Summer Sins

by Julia James

  ‘Brother?’ The word was scarcely audible.

  He made a slight gesture with his hand.

  ‘Yes, Armand is my brother,’ he confirmed. His voice was light, still pleasant.

  He watched her expression change again—more confusion and bewilderment, layered over the horror and shock.

  ‘But … his surname is Becaud …’

  He nodded acknowledgement. ‘As is my stepfather’s.’

  ‘Your brother …’ She echoed again, as if she still could not take it in. Then her face convulsed. ‘But why?’

  His eyebrows rose quizzically. ‘Why did I seek an affair with you? To protect my brother—why else? When he told me of his intended folly, and my investigation of you revealed that you worked as a hostess in a place that was one step from a bordello, naturellement I took steps to protect him. I sought you out at the casino with that intent, and decided that the best way to remove you would be to seduce you myself. You were responsive to me, and that was all I required to effect my goal.’ His voice changed minutely, then he controlled it again—because control was essential, imperative. ‘It also served to confirm that my initial judgement of you was correct—you are unfit to marry my brother.

  A woman who falls so rapidly into the bed of another man can have no feelings for Armand. Only—’ his eyes glittered with a dark, malevolent light ‘—for his wealth. Tell me,’ he went on, his tone conversational, his voice pleasant, with a deadliness in it that sliced like a razorblade, ‘out of interest, how much have you taken him for already? Surely you have—but how much, I wonder?’

  Her face seemed to blanch, and he knew with the same savage fury that he had hit home. The glitter in his eyes intensified.

  ‘A considerable amount, I would venture. And tell me—again, out of interest—what touching fairy tale did you tell him to make him open his wallet on your behalf? A charitable cause that you support, perhaps? Or a sick relative in need of care? Or—?’

  His voice was baiting, scornful. Annihilating.

  A rasp from her throat silenced him. Her face was as white as whey, the skin stretched thin over her starkly outlined bones.

  She got to her feet. The movement was jerky, like a puppet. A puppet whose strings were pulled too tight. For a moment something speared through Xavier that almost made him lurch up and go and catch her before she fell—catch her and hold her and embrace her and—

  No! God almighty—had she not already fooled him so completely that if it had not been for the random chance of overhearing that damning conversation he might actually have gone on believing the fantasy he had woven about her? For the final time the blade of the guillotine crashed down. He would need it no more—she was revealed for what she was. Liar, cheat, treacherous, faithless, machinating. The list went on without end, without mercy or pity.

  Destroying him.

  But he would not be destroyed. He would not. Out of this destruction he would save one thing. Worthless, yes, but because it was all he could save he would. He spoke again, picking his words with deliberate intent.

  ‘But my intervention on Armand’s behalf has not been without its compensations.’ His voice had changed again.

  Lissa stared at him, her eyes distended, horror drowning through her. He started to walk towards her. She wanted to move, run, flee—she could not. She was grounded to the stone beneath her feet. He came up to her. She could catch the scent of his skin, feel the warmth of his body.

  The dark glitter in his eyes.

  He reached out to touch her. She could not move. He cupped her cheek, his fingers lifting the fall of her hair and stroked down the side of her face with languorous delicacy.

  ‘You were very good in bed, cherie. Very good.’ There was approval in his voice. Appreciation. ‘I might actually have taken you with me.’

  He smiled down at her, and sickness churned in her stomach.

  ‘You know,’ he said contemplatively, his fingers still warm on her skin, ‘you could have done very well out of it. I would have been generous to you, cherie. Your lack of interest in spending my money was very convincing, very touching. It would have encouraged me to spend lavishly on you. But you still preferred the security of marriage, did you not? Yet my brother is nowhere near as rich as I am. Did you not realise that? No? Armand has money of his own, evidement, but it does not, cherie, compare to mine.’ He paused a moment, eyes working over her face.

  ‘I own XeL,’ he said softly. ‘Do you know how much that makes me worth?’

  He told her, down to the last million euros, what his wealth was.

  He saw the shock flare in her eyes, and savage satisfaction speared him. So she had not known. And now, of course, she realised just how much she had whistled down the wind. He put in one final twist of the knife.

  ‘And, since you pleased me so very much in bed, cherie, who knows but I might have married you myself?’

  He watched the emotion in her eyes, and the savage satisfaction came again.

  ‘As it is—’ he dropped his hand away and gave a light, careless shrug ‘—the comedy, such as it is, is ended.’

  For a moment, his eyes changed again, a dark light at the back of them. His face tightened.

  ‘Belle,’ he murmured. ‘Quelle dommage.’

  Then, as she stood frozen, immobile, sick, he reached for her once more, his fingers curving around her chin, tilting it upwards. He lowered his mouth to hers, slanting his lips. Effortlessly he opened her to him, tasting her in a leisurely, intimate fashion.

  Then he stepped away. His face was a mask. His voice when he spoke was brisk, expressionless.

  ‘You will return to London. You will inform Armand that you cannot, after all, marry him. You will do so by phone or letter. You will not meet him. I shall be keeping you under surveillance to ensure this, and if you attempt to meet him I will have you intercepted. For my brother’s sake, to spare him any further distress after his mistaken hopes of love and marriage have been destroyed, I will not tell him of your affair with me. But—’ he held up a hand ‘—if necessary I shall do so. Be in no doubt of that. I will not permit you to marry him. Do you understand?’ His voice sharpened. ‘Do you understand?’ he repeated coldly.

  Slowly she nodded. It seemed the only thing to do.

  That, and keep herself upright, keep herself together, all the parts of her body—because she was falling apart, fracturing. Tiny hairline cracks were widening, breaking open, shattering her into a thousand pieces.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘And now—’ he glanced at his watch ‘—you will leave. You have ten minutes to pack.’

  He walked away, back into the villa.

  Behind him, by the table, Lissa stood quite, quite motionless.

  * * *

  Time had stopped. She could see it flowing somewhere very far away, outside. She could see the wake churning behind her as the launch sped over the water towards the shore. She could see the shore, inching closer. So time must be moving, somewhere.

  But not inside her. Inside her, time had stopped. Everything had stopped. She couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t think anything. Eventually, after a long time, the launch drew up at the quayside and the engines were cut, and someone was holding out a hand to help her out of the boat. Then there was a car, and she was sitting in the back of it, and it was nosing out of the marina onto the road, with other cars rushing back and forth, and people on the pavements, and shops and houses and buildings. And then the car was moving, and she was moving inside it, but nothing else was happening. The car reached the airport, and someone was ushering her inside, guiding her up to first-class check-in, and talking French over her head. And she was handing over her passport, and then she was going through into the departure lounge. Later—how much later she couldn’t tell—she was sitting on a plane, in a first-class seat, and staring out of the porthole. The plane took off, and she felt her stomach lift and lurch and fall away like the ground below. The plane climbed up, up into the sky, sun dazzli
ng in her eyes, and then it was heading north, inland, across France.

  And as it flew time started again.

  And with it came perfect recall.

  Xavier walking out onto the terrace and shattering her into a thousand fractured, broken pieces.

  Word by word she went over the revelations of the day.

  Xavier was Armand’s brother. He had sought her out. He had sought an affair with her deliberately, calculatedly.

  To separate her from Armand.

  With no other purpose.

  Not chance, not desire, not anything other than cold, deliberate purpose.

  Making everything, everything between them a lie. From the moment he had come into the casino—to the moment when he’d thrown her from him like a diseased carcass.

  Hatred seared in her. What else could it be, the emotion that seared her flesh? Hatred for the man who had lied, and lied and lied to her—day after day, night after night—with every word, with every touch.

  It was a glorious day in London, mocking her with golden sunshine. From the plane’s window as it landed, and then from the long windows as she trudged along to baggage reclaim, she could see brilliant sunlight glancing off the parked planes and the airport buildings. Heathrow was crowded, thronged with people—busy, purposeful, hurrying. She walked through them like a dead person. Her suitcase was rotating slowly on the luggage carousel. Another hot wire went through her. It was not the suitcase she had set out from London with but a new one made from finest leather, presented to her in Paris, with her own shabby valise disposed of disdainfully. The distinctive XeL logo in gold lettering on the handles and edging leapt out at her.

  XeL.

  Xavier Lauran. X. L.

  She had never noticed. Never realised.

  But then she had never noticed that everything she had thought true about Xavier Lauran had been a lie.

  It had been staring her in the face, and she had never realised.

  I thought it was chance that brought him to the casino. I thought it was desire that made him want me. I thought—

  She broke off. She must not think. That was forbidden to her now. Nor must she feel. That, above all, she must not do.

  She hefted the suitcase off the carousel. Then she trudged towards the customs exit to make her heavy, dead-footed way down into the Underground station. All around her, familiar English voices told her she was back in Britain.

  On the train she sat in a near empty carriage, huddled in her seat like a wounded creature. Mortally wounded.

  As she emerged into the glaring sunlight from the bleak South London tube station, the outer skin of her life slid back over Lissa like a glove she had scarcely removed. The unlovely streets of this poor district were still the same as they had always been. Her dingy flat had not changed, merely looked dingier than ever. The trains still rattled along a few yards from the rear windows, the curtains were still shabby, the mismatched furniture was still cheap and chipped.

  It was as if she had never left.

  There was one more task to be done before her old life closed over her again completely.

  Dully, with leaden fingers, she got out her mobile. It would be early still in the States, but she could not help it. This was something she had to do. She had no choice. Xavier Lauran had given her none.

  Slowly, heavily, she tapped out Armand’s number.

  Xavier was travelling.

  Paris, Munich, Vienna. Then Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Manila. On to Australia, New Zealand. Back to Cape Town, Jo’burg, Nairobi, Cairo.

  He did not stop. Did not pause. Three continents in three weeks before arriving back in Europe. And still he did not want to stop.

  ‘He must needs go that the devil drives.’

  Who had said that? He did not care. The devil was driving him. An army of devils, driving him on, on, with whips of red-hot wire. He worked—filled his mind with work, with business, with meetings and reports, figures and facts, surveys and budgets, plans and forecasts. It did not matter what. It mattered only that he did not think, did not feel about anything except work, business.

  He saw no one. No one outside those colleagues or business associates it was necessary to see. On his travels he lived in hotel rooms, accepting no invitations, going nowhere except on business.

  He cut himself off from everyone outside his work. Friends, family—above all family.

  He did not contact Armand. All communication with him in respect of XeL he left to others. Armand was in America still, and that was all that was important. That and the fact that Lissa Stephens had made no attempt to join him. His security reports on her—reduced to the briefest comment ‘no movement beyond London’—assured him of that. What she was doing, so long as she was not with his brother, he did not care.

  Would not care.

  Because she had ceased to exist. Ceased as absolutely as if she never had existed. Had never sat beside him, looking like a cheap tart, while he deliberately lost money at the roulette table. Never stood in the rain on a wet London street, waiting for a bus he had deliberately made her miss. Never dined with him at a hotel for an evening he had deliberately engineered.

  And never left that breathless, garbled message for him telling him that she was now free to have an affair with him.

  Never made a fool of him—the fool to end fools.

  His hands clenched, spasmed and painful. Forcibly he made them untense.

  How had he let it happen? Let her make such a fool of him?

  She had been so convincing. Letting him think that whatever had happened between her and Armand it was all over and she was free. Free to let him take her with him, to spend that time on the island—that false idyll that had, for her, merely been filling in time until Armand proposed to her.

  He told me he would, and he did.

  And she had accepted. Without a moment’s hesitation or pause. Without the slightest sign of compunction or guilt that, even as she gave him her happy assent, her lover was in the bed she had just vacated.

  Xavier’s face contracted.

  Bitch! Faithless to him—to me!

  Faithless. Worthless.

  Hatred of her seared through him. It had to be hatred. He would permit nothing else. Acknowledge nothing else. She had deceived and manipulated both himself and Armand, taking them both for fools. Faithless to both. Treacherous to both.

  Yes, hatred was all he must feel for her.

  Nothing else.

  Lissa was keying sales figures and product prices into a spreadsheet. It required intense concentration to put the right data into the right fields, and she was glad of it. It kept her mind channelled, focussed. Occupied.

  It was essential to keep her mind occupied. Busy. Full. Focussed. Every synapse that fired had to do so only on permitted topics. The work she was doing. The food she was buying. The cleaning she was doing. The book she was reading. The programme she was watching. The street she was walking along. Each activity taking up all her mind. Allowing nothing else in. Nothing at all.

  Because if for a single moment, a single second, she failed to keep her mind occupied in such a way, it would arrive.

  Memory. Bringing dreams that were even more of a lie than the reality had been. That were as false as Xavier Lauran had been.

  How can I bear it?

  The question sounded in her head—meaningless, pointless. She would bear it because she must.

  She went on typing. Tap, tap, tap at the keyboard. Keeping focussed, keeping busy.

  The subdued buzz of her mobile was scarcely audible. She had it turned down to the lowest setting, for the office she was currently working in did not like staff to use their mobiles on personal calls during working hours. But Lissa ignored that particular rule. She needed to have her phone on.

  Hurriedly, she slipped the mobile out of her desk drawer, clicked it to silent, and slipped it into her sleeve. Then she got up and headed for the Ladies. As she gained the wash-basin area, memory scythed into her mind.

>   She had stood like this, at that insurance company, and phoned the number of XeL to get in touch with Xavier Lauran, to tell him that she was available for an affair with him after all.

  Fool that she had been.

  She took a breath, harsh and punishing, and crushed the memories away. Then she answered her phone. The tone had stopped, but it had been a text anyway. She opened it.

  ‘Wedding this weekend all arranged. Air ticket to you by courier. A’

  She clicked off the phone. Savage satisfaction seared in her face. He had destroyed so much, Xavier Lauran, but this—this he could not destroy.

  This at least was safe from him. And he could do nothing about it—nothing at all!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  XAVIER pulled at the seat belt straps in the helicopter, and fastened them with a swift movement. Then he nodded at the pilot and reached for his headphones, to silence the deafening roar of the rotors as the machine lifted off the ground at Nice airport. It was only a short hop, but every moment counted.

  He had been in Seoul when the call had come through from his mother. She herself had been phoning from the Maldives, where she and Lucien, her husband, had been holidaying. She had sounded breathless, excited, and almost inaudible over the connection. But what she had told him had stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘My darling, you must come home in time for it. It’s completely out of the blue, and I could shake him for doing this. But Lucien and I will be on the next flight, and you must be, too. He says they’ll be there for Saturday—can you manage that? Oh, it’s so little time. I could shake him, I really could. To throw us like this at the last moment. I haven’t even met the girl. And now he tells me the wedding is all arranged. How can it be? I have made no arrangements whatsoever. There are dozens of people to invite, but the wretched boy says he wants no one—just family. He says his bride wants a quiet wedding. But he doesn’t say why. And, Xavier, darling, this is what worries me most—he says that although she may not be the ideal woman I would have wanted for him, he loves her. What can he mean by that? What’s wrong with her that I wouldn’t want her to marry Armand? Oh, Xavier, darling boy, please be there in time—promise me you will.’