Carides's Forgotten Wife (15 page)

The test of whether or not she had the strength to be heard. Whether or not she could stand her ground and ask for these things when someone else said they didn’t want to give them.

She realized finally that even if Leon didn’t think she was worth it, even if her father had never thought she was worth it...
she
thought she was.

She realized it with a rush of absolute certainty and strength. How could she be a mother to Isabella if she taught her that a woman should twist and contort and bend endlessly in order to accommodate other people in her life?

She didn’t want that little girl to bend, not even once. The world should bend around her, because she had value that was beyond estimation.

But Rose would never be able to teach her that if she didn’t live her own life in that way.

So she got up off the ground.

She spread her arms wide, still facing the heavens, water cascading down her body. Her dress was soaked, probably ruined. Her marriage was ruined.

Her life was not.

Her life would be what she made it. She wanted love. She deserved love. She did not deserve to tiptoe around musty halls hoping for attention. She did not deserve to spend her entire professional life continuing to pour into her father’s legacy. She deserved to create her own.

She did not deserve to have her love defined by Leon. To have him put limitations on it. Because she deserved to give it to someone who loved her back.

God knew, he would probably always have her love. That was the simple truth. She had loved Leon Carides from the moment she had first seen him and she very seriously doubted that that would change. But the way she responded to it had to.

Her only real concern was how this would affect her relationship with Isabella. She truly had grown to love the baby as her own. But then, Leon
did
love his daughter. And he wanted her to have a mother. They could come to an agreement, on that she was confident.

But she would have to leave this house behind. This thing she had been clinging to for so many years. This place that had held memories and dreams that she had so longed to live over and over again.

Tonight she had lived a dream. A fantasy. She had attended one of those beautiful parties in this wonderful home, but it hadn’t fixed anything.

It was surreal, standing there, living out a scene you had always desired to be a part of, then realizing that there were no answers to be found. There were only more questions. It hadn’t magically brought her happiness. Because love had still been missing. And so it hadn’t mattered.

In the end, the only answer she had truly received was that it was time to grow up. It was time to stop living in the past. It was time to stop wishing that old fantasies would become a new reality.

It was time to move forward, knowing that she deserved it.

Whether or not Leon ever believed it.

She believed it. And that was all that mattered.

EPILOGUE

L
EON
REMARRIED
R
OSE
the following year. It was entirely different to that first wedding three years earlier. When a pale, young bride had walked toward him, unsure of what exactly she was getting herself into.

Giving herself to a man she knew didn’t love her.

Things had changed. He had changed.

Today, when Rose walked down the aisle toward him, it wasn’t in a heavy veil that concealed her face from him. Today, she had her hair loose, with a crown of pink flowers adding a pop of brightness to her pale blonde beauty.

Her dress was simple. Long and flowing, swirling around her feet. She looked like an angel. And if anyone would have asked, he would have said that Rose Tanner was, without a doubt, his angel.

She had saved him. From his grief. From loneliness. And most especially from himself.

This time, when he took her hands in his and made vows, they were vows he had written himself. Vows that came from his heart, not from tradition. Not from anyone else.

“Rose, I made promises to you once before. But they were empty. I didn’t keep them. I spoke the words, but I didn’t make vows. But now...now I’m making vows. You’re the reason my heart beats. You’re the reason I live. The reason I love. I promise you my life. I promise my love and my fidelity. I know there is no happiness for me outside of this, outside of us. I spent years taking you for granted. I spent years squandering what we could have had. I was given a precious gift, and I was far too lost to truly appreciate it.” He tightened his hold on her hands. “But now I know. I have seen death, Rose. And I have lived it. A sort of survival that isn’t living at all, just breathing. But you...you are life. My life. My breath. My truth.”

When they had finished speaking their vows, Rose turned and took Isabella from the arms of her maid of honor, holding the little girl—who was growing far too quickly for Leon’s taste—close. “I promise to love you, too,” she whispered. “We’re a family.”

Leon took hold of his daughter’s hand. “You both have me. My heart. Always.”

Later, there was cake, and there was dancing. And a very cranky Isabella had to be taken back to the house by the nanny.

But Leon and Rose stayed, until the very last song. He held her tightly against him, letting the music wrap itself around them.

The whole world, all of the people, the past and everyone in it, fell away.

And all he could see were Rose’s blue eyes.

* * * * *

Read on for an excerpt from THE PLAYBOY’S RUTHLESS PURSUIT by MIRANDA LEE
.

I
SHOULD
BE
HAPPIER
,
Jeremy thought as he leant back in his office chair and put his feet up on his large leather-topped desk.
My life is pretty well perfect. I’m as healthy as a horse, filthy rich and blessedly single. On top of that, I’m no longer Chief Investment Consultant at the London branch of the Barker-Whittle banking empire. What a relief!

Working for his over-achieving father had not been Jeremy’s idea of a fun occupation. Unfortunately, he’d been darned good at his job. Despite the accolades and the generous bonuses he’d earned over the years, he much preferred being his own boss. Jeremy had used some of his recently acquired wealth to buy an ailing publishing firm, which he was turning into a rather surprising success. Perverse, considering it was an accidental purchase.

Jeremy’s initial aim when launching out on his own had been to go into the property development business, his first purchase last year a town house in one of Mayfair’s best streets. But the publishing company leasing the building had proved difficult to deal with, the owner stubbornly insisting on staying put till his lease ran out. So Jeremy had made an offer that he couldn’t refuse, thereby solving the problem, his intention having been to relocate his new business to cheaper premises whilst he renovated and converted the slightly run-down property into three luxury apartments.

But things hadn’t worked out that way. He’d found himself
liking
the people who worked at Mayfair Books, all of whom were naturally worried about losing their jobs. He also liked the rooms the way they were. Slightly shabby, yes, but full of character and charm, with lots of wood-panelled walls and antique furniture. It had been clear from talking to the employees and looking at their sales figures, however, that the business itself had desperately needed updating. Whilst Jeremy had known next to nothing about the modern publishing industry, he was an intelligent and well-connected man, with loads of business contacts, one of which headed the marketing division of a rather famous London publisher.

So here he was, almost a year later, heading Barker Books, having changed the name along with the company’s fortunes. They’d actually made a profit during the last quarter. He even got up every morning and happily went into his office these days, unlike his time at the bank when he’d conducted most of his business over the phone.

So work wasn’t the reason for this odd feeling of discontent.

Jeremy knew it wasn’t his love life, either. That was sailing along as usual, though, since buying the book business, his focus had been more on work than women.

Not that he felt sexually frustrated. He didn’t. Jeremy had no trouble finding willing ladies to accompany him to the many social occasions he was constantly invited to. A man of his status and wealth was a prized guest. His partner du jour invariably accompanied him back to his bed for the night, despite Jeremy always making it clear that dating him was never going to lead to a ring on her finger. He didn’t do love or, God forbid, marriage. Thankfully, most of them were good with that, because he didn’t do broken hearts, either.

When the reason for his discontent continued to elude Jeremy, he was forced to give the matter deeper thought, something he usually tried to avoid at all costs. He’d never seen the benefit of self-analysis, or counselling. It had never done his older brothers any good. Jeremy knew exactly why he was the way he was. He didn’t need a shrink to tell him that his aversion to love and marriage stemmed from his parents’ constant divorcing and remarrying. That, plus their abandoning him to boarding school when he was just eight, where he’d been bullied endlessly.

He hated thinking about those years, so he didn’t, his mind swiftly moving on to happier times. He’d thoroughly enjoyed his years at University in London, finally using his excellent brain to its full capacity. His results had thrilled his maternal grandmother, who’d promptly made him her heir, on the condition he went on to study at Oxford. Which he had, his generous private income—Gran had passed away shortly after he enrolled—providing him with the kind of lifestyle to which he’d quickly become addicted. He’d done sufficient study to easily pass his exams but, generally speaking, fun had been the order of the day, Jeremy carousing to a level that might have become a problem if he hadn’t acquired two slightly more sensible friends.

Thinking of Sergio and Alex sent Jeremy’s gaze to the photo of the three of them that was sitting on his desk. Harriet had taken it on the day Sergio had married his one-time stepsister in July last year, Sergio having asked both Alex and himself to be his best men. The wedding had taken place on the shores of Lake Como, in the grounds of a magnificent villa. Whilst no longer worried that Bella might be a chip off her fortune-hunting mother’s block, Jeremy wasn’t convinced the marriage would last. Love never lasted, did it? Still, there was nothing he could do about that. It was a shame, though, how little he saw of his best friend these days. Of
both
his best friends. He
had
seen them at Alex’s wedding to Harriet in Australia back in February, but only briefly. Jeremy really missed the days when they’d all lived in London and got together regularly, back when they’d still all been bachelors and hadn’t become billionaires.

Hadn’t been thirty-five, either. That had been the kiss of death, their all turning thirty-five last year. That, and the super sale of their WOW wine bar franchise to an American equity company. Suddenly, everything had changed, with the Bachelor Club they’d formed back at Oxford no longer relevant. Maybe their friendship was no longer relevant, either.

With a sigh, Jeremy scraped his feet off his desk. They hit the floor with a thud, the sound echoing the hollow feeling inside his heart. Leaning forward, he picked up the photo, frowning as he studied the three faces smiling back at him.

Jeremy didn’t envy his friends and their marriages, but he hated the thought that he would hardly ever see them from now on. Their priorities would be their wives and their families, not him. He would become old news, someone whom they recalled with vague fondness when they glanced through their photo albums every decade or so.

‘Who’s that man, Dad?’ he imagined Alex’s son asking. Harriet was expecting a boy.

‘Oh, that’s Jeremy. A chap I knew once. We went to Oxford together. He was the best man at our wedding. Gosh. Haven’t seen him for years.’

Jeremy scowled as he slammed the photo face down on the desk and snatched up his phone.

‘Damn it all, I’m not going to let that happen,’ he ground out as he retrieved Alex’s number.

Realising it would be the middle of the night in Australia—not nice to call at such an hour—Jeremy sent an email volunteering himself for godfather duty when the time came. That done, he righted the photo, placed it back in its pride of place and settled down to have a look at their current sales figures. Finding the file on his laptop, he clicked it open but didn’t get far before there was a rapid
tap-tap-tap
on his door.

‘Come in, Madge,’ he said.

Madge entered as briskly as she did everything. In her mid-fifties, Madge was a thin, plain woman with cropped grey hair, piercing blue eyes and a schoolmarm manner. Jeremy had hired her soon after buying the business, the previous owner’s secretary having quit in a huff over the new owner’s high-handed tactics. Jeremy had been impressed with Madge’s no-nonsense attitude, plus her knowledge of the publishing industry. He liked her enormously, and the affection was mutual.

‘We have a problem,’ she said straight away.

‘Which is?’

‘Kenneth Jacobs can’t be the auctioneer at tonight’s charity auction. He has a terrible head cold. I could hardly understand him on the phone just now.’

‘I see,’ Jeremy said, not actually seeing at all. He knew who Kenneth Jacobs was; hard not to, since he was Jeremy’s only best-selling author, having come with the deal when he’d bought the business. Kenneth wrote the grizzliest of murder mysteries, which had a huge fan base but whose forty-plus books hadn’t been marketed properly. Despite knowing this, Kenneth hadn’t left the publisher who’d given him his start. A crusty old bachelor, Kenneth was lazy when it came to business matters. Once Jeremy had taken the helm, he’d republished Kenneth’s entire back list, with new covers, and put them all out as e-Books.

‘What charity auction?’ Jeremy asked, having gained the impression that he was supposed to already know.

Madge rolled her eyes. ‘Truly. Just as well you have me to organise things around here. It’s not easy working for a man who has a short-term memory loss.’

‘I’ll have you know I have a photographic memory,’ Jeremy said defensively whilst his mind scrambled to remember what it was he’d forgotten.

‘In that case I’ll photograph everything for you in the future instead of telling you,’ Madge said with her usual caustic wit.

As much as Jeremy often enjoyed Madge’s dry sense of humour, on this occasion his patience was wearing a little thin.

‘Do that, Madge. But for now I would appreciate it if you’d explain about this charity auction one more time, then tell me exactly how I’m supposed to fix the problem of Kenneth having a head cold.’ Though by now he had a pretty good idea. Jeremy wasn’t always the most intuitive of men, but he wasn’t thick, either.

Madge expelled one of her exasperated sighs. ‘I would have thought that the words
charity auction
were self-explanatory. But that’s beside the point. You told me after the last charity dinner you went to that I wasn’t to accept any more invitations to such dos. You said you’d rather slash your wrists than sit through another of those dinners where the food was below par and the speakers intolerably boring. You said you were happy to donate to whatever cause was going but you’d given up being a masochist when you stopped working for your father. You said that—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Jeremy broke in firmly. ‘I get the picture. But that last dinner was just a meal followed by speeches, not something as interesting as an auction. Now, if you don’t mind, please fill me in on the relevant details and stop with the ancient history lesson.’

Madge looked as close to sheepish as he’d ever seen her. ‘Right. Well, it’s being held in the ballroom of the Chelsea Hotel, and it’s to raise funds for the women’s refuges in the inner-city area. There’s a sit-down dinner before the auction, which I’m assured will have quality food and which should raise a good sum of money since it costs a small fortune per head. I gather the place is going to be full of society’s finest. Kenneth was to be the auctioneer, the last prize being the privilege of the winning bidder having their name used as a character in his next book. It’s been done before, of course, by other authors. But never by Kenneth. The poor fellow is quite disappointed, as well as worried about letting Alice down. She’s the girl who’s organised everything. Anyway, I told him that you would do it in his stead.’

Jeremy pretended to look displeased. ‘Oh, you did, did you?’

For a split second, a worried frown formed on Madge’s high forehead. But then she smiled.

‘You’re just joking, right?’

Jeremy grinned.

Madge flushed with relief and pleasure. She adored Jeremy, envying his mother for having such a warm and wonderful son. He might be a devil where the ladies were concerned—or so she’d been told—but he was a good man and a great boss. Smart, sensible and surprisingly sensitive. She didn’t doubt that one day he’d fall in love and settle down.

‘You are a teaser,’ she said. ‘Now, do you want me to ring Alice and tell her you’ll do the job as auctioneer? Or do you want to ring her yourself?’

‘What do you think, Madge?’

This was another thing she liked about her boss. He often asked her opinion. And usually took it.

‘I think you should ring her yourself,’ she said. ‘It would put her mind at rest. She seemed rather stressed. I gained the impression she was new at this job.’

‘Right,’ he replied, nodding. ‘You’d better get me her number, then.’

Madge already had it in hand, of course.

‘You are a very devious woman,’ he said as she gave it to him.

‘And you are a very sweet man,’ she returned with a smug smile before turning and leaving him to it.

Jeremy found himself smiling as he keyed Alice’s number into his phone.

‘Alice Waterhouse,’ she answered immediately, her voice crisp and very businesslike, its cut-glass accent betraying an education at one of those private girls’ schools that turned out girls who invariably worked in jobs such as PR or fund-raising for charities before marrying someone suitable to their class.

Jeremy wasn’t overly keen on girls from privileged backgrounds, which was rather hypocritical of him, given his own background. There’d been a time when he hadn’t cared about such things. If a girl was pretty and keen on him, then he didn’t give their character—or their upbringing—much thought. He bedded without bias or prejudice. But nowadays, he found the girls he dated who’d been born rich were seriously boring, both in bed and out. He disliked their innate sense of entitlement, plus their need to be constantly complimented and entertained. Perhaps it was the attraction of opposites, but there was something very appealing about girls who
had
to work for their living, who didn’t have the fall-back position of Daddy’s money.

He imagined that the plummy-voiced Alice Waterhouse was just such a daddy’s girl.

‘Jeremy Barker-Whittle,’ he replied, well aware that whilst his own voice wasn’t overly toffee-nosed, it was deep and rich and, yes, impressive. Alex and Sergio used to tell him he could have made a fortune on the radio. People who first met him over the phone were often surprised by the reality of him in the flesh. They clearly expected someone older, and possibly more rotund, with a big chest and stomach. Like an opera singer.

People did make the wrong assumptions at times.

He wondered if he was wrong about Alice Waterhouse. Then decided he wasn’t.

‘I’m the publisher of Kenneth Jacobs’s books,’ he informed her. ‘It seems I’m to be your stand-in auctioneer tonight.’