Forbidden or For Bedding?. Julia James
the stone steps from the front door of the terraced house of which Alexa’s apartment occupied the top floor, his driver got out and came round to open the rear passenger door for him. He got in, barely acknowledging the gesture.
As he sank back into the soft leather seat his face remained expressionless.
Well, it was done. Alexa was out of his life. And she wouldn’t be coming back.
Guy reached for the neatly folded copy of the Financial Times his driver had placed carefully beside him, and started to read.
There was no expression in his face. His eyes.
He would permit none.
Alexa was cleaning the bathroom. She should have been working, but she couldn’t. She’d tried. She’d mixed colours, got herself ready, put up a brand new canvas, dipped her brush in the colours, lifted it to the canvas.
But nothing had happened. She’d hung, frozen, like an aborted computer program, unable to continue.
Jerkily she’d lowered the brush, eased off the surplus paint, and stuck it into turps. Then she’d blinked a few times, stared blankly ahead for a moment, before turning on her heel and walking out of her studio.
She’d walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on. But for some reason she hadn’t been able to make a cup of tea. Or coffee. Or even run the tap for a glass of water. After a little while she’d gone into the bathroom.
She’d seen the bath could do with a clean, so she’d set to. That had seemed to work. Then she’d moved on to the basin, then the toilet pedestal, then the rest of the surfaces and walls. She rubbed hard, using elbow grease and a lot of household cleaner foaming on the sponge. It seemed to take a lot of cleaning, and she rubbed hard.
Harder and harder.
And as she rubbed and scrubbed her brain darted, like dragonflies scything across a pond with sharp, knifing movements. She wondered what the dragonflies in her brain were. Then she knew. Knew by their iridescent wings, their flash as they caught the light.
They were memories.
So many memories.
Stabbing and darting through her head. Memory after memory.
As sharp as knives.
Working backwards through time, taking her back, and back, and back.
Chapter One
Six months earlier.…
‘DARLING! You’ll never believe who I’ve bagged for you!’
Imogen’s voice came gushing down the line. Alexa, the receiver crooked under her ear, concentrated on catching the sheen on a petal that was proving tricky.
‘Alexa? Are you there? Did you hear what I said? You’ll never believe who—’
Alexa, who knew that Imogen could no more be halted in full flight than she herself could be dragged to the phone when she was painting by anyone other than her friend and business manager, interrupted.
‘Who?’ She knew Imogen was dying to be asked, so she could give the dramatic answer she was clearly bursting to give.
‘He’s absolutely devastating!’ gushed Imogen. ‘A million, zillion miles from any of the usual boring old suits.’
An extravagant sigh wafted down the line. Alexa wondered what Imogen was on about, then went back to working on the petal. She was dimly aware that Imogen was still in full flow, but didn’t pay attention. Imogen loved to gush, and Alexa let her get on with it while she focussed on what was important at the moment.
Finally there was silence on the line.
‘So?’ came Imogen’s prompt a moment later. ‘Are you over the moon or what?’
Alexa frowned absently. ‘What?’
An exasperated sign came into her ear. ‘Darling, do pay attention! Put the paintbrush down and listen for two minutes. Even you are going to be impressed, I promise. Guy de Rochement phoned. Well,’ Imogen temporised, ‘not him personally, of course, but his London PA.’ She paused. ‘So, tell me you’re impressed. Tell me—’ her voice changed and adopted a husky timbre ‘—you’re quivering all down your insides.’
Alexa, her paintbrush reduced to hovering over the canvas, intensified her slight frown.
‘Quivering?’ she echoed. ‘What for?’
The exasperated sigh came again. ‘Oh, really, Alexa, don’t do that Little Miss Supercool with me! I’m not a bloke. And don’t even think you’ll be able to get away with it with Guy de Rochement. Not even you could do that. He’ll have you swooning just like the rest of the female population.’
Alexa’s brow furrowed. ‘Am I supposed to know who this guy is?’
Imogen gave a trill of laughter. ‘Darling—a pun! His name is Guy in English, but of course he’s French—well, mostly—so it’s pronounced with a long “ee”. Guy.’ She gave it a Gallic slant. ‘Sounds so much sexier…’ She gave another gusty sigh.
Alexa cut to the chase. She hadn’t a clue what was going on, and didn’t want any more of her time wasted.
‘Imogen—who is he, why are you being so loopy about it, and what are you trying to tell me anyway?’
Imogen sounded more disbelieving than indignant. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Guy de Rochement? He’s just all over the celeb mags! Only the posh ones, mind you! He’s a triple-A-lister. Total class!’
‘I don’t read magazines like that,’ replied Alexa. ‘They’re all rubbish.’
‘Ooh, look at you. Hoity-toity!’ shot back Imogen in mock admonition. ‘Well, if you did sully your pure artistic soul with such guff you’d know who I was talking about—and why. Listen, even at your elevated heights I take it you’ve heard of Rochement-Lorenz?’
Recognition—not strong, but there all the same—was dredged into Alexa’s forebrain. ‘Mega-rich bankers all over the place and going way back into history?’
‘That’s them!’ Imogen trilled. ‘One of the über-dynasties across the Channel. Utterly rolling in it. Made pots of money in every country in Europe for the last two hundred years,’ she reeled off. ‘Just about financed the Industrial Revolution and bankrolled merchant fleets to every farflung colony. They’re so seriously into money and survival they even made it pretty much intact through the last century—both the World Wars, not to mention the Cold War—probably because they had family on every side going. And now they are riding higher than ever, despite the recession. And a lot of that is due to Guy de Rochement. He’s the whiz-kid that’s propelled the bank into the twenty-first century, and the whole vast clan just slobbers all over him because he’s raking in the loot for them.
Her voice changed, adopting that husky tone again. ‘Mind you, I’d take a punt it’s the females in the family that do the most slobbering. Just like the females outside the family! I was practically salivating down the phone, and I was only speaking to his PA.’
Alexa cut to the chase again. Imogen was clearly bowled over by this Guy guy, whoever he was, and Alexa had certainly never heard of him.
‘So what’s the deal, Immie?’ she asked.
‘The deal, darling, is that he’s interested in being painted by you!’ cooed Imogen dramatically. ‘And if he goes for it you’ll be made, my sweet. No more dull old suits and cigars. You’ll be able to take your pick of the A-listers—the really fab ones, up in the stratosphere. They’re all as vain as peacocks, and they’ll just snap you up. You’ll be rolling in it!’
Alexa