chapter FOURTEEN
COLETTE stared at his retreating back, wanting to follow him, to explain, to beg him to hold her and soothe away her fears. But how could he when he didn’t love her? When he never would?
She blinked, silently holding back the sobs crowding her chest as she watched him shuck his clothing, lift the sheets, and then climb into bed without looking at her. She followed him across the room, removed her robe, and slid in next to him.
For the first time since coming to the Riviera he turned away from her, presenting his broad back. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t make love to her or wrap his big, warm body around hers.
And she felt the distance between them like a jagged tear in her heart. She wanted to curl into him, to bury her face against his skin and confess her love for him. She wanted him to wind his strong arms around her, to kiss her, reassure her, and tell her again that he’d never regret marrying her. But what would be the use? They were just empty words, meaningless words he’d feel obligated to say.
Somehow Colette managed to keep the sobs buried deep, deep inside. Tears seeped silently from the corners of her eyes, down her temples and onto the pillow, but she didn’t make a sound. She didn’t move.
She didn’t sleep much that night, and their flight to London the next day was tense. Emma distracted her and gave her day purpose. For Emma, she’d feign good spirits. For Emma, she’d pretend everything was fine.
The next night was a repeat of the night before. Just the setting had changed. Though they stayed in the Whitfield Grand’s penthouse suite, the same suite she and Stephen had once used for their clandestine lunchtime trysts, it felt as if they were visitors to a museum. Pleasant, cordial and polite, she and Stephen spoke only when conditions demanded it.
And still he didn’t touch her.
The following morning, she found a note from him stuck to the bathroom mirror.
Don’t wait up tonight; I’ll be home late.—S
A call to the front desk informed Colette as to why Stephen would be home late. Just like every year since its opening, the Whitfield Grand was hosting the Sir Walter Whitfield III’s annual birthday bash. It was scheduled for eight p.m. in the largest ballroom, and everybody who was anybody would be in attendance. While she, Stephen’s wife, the woman he’d instructed not to wait up, hadn’t even been invited.
An unexpected flash of anger heated her chest. As irrational as it was, she felt betrayed. True, she wasn’t the wife he wanted, and she’d brought a child into the world he’d never intended to have. But for him to keep her from meeting his family, hated or not, spoke volumes about how he really felt about her. The whole time he’d been asking for her trust, claiming to want her for her, he’d been lying to her.
He, who’d claimed to want a marriage built on mutual respect, was too embarrassed even to introduce her to his family.
If he’d been honest, if he’d said he married her because she was Emma’s mother and she was great in bed, they’d at least have had realistic expectations of each other. She’d have been able to trust him.
But, no. He claimed to want her happy. He claimed he’d married her for her. Right.
He wanted her so much he’d rather hide her away in a hotel suite than publicly claim her as his wife.
Fine. If that was the way he wanted to play it, she’d play. She’d prove him to be the liar he was and then their marriage could finally be based on truth.
Stephen arrived late to his grandfather’s party.
Dressed in the requisite tuxedo, he made a beeline for the bar and ordered a Scotch on the rocks. He didn’t want to see his family, didn’t want to see any of the spoiled blond Whitfields who’d made his life a living hell. He’d only come out of loyalty to his mother’s memory, to remind every damn one of them that he hadn’t forgotten what they’d done.
After spending twenty-five years proving that the Whitfields couldn’t bully him the way they’d bullied his mother, he wasn’t about to stop now. And, Lord knew, if he failed to make an appearance, his spiteful cousins would trash the hotel in the name of victorious celebration.
Just like every other year, the event was packed with people Stephen could barely tolerate when his mood was generous. Europe’s richest businessmen, their superficial wives and catty mistresses, celebrities whose names he could never remember, and anyone else fortunate enough to claim a coveted connection to the Whitfields was in attendance. It was enough to sour any mood, and his wasn’t good to begin with.
After not touching Colette for days, he felt like a caged tiger spoiling for a kill. Preferably something flavored with a Whitfield sneer and polished platinum hair.
His hand tightened around the tumbler of ice and liquor as his least favorite Whitfield cousin approached him. “Still drinking like the Irish scum that spawned you, eh?”
“What do you want, Liam?”
“Besides everything you took that should have been mine?” he said with a scowl. “I’d be happy if you just disappeared.”
“Much as I’d like to help you out, I can’t,” he said, before slugging back his drink in a single swallow. The burn felt good and the tumbler kept his hands busy. For now. “Who else would clean up after your mistakes if I were gone?”
Liam’s eyes narrowed and a telltale flush of fury stained his face a mottled red. “Everything was fine until you showed up, uninvited and unannounced.”
“I returned to keep you from driving the Grand into bankruptcy.” He kept his voice calm, though it required a supreme effort to keep his hands off the pompous bastard’s neck. “Irritating you is just an unexpected perk.”
“You’re not good enough to step foot in the Grand, let alone run it. You’re the son of a whore, always sniffing around whores.” His face screwed into an ugly combination of disgust and jealousy. “You can’t even keep them away for Grandfather’s birthday, can you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Colette Huntington, that nobody who acts like she belongs here.”
Stephen’s gut cinched with a sick lurch. Panic coiled in his lungs, froze the air in his chest. For a black, eternal moment his heart forgot how to beat. Then it surged back to life, thundering hard beneath his ribs, and he spun to locate Colette’s golden hair amid the knot of glittering party goers.
No.
He shoved the birthday guests aside without regard for their gasped outrage, leaving offended gossip in his wake as he raced toward his wife. His vulnerable, exposed wife. For a moment he lost sight of her. The ballroom was so crowded he felt as if he navigated a tumultuous sea of jewel and silk. He plunged deeper into the mass of tuxedos and ballgowns until he caught sight of her willowy neck and golden shoulders. It seemed a century since he’d drawn breath, an eon since he’d seen her safe.
Then he saw her companion.
They stood with their backs to him, his grandfather’s gnarled hand clutched just above Colette’s elbow as they made their way to the edge of the ballroom. Stephen lurched forward, the leaden weight of anxiety twisting within his stomach and making his legs unsteady and weak.
“Colette!”
They turned as one, his wife and his grandfather, and Stephen felt his vision go black on the edges. What had Grandfather said to her? What damage had he already done?
Regal, serene, and utterly composed, Colette didn’t show any evidence of his family’s attack, but he knew she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. She was strong that way, keeping her pain locked firmly away where no one could see. Except he knew her scars ran deep. He knew her generous, wounded soul couldn’t survive the blows his family would deliver.
If only he could breathe, he’d take her away from this place. He’d keep her safe.
“Stephen,” she said, arching a prim brow. “Imagine running into you here.”
He ignored his grandfather and stared at his wife silently, his thoughts heaving as ineffectively as his chest.
“Your grandfather was just telling me what a terror you were as a child.” She smiled down at the old goat, a luminous goddess draped in gold and green. “Weren’t you, sir?”
His grandfather glared at Stephen, his icy blue gaze communicating his disapproval as eloquently as any words. “Why didn’t you tell us you’d married this delightful girl?”
The sarcastic edge beneath his grandfather’s words made Stephen’s chest cinch more tightly. Did Colette hear it? Did she hear the signature Whitfield disdain beneath the saccharine sentiment? The hint of battle lines being drawn?
Stepping away from his grandfather, she approached him with a strained smile curving her lips. “Yes, dear, why didn’t you tell your family we were married?”
He watched her mouth move, but for some reason he couldn’t process her words. He couldn’t hear above the thundering roar of his pulse. But he could see the muted evidence of her hurt within her hazel eyes. He could see the sheen of tears welling deep behind her wall of unaffected detachment.
“Colette tells us you have a daughter,” said the old man in a dangerous, threatening voice. “A lovely little child named Emma. Did you intend to keep her from us as well?”
Yes, you sick bastard. I did.
Behind them, the Whitfield vultures circled, his uncles and cousins and their wives inching closer, with malice in their expressions and venom on their tongues. They’d waged their social war for decades and honed their weapons to a sharp, cruel edge. They would cut Colette to ribbons and she didn’t even realize the danger.
Somewhere low in his gut, beneath the resting place of all his childhood fears, panic began to build. He’d been here before. He’d seen the terrible effects of the Whitfield poison on innocent women. He’d seen the havoc his family wreaked. Get her out of here, a voice in his head clamored. Now.
He reached for Colette at the same time his most vitriolic cousin did.
“Colette,” Stephen said, pulling her forward, away from his descending family. “Come. We’re leaving.”
She pulled her arm from his hand, her pleasant party façade immediately overtaken by fury. “Thank you, but, no. I’m having a lovely time.”
“Trust me,” he warned, reclaiming her wrist. “You don’t want to be here.”
“Don’t you mean you don’t want me to be here?” she bit out, yanking free and stumbling back a step. “Why don’t you tell me the truth for once, instead of hiding it behind this ridiculous pretense of caring?”
“You want the truth?” he roared. “Fine. I’ll give you the truth.”
Stepping close, he banded one arm about her waist and dipped to loop the other around her knees. Before she could shriek her protest, he’d bent to swing her up into his arms.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, twisting within his arms and shoving her slim hands against his chest and shoulder. Her floor-length gown, a dizzying blend of champagne and green that matched her eyes, draped over her canted legs while one high heel clattered to the floor. “Put me down!”
“Not a chance,” he whispered hoarsely as he strode toward the nearest exit. “I’m taking you out of here before you get eaten alive.”
“Stop it,” she hissed, her face flushed a ruddy pink. “You’re embarrassing me and making a fool of yourself.”
“For you? Always,” he muttered as he elbowed his way through the doorway.
A shocked murmur of gossip followed them before the ballroom door closed, plunging them into the relative silence of his hotel’s lobby.
Within another minute he’d carried her to the relative safety of his private elevator. When the doors slid closed, he gently lowered her to her feet and then punched the button for his office.
He turned back to his wife just in time to see her hand arcing toward his cheek. Her palm cracked against his jaw and fire lit her beautiful eyes. “I hate you,” she told him, the crests of her cheeks blazing and her hiked chin quivering. “I wish I’d never met you.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said.
“Then why are you doing this?” she bit out, swiping a knuckle beneath her eye. “Because—”
“Forget it,” she snapped. “I’m angry as hell and I don’t want to talk about it!”
If his brain had been functioning properly he’d have stepped back and tried to deal with her rationally. He’d have donned a mantle of dignity and control. But for some reason his body wouldn’t move away from hers. He was acutely aware of everything about his wife, so close and yet still so damnably far away. Her golden hair, swept up in a glorious, glossy mass. Her breasts, displayed to perfection within the tight bodice of her designer gown. Her mouth, glossed a kissable pink and slightly parted despite her fury.
Damning her for putting him in this position, and himself for not being able to keep her safe, he couldn’t force himself to back away. He couldn’t force himself to act reasonable and calm.
“You said you wanted the truth,” he said, “and that’s what I’m going to give you. But not with the whole of England watching.”
“You’re incapable of telling the truth,” she snapped. “And I wish I’d never married you.”
The words clawed at his chest, scoring deep wounds he doubted would ever heal. “I’m sure you do.” The elevator chimed and the doors slid open, revealing the muted darkness of his vacant office. “Shall we?” he asked, sweeping his arm toward the empty space where she’d rejected him so long ago.