HELEN BROOKS - A Heartless Marriage

‘I’m Vivien.’ The six-foot model stuck out a slender hand for Raoul to shake as she wriggled an invitation no man could ignore.

‘Of course you are.’ Raoul was a few inches taller than the beautiful blonde, his long lean body and big broad shoulders giving an impression of even greater height, and Leigh noticed, with a stab of apprehension, that his handshake was cursory and his smile tight. She knew the signs. He suffered fools badly.

‘Well, I do suspect Leigh has been holding out on us,’ Vivien gushed prettily. ‘They say the quiet ones are the worse, don’t they?’ She laughed throatily, totally sure of herself and of the beauty that had taken her monthly salary into six figures in the last two years. ‘Don’t tell me you’re an old friend?’ She pouted provocatively as she touched Raoul’s arm.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Raoul said quietly, his eyes cold.

‘No?’ Vivien’s predatory eyes gleamed, dismissing Leigh’s presence with regal indifference as she edged forward, almost elbowing the other woman out of the way. ‘What, then?’

‘Leigh’s husband, as it happens.’ There was a positively diabolical glint of satisfaction in those cold blue eyes as they noted the stunned surprise on the carefully made-up face, the mouth an O of bewilderment.

‘You’re joking.’ Vivien stared at Raoul, her eyes flicking over the tall lean body and film-star good looks before moving on to Leigh’s medium height, slightly plump frame which housed a pretty but totally unpretentious face, the straight brown hair and large brown eyes ordinary by anyone’s standards. ‘I don’t believe you. You can’t be married to her!’

Her meaning was clear and as Leigh flushed painfully Raoul’s face darkened. When he next spoke his voice was cutting, the accent as sharp as glass. ‘Then that is your problem, yes?’ He had taken Leigh’s arm as he spoke, his attitude both protective and proprietorial, moving her away from the other woman into a quiet corner of the crowded room.

‘Let go of me.’ As she shook off his hand the urge to lash out was paramount, but she took a long, deep breath before facing him again, the anger that was coursing through her body giving her the courage to look deep into the piercing eyes without flinching. ‘Why did you tell her that? And why are you here? I don’t want you in my life.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ He was standing quite still now, the total lack of movement disquieting. ‘Nevertheless, it is the truth. You are my wife, Leigh.’ Her skin prickled helplessly as he turned her to face him with her back to the room so that her face was shielded from curious eyes. ‘And don’t look like that. I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘You aren’t going to.?’ Her voice trailed away in a tight bitter laugh that turned his face into stone. ‘What could you do to me that you haven’t already done, Raoul? I loathe you, I detest you. If you were halfway decent you would have given me a divorce as soon as I left you.’

‘I didn’t want to.’ His arrogance made her blink. ‘Why didn’t you file for one later?’

‘Why?’ She stared at him. ‘You really want to know? Because I wanted to shut even the slightest thought of you out of my mind. I wanted to pretend that you didn’t exist, that our marriage had never happened.’ It wasn’t the whole truth. A divorce had been almost unimportant compared to the excruciating step she had taken in leaving him in the first place. She had known she would never marry again. He was too hard an act to follow. ‘I expected you to contact me anyway.’ She raised her chin slightly. ‘Is that why you are here now? To ask for a divorce? This meeting isn’t by accident, is it?’

‘No, it is not.’ His eyes were slicing into her.

‘What’s her name?’ she asked coldly. ‘Surely Marion isn’t still around?’ She forced herself to say the hated name.

‘I don’t intend to discuss our private affairs here,’ Raoul said tightly, ‘but suffice it to say I am not here to ask for a divorce. How soon can you leave?’

‘How soon can I.?’ For the second time in as many minutes she was speechless. ‘You don’t seriously think I’m going anywhere with you, do you? For all you know, I’m with someone.’ She waved distractedly at the crowded room.

‘Are you?’ The glittering eyes challenged her, his mouth twisting in a faint smile as she tossed her head without replying. ‘I thought not. Jeff Capstone is in Scotland, isn’t he?’ It was a cool statement of fact and delivered with icy disdain. ‘You see, I know more about you than you think.’ His eyes never left her face for an instant.

She stared at him in amazement as seething resentment turned her brown eyes black. ‘How dare you?’ Her voice, though low, was full of scathing contempt. ‘Just who do you think you are?’ She couldn’t believe the pretentious insolence.

‘I thought we had established that.’ He smiled coldly. ‘I am your husband.’

‘In name only,’ Leigh lashed back quickly as her heartbeat raced.

‘I’m quite prepared to rectify that if you’d care to oblige?’ His eyes were mocking. ‘I seem to remember we were good together once.’ The blue eyes were insultingly familiar.

‘We were?’ Her mouth curled scornfully. ‘Are you sure it was us you are thinking of? There have been so many women in your life, Raoul, I’m surprised you can remember any one liaison.’

At last she had hit him on the raw. She saw it in the arctic frost that turned the vivid blue eyes rapiersharp and the way his big body froze into stillness. ‘You were not a “liaison”, Leigh,’ he said furiously. ‘You were, you are, my wife!’

‘It was a pity you didn’t remember that when it counted,’ she said simply. ‘Goodbye, Raoul.’

She had turned and left him before he realised what was happening and as she crossed the room she half expected to feel a restraining hand on her shoulder but nothing happened. She wanted to run away, to find a safe little hidey-hole where she could lick the wounds that she’d thought had healed but which were as raw as the day he had gouged them into her heart-but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. How had he found her? Why was he here? More to the point, why was she here?

She looked through the high, beautifully worked arched doorway into the next massive room full of London’s elite-high society at its best, with the odd bearded aesthete to keep Nigel’s precious balance right-and groaned inwardly. When she had first begun to be noticed, two years ago, she had decided then that the power game was not for her. She would succeed or fail on her paintings, not on her connections, but when the prized invitation had dropped through her letterbox she had been unable to resist. The urge to see first-hand one of Nigel’s famous soirees had been too tempting. Curiosity! Well, now she was paying for her weakness in a way she had never anticipated in her darkest nightmares.

‘Everything all right, sweetie?’ As Nigel drifted by without waiting for an answer, his long sequinned smock in outrageous contrast to the tight bright red trousers, she bit her lip hard. She had been here two hours. She had been seen by the right people and now she couldn’t stand it another minute. A careful glance backwards told her Raoul was nowhere to be seen, now was the moment to escape. She had to get away, break free.

‘Off already, darling?’ She was just slipping into her jacket, incongruous against the mass of furs and silk shawls that filled the rest of the ladies’ cloakroom, when Vivien’s smooth white hand touched her arm imperiously. ‘Bigger fish to fry?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Leigh had never liked Vivien, having had the misfortune to work with her on more than one occasion in her early days in London when she was working part-time as a photographer’s assistant in order to be able to eat while she followed her dream to paint, and now she turned to face the taller woman with frank distaste on her heart-shaped face. ‘I don’t understand.’