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‘How old were you?’ His voice was stark.
She looked away again, then back at him. ‘I was seventeen. Over the age of consent. And I consented to what I did. No one forced me or tricked me!’
‘You were little more than a child!’ Anger bit in his voice. ‘You were shamelessly taken advantage of! You had no idea what you were doing!’
Anger flashed in Celeste’s eyes in retaliation. ‘Rafael, my age is irrelevant! Of course I knew what it was I was doing—I was having sex with a stranger for money! I prostituted myself! And calling myself his “summer bride” didn’t stop it being that! I told you—I wanted money fast, a lot of it, and I got it. I got what I wanted! Just like Madeline did!’
‘I absolutely refuse to compare you to her!’
‘Well, you must! I’m sorry—I’m desperately, desperately sorry to inflict this on you, but—’
He cut across her. ‘Are you? Are you sorry?’ He seized on her words, silencing her.
She looked at him. ‘Of course I’m sorry for doing this to you—’
He cut across her again. ‘But are you sorry for doing this to you? Now, with your adult eyes, surely to God you bitterly regret what you did? Because Madeline doesn’t! Madeline does not think she did anything at all to regret! But do you? Do you regret it, Celeste? Do you look back now and wish you had not done it? Do you regret what you did?’
Every word was loaded. Every word carried a weight he could hardly bear. Her answer would tell him everything he had to know.
Everything he had to hope.
She looked at him. Looked at him with eyes that saw his pain.
And then she inflicted more. The killing blow.
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I don’t regret it. It got me what I wanted. Easy money. Fast.’ She paused a fraction of a second. ‘So you see I am just like Madeline...’
For one long, last moment he looked at her. Into the space between them went everything that he had once held so dear.
Then, without a word, he turned and left.
* * *
The night sky was cloudy, with rain threatening. No stars were visible. He walked. He walked without stopping, without pausing. Somewhere behind him his car was trailing him, his driver probably thinking him mad, but he could not think about that now. He could not think about anything.
Least of all about Celeste.
Who was not Celeste at all. Who was not the woman he had seen and sought, whose trust he had so slowly won. The trust to give herself to him knowing he would never hurt her.
Savage pain lacerated him.
I trusted her—trusted her. Believed in her—believed her to be nothing like Madeline...
His face twisted. In his head he heard, over and over again, her voice crying out. ‘I am just like Madeline!’
And inside his head, all the things that Madeline had told him about herself forced their way in, in sickening, vivid detail. His revulsion had been instant—total. And her mockery of him for it had been virulent. She’d been incredulous at his reaction, refusing to believe he was shocked by her revelation. He could hear her voice now, inside his head, scornful and scathing.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Rafe, sex workers aren’t some kind of “fallen women” any more! Sex is just a commodity—an industry like any other! There’s a market for sex and people buy and sell in it! What the hell’s wrong with that? I had natural assets to capitalise on and I sold what my customers wanted—and my profit margin was the best I’ve ever achieved! So don’t look down your damn puritan nose at me and quote Victorian morality like you want me whipped in the stocks as a warning to other women!’
He hadn’t answered her—hadn’t been able to—and his silence only infuriated her more. Her eyes had flashed with anger. Her voice with scorn.
