The Man In The Mirror

by Georgia Le Carre

  The Man In The Mirror

  Georgia Le Carre

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Also By Georgia

  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

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Coming soon…

  The Billionaire Banker

  Quote

  1. Blake Law Barrington

  2. Lana Bloom

  3. Lana

  ALSO BY GEORGIA

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Many, many thanks for all your hard work,

  Caryl Milton

  Elizabeth Burns

  Nichola Rhead

  The Man In The Mirror

  Copyright © 2018 by Georgia Le Carre

  The right of Georgia Le Carre to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patent act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding.

  ISBN 9781910575840

  Created with Vellum

  Also By Georgia

  Owned

  42 Days

  Besotted

  Seduce Me

  Love’s Sacrifice

  Masquerade

  Pretty Wicked (novella)

  Disfigured Love

  Hypnotized

  Crystal Jake 1,2&3

  Sexy Beast

  Wounded Beast

  Beautiful Beast

  Dirty Aristocrat

  You Don’t Own Me 1 & 2

  You Don’t Know Me

  Blind Reader Wanted

  Redemption

  The Heir

  Blackmailed By The Beast

  Submitting To The Billionaire

  The Bad Boy Wants Me

  Nanny & The Beast

  His Frozen Heart

  Chapter 1

  Charlotte

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Mc-NYPHaQ

  I Want To Break Free

  “I’m just sick of it now, April. I mean, this is like the sixth … no, hang on one minute, the seventh time, if I count that back-stabbing witch in Hammersmith, that I’ve been fired because the wife thinks something is going on between me and her fat, ugly husband.”

  April looked unsympathetic. “Listen, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  “Look at you. Natural blonde hair, blue-eyes, a body to die for. Are you surprised that men keep falling for you and their wives hate you for it?”

  I looked at her incredulously. “I can’t even believe you said that. First of all, I don’t have a body to die for. I have fat thighs, and secondly, even if what you say is true, what would you have me do? Put on two hundred pounds and scratch my face to shreds so I can keep my job?”

  She grinned. “You don’t have fat thighs, you have adorably curvy thighs so stop being such a drama queen. How about we just dress you down for your next job?”

  “Dress me down?” I huffed, hands on hips. “Have you not seen the shapeless sacks I wear to work?”

  She gazed back unfazed. “Yes, I have, but the problem is the sackcloth just emphasizes your big, blue come-fuck-me eyes.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Right. I’ll just gouge them out then, shall I?”

  “Don’t be so silly. How about glasses?” She reached for the tub of Pringles and opened it.

  I took the Pringle she held out in her hand for me. “Glasses? I’d feel like a fool wearing glasses when I don’t need them. But more importantly why should I do all this just because stupid men can’t control themselves?”

  “I thought you really wanted this job.”

  I closed my come-fuck-me eyes. “Yes, I do. I really do. I loved Wales when I went there two years ago. No smog, no traffic noises. Hell, the air was so clean I didn’t even have to clean my nose.”

  April laughed. “Why are you so strange, Charlotte?”

  I looked into the distance dreamily. “Oh, and the people. They were all so friendly, big hearted, and happy. They were not sour-faced and rushing around in mad dash the whole time. Heck, come to think of it, even the sheep had better personalities than some Londoners. And I absolutely loved the idea of walking for miles and miles without meeting a single person. It broke my heart when the family moved to America so I’d really, really love to go back and live in a castle in Wales again.”

  “Well, you got your wish.”

  I chewed my lower lip reflectively. “Yes, I did. I couldn’t believe my luck when Christine called and told me about the job.”

  “Okay, but what was the other thing Christine told you?”

  I sighed. “The mistress of the house could be a bit difficult. That she’s some ex-beauty queen.”

  “A bit difficult? Ex-beauty queen? We both know what that means. If you really want to go back to Wales—”

  “I do,” I interrupted.

  “Glasses it is. You know how it works. You’re going into a woman’s home and if you can quickly make her feel you are not a threat to her, she’ll relax and let you get on with the job.”

  I nodded.

  “But you never know, you might get there and find another completely lovely, secure wife like the one you went to before. Then you can ditch your glasses and sackcloth and just have fun with the kid.”

  “Okay,” I agreed reluctantly. I really hated the idea that I had to pretend to be half-blind just so some insecure, jealous woman could feel good about hiring me and trusting me around her husband. I would never ever steal someone else’s husband. That would just go against everything I believed in. My mother brought me up right. But if I did have a husband I would never try to protect him from other women because in my books if he was so weak and uncommitted to me that he couldn’t resist another woman’s flesh then I was well rid of him.

  “When are you going?” April interrupted my thoughts.

  “I’m leaving on Monday.”

  “I’ll miss you, you know?”

  I laughed. “No, you won’t. You haven’t closed your legs since you met that Russian husband of yours. You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  “That’s not even funny. Of course, I will miss you. Anyway, I don’t even know why you insist on working so hard and still paying rent here. Yuri has
already offered to buy you a fabulous house near us.”

  I smiled at her. April would never know how much I really love her. She was the sister I never had. “I know, but I like working. It makes me feel useful. I can’t imagine being one of those women who has lunches and manicures instead of a job.”

  “Sure, I get that, but why won’t you let Yuri buy an apartment for you instead of paying rent.”

  I shook my head resolutely. “Yuri made all my dreams come true when he bought my mom’s house for her. I’ll be forever grateful for that. I don’t want anything else from him. The most important thing is he makes you happy.”

  She grinned. “That he does.” She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening. “Oh my God, the baby just moved again. I’ve got to tell Yuri this.” She reached for her cell phone.

  I groaned. “Oh, for god’s sake, where is the vomit bucket? Do I have to listen to the two of you cooing at each other over the phone again?”

  She pressed a button on her phone and looked at me smugly. “You better be careful young lady. I won’t forget this when you find your man and go ga ga over him.”

  I snorted. “Hardly likely since I’ll be dressed in a sackcloth, ashes, and a horrible pair of librarian glasses for the foreseeable future.”

  Chapter 2

  Brett

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fk2prKnYnI

  The Thrill is Gone

  Jesus! One side of my face was on fire, the flesh was disintegrating away, and my bones were pressing into the damp ground. The smell of burning stung my nostrils. Only when I brought my hands up in a panic to try to put the fire out did I realize that my skin was not burning. I looked at my hands in shock. Shards of sharp glass stuck to my palms and they were dripping with blood.

  What the fuck!

  Something was burning though.

  Dazed, I turned my head. A few feet away my car was on fire. I watched it blaze towards the sky. Even in my disorientated state I could see how beautiful it was. Suddenly, I saw Stanley’s face rise up from the seat. It was full of horror and his mouth was open in a scream of terror. I hadn’t worn my seatbelt so the force of the crash had blasted me through the windscreen, but he was wearing his, and now he was trapped behind it and couldn’t get out.

  I had to get to him.

  I tried to lift my body, but it wouldn’t cooperate. As though I had turned to concrete. I couldn’t feel anything. Not even the biting cold. I tried to crawl as excruciating pain ratcheted though my body, a hundred different places at once. A single cry bubbling up inside.

  “Stanley!” The word tore from my throat. “Stanley!” I screamed and crawled onwards, grabbing at what I could of the glass and tarmac beneath my hands. He was saying something, but his face was bubbling and melting.

  “God, no.”

  I filled my lungs with freezing air and went to drag myself up. It was like being stabbed in every part of my body, but not an inch could I move. Sweat poured out of my body as I pounded my hand on the ground in frustration. In agony, I watched the slight silhouette of the man who was more of a father than my own had been, collapse and fall out of view.

  “This is a dream. Just a nightmare,” a voice in my head screamed. I began to beat at my own body.

  Wake up, wake up, Brett. Wake the fuck up. Now!

  I jerked awake in the darkness of my room. Sweating. Coughing, and clutching at my chest for dear life. I shot out of the bed, and such pain racked my entire back that my knees gave way underneath me. Grasping the bed, I stopped moving and stayed still, my teeth gritted. I just had to wait for the spasms to pass. They always did. I just had to be patient. To wait. The pain dulled to a bearable throb, but the dream remained vivid.

  It would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Beads of sweat dotted my forehead, and misted on my chest from the nightmare. I glanced at the digital clock by my bedside. Only a few minutes past two in the morning. I had put myself to sleep barely forty-five minutes earlier. The thought of the long night still ahead made me groan quietly in misery.

  With a sigh, I rose from the bed and hobbled over to the window. Seven months ago I was still crawling on my hands and knees to get to it, so this was progress, and I was grateful for that.

  I opened it to allow the cool autumn wind in. Leaning against the pane I inhaled deeply, and tried to put the sickening images out of my mind. It was so still and quiet I could hear my heart beating. There was a wedge of moon in the sky. It cast its ghostly blue light on the flat wild landscape and made it seem magical. I closed my eyes and remembered the first time I saw this scenery. I could not connect with its raw untamed nature, or its complete isolation.

  I was not a country boy. The hustle and bustle of the city was in my blood.

  And yet I could not, not buy this fortress. Some primal instinct would not let me walk away from it so I acquired it. I imagined keeping it for a few years, then divesting it for a profit. Little did I know it would become a place where I would hide like a wounded animal from the world.

  The revving of a car engine in the distance jarred me out of my thoughts.

  I opened my eyes and looked out, past the massive iron gates. I watched a bright red Porsche zoom up the hill. One by one the two gates swung open, and the car pulled up at the courtyard below. The passenger door was pushed open, and a pair of glittery heels landed on the cobble stones. It was followed by long, ivory legs.

  Then my wife of nearly a decade lifted herself out.

  She looked stunning in a silvery mini-dress. Waves of silky long blonde hair blew in the slight breeze as an intoxicated laugh bubbled from her lips and rang out into the quiet night. I watched as the man at the driver’s seat threw his door open and strolled over to her. He had dark hair, which he had slicked back, classic Mediterranean good looks. Dressed in an expensive suit. Something about the way he moved told me he’d never done an honest day’s work in his life. His life was spent servicing rich, lonely women.

  Slamming the passenger door shut behind my wife, he thrust her roughly against the sleek metal and she immediately raised her knees and opened her legs wide. He pushed his hand between her thighs and after a few seconds, thrust it upwards so violently, her head jerked back. In the moonlight her mouth was a dark O of shock and pleasure in her ivory face.

  It seemed almost impossible to think of her as Stanley’s only daughter, his Princess, the only real love of his life. He would have died for her. The day I married her, he cried and told me I had fulfilled his greatest dream.

  The dark-haired man began to pump into her, fisting her so roughly it was as if he wanted to tear her apart, but her cries of pain mixed with pleasure rose like wings in the night air.

  She’d finally found a man after her own heart.

  Chapter 3

  Brett

  I stepped away from the window, feeling nothing. My only irritation was the show had wiped away whatever slim chance I had of finding sleep again. I stood by the bed, my shoulders hunched. Life was only bearable because of one thing.

  Only one soul would be able to call back peace into my heart.

  Fitting my mask on to my face and pushing my arms through a robe, I exited my room. Silently, I made my way from my tower, which was also the highest and most inaccessible part of the castle, and went across to the main part of the house. It took only about five minutes to arrive at the corridor that lead to my son’s room. I had just grabbed the handle of his door when the crashing sound in the hallway echoed in the empty silence of the great hall.

  I let go of the handle and changed my destination.

  Standing in the shadows at the top of the grand staircase, I saw my wife leaning against the wall, her body swayed as she tried to collect what remained of her senses. An antique bronze urn rolled on the floor.

  Pushing herself away from the wall, she kicked off her shoes, before staggering her way towards the stairs. She climbed as though every step carried the risk of the ground giving way and sending her straight into a dark abyss.
As I turned around to walk away the movement alerted her, and she swung her head in my direction. The shock of seeing me made her stumble backwards, her hands flailing, and just barely latching onto the banister at the last minute.

  “Fuck!” she cursed, as she glared up at me.

  I took another step towards my son’s room.

  “Wait!” she called.

  I stopped and watched her dispassionately as she righted herself with some difficulty. When she was able to stand on her own she addressed me without a shred of shame or guilt.

  “You almost scared me to death,” she accused, one hand on her slender hip, and the other holding tightly to the railing for dear life.

  “I can’t remember the last time I saw you sober,” I remarked.

  She cocked her head and gazed at me in drunken contemplation. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you without your mask.”

  I shifted my weight onto my other leg. It had started to throb. “How do you expect to care for Zackary if you’re out getting drunk all night and asleep for most of the day?”