A Marriage Betrayed
A Marriage Betrayed
Emma Darcy
He was driven by vengeance…Adopted but now alone, Kristy went in search of her natural family. When Armand Dutournier burst into her life, accusing her of betrayals she had not committed, Kristy could only wonder - did she have a perfect double? Could she possibly have a twin?Armand was her only lead to the family she yearned for, but his passionate drive for vengeance - and the powerful attraction between them - made accepting his proposition of a temporary intimacy highly dangerous!
“Where have you been for the last two years?” (#u051990e9-9a06-5e9b-91d1-041e72f8310e)Letter to Reader (#u2f9d6683-1221-54e1-ba33-96b830ac06eb)Title Page (#u7d822f4a-fca9-577d-b604-f465c81a9587)Dedication (#u9064e9eb-9c7f-5572-95e8-5c3811752c36)CHAPTER ONE (#u0b95df11-e929-5774-99ff-51b29e097014)CHAPTER TWO (#u2efec47a-4bec-569e-bb55-d74022b8c023)CHAPTER THREE (#ubc2d0c98-b505-57ab-8f49-d21fd95101da)CHAPTER FOUR (#ud793cf32-bbd8-5c52-a9f1-93b295aa7ad3)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Where have you been for the last two years?”
“What have you been doing?” he continued. “Why did you move out of my life without so much as a word of warning or excuse?”
Understanding began to dawn in Kristy’s mind. For some reason this man thought she was someone else. But who was she supposed to be? And why couldn’t he see she wasn’t who he thought she was?
Dear Reader,
I know many of you have kept and treasured The Wrong Mirror, which I wrote many years ago. In it I placed an author note stating I had personal knowledge of the mirror-image-twin experience—my nephews—and in that story I made use of incidents related to their birth and childhood that demonstrated the amazing closeness of such twins.
Now I have written a new story—A Marriage Betrayed—which also features mirror-image twins. I feel sure you will find this book as powerful, as fascinating and as deeply emotional as The Wrong Mirror.
Before you start reading it, I want to let you know my nephews are now in their twenties and I still cannot tell them apart physically, although their different personalities make it easier to put the right name to each one. The psychic/physical drowning experience I have written about in this story did happen to them and, because of it, the drowning twin was saved. An extraordinary occurrence—but a true one.
Believe it.
A Marriage Betrayed
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to Sachiko Ueno
who came from Japan to meet me
and whose all-time favorite book is
The Wrong Mirror
CHAPTER ONE
IN EVERY life there are turning points, some brought about by conscious choices, others caused by sheer accident. When Kristy Holloway broke her trip from London to Geneva for a one-night stopover in Paris, she had no idea that Fate was about to deliver a major turning point from which there would be no going back. Ever.
The stopover was not a considered decision, nor part of a deliberate plan. Kristy acted on impulse, a sentimental impulse. A nostalgic tribute to Betty and John, she told herself, easing the guilt of going to Geneva to do what she would never have done while her adoptive parents were alive.
They were both gone now, beyond any sense of hurt or betrayal, and their love remained in her heart, swelling into a prickling of tears as she stepped out of the taxi and stared up at the stately façade of the Hotel Soleil Levant.
The Renaissance architecture was very impressive, as befitted one of the most prestigious hotels in Paris with its privileged position between the Avenue des Champs-Elysées and the Tuileries. Even the lowliest room available in such a place as this would undoubtedly make a significant hole in her carefully calculated finances, but Kristy brushed aside any concern over cost. A remembrance of two people she had dearly loved was more important than money.
Over forty years ago, Betty and John Holloway had spent their three-day honeymoon in the Soleil Levant. The once-in-a-lifetime extravagance had formed a romantic memory which Betty had related to Kristy many times. The stories had been poignantly recalled when she had come across the old postcard in John’s effects, a snippet of memorabilia he’d cherished.
Laying the past to rest... that was what this stopover in Paris and her trip to Geneva was all about. A last treasured memory of the people who had brought her up as their daughter, then her quest to find out, once and for all, if there were any records of her real family at the Red Cross Headquarters in Geneva.
She had been letting herself drift since John’s death, feeling without purpose or purposefulness. It was time to take control, do something positive, settle the restlessness inside her, the yearning she couldn’t quite identify. The future stretched ahead but she couldn’t put any shape to it. Not yet.
It would always be possible to pick up her nursing career again, somewhere down the track. She didn’t want to go back to it right now. The long time spent helping John fight his losing battle with cancer had been a deep, emotional drain on her. She felt she had nothing left to give in that area, not for a while, anyway.
As for a man in her life...no prospects there since Trevor had given up on her, frustrated by her commitment to John’s well-being. Too many broken dates to sustain a relationship. Not that Trevor had been the love of her life. She didn’t know precisely what that felt like, only that her experience with men hadn’t produced it.
She had regretted losing Trevor’s pleasant companionship but in the face of John’s illness, on top of the grief over Betty’s death...choice hadn’t really entered into it. She’d owed her adoptive parents too much to even think of not giving John all the support and solace she could.
So here she was, twenty-eight years old, no family, no partner, career on hold, nothing important or solid enough to hang her life on.
The hotel in front of her was certainly solid, she thought with ironic humour. Sighing away her reflections, she crossed the sidewalk towards the entrance doors and encountered the first unnerving little incident that made her wonder if the stopover impulse had been foolish.
The doorman finished chatting to a stylish couple emerging from the hotel and caught sight of her approach. The benevolent expression on his face changed so abruptly, Kristy’s feet faltered. A sharp scrutiny slid into puzzlement, then startlement with an edge of disbelief, which swiftly built into utter incredulity and outright shock.
Was it her clothes? Kristy wondered. Admittedly her blue denim jeans and battle jacket were hardly sophisticated garb, and her comfortable Reeboks were somewhat the worse for wear, but surely they constituted a kind of universal uniform amongst travellers these days, acceptable practically anywhere. On the other hand, the canvas carryall she was toting did not convey an aura of class and this was a very classy hotel.
Kristy swiftly reasoned that as long as she could pay for her accommodation, there was no reason for anyone to turn her away. The glazed look of disbelief in the doorman’s eyes had to be a reflection of his snobbery. She decided to disarm him with a friendly smile.
Her smile was definitely her best feature, though Betty had always raved on about her hair. Its particular shade of apricot gold was rather rare, and there was a lot of it, bouncing around her shoulders in a cascade of unruly waves and curls. Her face was not nearly as spectacular, although she had always thought it nice enough. Her nose and mouth were neat and regular—nothing to take exception to—and her eyes were a very clear blue, which a lot of people remarked upon, probably because the colour was such a sharp contrast to her hair.
The doorman, however, was not disarmed by her smile. If anything, he looked thoroughly alarmed by it. Kristy decided her next best option was to impress him with his own native tongue.
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” she greeted him sweetly, demonstrating her perfectly accented French. It was her one real talent—a natural gift for languages, enabling her to fit in easily wherever John’s army postings had taken them.
“Bonjour, Madame.”
No enthusiasm in his response. A very stiff formality. Kristy didn’t bother correcting the Madame to Mademoiselle. The man was clearly uneasy with her presence, turning aside quickly to summon a bellboy who hurried forward to relieve her of her bag. At least she wasn’t being rejected.
The door was punctiliously held open for her passage into the lobby. She would have liked to tip him, proving her worthiness as a guest, but the doorman clearly disdained accepting anything from her, his attention fixed with some intensity on the reception desk. Shrugging off the uncomfortable sensation of being considered riffraff, Kristy moved on into the lobby.
The bellboy carrying her bag whisked past her, heading straight for the check-in. One of the clerks stationed at the desk seemed to be alerted by something behind Kristy. Then his gaze shot to her and the jolt on his face gave her further pause. It wasn’t so much disbelief this time. It looked like absolute horror. What was going on? Why was she causing this odd reaction? Was she really unacceptable in this hotel?
It made no sense to Kristy. However, if she was going to be turned away, she was not going to be entirely done out of her trip down nostalgia lane. She’d come here to feel, as best she could, what Betty had felt forty years before. A belligerent determination halted her feet and sent her gaze sweeping slowly around the grand lobby.
Bathed in a soft golden haze...magical. Those had been Betty’s words, and they were still true, even after all this time. The yellow glow in the light seemed to beam off the walls, covered in their richly veined Siena marble. The floor was a gleaming chessboard of marble tiles, just as Betty had described, and the sumptuous chandeliers overhead added their lustrous effect.
The atmosphere of opulence had not been overstated. Intent on observing everything, Kristy gradually realised the sense of richness—even of greatness—was reflected by the beautifully dressed and elegantly shod guests scattered through the lobby. No-one in common jeans. Not even designer jeans. As for scuffed Reeboks, Kristy suspected the people around her wouldn’t be seen dead in them.
She didn’t fit in here. That was the plain unvarnished truth. Betty and John had undoubtedly worn their best honeymoon clothes at the time of their stay. Coming to this hotel was not supposed to be an act of impulse.
However, it was done now and she didn’t really have to fit, Kristy assured herself. All she wanted was a room for the night. That would complete her mission here and she saw no reason why it shouldn’t be achieved. Once out of sight she wouldn’t present a problem to anyone. Besides, there was nothing wrong in pursuing a sentimental whim.
The bellboy was standing guard over her bag at the reception desk. Both he and the clerk who’d been alerted to her entrance were keeping a wary eye on her. Kristy hated feeling unwelcome, but these people meant nothing to her. The fantasy of a forty-year-old honeymoon had a much stronger call on her than their approval.
Refusing to be intimidated, Kristy fronted up to the desk, noting how the clerk, a tall thin man with a receding hairline, positioned himself to be in direct line to serve her. He was obviously the senior man on duty. No doubt he always took charge of difficult guests.
“How can I help, Madame?”
Studied politeness, Kristy thought. He didn’t want to help her at all. The crease of concern on his brow and the trace of anxiety in his voice telegraphed a wish to get rid of her as fast as possible.
“I want a room for tonight. Only the one night,” she answered with pointed emphasis, hoping such a brief stay would win his toleration. At least he couldn’t fault her French, she thought, having mimicked the exact modulation of his voice.
He hesitated, uncertainty flicking over his face. “We have a suite....”
Kristy looked him in the eye. He had probably surmised she couldn’t afford an expensive suite. “I want a room. A regular room. For one night. Are you saying you can’t accommodate me?”
He seemed to take fright at her assertive challenge, perhaps sniffing the possibility of an unpleasant scene. “Non, Madame,” he answered hastily. “A room can be arranged.”
“Your cheapest room,” Kristy spelled out so there was no mistake.
His eyebrows shot up. His face dropped. “Oui, Madame,” he choked out.
He pushed across the registration form and Kristy filled it in, feeling she had won a minor victory over petty snobbery. Why the staff here was automatically addressing her as madame was a puzzle, but she shrugged it off as irrelevant. She was in. That was all she cared about
Having written down the information required and signed her name, she handed the form back. The clerk started to glance over it. Kristy could have sworn his eyes actually bulged as he took in her particulars. Probably stunned to discover she was an American, not French at all.
Nevertheless, that didn’t explain why he then became quite agitated, shoving the form under the desk as though it was contaminated and passing a room key to the bellboy with fussy officiousness, gesturing pointedly to the elevators.
The bellboy set off smartly with her key and bag, but the clerk’s manner had irked Kristy. A streak of stubborn pride emerged, prompting her to loiter in the lobby. She didn’t like being pushed around, or viewed as disposable garbage. Her independent spirit insisted she ignore such pressures.
Her gaze was drawn to a couple seated behind a low table, conversing quietly but with the kind of animation that was distinctly French. The woman was a striking brunette, superbly groomed, and wearing a black and white outfit that had to be the creation of one of the top Parisian designers. She gave chic a new meaning.
Her companion was even more striking, the perfect image of aristocratic elegance. He was handsome in a distinctly Gallic way: a high intellectual forehead, a slightly long but very refined nose, a firm imperious chin, and an extremely sensual mouth. He was clothed in tailored perfection, his dark grey suit encasing a body that conveyed grace, virility and vitality.
Something about him tugged at her, as though she should know him, yet she was sure she’d remember if she’d ever met him before. The feeling caused her to study him with keener interest.
His black hair was sleekly styled, as though he knew he needed no flamboyance to distract from the fine sensitivity of his face. She imagined him having a deep appreciation of art and music and good food and wine. The quizzical arch of his brows suggested he would take pleasure in questioning everything, and the dark dancing brilliance of his eyes seemed to promise he missed nothing.
There was passion in the slight flare of his nostrils, a worldly but not unkind cynicism in the faint curl of his beautifully moulded mouth. He was in his mid-thirties, Kristy guessed, with the mature authority that came with many years of being successful at whatever he did.
She found herself envying the woman who was with him. They had to be celebrating something. A bottle of champagne rested in a silver ice bucket on the table and two flute glasses of gleaming crystal were at hand. Their honeymoon? she wondered, and felt a sharp inner recoil from the thought.
The man suddenly bestowed a brilliant smile on his companion and Kristy caught her breath as his attraction took a mega-leap. She was riven by a fierce wish for that smile to be directed at her...only her...which shook her so much she wrenched her gaze away.
The bellboy was shuffling impatiently by the elevators. She hadn’t asked for his services, Kristy thought irritably. As a guest in this hotel, she had every right to move at her own convenience, not his. No doubt the couple she’d been watching did as they pleased, assuming it was the natural way of things. She looked back at them with a burst of burning resentment that was quite alien to her normal nature.
What happened next was inexplicable. Had she somehow shot a blast of negative force across the lobby? The man must have felt something hit him. His head jerked, attention whipping away from his companion and fastening on Kristy with such sharp intensity, her heart contracted. He started to rise from his seat, his face stricken with...what? Surprise . . . astonishment, shock...guilt...anger?
His hand flashed out in aggressive dismissal. It struck the glass nearest to him. Over it went, rolling towards the edge, splashing fluid across the table. He moved instinctively but jerkily to grab it and the whole table tipped. Ice and shards of crystal splattered over the chessboard floor in a spreading foam of spilled champagne.
Momentarily and automatically his gaze left Kristy to follow the path of destruction radiating out in front of him. A totally appalled look flitted over his face. Yet his gaze stabbed back at her, dismissing the mess, projecting some savagely personal accusation at her, as though this was all her fault and she knew it as intimately and certainly as he did.
It made Kristy feel odd, as though time and place had shifted into a different dimension. Her pulse went haywire, pumping her heart so hard her temples throbbed. Vaguely she saw the woman leap up and clutch the man’s arm, commanding his attention. Then a hand touched her own arm, jolting her out of the strange thrall that had held her. It was the clerk from the reception desk.
“Your room, Madame,” he pressed anxiously. “The bellboy has the elevator waiting for you.”
“Oh! Yes. Okay,” she babbled, momentarily forgetting to speak French.
She forced her legs to move away from the embarrassing scene. It wasn’t her fault. How could it be? She was nobody here. She didn’t know the man and the man didn’t know her. She must have imagined that weird sense of connection.
The bellboy was holding the elevator doors open for her, the canvas bag already deposited in the compartment. His head shook dolefully over the mess in the lobby behind her as she stepped past him.
“An unfortunate accident,” she offered by way of glossing over the incident.
“Un scandale,” he muttered, smartly stepping into the elevator after her and releasing the doors, shutting them both off from whatever was now happening in the lobby. As he pressed the button for her floor he added on a low note of doom, “Un scandale terrible!”
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT melodramatic nonsense! Kristy thought, determinedly blocking irrational impressions out of her mind and switching it onto a sane, sensible level.
Such an accident might be uncommon in this grand hotel, but staff would be snapping into action, cleaning away the mess fast and efficiently, sweeping it out of sight, out of mind, as though it had never been. Breakage and spillage hardly constituted a terrible scandal.
She decided not to offer any further comment as the elevator travelled up to her floor. Clearly she and the bellboy were not on any common wavelength. Besides, she was still shaken by the sheer force of what she’d felt coming from the man.
She had never experienced anything like it. Perhaps a culmination of grief, stress and fatigue had affected her nervous system, throwing her emotions out of kilter. Even the impulse to come here now looked foolish. Certainly ill-considered, given her reception by the staff. Or was she putting too much emphasis on that, too, blowing niggly little feelings out of proportion?
As for the man who’d triggered such a vivid range of emotions... was there such a thing as knowing someone from another life? She shook her head in wry bemusement. Perhaps it was this hotel making her fanciful...Betty’s and John’s honeymoon hotel. Her strong fixation on the attractive foreigner must have coloured her perception, making her see things differently to the actual reality.
The woman he was with could have said something to upset him. Then he’d probably found Kristy’s staring at him offensive, especially when he’d knocked things over. No one liked having witnesses to an embarrassing scene. It was stupid to read any more into the incident than that.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. Having recollected herself, Kristy stepped out, resolving not to be flustered by anything else on this one-night stopover in Paris.
The bellboy ushered her into a room which had no pretensions to being the least bit cheap. Her heart quailed a little at the price she might have to pay for it tomorrow, but then she sternly told herself she was here to soak up and enjoy the atmosphere and ambience around her. Cost was to be discounted.
She searched her handbag for a few coins to tip the bellboy. It was a futile exercise. He scuttled away with a rapidity which was startling. Apparently official courtesy ended at the door, now she was safely tucked away from causing any public displeasure.
Sighing away her vexation at being treated like some second-class citizen, Kristy set out on her own tour of the accommodation she had insisted upon. At least, she was on her own here. She wouldn’t bother anyone and no-one would bother her.
The bedroom was lovely. The colour scheme of off-white, beige and brown, smartly contrasted with black, was very stylish and Parisian. It was also too modern to have been in place forty years ago. Reason told her the furnishings had probably been changed many times since Betty and John had stayed here, but she was sure they had been just as delighted with their room as she was with hers. Of course, being in love had probably made it even more delightful.
The marble bathroom was utter luxury. Kristy could well imagine Betty revelling in what she would consider the height of delicious decadence. Sumptuous plumbing was not a feature of the third-world countries where John had frequently been posted throughout his army career. Not that Betty had ever complained about primitive facilities, but whenever they had returned to “civilization”, it was a well appointed bathroom that defined “civilization.”
Kristy was moving to unpack and settle in when a quiet rap on the door drew her attention. She opened it to a distinguished-looking gentleman in a pinstripe suit. His cheeks were full, well-fed and although he was no taller than Kristy, which put him at barely average height for a man, he exuded an air of benign authority.
“Madame, a word with you,” he appealed softly.
She flashed him a smile. “And you are...whom?”
He returned her smile. “A good jest, Madame,” he replied with a jovial little chuckle.
Kristy wondered what the joke was.
“May I come in?” he asked, gesturing an eloquent appeal to her good nature.
Kristy frowned over the request. A stranger was a stranger in her book, especially one who acted strangely. “What for?” she demanded suspiciously.
He made an apologetic grimace. “This room... there has been an error. If you will allow me to rearrange...”
“Oh!” She instantly slotted him into place. He was management. Had he come to tell her this room wasn’t the cheapest available, or was she going to be thrown out of the hotel after all?
He laced his hands together, revealing some anxiety over her possible displeasure. “A most unfortunate, regrettable error . . .”
Kristy stared back stonily, wondering whether it was worth the effort of making a fuss. If all the staff had a down on her, her stay here could be made too unpleasant to persist with it.
“I must...” the voice of authority continued affably, “. . . if you’ll forgive me...insist you vacate it.”
Kristy felt herself bridling and struggled to remain calm. She could stand her ground, perhaps even demand compensation for the hotel’s error, but was it worth fighting about? As much as she despised snobbery, there was not much joy in bucking a system which remained immutable no matter how many little victories could be scored against it. At least she hadn’t unpacked, so she didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of repacking.
“Please allow me, Madame, to escort you to somewhere more suitable...uh...to your needs,” her ejector said with exquisite politeness. It was a very civilized way of putting her in her place.
“You are a master of tact, Monsieur,” Kristy said dryly.
He completely missed the irony edging her words. He positively preened, beaming his appreciation of her compliment. “We have—may I say it—a worldwide reputation for tact and... uh... understanding. Thank you.”
“This place you wish to escort me to...I hope it is cheap, Monsieur,” Kristy said with blunt directness. There was no onus on her to play with subtleties. “You see, I don’t have a lot of money...”
“Say no more, Madame. Discretion. Appeasement. Understanding. With my experience...” He spread his hands in a gesture that embraced a whole world of discretion and appeasement and understanding.
“In that case,” Kristy said decisively, “I may as well get going right now. If you will excuse me, I’ll just collect my bag.” She didn’t want the services of another bellboy, not in this hotel.
“Non, non, Madame. Allow me to carry it for you.”
It surprised Kristy. She would have thought it was beneath his dignity to act as her porter. In a tearing hurry to get her out of his hotel, she thought with bitter cynicism.
She stepped back, waving a careless invitation for him to enter. He collected her canvas carryall while she retrieved her handbag. Coming here had been a silly daydream, Kristy told herself as they vacated the room. The past was gone and could never be truly recaptured. At least she’d seen the place. In the circumstances, that was quite enough.
The manager led her along the corridor. He only went a short way before putting down her bag and producing a set of keys which he flourished as though he was St. Peter about to open the portals of heaven. Kristy did a swift rethink. He couldn’t be throwing her out of the hotel after all, so this must be a cheaper room.
He unlocked the door before them, swung it open like an impresario, and eloquently gestured Kristy forward. “Madame, your room,” he announced with almost smug satisfaction.
Kristy took several steps, saw what was in front of her, and stopped dead. Was this some kind of joke? To take her out of a room and lead her to what was clearly a luxurious suite had to be the height of perversity when she had made such a point of revealing a very real need not to be extravagant.
“I can’t afford this,” she protested.
The manager looked offended. “Madame is our guest. Of course Madame is not expected to pay for anything while she is our guest.” His voice had a touch of outrage at her failure to understand his understanding.
“I think,” said Kristy forcefully, “there is some mistake.”
“Madame...uh...Holloway . . .” He gave another little jovial chuckle and added a conspiratorial wink. “The mistake has been rectified.”
He marched into the huge sitting room—complete with a conservatory and a private terrace—and into a dressing-room where he deposited her canvas carryall, thereby emphasizing her accepted status here. Kristy watched him doubtfully, certain there had been some ridiculous mix-up. On the other hand, he had called her by her own name although why he persisted with Madame was beyond her. He could not have failed to notice she wasn’t wearing any rings.
“Are you sure this is the right place for me, Monsieur? ” she asked, feeling the need to get this pinned down to something concrete.
He beamed supreme confidence. “Certainement”
Kristy gave up. She didn’t need the stress of sorting out this madness, or getting a room in another hotel. This was some management bungle and they could pay for it. She’d made her terms absolutely clear, and after all this hassle, no way was she going to be shifted again.
“One last thing, Madame Holloway . . .”
“Yes?”
The manager went to a door on the other side of the sitting room, took a key from the flourished key ring, and inserted it in the lock. “For your use only,” he said solemnly.
Kristy looked at him blankly. What did he mean by that?
He gave the key a dramatic twist. “Unlocked,” he said. Then he turned the key the other way. “Locked,” he said. “I will leave it to Madame’s discretion.”
“Monsieur . . .” Kristy expostulated, totally bewildered by the whole sequence of events.
“Say no more. Say no more. Tact. Diplomacy. Understanding. We know all these things.”
He withdrew the key from the lock, came across the room, and pressed it into her hand. It was too much for Kristy. Altogether too much.
“Monsieur . . .”
“Enough. You are our guest You pay for nothing. If this...er...delicate situation can be fortunately resolved... uh...please remember me.”
And so saying, he bowed his way out of the room, leaving her with another of his jovial little laughs, to which he seemed addicted.
Of one thing Kristy was absolutely certain. There was some mistake here of gigantic proportions. It was equally clear it was someone else’s mistake. She had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
She frowned over his parting words...this delicate situation. What was he referring to? She didn’t have a clue. It just seemed that ever since the hotel doorman had laid eyes on her, the world had shifted out of kilter.
Discretion said she should get out of here as soon as possible. Retreat. Retire before some ghastly disaster occurred. Un scandale terrible!
The over-the-top thought evoked a burst of somewhat hysterical laughter. Which suggested, after she’d sobered up again, that her nerves were in a bad way. The experience of this hotel was definitely not soothing, as she had anticipated it would be. The depression of being totally alone hit her again, whispering that her trip to Geneva would probably be a failure, too.
The energy that had driven her to this journey drained away. Let the hotel management discover its mistake, she decided listlessly. There was no need for her to pre-empt any action. She had tried to protest, to explain, to set the situation straight. None of this was her fault. No doubt she would receive another visit soon and everything would be resolved properly, so there was no point in unpacking her bag.
Meanwhile, she had this key in her hand. Kristy eyed the interconnecting door which could be locked or unlocked with the burning-question key. Maybe the answers, or some answer to this delicate situation, lay on the other side of the door. It was none of her business, of course. On the other hand, she had somehow got involved.
She thought of Pandora who opened the lid of the box which let loose all the troubles of the world. Curiosity was a terrible thing and it could be very dangerous. Better to let it go and not risk adding more trouble to trouble.
Kristy set the key down on a coffee table and turned her back on it. She walked out to the private terrace, deciding she might as well enjoy all this luxury while she could because she couldn’t see it lasting for long. This was not the place for her and that key could only lead to something even more out of bounds.
The view was the kind which sold postcards; the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Place de la Concorde, all spread out for her to admire and wonder at the genius which had planned such a magnificent vista. Kristy, however, could not concentrate her mind on it. A sense of restlessness drove her back into the sitting room.
The key kept drawing her gaze. It had a powerful fascination. Caught on a seesaw of temptation, she almost leapt out of her skin when a knock came on the door. But it wasn’t on that door. It was on the one which led in from the corridor.
They’ve discovered the mistake, she thought, relieved that she hadn’t surrendered to the curiosity which would have led her into a very awkward indiscretion.
Anticipating a return of the manager, she was surprised when a maid entered, bearing an elegant vase of long-stemmed roses. It was placed on the table beside the key. I’m getting in deeper, Kristy thought. She weakly thanked the maid who withdrew without comment.
Her inner tension moved up a notch when a second knock came. It heralded another maid who carried in a bottle of champagne and an artistically arranged platter of fruit. Kristy stared at both offerings as though they were deadly poison. Why was she such an honoured guest? What was behind all this?
A third knock brought a third maid bearing gift boxes of eau de toilette and soaps.
It was as good as a birthday, Kristy thought ruefully, except she wasn’t enjoying it. Impossible to shake off the feeling that the gifts were connected to that key. She eyed it balefully. Would it unlock the door to the mystery of why she was here and suddenly being treated like royalty? Maybe she should find out what she could before she became even more entrenched in this weird situation.
She picked up the key.
I’ll take just a little peep, she thought.
It’s none of your business, her mind chided.
Yes, it is, another part responded. I’m already in this up to my neck. I didn’t ask to be involved but I am. I definitely am. And I’ve got every right to find out.
She listened to the other side of her mind in case it wanted to pull her back behind the safe cautious line.
No response.
The argument was perfectly sound.
After all, the manager had left the decision in her hands, and she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She did have every reason to take a little peek into the room beyond that door. She had been invited to unlock it at will.
Her fingers closed tightly around the key as her legs moved forward. Determinedly ignoring the burning feeling in her palm and the apprehensive hammering of her heart, Kristy reached the door, fitted the key to the lock and turned it with a swift decisive twist. Then taking a deep breath to calm her leaping nerves, and telling herself she was acting positively and purposefully, she opened the door.
She half-expected some monster to be on the other side but there was no reaction to the door’s opening. No sound. No movement. Nothing. Taking courage at finding no repercussions to her initial trespass, Kristy pushed the door fully ajar. It revealed another sitting room, similar to hers.
She stood motionless for several seconds, listening intently. Still no sounds of occupation. No signs of occupation, either. She took the first step over the threshold. The need to find some answer to this extra accommodation urged her on.
The click of a key in a lock made her freeze halfway across the room. She stared in horror at the door which gave access to the corridor outside. Her throat constricted, her heart thumped in wild apprehension as the door opened. Her eyes widened in shock as she instantly identified the man who stepped inside.
It was the man from the lobby, the man who’d transfixed her with his knowing eyes, the elegant aristocratic man who had inelegantly broken up the romantic interlude with his companion, creating un scandale terrible!
Kristy’s mind dazedly registered the fact that he did not look shocked at seeing her. He actually smiled at her, but it was not the brilliant smile of pleasure that had lit his face for his companion in the lobby. It was a cold cynical curl of his lips, a knowing little smile. Whatever knowledge was behind it gave him no pleasure at all.
He shut the door without a word, without a crack in his composure. Everything in his manner projected he had anticipated her being here.
Yet how could he?
And what could he know about her?
A sense of weird unreality gripped Kristy, holding her in tense waiting for what would come next.
CHAPTER THREE
“SO!”
It was a sibilant hiss that seethed with explosive emotion. Kristy instantly realised his composure was a facade, and it was not only his voice that revealed how brittle the façade was. The dark eyes were not dancing with amusement. They glittered with a primitive ferocity...anger, pain, blistering accusation.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he demanded, repitching his voice to a tone of sardonic mockery that didn’t quite disguise an undercurrent of barely leashed savagery.
It was a beautiful voice, rich and male and mesmerisingly coloured by the emotion it projected. Kristy had to shake herself out of her appreciation of it, focus on what was being demanded.
He probably thinks I’m some kind of thief, she thought, and frantically searched her mind for the best way to explain her presence. An attempt at appeasement came up as top priority.
“Je regrette . . .” she began tentatively, but got no further.
“You’re sorry?” Incredulity resonated around the room. The dark eyes swept her with scathing contempt. “You’re sony,” he repeated jeeringly. He tilted his head back and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Bon Dieu! You have a thousand things to explain and all you can say is you’re sorry.” His derisive laugh had an element of wildness that sent chills down Kristy’s spine.
She darted a look at the interconnecting door, measuring her line of retreat.
“Oh, no, my precious darling!”
The endearment held no affection whatsoever. The tone of venomous purpose whipped Kristy’s gaze back to him. He was moving swiftly to cut off her escape route and the aura of violence he emanated was quite enough to hold Kristy absolutely still. She didn’t want to provoke him any more than he was already provoked by her presence here.
“You will not leave until I’m satisfied you have explained...everything...to me,” he promised her, a threat underlining every word.
Kristy swallowed hard. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating with electric tension and it was difficult to make her mouth work. But speak she must. “It’s very simple really,” she began.
It seemed to provoke the man even more. “Simple!” he interjected, his eyes blazing dark fury. He moved closer to tower over her. “Two years! Two long lonely bitter years! And all you can say is you’re sorry? And it’s simple?” His voice literally shook with outrage.
Kristy’s mind whirled with confusion. What did two years have to do with anything? “I don’t know what you want to know,” she rushed out in the hope of getting some direction from him since he didn’t like anything she said.
At least it had a calming effect, Kristy thought with relief. The blaze of fury banked down to a simmer which still looked dangerous but was temporarily under control. Then he smiled at her. Somehow the smile was as chilling as his derisive laugh had been. It spelled disaster if she put a foot wrong.
“Did you come here in the hope of hearing words of love from me?” he asked in a soft jeering tone.
“Certainly not,” Kristy replied incredulously. The idea was absurd. Why would she expect to hear endearments from a stranger?
One black eyebrow rose in mocking challenge. “To tell me that you love me?”
Kristy could hardly believe she was hearing this. She didn’t know the man. What kind of woman did he think she was? A boldly enterprising callgirl on the make, slipping into his room to set up a chance?
“That’s ridiculous!” she protested.
He laughed. “How true!” The dark eyes burned more intensely into hers and his voice lowered to a purring throb. “Was it to seduce me into making love to you? To feel my body caressing yours in the way you most enjoy?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Kristy cried, terribly disconcerted by the effect his suggestive words had on her pulse rate.
Her reply seemed to incense him. “Then I will tell you what I think,” he seethed. His mouth curled around the words as he spat them out. “You are a cowardly sneak! Your effrontery in presenting yourself here is unbelievable! You are shameless, heartless, gutless...”
Shock paralysed Kristy’s mind for several seconds. Then a tidal wave of outrage swept through her, lifting her hand, propelling it with furious force. It struck his face so hard it snapped his head back. It left reddened weals across his cheek, and Kristy’s eyes burned with savage satisfaction at the sight Never had she felt so angry in her life.
“Keep your slanderous words and thoughts to yourself!” she hissed, ready to fight tooth and nail if he so much as tried to insult her again in such an offensive fashion.
He had no right. All she had done was trespass into his room, and she had been given a key for that purpose anyway. She couldn’t see how any blame for that could be attached to her. She did not deserve such abuse and no way in the world would she tolerate it.
The dark eyes flared with violent passion. She met them with blue ice, defying him to do his worst. The clash of will and turbulent emotion somehow seeded something even more disturbing. Kristy was conscious of a shift inside herself, an uncoiling of a need, a desire, an awakening tingle in her blood that she had never felt before.
She did not know this man.
Yet something inside her did. Or seemed to. Some subconscious recognition she was at a total loss to explain. The feeling was even stronger now than it had been in the lobby, spurring with it a fiercely primitive urge to have what he’d put into her mind. She found herself literally craving to know what it would be like to feel his body caressing hers.
Suddenly the searing dark eyes were like magnets, dragging on her soul. A sense of deep intimacy pulsed between them. She had a compelling urge to reach up and touch his cheek, to tenderly stroke away the hurt marks she had inflicted. She only just managed to check what would have been an insane move, given the situation.
Kristy didn’t understand herself at all. How could she be so enthralled by the man, when what was happening now was hardly a promising beginning for anything? She had never struck anyone in her whole life until he had stirred her into it.
An appalled horror descended on her. She was a nonviolent person. Words, not fists, had always been her creed. Ever since she had entered this hotel, things had started swinging out of normality.
Was it Alice who had stepped through the looking glass and into another world?
Kristy was beginning to feel the same thing had happened to her. She took a deep breath and tried to regain some sanity. How could there be any sense of intimacy between this stranger and herself? She had to be imagining it. His talk of love and lovemaking must be triggering wild offshoots from the need to belong to someone, somewhere.
Yet, as though they were somehow acutely attuned to each other, she sensed a similar withdrawal from him, the automatic reaction to shock and disbelief, needing time to pause and take stock, to reassess. His face tightened. His mouth thinned into a grim line. The dark eyes narrowed to gleaming slits.
Kristy thought about apologising, but since this whole scene had erupted from her initial apology, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, he had been as much in the wrong as she was. Pride insisted she concede no fault in what she had done, but explanations were certainly due.
“Monsieur . . .” she started again.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped angrily.
Whatever I say seems to get me into trouble, Kristy thought. “Very well,” she agreed, wondering what else she could call him. “There is an explanation....”
“I shall be interested to hear it,” he snapped again. “I shall be fascinated to hear how you explain yourself,” he went on, his voice gathering a stinging contempt. “Every word will be a priceless pearl to my ears. I shall assess it with intense appreciation for its worth.”
Which set Kristy back on her heels because her explanation didn’t make much sense to her, and she doubted it would make sense to him either. However, the truth was the truth. “I have this key....” she began slowly. “The manager gave it to me....”
That was as far as she got.
He took hold of her shoulders and shook her in furious impatience. “You are incredible! Totally incredible!” he seethed.
Kristy realised that what he was saying was true. Her explanation was totally incredible. But this man was teetering on the edge of being totally out of control and she didn’t know what to say or do. “Please...” She couldn’t call him monsieur. “. . . take your hands off me,” she begged.
He laughed with arrogant disdain, but he released her and dropped his hands to his sides. “You think I cannot do that?” he taunted, his eyes flashing bitter derision. “You think I have to touch you? That I cannot help myself?” He bared his teeth in a scornful sneer. “I can do it. See for yourself!”
“Thank you,” Kristy breathed in deep relief.
Violence did breed violence, she thought. She shouldn’t have slapped him. Strictly words from now on, she promised herself.
As though he had come to the same civilized conclusion, he stepped back from her in haughty rejection, a cold pride stamped on his face. His aristocratic bearing was very pronounced as he strode around the room, releasing his inner turbulence in sharp angry gestures and bursts of scorn.
“You are nothing,” he hurled at her. “Nothing at all! Not a speck of dirt. Utterly insignificant. Meaningless.”
Kristy steeled herself to remain cool, no matter how hotly this man stirred her blood. In actual fact, what he said was a fairly accurate description. To the world at large, she was a nobody. There was no-one left who cared whether she existed or not. Besides, agreeing with people’s ideas was a better way of placating them than disagreeing with them.
“I realise that,” she said calmly.
Her answer brought him to an abrupt halt. His brow creased in puzzlement. The dark eyes stabbed at her in suspicious re-assessment “You realise that?” he said slowly, watching intently for some telltale reaction from her.
“Certainly,” Kristy said with assurance. Why should she mean anything to this man? They were complete strangers.
He sauntered towards her, ruthless purpose stamped on his face. “I’ll prove how worthless you are.”
“You don’t have to prove anything of the kind,” Kristy cried in alarm. She didn’t want him to shake her again.
“Where have you been for the last two years?” he bit out savagely. “What have you been doing? Why did you move out of my life without so much as a word of warning or excuse?”
Understanding began to dawn in Kristy’s mind. For some reason this man thought she was someone else. Enlightenment grew in rippling waves. The hotel staff, from the doorman to the manager, had thought she was someone else. It was the only explanation that fitted the facts; all the odd reactions she had been getting from the staff which she had set down to snobbery, the accident in the lobby that had happened because this man had caught sight of her, the bellboy’s proclaiming it un scandale terrible, the manager with his strange manoeuvrings and talk of discretion.
This certainly loomed as a very delicate situation!
The tantalising question was...who was she supposed to be? Who did they all think she was? And why couldn’t they see she wasn’t who they thought she was?
“Answer me!”
He was towering over her again, commanding her attention. Kristy pulled her mind out of its whirling flurry of activity and concentrated on what was most immediate. Somewhere, sometime, there had to be an explanation of what was happening. In the meantime, Kristy thought, it was imperative to answer this man’s question truthfully and with a calm composure. Her heart gave a nervous little flutter as she looked up into the darkly demanding eyes.
“I was in San Francisco most of the time....”
“So! You did go with the American!” he threw at her. “Yes...I can hear it in your voice. Damn you for the conniving cheat you are!”
“I’m not a cheat!” she hurled back at him in fierce resentment.
“You think you can get to me again? After what you’ve done?”
She hadn’t done anything! Except use the key that had brought her into this room. However, before she could expostulate, his hand lifted and curled around her cheek. Kristy flinched away from the touch but it was an ineffectual movement. He tilted her chin up, bent his head, and his mouth crashed onto hers.
The shock of it left her momentarily defenceless. His hand slid into her hair entangling itself in the thick tresses and binding her to him as forcefully as the arm that scooped her body hard against his. Then an explosion of sensation robbed her of any thought of resistance.
His mouth possessed hers in a frenzy of passion, igniting a response that rushed into being, spreading through her like wildfire, an uncontrollable force, taking her over, thrumming to a beat of its own. Heat pulsed from him, suffusing her entire body, exciting an almost excruciating awareness of hard flesh and muscle imprinting themselves on her. His kiss plundered and destroyed her previous knowledge of what a kiss could be, arousing a compulsive need to cast all limits aside and plummet into more and more enticing levels of melding together.
The break came as swiftly and as shockingly as the enforced connection. He tore his mouth from hers. His hands encircled her upper arms, holding her away from him as he stepped back. Dazed by the abrupt withdrawal and still helplessly churning with the sensations he’d stirred, Kristy looked at him in blank incomprehension.
His dark eyes glittered with malevolent triumph. “You see?” he said, removing his grasp, lifting his hands away as though the touch of her was distasteful to him. “I feel nothing for you. Absolutely nothing.”
It was a barefaced lie.
He was not unaffected by her, nor what had passed between them. His breathing was visibly faster and even as he swung on his heel and turned his back to her, Kristy was recalling all too acutely the burgeoning of his erection, proving he had been physically moved. Besides, how could such passion be generated out of nothing?
Though that raised the thorny question of how could she have been so deeply affected when ostensibly there was nothing between them but a misunderstanding. Worse, a case of mistaken identity! A painful flush scorched up her neck and burnt her cheeks. He had been abusing another woman, while here she was, deeply shaken by a vulnerability she couldn’t explain.
Nevertheless, explanations were in order. In very fast order, too, given the volatile nature of feelings running riot here. She had to correct his conviction she was someone he had known before. That was at the heart of this whole wretched mix-up.
“The reason there is nothing is because there was nothing in the first place,” Kristy said shakily.
He whirled around, his face contorted with furious resentment. His eyes stabbed black daggers at her. “Don’t make a fool of yourself by stating the obvious.”
Still hopelessly unsettled by the turbulence he’d aroused, Kristy couldn’t stop her own temper from flaring. “You’re deliberately trying to provoke me!”
He did not deny it. He made no reply at all but his eyes kept accusing her of dark, nameless crimes.
Kristy struggled to get herself under control. “What has happened is quite simple,” she stated once again, determined to make him listen, no matter what he said. “You see...”
“I know what has happened,” he cut in emphatically.
Kristy let the interruption fly past her. “...you’re making a mistake about me. You think I’m someone else....”
He gave a cynical laugh.
“I’m not the same woman who...”
“No. Most decidedly not. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been dead for the last two years. I wish you were. It would be better if you were dead.”
Kristy almost stamped her foot in frustration at his refusal to listen. “Will you give me one chance...”
“Absolutely not,” he bit out with venom. “No more chances. You don’t deserve any chances.”
They were talking at cross-purposes. Trying to explain the true situation was obviously a futile exercise. His mind was set on one idea and he wasn’t in the mood to listen to her.
“Fine,” Kristy agreed with some asperity. Since he was not open to reason, it was best for her to give up and walk away. “Please excuse me. I’m going back to my room.”
He waved a disdainful dismissal. “Do that.”
“And locking the door.” So he couldn’t storm after her.
“Good!” He looked satisfied.
“I’m leaving Paris tomorrow.” That gave him a deadline if he could calm down enough to hear her side of this crazy business.
“Excellent!”
Kristy burned over his intransigence. “I’m never coming back,” she declared.
That should finish it for him, she thought. He could consider her dead forever. For some reason, that hurt deep down inside her, but she steadfastly buried the hurt. If it was what he wanted, this meeting with him definitely had no future. Best for her to forget it had ever happened.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously, as though he didn’t believe her. “What do you want from me?” he demanded.
Kristy’s chin lifted in proud rejection of him and all that might have come of this encounter if he could have accepted that things were different to what he thought they were. “Nothing!” she declared in snapping defiance of his suspicions about her. “Absolutely nothing!”
Having delivered the most affirmative exit line she could think of, she swung on her heel and strode for the interconnecting door. She had her hand on the knob, ready to sweep the door shut behind her when his voice cracked out again in harsh command.
“wait!”
She’d had enough. She’d done her best. He wouldn’t listen. He was only upsetting her further and further. So she did not wait. She did not so much as glance back at him. With her head held high, she marched into the suite she had been given and swiftly shut the door on him. One firm twist of the treacherous key and the lock clicked into place.
And that, thought Kristy, was that!
CHAPTER FOUR
KRISTY steamed up and down the luxurious sitting room, totally unaware and unappreciative of her rich and elegant surroundings. Her mind was in a ferment. What an aggravating man! What a positively infuriating man! Interfering with her life just because he thought she was someone else, turning her inside out with his confusing words and actions, making her feel things she had never felt before!
It wasn’t fair!
He wasn’t fair!
None of what had happened since she had arrived here in this damnable hotel was fair!
Kristy felt like picking up things and throwing them. Her gaze balefully targeted the vase of roses. But he would not have ordered them. He hated the woman he thought she was. No, the vase of red roses was the hotel management’s idea to help the resolution of a delicate situation. Except it wasn’t delicate! It was downright hopeless!
Why did they all think she was someone else?
Why?
Kristy marched into the marble bathroom and examined her reflection in the mirror there. It was a most uncomfortable feeling to think there was someone else who looked exactly like her. Was there such a thing as a perfect double? She had heard of movie stars who had look-alike stand-ins, but they weren’t perfect doubles. Surely a man who had been her double’s lover would see some differences if there were any, even though it had been two years since he had been with her. A close resemblance might fool hotel staff, but a lover of intimate acquaintance?
Kristy stared at her reflection in bitter frustration.
Who are you there on the other side of the mirror?
Why did you walk out on him without a word?
I would not have done that.
I’m different from you. I’d never do such a heartless thing to someone who loved me. Or was it wounded pride on his part, losing a possession he’d believed was his. Either way, you must have been a callous creature to dump him like that. But why can’t he see I’m different?
Her hand lifted to trace her features. Was every line exactly the same? The shape of her face, her mouth, her nose, her eyes? And what about colouring? Were her eyes exactly the same clear blue? The blue of cornflowers? Was her hair precisely the same unusual shade of apricot gold? How could it be so? Surely it was impossible. Yet...how else could he make such a mistake?
Kristy shook her head in pained bewilderment. The whole thing was a nightmare. She wrenched her gaze off her reflection in the mirror and left the bathroom. She paused in the dressing-room, eyeing her canvas carryall.
She should pick it up and get out of here. It was the sensible thing to do. Get out of this suite, out of this hotel, right out of this nightmarish situation. Then she would be just herself again, on her way to Geneva, precisely as she had planned before letting herself be sidetracked by a sentimental impulse.
On her way to Geneva . . .
Kristy’s heart stopped dead as her mind performed a double loop. Her mission was to search the Red Cross records for some trace of the family she had lost twenty-five years ago. What if she hadn’t been the only survivor of the earthquake? What if she had a sister—an identical twin sister!—who’d also survived? Or who hadn’t even been in the same place at the same time?
Family—real family!
Her stilled heart burst into rapid pumping.
The answers she wanted might be right here. With the man in the suite next door. Having a twin made more sense out of everyone’s conviction she was someone else. If it was true.
Her mind whirled, struck by the set of eene coincidences... the man who knew staying in this hotel, being actually in the lobby when she had entered for the first and probably the last time in her life... Betty and John bringing her here after their deaths...an impulse... guided by feelings for the very people who might have inadvertently separated her from a twin sister.
Kristy rubbed at her forehead. It ached, as did her heart, carrying the burden of too many thoughts and too many feelings. There was only one way to sort them out. She had to talk to the man again, whether he wanted it or not. Besides, he probably needed a resolution as much as she did.
Too agitated to wait for a longer cooling-off period for him, Kristy headed for the dangerous door again. Nothing was going to put her off her purpose this time, not insults, not threats, not even physical abuse, though she didn’t believe he’d try that again.
She knocked to give him warning, then twisted the key in the lock and thrust the door open. “Monsieur . . .” she called commandingly, determined not to be deterred from asking the questions that had to be asked and answered.
No reply.
She stepped into his sitting room and called again, shooting her gaze around as much as she could see of his suite. It appeared as empty as when she’d first entered and there was no response to her call. She waited, riven by dreadful tension. Perhaps he was in the bathroom. She listened hard. No sound. There was an empty feel to the place, not even a remote sense of his strong presence.
Kristy stood blankly for several minutes, robbed of her purpose and at a total loss what to do next. He wasn’t here. She didn’t know his name. The hotel management was so hung up on discretion, it was most unlikely they’d just give it to her. Apart from which, since the mix-up was still in force, they’d probably think such an inquiry was another little joke on her part.
Her best course, she finally decided, was to wait a few hours and see if he came back. It was midafternoon now. If he was occupying this suite, he’d probably return to it to change for dinner. On the other hand, he might have washed his hands of her and gone off with the beautiful brunette.
It was a depressing thought.
Kristy brooded over the strong pull he’d had on her, then sternly told herself he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with the twin of a woman who’d dumped him. Maybe they shared the same chemistry. That would help to explain the extraordinary feelings he stirred in her.
Despondently she returned to her suite, relocking the connecting door. She needed his name, but that could wait, too. If she failed to make any further contact with him today, she would tackle the hotel management tomorrow morning, argue her case, and demand co-operation. No way would she countenance losing this link to a possible sister.
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Emma Darcy
He was driven by vengeance…Adopted but now alone, Kristy went in search of her natural family. When Armand Dutournier burst into her life, accusing her of betrayals she had not committed, Kristy could only wonder - did she have a perfect double? Could she possibly have a twin?Armand was her only lead to the family she yearned for, but his passionate drive for vengeance - and the powerful attraction between them - made accepting his proposition of a temporary intimacy highly dangerous!
“Where have you been for the last two years?” (#u051990e9-9a06-5e9b-91d1-041e72f8310e)Letter to Reader (#u2f9d6683-1221-54e1-ba33-96b830ac06eb)Title Page (#u7d822f4a-fca9-577d-b604-f465c81a9587)Dedication (#u9064e9eb-9c7f-5572-95e8-5c3811752c36)CHAPTER ONE (#u0b95df11-e929-5774-99ff-51b29e097014)CHAPTER TWO (#u2efec47a-4bec-569e-bb55-d74022b8c023)CHAPTER THREE (#ubc2d0c98-b505-57ab-8f49-d21fd95101da)CHAPTER FOUR (#ud793cf32-bbd8-5c52-a9f1-93b295aa7ad3)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Where have you been for the last two years?”
“What have you been doing?” he continued. “Why did you move out of my life without so much as a word of warning or excuse?”
Understanding began to dawn in Kristy’s mind. For some reason this man thought she was someone else. But who was she supposed to be? And why couldn’t he see she wasn’t who he thought she was?
Dear Reader,
I know many of you have kept and treasured The Wrong Mirror, which I wrote many years ago. In it I placed an author note stating I had personal knowledge of the mirror-image-twin experience—my nephews—and in that story I made use of incidents related to their birth and childhood that demonstrated the amazing closeness of such twins.
Now I have written a new story—A Marriage Betrayed—which also features mirror-image twins. I feel sure you will find this book as powerful, as fascinating and as deeply emotional as The Wrong Mirror.
Before you start reading it, I want to let you know my nephews are now in their twenties and I still cannot tell them apart physically, although their different personalities make it easier to put the right name to each one. The psychic/physical drowning experience I have written about in this story did happen to them and, because of it, the drowning twin was saved. An extraordinary occurrence—but a true one.
Believe it.
A Marriage Betrayed
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to Sachiko Ueno
who came from Japan to meet me
and whose all-time favorite book is
The Wrong Mirror
CHAPTER ONE
IN EVERY life there are turning points, some brought about by conscious choices, others caused by sheer accident. When Kristy Holloway broke her trip from London to Geneva for a one-night stopover in Paris, she had no idea that Fate was about to deliver a major turning point from which there would be no going back. Ever.
The stopover was not a considered decision, nor part of a deliberate plan. Kristy acted on impulse, a sentimental impulse. A nostalgic tribute to Betty and John, she told herself, easing the guilt of going to Geneva to do what she would never have done while her adoptive parents were alive.
They were both gone now, beyond any sense of hurt or betrayal, and their love remained in her heart, swelling into a prickling of tears as she stepped out of the taxi and stared up at the stately façade of the Hotel Soleil Levant.
The Renaissance architecture was very impressive, as befitted one of the most prestigious hotels in Paris with its privileged position between the Avenue des Champs-Elysées and the Tuileries. Even the lowliest room available in such a place as this would undoubtedly make a significant hole in her carefully calculated finances, but Kristy brushed aside any concern over cost. A remembrance of two people she had dearly loved was more important than money.
Over forty years ago, Betty and John Holloway had spent their three-day honeymoon in the Soleil Levant. The once-in-a-lifetime extravagance had formed a romantic memory which Betty had related to Kristy many times. The stories had been poignantly recalled when she had come across the old postcard in John’s effects, a snippet of memorabilia he’d cherished.
Laying the past to rest... that was what this stopover in Paris and her trip to Geneva was all about. A last treasured memory of the people who had brought her up as their daughter, then her quest to find out, once and for all, if there were any records of her real family at the Red Cross Headquarters in Geneva.
She had been letting herself drift since John’s death, feeling without purpose or purposefulness. It was time to take control, do something positive, settle the restlessness inside her, the yearning she couldn’t quite identify. The future stretched ahead but she couldn’t put any shape to it. Not yet.
It would always be possible to pick up her nursing career again, somewhere down the track. She didn’t want to go back to it right now. The long time spent helping John fight his losing battle with cancer had been a deep, emotional drain on her. She felt she had nothing left to give in that area, not for a while, anyway.
As for a man in her life...no prospects there since Trevor had given up on her, frustrated by her commitment to John’s well-being. Too many broken dates to sustain a relationship. Not that Trevor had been the love of her life. She didn’t know precisely what that felt like, only that her experience with men hadn’t produced it.
She had regretted losing Trevor’s pleasant companionship but in the face of John’s illness, on top of the grief over Betty’s death...choice hadn’t really entered into it. She’d owed her adoptive parents too much to even think of not giving John all the support and solace she could.
So here she was, twenty-eight years old, no family, no partner, career on hold, nothing important or solid enough to hang her life on.
The hotel in front of her was certainly solid, she thought with ironic humour. Sighing away her reflections, she crossed the sidewalk towards the entrance doors and encountered the first unnerving little incident that made her wonder if the stopover impulse had been foolish.
The doorman finished chatting to a stylish couple emerging from the hotel and caught sight of her approach. The benevolent expression on his face changed so abruptly, Kristy’s feet faltered. A sharp scrutiny slid into puzzlement, then startlement with an edge of disbelief, which swiftly built into utter incredulity and outright shock.
Was it her clothes? Kristy wondered. Admittedly her blue denim jeans and battle jacket were hardly sophisticated garb, and her comfortable Reeboks were somewhat the worse for wear, but surely they constituted a kind of universal uniform amongst travellers these days, acceptable practically anywhere. On the other hand, the canvas carryall she was toting did not convey an aura of class and this was a very classy hotel.
Kristy swiftly reasoned that as long as she could pay for her accommodation, there was no reason for anyone to turn her away. The glazed look of disbelief in the doorman’s eyes had to be a reflection of his snobbery. She decided to disarm him with a friendly smile.
Her smile was definitely her best feature, though Betty had always raved on about her hair. Its particular shade of apricot gold was rather rare, and there was a lot of it, bouncing around her shoulders in a cascade of unruly waves and curls. Her face was not nearly as spectacular, although she had always thought it nice enough. Her nose and mouth were neat and regular—nothing to take exception to—and her eyes were a very clear blue, which a lot of people remarked upon, probably because the colour was such a sharp contrast to her hair.
The doorman, however, was not disarmed by her smile. If anything, he looked thoroughly alarmed by it. Kristy decided her next best option was to impress him with his own native tongue.
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” she greeted him sweetly, demonstrating her perfectly accented French. It was her one real talent—a natural gift for languages, enabling her to fit in easily wherever John’s army postings had taken them.
“Bonjour, Madame.”
No enthusiasm in his response. A very stiff formality. Kristy didn’t bother correcting the Madame to Mademoiselle. The man was clearly uneasy with her presence, turning aside quickly to summon a bellboy who hurried forward to relieve her of her bag. At least she wasn’t being rejected.
The door was punctiliously held open for her passage into the lobby. She would have liked to tip him, proving her worthiness as a guest, but the doorman clearly disdained accepting anything from her, his attention fixed with some intensity on the reception desk. Shrugging off the uncomfortable sensation of being considered riffraff, Kristy moved on into the lobby.
The bellboy carrying her bag whisked past her, heading straight for the check-in. One of the clerks stationed at the desk seemed to be alerted by something behind Kristy. Then his gaze shot to her and the jolt on his face gave her further pause. It wasn’t so much disbelief this time. It looked like absolute horror. What was going on? Why was she causing this odd reaction? Was she really unacceptable in this hotel?
It made no sense to Kristy. However, if she was going to be turned away, she was not going to be entirely done out of her trip down nostalgia lane. She’d come here to feel, as best she could, what Betty had felt forty years before. A belligerent determination halted her feet and sent her gaze sweeping slowly around the grand lobby.
Bathed in a soft golden haze...magical. Those had been Betty’s words, and they were still true, even after all this time. The yellow glow in the light seemed to beam off the walls, covered in their richly veined Siena marble. The floor was a gleaming chessboard of marble tiles, just as Betty had described, and the sumptuous chandeliers overhead added their lustrous effect.
The atmosphere of opulence had not been overstated. Intent on observing everything, Kristy gradually realised the sense of richness—even of greatness—was reflected by the beautifully dressed and elegantly shod guests scattered through the lobby. No-one in common jeans. Not even designer jeans. As for scuffed Reeboks, Kristy suspected the people around her wouldn’t be seen dead in them.
She didn’t fit in here. That was the plain unvarnished truth. Betty and John had undoubtedly worn their best honeymoon clothes at the time of their stay. Coming to this hotel was not supposed to be an act of impulse.
However, it was done now and she didn’t really have to fit, Kristy assured herself. All she wanted was a room for the night. That would complete her mission here and she saw no reason why it shouldn’t be achieved. Once out of sight she wouldn’t present a problem to anyone. Besides, there was nothing wrong in pursuing a sentimental whim.
The bellboy was standing guard over her bag at the reception desk. Both he and the clerk who’d been alerted to her entrance were keeping a wary eye on her. Kristy hated feeling unwelcome, but these people meant nothing to her. The fantasy of a forty-year-old honeymoon had a much stronger call on her than their approval.
Refusing to be intimidated, Kristy fronted up to the desk, noting how the clerk, a tall thin man with a receding hairline, positioned himself to be in direct line to serve her. He was obviously the senior man on duty. No doubt he always took charge of difficult guests.
“How can I help, Madame?”
Studied politeness, Kristy thought. He didn’t want to help her at all. The crease of concern on his brow and the trace of anxiety in his voice telegraphed a wish to get rid of her as fast as possible.
“I want a room for tonight. Only the one night,” she answered with pointed emphasis, hoping such a brief stay would win his toleration. At least he couldn’t fault her French, she thought, having mimicked the exact modulation of his voice.
He hesitated, uncertainty flicking over his face. “We have a suite....”
Kristy looked him in the eye. He had probably surmised she couldn’t afford an expensive suite. “I want a room. A regular room. For one night. Are you saying you can’t accommodate me?”
He seemed to take fright at her assertive challenge, perhaps sniffing the possibility of an unpleasant scene. “Non, Madame,” he answered hastily. “A room can be arranged.”
“Your cheapest room,” Kristy spelled out so there was no mistake.
His eyebrows shot up. His face dropped. “Oui, Madame,” he choked out.
He pushed across the registration form and Kristy filled it in, feeling she had won a minor victory over petty snobbery. Why the staff here was automatically addressing her as madame was a puzzle, but she shrugged it off as irrelevant. She was in. That was all she cared about
Having written down the information required and signed her name, she handed the form back. The clerk started to glance over it. Kristy could have sworn his eyes actually bulged as he took in her particulars. Probably stunned to discover she was an American, not French at all.
Nevertheless, that didn’t explain why he then became quite agitated, shoving the form under the desk as though it was contaminated and passing a room key to the bellboy with fussy officiousness, gesturing pointedly to the elevators.
The bellboy set off smartly with her key and bag, but the clerk’s manner had irked Kristy. A streak of stubborn pride emerged, prompting her to loiter in the lobby. She didn’t like being pushed around, or viewed as disposable garbage. Her independent spirit insisted she ignore such pressures.
Her gaze was drawn to a couple seated behind a low table, conversing quietly but with the kind of animation that was distinctly French. The woman was a striking brunette, superbly groomed, and wearing a black and white outfit that had to be the creation of one of the top Parisian designers. She gave chic a new meaning.
Her companion was even more striking, the perfect image of aristocratic elegance. He was handsome in a distinctly Gallic way: a high intellectual forehead, a slightly long but very refined nose, a firm imperious chin, and an extremely sensual mouth. He was clothed in tailored perfection, his dark grey suit encasing a body that conveyed grace, virility and vitality.
Something about him tugged at her, as though she should know him, yet she was sure she’d remember if she’d ever met him before. The feeling caused her to study him with keener interest.
His black hair was sleekly styled, as though he knew he needed no flamboyance to distract from the fine sensitivity of his face. She imagined him having a deep appreciation of art and music and good food and wine. The quizzical arch of his brows suggested he would take pleasure in questioning everything, and the dark dancing brilliance of his eyes seemed to promise he missed nothing.
There was passion in the slight flare of his nostrils, a worldly but not unkind cynicism in the faint curl of his beautifully moulded mouth. He was in his mid-thirties, Kristy guessed, with the mature authority that came with many years of being successful at whatever he did.
She found herself envying the woman who was with him. They had to be celebrating something. A bottle of champagne rested in a silver ice bucket on the table and two flute glasses of gleaming crystal were at hand. Their honeymoon? she wondered, and felt a sharp inner recoil from the thought.
The man suddenly bestowed a brilliant smile on his companion and Kristy caught her breath as his attraction took a mega-leap. She was riven by a fierce wish for that smile to be directed at her...only her...which shook her so much she wrenched her gaze away.
The bellboy was shuffling impatiently by the elevators. She hadn’t asked for his services, Kristy thought irritably. As a guest in this hotel, she had every right to move at her own convenience, not his. No doubt the couple she’d been watching did as they pleased, assuming it was the natural way of things. She looked back at them with a burst of burning resentment that was quite alien to her normal nature.
What happened next was inexplicable. Had she somehow shot a blast of negative force across the lobby? The man must have felt something hit him. His head jerked, attention whipping away from his companion and fastening on Kristy with such sharp intensity, her heart contracted. He started to rise from his seat, his face stricken with...what? Surprise . . . astonishment, shock...guilt...anger?
His hand flashed out in aggressive dismissal. It struck the glass nearest to him. Over it went, rolling towards the edge, splashing fluid across the table. He moved instinctively but jerkily to grab it and the whole table tipped. Ice and shards of crystal splattered over the chessboard floor in a spreading foam of spilled champagne.
Momentarily and automatically his gaze left Kristy to follow the path of destruction radiating out in front of him. A totally appalled look flitted over his face. Yet his gaze stabbed back at her, dismissing the mess, projecting some savagely personal accusation at her, as though this was all her fault and she knew it as intimately and certainly as he did.
It made Kristy feel odd, as though time and place had shifted into a different dimension. Her pulse went haywire, pumping her heart so hard her temples throbbed. Vaguely she saw the woman leap up and clutch the man’s arm, commanding his attention. Then a hand touched her own arm, jolting her out of the strange thrall that had held her. It was the clerk from the reception desk.
“Your room, Madame,” he pressed anxiously. “The bellboy has the elevator waiting for you.”
“Oh! Yes. Okay,” she babbled, momentarily forgetting to speak French.
She forced her legs to move away from the embarrassing scene. It wasn’t her fault. How could it be? She was nobody here. She didn’t know the man and the man didn’t know her. She must have imagined that weird sense of connection.
The bellboy was holding the elevator doors open for her, the canvas bag already deposited in the compartment. His head shook dolefully over the mess in the lobby behind her as she stepped past him.
“An unfortunate accident,” she offered by way of glossing over the incident.
“Un scandale,” he muttered, smartly stepping into the elevator after her and releasing the doors, shutting them both off from whatever was now happening in the lobby. As he pressed the button for her floor he added on a low note of doom, “Un scandale terrible!”
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT melodramatic nonsense! Kristy thought, determinedly blocking irrational impressions out of her mind and switching it onto a sane, sensible level.
Such an accident might be uncommon in this grand hotel, but staff would be snapping into action, cleaning away the mess fast and efficiently, sweeping it out of sight, out of mind, as though it had never been. Breakage and spillage hardly constituted a terrible scandal.
She decided not to offer any further comment as the elevator travelled up to her floor. Clearly she and the bellboy were not on any common wavelength. Besides, she was still shaken by the sheer force of what she’d felt coming from the man.
She had never experienced anything like it. Perhaps a culmination of grief, stress and fatigue had affected her nervous system, throwing her emotions out of kilter. Even the impulse to come here now looked foolish. Certainly ill-considered, given her reception by the staff. Or was she putting too much emphasis on that, too, blowing niggly little feelings out of proportion?
As for the man who’d triggered such a vivid range of emotions... was there such a thing as knowing someone from another life? She shook her head in wry bemusement. Perhaps it was this hotel making her fanciful...Betty’s and John’s honeymoon hotel. Her strong fixation on the attractive foreigner must have coloured her perception, making her see things differently to the actual reality.
The woman he was with could have said something to upset him. Then he’d probably found Kristy’s staring at him offensive, especially when he’d knocked things over. No one liked having witnesses to an embarrassing scene. It was stupid to read any more into the incident than that.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. Having recollected herself, Kristy stepped out, resolving not to be flustered by anything else on this one-night stopover in Paris.
The bellboy ushered her into a room which had no pretensions to being the least bit cheap. Her heart quailed a little at the price she might have to pay for it tomorrow, but then she sternly told herself she was here to soak up and enjoy the atmosphere and ambience around her. Cost was to be discounted.
She searched her handbag for a few coins to tip the bellboy. It was a futile exercise. He scuttled away with a rapidity which was startling. Apparently official courtesy ended at the door, now she was safely tucked away from causing any public displeasure.
Sighing away her vexation at being treated like some second-class citizen, Kristy set out on her own tour of the accommodation she had insisted upon. At least, she was on her own here. She wouldn’t bother anyone and no-one would bother her.
The bedroom was lovely. The colour scheme of off-white, beige and brown, smartly contrasted with black, was very stylish and Parisian. It was also too modern to have been in place forty years ago. Reason told her the furnishings had probably been changed many times since Betty and John had stayed here, but she was sure they had been just as delighted with their room as she was with hers. Of course, being in love had probably made it even more delightful.
The marble bathroom was utter luxury. Kristy could well imagine Betty revelling in what she would consider the height of delicious decadence. Sumptuous plumbing was not a feature of the third-world countries where John had frequently been posted throughout his army career. Not that Betty had ever complained about primitive facilities, but whenever they had returned to “civilization”, it was a well appointed bathroom that defined “civilization.”
Kristy was moving to unpack and settle in when a quiet rap on the door drew her attention. She opened it to a distinguished-looking gentleman in a pinstripe suit. His cheeks were full, well-fed and although he was no taller than Kristy, which put him at barely average height for a man, he exuded an air of benign authority.
“Madame, a word with you,” he appealed softly.
She flashed him a smile. “And you are...whom?”
He returned her smile. “A good jest, Madame,” he replied with a jovial little chuckle.
Kristy wondered what the joke was.
“May I come in?” he asked, gesturing an eloquent appeal to her good nature.
Kristy frowned over the request. A stranger was a stranger in her book, especially one who acted strangely. “What for?” she demanded suspiciously.
He made an apologetic grimace. “This room... there has been an error. If you will allow me to rearrange...”
“Oh!” She instantly slotted him into place. He was management. Had he come to tell her this room wasn’t the cheapest available, or was she going to be thrown out of the hotel after all?
He laced his hands together, revealing some anxiety over her possible displeasure. “A most unfortunate, regrettable error . . .”
Kristy stared back stonily, wondering whether it was worth the effort of making a fuss. If all the staff had a down on her, her stay here could be made too unpleasant to persist with it.
“I must...” the voice of authority continued affably, “. . . if you’ll forgive me...insist you vacate it.”
Kristy felt herself bridling and struggled to remain calm. She could stand her ground, perhaps even demand compensation for the hotel’s error, but was it worth fighting about? As much as she despised snobbery, there was not much joy in bucking a system which remained immutable no matter how many little victories could be scored against it. At least she hadn’t unpacked, so she didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of repacking.
“Please allow me, Madame, to escort you to somewhere more suitable...uh...to your needs,” her ejector said with exquisite politeness. It was a very civilized way of putting her in her place.
“You are a master of tact, Monsieur,” Kristy said dryly.
He completely missed the irony edging her words. He positively preened, beaming his appreciation of her compliment. “We have—may I say it—a worldwide reputation for tact and... uh... understanding. Thank you.”
“This place you wish to escort me to...I hope it is cheap, Monsieur,” Kristy said with blunt directness. There was no onus on her to play with subtleties. “You see, I don’t have a lot of money...”
“Say no more, Madame. Discretion. Appeasement. Understanding. With my experience...” He spread his hands in a gesture that embraced a whole world of discretion and appeasement and understanding.
“In that case,” Kristy said decisively, “I may as well get going right now. If you will excuse me, I’ll just collect my bag.” She didn’t want the services of another bellboy, not in this hotel.
“Non, non, Madame. Allow me to carry it for you.”
It surprised Kristy. She would have thought it was beneath his dignity to act as her porter. In a tearing hurry to get her out of his hotel, she thought with bitter cynicism.
She stepped back, waving a careless invitation for him to enter. He collected her canvas carryall while she retrieved her handbag. Coming here had been a silly daydream, Kristy told herself as they vacated the room. The past was gone and could never be truly recaptured. At least she’d seen the place. In the circumstances, that was quite enough.
The manager led her along the corridor. He only went a short way before putting down her bag and producing a set of keys which he flourished as though he was St. Peter about to open the portals of heaven. Kristy did a swift rethink. He couldn’t be throwing her out of the hotel after all, so this must be a cheaper room.
He unlocked the door before them, swung it open like an impresario, and eloquently gestured Kristy forward. “Madame, your room,” he announced with almost smug satisfaction.
Kristy took several steps, saw what was in front of her, and stopped dead. Was this some kind of joke? To take her out of a room and lead her to what was clearly a luxurious suite had to be the height of perversity when she had made such a point of revealing a very real need not to be extravagant.
“I can’t afford this,” she protested.
The manager looked offended. “Madame is our guest. Of course Madame is not expected to pay for anything while she is our guest.” His voice had a touch of outrage at her failure to understand his understanding.
“I think,” said Kristy forcefully, “there is some mistake.”
“Madame...uh...Holloway . . .” He gave another little jovial chuckle and added a conspiratorial wink. “The mistake has been rectified.”
He marched into the huge sitting room—complete with a conservatory and a private terrace—and into a dressing-room where he deposited her canvas carryall, thereby emphasizing her accepted status here. Kristy watched him doubtfully, certain there had been some ridiculous mix-up. On the other hand, he had called her by her own name although why he persisted with Madame was beyond her. He could not have failed to notice she wasn’t wearing any rings.
“Are you sure this is the right place for me, Monsieur? ” she asked, feeling the need to get this pinned down to something concrete.
He beamed supreme confidence. “Certainement”
Kristy gave up. She didn’t need the stress of sorting out this madness, or getting a room in another hotel. This was some management bungle and they could pay for it. She’d made her terms absolutely clear, and after all this hassle, no way was she going to be shifted again.
“One last thing, Madame Holloway . . .”
“Yes?”
The manager went to a door on the other side of the sitting room, took a key from the flourished key ring, and inserted it in the lock. “For your use only,” he said solemnly.
Kristy looked at him blankly. What did he mean by that?
He gave the key a dramatic twist. “Unlocked,” he said. Then he turned the key the other way. “Locked,” he said. “I will leave it to Madame’s discretion.”
“Monsieur . . .” Kristy expostulated, totally bewildered by the whole sequence of events.
“Say no more. Say no more. Tact. Diplomacy. Understanding. We know all these things.”
He withdrew the key from the lock, came across the room, and pressed it into her hand. It was too much for Kristy. Altogether too much.
“Monsieur . . .”
“Enough. You are our guest You pay for nothing. If this...er...delicate situation can be fortunately resolved... uh...please remember me.”
And so saying, he bowed his way out of the room, leaving her with another of his jovial little laughs, to which he seemed addicted.
Of one thing Kristy was absolutely certain. There was some mistake here of gigantic proportions. It was equally clear it was someone else’s mistake. She had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
She frowned over his parting words...this delicate situation. What was he referring to? She didn’t have a clue. It just seemed that ever since the hotel doorman had laid eyes on her, the world had shifted out of kilter.
Discretion said she should get out of here as soon as possible. Retreat. Retire before some ghastly disaster occurred. Un scandale terrible!
The over-the-top thought evoked a burst of somewhat hysterical laughter. Which suggested, after she’d sobered up again, that her nerves were in a bad way. The experience of this hotel was definitely not soothing, as she had anticipated it would be. The depression of being totally alone hit her again, whispering that her trip to Geneva would probably be a failure, too.
The energy that had driven her to this journey drained away. Let the hotel management discover its mistake, she decided listlessly. There was no need for her to pre-empt any action. She had tried to protest, to explain, to set the situation straight. None of this was her fault. No doubt she would receive another visit soon and everything would be resolved properly, so there was no point in unpacking her bag.
Meanwhile, she had this key in her hand. Kristy eyed the interconnecting door which could be locked or unlocked with the burning-question key. Maybe the answers, or some answer to this delicate situation, lay on the other side of the door. It was none of her business, of course. On the other hand, she had somehow got involved.
She thought of Pandora who opened the lid of the box which let loose all the troubles of the world. Curiosity was a terrible thing and it could be very dangerous. Better to let it go and not risk adding more trouble to trouble.
Kristy set the key down on a coffee table and turned her back on it. She walked out to the private terrace, deciding she might as well enjoy all this luxury while she could because she couldn’t see it lasting for long. This was not the place for her and that key could only lead to something even more out of bounds.
The view was the kind which sold postcards; the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Place de la Concorde, all spread out for her to admire and wonder at the genius which had planned such a magnificent vista. Kristy, however, could not concentrate her mind on it. A sense of restlessness drove her back into the sitting room.
The key kept drawing her gaze. It had a powerful fascination. Caught on a seesaw of temptation, she almost leapt out of her skin when a knock came on the door. But it wasn’t on that door. It was on the one which led in from the corridor.
They’ve discovered the mistake, she thought, relieved that she hadn’t surrendered to the curiosity which would have led her into a very awkward indiscretion.
Anticipating a return of the manager, she was surprised when a maid entered, bearing an elegant vase of long-stemmed roses. It was placed on the table beside the key. I’m getting in deeper, Kristy thought. She weakly thanked the maid who withdrew without comment.
Her inner tension moved up a notch when a second knock came. It heralded another maid who carried in a bottle of champagne and an artistically arranged platter of fruit. Kristy stared at both offerings as though they were deadly poison. Why was she such an honoured guest? What was behind all this?
A third knock brought a third maid bearing gift boxes of eau de toilette and soaps.
It was as good as a birthday, Kristy thought ruefully, except she wasn’t enjoying it. Impossible to shake off the feeling that the gifts were connected to that key. She eyed it balefully. Would it unlock the door to the mystery of why she was here and suddenly being treated like royalty? Maybe she should find out what she could before she became even more entrenched in this weird situation.
She picked up the key.
I’ll take just a little peep, she thought.
It’s none of your business, her mind chided.
Yes, it is, another part responded. I’m already in this up to my neck. I didn’t ask to be involved but I am. I definitely am. And I’ve got every right to find out.
She listened to the other side of her mind in case it wanted to pull her back behind the safe cautious line.
No response.
The argument was perfectly sound.
After all, the manager had left the decision in her hands, and she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She did have every reason to take a little peek into the room beyond that door. She had been invited to unlock it at will.
Her fingers closed tightly around the key as her legs moved forward. Determinedly ignoring the burning feeling in her palm and the apprehensive hammering of her heart, Kristy reached the door, fitted the key to the lock and turned it with a swift decisive twist. Then taking a deep breath to calm her leaping nerves, and telling herself she was acting positively and purposefully, she opened the door.
She half-expected some monster to be on the other side but there was no reaction to the door’s opening. No sound. No movement. Nothing. Taking courage at finding no repercussions to her initial trespass, Kristy pushed the door fully ajar. It revealed another sitting room, similar to hers.
She stood motionless for several seconds, listening intently. Still no sounds of occupation. No signs of occupation, either. She took the first step over the threshold. The need to find some answer to this extra accommodation urged her on.
The click of a key in a lock made her freeze halfway across the room. She stared in horror at the door which gave access to the corridor outside. Her throat constricted, her heart thumped in wild apprehension as the door opened. Her eyes widened in shock as she instantly identified the man who stepped inside.
It was the man from the lobby, the man who’d transfixed her with his knowing eyes, the elegant aristocratic man who had inelegantly broken up the romantic interlude with his companion, creating un scandale terrible!
Kristy’s mind dazedly registered the fact that he did not look shocked at seeing her. He actually smiled at her, but it was not the brilliant smile of pleasure that had lit his face for his companion in the lobby. It was a cold cynical curl of his lips, a knowing little smile. Whatever knowledge was behind it gave him no pleasure at all.
He shut the door without a word, without a crack in his composure. Everything in his manner projected he had anticipated her being here.
Yet how could he?
And what could he know about her?
A sense of weird unreality gripped Kristy, holding her in tense waiting for what would come next.
CHAPTER THREE
“SO!”
It was a sibilant hiss that seethed with explosive emotion. Kristy instantly realised his composure was a facade, and it was not only his voice that revealed how brittle the façade was. The dark eyes were not dancing with amusement. They glittered with a primitive ferocity...anger, pain, blistering accusation.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he demanded, repitching his voice to a tone of sardonic mockery that didn’t quite disguise an undercurrent of barely leashed savagery.
It was a beautiful voice, rich and male and mesmerisingly coloured by the emotion it projected. Kristy had to shake herself out of her appreciation of it, focus on what was being demanded.
He probably thinks I’m some kind of thief, she thought, and frantically searched her mind for the best way to explain her presence. An attempt at appeasement came up as top priority.
“Je regrette . . .” she began tentatively, but got no further.
“You’re sorry?” Incredulity resonated around the room. The dark eyes swept her with scathing contempt. “You’re sony,” he repeated jeeringly. He tilted his head back and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Bon Dieu! You have a thousand things to explain and all you can say is you’re sorry.” His derisive laugh had an element of wildness that sent chills down Kristy’s spine.
She darted a look at the interconnecting door, measuring her line of retreat.
“Oh, no, my precious darling!”
The endearment held no affection whatsoever. The tone of venomous purpose whipped Kristy’s gaze back to him. He was moving swiftly to cut off her escape route and the aura of violence he emanated was quite enough to hold Kristy absolutely still. She didn’t want to provoke him any more than he was already provoked by her presence here.
“You will not leave until I’m satisfied you have explained...everything...to me,” he promised her, a threat underlining every word.
Kristy swallowed hard. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating with electric tension and it was difficult to make her mouth work. But speak she must. “It’s very simple really,” she began.
It seemed to provoke the man even more. “Simple!” he interjected, his eyes blazing dark fury. He moved closer to tower over her. “Two years! Two long lonely bitter years! And all you can say is you’re sorry? And it’s simple?” His voice literally shook with outrage.
Kristy’s mind whirled with confusion. What did two years have to do with anything? “I don’t know what you want to know,” she rushed out in the hope of getting some direction from him since he didn’t like anything she said.
At least it had a calming effect, Kristy thought with relief. The blaze of fury banked down to a simmer which still looked dangerous but was temporarily under control. Then he smiled at her. Somehow the smile was as chilling as his derisive laugh had been. It spelled disaster if she put a foot wrong.
“Did you come here in the hope of hearing words of love from me?” he asked in a soft jeering tone.
“Certainly not,” Kristy replied incredulously. The idea was absurd. Why would she expect to hear endearments from a stranger?
One black eyebrow rose in mocking challenge. “To tell me that you love me?”
Kristy could hardly believe she was hearing this. She didn’t know the man. What kind of woman did he think she was? A boldly enterprising callgirl on the make, slipping into his room to set up a chance?
“That’s ridiculous!” she protested.
He laughed. “How true!” The dark eyes burned more intensely into hers and his voice lowered to a purring throb. “Was it to seduce me into making love to you? To feel my body caressing yours in the way you most enjoy?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Kristy cried, terribly disconcerted by the effect his suggestive words had on her pulse rate.
Her reply seemed to incense him. “Then I will tell you what I think,” he seethed. His mouth curled around the words as he spat them out. “You are a cowardly sneak! Your effrontery in presenting yourself here is unbelievable! You are shameless, heartless, gutless...”
Shock paralysed Kristy’s mind for several seconds. Then a tidal wave of outrage swept through her, lifting her hand, propelling it with furious force. It struck his face so hard it snapped his head back. It left reddened weals across his cheek, and Kristy’s eyes burned with savage satisfaction at the sight Never had she felt so angry in her life.
“Keep your slanderous words and thoughts to yourself!” she hissed, ready to fight tooth and nail if he so much as tried to insult her again in such an offensive fashion.
He had no right. All she had done was trespass into his room, and she had been given a key for that purpose anyway. She couldn’t see how any blame for that could be attached to her. She did not deserve such abuse and no way in the world would she tolerate it.
The dark eyes flared with violent passion. She met them with blue ice, defying him to do his worst. The clash of will and turbulent emotion somehow seeded something even more disturbing. Kristy was conscious of a shift inside herself, an uncoiling of a need, a desire, an awakening tingle in her blood that she had never felt before.
She did not know this man.
Yet something inside her did. Or seemed to. Some subconscious recognition she was at a total loss to explain. The feeling was even stronger now than it had been in the lobby, spurring with it a fiercely primitive urge to have what he’d put into her mind. She found herself literally craving to know what it would be like to feel his body caressing hers.
Suddenly the searing dark eyes were like magnets, dragging on her soul. A sense of deep intimacy pulsed between them. She had a compelling urge to reach up and touch his cheek, to tenderly stroke away the hurt marks she had inflicted. She only just managed to check what would have been an insane move, given the situation.
Kristy didn’t understand herself at all. How could she be so enthralled by the man, when what was happening now was hardly a promising beginning for anything? She had never struck anyone in her whole life until he had stirred her into it.
An appalled horror descended on her. She was a nonviolent person. Words, not fists, had always been her creed. Ever since she had entered this hotel, things had started swinging out of normality.
Was it Alice who had stepped through the looking glass and into another world?
Kristy was beginning to feel the same thing had happened to her. She took a deep breath and tried to regain some sanity. How could there be any sense of intimacy between this stranger and herself? She had to be imagining it. His talk of love and lovemaking must be triggering wild offshoots from the need to belong to someone, somewhere.
Yet, as though they were somehow acutely attuned to each other, she sensed a similar withdrawal from him, the automatic reaction to shock and disbelief, needing time to pause and take stock, to reassess. His face tightened. His mouth thinned into a grim line. The dark eyes narrowed to gleaming slits.
Kristy thought about apologising, but since this whole scene had erupted from her initial apology, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, he had been as much in the wrong as she was. Pride insisted she concede no fault in what she had done, but explanations were certainly due.
“Monsieur . . .” she started again.
“Don’t call me that!” he snapped angrily.
Whatever I say seems to get me into trouble, Kristy thought. “Very well,” she agreed, wondering what else she could call him. “There is an explanation....”
“I shall be interested to hear it,” he snapped again. “I shall be fascinated to hear how you explain yourself,” he went on, his voice gathering a stinging contempt. “Every word will be a priceless pearl to my ears. I shall assess it with intense appreciation for its worth.”
Which set Kristy back on her heels because her explanation didn’t make much sense to her, and she doubted it would make sense to him either. However, the truth was the truth. “I have this key....” she began slowly. “The manager gave it to me....”
That was as far as she got.
He took hold of her shoulders and shook her in furious impatience. “You are incredible! Totally incredible!” he seethed.
Kristy realised that what he was saying was true. Her explanation was totally incredible. But this man was teetering on the edge of being totally out of control and she didn’t know what to say or do. “Please...” She couldn’t call him monsieur. “. . . take your hands off me,” she begged.
He laughed with arrogant disdain, but he released her and dropped his hands to his sides. “You think I cannot do that?” he taunted, his eyes flashing bitter derision. “You think I have to touch you? That I cannot help myself?” He bared his teeth in a scornful sneer. “I can do it. See for yourself!”
“Thank you,” Kristy breathed in deep relief.
Violence did breed violence, she thought. She shouldn’t have slapped him. Strictly words from now on, she promised herself.
As though he had come to the same civilized conclusion, he stepped back from her in haughty rejection, a cold pride stamped on his face. His aristocratic bearing was very pronounced as he strode around the room, releasing his inner turbulence in sharp angry gestures and bursts of scorn.
“You are nothing,” he hurled at her. “Nothing at all! Not a speck of dirt. Utterly insignificant. Meaningless.”
Kristy steeled herself to remain cool, no matter how hotly this man stirred her blood. In actual fact, what he said was a fairly accurate description. To the world at large, she was a nobody. There was no-one left who cared whether she existed or not. Besides, agreeing with people’s ideas was a better way of placating them than disagreeing with them.
“I realise that,” she said calmly.
Her answer brought him to an abrupt halt. His brow creased in puzzlement. The dark eyes stabbed at her in suspicious re-assessment “You realise that?” he said slowly, watching intently for some telltale reaction from her.
“Certainly,” Kristy said with assurance. Why should she mean anything to this man? They were complete strangers.
He sauntered towards her, ruthless purpose stamped on his face. “I’ll prove how worthless you are.”
“You don’t have to prove anything of the kind,” Kristy cried in alarm. She didn’t want him to shake her again.
“Where have you been for the last two years?” he bit out savagely. “What have you been doing? Why did you move out of my life without so much as a word of warning or excuse?”
Understanding began to dawn in Kristy’s mind. For some reason this man thought she was someone else. Enlightenment grew in rippling waves. The hotel staff, from the doorman to the manager, had thought she was someone else. It was the only explanation that fitted the facts; all the odd reactions she had been getting from the staff which she had set down to snobbery, the accident in the lobby that had happened because this man had caught sight of her, the bellboy’s proclaiming it un scandale terrible, the manager with his strange manoeuvrings and talk of discretion.
This certainly loomed as a very delicate situation!
The tantalising question was...who was she supposed to be? Who did they all think she was? And why couldn’t they see she wasn’t who they thought she was?
“Answer me!”
He was towering over her again, commanding her attention. Kristy pulled her mind out of its whirling flurry of activity and concentrated on what was most immediate. Somewhere, sometime, there had to be an explanation of what was happening. In the meantime, Kristy thought, it was imperative to answer this man’s question truthfully and with a calm composure. Her heart gave a nervous little flutter as she looked up into the darkly demanding eyes.
“I was in San Francisco most of the time....”
“So! You did go with the American!” he threw at her. “Yes...I can hear it in your voice. Damn you for the conniving cheat you are!”
“I’m not a cheat!” she hurled back at him in fierce resentment.
“You think you can get to me again? After what you’ve done?”
She hadn’t done anything! Except use the key that had brought her into this room. However, before she could expostulate, his hand lifted and curled around her cheek. Kristy flinched away from the touch but it was an ineffectual movement. He tilted her chin up, bent his head, and his mouth crashed onto hers.
The shock of it left her momentarily defenceless. His hand slid into her hair entangling itself in the thick tresses and binding her to him as forcefully as the arm that scooped her body hard against his. Then an explosion of sensation robbed her of any thought of resistance.
His mouth possessed hers in a frenzy of passion, igniting a response that rushed into being, spreading through her like wildfire, an uncontrollable force, taking her over, thrumming to a beat of its own. Heat pulsed from him, suffusing her entire body, exciting an almost excruciating awareness of hard flesh and muscle imprinting themselves on her. His kiss plundered and destroyed her previous knowledge of what a kiss could be, arousing a compulsive need to cast all limits aside and plummet into more and more enticing levels of melding together.
The break came as swiftly and as shockingly as the enforced connection. He tore his mouth from hers. His hands encircled her upper arms, holding her away from him as he stepped back. Dazed by the abrupt withdrawal and still helplessly churning with the sensations he’d stirred, Kristy looked at him in blank incomprehension.
His dark eyes glittered with malevolent triumph. “You see?” he said, removing his grasp, lifting his hands away as though the touch of her was distasteful to him. “I feel nothing for you. Absolutely nothing.”
It was a barefaced lie.
He was not unaffected by her, nor what had passed between them. His breathing was visibly faster and even as he swung on his heel and turned his back to her, Kristy was recalling all too acutely the burgeoning of his erection, proving he had been physically moved. Besides, how could such passion be generated out of nothing?
Though that raised the thorny question of how could she have been so deeply affected when ostensibly there was nothing between them but a misunderstanding. Worse, a case of mistaken identity! A painful flush scorched up her neck and burnt her cheeks. He had been abusing another woman, while here she was, deeply shaken by a vulnerability she couldn’t explain.
Nevertheless, explanations were in order. In very fast order, too, given the volatile nature of feelings running riot here. She had to correct his conviction she was someone he had known before. That was at the heart of this whole wretched mix-up.
“The reason there is nothing is because there was nothing in the first place,” Kristy said shakily.
He whirled around, his face contorted with furious resentment. His eyes stabbed black daggers at her. “Don’t make a fool of yourself by stating the obvious.”
Still hopelessly unsettled by the turbulence he’d aroused, Kristy couldn’t stop her own temper from flaring. “You’re deliberately trying to provoke me!”
He did not deny it. He made no reply at all but his eyes kept accusing her of dark, nameless crimes.
Kristy struggled to get herself under control. “What has happened is quite simple,” she stated once again, determined to make him listen, no matter what he said. “You see...”
“I know what has happened,” he cut in emphatically.
Kristy let the interruption fly past her. “...you’re making a mistake about me. You think I’m someone else....”
He gave a cynical laugh.
“I’m not the same woman who...”
“No. Most decidedly not. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been dead for the last two years. I wish you were. It would be better if you were dead.”
Kristy almost stamped her foot in frustration at his refusal to listen. “Will you give me one chance...”
“Absolutely not,” he bit out with venom. “No more chances. You don’t deserve any chances.”
They were talking at cross-purposes. Trying to explain the true situation was obviously a futile exercise. His mind was set on one idea and he wasn’t in the mood to listen to her.
“Fine,” Kristy agreed with some asperity. Since he was not open to reason, it was best for her to give up and walk away. “Please excuse me. I’m going back to my room.”
He waved a disdainful dismissal. “Do that.”
“And locking the door.” So he couldn’t storm after her.
“Good!” He looked satisfied.
“I’m leaving Paris tomorrow.” That gave him a deadline if he could calm down enough to hear her side of this crazy business.
“Excellent!”
Kristy burned over his intransigence. “I’m never coming back,” she declared.
That should finish it for him, she thought. He could consider her dead forever. For some reason, that hurt deep down inside her, but she steadfastly buried the hurt. If it was what he wanted, this meeting with him definitely had no future. Best for her to forget it had ever happened.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously, as though he didn’t believe her. “What do you want from me?” he demanded.
Kristy’s chin lifted in proud rejection of him and all that might have come of this encounter if he could have accepted that things were different to what he thought they were. “Nothing!” she declared in snapping defiance of his suspicions about her. “Absolutely nothing!”
Having delivered the most affirmative exit line she could think of, she swung on her heel and strode for the interconnecting door. She had her hand on the knob, ready to sweep the door shut behind her when his voice cracked out again in harsh command.
“wait!”
She’d had enough. She’d done her best. He wouldn’t listen. He was only upsetting her further and further. So she did not wait. She did not so much as glance back at him. With her head held high, she marched into the suite she had been given and swiftly shut the door on him. One firm twist of the treacherous key and the lock clicked into place.
And that, thought Kristy, was that!
CHAPTER FOUR
KRISTY steamed up and down the luxurious sitting room, totally unaware and unappreciative of her rich and elegant surroundings. Her mind was in a ferment. What an aggravating man! What a positively infuriating man! Interfering with her life just because he thought she was someone else, turning her inside out with his confusing words and actions, making her feel things she had never felt before!
It wasn’t fair!
He wasn’t fair!
None of what had happened since she had arrived here in this damnable hotel was fair!
Kristy felt like picking up things and throwing them. Her gaze balefully targeted the vase of roses. But he would not have ordered them. He hated the woman he thought she was. No, the vase of red roses was the hotel management’s idea to help the resolution of a delicate situation. Except it wasn’t delicate! It was downright hopeless!
Why did they all think she was someone else?
Why?
Kristy marched into the marble bathroom and examined her reflection in the mirror there. It was a most uncomfortable feeling to think there was someone else who looked exactly like her. Was there such a thing as a perfect double? She had heard of movie stars who had look-alike stand-ins, but they weren’t perfect doubles. Surely a man who had been her double’s lover would see some differences if there were any, even though it had been two years since he had been with her. A close resemblance might fool hotel staff, but a lover of intimate acquaintance?
Kristy stared at her reflection in bitter frustration.
Who are you there on the other side of the mirror?
Why did you walk out on him without a word?
I would not have done that.
I’m different from you. I’d never do such a heartless thing to someone who loved me. Or was it wounded pride on his part, losing a possession he’d believed was his. Either way, you must have been a callous creature to dump him like that. But why can’t he see I’m different?
Her hand lifted to trace her features. Was every line exactly the same? The shape of her face, her mouth, her nose, her eyes? And what about colouring? Were her eyes exactly the same clear blue? The blue of cornflowers? Was her hair precisely the same unusual shade of apricot gold? How could it be so? Surely it was impossible. Yet...how else could he make such a mistake?
Kristy shook her head in pained bewilderment. The whole thing was a nightmare. She wrenched her gaze off her reflection in the mirror and left the bathroom. She paused in the dressing-room, eyeing her canvas carryall.
She should pick it up and get out of here. It was the sensible thing to do. Get out of this suite, out of this hotel, right out of this nightmarish situation. Then she would be just herself again, on her way to Geneva, precisely as she had planned before letting herself be sidetracked by a sentimental impulse.
On her way to Geneva . . .
Kristy’s heart stopped dead as her mind performed a double loop. Her mission was to search the Red Cross records for some trace of the family she had lost twenty-five years ago. What if she hadn’t been the only survivor of the earthquake? What if she had a sister—an identical twin sister!—who’d also survived? Or who hadn’t even been in the same place at the same time?
Family—real family!
Her stilled heart burst into rapid pumping.
The answers she wanted might be right here. With the man in the suite next door. Having a twin made more sense out of everyone’s conviction she was someone else. If it was true.
Her mind whirled, struck by the set of eene coincidences... the man who knew staying in this hotel, being actually in the lobby when she had entered for the first and probably the last time in her life... Betty and John bringing her here after their deaths...an impulse... guided by feelings for the very people who might have inadvertently separated her from a twin sister.
Kristy rubbed at her forehead. It ached, as did her heart, carrying the burden of too many thoughts and too many feelings. There was only one way to sort them out. She had to talk to the man again, whether he wanted it or not. Besides, he probably needed a resolution as much as she did.
Too agitated to wait for a longer cooling-off period for him, Kristy headed for the dangerous door again. Nothing was going to put her off her purpose this time, not insults, not threats, not even physical abuse, though she didn’t believe he’d try that again.
She knocked to give him warning, then twisted the key in the lock and thrust the door open. “Monsieur . . .” she called commandingly, determined not to be deterred from asking the questions that had to be asked and answered.
No reply.
She stepped into his sitting room and called again, shooting her gaze around as much as she could see of his suite. It appeared as empty as when she’d first entered and there was no response to her call. She waited, riven by dreadful tension. Perhaps he was in the bathroom. She listened hard. No sound. There was an empty feel to the place, not even a remote sense of his strong presence.
Kristy stood blankly for several minutes, robbed of her purpose and at a total loss what to do next. He wasn’t here. She didn’t know his name. The hotel management was so hung up on discretion, it was most unlikely they’d just give it to her. Apart from which, since the mix-up was still in force, they’d probably think such an inquiry was another little joke on her part.
Her best course, she finally decided, was to wait a few hours and see if he came back. It was midafternoon now. If he was occupying this suite, he’d probably return to it to change for dinner. On the other hand, he might have washed his hands of her and gone off with the beautiful brunette.
It was a depressing thought.
Kristy brooded over the strong pull he’d had on her, then sternly told herself he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with the twin of a woman who’d dumped him. Maybe they shared the same chemistry. That would help to explain the extraordinary feelings he stirred in her.
Despondently she returned to her suite, relocking the connecting door. She needed his name, but that could wait, too. If she failed to make any further contact with him today, she would tackle the hotel management tomorrow morning, argue her case, and demand co-operation. No way would she countenance losing this link to a possible sister.
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Emma Darcy
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Зарубежные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: He was driven by vengeance…Adopted but now alone, Kristy went in search of her natural family. When Armand Dutournier burst into her life, accusing her of betrayals she had not committed, Kristy could only wonder – did she have a perfect double? Could she possibly have a twin?Armand was her only lead to the family she yearned for, but his passionate drive for vengeance – and the powerful attraction between them – made accepting his proposition of a temporary intimacy highly dangerous!