The Night That Started It All

by Anna Cleary

  With quicksilver rapidity a dozen arguments flashed through his mind. From her point of view she might have been telling the truth. She was a woman, after all. What woman ever understood the dictates of honour between men? Particularly men of the same family?

  The night’s original agenda scintillated in his mind’s eye. Perhaps he was being harsh. Overly fastidious. If she was no longer officially engaged …

  And he’d be gone from Australia tomorrow. They’d be ships in the night, et cetera. Passing on the stormy seas of his bed at the Seasons. Plunging and plunging in the sweet, fresh sheets, her naked beauty his to enjoy to the full. Totally naked, and by lamplight …

  Gazing at her sweet profile, he felt a renewed urgent stir in his loins. It would be too cruel to have to sacrifice this now. Rémy would never have to know.

  At that admittedly seedy reflection shame started to seep through him. What was he doing? He’d come to relieve Rémy of his job, not his woman. For all he knew they’d had a mere lovers’ tiff and she’d be back in his bed in a few days.

  Avoiding looking at her for fear of succumbing to temptation and throwing honour out of the window, he chilled his tone. ‘Let’s be adult about this. I think we have to acknowledge that our recent—interlude—was an error of judgement.’

  She turned coolly on her heel and stalked away in the direction of the front door.

  ‘Shari.’ Galvanised to action, he caught up with her in a couple of strides.

  A mere beat ahead of him, she was first to grab the door knob. As he reached over her blonde head to take it from her he heard a small startled sound issue from her throat and just for an instant he noted a curious rigidity in her. He touched her shoulder and she started, then spun around, alarm in her eyes.

  ‘Pardonne-moi.’ He drew back in concern. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘You don’t scare me. And you’d better believe that.’

  Bemused by the tense glitter in her eyes, he tried to placate her. ‘You’re upset. Shari, please.’ He gestured imploringly. ‘Be reasonable. Maybe you’re angry with Rémy. Try to understand, I cannot allow myself to be exploited as a weapon of revenge in some—dispute between lovers.’

  ‘Exploited,’ she echoed, her voice low and trembling. ‘Revenge.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Oh, why didn’t I see? You’re just like him.’

  ‘How am I like him?’ he retorted, stung.

  Her eyes sparkled fiercely. ‘Everything you’re saying, every word is—is—accusing me of cheating. You’re calling me a-a-a slut.’

  His blood pressure made a surprising leap, but he cooled that purely visceral response. ‘No,’ he said coolly. ‘I am far too polite.’

  She wrenched the door open and walked quickly down the path.

  After a second, driven by some impulse, he strode in pursuit. He’d almost caught up to where she stood outside on the pavement, when without warning she dashed forward and hailed a passing taxi.

  The car drew into the kerb and she scrambled in. As it moved into the road she turned to cast him a last icy, burning look through the window.

  He felt stunned. Nom de Dieu. What sort of guy did she think she was dealing with? With fire flaring in his veins, he raced for his hire car.

  Attempting to keep her cab in sight among the many, he wove in and out of the traffic—absurdly heavy for a country of this size—rationalising his impulse. At least if he talked to her again he could explain his position more fully. Surely it was important to leave their encounter on a positive note.

  They were practically family, weren’t they? She’d be grateful, as he would be. After all, it had been a fantastic few minutes they’d shared. Fantastic.

  Her silky softness still seemed to be in his senses, her voice, her very essence … His hands tightened on the wheel. If he was honest, he wasn’t ready yet to call it quits with her.

  They left the Harbour Bridge behind, wound a way through the neon city and plunged into a maze of narrow one-way streets lined with terraces. Having lost the taxi a couple of times, he thought he still had the same one in view, and was heartened when he saw the name Paddington on a shop front.

  Wasn’t that where she’d said she lived?

  Just his luck, he was trapped on the wrong side of a red light. By the time he started again, the cab was out of sight.

  He cursed long and colourfully. Taking the direction he calculated his quarry must have taken, he crossed a couple of intersections before he reached one where he caught a fleeting glimpse of someone alighting from a stationary cab. The distance was too far for him to be certain it was Shari, but it was a chance. His only chance.

  Curbing his impatience, he recircuited the block and waited for the lights again, drumming his fingers on the wheel in his urgency to backtrack.

  By the time he reached the terrace he’d estimated was the one, the cab was well and truly gone, the street quiet.

  Breathing fast, her heart still thumping painfully, Shari paused in the delicate task of stripping her face bare. She would not accept the verdict. She wasn’t guilty of anything.

  She’d done nothing to feel ashamed of. She didn’t care what Luc Valentin thought of her. She’d allowed him to enjoy her body purely out of generosity.

  She took some deep calming breaths to slow herself down, then, when her hand was steadier, gingerly dabbed the paint from the bruise, revealing it in all its violent glory.

  Was it her imagination it looked worse? She cleaned her teeth, then changed into her flowery old oversized tee shirt and slipped into bed. Lying there in the dark, she rolled the events of the evening around in her mind.

  It was his problem if he couldn’t appreciate an honest human exchange without labelling a woman. And the insulting way he’d refused to believe a word she’d said. What was that all about?

  She was startled from her reflections by noise from outside. Her heart thudded until she remembered tonight was the neighbourhood’s bin collection night. Hers was crammed full to overflowing with trash left by the previous tenants.

  She should get up and take out the bin. She should.

  From his park across the street Luc scrutinised the row of houses in the terrace. He suspected 217 could be the one, for a light had recently gone out in its upper front window. Now the entire house was in darkness, as was its neighbour.

  What if he was mistaken? He began to see how ridiculous his mad chase was. He couldn’t knock on every door in the terrace. And how likely was Shari to open the door to him anyway? She’d probably accuse him of stalking her.

  Le bon Dieu, he was stalking. Whatever it was about her that had got under his skin was compelling him to linger there even now, when he knew he’d lost any opportunity he might have had if only he’d been able to keep the cab closer.

  It wasn’t as if he could throw pebbles at her window. The chances were he might terrify some poor little old lady to death.

  He was about to cut his losses and call it a night when he heard a familiar rumbling, then at 221 an old guy came into view hauling a wheelie bin. He trundled it through his gate and parked it next to some others lined up under a streetlight.

  A minute or two later one after another all the lights came on at 219.

  Luc waited, watching, then his heart leaped. Another bin was being wheeled from the gate of 219, this time by a woman.

  A blonde woman.

  He got out of the car and strode swiftly across the street.

  She’d changed from her party clothes into some long, flowing robe-like garment, but as he drew nearer he saw it was Shari. Admittedly, his heart was beating a tad too fast for a cool guy in charge of the situation.

  She angled the bin into line with its neighbours just as he caught up with her.

  ‘Shari.’

  She jumped, and with a strangled cry started back through her gate.

  Realising the enormity of having suddenly seemed to appear out of the dark, he was filled with contrition. ‘Shari.’ He only just restrained himself from grabb
ing her. ‘Forgive me for startling you. I—I only want to talk. I just want to explain …’

  ‘Luc.’ Her voice was stunned, incredulous. ‘Do you have any idea …? What—what are you even doing here?’

  He noticed her draw the lapels of her garment close and fold her arms across her breasts. It affected him with a burning desire to hold her to him, kiss her hair.

  ‘Shari,’ he said thickly, advancing on her. ‘Shari …’

  The light fell full on her face then, and he narrowed his eyes for a closer look. With a gut-wrenching shock he saw it wasn’t a shadow darkening the area surrounding her right eye.

  She turned sharply away, covering the bruise with her hand, and started striding for the house. ‘Leave me alone.’

  After a second of stunned paralysis, comprehension flooded through him and he was aware of a sharp twist in his chest. Her whimsical make-up had had a purpose, after all. He bounded after her onto her little verandah with the blind intention of pinning her down and making her talk to him, but she reached her door first.

  Before she could close it, he rammed his knee against it. ‘What happened? Who did that to you? Was it him? Rémy?’

  ‘Of course not. What do you think, that as well as being a slut I’m a … a …? I had an accident, all right?’ She was flushed and trembling, so achingly vulnerable in her fierce pride he felt something inside him give.

  Accident, vraiment. He couldn’t believe that. At the fragile pretence he felt so torn with tenderness and remorse, he hardly knew what he was saying, only that his voice grew hoarse. ‘Shari, chérie. Don’t be so … I didn’t mean to imply … This—this is not how we should say au’voir.’

  In the verandah light her naked face was strained, her eyes dark with emotion. ‘We are strangers. We will never meet again. Move away from the door, please.’

  She closed it in his face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BUT the world as Shari knew it jolted off its axis. It was Rémy she never saw again.

  Soon after dawn one morning in the autumn, Neil came hammering on her door with the shattering news. Rémy had been driving too fast on a foggy Colorado mountain road, misjudged a corner, and skidded over a cliff.

  The shock was so immense, Shari was overcome with nausea and had to run to the bathroom to throw up. The details were sketchy, but it was clear Rémy hadn’t been alone in the car.

  What a surprise.

  In the hours that followed, once Shari had begun to assimilate the news, she wished she could cry. At least poor Emilie had that release. Em was so distraught, so overcome with grief, Neil was beside himself with anxiety for her health and that of their soon-to-be-born twins.

  The best Shari could do was to change into her old track pants and run for miles, thanking heaven Luc Valentin wasn’t there to see her in her running clothes. Her emotions were a mess, not improved by an even more than usually massive dose of PMT.

  She tried not to speculate about what Luc would be thinking about Rémy’s loss, and concentrated on feeling sad. Of course she must be, deep down. She must be torn with sadness, though the main feeling she was aware of was her sympathy for Em. Overcome as she was, as they all were, she refused to delude herself about Rémy.

  His death didn’t change the cruel things he’d done. Some of the wounds he’d inflicted had had a bitter afterlife.

  All right, maybe her plunge into adventure with Luc had been a bit soon after the end of the engagement, but officially—technically—despite the things Luc had said to her, she had done nothing wrong. Impulsive maybe, to share pleasure with a man who couldn’t appreciate a woman’s generosity in the best spirit, but not wrong.

  She’d stick to that even as Luc Valentin tied her to the stake and applied the flaming torch.

  No. If she did feel any guilt, the real reason, the one she could never admit to Em, was that, where Rémy was concerned, the worst she could feel was this terrible, awful hollowness. On the other hand, where Luc was concerned, she felt—

  Raw.

  The shock shook some Parisian quarters as well. In his executive office high above the Place de l’Ellipse, Luc Valentin was riveted to the police report, his pulse quickening by the second.

  The loss of a young life was a tragedy, of course, though his cousin hadn’t exactly endeared himself to many of his relatives. Luc guessed poor Emilie would be the one who suffered most. The only surprise was that it had been an accident. Despite Rémy’s oily ability to slip out of tight situations, the chances had always been that eventually someone would murder him.

  Someone like himself.

  He’d considered it a few times after his tumultuous encounter in Sydney.

  All at once finding his office suffocating, he took the lift down to the ground.

  He strode block after block, seeing nothing of the busy pavements as the vision that haunted his nights invaded his being. Shari Lacey, powerful, vivid, as searing as a flame. Shari, her emerald eyes glowing with the sincerity of her denials. Shari …

  Her very name was a sigh that plucked at his heartstrings. No, he mused wryly, wrenched them. If only Australia hadn’t been so far away. If he could talk to her. Hear her voice …

  In the midnight hours he’d once or twice considered taking a month’s vacation and taking the long flight back. Just to—catch up. See if she needed protecting.

  Those last bitter moments at her house stayed with him. We are strangers still rang in his ears. In English the words sounded even harsher than they did in French. That cold click of her locking her door, locking him out, had reverberated through him with a chill familiarity.

  He grimaced at himself. Suddenly women were rejecting him on both sides of the world. Why? He’d never been a guy to pursue an unwilling woman. Vraiment, until Manon’s sudden betrayal he doubted he’d ever before experienced one. All his life, he’d taken for granted his ease at acquiring any woman he desired.

  But first Manon, and now Shari … Somewhere on the journey, he’d lost his way.

  Maybe he should have stayed in Australia and persevered. If it hadn’t been for that crucial directors’ meeting he might have stayed and … What?

  Remonstrated with her? Sweet-talked her? Tried to make her forget Rémy? But how could he have? What man would dream of trying to impose his will on a woman who was already wearing the evidence of brute masculine force?

  His fists, his entire being clenched whenever he thought of it. If he ever came across the canaille who’d done that to her …

  He felt certain it had been Rémy. No wonder she’d been weeping when he’d gone to the apartment in search of him. How could such a woman have been sucked in by the guy?

  He threw up his hands in bafflement.

  Was that why Shari had insisted her wound had been an accident? She was still in love with her fiancé, ex-fiancé, whatever he’d been?

  One thing was certain, whatever her status that night, she wasn’t engaged now.

  Nom de Dieu. This impulse to contact a woman on the other side of the world, make some sort of approach, remind her he was alive, was ludicrous.

  His feet slowed at the place where the red-curtained windows of a bar spilled an inviting glow into the grey afternoon.

  Signalling the bartender for cognac, he took a table by the window. A couple of women came in and sat down. One of them had fair hair, not unlike Shari’s.

  He drew the accident report from his pocket and re-examined it. Had they told Shari about the other woman in the car? Maybe she was in despair, grieving for the coquin.

  He took out his mobile, calculated the time in Australia, then with a gesture of impatience slid the phone back into his pocket.

  A blonde woman at the other table turned his way.

  He dropped his glance, conscious of disappointment. There wasn’t the slightest resemblance.

  Jolted from sleep, Shari dragged her eyelids apart as her phone vibrated with maddening persistence. She stretched out her hand for the bedside table.

  ‘H
ello,’ she croaked.

  ‘Shari. Ça va?’

  The masculine voice slammed Shari with a sickening shock. Her heart froze.

  ‘Rémy?’

  There was a nightmare instant of suspense, then the voice, contrite, apologetic, said, ‘Shari, c’est moi. Luc. I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you.’

  ‘Sorry? You’re sorry?’ The relief, the warm, weakening relief flooded through her like a sob and gave her back her speech. ‘Do you know what time it is? Phoning in the middle of the night and speaking French … Are you trying to terrify me? And d-d-did you think I would want to speak to you ever again in my life? How did you get this number, anyway?’

  ‘From Neil.’ His voice dried. ‘Forgive me. I see this was a mistake.’

  ‘Another mis—’ she started to say, but Luc Valentin, the man who felt disdain for her, the man who knew her shame, disconnected before she could finish.

  She lay awake until dawn, staring into the dark, alternately regretting her anger, then burning with it all over again. If only he hadn’t surprised her that night without her make-up. If only he’d left her some shred of dignity, she might not have had to feel so angry with him. She might have been able to hear his voice without all this agony.

  It seemed her agony was never-ending. The excruciating reports of the efforts to reclaim Rémy went on for days before he was recovered. Messages flew thick and fast between Sydney and Paris. Luc’s name came up so often in Neil’s conversation, Shari wanted to cover her ears.

  It was hard enough trying to squash down her memories of the party night. Shari didn’t care if Neil thought Luc was a great guy. But she couldn’t say so. She just had to grin and bear it all. And of course, poor Emilie needed to reminisce and talk about Rémy and her other family members. The least Shari could do for her grieving sister-in-law was to listen.

  Emilie produced some photos of a visit she and Neil had made to France as newly-weds, before Rémy emigrated. One in particular smote Shari’s eye. It was of a foursome, leaning against a ramshackle fence in some rural setting. Rémy and Emi were linking arms with Luc and a spectacular-looking brunette with cheekbones and long, straight, shampoo-model’s hair.