The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

And if she had never known then she would never have told me about herself. The punishing logic tolled through his head. He felt his stomach clench. And if she hadn’t—?

I would have never walked out on her. And she would still be with me.

Pain stabbed at him. He knew what he had lost.

But if she had never told him about herself—never confessed her past to him—then they would have been living a lie...a lie of silence by her. After wrenching Madeline out of his life, as he had made himself do, there had been times when he’d cursed her for telling him about what she had done—just as he was now so torn about Celeste’s confession to him.

But what he had felt about Madeline, about ending everything with her, was nothing to what he felt now. How could it be?

For, whatever he had once felt about Madeline, never at any time had he felt anything at all of what he had come to feel for Celeste.

I never fell in love with Madeline...

The words formed and shaped and burned in his head. Burning through his flesh...burning through his heart.

Lucien had finished his speech and the audience was breaking up, the proceedings becoming informal now. Rafael watched Lucien being approached by two influential fashion directors who were smiling enthusiastically. Rafael started to mingle, doing his bit, but a few minutes later Lucien was at his side.

‘I was so sorry to find that Celeste was not here,’ he said. ‘I had hoped she would be.’

Rafael gave a reply that he hoped was not too clipped—something about her working in Europe at the moment.

‘I was hoping she would be here,’ Lucien went on to say, ‘so that she could take her pick from the collection. I wanted to give her whichever she liked best.’ He looked at Rafael. ‘I will not forget her kindness to me when Madeline Walters gatecrashed. It is so rare to find kindness and beauty together.’

‘Yes,’ said Rafael, ‘it is.’

Saying more than that was not possible. He moved the conversation on—away from the dagger in his heart that was Celeste.

But as more people came up to Lucien, keen to speak to him, and Rafael stepped aside to let them, Lucien’s words echoed in his head.

‘I will not forget her kindness...’

In his memory he saw the scene again—Celeste going up to Lucien, intervening, diverting him from Madeline’s scornful boasts of sales and profit. She’d seen his distress and taken action.

Another memory played inside his head. Just as she’d taken action when she’d seen the hapless Louise in Karl Reiner’s toils. She hadn’t hesitated—just marched straight up, got Louise out of the danger she was in. She’d cared enough about someone she hardly knew to risk making a scene, risk the anger of a powerful and influential man in her industry.

Madeline wouldn’t have done that. Madeline would have laughed—found it amusing to see Louise’s drink spiked. Or she would have simply shrugged and said the girl was an idiot. Rafael’s eyes darkened. Or she’d have said she was smart—doing the right thing. Getting on the good side of a man who could help her career.

But she would no more have dreamt of intervening, of rescuing Louise, than she would have dreamt of caring a cent for the feelings of a man whose company she had bought out from under his nose, then trampled on his pride and kicked him scornfully into the dust.

Words sounded in his head. Celeste’s voice...

‘I am just like Madeline!’

His eyes blazed. Fists clenched suddenly. She was nothing like Madeline! He had hurled that at her and she’d refuted it, spewing out the sordid, unbearable reason for their alikeness...

His face contorted.

And is that it? Is that all she has to prove their similarity?

Memory of that hideous evening stabbed again—memory of him trying desperately to argue that she had been too young...that she’d been exploited and taken advantage of...that she must surely regret what she had done...