'I don't want to hear this,' he muttered.
'I'm sure you don't. Who wants to hear the awful truth?'
'She was a sick woman. I know that. But I couldn't throw her away, could I? Not after I-'
'Done her wrong?' Celeste broke in scoffing.
Byron's eyes narrowed. 'Yes,' he bit out. 'I should never have married her.'
'You didn't love her, did you?'
'No.'
Celeste's heart contracted, just before it swelled with a heart-wrenching emotion. 'I knew you didn't love her,' she said in a strangled voice. 'How could you? You loved me!'
'Loved you!' he spluttered. 'I never loved you. You were nothing but a ... a sickness! One I don't seem to have developed an immunity for. But at least now my sickness doesn't have to hurt anyone else. I have that salve for my conscience. And who knows? Maybe if I have your often enough this time, this damnable fire that has tormented me all these years might burn itself out at long last!'
For a few agonizing seconds this new but equally brutal rejection of her love almost did what his earlier rejections had not succeeded in doing. But at the last moment, Celeste gathered herself, a bitter little smile curving her mouth.
'Oh, I doubt that, Byron,' she drawled. 'I doubt that very much. However, I suggest you do go home now. I've had enough of you for tonight. But we'll never be finished. Not while there's breath in my body. Let yourself out. I'll lock up later.'
Her smile faded once she'd made it into the bathroom and shut the door. There, she surveyed herself in the mirror with narrowed eyes and clenched jaw. It had been imperative, of course, that she not break down again. If she had, nothing would have saved her. Not drugs, or doctors, or anything.
Of course she should never have slept with Byron again. It had opened a Pandora's box of emotions that were dangerously difficult to control.
But that didn't mean she wouldn't do her damnedest to control them. She might still love and desire the man, but she also hated and despised him. I was a volatile mixture, one which would need the most careful of handling if she was to survive unscarred for a second time.
And Celeste meant to survive. Oh, yes ... she hadn't come this far to go under now. If there was to be a victim this time, it wasn't going to be her!
After a few minutes, Celeste exited from the bathroom to find the bedroom blessedly empty. So was the rest of the house. Byron's car was no longer in the driveway.
She closed the front gates, locked up, then went back upstairs to have a relaxing shower and climb into bed where she did her best to will herself into a calm, restful sleep.
But Celeste was to find that sleep was one thing she was powerless to control. So were her dreams. When sheer exhaustion finally claimed her in the early hours of the morning, her mind was filled with nightmares in which a face came back to haunt her from the past, a hard sculpted face with chilling blue eyes and a granite jaw and fists like iron.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Celeste was in conference with Luke, briefing him further on his new position, when the red light on her desk winked on. With a tut-tut of irritation, she flicked the switch on her intercom system and leant forward.
'Yes, Ruth?' she asked the temp she'd had sent over this morning from an agency Campbell's always used.
'A Mr Whitmore to see you, Ms Campbell.'
Celeste's stomach clenched down hard. Byron hadn't waited long to inform Nathan, it seemed. And Nathan hadn't taken long in showing up. Dear God, the last thing she wanted today was to have to placate some irrational and potentially violent husband. Not only did she have serious business on her plate, but she felt emotionally fragile. Still, Nathan was unlikely to simply go away, and she didn't think it would be wise if she asked him to wait.
'Show Mr Whitmore in, Ruth.'
'Yes, Ms Campbell.'
'Sorry, Luke,' she apologized as she got to her feet. 'Here. Take these sales analyses and see for yourself where our weaknesses lie, then start formulating a plan to redress matters, both short-term and long-term.'
Luke took the huge pile of computer printouts and threw her one of his little-used smiles, one which quite transformed his face from ordinary to extremely attractive. The smile still lingered on his face as he turned and met Mr Whitmore on his way in.
Not Nathan Whitmore, Celeste saw to her intense dismay. Byron Whitmore.
She froze the events of last night seeming not only more shocking in the cold light of day, but almost unreal. Looking at Byron standing there in his navy pin-striped suit, the very essence of dignified respectability, made it difficult to cope with the images that kept popping into her mind. Her