by Julia James
Yet her voice was still speaking. He could hear it coming from a long way away. An endless distance.
‘So now you know,’ she was saying. ‘I am exactly like Madeline. I made the same choice as she did. I wanted money—fast. And I did what she did.’
There was silence. An agonising silence that stretched for eternity. Then into the silence Rafael spoke.
‘I don’t believe you.’ His voice was flat. His denial absolute.
She rounded on him. ‘Believe it! Believe it, Rafael, because that’s what it was! Prostitution! Nothing else—just that. Sex for money.’
‘No—’ There was horror in his voice.
‘Yes! It was prostitution—exactly that!’ Bitterness and self-accusation scored her words. ‘Oh, I tried to tell myself it wasn’t—but it was! It was.’ She took a ravaged, heaving breath, making herself remember—making herself tell him what she had to tell him. What he had to know.
Her voice changed. Stretched thin, as if a wire was garrotting her.
‘I’d only just started modelling, and there’s very little money in it to begin with. It came as a shock, because I’d assumed—like so many other teenagers—that once I’d been scouted I’d be swanning around in luxury like a supermodel from then on. The reality was different.’ She paused, swallowed. ‘Sometimes we didn’t even get paid—not in money, just in clothes from the collection we’d modelled. So I was...short of money.’
Her voice was flat now, with no emotion.
‘But money was what I wanted. Badly. So—I made a decision. I found a way to make...easy money.’
She took a breath, like a razor in her throat. Her eyes were dead now—quite, quite dead.
She cast those eyes at Rafael, not seeing him, seeing only the past, seeing the choice she had made, the decision she had taken.
‘Have you ever heard of something called “summer brides”?’ she asked, her voice as dead and as expressionless as her eyes. She paused, her eyes still resting on Rafael.
Did he shake his head? He didn’t know. He knew only that something was gripping his entrails, his heart, like pliers.
She went on in that calm, dead voice. ‘They are quite common in the Middle East. In some places local culture bans all sexual contact between men and women outside marriage. So what they do...wealthy men...is buy themselves a bride. A summer bride. Temporary. Just to provide them with what they want.’ Her voice was emptied now of all expression. ‘They pay her a bride price. Enough to...to compensate her for the fact that the marriage won’t last more than a few weeks at the most. That once the man has...finished with her she’ll be...discarded.’
She was silent a moment. Her eyes slid past him, looking into a place that was very far away and yet as close to her as the agonising synapses in her memory. Then she went on, in the same expressionless voice.
‘I got a modelling assignment out in the Middle East—an oil-rich city in the Gulf, where a new fashion mall was opening. They were doing publicity shots using European girls, especially blondes like me. It was good money for modelling at my level then, but it still wasn’t as much as I wanted. So when one of the photographers’ assistants asked me if I was interested in earning more money—a lot more—I said yes. He explained to me the custom in that part of the world. Said that as a “summer bride” I could make a lot of money—fast. That as a blonde I’d be at a premium...my bride price would be high.’
She looked at Rafael again, not seeing him, only letting her gaze rest somewhere in the desert that was the place where she was now.
Her voice changed. Twisted in her throat.
‘He called it a bride price but I knew what it was. I knew what a summer bride was. I knew it. Knew what it would be called here in the West.’ And now her eyes did see Rafael’s face. Saw every stricken feature. ‘Prostitution. What else? What else is it when a girl is given money in exchange for sex with a stranger? I was given money—a lot of money. And I know what that made me.’ She paused. Swallowed. ‘What it makes me...’
She met his eyes, forced herself to do so. They were blank. Blank with shock. With more than shock.
‘There are no excuses for me. I wasn’t tricked, or forced, or fooled. I knew what I was doing and I did it. Because I wanted to. Just like Madeline I chose to make easy money, fast. Just like Madeline.’
She closed her eyes a moment. Then opened them again.
‘So now you know why I left New York that afternoon. And why what we had is over.’
A shudder seemed to go through her, as if something were shattering deep inside. Her voice changed.
‘Rafael, I lied about myself by not telling you. I deceived you. Because I wanted you so, so much, I told myself that I could finally leave it behind me—ignore that it had ever happened—accept from you what I had come to feel I could never accept from a man. A normal, honest relationship! But when you told me about Madeline, how you despised and condemned her for what she did—what she chose to do—then I knew that all my hopes had been lies! I knew...know...that I can never escape the past, never put my past behind me! That by hiding it from you I’ve been lying to you right from the start! And when I saw the revulsion in your face as you told me about Madeline, I knew—’ her voice choked ‘—knew that I could deceive you no longer. I could not look at you and know that you would condemn any woman who made a choice like hers. A woman like Madeline. A woman...’ the breath razored her lungs ‘...like me.’
She paused, shutting her eyes for a moment, then forcing them open again in order to say what she still must.
‘So I left. And now,’ she said, swallowing, lowering her voice, ‘you must leave, too. I am sorry—truly sorry, more sorry than you can ever know—that I have treated you so badly, both in my deception, my silence about what I did, and in the anxiety you have felt these past days, not knowing where I was.’
He was still standing there, frozen into immobility. She drew breath and went on. She had to do this right to the bitter, nightmare end.
‘I would tell you, Rafael, that my time with you has been the most precious time of my life—I would tell you that, but for you I have destroyed it all by telling you the truth about myself, about what I’ve done. But it remains true, for all that, and to my dying day, each and every moment of my time with you will be a jewel in my memory.’
Her voice was breaking. She was breaking. She could speak no longer.
She saw him start, saw his face work. Then he spoke.
‘How old were you?’ His voice was stark.
She looked away again, then back at him. ‘I was seventeen. Over the age of consent. And I consented to what I did. No one forced me or tricked me!’
‘You were little more than a child!’ Anger bit in his voice. ‘You were shamelessly taken advantage of! You had no idea what you were doing!’
Anger flashed in Celeste’s eyes in retaliation. ‘Rafael, my age is irrelevant! Of course I knew what it was I was doing—I was having sex with a stranger for money! I prostituted myself! And calling myself his “summer bride” didn’t stop it being that! I told you—I wanted money fast, a lot of it, and I got it. I got what I wanted! Just like Madeline did!’
‘I absolutely refuse to compare you to her!’
‘Well, you must! I’m sorry—I’m desperately, desperately sorry to inflict this on you, but—’
He cut across her. ‘Are you? Are you sorry?’ He seized on her words, silencing her.
She looked at him. ‘Of course I’m sorry for doing this to you—’
He cut across her again. ‘But are you sorry for doing this to you? Now, with your adult eyes, surely to God you bitterly regret what you did? Because Madeline doesn’t! Madeline does not think she did anything at all to regret! But do you? Do you regret it, Celeste? Do you look back now and wish you had not done it? Do you regret what you did?’
Every word was
loaded. Every word carried a weight he could hardly bear. Her answer would tell him everything he had to know.
Everything he had to hope.
She looked at him. Looked at him with eyes that saw his pain.
And then she inflicted more. The killing blow.
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I don’t regret it. It got me what I wanted. Easy money. Fast.’ She paused a fraction of a second. ‘So you see I am just like Madeline...’
For one long, last moment he looked at her. Into the space between them went everything that he had once held so dear.
Then, without a word, he turned and left.
* * *
The night sky was cloudy, with rain threatening. No stars were visible. He walked. He walked without stopping, without pausing. Somewhere behind him his car was trailing him, his driver probably thinking him mad, but he could not think about that now. He could not think about anything.
Least of all about Celeste.
Who was not Celeste at all. Who was not the woman he had seen and sought, whose trust he had so slowly won. The trust to give herself to him knowing he would never hurt her.
Savage pain lacerated him.
I trusted her—trusted her. Believed in her—believed her to be nothing like Madeline...
His face twisted. In his head he heard, over and over again, her voice crying out. ‘I am just like Madeline!’
And inside his head, all the things that Madeline had told him about herself forced their way in, in sickening, vivid detail. His revulsion had been instant—total. And her mockery of him for it had been virulent. She’d been incredulous at his reaction, refusing to believe he was shocked by her revelation. He could hear her voice now, inside his head, scornful and scathing.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Rafe, sex workers aren’t some kind of “fallen women” any more! Sex is just a commodity—an industry like any other! There’s a market for sex and people buy and sell in it! What the hell’s wrong with that? I had natural assets to capitalise on and I sold what my customers wanted—and my profit margin was the best I’ve ever achieved! So don’t look down your damn puritan nose at me and quote Victorian morality like you want me whipped in the stocks as a warning to other women!’
He hadn’t answered her—hadn’t been able to—and his silence only infuriated her more. Her eyes had flashed with anger. Her voice with scorn.
‘What’s your damn problem? Most men would think it a fantasy come true, what I’ve told you! Personal, private, on-tap professional sex! Which, I would point out, you’ve been enjoying with me for quite some time! I didn’t hear you complain while we were in bed! But if you think I’ve got boring, darling, well, let me spice it up for you! Because I can do that—with pleasure. Pleasure and a great deal of experience!’
He still had not spoken to her. Only his expression had shown his reaction. Then he’d turned to go. Her voice had screamed after him.
‘Don’t you dare walk out on me! Don’t you bloody dare! Women don’t have to put up with your kind of attitude any more! We are strong, we are independent and we can make our own millions—and we can have sex any damn way we want it, without men like you looking down on us! Half a century of feminism has made us free of men like you and your condemnation!’
He’d stopped then, turned back to look at her. Then he’d spoken to her. His voice flat. Bleak.
‘Half a century of feminism and all you’ve achieved, Madeline, is the oldest profession of all. You debase yourself, and you debase sex. It should be a gift, freely given by each partner, not a commodity to be sold for a cash profit. And if you cannot see that, if you cannot regret what you did, then there can be nothing more between us.’
He’d gone then—walked out of her flat and out of her life.
And now he’d done the same to Celeste. Walked away from her.
Inside, a voice was protesting. Not Celeste—not Celeste! She can’t be like that—she can’t!
Not the woman he’d held in his arms night after night. Not the woman he’d been sharing his life with. A blow landed on his heart. Not the woman he’d wanted to go on sharing his life with.
For the bitterest truth of all was that in the anguished days he’d spent not knowing where she was, one overwhelming realisation had hit him. He did not want to be without her. He wanted her to be with him—stay with him. Make her life with him.
The realisation had shone like a beacon, impossible for him to deny, impossible for him to do anything other than reel from the truth of it.
A beacon that she had extinguished with one fatal utterance.
Pain jagged through him.
He walked on into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CELESTE SHIVERED AS she stepped out of her front door onto the steps to the pavement. Though she was wearing a warm coat, the winter weather was cold. But it was more than the weather that chilled her. She was cold in her bones. Cold all the way through.
Sometimes, even though she tried desperately—despairingly—to keep them out, memories forced their way into her head, memories of when she had been warm...
The balmy Hawaiian breeze from the ocean, the heat of the day rising up from the hot sand, the sun like a benediction on her.
The memories mocked her. Mocked her just as all her memories mocked her. With cruel, jeering laughter. Mocking her for having dared to think that she could find happiness, that she could escape the past. Walk free of it.
Of course you couldn’t! You were a fool to think you could! A fool to think you could just ignore it, blank it out of your consciousness! A fool to think you could set it aside as though it had never happened—as though you’d never done what you did! A fool to think you could allow yourself to have what you knew from the start must be impossible!
Yet you thought you could have it—you thought you could finally take for yourself the happiness that was barred to you. And all you have achieved is to wound a good man—a man who cared for you and cherished you, a man you deceived by your silence. You betrayed his trust in you.
Remorse filled her—remorse at what she had done to Rafael. At her culpable silence, her self-blinding foolish hope that she could take what he offered her—take the happiness she’d found with him.
Telling him the truth had been like stabbing him... And the knife had thrust into her as well. A lethal, deadly thrust to the heart.
And you deserve it! You deserve to feel that pain, to feel it now, still and for ever! You deserve it for what you did to him! You deserve your broken heart.
She had broken it herself. No one to blame but her. No one to rail against but her. No one to mock but her.
She hugged the coat around her, against the bitter arctic wind. There was no spare flesh on her to warm her. She was thinner than ever, for she had no appetite at all. But it was good that she was so thin. She’d done the autumn fashion shows, and now she was booked in for the round of shows that would take place before the spring.
She would be as gaunt and starved as even the most demanding designer wanted, she thought mockingly. It would be exhausting, non-stop, but she’d welcome it—just as she had welcomed the punishing pace of the autumn shows. For it would blot out the rest of the world for her. Not that she could do anything but just get through them. Tough them out until they were all over. And then... She took a lungful of freezing air. Then she would quit. Quit everything.
She could not face continuing with her career. Could not face the absurd triviality of fashion, the endless fuss and furore over what was so entirely pointless, so utterly unimportant. Who cared what hemlines and silhouettes and colours and fabrics were in or out? Who cared which designers were on a roll and which in decline? Who cared?
Where once she might have had a careless tolerance now she had none. Only a bleak, chill emptiness.
About everything.
What she would do when she no longer modelled she didn’t know. Didn’t care. Could not care. She would sell her flat, that much she knew, because she could not bear to be in London any more. Where she would go, though, she didn’t know either. Somewhere far away. Remote. A Scottish glen, a Welsh hillside, a Yorkshire moor... It didn’t matter where.
Because wherever she went she would be trapped in her past—the past she could never leave behind her. The past that had destroyed her happiness, broken her heart...condemned her to a future of perpetual loneliness.
Loveless and alone.
Without Rafael for ever...
* * *
The small podium was illuminated by light, which also pooled on the rainbow-hued display of clutch bags at the side of the man who was speaking.
‘But my greatest gratitude,’ Lucien Fevre was saying, ‘must go to the man who had faith in me and whose generous support has enabled me to bring you this collection today.’
He turned towards Rafael, who was standing some way away, letting Lucien have the limelight. But he smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.
He did not feel like smiling. He never felt like smiling. There was a grimness on his features, and he knew his staff found his manner intimidating. He could not alter it. It was permanent, he knew. A kind of bleakness of the soul.
Lucien was speaking still, moving on to the others he wanted to thank for their support. It was the official launch of his new company, his new collection, and it was going well. The fashion editors and their ilk were praising the collection, welcoming his revival, and since Rafael had ensured that Lucien had a crack management team around him—everything from publicity to finance—all the signs were that this time around he would not hit the rocks as he had before.
He was glad for him—though he wished with grim endurance that he did not have to be here at this moment.
It was too close a reminder of the informal party held for Lucien when Madeline had arrived like the uninvited witch in a fairy tale. And the curse of her presence had borne its baleful fruit. As had his own denunciation of her.
