The Billionaire Banker(66)

As if the woman opposite her has heard her thoughts she remarks quietly, ‘Cravings go away.’

‘Please leave,’ she says, and does not turn around. She hears the woman stand. ‘You will regret this one day,’ the woman says. There is no malice in her voice. She is simply stating a fact. Unemotionally.

‘If you change your mind, my card is on the table.

Please don’t mention my visit to anyone.’

Lana nods. She hears the door close and she goes to stand in front of the beautiful gilded mirror. She looks at herself. How changed she is. Her eyes are full of pain.

There are bruises under her eyes where there were none.

Her hand moves to her belly. Soon she will be showing.

She thinks of the woman. The heartless determination hidden within the beautiful exterior. Between them, they will kill the life growing inside her. She loves Blake but for him she is only a wild oat.

She must think of the little one inside her now. Secure his or her future. She presses her hand to her mouth and stops the cry that threatens to escape. Tears are running down her face. She wipes them with the back of her hand and runs out of the door. Victoria is waiting by the lift.

She turns to look at Lana. And for that one pure moment, Lana understands how murderers feel. She wants to steal this woman’s heartbeat, take her life and the man that fate has so arbitrarily assigned to her.

‘I’ll take…’ Lana’s voice breaks. She forces herself to spit out the words,…’the money.’

The woman smiles. It is not the smile of a victor. It is not malicious. It is not unkind. Neither is it pitying nor condescending. It is simply the lucky smile of a woman who has never been refused anything her heart desires.





Thirty two

ictoria Jane Montgomery, daughter of the fourth VEarl of Hardwicke, enters the large conservatory built on the east wall of the great house. In her opinion, it is the most beautiful part of the house with its old Victorian stained glass and its profusion of citrus trees, tropical palms, and orchids. When she was younger there was even a banana tree. But Geoffrey died some years ago and this new gardener has other ideas, newer ideas. Her mother is reading a book. Another cheap period romance with a swashbuckling man clutching a buxom woman with flowing hair on the cover.

Victoria has never understood why a woman of her age should read romances. Surely, the instinct for romance dies when one reaches a certain age. Victoria herself has never understood the allure of romances. They bore her.

She has the real thing in her life. She has Blake, all six feet two inches of him. Al she has to do is think of him to make her toes clench. When she thinks of him with that hussy, her stomach actually knots and she has to stop herself from doing the bitch bodily harm. In fact, in a dream she once had she was tearing her eyes out. The feeling is so strong that sometimes she has to clench her hands, so hard her nails bite into her flesh and leave half moon marks.

Her mother looks up from her book. ‘Oh, daahling.

Have you just come from the hospital? How is Blake doing?’

Her mother’s King Charles, Suki, jumps happily at her feet. Victoria picks it up and, tickling the fur next to its pink crystal-studded collar, sits on a chair opposite her mother. ‘He hasn’t come around yet,’ she says, as the dog tries to lick her mouth.

Her mother has pink cheeks, soft blue eyes and a small pink mouth. ‘Oh dear, what are the doctors saying?’

‘It’s a matter of time. The swelling needs to go down.

They expect they will be able to operate tomorrow.’

‘I’m sorry, my dear.’

‘Actually, Mummy, I’ve come to talk to you about a different matter.’

‘Oh?’ Her mother puts her book down.

‘Well, it is about Blake, but it’s not about his accident, well maybe it is a little bit. Anyway, I found out that Blake has a mistress.’

‘Oh,’ her mother says again. Victoria bites her lip. It is a blow to her pride to tell her mother this.

‘I went to the apartment where he keeps her and paid her to leave the country and never see Blake again. Her mother is Iranian or something, and I suggested she live there for a while until everything blows over.’

The foolish look drops from her mother’s eyes and her voice loses that simpering softness that Victoria grew up with. Victoria’s mouth drops open in shock. In that moment she realizes she has never known her mother.

This woman is nobody’s fool.

‘You have taken a huge and unnecessary risk by doing that. These types of women will grow in such soil as ours and wither quickly, but when you force one out by the roots the way you have done, they leave a mark, an ugly scar that some men will mistake for a lost love.’