Scandal and Secrets

by Miranda Lee

  Damian laughed. 'I'm sure there is. I can see him now. He'll be bright and young and handsome, not to mention prepared to be extremely grateful to the boss.'

  Celeste had had just about enough. 'Damian, I'm warning you. I-'

  A sharp tap on the door stopped her in mid-flow. 'Come in,' she said sharply, knowing her assistant would not interrupt like this unless it was very important.

  'Yes, Luke?' she asked when he popped his head in the door.

  'Miss Landers says an urgent message came in for Mr Campbell a while back, but she only just found out he had returned from lunch and was in here.'

  'What is it?' Damian asked, swiveling round.

  'Here ... She wrote down the name and number.' He handed over a piece of paper to Damian, who remained seated where he was. 'The lady said it was an emergency and you were to ring her back as soon as you came in.' Luke nodded towards Celeste, then left, shutting the door with discreet quiet behind him.

  Celeste was shocked by the look of sly glee that came into Damian's eyes as he read the note. 'Fantastic,' he muttered, then jumped to his feet. 'I must go.'

  'Wait a minute, Damian! Who is this woman? And what's the emergency?'

  'That, my dear sister,' he said with dark passion in his voice, 'is none of your business.'

  'I hope you're not getting tangled up with another married woman.'

  He threw her a scornful look. 'I never get tangled up with a married woman, Celeste.'

  'That's just playing with words. You know what I meant.'

  'Yes, of course I do. And as I said before, mind your own damned business!'

  There was nothing quiet or discreet about Damian's exit. He slammed the door after him, leaving Celeste feeling more worried about her brother than she'd been in years.

  Drinking. Gambling. Getting into debt. Having affairs with other men's wives. Where would it all end?

  She shook her head and looked back down at the appalling sales reports. There was nothing she could do about Damain, but there was something she could do about Campbell's dwindling profits. Reaching over, she pressed the intercom button.

  'Yes, Ms Campbell?' Luke answered.

  'I need to see you,' she rapped out. 'Straight away.'

  'Coming ... '

  Luke presented himself immediately, adjusting his tie a little self-consciously as he came to attention in front of her desk. At thirty, he was older than her previous assistant, and not nearly as handsome. But he knew how to dress to make the most of his very good body and he knew how to follow orders. Above all, he was intelligent and ambitious. Ruthlessly so, she believed.

  Every now and then, a cool sharpness came into those bland grey eyes of his, giving him a totally different look. Celeste sometimes wondered what he would have done if her occasional public flirtation with him had been put to the acid test. To be honest, she had a feeling he would have turned her down, which was perhaps why she was about to give him the chance of a lifetime.

  'As of this moment, Luke,' she said crisply, 'the position of sales and marketing manager is vacant. Mr Campbell is going to take over a new position in the company as director of public relations. I was wondering if you'd be interested in his old position.'

  Celeste was gratified with Luke's reaction. He was suitably stunned for a split-second, but quickly assumed that cool and highly self-contained bearing she rather admired.

  'I would indeed,' was all he said.

  There was no gushing, no groveling. Celeste smiled at him. Yes, she thought with great satisfaction. You'll do. You'll do splendidly.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GEMMA was wrenched out of a deep sleep by someone shaking her. Her eyes sprang open to find Damian Campbell sitting on the hotel bed beside her, peering worriedly down into her face.

  There was another equally worried-looking man hovering behind him. It took her a few moments to recognize him as the desk clerk from downstairs.

  'Are you all right, Gemma?' Damian was asking anxiously. 'You haven't done anything silly, have you?'

  'Who .. what?' she stammered, her head still fuzzy from sleep. 'I. .. I. .. don't know what you mean.'

  Damian smiled. 'She's fine,' he threw over his shoulder at the desk clerk. 'You can go now. Thanks for letting me in. False alarm.'

  Gemma's mind slowly started working. She levered herself up on one elbow and watched the man leave. When he'd closed the door, her gaze returned to Damian.

  'What on earth did you tell him? My God, you thought I might have tried to kill myself, didn't you?'

  Damian shrugged. 'Who knows what you might have done? I didn't get your message for quite a while and you did say it was an emergency. When I rang the number and found out it was a hotel not far from the city, I decided to hot-foot it right over here instead of just ringing. Then when I knocked on your door, you didn't answer.'

  'I was asleep!'

  'I can see that now.'

  His smile was so sweet, Gemma couldn't stay angry with him. 'I. . .I've left Nathan,' she admitted unhappily, swinging her feet over the side of the bed and sitting up properly.

  'I gathered that,' came Damian's gentle reply. He picked up her closest hand, stroking it soothingly with his other hand. After an initial instinctive resistance, Gemma soon found the action both relaxing and comforting. She closed her eyes and sighed.

  'I always knew it was just a matter of time,' Damian said.

  A sob caught in Gemma's throat. Damian dropped her hand to put one arm around her shoulder, the other stroking her head as he cradled it against his chest. Once again, she did not have the strength to resist him and it did feel good to be held so tenderly.

  'Poor darling,' he crooned. 'I can just imagine what it was like, married to that bastard. You did the right thing, leaving him before it was too late.'

  'Maybe it is too late,' she muttered miserably.

  Gemma knew in her heart that she would never love another man. Nathan had vowed to make her his and she was, with every fiber of her being. Maybe that was why she felt so lost and so lonely. Because the very essence of her life had been taken from her.

  Suddenly, and for the umpteenth time, she started to cry. Damian let her till the last sobs hiccupped their way to nothing. It was then that he made his suggestion, a suggestion she was too emotionally drained to turn down. She was only too glad to have somewhere to go, and someone to take her there.

  Celeste had to take a taxi home from work, for what else could she do? Damian had not returned to work after an apparently dramatic exit from his office, so he wasn't there to give her a lift home. She no longer had a chauffeur to take her everywhere in the Rolls and did not feel inclined to hire another. Yet she did not drive herself. She did actually have a licence, but when circumstances had prevented her driving for a number of years she had somehow never found the nerve to get behind the wheel again. Odd, really, when she had found the nerve to do plenty of other things.

  With a sigh, she settled into the back seat of the taxi and prepared herself mentally for a hair-raising trip home. That was the one thing she deplored about taxis. The drivers! Thank the lord she didn't live far from the city.

  The heavy traffic went some way to stopping the trip from reducing her to a nervous wreck, but she was still glad when the cab turned down her street.

  Campbell Court

  - as the family home was called had a very exclusive address in Point Piper, right at the end of a cool leafy street that ran along the shores of Sydney Harbor.

  The huge granite manor-style house stood grandly on a rise at the front of the large block amid superb grounds, rolling lawns sloping down behind the house, first to a terrace where the pool house sat, then down to the waterline and a private jetty.

  Moored not far out from this jetty was the yacht which Celeste had personally inherited on her father's death. It was called the Celeste, and Stewart Campbell had brought it for a song in the sixties, but it was now conservatively worth six million dollars and needed a crew of ten to man it. Celeste r
arely, if ever, took it out, choosing to use it as an exclusive setting for business luncheons and dinner parties. It was a good getaway spot as well, especially when her mother was in residence at Campbell Court

  and was having one of her infernal musical soirees, full of pretentious people.

  Much as she loved her mother-who really was a softie despite being a social snob-Celeste was always glad when her remaining parent went away on holiday. Perhaps it was the fact that her mother knew all her dark secrets that sometimes made Celeste ill at ease in her presence.

  Not that Adele would ever betray her. She had never breathed an indiscreet word in all these years. But sometimes Celeste would catch her mother looking at her in a certain way, a sad understanding in her eyes. Invariably this was when Celeste was being outrageous, or ruthlessly tough, and Celeste would suddenly want to scream at her, It's not my fault. Can't you see? I have to be this way. It's how I survive!

  Celeste's train of thought was broken when she spied a navy blue Mercedes in the driveway of her home, parked in front of the security gates. She didn't recognize the car. Who could it belong to? There was someone sitting behind the wheel, but it was getting dark at six-thirty and she couldn't even make out if it was a man or a woman.

  'Pull in behind that car, would you?' she directed the taxi driver. He did so and as she paid him Celeste was stunned to see Nathan Whitmore alighting from the Mercedes.

  'What on earth is he doing here?' she muttered under her breath, frowning as she herself climbed out of the taxi and swung the door shut. The taxi immediately accelerated away, leaving Celeste to walk over to where Nathan had remained standing beside his car.

  Those cold grey eyes of his swept over her as she approached and Celeste found herself bristling.

  There was something about Byron's adopted son that had always irritated her. He was too everything. Too handsome. Too smooth. Too controlled.

  Not that she'd had much to do with him over the years. She'd run into him occasionally at various social functions, and found that, even from a distance, he could present a disturbing figure. He could look across the room at you without any visible expression on his face, but you would still want to shiver in your boots.

  That was why she'd been taken aback at the ball when he'd almost lost his temper with her. It had been so unlike him. She'd also been taken back by his lovely young bride, whose air of virginal innocence seemed at odds with Nathan's man-of-the-world sophistication.

  Damian, for one, hadn't been able to take his eyes off her all that night. It had worried Celeste at the time that her brother might pursue the girl, especially when he'd remarked the following day that he'd heard the new Mrs Whitmore wasn't all that happy.

  Celeste experienced a sudden awful feeling that she knew why Nathan was on her doorstep.

  'Hello, Nathan,' she said crisply. 'To what do I owe this highly unexpected visit?'

  He didn’t answer her directly, his darkly puzzled frown as bewildering as his reply. 'So you really weren't home.'

  'Pardon?'

  'I was speaking to your housekeeper a while back on phone,' he went on agitatedly, 'and she told me no one was there except herself. I didn't believe her.'

  Celeste blinked a couple of times. 'Would you mind telling me what you're talking about?'

  He shook his head, the action flopping a wayward blond lock over his high forehead. He immediately raked it back with splayed fingers, shocking Celeste when she saw his hand was actually shaking.

  'Gemma hasn't been in touch with you?' he asked, only adding to her confusion.

  'Why would your wife be in touch with me?'

  He stared into her face as though trying to see if she was lying. His steely grey eyes narrowed, and she just stopped herself from shivering. Men like Nathan always frightened her a little. They were so secretive, both with their thoughts and their actions, which they never explained. She hated that.

  'If you've nothing else to add, Nathan,' she said curtly, 'it's been a long day, I'm tired and I would like to go inside.'

  His hand shot out to enclose her arm. 'You swear to me that Gemma has not contacted you today, either in person or by telephone?'

  'Take ... your ... hand ... off ... my ... arm,' she enunciated very slowly and very clearly.

  Perhaps Nathan recalled what had happened to that creep who had manhandled her at the ball. Whatever, his hand slipped from her arm and Celeste began to breathe again. Nathan didn't know how close he'd come to a karate chop to the neck.

  'Well?' he prompted.

  'I already told you. Your wife has not been in touch with me. What in God's name makes you think she would have been? We hardly know each other. In fact, we don't know each other. You're not making any sense.'

  'Nothing makes sense now,' he muttered.

  When his shoulders sagged, he looked so dejected and wretched that Celeste felt an unexpected sympathy for him. Damn, she hoped Damian had nothing to do with this. It was clear as the nose on her face that Nathan's wife had left him. It was also too much of a coincidence that Damian had received an urgent message from some lady-friend this afternoon and gone racing to her rescue like a knight in shining amour. Only Damian was no white knight. He was the devil incarnate when it came to sweet young things like Gemma Whitmore.

  But there was no way she was going to relay any of these suspicions to Nathan. God knows what he might do if she said his wife might be with her brother.

  'Am I to assume your wife has left you?' Celeste asked.

  His steely grey eyes projected the most peculiar hate her way. 'If she has, I know who to thank for it.'

  'My God, you're crazy, do you know that? I had nothing to do with any of this!'

  He glared at her, before making a frustrated sound and shaking his head in a disconsolate fashion. 'If that wasn't what she meant, then what did she mean?'

  Celeste was getting angry with his totally cryptic remarks. 'Nathan, I'm sorry, but I can't help you with this. It's none of my business.'

  It is none of my business, Celeste kept telling herself. I don't want to get mixed up in any of it. Nathan means nothing to me and neither does his wife. Let them sort their own lives out.

  So why was it that, when Nathan climbed into his car and drove away, she was left feeling hopelessly agitated? Was it that she suspected Damian had played a role in the break-up?

  That didn't make much sense. Damian had played a role in the break-up of several marriages and while she didn't condone his behavior-was, in fact, disgusted with his morals-she hadn't been personally affected by any of his tacky affairs.

  This time, however, she couldn't get Nathan Whitmore out of her mind. Or was it that lovely young wife of his she couldn't stop thinking about? Celeste was appalled to think Damian had spirited her away somewhere and might be, at this very moment, seducing her.

  My God, she suddenly realized. Maybe they were inside Campbell Court

  ! She hadn't thought of that.

  Celeste hurried over to the small side security gate, using her key to let herself in then striding forth up the paved driveway to the house.

  'Cora?' she called out to the housekeeper as she let herself in. 'Cora, where are you?'

  'Back here, Celeste,' came the reply from the direction of the kitchen.

  Celeste tossed her straw hat on to the hat stand in the corner of the entrance hall before striding down the black and white tiled hall, glancing in the various living-rooms as she went. They were empty.

  'Is Damian home?' she asked on entering the kitchen.

  Cora looked up from where she was doing the vegetables. A plain spare woman in her fifties, she was as sharp as a tack when it came to the family she'd been the housekeeper for more than a decade. A widow, she lived in during the week, staying with her married sister at the weekends. Her shrewd gaze took in Celeste's agitation at once.

  'No, he's not,' she said, then added exasperatedly, 'What's he been up to this time?'

  'God only knows.' Celeste sagged on to a
kitchen stool. 'Has he rung?'

  'No.'

  'Damn.' She bit her lip and wondered where he could possibly be.

  She had suspected for a while that he had a flat somewhere where he took women. Either that, or he had dubious friends who let him use their places for romantic rendezvous. Of course, they could also be holed up in some hotel or motel somewhere, assuming they were together. She was just assuming this, after all. Maybe Damian wasn't involved.

  It was a slim hope and one she clung to for all of ten seconds.

  'What am I going to do with him, Cora?' she muttered dispiritedly.

  'There's nothing you can do, Celeste. He's ruined.'

  Celeste squeezed her eyes shut while her heart flip-flopped. 'Yes, you're right. He is ruined. Totally. So why do I still care about him?'