He looked at her. ‘I did not do that well, Alexa. I know that, and I am sorry for it. That morning when I severed you from my life, brutally and ruthlessly, because there was no other way I could bring myself to do it, it went against everything I wanted. I had to force myself to do it! Fighting every instinct that told me not to say those words to you! I had to force them out of me. The only way I could—’
She wrapped her arms around herself. It might help to stanch the wound. A wound he had reopened—a wound that had gouged so very deep in her, though she had tried so hard not to let him. Her eyes fell to the floor, picking out the lustrous blue and gold in the priceless carpet’s pattern. Her breathing was shallow, difficult. Her expression anguished.
What was the point? What was the point in hearing this? It was only torment—torment beyond any that she had thought possible—to hear him speak like this. And yet it was a treasure to her beyond imagining to know what she had once been to him.
But could never be again.
She lifted her head. Gazed right at him.
For a moment so brief, so precious, she felt emotion sweep through her—the emotion she had drained out of herself, forced out of herself, because there was no place for it, no point to it.
‘You should have left it like that,’ she said heavily. ‘Let it go when you let me go.’
‘I tried to. But I failed. I saw you again, saw you with another man, and I knew then that I could let no other man have you. I knew then that I could not let you go.’ His eyes were holding hers again, as if it was essential to him, vital. ‘I could not,’ he said again.
‘And I,’ she answered, and her words were crystal clear, cost her what they would, ‘could not comply with what you wanted. An adulterous affair. I never hated you till then. But then I did. It was all I felt for you.’ She let the lie fall into the space between them, a space that could never now be bridged, that forever parted her from him.
For a long moment he just looked at her. Then, as if something had snapped inside him, he crossed to the window in front of his desk, looking out over the gardens of his château. There was tension across his shoulders. Abruptly, he turned, looking back at Alexa.
‘Do you know,’ he asked, and his tone was almost conversational, ‘how many people work for Lorenz Investment? How many depositors it has? How many business loans? To how many firms? Employing how many people? Have you even heard,’ he asked, ‘of Lorenz Investment?’
‘I take it,’ Alexa replied, ‘that is the bank owned by Louisa’s father?’
‘It is the bank,’ Guy said, ‘taken to the brink of ruin by Louisa’s father. And because of that every single person employed at that bank, every firm that borrowed money, every organisation that lent it money, was at risk—of unemployment, of collapse, of ruin!’ His face worked. ‘Heinrich Lorenz, Louisa’s father, had me at gunpoint. He knew that I would not, could not risk Lorenz Investment failing—or even merely to be at risk of failing—lest it start a fatal ricochet through all the other parts of Rochemont-Lorenz. He knew that the only way to allay suspicion was for me to have a convincing reason to invest in his bank.’ He paused heavily. ‘Like becoming his son-in-law.’
He looked across at Alexa, so far away now—so very far from this world in which vast amounts of money flowed, from this family that was a dynasty, a complex network of wealth and power.
‘I didn’t want to marry Louisa. But then…’ his eyes shadowed ‘…I saw nothing strange about doing so. For two hundred years, Alexa, we have been making such marriages—both within the family and outside it. Louisa’s parents made such a marriage, and she had been brought up to expect the same. My own parents had no particular desire to marry—but they did, and very successfully. When you are used to something like that it seems…normal. Unexceptional. Expected.’
He fell sil
ent. All Alexa could hear was the subdued hum of the PC on Guy’s desk. And the pulse of her heart. Telling her something she did not want to hear. Did not want to listen to.
Then, in a low voice, he spoke again. ‘I went on thinking that—thinking that such a marriage was unexceptional, acceptable,’ he said, ‘right up until I had you in my arms again that night when I saw you at the charity gala. And I knew then, like lightning ripping through my being, that everything had changed! I wanted you, and I had to have you. I had to have you in my life. I could not do without you.’ His jaw tightened. ‘But I also could not let Lorenz Investment fail. Too much was at stake.’
She spoke.
‘So you didn’t. You didn’t let it fail. I understand, Guy. Truly I do.’ Her voice had hardened. ‘I also understand why you thought you could have your bank-saving, emotionally empty dynastic marriage and have an adulterous liaison with me as well. I understand—but didn’t condone. Never condone. And that is why—’ she took another breath ‘—why I came here now. Simply to make it clear—as I know your mother must want me to, or else why should she have arranged all this?—to assure your bride of that.’
‘Ah, yes, my bride.’ There was no emotion in Guy’s face.
‘Yes. You said…’ It was impossible to speak, but speak she must, with a strength she had to find. ‘You said she was in love with you. That she was happy after all in her marriage. So if she needs to know about me—about what I am no longer to you—then I will tell her.’ Resolution steeled her. Too much emotion was in her, but this had to be done. ‘Where—where is she?’
There was a curious light in Guy’s eyes. ‘Louisa’s on her honeymoon,’ he said. For a moment time hung still, then Guy started to walk towards her. ‘I told you—she’s blissfully happy, in love with her husband. A husband,’ he said, ‘who doesn’t happen to be me.’
CHAPTER TEN
ALEXA heard him say the words. Heard them clearly. But they made no sense.
Guy reached her. Lightly, very lightly, he cupped her elbows. Slowly her tightly crossed arms lowered, as if they had become too heavy—which was odd, because the room seemed to be swirling around her.
‘I told you,’ said Guy, ‘that Louisa had agreed to marry me. Saw nothing to object to. But it seems—’ his voice was dry ‘—someone else objected. Someone she’d known for a while. Someone who told her that a loveless dynastic marriage was anathema to the soul. Someone,’ he finished, ‘who persuaded her to marry him instead—because he was in love with her, and because she, after he’d pulled the scales from her eyes, was in love with him. So—’ the green eyes glinted ‘—she jilted me and eloped.’
Too much was going through Alexa. It was as if electric currents were passing through her, overloading all her circuits.
‘What about the bank? Lorenz Investment—?’
It was all she could think to say. All that was safe to say.