Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure (17 page)

‘It is still going ahead, then?’ she confirmed weakly.

The voice at the other end sounded surprised.
‘Oui, mademoiselle.’

Rachel had only just replaced the receiver when the phone rang again. Thinking it was the concierge, telling her he’d enquired further and had discovered he was mistaken, she grabbed it eagerly. But this time he was telling her that a car was waiting for her downstairs.

Without thinking she crossed the room and, setting down Felix in his car seat, let her gaze travel over Orlando. There was a bone-deep ache inside her as she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, the languid, almost imperceptible pulse in his neck. On the hand which lay across his chest she could see the still-raw scars on his fingers, and she was instantly transported back to the kitchen, to the breathless moment when she’d held him and his blood had run into her own hands and she’d felt his pain. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch him…

The next moment she almost jumped out of her skin as an amused, mocking voice came from the direction of the bed.

‘Darling, forgive me for intruding on this private act of worship, but I don’t believe we’ve met properly.’

Rachel whirled round. ‘Oh! Sorry! I was just…I mean, I didn’t…’ She was blushing furiously, aware that whatever she said was just going to make the situation worse. ‘Sorry. I’m Rachel.’

Arabella was sitting up against a mountain of snowy pillows, wearing a silk wrap beneath which Rachel could just see bandages covering her chest. Aside from that, she didn’t look ill at all. The eyes that were regarding Rachel so shrewdly were subtly made up with mascara and shadow. Through the fog of her humiliation Rachel noticed that they didn’t even flicker in Felix’s direction.

Arabella’s immaculately glossed mouth spread into a slow, incredulous smile. It was as if she had suddenly come across a winning lottery ticket in an old handbag. ‘
Rachel,
’ she said wonderingly. ‘Yes, of
course.
How
amazing.
’

‘Amazing? I’m sorry…I don’t know what you mean?’

Arabella gave a soft laugh, but her narrowed eyes never left Rachel’s face. ‘You’re too modest, Rachel. Far too modest. Here was I, thinking you were some sweet local girl Orlando had unearthed at Easton, but you’re not, are you? Far from it—you’re
Rachel Campion,
concert pianist and, according to those in the know, the Next Big Thing.’

Rachel shook her head emphatically, unaware that she was edging towards the door. ‘No,’ she protested. ‘Uh-uh. Not any more.’

‘What do you mean? You’re the toast of Paris, darling. Your face is on every street corner in the city advertising this spectacular concert. Soon, isn’t it?’

‘No. I mean, yes, the concert’s tomorrow. But…’ Rachel shook her head, struggling to maintain her grip on this conversation. ‘I’m not doing it. I…left my management. The concert should have been cancelled—I’m sure it has been, in fact…They just haven’t taken down the posters…’

Arabella cut through her stuttering resistance. ‘I don’t think so, angel. Some friends of mine have tickets. And surely you’re under contractual obligation to go through with it, anyway?’ Her pretty, pointed face still wore an expression of avid fascination which Rachel found sinister. She wanted to cover her ears with her hands and close her eyes to block out what Arabella was saying. Contractual obligation? she thought wildly. What did that mean?

‘Darling, do sit down so we can talk properly.’ Arabella patted the bed beside her and gave a throaty laugh. ‘I’d hate to wake Sleeping Beauty over there—and, Lord, what a beauty he is. Of course that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve turned your back on your fabulous but no doubt very demanding career? You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you? Don’t bother denying it, sweetie, because it’s absolutely pointless, I’m afraid. It’s written all over you.’

Rachel turned her head away. Her eyes were drawn back to Orlando’s lean, elegant form on the sofa. She was suddenly too tired and too confused to think or argue any more, and she felt the denial that had sprung to her lips wither and die there.

‘I’m so sorry…’ she whispered hoarsely.

‘Oh, darling, don’t be silly!’ Arabella’s voice was full of concern. ‘It’s I who should be saying that to you. Love’s never easy at the best of times, and loving Orlando Winterton…Well, let’s just say you’re not the first to get your fingers burned in that particular fire.’ She paused, then added abruptly, ‘I suppose you’ve slept with him?’

Looking down into her lap, Rachel nodded miserably, so missed the glint of malice in Arabella’s eyes.

‘Oh, dear. And that must have given you hope that your feelings were reciprocated?’ Arabella reached out a hand and tucked a strand of hair behind Rachel’s ear. ‘Well, there’s no easy way to say this, angel—but I hate to see such a lovely and talented girl throw her life away on a lost cause, so I’m going to be utterly straight with you. I want Orlando and I to give things another go. For Felix’s sake.’

Rachel closed her eyes and felt her whole body tense as Arabella’s words penetrated the fog of confusion in her head.

‘Now, don’t get me wrong,’ she continued. ‘I really don’t believe in couples staying together just for the sake of the children—especially if one of them is in love with someone else. But the thing is, Rachel darling…I don’t think that’s the case here. Has Orlando
told
you that he loves you?

Rachel shook her head dumbly as hot, stinging tears gathered in her eyes and began to overspill.

‘No.’ Arabella held her hands up apologetically. ‘Stupid question. You’ve hardly known each other any time, and Orlando’s hardly the type to use the word freely. I think it took him a good year to finally say it to me.’ She eyed Rachel thoughtfully, an expression of extreme solicitousness on her face. ‘There’s one thing, of course, with Orlando. One thing that’s absolutely key to understanding him. He’s intensely proud, as you may have guessed, and intensely private. But he will take down those barriers for people that he cares about. People he
really
cares about.’

This whole encounter had taken on a nightmarish dimension. Rachel half expected Carlos to appear in a puff of smoke, like a pantomime villain. Only the persistent throbbing in her head and the dull ache in her chest told her that this was real. That she couldn’t just open her eyes and make the sound of Arabella’s husky, insistent voice fade back into the shadows.

‘There’s something you should know about him, Rachel—something I think that, if he had any plans at all to include you in his future, he would have told you…’ She paused dramatically, fixing her piercing blue eyes on Rachel, watching her intently. ‘He’s going blind.’

‘I know.’ Rachel lifted her gaze to Arabella’s and for a moment saw a flash of surprise there. ‘I found out by accident. I borrowed his car…there was a leaflet in the glove compartment about it and it all fell into place…’

‘Ah. So he hasn’t told you himself?’

‘No,’ Rachel whispered.

‘Well, maybe he hasn’t had the chance?’

Rachel thoughts flew back, for the millionth time, to last night. He could have told her then. All the time they were having dinner, or upstairs in Felix’s room, he could have told her. She shook her head slowly. Arabella’s hand came out and covered hers.

‘Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t love you,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s just that it is a fairly major thing to keep from someone if you intend to be around them for any length of time, isn’t it? It’s so awful for him—we’ve had a long talk about it this evening…He says it’s got worse lately. It’s a degenerative condition—maybe you know that from the leaflet? It affects only the central part of the eye, which is why he can still maintain such a damned good impression of normality, but he can’t see anything in the middle of his vision.’ She gave a little regretful pout. ‘Which means, my darling, that he’s never seen your pretty face. I’m sure if he had he would have fallen in love with you on the spot.’

Sorrow and hurt were bunching up inside Rachel, making it difficult to breathe. She wanted desperately to snatch her hand away from its imprisonment in Arabella’s cool grip, but felt oddly powerless. Events just kept coming at her, like a succession of waves battering an exhausted swimmer who wasn’t sure she had the will to stay afloat any more.

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ she said through dry lips. ‘It’s you he loves, Arabella. I’ve known it all along.’

Arabella’s mouth quirked into a smile of satisfaction as she leaned back on her bank of pillows. ‘I don’t know about that,’ she said girlishly, twisting a lock of her streaky blonde hair round a finger. ‘But, yes, in his own way I think he does. Anyway, I think we can make it work. For Felix. It’s so important for him to grow up in a family environment, I think—which is why, if Orlando hadn’t come back, I would have taken Felix to Brazil.’

‘Brazil?’ Rachel echoed faintly, her heart thudding.

‘Yes. My family all live there, and he would be surrounded by cousins and aunts and uncles…which of course are no substitute for a father.’

Her blue eyes bored into Rachel’s with meaningful intensity, and with a shiver of disgust Rachel recognised the veiled threat behind the words. If Orlando didn’t go back to Arabella, she would take his son to the other side of the world.

Pulling her hand away, Rachel stood up. She found herself instinctively drawn back to Orlando. She couldn’t help it. Right from the moment she’d first seen him she’d felt somehow that he represented home for her. Without him she felt utterly directionless.

Right on cue, Arabella spoke. ‘So, what about you, darling? What will you do now? I think, in a way, all of this has worked out rather well. Your concert—your big break—is tomorrow. There’s still time to go back, sweetie, isn’t there?’

‘But I can’t. I still have Felix to look after—’

‘Oh, don’t be silly! You don’t think I’d be cruel enough to make you stay on as nanny
now,
darling? Of course not—Orlando and I will manage. Together.’

‘Oh.’ Humiliatingly, Rachel felt her face crumple as sobs shook her body. ‘In that case…I don’t know. I can’t think…’

‘Well,’ said Arabella firmly, ‘I think you should go to the hotel now and get a good night’s sleep. And then in the morning you can come back here and we’ll talk about it. All right?’

Mute with misery, Rachel nodded.

Deliberately, wanting to imprint the moment on her memory for ever, she reached out a hand and touched Orlando’s face. In sleep, the torment had left it, and he looked simply remote and heroic—one of King Arthur’s knights, awaiting the call to greatness again. Raising her fingers to her lips, she kissed them, and gently brushed her fingertips across his exquisite mouth.

Behind her, she heard Arabella give a little hiss of disapproval. When she spoke her voice was sharp. ‘Don’t wake him, sweetie. There’s a good girl. He’s obviously exhausted, and I just want him to have a chance to rest. I think that’s reasonable, don’t you, darling?’

A spark of anger glowed in the darkness of Rachel’s heart. Suddenly she wanted to turn round and shout at Arabella that it was her fault Orlando was tired,
her
fault for bringing him all this way when there wasn’t even anything much wrong with her. For a dizzying moment she closed her eyes and imagined the terrible relief of standing there and unleashing all her rage and resentment and bitterness and grief onto the smug figure in the bed, but then it passed, and she was left feeling just unbearably sad.

‘I won’t wake him,’ she said flatly. ‘I just want to say goodbye. To them both.’

Crouching down beside the car seat, she dipped her head to nuzzle Felix’s hair, breathing in his wonderful scent as she dropped a kiss onto his warm head. And then she stood up, looking down on Orlando while the tears streamed down her cheeks. An odd, disjointed memory of a story book she’d had as a child came back to her, where the princess’s tears had fallen on the blinded eyes of her handsome prince and his sight had been magically restored. It suddenly struck her as being a horrible distortion of a happy-ever-after. She would love Orlando whether he could see or not.

‘No need to make a big thing of it,’ Arabella said sharply. ‘You’ll see him in the morning.’

It didn’t make any difference. Rachel knew that this was still goodbye.