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Duncan made a rough sound in his throat. ‘That’s the way he wants you to think. I know you need security and that’s probably why you’re marrying him, but what he’s got in mind is a maximum security prison. And with Steve there’s no parole for good behaviour!’
‘So this is just a friendly warning, right?’ Kalera cried, desperate to escape and lick her wounds in private. ‘You have no axe to grind, no desire to get revenge for him publicly branding you an adulterer when you’re actually as innocent as a newborn babe?’
In her anxiety to get away she knew she had made it sound as if she didn’t believe him. But she did—at least she thought the core of what he said might be true but that, as usual, he was wildly exaggerating the details to give them the most emotional impact. Stephen was an extremely intelligent man and ran a complex and highly successful business. He might have some emotional problems, but Duncan was making him sound psychotic.
Duncan cursed with vicious fluency
. ‘I’m breaking a promise to tell you this—I’m trying to stop you making a fool of yourself.’
He must mean a promise to Terri, thought Kalera with a searing bolt of jealousy that gave her an inkling of what Stephen might have felt.
‘Thanks, but I prefer to make my judgments based on first-hand information rather than second-hand opinion,’ she said, finally succeeding in releasing the door-catch and kicking open the door with a fine disregard for several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of high-performance vehicle. She tugged at his arm and after a moment of resistance he let her go, leaning across the seat as she scrambled out to deliver his parting shot.
‘In that case why don’t you ask him first-hand the real reason he doesn’t want you to meet Michael? It’s not because Terri won’t let him, but because his twisted mind has persuaded him that Michael isn’t his son, but mine. And unless somebody makes him believe otherwise he’s going to end up freezing that little boy right out of his life!’
CHAPTER NINE
KALERA’S hand smoothed nervously down over the stiff folds of her red silk taffeta dress, her eyes skimming over the glittering throng who had responded to Stephen’s gilt-edged invitations, most of whom she’d never seen before and doubted she’d recognise again. They crammed the marble-pillared ballroom and milled around on the dance-floor to the live orchestra, spilling out of the open doors onto the wide terraces where flaming torches lit the sumptuous buffet.
Kalera thought she had been prepared for the strain of this formal engagement party but experience was proving her wrong, not least because of the insidious doubts that had crept into her mind to divide and multiply over the past week, filling her with jittery uncertainty about the future.
But she was proud of the fact that despite Duncan’s continuing best efforts to panic her into urgency she had not rushed into making any rash decisions. After last Saturday’s confrontation she had not flown straight to Stephen with a string of angry and unsubstantiated accusations, which was obviously what Duncan had hoped she would do. She had not dramatically called off the engagement a mere week before the lavish party that Stephen had devoted so much time and energy to organising. Whatever Stephen had done in the past, Kalera did not believe he deserved to be treated so shabbily.
It might be Duncan’s way to fling himself headlong at problems and batter them into submission but it wasn’t Kalera’s. She preferred to withdraw into herself and carefully look at things from every angle before she decided what action to take, to observe and let her conclusions percolate until she was comfortable and confident with her choice. Sometimes, in her experience, problems even faded away when you refused to take them seriously, and stifling fears eased when you gave them a little breathing room.
Alas, this was not one of those times.
At work she had struggled to regain her old equilibrium in the face of unsettling events. Perhaps in revenge for her stubborn silence on the subject of Stephen, Duncan had abruptly made a choice of secretary—a woman who hadn’t even been on Kalera’s short-list—and with customary speed had installed her the very same day at a desk face to face with Kalera’s.
Bettina Fisher was a busty twenty-year-old university drop-out who wore skin-tight clothing and minimal underwear and seemed to have a problem with the concept of alphabetic order. She was thirty minutes late back from lunch on the first day, cheerfully confiding to Kalera that she had been celebrating her new job in the pub, and she had lost at least half a dozen files every day she had worked. Her typing speed was staccato-fast, but so was her mouth. Kalera had gritted her teeth and been as helpful as she was able to be without screaming. Bettina merely proved her point about hasty decisions. Her appointment had been a spur-of-the-moment reaction that Duncan would live to sorely regret.
Kalera confidently predicted that the jolly Bettina would not last a week after her mentor left, despite the shrink-wrapped breasts and bottom that Duncan pretended to admire when he knew Kalera was looking.
The other jarring note at Labyrinth was the beefing up of security, and the introduction of a new level of secrecy that excluded everyone but Bryan Eastman and Duncan from certain parts of the system. As usual, this was taken as a direct challenge by every hacker in the office worthy of the name and bets were laid on the bulletin board as to who would be first to burrow into the inner sanctum. Meanwhile Bryan and Duncan were often to be seen in low-voiced huddles, and, while Kalera was suddenly surplus to requirements after five o’clock, rumours abounded about all-night sessions in the research department.
‘More champagne, madam?’
Kalera started, nearly spilling the remainder of her glass. ‘Oh, yes, please,’ she said, holding it out to the white-gloved waiter as he topped her up. ‘Thank you.’ She flushed slightly, belatedly remembering that Stephen had said it wasn’t necessary to thank the hired help constantly—one just ignored them and took their excellent service for granted.
She turned back to the room, sipping the perfectly chilled vintage, enjoying the brief period of respite offered by the conveniently large floral arrangement furnished with drooping red spikes of flowers almost the same shade of crimson as her dress. She knew she should be out there circulating, presenting herself for inspection by Stephen’s friends, and the movers and shakers of his world who were seizing this chance to mix business with pleasure, but she had been doing it now for nearly two hours and her throat ached from the strain of talking over the top of the conversational rumble.
The men almost without exception were all in black ties but the women were dressed in a myriad of colours and styles, all excruciatingly high fashion, and yet as a group there was a sameness about them that was rather depressing. She caught a flutter of feather and lace amongst the glitter of sequins and silk and smiled reluctantly. Maybe not quite all the same. Silver and Kris were here, making their presence felt by their extremely liberal interpretation of ‘dress: formal’, and frankly making the most of the free food and drink and the chance to spread a little revolutionary talk amongst the scions of the local establishment. Poor Madeline had nearly fainted at the sight of Kris’s ceremonial blue caftan but she had been too shrewd to let their guests see her dismay and had minimised the social damage by gushingly emphasising their status as amusing eccentrics. Once Kalera might have cringed but tonight she felt only amusement, unable to shake the strange detachment that made her feel as if she was a spectator at a play.
Kalera took another, longer gulp of champagne as she saw Stephen step in from one of the terraces, his blond head beginning a sweeping search that would inevitably result in her discovery. He would be annoyed that she had chosen to lurk in the background instead of basking in the spotlight but she would weather his disapproval. He had to accept her for what she was…or not at all.
She studied his tall, handsome figure, radiating boyish charm as he smoothly worked the room, blatantly enjoying being the focus of attention. Yes, there was something still very boyish about Stephen, an element of narcissistic self-absorption which she had overlooked in her eagerness to enjoy the security of his affections, and relive the joy of being needed. But in spite of Duncan’s dire pronouncements and predictions she still couldn’t bring herself to feel threatened by Stephen’s over-attentive behaviour. Irritated and uncomfortable, perhaps, but not threatened. And that was because there was not the intensity of emotion between them to generate such a threat, she had realised in the last few days of soul-searching, and there probably never would be. Without passion and ardour to wreak havoc on his self-control and drive him to try and reimpose control in other ways, Stephen was merely going through the motions of habitualised behaviour. Just as Kalera had seen him as a safe haven for her reawakening feelings, so she was for him a haven from his own emotional extremity.
And Kalera had seen for herself, that very morning, the difference between the Stephen of her experience and the one that Duncan had described.
The standing arrangement had been for her to drive to Stephen’s in the early evening for a light meal—to compensate for the late dinner they would be having—and for Kalera to shower and have her hair and face done by Madeline’s beautician before she changed into her dress. But Kalera had decided on impulse to drop her clothes over in the afternoon, along with the engagement present she had agonised over choosing, in case they didn’t get any privacy later in which to exchange their personal gifts. As it happened she’d discovered that Stephen planned to give her hers when he made the formal announcement after dinner.
She had been about to swing into Stephen’s curving drive when she had caught sight of the trio emerging from the front door and had panicked, swerving over to the far side of the street and parking under the shade of a spreading pin oak, slumping down in her seat in case she was spotted.
She’d watched the small boy, stylishly dressed in a green polo shirt and baggy safari shorts, tip back his head to look up at the tall man beside him and say something. The boy’s hair was as dark as the man’s was blond, but even at this distance, or perhaps because she wasn’t distracted by detail, Kalera could see an echo of genes in the shape of their heads and the proportions of their bodies, and stiff set of their shoulders that denoted both yearning and rejection. If Kalera had harboured any fleeting doubt about Michael’s paternity it had been banished then. He could well have been the little boy in those early home videos of Madeline’s.
Stephen’s hand had raised and Kalera had found herself holding her breath, but instead of a pat on the shoulder or a ruffling of hair there had been a solemn shaking of hands. The boy’s thin shoulders were visibly drooping as he’d headed slowly down the stairs towards the silver BMW parked on the gravel.
The slim brunette in the cream sheath, who had been standing behind the two males, had tossed the cigarette she had been jerkily smoking over the balustrade and started to follow, but she’d suddenly whirled around, obviously at some remark, and remounted the stairs to issue a flow of words at Stephen, punctuated by angry, darting gestures with her head and hands.
