"I have a slight headache," she excused, giving Jerome a rea.s.suring smile. "In fact-"
"You have a headache?" Dee prompted as she took time out from her laughing conversation with Rik. "I have some tablets in my bag you can take." She began to root through it. The new designer handbag, of course.
"I don"t think that would be a good idea when I"ve already had a couple of gla.s.ses of wine," Sapphie refused politely. "In fact, I was just about to make my excuses and leave. A good night"s sleep is probably all I need." And to get away from Rik Prince"s oppressive company!
She doubted if Dee and Jerome had noticed, but Rik hadn"t so much as spoken one word to her during the last couple of hours. Not that she had wanted him to, but she was finding his silence towards her more unnerving than anything he might have said to her. That, and the brooding way Jerome had been watching his wife and Rik as they"d talked so easily together.
Dee, Sapphie knew, was always in her element when flirting with a man.
Rik Prince had been so wrong earlier when he"d accused her of not liking Dee. She loved her younger sister very much; she was just very aware of the emotional games Dee liked to play. And of Jerome"s reaction to them.
She might have been using Jerome"s jealousy earlier when she spoke to Rik as a diversion tactic, but actually Jerome"s possessiveness where his wife was concerned was all too real.
It was a trait that had never shown its ugly face when Sapphie had believed herself to be in love with Jerome; if it had, she would have fallen out of love with him all the sooner. Although disillusionment had come soon enough: it was difficult to remain in love with someone who obviously loved someone else to distraction.
Although Rik Prince didn"t seem to be having any trouble doing exactly that where Dee was concerned...!
"I"m really sorry to break up the party," Sapphie announced lightly, placing her napkin on the tabletop and picking up her evening bag, "but I really think it would be better if I went back to my hotel now."
"I"ll walk with you."
Sapphie was so stunned by the fact that Rik had finally spoken to her, let alone by his offer to walk her back to her hotel, that her hand moved suddenly and knocked one of the wine gla.s.ses on the table. It would have fallen over, spilling its contents, had Rik not reached out and caught it as it began to tip.
Sapphie looked across at him with startled eyes. "I"ll be perfectly OK walking back alone." After all, she had walked over to the George V by herself earlier!
"Oh, but I insist." He easily held her gaze as he stood up, his expression unreadable. "It"s far too late for a woman to be out walking on her own. Besides," he continued as Sapphie would have argued, "I"m sure that Dee and Jerome have had quite enough company for one evening; this is romantic Paris, after all!"
Exactly, so why on earth would Rik want to stroll up the Champs-Elysees with her, of all people? Dee wasn"t too happy at the prospect of losing her admirer, either, if her pouting expression was anything to go by! And when Dee was upset about something, anyone standing in her way had better watch out!
Not that Sapphie was a willing partic.i.p.ant in this current situation, but she knew from experience that wouldn"t matter to Dee if she felt like hitting out...
"Don"t be so silly, Rik," Dee told him impatiently. "Jerome and I have been to Paris dozens of times before!"
"And no doubt we"ll come back dozens of times more, too," Jerome put in emolliently. "But Rik does have a point," he smiled at his wife, "a nice stroll beside the river, with the illuminated Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, would be very romantic."
"Lucky you, Dee," Sapphie told her quickly as she saw the rebellious sparkle in her sister"s eyes; Dee clearly wasn"t happy with the thought of Sapphie disappearing off into the night with her admirer. Well, Dee needn"t worry; Sapphie intended dumping that admirer as soon as it was safe to do so.
Dee looked at her husband and his encouraging smile, then at Rik"s bland expression, obviously trying to weigh up whether or not she wanted to create a scene by insisting that Rik stay. Sapphie held her breath as she waited for the result of that deliberation.
"That sounds wonderful, darling," Dee finally breathed huskily, her fingers moving caressingly on her husband"s arm now.
Causing Sapphie to breathe an inner sigh of relief. One thing maturity seemed to have done for Dee was to teach her when not to push her luck. Or perhaps not; Sapphie winced as Dee gave Rik a challenging smile-maybe her sister was just trying to make Rik jealous now?
One day, Sapphie was sure, this was all going to blow up in Dee"s beautiful face. But not tonight, she noted with relief. Jerome seemed quite happy now that he was going to have his wife to himself for a while. Rik Prince"s expression was much harder to read...
Well, if he was less than satisfied with his companion, that was his problem, not hers!
"You can leave now," Sapphie told him tersely once they had walked a short distance down the wide avenue towards the Arc de Triomphe. "Dee and Jerome have already disappeared in the opposite direction," she added as Rik looked at her with raised brows.
There had been quite a lot of kissing, and "we"ll meet again tomorrow" as Dee and Jerome took their leave outside the restaurant. But Sapphie saw no reason to continue this charade now that the other couple were no longer around.
Besides, she really did have a headache, mainly due, she knew, to Rik Prince"s tense silence as he walked beside her, hands thrust into his trouser pockets.
Probably a ploy to stop himself from reaching out and throttling her, Sapphie accepted ruefully; he had certainly looked as if that was what he would have liked to do to her in his hotel suite earlier this evening!
But instead of that, he had kissed her...
A kiss that was not meant to be enjoyed-by either of them.
And Sapphie really hadn"t enjoyed it. But she had learnt something about herself that she would much rather not have known. Until tonight, until Rik kissed her again, she had believed that instant love she felt for him five years ago had withered and died through lack of nurturing. But tonight, held once more in Rik Prince"s arms, she knew that wasn"t the case at all.
She was as much in love with Rik now as she had been that night long ago!
Rik had absolutely no idea what he was doing walking along beside Sapphie!
It had been one of the strangest evenings he had ever known in his life.
On the one hand, there he"d been with Dee, the woman he"d believed himself in love with for the last five years-though now he knew that he no longer loved her at all.
Then there"d been Jerome, the man Dee had married instead of him: a man that Rik couldn"t help but like.
And lastly there"d been Sapphie Benedict, a woman he had spent a burning night of pa.s.sion with five years previously; Dee"s half-sister. One of the women who had played a leading part in taking Dee from him all those years ago. He was still so angry about that, he hadn"t even been able to bring himself to talk to her this evening!
Instead he had spoken to Dee, whom he could now view with dispa.s.sion-and with whom, he realised, he had absolutely nothing in common! Her conversation was of fashion and the artificial world of acting, from which he normally chose to distance himself.
Adding to his confusion was his disgust with himself for the way he had treated Sapphie earlier, which had been building up inside him all evening.
Yes, at the time he had been angry with Sapphie, suspicious of her motives for what had happened between them five years ago. And yes, the pain of that had erupted out of control. But the way he had behaved, the physical retribution he had exacted, seemed more in keeping with his eldest brother Nik"s ruthless nature than his own. Rik was the serious, caring, sensitive one of the family, not some arrogant monster who heaped vengeance on anyone who got in the way of what he wanted.
At least, that was what he had believed of himself until earlier tonight...
He gritted his teeth and turned to Sapphie. "I owe you an apology-"
"I believe we"ve already had this conversation, Rik," Sapphie dismissed. "I think we agreed that you don"t owe me anything!" she added bleakly.
There it was again, he recognised frowningly, that something in her voice that he couldn"t quite put a name to...
"I do owe you an apology," he insisted firmly, his hands clenched into fists inside his trouser pockets. "I don"t-I have never in my life before behaved towards any woman in the way that I did to you earlier tonight."
Sapphie shrugged her slender shoulders. "I"m sure that at the time you believed you had due provocation."
"Whether I did or not is totally..." Rik broke off frustratedly, breathing hard, realising that even his apology was coming out all wrong.
What was it about this woman that made him behave so uncharacteristically? He really had no idea-and he wasn"t sure that he wanted to know, either!
He sighed his impatience. "Sapphie, will you, for goodness" sake, just let me apologise?"
She gave him a cool glance. "If it makes you feel better."
"It isn"t a question of making me feel better...!" But wasn"t it? Wasn"t he just trying to salvage his own conscience, rather than anything else? After all, his anger was no less now than it had been earlier; he had just been unnerved by his reaction. He hadn"t even known he was capable of behaving in that coldly ruthless way. "What sort of name is Sapphie, anyway?" he challenged in order to give himself time to think.
Amber eyes sparkled with amus.e.m.e.nt as she glanced up at him. "Can"t you guess?" she said drily.
"No, I-Sapphie..." he said slowly, wincing as the penny finally dropped. "Short for Sapphire?"
"Short for Sapphire," she acknowledged with a rueful smile.
"Diamond and Sapphire," Rik murmured slightly incredulously; he had thought his own family names slightly bizarre, but naming your daughters after precious stones seemed even more so.
"It could have been worse," she said. "We could have been Ruby and Emerald!"
"Hm," he grimaced. "No doubt when you have children of your own you will name them Mary and John!"
"No doubt," she replied stiffly, coming to an abrupt halt on the wide pavement to turn and look at him. "There really is absolutely no need for you to walk me back to my hotel," she told him determinedly. "I"ve been on my own in Paris for four days without needing an escort!"
Her relaxed amus.e.m.e.nt, while they had been discussing her name, was gone now, her eyes as hard and glittering as the amber stone they resembled, her expression aloof.
Rik gave a slightly dazed shake of his head, having no idea what he had said or done this time to cause her withdrawal. But he had obviously done something; she had seemed almost friendly there for a few minutes.
Or maybe it was just remembered past intimacies that made any prolonged exchange between them difficult?
Despite his feelings for Dee, Rik hadn"t led a celibate life the last five years. And each time he"d become involved with someone, he had hoped that she would be the one to overshadow the love he felt for Dee. It had never happened, of course-although meeting Dee again seemed to have done the trick; perhaps he should have arranged this meeting a long time ago! But he could never remember this present awkwardness happening with any of the other women he had been involved with, either at the end of their affair or afterwards. In fact, he had become quite good friends with some of them.
Somehow he couldn"t ever see becoming friends as a possibility where Sapphie Benedict was concerned!
He straightened. "Look, I"m sure that both you and your mother believed you were acting in Dee"s best interests five years ago-"
"And I"m sure," Sapphie cut in impatiently, "that despite the fact you"ve mentioned this several times today already, I have absolutely no idea what you"re talking about!"
Rik scowled at her obstinacy. This really was asking too much. He was trying his best to salvage something out of this mess, to smooth things over between them, if only so that they could be polite to each other in front of other people. But Sapphie certainly wasn"t doing anything to help the situation!
"You and your mother wanted Dee to marry Jerome-"
"I did?" Sapphie"s eyes widened incredulously at this accusation. "And why, when I was in love with him myself, would I have wanted her to do that?"
Rik frowned. It was a good point. In fact, it was a very good point. And, as he hadn"t known of Sapphie"s feelings towards Jerome until earlier today, it wasn"t one he had thought about before, either.
But now he did and had, and the answers that came immediately to mind once again put a question mark over Dee"s integrity five years ago. In the circ.u.mstances, that wasn"t acceptable to him. It couldn"t be. Because it made a lie of the love he had felt for her.
"I don"t suppose it really mattered, as long as one daughter was married to him-and, of course, his vast wealth and media influence!"
"How dare you?" Sapphie gasped angrily, breathing hard, the curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s visible above the low neckline of her strapless dress.
A fact Rik was all too aware of as he looked down at her. She really was a firebrand, he acknowledged admiringly. In more ways than one, if his memory served him correctly. And he knew that it did.
Just as he was sure Sapphie remembered the night they had spent together. No matter how he wished it were otherwise, he knew there was no way they could ever meet as just casual acquaintances!
He gave a regretful sigh. "Listen to me, Sapphie-"
"No, Rik, I want you to listen to me," she cut in forcefully, every curvaceous inch of her rigid with anger. "I have little idea what Dee told you about our family five years ago-although from the few things you"ve told me, I can certainly take a guess!" she said disgustedly.
"Believe it or not, at the time we had more important things to discuss than you and your mother!" he told her stiffly, already disturbed by the variations he had already discovered today in Dee"s version of things.
"I"m sure," she scorned. "But now I"m telling you how it really was. At the time I lived and worked in America. I was Jerome"s a.s.sistant. I was also his fiancee-"
"His fiancee?" Rik was too surprised to successfully cover his surprise.
She nodded. "We flew back to England so that I could introduce him to my family. But once Jerome took one look at Dee, I knew that was the end of that." She grimaced. "Trying to stop the two of them falling in love would have been like standing in the way of an express train! Instead I decided to just bow out gracefully." She looked up directly into Rik"s eyes. "You seem to have the idea it happened differently. It seems I can"t do or say anything to change your opinion. What I can do, though," she continued as he would have spoken, "is a.s.sure you that my conscience-and, incidentally, that of my mother-is completely clear. Can you claim the same?"
Rik was still trying to take in all that she had just said. Sapphie had been engaged to marry Jerome and then had lost him to Dee? It was so different from Dee"s version of events. But, at the same time, this made so much more sense than Dee"s story about being forced into marriage with someone she didn"t love-especially since Rik had been there for her, and professing his own love. Really, he couldn"t help but doubt Dee"s tale of what had happened.
Which brought into question the last five wasted years he had spent believing himself to be in love with Dee; had the woman he"d thought she was ever really existed?
The pugnaciousness of Sapphie"s tone brought him back to reality. "What do you mean?"
Her mouth quirked. "Is this meeting-up in Paris with Dee quite the accident that it appears...?"
It didn"t take too much effort to know what she was getting at. "I do not have affairs with married women!"
"Not even if you"re in love with them?" Sapphie taunted.
"Not even then!" But he wasn"t still in love with Dee. He didn"t know how he felt towards her any more. If what Sapphie said was true, then the love he"d thought he felt for Dee had been based on lies...Dee"s lies...
"You don"t believe me, do you?" Sapphie said.
"I didn"t say that," Rik grated.
He didn"t want to believe it, that it was true, and yet...
Sapphie kept going. "I wonder if Dee even knew how much you loved her..."
Or really cared!
The thought popped into his head completely unbidden, and now that it was there he couldn"t seem to blank it out again. He had been in misery that day nearly five years ago when Dee had married Jerome. But, as far as he could see, Dee had been every inch the blushing bride, not so much as giving him a sideways glance. At the time he had thought it was because she didn"t want to give the two of them away, but now he wondered if she had even been aware he was there, let alone the pain he was in.
All these years he had taken Dee"s silence to mean that she was doing the best she could to get on with her life, just as she expected him to get on with his. But had that really been the case, or had Dee simply forgotten he existed?
What a fool he had been, if that was true!
His mouth tightened at what he saw as his own stupidity. "I would rather leave my feelings for Dee out of this." Especially as he no longer even knew what those feelings were!
"Can we do that? Could we ever do that?" Sapphie responded tightly. "Besides, I don"t even know what "this" is. Look, I realise it was a shock for you today to see me again after all this time, and to realise that I"m actually Dee"s sister. But if you look at it logically, then you"ll see that there"s really no reason why the two of us should ever meet again. In fact," she continued, "it"s amazing that it ever happened at all!" She didn"t look any more pleased about it than he did.
Amazing wasn"t quite the way Rik would have put it!
"Oh, do cheer up, Rik," Sapphie admonished brightly, her eyes gleaming now. "By this time tomorrow we can forget we ever did meet again. You see, there"s a bright side to everything, if you only look hard enough!"