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Carly stared at him in disbelief.
'You can't really expect me to believe that,' she told him contemptuously.
'Why not? It's the truth. And if you loved me you would trust me and accept it as such.'
Tears were burning the backs of her eyes and her throat had gone tight with pain. This was the worst kind of emotional blackmail and cold-blooded cynicism, and she wasn't going to fall for it a second time.
'Then obviously I don't love you,' she told him, too brightly. 'Because I don't trust you and I don't accept it. Why should any woman accept anything a man tells her? Look at the way Nick is cheating Lucy. It's over, Ricardo, and it would have been better for me if it had never started in the first place.'
Carly stared bleakly into the mirror. She hated the fact that the only suitable outfit she had to wear for the party was a dress that came from Barneys, which Ricardo had paid for. Well, after tonight he could keep it—and everything else as well. Including her heart?
She was perilously close to losing control, she warned herself, and no way could she afford to do that. She still had a job to do, after all.
It had been a very long day. Fortunately she had finally managed to get Angelina's approval for the lowers, even if the florist had initially been furious at the change of plan.
Guests who had arrived early and were staying locally had started to appear at the château, wanting to look at the marquee and demanding to see the seating plan.
Privately Carly felt that Angelina, or one at least one of her PAs, should have been on hand to deal with them, but it seemed that several other members of the Famous Rock Star's original band had already arrived, with their entourages, and this had led to an impromptu pre-party party taking place.
'I bet it's all sex, drugs and rock and roll up there,' one of the entertainers had said to Carly dryly, nodding his head in the direction of the château.
Discreetly, Carly had not made any response. But she did know that some seriously businesslike heavies had been hired by the celeb magazine with exclusive rights to reporting the event to protect the guests and the event from any unwanted intrusion by rival members of the press.
Outwardly she was conducting herself professionally and calmly; inwardly she was in emotional turmoil.
Ricardo had lied to her and deceived her, used her, and yet unbelievably, despite all that, and despite what she knew she had to do for the sake of her own self-respect, she still ached for him. Given the choice, if she could have turned back time and not seen those damning papers she knew she would have chosen to do so. How could she still love him? She didn't know how she could; she just knew that she did.
She had removed her things to a spare bedroom, and would have moved out of the house itself if it had been practical to do so. As it was, she was going to have to travel to the château with Ricardo, because it had proved impossible to book a taxi. She didn't know how she was going to endure it, but somehow she must.
And she hadn't even thought properly yet about what she was going to say to Lucy.
Ricardo was waiting for Carly to come downstairs. Did she have any idea how he felt about what she had said to him? Did she really think all the vulnerability and pain was on her side? It tore him apart to think that he had hurt her in any kind of way, and he cursed the fact that he had left those papers on his desk. He also cursed the fact that she had stubbornly refused to accept his explanation.
He heard a door open upstairs and watched as Carly came down the stairs towards him. She looked so beautiful that the sight of her threatened to close his throat. Carly's face was pale and set, and she looked very much as though she had been crying. He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms and never let her go, but he knew if he did she would reject him.
The guests had finished eating, and the magicians had cleverly kept them entertained whilst the tables were cleared. Any minute now the dancing would start.
Carly's head ached, and she longed for the evening to be over. She couldn't bear to look at Ricardo. They were seated at a small table tucked away next to the entrance used by the waiting staff. She would not be able to dance, of course; she wasn't here as a guest. Not that she wanted to risk dancing with Ricardo—not in her present vulnerable state.
Her feelings were just the last dying throes of her love for him, she tried to reassure herself. She was only feeling like this because she knew that after tonight she would never see him again. She was going to miss having sex with him, that was all.
She got up and told Ricardo stiffly, 'I'd better go and check that the bar staff have everything they need.'
He inclined his head in acknowledgement, but didn't make any response. She delayed going back for as long as she could, hoping that when she returned to the table Ricardo might have gone, and yet as she approached the first thing she did was look anxiously for his familiar dark head, as though she dreaded him not being there rather than the opposite. How was she going to get through the rest of her life without him, lying alone in her bed at night longing for him?
'The fireworks are about to start,' Ricardo warned her before she could sit down.
As a special finale to the evening a firework display had been choreographed and timed to go with music from the Famous Rock Star's biggest hit, and to judge from the enthusiastic reception the display received from the assembled guests it had been well worth the time spent on its organization.
Carly, though, watched the display through a haze of tears, standing stiffly at Ricardo's side, aching to reach out and touch him, but refusing to allow herself to do so.
Despite what he had done she still loved him, and because of that she was hurting herself just as much as he had hurt her.
It was almost four o'clock in the morning before she was finally able to leave. She wasn't returning to the house she had shared with Ricardo though; she had arranged with one of their suppliers to return direct with them to Paris, and from there she intended to fly home. She had her passport with her, and her clothes—her own clothes, paid for with her own money—were already stowed in the supplier's four-wheel drive.
A cowardly way to leave, perhaps, but she didn't trust herself to spend another night with him. She had some pride left still, she told herself fiercely, even if he had taken everything else from her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She had been back in London for three days now, and still hadn't been able to persuade herself to go into the office. Officially at least, so far as Lucy was concerned, she was taking a few days' leave. The reality was that she had felt too sick with loss and misery to do anything other than retreat into herself and stay in her bedroom. Fortunately Jules was away, so she had the lat to her self, but today she had to go out—because today she had an appointment to see Marcus.
No matter how much she was suffering because of Ricardo's deceit and betrayal, she reminded herself that she still owed a duty to Lucy, both as a friend and an employee, and so she had screwed up her courage and got in touch with Marcus to tell him she had some concerns about the financial affairs of the business that she did not at this stage want to discuss with Lucy. Fortunately she'd had his e-mail address, and virtually immediately he had e-mailed her back to ask her to go and see him.
The first thing she noticed when she abandoned the comfort of her 'at home' joggers and top was how loosely her jeans fitted her. It was true that she had not felt much like eating, but the sight of her pale, drawn face and grief-shadowed eyes when she looked at her self in the mirror told her that it wasn't just lack of food that was responsible for her altered appearance. But there was nothing she could take to alleviate the devastating effect of lack of Ricardo, was there? At least only she knew how humiliatingly she longed for him, despite what he had done.
Love knew no sense of moral outrage, as she had now discovered. And, equally, once it had been given life it could not be easily destroyed. She had tried focusing on all the reasons she should not love Ricardo, but rebelliously her thoughts had lingered longingly in stea
d on the happiness she had felt before she had discovered the truth. It might have been a false happiness, but her heart would not let go of it. Her heart longed and yearned to be back in that place of happiness, just as her body yearned to be back in Ricardo's embrace.
She took a taxi to the address Marcus had given her, and was surprised to discover that she had been set down not outside an office building, but outside an elegant house just off one of London's private garden squares.
Even more surprisingly it was Marcus himself who opened the door for her and showed her in to the comfort of a book-lined library-cum-study.
'You must think it rather odd that I've got in touch with you privately,' Carly began awkwardly, having re fused his offer of a cup of coffee. She was so on edge that for once she did not feel the need for her regular caffeine ix.
'Not at all,' Marcus reassured her. 'In fact...' He paused, and then looked thoughtfully at her.
'I think I have a fair idea of why you want to see me, Carly.'
'You do?'
'Ricardo has been in touch with me. He told me that you would probably wish to talk to me.'
Carly could feel her face burning with the heat of her emotions.
She couldn't understand why Ricardo should have been in touch with Marcus, but just hearing Marcus say his name made her long for him so much she could hardly think, never mind speak. But of course she had to. She took a deep breath to steady herself, and began.
'Marcus, Ricardo is planning to acquire Prêt à Party, and I'm afraid I may have made it easier for him to get the business at a lower price. You see—'
'Carly, Ricardo has no intention of acquiring the business. In fact, when he telephoned me he made it plain that whilst he had at one stage contemplated doing so, his relationship with you had caused him to change his mind. He also said that you were concerned about Nick's role within the business, specifically when it came to the financial side of things, and that it might be a good idea for me, as Lucy's trustee, to look into it.'
Carly could hardly take in what he was saying.
'But that's not true,' she protested. 'He—'
