Desire And Deception

It was a mental trick she had learnt long ago. When things got too painful, she just clicked off her thoughts to everything but the most immediate and superficial needs. Washing. Eating. Sleeping.

For the first time, it didn’t work. She couldn’t seem to forget that hand over her mouth, that steely arm clamped around her breasts, those filthy words whispered in her ear. If she hadn’t managed that lucky kick to her assailant’s groin, God knew what would have happened.

But she had, and unexpectedly she’d been free. Snatching up her car keys from the hall table, she’d bolted for the door, wearing nothing but a silk robe, driving home to Belleview at a speed which owed thanks to its being three o’clock in the morning, with the streets of suburban Sydney almost deserted. Heaven knew what would have happened if she’d been stopped by the police. God, she could see it now, being arrested for dangerous driving and hauled, half-naked down to the police station. Then a sour-faced Nathan arriving the following morning with the family solicitor in tow. Like the last time.

Only the last time her arrest had been for possession of drugs. Zachary Marsden had defended her on that occasion as well.

Of course, it hadn’t been her marijuana in the glovebox of her car. She detested drugs. It had belonged to a so-called friend who’d vowed she’d given up the habit. Luckily, Zachary was a top defender—would her father employ any other kind?—and he’d soon proved her innocence to the satisfaction of the magistrate and the charges had been dropped. Zachary had really believed in her innocence, too, which was more than could be said for Nathan.

What a hypocrite her adopted brother was!

He pretended to be holier-than-thou, just like her father. But she knew what he’d been up to before Byron found him on the streets of King’s Cross. Yet he had the hide to judge her over her supposedly loose lifestyle, to criticise her for being sexually provocative.

Jade had to laugh at that. Nathan oozed sex. Why, there wasn’t a woman within fifty feet of him who hadn’t wanted him at some stage, her own mother included.

Immediately, Jade’s mind closed in on the subject of her mother. In her opinion, she hadn’t had a mother. End of story.

Back to Nathan.

Jade switched off the shower, her generous mouth curving into a bitter smile. She had that cold-blooded devil taped, all right. People felt sorry for him because of his supposedly unfortunate background. Well, she didn’t. No way. He’d loved every minute of his decadent existence with that crazy mother of his.

Yes, Nathan was as hard as nails and an opportunist of the first order, conning his way into her father’s heart, getting Byron to adopt him, securing a cushy lifestyle and a fantastic job that he wouldn’t have had a hope of winning with his pathetic education. People said he was clever and perhaps he was—not many people could whip off an award-winning play every year in their spare time—but he didn’t even have his HSC, let alone a university degree, which was what her father had said she had to have before she was allowed to set one foot inside Whitmore Opals.

Nathan’s cleverness, for want of a better word, lay in his ability to psychoanalyse people and play on their weaknesses.

From the word go, poor Byron had believed Nathan had turned over a new leaf where his morals were concerned. Pity her father hadn’t kept his eyes open to what had happened around his own home from the moment he brought that walking phallic symbol into Belleview all those years ago.

But Byron hadn’t, perhaps because he’d rarely been home himself. The head of Whitmore Opals was a workaholic of the worst kind, meaning well, but invariably neglectful of his family except in short bossy bursts. He was also totally ignorant of their true feelings and real natures. Even when it came to Nathan’s marriage, Byron had a tendency to blame Lenore for everything from its shotgun beginning to its inevitable demise. As if any woman other than the most martyrish could endure marriage to a machine. Yes, Byron was blind to the real Nathan.

But that was understandable. Nathan could make others believe he was something he wasn’t if it meant achieving one of his selfish ends. Look at how she’d adored him for years. Hero-worshipped him. Loved him.

She’d thought he’d at least liked her back. What he’d liked was wallowing in her unthreatening adoration, the adoration of a little girl. Now that she was a woman, with a woman’s needs and desires, he’d turned on her. Not because he didn’t desire her. She knew he did. My God, he’d had to scrape up every ounce of that amazing will-power of his to stop making love to her that afternoon a few months ago. But he’d managed, because an affair with her would have endangered what he desired more: Whitmore Opals. The Whitmore fortune.

With Jade being Byron’s only natural-born child and a female to boot, Nathan probably figured he had a good chance of inheriting at least control of Whitmore’s. Byron was a chauvinist of the first order who believed a woman’s place was in the home, most certainly not in the boardroom of a company! His tirades against women like Celeste Campbell were never-ending.

Jade secretly admired the female head of Campbell Jewels. The woman was bold and beautiful, and more than a little brazen in the way she conducted her private life. But so what? If she’d been a man, there wouldn’t be a whimper of protest or criticism. Alas, however, Celeste was a woman, and the old double standards applied. Her usually younger lovers were denigrated as toy-boys. She was slyly called a slut.

Which was what Nathan had said she was in danger of becoming, Jade recalled with a twisting inside. Now that was the pot calling the kettle black in her opinion! And not true, either. She could count her so-called lovers on one hand, and still have enough fingers left over to play ‘Chopsticks’!

An angry indignation had her grabbing a towel from the nearby rail. But when she started vigorously rubbing herself dry, her bruised breasts moaned a protest. Looking down at them again, she suddenly burst into tears.

It took quite a while before Jade felt sufficiently in control to leave the sanctuary of her bedroom and face her family.

The house seemed unnaturally quiet as she made her way slowly down the huge sweeping staircase. Where was everyone? Sighing, she headed for the kitchen and laundry wing, where Melanie was sure to be located.

Jade was right. Belleview’s highly efficient housekeeper was filling the dishwasher, looking her usual stark self, and quite out of place in the newly renovated all-white kitchen with its bright shiny surfaces. One could well imagine Melanie, with her solemn Madonna face, prim black top-knot and severe black dress, as the housekeeper in a Gothic novel, gliding silently through dimly lit rooms, the only lights in those dead black eyes of hers the flickering reflection of the candle she was holding.

Jade gave a little shiver at this highly evocative and almost frightening scenario.

Melanie straightened, turned and saw her. ‘Hello, Jade,’ the housekeeper greeted her in that expressionless voice of hers. ‘I put your car around in the garages for you. You seemed to have a little trouble finding them last night,’ she finished drily.

‘What? Oh...oh, yes. Thanks, I was a little—er...’

‘Blind?’ Melanie suggested.

Jade laughed. If there was one thing she could count on at home, it was everyone’s bad opinion. There would be no sympathy here, no understanding. Her reputation was totally shot around Belleview. What would be the point in telling Melanie that the sight of home with its solid safe walls had flooded her eyes with tears last night, making her run off the circular driveway, across the front lawn and into the cement surrounds of the large, lily-filled pond? Or that, still terribly shaken from her ordeal, she’d left her car there and staggered inside, taken more sleeping tablets than was good for her and crashed into blessed oblivion?

‘Will you be staying for dinner tonight?’ the housekeeper asked.

‘If it’s all right with you.’ She was hoping to inveigle Nathan into going back with her to her unit tomorrow to see if Roberto and co were still there. Big brothers—even adopted ones who despised you—had to be good for something.

Melanie shrugged. ‘Whatever. I have tomorrow off, though. You’ll have to do for yourself or get Ava to cook for you.’

‘Good God, no. Auntie’s cooking is even worse than her watercolours. I’ll rustle something up myself. Where is the old dear, by the way? And everyone else, for that matter? This place is like a morgue today.’

The housekeeper looked up with those dull black eyes of hers, giving Jade a droll glance before turning away to start loading the dishwasher. The clock on the oven said two-fifty, Jade noticed. The sleeping tablets had knocked her out for nearly twelve hours.

‘Nathan’s not here, if that’s who you’ve come looking for,’ Melanie informed her. ‘He’s taken Kirsty and Gemma with him to the beach-house at Avoca for the weekend.’

‘Gemma?’ The name was vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place it. ‘Who’s Gemma?’ Jade asked, ignoring Melanie’s assumption she’d come visiting just to see Nathan.

‘Kirsty’s minder. Kirsty’s living here for a while.’

‘Oh? Why’s that? Lenore found herself a lover at last?’

Jade suspected that after twelve years married to Nathan Lenore might find it hard to replace her husband with another man. From what she’d heard—and her own limited experience with him—the man was dynamite in bed.

‘I have no idea what Lenore’s private life is like,’ Melanie said with cool rebuke in her voice. ‘She was simply fed up with Kirsty’s behaviour and thought a few weeks with her father might do her good. But with Nathan working late at Whitmore’s every day, he felt he had to hire someone to personally supervise Kirsty before and after school.’

Jade laughed. ‘I’ll bet Kirsty just loves having a minder at fourteen.’ Suddenly, the penny dropped on where she’d heard that name. ‘This Gemma person wouldn’t happen to be a lush young thing with big brown eyes, would she?’

Melanie’s eyes snapped round, confirming Jade’s intuitive guess.

‘I happened to drop by a couple of weeks back,’ Jade elaborated wryly. ‘Nathan was just getting out of his car with the aforesaid nymph sitting in the passenger seat, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Nathan was doing a good imitation of a protective father figure but he didn’t fool me for a second. I take it she’s living in?’

Melanie nodded, and so did Jade. Slowly. Cynically.

‘I’ll bet she’s not the same innocent young thing today that she was a couple of weeks ago.’

‘I wouldn’t bet too heavily on that,’ Melanie said. ‘Gemma’s a strong-minded young woman with a wealth of character.’

‘She’ll need to be,’ Jade muttered, surprised by Melanie’s defence of this Gemma. And her confidence in the girl’s will-power. Despite her deadpan exterior, Melanie was still a woman. She couldn’t be ignorant of the magnetism of Nathan’s sex appeal, even if only as an observer. The answer to the housekeeper’s high opinion of the girl had to lie in the girl herself.

‘So tell me about her,’ Jade resumed, her curiosity piqued. ‘Where did Nathan come across this gem of a Gemma?’

Melanie looked up. ‘Careful...your claws are showing.’

Jade laughed, recognising the truth of this statement. Her feelings for Nathan perhaps weren’t as vanquished as she’d thought they were.