Beauty in the Broken
A Diamond Magnate Novel
Charmaine Pauls
Published by Charmaine Pauls
Montpellier, 34090, France
www.charmainepauls.com
Published in France
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Copyright © 2019 by Charmaine Pauls
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Simply Defined Art
(www.simplydefinedart.com)
ISBN: 978-2956103189 (eBook)
ISBN-13: 978-1095763919 (Print)
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Afterword
Also by Charmaine Pauls
Book Blurbs
About the Author
Chapter 1
Johannesburg, South Africa
Damian
Harold Dalton shoots up from behind his oversized desk so fast he almost stumbles over the wheel of his equally oversized chair. “What do you want?”
The coward is afraid. He should be. After all, he framed me and stole my diamond mine. He’s the reason I spent six innocent years in jail.
His fat chin quivers. He doesn’t take his eyes off me as I cross the floor. Taking my time to inspect the room, I make him sweat it out. The home office hasn’t changed, except for three more deer heads staring miserably from the wall.
“What do you want?” he repeats when I reach his desk.
“Ah. Whatever could I want?”
His fingers tremble as he splays them out on the desktop. The cocksucker is so arrogant he either forgot I got out yesterday or believed I left prison a defeated man. Any less of a self-assuming bastard would’ve put a dozen guards in front of his door today. His mistake.
A liver-spotted hand glides toward the drawer where he no doubt keeps a gun, but I’m faster and stronger. My grip on his wrist makes him whimper. I can almost smell the fear in the sweat that stains the armpits of his shirt. I’m not the twenty-two-year-old man who walked through this door in a threadbare shirt. I’m a man in an eighty-thousand-rand suit, a man with a vendetta.
Six years is a long time, long enough to soak in the juices of your vengeance until your heart is cooked in all that bitter acid. Six years of cruelty and torture make beasts out of men. Six years in the company of the hardest criminals and most notorious mobsters also make the right connections and a fortune.
“What do you want, Damian Hart?”
This time, there’s acceptance in the question, the kind only people with money can muster. Bribe money.
Letting go of his wrist, I take two pieces of paper from my inside jacket pocket and slide them over the desk. He unfolds the first, the proof of what he’s stolen, and pales as he reads. The second is an affidavit the corrupt judge signed right after I’d cut off his finger.
The papers flutter in his hands. “Name your price. Most of my money is tied up in investments, but I have property. My house in Camps Bay is worth ninety million. I can sign over the deed in less than twenty-four hours.”
Laughable. “Ninety million isn’t going to cut it. I’d say one thousand four hundred and fifty-five days and a diamond mine worth billions deserve a little more, don’t you think?”
“The mine belongs to investors. Only thirty percent is mine, and I can’t simply give it away. The board has to vote on a change of ownership.”
As if I wouldn’t know. “I’m not after your small change, Dalton. I want your biggest asset.”
The pastry layers of his face crease into a frown.
Turning the gilded photo frame strategically facing the visitor’s chair around, I push it slowly toward him.
His eyes widen as comprehension sets in. Not even the threat of my presence is enough to prevent the anger from erupting on his features.
“You must be bloody kidding me,” he hisses, crumpling the incriminating pieces of evidence in his fists.
Angelina Dalton-Clarke.
Daughter of Harold Dalton. Widow of Jack Clarke. She inherited her late husband’s fortune. Worth billions, she’s the wealthiest widow in the country, and also the craziest. Her suicidal and self-harming tendencies had Clarke declare her incompetent and mentally unstable before he put a gun to his head and blew his brains out. Lina Dalton-Clarke isn’t allowed to touch a cent of her riches. Her father manages her finances. He has all the signing power. As her husband, that chore will fall to me.
“She’s mentally ill,” Dalton splutters.
“I read the reports.” It wasn’t difficult for a cellmate to hack into the medical files.
Dalton looks as if he’s about to have a heart attack. I wait until his face is purple, giving him time to live the beginning of his end, before I continue with my instructions.
“Send her to the library. I’d like to see my asset in person. Oh, and not a word about our discussion. I’d like to break the happy news to her myself.”
He stands frozen, staring at me with whatever sentiment is festering in his rotten chest. It’s only when I’m on the other side of the room that he jumps back to life, coming around the desk.
I hold up a hand. “I’ll show myself to the library.” Mockingly, I add, “I know the way.”
The helpless indignation on his face as I shut the door fills me with more joy than I’ve experienced in all those years his family stole from me.
I’m from a poor upbringing, but I’m not a complete commoner. I know the rules of the gentry, which is why I give it some time before going to the library. Who knows what state Ms. Dalton-Clarke is in? She may be lounging around in sloppy attire or sunbathing naked. Her hair may be a mess and her face scrubbed clean of make-up. She may need a few minutes to make herself presentable. I’m guessing most women, when faced with an enemy, would amass whatever power they can, even if said power is derived from six-inch heels and red lipstick. Any lesser appearance than the show she puts up for the world will put her at an unfair disadvantage for the surprise visit, and although I don’t give a shit about playing fair, I do believe in treating a woman like a lady when it matters. Telling her she’s going to become my wife definitely matters.
At my order, Mrs. Benedict, the same old housekeeper from before, grudgingly serves me a cup of Earl Grey on the terrace. It’s not by coincidence I’ve wandered out here. It’s the spot where I’d been sitting when Angelina Dalton came to me on the infamous night that sealed my fate. What will it be like to finally face her again? The onslaught of emotions at the thought is a familiar cocktail of a
pprehension, excitement, and a bloodthirsty need for justice. I’d lie if I say lust isn’t running thick under the surface of it all. Who can blame me? She’s been the focus of my fantasies, both the vengeful and lustful kind, for the past six years.
Earlier in her father’s study, I barely glanced at her photo. I didn’t have to. Her features are imprinted on my mind, even if we only met that once, an angelic face with outer space blue eyes and a golden cascade of hair. I see her in my dreams and with my eyes wide open. When I close them, I see her walking to me through the French patio doors with a beautiful display of innocence and vulnerability. It’s a night I can never forget. It’s a night when the best and worst moment of my life collided. Whilst Dalton wins the grand prize for fucking me over, she takes the trophy for snatching my heart in a few seconds flat only to throw it back in my face. She’s my best, and my worst. She had no right to be pretty and nice to me when she had no intention of falling as hard for me as she made me fall for her.
The memory is always fresh, always new. Poor as fuck but armed with youth and ambition, I’d donned my only button-down shirt and set out to meet her father not at his office, but at his house. It was an idiotic idea. Any man with a little experience of high society could’ve told me I’d be out of my depth with the formal dinner, from the four forks and knives lined up next to the gold-rimmed plates to the hand-rolled cigars that concluded the five hour-long ordeal. Between the other guests in their tuxedos, I stood out like a mongrel dog among racehorses. I stepped outside for air and sat down on this very terrace wall. I was freezing my butt off without a jacket in the middle of June when she exited in that pretty white dress, her curls pinned in some fancy up-do, with a fucking green granny shawl sporting a couple of holes wrapped around her shoulders.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked in a voice that rang as beautiful as their fancy dinner bell.
The ignorance of a rich girl. What the fuck did she think? My teeth were chattering and my knees knocking together. I wanted to go inside where it was warm, but I needed another minute to get my shit together. I wasn’t going to let the older men with their expensive clothes and knowledge of cutlery intimidate me. I carried my future in my pocket, a discovery that was going to put me on the map, but I was yet to speak to Dalton, the man who was going to help me make it happen. I was nothing but a poor bastard, and I didn’t want to answer her, not really, because admitting to being cold would’ve been admitting to things I didn’t want the exquisite young woman staring at me to know.
Before I could think of anything appropriate to say, she unwrapped that ugly shawl from her frail shoulders, exposing the thin straps of her impractical evening dress, and draped the moth-eaten wool around me.
“There.” She didn’t quite smile, but she looked pleased. “It was my grandmother’s. It makes me feel safe.”
I stared at her like a fool, dumbstruck by the beautiful, wealthy girl who’d given me her warmth and safety. That’s how her father found us when he stepped through the doors. The minute his gaze fell on us, his eyes turned colder than the winter night. He walked over with an empty tumbler in his hand, his steps unhurried but urgent.
Putting an arm around his daughter, he said, “Go inside, Lina. You’ll catch your death in this cold with no coat.”
The silk of her dress accentuated the tightness of her ass and the shift of her globes as she turned and obeyed.
Dalton’s breath fanned my face, reeking of whisky. His words were soft-spoken but loaded enough to lash like thunder. “She’ll never be yours. She’s destined for someone worthy of her.”
I couldn’t answer, not because I didn’t have a quick comeback. I grew up rough. I knew how to throw back subtle insults, but he’d punched me in the gut with the truth. It had nothing to do with me not being worthy of her. It was that I did want her to be mine. I just didn’t know it until he’d said it, but it was suddenly out in the open, the truth set free by his words, my worst nightmare of a fantasy set in motion. That fantasy haunted me for every long, lonely night I fucked my fist in jail.
“Come on in.” Dalton tilted his head toward the house. “I’m ready to see you about that business proposal.” At the doors, he turned, his figure a stark outline in the light. “Do take off that shawl. You look ridiculous.”
Inside, I sought Lina out despite Dalton’s warning, telling myself it was to return her shawl. I blatantly trespassed in corridors that weren’t leading to Dalton’s office or the dining room until I found her. She stood in front of the guest bathroom with Mrs. Benedict shoving a fur drape at her and mumbling something about her mother turning in her grave. I never did give her back her shawl. I didn’t want Mrs. Benedict to take it away. I draped it over a chair back, hoping she’d find it. Then I’d gone to her father’s study and she’d married Clarke, the man who’d granted Dalton the excavation rights for the mine he’d stolen from me.
Pushing the bitter memory aside, I leave the Royal Albert teacup on the garden table—a perversely careless act for such pricy crockery—and go back inside. Dalton is nowhere to be seen. He’s probably planning my murder for stealing his princess, the one I’m not worthy of. Isn’t karma a funny thing? If Lina turned as self-destructive and batshit crazy as her medical reports claim, our situation is ironically reversed.
She stands in the middle of the library when I enter, not in front of or behind the desk, but right in the middle, between nothing and the fireplace. I take a few seconds. The moment is huge. I’m not going to rush it. It’s not what I expected. It’s not my memory reincarnated. Nothing is left of the angelic girl from that evening in June. She doesn’t come to me with kindness. Her back is stiff and her posture regal. The tip of her nose is tilted to the ceiling, her chin high.
What does a crazy person look like? Not like her. Maybe. It’s hard to say. Take me, for example. You’d never say how warped I am just from looking at me. Does wearing a green granny shawl to a fancy dinner qualify as crazy? Does self-sabotage count as insane? I close the door quietly, like one would close a church door. I’m not sure why, only that I feel like I did when I held my mother’s hand, and she led me down the aisle toward the portrait of Mary carrying the baby Jesus in her arms.
At the sound of the click, Lina’s back turns even more rigid. Her ribcage expands and contracts too quickly, as if she’s battling to breathe. Taking more time, longer than any normal person would find comfortable, I study her. With her hair like spun gold and her skin like bone china, she could easily be a fairytale princess, but that’s not what I see when my gaze drops to her lips. They’re a darker shade of pearl, full and shimmery. Lip balm. It’s not lipstick or gloss. There’s no mascara on her golden lashes or blush on her cheeks. No cosmetic courage. No high-heeled power. What she resembles is an ice queen—cold, untouchable, unobtainable. From head to toe, she’s dressed in black. A polo-neck top with long sleeves covers her from her neck to her wrists. A wide skirt brushes her ankles. Black boots peek out from underneath. The top is tight fitting and the waistband of her skirt broad, accentuating her slim shape and small waist.
She stands quietly until I’ve done my evaluation. When I finally approach, she meets my eyes with a hint of loathing. The gold and green specs seem to light up the darkest of blues as her gaze flashes with distaste.
I smile. Good. I’m glad she looks at me like that, or I may have gotten lost in the strange unworldliness of her eyes, a dark galaxy dotted with green and gold stars.
“Mrs. Clarke.”
“Mr. Hart.”
She speaks. For six years I passed the sleepless hours of my nights trying to recall the exact sound of that voice, wondering if—hoping that—it has changed. It’s not what I’d hoped for. It’s not harsh or cracked or flawed. It’s still like a bell, clear and resonating strongly.
“I see I’ve been announced.”
Her level stare defies my assumption. “I remember you.”
Just because of that angelic voice, I start counting her shortcomings. She locked herself i
n a room for over two years. She refused to see anyone, sometimes even her husband. “How can you blame him for killing himself?” people ask. “With a wife like her…” and they leave the sentence hanging.
She tried to commit suicide by throwing herself out of a second story window of their home. That was before the husband shot himself, so it couldn’t be blamed on the tragedy of his death. Speculation has it mostly as the other way around. He shot himself after her suicide attempt.
She spent a year after his funeral in an institution with a fancy name, which is just another term for an asylum. For that year, she was nursed back to health from her alternating disorders of bulimia and anorexia. Doesn’t look like they’ve achieved much. She can do with another few kilos.
The worst is in her eyes. It’s in her silence as she stands there, letting me weigh her and find her too light. Too damn much. The coldness and craziness appeal to me. I’m a man intimately acquainted with broken things, enough to know what stands in front of me is ruined, not broken. I still want her, as much as—no, more—than when she was eighteen and sweet and a princess. A memory of Dalton bringing her into the dining room, dressed in that white frock that showed the cleavage of her small breasts and tight buttocks, flashes through my mind. I knew what he was doing. He was parading her, showing off his bargaining chip.
She waits patiently. Maybe locking yourself up does that to you. It ruins your mind but teaches you virtues.
“It’s been a year,” I say.
She doesn’t ask.
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