The Billionaire’s Bride Of Vengeance Page 12

  ‘I overheard Mum discussing it with Dad today. Megan’s only about two months gone. The wedding was a real rush job. Dad thinks it’s all a bit suspect. I can’t imagine why. Do you think there’s anything strange in a man marrying his pregnant girlfiend?’

  ‘Not at all. I think it’s sweet.’

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘He must really love her.’

  ‘Did you doubt it?’

  ‘Rich men can be ruthless devils,’ Nicole said.

  ‘That’s exactly what Dad said, though I can’t see how marrying Megan when she got preggers was ruthless. He’s an old cynic sometimes, is Dad. The trouble is, he’s often right. He’s shuttled off a few of the guys I’ve dated over the years after finding out they were fortune-hunters. Luckily, Leyton’s loaded, so no trouble there.’

  ‘Are you in love with Leyton?’

  ‘Nah, but he’s fun to be with. I might keep him around for a while. I’m in no hurry to marry. Still, when I do, it will have to be to someone with plenty of money. That way, I’ll know he likes me for myself.’

  ‘I hope Russell doesn’t ever think I’m after him for his money.’

  ‘How can he possibly think that when you’re selling all of your lovely jewellery tomorrow? Which, by the way, I think is crazy, when you have a wealthy lover eating out of your hand. You’d only have to ask and he’d give you whatever you want. Why be a penniless martyr when you can become a well-heeled mistress?’

  ‘Are you serious? No way would I ever become a kept woman. Look, Kara, there’s something I have to warn you about. Russell doesn’t know my true financial circumstances. Or about my selling my jewellery tomorrow. I’ve let him think I do have some money of my own.’

  ‘Why on earth did you do that?’

  ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time. Pride, I guess.’

  ‘Mmm. You’d better tell him the truth. It’s not a good thing to lie, especially about money. He’ll have to know eventually.’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ll tell him tomorrow, over lunch. He’s going to pick me up here at one.’

  ‘Mmm. On second thoughts, maybe you shouldn’t tell him about the jewellery. He might not understand. But you should let him know that you don’t have a permanent private income, that whatever money you have will eventually run out.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve already told him I’m going to get a job in the New Year.’

  ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘It’s the truth!’

  ‘You won’t have to worry about a job when you become Mrs Russell McClain.’

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Like Russell told his friend tonight, we’re not engaged. We’re just dating.’

  ‘But he’s going to propose, from what you’ve said.’

  ‘Maybe. But not yet.’

  ‘Will you be moving in with him when you come back from Bangkok?’

  ‘I will, if he asks me.’

  ‘He will. Now, what are you going to wear tomorrow? Don’t tell me. Jeans, I’ll bet.’

  ‘What’s wrong with jeans? It’s only lunch, and probably only at a local café.’

  Kara looked exasperated. ‘At least wear a decent shirt with them. I could lend you one if needs be. And some decent accessories. I have something for every occasion.’

  Nicole didn’t doubt it. That girl’s wardrobe had long extended into one of her mother’s many guest rooms. ‘Kara, I really need to go to sleep now. I’m tired.’

  ‘There’s no sleep for the wicked.’

  ‘I’m not wicked.’

  ‘You have been since you met lover-boy, from what you told me.’

  ‘Kara!’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Kara said, and snapped off her bedside lamp.

  Nicole did likewise. But she didn’t go to sleep. She kept thinking about Russell and how much she missed him already. She hadn’t wanted to come back to Kara’s place straight after dinner. She’d wanted to stay with him. Wanted to be back in his arms again. At least for a while.

  Something had stopped her from giving in to temptation.

  That something had been the momentary look she’d caught in Hugh Parkinson’s eyes when he’d first seen them together. He hadn’t just been surprised. He’d been appalled.

  Nicole believed she knew why.

  He thought she was a gold-digger. That was why he’d flirted with her so shamelessly—to see if he could seduce her away from his friend; to show her up to Russell.

  Nicole imagined that men such as Hugh Parkinson were extremely cynical about some women’s motivations. It couldn’t be easy being the only son and heir of one of Australia’s richest men. Hugh would have become a target from the moment he grew up.

  Still, he had no right to try to poison, or spoil, Russell’s relationships. Flirting with her, then bringing up her engagement to David, had not been very nice.

  She suspected Russell must have said something to him whilst she was in the powder room. Because Hugh had been different when she’d returned.

  Less provocative. Less chatty all round.

  But there’d still been flashes of concern in his eyes when he’d looked at her.

  Nothing, Nicole accepted with a weary sigh, was going to change Hugh’s mind about why she was dating his friend. Hopefully, he would not be able to sway Russell where she was concerned.

  Still, Hugh’s distrust was perfectly understandable.

  Her association with the name Power meant she would inevitably be labelled greedy and conscienceless by people who didn’t know her. Her lifestyle in the past didn’t help, either. Hugh probably saw her as a spoiled rich bitch who now no longer had the means to carry on her party-going lifestyle. Ergo, she was on the lookout for a wealthy boyfriend who could keep her in the manner to which she had become accustomed. He would not believe that she genuinely cared for Russell for himself, or that she was no longer interested in living the high life.

  Her not telling Russell her true financial circumstances right from the beginning began to seriously worry Nicole. What would happen if he found out she’d lied to him? She would just die if he ever thought she was a fortune-hunter.

  ‘Will you stop all that sighing?’ Kara snapped through the darkness.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘If you don’t go to sleep soon, you’re going to have dark rings under your eyes tomorrow.’

  Nicole had to smile. ‘And that would never do,’ she said.

  ‘Absolutely not!’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RUSSELL spent the following morning putting his business affairs in order so that he could go to Thailand. None of his branch managers seemed worried by his decision to have a ‘holiday’. They all thought it was way past time for him to have a break.

  Despite reassuring Nicole that he would not be missed at this time of year, Russell couldn’t help feeling some pique at their cavalier attitude. Of course, he did always hire the best, so he shouldn’t have been too disgruntled. But when the people in the Bondi office—where he spent most of his time—seemed only too happy to see the back of him for a while, Russell was forced to take a good look at himself.

  He was not the easiest of bosses, he realised as he drove towards Kara’s house to pick up Nicole. He was often difficult and demanding, not always overly understanding, perhaps, that his employees had private lives. On the plus side, he paid his employees extremely well. Surely, he had the right to expect them to work hard.

  Russell gave himself a severe mental shake. He had to stop this. Stop questioning himself at every turn. Hugh had put all sorts of doubts into his head last night. He’d spent a restless night, getting only a few hours’ sleep.

  He was not a cruel man, he told himself. Perhaps a little hard. OK, a lot hard.

  But that was not his fault. That was Power’s fault!

  There was no way he could change now. He was what he was.

  Kara’s home came into view, a typical old-money mansion, sitting on an extra-large block with a high brick wall around
it and lots of overgrown trees in the grounds. Probably built in the thirties, the house was two-storeyed and colonial in architecture with wraparound verandas on both levels.

  Russell drove straight in, the gates obviously having been left open in anticipation of his arrival. His car crunched to a halt next to the front steps, his dark mood lifting at the thought of seeing Nicole.

  But it wasn’t Nicole who answered the front doorbell. It was her friend, Kara, looking rather subdued.

  ‘Russell. Hi,’ she said in a low-keyed voice. ‘Look, I’m not sure Nickie will be able to go to lunch with you. She’s very upset.’

  ‘What about?’ The thought that Hugh might have rung Nicole screamed into Russell’s head.

  ‘I…I don’t think I can tell you that.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, is it?’ he demanded to know.

  Kara looked taken aback. ‘No. Not at all. Look, I’ll go tell Nickie you’re here. It might do her good to get out, poor love. Come inside.’

  Russell waited in the hallway whilst Kara hurried up the impressive central staircase and disappeared from view. A couple of minutes later, Nicole appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in dark blue jeans and a white shirt. She hesitated slightly before slowly walking down, one hand on the banister. Her face was pale, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed.

  Russell’s whole chest squeezed tight at the evidence of some very prolonged weeping.

  ‘Nicole, darling,’ he said, moving towards her. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ His mind automatically jumped to the assumption of an accident of some kind. Some tragedy. Maybe her mother had been killed. Or her father.

  Strangely, this last thought didn’t give him any pleasure at all. His only concern was for Nicole.

  ‘I…I’ve had a shock,’ she choked out. ‘Something personal.’

  He took both her hands in his. ‘Surely you can tell me.’

  Tears welled up in her eyes again. ‘I’m not sure you’d understand. Or care.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  When her head drooped forward, her hair fell around her face. ‘If I tell you, you’ll find out that I deliberately deceived you,’ she said brokenly. ‘You’ll probably believe what Hugh thinks of me. That I’m some kind of gold-digger.’

  He tipped her chin up with a gentle finger. ‘How could I possibly ever think that of the beautiful girl who couldn’t be bought?’

  She began to cry then, with deep, wrenching sobs. Russell groaned, then pulled her to him, his arms wrapping tightly around her, his own heart breaking at her unhappiness.

  He didn’t say a word. He just let her cry whilst he struggled to come to terms with his own emotions.

  Hugh was right, he finally accepted. He had fallen in love with this girl. No matter what she was, no matter who she was.

  He loved her.

  When a worried-looking Kara materialised at the top of the stairs Russell waved her away, then continued to just hold Nicole till her sobs eventually subsided. Once she was quiet in his arms he held her away from him.

  ‘I want you to go get your handbag,’ he said gently, but firmly. ‘We’re going to have lunch.’

  She glanced up at him, her lovely eyes redder than ever. ‘But I can’t go out looking like this!’

  ‘Yes, you can. Put some sunglasses on. We obviously have to talk and I don’t want to do it here.’

  She still looked unsure.

  ‘Kara!’ Russell called up the stairs. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kara replied, so quickly that she must have been very close by. Probably eavesdropping.

  ‘Could you bring down Nicole’s handbag and some sunglasses, please? I think she need a breath of fresh air. And a bite to eat.’

  ‘Right away.’

  Kara brought the handbag and glasses down in a flash, her manner much more carefree than earlier. ‘Don’t forget what I told you, sweetie,’ she said as she handed them over. ‘I’m only too happy to buy you-know-what from you. For good money, too.’

  ‘All right,’ Nicole replied wanly, leaving Russell none the wiser.

  ‘What’s you-know-what?’ he asked as soon as he had Nicole alone in his car.

  She slanted him a worried glance before shrugging in a rather defeated fashion. ‘She’s talking about my jewellery.’

  Russell frowned. ‘You’re selling Kara some of your jewellery?’

  ‘Not some. All.’

  ‘All. But why?’

  ‘To raise money.’

  ‘For the orphanage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Russell didn’t know what to feel at this news. Admiration for her, or guilt that he’d ever thought her selfish and materialistic?

  Guilt won hands down.

  ‘You don’t have any money, do you?’ he said.

  ‘Not much. I raised some by selling a few of my clothes. Enough for the return ticket to Thailand and a bit left over to live on whilst I’m there. But I needed the money from my jewellery to do what I wanted at the orphanage.’

  Russell didn’t think his guilt could get any worse, but it just had. The spoiled girl whom he’d imagined living a life of luxury off her daddy’s money had been reduced to selling her clothes!

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’

  Her smile was sad. ‘Pride, I guess.’

  Pride. Yes, he understood about pride. He recalled how she’d refused to let her mother send her any money. That wasn’t just pride. That was character—and guts.

  ‘I didn’t want you to know I was poor,’ she went on. ‘I didn’t want you to think I might be after your money.’

  ‘I never thought that for a moment,’ he lied. ‘But none of this explains why you were so upset just now. Didn’t Kara say she was going to buy your jewellery?’

  ‘Yes. But not for what I’d hoped to get.’

  ‘Second-hand jewellery only ever sells for a fraction of what it’s worth, Nicole.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said ruefully. ‘Especially if it’s fake.’

  ‘Fake!’

  Russell just stared at her.

  ‘Kara’s dad lined up a friend of his in the jewellery trade to come to the house this morning. He said the man would make me a fair offer. Unfortunately, he refused to make any offer at all. He said he only dealt in genuine gems.’

  ‘What about the emerald pendant and earrings you wore at the wedding?’ He could have sworn they were real.

  ‘The man said the emeralds were extremely good fakes, but fakes all the same. Yet they were a present, specially made for my twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘That’s terrible, Nicole.’ But typical of Alistair Power, he thought bitterly. The man couldn’t lie straight in a bed. ‘I can understand why you were so upset.’

  ‘I didn’t cry for the money so much, though I am very disappointed. It was the feeling of betrayal. Of being taken for a fool. Even after all he’s done, deep down, I always believed Alistair loved me.’

  ‘You call your father by his first name?’

  Nicole looked surprised. ‘Alistair Power is not my father.’

  ‘Not your father,’ Russell repeated, trying not to look as if he’d just been poleaxed.

  ‘I took his name when my mother married him. He’s my stepfather.’

  Her stepfather! ‘I used to think he was wonderful,’ she went on, tears pricking at her eyes once more. ‘Every time he gave me a piece of jewellery he would say how much he loved me. But his love was as fake as his presents. As fake as he was!’

  Russell had to say something. Anything! But his head was whirling. Nicole wasn’t Alistair Power’s daughter! Wasn’t his enemy’s flesh and blood…

  He should have been relieved. Instead, he felt shattered.

  Desperate to do something, he started the car and accelerated away, scattering some gravel as he did so. He didn’t speak till they were idling at their first set of red lights. By then his shock had lessened slightly, but not his overwhelming sense of guilt.

  ‘How old were you when y
our mother married Alistair Power?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘And your real father?’

  ‘I never met him. He was my mother’s boss. Married, of course.’

  ‘You’ve never sought him out?’

  ‘No. He lives in London. With his wife and three sons.’

  ‘Your mother’s English?’

  ‘Yes. She had a really tough time of it before she met Alistair. Her parents were extremely old-fashioned and wouldn’t have anything to do with her when she had me.’

  ‘So how did she meet Alistair? Did she come out here on a holiday?’

  ‘Oh, no. No, we never had any money for holidays back then. Mum was working for an events organiser in London as a hostess, and Alistair was there on some business trip. They both claim it was love at first sight. Alistair brought Mum and me back to Sydney and they were married in no time flat. Too bad he turned out to be an even bigger bastard than my real father.’

  ‘You’re better off without him in your life,’ Russell said.

  And better without a man like me in your life, too.

  ‘I do know that. Truly I do,’ she added. ‘But what about my mother? She’s still with him. I’ll bet all her jewels are fakes, too. I’ll bet Alistair never really loved her, either. She was just a beautiful blonde to have warming his bed and running his house for him.’

  ‘No man marries a woman with a child unless he loves her, Nicole,’ Russell said, the concessional words sticking in his throat. But he had to say something to ease her pain, and to soothe her fears.

  Besides, it was probably true. There were any number of beautiful blonde bed-mates Power could have chosen to marry, single ones without any emotional or physical baggage.

  Yet he’d chosen Nicole’s mother.

  The lights changed and Russell automatically headed for the city. He wasn’t sure where he was going. He was just driving.

  ‘The fake jewels were probably more about money than caring, Nicole,’ he told her. ‘I gathered from the bank that your stepfather always lived way above his means. He needed every cent he could make, by fair means or foul. That didn’t mean he didn’t love you, or your mother.’

  ‘He was unfaithful to her,’ she said brokenly. ‘The same way David was unfaithful to me. Of course, David didn’t love me, either,’ she finished bitterly, her shoulders sagging, her eyes dropping from his.