Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

“You can’t marry
Stevenson.”

Alan ground out the words. “You don’t love him!”

“How do you know?” Ebony said, using her fingers to comb her tangled hair back from her face.

“Because you’re incapable of loving any man,” he stated harshly.

Her short bark of laughter was half disbelieving, half mocking. “Certainly not a man like you!”

His blue eyes blazed for a second before adopting an expression of cold contempt.

“Then why keep on going to bed with me?”

MIRANDA LEE is Australian, living near Sydney. Born and raised in the Bush, she was boarding-school educated and briefly pursued a classical music career before moving to Sydney and embracing the world of computers. Happily married, with three grown-up daughters, she began writing when family commitments kept her at home. She likes to create stories that are believable, modern, fast paced and sexy. Her interests include reading meaty sagas, doing word puzzles, gambling and going to the movies.

Miranda Lee is the author of Hearts of Fire.

Mistress Of Deception
Miranda Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘I PRESUME you’ll be going to the wool fashion awards tonight?’ Deirdre Carstairs asked her son over lunch.

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ was his cool reply.

‘Why “unfortunately”? Fashion is your business, after all.’ And your life, she added silently, and with some irritation. Alan had always been a workaholic, but lately he was worse than ever, sometimes working all night. One would have thought that establishing a chain of very popular off-the-peg menswear stores all over Australia, as well as personally running the manufacturing establishments to fill them, would have been enough. Now he was planning on branching out into designer clothes as well.

Deirdre suppressed a sigh. It was so difficult to tell Alan anything. He’d taken over as head of the family when he was only twenty, his father’s unexpected death from a heart attack having left the family’s clothes factory on the brink of receivership. Their home too had been found to be holding a second mortgage. Alan had had to work his fingers to the bone to pull them out of bankruptcy. But he’d succeeded, and succeeded very well. She was extremely proud of him.

The one unfortunate result of his success, however, was that he’d become rather bossy. He expected people just to go along with whatever he wanted. It must have come as a considerable shock, Deirdre realised, when the one woman who’d managed to capture his heart had upped and married another man a few years back.

Her head lifted, eyes narrowing with suspicion as she watched her son forking his fettuccine marinara into his mouth. ‘Is Adrianna going to be there?’ she asked casually.

His shrug seemed non-committal, but he was a master at hiding his feelings. ‘I doubt it. Her label hasn’t been entered into the competitions. She rarely comes to Sydney any more.’ He lifted his dark, glossy head, his very male but rather cruel mouth curving back into a wry smile. ‘Stop fishing, Mother. The reason I don’t want to attend tonight is because I’m tired.’

‘Then don’t go. Stay home here and watch it on television with your poor old mum.’

He laughed, and Deirdre wished he would laugh more often. Laughter lent some warmth to his coldly handsome face, and those hard blue eyes of his.

‘Poor old Mum, my foot. You’re not poor. I’ve made sure of that! And secondly, at fifty-five, you’re not old either. Why don’t you do me and yourself a favour and find some nice man to occupy your time? Then I won’t have to put up with your trying to organise my leisure time for me.’

‘Do you have any leisure time?’ she remarked archly.

‘Occasionally.’

‘Heaven knows when. Or what you do with it.’

Alan’s laugh was dry. ‘Don’t you worry about what I do with my time, Mother. I’m a big boy now.’

But Deirdre did worry about him. Since Adrianna’s rejection, Alan had not brought one woman home. She didn’t for one moment imagine her handsome son was celibate, but she shuddered to think he might be indulging in one-night stands rather than risk being hurt again. She did so want him to get married and have children, but she dared not broach the subject. He was very prickly about his private life.

‘Will Ebony be one of the models tonight, do you know?’ she asked instead.

‘I dare say,’ Alan returned in that same flat tone he always used when the subject of Ebony came up these days. Deirdre knew her son well enough to know that when he sounded his most calm he was, in fact, at his most annoyed.

It was a wicked shame, she thought, that their once close relationship had been ruined by money. Ebony was a sweet girl, but too proud in Deirdre’s opinion. Fancy taking offence when she found out that her parents’ estate had been negligible, and that Alan—as her appointed guardian—had generously, but quite rightly, paid for all her education and expenses. What had she expected him to do? She’d only been fifteen, after all.

Still, when the girl had discovered shortly after leaving boarding-school at eighteen that this was so, she’d apparently been most upset. She and Alan had had some kind of altercation in the library over the situation, resulting in Ebony running to her room, crying. Deirdre had been unable to comfort her, the girl saying over and over that she had to leave.

At the time Ebony had been doing a grooming and modelling course that Deirdre herself had given her as a Christmas present that year. When the lady running the modelling course had recommended Ebony to a modelling agency, saying she had the potential to reach the top in that profession, the stubborn child had immediately dropped her idea of going to teacher-training college and had pursued a career that would start paying immediately.

She’d been an instant hit, on both the catwalk and behind the photographers’ lenses, and it hadn’t been long before she was giving Alan a cheque every week in repayment. Then, as soon as she’d been earning enough money, she had moved out of the house and into a flat of her own.

Alan had been furious, and had refused to speak of Ebony for a long long time. It wasn’t till Deirdre had thrown her a twenty-first birthday party a little over a year ago that he had even deigned to be in the same room with her. Whenever she’d come to visit Deirdre on previous occasions, and Alan had been home, he would make some excuse to leave the house. This time, however, under threat from his mother, he had been civil to Ebony in front of the other guests, though far from pleased when he’d found out she was to stay the night. Forgiveness was not one of Alan’s strong points.

The tension at the breakfast-table the following morning had been so acute that Deirdre had vowed never to ask Ebony to stay over again. It just wasn’t worth it. But the ongoing feud was a thorn in her side. She loved the girl, thought of her as fondly as her own daughter, Vicki. Nothing would please her more than if her son and his ward made up.

‘Don’t you think it’s time you and Ebony buried the hatchet?’ she said with an unhappy sigh.

‘I hardly think that’s ever likely.’

‘Why not? Maybe if you were nicer to her when you saw her, which you must do occasionally. You’re in the same business.’

Alan’s laugh was harsh. ‘If I were nice to Ebony, she’d spit in my face.’

‘Alan! She would not. Ebony’s a lady.’

‘Is she, now? Funny, I’ve never thought of her as such. A black-hearted witch, perhaps. But never a lady.’

Deirdre was truly shocked. ‘Are we talking about the same girl here?’

‘Oh, yes, Mother, we most certainly are. Your sweet Ebony has just never chosen to show you that side of herself.’

‘I think you’re biased.’

‘Aye, that I am,’ he agreed drily.

‘What did you say to her that night in the library that upset her so much? I never could get the details of your argument out of her.’

Alan put down his serviette and rose. ‘For pity’s sake, Mother, that was nearly four years ago. How could I possibly remember? Probably told her she was an ungrateful little wretch, which she was. Now I must go. I have appointments lined up all afternoon with prospective designers dying to head my new Man-About-Town exclusive label.’

Walking round to peck her on the forehead, he strode from the patio into the living-room and towards the front door, an elegant figure in one of his own-brand business suits. Being six feet three and finely proportioned, Alan could have modelled his own products if he’d chosen to.

Deirdre watched him go with increasing unease. He was not happy, she decided, and, like all mothers, she wanted her son to be happy. She wanted both her children to be happy. Vicki seemed happy, living in a run-down house in Paddington with some artist whom she claimed to be mad about.

But he was the latest of a series of men she’d been ‘mad about’ during the past ten years. Antimarriage and anti-establishment, Vicki had moved out of home when she was nineteen ‘in search of her own identity’, whatever that meant. Still, it was Vicki’s life and she was supposed to be doing quite well, managing a record shop in Oxford Street, though she often dropped home to ask Alan for a ‘loan’, which he usually gave her along with a lecture.

Deirdre suspected, however, that Alan didn’t mind giving his sister money—and advice—every now and then. He liked being needed. And he liked helping people.

‘Mr Alan gone, has he?’

Deirdre sighed. ‘Yes, Bob.’

He tut-tutted. ‘That man works too hard. Have you finished too, Mrs Carstairs? Will I clear away?’

‘Yes, do. It was lovely, Bob. You cook Italian like an Italian.’

The little man beamed, and began clearing the table, stacking up the plates with a very steady hand for a man pushing sixty. Deirdre watched him bustle off back into the kitchen, thinking to herself that he was another example of Alan’s basic kindness.

Bob, and his twin brother, Bill, had up till two years ago lived on a chicken farm, with Bob tending to the household chores while Bill did the manual labour outside. Neither twin had ever married, both being very shy men. Their farm had been their life till the recession and high interest rates had sent them broke. Alan had spotted them being interviewed on a television programme on the day the bank was to repossess their property and evict them. Both men had broken down during the painful interview. It had torn Deirdre’s heart out, making her cry.

When Alan had abruptly left the family room, she’d thought maybe he was upset too. And he probably had been. But, being a man of action, he’d left the room to telephone the station and start making arrangements to meet the elderly twin brothers. The upshot was Bob and Bill were brought to Sydney and installed in the Carstairses’ home, Bob as cook and cleaner, Bill as gardener and handyman. Alan had even had the old servants’ quarters fitted out as a self-contained flat for them. Both men thought him a prince of the first order, and were devoted to his service. When Alan had casually mentioned one day that he liked Italian food, Bob had raced out and bought several Italian cookbooks with his own money.

Yes, Alan could do good deeds, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a difficult man. Deirdre hoped he’d be polite to Ebony at the show tonight. Fancy his calling her a black-hearted witch! Why, Ebony was no such thing! She had always been such a sweet girl, pleasant and polite to her elders. She was a little aloof at times, but that was to be expected, given her background. Deirdre could not understand why Alan was so hard on her…

Ebony came out on to the catwalk, tall and sophisticated in a black wool dress that was basically strapless but had a black lace overlay that went right up to the neck and down her arms in tight sleeves. If the intention of the lace was modesty, then it failed miserably.

Every male in the room snapped to attention as she moved with a lithe, sensuous grace down that raised pathway, her waist-length straight black hair draped over one shoulder and her deeply set black eyes projecting a dark, mysterious allure from underneath black, winged brows. Her wide, full mouth was painted a deep scarlet in vivid contrast to her white, white skin.

Alan shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked away. He needed no reminders of what she looked like, or how easily she could bewitch.

‘Geez, Alan,’ the man seated next to him whispered. ‘And to think you had that living under your roof all those years. How did you stand it, man?’

‘Familiarity breeds contempt, my friend,’ he returned smoothly. ‘Besides, she doesn’t look the same without her make-up on.’

‘I’d like an opportunity to wake up in bed with her one morning and judge that for myself,’ came the dry rejoinder. ‘Still, from what I’ve heard, I’m not her type.’

Alan straightened in his chair. ‘Oh? And what’s her type?’

‘Photographers, I gather.’

‘Meaning?’

‘God, Alan, don’t you know anything about your own ward’s life. Our supermodel is reported to have had a fling with all of her photographers so far. She and Gary Stevenson were a really hot item a couple of years ago before he took off for Paris. But he’s back in Sydney now and has clearly taken up where he left off. I saw them myself only today, having lunch down at a café in Darling Harbour.’

‘Is that so?’

‘You don’t sound concerned. Stevenson’s a good deal older than her, you know.’

Alan tried not to bristle, but did, anyway. ‘He’s only in his thirties.’

‘Closer to forty. And how old’s your Ebony?’

‘Twenty-two. And she’s not my Ebony,’ he bit out. ‘She’s a free agent. Now, can we watch the show? We’ve paid two hundred dollars a seat for this ringside table. Let’s get our money’s worth.’

Alan’s colleague settled back in a disgruntled silence, leaving Alan forced to pretend to watch the rest of the parade. Ebony had been up and down a couple of times by now, and was sashaying back towards the group of models who were waiting their turn in front of the huge red velvet curtain. The highly sensual sway of her curvaceous buttocks and hips sent a cold fury into his veins.

Does she know what she’s doing? he wondered savagely. Does she know I’m here?

Of course she does, came the bitter answer. She’s a witch, a black-hearted witch!

God damn you to hell, Ebony Theroux.

He parked in the street opposite the three-storey square building that housed her flat, watching and waiting for her to come home. What he would do if she showed up with Stevenson, or any of her other numerous admirers, God only knew. Would he be able to meekly drive on? Or would he find some way to spoil her night, as she had already spoiled his?

He’d vowed after the last argument they’d had not to have anything further to do with her, never to come here to see her again. But he’d vowed that the time before as well.

His teeth clenched down hard in his jaw, his stomach muscles tightening. Would he never rid himself of this gut-wrenching desire? It had been four years now. Four painful, soul-destroying years. He really could not allow it to go on. He would have to do something about it.

But he’d said that before, as well.

A light snapped on in her flat, sending a wave of near-nausea churning through his innards. He hadn’t seen her enter the building, anger at this crazy but uncontrollable desire having distracted him for a moment. Now, she’d slipped in without his knowing if she was alone or not.

He stared up at the square of light, his eyes darting left as he waited anxiously for her bedroom light to be switched on as well. That was a large window with gauzy curtains. If she had someone with her, he would soon know.

The light remained off.

After several tortuous minutes, he couldn’t stand the waiting any longer. With an agitated, jerky movement, he extracted the keys from the ignition, not bothering to put the steering lock on, only just remembering to lock the door before swinging it shut. It was only when the bitter winter air cut through him that he remembered his overcoat draped over the passenger seat.

‘Damn it!’ he swore, and, ramming his keys and hands into the trouser pockets of his black dinner suit, strode angrily across the dimly lit street and up to the locked security door. For a moment he hesitated, self-disgust urging him to turn right round and go home. But other forces were at work, forces far stronger than pride. He jabbed the buzzer on flat eight with his finger.

His heart began to thud, disgusting him further. Why did he let her do this to him? Why?

‘Yes?’ came the low, husky query that sent a shiver down his hunched spine.

‘It’s Alan,’ he said, despising himself.

‘Alan…’ she repeated as though trying to recall whom she might know called Alan.

He bit his tongue to stop himself from snapping at her. Male ego demanded he play her at her own game, keeping his cool, not allowing her any more triumph than was strictly necessary.

‘What do you want, Alan?’

To strangle you, he thought viciously. God, but she liked turning the screw.

‘For pity’s sake, Ebony, it’s bitter out here. Just let me in. Or aren’t you alone?’ he finished cuttingly.

There was a moment’s tense silence from the intercom before a buzzing sound indicated she had opened the door. Alan hated himself for the rush of relief, not to mention the rush of something else that immediately stampeded through his body. But already he was on that treadmill of excitement that she could generate without any conscious effort. He couldn’t look at her these days without wanting her so badly that it was a painful ache in his loins.

She met him at the door, still wearing that damned black dress. It was one of her contract conditions, that whenever she did a fashion parade she kept the clothes she modelled. The designers didn’t mind. The fabulous Ebony wearing their clothes in public was great advertising, and cheaper than most.

‘That dress looks even better up close,’ he said in a desire-thickened voice.

She eyed him coolly over the rim of a glass of white wine, sipping while those black eyes stripped his soul naked. ‘So you were there tonight,’ she remarked casually, and, turning, began walking across the tiled foyer and into the living-room. Alan was left to come in alone and close the door behind him, following her as she wandered, glass in hand, into her strikingly furnished flat.

Alan glanced around the lounge-room and marvelled at the effect she had achieved with just a few pieces of furniture. Had she deliberately chosen white as a foil for her colouring, or in cold mockery of what white usually represented? He wouldn’t put it past her. He wouldn’t put anything past her.

She kicked off her shoes and curled herself into one of the squashy white leather sofas that flanked the mock-fireplace. A gas fire was softly burning, highlighting the blue-black sheen on that gorgeous hair as well as sending a warm honey glow to her complexion. She must have washed off some of that stark white make-up, he thought as his hot gaze travelled down her body and up again. Her mouth was still red, though. Red and softly pouting.

Alan swallowed.

Once settled, she threw an indifferent glance at him over her shoulder. ‘Pour yourself some wine,’ she suggested, and waved a scarlet-nailed hand towards the kitchen. ‘The bottle’s in the fridge.’

‘No, thanks,’ he said stiffly, hating her for the way she always made him feel so darned awkward.

She said not a word while she drank the rest of her wine, placing the empty glass down on the marble coffee-table with a small, shuddering sigh. ‘Must you stand there like that with your hands in your pockets?’ she said. ‘You make me uncomfortable.’

His harsh laughter drew her eyes. ‘Do I indeed? That’s only fair, then.’

‘Fair?’ Those exquisitely shaped eyebrows lifted. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing,’ he muttered, and began walking slowly towards her. For a second he could have sworn he saw fear on her face. But just as swiftly, her expression changed to one of cool composure.

‘I have my final cheque ready to give you. I’ll get it.’ She was up and past him before he could do more than breathe her perfume. Still, as the exotic scent teased his nostrils, he felt his loins prickle in instant response. It angered him.

‘I did not come here for a cheque, Ebony. You know damned well I never wanted you to pay me back in the first place.’

Her smile was wry as she produced the cheque from a drawer. ‘Ah, yes, Alan, but what you want does not always have priority in my life.’

‘Meaning?’

Her eyes were like black coals, and just as hard. ‘Meaning I want you to take this cheque and get the hell out of my life. I don’t ever want to see you again. I’m going to be married.’

‘Married!’ Something exploded in Alan’s head. She couldn’t be getting married. He wouldn’t let her. She was his!

‘That’s right,’ she went on brusquely. ‘To Gary Stevenson. He asked me today. He wants me to go back to Paris with him, and I’m going to.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Then I suggest you do, Alan. It’s over between us. Over!’

‘Is it, by God? I don’t think so, Ebony. Not at all.’ Snatching the cheque out of her hands, he ripped it into shreds before pulling her into his arms and kissing her till both of them were gasping for breath.

When she spun out of his grasp he caught her and yanked her back against him, one hand pressing her stomach so that her buttocks were hard against his arousal, the other wrapped around her heaving breasts. ‘I won’t let you go,’ he rasped, his panting mouth against her ear. ‘You’re mine, Ebony. Mine!’

In a wild desperation, he started kissing her neck and stroking her braless breasts through the dress, the blood roaring through his veins as he felt the nipples harden beneath his hands. When he finally heard her groan, elation swept through him, steeling his sense of purpose, and his determination to win her total surrender one more time. Tomorrow did not figure largely in his mind. Nor the future. Not even her threatened marriage.

All he knew was that he had to have her naked beneath him, have her tremble as only she could tremble, have her take him to those places no other woman had ever taken him before.

‘Alan, no,’ she groaned again.

But it sounded like a yes to his impassioned ears. He had no mercy for her protests or her tears. He kept up the kissing and the touching till she gave one last shudder and whirled in his arms. Only then could he perhaps have seen the despair in her eyes, if he’d been capable of seeing anything beyond his own excruciating need. As it was, all he saw was that ripe red mouth, soft and swollen and seductive. He wanted to lose himself in that mouth, to have those pouting lips kiss him all over, to have them tease and torment his flesh till he could stand it no longer.

So that when she swept her arms up around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers in a kiss far more brutal than any she’d ever sought before, his only thoughts were of what awaited him behind her bedroom door.

‘I hate you,’ she choked out when he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into that bedroom.

His blue eyes glittered in the semi-darkness. ‘I love the way you hate, Ebony. Keep it up.’ And with that, he dropped her on the bed and started stripping off her clothes.

CHAPTER TWO

EBONY woke the next morning knowing that she finally hated Alan Carstairs.

It had been a long time coming.

At fifteen, she had hero-worshipped him. At sixteen, she’d developed a full-blown schoolgirl crush. By seventeen, she was constantly fantasising about him, till finally, at eighteen, she’d made an utter fool of herself over the man.

She cringed at the still sharp memory of her throwing herself at him in the library that night four years ago, gushing with adolescent stupidity that he must love her if he’d paid for her out of his own pocket all these years. He hadn’t known what had hit him when she’d upped and kissed him. How ironic that it had probably been his momentary but stunning response to that foolish kiss that had been responsible for what had happened three years later.

Oh, he’d stopped the kiss soon enough, well before he could have been accused of tampering with her morals. But the memory of his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth, of his arms tightening like steel bands around her even for a split-second, had been enough to keep fuelling her fantasy that underneath his bluster he loved her and wanted her.

And she’d naively told him so.

Of course, he’d torn strips off her at the time, telling her she was acting like a silly little fool, that his paying for her had been his way of showing gratitude to her father who’d once lent him money when no one else would, that he considered her guardianship a sacred trust that could not and would not be sullied by him, that his briefly kissing her back had been meant as a savage lesson on what could happen if a hormone-filled teenager like herself fell into the wrong hands.

She’d finally believed him that night, shame and embarrassment making her flee his presence. How she had cried and cried! Nothing Mrs Carstairs said—and the dear woman had tried everything— could make her stop. All Ebony had been able to think of was that she couldn’t stay in that house, seeing Alan every day, reliving her moment of humiliation, living off his charity. She had seized on this last reason as an excuse to flee him, and his house, as soon as she could.

But she hadn’t been able to forget him, no matter what she’d done. Hard work and a busy and varied social life had filled her hours, but not her heart.

Gary Stevenson had come into her life when she’d been a very vulnerable twenty. Still a virgin, despite her physical beauty attracting many admirers, Gary had become first her photographer, then her friend, and finally her lover.

Why had she given in to him and not the others?

He’d been good to her. Sweet. Kind, And one night he had caught her at a very weak moment. Afterwards, there had seemed to be no going back. And in truth, she’d found much comfort in the human closeness of their affair, in having Gary hold her and tell her that he adored the ground she walked on. Oh, he hadn’t pretended to really love her, which had been a relief in a way. His being in love with her might have made her feel guilty. But he’d liked her and desired her and, in the end, had even asked her to marry him. They would go to Paris together, he’d said, and become a raging success.

She had had to refuse, of course, and, though disappointed, Gary had not been heart-broken, taking himself off to Paris anyway while she had gone on with her modelling here in Sydney. For a while, she’d been very depressed and lonely, thinking she’d done the wrong thing. But then the unexpected had happened. Alan had become her lover, and she’d quickly found that what she’d experienced in bed with Gary had not prepared her for the intoxicating excitement and wickedly irresistible rapture of being in Alan’s arms.

Which is why I’m here now, she groaned silently, and threw a pained look across at Alan’s sleeping form.

God, why do I let him do this to me—take my self-respect and pride and grind it into the dust, make me say and do things when I know he doesn’t love me? He told me the morning after the first night I slept with him. He loves Adrianna. What he feels for me is nothing but lust, an uncontrollably mad lust.

Ebony could still recall the horror she’d felt when he’d told her that, and then added that he wanted to keep their relationship a secret from the world, and especially his mother. Their passion for each other would pass, he’d claimed. No need to hurt anybody with the knowledge of their liaison when it was only a fleeting thing.

Yet all the while he’d been saying this, she had been hurting. More than hurting—breaking into little pieces. She’d argued with him on this last score, wanting him at least to recognise in public that she was his woman. But no…People would not understand, he’d said. They’d talk.

So he’d kept her as a hole-and-corner mistress, to be visited in the dead of night, to be used for his pleasure in private while the world at large saw them as almost enemies.

And she had gone along with it, despising herself while counting the days till he came to her again, then vainly trying to salvage some pride by never showing any affection or special consideration towards him, by reducing his visits to nothing more than raw sexual encounters, with no love or warmth involved. There was a perverse pleasure in taunting him with her cold indifference to whether he came or not, in letting him think that there were plenty of other fish in the sea to fill her empty bed if he wasn’t in it, in feeding his crazed jealousies that she might actually do some of the things she did with him with other lovers.

As if she would. Not even Gary had been able to coax such intimacies from her, or such abandonment. Only Alan…

Tears filled Ebony’s eyes, but she dashed them away with the backs of her hands. The time for tears was long gone. Now it was time for action.

Last night had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that she had no strength against Alan’s sexual power over her. No matter how angry with him she was, he only had to touch her and she was lost.

And it would always be that way, she agonised. Love him or hate him, she was his for the taking whenever he wanted her. It was this mortifying realisation that propelled her not to change her mind from what she had already decided she must do— go to Paris with Gary.

Shivering a little, she slipped out of the warmth of the bed and dragged on her white bathrobe over her naked and vaguely aching body. She flushed guiltily to think it had been herself—and not Alan— who had been the insatiable one last night. Was it because she had known this would be the last time?

Probably. Even now, the temptation to return to that bed, to rouse him from sleep with her hands and lips, to…

A bitter taste filled her mouth. Maybe it was just that she needed to clean her teeth, or maybe it was the self-hate rising from within. Whatever, she suddenly felt unclean, wicked, rotten to the core. She had to get away from him, from Sydney, from Australia. That was the only answer.

Slipping quietly out into the lounge-room, she picked up her telephone and dialled the number she’d written on the notebook resting beside it.

‘The Ramada,’ the hotel receptionist answered.

‘Could you put me through to Gary Stevenson’s room, please?’

‘Certainly, madam.’

Ebony’s eyes flicked anxiously over at the bedroom door while waiting for Gary to answer. She hoped Alan wouldn’t wake up. Instinct warned her she must keep her plans a secret. Alan must never find out, not till she was safely on that plane.

A bleary-voiced Gary finally came on the line. ‘Hello.’

‘It’s Ebony,’ she said quickly, huskily. ‘I need to see you. This morning. Will you be in around nine?’

‘Sure thing, love. What’s the urgency? You’ve already turned me down. Again.’

‘I’ve had second thoughts. Sort of.’

‘Only “sort of”?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘Not on the phone.’

‘Why not?’

She hesitated, then said softly, ‘I’m not alone.’

Gary’s chuckle was dark. ‘So that’s the way it is, eh? What’s the problem? Won’t he take the hint he’s no longer wanted?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I see…’ His sigh was weary. ‘Well, get rid of him temporarily, love, and get over here pronto. If you feel as bad as you sound, then methinks you need a shoulder to cry on.’

A lump filled her throat. ‘You’re so good to me, Gary.’

‘Yeah, yeah, all my exes say that. I’m a good bloke. But tell me one thing. How come in the movies—and I suspect in life—it’s always the bad guy who ends up with the girl? Oh, never mind. I’ll be here when you get here, love. See you.’ And he hung up.

Ebony lowered the receiver silently back into its cradle, but, when she turned, there was Alan, standing in the open doorway, thunder on his face.

‘You can’t marry Stevenson,’ he ground out. ‘You don’t love him.’

She glared at him, standing there in the nude, as arrogant as you please. And as lethally attractive. Not an ounce of fat graced his tall, lean body, a light covering of dark hair giving him a primitive appeal. Put a spear in his hand and he would make a good savage, she thought bitterly.

‘How do you know?’ she said, using her fingers to comb her tangled hair back from her face till it fell into a sleek black curtain down her back.

‘Because you’re incapable of loving any man,’ he stated harshly.

Her short bark of laughter was half disbelief, half mocking. ‘Certainly not a man like you!’

His blue eyes blazed for a second before adopting an expression of cold contempt. ‘Then why keep going to bed with me?’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’m a masochist.’

‘A hedonist, perhaps, not a masochist. You enjoy pleasure, Ebony, not pain. And you can’t deny I give you pleasure.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of denying it.’

When she moved to brush past him on the way to the bathroom, his hand shot out to enclose her upper arm in a vice-like grip. ‘You can’t go from me to Stevenson,’ he rasped.

She locked eyes with him, aware of nothing but the emotional quaver in his voice. Could that be love talking? she puzzled briefly before dismissing such a stupid notion. No. Not love. Possessiveness. Jealousy. Male ego. But not love. Alan’s heart already belonged elsewhere. If he had a heart, that was. She was beginning to doubt it.

‘I have to talk to him,’ she admitted, then added, ‘I have to tell him personally that I’m not going to marry him.’

There was no way she could have mistaken the relief in Alan’s eyes. But that didn’t prove anything, except he wasn’t ready yet to give up his private supply of free sex. Free in every way. Emotionally, financially and physically. What man would want to give up such a cushy arrangement?

When he went to draw her back into his arms, she yanked out of his grasp and took a step backwards. ‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘I have to shower and dress. Then I’m leaving.’

‘What happened to breakfast?’

‘I’m not having any. If you want some, get it yourself.’

His smile was sardonic. ‘So kind of you.’

‘Oh, but I’m not kind, Alan. There again, you don’t want me for my kindness, do you?’

‘Hardly.’

‘Then don’t complain. You’ve got your way. I’m not marrying Gary. What more do you want from me?’

‘Not a thing,’ he bit out.

‘Then if you’ll excuse me?’

He watched her sweep into the bathroom, black anger in his heart. What more did he want of her? He wanted her to grovel at his feet, to beg him to visit her more often, to suffer from the same type of blind, obsessive need that was even now sending the blood pounding through his veins, making his flesh expand into a tight, painful instrument of torture.

Only an instinct that seducing Ebony this morning might rebound on him in some way made him put that solution to his frustration aside. All he could do was wait for her to leave and then he would plunge his pained body beneath the coldest of showers till he could comfortably face the day ahead.

Meanwhile he would dive back under the bedcovers and pass the time contemplating the many and varied ways he could exact vengeance on this creature who had been tying him in knots for years.

Yes, years!

Four, to be exact. He couldn’t count the first three. She’d spent most of them in boarding-school. And while at fifteen she’d been a budding beauty, her shy, almost introverted nature at that time had protected her from male admiration, his own included.

Not that he would have dreamt of seeing Pierre’s daughter in that light, especially at such a tender age. No, he was not guilty of that, thank God. Still, he remembered having enjoyed her company when he’d taken her on the occasional outing back then, finding her opinions surprisingly mature and her gestures of gratitude towards him quite touching. He actually still kept a pair of gold cuff-links she’d given him for his twenty-eighth birthday, after saving the money herself from delivering pamphlets during the school holidays.

Where had that sweet child gone to? he wondered. When had she turned from virgin to vamp?

A type of guilt twisted his heart. Surely it couldn’t have been his fault, could it? That night, in the library…She’d caught him unawares, kissing him like that. For a few seconds he’d completely lost control. Hell, he could still recall how it had felt as her soft, breathless mouth had flowered eagerly open to accept the thrust of his tongue, as well as the way her heart had beat madly against his.

For a split-second, he’d wanted to forget his conscience and just drown in her delicious young body. He’d been tempted to take it for his pleasure and his pleasure alone, knowing he could seduce her virginal flesh quite easily, knowing he could mould and form her, body and soul, to his wants and needs.

She wouldn’t have stopped him. He knew it. So in the end he had had to stop himself. He’d thought himself so right, so noble, so…good. He’d been made her guardian, for God’s sake, not her corrupter. Not even her teenage declaration of undying love had swayed his determination to put aside such a wicked temptation. Not then, nor during the subsequent years as she’d gone from child to woman, from a shy and somewhat awkward teenager to a sophisticated and successful model, had he wavered in his resolve.

The crunch had come, predictably enough, at her twenty-first birthday party. He should have known seeing her on that occasion would be his undoing. It had been three years before, on her eighteenth birthday, that his lust had first raised its ugly head. Till then, he’d only ever seen Ebony in either her school uniform or shapeless jeans and tops. Teenage girls never seemed to wear anything else.

But that fateful night, his mother had bought her a white lace dress that might have been virginal on the peg. On eighteen-year-old Ebony, complete with make-up and high heels, it looked so seductive that it was criminal. When Alan had spotted her coming down the stairs, his heart had stopped beating. Not so the rest of his body. It had leapt with a desire so fierce and so instant that he’d been thunderstruck.

He’d stared at Ebony and she had stared right back, those deep black eyes of hers showing not a hint of understanding of what was happening to him. Had she understood? Was that why she’d been so shocked that evening in the library a few months later when he’d knocked her back, scorned her offer of love?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Ebony’s thoughts and motives were a mystery to him. She was a mystery. Sometimes he wondered if those three years of sacrifice had all been a wicked waste. Maybe at eighteen she’d already started on her sexual journey; maybe she hadn’t been a virgin at all.

She certainly hadn’t been a virgin three years later. And how!

There was no peace for his flesh as he recalled what Ebony had done to him the night of her twenty-first birthday. No peace at all.

She’d been a bit tipsy, of course, and the guests had left. But that was no excuse for stripping off all her clothes and blatantly going swimming in the pool in the nude in full view of him. She’d claimed afterwards she hadn’t known he was there, but he didn’t believe her. She’d been watching out for him all night, baiting him, tempting him.

Besides, there’d been no resistance whatsoever when she’d climbed out of the water and he’d come forward to draw her dripping nakedness against him, nor when he’d claimed her supposedly startled mouth in a hungry kiss. She’d been more than willing to let him touch her all over, to take her right there by the pool, to carry her back to his room where he’d worked his will upon her body all night.

Naturally, he had heard the rumours about her, but rumours about models were rife and not always true. For some inexplicable reason, he’d been reluctant to believe she could be as promiscuous as people said she was. He had found out that night that she was all that and more. Never had he known a woman so wild and wanton and willing. She was sex mad, he decided. Totally sex mad. Just like her father.

His first thought the next morning had been that he had to keep what had happened from his mother, as he’d kept from her the rumours about Ebony’s private life. His mother thought Ebony a sweet, old-fashioned girl and he didn’t want to destroy that illusion, or the close relationship the two women enjoyed.

Maybe he had explained it badly to the naked girl in his arms. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, though he suspected he had. But what was to be gained by dressing up reality with false words of love? It wasn’t as though she were an innocent, whose sensitive feelings had to be treated with kid gloves.

They lusted after each other. That was the plain and unvarnished truth. In a way, it was fortuitous that Ebony was of such a highly sexed nature, since not many women would have endured the kind of unrestrained lovemaking he’d insisted upon in an effort to rid himself of his own insatiable need. With a bit of luck, he might not need any repeat performance.

Or so he had deluded himself at the time.

Alan made a scoffing sound just as Ebony came out of the bathroom, made-up but not dressed. She was breathtakingly nude, the exquisiteness of her beauty stabbing at his heart. And elsewhere.

God, but Mother Nature had been cruel, sending a creature like her to torment him. Or was it the devil himself who had fashioned that incredible face and body? Yes, that sounded right. Who but Satan would be wicked enough to combine all those assets, to give one woman everything that a man could possibly want? Long, silken black hair that screamed out to be stroked; exotic, thickly lashed ebony eyes that flashed fire and promised pleasure at the same time; a full-lipped smouldering mouth which would tempt a saint. And that was only her face.

Her body was another dimension, another hell to be endured. High, pointy breasts with large pink areolae and long, sensitive nipples, a delightfully tiny waist, deliciously curvaceous hips and long, long legs that wound their shapely way down to dainty ankles and feet.

Then there was her skin…

What man wouldn’t want to run his hands over her skin, the pale magnolia-like skin whose texture was like cool velvet, till it was heated by desire. Then it would glow. It was glowing now. But not with passion. With the heat of the shower. Her eyes were cold as they raked over him.

‘You still here?’ she said scathingly.

He gnashed his teeth as she went about dressing in front of him, first drawing on a silk black teddy, then sliding into a black woollen jumpsuit.

Black was Ebony’s trademark. She wore nothing else, modelled nothing else. So was her lack of smiling, her full lips looking far better fashioned into a sullen, sulky or seductive pout.

Alan would have thought that such restrictions would have been disastrous to her career, but, surprisingly, it had all worked in her favour, creating an individual and highly sensual image that kept her and her agency busy.

‘I have to go, Alan,’ she said briskly, popping on black pumps before picking up a black holdall and heading for the bedroom door. Only then did she stop for an indifferent look at him over her shoulder. ‘Lock up when you leave, will you? And wash up any mess you make.’

One day, Alan thought as he lay there, fuming. One day he was going to wipe that cool composure from that beautiful face of hers. One day he was going to make her cry. And what would he do? Walk away. That was what he’d do.

Oh, sure, sure, came a dark, cynical voice.

Flinging back the sheet, Alan leapt from the bed and marched into the bathroom where he snapped on the cold water jets. Bracing himself, he stepped under the freezing cold spray, telling himself it was penance for his sins.

He must have had a lot of sins on his soul, for he had to stay in the shower for a long, long time.

CHAPTER THREE

EBONY slumped into the back seat of the taxi, strain telling on her face. The façade she always put on in a vain attempt to punish Alan was beginning to take its toll. How long before she actually became that person for real? Brittle and cynical and cruel.

It was the cruel part that bothered her the most.

There was no doubt about it. She had to get out from under the crippling effects of this appalling affair before she self-destructed.

Sighing, Ebony closed her eyes, her head tipping back against the seat. It wasn’t far from her flat in Randwick to the Ramada Hotel, but at eight-thirty in the morning she was in for at least half an hour’s run into the city. Might as well try to rest.

Rest was not on the agenda for her troubled soul that morning, however. She was too full of regrets and bitter recriminations, the main one being why she had allowed Alan to become her lover in the first place. There’d been no seduction, no courtship, no nothing. All he’d done was look at her a few times on the night of her twenty-first birthday party.

But that was all it had taken to start her heart beating madly for him, not to mention make her grasp at straws where his feelings were concerned, especially when once or twice she had surprised him staring at her with desire in his eyes. Had he too not forgotten that kiss in the library three years before? she’d begun wondering. Could he have been lying that night, saying he didn’t really want her when all along he had?

It would be the sort of gallant thing Alan might do, she’d reasoned, considering his over-active sense of responsibility towards those under his care. He was very protective of all the females in his family, including his mother and that wayward sister of his. Maybe he’d believed that, at eighteen, Ebony was too young for him, far too young to embark on the kind of relationship he might want and need; certainly far too young for marriage.

That possibility had tormented her for the rest of the party, sparking a resolve to confront Alan later that night. She’d long given up any hope of getting the man out of her system, so, if there was a chance that some twisted scruple was keeping them apart, then she’d aimed to try to unravel it. Who knew? Maybe her turning twenty-one had already heralded a change in his attitude towards her. Maybe he was now beginning to think of her as a grown woman, an adult, not the child who’d come into his home as a young and innocent fifteen-year-old.

This train of thought had excited her. Why hadn’t she reasoned this all out before? Of course that was it! His sexual response three years ago had made him feel guilty. But there was no longer any need for guilt. Couldn’t he see that? She couldn’t wait to talk to him alone, to tell him that time had not changed what she felt for him, but that time had changed the status quo between them. He was no longer her guardian in any way. He was simply a man, as she was a woman.

But when she had turned round from seeing the last guest leave shortly after one-thirty, it had been to find Alan saying an abrupt goodnight and striding off to bed. Frustrated at having her wishes thwarted, Ebony had wandered around the house for ages, helping clean up, afterwards sitting alone in the kitchen, finishing off one of the half-empty bottles of champagne, thinking it might help her sleep.

No such luck. It had fizzed through her veins, sparking further restlessness. Having swallowed the last drop of wine, she had walked out on to the back patio and down the steps to the next terrace where she had stood and stared, first out across the darkened harbour waters, then down at the heated pool.

A swim will tire me out, she’d decided, make me sleep…

Positive she was alone, Ebony had slipped the tiny straps of her black crêpe party dress off her shoulders, shimmying till it had slid down over her hips and pooled on to the pebble-effect concrete. Stepping out of the circle, she had kicked off her shoes then peeled off her panties and tights.

The night air might have felt cool on her naked flesh, if her blood hadn’t been so heated by the wine. She had balanced for a few moments on the edge of the pool before flicking her long sweep of hair back over her shoulders and diving into the water.

If she had known for a second that Alan had been sitting in the shadows of the pool-house, she would never have dreamt of being so provocative as to go skinny-dipping in front of him. She certainly wouldn’t have floated up and down the pool on her back, idly splashing water over her breasts and stomach.

She’d really believed herself alone when she had climbed out of the water, and stood there, wringing her hair dry. Her shock when he had materialised out of the darkness had been very real. But he hadn’t allowed her any opportunity to speak, or explain. He had simply swept her hard against him, uncaring if his clothes were ruined, uncaring of anything but his ruthless intention to reduce her to a trembling mass of unconditional surrender.

It hadn’t been difficult. She’d been half aroused already from the way he’d looked at her earlier in the night. That, combined with her long-suppressed love just dying for expression, had made her a ready victim for his lust.

The trouble was she hadn’t interpreted his actions as lust at the time. She’d mistakenly believed that he had finally realised his own love for her, had at last given in to an extremely powerful and very natural need to make love to her.

Ebony groaned silently at the memory of her very rapid capitulation.

How could she have been so naïve not to have seen there was nothing loving in the way he had kissed her and touched her? His hands had been quite rough on her flesh, demanding no quarter. But by the time he’d pulled her over down on top of him on one of the deck-chairs, she’d been beside herself with passion and emotion. Alan loved her and desired her and needed her. There had been no question of not doing what he had clearly so desperately wanted.

Even now she could still recall the animal cry of satisfaction he had emitted when his body had finally fused with hers. Never mind that he hadn’t waited to undress properly, or that someone could have come down from the house and caught them in the act. She had been making love to the man she loved and who loved her.

It was not till the morning after that she was forced to review her way of looking at their first coupling, then all their subsequent couplings during that long and tempestuous night. Not till Alan had made his appalling suggestion in his bed at dawn had Ebony seen that what she’d thought of as love on his part had been only lust, and that his ‘making love’ to her had been no more than ‘having sex’.

She had hoped to become Alan’s wife. Instead he’d offered her the role of his secret mistress. She hadn’t been at all happy about it, but he’d secured her continued co-operation by turning up at her flat when least expected, then seducing her with a finesse that was as intoxicating as it was merciless.

For fourteen months, she’d endured his spasmodic visits, dying a little each time he came and left, hating herself for her weakness, yet unable to stop. More than once, she’d vowed to cut him dead, to send him away, unsatisfied. Whether he had sensed this or not, she couldn’t be sure. But whenever she’d reached that point, he wouldn’t come near her for weeks. Then he’d turn up out of the blue and, without saying a word, take her into his arms and start kissing her before she could utter a word of protest.

Those were the worst times—and the best—their lovemaking on the edge of violence, but so passionate and intense that she would despair afterwards of ever being able to give him up.

Could she now? Would she have the courage to take that step and walk away? No, fly away.

‘Lady! We’re here,’ the taxi driver growled.

Ebony snapped to attention. Already the concierge at the Ramada was opening the car door for her. Checking the fare on the meter, she handed the driver a twenty-dollar note, told him to keep the change, then alighted with her usual style. Old habits died hard, and she was a model first, cool and composed and sophisticated. The shattered woman inside would remain hidden from everyone, even Gary. She was not about to tell him all the grim details of her relationship with Alan, only enough to make her plan feasible.

‘Bob says you didn’t come home last night.’

Alan took a sip of the black coffee his secretary had just brought in. ‘Really, Mother,’ he sighed into the phone, ‘I’m not a child who has to answer for his actions. So I stayed out all night? So what? It’s not the first time.’

‘I realise that. That’s what’s bothering me. You’re working too hard, Alan. Only yesterday you said how tired you were. Yet I’ll guarantee you went from those awards to the office again. Or was it the factory this time?’

‘Neither.’

‘Neither? Then where, in heaven’s name, did you get to?’

‘Need I spell it out for you? I spent the night with a woman.’ Something inside Alan twisted as he said that last word, yet he could not deny that Ebony would be a woman in everyone else’s eyes. Though maybe not his mother’s. God, but she’d be appalled if she knew whom he’d spent the night with.

‘Oh,’ was all she said, ever the tactful parent.

‘No more questions?’ Alan mocked.

‘Would you tell me if I asked?’

‘No.’

‘So I won’t. But I feel sorry for whoever she is.’

Alan bristled. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means I hope she isn’t in love with you, because you and I both know you’re not in love with her. Or are you?’

Alan was startled, then annoyed. Ebony, in love with him? That was a laugh. As for himself…to even think about what he felt for her in terms of love was preposterous. Love was what his mother and father had shared, what Adrianna felt for Bryce McLean. Maybe even what Vicki felt for that excuse for a man she was living with. Love was not this black torture that wrung his soul every time he thought of Ebony, especially when he thought of what she might be getting up to when he wasn’t around.

Had she lied to him about Stevenson this morning? he began worrying. Was she, at this very moment, in bed with her ex-lover? If she was, and he found out, he wasn’t sure what he’d do, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.

‘I hate to disillusion you, Mother,’ he bit out. ‘But these days, women are as capable of staying the night with a man without love as vice versa.’

‘My, my, you are out of sorts this morning. Maybe you’re not as capable of staying the night with a woman without love as you think. But as you say, that’s your private business. You don’t have to answer to me. The reason I rang is because I’m worried about Ebony.’

Everything inside Alan tightened. ‘Ebony?’

‘Truly, Alan, you are the limit! Are you trying to pretend now you don’t know who Ebony is?’

‘I wish I didn’t,’ he muttered under his breath.

Deirdre Carstairs sighed. ‘You saw her last night, didn’t you?’

A few ghastly seconds passed before Alan realised his mother was talking about the fashion show, not later. ‘Not to talk to,’ he hedged.

‘Did you think she looked all right? She seemed very pale and thin on television.’

‘Ebony has always been pale and thin.’

‘Well, she looked extra pale and thin to me. You don’t think she’s getting that dieting disease, do you?’

‘Anorexia? No, I’m sure she isn’t. Black always makes women look slimmer, Mother, as you very well know. And the make-up she wore was that stark white look. Ebony’s just fine.’ More than fine, he added in vicious silence, thinking of those long slender thighs wrapped around him, and those firm white breasts with their long pink nipples arching up towards his mouth.

He shuddered.

‘I’m still worried,’ his mother persisted. ‘It’s been ages since she came to see me and I know why. It’s because of you, Alan. You and your rudeness. I won’t stand for it any more, I tell you. I’m going to invite her over for dinner and you’re going to be there. Not only are you going to be there, but you’re going to be nice to her.’

‘Mother, if Ebony knows I’m going to be there, she won’t come.’

‘Then we won’t tell her, will we? We’ll let her think you’ll be away on business that night.’

Yes, Alan thought. There would be a certain sadistic pleasure in having her sitting at the table next to him, forced to be polite, unable to deliver any of those cutting little barbs of hers.

A malicious smile tugged at his lips. It would be an excellent revenge for that pathetic lie of hers that she was going to marry Gary Stevenson. For one ghastly moment, he’d thought she meant it, till he’d realised it was just another of those taunting, goading things she liked to say. It was another of her ploys to worry him, to make him jealous, to make him explode into the violent passion that turned her on so. Playing such games was part of her dark side, the side she kept hidden from everyone else.

Yes, he would enjoy making her squirm in front of his mother, enjoy it immensely.

‘You’re right, Mother,’ he said expansively. ‘Our feud has gone on long enough, but I do think we will have to surprise Ebony with my presence, otherwise she will find some excuse not to come.’

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