LITMIR.BIZ

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only been hours after their union that the house of cards had come tumbling down.

      Victoria had been vaguely aware of the telephone ringing very early the morning after their wedding, and of Zac reaching out a hand and speaking quietly into the receiver.

      She had heard him mutter something into the phone, and then, after sitting up abruptly, he had padded through into the sumptuous sitting room of the bridal suite at the hotel where they had held the reception, and continued the call on the extension in there.

      She had still been half awake when he had come back into the bedroom and begun dressing, and her sleepy, ‘Zac, is anything wrong?’ had brought a reply of,

      ‘Just a business crisis I need to sort out with Jack before we fly to Jamaica this morning. Go back to sleep, darling, I’ll only be a few minutes.’

      And, trusting, blind fool that she was, she had gone back to sleep, exhausted by the excitement of the day before and her consuming, wildly passionate and utterly thrilling initiation into the intimacy of married life. Had there ever been such a fool as she?

      When she had next surfaced it was to Zac gently kissing her awake, his eyes dark and hot, but when she had held out her arms in an unspoken invitation for him to join her in the massive bed he had shaken his head slowly, softening the refusal with a laughing reminder that they had arranged to share breakfast with the guests who had stayed over at the hotel after the late evening reception. It made her squirm with humiliation now to think of it.

      She had felt a little hurt before she’d told herself she was being silly. This was the first day of their lives together as man and wife—they had all the time in the world in which to share their love. But as she had dressed, Zac watching her with a strange expression on his dark, handsome face, Victoria hadn’t been able to rid herself of the impression that something was wrong even as she told herself she was being ridiculous.

      He hadn’t been the adoring, besotted bridegroom of the day before, or the ardent, sensual lover of the night hours, a lover who had tenderly tempered his considerable sexual prowess to her nervous inexperience until she had been as wildly abandoned as he was. He’d been different. Something had changed, and she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it. He’d seemed preoccupied.

      And then, shockingly, in the elegant, air-conditioned luxury of the hotel lounge, she had discovered why her husband of a few hours had refused her fumbling sexual advances that morning.

      Zac had wanted to make a phone call before they went through to join the others for breakfast, and she had sat down in one of the deeply cushioned sofas to wait for him, glancing idly at a glossy magazine and reflecting that she had never imagined it was possible to feel so happy. But she felt loved, she’d told herself joyfully. For the first time in her life she felt really loved. Hers had been a privileged childhood in the material sense, but her parents had never made any secret of the fact that they hadn’t wanted a child and that she was an intrusion into their lives.

      When she had been shipped off to boarding-school at the tender age of seven, it had been her nanny she had cried for—she had barely known her parents. And when her father had died three years later she had attended the funeral of a stranger. As she had gone into her teenage years she had tried to get to know her mother, but after countless cold rebuffs had finally accepted they were a million miles apart in everything that mattered.

      Her mother was an avid socialite who used her considerable wealth for a life of pampered luxury, and who worried more about a chip in her nail varnish than starving children in the Third World. Victoria’s gentle, sweet nature was anathema to her mother—Coral saw it only as weakness and despised her for it.

      And so, as Victoria had sat waiting for her new husband on this, the first morning of her new life, her heart had sunk slightly when that familiar voice had sounded at her elbow, saying, ‘Victoria? What on earth are you skulking out here for?’

      There had been no real justification in Coral’s taking advantage of Zac’s generous offer to provide accommodation at the hotel for any guests who wanted to stay over for the night after the celebrations—she only lived a short drive away in a sumptuous apartment in Kensington—but it hadn’t surprised Victoria either. Coral was like that. She took everything she could and then some.

      ‘Skulking?’ Victoria forced a smile as she turned in her seat to look up at the hard, pretty face staring down at her. ‘I’m not skulking, Mother. I’m waiting for Zac,’ she said quietly.

      ‘Are you?’ Her mother paused, frowning slightly before she said, ‘You really ought to get in there with all the others and show them you don’t care, Victoria. It’s the only way.’

      ‘Don’t care?’ Victoria echoed confusedly.

      ‘Exactly.’ Coral’s voice was sharp and impatient.

      ‘Mother, I’m sure this conversation is making sense to you but I don’t have a clue what you are on about,’ Victoria said patiently. ‘What is it I’m not supposed to care about?’

      ‘You mean you don’t know?’ Coral sank gracefully into a seat opposite her daughter, crossing her legs and raising her chin slightly in order to show her profile to its best advantage to anyone who might be watching. ‘I would have thought Zac would have told you by now,’ she added disapprovingly, her eyes narrowing on Victoria’s beautiful, slightly bewildered face. It was a source of constant aggravation to Coral that such beauty had been wasted on someone who didn’t care for the social scene, and who didn’t—in Coral’s opinion—make the best of themselves.

      Victoria stared at her mother, the little prickles running down her spine telling her she was about to hear something she didn’t want to hear. But still she said, ‘Go on,’ her voice steady.

      ‘Gina Rossellini—that second, or is it third cousin of Zac’s?—took an overdose last night. She was in the room next to mine and there was such a commotion at about four o’clock this morning. Stupid woman.’ The last two words were vicious. ‘It’s all for Zac’s attention of course. I know her type.’

      ‘Mother...’ Victoria shook her head slowly, her sleek fall of silver-blonde hair that was cut in feathered wisps down to her shoulder blades shimmering under the artificial lights of the hotel lounge. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ she asked quietly, her stomach doing a mighty cartwheel. ‘Are you saying that there is something going on between Zac and Gina Rossellini?’

      ‘She’s been his mistress for years, girl; I thought you knew,’ Coral said irritably. ‘Everyone else on the planet does.’

      ‘I... How could I know?’ Victoria was suddenly aware of the moment in piercing detail—the subdued, discreet lighting overhead, the dusky pink carpet and luxurious furnishings, the faint perfume from the fresh flowers at the side of them—it was all stamped on her consciousness along with the horror of her mother’s next words that chilled her blood to liquid ice.

      ‘Well, it doesn’t matter much one way or the other, does it?’ Coral said matter-of-factly. ‘Your father’s mistress knew him long before I did and if you’re wise you won’t put anything in the way of this association continuing. A mistress is very useful, Victoria. She can take care of all that—’ her mother flicked a languid hand with a distasteful wrinkle of her small nose ‘—side of things which men seem to find so important. As long as she knows her place—as Linda Ward did—she can be an asset to you.’

      ‘Linda... Aunty Linda! You mean Aunty Linda was father’s mistress?’ Victoria asked faintly. She’d always known Linda Ward as one of her parents’ close friends, although her mother had always treated the other woman with a patronising condescension Victoria hadn’t understood until this very moment. ‘And you didn’t mind?’

      ‘Of course not.’ Her mother was clearly losing patience as she snapped, ‘All men have mistresses, Victoria, if they can afford them. For heaven’s sake open your eyes, girl. Of course one would prefer they have a little more control and discretion than Gina obviously has, but that comes of her having Latin blood, I suppose. Still, Zac’s mother was Italian so I

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