‘Yeah, I guess you must be wondering who stung you. No one is as very, very sorry as the guy who gets caught.’ He stared at her, seeing only guilt in her tears. ‘I can’t believe it. I thought we had it all. I thought no one could have anything better than us. Turns out I was just a sucker.’ He went to the door. ‘Goodbye, Romily.’
‘Mitch, don’t go!’ she begged, her voice high and verging
on
hysterical. ‘Let me explain!’ She ran to him but he was already out of the apartment, heading down the stairs. ‘Mitch, don’t go! Come back!’
The echoes of her cries followed him down and out on to the street, but he didn’t turn back.
Romily sat on the sofa in the silent apartment. What had been a pleasant sunny morning in the home she adored sharing with her new husband had turned to ashes around her. She was shaking violently, her hands tightly clenched in her lap, tears rolling unstoppably down her cheeks even though she wasn’t making a sound.
All she could do was replay in her mind the events that had destroyed her life and happiness: that click and the sound of voices filling the room, saying those dreadful things, those lies. It was her voice, she had said those words – she remembered saying them – but they hadn’t come out in conversation like that.
He’ll make a good first husband
. She
had
said it – but not about Mitch. They’d been talking about someone else entirely.
When the time comes, we’ll buy him off
. She hadn’t said that, she had said ‘
they’ll
buy him off’, while they had been discussing Annalisa dei Riacolta’s latest romance with a bouffant-haired playboy who made his living ensnaring heiresses.
She’d been framed, of course. Someone had set a trap, that much was obvious. The fact that Mitch had believed in the fraud and let it override all his love and trust was what was killing her. How could he? Why wouldn’t he let her explain? Surely he must realise that someone had doctored her voice, re-engineered it so that she was apparently saying those awful things? What kind of belief did he have in her if it shattered in the face of the first obstacle? She’d warned him that her parents would try and split them up and divide them. He’d gone to see Charles de Lisle that day
perfectly
prepared for the fact that he would be offered money. But he obviously hadn’t been expecting them to play dirty.
He had no idea of the lengths her parents might go to, of how shattered Athina de Lisle had been by her daughter’s marriage and what Charles was capable of when he saw his adored wife in pain. Romily could see how hard it was to explain away what sounded like a genuine recording.
But he didn’t even let me try! Why wouldn’t he listen? Was it because he wanted to divorce me all along …?
Terrible thoughts began to race through her mind.
Maybe this is a stroke of luck for him. Maybe he’s got what he wanted – the perfect excuse to play the wounded party and take whatever my father’s offered him without losing face and admitting he married me for money all along
. All the implications of this, if it were true, began to sink in, making her skin crawl with horror.
It must have been his lucky day when he found me on the step outside that restaurant. I bet he couldn’t believe his good fortune … and when it turned out I was the girl who’d helped him in the alley, it must have seemed like fate
…
‘No!’ she cried out loud. ‘I can’t believe it, I won’t! He loved me, I know he did.’ She began to sob. ‘Oh, Mitch. What have you done? How can you let them win like this? I can’t believe that was all it took to destroy us.’
But there was another worm of suspicion crawling in her heart. She knew exactly where that conversation had been recorded – it had been in the tea room of the Ritz in London. And there had been only one other person with her, so that person must have made the recording and given it to her father to doctor and use as evidence to Mitch.
And that person was Allegra.
PART 4
FOUR YEARS LATER
Chapter 35
London
2008
ALLEGRA WALKED THROUGH
Colette’s, glancing keenly around her. The club was busy tonight: the bar was crowded and the dance floor packed with bodies.
She frowned as she saw Stav Starchios chatting up a bored-looking girl who was young enough to be his granddaughter. He was swaying slightly from the effects of too many Martinis and clearly didn’t realise how ridiculous he looked, with his jutting belly, dyed black hair and gold jewellery, as he tried to persuade the razor-cheeked beauty to dance with him.
I must talk to him about it. He’s got to stop acting like such a fool. Does he really want yet another wife to take yet another billion off him? And it’s so off-putting for everyone else
.
It was people like him that gave Colette’s its reputation for being middle-aged, despite Allegra’s best efforts to shake off this reputation over the last few years. She’d prefer it if drunken older members didn’t paw the younger guests, and generally treat the place like a meat market.
She went up to Gennaro, standing at the reservations book in the dining room. ‘Is everything all right?’
The club manager glanced up. ‘Fine, Lady Allegra. Everything is under control.’
‘I thought I’d slip away early tonight.’
‘Of course.’ Gennaro smiled, his strong, distinguished face softening. ‘You deserve it, Lady Allegra. You spend far too much time here. You should enjoy yourself once in a while.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ she said, returning his smile. ‘I’ll leave everything in your capable hands then. Good night.’
She walked back through the club to the front door, ran lightly up the stairs and said her farewells to the doormen. It was good to be out of there, she thought as she walked through the Mayfair square and round to the mews house that contained the office.
It had been her idea to move the administration of the club out of its former cramped premises in Colette’s. Every scrap of storage space in the club was vital, and it was clearly impossible to run a complex operation from a room the size of a cupboard, especially when it could be put to much better use as an
actual
cupboard. When a building had come up for sale in the mews directly behind them, she had suggested to David that they buy it and transform it into the club’s office. David was as resistant to change as always, arguing that he liked the dark little cubby hole with its ancient fax machine and manual typewriter on which he wrote his official correspondence, sending it out to agency secretaries to be professionally retyped.
‘But, David,’ she had said, infuriated, ‘it’s crazy! You come down to work in the club when the cleaners are here, tidying up after the previous night. The bell is going all day long with deliveries for the restaurant, and the kitchen staff are banging about, trying to restock, while you’re slaving over the accounts! And when the place opens, you’ve already been there all bloody day and are feeling far from fresh. Let’s move everything out. Modernise. We need a computer for a start. I’m not about to start typing in triplicate.’
David had finally seen sense, after much bullying and persuasion, and agreed to buy the mews house, despite its £5 million price tag. Mayfair property had never come cheap, after all, which was why Allegra was sure their investment would repay them very well in the end.
It had proved an excellent decision: ‘Like all your decisions, darling,’ David had conceded happily. He enjoyed having a new space to design and fill with beautiful furniture, but it never quite matched his vision of perfection because it was always full to overflowing with things from the club: boxes of bar supplies or cases of wine were often piled up in the hall; there were stacks of pictures everywhere that he had either bought for the club and was intending to hang or had moved out because he wanted to replace or sell them.
Allegra’s own office, though, was always immaculate. She refused to have a single box or crate in there. ‘Because I know what will happen next!’ she declared. ‘It’ll be the thin end of the wedge. I’ll end up clambering over mountains of Château Petrus just to get to my desk.’
She had even managed to convert her uncle to the wisdom of installing computers, though he himself still had no idea how to operate one or send an email. ‘That’s what you’re for, my clever sweetheart,’ he’d said fondly after he’d made her laugh one day by asking if he could send off any emails for her when he popped out to the post office.
Tyra, Allegra’s assistant, a good-natured girl from Peckham who’d written a sweet letter asking for work experience and ended up staying on when Allegra had realised how invaluable she was, sat in her own smaller room and dealt with lots of the day-to-day admin, sending out club correspondence and fielding the many enquiries. It was all made very much easier when they finally had computers, access to the internet and the ability to communicate by email.
‘Out of the dark ages at last! This is like Alexander Graham Bell demonstrating the telephone,’ said Allegra with great excitement when her first email pinged through to Tyra’s computer. She couldn’t think how they’d ever coped without it.
The mews was dark now, Tyra long since gone home. Allegra went quickly up the stairs to her office and over to her desk. She took a small golden key from its hiding place under a marble paperweight and opened the bottom drawer. She removed what she was looking for – a mirror, a razor blade and some small paper wraps – and quickly arranged it so that there were two fat lines of white powder on the silvery surface. Taking a twenty-pound note from her wallet, she rolled it and snorted up the lines, then moistened the tip of her finger and picked up any stray grains which she rubbed over her gums.
God, I needed that
, she thought, sitting back and sniffing. Then she got up and went over to the wardrobe. It had been designed to her specifications and opened out into a small dressing room, with one door concealing racks of shoes, bags and scarves and the other backed with a full-length mirror that folded away flat against a row of drawers with jewellery and make-up arranged within. She checked her reflection – the short stretch jersey Moschino dress in her trademark black did full justice to her figure – then brushed her hair and retouched her make-up, and she was ready.
There were lots of places she could go when she got the itch. She was well-known all over Mayfair and had automatic entry to dozens of private clubs and nightspots. But occasionally she felt like going somewhere she wasn’t known and then she hailed a taxi and went to a different part of town.
Tonight, she asked the taxi to take her to Asylum, a small
and
eccentric club near Baker Street. Even though it wasn’t far from where she lived, she was anonymous there and its seedy atmosphere felt a world away from the polished ambiance of Colette’s.
Her high had kicked in by the time the taxi arrived at the club. She got out, feeling deliciously confident and reckless, shook out her long blonde hair, and went in.
There were twenty or so people in the dark, intimate depths of the room and she moved through them to the bar. She ordered Grey Goose vodka on the rocks and sipped it as she looked around, identifying potential targets. She didn’t have to wait long before someone tried to talk to her but she shook him off easily. He wasn’t right, she knew that at once: he was too old and jaded and looked as though life had disappointed him too many times.
No. She’d spotted her prey. He’d been standing alone at the bar with a glass of whisky, watching the antics of the others in the club. Now, she was sure, he was watching her. She turned to look at him. He was tall – which was good considering that in her black leather Louboutin platforms she was over six foot herself – and slim, with a narrow face that managed to carry off its large aquiline nose thanks to a strong chin and high cheekbones. His coppery-brown hair was short but brushed forward slightly in the Roman fashion. In fact, he looked a little like she imagined Julius Caesar might, if he were living in modern London, in his late-twenties and wearing a dark suit: a bit beakish, but imposing and with intelligent, piercing hazel eyes under well-formed brows.
Yes. All in all, an attractive man
. She smiled at him coquettishly; the cocaine had hit her bloodstream and she was fizzing.
He’s the one for tonight
.
Two hours later, they were in her flat, both naked and panting. He was sitting on a chair and she had rolled a
condom
down over his swollen cock and was now plunging up and down upon it, while he held her hips and watched her full breasts bouncing as she moved. He tried to reach for her head and pull her lips to his, but Allegra leaned away.
‘No,’ she gasped as he thrust into her again. ‘No kissing. Not today.’
They fucked on the chair until he could stand it no more. Eventually he lifted her up and pushed her down on the floor where he could use the full force of his hips and thighs to thrust his cock home over and over.
When he’d come, she yawned and said, ‘That was very nice, thank you. It was lovely to meet you.’
He lay next to her on the floor, hazel eyes glittering in the dimness of the sitting room. ‘That’s that, is it?’ he said.
‘Mmm. Yes. Like I said, thank you.’ She wished he would go away. Her craving for excitement was satiated again. Now all she wanted was sleep.
‘Can’t I even know your name?’ He sat up on the polished floorboards, resting his weight on his broad palms. He really was tall, she noticed, and under that conservative suit, surprisingly fit and toned.
‘I don’t think there’s any point, darling.’ She reached for her dress. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
‘Interview over.’ He sounded amused.
‘’Fraid so.’ She sighed and yawned again.
‘OK.’ He picked up his clothes and started to put them on. ‘Do you do this a lot?’
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she said frostily.
‘It’s not a criticism. I’m just interested.’
‘Don’t be.’
He said nothing more but got dressed and left. She shut the door behind him with relief. She was always glad when they had gone which was strange when she considered how badly she’d wanted them only a short time before, those
nameless
strangers she picked up in bars. Every time she went out to find them, it was to gain a little respite from the loneliness she felt late at night alone in the flat, and the terror of the dreams that came to find her when she slept. Only hours of empty sex kept them at bay.