The Spiral Path (44 page)

"The secret of my success."
His smile was ironic.

"You laugh, but I think it's true.
For someone so famous, you've done a terrific job of being an enigma."
After she'd married Kenzie, her movements had become vastly more interesting to
media gossips. Knowing she could soon return to relative obscurity was a silver
lining to the divorce. "Where are we heading--The Dorchester?"

He nodded. "I'd just as soon not
drive down to Devon again."

"I'm sure Josh and Val packed us
both very efficiently." Her gaze fell on her purse, which she'd dropped on
the car floor by her feet. The rolled newspaper made her curious why Pamela
Lake had stuffed it in her bag.

The tabloid wasn't the one that employed
Pamela, though the reporter's card was clipped to the front page. Definitely a
response was hoped for.

Rainey's gaze dropped to the photograph
that dominated the front page, and she gasped with shock.

"What's wrong?" Kenzie asked
sharply.

"Some bastard with a telephoto lens
was spying on us in Devon." She stared at the picture, feeling ill. There
was Kenzie leaning over her, one arm braced against a tree to shut out the
world. She laughed up at him, too much of her soul in her eyes. "There's a
big, romantic-looking picture of us together, and the headline is screaming,
'Kenzie and Raine Make Up!!!'"

"Damnation! Are there any facts, or
is it all hot air?"

She flipped to the story inside, which
included several more pictures. Though the photographer hadn't been able to
invade the bedroom, he'd been wickedly good at capturing private moments that
spelled out intimacy as emphatically as a kiss.

Feeling ill, she read the text.
"Some unnamed employee of the hotel claims to have seen us creeping into
each other's rooms late at night, and a local girl I never heard of says she
became my 'confidante' over afternoon tea and clotted cream. Allegedly I told
her that you and I have reconciled, and that I'm pregnant with your baby."
Her voice cracked. "I hate this, Kenzie, I just
hate
it."

He swooped the Jaguar to the left and
parked illegally in a bus stop zone. Taking the paper, he skimmed the pictures
and headlines. "The self-proclaimed confidante is delusional, but the
sleeping together part is accurate, so there's no grounds for libel."

"Even if it was, a lawsuit wouldn't
make this go away. I
loathe
having speculation about my private life
smeared across the globe." She wrapped shaking arms around herself.
"I feel like ... like I've been groped by perverts."

His expression turned to granite.
"And it's my fault it happened." He refolded the newspaper with
military precision. "I'm sorry, Rainey. I should have kept my
distance."

"As I recall, everything that
happened was by mutual consent." And to their mutual pleasure. They'd both
been happy, she knew it in her bones.

Worn down by the stress and fatigue of
the last day, she blurted out, "Why are we getting divorced when we get
along so well, Kenzie? Both in and out of bed."

He drew a harsh breath. "Because
you can't trust me, Rainey. Not then, not now, not ever."

CHAPTER 25

R
ainey
stared, chilled, as she felt him pulling away from her emotionally.
"I don't understand! It would be different if you were a sex addict who
has to boff every woman in sight, but you're not. Isn't what we have good
enough for you to keep your pants zipped when we're apart?"

A red double-decker bus pulled up behind
them, honking indignantly. Ignoring it, Kenzie said flatly, "You want and
deserve more than I have to give, Rainey."

"That's not an answer."

He ignored her words as completely as he
ignored the looming bus. "The time together in Devon was good, but it's
over. Even in the country, we couldn't keep what we were doing a secret. In
London, it will be impossible."

"So that's it? Sex is starting to
be a nuisance, so enough already?"

The bus roared around them in a cloud of
diesel fumes. "There was an element of therapy in what we were doing. With
only a week of shooting left, we should be able to survive without that."
He put the car in gear and pulled into traffic. "Every day we're
together will increase the media feeding frenzy, which means more invasions of
privacy. It's time to end things, before it gets worse."

"So you're making the decision for
both of us."

"Yes." His mouth was hard.
"I've damaged you enough. If I'm to live with myself, that has to
stop."

"Don't give the little woman a
vote. How very arbitrary and Victorian." She stared blindly out the
window, thinking that she'd been cheated. She'd been prepared for things to end
in a week, but not yet. She wasn't ready.

"John Randall is making me more Victorian
every day." He pulled up in front of The Dorchester. "I'm going to be
busy the rest of the day with arrangements for Charles's cremation and memorial
service. I'll see you on the set tomorrow."

With a uniformed hotel employee
approaching, there was no privacy for a good-bye kiss. Though probably Kenzie
wouldn't have wanted one. How had they gone so quickly from the emotional
intimacy of the night before to this? She felt as if a limb had been severed.

Pride came to her rescue. She'd be
damned if she let him see how much she hurt. "You're right, the
cost-benefit breaks down in London." She slid on her sunglasses. "The
sex was great, and sneaking around was good kinky fun, but I don't need more
reporters raping my life."

The doorman opened the door and she
swung gracefully from the low car, a dazzling movie star smile on her face as
she thanked the man for helping her out. Then she sailed into the hotel as
confidently as if she hadn't slept in her clothes the night before, and checked
in.

Yes, Miss Marlowe, your suite is ready,
such a pleasure to have you back. Your luggage will arrive later? Very good,
Miss Marlowe. Here are your messages.

The manager personally escorted her to
her suite, where fresh fruit and flowers waited. With her movie budget tight,
she disliked spending so much money on her hotel, but Marcus had insisted. If
she was the boss, she had to live like the boss, just as Kenzie had to be
treated like a star even if he'd agreed to do the movie mostly as a favor to
her.

The manager left, bowing in old-world
style, and finally, mercifully, she was alone. Not bothering to admire the
splendid view over Hyde Park, she sank onto the hard, elegant sofa and curled
up like a hedgehog. She and Kenzie had been separated and on the way to a
divorce for months now. How could the pain be this fresh? This intense? She'd
known from the beginning that their Devonshire intimacy was strictly temporary.

Bleakly she recognized that in some
deeply stupid corner of her brain, she'd been hoping for a reconciliation.
She'd wanted Kenzie to beg her forgiveness and promise never to betray her
again. When she was younger, she'd sworn that no man would ever hit her, or
cheat on her, more than once. Yet she'd actually been on the verge of giving
her faithless husband a second chance. Despite all her efforts to be different
from Clementine, she was certainly her mother's daughter. Her forbearance
wasn't going to be needed, though.
You can't trust me, Rainey, Not then, not
now, not ever.
He could hardly speak plainer than that.

She lay numbly on the sofa for an
indefinite period of time. Maybe Kenzie was right to end things now. How would
she have handled the rest of the week, knowing how quickly their time together
was running out? How could she have endured spending the last night with him,
knowing it was the last night?

Her paralysis ended when Val let herself
into the suite. "Rainey? Oh, sorry, I didn't know you were napping."

"I wasn't." She pushed herself
to a sitting position. "But it was a long, tiring night watching Kenzie's
friend die."

"I'm so sorry."

"Charles Winfield died in peace. We
should all be so lucky."

A bellman appeared in the doorway
hauling a cart piled high with personal and business luggage. Val supervised
the disposition of bags and boxes, then dispatched him with a generous tip.
When they were alone, she said hesitantly, "I assume you don't want me to
use the second bedroom this week. I checked downstairs, and they can find me a
single."

Rainey rubbed her temples, not quite
following. "Why would I want you elsewhere? I've enjoyed having you in the
next room."