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She was not to his taste, however, either physically or personality-wise. Celeste was as hard as her body. He liked his women soft, in all respects. And he preferred brunettes, especially one particular brunette with big innocent brown eyes, the most luscious body and the sweetest of smiles.
Damn, but he couldn't wait for the delectable Mrs Nathan Whitmore to fall into his hands. They said everything came to those who waited but he was getting sick and tired of waiting for Gemma to wake up to the sort of man that husband of hers was. Maybe he would have to think of some way he could give the situation a little push ...
Meanwhile, he was about to relieve his boredom by giving his darling sister a different kind of push. Hell, but he was going to enjoy relaying the news he'd found out last night.
When Celeste saw Damian's mouth pull back into a wickedly smug smile, a prickle of alarm shivered down her damp spine.
'You'd like for me to have come crawling, wouldn't you?' he said silkily, linking his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles with an air of arrogant insolence. 'You like having men suck up to you. It makes you feel all-powerful. That's one of the reasons why you only screw around with younger men. Because they grovel better, and they're easier to control.'
Celeste's mouth dropped open for a second before it snapped shut. Underneath his nasty delivery and understandably inaccurate assumptions, Damian was right about her enjoying power over the male of the species. That was one of her rewards for staying alive, for picking herself up from the edge of insanity and suicide, and choosing to survive. It felt good to have men jumping to obey her every whim and want, having them bow and scrape. The days of her ever having to be afraid of a man, or in having them control any aspect of her life, were long over.
Or so she had believed. Till recently.
'What a delicate turn of phrase you have, Damian,' she said drily, needing a few moments to regain her composure after such a disturbing train of thought.
He laughed. 'Since when did you take offence at calling a spade a spade? You don't give a damn what people think of you, Celeste. You never have.'
Celeste frowned at this dig at the way she'd lived her life over the past decade or so, especially her uncaring attitude to scandal and gossip. It was
true that she'd deliberately fuelled her reputation as a man-eater, publicly parading a long line of toy-boy companions for the gossip-mongers and tabloids to report.
What the general public did not know-or even her own brother-was that not once, during that time, had she actually been to bed with any of those young studs. Oh, yes, she'd flirted openly with them, especially when the cameras had been close. She'd allowed them to take her to highly public premieres, charity balls, the races and any other function where her photo was likely to be taken and printed, complete with partner.
Most of her supposed lovers had been independently wealthy playboy types from society families around Sydney. Some, however, had been employees-her personal assistant and chauffeurs were always young, male and handsome - whom she outwardly treated much more intimately than their position warranted. Amazing how quickly rumor escalated such relationships into tempestuous affairs.
Celeste suspected the men themselves lied about their conquests of the infamous female head of Campbell Jewels. Perhaps their male egos prompted them to feed the gossip about her reputedly voracious sexuality, each one in turn thinking they were the only one not to succeed in getting her into bed.
Celeste had never been bothered by any of this before. She had reveled in it all, finding some kind of weird vengeance in the knowledge that there was one particular person whom her scandalous reputation might hopefully hurt. She used to like to picture his face when he read or heard the latest gossip about her. She would imagine him hating her, yet still wanting her at the same time. Thinking about his ongoing unrequited desire evoked an inner satisfaction that soothed the savage beast lurking within her heart.
Or it had. Till she'd taken herself off to the Whi tmore Opals ball a few weeks back and come face to face with that unrequited desire, only to find out that her own desire for Byron Whitmore was still there, just as unrequited as his, and just as strong as ever.
Celeste had been utterly thrown. She'd been so sure she would never feel any desire for any man ever again, let alone the man who'd been the
