He’d be having the last laugh.

Let’s see how her faking ability was during the next month.

Because he was going to give himself—and her—one month. One month of vengeance…

Three Rich Men

Three Australian billionaires; they can have anything and anyone…except three beautiful women…

Meet Charles, Rico and Ali, three incredibly wealthy friends all living in Sydney. They meet every Friday night to play poker and exchange news about business and their pleasures—which include the pursuit of Sydney’s most beautiful women.

Up until now, no woman has ever managed to pin down any of these elusive, exclusive and eminently eligible bachelors. But that’s all about to change. First Charles, then Rico and finally Ali will fall for three gorgeous girls….

But will these three rich men marry for love—or are they desired for their money?

A Rich Man’s Revenge—Charles’s story #2349

Mistress for a Month—Rico’s story #2361

Sold to the Sheikh—Ali’s story #2374

Miranda Lee
A Rich Man’s Revenge

Three Rich Men

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“DO YOU have to play poker every Friday night, come rain, hail or shine?”

Charles glanced in the mirror at the reflection of the very beautiful blonde lying face down across his bed, her glorious golden hair spread out over her slender shoulders, her delicately pointed chin propped up in her hands. Her eyes, which were as big and blue as the sky, locked on to his, their expression beseeching.

Charles hesitated only slightly before continuing to button up his grey silk shirt. As much as the idea of joining her back on that bed was very tempting, his Friday-night poker game was non-negotiable.

“My poker buddies and I made a pact some time back,” he explained. “If we’re in Sydney on a Friday night, we have to show up. Actually, if we’re in Australia, we have to show up. We can only cancel if we’re overseas or in hospital. Although when Rico was in hospital after a skiing accident last winter, he insisted we all come and play in his room.”

Charles smiled wryly to himself as he thought of his best friend and his mad passion for the game. “I suspect on the unlikely event of Rico marrying again he’d ask us to accompany him on the honeymoon, just to get his weekly fix. I, however, was more than happy to give up poker during the entire month of my honeymoon,” he pointed out rather smugly.

“Your wife would have been seriously displeased if you hadn’t.”

“Would she?” He turned and smiled down at her. “How displeased?”

“Very displeased.”

“And are you displeased tonight, Mrs Brandon?”

She shrugged, then rolled over onto her back, stretching languorously against the ivory satin sheets, her hands lifting up over her head to flop against the side of the king-sized bed. Charles tried not to look at her simply perfect body. But it was difficult not to wallow in her physical beauty. Dominique was every man’s fantasy come true. And she was all his.

Charles still could not believe his luck in winning the hand—and the love—of such a glorious creature.

And Dominique did love him. He’d dated enough fortune hunters in the past to know the real thing when he found it.

Dominique sighed as she glanced up at him through her long lashes. “I suppose I can spare you for a few hours. I’m going to have to get used to being by myself, anyway, since you’re going back to work next Monday.”

Back to work…

Charles groaned at the thought, which was a first. For the past twenty years he’d devoted his life to the family brewery business after it had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by his profligate father. And he’d loved every difficult, challenging, frustrating moment.

From the age of twenty to forty he’d lived and breathed Brandon Beer. Marriage and a family had been relegated to the back-burner as he’d gone from being a near penniless undergraduate to one of Australia’s most successful businessmen, putting Brandon Beer back on the world map and buying half a dozen Sydney hotels along the way, each of which now earned him a sizeable fortune from the recent addition of poker machines.

Since meeting and marrying Dominique, however, business had taken a back seat in Charles’s life. His mind had been focused on things other than investment opportunities, market projections and expansion programmes. Even now, with the honeymoon over, his focus remained on things other than work.

The prospect of starting a family in the near future excited him almost as much as did the woman he planned having that family with. Dominique wanted at least two children and had decided to stop taking the Pill next month, which pleased him no end, as did her decision not to go back to work herself after their honeymoon. She’d quit her job in the PR department at Brandon Beer’s head office shortly after she’d said yes to his proposal, saying she didn’t feel right, working there any more.

Charles was well aware, however, that with her looks and personality Dominique could secure another PR or PA job in Sydney at the drop of a hat. And he’d said as much, not wanting her to think he was the kind of chauvinistic husband who expected his wife not to work.

But she’d said no to that suggestion, stating that for the next few years her career was being his wife, and the mother of his children. Maybe, when their last child went off to school, she would consider returning to the workforce.

Whilst not believing himself an old-fashioned man in any way, Charles had to confess he liked the thought of his wife always being there for him when he got home from work, ready to accommodate his every wish and whim, something which didn’t seem to be any hardship for her.

“I’m going to miss you terribly,” she said somewhat plaintively. “Are you quite sure you have to go back to work on Monday?” she asked, then gave him one of the best come-hither looks since Eve flashed that apple at Adam.

Charles’s flesh responded accordingly. He didn’t doubt he could survive being away from Dominique for a few hours this evening, but the prospect of not being able to make love to her during the day whenever he felt like it in future was not to his liking. Honeymoons were obviously very corrupting, as were beautiful brides who never said no to whatever their husbands wanted to do.

“I suppose I could take another week off,” he said, thinking to himself that the office would survive another five days without his making a personal appearance. He could keep in touch by phone and email. “It would give us some time to look for our new house together.” He’d told Dominique to look around for a real home to replace his present penthouse pad, something substantial and stylish in one of the Eastern suburbs. He didn’t want to negotiate the harbour bridge on his way to the office every day.

Dominique beamed at him. “What a wonderful idea! But would you really? Take another week off work, I mean? I know your reputation for being a workaholic.”

His eyes were rueful as they met Dominique’s in the mirror. “You know I’d do just about anything you asked me to.” Anything except give up any more of his Friday-night poker games.

His shirt safely buttoned, he turned and braced himself on the mattress on either side of her upside down face. “But you already know that, don’t you?” he murmured, his mouth hovering just above hers. “You’ve bewitched me good and proper.”

“Have I?” Her voice went all soft and smoky in that way which always turned him on. Charles groaned. It was incredible, really, given he was nearly forty-one years old, not some young buck in his prime. His desire for Dominique sometimes bordered on insatiable. Charles had never known a woman like her. Or a love like the love he felt for her. It was all-consuming. Possessive. Obsessive, even.

Her hands lifted to touch him, her eyebrows arching. “Mmm. Charles darling, I can’t see you concentrating on cards in such a deplorable condition. Surely your poker buddies wouldn’t mind if you were just a teensie weensie bit late…”

He ached to give in to her. But feared that once she started on him, he wouldn’t want to stop. If he didn’t show up at poker tonight, Rico would have his hide.

No. He’d have to be strong and not let Dominique have her wicked way with him this once.

Which perhaps was just as well. Always getting your own way was never good for anyone, but especially a wife, he imagined. He’d already spoiled Dominique shockingly since she’d become Mrs Charles Brandon. He’d spent a small fortune on designer fashion during their fortnight in Paris. And quite a bit on Italian handmade shoes and other accessories during their stopover in Rome.

But enough was enough. Now that their honeymoon was technically over, he really had to start the day-to-day routine of his marriage as he meant to go on. And he meant to go on playing poker every Friday night.

“On the contrary, my sweet,” Charles said with a wry smile as he pulled back out of her reach. “Re-directed sexual energies can be very effective. Frustration gives a man an edge. That’s why boxers abstain the night before they fight. I guarantee I’ll win at the table tonight, and when I finally get home so will you, my love. Now, do stop trying to seduce me, wench. Cover yourself up with a sheet or something till I can get myself out of here. That body of yours should be registered as a lethal weapon.”

She laughed, and rolled over onto her front again. “Will that do?”

“Better, I guess.” Though goodness knew her rear view was almost as tantalising as her front. He loved the way her spine curved down her long, slender back, dipping in at her tiny waist before rising to disappear between her peach-shaped behind. Like the rest of her, there was nothing even remotely boyish about Dominique’s bottom. It was lush and pouty and perfect. A temptation of the most devilish kind.

Charles knew he wasn’t the sort of man most women lusted after on sight. Never had been. As a teenager, girls hadn’t looked at him twice. He hadn’t fared much better as a young man. Of course, once he became seriously rich it was amazing how many gorgeous girls suddenly found him irresistible. But whilst his looks had improved considerably with age, one could still never call him handsome. Not in the way his father had been handsome. Or Rico. They were both movie-star material. So, Charles had often suspected some of his lady-friends had an eye on his money, rather than being genuinely attached or attracted to him.

Yes, the mirror told Charles the truth when he shaved every morning. He was now a passably attractive man, his main physical assets being his height, his fitness and that inherited gene which meant he’d never lose his full head of thick dark brown hair.

Baldness did not run in the Brandon family.

Of course, Charles had to concede that his successes in life had leant a certain air to the way he conducted himself nowadays. Some financial journalists described him as impressive and imposing. Others inclined towards ruthless and arrogant.

He didn’t care what they wrote and said about him, really. Or even what the mirror told him. All that mattered was what Dominique saw when she looked at him.

Clearly, she found him attractive enough. Very attractive, actually. She’d confessed to him on their wedding night that her first emotion on meeting him was worry over how incredibly sexy she found him.

Charles could still remember the intense emotion which consumed him when he had first come face to face with his future wife. Rico had insisted it was just lust, but Charles knew differently. He knew he’d fallen in love at first sight.

The occasion was the company Christmas party last year, barely five months ago. Dominique had just started work at Brandon Beer that week after moving to Sydney from Melbourne. They hadn’t met prior to the party, though he’d been aware of her appointment to their PR division. He’d seen—and approved—her CV.

He knew she was twenty-eight years old, a Tasmanian by birth, with no fancy education or degree to her credit, but a string of night-school diplomas which showed the sort of hard work and drive he admired. Her previous position in Melbourne had been with a sports and entertainment management company, her first job as a personal PA. To the boss of the place, no less. She’d been with him over two years and the reference he’d supplied was glowing. Prior to that she’d worked in reception and guest relations at some quality Melbourne hotels, a step up from her first job of being a housemaid.

Charles had been informed by the man who’d hired her that she was a very good-looking blonde, but seeing Ms Dominique Cooper in the flesh had literally taken his breath away.

She’d been wearing white, he recalled. A calf-length dress with a deep V-neckline which displayed her fabulous figure. Her hair had been up, tiny tendrils kissing her elegantly long neck. Her full lips had been shiny and pink. Pearl drops had dangled from her ears. When he drew closer, his nostrils had been filled with her perfume, an exotic and provocative scent which he now knew was called Casablanca.

He’d asked her out within minutes of being introduced, his desire already at fever pitch. Charles was used to getting his own way with women by then, so he’d been shocked by her refusal, especially when she admitted on further questioning that she wasn’t seeing anyone else at the time. She’d told him politely but firmly that she would never date her boss, no matter how attractive she thought he was.

“So you do think I’m attractive,” he countered, flattered yet frustrated at the same time.

She gave him an oddly nervous look, whirled on her high heels and fled the party.

Smitten and intrigued, he pursued her doggedly over the Christmas and New Year break, ringing her at home every evening and sending flowers to her flat every day—her number and address were in the personnel files at work—till she finally agreed to a dinner date. She still insisted he meet her at the restaurant rather than pick her up. She did not want him taking her home afterwards, which intrigued him further. Clearly, she was afraid to be alone with him. Why?

He didn’t find out why till dessert, when she’d explained with quite touching agitation that she’d been foolish enough to date her last boss, then been even more foolish in becoming his secret mistress. He’d promised her the world, but in the end had dumped her and married some society girl with the right connections. That was why she’d moved to Sydney, to get right away from the awful memories, at the same time deciding that she would never again date her boss. Such men could not be trusted. They used silly girls like her because they were pretty and easily impressed. But they didn’t love them, or marry them. They just screwed them, and screwed up their lives.

Charles set out to prove her wrong, but she was very difficult to convince. She did accept further invitations to dinner with him and showed him in many incredibly sweet ways that she liked him a lot, but she continued to spurn any advances. Charles became even more enamoured, and vowed to show her that his feelings for her were above board.

He could still remember the look on her face when he told her over dinner one night in early March that he loved her more than words could say. But when he asked her to marry him, producing the most beautiful—and the most expensive—diamond ring he’d been able to buy, her shock quickly turned to disgust.

“You don’t mean that,” she retorted. “You’re just saying it to get me into bed. You think you can buy my love, but you’ve wasted your money on that rock because the pathetic truth is I’ve already fallen in love with you. I was going to go to bed with you tonight, anyway.”

He wasn’t able to contain his delight at this announcement. Or his desire. He’d never been so hard.

“Oh, just put the rotten thing on my finger if it makes you feel better,” she swept on irritably. “Then take me to wherever it is you have in mind to take me. But you and I both know you won’t go through with any wedding. After you’ve had what you want, you’ll dump me like my last boss.”

“You’re wrong,” he insisted passionately as he slipped the sparkling rock on her engagement finger.

And he proved her wrong by marrying her a month later without having so much as laid a finger on her. The kiss he gave her after their very small and unostentatious ceremony was their first proper kiss. It had been sheer and utter hell to control himself for so long but he’d managed by focusing on the big picture.

Rico called him insane, marrying a woman he hadn’t been intimate with before. A strange sentiment for a man of Italian heritage. Weren’t they into virgin brides? Not that Dominique was a virgin. She’d never pretended to be.

But there was a touchingly virginal air about her when she came to him on their wedding night, trembling in her white satin nightgown. Clearly, she was nervous, afraid perhaps that she’d made a big mistake herself, marrying a man she’d never been intimate with. For all she knew he could have been the worst lover in the world!

But their wedding night was magic for both of them. Sheer magic. When he witnessed his new bride’s awed joy, his own pleasure and satisfaction was boundless.

“I didn’t know what real love was till this moment,” Dominique had told him as she lay still snuggled up to him somewhere close to dawn. “I love you so much, Charles. I’d die if you ever stopped loving me back.”

Impossible, he’d thought at the time. And he still thought the same. If anything, he was more in love with her than ever. He’d be the one who’d die if she ever stopped loving him.

“I have to go,” he told her gently, feeling slightly guilty for leaving her alone now. “I’ll try not to stay too late, but—”

“Yes, I know,” she broke in with a sigh. “I understand. Rico will try to keep you there till all hours.”

Dominique clenched her teeth at the thought of Charles’s best man doing just that. And it had nothing to do with Rico being a poker addict.

Enrico Mandretti’s scepticism over her love for Charles had been evident from their first meeting. Clearly, he thought her a devious fortune hunter. He didn’t have to spell out his suspicions. They were there in his dark, cynical eyes.

The trouble was…he was right. Yet oh, so wrong.

She did love Charles. More than she’d ever thought herself capable of loving any man. But before she’d met her future husband she’d been exactly what Rico believed she was. A gold-digger. A good-looking girl using her looks and her body to achieve her main goal in life: to acquire a wealthy husband, a gold-plated insurance policy that she would never have to suffer what her mother had suffered.

Dominique was sure that rich men’s wives didn’t go through what her mother had gone through. They were protected from such ignominies. They could at least die with dignity. That was, if they had to die at all.

After her mother’s lingering and very painful death, Dominique had vowed that she would marry money, if it was the last thing she did. Becoming a rich man’s wife, however, proved not such an easy task, not even for a girl with her looks. Rich men married women who moved in their own social circles. Or girls who worked with them; sophisticated, educated creatures with university degrees.

Unfortunately, Dominique’s education had been sadly lacking during her teenage years, her schooling constantly interrupted then totally terminated so that she could stay home and nurse her mother till she passed away. By the time she was eighteen, Dominique knew it would take years before she had the skills which would put her into the immediate vicinity of wealthy businessmen.

But she had youth on her side, and tenacity, and she’d finally achieved her aim a couple of years back, that of being in the right place, working alongside the right kind of boss. Single. Good-looking. And rich.

Unfortunately, her target had been even more ruthless than she was. His life’s plan did not include getting hitched to some no-account girl from the backwoods of Tasmania, no matter how hard she’d worked to educate herself, or how much he fancied her.

Sleeping with her was fine. Lying to her perfectly OK. Marrying her? Never in a million years!

After her mission to become Mrs Jonathon Hall had failed, a distressed and a slightly bitter Dominique had taken her over-generous severance pay along with Jonathon’s guilt-ridden, glowing reference and headed for the bigger fish pond of Sydney. Once there, she’d plotted out her strategy for becoming Mrs Charles Brandon with cold-blooded resolve. More cold-blooded than ever.

But there had been nothing cold-blooded about the feelings Charles had evoked in her during their first meeting. She’d already seen photographs of him and thought him quite attractive—Dominique knew she couldn’t bear to marry a man who was physically repulsive to her—but she’d found Charles in the flesh so intensely sexy she’d been totally thrown.

Those icy grey eyes of his had cut right through her defences to that part of her which she’d kept locked tightly away all her life. Dominique had never fallen in love before. Or even into lust. She had felt varying degrees of attraction to members of the opposite sex over the years. She’d even slept with a few. Jonathon, she’d been very attracted to. Sex with him had been quite pleasurable, but she’d never been carried away by it, or really needed it. Oh, no. All her responses with Jonathon had been totally faked.

Yet when Charles had stared at her body none too subtly that first day, she’d found herself staring right back at his own tall, lean body and wanting it so very badly.

Panic best described her reaction to this alien craving. It was no wonder she had fled, totally abandoning her plan to seduce Charles Brandon. She wanted to marry a rich man, not fall in love with one. Love made a woman weak and foolish and vulnerable. Love brought misery, not happiness.

But Charles wouldn’t leave it at that, would he? And here she was, his wife; his adoring and besotted wife.

Now she knew what her mother had meant when Dominique had once asked her why she’d married a man like her wretched father.

“Because I loved him to death,” had been her mother’s reply.

Words of considerable irony.

As Dominique watched her husband put on his jacket, she tried not to worry about loving him so deeply. She supposed that with Charles she could afford to be a little weak and foolish and vulnerable. Because he loved her back. And he wasn’t anything like Jonathon.

How perverse, she thought, that she’d targeted Charles for that very reason. Because he wasn’t as young or as handsome as Jonathon. She’d thought that would make Charles more susceptible to seduction. She’d thought that would give her more power over him.

But just the opposite had happened. He’d been the one who’d exercised all the power over her, coercing her to go out with him, despite her fear of falling for him.

Yet she was happy, wasn’t she? Deliriously so. There was nothing to be afraid of. Charles was a wonderful husband and lover. And he’d make a wonderful father.

That was another thing which constantly surprised Dominique. Her desire now for children. She’d never thought of herself as maternal before. Never wanted to be the little woman at home. Now she simply couldn’t wait to have a baby with Charles. Not just one, either. Suddenly, her idea of Utopia was being his little woman at home with the patter of little feet around her.

Of course, her home would be nothing like her mother’s home. Not a shack, but a mansion. Her husband was a man of substance who could provide in abundance for his wife and any number of children, not some pathetic failure of a man who couldn’t even look after himself, let alone anyone else.

“I’m off now,” Charles said as he swept up his cellphone and car keys from the bedside chest. “You know my number if you need me. Be good, now…” And he threw her a wry smile.

A premonition-type panic gripped her heart as she watched him walk towards the bedroom door.

“Charles!” she called out, and he turned, frowning.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I…I love you.”

“I know,” he said, smiling again, a little smugly this time. “Keep it warm for me.” And he left.

CHAPTER TWO

THE distance between Charles’s inner-city apartment block and the Regency Hotel was only a couple of blocks, but Charles still drove. Walking was not his favourite form of exercise. Within five minutes of leaving Dominique, Charles was handing the keys of his silver Jaguar car to the parking attendant at the Regency and striding inside the five-star hotel.

Hurrying across the marble floor, he was passing the row of trendy and exclusive boutiques which lined the spacious arcade-style foyer when his eyes landed on a spectacular piece of jewelry, displayed under a spotlight in the window of Whitmores Opals. Charles ground to a halt and stared at the magnificent choker necklace which was made of two rows of oval-shaped milk opals surrounded by diamonds and linked together with finely filigreed gold.

How marvellous it would look on Dominique with her long, elegant neck and fair hair!

A glance at his watch showed it wasn’t yet eight. He had twelve minutes before he was officially late. The shop was still open. These shops remained open till nine every Friday night.

The price was steep, of course. Quality jewels didn’t come cheap. He tried telling himself that he really had to stop spoiling Dominique like this, but it was too late. He could already see her wearing it.

The decision made, Charles strode inside and five minutes later he had the necklace in his jacket pocket, nestled in a classy black leather box lined with thick black velvet. By the time he’d collected his visitor’s pass-key from Reception and ridden the private lift up to the top floor, it was two minutes to eight. He still had a minute to spare as the lift doors whooshed back and the door to the presidential suite lay straight ahead.

When he’d first told Dominique where he played poker on a Friday night, she’d queried the choice of such an expensive venue. Why didn’t they just go to each other’s homes? So much cheaper.

He’d explained that it was of no cost to him. One of his poker buddies was an Arab sheikh who stayed in the Regency’s top suite every weekend, flying in by helicopter every Friday afternoon from his Hunter Valley property.

Naturally, Dominique had been agog at this news and wanted to know more about this mysterious sheikh who played poker with her husband. Charles had told her the scant details he knew, which was that Prince Ali was thirty-three years old, sinfully handsome and the youngest son of King Khaled of Dubar, one of the wealthiest Emirate states. With four older brothers, Ali was unlikely to ever ascend the throne and had been despatched to Australia several years ago, ostensibly to take care of the royal family’s racehorse interests here.

And he’d certainly done a good job of that. The royal thoroughbred stud boasted some of the top-priced yearlings at the Easter sales every year. Rumour had it, however, that Ali’s skills as a horseman and businessman had nothing to do with his selection for his present position as manager of the royal stud. Apparently, he’d been exiled from Dubar for his own personal safety after some scandal involving a married woman.

Probably true, in Charles’s opinion. Ali had gathered a reputation for being a ladies’ man in Australia as well, though not in any obvious man-about-town way. He was never seen out in public alone with a woman, or photographed with one. Word was when he met a good-looking girl who took his eye during his weekly visits to the races in Sydney, private arrangements were made, and if the object of his desire was willing she was whisked up to his country property.

None of Ali’s so-called girlfriends had ever sold their story to the media, so, really, talk of these liaisons was all speculation and gossip. Ali never personally revealed anything about his love life, being a very private man.

Charles suspected, however, that this gossip was probably true, too. A man of Ali’s extraordinary wealth and looks would find it almost impossible not to become a playboy in the bedroom department. He’d been a bit of a one himself before he’d met Dominique. Yet he wasn’t in Ali’s league. The man was a prince, for heaven’s sake.

Ali’s royal status was the reason they played in his suite here every Friday night, rather than have him visit them. Everything was more secure and more relaxed that way. On the occasion they’d gone to Rico’s hospital room last year, Ali had been accompanied by two hired bodyguards. One had stood outside the hospital-room door all night whilst the other had sat in a corner of the room, after he’d drawn the shades on the window.

A bit unsettling.

In the hotel suite, there was no need for that. Hotel security was always on high alert when Prince Ali was in residence and no one could access the presidential suite without a pass-key for the lift. Even then, their identity was fully checked out a second time via camera during the ride up in the private lift, and again at the door to the presidential suite.

Charles lifted his hand to ring the doorbell, the door being whisked open within seconds. Clearly, his arrival had been anticipated.

“Good evening, Mr Brandon,” the butler greeted.

“It certainly is, James,” Charles replied as he walked in. “Very good.”

“I trust you had an enjoyable honeymoon, sir,” the butler went on in his usual formal manner. Charles suspected he’d been to a school for butlers in England.

Somewhere in his late thirties, tall and dignified-looking with a patrician nose and close-cut sandy blond hair, James was the house butler assigned to the presidential suite at the Regency every Friday night. He was always polite and respectful, and his attention to detail was incredible, as was his memory for names and faces and facts.

“It was marvellous,” Charles replied. “Paris in the spring is always superb.”

“And Mrs Brandon?”

Charles grinned. “She’s superb, too.”

James allowed himself a small smile. “If I may say so, sir, you’re looking extra well.”

“I’m feeling extra well.”

“I can’t say the same for Mr Mandretti,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial tone.

“Oh? Has Rico been ill whilst I’ve been away?” Charles knew that the trio would have still continued to play poker here every Friday night, calling up a substitute player.

“No, not physically ill. I think he has something on his mind. He’s been quite short with me tonight, and that’s not like Mr Mandretti at all.”

No, it wasn’t. A self-made success story, Rico was inclined to treat the workers in this world much more politely than the privileged people he now mixed with. He liked and admired Charles because he’d earned his money through hard work and not just inheritance. Rico had little respect for the silver-spooned species.

An exception was their host every Friday night.

Prince Ali might have had his fortune bestowed on him through birth, being one of the pampered sons of an oil-rich Arab sheikh. But he was no sloth. Apparently, he worked his royal backside off at that stud farm he ran, very much a hands-on man when it came to his beloved horses.

Rico had stayed at Ali’s property a few times, and seen the man in action for himself. He thought Ali an OK guy, despite his billions, and treated him accordingly.

On the other hand, the fourth and last member of their private poker club wasn’t the recipient of Rico’s total respect. Rico obviously had ambivalent feelings towards Mrs Renée Selinsky. Although Renée had been very working class before making it big, first as a model, then as the owner of a highly successful modelling agency, Rico had difficulty overlooking the fact she’d subsequently married a banker old enough to be her grandfather.

In his eyes, marrying for money—Rico couldn’t conceive that she might have actually loved a man in his sixties—was just as bad as inheriting it.

By thirty, Renée had become an extremely rich widow, and had started buying shares in racehorse syndicates. That was how the four of them had met, because they’d all bought shares in one of Ali’s beautifully bred yearlings.

On the day their colt had run in and won the Silver Slipper Stakes, the three celebrating owners—and one very proud breeder—had discovered a mutual love of poker. The four of them had played their first game that Saturday night in this very suite.

That had been around five years ago. Now the merry widow, as Rico sometimes called Renée, was thirty-five, still a looker, and still possessing that cool, self-contained air which seemed to get under Rico’s skin.

But it was her brilliant brain which niggled Rico the most. He hated it when she beat him at poker. But Renée’s bluffing was sometimes simply superb and totally unpredictable. None of them could match her when she was on her game.

Charles accepted her superiority on those occasions with pragmatic logic and played conservatively, hating to waste his money. Ali often tried to force her to fold by raising the stakes outrageously high, and was sometimes successful. Renée was rich, but not in Ali’s league. Rico, however, would become testy and rude, sniping at her in a vain attempt to break her nerve, then inevitably making the wrong call, folding when he should have stayed in, and raising when she had an unbeatable hand.

Privately, Charles suspected that Rico fancied the merry widow but wouldn’t admit it, even to himself. There was something decidedly sexual in his eyes when he delivered his barbs on these occasions.

There again, Rico was an extremely sexual animal. At thirty-four, he was still in his prime, a Latin-lover type brimming with testosterone and over-the-top passions.

Charles wondered if Rico’s rudeness to the butler tonight had something to do with an overload of male hormones. He’d been divorced over a year now and there wasn’t any permanent replacement in his bed as yet. Which was not right for Rico. He was a man who needed to make love, often!

Some warm womanly love wouldn’t go astray, either.

Charles believed Rico needed a wife, someone who loved him this time, someone like his Dominique who wanted children. But Rico wasn’t about to go down the aisle again in a hurry. Once bitten, he wasn’t shy so much as angry, angry that he’d been taken in by a gold-digger.

The appearance of the man himself in the archway which led into the main sitting room showed Charles that James had the situation spot-on. Rico wasn’t in any way ill. He looked his usual swashbuckling self in black trousers and a black crewnecked top, his thick, wavy black hair as lustrous as ever, his flashing black eyes as clear as a bell. But he was definitely out of sorts, scowling as he quaffed back the last of the drink he was holding. It looked like Chianti. Rico loved his Italian wines, despite having been born here, in Sydney.

“About bloody time you got here,” he snapped without a trace of the Italian accent he adopted for his popular A Passion for Pasta TV show. His parents had migrated to Sydney over half a century earlier, not long after the Second World War; all their eight children had been born here—three boys and five girls—and Rico was the youngest.

Charles couldn’t get his head around the idea of so many siblings. He didn’t have any.

“I’m right on time,” Charles countered calmly, in far too good a mood to be riled by Rico’s burst of Latin temper.

“No, you’re not. The game is supposed to be underway by eight. It’s already five minutes past, courtesy of your gasbagging and gossiping out here with the hired help. Here, James, fill this up again, will you?” Rico said curtly and handed the butler his empty glass.

Charles wondered what was eating at Rico but he decided not to ask. Best to just get in there and start playing poker.

The others were already sitting at the card table where it was always set up, next to the bullet-proof plate-glass window which overlooked the city below. Renée, looking softer than usual in a pale pink cashmere sweater, lifted her glass of white wine in Charles’s direction in acknowledgement of his arrival.

Ali, dressed in blue jeans and a shirt, managed a polite nod as he sipped his usual glass of mineral water. Ali never touched alcohol himself but always supplied the best in spirits and wine for his guests.

“See, Rico?” Renée said in that silky voice of hers as the two men sat down at the table. “I told you he’d show up. Though he’d be forgiven if he didn’t. After all, he’s only been married to that stunner of a wife of his for a month.”

Renée was still a stunner herself, Charles appreciated. Just not his type. Too tall and too thin. And a brunette. Charles preferred blondes, and a softer more feminine kind of beauty.

There was nothing soft about Renée. But she was very striking, with those high cheekbones and unusual eyes. Pale green they were, with rather heavy lids which she emphasised by plucking her eyebrows to the finest of arches. The set of her eyebrows gave her face a range of expressions, none of which were soft or sweet. When smiling, she looked either drily amused or downright sardonic. Unsmiling, Renée carried an air about her which could be interpreted as snobbishness, or at the very least belief in her own superiority. Possibly this had been an asset on the catwalk, where models specialised in looking aloof these days. But not such an asset in one’s social life.

Charles had not liked her to begin with. But first impressions were not always correct, he’d found. He still could not claim to know her all that well, even now after five years’ acquaintance. But he’d warmed to her after a while. Impossible to totally dislike a woman who could play poker as well as she did, and who had what he called strength of character. Renée was always her own person, and he admired that.

It didn’t matter to him if she’d married the banker for his money or not. No doubt she had her reasons. Still, Renée was far too cool and controlled for him. Not like Dominique, who was a wonderful mixture of sweet surrender and wildly impassioned demands.

“Again, Charles,” she’d beg him, even after he thought he was done. But he was rarely ever done with Dominique.

Damn. He shouldn’t have started thinking about Dominique.

After they had cut cards for the deal—which Renée won, much to Rico’s irritation—Charles tried to settle back to enjoy the game. But it was no use. His concentration was shot to pieces. By the time they broke off for supper at ten-thirty, he was losing more than he liked.

“Your mind’s not on your game tonight, Charles,” Ali remarked over coffee and cake.

“I’m just a bit rusty,” he replied.

“Maybe he’s setting us all up for a sting later on in the evening,” Renée suggested.

Charles smiled what he hoped was an enigmatic smile.

“Trust you to think that,” Rico snapped. “That’s just the sort of thing a devious female like you would do. But Charles is a straight shooter. The reason he’s not playing well tonight is because he can’t keep his thoughts above his waist.”

“And who could blame him?” Ali said in that rich Eton-educated voice of his. “Renée is right. You are a very lucky man, Charles, to have found a woman so beautiful for your bed.”

Charles bristled at the inference that Dominique’s role in his life was nothing more than sexual.

“Dominique has a beautiful mind as well as a beautiful body, Ali,” he said with a hint of reproach in his voice. “We are friends as well as lovers. Equals, in every way.”

Rico laughed. “Who do you think you’re kidding, Charles? That girl has you by the short and curlies.”

“Must you be so crude?” Renée said with a withering glance Rico’s way. “Take no notice of him, Charles. He’s just jealous because he can’t find anyone to love, or who truly loves him in return.”

Rico laughed again, yet it had a hard, hollow ring to it. “I wish I were jealous. Oh, yes. That would be much better.”

“Better than what?” Charles asked, not quite following Rico’s train of thought.

Rico looked remorseful for opening his mouth. “Nothing. I’m rambling. I’ve had too much to drink. I think I’ll stick to coffee for the rest of the night.”

“An excellent idea, Enrico,” Ali said. “Alcohol is the root of all evil.”

“I thought that was money,” Rico retorted.

“No. It’s sex,” Renée surprised them all by saying. “Sex is the root of all evil. We would all be much better off without it.”

“But then there wouldn’t be any children,” Charles pointed out.

“Exactly,” she returned.

“Trust you not to like children,” came Rico’s cutting comment.

Renée stiffened. “I didn’t say that. But the world is overpopulated as it is. And so many children are suffering. I would rather there be no more children than to see such suffering.”

“Sorry, but I can’t oblige you there, Renée,” Charles piped up. “Dominique and I are planning to have children. And soon.”

Rico’s eyes jerked his way. “I thought you’d put that off for a while,” he said with a frown. “Hell, Charles, you’ve only been married a month!”

“I’m forty-one next birthday, Rico. I haven’t got time to waste. Besides, Dominique’s keen to have a baby.”

“Is she, now?” he said, and Charles heard the cynical note which always flavoured Rico’s voice when he spoke about Dominique.

Rico didn’t like Dominique. Charles could no longer ignore that fact. Why Rico didn’t like her was just as obvious. He thought Dominique was a gold-digger, like his own ex.

Charles could have been insulted by his friend’s opinion—didn’t he think any woman could love him for himself?—but he understood Rico was still going through a bitter phase after his own wretched marital experience. In time, he’d realise Dominique wasn’t anything like Jasmine. When that happened he might even decide to give marriage another go himself.

“I think we should cease to discuss personal issues and get back to the game,” Ali suggested wisely. “That is why we meet here each Friday night. To play poker and to escape life’s little stresses and strains for a while. Let us leave such matters at the door in future.”

Rico and Renée both gave Ali a look which implied a man of his massive power and privilege wasn’t subjected to too many of life’s little stresses and strains.

Till Charles had met Dominique, he might have agreed with them. Money and success had certainly smoothed his path in life. But he knew now that it didn’t bring real happiness. Love did.

Without love, having all the money in the world could become very empty indeed. Charles suspected Ali was no more happy in his private life than was Rico, or the merry widow. You only had to look into that woman’s eyes to know she wasn’t happy. Not where it mattered. Not in her heart.

Earlier, she’d made it sound as if she didn’t want children. But was that the truth? Or was it a rationalisation of where her life was heading, fast past that age where it was easy for a woman to conceive, especially without a partner?

Charles was only guessing, of course. Renée was like Ali, never revealing much about her private life. Presumably she did have a love life, but what kind and with whom Charles had no idea. All he knew was that she always showed up at the races alone. And she never cancelled on a Friday night. Unusual for a woman.

There again, Renée was an unusual woman. An enigma. A rather intimidating enigma. Charles pitied any man who ever fell in love with her. No man wanted to be intimidated by his woman. They wanted a woman who could make a man feel good about himself, the way Dominique did.

Aah…Dominique. She was very much on his mind tonight. Ali could command they leave their personal lives at the door but Charles couldn’t do that just yet. His love for his lovely wife was all too new, and all too consuming.

He patted the jewelry box in his jacket pocket before he sat back down again, his stomach tightening in pleasurable anticipation of that moment when she opened the lid and saw the necklace. He couldn’t wait to put it on her, to see how it looked.

The next two hours dragged, his play deteriorating further. Ali shook his head at his many mistakes. Renée smiled wryly and Rico scowled.

“What am I going to do with you, Charles?” Rico said when the night’s poker was over and the two men rode the lift together down to the ground floor. Renée had already gone ahead, always the first to leave after play was halted, usually around midnight. Tonight it had been twelve-thirty, due to their late start.

Charles laughed. “I’ll do better next week,” he said, thinking that by then he might have the worst of his lust out of his system.

Not that he said that to Rico. Rico would pounce on the word lust, and claim he’d been right all along; it was just the promise of sex which had bewitched and entrapped him.

But Charles knew that wasn’t the case. It was only natural that he and Dominique were still going through that phase when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Unlike most newlyweds these days, they hadn’t been living together before their wedding. Hell, they hadn’t even kissed!

“Did you mean it when you said you and Dominique weren’t waiting to have children?”

Rico’s question surprised Charles. “Why would I lie about something like that?”

“But you haven’t actually gotten her pregnant yet.”

“No. She’s on the Pill for now. But she’s coming off it next month.”

“I honestly don’t think that’s a good idea, Charles. You should wait at least a year before you take such a big step. Get to know your wife a bit better first. You hardly know the girl, after all.”

Charles’s forbearance over Rico’s negative attitude towards Dominique began to wane. “I know all I need to know,” he replied tautly. “Look, Rico, I realise you don’t like Dominique. You probably think she’s a fortune hunter, but—”

“You’re wrong,” Rico interrupted, his expression grim. “I don’t think she’s a fortune hunter, my friend. I know she’s a fortune hunter.”

CHAPTER THREE

CHARLES whirled, his fists balling by his sides. “Now, look here, Rico, I’m warning you. Stop this once and for all. Just because Jasmine took you for a ride, doesn’t mean that Dominique’s doing the same to me. My wife loves me. Renée’s right. You’re jealous.”

The lift doors opened on the ground floor and Charles gave Rico one last uncompromising glare. “I suggest you apologise before we leave this lift or you can consider our friendship over,” he pronounced angrily.

Rico looked more concerned than apologetic. “I’m sorry. More sorry, Charles, than you can ever imagine. But I can’t let you be taken for a fool. And I can’t let you go ahead and blindly have a baby with that woman. I have proof of what I’m saying. Hard and fast proof.”

Charles’s head jerked back in shock before more anger rushed in. “Proof? What kind of proof?” he challenged heatedly.

“Irrefutable proof.”

“Such as?”

“The kind supplied by a very reputable private investigator. Facts and figures. Taped conversations with her ex-flatmates in Melbourne, people she’s worked with, men she’s slept with. You’re welcome to hear them for yourself whenever you like. And to see the written report. Your wife is a fortune hunter, Charles. Make no bones about that. She openly admitted to her flatmates during her years in Melbourne that her aim in life was to marry money. You became her target after things with her previous marital candidate fell through and she made the move to Sydney.”

Charles tried to swallow the huge lump which had filled his throat but it was stuck there.

“He was her last boss,” Rico swept on mercilessly. “Jonathon Hall, a reasonably successful celebrity sports manager. Though not as rich as his lifestyle indicates, which is why he ended up marrying money himself. Apparently, Dominique was livid when he dumped her. She told one of her girlfriends that the next time she wouldn’t go for a guy with Hall’s looks and charm. She’d try for someone older who didn’t think he was God’s gift to women, someone who’d be oh, so grateful to have a girl like her even look at him twice.”

Charles wanted to cry out, to scream that none of this was true. Dominique loved him.

But Rico was ruthless in his exposé of his beautiful bride’s true nature. “Dominique isn’t even her real name. It’s something plain like Joan or Jane. I can’t remember which. She changed it to Dominique when she first came to Melbourne from Tasmania when she was nineteen. Which reminds me. Her parents weren’t both killed in a car accident, either, like she told you. Her mother died of cancer when Dominique was eighteen, but her father is still very much alive. Lives in a small town on the West Coast, works as a manager in one of the local mines. She’s a liar and a fake, Charles, in every way.”

The blood began to drain from Charles’s face. He vaguely saw horror in Rico’s eyes and realised he must look as shattered as he felt.

“Gee, Charles. Don’t go collapsing on me. Hey, man, I didn’t realise how much you loved her till this moment. I thought it was just infatuation. Man, you look terrible. What you need is a stiff drink. Come on, let’s go get you one.”

Charles let Rico propel him into a nearby bar, prop him up on one of the stools there and order him a brandy. He downed the drink in two quick gulps and let Rico order him another.

The brandy soon did its work and blood began slowly seeping back into his brain, his inner despair momentarily overlaid by a confused curiosity. He swivelled on the stool to face Rico once more.

“When did you find out all this?” he asked shakily. “Not before the wedding, surely.”

“No. I hired the PI whilst you were on your honeymoon. The full report only came in yesterday.”

“But why, Rico? Why would it even occur to you to do such a thing?”

“One of the flatmates Dominique confided in is a cousin of mine. Claudia. She’d gone to Melbourne a couple of years ago for a change of scene after her marriage broke up. Recently, she came back to live in Sydney and was staying with one of my sisters. I was at a family get-together a few days after your wedding and was showing everyone some of the casual snapshots I’d taken when Claudia recognised Dominique. She said Dominique had this fixation about becoming really rich. Apparently, she told Claudia she could never earn enough herself in a lifetime of working for a salary, so the only solution was to marry money. Everything she did had that single aim. To catch herself a rich husband.”

Charles expressed his despair with a colourful four-letter word.

“Absolutely. I agree with you. But at least now you can see why, after what Claudia told me, I thought it was my duty as your best man to find out everything I could.”

“Which you obviously couldn’t wait to pass on to me,” Charles said bitterly. “But for what purpose, I wonder. Do you think you’ve done me a favour, Rico, disenchanting me like this? You could have left me in blissful ignorance. That would have been kinder.”

“I was going to for a while, believe me. But not after what you said tonight about starting a family straight away. I just couldn’t stay silent and let you do that, Charles.”

“I don’t see why not,” Charles muttered bleakly.

“Fortune hunters fall into two categories,” Rico elaborated. “Firstly, there are the Jasmines of this world who marry you for the high life, and never have any intention of spoiling their figures having babies. Their plan is to have a ball for a while at your expense, till you start asking for a kid, like I stupidly did. Then they divorce you and take you for every penny they can in alimony. The second kind—into which your Dominique obviously falls—have a baby as soon as possible to cement their position, guaranteeing them of an even bigger settlement when they also eventually file for divorce. The child is a pawn, not the precious gift it should be. Just another little money-spinner.”

Charles wanted to weep at the death of all the joyful anticipation he’d been experiencing over having a baby with Dominique.

“That’s why I had to speak up, Charles,” Rico said with a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Not just for you, but for that baby. No child deserves to be brought into this world as a bargaining chip.”

Charles slowly nodded his agreement, although there was a part of him which still wished Rico had stayed silent. Now he’d probably never have a child.

“Get rid of her, Charles. Dump her. Divorce her. She’ll be lucky to get a cent after the family law court sees all the evidence I’ve amassed against her.”

Rico was right in his advice. But Charles knew he wouldn’t do that just yet. Or was the word couldn’t?

His hand went to his pocket to pat the box which lay there and his heart suddenly stopped breaking apart, cemented back to survival mode by an emotion far stronger than his earlier despair. Love turned to hate was an amazingly powerful motivator.

No, he wouldn’t be getting rid of his beautiful new wife just yet. She had to pay for what this necklace had cost him, what she had cost him. His male pride demanded it. His hate insisted upon it.

Charles seethed inside when he thought of what a fool she’d made of him. A silly, blind, arrogant fool. Right from the start, she’d played him like a fiddle. Fleeing last year’s Christmas party had obviously been a ploy, as had appearing reluctant to date him at first, but her spurning his advances after she finally agreed to date him had been her coup de grâce!

He cringed when he thought of how triumphant he’d felt when she’d said yes to his proposal of marriage. But the triumph had been all hers, not his!

How she must have chuckled behind his back when he’d decided not to sleep with her till their wedding night. Her trembling as she’d come to him that night had probably been suppressed laughter. And as for the response she’d showed to his lovemaking…

Well, he’d be having the last laugh. Let’s see how good her faking ability was during the next month.

Because he was going to give himself—and her—one month. One month of vengeance.

His mouth pulled back into the travesty of a smile just thinking about some of things he planned for them. She’d probably even pretend to enjoy herself, like the mercenary manipulator she was.

“You’re not going to divorce her, are you?” Rico said with a degree of stunned surprise in his voice.

Charles abandoned the rest of his second brandy—being drunk was not on tonight’s agenda—then turned to his friend.

“No,” he said, his voice menacingly calm. “Not just yet. But don’t worry. There won’t be any baby.” Dominique wasn’t the only one who could lie, and deceive.

Rico frowned at him. “I don’t know now whether to feel sorry for you, or Dominique.”

“I wouldn’t waste your sympathy on her, if I were you.”

“You won’t do anything stupid, will you, Charles?”

“Stupid?”

“Like strangling her when you’re making love?”

Charles laughed a cold laugh. “Do you honestly think I’d go to jail because of that little tramp? Rest assured my revenge, such as it is, won’t ever take that path, or be allowed to get out of hand.” As he slid off the bar stool he clamped a hand over his friend’s shoulder, partly to support his own leaden legs and partly in a reassuring gesture. “Don’t worry about me, Rico. I’ll survive. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? I’m—er—going to the races.”

Charles frowned. “But none of our horses are running, are they? They’re all out on spells till the spring.” Charles and Rico usually only went to the races when they had a runner.

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