Forbidden or For Bedding? (8 page)

S
HE
could not go on cleaning the bathroom for ever. After some indefinite time she made herself stop. Made herself go into the kitchen and put on the kettle. Carefully not looking at the breakfast table. Not thinking about what had happened that morning. Not thinking at all.

Just feeling.

An ocean of emotion possessed her.

After a while—a few minutes, an hour? She didn't know, couldn't tell and didn't care—she started to make herself think. Started to try and seize the torn and tattered rags of her mind and sew them back together again—at least enough to make words come, make words take shape in her head. She had to force herself to say them, if only to herself.

You knew this day would come. You knew it. You knew it had to come—could only come. You understood nothing of why he started this affair with you—what made you his choice. He, who had all the world to choose from. You understood nothing of that. Nothing of why he kept the affair going. The reasons must have been there, but they were inexplicable to you. You always knew that he would at some point, a point of his own choosing, decide to terminate the affair. End it. Finish it.

You knew it would happen.

And now it has.

You have done all that you could do, all that it was essential for you to do. You accepted its ending with dignity, with composure, with your mask intact. So that never could he possibly know the truth—the truth that he can have no interest in. Because why should he? Whatever he was to me, he was not a man it was…sensible…to fall in love with.

No… The word tolled in her brain. It had not been
sensible
to fall in love with Guy de Rochemont.

It had been folly of the worst sort. A folly she now had to pay the price for. And she
would
pay that price.

She had accepted his severing of whatever it was that had been between them with composure and dignity. That was essential. Quite essential. She stood stock still in the kitchen, instilling into herself just how essential it was.

The phone started ringing.

For a moment she could only stare at it. A name, unspoken, was vivid in her head. Then, knowing that it was not Guy—for why should he phone now that he had ended the affair as abruptly as he had started it?—she jerked her hand to pick it up.

‘Alexa! I've just found something out that I
must
warn you about! You've got to listen to me on this!'

Imogen's voice sounded agitated. For a moment Alexa could not face taking the call. But she knew she would not be able to avoid Imogen.

‘What is it?' she answered. Her voice was as composed as Imogen's was not.

‘I don't want to tell you this—I really, really don't! But I can't
not
—it's about Guy.'

Of course it was about Guy. How could it not be?

It was so ironic, Alexa thought dispassionately. From
being someone who couldn't have waxed any more lyrical about the attractions of Guy de Rochemont, lavish in her appreciation of all his masculine allure, Imogen had become the very opposite.

When she had first discovered the fact that Alexa had succumbed to him, Imogen's initial disbelief had been overwhelmed by a vicarious but wholehearted gratification. ‘
Oh-my-God!
Are you serious? You and Guy de Rochemont! Oh, that is just
brilliant
! Wow! It's amazing! Awesome! Totally brilliant!' Imogen had enveloped her in a bear hug. ‘Oh, you are just
so
, so lucky! You jammy, jammy thing!'

But her views had changed completely as she came to know the circumstances of their affair.

‘It's like he's
hiding
you!' she'd accused. ‘Never being seen out with you!'

Alexa had been unperturbed by her friend's hostility. ‘The last thing I want is anyone staring at us,' she'd said. ‘Besides, we don't get much time together—why waste it going out? I'd rather be with him alone while I can.' She'd looked straight at her friend. ‘Immie, this isn't going to last. I know that. I'd be a fool not to. But while it does—'

She'd broken off, and to her dismay, Imogen had stared silently at her. Then spoken.

‘You've fallen for him, haven't you?' Her voice had been hollow.

Alexa had answered too fast. ‘No—'

But Imogen had only shaken her head. ‘Oh, hell,' she'd said.

Then she'd given a huge, heavy sigh, and gazed pityingly at her friend.

The pity was back in her voice now, audible down the line. So was a hesitation that was unusual for her. Alexa cut through it.

‘Yes, he's getting married. I know.'

The silence on the phone was eloquent. ‘The
bastard
!' hissed Imogen. ‘The absolute
bastard
!' Then she launched. ‘It's on one of those gossip websites! I've only just logged on. There's a huge pic of Carla Crespi, and then one of him, and then it says about how Carla can give up all hope of getting him back now, because he's just about to announce his engagement. And underneath that is the story about who she is—the fiancée of your precious Guy de bloody Rochemont! It's some cousin or other of his. One of the Lorenz lot. They've dug up some pic of her at some
schloss
. She looks like a painted dummy. Daddy's got one of the family banks, so they're keeping all the money in the family—nice and convenient!' Imogen's voice was scathing.

‘Yes, well, that's how they've always stayed so rich,' replied Alexa.

There was so much calmness in her voice that it astonished her. Beneath the calm she could feel the information that Imogen was forcing on her pushing into the interstices in her brain. She tried to force it out—she didn't want to know anything about who it was that Guy de Rochemont had chosen to marry—but it was there, vivid in her consciousness. All she could do was ignore it. Turn away from it.

Imogen had cottoned on to another thing now. The fact that Alexa already knew about the engagement.

‘So did he deign to tell you?' she demanded. ‘Or did you find out the way I did?'

Of course she hadn't found out the way Imogen had! She never looked at such sites, or picked up the kind of magazine that followed the rich and famous in their glamorous lifestyles. Imogen, she knew, even when she'd realised just what was going on between Alexa and Guy de Rochemont,
still made a point of being assiduous in her perusal of such sources.

‘Believe me, Alexa, if that man is up to stuff you should know about, I'll be on to it!' she'd said, way back. ‘I can tell you straight off that it's plain as my face that Carla Crespi is dead set on picking up with him again, for a start.'

But Imogen's vigilance had not been necessary. Nor had Alexa ever thought it would be. For why should Guy conceal anything from her? Let alone the fact that their affair had run its course, as she knew it must one fine day…

‘He told me this morning,' she said. The calmness was holding.

There was an intake of breath from Imogen.

Alexa went on, pre-empting any outburst from her friend. ‘So, obviously I wished him well, gave him my felicitations, and said goodbye to him. We parted perfectly amicably.'

There was another eloquent silence down the line. Alexa realised that she was gripping the phone hard, yet try as she might she could not make her fingers slacken. Instead, she concentrated on holding that calmness in her voice.

‘Imogen, I knew this day would come, and that's that. Now it has. That's all there is to it. There's absolutely no point my making a fuss about it. Guy de Rochemont walked into my life, and now he's walked out of it. End of story. And I'm fine. Absolutely fine. Honestly. Completely fine.
Fine
.'

Again she tried to slacken her grip on the phone, and again for some annoying reason her fingers would not obey her. Something seemed to be gripping her throat as well. Choking her.

At the other end of the line she could hear her name being spoken. Then again. Then, ‘I'm coming over,' said
Imogen. And underneath, as she was disconnecting, Alexa heard a sibilant, hissing expletive. ‘
Bastard
!'

 

‘Guy!
Servus! Wie gehts, wie gehts?
'

The voice greeting him was jovial and welcoming. Guy's arm was taken, and he was all but steered in the direction his host wanted. Guy's jaw tightened. But then that was, after all, exactly what Heinrich von Lorenz
was
doing—steering him in the direction that suited him personally. And suited his damn investment bank. His tottering investment bank, brought to the brink of ruin.

Familiar anger bit within him. Deep and highly masked. Why the
hell
hadn't Heinrich come to him earlier? Why had he bluffed it out for months, getting more and more mired in toxic debt? Pride, that was why, Guy knew. Expensive, unaffordable pride.

Then his anger veered round to target himself. He should have picked up on the depth of the problems Lorenz Investment was having. Dammit, that was his job—taking the helicopter view of everything—
everything!
—that fell within the labyrinthine world of Rochemont-Lorenz. It was the job he'd inherited from his father, and the job he was stuck with.

A caustic glint showed temporarily in his eyes. How many people envied him? Not just those outside the Rochemont-Lorenz behemoth, but even those within. How many considered his position one they would love for themselves? The titular and
de facto
head of a vast, powerful, immensely rich dynasty.

Well, it was nearly ten years since the heavy mantle had fallen on his shoulders, in his early twenties—thanks to the premature death of his father. It was a death to which, Guy knew bitterly, the role he had passed on to his son had contributed in its ceaseless demands on him. Guy was no
longer—if he ever had been—a willing occupier of that grandiose position. It might sound good—and, yes, it certainly came with wealth and power, with a social cachet and a historical heritage that lent glamour to the name and role—but it came with a weight of responsibility that exacted its own heavy price.

A price that had suddenly become crippling.

But I have no option but to pay it! No damn option!

His mouth tightened as he went into the ritual of greeting Heinrich and his wife Annelise, in the baronial hall of their Alpine
schloss
. It was Heinrich's residence of choice, for it had once belonged to an archduke and still bore Hapsburg arms above the mantel—arms which, defunct as they were, nevertheless intimated an association with royalty that Heinrich took pleasure in emphasising. The Lorenz quarterings might not have reached further back than a bare century and a half, but Heinrich took inordinate pride in them. Suppressed anger flared again momentarily in Guy. Just as Heinrich took inordinate and clearly unjustified pride in his financial acumen.

Pride goeth before a fall.

The sobering words of the Bible stung Guy's consciousness. Lorenz Investment was as near to falling as if it were a metre away from a precipice. But from the expansiveness of Heinrich's greeting it was impossible to tell how perilously positioned he was. Yet he knew, all right, just how bad things were, despite all his avuncular bonhomie. Again Guy's eyes darkened. He'd taken his eye off the Lorenz Investment balance sheet, targeted his attention at other parts of the operation that had seemed to be in more serious straits courtesy of the global recession, and by the time he'd knocked together the requisite heads, re-set the vulnerable financial thermostats to ‘sound' across the multiple divisions and corporations that formed the complex
corpus of Rochemont-Lorenz, the window of opportunity for a far less painless rescue package for Lorenz Investment had passed.

And now Heinrich had done what he should have done six months ago, and disclosed the full state of affairs.

And called for the ultimate rescue package.

One that would not just bail out his bank, but achieve his dearest wish…

Had Heinrich been planning this all along? Guy would not have put it past him. He had always known that Heinrich had ambitions to further his branch of the family by any means at his disposal—but Guy had always been uncooperative. Not just for business reasons—Heinrich's mismanagement at Lorenz Investment was proof that had been wise—but for far more cogent reasons. Heinrich's love of royal residences was not the predominant evidence of his fondness for the way royalty did things.

Dynastic marriages were.

For years Guy had simply ignored the subtle and less than subtle comments, insinuations and outright hints. So Heinrich had no sons, only a daughter to inherit his place within Rochemont-Lorenz? So what? This was the twenty-first century. Heinrich might think it impossible, but there was already a sprinkling of highly competent female Rochemonts and Lorenzs taking their place in the higher corporate echelons of the family, and there was no reason why Louisa, if she showed any talent, shouldn't join those ranks in time.

Not that—from what he recalled of Louisa—she seemed to have shown any signs of financial acumen. She was studying something like ecology, he vaguely remembered, and his impression of her was that she was quite shy.

But, shy or not, she should surely be in evidence this evening—as yet, she was not. Guy's brows drew together.
Despite the effusiveness of Heinrich's greeting, and the benign graciousness of Annelise's, Guy had seen the latter's eyes go repeatedly towards the staircase curling around to the upper floors of the
schloss
.

Of Louisa there was conspicuously no sign. Guy's initial reaction on realising she was not there was momentary relief, but as the minutes wore on, and he was subjected to the kind of irrelevant and time-filling social conversation on the part of his hosts that he found as hypocritical as it was irksome, he could feel irritation piercing through the predominant emotion of anger at Heinrich's machinations and the unacceptable fall-out from his incompetence. He could see Heinrich and Annelise getting tenser about their daughter's continuing absence even while they were determinedly not mentioning it.