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‘Oh.’ Rhianna’s brow wrinkled as she calculated the distance. ‘Do you know how long that will take? It’s just that I have to get to the airport…’
‘No worry. He say he be here. He will come.’ Pilar allowed her another judicious smile and departed.
To her own surprise Rhianna demolished every scrap of the omelette, and ate two rolls with honey after it.
After all, she reasoned, she might not eat again until she was back in England.
She was up in her room when she heard the sound of the car. Her lift to the airport, she told herself. She picked up her bags, took a last look around to make sure she’d forgotten nothing, then started for the stairs.
She would greet him smiling, she told herself. And not a word or a gesture would betray how much their separation would cost her.
As she turned the corner a bright light flashed in front of her, and she halted, blinking. In the same instant she realised that it was not Diaz waiting in the hall below but two men, one of whom was just lowering a camera.
The other was the reporter from the Duchy Herald, Jason Tully.
‘Hello, Rhianna.’ His smile was triumphant. ‘I just knew we’d meet up again.’ He looked at the luggage she was carrying. ‘Going somewhere?’
‘Yes, back to England.’ She spoke calmly and continued her descent, putting the bags down at the foot of the stairs. But under her surface composure she felt sick, and her heart was going like a trip-hammer.
‘But not back to Cornwall, I hope? You’re persona non grata down there, as I imagine you know.’ He paused. ‘I suppose you have read my exclusive in the Sunday Echo? No?’ He took a folded newspaper from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Be my guest. And you might want to sit down.’
Something warned her to do as he said, and she seated herself on the bottom step. As she opened the paper, the strapline above the front page leapt out at her.
Castle Pride star’s wedding shock: ‘He’s mine,’ says tearful Donna.
Oh, no, she whispered silently. Oh, God, please, no. The story, with pictures filled the whole of page three.
Wedding guests at a picturesque Cornish church were left stunned yesterday when Donna Winston, rising star of hit TV series Castle Pride, halted the ceremony, claiming, ‘I’m having the bridegroom’s baby!’
Donna, twenty-two, told the shocked congregation that she and Simon Rawlins, scheduled to marry childhood sweetheart Caroline Seymour, had been involved in a passionate three month affair, which had left her pregnant.
Standing at the altar rail, just minutes before the arrival of the bride, Donna turned weeping to the blond, six-foot groom and declared, ‘You’re my baby’s father, Simon. You belong to me, and I won’t let you go.’
Ushers hustled the distraught Donna out of the church amid the murmurs of horrified onlookers. Standing in the sunshine, she declared defiantly, ‘Simon’s been living a lie. But it has to stop. He has responsibilities.’
She also revealed that she met twenty-six-year-old Simon through her former flatmate, Rhianna Carlow, and that many of their passionate love trysts had actually taken place at the Castle Pride star’s Walburgh Square pad.
‘Rhianna knew exactly what was going on,’ she said. ‘Even though she’s supposed to be the bride’s lifelong friend. But she must have had a recent attack of guilty conscience, as she’s been trying to bully me into having an abortion. I wouldn’t do it, because I know Simon loves me, and our baby is part of that love.’
Meanwhile, inside the church, the Vicar of Polkernick, the Rev. Alan Braithwaite, announced that both the ceremony and the lavish reception for two hundred guests would be indefinitely postponed.
As disappointed friends and family left the church, the bridegroom and best man departed by a side door, refusing to comment.
Also unavailable was Rhianna Carlow, who allegedly aided and abetted the secret affair, and whose portrayal of scheming, immoral Lady Ariadne in Castle Pride has raised eyebrows all around the world.
According to local reports she has not been seen since she left a prenuptial party hand in hand with glamorous multimillionaire Diaz Penvarnon, whose gracious home, Penvarnon House, was due to host the cancelled reception.
It is believed the couple decided to boycott the wedding for a love tryst of their own aboard the millionaire’s luxury yacht, which sailed from Polkernick Harbour on Friday evening for an unknown destination.
Meanwhile the betrayed bride, pretty twenty-three-year-old Caroline Seymour, is being comforted by her family, with callers barred from the Penvarnon mansion.
Rhianna drew a deep breath and looked at Jason Tully. ‘Not such an unknown destination after all, it seems.’ She tapped the paper with a contemptuous finger. ‘Well, you’ve already done your worst, Mr Tully, and earned yourself a national by-line. So why are you here?’
