The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

Telling him the truth had been like stabbing him... And the knife had thrust into her as well. A lethal, deadly thrust to the heart.

And you deserve it! You deserve to feel that pain, to feel it now, still and for ever! You deserve it for what you did to him! You deserve your broken heart.

She had broken it herself. No one to blame but her. No one to rail against but her. No one to mock but her.

She hugged the coat around her, against the bitter arctic wind. There was no spare flesh on her to warm her. She was thinner than ever, for she had no appetite at all. But it was good that she was so thin. She’d done the autumn fashion shows, and now she was booked in for the round of shows that would take place before the spring.

She would be as gaunt and starved as even the most demanding designer wanted, she thought mockingly. It would be exhausting, non-stop, but she’d welcome it—just as she had welcomed the punishing pace of the autumn shows. For it would blot out the rest of the world for her. Not that she could do anything but just get through them. Tough them out until they were all over. And then... She took a lungful of freezing air. Then she would quit. Quit everything.

She could not face continuing with her career. Could not face the absurd triviality of fashion, the endless fuss and furore over what was so entirely pointless, so utterly unimportant. Who cared what hemlines and silhouettes and colours and fabrics were in or out? Who cared which designers were on a roll and which in decline? Who cared?

Where once she might have had a careless tolerance now she had none. Only a bleak, chill emptiness.

About everything.

What she would do when she no longer modelled she didn’t know. Didn’t care. Could not care. She would sell her flat, that much she knew, because she could not bear to be in London any more. Where she would go, though, she didn’t know either. Somewhere far away. Remote. A Scottish glen, a Welsh hillside, a Yorkshire moor... It didn’t matter where.

Because wherever she went she would be trapped in her past—the past she could never leave behind her. The past that had destroyed her happiness, broken her heart...condemned her to a future of perpetual loneliness.

Loveless and alone.

Without Rafael for ever...

* * *

The small podium was illuminated by light, which also pooled on the rainbow-hued display of clutch bags at the side of the man who was speaking.

‘But my greatest gratitude,’ Lucien Fevre was saying, ‘must go to the man who had faith in me and whose generous support has enabled me to bring you this collection today.’

He turned towards Rafael, who was standing some way away, letting Lucien have the limelight. But he smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.

He did not feel like smiling. He never felt like smiling. There was a grimness on his features, and he knew his staff found his manner intimidating. He could not alter it. It was permanent, he knew. A kind of bleakness of the soul.

Lucien was speaking still, moving on to the others he wanted to thank for their support. It was the official launch of his new company, his new collection, and it was going well. The fashion editors and their ilk were praising the collection, welcoming his revival, and since Rafael had ensured that Lucien had a crack management team around him—everything from publicity to finance—all the signs were that this time around he would not hit the rocks as he had before.

He was glad for him—though he wished with grim endurance that he did not have to be here at this moment.

It was too close a reminder of the informal party held for Lucien when Madeline had arrived like the uninvited witch in a fairy tale. And the curse of her presence had borne its baleful fruit. As had his own denunciation of her.

If I’d never warned her about her insanely unachievable political ambitions...! If I’d never thrown in her face just why they were so impossible...! Then Celeste would never have known why I ended it with Madeline...