Scandals and Secrets

She almost blushed under her forthright train of thought, but she frowned instead, her mind sliding back to how Celeste had dressed for her meeting with Byron last night. It had struck her as peculiar at the time-Celeste's provocative clothing quite at odds with the occasion. Was the answer sitting behind the wheel in this very car? Who knew? Maybe Byron was the answer to a lot of things Celeste did ...

Gemma gave herself a mental shrug. What did Byron and Celeste have to do with what she was about to do?

Nothing!

'I suppose I can't put this off any longer,' she muttered, and opened the passenger door.

'Good luck.'

'Thanks. I think I'm going to need it.'

'Don't forget I'm waiting down here.'

'I won't,' she said and climbed out, striding purposefully over to the building.

Her outward decisiveness was a complete sham, something that struck her forcibly once she found herself in front of the door to their apartment. Should she knock, or let herself in with her own keys? If she knocked and Nathan slammed the door in her face, what could she do then?

Gemma inserted her key with shaking hands, let herself in then shut the door behind her. Immediately, Nathan appeared outside the door of his study, glaring down the corridor at her. She simply stood there and stared back at him.

Dear God, but he looked appalling. Unshaven.

Bloodshot eyes. His hair a mess. Wearing navy blue pyjama bottoms and nothing else. He didn't say a word as he looked at her. Not a word. But his eyes were dead.

'What are you doing here?' he asked at last in a voice so unlike his she was stunned.

There was no anger. No emotion. No nothing.

'Byron brought me. He ... he's waiting in the car for me downstairs,' Gemma explained shakily. 'Look, I'm sorry he lied to you but he was worried you might not stay if he said it was me who wanted to talk to you.'

'He'd be right. Why in God's name you would want to talk to me at all mystifies me,' he said in that horrible, hollow-sounding voice. 'But it won't make any difference. It's over. We're over.'

When he went to turn away, Gemma blurted out, 'I saw Lenore last night. She explained to me that what I overheard you and Lenore saying to each other last Sunday was actually a section of your play.'

Nathan froze. He didn't turn round, but he waited for her to continue.

'She showed me the actual script,' Gemma went on hurriedly. 'It was exactly what I overheard, word for word. She said it's a scene she'd been having trouble with and you were helping her with it. It's where the leading man tells his leading lady that it was only sex between them the night before. You must know the scene I'm talking about. . .'

'Yes,' he agreed flatly. 'I know the one.'

'Then you must be able to see why I jumped to the wrong conclusion,' she implored. 'That was the only reason I left, I swear to you. And I didn't run straight to Damian. I didn't even contact him till the next day when I couldn't think where to go and what to do. I. .. I didn't want to go back to Belleview and I couldn't think of anyone else I knew. Please believe me when I tell you we have not been having an affair, not before I left you or after. I swear to you, Nathan. I'm not lying about this.'

He turned slowly to face her, his eyes totally devoid of expression. 'And you think that would make me feel better? If I allow myself to believe you, my darling Gemma, then I would have no option but to go and blow my brains out. And I'm not going to do that over any woman,' he muttered and disappeared into his study.

Gemma raced after him, arriving in the doorway in time to see him slump down into the armchair in the far corner and lift a half-empty bottle of vodka to his lips. He drank long and hard, eyeing her quite fiercely now over the bottle.

'What happened to all those people you work with?' he challenged when he jerked the bottle away. 'Why couldn't you have gone to one of them?'

She shrugged helplessly. 'I don't know. I didn't think of them.'

'Instead, you thought of Damian Campbell, the last man on earth any husband would want his wife near.'

Gemma fell silent. She was not going to argue with Nathan on this score, but neither was she going to agree with him.

'It's all immaterial anyway,' he muttered darkly, then took another swallow from the bottle. 'As I said before, we're finished. You can have your divorce, and whatever else you want. You'll get no arguments from me.'