Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure (18 page)

She might have lost a few of her marketable assets, she reflected thoughtfully, but she was still a formidable adversary. And she still had plenty of contacts. It had taken has a little under ten minutes to discover the name of Rachel Campion’s agent and inform him where Rachel was staying.

Now all she had to do was keep Orlando here until the morning, when Rachel would be safely back in the clutches of her very grateful agent, and maintain a suitably compassionate expression when she broke the news to Orlando of Rachel’s defection. Switching out the light, Arabella allowed herself an exultant smile.

That might be the hardest part of all.

She was sitting on a chair by the window, and had been for a long time. At the beginning—hours or days or a lifetime ago?—she had been looking out at the street below, in case a car pulled up and Orlando got out.

There had been lots of cars. Whoever would have thought that so many people would come and go in the secret hours of the night? She couldn’t say at exactly what point her hopes had died. Only that as the meagre light of the new day had gradually leaked into the room it had become apparent that they were as cold and stiff as she was.

There was another knock, louder this time. Slowly she raised her head, frowning.

Maybe she’d missed him getting out of the car down on the street below? Maybe he’d come straight up to her, without stopping at the desk to ask for the key…?

With a tearing, wrenching gasp she stumbled to her feet. Her legs were shaking as hope and adrenaline surged through her, and she threw herself across the room, her arms outstretched, blindly groping for the lock on the door, wrestling with it for agonising seconds before flinging it wide open.

‘
Orlando
—’

She stopped, her chest rising and falling with desperate, racking sobs as she tried to make sense of what her eyes were telling her.

There, standing in the doorway with a look of compassionate concern on his face, stood Carlos.

‘
Pardon, monsieur
…There are other people waiting.’ The small and officious concierge didn’t look up from his computer screen. This was a mistake. If he had, he would have been better prepared for the moment when Orlando reached across the desk and grabbed him by the lapels of his well-tailored uniform.

‘I’m sorry,’ Orlando said with devastating politeness, ‘but this is urgent. Just tell me…
has she checked out
?’ He let go.

Throwing a look of blatant dislike in Orlando’s direction, the man began tapping details into the computer. At length he looked up.

‘
Non, monsieur.
’

He didn’t meet Orlando’s eye, looking instead at a point just over his right shoulder, where the lifts were situated. He gave a brittle smile.

‘Can I have the key, please?’ Orlando said harshly.

‘Hold on please, sir,’ the concierge said silkily. He took an eternity to come back with it, by which time the red-haired girl he had just seen emerging from the lift with her distinguished-looking companion had crossed the lobby and been ushered out into the street.

Backing away from the desk, Orlando totally missed the small, superior smile on the concierge’s face. His heart was hammering a panicky tattoo against his ribs as hope churned with icy fear inside him.
She hadn’t checked out. That meant she must still be upstairs. Didn’t it?

He hammered on the lift call button, and was relieved when the doors slid open straight away. But, stepping inside, he nearly blacked out with annihilating longing as he breathed in the faint scent of roses. Desperately he looked around. The lift doors were closing, shutting out the clear part of his vision, and the dark vortex at its centre obscured his view of the lobby through the narrowing gap. He opened his mouth to call Rachel’s name, but the doors slid inexorably shut, leaving him shouting into the insulated silence of the lift.

Slamming his fist against the door, he felt the structure shake beneath his feet. He spun round, searching frantically for the control panel, and then gave a violent curse of rage and self-disgust as he realised he couldn’t even see which number to press. Slowly, laboriously, he felt his way along them, counting.

When he finally reached the suite he threw open the door.

‘
Rachel!
’

His voice was so raw with emotion that he hardly recognised it as his own. He strode through the horribly quiet room, knocking over a vase of flowers, flinging doors open, feeling his hopes being relentlessly slashed as each one revealed an empty room. Eventually he was back where he started, with no choice but to face the facts.

Arabella had been telling the truth for once. Rachel was gone, leaving nothing behind but a lingering scent of rose petals and his whole life in ruins.

Arabella’s voice seemed to hang in the heavy, oppressively heated air. ‘
She’s a world-class pianist with a glittering international career, Orlando. Even you couldn’t be selfish enough to want her to give all that up for a life of complete isolation with a blind recluse.
’

How bloody arrogant he’d been.

He had booked this ridiculous hotel suite with such definite plans. Here, he had thought, away from the crushing familiarity of Easton, he would be able to open up to Rachel and finally hack through all the secrets and misapprehensions that lay between them like a forest of thorns. She was brave and strong and loving—if anyone would accept him as he was, flawed and damaged, she would. He’d even been hopeful enough to ask for a two bedroom suite—what he’d had in mind for her afterwards definitely wasn’t suitable for Felix to witness.

But such was his own selfishness he hadn’t considered Rachel herself. Her life. Had he ever really thought of her as Rachel Campion, world class pianist? Sickeningly he recalled that first night in the kitchen, her horror at his lacerated fingers, her reluctance to pick up the knife. He remembered his unconcealed disdain. Even when he’d found out about her profession he hadn’t given it much thought.

What had Arabella called her? The Next Big Thing?

Rachel had tried to tell him herself, hadn’t she? She had said that not playing the piano had been like losing a part of herself. And he knew exactly how that felt. Why was he surprised that she’d gone back? Arabella was right. Going after her would be nothing short of cruel.

‘You still look very tired. I wish you had let us take you back to the hotel for some rest before tonight.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Rachel coldly. ‘I needed to practise.’ ’You are as brilliant as ever.’ Carlos’s voice was like oiled silk as he trailed a hand over her rigid shoulders. ‘I am so glad to have my little star back where she belongs. You have no idea how worried we have been.’

‘But I left a message. I told you I was safe.’

Carlos’s small eyes glittered in the harsh overhead light. ‘I know, and I tried to understand that you needed some time to think. I am a fair man,
querida.
I do not blame you. Deep in my heart I knew you would come back.’

Rachel fought a tide of nausea and felt her own nails digging into her arms. How she hated herself for proving him right. How she despised her weakness for giving in and going with him. But the point at which he had appeared at the door of that stiflingly lavish hotel suite had been the lowest of her life. Her resistance, her pride, her ability to think clearly had all completely deserted her, and she’d felt so profoundly alone that she would probably have willingly gone with an axe-wielding serial killer if he’d shown her a glimmer of kindness. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to ask how Carlos had found her; it had just seemed like a masterstroke of fate that he had.

‘So I gathered, from the fact you didn’t cancel the concert. What would you have done if I hadn’t come back?’

Carlos threw back his head theatrically and waved an arm. ‘I make contingency plans,’ he said airily, and then quite suddenly his expression changed. ‘You humiliate me enough when you leave me at the church, Rachel,’ he said with quiet malevolence. ‘It took a lot of money and careful PR work to contain the damage. I do not want to have to deal with that again.’

‘What were you going to do?’ she asked, torn between not wanting to know and needing to find out the worst.

He walked slowly around her. He was so much shorter and squatter than Orlando, she thought with a shiver of distaste. She was no longer frightened of him. Just repelled. She would work alongside him for the remainder of this tour, and then…

The thought was like plunging head-first off a cliff into darkness. Then what? Without the piano, without Orlando or Felix,
then what
?

She was so gripped by horror that she almost didn’t notice Carlos’s touch on her back, his fingers crawling like insects across her skin and playing idly with the zip of her dress. ‘You are not the only young, slender red-headed pianist,
querida,
’ he whispered, his breath hot against her neck. ‘How many times do I tell you? Rachel Campion is not just a person, she is a
brand.
If you are unavailable for the concert, we get an understudy for the role of Rachel. The public do not know. The hall is big. Everyone sees red hair and they think of you.’ He laughed nastily, and shivers of loathing rippled down her spine. ‘
That,
my little one, is the power of marketing. Brand association. Brand identity.’

Rachel stared straight ahead, transfixed. ‘What about the music?’ she said tonelessly. ‘You might find someone who looks like me, but what about someone who plays like me?’

‘Ah. Ever the artiste. Well, not all pianists have your talent, it is true. The critics, no doubt they would be disappointed. They would comment on a lack of finesse, a heaviness of interpretation…Rachel Campion does not live up to her early promise, they say, burned out so young—what a pity.’

As the implication of his words struck her there was a commotion in the corridor outside. She heard her mother’s shrill voice, and then a deeper one cutting through it. The next minute the door burst open, and Rachel felt a thousand-volt surge of relief and hope as she found herself staring straight into Orlando’s face.

It was blisteringly angry.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Carlos imperiously, but without stepping out from behind Rachel.

‘I need to talk to Rachel.’ Orlando’s voice was like a rusty blade. ‘Alone.’

‘Impossible,’ said Carlos haughtily. ‘Before a performance she must not be—’

His words were choked off as Orlando reached over Rachel’s shoulder and seized him by the arm, dragging him forward and twisting it up behind his back.

‘You must be the bastard who forced her to sleep with you.’

Carlos made a strangled noise, which was turned into a highpitched cry as Orlando jerked his arm further up his back.

‘And then you tried to force her to marry you. You’re a conductor, no?’

Carlos gave a whimper of assent. ‘I imagine,’ Orlando went on icily, ‘that conducting with a broken shoulder wouldn’t be easy. So let’s just say that if you ever touch her again your career will be over.’

He thrust him towards the door. Muttering darkly and straightening his clothes, Carlos attempted to make a dignified exit.

Orlando and Rachel stood facing each other. Rachel found she was shaking uncontrollably, though he was utterly still. He was staring straight at her, his eyes dark pools of anger, rimmed by the thinnest band of pale green ice. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then, seeming to make an effort to rein in his fury, Orlando put his hands in his pockets and came slowly towards her.

‘So,’ he said with quiet venom, ‘you ran away again. It’s getting to be quite a habit.’

She took a couple of steps backwards, stung beyond belief at the hostility in his tone. Slumping against the wall, she bent her head.

‘Is that what you came here for? To tell me again that I lack courage? Because if you did you’re wasting your time and your breath. I already know.’

‘No.’ There was an edge of darkness in his voice that sliced through her heart like a guillotine. ‘I came to see if you were all right. I came to see for myself that you’d left of your own free will. That you’d made a
choice.
’ He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘I couldn’t just let you go without trying to understand why.’

Rachel took a deep breath in, trying to steady herself, trying to steel herself against the heartbreaking necessity of lying. She was doing it for Felix. For Felix and Orlando, and their future together as father and son. It was a love worth sacrificing her own small, ravaged heart for.

‘I was surplus to requirement,’ she said with admirable calm. ‘Felix has both his parents now. He doesn’t need me.’

‘
What about me?
’ Orlando lashed out, then stopped and turned sharply away. She saw him raise his hand to his face, his long fingers massaging his forehead as he paced restlessly across the floor. Reaching the door, which Carlos had left open, Orlando kicked it viciously shut and turned back to face her. ‘You don’t think that I deserved some sort of an explanation? A goodbye at least?’

He leaned back against the door, looking dangerously calm and almost languorous. Only the terrifying darkness in his eyes and the tense set of his jaw betrayed his fury.

‘If I’d said goodbye I was afraid you’d—say something to make me stay.’

He slammed his fist against the wall. ‘Jeez, Rachel. What do you take me for? Some kind of tyrant? Is your opinion of me so very, very low that that you think I’d blackmail you to stay when you wanted to leave?’

Leaning against the wall opposite him, Rachel let her head fall back as her body was racked with anguish. Every second, with every painful beat of her heart and every deep shuddering breath, she wanted to throw herself into his arms. All her noble intentions to do what was right for Felix were suddenly engulfed by the tidal wave of need that crashed through her as she registered the strength of his emotion.

‘I didn’t want to leave,’ she moaned. ‘I didn’t want to. I
had
to. For my own sanity.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I fell in love with you!’ she shouted. ‘And because you were unavailable—in every sense of the word. Sex—that was all that was on offer. The rest of you was out of bounds. I can’t live like that. It’ll destroy me in the end, loving someone who can’t love me back. You’ve spent the whole time I’ve been with you keeping me at arm’s length, and I know it’s my fault for wanting too much, but I need more than that!’

His face was absolutely ashen. ‘You’re right,’ he said through tight, bloodless lips. ‘I did keep you at arm’s length. But I had good reason to. I had a bloody good reason.’

‘Did you?’ she yelled. ‘Did you really? Well, I’m glad. I’m glad all this misery isn’t for nothing. But, just out of interest, maybe I could hear that very good reason now? It’s far too late to make a difference, but I’d kind of like to hear it anyway.’

With a lithe movement of his shoulders Orlando levered himself from the door and stood before her, wearing a look of raw agony.

There was a sudden sharp knock on the door. ‘Five minutes,
mademoiselle
!’

‘
Oh, God
…’ Rachel jumped, the green dress slipping from her shoulders as her hands flew to her face in panic. And then Orlando was there, holding her steady, his green eyes seeing right into the fear and insecurity inside her, calming it. ‘It’s OK. You’re fine. Your dress…let me do it.’

Wordlessly she turned round, and the world stilled again as his fingers traced their now familiar path along her spine to the base of her dress. She let out a breath of hopeless laughter.

‘What will I do without you to dress me?’

His hands closed around her shoulders and he turned her back to face him. Tilting his head back, he stared down into her face and spoke through gritted teeth.

‘It’s not too late.’

Rachel looked up into the face she loved for its uncompromising strength as much as for its undeniable beauty. For a moment she found herself wondering whether Felix would inherit his father’s unshakable determination as well as his aristocratic features. She would never find out. But though she would never see him grow and change and become himself she still had a responsibility to make that journey as smooth as she could for him. That was why she had to do this.

‘It is,’ she whispered brokenly, and his grip tightened convulsively on her shoulders, as if she’d hurt him and he was tensing himself against the pain. ‘I’m sorry, Orlando, but it
is
too late.’

There was another urgent knock at the door, and the voice called ‘They’re ready Miss Campion.’

Orlando let her go, holding his hands up as if in surrender for a second, before letting them fall helplessly to his sides. ‘In that case I won’t hold you back any more.’

He stood aside. Rachel was ghostly pale, trembling with the effort of holding herself together. The thought of playing in front of almost two thousand people in just a few short minutes was nothing compared with the emptiness that would come afterwards, when she came back in here and Orlando would be gone. These last few seconds seemed infinitely precious, loaded with a lifetime of meaning and feeling.

She hesitated by the door and looked at him with huge, troubled eyes.

‘I just wish…’ she said, in a voice that was low and filled with pain. ‘I just wish you could have told me
why
you wouldn’t let me near you, that’s all. Because I want to know it wasn’t something stupid, like the fact that you’re losing your sight. You have to know that that wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference to how I felt about you.’

Very slowly he turned his head towards her. He wore an expression of intense desolation.

‘Arabella told you?’

‘She did. But I found out for myself before that. At Easton.’ Rachel opened the door. ‘And it doesn’t make you any less of a hero or any less of a father or any less of a bastard for breaking my heart. So get over it and stop hiding behind it.’

For a moment after she left he stood as if turned to stone, and then he rushed out into the corridor in her wake.

Too late. She was gone.

A few moments later a gust of air seemed to ripple through the building as it was shaken by a storm of tumultuous applause. But to Rachel, taking her place at the piano in the centre of the starkly lit platform, the applause and adulation of two thousand people was immaterial. She played for herself, and for Orlando and Felix, to express a grief that words could not adequately convey.

It was, quite simply, the performance of a lifetime.