had been that nine-year-old child who had witnessed her father shooting himself—and, as Reece well knew, had suffered months of emotional trauma after it.
So much of the woman she was today was explained now—that elusive coolness, the distant self-possession in one so young. Diana Lamb was a product of that young Divinia Lambeth.
And Divinia Lambeth believed she had reason to hate him…
* * *
Diana watched him still, knowing he was remembering, as she did, everything that had happened in her father’s study that day, and she saw the dawning comprehension on Reece’s face now, his anguish, the pain as he realised exactly why she was in his life now.
And she knew that he suffered as he realised she hadn’t ever been motivated by love for him, saw the pain of that realisation ripping him apart, tearing at his innermost emotions.
It was what she had wanted to happen so long ago in that dark nightmare before she had loved him. But now, loving him as deeply as she did, she knew as deep an agony herself. Because it was all over for them now; Reece would never believe her if she told him she loved him, had fallen in love with him in spite of herself. And who could blame him if he just thought it was another deceit on her part, another way of hurting him? He would never trust her again.
She looked at Janette, the woman her father had married and then entrusted to take care of her after his death, and saw the smile of triumph on the other woman’s lips as she knew—she knew—how badly Diana had failed in her loyalty to her father.
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